The Third Plantagenet E-Book

John Ashdown-Hill

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 437

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

Less well-known than his brothers, Edward IV and Richard III, little has been written about George, Duke of Clarence, leaving us with a series of unanswered questions: What was he really like? What set him and his brother Edward IV against one another? And who was really responsible for his death? George played a central role in the 'Wars of the Roses', played out by his family. But was George for York or Lancaster? Is the story of his drowning in a barrel of wine really true? And was 'false, fleeting, perjur'd Clarence' in some ways one of the role models behind the sixteenth-century defamation of Richard III? Finally, where was he buried and what became of his body? Could the DNA used recently to test the remains of his younger brother, Richard III, also reveal the truth about the supposed 'Clarence bones' in Tewkesbury? Here, John Ashdown-Hill brings us a new full biography of George, Duke of Clarence, which exposes the myths surrounding this important Plantagenet prince, and reveals the fascinating results of John's recent reexamination of the Clarence vault and its contents.

Leseprobe

[The story] says that a little boy fell into a well, and there he found a wonderland – a city with great surrounding walls and, as I recall, honey, rice pudding, toys …

(N. Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek (trans. J. Ashdown-Hill)7th ed. (Athens: 1973, pp.212–13)

LIST OF THE CHILDREN OF RICHARD AND CECILY, DUKE AND DUCHESS OF YORK

‘Sir aftir the tyme of longe bareynesse,

God first sent Anne, which signyfieth grace,

In token that al her hertis hevynesse

He as for bareynesse wold fro hem chace.

Harry, Edward, and Edmonde, eche in his place

Succedid; and after tweyn daughters came

Elizabeth and Margarete, and afterward William.

John aftir William nexte borne was,

Which bothe be passid to goddis grace:

George was next, and after Thomas

Borne was, which sone aftir did pace

By the path of dethe to the hevenly placev

Richard liveth yet: but last of alle

Was Ursula, to him whom God list calle’.

from ‘The Dialogue at the Grave of Dame Johan of Acres’

Friar Osberne Bokenham OSA

Clare Priory, Suffolk, 1456 (K. W. Barnardiston,Clare Priory (Cambridge, 1962), p.69.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

No one could write about George, Duke of Clarence, without acknowledging a debt to Michael Hicks and the various material he has published on George over a number of years. Professor Hicks has done a huge amount of very valuable work on the surviving documentation relating to George’s property, associations and political roles. Without attempting to rival his work in these spheres, this new book on George tries to offer new insights into aspects of his character and attempts to deduce how these might have come about. At the same time, it offers exciting new information relating to George’s death, burial and the ultimate fate of his physical remains – not to mention the fate of his posterity.

My thanks are also due to all those who helped me at Tewkesbury: Rev. Canon Paul Williams, the Vicar of Tewkesbury; Graham Finch, churchwarden; Dr Richard Morris, former archaeologist to Tewkesbury Abbey; Pat Webley, honorary archivist of Tewkesbury Abbey; Neil Birdsall, former architect of Tewkesbury Abbey; Philip Comens, head verger; Andrew Moore, verger; Pat Horseley, assistant curator of the abbey’s archaeological collection; and Dr Joyce Filer. Dr Filer’s findings, based on her preliminary re-examination of the surviving bones, were, of course, tentative, but I hope that the interpretations offered here are consistent with her report. My thanks also go to Maria Gilgar and Norrah Harris for their help with information about Dublin, to Annette Carson and Marie Barnfield, who read drafts of parts of the text and gave me their comments, and to Dave Perry, who checked the proofs. Richard Morris, Pat Webley, Annette Carson and Marie Barnfield are acknowledged in my notes as [RM], [PW], [AC] and [MB] respectively.

Finally, I should like to thank the many descendants of the Duke of Clarence who have contacted me in connection with my discovery of Richard III’s mtDNA, and my work on the genealogy of the House of York – and most particularly the five people who kindly contributed details of their family background and their thoughts on George to this book’s final chapter.

CONTENTS

Title

Acknowledgements

Introduction

1.  Family Background

2.  Irish Beginnings

3.  English Childhood

4.  The Loss of a Father

5.  Life in the Low Countries

6.  Heir to the Throne

7.  Matrimonial Problems, Part 1

8.  Matrimonial Problems, Part 2

9.  High Rivers

10.  Yorkist or Lancastrian?

11.  Matrimonial Problems, Part 3

12.  Thomas Burdet’s Secrets

13.  The Act of Attainder

14.  An Unusual Execution

15.  Burial at Tewkesbury

16.  The Clarence Vault

17.  The Surviving Bones

18.  The Clarence Posterity

Appendix 1: Children of the Duke and Duchess of York

Appendix 2: Mottos of the Family of George, Duke of Clarence

Appendix 3: George, Duke of Clarence Family Trees

Abbreviations

Bibliography

Plates

Copyright

INTRODUCTION

One estimate of George, Duke of Clarence, penned about a century after his demise, suggested that he ‘was a goodlie noble prince, and at all times fortunate, if either his owne ambition had not set him against his brother, or the envie of his enimies his brother against him’.1 Would this unsuccessful, would-be ‘Duke of York’, ‘Duke of Burgundy’ and ‘King of England’ have described himself as fortunate? It seems unlikely. But George is a mysterious figure, less well known – and less studied – than his brothers, Edward IV and Richard III. His relationship with those brothers was varied and unpredictable, while his personality appears to have been very much his own.

