by Dan Jones
10 We would now call this the ‘structural deficit’. PROME November 1449, item 53
11 A crude modern conversion of Richard’s debts owed by the Crown would be £10 million. Again, this does no justice to the scale of the financial obligation.
12 In 1345 Edward III owed Italian merchants and bankers alone the equivalent of £400,000 – perhaps £262,000,000 in 2005 prices. Cf. E. Russell, ‘The Societies of the Bardi and the Peruzzi and Their Dealings with Edward III’ in G. Unwin (ed.), Finance and Trade under Edward III (Manchester, 1918), 93–135
13 ‘A Warning to King Henry’ in T. Wright, Political Poems and Songs Relating to English History (1859–61), II 229–31
14 PROME November 1449, item 15
15 Watts, Henry VI, 244–5
16 PROME November 1449, appendix 1
17 Ibid., item 49
18 Ibid., items 50–2
19 Frammesley was executed after a trial before the court of King’s Bench. R. Virgoe, ‘The Death of William de la Pole, Duke of Suffolk’ in Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 47 (1965), 491 n. 3
20 Paston Letters, II 146–7; Brut, II 516; Virgoe, ‘Death of William de la Pole’, 494, 501
21 M. Bohna, ‘Armed Force and Civic Legitimacy in Jack Cade’s Revolt, 1450’ in EHR 118 (2003), 573–4. For the course of Cade’s rebellion and discussions of its causes, see also Griffiths, Henry VI, 610–65, and I. Harvey, Jack Cade’s Rebellion of 1450 (Oxford, 1991).
22 Magdalen College, Oxford, Charter Misc. 306, reprinted in Robbins (ed.), Historical Poems, 63, and with slight variation in C. L. Kingsford, Historical Literature in the Fifteenth Century (Oxford, 1913), 359
23 Stow published this in his Annals: it is partly reproduced and summarised in S. B. Chrimes and A. L. Brown, Select Documents of English Constitutional History 1307–1485 (London, 1961), 290–1
24 Kingsford, Chronicles of London, 162
8 : THEN BRING IN THE DUKE OF YORK
1 Bill of the duke of York, reprinted in R. A. Griffiths, ‘Duke Richard of York’s Intentions in 1450 and the Origins of the Wars of the Roses’ in Journal of Medieval History 1 (1975). ‘Worschip’, i.e. worship, may be loosely likened to the modern concept of ‘respect’ – which was due to a man of great birth and status.
2 Griffiths believes, in ibid. and ‘Richard Duke of York and the Royal Household in Wales in 1449–50’ in Welsh History Review 8 ( 1976–7), that York did in fact disembark at Beaumaris. Cf. Johnson, Duke Richard of York, 78: ‘It is doubtful whether York managed a landing.’ York’s own bill to Henry VI states that his ‘proposid’ arrival was ‘stoppid and forebarred’. This – and the fact that York included this complaint in his bill at all – implies strongly that the attempt to prevent his initial landing at Beaumaris was successful.
3 ‘John Piggot’s Memoranda’ in Kingsford, English Historical Literature, 372
4 HMC Eighth Report, 266–7, reprinted in modern English in EHD 4, 265–7
5 Ibid.
6 Ibid., 371
7 Carpenter, Wars of the Roses, 102
8 For an argument in favour of York’s dynastic motivation see Griffiths, ‘The Sense of Dynasty in the Reign of Henry VI’. But York’s dynastic arguments in the context of the 1460s were made out of desperation (see pp. 182–3), in circumstances far removed from those of September 1450.
9 York’s first petition to Henry VI, printed in Griffiths, ‘Duke Richard of York’s Intentions’, 300
10 See Johnson, Duke Richard of York, 84–5
11 Ibid., 301–4
12 For a sympathetic view of Somerset’s conduct in France, see M. K. Jones, ‘York, Somerset and the Wars of the Roses’ in EHR 104 (1989)
13 PROME November 1450, item 1
14 ‘Bale’s Chronicle’ in R. Flenley (ed.), Six Town Chronicles of England (Oxford, 1911), 137
15 Kingsford, Chronicles of London, 162
16 York had attempted, without royal licence, to settle the Courtenay–Bonville dispute himself earlier in September 1451. For a full account of the dispute, see M. Cherry, ‘The Struggle for Power in Mid-Fifteenth-Century Devonshire’ in R. A. Griffiths (ed.), Patronage, the Crown and the Provinces in Later Medieval England (New Jersey, 1981).
17 ‘Colleges: St Martin le Grand’ in W. Page (ed.), A History of the County of London (London, 1909), I 555–66
18 A. Kempe, Historical Notices of St Martin-le-Grand (London, 1825), 141
19 Paston Letters, I 97–8
20 Ibid., 103–8
21 Kingsford, Chronicles of London, 163. Several more chronicles carry similar versions of this story. For a persuasive argument against believing this popular vignette, see Johnson, Duke Richard of York, 112.
22 Ibid., 101
9 : SMITTEN WITH A FRENZY
1 ‘Bale’s Chronicle’ in Flenley (ed.), Six Town Chronicles, 140; Kingsford, Chronicles of London, 163. In modern terms Henry’s illness might be characterised as a severe, catatonic episode of either depression or schizophrenia, but medical diagnosis is impossible and essentially futile at such a distance. For a recent discussion of Henry’s illness with reference to modern diagnostics, see N. Bark, ‘Did Schizophrenia Change the Course of English History?’ in Medical Hypotheses 59 (2002), 416–21, although note that the author’s interpretation of the historical course of Henry’s reign prior to 1453 differs sharply from that presented here. For Henry’s illness in context of his times and his family history, see B. Clarke, Mental Disorder in Earlier Britain (Cardiff, 1975), passim but especially 176–206.
2 ‘Bale’s Chronicle’, 140
3 The other godparents were Cardinal Archbishop Kemp of Canterbury and Anne duchess of Buckingham.
4 POPC VI 163–4
5 Council minutes transcribed in R. A. Griffiths, ‘The King’s Council and York’s First Protectorate’, EHR 94 (1984)
6 Newsletter of John Stodeley in Paston Letters, I 295
7 For a full discussion see H. Castor, She-Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England before Elizabeth (London, 2010), 339–43
8 PROME March 1453, item 32
9 Watts, Henry VI, 310 n. 220
10 Stodeley in Paston Letters, I 299
11 Paston Letters, III 13
12 PROME July 1455, item 18
13 Watts gives the Leicester meeting the pleasing title of a ‘pseudo-parliament’: Watts, Henry VI, 314
14 C. J. Armstrong, ‘Politics and the Battle of St Albans 1455’ in Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research 33 (1960), 13–14. This remains the authoritative account of the first battle of St Albans, and much of the account here follows its arguments.
15 Letter to the townsmen of Coventry, quoted in ibid., 12
16 Paston Letters, III 25
17 For Clifford’s conduct, ibid. and M. Kekewich et al. (eds), The Politics of Fifteenth-Century England – John Vale’s Book (Stroud, 1996), 192
18 Paston Letters, III 27
19 Blacman, 40
20 MS Gough London in Flenley (ed.), Six Town Chronicles, 158
21 ‘Bale’s Chronicle’ in ibid., 142
22 Gregory’s Chronicle, 198
23 CSP Milan, I 16–17
III The Hollow Crown
1 CSP Milan I, 1471 item 227
10 : PRINCESS MOST EXCELLENT
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 He
ritage 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.
11 : SUDDENLY FELL DOWN THE CROWN
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
12 : HAVOC
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
13 : THE NOBLE AND THE LOWLY
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 c
apable 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
14 : DIVERSE TIMES
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
