The Dublin King: The True Story of Lambert Simnel and the Princes in the Tower

by John Ashdown-Hill

  Trusty and welbeloved we grete you wele, and perceve wele the fast love and trouthe ye bere unto us accordingly to your dutie, and trust of your assured contynuaunce in the same, wherby ye shall cause us alwey to rest your favourable and gracious souverain lord. And for somoche peraventure as our rebelles and ther adherentes might by some crafty meanes and by espiell doo som reproche or vilany to our Citie there in case ye ne wer forseyng and advertised of the same, we therfor hertly pray you, and as ye tendre the welle of oure said Citie, and of yourself, exorte and desire you, that ye have yourself from hensfurth in such await that noon espies passe by you untaken, nor that any or rebelles or ther adherentes come amonges you, but that ye kepe due watche and warde for the suretie therof, as well by day as by night, and from tyme to tyme as unto youre discreccions it shalbe thoght behovefull. And on this we shalbe with Godis leve be nere unto you alwey tassiste and relief you if the case require. Ye can not doo for us that we shall forget, but soo remember it hereafter, that ye shall have cause of reason to thinke youre dutie unto us for wel employed. Yeven undre oure signet at our Towne of Huntyngdon the xx day April.4

  In this letter the king warned that supporters of the Dublin King might attempt to get into York and subvert the city’s loyalty. However, he encouraged the city council to make sure that York remained loyal to the new royal dynasty.

  Another letter from Henry VII was sent to York on Thursday, 3 May. This time the king – now based in Coventry – reported that his opponents had sailed from Flanders towards Ireland, therefore there appeared to be no immediate need to defend the city of York:

  Trusty and welbeloved we grete you wele. And forsomoche us we have certain knowleige in sundry wise that our rebelles bene departid out of Flaundres, and goon westwardes, it is thoght by us and by oure Counsaill that ye shal not nede to have any strength or company of men of werre for this season to and by amonges you, and therfore we pray you that ye woll have sad regard to the good rule and sauf keping of oure Citie there, to the appesing of rumours and correcting of evel disposed folkes, with sending unto us youre newes from tyme to tyme. And assure yourself that for this true acquitail ye have beene of unto us, wherin we pray you to continewe, we shal be soo good and gracious souverain lord unto you as of reason ye shall have good cause to thinke the same for wel employed. Yevene undre our signet at our Citie of Coventre the iiij day of May.5

  Five days later Henry VII wrote to the mayor again, to tell him that he did not now expect the enemy to come to York. However the king made it clear that he was keeping an eye on developments. If it seemed necessary he would contact the city again, or the Earl of Northumberland would take the necessary action:

  From the King to the Mayor, Aldermen, etc.

  Trusty and welbeloved we grete you wele, and have undrestand by manyfold reportes made unto us the effectuel devoir and grete besinesses that ye put you in, for the good provision and preparacion of vitaill and othre stuff for such men of wirship and theire retenues, as we late commaunded to goo thidder for the surtye and defense of our Citie ther, if oure rebelles had arrived nigh thoos parties, for the which as we for many othre causes have doon, we thanke you hertely, and thus by your truthes and good myndes daily to us contynued ye have assured the favour of our good grace unto you, like as ye shall fynd in effect in such poursutes as ye shall make unto us hereafter; lating you wit that seing our rebelles, as we be ascertayned, bee departid westwardes, we have licensid suche personnes as we comaunded to make ther repar thiddre, to depart thens for a season and to resort to you agene if the caas shall so require, and also our cousin the Erle of Northumberland entendeth hastily to be in the cuntrey nigh unto you, which we doubt not wol gladly assiste and strength you at all tymes if ye desire hym so to doo. Yeven undre our signet at our castell of Kenelworth the viijth day of May.6

