A seven year truce and a marriage between the dauphin and Edward's daughter Elizabeth of York were two of the items agreed upon. Edward may have been pleased with his actions, but it was a move that greatly angered the Duke of Gloucester, his outrage is one of the first times we see the future Richard III vocally objecting to a decision made by his brother.
The twelve years of King Edward's reign that followed Henry VI's death, were relatively stable, the city saw the redevelopment of St George's Chapel and a new great hall at Eltham Palace. Edward patronised the new invention of printing, the Recuyell of the Histoyes of Troye was the first book to be printed in England. Charles Ross, described Edwards court as "the most splendid in all Christendom." Edward developed a love of art much of seen in Bruges, at the home of his friend Louis of Gruthuyse. Stability in his kingdom lead to Edward making peace with France. In the summer of 1475, on a bridge at Picquigny with a wooden barrier between them Edward and Louis XI came to an agreement. On the 29th of August 1475, the Treaty of Picquigny was signed.
A seven year truce and a marriage between the dauphin and Edward's daughter Elizabeth of York were two of the items agreed upon. Edward may have been pleased with his actions, but it was a move that greatly angered the Duke of Gloucester, his outrage is one of the first times we see the future Richard III vocally objecting to a decision made by his brother.
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The town of Berwick stands on the banks of the River Tweed in Northumberland. Historically, its position proved useful as it is situated on the border between England and Scotland, and because of this, it has seen its share of both war and peace. Because of its situation, its governance has been the responsibility of both countries on numerous occasions. In 1357 a treaty was signed here, the first of five Treaties of Berwick, this particular treaty, between King Edward III of England and David II of Scotland, brought to an end Scotland's second attempt at independence. In 1461 during the Wars of the Roses, when Henry VI's wife Margaret of Anjou had fled to Scotland she negotiated a deal with the recently widowed Mary of Guelders over the town in return for help with her Lancastrian cause. When all the papers are signed Berwick upon Tweed became part of Scotland, and it was not until the August of 1482 that Richard, Duke of Gloucester, later King Richard III retook the town and returned it to England. A second treaty, signed in 1526, was issued in order to keep the peace between warring factions on the English/Scottish border.
A third, signed on this day in 1560 saw the completion of yet another Treaty of Berwick. This treaty was Elizabeth I's efforts to give some protection to those who practiced Protestantism in Scotland. The document was signed for and on behalf of the queen by Thomas Howard the Duke of Norfolk. The agreement was in respect of an alliance with Scottish nobles who were opposed to the regency of Mary of Guise, the widow of James V of Scotland, who had retained a French army for her protection. The treaty allowed English forces to enter Scotland and expel these French troops and it would be the first time in history that the English and Scottish fought together against a common foe rather than against each another. There would be two more signing of treaties at Berwick, one in 1586 following an agreement between Elizabeth I and Mary of Guise's grandson King James VI and another in 1639 that ended the First Bishops War. Henry of Richmond, later Henry VII was born at Pembroke Castle to Margaret Beaufort and Edmund Tudor on the 28th January in 1457. 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 managed to climb into the bed of a queen of England. Margaret was soon pregnant and when Henry was born it was into 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 whose family famously watched deciding at the last moment to take the side of the Lancastrian's against Richard III's Yorkist forces. 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 - henrytudorsociety.com/ 30th August 1483, the death Louis XI of France Louis believed that the end justified the means, in 1475 he bought off Edward IV for a payment of 75,000 crowns with the promise of 50,000 a year and the marriage of his son to Edward’s daughter - peace with England meant that he could sort out his problems with Burgundy. His reign saw the beginning of the end of feudalism and he left France in a better position than that of his father. However he had his critics, for modernising the French army with the use of the Swiss idea of a permanent royal infantry and no temporary contracts Machiavelli called him 'shortsighted and imprudent.' Regardless of the fact that he achieved much in his reign, he was overall generally disliked. Louis is famously known by a number of nick-names, Louis the Prudent for his skills in the world of diplomacy, and for his scheming and plotting he was known as the Universal Spider. Loving a good conspiracy did him no good in the end though, he died at the end of August 1483, of what you could argue was the over use of his little grey cells - a brain hemorrhage.
On this day in 1482 the death of the 'She Wolf' Margaret of Anjou age fifty-two. Margaret had been a pawn in her father's grand scheme, married at the age of fifteen to the ineffectual Henry VI, and she added fuel to the fire that was the Wars of the Roses.
She was one scary lady. However in the years after Tewkesbury Margaret had been a prisoner in England, she returned to France in the February of 1476 where she lived in poverty in Anjou dependent on a pension from Louis XI. Margaret was buried at Angers Cathedral. In the August of 1485 Richard III spent three days at the royal hunting lodge in Bescwood in Nottinghamshire. A grant by Henry I to the Priory of Lenton, gave permission for the gathering of wood from the royal forest. Henry's grandson increased the collection to two cartloads a day and added to his grant the right of the Priory to gather as much as they needed for themselves. The collection of wood from the forest for the kings use continued into the reign of Edward III, when in 1363, he ordered the felling of a number of trees from Bescwood to build a lodge in which he could stay when hunting in the forest. A hunting lodge can be found within Bescwood throughout the reigns of subsequent kings. Edward IV, whilst staying at Nottingham Castle in the October of 1469, hunted in the forest and may have stayed a number of days in the lodge itself. Richard III was defiantly in the lodge in the August of 1483, he was here from the 13th to the 16th when he left for Leicester, where he stayed for five days before that fateful day at Bosworth Field on the 22nd of August 1485. As the 16th century was drawing to a close we can find a warrant, granted to Thomas Markham from Elizabeth I's treasurer, to fell eighty-six trees from Bestwood Park: ‘for ye repair of Bestwood Lodge’ which was built of "wood and plaster, covered with slate and tiles and contained 38 rooms with several cottages, farmhouses and barns." The lodge was still in use by royalty in the late 17th century were it was frequented by Charles Beauclerk, Duke of St Albans, the illegitimate son of Charles II. At some point in time Bescwood became Bestwood, The reasons for the name change I am unsure, I can only hope it occurred naturally over time, the result of errors in transcribing and not by Best Western, the owners of the chain of hotels who presently run the establishment, using it to their advantage, however, today the area where this royal hunting lodge once stood, is another Bestwood Lodge. The present impressive red brick building has been the home to the founder Raleigh Bicycle Company, a Ministry of Defense headquarters, and now a hotel. It was built in 1863, following the demolition of the original house three years earlier.
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