Introduction
1. C. El Mahdy, Tutankhamen: the Life and Death of a Boy King, London, 1999, pp. 79, 81.
2. ‘Le nez de Cléopâtre: s’il eût été plus court, toute la face de la terre aurait changé.’ (‘If Cleopatra’s nose had been shorter, the whole face of the earth would have been different.’) L. Brunschvicg, ed., Blaise Pascal, Pensées, (fifth edition, 1909), vol. 2, p. 162.
3. There is actually less evidence of the generally accepted alleged marriage of Henry V’s widow, Queen Catherine, to Owen Tudor, than there is of Edward IV’s marriage to Eleanor Talbot. For this evidence and the evidence regarding the name of the ‘Tudor’ dynasty, see J. Ashdown-Hill, The Wars of the Roses, Stroud, 2015, chapter 2.
4. E. Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars, London, 1992.
5. The spelling ‘Widville’ is employed here as being arguably more authentic than the widely employed modern spelling ‘Woodville’.
Chapter 1
1. Probably. One of John Talbot’s daughters died young. Her mother’s identity is uncertain.
2. Bannes had served Talbot in France on and off since 1436. In 1401–02 the Talbot livery colour was green: B. Ross, Accounts of the Stewards of the Talbot Household at Blakemere, 1392–1425, Keele 2003, pp. 44–45. EA, p. 146, asserts that John Talbot’s livery colour in the 1450s was magenta. No evidence for this is cited, but Talbot may have changed his livery colour on his elevation to the earldom of Shrewsbury, as John Howard apparently did on becoming Duke of Norfolk (see Ashdown-Hill, Phd Thesis).
3. G.H.F. Vane, ‘The Will of John Talbot, First Earl of Shrewsbury’. TSAS, 3rd series, vol. 4, 1904, pp. 371–378; J. Ashdown-Hill, ‘The Wills of John Talbot, first Earl of Shrewsbury, and of his sons, Lord Lisle and Sir Louis Talbot’, TSAHS, 2010, pp. 31–37.
4. For John Talbot’s career, see A.J. Pollard, John Talbot and the War in France, 1427–1453, London, 1983; DNB, vol. 55, London, 1898; and EA (which, however, contains some errors).
5. John Talbot was probably born in the same year as Henry V (1387).
6. He had been supporting John of Gaunt’s claim to the throne of Castile.
7. EA, p. 23, implies that John Talbot’s betrothal to Maud Neville antedated his mother’s marriage to her father, but cites no authority for this chronology.
8. EA, p. 45.
9. The precise sequence of Talbot’s children by Maud Neville is unclear. Some writers would have John as the eldest son, born c.1413.
10. Brown sauce.
11. i.e. minced.
12. Whiting.
13. See below, note 24. Lesche is always a kind of custard. Lesche lumbarde, was usually flavoured with cinnamon and pepper. One recipe includes red wine.
14. ‘Meat’ in this context means ‘dish’, not necessarily animal flesh.
15. See below, note 24.
16. Minced chicken or fish in a sauce of almond milk and sugar, thickened with rice flour. On this occasion fish was presumably served (see below, note 24).
17. Roach.
18. Cranes. It is odd to find game birds on a Lenten menu, but perhaps, since they lived in marshy areas, cranes counted as ‘fish’.
19. Another kind of custard.
20. Flemish pastry.
21. Stewed.
22. Crayfish sprinkled with vinegar and pepper.
23. Yet another custard.
24. J. Gairdner, ed., The Historical Collections of a Citizen of London, London, 1876, p. 141. Katherine’s coronation took place during Lent of 1421, so this is Lenten fare, hence the large variety of fish and seafood on offer. ‘Baked mete in paste’ was not meat but a kind of quiche. ‘Lesche lumbarde’ was a sweetmeat that resembled halva: M. Black, The Medieval Cookbook, London, 1992, pp. 123–124. ‘Powdered’ whelks and trout were perhaps prepared with ‘powders’ (herbs and spices) rather than actually ground into small fragments. ‘Subtleties’ were edible sculptures made of sugar and/or marzipan, and the ‘creyme’ was made, probably, with ground rice.
25. Joan Talbot is something of a mystery. No reference to her seems to predate her very late marriage to Lord Berkeley. Brad Verity (personal communication) suggests that Joan was not a Talbot daughter, but the widow of Sir Christopher Talbot.
26. J. Campbell, At the Cradle of British Monarchy, Coutances 1959, p. 229.
27. For the early history of the Talbot family in England, see R. Brill, An English Captain of the Later Hundred Years’ War, unpublished PhD. Thesis, Princeton, 1966; and A.J. Pollard, The Family of Talbot, Lords Talbot and Earls of Shrewsbury in the Fifteenth Century, unpublished PhD thesis, University of Bristol, 1968.
28. Niece and eventual heiress of Aymer de Valence, Earl of Pembroke.
29. N. Pevsner, The Buildings of England – Herefordshire, Harmondsworth, 1977, pp. 137–9, and plate 15.
30. The Lestrange title was among those that John had inherited.
31. CPR 1321–1324, p. 175.
32. VCH Shropshire, vol. 4, London, 1989, pp. 100, 102. See below, Chapter 5.
33. For basic details of John Talbot’s family, see CP, vol. 11, part 1, London, 1949, pp. 701–5.
34. TSAS, Vane, p. 371, cites a Talbot will of 14 April 1425 that refers to Margaretta domina Talbot, so John and Margaret must have been married before that date.
35. The exact date of Eleanor’s birth is unknown, but it probably took place at the end of February or the beginning of March 1435/6 (a leap year).
Chapter 2
1. EA, p. 70.
2. EA, pp. 70, 85, 126, assumes that John and Margaret both lived mainly in France, but cites no direct evidence.
3. Records of the funeral expenses met by the Steward of Blakemere: Pollard, Thesis, p. 33; B. Ross, Accounts of the Stewards of the Talbot Household at Blakemere 1392–1425, Keele, 2003, p. 156.
4. EAW, p. 9.
5. According to one source, 16 is suggested to have been the normal age for the consummation of a marriage in which one (or both) of the contracting partners was a minor: EAW, p. 45.
6. The Beauchamp Tower.
7. J. Maclean, ed., J. Smyth, The Lives of the Berkeleys, 3 volumes, vol. 2., Gloucester, 1883, p. 34.
8. A. Sinclair, The Beauchamp Pageant, Donnington, 2003, p. 32.
9. Sinclair, Beauchamp Pageant, p. 38.
10. Sinclair, Beauchamp Pageant, p. 39.
11. Future mother of Isabel, Duchess of Clarence, and of Queen Anne Neville. As Henry Beauchamp’s only full-blood sister, Anne was ultimately the Beauchamp heiress.
12. Maclean/ Smyth, Berkeleys, vol. 2, p. 28. The original inscription was in Latin.
13. Margaret’s only grandson, Thomas Talbot, Viscount Lisle, was killed by the then Lord Berkeley at the battle of Nibley Green.
Chapter 3
1. CPR 1441–1446, p. 79.
2. The earliest surviving mention of Talbot Court dates from 1672: H.A. Harben, A Dictionary of London, London, 1918, p. 567.
3. EA, pp. 68, 128, where no source is given. The name can probably be traced back to 1617. Harben, A Dictionary of London, p. 567.
4. C.J. Kitching, ed., London and Middlesex Chantry Certificates, 1548, London Record Society, vol. 16, 1980, p. 2.
5. Leadenhall was held by the Neville family from the early fourteenth century until about 1410, by which time they had acquired ‘the Herber’ (on the site of the present Canon Street Station): Harben, Dictionary of London, pp. 299, 343.
6. According to Talbot, EA, pp. 38, 128, the clerks had certainly occupied it entirely by the 1440s. It is listed, however, as one of the possessions of the second Earl of Shrewsbury in his inquisition post-mortem in 1460, and was finally granted to the Solicitor General by Francis, Earl of Shrewsbury, in the reign of Edward VI: Harben, Dictionary of London, pp. 147–148.
7. EA, p. 9, says (citing no authority) that John Talbot ‘was reputed to have auburn hair and wide set blue eyes’. However, surviving portraits and manuscript illuminations consistently depict John Talbot with dark, almost black hair, and brown eyes.
8. CPR 1441–1446, p. 79.
9. The precise date of their marriage is unknown.
10. See, for example, J. Ashdown-Hill, Royal Marriage Secrets, Stroud, 2013, pp. 69–72.
11. Her father had been created Count of Clermont in 1434, so logically Eleanor was born a ‘lady’ (see appendix 3).
12. CPR 1441–1446, p. 106.
13. J. Gairdner, ed., The Historical Collections of a Citizen of London, p. 184.
14. CPR 1441–1446, p. 448.
15. CPR 1441–1446, p. 108.
16. TNA, C 1/43/35. Abstract published in D. M. Gardiner, ed., A Calendar of Early Chancery Proceedings relating to West Country Shipping, 1388–1493, Devon and Cornwall Record Society, New Series, vol. 21, 1976, p. 44.
17. CPR 1436–1441, p. 408.
18. Pollard, John Talbot and the War in France, p.132.
19. Pollard, John Talbot and the War in France, p.132.
20. The text is from psalm LI, verse 7 (in the enumeration of the Vulgate).
Chapter 4
1. Will of Sir Humphrey Talbot: TV, vol. 1, London, 1826, pp. 409–10; TNA, PROB 11/10, ff. 156–7.
2. The account given here follows that given in the old DNB and assumes that the marriage with Catherine Burnell took place. Pollard, however, is of the opinion that it never progressed further than a betrothal that was subsequently broken. In any event John II married late, as apparently did his sister, Joan (see below). It seems that Lord Talbot had taken little interest in formulating marriage plans for the children of his first wife.
3. In Joan’s case, the only surviving records refer to two subsequent marriages, but she was certainly of an age to have been married by 1443.
4. J. Ward, Women in Medieval Europe 1200–1500, London, 2002, pp. 16, 19. See also N. Orme, Education and Society in Medieval and Renaissance England, London, 1989, p. 229.
5. EAW, p. 32.
6. N. Orme, English Schools in the Middle Ages, London, 1973, p. 55, citing the Plumton correspondence.
7. Their father spoke French. This was also a normal accomplishment for aristocratic girls: EAW, p. 37.
8. According to Bishop Fisher, even a noted bluestocking like Lady Margaret Beaufort was generally unable to read the Latin rubrics in her Book of Hours: EAW, p. 37.