  Meanwhile, ‘King Edward VI’, together with his supposed cousin the Earl of Lincoln, Viscount Lovell, General Martin Schwartz and the troops recruited by Margaret of York had all landed in Dublin on Saturday, 5 May 1487. This date is confirmed by a surviving letter from Henry VII to the Earl of Ormond.7 In Dublin they ‘were joined by such troops as Kildare had been able to enlist. These seem to have been Celtic Irish for the most part, and were evidently mere “bonnachts” or mercenaries, since no Irish chief led them and we do not hear to which clan or clans they belonged. Polydore Vergil says they were almost unarmed – doubtless their weapons seemed to the Germans and English somewhat primitive.’8 Although some Irish cities, including Kinsale, Drogheda and probably Trim, backed the cause of the Dublin King, Waterford was openly opposed to him. John Butler, the mayor of Waterford, ‘even dispatched messengers charged with remonstrances to Dublin’.9

  In the Irish capital, however, plans were going ahead to mark and bless the installation of the Dublin King on a grand scale. It was on the Feast of the Ascension (Thursday, 24 May 1487) that the most remarkable event of this entire story took place. On that Thursday ‘Edward VI’ was crowned in one of Dublin’s two cathedrals – the Cathedral Priory of the Holy Trinity – commonly known as Christ Church. For the first (and only) time in its history this 400-year-old church was to witness and host a royal anointing and crowning.

  It was not, however, the first time that a king of England had been seen in the cathedral. In 1171 Henry II, the theoretical Plantagenet royal progenitor of ‘Edward VI’, had attended Christmas mass in the same church. Indeed, that was reported to be the first occasion after the murder of Archbishop Thomas Becket that the repentant Henry II – the first Plantagenet king – had been permitted to receive Holy Communion.

  According to later accounts, the coronation mass of 1487 was well attended. Irish lords, led by the Earl of Kildare, members of the Church hierarchy, and, of course, the Earl of Lincoln and Viscount Lovell were all present. Reportedly the Irish clergy were headed by the primate of Ireland, Dr Ottaviano Spinelli del Palacio (or Palatio), Archbishop of Armagh. However, in an attempt to avoid problems with Henry VII, Ottaviano himself later claimed that he had ‘opposed the profane coronation’.10 The Archbishop of Dublin, Walter FitzSimon(s), was certainly present. Thus it might possibly have been Archbishop FitzSimon (promoted to the archbishopric three years earlier, during the reign of Richard III) who carried out the anointing and crowning of the child-king ‘Edward VI’. Despite this archbishop’s tantalizing surname, there is no surviving evidence that he was in any way connected with priests or organ-makers based in Oxford. Other members of the Church hierarchy who seem to have attended the Dublin coronation include John Payne, Bishop of Meath; William Roche, Bishop of Cloyne; and Edmund Lane, Bishop of Kildare. Reportedly it was the Bishop of Meath who preached the homily, in which he summarised the claim to the throne of ‘King Edward VI’.11

  The ceremony was apparently carried out with due propriety and solemnity. The little king was anointed with the chrism of the cathedral priory, crowned with the holy crown of the Blessed Virgin, Our Lady of Dame-gate, and duly enthroned, probably in Archbishop FitzSimon’s own ceremonial cathedra. Evidently this unique occasion created great interest in the Irish capital, and crowds were waiting outside the cathedral to see the new king emerge. Unfortunately because of his rather small size, initially it was rather difficult for them to catch sight of him. He was therefore enthroned again, this time upon the shoulders of the young William Darcy of Platten, county Meath, cousin of Lord Darcy of Knayth, grandson of the late Baron Killeen, and a protégé of the Earl of Kildare.12 ‘Great Darcy of Platen, [was] a man of very tall stature’.13 Thus, seated upon Darcy’s shoulders, ‘Edward VI’ was carried back from the cathedral priory to Dublin Castle. There the traditional post-coronation banquet was held.

  News of the Dublin coronation of ‘King Edward VI’ is said to have been subsequently conveyed to Henry VII either by Nicholas St Lawrence, fourth Baron Howth, or by a man called Thomas Butler.14

  With ‘Edward VI’ duly enthroned as the Dublin King, the government of Ireland was now officially conducted in his name. One nor
mal function of sovereigns has long been the issue of coinage. Indeed, it has not always been necessary to actually establish oneself as a universally accepted, fully recognised king in order to be able to issue coins. At various times mere claimants to thrones have had coins struck and circulated in their names. The usurper Carausius, who claimed the Roman imperial throne in the third century, issued coins in London and Colchester, even though he never actually became a true Roman emperor. More recently, coins were issued in the names of various ousted European kings. The Stuart princes issued coins at various times after James II had lost his British thrones. In nineteenth-century France and Spain, too, coins were issued in the names of unsuccessful or deprived claimants.

