Tag Archives: Henry VI

Sir James Luttrell of Dunster

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arms of luttrell.jpgFirst of all apologies to all those of you who spotted the typo yesterday and thank you for your patience.  I did, of course, mean that James II succeeded to the throne of his brother Charles II but rather unfortunately lost one of the ones in my text.

So, here we are – the 10th December. In 1520 Martin Luther was busy burning papal bulls.  Twenty one years later Frances Dereham would pay for his life for the crime of seducing a girl who would one day be queen of England.  His companion in death, Thomas Culpeper was paying for adultery with the queen – Katherine Howard.  More positively the first Nobel Prize was awarded on the 10th December 1901.

Which leaves us with today’s face – Sir James Luttrell of Dunster Castle, in Somerset though the action takes place in Yorkshire. Sir James was born in approximately 1427.  His father’s early death left James as a ward of the Crown.  In this instance rather than being handed over to the highest bidder who would then strip the assets and marry the child off to best advantage the king and his privy council committed the lands of Dunster into the care of the Bishop of Bath and Wells (John Stafford) who was a family friend along with the bishop’s brother (Humphrey Stafford – eventually the duke of Buckingham) and also James’ cousin Sir Philip Courtney.

elizabeth-luttrellInevitably marriage was on the mind of James’ guardians and it probably comes as no surprise that the family was careful to maximise its holdings over the lands that it held. James would marry Sir Philip’s daughter Elizabeth.  Land was so important to the Luttrells that James would be involved in a wrangle that allegedly resolved itself into murder  when he reached his majority though this was proved to be a device to bring the affair to the attention of the courts (I’ll post about this in the New Year).

On the national stage a larger wrangle for land and power was beginning to simmer.  Richard of York returned from Ireland in the autumn of 1460.  He thought that he would take the throne from his cousin Henry VI yet when he arrived in London and laid a hand upon the throne he was not met with popular acclaim but with silence. Negotiations followed. On the 24 october 1460 an agreement was reached. Henry VI effectively disinherited his own son allowing that following his death it would be Richard who was crowned rather than Prince Edward.  Unsurprisingly his wife, the mother of Prince Edward, Margaret of Anjou was not amused.  Richard had to settle for his role as protector but in Yorkshire the Yorkists began to harry the lands of York and the earl of Salisbury.

Richard of York went north with the earl of Salisbury on the 9th December.  Their plan was to sort out the pesky Lancastrians and then carry on to the borders where the Scots were also being a bit of a nuisance.

 

Luttrell, a loyal Lancastrian, marched after Richard on the 10th.  His forces skirmished with Richard of York prior to his arrival at Sandal.  Richard settled into Sandal Castle for the festive season as his enemies gathered on his doorstep on the 21st December.   On the 30th December in the aftermath of Wakefield James was knighted by the duke of Suffolk.  Seven weeks later Sir James was badly wounded at the Second Battle of St Albans, dying five days later.

Within a week of Edward IV winning the throne the widow and children of Sir James felt the wrath of the House of York for  Sir James’ involvement with the death of Richard of York. In simple terms, Edward had them kicked out of Dunster and seized all their possessions.  Sir James was named as a rebel by the Parliament of 1461:

with grete despite and 
cruell violence, horrible and unmanly tyrannye 
murdered the late Duke of York at Wakefield, and 
who were consequently to " stand and be convycted 
and attainted of high treason, and forfett to the King 
and his heires all the castles, maners " and other lands 
of which they were or had been possessed.

This seems rather unfair given that Luttrell had served the House of Lancaster loyally as his family had all done since the days of John of Gaunt. Edward’s commissioners even seized Elizabeth’s dower lands which were hers rather than her husbands. The Luttrells were being made an example of. In 1463 Dunster was granted to Sir William Herbert, the same Sir William who would replace Jasper Tudor as earl of Pembroke and hold the wardship of young Henry Tudor.

 

http://www.archive.org/stream/historyofdunster01lyte/historyofdunster01lyte_djvu.txt (accessed 10 December 2016)

 

 

 

 

Eustace Chapuys – Imperial Ambassador

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chapuys1533 was a momentus one for Henry. He married Anne Boleyn, Cranmer annulled his marriage to Katherine of Aragon and in September there was the birth of another princess– Elizabeth. Anne had promised Henry a boy which was a tad silly of her. History knows that she fell pregnant on three more occasions and miscarried at least one male sealing her own fate in 1536.

 

However that was all in the future on December 6th 1533 when Eustace Chapuys the Imperial Ambassador wrote a long letter to Charles V (Katherine’s nephew and at various times affianced to Princess Mary -Henry VIII’s sister- and also to Princess Mary- Henry VIII’s daughter). Chapuys’ letter from today remains in the archives of Vienna. Here is an extract that relates to the legitimacy of Princess Mary:

 

On St. Andrew’s eve, the King, who, for a month past, ought to have made or sent me an answer for what reason he claimed to deprive the Princess of her title, legitimacy, and primogeniture, sent to me by Norfolk and Cromwell to say that he would like to be informed by them of what I wished to say both on that matter and in what concerned the Queen ; and this he did, not to refuse or delay the audience, which he was very willing to give me, whenever I liked, but in order to take advice upon the subject.

