THE PASTON FAMILY DURING THE WARS OF THE ROSES, THEIR UPS, THEIR DOWNS AND THEIR LETTERS.

‘There was never a Paston poor, a Heydon a coward or a Cornwallis a fool’. An old Norfolk saying. 

The Pastons cannily made a series of  advantageous and strategic marriages enabling them to swiftly ascend the social ladder.  Frieze of a Medieval Wedding –  Artist Thomas Stottard. Yale Center for British Art.

The Pastons,  a Norfolk family originating from the village of Paston,  are mostly remembered for their vast archive of letters now known as The Paston Letters.   The family line we are concerned with begun with Clement Paston who died in 1419 and ground to an ending in the 18th century with the death of William Paston, 2nd Earl of Yarmouth 1654-1732 who died without issue.  Their story has been much told and can be found in depth elsewhere while the Paston letters are now assessable to all online both in medieval and modern English.  However I want to focus here, in brief summary, on the family during the 15th century and especially the turbulent period known as the Wars of the Roses.

CLEMENT PASTON (c.1355 – 1419)

We should begin with Clement.  We do not know if he was the first Paston to settle in the village of that name but he certainly is the first of interest to us.  He was a hardworking fellow, a peasant farmer, described as a ‘good ‘pleyn husbondman,’ who owned a ‘little poor watermill running by a little river’  and ‘who went at one plough both winter and summer’  riding  ‘the two miles  to the mill on the bar horsbak wyth hys corn under hym and brought home meal again under him’ (1).

Medieval Water Mill.  From the Luttrell Psalter c.1320-1340.  

Clement’s advancement may have been aided by being born soon after the horrors of the Black Death which had created a subsequent ‘golden age’ for labourers with not only ‘the prospect of higher wages for those that survived the plague but also the possibility to acquire further bargaining power in the labour market’ (2). 

Peasants ploughing with horses. Luttrell Psalter c.1335-1340.

The ensuing labour shortage meant that workers could demand, and get, higher wages.  Clement  took full advantage of this, his increased status leading to a rewarding marriage to Beatrice Somerton/Goneld. The couple would have a son, William, (1378-1444) who Clement, now more financially secure, was able to send to grammar school although at times he was compelled  to borrow to do so.  I will return to this later.

Although, prima facie, Clement led an exceedingly successful and productive life, things did not always run as smooth as a nut and he sometimes found himself embroiled with the rumbustious rough and tumble of a medieval peasant’s life.  At the height of the Peasant’s Revolt in 1381 we find Clement entangled ‘in an altercation with the Abbot of St Benet’s men in North Waltham. In 1413, thirty two years later, Clement was still at odds with the Abbot when he was accused of stealing the Abbot’s fish from the ponds near North Walsham’ (3). 

However Clement managed to survive the shenanigans of the Peasants Revolt and, at the time of his death in 1419,  had  ‘amassed over 100 acres of land and had requested a burial next to his wife Beatrice, near the north door in Paston Church (4).

St Margaret’s Church, Paston.  Burial place of several Pastons including Clement and his wife, Beatrice.  With thanks to National Churchs Trust.   Click here for more.

William Paston (1378-1444)

We have seen that becoming more financially prosperous had enabled Clement to send his son, William,  to grammar school albeit with the aid of loans.  However it was Beatrice’s brother, Geoffrey Somertown/Goneld (d.1416), a local solicitor, who also must have noted potential in William because he funded him to go to the Inns of Court in London to be trained in the law.   William did not waste this golden opportunity and in the fullness of time would go on to become a Justice of Common Pleas.  William had successfully manoeuvred his family into the ‘gentry class’.   He waited until he had turned forty in 1420 and well established before marrying.  His bride was Agnes Berry, daughter and coheir of Sir Edmund Berry of Harlingbury Hall, in Hertfordshire.  ‘Agnes brought her husband three manors in East Anglia and, coming from a well established family, graced the Pastons with the distinction they had hitherto lacked’ (5). 

William and Agnes had several sons,  John Paston I (1421-1466), Edmund (1425-1449), William (1436-1496) and Clement (1441-1468).   They had just one daughter, Elizabeth (1429-1488) who suffered severe domestic abuse inflicted by her mother.  See her story below.

William would also utilise his now privileged position to buy land cheaply.  In 1419 he purchased Oxnead Hall from William Clopton of Long Melford,  settling the property in jointure on Agnes when he married her the following year.  Oxnead would become the Paston’s principal residence where they would reside for the next 350 years.  He also nurtured ‘a relationship with the dukes of Norfolk. Hence when he died in 1444 all seemed set fair for the firm establishment of the family within the local hierarchy’ (6). 

To all intents and purposes it would seem the Pastons were on a roll having astonishingly evolved in just two short generations from peasantry to aristocracy (7). What could possibly go wrong?  We will return to this point later. 

AGNES BERRY (1378 – 1444)

As we have seen, Agnes Berry, a heiress who bought her husband several properties, was a perfect match for the ambitious up and coming William.  Twenty years younger than him, she would give him five children. She was also on her maternal side related to Sir John Fastolf of Caister (1380-1459) a veteran of the French Wars.

Several letters written by Agnes survive in the archive including this one to her husband. Here it is in both modern and medieval  English:

Dear Husband,

My best wishes to you, and thanks be to God, I’m sending you good news of the arrival and the bringing home this evening of the young lady from Reedham that you know about, through the arrangements that you made. For the first meeting between son John and the young lady, she was very polite to him and said he was very like you. I am hopeful that all will go well between them without our pushing a formal agreement.

The parson of Stockton said that if you would buy her a dress, her mother would provide a fur to go with it. The dress needs to be bought, and I’d suggest a good blue or reddish-brown.

Could you also get me some piping for a dress, two pieces? Your fish ponds are doing well.

May the Holy Trinity look after you. I’m writing this myself in a hurry at Paston on Wednesday in the week of the third Sunday after Easter, as I don’t have a good clerk to write it for me.

Yours, Agnes

***********************

To my worshepefull housbond, W. Paston, be this letter takyn

Dere housbond, I recomaunde me to yow, &c. Blessyd be God I sende yow gode tydynggs of the comyng, and the brynggyn hoom, of the gentylwomman that ye wetyn of fro Redham, this same nyght, acordyng to poyntmen that ye made ther for yowr self.

And as for the furste aqweyntaunce be twhen John Paston and the seyde gentylwomman, she made hym gentil cher in gyntyl wise, and seyde, he was verrayly your son. And so I hope ther shall nede no gret trete be twyxe hym.

The parson of Stocton toold me, yif ye wolde byin her a goune, here moder wolde yeve ther to a godely furre. The goune nedyth for to be had; and of colour it wolde be a godely blew, or erlys a bryghte sanguine.

I prey yow do byen for me ij. pypys of gold. Your stewes do weel.

The Holy Trinite have you in governaunce.

Wretyn at Paston, in hast, the Wednesday next after Deus qui errantibuss for defaute of a good secretarye.

Yowres,  Agn Paston

This letter written on the 20 April 1440 refers to the young lady who will eventually  become her daughter-in-law,  Margaret Mautby.  There is also a later letter written on the 4 February 1445 to her son Edmund who is away at Law School which begun with some useful advice:

For the attention of Edmund Paston of Cliffords Inn, London

Dear son, I send you my best wishes and advise you to consider every day your father’s advice to learn the law; he’s told you many times that whoever lives at Paston should know how to defend himself….

*******************

To Edmond Paston of Clyffordis Inn, in London, be this Lettre take.

To myn welbelovid sone, I grete yow wel, and avyse yow to thynkk onis of the daie of youre fadris counseyle to lerne the lawe, for he seyde manie tymis that ho so ever schuld dwelle at Paston, schulde have nede to conne defende hym selfe.

********************

JOHN PASTON I (1421-1466)

John Paston I, as we have seen,  was the brother of Elizabeth, his much battered sister.  He married another heiress, Margaret Mautby (d.1484). Unsurprisingly he also chose the law for a career.  He was aged just twenty-two when his father died in 1444.  This left the family vulnerable in a time of ever mounting turmoil and instability in Norfolk which is nothing less than depressing to read about.  The first ominous sign of things to come was the loss of the Paston manor of East Beckham, granted to William shortly before his death.  A John Mariot – whose father had owned the manor in 1414 –  and had occupied the manor in 1441 –  now took it back.  Properties gained were lost and fought over sometimes for decades the notable being Caister Castle, to which we will return to later.  The buck for all this bitter strife should land fairly and squarely on John Paston I who had  gained the friendship and confidence of the aging Sir John Fastolf via becoming his solicitor.  When Fastolf died in 1459 it was claimed that he had, rather surprisingly,  made a nuncupative will  – i.e. an oral deathbed will – leaving everything to John Paston I.  John now  ‘miraculously found himself the main beneficiary of Fastolf’s will.   Sir John’s cheated heirs, most notably Sir William Yelverton, Thomas Howes and the de la Poles, didn’t believe in coincidence either, and contested the will. When John Paston Snr died in 1466, the legal wrangles were still unresolved’  and a fine can of worms for his sons,  confusingly both Johns –  John II and John III.

It’s therefore unsurprising that John Paston I would manage to trigger the not insignificant wrath of John Howard, (c.1425?-1485) later duke of Norfolk,  and a cousin to the Mowbray duke,  causing him to be described by a John Jenney ‘as wode as a Wilde bullok‘.   Howard’s first wife,  Catherine Moleyns,  made a robust remark intended for John Paston’s ears, which was helpfully forwarded on to him by his brother Clement,  who wrote urgently advising that he should get to where he had been summoned without delay and with a good excuse as:

‘Howard’s wife made her bost that if any of her husbands men might come to yow ther yulde goe noe penny for your life: and Howard hath with the Kings a great fellowship’ (8).

John Paston did indeed get himself to London and was promptly thrown into the Fleet prison for a short while.

ELIZABETH PASTON/POYNINGS/BROWNE (c.1429-1488)

Elizabeth, the daughter of William and Agnes,  was the victim of harsh domestic violence meted out upon her by her mother.  What triggered this callous treatment is unknown. It may have been a product borne of frustration generated by Elizabeth’s failure in making a suitable marriage for whatever reasons.    We do know that she was anxious, because of the intolerable situation at home,  for one proposed match to take place  The suitor in this case was a much older man, Stephen Scrope, stepson to the wealthy Sir John Fastolf,  who is said to have had a facial deformity and with questions hanging over his inheritance.  A relative, Elizabeth Clere, who was in the loop as to what was going on,  felt the need to intercede on the 29 June 1449 when she wrote to Elizabeth’s brother,  John I, pleading with him to get his finger out, get it sorted and break the stalemate unless he could find a better suitor other than Scrope.

‘Scrope said to me that if he marries and has a son and heir, his married daughter will have 50 marks of his income and no more, and therefore cousin, it seems to me you might be advised to get a better match for your sister …..  If you can get a better match, I would advise you to do so in as short time as you decently can, because she was never in such sorrow as she is nowadays. She is not allowed to speak to anyone,  whoever comes, and she is unable to speak to my man or to her mother’s servants  unless she manages to deceive her mother. Since Easter she has usually been beaten once or twice a day, and sometimes thrice a day, and her head has been cut two or three places…… She sent a message to me by Friar Newton in great secrecy, and begged me to send you a letter about her trouble, and to ask you to be a good brother to her because she trusts you. She says that if his papers show that his children and hers will inherit and she will get a reasonable settlement, she has heard so much of his birth and estate, if you agree, she will take him whether her mother wants her to or not, even though she’s told that he is a plain man….’ (9).  

Fearful of invoking the rage of Agnes should she come upon the letter Elizabeth Clare requested that John I burn it after reading it.  He chose not to do so but whether Alice found the letter or not,  the marriage did not take place.  Other suitors would fall before the first hurdle but who was to blame for this state of affairs can now only be guessed.  Elizabeth remained single until in 1458 when, aged about thirty,  she finally married Robert Poynings (c.1419-1461) with whom she had one son, Edward.  On 3 January 1459, Elizabeth wrote to her mother to remind her to pay the remaining one hundred marks owed to her husband, as part of their marriage settlement.  Whether this was a love match we do not know but she was widowed when Poynings was killed,  for York,  at the Second Battle of St Albans in February 1461. Ten years would pass before in 1471, she married Sir George Browne.  This marriage was of longer duration until George was executed for taking part in the Buckingham rebellion against Richard III in 1483. Elizabeth died a wealthy woman and left the bulk of her wealth to her daughter Mary Browne (10).

JOHN II AND III

The legal mess left behind in 1466 by their father centred primarily upon Caistor Castle, described as  the jewel in the crown of Sir John Fastolf’s estates,  with the brothers and their widowed mother left to face the wrath of Falstoff’s heirs.   Things took a turn for the worse when the disgruntled heirs sold their rights to Caister to the Mowbray Duke of Norfolk who had long coveted it. In late 1469 Norfolk besieged Caistor with, it has been claimed, 3000 men while John III was resident with a small band of retainers including locals, servants, a few French mercenaries and one Thomas Stompys, who was handless but willing to shoot a crossbow for a ‘noble’ i.e. a gold coin (11).  The number of Norfolk’s men may have been exaggerated but undoubtedly it would have run into several hundreds.  The siege ended after three weeks with acceptance of Norfolk’s terms of surrender:

John Paston and his said fellowship being in the said manor shall depart and go out of the said manor without delay, and make thereof deliverance to such persons as we will assign, the said fellowship having their lives and goods, horses and harness, and other goods being in the keeping of the said John Paston, except guns, crossbows, and quarrels, and all of the hostelments to the said manor annexed and belonging… (12) 

This incident led to some of the most interesting letters in the collection describing the dire situation Margaret and John III found themselves enveloped in and the blame she laid on her elder son,  John II who seems to have been sequestered in London at the time.   It was not until the duke’s death in January 1476 that John II, taking advantage of the situation, took back Caistor.   Ultimately Caistor was won back by the Pastons not by sheer might but legal process.  John II was only to enjoy Caistor for three short years before he fell victim to the plague while living in London in November 1479.  You can read more about the siege of Caister here.

A LETTER FOR VALENTINE DAY – ‘I WOLD BE THE MERYEST MAYDEN ON GROUNDE…’  

However the Paston letters also contained a lighter side and one of the earliest Valentine Day letters to survive is numbered amongst them.  Dictated in February 1477 by Margaret Brewes,  the future wife of  John Paston III (b.c.1444.d.c.1503) to Thomas Kela, the clerk of her father,  Sir Thomas Brewes.   Unfortunately Kela did not leave his thoughts behind on young Margaret’s mawkish epistle.  Margaret was concerned that her father was refusing to budge on increasing her dowry.    However, nothing daunted, her mother, Elizabeth – complaining that Margaret was driving her around the bend – I may never hafe rest nyght ner day, for (Margaret) callyng and cryeng uppon to brynge the saide mater to effecte, &c.’  acting as matchmaker,  invited John to join the Brewes for the weekend that Valentine Day fell on.  She wrote to him:

‘Friday is St Valentine’s Day, and every bird chooseth him a mate; and if it like you to come on Thursday at night and so purvey you that you may abide there til Monday, I trust to God that you shall so speak to my husband; and I shall pray that we shall bring the matter to a conclusion’

Dr Hannes Kleineke notes  ‘Of this Margery was aware when she dictated her billet-doux, dripping with saccharine verses of which any modern card manufacturer would be proud’ (13).  

Original edition:     

Unto my ryght welebelovyd Voluntyn, John Paston, Squyer, be this bill delyvered, &c.
Ryght reverent and wurschypfull, and my ryght welebeloved Voluntyne I recomande me unto yowe, ffull hertely desyring to here of yowr welefare, whech I beseche Almyghty God long for to preserve un to Hys plesur, and yowr herts desyre. And yf it please yowe to here of my welefar, I am not in good heele of body, nor of herte, nor schall be tyll I her ffrom yowe

'For there wottys no creature what peyn that I endure,
And for to be deede, I dare it not dyscure'

And my lady my moder hath labored the mater to my ffadur full delygently, but sche can no mor gete then ye knowe of, for the whech God knowyth I am full sory. But yf that ye loffe me, as I tryste verely that ye do, ye will not leffe me therefor; for if that ye hade not halfe the lyvelode that ye hafe, for to do the grettest labur that any woman on lyve myght, I wold not forsake yowe.

'And yf ye commande me to kepe me true wherever I go,
  I wyse I will do all my myght yowe to love and never no mo.
  And yf my freends say, that I do amys,
  Thei schal not me let so for to do,
  Myne herte me bydds ever more to love yowe
  Truly over all erthely thing,
  And yf thei be never so wroth,
  I tryst it schall be better in tyme commyng'.

No more to yowe at this tyme, but the Holy Trinite hafe yowe in kepyng.And I besech yowe that this bill be not seyn of none erthely creatur safe only your selffe, &c.

And thys letter was indyte at Topcroft, with full hevy herte, &c

By your own,

Margery Brews

Modern version:  

My dear beloved Valentine, I commit myself to you again and look forward to hearing how you are. I pray that God will keep you well and give you your heart’s desire. If you want to know how I am, I can say that neither my body nor my heart will be in good health until I hear from you.

For no-one knows what pain I endure
And I would rather die than let it be known.

My mother has tried very hard to win my father round, but I am sorry to say she has made no more progress than you know of already. But if you love me, as I hope very much you do, you will not leave me because of it. I can say that even if you were half as wealthy as you are, and I had to work twice as hard as any woman alive to help support us, I would not forsake you.

My heart tells me more and more to love you
Truly, above all earthly things,
And however badly they go
I trust everything will work out well for us.

I have no time to write more, but I pray that the Holy Trinity will protect you. Please do not show this letter to anyone. It is for your eyes only.

Written at Topcroft with a heavy heart by your own

Margery Brews

Margery Brewe’s billet-doux to her beau, John Paston III, signed off  ‘By your own M.B….. February 1477.  Photo thanks to news.artnet.com. Now in BritishLibrary. 

A further letter, also written in February of 1477, swiftly followed,  bewailing the fact that her father was standing his ground, unable or unwilling to up her dowry from 100 pounds and 50 marks.

To my ryght welebelovyd cosyn, John Paston, Swyer, be this letter delyveryd, &c.

Ryght wurschypfull and welebelovyd Volentyne, in my moste umble wyse, I recommande me un to yowe, &c. And hertely I thanke yowe for the lettur whech that ye sende me be John Bekarton, wherby I undyrstonde and knowe, that ye be purposyd to come to Topcroft in schorte tyme, and withowte any erand or mater, but only to hafe a conclusyon of the mater betwyx my fader and yowe; I wolde be most glad of any creatur on lyve, so that the mater myght growe to effect. And ther as ye say, and ye come and fynde the mater no more towards you then ye dyd afortyme, ye wold no more put my fader and my lady my moder to no cost ner besenesse, for that cause, a good wyle aftur, wech causyth myne herte to be full hevy; and yf that ye come, and the mater take to none effecte, then schuld I be meche mor sory and full of hevynesse.

And as for my selfe, I hafe done and undyrstond in the mater that I can or may, as Good knowyth; and I let yowe pleynly undyrstond, that my fader wyll no mor money parte with all in that behalfe, but an C_li._ and l. marke, whech is ryght far fro the acomplyshment of yowr desyre.

Wherfore, yf that ye cowde be content with that good, and my por persone, I wold be the meryest mayden on grounde; and yf ye thynke not yowr selffe so satysfyed, or that ye myght hafe mech mor good, as I hafe undyrstonde be yowe afor; good, trewe, and lovyng volentyne, that ye take no such labur uppon yowe, as to come more for that mater, but let it passe, and never more to be spokyn of,  as I may be yowr trewe lover and bedewoman duryng my lyfe.

No more un to yowe at thys tyme, but Almyghty Jesus preserve yowe, bothe body and sowle, &c.

Be your Voluntyne,

MARGERY BREWS.

The second letter.  Also dated February 1477.  British Library.  Photo thanks to new.artnet.com.

Thankfully Elizabeth’s ploy worked and the couple, with Margery’s feelings reciprocated,  married before 1477 drew to a close.  The love between the couple endured the passage of time for,  after being married several years,  we find Margery still penning tender letters to her husband.  One was addressed to  ‘Myne owne swete hert’ , and closed: ‘Sir, I pray you, if you tarry long at London that it will please you to send for me, for I think it a long time since I lay in your arms (I4). 

Sir John Fenn, antiquarian, produced and published this edition of the Paston letters in the 18th century. 

“The sufferings of warriors, the distresses of private life, occasioned by so tempestuous a season, and the concise rapidity of the narratives, will present a truer picture of that turbulent period than could be exhibited by the artful pencil of a sedate historian.”

