Category: 15th Century - Meandering Through Time

The Beaumont Brothers and the Battle of Towton

3/7/2020

When it comes to the anniversary of the Battle of Towton, fought on the 29th March in 1461, I always think of all those men, many of whose names we will never know, who faced each other on that bitterly cold Palm Sunday. However, researching my family history I have discovered the names of two of the men who lost their lives that day. These men were brothers John and Henry Beaumont who were two of the three sons of Thomas Beaumont and his wife Philippa Maureward and they were not yet twenty-five and if that is not sad enough I believe that these brothers were probably twins.

Their father had been a veteran of the Hundred Years War and had fought under Edmund of Norwich, Duke of York in France, and on their father's death, the family lands had been divided John, Henry and their brother Thomas.

Despite living in a country where a man could be called up for battle at any time these young men must have dreamt of peace, a time to spend in their newly acquired piece of England, but many a dream was shattered in the era that we know as the Wars of the Roses - regardless of which side you fought on. The Beaumonts of Leicestershire were staunchly Lancastrian and at the Battle of Towton, Henry VI's forces would be brought to their knees by Edward IV's Yorkist army.

So the Beaumont brothers found themselves on a battlefield in Yorkshire with an icy wind circling around the feet and sleet blowing in their faces. As the battle commenced many soldiers may have thought, judging by the number of men on the field, that Towton would be a decisive battle, but the wind blew harder and the snow increased and hand to hand combat turned into bloody slaughter - decisive it was indeed. By the end of that cold and wretched day, over twenty thousand men lost their lives.

I don't know yet of the fate of John and Henry Beaumont's bodies, maybe their battered faces were recognised among the dead and they were taken home but I doubt it. What is more likely is that they were both thrown into one of the many mass graves dug on the battlefield, to spend eternity with the thousands of other nameless poor souls.

My post makes grim reading, doesn't it? But what makes even grimmer reading is the shocking evidence of how exactly many of the soldiers at Towton died. One man on the battlefield that day is now known as Towton 25 he was called this because we don't know his name, but what we do know is that what remains of him is gruesome evidence of what he had to endure.

Towton 25's story can be found on my blog on my website - you can read it here.

meanderingthroughtime.weebly.com/wars-of-the-roses-blog/battle-of-towton-29th-march-14611

Treaty of Troyes

21/5/2020

It was on this day in 1420 that the Treaty of Troyes was ratified.

King Henry V had worked hard to bring the French to the negotiation table, he quickly followed this by marrying Catherine of Valois, the daughter of Charles VI of France and the sister of the Dauphin.

With the treaty signed Henry V was declared heir and regent to the Charles VI of France, this meant that on Charles's death France and England would be ruled by one king. However, things did not go as expected, in the December of 1421, the hero of Agincourt lay dying from dysentery at the Chateau de Vincennes in France.

His death left his nine-month-old son, Henry King of England and within a year the boy would be king of France

Birth of Richard of Shrewsbury

17/5/2020

The 17th August 1473 is the date of birth of Richard of Shrewsbury, the second son of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville.

Richard of Shrewsbury is, of course, was one of the Princes in the Tower.

What we know of Richard can be viewed through the titles that were bestowed upon him and the dates and events that made up his life. His birth, as his name suggests, was at Shrewsbury, his marriage, at just four years old was to Anne Mowbray. We do not even know what he looked like but this doe's not stop writers, artists and film/television producers portraying him as an innocent, as angelic, a pure almost saintly child. Shakespeare has John Dighton calling Richard and his brother Edward ‘gentle babes.'

They are emotive words that were intended to describe Richard's character - a foil to Shakespeare's protagonist, his uncle Richard of Gloucester in his play Richard III. Shakespeare's portrayal of the young prince would be used again and again over the years by artists, the most famous by Paul Delaroche and John Everett Millais, even the horror movie genre gets in on the act - John Herbert-Bond's young prince to Basil Rathbones Duke of Gloucester.

Despite the fact that there is no evidence either way as to what happened to the princes, the tale of Richard's disappearance is the one event that defines this little boys life.

Birth of John Clifford

8/4/2020

I was really surprised to discover that John Clifford, 9th Baron Clifford was just twenty-six when he was killed the day before the Battle of Towton, in my mind he was an older man.

John Clifford was born on the 8th April in 1435 to Thomas Clifford and Joan Dacre at Conisbrough Castle in Yorkshire and we hear little of him until he was eighteen when he is recorded as siding with the Percy's against the Neville's in their ongoing private wars. He is mentioned again in 1458 as arriving in London in the Percy's retinue as one of the 'yong lordes whoos fadres were sleyne at Seynt Albonys.' Full of energy and fuelled by vengeance Clifford took up the Lancastrian cause.

On the 31st of December 1460, Clifford was knighted by the Duke of Somerset before the Battle of Wakefield. It was following this battle that he saw an opportunity to avenge his father's death by murdering the seventeen year old son of the Duke of York. For this, and his 'cruelty in battle.' John Clifford is immortalised, forever remembered as The Butcher, however, this name was only attributed to him in the 16th century in the writings of John Leyland and a century later by William Dugdale.

