All Categories - Meandering Through Time

Richard III's Book of Hours

16/5/2024

Books of Hours formed an important part of religious life in medieval England, they contained a series of prayers recited at specific hours of the day. The most elaborate were created for the wealthy. One of the most famous belonged to Richard III. His Book of Hours is a beautifully decorated piece of art and is thought to have been created in London in about 1420. It has been said it accompanied Richard to Bosworth and was in his tent on the eve of the Battle in August of 1485.

During Richard's reign, a handwritten prayer was added, either by Richard himself or by a scribe. One prayer reads,

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

Tradition has it that Richard either heard his last Mass in the parish church at Sutton Cheney or before he went into battle. Either way, I have often wondered, would Richard have taken such a precious item with him onto a battlefield? There would not have been a problem if he considered he would be the victor that day, but we know he was unsure of the outcome. In the event of him being unsuccessful, would he really want it to fall into the 'wrong hands!' You could argue that actually, it did - new king's mother!

You can imagine Margaret Beaufort turning the pages, admiring the imagery, and reading the texts. It has been suggested that she crossed out any reference to Richard and wrote her own name on the back of the book. It is true she did write her name, after all, it was a trophy, wasn't it? Not a trophy of war, but a representation of the fulfilment of her ambition. As for vengefully scratching out the king's name, that is just an image created over the years to blacken her name, the stuff of films and television series. Before finding its way into the library of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Richard’s Book of Hours passed through the hands of many. One owner, during the Reformation, wiped out every mention of the Pope.

Today we too can stare in wonderment at this fifteenth-century work of art, I was lucky enough to see this book on show in the Usher Gallery in Lincoln a few years ago, and it was easy to visualise this brave king holding it in his hands on the eve of his last day on earth. What is more likely though is that this book remained in a safe place and Richard brought with him his own private prayer book, one that he kept with him, one that he used every day.

The Murder of Adam Moleyns

28/12/2022

Adam Moleyns was the Bishop of Chichester and Lord Privy Seal he rose to prominence under the Beaufort family at the time when Henry VI was a minor. He was murdered on the 9th January in 1450, the very day that he had arrived in the Hampshire town of Portsmouth.

Moleyns was dragged from what is now the Garrison Church onto the beach where the square tower now stands and killed.

There are those who like to link Moleyns murder to Richard, Duke of York, suggesting that he paid local sailors to kill him because of his part in the loss of the French territories of Maine and Anjou. These lands formed part of the marriage contract of Henry VI to Margaret of Anjou that had been arranged by William de la Pole, the Duke of Suffolk. Moleyns, it is said, made some attempt to save his life by accusing William de la Pole of being solely responsible for their loss. Pole was forced to deny the ensuing rumours in Parliament.

How convenient for those who hated the Duke of York to use these rumours to their advantage? Indeed, some five months later, William de la Pole was found murdered on a beach near Dover!

So why was Molyens killed?

What is more likely is that he was killed by sailors, not on the order of the Duke of York, but when they discovered that he, as Keeper of the Privy Seal, was in town to make reduced payments to the sailors due to their behaviour during church services.

Following this incident, inhabitants of Portsmouth were excommunicated for fifty years.

John Morton - Archbishop of Canterbury

14/9/2022

The 15th September 1500 saw the death of John Morton, Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Chancellor of England and Cardinal.

Morton passed through the Wars of the Roses unscathed whereas those of whom he was of service and were of a higher rank perished, those such as Margaret of Anjou, Richard Neville, Edward IV and Richard III.

Morton encouraged Buckingham in his rebellion against the Richard III, and it is he who is considered to be the source of much of what was written about the king - the murder of his brother George, Duke of Clarence and the murder of the Princes in the Tower are but two. Thomas More's 'History of Richard III' was based on Morton's account of the time.

However, Morton was a survivor who knew how to take care of himself, he died an old man at Knole House in Kent, a property that had been granted to the See of Canterbury on the death of Thomas Bourchier in 1486, his political machinations continuing under the new Tudor king.

He was buried at Canterbury Cathedral.