And having made several remonstrances to them that the King could not allege illegitimacy, or deprive the Princess of her title, they replied that my arguments might be true and well founded in civil law, which had no force here, but that the laws of this kingdom were quite otherwise. But on showing them that I rested my argument only upon the decision of the canon law, which in a spiritual matter no prince’s decree could prejudice, they knew not what to reply, except that they would report it to the King, and afterwards declare to me his intention. This they have not yet done, although he has held almost daily consultations, to which several learned canonists have been called. As regards the Queen, viz., the agreement proposed by the Pope, they said that formerly it had been under consideration, but that since sentence had been lawfully given by the archbishop of Canterbury, they thought the King would not expressly or tacitly do anything prejudicial to the said sentence, as it concerned his own honor and the interest of his new born daughter, especially as she was already declared Princess, and that if all the ambassadors in the world were to come, or even the Pope himself, they could not persuade the King otherwise.

 

And there it is neatly summed up by Eustace – it didn’t matter to Henry what anyone else might think, he had too much invested in his new marriage and family for any form of backtracking.

 

So, our face of today is Eustace Chapuys, the Imperial Ambassador whose words inform us about many of the events in Henry VIII’s world where he arrived in 1529 having had a career in the imperial diplomatic service following his education in law at Turin University and acceptance into holy orders.

 

He was sent to England by Charles V to replace the previous ambassador Mendoza with the specific aim of supporting Katherine of Aragon during her marital difficulties. The diplomatic relationship turned into one of genuine affection. It was Chapuys who made a last visit to her bedside as Katherine lay dying. Chapuys describes Katherine’s nemesis as “the Concubine” and “the whore.”  If he was required to be polite he referred to her as “the Lady.” It doesn’t take much imagination to identify the way he talked about the infant Princess Elizabeth.  Chapuys refused to meet Anne until Henry orchestrated a meeting  just before her fall in 1536.

Chapuys had reason to dislike Anne. He counted Sir Thomas More amongst his friends and he remained loyal to Princess Mary throughout his life.

 

Chapuys remained in England until 1545 where he didn’t always win friends and influence people. Lord Paget described him as a liar who would be able to hold his own in a court of vipers (he must have fitted right in).

When he retired from diplomatic life/spying he returned to Louvain where he originally came from and founded two centers of education.

 

He died in 1556 having done much to influence the way history would perceive Henry and his wives because of his lengthy correspondence with Charles V. It is from Chapuys that we get all the gossip, some of it without any foundation whatsoever beyond Chapuys dislike for Anne and an equal dislike for all things French. Reading his letters does give a fascinating insight but they need to be taken, on occasion, with a hefty pinch of salt.

 

images-9In other news for the 6th December.  It was on this day in 1421 that Henry VI was born at Windsor to Katherine of Valois.  A mere nine months later his father Henry V would be dead from dysentery and a babe in arms would wear the crown.  And, of course, from there it is a gentle downhill spiral towards the Wars of the Roses and ultimately the arrival of the Tudors with their dodgy claims to the throne.

 

 

‘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].

The Northern borders during the Wars of the Roses-an overview of 1461-64

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images-17images-9In March 1461 Edward of York won the Battle of Towton and became Edward IV of England and Wales. The great northern earls of Northumberland and Westmorland died during the battle as did many other men from the northern marches including Lord Dacre of Naworth Castle whose title and lands were inherited by his brother – though for limited time because he too had fought at Towton on the losing side.

Meanwhile Henry VI and Margaret of Anjou seeing which way the wind was blowing, fled into Scotland handing over Berwick-Upon-Tweed to the Scots on April 25 1461 which rather helped the Lancastrian cause in Scotland as did the fact that Margaret of Anjou got on famously well with the dowager Queen of Scotland, Mary of Guelders.  For a while a marriage was proposed between Prince Edward of England (Henry and Margaret’s son) and Mary, the eldest sister of young James III who was nay eight at the time that Margaret of Anjou first arrived in Scotland.

Meanwhile Edward IV marched as far as Newcastle, where the Earl of Wiltshire (Sir James Butler) was executed on May 1. H Edward’s journey back to the south left several large castles in Lancastrian hands.  He left the borders in the care of the earl of Warwick.  Warwick was also given the power to negotiate with the Scots who sent ambassadors to speak with the new English king, clearly being of the opinion that it was a good idea to hedge their bets.  Edward commissioned Sir Robert Ogle from the eastern marches to work on a truce with Scotland. Rather confusingly, and unsurprisingly, another branch of the family were firmly Lancastrian in their sympathy.   He also set about negotiating a treaty with the Lord of the Isles who became Edward’s liegeman with a pension, as did several of his cronies, and permission to  hold as much of the northern parts of Scotland as he could get his hands upon.  The earl of Douglas was also in receipt of a pension from Edward, suggesting that Edward felt that if the Scots were busy fighting one another they wouldn’t be fighting him.

Meanwhile Margaret of Anjou went to France to raise support from Louis XI in order to regain her husband’s kingdom.  He wasn’t really that interested but gave her a small body of men and a noble called Breze to be her general. Breze who wasn’t terribly popular with the new french king.  In fact, he was let out of prison in order to command the little force that set off for Northumberland.  He took control of the castle at Alnwick where he and his five hundred men were besieged by Lord Hastings, Sir Ralph Gray and Sir John Howard.

They in their turn were troubled by George Douglas, earl of Angus who had received grants of land from Henry and Margaret during their time in the Scottish court.  Angus was a Scottish border warden so was able to gather a body of men to ride to Breze’s rescue in July. Breze and Angus returned to Scotland.  Ridpath makes the point that the reason Breze was able to exit from the postern gate of Alnwick without any trouble was that there was an agreement between the Scots and the Yorkist besiegers army.

