During my research of Great Dunmow’s Tudor past, I have come across quite a few mysteries and conundrums.  One such mystery is that of Griffith Ap Rice, a Welshman who appears in Great Dunmow’s records in the 1520s and 1530s.  I have a lot of circumstantial evidence as to who he ‘might’ be.  But no hard concrete evidence as to who he really was. More to the point, exactly what was a lone Welshman doing in the relatively sleepy backwaters of a small East Anglian town nearly 40 years after the Battle of Bosworth brought many soldiers out of their native Welsh hamlets and villages and into England? Like a medieval ghost, our Welshman flits through the records of Great Dunmow every now and again; and only the mere tantalising hint that he existed can be glimpsed in the records.

So here he is, my unfinished research on Griffith ap Rice, the only Welshman in Tudor Great Dunmow. To help with reading my post, I have Anglicised his name in my commentary but have kept to the many various original spellings for when he appears in the records.

Who was Griffith ap Rice?
He was a stray in Great Dunmow’s Tudor records during the reign of Henry VIII and can be counted as one of the “middling sort” of the town – one of the wealthy elite of the town, but not quite in the upper echelons of the town’s society – and the only person in Tudor Great Dunmow with a definite Welsh name.

Documents/Records where Griffith ap Rice is recorded?

1523 – Great Dunmow’s lay subsidy returns.  Grephyd Ap Rice was assessed for goods to the value of 20 shillings and paid tax of 12d. He was the joint 37th wealthiest man (out of 139 households) listed in the lay subsidy returns. My post on Henry VIII’s Lay Subsidy describes this levy – a tax to raise money for the king’s wars with France.

1525-6 – Great Dunmow’s Churchwardens’ accounts : Essex Record Office D/P 11/5/1 folio 2r.  Collection for the Church Steeple – Grefyn Apryce paid 2s (average was 4d per household).  Griffith ap Rice’s entry is the 16th entry in the list of the whole parish.  The list was written-up into the churchwardens’ account book in strict social-hierarchical order – thus the parish’s clergy were first on the list, followed by the elite, then the middling sort.  The person who contributed the most to the collection, Thomas Savage, who gave £3 6s 8d, is listed at number 24 – lower down than Griffith ap Rice.  ap Rice’s entry is amongst the entries for the middling sort.

1527-9 – Great Dunmow’s Churchwardens’ accounts – collection for the Church Bell:
Grefythe Apryce paid 14d (average 2d or 4d per household).  In this complete list of all the heads of houses in Great Dunmow, Griffith ap Rice is listed in 15th place – amongst all the middling sort of the town.  In this list, a complete list of the entire town, heads-of houses from 19th place onwards are listed alongside the location of their dwelling-place in the town.  So, for example, John Swetynge is listed as living in Windmill Street, and Nycolas Aylett as living in the High Street.  However, the first 18 heads-of-houses listed do not have their location in the town named.  It is as if these people are so important that the church did not need to make a note of these people’s houses.  Griffith ap Rice’s name is within this portion of the list and so his precise location in the town is unidentified but the lack of location gives firm testimony that he was an important person in the Tudor town of Great Dunmow.

1529-30 – Great Dunmow’s Churchwardens’ accounts – collection for Church Organs:
Gryffeth Appryce paid 12d (average 2d or 4d per household).  In this collection, he is detailed 8th in the list of contributors towards the church’s organs – immediately under the town’s elite and amongst the town’s middling sort.

He did not contribute towards the church’s collection for the ‘New Guild’ (1532-3) – but was almost certainly dead by time of this collection.

1532-3: Great Dunmow’s Churchwardens’ accounts : Essex Record Office D/P 11/5/1 folio 17v.  Gift of money from Griffythe Appryce £3 6s 8d.  ‘Ite[m] resayvyd of John Honwyke [churchwarden] & John ffost[er] off gefte of Greffythe Appryce iijli vjs viijd’ This sum of money was probably a bequest left to the church by Griffith ap Rice in his will. In the nearly ten years between his entry in the 1523 Lay Subsidy returns, and his entry in the churchwardens’ accounts for his bequest at the time of his death, his wealth increased from owning goods to the value of 20 shillings (or £1) to leaving in his will a sum of money over three times that amount.

Apart from the instances noted above, Griffith ap Rice does not appear anywhere else in Great Dunmow’s surviving records for the period.  Great Dunmow’s churchwardens’ accounts start in 1525 and numerous local people are named in these accounts – names of churchwardens, the elite of the town, the church’s lay-officials, local builders, the church’s tenant farmers, and labourers appear throughout the accounts – but he is not mentioned anywhere else in the accounts, nor, despite his wealth, was he named as being any of the town’s Lords of Misrule.   Is this unwitting testimony that as a Welshman, even though he was fairly wealthy and one of the middling-sort of the town, he was not allowed to take on one of the more prestigious roles within this Tudor parish?  Or am I reading too much into him being totally missing from the rest of the churchwardens’ accounts?

Do we know Griffith ap Rice’s vital details?
Birth: No later than 1502 (because of entry in 1523 in Lay Subsidy). I do not know the minimum age for contributing towards this tax levied by Henry VIII so am assuming that 21 was the minimum age.  The subsidy was imposed on the heads of households – so by 1523, Griffith ap Rice was the head of his house.  This puts his date of birth more likely to be in the mid to late 1400s.

Marriage: Do not know if he was married or if he had children.  Great Dunmow’s marriage records start in 1558 and baptisms start in 1538 – so theses records are too late to discover details about him or a possible wife and children. However, it would seem that ap Rice either was unmarried at the time of his death, or died a childless widower. His financial bequest to the parish church in Great Dunmow was physically handed over to the church by the churchwardens, John Honwyke & John ffost[er], not by a member of his family. Elsewhere in the churchwardens’ account, monetary bequests of money are stated to have been handed over by the dead man’s widow or kinsfolk to the church. Also, the name “ap Rice” disappears totally from the churchwardens’ accounts: the name is not detailed in any further parish collections, nor in any other context within the accounts.

Death: 1532/1533.  We know this because of the gift of money entry in Great Dunmow’s churchwardens’ accounts and the fact that he is not named in the later church collections raised by Great Dunmow on the entire parish.  Great Dunmow’s burial records start in 1558.

