The Dublin King: The True Story of Lambert Simnel and the Princes in the Tower

by John Ashdown-Hill

  James Taite’s statement, in its modernised form, reads:

  I, James Tayte, rode to Retford [Nottinghamshire]. And last Lady Day [25 March 1486/87] when I was in Doncaster, on my way home, I met seven horses of strangers. Among them there was a white horse that was being led. And a merchant’s servant pointed out to me that in that horse’s saddle there was gold and silver.

  When I heard that, I asked him where he came from, and he said, from London. Then another of the same merchant’s men asked me whether there was any death [plague] within the City or not, and I said, no. Then I revealed to him that I should know one member of their company by his horse. He asked me how it came about that I recognised this horse. I answered that I had seen him in York the last time the King’s good grace was there – for I thought that he was my Lorde of Lincoln’s pony – for with me was he lodged.

  When this man told him [the merchant?] what I had said, he came back to me and asked me how I was. And asked me how I knew this horse, and I said he was my Lord of Lincoln’s, and he bade me speak the truth. I knew then by what he was saying to me that it really was my Lord of Lincoln’s horse.

  And then I asked him how my Lord of Lincoln was, and asked him where he was. And he told me that, to the best of his knowledge, he [Lincoln] had departed from the King’s grace. And I asked him, whether he had gone to sea – for he has many friends on land. And I also showed him that my Lord had many good friendes in this country as far as I knew. I said all that in order to try to find out more about what he was telling me.

  Then he revealed to me – though I shall also see it for myself very soon – that John of Lincoln shall pay back all those who show him no love nor favour.

  I asked him whether my Lord of Northumberland and he [Lincoln] were of one mind. He replied that ‘he [Northumberland] is not doing very much, therefore we don’t place much trust in him. But as you shall see, there are very good gentlemen about who will support my Lord [Lincoln]. Can you tell me anything about how far I must go to reach Sir Thomas Mallevery’s place? For we have a letter to give him or send to him’.

  Then I asked him if he would be coming to York, and he said: ‘No, I must go to Hull. But if I come to York I will call on you’.

  Later I went to Wentbridge, to an inn, and looked for these merchants that were riding on to York. And the good man of the house told me that they were sleeping in their beds. I went back there twice to look for them, and I asked the inn-keeper to tell me where the man was that rode that pony [the Earl of Lincoln?]. ‘Hasn’t he been here’, I said, ‘I’ve been waiting for him for too long’. Then I left him.

  After that, between Darlington and Wentbridge, I met a man that was born a servant of my Lord of Lincoln, that had been lying in his bed at Wentbridge. And I asked about that same man [Lincoln?] – since they were sometimes together in company. He said he had sent for him in great haste. He had sent a hired man to find him.

  And I came straight to York.

  Then these same merchants of London came to York, and a servant of theirs told me that they would meet the Prior of Tynmouthe at the sign of the Boar [the Blue Boar in Castlegate] in York.

  And I went to Master Karlill, to tell him all the things I had heard, as I have already mentioned, for my own safety, and in order to keep the oath that I swore to God and the King, simply because he was one of the King’s Chaplains.

  This servant of my Lord of Lincoln that had revealed everything to me on the journey, as I was coming from Doncaster, is called Saunder[s?].

  And I told Master Karlill that the last time the King was here, two fellows that live near Middleham said ‘Here is good gate for us to Robin of Redesdall over the walls’. This is what I said, and not a word more, I swear. And the same two fellows used to hang about my Lord of Lincoln’s household, and went there for food and drink.20

  Meanwhile, in the eastern counties it is not quite clear what John Paston III had been doing, but it seems that his behaviour had by now caused Oxford – and the king – to suspect him of possible involvement in the Yorkist conspiracy. The following letter was sent by T. Balkey to John Paston III,21 probably on 29 April 1487:22

  Right worshipful and my especial good master, I commend me unto your good mastership. Sir, it is so that there hath been a great rumour and marvellous noise of your departing from Yarmouth, for some said in a Spanish ship and some said in your ship, and some said against your will ye were departed; of which departing my lord Steward had knowledge and commanded soon after your old servant Richard FitzWater to ride to Norwich and so to Yarmouth to know the truth. And at Norwich I spoke with your said servant, and there he showed unto me that my lord had sent another of his servants unto my lord of Oxford to show unto his lordship of your departing, &c. And furthermore he showed unto me privately that my lord hath imagined and purposed many grievous things against your mastership; for which cause he showed unto me that in any wise your mastership should not come that way. And I shall show your mastership much more at your coming, with the grace of God, who ever preserve your good mastership.

  At Norwich the Sunday next after Saint Mark.

  Your seruaunt T. Balkey23

  Balkey was not the only person who thought that John Paston may have been travelling by sea. Sir Edmond Bedyngfeld sent another letter to John Paston III on 16 May 1487:24

  Vn-to my right wurshypfull cosyn John Paston, eswquyer for the body.