Margaret of Anjou arrived in Northumberland in October.  The North did not rise but Alnwick became Lancastrian once more.  This was either because Sir Ralph Gray had a change of heart after time spent as Yorkist governor of the castle or because there was insufficient food to withstand siege.

Edward IV marched north with an army again.

Margaret fled into Scotland. This description is beginning to feel like a large scale game of game of snakes and ladders for poor Margaret.    She went north by sea, taking  Breze with her.  Luck was not on her side. A storm blew up dispersing the Lancastrian vessels.  Margaret finished up in Berwick whilst Breze foundered off Holy Island.  His boats were, quite literally, burned. Four to five hundred of his men were either killed or captured at the hands of John Manors or the rather descriptively named, Bastard Ogle; both of whom I need to find more about. Breze managed to hail a fishing boat and get away to Berwick where he joined Margaret.

Edward and his army arrived in Durham where Edward promptly caught measles. Warwick took command of the army but since there was now no Lancastrian force  in the field he besieged Alnwick, Bamburgh and Dunstanburgh which were in the hands of Lancastrians and had been since 1461. Bamburgh surrendered on Christmas Eve 1462. The other two were in Yorkist hands by the new year.

It is worth noting that one of the Yorkists besieging the Lancastrians was a certain Sir Thomas Malory who had done considerable amounts of porridge during Henry VI’s reign for breaches of the peace. He would write the Morte d’Arthur during another stint in prison.

The duke of Somerset and Sir Ralph Percy were both pardoned by Edward IV in an attempt to bring old animosities to an end. Other Lancastrians were not afforded the same generosity.  The earl of Pembroke and Lord Roos escaped or were escorted back to Scotland depending on which account you read. The earl of Pembroke a.k.a Jasper Tudor was supposed to have gathered a force to land in Beaumaris, Anglesey in 1462 having tried to rally support in Ireland in the early part of the year but had failed to do this.  Instead ‘Plan B’ involved him joining with the conflict in the north of England  travelling via Brittany and Scotland whilst the three Lancastrian castles mentioned above were being besieged.  His job was a to lift the sieges. The Yorkists had more men than him so he’d been forced to take a place inside Bamburgh Castle.

Meanwhile earlier in the year, on the other side of the country, Margaret of Anjou, slightly foiled but not deterred, had turned her attention to the West March.  She, a group of Lancastrians and some over-optimistic Scots arrived in the outskirts of Carlisle in June 1462.  Margaret had told the Scots that if they could take Carlisle they could have it.  There was the inevitable siege and a fire that burned down the suburbs which did not win friends for the Lancastrian cause in the city. John Neville, Lord Montagu (Warwick’s kid brother) arrived later that same month and raised the siege by July.

Humphrey Dacre, whose elder brother had  been killed at Towton and  to whom Neville was related through Dacre’s mother, was now required to hand over Naworth Castle near Brampton to the Yorkists having been attainted for his own role fighting the Yorkists at Towton.

1463 saw Margaret experience another rear disaster when she encountered Neville’s Yorkist forces near Hexham.. She and Prince Edward “by the aid of a generous robber,” (Ridpath: 295) reached the coast and safety. It was said that Margaret fled with only her son and a single squire into Dipton Wood where the outlaw probably intent on mischief was duly inspired to provide assistance and hiding in a cave.  Sadler, who does not trust the story of the ‘Queen’s Cave’  and  notes that Margaret trusted this man so much that she left Prince Edward in the man’s care whilst she attempted to locate her husband. He quotes for Chastellain whose account came from Margaret herself. She was transferred to the coast and from there took ship to the Continent to plead for more cash to try again.

By the spring of 1464 it was all over for the Lancastrians so far as a Scottish alliance was concerned.  Margaret no longer had the ear of the dowager queen who had died in 1463.  The Scots preferred to make a truce with Edward IV. It is worth noting that Edward wasn’t ruling a peaceful kingdom counties across the country were up in arms.

Margaret of Anjou on the other hand didn’t take no for an answer and was able to do a spot of rabble rousing with the promise of loot.  She entered Northumberland along with her husband and son though the accounts do not always agree as to whether Henry was with her or was in Northumberland all along.  Once more Sir Ralph Gray, who seems to have changed sides more often than he changed his doublet and hose, was on hand to take Alnwick for Margaret and once more the duke of Somerset and Sir Ralph Percy who’d been pardoned by Edward IV upon receipt of sizeable amounts of dosh changed sides back to their original Lancastrian red. It didn’t look good for the Yorkists.

Sir John Neville (the earl of Warwick’s kid brother) stepped into the breach. He wasn’t terribly amused in any event.  He’d been sent north to escort James III of Scotland to York to sign a peace treaty with Edward.  En route he encountered the earl of Somerset near Alnwick at Hedgely Moor on April 21 1464.  Somerset’s forces blocked the road.  There was the usual fisticuffs. Sir Ralph Percy found himself encircled and was killed.  Three weeks later, on May 15, Sir John confronted Somerset at Hexham. Somerset ad Lord Roos were captured. Both men were taken to Newcastle where they were executed as were other Lancastrians.

Back at Bamburgh, Sir Ralph Gray perhaps realising that another change of side wasn’t really an option attempted to hold out until he realised it would avail him little and attempted to negotiate surrender.  He was executed at Doncaster.

Sir John Neville, Lord Montagu received his reward in York where the English and the Scots finally signed their peace treaty.  Montagu became the earl of Northumberland which perhaps did not take into account the loyalty of the men of the east marches to their ancestral overlord.

