A delightful artist’s impression of ‘Richard Whittington dispensing his charities’.  Artist Henrietta Ray before 1905 oil on canvas.  Royal Exchange, London.

Even the most disinterested in history children would recognise the name ‘Dick Whittington’ and also his best, and only friend,  his cat,  most of them being familiar with the rather delightful folk story, which dates back to the 17th century,  as well as perhaps even more so,  the pantomime.   As they watch and excitedly yell ‘Behind You. …  !’ etc., they are probably unaware that Richard Whittington was a real man who lived in medieval times and although sadly he did not have a cat he did much good and the results of his benevolence still, astonishingly,  survive up until today.

Richard Whittington (c.1350-1423) was born in Pauntley Court Manor House in the small village of  Pauntley , Gloucestershire and presumably he was baptised in the parish church there,  St John the Evangelist.    He  was the son of Sir William Whittington d.1358, a landowner and  Joan Maunsel (1).

Pauntley Court Manor house today.  It was here that Richard Whittington was born c.1350

St John the Evangelist Church, Pauntley, Gloucestershire.  It’s highly likely Richard  was baptised in this ancient church.

It is said Richard’s father was experiencing some financial difficulty but, in any case, being the third and youngest son and thus highly unlikely to stand much chance of coming into a useful inheritance, he was apprenticed at an unknown date to a London mercer.  The mercers of those times dealt with the wonderful luxurious fabrics worn by the nobility and  well to do:  silk, linen, fustian, worsted, and luxury small goods, and the wealthiest of the trade expected to participate in the export of English wool, woollen cloth, and worsted, and to import the other merceries (2).    While some young men may have ended up bitter,  twisted  and truculent by being sent away from their families to take up a trade instead of effortlessly inheriting the family jewels,  young Richard seems to have taken to it like a duck to water becoming very proficient in his trade but perhaps it is more a modern trait to endlessly whinge about how unfair life can be and how hard done by you are.   He supplied his luxury goods to members of  the royal court and in doing so he  became a favourite of King Richard II.   These members of the nobility included  John of Gaunt,  Thomas of Woodstock, Henry Bolinbroke (the future Henry IV),  the Staffords and ‘royal favourite Robert de Vere to whom he supplied nearly £2,000 worth of mercery’.   The king himself now turned to Richard to supply his wants and needs.  Initially it was quite modest buys including in 1389 £11 for two cloths of gold which the king gifted to two knights who had come down from Scotland as messengers.   However  in 1392-4 Richard’s career as a mercer was on a roll when he sold goods worth £3,474 16s 8 and a half pence to the Royal Wardrobe.  These goods included velvets, cloths of gold, damasks taffetas and gold embroidered velvets.   Richard Whittington had arrived as they say.  Anne Sutton wrote that Richard II and his uncle Thomas of Woodstock were perhaps Richard’s most profit spinning customers.  Clearly the   goods Richard supplied – some of which were from Italy – must have been exquisite and he has been described by Caroline Barron as a  ‘connoisseur of works of craftsmanship’.  When Bolingbroke took the throne as Henry IV,  Richard would continue to supply Henry’s court with luxury wares.    These would include some of the sumptuous  fabrics required for the marriages of the king’s daughters Philippa and Blanche such as ten cloths of gold for Blanche’s marriage at a total cost of £215 13s 4d and pearls and cloths of gold costing £248 10s 6d for Philippa’s nuptials.  

Besides providing wonderful things he also made many loans to Richard II as well as Henry IV and his son, Henry V.   At the time Richard II was evicted from the throne he still owed £1,000 to our Richard.  The newly crowned Henry IV agreed that Richard should be repaid this amount.   Richard’s career,  now a very wealthy man, had evolved into that of a successful money lender particularly to kings and those of the nobility including Sir Simon Burley and John Beaufort, earl of Somerset.    From 23 August 1388 to 23 July 1422, he made least 59 separate loans to the Crown of sums ranging from £4 to £2,833 (3).

About 1402 Richard made an advantageous marriage to  Alice, daughter of Sir Ivo Fitzwaryn, a wealthy landowner who had no male heirs.  This marriage thus brought with it  the prospect of a generous inheritance.  In 1402 Fitzwaryn actually settled properties in Somerset and Wiltshire upon his daughter and new son-in-law but Richard,  ever preferring liquid capital to property,  offered the titles to his brother-in-law,  John Chideok,  for the sum of £340 (4).  However as things came to pass Alice predeceased both her father and husband.   Sadly there would be no children from the marriage which seems to have been happy and when Alice fell mortally ill in 1409/10 Richard obtained a special licence from the king to bring a renowned Jewish doctor –  Master Thomas Sampson from Mierbeawe  – over from the continent to treat her.  After Alice’s death Richard would remain a widower for the rest of his life. 

Blue plaque outside 20 College Hill, EC4, the site of Richard Whittington’s London house.   College Hill was first known c.1231 as Pasternosterchurchstreet commemorating the church that stood nearby but later shortened to Pasternosterstret by 1265 and then to  ‘La Riole’  c.1303 after the foreign wine merchants to dwelt there named it after La Reole in Burgundy. It has also been known as Whytyngton Colledge.     

Other than his London house he owned only a small handful of properties one of these being  the manor of Over Lypiatt in Gloucestershire.   This particular property however had belonged to Philip Maunsell,  his maternal uncle up until 1395 when it was assigned in satisfaction for a debt of £500 to Richard Whittington,  the celebrated mayor of London.  This property Richard would eventually leave to his brother, Robert (5).

OFFICES HELD

Here are listed just some of the innumerous offices held by Whittington:

Common councillor, Coleman Street Ward 31 July 1384-86

Alderman of Broad Street Ward 12 March  1394- 24,  June 1397.  Lime Street Ward by 13 February  1398

Mayor of London 8 June 1397-13,  October 1398,  13 October 1406-7 and 1419-20.

Sheriff,  London and Middlesex, March 1393-4.

MP for the city of London 1416

Commissions to make arrests, London March,  April, 1394, November 1407; of gaol delivery October  1397, June 1398;  oyer and terminer Sept. 1401,  March,  April,  October 1403, November 1405, May 1406, November, 1407, June, July 1409, May 1414, Feb. 1416, December 1417, November 1418.

To supervise the collection of Peter’s Pence in England August 1409; of inquiry, London January 1412 (liability for taxation), Dec. 1412 (seizure of merchandise),  January 1414 (Lollards at large), July 1418 (possessions of Sir John Oldcastle).

Appointed to to administer revenues for building work at Westminster Abbey December  1413; recruit carpenters for the same March 1414.

Warden, Mercers’ Company 24 June 1395-6, 1401-2, 1408-9

Member of Henry IV’s council 1 Nov. 1399-18,  July 1400.

Collector of the Wool Custom, London 6 Oct. 1401-5,  November 1405, 20 February 1407-26,  July 1410

Receiver General in England for Edward, earl of Rutland, by 7 May 1402

Mayor of the Staple of Westminster 3 July 1405.  Calais by 25 Dec. 1406 – 14 July 1413 (6).

Arms of Richard Whittington.  Drawing by E B Price.

CHARITABLE DEEDS

Ah! I hear you say, but were not works of charity considered de rigueur for the wealthy of those times?  And yes although that is true Richard was always a generous benefactor,  giving to numerous good causes throughout his life and prior to his death,  and so much so that his reputation as such has come down to us through the centuries.

In 1401/02 he donated £6 13s 4d  towards the building of a new nave at Westminster Abbey, perhaps because it was a project of his late patron, Richard II.

