The Dublin King: The True Story of Lambert Simnel and the Princes in the Tower
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There are several interesting points to note in André’s account, and we shall return to his narrative to consider some of the issues that arise later. However, the first key point to notice is that André believed the Dublin King to be an impostor. Of course, this was a natural viewpoint for an employee of Henry VII. It would be astonishing if André – or anyone else writing from the official point of view of the Tudor king and his regime – were to tell us that the Dublin King was a genuine royal personage. We need to keep that fact in mind later, when reviewing the accounts of other historians of the reigns of Henry VII and Henry VIII.
The second point is that André states that one of Henry VII’s heralds journeyed to Ireland on the king’s behalf and interviewed the pretender. Although this herald clearly expected to be able to expose without any difficulty the boy’s imposture, it is also evident, from André’s report of what took place, that in actual fact, on meeting the pretender, the herald did not find himself in quite the straightforward situation which he had anticipated. His questions were apparently answered without hesitation, and it seems that, in the end, the herald may have concluded that the boy might indeed be the person he claimed to be. Indeed, André states quite clearly the interesting fact that the Dublin King ‘was believed to be Edward’s son by a number of Henry’s emissaries’ even though they were ‘prudent men’.
The name of the herald who made this trip to Ireland on Henry VII’s behalf is left blank in André’s account, which suggests that André’s report is probably at second hand, and that he had not spoken to the herald directly. However, Henry VII’s Garter King of Arms (who had also previously served both Edward IV and Richard III), was John Wrythe (Writhe), who held this post from 1478 until 1504. It seems likely that Wrythe, who had been close to the Yorkist court, and who would have been in a good position to identify a surviving Yorkist prince – or disprove the pretentions of an impostor – may well have been the herald who visited the Irish court of the Dublin King. He is known to have made at least one visit to Ireland.3 If John Wrythe was the herald in question, that might help to explain why André did not interview him in person. At the time when André was writing his account, Wrythe may already have been dead (for he died in 1504). If he was still alive, he was certainly an old man, and probably in a poor state of health. However, it is clear from André’s account that the herald apparently found his mission a less simple matter than he had anticipated. Further evidence on the identity of the Dublin King, taken directly from the contemporary Heralds’ Memoir 1486–1490, will be examined later (see Chapter 6).
As for the nature of the claims made by the Dublin King, André states quite specifically and unequivocally that he was a young impostor, who was attempting to pass himself off as one of the sons of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville. Two sons of this couple outlived their father. They are often known, both to historians and to the general public, as the ‘Princes in the Tower’. However, since by June 1483 they were officially no longer princes; since it is not certain how long they spent in the Tower of London, and since for the purposes of this study it is very important to stress that the two individual brothers experienced two quite separate and very different life histories, use of that popular collective term will, as far as possible, be avoided here.
The two boys in question were Edward (who was Prince of Wales until 1483, and then briefly ‘King Edward V’), and his younger brother, Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York and Norfolk. André claims that both sons had suffered what he characterises as a ‘dire death’ at some time prior to (but not long before) 1486–87. However it is also his contention that the Dublin King put forward a false claim that he was the younger of these two sons of Edward IV, namely Richard, Duke of York. If André was correct in his assertion, we should hopefully be able to find further near-contemporary accounts which tell us the same story. Moreover, we should also be able to find evidence that the boy-king in Dublin used the royal name of Richard.
For the moment it will suffice to say that Polydore Vergil does confirm André to the extent of stating that, initially at any rate, the Dublin King claimed to be Richard of Shrewsbury. Moreover, there are certainly Irish coins in existence bearing the royal name of Richard which could possibly date from about this period. Unfortunately, however, fifteenth-century coins do not bear any date of issue. In the present case, this makes their significance somewhat difficult to interpret correctly. The Irish Richard coins could simply date from the reign of Richard III. We shall return to both these points to examine the relevant evidence in greater detail in due course.
First, however, if this hostile historian of Henry VII is correct when he tells us that the Dublin King claimed to be Richard, Duke of York, it follows that in the eyes of historians from a non-Tudor background, the boy might conceivably have been seen as telling the truth. We therefore need to begin by examining the life history of the young Richard of Shrewsbury in so far as that is known. The clear evidence of his life story comes to an end in 1483. However, we shall also have to confront the very complex evidence of what became of him after 1483, and the question of when, where and how he died.
The first Yorkist king, Edward IV, with his two wives: Eleanor Talbot and Elizabeth Woodville. Edward and Elizabeth are the first possible parents of the Dublin King.
