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Back to Basics: A Series for Newer Members
Issue 6 -- September 1993
Richard
III's Illegitimate Children
| The Medieval Law of Illegitimacy | Cecily
Neville, Duchess of York | Mediaeval Dictionary:
Coins of the Middle Ages | Back to Index
In the last issue
of the Bulletin we dealt with the bastards
of all fifteenth century kings except Richard III -- an omission to
be remedied in this issue.
The illegitimate
children of Richard of Gloucester are in fact the best documented royal
bastards of the fifteenth century. This is due to sheer chance; it is
certainly not because he had many more than other kings, only two are
documented, with a possible third, but because official records of their
existence have survived. It is unlikely that Richard had more the three,
much less the total of seven mentioned (without reference) by Given-Wilson
and Curteis (p. 160 in The Royal Bastards of England,
referred to in the last issue).
The first of the
three is John of Gloucester (or John of Pomfret), probably the best
known. John was appointed Captain of Calais by his father ('as our dear
bastard son') in March 1485, although he may have acted as such from
at least November 1484 since we know he was in Calais at that time.
He survived his father and was given a grant of £20 per annum by
Henry VII in 1486. His favour with Henry did not last long though, and
he was probably the 'base sone' of Richard said by Buck to have been
executed by Henry in 1491. We know nothing more about John, although
we may surmise that he was less than 21 in 1485 since in his patent
as Captain of Calais certain powers were reserved to the king until
John reached that age.
The second certain
bastard of Richard is Katherine Plantagenet, who under that name became
the wife of William Herbert, Earl of Huntingdon before May 1484. The
King paid the full cost of the wedding and made the couple at least
two generous grants of money and land (some of the lands in reversion
after the death of Lord Stanley). Katherine was almost certainly dead
by November 1487 when the Earl was described as a widower and she appears
to have had no children since the Earl's heir was his daughter by Mary
Woodville, his first wife.
We do not know
the name of the mother of either John of Gloucester or Katherine (except
that it is just possible that she was called Katherine), much less do
we know the mother of the third bastard attributed to Richard. This
third bastard is usually known as Richard Plantagenet (or Richard of
Eastwell). The only proven fact we have for this Richard is that in
the Parish register of the Kentish parish of Eastwell there is a notice
of the burial of 'Rychard Plantagenet' in 1550. The other details usually
cited, that he was acknowledged by Richard on the eve of Bosworth and
was discovered by Sir Thomas Moyle, (the owner of Eastwell), working
as a mason on his estate and given a cottage by him, all first appear
in print in 1735. There is no evidence that any of this is true, nor
that it is untrue. The only other 'fact' we have, that Richard Plantagenet's
tomb exists, is certainly not true. This tomb, still in the now ruined
Eastwell church, dates from about 1480 and is probably that of Sir Walter
Moyle and his wife. [Ed. note: see Anne
Smith's review for additional information on Richard of Eastwell.]
References and
further detail for the above may be found in 'The Illegitimate Children
of Richard III' by P.W. Hammond, Richard III: Crown and
People, edited by J.O. Petre, 1985, pp.18-23, available
from the Society's Library. -- PWH
As seen above,
bastards were a fairly public fact of life in the fifteenth century
and bastardy is a subject that most Ricardians tend to consider sooner
or later. Many families among the nobility, not only the royal family,
had a bastard half brother who was quite as distinguished as any of
the legitimate line.
A bastard was a
child born to two people who were not married, or whose marriage was
later found to be void. He (or she) was not of inferior status under
the law but since he was filius nullius (the son of no one),
he could not be heir to his parents even if acknowledged as their child:
he could not therefore inherit real property. In the earlier Middle
Ages an advantage of this rule was that the illegitimate child of a
villein did not inherit villein status; he was accounted free. There
was a rebuttable presumption at Common Law that children born to a wife
were fathered by the husband and were therefore legitimate.
Decisions as to
legitimacy often depended on the validity or otherwise of marriages.
Matrimony being a sacrament this was a question for the Church to decide.
Questions as to the inheritance of land fell to be decided by the secular
courts, so two systems of law governed illegitimacy, the law of the
Church (Canon Law) and the law of the country, which in England was
the Common Law. These two systems sometimes clashed. The Common Law
for example, stated that children born out of wedlock could not be legitimated
by the subsequent marriage of their parents; Canon Law taught the opposite.
Where a marriage was entered into in good faith but later found to be
invalid and declared void Canon Law said that the children born before
the nullity decree were legitimate. The Common Law held that a void
marriage was void for all time and all issue from it were bastards.
To avoid conflict the courts of Common Law would ask only whether X
was born in or out of wedlock (a question of fact), not whether X was
legitimate or not. The latter question would have to go to the Church
courts and the Bishop's answer would be conclusive even though it would
be contrary to Common Law principles. --MCO'R
Continuing our
series on 15th century people let us look for a change at the life of
a woman., Women in the Middle Ages are somewhat shadowy figures; they
rarely appear in records as individuals in their own right but as the
daughter, wife or widow of a named man. There are exceptions to this
generalisation of course, and the more important the woman the more
likely that she will have left her own records. Some household accounts
and other records survive for the queens Margaret of Anjou, Elizabeth
Woodville and Elizabeth of York, but sadly nothing similar for Anne
Neville. Margaret Beaufort has left large quantities of estate papers,
correspondence, accounts and even memoirs by those who knew her, providing
ample material for biographers. But let us look at another woman, close
to the throne but never seated on it, although she may have felt she
had that right.
