Category: Margaret Of Anjou

Birth of Edward of Westminster

7/10/2017

After eight years of marriage, on the 13th October 1453, Margaret of Anjou finally gave birth to an heir to the throne of England. Her child was a boy who she named Edward after Edward the Confessor on whose feast day her baby was born, a joyous occasion for the whole of the country you would think, alas it was not to be.

At the time of Edward's birth his father, Henry VI, was ill, his fragile mental state meant that over the previous four months he had been completely unaware of all that was going on around him, he was unable to stand, walk or move without help and when he was presented with his new born son all he managed was to raise and lower his eyes. By the end of December 1454 the king had regained his scenes and he was finally able to acknowledge his fifteen month old son. However, in a letter from the Milanese Ambassador to the Duke of Milan it states that when Henry talked of his son he said that he must be the son of the Holy Spirit - did Henry consider himself incapable of fathering a child or was he just praising god for this his most wonderful gift?

Margaret of Anjou was described as beautiful and "already a woman: passionate, proud and strong willed" and Henry was seen as an innocent - there are stories that he was shocked and disgusted at the sight of bare chested dancing girls and naked men bathing when he visited the City of Bath. With descriptions such as these it's not unreasonable that history has suggested that the sudden arrival of a child after eight years of marriage was down to Margaret's adultery, for there were rumours in court that Edward was illegitimate.

A women not conceiving in the first years of a marriage isn't uncommon and the cause could be any number of things, one being Henry himself with his pious and saintly ways, after all he was no Henry I ! However, in the first few weeks of January 1453 Margaret and Henry were at Greenwich, they were there to confer knighthoods on Henry's half brothers Edmund and Jasper Tudor and at the same time create them Earls of Richmond and Pembroke. If they were together it was highly likely that Edward was conceived at the time.

Nine months later Edward was born into a country that was in the midst of a power struggle that his father's weak rule had brought about. The bouts of insanity, the escalating squabble between Edmund Beaufort and Richard Duke of York and his mother's fierce determination to keep control of Henry's throne, so Edward could inherit, would add to the England's troubles.

Ironically, Margaret's resoluteness to see Edward wear the crown would eventually lead to his early death.

0 Comments

Richard, Duke of Gloucester takes Berwick upon Tweed

24/8/2017

0 Comments

As you can see its a bright morning in Berwick, a town on the east coast of England whose river, the Tweed, flows into the North Sea.

At the beginning of February of 1461 my 'ancestor,' Thomas Vaughan, was getting ready to leg it to France with what was called 'York's treasure' but meanwhile Margaret of Anjou was in Scotland, she was preparing to do a deal with the recently widowed Mary of Guelders over Berwick in return for help with her Lancastrian cause.

When all the papers are signed, the border town of Berwick upon Tweed became part of Scotland, and its not until this day, the 24th August in 1482 when Richard, Duke of Gloucester retook the town and returned it to England.

You can read about this in the story of Thomas Vaughan on my website by clicking on the link below

meanderingthroughtime.weebly.com/chapter-four-kentish-connections-and-opportunities.html

0 Comments

The Second Battle of St Albans

17/2/2017

0 Comments

17th February 1461

With his father and brother's deaths at Wakefield avenged, Edward, Earl of March's forces made their way to join the forces of Richard Neville in an attempt to prevent Margaret of Anjou claiming back her husband and London itself.

With hindsight, Warwick should not have taken Henry VI along with him on his march northwards, he should have left him in London guarded by William Bonville and Thomas Kyriell, the two men who were responsible for him at St Alban’s, but he didn’t. The reason for this, it has been suggested, was that Warwick was overly confident, and considered himself invincible, perhaps he even thought that the meeting between his forces and that of Margaret's was a forgone conclusion, a win for the Yorkist.

