Category: 15th Century - Meandering Through Time

Birth of Henry VII

28/1/2021

On this day in 1457 Henry of Richmond, later Henry VII was born at Pembroke Castle the son of Margaret Beaufort and Edmund Tudor.

In 1455, at the age of just twelve years old Henry's mother, a wealthy heiress had married Edmund Tudor, the son of a commoner who had climbed into the bed of a queen of England. Margaret was soon pregnant. Henry was born into a country that was divided by conflict and civil war. Margaret Beaufort was just a child herself and Henry's birth did irreparable damage, this could account for the fact that she never gave birth again, however she turned out to be an influential and dominant figure throughout Henry's life. Margaret was also aware of her son's vulnerability and because of this sent him into the care of his uncle, Jasper Tudor. Following the Battle of Tewkesbury in the May of 1471 Jasper and Henry fled to Brittany and then finally into France. Henry spent, in total, fourteen years of his life in exile.

His return to England in 1485 has been much written about, and most of you will know that he was aided at the Battle of Bosworth by Thomas Stanley his mother's husband, and his brother William. Henry of Richmond became king of England on the 22nd August in 1485.

I, of course, am a Ricardian and see Henry as a usurper, whose claim to the throne is a tenuous one to say the least, however, Richard and Henry's stories are real and to understand Henry, Richard and the Wars of the Roses it is always best to read widely with the aim to gain an understanding of both sides of story, therefore I add this paragraph taken from the Henry Tudor Society about Henry.

"He is a king often accused of being parsimonious, miserly, ruthless, severe and avaricious to the extreme, cold to his wife and cruel to friend and foe alike. The study of Henry’s life, from his beginnings through to the exile, and from his early reign to the tragic end, put forward a different man. It is this man, the real Henry, not the mythical Henry, that we aim to bring to the fore. A man who had an astounding tenacity to survive, to cling to his throne and to pass his crown to his son in a peaceful manner, something which eluded several monarchs before him."

Here a link to the Henry Tudor Society -

https://henrytudorsociety.com/

The Readeption of Henry VI : 9th to the 13th September 1470

12/9/2020

The names of Richard, Earl of Warwick and George, Duke of Clarence's were never officially mentioned as being part of the 1469/70 uprisings against Edward IV but it is plain to see that Warwick was the puppeteer. Letters, incriminating Warwick, were found in a chest that belonged to the man who lead the uprising in Lincolnshire in the March of 1470.

Robert Welles letter goes some way back up this fact as does his confession, Wells writes:

"I have welle understand my many meagges, as welle from my Lord of Warwicke, and they entended to make grete risinges, as forthorthy as ever I couth understand , to th’entent to make the duc of Clarence king…..Also, I say that had beene the said duc and erls provokings that we at this tyme would no durst have made eny commocion or sturing, but upon there comforts we did what we did”......Also, I say that I and my dadier had often times letters of credence from my said lordes.”

The Battlefield of Losecoate

It is not hard to imagine what the state of the country was in during these years, anarchy would possibly be a good word to describe it. Following the aforementioned Lincolnshire revolt - the Battle of Empingham or Losecoate Field as it is commonly known, Warwick and Clarence fled the country. They were refused entry into Calais but eventually arrived in the court of Louis XI of France. While under the protection of the French king Warwick set about organising the restoration of Henry VI to the throne of England and the marriage his daughter Anne to Henry's son Edward. An invasion force was soon bound for England's shores and they landed in the West Country between the 9th and 13th of September 1470. Warwick found that his brother John, the Marquess of Montage, had abandoned the Yorkist cause and he also soon learned that the king had left England.

Warwick visits Henry VI in the Tower of London

While most were troubled by the events of 1469 and 1470 the triumphant Richard Neville was in his element as he later placed the crown of England, once again, on the head of Henry VI. Released from the Tower of London, the poor man’s physical health was weak and his mental health clearly unstable. As these two men stood together it was obvious to everybody who was in charge. Real power was now in the gauntleted hand of Richard, Earl of Warwick, the King’s Lieutenant of the Realm.

William of Hatfield

8/7/2020

William was born in the February of 1337 at Hatfield in Yorkshire, he was the second son of Edward III and Philippa of Hainault, however the boy would only live for five months, he died on the 8th July and his body would be laid to rest in York Minster.

A golden statue or weeper of William can be seen on the tomb of his father Edward III in Westminster Abbey.

William's older brother Edward the Black Prince had predeceased his father, the death of both these men would leave the country in the hands of various family members notably Richard II - child monarch, John of Gaunt - an ambitious and lustful protector and Henry of Bolingbroke - a murderous would-be monarch.

The seeds of the Wars of the Roses were set!

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.

Birth of Richard of Shrewsbury

17/8/2019

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.

Treaty of Troyes

21/5/2019

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 John Clifford

8/4/2019

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.

The Beaumont Brothers and the Battle of Towton

29/3/2019

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