Category Archives: Fifteenth Century

Alice Neville, Baroness FitzHugh – she wore blue velvet

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Marmion Tower, West Tanfield

Alice was one of Richard Neville’s sisters – so she was Anne Neville’s aunt. Her father married her to one of the sons of his northern affinity – Henry FitzHugh of Ravensworth. FitzHugh would become the 5th baron. In time Alice gave her husband a clutch of sons and at least five daughters. FitzHugh was able to. marry them off to improve his own standing and the Neville family, headed by the Earl of Warwick, benefitted as well. Anne FitzHugh found herself married to Francis Lovell who would become Richard of Gloucester’s friend and Lord Chamberlain. It could have been that King Edward thought that Warwick would marry the boy to one of his own daughters but the earl had his sights set on greater things.

Inevitably the family found them selves bound up with Robin of Redesdale’s revolt in 1469 but the family together with Francis Lovell were pardoned their part in Warwick’s rebellion. Alice’s husband died in 1472 and does not seem to have been present in his brother-in-law’s army at Barnet. Nor does he seem to have taken part in the Battle of Tewkesbury. Fortunately he and Alice had founded a chantry at Ravensworth so that masses could be said for their souls to speed them through purgatory.

Life changed for Alice and her children. There would be no more grand marriages now that Warwick was gone. Alice remained a widow but she seems to have been on good terms with her brother’s replacement, Richard Duke of Gloucester. The family changed its affinity from Neville to Plantagenet and Alice is likely to have been welcome at Middleham, especially when her niece, Anne, gave birth to her son Edward of Middleham. She was the only one of Anne’s aunts to attend her coronation in 1483. With her was her daughter Elizabeth married to Sir William Parr. All the ladies who attended Anne received new gowns of blue velvet.

Alice would mourn the death of Anne and perhaps, more quietly, the end of Richard. She and her sisters Katherine, the widow of Lord Hastings executed by Richard, and Margaret were still alive when Henry Tudor claimed the throne. Margaret who had lived a life of poverty because of her husband’s Lancastrian credentials was now welcome at court. Anne Lovell lost her home at Minster Lovell which fell to Jasper Tudor although there is no indication he ever lived there. After Lovell’s disappearance in 1487 she received an annuity from the king but like her mother chose not to marry again. Instead she may have lived with her mother in the FitzHugh dower house at West Tanfield. Alice took an active role in arranging the marriages of her grandchildren and administering her dower estate. Her life was perhaps the most untroubled of the Neville sisters’ experience of marriage and life in general.

Despite providing her husband with six sons the FitzHugh barony was divided between co-heiresses within a generation. Her eldest son, Richard, suggesting that he was named after his maternal grandfather, died while his son George was still a minor and Alice’s grandson was dead by 1513. Her other sons had no legitimate male heirs of their own.

And the advent theme for today? Tricky – I’m going with the gift of blue velvet. The cloth was imported at great expense from Italy. The centres of production were Venice and Genoa. I’m not sure what colour it was but I seem to recall that Henry VIII – ever a modest and economical man- had a toilet seat covered in velvet.

Baldwin, David, The Kingmaker’s Sisters

Cecily of York

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Cecily of York: probably 1482–83, formerly Canterbury Cathedral, now Burrell Collection

It was not always easy being a princess in the fifteenth century – Cecily of York, the second surviving daughter of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville, was born on 20 March 1469. It wasn’t a good year to be born. The week before her birth, a papal dispensation was issued for Cecily’s uncle George to marry Isabel Neville, the daughter of the Earl of Warwick – cousins of Cecily’s as it happens. By the end of spring Robin of Redesdale’s rebellion had flared up and been extinguished; George and Isabel tied the knot in Calais and then the king’s brother and cousin came back to England where they made war on Cecily’s father. By the middle of August 1469 Edward IV was a reluctant guest of the Kingmaker’s and Elizabeth Woodville together with their three daughters remained in London. The coup didn’t quite go as planned but the following year the king was forced to flee his kingdom whilst the queen and her daughters sought sanctuary in Westminster. Later Sir Thomas More in his account of the History of Richard III would describe her as ‘not so fortunate as fair’. She certainly had an eventful infancy and childhood which was anything but fortunate.