Meanwhile Henry VI who’d sought shelter at Bywell Castle escaped into the hills where he remained for a considerable time sheltered by loyal Lancastrians until he was captured and taken to London.

jaspertudor.jpgI must admit to being interested in Jasper Tudor’s peregrinations in the north of England. The details of his route to and from Scotland are sketchy other than for his presence in the East March. I am also intrigued by  the sides taken by the various border families, although I suspect as with the battles between England and Scotland, men such as the Grahams were Yorkist when they wished and Lancastrian at other times but on all occasions men who looked after their own cares first.

Breverton, Terry. (2014) Jasper Tudor: Dynasty Maker. Stroud: Amberley

Ridpath, George. (1970). Border History. Edinburgh: The Mercat Press

Royle, Trevor. (2009).  The Wars of the Roses. London:Abacus

Sadler, John. (2006). Border Fury. London: Pearson

Medieval Tiles in Great Malvern Priory

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IMG_7766The rounded apse at the east end of the church is covered in fifteenth century tiles.  The tiles were produced by master craftsmen in workshops and kilns set up on site between 1450 and 1500.  The guide book notes that originally there would have been approximately 50,000 tiles decorating the priory.  Only a fragment of them remain but, even so, Great Malvern’s collection can hardly be bettered by any other parish church. There are over one hundred different designs and each of them has a meaning.

One tile carries a coat of arms and five birds.  These birds or martlets as they are known in heraldry represent Edward the Confessor.  It is a reminder that the land upon which the priory was built was given by the king to his abbey in Westminster. Amongst the heraldic tiles the badges of the Duke of Buckingham, Mortimer, Beauchamp (Richard Beauchamp was the earl of Warwick at the time of the rebuilding), Despenser (Richard’s wife was Isabel Despenser), Clare, Talbot and Bracy can be spotted along with the royal arms and the fleur-de-lys reflecting Henry VI’s patronage.  Tiles are dated to 1453 and 1456 – tiles being dated 36 H VI – meaning the thirty-sixth year of Henry VI’s reign i.e. 1456; the year after the First Battle of St Albans.  1453 was significant in that it was the year that Henry VI suffered his first break down setting in motion an escalating conflict between the House of York and that of Lancaster.  These tiles can be found on the apse which is known as the “Benefactors Wall” – think of these tiles as the sponsors’ logos. The tiles are not in their original position. The Victorians removed them from the floors and placed them here during their renovation work. They also commissioned replicas by Minton which now adorn the chancel floor.DSCF2427.jpg

As you might expect there are tiles that carry scriptural messages in symbolic form such as   a fish, the instruments of the passion,  Mary crowned represented by the letter M surmounted by a crown, pelicans which were the medieval symbol of self-sacrifice and also tiles with texts.  The most striking of the latter is the so called ‘leper’s tile’ or ‘Job Tile’ which quotes from Job -“have pity on me my friends for the hand of God has struck me.”

IMG_7767There are even tiles that bear the name of the tiler – WHILLAR- who made that particular batch.  There’s one with a Latin inscription which reads “Mentem sanctum, spontaneuni honorer Deo, et patrie liberacionem.” As well as honouring the Lord it is also, apparently, an early form of fire insurance as this was supposed to help prevent fire. Even more practically there is a tile (immediately above this paragraph)  with a message from the monks which tells pilgrims to give their money now rather than making a bequest in their wills on account of the fact that once you’re dead you don’t know what will happen.

DSCF2428.jpgIt is interesting to note that the monks or the tilers did a healthy business selling their wares to local churches and landowners in the vicinity or even further afield – there are Great Malvern tiles in St David’s in Pembrokeshire. And, of course, once their work was finished the tilers would take their wooden stamps and go in search of work elsewhere.

Double click on the image of the Benefactors’ Wall  (not taken by me although the rest of the photographs in this post are mine) to open a new web page to view more images of the tiles and further information about the priory and its publications.

benefactors wall.jpg

Great Malvern Priory

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IMG_7747.JPGWhat a gem!  Great Malvern Priory was founded in 1085 by a hermit, Aldwin, from Worcester Abbey on land belonging to Westminster Abbey.  This means that during the life of Great Malvern’s monastic establishment it looked to  Benedictine Westminster for direction which is why it’s a priory rather than an abbey in its own right.

Aldwin was supported and guided by Bishop Wulfstan of Worcester who went on to become one of King John’s favourite saints. The priory also received its charter and funding from  William the Conqueror who gave charters to many monasteries – a reminder that the conquest of England had the Pope’s blessing and that William was conscious of the need to give thanks for his victory. Henry I and Edward III confirmed and renewed the charter. The priory wasn’t without its problems though.  The fact that it was on Westminster Abbey land but founded by a monk from Worcester and looked to the Worcester for guidance led to friction at various times in the priory’s history.

DSC_0102The pillars in the nave of today’s building are Norman and there are odd clues to the Norman past scattered about the building but the priory as it stands today dates largely from the fifteenth century.  The Bishop of Worcester was called upon to consecrate the new build in 1460 – just as the Wars of the Roses really got started (Battle of Wakefield December 30 1460).  However, the new build ensured that assorted Lancaster and York monarchs added their ‘bit’ to the decor from Henry VI’s tiles via Richard III’s stained glass windows to Henry VII. At least those monarchs wanted to enhance the building, finished in 1502.

