Item, how þat þe Cowntesse off Warwyk is now owt of Beweley seyntwarye, and Syr James Tyrell conveyth hyre northward, men seye by the Kynges assent, wherto som men seye þat the Duke of Clarance is not agreyd.11
Trouble is brewing and men are arming themselves … it [is] seyd for serteyn that þe Duke of Claraunce makyth hym bygge in that he kan, schewyng as he wolde but dele with the Duke of Glowcester. But the Kyng ententyth in eschyewyng all jnconvenyentys to be as bygge as they both, and to be a styffelere atwyen them.12
I trust to God that the ij Dukes of Clarans and Glowcester shall be sette att on[e] by the adward off the Kyng.13
One thing that is clear from all this is that George was back in his family circle, and that he accepted the authority of Edward IV to adjudicate disputes between himself and his younger brother, Richard. The precise relationship between George and Edward at this period is, however, hard to determine. Moreover, whatever public show was made in respect of George’s relationship with his elder brother’s partner, at a private level there must now have been mutual dislike and distrust between them. From Elizabeth Woodville’s point of view, George was one of those responsible for the deaths of her father and one of her brothers. Indeed, he had openly campaigned to bring her and her family down. George’s subsequent support of Edward IV cannot have altered the fact that in Elizabeth’s eyes he was an enemy.
The main residence of the Duke and Duchess of Clarence was now Warwick Castle, though, as with all such fifteenth-century magnates, they travelled a good deal. On 5 February 1471/2, ‘George, Duke of Clarence, arrived after vespers at Salisbury Cathedral, and was received and honourably incensed and lodged at the Precentor’s.’14 During the winter of 1472/3, Isabel became pregnant for the second time, and on 14 August 1473 her daughter Margaret was born at Farleigh Hungerford Castle in Somerset, an estate actually held by George’s younger brother, the Duke of Gloucester,15 which suggests that in practical terms a good relationship had been re-established between George and Richard. Later, on 25 February 1475, at Warwick Castle, Isabel bore her husband an ill-fated son and heir, who was christened ‘Edward’ after his godfather and uncle, the king, but who seems to have been destined to spend the greater part of his life in that same Tower of London where his father was executed.16
Since his return to the Yorkist fold, led by his sisters, George seems to have maintained a reasonable relationship with Edward IV for several years. Meanwhile, in some ways, Edward himself was changing. Philippe de Commynes, who saw him in 1470 and again in 1475, reports that while Edward was still tall, slim and handsome in 1470, by 1475 he had put on a good deal of weight and, as a result, had lost some of his looks.17 There are also suggestions that Edward’s character and view of the world had changed somewhat.
The reason why Philippe de Commynes saw Edward IV again in August 1475 was the English king’s ‘invasion’ of France. This led to a meeting between him and Louis XI, and ultimately, to the Treaty of Picquigny. Both of Edward IV’s brothers accompanied him on the French ‘invasion’, but where the Duke of Gloucester took the expedition seriously, and was displeased by the subsequent accommodation with the ‘enemy’ represented by the treaty, George, Duke of Clarence – who, of course, knew the French king personally – happily participated with his elder brother in the peace arrangements, as Commynes reports: ‘The king of England came along the causeway … and was well attended. He appeared a truly regal figure. With him were his brother, the duke of Clarence, the earl of Northumberland and several lords including his Chamberlain, Lord Hastings, his Chancellor and others.’18 Commynes tells us that Edward IV spoke quite good French, so there is every reason to suppose that George, who had spent more time than his elder brother in French-speaking territory, also had this ability.
