Following his father’s execution, Richard was made a royal ward and placed initially in the charge of Sir Robert Waterton, ‘the Lancastrians’ leading gaoler’.12 In 1422, soon after the death of Henry V in France, Richard’s wardship and marriage were sold to a trusted Lancastrian, Ralph Neville, Earl of Westmorland, whose second wife, Joan Beaufort, was half-sister to Henry IV – the founder of the Lancastrian dynasty. We shall have more to say about the Beaufort relatives of the House of Lancaster presently. Richard’s wardship and marriage were costly acquisitions for Ralph Neville, but the little boy was a wealthy heir, offering good prospects of future profit. To ensure that the benefits of this inheritance accrued to Neville descendants, Richard was married to Ralph Neville’s youngest daughter, Cecily, in 1424.13 Subsequently, when his last surviving uncle, Edmund Mortimer, died childless, on 18 January 1424/5,14 the young Duke of York inherited the latter’s property and claim to the throne, making him an even more interesting candidate than he had been previously for the hand of his guardian’s daughter.
When Ralph Neville died in 1425, the wardship of the young Duke of York was inherited by his widow, Joan Beaufort, youngest daughter of John of Gaunt, and half-sister of the dead King Henry IV. Through Joan, Richard’s bride was also his second cousin, and shared his descent from Edward III (see pp.208–9).
The potential clash between the Lancastrian claim to the throne of the reigning dynasty in the first half of the fifteenth century, and the Clarence/Mortimer/Yorkist claim to the throne of the young Richard, Duke of York was only part of the national conflict that affected England from the 1430s. There was another aspect to the dynastic conflict, which is often overlooked, but which was very significant. Indeed, in the long run, it was to prove of prime importance. This second dynastic conflict embroiled the heirs of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster.
As we have already seen, John of Gaunt’s son by his first wife, Blanche of Lancaster, had assumed the crown in 1399 as King Henry IV. Henry’s publicly expressed claim to the throne was not based on his paternal descent but his maternal descent. When Henry IV died in 1413 this claim passed to his sons: Henry V (d. 1422), Thomas, Duke of Clarence (d. 1421), John, Duke of Bedford (d. 1435) and Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester (d. 1447). On the death of Henry V, leaving an infant son to succeed him, the most important of his brothers proved to be the Duke of Gloucester. Though not the most senior brother, Gloucester was assigned the office of Protector of England by the will of Henry V. However, this king’s bequest was complicated by the fact that Henry V’s will had also created a council comprising the Dukes of Bedford, Gloucester and Exeter and the Bishop of Winchester, while the Duke of Exeter (Thomas Beaufort) had been given the personal guardianship of the young king. The council, the last two members of which were Beauforts (see below), was not inclined to allow Gloucester to wield unimpeded power as regent. The result was continuous wrangling between the council and the protector, a ‘blunt if fatuous soldier … [and] an ambitious politician’.15
Unlike Henry V, Henry IV had no brothers. But he had several half-brothers – sons of John of Gaunt by his third wife and former mistress, Catherine de Roët. These were John Beaufort, Earl of Somerset, Henry Beaufort, Cardinal Bishop of Winchester and Thomas Beaufort, Duke of Exeter. Their sister was Joan Beaufort, Countess of Westmorland – the mother of Cecily Neville. Originally born as bastards, the Beauforts had been declared legitimate by King Richard II, and subsequently also by Henry IV himself.16 However, the latter had specifically ruled that they had no right of succession to the throne. Indeed, since these half-siblings did not share Henry IV’s mother, strictly speaking they were incapable of inheriting his officially asserted Lancastrian claim to the throne, which depended upon the fact that Henry IV was the son of Blanche of Lancaster. Initially, although this may have rankled a little with the Beauforts, it was probably considered of small significance, given the number of Henry IV’s living sons. Later, however, as all but one of Henry IV’s sons died without leaving legitimate heirs, the Beaufort exclusion came to seem much more important. The effective leader of the Beaufort family was Henry Beaufort, Cardinal Bishop of Winchester, Chancellor of England and a very canny financier to whom the crown eventually found itself owing thousands of pounds.
