An odd name for a church
QUESTION How did the church of St Andrew-by-the-Wardrobe in the City of London get its name?
The church of St Andrew- by- theWardrobe, on Queen Victoria Street near Blackfriars station, owes its suffix to its close proximity to the King’s Wardrobe.
This was originally at the Tower of London and was moved to what is now Wardrobe Place, a cul-de-sac on the south side of Carter Lane in the City of London, just north of the church.
The Wardrobe was once the home of Sir John Beauchamp, Constable of Dover and Warden of the Cinque Ports, who died there in 1359. his executors sold his house to edward III in 1361.
The King’s Wardrobe stored the robes of all the Royal Family, not just the monarch, for weddings, coronations and funerals, as well as clothing for servants and retainers of the Royal household.
It also stored beds, hangings and other items for the houses of foreign ambassadors, as well as robes for the Prince of Wales, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Knights of the Garter and the King’s ministers.
The King’s Wardrobe remained in the same building for more than 300 years until it was destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666. It was rebuilt in the Savoy and later in Great Queen Street.
Many items from the King’s Wardrobe were sold by James I to the earl of Dunbar, who sold them on.
In 1604, Shakespeare received 4 ½ yards of scarlet cloth from the King’s Wardrobe so he could march with the King’s Company of actors in the procession for James I’s official arrival at the City.
In 1720, the site of the King’s Wardrobe was converted into a cobbled square. One of the nearby houses has the only flexible link-snuffer in London, swinging from a bracket by the door, and a blue plaque for the famous Wardrobe.
Ken Drake, Cambridge.
QUESTION Why is being read your rights by a U.S. cop called a Miranda warning?
In ITS judicial ruling in Miranda v Arizona in 1966, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered that the police create an environment that would produce only voluntary confessions. The result was the Miranda Warning, made famous by its use in many films and TV dramas.
It reads: ‘You have the right to remain silent and refuse to answer questions. Anything you say may be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to consult an attorney before speaking to the police and to have an attorney present during questioning now or in the future.’
This came about as the result of the investigation into the 1963 abduction of 18-year-old woman. She was walking to a bus in downtown Phoenix, Arizona, when she was shoved into the back of a car, tied up, taken outside the city and raped. She was then dropped back near her home, where she reported the crime.
Police later arrested ernesto Miranda, who was mentally unstable, prone to aggressive sexual fantasies and known to detectives.
After two hours of questioning, he was asked to write a confession, which he did willingly, and he acknowledged that his confession was voluntary and he understood his legal rights. The police charged Miranda with kidnap and rape.
At his trial, his court- appointed attorney, Alvin Moore, questioned the arresting officers about the arrest.
This revealed that Miranda had not been advised he could have a lawyer present during questioning. In spite of this violation of his rights, the judge ruled the confession admissible. Miranda was sentenced to 20 to 30 years in prison.
The case caught the eye of the American Civil Liberties Union, which hired the prominent Arizona trial lawyer John J. Flynn and constitutional law expert John P. Frank to appeal the case in the U.S. Supreme Court. They argued that Miranda’s rights had not been made explicitly clear to him and that his poor education had made him susceptible to coercion.
By a narrow 5-4 margin, the Supreme Court ruled in Miranda’s favour. The case was remanded for re-trial, with the confession excluded from the evidence.
Chief Justice earl Warren’s 60-page opinion on the case, released on June 13, 1966, included the Miranda Warning, the police procedure that must be used to clearly inform defendants of their legal rights on arrest.
In Miranda’s retrial, his former girlfriend, Twila hoffman, testified against him, revealing that he had confessed the crime to her.
In October 1967, Miranda was convicted and sentenced to 20 to 30 years in prison. he was paroled in 1972, returned to prison for possessing a gun while on parole, and released again in December 1975. he was stabbed to death in a bar fight in Phoenix on January 31, 1976.
Peter Smith, Durham.
QUESTION How was rotary direction defined before clocks were invented?
CLOCKWISE is so called because early mechanical clocks, with 24-hour dials and just a single hour hand, mimicked the movement of the shadow on a sundial.
Before the word clockwise came into use, the phrase ‘to the right’ was often used, with ‘to the left’ for anti-clockwise. In Scottish dialect, deasil and
withershins, meaning ‘to the right’ and ‘the wrong way’, long remained in use.
Other historical terms include sunward to indicate what we call clockwise, reflecting the apparent daily motion of the sun from left to right in the northern hemisphere. Among the classically educated classes, the Latin- derived words sinister and dexter — left and right — were commonly used.
had clocks been invented in the southern hemisphere, clockwise would have meant the opposite direction, since the shadows on sundials there move in an anti-clockwise direction.
Australian sundials have their hours numbered in the reverse direction to those in Britain.
Steve Ainsworth, Halifax, W. Yorks.
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