05 May 2022

Praying with the Psalms in Easter:
5 May 2022 (Psalm 71)

‘Do not cast me off in the time of old age; do not forsake me when my strength is spent’ (Psalm 71: 9) … a portrait of an elderly, blind rabbi by Andor Borúth (1873-1955) in the Jewish Museum, Bratislava (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Before this day begins, I am continuing my morning reflections in this season of Easter continues, including my morning reflections drawing on the Psalms.

In my blog, I am reflecting each morning in this Prayer Diary in these ways:

1, Short reflections on a psalm or psalms;

2, reading the psalm or psalms;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.

Psalm 71:

Psalm 71 is known in Latin by its opening words, In te Domine speravi. In the slightly different numbering in the Greek Septuagint and the Latin Vulgate, this is Psalm 70.

Psalm 71 has 24 verses in both the Hebrew and the English verse numbering.

In the Hebrew text, Psalm 71 is one of the few psalms that do not have a title. However, in the Greek Septuagint the text bears the title: ‘By David, of the sons of Jonadab and the first ones taken captive.’

Many commentators identify this psalm as written by King David toward the end of his life when he is pursued by his rebellious son, Absalom.

This could be classified as one of the psalms that refer to the trials of the righteous. Some commentators argue that the theme of the psalm is old age, while others suggest it is about refuge and God’s righteousness.

The psalmist turns to God in his search for refuge, and asks God to be his place of safety, his ‘strong rock and castle (verse 3, NRSVA) or ‘stronghold’ (the Psalter in the Book of Common Prayer).

He pleads with God to rescue him from the wicked, the evildoer and the oppressor (verse 4).

He has trusted in God since he was born, and knows that God has sustained him since he was conceived (verse 6). Now he promises to praise God for the rest of his life.

The poet of Psalm 71 recalls a lifetime of relationship with God and pleads, ‘Do not cast me off in the time of old age’ (verse 9, verse 7 in the Hebrew numbering). In Jewish tradition, this line is chanted as part of the High Holyday liturgy.

The Psalm can be divided into two parts:

1, Verses 1-13 focus on request

2, Verses 14-24 focus on praise

If we take out the middle word in the Hebrew text, we find each section is exactly the same length – 101 words. The middle word is V’ani, ‘And as for me.’ For this is a remarkably personal psalm revealing the vulnerabilities and yearnings of an old person.

Verses 9, 17 and 18 suggest that the psalmist is an old man, perhaps a king towards the end of his reign, seeking relief from distress in form of severe illness or the approach of death (verse 20), as well as the taunts of his ‘enemies’ asserting that God has abandoned him (verse 11).

The writer affirms his close relationship with God as he speaks of the faith in God which has sustained him all his life (verses 5-6, cf verse 17), praying that God will not reject him (verse 9), declaring his witness to God’s salvation (verses 15, 18), while asking for renewed health (verses 20-21) and the discrediting of his enemies (verse 13, cf verse 4), then he will renew his praises (verses 14-16, 22-24).

This Psalm is distinctive for its use of phrases from other psalms. Some say that Psalm 71 is an assemblage of snippets from other psalms. So, the frequent parallels with verses in other psalms are a unique feature of this psalm, sometimes to the point of what sound like direct quotation:

Verses 1-3 almost matches Psalm 31: 1-3;
Verses 5-6 alludes to Psalm 22: 9-10;
Verse 11 echoes Psalm 22: 1;
Verses 12-13 can be compared with Psalm 35: 22, 38: 21, and 40: 13-14;
Verse 24 compares with Psalm 35: 4, 26; 40: 14.

‘O God, from my youth you have taught me’ (Psalm 71: 17) … a painting in the Jewish Museum in Venice (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Psalm 71 (NRSVA):

1 In you, O Lord, I take refuge;
let me never be put to shame.
2 In your righteousness deliver me and rescue me;
incline your ear to me and save me.
3 Be to me a rock of refuge,
a strong fortress, to save me,
for you are my rock and my fortress.

4 Rescue me, O my God, from the hand of the wicked,
from the grasp of the unjust and cruel.
5 For you, O Lord, are my hope,
my trust, O Lord, from my youth.
6 Upon you I have leaned from my birth;
it was you who took me from my mother’s womb.
My praise is continually of you.

7 I have been like a portent to many,
but you are my strong refuge.
8 My mouth is filled with your praise,
and with your glory all day long.
9 Do not cast me off in the time of old age;
do not forsake me when my strength is spent.
10 For my enemies speak concerning me,
and those who watch for my life consult together.
11 They say, ‘Pursue and seize that person
whom God has forsaken,
for there is no one to deliver.’