After the death of John, Duke of Bedford in 1435, the only living Lancastrian male heirs were the young King Henry VI and his uncle, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester. A rivalry for power had grown up between the Duke of Gloucester and his half-uncle, the Bishop of Winchester. Amongst his many ambitions,17 the bishop wished to advance the prospects of his own Beaufort family. In particular, he sponsored his nephew, Edmund Beaufort (later 2nd Duke of Somerset). Edmund had earlier – and with considerable success – paid court to Catherine of France, the widow of Henry V and mother of Henry VI. In fact, he had aspired to marry the young queen mother. In this aim he had been supported in Parliament by his uncle the bishop. Edmund’s high aspirations had ultimately been thwarted by the legitimate Lancastrian princes. Nevertheless, his relationship with the queen mother had lasting consequences, which we shall explore later.
Of course, the legitimate heirs to the throne of the childless young Henry VI were not the Beauforts, but the young king’s surviving uncles. After them, in terms of blood right, the direct Lancastrian heir was the senior living descendant of the elder of Henry IV’s two sisters – Philippa of Lancaster, Queen of Portugal. Initially, this would have been Philippa’s son King Edward (Duarte) of Portugal (d. 1438). After 1438, Philippa’s grandson King Alfonso V was the rightful claimant. The Portuguese royal family was certainly aware of its Lancastrian claim, and Philippa’s daughter Isabel of Portugal, Duchess of Burgundy, later asserted her own claim to the English throne, as did her son, Charles the Bold.
An alternative to the Portuguese and Burgundian descendants of Philippa of Lancaster was provided by Henry IV’s younger sister, Elizabeth of Lancaster, and the advantage of her line of descent was that it had remained in England.18 Until his death in 1447, the Lancastrian claimant in this line was Elizabeth’s son, John Holland, 2nd (or 1st) Duke of Exeter19 – the first cousin of Henry V and his brothers. When he died, his claim passed to his son, Henry Holland, 3rd Duke of Exeter (died 1475) who was married to the Duke of York’s eldest daughter, Anne. However, Henry Holland has been described as ‘cruel, savagely temperamental and unpredictable’.20 As a result, he was unpopular and enjoyed little support as a potential heir to the throne.
Even in the eyes of those who accepted the Lancastrian dynasty, after Henry V’s brothers, the Duke of York was a strong contender as heir to the throne. By the reign of Henry VI the original Lancastrian female-line claim, based on the concept of the usurpation of Edward I, Edward II, Edward III and Richard II, seems generally to have been forgotten. Thus there is no indication that Henry VI seriously considered either Henry Holland or the King of Portugal as his heir. His mind (such as it was) focused rather on the rival claims of the Dukes of York and Somerset. If male-line descent was given precedence – and given Henry IV’s exclusion of the Beauforts – then logically, after Henry V’s brothers, Duke Richard of York was the heir presumptive. Influenced, however, by his Beaufort great-uncle, the Bishop of Winchester, Henry VI looked askance upon the claims of the Duke of York, preferring the claims of his closer, legitimised Beaufort relations as the Lancastrian heirs. Thus Henry VI’s government took a somewhat equivocal view of the Duke of York. Nevertheless, Richard spent much of the 1430s fighting in France on Henry VI’s behalf.
It is not clear how close Richard’s union with Cecily Neville was at first, because although the couple probably married in 1424 no child seems to have been conceived by Cecily until 1438.21 Friar Osberne Bokenham characterised this childlessness as ‘barrenness’ in his poem,22 but in those days this was the standard male reaction to any lack of children. We have no way of knowing when Richard consummated the marriage. It was normal at that period for marriages of minors not to be consummated until the female partner (Cecily in this ca
se) had reached the age of either 14 or 16 (accounts vary).23 Cecily would have reached the age of 14 in 1429, and ‘there are indications (such as the indult to have their own altar) that Richard and Cecily shared a common household by the late summer of 1429’.24 But Cecily would not have been 16 until 1431. Richard’s employment in France may also help to explain why about seven more years then elapsed before a child was in prospect. In spite of their early lack of children, all the surviving circumstantial evidence strongly suggests that the union of Richard and Cecily was a close one, and that their marriage was very successful.
