The Essex village of Pleshey lies 5 miles to the north of Chelmsford. Its main street, dotted with weatherboarded house fronts and thatched roofs, gives little indication of the importance of the location back in the fourteenth century. Behind the houses, it is possible to glimpse a stretch of water and, rising up behind it, a large mound of earth. This is the first sign that the quiet village was once clustered around a bailey, the enclosure of a large Norman castle which boasted a motte over 50ft high, topped by a large rectangular keep nearly 70ft wide. Around it, on the site of the present houses, were kitchens, bakehouses, breweries, smithies, stables, the original church and more accommodation; everything to allow the inhabitants to be self-sufficient. It was all enclosed by a high wall of timber or stone and a deep moat, the typical rampart and ditch of which the earthworks can still be found today. It was here, during the 1380s, that a group of friars created a series of illuminated manuscripts to celebrate an important royal marriage.
The groom was Henry, Earl of Derby, the only surviving son of John of Gaunt and Blanche of Lancaster. Having been raised in the household of his stepmother Constance, with Katherine Swynford as his governess, he was taught by Hugh Herle and Thomas Burton, Burton having served in the household of Henry’s maternal grandfather, the Duke of Lancaster. This established his connection with the title that would be his inheritance. The young man already knew Latin, French and English, and showed early promise in riding, hunting and the other sports that were to lead to his later reputation as a champion jouster. At the age of 10, he had been knighted alongside his cousin Richard, son of the Black Prince, at a Garter ceremony at Windsor Castle and, three years later, when Richard had become king, he attended the wedding of his half-sister Maud Holland to the Count of Saint-Pol. Henry reached the age of 13 in April 1380, after which Gaunt sought a marriage for him with a wealthy heiress who would bring land, estates and titles into Lancastrian hands.
The bride he found was even younger. Mary de Bohun was only 10 on her wedding day, which fell on, or shortly before, 5 February 1381. Their union may have been engineered by Gaunt, Mary’s relatives or even come at Henry’s suggestion. Perhaps, as dutiful children, they had no difficulty allying their personal preference with the dynastic advantages each could bring the other. Yet Mary and Henry had known each other since they were infants, so there is a chance, suggested by the frequency of her later pregnancies and records of them exchanging gifts and their shared interests, that this was a match inspired by mutual affection. It may have been that the two children were already fond of each other and went willingly into the match, as later events might imply. After all, a grandson of Edward III would have a good chance of securing an important international match, so Henry would not have lacked potential brides elsewhere. There is no doubt though that marriage to Mary brought him lucrative titles: all the affection in the world could not have facilitated the marriage, had her breeding and inheritance been lacking.
The de Bohuns were a Norman family who had come over with William the Conqueror in 1066. Initially they settled in Wiltshire and served at the court of subsequent kings Henry I and Stephen. Through judicious marriages, they inherited the earldoms of Hereford and Essex and by the mid-thirteenth century, members of this line of the de Bohun family were resident at Pleshey Castle, having taken it over from the disgraced Mandeville family. Mary was certainly well connected. Her father was Humphrey de Bohun, seventh Earl of Hereford, sixth Earl of Essex, second Earl of Northampton and her paternal grandmother was the widow of Edmund Mortimer, from which marriage the future Yorkist kings were descended. Mary’s mother was Joan FitzAlan, the fourth child of a second marriage, who arrived in 1347 or ’48, probably at the seat of the Earls of Arundel at Arundel Castle in West Sussex. Her brothers were to play a key role in the life of her future son-in-law. Joan’s parents were Richard FitzAlan, tenth Earl of Arundel and Eleanor of Lancaster, a great-granddaughter of Henry III: theirs is the touching monument in Chichester Cathedral made famous by Philip Larkin’s poem ‘An Arundel Tomb’, which describes them lying side by side, hand in hand. Joan and Humphrey were married at some point after September 1359, when Joan was 12, though they probably waited a couple of years to consummate the match. Joan bore two surviving children, Eleanor in 1366 and Mary, who arrived four years later, in 1370.
Life at Pleshey Castle in the 1360s and ’70s would have been privileged and cultured. Duke Humphrey inherited the property from his childless uncle in 1361, along with the group of Augustinian friars working there to produce a collection of illuminated manuscripts for the glory and use of the de Bohun family. Humphrey was also a patron and collector of books: around 1350 he ordered a translation of the romance of William and the Werwolf or The Romance of William of Palerne, an early thirteenth-century story of a baby prince raised by a werewolf. Later, under the lead of Friar John de Teye, a total of eleven books were created at Pleshey for Humphrey’s family, including some celebrating Mary’s marriage. Mary’s psalter now resides in the Fitzwilliam Museum, illustrated with thirty-five scenes from the life of David, while another book, Egerton 3277 in the British Library, created between 1353 and ’73, is so beautiful it can be described as ‘virtually a royal manuscript’,1 perhaps produced for Humphrey, his wife and daughters. In total, four small manuscripts with illustrations were made solely for Mary, featuring appropriate biblical imagery for a girl of her age and heraldic illustrations coupling her arms with those of Henry. One illustration depicts the Annunciation of the Virgin, featuring a golden-haired, crowned figure seated in a golden chair: a model of piety for a young girl.2 Another image of two women kneeling before the Virgin, one adult, one a girl of about 10, is likely to depict Mary and her mother Joan, and stresses the child’s piety and nobility through her posture of prayer and her ermine-lined clothing. Her mother has a hand protectively on her shoulder as both look up at the Virgin and child. A love of books was one quality Mary shared with her future husband.
