Tag Archives: Henry VI

Three camels and an ostrich

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Nicholas Jone was an Italian merchant during the fifteenth century married to an Englishwoman. Like most men of his time he realised that patronage was essential. In 1442 or early in 1443 he went to Turkey and he came home with gifts – three camels and a turkey (bet he was popular during the voyage.). Henry VI was delighted with the new additions to the royal menagerie and gifted Jone the office of the brokerage of the exchanges and securities of carracks, ships, and galleys coming to England – if I’m honest I think I can see who got the better end of the deal.

They were not the only camels and ostriches to be given as gifts. Edward IV was presented with a camel and in 1472 sent to Ulster, ‘She resembled a mare and was of a yellow colour’.1

https://www.englandsimmigrants.com/page/individual-studies/i-saw-this-camel-and-thought-of-you

1 The Irish Digest, vol 36, issues 1-3, 1950, p.84

Newstead Abbey

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Newstead Abbey

First things first – it should actually be Newstead Priory rather than Newstead Abbey given that it was the home to Austin Canons or Augustine Canons. They are also described as Black Canons because of their robes. All Austin Canons were priests as well as monks. They were not an enclosed order they believed that they should serve within the wider community.

The priory of St. Mary of Newstead in Sherwood was founded by Henry II in about 1170. The charter granted the manor of Papplewick, it’s church and mill to the new priory as well as meadowland at Bestwood and 100s. of rent in Shapwick and Walkeringham.

The charter was confirmed by King John and added to by other Plantagenet monarchs including Henry III, Edward I, Edward II and Edward III. Queen Joan of Scotland left many of her goods to the priory.

Despite this the priory faced a variety of financial difficulties across the decades. So it wa probably just as well that the Austin Canons who had a reputation or being good hosts entertained Edward I when he was hunting in Sherwood Forest and also Edward II. The royal hunting lodge at Clipstone isn’t that far away but the relationship between the Plantagenets and the priory protected the canons from the problems of financial constraint.

The Plantagenet desire to ensure that the canons of Newstead Priory could meet their financial obligations meant that they gained more church livings, mortmain lands, tenements, and rents. They were also excused many of the fees that were liable to the Crown due to the priory’s status as Lord of the Manor.

Richard II continued the Plantagenet patronage of the Austin Canons at Newstead by granting them an annual allowance of a tun of wine in the port of Hull in aid of the maintenance of divine service.

Both Henry VI and Edward IV continued the tradition of granting lands to the priory. The rent that Henry VI charged for eight acres within Sherwood Forest was one midsummer rose to be delivered to the exchequer.

There were various visitations across the centuries. Archbishop Ludham of York visited personal in 1259 and whilst he approved the rule of the prior he added a note that the canons shouldn’t drink after compline and they shouldn’t wander around the cloister. In 1280 Archbishop Wickwane required the prior to be more earnest about divine service, canons shouldn’t keep private property and they were still drinking after compline. Later a visitation said that the canons should maintain silence and that when anyone took a new set of clothes they had to return the old ones to the common store.

By 1535 and the Valor Ecclesiasticus that gave a value to the wealth of the monasteries, Newstead was worth £167 16s 11 1/2d of which 20s was given on a Maundy Thursday to the poor in commemoration of Henry II who founded the priory. It was clearly worth less than £200, making it a lesser monastery. The act for their suppression was passed in 1536.

The canons managed to avoid this by paying a fine of £233 6s 8d but on the 21st July 1539 they succumbed to the inevitable. Cromwell’s commissioner – London- took the surrender. The prior received £26 pension, the sub prior £6 and the ten canons who also signed the surrender document received a pension ranging between £3 and £5.

In 1540 the property passed into the possession of the Byron family – as in mad, bad and dangerous to know.

In later years, the eighteenth century, whilst the monk’s fish pond was dredged a medieval lectern was discovered. It appears to have been thrown there by the canons hoping to save it from Henry VIII’s commissioners. It can now be seen in Southwell Minster.

In 1817 the property was sold to Colonel Thomas Wildman and from him into the Webb family. It was finally bequeathed together with its gardens to the City of Nottingham in 1931.

‘Houses of Austin canons: The priory of Newstead’, in A History of the County of Nottingham: Volume 2, ed. William Page (London, 1910), pp. 112-117. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/notts/vol2/pp112-117 [accessed 27 December 2020].

https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1001082

History Jar Podcast

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Episode 4 of the podcast is now available in the series No plan like yours to study history wisely. Having covered the Normans and Plantagenets in previous podcasts we have now arrived at the house of Lancaster, descended from John of Gaunt, the third surviving son of Edward III. This week we cover Henry IV, Henry IV, and Henry VI.

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-history-jar-podcast/id1509714747

With many thanks to Andrew Durrant of This is Distorted

www.thisisdistorted.com

And the legal bit:

This podcast uses sounds from free sound which are licensed under creative commons:

Ambient battle sounds by pfranzen at https://freesound.org/people/pfranzen/sounds/192072/

Beheading SFX by Ajexk at https://freesound.org/s/271984/

Henry of Bolingbroke – adding to the Plantagenet family tree.

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Henry IV

Henry IV

We’re still of John of Gaunt phase one – Henry was the youngest surviving child of John of Gaunt and Blanche of Lancaster, born  in 1367 at Bolingbroke Castle in Lincolnshire.  Like his father before him John wished to ensure that his son was married to an heiress.

Humphrey de Bohun, Earl of Hereford, Essex and Northampton died without male heirs but left two co-heiresses – Eleanor and Mary.  Eleanor married Henry of Bolingbroke’s uncle Thomas Duke of Gloucester. Thomas moved to Pleshey Castle in Essex and encouraged Mary to go into a nunnery.  Had she done so then he would have inherited all of Humphrey’s titles and wealth by right of his wife Eleanor.  Mary had been three years old when her father died and together with her sister she became a royal ward. The marriage between Thomas and Eleanor took place in 1374 when Eleanor was eleven although she didn’t leave her mother until she was fourteen.