  Bedyngfeld has received a sealed commission of array from ‘my lorde’ (the Earl of Oxford) in connection with the invasion of Ireland by supporters of the Dublin King, together with a letter, of which he encloses a copy:25

  As for you, ye be sore taken in some place, saying that ye intende such things as is like to follow great mischief. I said I understood no such [thing] nor things like it. And it is thought ye intende not to go forth this journey, nor no gentleman in that quarter but Robert Brandon that hath promised to go with them, as they say.26

  The writer then goes on to give details of the movements of Sir William Boleyn, Sir Harry Heydon, Hopton and Wysman. Bedyngfeld is interested in ‘what gentlemen intende to go … and be assured to go to-gether’:27

  Furthermore, cousin, it is said that after my lord’s28 departing to the King ye were met at Barkwey, which is construed that ye had been with the Lady Lovell; but rather said never well. And in as much as we understand my lord’s pleasure, it is well done we deal wisely thereafter. And next to the King I answered plainly I was bound to do him service and to fulfil his commandment to the uttermost of my power, by the grace of God, who ever preserve you to his pleasure.

  Written at Oxburgh the 16 day of May.

  Your cousin E. Bedyngfeld29

  John Paston III was obviously close to family members of Viscount Lovell, whose mother-in-law, Alice, Lady Fitzhugh, later wrote him a letter in which she describes herself as ‘your loving modir [mother]’, and which talks about how her daughter was trying to find what had become of Lovell (23 February 1487/88).30 Lovell ‘diasappeared after the Battle of Stoke (at which John Paston III was knighted), and is said to have been drowned while trying to escape [Complete Peerage, viii 225]. According to Gairdner “another story” reported that he did escape and lived in concealment for some time after. If this were true it would account for the present letter’s address to John III as knight.’31

  The ultimate fate of Francis Lovell remains a mystery. Meanwhile, however, the evidence from the Paston correspondence shows very clearly how uncertain the situation was in England in 1486, and how much gossip and rumour were current. As for John Paston III, in 1486 it appears that, whatever his private sympathies and opinions, in the end he played safe and remained loyal to the government in power.

  Nevertheless, both the Earl of Lincoln and Viscount Lovell did take ships from England and made their way to Margaret of York’s palace at Mechelen. As we have already seen from the evidence of the Paston letters, Viscount Lovell probably made his trip to Flanders in January 1486/87. The Earl of Lincoln departed slig
htly later; we know that on Friday, 2 February 1486/87, (the Feast of Candlemas) he was present at a meeting of Henry VII’s royal council at the Palace of Sheen.32

  At this meeting, the royal council received an embassy from the King of France. It probably also discussed the news from Flanders and Ireland about the activities of Margaret of York and the ‘son of Clarence’, and this was also the occasion on which Henry VII made the decision to publicly display his official Earl of Warwick in London:

  At that council was the Earl of Lincoln, which incontinently after the said council departed the land and went into Flanders to the lord Lovell and accompanied himself with the king’s rebels and enemies, noising in that country that the Earl of Warwick should be in Ireland, which himself knew and daily spoke with him at Sheen before his departing.33

  But, of course, the Earl of Warwick whom Lincoln had been seeing at Sheen was the offficial one – presumably the same one that Lincoln had known earlier, at Sheriff Hutton Castle, during the reign of Richard III, and also the one whom Henry VII would shortly put on show in London in order to prove his whereabouts.

  Clearly Henry VII must have been aware of exactly what action Lincoln had taken by the third week of Lent (about 20 March 1486/87). At that time the king set off via Essex into Suffolk. That county was the heartland of the Earl of Lincoln’s family, and Henry presumably felt that, among other things, he now needed to sort out where the rest of the de la Poles stood politically. At the same time he also needed to reassure himself that the county of Suffolk was safe.

  Henry VII stayed briefly at Bury St Edmunds, and it is evident that he was preoccupied with the likely rising against him, because while there he ordered the arrest of his wife’s half-brother, the Marquess of Dorset. The arrest of Dorset in the context of this particular political situation is of some interest, because of course, as we saw earlier, it was the Marquess of Dorset who had been the guardian of the official Earl of Warwick under Edward IV, following the execution of Warwick’s father, the Duke of Clarence.

  It surely cannot be coincidental that the official Earl of Warwick’s former guardian was imprisoned at precisely this moment – at a time when one boy claiming to be the Earl of Warwick was about to invade England, while another boy, officially designated as the Earl of Warwick, was about to be displayed by Henry VII in London. Moreover, the idea that Dorset’s arrest was somehow connected with the coming invasion – and also with Dorset’s own links with the Earl of Warwick – is reinforced by the fact that immediately after the Battle of Stoke, when ‘Edward VI’ had been defeated, the Marquess of Dorset was set free again.34

  Meanwhile Lincoln had joined Lovell at Mechelen, where he met with his aunt, the dowager Duchess of Burgundy. Presumably once Margaret herself had received her newly arrived nephew, she presented him to her other beguiling young guest, his putative cousin, the young ‘son of Clarence’.