Clifford's on death came when he was struck in the throat by a headless arrow at the Battle of Ferrybridge in the March of the following year and his body, it is said, was thrown into a common burial pit.

Death of Edmund of Rutland

30/12/2019

On the 30th December in 1460 after the Battle of Wakefield, Edmund Earl of Rutland, son of Richard Duke of York was executed in an act of revenge.

The Murder of Rutland by Lord Clifford by Charles Robert Leslie

The most common story told is that Edmund was captured, whilst escaping the battlefield, on a bridge in the town where the Chantry Chapel of St Mary the Virgin stood, but the quality of his armour was noticed by Lancastrian John Clifford who asked him his name. At that point, it seems, Clifford was unaware who Rutland was and was possibly thinking along the lines of a ransom, but a priest going by the name of Aspell shouted: "spare him for he is the Prince's son." And thus Rutland's fate was sealed.

It was then that John Clifford saw an opportunity to avenge his father's death, his father Thomas Clifford died in the first battle of St Albans in 1455. For Clifford, the "sight of any of the House of York was fury to torment his soul."

It is John Leland, the 16th century antiquary, who first mentions that it was Clifford who murdered the seventeen-year-old Edmund, William of Worcester in his Annales Rerum Anglicarum writes "and in the flight after the battle, Lord Clifford killed Edmund Earl of Rutland, son of the Duke of York, on the bridge at Wakefield." but its Shakespeare who puts the following words into Clifford's mouth.

"Thy father slew mine; and so will I do thee and all thy kin."

The violence and family feuds did not end with the death of Edmund.

Interesting, the word feud in English and in Latin means the threat to take revenge and these acts of vengeance were often the result of a long standing feud, and you will get no bigger than the ill feeling between York and Lancaster.

Vengeance, in what ever time period, is one of the worst of human traits, but it is an intriguing one none the less.

There is a little more on the act of revenge in my blog which can be accessed here:
meanderingthroughtime.weebly.com/wars-of-the-roses-blog/vengeance-is-mine

Death of Edward, Earl of Warwick

28/11/2019

November 1499, saw the death of the grandson of the Richard, Duke of York and Cecily Neville. Edward Plantagenet, was the son of George, Duke of Clarence, brother to Edward IV and Richard III who death is recorded as the 28th of this month.

Image Edward Earl of Warwick. Engraving 1793

Edwards life was abysmal, his mother died when he was just a year old and he was only three when his father was executed, his wardship was granted in 1480 to Thomas Grey, the son of Elizabeth Woodville by her first husband. It has been said that Edward suffered from some sort of mental illness, but I imagine it was more to do with anxiety and lack of care and/or the fact that he received little or no education. By the time he was twenty-four he had spent sixteen years in confinement, away from court, away from influences and activities of Yorkist sympathisers and he would have known little of what was going on in Henry's new kingdom. Bearing this in mind and the fact that he was heavily guarded it is hard to believe that he was in cahoots with Perkin Warbeck and knew of the plans to overthrow Henry VII, it is more than likely that Henry VII used this opportunity to rid himself of a man with better claim to the throne than his.

At some point Richard III may have considered Edward Plantagenet his heir and had him placed at Sheriff Hutton in North Yorkshire for his own protection, but it may be that he considered him a threat to his throne, but on Richards death in 1485 the new Lancastrian regime quickly had him removed and placed under heavy guard at the Tower of London. Despite being ten years old, Henry also considered him a threat and needed him watched to prevent Yorkists organising his escape and using him as a reason to rebel. Henry used Edward two years later when he paraded him in London after Lambert Simnel's challenge to his throne. In 1499 Warbeck entered the scene and it was he whose actions were the beginning of the end for Edward. It was alleged that Edward had plotted with and was involved in Warbeck's attempt to overthrow the king. Warbeck confessed to the plot, under torture, but I cannot say if Edward did. Either way, Edward went to his death Tower Hill a week after Warbeck execution.

James Audley, Baron Audley

23/9/2019

Killed on the 23rd September in 1459 at the Battle of Blore Heath, James Tuchet, Baron Audley who was hacked to death at the hand of Roger Kynaston, who, it has been said, sought out Audley on the battlefield.

The place where Audley met his end is marked by a stone cross.

In the 13th century, the Audley family appear in my maternal family history with another James Audley.

James Audley had as his mistress my ancestor Alice Mohun, by whom he had a son, he also he had five sons and a daughter with his wife before falling from a horse and breaking his neck.

Audley's four son's followed him to the grave in quick succession and by 1299 his estates and that of his maternal great grandmother Ela Longspree, Countess of Salisbury, passed to Nicholas, the ancestor of John Tuchet of Blore Heath fame. Part of the Audley estate passed to his youngest son Hugh Audley, who was born in 1267. The Audley bloodline continued through Hugh's son and heir, also Hugh, through to the Stafford family who would later become the Dukes of Buckingham - Henry Stafford the treacherous leader of the rebellion against Richard III. Also, the Audley bloodline runs through his daughter Alice who married Ralph Neville, 2nd Baron Neville of Raby and this makes Hugh the 4x great grandfather of Richard Neville, famously known as the Kingmaker, the 3x great grandfather of Cecily Neville and the 4th great grandfather of Richard III, Edward IV and George, Duke of Clarence.

