The Woodvilles: The Wars of the Roses and England's Most Infamous Family

by Higginbotham, Susan

  15 Hicks, ‘Changing Role’, p. 221; Pidgeon,, ‘Anthony Wydeville’, part 2, pp. 21–22.

  16 Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond, had borne the future Henry VII when she was just 13, but such cases were fortunately rare; even among the nobility, where girls often wed at very young ages, consummation was often delayed until the bride was 15 or 16.

  17 Privy Purse Expenses, pp. 163–65; Scofield, Edward IV, vol. II, p. 284.

  18 Scofield, Edward IV, vol. II, p. 295–96.

  19 Hellinga, pp. 29–31, 48

  20 Armstrong, ‘Piety of Cicely, Duchess of York’, p. 85; Sutton and Visser-Fuchs, Royal Funerals, p. 4 n.7.

  21 F.M., Gentleman’s Magazine, 1831, p. 25; Routh, ‘Princess Bridget’, pp. 13–14.

  22 Davis, William Waynflete, p. 70–71; Wood, History and Antiquities, vol. 1, pp. 637–38. For Richard Woodville’s position, see Calto and Evans, p. 736.

  23 Philomena Jones, ‘Anne Mowbray’, in Petre, p. 88.

  24 R.G. Davies, ‘Beauchamp, Richard (d. 1481)’, ODNB, online edition, May 2009.

  25 Calendar of Papal Registers, 7 January 1481/82.

  26 Muller, Stephen Gardiner, p. 306; C.D.C. Armstrong, ‘Gardiner, Stephen (c.1495x8–1555)’, ODNB, online edition, January 2008.

  27 Sutton and Visser-Fuchs, Royal Funerals, pp. 58–60.

  28 For what follows see Ross, Edward IV, pp. 287–90; Ross, Richard III, 45–47; Jones, ‘Richard III as a Soldier’, p. 100; Wilkins, pp. 76–78.

  29 Coventry Leet Records, p. 505.

  30 Crowland, p. 149.

  11 Welcome Fortune!

  1 Ives, ‘Andrew Dymmock’, pp. 228–29. The letter bears no year, but Ives makes a strong argument for the proper year being 1483.

  2 Orme, ‘Education of Edward V’, pp. 124–29.

  3 Ives, pp. 223–25.

  4 Carson, Maligned King, pp. 35–36

  5 PROME, January 1483, Introduction.

  6 In the 1450s, the future Edward IV and his brother requested that the delivery of their new bonnets – clearly not an undertaking fraught with secrecy – be by ‘the next sure messenger’. Scofield, Edward IV, vol. 1, p. 20.

  7 Ross, Richard III, p. 187; Ross, Edward IV, pp. 336–37; Driver, ‘Sir Thomas St Leger’, pp. 213, 216; PROME, January 1483, Introduction and items 20 and 21.

  8 Crowland, p. 151; Mancini, pp. 59, 107 n.5; Scofield, Edward IV, vol. II, p. 365; Commynes, vol. II, pp. 62, 87.

  9 Crowland, p. 149.

  10 Mancini, pp. 59–61, 107–08 n. 7; Crowland, p. 153.

  11 Palliser, ‘Richard III and York’, p. 56.

  12 Kendall, Richard the Third, pp. 193–94.

  13 Mancini, p. 71; Crowland, p. 155.

  14 Armstrong, ‘Some Examples of the Distribution and Speed of News’, p. 450.

  15 Kendall, p. 200; Ross, Richard III, p. 66; Roskell, ‘The Office and Dignity of Protector’, p. 196.

  16 The Logge Register of PCC Wills, no. 105, p. 329.

  17 Crowland, p. 155; Mancini, pp. 69–72.

  18 More, pp. 11, 52.

  19 Ives, pp. 221–22; Gairdner, History of the Life and Reign of Richard the Third, p. 394.

  20 Crowland, p. 153–55.

  21 Mancini, pp. 71–75.

  22 Crowland, p. 155.

  23 Pollard, Richard III and the Princes in the Tower, p. 97; Charles Ross, Richard III, p. 68 & n.18.

  24 Hicks, Wars of the Roses, pp. 216–17.

  25 Mancini, p. 75.

  26 Edward IV’s French Expedition, p. 14.

  27 Jones, ‘Richard III as a Soldier’, p. 98.

  28 Rawcliffe, The Staffords, pp. 30–31.

  29 Harris, Edward Stafford, p. 21.

  30 British Library Additional Manuscripts 6113, folio 74d.

  31 Sutton and Visser-Fuchs, Royal Funeral, pp. 17–31.

  32 Rous, Historia Regum Angliae, p. 212.

  33 For what follows see Mancini, 75–79, 116 n.46; Crowland, pp. 155–57; More, 18–21.

  34 Rivers’s stay at Sheriff Hutton can be seen from his will; see Appendix. For Grey, see Pollard, Worlds of Richard III.