Mary’s mother, Joan FtizAlan, had other ideas than her daughter becoming a nun so took her to Arundel Castle to visit her aunt having come to an arrangement with John of Gaunt – whether John wanted to spite his brother or saw an opportunity to provide his son with a wealthy wife can only be speculated upon.  In any event Henry was married to Mary sometime in 1380.  Thomas was apparently so cross at being thwarted that his relationship with John never recovered.

henry vThe newly married pair were supposed not to co-habit but a son Edward was born in 1382 who lived only four days. In September 1386  Mary gave birth to her a son named Henry.  It is possible that there has been a confusion about Edward and that Mary and Henry were not his parents at all – the gap between pregnancies suggests that Henry was the eldest son born after Mary was deemed old enough to live with her groom.  Thomas followed in 1387,  John in 1389, Humphrey in 1390, Blanche in 1392, and Philippa in 1394.  Records indicate that Henry sent apples and pears as well as shell fish to his pregnant wife. Mary died in 1394 in her mid twenties.

And that’s all swimmingly straight forward.  As you might expect  Mary de Bohun was descended from Henry III so she needed a papal dispensation to marry Henry of Bolingbroke as he was a second cousin.

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Henry VI

The complications to this strand of the family tree are not from Plantagenet marriages as despite the fact that Henry IV had four sons who survived to adulthood he had only two legitimate grandsons. Blanche married the Duke of Bavaria and had a son called Rupert in 1409.  He died in 1426.  Henry of Monmouth (Henry V) married Katherine of Valois following his victory at Agincourt.  The couple had one son Henry of Windsor who became Henry VI when he was a baby following Henry V’s untimely death.

Katherine of Valois would eventually marry her keeper of the wardrobe – a certain Owen Tudor.  Though there was a suspicion that she had conducted an affair with Edmund Beaufort (grandson of John of Gaunt) who may have had designs on the dowager queen until the regency council required any prospective groom of Katherine to forfeit his lands unless he had permission from the king to marry. The affair if it happened was in 1427 – when Henry VI was six – so a long wait for him to be old enough to give permission. Edmund disappeared from the scene and Katherine got herself secretly married to Owen who didn’t have to worry overly much about forfeiting much in the way of possessions.  There is a suspicion is some circles that Katherine was pregnant with Beaufort’s child. There is no written evidence. The Tudors had no claim to the throne by their father or by Katherine of Valois irrelevant of paternity.  The Tudor claim when it arrived would be by marriage to Margaret Beaufort.

The other contentious widow is Jacquetta of Luxembourg who became the Dowager Duchess of Bedford when John of Bedford died in 1435.  Jacquetta chose to marry a household knight – which was a bit of a comedown for a duchess – bearing in mind a woman took on her husband’s rank. Her second husband was Richard Woodville.  With her new husband she had sixteen children – including Elizabeth Woodville.

As an interesting aside three of the wives on this particular tree were accused of being witches for political reasons.  Joan of Navarre was accused of being a witch because Henry V wished to control her dower lands in order to draw the revenue from them to pursue his campaigns agains the French. Eleanor Cobham was accused of witchcraft to topple her husband good duke Humphrey from power on the regency council and Richard III accused Jacquetta of  witchcraft resurrecting a story concocted by the Earl of Warwick – both of whom resented the rise of the Woodvilles.

 

 

Margaret Beaufort

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478px-Lady_Margaret_Beaufort_from_NPGI’ve blogged about Henry Tudor’s mother before and am always surprised at the reaction she seems to provoke including that it’s obvious that she was responsible for the murder of the princes – by which people do not mean that she was stalking the corridors of the Tower of London beating small boys to death with her psalter but that she “must” have reached an accommodation with the Duke of Buckingham who she was seen talking with during a “chance encounter” on the road prior to the rebellion which led to his execution (and he was family after all)  in 1483. I have also been accused of being biased against her as well as biased in her favour in the same post.  To which my response was – eh?

The main problem for Margaret would seem to be the question – Who gains?  And quite obviously, her son Henry Tudor became king of England.  Couple that with means, motive and opportunity and Margaret Beaufort has to be included on the suspect list -she was after all Lady Stanley by this point and had a prominent position at court until she blotted her copy books and found herself under house arrest.  Even if she didn’t have access to the Tower, the Duke of Buckingham did and Lord Stanley was part of Richard III’s circle of power (though not part of the inner circle.) Everyone in power or with money had access to the kind of men who would kill children – even women if they had trusted servants.  It was not until Josephine Tey’s wonderful book entitled The Daughter of Time which was published in 1951 that anyone pointed the finger at Margaret although there had been doubts about Richard III’s involvement for centuries.

Henry Tudor didn’t launch an inquiry to find out what had happened in 1485 – nor was there any religious rite for the pair of princes which seems odd given that he had to revoke their illegitimacy in order to marry their sister Elizabeth – so it would have been only polite to mark their demise.  But then who wants to draw attention to their presumed dead and now legitimate brothers-in-law and the fact that your own claim to the throne is a tad on the dodgy side?  Edward IV didn’t want Henry VI turning into a cult so why would Henry Tudor want Edward V turning into a cult? And there is also the fact that having a mass said for the souls of the dead is one thing but what if one or more of the boys was still alive – it would be a bit like praying for their immediate death.  Which brings us to Perkin Warbeck.  Or was he?  No wonder the story continues to fascinate people and excite so much comment.

However, back to Margaret Beaufort and the point of today’s post.  Strong women in history often get a bad press both during their life times and in the history books – assuming they manage to get out of the footnotes because until fairly recently history was written from a male perspective – and Victorian minded males at that – women were supposed to be domestic and pious, they were not supposed to step out from the hearth and engage in masculine activities nor were they supposed to be intellectually able (the notable exception to this rule being Elizabeth I.)

