The Last Days of Richard III and the Fate of His DNA

by John Ashdown-Hill

  One female-line granddaughter of Sir Robert Constable and his wife, Catherine Manners, was Margaret Babthorpe. Margaret married Sir Henry Cholmley of Whitby, Yorkshire, and she bore him three sons and seven daughters.6 The third amongst these daughters was Barbara Cholmley. This child, who was probably born in about 1580, may have been named in honour of her grandmother, Barbara Constable.

  FAMILY TREE 5: The line of Barbaras.

  When Barabara Constable had been born, in about 1525, practically everyone in England had been Catholic. The Reformation had as yet scarcely touched the land. Subsequently, however, there had been many changes, culminating in Queen Elizabeth I’s establishment of the Anglican Church, which she perceived as an aurea mediocritas. Not all of her subjects found Elizabeth’s middle way acceptable, however, and there was dissent from both Catholics and Puritans. In Yorkshire, many remained Catholics. Among them was the family of Barbara Cholmley. Thus the little girl was brought up in the old religion.

  In about 1600, Barbara married Thomas Belasyse of Newborough, Yorkshire, the only son and heir of Henry Belasyse, MP for Thirsk, who was to be created a baronet in 1611. As a family, the Belasyses were not, at that time, Catholics. However, the death of Elizabeth I, and the accession of James I and his Catholic consort, Anne of Denmark, was thought at first to offer hope of renewed tolerance to Catholics, and in due course Thomas Belasyse converted to Catholicism, though he has been described as a ‘church papist’.7 He succeeded his father as the second baronet in 1624, and in 1627 he was created first Baron Fauconberg by the new king Charles I. Conspicuously loyal to Charles as the situation in England became ever more polarised and threatening, in 1643 Thomas was elevated to the rank of Viscount Fauconberg. He outlived his king, and died in 1653, in an England then ruled by Oliver Cromwell. Barbara Cholmley, however, witnessed little of this drama. She had died in January 1619 (before her husband had even succeeded to his baronetcy) having born Thomas at least two sons and two daughters.

  Although the line of her elder son would inherit the title of viscount, and that of her younger son the title of baron, it is Barbara Cholmley’s daughters who concern us here. It was her elder daughter, Barbara Belasyse, who maintained the female line of Richard III’s mitochondrial DNA, which survives to the present day. On 7 July 1631, at the age of about 22, Barbara Belasyse married Henry Slingsby, the second son (and, since his elder brother’s death in 1617, the heir) of Sir Henry Slingsby of Scriven, Yorkshire. The young Henry Slingsby was a graduate of Queens’ College Cambridge, and sometime MP for Knaresborough. He succeeded to his father’s estates in 1634 and was created a baronet in 1638.

  Unlike her mother, Barbara Belasyse lived long enough to profit from her husband’s new rank, and she became a lady. Sir Henry Slingsby’s religious beliefs are somewhat difficult to disentangle. He is said to have much disliked the views of the Scottish Covenanters, and in general he appeared to be a practising Anglican of somewhat Arminian tendancy, favouring reverence in worship, while nevertheless expressing disapproval of ‘bowing and adoring towards the altar’ and other ‘new ceremonies.’8 At the same time, however, he opposed the clerical policies of Archbishop Laud, to the extent that he supported the exclusion of the bishops from the House of Lords. Henry Slingsby certainly married the daughter of a Catholic. Indeed, it is virtually certain that Barbara Belasyse was herself a Catholic. Moreover, although he showed no overt sign of it during his lifetime (professing himself an Anglican) Sir Henry, also, is reported to have been a Catholic, at least at the time of his death. Subsequently, Henry and Barbara’s eldest son, Sir Thomas Slingsby, was a strong supporter of Charles II’s overtly Catholic younger brother, the Duke of York (the future King James II), standing by him through the Exclusion crisis.

  As for Sir Henry Slingsby’s own politics, he was outspokenly Royalist, stating in Parliament that to refuse to pay the king ship money was tantamount to an act of rebellion. This was a point of view to which many of his fellow MPs took very vehement exception. When the Civil War started, Slingsby left London to join Charles I at York. He commanded a regiment of foot, and fought for the king at Marston Moor and at Naseby. His property was confiscated by Parliament (though relatives purchased it, to hold it in trust for his children). Barbara, his wife, was not, however, forced to endure the discomforts of this confiscation, having died in 1641.

