Ricardian Bulletin Ricardian Bulletin

Ricardian
Bulletin
Magazine of the Richard III Society
ISSN 0308 4337
June 2011
Ricardian
Bulletin
June 2011
Contents
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From the Chairman
Society News and Notices
Introducing our new Business Manager
The Ricardian Chronicle
Bosworth in 2011
Study weekend at York on the de la Pole family, by David and Wendy Johnson
Celebrating Paul Murray Kendall
News and Reviews (conference on the second battle of St Albans; Blood and Roses weekend
at Oxford; Tower of London seminar on Society at War in the 15th century; Fatal Colours
and Blood Red Roses at the Mansion House, York; Richard III by The Propeller Company)
Crazy Christmas Query, by Phil Stone
Sometimes two wrongs do make a right, by Heather Falvey
Richard III and Anna Dixie, by John Saunders
Media Retrospective
The Man Himself: Some ‗Servants and Lovers‘ of Richard III in his youth, by Charles Ross
Apple Juice fit for a Duchess, by Tig Lang
Papers from the York Study Weekend
The Chaucer network of cousins, by Lesley Boatwright (p.44)
Chaucer and de la Pole heraldry, by Peter Hammond (p.48)
Correspondence
The Barton Library
From the Visits Team
Branches and Groups
New Members and Recently Deceased Members
Obituaries
Calendar
Contributions
Contributions are welcomed from all members. All contributions should be sent to Lesley Boatwright.
Bulletin Press Dates
15 January for March issue; 15 April for June issue; 15 July for September issue; 15 October for December issue.
Articles should be sent well in advance.
Bulletin & Ricardian Back Numbers
Back issues of The Ricardian and the Bulletin are available from Judith Ridley. If you are interested in obtaining any
back numbers, please contact Mrs Ridley to establish whether she holds the issue(s) in which you are interested.
For contact details see back inside cover of the Bulletin
The Ricardian Bulletin is produced by the Bulletin Editorial Committee,
Printed by Micropress Printers Ltd. © Richard III Society, 2011
From the Chairman
I
n March, I referred to the tragic flooding in Australia, since when we have had the equally
tragic earthquake in New Zealand and the tsunami in Japan. We have members in both
countries and thankfully, as far as we know, all are safe. (I know that one member in
Christchurch NZ was actually rescued from one of the buildings that collapsed.)
Here in the United Kingdom, of course, we have just had a splendid Royal Wedding, with all
the pageantry and celebrations to enjoy, and this edition includes another recipe from Tig Lang,
this time for ‗Apple Juice fit for a Duchess‘, which somehow seems very topical.
In April, we had another successful study weekend in York, this time looking at the de la Pole
family. In this issue, we give details of two of the talks given, with others to follow in the future.
As well as Tig‘s recipe, this edition also comes with the usual comprehensive range of news and
reviews to make for great reading.
We continue our commemoration of the centenary of Paul Murray Kendall‘s birth with a
report on the visit to Bosworth by his daughters Callie and Gillian, who also provide some
fascinating responses to the questions we asked them. The importance of Kendall‘s biography of
King Richard can never be overstated. With its heavy reliance on primary sources, it made a
significant contribution to the arguments for a favorable view of Richard. It is a pleasure,
therefore, to announce that the Society will be providing a memorial bench at Bosworth in
Kendall‘s memory. This will be in place for the battle‘s anniversary in August and we are
hopeful that Callie and Gillian will be able to come over for its unveiling.
It is with much sadness that we record the deaths of Brian Moorhen and Peter Lee. Brian was
our Membership Manager for a number of years and Peter was a former Chairman of the London
Branch. Our sympathies go to Wendy Moorhen and Diana Lee and all their families.
Diana stepped down from her role as Business Manager recently and we are grateful for her
work over the past two years. We advertised the post in the last Bulletin and I am very pleased to
welcome Stephen York who answered the call and has now taken it on. I am also pleased to note
that the Ricardian Chronicle Project is making good progress with Toni Mount and Helen
Challinor joining its management team. Let me encourage members who want to get involved in
research to sign up for the project.
It gives me great pleasure to announce that we have a new edition of Ricardian Britain (see
page 4). The first edition came out as long ago as 1968, and we acknowledge the pioneering
contribution of Carolyn Hammond and Val Alliez, the founding editors. This edition is on-line as
part of the website, which will give it much greater flexibility and enable us to make changes as
they become necessary.
The bi-annual Australasian Convention meets in Melbourne this August and we wish our
members down under well and look forward to hearing all about it in December‘s Bulletin. There
will, of course, be many Society events over the coming months, including the annual Bosworth
memorial service at Sutton Cheney. It will be the five hundred and twenty-sixth anniversary of
the battle, and I hope to meet many of you there on Bosworth Sunday, 21 August.
2
Society News and Notices
Richard III Society Members’ Day and Annual General Meeting
Saturday 1 October 2011
Notice is hereby given that the 2011 Annual General Meeting of the Richard III
Society will be held on Saturday 1 October 2011 at the School or Oriental and African
Studies (SOAS), Malet Street (off Russell Square), London WC1H 0XG.
The formal business of the meeting will include reports from the Society‘s officers, the
presentation of the annual accounts of the Society to 31 March 2011 and the election of the
Executive Committee for the coming year.
Exact timings for the day will be notified in the September Bulletin.
Nominations for the Executive Committee should be sent to the Joint Secretaries, Susan
and David Wells, by post to 23 Ash Rise, Halstead, Essex CO9 1RD, to be received not later
than Friday 16 September 2011. All nominations must be proposed and seconded and
accepted in writing by the nominee. A pro-forma for this purpose can be downloaded from
the Society‘s website.
Resolutions for the Agenda, also proposed and seconded, should reach the Joint
Secretaries at the address and by the same date as set out above. Alternatively, these can be
sent by email to: [email protected] by no later than Friday 16 September.
If you intend to come to the event, please register your place by email to the Secretaries
at the email address above or by completing and returning the booking form in this Bulletin
by post.
Call to Branches and Groups
If your branch/group wishes to make a report at the AGM, please let the Joint Secretaries know
in writing or via email by Friday 16 September, so that it can be included on the AGM agenda.
Reports can be made in person by a Branch/Group representative or, for overseas branches/
groups or if no local representative is able to attend the AGM in person, a printed report may be
supplied to be read out at the AGM. Reports should not exceed three minutes, and should consist
of new material not previously reported verbally or in print.
Refreshments
Light refreshments will be provided by SOAS during the informal part of the day. The Society
will be charged for this, but refreshment sales to individual attendees are not permitted. Therefore
attendees will be asked to make a contribution towards the cost on arrival. Lunch will be by own
arrangements and various local facilities are available within a very short walk of the venue.
Please note that SOAS will not permit the bringing in of food for consumption on the
premises.
Inaugural Isolde Wigram Memorial Lecture
This year the speaker will be the historian Dr David Starkey, who will be speaking on ‘A
Wave of Pretenders? Yorkist sentiment in the reign of Henry VII’.
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Registration of Attendance
In view of our speaker this year, we are anticipating a higher than usual number of people
wishing to attend. Our venue will hold in excess of 200 people, but there is a finite limit.
Therefore it is vital that we know how many members are proposing to be there. For this reason,
we are introducing the following system for registration:
Everyone wishing to attend must register in advance, either by using the pro-forma in the
centre pages of this Bulletin or by writing or emailing to the Joint Secretaries at the postal
or email address shown on the inside back cover of the Bulletin.
All registrations will be acknowledged. If you do not hear within two weeks, please
contact Sue and Dave Wells to confirm that your place is reserved.
If you have not registered and received a response, we regret that you will not be able to
attend.
Requests to attend will be dealt with on a ‗first come first served‘ basis. If the maximum
limit is reached, a waiting list will be maintained.
Full details and logistics for the Members’ Day and AGM will be published in the
September Bulletin but, in the meantime, if you have any queries please get in touch with
the Joint Secretaries: contact details as set out on the inside back cover of the Bulletin.
Sound the trumpets – Ricardian Britain goes live
There is a new edition of Ricardian Britain, the guide to sites associated with Richard III and
some of his contemporaries, and it is to be found on the Society‘s website.
Previous editions were in print form but now we are publishing it on line. This means that it
can be kept up-to-date by adding sites as new ones come to light or to mind, and changing details
on existing sites when necessary. By being electronic, it can be used on home computers but also
on many hand-held devices such as iPads, smart phones and mp3 players with Wi-Fi facilities.
Much is owed to the previous authors, Val Alliez and Carolyn Hammond, and we thank them
for laying the foundations upon which this new edition has been built. The new edition is
illustrated and has a number of features that weren‘t available to the compilers of the previous
editions. Some of these features include:
•
•
•
addresses with postcodes, and telephone numbers
website addresses
e-mail addresses
When available, specific postcodes have been included to allow users to make use of map
sites such as Multimap, the AA or Google, or to use directions via GPS/SatNav devices.
Opening hours, entrance fees, directions, restaurants, accessibility, parking, etc. have not been
included as these change so often, and users of the guide are advised to look them up using the
website addresses provided.
We hope members enjoy using the new edition. Go to www.richardiii.net, click on the
Ricardian Britain button and see what you think.
Beth and Phil Stone
4
From the Joint Secretaries
Chip and Pin Payments
Further to the notice in the September 2010 Bulletin in which we told you that we could no
longer accept credit/debit card payments, we are now pleased to be able to advise that we are in
the final stages of negotiating the purchase of a ‗Chip and Pin‘ machine, which will allow us to
accept such payments again. We hope that this will be up and running by early June. This will
apply to all purchases and membership payments, and we shall be able to accept remote
payments as well as face-to-face. There will be a need to add a 5% surcharge to cover the charge
made by the bank for processing card payments. You will, of course, still be able to pay by
PayPal. We shall give further details in the September Bulletin and on the website.
Once again we shall have our marquee and sales stall at the Bosworth commemoration
weekend this year, and the chip-and-pin facility will be particularly useful here. Please do
come along and say hello.
Advertising on the Richard III website
The Executive Committee has agreed to introduce a system for charging for advertising on the
Society‘s website. Currently there is no formal policy for this, but recently there has been a
number of requests from a variety of sources, both within and outside the Society, to advertise
events, publications, sales items or other related matters. Items from Society members or affili–
ated organisations have been displayed as a matter of course.
The Committee feels that a charging arrangement needs to be introduced, especially as
advertisements in the Bulletin are chargeable.
There will be a one-off fee of £10 for all advertisers, to cover the costs of uploading the
material. Thereafter, the fee for commercial organisations or companies will be £25 per item a
month, with a maximum display life of three months.
No charges beyond the initial £10 will be applied for internal Society issues or information
items.