As his toponym indicates, Richard was born in Shrewsbury on 14 August 1473, the second son of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville. The reign of the Yorkist dynasty, which had first formally claimed the throne in the person of Richard of Cambridge, Duke of York, had finally been made a reality by that duke’s eldest son, Edward IV, in 1461. The Yorkist claim was founded upon the principle of legitimacy, which arguably gave the princes of York a better right to the English crown than their Lancastrian cousins. As we have seen, however, it then becomes difficult to establish whom Edward IV married.4
It appears to be the case that Edward IV contracted two secret marriages. The first of these, which probably took place in June 1461, was with Eleanor Talbot (Lady Butler), daughter of the first Earl of Shrewsbury. The second, reportedly in May 1464, was with Elizabeth Woodville (Lady Grey). The first union was childless, but its enduring consequence was that it made the second union bigamous, because the two marriages overlapped. As a result, the children born to Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville were all technically illegitimate – and hence were ultimately excluded from succession to the throne. These, at any rate, were the conclusions reached by the Three Estates of the Realm in 1483, and formally enacted by Parliament in 1484. Thus, ironically, the marital conduct of the first Yorkist king did much to undermine the principle of legitimacy upon which his family’s claim to the throne had been based.
At the time of his birth, however, Edward IV’s son Richard of Shrewsbury was generally assumed to be legitimate, and was seen as the new second in line to the throne – thereby pushing his senior royal uncle, the Duke of Clarence, one step further from the prospect of ever wearing the crown of England. Richard was created Duke of York on 28 May 1474, when he was less than 1 year old, and he was knighted just under a year later, at which time land formerly held by the Welles and Willoughby families was settled upon him. In May 1475 both Richard and his brother, Edward, were made knights of the Garter.
The death of John Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk, in January 1475/76,5 offered Richard’s parents an unexpected further opportunity to improve their second son’s future. Plans were made to marry him to Norfolk’s only living child, his daughter, Anne Mowbray (1472–81), who, incidentally, was also the niece of Eleanor Talbot. A papal dispensation was required for the marriage of Richard and Anne, because they were close relatives through their mutual Neville ancestry.
Richard’s marriage to Anne was celebrated with great splendour in January 1477/78, at the Palace of Westminster. On Wednesday, 14 January 1477/78, the 5-year-old bride, accompanied by the king’s brother-in-law, Earl Rivers, was escorted into the king’s great chamber in the Palace of Westminster, where she dined in state in the presence of
a large assembly of the nobility and gentry of the realm.6 The following morning Anne was prepared for her royal wedding ceremony in the queen’s chamber, from which she was escorted by the queen’s brother, Earl Rivers, on her left. At her right-hand side was the king’s nephew, the Earl of Lincoln. Her procession passed through the king’s chamber and the White Hall to St Stephen’s Chapel, the site of which is occupied today by the House of Commons. This Chapel Royal, brightly painted and gilded more than a century earlier by Edward III, was also adorned for the occasion with rich hangings of royal blue, powdered with golden fleurs-de-lis.
In St Stephen’s Chapel, under a canopy of cloth of gold, the royal family was assembled to await Anne. The king and queen were there, with both their sons – possibly one of the rare occasions on which the two princes found themselves in the same place at the same time. Their sisters, Elizabeth, Mary and Cecily of York, were also present. So was their grandmother – Anne Mowbray’s great-great-aunt – Cecily, Duchess of York, mother of the king, and the ‘queen of right’, as she was called.
Anne’s local ordinary, Bishop Goldwell of Norwich, richly vested in a cope, waited at the chapel door to receive the bride. However, her procession was halted by Dr Coke, who ceremonially objected to the marriage on the grounds that the couple were too closely related, and said that the ceremony should not proceed without a dispensation from the pope. Dr Gunthorpe, the Dean of the Chapel Royal, then triumphantly produced and read the papal dispensation.
Once it had thus been formally established that the Church permitted the marriage contract, the Bishop of Norwich led the little bride into the chapel and asked who was giving her away. The king himself stepped forward to perform this office. High Mass was then celebrated, and the king’s brother, the Duke of Gloucester, distributed largesse to those present, after which the bride was escorted to the wedding banquet by the same Duke of Gloucester and by the king’s cousin, the Duke of Buckingham – a relative of Anne’s paternal grandmother, Eleanor Bourchier.
The wedding banquet was held in St Edmund’s Chapel. At the high table, with the bride and groom, were the Duke and Duchess of Buckingham, together with the bride’s mother, Elizabeth Talbot, the young widow of the last Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk. The young dowager Duchess of Norfolk was escorted on this occasion by Richard, Duke of Gloucester, who was the husband of her first cousin, Anne Neville. Two side tables were presided over respectively by the king’s stepson, the Marquess of Dorset, and by the king’s second cousin, the Countess of Richmond (mother of the future Henry VII).
The celebrations did not end with the wedding banquet. Three days later, in honour of his son’s marriage, the king created twenty-four new knights of the Bath, and a week after the wedding a great tournament was organised at Westminster by Earl Rivers, with jousting of three kinds, and much splendid display. Anne Mowbray, Duchess of York and Norfolk, was queen of the festivities, and awarded prizes to the victors in the form of golden letters set with diamonds. The letters were ‘A’, ‘E’ and ‘M’.
‘A’ and ‘M’ were for Anne Mowbray, of course. The ‘E’ was pleasantly ambiguous, standing for the names of the king, the queen, the Prince of Wales, the king’s eldest daughter and the bride’s mother. It even stood for the name of the bride’s long-dead aunt, Eleanor Talbot, though her name was probably not one that the king wanted to recall just at this moment. It seems likely that the recent activity of his brother, the Duke of Clarence, had confronted the king with an unpleasant reminder of his relationship with Eleanor. Indeed, even as his son’s wedding was being celebrated, Clarence was in prison, and Edward IV was grappling with the consequences of that reminder.
