THE VIRGIN MARY’S BLOOD RELATIONSHIP TO THE BRITISH ROYAL FAMILY

By Arnold Kennedy

IT is easy to think of Palestine in Mary’s day as being remote, even cut off, from the civilised world. To suggest that Britain was known to Jesus or the disciples of Jesus is to invite a puzzled if not mocking smile. The traditional Christian view seems not to extend, to the west of Palestine, beyond Rome.

Though everyone knows that Palestine was occupied by the forces of Rome few realise the intercourse which took place between the Middle-East, Rome and Britain in those days. Still fewer have absorbed an appreciation of the amount of communication there was between nations east and west in the last century B.C. and the first century A.D. Until we have an appreciation of how well travelled the influential people of those days were we will not have an appreciation of the real situation which existed in, what we now call, the Middle-East at that time. It is unfortunate that very little that we learn in our churches helps us relate Mary, Jesus,
the disciples, any of the characters we find in the New Testament or the Roman hierarchy to the interrelated world society which existed then or to comprehend them moving across the stage of history.

That Peter was the first Bishop of Rome is believed by Roman Catholics as a matter of dogma but it is to be wondered whether it is believed as a matter of fact. St. Peter too, has been reduced by church teaching to almost a myth, a lucky mascot and someone who is the butt of jokes about heaven. His bishopric of Rome is believed hardly at all by those of the Protestant persuasion, some of whom will ignore any evidence contrary to their set view on the matter, thinking, it would seem, that a fact ignored is a fact abrogated. The first Bishop of Rome was, in fact, a member of the British Royal Family, Linus by name.

A BRITISH ‘ROYAL’ THE FIRST BISHOP OF ROME

To write of ‘Judean’ or ‘Israelite’ Christians’ may seem odd to some but it should be realised that Jesus did NOT establish a religion called ‘Christianity’ nor did he attend a church called a ‘Christian Church’. He did not see himself as founding a new religion, he did not want “Jews” to become Christians. Jesus wanted Israelites to accept the truth that the Messiah of Israel had come – quite a different proposition. Jesus saw his ministry as being a Continuation of the ministry of the Old Testament prophets but withthe ‘spirit’ taking the place of the ‘letter’ and his own once-and-for-all sacrifice taking the place of the traditional sacrifices. This part of the Law was fulfilled, but Jesus made it clear that the rest of the Law still stood fast.

Paul ministered in Rome and we know that Paul was friendly with at least one British Princess, he mentions her and her husband by name in his Epistles to Timothy.

2 TIMOTHY 4:21 “Do thy diligence to come before winter. Eubulus greeteth thee, and Pudens, and Linus, and Claudia, and all the brethren.”

As then, Paul ministered in Rome and met British royalty in Rome, why should the thought that Mary or Jesus or both of them visited Britain be received with a rather derogatory, if polite, smile?

It was not, at the time of Jesus, as we shall see, at all uncommon for people from the Middle-East to visit Britain. They had been doing it in their thousands for hundreds of years before the Virgin Mary was born! Romans sent children to Britain to be educated. It is history’s warped view of the isolation of the British Isles at that time which makes the Divine visit to Britain seem so incredible to us. In fact, the traffic was not all one way, tradition has it that Anna, Mary’s mother came from Cornwall and had undertaken the journey in the opposite direction.

The main stumbling block is that most people do not think of Bible people, Mary, Jesus, Joseph of Arimathea, Pilate, Herod, the disciples and Paul as world travellers. Mentally they think of people of Bible times as being chained to their main moment in history. Thus we are inclined not to think of Pilate in any other context than standing on the balcony on that fateful day, washing his hands. We do not see him as a baby needing nappies changed, we do not see him playing games with boys in the street, we do not see him with toothache. Pilate and all the Bible people are to most people disembodied concepts and we see them confined within their historic moment or moments. If there is one thing that organised religion, of most brand names, has succeeded in doing it is to make the very real people we read of in the New Testament into almost mythological figures as cardboard, cut out as those brightly coloured sheets of nativity figures they used
to give us in Sunday School. Yet secular history is not at all silent about them and legend is fertile with accounts of their exploits, travels and their relationships. History tells us a lot about how those people lived and travelled.