  After the execution of the king in January 1649, Sir Henry Slingsby remained in contact with the Royalist underground, and delivered a secret letter from the future Charles II to Lady Fairfax (who was a connection of his late wife’s family – Barbara Belasyse (Slingsby’s) paternal grandmother having been a Fairfax). Eventually, and perhaps inevitably, Sir Henry was arrested and tried at Westminster for treason against the new state. On 8 June 1658 he was beheaded on Tower Hill. His descendant, Joy Brown (Ibsen), once commented to me that she found it intriguing to have ‘an ancestor, Sir Henry Slingsby, beheaded on Tower Hill in 1658 “for his loyalty”. – What an interesting age.’9

  Barbara Belasyse (Slingsby)’s daughter, Barbara Slingsby, married Sir John Talbot of Lacock, Wiltshire, thus becoming Lady Talbot. Their family home, Laycock Abbey, had originally been an Augustinian nunnery founded in the thirteenth century. John Talbot belonged to a cadet line of the descendants of the great John Talbot.

  As we have seen, Barbara’s family was Catholic. The main line of the Talbots of Shrewsbury also adhered to the old religion, but some cadet Talbot lines (including that which leads to the present Earl of Shrewsbury) adopted Anglicanism. The religion of Barbara Belasyse’s husband is, therefore, uncertain. It is possible that he was an Anglican. Indeed, it seems to be at about this period that the family line which we are tracing finally parted company with the old religion. John Talbot and Barbara Belasyse produced two daughters: Anne and Barbara Talbot. Anne, the elder daughter, married Sir John Ivory, MP, of Wexford. As for Barbara Talbot, on 11 July 1689, at the church of St Martin-in-the-Fields, she married Henry Yelverton, Lord Grey. Henry’s title carried with it the priviledge of carrying the golden spurs at coronations, and Henry had done so in 1685, at the coronation of James II.

  However, Henry Yelverton deserted the Stuart king in 1688, giving his support to James’ son-in-law and elder daughter, William and Mary. Henry went on to carry the spurs at the coronation of the new, Protestant sovereigns, and in 1690 the new king, William III, gave the recently married Lord Grey the title of Viscount Longueville. The new viscount once again carried the spurs at the coronation of Queen Anne, and he served as gentleman of the bedchamber to her husband, Prince George of Denmark, until his early death, in 1704. His widow (who had borne her husband two sons and one daughter) long outlived him, dying in 1763, at the age of well over 90.

  The will of the Right Honourable Barbara, Viscountess Longueville, dated 13 July 1759 and proved on 5 February 1763, is preserved in the National Archives.10 The dowager viscountess desired to be buried beside her husband privately and without fuss. Twelve men were to attend her corpse and there was to be a coach provided for her women servants. The sum of 20s was to be paid to the minister of every village through which her body passed on its last journey, for distribution to the local poor. The bulk of her estate was divided between her surviving younger son, the Hon. Henry Yelverton, and her grandson, the second Earl of Sussex (her elder son having predecessed her). The date of death of her daughter, Barbara Yelverton (Calthorpe), is not known, but it seems virtually certain that she too had predeceased her mother, since nothing is left to her in the will. To her daughter’s daughter, Lady Gough (née Barbara Calthorpe), however, the old lady left the sum of £100, ‘and also my little japan cabinet in my chamber and my red and buff damask bed and the two leaf screen which was my daughter Yelverton’s’.11 There were various bequests to servants, and in particular ‘my poor servant Elizabeth Cramp’ was to have £10, together with all the viscountess’ clothing (except her morning dress and the underwear which went with it). Elizabeth Cramp was also to have ‘the chest of drawers in he
r bed chamber, a wainscot cupboard, and all the useful things in the closet by my chamber (except plate), together with my books of devotion’. As for her porcelain, her pictures and the rest of her chests and cabinets, they were to be held in trust for the young earl of Sussex by Lady Gough’s husband, Sir Henry Gough, Bart. The will was signed ‘B. Longueville’, and was witnessed by D. Wright, by the picturesquely named John Lickorish, and by Thomas Harris.