Facebook Update
The Society‘s Facebook page has now been active for a year, and it is proving to be a very useful
and effective means to promote our work to a world-wide audience. There are nearly five
hundred people who have linked themselves to the site and the majority of these are not
members. With this in mind we plan a membership campaign and also a publications promotion
through the site. It is also possible to promote the Society through the whole of the Facebook
network, which would reach a potential audience of twenty million plus, and we are looking into
the feasibility of this. Our Facebook site can be viewed by clicking the icon on the opening page
of the Society‘s website or by visiting:
www.facebook.com/pages/RICHARD-III-SOCIETY/114452911904874?v=info
John Saunders
Brian Moorhen and Peter Lee
We very much regret that we have to report two very sad pieces of news: Brian Moorhen, our
Membership Manager, died suddenly on 27 April after a short illness, and Peter Lee, past
Chairman of the London Branch, died on 2 May. We extend our deepest sympathy to their
families, especially their wives Wendy and Diana.
An obituary of Brian by Wendy will be found on page 63, and we shall have an obituary
of Peter in the September Bulletin. This sad news makes all the more poignant Diana‘s
account of their last ‗holiday‘ together, in Libya, which is (unchanged) on p. 8.
5
Publication and Distribution Working Party
For some time, the Society has been in discussion with our overseas members, in particular the
major branches in America, Australasia (Australia & New Zealand) and Canada where the
Bulletin and Ricardian are posted in bulk for internal distribution. This system has caused some
problems in the past, mainly around delays in delivery and the condition of the packaging on
arrival at the destination address. A Special Ways & Means Sub-Committee met in February to
try find a solution to the problems where they were found to have arisen in the UK. Society
members at this meeting were:
The Society President – Peter Hammond (Working Party Chairman)
The Society Chairman – Phil Stone
The Joint Secretaries – Susan and David Wells (minutes and administration)
The Public Relations Officer – Richard Van Allen
The Membership Manager – Wendy Moorhen
The Web Content Manager – Beth Stone
The Special Sub-Committee felt that the best way forward would be for a dedicated working
party to be set up to discuss the issues in detail and try to find a solution that was acceptable to all
parties. This will be called the Publication and Distribution Working Party. Membership will
consist of the attendees at the Special Sub-Committee meeting listed above, together with
representatives of the American, Australasian and Canadian Branches. In addition, the Working
Party may from time to time co-opt other persons who may be able to advise, assist or provide
support with specific matters. Its purpose will be to examine current methods of printing and
distribution of the Society‘s key publications, i.e. the Ricardian Bulletin (quarterly) and The
Ricardian (annually). In the first instance, the Working Party will focus on the Bulletin.
It is expected that the PDWP will largely operate as a virtual meeting using email, telephonic
conferencing or any other methods as appropriate. The UK membership may need to meet from
time to time. It will report to the Executive Committee and an update will be provided at the
AGM in October. It is hoped that this will set out the recommendations ready at that time and
seek endorsement in principle of outline proposals for future change.
We are currently awaiting final details from the overseas branches of who will represent them
on the Working Party.
Your Society Needs You
Are you a quick and accurate typist?
After the success of the Logge Wills project, publishing all the wills
proved in the Logge Register of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury,
which covers the reign of Richard III, members will remember that
we had hoped to transcribe and publish the equivalent for the
Prerogative Court of York. Unfortunately, this proved impossible as
a much greater proportion of them were written in Latin, and we did
not have enough volunteers who could cope with this. We therefore concentrated on
transcribing the 88 wills in English.
We now need a volunteer to type up these wills in Word ready for publication. At present
we have hard copies of all in a variety of formats, which will need standardising. Some were
sent to us on floppy disks, but software has moved on since these were produced, and most
can no longer be read, so we must work from the hard copies.
If you have the necessary computer and typing skills and would like to help, please
get in touch with Lesley Boatwright (contact details on the back cover). Two or more
volunteers could share the work between them.
6
Introducing our new Business
Manager
We are very pleased to announce that we have a new Business Manager, Stephen York. He
has a great deal of experience in the business side of publishing and the intricacies of IT,
and came to the study of the later Middle Ages via his interest in heraldry. We asked
Stephen to tell us about himself, and this is what he said:
W
ith a surname like mine I suppose it was inevitable that I would one day join the Society.
In fact I have been a member for only two years but my interest in Good King Richard
goes back further than I can remember. I stopped studying history after O-level; by that stage the
curriculum had only taken me as
far as the Early Middle Ages,
and so I had only a vague idea of
what the Wars of the Roses were
about. However, I was a student
of heraldry from my very early
teens and that led me back into
the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries, which must have been
when I discovered the exciting
story of Lancaster v. York and
the i n tr i g ui n g mys t er ies
surrounding Richard III. By the
time of the famous televised trial
I was definitely a partisan.
My first degree was in
Classics at UCL, followed by a
p o stgr ad uate d ip lo ma in
librarianship, but by a rather
Phil Stone and Stephen York
tortuous path I found myself
working as a publisher, editing and producing books on a range of subjects from cookery and
travel to finance and reference works; I pursued that career until I retired a couple of years ago.
So, not a professional or even an amateur historian, but an avid reader of every book on the
Roses that I can lay my hands on – and of course membership of the Society has opened a
window on to all kinds of new ideas and research, as well as the opportunity to meet so many
people with a similar interest in the subject. It is fascinating to realise how much more, even now,
can be known or deduced about Richard and his times. Perhaps one day television producers will
see that the fifteenth century offers much more dramatic potential (and marvellous leading roles
for women) than the tedious Tudors. I am glad of the opportunity that the Business Manager role
gives me to contribute to the Society‘s work and hope that my career experience will enable me
to maintain the high standards that my predecessors have achieved in producing and delivering
the Bulletin and The Ricardian to members.
7
. . . and the problems faced by our last
We are sorry about the late arrival of the March Bulletin, which was due to a shortage of
plastic envelopes at the despatchers. It was the last Bulletin business problem which Diana
Lee had to deal with, and one she could have done without, as she came back to it after a
hair-raising ‘holiday’ – in Libya. We asked Diana for an account of her adventures.
P
eter and I booked a holiday to Libya to visit Leptis Magna, one of the best preserved Roman
cities in North Africa, about 30 miles from Tripoli, leaving on Saturday 19 February. The
evening we arrived in Tripoli we were taken on a short tour of the Medina and watched the proGaddafi demonstrations in Green Square for a few minutes. On Sunday we went to Sabratha,
another Punic/Roman town. There were a few minor demonstrations on the way but nothing
frightening. About 11.30 pm. we started to hear some sporadic gunfire not very far away, which
continued at intervals during the night. Then at 4 am there was heavier gunfire from bigger guns
and then screaming, after which all went quiet. That was very frightening.
We were due to leave early the next morning, Monday to go to Leptis, but when we all met at
breakfast we decided we would try to get a flight home instead. We had to queue for an hour to
put the luggage through security before we could even get into the airport. There were no flights
available before our booked one on Wednesday. So we went back to the hotel.
We were told by our guide‘s Libyan friend that some hotels were being attacked so we moved
to a safer one by the sea not far from the harbour. Then we heard that there was to be ferry boat
to Malta arranged by the US Embassy and there might be room for UK citizens, so on
Wednesday morning we went to the harbour instead of the airport. Our guide went to the British
Embassy for their advice, which was to make up our own minds – not very helpful. We also
heard that it was chaotic at the airport there being a queue a mile long, literally, in the rain, and
passengers were missing their flights because they were unable to get in to register and there
were fights breaking out. Our BA flight was cancelled but we did not know this at the time.
The ferry arrived at 3 pm on Wednesday and we got on about 7 pm. The weather was
atrocious, having deteriorated all day, pouring with rain and a gale blowing with 30 ft waves out
at sea. The ferry was a catamaran and could not sail on rough seas. So it was announced that the
ferry would not sail until the next day, but we were in the warm and dry and there was free food,
albeit mostly snacks and sandwiches. The US Embassy staff were marvellous, keeping
everything running smoothly, even some films to entertain us; as were the ferry staff, serving
food and drink all day and night and keeping the boat clean and tidy. There was never any
trouble even though there were lots of children, including babies, and some invalids. The next
morning we were told the ferry would not be sailing that day, but a hot meal was brought on for
us in the evening. These ferries are only designed for 6-hour journeys so the only accommodation
is airline type seats. Not the best way to spend 48 hours! The ferry left about 1.30 pm on Friday
in quite rough seas but the captain decided to sail as soon as it was reasonably safe to do so.
We were asked not to eat after 10.30 am and not to move around during the journey unless
absolutely necessary. We arrived at Valetta harbour about 10 pm. This was our first experience
of the British Embassy doing anything useful. We were told there were hotel rooms booked and a
flight to England the next day. They were most upset when I said our tour company had made all
our arrangements and we would not be needing theirs. We were given food parcels of
sandwiches, biscuits and drinks by them and then more after going through immigration. There
were loads of TV and radio reporters wanting to speak to everyone – I did an interview for a
radio station, but I can‘t remember which. We really just wanted to get to our hotel. The next day
we had a flight from Malta to Rome and then to Heathrow. We were impressed both by the US
Embassy organisation and the arrangements made by our own tour company, Andante Travels.
Altogether a far too exciting adventure and we still haven‘t seen Leptis Magna.
8
The Ricardian Chronicle
Our major new research project for members
At the study weekend in 2010 the idea for a new society research project was floated: The
Ricardian Chronicle. Since then articles have appeared in the Bulletin giving examples of
different pieces of research and where that information can be found. While trying to whet your
appetite the Research Committee has been working behind the scenes to draw up a process for
organising the research. Guidance notes, the management process and role of the project coordination team were then ready to be issued at the study weekend this year.
The Research Committee hoped that with a captive audience and the relaxed atmosphere of
the Elmbank Hotel we would be able to gather up volunteers, especially volunteers for the
management roles, without whom the project would not work. Those people gathered at the
weekend more than fulfilled our hopes. Toni Mount has volunteered to take on the management
role and Helen Challinor the role of dealing with the electronic maintenance of the diary.
The team had decided that the Chronicle needed to be put on to the website and that a system
of electronic recording of the information was needed, not only to help gather the information but
to keep track of what was found. As you will see from Helen‘s report she has the background
experience that will enable us to do so much more, and I think she will help us take this project
forward in a more exciting way.
As you will also see, Toni already has a list of volunteers from the weekend, but if we are to
get full coverage of the country (including Wales, Scotland and Ireland) we need more of you, so
please think about volunteering and send your details to Toni. You can do as little or as much as
you like, and you do not need to be online to join in. We hope eventually that as well as an
electronic version there will also be a hard copy; we want the final research to be available to as
many people as possible.