THE FAMILY TREE OF JESUS

Ancient tradition says that Ann, the mother of the Virgin Mary was of Cornish origin, [i.e. She was British]. It is not generally known but there is a family tree of Jesus from the time of Adam, in the Herald’s Office at the English College of Arms. From that document we glean the information that Ann, mother of the Virgin Mary, was married three times. Her first husband was Joachim by whom she had the Virgin Mary, her second husband was Cleophas and her third Salome. – [See JOHN 19:25]. It would seem Ann liked the name “Mary” for in addition to the Virgin Mary she named the daughters by her two other husbands “Mary’ also.

Mary Salome, mother of disciples James and John [Zebedee] was also a second cousin to the Virgin Mary. Andrew and John were friends of the family through John the Baptist. The father of John the Baptist was Zacharias who was assassinated between the temple and the altar for proclaiming the virgin birth. Ann had a sister by the name of Bianca who was the mother of St. Joseph. Thus St Joseph, the Virgin Mary’s husband, was also her first cousin. That is an important fact in the development of this enquiry because it would indicate that Joseph of Arimathea was a uncle of both Mary and Joseph.

This view is confirmed in the HarL MSS. which is held in the British Museum. It will come as a surprise to many to realise that far from being confined to Palestine, the Holy Family seem, through the Virgin Mary’s uncle, Joseph of Arimathea, to have intermarried into British royalty and to have left Palestine to live in Britain. Some have assumed that the Virgin Mary’s exile in Britain was brought about by a forced exodus from the Holy Land but there is evidence that both Jesus and Joseph of Arimathea had planned for a life in Britain for the family from the time Jesus was quite young. It would seem that the forced exodus after the resurrection of Jesus was a preempting of an already carefully laid plan.

A RELATIVE OF THE VIRGIN MARY MARRIES INTO THE BRITISH ROYAL FAMILY

Confirmation that Penardin, grand-daughter of Joseph of Arimathea, married King Lear of Britain is to be found in a manuscript which is held at Jesus College, in England. From the chart below we can see the contemporary nature of events.

And Paul says in ROMANS 16:3, “Satute Rufus,chosen in the Lord” and his mother and mine”. If this is the same Rufus, then Paul and Rufus were half-brothers. Remember that Paul was a Roman citizen also, but not by race; Paul was of the tribe of Benjamin, even if he was a Roman by citzenship. The Roman connection of Paul is ignored by the traditional Churches, but we can see the importance. Going into this further, we find that the Apostle Paul was a half-brother of the Roman Rufus Pudens, and a brother-in-law of the British Princess Claudia. When the Apostle Paul presented the Gospel in Britain, he had friends in high places. There are many historical records that present Britain as being the first kingdom to receive the Gospel. Paul had other relatives in the ministry; some were apostles.

ROMANS 16:7 “Salute Andronicus and Junia, my kinsmen, and my fellow prisoners, who are of note among the apostles, who also were in Christ before me.”

ROMANS 16:21 “Timotheus my work fellow, and Lucius, and Jason, and Sosipater, my kinsmen, salute you.”

It is interesting to note that King Arthur and ALL the knights of the Round Table claimed descent from Joseph of Arimathea. The above genealogies are important because they give an altogether different perspective of the interrelationship of the nations at the time of Jesus. Then, as now, it would seem that the rich, influential and famous knew each other and had far more in common than we would at first think. Note the following British connections.

A grand-daughter of Joseph of Arimathea, cousin of the Virgin Mary, married a member of the BRITISH Royal Family.
A member of the BRITISH Royal Family married a Roman commander.
An Apostle of Jesus is entertained by a BRITISH Princess in Rome.
A member of the BRITISH Royal Family is the first Bishop of Rome – [Not the first Pope].

This places the British in the centre of things. Israel in Britain starts with some of the tribe of Dan travelling there soon after the Exodus. We find the Prophet Jeremiah took the royal daughters of Zedekiah, the last Israelite king in Palestine, to Egypt and thence to Ireland [See JEREMIAH 41:10]. The Royal House of Judah thus continued in Britain. History throws a different perspective on the world at that time; a different perspective than we have been led to believe. History is HIS story.

DID THE VIRGIN MARY LIVE AND DIE IN BRITAIN?

