The Third Plantagenet: George, Duke of Clarence, Richard III's Brother

by John Ashdown-Hill

  No one ever really prepared George for the life he was expected to lead, or for the roles he was required to fulfil. He lacked the experience of working with an older role model which had benefited both his older and his younger brothers. We shall now trace in greater detail first his experience of exile in the Low Countries, and subsequently the sudden, shattering elevation which brought a still very young George into very close proximity to the throne, and also very much into the public eye.

  NOTES

  1. See, for example, http://onelovelivity.com/childofnatureblog/importance-of-doll-play-for-boys-and-girls/ (consulted February 2013).

  2. Margaret’s choice of her burial place is a case in point. Her request to be buried at the entrance to the choir of the Franciscan Priory Church of Mechelen very precisely paralleled Richard III’s burial location, just inside the entrance to the choir of the Franciscan Priory Church in Leicester. This can hardly have been coincidental.

  3. ODNB, A. Kincaid ‘Buck (Buc), Sir George’: ‘his great-grandfather John Buck supported Richard III at Bosworth and was executed and attainted after the battle’.

  4. Myers/Buck, p.7.

  5. Margery Jourdemayne, ‘the Witch of Eye’, was executed in 1441 for her alleged involvement with Eleanor Cobham, Duchess of Gloucester in necromancy against Henry VI. She had earlier warned Edmund Beaufort to ‘avoid the castle’.

  6. Henry VI was King of England from 1422 until 1461. He was then deposed by Edward IV. He reigned again briefly during the ‘Lancastrian Readeption’ (1470–71).

  7. The average age at which modern western women reach the menopause is 51, but in the third world the age is lower, as it was in Europe in the past. Aristotle, for example, cited the typical age as 40.

  8. H. T. Riley, ed., Ingulph’s Chronicle of the Abbey of Croyland (London, 1854), p.148, as cited in Kendall, Richard the Third, p.31.

  9. For her alleged attempt to replace Henry with Edward of Westminster and the talk of the latter’s illegitimacy, see ODNB, Margaret of Anjou.

  10. Kendall (Richard the Third, pp.439–40) contests this, while Wilkinson (Richard: The Young King to Be (Stroud, 2009), p.68) not only accepts that the Duchess of York and her younger children dwelt at a Kentish manor of the Buckinghams, but specifies their residence as Tonbridge Castle.

  11. Kendall, Richard the Third, p.440; J. S. Davies, ed., An English Chronicle of the Reigns of Richard II, Henry IV, Henry V and Henry VI (London, 1856), p.83.

  12. It is certainly on record that her husband wrote to Cecily ordering her to come and join him shortly afterwards (see below) though that letter does not survive.

  13. Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary – Monday 8 September 1460.

  14. Letters missing due to a hole in the paper.

  15. Letters missing, as above.

  16. 29 September.

  17. N. Davis, ed., Paston Letters and Papers of the Fifteenth Century vol. 2 (Oxford, 1976), p.216.

  18. ‘Fastolf Place’, former property of Sir John Fastolf, from whom the Pastons had inherited it. It stood close to the southern end of London Bridge – see below.

  19. See: https://scholarworks.iu.edu/dspace/bitstream/handle/2022/13031/11.02.26.html?sequence=1 (consulted Nov. 2012).

  20. The account states: ‘hys lady the duchyes met with hym in a chare y-coveryd with blewe felewette, and iiij pore coursserys ther-yn’. See: J. Gairdner, ed., The Historical Collections of a London Citizen in the Fifteenth Century (London, 1876), p.208.

  21. Ibid.

  22. Kendall assumes that York’s children witnessed his arrival in London, but there is no evidence to confirm this. See Kendall, Richard the Third, p.38.

  23. H. Cox, The Battle of Wakefield Revisited: A Fresh Perspective on Richard of York’s Final Battle, December 1460 (York: Herstory Writing & Interpretation/York Publishing Services, 2010), p.83 [AC].

