When the Queen distributes Maundy money in Westminster Abbey today — with specially minted coins to the value of a penny for every year of her life being given to each recipient — she will be accompanied by children carrying nosegays of herbs.

This dates back to Charles I’s performance of the Maundy service in 1639 when plague was in the air and herbs were supposed to offer some protection against it. Certainly during the Civil War years, when he made Oxford his capital, such precautions would have been necessary since the besieged city was at that time appallingly overcrowded and disease ridden.

As for money to give away, that was in short supply in Oxford — where both Town and Gown found that acting as host to the Royalty extremely expensive. The King set up a mint in 1642 in New Inn Hall Street, under the direction of the eccentric Thomas Bushell, to hammer out coins made largely from plate donated (sequestrated, or even plundered from, might be better words) from the colleges and university.

In all, plate weighing some 2000 lbs in gold and silver was melted down and transformed into the beautiful Oxford coinage, which typically showed the King on horseback with the Oxford skyline (the phrase “dreaming spires” had not yet been coined) in the background. In addition, the University handed over £1,360 in July 1642 and another £200 on January 1, 1643.

All the same, in June of that year he was demanding yet more: £2,000 from the University and the same again from the City. Then he collected £800 from St John’s, supposedly in lieu of college plate — though as a matter of fact he took most of that too a little later.

On top of all that, he taxed the populace to the tune of £1,176 a week, with colleges required to pay £100 a week. In addition, he required all members of the university between the ages of 16 and 60 to work as labourers for one day a week — with women required to help in defensive work too, and liable to fines if they failed to turn up. All in all, as contemporary historian Anthony Wood makes clear, Oxford ceased to be a place of learning and became more a fortified military camp.

A sword factory was established in Wolvercote and at Osney the corn mill was converted for gunpowder production — which blew up in a horrendous accident in 1643, destroying some of the already decaying structure of Osney Abbey.

Perhaps luckily for Charles the habit of distributing Maundy money had not been established in his time — it came into practice in the reign of his son, Charles II — but instead the king had to wash the feet of poor people and give alms in the form of clothes and food. The earliest mention of a king taking a personal role in the Maundy custom dates back to 1210 and King John, who was born in Oxford. No wonder, some might say, that nosegays of herbs were provided, despite the fact that the feet had already been washed by a laundress, the sub-almoner and the almoner before the King came near them! The last king to perform the foot-washing ritual was James II in 1685. Like his brother, Charles II, he was also keen on curing the King’s Evil, or scrofula, by touching subjects suffering from the disease.

The foot-washing ceremony illustrates that a ruler is there to serve the ruled. It originates from the Gospel according to St John (13:4) when Jesus, after the Last Supper, washed the feet of his disciples, commanding them to love (serve) one another. And the word Maundy is derived from this command, or mandatum.

Holy Week in war-torn Oxford must have been a dreary time, though Charles did insist on readings from the King James Bible, with its glorious use of English. And even on Easter Day there would have been few eggs with which to celebrate spring. Only in English, incidentally, does the name Easter perpetuate a Pagan rather than Christian feast of rebirth, commemorating the dawn goddess Eostra.