9. Ward, Women in Medieval Europe, pp. 17, 18.
10. EAW, p. 28.
11. Orme, English Schools, p. 53.
12. Orme, English Schools, p. 55.
13. Orme, Education and Society, p. 226.
14. P. Coss, The Lady in Medieval England 1000–1500, Stroud, 1998, pp. 152–4, 159.
15. Coss, Lady, p. 163.
16. Coss, Lady, pp. 156, 157; Orme, Education and Society, p. 225.
17. By his first wife, Idoine Hotoft.
18. I am indebted to Brad Verity for information on Elizabeth and Ankaret Barre.
19. J.C. Wedgwood and A.D. Holt, History of Parliament, 1439–1509, 2 vols, London, 1938, vol. 1, Biographies, p. 164, suggest that Jane was Sir William Catesby’s first wife, but the birth dates of the children of his two marriages make this a chronological impossibility. R. Horrox, ODNB vol. 10, p. 535, confirms that Jane was Sir William’s second wife.
20. Not Henry VII’s mother, but her cousin of the same name.
21. Anne (or Agnes) Paston married Sir Gilbert Talbot, younger son of the second Earl of Shrewsbury, and eventual heir of Sir Humphrey Talbot.
22. John, the youngest, used the title ‘Duke of Somerset’ in exile, but never held it legally in England.
23. When Elizabeth Talbot was in Flanders in 1468, some of her servants reportedly called on the exiled Beauforts, provoking the wrath of Edward IV (see below, chapter 17).
24. See below: chapter 14.
25. Edmund Beaufort, grandson of John of Gaunt, nephew of the former chancellor, Cardinal Henry Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester, and younger brother of John, Earl and subsequently first Duke of Somerset, had married Margaret Beauchamp’s younger sister, Eleanor, the dowager lady Roos, in about 1435. In the same year that John Talbot was created Earl of Shrewsbury, Edmund Beaufort was named Earl of Dorset. In 1444, on the death of his elder brother, he became Earl of Somerset, and in 1448, was created Duke of Somerset.
26. CPR, 1441–1446, pp. 397–8; p. 220. Perhaps Sir Christopher Talbot’s killer was identical with Sir Griffith Vaughan, who was responsible for the capture of Lord Shrewsbury’s old friend the Lollard Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham. (For details of the latter story see EA, p. 43.)
27. CChR, 1427–1516, London, 1927, p. 50. It is unclear whether, strictly speaking, this barony was an inheritance or a new creation: J.E. Powell and K. Wallis, The House of Lords in the Middle Ages, London, 1968, p. 476. Later Lord Lisle was raised to the rank of viscount.
28. J. Maclean, ed., J Smyth, The Berkeley Manuscripts, 3 volumes, Gloucester, 1883–85, vol 2, 1883, pp. 109–10. Thomas reached the age of 21, apparently, in summer 1469, and was ‘under the age of twenty-two years’ when he was killed in March 1469/70. The inquisition post-mortem of his aunt, Eleanor, Lady Boteler, identified him in August 1468 as her nearest heir, and gave his age then as 20, which it defined as being of full age. TNA, C 140/29: ‘Thomas Talbot miles, dominus Lisle, est heres eius propinquior, ... et est etatis viginti annos et amplius.’
Chapter 5
1. Ross, Thesis, vol. 1, p. 45; Pollard, Thesis, p. 8.
2. Ross, Thesis, vol. 1, p. 46.
3. Et in dono ii hominibus de Salop ludentibus quoddam interludum coram domina die Epiphanie iii s. iiii d.: Ross, Thesis, vol. 2, p. 150, household accounts of Richard Kenleye, 1424–1425.
4. S. Landsberg, The Medieval Garden, London [n.d], p. 13.
5. Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, MS 41-1950.
6. WRO, L 1/81.
7. J. Ashdown-Hill, ‘Lady Eleanor Talbot: new evidence; new answers; new questions’, Ric.16 (2006), pp. 113–32.
8. B. Fogle, The Encyclopedia of the Dog, London, 1995, p. 120.
9. L. Woolley, Medieval Life and Leisure in the Devonshire Hunting Tapestries, London, 2002, p. 96.
10. They date from 1425–45, and are believed to have been owned in 1601 by Bess of Hardwick, Countess of Shrewsbury: Woolley, Devonshire Hunting Tapestries, pp.16–23. Their date, and the Talbot connection, together with the fact that the first Earl of Shrewsbury spent much of his time on the Continent, and is known to have commissioned items there, make it plausible that the tapestries belonged to him.
11. Ross, Thesis, vol. 1, pp. 1–4.
12. M. Watson and C. Musson, Shropshire from the Air, Shrewsbury(?), 1993, p.68.
13. P.A. Baker, The Medieval Pottery of Shropshire, Shropshire Archaeological Society, 1970, p. 29; fig. 17.
14. R.W. Griffiths, ‘Excavations at Blakemere Castle, Whitchurch’, in Shropshire Newsletter, vol. 24, Nov. 1963, p. 92.
15. Ross, Thesis, pp. 83–88.
16. EAW, p. 29.
17. Her own children not excepted.
18. Rous Roll no. 51, quoted in CP, vol. 8 (Lisle), p. 55, n.f., and Ross, Thesis, vol. 1, p. 24.
19. John Talbot (like Henry V himself) had been a friend of Sir John Oldcastle (Lord Cobham) in his youth. When Oldcastle was accused of heresy, Talbot (with others) was briefly arrested, but no charge of heresy was ever laid against him. EA, chapter 3 (especially pp. 42–3).
20. It is possible that part of Eleanor’s childhood may have been spent in France.
21. EAW, p. 27, citing Privy Purse expenses of the Princess Mary, xli.
22. Ross, Thesis, pp. 43, 44, 121 and passim., TV, vol. 1, pp. 409–10, and TNA, PROB 11/10, ff. 156–7.
23. Ross, Thesis, p. 54, p. 88.
24. A.J. Pollard, John Talbot and the War in France 1427–1453, London, 1983, p. 98, citing Calendar of Papal Registers, Papal Letters 9, p. 239.
25. The volume contains dedicatory verses, a genealogical table showing the descent of Henry VI from St Louis, la vraye hystoire du bon roy Alixandre, three chansons de geste relating to Charlemagne, the chanson de geste of Ogier de Danois, le livre de Regn[ault] de Montaubain, the noble livre du roy de Pontus, le livre de Guy de Warrewik, lystoire du chevalier au Signe [sic: Cygne], le livre de larbre de batailes, le livre de politique, le cronicles de Normandie, le breviaire des nobles, Christine de Pisan’s livre de fais darmes et de chevalerie, and a French version of the statutes of the Order of the Garter: G.F. Warner and J.P. Gilson, Catalogue of Western Manuscripts on the old Royal and King’s Collections, 4 vols, London, 1921, vol. 2, pp. 177–9.
26. ‘Most excellent princess, the Earl of Shrewsbury presents this book to you.’
27. ‘My one desire in respect of yourself and the king is to serve you well until I die. That said, one knows all there is to know about my one desire in respect of yourself and the king.’
28. Ward, Women in Medieval Europe, p. 34.
29. According to Eleanor’s inquisition post-mortem, Lord Sudeley settled Griff and Great Dorset on her and Thomas in the twenty?eighth year of the reign of Henry VI (1449–50): see below, appendix 1. Actually Lord Sudeley’s deed of gift was dated 1453, but the settlement was probably agreed at the time of the marriage.
30. CP, vol. 9, London, 1936, pp. 608–9 suggests that John Mowbray and Elizabeth Talbot were married before 27 November 1448, but it seems unlikely, in this case, that Elizabeth would actually have left her parents’ home at such an early age.
31. ‘John Mowbray, son and heir of John, Duke of Norfolk’ was created Earl of Warenne and Surrey on 24 March 1450/1: CChR, 1427–1516, London, 1927, p. 114. This date is probably close to that of his marriage.
Chapter 6
1. Both Ralph Boteler (his stepson) and Sir John Montgomery (his younger stepdaughter’s husband) were among those who inherited manors previously held by Sir John Dalyngrygg: CCR 1441–47, p. 95, 12 March 1442/3.
2. The fact that ‘Dame Alice Boteler’ was appointed Henry VI’s governess in 1424 is well known but no one seems previously to have thought about who she might have been. There are two obvious contenders: Ralph Boteler’s mother and his sister-in-law, both of whom were called Alice. Henry’s gifts to his former governess are recorded: CPR 1436–41, pp. 46, 127, 367, 434, 534. The fact that the former governess is called ‘the King’s widow’ means that Ralph Boteler’s sister-in-law is almost certainly the right candidate, as his mother had remarried, and figures in November 1440 as ‘Alice Dalyngrrege’: CPR 1441–46, p. 458. On the other hand Ralph Boteler’s sister-in-law, Alice, never remarried, as is shown by the fact that in October 1442 she is called ‘Alice, late the wife of William Botiller’: CPR 1441–46, p. 116.
3. Some writers have put his birth as late as 1396.
4. ‘Sixteen was the normal age for the consummation of a marriage in which one (or both) of the contracting parties had been a minor’, according to B.J. Harris, English Aristocratic Women, 1450–1550, Oxford 2010, p. 45. However, in personal communications to the present writer, Marie Barnfield has suggested that 14 was sometimes considered an acceptable age for the bride.
5. Tudorhistory.org/castles/sudeley/
6. CP, vol. 12, part 1, p. 421 (footnote). To crenellate a building (i.e. to put on battlements) created a castle. Since this would affect the king, royal permission was required.
7. D. Verey, The Buildings of England – Gloucestershire, vol. 1, The Cotswolds, Harmondsworth, 1970, pp. 438–41.
8. The following account of the career of Ralph Boteler is based largely on that given in CP, vol 12, part 1, p. 419 onwards.
9. Portable Antiquities Scheme database, www.finds.org.uk, ESSCB1310. Lord Sudeley bore the arms of Boteler quartering Sudeley, as displayed on his seal (WRO, L1/82). The harness pendant shows only what may possibly be the Sudeley arms.
10. IRO, HA246/B2/508.
11. J. Weever, Ancient Funeral Monuments of Great Britain, London, 1631, repr. Amsterdam, 1979, p. 778.
12. Guidebook to St Mary, Chilton, Suffolk, Redundant Churches Fund, London, 1985, p. 5.
Chapter 7
1. Alice Deincourt was the grandmother of Francis, Lord Lovell, by her previous marriage.
2. CP, vol. 12, part 1, p. 421.
3. C.P. Boyd, Roll of the Drapers’ Company of London, Croydon 1934, p. 91; S.L. Thrupp, The Merchant Class of Medieval London 1300–1500, Chicago 1948, p. 349: see figure 18.