Lynda Pidgeon
Please consider joining us
The intention of our exciting new research project is to build up a diary of local happenings
nationwide, which coincide with the major Ricardian events we are so familiar with. We shall
cover the period from the premature announcement of Edward IV‘s death on 7 April 1483 to the
death of Richard III at the battle of Bosworth on 22 August 1485. Our hope is to gain new
insights into life during these times, not just for the high and mighty at Westminster but for the
common folk in the local village as well.
Initially, our pilot project will focus on the crucial period from Edward‘s rumoured death to
Richard‘s coronation – 7 April to 6 July 1483. We are interested in such varied matters as the
weather, incidents of disorder or celebration, outbreaks of sickness, work and leisure activities,
legal wrangling and festivities on saints‘ days. By using contemporary information we hope to
minimise the dangers of hindsight.
This project will bring us closer to the people of the fifteenth century, enhancing our
knowledge and producing a user-friendly on-line source for future researchers.
The project was launched at our Research Weekend in York in April. I want to thank Cris
Reay Connor, Jacqui Emerson, Marion Moulton, Anne Painter and Doreen Leach who signed up
as researchers; Helen Challinor, who volunteered to be our information whizz; and Suzanne
Doolan who offered her help with the newsletter – when we have something to put in it.
Welcome to the team.
Three more volunteers have joined since the Research weekend, Helen Ashburn, Penelope
Lawton and Sue Taylor. Welcome to them too.
9
More project researchers who are interested in finding original local source material or
information are eagerly sought. How much time you can spare is entirely up to you but I‘m sure
the results will be worthwhile and very satisfying for all of us. We are especially in need of
researchers for the South East and the North West of England.
For would-be researchers who have difficulty with medieval handwriting, the Society‘s
palaeography course is still available: £55 for the whole course, or £27.50 each for two lots of 4
lessons. Contact Heather Falvey for further details of the palaeography course at
[email protected].
Please consider joining us. We will help you get started and provide any assistance you need.
There are plenty of friendly experts in the society happy to help.
When you sign up, I will send more information of what‘s involved. Although much
communication will be by email, we also welcome those of you who prefer to use the post.
To join email me: Toni Mount, Project Co-ordinator, at [email protected] or
ring 01474 355676.
The project’s ‘information whizz’ Helen Challinor writes:
The management and retrieval of information is a passion of
mine, and so when I heard about the Ricardian Chronicle
project I was immediately struck by its potential. Apart from
the storage, presentation, format and findability aspects of
this work, all of which are important in their own right, we
also need to consider the tagging and classification of
information behind the scenes. It‘s thinking ahead about
how we do these things that will enable us to take advantage
of the developments in web-based technology that are here
now, and our best guesses at those which are just around the
corner.
Imagine visualising Richard‘s movements on a map,
with photographs, and linking this information with our
findings from the Chronicle project. With just a little
planning about the best ways of presenting what we
produce, we could open the door to a number of
possibilities. To give you an idea of what we could achieve,
Helen Challinor
please have a look at Scotland‘s Places, to be found at http://
www.scotlandsplaces.gov.uk/ which makes innovative use of mapping, photographs, documents
and information about locations.
My hopes for this project are that we can develop a flexible resource that provides researchers
with the level of detail they need, both now and in the future. I‘m also keen that we don‘t lose
sight of paper, and our final products should include publication in different media.
We want to gather the research you carry out in whatever format suits you, whether that‘s
online or on paper. Please keep a look out for Toni‘s research guide, and more information about
the Ricardian Chronicle project as ideas develop.
In my day job, I‘m a senior librarian with a degree in Library and Information Studies. I make
electronic information easier to find and provide the building blocks to enable data to be linked
together in new and useful ways.
I‘ve been a member of the Society for a number of years. I joined out of a general interest in
history and an enjoyment of learning. Up to now I‘ve been an attendee at such excellent events as
the East Midlands Branch Study Days, AGM lectures and several requiem mass celebrations.
However, when I went along to the Study Weekend at York in April I didn‘t expect to come
away with such an interesting and exciting challenge.
10
Bosworth in 2011
Leicestershire County Council have now put in place a revised and extended battlefield trail to
explain the course of the battle of Bosworth, and are creating a new area of commemoration on
top of Ambion Hill, with a sundial, a compass rose and rose beds. In this area, the emphasis will
be on thinking about the people who took part in the battle, and its implications.
The Society is contributing a wooden bench in memory of Paul Murray Kendall to be placed
in this setting.
Richard Knox, Keeper of Bosworth for Leicestershire County Council, here describes the
new battlefield trail and commemorative layout for us, and our Joint Secretaries, Sue and Dave
Wells, give news of the plans for the bench.
Finally, we have the usual information about the Society‘s arrangements for our annual visit
to Bosworth.
The Battle of Bosworth Trail and Memorial Sundial
Following the relocating of the battlefield site and the reinterpretation of The Bosworth
Battlefield Heritage Centre on Ambion Hill over the past few years, Leicestershire County
Council has now completed the last stage of the developments funded by the Heritage Lottery
Fund on the site. The old Battlefield Trail, set up in 1974 to interpret the battle within the
landscape of Ambion Hill and its immediate surroundings, has been completely overhauled in the
light of the new evidence, the story rewritten and the route slightly extended.
Information posts, embellished with tactile steel sculptures of helmets and weapons or scrolllike graphic panels or audio posts, are dotted along the route of the old circular walk around the
Hill, with the addition of a section of the old railway cutting running south from Shenton Station.
The posts tell the story of the lead-up to the battle, introduce the main protagonists and explain
the events of 22 August and the significance of the battle in English history.
At two points along the walk visitors are given an interpreted view of the rediscovered
battlefield area, with reconstructions of what the view may have looked like on the day. The main
view across the battlefield is from the top of Ambion Hill, alongside the recently relocated
flagpole bearing King Richard‘s standard. The other view is from the railway cutting, from where
the site of Dadlington windmill, the suggested site of the Duke of Norfolk‘s death, can be seen.
At the top of Ambion Hill, adjacent to the viewing point and Standard, is the Memorial
Sundial. This is intended to be a reflective and emotive space to commemorate the battle and all
that died there.
The sundial memorial reinforces the main power holders at the battle, Richard, Henry and
Lord Stanley, each of which is given a seat of power set within a rose bed. The main
commanders are also referenced within the appropriate rose beds. Within the face of the sundial
the main sections of the day‘s action are described.
Surrounding the sundial is a compass rose which indicates the names, dates, distance and
direction of the other battles of the Wars of the Roses, putting the battle of Bosworth in its
context.
Richard Knox
The Society at Bosworth, 21-22 August 2011
Once again the Society will have its usual marquee at the Heritage Centre on Ambion Hill, where
the displays take place, for the whole weekend, Saturday 21 to Sunday 22 August, for sales,
enrolments and generally making ourselves known. Do come along and have a chat.
11
The Society’s Kendall memorial seat and plaque
As part of this new commemorative feature and to mark the centenary of Paul Murray Kendall‘s
birth, the Executive Committee has agreed to sponsor a seat to be positioned behind Richard III‘s
‗seat of power‘, looking over the sundial. There will be a plaque with the following inscription:
In Memory of Paul Murray Kendall, biographer of King Richard III
Given by the Richard III Society on the centenary of his birth 1st March 2011
The cost for the custom made oak seat and plaque is around £275 to £300. The seat should be in
place in good time for the Bosworth commemoration weekend and there will be a short unveiling
ceremony during the Society‘s visit on Sunday 21 August. We are delighted to be able to report
that Paul Murray Kendall‘s daughters Callie and Gillian are planning to attend the event.
Sue and Dave Wells
BOSWORTH 2011 – SUNDAY 21 AUGUST 2011
This year our one-day visit to Bosworth comprises the traditional service in Sutton Cheney
church, and visit to the Battlefield Centre, including tea. We will be able to visit the exhibition
and the medieval village (Ambion Parva: ‗a collection of reproduction buildings combined to
create the sense of medieval village life bringing history alive‘), to walk the Battlefield Trails
and attend the inauguration of the Society‘s commemorative bench (see above). For more
information see http://www.bosworthbattlefield.com/index.htm
We hope that as many members as possible will attend during the day, as this is one of the
Society‘s major social events and an occasion during the year when members from all over the
world can meet. NB comments and suggestions with regard to the nature of the event would be
welcome – please contact me at the address on the booking form or by email:
[email protected].
PROGRAMME
09.15 (sharp) Coach departs London Embankment underground station (Embankment exit)
12.30 Memorial service in Sutton Cheney church, with Society wreath laying
13.30 Lunch – bring packed lunch: picnic area available, or pub. Village Hall ploughman‘s
lunch will be available for those booking, and paying, in advance
14.15 Coach leaves Sutton Cheney for Battlefield Centre
16.30 Tea in Tithe Barn restaurant at battlefield [‗selection of cocktail sandwiches, handmade
cakes and pastries, tea / coffee /cordials‘]
17.45 Coach leaves Bosworth for London, arriving c.20.15
Members attending independently on the day may book for such elements of the day as they
wish:
COST for London Day Outing Coach (coach + battlefield entry + tea) = £33.00
COST for Village Hall lunch = £5.00 [Please note: this is now pay in advance, rather than on
the day, to ensure that bookings are taken up, and that suppliers are not left out of pocket]
COST for tea only = £7.50
Please use the application form in the centre fold, and return it with your cheque and an
sae for confirmation to Elizabeth Nokes, 26 West Way, Petts Wood, BR5 1LW, Kent (Tel.:
01689-823569, email: [email protected]) by 15 July
12
Study weekend at York on the de la
Pole family: ‘an inspired choice’
DAVID AND WENDY JOHNSON
A
fter the success of the 2010 study weekend it was a real pleasure to return to the Elm Bank
Hotel in York. This year attention focussed on the rise and fall of the de la Pole family, and
what an inspired choice this turned out to be. The meteoric rise of the de la Poles, from Hull
merchants to contenders for the throne, must be one of the most remarkable examples of late
medieval social mobility. And from a Ricardian point of view, a series of advantageous
marriages ultimately brought this hitherto Lancastrian family into the House of York, leaving
John de la Pole, earl of Lincoln as the figurehead of Yorkist resistance following the battle of
Bosworth.
The weekend began, in glorious sunshine and unseasonal temperatures, on Friday evening
with a talk by Rosemary Horrox appropriately entitled ‗The Rise and Rise of the de la Poles‘.
Rosemary brought to life the fourteenth-century merchant brothers Richard and William de la
Pole, particularly William, who emerges as an unfettered and unprincipled venture capitalist with
a real eye for the main chance. Through money lending on a truly prodigious scale the de la Poles
became an almost indispensible prop to crown finances, eventually creating the circumstances in
which the family married into the aristocracy. Although William is remembered as something of
a local hero in Hull, a pledge of good behaviour made in later life suggests that this remarkable
entrepreneur was not a particularly principled man of business.