  35 Mancini, p. 81; Horrox, ‘Financial Memoranda’, p. 211; Wilkins, pp. 87–89.

  36 Crowland, p. 157; Mancini, p. 79.

  37 Thomson, ‘Bishop Lionel Woodville’, p. 131; Stonor Letters, vol. II, p. 159; Grants from the Crown, p. 3; Harleian Ms 433, vol. III, p. 2.

  38 Crowland, p. 161.

  39 Kendall, p. 69.

  40 Hicks, Richard III, pp. 96–97.

  41 For further discussion along these lines, see Pollard, Richard III and the Princes in the Tower, pp. 101–06.

  42 Mancini, p. 83–85.

  43 Coronation of Richard III, p. 17; Crowland, p. 157–59.

  44 Grants From the Crown, pp. 1–3; Harleian 433, vol. III, pp. 1–2; Wilkins, p. 75; CPR, 1476–1485, p. 180; Horrox, Study in Service, pp. 102.

  45 Wilkins, pp. 88 & 205 n. 14.

  46 Horrox, ‘Financial Memoranda’, pp. 211, 216; Horrox, Study in Service, pp. 102–03; Wilkins, p. 94–95, 177.

  47 Mancini, pp. 85–87; Horrox, Study in Service, p. 103.

  48 Griffiths and Thomas, Making of the Tudor Dynasty, p. 106.

  49 Horrox, Study in Service, pp. 99–100.

  50 Mancini, p. 81.

  51 Horrox, Study in Service, p. 91.

  52 Horrox, ‘Financial Memoranda’, p. 210.

  53 Cornation of Richard III, p. 17.

  54 Crowland, p. 159.

  55 Harleian 433, vol. III, p. 190.

  56 Harleian 433, vol. III, pp. 34–35.

  57 Sutton and Visser-Fuchs, ‘A “Most Benevolent Queen”’, p. 221.

  58 Coronation of Richard III, p. 19.

  59 Stonor Letters, vol. II, p. 159–60, no. 330.

  60 For this and the extract above see Hammond and Sutton, Richard III: The Road to Bosworth Field, pp. 103–04.

  61 John Leland, ‘Witchcraft and the Woodvilles’, pp. 281–87.

  62 Argentine, said by Mancini to be the last of the attendants employed to wait on Edward V, does not appear to have been regarded with any suspicion by Richard III; later, Argentine was employed by Henry VII as Prince Arthur’s physician. Nandyke, described in a 1483 Act of Attainder as Buckingham’s ‘necromancer’, was caught up in rebellion in 1484, as well as Buckingham’s rebellion of 1483. Caerteon, Margaret Beaufort’s physician, was also involved in Buckingham’s rebellion, as we shall see in Chapter 12. Rhodes, p. 13; Rawcliffe, ‘Inventory’, pp. 384–85.

  63 Horrox, Study in Service, pp. 113–16, offers a succinct discussion of the theories.

  64 More, 48–49.

  65 Vergil, Three Books, pp. 180–81.

  66 Pollard, Richard III and the Princes in the Tower, p. 99.

  67 More, pp. 48–49; Vergil, Three Books, pp. 180–81.

  68 The daughter of John Lambert, a London mercer, Elizabeth Shore – rechristened by the dramatist Thomas Heywood in 1599 as ‘Jane’ – succeeded in having her marriage to William Shore annulled on account of his impotence. Thomas More casts her as Edward IV’s mistress, while he and the Great Chronicle of London assign her to Hastings as well. Richard III allowed his solicitor, Thomas Lynom, to take her as his wife. Rosemary Horrox, ‘Shore, Elizabeth [Jane] (d. 1526/7?)’, ODNB, 2004.