Margaret Beaufort began life as a typical heiress – tainted by the apparent suicide of her father the Duke of Somerset- Once her father died she was handed over to a guardian, in this case the Duke of Suffolk.  Suffolk effectively gained control of Margaret’s wealth and also had the power to arrange her marriage – which he duly did – to his own son John de la Pole.  This marriage would be dissolved before Margaret left childhood. Margaret never considered herself to have been married to John.  The fact that it was dissolved on the orders of no less a person than Henry VI demonstrates that she was a pawn on a chess board – just as most other heiresses were at this time.  There was also her links to the Lancastrian bloodline to be considered. Her great grandparents were John of Gaunt and Katherine Swynford (and no I’m not exploring the legitimacy of the legitimisation of their family in this post) but at the time of her marriage to Tudor there were male Beauforts available who would have taken precedence in such matters.  Margaret was also descended from Edward I via her maternal grandmother Lady Margaret Holland but that’s neither here nor there for the purposes of this post other than to note it was another source of Margaret Beaufort’s wealth.

Her lot was to marry and produce children. To this end Henry VI arranged a marriage between Margaret and his own half-brother Edmund Tudor who he had created Earl of Richmond but who now needed the money to go with the title.  When the pair married on 1st November 1455, she was twelve.  Edmund was twenty-four.  By the following year Margaret was a widow and two  months after that a mother.  Let’s not put modern morality on Edmund’s actions.  Had Margaret died before she became a parent her estates and income would have reverted to her family rather than to her husband.  It was in Edmund’s financial interests to begin married life as soon as possible. It is probably for this reason that Edmund chose not to defer consummation until Margaret had matured somewhat.

Humphrey Stafford duke of buckingham.pngIn March 1457 Margaret married for a second time (or third if you’re being pedantic) to the Duke of Buckingham’s second son- Henry Stafford.  This was a marriage that had been negotiated by Margaret’s mother Margaret Beauchamp of Bletsoe.  Jasper Tudor may also have been involved as he escorted Margaret from Pembroke and had his own financial interests to consider.  The Duke of Buckingham (pictured left) was a powerful political ally in that he was as powerful as Richard of York (pictured right).richard-plantagenet-3rd-duke-of-york-2  It was a marriage that would protect Margaret’s interests but which would separate her from her son who was now in the guardianship of Jasper Tudor, the Earl of Pembroke.  After the Battle of Towton in 1461 young Henry would be placed in the care of the Yorkist Herbert family.  Margaret would never have another child – even if she could visit this one on occasion whilst he was resident with the Herberts before he and Uncle Jasper fled across The Channel in 1471 following the short-lived second reign of Henry VI.

It was during this marriage that Margaret Beaufort began to develop the skills that would help her son to the throne.  Sir Henry Stafford, was a third cousin and some eighteen years older than her.  Although he was a Lancastrian and fought on the loosing side at Towton he soon sued for pardon.   During the 1460s Sir Henry rose in the Yorkist court.  He demonstrated the necessity of being politically realistic.  In 1468 Margaret and her husband entertained Edward IV at their hunting lodge near Guildford.   For whatever reason Sir Henry fought against the Lancastrians at the Battle of Barnet and eventually died of the wounds he received there.  Pragmatism would see Margaret into another marriage and into a role at the courts of  Edward IV and Richard III.

Margaret, rather like the redoubtable Tudor Bess of Hardwick, had a very businesslike approach to marriage – as is demonstrated by her marriage to Thomas Stanley.  Bess married for money whilst Margaret married for security, access to a power base, and, it would appear, for the chance to bring her son safely home from exile.   Who can blame her?  She been married off twice in her childhood due to her wealth and family links.  The man she regarded as her first husband, Edmund Tudor, had died whilst in the custody of his enemies albeit from plague.  Her second husband had relinquished his Lancastrian loyalties demonstrating real-politic and then died of wounds sustained in one of the intermittent battles of the period.  Why would Margaret not marry someone close to the seat of power who could keep her, her inheritance and potentially her son safe?  The fact that she married only eight months after the death of Sir Henry Stafford is not suggestive of undue haste, rather a desire to ensure that she had a role in the decision making.

The other thing that Margaret learned during her time as Lady Stafford was the importance of loyal servants not to mention a network of contacts.  Reginald Bray began his career as Sir Henry’s man but would go on to become Margaret’s man of business, trusted messenger and ultimately adviser to Henry Tudor.  So far as the contacts are concerned she had an extended family through her mother’s various marriages and  her own marriages.  As a woman of power i.e. Lady Stanley she had influence at court.  She knew people and it would appear from Fisher’s biography had a capacity for getting on with them (not something that modern fictional presentations tend to linger on.)

In 1483 Margaret was heavily involved in the Duke of Buckingham’s rebellion against Richard III.  Her agent was Reginald Bray. Polydore Virgil – the Tudor historian- made much of Margaret’s role at this time. During the reign of Edward IV  she had petitioned for Henry’s return home as the Earl of Richmond now, in the reign of Richard III, she plotted to make her son king.  She arrived at an accommodation with Elizabeth Woodville so that Princess Elizabeth of York would become Henry’s wife – making it quite clear that by this point Elizabeth Woodville believed her sons to be dead.  Autumn storms caused Henry’s boats to turn back before the rebellion ended in disaster but he swore that he would marry Elizabeth of York.  Not only would such a marriage reunite the two houses of Lancaster and York but it would legitimise Henry as king – should the situation arise.  Pragmatic or what?

As a result of her involvement with the 1483 plot Margaret found herself under house arrest and all her property in the hands of her husband.  Her wealth wasn’t totally lost and Lord Stanley connived to allow her continued communication with her son.  Margaret was no longer a pawn on the chess board she had become an active player – and furthermore knew how to play the various pieces to best advantage and to hold her nerve.