When Cecily was four she was contracted in marriage to James Duke of Rothesay to cement a pact with the kings of Scotland. The marriage was called off but for a little while Cecily was styled Princess of Scots. Although that particular marriage fell through in 1482 Edward IV continued to pursue the idea of a Scots alliance this time with the Duke of Albany who had designs on the Scottish throne.

On 15 January 1478 Cecily attended the marriage of her younger brother Richard Duke of York to the heiress Anne Mowbray.

Edward IV died on 9 April 1483. By the beginning of May Elizabeth Woodville, her daughters and younger son Richard of Shrewsbury were back in sanctuary at Westminster. In June Cecily was declared to be illegitimate with her siblings and in January 1484 Parliament issued the Titulus Regius confirmed the illegitimacy. By March Elizabeth had come to an agreement with Richard III and her daughters emerged from sanctuary. It’s possible that Cecily joined her elder sister Elizabeth in Queen Anne’s household or alternatively she may have been sent north with her younger sisters to Sandal Castle where Margaret Plantagenet and her younger brother Edward Earl of Warwick resided.

Richard had agreed to arrange suitable marriages for his nieces but he had also made them illegitimate. Cecily was married to Ralph Scrope of Upsall. The Scrope family were part of the Neville hegemony who transferred their allegiance to Richard when he was the Duke of Gloucester. The marriage was a good one for a base born daughter of the king but when Henry Tudor became king the marriage was annulled on the grounds of consanguinity. The problem remained that Cecily was a Plantagenet so Henry could not afford to make a very good marriage for his sister-in-law in case he inadvertently created opposition to his own rule. This matter was resolved by a marriage to Lord Welles – making Cecily his sister-in-law and his aunt by marriage. The marriage took place before the Christmas festivities of 1487 as by that time Cecily was married to Lady Margaret Beaufort’s half-brother. Her sister Catherine was married to Henry’s full uncle Jasper Tudor. Cecily’s two daughters died young but the marriage proved a successful one. Welles died in 1499 much to Cecily’s distress. She became a wealthy widow – Welles left her a life interest in his estates. Welles had taken the precaution of naming Lady Margaret Beaufort and Henry VII to oversee his wishes.

Henry appeared fond of Cecily. She played a prominent role at court as did her cousin Margaret the daughter of George Duke of Clarence and Isabel Neville.

Some time in 1502, or thereabouts, Cecily who was an ornament of Henry VII’s court, made a third marriage – to Thomas Kyme a squire from Lincolnshire. It was a love match – she had married far beneath her in much the same way that her grandmother Jaquetta of Luxembourg married below her social level. Henry VII was not as understanding of Cecily as Henry VI had been of her grandmother. As the sister of the queen she was a valuable bride (shades of Mary Boleyn). She was banished form court and her property confiscated. Fortunately Henry’s redoubtable mother Lady Margaret Beaufort supported Cecily by allowing the couple to live at her home at Collyweston. it appears that Margaret who knew the princess from infancy was fond of her. She managed to persuade Henry to allow Cecily to keep a small portion from the estates that Welles left her and to remit the fine that Kyme faced for having married without seeking royal permission.

Because Cecily chose to marry for love she dropped into obscurity. The written record becomes unclear. It seems that she bore Kyme two children, Richard and Margaret before dying in 1507. She is either buried in Quarr Abbey on the Isle of White -near her home, or somewhere near Hatfield where she possibly lived in the final weeks of her life.

Images of Quarr Abbey

Nicolas, Nicholas Harris. Privy Purse Expenses of Elizabeth of York: Wardrobe Accounts of Edward the Fourth: With a Memoir of Elizabeth of York, and Notes. United Kingdom: W. Pickering, 1830.

https://archive.org/details/livesprincesses02greegoog

Rather irritatingly I’ve just realised that I’m not sure if the middle photo bottom row is Quarr Abbey or not – if you recall all my photos were either destroyed or hopelessly jumbled.

