Blog Archives - Meandering Through Time

Birth of Edward IV

28/4/2016

A king, a lover and later a thorn in the side of the Earl of Warwick. Edward, Earl of March, later Edward IV of England, was born this day in 1442, at Rouen Castle in Normandy, to Richard, Duke of York and Cecily Neville.

Often asked about Edward is the question: Was Edward IV the result of an affair Cecily Neville had with an archer named Blaybourne and not the son of the Duke of York at all? Carolina Casas wrote of this in her Duchess of York’s Reputation in her blog King Edward IV’s Paternity and The Duchess of York’s Reputation.

"Several historians have given credence to this myth arguing that Cecily conceived while her husband was away fighting at Pontoise. While the fact that York fought in Pontoise in August is true – it is in no way proof that Edward was the product of an illicit union. What none of these historians and novelists factored in however, is the time between conception and giving birth. Nowadays with modern science it is easier to predict when one conceives and one gives birth, but it is not an exact science yet. There will be mistakes. There will be factors that determine whether a pregnancy comes to term or not, whether the baby arrives at the exact date the doctor or midwife foresees is 50/50. Now imagine yourself in the first half of the fifteenth century with no modern medicine and only midwives and religious superstition to tell you whether you were pregnant or not, if the child you expected was a boy or girl, or if you were closer to term according to the fullness of your belly. Doesn’t sound like it would give us much accuracy, does it?"

Regardless of this Edward was one of England's greatest warrior kings and at 6' 4" he was the tallest king in English history, he possessed courage and military skill as well as intelligence, and had he survived I like to think that the Lancastrian cause would not have stood chance. His potential was great.

But he didn't survive did he? He was dead at the age of just forty-one.

Edward was a complex character, he was well liked by his people, he was handsome, well built, strong and majestic. Yes, he was affable, but he was a fool, he was also ruthless, vengeful and irresponsible. In later years, for not thinking any further than personal pleasure, whether it be in bed or at table, Edward IV undermined all that his father worked so hard to achieve and shortened, not only the life of his younger brother, but the Plantagenet dynasty itself.

1674: The Remains of the "Princes in the Tower"

16/4/2016

Whenever the subject of the Princes in the Tower comes up, there are always lots of interesting responses regarding the find of skeletal remains of two children under a set of steps in the Tower of London which many still consider to be that of the two sons of Edward IV who disappeared in 1483.

These remains eventually ended up in an urn in Westminster Abbey with the following inscription.

'Here lie interred the remains of Edward V King of England, and Richard, Duke of York, whose long desired and much sought after bones, after above an hundred and ninety years, were found by most certain tokens, deep interred under the rubbish of the stairs that led up to the Chapel of the White Tower, on the 17th of July in the year of our Lord 1674. Charles the second, a most merciful prince, having compassion upon their hard fortune, performed the funeral rites of these most unhappy princes among the tombs of their ancestors, anno domini 1678.'

It is these remains, found under a staircase by workmen in 1674, that are still thought to be that of the two princes Edward and Richard of Shrewsbury. Why is that?

What is interesting is the intense focus on this set of remains, they are only one, among a number of children's remains, that have been found in the Tower of London over the years that are said to be of Edward and Richard. Others include remains found when Sir Walter Raleigh was imprisoned in the Tower, remains found when the tower's moat was drained in the mid-nineteenth century, and in 1789 the two small child-size coffins that were found walled up in a 'hidden space' next to the vault holding the coffins of Edward V and his Elizabeth his queen.

The real answer to this question is quite simple and pretty straightforward.

Sir Thomas More in his The History of Richard III says it was so.

More writes

"About midnight (the sely children lying in their beddes) came into the chamber, and sodainly lapped them vp among the clothes so be wrapped them and entangled them keping down by force the fetherbed and pillowes hard vnto their mouthes, that within a while smored and stifled, theyr breath failing, thei gaue vp to god their innocent soules into the ioyes of heauen, leauing to the tormentors their bodyes dead in the bed."

but here's the interesting bit......

