NOTES
1. ODNB, ‘Anne Neville’.
2. Scofield, vol. 1, p.582.
3. ODNB, ‘Margaret of Anjou’; ‘Anne Neville’.
4. In Yorkist terms, the title had been forfeited by his elder brother, Henry (executed 1464).
5. Commynes, p.196.
6. Jean de Roye: y mourut et fut tué le dit prince de Gales, qui fut moult grand pitié, car it estoit beau jeune prince (de Roye, vol. 1, p.259).
7. Scofield, vol. 1, pp.586–7, citing Hist. MSS. Com., Report 12, app. 4, p.4 [AC].
8. Crowland, p.133.
9. Davis 1, p.447.
10. Barnfield, ‘Diriment Impediments’, p.92.
11. Sir John Paston II to John Paston III, London, 3 June 1473: Davis 1, p.464.
12. Sir John Paston II to John Paston III (recipient then in Norwich), 6 November 1473: Davis 1, p.468.
13. Sir John Paston I to John Paston II London, 22 November 1473: Davis 1, p.472.
14. J. E. Jackson, ‘The Execution of Ankarette Twynyho’, [published source unknown] 1890, [print-off in Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society Library], p.51.
15. Ibid.
16. The truth about the Earl of Warwick can be disputed (see below), but after George’s death he was officially made the ward of the Marquess of Dorset, who was Constable of the Tower. He was apparently liberated and promoted by Richard III. In 1485 Henry VII gave him over to the guardianship of his mother, Margaret Beaufort. Later he was reputedly returned to the Tower, where he remained until he died.
17. Commynes, p.258.
18. Commynes, p.257.
19. Jones, Bosworth 1485, p.83.This is part of Jones’ attempt to show that Edward IV was illegitimate, but his attempt does include errors: such as the statement that Edmund, Earl of Rutland was baptised with greater solemnity than Edward IV, although ‘it was highly unusual to accord the second son so much greater honour than the first’. In actual fact, the second son of the Duke and Duchess of York was not Edmund but Edward – and his older brother, Henry, may still have been living in 1442 – which could explain why Edward’s baptism was somewhat low-key. We only know that Henry had died by 1445.
20. E. Jenkins: ‘Of [York’s] four surviving sons … the first three had the Plantagenet looks; only Richard took after his father, with dark colouring and a small frame’ (The Princes in the Tower (London, 1978), p.11). What exactly constitutes ‘Plantagenet looks’ is not defined.
21. ‘Recollection of the Chronicles of England’, p.1, in H. N. Humphreys, The Illuminated Books of the Middle Ages. An Account of the Development and Progress of the Art of Illumination, as a Distinct Branch of Pictorial Ornamentation, from the IVth to the XVIIth Centuries (London: Longman, 1849).
22. ‘Knave’, pp.257–67.
23. While later copies of portraits of Edward IV often show a longer, aquiline nose, fifteenth-century and early sixteenth-century portraits depict a short retroussé nose. See, for example, the Paston portrait, the 1470s copperplate engraving of Edward (‘Knave’, p.290), and BL MS Royal 19 E v, fol. 367v. Sutton and Visser-Fuchs do not accept that the last of these depicts Edward IV, but the profile certainly resembles him, while the lady presenting him, traditionally thought to be his sister, Margaret, is wearing a jewelled marguerite on the side of her headdress.
24. Blunt, TA, pp.84–5. Blunt’s account is not always accurate. For example, he wrongly calculates the death date of George, and gives the wrong birth date for Richard (see below). Corrections have been inserted from Bodleian, MS. Top. Glouc. d. 2, Founders’ and benefectors’ book of Tewkesbury Abbey, fol. 39r & v.
25. PROME, citing PRO C49/39/5.
26. Hicks (FFPC, pp.124–5) suggests that the place change from Tewkesbury to Warwick was deliberate, to ensure that the trial was held in Warwick. This is possible, though Hicks’ assertion that Isabel had died in Tewkesbury is without basis.