When is Richard Duke of York actually Ralph Neville 1st Earl of Westmorland?

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St Andrew’s Church Penrith

The so-called Neville Window can be found on the south side of the nave. And it’s fairly clear who folk have thought the medieval glass depicted, at least since the church’s rebuild during the eighteenth century. In 1716 the vicar and parishioners petitioned for a new church on the grounds they were concerned the old one was on the verge of falling down. The total cost for a new building in the style of Christopher Wren was just over £2,253. Pevenser identified the resulting church as the finest of its kind in Cumbria.

So back to the Neville window. It’s created from fragments of glass belonging to the old window. Obviously the faces were thought to be Richard Duke of York and his wife Cecily Neville but have since been identified as Cecily’s parents – Ralph Neville, 1st Earl of Westmorland who was responsible for the a re building of the church in 1397 and Joan Beaufort the daughter of John of Gaunt and Katherine Swynford – the decorative surround of white roses, crowns and the bear and ragged staff are not medieval.

Dugdale’s Visitation of Cumberland made in 1665 (MS.C.39) contains drawings of the medieval church and they include depictions of the glass which was originally in the north window of the chancel. Dugdale reveals that the woman was originally kneeling and her kirtle depicted the royal arms whilst her mantle depicted the Neville arms – so a member of the royal family who married into the Neville family – and hey presto Joan Beaufort – making the man kneeing next to her Ralph Neville – not least because Dugdale depicts him with the Neville arms. Since the church was rebuilt by them it does seem a logical conclusion. A full discussion of the images and a reproduction of the Dugdale images can be found in Ashdown-Hill.

If nothing else it demonstrates that history is constantly under revision!

Is the image of the monarch King Richard II?

Ralph was also responsible for the red sandstone castle having been granted Penrith’s lordship by Richard II in 1396. It’s been suggested that one of the fragments of medieval glass in St Andrews depicts Richard II.

And obviously I couldn’t resist adding the photographs of the Scandinavian hogback tombstone…just because.

Ashdown-Hill, Cecily Neville: Mother of Richard III, (Barnsley: Pen and Sword, 2018)

https://archive.org/details/pedigreesrecorde00sainrich/page/66/mode/2up

Misericords

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A ledge provided by a hinged seat in choir stalls for clerics to lean on during services. Translates from the French meaning of ‘mercy seat’. Ripon has 32 of them which were created at the end of the 15th century. I particularly like the bagpipe playing pig, Jonah emerging from a very sharp toothed whale, the lady (I think) in a wheel barrow and the mermaid.

It’s still the Nevilles- more sons of Joan Beaufort

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Palace Green Durham

Joan Beaufort and Ralph Neville had ten sons. However, Henry, John, Thomas and Cuthbert died young. Which leaves us with the Earl of Salisbury, Robert Neville who became Bishop of Durham and three more. The count down begins! Robert, the earl’s fifth son, was born in 1404.

In 1413 when he was nine years old he became the prebend of Eldon in the collegiate church of St. Andrew, Auckland and made a collection of them through his teenage years demonstrating that he was always destined for the church.  He was sent to Oxford to study and afterwards returned to Yorkshire as the provost of Beverley.

When he was twenty-three he became the Bishop of Salisbury but then in 1437 the bishopric of Durham fell vacant so the following year Robert transferred north – presumably on the grounds that it would be much more helpful to his family if he was there rather than Salisbury. And let’s face it his uncle was Cardinal Beaufort and he could pull the necessary strings. Nepotism ruled ok in the fifteenth century! By placing the palatinate in friendly hands it meant that land deals, awkward tenancy agreements and disputes could be smoothed over. And to expedite matters even further one of the first things Robert did was to make his big brother Richard the Earl of Salisbury the ‘guardian of the temporalities.’