Sadly, although he saw him on several occasions, Commynes tells us nothing about George’s appearance. Based on earlier comments by Jehan de Wavrin, it has already been suggested that George was of below average height, and therefore noticeably shorter than Edward IV. More will be said on this point later. Michael Jones has asserted that George’s father, Richard, Duke of York, had been ‘short and small of face’, but he cites no contemporary source for this assertion.19 However, there is, as we have seen, a contemporary source which states that the Duchess of York was short. As for George’s colouring, some previous writers have made confident but rather questionable statements.20 For George’s colouring we have only one possible piece of evidence: the manuscript of Wavrin’s Chronicle, which the author presented to Edward IV. The miniature which shows Wavrin giving his book to the king also depicts figures which have traditionally been identified as Gloucester and Clarence: ‘The figure on the left [of Edward IV], wearing the garter, is undoubtedly the unfortunate Clarence, whose vague expression appears curiously in accordance with his vacillating character. Gloucester stands boldly forward on [Edward IV’s] right near the front of the picture, also wearing the garter.’21 Although the representation of the Duke of Gloucester was questioned at the end of the twentieth century,22 we can now see that its profile corresponds very precisely with that of Richard III as revealed by his facial reconstruction, and also with that of an image of his father, the Duke of York, whom Richard III was said to resemble closely (see plate 2).
We already know that Edward IV was tall, Richard was just above average height and George was shorter than average, and the Wavrin miniature confirms this. On the basis of the Wavrin depiction, Edward IV and the dukes of Clarence and of Gloucester all had brown hair. Edward IV’s hair was perhaps a darker brown, and seems to have been straight. Portraits of him usually depicted brown or hazel eyes. However, the ‘Paston’, National Portrait Gallery and Wavrin portraits of Richard of Gloucester all depict wavy hair, and the first two show grey eyes. The portrait head on the chancel arch of St Mary’s church, Barnard Castle, which is believed to represent Gloucester, depicts hair that is definitely wavy. The portrait of Margaret, Duchess of Burgundy in the Louvre suggests that she too had grey eyes. On balance, therefore, George is also likely to have had grey eyes and mid-brown, wavy hair (see plates 10 and 11). In fact, George and Richard were probably quite similar in appearance, although George was shorter than Richard, and the Wavrin miniature shows George’s hair as a somewhat lighter shade of brown than Richard’s. Both had the pointed nose and chin of their father (see plate 2), though in George’s case these features were less pointed – a mixture of his father’s and his mother’s genes. Cecily Neville’s nose was not pointed, but probably retroussé: a feature which was apparently inherited by her son Edward (plate 1).23
The year after the Treaty of Picquigny, Isabelle once again found herself pregnant:
The Duchess of Clarence brought her third [actually her fourth] child Richard into the world on October 6 [actually 5], 1476, in a new chamber of the infirmary of Tewkesbury Abbey, but no reason is given by the chronicle for her residence in the monastic buildings at the time. The infant was baptized the next day ‘in ecclesia parochiali’, that is, in the nave of the abbey, and on a later day was confirmed at the high altar. The Lord George [as the duke was called] and the Lady Isabel removed to Warwick on November 12, and it is noted that she was then in mortal sickness [infirmata], though nothing is said of the common belief that both she and her infant were suffering from poison. Whether they were poisoned or not, both died very shortly afterwards, the duchess on December 12 [sic for ?22]. Then the fair young mother of 25 was brought back again to the abbey on January 4, 1477, and after lying under a hearse in the midst of the choir for thirty-five days, was buried in a vault which was made eastward of the high altar.24
It is often reported that Isabel had been attended during Richard’s birth by a lady called Ankarette Hawkeston (Twynyho) but, as we shall see, modern accounts of Ankarette’s involvement with Isabel need to be treated with caution. The surviving documents relating to the Twynyho case do not actually record that Ankarette served Isabel in the role of midwife, nor as nurse to her new-born son.
> The Twynyho/Hawkeston family.
Ankarette was a widow, probably in her early sixties in 1476. She may have come originally from Cheshire or Staffordshire, where there were gentry families bearing the surname Hawkeston. She was probably born in about 1412 and married William Twynyho of Keyford (Frome), Somerset. They had at least two sons and one daughter (see family tree on p.131). She and her family were undoubtedly in the service of the Clarences in the 1470s.
