| PL | The Paston Letters, ed. J. Gairdner (6 vols, London: Chatto and Windus, 1904) |
| PPC | Proceedings and Ordinances of the Privy Council, ed. N. H. Nicolas (7 vols, London: Record Commission, 1834–7) |
| PROME | Parliament Rolls of Medieval England 1275–1504 (17 vols, Woodbridge/London: The Boydell Press/The National Archives, 2005) |
| TNA | The National Archives, Kew, London |
1. William Shakespeare, Henry V, Epilogue.
2. Sir John Fortescue, The Governance of England, ed. C. Plummer (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1885), p. 121.
3. K. B. McFarlane, The Nobility of Later Medieval England (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973), p. 284.
4. R. A. Griffiths, The Reign of Henry VI (London: Benn, 1981), p. xxiv.
5. Particularly M. Hicks, The Wars of the Roses (London and New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010) and D. Grummitt, Henry VI (Abingdon: Routledge, 2015).
6. C. Harper-Bill, The Pre- Reformation Church in England, 1400– 1530 (London: Longman, 1989), p. 10.
1. Foedera, Conventiones, Litterae … et Acta Publica, ed. T. Rymer (20 vols, London: J. Tonson, 1704–35), X, p. 399.
2. Calendar of Patent Rolls, 1452–61, p. 247.
3. PPC, IV, pp. 135–6.
4. Ibid., pp. 287–9.
5. PROME, XII, ed. A. Curry and R. Horrox, p. 518.
6. Titus Livius Frulovisi’s Vita Henrici Quinti (Life of Henry V ), a work written for Henry’s youngest brother, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, and perhaps based on the latter’s reminiscences.
7. Written by John Lydgate, the Prior of Hatfield Regis, a prolific writer and poet, extensively patronized by the Lancastrian kings and court.
8. Four English Political Tracts of the Later Middle Ages, ed. J. P. Genet (London: Camden Society, 4th series, 18, 1977), pp. 40–173.
9. John Blacman, Henry VI, ed. M. R. James (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1955), p. 5.
10. An account of Henry’s visit is printed in Monasticism in Late Medieval England, c.1300– 1535, ed. M. Heale (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2009), pp. 188–93.
11. R. A. Griffiths, ‘The Minority of Henry VI, King of England and of France’, in The Royal Minorities of Medieval and Early Modern England, ed. C. Beem (New York, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), p. 176.
12. A contemporary witness to his canonization proceedings, quoted in G. Duby, France in the Middle Ages, 987– 1460, trans. J. Vale (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991), p. 258.
13. Blacman, Henry VI, pp. 4, 5, 7.
14. The original Latin is printed in Piero da Monte, ein Gelehrter und Päpstlicher Beamter des 15. Jahrhunderts, seine Briefsammlung, ed. Johannes Haller (Deutsches Historisches Institut, 19, Rome, 1941), pp. 43–5, summarized in A. N. E. D. Schofield, ‘England, the Pope and the Council of Basel, 1435– 1449’, Church History, 33 (1964), p. 259 and n. 61.
15. T. Hoccleve, The Regement of Princes, ed. F. J. Furnivall (London: K. Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., 1897), pp. 120, 125, 131, 137 (quote).
16. Registra Quorundam Abbatum Monasterii Sancti Albani, ed. H. T. Riley (2 vols, Rolls Series, London: Longman, 1872–3), I, p. 415. John Capgrave, writing around 1450, noted the reverence with which he adored the sign of the cross whenever he met his priests, echoing the Abbot of Bury St Edmunds’s description in 1433, and also referenced his abstention from feasting and drunkenness. A well-connected German in London, Hans Winter, commenting on the economic and diplomatic woes of 1449, did not consider the king to blame as he ‘is very young and inexperienced and watched over as a Carthusian [monk]’: quoted in M. M. Postan, ‘The Economic and Political Relations of England and the Hanse from 1400– 1475’, in Studies in English Trade in the Fifteenth Century, ed. E. Power and M. M. Postan (London: Routledge, 1933), pp. 376–7, n. 60, and see also n. 63.
17. J. Rous, Historia Regum Angliae, ed. T. Hearne (Oxford: J. Fletcher, 1745), p. 210.
18. TNA, KB 9/260, no. 85.
19. Historical Manuscript Commission, Fifth Report (London: HMSO, 1876), p. 455a, citing Canterbury Cathedral Archives, M. 238, dating from 1448.