Shakespeare tells us that George was murdered by his younger brother Richard, Duke of Gloucester (the future Richard III) – but this is drama, not history. The fifteenth-century rolls of Parliament show that George was openly arrested by King Edward IV, who had his brother tried before Parliament, then ultimately executed him. Even George’s execution was extraordinary – he was drowned, it is said, in a barrel of wine. Since the late fifteenth century, historical writers have been struggling with this strange and unlikely-sounding tale of his death.

When he died, in February 1477/8, George, Duke of Clarence was a mere 28 years old. Much activity had been fitted into his short but turbulent life. Conceived, perhaps, in France, and born in Ireland, during the course of his twenty-eight years he visited Eire, England, the Netherlands, Belgium and France (to use the modern terminology). At different times in his life he had apparently been both a Yorkist and a Lancastrian. For about six years, George was the second highest-ranking person in the realm – the heir presumptive to the English throne. He attained that giddy height without having received any proper preparation for the role, at the early age of 11.

It has been said that ‘we scrape around in the lives of the famous dead, like squawking chickens pecking at every piece of gossip and scandal.’2 The historians who are responsible for such ‘scraping’ invariably have their own agendas. In my case, the motive for my interest in George has several facets. Richard III’s subsequent claim to the throne, based on Edward IV’s bigamy, has long been of interest to me. Was George the first to advance that claim? Another factor is my ten years’ work on mitochondrial DNA of the royal House of York – George’s mtDNA. But in the final analysis, of all the Yorks, George is of most particular interest to me because some of my fifteenth-century Dorset ancestors appear to have been in his service. Presumably they wore his livery, and bore his bull or gorget badges. I have thus inherited an obligation to him. I possess one of George’s bull livery badges but, frustratingly, I have been unable to establish for certain what livery colours he used in his adult life. Strange to think that this long-forgotten, simple and basic everyday detail of his household and military establishment was probably very well known to some of my forebears – as, perhaps, were some of the now disputed elements of George’s life story.

I am fascinated by what motivated the Duke of Clarence. How did he really feel about his brothers? Why did he sometimes appear to betray his own family’s cause? What was his relationship with his sister, Margaret, Duchess of Burgundy? And why did she and the other women of his family apparently try so hard to protect him and to reconcile him with Edward IV? What was his physical appearance; his hair colour and type; his height? Was he a drunkard, or is that simply a myth, inspired by the accounts of his death? Finally, how did he really die, and what then became of his mortal remains? Can the mtDNA sequence I discovered in 2004, first published in 2006, and which recently helped to identify the remains of King Richard III, now be used once again to identify the bones of Clarence? These are some of the principal questions my book will attempt to answer.

NOTES

1.  HCSP, p.175.

2.  P. D. James, The Private Patient.

1

FAMILY BACKGROUND

The fourteenth-century king Edward III had several sons. Subsequent rivalry amongst his descendants was one of the factors that led to disputes over the crown in the fifteenth century. These disputes are traditionally characterised as York versus Lancaster, but this is an oversimplification. The real dynastic contest – in which George, Duke of Clarence was to play a varied and vacillating role – was more complex, more nuanced.

Edward III’s direct heirs were his son and grandson Edward, Prince of Wales (‘the Black Prince’) and King Richard II. But the Black Prince predeceased his father and, in spite of two marriages, Richard II produced no direct heirs. Richard was ultimately dethroned by one of his cousins, who then claimed the crown for himself, thereby founding the royal House of Lancaster. That cousin was King Henry IV, whose claim was by no means beyond dispute, as the family tree overleaf clearly shows.

Henry IV was the son of Edward III’s third surviving son, John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster. After Richard II, Henry was the senior male-line descendant of Edward III. But if female lines of descent also offered valid claims to the English throne, then Richard II’s heirs were not the descendants of John of Gaunt, but the descendants of John’s elder brother, Lionel of Antwerp, Duke of Clarence. Since the founder of the Plantagenet dynasty, King Henry II, and his erstwhile rival, King Stephen, had both claimed the English throne on the basis of their maternal descent, and since Edward III himself had later laid claim to the throne of France through his mother, it is evident that in England female-line descent was widely regarded as offering a valid claim.

Within the royal family, attitudes to female-line claims varied at different times in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and there was no consistent official ruling on the matter. In fact, it is evident that the attitudes of individual princes at any given moment depended entirely upon the outcome they wished to achieve. As we shall see, when it suited them, Henry VI, Richard, Duke of York, and the latter’s son George, Duke of Clarence, would all assert the primacy of male-line claims.

In the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, however, it had suited the leaders of the House of Lancaster (John of Gaunt and his son, Henry IV) to accept the capacity of female members of the royal family to transmit rights to the crown. Thus the initial Lancastrian claim was explicitly based upon Henry IV’s descent from Henry III, as Henry IV himself said in Parliament:

The heirs of Edward III (simplified).

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, I, Henry of Lancaster, claim this realm of England, and the crown with all its members and its appurtenances, inasmuch as I am descended by right line of the blood from the good lord King Henry the third.1

Since Henry IV was Edward III’s grandson on his father’s side, the only possible reason for stating that he was claiming the throne based upon his descent from his much more remote ancestor, Henry III, has to be that his claim was based upon his maternal line descent.2

In the late fourteenth century, England saw the genesis of the dispute later – and inaccurately – called the ‘Wars of the Roses’.3 It was during the reign of the childless Richard II that the first signs of this dispute were discernible. Richard is said to have accepted the senior living (but female-line) descendant of Lionel, Duke of Clarence as his rightful heir in October 1385,4 for in that year, ‘when Richard II was still a youth, Parliament had attempted to forestall trouble by declaring that his heir was his young cousin, Roger Mortimer, Earl of March’.5

How far Parliament, or the king himself, really went on this point is a matter of some dispute. Nevertheless, it is clear from the subsequent conduct of Richard II’s uncle, John of Gaunt, that the latter did fear that Roger, his great nephew, might inherit the throne. Thus John of Gaunt attempted to assert not his own male-line claim to the throne, but the claim of his son, the future Henry IV. When referencing the male line of succession from Edward III, John took precedence over his son. Why, then, did he advance his son’s claim rather than his own? Because his son enjoyed a different line of royal descent via Henry’s mother, John’s first wife, Blanche of Lancaster.