What was Griffith ap Rice’s wealth?
Wealth: Paid more than the average donation to each of Great Dunmow’s church collections levied on the entire parish – he is listed with the three (nearly) yearly collections to buy items for the church and is consistently listed in the section containing the “middling-sort” of the town. In the town’s Lay Subsidy returns, he was the equal 37th wealthiest man in Great Dunmow (out of 139 recorded households – not including the clergy and paupers).  So in terms of wealth, he was in the top 20-25% of the town.

Will: No surviving 1530s ap Rhys will in Essex Record Office, London Metropolitan Archives, or National Archive.  ERO has 10 surviving wills from Great Dunmow for the period 1520s to 1546.  LMA is missing ALL wills for the London Consistory Court from 1521 to approx 1539.  The entire registers are missing and have been probably since the Reformation – see my post on Reformation Wills and Religious Bequests.  Great Dunmow was in the archdeaconry of Middlesex but many nearby towns and villages (for example, Maldon and Chelmsford) were in the archdeaconry of Essex.  If a testator had land in two archdeaconries, then the will would be proved in London Consistory Court.  Lay subsidy and parish collections show that ap Rice was of the middling-sort (top 20-25% in terms of wealth), so very possible that he had land not just Great Dunmow but possibly in two archdeaconries.  So very likely that his will has not survived as it would be in the missing registers.

That’s it!  That’s all I have on my Tudor conundrum –
Griffith Ap Rice, the only Welshman in the village.  Who was he?

Can a link to another person help?
With the little detail I have on Griffith ap Rice, could researching another person help me work out who he was?  To do this, I looked at two Tudor people, Lord Stourton, 7th Baron Stourton and Agnes ap Rice.

Kinsfolk/Linkage to Agnes Rice (aka ap Rhys)
William Stourton, 7th Baron Stourton (c1505-1548) of Wiltshire had an ‘association’ (as a Victorian book on the Stourtons so prudishly put it) with Agnes Rice (born circa 1522, died 1574) – who was also known as Agnes ap Rhys.  Lord Stourton bigamously married her whilst his first wife was still alive. On his death in 1548, Lord Stourton left his considerable fortune to Agnes and their child, but his will was ultimately overturned because of the bigamous nature of their marriage, and the small fact that his legal heir was his eldest son, Charles, by his first (legitimate) marriage.

Although the Baron Stourtons’ family home was in Wiltshire, they owned the ecclesiastical living of Great Easton in Essex (about 3 miles from Great Dunmow) and their names are present in numerous records in both Great Dunmow and Great Easton from the 1300s onwards. (See Lord Mowbray, Segrave and Stourton, C., The history of the noble house of Stourton (1899)).  This 1899 book states that the evidence seemed to point that the Lord Stourtons did not live in Great Easton/Great Dunmow.  However, my research shows that the National Archive holds a couple of records proving that, even if the 7th Baron was not living in Great Easton, he had considerable interests in the village and legally defended those interests in the courts of law of the time when the Abbott at nearby Tilty Abbey tried to infringe on his interests at the church in Great Easton.

There is no hard evidence that William, Lord Stourton, nor Agnes ap Rice lived in (or visited) Great Easton but it is a great coincidence that in the town just 3 miles away was a Griffith ap Rice, who, although not the wealthiest of townsfolk, was amongst the middling-sort.  Great Easton had very strong Tudor connections to Great Dunmow – the latter seeing itself as the “mother” town to all the nearby villages – especially when celebrating the Catholic ritual year such as May Day and the community feast-day of Corpus Christi when people from outlying villages came into Great Dunmow to make merry and celebrate.  Moreover, there is a further link between Great Easton and Great Dunmow and the elite of the two villages.  The vicar of Great Dunmow between the 1490s and 1520s was a Robert Sturton.  The town of Great Dunmow was stuffed full of elite Sturtons (including two other men named ‘Robert Sturton’), and, although only one Sturton will has survived from the 1550s, I can loosely connect this vicar to all these Great Dunmow Sturtons (ie they ‘have’ to be related to each other but, because he was an unmarried cleric without children, I’m not sure exactly how).  So this was a long established elite family with various members living in some of the medieval manors of Great Dunmow and one of their own, a Cambridge University educated man, was the town’s vicar.  Therefore, there is a lot of circumstantial evidence linking the Lord Stourtons of Wiltshire to Great Dunmow’s Sturtons and that these Essex Sturtons were a lesser branch of the Wiltshire Stourtons – probably connected in some-way during the 1300s or 1400s. My post on the vicars of Great Dunmow gives more details about the Sturton/Stourton connection.

So why are the links between Great Easton/Great Dunmow and the Sturtons/Stourtons so important when trying to discover who Great Dunmow’s only Welshman in the village was? To answer this, we have to look at the genealogy of the mistress (or bigamous wife) of William Stourton, 7th Baron Stourton, Agnes ap Rice.

Agnes ap Rice’s parents were Rhys Ap Griffith (1508–1531) and Catherine Howard (daughter of the Duke of Norfolk)  – making Agnes the first cousin of Henry VIII’s queens, Catherine Howard and Anne Boleyn. Her father, Rhys ap Griffith (executed by Henry VIII for treason in 1531) was the son of Gruffydd ap Rhys (c1478–1521). Gruffydd ap Rhys was a prominent knight firstly at the court of prince Arthur and then at the court of Henry VIII and he was at the Field of the Cloth of Gold with Henry VIII.

His father was Rhys ap Thomas (1449–1525) who was a fierce supporter of Henry Tudor at the battle of Bosworth Field in 1485.  There is a still current rumour that it was this Rhys ap Thomas who cut down and killed Richard III on the battlefield with a pole-axe (boo, hiss!) When Henry Tudor became King Henry VII, Rhys ap Thomas, the slayer of the anointed king of England, became the most powerful man in south Wales.

If you’ve managed to follow these Welsh family with their patronymic names, well done!  I got very lost working out who was who – so I had to draw up a very rough and ready family tree.

Was Agnes ap Rice a kinswoman of Great Dunmow’s Griffith ap Rice?