  Notes

  Abbreviations

  CPR

  Calendar of Patent Rolls

  ODNB

  Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

  PROME

  Parliament Rolls of Medieval England

  1. ‘Vta octobris, reverendus in Christo pater episcopus Heliensis, referendarius sanctissimi nostri papae Innocentii Octavi, per Dunensem monasterium iter ad Angliam faciens, dum Calisiam ingressus esset, mortem audivit comitis de richemont, nuper instituti regis cum nonnullis baronibus subito pestifera confectione sublatis, aliis contrarium asserentibus. De successore vero novi regis non parva contentio suborta est acclamantibus nonnullis esse verum regem filium ducis Clarentiae, juvenem egregium internecioni quae a Richardo rege avunculo suo exercebatur subtractum : sed quicquam actum sit scriptor hujusmodi necdum de morte novi regis audivit.’ Baron Kervyn de Lettenhove, ed., Chroniques relatives à l’histoire de la Belgique sous la domination des Ducs de Bourgogne, vol. 1, Bruxelles 1870; Adrien De But, Chroniques, p. 649.

  2. ‘inire simultates cum nonnullis ad novum regem instituendum,filium ducis Clarentiae,fratris quondam regum Edwardii atque Ricardi,qui quidem filius ex parte matris dux Verwecii in Yrlandia observabatur.’ De But, Chroniques, p. 665.

  3. ‘Sone van Clarentie uit Ingelant’, Weightman, Margaret of York, p. 158; A. Wroe, Perkin A Story of Deception, London 2003, p. 81.

  4. This sentence, as written, appears to be incomplete.

  5. The original version of the text reads: ‘Sir, as for tidings, here is but few. The king & queen lyeth at Grenwyche; the Lord Perce is at Wynchester; the earle of Oxford is in Essex; the earle of Darby and his son be with the king. Also here is but little speche [of the deleted] of þe earle of Warwyke now, but after Christenmas they say ther wylbe more speech of. Also ther be mayny enimies on the see, & dyvers schippes take, & ther be many take of the kynges house for theves.’ J. Kirby, ed., The Plumton Letters and Papers, Camden fifth series, vol. 8, Cambridge 1996, p. 67, n. 46.

  6. J. Ashdown-Hill, Mediaeval Colchester’s Lost Landmarks, Derby 2009, p. 28.

  7. ‘The important Benedictine Abbey of St John’s was a mitred abbey with impressive rights of chartered sanctuary, identical to those enjoyed by Westminster Abbey’, Ashdown-Hill, ‘Beloved Cousyn’, pp. 42, 151.

  8. R.F. Hunnisett, The Medieval Coroner, Cambridge 1961; reprinted Florida 1986, p. 37.

  9. J.C. Cox, The Sanctuaries and Sanctuary Seekers of Mediaeval England, London 1911, p. 197.

  10. CPR 1452–1461, p. 80.

  11. Richard III’s mother, Cecily Neville, dowager Duchess of York, later remembered the Colchester abbey with gratitude and affection, providing for a bequest in her will. Ashdown-Hill, Mediaeval Colchester’s Lost Landmarks, p. 45.

  12. ‘Francis Lovell’, ODNB.

  13. Margaret Neville, daughter of Richard Neville, fifth Earl of Salisbury, and the sister of Richard Neville, sixteenth Earl of Warwick, ‘the Kingmaker’. She was thus the great aunt of Edward of Clarence, Earl of Warwick. She died between 20 November 1506 and 14 January 1507.

  14. ‘To my right trusti and welbeloued John Paston, shrieve of Norffolk and Suffolk. Right trusti and welbiloued, I recommaund me vnto you. And for as moche as I ame credebby enfourmed that Fraunceis, late Lorde Lovell, is now of late resorted into the Yle of Ely to the entente, by alle lykelyhod, to find the waies and meanes to gete him shipping and passage in your costes [coasts], or ellis to resorte ageyn to seintuary if he can or maie, I therfor hertily desire and praie you, and neuerthelesse in the Kinges name streitly chargie you, that ye in all goodly haste endevoire yourself that suche wetche [watch] or other meanes be vsed and hadde in the poortes, crekes, and othre places wher ye thinke nescessary by your discrecion to the letting of his seid purpose; and that ye also vse all the waies ye can or maie by your wisedom to the taking of the same late Lord Lovell. And what pleasur ye maie doo to the Kinges grace in this matier I am sure is not to you vnknowen. And God kepe you. Wreten at Lauenham the xix day of Maij. Margaret Oxynford.’ N. Davis, ed., Paston Letters and Papers of the Fifteenth Century, part 2, Oxford 1976, pp. 447–8, n. 805.

