The nuns of Nun Appleton Priory

Posted on December 5, 2016 by JuliaH

augustinian nun The 5^th December 1539 was a busy one for Cromwell and reveals todays group of figures – though sadly no pictures -the Cistercian nuns of Nun Appleton Priory. Cromwell received letters confirming the surrender of St Albans Abbey and Nun Appleton Priory in Yorkshire. There are plenty of men listed in these documents and they would be relatively easy to write about. They were Cromwell’s administrators who took the opportunity to line their own pockets and assure their own futures with the dissolution.

It is much more difficult to find out about the women involved in this episode. The prioress was Anna Lankton. There is also a list of nuns and the fact that they received pensions. The sub prioress and Margaret Carter were supposed, during the visitation by Layton, to have been found guilty of giving birth but both women were beyond child-bearing age and both were in receipt of their pensions suggesting that Dr Layton may have been prone to exaggeration, not least because Bishop Lee of York had also visited the nunnery the previous year and found nothing worthy of note.

“Elinore Normavell, subprioress, Agnes Ardyngton, and Agnes Sympson, 46s. 8d.; Joan Gore, Isabel Gascoyn, Janet Watson, Marg. Carter, Eliz. Carter, Magdalen Kylbourne, Agnes Anger, Dorothy Man, Anne Jonson, Margery Elton, and Alice Sheffelde, 40s. each; Agnes Snaynton, 3l.; Janet Fairefax, Agnes Asselaby, Eliz. Parker, and Ellen Bayne, 33s. 4d. each. Signed by Hendle, Legh, Belassys, and Watkyns, commissioners.”

Anna Lankton features in an Andrew Marvell poem as the aunt and jailor of the heroine, Isabel Thwaites who married into the Fairfax family. The poem is dedicated to General Fairfax. There’s no evidence that there’s any truth in the poem entitled “Upon Appleton House,” though Isabel Thwaites did marry into the Fairfax family. In later times General Fairfax and Lady Fairfax would be buried in nearby Bilborough.

And that’s your lot for today- not necessarily terribly exciting but an insight into the difficulty finding out more about the fate of England’s Tudor nuns who are, to a large extent, invisible unless they appear in court records, on pension lists or their burials are recorded.

‘Letters and Papers: December 1539, 1-5’, in Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 14 Part 2, August-December 1539, ed. James Gairdner and R H Brodie (London, 1895), pp. 226-233. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/letters-papers-hen8/vol14/no2/pp226-233 [accessed 17 August 2016].

Sir Thomas Wentworth

Posted on December 2, 2016 by JuliaH

NPG 1851; Thomas Wentworth, 1st Baron Wentworth by Unknown Anglo-Netherlandish artist December 2 1542

Cromwell, for the time being on this blog is no longer with us, and in Henry’s world had had an unfortunate experience with an axe on 28 July 1540. Henry’s letters and papers show how things changed after the demise of his second great administrator – the Privy Council became an important administrative machine once more. The minutes are terse to put it mildly.

“Meeting at Hampton Court, 2 Dec. Present : Canterbury, Russell, Winchester, Westminster, Gage, Browne, Wingfield, Wriothesley. Business :Letter written to Sir Thos. Wentworth and Sir Hen. Savell to receive Scottish prisoners from the lord President.” Canterbury is, of course, Thomas Cranmer and Winchester is Stephen Gardener.

Sir Thomas Wentworth, Sixth Lord Despenser (not sure how the family got that title – I’m adding it to my list of ‘need to find out’) and First Baron Wentworth of Wentworth West Bretton in Yorkshire (although he was originally from Suffolk – the Suffolk property having been acquired by the Yorkshire Wentworths as part of a marital transaction) is the chap behind today’s metaphorical advent door. He and Jane Seymour, Henry’s third queen, were cousins. Margery Wentworth, his aunt, was Jane’s mother. Thomas’s son, inventively also named Thomas, would thrive under the rule of Edward VI and his Seymour relations.

But back to Sir Thomas – his own mother Anne Tyrell was the daughter of Sir James. For fans of historical whodunits, yes, that is the Sir James Tyrell suspected of the murder of the princes in the Tower – demonstrating yet again that the Tudor world was a small world. One of Sir Thomas’s sons-in-law was Sir Martin Frobisher the famous Elizabethan explorer.

Wentworth’s climb up the career ladder began with service in the household of the duke of Suffolk, Charles Brandon – who was of course married to the king’s sister – Princess Mary. It would appear, according to Brandon’s biographer that Wentworth was first recruited to Suffolk’s service in 1513 – meaning that young Wentworth was only about twelve at the time but he grew to become one of Suffolk’s most senior officers having been knighted by Brandon along with his cousin Edward Seymour in 1523. He would go on to serve as Edward VI’s Lord Chancellor as denoted by the white staff of office in his hand. The National Portrait Gallery notes suggest that this was added to the portrait after it had originally been painted.