In the 1430s, Richard may have left Cecily in England while he was serving in France. By the 1440s, however, she seems to have accompanied him more or less everywhere as a matter of course. Between 1439 and 1449 the couple had, on average, a child a year. In 1445 (by which time the couple had four living children – two sons and two daughters) the English government initiated negotiations for a marriage between the Yorks’ eldest surviving son, Edward, and one of the daughters of the increasingly victorious Charles VII of France. Charles VII’s then available daughters were Yolande (b. 1434) and Joan (b. 1435).25 Who was the intended bride, and how far the French marriage negotiations progressed, is not clear, but both of Charles VII’s daughters subsequently found other husbands, and of course, young Edward – the future Edward IV – later found other wives.
The heirs of John of Gaunt in the 1430s (simplified).
In 1445 Richard and Cecily left France and returned to England where, from 1446 to 1448, Richard regularly attended Council meetings. In fact, in October 1446 he was granted the abbey and town of Waltham because of his frequent need to be in or near London on the king’s business. Richard had already been using the guesthouse at Waltham Abbey as his pied-à-terre for some time. The Yorks’ next child, Margaret (the future Duchess of Burgundy) was born at Waltham Abbey.26
Given the childlessness of King Henry VI, until 1446/7 his uncle, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, was the heir presumptive to the English throne. Following Humphrey’s death on 23 February 1446/7, York arguably succeeded him as heir presumptive.27 As we have seen, however, influenced by the opinions of the late Cardinal Beaufort, Henry VI himself, or perhaps his queen, was unhappy about this. The king or queen would have preferred the claims of Henry’s cousin, Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset. But Somerset was the head of the legitimised (but originally bastard) Beaufort line – a family which Henry IV, founder of the royal House of Lancaster, had explicitly debarred from ever claiming the throne.28
The death of the Duke of Gloucester pushed the rivalry between the Duke of York and the Duke of Somerset to the forefront of the political scene. This rivalry was scheduled to remain high on the agenda for as long as both candidates were alive. Moreover, it was exacerbated by the mutual personal dislike and hostility which the two rival cousins, York and Somerset, seem to have felt for one another. In the eyes of the queen and the Duke of Somerset, it was essential to remove York from the scene. But ‘what could the Beaufort party do with so important a figure? He could not be murdered or attainted, for civil war had not yet begun. He was therefore appointed King’s Lieutenant in Ireland. The pretext was that Ireland was in rebellion and a vigorous governor was needed’.29 Richard, Duke of York was given the appointment of Lieutenant of Ireland on 30 July 1447.
He was to hold office for ten years from 29 September 1447 [Michaelmas], with a salary of 4,000 marks for the first year and thereafter £2,000 per annum. In addition, all surplus revenues of the Irish exchequer were to be his, all Irish offices were in his gift, providing such appointments passed under the great seal of England, and the costs of his shipping were to be borne by the English exchequer.30
NOTES
1. C. Given-Wilson, ed., Parliamentary Rolls of Mediaeval England vol. 3 (Woodbridge, 2005), pp.422–3.
2. Henry III was the last reigning English king from whom Henry IV was descended on his mother’s side, via Edmund Crouchback and the earls of Lancaster. For a more specific Lancastrian statement of this claim, see below.
3. The name ‘Wars of the Roses’ appears to be a nineteenth-century invention. It was certainly not used at the time of the conflict. There is no doubt that members of the Plantagenet family used roses of various hues as personal emblems over a long period of time, nor that members of the House of York in the fifteenth century used the white rose as a badge. Evidence for the so-called ‘red rose of Lancaster’ prior to the reign of Henry VII (‘Tudor’) is, however, hard to find. If it existed, the red rose may well have been a Beaufort badge (as portrayed by Shakespeare). See J. Ashdown-Hill, ‘The Red Rose of Lancaster?’, Ric. 10 (June 1996), pp.406–20.
4. DNB, vol. 29, p.425.
5. M. Clive, This Sun of York (London, 1973), p.xx.
6. G. E. Cockayne, The Complete Peerage vol. 7 (London, 1896), p.378, note b.
7. J. Ashdown-Hill, ‘The Lancastrian Claim to the Throne’, Ric. 13 (2003), pp.27–38. See also F. S. Haydon, ed., Eulogium (Historiarum sive Temporis) Rolls Series vol. 3 (1863), pp.369–70. I am grateful to Annette Carson for this reference – and others marked [AC].
8. Adam of Usk, in A. R. Myers, ed., English Historical Documents vol. 4 (London, 1969), p.180.
9. Son of Roger, Earl of March, and brother of Anne Mortimer. Edmund Mortimer ultimately died childless, leaving Richard Duke of York as his heir.