4. B. Burke, The General Armory of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales, London, 1984, p. 736.
5. M. Barber, ‘John Norbury’, English Historical Review, vol. 68, 1953, p. 66.
6. For Sir John Norbury’s career, see Barber, ‘John Norbury’, pp. 66–76; Burke, Armory, p. 736; CPR 1396–99, p. 470; CPR 1399–1401, p.541; CPR 1408–13, pp. 65, 144, 283, 404, 405, 410; CPR 1413–16, pp. 161, 162, 419; C.W. Previté-Orton and Z.N. Brooke, eds, The Cambridge Medieval History, vol. 8, Cambridge 1964, p. 363, p. 376; E.F. Jacobs, ed., The Fifteenth Century, 1399–1485, Oxford 1961, p. 1, p. 18, p. 429; A. Steel, Richard II, Cambridge 1962, p. 269. For Elizabeth’s first marriage see Thrupp, Merchant Class, p. 349.
7. Elizabeth Norbury was a relative of the great fifteenth-century abbot of St Albans, who is usually known as John Wheathamstead, but whose family surname was Bostock. It is possible that this relationship was on her mother’s side. VCH Hertfordshire, vol. 2, p. 375; H.T. Riley, ed., Registrum Abbatiae Iohannis Whethamstede, Abbatis Monasterii Sancti Albani, 2 vols, London, 1872–73, vol. 1, p. 218 onwards.
8. CPR 1399–1401, p. 541; CPR 1408–13, p. 404.
9. She was the widow of Thomas Baynarde of Suffolk. Her maiden name is unknown.
10. Henry Norbury is named as Henry IV’s godson several times in the patent rolls. See, for example, CPR 1408–13, p. 404.
11. Valens armiger, strenuus ac probus vir: Barber, ‘John Norbury’, p. 75. Sir John Norbury was probably in his late 50s at the time of his death, which Barber places in 1414.
12. New York Public Library, Spencer MS. 193.
13. TNA, C 140/7/14.
14. Only the indentures of 1496 survive, so it is not necessarily possible to draw any conclusions as to the date of Eleanor’s Corpus Christi endowment from the inclusion of Lady Sudeley in the commemoration. At the time of Eleanor’s foundation, the latter could have been still living, and the prayers endowed may have been for her good estate while she lived, and for the repose of her soul after death, which was quite a usual formulation in such cases.
15. The surviving indentures were drawn up not by Eleanor but by her sister, Elizabeth (who may not have known the first Lady Sudeley).
Chapter 8
1. EAW, pp. 53–5.
2. CPR 1467–77, p. 133.
3. WRO, L 1/82.
4. WRO, L 1/79.
5. H.T. Riley, ed., Registrum Abbatiae Iohannis Whethamstede, vol. 1, London, 1872, p. 227.
6. 22 May 1455.
7. ‘Our soveraigne lorde … cam unto Seint Albanis, with him assembling on his parte … the lorde Sudeley [and others]. … At the same batelle were hurte: the king our souveraigne lorde in the nekke with an arow, [and] the duc of Bokingham and the lorde Sudeley in the visages with an arow’: M.L. Kekewich, C. Richmond, A.F. Sutton, L. Visser-Fuchs and J.L. Watts, The Politics of Fifteenth-Century England: John Vale’s Book, Stroud 1995, pp. 190, 193.
8. Ac insuper, noveritis nos, praefatus Abbatem et Conventum, quod eum Thomas Bottiler, Miles, Willelmus Beaufitz, et Willelmus Heynes, teneant de nobis, in iure monasterii nostri praedicti, unum messuagium, diversa terras et tenementum, vocata ‘Langleys’, cum, pertenentiis, in Rykmersworthe praedicta, nuper in tenura Rogeri Lynster, per fidelitatem et redditum decem solidorum annuatim per annum, dedisse, et per preasentes concessisse, praedicto Radulpho Botteller novem solidos et undecim denarios, parcellam dicti redditus decem solidorum: Riley, Registrum Abbatiae Iohannis Whethamstede, vol. 1, p. 227.
9. CD, vol. 2, London, 1894, p. 308, B 2507, 24 June 21 Henry VI. Thomas Boteler’s seal on this document unfortunately shows a punning device rather than a coat of arms. It was apparently impressed with a ring, leaving also his fingerprint in the soft sealing wax on the back. The impression is an elongated hexagonal shape 15mm x 10mm, formed by the shape of the top of the ring. The oval bezel depicts three tall bottles with the letters B-OT-[E?]LA-R distributed around them.
10. It is equally possible, therefore, that Thomas Boteler of Meriden was a distant cousin and namesake.
11. CFR 1452–61, p. 17.
12. CD, vol. 3, London, 1900, p. 377, C. 3519, p. 402, C. 3723. The stewardship of Havering-at-Bower subsequently passed into the hands of Sir Thomas Boteler’s cousin, Sir Thomas Montgomery: Hampton, ‘Sir Thomas Montgomery, K.G.’, cited above, p. 10.
13. J. Ashdown-Hill, ‘The Inquisition Post-mortem of Eleanor Talbot, Lady Butler’, Ric.12, no. 159, December 2002, pp. 563–573.
14. WRO, L 1/82.
15. The possibility that the two were identical was erroneously canvassed by the present writer in ‘Edward IV’s uncrowned Queen’.
16. VCH, Warwickshire, vol. 4, London, 1947, p. 149; N. Pevsner and A. Wedgewood, The Buildings of England – Warwickshire, London, 1966, p. 354.
Chapter 9
1. Then husband of the younger Boteler sister, Elizabeth.
2. Hamon was probably alive on 22 January 1428/9, when a commission was addressed to him: CFR, 1422–30, pp. 258, 236.
3. B. Wolffe, Henry VI, London, 1981, p. 37.
4. Sir John Montgomery was responsible for the capture of Joan of Arc: EA, p. 102.
5. Hampton, ‘Sir Thomas Montgomery’, p. 9.
6. CPR 1408–13, p. 404.
7. I. Nairn & N. Pevsner (revised B. Cherry), The Buildings of England – Surrey, London, 1962, 1971, pp. 465, 468–469.
8. CPR 1452–61, p. 232.
9. The entry in the patent rolls for 1477 is confused and refers to ‘John Norbury, knight, son of Henry Norbury, knight and Elizabeth Butler’, which could mean either that Henry inherited and his name was accidentally exchanged in the records with that of his father, or alternatively that Henry had died before his uncle and that his son, Sir John Norbury III, inherited from Lord Sudeley, the record having misunderstood John’s relationship with Elizabeth Boteler, who was not his mother but his grandmother.
10. CPR 1476–85, pp. 16, 85, 214, 392, 394, 400, 489, 574.
11. J. Anstis, ed., The Register of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, 2 volumes, London, 1724, vol. 1, pp. 127, 130, 199.
12. Anstis, Garter, vol. 1, pp. 127, 130, 199.
13. CPR 1452–61, pp. 87, 481.
14. H. Beaune and J. d’Arbaumont, eds, Mémoires d’Olivier de la Marche, 4 vols, vol. 3, Paris 1885, p. 111.
15. CPR 1476–85, pp. 542, 430.
16. His inheritance devolved upon the posterity of his sister, Alice. His will is published in H. Nicholas, TV, vol. 2, London, 1826, p. 396.
Chapter 10
1. See above, chapter 5; also CPR 1467–77, p. 133.
2. Beaune and d’Arbaumont, Mémoires d’Olivier de la Marche, vol. 3, p. 107.
3. I am grateful to Dr Anne Sutton for drawing my attention to this portrait, on the subject of which, see L. Campbell, ‘Approaches to Petrus Christus’, in M.A. Ainsworth, ed., Petrus Christus in Renaissance Bruges, New York and Turnhout 1995, pp. 3–5 and figs 1–2.
4. W.J. White, personal communication, January 1997. For Mr White’s report on his examination of the Norwich bones, see below, chapter 20.
5. EAW, pp. 32, 192.
6. In Parochia Omnium Sanctorum ad Fenum. Riley, Registrum Abbatiae Iohannis Whethamstede, p. 233; also pp. 23–36, report of the mayor of London, 4 May 1456.
7. Riley, Registrum Abbatiae Iohannis Whethamstede, p. 227.
8. Modern Jenningsbury, near Brickenden, in the rural parish of St John, Hertford. There is still a moated manor house: VCH Hertfordshire, vol. 2, p. 120; vol. 3, p. 409.
9. CCR 1447–54, p. 317, 5 March 1450/1.
10. CCR 1447–54, p. 228.
11. New York Public Library, Spencer Ms. 193: Winkless, ‘Medieval Sudeley’, part 2, Family History vol. 10, 1977, pp. 21–39.
12. Norfolk’s mother, the dowager Duchess Catherine, was the sister of Cecily, Duchess of York.
13. Maclean/Smyth, Berkeleys, p. 66.
14. The Catholic Church celebrates a Jubilee or ‘Holy Year’ at intervals of (usually) twenty-five years – though this has varied from time to time. A ‘Holy Year’ is regarded as a particularly suitable time for making a pilgrimage to Rome.
15. J. Lees-Milne, Saint Peters, London, 1967, pp. 124, 125.
16. EA, pp. 146; 151,
17. N. Davis, ed., Paston Letters and Papers of the Fifteenth Century, 2 volumes, Oxford 1971 and 1976, vol. 2, pp. 74, 76, 77.
18. Maclean/Smyth, Berkeleys, p. 62.
19. Maclean/Smyth, Berkeleys, p. 67.
20. Maclean/Smyth, Berkeleys, p. 65.
21. Maclean/Smyth, Berkeleys, p. 68.
22. Maclean/Smyth, Berkeleys; Pollard, Thesis, pp. 194, 268, 281. Pollard emphasises the close working relationship between Lords Shrewsbury and Somerset.
23. In his will, drawn up in 1452, Lord Shrewsbury instructs his executors to take legal action against Lord Sudeley if necessary to ensure that Eleanor’s marriage settlement is honoured. See below, appendix 1.
24. WRO, L 1/79. Burton Dassett is referred to in this document as ‘Chepingdorset’, one of several variants of its name, attested also in 1397 and 1512. See J.E.B. Gover, A. Mawer & F.M. Stenton with F.T.S. Houghton, The Place Names of Warwickshire, Cambridge, 1936, p. 268.
25. WRO, L 1/80 & L 1/81.
26. The Countess of Shrewsbury’s use of the marguerite emblematic of her name is illustrated in her book of hours: Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, MS 41-1950.
