Anne Montgomery nee Darcy. A highly respected member of the Ladies of the Minories. Window of Holy Trinity Church, Long Melford, Suffolk.
Shakespeare famously said ‘All the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players‘. Following on from that if we may be allowed to say that the Wars of the Roses were a stage then surely some of the saddest players on it must include the ladies of the Minories – the widows, mothers, sisters and daughters of some of the main players of that tragic and violent period who survived their menfolk but in what must have been difficult and sometimes straightened circumstances. I have here leaned heavily on W E Hampton’s excellent article, the Ladies of the Minories (1)
The Abbey of the Minoresses of St Clare without Aldgate was founded in 1293 by Edmund ‘Crouchback’, first earl of Lancaster and first earl of Leicester (1245-1296) and his second wife, Blanche of Artois (c.1245-1302) for the nuns that Blanche had brought to England with her. Surviving until 1539 when the abbey was surrendered by the last abbess, Dame Elizabeth Savage, to Henry VIII. The abbey had already suffered what must have been a catastrophic loss in 1515 when 27 nuns and other lay people, i.e. servants, died of the plague (2)
Edmund Crouchback. An illustration of his tomb in Westminster Abbey by Stothard from Monumental Effigies of Great Britain 1832
According to Edward Tomlinson, author of ‘A History of the Minories’, there is an old manuscript in British Museum ‘which appers to have escaped the notice of any historian‘ which states that Edmund’s ‘hart ys buryed at the North end of the high Awter in the mynorysse And his body ys buryed at Westminster in the Abbey‘. This manuscript which is probably a transcript from a register kept in the Abbey contains ‘the names of all psones beyng of Nobull Blode whiche be buryed wthin the Monastorye of the mynnorysse‘. The names of these illustrious burials are too numerous to name here but for a few..
Dame Elizabeth Countess of Clare
Dame Isabel daughter of Thomas of Woodstock Duke of Gloucester
Margaret Countess of Shrewsbury daughter of Humphrey Duke of Buckingham
Agnes Countess of Pembroke
Eleanor Scrope wife to Lord Scrope and Daughter of Raufe/Ralph Neville
Edmunde De La Pole and Margaret his wife
Elizabeth de la Pole, Edmund’s daughter (3).
Among the ladies buried in the Minories were several who lived through the turbulent Wars of the Roses and it is this little band of ladies that I will focus on here. I shall begin with Elizabeth Mowbray nee Talbot, Dowager Duchess of Norfolk who lived out the latter years of her life in the ‘Great House’ which stood within the close of the Abbey for which she paid a rent of 10 pounds per annum. Elizabeth was the daughter of the famous John Talbot, first earl of Shrewsbury (c. 1387–1453) and thus sister to another lady of great importance from that period, Eleanor Butler nee Talbot. She was also mother to the tragic Anne Mowbray, child bride to Richard of Shrewsbury, duke of York, Edward IV’s younger son. Following upon – well 10 days later to be precise – the sudden and unexpected death in 1476 of her husband, John de Mowbray, duke of Norfolk – and while she would still have been in shock and deep mourning, Edward IV made it known he was seeking her daughter Anne, then three years old and now immensely rich, as a bride for his infant son, Richard. Elizabeth would be forced to take a diminished dower in order to augment the revenue of her small son-in-law. Frustratingly Elizabeth’s thoughts on this astonishingly shabby affair were, as far as is known, never recorded. The marriage – which took place on the 15 January 1478 – of her then five year old daughter to the three year old son of Edward IV and Elizabeth Wydeville ensured that the vast Mowbray estates would pass to the young groom if and when her daughter died, which as it transpired is exactly what happened but a few short years later. This must have been an extremely bitter pill for the Dowager Duchess to swallow if, as is highly likely, she had known that the true wife of Edward was none other than her late sister, Eleanor Butler/Boteler, a young widow whom he had married secretly prior to his equally secret, and invalid, marriage to Elizabeth Wydeville. If indeed she had been aware of the true situation – and its difficult to see how she could not have been – and if she had also been aware of the canon laws of the time – then it follows she would also have been painfully aware that her young son-in-law was actually illegitimate. Again her thoughts are unrecorded on this. As it transpired Anne Mowbray died shortly before her ninth birthday at Greenwich Palace said to have been one of her mother-in-law’s favourite homes. Anne was buried in Westminster Abbey but her body was removed from there in 1502 when the chapel she was buried in was demolished to make way for Henry Tudor’s grandiose new chapel. Anne’s remains were returned to her mother at the Minories and reburied there – ‘Dame Anne Duches of yorke doughter to lord moumbray Duke of Norfolke ys buried yn the sayed Quere’ (4)
Elizabeth Mowbray, nee Talbot, Duchess of Norfolk as depicted in the window of Holy Trinity Church, Long Melford, Suffolk.
The lead coffin of Anne Mowbray, duchess of Norfolk. Discovered in December 1964 by workmen while breaking down a vault on a building site where the Minories once stood. Later reinterred in Westminster Abbey.
Although the glory days must have been over for Elizabeth with the demise of her husband – her retirement to the Minories would have been a serious case of downsizing – a look at her will tells us that she had not lost absolutely everything unlike her deceased daughter’s mother-in-law, Elizabeth Wydeville, whose pitiful will tells us that she was left more or less destitute. Ah well Karma is a bitch as they say.