12 O God, do not be far from me;
O my God, make haste to help me!
13 Let my accusers be put to shame and consumed;
let those who seek to hurt me
be covered with scorn and disgrace
14 But I will hope continually,
and will praise you yet more and more.
15 My mouth will tell of your righteous acts,
of your deeds of salvation all day long,
though their number is past my knowledge.
16 I will come praising the mighty deeds of the Lord God,
I will praise your righteousness, yours alone.

17 O God, from my youth you have taught me,
and I still proclaim your wondrous deeds.
18 So even to old age and grey hairs,
O God, do not forsake me,
until I proclaim your might
to all the generations to come.
Your power 19 and your righteousness, O God,
reach the high heavens.

You who have done great things,
O God, who is like you?
20 You who have made me see many troubles and calamities
will revive me again;
from the depths of the earth
you will bring me up again.
21 You will increase my honour,
and comfort me once again.

22 I will also praise you with the harp
for your faithfulness, O my God;
I will sing praises to you with the lyre, O Holy One of Israel.
23 My lips will shout for joy
when I sing praises to you;
my soul also, which you have rescued.
24 All day long my tongue will talk of your righteous help,
for those who tried to do me harm
have been put to shame, and disgraced.

Today’s Prayer:

The theme in this week’s prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel) is ‘Truth Tellers.’ It was introduced on Sunday morning by Steve Cox, Chair of Christians in the Media.

The USPG Prayer Diary this morning (5 May 2022, International Midwives Day) invites us to pray:

Let us pray for midwives, who do so much to ensure the safe arrival of new life into the world.

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org

Searching for some Comberford
family links in Newport Pagnell
and near Milton Keynes

Tickford, now part of Newport Pagnell, had links with the Comberford family from the 15th century (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Patrick Comerford

Earlier this week I was in Newport Pagnell, one of the towns in north Buckinghamshire that have been absorbed into Milton Keynes. Newport Pagnell is separated from the rest of Milton Keynes by the M1, and the Newport Pagnell Services was Britain’s second motorway service station. The town is also known as the original home of the Aston Martin and for Britain’s last remaining vellum manufacturer.

However, I was more interested in finding out whether I could find any evidence of the links between the Comberford family and Newport Pagnell that go back almost six centuries ago, to 1442 or earlier.

Newport Pagnell is first mentioned in the Domesday Book in 1086 as ‘Neuport,’ an Anglo-Saxon name meaning the ‘New Market Town.’ The suffix ‘Pagnell’ was added later when the manor passed into the hands of the Pagnell or Paynel family.

This was the principal town of the ‘Three Hundreds of Newport,’ and at one time Newport Pagnell was one of the largest towns in Buckinghamshire, with the assizes of the county held there occasionally.

William Comberford (ca 1403/1410-1472), along with Humphry Starky and Thomas Stokley, was granted lands and other properties in Newport Pagnell and Tykford (Tickford), Buckinghamshire, by Geoffrey Seyntgerman (St Germain), in 1471-1472. By then, William Comberford was in his 60s, but already he had substantial property and political interests in the area.

From 1442 or earlier, William Comberford was a key political ally of Henry Stafford (1402-1460), Earl of Stafford and later 1st Duke of Buckingham. Stafford was the key political figure in Buckinghamshire at the time, and they shared a political ally in John Talbot, 2nd Earl of Shrewsbury.

William was an important landowner in south Staffordshire in the mid-15th century, with land in Comberford, Wigginton and Tamworth, and he was also a trustee of the manors of Whichnor, Sirescote and other estates.

He built Comebrford Hall, a new house at Comberford, between Tamworth and Lichfield, in 1439. He may also have been one of the early members of the Comberford family to own the Moat House on Lichfield Street, Tamworth.

Three years after he built Comberford Hall, William Comberford became one of the two MPs for Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire, on 27 March 1442, on the nomination of the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, because he was a judge and one of the Duke of Buckingham’s retainers. He remained an MP until 3 March 1447.

William was first appointed to the Staffordshire bench in 1442, and was a Justice of the Peace (JP) until 1471. In 1446, he became an attorney for the Duchy of Lancaster in the Court of Common Pleas. Soon afterwards, the Duke of Buckingham’s patronage secured for him the office of second protonotary or chief clerk in the Court of Common Pleas. He was one of the Commissioners appointed to distribute money in distressed areas in the late 1440s.

Comberford’s patron, the Duke of Buckingham, was killed at the Battle of Northampton on 10 July 1460. Nevertheless, Comberford continued to play an important role in the political, civil and judicial life of Staffordshire. In addition, as ‘Will’s Combford,’ he was admitted to membership of the Guild of Saint Mary and Saint John in Lichfield in 1469, along with Ralph FitzHerbert, father-in-law of William’s grandson, Thomas Comberford.