  It was Viscountess Longueville’s only daughter, Barbara Yelverton, who carried on the mtDNA line of Richard III, marrying (as his second wife) Reynolds Calthorpe. The latter had acquired his seat of Elvetham from his first wife (and first cousin), the only daughter and heiress of Sir Robert Reynolds.12 The daughter of Barbara Yelverton and Reynolds Calthorpe was Barbara Calthorpe who, as we have just seen, inherited a laquered cabinet, a damask bed and a screen from her grandmother under the terms of the latter’s will. Unbeknown to her, Barbara Calthorpe had also inherited old Lady Longueville’s mitochondrial DNA.

  Barbara Calthorpe married Sir Henry Gough of Edgbaston, first baronet, and Barbara Gough-Calthorpe, the elder of their two daughters, was born in 1744. Barbara Gough-Calthorpe must have known her great grandmother, Lady Longueville, for she was already 19 years of age when that elderly aristocrat (then rapidly approaching her century) died at Brandon in Warwickshire.

  Barbara Gough-Calthorpe came from a hybrid background. Her father, Sir Henry Gough, was a wealthy merchant while her mother was the daughter of a county family with estates in Norfolk and Suffolk. Barbara’s maternal inheritance, of course, comprised more than status, for the mtDNA which her mother had inherited from Viscountess Longueville was the mtDNA of Catherine de Roët, of Cecily Neville and of Richard III. This genetic inheritance was transmitted by Lady Gough to her two daughters: Barbara Gough-Calthorpe and her younger sister, Charlotte.

  Barbara Gough-Calthorpe married, according to the lights of the time, somewhat beneath her. Her husband, Isaac Spooner, was rich, but he was an ironmaster, merchant and banker from nearby Birmingham, with a pedigree which was unremarkable. His family fortune was a recent phenomenon. It had been founded by his father, Abraham, and was then extended by Isaac himself. By contrast Barbara’s younger sister, Charlotte Gough-Calthorpe (1747–83) enjoyed greater marital success, acquiring as a husband a baronetted MP who conferred upon his fortunate spouse the title of Lady Palmer.

  When she married Isaac Spooner in 1770, Charlotte’s elder sister, Barbara, acquired no special matrimonial handle to her name. Nevertheless, Mr and Mrs Spooner ranked among the leading citizens of Birmingham. They lived at nearby Elmdon Hall, and enjoyed the luxury of a second house in fashionable Bath, though the society which surrounded them there was evidently regarded as less than brilliant, since one visitor uncharitably described their Bath house as ‘the very temple of dullness’.

  Barbara and Isaac Spooner had a large family. The majority of their ten children were boys. Curiously, one of these was given the name ‘Richard’; a name which was in Barbara’s family, for she also had a brother called Richard. Is it possible that those who named these boys had some inkling of their family connection with Richard III? Probably not. In any case, the boys were a genetic dead end. However, there were girls in the family too, and these were capable of passing on into the future the inherited DNA of Catherine de Roët and Richard III.

  Barbara Ann Spooner was the third of the ten children of Isaac and Barbara Spooner, and she was born in 1777. She possessed a dark beauty, as we know both from her surviving portrait by Russell, and from contemporary descriptions of her. Those who knew her described her as pretty, pleasing and handsome. As to her character, we are told that she was a pious, sweet-tempered girl who had ‘considerable humility and a mind rather highly embellished than strongly cultivated’.13

  In the spring of 1797 the 20-year-old Barbara Spooner met a 37-year-old bachelor, the slave trade abolitionist William Wilberforce. Wilberforce, who until this point had appeared intent on remaining single (following a previous unsuccessful relationship) seems, during the winter of 1796/97 to have changed his mind. In Bath he confided his desire to find a partner to his friend Babington, who in response mentioned to him the name of Miss Spooner. Shortly thereafter, coincidentally as it seemed to Wilberforce (though in fact Babington may have given Barbara a hint), a letter reached Wilberforce asking for his advice in spiritual matters. The letter was from Barbara Spooner.