27. VCH, Warwickshire, vol. 4, London, 1947, p. 175, citing CPR 1467–77, p. 133.
28. F. Oshaughnessy, The Story of Burton Dassett Church, Coventry [n.d.], pp. 4, 7, 8, 11, 12.
29. It could be argued that the Aquitaine was not part of France.
30. Vane, ‘Will of John Talbot’, TSAS, vol. 4, 1904, pp. 371–8.
31. CPR 1452–1461, p. 44.
32. W.H. Egerton, ‘Talbot’s Tomb’, TSAS, vol. 8, 1885, pp. 413–440.
33. The chapel of Notre Dame de Talbot was destroyed in the French Revolution, but a cross and a column surmounted by a statue of the Virgin Mary, now mark the site.
34. Anatomical report of Dr Groynne et al., quoted in Egerton, ‘Talbot’s Tomb’, p. 425.
35. Wolffe, Henry VI, p. 294.
36. J.S. Davies, ed., An English Chronicle of the Reigns of Richard II, Henry IV, Henry V and Henry VI, London, 1856, p. 72.
37. G. Smith, ed., The Coronation of Elizabeth Wydeville, London, 1935, reprinted Gloucester 1975, p. 47.
38. See below.
39. TNA, PROB 11/4, f. 205 v: Ashdown-Hill, ‘Talbot Wills’, TSAHS, 2010, pp. 31–7.
40. Davies, ed., English Chronicle, p. 72.
41. See Ashdown-Hill, ‘Norfolk Requiem’.
42. CPR 1452–61, p. 44.
43. M.G.A. Vale, ‘The Last Years of English Gascony, 1451–1453’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, fifth series, vol. 19, London, 1969, p. 128.
44. CPR 1452–61, p. 323.
45. CCR 1454–61, p. 269.
46. Sanis mente licet eger corpore.
47. Secundum voluntatem domine Margarete Comitisse de Salop matris mea: Ashdown-Hill, ‘Talbot Wills’.
48. The church floor was repaved in the nineteenth century: A.N. Palmer, The History of the Parish Church of Wrexham, Wrexham & Oswestry [n.d.], p. 185. Gresford church was also ‘restored’ at that period.
Chapter 11
1. WRO, L1/82.
2. Verey, Gloucestershire, vol. 1, p. 437.
3. VCH, Hertfordshire, vol. 2, pp. 375–6.
4. Alice Deincourt’s exact birth date is unknown, but her parents married in 1400/01 and her father died in 1406, which establishes the possible parameters. Her brother, William, Lord Deincourt, was born c.1403.
5. A.H. Thomas & I.D. Thornley, eds, The Great Chronicle of London, London, 1938, p. 236. There are several slightly different published versions of this rhyme, which was pinned by William Colyngbourn on the door of St Paul’s Cathedral in July 1484.
6. WRO, L1/79.
7. The names of these manors occur in a variety of forms. See W.F. Carter, ed., The Lay Subsidy Roll for Warwickshire, 6 Edward III (1332), London, 1926; L. Drucker, ed., Warwickshire Feet of Fines vol. 3 (1345–1509), London, 1943; and Gover et al., The Place Names of Warwickshire.
8. Eleanor’s inquisition post-mortem, TNA, C 140/29/39.
9. See EAW, p. 144.
10. WRO, L 1/82.
11. In her endowment at Cambridge, Eleanor provided for prayers for Lord Sudeley.
12. EAW, p. 192.
13. The manor of Fenny Compton was at some stage divided into three. It seems likely that this division postdates Eleanor’s death (see below).
14. EAW, p. 130. Of the sample considered by Harris, approximately 36 per cent had a jointure of less than £50 per annum; 28 per cent had between £50 and £100, 25% had between £100 and £500, and 10 per cent had more than £500.
15. Ashdown-Hill, ‘The Inquisition Post-mortem of Eleanor Talbot, Lady Butler’, Ric.12, p. 572.
16. The total would depend, clearly, on the date at which additional property was acquired. This is unknown.
17. EAW, p. 45.
18. The MS has the abbreviation in dict’ com’, which could imply one county or more than one.
19. EAW, p. 43.
20. EAW, p. 47.
21. Ashdown-Hill, ‘Talbot Wills’, TSAHS, 2010, pp. 31–7. It was quite usual for siblings not to mention one another in their wills. According to Harris, less than 8 per cent of them did so: EAW, p. 185.
22. Eleanor’s tenure would, in that case, have been of very limited duration, but she is only known to have held the Wiltshire lands in June 1468. It is not certain when she acquired them.
23. CFR 1461–1471, pp. 195–7.
24. Mentioned retrospectively in 1452. CPR 1446–1452, p. 108.
25. CPR 1446–1452, p. 559; CPR 1461–1467, p. 482.
26. J. Ashdown-Hill, ‘The elusive mistress: Elizabeth Lucy and her family’, Ric.11 (1997–99), pp. 490–505. This paper is now out of date in some respects. However, it does provide useful information in respect of the Wayte family.
27. VCH Wiltshire, vol. 10, p. 195.
28. Eleanor gave (dedisse) her sister the manor of Fenny Compton, which was not Eleanor’s inherited property. On the other hand she granted Elizabeth the reversion (reversione) of the Wiltshire properties. This could be construed as implying some right of inheritance. However it could equally imply the repayment of loans from Elizabeth.
29. VCH Wiltshire, vol. 10, p. 195.
30. See below and L1/93.
31. Wiltshire and Swindon Record Office: damaged deed and letters of attorney concerning John Cheney, June 1466, ref. 490/1478; marriage settlement referring to John Cheney of Oare, gentleman, 8 June 1678, ref. 9/26/176.
32. Pevsner and Wedgwood, The Buildings of Britain – Warwickshire, pp. 222; 293–4, lists an extant seventeenth century manor house at Burton Dassett, but no manor house at Fenny Compton.
33. CCR 1447–1454, p. 228. See also above, chapters 6 and 10.
34. Weever, Ancient Funeral Monuments, p. 778. See also above, chapter 6.
35. The present gateway is actually a sixteenth century rebuilding by the second Howard Duke.
36. Cambridge University Library, Dd. 3. 86. 3c, published in J. Ridgard, ed., Medieval Framlingham, Suffolk Record Society, vol. 27, 1985, pp. 129–158.
37. A. Watson and D. Sasitorn, East Anglia from Above, London, 1998, p. 21.
38. F.J.E. Raby and P.K. Baillie Reynolds, Framlingham Castle, English Heritage guidebook, London, 1959, revised 1973, p. 17.
39. Details of building construction from Raby and Baillie Reynolds, Framlingham Castle.
Chapter 12
1. CPR 1452–1461, p. 541.
2. C.L. Scofield, The Life and Reign of Edward the Fourth, vol. 1, London, 1923, p. 120.
3. IRO, HA 246/B2/498.
4. Powell and Wallis, The House of Lords, pp. xii–xiii.
5. Beaune and d’Arbaumont, Mémoires d’Olivier de la Marche, vol. 3, p. 107.
6. On Edward’s hair colour, see A. Sutton and L. Visser-Fuchs, The Royal Funerals of the House of York at Windsor, London, 2004, pp.113–24.
7. See below, chapter 19.
8. See, for example, J. Ashdown-Hill, ‘The Elusive Mistress’, Ric.11 (1997–99), pp. 490–505 (p. 498). This theory is based upon Thomas More’s report that the king fathered bastard children before 1464, and upon the possible birth date of Edward IV’s daughter, later Lady Lumley. But it is by no means certain, and there is no contemporary evidence.
9. The titulus regius of 1484; Commyne’s Mémoires; the Crowland Chronicle.
10. J. Gairdner, History of the Life and Reign of Richard the Third, Cambridge, 1898, p. 91.
11. C.N.L. Brooke, the Medieval Idea of Marriage, Oxford, 1989, p. 169; Coss, Lady, p. 87.
12. R.A. Griffiths and R.S. Thomas, The Making of the Tudor Dynasty, Stroud, 1985, p. 30.
13. J. Stevenson, ed., Letters and papers illustrative of the Wars of the English in France during the reign of King Henry the Sixth, King of England, vol. 1, London, 1861, pp. 79–82; 83–6.
14. P. Maddern, ‘Honour among the Pastons: gender and integrity in fifteenth-century English provincial society’, Journal of Medieval History, 14 (1988) p. 358.
15. Maddern, ‘Honour among the Pastons’, p. 359.
16. M. Jones, ed., P. de Commynes, Memoirs, Harmondsworth, 1972, pp. 353-4.
17. Jones, ed., Commynes, Memoirs, p. 397. This was written with hindsight. In 1460–61 Robert Stillington was not yet a bishop.
18. Jones, ed., Commynes, Memoirs, p. 354.
19. Coss, Lady, p. 87.
20. For details of Stillington’s career, see A.J. Mowat, ‘Robert Stillington’, Ric.4 (June 1976), pp. 23–8, and W.E. Hampton, ‘A further Account of Robert Stillington’ Ric.4 (Sept. 1976), pp. 24–27. Also Emden, Oxford, vol. 3, pp. 1777–8 and H.C. Maxwell-Lyte, ed., The Registers of Robert Stillington, Bishop of Bath and Wells 1466–1491 and Richard Fox, Bishop of Bath and Wells 1492–1494, Somerset Record Society, 1937.
21. EAW, p. 10.
22. J. Gairdner, History of the Life and Reign of Richard the Third, Cambridge, 1898, p. 91.
23. C.A.J. Armstrong, ed., D. Mancini, The Usurpation [sic] of Richard the Third, Gloucester, 1989, p. 63. Armstrong’s use of the term ‘Usurpation’ is questionable. Mancini’s original Latin title was De occupatione regni Anglie per Ricardum tercium, omitting the perjorative word usurpatio.
24. Encapsulated in the Act of Parliament of 1484.
25. Jones/Commynes, p. 397.
26. See above, chapter 11.
27. A.N. Kincaid, ed., G. Buck, The History of King Richard the Third, Stroud, 1979, pp. 176, 181.
28. See, for example, EAW, p. 137, – the case of Dame Elizabeth Holford, whose disputed marriage was implicitly recognised by the courts of Star Chamber and Chancery.
29. EAW, p. 15.
30. The secondary Mowbray title ‘Earl Warren’ was used as a courtesy title by the heir to the dukedom of Norfolk at this period.
Chapter 13
1. CPR 1461–1467, p. 72.
2. 30 May 1462. CPR 1461–1467, p. 191.
3. The patent rolls record commissions in July 1461, March 1461/2 and October 1462, June, October and December 1464, August 1466, February 1467/8 and November 1469. There were later appointments in 1470, but these, presumably, were made by the government of the restored Henry VI.