10. There had been earlier attempts to oust Henry IV, but these had not been in favour of the Clarence line descendants.
11. He lost this record in 1474 to his grandson, Richard of Shrewsbury.
12. ODNB, ‘Richard of York, Third Duke of York’. Available at http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/23503?docPos=2 (consulted November 2012).
13. In personal communication, Marie Barnfield stated: ‘Cecily is apparently referred to as Duchess of York in her father’s will, made in 1424, which suggests that she and Duke Richard had contracted an actual child marriage’.
14. At this time, the English calendar year began on 25 March (Lady Day) – so that what in modern terms would be called January 1425 (the first month of that year) was at the time regarded as January 1424 (the antepenultimate month of the previous year).
15. V. H. H. Green, The Later Plantagenets (London, 1955, 1956), p.298.
16. It is sometimes stated that the Beauforts were also legitimised by the pope, but it is unclear what evidence exists to support this claim. I am grateful to Marie Barnfield for drawing my attention to this point – and others marked [MB].
17. His ambitions included the papacy.
18. Foreign birth was widely perceived in England as more or less the equivalent of bastardy. In fact, it led to allegations of bastardy against John of Gaunt – and later against Edward IV. See below.
19. For the enumeration of the Holland Dukes of Exeter see below, chapter 2, note 8.
20. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Holland,_3rd_Duke_of_Exeter (consulted March 2013).
21. See Appendix 1.
22. See page 5.
23. According to Barbara Harris, ‘Sixteen was the normal age for the consummation of a marriage in which one (or both) of the contracting parties had been a minor’ (B. J. Harris, English Aristocratic Women, 1450–1550 (Oxford, 2002), p.45). On the other hand, in a personal communication with the present writer, Marie Barnfield suggested that 14 was an acceptable age for the bride. Possibly the groom was expected to be at least 16.
24. Personal communication from Marie Barnfield.
25. Their two surviving elder sisters were already married.
26. See Appendix 1.
27. Humphrey left no legitimate children.
28. The exemplification of Henry IV, 1407, states: ‘… excepta dignitate regali …’.
29. E. Curtis, ‘Richard Duke of York as Viceroy of Ireland, 1447–1460; With Unpublished Materials for his Relations with Native Chiefs’, The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, Seventh Series, vol. 2, no. 2 (Dec. 31, 1932), p.160.
30. P.
A. Johnson, Duke Richard of York 1411–1460 (Oxford, 1988), pp.69–70.
IRISH BEGINNINGS
Despite receiving the appointment of King’s Lieutenant in Ireland in 1447, Richard did not actually travel to Ireland for almost two years. He had been empowered to appoint a deputy, a post to which he appointed his namesake, Richard Nugent, Baron Devlin.
From what happened later, we can assume that on some winter’s night in late January or early February 1449, Richard lay in bed with his wife, Cecily, and the couple made love. Judging from the number of their offspring and their tendency to spend time together – and their apparent predilection for doing so – this was probably not an unusual occurrence. Indeed, both the duke and the duchess may afterwards have been hard put to it to recall the precise date. But since Richard seems to have been in Rouen during the month of February 1449, the scene may well have been set in France. Wherever it took place, their act of love on this occasion had consequences. Five months later, in June 1449, when the duke once again left England – this time to personally take up his post in Ireland – his young duchess, who once again accompanied him, was pregnant. A month previously she had celebrated her thirty-fourth birthday.
The Duke of York’s government appointment in Ireland was not a compliment. Contemporaries described it as an exile or banishment,1 and it compared poorly with the command of France which had been taken from him and bestowed instead upon his rival the Duke of Somerset.2 York had inherited lands in Ireland from his Mortimer ancestors. Indeed, the last two Mortimer Earls of March had died there,3 and Queen Margaret and her coterie may well have hoped that York – the latest Mortimer heir – would follow their example. Attempts were made to prevent him from ever arriving in Dublin. ‘Royal commands were dispatched to Cheshire, to the Welsh Marches and the seaports in Wales that the Duke was not to reach his destination. Among those sent to waylay him was Sir Thomas Stanley, of an old Cheshire family, whose sons would repeat the act against York’s sons’.4 Fortunately, however, York was well armed and well attended and he evaded his enemies.
The Third Plantagenet: George, Duke of Clarence, Richard III's Brother Page 2