Humphrey died young. He had been a commander in France during Gaunt’s campaign of 1369 and an ambassador to the Duke of Brittany in 1372, but made his will at the end of that year and died the following January, aged only 31. His daughters, aged 6 and 2, were made wards of the king. With no brothers to inherit their titles, they were rich prizes for any husband who would assume the dukedoms of Hereford and Essex, besides much more when the girls came of age. Eleanor’s future was arranged first. In 1376, at the age of 10, she was married to Gaunt’s younger brother Thomas of Woodstock, later Duke of Gloucester, and the couple took over residence of Pleshey Castle, keeping the younger Mary in their care. Thomas was around eleven years older than his wife and they did not consummate the marriage until Eleanor had reached the legal age of 14. The young duchess celebrated her birthday some time in the first three weeks of June 1380. According to the Close Rolls, she was still underage on 28 May, when the Sheriff of Essex was given instructions to pay her husband her income ‘until the lawful age of the said Eleanor whom he has taken to wife’. However, by 22 June, Eleanor had come of age, which had been ‘proved before the escheator’3 and the king granted her and her husband extensive manors in Essex, Hertfordshire, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Berkshire, Norfolk and Cambridgeshire. Within weeks, Eleanor was pregnant.
Mary and Henry were married soon after this, by the second week of February 1381 at the latest. According to Froissart, Thomas had originally been against the match, hoping to encourage Mary to enter a nunnery so that his wife Eleanor could inherit all of the Hereford estates and titles; the nineteenth-century historian Mary Anne Everett Green suggested they entrusted her education to the nuns of St Clare.4 Froissart adds that Mary ‘seemed inclined to their doctrine, and thought not of marriage’. It is unlikely that Mary’s voice alone would have been enough to prevent this from happening; knowing that Thomas would oppose his son’s match, John of Gaunt waited until his brother was out of the country, then purchased the right of Mary’s marriage. Froissart suggests this was accomplished by a semi-abduction, during which Mary was lured to Arundel Castle by Henry’s maternal aunt Mary FitzAlan, although Mary never repudiated her husband as some abducted brides did. Froissart adds that the union was ‘instantly consummated’, which may have been a way of ensuring that it was legally binding, after which the couple were parted until they came of age. However the union was made, it is likely to have caused tension between Gaunt and his brother, who lost the opportunity to inherit as he had planned. It was a relationship that was to become increasingly strained as the sisters’ husbands were drawn further into the political turmoil of Richard II’s reign.
Mary was still recognised as a child at the time of her wedding and this had implications for her married life, both personally and legally. On 26 October 1380, she was being referred to as underage in a petition to the Sheriff of Nottingham which stated that her inheritance was held in wardship by her brother-in-law ‘until her lawful age’.5 By 10 February 1381, ‘Henry, Earl of Derby … [had] taken to wife Mary, daughter and one of the heirs of Humphrey, Earl of Hereford and Essex,’ but Mary was still not ‘of lawful age’,6 so the ceremony occurred at some point between these dates. It is likely to have taken place at Rochford Hall, Essex, a residence of the earls of Hertford, close to the River Roach near Southend-on-Sea. Little of the original house survives, but the present building is a mixture of the manor later owned by the Boleyn family and modern improvements, giving a sense of the scale of the site. Opposite it lies the fifteenth-century church of St Andrew, where the ceremony would have been conducted. The king sent minstrels to celebrate the occasion and Gaunt was probably present, having given his daughter-in-law a diamond and a ruby set in a newly made ring. No doubt a lavish feast at the hall followed, but there was to be no consummation yet. Mary returned to the protection of her family until she came of age. Gaunt made payments to her mother Joan to cover her expenses until such time as she was able to live with Henry as his wife: £26 13s 4d at Easter and Michaelmas 1382, as part of her 100 marks annuity.
And yet, but for a twist of fate, there would have been no married life at all. While John of Gaunt had headed north on campaign to Scotland, his 14-year-old son was in London. There is a fair chance he was at the family home of the Savoy Palace when news reached him of the specific threats that had been voiced against his father and his own life by the rebels. With a small group of trusted companions, including his guardian, tutors, clerk and friend Thomas Swynford, he fled to the protection of the Tower, where a number of the rebels’ other targets had also sought refuge, including the king, his mother Joan of Kent, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Treasurer and other officials and members of Gaunt’s household. On 14 June, the 14-year-old King Richard left the Tower and bravely headed off to meet Wat Tyler at Greenwich. There, he made an ill-advised declaration to the rebels that he would bring traitors to justice, which was taken by some as an invitation to break through the Tower’s defences. According to Froissart, they killed indiscriminately, pursuing personal grievances and targeting immigrants, as well as anyone associated with the king. Inside the Tower, they assaulted Joan of Kent with an irreverent kiss and beheaded Gaunt’s physician, the archbishop and others. Then their attention turned to Henry. It must have been terrifying. Perhaps it was Henry’s youth that saved him, but one of the guards somehow found the words to make the killers stop. Whatever John Ferrour said, Henry was unharmed, though the ordeal cannot but have left its mark upon him.
Even apart from his unpopular parentage, Henry would have drawn the attention of the rebels for his appearance. According to Froissart, one of rebel leader John Ball’s grievances was Henry’s clothing, and that of his peers: ‘they are clothed in velvets and rich stuffs, ornamented with ermine and other furs, while we are forced to wear poor cloth.’ Henry’s account book for 1381–82, kept by his guardian Hugh Waterton, lists a dazzling amount of clothing and jewellery: damask, silk and satin robes in red, blue and gold, with regular payments to his goldsmiths for rings, pendants, buckles and other adornments. Yet this was entirely appropriate for a young man in his position, according to the Sumptuary Laws of 1363, passed by his own grandfather. The lifestyle and property of the nobility also came under attack from the rebels: ‘they have wines, spices and fine bread, when we have only rye and the refuse of the straw; and if we drink, it must be water. They have handsome seats and manors while we must brave the wind and rain.’7 Today, Ball’s theories concerning class appear ahead of his time, almost proto-Marxist, as epitomised in his comment ‘When Adam delft and Eve span, who then was the gentleman?’ At the time, his ideas were anachronistic and unsupported against a wider tide of privilege and never had a realistic chance of being heard. For Mary, a product of her time, it was a simpler story. Waiting in the comfort of Pleshey, 40 miles north-east of the Tower, she finally received news that her young husband was safe.
