For those of you who like your history traditional – boo hiss! For those of you who like your history revised – poor maligned soul! I’ve blogged about Sir James before. Depending on your interpretation of the sources and your historical affiliations, he either murdered the princes in the Tower, has been framed for the deed or for those of you who like happy endings there is a story that he removed them from the Tower and shuttled them to obscurity in the Suffolk countryside – I’ll get to that in another post.
Sir James is the chap who worked for Richard III – no problem with that, plenty of facts to support it. It looks like he started on the Plantagenet career ladder in 1471 which would coincide with Richard getting his mitts on the Neville inheritance – remember he was married to Anne Neville, widow of Prince Edward of Lancaster and daughter of the Kingmaker. This would account for how Tyrell from Gipping in Suffolk came into Gloucester’s employment. We know he served in the Scottish war in 1492.
Once Richard was in power he was rewarded with a number of prominent positions across the country- which may have been tricky when it came to actually doing the jobs so presumably from Cornwall to Wales he had a number of deputies to help out.
He turns up in the Paston Letters in 1473 when he is identified as the employee who transported the Countess of Warwick, Anne Neville’s mother, from her sanctuary in Beaulieu to Middleham and Richard’s custody – Edward IV having conveniently declared the unfortunate countess dead for the purposes of the legal system so that brothers Richard and George could inherit estates which properly should have belonged to the countess.
In 1483 he helped carry Edward IV’s body to its final resting place and the same year Bishop Rotherham, the chap who’d helpfully rushed the Great Seal of England along to Westminster Abbey where he handed it into the care of Elizabeth Woodville on realising that Richard of Gloucester had taken charge of the young king, found himself in the custody of Sir James Tyrell. – Nothing unpleasant happened and the bishop died in his bed in 1500, just in case you were wondering.
It was in 1483, if Sir Thomas More and Polydore Vergil are to be believed Tyrell arrived in the Tower late one evening with a letter from Richard III, Brackenbury – the Constable of the Tower handed over the keys and Tyrell got rid of the princes by having them smothered. Clearly More who was only five at the time wasn’t watching events unfold through a telescope and Vergil- Henry VII’s official historian- wasn’t hiding in a convenient trunk, quill and parchment in hand to record events as they unfolded. Tyrell, inconveniently, didn’t keep a diary nor did he hand himself in to the authorities immediately after the event. Furthermore he couldn’t even find the bodies, More says it was because Brackenbury removed them from where Tyrell had put them.
At the beginning of 1485 Tyrell was given command of Guisnes, a fortress in the Pale of Calais where he was in August and where he stayed when the Plantagenet dynasty became the Tudor dynasty. He was not attainted. On the 16th June 1485 Tyrell was issued with a pardon from Henry VII for anything and everything (well it was certainly unspecified). And then the pardon was issued again. Two pardons in swift succession tends to make some folk think that Tyrell may have been doing work on behalf of the Tudors prior to Bosworth – bringing a whole new meaning to the concept of being a double agent. I would merely point out that whilst this is possible that in order to inherit Henry Tudor would have had to kill off rather a lot of people before the family tree perched the crown on his bonce…think Alex Guiness in Kind Hearts and Coronets for the general idea (spoiler alert – a distant relation stages a series of unlikely accidents wiping out an entire family in order to inherit). Historians have argued both sides of the equation eloquently and with passion with the same basic evidence. It tends to come down to whether they are pro-Richard or pro-Henry.
What we can be sure of is that up until 1501 Tyrell was a man of influence and power. Then he helped Edmund de la Pole, possible Plantagenet heir, avoid Henry VII’s wrath. Next thing you know he’s under arrest on charges of treason and there is apparently a confession – allegedly made under torture- to the effect that it was him who topped Eddie and Richard. Quite honestly, I think most of us would agree that we would fess up to having committed the murders under those circumstances. Unfortunately the paper copy of the confession seems to have been poorly filed and hasn’t yet turned up – meaning that it possibly never existed if you’re that way inclined. Henry VII executed Tyrell for treason but failed to mention the murder of two members of the royal family which you think he might have done, even in passing, as it would have scotched rumours of pretenders which bubbled up throughout his reign. It was pointed out to me that Richard ought to have paraded the princes in order to douse the rumours of 1483- and so he should. But equally so should Henry have announced that Tyrell had confessed and executed him not just for treason but for murder…did he? No – he didn’t. Maybe he didn’t want to draw attention to the princes because it would, after all, have reminded his citizens that his general claim to the throne was a tad shaky – and yes I know he was the last Lancastrian standing, was married to Elizabeth of York and had won the Battle of Bosworth but Henry spent most of his reign bolstering up his claim one way or another so to draw attention to the correct albeit missing claimants might have been a bit counter productive in his mind. Do I know that for sure? No – I don’t. Sadly, Henry VII didn’t keep a personal diary, it’s just his financial accounts that are pretty nifty. Am I bearing in the general direction of sarcasm? Quite possibly. There is only a basic amount of evidence and as any decent lawyer will tell you any story can be worked from both ends.