There is popular acceptance of men such as Edward IV and the Earl of Warwick – politics and violence in the fifteenth century were suitably manly pastimes. It was an era when “good” men did “bad” things to maintain stability. We know that Edward must have ordered the murder of Henry VI following the Battle of Tewkesbury but he has not been vilified for it – you can’t really have two kings in one country without the constant fear of civil war.  He ordered his own brother’s execution – but again he is not vilified for it – after all George Duke of Clarence had changed sides more often than he’d changed his underwear by that point.

By contrast Margaret Beaufort, despite Fisher’s hagiography, has not always been kindly portrayed in recent years – words like “calculating” are hardly positive when it comes to considering the child bride who became a kingmaker thanks to her own marriages and her negotiations with Elizabeth Woodville.  Come to think of it Bess of Hardwick has had more than her share of bad press in the past as have women like Elizabeth Woodville and Henry VI’s queen Margaret of Anjou.  Ambitious women, whether for power or money, were not and are still not treated kindly by posterity – possibly because they stepped out of their allotted role and refused to behave as footnotes.

DO I think she did it?  In all honesty?  I don’t know but probably not. I don’t have any evidence that says she did and neither does anyone else. I would also politely point out that she did not have custody of the two princes nor was she responsible for their safety.  Did she benefit from their deaths – yes- but she would have been a fool not to and no one has ever accused Lady Margaret Beaufort of being one of those. There were plenty of other people who could have arranged their deaths and been on the scene to benefit much faster than Henry Tudor who was in Brittany at the time. But as I said at the start of the post people do feel strongly on the subject – here’s a picture to give you a flavour.

Picard-Beaufort-Princes-300x229.jpg

https://www.royalhistorygeeks.com/why-margaret-beaufort-could-not-have-killed-the-princes-in-the-tower/  It’s worth looking at the comments -for every argument made in the History Geek post there is a counter argument.  For those of you who want to see the argument that she could have had the princes killed go to: https://mattlewisauthor.wordpress.com/2016/09/04/margaret-beaufort-and-the-princes-in-the-tower/

I shall be talking to the U3A Burton-On-Trent, Rolleston Club on 27th February at 10.00 am on the topic of Lady Margaret Beaufort.  There’re bound to be questions!

Licence, Amy. 2016 Red Roses. Stroud: The History Press

Jones, Michael and Underwood, Malcom. (1992)  The King’s Mother. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Bamburgh Castle – red rose or white – its changing ownership in the aftermath of Towton.

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Bamburgh CastleBamburgh Castle perched on the edge of Budle Bay is another of the Percy castles but its history is much longer than that.  It was home to Gospatrick Earl of Northumbria at the time of the Norman Conquest.  He was eventually forced to submit to the Conqueror.  Bamburgh was handed over to the Bishop of Durham.  Sources differ as to whether it was William the Conqueror who built the first castle on the site or the bishop.  Suffice it to say that by the reign of Henry II after several changes of ownership it was in Crown hands – Henry II funded the great keep and it became a venue for a number of Plantagenet visitors.

Now is not the time to discuss the politics of the English East March or the rivalry between the Nevilles and the Percies.  Suffice it to say that Bamburgh was a Lancastrian Castle during the Wars of the Roses. Following the Battle of Towton in 1461 Bamburgh, Alnwick, Warkworth and Dunstanburgh  remained in the hands of the Lancastrians.  This meant that Edward IV was not secure from Scottish incursions or from Lancastrian forces landing along the coast.

Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick , a.k.a. The Kingmaker besieged Bamburgh and it surrendered in July 1462.  Unfortunately for the Yorkists Margaret of Anjou landed with troop in October with french mercenaries – the Yorkist garrison now promptly handed themselves and Bamburgh over to the Lancastrians. Edward IV now came north and Margaret decamped to Scotland leaving Sir Ralph Percy and Henry Beaufort (Duke of Somerset) in charge of the castle.  There was another short siege and in December the castle was once again in Yorkist hands.

Ralph Percy, the garrison commander, was allowed to swear allegiance to Edward IV. Edward wanted the Percy family on his side but by the new year Ralph had concluded that he preferred the Lancastrian cause to that of the Yorkists and the Nevilles who were, after all, long time enemies of the Percies.  In March 1463 Bamburgh was back in the hands of Margaret of Anjou.  In the North East of the country 1463 was a year of sieges and intermittent warfare orchestrated by Margaret and her Scottish allies but by the end of the year the politically savvy Scots had organised a truce with the Yorkists.

It says something that during 1462-1464 Henry VI was at Bamburgh at various times. In 1464 looked as though the Lancastrians might be on firmer ground when the Duke of Somerset changed sides once again.  John Neville, the Kingmaker’s younger brother now came north and a battle was fought at Hedgeley Moor in April 1464 followed dup by the Battle of Hexham the following month.  Neville defeated the Duke of Somerset who was captured and promptly executed. Henry VI left Bywell Castle the day after the Battle of Hexham and went into hiding in the uplands of Northumbria and Cumberland.

The Northumbrian castles that had remained Lancastrian now surrendered but Bamburgh in the hands of Sir Ralph Grey remained obdurate.  In part this was because he had been Yorkist in 1463 and having changed sides permitted the Lancastrians back into Alnwick – making this post feel rather like a game of musical castles.  The Yorkists told him that they would execute him just as soon as they could – oddly enough this did’t encourage him to surrender nor did the information that one man would be executed for every cannon ball fired at the castle –   Nine months, many canon balls and a collapsing tower later Bamburgh had no choice but to capitualte making it the first castle in England to be defeated by the power of artillery.  And it wouldn’t have surrendered even then, had Sir Ralph not been knocked senseless and his second in command taken the opportunity to surrender whilst Sir Ralph was out for the count.