In 1409 he purchased the land close to his London home which lay next to his parish church and then acquired a licence to give it in mortmain to the rector, to allow the church to be rebuilt and a cemetery added. The task of rebuilding was completed by his executors.

In 1411 he contributed most of the funds for building and outfitting a library at Greyfriars including the amount of £400 for the books alone. The library at the Guildhall was also to benefit from his largesse.    

He funded a refuge for ‘yong wemen that hadde done amysse in trust of good mendement’  i.e. unmarried mothers at St Thomas’ Hospital, Southwark (7).

He financed numerous new conduits and fountains giving Londoners access to clean water. These included the fountains in St Gile’s Courtyard and north of the church of St Botolph.

Other good works included  the building of a public toilet known as Whittington’s Longhouse which had a total of 128 seats: 64 for men and 64 for women.  This was built on a dock overlooking the Thames in Walbrook Street in the parish of St Martin Vintry.  Survived until the Great Fire 1666 when it was rebuilt albeit on a more modest scale.

HIS WILL

When he drew up his will on the 5 September 1421, childless and a widower, he left all to charity other than the above mentioned manor of Over Lypiatt.  The will which is long and very detailed can be found here for anyone who wishes to delve more deeply but here are just a few snippets:

I bequeath £100 to cover the costs of my funeral expenses and for saying vespers after my death, the Placebo and Dirige  and on the following day a requiem mass; together with a monthly remembrance for my soul, the souls of my father, my mother, my wife Alice, and all those to whom I owe a debt of gratitude. I bequeath 1d. for every poor man,  woman and child, to be distributed on the day of my funeral

I bequeath 40s. to be distributed, as my executors determine best, among poor people of the parish of St. Stephen Coleman Street, London

I bequeath 40s. to be distributed, as my executors determine best, among poor people of the parish of St. Michael Bassishaw, London.  I bequeath 40s. towards the structural fabric of St. Alphege church, London, that they may pray for my soul and those of the aforementioned. I bequeath 20s. to be distributed, as my executors determine best, among poor people of that parish

£10 to be distributed, as my executors determine best, among poor people in the hospitals of St Mary without Bishopsgate, St Mary of Bethlem and St. Thomas in Southwark, and among the lepers of Lock, Hackney, and St Giles without Holborn. I bequeath 20s. to be distributed, as my executors determine best, among the poor brothers and sisters of the hospital of Elsing Spital.

For the repair and improvement of roads in bad condition, £100 to be distributed as my executors determine best, where the necessity is most felt.

I bequeath for distribution among those imprisoned in Newgate, Ludgate, Fleet, Marshalsea and the King’s Bench 40s. each week for as long as £500 holds out.

I leave to my executors named below the entire tenement in which I live in the parish of St. Michael Paternoster Royal, London, and all lands and tenements that I hold in the parish of St. Andrew, near Castle Baynard, London, and in the parish of St. Michael Bassishaw, as well as in the parish of St. Botolph outside Bishopsgate, in the same city; so that after my death they may sell them as soon as they may conveniently do so and distribute the proceeds for the good of my soul and the souls already mentioned….

I wish that my executors have in their custody a chest, secured with three locks, containing my goods and jewels, to be distributed for the good of my soul; and that none of those who are my executors remove anything from the same except in the presence or with the consent of all as a group. I further wish that my executors maintain and support my household together with meals for my personal servants for one year following my death, as they determine best (8).

Upon his death in March 1423 Whittington was buried in the church he had rebuilt,  St Michael Paternoster Royal,  which stood on the corner of  La Riole,  now College Hill where his house once stood.    This street before it was renamed La Riole was known as Paternosterstret because of the rosaries that were made there and later Whytyngton College   In his will he had requested to be buried on the north side of the altar.   He had rebuilt the church as a collegiate church, that is administered by a college of priests, known as Whittington College, hence the renaming of the lane to College Hill.  This church was destroyed in the Great Fire of London but rebuilt.  A stone now marks the site of Richard’s original burial site in the rebuilt church.

Stone marking the site of the burial place and monument of Richard Whittington in the now rebuilt St Michael Paternoster Royal.  Photo stjamesgarlickhythe.org

A rather shocking postscript to this story is told by John Stow:

‘This Richard Whittington was in this church three times buried,  first by his executors under a fair monument, then in the reign of Edward VI,  the parson of the church, thinking some great riches, as he said, to be buried with him, caused his monument to be broken, his body to be spoiled of his leaden sheet,  and again the second time to be buried,  and in the reign of Queen Mary,  the parishioners were forced to take him up to lap him in lead as afore, to bury him the third time and to replace his monument or the like over him again which remaineth and so he resteth’ (9).

It is one of the few times reading the usually very reliable Stow that I hoped he may have got it wrong so awful is it.  I do hope the odious unnamed parson’s remains ended up on a dung heap where they belonged.   But I digress and its best left unsaid what I would really like to say about this vile creature, whose name remains unknown, while our good Richard Whittington lives on after over 500 years.  As Anne Sutton put it so succulently ‘What has survived, to be cherished and turned into a legend after his death, is the sense of civic and humanitarian duty which made him leave his personal fortune to the poor’.   Bravo dear man…you did well.

View of St Michael’s seen from along College Street as it appears today.   College Street,  formerly Elbow/Eldebowe/Bow Lane  should not to be confused with nearby College Hill where Richard Whittington’s house once stood (10).  The medieval church was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666 and rebuilt.  This church was badly damaged when hit by a bomb in 1944 leaving only the walls and tower standing.  As can be seen today these were incorporated when the church was rebuilt.    Re-opened in 1968.  Contains a large glass window commemorating Richard Whittington and his cat.

In 1436 a  fine epitaph was penned for Whittington by the author of The Libelle of Englyshe Polyce :

‘And in worship nowe think I on the sonne Of marchaundy Richarde of Whitingdone, That loodes starre and chefe chosen floure. Whate hathe by hym oure England of honoure, And whate profite hathe bene of his richesse, And yet lasteth dayly in worthinesse, That penne and papere may not me suffice Him to describe, so high he was of prise, Above marchaundis to sett him one the beste! I can no more, but God have hym in reste’  (11).

One last thing.  While it is true Richard Whittington, as far as we know, did not own a cat, it’s of course also perfectly possible that he did.  After all, then as now,  there is no better way to  to get rid of mices and so forth.  Therefore I would venture to say Richard Whittington did in fact own a cat although of course not the adventurous moggie portrayed in panto but no doubt an affectionate and companionable fellow.   It therefore follows surely the Whittington family cat should have some sort of memorial too?  Look no further than Westminster Abbey who erected a stained glass window to Whittington and his cat, depicted here as ginger, on the north side of the nave:  

 

And here we have – drum roll –  the most famous moggie of medieval times –  Richard Whittington’s cat! Westminster abbey on the north side of the nave…

1. Florilegium Urbanum Whittington’s Charity.  Online article.
2. Whittington, Richard (Dick) c.1450-1423.  Oxford DNB.  Anne F Sutton
3. ‘Richard Whittington’, Studies in London Hist. ed. Hollaender and Kellaway.  C M Barron.  See also Historyofparliamentonline.org.
4. Caroline Barron, “Richard Whittington: the man behind the myth”, Studies in London History  ed. A.E.J. Hollaender and William Kellaway, London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1969
5. BHO. A History of the County of Gloucestershire V II. 
6. .historyofparliamentonline.org.
7. Stow p.274.
8. Online article Florilegium Urbaniam – Religion -Whittington’s Charity.
9.  Stow p.216.
10. A Dictionary of London p.164. Editor I. I.  Greaves. London 1916.
11. Libelle of Englyshe Polyce ed. Warner.