The possible links between Great Dunmow’s Griffith ap Rice and Agnes ap Rice are tantalising.  With the Welsh patronymic naming system, was our Griffith ap Rice’s father Rhys ap Griffith?  But if his father was thus named, then our Griffith wasn’t Agnes’ brother as Agnes’ brother, Griffith ap Rice, is well documented in the records.  So if they are related, the links would be further back in time then the 1520s.

I’m so near, but so far from working out who Great Dunmow’s only Welshman in the town really was.

Had our Griffith ap Rice (or his father) come to
East Anglia after the Battle of Bosworth with Henry Tudor’s Welsh army
alongside their kinsman Rhys ap Thomas

(Or am I, as a historian, getting way too much carried away with myself!)

This is still very much work in progress, and maybe one day I’ll discover who Tudor Great Dunmow’s Welshman was.

Postscript
Agnes ap Rice, in her own right was a very interesting character.  After the death of Lord Stourton, 7th Baron Stourton, she went on to marry Sir Edward Baynton.  There is a very interesting account on the Bayntun History website of the death in 1564 of Agnes’ and Edward’s only living son, William, allegedly by witchcraft .

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You may also be interested in the following
– Reformation Wills and Religious Bequests
– Transcripts of Great Dunmow’s Churchwardens’ accounts – 1526-1621
– Medieval Catholic Ritual Year
– Tudor local history
– Building a medieval church steeple
– Henry VIII’s Lay Subsidy 1523-1524
– Images of Medieval Funerals
– The dialect of Medieval Essex

© Essex Voices Past 2012-2013.

If you watched the recent BBC drama, The White Queen, and its bloody climax – the Battle of Bosworth Field – you would be forgiven for thinking that the battle took place during late autumn or even during early winter. For, according to the Beeb, a thick covering of fallen leaves lay on the battlefield floor and light snow covered the bridleways.

But the battle didn’t take place during winter.  It took place during the high summer of 1485 – on Monday, 22^nd August, to be precise.  On the 7^th August, Henry Tudor, soon to be crowned on a battlefield as King Henry VII, landed off the Welsh coast at Milford Haven. By late August, he was seven miles west of Leicester, near the village (or, in those days, the hamlet) of Market Bosworth.  Margaret Beaufort (born 1443, died 1509), the mother of Henry VII, recorded these momentous events in her Book of Hours.

‘August’ from The Beaufort/Beauchamp Hours (England, S. E. (London), c. 1430,
before 1443) shelfmark Royal 2 A XVIII f. 31v. (We do not know if this is her hand or if a scribe wrote the entries for her.)

The first left margin note in black reads

The day landed king harry the vijth at milford have[n] the yere of o[u]r lord vijth cccc lxxxv [1485]

The second left margin note reads

The day king harri the vijth won[n] the feeld [field] wher was slayn ki[n]g Richard the third Ao Do[m] 1485

The day before the battle, on the 21^st August, King Richard III, along with an army of 12,000, rode out from his temporary accommodation at the White Boar Inn in the city of Leicester and set up his overnight camp in a field on Ambion Hill.

Early 20^th Century etching of the Blue Boar Inn, Leicester. King Richard III spent the night of the 20^th August 1485 in the Inn. It is alleged that he left his bed behind in the inn – perhaps he thought that he’d be coming back to the inn after he had dispatched his enemy, Henry Tudor. A white boar was the personal emblem of Richard III.  Legend has it that the inn was originally called the ‘White Boar’ but after the battle and the death of Richard, the inn-keeper hastily changed the inn’s name to the Blue Boar.

By the end of that fateful day, 22^nd August 1485, King Richard III, the last of the Plantagenets, lay dead on the battlefield.  And the Tudor dynasty began with King Henry VII crowned on Crown Hill in the nearby village of Stoke Golding by the treacherous Lord Thomas Stanley, the new king’s step-father.

King Richard III holds a council of war before the battle.

King Richard III’s trusty advisers.

The general area of the Battle of Bosworth Field.  These photos were taken in the early summer of 2013. In August 1485, it is likely that these fields had the remains of that year’s crops still in the ground.

The general area of the battle.  By the end of the battle, it is thought that approximately 1,000 men on Richard’s side lay dead on the field, along with 100 men from Henry Tudor’s forces.

Overlooking the general area of the battle-site.  The spire in the distance is the (post-medieval) church spire of Stoke Golding, near to which the first Tudor King of England was crowned.

1813 Monument to Richard III.  During the battle, the King drunk from the well that was located here.

The Fellowship of the White Boar’s plaque.

Legend has it that the dead king’s body was brought back to Leicester that same evening.  Stripped naked and devoid of any dignity or kingly regalia, his body was put on display for several days in Leicester.  His enemies (and, of course, his followers) could see for themselves that he really was dead and their new king was Henry VII. Shortly afterwards, he was buried quietly, without ceremony, in the church of the Greyfriars – a Franciscan monastic order.

Modern-day statue of Richard III in a park in Leicester.

Of course, over 520 years later, we now know this legend to be true.  King Richard III was indeed buried by the Franciscans in their monastery, where he lay undisturbed until his discovery in 2012.  I, like many other people around the world, was riveted to the television during the live press release by Leicester University in February 2013, when they confirmed to the waiting world that the body that they had found was indeed that of the last of the Plantagenets. As the Tudor kings of England had so rightly said, Richard III really did lyth buryed in Leicester.

Richard ye was sonne to Richard Duwke of yorke & brother un to kyng Edward ye iiijth Was kyng after hys brother & raynyd ij yeres & lyth buryed at leator [Leicester].  From Biblical and genealogical chronicle from Adam and Eve to Edward VI (England, S. E. (London or Westminster), c. 1511 with additions before 1553) shelfmark King’s 395 ff.32v-33

Watching the astonishing live press release – showing the perfect synergy of archaeology, genealogy, forensic science, and DNA science – was my small home educated son.  He was entranced by the news.  So, keen to capture his excitement, a few months later we headed north to Leicester for our most spine tingling School Trip Friday for academically challenged.