Young Richard of Shrewsbury was invested with all the main Mowbray titles: Duke of Norfolk, Earl of Nottingham, Earl Warenne and Earl Marshal, not to mention Lord Seagrave, Mowbray and Gower. Edward IV also enacted legislation of dubious legality to ensure that even if Anne Mowbray died, her young husband would retain both the Mowbray property and the Mowbray titles.7
In May 1479, when he was still not yet 6 years old, Richard was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. Although officially he now had his own household, the members of it were his father’s retainers. Thus it seems probable that, on the whole, both Richard and his young bride were brought up by and with his parents and sisters – unlike his elder brother, Edward. Sadly, however, Anne Mowbray died shortly before her ninth birthday, in 1481, leaving Richard a very young widower – and in somewhat dubious legal possession of the Mowbray inheritance.
Edward IV’s notional direct heir, Richard’s elder brother, Edward, Prince of Wales (born in November 1470), was almost three years older than his younger brother, Richard. In 1473 – the year of Richard’s birth – Edward had been established in a household of his own at Ludlow Castle. There the little boy presided – in name, at least – over the newly established Council of Wales and the Marches. In reality, he was living and acting under the guardianship of his maternal uncle, Anthony, second Earl Rivers. Rivers was a well-educated man, and, under careful instructions laid down by the king, he seems to have brought up the Prince of Wales as a cultivated child. As a result of young Edward’s separate household establishment at Ludlow, however, it is doubtful how much Richard, Duke of York saw of his elder brother during their childhood. This makes the traditional picture of the ‘Princes in the Tower’ – which groups the brothers together as though they were a single item – very misleading.
In April 1483, when Edward IV died unexpectedly, the Prince of Wales was still resident at Ludlow with his uncle, Lord Rivers. On the instructions of his sister (now the queen mother), Rivers made arrangements to bring the new young king – proclaimed as Edward V – to London, in preparation for his early coronation at Westminster. In effect, this amounted to an attempted coup, plotted by the queen mother and her family in order that the Woodvilles might seize power through their control of the young king.
There was no legal precedent in England for what Elizabeth Woodville was hoping to achieve. It is true that, about one and a half centuries earlier, Isabelle of France had overthrown her husband, King Edward II, and had briefly wielded power in the name of her young son, Edward III. However, no one would have regarded that as a model to be followed.
According to English custom, during the reign of a minor sovereign, authority normally resided in the hands of the young king’s senior surviving male-line relative, the highest ranking adult prince of the blood. Thus, 100 years earlier, during the minority of Richard II, councils had wielded power, though the young king’s senior surviving uncle, John of Gaunt, had been the chief figure of authority. During the minority of Henry VI, earlier in the fifteenth century, the office of Lord Protector of the Realm had been created to be held by his paternal uncle the Duke of Gloucester (and by the Duke of Bedford when he returned from offices abroad), though once again his actions were subject to the approval of the royal council. In the present instance this model meant that the protector of the realm during Edward V’s minority should have been his only surviving paternal uncle, Richard, Duke of Gloucester.
A deathbed scene.
At the time of Edward IV’s death, Richard of Gloucester was far away in the north of England. The queen mother made no special effort to inform him of what was happening in London. However, certain key members of the nobility, including Gloucester’s cousin, the Duke of Buckingham, and Lord Hastings, informed him of his brother’s demise. Gloucester accordingly summoned the nobles of the north to York to take oaths of allegiance to his nephew, the new king, Edward V. Then, alerted by the Duke of Buckingham and Lord Hastings to the fact that Lord Rivers was taking the new king to London, Richard moved south and met the royal party at Stony Stratford. Buckingham seems to have joined them there a few hours later.8 Perhaps it was Buckingham who then encouraged Richard to arrest, and later to execute, Lord Rivers. Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham is a rather significant character in our story. He was a descendant of Edward III’s youngest son, Thomas of Woodstock, Duk
e of Gloucester, and hence a cousin of the Yorkist kings.
Although Gloucester’s role under Edward IV had been to rule the north of England – which had, in a sense, been his homeland – he had visited the court in London and Westminster from time to time. Thus he undoubtedly knew his younger nephew, Richard, Duke of York, and also Edward IV’s daughters. On the other hand, his elder nephew, the new king, was probably a virtual stranger to him. Gloucester would have met Edward V as Prince of Wales occasionally – for example at the Duke of York’s wedding to Anne Mowbray – but because young Edward had been brought up at Ludlow, such meetings will have been quite infrequent. Thus, for young Edward (brought up by his maternal uncle, Lord Rivers, aided by Richard Grey and John Alcock), his paternal uncle, the Duke of Gloucester, was an unfamiliar figure. However, the two of them, forced together at Stony Stratford by the change in circumstances, now made their joint way to London. There, Edward V was initially received at the Bishop of London’s palace.9 Later, however, the Duke of Buckingham suggested that the most appropriate residence for the boy-king in the lead-up to his coronation would be the Tower of London.