If you have enjoyed this post you might also like:

L’Erber – London Home to Warwick the Kingmaker and George Duke of Clarence

THOMAS CROMWELL’S HOUSE IN AUSTIN FRIARS

THE ORANGE AND LEMON CHURCHES OF OLD LONDON

GREENWICH PALACE – HUMPHREY DUKE OF GLOUCESTER’S PALACE OF PLEAZANCE

THE ANCIENT GATES OF OLD LONDON

A segment of the Visscher Panorama of London 1616 showing Coldharbour after the earlier medieval house had been demolished by the Earl of Shrewsbury c.1585 and rebuilt up to the waterfront.  The rebuild incorporated many tenements ‘now letten out for great rents to people of all sorts’ (Stow).   Image Peter Harrington Rare Books.

Further to my post on L’Erber,  another famous house from those turbulent times,  was the equally impressive Coldharbour.   This imposing house had numerous illustrious owners including Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry VII.  Margaret carried out major renovation work to the house and I will return to this later.

Margaret Beaufort.  Margaret took possession of Coldharbour in 1485 overseeing extensive renovations.  Her future daughter in law Elizabeth of York lived there prior to her delayed marriage to Henry Tudor.

First mention of building in the area –  a messauge and tenements –  where Coldharbour House would eventually be built crops up in 1297.    I’m now going to mention in the interest of clarity  that it has been said in a recent article  that there were two Coldharbours –  one of which appears to be an insignificant one to the west of our Coldharbour separated by a narrow lane known as Wolsey Lane. However I remain unconvinced about this theory  and I have chosen to  base much of this post on the information  contained in the  excellent in depth articles on London’s Medieval Houses by the late C L Kingsford M.A Vice President of the London Topographical Society and Marjorie B Honeybourne M.A., F.S.A.(1). 

The Reconstructed Map of London Under Richard II. Marjorie B Honeybourne M.A., F.S.A  Coldharbour House shown in the middle,  Pountney’s Inn slightly to the north separated by the thoroughfare then known as The Ropery , L’Eber to the north west.  

One certain error that crops up now and again is that Coldharbour was at one time known as Pountney’s Inn –  indeed Stow even made this mistake –  no doubt because the owner of Pountney’s Inn, the immensely rich Sir John de Pulteney,  built much of Coldharbour as well as the  nearby Pountney’s Inn where he sometimes lived.   Pountney’s Inn stood a little to the north of Coldharbour with a lane to the west of it known as Wolsies Lane.  Is this where the belief that there were two Coldharbours comes from?  Both Coldharbour and Pountney’s can clearly be seen in Marjorie Honeybourne’s map of London in the Time of Richard II.   Nevertheless the great mansion with its appurtenances and sprawling tenements referred to in this post  covered the area between Thames Street (then known as The Ropery) and  the church of All Hallows the Less  to the north,  the River Thames at Hay Wharf  to the south,  to the east by Weston Lane and to the west by Wolsyes Gate (2). Frustratingly no depictions of the front of the medieval Coldharbour house were made or if they were,  they have not  survived.   The famous view of it seen from the back, and opening up on the river Thames in the Hollar etching dated 1647 was made after the original medieval house had been pulled down by the earl of Shrewsbury c.1585 although some of the original medieval house may have been incorporated into the new build.  When Shrewsbury  rebuilt, adding more tenements, he extended the house down to the water front doing away with the medieval garden.  The area this garden covered can be seen in  the earlier  Wyngaerde Panorama dated 1543 between the southern range of the house and the waterfront.  This medieval garden was mentioned by Thomas Lytley/Litley, the man who was in charge of the renovations carried out by Margaret Beaufort in 1485:  The Glasier callid Nicholas Hawkyn. For iiij olde casys newe glasyd ouer the garden on the water syde….

                 The medieval Coldharbour from the Wyngaerde Panorama c.1543 clearly showing an open area – the medieval garden –  between the house and the river and mentioned  in the accounts left by Lytley. 

The same view after the old medieval house had been torn down and rebuilt by the Earl of Shrewsbury.  From Wenceslas Hollars etching made later in 1647 showing Coldharbour now opening up onto the river.

One of the first owners, William de Hereford, prominent London Citizen, goldsmith, alderman of Aldgate Ward,  sheriff and representative of the City in the Parliament of 1296,  bequeathed his messuage and rents in the parish of All Hallows, Haywharf,   to his sons William and Robert on his death in 1297.  Hereford’s widow, Margery,  married Sir John Abel and her son Robert de Hereford demised the house to his mother and her new husband,  Sir Abel,  for a term of 10 years in 1317.  However on being widowed in 1319 Sir Abel leased the house then known as ‘Coldherherghe‘ to a gentleman by the name of Henry de Stowe, a draper,  for a rent of 33s.4d. to be paid to Robert de Hereford.  When Robert died a  few years he left two daughters, Idonia who married Sir Ralph Bigot and Maud who married Sir Stephen Cosenton.   In 1334 the  Bigots and the  Cosentons both had sons by the name of  John who sold their shares of the house to Sir John de Pulteney.  Pulteney, four times mayor, was one of the wealthiest citizens of the times and it was he that was behind much of the enhancement of the house including the building of a new church,  All Hallows the Less (also known as All Hallows on the Cellars ‘for it standeth on vaults’) incorporating its steeple over the arched main gateway into Coldharbour (3).  All Hallows the Less should not be confused with the nearby All Hallows the Great (also known for a while as All Hallows at Hay because of the hay sold nearby at Hay Wharf as well as All Hallows the More) which stood to the west of the new All Hallows separated by narrow lane then known as Wolsyes Gate  – please keep at the back dear reader. ….   Pulteney however  did not live himself at Coldharbour but a stones throw  away at Pountneys Inn in St Lawrence Pountney parish north of Coldharbour as well as at his beautiful manor house,  Penshurst Place, Kent which he had built in 1341.    From then on the tenants became increasingly illustrious which gives us an indication of the size and splendour of the house.  These earlier tenants included William de Montagu, Earl of Salisbury who leased it in 1346 the year he was made a Knight Batchelor (4).     In February 1347 Pulteney leased the house to Humphrey de Bohun, Earl of Hereford, for life with reversion to his heirs.  In his will dated 14 November 1348 and proved in 1349, Pulteney  directed that ‘le Coldherberwe‘ was to be sold and that one Henry Pykard should have the refusal of it for 1000 marks.  However Pulteney’s widow, Margaret, had a life interest of one third in Coldharbour as dower.  In 1353 Margaret and her new  husband, Sir Nicholas de Loveyne,  purchased Coldharbour from Pulteney’s executors.    Edward, the Black Prince was said to have resided there between 1371 and 1376 but between 1370-1377 it was in the possession of Alice Perrers (c.1348-1400) mistress to Edward III then at the ‘height of her powers‘   Perrers further enhanced Coldharbour including a mysterious building known as le Toure.  After her fall from grace,  John of Gaunt in 1378  obtained a grant for life for the new Inn lately belonging to Alice Perrers near the Thames’ as well as other houses built by her nearby.  Gaunt surrendered his grant but a year later and on the 13 May 1379 Coldharbour and its ‘appurtenances‘ were granted during the King’s pleasure to Edmund of Langley, afterwards Duke of York.  Confusingly Perrers seems to have recovered some right in Coldharbour because it was from her that John Holland, earl of Huntingdon and half brother to Richard II,  acquired le Toure in about 1390. Holland also went on to purchase from other holders the lands, messuages, shops, cellars and sollars in Coldharbourlane which had also once belonged to Perrers as well as two cellars by and beneath the church of All Hallows the Less.   Coldharbour was growing and growing and in 1397 Huntingdon entertained Richard II there.  However in those times of ups, downs and swift turnarounds in 1400 Coldharbour was forfeited to the crown on Huntingdon’s attainder and by 18 March of that year Henry IV was living there.  Henry would later grant Coldharbour for life to his half brother, John Beaufort, Earl of Somerset who was living there in February 1410.   By the time of Beaufort’s death on the 16th March 1410 Coldharbour, or part of it,  seems to have become known as a hospice by the name of Le Toure.  Could this Le Toure refer to the Le Toure that Perrers built?  However on the 18th March 1410 Henry Prince of Wales, later Henry V, was granted ‘quoddam hispitium sive placeam vocatam le Coldherbergh‘.  It is thought that Henry made the manor house his London residence while he ruled for his father in 1410-11.  Henry IV himself was at Coldharbour in February 1412 when he received the Duke of Burgundy’s ambassadors.  Coldharbour would later be restored to the Hollands and was occupied by Henry IV’s sister Elizabeth, widow of the Earl of Huntingdon.  Elizabeth died at ‘Colde Herborowe‘ on the 28 November 1426 (5).   

