During the 1460s Eleanor Talbot was an active patroness of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, where, towards the end of 1461 or early in 1462, she endowed a priest-fellowship. It is possible that her interest in the college was in some way inherited, for her uncle, Henry Beauchamp, Duke of Warwick, is also believed to have patronised Corpus Christi, and his arms were displayed in the college hall.1 If Eleanor’s interest in Corpus Christi College was not, in a sense, hereditary, then the precise motive for her association with this particular college is unknown, but ‘provision for education was … considered a work of charity, and the growth of the universities was fostered … with both women and men acting as patrons.’2 It is also important to bear in mind that at this period such colleges were essentially religious foundations.
Corpus Christi College was originally established for a master and six fellow chaplains.3 In 1460–61 the college was headed by ‘that efficient and somewhat dictatorial master’4 Dr John Botwright, with whom Eleanor must have negotiated her endowment. John Botwright had been born at Swaffham in Norfolk in about 1395, and was thus in his late 60s at the time of his negotiations with Eleanor. He was a man of her father’s and her father-in-law’s generation, who had been a fellow of the college since 1416–17 and had been elected master on 25 April 1443.5 Among other benefices he was rector of his native town and from 1447 he had also been chaplain to Henry VI.
Throughout the period 1454–59, the college did indeed have six fellows in addition to the master – at least, judging from the library lists which record the loan of college books.6 On the basis of the same evidence, in 1459–61 the number of fellows fell to five, but in 1461–62 two new fellows joined the college, Cosyn and Shotesham. This increased the number of fellows beyond the statutory six, to a total of seven. Of the two new fellows, it seems certain that Thomas Cosyn (who was a protégé of the Talbot sisters) held a new fellowship, endowed by Eleanor. His history is examined in greater detail below.
The other college fellows at the time of Eleanor’s endowment were Robert Baker, Richard Brocher, Robert Fuller, Ralph Geyton, Thurstan Heton, and Robert Shotesham.7 Baker was born about 1420, and had become a fellow in 1445. Brocher, perhaps a few years younger, was admitted in 1452. Fuller and Geyton were probably about the same age as Richard Brocher. Fuller obtained his fellowship in 1454–55, having studied abroad. Geyton had entered Corpus Christi in 1452. Heton was educated at Eton. He must have been among its first students. He was probably of about the same age as Robert Baker and became a fellow of Corpus Christi in 1445. Shotesham, probably the youngest of the fellows, had first come to the college as a bible clerk. He obtained his fellowship only in 1461. The master and the fellows were not the only college residents at this time. Thomas Fisher, for example, who had been a fellow of Corpus Christi from 1437 to 1451, was again in residence at the college at the time of Eleanor’s endowment, despite having resigned his fellowship.8
No document relating to Eleanor’s original endowment at the college is now extant. The surviving accounts for the 1460s are somewhat fragmentary, but in this case there is probably a specific reason why Eleanor’s indentures were not preserved, which we shall consider shortly. Nevertheless, it is clear from later references to Eleanor as a benefactress of the college, and from the fact that the new priest fellowship was consistently and specifically designated as being ex fundatione Helionore Boteler,9 that the endowment was Eleanor’s initiative.
There is possible further evidence of Eleanor’s patronage of the college in a letter, which refers to an unnamed ‘gracious Ladi ... our most bountous Lady’ who was financing building work at the college.10 This may well refer to Eleanor, because the only other known benefactress of the college in the second half of the fifteenth century was Eleanor’s younger sister Elizabeth, whose active involvement seems to have been part of her inheritance from Eleanor. What survives is not the actual letter, which was dispatched to an unnamed recipient who might possibly have been Sir John Howard, but a draft or a duplicate ‘file copy’ of it in Dr Botwright’s own handwriting.11 This is now bound as part of his Liber Albus. The letter is dated 2 August but no year date is given. The letter mentions a gentleman called Cotton who had been acting as a go-between. This surname does not figure in the surviving affinity lists of the Mowbray Dukes and Duchesses of Norfolk,12 which may tend to suggest that the lady referred to is not Elizabeth Talbot, Duchess of Norfolk (despite the use of the title ‘Highness’). Sir John Howard did, however, have a gentleman with this surname in his entourage during the 1460s.13
John Botwright was Master of Corpus Christi College from 1443 to 1474. However, mention in the letter of Master Thomas Cosyn, who only became a fellow of the college in 1462, indicates that it must have been written between 1462 and 1474, while the implication that Cosyn was still a young man suggests a date in the 1460s.14