Aside from some building work which bears the Neville coat of arms and entertaining the English and Scottish commissioners who arrived in Durham in 1449 and in Newcastle in 1457 to ensure that the Anglo-Scottish truce held despite various border raids Robert seems to have not had a great impact on his diocese.

The bishop died on the 9 July 1457 and was buried in Durham Cathedral.

Joan Beaufort’s daughters – part 2

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Eleanor Neville was married in the first instance to Richard le Despenser who was a cousin – his grandfather was Edmund of Langley, Duke of York one of Edward III’s sons. He died during his teens leaving a sister as his sole heiress.

A second marriage was arranged for Eleanor to Henry Percy the son of ‘Hotspur’. The marriage between the Nevilles and Percys which was contracted in May 1412 provided a link between the two dominant northern families. Henry Percy’s father and grandfather had both rebelled against Henry IV and paid with their lives. Young Henry grew up across the border in Scotland. Henry V favoured reconciliation but if Percy was to return to favour and regain his family lands and titles he had to be kept in line. Marriage to one of the Earl of Westmorland’s daughters was one of the caveats to Percy’s restoration. The marriage took place in Berwick in 1414 but Percy did not receive his grandfather’s earldom for another two years. It has been suggested that King Henry V who was waging war in France did not want Percy in Scotland and the Southampton Plot of 1415 was a reminder of the constant rebellions and uprisings plotted against Henry IV from the point that he usurped his cousin Richard II’s throne. The Percy family were restored to many of their lands but they did not regain their Yorkshire properties which became an increasingly bitter point of contention between the Nevilles and the Percys as the fifteenth century progressed. In 1453 the marriage of Eleanor’s nephew Thomas Percy to Maud Stanhope the nice of Lord Cromwell resulted in the feud escalating into violence.

Henry fought in France but seems to have mainly fulfilled the traditional role of the Percys on the border between England and Scotland. He also seems to have come under the political patronage of Eleanor’s uncle the wily Cardinal Beaufort.

Whatever the interfamilial relationships might have been like at a regional and national level Eleanor and Henry had at least ten children. Their eldest surviving son Henry who became the 3rd Earl was killed at Towton on the Lancastrian side in 1461 as was his younger brother Richard. Their second son Thomas Lord Egremont who was instrumental in the violence at Haworth Moor in 1453 was killed in 1460 at the Battle of Northampton.Ralph was killed in 1464 at the Battle of Hedgeley Moor. Eleanor had no reason to love her nephew the Kingmaker – thanks to the wars between Lancaster and York only two of her sons survived.

George the Rector of Rothbury and Caldbeck died in the same year as his mother and William became the Bishop of Carlisle but died in 1462. One of William’s sisters, Joan, became a nun.

Katherine Percy married Edmund Grey, 1st Earl of Kent – His mother was part of the Holland family descended from Joan of Kent the mother of Richard II by her first marriage and his father was one of the Greys of Ruthin and an active Lancastrian. Katherine’s son Anthony married one of Elizabeth Woodville’s sisters but there were not children from the union and he predeceased his father. Their second son George, who succeeded his father to the earldom, was also married to a Woodville sister – Anne who died in 1489. After her death he married into the Herbert family. Meanwhile Katherine’s daughter Elizabeth married back into the northern gentry network being contracted to Sir Robert Greystoke and her sister Anne married John Grey 8th Baron Grey of Wilton. The Greys of Wilton and Ruthin were different branches of the same family. And yes, Elizabeth Woodville’s first husband was part of the extended family network but that would require another family tree and I don’t need one of those just at the moment. Although – if nothing else it adds fuel to the concept of the naming of the Cousins War – they were all related one way or another!

Joan Beaufort Countess of Westmorland’s daughters

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The daughters of Joan Beaufort.

Deep breath everyone! As you can see Joan Beaufort and Ralph Neville had five daughters. One of them, I am delighted to report, became a nun. Joan who was born according to different sources at the earliest in 1399 but often reported as a later birth was a Poor Clare. So I shall move swiftly on.