Warwick was hoping to block Margaret’s way along the northern route to St Albans, but this backfired and her troops approached by the north west route. The clash of York and Lancaster took place on the 17th of February 1461, at St Albans, but this time, unlike the previous battle, the result was not a victory for York but a Lancastrian victory. By the end of the day and dusk had settled, Richard Neville’s Yorkist force had been defeated, the king was lost and both Bonville and Kyriell had lost their heads in what Cornish antiquarian, A L Rowse, calls the blooding of Edward of Lancaster, the Prince of Wales.

Groby Old Hall, home of Sir John Grey, at Groby, Leicestershire

Including Bonville and Kyriell, lying among those who perished at St Albans was Robert Poynings and John Grey of Groby in Leicestershire. It was John's son Richard who would be executed at Pontefract in 1483, and his widow, Elizabeth, would make an adventurous marriage that would bring this family more wealth and power than they ever dreamed of, but it will also bring the Yorkist dynasty to its knees.

0 Comments

“Vengeance is mine"

24/7/2015

4 Comments

Behavioural scientists who have studied revenge scanned the brains of people who had been wronged, and the researchers gave these people a chance to punish the wrongdoers. As the victims considered revenge, it was noted that this action caused a notable amount of activity in what scientists call the Caudate Nucleus, an area in the brain that processes rewards, which the researchers equated to the same feeling we feel when we smoke or eat chocolate. Just as one piece of chocolate
doesn't satisfy our craving, the act of revenge doesn't deliver justice, it prolongs hostility and leads to other acts of vengeance,
creating an unending circle of retaliation.

Revenge is ages old, God himself wanted the monopoly on it, Shakespeare wrote of it and the leather clad Beatrix Kiddo practiced it, but vengeance comes at a cost, no more so than in the time of the Wars of the Roses. Deaths as the result of vengeance were frequent occurrences, Edmund, Earl of Rutland, Owen Tudor and Roger Vaughan are an example of this practice. Their deaths were linked, they died over a ten-year period, but despite this length of time and not surprisingly, the pain each felt never diminished, but what is surprising is that each of the condemned never expected it to happen to them and each pleaded for his life.

On the 25th of October 1460, the Act of Accord acknowledged Richard, Duke of York, as the heir to Henry VI and effectively disinherited Henry VI’s son Edward. It was hoped that this agreement would put an end to the political tension that had caused so much trouble in previous years, but it was not to be. The Act of Accord naturally left the Lancastrians foaming at the mouth, many were angry that the act had swept the rules of primogeniture under the carpet, a rule that had protected the rights of the noble family for decades, without which there would be chaos.

Many Lancastrians rallied to the cause resulting in a number of revolts occurring in the country with Henry's queen, Margaret of Anjou, at its helm. The first serious clash happened in Yorkshire, just over two months after the Act of Accord was signed, as Margaret had headed to Wales, Richard, Duke of York, now heir apparent made his way towards Sandal Castle to meet the forces of the opposing army, even though York's force outnumbered the Lancastrian's by two to one the battle went the way of Lancaster. Richard, Duke of York died in battle that day at Wakefield. David Hume in his History of England writes of York's death

"The Duke himself was killed and beheaded, and when his body was found among the slain, the head was cut off by Margaret's orders and fixed on the gates of York, with a paper crown upon it, in derision of his pretended title.'

York died among his men, a noble death you could say, his second son, Edmund Earl of Rutland died that day too but his death was a cruel one at the hands of John Clifford. Clifford had a reputation for brutality on the battlefield, John Leland, wrote in 1540 that Clifford was

'for killing of men at the bataill was caullid the boucher.'

The most common story told is that Edmund was captured as he fled the battle field, but the quality of his armour was noticed by 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"

Thus the seeds were set for bloody revenge, it was Owen Tudor who was the next to die on the order of another angry and grieving young man.

Edward had celebrated the Christmas of 1460 in Gloucester with John Tuchet, Walter Devereux, William and Richard Herbert and Roger Vaughan. These five Welsh men were, not only linked to one another by blood and marriage but were an important part of the Yorkist political connection, it was Roger Vaughan of Tretower, who in 1461, would be Edward's henchman.