If Leicester’s one-way system had been in existence in 1485, then Richard III would never have made it out of the city and into the nearby villages and fields to meet his nemesis.  In the 21^st Century, guided by my trusty SatNav (who told me several times to ‘please take the 7^th exit’ as I repeatedly circled the city), I eventually managed to navigate my way into Leicester, ready for a weekend of finding Richard.  Trying to be as authentic as possible, I decided to stay in the exact location where Richard III had spent his second-to-last night on earth – the Blue Boar Inn.  Except, of course, the Blue Boar Inn has long been demolished and swept away, but in its place is another hostelry with ‘blue’ as its insignia.  Yes, my son and I stayed in the Travelodge – a modern 21^st Century inn built on the exact site of its predecessor, the Blue Boar Inn.

The Blue Boar Inn 2013 (aka Travelodge).  The area is continuing its medieval drunken past by being, in the 21st century, the weekend home of countless hen and stag parties. The location is now part of Leicester’s multi-lane one way system, and so my son and I spent two nights sleeping more-or-less on a massive roundabout, with the steady stream of all-night cars noisely whizzing around the city. 

As well as visiting the site of the Battle of Bosworth (and the wonderful Bosworth Battlefield Heritage Centre), we, of course, made our way into the centre of the city to find Richard at the temporary exhibition within the medieval guildhall.

My son comes face to face with a medieval king.

The spire of Leicester Cathedral, overlooking the medieval guildhall.

Leicester Cathedral and the Guildhall.

Looking in one direction: the precinct of the Cathedral. To take this photograph, I had to stand directly in the middle of the small road shown in the next photograph.

Looking in the opposite direction: the location of the Greyfriars monastery. Behind the building on the left, halfway down is the entrance to the council car park containing the mortal remains of King Richard III.  The distance between Richard’s original resting place for over 500 years is a mere stone’s throw from his proposed next resting place. Should he be moved a mere few hundred yards into Leicester cathedral? Or should he be moved a hundred miles to be reburied in York?

Inside The Car Park. The forbidding green gates, with their modern-day graffeti and barbed-wire tops, .

The car park is tiny – a lot smaller then it appears on the television.  Georgian and Victorian buildings surround the space.  With five centuries of urban building-work, it truly is a miracle that the exact location of Richard III’s was left, in the main, undisturbed.  At some point during the Victorian period, builders managed to sever the king’s feet as they were not recovered with the remains of the rest of his body in 2012.

A temporary marque protects the grave of the five-hundred years dead king.  The building in the background is Alderman Newton’s grammar school, which will eventually become part of the new Richard III Visitors’ Centre.  If this building had been built even 50 yards further forward, then we would have lost Richard’s grave forever.

The grave of King Richard III, the last of the Plantagenets.  The only king of England to die in battle, since Harold died in a hale of arrows in 1066. Stripped naked and buried without a shroud, with his hands tied after death, Richard was stuffed into a shallow grave which was too short for him.

Seeing Richard’s grave was spine-tingling – we so nearly lost him forever to urban development.  Eventually the site of his original grave will become part of a beautiful garden next to the new Visitors’ Centre.  However, seeing the grave in the setting of a stark and bare council car park was an experience I will never forget.

The quiet serenity and beauty of Leicester Cathedral. Will this be Richard’s final resting place?

Richard, Duke of Gloucester.  Born 2^nd October 1452 at Fotheringhay Castle, Northamptonshire; died 22^nd August 1485, Bosworth Field, Leicester.
King of England 1483-1485.  Buried 1485 to 2012 in Greyfriars monastery, Leicester.
His current location is known only by the University of Leicester.

What do you think about the search and discovery of Richard III?
Where should his final resting place be?
Please do leave your thoughts in the Comments box below.

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Notes
Images from the British Library’s collection of Medieval Manuscripts are marked as being Public Domain Images and therefore free of all copyright restrictions in accordance with the British Library’s Reuse Guidance Notes for the Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts.

You may also be interested in the following posts
– Richard III – ‘I am a villain: yet I lie. I am not’
– School Trip Friday – Of cabbages and kings
– Shakespeare’s version of King Richard III
– Richard III lyth buryed at Leicester
– Elizabeth of York

© Essex Voices Past 2012-2013.

Many people use the word ‘journey’ to describe something very personal to them which has been life changing (and possibly life-enhancing). Maybe a ‘spiritual journey’ or an ‘emotional journey’ on their way to the top as a world-class Olympic champion? My own journey has far less lofty aspirations: mine is to provide my vulnerable child, who has severe learning difficulties, the correct education he so desperately needs. A year ago this month, I decided that we had to do ‘something’ to stop the downward emotional and mental spiral of our small child who was struggling, and failing spectacularly, in mainstream education. So we withdrew him from school and, after failing to convince our local education authority as to the extent of his needs, took to the Courts to get them to provide protection for his educational needs. Sadly, having won the legal battle to convince my local education authority that he requires a Statement of Special Educational Needs, the war continues with the grown-ups still fighting through the courts for the precise education he so desperately needs. In the meantime, my son continues to be ‘home educated’ and so continues the massive spiritual, emotional and physical ‘journey’ for him and me. (It is totally beyond my understanding why I have to go to the law of this land to get the education that my child so desperately needs – isn’t that a basic human right in our so-called progressive country?)

My own ‘journey’ is to be my child’s legal advocate, educational tutor and mentor. Me? Someone with nearly 30 years of experience of the hustle and bustle of the corporate IT world but zero experience of teaching children. Me: now tasked with organising the legal battle, along with personally tutoring one small vulnerable child, and, more importantly, arranging much more competent specialist tutoring than myself.  But there are some considerable pluses to this ‘journey’. Now, my eyes and ears are more alert and more receptive to the sights and sounds of life. Mine are the ears and eyes which are the conduit to teach my child about life and the universe: anything and everything.

In the first week of March, during a beautiful balmy English Spring-time, my ‘journey’ became one that is physical as we once more headed for the hills and arrived in Cornwall for a week of rest, relaxation and tuition. Last term, our quest was to search out Romans at Hadrian’s Wall in Northumberland. This term, our quest is to search out the dark ages and then onto medieval kings and queens. Our appetite was already wetted with watching every single programme on the recent discovery of the mortal remains of Richard III.  We came to Cornwall expecting to find the far distant voices of King Arthur at Tintagel but didn’t expect the echoes of Richard III and Henry VII in the furthest tips of Cornwall.

