There are still some tickets available for James Wisdom’s online talk about the remarkable mourning and funeral of Sir John Maynard in October 1690. Part of the London Luminaries programme – book online. The talk is free though donations are welcomed.

Maynard was effectively the Lord Chancellor and his much younger widow was determined to give him a high status send-off. For 6 days his coffin lay in state in the 1650s Gunnersbury mansion. Mourners paid their respects in darkened, black fabric-draped rooms lit by masses of candles before he was taken in a lavish procession of horse-drawn carriages with pennants, and a crowd of mourners on foot, lit by flaming torches, to Ealing Parish Church for burial.