Battle of St Albans – round two

Posted on February 16, 2017 by JuliaH

wars-of-roses The second Battle of St Albans was fought on 17 February 1461 and the result may have come as a bit of a surprise to the Earl of Warwick – he lost. His young cousin Edward, Earl of March shortly to be King Edward IV beat the Lancastrians at Mortimer’s Cross only a short time previously with no experience in the battlefield but Warwick a battle hardened warrior lost the next confrontation between the Yorkists and the Lancastrians.

The story is as follows – Margaret of York and her allies advanced south from Wakefield. Her forces included Scots and Northumbrians and “northerners”. Warwick spread word in London that this group of people were akin to savages in terms of plunder, loot, pillage etc. In short he won the smear campaign. Londoners swiftly arrived at the conclusion that only Warwick could save them from the hordes of hairy northerners heading in their direction.

Warwick duly obliged by leaving London with a large army. Unfortunately he didn’t quite know where the hordes of aforementioned hairy bruits were so he had to deploy his force over quite a large front and when one of his scouts told him that they were at Dunstable Warwick dismissed the notion – which was unfortunate because the Lancastrians really were at Dunstable.

The next morning they arrived in St Albans. They were led by Andrew Trollope – who we’ve encountered before, son of a family of Durham dyers, hero of the Hundred Years War and possible deceiver of the Duke of York- he was the first to attack. By the end of the day he would be knighted.

Warwick and his brother John Neville, Lord Montagu (shortly to become Earl of Northumberland), and all their men, had to turn around because they were all looking in the wrong direction for the Lancastrians. Meanwhile Henry Beaufort, Duke of Somerset had found his way into the middle of St Albans and the Yorkist line of communications turned to to be rather dodgy. For some reason or another Montagu’s men did a runner, Montagu got himself captured by the Lancastrians and Warwick wasn’t where he was supposed to be.

The Yorkists left in a hurry – so much of a hurry in fact that they left King Henry VI sitting under a tree guarded by only two knights – Sir Thomas Kyrill and Lord William Bonville. They remained with Henry to protect him and might well have expected more honourable treatment than they received when the dust settled. Both were executed for their pains – which doesn’t do the Lancastrians credit. The only reason John Neville escaped the same fate was because of the possibility of a prisoner swap.

You’d have thought at that point it was all over bar the shouting but Margaret of Anjou hadn’t counted on the Londoners refusing her entry to the capital city on account of their concerns over the hairy northerners. So although the road to London was open and the royal Lancastrian family were all reunited Margaret of Anjou was still not victorious.

On the 22nd of February it was the Earl of Warwick and Edward, Earl of March who entered London where Edward was shortly afterwards declared king by popular acclaim.

It would take one more bloody battle before this particular game of chess saw a white rose king taking sole control of the board…for the time being at least.

Duke of Exeter -was he murdered or did he slip?

Posted on February 7, 2017 by JuliaH

holland-arms 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.

Henry had been Richard of York’s ward. Richard married his eldest daughter off to Holland in order to secure the dynastic links and power base. Unfortunately for both Holland and the Duke of York it would appear that the Exeter lands weren’t terribly productive. Consequentially Holland was always in finical difficulties which didn’t help his disposition overly.

He developed an unsavoury reputation early in his career when he seized Lord Cromwell’s estate at Ampthill and had him falsely accused of treason. He also extended his land holding through the convenient method of fraud. This was all dragged through the law courts and resulted in no one wanting to be sheriff of Bedfordshire on account of Holland’s bullying tactics. In the end he aligned himself to one of Cromwell’s enemies in order to further his cause – thus demonstrating beautifully the fact that the Wars of the Roses could be said to be a bunch of local disputes that got seriously out of hand.

There wasn’t any great love between the Yorks and Holland so it probably didn’t unduly bother Holland that his alliance with Lord Egremont was one of the causal factors in him being in the Lancastrian army chasing Richard of York around the countryside in December 1460. Henry Holland was a commander at the Battle of Wakefield on December 30 1460. Presumably he hadn’t enjoyed being imprisoned in Wallingford Castle in 1455 after Richard assumed the title of Protector when Henry VI was incapacitated on his father-in-law’s orders. In reality, Richard’s descent from two sons of Edward III gave him a better claim to be protector than Holland who thought he ought to have the job. He was descended from John of Gaunt and the First Duke of Exeter had been Richard II’s half-brother. York’s claim came from the fact that he was descended from the second surviving son, Lionel of Antwerp via the Mortimer line. The Mortimers had been Richard II’s heirs. As if that wasn’t bad enough Holland wasn’t given a role of any importance. Holland threw his toys out of his pram, fermented rebellion in the north and consorted with the Scots – he was lucky that a year in Wallingford was all that he got.

