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Back to Basics: A Series for Newer Members
Issue 2 -- September 1992
The
execution of William Lord Hastings
| Lambert Simnel and Perkin Warbeck | The
Heraldry Society | Abbreviations for Common Sources
| Back to Index
This 'crime' is
one of those to which a great deal of attention has been given, an excessive
amount almost. The traditional date on which William Lord Hastings was
executed was Friday 13 June 1483. This is the date given by the Crowland
Chronicler and it was not questioned by anyone until Sir Clements Markham
agrued in the English Historical Review (henceforth
cited as EHR) in 1891 (and repeated in his
book Richard III: His Life and Character in
1906) that Hastings was in fact executed on 20 June, allowing time for
a proper trial after his arrest on 13 June. He based his redating on
a reinterpretation of a slightly ambiguous letter from Sir Simon Stallworth
written on 21 June and describing the events in London. This rather
implausible argument was ignored by everyone until 1972 when an article
by Alison Hanham started a flurry of publications which only ceased
in 1980.
The article by
Hanham was entitled 'Richard III, Lord Hastings and the historians'
(EHR, vol. 87, [1972], pp.133.248) and it
revived Markham's redating, using as the main evidence a passage in
the Acts of the Court of the Mercers' Company, 1453-1527
edited by Laetitia Lyell and F.D. Watney: not in the Society Library)
which seemed to show that Hastings was still alive on 15 June. She backed
up her arguments with a number of other pieces of evidence. This article
was answered by Dr. B.P. Wolfe in 'When and Why did Hastings lose his
head?' (EHR, vol. 89 [1974] pp. 835-844).
Wolfe argued for the traditional date, using much documentary evidence
including the building accounts at Kirby Muxloe. As he pointed out these
gave the date when work stopped on the castle of Hastings as 17 June.
If Hastings had still been alive it is unlikely that work would have
stopped then. Hanham repeated her arguments in her book Richard
III and his early historians (OUP, 1975) which went to
press before she saw Wolfe's article and defended herself in another
article 'Hastings Redivivus' (EHR, vol. 90
[1975] pp. 821-827). She adduced little new evidence but chiefly criticised
Wolfe's arguments concerning the dating of the evidence from the Acts
of Court. Before Dr. Wolfe could reply to his article someone else,
in the person of Dr. J.A.F. Thompson, entered the controversy. Dr. Thompson
surveyed the arguments to date and pointed out further gaps in Hanham's
arguments, ('Richard III and Lord Hastings - a Problematical Case Reviewed',
Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research,
vol. 48, [1975] pp.22-30). After this came Dr. Wolfe's final shot with
the decisive title of 'Hastings Reinterred' (EHR,
vol. 91 [1976] pp. 813-824), in which he again criticised Hanham's use
of the Inquisitions Post Mortem as evidence and her use of
the Acts of Court.
The evidence of
the Acts of Court is obviously crucial to the whole argument
and it was examined in detail, as an edition of a sixteenth-century
copy of lost fifteenth-century originals, of posible mistakes by the
copier and of the dating of the entries, by Anne Sutton and P.W. Hammond,
('The problems of dating and the dangers of redating: the Acts of Court
of the Mercers' Company of London 1453-1527', Journal of
the Society of Archivists, vol. 6, [1978] pp. 87-91).
These authors came to the conclusion that it was dangerous to rely on
this volume of crucial dates, the 'Hastings' entry in particular, since
June 15 1483 was a Sunday, a day of the week on which the Court of the
Mercers' Company rarely if ever held a meeting. This entry must therefore
refer to another year. This article was the last one on this controversy
until Dr. C.H.D. Coleman published 'The Execution of Hastings, a neglected
source', (Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research,
col. 53, [1980] pp. 244-247). This article discusses the Black Book
of the Exchequer, a manuscript devoted, amongst much else, to recording
dates of interest to the officers of that department. Hastings was a
Chamberlain of the Exchequer and his death was recorded as 13 June 1483.
This is most unlikely to be wrong; there would be no point in recording
the wrong date.
During the controversy
a number of articles appeared in The Ricardian.
These were all mentioned in an excellent survey by Lorraine Attreed,
'Hanham Redivivus - A Salvage Operation' (vol. 5, number 65, [1979]
pp. 41-50). The final restult of it all was to reinforce the traditional
date of Hastings' death, the same day that he was arrested, Friday 13
June. PWH
In this issue we
shall be looking at two people who may - or may not - have been whom
they claimed to be, i.e., Lambert Simnel and Perkin Warbeck.
Let us start with
Jeremy Potter's entertaining Pretenders (published
in 1986), a book of 'alternative kings and queens of England from the
11th to the 19th century'. This includes separate chapters on 'Lambert
Simnel, Ireland's King' and 'Prince Perkin' and also 'Yorkists, Lancastrians
and Henry Tudor', on the lucky claimant who succeeded.
The most detailed
account of Simnel and the Yorkist conspiracy that tried to overthrow
Henry Tudor is Michael Bennett's Lambert Simnel and the
Battle of Stoke, published in 1987. Dr. Bennett traces
the story of the ten year old boy, son of an Oxford tradesman, who was
coached by an ambitious priest to impersonate the Earl of Warwick, Clarence's
son, and was crowned Edward VI in Dublin Cathedral. After the defeat
of the conspirators at Stoke Henry decided that ridicule was the best
weapon and made Simnel a turnspit in the royal kitchens, later promoting
him to falconer. He died in his bed aged 50, a remarkable record for
one found guilty of treason against the Tudors.