The marriage ceremony did not change Mary’s daily life significantly. Her legal status and her future were secure but, for the time being, she continued her education and polished the routine accomplishments that would prepare her for her future as a duchess. A manual for a young wife written by the Ménagier of Paris in the early 1390s outlines some of the expectations of women of the nobility at the head of their own household. He offered instruction in religious devotion and the behaviour necessary to ‘win you the love of your husband and to give you in this world the peace which should be in marriage’, as well as offering the biblical models of discreet service in Susanna, Sarah, Rachel, Rebecca and the folkloric patient Griselda. She was also expected to ‘increase the profit of the house, gain friends and save one’s possessions’ and to ‘aid oneself against the ill fortunes of ages to come’. This included diligence and perseverance in housework, cultivating a garden, choosing and managing suitable servants and ruling over her domestic domain as its ‘sovereign’. She should know how to order meals, converse with tradesmen and know about spices and medicine, as well as pursuing amusements to give her ‘something to talk about in company’: playing dice and chess, feeding and flying falcons, and enjoying riddles.8 Mary’s status would have also given her position a political dimension, but Ménagier’s guidelines give a good indicator of some of the accomplishments she would have pursued besides her love of books and music, particularly the harp, cither and singing, whilst she waited to come of age. One day these would be an adornment to her husband’s position. She may have been the recipient of one of the twenty-nine gold rings Henry ordered in December 1381 as presents for New Year’s Day.
The main expectation of a duchess was to bear heirs. In the spring of 1382, probably in April, Mary’s elder sister Eleanor fulfilled her duty, having conceived in the weeks following her marriage. She was at Pleshey when she delivered a son to whom she gave her father’s name of Humphrey. At a time when babies usually bore family Christian names, typically those of their grandparents, it is significant that the child was named after Eleanor’s father, in acknowledgement of his Hereford inheritance, rather than Edward, after Thomas’ father, or even Richard, in honour of his nephew, the new king. Humphrey’s birth would have been an all-female affair, with Eleanor closeted in her chamber according to birthing traditions, attended by close female relatives, likely to have included her mother Joan and sister Mary, as well as the experienced women of their household. Gaunt’s records of payments show that such women were valued in the Lancastrian family and it is possible that Katherine Swynford was also present, given that she would assist Mary’s deliveries in years to come. Gaunt oversaw his 15-year-old son Henry’s gifts to the baby’s nurse and the bearer of the tidings of Humphrey’s arrival. Observing the process at first hand, it would have been a powerful induction for Mary into the experience that was to dominate her short adult life.
Mary spent the following three years living quietly but, for Henry and the Lancastrian family, it was a time that marked their increasing separation from the king. Mary is unlikely to have taken up the duties of a duchess at this point, so she may not have accompanied her husband to the coronation of Anne of Bohemia in January 1382, where Henry wore a tabard of blue damask provided by his stepmother Constance, Duchess of Lancaster. He attended the tournament afterwards at Smithfield, where he jousted in magnificent armour decorated with silver spangles in the shape of roses. There is a chance that Mary joined him at the May Day jousts at Hertford, but it is more likely that she remained at Pleshey with her sister, who bore two more children during this time: Anne in 1383, named after the new queen, and Joan in 1384, after the girls’ mother. It has been suggested that Mary herself bore a child during this time, which her seclusion would certainly have facilitated, but no evidence survives to support this and the proposed date, April 1382, indicates that it is more likely that one sister has been confused with the other. As historian Ian Mortimer has established, this stems from a misreading of the Lancastrian account books, by which earlier historians mistook baby Humphrey for a child of Mary, based on the fact that Henry rewarded members of the infant’s household. In fact, these payments were authorised on 18 April by Gaunt himself, who was also present. Henry was still living in his father’s retinue and is unlikely to have consummated the marriage with Mary.
The contemporary Book of Vices and Virtues advised that man and wife should keep themselves ‘clenliche and truliche’ (clean and true) for each other and, according to the teaching of St Paul, women should be chaste and sober in eating and drinking, as greed could fuel the fires of lechery and temptation. The book describes how marriage was created as a ‘state of innocence’ in an earthly paradise, and that partners should respect it as holy and honest. This was easily achieved in Pleshey Castle for the young Mary, as she whiled away the days until she came of age. For Henry, who was mostly in his father’s household during these years, the advice that he should never resort ‘to another womman than to [his] own’ was tempered by the relationship between Gaunt and Katherine, which had become public knowledge by this point. While the hostile chronicler Henry Knighton berated Gaunt for riding with his mistress in public and guiding her saddle in a thinly concealed metaphor for sexual dominance, the young Henry appears not to have succumbed to the advances of other women.
Mary disappears from the historical records while Henry accompanied his father to France in December 1383 to negotiate a peace treaty with Charles VI. He may also have gone north with Gaunt and Eleanor’s husband Thomas to repel Scots invaders in the spring of 1384, and it was during this time that slanderous tongues at court convinced the young king that his uncle was plotting against him. Volatile and sensitive to criticism, Richard had gone as far as to order Gaunt’s execution before his two uncles returned to protest their innocence. It was a time of national anxiety, with the newly appointed Archbishop of Canterbury drawing Richard’s wrath by admonishing him for a lack of control and the Earl of Arundel, Mary’s uncle, pronouncing that the realm was on the brink of destruction. At the end of 1384, a further breach occurred when Gaunt told the inexperienced king that war was unavoidable with France. Richard’s extreme response prompted Gaunt to walk out of the Council chamber and Richard again planned to have him killed the following February. Furious, Gaunt confronted him in armour and refused to attend him for fear of his life, at which the king backed down. They were formally reconciled at Westminster the following month but trust between the throne and the house of Lancaster had been irrevocably damaged.