Cecily Neville
was born in 1415, the youngest of the twenty-three children of Ralph
Neville, Earl of Westmorland. Her mother was his second wife Joan Beaufort,
daughter of John of Gaunt. As part of the Neville family's policy of
extending their influence by marriage alliances with other noble families
she was betrothed to Richard Duke of York as a child and they were married
when she was about 14 and he was four years older.
In common with
the lives of other noble ladies of this period most of the information
we can trace is based on the records of her husband's activities (for
which see the only detailed biography, Richard Duke of York
1411-1460 by P.A. Johnson, 1988) and the dates when her
twelve children were born. Judging by the children's birth-places (Edward,
Edmund and Elizabeth at Rouen and George in Dublin) Cecily accompanied
her husband on his duties in both France and Ireland and perhaps shared
his ambitious dreams, planning to wed one of his sons to a French princess,
speculating on his chanes of succeeding to the throne of Castile, and
living above his means. Cecily herself, known as the 'Rose of Raby',
is said to have spent so much on clothes (£608 in the year 1443-4,
almost the annual income of an earl) that her husband ws forced to appoint
a special officer to keep a watch on her expenditure.
During the 1450s
when Richard was back in England and involved in the political in-fighting
of the period Cecily lived mainly at Fotheringhay with her younger children.
In 1460 the Duke of York achieved his ambition of being declared heir
to the thone, but it was a short-lived triumph, for by the end of the
year he was dead, slain at the battle of Wakefield. Cecily sent her
youngest sons, George and Richard, to safety in Burgundy. By the spring
her eldest surviving son had defeated the Lancastrians and been crowned
as Edward IV. Her official title now was 'Cecily the King's mother and
late wife unto Richard rightful King of England'.
During the reigns
of her sons and her grand-daughter she seems to have taken little part
in political affairs although her name is usually among the list of
those attending family ceremonies such as christenings and weddings.
She lived mainly at Fotheringhay until she exchanged it for Berkhamsted
and Kings Langley in 1469. She also had property in Kennington in Surrey
and usually stayed at Baynards Castle, on the bank of the Thames near
Blackfriars, when she was in London.
It is during these
years of retirement that two documents give us our most revealing glimpses
of Cecily. The first is a set of household ordinances probably drawn
up at a date between 1485 and her death in 1495. It was published in
A Collection of Ordinances and Regulations for the Government
of the Royal Household (1790). This sets out the pattern
of her days, divided between services in her chapel, prayer and meditation,
devotional reading, meals, giving audience to suitors and relaxation
with her gentlewomen after supper. The second document is her will,
with many bequests of religious books, hangings, rosaries and Agnus
Dei to her grandchildren, servants and supporters of her family.
These two documents with other material are discussed in an interesting
and comprehensive article on The Piety of Cecily Duchess
of York: a study in late medieval culture by C.A.J. Armstrong
(first published in the book For Hilaire Belloc: Essays
in Honour of his 72nd Birthday edited by Douglas Woodruff,
1942). The picture the documents give us is of a devout and tranquil
retirement after a turbulent life with many reversals of fortune.
The biography of
Richard Duke of York, the copy of Cecily's Household Ordinances and
Armstrong's article on her piety are all available for borrowing from
the Society's Library. -- HCH
This is the first
of a new series which will explain unfamiliar words and phrases found
in articles and books. Suggestions for words or topics to be included
will be welcomed.
We will begin with
one of the more fundamental topics of the Middle Ages, or any other
age, money. The coinage of the fifteenth century was fairly complicated.
It was based on the pound sterling which contained 240 pennies. Sums
of money were given in pounds, shillings (containing twelve pennies)
and pence. However pounds (until Henry VII) and shillings were not minted;
they were coins of account and the (silver) penny was the real basis
of the system as it had been for many centuries. Another 'coin' of account,
never minted, was the mark. This was worth two thirds of a pound or
13s. 4d.
The coins that
were minted were as follows:
- Silver: the
penny, its subdivisions, the halfpenny and farthing.
These were always, in our period, in silver. The groat,
a four-penny piece and the half groat.
- Gold: the noble
was valued at 6s. 8d. (i.e. a half mark) until the regin of Edward
IV who revalued it to 8s.4d. Half and quarter nobles were also minted.
The ryal, or rose noble minted by
Edward IV and valued at 10s. Half and quarter ryals werre also minted.
The angel, minted by Edward IV after (in effect)
removed the old half-mark coin from circulation, worth 6s. 8d. A half
angel was also minted.
These coins were
named usually after their designs; the angel for example had St. Michael
spearing the dragon on the obverse. All denominations were not minted
regularly but only as needed. Most of the coins minted were silver,
for example in the very large hoard found near Reigate recently (and
probably deposited about 1460) there were 6,567 silver coins (of which
658 were pennies) and only 136 gold. Most demoninations would never
be seen by most people. The skilled labourer who could earn 1-1/2d.
per day would probably never see a coin greater than a groat. -- PWH
This segment
monitored by Judie C. Gall.
Please address all comments, suggestions and questions pertaining to
it to her.
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