  24. Kendall, Richard the Third, p.40.

  25. Weightman, Margaret of York, p.19, citing Great Chronicle, p.195; New Chronicles, p.639.

  26. There is no reason to suppose that George knew Dutch, which would have been the main language of the population in Utrecht. However, the Bishop of Utrecht, an illegitimate member of the Franco-Burgundian royal House of Valois, must have spoken French, and since Richard (and probably George) had been brought up by the York family’s Norman nurse, Anne of Caux, they may well have had some knowledge of that language. Edward IV could speak (or at least write) French.

  LIFE IN THE LOW COUNTRIES

  Modern writers on the subject of what the death of a parent can mean for a surviving child may perhaps be able to help us begin to understand a little better certain features of the character of George, Duke of Clarence:

  The death of a parent is the most elemental loss that a child can experience … The age and stage of development of a child at the time of his or her parent’s death will strongly influence the ways in which the child reacts and adapts to the loss … Childhood grief and development are interdependent: the early death of a parent affects a child’s development, and the child’s development affects how he or she will grieve and reconstruct his or her relationship with the deceased parent.1

  It is hard to know precisely the nature of the relationships between the Duke and Duchess of York and their children. Yet it is clear that subsequently some members of the family were close. This is shown by the concern of Cecily and her daughters to end the conflict between George and Edward in 1470–71. It is also interesting that, even in the reign of Henry VII, Edward IV’s daughter, Elizabeth of York, seems to have remained close to her aunt and namesake, the Duchess of Suffolk, despite the fact that the duchess’ sons were leading rebellions against the new regime.

  George, of course, was by no means an adult when the Duke of York was killed. He was 11 years old. The capacity of a child to comprehend what death means, and that it is irreversible, depends on his or her age and level of cognitive development at the time the death occurs. Children under the age of 5 or 6, in what is known as the pre-operational phase of development, are generally unable to comprehend that the dead person will not come back. On the other hand, those entering their teens are usually old enough to understand that death is final, and that death is inevitable at some stage in every human life. But a child between about 5 or 6 and about 10 or 11 is in what is called the concrete operational phase of cognitive development:2

  A child in this egocentric phase also believes that his or her parent died because either the parent was bad or the child was bad, and that if the child is good, the parent can return. This is thus seen as one of the most vulnerable and difficult developmental stages for adjusting to a parent’s death. The child at this stage needs someone who can clarify what the child is thinking and feeling, can reframe events to make them more understandable, can reassure and build self-esteem by praising the child’s accomplishments and by emphasizing the child’s importance.3

  George’s reaction to his father’s sudden and shocking death was perhaps that of a particularly egocentric pre-teen, hovering a little between the two stages of development. Yet, instead of receiving help and comfort from his mother, he suddenly found himself sent away from his home and family. A child in this phase might well suffer a loss of self-esteem. Were George’s subsequent displays of lèse-majesté a kind of compensation technique?

  The manner and context of his father’s death could have greatly increased George’s sense of trauma. Significant factors included:

  The violent nature of the duke’s death

  The fact that it was accompanied by the deaths of three other close relatives, all at the hands of family enemies

  His mother’s response to the bereavement

  His mother’s response took the form of the belief that George and Richard were now themselves in grave danger and the drastic decision that they had to be rushed away from their family and their homeland, hustled onto a ship in the middle of winter and in bad weather and sent to a strange country where they knew no one and f
aced communication problems.

  George is unlikely to have seen his exile as a punishment inflicted on him by his mother, but he may have perceived it as divine punishment. The experience may also have robbed him completely of his sense of security, creating a huge gulf between the settled world of his childhood and the rest of his life.