The countess’s eldest daughter was much married. Katherine was married in the first instance to John Mowbray 2nd Duke of Norfolk. The couple who were married for about twenty years had only one surviving child – named after his father who became the 3rd Duke. Katherine’s son has been described as having a decisive part to play at the Battle of Towton which settled Edward IV onto the throne. She would eventually become the great grandmother of Anne Mowbray Countess of Norfolk who was married as a child to her distant cousin Richard Duke of York, more famous as one of the ‘princes in the Tower.’ The pair were married in 1478 when the groom was five and the bride was six. Edward IV arranged the match because little Anne was a hugely wealthy heiress. After her death in 1481 the title should have gone to the Howard family who were her third cousins whilst Richard kept the lands and the money because he was Anne’s legal husband. In the event Edward IV passed an act of parliament making his son the Duke of Norfolk reverting to the Crown if the boy died without heirs. All of that changed in 1483.

Meanwhile Katherine retained her dower and jointure rights as the dowager Duchess of Norfolk. Her second marriage was somewhat scandalous as she married one her previous husband’s knights without license. Thomas came from Harlsey Castle near Northallerton and had a long association with the Neville family. The couple had two daughters Joan and Katherine before Strangeways death which occurred before August 1443. Joan married Sir William Willoughby of Lincolnshire –a further link in the network of gentry and aristocratic families which spread beyond county boundaries. And as an interesting aside it was a member of the Willoughby family who fought against Edward IV at the behest of the Kingmaker at Losecoat Field but I wouldn’t want to comment on the familial relationship.

Katherine Strangeways was married to Henry Grey of Codnor on 29 August 1454. Grey swapped his loyalties from Lancaster to York following Towton. He was a key member of the Derbyshire aristocracy and managed to get into a feud with the Vernon family in 1467 which resulted in the Duke of Clarence being sent to the region to restore order. In 1468 the families were required to swear not to intimidate jurors. Three years later Katherine’s husband was summoned to London because he caused a riot in Nottingham. Katherine had no children and predeceased her argumentative husband.

Meanwhile the dowager duchess was widowed for a second time and married for a third time to John Viscount Beaumont who was killed in 1460 at the Battle of Northampton. Beaumont was a rather wealthy Lancastrian who was always loyal to Henry VI. It is perhaps not surprising he met his death whilst guarding the king.

In January 1465 Katherine Neville, who might reasonably expected to have enjoyed her widowhood in charge of her own estates, made her final marriage to Sir John Woodville. A chronicler described the match as a ‘diabolical marriage.’The bride was past sixty years in age and the groom was not yet twenty. There is no indication about how Katherine felt about the match – it is usually rolled out to illustrate Woodville greed but for all we know the unlikely couple may have been on friendly terms. Rather unexpectedly Katherine outlived her young husband as he was executed without trial at Coventry by her nephew the Earl of Warwick following the Battle of Edgecote.

Katherine was issued with Coronation robes in 1483 and was part of Anne Neville’s coronation procession. She died later the same year.

Three Neville sisters to go!

Margaret Stafford’s younger children – more Nevilles

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The family tree of Ralph Neville and Margaret Stafford (subject to amendments)

Sir Ralph Neville of Oversley, the second son of the Earl of Westmorland’s first family with Margaret Stafford married his step-sister Mary Ferrers – sometimes called Margaret or Margery- who was the daughter of Sir Robert Ferrers of Wem and Joan Beaufort.  She was born in about 1394 and died circa 1457. Her marriage took place in about 1411. Like other members of the Neville family, she and her husband were admitted to the Guild of the Holy Cross at Stratford-Upon-Avon.  She was the co-heiress of the 2nd Lord Ferrers of Wem. Neville became Lord of Oversrlsey in Warwickshire by right of his wife. Margaret appears to have had one son John Neville who was born in about 1416. John would become the Sheriff of Lincolnshire.  John died in 1482.

