Royal Maundy pence to each of fifty poor men. It is not known, however, whether it was as yet the practice each year to have the number of pence and the number of recipients track the monarch's age: Henry IV was the first monarch to decree that the number of pence given be determined by the monarch's age. The ceremony was not always performed on Maundy Thursday; it could be postponed a day to Good Friday by royal command, as it was in 1510. Nobles could hold their own Maundy distributions, as did Henry Percy, 5th Earl of Northumberland in the early
Characters in the Thursday Next series to him." This action has yet to occur in Thursday's timeline. Always clad in blue gingham, 108-year-old Gran Next claims not to be able to die until she's read the ten most boring classics. She helps Thursday realize her bookjumping abilities by having her read "The Flopsy Bunnies" aloud over and over. In "The Well of Lost Plots" she comes to stay with Thursday in "Caversham Heights" and helps her to remember Landen and defeat Aornis's mindworm, assuring her that the real Aornis will be much easier. Gran's identity comes into question later on when Thursday realizes that both her