In 1535 Dr Legh, one of Cromwell’s commissioners and a bit of a thug by all accounts,  visited the priory.  Things can’t have been that bad as there is no report of his findings amongst Cromwell’s documents.  According to the Valor Ecclesiasticus of 1535, the income of the prior and convent amounted to £375 0s. 6½ d. It escaped the act suppressing the small monasteries, although a cell belonging to the priory wasn’t so fortunate.

DSC_0104.JPG

In 1539 the monastery was dissolved despite the please of Hugh Latimer the Bishop of Worcester (he would ultimately go to the flames in the reign of Mary Tudor for his Protestantism). He wrote to Cromwell on behalf of the prior; ‘at the request of an honest man, the prior of GreatMalvern, of my diocese,’ pleads for the ‘upstandynge’ of his house, and continuance of the same to many good purposes, ‘not in monkery . . . but to maintain teaching, preaching, study with praying, and (to the which he is much given) good “howsekepynge,” for to the “vertu” of hospitality he hath been greatly inclined from his beginning, and is very much commended in these parts for the same . . . The man is old, a good “howsekepere,” feeds many, and that daily, for the country is poor and full of penury. Alas, my good lord, shall not we see two or three in each shire changed to such remedy? . . Sir William Kingston can report of the man further.’ The letter dated 13 December 1538 finishes with flattery: “Blessed be God of England that worketh all, whose instrument you be! I heard you say once after you had seen that furious invective of cardinal Pole that you would make him to eat his own heart, which you have now, [I trow], brought to pass, for he must [needs] now eat his own heart, and be[as] heartless as he is graceless.”  Latimer went on to offer Cromwell 200 marks and the king 500 if they would spare the priory.

Not that it did any good. By January 1539 the priory had been suppressed and the lead stripped from its roof.  The prior, one Richard Whitborn, received h £66 13s. 4d. each year.  Ultimately, in 1541, the parishioners of Great Malvern purchased the priory for £20.00 as the original parish church was in a poor state.  They acquired the “stateliest parish church in England.” The parish church of St Mary and St Michael is without a shadow of a doubt a show stopper.

 

A second post will consider Great Malvern’s medieval tiles whilst a third post will explore the wonderful medieval windows and also a fourth post on the glass given by Richard III and by Henry VII.  As you might guess, I spent a very happy morning in Great Malvern Priory although I wasn’t able to study the misericords (the ledges on which the monks could rest during services) because of work being done in the choir of the church.  Great Malvern is unusual in that as well as depicting a mermaid on its misericords it also has a merman.

For fans of C.S. Lewis it is also worth noting that he went to school in Malvern College just before World War One and whilst he was there he may have been inspired by the enclosed east doors of the priory church which ultimately turned into the wardrobe by which the Pevensies entered Narnia.  A glimpse through the lock reveals a fir tree and a lamp post.

‘Houses of Benedictine monks: Priory of Great Malvern’, in A History of the County of Worcester: Volume 2, ed. J W Willis-Bund and William Page (London, 1971), pp. 136-143. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/worcs/vol2/pp136-143 [accessed 16 August 2016].

Cleop. E. iv.264. B. M.Wright’s Suppression of the Monasteries,148. ‘Henry VIII: December 1538 11-15’, in Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 13 Part 2, August-December 1538, ed. James Gairdner (London, 1893), pp. 438-455. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/letters-papers-hen8/vol13/no2/pp438-455 [accessed 23 August 2016].

‘Parishes: Great Malvern with Newland’, in A History of the County of Worcester: Volume 4, ed. William Page and J W Willis-Bund (London, 1924), pp. 123-134. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/worcs/vol4/pp123-134 [accessed 16 August 2016].

Margaret Beauchamp of Bletsoe

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beauchamp.jpgWho?  Well, she’s the maternal grandmother of Henry Tudor. In the great scheme of things John Beaufort, Duke of Somerset could have looked for a more prestigious marriage but he’d been a prisoner of the french for seventeen years and was hugely indebted on account of the ransom that had to be paid for his release.

Margaret, the daughter of Baron Beauchamp, was something of an heiress.  He brother had died young and without children. She married Sir Oliver St John who fathered several children and then died in France as a result of being involved in the Hundred Years War freeing Margaret up to marry the Duke of Somerset who was swiftly got his new bride pregnant and went back to fighting the French. A girl child duly arrived called Margaret.  The day before little Margaret Beaufort’s first birthday which fell on the 31 May 1444 her father died, in all probability by his own hand as a result of not doing terribly well in his campaign against the French.

Margaret Beauchamp widowed for a second time now spent three years without a husband at her home in Bletsoe where her daughter seems to have enjoyed a brief but happy childhood amongst her five half-siblings although she was given in wardship to William de la Pole, Earl -later Duke- of Suffolk. History isn’t entirely sure when Margaret Beaufort left her mother’s care although we do know that Margaret Beaufort remained loyal to her wider St John family throughout her life.  We also know that Suffolk arranged for his ward to marry his own son only for the whole  house of cards to come tumbling down when Henry VI became involved, ordered Margaret Beauchamp to bring her daughter to court in 1453 and gave Margaret who was a significant heiress as a bride to his own half-brother despite the fact that the child was already married to John de la Pole.  This childhood marriage was swiftly annulled and Margaret Beaufort always spoke of her marriage to Edmund Tudor as her first marriage.

 

Margaret Beauchamp married for a third time to one Lionel, Lord Welles who managed to survive longer than husbands one and two but who carelessly got himself killed at the Battle of Towton in 1461.