From 1452, William Comberford’s ward was Joan Parles, the daughter of John Parles (1419-1452) of Watford and of Shutlanger, near Stoke Bruerne, five miles south of Northampton and about 13 miles north-west of Newport Pagnell, Stony Stratford and Milton Keynes.

Joan Parles came of age in 1461 and she later married William’s son and heir, John Comberford (ca 1440-1508). The marriage was so important for the Comberford family, both politically and financially, that the Parles coat-of-arms, with its cross and five red roses, was quartered with the Comberford arms, and sometimes even substituted for the arms of the Comberford family.

Meanwhile, Henry Stafford (1455-1483), 2nd Duke of Buckingham, and Richard Plantagenet, Duke of Gloucester and later King Richard III, met the uncrowned 12-year-old ‘Boy King’, Edward V, at the Rose and Crown Inn in Stony Stratford on the night of 29 April 1483.

From Stony Stratford, the young King Edward was taken by the two dukes to the Tower of London, and it is there, it is believed, he and his younger brother, ten-year-old Prince Richard, Duke of York, were murdered. Their disappearance has given rise to many of the stories and legends about the ‘Princes in the Tower.’

The corner of Tickford Street and Priory Street … John Comberford bought out the lands, tenements and rents in Newport Pagnell and Tickford in 1487 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

In 1487, John Comberford bought out Thomas Stokley’s interest in the lands, tenements and rents in Newport Pagnell and Tickford, Buckinghamshire, that had been acquired by Stokley and John Comberford’s father in 1470-1471.

In 1504, after his wife had died, John Comberford, along with his son Thomas and daughter-in-law Dorothy (Beaumont), sold the former Parles estates in Stoke Bruerne, Shutlanger, Alderton (about 10 miles north of Milton Keynes), and Wappenham to Richard Empson of Easton Neston. The estate then consisted of eight messuages, six tofts, one mill, 200 acres of land, 24 acres of meadow, 100 acres of pasture, 40 acres of wood and 14 shillings rent.

John Comberford died in 1508, but the Comberford interest in lands in the Watford area continued for some decades later, as told by Murray Johnson in his recent book, Give a Manor, Take a Manor: the rise and decline of a medieval manor.

Humphrey Comberford (1496 -1555) of Comberford owned significant estates, including Watford Manor. He left most of his manors to Thomas Comberford (1530-1597), and he specified in his will that his Manor in Watford was to be held by his second son, Humphrey Comberford, from the elder son, Thomas, at an annual rent of one red rose for 60 years. In the event, Humphrey had died unmarried in 1545, before his father’s death.

Although the exact date is not known, this Thomas Comberford the probably sold the manor and lands of Watford shortly after 1555.

Tickford Abbey was built with the ruins of Tickford Priory (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

The name of Tykford or Tickford, which was part of the Comberford property interests in the Newport Pragnell area in the 15th century, is found in Tickford Priory, a mediaeval monastic house in Newport Pagnell.

Tickford Priory was established in 1140 by Fulconius Paganel, the lord of the Manor of Newport Pagnell. The priory belonged to the Cluniac Order, with their French headquarters at Marmoutier Abbey in Tours.

In 1524, Cardinal Wolsey annexed ‘the superfluous house of Tickford’ and its wealth to Christ Church College, Oxford . Later, King James I sold the abbey to his physician, Dr Henry Atkins, in 1621.

Some of the former buildings of Tickford Priory were still standing in the early 18th century, but they were in poor condition. The present building was built by the Hooton family in the 18th century, but much of its fabric is believed to have come from the Tickford Priory. Tickford Abbey is now a residential and dementia care home and a Grade II listed building.

Tickford Bridge, built in 1810, is one of the last 21 cast iron bridges in Britain that continue to carry modern road traffic, and is the oldest bridge in Milton Keynes (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Tickford Bridge, which was built over the River Ouzel in 1810, is one of the last 21 cast iron bridges in Britain that continue to carry modern road traffic. This is the oldest bridge in Milton Keynes.

A plaque near the footbridge recalls its history and construction, and this is Grade I listed by Historic England.

My great-grandfather, James Comerford (1817-1902), continued to use the Comberford coat-of-arms quartered with the arms of the Parles family on his bookplate.

I never found Tickford Priory, Tickford Abbey or Tickford Bridge during my all-too-brief to Newport Pragnell this week. But I hope to return and to also find Stoke Bruerne, Shutlanger and other places in the area once linked with the Comberford family almost 600 years ago.

My great-grandfather James Comerford (1817-1902) continued to use the Comberford coat-of-arms quartered with the arms of the Parles family on his bookplate (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)