Obviously, if Ankarette attended Isabel during her lying-in, this must have been at Tewkesbury, since Richard of Clarence was born there on 6 October. Somewhat confusingly, however, according to the later account of the Duke of Clarence, on 10 October 1476 Ankarette had been in Warwick, in the service of the Duchess of Clarence. According to the evidence produced, ‘Lady Isabel, the late wife of George, duke of Clarence, was … physically healthy, on 10 October in the sixteenth year of the reign of King Edward IV since the conquest [1476]’.25 The date cited would have been only four days after Richard’s birth, and it seems highly unlikely that Isabel could have travelled home to Warwick so soon after the delivery. Indeed, it is usually stated that she made the journey on 12 November. It seems likely, therefore, that in George’s subsequent account either the duke made a mistake in the date, or the date was erroneously recorded.26 Nevertheless, George subsequently alleged that on 10 October 1476 Ankarette:
falsely, traitorously and feloniously gave the same Isabel a venomous drink of ale mixed with poison to drink, to poison and kill the same Isabel; of which drink the said Isabel sickened from the aforesaid 10 October until the Sunday next before the following Christmas; on which Sunday the aforesaid Isabel then and there died because of it’.27
Following her death, Isabel’s embalmed body was transported from Warwick Castle back to Tewkesbury Abbey, where it lay in state on a hearse in front of the high altar while behind the altar screen, facing the entrance to the eastern Lady Chapel, a vault for her burial was constructed. Details of the vault will be fully explored in a later chapter. Once the vault was ready, Isabel’s splendid funeral was conducted by Abbot John Strensham of Tewkesbury, who was a friend of the Clarence family and one of the godfathers of the young Edward of Clarence, Earl of Warwick.28
In the immediate aftermath of his wife’s death, George was caught up in arranging her burial, and coping with a second blow – the subsequent death, and burial in Warwick, of his infant son, Richard. George claimed that Richard’s death was also from poisoning, but in his case the poison was allegedly administered by a servant called John Thursby (not by Ankarette – which reinforces the point that, despite what was said later at her trial, Ankarette probably did not, in reality, accompany the family back from Tewkesbury to Warwick). It is possible that the pain of his bereavements accounts for the fact that, while George apparently suspected that Isabel and Richard had been murdered, he did nothing about this for some three months. Another possible explanation is that George was not in his right mind during this period. However, there is also a third possibility. George was still Lieutenant of Ireland, having been reappointed to this post for a further 20 years in 1472.29 One eighteenth-century writer refers to him as having been in Ireland in 1477.30 Interestingly, later, at his trial, Edward IV accused George of plotting to send his son to Ireland or Flanders (see below). Since George was definitely in Warwick in April, and in London in May and June, while from June onwards he was a prisoner in the Tower of London, if he did visit Ireland in 1476/7, it must have been in February–March – just after the deaths of his wife and younger son – deaths which George viewed as suspicious. Certainly, his conduct at this time seems strange. Some modern writers have suggested that George believed Elizabeth Woodville was behind the deaths of his wife and son. No such contemporary allegation is documented, though at least one of the accused could possibly have had Woodville connections (see below).
On Saturday 12 April 1477 (the Saturday in the octave of Easter), having perhaps just returned from Ireland, George suddenly dispatched a force of twenty-six men, led by Richard Hyde of Warwick and Roger Strugge, clothier, of Beckington (near Frome) to the manor of Keyford, at Frome in Somerset.31 Ankarette was living quietly there in her late husband’s home. George had her seized and hauled off to Bath. The following day (Low Sunday – 13 April), his men dragged her to Cirencester, and on Monday they brought her to Warwick, where she arrived at about eight o’clock in the evening. The following morning (Tuesday 15 April), George had her brought to trial at the Guildhall in Warwick. She was not the sole defendant. John Thursby stood with her in the dock. Sir Roger Tocotes was also accused. In fact, George seems to have considered him the organiser of the two murders, with Ankarette and Thursby merely his tools. However, it seems that Tocotes had not been apprehended.
