2 CC, p. 173.
3 BL, Har 433 II, pp. 134, 145, 149–50.
4 Since arriving in England, Albany had proved more a hindrance than a help to Richard. Richard must have already had doubts over Albany’s competence after his abandonment of the Scottish campaign in 1482, but was hardly pleased when one of Albany’s ships seized two Burgundian wine ships bound for London on 12 March 1484, robbing them of goods worth £375. Richard was later forced to make restitution to the unfortunate wine merchant involved, who himself was imprisoned by Albany for six weeks, TNA, E404/78/3/26. A sign that Richard no longer regarded the pair as influential guests came in his decision to cut the annual pension granted Douglas by Edward IV from £500 to £200. Cal Docs Scot IV, nos. 1494, 1496, 1497; Norman MacDougall, ‘Richard III and James III’, in Hammond (ed.), Richard III: Loyalty, Lordship and Law, p. 167.
5 CC, p. 173.
6 L. Visser-Fuchs, ‘Richard III, Tydeus of Calydon and their Boars in the Latin Oration of Archibald Whitelaw, Archdeacon of St Andrews, at Nottingham on 12 September 1484’, The Ricardian, vol. 17 (2007), pp. 1–22.
7 Ibid. This is hardly surprising; having had over ten years’ experience of border warfare, Richard was perhaps the most qualified person to do so. Richard understood well that his subjects near the border longed for peace: in 1483, he had given private authorisation for Lord Dacre and Sir Thomas Percy to make local truces along the borders. Clause 16 of the truce provided for the provision of justice for the border area, linked to the Council of the North in England and the Scottish king’s council, a move in which Richard’s own hand has been detected.
8 TNA, C81/1531/62.
9 TNA, C81/1392/14.
10 TNA, C81/1392/16; KB9/369/19, 22; CPR, 1476–85, p. 393.
11 TNA, KB9/952/9.
12 GC, p. 236.
13 Durham, Dean and Chapter Muniments, Reg Parv III, fo. 188v, printed in Pollard, Richard III and the Princes in the Tower, p. 238.
14 Calendar of Ancient Deeds iv A10182, A7654, iii A4303; Registrum Thome Bourgchier, p. 65.
15 BL, Har 433, fos. 45v, 286v.
16 CPR, 1476–85, p. 479.
17 Hanham, Richard III and His Early Historians, pp. 122–3; White, ‘The Death and Burial of Henry VI: Part 2’, The Ricardian, vol. 6, no. 79 (1982) pp. 100–18.
18 W. H. St John Hope, ‘The Discovery of the Remains of King Henry VI in St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle’, Archaeologica, vol. 62, part 2, pp. 533–42; J. Ashdown-Hill, The Last Days of Richard III and the Fate of His DNA, Stroud, 2013, p. 52.
19 Edwards, Itinerary of King Richard III, p. 23.
20 Ibid., pp. 25–7.
21 Foedera, ed. Rymer, vol. XII, pp. 226–7.
22 Duke Francis even had to grant compensation of £200 tournois to the widowed Georget le Cuff, whose husband was killed by one of the exiles. The chronicler Commynes noted how the exiled community was becoming a financial burden upon Francis: in June 1484, he gave £3,100 tournois to the Englishmen for their lodging; in addition, he paid a pension of £400 a month to the marquess of Dorset and his men, £200 to John Halewell, and £100 each to Sir Edward Woodville and the Willoughbys.
23 Vatican, MS Urbs Lat 498, fo. 227r; Vergil, p. 205.
24 CPR, 1476–85, pp. 493–4.
25 TNA, C81/1531/3.
26 C. S. L. Davies, ‘Richard III, Brittany, and Henry Tudor 1483–1485’, Nottingham Medieval Studies, vol. 37 (1993), p. 116.