It was around this point that Mary reached the age of consent. It was recorded on 22 December 1384 that her age had been proved before the escheator in Essex, allowing Henry to inherit her portion of the Hereford titles and estates.9 It is likely that this also marked the moment when the pair began to share a bed. The arrangements were certainly not uniform for every woman in her position; she may have lived with Henry permanently in London, and in Gaunt’s various properties, or been based at a particular location, such as Hertford or Leicester, or divided her time between Pleshey and wherever Henry happened to be. His political career took on a more formal aspect. He was included in the king’s campaign against the Scots the following summer and, for the first time, was summoned to attend Richard’s thirteenth Parliament, which sat in Westminster Hall between 20 October and 6 December. After the destruction of the Savoy, Gaunt and his family used Ely Palace as their residence in the capital, so Mary might have been there during the autumn of 1385. That Christmas, the households of Henry and Gaunt came together at Leicester and it was around this time that Mary became pregnant.
Monmouth Castle had been in the Lancaster family for a century, having been granted to Edmund Crouchback, a younger son of Henry III. He had added a large hall to the south of the original two-storey Norman buildings, before the castle passed to Henry Grosmont, who remodelled the Great Tower with large windows, a new entrance and roof, before it came into the hands of Gaunt, who made his own improvements. Standing at the meeting place of the rivers Wye and Monnow, right on the English-Welsh border, it overlooked the Forest of Dean to the east and the beginning of the Marcher hills to the west. Mary retreated there, into apartments in the castle gatehouse, to give birth to her first child, Henry, in the summer of 1386 or 1387.
Despite the existence of some powerful evidence, confusion has arisen among scholars about the exact day and year that Mary’s confinement took place. Perhaps the most significant indication is an astrological chart drawn up for the king during his reign, which gives his birthdate as 19 September 1386, followed by the even more specific detail that he arrived at 11.22 a.m. It was not customary to record the exact timings and details of births, even among the aristocracy, before the introduction of parish records in the mid-sixteenth century. Birthdays were not always celebrated, or even known, among the lower classes, as evidenced in the contemporary court records when witnesses were frequently called upon to establish a year of birth. There was no indication in the 1380s that Henry would ever go on to become king, especially as the young Richard II was newly married and likely to produce a son. The details of Henry’s arrival were recorded retrospectively, but this is not sufficient reason to reject them: the birthday of Richard III in 1452 was recorded in a similar manner, and is now widely accepted, and Joan de Bohun was clearly aware of the birthdates of both her daughters, in order to later prove that they had come of age. Although no surviving record of Henry’s birth from the 1380s can be located, it does not follow that Henry himself was not informed of it by someone such as his grandmother Joan, who lived long enough to see him become king.
However, according to another document,10 Henry was in his twenty-sixth year when he was crowned, in April 1413, which means he had not yet reached his twenty-sixth birthday, making him 25. This would suggest a birthdate of 1387, as would the statement that he died in his thirty-sixth year: so, when he was 35, working backwards from 31 August 1422. The day of his birth matters even more in this instance, as it is sometimes cited as falling either side of the end of the period he is thought to have died, 9 August to 16 September, altering his age at death. If we accept the birthdate of December 1370 for Mary, which her coming of age suggests, she would have been either 15 or 16 when she gave birth, depending on which year is correct. Additionally, it is known for certain that Mary and her husband Henry were at Monmouth in the summer of 1386, but not in 1387, along with Henry’s companion Thomas Swynford and members of his household. The arrival of Mary’s second child, whose nurse was referred to at Christmas 1387, makes it very unlikely that she had delivered two babies in one year, especially as her eldest son arrived in August or September. On balance, the weight of contemporary academic opinion favours the earlier date.
Despite the rumours, this was Mary’s first child. In September 1386, she was 15 years and 9 months old, so her pregnancy had been commensurate with her sixteenth year thus far. Eleanor had been the same age when she bore her first child. Living at Pleshey, Mary would have seen her sister’s three subsequent pregnancies develop and had probably been present at the births, giving her a fair understanding of what could be expected. Inside the duchess’ all-female household, the inner circle who had the care of her body, linen and the provisioning of bedchamber, there would have been a similar patterning of familiar connections as in the establishments of Gaunt’s wives. There was also considerable overlap, with wards and valued servants such as Katherine Swynford moving between satellites of the ducal households to offer support during childbirth and child rearing. With Gaunt and Constance embarking for Spain that July, Katherine was transferred to another branch of the family, dividing her time between her estates and children and Gaunt’s young daughter-in-law during subsequent pregnancies until his return. When Mary moved to her own home at Monmouth, she took a wealth of experience and knowledge with her, from a female oral tradition that had been passed down through generations of families. Katherine and her daughter Joan were certainly present in Mary’s household at Christmas 1386, when provision was made for them in Mary’s chamber and wardrobe accounts record two lengths of silk brocade, white and blue, together with a number of miniver furs.11
However, having witnessed these events and actually experiencing them are two different things entirely. There is no doubt that a young woman of Mary’s age and situation would be apprehensive about her approaching delivery, or that such an event, often stretching over several days, represented a very real danger to both mother and child. The author of the tract Hali Meidenhad warned young women that the process was one of ‘sore sorrowful anguish, the strong piercing pang, the comfortless ill, pain on pain … thou art in trouble herewith, in the dint of death’.12 The possibility of a breech birth, or a baby presenting at an unusual angle, could prove problematic at best, fatal at worst, and doctors were called in to attend emergency cases, bringing with them a terrifying variety of knives and hooks to extract the child.13 Contemporary tracts outlining methods for repairing a ruptured perineum indicate just how brutal birth could be, when the dimensions of a small-hipped mother were combined with a large, overdue child. Even if a delivery did follow the expected lines, there was precious little to be had in the way of pain relief, beyond herbal remedies, alcohol and prayers. The prospect must have been terrifying.