He was, at least, consistent in his support for the Lancastrian cause being present not only at Wakefield but also at the Second Battle of St Albans and Towton. He scarpered from the latter and managed to escape to France where he joined Margaret of Anjou.

Unsurprisingly family relations were at an all time low by this point. Not only was his attainted of treason but his wife Anne who had been married off to him when she was eight-years-old sought a legal separation from a man who’d gained a reputation for being deeply unpleasant one way or another. They had one child, Anne Holland who would be married off to one of Elizabeth Woodville’s sons from her first marriage, and pre-decease her unfortunate father.

In 1471 he returned to England with the Earl of Warwick who had stopped being Yorkist and become a Lancastrian in what can only be described as a giant strop when Edward IV stopped listening to his advice. Warwick died at Barnet. Henry Holland though badly wounded managed to reach sanctuary in London. Edward had him rounded up and sent to the Tower. He had for a time been the Constable of the Tower so at least he was familiar with his accommodation.

By the following year Anne was able to have the marriage annulled, she went on to marry Thomas St Leger but Edward IV seems to have welcomed Henry back into the fold as he was part of the military expedition that set off to make war on the French. It wasn’t a roaring success from the wider population’s point of view as they’d been heavily taxed and expected a decent battle at the very least. What they got was a treaty whilst Edward IV received money to go away and an annual pension.

As for Henry Holland? He had an unfortunate accident on the way home. Apparently he fell overboard. The Milanese Ambassador suggested that the accident was caused by a couple of burly nautical types picking him up and throwing him…

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

Sir Andrew Trollope

Posted on December 31, 2016 by JuliaH

sir andrew trollope.png 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.

It is explained by the fact that Trollope began the period of the Wars of the Roses in Calais as Master Porter, a position he was appointed to in 1455, where the Earl of Warwick held the position of captain. When Warwick returned from France, Trollope came with him to beef up the Yorkist position at Ludlow. Unfortunately on the 12 October 1459 Trollope availed himself of the offer to swap sides and receive a pardon from Henry VI. He duly took his men across the lines and spilled the beans about Richard of York’s plans. York was forced to flee in the night and the people of Ludlow experienced first hand the problems of being on the losing side of a conflict .

We know that Trollope spent some time in France during the following year when the Lancastrians received a set back and we know that by December 1460 he was in Yorkshire. He and Somerset led the forces that defeated York at the Battle of Wakefield on the 30th December 1460. We don’t know whether he tricked York into believing that he had more loyal men than he thought or whether he lured York out into open ground as the chronicler de Waurin recounts before revealing his true colours.

What we do know is that he fought at the second Battle of St Albans where he was knighted. An account of his role was given in Gregory’s Chronicle. He was injured by a caltrop (a spiky device left on the ground to injure animals and men) so stood and fought on the same spot killing fifteen men. Six weeks later he was himself killed at the Battle of Towton in 1461 – Edward had specifically identified him as someone to be extinguished with the additional incentive of a reward of £100.

We also know that Trollope is an example of a man who benefitted from the Hundred Years War. Historians think that he came from County Durham originally and that his background was the dying industry. He rose because he distinguished himself on the battlefield, probably helped himself to any loot that was available and married well. His wife was further up the social ladder than him being the sister of Osbert Mundeford one of his superior officers. Elizabeth and Sir Andrew had two children that we know of – one, David, was killed at Towton with his father (he’s sometimes identified as Andrew’s brother) whilst the other, Margaret, married Richard Calle was was the Pastons’ bailiff (as in the Paston Letters).

Wagner, John A. (2001) Encyclopedia of the Wars of the Roses.

Sir James Luttrell of Dunster

Posted on December 10, 2016 by JuliaH

arms of luttrell.jpg First 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-luttrell Inevitably 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)