27 J. Allanic, Le Prisonnier de la tour d’Elven; ou le jeunesse, Vannes, 1909, p. 38.
28 Ibid., p. 49.
29 Vatican, MS Urbs Lat 498, fo. 227r–v; Vergil, p. 206.
30 Vatican, MS Urbs Lat 498, fo. 227v; Vergil, p. 207.
31 Archives de la Loire-Atlantique, E212/93, fos. 15r, 17v.
32 A. Spont, ‘La marine française sous le règne de Charles VIII, 1483–1493’, Revue des questions historiques, new series II (1894), p. 393; Antonovics, ‘Henry VII, King of England’, p. 173.
33 Proces-verbaux des séances du Conseil de Régence du Roi Charles VIII, ed. A. Bernier, Paris, 1836, pp. 128, 164.
18. REBELS AND TRAITORS
1 TNA, E404/78/3/49. Colyns seems to have been some kind of professional bounty hunter; in January 1482, under orders from Edward IV, he put to sea with sixty armed mariners, ‘defensibly armed and arrayed’, ‘to take and oppress divers rovers and ill disposed persons’. Colyns soon arrested John Myles and others, for which he was rewarded with £97 and £3 for the wages for his men. TNA, E404/78/2/44.
2 TNA, C81/1392/17.
3 HMC, 2nd Report, p. 91.
4 TNA, C81/1392/17.
5 TNA, C81/1392/20, 21.
6 T. H. Lloyd, The English Wool Trade in the Middle Ages, Cambridge, 1977, pp. 281–2.
7 A. Hanham, The Celys and Their World: An English Merchant Family of the Fifteenth Century, Cambridge, 1985, p. 299.
8 Lyell and Watney (eds.), Acts of Court, pp. 157–8.
9 Ibid., pp. 159–60.
10 TNA, KB9/952/3, 9; GC, pp. 235–6.
11 Fabyan, New Chronicles, pp. 671–2.
12 TNA, C81/1392/19.
13 TNA, C67/53 m.6; CRO, FA 7, fo. 26; Horrox, Richard III: A Study in Service, p. 279.
14 Vatican, MS Urbs Lat 498 fo. 228r; Vergil, p. 208.
15 Vatican, MS Urbs Lat 498, fo. 228v.
16 Edwards, Itinerary of King Richard III, p. 27.
17 TNA, KB9/953/2,15,17–18.
18 TNA, C82/329/25.
19 TNA, C244/129/144A; 244/136/92; CPR 1476–85, p. 533.
20 Horrox, Richard III: A Study in Service, p. 279.
21 Virgoe, ‘Sir John Risley’, pp. 142–3; Horrox, Richard III: A Study in Service, p. 282. Risley was also an old associate of John Fortescue, who seems to have encouraged the rising at the same time as assisting in the earl of Oxford’s escape from Hammes. Fortescue’s home was at Ponsbourne in Hertfordshire, close to the property of other rebels, though Risley also had close ties with Oxford as the steward of the de Vere lordship of Lavenham. The initial idea for the rebellion could not have come from the imprisoned earl; instead it seems a more likely accomplice was John Morton, the wily bishop of Ely, who had links with both the Brandons and Fortescue.
22 Edwards, Itinerary of King Richard III, p. 27.
23 At Canterbury that same month, 12d was spent on ‘leavened bread allowed for the Lord Bastard riding to Calais’ as well as 3s 4d ‘paid for a pike given to Master Brackenbury Constable of the Tower who at that time returned from Calais from the Lord Bastard’. City of Canterbury, Chamberlains’ Accounts, Michaelmas 1484–Michaelmas 1485, fo. 26.
