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Back to Basics: A Series for Newer Members
Issue 3 -- December 1992
The
murders of Edward of Lancaster and Henry VI
| William Catesby and Richard Ratcliffe | Richard
III's Appearance | The Monumental Brass Society
| Back to Index
The year 1471 was
a vintage year for 'crimes', no less than two of them being attributed
to this year. Both of them are of interest because we have more evidence
about them than we usually have and can show how the stories developed
over about a century from descriptions of what actually happened to
what Holinshed and Shakespeare said happened.
The first of them
chronologically is the death of Edward of Lancaster, only child of Henry
VI and Margaret of Anjou, at Tewkesbury. There are many contemporary
sources, two of them written very soon after the battle of Tewkesbury.
The first, a letter written by the Duke of Clarence on 6 May, says that
Edward was killed in the battle. The Arrivall
of Edward IV, Yorkist in sympathy and written only
a month or so afterwards says that Edward was killed in the flight after
the battle. There are five other accounts written in 1471 or soon after
which confirm these statements, reiterated by the Lancastrian Warkworth
in about 1478. No serious historian now doubts that Edward was killed
in the fighting.
The continental
sources are a different matter, and very soon after the battle, by 1473,
atrocity stories appear, describing how the young prince was murdered
in front of Edward IV. These stories were taken up by the later English
chroniclers, those writing after the death of Richard III, and embroidered
with enthusiasm. The first to mention Richrd of Gloucester as taking
part in the murder was Vergil, writing in about 1516. It is interesting
to note that no one accuses Gloucester only of the murder, he is always
associated with Clarence and Hastings and later with Thomas Grey, Marquess
Dorset. This whole matter is discussed in detail in Apendix 2 of P.W.
Hammond, The Battles of Barnet and Tewkesbury,
1990.
The second murder
occurring in 1471 is that of Henry VI. This may well have been a murder,
it is difficult to take seriously the claim in the Yorkist Arrivall
that he died of pure displeasure and melancholy, and his death so soon
after that of his son seems unlikely to have been a coincidence. It
could have been so of course, as has been pointed out by W.J. White
in his discussion in 'The Death and Burial of Henry VI, A Review of
the Facts and Theories, Part I', in The Ricardian,
vol. 6, [1982] pp.70-80. White shows also that the earliest sources
noting the death of Henry do not name anyone as being personally responsible
although the early continental writers assume that there was a murder
and that Edward IV must have given the order for it. The first to name
Gloucester as the murderer is probably the Frenchman Philippe de Commines
writing about 1490 and the first English writer John Rous in his Historia
de Regibus Anglie, written about the same time.
Following Rous
the English writers embellish the story in much the same way as that
of the death of Henry's son although without adding so much detail.
Discussions of Gloucester's responsibility tend to centre on the date
on which the death took place, since he was only in London from 21 May
until the next day. Sir Clements Markham tried to show that Henry did
not die until 24 May at least but this is certainly not so, and it seems
most likely that Henry did die on the night of 21-22 May. Gloucester
was undoubtedly in the Tower on that night, but then so was his brother
Edward and a large number of other people. These dates are discussed
by White and in Appendix 3 of Hammond Barnet and Tewkesbury.
PWH
Continuing our
series of fifteenth-century people we shall look at two men who are
grouped with Lord Lovel in the famous rhyme by William Colyngbourne:
The Cat, the
Rat and Lovel our Dog
Doe rule all England under a Hog
This demonstrates
the fifteenth century fondness for identifying people by puns on their
names or by using their heraldic crests or badges (Lovel's crest was
a silver wolf-dog and of course the hog is a reference to Richard III's
badge of the white boar). For a biography of Colyngbourne by Kenneth
Hillier and a discussion of the rhyme and its second verse see three
articles in The Ricardian, numbers 49, 50
and 51 (June, September and December 1975) respectively. If the general
effect of the rhyme and reading Shakespeare's play leave you imagining
Catesby, Ratcliffe and Lovel as Richard's gang of three henchmen then
have another look at the true facts of history.
William
Catesby came from a minor Northamptonshire family and was trained
as a lawyer. By a combination of useful contacts, family connections
and legal astuteness he acquired posts as legal adviser, steward or
councillor to a number of noble families, including Lord Zouche, Lord
Scrope of Bolton, Lord Hastings and the Duke of Buckingham. He was one
of Edward IV's councillors and became a member of the council of Richard
III, from whom he received many grants and a knighthood. He rose to
be Speaker of the House of Commons in 1484. But as he rose by supporting
the House of York, so he fell with them and was executed after the Battle
of Bosworth on the 25th August 1485, in his will calling on 'My Lordis
Stanley, Strange and all that blod, help and pray for my soule for ye
have not for my body as I trusted you'. Luckily for us the details of
Catesby's life and career have been fully described in two articles:
'William Catesby, Counsellor to Richard III' by J.S. Roskell (from the
Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, Vol.
42, 1969) and 'The Hastily Drawn up Will of William Catesby, 25th August
1485' by Daniel Williams - which despite the title contains a good deal
of information on his successful legal and political career (from Leicestershire
Archaeological and Historical Society Transactions, Vol.
