The meaning of Maundy money
Matthew Dennison explores the Easter tradition of Royal Maundy, observed religiously by The Queen throughout her reign
APPROPRIATELY, on the eve of the Church’s great festival of Easter, the Royal Maundy celebrates the Christian service of elderly men and women within their diocese and local community. At Leicester Cathedral last year, Tobago-born octogenarian Mary Benn received The Queen’s Maundy money in acknowledgement of two decades as a Lay Canon and cathedral guide. Mary Hall’s award at Christ Church Cathedral in 2013 commemorated her long-term supervision of the flower rota in her parish church and her role as a Sunday-school teacher.
‘Formerly, monarchs did indeed wash their subjects’ feet’
Inspired by the Bible’s account of the Last Supper, the name Maundy derives from the Latin mandatum—a command. Having washed his disciples’ feet, Christ instructed the 12 men ‘I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done unto you’, an injunction that they humble themselves in the service of others. Formerly, monarchs did indeed wash their subjects’ feet, a tradition last practised by James II. In 1556, devout Mary I was reported as ‘ever on her knees’ as she bathed in scented water the feet of 41 poor women of London.
Today, Maundy consists of a symbolic gift of alms—replacing an earlier donation of food and clothing—and silver coins specially minted in denominations of one, two, three and four pence. Their design of a crowned numeral was introduced during the reign of William and Mary and modified, but not significantly, in 1822 and 1888; the obverse features the monarch’s head. Recipients receive coins to the value, in pennies, of the sovereign’s age, but, given their rarity, Maundy coins far exceed surface value.
Held on the Thursday before Easter, the service is a colourful affair. The Queen is attended by the Yeomen of the Guard, dressed in their Tudor livery of red and gold, and carries a large nosegay of scented flowers, once intended to ward off unpleasant odours and perhaps even the plague. Anthems, including Handel’s great Zadok the Priest, are sung by the choir of the Chapel Royal, dressed in their scarlet State uniform.
Royal biographer Hugo Vickers, Captain of the Lay Stewards at St George’s Chapel, Windsor, where this year’s service will be held, described to me the impressiveness and beauty of the occasion and the welloiled precision of its ceremonial aspects, in addition to the ‘enormous pleasure’ it gives to the recipients.
Through seven decades, The Queen has placed the Royal Maundy in the front rank of her devotional duties as sovereign and supreme governor of the Church of England. She was nine years old when, in her grandfather George V’s Silver Jubilee year of 1935, she attended her first service. As Queen, her attendance has been assiduous, with only four absences—twice on account of pregnancy and twice due to overseas engagements.
Her record is unparalleled in royal history. George I was present on a single occasion, in 1715; his son and great-grandson, George II and George III, not at all. For our Hanoverian kings, the service of Royal Maundy, with its biblically ordained foot washing, came too close to the kind of sacred monarchy associated with the Stuarts. Even George V attended only once, in 1932.
It should come as no surprise that Royal Maundy appeals to Elizabeth Ii—duty and service have provided her watchwords since 1952. The Royal Maundy enshrines a concept of the monarch’s duty of care to the people and, uniquely in the royal calendar, is an occasion when The Queen travels to make awards (in all other circumstances, recipients travel to a royal palace).
This year, 92 men and 92 women will receive the Maundy money, presented in white-and-red leather purses (right) made by Royal Warrant-holder Barrow Hepburn & Gale, which also makes The Queen’s red-leather despatch boxes. Their emotions can be imagined easily. As Mercia Tapsell commented in 1992, following her award for services to the Salvation Army: ‘It surpassed anything that I ever thought.’