  1. Blood and Roses – The Paston family and the Wars of the Roses p9. Helen Castor.
  2. Wages and labour relations in the Middle Ages:  It’s not (all) about the money.  Online article lse.ac.uk/asset-library/information/wp360.pdf
  3. This is Paston Portal. Medieval Paston: Clement Paston.  Online @ https://www.thisispaston.co.uk/home.html.
  4. This is Paston: Medieval Pastons.
  5. The Paston Family c.1420-1540 Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Colin Richmond, revised. 
  6. ODNB. The Pastons
  7. https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/middle_ages/pastonletters
  8. Yorkist Lord John Howard Duke of Norfolk  p.33 Anne Crawford
  9.  The Pastons, A Family in the Wars of the Roses p.44.  Edited by Richard Barber.
  10. https://www.pastonfootprints.co.uk/aboutthepastonfamily. Dr V K Price.
  11. William of Worcestre, Itineraries (trans. J. Harvey)
  12. A story half told/Caister Castle. castlestudiestrust.com
  13. https://historyofparliament.com/2018/02/14/a-medieval-mps-valentines-day-letters/Dr Hannes Kleineke
  14. https://historyofparliament.com/2018/02/14/a-medieval-mps-valentines-day-letters/Dr Hannes Kleineke

 

 

 

 

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SIR HUGH LUTTRELL OF DUNSTER CASTLE. HIS ROLE – OR NON ROLE – IN THE PERKIN WARBECK REBELLION

Sculpted stone heraldic shields on western arch of the Gatehouse to Dunster Castle in Somerset, erected by Sir Hugh Luttrell (d.1521).  Link to article covering everything you needed to know about the Gatehouse.

For this post I have drawn heavily from  A history of Dunster and of the Families of Mohun & Luttrell by Sir Henry Church Maxwell Lyte. Published 1909.  

The Luttrell family first came to prominence in the thirteenth century and are probably best remembered for the wonderful illuminated Luttrell Psalter,  a book of psalms, religious texts and prayers,  commissioned by Sir Geoffrey Luttrell (1276-1345). This particular Psalter, now in the British Museum,  is richly illustrated with scenes of everyday life and weird and wonderful illustrations of creatures that are combinations of human and animals.  However moving on…

The fabulous Luttrell Psalter commissioned by Sir Geoffey Luttrell. British Museum.

My interest lies with the branch of the family that resided at Dunster Castle, Somerset.  The reversion of the castle was  purchased by Elizabeth, the mother of Sir Hugh Luttrell (b.c.1364 d.1428) from the widow of the last de Mohun.  Unfortunately Elizabeth predeceased the vendor dying  at Bermondsey on the 7 August 1395.   Following a rather convoluted legal battle final possession was at long last  gained by Sir Hugh in 1405 following the death of the vendor, Lady Mohun (1).  Of most interest to me is the Sir Hugh Lattrell (b.c.1455 d. February 1521) who was involved with the Perkin Warbeck rebellion in 1497.  We will return to this later.

Sir Hugh’s place of birth is unknown although an educated guess would place it at Dunster Castle.

Dunster Castle Gateway.  Sir Hugh Latterall and his wife’s coat of arms above.  Photo thanks to Somerset  Archaeology and Natural History.  From an article by Isobel Richardson. Photo Tony Harding.  

Dunster Castle Gateway.  Photo thanks to Tripadvisor.

The 15th century Gateway Towers. Photo thanks to Somerset  Archaeology and Natural History.  From an article by Isobel Richardson. Photo Tony Harding.  

LIFE EVENTS:

November 1487.  Created a Knight of the Bath at the coronation of Elizabeth of York, wife of Henry VII (2).  

1487: Received from his uncle, Peter Courtenay, Bishop of Winchester, a grant of the office of Master of Poundsford Park, near Taunton, with an annuity of 10𝑙 for life.

1488: Sheriff of Somerset and Dorset.  Appointment for one year.

1497: Served under the Duke of Buckingham to suppress the Perkin Warbeck/Cornish rebellion of that year.  More on this below (3). 

1501:  One of the seven knights and gentlemen of Somerset who were selected to escort Catherine Aragon on her arrival in England  from Crewkerne to Sherborne.

1513: Served in the royal navy in the ship of Leonard Fiscaballi. 

Unknown date:  Sir Hugh Luttrell built a small pier at Minehead and enlarged the harbour considerably, to the great benefit of the town.  Admiral there during the reign of HVII.  Presided over a court of Admiralty for the decision of a maritime case

FAMILY 

His father was James Luttrell (b.c1426 d. 1 February 1461).  In 1450 Edmund Lacy,  Bishop of Exeter,  issued a license for a marriage to be celebrated in the private chapel of Powderham Castle between James and Elizabeth, daughter of Philip Courtney,  his former guardian. A large part of the Lutterell estates were settled on Elizabeth in jointure some two years later (4).

Interestingly Elizabeth’s sister, Joan (d.1465) was Sir Henry Bodrugan’s first wife.  She had borne him a son,  John Beaumont, after the collapse of her marriage to William Beaumont (d.1453) but prior to her marriage to Henry.   John being born before  the death of William thus took the Beaumont name.  John would be raised by Henry, was later knighted and died at Stoke. in 1487.  Bodrugan would play an important role in attempting to return the young Edward V to the throne.  But that is another story. 

James fought against Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York,  at Wakefield on the 29 December 1460 (although some accounts have it as the 30th) and was knighted by Henry Beaufort,  Duke of Somerset on the field of battle. Indeed it would appear James played a hand in the actual death of the Duke of York.  See below.  Seven weeks later he again fought for Lancaster at the second battle of Saint Albans, 17 February 1461,  where although Lancaster prevailed, James was fatally wounded (5).

The triumph of the House of York and Edward IV taking the throne in 1461 was a disaster for the Luttrell family,  Lancastrian ‘since the time of John of Gaunt’.  The Yorkist Parliament of November of that year passed a sweeping ordinance against all the chief supporters of Henry IV.  Sir James was posthumously attainted being named amongst those who ‘with grete despite and cruell violence, horrible and unmanly tyrannye’  had murdered Richard Duke of York, who had fallen into their hands at some point during or after the battle and who were consequently to ‘stand and be convycted and attainted of high treason, and forfett to the King and his heires all the castles, maners’ and other lands of which they were or had been possessed.  In June 1463, Edward IV granted Sir William Herbert, Baron Herbert, and the heirs of his body, the honour, castle, manor and borough of Dunster and other Luttrell properties. 

However following Bosworth 1485 fortune turned in favour of the Luttrells.   Hugh petitioned the new king, Henry VII,  on grounds  that his father had been attainted “for the true faith and allegiaunce which he owid unto the right famous prince of moost blessed memory, then his soveraine lord, Henry late King of England the sixth” requesting that the Act of Attainder should be repealed, and the consequent letters patent made void. His petition was readily granted and the agents of the Earl of Huntingdon made way for the rightful lord of Dunster (6).

Hugh would however have a troubled relationship with his widowed mother, Elizabeth Luttrell née Courtney ( c.1430-d.1493 ) and her third husband Thomas Malet with regard to lands which she claimed to hold in jointure, and jewels, plate, and household stuff, valued at 800 marks, which Sir James Luttrell had bequeathed to his eldest son Alexander who had died young. At last after legal proceedings had begun a compromise was reached whereby Lady Luttrell retained the manor of East Quantoxhead/Quantockshead and Hugh undertook to pay her eighty marks a year for the manor of Minehead during her life. She and her husband then delivered to him “ two basons of silver, two ewers, two gilte cuppes covered standyng, two pottes of silver and gilt with a pot of silver, two saltes with one cover, three boules with one cover, a chafyng disshe of silver, two doseyn spones, a chaleys, a masse boke, a peir of vestementes, ”  plus a list of the other goods that should pass to him at her death. Hopefully peace then prevailed…. 

MARRIAGE:

Hugh’s first wife was Margaret Hill whom he married 1484.  They had several children and this list may contain inaccuracies.  However it can be said with certainty that Andrew was his heir.

Andrew

John

Eleanor

Elizabeth

Jane

His second wife was Walthean Yard/Walthera Drelne – there are various spellings of this lady’s name –  whom he married  before 1508.  This marriage appears to have been childless.

THE PERKIN WARBECK REBELLION 1497

Now here begins the mystery.   Upon Perkin Warbeck’s arrival in Cornwall, Sir Hugh, served under the command of Edward Stafford,  Duke of Buckingham who was engaged in suppressing the ensuing uprising (7).  At this point accounts differ. 

An article written in 1878 by Edmund Chisholm-Batten opined that Hugh was heavily fined for his role, or non role,  in the rebellion although noting that afterward all was forgiven as Henry ‘…dealt generously with those who had forborne to render him quick service or from a mistaken feeling had allowed local prejudices to sway them and by his gracious dealing he won the hearts and by his encouraging example he raised the best aspirations of great men and great ecclesiastics (8). Chisholm-Batten, who appears to have thought that Henry Tudor was the best thing since sliced bread,  also included in his paper a list of rebels and the amounts of their fines including Sir Hugh receiving a massive fine of £200.   At the time of writing he noted that this list was in the British Museum, which if so,  would today be in the British Library.  This should be looked into.

However this version of events is disputed in that rich source of Luttrell information that is A History of Dunster and of the Families of Mohun & Luttrell written by Sir Henry Church Maxwell Lyte published 1909.  His notes say:     

‘Mr. E. C. Batten’s idea that Sir Hugh Luttrell was fined for assisting the rebels seems to be founded on a misapprehension’ (9). 

If it were the case that Sir Hugh was heavily fined for shirking his responsibilities  in putting the rebellion down, it would be difficult to fathom why his input was either lacklustre, tardy or non existent as he had previously followed in his family footsteps being a loyal supporter to the Lancastrian cause and later to Henry VII.  If Sir Hugh was fined he was not the only one.  Following the suppression of the Cornish/Yorkist rebellion Henry sent commissioners to the West Country to fine anyone who had not been zealous enough, had shown the rebels sympathy, provided them with food or shelter or simply had failed to act as the rebels marched past.  It is also within the realms of possiblity that Hugh was acting clandestinely in favour of the rebellion although this is sheer speculation. 

It has also been suggested there may be confusion with an earlier situation where Sir Hugh, while not actually receiving a monetary fine,  had two of his hunting hounds seized as a result of a hunting foray in the Royal Forest of Exmoor.  A letter from his brother-in-law Giles, Lord Daubeny (d.1508), to Sir John Trevelyan – in an attempt to pour oil over troubled waters – reads: 

” I am enformed that of late a litle grugge Is fallen bitwene my brother, Sir Hugh Luttrell, and you, for that he hunted of late in the outewods of the said forest, and therupon a couple of hounds were taken up by servants of yours from his servants. After that, cousyn, inasmoche as my said brother Luttrell is a boderer (borderer) of the said forest, and that ye know he hath maried my sister, and the man whom I doo love tenderly, my mynde is and desire unto you that ye shuld have an yghe (eye) unto hym above all others in those parties. And that when it shall like hym to kyll a dere or to hunt for his disporte, that ye suffer hym soo to doe, I pray you as hertily as I can. Writen at Grenewich the xx daie of Feverer.

“And I pray you, cousyn, let my said broder take his disporte, and if he list let hym kyll one dere in somer and a nother in wynter herafter” (10).    

However, whatever the truth of the matter,  Sir Hugh was back in royal favour by 1501, see above, when he was appointed with seven other knights and gentleman to escort Catherine of Aragon on her arrival in England for part of her journey from Crewkerne to Sherborne (11).  

Upon his death on the Ist February 1521 Sir Hugh was succeeded by his heir Andrew….  However we will leave them there.

  1. Somerset  Archaeology and Natural History 
  2. Shaw’s Knights of England, vol. i. p.142. Sherratt and Hughes, 1906.
  3. Holinshed’s ‘Chronicle  Vol iii. p. 78.
  4.  A History of Dunster and of the Families of Mohun & Luttrell by Sir Henry Church Maxwell Lyte. Published 1909.   Page 120. 
  5. ibid. p.122.
  6. Roils Parliametitorum, vol. vi. p. 297 ; D.C.M. i. 26.
  7. Holinshed’s ‘Chronicle  Vol iii. p. 78.
  8. E.Chisholm Batten. Henry VII in Somerset p.71.
  9. Proceedings of Somerset Archaeological Society,vol  xxv.pp. 71,74.
  10. Trevelyan Papers, vol. i. p. 12
  11. Letters and Papers, Richard III and Henry VII vol. i. p. 406.
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FRANCIS LOVELL AND HIS DISAPPEARANCE – REASONS TO DOUBT THE EXISTING EXPLANATIONS

Arms of Francis Viscount Lovell (Wikimedia Commons)

The following guest post is from Ted White, author of a definitive  article – Destinations and Departures – on Francis Lovell and his disappearance for the Richard III Society.   I drew much from this article for my two posts – A Summary of the life of Francis Viscount  Lovell and his Mysterious Disappearance –  Part one and Part two  

Thank you very much Ted.  Over to you…..

HE DROWNED IN RIVER TRENT ACCORDING TO EDWARD HALL IN 1548

In his Chronicle, Edward Hall stated that ‘some affrme athat the lorde Lovell toke his horsse & would have fled over Trent, but he was not hable to recover the fartherside for the highnes of the banke and so was drowned in the ryver.’

The river makes a loop a mile or so to the north of the battlefield as it flows from Nottingham towards Newark.

MAP OF ESCAPE FROM STOKE FIELD.  

Hall makes no attempt to identify the source of this explanation but it is hard to imagine that eye-witnesses to Lovell’s departure from the battlefield were able to describe exactly what happened 61 years later.

This explanation is unlikely because the river could be crossed easily prior to the dredging that made it the commercial highway it is today. When William Jessop surveyed the river in 1782, he found that there were about seventy shallows, with depths ranging from 21 inches (53cm) to 27 inches (69cm) in the 71 miles between Cavendish Bridge at Shardlow, Derbys. and Gainsborough, Lincs.  and in 1825 Richard Brooke found that ‘The Trent, in the summer time… is fordable for horses, and even men’ and in 1828 Richard Shilton reported that ‘on the 20th of June, 1826, the River at this place measured but 47 yards in width and 21 inches in depth.’

In the previous twenty-four hours, the entire rebel army had crossed the river on its way to the battlefield apparently without mishap so they would have been aware of any difficulties the return journey presented.

Whilst it is possible for someone wearing armour to drown in shallow water that would not be very likely to happen to Lovell because as one of the commanders of the rebel army, it is very likely that Lovell left the battlefield with an escort of men-at-arms who would have been able to assist him in any difficulties.

DOUBTS

1. Hall provides no explanation of the source of his information.

2. The river was easy to ford at the time of the battle.

3. As a leading member of the rebel army Lovell would be expected to have an escort to protect him against accident or capture.

HE LIVED IN A CAVE ACCORDING TO FRANCIS BACON IN 1616 

In his History of Henry VII, written in 1616 Francis Bacon suggested that ‘he lived a long time after in some cave or vault’. This statement is ambiguous because a cave is a natural opening in a hillside whilst a vault is part of a building.

If Bacon meant the former, the consequences would have been a complete change in Lovell’s lifestyle because it meant that he had to fend for himself instead of having servants to do his every bidding. Whilst it is not possible to know the size of Lovell’s household, some idea can be gleaned from the Ordinances and Regulations of the court of Edward IV which said that a Viscount was expected to have eighty attendants.

Not only would Lovell be deprived of servants, he would be without a bodyguard to protect him against detection and capture by Henry VII who as Bacon himself having described Henry’s spies abroad says ‘ He was not, indeed, without his spies at home, but it was by these means that he got to the bottom of the many conspiracies against him. and if spies are lawful against lawful enemies, much more against conspirators and traitors: besides, the people knowing spies were employed, it kept conspiracies under.’

DOUBTS

  1. Lovell was probably not capable of surviving ‘ for a long time after’ in such an unfamiliar environment as a cave.

2.  He would have been very vulnerable to being captured by Henry’s spies but there is no record of this happening.

HE LIVED AND DIED IN AN UNDERGROUND VAULT AT MINSTER LOVELL MANOR HOUSE ACCORDING TO WILLIAM COWPER IN 1737 

This explanation takes up the second possibility raised by Bacon that Lovell lived ‘a long time after…in a vault’ and comes from a letter from William Cowper, Clerk of the Parliaments written on 9th August 1737 to Rev. Francis Peck. In it Cowper recalled a conversation he had with the Duke of Rutland in 1728 when Rutland related a story he had heard twenty years earlier in 1708 so whilst the story appears to have a degree of provenance having come from an apparently reliable source, it amounts to nothing more than hearsay.

The letter says that … on the 6th of May, 1728, the present Duke of Rutland related in my hearing, that about twenty years then before, viz. in 1708, upon occasion of new laying a chimney at Minster Luvel, there was discovered a large vault or room under ground, in which was the entire skeleton of a man, as having been sitting at a table, which was before him, with a book, paper, pen, &c. &c., in another part of the room lay a cap, all much mouldered and decayed. Which the family and others judged to be this Lord Luvel, whose exit has hitherto been so uncertain.

Other versions appeared soon afterward,  James Anderson writing in 1742 described the human remains as being a ‘ Man, in very rich Cloathing, seated in a Chair,- with a Table and a Mass-Book before him. The Body of whom was yet entire, when the Workmen entered, but upon Admission of the Air, soon fell to Dust’ so Anderson describes a dry atmosphere whilst Cowper refers to the mould and decay of a damp atmosphere. Then in 1750, Thomas Carte described the body as being, ‘the figure of a venerable old man sitting in a great chair, resting his elbow on a table, and supporting his head with one of his hands‘. If Lovell had survived to be a ‘venerable old man’ he must have been in hiding a long time because he was 31 years old at the time of the battle of Stoke.

In 1708, Minster Lovell Manor house was owned by the Coke family but Edward Coke had died on 13 April 1707 and his wife Carey on the  1st August 1707 leaving their son Thomas an orphan. Thomas was born on 17 June 1697 so he was eleven years old in 1708 when he told the story to his friend John Manners who later became the Duke of Rutland. John was born on 21 October 1696 so he would have been twelve years old but he was sufficiently impressed by the story to enable him to recall it many years later.

The manor house at Minster Lovel would not have been a good choice of hiding place because Henry had granted ‘the manors and lordships of Mynstrelovell’ together with other properties in southern England to his uncle Jasper Tudor on 2 March 1486, more than a year before the battle of Stoke.

The room is described by Cowper as being ‘a large vault or room under ground’. The ruins of Minster Lovell Manor House lie close by the River Windrush which frequently floods the site of the building, most recently in 2014 as shown below. The close proximity of the River Windrush ensures that the construction of any underground room would be futile because it would soon become waterlogged.

 Minster Lovell with the Windrush in flood.  Photo thanks to @Derek Hall at picturesofengland.

The picture shows Minster Lovell Manor House during the floods of 2014 which completely engulfed one of the towers. The site has been in public ownership since 1935 with English Heritage as the current custodians. They recount the story of the underground room in their guide book written in 1958 but it continues by saying ‘The cellar, if cellar it was, has not been found again’.

More recent enquiries show that none of the more than 220 records on the EH database for the house make any reference to the discovery of any trace of an underground room and a search by their staff in 2016 has failed to reveal any evidence of a vault or a chimney as reported below. ‘Despite an extensive search of our archival holdings I regret that I have been unable to find any evidence to confirm the existence of either vault or a chimney in our archive collections’. This finding is confirmed in the Victoria County History of Oxfordshire which states that ‘no such vault has ever been found’.

Choosing a hiding-place that required the assistance of someone outside to release the inmate is very unwise and rather surprising for a man whose career at the courts of Edward IV and Richard III meant that he must have usually made sound judgements. Even if the only available hiding-place had no internal door-latch it should not have been too difficult to improvise some means of emergency escape (like a piece of string). 

DOUBTS

  1. Contradictory descriptions of the room emerged within a few years. 

2.  The story was originally told by an eleven-year old boy to his twelve-year old friend so it was hearsay from thirty years before Cowper wrote his letter.

3.  The house belonged to Jasper Tudor granted to him by his nephew,  Henry VII.

4.  Any underground room would be waterlogged and unfit for use as a hiding place.

5. No evidence of an underground room has ever been found.

6. Hiding in a room which had no means of opening the door from the inside is not a credible action of a person like Lovell.