Our journey across this, one of the most beautiful counties of England, included early-modern stories of smugglers, Revenue Men, and Wreckers, along with modern-day stories of the sacrifice of the heroic lifeboat men of Penlee and Mousehole. It therefore seemed appropriate that we spent Tuesday 5th March 2013, St Piran’s Day, the patron Saint of Cornwall, walking through that most iconic of Cornish lands, St Michael’s Mount.

5 March 2013, the Cornish flag on St Piran’s Day, St Michael’s Mount

What can be more enticing to a small child who can barely read and write then the legends and stories of this magical isle? Tales of seven foot giant skeletons found buried under the church’s staircase… The legend of Jack the giant killer: the giant whose heart still vigorously beats in the chests of today’s young children who pause for a moment to tread on his  heart which is buried within the very pathway to the top of the Mount…

And there on the foreshore of St Michael’s Mount and the causeway to the island was lurking the Tudor story of Perkin Warbeck.  The second of the Tudor Pretenders.

Perkin Warbeck, the second Tudor Pretender, born circa 1474, executed 1499

Perkin Warkbeck who pretended to be one of the Princes in the Tower.  The long-dead brother of the long-since murdered Edward V, in 1490 Perkin Warbeck proclaimed himself to be Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York: the Yorkist king of England, Richard IV.  A claim that was championed by no less than Margaret of Burgundy, the sister of Edward IV and Richard III, and, therefore, aunt to the real Princes in the Tower: Edward V and Richard.  After much adventuring and political championing throughout the Continent, Perkin Warbeck finally landed by sea in Cornwall in September 1497 and took occupation of St Michael’s Mount. After refortifying the Mount’s castle, he left his beautiful wife, Lady Catherine Gordon, on the Mount for safety. From St Michael’s Mount, he and his army of west-country rebels marched through Cornwall and the south-west of England in his attempt to seize the English throne: an attempt which ended in failure and his capture at Beaulieu Abbey in Hampshire. Henry VII reached Taunton on 4 October 1497 when the Cornish rebels and Perkins’army surrendered. Perkin Warbeck finally met his maker and an unceremonious end on 23 November 1499 at the end of a rope on the gallows of Tyburn, London.

And the fate of Warbeck’s wife, Lady Catherine Gordon?  She suffered a very lenient fate at the hands of Henry VII.  She was the daughter of the Scottish George Gordon, 2nd Earl of Huntly.  For political reasons, it had suited the Scottish king, James IV, to believe that Warbeck was indeed Richard, Duke of York.  Therefore Warbeck was encouraged to marry the daughter of a Scottish nobleman.  Warbeck and Lady Catherine had a grand and lavish wedding in Edinburgh.  Calling herself the ‘Duchess of York’, Lady Catherine was finally captured by Henry VII’s forces at St Michael’s Mount, Cornwall in September or October 1497.  She was brought back to London. Surprisingly Henry VII treated her very kindly and she became a much favoured (and favourite) lady-in-waiting to his wife, Elizabeth of York.  Henry VII arranged for Lady Catherine to have a pension, paid for by him, and he also settled her expenses for her clothes.  The favours continued when Lady Catherine attended her Scottish king, James IV’s, 1503 marriage to Henry VII’s daughter, Margaret and the same year, she was the Chief Mourner at Elizabeth of York’s funeral.  Lady Catherine’s fate at the hands of Henry VII was remarkably kind and generous, especially considering that if Warbeck really had been Richard, Duke of York, then Elizabeth of York would have been her sister-in-law.  Perhaps Henry VII decided that it was better to keep your (innocent) enemies close to you rather then have them holed up on a far-distant Cornish island? Lady Catherine went on to marry a further three husbands and died a peaceful death in 1537 – many many years after her adventures with the Tudor Pretender, Perkin Warbeck.

Was Warbeck Richard, Duke of York?…  Who knows!  But who-ever he was, my husband, child and I thoroughly enjoyed our trip to St Michael’s Mount on St Piran’s Day.

The Castle on St Michael’s Mount

The perilous staircase up to the castle on St Michael’s Mount.
Whenever the castle was besieged throughout the centuries,
the poor troops had to run up these stairs to storm the castle!

The view from the top of St Michael’s Mount’s castle

One of the early-modern canons, now (strangely!)
trained on the amphibious boat used to transport modern-day
residents and visitors to the island

Looking down the canon into the bay

The canons on St Michael’s Mount

The ancient causeway totally under the water of high-tide
but visible from the top of St Michael’s Mount

Medieval stained glass windows from Bruges in the
Chevy Chase room, St Michael’s Mount

The medieval church of St Michael’s Mount

Medieval stained glass in the church of St Michael’s Mount

A medieval religious object within the church of St Michael’s Mount

Re-enacting Perkin Warbeck leaving St Michael’s Mount?
Or King Canute trying to drive back the waves?

Postscript
Home educating a year on, it is somewhat strange that I have ended up teaching my special educational needs child about life and the universe in the very area where the controversial councillor, Collin Brewer, proclaimed that special educational needs children need ‘putting down’. Mr Brewer, if you are reading this, come spend a day (or two) with me and my child whilst I home educate him, and tell my child to his face that he needs putting down. Or alternatively, do some good by showing my child (and me) that you lofty councillors do care about some of the most vulnerable people in our society. Mr Brewer, come listen to the story of my child and my fight for him to have a basic human right: a school education. I promise you, our story will make you weep.

You may also be interested in
– School Trip Friday – Weald and Downland Open Air Museum
– School Trip Friday – Chapel of St Peter’s on the Wall, Bradwell
– School Trip Friday – Imperial War Museum Duxford
– School Trip Friday – Of Cabbages and Kings
– School Trip Friday – Hadrian’s Wall
– School Trip Friday – Messages from England’s Roman Past
– School Trip Friday – What did the Roman’s ever do for us?

© Essex Voices Past 2013.