The Earl of Warwick didn’t carry out his threat to execute one man per cannon ball but Grey was executed in July. After the fall of Bamburgh the Yorkists more or less controlled the whole country with the exception of Harlech Castle and a few isolated pockets.

 

 

Yan, Tyan, Tethera and other sheep related historical facts…and a cross stitch sampler

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yantyantether.jpgTraditionally shepherds counted their sheep in scores – or lots of twenty – twice a day, morning and evening, just to check that they hadn’t lost any in the night.    When the shepherd got to twenty he or she would place a pebble in their pocket and start again and so on until they ran out of sheep or pebbles.

There are various regional versions of sheep counting but my own favourite is Cumbrian sheep counting. Some sources believe that this form of counting goes back to the Vikings – and given that there are studies that suggest that iconic Cumbrian sheep,the Herdwick, was introduced by non other than the Vikings it is easy to see how this conclusion was arrived at.

Others identify this particular form of counting as a Celtic form of counting – Brythonic Celtic if you want to be accurate.  The ancient kingdom of Rheged of which Cumbria was a part was Celtic and for those of you who like unexpected links – was once ruled by Coel Hen – or Old King Cole (the merry monarch).

There is also a theory that sheep counting, which is rhythmic, is the reason that counting sheep is supposed to send you to sleep: yan, tan, tethera, methera, pimp, sethera, lethera, hovera, dovera, dick, yan-a-dick, tyan-a-dick, tethera-dick, methera-dick, bumfit, yan-abumfit, tyan-a-bumfit, methera bumfit, giggot.  It’s also hugely repetitive with only the light relief of number fifteen as a diversion.

Wool is historically one of England and Wales most important industries.   Dre-fach Felindre in the Teifi valley was once the centre of a thriving woollen industry, earning the nickname ‘The Huddersfield of Wales’ – the two don’t have many other similarities.  It is now home to the National Wool Museum of Wales. We visited one very wet summer’s day to find out more about sheep farming and the production of textiles and in its turn it inspired me to create the cross stitch sampler at the start of this post with its varous methods of counting and various sheep or wool related images including the teasels which were once grown in industrial quantities to tease the tangles from the wool.

medieval sheepIn medieval England wool was produced for export to the Low Countries where weavers were prepared to pay best prices for English wool. Even before that time sheep had been important – the Domesday Book reveals that there wherefore sheep than any other kind of animal. From the thirteenth century onwards wool generated huge wealth for the country and it explains why from Yorkshire to the Cotswolds not to mention East Anglia there are so many magnificent churches. Let’s not forget that Norwich was once England’s second city based entirely on the wealth generated from wool. The Merchants of the Staple are one of the oldest corporations still in existence. The Cistercians built their great monasteries on the wealth of wool based on their use of the grange system – or specialist farms.  By the fourteenth century there were something like 150,000 sheep in Yorkshire alone.  The sheep in question turn up in sculpture and manuscripts.  Interestingly whilst sheep milk and sheep cheese was important to the agrarian society of the time meat was a later addition to the sheep’s versatility with mutton finding it’s way onto the menu.

Mutton, incidentally, comes from a sheep which is more than a year old.  Sheep of course can be ewes, rams, tups, hoggets or wethers.  They come in all shapes and sizes.  Cheviot sheep with their startled ears and dense wool have been around since the fourteenth century whereas the blackfaced suffolk sheep with their black legs, faces and downturned ears have only been recorded since the eighteenth century.  An article in Country Life identifies twenty-one native breeds of sheep and provides a handy identikit summary for sheep spotters.  It can be found here http://www.countrylife.co.uk/out-and-about/dogs/shaggy-sheep-stories-21-native-british-sheep-breeds-recognise-153367

french sheep illustrationInevitably  it wasn’t long before someone came up with the bright idea of taxing wool – let’s not forget that the Lord Chancellor sits on a woolsack.  Edward I was the first monrch who slapped a tax on wool.   Henry VI licensed the export of  Cotswold Sheep such was their value.  Even Henry VII got in on the act in 1488 with his own wool act in Wakefield and the west Riding encouraging skilled foreign workers to settle in the country to promote the wool industry.  He also prohibited sale abroad as detrimental to the making and finishing of cloth . In 1523 dyers found themselves coming under regulation thanks to Henry VIII and  the Capper’s Act of 1571 required every male in the kingdom aged six and above to wear a wool hat on a Sunday.  A three shilling fine could be levied for anyone not conforming to the sartorial requirements.  And that’s before we get to the Dissolution of the Monasteries or the land enclosures which troubled the Tudors (e.g. Kett’s Rebellion of 1549).  No wonder Sir Thomas More had something to say about sheep in Utopia – that the sheep ate the men.  Or put more simply the big landowners kicked their tenants and little men off the land so that their herds of sheep could increase in size.Luttrell Psalter sheep

James I was persuaded by Sir William Cockayne to launch a project designed to boost the earnings of those involved in the manufacture of undyed cloth setting up a dyeing industry to do the job at home. The government was promised £40,000 p.a. from increased customs through the importing of dyestuffs. James gave control to Cockayne and the new company was given permission to export in 1615. It was clear by 1616 that Cockayne had not the resources to buy the cloth from the clothing districts and hold it until it could be marketed. Matters became worse when the Dutch banned the import of cloth. Merchants went bankrupt, weavers rioted, cloth exports slumped and the industry stagnated. By 1617 James abandoned Cockayne and the Merchant Adventurers regained control.  It should also be noted that James wasn’t without his own share of riot and rebellion related to sheep and enclosure – the Midland Revolt of 1607 demonstrates that problems didn’t go away for a few years before returning with a vengeance during the eighteenth century.

Times change and by the mid seventeenth century there was a requirement to be buried in a woollen shroud to help keep the wool market going (The Burying in Woollen Acts) This act of 1666 required all the dead to have woolly shrouds apart from plague victims and presumably that was because no one wanted the job of checking to see whether the deceased was complying with the law – families were liable to a five pound fine if the shroud was anything other than English wool.  The law was in force for about a century although it remained on the law books for much longer.