27. Ibid.
28. FFPC, p.114.
29. C. Ross, Edward IV, p.187, n.3.
30. Joseph Strutt, 1773, as quoted in ‘Knave’, p.257.
31. Jackson, ‘The Execution of Ankarette Twynyho’, p.52.
32. FFPC, p.125.
33. I. S. Rogers, ‘Tocotes, Sir Roger’, www.girders.net/To/Tocotes,%20Sir%20Roger,%20(d.1492).doc (consulted June 2013).
34. Ibid.
35. Jackson, ‘The Execution of Ankarette Twynyho’, p.53.
36. FFPC, p.123.
37. Crowland, pp.143–5, my emphasis.
38. H. Ellis, ed., Original Letters Illustrative of English History vol. 1 (London, 1825), pp.16–17, citing Ms Cotton. Vesp. C. XVI, fol. 121.
THOMAS BURDET’S SECRETS
According to the traditional view of the situation, the downfall of the Duke of Clarence finally came about as a result of prophecies regarding the fate of Edward IV and his offspring, together with various allegations of black magic and of conspiracies to kill, which led to trials and executions preceding those of the duke himself. As we have seen, however, one of these trials and executions – Ankarette’s – was not directly linked to the other conspiracies, and there is no clear evidence to connect it with George’s downfall. Therefore, no more will be said about the story of Ankarette. The other aspects of the story of George’s downfall are, by themselves, sufficiently complex.
In the 1470s a noble lady in Warwickshire was suspected of having attempted to do away with her husband for selfish reasons. Two or three years later, details leaked out of an alleged conspiracy to oust the king. These two events and the links between them involved two Oxford academics: Dr John Stacy (also known as Stacey and Stace) and Thomas Blake, a Warwickshire esquire called Thomas Burdet (Burdett), and members of the noble Beauchamp family of Powick.
The story of the case against Burdet and Stacy is reported, briefly and in part, by the author of the Crowland Chronicle continuations. However, as we shall see, his report of the case is at best inaccurate, and at times possibly deliberately misleading. In the standard modern translation, the Crowland account reads as follows:
A certain Master John Stacey, called the Astronomer, though he had rather been a great necromancer, examined together with one Burdet, a squire in the duke [of Clarence]’s household, was accused, among many charges, of having made lead figures and other things to get rid of Richard, Lord Beauchamp, at the request of his adulterous wife and during a very sharp examination he was questioned about the use of such a damnable art; he confessed to many things both against himself and against the said Thomas [Burdet]. He and Thomas were therefore arrested together. Sentence of death was eventually passed upon them both in the King’s Bench at Westminster in the presence of almost all the lords temporal in the kingdom along with the justices. They were drawn to the gallows at Tyburn and permitted to say anything they wished, briefly, before they died; they declared their innocence, Stacey, indeed, faintly, but Burdet with great spirit and many words, as though, like Susanna, in the end he was saying ‘Behold I die, though I have done none of these things.’1
First, this account focuses solely on the alleged plot against Lord Beauchamp of Powick. It says not a word about the far more significant allegations of plots against the king and the Prince of Wales, which, as we know from other sources, were also brought against the accused. Why the Crowland author chose to suppress these more important accusations is a mystery. He can hardly have been ignorant of them. However, the fact remains that his account merely adds, in the vaguest possible way, that Stacy, when tortured, confessed to ‘many things’.