  Thus, it would be in no way surprising if coins had been issued in 1486 and 1487 in the name of the Dublin King. While it has never been suggested that coins bearing his name and title circulated in England, it has certainly been asserted that coins were issued in Ireland in the name of ‘Edward VI’. What is more, there does appear to be some evidence to support this contention. Unfortunately, however, owing to two particular characteristics of medieval coinage, which we shall see in a moment, the evidence is not – and can never be – absolutely conclusive.15

  Many valuable studies relating to the ‘coins’ of the Yorkist pretenders have been published over approximately the last 150 years.16 and it is useful to begin by outlining the general understanding of the coinage of the period.

  Although in Ireland some copper coins were made and circulated in the fifteenth century, in England at that period only silver and gold coins existed. English coinage was based around the ‘long cross’ silver penny (1d), which had first been issued in this design by Edward I in 1279. This silver penny was subsequently reproduced by all the succeeding rulers up until the year 1489, with its overall design and its royal ‘portrait’ basically unchanged (as we have already noted in the context of English crown designs).

  In 1351 a silver four-penny piece (‘groat’) and two-penny piece (‘half groat’) joined the penny.17 At the same time Edward III also introduced gold coins called the ‘noble’ (worth 80d), half noble (worth 40d) and quarter noble (worth 20d) All of these coins continued to be issued, with their designs virtually unchanged, during the reign of Richard II, and throughout the Lancastrian period.

  In 1464–65, however, Edward IV reformed the English coinage.18 This action seems to have been as contentious and unpopular at that period as changes in currency are today. Overall, Edward IV’s modifications resulted in a reduction of the bullion weight of all English coins.19 The noble and its subdivisions were abolished, and new gold coins were introduced to replace them. These were the ‘ryal’ (120d) together with its half and quarter, and also the ‘angel’ (80d). During the Readeption of Henry VI the ‘angel’ was joined by the ‘angelet’ or half angel (40d). It was also Edward IV – the first monarch of the house of York – who introduced the use of the rose emblem for the first time on English coins, often accompanied by the Yorkist sunburst.20

  One very important fact which must be taken into account relates to the inscriptions on coins at this period. Throughout the fifteenth century all English coins bore the reigning monarch’s name and titles in Latin. However, the king’s regnal number was never included in the coin inscriptions. Also no fifteenth-century English coins ever bore a year date.21

  As we have already noted, no coinage attributed to the Dublin King was ever produced in England. But in Ireland, coins which have been attributed to ‘Edward VI’ actually circulated as currency. The Irish silver coinage of the late fifteenth century was basically similar to that of England in terms of its denominations. Ireland, however, had no gold coinage. The Irish coinage was also distinctive in other respects. For example, although the Irish silver coins had similar face values to those issued in England, they differed from the English currency both in their bullion value and in their designs.

  Actually, for over 100 years (between 1340 and 1460) no Anglo-Irish coins were produced, except for one issue of pennies in 1425–26. This was because the earlier issues of coinage in Ireland had resulted in the export of silver to England and the Continent, adversely affecting the Irish economy. When Edward IV’s government decided to reinstate the issue of Irish currency, one of its priorities was therefore to seek to avoid any repetition of such problems.22

  To avoid the export of bullion from Ireland it was essential to try to ensure that the planned new Irish coinage would be unacceptable in England. One obvious way to achieve this was to make the Irish coins of lower real value than their English equivalents. The other obvious way of ensuring that Irish coins could not creep into England unnoticed was to ensure that they looked different from their English counterparts. In this way Irish coins would appear recognisably ‘foreign’. One curious result of all this is that the Irish silver coins of the Yorkist period are a good deal more imaginative in their design than the rather boring contemporary English issues, whose appearance had remained unchanged for more than a century. However, Irish coins again became very similar in appearance to their English counterparts in the 1470s, with the result that, once more, they began to be exported to England. Indeed, English hoards reveal that Irish coins were imported into England in quite large numbers.