4.  HE WAS STILL BEING SOUGHT IN THE NORTH OF ENGLAND ACCORDING TO A LETTER PUBLISHED BY JAMES GAIRDNER IN 1875 

The letter in question was written to Sir John Paston by Lovell’s mother-in-law, Lady Alice FitzHugh on 24 February 1488 and consists of two paragraphs, each about a different subject.  In the first paragraph, she says that she understands that Paston wants to know if she has agreed to a financial transaction he had proposed she should make with Sir William Cabell.  Lady Fitzhugh confirms that she has agreed to it and expects her first interest payment at Midsummer.

In the second paragraph she says that her daughter Anne has made great efforts to find her husband Francis and sent Edward Franke to look for him in the north, but Franke returned with no information as to Lovell’s whereabouts. 

‘Also my doghtyr Lovell makith great sute and labour for my sone hir husbande. Sir Edwarde Franke hath bene in the North to inquire for hym; he is comyn agayne, and cane nogth understonde wher he is.’

The contents of this paragraph raise the question of why Lady Fitzhugh chose to inform Paston of her daughter’s efforts to search for her husband when she had no need to raise the matter at all, having already answered Paston’s question about her financial affairs in the first paragraph. Sir John Paston was Sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk in 1486 and was thus an officer of the crown answerable to Henry VII. He also fought against Lovell at Stoke and was rewarded with a knighthood. Lady FitrzHugh must have had a reason to add her second paragraph and she appears to have added it to deceive Paston into thinking that Lovell was still alive.

By the time Lady FitzHugh wrote her letter, Lovell had been found guilty of High Treason by Henry’s Act of Attainder passed after Bosworth, and Franke by the corresponding Act after Stoke.

Thus It would have been Paston’s duty to arrest them both as he had earlier been exhorted to arrest Lovell in letters dated 19 May 1486 and 24 January 1487 from the Earl and Countess of Oxford.

DOUBTS

  1.  Lady FitzHugh would have been extremely disloyal to her daughter and son-in-law if the letter had been a genuine attempt to assist Paston.

2.  She appears to have used her letter to deceive Paston into believing that Lovell was still alive and hiding somewhere in the North of England.

HE OBTAINED SAFE-CONDUCT IN SCOTLAND – ACCORDING TO SHEILAH O’CONNOR IN 1987  

The Register of the Great Seal of Scotland records the documents to which the seal had been applied and includes an entry for 19 June 1488 which says that the king had granted a letter of safe-conduct to Lovell and three companions. In translation it reads ‘The King grants a letter of safe conduct to Lord Luvel, Thome Brockton, Rogero Hartilton, soldiers, and Olivero Frank, English and their servants and all other English persons which in their opinion, may come hither themselves, of whatever rank, status of order for one year after the arrival of these persons in the kingdom and then later extended at the pleasure of the king.’

Royal letters of safe-conduct were granted to extend the protection enjoyed by Scottish subjects to foreigners like pilgrims and merchants during the time they spent in Scotland. The recipients were provided with a copy of the letter which they showed to the mayor of a town they were visiting or the commander of a castle garrison so that they could be provided with the necessary protection whilst they remained in their jurisdiction. As ‘soldiers’ which the record describes them, Lovell and his companions would not have needed this protection.

Letters of safe-conduct had to clearly define to whom they had to extend their protection and for how long. Lovell’s letter meets neither of these requirements because it extends protection beyond Lovell and his party to ‘all other English persons which in their opinion, may come hither themselves’ and it defines the period of protection for them as being ‘for one year after their arrival ‘ so the providers of the protection had no guidance as to whether the letter remained valid or not and whether to grant or deny protection.

Regardless of any ambiguities in the wording of the letter, the simple fact was that the King of Scotland was completely unable to provide protection for Lovell and his companions having failed to protect his own father from being murdered eight days earlier.

For some years prior to 1488 James III, King of Scotland had been in conflict with his nobles. Matters came to a head in February that year, when James, his fifteen year-old son and heir joined rebel nobles with the collusion of his guardian, James Shaw the custodian of Stirling castle. When he joined them, the younger James gave orders that the rebels must under no circumstances ’lay violent hands upon his father’  and according to one account he required them to sign a written oath to that effect. However, whilst fleeing from a skirmish with the nobles at Sauchieburn, near Stirling on June 11 1488 (just eight days before the issue of Lovell’s safe-conduct),  James III was murdered leaving his son to succeed him.

The Battle of Sauchieburn with Stirling Castle in the background as shown in a print 1836.  Artist  Thomas Allom.  British Museum.

James was traumatised by his father’s murder and returned to Stirling where according to Robert Lindesay of Pitscottie he….daily passed to the Chapel Royal, and heard Matins and Evening-Song; in the which every Day the Chaplains prayed for the King’s Grace, deploring and lamenting the Death of his Father; which moved the King, in Stirling, to Repentance, that he happened to be counselled to come against his Father in Battle, where though he was murdered and slain… and he was constrained, by his Conscience, to use a Sign of Repentance and, for the same Cause, gart make a Girth of Iron, and weared it daily about him, and eiked, every Year of his Life, certain Ounces of Weight there to, as he thought good.’James wore the ‘Girth of Iron’ for the rest of his life as an act of mourning and repentance for failing to prevent the death of his father.

The extent of James’ remorse raises the question of how well he may have been able to protect others such as Lovell.

He was still wearing his ‘Girth of Iron’ when he married Henry VII’s daughter Margaret in 1503.  James and Margaret Tudor. Seton Armorial. National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh

Whilst James IV was unable to take any action against the rebellious nobles, they were busily taking over the main offices of the Scottish state and revising its policy towards England by seeking alliances with Margaret, Dowager Duchess of Burgundy against Henry VII. Lovell and his companions would have been able to make significant contributions to such an action and the letter of safe-conduct was probably a means of trying to locate them and recruit them as allies.

DOUBTS

  1.  Safe-conducts were issued to foreign nationals who were not able to defend themselves whereas Lovel and his companions were soldiers and perfectly capable of doing so.

2.  The issue of a letter of safe-conduct in June 1488 has little prospect of securing protection for anyone because it is ambiguous in both the specification of who is entitled to receive safe-conduct and for how long.

3.  The king of Scotland at the time was a traumatised fifteen-year-old boy who was unable to deliver protection to anyone.

4.  A much more probable reason that the new regime produced their letter of safe-conduct was that they were using it as a means of locating English Soldiers who had rebelled against Henry VII in order to recruit them to the Scottish cause.

CONCLUSION

These five explanations of what happened to Lovell are all interpretations of subsequent ideas and discoveries: none of them take Lovell’s beliefs and actions at the time into account. A more detailed version of this article can be found in ‘Francis Lovell- Departures and Destinations’ in both the Members Research Papers and the Bulletin Archives sections of the Richard III Society website.

A new explanation of what happened to him, based on his belief in the Doctrine of Purgatory and chantry chapels together with documentary evidence from his time has been published in the June 2025 edition of the Ricardian Bulletin

NOTES:

1 Sir Henry Ellis (ed.), Hall’s Chronicle Containing The History of England During the Reign of Henry the Fourth and the Succeeding Monarchs to the End of the Reign of Henry the Eighth, Chronicle 1548, (1809), page 434

2 Francis Bacon, The History of Henry VII of England, written in the year 1616, now new written, (1796), page 44

3 Rev. Francis Peck, A Collection of Curious Historical Pieces, page 87, in Memoirs of the Life and Actions of Oliver Cromwell, (1740) 

     In 1732 Peck appealed to his readers to send him historical anecdotes which he published as Desiderata curiosa, or, A collection of divers scarce and curious pieces, in 1732 with a further volume in 1735. However, his readers continued to send him further anecdotes after he had published Desiderata curiosa so he published a further forty of them in a section called A Collection of Curious Historical Pieces he added to Memoirs of the Life and Actions of Oliver Cromwell when he published it in 1740.

4 James Gairdner (ed.), The Paston Letters, A New Edition Containing Upwards of Four Hundred Letters &c. Hitherto Unpublished, Volume III Edward IV. Henry VII. — 1471-1509. AD, (1875), Letter 889, page 326

5 Sheilah O’Connor, Francis Lovel and the rebels of the Furness Fells, The Ricardian, Vol. 2, March 1987, page 366

6 James Balfour Paul (ed.), The Register of the Great Seal of Scotland: AD1423 – 1513, (1882), entry 1738, page 370

 

 

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HORACE WALPOLE – AN EARLY DEFENDER OF RICHARD III AND DEBUNKER OF SILLY MYTHS..

Horace Walpole.  Strawberry Hill House can be glimpsed in the background. Artist John Charles Eccardt c.1755.

 Horace/Horatio Walpole (1717-97), 5th Earl of Orford (not to be confused with Oxford),  MP,  Author, Historian, Antiquarian and Connoisseur, is numbered among the earliest defenders of King Richard III.  His father was Sir Robert Walpole,  the first British Prime Minister from 1721 to 1742.   Following in his father’s footsteps he entered Parliament but was not well suited to it,  being in his own words  ‘a person who loves to write history better than to act in it’(1).   Happily however,  coming from a wealthy background,  he was able to step back from politics and indulge himself with interests that he did take delight in, such as copious letter writing,  as well as surrounding himself by paintings, exquisite objet d’art and items of historical interest such as a lock of Edward IV’s hair to name but a few.  To house his collections he built the wonderful Strawberry Hill House, Twickenham.    Somehow or other he came across the work of Sir George Buc/Buck which kindled in him a deep interest in Richard III.   This led to him penning his spirited defence of the king –  Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard III – which was published on the 1st February 1768.  However his robust efforts to clear Richard’s name have, to an extent,  become overlooked or even decried.  Then,  as now,  any defence of Richard promptly drew a barrage of scathing and irate criticisms including an  ‘Answer to Mr Horace Walpole’s Late Work …. or an Attempt to Confute him from his own Arguments…’  (2).  In a fit of pique he cancelled  his membership of the Society of Antiquaries after they had attacked his Historic Doubts ‘with old Women’s logic’  announcing he was ‘leaving them in peace’ to discuss such things as ‘Whittington and his Cat’ (3).   In more recent times the late Paul Murray Kendall, author of one of the leading biographies of  Richard III and editor of Richard III: The Great Debate commented  that Walpole ‘..often reaches conclusions accepted today, but he not infrequently arrived at them by unsatisfactory arguments, for, lacking 15th century sources that have since come to light, he sometimes had to ground his attack upon the Tudor tradition in the materials of that tradition. Thus he dismisses a number of Richard’s supposed crimes mostly by declaring the accusations to be unconvincing’ (4).   I actually struggle to see what the problem is with that exactly – surely the getting there is more important than the route taken!?  Kendall also dismissed Walpole’s assertion that Perkin Warbeck was indeed Richard, Duke of York, declaring he was, in this matter, ‘flogging a very dead horse’ although he did grant him accolade for being the ‘first to mount an intelligent attack on the story of the princes murder as recounted by Thomas More (5). Well the very dead horse has now arisen phoenixlike from the ashes because the school of thought regarding Perkin Warbeck/Richard Duke of York has since been revised by new investigations and discoveries.   See Philippa Langley’s The Missing Princes.  We will return to this point later. 

To get back to Historic Doubts – Walpole drew up a list of Richard’s ‘supposed crimes’ beneath which I shall give summaries of his responses,  some of which were in response to Thomas More’s History of Richard III.

Ist: The murder of Edward Prince of Wales, son of Henry VI

Thankfully More spared us all when he wasted an opportunity to have a poke at Richard,  failing  to opine on the matter other than a passing reference to the death of Edward.   

Walpole, however,  chose the Occam’s razor route, honing in on the unlikelihood of Edward IV’s brothers personally taking part in the horrible murder of the unarmed prince.   He cited examples of Richard’s well known undisputed bravery and chivalrous attitude – which would later became more apparent in the honourable man that he would evolve into –  which were at odds with someone taking part in a cowardly attack on an unarmed victim.  Early writers, including Hall described a scene where the prince,  being of a bold and feisty nature  – although clearly not gifted with the knack of reading the room –  rather foolishly backchatted King Edward.  The prince, it seemed, was endowed with the overconfidence of the truly dim and the king, enraged at his presumption, gave him a slap with his gauntlet and thrust him away whereupon the king’s brothers, George Duke of Clarence and Richard Duke of Gloucester along with Thomas Grey Marquess of Dorset and William Lord Hasting all fell upon him like a bunch of rabid hyenas and cruelly murdered him….. If this were how it happened.   Walpole, quite rightly, questioned this version of events.  Was it really likely, he asked, that  the king’s brothers would have been personally embroiled in such a foul and useless assassination? He pointed out the more plausible version, given by Fabyan, that the prince was ‘by the kings servants incontinently slain’ as well as the Croyland Chronicler had recorded the murder was committed  ‘by the avenging hands of certain persons’ without giving names. 

2nd: The murder of Henry VI

More having spared us his witterings on Henry’s son, Edward,  went in all guns ablazing with the old king himself.   Here he has Richard murdering, with his own hands,  as well as  without Edward IV’s say so,  the pitiful Henry VI: ‘He slew with his own hands King Henry VI being prisoner in the Tower, as men constantly say; and that without commandment or knowledge of the King, which would undoubtedly, if he had intended that thing, have appointed that butcherly office to some other than his own born brother’.  Of course in More’s version it was necessary to have Richard murdering the aged and helpless king without the say so of Edward because of the extreme unlikelihood that the king would have tasked his eighteen year old brother with such a horrible and abhorrent deed.  Walpole pointed out that how the old king died was unknown, which is still true to this day. 

3rd: The murder of his brother George Duke of Clarence

Walpole pointed out the report by the Croyland Chronicler that it was not Richard who contrived in the execution of his brother but the Speaker of the House of Commons,  who accompanied by a group of his ‘fellows’,  had demanded the delayed execution of Clarence ‘be completed’ (5). Unfortunately he was unable to utilise Mancini’s statement that Richard was  ‘so overcome with grief that he could not dissimulate so well, but that he was overheard to say that he would one day avenge his brother’s death’   because Mancini’s manuscript,  De Occupatione Regni Anglie per Riccardum Tercium, would not be discovered until 1934 by historian C.A.J. Armstrong.

4th: The execution of Rivers, Grey and Vaughan

It always amazes me the angst springing from the executions of Anthony Earl Rivers and Richard Grey.   It seems as if some ‘historians’  and commentators have been rankled by Richard not rolling over,  baring his back to the Woodvilles and inviting them to stab him in it,  there and then, and have done.  It’s rather odd to say the least and almost as if they dwell in some kind of parallel universe where mothers of murdered children happily hand over their surviving offspring to evil,  murderous uncles without qualm.  Anyway I have departed on one of my tangents as per usual and to get back to Horace Walpole…..  

The story is well known and can be found elsewhere in great detail.   However to recap briefly  – following the death of Edward IV,  Elizabeth, his widow and her Woodville/Wydeville family sought to gain control of the young Edward V,  at that time residing in Ludlow,  and to get him to London as soon as possible with the intent of getting him crowned and upon the throne with the utmost speed.  The intention was to circumnavigate Richard then Duke of Gloucester who was both Lord Protector and Great Chamberlain of England amongst other things.  The original plan was for the king’s /Woodville party,  led by his uncle Anthony Woodville,  Earl Rivers,  to rendezvous with Richard at Northampton then complete the journey to London together.  However upon Richard’s arrival at that appointed place the king’s party had already departed for Stony Stratford.  For reasons that remain unclear Rivers returned from Stony Stratford to Northampton probably to give some explanation/story to calm the situation down as by then Richard had no doubt smelt a rather massive rat.   The arrival of Henry Stafford,  Duke of Buckingham,  appears to have been the trigger for the arrest of Rivers closely followed by that of Richard Grey, the king’s uterine brother.   Richard Duke of Gloucester and his party then travelled swiftly to meet up with the young king and his party at  Stony Stratford  before they had time to depart for London whereupon Richard took control of both the young king and the situation.  When news of the arrests reached the ears of Queen Elizabeth she took herself and her children into sanctuary at Cheyneygates in the precincts of Westminster Abbey. On the arrival of Richard and Edward V in London wagon loads of armour and weapons were produced as proof of a planned Woodville assassination attempt on Richard somewhere upon the road, possibly Grafton Regis, which was a Woodville property.  It was soon after this that Richard wrote his famous letter to York asking for assistance as the Queen and her party planned to destroy him and all the old blood royal.  The rest is history.  It is therefore quite astonishing and laughable  that somehow Richard should be found to be the villain in this but there you go…

Walpole summed it up all very neatly when he noted that the shenanigans of the Woodvilles greatly alarmed the old nobility notably Richard Duke of Gloucester and Buckingham who were clearly now fighting for their lives.  He dismissed More’s take on the story as ‘historic buskins’   pointing out that ‘the ambition of the Queen who attempted to usurp the government, contrary to the then established custom of the realm, gave the first provocation to Richard and the princes of the blood to assert their rights and that Richard was solicited by the Duke of Buckingham to vindicate those rights. That the preparation of an armed force under Earl Rivers, the seizure of the Tower and treasure, and the equipment of a fleet by the Marquis of Dorset, gave occasion to the princes to imprison the relations of the queen and that though they were put to death without trial it was consonant to the manners of that barbarous and turbulent age and not until after the Queen’s party had taken up arms’. 

Elizabeth Woodville.  Portrait from a stained glass window in  Canterbury Cathedral c.1482. 

5th: The execution of Lord Hastings

In Walpole’s day and indeed up until now the execution of  William Lord Hastings   is still shrouded in mystery and has been utilised as a fine piece of mud to lob at Richard III.  Drill a bit deeper and it’s not quite an out and out abrupt, unjustified and horrible execution/murder ordered by Richard, then Duke of Gloucester,  after he threw a sudden wobbly at a council meeting in the Tower of London on the 13th June 1483 possibly because his strawberries had still not turned up. Here Walpole has taken the line that Richard, Constable of England and Lord Protector,  acted in sheer self defence.   He recognised  the  ‘amazement‘ at the execution and mentions the supposing by More that the reasons behind the execution were that Hastings had ‘either withstood the deposition of Edward V,  or,  was accused of such a design by Catesby who was deeply in his confidence’.   However Walpole confesses to an ignorance of the ‘immediate motives’  but suggests that the sudden execution of Hastings was triggered by nothing but  necessity and the law of self defence  despite More’s belief that Richard undoubtedly loved him well, and loath he was to have him lost’. 

Click here for an enlightening post regarding the council meeting by Matt Lewis with additional comments by Annette Carson and others.

6th: The murder of Edward V and his brother. 

Many writers have expended gallons of ink regarding the ‘murder’ of the two princes and none more so than More.  Reading his ‘History’ with its long speeches, its ‘very truth it is’  and profusion of  ‘quoths’,  you could almost imagine he was there in the room with them taking everything said down in shorthand.   Of course he was not.  And the one thing it is worth noting from his lurid History is,  at the end of the day,  he owned up to not having a clue as to what had actually happened to the princes  – ‘Whose death and final misfortune has nevertheless so far come in question that some remain yet in doubt whether they were in his (Richard’s) days destroyed or no’.   Walpole on the other hand, with the information available at the time,  took a far more reasoned and lucid view.   He eviscerated More’s nonsensical description of the murder by Miles Forest and John Dighton under the instruction of Sir James Tyrell in one sentence: ‘It is difficult to crowd more improbability and lies together than are comprehended in this short narrative’.   

Edward V.  His image in St Matthews Church, Coldridge Devon.

Richard Duke of York alias Perkin Warbeck. 16th-century copy by Jacques le Boucq of the orginal.  Library of Arras, France.

7th: The murder of his own Queen

Possible portrait of Queen Anne Neville from the Eaton Wall paintings.

Here More’s poisonous pen really does descend to the nadir of all pits describing how King Richard caused a cruel rumour to be spread amongst the ‘common people’ that ‘the Queen was dead  to the intent that she,  hearing this marvellous rumour, should take so grievious a conceit that soon after she should fall into some great disease,  He would essay that way, in case it should chance her afterwards to be sick, dead, or otherwise murdered that then the people might impute her death unto the thought she took or else to the sickness. But when the Queen heard of so horrible a rumour of her death sprung abroad among the common people, she suspected the matter and supposed the world to be at an end with her,  and incontinent she went to the king with a lamentable countenance, and with weeping tears asked him whether she had done anything whereby he might judge her worthy to suffer death. The king made answer with a smiling and dissimulating countenance with flattering words bidding her to be of good comfort and to pluck up her heart  for there was no such thing towards her that he knew. But howsoever it fortune, either by sorrow or else by poisoning within a few days after the Queen was dead and afterwards buried in the Abbey of Westminster.  The king being dust delivered of his wife fancied apace lady Elizabeth his niece desiring in any wise to marry with her….’  (6).  He then proceeded to shoot himself in the foot by acknowledging Queen Anne Neville was one of Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick’s daughters because, via this familial link,  she was the source of his Northern Neville Power base (7).  I would say that rather than Richard had  treated her in this abhorrent way,  even if not deeply in love with her, although that too is possible,  he would have always treated her with the utmost respect at the very least.  I will return to this pertinent point below.   In actual fact we do know that from the onset of Anne’s fatal illness, soon after Christmas 1484 to her death on Wednesday 16 March 1485 Richard never left the Palace of Westminster, where she lay dying, except for a total of eleven days when he was at Windsor which can be taken as evidence of his care and affection for her (8).   Walpole also pointed out the lingering death of the queen, i.e. two and a half months,  ruled out poisoning. 