Thomas Cosyn’s birth is not recorded, but probably occurred in about 1440, making him a member of the same generation as his patronesses, Eleanor and Elizabeth Talbot. He came from Norfolk, and his family (like Corpus Christi College itself) probably had historic connections with Eleanor’s family, for her grandfather, Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, had presented a Simon Cosyn to the living of ‘Bichemwell All Saints’ in Norfolk in 1435, a living that Simon exchanged for that of North Elmham in 1449.15 It may also be that Canon John Cosyn, Augustinian canon regular (and from 1467, prior) at Great Massingham Priory, Norfolk, was another member of the same family, for Prior John Cosyn was in residence at Corpus Christi College in 1470.16
Nothing is known of Thomas Cosyn’s early education, but he gained his MA in 1460–61, and in 1462 he became a fellow of Corpus Christi College. As we have seen, his admission increased the number of the college fellows by one. It therefore seems certain that his appointment was to the new fellowship endowed by Eleanor. It is likely that his duties initially included keeping the obits of the first Earl of Shrewsbury, and of Sir Thomas Boteler and his mother. Doubtless he was also required to pray for the good estate of Eleanor herself, of her mother, the dowager Countess of Shrewsbury, and of Lord and Lady Sudeley, during their respective lifetimes, with provision for these prayers to be transformed into additional anniversary commemorations after their demise. It is possible that Eleanor’s brother Lord Lisle was also included in the endowment from its inception, although if so, it is perhaps a little strange that her other brother, Sir Louis Talbot (who had died four years earlier, in 1458), was not also mentioned.
In addition to his college post, from 1468 to 1490 Thomas Cosyn was appointed to a series of East Anglian livings which he held in plurality. In 1487, he was elected master of Corpus Christi, despite the fact that he was not, at the time, the most senior fellow. His elevation was almost certainly on the strength of the patronage of the Duchess of Norfolk, who was funding building work at the college in the 1480s and whose chaplain he then was. Cosyn was later named as one of the executors of the Duchess of Norfolk’s will (1506), so his association with the affairs of the Talbot sisters was a long one.
From the moment of his arrival at Corpus Christi he seems to have been accorded extraordinary privileges and prominence. He was ‘apparently given the Master’s quota of borrowable books as soon as he arrived’, being listed in the Markaunt Register for 1462 next after the master of the college, despite the fact that he was then the most junior fellow.17 Thomas Cosyn’s particular prominence in the Corpus Christi records in 1468, the year of Eleanor’s death (when he again figures prominently in the Markaunt Register), may perhaps confirm that he was then serving as her priest under the terms of her endowment.
However, it is probable that in 1487 Eleanor’s new fellowship effectively lapsed (remaining in abeyance until it was revived by her sister in March 1495/6). This would have been as a direct result of Thomas Cosyn’s promotion. When Cosyn was elected as master of the college in October 1487, apparently no one was nominated to replace him in his tenure of Eleanor’s fellowship. For a time this irregularity seems to have escaped the attention of the Duchess of Norfolk, but in 1496 she took notice and decided to remedy the situation. Elizabeth Talbot’s extension and confirmation of Eleanor’s endowment, which post-dates the latter by about thirty-five years, took the form of a new agreement with the master and fellows, superseding Eleanor’s original indentures. As a consequence of this Eleanor’s now redundant earlier documents were discarded.
Thomas Cosyn must have known Eleanor well, and he appears to have held her in particular esteem. Many years after her death, in the Corpus Christi College agreement concluded with her sister Elizabeth in 1496, he recalled Eleanor in warm terms, referring to her sincere religious faith and to the close and friendly relationship which had existed between her and the college.
Dr Cosyn also applied to his erstwhile patroness the word ‘renowned’. It is difficult to conceive of anything that would have justified the use of this adjective during Eleanor’s lifetime, when she seems generally to have lived very quietly, shunning publicity. However, his description dates from 1496 and perhaps recalls the period in 1483–84, when the titulus regius of Richard III had made Eleanor’s name much more widely known, both in England and abroad, than it had ever been while she was alive.
Eleanor’s pious endowment at Corpus Christi College was not the only indication of her developing interest in works of charity and religion in the early 1460s. At about the same time as her foundation in Cambridge, she also associated herself with a religious house in Norwich. It is quite likely that other works of charity were also undertaken by Eleanor at this period, details of which have either not survived or not yet been brought to light. Her association with the Carmelite friars in Norwich, however, was to develop into a serious commitment on Eleanor’s part and one which was to have quite a considerable impact on her lifestyle. Precisely how Eleanor’s relationship with the Norwich Carmel began is unknown. However, it may be connected in some way with the fact that she had now taken up residence in Norfolk, probably in the village of Kenninghall.