  69 CPR, 1476–85, p. 371.

  70 Stonor Letters, vol. II, p. 161, no. 331.

  71 Mancini, p. 91; Hanham, Richard III, p. 179. Frustratingly, the Great Chronicle informs us that Dorset ‘escaped many wonderful dangers, whereof if I should tell all the circumstance, it would make a long book’. Great Chronicle, pp. 231–32.

  72 Crowland, p. 159; Mancini, p. 89. That the men were armed is confirmed by Simon Stallworth, who writes in a private letter that there were ‘great plenty of harnessed men’ at Westminster.

  73 Stonor Letters, vol. II, p. 161, no. 331.

  74 Mancini, p. 95; More, p. 67; Crowland, pp. 159–61.

  75 PROME, January 1484, item 1 [5].

  76
Helmholz, ‘The Sons of Edward IV’, pp. 111–13.

  77 This and other genealogical information is taken from Ashdown-Hill, Eleanor, pp. 19, 68, 88, 101.

  78 Commynes, p. 63.

  79 Ashdown-Hill, Eleanor, p. 209; Letters and Papers, Henry VIII, 16 December 1533, item 1528; 3 November 1534, item 1368.

  80 Cavill, English Parliaments of Henry VII, p. 30.

  81 Crowland, p. 161.

  82 Hampton, ‘Robert Stillington’, pp. 163–64.

  83 Ashdown-Hill, Eleanor, p. 92.

  84 Ashdown-Hill, Eleanor, p. 142.

  85 Ashdown-Hill, Eleanor, p. 171.

  86 Mancini, p. 69.

  87 Carson, pp. 72, 230–31; Ashdown-Hill, Eleanor, pp. 115, 156–57.

  88 Crowland, pp. 169–71.

  89 For what follows, see Helmholz, Marriage Litigation, pp. 26–31.

  90 Coronation of Richard III, pp. 24–25; Crowland, pp. 159–61; Mancini, p. 97.

  91 Harleian 433, vol. III, p. 25; Pollard, Worlds of Richard III, p. 5.

  92 Crowland, p. 161; Rous, Historia Regum Anglia, pp. 213–14 (translated in Hanham, Richard III and His Early Work, 119–20).

  93 Harleian 433, vol. III, p. 25; Pollard, Worlds of Richard III, p. 5.

  94 Crotch, Prologues and Epilogues, p. 39; Percy, Reliques, pp. 45–47; Ritson, Ancient Songs and Ballads, vol. II, pp. 3–5; Chronicles of the White Rose of York, p. 209.

  12 Under the Hog

  1 For what follows see Coronation of Richard III, pp. 35–38, 169.

  2 For what follows see Michael K. Jones and Malcolm G. Underwood, ‘Beaufort, Margaret, Countess of Richmond and Derby (1443–1509)’, ODNB, 2004.

  3 For what follows see King’s Mother, pp. 48–62.

  4 Catto and Evans, eds, History of the University of Oxford, vol. II, p. 736; CPR, 1476–85, pp. 569–70.

  5 Horrox, Study in Service, pp. 149–50; Road to Bosworth Field, p. 125; Stow, p. 450.

  6 Crowland, p. 163.

  7 Harleian 433, vol. II, p. 2; Mancini, p. 93.

  8 For what follows see Crowland, pp. 163–69; Vergil, Three Books, pp. 192–204; Horrox, Study in Service, pp. 138–77; Ross, Richard III, 105–24; Gill, passim.

  9 Kibre, ‘Lewis of Caerlon’, pp. 101–02.

  10 Gill, Buckingham’s Rebellion, p. 13–14; Thomson, pp. 132–33.

  11 Road to Bosworth Field, p. 145.

  12 Farrer and Sutton, ‘The Duke of Buckingham’s Sons’, pp. 87–91.

  13 D. Sanituste, “‘Putting Downe”’, p. 145.

  14 Crowland, p. 165.

  15 Farrer and Sutton, ‘The Duke of Buckingham’s Sons’, pp. 87–91.

  16 Arthurson and Kingwell, ‘Proclamation of Henry Tudor’, pp. 101–02.

  17 Farrer and Sutton, ‘The Duke of Buckingham’s Sons’, pp. 88–90.

  18 Harleian 433, vol. I, p. 63. Farrar and Sutton suggest (p. 90) that the children were taken into Richard III’s or his queen’s household, but the authors appear to have been unaware of the order allowing Katherine’s servants and children to be brought to her in London.

