Located between Fakenham and Wells-next-the-Sea (which is someway inland these days), the priory is Norfolk’s most complete monastic ruin. It was founded by Peter de Valognes, the nephew of William the Conqueror, in 1091. Peter did rather nicely from the Norman invasion and the land he donated to the monks at St Alban’s for a news cell in Norfolk was on land his uncle granted him.
During the reign of Henry I, the monks were granted a market charter and free warren of their lands – which basically meant that they could slaughter as much small game as they wished without irritating the monarch who, according to feudal principles, owned it all under terms of forest law.
Not everything went so smoothly according to Matthew Paris the prior, Thomas, was removed in 1200 by the abbot of St Albans which led to a long running dispute and a falling out with Robert FitzWalter who was the prior’s friend not to mention an important baron in East Anglia. FitzWalter, who would gain his place in the history books during the First Barons’ War claimed to have a charter giving him, and him alone, the right to hire and fire the prior – it was forged but you can’t blame a baron for trying! FitzWalter even besieged the priory and King John not known for his good relationship with the Church had to send an army to raise the siege.
The priory as it stands dates from between 1227- 1244. The west window tracery was the first in England to be formed from bars of stone enabling more glass and less stone to be employed. Excavations have revealed some of the magnificent medieval stained glass.
Inevitably by the time Cromwell sent his commissioners to pay a visit in 1536 there were a series of scandals, three incontinent monks out of a small band six, but it avoided suppression until 1539. A gentleman from the King’s privy chamber, Thomas Paxton, rented the manor which was worth £101 a year. Part of the priory church became Binham Parish Church. Among the survivals are two misericords and four panels from the chancel screen incorporating words from the approved 1539 Bible – Coverdale. The words have been painted over the top of the medieval saints and of Henry VI.
Incidentally if you want scandal, one of the priors, William de Somerton (1317-1355), sold off monastic land to fund his alchemy experiments. And if that’s not lively enough for you there are folktales of tunnels running from Binham to Walsingham – for which there is absolutely no evidence!
Medieval bestiaries included birds and there are some examples that remain well known. Pelicans were thought to draw blood from their own breasts to feed their chicks – this translated as Christ’s sacrifice for the redemption of mankind. It’s a popular carving in churches. Doves haven’t changed very much and eagles were a symbol of resurrection because of its high flying.
Crows were devoted family birds and on occasion were described as an example of good parenting practise although they were also associated with death and war – something of a mixed message. The Twa Corbies was a popular medieval ballad and Shakespeare got in on the act as well -with crows and ravens as harbingers not only of death but also of defeat and planned murder. So I don’t think that the crow like bird on the unstitched coif is linked to any of those particular images – apart from the good parenting – I can’t imagine many women would want to associate themselves with war or defeat.
Ravens are, of course, rather important in the Tower of London as it is said that if they depart that England will fall. It derives from the idea of ravens keeping guard – making them much more benevolent than the ones that turn up in dreams and on battlefields.
There is a possibility my bird might be a heraldic image – corbie rampant regardant (standing upright looking back over its shoulder). A Complete Guide to Heraldry by Fox Davies identifies the raven as a significant bird. The Corbet family of the Welsh Marches have a raven on their coat of arms from the French Le Corbeau – it’s a canting allusion i.e. a pun. And the arms of the Yorkshire Creyke family is also a raven or crow as is the Korwin arms (think you can see the theme here). Unfortunately the Corbet ‘corbeau’ isn’t looking over its shoulder and the Creyke crest looks like an angry eagle with a hint of swan (probably a bad image I’m studying). The Isle of Anglesey has some very fine crows on its coat of arms and I love the raven on the arms of the episcopal see of Manchester (see below) but I don’t think that the bird on the unstitched coif is a heraldic bird although I did when I first saw it.
The next option is that it comes from an existing book of the period in much the same way that many of Mary Queen of Scots designs come from Gessner’s Icones Animalium, published in Zurich, 1560. The problem is that the coif dates to the seventeenth century by which time there was a wider range of printed material available for someone to use as inspiration for their own embroidery.
Of course, it might not be a corvid – it could be something else entirely?