4. CP, vol. 12, part 1, p. 421 (footnote).
5. F. Madden, ‘Political Poems of the Reigns of Henry VI and Edward IV’, Archaeologia, vol. 29 (1842), pp. 318-347, (p. 347).
6. M. Jones, ‘Beaufort, Henry’, ODNB, http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/1860 (consulted June 2015).
7. Jones, ‘Beaufort, Henry second Duke of Somerset’, ODNB.
8. R. Vaughan, Charles the Bold, second edition, Woodbridge, 2002, p. 159.
9. ‘un très grand seigneur et un des plus beaulx josnes chevaliers qui fust au royaume anglais’, quoted in A.F. Pollard, ‘Beaufort, Henry (1436–1464)’ in S. Lee, ed., Dictionary of National Biography, supplement 1, London, 1901, p. 157–158 (p. 157).
10. J. Gairdner, ed., The historical collections of a citizen of London in the fifteenth century, London (Camden Society, new ser., 17), 1876, p. 219.
11. Brooke, The Medieval Idea of Marriage, pp. 58, 59. A prohibition extending to the fourth degree of kinship remains the Catholic ruling today: Catholic Encyclopaedia, www.newadvent.org/cathen/04261a.htm.
12. Coss, Lady, p. 91.
13. Kincaid, ed., Buck, King Richard the Third, p. 183.
14. There was nothing exceptional in this. Fifteenth-century aristocratic women in general ‘remained devoted to traditional religious practices and were generous about supporting the church’: EAW, p. 11.
15. Kincaid, ed., Buck, King Richard the Third, p. 183, suggests that Eleanor’s family knew of the marriage.
16. Dean of St Martin’s; archdeacon of Colchester; archdeacon of Taunton; prebend of York; prebend of St David’s; prebend of St Stephen’s Chapel, Westminster; rector of Ashbury. He was confirmed in these posts early in the reign of Edward IV: H.C. Maxwell-Lyte, ed., The Registers of Robert Stillington, Bishop of Bath and Wells 1466–1491 and Richard Fox, Bishop of Bath and Wells 1492–1494, Somerset Record Society, 1937, p. x, citing Patent Roll 1 Edward IV part v, m. 9.
17. A.J. Mowat, ‘Robert Stillington, Ric.4 (June 1976), p. 23.
18. Maxwell-Lyte, The Registers of Robert Stillington, p. ix.
19. Powell and Wallis, The House of Lords, p. 15.
20. Archbishop William Booth died on or about 12 September 1464.
21. Maxwell-Lyte, ed., The Registers of Robert Stillington, p. viii.
22. CPR 1461–1467, p. 387.
23. Maxwell-Lyte, ed., The Registers of Robert Stillington, p. viii. Pope Paul II (Barbo) had succeeded Pius II (Piccolomini) at the end of August 1464.
24. Maxwell-Lyte, ed., The Registers of Robert Stillington, p. viii, citing Patent Roll 4 Edward IV, part 2, m. 2, nos. 37, 38, 51, 52.
25. Calendar of Papal Registers, vol. 12, Papal Letters 1458–1471, London, 1933, p. 519. On Stillington’s appointment, see also Mowat, ‘Robert Stillington’, p. 23, citing CPR 1461–67, pp. 149–150, and Emden, Oxford, p. 1778.
26. R.H. Helmholz, ‘The Sons of Edward IV: A Canonical Assessment of the Claim that they were Illegitimate’, in P.W. Hammond, ed., Richard III: Loyalty Lordship and Law, London, 1986, pp. 95, 96.
27. N. Adams and C. Donahue, eds, Select Cases from the Ecclesiastical Courts of the Province of Canterbury, c. 1200–1301, London, 1981, p. 337 and passim.
28. Adams and Donahue, Select Cases, p. 337.
29. Adams and Donahue, Select Cases, p. 348.
Chapter 14
1. R. Masters, The History of the College of Corpus Christi and the Blessed Virgin Mary, Cambridge 1753, p. 46.
2. Ward, Women in Medieval Europe, p. 213.
3. C. Hall, in P.N.R. Zutski, ed., Medieval Cambridge: Essays on the Pre-Reformation University, Woodbridge, 1993.
4. A.B. Emden, A Biographical Register of the University of Cambridge to 1500, Cambridge 1963, p. xviii.
5. Emden, Cambridge, p. 81.
6. Parker Library MS. 232, the Markaunt Register. A former master, Thomas Markaunt, left the college his library of 75 volumes, for the use of the master and fellows, in 1439. Loans from this collection were recorded in the Markaunt Register and totalled on a yearly basis.
7. Parker Library MS. 232; Emden, Cambridge.
8. He paid room rent in 1457–62. Emden, Cambridge, p. 230.
9. Masters, Corpus Christi, appendix, p. 53.
10. Parker Library, Liber Albus, f. 72 (old foliation) or f. 51 (modern pencil foliation). The letter was published in Masters, Corpus Christi, appendix, p. 30. See below, appendix 1.
11. I am grateful to the Ancient Archivist at Corpus Christi College, Dr E.S. Leedham-Green, for confirming this point.
12. J. Ashdown-Hill, ‘The client network, connections and patronage of Sir John Howard (Lord Howard, first Duke of Norfolk) in north-east Essex and south Suffolk’, unpublished PhD Thesis, vol. 2, appendices, University of Essex, 2008.
13. HHB, part 1, p. 363. There were also Cottons in Cambridgeshire, one of whom was the receiver general of Margaret of Anjou. Eleanor’s nephew Sir Gilbert Talbot married a Cotton.
14. Masters, Corpus Christi, p. 30.
15. Masters, Corpus Christi; copy annotated by the author and now in the Parker Library; handwritten note facing p. 53. ‘Bichemwell’ is presumably Beechamwell, about 2 miles south west of Swaffham.
16. Emden, Cambridge, p. 161.
17. Personal communication of 18 November 1996 from Catherine Hall, former Library Archivist, Corpus Christi College, citing MS. 232. The sequence of names in the Markaunt Register seems, however, somewhat haphazard.
Chapter 15
1. See accompanying illustrations and C.R. Manning, ‘Kenninghall’, Norfolk and Norwich Archaeological Society, Original Papers, vol. 7, part 4, Norwich 1870, pp. 289–99; description pp. 292–4.
2. L.T. Smith, The Itinerary of John Leland, parts 6 and 7, London, 1890, p. 120.
3. Elizabeth Fitzalan’s first husband had been Sir William de Montagu. After the death of Thomas Mowbray she married two further husbands: Sir Robert Goushill and Sir Gerard Usflete.
4. M.F. Serpell, Kenninghall History and St Mary’s Church, Norwich, 1982, p. 21.
5. Serpell, Kenninghall, pp. 16, 21–7.
6. Serpell, Kenninghall History and St. Mary’s Church, p. 22.
7. Smith, John Leland, parts 6 and 7, p. 120.
8. R. Burrows, Guidelines for Mystical Prayer, London, 1976, p. 65.
9. EA, p. 30.
10. CCCC, Parker Library, Ms. XXXI. 121.
11. W.E. Hampton, ‘The Ladies of the Minories’, Ric.4, no. 62, September 1978, pp.15–22.
12. WRO, L1/81.
13. WRO, L1/85.
14. WRO, L1/86.
15. Ashdown-Hill, ‘The Go-between’, Ric.15 (2005), pp. 119–21.
16. HHB, part 1, pp. 153, 180, 240, 332, 482, part 2, p. 116.
17. HHB, part 1, p. 165.
18. See above, chapters 12 and 14.
19. HHB, part 1, p. 151. ‘My lord’ is to John Mowbray, fourth Duke of Norfolk.
20. HHB, part 1, p. 153.
21. A.B. Emden, A Biographical Register of the University of Oxford to A.D. 1500, 3 vols, Oxford 1957–59, vol. 2, pp. 1035–6.
22. CCCC, Parker Library, Ms. XXXI. 121.
23. Ward, Women in Medieval Europe, p. 209
24. M.C. Erler, ‘Three Fifteenth-Century Vowesses’, C.M. Barron and A.F. Sutton, eds, Medieval London Widows 1300–1500, London, 1994, p. 165.
25. Erler, ‘Vowesses’, p. 166.
26. NRO, DN/REG 6, book 11, and MF510.
27. H. Kleineke, ‘Gerhard von Wesel’s Newsletter from England, 17 April 1471’, Ric.16, 2006, p. 76.
28. Richard Water (or Walter) is named as prior in 1467–70. Probably he succeeded John Keninghale, who died in 1451. By 1470 (and probably earlier) he was baccalaureus. About the same period he is named in connection with the Paston family. Prior Water died on 5 March 1485/6, and was buried in a side chapel at the Norwich Carmel. His successor as prior was Thomas Waterpitt (elected August 1486, died December 1505): private communication from Fr Richard Copsey, O. Carm., Institutum Carmelitanum, Rome.
29. NRO, DN/REG 6, book 11, f. 130v.
30. The difference between a convent and a monastery is often misunderstood. It has absolutely nothing to do with the gender of the inhabitants. ‘Convent’ (from Latin convenire) is a house where people come and go, and is thus to some extent open to the world. ‘Monastery’ (from Greek μοναχός) is a house more separate from the outside world, where the inmates remain alone or apart.
31. Also called in Italy a mantellata.
32. J. Smet, Cloistered Carmel, Rome 1986. pp. 1012.
33. J. Smet , The Carmelites: a history of the brothers of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, 3 vols, vol. 1, Darien 1975, trans. A Ruiz Molina, Los Carmelitos, Historia de la Orden del Carmen, Madrid, 1987, p. 139.
34. Smet, Cloistered Carmel, p. 12. The degli Armati were not a unique case. There was a similar married couple in Cologne, ibid., p. 17.
35. Only in recent times have houses of Carmelite nuns been established in England.
36. R.P. Silverio de Santa Teresa, Saint Teresa of Jesus, London and Glasgow, 1947, p. 21, n. 1.
37. ‘Only two per cent of aristocratic women became nuns’: EAW, p. 11. For Eleanor, as for vowesses, a religious commitment brought certain social and legal advantages, including ‘control of temporal resources, free from male intrusion’: Erler, ‘Vowesses’ p. 167.
38. Personal communication from Sr Gillian Leslie OCD, librarian, the Carmelite Monastery, Quiddenham, Norfolk.
39. Personal communication from Sr. Gillian Leslie OCD.
40 Ward, Women in Medieval Europe, p. 191.
41. C. Wolters, ed., The Cloud of Unknowing, Harmondsworth 1961, p. 52.
42. Burrows, Guidelines, p. 105.
43. Ward, Women in Medieval Europe, pp. 193, 195.
Chapter 16
1. Warwick’s quest for a suitable bride had included the Queen Mother of Scotland, and also the very young daughter of King Louis XI of France.