Walpole also pointed out  the glaringly obvious, that Queen Anne Neville was the daughter and co-heiress of Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, later known as the Kingmaker and Anne Beauchamp, daughter of Richard Beauchamp Earl of Warwick.  Analysing this from the worst cold blooded perception i.e. that Richard, still yet to consolidate his rule,  wanted rid of Anne,  who as mentioned above, was the source of his Northern Power Base,  it’s unlikely he would have risked alienating the North – many of whom would still have held the Nevilles fondly in their collective hearts – by murdering Warwick’s daughter!  Indeed so damaging were these malicious rumours that Richard took the extraordinary step of making a public declaration in the Great Hall of the Priory of the Knights Hospitaller of St. John in Clerkenwell  …where as he in the grete Hall there in the presens of many of his lordes & muche other people shewde his grefe and displeasure aforsaid & said it neuer came into his thought or mynde to marry in suche maner wise nor willyng or glad of the dethe of his quene but as sorye & in hert as hevye as man myght be…  (9).

The Great South Gate now known as St John’s Gateway as it is today.  This building was the main entrance to the Grand Priory of the Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem. Although this Gatehouse is not the original having been rebuilt in 1504 by Prior Docwra, it covers the site of the original which Richard III rode through. Photo Wikipedia.

The shields above St John’s Gateway.  Photo Wikipedia.

It is rather sad to say, Walpole would later revise his good opinion of Richard III, reflecting that it was actually quite possible the king had indeed murdered his nephews.  This volte-face was bought about by the horrors of the French Revolution.  On the 29 January 1793 Walpole wrote to a friend regarding the Revolution ‘There is not a word left in my dictionary that can express what I feel’ following which he then went on at length to express how he felt.  Unfortunately he failed to see the comparisons of the destruction of the French royal family with that of the betrayal and slaughter of an anointed English King, his rationale being the heinous executions of the French king and queen being carried out ergo made it possible that Richard III could have committed the heinous crime of doing away with his brother’s sons.  However casting that aside I would like to wind up here with a perfect and pertinent quote from Walpole:

‘Time may bring other monuments to light, but one thing is sure, that should any man hereafter presume to repeat the same improbable tale on no better grounds than it has been hitherto urged, he must shut his eyes against conviction, and prefer ridiculous tradition to the scepticism  due to most points of history, and to none more than to that in question’. 

Bravo Horace Walpole…. you done well!

  1.   historyofparliamentonline.org. http://www.histparl.ac.uk/volume/1715-1754/member/walpole-hon-horatio-1717-97 
  2.   Richard III – The Great Debate p. 149. Ed. Paul Murray Kendall.
  3.   richardIII.net.  Early Historians  
  4.   Richard the Third.  The Great Debate P.138. Editor Paul Murray Kendall. 
  5.  Ibid p148.  
  6.  Mores History – The Great Debate p.129.  Editor Paul Murray Kendall.
  7.  richardiii.net Crimes alleged by Shakespeare. Matthew Lewis.
  8. The Itinerary of Richard III.  Rhoda Edwards.
  9. Acts of Court, pp.173-4.  See also Richard III. The Road to Bosworth Field. pp 198-199. Editors P W Hammond and Anne  Sutton.

 

 

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Thomas Langton (c. 1430–1501), Bishop of Winchester, arch-bishop elect of Canterbury, Chaplain to Edward IV and Richard III and a man who knew ‘the secrets’ of Richard III’s heart*. Motto ‘Laus tibi Christe’

 LAUS TIBI CHRISTE – PRAISE TO YOU CHRIST 

The glorious vaulted ceiling of the Langton Chapel, Winchester Cathedral.  With many thanks to Karen White Pictures for this beautiful photo.

Before touching upon the main subject of this post, Thomas Langton,  we are going to take a little detour so bear with me.  It is often said that the victor writes the history and never did this ring truer than in the case of King Richard III who has been badly maligned since his death at Bosworth in 1485, and still is to a degree,  although the tide is now turning with new research and more enlightened authors and historians such as Philippa Langley,  Annette Carson,  Matt Lewis and the late Jeremy Potter and John Ashdown-Hill to name a few.    Writers from the Tudor period including Vergil  –  renowned for his unreliability  – and Thomas More writing several decades later –  threw such massive clods of mud at the dead king that invariably some stuck.    Practically anything that could portray Richard in a positive light was destroyed including the Titulus Regius although miraculously one copy managed to survive the Human Shredders.  I won’t go into Titulus Regius now but it can be found here if anyone wishes to take a perusal.   And that is not all.   It was Philippa Langley via her book, The Princes in The Tower,  who first alerted me to  Richard’s Baga de Secretis’  and it being – somewhat conveniently – empty.  Quelle surprise!  These leather bags were stored in a ‘secret storage closet’ at Westminster and held highly sensitive information such as records of treason trials, indictments and convictions.  In her Revealing Richard III blog Philippa has pointed out  ‘Richard’s Baga de Secretis is empty yet we know there were treason trials during his reign (the records of which, if like other reigns, would have been kept there)’. What Richard’s Baga de Secretis contained we can now only speculate at this remove.   However it is not beyond the bounds of possibility it once contained documents that could have helped in clearing some of the fog of misinformation that has enveloped Richard over the centuries or why else destroy them?   Perhaps the bag had once contained,  for example,  documents pertaining to the execution of William, Lord Hastings (c.1430-1483).  Despite Hastings not having  a state trial could it be that the grounds for his execution – which are still unclear today – were recorded and stored in Richard’s Baga de Secretis?  And the reason for their disappearance being that the Hastings execution has always been a fine piece of mud to throw at Richard.  To throw any light on the execution and thus exonerate Richard from the unjust accusation of having Hastings got out of the way solely because he stood in Richard’s way of taking the throne would not have been viewed as a good idea by the Tudor regime.  Of course this is pure speculation on my part but as Sir Thomas More once said ‘you might as well shoot too far as to shoot too short’.  Well if he didn’t actually say it he should have.  

This is not Richard’s Baga de Secretis but the one in which the trial records of Edward, earl of Warwick, were stored. Faint outlines of the text which described the bag’s contents can still be seen.  Photo from Nationalarchives.gov.uk Catalogue ref: KB 8/2

There is an interesting article on the Revealing Richard III website by the late Dr A J Hibbard,  which can be found  here, listing many of the important documents from Richard’s reign which have been lost to us – well not lost as much as wantonly  destroyed.   However not all has been lost to us and that which is not lost is extremely cogent.  For example the forlorn but telling and brave entry in the York City records describing the city’s sadness at the death of King Richard at Bosworth on the 22 August 1485:

‘…king Richard late mercifully reigning upon us was thrugh grete treason of the duc of Northfolk (sic) and many other that turned ayenst hyme, with many other lordes and nobilles of this north parties was piteously slane murdred to the grete hevynesse of this citie…’

BISHOP THOMAS LANGTON

THOMAS LANGTON’S REBUS WAS USUALLY A MUSICAL ‘L’ OVER A TUN.  THIS ONE APPEARS TO BE THE LETTER ‘L ‘ EMERGING FROM A TREE AND TWINED THROUGH A TUN.  WITH GRATEFUL THANKS TO GROENLING@FLICKR FOR THIS AND THE FOLLOWING PHOTOS. 

A shield on the wall of the Thomas Langton chapel. With thanks to Groenling @ Flickr  

Another shield on the wall of the Langton chapel.  With thanks to Groenling @Flickr for allowing his beautiful photographs to be shared here. 

 I now move on to the subject of this post, Bishop Thomas Langton (c.1430-1501).  During the reign of Richard III Thomas penned a personal letter that not only survived but gave praise to the king.   It is most interesting because it was clearly written with no expectation of being read other than by the recipient, a trusted  friend whom he had known for decades, and was, in the main, about how to avoid paying import taxes on expensive wine.   Thomas Langton was Bishop of St. David’s (1483-84),  Bishop of Salisbury (1484-93), Bishop of Winchester (1493-1501) and Archbishop-elect of Canterbury (1501).  He  was also a highly qualified canon lawyer and it’s tempting to speculate that his knowledge and skills in canon law were utilised by Edward IV who may have consulted him regarding the enormous pickle that his illegal marriage would turn out to be leaving his young heir,  Edward  Jnr,  up the Swanee without a paddle and to the eventual fall of the House of York.   Edward also appointed him as his chaplain,  entrusted him with various important tasks, including in both 1476 and 1477 when he travelled to Castile to explore a possible marriage between the Prince of Wales and the Infanta Isabella (1).   Thomas would continue to also fare well during the short reign of Richard III, to whom he was also chaplain.   Richard secured the translation of Thomas to the See of Salisbury by papal bull dated 8 February 1485,  the bishop previous to that,  Lionel Woodville,  having got himself embroiled in the Buckingham rebellion in 1483 had been attainted and spent the remainder of his life in sanctuary at Beaulieu where he died in 1484.  Richard also granted Thomas custody of the temporalities i.e. the lands, manors, tenements and revenue which were utilised by the crown to pay for the upkeep of bishops.  Later on his knowledge of canon law once again was no doubt extremely useful enabling him to fully grasp the complex situation that Richard found himself in following the death of his brother Edward IV in April 1483 when the news broke that his marriage to the Queen, Elizabeth Woodville, had been invalid.  Richard, then Lord Protector,  was living at his mother’s London home, Baynard’s Castle,  and so was a parishioner of Thomas’,  who was rector of All Hallows Lombard Street, also known as All Hallows Gracechurch Street,  when he was offered the crown on the 26th June 1483.   Once again it is tempting to speculate that Thomas may have been among the high ranking clergy to descend on Baynard’s Castle that day. 

Mural in the Royal Exchange,  Offer of the Kingship to Richard Duke of Gloucester at Baynard’s Castle June 26 1483. Artist  Sigismund Goetz.  This mural is now sadly hidden from view.

It is believed he was with his king at Bosworth on the 22 August 1485.  Following the death of Richard and the early part of Henry VII’s reign there appears to have been an initial tricky period for on 6 October 1485 he  forfeited his temporalities as bishop of Salisbury by his adherence to Richard III at Bosworth.  However he was soon pardoned,  the lands and revenues restored,  and thereafter continued his career much in the same vein  – despite it being noted that he ‘shunned the court’ (2).    The year 1493 would see him translated to the even richer See of Winchester. He was set to become Archbishop of Canterbury but died of the plague on the 27 January 1501 aged 71 a few days before he could take up the post.   A remarkable life.  But to backtrack a little – September 1483 found Thomas among the entourage of the newly crowned Richard and his queen,  Anne Neville,  following the king embarking on a progress of his kingdom.   It was at this time Thomas penned the letter to his old friend William Selling, Prior of Christchurch in Canterbury.    This letter as mentioned above was of a personal nature and would not have been penned with an expectation that it would be available to be read other than by Prior Selling.   Fortunately it was preserved in the archives of Canterbury and was among those that J B Shepherd printed  in his The Christ Church Letters: A volume of mediaeval letters relating to the affairs of the priory of Christ Church Canterbury  – first published in 1827 –  where it can be found on pages 45-46.   It has an honest and open ring about it as, in the main, Thomas appears to have been more concerned about some good and expensive wine – and the difficulties in obtaining it while also avoiding the import duty – with Richard only being touched upon towards the end of the letter.  I’ve included the letter here in full as it’s important to read it as such to understand that the main concern for Thomas was the wine and indeed he also added a rather cheeky request that two tuns be also obtained at the same time for his own use.   It is apparent his main concern was assuring the Prior all would be well  –  he would ‘nedys no license’   –  and,  if the worse came to the worst,  well,  it would not be a problem for  ‘the Kyng wil noon graunte..’  and furthermore,  ‘yow must have paciens….’  rather than a flagrant attempt at lionising the King.   Moreover if the letter’s intention was to wax lyrical about the king then surely that would have been addressed in the main body of the missive rather than just a mere footnote.  

My Lord I recommend one to yow, &c. If ther hap to be ony shippis at Burdeaux at such tyme as your wyne yt shalbe clear shippyd, the Kyng wil for no thyng graunte licence to yow, ne to non other, for to ship your wyne in a straunger.  If ther be non Ynglyssh shippis, ye may well in that cace ship your wyne yn a straunger; ther ys no law ne statute ayeyn it; and so by thadvyce of the chef juge, Sir Fayreford Vavasor, Sir Jervas Clifton, and Medcalf you nedys no license; and so thai all shewyd the law. In this matter this ys the conclusion; in oon cas yow nedys no licence; in the other the Kyng wil noon graunte. The Kyng hath at this tyme ij messengers with his cosin of France. If thai bring home good tithings I dout not but the Kyng will wryte to his said cosin as specially as he can for your wyne; if he have no good tythings yow must have paciens; but how so ever it shal be send Smith your servant for your wyne, for I dout not but ye shal have it this yer. I pray you do so mych for me to take your servant iiij li. Or els pray master supprior to do it, to such tyme that y shal com to London, and pray your said servant for to by me ij tun of wyne with it, and bring it home with yours. I trust to God ye shal here such tythings in hast that I shalbe an Ynglissh man and no mor Welsh—Sit hoc clam omes. The Kyng of Scots hath sent a curteys and a wise letter to the Kyng for  his cace, but I trow ye shal undirstond thai shal have a sit up or ever the Kyng departe fro York. Thai ly styl at the siege of Dunbar, but I trust to God it sune, by Michelmasse, the Kyng shal be at London. He contents the people wher he goys best that ever did prince; for many a poor man that hath suffred wrong many days have be relevyd and helpyd by hym and his commands in his progresse. And in many grete citeis and townis wer grete summis of mony gif hym which he hath refusyd. On my trouth I lykyd never the condicions of ony prince so wel as his; God hathe sent hym to us for the wele of us al neque . . . . voluptas aliquis regnat . . . . . . . . . . . .
Our Lord have you in his kepyng. I wold as fayn have be consecrate in your chyrch as ye would have had me your

T. LANGTON.

It shal be wel do that your servant bring a certificate from the Mayr of Burdeaux that ther was no sheppis ther of Ynglond at such tymes as he ladyd your wyn.

To my Lord the Prior of Cryschyrch of Canterbury. 

An interesting in-depth analysis of the letter can be found here.

Thomas was also mentioned by Richard in one of his letters.  In a letter to Pope Sixtus IV the king wrote:   ‘We send in person to your holiness the venerable father in Christ the lord Thomas Bishop of Saint Davids our very dear and faithful counsellor and spokesman who knows the secrets of  our heart*    We have committed to him certain matters to be explained to your holiness and we humbly ask and beg that with your customary goodwill to us and our kingdom you will listen with ready and willing ears (3).  

So there we have it.  A  primary source for Richard detailing his care for his subjects penned by someone who clearly admired him.   There is also verification that he did indeed refuse gifts of money supplied by  John Rous in his Historium Regum Anglia:

‘This king Richard was praiseworthy for his building, as at Westminster, Nottingham, Warwick, York, and Middleham, and many other places, which can be viewed. He founded a noble chantry for 100 priests in the cathedral of York, and another college at Middleham. He founded another in the church of Saint Mary of Barking by the Tower of London and endowed the Queens College at Cambridge with 500 marks annual rent. The money which was offered him by the peoples of London, Gloucester, and Worcester he declined with thanks affirming that he would rather have their love than their treasure….’

In the unaltered English version of his Rous Roll written prior to his History he had described Richard as: 

‘The most myghty prynce Rychard…all avarice set asydem rewled hys subiettys in hys realme ful commendabylly, poneschynge offenders of hys lawes, specially extorcioners and oppressors of hys comyns, and chereschynge tho that were vertues, by the whyche dyscrete guydynge he gat gret thank of God and love of all his subiettys ryche and pore and gret laud of the people of all othyr landys a bowt hym.’

So we can clearly see that despite concerted attempts by the Tudor regime to destroy utterly any records of any good Richard had done, search a little and they are there having survived against all odds. 

  1. Langton, Thomas C.1430-1501). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. D P Wright.  .
  2.  Ibid.
  3.  With thanks to Philippa Langley for drawing this to my attention via her book The Princes in the Tower p.216,  citing reference Harley 433, Vol.3, p.59.  Thanks to Sharon Lock.

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Edward V – HIS LIFE PRIOR TO 1483.

 

 

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A SUMMARY OF THE LIFE OF FRANCIS VISCOUNT LOVELL AND HIS MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE – PART TWO.

 

Evocative Minster Lovell at sunset.  Photo with thanks to Colin Whitaker

Part One of this two part post covered the early life of Francis Viscount Lovell.   We left Francis at the Coronation of his childhood friend – now his king – Richard III on the 6 July 1483.  Due to time and lack of space I must skip forward apace through the next eighteen months arriving at the death of Richard at Bosworth in August 1485.  It is unclear whether Francis fought at Bosworth – some accounts say he had been sent to defend the south coast should Henry Tudor attempt his invasion from that part of England and it is uncertain if he made it back in time for Bosworth.  We do know that in the aftermath of the battle, the now attainted Lovell,  spent some time in sanctuary at St John’s Abbey,  Colchester.

All that remains today of St John’s Abbey, Colchester is this elaborate gatehouse.   It must have been a most welcome sight for Francis in the aftermath of Bosworth in 1485.  Founded in 1095 it was dissolved in 1539.  Photo thanks to historica.fandom.com

Slipping away around April 1486 he made his way northward aligning with Humphrey Stafford of Grafton in hatching a plot against Henry VII. Stafford opted to raise rebellion in his home county of Worcestershire while Lovell chose the area around Middleham with its Ricardian links.  Although this rebellion was almost successful with Henry Tudor just managing to evade capture at York, it ultimately failed perhaps when the offer of pardons to those who surrendered proved too tempting for some.  Stafford attempted once again to make his way to sanctuary but was captured and executed at Tyburn on the 8 July 1486.  Francis made his way to Furness Fells in the wilds of Lancashire, but now part of Cumbria,  where he joined Sir Thomas Broughton and other Yorkists diehards.  Furness Fells will feature once more in Francis’ story before it reaches conclusion.     Vergil writing in the reign of Henry VII,  would later dismiss  him as an irresolute fellow  who left his followers to throw themselves on the royal mercy but,  quidquid,  we all grasp how the victor gets to write the history.   In fact Vergil was totally barking up the wrong tree with his dismissal of Francis.  Stephen David, Francis’ biographer,  describes him as ‘a man with the ability, despite being hunted high and low,  to move around while evading capture –  which  speaks volumes for the efficiency of his security procedures  –  with the wherewithal to plan ahead and to retain the loyalty of his followers’.  Michael Bennett wrote  ‘his chivalrous bearing and life-long attachment to Richard III commend him to all who value loyalty and friendship.’  (1) 

THE YORKIST REBELLION 1487

By January 1487 it was known by the Tudor regime that Francis was trying to make his way to Margaret of York, dowager Duchess of Burgundy,  that annoying thorn in Henry Tudor’s side.  In this endeavour he succeeded and in March he was joined by Margaret’s nephew,  John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln, following the latter’s swift exit from a royal council meeting at Sheen held to discuss the Yorkist rebellion.   The stage was set.

Margaret of York, Duchess of Burgundy (1446-1503).  Henry VII’s nemesis.  Portrait by an unknown Burgundian artist c.1477.  Now in the Louvre, Paris, France.

On the 15 May,  financed by Margaret and Emperor Maximilian I,  Francis,  John de la Pole,  earl of Lincoln and the Yorkist fleet left Zeeland in the Netherlands and set sail for Ireland accompanied by Martin Schwartz and his army of two thousand professional German, Swiss and Flemish mercenaries known as Landsknechte (2).  

Emperor Maximilian I.  Artist Albrecht Durer.