  In the final analysis, however, the immediate experience must be coupled with the fact that George subsequently emerged from the frightening drama completely unscathed. He experienced a sudden recall to home and family. His own childhood sense of self-importance was then confirmed and reinforced by his unexpected promotion to an astronomically high position for which he had not been prepared. Did the fact that he had come through the trauma of his father’s death and its sequels unscathed and promoted give George a sense of invulnerability? And was that the reason for his arrogant conduct when he subsequently experienced a humiliating demotion from the very high rank to which he had been elevated? Significantly, the demotion which George suffered was, in effect, caused by his elder brother – a man to whom he probably felt no close personal ties (because they had spent very little time together while George was growing up) and whom – on the relatively rare occasions when they had met during his childhood – George had probably perceived more as a powerful potential rival than as a friend and ally.

  While the psychological trauma caused by the death of his father, together with its sequels, may in part have been responsible for the way in which George’s character subsequently developed, the Duke of York’s death may also have had physical consequences for George’s younger brother, Richard. Recent examination of his remains has shown that Richard suffered from late-onset curvature of the spine. His condition has been described as idiopathic scoliosis – a rather opaque term, since ‘idiopathic’ means ‘without known cause’.4 A tendency towards idiopathic scoliosis may be inherited – particularly from the mother’s side – but usually there are also other factors.5 One possible cause of scoliosis is a physical trauma of some kind – such as a fall from a horse.6

  A Channel or North Sea crossing7 in a small sailing boat in the middle of a late medieval winter cannot have been the most comfortable of experiences. Winter was reportedly colder in fifteenth-century Europe than it is today, owing to the fact that Europe at this period was experiencing a climactic phenomenon known as the ‘little ice age’.8 At about this time, the English coast certainly suffered sometimes from the high seas.9 Modern calculations based on the recorded date of the Pinot Noir grape harvest in Burgundy indicate that the weather in France had been cold during the summer and autumn of 1459, though in 1460 the temperature was probably about average for the fifteenth century.10 Nevertheless, contemporary sources also show that the weather in England during 1460 had been the worst for about a hundred years, with exceptionally heavy rainfall.11 Also, we know that there were strong winds and a very heavy snowstorm in the north of England just a few weeks after George’s voyage across the Channel. This was on Palm Sunday – 29 March 1460 – at the Battle of Towton.12 In a letter from Brussels, written on 15 March, the Milanese ambassador, Prospero Camuglio, noted that ‘the sea between here and England has been stormy and unnavigable ever since the 10th’.13 The weather in the Channel had also been stormy in February. Francesco Coppino, Bishop of Terni and Apostolic Legate, reported that he had encountered ‘a violent storm’ while crossing from Tilbury to Holland, where he had arrived on 10 February.14 George, accompanied by his little brother, Richard, and by some of the family’s attendants,15 was also forced to make the crossing to the Low Countries early in February 1461.

  It is possible that stormy weather on this dangerous but unavoidable winter sea crossing, during which the two young princes of the House of York were under less adult observation and care than usual, caused the young Richard to have a bad fall which damaged his spine. The consequent herniation of one or more of his discs could then have induced the onset of his spinal twisting. This is, of course, speculation, but some such cause for Richard’s spinal curvature is a possibility. As far as we know, this was Richard’s first sea voyage. George had crossed the sea at least once before, but since his only recorded crossing – from Ireland to England – had taken place when he was barely a year old, sailing will probably have seemed like a new experience for him too.

  Seven years later, when his sister, Margaret, sailed to the Low Countries to marry Charles the Bold, she embarked at Margate, and her voyage lasted one and a half days. But she sailed in the month of June, when the weather would have been better. There is no record of the port from which George and Richard embarked in 1461, nor do we know exactly how long their journey took, the route they followed, where they landed or what the voyage was like.

  Large parts of the Low Countries at this time were ruled by Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, a prince of the blood royal of France and notionally a subject of the French king. However, the Duchy of Burgundy had traditionally taken an independent stance, and during the Hundred Years War had often sided with the King of England. As a result, the Burgundian court had enjoyed a close relationship with the House of Lancaster. Moreover, Philip the Good had married a Portuguese infanta, whose family – descended from one of Henry IV’s sisters – had a very strong claim to be the next true Lancastrian heirs to the English crown after Henry VI and Edward of Westminster. The son of this marriage, the future Duke of Burgundy Charles the Bold, was definitely Lancastrian in his leanings at this period, as well as in his genealogy. On the other hand, the exiled Dauphin Louis of France, who was also then living in Burgundy, favoured the Yorkist cause – mainly because his father, Charles VII, took the opposite view. Duke Philip himself sought to maintain a neutral middle position, between the opposing approaches of his son and the Dauphin.

