The Last Days of Richard III and the Fate of His DNA

by John Ashdown-Hill

  3. ‘Suger candy’, ‘wyne’ and ‘water of honysoclys’ were listed together with additional unspecified ‘medesyns’ supplied to the sick Lady Howard in 1465, though details of her symptoms are not recorded: BL, Add. MS 46349, f. 87r; HHB, part 1, p. 304.

  4. vanisque mutatoriis vestium Annae, reginae, atque Dominae Elizabeth, primogentiae defuncti regis eisdem colore et forma distributis: Crowland, p. 174. However, I take issue with the translation of this passage given by Pronay and Cox, and a different translation is offered here. See also L. Visser-Fuchs, ‘A Commentary on the Continuation’, Ric. 7 (1985–87), p. 521, and also www.r3.org/bookcase/croyland/index.html (consulted June 2009).

  5. In terms of the medieval English calendar, Anne Neville and her son died in the same year (1484). This is because in England the medieval calendar year began not on 1 January, but on Lady Day (25 March). Edward of Middleham died in April 1484, and Anne Neville eleven months later, on 16 March, eight days before the end of 1484 according to the medieval reckoning.

  6. Crowland, p. 175 – see R3MK, pp. 250 and 309, n. 2.

  7. For the date, the solar eclipse and anne’s death see Crowland, p. 175.

  8. Collop Monday (which fell on 14 February in 1484/5) was the day for using up the last scraps of meat before Lent. Ash Wednesday (16 February 1484/5) is the first day of Lent and a fast day. It is so called because a cross of ashes is traced on the foreheads of the faithful at mass that day.

  9. See above, note 5.

  10. The time was recorded at Augsburg, where the eclipse was total: http://ls.kuleuven.ac.be/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0103&L=vvs&P=1445, citing Achilli Pirmini Gassari: Annales Augustburgenses.

  11. The central duration of the eclipse was 4 minutes 53 seconds: http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/SEsaros/SEsaros121.html.

  12. Crowland, p. 175.

  13. C.A. Halsted, Richard III, London, 1844, vol. 2, p. 399, citing BL, Cotton MS Faustina, c. Iii. 405 and Cooper’s Annals of Cambridge, p. 229.

  14. There were, of course, fifteenth-century reports suggesting that Cecily Neville was unfaithful to her husband on at least one occasion, leading to the supposed bastardy of Edward IV. However, these rumours were very firmly countered by Cecily herself in her last months of life, as the words of her will clearly demonstrate. In that document she insisted on the fact that Edward IV was the son of her husband: J. Nicholls and J. Bruce, eds, Wills from Doctors’ Commons. A selection of Wills of eminent persons proved in the PCC 1495–1695, Camden old series, vol. 83, London, 1863, p. 1.

  15. Based upon no real evidence, two other bastard sons have been imputed to Richard by some writers. However, the dates of birth of these children are also unknown.

  16. Both Anne and her sister, Isabel, Duchess of Clarence, died comparatively young, and Isabel was survived by only two children. Moreover, Eleanor and Elizabeth Talbot, who were first cousins of Anne and Isabel Neville, also seem to have had difficulty in producing children. See Ashdown-Hill, ‘Norfolk Requiem’, Ric. 12, pp. 198–217 (pp. 198–203).

  17. See, for example, A.F. Sutton and L. Visser-Fuchs, The Hours of Richard III, Stroud, 1990; and J. Hughes, The Religious Life of Richard III, Stroud, 1997.

  18. See Introduction.

  19. For details of the funeral arrangements for Edward IV, see Beloved Cousyn, pp. 83–84.

  20. ‘Quene Anne deseyd thys same yere at Westmynster that Thomas Hylle was mayor the xvj day of Marche and bered the ix day after ate Westmynster. God have merci on her soulle.’ BL, Harl. MS 541, f. 217v, as quoted in J. Gairdner, History of the Life and Reign of Richard the Third, Cambridge, 1898, p. 205, n. 1.

  21. Sepulta est … non cum minore honore quam sicut reginam decuit sepeliri, Crowland, pp. 174–75. Such a specific statement from a rather variable source, often hostile to Richard III, makes it quite certain that Queen Anne Neville was buried with the full panoply of late medieval royal honours.

  22. English kings at this period did not openly attend funerals of members of the royal family, though they were sometimes present semi-secretly, in a screened ‘closet’: A.F. Sutton, and L. Visser-Fuchs with R. A. Griffiths, The Royal Funerals of the House of York at Windsor, London, 2005, p. 50.

  23. The Stuart sovereigns seem to have especially favoured Holy Week and Michaelmas for this ceremony (though it could be performed at any time). French sovereigns also regularly favoured Easter for ‘touching’.