James I banned the sale of untreated wool to Flanders and ultimately the ban on sales of wool was not lifted until 1824. In 1698 there was even an act that meant that farmers with flocks of sheep near the cost had to give an account of the numbers in their flocks to prevent wool smuggling.

In 1699 it was forbidden that any of England’s colonies should export wool anywhere other than England – so it was sold to Enlgish markets and then sold on elsewhere.  It doesn’t take a genius to see why the colonists felt somewhat out of sorts about the matter. And of course wool is one of the reasons behind the Highland Land Clearances that began in about 1750 and lasted for the next century.

If you like the sampler pictured at the start of this post and you do cross stitch it is now possible to buy and download it from the HistoryJar shop which can be accessed at the top of the page or by clicking on the link.

 

Cecily Neville, Duchess of York

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Joan BeaufortCecily, the youngest child of Joan Beaufort and Ralph Neville, was born on 3 May 1415 at Raby Castle.  Like the rest of her siblings an advantageous marriage was arranged for her by her parents.  She was possibly married by 1427 to Richard of York when she reached the age of twelve certainly she had become betrothed to her father’s ward when she was nine and Richard was thirteen.

Once she became a duchess Cecily was required to leave her childhood behind her  in Raby and fulfil court duties wherever Henry VI resided or else to run their main residence of Fotheringhay Castle.  With the patronage of the king’s aunt Richard whose father had been executed for his part in the Southampton Plot was able to regain lands which had been forfeit.  Cecily’s accounts and correspondence reveal that she was busy in helping her husband run his estates and also in the running up of bills – Cecily appears to be rather a heavy shopper who did not stint on expensive fabrics and jewels.  In 1443-44 she spent £608 on clothes – Richard kept a close eye on her spending and probably had a long discussion about the need to buy matched pearls when he saw the bill.

The couple’s first child, a daughter called Anne was born in 1439.  Two years later Richard became governor general of France and the couple moved to Rouen.  It was in Rouen where Cecily’s son Edward was born.  A later smear campaign would suggest that an archer called Blaybourne was Edward’s father rather than the duke – evidence for this particular conspiracy theory comes from the fact that Edward’s baptism was a low key affair unlike that of his younger brother Edmund and that Richard was elsewhere waging war on the key dates.     Amy Licence observes that if Edward was premature this would not apply and would explain why he was baptised quickly and without fuss.  She also notes that the concept of full term is a moveable feast and that equally Cecily could have been pregnant when she arrived in France making the evidence of Richard’s location an irrelevance.  The fact that Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick and even George, Duke of Clarence made the accusation is really neither here nor there given the circumstances in which they decided to have doubts about Edward’s right to be king…that would be just before they staged their rebellion in 1469.  It was reported at the time by the Milanese ambassador.  Michael Hicks speculates as to whether Cecily may have assisted in the campaign to remove Edward from the throne. It would have to be said, does it really matter very much in any event as Richard of York acknowledged Edward as his son?

Whilst in Rouen Cecily would have two more children and become the hostess of Margaret of Anjou in 1445 after Henry VI had married her by proxy.  Shortly after that Cecily returned to England and her family continued to expand.  In 1447 Richard was appointed Lieutenant of Ireland, Cecily went with him to Dublin, but his relationship with Henry VI was becoming increasingly difficult.  Richard began to liken himself to Henry VI’s uncle Good Duke Humphrey as he was excluded from what he saw as his rightful share of power.

Cecily inevitably became embroiled in the Wars of the Roses being present in Ludlow after the Battle of Ludford Bridge in 1559.  Richard’s flight with Cecily’s brother and nephew resulted in him being attainted for treason.  Cecily lost everything and was sent off to stay with her sister Anne, Duchess of Buckingham.  Cecily was permitted to attend the Coventry parliament where her husband was attainted in order to plead his cause to the king.  Whilst Richard was attainted his men were only fined and Henry VI issued 1000 marks a year for her upkeep and that of her children.

The following year the wheel of Fortune turned once again. Richard of York, the earls of Salisbury and Warwick returned to England. Briefly Cecily was a finger’s tip away from the crown.  John Harding’s chronicle compares Margaret of Anjou with Proud Cis and concludes Cecily was a more appropriate sort of queen not least because she was under her husband’s control (clearly the chronicler hadn’t received word of Cecily’s shopping trips).  Of course, it all went hideously wrong and Richard ended up with his head on York’s city wall wearing a paper crown in the aftermath of the Battle of Wakefield (30 December 1460).

 

Once her son Edward became king after the Battle of Towton (29 March 1461) she was effectively the first lady of the court until such time as he married.   Her relationship with sister Anne can perhaps be seen in the fact that one of the first things that was done was to confirm Anne’s dower rights as Duchess of Buckingham.  Edward also ensured that he wouldn’t have to worry about his mother’s desire for rich clothing and jewellery.  He gave her lands valued at 5,000 marks a year.   She was one of the wealthiest women in England. She had additional income from customs revenue on wool.

Cecily even styled herself “queen by right,” after Edward’s marriage to Elizabeth Woodville became public knowledge – much to her irritation; like the Earl of Warwick she had been working towards an alliance with a European princess.

As the end of the 1460’s approached festering family resentments erupted into rebellion. Cecily’s relationship with Edward became increasingly difficult and in 1478 when Edward had George drowned in a vat of Malmsey Cecily left court and stayed away until Edward died. The Yorkist matriarch then supported her son Richard in bypassing the claims of her grandsons who were declared illegitimate.  With the death of Richard at the Battle of Bosworth in August 1485 Cecily retired from public life and took holy vows.