Coldharbour seems then to have passed on to her son, John 2nd Earl of Huntingdon, afterwards Duke of Exeter. When Exeter died in 1447 he was succeeded by his son Henry Holland.    This Henry Holland, duke of Exeter married Anne, Edward’s IV sister and on forfeiture of his lands in 1461 for supporting the Lancastrian side Anne was able to hold on to  some of them including Coldharbour.    Anne died in 1476 and Coldharbour was granted to Elizabeth Woodville, Edward IV’s Queen.  In 1480 Edward’s sister Margaret, Duchess of Burgundy was lodged there during a visit to England.   Four shillings was spent on a travas with two curtains of green sarsenet for the chapel; sheets, fustions, an arras depicting the story of Helen and Paris,  plus various rings and hooks being issued by the Great Wardrobe to enhance her stay there.   After Elizabeth Woodville’s eventual fall  Richard III granted Coldharbour to the College of Heralds in 1483,  but their stay was to be brief.  Upon Henry Tudor taking the throne after the Battle of Bosworth Coldharbour was granted to his mother Margaret Beaufort.    Margaret  who was speedily in possession of Coldharbour by September 1485 gave the house a through refurbishment in readiness for the stay of Elizabeth of York prior to her marriage to Margaret’s beloved man cub, Henry,  while he procrastinated over marrying her. Elizabeth had been taken to Coldharbour directly after being brought down from Sheriff Hutton, Yorkshire,  after her uncle,  Richard III’s,  tragic defeat at Bosworth.  But she was not alone.  With her came the young Edward Stafford son of Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, who had been executed by Richard in 1483 after he rebelled.  Edward,  whose mother was Catherine Woodville, a sister to Elizabeth Woodville and thus an aunt to Elizabeth of York, was also given a room at Coldharbour.  Accompanying them on their journey from Yorkshire was another young lad with royal blood coursing through his veins  –  Edward Earl of Warwick, son of George Duke of Clarence.  This young man was not so fortunate as his fellow travellers and after either  a very brief stay at Coldharbour or perhaps on arrival in London  he was swiftly transported to The Tower of London never to leave until his execution on the 28 November 1499.   That is another story and I won’t go into it here but I’ve covered it in another post to be found here.

Elizabeth of York may have held pleasant memories of Coldharbour for later, when she was queen,  she would  spend a week there with one of her sons –   ‘my lord of York’  (later Henry VIII).   After Margaret’s death in 1509, her grandson, Henry VIII, granted ‘Coldharborough’  for life to George Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury.  November 1539 found the Bishop of Durham, Cuthbert Tunstall (what a marvellous name!) living at Coldharbour.   He was confined there in 1543 upon his fall, rise and further final fall again.  Edward VI then granted the house  to Francis Talbot Earl of Shrewsbury in 1553.  The ending for this great but admittedly ancient, house was in sight.  In 1598 Stow described Coldharbour, as a great house,  and still entered entered by the  arched gate under the tower of  All Hallows the Less  which had been built by Sir John de Pulteney in the 14th century.    However he added ‘the last deseaced Earl of Shrewsbury took it down, and in place thereof built a great number of small tenements, now letten out for great rents to people of all sorts’.  

It appears there was some right of sanctuary attached to Coldharbour for the Lord Mayor of the time wrote in a report to Sir Robert Cecil  regarding some keys found upon the person of one Edmund Williamson  ‘I do think they are for chamber which I hear he has in Cold Herbert,  which is a privileged place,  and therefore the authority of our City does not reach thither;  yet the same place may be searched by the help of the Earl of Shrewsbury’

The final ending came for the comparatively newly built Coldharbour and both the churches of All Hallows the Less and All Hallows the Great when they were all lost on the night of Sunday 2nd September 1666 in the Great Fire of London, a spectacle witnessed by Pepys from his boat on the river,  But maybe we should not lament too much the destruction of this second 16th century Coldharbour for Walter G. Bell in his marvellous book covering the fire wrote ‘The flames sweeping along the Thames-side,  at least did good service by ridding London of Coldharbour’s pestilential alleys.  This, till the Dissolution half a century before the Fire,  had been one of the smaller sanctuaries where debtors and vagabonds herded together in a nest of foul tenements erected by the Earl of Shrewsbury when he pulled down the historic house known as Coldharbour’   All Hallows the Less would never be rebuilt.  Ancient stairs and foundations were still to be found until 1843.   Waterman’s Hall was built on the site of Coldharbour, the hall finally being sold in 1776 to Calvert’s Brewery which was later absorbed into the City of London Brewery.    Mondial House completed in the mid 1970s now covers a large part of the medieval house.  Such is progress.  I am now going for a lay down in a darkened room.  

Now to return to Margaret Beaufort’s tenure of Coldharbour and her refurbishments.  We are very lucky that  the extant accounts covering these enhancements have survived.   Upon Margaret taking possession in September 1485, Henry VII ordered Thomas Lytley to supervise the necessary improvements and repairs required after the occupation of the Heralds: 

Two of the rooms of interest are the one called Lady Elizabeth’s Chamber and the chamber belonging to the young Edward Stafford.  Elizabeth’s chamber was provided with a table and two trestles costing 2s and 8d,  four boards costing 8d and six sawdelet bars fitted to the west window. I have to say I don’t have a clue as to what ‘sawdelet bars’ are and their use although its tempting to think they were bars at the window to stop young Elizabeth doing a runner.   Also supplied was a new key for Elizabeth’s Wardrobe which may have been a small adjoining room.   Little Edward Stafford’s chamber had a new door plus new glass in the windows.  There was also a high window over a door at the stairfoot on the backside of the chamber.  

Other chambers were allocated to Margaret’s Officers of the Household, namely Reginald Bray,  obviously,  Thomas Fowler and John Denton.   The windows of Bray’s and Denton’s chambers were newly glazed with Normandy Glass and Bray also had a new cupboard costing 2s and 4d.  Fowler needed a new chimney.  How very cosy.

The items listed in the accounts are too numerous to list here so I have chosen just a small random example here:

Ralph Neville, 2nd Earl of Westmorland c.1406-1484 and one of his wives.  Fine oak effigy once in Brancepeth Church, County Durham.  Destroyed 1998. Drawn by Charles Stothard c.1815.