  24. M. Bloch (trans. J.E. Anderson), The Royal Touch, Sacred Monarch and Scrofula in England and France, London, 1973, p. 224. To take Holy Communion at or around Easter was and is the minimum requirement for a practising Catholic.

  25. Bloch, Royal Touch, p. 22.

  26. Edward III is reported to have challenged his rival, Philippe VI, to compete with him in a ‘touching’ ceremony to establish which of them was rightful King of France: Bloch, Royal Touch, pp. 1–2. See also ibid., pp. 65, 220. Subsequently, the ritual was particularly promoted by the incoming ‘Tudor’ dynasty – the legitimacy of whose claim was more than a little suspect. Later still, the exiled legitimist Stuart claimants to the throne would continue to ‘touch’ in exile until the death of the dynasty’s last direct descendant in 1807. The Hanoverian kings, however, never attempted to perform this rite, despite receiving requests to do so.

  27. Bloch, Royal Touch, p. 54.

  28. Ibid., p. 249.

  29. Ibid., p. 65. Fortescue was later reconciled to the Yorkist regime, and retracted his comments. See also N. Woolf, The Sovereign Remedy, Touch Pieces and the King’s Evil, British Association of Numismatic Societies, 1990, pp. 6–7.

  30. Bloch, Royal Touch, pp. 181–82.

  31. By the ‘Tudor’ period, the ‘touch pieces’ presented to the sick who had received the royal touch were undoubtedly gold ‘angels’. Prior to the Yorkist period each person touched by the king had subsequently been given a silver penny by the royal almoner, but the gold angel was introduced by Edward IV, and Bloch has suggested that this may have been with the deliberate intention of encouraging the sick to come to him for healing (thereby gaining 80 pence rather than a single silver penny): Bloch, Royal Touch, pp. 66, 182; Woolf, The Sovereign Remedy, p. 6.

  32. The gatehouse, and parts of the church, of the Priory of the Knights Hospitaller at Clerkenwell survive, and are now in the hands of the so-called ‘Venerable Order of St John of Jerusalem’, a Victorian Protestant English ‘recreation’ of the Order of Knights Hospitaller. The original Sovereign Order of St John of Jerusalem still survives as an order of the Catholic Church, based nowadays in Rome.

  33. The first antiphon begins: Mandatum novum do vobis (‘a new commandment I give unto you’). The word ‘Maundy’ is a corruption of the Latin mandatum.

  34. E.E. Ratcliffe and P.A. Wright, The Royal Maundy, a brief outline of its history and ceremonial (The Royal Almonry, Buckingham Palace, seventh edition, 1960), pp. 6–9, citing a manuscript account in the College of Arms describing the practice in the early ‘Tudor’ period. The sovereign continued to perform the annual foot-washing ceremony in person until the deposition of James II.

  35. Bloch, Royal Touch, p. 92.

  36. Ibid., p. 93.

  37. Ibid., p. 251.

  38. Ibid., p. 100. No Good Friday fell within the very short reign of Edward V, who therefore never made this offering as king.

  39. Tenebrae [‘Darkness’] was the traditional name given to the office of Matins during Holy Week.

  2. ‘It Suits the King of England to Marry Straight Away’

  1. See below, note 15.

  2. J. Ashdown-Hill, ‘“Yesterday my Lord of Gloucester came to Colchester …”’, Essex Archaeology & History 36, 2005, pp. 212–17. There is some evidence that Howard condoned the sexual experimentation of young men. He financed a trip by his young cousin John Mowbray, 4th Duke of Norfolk to a brothel, and Howard’s own eldest son seems to have had an illegitimate son. Θ, subsection 5.8.10 and Beloved Cousyn, chapter 4. For the name ‘John de Pountfreit’ (John of Pontefract), see Harl. 433, vo
l. 1, p. 271.

  3. Beloved Cousyn, chapter 4, n. 19. The surname ‘de Pountfreit’ appears to imply that John may have been either born or brought up at Pontefract.

  4. Road, p. 202.

  5. On the legitimist stance of the Yorkists in general, and Richard III personally, see Eleanor, pp. 10–12.

  6. See below: Elizabeth of York’s letter to the Duke of Norfolk.

  7. From Edward I to Henry VI all the kings of England had married foreign ladies as their queens consort (though Henry IV’s first wife, married before his accession, was from the English aristocracy). Edward IV had broken this traditional marriage pattern, arguably with disastrous results.

  8. Or possibly ‘… greatly serving God and honouring Him …’ The Portuguese possessive adjective sua could refer to either sex. Its intended application in this sentence is therefore ambiguous. It might refer either to the princess or to the Deity. I am grateful to Carolina Barbara for drawing my attention to this point.

