The Hollow Crown: The Wars of the Roses and the Rise of the Tudors (41 page)
1
CSP Milan I, 1471 item 227
1
Victoria County History
, ‘Warwickshire’, VIII 418–27
2
Pius II, quoted in P. Lee, ‘Reflections of Power: Margaret of Anjou and the Dark Side of Queenship’ in
Renaissance Quarterly
39 (1986), 197
3
M. Harris (ed. and trans.),
The Coventry Leet Book, or Mayor’s Register
(New York, 1971), I–II 287–92
4
Robbins (ed.),
Historical Poems
, 190
5
The correspondent was John Bocking;
Paston Letters
, III 75
6
Brut
, II 526; Davies,
English Chronicle
, 79
7
Brut
, II 525
8
Ibid.
9
MS Gough London in Flenley (ed.),
Six Town Chronicles
, 160;
Paston Letters
, III 130
10
Davies,
English Chronicle
, 80
11
English Heritage Battlefield Report: Blore Heath
(English Heritage, 1995), 8–9
12
Griffiths,
Henry VI,
821
13
The letter is preserved in Davies,
English Chronicle
, 81–3
14
Ibid., 83
15
Brut
, II 527
16
Gregory’s Chronicle
, 206
17
Davies,
English Chronicle
, 83, also records that the duchess of Yorke ‘unmanly and cruelly was entreted and spoyled’. It has been suggested – most recently in P. Langley and M. Jones,
The King’s Grave: The Search for Richard III
(London, 2013), 73, 235 – that this reference indicates Duchess Cecily was raped at Ludlow in full sight of her children: this is a rather sensational interpretation of the evidence.
1
Davies,
English Chronicle
, 83. On Warwick and Calais see S. Rose,
Calais: An English Town in France 1347–1558
(Woodbridge, 2008), 81–3, also Richmond, ‘The Earl of Warwick’s Domination of the Channel’, passim
2
PROME November 1459, items 7–25
3
G. Harriss and M. Harriss (eds),
John Benet’s Chronicle for the Years 1400 to 1462
(Camden Miscellany 44, 1972), 224
4
Davies,
English Chronicle
, 86–90
5
Ibid., 97
6
CPR Henry VI 1452–61, 542
7
H. Stanford London,
Royal Beasts
(East Knoyle, 1956), 22–3. It is also important to note that the falcon and fetterlock had explicitly ‘Lancastrian’ connections. The diametric, ‘Tudor’ view of the whole fifteenth century as a feud between rival houses is not sufficient to explain Richard duke of York’s motives at this stage.
8
Gregory’s Chronicle
, 208
9
Official papers and letters were usually dated from the accession of whichever king was reigning. To renounce this practice implicitly rejected the authority of the sovereign.
10
Letter to John Tiptoft, earl of Worcester, transcribed in Johnson,
Duke Richard of York
, 213–14
11
Ibid.
12
PROME October 1460, item 11. This is the first recorded use in the fifteenth century of the dynastic sobriquet ‘Plantagenet’, used thereafter and now to describe all the royal descendants of Geoffrey ‘Plantagenet’, count of Anjou, duke of Normandy and father of Henry II of England.
13
A successful precedent from the earliest Plantagenet history was the treaty of Wallingford of 1153, sealed between King Stephen and the future Henry II, by which Stephen’s son Eustace was disinherited in Henry’s favour: this ended the civil war known as the Anarchy.