Ralph’s sister Maud was married to Peter de Mauley of Mulgrave in about 1400. Maud did not give her husband any children so held Mulgrave Castle in her own right after his death as part of her jointure (Rickard, p.487).  The marriage reflects a regional pattern of intermarriage and affinity that can be seen repeated in the marriages made by Maud’s sisters.

Alice Neville was married to Sir Thomas Grey. Grey came from Heton in Northumberland.  His uncle was Thomas de Mowbray, 1st Duke of Norfolk and he was also a descendent of King Edward I through his maternal line. Grey succeeded his father in 1400 and was shown great favour because of his father’s support for King Henry IV at the time when he took the throne from his cousin King Richard II. By 1404 Grey was a retainer of the Earl of Westmorland with a marriage to cement the relationship but Grey drew closer to Richard of Conisburgh, 3rd Earl of Cambridge who had a claim to the throne by right of his Mortimer ancestry. Meanwhile the couple went on to have at least eight children. The pattern continued to reflect regional intermarriage amongst affinities and extended kinship networks. One of Alice’s sons married into the FitzHugh family of Ravensworth. Together with the earl and Henry Scrope of Masham Grey was one of the three conspirators executed for his part in the Southampton Plot in 1415. Grey’s alliance with the earl of Cambridge was cemented in 1412 when his son Thomas was betrothed to the earl’s daughter Isabel of York who was three at the time of the betrothal. 

Alice’s son Thomas died before 1426 leaving his widow and a son. Isabel went on to marry Henry Bourchier who was created the Earl of Essex by King Edward IV for his support of the Yorkists. The couple had a large family including a son married to Edward’s sister-in-law Anne Woodville.

Philippa married into the Dacre family, Margaret married into the Scrope family and Anne married Sir Gilbert Umfraville who seems to have come from Harbottle and was killed in 1421 at the Battle of Bauge without heirs. He’d inherited his title and estates whilst an infant but came into his inheritance in 1411.  His wardship had been secured by the Earl of Westmorland and his betrothal to Anne was completed during his childhood. I’m not sure what happened to Anne after her husband’s death.

 Elizabeth became a nun. There is a reference to an annuity being left to an Elizabeth Neville who was a London Minoress in 1386.  However, she was the daughter of John Neville so the aunt of Ralph and Margaret’s daughter. It appears that there was a tradition of Neville women joining the London minoresses at Aldgate as Elizabeth received her annuity at the same time that John’s sister Eleanor the widow of Geoffrey Scrope was left money for the care of the convent.  Not only had she joined the sisterhood but she became its abbess. The minoresses were an enclosed order of Poor Clares. It was a popular location for aristocratic womenfolk although they did not always take vows. Interestingly John of Gaunt left money to the sisters and after 1398 Margaret Beauchamp lived there after her widowhood.

Rickard, J. (2002). The Castle Community: The Personnel of English and Welsh Castles, 1272-1422. United Kingdom: Boydell Press.

Bourdillon, A. F. C. (1926). The Order of Minoresses in England. United Kingdom: The University Press.

‘Friaries: The minoresses without Aldgate’, in A History of the County of London: Volume 1, London Within the Bars, Westminster and Southwark, ed. William Page (London, 1909), pp. 516-519. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/london/vol1/pp516-519 [accessed 31 March 2022].

George Neville – who was required to stay alive but didn’t!

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Middleham Castle

In the aftermath of the Battle of Barnet in 1471 the Earl of Warwick’s estates were divided up. The Warwick Inheritance which included Beauchamp lands and Despenser lands legally belonged to the Countess of Warwick but this problem was negated by having her declared legally dead. Her daughters then inherited and Edward IV’s brothers took control of sizeable chunks of land by right of their respective wives. The Neville Inheritance was trickier to deal with – setting aside the fact that the Earl of Warwick had rebelled against King Edward IV, who by May 1471 was secure on the throne.

The Neville estates were entailed. An entail limits by law who can inherit property. Medieval entails could be quite complicated. When John of Gaunt made his will he ensured that his Beaufort children were well provided for by issuing some very specific instructions in his will. More usually, an entail ensured that only male heirs could inherit.