What a tangled web we (well the Audley's at least) weave!

In the first image, you can see a painting called Audley's Charge by Robert Sim and in the second what is traditionally thought to be the effigy of Hugh Audley (1267) although it now appears that the clothing worn by Audley and his wife is from a later date.

Execution of Richard Woodville

12/8/2018

To the surprise of many, and disregarding the acknowledged rules of diplomacy King Edward IV had, in the May of 1464, made his own choice of a bride. The king's new wife was one Elizabeth Grey, the daughter of Richard Woodville and Jacquetta of Luxembourg, a family of lowly stock from the County of Northampton.

There was, of course, a little more to the Woodvilles than the fact they were 'social climbers.' Richard Woodville had been in command of an army during the French wars. He had met Jacquetta, the young widow of the Duke of Bedford when he had accompanied her on the voyage home to England from Rouen. In 1433 Woodville married Jacquetta in secret. Their eldest child, the aforementioned Elizabeth, was born four years later.

Garter Stall Plate of Richard Woodville at St George’s Chapel, Windsor

Jacquetta was a member of Margaret of Anjou's court and Richard Woodville, as a loyal servant to Henry VI was eventually rewarded with a barony in 1448.

Edward, as we all know, fell instantly in lust when he came across Elizabeth. Richard Woodville's daughter was a strong-willed widow with two young sons and eight siblings to boot and Edward, as previously mentioned would undertake this marriage without the knowledge of one man who was so instrumental in bringing him to the throne - Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick. This event was a turning point for Richard Neville and the first the nail in the coffin of Richard Woodville.

Richard Neville was angered by the fact that the Woodville men were placed in important administrative roles. Other events such as the king’s refusal to sanction the marriage of his daughter to George, Duke of Clarence and the influence of the Herbert family the Earls of Pembroke in the royal court just rubbed salt into his wounds. Richard Neville was about to jump from the Yorkist ship into Lancastrian waters.

Warwick’s rebellion would see off William Herbert and his brother Richard at Northampton on the 26th July in 1469 and on this day, just seventeen days later Richard Woodville and his son John would be beheaded as traitors.

To Richard Neville, revenge may have been sweet - but in the words of Martin Luther King Jr

"The old law of 'an eye for an eye' leaves everybody blind."

Siege of the Tower of London 2nd - 19th July 1460

2/7/2018

Richard Neville, his brother Lord Fauconberg and Edward IV, plus the main force of the Yorkist army were making their way to do battle at Northampton, leaving a smaller force to continue the siege of the Tower of London.

Siege of the Tower of London in 1471.

Thomas, Lord Scales and Robert, Lord Hungerford had been bombarding the city, where it has been said, many of London’s residents were killed. Among others trapped in the Tower were Henry’s Treasurer Thomas Browne, the son of a wealthy city merchant who had made an advantageous marriage to the great great granddaughter of Richard Fitzalan, Earl of Arundel and Surrey, Browne was also a wealthy landowner and a man of note in Kent.

A seventeen-day siege ensued ending with the death of Lord Scales, and the execution on charges of treason of Thomas Browne.

After the Battle of Northampton, Henry VI once again found himself a prisoner and on his way to London, this was followed by the Duke of York’s return to England. Arriving in England on the 9th September he headed for London to make his play for the crown.

Thomas Browne was my 16th Great Grandfather, you can read about his family here:

meanderingthroughtime.weebly.com/chapter-five-getting-personal.html

First Battle of St Albans

22/5/2018

On this day in 1455, following their exclusion from court, Richard Duke of York, along with Richard Neville Earl of Warwick, assembled their forces in the north and marched south to confront the Lancastrian King Henry VI at St Albans.

The roller coaster ride continued and the tension mounted but eventually it all came to blows at St Albans, considered by some, to be the first battle of the civil war. In a battle that lasted just one hour, a number of notable Lancastrian nobles including, Henry Percy, Thomas Clifford, and Thomas Vaughan’s patron, Edmund Beaufort were killed. After the battle Henry VI was captured, York assured Henry of his loyalty and along with Warwick accompanied the king to London. Just under two months later, at the beginning of July the king opened Parliament and following that Henry, along with Margaret and their son were moved to Hertford Castle. That November saw the Duke of York appointed as Protector for a second time, and just like the first protectorate it was short, it ended in the last week of February 1456, but York remained an important member of the Royal Council. Three very trouble years ensued and the end of which the Duke of York, with Richard Neville as his enforcer, would make his play for the crown of England.

The above is taken from my website, you can read about this battle in context here:

meanderingthroughtime.weebly.com/chapter-two-the-beaufort-patronage.html