14
CSP Milan I, item 27
15
Brut
, II 530
16
Gregory’s Chronicle
, 209
17
Letter reprinted in Kekewich et al.,
John Vale’s Book
, 142–3
18
Brut
, II 530
19
E. Hall,
Hall’s Chronicle containing the History of England during the Reign of Henry the Fourth and the Succeeding Monarchs to the End of the Reign of Henry the Eighth
(London, 1809), 250
20
This, at any rate, is the story that Edward Hall would record many years later – his version of events is typically colourful, but the source was Aspall himself. Hall,
Chronicle
, 250–1
21
CSP Venice I, item 92
1
Paston Letters
, III 250
2
This is now called a parhelion or ‘sun dog’, and is caused by the reflection of sunlight through ice crystals in the atmosphere. Hall,
Chronicle
, 251, gives the earliest link between this and Edward’s badge of the golden sun. But this may be a mistake: Stanford London,
Royal Beasts
, 30–1, argues that the ‘sun shining’ had been a royal symbol since at least the days of Richard II.
3
Gregory’s Chronicle
, 211
4
Ibid. The possible and quite plausible identification of the woman as Owen Tudor’s mistress and David Tudor’s mother is made in L. De Lisle,
Tudor: The Family Story
(London, 2013), 25
5
The letter was sent on 11 January, on which day Warwick also dictated a letter to the warlike Francesco Sforza, duke of Milan. CSP Milan I, item 55
6
Ibid. item 63
7
Ibid., item 54
8
H. Riley (ed.),
Registrum Abbatiae Johannis Whethamstede
(London, 1872), 390–5
9
Ibid.
10
Ibid.
11
Brut
, II 531
12
The dating of March’s entry into London to 26 February 1461 and a discussion of the symbolism of his inauguration and coronation can be found in C. Armstrong, ‘The Inauguration Ceremonies of the Yorkist Kings and Their Title to the Throne’ in
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society
30 (1948), 55 n. 2 and passim
13
Gregory’s Chronicle
, 213
14
Kingsford,
Chronicles of London
, 173
15
MS Gough London in Flenley (ed.),
Six Town Chronicles
, 162
16
CCR 1461–8, 54–5
17
T. Stapleton (ed.),
Plumpton Correspondence
(London, 1834), 1
18
CCR 1461–8, 54–5
19
Pierpoint Morgan Library, New York, M 775 f. 122v, quoted at length in A. Boardman,
The Medieval Soldier in the Wars of the Roses
(Stroud, 1998), 126–7
20
Hall,
Chronicle
, 255. For once the notoriously inflated assessments of army sizes have the semblance of authenticity.
21
For this suggestion, G. Goodwin,
Fatal Colours: Towton 1461 – England’s Most Brutal Battle
(London, 2011), 157
22
Ibid., 165–6
23
CSP Milan I, item 78; CSP Venice I, item 371
1
C. Armstrong (ed. and trans.),
The Usurpation of Richard III: Dominicus Mancinus ad Angelum de occupatione regni Anglie per Ricardum tercium libellus
(2nd edn, 1969) (hereafter ‘Mancini’), 65
2
Mancini, 67;
Croyland Continuations
, 150–1
3
J. Halliwell (ed.),
A Chronicle of the First Thirteen Years of the Reign of King Edward the Fourth: by John Warkworth
(London, 1889) (hereafter ‘Warkworth’), 5
4
Reading Abbey had other royal connections, too: among the hundreds of relics kept by the abbey’s brothers was a portion of the arm-bone of St Edward the Martyr, the Saxon king who had been murdered at Corfe Castle in 978, while Henry II’s eldest but short-lived son William lay buried within the abbey.
Victoria County History
, ‘Berkshire’, II 62–73
5
Gregory’s Chronicle
, p. 226
6
Wavrin,
Chronicles and Ancient Histories of Great Britain
, III 184
7
This description is based on the most contemporary of those portraits that survive, held at Queens’ College, Cambridge, and Windsor. Clearly, as in all royal portraiture of the period, there is an element of idealism and fancy to these images, but perhaps less than there is in the manuscript illustrations of Elizabeth, which depict a blonde, pious generic queen in the guise of the Virgin Mary. For a guide to extant portraits, see D. MacGibbon,
Elizabeth Woodville (1437–1492): Her Life and Times
(London, 1938), appendix 1, 172–4
8
Paston Letters
, III 204–5
9
Warkworth, 3
10
See, for example, Mancini, 63
11
CSP Milan I, item 137
12
The only vaguely contemporary royal match to resemble that of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville was that between Edward ‘the Black Prince’ and his notorious, much-wedded cousin Joan of Kent, which took place in 1361, when Edward was heir to the crown (and referred to informally as ‘Edward IV’). Even in this case, however, Joan’s royal stock was impeccable: her grandfathers were Edward I of England and Philip III of France.