2. Jones/Commynes, pp. 354, 397.
3. P.M. Kendall, Richard the Third, London, 1973, p. 54.
4. Helmholz, ‘The Sons of Edward IV’, pp. 91–103. Also Brooke, The Medieval Idea of Marriage, p. 169.
5. Similarly the marriage between Thomas fitz James Fitzgerald, Earl of Desmond and Ellis Barry was publicly acknowledged for many years. This did not stop the Earl’s younger brother, Gerald, from claiming, after Thomas’ execution in 1468, that the marriage was invalid, and all the children born of it, bastards. Although Gerald’s action failed (because he could not prove his brother’s marriage invalid) there is no doubt that had he been able to demonstrate a legal impediment, the children would all have been bastardised, despite having long been held legitimate: Calendar of Papal Registers, vol. 11, Papal Letters 1455–1464, London, 1921, p. 232, and vol. 12, Papal Letters 1458–1471, London, 1933, p. 672.
6. See Coss, Lady, p. 125: ‘the courts largely considered cases on the basis of an action brought by an interested party’. Coss is speaking here of suits for nullity or divorce, but the pre-contract cases cited in Pedersen, Marriage Disputes in Medieval England, were all brought to court by one of the disputant ‘wives’.
7. See above, chapters 11 and 12.
8. Kendall, Richard the Third, p. 52.
9. Smith, The Coronation of Elizabeth Wydeville.
10. CCR 1461–1468, pp. 177, 183, 290; HHB, part 1, p. 165.
Chapter 17
1. C.L. Kingsford, ed., A Survey of London, by John Stow, 2 vols, Oxford 1908, vol. 1, pp. 336, 337. For the year of the countess’s death see TNA, C 140/26 and Caledarium Inquisitionum Post-mortem, vol. 4, London, 1828, p. 341. A different date was given on her vanished tomb in old St Paul’s Cathedral, but this monument was erected twenty-five years after her death, and the year given on it seems to have been an error.
2. The date is given in Eleanor’s inquisition post-mortem, TNA, C 140/29/39.
3. Kincaid, ed., Buck, King Richard the Third, p. 183.
4. Some pedigrees number Thomas as the eighth Earl but this is incorrect. The enumeration followed here is that of the Complete Peerage (1916 edition), which argues persuasively that when Maurice, the second Earl, died childless in 1356, his next brother and heir, Nicholas, was not immediately recognised as earl by the king because his sanity was in question. After an official investigation which concluded that Nicholas was an idiot the next brother in line, Gerald, was formally recognised as the third Earl of Desmond on condition that he care for Nicholas. Earlier pedigrees either mistakenly counted the unfortunate Nicholas as the third earl, and Gerald as the fourth (see for example Complete Peerage, 1890 edition) or in some cases erroneously interpolated a younger brother, John, as the third earl from 1358 until his death in 1369. It is certain that neither Nicholas nor John ever held the earldom, and that Gerald was being addressed as earl by 1363 at the latest. The title ‘Earl of Desmond’, created by Edward III in 1329, derives from the Irish Des-Mumha (‘South Munster’), for the earldom was based in the province of Munster.
5. Thomas Russell, ‘Relation of the Fitzgeralds in Ireland’, 1638, in S. Hayman and J. Graves, eds, Unpublished Geraldine Documents, Dublin 1870–81, p. 12. Thomas Russell’s forebears had been in the service of the Earls of Desmond. For a fuller and more detailed examination of the execution of the Earl of Desmond, see J. Ashdown-Hill & A. Carson, ‘The Execution of the Earl of Desmond’, Ric.15, 2005, pp. 70–93.
6. R.J. Mitchell, John Tiptoft, London, 1938, p. 115, considers that ‘it is possible … that Desmond let fall some criticism of the king’s recent marriage with Elizabeth Woodville’ but she is inconsistent, contending subsequently (p. 121) that any suggestion that this ‘indiscreet’ behaviour on Desmond’s part might have been a motive for his execution ‘is highly improbable’.
7. Hayman and Graves, op. cit., p. 80.
8. ‘Circa festum Purificacionis beatae Mariae in Hibernia Comes Wigorniae fecit decollari Comitem Desmund, unde Rex in principio cepit displicenciam’. T. Hearne, ed., Liber Niger Scaccarii, nec non Wilhelmi Worcestrii Annales Rerum Anglicarum, 2 vols, London, 1771, vol. 2, p. 513; J. Stevenson, ed., Wars of the English in France, vol. 2, London, 1864, p. 789. As K.B. McFarlane has shown (‘William Worcestre: a Preliminary Survey’ in G.L. Harriss, ed., England in the Fifteenth Century, London, 1981, pp. 200–12), the Annales are a miscellaneous collection of which William Worcester was the owner rather than the author, though he contributed small sections. Further additions were made in about 1491 (after Worcester’s death in 1482). Both of the main published editions of the Annales are unsatisfactory: Hearne’s because he extensively reordered the material, and Stevenson’s because, despite his claim to have worked from the original manuscripts, he clearly simply copied from Hearne, introducing some inaccuracies in the process. Extracts from the Annales are also to be found in J. Bohn, ed., The Chronicles of the White Rose of York, London, 1843, and Bohn may well have worked not only from Hearne but also directly from the original manuscript, as his published text differs from Hearne’s. However, Bohn does not include the reference to Desmond. In their account of Desmond’s death Hearne’s and Stevenson’s published texts are identical, and while we cannot be certain that the Annales report of the execution dates from 1468, it was written in the second half of the fifteenth century, probably within twenty years of Desmond’s execution.
9. J. Gairdner, ed., Letters and Papers illustrative of the Reigns of Richard III and Henry VII, 2 vols, vol. 1, London, 1861, pp. 73–4.
10. Gairdner, op. cit., vol. 1, p. 68.
11. A.F. Sutton & L. Visser-Fuchs, ‘A Most Benevolent Queen’, Ricardian vol. 10, no. 129, June 1995, p. 218.
12. ‘Regina … estimavit nunquam prolem suam ex rege iam susceptam regnaturam, nisi dux Clarentie aufferretur: quod et ipsi regi facile persuasit. … Condemnatus fuit: et ultimo supplicio affectus. Supplicii autem genus illud placuit, ut in dolium mollissimi falerni mersus vitam cum morte commutaret’. Armstrong/D. Mancini, pp. 62–3. Mancini states at the end of his text that he finished writing it on 1 December 1483.
13. WRO, L 1/85.
14. Nuper uxor Thome Boteler militis iam defunct’. It is difficult to see how else Eleanor could have described herself in a legal document at this juncture. If she were not a widow, her freedom to act in the matter would have been in question.
15. EAW, p. 9.
16. TNA, C/140/7/14.
17. WRO, L 1/86 and L 1/87.
18. La duchesse de Norfolck, une moult belle dame d’Angleterre. Elizabeth’s beauty (which Eleanor may have shared) is vouched for by Olivier de la Marche, who met her in Flanders: Beaune and d’Arbaumont, eds, Mémoires d’Olivier de la Marche, vol. 3, pp. 106–107.
19. C. Weightman, Margaret of York, Duchess of Burgundy, 1446–1503, Gloucester 1989, p. 47.
20. CCCC, Parker Library, Ms. XXXI.121, and J. Ashdown-Hill, ‘The Endowments of Lady Eleanor Talbot and Elizabeth Talbot, Duchess of Norfolk, at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, Ric.14 (2004), p. 83. NB my original translation at this point was slightly misleading: executrix testamenti refers to a testament, not a will.
21. Personal commmunications from Fr Richard Copsey, O. Carm., Institutum Carmelitanum, Rome, citing Bale, Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS 73, f. 51v.
22. ‘I bequeath to the Whight Fryers of the said city of Norwich, for I am there a suster, to helpe to pay hir debts xx li.’: Will of Agnes Berry (Paston), Davis, Paston Letters, vol. 1, p. 49.
23. Davis, Paston Letters, vol. 1, p. 625.
24. Eleanor’s only surviving brother, Sir Humphrey Talbot, accompanied Elizabeth, Duchess of Norfolk, to the royal wedding in the Low Countries. See Beaune and d’Arbaumont, eds, Mémoires d’Olivier de la Marche, vol. 3, p. 111, where he is described as ‘son frere, l’ung des filz de monsigneur de Talbot’.
25. J. Bohn, ed., The Chronicles of the White Rose of York [Hearne’s Fragment], London, 1843, p. 20.
26. Chronicles of the White Rose of York [Hearne’s Fragment], p. 20.
27. Weightman, Margaret of York, pp. 47–59.
28. Chronicles of the White Rose of York [Hearne’s Fragment], pp. 20–1. The fact that the two men were of the Norfolk affinity is attested by a letter of 9 December 1468 from Godfrey Greene to Sir William Plumpton. This reports that ‘one Alford and one Poiner, gentlemen to my [lord] of Northfolk … were beheaded’ on Monday 28 November 1468. J. Kirby, ed., The Plumpton Letters and Papers, Cambridge, 1996, p. 40.
29. J. Gairdner, ed., The Historical Collections of a Citizen of London in the Fifteenth Century [Gregory’s Chronicle], London, 1876, pp. 236–7.
30. H. Ellis, ed., R. Fabyan, The New Chronicles of England and France, London, 1811, p. 657; C.L. Kingsford, ed., Chronicles of London, Oxford, 1905, p. 180.
31. Kingsford, ed., Chronicles of London, p. 180.
32. CPR, 1467–1477, London, 1910, p. 122.
33. Smith, The Itinerary of John Leland, p. 120.
34. EAW, p. 75.
35. Weever, Ancient Funeral Monuments (see n. 25), p. 805. The Whitefriars in Norwich was one of the larger Carmelite houses, and was founded in 1256 and dissolved in 1538: D. Knowles and R.N. Hadcock, Medieval Religious Houses – England and Wales, London, 1953, p. 198.
36. P.G. Lindley, ‘The “Arminghall Arch” and contemporary sculpture in Norwich’, Norfolk Archaeology, vol. 40, part 1, Norwich, 1987, pp. 19–43.
37. Erected by the Richard III Society in 1999.
38. W. Dugdale, Monasticon Anglicanum, 6 vols, reprinted London, 1846, vol. 6, part 3, p. 1574.
39. Tombs of the Lucas family at St Giles’ church in Colchester were desecrated during the Civil War.
Chapter 18
1. CPR 1467–77, p. 133.
2. CPR 1461–67; 1467–77, p. 122.
3. CPR 1467–1477, p. 122. The Duke and Duchess of Norfolk had previously been granted such a pardon on 20 March 1467/8. CPR 1467–1477, p. 83. On 28 January 1468/9 the king also granted a pardon to Sir Humphrey Talbot (ibid.).
