Tag Archives: Sir John Falstaff

Blickling Hall and the Boleyns

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Queen Anne BoleynThere are rather a lot of halls in England and they aren’t all ancient seats – rather some of them seem to have been given the name hall to hint at an antiquity that didn’t exist. The Telegraph’s list of best stately homes has houses and palaces – the first hall is number ten on the list.  So that is my post for today.  Blickling Hall in Norfolk which definitely  has a pedigree.

Blickling was originally a medieval moated hall of the end described in earlier posts this month. It changed hands several times but this post is particularly interested in its purchase by Sir Geoffrey Bullen.  He was a successful merchant who would become Lord Mayor of London. Not only did he do well financially but he married up when he took the hand of Ann Hoo the daughter of the first Lord Hoo – not bad for the son of a yeoman farmer from Salle.   Geoffrey was knighted by Henry VI and was a friend of Sir John Falstaff of Caistor who was the inspiration for Shakespeare and who left his home to the Pistons causing a feud between the family and the duke of Norfolk.

Geoffrey’s son William did even better in the matrimonial stakes than his father.  He married Lady Margaret Butler, the daughter of the earl of Ormonde and one of his co-heirs.  It was form here that the Boleyn claim to the earldom of Ormonde stemmed – and which could have changed Anne Boleyn’s fate had she been married off to James Butler in order to resolve an inheritance dispute over the title and lands.   William was created a knight of the Bath by Richard III. He died in 1505.

Blickling was Thomas Boleyn’s residence from 1499 until 1505 when he inherited Hever from his father.  Thomas did even better in matrimonial terms than his father or grandfather in that he married the daughter of a duke – Lady Elizabeth Howard.    It’s thought that both Anne, Mary and their brother George were born there. If Anne was born after 1505 rather than in about 1501 then its more likely that she was born at Hever in Kent.

As with the medieval site there’s not a great deal of Tudor Blickling left as it was rebuilt during the Jacobean period by Sir Henry Hobart in about 1616. The house is worth visiting as one of the most beautiful Jacobean houses in the country but sadly I have no photographs of it as the last time I visited digital cameras were unheard of.

Christmas just wouldn’t be Christmas without a good ghost story – so here it is.  Anne Boleyn is said to return to her place of birth on the anniversary of her execution (19th May 1536).  The former queen arrives in a coach,  driven by a headless horseman and pulled by four headless horses, at midnight.  Dressed in white, carrying her own head she descends from the coach to walk the corridors of her childhood home, undeterred by Sir Henry Hobart’s rebuilding of the hall, until the sun rises.

 

If that’s not your cup of tea, Blicking Hall is home to a portrait supposed to be a young Ann Boleyn. There’s also a portrait of her daughter Elizabeth I.

 

 

Sir Andrew Trollope

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sir andrew trollope.pngWe 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.