  19 Seabourne, Imprisoning Medieval Women, pp. 42–43.

  20 Vergil, Three Books, p. 204.

  21 Charles Ross, Richard III, p. 118.

  22 Vergil, Three Books, p. 203.

  23 Clarke, ‘English Royal Marriages’, pp. 1024–25.

  24 Harleian 433, vol. III, p. 190.

  25 Kendall, p. 484.

  26 Williamson, p. 122–23.

  27 CPR, 1476–85, p. 485; King’s Works, vol. II, p. 680.

  28 Harleian 433, vol. I, p. 213; vol. II, p. 130.

  29 Crowland, p. 171.

  30 Horrox, Study in Service, pp. 275–77; CPR, 1476–85, pp. 519–20; Bellamy, pp. 121–22; Fabyan, pp. 671–72; Great Chronicle, p. 236.

  31 Griffiths and Thomas, Making of the Tudor Dynasty, p. 106.

  32 Griffiths and Thomas, Making of the Tudor Dynasty, pp. 110–20; Charles Ross, Richard III, pp. 198–200; Horrox, Study in Service, pp. 277–78.

  33 For what follows see Grant, ‘Foreign Affairs under Richard III’, pp. 123–26; Chrimes, pp. 31–34; Ross, Richard III, pp. 198–201; Antonovics, ‘Henry VII’, pp. 171–73; Griffiths and Thomas, pp. 118–20

  34 Quoted in Dockray, Richard III, p. 77.

  35 Spont, La Marine Francaise, p. 9. Admirers of Richard III have, rather disingenuously, transferred this isolated statement by the French into Henry Tudor’s own mouth. Ashdown-Hill, Last Days of Richard III, pp. 48, 58; Carson, pp. 244–45, Born in 1470, and therefore far too young to remember the events of 1470–71 personally, Charles VIII might have simply overlooked a clerical error.

  36 For what follows see James Ross, John de Vere, pp. 74–84; Griffiths and Thomas, pp. 122–23.

  37 Griffiths and Thomas, p. 120; Hammond, Richard III and the Bosworth Campaign, p. 40.

  38 Hammond, Richard III and the Bosworth Campaign, p. 40; Hutton, The Battle of Bosworth Field, 190–91.

  39 Harleian 433, vol. III, pp. 124–25.

  40 Harleian 433, vol. I, pp. 59, 92, 177; Thomson, ‘Bishop Lionel Woodville and Richard III’, pp. 134–35; John A.F. Thomson, ‘Woodville, Lionel (c. 1454–1484)’, ODNB, September 2011; Britton, History and Antiquities of the Cathedral Church of Salisbury, p. 94.

  41 For the following see Crowland, pp. 175–77.

  42 Hammond, Road to Bosworth Field, p. 199.

  43 Buck, p. 191. Kincaid’s edition contains an extensive description of the textual history of Buck’s manuscript. For further discussion, see Hanham, ‘Sir George Buck and Princess Elizabeth’s Letter’, and Kincaid, ‘Buck and the Elizabeth of York Letter’.

  44 E 404/78/3/47. See the articles by Court, Barrie Williams, and Marques in the bibliography.

  45 Vergil, Three Books, p. 215.

  46 Vergil, Three Books, pp. 210, 214. Although Vergil is vague about the time for this episode, it appears to have occurred shortly before Anne’s death.

  47 Ashdown-Hill, Last Days of Richard III, pp. 27–28.

  48 Vergil, Henry VII, online edition; Pierce, Margaret Pole, pp. 8–9.

  49 Horrox, Study in Service, p. 293; CPR, 1476–85, p. 532.

  50 Harleian 433, vol. II, pp. 228–30; Paston Letters (Gardiner), vol. VI, no. 1001, pp. 81–84.

  51 Ross, Richard III, p. 201; Griffiths and Thomas, Making of the Tudor Dynasty, pp. 129–31; Hammond, Richard III and the Bosworth Campaign, p. 75; Crowland, p. 181.