"Whiche after that the wretches parceiued, first by the strugling with the paines of death, and after long lying styll, to be throughly dead: they laide their bodies naked out vppon the bed, and fetched sir Iames to see them. Which vpon the sight of them, caused those murtherers........... to burye them at the stayre foote, metely depe in the grounde vnder a great heape of stones....... Than rode sir Iames in geat haste to king Richarde, and shewed him al the maner of the murther, who gaue hym gret thanks."

Thomas More is not only responsible for the fact that Charles II and everybody else considers these remains to be that of the two princes, but that King Richard III from then on was the prince's murderer.

The 'story' that the remains are of Edward and Richard, stems partly from the work of Professor William Wright and Dr. George Northcroft who published their findings in ‘The Sons of Edward IV. A re-examination of the evidence on their deaths and on the Bones in Westminster Abbey’ This work ought to be treated with caution, DNA aside, I wonder how it can be suggested that they were, in life, the princes, if they never established the sex of the skeletons? In 1986 it was pointed out that a couple of important facts from the study were not mentioned. Firstly, there were indications in "existing and unerupted teeth" that suggested that one of the skeletons was a female, and secondly, the age gap between the two remains was less than three years between the birth of the princes.

IF these two boys met their deaths at the Tower, who in their right minds would place the bodies under the noses of all who were in the present at the time, without being seen and within a limited time frame? Others feel the same, suggesting there were better ways to get rid of the bodies than to hide them somewhere in the Tower itself.

I don't know why More wrote what is written here, or what his motives were, I don't know what happened to the two princes in the summer of 1483, they may well have been murdered, but equally, they might not have been.

What I do know is that it has never been proved that the two sons of Edward IV were dead at all.

I also don't believe it is their remains at Westminster Abbey.

1478: The Trial and Execution of George Duke of Clarence.

16/4/2016

The 18th of February 1478 saw the death of George, Duke of Clarence, brother to both Edward IV and Richard III.

George was one of the sons of Richard, Duke of York and Cecily Neville, he has been described as misunderstood and ambitious, Shakespeare calls him

'False, Fleeting, Perjur'd Clarence."

Whatever he was, his death was the result a number of bad decisions that were to be his undoing, they are included in a long list of facts that give us some insight into George's life. There isn't much written about Clarence as a person at all, so a couple of decent *biographies are needed to give us a balanced look at Clarence's life. Because there are nothing other than facts, Clarence's character is hard to define.

In some ways, I do feel sorry for him, and I have often wondered if we could apply the modern term 'middle child syndrome' to help understand his personality. Maybe it was his position within his family that made him the man he was, looking at the personality traits of a modern 'middle child' surprisingly Clarence fits the 'profile' on a number of points.

1. Middle children are not particularly interested in family hierarchy or ranking:

Clarence could not have cared less that his brother was king, he would undermine him given an opportunity, he had joined in all the careless talk, calling into question the legitimacy of the king's birth. His later actions convinced Edward that he was looking to take the throne out from under him.

2. Middle children are more interested in taking advice from others outside the main family group:

Clarence was reliant on his cousin Richard Neville rather than Edward or Richard. He took Neville's 'advice' on more than one occasion, joining him in supporting a northern rebellion and went along with the idea to restore King Henry VI to the throne of England, realising too late that listening to Neville was not a good idea after all.

3. Middle children are risk-takers and are more rebellious than their siblings:

Clarence certainly ticks both of these boxes. By rebelling with Neville, Clarence risked everything and lost. He lost his position as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and by organising yet another rebellion, because of the loss of his Warwick lands to Richard, he caused a major rift that was ultimately the last nail in his coffin.

4. Middle children don't like conflict:

This is one category that Clarence doesn't fit into.

Of course, Clarence wasn't a middle child at all, he was number six of seven so you could argue that this hypothesis doesn't make any sense at all, but it does if you look at it from the point of view that he was eventually slap bang in the middle of three boys. His older brother Edmund had died at the Battle of Wakefield aged just seventeen, I wonder if he had lived, he would have shown the same personality traits as Clarence, or would Clarence have been a different person altogether?

