Category: May

Coronation of Elizabeth Woodville

26/5/2018

"I present unto you Queen Elizabeth, your undoubted Queen"

On this day the 26th of May 1465 occurred the Coronation of Elizabeth Woodville.

In the image above is an account of the coronation of Elizabeth Woodville as Queen of Edward IV and the following text is taken from David Baldwin's book Elizabeth Woodville: Mother of the Princes in the Tower.

"Elizabeth was conducted with more celebrations to the Tower, where English queens traditionally spent their penultimate night before the coronations. Next morning, Elizabeth, escorted by the newly created knights of Bath was escorted in an open horse litter through the streets to Westminster. She was led into Westminster Hall the following morning by Bishops of Durham and Salisbury, “clothed in mantel of purple and a coronal upon her head” beneath a purple silk canopy carried by four barons of the Cinque Ports. She carried the scepter of St.Edward in her right hand and the scepter of the realm in her right. The dowager duchess of Buckingham bore Elizabeth’s train, following the queen were her mother and two of Edward’s sisters, Elizabeth, Duchess of Suffolk and lady Margaret. Cowering the path from Hall to Abbey was a carpet of ray cloth, upon which the queen walked barefoot, their way being cleared by George, duke of Clarence, Lord High Steward. Having passed into the monastery and through it’s north door, Elizabeth knelt at the high altar, then prostrated herself while the archbishop prayed. Rising, she was anointed and crowned, then led to the throne. After the royal procession left the abbey, the queen was led to her chamber, where she was dressed in purple surcoat and brought into the Hall to dine. Each time the queen took a bite, she herself removed her crown, putting it back when she was finished. To cap off the ceremonies, on 27 May, a tournament was held at Westminster. Lord Stanley won and was awarded a ruby ring from queen’s hands."

Elizabeth is seen here wearing her coronation robes as a member of the London Skinners' Company's Fraternity of Our Lady's Assumption which is dated to around 1472.

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First Battle of St Albans

22/5/2018

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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

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First Battle of St Albans

22/5/2017

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22nd May 1455

Many believe that the First Battle of St Albans was as much about the ongoing squabble between the Percy and the Neville family, as it was about the wider squabble, that of the House of York and Lancaster. It cannot be doubted that this battle, for the individual members of these two northern families, was very personal, each trying to destroy the other under the guise of a greater cause.

The origins of Percy/Neville squabble had it roots in land, or the loss of it, bitterness turned to anger, discussion to litigation, skirmishes into outright warfare.

Henry VI, who had been battling with his own internal foes for the previous eighteen months had suddenly recovered and released the imprisoned Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset and dismissed the Duke of York from his post as Protector of the Realm, and as Henry and Somerset had left London and were making their way towards St Albans, they may or may not have known that York had chosen not to appear before the council in Leicester, but were in fact heading their way.

Warwick's troops at the Battle of St. Albans. Graham Turner http://www.studio88.co.uk/index.html

The clash of over five thousand men that took place on the 22nd May was a relatively small skirmish (in comparison to the following Wars of the Roses battles) that is considered by some to be the first battle of this period, however it certainly wasn't the cause.

Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, Thomas, Lord Clifford and Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland along with just over three hundred men lost their lives that day.

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Death of Henry VI and The Ceremony of the Lilies and of the Roses.

21/5/2017

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The Wakefield Tower is the second largest in the Tower of London, it was built between 1220 and 1240 by King Henry III, within this tower was the monarch's private room.

King Henry VI, was held prisoner in this tower by Edward IV, and was said to have been murdered whilst praying in the oratory of the tower on this night of the 21st May 1471.

Henry VI was born on the 6th of December 1421 and was the founder of Eton College and Kings College Cambridge. Most, if not all, of English colleges celebrate Founders Day and Eton have been celebrating the birth of Henry VI since 1905 when two boys laid a bouquet of white lilies on Henry's tomb. By 1947 King's College Cambridge were given permission to join the ceremony.

Since then Kings Collage lay white roses in purple ribbons alongside the Eton lilies in pale blue ribbons on the spot where Henry VI is said to have been met his death.