On arriving in Dublin they met up with other diehard Yorkists including  Sir Henry Bodrugan,  and his son, Sir John Beaumont,  who had with them a youth aged around sixteen.   At the onset this young man was thought by some to have been Edward earl Warwick,  son of George duke of Clarence.   This seems to have been either a red herring or a case of mistaken identity by later reporters as Warwick, then aged about thirteen years old, and thus younger than the young man about to be crowned,  was known to have been languishing in the Tower of London.  The young man crowned in Dublin Cathedral on the 27th May 1487 was revealed to be Edward V,  son of Edward IV,  who had disappeared at the end of 1483 who had come to ‘reclaim‘ his throne. The story has become murky with records destroyed including those of the Irish Parliament,  and later Tudor propaganda which has succeeded to totally discombobulate historians ever since.    Historians et al have doggedly repeated the Tudor regime’s falsehoods that the lad crowned was a ten year boy who has become known in history as Lambert Simnel.  This is despite the fact that the name  Lambert Simnel  was unknown at the time and not dreamed up until later in November 1487 at the time of Lincoln’s Act of Attainder after the Tudor regime had the time to concoct a cover up story.   Historians have repeated ad infinitum the preposterous story that the Irish clergy including the archbishop of Dublin, the bishops of Meath, Kildare and Cloyne participated and concurred in the crowning of a ten year old boy,  described at the time as the son of either a baker, joiner, shoemaker, joiner,  take your pick, who was blatantly fake, and thus made him king.  For make no mistake,  the Coronation is one of the most sacred of all ceremonies where the anointed becomes God’s appointed representative on earth.   No explanation was given as to how, if rebellion had proven successful, the rebels would have dealt with the thorny problem of a small, surplus to requirements,  ten year old anointed but fake king? Anyway onwards….  Historian A F Pollard clearly stated that ‘no historian has doubted that Lambert Simnel was an imposter’ but unfortunately this has still not deterred other historians  from stating that Lambert Simnel was the lad crowned that day at Dublin.  I should imagine no one would have been more surprised to hear this than young ‘Lambert’  himself – who suffered the ignominy  of being named after both a cake eaten at Easter and one of Edward IV’s numerous mistresses.  Michael Bennett points out that ‘simnel’  cake was eaten at Lent which was the precise time that Henry Tudor left Sheen after the council meeting.  Had he just tucked into a slice or two of simnel cake?  The other positive to come out of this was naming the boy after a cake gave it a sense of comedy.   The name Lambert was the maiden name of Elizabeth/Jane Shore the infamous mistress of Edward IV (3).   Add to the equation the fact that the Yorkists, already having John de la Pole, earl of Lincoln, a grown man, with  a watertight claim to the throne being Richard III’s heir,  there was no need for an imposter.  Are we to believe that the Yorkist rebels would have acquiesced in a ten year old boy, without a soupçon of royal blood in his veins, a glaringly obvious fake Yorkist prince,  being crowned king instead of the adult and very able earl of Lincoln? There was only one reason the Yorkists did not utilise Lincoln’s claim to the throne and that was because Edward V had survived the reign of his uncle Richard III.   Throw in a dodgy priest  – who confusingly had a couple of different names  – and who was here, there and everywhere including being questioned and imprisoned prior to February 1487 but somehow managed to be taken in the aftermath of the battle of Stoke and soon you won’t know if you are coming or going or meeting yourself coming back.  Still fair play to the Tudors.  Their lies have outlived their dynasty and beyond.  Quidquid, we have lingered too long in Dublin and to England we must go…

The choir Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin.  Here the leaders of the Yorkist rebellion, Francis Lovell and John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln,  attended the coronation of the ‘Dublin King’.

THE BATTLE OF STOKE FIELD 16 JUNE 1487

Shortly after the Dublin coronation the Yorkists set sail for England landing somewhere on the Furness Peninsula in a part of Cumbria that was then known as Lancashire North of the Sands.  There they would join other Yorkist diehards probably at nearby Gleaston Castle which was conveniently owned by Thomas Grey,  Marquis of Dorset, Edward V’s half brother.  Their journey finally led them to East Stoke, Nottinghamshire,  where the matter was concluded on the 16th June. In the aftermath of the battle the young king was found and taken to Newark where Henry VII also headed (4)  From there he was never heard of again for it has been demonstrated that he clearly was not the ten year old going by the moniker of Lambert Simnel whom the Tudors had yet to conjure up.   However see the Coldridge theory for a plausible explanation.  As for Francis – he had melted away like the proverbial Scotch mist – leaving behind a mystery that has still not been solved to this day.

FRANCIS LOVELL’S DISAPPEARANCE  

Historian David Baldwin sagely noted  ‘There are many references to Lovel in documents composed, in the main, within a generation of the rebellion; and the problems lies not so much in a paucity of ‘evidence’ as in determining how much the authors of the various traditions really knew (5).

By sheer happenstance as I was about to tackle this tangled omnium gatherum I came across a superb in depth article – Francis Lovell : Departures and Destinations –  by Ted White on the Richard III Society website among the Members Research Papers. Ted has generously given me permission to quote from his article which examines the evidence of twenty accounts of what happened following Francis’ departure from Stoke battlefield plus seven accounts of where he went afterwards.   Eleven of these accounts state that Francis fell at Stoke.   Below are quotes from just a small selection due to lack of space.

Part 1 DEPARTURES

The first two accounts, both written in 1487 have Francis,  very much alive,  fleeing the battle.

‘And ther was slayne th’ Erle of Lincoln John, and dyvers other gentilmen, and the Vicount Lorde Lovell put to flight…’   Manuscript Julius B XII in the British Museum Catalogue of Manuscripts in the Cottonian Library

The second account would appear to be that of an eye witness, describes how the rebels were refused entry into the city of York and a servant of Master Recordour was sent to follow them and report back.  Which he did on Sunday June 17th:

.. there was a soore batell, in which th’ erl of Lincolne and many othre, as well Ynglisshmen as Irissh, to the nombre of vMl (5000) were slayne and murdred; the Lord Lovell was discomfotid and fled, with Sir Thomas Broghton and many othre..   Servant of Master Recordour’ of York (written in 1487)

So far so good.  The third account written in 1490 reported Francis present at the battle but given no mention of whether he fled or died:

… the ffeeld at Stoke, to the which feeld cam the Erle of Lyncoln, the lord Lovell, and Marteyn Swart out of Flaunders into Ierlond, and from Ierlond into Fournes Felles, and so forth unto Stoke; and there they kept the Feeld ayenst kyng Henry the vijth, at the whiche felde was slayn the Erle of Lyncoln and Martyn Swarte, and the moste part that cam with hym….    Anonymous Manuscript Vitellius A XVI (folios 210 – 213) from the Cotton Collection in the British Library (written in about 1490)

However the next four accounts – covering 1502 to 1512 –  give no mention of Francis.  The authors of these accounts include Bernard André, writing in 1502, who was scathing of Lincoln but wrote in glowing terms of Schwartz: 

The earl of Lincoln, moreover, came to an end worthy of his deeds, for he was slain in the field, and likewise many others, whose commander and general, Martin Schwartz, a man of outstandingly proficient in all the arts of war, fell fighting bravely. Translated from the original Latin by Michael Bennett. Bernard André Manuscript Dalmatians XVII, folios 126 to 228 from the Cotton Collection in the British Library. Written in 1504.

The next three accounts penned by :

Jean Molinet in his Chroniques (manuscript written in 1504)

Anonymous Manuscript Vitellius A XVI (folios 102 – 209) from the Cotton Collection in the British Library (written in 1509)

Anonymous manuscript Guildhall Ms 3313 (written in 1512)

give no mention of Francis.

However in 1521 a London Merchant Richard Arnold broke the news that :

This yere the Quene was crowned; and the Erle of Lyncolne, and the Lorde Lowell, and one Martyn Swarte, a straunger, alle were slayn in a felde y they made ageynst the Kinge.  Richard Arnold in The Customs of London (published in 1521)

Charles Wriothesley, the Windsor Herald,  in his Chronicle of England copying from The Customs of London reiterated the death of Francis at Stoke:

The Earle of Lincolne, the Lorde Lowell, and one Martyn Swarte, a straunger, slayn all in a feild they made againste the Kinge.  Charles Wriothesley Chronicle of England

Now we come to Vergil,  that arch flatterer of Henry VII, whose  account littered with inaccuracies must be viewed with caution but has unfortunately been ‘copied by nine imitators over a period of about two hundred years’.  Ted White has gone into Vergil’s account in depth but here lacking space I will in summary say that Vergil concluded that Francis perished at Stoke:

…when the battle was over, that it was fully apparent how rash had been the spirit inspiring the enemy soldiers: for of their leaders John earl of Lincoln, Francis lord Lovell, Thomas Broughton, the most bold Martin Schwartz and the Irish captain Thomas Geraldine were slain in that place, which they took alive in fighting (sic).  Polydore Vergil Anglica Historia (published in 1534)

Next we come to Edward Hall, a lawyer, whose manuscript, yet another littered with inaccuracies,  was published after his death in 1547.  Hall took the safe route of reporting two different versions of Francis’ fate:

For there their chiefe capiteynes the erle of Lyncolne and the lorde Lovell, Syr Thomas Broughton Martyn swarde & the lord Gerardyne capiteyne of the Irishemen were slayne and founde dead.

Howbeyt, some aflfyrme that the lorde Luvell toke his horsse & would have fled over Trent, but he was not hable to recover the farther side for the highnes of the banke and so was drowned in the ryver.  Edward Hall in The Union Of The Two Noble And Illustre Famelies Lancastre & Yorke, (published in 1548)

Other following accounts include that by Raphael Holinshed:

For all the captain, there the cheeſe capteins, the earle of Lincolne, and the lord Lovell, Sir Thomas Broughton, Martine Sward, and the lord Gerardine capteine of the Irishmen were slaine, and found dead in the verie places which they had chosen alive to fight in, not giving one foot of ground to their adversaries.  Raphael Holinshed. Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland, (published in 1577)

Accounts by John Stow, Francis Bacon, John Speed conclude that Francis fell at Stoke (although Bacon also reported the story that Francis had left the battle via the River Trent).  An account by  Sir Richard Baker added that the cause of death was drowning:

…the Earl of Lincoln, the Lord Lovel, Sir Thomas Broughton, Martin Swart, and the Lord Gerardine, were all found dead in the very place where they had stood fighting; that though they lost the Battel, yet they won the reputation of hardy and stout Souldiers… …the Lord Lovel, some report, that attempting to save himself by flight, in passing over the River of Trent, he was drowned.  John Stow in his Summary of Chronicles (published in 1598), his Annales of England (1600), and Edmund Howe in his Continuation of Stows Annals (1531): Francis Bacon (1561 – 1626) in The History of Henry VII of England, (published in 1622): John Speed : History of Great Britain (published in 1623)

Lastly is the account by Thomas Carte which published in 1750 had knowledge of the story of the underground vault:

The lord Lovel, seeing all lost, swam the Trent on horseback which occasioned at that time various reports; some representing him as drowned in the river, through a steepness of its banks, which doth not appear at this day; others, as escaping, and living long after in a cave or vault.

This last notion is countenanced by a discovery, made about sixty years ago on occasion of a new building at his seat of Minster-Lovel, near Witney in Oxfordshire of a room under ground, in which was found the figure of a venerable old man sitting in a great chair, resting his elbow on a table, and supporting his head with one of his hands: but the whole frame dissolved into dust, soon after the air entered.  Thomas Carte: General History of England (published in 1750)

Thus concludes a summary of the twenty accounts.  There then follows a discussion of the findings/conclusions, too lengthy for me to include here in much depth,  excepting the part of the summary which focuses on the reasons that Francis would have left the battlefield alive.  

Why did Lovel leave the battlefield?

‘The overwhelming probability from these two accounts is that Lovel left the battlefield alive but that raises the question of why he did so.  Lovel was the only combatant that the two eye-witnesses reported to have left the battlefield and both of them identified him by name. When the rebels had been routed they left the battlefield as a fleeing mob so it is unlikely that any individual could have been identified at that time. Thus Lovel must have left before the rebels were defeated.

The two possible reasons for a senior commander to leave a battlefield whilst the fighting continued are cowardice or the need for medical treatment of his wounds. There is little reason to consider Lovel a coward because he had demonstrated his bravery from when he and Richard served Edward in the Scottish campaign when he was knighted by Richard at Berwick in 1481 up to the time he attempted to rouse a rebellion in Yorkshire in 1486. If he had become a coward later he had plenty of opportunities to abandon the present rebellion before arriving at the battlefield but he did not take them.

The only remaining reason is that Lovel left the battlefield because he was unable to continue the fight due to wounds received in the battle. There is no evidence as to the extent of his wounds but they must have been severe to have caused him to leave whilst his colleagues were still fighting. It is possible that he was incapacitated and unable to make the decision to leave the battlefield himself and was taken away by his bodyguard’.

Thus ends Part 1 ‘Departures’.  I hope to, at a later date, do a similar post for Part 2 ‘Destinations’.  Ted White’s paper can be found amongst the Members Research Papers on the Richard III Society Website.  If you are a member of the Society and have not yet read this paper I strongly recommend you to do so.  It is a veritable mine of information.  Once again many thanks Ted. 

                                               **********************

Now I turn to the rather lurid story of the remains of a man found sitting at a table in a hidden room at Minster Lovell Hall when a new chimney was being built.    However no remains of this room has ever been discovered at Minster Lovell according to English Heritage who are now in ownership of the ruins.  David Baldwin has suggested, plausibly, that the remains could have been that of a priest who had died while hiding in a priest hole at a later time. Anyway the story, dubious though it may be,  for clarity,  has to be repeated:

‘On the 6 May, 1728, the present Duke of Rutland related in my hearing that, about twenty years then before viz in 1708, upon occasion of new laying a chimney at Minster Lovel there was discovered a large vault or room underground, in which was the entire skeleton of a man, as having been sitting at a table, which was before him with a book, paper, pen, etc. etc., in another part of the room lay a cap, all much mouldred and decayed.  Which family and others judged to be this lord Lovel whose exit hath hitherto been so uncertain’.   William Cowper, Clerk to the Parliament, written on 9th August 1737 to Francis Peck

However in 1742, like the proverbial Chinese Whisper the story had altered in some details.  The room was no longer damp i.e. the cap all much mouldred and decayed but dry and dusty i.e. with the admission of air the body fell to dust.  

in a Vault was found the Person of a Man, in very rich Cloathing, seated in a Chair with a Table and a Mass-Book before him. The Body of whom was yet entire, when the Workmen entered, but upon Admission of the Air, soon fell to Dust.   James Anderson writing in 1742.

The skeleton, it was said, crumbled into a pile of dust on exposure to the air.  Which I think is fairly safe to say is utter nonsense.  However people then as now are disinclined to let the truth get in the way of good and lurid fiction.

In any event as David Baldwin points out  ‘the discovery does not ‘prove’ the identity of the corpse. We must remember that the two centuries which had elapsed since Lovel’s disappearance had witnessed marked political and religious upheavals, and it would not be remarkable if the body were that of a later fugitive, immured in a priest’s ‘hole’.  Cowper himself recorded that clerkly items such as a book, a pen, and paper were found in the chamber, but, significantly perhaps, there is no mention of a sword! But this being said, there is ostensibly no reason why Lovel should not have retired into Oxfordshire after the battle and found refuge with his former servants in the great house’.  

This scenario begs the question would Francis have risked returning to his former home which had been granted to Henry Tudor’s uncle,  Jasper duke of Bedford,  in March 1486?

There is also a local story that he was buried in Gedling Church

THE SEARCH

We now return to Anne lady Lovell.  Not knowing what had befallen Francis, it is at this remove,  impossible to say whether he managed to get a message to his wife.   Nor would she, under the circumstances, let it be known that he had done so.   However it was Anne and her mother,  Alice lady Fitzhugh,  who made strenuous and brave efforts to try to find Francis,  sending Sir Edward Franke, northwards in search of him.   It should be remembered that Alice was the daughter of Richard Neville, earl of Salisbury and thus sister to the Richard Neville who became later known as the Kingmaker.    Clearly Anne and especially her mother were not pushovers.   In a letter dated 24 February and probably 1488 Alice wrote to Sir John Paston (6).  This letter strongly indicates that his wife and mother-in-law knew that Francis had at least survived Stoke. 

‘Also my doghtyr Lovell makith great sute and labour for my sone hir husbande.  Sir Edward Franke hath bene in the North to inquire for hym; he is comyn agayne and cane nogth understonde wher he is.  Wherfore her benevolers willith hir to continue hir sute and labour; and so I can not departe nor leve hir as ye know well; and if I might be there, I wold be full glad, as knowith our Lorde God, Whoo have you in His blissid kepynge. 

It seems from the letter that Anne had perhaps had a breakdown or was in a highly emotional state.  The search for Francis was, as we now know, futile. However it is not beyond the realms of possibility that he did manage to get a message to her which she may have concealed in order to protect him.  It seems that Anne may have entered a religious order as in December 1490 an annuity was granted to her describing her as ‘Beloved in Christ,  Anne lady Lovell‘.  Her date of death is unknown but when a second attainder was enacted against her husband  in 1495 she was described as Anne Viscountess Lovell, late wife of the said Fraunces late Viscount Lovell ( 7).

THE LOVELL TOMB IN ST KENELM’S CHURCH, MINSTER LOVELL.

Effigy in Minster Lovell Church.  The tomb has been identified by E A Greening Lamborn  as that of  William Lovell who died in 1455.    However there have been arguments that it could possibly be his son John who died in 1465.  William Lovell was the grandfather of Francis Lovell.

We should not leave without a mention of the beautiful Lovell tomb in St Kenelm’s church which stands close to Minster Lovell Hall.   It is generally accepted that the tomb is that of  William Lovell grandfather to Francis.   E.A. Greening Lamborn, local historian and archaeologist identified it as such although Monika E Simon’s veers toward the tomb being that of William’s son,  John.  See her article published in the Ricardian here (8) (9). 

  1.  What happened to Lord Lovel?*  richardiii.net.  David Baldwin.

  2. The Princes in the Tower (2023), p.174. Updated edition (2025), p.176. Philippa Langley 

  3. Lambert Simnel and the Battle of Stoke p45. Michael Bennett.

  4. The Heralds Memoir 1486-1490 p. 117.  Edited by Emma Cavell
  5. What happened to Lord Lovel?* . richardiii.net. David Baldwin
  6. Ibid.
  7. Ibid.
  8. The Lovel Tomb at Minster, Oxford Archaeological Report  vol.83 (1937), pp. 17-18 
  9. Who is Buried in the Tomb in St Kenelm’s Church, The Ricardian June 2009. Monika E Salmon.

 

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A SUMMARY OF THE LIFE OF FRANCIS VISCOUNT LOVELL AND HIS MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE – PART ONE.

Francis Viscount Lovell’s Stall Plate, St Georges Chapel, Windsor. Image thanks to the Heraldry Society:  ‘Francis Viscount Lovell & de holand Burnett deynccort & Grey.’  Note also the silver fox and the mantling strewn with another Lovell badge, padlocks.

Another of the enduring mysteries from the period now known as the Wars of the Roses – the predominant being, of course, the disappearance of the ‘Missing Princes’ – was the fate of Francis Viscount Lovell (b.c.1456 d.after 1488). He appears to have disappeared, literally, into the mists of time last seen – it said – escaping the aftermath of the Battle of Stoke (16 June 1487) swimming away on his horse across the river Trent? Maybe, maybe…. We will return to this later…

The Last Stand of Martin Schwartz and his German Mercenaries at the Battle of Stoke Field 16th June 1487.  Artist Henry Marriot Paget.  Cassell’s Century Edition History of England c.1901.

Francis Lovell is credited with being best and most loyal friend to Richard III, a friendship which begun when they were both still children at Middleham Castle, Yorkshire, under the care of Richard Neville, earl of Warwick. Francis, in terms of a 15th century nobleman, has come down to us as a ‘good egg’.

Lovell is beloved amongst Ricardians and a favourite character in Ricardian novels.  Who can forget the evocative description left to us by the late Rosemary Hawley Jarman who in her outstanding novel We Speak No Treason painted an emotive picture of Lovell and other followers of Richard’s  bidding last farewells to their dead king after Bosworth.  Francis is described as wearing a hermit’s robe carelessly donned, with the strength of his mail winking beneath it. They say that the church filled up from porch to rood screen with men who entered like ghosts and wept like babes. There was running feet and a voice that burst through the whispering silence with ‘My lord, my Lord Lovell!’ – crying that they were hanging the prisoners and fugitives in Leicester market and Lovell must fly at once and for answer came only the deep dreadful sound of mens grief. The hasty feet clattered nearer and nearer, and stopped short, the voice said ‘Ah Dickon!’ as a child might wail in the night, then swore like a man in the face of murder and the church was filled with love and hate and vengeance and a heaviness that one could touch with the hand’.  Ah! fabulous stuff but back to reality….!