We must get into the reality of the years immediately following the birth of Jesus and try to relive the excitement, expectation and even disbelief this would have engendered.

If we accept that Jesus was indeed born of a virgin as the Bible tells us; that the Astrologers of both Babylon and Jerusalem had been predicting the conjunction of the three stars for years; that the ‘star’ of Bethlehem actually appeared; that the manger WAS visited by wise men, Magi or Astrologers from the East; that herald angels DID exhort the shepherds where Jesus was and, that Herod DID conduct a ‘slaughter of the innocents’ out of fear new born King, then the various questions we have asked simply DEMAND an answer. As the Magi saw the star in the East, they must have been in the West, and some present evidence that they came from Britain to Palestine.

It is reasonable to accept that, if they had remained in Palestine, this unique conception, surrounded by such unusual events would have been so quickly forgotten that Jesus and his mother could have lived there without publicity or comment for some thirty-odd years?
Is it reasonable to believe whole of the life of Jesus and Mary would have been completely ignored if they had been in Palestine during that period?
Why was not the early life of the miraculous mother and child the inspiration for constant speculation and writing?
Why,apart from the Passover incident when Jesus was twelve, is there no record in the Bible of anything he said or did in the Holy Land, until He returned?
Why do we read nothing in the Bible about Jesus, apart from the Passover incident, until He was 30-40 years old?
Why do we read nothing again in the Bible about Mary until Jesus was about 30-40 years old?
Why would Jesus be asked to pay the visiting stranger’s tax if He had been living in Judea? [MATTHEW.17:25].
Why did the local historians not mention Jesus as being present during this period?
Why are there records in Britain for the period when He was missing from the Holy land, if He had not been in Britain?
Some will say this is because he did not declare himself to be Messiah until then; a strange theory!
Did not the Star of Bethlehem, the Wise Men and the Herald Angels proclaim him to be the Saviour of Israel at his birth?
Did not Mary herself make that very proclamation in the ‘Magnificat’.
Did not Simon declare that Jesus was the Messiah in the beautiful song of Simeon?

If we want an unbiased assessment of the events of that first Christmas, does not Herod, albeit unwittingly, give us that witness? Did not Herod HIMSELF, having studied the astrological predictions and the prophetic predictions, tell us by his actions that, in his opinion, Jesus was none other than the Messiah of Israel, born that day in Bethlehem? Did he not proclaim the fact, that his comprehension of the ancient prophecies, a comprehension which seemed not to have been shared by the religious leaders of his day, was that they were being fulfilled in Jesus?

No ordinary and unsubstantiated claim of a young girl, that her conception was of God, would have been so alarming to him that he would have unleashed the slaughter of the innocents! Was it not Herod’s understanding, the understanding of the Wise Men, the understanding of the Shepherds that this child was THE MESSIAH, THE KING OF ISRAEL.

Why should we be asked to believe, this furore was forgotten and Jesus lived for thirty years without comment from those who had been there on that miraculous nativity day!

Why, if Jesus was ‘saving himself’ for later years, why did he go out of his way at the age of twelve to demonstrate that he should be about his Father’s business? He was obviously preaching and debating then! Did he suddenly stop being about his Father’s business when he was twelve and not start again until He was approaching thirty. Why should he do that?

Why should we be asked to imagine that Jesus did not preach or debate his message in the whole of his life except on that one occasion at the Passover when he was twelve? Can we believe that after that one statement he stayed silent until he presented Himself to John the Baptist for baptism?

If he did not remain silent during those years then one would not expect him to have preached any other message than the one for which the religious hierarchy so savagely attacked him when he was of mature age. Then why did they not attack him sooner, if he had been saying the same thing for thirty years or so? Why did their hatred burst forth so much later and why was it then that they started to interrogate him, at a time so late in his ministry when the damage was almost done?

Jesus seemed not to have had any disciples or followers in Palestine prior to that fateful last period of his life. Again we must ask – why? Would it not be more natural, in view of the astonishing events at his birth, that he would have gathered around himself people who agreed with him, or were at the least curious, much sooner?