The Earl of Warwick’s Neville inheritance was entailed to a male heir. The earl’s heir presumptive was his brother John Neville, Lord Montagu. John like his brother died at Barnet in the thick of the fighting rather than in the rout that followed if the chroniclers are to be believed. John’s ten-year old son, George Neville was the next male heir. Whilst the Nevilles supported the Yorkist regime George was likely to inherit vast estates and in 1470 he was elevated to the Dukedom of Bedford to make him an appropriate husband for King Edward IV’s daughter Elizabeth of York. However, when George’s uncle and father rebelled the following year George’s potential inheritance declined rather steeply.

The king could have passed an Act of Attainder against Richard and John Neville. A commission of Oyer and Terminer found them guilty of treason in 1472 – without an act of attainder to follow George Neville still stood to inherit the Neville estates. Instead an Act of Parliament of 1475 decreed that the Neville inheritance in the North of England including Middleham, Sheriff Hutton and Penrith Castle should pass to Richard, Duke of Gloucester whilst George and his heirs survived. Edward IV, according to Michael Hicks, preferred not to use an attainder or to divide the lands equally between his two brothers as George, Duke of Clarence was not known for his reliability whereas Richard of Gloucester, young as he was, had demonstrate his loyalty to his brother and was just the man to help keep all those troublesome northerners in line. The wording of the act proved unfortunate.

In the meantime George Neville was deprived of his titles and his wardship was passed to Richard of Gloucester after the death of George’s mother in 1476. By 1480, George was being raised in one of the Yorkshire castles which rightfully, since there was no attainder, belonged to him.

But then on the 4 May 1483 the young man died. He was unmarried so his sisters became co-heiresses and Richard of Gloucester who might reasonably have expected to leave his father-in-law’s northern power base to his own son Edward of Middleham was left as the tenant of the Neville inheritance of this life time only, thanks to the wording of the 1475 Act of Parliament. Even worse, King Edward IV was only recently dead and Gloucester was involved in a power struggle with the Woodvilles.

Hicks, Michael,  ‘Descent, Partition and Extinction: The ‘Warwick Inheritance’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research lii (1979

The Welles Uprising and subsequent brushes with royalty…

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Lionel Lord Welles

In the Spring of 1470, England was facing a fresh round of the intermittent warfare that punctuated the Wars of the Roses. The Earl of Warwick’s relationship with King Edward IV had been strained to breaking point the previous year and although the Kingmaker had captured and imprisoned his cousin he had been forced to let him go. There had been an apparent reconciliation. In reality Warwick plotted to overthrow the king and replace him with his son-in-law, George Duke of Clarence. He method for bringing this about involved the Welles family and the men of Lincolnshire.

Lord Richard Welles was the seventh Lord Welles descended from a family of Lincolnshire magnates. He was the son of staunch Lancastrian, Lionel. The sixth Lord is best remembered for his second wife, Margaret Beauchamp, the mother of Lady Margaret Beaufort. Lionel was killed at the Battle of Towton.

Lionel was born in 1410 and was knighted in 1425 at Leicester by the Duke of Bedford who knighted King Henry VI at the same time. In 1446 he received a licence to marry Margaret Beauchamp, the Duke of Somerset’s widow. His loyalty to the Lancastrian cause was absolute. His heir, Richard and his sons-in-law were attainted by Parliament for their support of the Lancastrian cause but as the Yorkist king became reconciled to former Lancastrian supporters the Welles family land and titles were returned.