Blanche’s father, Henry, Duke of Lancaster, had been the direct male-line descendant and heir of the 1st Earl of Lancaster, Edmund, known as ‘Crouchback’, a son of King Henry III. For lack of male heirs, following the death of Duke Henry in 1361, Blanche became her father’s co-heir (together with her elder sister, Maud). It was via Blanche, iure uxoris, that John of Gaunt acquired Lancastrian lands. Subsequently, in 1362, following the death of Maud, John’s father, Edward III, named him 1st Duke of Lancaster of the second creation. The inherited lands, the re-granted title and the toponym ‘of Lancaster’, which all came to John as a direct or indirect result of his marriage to Blanche, were subsequently inherited by John and Blanche’s son Henry, and by the ruling dynasty he founded. From the assertions made by John during his lifetime and later repeated by Henry’s supporters, it is evident that the first Lancaster line, of which Blanche was ultimately the sole heir, harboured an independent claim to the throne of England, which treated the then king, Richard II, and his three predecessors (Edward I, II and III) as usurpers.6

This was spelled out in an argument in Parliament on the subject in 1394 between John of Gaunt and the Earl of March. The Lancastrian claim was that Edmund Crouchback had actually been the elder son of Henry III, but that his younger brother had been crowned as Edward I. Reputedly, Edmund had been unfairly excluded from the succession because of his disability.7 In reality, this was a lie. But the fact that Henry’s claim was advanced in this form by John of Gaunt – and also later by Henry IV himself (or, at least, by his party in its formal representations on his behalf)8 – shows clearly that they themselves were only too well aware of the weakness of any attempt to use a male-line claim through John of Gaunt to supersede the succession rights of living descendants of John’s elder brother.

The Lancastrian usurpation in 1399 did not resolve the underlying conflict. Henry IV always viewed the Mortimer descendants of Lionel, Duke of Clarence as a potential threat. The marriage of Roger Mortimer’s daughter, Anne, to her cousin Richard of York, Earl of Cambridge was almost certainly one of the factors which led to the latter’s involvement in the Southampton plot, which aimed to depose the second Lancastrian king, Henry V, and to replace him with the then Mortimer heir – the Earl of Cambridge’s brother-in-law, Edmund.9 However, the nervous Edmund revealed the conspiracy to Henry V. Thus the Earl of Cambridge was beheaded on 5 August 1415, and given a less-than-royal burial in the Church of St Julien, Southampton (then the chapel of the Leper Hospital of St Julien – or ‘God’s House’).

The executed Richard, Earl of Cambridge, and his wife, Anne Mortimer, were the parents of Richard, Duke of York, and it was this little boy, born in 1411, who ultimately fell heir to the Mortimer/Clarence claim to the throne – a claim which, because of the little boy’s title, has, rather misleadingly, become known to history as the ‘Yorkist’ claim. Of course, Richard, Duke of York was also (through his paternal line) the grandson of Edmund, 1st Duke of York, Edward III’s fourth surviving son. However, in its final form, the so-called ‘Yorkist’ claim to the throne was not based upon that descent, any more than the original Lancastrian claim had been based on descent from John of Gaunt.

The Lancastrian claim to the throne.

It is true that, as we shall see, from 1447 until 1453, Richard, Duke of York, accepting the status quo and the Lancastrian kingship of Henry VI, would seek recognition as heir presumptive to the throne, based on his male-line descent from Edmund of Langley. On the same basis, during the Readeption of Henry VI (1470–71), George, Duke of Clarence would establish himself in the restored Lancastrian hierarchy as second-in-line to the throne (after Edward of Westminster, Prince of Wales). Nevertheless, the ultimate ‘Yorkist’ claim to replace the House of Lancaster, as asserted by Duke Richard in 1460 and as subsequently defended by his sons, Edward IV and Richard III, depended on their female-line descent from Edward III’s second surviving son, Lionel, Duke of Clarence. Thus, the rivalry popularly perceived as York versus Lancaster might be more accurately described as the rivalry of the houses of Clarence and Lancaster. In that context, the Southampton plot – the first attempt to oust the usurping House of Lancaster and replace it with the descendants of Lionel, Duke of Clarence – was the first act of the so-called ‘Wars of the Roses’.10

The execution of his father following this plot left the almost 4-year-old Richard of Cambridge an orphan. He had never known his mother, for Anne Mortimer had died on 22 September 1411 – the day after she gave birth to her son. The boy’s closest surviving male relatives after his father’s execution were his two childless uncles, Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March and Edward, 2nd Duke of York. But his paternal uncle was killed fighting for Henry V at the Battle of Agincourt on 25 October 1415, only two and a half months after the Earl of Cambridge had been executed. As a result, the 4-year-old orphan Richard then inherited his uncle’s title, and became the youngest Duke of York so far.11

Following his father’s execution, Richard was made a royal ward and placed initially in the charge of Sir Robert Waterton, ‘the Lancastrians’ leading gaoler’.12 In 1422, soon after the death of Henry V in France, Richard’s wardship and marriage were sold to a trusted Lancastrian, Ralph Neville, Earl of Westmorland, whose second wife, Joan Beaufort, was half-sister to Henry IV – the founder of the Lancastrian dynasty. We shall have more to say about the Beaufort relatives of the House of Lancaster presently. Richard’s wardship and marriage were costly acquisitions for Ralph Neville, but the little boy was a wealthy heir, offering good prospects of future profit. To ensure that the benefits of this inheritance accrued to Neville descendants, Richard was married to Ralph Neville’s youngest daughter, Cecily, in 1424.13 Subsequently, when his last surviving uncle, Edmund Mortimer, died childless, on 18 January 1424/5,14 the young Duke of York inherited the latter’s property and claim to the throne, making him an even more interesting candidate than he had been previously for the hand of his guardian’s daughter.