There were many human pawns and casualties in the conflict now known to history as ‘The War of the Roses’.  As the dynastic feud raged furiously between the Royal houses of Lancaster and York, many died a brutal death.  The most brutal, perhaps, was that of the death of King Richard III – killed in battle at Bosworth in August 1485.  Last week, current news and history were  alive with the news that the body of Richard III had been found under a car park in Leicester.  Since the announcement, much has been discussed about the discovery of his mortal remains and what it means to our understanding of his reign.  I still maintain my original position that it doesn’t change much about our understanding of Richard III, nor our understanding of his life and times.  (See my post Richard lyth buryed at Leicester.)

My post today is about the most important pawn of all in that power struggle: Elizabeth of York.  By 1483, the time of her father Edward IV’s death, Elizabeth was 17 years old.  With her brothers locked away in the Tower of London and her uncle declaring himself to be king, Elizabeth’s position was very precarious.  She became even more vulnerable when in March 1485, Anne Neville, Richard III’s queen, died and rumours spread that Richard intended to marry Elizabeth, his own niece.  The historian Anne Crawford, in her 2007 book ‘The Yorkists: The history of a Dynasty’ comments:

‘… rumours that the king [Richard III] was planning to marry Elizabeth himself.  While a union between uncle and niece was not strictly forbidden by the church, provided dispensation was obtained (and it was later not unknown in European royal circles), the idea caused revulsion among his councillors, Richard was warned by Ratcliffe and Catesby, the men he trusted most, that, unless he abandoned the idea and publicly denied any such intention, his northern supports would rise against him for causing the death of Warwick’s daughter [his dead wife, Anne Neville] in order to enter into an incestuous marriage to his niece.  There is no reason to believe the charge that Richard murdered his wife, but the fact that people, even his loyal northerners, believed it possible indicates the air of unease and suspicion surrounding him.  The threat of their revolt was enough to bring the king to a humiliating position of making the public denial demanded of him.’ (page 146-7)

Elizabeth was most certainly a prize – daughter of the dead Edward IV and sister of the missing Edward V.  A prize that was too much for the victor of Bosworth Field, the new Henry VII, to ignore.  Henry Tudor made his intentions towards Elizabeth very clear even before that fatal day in August 1485 when Richard III was dispatched to meet his maker.  By marrying Elizabeth, Henry Tudor, at one stroke, would pacify both the house of Lancaster and the house of York.  Moreover, any child of theirs would automatically be the heirs to the throne – a fact that could not be disputed by either dynastic house.  In a cunning and an astute move, Henry VII, determined that he was to be king by conquest rather then by the birth-rights of a mere woman, did not marry Elizabeth until January 1486. The marriage took place a few months after his own coronation the previous year on 30 October.  Clever Henry VII! By marrying after his own coronation, he reinforced the point that it was he who was the anointed king: Elizabeth was merely his consort.

Contemporary documents from the period suggest that Henry VII had a loving relationship with his wife.  At her death, he did appear to grieve for her and he did spend his money on a lavish funeral for her.  She also seems to have cared for the education of her own children – very unusual for a high born medieval woman.  The historian, David Starkey, in his 2008 book ‘Henry Virtuous Prince’ strongly argues the case that Elizabeth was an exceptionally well educated woman and it was she who taught her own daughters and her young second son literacy (page 119-120), and therefore to read and write.   That second son, of course, went on to be the highly educated and intelligent Henry VIII.

Elizabeth of York, that pawn of medieval and Tudor history who aided the end of the bloody War of the Roses, was born in the Palace of Westminster on 11 February 1466 and died exactly 37 years later at the Tower of London, nine days after giving birth to her seventh and final child (who had died the previous day).

So on the anniversary of her birth and death, below are some images of Elizabeth of York.
Elizabeth Woodville, queen of Edward IV, and their five daughters (left to right) Elizabeth, Cecily, Anne, Catherine, and Mary. Royal Window, Northwest Transept, Canterbury Cathedral.

Cigarette card from Ogden’s Guinea Gold series, published 1903.

Cigarette card from Player’s Kings and Queens, published 1935.

Margaret Beaufort (born 1443, died 1509) was the mother of Henry VII.  Below is an image for February from her Book of Hours.  This Book was made between 1430 and 1443 and owned firstly by Margaret’s mother, Margaret Beauchamp (born 1405/6, died 1482), and then by Margaret.  Margaret appeared to use her Book of Hours as a calendar to record significant events in the lives of her son and grandchildren.  Thus, she used August to record her son’s landing at Milford Haven and the death of Richard III; and February for the death of Elizabeth of York (we do not know if this is her hand or if a scribe wrote the entries for her).

‘February’ from The Beaufort/Beauchamp Hours
(England, S. E. (London), c. 1430, before 1443)
shelfmark Royal 2 A XVIII f. 28v.

The first left margin note in black reads

This day wher[e] decessed Quene Elizabeth i[n] the tower of london

Postcard of the Burial chapel of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York, Westminster Abbey.

Funeral effigy of Elizabeth (plate from 1914)

Chapel of Henry VII and his queen, Elizabeth of York

Elizabeth of York: daughter of Edward IV, niece of Richard III, sister of Edward V, wife of Henry VII, mother of Henry VIII, grandmother of Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I.

What do you think about Elizabeth of York?
Please do leave your thoughts in the Comments box below.

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Notes
Images from the British Library’s collection of Medieval Manuscripts are marked as being Public Domain Images and therefore free of all copyright restrictions in accordance with the British Library’s Reuse Guidance Notes for the Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts.

You may also be interested in the following posts
– Richard III lyth buryed at Leicester
– 28 January: a remarkable date in Tudor history
– British costumes in the time of Henry VII and Henry VIII
– School trip Friday – Of cabbages and kings
– Prince Arthur- Prince of Wales
– Tudor coronations

© Essex Voices Past 2012-2013.

Richard ye was sonne to Richard Duwke of yorke & brother un to kyng Edward ye iiijth Was kyng after hys brother & raynyd ij yeres & lyth buryed at leator [Leicester]

So the council car park in Leicester has yielded up its secret.  The body discovered by archaeologists in September 2012 is that of King Richard III.  The analysis by today’s live conference at the University of Leicester was remarkable – there can be absolutely no doubt that they have got their man.  Science, genealogy and history all brought together with DNA analysis, wound analysis, genealogical and historical analysis to prove this.