 

Cecily died on 31 May 1495 having outlived all her sons and all but two of her daughters. She had lived the last years of her life along religious lines – giving rise to a reputation for piety. She had been the mother of two kings and was the grandmother of Henry VII’s queen.  She was buried in Fotheringhay next to her husband.  Their tomb was broken down during the Reformation but re-established by her two times great grand-daughter Elizabeth I.

Laynesmith, J.L. Cecily Duchess of York

Amy License. (2015) Cecily Neville: Mother of Kings. Stroud: Amberley Publishing

Joan Beaufort’s descendants – Eleanor Neville Countess of Northumberland

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Joan BeaufortEleanor was born in about 1397 to Joan Beaufort and Ralph Neville, 1st earl of Westmorland. Eleanor, like the rest of her sisters,  was married off to another cousin – Richard le Despenser- who if you want to be exact was her second cousin.  His mother was Constance of York who was the daughter of John of Gaunt’s younger brother Edmund of  Langley, Duke of York.

The pair were married some time after 1412 but he died in 1414 aged only seventeen.  He’s buried in Tewkesbury Abbey along with his other more notorious Despenser ancestors – his two times great grandfather was Hugh Despenser who was Edward II’s favourite.  Once again though the Nevilles’ had made a wealthy match for their child.  The Despensers were amongst the wealthiest families in the country and were also Plantagenet in ancestry thanks to Constance.

Richard’s early death meant that the title of Baron Burghersh, which he had inherited from Constance, passed to Richard’s sister Isabella.  Just from point of interest it is worth noting that she would marry the Earl of Warwick  and in turn her daughter, Anne Beauchamp, would marry a certain Richard Neville – better known to history as the Kingmaker – demonstrating once again that very few families held the reins of power during the medieval period and that they were all interconnected.

Eleanor  meanwhile  married into one of the great northern families – the Percy family – which must have caused her heartbreak in later years given that the Percy-Neville feud would be one of the triggers for the Wars of the Roses.  Henry Percy, the 2nd Earl of Northumberland was the son of “Hostpur.”  In a strange twist his family hadn’t done terribly well under the Lancastrian kings despite supporting Henry Bolingbroke against his cousin Richard II.  The Percys had been rewarded in the first instance but had become disillusioned by Henry IV.  Both Henry Percy’s father and grandfather had been killed as a result of rebelling against Henry IV.  It was only when Henry V ascended the throne that our particular Henry Percy was able to return from exile in Scotland in 1413.  It was at the same time that Eleanor’s parents arranged the marriage between Henry and Eleanor.  It says something that Joan Beaufort who was the king’s aunt when all was said and done was able to work at a reconciliation between the king and the house of Percy whilst at the same time strengthening the Neville affinity in the north.

Percy, having returned to the fold, did what fifteenth century nobility did – he fought the Scots and the French.  He was also a member of the privy council during Henry VI’s minority.  But by the 1440s Percy was in dispute with various northerners over land.  He had a disagreement of the violent kind with the Archbishop of York and then fell out with the Nevilles which was unfortunate because not only was he married to Eleanor but he’d married his sister to  the 2nd earl of Westmorland (let’s just set aside the Neville-Neville feud for the moment).  The problem between the Percys and the Nevilles arose from a disagreement over land. Eleanor’s brother, the Earl of Salisbury married his son Thomas to Maud Stanhope who was the niece of Lord Cromwell.  Wressle Castle passed into the hands of the Nevilles as a result of the marriage. The Percy family was not pleased as the castle was traditionally one of their properties.  Eleanor’s husband did not become involved in a physical fight with his in-laws but his younger son Thomas, Lord Egremont did.  He attacked Thomas Neville and Maud Stanhope’s wedding party at Heworth Moor in August 1453.  The two families were forced to make the peace with one another but the hostility continued to mount.  The Nevilles were associated with Richard of York so naturally the Percy faction adhered to York’s opponents who happened to be best represented by Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset of represented Henry VI. The feuding which was really about dominance in the north was a bit like a set of dominoes knocking against one another until the whole affair moved from local to national significance. Each side became more and more determined to support their “national” representative in the hope that either York or Somerset would gain the upper hand and the patronage system would see rewards in the form of confirmation of landownership.

Henry Percy was with the king on 22 May 1455 at St Albans and was killed.  At the time it was regarded as the Earl of Salisbury’s way of dealing with the problem- meaning that he targeted and killed his own brother-in-law.  This in its turn escalated the hostility between the two factions. The death of Eleanor’s husband made the Percy family Lancastrians to the back-bone and would ensure that the feud continued across the battle fields of the Wars of the Roses.

Eleanor and Henry had ten children.  Their eldest son called John died young.  The next boy – inevitably called Henry- became the 3rd Earl of Northumberland upon his father’s death in 1455 and he in his turn was killed in 1461 at the Battle of Towton along with his brother Richard.  Eleanor’s son Henry had his own feud with the Nevilles on account of his marriage into the Poynings family.  This Henry was present at the council meeting in 1458 that demanded recompense for the events of St Albans in 1455.  He took part in the so-called Love-day orchestrated by Henry VI to demonstrate an end of the feuding but in reality Henry worked politically to have his Neville relations attainted of treason by the Coventry Parliament and he was on hand to take his revenge at Wakefield in 1460 when Richard of York and the Earl of Salisbury were killed.

Thomas Percy, Baron Egremont, the Percy responsible for the attack at Heworth Moor, was killed in 1460 at the Battle of Northampton. Ralph Percy was killed in 1464 at the Battle of Hedgeley Moor near Hexham leaving George who died in 1474 and William Percy who was the Bishop of Carlisle ( he died in 1462).  Rather unfortunately for the troubled family, Eleanor’s daughter Katherine was married to Edmund Grey, 1st Earl of Kent – the name may be familiar.  He was the man who laid down his weapons in the middle of the Battle of Northampton costing Henry VI the battle.  Another daughter Anne, lost her first husband in 1469 after he joined with the Earl of Warwick in conspiring to put Henry VI back on the throne and finally as you might expect there was a daughter called Joan who married into the northern gentry.