24 BL, Har 433 I, p. 230.
25 CPR, 1476–85, p. 535.
26 TNA, KB 9/369/5.
27 TNA, C255/8/7.
28 TNA, KB9/369/5, 24–5.
29 BL, Har 433 II, p. 183.
30 YHB, I, pp. 347–8.
31 BL, Additional MS 12,520, fo. 2r; BL, Har MS 787, fo. 2v.
32 BL, Harleian MS 787 fo. 3; BL, Additional MS 12,520, fo. 3r–3v.
33 BL, Additional MS 19,398, fo. 33.
34 A. Spont, ‘La marine française sous le règne de Charles VIII, 1483–1493’ Revue des questions historiques, new series 11 (1894), p. 393; Antonovics, ‘Henry VII, King of England’, p. 173.
35 BL, Har 433 III, p. 125. The Commission for the County of Gloucester survives: ‘For the safety and defence of our kingdom of England against the malice of rebels and our foreign enemies who intend to attack various parts of our said kingdom near the coast, we have appointed you jointly and separately to array and inspect all and singular men-at-arms and all other defensible men, both light horsemen and archers, dwelling within the said county, and when they have been arrayed and inspected in such array, to cause them to be set and put in thousands, hundreds and scores or otherwise as may be convenient and necessary, and lead them or cause them to be led to our presence with all possible speed to attack and expel the aforesaid rebels and enemies from time to time as the need arises
from imminent peril. Also to hold and superintend diligently the muster or review of the same men-at-arms, light horsemen and archers from time to time as need shall arise. And we enjoin and command you and each one of you as strictly as we may that on the sight of these presents you will at once cause to be armed and arrayed and to come before you all and singular the defensible and able-bodied men of the said county and array and arm them according to their grades and ranks and when they have been thus arrayed and armed, to keep them in such array. Ibid., pp. 127–8.
36 Ibid., pp. 124–8. ‘Forasmuch as the king our sovereign lord hath certain knowledge that Peter Bishop of Exeter, Thomas Grey late Marquess of Dorset, Jasper late Earl of Pembroke, John late Earl of Oxford and Sir Edward Woodville with other divers his rebels and traitors disabled and attainted by authority of the high court of Parliament, of whom many be known for open murderers, avoutrers and extortioners contrary to truth, honour and nature, have forsaken their natural country taking them first to be under the obeisance of the Duke of Brittany and to him promised certain things which by him and his council were thought things too greatly and unnatural and abominable for them to grant, observe, keep and perform. And therefore the same utterly refused. They seeing that the said duke and his council would not aid and succour them nor follow their ways, privily departed out of his country into France, there taking them to be under the obeisance of the king’s ancient enemy Charles calling himself king of France.’
37 Ibid., pp. 124–5.
38 Ibid., p. 124.
39 No date had been set for any troops to muster, only for the men to be prepared to ‘do the king’s grace service … when they shall be thereunto warned and commanded without any excuse’. On 18 December, however, further instructions were sent to commissioners of array in Surrey, Middlesex and Hertfordshire, to explain how ‘forasmuch as we have late sent unto you certain instructions for the direction of our said county and subjects of the same against the malice of our rebels and traitors if the case require’, the commissioners were now to call all knights and squires together, and to explain that they were to be prepared to journey ‘unto us upon half a day warning if any sudden arrival fortune of our said rebels and traitors’. The commissioners were to confirm in writing ‘showing every man’s deposition and of what number of persons of every of them we shall be assured, and that this be done with all diligence as ye will answer unto us at your perils’. BL, Har 433 II, p. 182.
40 Vatican, MS Urbs Lat 498, fo. 229v.
41 CC, pp. 174–5.
42 TNA, C244/136/130, 132; CPR, 1476–85, pp. 511, 543.
43 BL, Har 433 I, p. 268; CPR, 1476–85, pp. 504, 507, 534.
44 CPR, 1476–85, p. 528.
45 Vatican, MS Urbs Lat 498, fo. 229v; Vergil, pp. 210–11.
46 Vatican, MS Urbs Lat 498, fo. 229v.
47 TNA, C81/1530/27; TNA, C244/134/31; CCR, 1476–85, no. 1393; Horrox, Richard III: A Study in Service, p. 274.
48 BL, Har I, p. 287; Horrox, Richard III: A Study in Service, pp. 282–3.
49 Campbell, Materials for a History, vol. I, p. 274.
50 CC, p. 173.
51 Ibid.
52 Ibid.
19. ‘GRIEF AND DISPLEASURE’
1 CC, p. 175.
2 Vatican, MS Urbs Lat 498, fo. 228v.
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid.