51, 1975-6).
Sir
Richard Ratcliffe, or Radcliffe, also from a minor county family,
did well being the right man in the right place. He was knighted at
Tewkesbury and by the mid-1470s he was Constable of Barnard Castle and
a member of Richard's council at Middleham. He married Agnes, daughter
of Lord Scrope of Bolton. He served in the campaigns against the Scots
and rose high in Richard's favour, receiving many grants and official
posts. He was killed with his king at Bosworth.
In contrast to
the case of Catesby we have no detailed articles on Ratcliffe so here
we have a good example of a man whose career can be reconstructed using
a number of sources. Brief biographies can be found in basic sources
such as the Dictionary of National Biography
and the bibliographical section in The Coronation of Richard
III: the extant documents by Anne F. Sutton and P.W. Hammond,
1983. A list of the grants and offices he received can be compiled from
such sources as the Calendars of the Patent Rolls and the British Library
Harleian Manuscript 433. Books such as Richard III: a study
in service by Dr. Rosemary Horrox, 1989 and Northeastern
England during the Wars of the Roses: lay society, war and politics
1450-1500 by Dr. A.J. Pollard, 1990, will supply further
details of his associates and the circles he moved in and set his career
in the context of contemporary history. If his will survived it might
have afforded us a glimpse of his personality but so far as I know it
has not.
All the books and
articles on Catesby and Ratcliffe mentioned above (with the exception
of the Dictionary of National Biography which
should be in all good reference libraries) are available for borrowing
from the Society's Library. CH
Much ink has been
spilt and many efforts have been made to describe the appearance of
Richard of Gloucester. Very little is really known about this aspect
of his personality and what there is tends to be contradictory, as usual.
Following the article '"Richard Liveth Yet": An Old Myth' (The
Ricardian, vol. 9, 1992, pp. 266-269) by Anne Sutton and
Livia Visser-Fuchs we do not need to spend any time on wondering if
Richard was a sickly child and thus perhaps not a strong man but this
certainly does not help a great deal.
What can be said
first is that he was certainly not a limping hunchback with a withered
arm. The portraits we have of him are not contemporary but the earliest
of them, that owned by the Society of Antiquaries, and dating from about
1513 shows no sign of any deformity, it depicts a perfectly normal looking
man. Later copies sometimes show a deformed shoulder but this tells
us more about Tudor propaganda than about Richard's appearance. Most
contemporaries who mention his appearance (the Crowland Chronicler,
Mancini and Commines for example) agree that he was not deformed. Rous,
who must have seen him, says that the right shoulder was higher than
the other, More, who must have spoken to people who had seen Richard
(Cardinal Morton for example) says that the left shoulder was higher
than the other. Polydore Vergil agrees that one shoulder was higher
than the other but does not say which. From this we may assume that
any deformity was not very noticeable.
Several of the
descriptions state that Richard was a short man. The only source contradicting
this is the remark by Nicolas von Poppelau that Richard was 'three fingers
taller' than himself. Von Poppelau was apparently a man of great strength
and has thus been assumed to be tall, from which Richard must have been
very tall, but strength is not necessarily allied to height. The references
and sources for the appearance of Richard of Gloucester are all collected
together in the Richard III Society Speaker's Notes
which may be borrowed from the Society Library or bought from the Sales
Officer. PWH
Organisations
of interest to members
The flat engraved
plates of 'brass' to be found in our churches and cathedrals and dedicated
to the memory of the dead have held a fascination for antiquarians,
scholars and enthusiasts for many years. A Society for these was first
established in Cambridge in 1887 and called the 'Cambridge University
Association of Brass Collectors', which must have struck terror in whose
incumbents who feared for their precious brasses. The name was changed
in 1894 to the present 'The Monumental Brass Society'.
The Society now
has a membership of more than 600 and its aims are very much the same
as they always have been: the preservation, recording and appreciation
of brasses. Brasses are a tremendous sources of information in many
areas of research. They are now studied in context rather than in isolation
(as they were in the past) and advice regarding brasses in their care
is given to the clergy. Grants are also made towards their conservation
and maintenance. In recording brasses notice is now taken of all, not
only ones of particular interest, as well as indents of lost brasses,
in this country and also abroad.
To help in this
work the Society is engaged in continuously updating the standard List
of Monumental Brasses in the British Isles by Mill Stephenson.
It has also recently embarked on a project of publishing an annual series
of county volumes. The Fully Illustrated Guide to Monumental
Brasses of Bedfordshire is the first of the series, published
this year. Also in preparation is a general definitve work on brasses
to which members expert in their particular field have contributed.
Members enjoy the
opportunity to attend three General Meetings each year, as well as the
Annual General Meeting, excusion and conference every year. As a part
of their annual subscription they receive a copy of the Transactions,
which contains scholarly articles on all aspects of brasses, and three
issues of the Bulletin, containing more general
information and notices. The Society has an extensive Library and a
collection of brass rubbings constantly being revised and added to.
To join the Society write to 'Monumental Brass Society', c/o Society
of Antiquaries of London, Burlington House, Piccadilly, London, W1V
0HS. WH
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