We recommenced on Saturday morning with a joint presentation by Lesley Boatwright and
Peter Hammond entitled ‗Alice Chaucer‘s Family‘. The descendents of Geoffrey Chaucer enter
the de la Pole story because Geoffrey‘s granddaughter, Alice Chaucer, married William de la
Pole, 1st duke of Suffolk, in 1431. Lesley‘s talk outlined in fascinating detail the gentry family
connections of Thomas Chaucer, Alice‘s father. This led very nicely into Peter Hammond‘s slide
show, which revealed a breathtaking display of heraldic snobbery. Rather shockingly the tombs
of Thomas and Alice at Ewelme in Oxfordshire completely ignore their Chaucer ancestry in
favour of a number of
extreme and distant
connections related to
the more illustrious de
Roet family, a descendant of which (Katherine Swynford) had
Ken Hillier and Ann
Naylor in discussion
at the study weekend
Behind them are,
left to right:
Beth Stone,
Bill Leedham,
Jenny Harding
and Sue Taylor
13
married John of Gaunt. This somewhat cynical funerary glorification of the Chaucer family
prompted Peter to observe that ‗Alice knew what she wanted and she went and got it‘. Like her
fourteenth-century predecessor, the Hull merchant and money lender William de la Pole, Alice
does not come across as a particularly likeable character.
Heather Falvey brought us back into the de la Pole fold with a fascinating talk entitled
‗Murder on the Tower: reports of the death of William de la Pole, duke of Suffolk‘. By the late
1440s the duke (Alice Chaucer‘s husband) headed a court faction that was held responsible for
military defeats in France. The execution of the unpopular William by sailors in May 1450
sparked the threat of royal retaliation against the county of Kent, which in turn led to Jack Cade‘s
rebellion. Heather, explaining how malicious verses written during times of unrest are often good
indicators of the events themselves, used the example For Jakke Napes Sowle, a poem assumed
to have been composed by the Kentish rebels at the time of the rebellion. Jakke Napes (or tame
ape) was the scurrilous nickname given to William de la Pole, duke of Suffolk, by his enemies
who used his cognizance of an ape‘s clog and chain (the device used to restrain pet monkeys) as
a source of ridicule. Heather pointed out that reoccurring references to the Dirige and Placebo
revealed a familiarity with the Vespers for the Dead; an indication that the author may well have
had a clerical background.
On a Ricardian theme the poem‘s references to duke Humphrey of Gloucester are very
interesting. Humphrey, generally believed to have been poisoned, is stated in a later verse to have
been ‗drowned‘. What intrigued us was not simply the fact that the names of the two assassins
are clearly mentioned, but that the method of the duke‘s demise so readily reflects that of George,
duke of Clarence. Was ‗drowning‘ a general euphemism for partaking of poisoned wine? Heather
agreed that this could be an interesting avenue for future research.
Saturday morning was concluded with a talk by Lynda Pidgeon on William‘s son, John de la
Pole, 2nd duke of Suffolk, and his wife Elizabeth, sister of Edward IV and Richard III. Lynda
pointed out that John‘s marriage to Elizabeth wasn‘t popular in the de la Pole family because his
father, William, had been an opponent of the duke of York. Rather sadly John emerges as a
somewhat subdued figure,
suffering from ill heath, who
lived in the shadow of his
formidable mother, Alice
Chaucer. For whatever reason, it
appears that John wished to
remain politically neutral while
his wife Elizabeth worked on
behalf of her brothers and his
son, John de la Pole, earl of
Lincoln, who attempted to win
back the crown for the Yorkist
cause in 1487. John de la Pole,
2nd duke of Suffolk, has been
described as a political nonentity, but this harsh assessment
ignores other, rather human,
factors that are only hinted at in
the surviving documentation.
The unseasonably warm and
sunny weather continued into the
afternoon and, after a buffet
Speakers: David Baldwin, Heather Falvey, Lynda Pidgeon,
lunch, delegates were given free
Lesley Boatwright, Peter Hammond, Sean Cunningham
time to explore the famous old
14
city. As residents of York, we took the
opportunity to enjoy the hospitality of our
favourite inn, the Black Swan on Peaseholme
Green. Reputedly built in 1417, the Black Swan
is a delight – in our opinion, the best pub in
York – and more than worth a visit if you have
yet to sample its historic atmosphere.
After dinner at the Embank Hotel, Helen
Cox gave a talk on her new book about the
battle of Wakefield. As we were present at the
Mansion House in May of last year when Helen
launched the publication, we decided not
attend, but are sure that delegates must have
David Baldwin and Lynda Pidgeon
enjoyed her talk as much as we did. Helen‘s
dramatic delivery, resplendent in fifteenth-century costume, is very impressive, and we look
forward to future publications by this knowledgeable and entertaining historian.
Sunday morning began in the very capable hands of David Baldwin with an excellent talk
about John de la Pole, earl of Lincoln. Interestingly John may have become acquainted with his
future co-rebel Francis Lovell in the early 1470s, when John‘s father was granted Lovell‘s
wardship following the death of Warwick at the battle of Barnet in 1471. What it meant to be a
member of the House of York must have impressed itself upon the youthful earl of Lincoln five
years later in 1476 when he was present at the magnificent reburial of Richard, duke of York, at
Fotheringhay. A growing devotion to the House of York may have influenced Richard III‘s
decision to nominate John as his heir in 1484, making it highly unlikely that John fought at
Bosworth in 1485. David Baldwin made an interesting suggestion that during the Stoke campaign
of 1487 John made effective use of propaganda to destabilise the enemy army, leading to
substantial desertions from Henry‘s ranks. Sadly, when the two armies finally met beside the
Trent near Newark in June 1487, the rebels were defeated. Despite a palpable lack of military
experience John de la Pole, earl of Lincoln, did not shirk the responsibility vested in him by his
uncle Richard in 1484. Bravely and courageously he gave his life for the House of York,
perishing, we would suggest, in a cause that was dear to his heart.
The study weekend was concluded by Sean Cunningham with a stimulating talk entitled
‗How Edmund, earl of Suffolk changed the nature of Tudor kingship‘. Edmund, the earl of
Lincoln‘s younger brother, was in a difficult position in 1487, but the continuing inactivity of his
father, John de la Pole, 2nd duke of Suffolk, may have helped him come to terms with Henry VII.
Certainly Edmund appears to have made every effort to become a loyal subject of the new
regime, but Henry‘s attempts to restrain the earl in the 1490s eventually turned him into a rebel.
Edmund‘s ‗non-rebellion‘ (as Sean Cunningham put it) was the last major challenge to Henry
VII, leading to a restoration of the Howards in East Anglia and a hardening of the king‘s attitude
during the final years of his reign.
In conclusion it just remains to say that an enjoyable weekend was had by all; a sparkling
array of talks, an excellent and well stocked book stall (many thanks to Sue and Dave Wells for
all their hard work in transporting and, with Andrea Lindow, selling the books), relaxed
surroundings, beautiful weather and the chance to meet old friends - and make new ones. What
more could anyone ask for?
Thanks again to everyone who helped to make the 2011 Study Weekend such an
unparalleled success; we look forward, very much, to the next York-based study weekend
in 2013.
Have you booked yet for the 2012 Triennial Conference at Loughborough University (20-22
April)? More than 50 members have already done so. Booking form in the March Bulletin.
15
Celebrating Paul Murray Kendall
T
he Bulletin Committee had always intended to commemorate during 2011 the centenary of
Paul Murray Kendall‘s birth. Kendall is an important figure in the Society‘s history. When
his Richard III was published in 1955, just before the Society was re-founded, it was an
invaluable help, not only in attracting members but also in providing a template of a wellresearched and positive biography of King Richard. This gave a significant impetus to ensuring
that the Society‘s own research agenda was evidence-based and objective.
It therefore came as a very pleasant surprise last autumn when his daughter Callie Kendall
contacted the Society to tell us about the commemoration at Bosworth that she and her sister
Gillian were planning for 1 March this year, the hundredth anniversary of their father‘s birth.
There would be a family gathering at Richard‘s standard near the Battlefield Centre, around
which their father‘s ashes were scattered back in 2001. This would be followed by lunch at the
Royal Arms Hotel in nearby Sutton Cheney, which Society members were invited to attend. We
agreed to keep the numbers small so as not to swamp the Kendal family, and Sue and Dave
Wells, Wendy Moorhen, John Saunders and Lesley Boatwright made their way to Bosworth that
day. We were joined there by Jean and Eric Parry, local members from Stoke Golding, who had
met the Kendall family in 2001 when they first came there. The Parrys attend Dadlington church,
and Jean had been one of those who put on the enormous tea for the Society in the churchyard
many years ago, when we went to Dadlington rather than Sutton Cheney for tea at the annual
Bosworth commemoration.
Both Kendall daughters now live in western Massachusetts, and work at Smith College.
Callie is the office manager for Five College Learning in Retirement, and Gillian is Professor of
English Literature. With them came Callie‘s son Tick Ahearn, a fund-raiser for colleges. Tick
was born after his grandfather‘s death, but clearly honours his memory and is very proud to be
his grandson. Theirs was literally a flying visit, as all would be back home in the US within a
week. However, they wanted to remember their father and grandfather on the exact anniversary
of his birth and in his
centenary year, and to be
where his ashes were.
Also present was Richard
Mackinder, the Operations
Manager from Bosworth
Battlefield Heritage Centre,
who had been the Kendalls‘
escort for the more private
part of their visit that
morning, when they laid
flowers by the flagpole for
Richard‘s standard where
they had previously scattered
PMK‘s ashes, still in its
original location. The new
commemorative area with its
sundial and rosebeds is due to
be put there, but Richard
Paul Murray Kendall centenary lunch at the Royal Arms, Sutton
Cheney. Left to right: John Saunders, Callie Kendall, Gillian Kendall, Mackinder confirmed that
Dave Wells, Jean Parry
when the flagpole is moved to
16
make way for this, a significant
surrounding area of soil will be
included to mark the fact that this was
where PMK‘s ashes had been
scattered. The family was particularly
pleased to know that this consideration
had been given to their feelings.
The Royal Arms Hotel is justifiably
famous for its catering. When we
arrived, we thought at first that a much
larger gathering than we had expected
was assembling, but it turned out that
the local Rotary Club lunches here
every Tuesday. We had what was
virtually a private room in the dining
room. The table had been specially
prepared beforehand, with name-cards
for each person, exquisitely designed
and made by Callie. They bore images
and words that captured both PMK and
his most famous biographical subject,
Callie and Gillian Kendall, Sutton Cheney
Richard III. It was a lovely thought,
and much appreciated. They were of course snapped up afterwards as souvenirs. At each seat
there was also a copy of PMK‘s Richard III, the new edition to which Gillian had written an
introduction. She had signed each book for us, and we all asked Callie to add her signature too.