Supposition this maybe, but whatever the cause Clarence turned out to be a weak self-centred man, and in the end, it was greed and jealousy that cost him his life.

So, what was going on within the royal family, the royal court and the country as a whole that caused a brother of two kings of England to be arrested and charged with the crime of treason? It seems that there was reason enough for Clarence to be incarcerated in the Tower of London and charged. There can be no doubt that George was in trouble.

The Crowland Chronicles suggest that the ill feeling had been brewing between the brothers for some time and in a superstitious age, Edward may have been concerned with the prophecy that someone whose name began with the letter G would take his kingdom from him. Most certainly Edward was building up some sort of list of information to be used against his brother, and this prophecy added weight to his theory that George had his eye on his throne. But what about Richard, a future king of England. Was he whispering in the king's ear about Clarence as some historians suggest?

Naturally, Shakespeare has Richard playing his part in Clarence's downfall but surprisingly the 'expert' on the subject of Richard III, Sir Thomas More, is doubtful of Richards's guilt even Shakespeare's 'biggest fan' the nineteenth-century historian James Gairdner, doesn't think he was guilty either, he writes

" he (Richard) was lukewarm in his opposition and should be considered guiltless of his brothers death"

But according to Professor Michael Hicks, George's conviction was a

" Precondition for Gloucester's accession in 1483"

So George was accused of rebellion, slander and allegiances with the 'enemy' and the date set for the trial was probably around 20th January. The king was said to have attended stating that his brother was

'guilty of unnatural, loathly treasons'

The act regarding these charges is still in existence. Within the Crowland Chronicle it is written

"no one spoke against the duke but the king, and no one answered but the duke"

Towards the end of the trial, in a desperate attempt at a chance of coming out of this affair with his life, Clarence offers to prove his innocence in personal combat, but in the end, a guilty verdict was read out by the Duke of Buckingham and George, Duke of Clarence, had to wait just under a month for his execution.

There is no evidence of how Clarence met his end, but the barrel of wine story persists as these things do.

As proof that drowning was the manner of George's death the painting below has been cited. Clarence's daughter Margaret Pole wears a tiny barrel charm on a bracelet which is taken to represent her father's death! Of course, this is the usual case of fabricating the evidence to fit the crime. Not only did this one tiny detail added weight to the vat of wine theory but it meant that this portrait has been wrongly attributed.

This art work was painted in 1535, the sitter unknown.

Clarence's execution took place in private, and it is commonly thought that he went to a death of his own choosing, probably beheading. But those who believe that the remains (a body with the head intact) that lies at Tewkesbury Abbey is George Duke of Clarence would disagree.

Death of Clarence - Illustration by Alice Povey

So, who do I think was responsible for Clarence's death?

Probably Edward. Maybe Richard. But ultimately it was George himself. He was his own worst enemy.

*John Ashdown Hills biography on the Duke of Clarence is available here
http://www.johnashdownhill.com/the-third-plantagenet-george-duke-of-clarence/

King Richard attends Prayers 19th August 1483

16/4/2016

It is probable that Richard attended prayers in the Church of St Mary de Casto before leaving for Bosworth and no doubt he would have worshiped here when he visited Leicester Castle in 1483.

The Church of St Mary de Castro was built within Leicesters Castle walls, its name meaning St Mary of the Castle. It was founded by Robert de Beaumont, one of only fifteen men proven to have been with William the Conqueror at Hasting, in 1107. This church, along with many sites at Leicester lay testament to the importance of Leicester throughout history. John of Gaunt was the churches patron and it is known that King Henry VI was knighted here and that Geoffrey Chaucer may have married here.

The image above taken early in 2015 year, shows part of the rear of the church, note the lovely line of grotesque heads.

Richard III At Leicester Castle

16/4/2016

18th August 1483

On the 18th August 1483 and just a few weeks after being crown king of England, Richard III stayed at Leicester Castle, a Norman creation being built just after the conquest of England.