An interesting life if somewhat tinged by tragedy.    Ralph Neville 2nd Earl of Westmorland, born at Cockermouth in Cumbria (c.1406-1485) was the son of Lord John Neville (b.c1387) who died in Verneuil, possibly of dysentery,  while campaigning in France in 1420 and Elizabeth Holand (b.c.1388 d. 4 January 1423) daughter of Thomas Holand, Earl of Kent.  Lord John was the son and heir of the famous Ralph 1st Earl of Westmorland by his first wife Margaret Stafford.  It was the children Ralph 1st Earl had with Margaret that he would later go on to largely disinherit in favour of the children from his second wife Joan Beaufort.    Ralph,  the 1st Earl who died in 1425 thus outlived his heir John.  Westmorland’s grandson,  the second earl and  the Ralph (I’ll call him Ralph II from now on) we are concerned with here may have been an invalid if historians including Chrimes and W E Hampton are correct. (1)  It has to be said the face on the effigy, which appeared to be an attempt at a true likeness, seems to depict the face of a man who has endured illness and suffering or perhaps just reflects, on the other hand, a man who had reached a ripe old age.   A J Pollard suggests that in his later life Ralph may have succumbed to some kind of mental illness pointing out that William Worcestre noted in his Itinerary that he was ‘simple-minded‘ (innocens homo) and that Sir Thomas Neville, his younger brother (d. c.1461), once had his guardianship. ‘ However James Petre remains unconvinced and declaring the theory ‘unfounded’  because Worcestre’s remark remains the only reference there is to the possibility that Ralph II may have been incapacitated in some way either mentally or physically.   If Ralph did indeed suffer from some sort of ill health  then to add to his woes he had ‘inherited an earldom shorn of its  richest possessions through the influence of his grandfather’s second wife Joan Beaufort.’   Prof Ross explains it well….  ‘The old earl diverted most of the great Nevill estates to his second wife, Joan Beaufort, and so through her to their eldest son Richard, thus largely disinheriting young Ralph. By an elaborate series of fines and conveyances to trustees, the earl succeeded in depriving his grandson, Ralph, . . . of the bulk of the lands in favour of Joan, through whom they were transmitted to the younger branch of the family. . . . Ralph was left in possession only of the lordship of Brancepeth, County Durham, some manors in Lincolnshire, the Nevill Inn, Silver Street in London and some property in Ripon. To Joan went the original Nevill lordships of Middleham and Sheriff Hutton in Yorkshire and Raby in Durham along with the family estates in Westmorland and Essex’

The long and unequal struggle to regain  the major part of  his inheritance  ‘which had been settled by his grandfather on his step-grandmother, and their family ‘ would dominate Ralph’s life with him claiming that his expected income of  £2600 had been reduced to £400 p.a. (2) Ralph II’s first wife –  who he married on the 7 May 1426, at Roche Abbey –  was Elizabeth Percy (b.c.1392 d.1436) daughter of the famous Henry Percy – who earned himself the sobriquet of ‘Hotspur’  – and widow of John,  Lord Clifford.  Ralph and Elizabeth would have a son John, named after his grandfather.  John was to die in 1450 of unknown causes.  The  death of his heir  must have brought fresh devastation to Ralph in an already troubled life.  John’s date of birth is unknown although he was married to Anne Holand daughter of the Duke of Exeter and suggestions of his age when he died range from early teens to early twenties.   The marriage was said to have been unconsummated which would indicate the bride and groom were both underage although his will makes it clear they shared a household.  This will has survived and makes poignant reading.  He requested to  ‘be buriede in the chirch in Hautenprice with in the quere in the mydds of the chauncell’ i.e. in the church of Haltemprice Priory, Yorkshire.  Hardly anything remains of the Priory today except perhaps a doorway leading into a now ruined farm house.  John made further requests leaving his ‘wiff all ye money that is due to me by my said lorde hir fadir. Also I bequeth all my furrs to my wiff Anne. Also I will that my said wiff have holly all the lyflode yat sche was indued inne even like as I have itt’.   This money owed to him by his father in law was from his wife’s marriage portion and would suggest that they had not been married long.  Requests were made for his servants to be paid, one of them Thomas Prowfott  for the rest of his life.  A request was made that  ‘myn executours ordayn an honest and a kunnyng prest to synge for my soule a twelmoneth, and yat he have for his sallary x. marc ‘and a horse by the name of Lyard Neville was bequeathed to the place where his body had lain at rest.   And thus John ‘the hope of a princely house’ was gone (3). The young widowed Anne Holand would go on to marry Sir John Neville, her dead husband’s uncle and their son Ralph – please  keep up at the back dear reader – would go on to become the third Earl.   This Sir John would die at the battle of Towton in 1461.  If Ralph II had his hopes dashed with the early death of his son his hopes were further dashed, on the whole, when he sought to have his grievances addressed concerning the unfair legacy left by his grandfather.  Ralph could not overcome the combined might of the junior branch of the Neville family led by a formidable Joan  Beaufort, his step grandmother, and her eldest son Richard Neville, Earl of Salisbury.  After the death of Joan in November 1440 Raby was returned to Ralph but at a heavy price.  From this time forward Ralph who now lacked any ‘confidence in the impartiality of the royal council’ seemed to accept the inevitable and he played no future significant role in politics although he would still be included on every commission of the peace for Westmorland ‘from 1432 to 1459, every one for Northumberland and the North Riding from 1437 to 1460 and every one, but one, for the East Riding from 1443 to 1460.’ (4).  

By his second wife  Margaret Cobham (d.somewhere between 1466-1471)  daughter to Reginald Cobham (and  niece to the infamous Eleanor Cobham, Duchess of Gloucester who would go on to be imprisoned for life after being found guilty of witchcraft)  Ralph would have but one child, a daughter named Margaret after her mother,  who died in infancy.   Although Ralph’s was a remarkably long life for those times, dying aged about 77, it was also a stressful one, with perhaps more than a fair share of tragedy,  when added to the equation of a life possibly blighted by both mental and physical ill health there were the long standing  repercussions resonating from the unjustness of his grandfather’s legacy to contend with.   Whatever his grandfather’s motives were – he suffered from a  complete  lack of  hindsight, as we all do –    his plans proved to be the catalyst for disaster for both branches of his family,  and there can be no dispute that the treatment of his family from his first marriage, in particular the second earl,  was woefully shabby, shabby, shabby….   This injustice of what amounted to the disinheriting of his sons by his first marriage would lead to years of  turmoil, destruction and bloodshed.  As J L Laynesmith puts it in her biography of Cicely Neville this injustice would ‘inevitably set generations of Nevilles at odds with one another and contributed to the baronial infighting of the Wars of the Roses’.  W E Hampton wrote:‘Ironically,  the brilliant and unjustly favoured offspring of his second marriage were to bring about the destruction of the houses of Lancaster and Beaufort while the issue of the first marriage, although injured by their stepmother,  were to support Lancaster and Beaufort with results disastrous to themselves’. (5)

For those who would like to go more in depth regarding the convoluted ups and downs of the arguments etc., that raged over the years emanating from the injustice of Ralph 1st Earl of Westmorland’s legacy I can recommend two Richardian articles available on line.  They are The Nevilles of Brancepeth and Raby 1425-1499. Part I 1425-1469. Nevill v Nevill. James Petre  and  The Nevills of Brancepeth and Raby 1425—1499. Part II 1470—1499: Recovery and Collapse James Petre.

Another view of Stothard’s engraving…

Closeup of the beautiful artistic skill of Stothard in Ralph’s intricate belt buckle. 

The clearest photo I have been able to trace of the oak monument to Ralph and wife before its destruction.  Photo thanks to jmc4 Church Explorer.

 

Brancepeth Castle – A Neville Residence.