John Saunders made an introductory speech, stressing how important PMK had been in the
development of the Society, producing a scholarly biography right from the start, and Gillian
spoke next. Her reminiscences of her father, which follow this account, show him in a very
human light: he used to drive Gillian to school wearing his pyjamas, and she threatened him with
all sorts of horrors if he got out of the car to see her off. He was clearly a loving and involved
father as well as the celebrated academic and author that we all know. The Committee had agreed
beforehand that, as a mark of respect and in recognition of the importance of PMK‘s biography
of Richard III for the revisionist cause, we would make Callie and Gillian honorary life members
of the Society, and Wendy Moorhen presented them with this. Sue and Dave Wells gave them
each a goodie-bag containing tote bags, the latest Bulletins, copies of Peter Hammond‘s new
book on Bosworth, and Graham Turner prints of the battle, which he had kindly signed for them.
After the lunch – for which the Kendall family generously insisted on paying the whole bill –
we went up on Ambion Hill, where a cold wind blew, and saw the peaceful area, with excellent
views over the recently-confirmed battle location, where the new commemorative sundial will be
situated. Sue Wells laid the Society‘s wreath of white roses beside the colourful sheaf of flowers
already placed that morning by the Kendall family beside the flagpole.
We adjourned for tea in Market Bosworth, where Callie‘s wish to have a traditional Ricardian
cream tea was thwarted by the fact that it was nearly 5 pm, and we had to settle for a cuppa. It
was then we noticed that the Kendalls had a hire car whose registration ended URN, appropriate
for a family visiting the site of their father‘s ashes.
It was a very convivial occasion, with Kendall‘s memory celebrated with genuine appreciation and much affection. Previously we had sent Callie and Gillian a set of questions to form the
basis of an ‗interview‘, and their replies follow after Gillian‘s reminiscences of her father.
Compiled from material provided by Lesley Boatwright, John Saunders, Dave and Sue
Wells.
17
‘To be aware of the biographer’: Gillian Kendall’s speech
It‘s dangerous to attempt to allude to a biographer‘s life. For one thing, the biographer has ever
practiced invisibility. In The Art of Biography, Paul Murray Kendall writes, ‗But we do not enjoy
being aware of the biographer. Quite the contrary: being aware of the biographer spoils our
illusion of sharing in a life. Unlike the poet, the biographer must have a talent for invisibility.
Who would read the Ode to a Nightingale in order to learn about nightingales? Who would read
a life of Napoleon for any other reason but to know Napoleon?‘
Today we are here to be aware of the biographer.
Paul‘s public story: he was born on March 1, 1911 and died on November 21, 1973 – and he
got a lot done in between those two dates. His play, The Ant Village, won the Marburgh Prize in
1950. In 1956, Richard III was a runner-up for the National Book Award. In 1965, The Art of
Biography was nominated for the
Pulitzer Prize. Louis XI was published in
1972 and his novel, My Brother
Chilperic, set in fourth-century Gaul,
was published posthumously in 1979.
And he also wrote such substantial
works as Warwick the Kingmaker, The
Yorkist Age, Richard III: The Great
Debate and The History of Land
Warfare, along with the entry on
‗Biography‘ in The Encyclopedia
Britannica – the idea of having the
authoritative voice of the encyclopedist
delighted him. AND we received free
encyclopedias.
The private story sometimes seems
to me to be long ago and far off.
Sometimes, to quote Demetrius in A Ready to lay the Society’s wreath of white roses: Callie
Midsummer Night’s Dream ‗things seem
Kendall, Sue Wells, Tick Ahearn, Gillian Kendall
small and undistinguishable‘. But there
are also stories and memories that remain vivid, as if they had only just happened.
I remember the story of the way Paul played tennis. He played with great passion. And, one
day, as he went for a high lob coming in his direction, Paul raised his racket in triumph as he
prepared to annihilate the tennis ball. He let out a great cry – ‗Higgggghhhh – yah!‘ and his
dentures flew over the net.
I don‘t know if he loved that story, but we duly entered it into the biography, along with
others. Paul, a large disheveled form, hiding Easter eggs for us in the very early morning. Paul
(and this I remember with great clarity) driving me to school in his pajamas. Paul, reading a
review that called him ‗a redwood among the jackpines‘. We got awfully sick of that redwood
and those jackpines in the months that followed.
Most of all, I remember Paul in his study. My mother, Siggy, guarded that fortress, but if she
turned her back, I would make my way in. He was never in the least put out, and I remember
being told some fairly gruesome, and therefore all the more fascinating, tales of fourth-century
Gaul – tales of murders, poisonings, a missing eye – before my mother would swoop down and
pluck me away.
Paul‘s study was fascinating to me partly because it was always such an interesting mess.
There were books and papers everywhere. And in the end, it turned out that there was treasure
hidden there. After Paul‘s death, when my mother was going through his study, she found,
carefully folded in a small box, a handwritten paragraph. The note at the top read: ‗This is THE
18
END of My Brother Chilperic‘. He had not lived to finish the book, but he made sure that the
final paragraph would be his.
Most people don‘t like to accept their own mortality, and my father was no exception, but he
wanted the end of that book held safe.
But Paul would be the first to say that I could go on for a great deal of time assembling
anecdotes without ever coming close to even a thumbnail sketch of his life story. And, besides, I
don‘t have the materials. What he called the ‗mess of paper‘ associated with his life is
surprisingly small. Much of it resides in the archives of Ohio University. Some of it is in my
basement. Some of it is in Callie‘s garage. But, as with Richard III, a whole chunk of young
years are missing. Paul was an only child of an older mother who died long, long before I was
born. I remember finding out some years ago that her name was Helen. I have no idea why this
gap exists. It‘s telling that it does, however, because I think that to some extent Paul was selfcreated.
He came into being, I suspect, as he read books and saw into creatures who were other than
himself. It‘s no wonder he was an English professor. It‘s no wonder that he taught students how
to read Shakespeare‘s plays. It‘s no wonder he was a biographer. He loved to see into and
understand constructions of character, and he was himself a prizewinning playwright. But the art
of playwrighting never held him, and I think I know why.
Paul was aware that Shakespeare‘s skill lay in what Keats called his ‗negative capability‘ –
his ability to absent himself from his plays. There is no trustworthy Greek chorus in Shakespeare,
no character who speaks for the playwright. Each character lives in his or her own world, alone.
Now, as I said just a little earlier, the biographer, too, needs to remain invisible – but there is
a huge difference between this invisibility and Shakespeare‘s ‗negative capability‘. Because
invisible to the eye or not, no-one was more there than Paul. He is there even in his name, which
he never fiddled with even though we are a family of name fiddlers, which is why our parents‘
books are seemingly dedicated to a lot of different people. We were Siggy and Kate and Silky
and Silky Star and Curley Green and Corky and Callie. But Paul was Paul.
And he is there in every sentence of Richard III. But he‘s hard to catch, and I‘ll tell you why.
First, let me tell you about an actual scientific experiment on perception: a participant is
asked to view a film of a group of people throwing a ball back and forth. The task of the
participant is to count the number of times the ball is passed. As the people in the film are
passing the ball, an enormous gorilla walks across the room, stops, beats its chest, and moves on.
The participants, who are concentrating on that ball, invariably fail to notice the gorilla. Paul is
the enormous gorilla beating his chest as we watch Richard III live out his life. The turns of
phrase, those verbs, those nouns – those are all Paul, they are all Paul living Richard, and they
pass in front of our eyes as we peruse the book.
It‘s Paul‘s 100th birthday today, and, as the books in front of us testify, he‘s here among us.
Shakespeare‘s sonnet 55 alludes to the
destructive power of time and the ability of time to
destroy all things. The only escape from the
ravages of time, Shakespeare‘s sonnet suggests,
lies in lines of poetry, lines that give new life to
the dead every time they are read.
And so a happy birthday to Paul Murray
Kendall. And may his readers never fail.
.
Label on the Society’s memorial wreath, laid by Sue
Wells by the flagpole where Kendall’s ashes were
scattered in 2001
19
‘Something about Richard caught Paul’s imagination’
We thought it would interest Bulletin readers
if we asked Callie and Gillian to share some
of their memories of their father. They kindly
agreed, and John Saunders of the Bulletin
team sent them a number of questions to
answer.
As Callie noted, ‗there are so many
different aspects of Paul‘s life that it was hard
to choose what to put down for the answer to
the first question‘. We are grateful to them for
these interesting and thoughtful responses,
which give us a much fuller appreciation of
the life and character of Paul Murray Kendall.
Can you share with us some of your
memories of your father, his personality,
approach to life and outlook?
Gillian: Paul loved his garden, and I
remember his standing, hose in hand, watering
Gillian, Callie and Paul Murray Kendall on
banks of pink and white petunias. He grew
holiday in Greece, 1962
pansies and begonias from seed, and we also
had a vegetable garden – I was allowed to plant radishes in it. The vegetable garden was so
fecund that the wax beans produced well into fall, long after I‘d grown sick of them. We had a
family of woodchucks at the bottom of the garden, and for a while they competed with Paul for
the harvest, but he discovered that they had a fondness for marigolds, so he planted a mini-forest
of giant yellow marigolds near their den, and they didn‘t bother the garden again.
Callie: Paul loved baseball and both English and American football, and taught me the rules
and enjoyment of those sports. (He didn‘t like basketball, which I had to learn to love on my
own.) He supported Arsenal and suggested I support Spurs for a little family rivalry ... and he
was an avid player of the pools, even having a form submitted weekly on his behalf when we
were back in the USA. Paul was enthusiastic about all his pursuits and projects ... mowing the
lawn, playing tennis, meticulously planning a train journey across Europe, playing The Game (a
form of charades). When I was four, he read Quentin Durward by Sir Walter Scott to me, and
years later I came across the book in his study: it had long descriptive passages – extraneous
reading for a child – crossed out in pencil.
Paul’s main subject was English Literature, what motivated him to move across to history and
in particular to the controversial subject of Richard III?
Paul didn‘t actually move – professionally – from one discipline to the other: he continued to
teach literature while he researched medieval history and published in that field. We all
considered history to be his hobby, which he spent increasing amounts of time pursuing. The last
few years of his life, he would take off two days a year from his researches: his birthday and
Christmas.
Why Richard III? Paul was preparing to teach Shakespeare‘s Richard III and knew, of course,
that the portrayal of Richard was a piece of Tudor propaganda that Shakespeare had acquired via
Sir Thomas More. Something about Richard caught Paul‘s imagination, and he became more and
more curious about what the true man was like, and convinced that there was a very different
story to tell. He wondered what other, less prejudiced documents might have to say, and so the
search began.