Second, the Beauchamp allegation, as related by the Crowland author, appears to be inaccurate. In April 1475 John, 1st Lord Beauchamp of Powick, died and was succeeded by his son, Richard, the 2nd Lord Beauchamp (c. 1435–1502/3). Richard’s wife had been Elizabeth Stafford, but she is reported to have died comparatively young, on 26 January 1466, more than nine years before Richard Beauchamp succeeded to his father’s title. She could therefore not have conspired in the 1470s with Stacy and others to bri
ng about her husband’s death. Was it perhaps the wife of John, 1st Lord Beauchamp, who was unfaithful to her husband, and who conspired to bring about his death? The fact that the 1st Lord Beauchamp did actually die in April 1475 makes this probable, since it would explain how the case against Lady Beauchamp came to light. The Lady Beauchamp in question would then have been Margaret (née Ferrars or Ferrers), who certainly outlived her husband, surviving until about January 1487.2
Whatever the true identity of the Beauchamp wife accused of plotting against her husband, the lady in question was reportedly a relative of Thomas Burdet, and it was by conspiring with Burdet – and through him, with John Stacy and Thomas Blake – that she sought to bring about the death of her husband by necromancy, using images made of lead.3 If the first Lady Beauchamp was the real accused, the plot may have been successful, since the 1st Lord Beauchamp died in the right period. According to detailed evidence of the chronology as subsequently recorded in respect of the trial, the plot against Lord Beauchamp was discussed by the relevant Lady Beauchamp with her relative, Thomas Burdet, prior to April 1474. On 20 April of that year, Thomas Burdet approached Stacy and Blake at Westminster, and drew them into the plot.4 The black arts were reportedly employed, and, either as a result of this sorcery or from natural causes, the 1st Lord Beauchamp duly died about a year later.
However, the plot against Lord Beauchamp did not immediately give rise to criminal prosecutions. It was not until 1477, two years later, that legal proceedings began. From the surviving accounts it is not clear what precisely brought this about. However, it seems possible, from the chronology, that the direct cause of the trial may have been other, quite separate actions on the part of Thomas Burdet. These comprised the publication and distribution in Holborn and Westminster of poems or ballads that challenged the right to the throne of Edward IV and his son by Elizabeth Woodville. Although Burdet’s verses have not been preserved, there is ample evidence that verses of this kind were circulated during the ‘Wars of the Roses’ for political ends.5 Suggestions as to the possible content of Burdet’s verses will be offered later. Their publication and distribution is dated to 6 March, and to 5 and 6 May 1477.6 At all events, in the spring of 1477 Dr John Stacy of Merton College, Oxford and his colleague Thomas Blake, chaplain of the same college, were both arrested for misuse of magic. Thomas Burdet was also arrested at about the same time.
John Stacy, a ‘gentilman’,7 originally of the diocese of Worcester, had obtained his bachelor’s degree in 1462 and his MA in 1467, by which time he was a fellow of Merton College. He was a nobilis astronomus (famous astronomer), a layman, and was married to a Mary or Marion, who came from London.8 Thomas Blake was more or less Stacy’s contemporary, but was reportedly a greater astronomer than Stacy.9 For reasons which will become clear later, it is perhaps worth mentioning at this point that Canon (later Bishop) Stillington, who had reportedly officiated at the marriage of Edward IV to Eleanor Talbot, was also an Oxford academic (albeit of Deep Hall and Lincoln College). Stillington is known to have maintained close links with his alma mater, and he may therefore have known Stacy and Blake. Rightly or wrongly, outsiders such as Edward IV, who later became aware of what Burdet, Stacy and Blake had allegedly been doing, may have considered this Oxford connection significant.
A bishop (from a fifteenth-century woodcut).
Questioned under torture, Stacy reportedly confessed to having also attempted to use the black arts to bring about the death of the king and his eldest son, and admitted casting their horoscopes to ascertain the likely dates of their deaths. Stacy’s confession also specifically implicated Thomas Burdet – then a member of the Duke of Clarence’s household, and also a relative of (?the dowager) Lady Beauchamp of Powick. We shall trace further details of Burdet’s background and history presently. However, the charges subsequently brought against Thomas Burdet in the trial were not merely that he had been involved in the activities of Dr John Stacey. He was also said to have incited rebellion against Edward IV by publishing and circulating treasonable writings aimed at dethroning the king and removing his eldest son from the order of succession. Precise details of Burdet’s publications are not quoted in any surviving reports of his case, but one can presume that his aim was to replace Edward IV and his Woodville offspring. The logical beneficiary would have been Burdet’s employer, the Duke of Clarence.