The Neville Tower, Link Block and Bulmer Tower at Brancepeth Castle, County Durham.

This range of buildings are the last remaining medieval remnants of the once majestic Brancepeth Castle which was first mentioned in 1216.  These were where the private apartments of the Nevilles were located and where Ralph II spent the the bulk of his latter years.   Of this range the ground floor of Bulmer Tower, with a large vaulted chamber lit by several windows,  is the least altered of the apartments although the upper floor was much altered by the 19th century architect John Paterson who we will return to later.    The  Neville Tower, which has managed to retain its original vaulting, had a bed chamber located on the top floor.  The original approach to these apartments from the courtyard has sadly been destroyed perhaps in the 16th century.  This courtyard entered via a ‘great toure‘ with a gateway was mentioned by Leland on his visit in 1534 when he noted the courtyard and its entrance was the castle’s greatest ‘pleasure‘.    The remainder of the castle was doomed by the endeavours of an over enthusiastic 19th century architect,  John Paterson.  Anthony Emery, the noted architectural historian,  explains that the additions by Paterson are so ‘overwhelming that they smother any appreciation of this important late mediaeval residence.   Unfortunately Patterson possessed little understanding of mediaeval design and form,  limited feelings for mediaeval workmanship and no appreciation for decoration or texture.   The diagonally machine-tooled stone use throughout his work has been admirably likened by Pevsner to the patterning of tweed cloth,   The result is stage scenery of the most dismal sort’ (6)   

And so we leave Sir Ralph Neville, 2nd Earl of Westmorland to his rest.  Let us hope his mortal remains still rest safely and peacefully in a hard to access vault somewhere in St Brandon’s church.  Let’s  also hope besides the enormous amounts of disappointments he encountered during his lifetime there were moments peppered with joy, perhaps in his marriages and his young children,  and  especially in the small but important victories  he gained from time to time.  

An archaeological report –  frustratingly no mention of medieval burials –  made since the fire in St Brandon’s , can be found here.

1. Memorials of the Wars of the Roses p.49. W E Hampton

2. Neville, Ralph, second earl of Westmorland. Oxford Dictionery of National Biography 23 September 2004 A J Pollard.

3. Testamentum Domini Johannis Nevill Militis, Filii et Heredis Radulphi Comitis Westmerland”, Test Ebor vol. 2, p.146

4. The Nevills of Brancepeth and Baby 1425—1499. Part I 1425-1469: Nevill v Nevill Ricardian article December 1981 James Petrie

5. Memorials of the Wars of The Roses p.49. W E Hampton.

6. Greater Medieval Houses of England and Wales. Vol.1. Northern England. p.56 Anthony Emery.

IF YOU HAVE ENJOYED THIS POST YOUR MAY ALSO LIKE:

STAINDROP CHURCH – A NEVILLE MAUSOLEUM

EDWARD, EARL OF WARWICK – HIS LIFE AND DEATH

THE MONUMENTAL EFFIGIES OF GREAT BRITAIN : CHARLES A STOTHARD

THE CHILDREN OF JOHN NEVILLE, MARQUIS OF MONTAGU and EARL OF NORTHUMBERLAND d.1471

GREENWICH PALACE – HUMPHREY DUKE OF GLOUCESTER’S PALACE OF PLEAZANCE

 

Picture this…a young lad of about thirteen or thereabouts.   Royal Plantagenet blood coursing through his veins.  His father is dead and no longer able to neither protect nor  save him.  His mother is also no longer around to help or comfort him.    Life has changed for him overnight and will never be the same again.  The servants who tended to his every need are gone.  Alone, perhaps frozen with fear and full of dread he is taken into the inner bowels of the Tower of London – I’m not talking about the ghastly cell known as Little Ease but I’m not talking the  royal apartments either  – after which hair or hide of him is never seen again. Poor little blighter.  Ring any bells? Gadzooks!  ‘Oh god not that old chestnut again!‘ I hear some of you groan – but wait – read the heading – this is not about one of the sons of Edward IV but of another lad of noble lineage, Henry Pole the Younger,  who also disappeared mysteriously from the Tower.   

Old photo of the cell known as Little Ease.  I’m not suggesting young Henry ended up here but the knowledge that such places were deep in the labyrinth that was the Tower must have struck terror in even the stoutest of prisoners.  

This young Henry was the grandson of Margaret Pole née Plantagenet (b.1473 d.1541) countess of Salisbury, daughter of George duke of Clarence (b.1449 d.1478) who had been executed by his brother, King Edward IV,  in 1478.  Her mother was Isobel Neville (b.1451 d.1476) daughter of the famous Richard Neville earl of Warwick later known as ‘The Kingmaker’.     Aspects of this story do indeed mirror that of the sons of Edward IV who also disappeared while staying at the Tower but whereas gallons of ink have been expended on the subject of those two royal boys, Henry remains something of an afterthought in the pages of history.  It has been suggested that he may have been starved to death.  A cruel death but one that would avoid the shedding of any blood.  Neat eh?  If we were to  follow the same trains of thought of those that believe the sons of Edward were murdered in the Tower because they  were last seen alive in the Tower, ergo they must have died in the Tower,  and thus  a heinous child murder had taken place,  then the same conclusion must be arrived at for Henry.   However as poor Henry was not one of  Richard III’s ‘victims’ it seems as if his possible murder isn’t of much importance so what’s the problem?  But seriously,  where is the outcry?  Where is the denunciation?  There is none!   Whereas Richard III – held responsible for his nephews deaths by many for over five years  – has been vilified up to this very day and particularly by a cohort of modern historians who really should know better.   While the ‘murders’ of his nephews has been surely the absolute worst lump of mud to be chucked at Richard, the possible murder or death brought on by  the wilful and cruel neglect of an equally young and innocent Henry Pole ne’re evokes hardly a mention.  How strange.   How hypocritical.  Rather than having the heinous charge of child murderer hurled at him, Henry VIII is  better remembered, in the main,  for having been the husband of  the unfortunate Anne Boleyn –  as well as four others,  another one of whom was also executed –   and  to a somewhat lesser degree the cause of the  Dissolution of the Monasteries.  This seems unfair to me.  Could it be the fact that Richard – who even his haters have to admit or stoutly ignore –  prior to the death of his brother, Edward IV and the legal disinheriting of his nephews  – led, on the whole,  a pretty honourable life for your average 15th century nobleman which has made it difficult for those that try to defend the usurpation of Henry Tudor.  What to do?  Well go down the propaganda route I’d say.   For who can admire someone who enables the murder of young defenceless children?  Equally the most sensible route to go down if  one is, on the other hand  a cheerleader of a dynasty that has gone down that precise cruel route would be to do all in one’s power to Shut It Down And Make It Go Away or as a last resort Fake Amnesia.   And so we can see why the fate of the young Henry Pole, who indeed was born under the most unluckiest of stars,  has remained to all intents and purposes muted.  

While several artworks have been created showing the two little sons of Edward IV awaiting their ‘imminent deaths’ in the Tower no artist has thought to do the same depicting the equally young Henry Pole the Younger.  King Edward V and the Duke of York in the Tower, Paul Delaroche 1831.Wallace Collection.

But I’ve gone off on a tangent somewhat and to return to Henry Pole jnr.  Such is the dearth of information about Henry it can scarce fill a paragraph.  Even his age is a mystery and it’s been suggested he could have been aged anywhere between 13 to 18.    But the fact that he was not executed along with his father, Henry Pole,  Lord Montague,  suggests that he was in the lower age range.  When Henry jnr’s  uncle Reginald, later Archbishop of Canterbury, wrote about the ‘tyranny‘ that had now extended from priests to nobles he described how it had also  ‘come to women and innocent children’.    Reginald, rather wistfully,  would also go on to describe Henry as ‘the remaining hope of our race’.   Charles de Marillac, the French ambassador described him as ‘the little nephew of Cardinal Pole’(1). These remarks would indicate Henry was still quite a young child at the time of his arrest and incarceration.   