  15. ‘Mensibus novembri et decembri superabundabant vix, ventrus, pluvial, gelu, … rumorque factus est de rege Angliae deponendo et filio ducis Clarentiae introducendo tanquam vero herede.’ De But, Chroniques, p. 666.

  16. John de Vere, thirteenth Earl of Oxford, born 8 September 1442, died 10 March 1512/13.

  17. ‘To my right trusty and welbelouyd councellour John Paston, esquire. John Paston, I comaund me to you. And as for such tithyngys as ye haue sent hider, the Kyng had knowlech therof more than a sevynnyght passed; and as for such names as ye haue sent, supposyng theym to be gone with the Lord Lovell, they be yitt in England, for he is departyng with xiiij personys and no moo. At the Kyngys coming to London I wold advise you to see his Highnes. And Almyghty God kepe you. Writen at Wyndesore the xxiiijth day of January. Oxynford.’ Davis, Paston Letters, pp. 448–9, no. 807.

  18. Hayden, ‘Lambert Simnel’, p. 627.

  19. ‘that therle of Lincoln wold giff the Kings grace a bre
akfast as it was enfourmed hyme by the servaunt of the said Erls.’ Raine, York Civic Records, p. 3.

  20. ‘I James Tayte rade to Retford, and upon our Lady day last past as I come homeward in Doncastre, I hit with vij horsez of straungers, and there was amongs them a white horse led, shewing me by a merchaunt servaunt that it was that in saddell of that horse gold and silver; than I herd that said soo, and askid hyme fro whynce he come, and he said, froo London; than another of the same merchaunt menaskid me, wheder ther was any deth within the Citie or not, and I said, nay; than I shewed unto hyme that I shuld knowe oone of the company by his horse; he asking me where and howe I shuld knowe this horse, and I said agane that I knewe hyme in York the last tyme the Kynges good grace was ther, for I trowe that he was my Lorde of Lincolne hobye, for with me was he loged; than this man shewyng to hyme my saying, he com bak unto me and asakid me howe I fore, and askid me where I knewethis horse, and I said he was my Lord of Lincolnes, and he bad me say the truthe; and I wist well than that by the same watch word he was my Lord of Lincone horssen, and tha, I asked hyme,howe my Lord of Lincoln fore, and askid hyme where he was, and he told me as far furth as he culd understand that he was departed from the Kinges grace; and I askid hyme, wheder to the see for he hath frendes enogh upon the land, and I shewed unto hymeagane that my Lord had many good frendes in this cuntree as far furth as I knewe, and I said that bicause have more understanding of his communicacion. Then he shewing unto me, thowe shall see not long too, that John of Lincoln shall geve theme all abrekefast that oweth hyme no luff nor favour; I asking hyme that my Lord of Northumberland and he stood in condicion, he said agane he doth bot litill for as therfor we sett litill by hyme, for thou shall here tell that right good gentlemen shall take myLordes part. Can ye oght tell me howe farre I have to Sir Thomas Mallevery place for we must have hyme writing or ells send it hyme? Then I askid hyme if he wold to York, and he said, nay, I must to Hull, and if I come to York I will call upon you. I come than to Wentbrig to an in, and spird for thiez merchaunts that wold ride forward to York, and the good man of the house told me that they were sleping in their beddes and thidre I come twise to spir after theme, and I desired to hostler for to tellme where he was that rode of the hoby, and had not he bene I had there tarid long; than I departid from hyme, and than I metbetwix Daryngton and Wentbrig a man that was bowne to theservaunt of my Lord of Lincolne that lay at Wentbrig in his bedand I toke knowlage of that same man for he was somtyme of his company, for he said he had sent for hyme in grete hast with a man that was with hyme hired for to goo for hyme, and I come streght to York; then thies same merchauntes of London come unto York, and a servaunt of theires shewed me that they shuld mete the Priour of Tynmouthe at the signe of the boore in York; and I come to Master Karlill shewing unto hyme all manre of things that I had hard as afforsaid, because of my discharge and for saving of the othe that I maid to God and the King, and in no one othre wise bycause he was oone of the Kinges Chapleins: this servaunt of my Lord of Lincoln that shewed me this by the way as I come froo Doncaster hight Saunder. And I shewed unto Master Karlill the last tyme the King was here that two felows that dwelt about Middleham said that here is good gate for us to Robyn of Redesdall over the walles; and this I said, and noo word more, litill nor mekill; and the same two felows resorted to my Lord of Lincolne houshold and come thiddre to mete and drink.’ Raine, York Civic Records, pp. 4–5 (original records fols 73–74).