20
Did he ever read Josephine Tey’s 1952 detective novel The Daughter of Time, if so did the
book influence his thoughts about Richard III?
I don‘t think he read it, but we did, long after Richard III had come to fruition.
Paul’s Richard III is based on extensive research; did his view of Richard change as a result
of examining the evidence, particularly contemporary accounts?
All biographers change as they explore their subject and get better acquainted with him or
her. Paul went from someone who simply knew Shakespeare‘s version wasn‘t the final word to
someone who not only knew the facts, but who had a fine intuition about his subject. He felt very
depressed writing about Richard‘s death.
Was Paul aware of the existence of the Richard III Society, which was re-founded the year
after the publication of his biography of the king?
Initially, no. But as time went by, Paul received both fan mail and scholarly correspondence
from Richard III Society members.
I have been writing a history of the Society and during my research came across an intriguing
reference in a letter written by our founder Saxon Barton in late 1954 to a meeting at the
Airport Hotel in Liverpool with ‘an American lecturer in English Literature’. He notes that the
American was ‘full of the Ricardian controversy’. Is there any likelihood that it could have
been Paul he met?
It was not Paul. We didn‘t visit Britain in 1954, and Paul did not fly to Liverpool for any
purpose. Paul, moreover, tended to keep his excitement about his research within the confines of
his family and close friends, although he was always ready to discuss Richard III. He looked at
Richard as a whole person and at all of his life rather than focusing on ‗the controversy‘. Sir
Thomas More was an apologist for the Tudors, but Paul wanted to look at the facts and did not
want to be an apologist for Richard III – he recognized that from this distance, one must look
only at the documentary evidence.
What do you think Paul would have made of the success of the Richard III Society and the
positive impact that his book has had on the Ricardian cause over the years?
He would be delighted that there is a society based on scholarship which brings information
about Richard III to a wide audience – in fact, a worldwide audience.
Change of contact details
Canadian Branch
Sheilah O‘Connor‘s email address is now: [email protected]
Western Australian Branch
The branch‘s contact email address is [email protected], which is applicable
whoever the branch secretary may be.
Bristol Group
Keith Stenner has a new email address: [email protected]
Full details of all Branch and Group Contacts were published in the March 2011 Bulletin.
21
News and Reviews
One of the more unusual battles of the Wars of the Roses
550th Anniversary Conference for the second battle of St Albans
A
conference to mark the 550th anniversary of the second battle of St Albans, fought on 17
February 1461, was organised by the Battlefields Trust and held at St Albans on 26-27
February 2011. The venue was St Saviour‘s church, in Sandpit Lane, a late 19th- or early 20thcentury church, not Roman Catholic but built in the Catholic tradition of red brick and white
paint, with a rood screen with crucifix and attendant saints. The only memorial of the battle is the
red and white roses in the stained glass of the east window. Saturday‘s talks were held in the
rather chilly nave of the church, whose acoustics were not of the best.
The Richard III Society had a sales stall at the conference, and other exhibitors included the
Battlefields Trust, the Medieval Siege Society, St Albans City Museum, the Friends of St
Saviours and the Friends of Bernards Heath. There was a model of the battlefield on display, and
items from the museum which we could handle, and replica arms and armour. Our sales stall was
manned in turn by Dave and Sue Wells and Howard Choppin.
The first paper was given by Peter Hammond, setting the scene with an account of the genesis
of the Wars of the Roses, and the events leading up to this battle. He said that no definitive
answer was really possible as to why the wars had broken out, but Duke Richard of York
undeniably played a major part. Modern historians tend to consider that the concept of good
lordship was the mainspring of the action. Peter believed that this concept played an important
part in explaining the behaviour of Duke Richard, who thought he was being treated unfairly.
Good lordship started with the king, who was at the top of the social pyramid. If Henry VI had
been able to govern with even average competence it seems very unlikely that the theoretically
superior claim of York to the throne would have been advanced. But there was social breakdown
and government failure, and the reasons probably included the fact that the realm was virtually
St Albans 550th anniversary conference in progress
22
bankrupt, mainly due to the wars with France. It is remarkable
that loyalty to Henry VI lasted as long as it did, but commitment
to an established order is always very important. It seems clear
that Duke Richard of York had felt great reluctance to act
against Henry until he believed himself forced into it. Up to his
return from Ireland in September 1450 he had been a pillar of
the Lancastrian regime, but from then on he seemed to change
course, and he challenged the government. The reasons for this
are still debated. ‗My own opinion is that there may well not
have been any one particular reason, but that he veered from one
purpose to another; he seems to have been a man beset by doubts
and hesitations ... gradually getting closer and closer to overt
treason but never quite leaving himself with no escape ...
Sometimes I wonder if he was in fact as clever as he thought he
was.‘
Man-at-arms
After York‘s forces took up arms against the king at Blore
Heath and Ludford Bridge, he and his sons were attainted in the Coventry Parliament of 1459,
‗the first overtly partisan act of the Wars of the Roses‘. Colin Richmond called these attainders
‗an act which broke the political habit of looking for a settlement rather than seeking
provocation‘. After that, the Yorkists really had no option but to resort to force.
‗It seems probable that York, as a normal complex and flawed human being, responded in the
end with force in the face of a king who was apparently incapable of ... the most fundamental
functions of his role as the keystone of political society ... I wonder if he was a person who was
driven from one course of action to another by the course of events and what his latest advisor
said.‘
A lively question session followed, including a discussion of whether Henry VI was suffering
from porphyria or hysterical amnesia. Peter again stressed that York seems to have changed
course on his return from Ireland, but the reason for this was unclear: ‗York seems to have been a
very odd man‘.
There followed an enjoyable interactive demonstration from the Medieval Siege Society
about the use of weaponry, armour and tactics. One man wore the equipment of an ordinary
soldier, and another portrayed a man-at-arms, in a brigandine. We heard that lack of
communication methods meant that important commanders had to be present on the field, which
is why so many of them were killed. They demonstrated that a man walking in armour actually
rattles, and so can be heard coming: an army advancing would certainly be heard. A man‘s
armour could weigh between 60 and 75 lb, comparable to what modern soldiers carry in war. A
brigandine has little metal plates sewn on it, made from recycled old armour. The speakers also
informed us that the only certain way to tell if someone was wearing armour was to hug them.
The third presentation of the morning was
given by Harvey Watson and Michael Elliott on
how the events of the second battle of St Albans
unfolded. They stressed that Roman roads were
still the best available in the fifteenth century,
and thought that Edward IV was a bad strategist.
He mopped up after Mortimer‘s Cross, and left
Warwick to face Margaret of Anjou alone. The
Lancastrians turned on to the Icknield Way from
the Great North Road, so came on St Albans
from an unexpected direction, and the Yorkists
had to shift their positions to face them – they
had their artillery in fixed positions, while the
Table-top model: the Yorkist camp
23
Lancastrians relied on heavy cavalry. Being first
with guns is very in at the moment, and they
said that this battle saw the first use of handguns in battle in Britain (and perhaps the
world?)
After lunch, Julian Humphrys had been
billed to speak on ‗Working with Local Amenity
Societies to preserve battlefields‘, but he had
been offered, and accepted, a hospital
appointment for an operation. In his place,
Jenny Burley from the Friends of Bernards
Heath, spoke. She said that the prevailing view
of history in St Albans was ‗after the Romans, it
Howard Choppin mans the Society’s stall
is all modern politics‘. In 1996 development
was mooted for the battlefield site, and the planners didn‘t even know there had been a battle
there. When more development was threatened in 2000, the local people wondered if a village
green could be the answer, but found this was not possible, so they formed The Friends of
Bernards Heath, a local amenity society, and this became an institutional member of the
Battlefields Trust. The name ‗Bernards Heath‘ is a variant of Barnet, and ultimately means
‗burned‘, and brick pits on the heath are mentioned by Dickens in Bleak House. The battlefield
area is still not protected by law, and still under threat. They have 200 members, mostly on email,
and are using this modern technology to lobby for protection, but, as she said, no archaeology
can sensibly be done on the brick-pit area because it is filled with Victorian rubbish. One nice
touch: she showed a picture of Sandridge Road, with a municipal planting of alternate red- and
white-blossoming cherry trees, in memory of the battle.
Alison Turner-Rugg, of St Albans City Museum, then spoke on ‗Medieval Food in St
Albans‘. She discussed cooking places, methods, and the evidence for the use of various foods,
and asked, ‗When large armies arrive in a vicinity, how are they fed?‘ In February 1461 20,000
or so men marched into a town of 2,000-3,000 inhabitants, and it would have been a case of
getting it from the people‘s stores, not taking what was growing in the fields.
The last paper on Saturday was by Helen Hales, of the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford,
discussing ‗Early Firearms‘. It is an ironic thought that the Chinese invented gunpowder as an
elixir for eternal life. She showed a picture of a very early cannon, hand-held on a long stick, and
a fifteenth-century gun with four barrels tied together, also on a stick: ‗multifire capacity before
Colt‘.
The final session of the day was a discussion on the Barnet project, taken by Harvey Watson
of the Battlefield Trust.
On Sunday morning there was a guided walk round the battlefield. The afternoon
presentations were moved into the adjacent church hall, which was an improvement both in terms
of acoustics and temperature. Peter Burley spoke on ‗A history of the battlefield‘ and Matthew
Bennett on ‗Shrove Tuesday to Palm Sunday – the War‘s progress‘. Father Peter Wadsworth, the
vicar, dealt with ‗Death in Late Medieval Society‘, including a consideration of whether the
participants in the battle had received some form of confession before the combat.
Mention should also be made of the refreshments, which were supplied by the Friends of St
Saviour‘s. There were tea and coffee in all the intervals, and a good selection for lunch of cold
meats and quiche, little salad things and cheesecake, a bargain at £4.50 a head.
Compiled from information supplied by Sue and Dave Wells and Lesley Boatwright.
24
Blood and Roses
Special interest weekend at Christ Church College, Oxford
R
ecently I had the pleasure of attending the Special Interest Weekend on ‗Blood and
Roses: England 1450-1485‘, which took place at Christ Church College, Oxford, from 24
to 27 March 2011. This is the eighth Special Interest Weekend which Christ Church has hosted,
covering a different topic each year.
A group of overseas Ricardians, from the US, Canada and Australia, who had arrived early
met on the evening prior to the official start for a highly enjoyable pub crawl and dinner at The
Trout. A big thank-you goes to David Luitweiler from the US Branch for organising this
enjoyable evening. It was great that Christine Headley, a Ricardian from Stroud in
Gloucestershire, could join us for the evening. Wherever Ricardians meet, you can be sure they
will have a lot to talk about and will enjoy themselves.
