The Prince’s Council had its work cut out for it. Its investigation of robberies and murders in the counties of Hereford and Salop compelled the prince and his court to remain in Wales during Easter 1473.2 In February 1474, Anthony, Earl Rivers and ten other knights and a sheriff were commissioned to array the county of Hereford against three Herberts and two Vaughans for refusing to appear before the King and for stirring up insurrection.3 In 1475, Thomas, Marquis of Dorset and Sir Richard Grey, the Queen’s sons, were commissioned to array all men between sixteen and sixty to quell the ‘robberies, murders, manslaughters, ravishing of women, burning of houses by the inhabitants of the Marches’, along with thieves of Oswestry hundred and Chirksland.4
In 1476, the King commissioned the prince and his council to
…be at Ludlow on 24 March next to discuss with the lords of the Marches, to whom the King has written separately, the ways and means for the punishment of many homicides, murders, robberies, spoliations and oppressions in Wales and the Marches of the same, for which the King is going in person to those parts after Easter.5
Gradually, the council began to establish order among the individual Marcher lords, and to impose a lawful peace in Wales.
The prince and his entourage lived in the castle, situated high above the river Teme. The castle’s fortifications of thick walls and towers (with spectacular views of the surrounding countryside) provided protection for the adjacent town. By fifteenth-century standards, the castle was luxurious. A Great Hall sixty feet long and thirty feet wide, with an open hearth on the floor near the dais table, provided warmth for the large number of people who gathered for meetings and meals. Private apartments for the lord and lady of the castle adjoined the Great Hall, with a hooded fireplace in the first-floor chamber. An arched doorway in the secondstorey chamber provided access directly to the Great Hall gallery. The private apartments had windows to provide brightness within the rooms, although the light would seem dim by modern standards.
Adjacent to this chamber block was a three-storey block of rooms with circular staircase, where Prince Edward lived. Between the two chamber blocks was constructed the truly luxurious feature of Ludlow Castle: the garderobe tower (toilets), built with chutes leading outside the Norman curtain wall. Most remarkably, four of the eight garderobe chambers had windows.6
The Chapel of St Mary Magdalene was the most important religious site within the castle. Located within the inner bailey, its circular nave, imitating the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, included decorative chevrons and arches and a stone bench for the comfort of worshippers. Though the chancel has been destroyed, the ornate arch leading from the nave to the chancel reflects the elaborate design and careful workmanship of the entire castle complex.7 The Chapel of St Peter in the outer bailey, built by Roger Mortimer in the fourteenth century to celebrate his escape from the Tower of London, indicates the importance of religion in the daily life of castle inhabitants.
Far removed from the political intrigues of London, Ludlow offered protection to the young prince. Although the town had suffered greatly during the Black Death epidemics of the previous century, it was safer than the teeming, disease-breeding streets of London. Beyond the plague, other diseases transmitted by close contact with others – smallpox, measles, whooping cough, influenza, diphtheria – threatened both children and adults alike. With no medications to treat such afflictions, death generally claimed its victim.
Both Edward IV and Elizabeth tried to assure that the young Prince Edward had a happier childhood home than his father, who had lamented ‘the odious rule and demeaning of Richard Crofte and his brother’. His mother supervised the setting-up of the household, and Edward IV joined them in June, before the official establishment began on 29 September 1473. The King’s ‘Letters of Instructions’ specified that the prince’s household ‘be set up and begun at the Feast of Saint Michael the Archangel next following’. The day was propitious. St Michael’s flaming sword tossed Satan out of Heaven and forever after protected God and his Church. His feast day, celebrated with thanks for the fruit of harvest, provided an auspicious beginning for the education of the next King of England. By modern standards, the prince’s schedule was rigorous:
1Awakening ‘at a convenient hour, according to his age’.
2Matins said in the prince’s chamber by the chaplains.
