Season 11
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The Dissolution of the Monasteries in Midsomer Murders
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(Caution: Contains spoilers for Episode: 04×01: Garden of Death, 07×06: The Straw Woman, and 11×07: Talking to the Dead. With a little bit of 20×01: The Ghost of Causton Abbey, 08×03: Orchid Fatalis, and 14×07: A Sacred Trust.)
•Tom Barnaby and Ben Jones are in Bow Clayton with the Reverend Wallace Stone in his drawing room. The clergyman is standing in front of a mirror in a cassock, getting ready for the next service, while he tells the two detectives what he thinks of the legend of Monks Barton Wood: It’s about the monks of Monks Barton Abbey, slaughtered in the nearby forest by mounted men in the name of Cromwell and his Dissolution of the Monasteries. A horrific event and their screams and moans of their ghosts can still be heard in the woods, the locals say.
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In Remembrance in Midsomer County in 2024
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(Caution: Contains spoilers for Episodes: 02×01: Death’s Shadow, 02×02: Strangler’s Wood, 02×03: Dead Man’s Eleven, 02×04 Blood Will Out, 03×01: Death of a Stranger, 11×07: Days of Misrule)
•In 2024, no anniversaries will be celebrated in Midsomer – at least none that end with -24, -49, -74 or -99. But there are a few death anniversaries.
Note: I’m referring to the year of first broadcast in the UK, unless the date of death on the coffin or something is stated otherwise.
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The Civil War, pt. 1
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(Caution: Contains spoilers for Episodes: 03×04: Beyond the Grave, 06×04: A Tale of two Hamlets, 08×04: Bantling Boy, and 11×02: Blood Wedding)
•After the Gunpowder Plot, religious tensions in England continued to escalate against the Catholics. Among them were the Fitzroys of Bledlow Village, who took over ownership of their manor c.1610. This is what Harry Fitzroy told Ben Jones during his investigation…
The episode first aired in 2008, which means the Fitzroys have owned the manor since at least 1608, perhaps even before the Gunpowder Plot? Unfortunately, we don’t know from whom they acquired the manor.
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The Civil War, pt. 2
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(Caution: Contains spoilers for Episodes: 11×02: Blood Wedding, and 15×01: The Dark Rider.)
•Continued from Civil War, pt. 1
But when the Parliamentarians failed to capitalise on the successful battles of Marston Moor and Aspern Tallow, Oliver Cromwell and Thomas Fairfax formed the New Model Army – a single professional standing army of fanatical Puritans who fought not for money but for their honour, their faith and their passion.
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William Tyndale
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(Caution: Contains spoilers for Episodes: 11×05: The Magician’s Nephew)
•Tom Barnaby, wearing a black coat and a burgundy shawl, enters a church in search of Aloysius Wilmington, and discovers him kneeling in front of the communion pew in the nave, sorting. Aloysius Wilmington is also wearing a burgundy scarf, but a light grey coat over it. When he notices Tom Barnaby, he sighs at the local rector, who doesn’t want to replace the poorly preserved Book of Common Prayer with the new ones he’s already bought for the parishes. The Book of Common Prayer is largely based on the work of William Tyndale, who was condemned as a heretic by the Anglican Church and murdered.
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Midsomer and the Battle of the Somme
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(Caution: Contains spoilers for Episode: 11×01: Shot at Dawn)
•The episode begins with a black and white picture. “France, July 1916.” is superimposed. Is it 1 July 1916 – the first day of the Battle of the Somme? The assumption is very obvious, but is not explicitly confirmed in the episode.
We watch soldiers walking forward, landmines explode, people are screaming. But there is a soldier limping in the opposite direction. It is Private Thomas Hicks. He escapes from the obviously life-threatening situation and wants to go back to the Royal Midsomer Yeomanry base. At the street he meets a car with three officers, including his friend Lieutenant Douglas Hammond. Thomas Hicks can only muffles in response to Douglas’ astonished question as to what he is doing here, and pulls behind him with his finger to the battlefield. Douglas Hammond pushes the still muffling Private into the car with light pressure.