In a letter dated that same day Richard writes:

“According to the right of the said truces. Upon which matter, in order that my said subjects and merchants be not deceived under the shadow of the same. I pray you that by my servant, this bearer, one of the grooms of my stable, you will let me know by writing your full intention, and at the same time if you desire anything that I can do for you, that I may do it with good will. And farewell, my lord my cousin."

Ending the letter he wrote

"Written in my castle of Leicester, the 18th day of August 1483”

The image above show part of the remains of Leicester Castle wall, along with cannon ball holes from the time of the civil wars taken on a trip to Leicester earlier this year. A seventeenth century building, with its bricked entrance conceals the twelfth century structure that Richard III would have known. The Great Hall, was built three hundred years before and was a large open space with timber aisle posts, sadly nothing of this can be seen. Standing next to the Great Hall is a vaulted cellar known as John of Gaunt´s cellar, seen below, it is believed that Parliament met here in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Apart from a visit from Richard III, the hall had received other royal guests such as Edward I, Edward II and Henry IV.

Richard III: A Day of Dynasty, Death and Discovery at the Visitors Centre and the clever use of Light.

16/4/2016

King Richard III is known to have stayed at Leicester Castle in 1483, he arrived just a few weeks after being crowned King of England. On the 18th of August, Richard III arrived in the City of Leicester and exactly 531 years to the day, I arrived there too.

Parking our car on the second level of a multi story car park, we could look down on all the continuing building work and see the spire of the Cathedral Church of St Martin in the distance. Walking through the newly paved streets we found ourselves in the grounds of St Martins, and standing with our backs to the cathedrals arched entrance we could see Richard III's statue, recently taken from Castle Gardens, standing in front of the entrance to the new visitors centre. This is what we had come back to Leicester to see following a day spent at the re enactment of the Battle of Bosworth the day before. We arrived at our pre booked time slot refreshed and eager.

I was amazed how tasteful this new build is and how the glass and the brass effect complemented the red brick buildings of the Grammar School on its left and the buildings that make up St Martins on its right. The entrance is large and airy and incorporates the gift shop where you can purchase all the books you will ever need if you wish study the life of king himself. There are a few gift items, and I emphasise the word few, such as mugs, key rings, pencils etc all the things that you usually find in any exhibition and it is nice to see that there is no 'tat' or cheap plastic rubbish aimed at children.

The exhibition is called Dynasty, Death and Discovery and it truly lives up to its name, anyone who doesn't know anything King Richard will understand the basics by the time they leave. As I am familiar with Richards story I found that I could wander around and enjoy the experience rather than spend too much time reading all the very informative, well presented, exhibits and displays. I will not tell you too much about them and spoil your enjoyment, but they cover Richards life, the archaeological dig, and there is a nice exhibit covering all the actors who have played Richard in film or television.

Although we were two among many I never felt rushed or that I should move along onto the next section. The whole place has a calmness and serene feel to it especially Richard's grave area, which I thought was cleverly lit with natural light, it is sensitively presented. Quite rightly, you cannot stand on or walk over the kings grave, but what you can do is look down and reflect on his death and his life with respect, or sit and chat to others on seating that is a little further back.

For those who have been mean and uttered nasty and uncalled for remarks about this exhibition with statements such as

"Absolutely ghastly – words fail me. What a way to treat an anointed King of England"

they should be ashamed of themselves, especially if they have never visited.

Look at my two photograph and consider the fact that the people behind this exhibition have had Richard's own words, the words he himself wrote in his Book of Hours carved in stone above his grave. These people should be commended not criticised,

"Lord Jesus Christ, deign to free me, your servant King Richard, from every tribulation, sorrow and trouble in which I am placed."

The Richard III exhibition is not your normal medieval exhibition, there are no old objects from the past, no ripped or faded tapestries, no musty smells of age, it is a modern, highly technical, interactive interpretation of a dynasty, a death and a discovery that I thoroughly enjoyed, especially as I had forgotten all about the reconstruction of Richards skull until it suddenly appeared from behind a clearing opaque glass screen right in front of me!