Thomas Burdet (c. 1425–77) was a landowner of Arrow, Warwickshire. Left fatherless as a child, he had been the ward of Humphrey, Earl of Stafford until 1446.10 He subsequently served John, 1st Lord Beauchamp of Powick (to whose wife, as we have seen, he was possibly related). However, he had also served Lord Sudeley, the father-in-law of Lady Eleanor Talbot. It was the first of these two client connections that had later led him into the client network of the Earl of Warwick, whence he subsequently progressed into the service of Warwick’s son-in-law and heir, the Duke of Clarence.11 It also led to the allegations of his involvement in a plot against Lord Beauchamp (or his son and heir).
However, Burdet’s second client connection is significant in a different way. Although no previous author has noted this point, when Thomas Burdet was in his thirties, he must have been personally acquainted with Eleanor Talbot and her first husband, Sir Thomas Butler (Lord Sudeley’s son and heir). Subsequently, during the 1460s, he must also have known of Edward IV’s unexpected kindness to the former Lancastrian Lord Sudeley. Burdet may also have been aware of the motivation behind this unexpected royal generosity – namely Edward’s intimate connection at that time with Eleanor Talbot (who had maintained a good relationship with her father-in-law).12
Thus, Burdet himself could well have been one of those dangerous people who possessed knowledge of the precise nature of Eleanor Talbot’s relationship with Edward IV. This suggests interesting guesses regarding the possible content of Burdet’s treasonable publications against Edward IV and his son. If Burdet’s publications did contain references to Edward’s Talbot marriage, that would explain why the salient details were not quoted when the publications were cited as evidence.
Once Edward IV heard what Burdet had been publishing, the possible link between Burdet’s Oxford University associates, Stacy and Blake, and Bishop Robert Stillington seems to have been enough to land the bishop in trouble as well, even though he may not actually have committed any indiscretions. It was apparently assumed that it must have been Stillington who revealed details of the king’s Talbot marriage. At some point between Clarence’s later condemnation in Parliament and his subsequent execution, Stillington was arrested – probably on about 15 February.13 He remained in the Tower for two months,14 and was only released on payment of a fine.15 He was not formally granted a pardon until Saturday 20 June 1478. However, that pardon exonerated him, with a ‘declaration that Robert, Bishop of Bath and Wells, has been faithful to the king and done nothing contrary to his oath of fealty, as he has shown before the king and certain lords’.16 Edward IV was apparently finally convinced that the bishop had not given away his secret.
Given his links with the astrologers Stacy and Blake, Burdet’s verses may also have contained a prophecy of the downfall of Edward IV and his progeny. It is interesting, therefore, to note that a factor closely related to the fate of the Duke of Clarence, and very well known from Shakespeare’s play, Richard III, is the story of the prophecy of ‘G’. In Shakespeare’s version, Clarence reports of Edward IV that he ‘says a wizard told him that by G / His issue disinherited should be’.17 Shakespeare did not invent this story. Earlier references to it are preserved, though none survives which dates back as far as the fifteenth century. A poem about Clarence, believed to date from about 1547, includes the lines:
A prophecy was found, which sayd, a G
Of Edward’s children should destruction bee.
Mee to bee G, because my name was George,
My brother thought, and therefore did me hate.18
At about the same time, Edward Hall’s Chronicle also reported:
The fa
me was that the king or the Quene, or bothe sore troubled with a folysh Prophesye, and by reason therof begâ to stomacke & greuously to grudge agaynst the duke. The effect of which was, after king Edward should reigne, one whose first letter of hys name shoulde be a G. and because the deuel is wot with such wytchcraftes, to wrappe and illaqueat [ensnare] the myndes of men, which delyte in such deuelyshe fantasyes they sayd afterward that that Prophesie lost not hys effect, when after kyng Edward, Glocester vsurped his kyngdome.19
Although no fifteenth-century account of this prophecy survives, it is entirely possible that the prediction was current in 1477, that the source of the prophecy was Stacy and Blake, and that it was disseminated via Burdet’s verses.
