Liz, what is your source for the yews being planted to protect the tombs? (Please apply interested and curious voice to this, not challenging.) I haven't met that one before, although it ties in with an old yew at Great Burstead in Essex, which is on the tomb, directly south of the altar, of one of the kings of Essex.

I am informed that yew off the tree does not poison stock. From several sources. Cut and drying yew does. Or yew with nothing eaten with it, perhaps.

Also, the bow explanation is contentious. Some say that all the staves were imported from Spain. I note that many of the trees seem to have been pollarded, so could have provided staves, and that one king ordered them to be planted in Normandy churchyards as a bow source, having seen them in England.

Penny