I am greatly impressed by the thought that has gone into this build, an old bay window has been replaced with a large glass balcony where you can stand and look out over a garden and the brick wall that once separated the now famous car park from the Grammar School. This wall has now been rebuilt in sandstone which blends in well with the glass walls and ceilings of the building.

I had a enjoyable and relaxed couple of hours topped off with a rather nice cup of tea and a slice of cake in the cafe and would give the exhibition four out of five stars only because there were a couple of things that could be improved.........no not improved, tweaked. The writing on the wall above Richards grave is difficult to read, maybe the letters could be in gold, so they stand out more, the area covering the Battle of Bosworth could be a little bit lighter and some audio exhibits are a bit difficult to hear, but that's about it.

My money and time was well spent.

Leicester's exhibition The Story of King Richard III: Dynasty, Death and Discovery is of course about looking back, but also has a great emphasis on looking forward and this is cleverly done, and not necessarily though its interpretation of Richards story, but through its modern, airy architectural designed building that places Richard III and his future story in a completely new light

The Battle of Bosworth, Richard III and the Leicester Dig

16/4/2016

The Children's Book of Richard III

Battle of Bosworth
Prints http://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/AlicePovey

In 2015 my daughter Alice illustrated a children's book by Leicester author Rosalind Adam entitled The Children's Book of Richard III. Alice sells prints from the book, one is of the Battle of Bosworth, one of King Richard himself and another of the Leicester dig, these lovely images are here for you all to see and a link to her shop if any of you are interested in purchasing one of them.

I am lucky enough to have the original painting of the battle :)
I hope you all enjoy looking at them.

Alice has a website too, you can see some of her other work and take a peek inside her studio.

Richard III The Road to Bosworth

15/4/2016

Richard III The Road to Bosworth 20th August 1485

It has been said that Richard III spent his last evening in an inn at Leicester known as The Blue Boar, although why the king chose to stay at a local hostelry rather than the cities castle is unknown. As was the norm for medieval royalty, Richard brought his own bed, supposedly stating it was because he “slept ill in strange beds.” The room in which he stayed was described as a “large gloomy chamber.”

The following morning, the 21st of August, Richard set off for Bosworth but after the battle of had gone the way of the Lancastrians the inn keeper of the Blue Boar supposedly had the quickness of mind to rename the inn. What was the White Boar became the Blue Boar for obvious reasons.

Of the inn today nothing remains, fortunately there are plans still in existence so we know what the inn looked like as it once stood on Leicesters High Street in 1485. The site on which the inn now stands is a modern Travel Lodge, where visitors have been known to ask to spend the night in the room in which the king slept.

Two of the images you see here are of the inn as Richard would have seen it. The first is 'Richards room' taken from the nineteenth century notebook in which the above mentioned plans were found, the second, an 1850 representation of the Blue Boar, and the last standing on the site of the original site is the new hotel.

The architectures gone downhill a bit don't you think?

14th April 1471: Death of Richard Neville at Barnet.

15/4/2016

There are a number of different versions regarding the death of Richard Neville.

Philippe de Commines suggests that it was his brother's fault that Warwick died that day. John Neville had persuaded Warwick to dismount his horse and fight at ground level, as pictured here, but despite Edward IV's attempts to save his cousin, Neville died at the hands of the Yorkist infantry.

Another version says he was killed while fleeing.

According to Sir John Paston, who escaped death at Barnet, the total amount of lives lost was two thousand, including a number of important nobles. The Yorkest's lost Sir Humphrey Bourchier and William Fiennes, the Lancastrians William Tyrrell, also John Neville.

With the death of Richard Neville, did history lose

"the greatest, as well as the last of those mighty barons who formerly overawed the crown" or
"a man driven by pride and egotism, who created and deposed kings at will."

Historians are in two minds about this, and I do have some sympathy for him however, but it is into the latter category that most believe that he fits.