Whatever Burdet’s publications contained, on 12 May the king appointed a commission of oyer and terminer to try him, together with Stacy and Blake.20 It was perhaps no accident that this commission was presided over by the Marquess of Dorset, eldest son of Queen Elizabeth Woodville, and that it included other members of the queen’s family.21 The fullest surviving account of the trials reads as follows:
Jurors present, that THOMAS BURDET esquire, late of ARROW, in the county of WARWICK, not having God before his eyes, and thinking little of the debt owed to his allegiance, seduced by the instigation of the devil, on the twentieth day of April in the fourteenth year of the reign of KING EDWARD THE FOURTH, after the Conquest, and at various times thereafter, in the town of WESTMINSTER, in the County of MIDDLESEX, falsely and treacherously, against the debt of his allegiance, plotted to encompass the death of the king, and he falsely and traitorously proposed to kill the king himself, then and there, and to fulfil his false and nefarious purpose, he falsely and treacherously laboured and procured one JOHN STACY, late of OXFORD, in the county of OXFORD, a gentleman, and THOMAS BLAKE, late of OXFORD, in the county of OXFORD, cleric, in the aforesaid town of WESTMINSTER, on the twelfth day of November next following, to calculate and work on the birth of the said lord king and of EDWARD his first-born son, Prince of Wales, and on the death of the same lord king and prince, to know when the same king and his son Edward shall die. And as for the said JOHN STACY and THOMAS BLAKE, knowing the false and wicked purpose of the aforesaid THOMAS BURDET, the same JOHN STACY and THOMAS BLAKE, on the twelfth day of November, in the aforesaid town of WESTMINSTER, falsely and treacherously planned to encompass the death of the king and prince, and then and there plotted to kill the same king and prince. And afterwards, on the sixth day of February, in the same fourteenth year, in the said town of WESTMINSTER, the aforesaid JOHN STACY and THOMAS BLAKE to fulfil their false and treasonous purpose, falsely and traitorously laboured to calculate by means of the magic art, the black art, and astronomy, the death and final destruction of their king and prince. And afterwards, to wit, on the twentieth day of May, in the fifteenth year of the reign of the said king, in the said town of WESTMINSTER, the aforesaid JOHN STACY and THOMAS BLAKE falsely and traitorously laboured by the above-mentioned arts, which is forbidden by the laws of Holy Church, by the teaching of various doctors, by the fact that each of them was bound to the lord king, and by the fact that the investigation of kings and princes, in the form described above, is not permitted without their consent. And afterwards, the same JOHN STACY, and THOMAS BLAKE, and the aforesaid THOMAS BURDET, at the above-mentioned town of WESTMINSTER, on the twenty-sixth day of May, in the same fifteenth year, falsely and traitorously expressed themselves to a certain ALEXANDER RUSSETON, and to other subjects of the lord king, saying ‘that by means of the aforesaid calculation and arts, carried out in the said form by the said JOHN STACY and THOMAS BLAKE, the same king and prince will not live long, but should die within a short time’, with the intention of that by the revelation of this information, the people of the king should withdraw their heartfelt love from the king, and that the same lord the king, on perceiving this, might fall into sadness, and his life be cut short. And that the aforesaid THOMAS BURDET, to the death and destruction of the said king, his sovereign lord, and the said lord prince, and to subvert their rule by war and discord between the king and his lieges in the aforesaid realm, on the sixth day of March, in the seventeenth year of the reign of the said king, in HOLBORN, the County of MIDDLESEX, falsely and treacherously plotted, conspired, and went about to kill the same king and prince. And to fulfil that false, heinous end, the aforesaid THOMAS BURDET composed and made various notes and writings in seditious rhymes and ballads inciting treasonable riots, made in HOLBORN, and in the said town of WESTMINSTER. These he falsely and traitorously gave out, scattered abroad, and sowed on the said sixth of March, and on the fifth and sixth days of May, in the said seventeenth year, with the intention that the people of the king should withdraw their heartfelt love from the king, and should desert him, and war should break out against the same king, to the final destruction of the king himself and of lord prince and all their supporters, as well as against the crown and dignity of the king himself.22
The Third Plantagenet: George, Duke of Clarence, Richard III's Brother Page 18