  9. pela concordia que no mesmo Reyno de Ingraterra com seu casamento e ajuntamento com a parte del Rey se segue, de tanto seruiço de Deos e honra sua por se unir em hum a parte de Alencastro e Jorca que são as duas partes daquelle Reyno, de que nascem as divisiões e males sobre a socessão: A.J. Salgado, Álvaro Lopes de Chaves, Livro de Apontamentos (1438–1489), Códice 443 da Colecção Pombalina da B.N.L., Lisboa, 1983, p. 256; also quoted in D.M. Gomes dos Santos, O Mosteiro de Jesus de Aveiro, 3 vols, Lisboa, 1963, vol. 1, p. 93. The council meeting was held in Alcobaça in 1485, but the precise date is not recorded; Conselho que se teue em Alcobaça na era de 1485 sobre o casamento da Ifante Dona Joana com el Rej de Ingrayerra Richarte que foj Duque de Gronsetra e jrmão del Rej Duarte do ditto Rejno: Salgado, Álvaro Lopes de Chaves, p. 254.

  10. She is frequently referred to in English as Isabella, but there is no good reason for this. Her name in Spanish was Isabel and that form of the name also exists in English.

  11. J. Ashdown-Hill, ‘The Lancastrian Claim to the Throne’, Ric. 13 (2003), pp. 27–38.

  12. TNA, Warrants for Issues E404/78/3/47, 22 March 1485, cited in B. Williams, ‘Rui de Sousa’s embassy and the fate of Richard, Duke of York’, Ric. 5, pp. 341–45, n. 20.

  13. My italics. Poderá casar com a Ifante Dona Isabel de Castella e fazer su ligua com os Reys della e ficaros por imigo e contrajro: Salgado, Álvaro Lopes de Chaves, p. 255; also quoted in Gomes dos Santos, O Mosteiro de Jesus de Aveiro, vol. 1, p. 92.

  14. poderlheam os Reis de Castella dar soa filha major por molher: Salgado, Álvaro Lopes de Chaves, p. 255; Gomes dos Santos, O Mosteiro de Jesus de Aveiro, vol. 1, p. 92. Although the Portuguese account refers to Isabel as ‘of Castile’ (which she was, on her mother’s side), it would be more usual to refer to her as ‘of Aragon’, acknowledging her father’s title. It is possible that records of Richard’s enquiries regarding a possible marriage with the Infanta Isabel survive in Spanish archives, but if so they have not yet surfaced.

  15. a El Rej de Ingraterra convem de casar loguo: Salgado, Álvaro Lopes de Chaves, p. 255; Gomes dos Santos, O Mosteiro de Jesus de Aveiro, vol. 1, p. 92.

  16. casamento da filha del Rej Duarte de Inglaterra … com o duque de Beja Dom Manuel … o qual casamento antes fora a el Rej apontado por Duarte Brandão sendo uindo por embaixador del Rej Richarte jrmão do ditto Rej Duarte a jurar as ligas e commeter casamento com a Iffante Dona Joana: A. Mestrinho Salgado and Salgado, Álvaro Lopes de Chaves, as cited in A.S. Marques ‘Álvaro Lopes de Cheves [sic]: A Portuguese Source’, Ricardian Bulletin, Autumn 2008, pp. 25–27. For a discussion of this second aspect of the Portuguese marriage proposal, see below.

  17. Lopes de Chaves, cited in Gomes dos Santos, O Mosteiro, p. 95.

  18. B. Williams, ‘The Portuguese Connection and the Significance of “the Holy Princess”’, Ric. 6 (1983), pp. 138–45 (pp. 141–42).

  19. I am grateful to Lynda Pidgeon for her comments on the inheritance of the Scales title. This ultimately fell into abeyance between the heirs of the two daughters of Robert, 3rd Lord Scales: Complete Peerage, vol. 11, London, 1949, p. 507.

  20. King John II of Portugal, ‘in his letter sent from Santarém (transcribed by Lopes) makes it clear that even at the time of Edward Woodville’s first stop in Lisbon, Henry was already married to Elizabeth and reigning over England’: personal communication from Antonio Marques, January 2009.

  21. See below: chapter 8.

  22. Isabel of Aragón was born on 2 October 1470. She was heiress presumptive to the thrones of Castile and Aragon until the birth of her only brother Juan, in 1478, and again, briefly, from Juan’s death in 1497 until her own demise the following year. She ultimately married first Alfonso of Portugal, son and heir of John II, and later John’s cousin, Manuel I (formerly Duke of Beja).

  23. Lopes de Chaves, cited in Gomes dos Santos, O Mosteiro, p. 95. By comparison, Edward IV’s negotiations for his daughters’ marriages with France and Scotland were very specific. Edward named Cecily as the bride for James III’s son and specified arrangements for a replacement should Cecily die. The Treaty of Picquigny stipulated that Elizabeth was to marry the Dauphin, and if she should die Mary was to take her place.