4. CPR 1467–77, p. 133.
5. TNA, Close Roll 8 Edward IV, no. 3 dorso, 23 February 1468/9.
6. Coss, Lady, pp. 146–7.
7. Inquisition post-mortem of Ralph Boteler of Sudeley, TNA, C 140/47/64.
8. The 1492 will of Sir Humphrey Talbot, brother of Eleanor and Elizabeth, ordained prayers for the souls of his faithful servants, John and Elizabeth Wenlock. TV, vol. 2, pp. 409–10. An earlier John Wenlock and a William Wenlock had served the Talbots at Blakemere during the period 1401–20: Ross, Thesis, pp. 45, 54, 117, 132, 137, 142–4.
9. Moye, Thesis, p. 438.
10. Moye, Thesis, p. 432.
11. HHB, part 1, p. 165; Moye, Thesis, p. 427.
12. He visited his diocese only once in twenty-six years: Ross, Edward IV, p. 320. Of the 125 ordinations conducted in Bath and Wells during his episcopate, Stillington was present at none: Maxwell-Lyte, ed., The Registers of Robert Stillington, p. xvii.
13. While Stillington held the great seal a number of official documents were dated from his manor of Dogmersfield. See, for example, CPR 1467–1477, pp. 11, 17, 31–4. There are many more examples.
14. Maxwell-Lyte, ed., The Registers of Robert Stillington, p. xi.
15. J. Ashdown-Hill, The Third Plantagenet, George, Duke of Clarence, Richard III’s Brother, Stroud, 2014, p. 141.
16. A.B. Emden, Biographical Register of the University of Oxford, 3 volumes, Oxford 1957–59, vol. 3, p. 1778.
17. Davis, Paston Letters, vol. 1, p. 489.
18. Armstrong/Mancini, pp. 62–3.
19. J. Ashdown-Hill, Richard III’s ‘Beloved Cousyn’: John Howard and the House of York, Stroud, 2009, p. 76.
20. Davis, Paston Letters, vol. 1, p. 492; CPR 1476–1485, pp. 75, 96; F. Sandford, Genealogical History of England, [no place of publication], 1707, [no page numbers].
21. Armstrong/Mancini, pp. 62–3.
22. J. Ashdown-Hill, The Third Plantagenet, pp. 142–3.
23. CPR 1476–1485, p. 572.
24. Gairdner, Richard the Third, p. 91, n. 1.
25. CPR 1476–1485, p. 554.
26. Jones/Commynes, p. 397.
27. CPR 1476–1485, p. 102.
28. RP, vol. 6, pp. 193–5.
29. When a subject received fealty it was normally offered saving the swearer’s duty to the king.
30. Compare, for example Henry VII’s long act of attainder against William Stanley, Simon Mountford, William Dawbeney, Robert Ratcliff and Gilbert Debenham; 14 October 1495: RP, vol. 6, p. 504.
31. Gairdner, Richard the Third, p. 91.
32. C.L. Kingsford, ed., The Stonor Letters and Papers, vol. 2, Camden third series, XXX, London, 1919, p. 161. I am grateful to Margaret Byrne for drawing this reference to my attention.
33. Armstong/Mancini, pp. 62–3.
34. Ashdown-Hill, ‘Norfolk Requiem’.
35. Ashdown-Hill, ‘Lady Eleanor Talbot’s other husband’, Ric. 14 (2004), pp. 62–81, and ‘Lady Eleanor Talbot: new evidence; new answers; new questions’.
36. Maxwell-Lyte, ed., The Registers of Robert Stillington, p. xiii.
37. November 1485: RP, vol. 6, p. 270.
38. Compare, for example, RP, vol. 6, p. 190; pp. 284–5; pp. 305–6.
39. The present author hopes to set out the full picture of contemporary (fifteenth-century) evidence regarding Edward IV and his genuine relationships in a forthcoming book on that king’s private life.
40. Arguably the last attempt to replace the Tudors by a sovereign who had a better claim to the English crown was the Spanish Armada of 1588: J. Ashdown-Hill, ‘The Lancastrian Claim to the Throne’, Ric.13, 2003, p. 37.
41. It is interesting to compare the styles of MS. XXXI.121 and MS. XXXI.122. The second indenture, much more laconic in tone, says nothing whatsoever about anybody’s family and sticks firmly to the relevant financial arrangements.
42. An anniversary mass was ‘save interment … an exact and annual repetition of the funeral’: C. Burgess, ‘A service for the dead: the form and function of the anniversary in late medieval Bristol’, in S.T. Blake and A. Saville, eds, Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society for 1987, vol. 105, p. 191; Ashdown-Hill, ‘Norfolk Requiem’, Ric.12, no. 152, March 2001, p. 213.
Chapter 19
1. H. Ellis (ed.), Three Books of Polydore Vergil’s English History comprising the reigns of Henry VI, Edward IV and Richard III, London, 1844, pp. 116–117.
2. Ellis/Vergil, p. 183.
3. Ellis/Vergil, p. 184. (Present writer’s italics.)
4. A.H. Thomas and I.D. Thomley, eds, The Great Chronicle of London, London, 1938, pp. 231–2.
5. This is not the place for a detailed analysis of the various texts of More’s history and their relationship to one another. That can be found in the introduction to R.S. Sylvester, ed., The Complete Works of St Thomas More, vol. 2, The History of King Richard III, Yale and London, 1963.
6. Sylvester/More, The History of King Richard III, p. 62 (abbreviations expanded).
7. Sylvester/More, The History of King Richard III, p. 64 (abbreviations expanded).
8. Coss, Lady, p. 136. Those in minor orders (below the rank of sub-deacon) could marry, but for them marriage with a widow was classified as ‘bigamy’.
9. Sylvester/More, The History of King Richard III, p. 64 (abbreviations expanded).
10. Sylvester/More, The History of King Richard III, p. 65.
11. E. Halle, The Union of the two noble families of Lancaster and York (1550), Menston, 1970, ‘Kyng Edward the Fyft’, f. 19v.
12. This was first published in 1611, in Speed’s History of Great Britain. C.M. Markham, Richard III: his Life and Character, London, 1906, p. 219, n. 1.
13. A.N. Kincaid, ed., The History of King Richard the Third (1619) by Sir George Buck, Gloucester, 1979, p. 46.
14. Kincaid/Buck, History of King Richard the Third, p. 175.
15. Kincaid/Buck, History of King Richard the Third, p. 182.
16. Kincaid/Buck, History of King Richard the Third, p. 183.
17. Kincaid/Buck, History of King Richard the Third, pp. 176, 183.
18. Kincaid/Buck, History of King Richard the Third, p. 176.
19. Kincaid/Buck, History of King Richard the Third, pp. 179, 182.
20. Masters, Corpus Christi, p. 46. Some of the information published by Masters had previously been incorporated in John Josselin’s Historiola Colegii Corporis Christi, which dates from the mid-sixteenth century, but this remained unpublished until 1880.
21. Masters, Corpus Christi, p. 53.
22. P.W. Hammond, ed., H. Walpole, Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of Richard the Third, Gloucester, 1987, p. 44. (Present writer’s italics.)
23. Hammond/Walpole, Historic Doubts, p. 45.
24. Hammond/Walpole, Historic Doubts, p. 46.
25. Hammond/Walpole, Historic Doubts, p. 48.
26. C.A. Halsted, Richard III, Duke of Gloucester and King of England, 2 vols, London, 1844, vol. 2, p. 91, n. 5.
27. J. Gairdner, History of the Life and Reign of Richard the Third, Cambridge, 1898, p. 89.
28. Gairdner, History … of Richard the Third, p. 90.
29. Gairdner, History … of Richard the Third, pp. 90–91.
30. Gairdner, History … of Richard the Third, p. 92.
31. Gairdner, History … of Richard the Third, p. 92.
32. Markham, Richard III: his Life and Character, p. 219 and n. 2.
33. Markham, Richard III: his Life and Character, pp. 93–94, p. 218.
34. Markham, Richard III: his Life and Character, p. 219.
35. C.L. Scofield, The Life and Reign of Edward the Fourth, 2 vols, London, 1923, vol. 2, p. 161.
36. Scofield, The Life and Reign of Edward the Fourth, vol. 2, p. 213.
37. Scofield, The Life and Reign of Edward the Fourth, vol. 2, p. 213. (Present writer’s italics.)
38. P.M. Kendall, Richard the Third, London, 1955, pp. 216–17, 219.
39. Kendall, Richard the Third, pp. 474–5, n. 9.
40. C. Ross, Edward IV, London, 1974.
41. C. Ross, Richard III, London, 1981, p. 15.
42. Ross, Richard III, p. 89.
43. Ross, Richard III, p. 91.
44. The Crowland Chronicle and the titulus regius of 1484.
45. A. Hanham, Richard III and his Early Historians, Oxford, 1975, p. 97.
46. Hanham, Richard III and his Early Historians, p. 101.
47. S. Cunningham, Richard III, A Royal Enigma, London, 2003, p. 41.
Chapter 20
1. J. Ashdown-Hill, ‘The Fate of Richard III’s Body’, http://www.bbc.co.uk/legacies/myths_legends/england/leicester/.
2. Jarrolds Magazine, March 1958 and March 1959, and Eastern Daily Press, Wednesday 2 April 1958, p. 6.
3. M. Trotter and G.C. Gleser, ‘Estimation of Stature from long-bones of American Whites and Negroes’, American Journal of Physical Anthropology 10 (1952), pp. 463–514, and ‘A Re-evaluation of estimation of Stature Taken during Life and After Death’, AJPA 16 (1958), pp. 79–123.
4. D.R. Brothwell, Digging Up Bones: the Excavation, Treatment and Study of Human Skeletal Remains, London, 1981.
5. EA, pp. 8–9 asserts that the earl’s skeleton proves him to have been ‘5’10” in height and strongly built’, but this estimate of Lord Shrewsbury’s height is incorrect. For a stature of 5ft 10in his femur measurement would have needed to be 19½in. I am grateful to Mr. W.J. White for his advice on this point.
6. Elkington and Huntsman, ‘The Talbot Fingers: a study in Symphalangism’, British Medical Journal, 18 February 1967, p. 409 (quoting Egerton). The calculation of stature is based on Brothwell, Digging Up Bones, p. 101.