5 CC, p. 175.
6 Ibid.
7 L. Visser-Fuchs, ‘Where Did Elizabeth of York Find Consolation?’, The Ricardian, vol. 9, no. 122 (September 1993), pp. 469–74.
8 Buck, History of King Richard the Third, ed. Kincaid, pp. 190–91.
9 A. Hanham, ‘Sir George Buck and Princess Elizabeth’s Letter: A Problem in Detection’, The Ricardian, vol. 7, no. 97 (June 1987), p. 399.
10 CC, p. 175.
11 BL, Har 433 II, p. 216.
12 Ibid.
13 TNA, DL 42/20 fo. 67Ar.
14 TNA, E404/78/3/45.
15 CC, pp. 174–5; GC, p. 234.
16 TNA, E404/78/3/47.
17 Williams, ‘The Portuguese Connection’, pp. 138–45, 235–6; Barnfield, ‘Diriment Impediments, Dispensations and Divorce’, pp. 95–8.
18 J. Ashdown-Hill, The Last Days of Richard III and the Fate of His DNA, Stroud, 2013, p. 26.
19 A. S. Marques, ‘Alvaro Lopes de Cheves: A Portuguese Source’, The Ricardian Bulletin, Autumn 2008, pp. 25–7; J. Ashdown-Hill, The Last Days of Richard III, pp. 28–30.
20 Lyell and Watney (eds.), Acts of Court, pp. 173–4.
21 GC, p. 234.
22 CC, pp. 175–7.
23 Ibid., p. 177.
24 YHB, I, pp. 359–60.
25 Vatican, MS Urbs Lat 498, fo. 229v.
26 Vatican, MS Urbs Lat 498, fo. 230r.
27 Richard wrote to the bishop of London on 22 January 1485 about how the cleric Richard Fox had been granted the advowson of the parish church of St Dunstan in Stepney, in spite of the fact that Fox was ‘now and that time being with our great rebel Henry ap Tudder, called Earl of Richmond’. Richard now took the side of the priest Degory Watur, who claimed the living for himself, and ‘has mournfully complained to us and our Council, beseeching us to provide a fitting remedy in this matter’. When the bishop refused to grant the office to Watur, sending a message to the king that it had not been proved that Fox was with Tudor, Richard wrote to confirm how ‘we certainly know’ that Fox was ‘with our said rebel to counsel, assist and help as much as he is able, against us and our kingdom, in disturbance of us and our peace and all our faithful subjects’. BL, Har 433 I, pp. 200–201.
28 Vatican, MS Urbs Lat 498, fo. 230r.
29 P. Pelicier, Essai sur le gouvernement de la Dame de Beaujeu, Chartres, 1882, pp. 252–3; Antonovics, ‘Henry VII, King of England’, p. 175
30 Michael J. Jones, ‘The Myth of 1485: Did France Really Put Henry Tudor on the Throne’, in The English Experience in France, c.1450–1558: War, Diplomacy and Cultural Exchange, ed. D. Grummitt, Aldershot, 2002, p. 103.