However a contemporary of Francis, William Colynbourne/Collingbourne, was less than respectful, referring to him as ‘Lovell the dogge‘  perhaps with a nod to his loyalty to Richard or even a reference to the silver fox emblem of the Lovell family.   The now infamous rhyme, which he audaciously pinned upon a doorway at old St Paul’s Cathedral on the 18 July 1484 read: 

The Catte, the Ratte and Lovel our dogge

Ruleth all Englande under a Hogge

Colynbourne had his own personal axe to grind possibly having copped the needle following Richard writing to his mother, Cicely Neville, on the 3 June 1484, requesting that she replace her man Colynbourne, with his man, Lovell:  ‘my lord Chamberlaine..be your officer in Wiltshire in such as  Colynborne had...’    Colyngbourne, was later to get the chop, or hung drawn and quartered to be precise, under a charge of treason for another matter, although I should imagine the rhyme was well and truly burnt into everyones memories present at his trial.  But I have galloped too far forward here….

FAMILY 

Francis descended from a wealthy high status family traceable back to Robert d’Ivry,  Lord of Breheval/Breherval/Bréval and Yvery/Ivry-la-Bataille,  Normandy.  One account records Robert as having accompanied William the Conqueror to England in 1066 and he is indeed listed on the Roll of Battle Abbey.   Whether he arrived in 1066 or later he was rewarded by the Conqueror with the lordships of Kary/Cary and Herpetreu/Harptree in Somerset but returned to Normandy where overtaken by ill health he retired to the Abbey of Bec and became a monk (1).   

One of Robert’s sons, Ascelin Goël, acquired the nickname of ‘Lupus’ – latin for wolf – because of his violent temper while his son went by the epithet of ‘Lupulus’ –  wolf cub – which in time morphed to Lupel and then to ‘Lovell’.   Indeed the Lovell family emblem is a silver wolf with a nod to their tetchy ancestor.   Here is a link to more information about Francis Lovell’s Norman ancestry also an interesting book detailing the genealogy of the Lovell family 

Moving on to 1252,  Robert’s descendant,  John Lovell, succeeded to the family estates in Norfolk, Suffolk, Oxfordshire and Wiltshire.  John married a wealthy heiress, Maude de Sydenham, heiress of Sir William de Sydenham,  gaining himself the Lordship of Titchmarsh, Northamptonshire,  in the process.   John’s successor was another John who served Edward I in Wales in 1277.  This John was summoned to Parliament and became the first Lord Lovell.  His son, yet another John,  2nd Baron Lovell (d.1314),  married Maude Burnell,  sister and heiress of Edward Lord Burnell.  Both John and Edward fought at Bannockburn which John did not survive.   Maude’s father was Sir Philip Burnell of Acton and her mother was Maude sister of Richard Fitzalan earl of Arundel.  

John, 3rd Baron Lovell – I hope you are keeping up at the back dear reader – having never been summoned to Parliament was never technically a lord.  Still,  he was a close friend and companion of Edward III, fighting at Crécy and the siege of Calais.  Dying in somewhat mysterious circumstances in 1347 it has been suggested that he may have been murdered (2).  He was succeeded by John Lovell, 4th Baron of Titchmarsh,  who died a minor c.1361

The fifth baron, yet another John (d.1408)) married yet another Maude (d.1423)  who was yet another heiress being the daughter of Robert de Holand/Holland.   In 1391 this John Lovell would be found taking proceedings ‘against evil doers who had prevented him from reaching his house at Minsterlovell’ (3).

In 1408 the inheritance passed to the eldest son, another John (obviously) the 6th lord Baron (d.1414) who married Alianore/Eleanor la Zouch (1367-1429) the daughter of William la Zouch.  This John was succeeded by his son William, 7th Baron (d.1455) who married Alice Deincourt (b.c.1403-d.c.1473)  widow of  Ralph Butler/Boteler of Sudeley.  Interestingly Ralph Butler was the father-in-law of Eleanor Butler née Talbot,  who would prove to be the rock that the House of York would later founder upon.  It is to William that we owe the building of the beautiful second Minster Lovell Hall upon the site of the earlier ruinous one.  I now need a lie down in a darkened room.

The enchanting and enigmatic ruins of Minster Lovell, Oxfordshire standing on the banks of the River Windrush.  Rebuilt by Francis’s grandfather William Lovell and later home to Francis and his wife Anne.  King Richard III stayed here during his Royal Progress in 1483. Photo with thanks to Colin Whitaker.

William’s son,  John 8th Baron (1432-1465) married Joan Beaumont and it was they who would go on to become the parents of Francis.  Joan’s parents were John Beaumont Ist Viscount Beaumont 1409-1460 –  who died fighting for Lancaster at the  Battle of Northampton on the 10th July 1460 –  and his first wife,  Elizabeth Phelip (d.before 1441) daughter of William Phelip, Baron Bardolph.  Following Elizabeth’s death,  John Beaumont had married Katherine Neville (c.1397-d.1483) –  dowager duchess of Norfolk and aunt to Richard Neville earl of Warwick  ‘The Kingmaker’ and two kings,  Edward IV and Richard III. 

Following John Lovell’s death in January 1465 Joan, moving swiftly on, married none other than Sir William Stanley in November of the same year, dying herself on the 5 August 1466 possibly,  judging by the timeframe,  in childbirth.   It would later transpire at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485 that Stanley’s betrayal would play a pivotal role in the defeat and death of Richard III to whom Francis was such a close friend.  

CHILDHOOD

As with his death date his date of birth is also unknown but it has been suggested he could have been aged anywhere between seven to nine years old at the time of his father’s death in the Autumn of 1465.  Rosemary Horrox believes the younger age more likely given the date he received livery of his lands (4). 

Francis joined Warwick’s household around 1465 which probably coincided with the arrival of Richard duke of Gloucester,  who was about two years older than him.  Following the death of his mother in August 1466 Francis became an extremely valuable orphan.  

The gatehouse of Middleham Castle, north east tower.  Created c.1400.  Photo thanks to english-heritage.org.uk

By the time his wardship and lands were granted to Richard Neville, earl of Warwick –  later known as the Kingmaker – on the 13 November 1467,  Francis had already been married for about a year to Warwick’s niece, Anne Fitzhugh, the daughter of Henry, Lord Fitzhugh (1429-1472) of Ravensworth and Alice, daughter of Richard Neville, earl of Salisbury (1400-1460) and Alice Montague (c.1406–1462).  

Francis’ maternal grandfather,  John, Viscount Beaumont,  had fallen at the battle of Northampton fought on the 10 July 1460.   It’s likely that his widow,  the formidable Katherine Neville, dowager Duchess of Norfolk and Viscountess Beaumont, thus stepmother to his daughter,  Joan,  Francis’ mother, was influential in getting the small boy placed in Warwick’s household.   Katherine was one of the wealthiest and influential  women in England with close familial links to the two most powerful men in the realm, aunt to both Warwick and Edward IV,  and it’s reasonable to surmise that she would have felt responsible for the wellbeing of both her stepdaughter and step-grandson.    The placing together of  Francis and the slightly older Richard duke of Gloucester led to a burgeoning friendship that was to endure throughout their lives.

Young Francis was both royal ward and convenient source of income until he reached his majority.  During his sojourn in the Warwick household this income from the massive Lovell estates was utilised to cover Richard’s heavy expenses in Warwick’s household via a grant of £1000 per annum.    By the bestowal of this  enormous grant to Warwick Edward IV was able ‘to ensure that his brother was lavishly maintained as behoved his status while transferring the cost of this to somebody else  – in this case the young Francis Lovell. The grant also enabled Warwick to enjoy the reflective glory of bringing up his royal cousin as well as discharging a chivalric  obligation to both his king and a kinsman at no expense to himself. Needless to say neither the young Francis nor his mother Joan appeared to have had say  in the matter’ .   Furthermore ‘for Edward this had the advantage of solving the problem of his brother’s upbringing and education at a suitably prestigious household with no financial burden for him to shoulder. This would certainly appear to be in keeping with what we know about Edward IV’s character in his predilection  for finding the easiest option and for playing fast and loose legally with vulnerable inheritances’ (5). 

Edward IV.  Society of Antiquaries of London. 

Although Warwick was in receipt of the  £1,000 per annum from the rental income of the Lovell estates for the upkeep of Richard of Gloucester he was not given the wardship of Francis and his estates until 1467.  This arrangement would continue until the relationship between Edward and Warwick faltered – through a combination of factors – and then broke down irretrievably in 1469-70 with Richard,  then aged 16,  having been removed by early 1469.    This situation after various twists and turns which – are well documented elsewhere  –  culminated in Warwick’s death at Barnet on the 14th April 1471.  In one of history’s twists Richard of Gloucester, then aged 18,  was present that day.  It is not known what his thoughts were on seeing the corpse of the man who had played such an influential role in his life but he did go on to marry Warwick’s daughter, Anne,  who had also shared part of her childhood with both Gloucester and Lovell.  But I’ve wandered off onto a tangent here…  

Following Warwick’s death at Barnet,  Francis’  wardship was granted on 11 July 1471 to the king’s brother-in-law John de la Pole, duke of Suffolk.  This would have been where he made the acquaintance of Suffolk’s son,  John later earl of Lincoln, yet another friendship that was to endure down the years until disaster and tragedy overtook them all. 

MARRIAGE

By the time the wardship and custody of Francis and control of his lands were granted on 13 November 1467 to Richard Neville, earl of Warwick,  he had been already been married to Warwick’s niece, Anne Fitzhugh , aged about five, the daughter of Henry, Lord Fitzhugh of Ravensworth,  North Yorkshire,  and Warwick’s sister Alice,  since 1466.   Henry Fitzhugh, was a long standing Neville ally –  having supported the Earl of Salisbury in the 1450s  – and Warwick’s deputy on the West March in 1466. He followed Warwick into rebellion in 1469–70 later being pardoned as were Francis and Anne Lovell by Edward IV in 10 September 1471.  Henry died on the 8 June 1472 (6). 

Just prior to Warwick’s death at Barnet in 1471  Francis may have been living with Anne’s family at Ravensworth Castle, Yorkshire as he and the Fitzhugh family were all jointly included in the September 1471 pardon.  As was the custom of the times, Francis and Anne would have begun living together as a married couple when she attained the age of about 16, perhaps even a little earlier.   We do know that they were certainly living together by early 1477 because a letter written by Dame Elizabeth Stonor to her husband, Sir William Stonor on the 6 March of that year mentions that she had sent tokens, i.e. gifts,  to both Francis and Anne as Sir William had instructed her to do:

And Syr,  I have sent my lorde Lovell a tokyn and my ladys, as ye comaunde me to do,  schache as schalle plese them…. (7).  Unsurprisingly not a lot is known about their marriage but later events would lead to the conclusion that  their union would develop into a love match.  We will return to this later…

BECOMING LORD LOVELL

 On the II July 1471 the wardship of Francis and  his estates were granted jointly to the king’s brother-in-law,  John de la Pole, duke of Suffolk and his wife Elizabeth,  sister to Edward IV,  to be held during his minority although the king, bearing in mind the future death of the ageing Alice Deincourt,  Francis’ aunt,  exempted any lands which might come to  Francis in the future – which is precisely what happened with the death of the said Alice in 1474.  

 Finally on the 6 November 1477 ‘Francis became Lord Lovell, possessor of the largest estate below that of an earl in England,  one of the twelve richest peers in England and possessor of a wide inheritance stretching from Oxfordshire to Yorkshire and from Essex to Shropshire.  Lovell now received a summons to Parliament indicating that his minority was over and he now had become a man of estate and, as such, able to play a role in the affairs of state’ (8). 

Once again Francis joined the orbit of Richard duke of Gloucester,  being knighted by the duke at Berwick on the 22 August 1481 during the Scottish campaign which was upgraded to Viscount in January 1483.  No doubt they were bonded by joint memories of childhood years spent together.  Their childhoods had borne some similarity in parts, a mix of extraordinary privilege, the loss of one or both parents at a young age and times that must have been both confusing and stressful witnessing how great men could also fall as well as rise.

The alabaster effigies of John de la Pole and his wife, Elizabeth Plantagenet, parents of John de la Pole, earl of Lincoln. Wingfield Church, Suffolk.  Elizabeth was sister to Edward IV and Richard III.

LIFE AS THE KING’S FRIEND

When Richard of Gloucester became King Richard III on the 6th July 1483 things took another upward turn for Francis.  Both he and his wife would play important roles at Richard’s coronation,  with Francis carrying the Sword of Justice to the Temporality which was carried unsheathed and pointing upwards during the coronation procession.   Prior to this, possibly in his capacity as Chamberlaine of the King’s household,  he had been charged with the task of finding a suitable riche rynge for Anne Neville, Richard’s wife and soon to be queen,  which after being blessed by an archbishop would be placed upon the fourth finger of her right hand at the moment of her crowning.  We know this because in the margin of the Little Device for the coronation of Richard III a note was made: Remembre A Ryng that Lovell shall ordeyne for (9).   Anne was of course the daughter of Richard Neville earl of  Warwick and all three would have shared memories of their childhood days at Middleham and the great Kingmaker.  

Anne lady Lovell also had a significant role to play in the crowning of her cousin,  Queen Anne,  being allocated viij yerdes scarlet for a coronation robe as well as two gowns, one a longe gowne maade of vj yerdes of blue velvet purfiled (i.e.  bordered)  with v yerdes and quarter of crymysyn satyn and the other  a long gowne maade of vij yerdes of crymysyn velvet and purfiled with v yerdes and j quarter of white damask…(10).

It must have seemed the perfect day for the couple with Francis’ life now even more on the up and up,  concluding with a magnificent banquet.  The banquet lasted longer into the  summer evening than it should have, breaking up by torch light,.   Apparently  the third course was never served because Richard talked so much.   It was  the end of an unforgettable day and as the guests departed ‘wher yt lyked them best‘   they would have noticed the conduit in Westminster Yard  had been filled with a tun of red wine.  

Old print of Westminster Hall venue of the King Richard III and Queen Anne Neville’s Coronation Feast

This seems a good place to leave Francis and Anne on what must have been the most memorable days of their lives.  

If you would like to read Part Two of this post you can read it here. 

  1. A Biographical Genealogy of the Lovell Family p.p.17-18. May Lovell Rhodes and T D Rhodes. c.1924.
  2. Last Champion of York, Francis Lovell.  Richard III’s truest Friend. p.15.  Stephen David.
  3. Minster Lovell Hall. p.19. English Heritage. A J Taylor CBE, MA, D Litt formerly Chief Inspector of Ancient Monuments.
  4. Lovell, Francis, Viscount Lovell Oxford Dictionery of National Biographies 23 September 2004. Rosemary Horrox.

  5. Last Champion of York. Francis Lovell, Richard III’s Truest Friend p.p.18-19.  Stephen David.

  6. The Kingmaker’s Sisters p p.77-78. David Baldwin.

  7. Kingsford’s Stonor Letter and Papers 1290-1483 p.297. Edited by Christine Carpenter. 

  8. Last Champion of York p.45  Stephen David.
  9. The Coronation of Richard III The Extant Documents p.41 & 224. Edited by Anne F Sutton and P W Hammond.
  10. Ibid. p.169.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The meeting of the Three Estates – 25th June 1483

imageArtist’s impression of the offer of the Kingship to Richard, Duke of Gloucester, Baynards Castle by the Three Estates of the Realm.  Mural in the Royal Exchange.  Artist Sigismund Goetz. 

I am happy to have a guest post written by Brian Wainwright first published on Murrey&Blue back in 2018.  It’s an eloquent, succinct explanation of the tricky situation that evolved in London in June 1483 after the breaking of the staggering news that Edward V,  being illegitimate,  could not take the throne.  It also addresses allegations that the Three Estates and Londoners were in fear of a large army imposed on them by Richard, then Duke of Gloucester, imminently about to become Richard III. 

Over to Brian…

It was not the first time that a Convention Parliament* had effectively determined the succession. We might look at, for example, the precedent of 1399, when just such an assembly deposed Richard II and (in effect) elected Henry IV, who was not even Richard II’s right heir. (He was the heir male, but strangely enough did not claim on that basis.) Of course, in 1399 Henry’s very large army was in place in the London area, and it would have been difficult for the Parliament to have rejected him, even had it wished to do so.

Richard, Duke of Gloucester, had no equivalent army in London when the Three Estates met. It is worth remembering that Parliament could reject claims to the throne it did not care to approve. The obvious example is that of Richard’s own father, Richard, Duke of York, who had his very strong claim rejected in 1460.  Peers did not show up at Parliament unattended, and if they had strongly objected to Richard’s claim they could easily have mobilised their forces against him, if necessary.  The fact is, they chose not to do so.

It seems certain that evidence of Edward IV’s bigamy was presented to the Estates.  Sadly, we do not know the details and never will.  But it is certain that among the bishops there were no shortage of theologians, any one of whom could have stood up and protested against the accession of Gloucester at very little personal risk to themselves.  True, they might conceivably have been imprisoned, but what is that to a senior churchman when the immortal soul is at risk?  In 1399, the Bishop of Carlisle objected openly to Richard II’s deposition, and was imprisoned for it, but he survived. There is no evidence of any bishop speaking up for Edward V.

Finally, it is sometimes argued that the legitimacy of Edward V was a matter that ought to have been determined by a Church court.  However, the idea that the Parliament of England in the late fifteenth century would allow the succession to be determined by one or more bishops, or even by the Pope, is rather naive.  It was, after all, only half a century later that Thomas More and Richard Rich agreed between themselves that Parliament had the power to make Richard Rich king, if it chose to do so.

So there we have it.  This may be hard to digest by traditionalists and their followers who have long accused Richard of ‘usurping’ the throne by force and allowed to do so by a cowered Three Estates but there it is.   Yet another myth.   In summary, Richard’s northern  troops did not arrive until after Richard had been offered the crown and accepted it.  Thus there was no need for a large armed force  to be present in London – nor had they even arrived in London at that point –   to enforce Richard’s will upon a tyrannised, browbeaten Three Estates and an equally unwilling population (1).

*A Convention Parliament is one that acts without the usual royal authority….

  1. Richard III: The Road to Bosworth Field p.p. 114.117. P W Hammond and Anne E Sutton

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PRINCES IN THE TOWER: A DAMNING DISCOVERY: PROFESSOR TIM THORNTON AND DR TRACY BORMAN: ‘A SMOKING GUN’ OR A SHOOTING OF THEMSELVES IN THE FOOT?

Professor Thornton shows Jason Watkins and Dr Tracy Borman his ‘new discovery’  that no one has ever seen before but only they have….  Channel 5 Documentary ‘Princes in the Tower: Damning Discovery’

Where to begin…should I even do so?  But needs must….   Around early November 2024 it had begun to be mooted about on social media that Dr Tracy Borman, author, historian and co-curator of Historic Royal Palaces would soon announce an amazing discovery including  damning evidence that would prove that King Richard III had indeed murdered his nephews, Edward V and Richard duke of York.   All would finally be revealed on the 3rd December when a Channel 5 documentary entitled Princes in the Tower: A Damning Discovery, co-presented with Professor Tim Thornton and actor Jason Watkins, was finally broadcast.  Jason Watkins is an interesting choice of co-host being extremely likeable, affable and, with an air of honesty about him, a throughly good egg.  Was he chosen for these very attributes so as to lend an air of integrity to the documentary ?  Although a fine actor he comes across as not being particularly au fait with the period,  accepting all  ‘evidence ‘ without question and accompanied with quite a bit of Oooohing and Aaaahing.

 Jason went on to mention that the story of the Princes has fascinated him since childhood although any research he may have made into the story must have been rudimentary  because if he had done so he would have been aware that it is far from certain that ‘two children have been murdered’ as he emphatically states.   He further expounds on the matter – unfortunately –  ‘but Richard was not content to be just  Lord Protector – he crowned himself king – and the princes were never seen again’.….Yikes!   Just prior to the broadcasting of the programme a statement was issued by the Richard III Society followed by a post on the https://riiiresearch.blogspot.com which I will return to later.  In the interim interested parties  would wonder what on earth this ‘damning evidence‘ could possibly be.  Was it perhaps a newly discovered letter penned by Richard on the eve of Bosworth in which he finally owned up to the slaughter of his brother’s two young sons but he had been between a rock and a hard place and had no choice? Or perhaps a diary entry written by his mother, Cecily Neville,  revealing that she had known all along that her son had done in his two nephews but it had been cruel necessity?  Or maybe an admission from Bishop Robert Stillington that he had fabricated the evidence that he had presented to Parliament in 1483 proving the pre-contract, i.e. marriage,  between Edward IV and  Lady Eleanor Butler née Talbot?   Or had Sir James Tyrell’s confession finally been unearthed? What on earth could it be?  