Why is there no mention to be found of the kind of relationship he had with his foster-father Joseph, or of the activities of the Virgin Mary in Palestine? It seems evident that Joseph died soon after Jesus was twelve years old, and that his relative, Joseph of Arimathea, became Jesus’ legal guardian. The evidence is available that Jesus travelled with his guardian to the centre of his guardian’s activity in the tin mines of Britain, and that his was his base was Glastonbury.

We have questioned why there is no record, not only in the New Testament, but in any other contemporary middle East manuscript, of the family life of Jesus. We THINK of him, and there have been many imaginative sermons about him, being brought up in his father’s carpenter’s shop in Nazareth, but there is no record of him having been an apprentice carpenter in the Bible! We owe that flight of imagination to preachers and Bible commentators who seem hard pressed to explain the eighteen year silence.

No one who is REALLY interested in the story of Jesus and his mother Mary can put such questions into ‘limbo’, they are questions which DEMAND answers. The whole silence does not correspond with what we know of human nature.

THE MYSTERY WOMAN OF THE APOCALYPSE

Yet, though tradition is silent in the land of Jesus’ birth, there is no such silence in British recorded tradition. We have seen that traditions regarding Jesus’ presence in Cornwall and Somerset during his childhood abound. It is evident that Joseph of Arimathea was in the tin trade and we must be impressed by the fact that the traditions concentrate on Somerset and Cornwall. Where there is, or has been no tin or lead, neither is there this tradition! We see from this that the traditions regarding Jesus’ coming to Britain are not at all indiscriminate, there is a definite link with the tin and lead trades.

Every circumstance cries out that Jesus was NOT in Palestine during those silent years and, in view of the early death of Mary’s legal husband Joseph, all reason cries out that Mary was not there either. Again our knowledge of human nature tells us that wherever Jesus went Mary would go too. If the Gospel narratives are true and Mary undoubtedly KNEW what a precious child she had, then would she have lightly let him travel so far for so long without having visited him?

Someone will say ‘why has it not been more plainly said in tradition that the Virgin Mary came to Britain if it is true?’ We have noted that the Virgin Mary would, have many enemies as her Son did. We have seen too that, even in those days, the long arm of terror was international. It would have made good sense for her enemies to have been precluded from a knowledge of where she was and for her friends not to say where she was. The point though is that, if she had been in Palestine, EVERYONE would have known where she was!

There is a scripture which is taken as referring to the nation of Israel and most believe it does, but there are some who think that this could also be a veiled indication of what had happened to the Virgin Mary. John the Divine, writing in A.D. 95 said:

‘And there appeared a great wonder in heaven – a WOMAN clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars.

And she, being with child, cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered.

And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and, behold, a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads.

And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven and did cast them to the earth; and the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to be delivered, to devour her child as soon as it was born. SHE BROUGHT FORTH A MALE CHIILD, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron; and her child was CAUGHT UP UNTO GOD, and to his throne.

And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared by god … ‘ REVELATION 12:1-6

Some see the elements of the Virgin Mary story are there. The Red Dragon was at that time a symbol of the Pagan Roman Empire The Virgin Mary was indeed chosen by God as the representative of the whole nation of Israel, hence the twelve stars.

An enemy WAS there at the birth of Jesus prepared to devour the child – the massacre of the innocents by Herod.

Her child WAS caught up to his Father’s throne – the ascension.

The Virgin Mary DID flee into the wilderness.

The prophets spoke of the British Isles, the place to which the House of Israel was to migrate as ‘the wilderness’. Nathan the prophet had told David long before that God would prepare a “wilderness” place for the Children of Israel. Bible students are not unfamiliar with the fact that prophecies often have both a prime and secondary meaning. We may wonder if this is a prophecy which has a prime and secondary meaning.

Does the ‘crown’ this woman is shown to be wearing have something to do with her being of royal blood? Certainly there are respects in which that statement of John’s could more aptly refer to the Virgin Mary than to the nation of Israel. The prophecy of John would in fact fit her life precisely if she was the ‘Marcella’ who was in the oar-less boat with a number of others including John of whom Jesus had said, “Behold your mother”. This boat was set adrift on the Mediterranean soon after Jesus was ‘caught up unto God, and to his throne.’ She would quite literally have ‘fled into the wilderness’. This journey can be traced historically from when this boat arrives in Marseilles and we can find that the Virgin Mary died in Britain.