Eleanor’s son Henry was posthumously attainted of treason after Towton by Edward IV.  Her grandson, another Henry, was packed off to prison and would only be released when Edward IV shook off the influence of the Kingmaker in 1470.  The Percy family lost the earldom of Northumberland in the short term to the Neville family as a result of their loyalty to Henry VI in 1464 when Edward IV handed it over to the Nevilles in the form of John Neville Lord Montagu but unfortunately for Montagu  Northumberland’s tenantry did not take kindly to the change in landlord and Edward IV found himself reappointing the Percys to the earldom – which contributed massively to the Kingmaker throwing his toys from his pram and turning coat.

The new Earl of Northumberland – the fourth Henry Percy to hold the title had learned a lot from his father and grandfather.  Instead of rushing out wielding weapons Eleanor’s grandson was much more considered in his approach.  He did not oppose Edward IV and he did not support Richard III despite the fact that Richard returned lands which Edward IV had confiscated. This particular Earl of Northumberland was on the battlefield at Bosworth but took no part in the conflict.  Once again the locals had the final word though – the fourth earl was killed in 1489 in Yorkshire by rioters complaining about the taxes…and possibly the earl’s failure to support the last white rose king.

Eleanor died in 1472 having outlived her husband and most of her children.

Michael Hicks makes the point that securing an inheritance and a title was extremely important to the medieval mindset.  Once these had been gained the aim was to hold onto them.  The Neville clan headed by Joan Beaufort appear to have been increasingly single-minded about the retention of title and property and this was the key deciding factor in the variety of feuds they became involved with. (Hicks:325).

Just Cecily to go…

Hicks, Michael, (1991)Richard III and His Rivals: Magnates and Their Motives in the Wars of the Roses.  London: Bloomsbury

Wagner, John A. (2001). The Encyclopaedia of the Wars of the Roses. Oxford: ABC

 

 

Katherine Neville, Duchess of Norfolk and her toy boy.

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Joan BeaufortKatherine Neville, daughter of Ralph Neville  earl of Westmorland and his second wife Joan Beaufort, was married first to John Mowbray, 2nd Duke of Norfolk.  The pair had only one child – a boy named John.  He’s the chap who turned up late to Towton in Easter 1461 and helped the Yorkists to win.  He died in 1461and was succeeded by his son also named John – this particular Duke of Norfolk as well as being Katherine Neville’s grandson was also the one who had the on-going feud with the Paston family about Caistor Castle.

Meanwhile Katherine had been married off to Thomas Strangeways with whom she had two children; Joan and Katherine.  I posted about Katherine earlier in the week. After Strangeways died Katherine Neville married for a third time to John, Viscount Beaumont.   He was a member of the Lincolnshire gentry and a trusted Lancastrian advisor.  He was Constable of England between 1445 and 1450. It was in this capacity helped make the arrest of Good Duke Humphrey back in 1447 and he had been around for Jack Cade’s Rebellion which came about partially as a result of the disastrous French campaign. By 1460 he was part of Henry VI’s bodyguard – this position was to cost him his life  on the 10 July when the Lancastrians lost the Battle of Northampton.

The Earl of Warwick returned from Calais where he had gone after fleeing the scene of Ludford Bridge the previous year and demanded to  see the king.  This was denied him.  His army marched north from Kent whilst Henry VI’s army came south.  The Lancastrians camped at Delapre Abbey with their backs to the River Nene.  Lord Grey of Ruthin ordered his men to lay down their weapons.  It turns out that one of the reasons he changed sides was over a property dispute.  The Earl of Warwick’s men were able to get to the very heart of Henry VI’s camp where John Beaumont was killed. His death is recorded in John Stone’s Chronicle.  History also has his will which was made four years previously in 1456 – a sensible precaution given the unsettled nature of the times.

In 1465 – Katherine then aged sixty-five was provided with a new spouse by Edward IV.  Her groom was one of Elizabeth Woodville’s brothers – John, aged just nineteen.  The marriage was scandalous at the time and there are various tales told after the fall of the Woodvilles which suggest that she was not so keen on the idea. One chronicler described the whole affair as “diabolical-” though admittedly the writer William of Worcester did think that Katherine was closer to eighty than sixty. It has been suggested that this marriage was one of the straws which broke the Earl of Warwick’s loyalty to his cousin.

It all seems a bit odd when all is said and done. Katherine was aunt to both the earl of Warwick and Edward IV.  When Edward was crowned Katherine was present with Edward’s mother, Duchess Cecily of Raby, who was after all her sister. It can’t have helped that Katherine’s fourth husband was the same age as her grandson from her first marriage who doesn’t seem to have regarded the marriage favourably either – it should be remembered that his grandmother held a considerable portion of the Norfolk estates as part of her dower – which John Woodville now benefitted from.  Most historians are of the view that it all came down to providing wealth and status to the Woodville clan.  Certainly John benefitted financially from his marriage to Katherine and even gained land from William Beaumont, her step-son from her third marriage, who was as Lancastrian as his father.

John Woodville was executed in 1469 by the Earl of Warwick  and George Duke of Clarence who had joined in rebellion against Edward.  John was with his father who was also executed. History does not record Katherine Neville’s view on her bereavement.

Katherine survived until 1483 – possibly with the help of various medications prescribed by the king’s apothecary John Clark which she did not pay for – a case was presented to the Court of Common Pleas on the matter.  Robes were issued so that she could play her role in Richard III’s coronation. There is no further record of Katherine nor do we know where she is buried.

The image that I have used for the last few posts depicting Joan Beaufort with her daughters comes from the Neville Book of Hours

Kleineke, Hannes (2015) “The Medicines of Katherine, Duchess of Norfolk, 1463–71” in Medical History 2015: Oct; 59(4): 511-524  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4595958/