There has been some suggestion in recent scholarship that medieval mothers were more pragmatic about childbirth, that low rates of survival instilled in them some sort of disconnection from their child, or absence from the experience as they put their faith in God and the afterlife. Somehow, medieval mothers have come to be considered less than motherly. This is belied by the very real grief manifested by women in the face of loss, by their prayers and offerings on pilgrimage, by the all-female churching celebrations, by Catherine of Aragon’s lamentations ‘like a natural woman’ on the loss of her baby.14 It is also to deny the timeless strength of the maternal bond, as well as the odds of gynaecological injury, infection and the use of churching not just to cleanse a woman but to welcome her back from the brink of darkness, the brink of oblivion. Childbirth customs were established not just to ease the delivery; laces were untied and arrows loosened in order to smooth the child’s passage, but prayers and charms, talismans and holy water were used to stave off the devils creeping into the breach before the child could be baptised and the mother blessed. Coupled with Hali Meidenhad, the depositions of midwives in Court Assizes records show there is no question that the process of giving birth was one of danger and uncertainty.15 It was for this reason that birth was a rallying time for women, including a mix of family members, friends, professional nurses and midwives, and any female considered to be experienced. Mary would have been well provided for when she went into labour. She was fortunate that her child was healthy and that both survived the process. Her new son was named Henry, probably after his father.
It was customary for a mother to spend a month lying-in, recovering in her darkened chamber, before the gradual process of sitting up, ritual washing and the final act of churching, which signalled her return to her duties as a wife. Mary was only partway through this process when her husband left Monmouth to obey a summons to attend the Parliament at Westminster that had been called for 1 October. Later known as the ‘Wonderful Parliament’, it marked the beginning of significant conflicts between Henry and his king as the members pushed for reforms in the face of Richard’s despotic rule. While this situation developed in London, Mary would have gradually grown stronger while her infant son was nursed by a Joan Waryn,16 described as Henry’s ‘nutrix’, and who received the annual salary of 40s for his care. Given that in the 1340s, archers and infantrymen received between 2s and 3s a day, besides her fee Joan would have received board and lodgings, and she may have had an additional allowance for clothing. The nursery at Monmouth would have been typical of an aristocratic household, overseen by Mary, with a separate space dedicated to the child, rockers employed to send him off to sleep and other staff to ensure the warmth, safety and cleanliness of the room and the baby’s bedclothes and linen. Little Henry would have been swaddled for the first year of his life, living quietly in the castle while his father’s world suddenly spiralled into drama and rebellion.
In November, when his son was 2 months old, Henry joined with his brother-in-law Thomas of Woodstock, now Duke of Gloucester, his father-in-law Richard FitzAlan and uncle-in-law Thomas FitzAlan, known as Thomas Arundel, to form the Lords Appellant, a group who sought to curb the king’s nepotistic favour of certain influential friends. According to Adam of Usk, the intention was ‘to bridle the wantoness [sic] and extravagance of his servants and flatterers and … to reform the business of the realm’.17 The main figure of contention was Robert de Vere, Earl of Oxford, the king’s first cousin by marriage, who had been created Marquess of Dublin in 1385 and Duke of Ireland in 1386. Richard found their demands intolerable. He walked out and intended to turn his back on Parliament, but Gloucester and Arundel alluded to the deposition of his predecessor Edward II because of the belief that the realm was being mismanaged to the point of ruin. Richard capitulated and returned to Parliament, where he replaced his unpopular chancellor with Arundel. He also appeared to favour Henry by awarding him the dukedom of Hereford. The Lords Appellant then proposed a great council, which would sit for the term of a year, starting that November. His work done, Henry returned home to Mary and his son for the Christmas period. However, the king was never to forget this Parliament and would later seek to punish all the Lords Appellant for their efforts to rein in his excesses. Knighton, Walsingham and the Monk of Evesham all record that Richard secretly made plans to assassinate his enemies but, for the time being, these came to nothing.
During this time with her husband, either over Christmas or in the following spring, Mary fell pregnant again. The speed of her conceptions suggest that the pair were not only compatible in their musical and literary tastes but enjoyed a close physical relationship. Henry was obliged to attend the annual Garter ceremony at Windsor in April, but was soon back with his family, spending the summer with them at Kenilworth Castle. It is also likely that he retired from the public eye as he is known to have suffered from the pox in this year, requiring the attentions of Richard’s physician John Middleton. The term ‘the pox’ has been used to describe a range of illnesses which include the sexually transmitted syphilis, but given his youth it seems unlikely that, by 1388, whatever it was had had sufficient time to develop beyond a primary level and require serious treatment. Nor is there any evidence of Henry having a mistress, or resorting to prostitutes, or abstaining from relations with his wife in order to protect her. Most historians agree that Henry is more likely to have been suffering from some form of smallpox, which could leave the face covered in rashes and blisters. Alternatively, ‘the pox’ may have been a misdiagnosis for a number of skin conditions including psoriasis. In 1405, Henry would experience an outbreak of red pustules on the face and believe himself to be suffering from leprosy, but this possibility has been disproved by analysis of his remains. If it was some form of smallpox, Henry would have spent much of this period resting, contemporary treatments advising that his bed and room be hung with scarlet-coloured cloth.