Miller, Dean, Animals and Animal Symbols in World Culture
Hans Holbein, who was born in Augsburg in about 1497, has a needlework stitch named after him- not that he ever knew it. Double running stitch involves running a thread in one direction but leaving sufficient space to repeat the process on the return journey. It ensures the pattern at the back of the fabric and the pattern on the front are identical and it is often used in blackwork embroidery. The name stems from the amount of embroidery of the style depicted by Holbein in his portraits.
Young Hans learned his trade from his father Holbein the Elder and, in all likelihood, from the town’s goldsmiths then went to Basel in about 1514 where he set about creating murals in the town hall and also created a set of woodcuts to illustrate the ‘Dance of Death’. Basically the message was that you can be having a lovely time but Death is just around the corner (cheery).
He became part of the cultural scene of Basel and received commissions from the humanist scholar Bonifacius Amberach and of the Dutch scholar Erasmus. However, the world was becoming more difficult for artists in Basel. The regime began to impose a strict censorship on the press.
Armed with a letter of introduction from the humanist Erasmus to Thomas More, Holbein arrived in England in about 1526. He worked in England for two years before returning briefly to Basel. In 1532 he returned once more to England where he spent the last eleven years of his life, having left his wife and children in Basel. During that time he painted approximately 150 portraits -including Sir Thomas More and Thomas Cromwell. Many of the portraits include detailed observations of fabrics decorated by blackwork embroidery made popular in the court of Henry VIII by his first wife Catherine of Aragon who famously stitched her husband’s shirts for him.
Henry’s third queen, Jane Seymour, is pictured wearing a chemise with blackwork embroidery on the cuffs under her gown and brocade sleeves. In fact Holbein was asked to paint all of Harry’s wives de jour while he was Henry’s court painter. A sketch of an unknown woman may be Anne Boleyn – in which case someone either has a very valuable portrait tucked away in their attic somewhere or when Henry had her arrested and executed it ended up on a bonfire. He was sent off to paint portraits of potential brides including a full length portrait of Christina of Denmark which looks very demure until you realise that the widowed Duchess of Milan has removed her gloves which in a polite world symbolises intimacy. More famously he painted the picture of Anne of Cleves causing Henry to ‘swipe right’ in modern language. Holbein obviously saw something in Anne that Henry didn’t as the image and the reality didn’t match up in Henry’s mind. It was probably just as well that executing artists wasn’t the done thing! Holbein also provided a portrait of Catherine Howard.
Inevitably Holbein’s patronage by the Crown meant that everyone wished to sit for their portrait and since blackwork embroidery was fashionable ruffs and cuffs abound in embroidery. Everything about Holbein’s portraits makes a statement and for later art historians the symbols contained in his works have often helped to identify the sitters or given a clue as to the way that they identified themselves in Henry’s renaissance world. It turns out that they weren’t all courtiers. Many of them were merchants from the Hanseatic league sending portraits home to their families. Jane Pemberton, pictured below, with blackwork collar and cuffs, was the wife of a cloth merchant.
And the man couldn’t resist a pun – A lady with a squirrel and a starling is likely to be Anne Lovell of East Harling. I’ve posted about her before : https://thehistoryjar.com/tag/anne-lovell .
Squirrels feature on the Lovell coat of arms and Harling and starling rhyme – pushing it a bit I know but it does demonstrate the lengths educated Renaissance types went to to make a point. And people did keep squirrels as pets. They even turn up in everything from the Lutterell Psalter to depictions of eighteenth century children with their pet squirrel. Inevitably they have a range of meanings apart from identifying anonymous ladies in quilted hats. Which brings me to the tricky element of symbolism which depends on context – diligence, infidelity, greed, voraciousness and in some medieval bestiaries a squirrel was such an angry creature that on occasion it might even die from rage…presumably because a some wit made an inappropriate pun about cracking nuts – and I’ll leave you to work out the symbolism to go with that!
Squirrel hair- vair -from the backs and bellies of the winter coat of squirrels (it was combed out) was very popular at the court of King John but I have no idea how I know that! It is also theorised that all these pet squirrels and nifty winter squirrel fur outfits contributed to the spread of leprosy in medieval Europe.