On Thursday the conference started
with a welcome by the Steward of Christ
Church, John Harris, who explained that
Christ Church is the largest of the Oxford
colleges covering 150 acres. Then Dr
Rowena Archer, the Academic Director of
the weekend, gave a short introductory
address, remarking on the difference
between the snow storm which raged at the
Battle of Towton 550 years ago and the
beautiful summery weather we were
experiencing.
The first talk of the seminar was by Dr
John Watts on ‗The Origins of the Wars of
the Roses‘. Dr Watts is the author of
Pre-conference outing to The Trout: Dorothea Preiz
Henry VI and the Politics of Kingship. He
and US Branch members Pamela Butler, David
explained that instead of seeing the Wars of
Luitweiler and Nita Musgrave
the Roses as a dynastic struggle it was
more appropriate to see them in a wider political context and compared them to the Peasants‘
Revolt of the 14th century. The inadequacies of Henry VI contributed to the descent into war. It
was interesting to consider the Wars of the Roses in the context of the neo-classicism of the
Renaissance.
The next morning saw us as assembled again in the Blue Boar Lecture Theatre for Diana
Dunn, the author of the ODNB entry on Margaret of Anjou. She showed us a Margaret that we
could understand and sympathise with, not the she-wolf of popular fiction. She explained how
the year 1453, with England‘s final defeat in the Hundred Years‘ War and Henry VI‘s sudden
illness, came as a turning point in Henry‘s reign. The first Battle of St Albans in 1455
consolidated the two opposing parties, York and Lancaster. Especially after 1456 and the move
of the court from London to Coventry, Margaret became stronger in the interests of her son,
while Henry became increasingly weaker.
This was followed by Dr James Ross on Edward IV. He measured Edward‘s kingship against
the duties expected of a late medieval king which explains why his reign was reasonably
successful. He was successful in the defence of the realm, especially on the domestic front. As
far as law and order were concerned, the surviving records show clearly that Edward had a strong
personal commitment to dispensing justice. However, the sheer quantity of these documents
make it difficult to assess his success. Edward was good at delegating, which was positive in the
25
management and consolidation of the realm; an example is Richard of Gloucester‘s role in the
North. Though Edward is often perceived as lazy, there is a huge amount of records bearing his
signature, which shows that he was actively involved in the administration of the realm.
Professor Caroline Barron brought us ‗The view from London‘. In the mid-15th century there
were 100+ churches in London, a city with approximately 40,000 inhabitants. Londoners were
not a homogenous group, but included the aristocracy, who had town houses, and their retainers,
wealthy merchants and wholesalers, and artisans. The relationship between city and king was
intended to be beneficial for both sides. The king expected finance, e.g. by loans, and military
aid, though the Londoners were generally disinclined to fight. The city on the other hand
expected the right to self-government, a solution to the problem of sanctuaries, which offered
immunity from city jurisdiction also for debtors, and to extend their privileges. During the Wars
of the Roses the Londoners were primarily interested in getting on with their own lives and living
peacefully. Who wore the crown was less important to them.
The second day concluded with a fascinating demonstration by Magnus Sigurdsson of ‗Arms
and Armour of the Late Fifteenth Century‘, which took place in Christ Church‘s beautiful Upper
Library. It was special treat to be greeted for the talk by Simon in a blue and murrey livery with a
white boar. Unfortunately I was one of those sitting further back and our visibility was rather
limited. However, after dinner we had the opportunity to see and handle the armour and weapons
close up.
Saturday morning started with Professor Tony Pollard on ‗Richard III, Reputation and
Reality‘. This was probably the one disappointment of the weekend. He contrasted the positive
reputation of Richard before 1483 – an honest, deeply Christian man, who reluctantly took on the
kingship – with the negative one post 1485, i.e. an immoral, child-murdering dissembler. Unfortunately, the reality part of the title lost out. Although he admitted that the records do
not show that one reputation was more true than the other, his view seemed to be clouded by the
post-1485 reputation he had outlined before. A bit less bias and more argument to support his
opinion would have been helpful. Dave Luitweiler from the US Branch challenged some of his
assumptions, but received no real explanation. For Professor Pollard it seems evident that
Richard pretended all his life to be the honest Christian prince in order to take the throne as soon
as his brother died leaving a minor to inherit the throne. All Ricardians as well as others agreed
that this was a rather unlikely scenario, as Edward‘s death came as a complete surprise to
everyone.
However, the next talk by Professor Anne Curry on ‗Armies and Soldiers of the Wars of the
Roses‘ more than made up for any disappointment. Professor Curry introduced us to the new
database of soldiers in English armies 1369-1453, www.medievalsoldier.org. While this does not
include the period of prime interest to us, there are plans to extend it up to the year 1558. Her talk
gave an interesting introduction into the structure of English armies during the Wars of the
Roses. She compared international wars, like the Hundred Years‘ War, and civil wars, like the
Wars of the Roses. Both had parallel means of raising armies and the same military community,
but in international wars the nobility was united, while in civil wars the nobility was divided.
Professor Curry also explained the recruitment of armies: from households, retinues as well as
less formal connections and letters of summons to individuals and towns, which results in all
armies being composites. In addition there were foreign troops involved, for instance as gunners,
as the English were rather slow in taking up the use of guns.
In the afternoon we set off by coach to visit the church, almshouses and school at
Ewelme. Here Dr Rowena Archer first gave us a talk on Alice, duchess of Suffolk. Alice
Chaucer, the granddaughter of Geoffrey Chaucer, was probably born at Ewelme about 1404.
Through her third marriage, to William de la Pole, she became Duchess of Suffolk. Initially she
was in the Lancastrian camp and accompanied Margaret of Anjou to England. However, in the
later 1450s she switched sides and negotiated a marriage for her son to a daughter of the duke of
26
York. Alice was clearly a formidable and interesting personality and I am surely not the only one
who would like to learn more about her.
Dr Archer then took us on a guided tour of the church and almshouses. The origins of the
complex go back to 3 July 1437, when the duke and duchess of Suffolk were licensed to found an
almshouse at Ewelme, called God‘s House, for two chaplains and thirteen poor men. By 1448,
when the statutes were drawn up, they had added a grammar school to teach the children of
Ewelme ‗freely without exaccion of any school hire‘.
The whole is a fascinating institution, which has survived with only very few changes since
the 15th century. There are still almsmen in the almshouses, now appointed by a Trust, who still
pray daily for the founders. The school is a church primary school incorporated into the State
system and is thus open to all children of Ewelme. And Alice‘s magnificent tomb as well as that
of her parents can be visited in the church.
Our return to Christ Church was a bit delayed, as two of the coaches collided and we had to
wait for a replacement. Our thanks went to Rebecca Favell for handling this crisis so admirably.
However, everyone was ready for the gala banquet in the evening, which was the social highlight
of the programme.
Sunday morning opened with ‗Dress Makes the Man‘ by Rebecca Favell, ably supported by
Edward IV in full armour, aka Simon Favell-De Montfort-Broughton, who are both enthusiastic
re-enactors. Her definition of re-enactment was ‗the recreation of any historical event prior to
today‘. This talk gave an interesting insight into the practicalities of medieval dress and armour.
Most inspiring, as I have to think about creating a suitable outfit for the banquet at the
Australasian Convention in August.
Dr Glenn Foard was supposed to
talk to us on the findings regarding the
site of ‗The Battle of Bosworth‘, but
unfortunately illness prevented him
from coming. However, he emailed his
Power Point presentation to Professor
Curry, who had been involved as
historical consultant in the project. We
were very grateful for her for standing
in at such short notice and competently
explaining to us the process of finding
the actual battle site.
The first part of the talk was entitled
‗Bosworth – a battlefield lost‘, which
explained how from the earliest map, by
Saxton in 1575, the battlesite moved
Being greeted for the talk on ‘Arms and Armour’:
eastwards on subsequent maps. The
Geoffrey Sedlezky (Canadian Branch), Simon Favell De
second part ‗Bosworth – a battlefield
Montfort-Broughton, unknown delegate, Dorothea Preis
found‘ gave an overview to the
discovery of the actual battlesite. Starting off from the term ‗Redemore‘, which suggests a low,
wet moor, the aim was to find an area that had been marsh in the 15th century, preferably along
the former main road from Atherstone, the direction where Henry Tudor came from, to Leicester,
where Richard came from. After several sites in the area were disqualified, a local farmer
suggested another peat deposit once called Fen Hole. After preliminary analysis, this field was
examined by metal detection, in the process of which many items were found. These include lead
munitions, Burgundian and other medieval coins, a piece of a sword, various buckles and the by
now famous boar badge.
The Special Interest Weekend was an exhilarating opportunity to be exposed to the
scholarship of these renowned experts, who talked on the subjects which interest us so much. As
27
was to be expected from the topic and the sponsorship of the Richard III Society for the weekend,
members of the Society from a wide variety of branches in the UK and world-wide were well
represented. Unfortunately not all interested could be accepted, as the organisers reported that the
weekend quickly had been fully booked with a 40+ waiting list. Attending Ricardians, sporting
white rose and white boar pins and pendants, were certainly flying Richard‘s banner. Several
participants without prior relations to the Society indicated that they would like to find out more
about us.
The weekend was also a great opportunity to experience Christ Church and its hospitality.
We stayed in college rooms in various blocks. All meals were taken in the historic Great Hall,
while the lectures took place in the modern Blue Boar Lecture Theatre. Delegates also had the
opportunity to attend Evensong in the Cathedral and visit the Picture Gallery, which featured a
special exhibition of Neapolitan and Spanish drawings of the Baroque. A heartfelt thank-you
goes to all lecturers and organisers, especially to Rebecca Favell for her outstanding organisation
of the event.
Next year Christ Church wants to tackle the Crusades. However, Rebecca told me that they
are thinking of examining the Hundred Years‘ War in the future, so start saving!
Dorothea Preis
Tower of London Seminar 26 March 2011
Society at War in the Fifteenth Century
We have received two reviews of this event, one from Phil Stone and one from Adam
Byrom.
I
n the Education Centre in the Tower of London, about 60 people, including speakers, listened
to nine splendid papers on matters to do with the Wars of the Roses, or ‗society at war in the
fifteenth century‘, given during a seminar organised by the Royal Armouries. The day began with
a welcome from Graham Rimer of the Royal Armouries in Leeds, who explained that this was
the first in a series of seminars that the Royal Armouries are organising, alternating between
London and Leeds. The first meeting was supposed to have been in Leeds last December but the
weather put an end to that.
David Grummitt chaired the morning session, which opened with Michael Hicks (University
of Winchester) telling us why the Wars began and why they kept going. He divided them up into
three groups, finally ending in the 1530s with the deaths of the de la Poles and the last pretender.