When Ralph Neville died in 1425, the wardship of the young Duke of York was inherited by his widow, Joan Beaufort, youngest daughter of John of Gaunt, and half-sister of the dead King Henry IV. Through Joan, Richard’s bride was also his second cousin, and shared his descent from Edward III (see pp.208–9).

The potential clash between the Lancastrian claim to the throne of the reigning dynasty in the first half of the fifteenth century, and the Clarence/Mortimer/Yorkist claim to the throne of the young Richard, Duke of York was only part of the national conflict that affected England from the 1430s. There was another aspect to the dynastic conflict, which is often overlooked, but which was very significant. Indeed, in the long run, it was to prove of prime importance. This second dynastic conflict embroiled the heirs of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster.

As we have already seen, John of Gaunt’s son by his first wife, Blanche of Lancaster, had assumed the crown in 1399 as King Henry IV. Henry’s publicly expressed claim to the throne was not based on his paternal descent but his maternal descent. When Henry IV died in 1413 this claim passed to his sons: Henry V (d. 1422), Thomas, Duke of Clarence (d. 1421), John, Duke of Bedford (d. 1435) and Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester (d. 1447). On the death of Henry V, leaving an infant son to succeed him, the most important of his brothers proved to be the Duke of Gloucester. Though not the most senior brother, Gloucester was assigned the office of Protector of England by the will of Henry V. However, this king’s bequest was complicated by the fact that Henry V’s will had also created a council comprising the Dukes of Bedford, Gloucester and Exeter and the Bishop of Winchester, while the Duke of Exeter (Thomas Beaufort) had been given the personal guardianship of the young king. The council, the last two members of which were Beauforts (see below), was not inclined to allow Gloucester to wield unimpeded power as regent. The result was continuous wrangling between the council and the protector, a ‘blunt if fatuous soldier … [and] an ambitious politician’.15

Unlike Henry V, Henry IV had no brothers. But he had several half-brothers – sons of John of Gaunt by his third wife and former mistress, Catherine de Roët. These were John Beaufort, Earl of Somerset, Henry Beaufort, Cardinal Bishop of Winchester and Thomas Beaufort, Duke of Exeter. Their sister was Joan Beaufort, Countess of Westmorland – the mother of Cecily Neville. Originally born as bastards, the Beauforts had been declared legitimate by King Richard II, and subsequently also by Henry IV himself.16 However, the latter had specifically ruled that they had no right of succession to the throne. Indeed, since these half-siblings did not share Henry IV’s mother, strictly speaking they were incapable of inheriting his officially asserted Lancastrian claim to the throne, which depended upon the fact that Henry IV was the son of Blanche of Lancaster. Initially, although this may have rankled a little with the Beauforts, it was probably considered of small significance, given the number of Henry IV’s living sons. Later, however, as all but one of Henry IV’s sons died without leaving legitimate heirs, the Beaufort exclusion came to seem much more important. The effective leader of the Beaufort family was Henry Beaufort, Cardinal Bishop of Winchester, Chancellor of England and a very canny financier to whom the crown eventually found itself owing thousands of pounds.

After the death of John, Duke of Bedford in 1435, the only living Lancastrian male heirs were the young King Henry VI and his uncle, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester. A rivalry for power had grown up between the Duke of Gloucester and his half-uncle, the Bishop of Winchester. Amongst his many ambitions,17 the bishop wished to advance the prospects of his own Beaufort family. In particular, he sponsored his nephew, Edmund Beaufort (later 2nd Duke of Somerset). Edmund had earlier – and with considerable success – paid court to Catherine of France, the widow of Henry V and mother of Henry VI. In fact, he had aspired to marry the young queen mother. In this aim he had been supported in Parliament by his uncle the bishop. Edmund’s high aspirations had ultimately been thwarted by the legitimate Lancastrian princes. Nevertheless, his relationship with the queen mother had lasting consequences, which we shall explore later.

Of course, the legitimate heirs to the throne of the childless young Henry VI were not the Beauforts, but the young king’s surviving uncles. After them, in terms of blood right, the direct Lancastrian heir was the senior living descendant of the elder of Henry IV’s two sisters – Philippa of Lancaster, Queen of Portugal. Initially, this would have been Philippa’s son King Edward (Duarte) of Portugal (d. 1438). After 1438, Philippa’s grandson King Alfonso V was the rightful claimant. The Portuguese royal family was certainly aware of its Lancastrian claim, and Philippa’s daughter Isabel of Portugal, Duchess of Burgundy, later asserted her own claim to the English throne, as did her son, Charles the Bold.