The discovery is one of the most exciting historical events to happen in living memory.  Not because the discovery adds more to our historical understanding of Richard III: it doesn’t.  Or because it informs us of something that we didn’t already know: it doesn’t.  The discovery of his body merely confirms what we already knew: that Richard died a brutal death on the battlefield of Bosworth, and in death was not treated with dignity.

But more staggeringly, his re-interment in Leicester Cathedral will be a never to be repeated link from our modern-day present to our past: the burial of a king of England.  King Richard III – the last of the Plantagenets, the last truly medieval king, the last king of England to die in battle.  Or the child-murderer hunchbacked bogeyman of Shakespeare and English history?

With all that will be written and said about Richard III in the coming days and weeks, let us return to contemporary documents written during Richard’s life – along with snippets written afterwards by his nemeses, the Tudors.

Signature of Richard, Duke of Gloucester – future King Richard III

King Richard III

Royal arms of England supported by boars and surmounted by a crown from De re militari (the Book of Vegecye of Dedes of Knyghthode), (London, England, c1483-c1485), shelfmark Royal 18 A XII f.1

Royal arms Anne Neville (wife of Richard III) from De re militari (the Book of Vegecye of Dedes of Knyghthode), (London, England, c1483-c1485), shelfmark Royal 18 A XII f.49

The Genealogy of Richard III
The image at the start of this post is a small portion of The Biblical and genealogical chronicle from Adam and Eve to Edward VI, a remarkable document now in the care of the British Library. The chronicle is thought to have been written and illustrated circa 1511  (i.e. shortly after Henry VIII succeeded his father to the throne of England) with additions added by another hand after Edward VI’s death in 1553.  The book stayed in the possession of the kings and queens of England until it was given to the British Museum by King George IV in 1823. Below is the full image of the kings – a stupendous display of Tudor propaganda proving that they were the rightful monarchs of England.
The genealogy of the kings of England, including Henry IV, Henry V, Henry VI, Edward IV, Richard III, and Henry VII from Biblical and genealogical chronicle from Adam and Eve to Edward VI (England, S. E. (London or Westminster), c. 1511 with additions before 1553) shelfmark King’s 395 ff.32v-33

Lady Margaret Beaufort’s Book of Hours
Margaret Beaufort (born 1443, died 1509) was the mother of Henry VII.  Below is an image of the entry for August from her Book of Hours.  This Book was made between 1430 and 1443 and owned firstly by Margaret’s mother, Margaret Beauchamp (born 1405/6, died 1482), and then by Margaret.  Margaret appeared to use her Book of Hours as a calendar to record significant events in the lives of her son and grandchildren.  Thus, she used August to record her son’s landing at Milford Haven and the death of Richard III (we do not know if this is her hand or if a scribe wrote the entries for her).

‘August’ from The Beaufort/Beauchamp Hours (England, S. E. (London), c. 1430, before 1443) shelfmark Royal 2 A XVIII f. 31v.

The first left margin note in black reads

The day landed king harry the vijth at milford have[n] the yere of o[u]r lord vijth cccc lxxxv [1485]

The second left margin note reads

The day king harri the vijth won[n] the feeld [field] wher was slayn ki[n]g Richard the third Ao Do[m] 1485

Postscript
Has the revival of interest in Richard III already started?  At a Christie’s auction of Valuable Printed Books and Manuscripts held on 13 June 2012, a rare manuscript with Richard’s signature fetched £109,250 against an estimate of £10,000 to £15,000.  Two manuscripts signed by his usurper  Henry VII, fetched £7,500 and £8,750; whilst one signed by Henry VIII only managed £20,000.

Henry VII may have won the battle and the crown but Richard III will be the king that will experience a renaissance with the next generation of modern-day historians.

Tuck’s postcard Richard III from Kings and Queens circa 1902

Richard Plantagenet – Duke of Gloucester, Knight of the Garter, Lord High Constable of England, Lord High Admiral, Governor of the North of England, Chief Justice of North Wales, Chief Steward and Chamberlain of Wales, Commander in Chief, Lord Warden of the West Marches, Lord Protector of England,. King of England, France and Lord of Ireland

What do you think about the search and discovery of Richard III? Please do leave your thoughts in the Comments box below.

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Notes
Images from the British Library’s collection of Medieval Manuscripts are marked as being Public Domain Images and therefore free of all copyright restrictions in accordance with the British Library’s Reuse Guidance Notes for the Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts.

You may also be interested in the following posts
– Richard III – ‘I am a villain: yet I lie. I am not’
– School Trip Friday – Of cabbages and kings
– Shakespeare’s version of King Richard III

© Essex Voices Past 2012-2013.

One more sleep until we find out if the body retrieved by University of Leicester’s archaeologists is that of King Richard III. In the meantime, here are some words and images of Shakespeare’s (and Tudor England’s) version of this much maligned king.

Act 1, Scene 2
Gloucester: Fairer than tongue can name thee, let me have.
Some patient leisure to excuse myself.
Lady Anne: Fouler than heart can think thee, thou canst make
No excuse current, but to hang thyself.

Act 1, Scene 4
First Murderer: Offended us you have not, but the king.
Duke of Clarence: I shall be reconciled to him again.
Second Murderer: Never, my lord; therefore prepare to die.

Act 2, Scene 1
Duke of Gloucester: Why, madam, have I offer’d love for this
To be so bouted in this royal presence?
Who knows not that the noble duke is dead?
You do him injury to scorn his corpse

Act 3, Scene 7
Duke of Buckingham: Two props of virtue for a Christian prince,
To stay him from the fall of vanity:
And, see, a book of prayer in his hand,
True ornaments to know a holy man.

Act 5, Scene 3
Ghost of Anne: Richard, thy wife, that wretched Anne thy wife,
That never slept a quiet hour with thee,
Now fills thy sleep with perturbations
To-morrow in the battle think on me,
And fall thy edgeless sword: despair, and die!

Act 5, Scene 4
Richard III: A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!

English text taken from OpenSource Shakespeare online History of Richard
III (1592).  Images from Liebig’s Extract of Meat advertising trade cards series Richard III by Shakespeare published 1899.

What do you think about the search and possible discovery of Richard III? Please do leave your thoughts in the Comments box below.