31 Commynes, Memoirs, p. 397.
32 BL, Har 433 II, p. 189.
33 TNA, E404/78/3/32. A ship, the Nicholas of London, was purchased for 100 marks from a London merchant, Thomas Graston, while another, the Margaret of Scotland, was purchased from Exeter for £40. TNA, E404/78/3/41, dated 31 January 1485; BL, Har 433 II, p. 196, 2 February 1485. Two London merchants were reimbursed £100 when the king, ‘by the advise of our council’, appointed Lord Scrope to requisition their ship, the Grace Dieu, which they had planned since the previous summer to sail from Dartmouth to Italy. The ship was now to be taken for the king’s use, ‘for the safekeeping of the sea and the defence of this our realm against the malicious disposition of our rebels and traitors being beyond the sea’. Another ship, the George, was also purchased from the merchants for £500, though the king at that moment in time could only raise £300 in part payment. TNA, E404/78/3/40, dated 31 January 1485.
34 Vatican, MS Urbs Lat 498, fo. 229r.
35 BL, Har 433 I, p. 133; BL, Har 433 II, pp. 102–3; BL, Har 433 III, p. 145.
36 TNA, C81/1531/2; BL, Har 433 III, pp. 144–5.
37 BL, Har 433 II, p. 197.
38 BL, Har 433 I, p. 282.
39 BL Har 433 iii p. 29; Letters and Papers of Richard III and Henry VI, vol I. pp. 11–16.
40 TNA, C 76/169/m.26; Foedera, ed. Rymer, vol. XII, pp. 265–6; BL, Har 433 I, p. 271.
41 TNA, E404/78/3/45. In addition, on 15 March, Robert Brackenbury was paid £215 7s 5d for his services, including ‘in his journeys riding to Sandwich, Dover and Maidstone’, as well as ‘keeping and finding of our prisoners within our said Tower of London as for the provision and reparation of our ordnances and artilleries’. TNA, E404/78/3/46. On 29 March, the master of the ordnance was ordered to deliver fifty bows, a hundred sheaves of arrows, a barrel of gunpowder, fifty armed spears and three carts of ordnance ‘for the defence of Harwich’. BL, Har 433 II, p. 223. On 10 April, Christopher Colyns, by now constable of Queenborough Castle, was give
n authority to command masons and tilers, and procure stones and carriages for works there. On 29 April, for ‘the hasty speed of the king’s works in the Tower of London and Westminster’ a commission was issued to seize as many carpenters and wood sawers, and to fell as much oak, elms and timber as needed. BL, Har 433 II, p. 223, 29 April 1485.
42 CC, p. 173.
43 BL, Har 433 III, pp. 116–20.
44 Ibid., pp. 118–20.
45 In February 1485, William Catesby was granted a warrant to fell wood in Rockingham forest and sell ‘by his wisdom shall be thought expedient’ for the reparation of the castle there. In February, two squires of the king’s body, Richard Crofts and Thomas Fowler, were ordered to pay for the cost of a mutton, worth £6 5s, ‘to the use of our household’, with a promise that the sum would be repaid by a ‘woodsale … to be made in our county of Buckingham’. In March, Queenborough Castle in Kent had nearby woods raided so that its drawbridge at four gates could be rebuilt, and porters’ lodgings repaired. Sir Richard Huddlestone, having been appointed constable of Beaumaris Castle, was given a warrant ‘to have as much wood for fuel to be taken of our gift’ to serve his household for the next two years. BL, Har 433 II, pp. 202, 203, 104.
46 Horrox, Richard III: A Study in Service, p. 283.
47 BL, Har 433 II, p. 191.
48 BL, Har 433 III, pp. 128–30.
49 CC, pp. 173–5.
50 Horrox, Richard III: A Study in Service, p. 307.
51 TNA, E401/952; Steel 1954, p. 320; Horrox, Richard III: A Study in Service, pp. 306–7.
52 A. Steel, The Receipt of the Exchequer 1377–1485, Cambridge, 1954, pp. 320–21.
53 Davies, ‘Bishop John Morton’, pp. 9–10; PRO, C244/136/27, 28, 20; CCR, 1476–85, no. 1456.
54 BL, Har 433 II, p. 215; TNA, C244/134/119.
55 Foedera, ed. Rymer, vol. XII, p. 255–71.
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