7. J. Fletcher, The Search for Nefertiti, London, 2004, pp. 368–9.
8. F. Blomefield, An Essay Towards a Topographical History of the County of Norfolk, 11 vols, London, 1805–1810, vol. 4, pp. 421, 422; J. Kirkpatrick, ‘The White Friars’ in D. Turner, ed., History of the Religious Orders and Communities and of the Hospital and Castle of Norwich, Yarmouth, 1845, p. 184.
9. J. Gairdner, ed., Paston Letters, 3 volumes, vol. 2, London, 1874, p. 289. Will of Agnes Paston. This refers to the burial of a number of her relatives at the Carmelite Friary.
10. Blomefield, Norfolk, vol. 4, pp. 417, 418.
11. Blomefield, Norfolk, vol. 4, p. 417; International Genealogical Index: Laura de Vere entry; CP.
12. Blomefield, Norfolk, vol. 1, pp. 58, 59; vol. 5, p. 291; vol. 10, p. 346.
13. Blomefield, Norfolk, vol. 9, p. 191; vol. 11, p. 111.
14. Blomefield, Norfolk, vol. 2, pp. 399–401.
15. CP, vol. 9, pp. 217, 218; http.//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baron_Morley.
16. Will of Thomas Pulham the Elder of Stradbrook. IRO, Probate Registry Wills, vol. 2, f. 86.
17. Blomefield, Norfolk, vol. 5, pp. 23–6; vol. 8, p. 93.
18. VN, p. 28; Gairdner, Paston Letters.
19. Blomefield, Norfolk, vol. 2, pp. 399–401.
20. VN, p. 117.
21. Blomefield, Norfolk, vol. 11, p. 65.
22. VN, p. 215.
23. VN, p. 215; CP, vol. 6, pp. 156, 157, 358, 359.
24. VN, p. 74; M.A. Farrow, Index to Wills Proved in the Consistory Court of Norwich, London, 1945; NRO, wills of William Calthorp (1420) and his second wife, Sybil (1421), widow of Sir John With; N.C.C. wills 75 Hyrnyng and 91 Hyrnyng.
25. Gairdner, Paston Letters.
26. Blomefield, Norfolk, vol. 11, p. 19.
27. I am grateful to Mr P. Hammond for drawing my attention to ‘the Talbot Fingers’ and to Mr W.J. White for pointing out the dental anomaly.
28. Elkington and Huntsman, ‘The Talbot Fingers’, pp 407–11.
29. ‘The coffin … had been flattened out on the skeleton’. Report in The Jarrold Magazine, March 1959.
30. Medical Report by Dr S. Tayleur Gwynne and Mr John Bromfield, in W.H. Egerton, ‘Talbot’s Tomb’, TSAS, vol. 8, 1885, pp. 425–6.
31. Elkington and Huntsman, ‘The Talbot Fingers’, p. 411.
32. M.A. Rushton, ‘The Teeth of Anne Mowbray’, British Dental Journal, no. 119, 1965, pp. 335–9.
33. Rushton, ‘The Teeth of Anne Mowbray’, pp. 355–6.
34. Rushton, ‘The Teeth of Anne Mowbray’, p. 358.
35. Rushton, ‘The Teeth of Anne Mowbray’, p. 358.
36. E.g., by Dr Jean Ross; see R. Drewett and M. Redhead, The Trial of Richard III, Gloucester 1984, p. 66.
37. A. Rai, ‘Richard III – the final act’, British Dental Journal, no. 214, 2013, pp. 415–17.
38. Rai states (p. 415) that ‘in 1483 Richard III succeeded his nephew, Edward V to the throne’, whereas in reality the Three Estates of the Realm decreed that Edward V had never been king, so that in terms of regnal chronology Richard III actually succeeded Edward IV. Rai also suggests that the loss of Richard’s upper left central incisor might have been due to a battle injury, a suggestion which was later denied by the University of Leicester.
39. From Sixtus IV, St Peter’s, Rome, 12 May 1477, ‘To Edward King of England. Dispensation at the petition of the king, and also of his son, Richard, Duke of York, of the diocese of Coventry and Lichfield, and Anne de Mowbray of the diocese of Norwich, infants, for the said Richard and Anne, who have completed their fifth and fourth years of age, respectively [sic] to contract espousals forthwith, and as soon as they reach the lawful age, to contract marriage, notwithstanding that they are related in the third and fourth degree of kindred’: Calendar of Papal Registers – Papal Letters 1471–1484, vol. 13, part 1, London, 1955, p. 236.
40. Account of Mathieu d’Escouchy, cited by Elkington and Huntsman, p. 409.
Appendix 1
1. Lambeth Palace Library, Kempe Register, f. 312r.
2. WRO, L1/79.
3. WRO, L1/81.
4. WRO, L1/82.
5. CCCC, Parker Library, Liber Albus, f. 72r (old foliation, or f. 51r, new foliation). Published in Masters, Corpus Christi, appendix, p. 30.
6. ‘Your gentleman, Cotton.’ Sir John Howard had one Cotton and his wife in his service in 1466. HHB, part 1, p. 363.
7. Let.
8. Buttresses. The reference is to those still standing in the old courtyard of the college.
9. Foundations?
10. Let.
11. WRO, L1/85.
12. WRO, L1/86.
13. WRO, L1/87.
14. TNA, C 140/29/39, f.1.
15. TNA, C 140/29/39, f. 2r.
16. RP, vol. 6, pp. 193–5. For full text see also Ashdown-Hill, The Third Plantagenet, chapter 13.
17. Perhaps: ‘Wherfore therof, although the kynge’s Highnesse …’?
18. RP, vol. 6, pp. 240–2. In this text both Eleanor Talbot and Elizabeth Widville are consistently referred to by their married surnames.
19. On the significance of this phrase see above, Introduction.
20. It is evident from this clause that there had never been issue of Edward and Eleanor.
21. Armstrong/Mancini, pp. 62–63; 96–97.
22. RP, vol. 6, p. 289.
23. It is noteworthy that this is probably the only instance of an Act of Parliament being repealed both unquoted and unsummarised. The provision for the destruction of all copies is also arguably unique.
24. N. Pronay and J. Cox, eds, The Crowland Chronicle Continuations: 1459–1486, London, 1986, pp.158–61.
25. Jones/Commynes, pp. 353–4; 397.
26. CCCC, Parker Library Ms. XXXI.121. I am grateful to the Master and Fellows of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, for permission to publish this material.
27. The Latin term Deo devota also means ‘vowed to God’, implying that Eleanor had made a religious commitment. See above, chapter 15.
28. This is still the standard formula for prayers for the dead.
29. The feast of St Barnabas is 11 June. 13 June was the vigil of the anniversary of the death of Eleanor’s mother, Margaret, Countess of Shrewsbury.
30. 17 July was the anniversary of the deaths of Eleanor’s father the Earl of Shrewsbury and of her eldest brother Lord Lisle, both killed in France at the battle of Castillon.
31. I.E. matins of the dead, often known as Dirige.
32. CCCC, Parker Library Ms. XXXI.122.
33. Ellis/Vergil, p. 117.
34. Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, Eleanor’s uncle.
35. L&P, vol. 6, p. 618.
36. L&P, vol. 7, p. 519.
37. L.T. Smith, The Itinerary of John Leland, parts 6 and 7, London, 1909, p. 120.
Appendix 2
1. The description is from the play’s Dramatis Personæ. See B.A. Murray, ‘Lady Eleanor Butler and John Crowne’s The Misery of Civil War (1680)’, Ric.14 (2004), pp. 54–61. Barbara Murray’s paper was a welcome and valuable addition to the field of Eleanor Talbot studies.
2. Murray ‘Civil War’, p. 58.
3. Murray ‘Civil War’, pp. 59–60 and n. 17. Murray dismisses the claim that Lucy Walter was married to Charles II, but this claim still has its defendants. Like Eleanor Talbot, Lucy Walter was a descendant of Edward I.
4. J. Tey, The Daughter of Time, Harmondsworth, 1954, p. 111.
5. It would, perhaps, be more tactful not to name them, but one historian has stated that Eleanor was Edward’s mistress in her youth (thus flying in the face of chronology, and ignoring the fact that Eleanor was actually older than Edward). Another has declared that Eleanor was not the Earl of Shrewsbury’s daughter, and that her parentage was unknown.
6. R.H. Jarman, The King’s Grey Mare, London, 1975, pp. 158–9.
7. Lumby/More, History of King Richard III, pp. 61–4.
8. E. Lytton, The Last of the Barons, London, 1843, pp. 151–5.
9. Lytton, Last, p. 273.
10. Lytton, Last, pp. 114; 306; 335.
11. Tey, Daughter, p. 111.
12. S. Penman, The Sunne in Splendour, London, 1982, pp. 558–9.
13. See above, chapter 19.
14. S. Wilson, Wife to the Kingmaker, London, 1974, p. 121.
15. Wilson, Wife, p. 90.
16. Wilson, Wife, pp. 90–1.
17. R.H. Jarman, We Speak nNo Treason, London, 1971, p. 367.
18. Jarman, Grey Mare, pp. 159; 316.
19. Tey, Daughter, pp.115, 128.
20. Penman, Sunne, pp. 559–60.
21. M. Bowen, Dickon, London, 1971; Rhoda Edwards, Some Touch of Pity, London, 1976; Jean Plaidy, The Goldsmith’s Wife, London, 1950.
22. Bowen, Dickon, p. 74. The intended date can be deduced from Bowen’s reference to the marriage of Margaret of York as having taken place in the previous year.
23. Bowen, Dickon, p. 195.
24. Bowen, Dickon, p. 69.
25. Bowen, Dickon, p. 78.
26. Jarman, Treason, p. 253.
27. Penman, Sunne, p. 562.
28. Penman, Sunne, pp. 556–7.
29. Edwards, Some Touch of Pity, p. 78.
30. Edwards, Touch of Pity, p. 79.
31. Plaidy, Goldsmith’s Wife, p. 176.
32. Wilson, Wife, pp. 98–9.
33. Lytton, Last, pp. 292–3; 300–1; 343; 354.
34. Penman, Sunne, pp. 671–773.
35. Penman, Sunne, pp. 556.
36. Plaidy, Goldsmith’s Wife, p. 175.
Appendix 3
1. Coss, Lady, p. 6; present author’s italics.
2. In the fifteenth century it seems to have been applied also to women of a certain personal status such as the wives of mayors of London: A.F. Sutton and L. Visser Fuchs ‘The Cult of Angels in Late Fifteenth-Century England’ in J.H.M. Taylor and L. Smith, Women and the Book, London, 1997, p. 245.