Jane Talbot, sister-in-law to the above, having married Sir Humphrey Talbot. Humphrey was the son of John Talbot by his second wife Margaret who was a daughter of Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick. Jane’s interesting will which left numerous bequests especially to her servants also requested that ‘I Dame Jane Talbott, wedowe late the Wif of sir Humfrey Talbott knyght… my body to be buried within the inner choer of the churche of the Mynores withoute Algate of London nygh the place and sepulture where the body of Maistres Anne Mongomery late the wif of John Mongomery Squyer restity and ys buried within the same quere’.
Anne Montgomery widow of John Montgomery who was executed in 1462, brother of Sir Thomas Montgomery. Sir James Tyrell was her nephew. Anne was clearly a person much revered. As well as Jane Talbot, Elizabeth Mowbray also requested to be buried close to Anne in her will made 6 November 1506 – ‘And my body to be buried in the Nonnes qwere of the Minorsesses without Alegate of London nyghe vnto the place Wher Anne Montgomery lyeth buried’.
Mary Tyrell. According to Hampton ‘Almost certainly one of the sisters of Sir James Tyrell – probably the youngest – and therefore a niece of Anne Montgomery (5 )
Elizabeth Brackenbury. Daughter to the loyal Sir Robert Brackenbury, Richard III’s Constable of the Tower, who died fighting for his king at Bosworth in 1485. Hampton mentions that Elizabeth’s poverty was clear in her will of 1504 and that she found shelter under the wings of the Talbots. Requested in her will that her debts to Elizabeth Mowbray were to be paid – ‘I Elizabeth Brakkynbury..beyng of goode and hole mind’… all such money as my lady’s grace of Norff to whom I am most specially bounde of her charitie’ (6). Hampton also adds that there was some connection between Sir Robert and Sir Thomas Montgomery which could partly explain his daughter’s connection to these ladies, although it is not certain if Brackenbury’s daughter was resident at the time of Anne Montgomery’s tenancy at the Minories.
Hampton wrote ‘All of these ladies, with the possible exception of Jane Talbot had suffered great loss, but it would perhaps be unwise to to think too much of them as sheltering in the Minories, where life may not have been too severe. They may as Dr Tudor-Craig suggests have gathered around the Duchess yet Anne Montgomery’s influence may have been greater spiritually’.
While some of these ladies had been most grievously injured by Edward IV and to some extent by Elizabeth Wydeville – i.e. the shabby way Elizabeth Mowbray was forced to augment the revenue of her young son-in-law, the betrayal of her sister, Eleanor, the executions of William Tyrell and John Montgomery, yet further injury was inflicted by Henry VII with the unjust attainder of Sir Robert Brackenbury and the execution and attainder of Sir James Tyrell.
Wynegaerde’s Panorama of London (1543) in which the Minories can be seen just above and to the left of the White Tower/Tower of London. Note the close proximity of the scaffold on Tower Hill, shown to to the left of the Minories.
Doubtless they were great comforters of each other and it is very easy to imagine them being of a great solace to Elizabeth Mowbray when her daughter’s remains were returned to her.
The beginning of the end for the once grand Minories came when the last abbess, Dame Elizabeth Salvage surrendered the abbey to Henry VIII in 1539. Stowe describes how in place of ‘this house of nuns is now built divers fair and large storehouses for armour and habiliments of war, with divers workhouses serving to the same purpose’ although there is ‘a small parish church for inhabitants of the close, called St Trinities’ (7) Some of the abbey walls survived until a fire in 1797. Around 1566 the parishioners came into possession of what had once been the Minories church but was now the parish church and set about ‘renovating‘ it. This involved the removal and destruction of ancient monuments and the adding of a steeple. Finally around 1705 , having survived the Great Fire of 1666, begun the final destruction of the fabric of the ancient church and the rebuilding of a new one although the medieval northern wall was retained.
Diagram of the 18th century Holy Trinity church showing the north 13th Century wall retained. This wall managed to survive the fire and bombs until clearance of the site in 1956-58.
The remains of the abbey after the fire in 1796. Etching by John Thomas Smith 1766-1833
Another print showing the abbey remains after the 1796 fire. Etching by John Thomas Smith 1766-1833
It would have been about this time that the building of new burial vaults begun in the process of which, the ‘greater part of the ground beneath the parish church must have been evacuated which would have not been achieved without the unfortunate removal of the remains of those, who in the past centuries, would have been buried there‘ (8). Alas!
The 18th century church was finally destroyed after being bombed during the war. But that is not the end of the story of our intrepid band of the Ladies of the Minories or indeed the Minories itself, for in 1964 the remains of Elizabeth’s daughter, Anne Mowbray were discovered by an excavator driver in a vaulted burial chamber of the church which had somehow been, fortunately, overlooked. Anne was once again reinterred in Westminster Abbey as close to her original burial place as possible but, that dear reader is another story.
18th century Holy Trinity Church prior to its destruction by a bomb. It was during excavation of this area after the war that Anne Mowbray’s remains were discovered in a vault.
Holy Trinity Church looking slightly less stark in this painting,1881, artist unknown.
The area now covering where once stood the Abbey of St Clare (The Minories). Such is progress.
1. The Ladies of the Minories, W E Hampton, Richard III Crown and People p195-201
2. A Survey of London Written in the year 1599. John Stowe pp 122.1233.
3. A History of the Minories pp68.69 Edward Murrey Tomlinson M.A
4. Ibid p 69.
5. The Ladies of the Minories W E Hampton, Richard lll Crown and People p.19
6. Ibid p.198
7. A Survey of London Written in the year 1599. John Stowe p.128.
8. A History of the Minories p 299 Edward Murrey Tomlinson
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