Margaret Beaufort in Boston Lincolnshire

7/6/2022

Margaret Beaufort has had links with the county of Lincolnshire since at least the middle of the 15th century, for instance she is known to have held the Manor of Bourne from about 1445. Following the fall of the House of York, she was granted other Lincolnshire estates such as the manor of Tattershall, which, along with its castle, had been forfeited to the crown in 1471. She also received the manor of Stamford following the death of Cecily Neville in 1495. She must have had some affection for the fenlands because she spent much of her time, when she was married to her third husband, at their castle in the aforementioned manor of Bourne.

Victorian Etching of Boston - After Joseph Mallord William Turner

She is also known to have spent some time in the market town of Boston, her account books show an entry of a payment to a child who played a song for her during a visit - maybe she was entertained in the household of Fredrick and Margaret Tilney in their Skirbeck home. She may well have even attended a service at the recently built St Botolph's Church and been shown the newly carved choir stalls and misericords. The Tilney's were an important family in Boston at the time of Margaret's visit, later their great granddaughter would become Henry VIII's fifth wife.

Despite what many think of Henry VII's mother, she was a generous benefactor to churches and abbeys and often kind to those less fortunate that herself and, this is why her emblem of the portcullis can be found dotted around the town.

She can also be seen immortalised, albeit quite recently, in a stained glass window in the at St Botolph's.

Birth of Edward V

2/11/2021

On the 2nd of November in 1470, Edward, the eldest son of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville was born at Cheyneygates, the home of the Abbot of Westminster. He was heir to the throne.

Edward was brought up at Ludlow Castle on the Welsh Marches. At the age of twelve, he ascended the throne on the death of his father, however, he and his brother Richard of Shrewsbury were found to be illegitimate when the pre-contracted marriage of his father to Eleanor Butler came to light.

Before Edward could be crowned, he and his younger brother disappeared.

What happened to these two boys is a mystery - but they are not encased in that urn at Westminster Abbey.

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 led 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.

The Cat, The Rat and the Dog

21/7/2020

It was in the July of 1484 that William Collingbourne, a Wiltshire landowner penned the infamous rhyme 'The Catte, the Ratte and Lovell our dogge rulyth all Englande under a hogge' with the aim of insulting the newly crowned Richard III.

Collingbourne had held a number of positions in local government in his home county of Wiltshire during the reign of Edward IV and had been in the pay of Cecily Neville but had been replaced. Although the reasons for writing the poem are unclear, its probable that its roots lay in resentment and plain old jealously!

However, by making his feelings very clear in his poem he did achieve the result he hoped for, I wonder though, did he think that he'd get away with offending a king? He didn't. Collingbourne was arrested, tried and sentenced within four months. He was executed at Tower Hill by hanging, drawing and quartering by the end of the year.

William Collingbourne didn't go to the scaffold because of his poetry alone, it was the choices he made in the summer of 1483 and his support of Henry Tudor's invasion and corresponding with him when he was in exile.

Anne Beauchamp

13/7/2020

On this day in 1426, the birth of Anne Beauchamp, daughter of Richard Beauchamp and Isabel Despenser.

Following the death of her father in 1439, her brother Henry in 1446 and her niece in 1448, Anne became a very wealthy heiress.

In 1434, Anne was betrothed to Richard Neville, later the Earl of Warwick, their marriage would bring together the lands of his father, along with a major proportion of the Montague inheritance via his mother. The death of Richard at Barnet in 1471, Anne's parents estates, the Beauchamp and Despenser along with their fathers estates fell to their two daughters, Isabel and Anne, the wives of George, Duke of Clarence and Richard, Duke of Gloucester respectively.

For many being an heiress was not a passport to happiness, Anne was ignored in her lifetime, she watched as her daughters fought over their inheritance each making their claim in respect of their husbands. Even in old age Anne was forced to give up much of her fortune for a few scraps Henry VII threw her way.

Anne died in 1492, who for what ever reason, didn't make herself heard in life, and in death she was destined to be a woman history has all but forgotten.

Anne can be seen here, the second figure on the left.

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!