Tudor, along with his son Jasper, had been recruiting men from Wales previous to the Battle of Mortimer's Cross and had made their way to Herefordshire by the beginning of February 1461. After the battle, the elderly Welsh leader was captured along with Henry Scudamore and John Throckmorton. On the news of Tudor's capture, Edward ordered Roger Vaughan to Usk Castle, where it is said Owen Tudor was held captive. Scudamore and Throckmorton may have escaped death but Tudor was summarily executed, beheaded in Hereford market square, the axe swung by Roger Vaughan.
The story of how Tudor met his death is much written about as are his final words

"That hede shalle ly on the stroke that was wonte to ly on Quene Kateryns lappe'

Even though Edward could be lenient if he wished, he had no intention of being so with Owen Tudor.

Tudor was executed not because he, along with his son Jasper, was making some attempt to free Henry VI from his captor, or that he had recruited troops in Wales or taken up Margaret of Anjou's cause or because of any treasonous act. Owen Tudor met his death because Edward was determined to avenge the death of his father and brother just as Clifford had. The Earl of March, as Edward IV, did not require that his men love him, but he certainly expected them to obey him.

Twenty three days after the Battle of Mortimer's Cross and the death of Owen Tudor, Jasper Tudor wrote to Roger Puleston, Governor of Denbigh Castle, of the defeat at Mortimer's Cross and how he would avenge the death of his father.

"Right trusty and well beloved cousins, and friends, we grete you well. And suppose that yee have well in you remembrance the great dishonour ahd rebuke that we and yee late have by traitor Marche, Harbert and Dunne, with their affinityes, as well in letting us fo our journey to the Kinge, as in putting my father your kinsman to the death, and their trayterously demeaning, we purpose with the might of our lord, and assistance of you and other our kinsman, men and friends, within a short time to avenge.
Written at our towne of Tenbye the xxvth of ffeur. J Penmroke"

Jasper Tudor would spend the next twenty five years as a man on the run, in those years he remained bitter, bitter about the Lancastrian's final defeat, bitter about the loss of land and power in Wales, but he never forgot the name of the man who decapitated his father, but it was ten long years before he would be face to face with him. During Tudor's exile, the Lancastrians made some attempt to drum up support in Brittany, France and Scotland, invasion plans were made and thwarted but eventually Jasper Tudor along with Richard Neville, and Edward's brother the Duke of Clarence arrived in England and landed in Dartmouth and headed for Wales picking up Henry, the future Henry VII on the way. Henry VI was restored to the throne of England on the 30th October 1470, it is Jasper Tudor who had played a significant role in the restored Lancastrian regime but it was, as we have seen, at a personal loss to himself. Is it any wonder then that he seized the opportunity when it did arrive, of unleashing all his pent-up anger on one man, Roger Vaughan.

The Vaughan's were a rich and influential Welsh family, who received the lands and castle of Tretower in the historical county of Brecknockshire via marriage to the daughter of John Bluet of Raglan. Roger Vaughan was active in the service of the Yorkist and as we know he was with Edward, Earl of March at Mortimer Cross. Whilst Jasper Tudor was effectively in exile, his Lancastrian supporters had not been inactive, Roger Puleston, Philip Mansel and Hopkin ap Rhys had been causing problems and it was Roger Vaughan who quashed an insurrection at Carmarthen. Vaughan did his job and captured all three men, but Edward decided to pardon all three, and Rhys and Mansel's land were forfeited and given to Roger Vaughan.