3Mass in the prince’s chapel or closet, ‘and in no wise in his chamber without a cause reasonable; and no man to interrupt him during his mass-time’. On holy days, the prince made offerings at the service. On feast days sermons were delivered.
4Breakfast.
5‘Virtuous learning’, appropriate to the prince’s age.
610 a.m. Dinner, a meal with meat, served by ‘worshipful folks and squires’ wearing livery and accompanied by the reading of noble stories that encouraged virtue, honour and wisdom. On fast days, dinner was scheduled at 12 noon.
7Instruction in grammar, music, and humanities.
8Sports and exercises.
9Evensong.
104 p.m. Supper
11Sports and recreation
128 p.m. Bedtime. At this hour, the prince was to be in his chamber, the curtains drawn, and all persons excluded except those designated as night attendants.
The prince’s household attendants followed a similar schedule, with Mass scheduled in the hall at 6 a.m. for the prince’s officers, followed by Matins in the chapel at 7 a.m., and a Mass with music at 9 a.m.
Prince Edward’s attendants were huge in number. The outer bailey was filled with the buildings, supplies and people necessary to serve the needs of the royal household: ostlers, stable hands, horses; delivery men with meats and grains for the castle’s kitchen and bakery; carpenters, masons; garderobe cleaners; servants gathering rushes for the castle floors; stewards supervising the teeming mass of workmen. The inner bailey was equally busy with cooks, bakers, cleaning servants, candle tenders, chamber grooms, seamstresses, wardrobe supervisors – all necessary to serve the needs of the prince, his council members, scribes, accountants, chaplains, musicians, minstrels, treasurer and stewards.
Those in intimate contact with the prince included his three chaplains: an almoner who distributed gifts to the poor and served as confessor to the household, and two others who said divine services for the prince. A physician and surgeon, ‘sufficient and cunning’, was present at all times. Explicitly prohibited from the presence of the prince was any person who might be a ‘swearer, brawler, backbiter, common hazarder [gambler], adulterer’, or user of ribaldry.8 Fighting was strictly forbidden, and anyone who drew any weapon in the presence of the prince would ‘the first time… sit in the stocks, and there to sit as long as shall be thought behoveful by our said son’s council: and at the second time… lose his service’.9
The gates of the castle opened between 6 and 7 a.m. and closed at 9 p.m. from Michaelmas to 1 May. From 1 May to Michaelmas, the gates opened between 5 and 6 a.m. and closed at 10 p.m. The porters were charged to take any weapons from men entering the castle and to assure that ‘no stuff… be embezzled out of the gates’. Every Saturday, the treasurer and comptrollers made a strict accounting of all expenses and charges to the Prince’s Council. Expenses were paid from income received from the Duchy of Cornwall, the towns of Chester and Flint, and the regions of North Wales and South Wales. The prince’s treasury was kept in a chest under three keys, one held by ‘our dearest wife, the queen’, another by the Bishop of Rochester, and the third by Earl Rivers. The prince’s signet, also kept in the chest, could be used only by the advice of his council.
In light of events following the King’s death, his concluding instructions regarding the prince’s safety are particularly poignant:
Item. For the weal, surety, and profit of our said son, we will, and by these presents give authority and power to the right reverend father in God, John Bishop of Rochester, and to our right trusty and well-beloved Anthony Earl Rivers, to remove at all times the same our son, as the
case shall require, unto such places as shall be thought by their discretion necessary for the same season; and ever, that for the sure accomplishment of these statutes and ordinances, they have the like authority to put them, and every of them, in execution accordingly, to the effect and intent of the articles and the premises above expressed and rehearsed, and to punish the breakers of the same.10
Such absolute authority to move the prince for his safety and protection indicates the total trust the King placed in Anthony Wydeville and the Bishop of Rochester. Unfortunately, Edward IV could not control those who forcibly seized the boy after the King’s death.