Finally the documentary was broadcast enabling us to look at each presenters input…

Photo with thanks to the National Archives.

Professor Tim Thornton, Deputy Vice Chancellor of the University of Huddersfield, announces a ‘new discovery’ to an incredulous Borman and Watkins.  “You are the first people to see this”.    Oh dear.   He then indicates a large tome that contains the will of Margaret,  Lady Capell (d.1522), widow of Sir William Capell (b.1448-d.1515) (1).  

How exciting…. if only it were true…

This would be a good place to point out that far from being a ‘new discovery‘ the will has been known about since at least 1826 when it was published with other old wills in Testamenta Vetusta edited by Sir Nicholas Harris Nicholas (2).   Furthermore that was not the only occasion mention has been made of it : ‘In 1906, William Minet quoted Margaret’s bequest of Edward V’s chain in the introduction to an article on the Capell family.  In 1994, Diana Scarisbrick mentioned many of Margaret’s jewellery bequests, including Edward V’s chain, in a survey of fashions in late medieval jewellery. In 2015 Dr Susan James referred to it in the context of women’s voices in Tudor wills. She gave it as an example of women handing on relics with royal associations which ‘burnished the memory of the giver by announcing her associations with monarchy’. Professor Barbara Harris also used the will extensively in 2002 in a discussion of women’s pious bequests. There are probably others, but no previous scholar seems to have suggested that it provided any link with Sir James Tyrell… ‘   (3).  

Anyway to return to the documentary –

 “Wow!” exclaims Dr Borman…’ A chain of office –  of the king!?“.  ‘Yes!“ replies Professor Thornton despite the glaring fact that no description of the chain was given in the will  in glaring contrast to descriptions of the other gold chains bequeathed in the same will (see below).  Could this mean it was not too significant?  It should also be noted that ‘chains of office’ were more commonly known as collars.  This point is addressed  in a post on the Richard III Society research blogspot: ‘Noblemen typically owned various chains but the objects we might think of as chains of office were usually called collars. We do not know if Edward V had been king for long enough to acquire a personal chain associated with his status as king and it is unlikely that he would have been wearing one when held securely in the Tower. It also seems unlikely that Richard III would have chosen to reward Tyrell with such a distinctive relic of their shared crime since Tyrell could hardly have displayed his ownership without awkward questions being asked’ (4).   However one cannot let facts get in the way of a good story.   The chain mentioned in the will has now absolutely morphed into a Chain of Office and in a voiceover Jason Watkins announces that  ‘extraordinarily the will states that this chain of office once belonged to King Edward V,  the older of the princes in the Tower.  This ‘royal chain’ would have been completely unique to Edward and should never have been in private hands’.  Give Me Strength.  

The chain – of which no description was given in the will  – has now morphed into ‘King Edward’s royal chain of office’  as well as being ‘distinctive’ ...  

Anyway to continue…. This statement by Watkins is odd because Prof Thornton in a paper published in October 2024, shortly before the documentary,  clearly states that ‘…...it may be that the chain changed hands as part of a purely or largely financial transaction when the young king’s attendants and potentially some of his possession were being dispersed in the summer of 1483′ (5).   This contradiction leaves Professor Thornton somewhat hoisted by his own petard.

DR TRACY BORMAN

Worse still was to come when Dr Borman informs the viewers that she has discovered something extraordinary – which transpired to be the oft quoted report made by Dr John Argentine, the princes doctor,  describing Edward’s state of mind and that the young king like a victim prepared for sacrifice sought remission of his sins by daily confession and penance because he believed that death was facing him.   You really couldn’t make this up but then again it appears you could.   Rather than Dr Borman discovering Argentine’s narrative it has been freely available since 1934 when Mancini’s manuscript was discovered by historian C A J Armstrong.    Armstrong then went on to edit and publish his translation –  The Usurpation of Richard the Third: Dominicus Mancinus ad Angelum Catonem de Occupatione Regni Anglie per Riccardum Tercium Libellus – with a new updated translation by Annette Carson – Domenico Mancini de occupatione regni Anglie – published in 2021.    It is most astonishing and atrocious in equal measure when historians so publicly and blatantly ignore other historians/academics work in such a cavalier manner as this.

Rant over and moving on from this what did Professor Thornton conclude from Margaret Lady Capell’s will? – see the relevant part here:

‘Also I bequeth to my sonne sir Giles his faders cheyne which was yonge kyng Edwarde the vth. To have the forsaid stuffe and cheyne during his lyfe wt reasonable weryng upon the condition that after his decease I wille that yt remayn and be kept by myn executours to the use of Henry Capell and Edward Capell  from one to another And for defaulte of thise two childern I wille that my doughter Elizabeth Paulet shalhave the forsaid goodes….‘

Prof Thornton points out that  Margaret Lady Capell was sister-in-law to Sir James Tyrell  who has been, thanks to the sainted Sir Thomas More, unjustly accused – for what seems centuries –  of  the ‘murder’ of the two princes without any evidence other than a dodgy confession –  i.e. Tudor propaganda –  that no-one has actually ever seen.  Now ‘discover’ that evidence Dr Borman and Prof Thornton and you will have just reason to crow!   I won’t go into More’s lurid account of Sir James Tyrell here as it has been well discussed elsewhere.  Suffice to say that it is, in the main, totally implausible including the mention that Richard III –  who sitting on the toilet at the time – yes I kid you not –  did not appear to know who Tyrell was and a lowly page had to introduce them with is totally erroneous as well as daft.  To be fair to Sir Thomas though, he did point out, that at the end of the day,  no-one actually knew for sure what had happened to the boys – ‘some remain in doubt whether they were in his ( Richard’s) day destroyed or no.. ‘ and that he was merely repeating gossip blah blah blah – but that point is conveniently ignored by those who wish to hurl mud at a long dead king.  And there you go.  But I digress and back to the documentary.   Conveniently ignoring the fact that the chain had earlier belonged to her deceased husband, Sir William, Professor Thornton then arrives at the conclusion that Lady Capell had acquired the chain via Sir James Tyrell, who was her brother-in-law being married to her half sister Anne Arundel –  both of them sharing the same father.  Ergo this somehow proved that Tyrell was indeed involved in the murder of the two princes and that is how he acquired the chain.  It’s easy to lose the will to live at this point but plod on I must.   Matthew Lewis in a letter in the March edition of the Ricardian Bulletin puts it succulently : ‘The will explicitly states the chain belong to Sir William Capel before his death not to his wife, Lady Margaret.   This dilates the connection Professor Thornton is attempting to build with James Tyrell.  Sir William was a money lender who took numerous pieces of jewellery as security for loans to a multitude of people. There is not even a hint of who it came from to link it to Tyrell or how it came into Sir Williams possession so we don’t know where it come from.   A further question that lingers is whether the chain ever did belong to Edward V.  There is no proof of that it did and it wouldn’t be the first family heirloom to be gifted a dodgy pedigree to inflate its value either sentimental or financially. Maybe someone conned William into loaning more against it by pushing this story. So we don’t know if it really belonged to Edward V (6).  

Now here’s a thing.  Disappointingly Professor Thornton, so quick to capitalise on the link between the Capells and Sir James Tyrell,  conveniently omits to mention another even more important link – that of the Capells with the Grey family/Marquesses of Dorset.   Thomas Grey, 2nd Marquess of Dorset  (b.1477-d.1530) was godfather to Sir William and Lady Capell’s grandson, Henry.   Thomas Grey was the son of Thomas Grey, 1st Marquess of Dorset (b.1451-d.1501).  Now Thomas Grey, the 1st Marquess, was half brother to Edward V and Richard duke of York.  He was also the owner of Coldridge in Devon, where there is a strong theory, admittedly unproven at this stage but I live in hope, that Edward V was sent to live out his life there incognito known as John Evans.  Therefore if the chain had actually once belonged to Edward V it may well have passed through the hands of Thomas Snr  to the Capell family, perhaps via Thomas Jnr,  taking into consideration the link between them.   Unproven though it is I believe that the Coldridge theory has more substance to it than the flimsy nonsense put out in this rather absurd documentary but that of course would not fit everybody’s agenda. 

Regarding Professor Thornton suggestion that Sir James Tyrell was involved with the murder of the two princes.   It is highly possible that rather than murder them he actually escorted the younger boy from England to Flanders.   It’s known that towards the end of 1484 Sir James, this ‘ right trusty knight for our body and counsaillour ‘ was sent by Richard III  ‘over the See into the parties of Flaundres for diverse maters concernying gretely oure wele’ (7).   Was this task escorting the young Richard duke of York to the continent where he may have surfaced later as Perkin Warbeck? 

The Tyrell Crest.  A Boar’s head with peacock feathers issuing from its mouth.  15th century glass from the great east window Chapel of St Nicholas Gipping. Photo thanks to Gerry Morris @ Flikr

SIR WILLIAM CAPEL/CAPELL (c.1446-1515)

An interesting life.  Seriously rich he had many ups but a few downs too including in 1478 being in ‘custody for vilifying alderman Robert Drope’, ‘Imprisoned in the Tower for refusing to pay a fine of £2000 imposed for ‘failing to punish a false coiner; and finally for ‘supposed negligence during his mayoralty in 1504′ (8).  Not sure what Dame Margaret thought about that but it must have been interesting.   Twice Lord Mayor of London 1503-1504 and 1510,  served as  MP for the City of London 1491-2, 1512-4, 1515.  A member of the Worshipful Company of Drapers,  Alderman, his London home in Bartholomew Lane stood close to where the London Stock Exchange stands today and his name is still remembered today in nearby Capel Court.  He owned numerous other properties including Hadham Hall, Hertfordshire. Most interestingly he loaned money,  sometimes on the security of jewellery,  to various notables including to Henry VII’s wife, Elizabeth of York,  which was repaid in May 1502,   John Howard later duke of Norfolk and Lady Alice Fitzhugh, mother-in- law of Francis Lovell, Viscount Lovell.  (9).   It was by falling foul of Morton, Empson and Dudley by pluckily resisting their ‘exhortations’  to pay an enormous fine of £2000 that he was committed to the Tower where he was when Henry VII’s death in 1509 led to a pardon and freedom by Henry Jnr.  

He financed the building of a chapel on the south side of St Bartholomew by the Exchange where he was laid to rest after his death on September 6th 1515.  St Bartholomew by the Exchange was one of the churches destroyed in the Great Fire of London 1666.  It may be that Sir William’s remains were left undisturbed when the church was rebuilt in 1683.   However they were most certainly lost when this new church was demolished in 1840.  His will can also be found in Testamenta Vetusta but contains no mention of the chain (10).  

MARGARET LADY CAPEL/CAPELL

Lady Margaret survived her husband by several years dying in 1522.  Little did she know how much interest her will would evoke over five hundred years later.  Although she gave no desciption of the chain said to have belonged to Edward V she did go into more detail over other chains and jewellery.   Her will,  copies of which can be downloaded from the National Archives, is too difficult for me to decipher but the excellent riiiresearch.blogspot has the descriptions of the jewellery and chains mentioned in it:

To her daughter a gold chain bearing a rose of diamonds and three pearls; her son in law a long chain of fine gold with a long cross with a ruby; to her grandaughters a flat chain of worked gold with a cross set with a ruby and diamonds, a lesser flat chain hung with an agnes dei; to her grandson Edward she bequeathed a gold chain of twenty seven long links which she had brought from ‘one Rydley my lord of Kents servant’.  In most cases the weight of the item was also included (11). 

So it can clearly be gleaned from the above that chains of all types and value were a commonplace item of adornment among those fortunate to be able to afford them.  Margaret left the chain described as once belonging to Edward V to her son Sir Giles Capell.  Thereafter it disappeared into the mist of time.   

This image of Edward V from the window of Coldridge Church shows him wearing what look like fairly simple chains which clearly are not Chains of Office.  Therefore care should be taken not to automatically assume because a chain had once belonged to Edward that it was a Chain of Office.    Photo thanks to John Dike leader of the Missing Princes Project, Coldridge, Devon.

  1. Doc ref: PROB 11/19 National Archives.   
  2. Testamenta Vetusta.  Being Illustrations From Wills, of Manners,Customs, &c. As Well As Of The Descents And Possessions of Many Distinguished Families p.594. Ed. Sir Nicholas Harris Nicolas.
  3.  riiiresearch.blogspot.com Tuesday 10 December 2024  
  4. riiiresearch.blogspot.com Tuesday 10 December 2024.

  5. Sir William Capell and a Royal Chain:  The Afterlives (and death) of King Edward V: A Material Survival from Edward V’s Personal Effects, and Its Implications for Memories of the ‘Princes in the Tower’. Professor Tim Thornton. 

  6.  Ricardian Bulletin March2025 p.40. Edward V , the Capell Chain and that Smoking Gun…..
  7.  Harleian MSS 433
  8.  History of Parliament 1439-1500 Biographies p.153. Josiah C Wedgwood. Published by His Majesty’s Stationery Office 1936.
  9. Privy Purse Expenses of Elizabeth of York p.12. Editor Sir Nicolas Harris Nicolas 1830.
  10. Testamenta Vetusta p.532. Editor Sir Nicolas Harris Nicolas 

  11. riiiresearch.blogspot.com Tuesday 10 December 2024.

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LADY ELEANOR BUTLER/BOTELER NÉE TALBOT – THE SECRET WIFE OF EDWARD IV & CATALYST FOR THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF YORK

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Unfortunately no reliable image has survived of Eleanor Butler/Boteler née Talbot but the above image of her younger sister, Elizabeth,  duchess of Norfolk, may give us some idea of her appearance.  15th century stained glass. Holy Trinity Church, Long Melford, Suffolk. 

Dear Reader –  since I begun the writing of this post, and doing some delving, as you do, I have to say I have changed my mind somewhat as to exactly how ‘secret’ the marriage of Lady Eleanor Talbot  (d.1468) and Edward IV (b.1442-d.1483) actually was – but more about that later.  This marriage, which I will refer to here as the Talbot marriage, made possibly in February 1461,  has been called a  ‘precontract’ which has confused some people into thinking it was merely some sort of engagement and not what it actually was – a legal and binding marriage.  That an earlier legally binding marriage had indeed taken place –  thus putting the legitimacy of the children of Edward and Queen Elizabeth Wydeville (c.1437-1492) in jeopardy – had certainly been mooted as early as 1478 because it was somewhere around then that Elizabeth had become aware she was in the awkward position of being the bigamous wife of Edward IV.   We know this because Mancini reported that by then she knew that by established custom (ie a long held belief) she was not the legal wife of the king (1).   Worse, much worse still,  was the fact that among those who were aware her marriage was bigamous was none other than her brother-in-law George, duke of Clarence,  who had links with Bishop Stillington who in turn had links to the Talbot marriage.  What to do?  Clearly the awful realisation would also have dawned on her that her marriage to Edward, being invalid,  rendered their children illegitimate and according to the canon laws of the times unable to inherit.  This applied especially to Edward’s heir Edward, Prince of Wales, who would be unable to inherit the throne upon the death of his father.   Presuming that Elizabeth had been unaware at the time of her ‘marriage’ to Edward the eventual dawning of the truth led a probably highly panicked Elizabeth to ‘persuade’ her husband,  apparently without too much difficulty,  to execute his brother to silence him.  Oh to have been a fly on the wall to witness those hairy scenes between Edward and Elizabeth!  Mancini’s report describing how the queen, and others,  knew about the first legal marriage derails the argument that it was nothing more than a falsehood and ruse invented in 1483 to enable Gloucester to take the throne.  Thus another myth bites the dust.  If it was indeed the case, as seems highly likely,  that the Talbot marriage was fairly common knowledge then it makes it difficult to understand how Richard duke of Gloucester was actually in the dark about it as late as 1483.  Did he indeed know about the story, but his well known loyalty to Edward led him to remain silent until his brother’s death and the emergence of the truth into the open forced his hand?  The existence  of Edward’s first legal marriage is supported by several primary sources i.e. Croyland Chronicler, Mancini, de Commynes and as mentioned even Edward’s queen, Elizabeth Wydeville. 

British (English) School; Edward IV (1442-1483)
Edward IV (1442-1483).  Society of Antiquaries, London. English.  Artist unknown.

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Elizabeth Wydeville.  Mancini reported that alarmed that she was not the true wife of Edward IV she persuaded  him to execute his brother, George duke of Clarence. Royal Collection, Windsor.

Lady Eleanor Butler/Boteler née Talbot (d.1468)

Eleanor was named in the Titulus Regius as the woman who was the first and legal wife of Edward IV,  making his later clandestine ‘marriage’ to Elizabeth Wydeville in May 1464 bigamous and the children from that marriage illegitimate and thus unable to take the throne.    It was de Commynes who stated that Edward and Eleanor’s marriage was witnessed by Robert Stillington who was not, at that point,  the Bishop of Bath and Wells,  but certainly a royal counsellor.  Quidquid at whatever point Stillington discovered the truth is not crucial to our story.  But find out he did for around the time of Clarence’s execution in 1478 the Bishop found himself swiftly incarcerated in the Tower of London as well as heavily fined.   I’ll return to this point later.  

Eleanor seemed for a long time just a mere footnote in 15th century history although she was at the epicentre of one of the most disruptive episodes from those times and indeed, it could be said, the catalyst for the fall of the House of York.   Who was she exactly, this widowed lady some of the chroniclers from the period and even modern historians have tried to brush under the carpet? Thanks to the late historian John Ashdown-Hill we actually now know quite a bit about her.  

CHILDHOOD

Eleanor came from an extremely high status family being the daughter of John Talbot, first earl of Shrewsbury (1387-1453) known as ‘Old Talbot’, and his second wife,  the formidable Margaret Beauchamp (1404 – 1467).

John Talbot lived a substantial part of his life as a soldier,  including a very long stint in France – four years of which were spent as a prisoner.  His military career is well documented elsewhere and I won’t go into it here.   He seems to have acquired a reputation for sometimes overstepping the mark and it was noted by a Welsh commentator that ‘from the time of Herod there came not anyone more wicked‘ (2).  However a propensity for violence was not deemed a handicap in those times.  He must have seen his family, including of course the young Eleanor, only rarely,  and it’s interesting to wonder what she made of him on those few occasions she did meet him.  Was she scared stiff of him or did he soften around his offspring?  Whatever it was his luck run out at the battle of Castillion on the 17 July 1453.   Perhaps it was not so much his luck running out because there is a story that he chose to ride into battle minus his armour which he had sworn never to don again in the field against the forces of the  French king, Charles (3).   Whether this actually happened I know not.  To the modern mind it’s a completely crackpot idea but for the medieval mindset no doubt it would have been viewed as not only rational but actually noble too!  What is certain however is that his son,  Eleanor’s brother, John Talbot, Ist viscount Lisle (born c.1426) also perished that day.   Talbot was viewed as an English hero and the French respected him enough him to raise a monument to him after his death:

“Such was the end of this famous and renowned English leader who for so long had been one of the most formidable thorns in the side of the French, who regarded him with terror and dismay” – Matthew d’Escourcy

He remained buried in France for forty years until his body was brought back to England by his grandson, Sir Gilbert, and interred, according to the terms of his will, in St Alkmund’s Church, Whitchurch, Shropshire (4).  Such was Eleanor’s father.

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John Talbot, Ist earl of Shrewsbury.  Note the talbot hound.  Detail from the Talbot Shrewsbury book. Shown presenting the book to Margaret of Anjou.

Her mother Margaret Beauchamp was the eldest daughter of Richard Beauchamp, earl of Warwick (1382-1439) and her mother was Beauchamp’s first wife Elizabeth Berkeley.   This Richard Beauchamp was also the father of Anne Beauchamp countess of Warwick suo jure  (1426-1492) whose mother was Beauchamp’s second wife, Isobel Dispenser – please keep up at the back Dear Reader…..   Anne Beauchamp married Richard Neville, earl of Warwick (1428-1471) later known as the ‘Kingmaker’.  Thus Eleanor was cousin to Queen Anne Neville, Richard III’s wife and Isobel Neville, duchess of Clarence, wife to George, duke of Clarence who was executed in 1478, an execution described by some historians, including Michael Hicks, as a judicial murder.  We will return to George later (5).  