Briefer accounts
of Simnel's life and the Stoke campaign can be found in the various
booklets produced to mark the quincentenary of the battle, notably A
Strange Accident of State: Henry VII and the Lambert Simnel Conspiracy
by David Beeston and The Battle of Stoke Field
by David Roberts, both published in 1987. The other pretender, Perkin
Warbeck, was a more serious and long term threat to Henry VII, since
he was recognised as 'Richard Duke of York' by many of the sovereign
rulers of Europe and his continuing existence dominated Henry's foreign
policy until his execution in 1499. His true identity remains a mystery,
not resolved at the time, in spite of Henry's publication of his 'Confession,'
and still giving rise to speculation five centuries after his death.
For such an important figure it is perhaps surprising to find that until
recently the most detailed account of his life and career was a seventy
page appendix at the end of James Gairdner's History of
the Life and Reign of Richard III (second edtion, 1898),
and a handful of articles, mainly following the line taken in his 'Confession'.
However in 1990, the situation was remedied by the publication of Diana
Kleyn's biography Richard of England, the
first full scale study of the man known to history as Perkin Warbeck
(for a detailed review see Ricardian, No.
114, September 1991). Mrs. Kleyn describes the parallel lives of Richard
of York and Perkin Warbeck, then traces Perkin's travels around Europe
and his three attempts to invade England. She includes useful appendices
giving English versions of the original documents relating to his story.
A list of the articles
about Warbeck can be found on pages 36-7 of the catalogue of papers
in the Society's library and to end on a frivilous note, an example
to illustrate the complexities of the identity problem: in 1935 an article
entitled 'Richard Duke of York and Perkin Warbeck' appeared in Notes
and Queries which suggested that Lambert Simnel was really
Richard Duke of York and that Warbeck took his place as scullion in
the royal kitchens. CH
The abbreviations
described this time are books or series of books, some of them occurring
very frequently indeed.
DNB:
Dictionary of National Biography. The DNB
was first published in 63 volumes in 1885-1900. A three-volume supplement
was published in 1901 which filled in some of the gaps of the original
with an Index and Epitome
in 1903. Subsequent supplements include anyone dying since 1901 but
a 'Missing Persons' volume is scheduled to appear in January 1993. The
work contains biographies of 'all noteworthy inhabitants of the British
Isles ... from the earliest historical period to the present time'.
The new volume will contain some of the people missed out before. The
DNB is not in the Society Library.
CP
(or sometimes GEC): Complete Peerage of England, Scotland,
Ireland, Great Britain and United Kingdom, extant, extinct or dormant.
The second edition of this work is in 13 volumes (volume 12 is in two
parts), published 1910-1915. Volume 14, a correction and addenda volume
will be published in about two years. The whole work gives brief biographical
and genealogical details of each peer or his direct heir. Peeresses
are only mentioned briefly unless they held a title in their own right.
The first edition was compiled by G.E. Cockayne, referred to as GEC
on the title page, the second and much larger edition was published
under a succession of editors. The second edition is held in the Society
library.
Rot.
Parl. (or RP): Rotuli
Parliamentorum. This is a frequent abbreviation of the
Rolls of Parliament (six volumes, published
in 1783 with an index volume published in 1832). It contains Parliamentary
proceedings from 1278-1503 together with many petitions and extracts
from letters patent and close. It is not wholly accurate. Volume six,
Edward IV - Henry VII, is held in the Society Library.
Foedera:
Foedera, conventiones, litterae, etc. (1104-1654). This
work is sometimes called Rymer, after Thomas Rymer, the Editor of the
first volumes. It was first published in 20 volumes, 1704-1735. As would
be expected it contains a series of treaties, letters and documents
from patent, close and other rolls. The Syllabus of Documents
in Rymer's Foedera (3 volumes, 1869-1885), by T.D. Hardy,
is a valuable abstract of all the documents. It also describes other
editions and contains an index. Neither Rymer nor Hardy are in the Society
Library.
Organisations
of interest to members
To many amateur
armorists the Plantagenet era is the Golden Age of heraldry, reaching
its zenith in the brief Yorkist period. It is not surprising therefore
that a number of members of the Richard III Society are also members
of the Heraldry Society.
The main function
of heraldry was identification, in warfare on coats of arms, banners,
etc. and through designs on seals in an age when literacy was not universal
even among the greatest in the land. Today it can still serve the same
purpose: it may reinforce evidence from other srouces, it may provide
the only clue to identification of a monument or the dating of the ownership
of a building.
The Heraldry Society
was formed in 1950 to 'increase and extend interest in, and knowldge
of, heraldry, armory, chivalry, genealogy an allied subjects'. It has
always enjoyed close links with the College of Arms; the Founder-chairman
is presently Norroy and Ulster King of Arms.
The Society has
a library at 44-45 Museum Street, London WC1A 1LY (near the British
Museum), from which its members may borrow books. Non-members, particularly
those from other societies with similar interests, are welcome to consult
the Library for reference. It is open on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays
between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. The Library is staffed by teams of volunteers
who try to help with enquiries. One section of the Library consists
of manuals or text books for beginners, and for those with some knowledge
of the subject. There are sections on royal heraldry and ceremonial,
heraldry in and of churches, local, national and international heraldry.
There are copies of Rolls of Arms, peerages and similar material and
a number of periodicals from other heraldry societies in the UK, the
continent and overseas.
The Society publishes
quarterly the Heraldry Gazette, a parallel
to the Ricardian Bulletin and the Coat
of Arms, a journal of learned articles, the equivalent
of the Ricardian. Copies of these are available
for reference in the Library.
Heraldry is allied
to many interests - historical, artistic, topographical, etc. and may
be pursued anywhere, at home, on holiday, indoors or out, at any level
from passing interest to addiction - so be warned! If you are interested
in joining the Heraldry Society write to the Secretary at the Museum
Street address above. KWH
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