Every word of the King’s ‘Letters of Instruction’ reflects the loving care taken by both father and mother in raising their children, the number of which was increasing regularly. By 1473, Elizabeth had presented the King with four daughters and one son, of which only Margaret had died, at the age of eight months. By midsummer, Queen Elizabeth was preparing for the arrival of their sixth child, and she moved to nearby Shrewsbury for the birth of their second son, Richard, on 17 August 1473.
Twice the size of Ludlow, Shrewsbury was surrounded by a loop of the Severn river, whose wharfs made the town a vigorous shipping and mercantile centre. Elizabeth stayed in the royal quarters of the Dominican community, the oldest settlement of friars in Shrewsbury. Royalty had favoured the Blackfriars since their arrival in May 1232, when Henry III granted them the stone that lay in the Severn river under the bailey of Shrewsbury Castle to build their church, along with thirty oak trees from the forest of La Lye and ten hardwood trees from the forest of Hagenia. In 1241–2 when the town walls were being rebuilt, Henry III ordered the bailiffs and sheriff of Shrewsbury to give the Blackfriars 200 cartloads of surplus stone and 100 loads of lime. In 1244, Henry himself contributed ten marks for the church building.
By the mid-fifteenth century, the Dominican priory extended from St Mary’s Water Lane on the north to the English Bridge on the south, bounded by the banks of the Severn on the east and Dogpole Street on the west. Edward, when Earl of March, had spent Christmas at the priory during the fateful year of 1460 – his father was beheaded just five days later. The bailiffs of Shrewsbury had welcomed Edward then with a pipe of ale (105 Imperial gallons) ‘for the honour of the town’.11
Now in 1473, Edward IV’s wife came to this Dominican community to give birth to their sixth child. The prosperous, highly educated and scholarly Blackfriars were popular for their preaching against avarice and gluttony. Concerned about the growing number of poor people in the midst of prosperity, they admonished the rich that true wealth resides in the spiritual value of charity.12 Once more, Elizabeth found comfort and care in the midst of a strict and ascetic religious community.
Edward spent part of 1473 in Shrewsbury as well, and may have been there when Richard was born. The royal family was close-knit, with the same warmth that characterised the family of Sir Richard Wydeville and Jacquetta. If that warmth first attracted Edward IV to Elizabeth, she now provided the same devotion and care to his own growing family. The newborn Richard would grow to become one of his mother’s favourites. Described as ‘nimble and merry’, Richard was a son in whom Elizabeth took special delight – during his brief years on earth.
On 28 May 1474, the infant Richard was created Duke of York, an occasion celebrated by the usual tournament featuring Anthony Wydeville, Earl Rivers. When the costs of the royal event proved burdensome, other participants protested, as noted in an interesting inscription written on the list of contents of a medieval manuscript, next to the title ‘The Challenge of six gentlemen at the creation of Richard, Duk of York, son of King Edward the IVth’:
The challenge of the Earl of Rivers. – At which jousts there were certain gentlemen which showed the King that the fees to his servants was so great that if they should enter the field to his honour and to the honour of his Realm, the charges would be too much for them to bear, and besought the King that they might be at some reasonable fine.
Whereupon for that time it was ordained by the Judges… [that the] Earl should pay for that time of his entry to the Office of Arms 10 marks, a baron £4, a knight 40s, and an Esquire 26s. 8d of which composition the officers of arms were but so contented. And whereas the noble lord the Earl of Rivers was taxed by the Judges at 10 marks, he sent of his benevolence to the officers of arms 20 marks like a noble man and desired them to be contented for him and his hermitage to whom God send good life and long amen. And the trumpets had for their duty half of the sum appointed for heralds according to every estate and degree as before he rehearsed.13
Anthony’s generosity at least earned the admiration of the anonymous author of this note.