An alternative to the Portuguese and Burgundian descendants of Philippa of Lancaster was provided by Henry IV’s younger sister, Elizabeth of Lancaster, and the advantage of her line of descent was that it had remained in England.18 Until his death in 1447, the Lancastrian claimant in this line was Elizabeth’s son, John Holland, 2nd (or 1st) Duke of Exeter19 – the first cousin of Henry V and his brothers. When he died, his claim passed to his son, Henry Holland, 3rd Duke of Exeter (d. 1475) who was married to the Duke of York’s eldest daughter, Anne. However, Henry Holland has been described as ‘cruel, savagely temperamental and unpredictable’.20 As a result, he was unpopular and enjoyed little support as a potential heir to the throne.

Even in the eyes of those who accepted the Lancastrian dynasty, after Henry V’s brothers, the Duke of York was a strong contender as heir to the throne. By the reign of Henry VI the original Lancastrian female-line claim, based on the concept of the usurpation of Edward I, Edward II, Edward III and Richard II, seems generally to have been forgotten. Thus there is no indication that Henry VI seriously considered either Henry Holland or the King of Portugal as his heir. His mind (such as it was) focused rather on the rival claims of the Dukes of York and Somerset. If male-line descent was given precedence – and given Henry IV’s exclusion of the Beauforts – then logically, after Henry V’s brothers, Duke Richard of York was the heir presumptive. Influenced, however, by his Beaufort great-uncle, the Bishop of Winchester, Henry VI looked askance upon the claims of the Duke of York, preferring the claims of his closer, legitimised Beaufort relations as the Lancastrian heirs. Thus Henry VI’s government took a somewhat equivocal view of the Duke of York. Nevertheless, Richard spent much of the 1430s fighting in France on Henry VI’s behalf.

It is not clear how close Richard’s union with Cecily Neville was at first, because although the couple probably married in 1424 no child seems to have been conceived by Cecily until 1438.21 Friar Osberne Bokenham characterised this childlessness as ‘barrenness’ in his poem,22 but in those days this was the standard male reaction to any lack of children. We have no way of knowing when Richard consummated the marriage. It was normal at that period for marriages of minors not to be consummated until the female partner (Cecily in this case) had reached the age of either 14 or 16 (accounts vary).23 Cecily would have reached the age of 14 in 1429, and ‘there are indications (such as the indult to have their own altar) that Richard and Cecily shared a common household by the late summer of 1429’.24 But Cecily would not have been 16 until 1431. Richard’s employment in France may also help to explain why about seven more years then elapsed before a child was in prospect. In spite of their early lack of children, all the surviving circumstantial evidence strongly suggests that the union of Richard and Cecily was a close one, and that their marriage was very successful.

In the 1430s, Richard may have left Cecily in England while he was serving in France. By the 1440s, however, she seems to have accompanied him more or less everywhere as a matter of course. Between 1439 and 1449 the couple had, on average, a child a year. In 1445 (by which time the couple had four living children – two sons and two daughters) the English government initiated negotiations for a marriage between the Yorks’ eldest surviving son, Edward, and one of the daughters of the increasingly victorious Charles VII of France. Charles VII’s then available daughters were Yolande (b. 1434), Joan (i) (b. 1435), Joan (ii) (b. 1438), and Madeleine (b. 1443).25 Who was the intended bride, and how far the French marriage negotiations progressed, is not clear, but Charles VII’s daughters subsequently found other husbands, and of course, young Edward – the future Edward IV – later found other wives.

The heirs of John of Gaunt in the 1430s (simplified).

In 1445 Richard and Cecily left France and returned to England where, from 1446 to 1448, Richard regularly attended Council meetings. In fact, in October 1446 he was granted the abbey and town of Waltham because of his frequent need to be in or near London on the king’s business. Richard had already been using the guesthouse at Waltham Abbey as his pied-à-terre for some time. The Yorks’ next child, Margaret (the future Duchess of Burgundy) was born at Waltham Abbey.26

Given the childlessness of King Henry VI, until 1446/7 his uncle, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, was the heir presumptive to the English throne. Following Humphrey’s death on 23 February 1446/7, York arguably succeeded him as heir presumptive.27 As we have seen, however, influenced by the opinions of the late Cardinal Beaufort, Henry VI himself, or perhaps his queen, was unhappy about this. The king or queen would have preferred the claims of Henry’s cousin, Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset. But Somerset was the head of the legitimised (but originally bastard) Beaufort line – a family which Henry IV, founder of the royal House of Lancaster, had explicitly debarred from ever claiming the throne.28

The death of the Duke of Gloucester pushed the rivalry between the Duke of York and the Duke of Somerset to the forefront of the political scene. This rivalry was scheduled to remain high on the agenda for as long as both candidates were alive. Moreover, it was exacerbated by the mutual personal dislike and hostility which the two rival cousins, York and Somerset, seem to have felt for one another. In the eyes of the queen and the Duke of Somerset, it was essential to remove York from the scene. But ‘what could the Beaufort party do with so important a figure? He could not be murdered or attainted, for civil war had not yet begun. He was therefore appointed King’s Lieutenant in Ireland. The pretext was that Ireland was in rebellion and a vigorous governor was needed’.29 Richard, Duke of York was given the appointment of Lieutenant of Ireland on 30 July 1447.

He was to hold office for ten years from 29 September 1447 [Michaelmas], with a salary of 4,000 marks for the first year and thereafter £2,000 per annum. In addition, all surplus revenues of the Irish exchequer were to be his, all Irish offices were in his gift, providing such appointments passed under the great seal of England, and the costs of his shipping were to be borne by the English exchequer.30

NOTES

1.  C. Given-Wilson, ed., Parliamentary Rolls of Mediaeval England vol. 3(Woodbridge, 2005), pp.422–3.

2.  Henry III was the last reigning English king from whom Henry IV was descended on his mother’s side, via Edmund Crouchback and the earls of Lancaster. For a more specific Lancastrian statement of this claim, see below.