Lord Welles was a supporter of Margaret Beauchamp’s brother-in-law Edmund Beaufort (now Duke of Somerset – the one rumour said may have fathered Margaret of Anjou’s son rather than Henry VI). Lionel was part of the extended Clifford and Greystoke families for those who like a northern link. He was also an unsuccessful Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and served as deputy  Lieutenant for Calais on behalf of Edmund Beaufort who got himself killed in 1455 at the First Battle of St Albans.

We know very little else about Margaret Beauchamp except that she had a book of hours because it passed into the hands of her daughter Margaret Beaufort.  It is often referenced in texts because of Margaret Beaufort’s habit of annotating it. Double click on the image at the start of this post to open the British Library page with information about the Beaufort/Beauchamp Book of Hours.

Margaret Beauchamp of Bletsoe died in 1482 and was buried in Wimbourne Minster – so we also have a good idea what she may have looked like from her effigy which lays alongside that of her second husband – John Beaufort, Duke of Somerset.

 

Jones, Michael K. and Underwood, Malcolm G. (1993) The King’s Mother: Lady Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond and Derby. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

 

The Battle of Wakefield

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DSC_0041.JPGIn September 1459 Richard of York fled to Ireland.  He returned a year later and attempted to claim the throne from Henry VI.  This was not a sensible manoeuvre and it certainly didn’t have popular acclaim.  He did manage to wangle the agreement that he would be king after Henry VI, effectively disinheriting Prince Edward and seriously irritating Edward’s mother and Henry VI’s wife – Margaret of Anjou.

Things didn’t get better.  In November 1460 the Lords Dacre, Clifford and Neville attacked the tenants of Richard of York and the Earl of Salisbury (the Kingmaker’s father).  Meanwhile Margaret of Anjou was chivvying the north to her and her disinherited son’s aid.  It is worth pointing out that despite his title and landholdings at Conisborough and Wakefield the majority of the Duke of York’s land and support was elsewhere than the north.

Richard of York underestimated the degree of antipathy towards him and the extent to which northerners were prepared to take up arms.  He rode north to Wakefield on 9th December 1460 together with the Earl of Salisbury  in order to sort out his landholding there and to knock the Lancastrians into order. He held the necessary legal documents but very few men.  He was dogged, it appears, by bad roads, worse weather and several broken bridges as well as the Duke of Somerset’s men launching a surprise attack.  He must have been in a pretty grim frame of mind by the time he arrived at Sandal Castle pictured at the start of this post on the 21 December 1460.

Once at Sandal he was joined by knights loyal to York including Sir Thomas Parr who’d been an MP for Westmorland on five occasions.  Many of the ordinary soldiers would have had to have camped outside the castle (lucky them!).  Soon York found himself hemmed in by Lancastrians and he also discovered that he hadn’t got enough supplies.  It must have been a jolly Christmas season.

For whatever reason York’s men left the castle on the 30th December.  One version of the story says he sent men out for supplies and they failed to recognise the size of the Lancastrian force that they encountered.  Another version suggests that a certain Anthony Trollope and his men had changed from York to Lancaster and that he came up with a plan to disguise four hundred or so of the Duke of Somerset’s men as retainers of the Earl of Warwick and simply march into Sandal. Stage two of the plan was for Trollope to arrive the following morning lure York’s men out into the open and then Somerset’s men were to show their true colours which seems rather a lively not to mention hard to swallow story.  Presumably the Earl of Salisbury might have asked some questions of the men who arrived claiming to be sent by his son?

In any event on the 30 December 1460 Richard set out to meet a force of Lancastrians on Wakefield Green.  He thought that there was only a small force of men.  He was rather badly wrong.  The Yorkists charged the Lancastrians and were surprised by arrows and more Lancastrians who came from the woods that lay to both sides of the Yorkist force.  It must have seemed to Richard that for every Lancastrian he killed another two sprouted in their place.

IMG_7100Bridge Street near the River Calder is still sometimes called Fall Ings describing the number of fleeing Yorkists killed there but Richard chose to stand and fight, legend says with his back to a willow tree.  One of the reasons he may have made this decision was because his eldest son Edmund, the Earl of Rutland was amongst the Yorkists fleeing the battle field.

If this was the case it did Richard little good.  Not only did he die on the spot marked by a Victorian memorial replacing the one destroyed during the English Civil War but his son was killed near the bridge by Lord Clifford in revenge for the death of his father at the first Battle of St Albans in 1455. The news rapidly circulated that Edmund had been unarmed and pleaded for his life at the time that Clifford killed him.  The Wars of the Roses turned to another shade of nastiness as a consequence.DSC_0053.JPGDSC_0055.JPG

The chantry chapel on the bridge at Wakefield looks a little lost next to the ring road.  It was enriched by Edward IV in memory of his father and brother whose heads together with the Earl of Salisbury had adorned York’s Micklegate Bar in the aftermath of the battle.

As for Sir Thomas Parr, one of several northern knights loyal to the house of York he died the following year.  He was also the grandfather of Katherine Parr, Henry VIII’s sixth queen – or if you followed Henry’s logic second queen on account of the fact that only Jane Seymour had been his true wife!

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Clark David, (2003) Battlefield Walks in Yorkshire. Wilmslow: Sigma Press

The lion and the unicorn

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DSC_0325-3.jpgIts been a while since I heard this rhyme.

The lion and the unicorn were fighting for the crown; the lion beat the unicorn all round the town.