  Our picture of the evolution of the Irish coinage under Edward IV is informed not only by the surviving examples of the coins themselves, but also by documentary evidence. During the period in question, the Irish Parliament produced detailed legislation on the subject of the Irish coinage, and fortunately this has been preserved and published.23 However, the legislation conflicts at times with what appears actually to have been issued in terms of coinage, and we shall return to this important point later.

  In 1461 an agreement was made with one Germyn Lynch to the effect that the latter should mint 1d, 2d and 4d coins, bearing an open crown on the obverse, and with a long cross and pellets on the reverse, together with the name of the mint. These coins were to be struck at Dublin, Trim, Waterford (Dondory), Limerick and Galway.24 The result of the agreement was Edward IV’s ‘crown’ coinage of 1461–63 – though the coins did not bear the king’s name. In 1463 the Irish Parliament legislated that this anonymous ‘crown in a tressure’ coinage should henceforth bear on its obverse an abbreviated version of the inscription Edwardus Dei Gratia Dominus Hibernie.25 At the same time legislation set the weight of the groat at 48 grains. However, it appears that on this and other occasions the legislation in respect of coin weights was probably not carried into effect.26

  In 1465 new instructions were issued. The weights of the coins were again to be slightly reduced (groat = 42.1 grains),27 and Lynch was henceforth instructed to produce ¼d, ½d, 1d, 2d and 4d pieces, bearing an English-style obverse design, which showed a symbolic crowned full-face head of the monarch, with the inscription Edwardus Dei Gratia Dominus Hibernie. However, it is not clear whether these instructions were immediately carried out. Thus some authorities assign a series depicting a cross on a rose (obverse) and a sunburst (reverse) as Edward IV’s third Irish coinage, from 1465 to 1467.28

  In 1467, for what is known as Edward IV’s fourth Irish coinage, the English style ‘crowned full-face bust’ obverse design was introduced, while the reverse was changed to a rose-en-soleil design. At the same time Drogheda and Carlingford were added to the list of authorised mints and the weight of the coins was slightly increased.29 The weight of the Irish groat was now formally set at 45 grains – still lower than the contemporary English standard.

  In 1470 the Irish coinage adopted an English-style reverse design. The weight went down again slightly (groat = 43.6 grains) and the obverse inscription was expanded to read Edwardus Dei Gratia Rex Anglie & Dominus Hibernie.30 Officially the list of authorised mints was reduced to three: Dublin, Trim and Drogheda. However, surviving examples of this coinage show that in fact mints were still functioning at Limerick, Waterford, Cork and Galway. Coins of this type (which, with a minor change in weight, lasted from 1470
to 1478) are more widely preserved than those of the earlier series.

  A statute of 1478 made provision for the issue of a new silver coinage comprising 1d, 2d and 3d coins, but it gave no details of either the design or the weight.31 The coins actually issued at this period did not conform to the specifications of the statute in terms of their face value, for half groats and 3d pieces were not made, in spite of the legislation. Only groats (4d) and pennies were issued. These retained a crowned bust of the king on the obverse, but introduced a new reverse design, which consisted of a rose superimposed upon the centre of a long cross.32 This coinage seems to have continued in production right up to the end of Edward IV’s reign and beyond.33

  In 1482/83 Edward IV was apparently planning to authorise a new standard for the Irish coinage. His surviving indenture on this subject is undated but was probably issued at about the same time as the appointment of Thomas Galmole as master of the Irish mints, that is to say on 7 March 1482/83.34 The indenture made provision for the issue of pennies and halfpennies of the English standard weights. However, it is thought that no such coins were issued. No further changes seem to have taken place in the Irish coinage prior to Edward IV’s demise.35

  In Ireland, as in England, following the death of Edward IV, it seems to be completely impossible to distinguish coins which were minted during the brief reign of Edward V. The accession of Richard III can, however, be discerned, because of the change in the royal name. Richard III seems to have briefly continued in his own name the production of Edward IV’s ‘rose on cross’ coinage. After a short time, however, he appears to have introduced a new groat and half groat, known as the ‘three crowns issue’. This is the key Irish coinage in our present context, because ‘three crowns’ coins continued to be issued for some years – into the reign of Henry VII. Thus these were the Irish coins which were in production, and in use, in 1486 and 1487 – during the period of the Dublin King.