His grandmother, the aging Margaret Pole,  following some very intense interrogation at Warblington Castle and confinement at Cowdray was sent to the Tower by November 1539.  She would have found her grandson already languishing there as he had been sent to the Tower along with his father at the time of the latter’s arrest in November 1538.  Were the pair able to meet, sit and converse, perhaps even embrace?  One would hope so.  

William Fitzwilliam, earl of Southampton.  The face of the man who interrogated Margaret Pole over two day at Warblington Castle.  Said to have disliked her, he described her as ‘rather a strong and custaunt man than a woman’.  Artist Hans Holbein.

In 1540 both Henry and Margaret were refused pardons.   However Henry VIII continued to provide £13 6s.8d a month food allowance for Margaret, Henry and another child detainee,  Edward Courtney.    Margaret was executed – by an unskilled executioner – at the Tower on the 27th May 1541, the same location where both her father and young brother Edward earl of Warwick had been put to their deaths.   A terrible pattern was forming.  In 1542 the last payment for his food was made and Henry is heard of no more. But why would he have been treated so harshly?  It has been suggested that in a plot hatched by his uncle, Reginald Pole,  Henry was put forward as a possible spouse for Henry VIII’s Catholic daughter, Princess Mary. Eustace Chapuys did indeed report that Mary would never marry an Englishman save maybe Reginald Pole or Henry Pole Jnr (2).  As it would have been pretty pointless to marry Reggie  – seeing as he had taken a vow of celibacy –  it would seem that Henry indeed was certainly up there at the  top of the list of marital candidates for Mary although I suppose no problem, even marrying a man who was celibate,  would have been insurmountable in those times if you had the clout.  Reggie Pole would go on to wear a  cardinal’s Biretta instead of St Edward’s Crown –  but still – what’s not to like?

However the fact that Henry’s name was mooted as a possible spouse for Mary may have sounded the death knell for him or certainly put paid to him being released.   Certainly he was not as lucky, if lucky is the right word, as Edward Courtney, son of Henry Marquis of Exeter, who managed to survive being  imprisoned for 15 years until being released in 1553 after Mary took the throne.  Perhaps Courtney’s survival may be put down to the fact that his imprisonment was less onerous than that of Henry’s.  Marillac wrote to the French king, Francis 1st, in July 1540 that Courtney ‘is more at large than he was, and had a preceptor to teach him lessons, a thing which is not done towards the little nephew of Cardinal Pole, who is poorly and strictly kept and not desired to know anything’ (3).  Courtney’s later life and shenanigans is quite interesting and his story can be found elsewhere.  

No depiction has come down to us of Henry Pole the Younger but here is the portrait of his grandmother, Margaret Pole, now at the National Portrait Gallery in London.

Of course, being a strong believer in the theory that the young sons of Edward IV were unharmed and sent to places of safety it’s only fair that I should explore the idea could it be possible that this is what happened to Henry?  Even though I would like to think so I think in this case it’s highly likely that yes, a child of noble blood did die in the Tower, perhaps if not actually murdered then at the very least suffering a high level of neglect which very likely contributed to his early death.   

I would like to recommend Hazel Pierce’s biography Margaret Pole Countess of Salisbury 1473-1541 Loyalty Lineage and Leadership from which I have drawn on heavily for this post.

1. Margaret Pole Countess of Salisbury 1473-1541 Loyalty, Lineage and Leadership p. 172. Hazel Pierce.
2. Pole, Henry, Baron Montague (1492-1539) T F Meyer Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
3. Margaret Pole Countess of Salisbury  Loyalty, Lineage and Leadership 1473-1541 p. 173 Hazel Pierce.

If you enjoyed this post you might also like:

Margaret Pole Countess of Salisbury 1473-1541 Loyalty Lineage and Leadership by Hazel Pierce

EDWARD, EARL OF WARWICK – HIS LIFE AND DEATH.

L’Erber – London Home to Warwick the Kingmaker and George Duke of Clarence

The Sisters Neville – Isobel, Duchess of Clarence and Queen Anne Neville, Daughters to the Kingmaker.

IS THIS THE FACE OF GEORGE OF CLARENCE’S DAUGHTER

GEORGE DUKE OF CLARENCE, ISOBEL NEVILLE AND THE CLARENCE VAULT

London before the Great Fire and much as Richard Neville ‘The Kingmaker’ and his family would have known it…  L’Erber stood  slightly to the north west of Coldharbour which is the large house seen here in middle of the picture  facing the Thames.  No depiction of L’Erber has come down to us. Part of the The Visscher Panorama of London, 1616. Image Peter Harrington Rare Books.  

L’Erber numbered amongst the most important houses in Medieval London.  It gets regularly confused, even by one well known  historian,  with that other great house,  Coldharbour,  which confusingly was known for a while as Le Toure.  If searching old maps for these once magnificent houses it might be helpful to remember that L’Erber stood on the east side of Dowgate Hill which was situated to the north of Thames Street, while Coldharbour was to the south of Thames street  and fronted onto the River Thames.

The oblong area within the red lines was the site of L’Erber.  Entrance was via the main gate which  was approached from Dowgate Hill.  Bordered to the south by Carter Lane later known as Chequers Yard/Lane and from  the east by Bush Lane where there was a back entrance.  Immediately to the north of  L’Erber was the church of St Mary Bothawe.  This church was destroyed in the Great fire and rebuilt.  Chequers Lane now gone but Bush Lane has survived the centuries. The area is now covered by Cannon Street Station.  From Strype’s edition of Stow’s Survey c.1720.

Both these houses have been covered in depth by C L Kingsford’s article ‘On Some London Houses of the Early Tudor Period’ (1)  This excellent article which gives the best and most accurate description of L’Erber available to us is now very difficult to get hold of but I was kindly sent a copy by someone from the Richard III Society.  Frustratingly no depictions  were ever made of L’Erber but we know exactly where it stood.    Basically it was massive covering just  slightly under three quarters of an acre.  Along with the house itself were two gardens, a large garden known as the Great garden and a smaller one known as the ‘Lytell’ garden.  There were also tenements, which were rented out, and a brew house known as the ‘Cheker’ (remembered in the name Checkers Yard),   stables and also an area for carts.   Situated immediately south of the church of St Mary Bothawe it was an irregular quadrilateral, having street frontages on three sides opening up on Dowgate, Carter Lane, later known as Chequer Lane/Checkers Yard,  and Bush Lane and having two large gates referred to in the houses accounts as simply the fore gate and back gate.  Built in the 14th century as a merchants house it would develop into one of the finest noblemans houses of London.

L’Erber’s most interesting period was during the Wars of the Roses when it was owned by Richard Neville, later known as Warwick the Kingmaker,  and later through his daughter, Isobel, passed into the possession of her husband,  George Duke of Clarence.  Stow tells us of Warwick’s largesse and that at his other house situated down nearby Warwick Lane   ‘were oftentimes six oxen eaten at a breakfast and every tavern was full of his meat; for he that had any acquaintance in that house might have there so much of sodden and roast meat as he could prick and carry upon a long dagger’  (2).   Perhaps the same generosity could be found at L’Erber.  In 1457 Richard the Earl of Salisbury , Warwick’s father, was housed at L’Erber along with 500 of his men while Warwick stayed at his house in Warwick Lane with his equally large entourage.   