The impressive sandstone castle of Kenilworth had long been a favourite Lancastrian retreat, developed into a palace during the thirteenth century with a huge two-storey keep, solid stone walls, an enclosed garden and a great lake. Gaunt had transformed the buildings, adding his own great hall with its stone panelling, six fireplaces and bay and traceried windows. The state apartments were to the south, on the first floor, with their own oriel window; opposite them were more rooms and storage larders, alongside a generously sized kitchen. Started in 1371, Gaunt’s alterations were nearing completion, employing some of the same craftsmen who also worked on Windsor Castle. However, Kenilworth also had a tradition of being a bastion of rebellion, being held by the de Montforts against Henry III in 1266, by Edmund, Duke of Lancaster, who rebelled against Edward II in 1322 and providing a prison for that king as he was forced to abdicate four years later. Within months of that happy family summer, whiled away at a favourite retreat, Henry was to continue that tradition, leading an army against troops loyal to his king.
While Henry was at Kenilworth, Richard summoned judges to Nottingham to examine the question of royal power and its exercise over Parliament. Reluctantly and even under duress in some cases, they upheld his right to dissolve Parliament and confirmed its inability to act independently to impeach his favourites. Richard then summoned Gloucester and Arundel but, afraid of his intentions, they refused, prompting the king to issued secret instructions for the murder of Arundel. The dukes were camped to the north of London, drawing in the support of some of the rebels of 1381, anticipating attack. But Henry was not with them; by this point, he and his family were in London, probably at their house in Bishopsgate. It was from there, on 25 November, that his wife and children were sent away to the safety of the countryside, suggesting that Mary had given birth to her second son, Thomas, during their stay at Kenilworth that summer or in the early autumn in London. The latter seems likely, as they were in the capital that November, when Henry rewarded the midwife who had brought Thomas into the world. Therefore, Mary made the journey north to Kenilworth with young Henry aged around 15 months, a babe in arms.
One cannot be certain about the nature of trust men placed in their wives, even those who were loved, due to the rigid separation of households which bred a sense of gendered spheres. Politics and government were the jurisdiction of men. Contemporary manuals advised against the lines being blurred, citing women’s propensity to gossip as damaging to male business, and women who formally wielded power were relatively unknown. However, this must have varied as much as personal relationships did and, as Chaucer’s writings make clear, intelligent women must have been influential where circumstances allowed, acting at the very minimum as listeners, advisors and encouragers. There is no doubt though that, waiting at Kenilworth, Mary was aware of the dangers of Henry’s situation. Theirs seems to have been a close marriage and now she was not simply the bearer and protector of his heirs, but a vital source of communication, playing a critical part in the coming events.
The Lords Appellant had made a formidable enemy in de Vere, who gathered an army in response to a request from Richard and in retaliation to their calls to strip him of his power. In response, Henry rode north from London and met his fellow Lords at Huntingdon on 12 December, waiting to hear of de Vere’s movements in order to be able to cut him off before he could reach London and the king. It was during this time that Mary was able to write to her husband, at Northampton, Daventry and other locations, giving him information about the route of de Vere’s army which was then in the Midlands. Henry and his allies were able to keep pace with him as he headed south, and planned for Henry to push ahead to hold the bridges along the Thames while the other Lords chased him south into the trap. The armies of de Vere and Henry met on Radcot Bridge, one of three crossings in present-day Oxfordshire,18 about 20 miles from Chipping Norton. The original bridge was almost 200 years old, built with pointed arches from Norman stone paid for by King John. De Vere now found that most of it had been rapidly destroyed, along with its two partners, halting him in his tracks.
Taken by surprise, the approaching troops had not expected such a determined show of force. Racing towards London, they had believed the danger lay behind them and, sandwiched between the forces of the Appellants, many began to desert. Watching his troops disappear and desperate to reach London, de Vere rode along the river bank, stripping himself of heavy armour and clothing, seeking a safe place to cross. That night, he slipped into the water. An illustration in Froissart’s manuscript depicts him in a boat, but the danger was so grave that he probably swam his way across under the cover of darkness. From there he fled south to Kent, and then abroad; Henry and his men presumed him dead. It was a reasonable assumption: there had been one significant fatality already, of which de Vere may have been aware. Sir Thomas Molyneaux of Kuerdale, who had raised de Vere’s armies in Cheshire, was killed as he had tried to climb out of the river. According to chronicler Henry Knighton, the blow had been struck by Thomas Mortimer, an illegitimate son of the Earl of March, who reacted brutally to Molyneaux’s pleas for mercy. Like other events of this turbulent period, the implications of this action would resurface in the coming years.
Henry and the other Lords Appellant then marched to London and demanded the keys of the Tower. According to Adam of Usk, who had witnessed them pass through Oxford, ‘they placed the king, who lay therein, under new governance, and delivered his fawning councillors into divers prisons until the next following Parliament.’19 This Parliament, which sat from 3 February until June, was later christened by Knighton the Merciless Parliament, on account of the ruthlessness of the trials that resulted. A number of the king’s inner circle of friends were condemned of ‘living in vice’ and misleading the king; for this they were hung, drawn and quartered without formal trial. The net then widened to include minor officials in Richard’s household: chaplains and clerks, as well as the judges who had met the king at Nottingham and been forced to approve his actions. Their most significant and divisive victim was Simon Burley, the king’s tutor, who was defended in vain by Edmund, Duke of York, which led to a breach with his brother Gloucester. This set Henry’s uncles against each other. Henry may well have played a mediating role during this process, restraining Gloucester and Arundel, who were keen to restrict Richard’s powers further and sympathised with York’s defence.