3.  The name ‘Wars of the Roses’ appears to be a nineteenth-century invention. It was certainly not used at the time of the conflict. There is no doubt that members of the Plantagenet family used roses of various hues as personal emblems over a long period of time, nor that members of the House of York in the fifteenth century used the white rose as a badge. Evidence for the so-called ‘red rose of Lancaster’ prior to the reign of Henry VII (‘Tudor’) is, however, hard to find. If it existed, the red rose may well have been a Beaufort badge (as portrayed by Shakespeare). See J. Ashdown-Hill, ‘The Red Rose of Lancaster?’, Ric. 10 (June 1996), pp.406–20.

4.  DNB, vol. 29, p.425.

5.  M. Clive, This Sun of York (London, 1973), p.xx.

6.  G. E. Cockayne, The Complete Peerage vol. 7 (London, 1896), p.378, note b.

7.  J. Ashdown-Hill, ‘The Lancastrian Claim to the Throne’, Ric. 13 (2003), pp.27–38. See also F. S. Haydon, ed., Eulogium (Historiarum sive Temporis) Rolls Series vol. 3 (1863), pp.369–70. I am grateful to Annette Carson for this reference – and others marked [AC].

8.  Adam of Usk, in A. R. Myers, ed., English Historical Documents vol. 4 (London, 1969), p.180.

9.  Son of Roger, Earl of March, and brother of Anne Mortimer. Edmund Mortimer ultimately died childless, leaving Richard Duke of York as his heir.

10.  There had been earlier attempts to oust Henry IV, but these had not been in favour of the Clarence line descendants.

11.  He lost this record in 1474 to his grandson, Richard of Shrewsbury.

12.  ODNB, ‘Richard of York, Third Duke of York’. Available at http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/23503?docPos=2 (consulted November 2012).

13.  In personal communication, Marie Barnfield stated: ‘Cecily is apparently referred to as Duchess of York in her father’s will, made in 1424, which suggests that she and Duke Richard had contracted an actual child marriage’.

14.  At this time, the English calendar year began on 25 March (Lady Day) – so that what in modern terms would be called January 1425 (the first month of that year) was at the time regarded as January 1424 (the antepenultimate month of the previous year).

15.  V. H. H. Green, The Later Plantagenets (London, 1955, 1956), p.298.

16.  It is sometimes stated that the Beauforts were also legitimised by the pope, but it is unclear what evidence exists to support this claim. I am grateful to Marie Barnfield for drawing my attention to this point – and others marked [MB].

17.  His ambitions included the papacy.

18.  Foreign birth was widely perceived in England as more or less the equivalent of bastardy. In fact, it led to allegations of bastardy against John of Gaunt – and later against Edward IV. See below.

19.  For the enumeration of the Holland Dukes of Exeter see below, chapter 2, note 8.

20.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Holland,_3rd_Duke_of_Exeter (consulted March 2013).

21.  See Appendix 1.

22.  See page 5.

23.  According to Barbara Harris, ‘Sixteen was the normal age for the consummation of a marriage in which one (or both) of the contracting parties had been a minor’ (B. J. Harris, English Aristocratic Women, 1450–1550 (Oxford, 2002), p.45). On the other hand, in a personal communication with the present writer, Marie Barnfield suggested that 14 was an acceptable age for the bride. Possibly the groom was expected to be at least 16.

24.  Personal communication from Marie Barnfield.

25.  Their two surviving elder sisters were already married.

26.  See Appendix 1.

27.  Humphrey left no legitimate children.

28.  The exemplification of Henry IV, 1407, states: ‘… excepta dignitate regali …’.

29.  E. Curtis, ‘Richard Duke of York as Viceroy of Ireland, 1447–1460; With Unpublished Materials for his Relations with Native Chiefs’, The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, Seventh Series, vol. 2, no. 2 (Dec. 31, 1932), p.160.

30.  P. A. Johnson, Duke Richard of York 1411–1460 (Oxford, 1988), pp.69–70.

2

IRISH BEGINNINGS

Despite receiving the appointment of King’s Lieutenant in Ireland in 1447, Richard did not actually travel to Ireland for almost two years. He had been empowered to appoint a deputy, a post to which he appointed his namesake, Richard Nugent, Baron Devlin.

From what happened later, we can assume that on some winter’s night in late January or early February 1449, Richard lay in bed with his wife, Cecily, and the couple made love. Judging from the number of their offspring and their tendency to spend time together – and their apparent predilection for doing so – this was probably not an unusual occurrence. Indeed, both the duke and the duchess may afterwards have been hard put to it to recall the precise date. But since Richard seems to have been in Rouen during the month of February 1449, the scene may well have been set in France. Wherever it took place, their act of love on this occasion had consequences. Five months later, in June 1449, when the duke once again left England – this time to personally take up his post in Ireland – his young duchess, who once again accompanied him, was pregnant. A month previously she had celebrated her thirty-fourth birthday.

The Duke of York’s government appointment in Ireland was not a compliment. Contemporaries described it as an exile or banishment,1 and it compared poorly with the command of France which had been taken from him and bestowed instead upon his rival the Duke of Somerset.2 York had inherited lands in Ireland from his Mortimer ancestors. Indeed, the last two Mortimer Earls of March had died there,3 and Queen Margaret and her coterie may well have hoped that York – the latest Mortimer heir – would follow their example. Attempts were made to prevent him from ever arriving in Dublin. ‘Royal commands were dispatched to Cheshire, to the Welsh Marches and the seaports in Wales that the Duke was not to reach his destination. Among those sent to waylay him was Sir Thomas Stanley, of an old Cheshire family, whose sons would repeat the act against York’s sons’.4 Fortunately, however, York was well armed and well attended and he evaded his enemies.