  When news reached him that the late Duke of York’s two youngest sons had just landed in his dominions as exiles, his welcome was, therefore, less than effusive. In fact, strictly speaking, the boys’ presence in his territory could not be tolerated. Duke Philip had no wish to antagonise the Lancastrian government, which at that moment had, to all appearances, just convincingly smashed the cause of the Yorkist rebels and resoundingly reasserted its own authority. He therefore ordered that the two boys should be sent to Utrecht. This was a clever move on his part, because Utrecht did not constitute part of his duchy. It was a small, independent principality, ruled by its own prince-bishop, David of Burgundy, one of Duke Philip’s bastard sons.

  In Utrecht, George and Richard were placed in the care and custody of Prince-Bishop David of Burgundy. As was not unusual in the case of prince-bishops of Utrecht, David was at that moment embroiled in a dispute with his cathedral city. As a result, since 1459 he had actually been living not at the Bishop’s Palace in Utrecht itself, but at his castle of Wijk bij Duurstede. However, in February 1461, at Bishop David’s behest, major rebuilding work at the castle was in progress. It is not clear, therefore, where precisely he would have housed the two young York princes who had now been unexpectedly placed in his care, one of whom might possibly have been suffering from a back injury sustained on the voyage from England.

  David of Burgundy, Prince-Bishop of Utrecht, 1456–96 (redrawn by the author after a fifteenth-century portrait).

  A surviving letter from Prince-Bishop David, written to Edward IV in 1468, recalls that ‘I and my subjects have, as far as we were able, given hospitality to [your] famous brothers and moreover to merchants, subjects of your royal majesty, who betook themselves to our city of Utrecht and elsewhere in our lands for a while’.16 This suggests that both the city and the surrounding countryside were visited. Unfortunately, however, it does not make clear who stayed where. Perhaps the young princes stayed in the city, while visiting (or refugee) English merchants stayed in the surrounding countryside (or vice versa). It seems plausible, though, that the two boys did dwell in the city of Utrecht itself, rather than at the prince-bishop’s castle/building site. After all, they had no quarrel with the bishop’s opponents in the
city.

  Assuming that they did live in the city of Utrecht, the next logical deduction would be that the two young Yorkist princes probably resided at the now vanished but then vacant episcopal palace, which in the fifteenth century stood near the cathedral. This in turn would imply that although officially they were living in the bishop’s household, actually they did not spend a huge amount of time with their host in person, which would have allowed both the bishop and his father, the Duke of Burgundy, to publicly maintain a convenient distance from these potentially embarrassing Yorkist refugees. This might explain why later letters from the prince-bishop, referring to George and Richard, appear to reveal that Prince-Bishop David did not know (or remember) his two young charges very well. In one letter written in January 1469, for example, he refers to germane vestro Georgio Eboracensi duce illustrissimo (‘your brother the illustrious George, Duke of York’) while an accompanying note in the archives refers to duces klossestrie et Eboracensem (‘the Dukes of Gloucester and York’).17 It is curious that the bishop did not know George’s correct title – though of course in 1461, when he had been their host, neither George nor Richard held any noble title.

  Previous writers have assumed that George and Richard received some form of education while they were in Utrecht.18 This may be true, although no contemporary evidence survives to confirm the suggestion. The notion seems to have been put forward first in the seventeenth century by Sir George Buck, who stated that George and Richard were brought to ‘Utrich, the chiefe City then in Holland, where they had Princely and liberall education’.19 Buck’s account may be correct on this point, though his writing contains some errors, and must be treated with a degree of caution.20