  24. In the Iberian peninsular the title ‘the Infanta’ tout court was generally applied to the eldest daughter of a sovereign, and it meant roughly ‘the [royal] daughter’. Younger daughters of a monarch, on the other hand, were designated as ‘the Infanta [+ first name]’.

  25. Their second daughter, Mary, had died in 1482, aged fifteen; their third son, George, died in 1479 at the age of two, and it is possible that their eldest son, ‘Edward V’, had by this time also succumbed to death by natural causes.

  26. ‘To the archbishop of Canterbury, mandate. The tenor of the petition presented to the pope of Manuel, Duke of Beja and Viseu [Begie et Visen’ Ducis], and Anne Plantagenet, daughter of the late Edward, king of England, was that for certain reasonable causes they desire to be joined together in marriage, but that since they are related in the fourth and fourth degrees of consanguinity, they cannot do so without apostolic dispensation. Manuel is also, as is alleged, administrator, deputed by the apostolic see, of the military order of Jesus Christ. At their supplication, and since, as is also alleged, Anne has no fixed dwelling place but follows the court of Henry, king of England, the pope hereby commissions and orders the above archbishop to dispense them – if the foregoing is true and if Anne shall not have been ravished on this account – freely to contract marriage together and to remain therein after it has been contracted, notwithstanding the said impediments, declaring the offspring of this marriage legitimate’: Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers relating to Great Britain and Ireland, Vol XV 1484–92, no 631, cited by M. Barnfield, ‘Diriment Impediments, Dispensations and Divorce: Richard III and Matrimony’, Ric. 17, pp. 84–98 (p. 98, n. 45).

  27. It may even be that, initially, Henry tried to adopt Richard III’s entire marriage package, with himself as Infanta Joana’s substitute bridegroom. On this basis Elizabeth of York would still have married Dom Manuel. It is noteworthy that Henry did not, in fact, immediately contract a marriage with Elizabeth of York. However, Joana’s matrimonial record, together with the story of her prophetic dream (see below, chapter 8) suggest she would have been unlikely to accept Richard’s supplanter as an alternative spouse. Subsequently (perhaps because of Joana’s reluctance), Henry therefore revised his plans, marrying Elizabeth of York himself. Nevertheless, the projected marriage with the Duke of Beja was not abandoned, and ultimately Anne of York took her elder sister’s place as the proposed bride. This revised marriage project was also later abandoned, when Dom Manuel became heir presumptive to the Portuguese throne on the death of his first cousin once removed, the Infante Dom Alfonso. At that point Manuel married Alfonso’s widow, Isabel of Aragón (who, intriguingly, had been the second string to Richard III’s matrimonial bow in the spring of 1485).

  28. Harl. 433, f. 308v; vol. 3, p. 190.

  29. This marriage
was annulled by Henry VII soon after his accession, and although he subsequently married Cecily to Lord Welles, Cecily was actually available in 1486, at the time when her uncle, the self-styled ‘Count Scales’, was talking to the King of Portugal. For references to Cecily’s Scrope marriage, see: Ellis/Vergil, p. 215; P. Sheppard Routh, ‘“Lady Scroop Daughter of K. Edward”: an Enquiry’, Ric. 9 (1991–93), pp. 410–16 (pp. 412, 416, n. 12); and J. Laynesmith, The Last Medieval Queens, Oxford, 2004, p. 199.

  30. R3MK, p. 257, quoting Kincaid’s edition of Buck’s reported text of Elizabeth of York’s letter. Also Myers/Buck, p. 128. This letter apparently remained amongst the Howard family papers until at least the early seventeenth century, but is now lost.

  31. Myers/Buck, p. 128.

  32. Crowland, pp. 174–75.

  33. Ibid., pp. 176–77.

  34. R3MK, pp. 262, 264.

  35. See, for example, Myers/Buck, p. 44.

  36. It is possible that later in the year, and on the eve of battle, Richard may have made some statement about the succession (see below, chapter 7).

  37. R. Horrox, ‘John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln’, ODNB.

  38. Ibid.

  39. R. Horrox, British Library Harleian Manuscript 433, vol. 4, London, 1983, p. 66.

  40. Horrox, ‘John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln’, ODNB.

  41. C. Carpenter, ‘Edward, called Earl of Warwick’, ODNB. Carpenter also refers to Warwick as potentially Richard III’s ‘heir apparent’. This is also an error. Warwick could only possibly have been regarded as an heir presumptive.

  42. Confirmed by the York city register, 13 May 1485, ‘when it was determyned that a letter should be consaved to be direct to the lordes of Warwik and Lincoln and othre of the counsail at Sheriff Hoton ffrome the maire and his bretherne’: L.C. Attreed, ed., York House Books 1461–1490, vol. 1, Stroud, 1991, p. 361.

  3. ‘Tapettes of Verdoures with Crownes and Rooses’

  1. Nicolas, p. 144.