An uneasy truce had been reached, but the rift between Richard and the Lords had only been patched over. That summer, Henry may have expected to be included among the armies sent north to repel the Scots, which resulted in the Battle of Otterburn. He set out from London that June but his name is not recorded in Froissart’s accounts of the English defeat, led by the Earl of Northumberland with his sons Henry ‘Hotspur’ Percy and Ralph Percy. Perhaps personal reasons prevented him. Given that Gaunt’s physician, a priest and scholar from Oxford named Geoffrey Melton, was summoned to Kenilworth that summer, it seems plausible that either Henry or Mary was ill. Henry appears to have suffered from serious illnesses throughout his life, often requiring medical attention, but it may well be the case that the patient on this occasion was Mary. Having given birth to Thomas in the late summer or early autumn of 1387, and given her history of rapid conceptions and short recuperations, it is possible that Mary was experiencing a difficult pregnancy or had miscarried. Usually, the care of an expectant mother was undertaken by women but, on occasions requiring medical intervention, male doctors performed the necessary surgery, which was considered a separate body of knowledge from gynaecological science. Melton is referred to by historian Nigel Saul as ‘Gaunt’s medical consultant’, and identified as ‘in attendance on the childbirth labours’ of Mary,20 although this may have been on the specific occasions when things went wrong, in 1388 and 1394. Otherwise, he would wait until his interventions were deemed necessary. Mary may well have miscarried or lost a child in the summer of 1388. Her gynaecological record and the presence of Melton would allow for it, although it cannot be established for a certainty.
True to her impressive fertility record, Mary fell pregnant again in early September. Where it is possible to discern the interval between her giving birth and conceiving again, on average Mary was usually pregnant again between three and nine months when it comes to her first five children. Henry attended the session of Parliament that sat at Cambridge from 9 September to 17 October. Given that this newly conceived child would arrive on 20 June the following year, a standard forty-week pregnancy gives a conception date of 13 September; a slightly overdue baby allows for a date just days before Henry departed for Cambridge. He probably learned of the news on his return in the second half of October. The family spent Christmas together at Kenilworth and, although Henry was in London in the spring to attend a council meeting, he had returned home by the time Mary delivered their third surviving son, John.
In November 1389, Mary’s father-in-law John of Gaunt returned home from Spain after an absence of three years. The house of Lancaster was under threat during that time, but Gaunt would have appreciated that Mary had delivered three more healthy male heirs, especially given that King Richard and his wife Anne were yet to have a child. The family were all together for Christmas at Hereford Castle, where the traditional celebrations, festivities and exchange of New Year gifts took place. Around that time, almost seven months after the arrival of baby John, Mary became pregnant again before Henry departed for Parliament in January. With her nursery of three small boys being overlooked by trusted women such as Joan Waryn, governess Mary Hervy and perhaps also Katherine Swynford, Mary probably spent the months of waiting quietly at Kenilworth. Between March and May, Henry attended the jousts at Saint-Inglevert in France, but no sooner had he returned than he was ready to depart again, having conceived the idea of undertaking a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. By mid-July, when she was six months pregnant, Mary was at Lincoln, perhaps in a property owned by Gaunt, to say goodbye to Henry, knowing that she would not be seeing him again for many months.
Mary retired to await the birth of her fourth child. Her return journey south took her close to Bytham Castle, home of her mother, so it is likely that she visited Joan there, before returning to Kenilworth. Wardrobe accounts for Mary at this time include the purchase of ‘three dozen and four knots’ of strings for instruments, and the following year, she also had foreign minstrels playing the lute and fiddle,21 so she probably devoted herself to the quiet pursuits of music and literature in her husband’s absence. At the start of October, her labour pains began and she was delivered of a son on the third of the month. She named him Humphrey, after her father. The news took a while to reach Henry; he received a letter from a sailor at Könisberg, probably written by Mary, on 1 November. Three days later, Henry laid siege to Vilnius and then proceeded to Danzig before arriving back in England the following spring, in late April or early May, when he was reunited with his wife and children.
For a while, the parliamentary upheaval of previous years gave way to a period of reconciliation, with Gaunt and Henry representing the interests of the house of Lancaster and the king ruling with the assistance of the Lords. Apart from taking place in a tournament at Kennington that July, Henry was with Mary at Kenilworth until November, when he was obliged to depart for the opening of Parliament at Westminster. By this time, Mary was midway through her next pregnancy, for which Henry sent her a gift of 100 apples and 150 pears from London. Parliament was dissolved on 2 December and Henry left London to spend Christmas with his family and Gaunt’s at Hereford Castle. His gift to his wife was a golden hind with a white enamelled body and wearing a golden collar.22 By this point, Mary is likely to have been about to enter her third trimester, or already in it. Payments in Henry’s account book indicate that his next child arrived after Christmas, when is not listed, and clothing was provided for its nurse the following May. In the spring, Henry and Gaunt went to France to negotiate a peace, arriving in Calais on 11 March and leaving after the truce was agreed on 8 April, so it is likely that Henry was absent again when Mary went into labour.
The location of Mary’s next lying-in is given by Victorian historian James Hamilton Wylie as Walmsford, now known as Wansford, a village to the west of Peterborough on the River Nene. Perhaps this was incorrectly recorded when Peterborough Castle was intended, which was the next location Mary would give birth. The distance of around 10 miles between the village and castle represented around a day’s travel, based on estimates of Henry’s movements in 1406–07,23 perhaps more, considering that Mary was heavily pregnant. It may be that she went into labour on the way to Peterborough, perhaps her child arrived early, and she was forced to stop and deliver the baby in a manor house or hospital. Wansford was situated on the main road north, now the A1, and would have had provision for travellers, pilgrims and the infirm. This did happen to women travellers, as attested by the surviving accounts of monastic establishments that set aside a quota of beds as even aristocratic and royal women could be taken unawares, such as in the case of Elizabeth of York in 1503. Women sometimes did travel in the months preceding their due dates, particularly if a certain destination had been chosen for their lying-in, and they anticipated spending a month in confinement: Mary may have been travelling to reunite with the newly returned Henry. If her child did arrive early, the countess and her household would have commandeered whatever location was suitable and required the locals to support and supply her through her efforts. Her child arrived safely. This time, it was a girl. Mary named her Blanche, after her paternal grandmother.