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You may also be interested in the following posts
– Richard III lyth buryed at Leicester
– Richard III – ‘I am a villain: yet I lie. I am not’
– School Trip Friday – Of cabbages and kings

© Essex Voices Past 2012-2013.

Villain or not, Richard III has received a great deal of national press recently.  The archaeological dig in a car park in Leicester on the site of the lost church of the Grey Friars has recently exhumed a skeleton thought to be this much maligned king – the last English king to die in battle.  Last month, it was announced by the British Government that if the skeleton proves to be Richard III, then he will be re-interred in Leicester Cathedral.

I personally am a staunch Ricardian and so think that Henry VII, having dispatched his enemy, did a metaphorical hatchet-job on the reputation of his predecessor.  A hundred years later, Shakespeare added to the Tudor myth of this diabolical king – ‘Deformed, unfinish’d, sent before my time’.  I hope now his body has been re-found, he can be re-buried with the dignity he deserves.  At the risk of incurring the wrath of local people within Leicester, I would prefer this re-burial was a more regal place such as Westminster Abbey or Windsor Castle.

Below are images of Richard III from the early 20th century – postcards and cigarette cards collected by schoolboys and young men during the Edwardian era and throughout the reign of George V. I find it very interesting that the 1902 image of Richard is that of a noble warrior king in full battle regalia rather than the more familiar portrait as shown in the other cards. Is this unwitting testimony that the Edwardians were experiencing a Ricardian revival? Or was it just the publisher, Tuck, who were supporters of Richard III?

Richard III, postcard from Tuck’s Kings & Queens, c.1902

Richard III, cigarette card
from Ogden’s Guinea Gold New Series I, c.1902

Richard III, games card
from Mazawattee Tea game Our Kings and Queens, c.1902

Richard III, cigarette card from Player’sKings and Queens of England, c.1935

Coronation Procession of Richard III and Anne of Warwick,
cigarette card from Taddy’s Coronation Series, c1902

Bosworth Field 1485, cigarette card from Smith’s Battlefields of Great Britain, c.1913 (reproduction 1997)

I personally find the discovery of Richard’s body one of the most exciting events to happen in recent English history. Not because it will rewrite history – it won’t. The facts and the myths will still remain – what happened 527 years ago, happened and can’t be ‘rewritten’ in the history books. However, the search and discovery of the ‘lost’ body of the last truly medieval king is remarkable and therefore the discovery itself will become a new chapter for the history books.

Further reading:
– Richard III Society
– University of Leicester archaeological team’s blog – the Search for Richard III

You may also be interested in
– School Trip Friday – Of cabbages and kings

As the days grow shorter and the nights become longer, our School Trip Fridays sometimes have to be done in the comfort of our home in front of a roaring log fire.  Even though we can’t get out and head for the hills, the computer is still switched off and our own unique style of learning about our country’s great heritage continues.

As an amateur historian, I am a firm advocate of our English heritage.  However, to understand our rich past, I feel that we have to have ‘pegs’ on which we can hang our historical information. For example, if you are looking at a grand half-timbered English building, how can you say ‘this is a beautiful Tudor building’ when you don’t know roughly what period ‘Tudor’ is!  Is Tudor before or after Georgian?  Is Regency 100 years ago or 500 years ago? Where do Victorians’ ‘Morals and Values’ come into all of this?…  Without realising it, we unconsciously use language about our rich past in our daily live. So what better ‘pegs’ are there then the long timeline of English/British monarchs!

However, because of my child’s complex educational needs, it is pointless me ‘teaching’ kings and queens in a traditional (or should I say, old-fashioned!) way.  I can’t quote facts and figures to him, and expect them to be regurgitated back to me parrot style.  For one, his poor memory means he won’t be able to do that with any level of success and for another, what’s the point in him learning meaningless information that has no relevance to him!  Our learning has to be hands-on, interactive and participative for both him and me.

And for a small child who loves collecting Top Trump cards, football cards and what-ever cards the local newsagent currently has in stock, what can be more interactive and hands-on then looking at the beautifully drawn and illustrated postcards and cigarette cards of a hundred years ago.  Our great-grandparents’ equivalent of pre-computer multi-media and Top Trumps game-cards!

So last week’s School Trip Friday was spent looking at images of the kings of England between 1066 and 1485 from the exquisitely illustrated set of postcards made by Tuck in 1902 and the handsome 1935 cigarette cards from Players.  What can be more beguiling and magnetic to a small child who can barely read and write then such fine pictures! (Sadly, our only medieval Empress/Queen Matilda was not acknowledged in either set.)

Raphael Tuck’s Kings and Queens of England postcards (1902) – Normans to Plantagenets

Player’s Kings and Queens of England cigarette cards (1935) – Normans to Plantagenets

History is all about the telling of stories from our past, and the picture below shows all the characters from one of the more murkier tales from English history.  By using these 5 cards, I was able to retell to my child the story of intrigue, treachery, treason and murder – and the last English king to die in battle.  And then bring that narrative right up to date with this summer’s remarkable discovery in a car park in Leicester.   But who was the villain of this story – the first of the Tudors, or the last of the Plantagenets?  Henry or Richard?  I know what we decided… How about you?

I asked my child who was his favourite king from all of the cards of Norman and Plantagenet kings.  My academically challenged child replied ‘whoever invented the longbow’.  Whilst he didn’t invent the longbow, this naturally brought us on to Henry V and Agincourt and watching the battle scenes from the BBC’s recent wonderful production of Shakespeare’s Henry V.  Very naughtily, I also told my child about the legend of the longbow archers and how it came about that the English always stick two-fingers up to their enemies.  History doesn’t have to be dry and dusty, our children can be taught the naughtier bits too – even if it might not be entirely true and more myth then fact!

Is my child academically challenged or a child whose school-teachers totally failed to engage him with traditional teaching methods?

“The time has come,” the Walrus said,
“To talk of many things:
Of shoes and ships and sealing wax
Of cabbages and kings
And why the sea is boiling hot
And whether pigs have wings.”

The Walrus and the Carpenter by Lewis Carroll

You may also be interested in
– School Trip Friday – Weald and Downland Open Air Museum
– School Trip Friday – Chapel of St Peter’s on the Wall, Bradwell
– School Trip Friday – Imperial War Museum Duxford