13
J. Gairdner (ed.),
Letters and Papers Illustrative of the Reigns of Richard III and Henry VII
(London, 1861), I 32
14
Croyland Continuations
, 115
15
Letter from Lord Wenlock dated 3 October 1464: see J. Lander, ‘Marriage and Politics: The Nevilles and the Wydevilles’ in
Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research
36 (1963) 133 n. 2(a) and C. Scofield,
The Life and Reign of Edward IV
(London, 1923), I 354 n. 3; CSP Milan I, items 137–8
16
A good historical comparison is Henry VIII’s second marriage, to Anne Boleyn – a match of shattering political significance brought about principally because of Henry’s romantic attachment and frustration. Edward IV was not, even at twenty-two, as selfish and self-centred an individual as Henry VIII, but he was certainly capable of viewing policy decisions through the lens of his own personal desires.
17
Gregory’s Chronicle
, 219
18
Paston Letters
, III 292
19
Ibid.
20
Amusing but fanciful sixteenth-century accounts of the royal courtship in Fabyan, More, Hall and others have found their way readily into modern histories, particularly MacGibbon,
Elizabeth Woodville
, 34–40, which on this matter reads more like fiction than history.
21
Carpenter,
Wars of the Roses
, 170
22
MacGibbon,
Elizabeth Woodville
, 46
23
Ibid., 48–51
24
Scofield,
Edward
IV, 380–4
25
Warkworth, 5
1
Philadelphia Free Library MS Lewis E 201– this can be viewed in high resolution online via
http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/digitalscriptorium/
. On the golden sun and its links to Richard II, see above, n. 11 to chapter 10. Other similar genealogies, although less spectacular, include BL Harley Roll C.9 Membrane 19; BL Harley 7353; BL Lansdowne 456.
2
Elizabeth de Burgh’s marriage to Lionel of Antwerp in 1352 had originally brought the honour of Ulster into the Plantagenet line. See A. Weir,
Elizabeth of York: The First Tudor Queen
(London, 2013), 14
3
M. Hicks,
Warwick the Kingmaker
(Oxford, 1998), 254
4
C. Ross,
Edward IV
(new edn, London and New Haven, 1997), appendix III, 437–8
5
Gregory’s Chronicle
, 237
6
Scofield,
Edward
IV
, 414–20
7
Hicks,
Warwick the Kingmaker
, 267
8
S. Bentley (ed.),
Excerpta Historica: or, Illustrations of English History
(1831), 227–8
9
Warkworth, 4
10
Stevenson (ed.),
Letters and Papers
, II, part 2, 783
11
Gregory’s Chronicle
, 237
12
Ibid.
13
Warkworth, 5
14
PROME June 1467, item 15
15
Croyland Continuations
, 132–3
16
Mancini, 63
17
Roughly £2,250,000
18
‘False, fleeting, perjured Clarence’, as Shakespeare would later have it (
Richard III
, I iv 52)
19
For this and a general discussion of the 1469 rebellions, including problems of evidence, see K. Dockray, ‘The Yorkshire Rebellions of 1469’, in
The Ricardian
82 (1983), passim
20
Warkworth, 6;
Croyland Continuations
, 445
21
Paston Letters
, V 35
22
The letter and manifesto are printed in the notes to Warkworth, 46–9
23
Croyland Continuations
, 446
24
Warkworth, 7
25
Ibid.