Henry was back in England by May, but not for long. Having got the taste for travel, he planned an extended pilgrimage, which would take him through Prussia to Prague, Vienna, Venice and on to Jerusalem. It is not recorded whether Mary had an opinion about his absence: there had been a political purpose to his recent trip to France, but the motivation now was religious. Perhaps this was even more compelling to the late fourteenth-century mind. Gaunt certainly backed his son, granting him additional income and advancing money to facilitate his provisions and journey. Despite their personal separation, it is likely that Mary was also supportive, understanding that the nature of medieval aristocratic marriage necessitated the endurance of absence. Henry departed in July and, almost surprisingly, Mary was not pregnant. He would be away for a year, a significant interval which allowed her body to recover from the frequent childbearing of the last few years. Mary was only 21 or 22 and she had already borne five surviving babies.
Mary disappears from the records again during Henry’s absence. While he travelled, she would have remained with her household and children, perhaps at Kenilworth, or visiting her sister at Pleshey, her mother at Bytham or her mother-in-law at Hereford. As her eldest boys, Henry and Thomas, turned 6 and 5 that autumn, they would have been under the instruction of a tutor and possibly established at Bytham, under their grandmother’s eye.24 That November, news reached England of the death of Henry’s adversary from Radcot Bridge: Robert de Vere had been killed hunting at Louvain, still in exile. Three years later, King Richard would have his former favourite’s embalmed body brought back to England and would open the coffin to look at him, fuelling Walsingham’s suggestion of homosexual love between them. However, this was standard practice to be certain of someone’s demise. De Vere was given an impressive funeral at Colne Priory in Essex. The months passed until Henry returned, arriving at Dover on 30 June 1393.
Mary’s reunion with her husband would have been brief, if it took place at all that summer. Henry had reached London by 5 July and, the following month, was marching north with Gaunt to fight a group of rebels who had gathered in Lancashire and Cheshire with the intent of attacking the leading Lancastrians, including Gaunt, Henry and Gloucester, as enemies of the king. Gaunt had reached Lancaster by 10 August and the insurgents were rapidly dealt with. After this, Henry would have ridden home to Mary. Within weeks, around early September, Mary was pregnant again for the sixth time. Henry remained with his family for the remainder of the year, passing Christmas as usual at Hertford for jesting and jousting, before departing for Parliament at the end of January. He sent his wife a gift of oysters, mussels and sprats. Perhaps these, along with his previous gift of apples and pears, might indicate the foods that Mary was craving as their child grew bigger.
Richard’s twenty-first Parliament ran until 6 March. It was marked by increasing disagreement between Gaunt and Arundel about the northern rebellion and Lancaster’s influence over the king. When Richard announced his intention to lead a campaign to Ireland, the natural figure to keep the realm safe in his absence would be Gaunt, but Gaunt had planned to visit Gascony, so suggested Henry instead. This was in line with the terms of Edward III’s will, which had named Gaunt and his heirs as successors to the throne after Richard and his offspring. It provoked anger from Roger Mortimer, fourth Earl of March, a descendant of Gaunt’s elder brother Lionel of Antwerp. This branch of the family had been excluded from the succession because it passed through the female line, which was confirmed by Richard in 1386. For now, the king commanded Mortimer’s silence, but the fact that both Roger and Henry considered himself rightful heir to the throne remained unresolved.
By the end of the parliamentary session, Mary was six months pregnant. Henry may have gone to Leulinghen with his father and Gloucester or returned to be with Mary at Hertford or Peterborough, which had been chosen for her lying-in. If so, he would have been with her when the news arrived of the death of his stepmother Constance of Castile on 24 March, soon after Gaunt’s departure. Mary went into labour in the first days of June. It was her sixth child, so she knew what to expect. Katherine Swynford, now Gaunt’s acknowledged mistress, may have been in attendance, and Mary’s mother Joan may have taken the older children to Bytham with her, as she would do later. On 4 June, Mary delivered a healthy baby girl, whom she named Philippa, after Henry’s grandmother. Yet Mary did not recover as hoped, perhaps as a result of injury, blood loss or some post-partum infection. The exact date of her death is unclear. It may have occurred during the process of giving birth, or in the weeks that followed. She shared her burial with Constance, at the church of St Mary de Castro in Leicester: Constance was laid to rest on 5 July and Mary on 6 July. Curiously, Mary’s death is recorded in the Chronicle of the Grey Friars of London: ‘thys yere dyde Mare the countes of Derby,’ although the entry comes in the twentieth year of Richard’s reign, 1396, two years late, and features alongside the death of John of Gaunt, which is recorded three years early. Gaunt’s death is also entered a second time, which suggests the account was written retrospectively, carelessly or by multiple scribes. While Gaunt’s death might be expected to appear, the inclusion of Mary’s is unusual. The demise of a countess was not usually listed. This implies a later realisation of her importance. When Mary died, she could have hardly imagined that the turbulent years ahead would place her husband and eldest son on the throne of England.
1 Carruthers.
2 Ibid.
3 CCR, Richard II, May/June 1380.
4 Green.
5 CCR, Richard II, October 1380.
6 Ibid.
7 The 1381 manifesto of the Peasants’ Revolt.
8 Amt.
9 CCR, Richard II, December 1384.
10 Hearne’s Fragment. Published in Various, The Chronicles of the White Rose of York.
11 Labarge.
12 Cockayne.
13 Forceps had not yet been invented for general use.
14 Hall.
15 See Licence, Amy, In Bed with the Tudors: The Sex Lives of a Dynasty from Elizabeth of York to Elizabeth I (Stroud: Amberley, 2012) for more information about childbirth customs, infant and maternal mortality.
16 Allmand.
17 Thompson.
18 Radcot Bridge is now in the county of Oxfordshire, but was previously in Berkshire.
19 Thompson.
20 Saul, Richard II.
21 Green.
22 Mortimer in Shakespeare’s Henry IV.
23 Ibid.
24 Allmand.