Officially, of course, the government was behind his appointment. ‘In April, 1449, the English Council gave orders for ships to be collected at Beaumaris for the conveyance of Richard and his suite, and finally on July 6 the Duke of York landed at Howth “with great pomp and glory”, accompanied by his wife and a number of troops.’5 Despite the fact that some might have viewed York’s new appointment as a demotion, the Irish seemed delighted to see him:

The Duke of York arrived in Ireland, and was received with great honour; and the Earls of Ireland went into his house, as did also the Irish adjacent to Meath, and gave him as many beeves for the use of his kitchen as it pleased him to demand.6

York himself seems to have taken his role in Ireland very seriously. Holinshed later ascribed to him the boast that ‘it shall never be chronicled … by the grace of God that Ireland was lost by my negligence’.7 If York did really say this, he may have been deliberately contrasting himself and his work with the completely disastrous command of his rival Somerset in France. At all events, he provided such effective and just rule in Ireland that he and his family were remembered there with affection.

It is not certain how many members of the duke’s family accompanied him and his wife to Ireland. Since January 1445/6 his eldest daughter, Anne, had been married to her cousin, the young Henry Holland, 2nd (or 3rd) Duke of Exeter (1430–75).8 At his own request, since July 1447 the Duke of York had been the young man’s guardian. Thus, even if Anne had left her parents’ home on her marriage, she may subsequently have returned as a result of her father’s guardianship of her husband. However, Henry Holland was granted livery of his land on 23 July 1450, which suggests that he and his wife may then have been in England. As for York’s two eldest living sons, Edward and Edmund, by about 1451 they were residing at Ludlow Castle. Elizabeth of York may have been boarding in another noble household and it has been suggested that the infant Margaret may have remained in the nursery at Fotheringhay Castle, in the care of either the former nurse of the future Edward IV, called Anne of Caux, or the probable nurse of the future Richard III, called Joan Malpas.9 However, since the Duchess of York must have known that she was expecting another baby, maybe she had little Margaret (then aged 3) and her nurses accompany her to Ireland, to ensure that experienced women would be on hand when her next baby arrived.

Dublin Castle: the thirteenth-century Record Tower (formerly Wardrobe Tower).

At the time of York’s appointment, the centre of English rule in Ireland still comprised most of Leinster and Meath,10 but its extent was gradually being reduced. By the end of the fifteenth century it would be restricted to Dublin and its Pale, ‘an area along the east coast stretching from Dalkey, south of Dublin, to the garrison town of Dundalk’.11 The seat of the English government in Ireland – and the residence of the English governor – was Dublin Castle. This was the principal abode of the Duchess of York from the summer of 1449 until after her baby was born. Dublin Castle was extensively reconstructed in later periods of its history, so that of the medieval building only one tower – the Record Tower (formerly the Wardrobe Tower) – now survives.

After a brief stay, the Duke of York left Dublin for Trim and then marched on through Ulster. He returned to Dublin by October, for a meeting of the Irish Parliament:

It was with great apparent glory and triumph that Richard returned to Dublin, as it were the hero and hope of a united Ireland. We like to think that his beautiful wife, ‘the Rose of Raby’, had made an impression on the Irish heart, as when O’Byrne presented her with two hobbys. At least there can be no doubt that it was a highly popular event when on October 21, 1449, the viceroy’s third son was born in Dublin, George, the future ‘false, fleeting, perjured Clarence’. The bond already formed between the House of York and Ireland was doubly strengthened by this event. The young prince was looked upon as ‘one of ourselves’, an Irishman by birth as well as descent, and the devotion to his name was shown years later when Lambert Simnel was crowned king in Dublin in the belief that he was Clarence’s son, Edward of Warwick.12

Towards the end of September – the eighth month of her pregnancy – Cecily must have withdrawn from public view, closeting herself in her own chambers at Dublin Castle. This was standard practice for an expectant mother, and a ritual with which the Duchess of York must already have been very familiar, given that this was her ninth experience of childbirth. Once the duchess had withdrawn into her chambers, the keyholes in her doors will have been blocked up. At the same time, all but one of her chamber windows will have been obscured in preparation for the coming birth. Thus, for the last three or four weeks of her pregnancy the duchess will have remained shut off from the rest of the world, surrounded only by her female attendants.

It was in the third week of October that the Duchess of York’s latest pregnancy reached its term. At about noon on Tuesday 21 October 1449 she gave birth to her ninth child and sixth son.13 After her safe delivery, Cecily will have continued for some weeks in seclusion. Indeed, at first she would have been expected to remain in bed. Then, little by little, she would have started to get up. Initially, she would have spent her time mostly sitting in her chamber, taking a little exercise every now and then by walking around her rooms. Finally, she would have emerged from her chamber to appear in the rest of the castle, but even then she would not, at first, have gone outside, since it was popularly believed that, until she had been ‘churched’, a new mother was in danger of attack by evil forces if she ventured out of doors.

Meanwhile, her new-born baby would have been handed over almost at once to a wet nurse. Noble ladies did not normally breast-feed their own children, since this might have reduced their capacity to reproduce – one of their principal raisons d’être. Probably the baby would have been removed from his mother’s chambers and shown to his father. Since the survival of a new-born child was not guaranteed, and the death of an un-baptised child might place the infant’s soul in jeopardy, baptism was seen as a priority. This ceremony was therefore usually performed immediately – or at least within a few days of the birth – at a time when the child’s mother was still enclosed in her chambers and therefore unable to attend her infant’s christening.