The pageantry of such celebrations became an integral part of Yorkist governance. At the age of three, Prince Edward made a royal visit to Coventry, where he entered the city on horseback seated in a chair. He was greeted by the ‘Mayor and his brethren’, who gave the prince 100 marks in a ‘gilt cup of 15 ounces with a kerchief of Pleasaunce upon the said cup’ and then entertained him with a series of pageants representing English and biblical history. Five days later ‘the Mayor and his Brethren were sent for to come before my lord Prince’, where they swore an oath accepting Edward, Prince of Wales, as ‘first begotten son of our sovereign lord Edward the IVth, King of England’.14
Such loyalty received its reward later that year, when the city fathers arrested one of the King’s servants for quarrelling and disturbing the peace. Their actions elicited a personal letter of thanks from Queen Elizabeth who endorsed their actions:
We intend not in any wise to maintain support nor favour any of my said Lord’s servants, nor ours, in any their riots or unfitting demeaning among you, nor elsewhere to our knowledge. 15
The Queen also thanked the city for the affection and devotion shown to ‘our dearest son, the Prince; and in like wise to all our children… and namely unto our right dear son, The Duke of York, in this time of our absence from them’.16 In further appreciation, Elizabeth sent a gift of venison from her forest of Fekenham to the Mayor, with explicit instructions that the twelve bucks be divided equally: ‘that is to say six of the said bucks unto the said Mayor and his brethren, and the other six of them unto their said wives’.17
The careful records maintained by the city of Coventry reveal a positive and mutually beneficial relationship between the Queen and the citizenry. Other surviving documents from the era indicate that both the King and the Queen acted in the best interests of the nation and its institutions. Certainly, both continued their commitment to educational causes. In March 1473, President Andrew Doket and fellows of Queens’ College received the sum of thirteen marks yearly from an alienation in mortmain of a manor in Kent.18 On 29 May 1473, Edward IV pardoned Queens’ College of all offences committed before 30 September 1471, a pardon that protected the college from any Lancastrian affiliations it may have made during Henry VI’s readeption. A year later, the King’s mandamus, dated 4 October 1474, ordered his treasurer and Barons of the Exchequer not to molest Queens’ College.
Letters in the name of King Edward, Queen Elizabeth and Prince Edward to the Mayor, bailiffs and commonalty of the town of Cambridge resulted in a deed dated 6 October 1474, that transferred a large plot of common land to Queens’ College in the name of ‘Andrew Doket the president, and the fellows or scholars for ever’. As a result, ‘the president and fellows undertook to lengthen the Smalebrigge next the college twelve feet, and to widen the river on the east of the said soil to the breadth of fifty-one feet, and had liberty to throw a bridge over the river on the east part of the soil, so that the arch of such bridge stretched as far as the arch of the bridge of King’s college’.19 The ever-vigilant President Doket surely instigated these actions, but his ability to secure the King’s support required a sympathetic intercessor – almost certainly the Queen.
Eton College also received a grant of several priories, messuages (building sites) and cottages in March 1473.20 Considering that Edwa
rd had once ordered Eton closed, this support also suggests an intercessor devoted to educational philanthropy. While Queen Elizabeth’s role in these actions is unproved, someone had to provoke the King’s interest in small, struggling colleges far removed from the military and political issues that were beginning to consume him. Edward IV was preparing for war with France and deeply engrossed in raising money and assembling an army to attack England’s hundred-year enemy. The most likely intercessors for Queens’ College and Eton College, especially in light of subsequent tributes from the institutions, were Queen Elizabeth and her brother Anthony, Earl Rivers.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
War and Peace
Early 1475 found England preparing for war. Edward had first announced his intention of invading France during the Parliament of October 1472,1 and in the meantime had been raising funds from citizens willing to attack the enemy, but reluctant to pay the cost of the invasion. Naval preparations had been ongoing for several years, with ships bought or hired, officers commissioned, and crews assembled. Archers, still nine-tenths of the army, were summonsed, and hundreds of thousands of arrows were made by craftsman. Cannon, powder, sulphur and artillery were stored at the ports for shipment to the continent. The King himself planned to lead the largest English army ever to invade France.
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