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Birth of Cecily Neville and Margaret of York

3/5/2017

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The third day in May, thirty-one years apart, saw the birth of two women who played their part in an era that was dominated by men. They were Cecily Neville and her daughter Margaret of York.

Cecily, the Rose of Raby was born in 1415 at Raby Castle in County Durham, the daughter of Ralph Neville and Joan Beaufort.

"Cecily Neville was at the very top of the social scale in late medieval England, and held the highest status a woman
could enjoy. She was the eighteenth child of her parents, and her marriage to Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York, was a
suitable match between two families of great status. Besides wielding considerable political power in an age when few
women did so, Cecily administered a large feudal estate, with all the interlocking duties and responsibilities which
that entailed."

My photograph of Raby Castle was taken at the end of April 2016. It is, as you can see, a perfect example of a medieval castle.

Margaret, Cecily's third daughter, was born to Richard, Duke of York in 1446 according the Annals of Worcester at Fotheringhay Castle, however, it is written in a psalter owned by her sister Anne, that she was born at Waltham Abbey. Following her marriage to Charles the Bold the Duke of Burgundy, she would be known as Margaret of Burgundy. Margaret was very much her father's daughter. She was a supporter of the Yorkist cause, a capable ruler and a massive thorn in the side of Henry VII.

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Battle of Tewkesbury

4/5/2016

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The Battle of Tewkesbury was fought on the 4th of May 1471, just twenty days following the Yorkist victory at Barnet on a field known as 'The Gaston' that lies south of Tewkesbury itself.

The Lancastrian forces were protected by low lanes, dikes and heavy undergrowth, which the Arrivell it states as being

"strongly in a marvellously strong ground pight, full difficult to be assailed’

The battle saw Edward IV and William Hasting at the rear, and Richard, Duke of Gloucester leading the vanguard. Sir John Wenlock inactivity on the battlefield was the focal point for Gloucester's men who made their attack, but it was cause for concern for Somerset. Following a ‘mistake’ by Wenlock, many of Lancastrians men lost their lives fleeing across a field called Bloody Meadow. Wenlock died that day, wearing his Lancastrian coat, allegedly slain by Beaufort for holding back his men. Somerset is said to have accused him of treason and killed him there and then. Among those who died that day was John Courtenay, it was his brother’s head that Edward had impaled on a spike in place of his father and brother’s after Towton in 1461. Edward Beaufort and his sixteen year old brother John were executed two days later.

The Battle of Tewkesbury, depicted in a Ghent manuscript

The most notable death at Tewkesbury was Edward, Prince of Wales, Henry VI’s son and heir. Shakespeare, as you might image, makes much of the manner of the boy’s death, having Edward, slapping the eighteen year old with his gauntleted hand before Gloucester and Clarence both stab him to death, another story that has passed down to us through time is that he was found and beheaded, allegedly by the Duke of Clarence. What most probably happened was that the boy lost his life during the battle. What of Margaret of Anjou, the thorn in the side of the Yorkist? Following her capture, she spent a number of years of her captivity in the charge of a Alice, Duchess of Suffolk, a kindred spirit, another woman who ruthlessly pursued the interest of her son.

Edward was once again in possession of the crown of England, the Lancastrians were defeated, there was a new royal heir, Clarence was onside once more, Richard had married Warwick's second daughter Anne and the vast Beauchamp/Neville inheritance was now part of his family's estates. For Edward, this would be the last time he would deal with Lancastrian forces, he was dead by the time they reappeared, but in the meantime Jasper Tudor had whisked the teenage Henry Tudor over to Brittany, the Earl of Oxford who had beaten Hastings forces at Barnet was hiding among the Scots.

Between them, these three men would see the end of the mighty Plantagenet dynasty and replace it with the name of Tudor.

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Coronation of Elizabeth Woodville

First Battle of St Albans

First Battle of St Albans

22nd May 1455

Death of Henry VI and The Ceremony of the Lilies and of the Roses.

Birth of Cecily Neville and Margaret of York

Battle of Tewkesbury

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