Normally the father (if available), together with the godparents, the midwife and attendants, would carry the baby to the church. In this instance the Duke of York was present in Dublin, where he had been attending Parliament. According to Worcester’s Annals, the new-born York baby was baptised in Dublin’s Dominican (‘Blackfriars’) Priory Church, dedicated to St Saviour.14 This priory church was situated approximately half a kilometre to the northwest of the castle gate, just across the River Liffey. If they walked there, the christening party would most likely have covered the distance in about ten minutes.

A priest – perhaps in this instance the prior in person – would have met the party at the church door. First the priest would have checked that the baby had not already been baptised. Then he would have blessed the infant and put a few grains of salt, symbol of wisdom (sal sapientiae), into his mouth. After that, he would have led the party through the church door, to the baptismal font. There the sponsors would have made a profession of faith on the baby’s behalf and one of the sponsors will have held the naked baby over the font while the priest poured holy water over his head, uttering for the first time the baby’s name: Georgi, ego te baptizo in nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. One of the godparents would then have received the baby and wrapped him in his white chrysom robe. When the short ritual was completed, they would all have made their way back to Dublin Castle, where the adults would have shared a christening feast while the baby was probably returned to his cradle and went to sleep.

There is still a Dominican Priory dedicated to St Saviour in Dublin today. However, the present church is a nineteenth-century building. Owing to the vicissitudes of Ireland’s religious history from the sixteenth century onwards, it does not stand on the same site as its medieval predecessor – the church in which the York baby was baptised. That church and priory had stood just to the north of what was then the only bridge across the River Liffey. It occupied the modern ‘Four Courts’ site, which is situated on the eastern side of Church Street, at the point where the road approaches the river.15

The baptism of a baby boy (fifteenth-century woodcut).

The name bestowed upon this boy at his baptism, George, was that of England’s patron saint. It was not at all a common name in the English royal family at that period, but the cult of St George is said to have been fashionable amongst the nobility of England, France and Burgundy, so perhaps it was chosen for that reason. Medieval children were often named after their godparents. We know that two of this baby’s godparents – both of whom were actually present at his baptism – were rival Irish aristocrats: James Fitzgerald, 6th Earl of Desmond and James Butler, 4th Earl of Ormonde.16 The Duke of York was using the occasion of his son’s baptism to bring together the Butlers and Fitzgeralds. Why, then, was the baby not christened James? Maybe George was chosen in honour of his mother’s nephew (and his own elder cousin) Canon George Neville (later Archbishop of York). George Neville had been born in 1432, and was only 17 years old when his little cousin was born in Dublin. However, he had been a canon of Salisbury Cathedral since he was 9 years old, and in 1449 he was already well advanced on his way to a bishopric, which he attained in 1454–6, with the support of his uncle, the Duke of York. At the time of both George Neville’s episcopal elevation and his appointment to the bishopric of Exeter, Richard, Duke of York was Protector of the realm, owing to the insanity of King Henry VI (see below, chapter 3). At the time of the baptism of York’s son in Dublin, George Neville is thought to have been a student at Balliol College, Oxford. He was later to prove an ally of his young cousin – then Duke of Clarence – when the latter opposed his own brother, King Edward IV.17

As for the baby’s mother, the final episode of the childbirth from her point of view was the ceremony of her churching. This was a short rite of purification and thanksgiving that marked a mother’s final return to normal life. It was normally performed forty days after the birth, and until it was accomplished it was considered unsafe for the mother to venture out of doors. If Cecily Neville observed the usual timing, her churching probably took place on Sunday 30 November 1449 – the first Sunday of Advent. Accompanied by her midwives and female attendants, the Duchess of York will have made her way to church bearing a lighted candle. There she was sprinkled with holy water, to cleanse her following George’s birth, and make it safe for her to resume her normal life. Once Cecily had re-emerged from her apartments at Dublin Castle, she and those of her children who were resident in Ireland settled at the Castle of Trim. This was part of her husband’s personal property – an inheritance from his Mortimer ancestors, and one he seems to have liked, for he spent time and money on its restoration.18

According to a traditional rhyme, ‘Tuesday’s child is full of grace’. Since the grace in question is apparently neither social nor religious but refers to agility, and possibly to an ability to wield weapons effectively, Tuesday may have been an appropriate birth day for this particular princeling.19 On the internet one can find a published horoscope for the baby, based on his birth date of 21 October. This assumes that his sun sign was Libra – a sign whose personality traits have been characterised as ‘balance, justice, truth, beauty, perfection’.20 Unfortunately, this particular horoscope fails to take account of the difference between the Julian and the Gregorian calendars. George of York was indeed born on 21 October 1449 according to the old (Julian) calendar, then in use throughout Western Europe. But at the time of his birth that old calendar was nine days behind the modern (Gregorian) calendar. Our modern system would make George’s birth date 30 October. Therefore, he was not born under the balanced sign of Libra, but under Scorpio, a sun sign said to engender a ‘transient, self-willed, purposeful, unyielding’ personality!21

The baby George of York spent almost the entire first year of his life in Dublin and Trim castles. The Duke of York was carrying out his office of Lieutenant of Ireland diligently. At the same time, he was also keeping a careful watch on the course of events in England. In January 1450 his faithful servant, Sir William Oldhall of Narford, Bodney and East Dereham, Norfolk, who had been serving with York in Dublin, was sent back to England to gather news, returning to Dublin with his report in the summer.22