Interesting shenanigans  took place at L’Erber – and oh,  to have been a fly on the wall -during the period following the Battle of Tewkesbury in May 1471 because it seems safe to surmise that  Clarence would have found it prudent to stay in his London house to  be at the epicentre of the robust arguments then taking place at Westminster Palace between the three royal brothers, Edward IV,  Clarence and Richard Duke of Gloucester regarding the inheritances of the Neville sisters, Isobel,  Clarence’s  wife and her sister Anne.  Following on from that it’s also safe to further surmise that it was probably from  L’Erber,  while Anne was in the care of her brother-in-law and sister,  that the young Duke of Gloucester sought her with marriage in mind.  I’ll let Croyland take up the story ‘This proposal did not suit the views of his brother, the Duke of Clarence, who had previously married the eldest daughter of the said earl.  Such being the case he caused the damsel to be concealed in order that it might not be known by his brother where she was, as he was afraid of a division of the earl’s property which he wished to come to himself alone in right of his wife and not to be obliged to share it with anyone other person.  Still however the craftiness of the Duke of Gloucester so far prevailed  that he discovered the young lady in the city of London disguised in the habit of a cook maid upon which he had her removed to the sanctuary of St Martin’s.   This charming story is so extraordinary and out of the common that I tend to believe it in the main although I am more inclined to think that it was probably Anne who took her fate into her own hands and slipped away into hiding rather than a dastardly George disguised and hid her in an attempt to thwart Richard’s marriage plans.   It’s quite easy to imagine an abundance of raised voices, door slamming and tears going on at L’Erber around that time.   In a very happy ending Richard found Anne and took her to the nearby sanctuary of St Martin le Grand until the arguments regarding the inheritance were concluded and resolved by King Edward himself. It was also likely that it was L’Erber where Clarence spent his last days of freedom before, having been summoned to appear before brother Edward at Westminster he was sent to the Tower and execution.

George, Duke of Clarence.  Rous Roll.

Possible portrait of George’s wife, Isobel Neville. Luton Gild Book.

Possible portrait of Anne Neville. Eton Wall portraits.

But how did the house first fall into the ownership of the great Neville family?   A lease dated 1371  with all the shops, cellars, sollars, gardens and rents was acquired by William Latimer, Lord Danby.   Latimers daughter, Elizabeth,  married John Neville, father of Ralph the first earl of Westmorland.   Westmorland was the father of  many children including Richard, Earl of Salisbury and Cicely Neville, mother to the three famous York brothers, Edward IV, Richard III and George Duke of Clarence.  It was Westmorland who ‘obtained a grant in fee from Henry IV‘  and who would leave L’Erber to his son Richard Earl of Salisbury,  who was father to the Richard Neville who would become known as  ‘The Kingmaker’.   After the Kingmaker’s death at Barnet in 1471, Edward IV would grant L’Erber to his brother Clarence, whose wife, Isobel, was the Kingmaker’s  eldest daughter. However after Clarence’s judicial murder L’Erber reverted to the crown once again and was later granted by a grateful Henry Tudor to the Earl of Oxford for life.  Following Oxford’s death in 1513 and in one of history’s funny old twists,  L’Erber was restored, in her own right,   to one of the  last of the Plantagenets, Clarence’s daughter, Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury,  by a benevolent Henry VIII.   Later Henry would revert to type and  she too was judicially murdered, basically because Henry had the raging hump with her son Reginald.

Portrait of Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury.  L’Erber was the London home of Margaret. National Portrait Gallery.  

As both her parents were dead by the time Margaret was five years old its doubtful she would have had any memories of staying at L’Erber with them.  However no doubt she felt a feeling of fulfilment as what had once been one of the  homes of her parents, and several Nevilles before them,  was returned to her.  We do know that her son, Montague, had his own room there as a receipt for repairs to ‘a dore bytwyne my Lord of Mountagewes Chamber and the hey house‘ is still extant.  This also lets us know that Montague’s chamber would have been to the south-east corner of the house since that was near where the hay house was situated. Other repairs noted were: ‘a groundcell for my Lady’s Chamber’, ‘a somer pese under the gystes in the Lowe Chamber under the Great Chamber’, ‘bord spent in the back syde of my lady’s Great Chamber for weder bordyng and pentyses’,  ‘mendying a wall in the bak syde of my lady’s place in the Lytell Garden’,  ‘work in my lady’s Great Chamber on the great garden syde and the bak syde of the hey house’.  We can glean from this that Margaret’s Chamber i.e. bedroom,  was on the east side of the house overlooking the great garden. There was in January 1521  a payment of 7d. (7 pence)   made for cutting the Vine and in 1524 16d. was spent on four roots of vine and for cutting the vine.  On the 3rd July 1520 13s.4d. was paid to a William Kellam ‘by my Lady of Salusbury’s commaundement, the which he had for a tabernacle wherein (an image) of our Lady was enclosed, the which was paynted in the Erber’.  Also 3s.4d.  ‘which my Lady gave of her pity to the man who made the old tabernacle and gave him the old tabernacle and the said money’.  Payments were also made for the paving in the street in front of the gates, 19s.8d., plus 2s. for planks for the gutter beneath the paving (3). It’s also on record Margaret presenting St Mary Bothawe – whose priest she employed at L’Erber –  with tapers of wax which were to be ‘renued twyse a yere’.

However as is well known, the ending was tragic for the last scion of the Neville owners of L’Erber.  Margaret and other members of her family, including Montague, were arrested in November 1538 and placed in the Tower.  The rest is history which I won’t go into here. L’Erber was taken back yet again by the Crown.  It was purchased by the Drapers Company who let it to Sir Thomas Pullison, a lord mayor,  who according to Stowe ‘rebuilt’ it.  Pullison transferred the lease to none other than Sir Francis Drake who used it as his London residence until 1593.  The ending for L’Erber was in sight…

The Great Fire of London. The devastating conflagration that consumed so much of medieval London including L’Erber.  Artist  Lieve Verschuier

This  ending for L’Erber arrived by midnight of the  first evening of the awful conflagration known as the Great Fire of London which begun in the early hours of the morning of Sunday 2nd September 1666 and which would  burn for three days.  On that evening along with L’Erber went Dowgate, Elbow Lane, Skinners Hall and St Mary Bothawe Church and much, much more.  As no illustrations have come down to us we have no way of knowing how much of the original medieval house still survived in 1666.  But I would like to think that had the shades of Warwick, his son-in-law, two daughters and granddaughter wandered through the those grand old rooms they would have been able to recognise the wonderful old house they had known so well.

1.  On some London House of the Early Tudor Period C L Kingsford Esq 14th April 1921.  Published by the Society of Antiquaries
2. A Survey of London Written in the year 1598 p.92.  John Stow.
3.  On some London House of the Early Tudor Period C L Kingsford Esq 14th April 1921.  Published by the Society of Antiquaries

If you have enjoyed this post you might also like:

Margaret Pole Countess of Salisbury 1473-1541 Loyalty Lineage and Leadership by Hazel Pierce

EDWARD, EARL OF WARWICK – HIS LIFE AND DEATH.

THOMAS CROMWELL’S HOUSE IN AUSTIN FRIARS

The Sisters Neville – Isobel, Duchess of Clarence and Queen Anne Neville, Daughters to the Kingmaker.

THE ETON CHAPEL WALL PAINTINGS – A PORTRAIT OF QUEEN ANNE NEVILLE?

IS THIS THE FACE OF GEORGE OF CLARENCE’S DAUGHTER

OLD LONDON BRIDGE – A MEDIEVAL WONDER!