Tyrell was not, apparently, permitted to make a speech before being executed. Three years later the attainder against Tyrell was reversed and his son inherited Tyrell’s property.
Did Tyrell murder the princes? Quite probably based on the evidence in hand but until such time as more evidence is forthcoming – like a DNA test on the bones purported to be the princes- History’s biggest mystery will keep folk passionate and partisan not to mention keeping book sales buoyant.
The Neville faction personified by Richard Neville, the Earl of Warwick a.k.a. The Kingmaker dominated the borders during the first reign of Edward IV from 1461. He was appointed warden of both the east and west marches. Two years later Warwick’s brother John, Lord Montagu was made warden of the east march swiftly followed by the acquisition of the earldom of Northumberland.
Henry Holland, Third Duke of Exeter was yet another descendent of John of Gaunt. His grandmother Elizabeth was John’s daughter. He had a claim to the throne after the death of Henry VI, something which Edward IV may have been all too aware of being the aforementioned earl’s brother-in-law.
In the aftermath of Wakefield on December 30 1460, the Lancastrians must have believed that their way to London, reclamation of Henry VI and the crown was only a matter of time. Their march south would lead them back to St Albans. A second battle would be fought and they would vanquish the Yorkists but they never gained access to London. More on that anon.
Not a snappy title I know but this post is about who it says on the can! I keep coming back to 
William Shore or Schower died in 1495 and is buried in Scropton in Derbyshire. Scropton lies on land once owned by the Agard family. His monument is still available to view should one feel the urge. History even provides his will which is transcribed in the Sutton article which shows that he maintained his links with Derby both during his life and after his death.
We know that Sir Andrew Trollope was a bit of a hero so far as the Hundred Years War is concerned. He was probably part of Sir John Falstaff’s company in the 1430s. We also know that he did a bit of nifty side changing at the Battle of Ludford Bridge in 1459 from the Yorkist to the Lancastrian side – nothing too surprising there; everybody seems to have swapped sides at some point in the proceedings. It is actually a bit surprising he was on the Yorkist side in the first place as he had become associated with the Beauforts during his time in France.
Yes, I know I’ve covered this before but it is the 30th December which is, of course, the anniversary of the battle which took place in 1460. Today’s post is as good a time as any to deal with some of the confusions of the battle resulting from lack of clear primary sources and underhanded trickery which, in all probability, the parties involved didn’t want widely advertised, not to mention confusion and misplaced optimism on the part of Richard of York.
Having returned from Ireland in October 1460, tried to claim the throne and ultimately agreed that he would inherit it after Henry VI died, Richard duke of York made his way north to deal with Margaret of Anjou who was not terribly impressed with the turn of events. Her forces were recorded at Pontefract, Hull and then further north. Amongst them was Richard’s own son-in-law Henry Holland, duke of Exeter.
Henry Holland, a great-grandson of Edward III and descendent of Joan of Kent (thus a descendent of Edward I), had been married off to Richard of York’s eldest daughter (to survive childhood) Anne in 1447. He remained loyal to Henry VI and would be a commander on the Lancastrian side of the field at the Battle of Wakefield. It would be a mistake that would leave him attainted for treason after the Battle of Towton in Easter 1461. Anne Holland and her only child, Anne, would gain Holland’s estates. The couple’s marriage would be annulled in 1472 after Holland was badly wounded at the Battle of Barnet. Anne would remarry Thomas St Leger and die in childbirth – another Anne. As for Anne Holland Junior she would be married off to Elizabeth Woodville’s son, Thomas Grey, marquis of Dorset. She would be dead by 1474. If you want to know more about Anne of York read Susan Higginbottom’s post 
19 December 1154 – Henry II, also known as Henry FitzEmpress was crowned at Westminster Abbey along with his wife Eleanor of Aquitaine. Young Henry ascended to the throne after King Stephen’s death according to the agreement made at the Treaty of Wallingford that marked the end of the civil war that had raged between Stephen and Henry’s mother the Empress Matilda for nineteen long years. Henry’s coronation brought with it the promise of peace and incorporated England into a vast empire which Henry’s youngest son John would ultimately lose.