Wentworth also became associated with the duke of Norfolk- so not so much a new man even though he was only raised to the peerage in 1529 (he succeeded his father to the Despenser title and the manor of Nettlestead upon his death in 1528) so much as an old one drawing on powerful connections to improve his ranking in the Tudor world of ‘Top Trumps’.

Despite his northern affiliations he remained loyal to Henry VIII during the 1536 Pilgrimage of Grace turning up to support the king with one hundred men in tow. He had already nailed his colours to the mast when he became one of the signatories of a letter asking Pope Clement VII to permit a divorce between Henry and Katherine of Aragon. He went on to be a noted reformer although interestingly he does not appear to have benefitted from the sale of the monasteries. According to Franklin-Harkrider, Miles Coverdale praised Wentworth for his godliness. This hadn’t stopped him being part of the jury that had condemned Anne Boleyn.

His loyalty was rewarded. He was at Edward VI’s christening; was part of the party that welcomed Anne of Cleeves and Henry even deigned to visit him at his home at Nettlestead in Suffolk that same year – with Catherine Howard.

But back to letter dated 2^nd December 1542. There were apparently two hundred noble Scottish prisoners and approximately eight hundred from the massed ranks of Scottish hoi polloi in English hands following the Battle of Solway Moss which took place on the 24 November 1542. The most important of the Scottish prisoners were escorted to London by Wentworth and Saville where they arrived on the 19^th of December suitably adorned with the cross of St Andrew. They were committed to the Tower for safekeeping until the 21^st of December when they were paraded before the Lord Chancellor who chastised them on behalf of the king for their naughtiness in arriving with an armed force on England’s borders. Having been duly slapped around the back of the legs they were not returned to the Tower’s naughty step but having given their parole sent off to spend the festive season with assorted members of the nobility including the dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk.

Franklin-Harkrider, Melissa. (2008) Women, Reform and Community in Early Modern England: Katherine Willoughby, duchess of Suffolk and Lincolnshire’s Godly Aristocracy, 1519-1580 (Studies in Modern British Religious History). Martlesham: Boydell Press

Gunn, Steven. (2015) Charles Brandon: Henry VIII’s Closest Friend . Stroud: Amberley Publishing

Keith, Robert (1735) History of the Affairs of Church and State in Scotland accessed from https://archive.org/details/historyofaffairs03keit (03 December 2016).
‘Henry VIII: December 1542, 1-10’, in Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 17, 1542, ed. James Gairdner and R H Brodie (London, 1900), pp. 643-655. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/letters-papers-hen8/vol17/pp643-655 [accessed 17 October 2016].

December 1st – a historical advent

Posted on December 1, 2016 by JuliaH

henry-i It’s that time of year again. Sadly for me Cromwell appears to have received no interesting mail on December 1 1535 which is probably just as well for the rest of Tudor England. I would have to say that in 1532 Sir Anthony Willoughby was suffering with the gout so sent his wife to talk to Cromwell because he wanted Cromwell to speak to the king on his behalf. Whilst in 1533 Sir Christopher Garneys wrote to Cromwell thanking him “For his loving letters. Is eased of the unquietness he had by reason of a stroke given to a lewd person. Did it not out of malice, but for due correction. Cannot recompense Cromwell’s kindness, but will send him by next ship “a piece of wine of Gravys.”

Consequentially I have had to look a bit further afield for the historical equivalent of a chunk of chocolate.

Henry I died on December 1 1135. He’s the king who popped off having indulged in a surfeit of lampreys. He’s also the chap with the huge number of illegitimate children but only one legitimate son who inconveniently drowned when the White Ship sank. Henry then forced his barons to recognise his daughter Matilda as the heir. Of course they promptly changed their minds upon his demise and selected her cousin Stephen. This resulted in England’s first civil war. The war raged for nineteen years – the years “when Christ and his apostles slept.” Cheery or what.

300_2511351 Coming forward in 1420 this was the day when Henry V marched into Paris – good for the English less amusing for the French.

More positively and somewhat outside my usual period but rather more positively the first female British MP, Lady Nancy Astor, took her place in the House of Commons. In America, in 1955, Rosa Parks famously started the bus boycott when after a long day she refused to give up her seat on the bus to a non-coloured passenger.

‘Henry VIII: December 1533, 1-10’, in Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 6, 1533, ed. James Gairdner (London, 1882), pp. 599-613. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/letters-papers-hen8/vol6/pp599-613 [accessed 19 November 2016].