Back to Holbein – he is likely to have died from plague in 1543 and is buried in an unmarked grave – probably somewhere in Aldgate where he lived which means that cross-rail has probably disturbed his final resting place. His will is dated the 29 November and it provides for two illegitimate children in England.
And why this particular post – well, I’ve arrived at the point where I’ve got to embroider a squirrel into the blackwork coif (#unstitched coif). I know some stitchers have opted for an acorn motif while another prefers pinecones. I’m still making my mind up but I think I want to use a stitch that create the impression of a luxuriant tail and tufty ears – I’m not sure I can come up with a motif that would be appropriate for a small angry creature that might expire from rage.
Foister, Susan, Holbein in England, (London: Tate Publishing, 2006)
My starting point for this post is Ralph FitzHubert who was one of Wiliam the Conqueror’s tenants in Derbyshire. He made his home at Crich even though the majority of his Derbyshire manors were closer to Chesterfield and he held other estates in Nottinghamshire – Crich was perhaps convenient to access his manors. Crich, with its woodland pasture, was home to the king’s deer – which all belonged to the Crown. So far so good. Ralph is sometimes called Hubert of Ryes because he was the eldest son of the lord of Ryes near Bayeux and in Derbyshire he had six under tenants and was required to put a total of 30 knights in the field in return for all his land holdings.
Rather unexpectedly I found his younger brother was someone I’ve written about before. Ralph’s brother Eudo, who along with his three other brothers and father, arrived in England after 1066. Eudo held extensive lands in ten counties and by 1072 he was the steward or dapifer to the royal household. He was with William the Conqueror in Rouen when he died and he accompanied William II or William Rufus as he’s better known back to England. He continued as dapifer. Basically, he was a very powerful man and he married into a powerful family – his wife was Rohese de Clare.
He is also part of the group of men suspected of having William Rufus assassinated in August 1100. As conspiracy theories go the idea that the de Clares and their extended kinship network gave William’s little brother Henry a helping hand to the throne is not a new one and like all good theories there’s not a lot of evidence kicking around. Nor should it be added that he was ‘heaped with rewards’ if he did play a part in William’s demise (Frank Barlow, p.172).
Dapifer held extensive estates in East Anglia and played an intrinsic part in the building of Colchester Castle. His only child, a daughter called Margaret, was married to William de Mandeville. Eudo was the grandfather of Geoffrey de Mandeville, Earl of Essex. After Eudo’s death his estates largely reverted to the Crown – which led to a disagreement between the king and Geoffrey in the matter of who owned Saffron Walden, Sawbridgeworth and Great Waltham. The case was only resolved during the Anarchy when King Stephen granted Geoffrey the estates that he claimed the Crown had taken unlawfully.
All in all, I’m a long way from brother Ralph in Crich. His descendants took on the name FitzRalph and his son Odo FitzRalph of Bunny in Nottinghamshire inherited the lot. However, the estates were broken up by female inheritance. And as a final aside, the place name has nothing to do with bunny rabbits – I was always taught that the Normans introduced rabbits to Britain but it turns out from archaeological finds at Fishbourne Roman palace that it was the Romans and even more amazing it wasn’t lunch – it seems to have been someone’s pet lepus.
Barlow, Frank, William Rufus, (2008)
Warren Hollister, C, ‘The Strange Death of William Rufus’, Speculum, Vol 48. no.4 (Oct 1973), pp.637-653
Its been a busy week and this is a bit of a different post from my usual one. As some of you are aware I’m taking part in the Unstitched coif project to stitch a 17th century coif. My first official blog on the topic is here: http://blackworkembroidery.org/2023/06/06/getting-started/ for those of you who would like to see my progress to date. Suffice to say I need to speed up. Other participants are blogging as well and its absolutely fascinating to see how one pattern can produce so many different results.
Inevitably I couldn’t help taking a dip into the history of embroidery. Tudors used brass or bronze needles – but steel needles started to be used more widely during the reign of Elizabeth I. They were a Spanish import – not something to be mentioned in the same breath as the Armada perhaps. Clearly they were expensive items. Some needles continued to be made from bone because they could be made at home – which made me think about my recent trip to Cresswell Crags and the Stone Age needle excavated there which I have included at the start of this post. It certainly makes me appreciate the relative cost of needles today and their availability. I would perhaps be taking a different approach to needlework if the instruction began – ‘first make your needle.’