Some gave them white bread, and some gave them brown; some gave them plum cake and drummed them out of town.

During the Tudor period the supporters, the creatures holding up the shield or helm, for royal heraldry tended to be the white hound of Richmond and the Tudor dragon.  It wasn’t really that much earlier that supporters had made their presence felt.  It’s usually agreed that  King Henry VI was the first king to use heraldic supporters in the form of two antelopes.  Prior to that kings used badges (e.g. Richard II and his rather famous white hart) but they weren’t officially there to support the royal coat of arms.  The English monarchy frequently used the king of the beasts on its heraldry either on the standard or as a supporter.

DSC_0326-6.jpgThe unicorn is straight forward.  It first made its appearance when James VI of Scotland became James I of England.  The Scottish coat of arms was supported by two unicorns usually in chains because a free unicorn is a particularly fearsome beast.  Having said that Mary Queen of Scots used lions on her privy seal and other folk used unicorns because of their many virtues and links to Christ.

In order to symbolise the union of the two kingdoms James combined the coats of arms and merged the supporters, the Tudor dragon was removed and the Stuart unicorn inserted.  In reality, of course, the merger wasn’t necessarily that friendly – think  of Edward I and the virtually constant warfare between the English and the Scots during the thirteenth century and fourteenth centuries.  The borders between England and Scotland had their own laws because the wars turned into sporadic raiding and feuding.  James may have abolished the marches and the wardenry (who controlled the lawless borderers with their own brand of violence) saying that from henceforth the borders would be known as the ‘middle shires’  and merged his heraldic supporters but it didn’t do a great deal of good in the long term -certainly not to the monarchy, just look at the role of the Scots during the English Civil War.  And of course in 1715 and 1745 the lion and the unicorn really were fighting for the crown when James Stuart and son tried to reclaim the crown from the House of Hanover. Hence the nursery rhyme which dates to the seventeenth century.  Albert Jack in his book Pop Goes the Weasel suggests that the  verse about bread and cake is about the populace’s support of James Stuart a.k.a. The Young Pretender or Bonnie Prince Charlie during his campaign as far as Derby.

I think there may be another verse about being beaten three times but I’m not absolutely sure.  These particular specimens come from Holyrood House.

Sir Henry Vernon – walking a thorny tightrope

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HenryVernon.jpgSir Henry Vernon of Haddon Hall lived in a difficult times. His family had risen to prominence during the reign of King Henry VI but by 1451 feuding and factional in-fighting caused the Derbyshire family many problems – including the fact that Margaret of Anjou, Henry VI’s queen backed one of their enemies. Inevitably sides were taken and, ultimately, the Vernons because of their experiences of Yorkist justice turned to the Lancastrians. By 1461 it was clear that the Vernon family had backed the wrong horse whilst their opponents in the form of the Blounts were riding high – Walter Blount became Lord Mountjoy. It took many years for the Vernons to claw their way back into Edward IV’s good books. In the meantime, as things tend to do, one event led to another which in turn led to the murder of one Roger Vernon at the hands of the men of Lord Grey of Codnor, another land hungry Yorkist lord. In truth the whole episode reads like a mafia style feud- no one comes out of it particularly well. In medieval England the whole affair was so notorious that it led to a law against keeping armed retainers in 1468.

 

It probably didn’t help the Vernon family that they then forged links with George, Duke of Clarence in an attempt to improve their position although they weren’t foolish enough to ride out to battle on behalf of George or the Kingmaker when they returned to put Henry VI briefly back on the throne in 1471.

 

By 1474, Sir Henry Vernon was a member of Edward IV’s household and serving in parliament. In 1483 Vernon arrived in London for young Edward V’s coronation but found himself attending Richard III’s crowning instead. He became an Esquire of the Body, a kind of male equivalent of a lady-in-waiting: a trusted person and he was in receipt of a number of grants at this time. However, it should be noted that Richard III promised Sir Henry death, and even worse – confiscation of his lands, if he didn’t fight for him in 1485 after news of Henry Tudor’s landing in Wales arrived. Skidmore suggests many of the nobility and gentry fought on Richard’s side under duress. There is neither the time nor post space for a discussion about the accuracy of the statement. Suffice it to say Sir Henry Vernon filed his summons dated August 11 1485 from Richard and seems to have turned up in Leicestershire where he is named as one of Richard’s knights in the ballad entitled Bosworth Field although there is no other proof that he took part in the battle. In part this was because Henry VII didn’t follow the pattern of attainder and land confiscation that had gone before – he had other plans for keeping the nobility in check.

 

Vernon recognising which way the wind was blowing, made his peace with Henry Tudor and was at the Battle of Stoke in 1487 on the side of the Tudors. He doesn’t seem to have looked back. He was appointed governor to young Prince Arthur in Ludow and built a new home at Tong although tradition says that the young prince spent a lot of time at Haddon Hall in Derbyshire. Vernon witnessed the young prince’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon.

Sir Henry died 13 April 1515 before any difficulties as to the legality of Arthur’s younger brother Henry VIII’s marriage to Arthur’s widow could trouble him. His monument can be found in Tong Church along side his wife who died in 1494. She was Anne Talbot, a daughter of the earl of Shrewsbury.  Double click on the image to open a new window to find out more about Sir Henry Vernon’s tomb.