20. Blacman, Henry VI, p. 7.
21. Ibid, p. 8.
22. Piero da Monte, ed. Haller, p. 44; Matthew 5:28.
23. English Historical Documents IV (1327– 1485), ed. A. R. Myers (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1969), p. 257.
24. Calendar of State Papers: Milan, I, 1385– 1618 (London: HMSO, 1912), pp. 18–19.
25. British Library, London, Add. MS 38174, ff. 19v–20r, 36v– 37r, printed in The Antiquarian Repertory, ed. F. Grose (4 vols, London: Jeffery, 1807–9), I, p. 313 (for Henry and Margaret), p. 330 (Edward and Elizabeth).
26. K. E. Selway, ‘The Role of Eton College and King’s College, Cambridge, in the Polity of the Lancastrian Monarchy’ (unpublished Oxford D.Phil. thesis, 1993), p. 207.
27. TNA, C81/1451, no. 12.
28. R. Willis and J. W. Clark, Architectural History of the University of Cambridge (3 vols, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1886), I, p. 353.
29. Ibid., p. 380.
30. Official Correspondence of Thomas Bekynton, ed. G. Williams (2 vols, Rolls Series, London: Longman, 56, 1872), I, p. 175.
31. PROME, XII, ed. Curry and Horrox, p. 187.
32. Fortescue, Governance of England, p. 125.
33. Blacman, Henry VI, p. 14.
34. TNA, E101/409/2, ff. 31–4.
35. TNA, E101/409/12, ff. 53–5.
36. Letters and Papers Illustrative of the Wars of the English in France during the Reign of Henry VI, ed. J. Stevenson (2 vols in 3, Rolls Series, London: Longman, 1861–4), I, p. 103.
37. A. R. Myers, The Household of Edward IV: The Black Book and the Ordinance of 1478 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1959), p. 5.
38. Liber Regie Capelle, ed. W. Ullmann (London: Henry Bradshaw Society, 92, 1961).
39. D. Starkey, ‘Henry VI’s Old Blue Gown: The English Court under the Lancastrians and Yorkists’, The Court Historian, 4 (1999), pp. 1–28; The Antiquarian Repertory, ed. Grose, I, pp. 296–341.
40. Calendar of Fine Rolls, 1437– 45, p. 34.
41. PPC, V, pp. 88–9.
42. K. J. Lewis, Kingship and Masculinity in Late Medieval England (Abingdon: Routledge, 2013), p. 166.
43. TNA, C81/1450, no. 8.
44. TNA, C81/1447, no. 27.
45. Blacman, Henry VI, pp. 15–16.
46. J. L. Watts, Henry VI and the Politics of Kingship (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), Chapters 5 and 6.
47. PROME, X, ed. Curry, p. 326.
48. The First English Life of King Henry the Fifth, ed. C. L. Kingsford (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1911), p. 7.
49. C. A. F. Meekings, ‘Thomas Kerver’s Case’, English Historical Review, 90 (1975), p. 332.
50. Kent History and Library Centre, Maidstone, DRb/A/r/1/10, f. 65v–66r. I am very grateful to Dr Maureen Jurkowski for this reference. A nearly identical letter was sent to the Bishop of Hereford a week earlier: Registrum Thome Spofford, Episcopi Herefordensis, ed. A. T. Bannister (London: Canterbury and York Society, 1919), pp. 252–4.
51. C. D. Ross, The Wars of the Roses (London: Thames and Hudson, 1976), p. 118.
1. Both letters are British Library, Add. MS 14848, f. 191v.
2. Wars of the English in France, ed. Stevenson, II, ii, p. 452.
3. Ibid., I, pp. 111–12, 124.
4. Ibid., II, ii, pp. 639–40.
5. Three Fifteenth-Century Chronicles, ed. J. Gairdner (London: Camden Society, new series, 28, 1880), p. 96.
6. Joseph A. Nigota, ‘Fiennes, James, first Baron Saye and Sele (c.1390–1450)’, in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press, 2004); online edn, Jan. 2008 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/9411, accessed 28 Sept. 2015].
7. Three Fifteenth-Century Chronicles, ed. Gairdner, p. 96.
8. Watts, Henry VI and the Politics of Kingship, p. 199, n. 331.
9. ‘Gregory’s Chronicle’, in Historical Collections of a London Citizen (London: Camden Society, new series, 17, 1876), p. 197.