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  Effigy of Richard Beauchamp in the Beauchamp Chapel of St Mary’s Church, Warwick.   Lady Eleanor Talbot’s illustrious grandfather. This wonderful effigy is the work of  William Austen.  Photo Aiden McRae Thomson @ Flkr.

FURTHER ILLUSTRIOUS FAMILIAL LINKS

 Eleanor also had three brothers and two sisters.  In one of history’s many strange quirks her elder brother John had a daughter, Elizabeth Talbot, (1451-1487) who became viscountess Lisle,  after marrying Edward Grey, viscount Lisle.  This Edward Grey’s brother was none other than Elizabeth Wydville’s first husband, Sir John Grey,  who had married her in 1452.  Elizabeth Talbot  would have still been a child when Sir John died possibly fighting for Lancaster at St Albans 1461 and it’s unlikely she met him.  However Elizabeth Talbot’s aunt, Elizabeth Talbot, Mowbray duchess of Norfolk, would surely have recalled the time when Queen Elizabeth Wydeville had been merely Lady Grey, and thus related by marriage to the Talbot family,  but she unfortunately left no indications of her thoughts on the bigamous Wydeville marriage and its disastrous results although she must have had them aplenty.  

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Elizabeth Talbot.  Eleanor’s niece. c1468.  Artist Petrus Christus of Bruge Gemäldegalerie, Berlin. May have been painted in Burgundy at the time of Margaret of York’s marriage to Charles the Bold 1468.  Elizabeth, Duchess of Norfolk would have been in Burgundy at that time and was accompanied by members of her family.

Eleanor’s above mentioned younger sister, Elizabeth, duchess of Norfolk, became the wife of John Mowbray, duke of Norfolk who died suddenly and unexpectedly during the night of 16–17 January 1476 (6).  Elizabeth’s three year old daughter Anne, now the wealthy Norfolk heiress, was married to the even younger Richard of Shrewsbury, duke of York.  You can read about Elizabeth and Anne’s tragic stories here and here.

These distinguished familial links stretched far and wide and appear to have gone somewhat unnoticed.  However illustrious her family line was, Eleanor seems prima facie to have been treated with scant respect by the young Edward IV although to be fair the circumstances of how they parted are very much lost in time.  Sir George Buc/Buck who had access to many ancient documents recorded in his History of Richard III that Edward ‘for a time loved the lady but later ‘too soon growing out of liking her he entertained others into the bosom of his pleasure’.    It was Buc who named Bishop Stillington as the priest who had conducted, or at least witnessed,  the marriage with ‘no persons being present, but they twain and he’  and also that ‘the king charged him very strictly that he should not reveal this secret to any man living’.    Buc also asserted that a child had been born from their union.  Perhaps Eleanor had a lucky escape for Edward would go on to earn a reputation of ‘ a gross man…. addicted to conviviality, vanity, drunkenness, extravagance, and passion‘.   And that is not all,  for Edward also gained a further reputation for using ladies and abandoning them,  even going so far as to hand them on to his courtiers whether they liked it or not:   ‘In carnal lust he indulged to an extreme, while his behaviour was also said to have been most insulting to many women after he had possessed them, for as soon as his lust was sated he passed them on, much against their will, to other members of his court.  Married or single, high-born or lowly, it made no difference.  However, he ravished none by force, all were prevailed upon by means of money or promises and having prevailed he dropped them’ (7).  

One less exalted, but intriguing, further link by marriage was that to  William Catesby.  a successful lawyer who was William, lord Hastings, protégé.  Eleanor’s father had a younger sister, Alice.  Alice married Sir Thomas Barre of Burford. They had a daughter Joan/Jane who married Sir Kynard de la Bere.  After she was widowed,  Joan would marry the widowed Sir William Catesby Snr, thus becoming our Catesby’s stepmother.  After Hastings execution William grew even more successful and even more wealthy.  It is tempting to speculate exactly how much he knew about the Talbot marriage.  The wily Henry VII had him executed two days after Bosworth.

Yet another interesting link is Eleanor’s step-mother-in-law –  Alice Lovell née Deincourt. Alice was the grandmother of Francis viscount Lovell – who is renowned for being a close and loyal friend to Richard III. 

The importance of these familial links should not be downplayed.  When Eleanor was named as the legal wife of Edward IV in the Titulus Regius it was as historian John Ashdown-Hill pointed out,  that her ‘rank and plausibility as a possible royal consort were immediately established’  and as well as being the daughter of an earl she was ‘equal in rank to Edward’s own mother, Cicely Neville (8).  It should be noted that none of her family stepped forward to complain about her being named as the wife of Edward IV which leads to the conclusion that she was indeed the lady Edward had married prior to his bigamous marriage to Elizabeth Wydeville.

FIRST MARRIAGE

Eleanor’s date of birth is unknown but her first marriage took place in 1450 when she married Sir Thomas Boteler whose father was Ralph Boteler, first baron Sudeley (c.1391-1473) when she was probably aged about 13-15 and Thomas 28.   Eleanor brought with her a generous dowry of £1000.  In return the Boteler family would have provided her jointure i.e. ‘the property which her father-in-law would provide her and her husband to live on and which Eleanor would retain for the rest of her life should she outlive her husband’ (9).  There is some confusion as to the date of Thomas’ death or the cause of it and we can only safely say he died some time prior to 1460. 

Following her marriage to Edward which according to John Ashdown Hill would have taken place around February 1461, Edward issued a grant to her former father-in-law:

‘exemption for life of Ralph Botiller, knight, Lord of Sudeley, on account of his debility and age from personal attendance in council or Parliament and from being made collector assessor or taxer….commissioner, justice of the peace, constable, bailiff, or other minister of the king, or trier, arrayer or leader of men at arms, archers, or hobelers. And he shall not be compelled to leave his dwelling for war’.

Three months later Edward further granted Ralph  ‘four bucks in summer and six in winter within the king’s park of Woodstock’.  However Edward’s generosity evaporated on the death of Eleanor on the 30th June 1468 in a volte-face described by historian John Ashdown-Hill  as nothing less than  a ‘hostility’ resulting in Ralph having to surrender his properties, including Sudeley, which then went, in the main, to the voracious relatives of Edward’s bigamous ‘wife’,  Elizabeth Wydeville (10). 

To return to the repercussions from Eleanor and Edward’s secret, private but perfectly legal marriage:

GEORGE, DUKE OF CLARENCE’S INVOLVEMENT. 

As we have seen such an explosive secret could not be kept under wraps forever and eventually rumours as well as repercussions begun to ripple out.  Edward’s chickens slowly begun to come home to roost.   To recap –  Edward’s brother George, duke of Clarence,  was a major fly in the ointment and it was, as mentioned above, certainly recorded at the time that his execution was brought about on the insistence of Elizabeth Wydeville, who having discovered she was in the awkward position of being the bigamous wife of Edward IV feared her children would lose their inheritances if George, duke of Clarence,  were allowed to survive (II).   This, obviously, means she knew that George had either uncovered or had been informed of the truth about the royal bigamous marriage, possibly via his closeness to Bishop Stillington or by his father-in-law, Richard Neville, earl of Warwick who was related by marriage to Eleanor.   Ergo George had to go and of this she ‘easily pursuaded’ the king (12). It was also noted at the time that ‘after this deed (his brother’s execution) many people deserted King Edward’  who also ‘privately repented, very often of what had been done’ (13).  Which was not surprising considering the true reason for eliminating his own brother.  The Tudor historian, Vergil also recorded ‘yt ys very lykly that king Edward right soone repentyd that dede; for, as men say, whan so ever any sewyd for saving a mans lyfe, he was woont to cry owt in a rage ‘O infortunate broother, for whose life no man in this world wold once make request’  Professor Hicks gives a very good account of George’s life, trial and execution –  described as a ‘judicial execution’ – in his biography of George –  False, Fleeting, Perjur’d Clarence?  Hicks states that George’s Act of Attainder ‘although long is insubstantial and imprecise and it is questionable whether many of the charges were treasonable, some were covered by earlier pardons, some seem improbable, none is substantiated and certainly no accomplishes were named or tried‘(14).    The Croyland Chronicler, who appeared to have been an eyewitness at the trial,  was clearly shocked at the proceedings and declared that those in Parliament who condemned him had been ‘misled’.   He went on to clearly state that the trial was not conducted in a manner conducive to justice and that George was offered inadequate opportunity for defence:   ‘No-one argued against the Duke except the king,  no one answered the king except the Duke.  Some persons, however,  were introduced concerning whom many people wondered whether they performed the offices of accusers or witnesses.  It is not really fitting that both offices should be held at the same time, by the same persons, in the same case’ (15). It was quite clearly an extraordinary and, for some,  unsettling trial, with no one being surprised at the outcome.  In conclusion George’s execution begs the question was the true motive behind it that he knew of his brother’s bigamous marriage and the likelihood that he might open a very nasty can of worms at any moment?  

CONSEQUENCES…

What did it mean for the children of Edward and Elizabeth especially for the two sons?  The sad shade of Lady Eleanor lingered on ensuring they would pay a heavy price for the sins of their father.  Some historians and general commentators have made the mistake that those children of Edward and Elizabeth, importantly the two princes,  born after the death of Eleanor in 1468 escaped the legal stigma of bastardisation. Also that their parents marriage somehow became miraculously valid upon the death of Eleanor –  which would be the case in modern times i.e. the bigamy ends with the death of one of the superfluous spouses.  Neither of these two assumptions would be correct under medieval canon law.   Their marriage could only have become valid if Edward and Elizabeth exchanged vows again after Eleanor’s death, when Edward was free to do so.  Which is exactly what did not happen.  But their most grievous error was that their ‘marriage’ in 1464 was clandestine which prevented anyone – especially Eleanor and Bishop Stillington  –  from objecting to it because obviously they were unaware of it taking place.   Why neither of them did so when the Wydeville ‘marriage’ was finally announced is lost to us.    It has already been mentioned above that Bishop Stillington was cast into prison from 27 February to the 5 March 1478,  February being the very month the trial and execution of George duke of Clarence had taken place triggered by fears the queen had that her children ‘would never succeed to the sovereignity’ unless he was ‘removed’ (16).  The logical conclusion to this is that Stillington was getting severely warned into silence.    Could it be that following on from this terrifying experience Stillington felt it neither safe or necessary to raise the awkward matter of Eleanor being the true and legal wife of Edward until his unexpected death and his illegitimate heir taking the throne becoming imminent forced his hand? This is pure speculation of course.  As we have seen the awkward matter was known by some but had not been utilised or made public.  Perhaps because there was no point in stirring up a nasty hornets nest while Edward was alive and sitting on the throne.  However once he toddled off this mortal coil all would swiftly change.  What of Eleanor?   Sir George Buc/Buck tells us that when Lady Eleanor was told of the ‘marriage’ her husband had entered into with Elizabeth she was ‘greatly grieved and lived a melancholic and heavy and solitary life ever after and how she died is not certainly known but it is out of doubt that the king killed her not with kindness.’.  This certainly does tally with what we do know about the last days of Eleanor (17).   Buc also went on to describe how Eleanor’s heart was so ‘full of grief and read to burst that she could no longer conceal it ‘  and that she revealed all to a lady, who was either her sister, the duchess of Norfolk  or her mother, the countess of Shrewsbury or perhaps both.   Buc then erroneously says that the countess informed her husband which could not be the case as the earl had died in 1453.  However if Buc was correct on Eleanor’s mother and sister being informed he may have been correct when he also said that other members of the Talbot family were then also let in on the secret which led to outrage on their part.  These family members, whoever they were, confronted Bishop Stillington, who ‘knew the truth of the matter’ and who confirmed to them that this was the case as well as that it was he who had married them.  Eleanor’s family members then exhorted Stillington to confront Edward.  This he was too frightened to do but revealed the truth to Richard duke of Gloucester who then mentioned it to the king.  The end result of this was the king flew into a rage and Stillington was thrown into prison.  Assuming this is correct this could have been the stint that Stillington served in the Tower at the time of the arrest of George, duke of Clarence.   Buc’s sources were Philippe de Commynes and Francis Goodwyn, bishop of Hereford (18).  It’s worth pointing out that de Commynes met Richard Neville, earl of Warwick, a relative of Eleanor’s,  probably whilst he was in Calais (19).  

To read more about the legal aspects of the bigamous marriage of Elizabeth and Edward click here.  I would also recommend reading The sons of Edward IV; A Canonical Assessment of the Claim that they were illegitimate. R H Helmholz  as well as Mary Regan’s The Precontract and its Effects on the Succession in 1483 (20).

VICTIMS

In summary it can clearly be seen that there were many victims in this story.  But the true culprit was not among their number although who is to say he did not bitterly regret the difficult straits he had left his 12 year old heir in as he lay wheezing his last few painful breaths.  First victim and the catalyst of the ensuing tragedy was Eleanor Talbot, followed closely by the two sons of Edward, one of whom may have been Perkin Warbeck who would end his life choking at the end of a rope at Tyburn in 1499.  Elizabeth Wydeville, their mother, may well be classed as another victim if she had gone through that clandestine marriage with Edward oblivious to the truth although it’s fair to say she certainly enjoyed some glory years in the interim.   Yes she was queen for a while but her last years spent in Bermondsey Abbey must have been riddled with grief and disappointment.

GEORGE DUKE OF CLARENCE

George deserves a special mention on the list of victims.  For him the writing was on the wall and in 1478 at a ‘parliament especially summoned, packed, and stage-managed for this purpose’ the guilty verdict was pronounced and he was sentenced to death, and silence (21).   There appears to be some delay in the execution which culminated in the Speaker of the House of Commons,  William Allington, lawyer (1430-79), leading ‘a group of MPs into the House of Lords and requesting that they ask the King to get on with it,  insisting  the execution take place without any more delay (22).   Allington’s zealous approach may have been due to his confidence that there would be no backlash from Edward for forcing his hand in the execution of his brother.   He had gone into exile with Edward and ‘is said to have been his standard bearer at the battle of Barnet.’  He had been rewarded by being made one of Prince Edward’s tutors and counsellors and following George’s execution on the 18 February 1478 Allington would be further rewarded.  He received £300 on the 29 April, knighted May/June and on II August appointed king’s counsellor, with,  for his good council on 8 July last, one third of Bassingbourne Cambs, and one third of the honour of Richmond  (Yorkshire) which had been forfeited by George (23).  Thus was the man who insisted the execution of George of Clarence be carried out duly rewarded.  It rather flies in the face of the notion that Edward bitterly regretted the death of his brother.  Well maybe, maybe….   It may be worth considering if Allington’s input was prearranged by Edward to make it appear that his hand was forced and that everybody else was to blame except for himself or could Allington have been cajoled by someone else to get a reluctant Edward to act?  If so historian Thomas Penn suggests that the source of the ‘nudge could be guessed at’  noting that ‘Allington’s effusions about Queen Elizabeth were a matter of parliamentary record; the queen had rewarded him handsomely, appointing him one of the prince’s councillors and making him chancellor of the boy’s administration’ (24).   Clearly either way George’s cause was lost.  Even the pleas of his mother were not enough to save him. Perhaps the most charitable thing we can say about Edward was that he was ‘obliged’ to execute his own brother to save his children especially his  two sons from losing everything.  Which is precisely what happened.  

To digress here slightly it can be seen from the above mentioned episode how much power  Parliament wielded.  Perhaps those that accuse Richard duke of Gloucester, later Richard III, of bullying Parliament into accepting his ‘usurpation’  of the throne should remember that Parliament was not a bunch of cissies that could be coerced into anything they did not want.   Furthermore a truculent parliament could prove very troublesome for even kings especially with regards to money…

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George Duke Clarence.  Executed 1478. Rous Roll. Motto ex Honore de Clare.

RICHARD III

Richard through the hand he was left by his brother was more or less catapulted upon the throne having been left with no choice if he wanted to preserve his life and safeguard his remaining family.   This act brought about much opprobrium and an impossible situation ending in a bloody day at Bosworth in August 1485.  Whether he knew of his brother’s illicit marriage and the illegitimacy of his nephew is a moot point although it’s difficult to believe that he didn’t.  However a reasonable and rational conclusion would be that he did know but in the immediate aftermath of his brother’s sudden death had not had the time to fully conclude what to do.  Once Stillington stepped forward and outed the truth the matter had to be addressed and then legally finalised.   The Three Estates of the Realm offered the crown to Richard at Baynards Castle and the rest is history….

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Artist’s impression of the crown being offered to Richard duke of Gloucester at Baynards Castle by the Three Estates of the Realm in June 1483.  Artist Sigismund Goetz.  Mural in the Royal Exchange.  

What of Cicely Neville, duchess of York – mother to Edward, George and Richard?  She outlived all her sons and must have been privy to the truth.  She too was a victim and one of the saddest.  And what of the legions of men who died fighting for their king at Bosworth and those that were executed afterwards.  The tragedy was not to end until the Battle of Stoke in 1487 when the last diehard Yorkists perished – along with thousands of their army –  in a last ditch and futile attempt to return a Yorkist king to the throne.  Such was Edward IV’s legacy.

Luton Guild Register frontispiece
Cicely Neville.  Mother to Edward IV,George duke of Clarence and Richard III.  A mother who saw two of her sons die as a result of Edward IVs illicit marriage.Yet another victim   Luton Guild Register Wardown Oark Museum.

Eleanor died, aged about 32, in 1468 while her sister, Elizabeth duchess of Norfolk, to whom she was so close, was absent from England in Burgundy attending Margaret of York at her wedding to Charles duke of Burgundy – known as ‘the Bold’.  Elizabeth, who was accompanied by Humphrey, their only surviving brother,  may have remained unaware of the death of her sister until her return to England.  Eleanor did not live long enough to witness the turmoil spawned by her marriage to Edward and was thus spared much grief.   Who knows how history would have turned out if Edward had remained true to his first and true wife.

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ARMINGHALL OLD ARCH    14th century arch from Whitefriars.  Eleanor’s funeral cortege would have passed through this arch in 1468.   Removed from Whitefriars at the time of the Dissolution.  Now in Norwich Magistrates Court. 

Whitefriars monastery is now long gone another victim of the Dissolution.  But this 19th century painting gives an idea of the appearance of the area, known as Cowgate, where it once stood.  Whitefriars would have been situated on the eastern side of this thoroughfare betwixt the Church of St James Pockthorpe (seen in the distance) and the river.  Artist David Hodgson c.1860.  Now in Norwich museum.

  1. Domenico Mancini de occupatione regni Anglie p.45. New translation by Annette Carson.
  2.  Talbot, John first earl of Shrewsbury and first earl of Waterford (c.1387-1453) ODNB 23 September 2004 A J Pollard
  3. Eleanor the Secret Queen p.81. John Ashdown-Hill 
  4. Talbot, John, first earl of Shrewsbury and first earl of Waterford (c.1387-1453). ODNB. A J Pollard 2004.
  5. Elizabeth (née Woodville) c.1437-1492. ODNB Michael Hicks 23 September 2004.
  6. ODNB. Mowbray, John. Fourth duke of Norfolk (1444-1476). Colin Richmond. September 2004
  7. Domenico Mancini de occupatione regni Anglie p.47.  New Translation with Introduction and Historical Notes.  Annette Carson. 
  8. Eleanor The Secret Queen p.p11. 108 John Ashdown-Hill
  9. Lady Eleanor Talbot; New Evidence, New Questions, New Answers John Ashdown Hill.
  10. Elizabeth Widville, Lady Grey p38 CPR 1461-1467, pp.72,191.  John Ashdown-Hill.
  11. Domenico Mancini de occupatione regni Anglie p.45. New translation by Annette Carson.
  12. ibid.
  13. Croyland Chronicler p.147. Ed Pronay and Cox
  14.  False, Fleeting, Perjur’d Clarence. George Duke of Clarence 1449-78.  M A Hicks.
  15. Croyland Chronicler p.147. Ed Pronay and Cox
  16. Domenico Mancini de occupatione regni Anglie p.45. New translation by Annette Carson.
  17. The History of King Richard the Third p.183. Edited by Arthur Kinkaid.
  18. The History of King Richard the Third p.185.. Edited by Arthur Kinkaid.
  19. Philippe de Commynes.  Wikipedia article. 
  20. The RH Helmholz essay can be found in Richard III; Loyalty, Lordship and Law. pp 106-120.
  21. George, duke of Clarence (1449-1478). ODNB 2004. Michael Hicks.
  22. The Brothers York – An English Tragedy p.405.  Thomas Penn.
  23. History of Parliament 1439-1509 Biographies. p.9.  Josiah C Wedgwood. House of Commons 1936.
  24. The Brothers York. An English Tragedy p.406. Thomas Penn.

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