However by the ninth year of Edward’s reign relations between the Welles and the Yorkist king of England nose dived. Richard and his brother-in-law Sir Thomas Dymmock either became involved with a private feud with Sir Thomas Burgh who was the king’s Master of Horse or they were inveigled to rebellion by the Earl of Warwick who was also a kinsman ( Richard’s wife was a granddaughter of the 3rd Earl of Salisbury as well as being suo jure Lady Willoughby.) In either event, they attacked Gainsburgh Old Hall which was Burgh’s property and the Master of Horse was forced to flee the county whilst his property was looted or destroyed. King Edward summoned both men to London. Initially pleading illness, the pair then took sanctuary in Westminster Abbey only emerging with a royal promise of a pardon – which was granted on 3 March 1470. The pardon did not give them their freedom. Edward marched north and took the two men with him as collateral.

In Lincolnshire, Sir Richard’s son, Robert raised an army calling the men of Lincolnshire to defend themselves against the king, who is was said was determined to punish the county for supporting Robin of Redesdale’s rebellion the previous year (1469). If he had done this it would have meant that he intended to go back on the pardon he granted the rebels the previous year. Robin of Redesdale is a shadowy figure. Most historians believe that the rebellion was fermented by the Earl of Warwick for his own ends. In 1470, the Earl of Warwick was plotting the overthrow of the king who was marching north. The earl planned to trap Edward between Welles’ army and his own.

King Edward was not so easily outmanoeuvred. He marched out of London along the Great North Road in the direction of Lincolnshire but he threatened to have Robert’s father and uncle executed if Welles did not submit to the king’s will. By then Robert and his men were on course to render-vous with Warwick’s army. On hearing the king’s threat, Robert turned back, the king catching up with him just outside Stamford. The two armies drew up opposite one another on the 12th March 1470 at Empingham. Edward gave orders for Lord Welles and his brother-in-law to be summarily executed in the space between the two armies. Other sources state that Edward had the two men executed in Stamford.

The battle became a rout with rebels fleeing the field. Hoping to avoid capture and punishment they shed their jerkins which bore the insignia of Warwick and Clarence. This resulted in the battle being renamed Losecoat during the nineteenth century. As a direct consequence of Welles failure to win the battle the Earl of Warwick and the Duke of Clarence were forced to flee the country.

Sir Robert was captured and confessed the involvement of Warwick and the Duke of Clarence on the 14 March. Further incriminating evidence was found amongst Welles’ documents. It appeared that Warwick intended to make his son-in-law the King of England and Wales in Edward’s place. Sir Robert was executed on 19 March and his only surviving sibling Joan became heiress to her brother’s estates. Strictly Welles’ land was forfeit to the Crown, and it was confiscated a month after Sir Robert’s execution but it was returned to Joan in June that year. Joan died sometime in 1474/1475 and a formal act of attainder was passed against Lord Welles and his son in order to prevent Joan’s inheritance going back into the Welles family. Joan was married to Richard Hastings, the brother of Edward’s drinking buddy and Chamberlain of the Household circa 1470. Hastings ensured the king provided Joan, now suo jure 9th Baroness Willoughby de Eresby with her father and brother’s estates. After her death the regime ensured that Hastings didn’t lose out. It also meant that a large chunk of Lincolnshire was held by a loyal Yorkist.

It was only on the accession of King Henry VII that the attainder against the Welles family was reversed and John Welles, Joan and Robert’s uncle from their father’s second marriage inherited the titles and estates along with their cousin Christopher Willoughby. Even so, Sir Richard Hastings, who died in 1503 continued to be known as Lord Willoughby, a title which should have more properly belonged to Christopher Willoughby whose mother Cecily was a daughter of Lionel, 6th Lord Welles, who died at Towton.

Katherine Willoughby, Duchess of Suffolk by Hans Holbein

And before I finish… if the name Willoughby is ringing bells its because Christopher’s son married Katherine of Aragon’s loyal lady in waiting Maria de Salinas. The couple had only one child, Katherine, who was a sole heiress to the Willoughby title and estates. She was supposed to have married the Duke of Suffolk’s son but instead found herself married to the duke, Charles Brandon, who was significantly older than she was. In 1546, after she was widowed there were rumours that King Henry VIII wanted to make her wife number seven, even though wife number six was alive and well at the time.

Click to access History_of_the_Welles_Family.pdf