10. B. Wolffe, Henry VI (London and New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981), p. 238.
1. Incerti Auctoris Chronicon Angliae, ed. J. A. Giles (London: D. Nutt, 1848), pp. 43–4.
2. PL, II, pp. 295–6. John Stodeley, writing from London on 19 January 1454.
3. PROME, XII, ed. Curry and Horrox, p. 259.
4. Quoted in B. Clarke, Mental Disorder in Earlier Britain (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1975), p. 188.
5. PL, III, pp. 2–3. William Paston to John Paston, 6 September 1454. A second bishop, William Grey, also did his fealty to the king around this time as well, as noted in the same letter.
6. PL, III, p. 13. Edmund Clere to John Paston, 9 January 1455.
7. R. L. Storey, The End of the House of Lancaster (London: Barrie and Rockliff, 1966), p. 159.
8. Average figure derived from the subseries of ‘signed bills and other direct warrants’ among the Warrants for the Great Seal only, TNA, C81/1464, compared to C81/1437–41, 1451–4.
9. Calendar of State Papers: Milan, I, p. 16.
10. ‘Benet’s Chronicle’, ed. G. L. Harriss and M. A. Harriss, in Camden Miscellany XXIV (London: Camden Society, 4th series, 9, 1972), pp. 213–14.
11. TNA, KB 9/287, no. 53.
12. PL, III, p. 50.
13. PROME, XII, ed. Curry and Horrox, pp. 347, 349.
14. Ibid., p. 454.
15. Griffiths, Reign of Henry VI, p. 775; Hicks, Wars of the Roses, p. 152.
16. G. Beaucourt, Histoire de Charles VII (6 vols, Paris: Société Bibliographique, 1881–91), VI, p. 137; The Coventry Leet Book, ed. M. D. Harris (London: Early English Text Society, old series 134–5, 138, 146, 1907–13), pts I, II, p. 301.
17. Ibid., p. 299.
18. A. P. Stanley, Historical Memorials of Westminster Abbey (3rd edn, London: J. Murray, 1869), p. 607.
19. Ibid., p. 601.
20. Ingulph’s Chronicle of the Abbey of Croyland with the Continuations by Peter of Blois and Anonymous Writers, ed. H. T. Riley (London: H. G. Bohn, 1854), p. 420.
21. Thomas Gascoigne, Loci e Libro Veritatum, ed. J. E. Thorold Rogers (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1881), p. 204.
22. The Brut, or the Chronicles of England, ed. F. W. D. Brie (London: Early English Text Society, 136, 1908), II, p. 527.
23. Ingulph’s Chronicle of the Abbey of Croyland, ed. Riley, p. 424.
24. Calendar of State Papers: Milan, I, p. 61.
25. Quoted in C. Head, ‘Pope Pius II and the Wars of the Roses’, Archivium Historiae Pontificiae, 8 (1970), p. 145.
26. Michael Hicks has recently argued this case forcibly in his Wars of the Roses, Chapters 8 and 9, on which this paragraph is based.
27. TNA, C81/1468, no. 21 (dated 4 March 1458).
28. As John Watts has argued in his Henry VI and the Politics of Kingship.
29. TNA, C81/1371, no. 50.
30. TNA, C81/1465– 1476, no. 54. A few do not bear the sign manual, but are otherwise authorized by the signet or other immediate action. However, for the purposes of the following discussion, they will be treated as being directly authorized by the king.
31. PL, III, p. 75. John Bocking to Sir John Fastolf, 9 February 1456.
32. ‘Benet’s Chronicle’, ed. Harriss and Harriss, p. 209.
1. A Chronicle of the First Thirteen Years of the Reign of Edward IV by John Warkworth, ed. J. O. Halliwell (London: Camden Society, old series, 10, 1839), p. 6.
2. Ibid., p. 11.
3. Chastellain, quoted in J. H. Ramsay, Lancaster and York (2 vols, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1892), II, p. 363.
4. The Great Chronicle of London, ed. A. H. Thomas and I. D. Thornley (London: Jones, 1938), p. 215.
5. H. Kleineke, ‘Gerhard von Wesel’s Newsletter from England, 17 April 1471’, The Ricardian, 16 (2006), p. 7; Warkworth’s Chronicle, ed. Halliwell, p. 15.
6. Anchiennes Cronicques D’Engleterre Par Jehan de Wavrin, ed. M. Dupont (3 vols, Paris: 1858–63), III, p. 211.
7. The Fabric Rolls of York Minster, ed. J. Raine (Durham: Surtees Society, 35, 1859), p. 83; Acts of Court of the Mercers’ Company, 1453–1527, ed. L. Lyell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1936), p. 139.