It was at Tewkesbury, in the May of 1471, that all the hopes of the Lancastrians were dashed, Edward, son and heir to Henry VI was dead. Roger Vaughan, it seems, did not fight at Tewkesbury, neither did Jasper Tudor, he was holed up at Chepstow Castle. Edward, as Edward Hall, the 16th century chronicler pointed out was

"not beynge out of feare for the Earl of Pembroke"

Edward ordered Vaughan and William Herbert to Chepstow to take Jasper Tudor, but unfortunately for Vaughan, Tudor knew he was coming, and his thoughts quickly turned to revenge. Vaughan, Hall continues was

"stronge of people and frendes, to the entendt of some gyle or sodaynly to trap and surprise the erle"

but it seems, Jasper Tudor wasn't without friends himself

"having intelligence of certayne frendes how that watche was privilie leyed for him, sodainly in the town took Roger Vaughan"

His father's executioner was captured. According to John Leland, who was writing during the time of Henry VIII, Roger Vaughan pleaded for his life, the words he received in reply were

"that he should have such favour as he shewid to Owene his Father'

Roger Vaughan, executioner of Owen Tudor, went to the block within the town walls of Chepstow, his death was the last in this chain of retaliatory acts. No one avenged his death, although one Guto'r Glyn, Welsh bard and poet and an adherent to the Yorkist's did call for vengeance on his behalf.

Interestingly, the word feud in English and in Latin means the threat to take revenge and these acts of vengeance were often the results of a long standing feud, and you will get no bigger than the ill feeling between York and Lancaster.
Vengeance, in whatever time period, is one of the worst of human traits, but it is an intriguing one nonetheless.

So, what is vengeance?

It is a word often used to explain and justify violence, and the violent actions of Jasper Tudor, Edward IV and John Clifford, were an act of personal vengeance. The actions of these three men were allowed to happen because medieval law permitted vengeance, and as long as this kind of action is sanctioned by the king and carried out by one of his nominated officers it was not murder.

Let me end with the words of Martin Luther King Jr

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

4 Comments

The Transi Tomb

23/6/2015

0 Comments

The Tomb of Alice de la Pole

This magnificent transi tomb at St Mary's Church, Ewelme in the county of Oxfordshire, belongs to Alice de la Pole.

In two parts, the top section is solid and entirely made of alabaster, it is thought to be unique. Lying on top of the tomb, whose decorated sides are covered with angels holding emblazoned shields, is the life like image of the duchess, whose long face is beautifully carved, her coronated head lies under an ornate canopy. The cushion on which her head lies is supported by tiny angels who are placed there to aid Alice's soul to heaven.

After the Black Death in 1348 and its four recurrences between 1361 and 1393, people came to realise that death took what it wanted when it wanted, rich or poor, young or old. In recognition of this people of Alice's class took steps to remind others of transiency of life and therefore she is saying 'as I am now so will you be.' Alice's emaciated body is hidden and difficult to see, unlike her grand clothing in life, she is partially wrapped in a loose shroud.

There are many tombs such as these around the country, one of the first is at Lincoln Cathedral. Alice's however, is the only intact effigy of a woman carved in alabaster in the country. Alice was a Chaucer by birth, the granddaughter of Geoffrey Chaucer and wife of William de la Pole.

William de la Pole was an English commander and is remembered and blamed for the loss of French territories of Maine and Anjou, these lands formed part of the marriage contract of Henry VI to Margaret of Anjou that Pole had arranged. Pole was blamed for much, a scapegoat, who was exiled and murdered on route to Calais.

Surviving the aftermath of the death of her husband, Alice was certainly a force to be reckoned with, she proved more than capable of taking care of herself and the interests of her son John de la Pole.

Alice is thought to have died on the 20th May in 1475, however it is suggested that it may have been in the June of that year.

0 Comments

Birth of Edward of Westminster

Richard, Duke of Gloucester takes Berwick upon Tweed

The Second Battle of St Albans

“Vengeance is mine"

The Transi Tomb

The Tomb of Alice de la Pole

Categories

Archives

Birth of Edward of Westminster

Richard, Duke of Gloucester takes Berwick upon Tweed

﻿The Second Battle of St Albans

“Vengeance is mine"

The Transi Tomb

The Tomb of Alice de la Pole

Categories

Archives

The Second Battle of St Albans