And that just leaves the mottes and baileys. No, nothing to do with embroidery. I’m working my way through the history of Derbyshire having completed most of the first draft. I am now at the end of the reworked Norman section – i.e. the Anarchy between Stephen and Matilda- before handing it over to He Who Is Occasionally Obeyed for proof reading and difficult questions! I’m trying to work out what to include in the text about the Anarchy before moving into the next chapter. The difficulty lies in the fact that adulterine castles from the period often had a limited shelf life, the castle at Bakewell being a case in point. The original castle at Bolsover was a twelfth century creation of the Peveril family, not that a lot remains. (NB there is a lovely 17th century little castle!) Its possible that the castle at Pilsbury dates from the Anarchy but the evidence is inconclusive and I’ve already written about it in the context of the Norman Conquest.
My next castle stop will be a return journey to Peveril, with King Henry II in control, and then its a question of identifying suitable fortified manors for an entry in the medieval section – Codnor Castle has definite appeal being sited on a motte and bailey. Its half way between a castle and a manor and has similarities with Wingfield Manor. Codnor was held by Richard, 2nd Lord Grey and his son John who was a military commander for Edward III. Perhaps a map would help me to decide what to include as I need to have a balance of locations from around the county.
I think I need a new category – covering posts like this…what is the word that means ‘and everything else’?
Peveril Castle in Castleton springs to mind as does Duffield Castle which was razed to the ground thanks to an earl of Derby rebelling against King Henry III once too often. Peveril was one of the earliest post conquest castles to be constructed but what stands to day reflects the improvements of King Henry II after the confiscated it from the Peveril family.
No one could accuse Derbyshire of having an important castle within its boundaries, which raises interesting questions about Derby as a Norman administrative centre although it did apparently have some form of early castle as its remains can be found on Speed’s map of 1610 at Cockpit Hill. It has probably got much to do with the fact that the Normans linked Derbyshire to Nottinghamshire, providing only one sheriff for the two counties. William Peveril was the castellan for Nottingham Castle as well as holding the royal forest in the Peak on the king’s behalf.
There was a fortification at Bolsover as well but today we think of the seventeenth century ‘play’ castle built by William Cavendish, Earl of Newcastle rather than a motte and bailey castle designed to dominate the locals and control the area. Sir Charles Cavendish, William’s father, began to change the appearance of the old medieval castle in 1608. The so-called ‘Little Castle’ stands on the footprint of the original building.
And then there’s Codnor but that was built at the beginning of the thirteenth century while the motte at Bakewell, which looks more like a pimple on the hillside, is twelfth century dating from the Anarchy when Stephen and Matilda were taking lumps out of one another and the barony were busy turning to brigandage.
Further reading reveals that there are more Norman fortifications in the county than I first realised:
Pilsbury Castle guarding the Dove Valley.
It is suggested that the fortifications at Pilsbury and Hartington, at Banktop, may have been complimentary structures. All that remains at Hartington is a large mound with a flat top.
Crowdecote is just down the road from Hartington and Pilsbury – there’s not much left and quite why the Normans wanted three forts to guard the crossing of the Dove and its associated trackways is another matter entirely. The manors were all in the hands of Henry de Ferrers who may have built a fortification to ensure he kept his territory. It’s also possible that they were thrown up during the troubles of the Anarchy – in which case Hartington and environs must have been rather dangerous to one’s health on occasion. Crowdecote doesn’t get a mention in Domesday but there were some Saxon pottery finds there.
Camp Green at Hathersage, next to the church, was excavated during the 1970s and revealed itself to be a ringwork enclosure however lack of dating evidence means that it was unclear whether the Normans got to work with their shovels or whether earlier inhabitants of the Peak created a defensive position here. Based on analysis of many other similar sites Hodges argues it was the Normans.
Harthill near Youlgrave may be a Norman construction but it’s also been argued that its Iron Age in origin. Certainly, that’s what I always understood it to be!
Hassop Moss near Glossop has similar dating problems and may well be part of a rather grand hunting lodge dating from a later period.
Hope had a Saxon Royal manor which seems to have been fortified.
There’s another platform for a fortification at Stony Middleton on the optimistically named Castle Hill. Dating it is difficult – it could be British, Roman, or Norman and there were pot shards found there dating the for thirteenth and fourteen centuries. Interestingly the site is near to a lead mine which certainly explains the presence of the fortification.
Tissington has a potential ringwork near its church but the problem is that there was rather a lot of earthwork activity during the English Civil War so its difficult to tell whether the remains are a Civil War redoubt or something olde being repurposed.
It may be the case that the Norman ringworks in the Peak District were built quickly to control some very grumpy farmers whose land had just been ‘harried’ by the Normans in the winter of 1069-1070. It has also been suggested that this was land which was agriculturally viable and needed to be protected. Not that it’s always clear who did the building or when it happened – it certainly demonstrates the importance of dating evidence.
Exciting as all this may be, Derbyshire’s castles are hardly on the same scale as the corresponding structures further north or the castles of the marches of Wales but in its turn it demonstrates that in the aftermath of the conquest matters settled themselves down and it was only during times of civil conflict that people felt the need to sling up a conical mound to perch on. There are, of course, many fortified manors in the region – some of them rather lovely, including Haddon Hall but that’s a slightly different story.
Creighton, O. H. Castles and Landscapes
Hodges, R (1980) ‘Excavations at Camp Green Hathersage (1976-77)’ Journal of the Derbyshire Archeological Society, Vol 100, pp25-34
Peter of Savoy, statue in front of the Savoy Hotel, was Eleanor of Provence’s uncle. His father intended that Peter should enter the church but in 1234 he concluded that the life of a cleric was not for him. When he arrived in England, Henry III, showered favours on him because it would please Eleanor. In 1240 the king granted him most of the Honour of Richmond. However, the envy of the barons focused upon him and at the start of the Second Barons’ War he life the country for his own safety.
In 1265 Simon de Montfort confiscated the honour but in the aftermath of the Battle of Evesham, Henry III returned the estates to him. Peter, who married his cousin Agnes of Faucigny, had only one legitimate child, a daughter named Beatrice but she did not inherit the honour of Richmond after her father’s death in 1268. Instead the honour reverted to the Crown.
The first man who acquired the barony was the eldest son of Alice of Brittany and Peter de Dreux who became the 2nd Earl of Richmond in 1268. In the succeeding generations five of the earls of Richmond would be Dukes of Brittany. Only one of them lived most of his life in England in service of its kings. John, Earl of Richmond born in 1266 was granted the honour in 1306 by Edward I.
I’ve posted about Alan the Red before – and his brother, the originally named, Alan the Black. Alan the Black was the kind of baron no one wished to encounter during The Anarchy – he was heavily into ravaging and plunder, even going so far as assaulting the Archbishop of York in Ripon at the shrine of St Wilfred. In about 1145 he granted the town of Richmond its first known charter before going to Brittany where he died in 1146. So far, so good.
Alan was married to Bertha, a cousin of Conan III of Brittany and his heir. After Alan’s death, Bertha remarried to Eudo, Viscount Porhoët who became Duke of Brittany by right of his wife. Alan’s son by Bertha, Conan, became the new Earl of Richmond and well as inheriting of all Alan’s other estates. Obviously Conan should also have become Due of Brittany but he was a minor and Eudo took charge.
In time Conan took control of the honour of Richmond – supported by King Henry II and having crossed the Channel trounced his step-father and became Conan IV of Brittany as well. In 1160 he married Margaret of Scotland, a daughter of Henry Earl of Huntingdon.
A daughter, Constance was born from the union. She eventually married Henry II’s son Geoffrey but the betrothal was a childhood one. After Conan’s death Henry II held Richmond on behalf of his daughter-in-law and son as well as administering Brittany for the 9-year old.
Geoffrey became Duke of Brittany and Earl of Richmond by right of his wife in 1181 after the marriage was finally celebrated. The couple’s son Arthur would eventually disappear in King John’s custody. Their daughter, Eleanor, would remain in Plantagenet royal custody throughout her life – no one wanting her to take a husband who might attempt to claim the duchy of Brittany and the earldom of Richmond.
After Geoffrey’s death in 1186 in Paris, Constance married Randulf de Blundeville, Earl of Chester – who also acquired the Earldom of Richmond. It wasn’t a happy union. Randalf incarcerated Constance for a year. Richard the Lionheart used the excuse to take control of Richmond.
Constance was eventually freed from her unhappy union and married for a third time toGuy de Thouars- The duchess now bore two more children , Alice and Catherine.
After Constance’s death in 1201 – Richmond was divided. Part of it was handed to Robert de Beaumont, 4th Earl of Leicester in the first instance. He died in 1204. Ranulf de Blundeville regained that portion of the honour for a brief time.
Alice’s husband, Peter de Braine, acquired the southern portion of the honour and eventually reunited the earldom. Peter was the son of the Count of Dreux and the marriage to Alice had been arranged by King Philip Augustus of France. Peter became Duke of Brittany by right of his marriage to Alice, irrelevant of the fact that her elder half-sister was still alive. Peter is pictured at the start of this post (Meluzína, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons). In 1215 King John granted him the honour of Richmond in an attempt to build up an army – it was the time of the First Barons War. Philip took the honour but continued to fight on behalf of the French. Ultimately though Peter served whichever side best suited his own aspirations. It left swathes of Yorkshire outside England’s ultimate control – remember John lost his continental lands. Even so it was 1230 before the honour of Richmond was confiscated from Peter and the honour reverted to the Crown.
Peter received some support from Henry III’s brother, Richard of Cornwall, but Peter, who was also kicked out of Brittany, found it sensible to go off on Crusade in 1239 where he was captured and died after his release in about 1250.
So far so good. The Crown now held a large earldom and Henry III knew many men willing to take it on. Peter of Savoy, one of Eleanor of Provence’s uncles, was a man in search of an income and preferment. Eleanor relied on her uncle’s guidance and Henry wanted to please his queen. Peter of Savoy was promptly knighted and granted part of the honour of Richmond in 1240.
Part II to follow.
Morris, David, The Honour of Richmond (York:2000) – an informative and carefully researched text which explains the lineage of the men and women who held the honour of Richmond as well as the political shenanigans that saw them gain or lose a region long important to the stability of the realm.
Croft Castle church is older than it looks. Historians think that the church as first built in about 1300. In the seventeenth century the clock tower was added and the interior provided with box pews. All well and good. I failed to photograph the sun in splendour on the stained glass window, representing an association with the House of York, and although I noted the medieval floor tiles I didn’t photograph them either. I was sidetracked! I nearly didn’t photograph the fortified house (ok I know that later architects have romanticised the whole concoction)
Sir Richard Croft died on 29 July 1509 and is depicted in effigy form with his wife Eleanor, the widow of Sir Hugh Mortimer. Eleanor ran the royal household of Edward, Prince of Wales a.k.a one of ‘The Princes in the Tower’ while he was at Ludlow learning how to be a king. Croft was Henry VII’s treasurer, fought at Mortimer’s Cross (Yorkist), Towton (Yorkist) , Tewkesbury (Yorkist) and Stoke (Tudor). The Pastor Letters record that plain Richard Croft was knighted in the aftermath of Tewkesbury. He also became High Sheriff of Herefordshire, as did his son.
Sir Richard inherited Croft Castle when he was just 14-years of age in 1445. He and his younger brother were tutored with Edward Earl of March and Edmund Earl of Rutland. History knows this because in 1454 a letter was sent to Richard of York complaining about their behaviour. He owed loyalty to his powerful Mortimer neighbours. He was their steward but rose under the Yorkists before transferring allegiance to Henry VII who made him Prince Arthur’s steward at Ludlow making him a key official educating the prince (p.528 -Anthony Emery, Great Medieval Houses of England and Wales volume 2).
Sir Richard was very much part of the “famous and very Knightly family of the Crofts”, as William Camden called them in his Britannia. Somehow, a member of the minor gentry became a key player serving as a royal official for Kings Edward IV, Richard III, and Henry VII. Sir Richard was one of the nobles who wished for the young King Edward V to be crowned at once to avoid the need for a protectorate. Rumours of their murder spread throughout court. Believing the boys’ deaths to have been ordered by their uncle, Sir Richard Croft, an astute player of court politics, remained a royal official to Richard III while secretly offering his support to Henry Tudor’s cause it would appear although Breverton records that Croft was in exile with Henry Tudor and played an important part in his coronation.
And you’ll love this (not a lot) Richard Croft had a brother who was younger than him also called Richard! Richard the Younger was born in 1437 and died in 1502. Little brother was one of Edward Prince of Wales’ tutors at Ludlow. The Younger Richard fought for Henry at Bosworth as did Richard the Younger’s illegitimate son Thomas who was appointed a ranger at Woodstock but got himself into a spot of bother over a murder in the marches.
The Crofts did not get on well with the Stanley family. The latter were rather too acquisitive of land and the Crofts weren’t keen on losing territory to their neighbours.
I love the happy looking Croft lion laying at Sir Richard’s feet but most historians are fascinated with the boar on the wonderfully carved tomb. The hog actually belongs to St Anthony, one of the saints decorating the niches behind Sir Richard’s head, but its impossible to escape the thought of Richard III with his white boar…and then there’s that sun in splendour.
And because I can…Sir Richard Croft was the great grandfather of Henry VIII’s mistress Bess Blount making him the 2x great grandfather of Bessie and Henry’s son, Henry FitzRoy.
George, whose mother was Mary Dacre, spent much time in the borders. He was one of the men who invaded Scotland on the orders of Protector Somerset while Edward VI was king. He inherited his earldom in 1560.
In 1568 George married Bess of Hardwick – no doubt she was a very attractive bride not to mention a very wealthy one. His first wife had been Gertrude Manners who was the mother of all his legitimate children. So eager was George to ally himself to Bess and her Cavendish children that he married his eldest surviving son Gilbert to Bess’s daughter Mary Cavendish and his own daughter Grace Talbot to Bess’s eldest son Henry Cavendish even though she was only 8 at the time. It wasn’t a happy marriage and Henry didn’t get on with his mother either (a different post I think). Meanwhile George and Bess didn’t have long to enjoy wedded bliss because the following year Shrewsbury was handed the poisoned chalice of being Mary Queen of Scots’ custodian…er, host.
George moved the queen between Tutbury, Wingfield Manor and Sheffield Castle. In 1570 she went to Chatsworth which was a property belonging to Bess of Hardwick. And on occasion Mary took the waters in Buxton. In part Talbot was selected for the job because he owned extensive properties in the middle of the country where it would be hard to rescue Mary. He was also well off and that meant that Queen Elizabeth wouldn’t have to dip into the royal pockets for the care of Mary as often as they might otherwise have needed to do. The next fifteen years saw Shrewsbury becoming increasingly worn down, not to mention cash strapped, by the burden of his responsibilities.
His marriage with Bess became increasingly difficult. Even Elizabeth I turned her hand to marriage guidance between 1586 and 1589 in a bid to reconcile the couple. It was to no avail, the couple separated and George lived out the rest of his life in Sheffield with his mistress, Eleanor Britton.
The earl died on 18 November 1590. He was buried in the Shrewsbury Chapel of Sheffield Church – now Sheffield Cathedral. The chapel was built in 1520 by the 4th earl whose effigy can also be viewed there as can the effigies of his two wives. George was succeeded by his second son Gilbert, his eldest son having predeceased him. Bess outlived him dying in 1608. She chose to be buried in Derby rather than Sheffield.
The earl’s effigy rests with its feet on a Talbot dog – a white hunting hound and which was one of the Talbot families heraldic supporters.
And because I’m getting ever so slightly obsessed about these things – George’s great grandparents were Richard Neville Earl of Salisbury (executed at Pontefract 1461 after the Battle of Towton) and Alice Montagu or Montacute depending on your frame of mind, suo jure Countess of Salisbury – demonstrating once again that everyone was related one way or another!