Who were the other two accused? Sir Roger Tocotes was a leading member of the Wiltshire gentry. His wife, Elizabeth, was the widow of Sir William Beauchamp, brother of Richard Beauchamp, Bishop of Salisbury. (The Beauchamp brothers were cousins of the Duchess of Clarence.) Sir Roger had been with Clarence and Warwick in France, and was one of those who accompanied Clarence when the duke defected to Edward IV before the Battle of Barnet. He had been a member of Clarence’s council from 1475, and Hicks considers that ‘his career suggests that he was the duke [of Clarence]’s friend as well as his servant and one of his leading officials. A more improbable object of Clarence’s hostility it is difficult to imagine.’32 Nevertheless, Tocotes does appear to have been a man of variable loyalty. He served Edward IV as well as George and, in the months following George’s execution, he would continue to be appointed to royal commissions. It is not clear what stance he adopted on Edward IV’s death, but in September 1483 he was one of the leaders of Buckingham’s Rebellion, as a result of which he was attainted – though subsequently pardoned. About two years later, he is believed to have fought on the side of Henry ‘Tudor’ at the Battle of Bosworth.33 This record implies possible connections with Dr John Morton and perhaps with members of the Woodville family. Maybe George was right to doubt Tocotes’ trustworthiness. As for John Thursby, he was a local yeoman in George’s service.
On the basis of the evidence presented (whatever that was), the court in Warwick found Ankarette and John Thursby guilty, and ruled that Ankarette ‘should be led from the bar to the said lord king’s gaol of Warwick aforesaid, and drawn from that gaol through the centre of that town of Warwick to the gallows at Myton, and be hanged there on that gallows until she is dead’.34 Thursby was also sentenced to death, and the sentences were duly carried out. The trial and executions were over in less than three hours in total.35
There is no indication in the surviving records that the legal proceedings against Ankarette were in any way untoward. Nevertheless, there are oddities about the case. We have noted the confusion over the location and date of Isabel’s alleged poisoning, and the delay of three months before any action was taken. A third odd feature is the fact that this case has been linked by most historians with the subsequent arrest and execution of the Duke of Clarence. There seems to be no justification for making such a link. Ankarette’s trial was never mentioned by Edward IV in his case against his brother. It is true that Ankarette’s grandson (taking advantage, perhaps, of George’s arrest) presented a successful formal petition at the Parliament of 1478 for the verdict against his grandmother to be overturned. Indeed, he – or possibly Sir Roger Tocotes – may have approached the king on the subject earlier, because on 20 May 1477 Edward IV asked for the records of the Twynyho trial to be sent to him.36 However, this does not mean that the trial of Ankarette was ever cited against the Duke of Clarence in the legal proceedings which led to his execution. It is not mentioned in any of the surviving material relating to George’s trial.
Meanwhile, the death of Isabel had left George a young widower. It is not surprising that he considered the possibility of remarriage. His former ambitions to marry the now orphaned Marie of Burgundy resurfaced, supported by his sister, Margaret (Marie’s stepmoth
er), but were once again opposed by Edward IV:
the Duke of Burgundy, Charles … was defeated and killed on the open field in the year of Our Lord 1477, according to the Roman reckoning. I have inserted this foreign history at this point because, after Charles’ death it was common knowledge that his widow, the duchess, Lady Margaret, who was more fond of her brother Clarence than of anyone else in the family, devoted all her effort and all her attention to uniting in marriage Mary, the only daughter and heiress of the deceased Duke Charles, and the Duke of Clarence whose wife had recently died. Such an exalted destiny for an ungrateful brother was not to the liking of the king. He therefore threw all the obstacles he could in the way of any such marriage taking place; he urged rather that the heiress should be given as a wife to Maximilian, the emperor’s son, as it afterwards happened.
The duke’s indignation was probably further increased by this. Each one now began to look upon the other with not altogether brotherly eyes. You might have seen (as such men are found in the courts of all princes) sycophants running to and from the one side and the other carrying the words of both brothers backwards and forwards even if they had been spoken in the most secret chamber.37
There was also talk of a possible marriage between George and a Scottish princess. Edward IV directed his emissary to thank the Scottish king, who ‘desireth a mariage to be had betwixt our brother of Clarence and a suster of the said king of Scotts; and another marriage also, to be had between our sustre the duchess of Bourgonne and the Duc of Albany his brothr’, ‘and promised that ‘when we shal finde tyme convenable we shall feel their disposicions’.38 However, he seems to have taken no further action.
The Third Plantagenet: George, Duke of Clarence, Richard III's Brother Page 17