Skidmore, Chris. (2013) Bosworth – the Birth of the Tudors. London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson

 

Owain Tudor

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Katherine of Valois was widowed at just twenty-one years of age when Henry V, victor of Agincourt, died of dysentery. Her infant son’s protectors-he uncles and great-uncles- could see that she might wish to marry again. However, they don’t appear to have been terribly keen on the idea given some of the strictures that they imposed. Firstly Katherine’s prospective spouse had to be prepared to give up his titles and his lands. Secondly she had to get her son’s permission and in order for young Henry VI to give it he had to have reached his majority – so sixteen. These rules seem to have been proposed by Duke Humphrey of Gloucester who became concerned in 1428 that Katherine was showing a bit too much interest in Edmund Beaufort, Earl of Somerset.

 

As luck would have it the lonely young woman did encounter a man that she wished to marry, her Keeper of the Wardrobe – one Owain Tudor as he would eventually become known. Depending upon which version of events you read she either spotted him whilst he was swimming or he fell into her lap whilst dancing. There is, it would have to be said, no historical evidence for either.

 

Owain ap Maredudd was born, we think, the same year his father Maredudd’s cousin Owain Glyndwr raised a rebellion against English rule- so about 1400. Maredudd’d brothers were heavily involved in the conflict. Owain Glyndwr had vanished by the time young Owain was six – another subject for legend despite his uprising against the English being quelled.   Maredudd’s fortune was in a state of parlous repair so, in one history, he went to London to make his fortune. Other accounts say that he murdered someone and fled into Snowdonia…so take your pick. In any event young Owain did not have a settled childhood.

Maredudd and his brothers claimed a line of descent from Cadrod of Calchfynedd and were relations of the Princes of  Deheubarth (South-West Wales). Maredudd himself held land inAnglesey.  Prior to Glyndwr’s rebellion he’d served both Welsh and English kings in important posts. In 1392, for example,  he  was Escheator of Anglesey.  He was also the Bishop of Bangor’s  steward.

Despite his rebellious father, cousin and uncles by the time he was seven Owain was at the court of Henry IV – the very man that his family were revolting against on their native Anglesey.

It is possible that Owain was at the Battle of Agincourt as a squire but we cannot be certain. He turns up in the records in 1421 in the service of Sir Walter Hungerford and then he must have entered the household of Katherine of Valois but we can only guess that Hungerford recommended him for the post. Equally we only have the two romanticized tales of how a dowager queen and her keeper of the wardrobe fell in love.

 

Inevitably Tudor ‘spin’ was bought to bear on proceedings by Henry VII. His historian Polydore Vergil wrote of “Owen Tyder” that he was “a gentleman of Wales, adorned with wonderful gifts of body and minde, who derived his pedigree from Cadwalleder, the last King of the Britons.” Henry VII needed to bulk his ancestry out a bit and since he was rather short on Plantagenet genes had to look back into the mists of time in order to garner some shreds of royalty.

 

Of course, Henry’s desire to justify his right to the crown by blood rather than right of conquest- was somewhat thwarted by the fact that Owain and Katherine couldn’t exactly publicise their nuptials so had married in secret and the problem with secrets is that there are no records. Katherine certainly hadn’t got Henry VI’s consent and she’d married beneath her another issue that the parliamentary act regarding any marriage she might have made had issue with– but at least Owain didn’t need to worry about losing his titles and his lands. He may perhaps have been a bit more concerned about losing his life when the various uncles of Henry VI’s protectorate found out what the dowager queen had been up to.

 

We can surmise that the couple married somewhere between 1428 and 1430 when Edmund Tudor was born.  We know that they went on to have at least four children – Edmund, Jasper, Owen and Margaret. There may have been others. We also know that Humphrey of Gloucester wasn’t terribly amused when he found out that Katherine had not only married but was producing the king’s half-siblings who were to be treated, according to the parliamentary act which had laid so many stipulations upon Katherine’s remarriage, as members of the royal family.

In 1436 politics caught up with Katherine and Owen, despite their quite life it is ultimately quite difficult to hide such a rapidly growing family.  The children were removed and Katherine retired to Bermondsey Abbey where she gave birth to her last child- Margaret.  The dowager queen died on January 3rd 1437.

Owain was ordered to come to court but he very sensibly refused without a letter of safe conduct.  He did set out for London but decided that it would be better for his safety if he took sanctuary in Westminster rather than throw himself on the Protectorate’s mercy.

Ultimately Owain was acquitted of all charges against him but the establishment can be a spiteful thing.  Owain was retrieved from Wales and imprisoned by Lord Beaumont who handed him over to the Earl of Suffolk.  He spent time in Newgate Prison and in 1438, following his escape from Newgate and recapture was sent to Windsor.  In 1439 he was finally released.

By that time Henry VI was of age.  He pardoned Owain for any crime that may have been committed, took Owain into his own household and welcomed his half-brothers.  Owain, unlike some more nobly born Englishmen remained loyal to Henry for the rest of his life. He must have dreamed of returning to his home in North Wales because in 1460 Henry VI made him Keeper of the Parks at Denbigh.

The following year Owain took part in the Battle of Mortimer’s Cross.  The old man was captured and executed in Hereford market square on the orders of Edward IV who was furious about the death of his own father.  Owain believed that he would be ransomed until the moment that he was faced with the executioner’s block.  Owain’s head was put on display at the market cross where a young woman combed his hair and washed his face before placing lit candles around it.  Contemporary sources describe her as mad but Leanda de Lisle contemplates the possibility that the young woman was the mother of Owain’s illegitimate son Daffyd who was about two in 1461.

 

de Lisle, Leanda. (2013) Tudor: the family story London: Chatto and Windus