  The entries in Wilberforce’s private diary chart the progress of the affair from his point of view. For a while Wilberforce agonised over what he should do, but on the Sunday after Easter he wrote Barbara a proposal of marriage. ‘That night I had a formal favourable answer.’14 On the morning of Tuesday 30 May 1797 they were married, quietly, at the parish church of Walcot, Bath. Barbara had two bridesmaids, and after the ceremony they dined at her father’s house. There was no honeymoon as such, and that night Barbara asked her new husband to join her in her prayers, following which they went to bed early. The following day the couple set off on a four-day tour of the schools in the Mendips run by Wilberforce’s friend Hannah More. This somewhat unusual wedding journey seems to have passed off well enough, and Wilberforce confided his opinion, at the end of the trip, that ‘there seems to be entire coincidence in our intimacy and interests and pursuits’.15

  Furneaux, one of William Wilberforce’s modern biographers, has written that ‘it is difficult to be fair to Barbara’.16 Unfortunately, Furneaux seems sometimes to be naively uncritical in his evaluation of his sources. The comments that he quotes from Wilberforce’s wildly jealous friend, Marianne Thornton, for example, tell us at least as much about her as they do about Barbara! The facts which emerge from these hostile comments are that Barbara idolised her husband, and was unhappy when he was away from her. (A trait which William, at least, may have rather liked, since few human beings enjoy the feeling that their presence is readily expendable.)

  Probably Barbara was by nature an anxious person. As the years passed this tendency seems to have increased, and she worried a great deal about her children. However, the early deaths of her two daughters may help to make such anxieties more understandable. The Wilberforces had six children: four sons and two daughters, all of whom inherited from their mother the mitochondrial DNA of Richard III. The eldest son, another William, was born on 21 July 1798 (he lived until 1879) Robert (1802–57), Samuel (1805–73) and Henry (1807–73) followed. The two girls, Barbara (1799–1821) and Elizabeth (‘Lizzie’ 1801–31) fit into the family tree between William and the three youngest sons. The elder daughter, Barbara Wilberforce, died unmarried and childless in her early 20s. Lizzie’s life, though also short, lasted a little longer, and when she died she left a daughter of her own.

  In January 1831 Lizzie married John James who, at the time, was an impoverished young curate. Her marriage proved short-lived. She quickly became pregnant, and bore her child towards the end of the year. Subsequently she fell ill with a chest infection, and although her husband brought her from their home in Yorkshire to stay on the Isle of Wight, where it was thought the climate would suit her better, in fact her condition continued to deteriorate. Early the following year Lizzie died. Sending Lord Carrington the sad news on 23 March 1832, her father wrote: ‘my poor son-in-law and his little infant are indeed much to be pitied’.17

  The baptismal register of Rawmarsh, Yorkshire, where Rev. John James was curate, reveals that on 11 December 1831 his daughter by Lizzie Wilberforce was baptised Barbara Wilberforce James. No doubt her first name was chosen in honour of her grandmother and her deceased aunt. She grew up to marry Captain Charles Colquhoun Pye in 1860, at Avington, Berkshire, where her father John James had been the rector since the late 1830s. However, Barbara Wilberforce James left no heirs to carry forward the genetic heritage of Richard III and his family.18 To follow the mitochondrial DNA of Richard III forward into the twentieth century we must now abandon the descendants of Barbara Spooner and William Wilberforce, and turn instead to the descendan
ts of Barbara’s younger sister, Anne Spooner.

  Unlike her sister Barbara, Anne Spooner did not attract the jealous comments of other women. Her husband, an evangelical clergyman, the Rev. Edward Vansittart Neale, was never a well-known figure in the political and social world of his day, and no detailed portraits of the couple, either painted or verbal, have come down to us. Our one surviving glimpse of Anne seems to be a brief and anonymous mention of her by one of her granddaughters. It relates to a period near the end of Anne’s life, when she was already more than 80 years old (for, like many members of the family which we are following, Anne Spooner was a long-lived lady). Born in 1780, in the reign of George III, she died at the age of 93, in 1873; the thirty-sixth year of Queen Victoria’s reign.

  FAMILY TREE 6: The Wilberforce connection.

  Anne, it seems, remained true to her chosen métier as the wife of an evangelical clergyman, and perhaps true also to her upbringing at her parents’ home in Bath, which we have already heard described unflatteringly as ‘the very temple of dullness’. Her granddaughter, Alice Strettell, then aged about 15, found herself sent home to England by her parents (who as we shall shortly see, were then living in Italy) in order that she might attend a boarding school in Brighton. She looked forward to her holidays, when she might return to the Continent and to her parents: