Today marks the publication of A New Suffolk Garland, a collection of writing about Suffolk in honour of Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee, for which I was commissioned to write a section about the royal connections of Bury St Edmunds. The essay explores the history of Bury’s royal visitors, royal patronage and the significance of the shrine and cult of St Edmund to the English royal family over the centuries.
Edited by Elizabeth Burke, Dan Franklin, John James and Mary James, A New Suffolk Garland is inspired by A Suffolk Garland for the Queen (1961), an earlier eclectic anthology about the county for Elizabeth II, which stood in turn in a line of Suffolk Garland books stretching back to 1818. For the latest New Suffolk Garland, 90 authors and artists were invited to contribute new writing and illustrations about Suffolk to produce a memorable souvenir of the county and of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.
Francis Young 