Shakespeare has something to do with how we perceive Neville today, and if we dismiss his writings on Richard III then we must do the same for Richard Neville. But unlike Shakespeare's Richard III, there is evidence to back up the words
written about him.

Personally, I believe Warwick could have been one of history's heroes if he had stayed true to Edward IV and his cause, but he sacrificed all by being 'true to himself.' That, of course, is a trait that could be commended, but not in Richard Neville's case. Despite his power, wealth and all he achieved he was, quite simply, a selfish man of the worst kind. If he did not get what he wanted then he would go somewhere else to get it.

Did Edward mourn his passing?

Maybe! Richard, Duke of Gloucester certainly did, even then there was disagreement as to the King Maker's character.

After Barnet, the bodies of both Neville brothers were said to be displayed at in London and then taken to Bisham Priory in Berkshire.

Battle of Barnet: 14th April 1471

11/4/2016

On the 11th of April 1471 Edward IV entered London unopposed, supplied his troops with arms and left again heading north, and on the 13th he arrived at Monken Hadley, two days later.

The Yorkist forces made their camp next to the village church on a hill that overlooked the town of Barnet, that night he
placed his troops in their battle positions, the following morning he would find that they were very close to Warwick’s lines.

Edwards force at Barnet, according to the unknown writer of The Arrivall, numbered nine thousand, but it is thought there were far more than this, Edward himself landed with about two thousand, six thousand men joined his army at Nottingham, three thousand at Leicester, the Duke of Clarence, who had now switched his allegiance again, brought around seven thousand, but Warwick commanded many more.

Easter morning dawned grey and foggy, Edward instructed that no fires be lit and no noise be made so not to give their position away but eventually the noise of the clash of sword on sword could be heard.

The Battle of Barnet had begun and it ended with it the death of Richard Neville, the man who was said to be the
second most powerful man in England. Of the battle the Arrivall states that Edward fought

‘manly and vigorously assailed in the midst and strongest of their battle, where he,
with great violence, beat and bore down afore him all that stood in his way … ..nothing might stand in the sight of him
and the well assured fellowship that attended truly upon him’.

The Yorkist did not have it all their way, the Lancastiran army came very close to victory, however the weather was on the Edwards side, for Warwick's soldiers, unable to see clearly through the fog, could not differentiate between their own forces and that of their enemy and attacked their own men in error confusing the Earl of Oxford's badge of the star with Edward’s emblem of the sun. According to English chronicler John Warkworth, who wrote of the battle at the time, Oxford’s soldiers considered themselves betrayed and fled, crying ‘Treason! Treason!’.

Eventually the battle went the way of the Yorkists, their leaders watched as the Lancastrian army disappeared into the mist.
It is estimated that both sides lost over one thousand men, among the nobility were Sir Humphrey Bourchier and William Fiennes fighting under Edward and under the Lancastrian flag Sir William Tyrrell and John Neville, the King Maker's younger brother. Of Richard Neville Charles Oman in his book “Warwick” writes:

“He (Warwick) began to draw back towards the line of thickets and hedges which had lairn behind his army. But there the fate met him that had befallen so many of his enemies, at St Albans, and Northampton, at Towton and Hexham. His heavy armour made rapid flight impossible; and in the edge of Wrotham Wood he was surrounded by the pursuing enemy, wounded, beaten down and slain.”

There are a number of different versions regarding the death of Richard Neville. Philippe de Commines suggests that it was his brother's fault that Warwick died that day. Montagu had persuaded Warwick to dismount his horse and fight at ground level, he subsequently died at the hands of the Yorkist infantry. Another version says he was killed while fleeing.

The battlefield monument at the at Monken Hadley.

With the plunge of a Yorkist sword Edward had dealt with Warwick, he also had suppressed a number of important Lancastrian nobles. However, John de Vere, the formidable Earl of Oxford, was out but not down, but the two most important members were still at large. Margaret of Anjou and her son had set foot in England the very same day its soil ran red with Warwick’s blood. Within three weeks, the Lancastrian forces under Edmund Beaufort had taken up arms, but they would, once again be defeated.