  52 Hammond, Richard III and the Bosworth Campaign, pp. 75–78, 91.

  53 Vergil, Three Books, p. 226; Great Chronicle, p. 238; Crowland, p. 183.

  13 Won and Lost Causes

  1 Hammond, Richard III and the Bosworth Campaign, p. 108.

  2 Roskell, ‘William Catesby’, p.170–72; Williams, ‘Hastily Drawn-Up Will of William Catesby’, p. 49.

  3 Harleian 433, vol. I, pp. 183, 241; vol. II, pp. 135, 138.

  4 For what follows see Roger Stuart Thomas, p. 248–67.

  5 Hicks, False, Fleeting, Perjur’d Clarence, p. 103; Jones and Underwood, King’s Mother, p. 52.

  6 Materials for a History of the Reign of Henry VII, pp. 6–7, 286.

  7 PROME, November 1485, Introduction and items 7, 16 [21], 17 [22], 18 [23].

  8 PROME, November 1485, item 9.

  9 Okerlund, Elizabeth of York, pp. 48–49.

  10 James and Underwood, King’s Mother, p. 67; Kingsford, ‘On Some London Houses’, pp. 43–50 passim.

  11 Crowland, p. 191.

  12 Linda Clark, ‘Bourchier, Thomas (c.1411–1486)’, ODNB, 2004.

  13 Plumpton Letters, p. 63.

  14 Ross, Richard III, p. 142. For my account of Edward’s adventures in Spain I have relied on Wilkins, pp. 1–15, 134, 179–81; Merriman, 134–37; Prescott, vol. I, pp. 396–97.

  15 Prescott, p. 396.

  16 Wilkins, p. 7.

  17 Prescott, pp. 396–97.

  18 Prescott, p. 397.

  19 Wilkins, p.11.

  20 Wilkins, p. 181.

 
21 Marques, p. 27.

  22 Sanceau, Perfect Prince, pp. 296–97.

  23 Herald’s Memoir, p. 99 & n.202.

  24 Herald’s Memoir, pp. 100–01.

  25 For the following see Herald’s Memoir, pp. 100–06.

  26 Okerlund, Slandered Queen, p. 245.

  27 Materials for a History of the Reign of Henry VII, pp. 148–49.

  28 Vergil, quoted by Sutton and Visser-Fuchs, ‘“Retirement” of Elizabeth Woodville’, pp. 561–62.

  29 Hall, p. 431.

  30 Bacon, pp. 83–84 (italics mine).

  31 See Gordon Smith, ‘Lambert Simnel and the King from Dublin’.

  32 Vergil quoted in Bennett, Lambert Simnel, p. 135.

  33 Bacon, pp. 91–92.

  34 Cavill, English Parliaments, pp. 111–12.

  35 Materials for a History of the Reign of Henry VII, pp. 319–20; CPR, 1485–94, p. 302; Sutton and Visser-Fuchs, “‘Retirement” of Elizabeth Woodville’, p. 563. The situation of having a married king on the throne and an adult dowager queen in good standing had not occurred since Edward III’s time. Queen Phillipa was dead when Richard II came to the throne; after the death in prison of Richard II, his queen, a child, was kept in Henry IV’s care before being returned to France; Henry V had imprisoned Henry IV’s queen on allegations of witchcraft before marrying Catherine of Valois; Henry VI’s mother, Catherine of Valois, died before Henry VI married Margaret of Anjou; Margaret of Anjou was in exile when Edward IV took the throne; and Elizabeth Woodvile, of course, was not recognised as queen by Richard III.

  36 Foedera, vol. 12, pp. 328–39; Chrimes, Henry VII, p. 279.

  37 For what follows see Bennett, Lambert Simnel; Wilkins, Last Knight Errant, pp. 139–46; Chrimes, Henry VII, pp. 75–78; Okerlund, Elizabeth of York, pp. 70–75.

  38 Wilkins, pp. 142–43 & 213 n.18.

  39 Molinet quoted in Bennett, Lambert Simnel, p. 130.

  40 Wilkins, pp. 142–43.

  41 Rosemary Horrox, ‘Lovell, Francis, Viscount Lovell (b. c.1457, d. in or after 1488)’, ODNB, online edition, 2004.

  42 Michael J. Bennett, ‘Simnel, Lambert (b. 1476/7, d. after 1534)’, ODNB, October 2008.

  43 For what follows see Cavell, Heralds’ Memoir, pp. 120–50.

  44 Bacon, p. 97.

  45 Cavell, Heralds’ Memoir, pp. 156–60.