Sean Cunningham (National Archives) followed with a paper on how the nobles and the gentry
approached the Wars, illustrating his talk with a wonderful collection of documents from the
National Archives. Peter Fleming (University of the West of England) then told us about how the
Wars affected two medieval cities, choosing Bristol and Coventry as his examples, and
explaining how the loyalty of these cities to the House of York was an essential requirement
when Edward IV was moving from Mortimer‘s Cross to London. Either city could have sent
troops to cut his line of transfer. The last talk of the morning was from Sally Dixon-Smith
(Historic Royal Palaces) on the effects that the Wars had on the Tower of London. She pointed
out that the tradition that Henry VI was killed in the Wakefield Tower probably had no basis in
fact. It only became known as the Wakefield Tower in the nineteenth century. When Henry died,
it was known as the Record Tower and was probably already (over) full of state records.
After these papers, there was a short session for questions and an interesting debate developed
on a number of the matters discussed during the morning.
The lunch break gave us a chance to stretch the legs and get some air, exploring the Tower.
By this time, of course, it was pretty busy with members of the public, unlike when I had first
28
arrived when the place was almost empty, making it very atmospheric. (I did have to wonder how
so many tourists can afford to visit the Tower – the adult entrance fee was £19.80.)
Back in the meeting room, a display of some of the artefacts, including two skulls, from the
finds at Towton had been set up.
The afternoon session was chaired by Professor Hicks and began with a fine paper from
Philip Morgan (Keele University). He and I share a sense of humour which helped to make the
post-lunch talk very easy to listen to. He told us that, really, battles were rare and to be avoided
whenever possible. They were risky and unpredictable. He reminded us that names change and
that records can be few and far between. Memorials tend to be short-lived and can often be
misplaced. David Green (Harlaxton College) talked about chivalry in the time of the Wars of the
Roses, suggesting that the conventions were largely ignored. Fewer gentlemen went to war as the
law had now become an acceptable profession for the gentry – safer, and more remunerative, too.
After this, Jonathon Riley, Director General of the Royal Armouries, gave a fascinating paper on
logistics and how a renaissance army was supplied. An army was the equivalent of a city on the
move, with vast numbers of people and animals involved. Indeed, the totals would be
phenomenal. At Towton, each side would have needed at least 17,000 horses. Supplying the men,
the entourage and all these animals required huge amounts of food, weapons, etc. For this reason
alone, protracted campaigns were not practical unless the army could be supplied by sea, when
one ship would take the equivalent of a hundred wagonloads. Thom Richardson (Royal
Armouries) gave us a talk on arms and armour, telling us, among other things, that no complete
examples of fifteenth-century harness remain. Finally, David Grummitt (University of Kent)
reminded us that there were, actually, quite a lot of guns around during the fifteenth century and
that they were often used in settling private arguments. Many of the guns would have been handheld and many of the larger ordnance would have been taken to war when required. The Yorkist
kings did much to increase the size of the royal ordnance – and they kept better records, too.
After another session of questions, the meeting broke up and it was obvious from the
conversations to be overheard that everyone seemed to have had a very entertaining and
interesting time.
Incidentally, I had a talk with Michael Hicks at lunchtime and he hoped he hadn‘t been too
unkind about Richard III – he hadn‘t, by the way – as he guessed there might be Ricardians in the
audience. To my certain knowledge, there were at least seven.
If all of the future Royal Armouries meetings are as good as this one they are to be
thoroughly recommended and thanks go to the organisers and speakers for a great start to the
programme.
Phil Stone
T
he Royal Armouries conference held on Saturday 26 March at the Tower of London was a
day full of information, which unfortunately wasn‘t always well presented. The
qualifications of those giving presentations were without doubt; one professor and seven doctors
took to the floor. The subject matter of the presentations encompassed of all aspects of the wars
from their origins to the role of firearms via the implications, or lack of them, of chivalry on
those involved.
Professor Michael Hicks managed to survive the wrath of the Society members present when
he reiterated his opinion of Richard III‘s responsibility for the ‗disappearance‘ of Edward V and
his brother. (Personally I have Margaret Beaufort as my prime suspect at the moment.) Other
speakers spread their information across the whole period of the wars. One of the more
enlightening points raised by two of the speakers was that the lack of contemporary evidence for
the period results in details being extrapolated from the centuries before and after.
For me there were some outstanding and interesting presentations. Dr Peter Fleming, from
University of West of England, took the wars to the regions comparing the roles of, and the
29
impacts on, Bristol and Coventry; Dr Sally Dixon-Smith, of the Historic Royal Palaces,
highlighted the role of the Tower itself. In the afternoon Dr Philip Morgan, from Keele
University, explained the development the battlefields once the killing had finished and Dr
Jonathon Riley, of the Royal Armouries, clarified the implications of taking an army to war.
The downsides were that some of the speakers were not as developed in their presentation
skills as they obviously are in their knowledge. And that on occasion it became a mutual
academic appreciation society, with the speakers cross referencing to each other‘s books and
developing their own inside joke on Nibley Green (a battle from 1470 Gloucestershire). The
academics also managed to locate themselves in front of the display cabinet containing artefacts
retrieved from excavations at Towton, which did make it a little difficult to view the collection
fully.
As the attendees left to be greeted by the news of the events following the ‗Stop the Cuts‘
rally the similarities to Michael Hicks‘ description of the beginning of the wars could not be
ignored. The role of the over mighty lords, economic recession and international diplomacy was
as clear at the beginning of the Wars of the Roses as it is today.
Obviously creating a conference for an unknown audience is no mean feat; and the Armouries
succeeded in providing all of those present with information which will support and build upon
their personal interests.
Adam Byrom
Fatal Colours and Blood Red Roses
A two-part talk at the Mansion House, York, Sunday 10 April 2011
George Goodwin: Fatal Colours
As part of the 550th-anniversary commemorations of the battle of Towton, the Yorkshire
Archaeological Trust laid on a number of events. As well as the opening of a new exhibition in
Micklegate Bar there was a joint talk giving the historical and the archaeological aspects of the
story of the battle, and how the two complement each other to improve our understanding of it.
We started with the history, in a talk by George Goodwin, based on his new book Fatal
Colours. The battle was the ‗longest, biggest, bloodiest battle on English soil‘. It was significant
for its sheer brutality, and was fought in appalling weather conditions. After Towton ‗a crowned
and anointed king was replaced by a king against the wishes of the majority of the nobility‘. With
the introduction out of the way, Goodwin went into the background, explaining that a king had a
dual function. He was not only anointed and therefore semi-divine, he also needed to be an
effective administrator. Henry V, the hero of Shakespeare and Agincourt, demonstrated all that a
medieval king should be, an administrator, chief justiciar, a efficient tax collector and a great
warrior. The house of Lancaster, although deposing an anointed king, were rightful kings because
Richard II had proved to be an ineffective administrator. He had broken his coronation oath and
therefore could be legitimately deposed. Having removed any cavils we might have about the
legitimacy of the Lancastrians, Goodwin continued with his praise of Henry V, who if he had
lived only two months longer would have been king of France as well. Instead, he left his throne
to a child, Henry VI.
On the face of it Henry VI did some good things, founding King‘s College and Eton, but he
was inconsistent and kept changing his mind. So there was a problem with Henry: he was an
anointed king but he failed in the second requirement of a king, that of being an able
administrator. This gap was filled by William de la Pole, duke of Suffolk, who held everything
together. However, with the death of Bedford and the losses in France, someone had to take the
blame, and that was Suffolk. Cade‘s rebellion ensued and Edmund Beaufort, duke of Somerset,
30
filled the gap following Suffolk‘s murder. Things were no better and Somerset lost yet more of
France. The opposition under the duke of York wanted Somerset removed.
With Henry VI falling into a catatonic state in 1453/54, York and Margaret of Anjou vied for
power. Henry VI‘s mental instability was traced back to his French grandfather Charles VI.
Goodwin believes it was schizophrenia that Henry suffered from.
The collapse in the political situation eventually resulted in armed conflict. Henry could claim
as an anointed king to have God on his side, so Richard, duke of York, and Edward, earl of
March, had to win through force of arms. The scene was set for Towton. Edward did not have
majority of the nobility on his side at the battle of Towton, but he had the crucial support of
merchants, Calais and London and the south of England and Wales. He declared a ‗race war‘
against the men of the north through Warwick‘s propaganda, stirring terror into the hearts of the
people of the south by describing the hoards of raping and pillaging northerners who were
heading their way.
The two kings were recruiting, Henry VI in the north and Edward IV in the south. The two
armies converged at Towton, where the archaeology reinforces the chronicle accounts. The
Lancastrians had the best position on the ground and should have won; they also had bigger
numbers, but Edward had the weather and the wind on his side, and we know the result.
‗After Towton,‘ said George Goodwin, ‗the position of the king was altered for ever. He
could only survive with raw power.‘
This rather breathless romp through the events leading to Towton was followed by Tim
Sutherland giving the archaeological perspective of the battle.
Tim Sutherland: The Graves in Towton field
In July 1996 a mass grave was found during work on Towton Hall, which unfortunately cut in
half a large burial pit. This first half was not archaeologically examined, but instead the bones
were taken out and reburied in Saxton church. However, when further building work was carried
out on the same area of the hall the following September, the other half of the pit was opened up
and this time the archaeologists were brought in. Learning from mistakes made at Visby in
Sweden, when a series of mass burial pits from the 1361 battle fought there had been excavated
in the early decades of the twentieth century, each skeleton was excavated individually and
recorded. Age, size and injuries were among the things that were looked at. The results were
published in a book called Blood Red Roses taken from the title of a documentary made on the
excavation and its results.
Work has continued on the battlefield, as there are still grave pits to be found. Looking at old
maps of the area and the chronicles it was hoped to locate the mass grave in the centre of the
battlefield from which Richard III had arranged for the bodies to be exhumed and given Christian
burial in 1484. His order referred to the ‗plentiful multitude [who] were taken away from human
affairs‘ and were placed in three pits on the battlefield. Despite the fact that maps showed where
the pits probably were, nobody could find them. Yet the Croyland Chronicle claimed that 38,000
had been killed and this did not include those who may have drowned in Cock Beck.
In 1540 Leland stated that many bones were buried in Saxton church, taken from five pits half
a mile north.
In 1615 Stow claimed that 33,000 or 35,091 men were buried in five pits and moved to
Saxton church, and Ledman‘s map of 1891 shows the site as being within an enclosure.
Comparing this map to current maps an enclosure was located in what appeared to be the correct
area. Excavation found a Romano British enclosure but no graves.
Aerial photography revealed an enclosure in the area, but this too proved to be Roman.
Fieldwork was undertaken and a geophysics survey made of the area where people suspected the
graves might be, but still nothing was found.
However since 1997 a metal detectorist, Simon Richardson, had been working on the site, and
he had been recording what he had found and where. The finds were plotted on a map, and
31
showed a band of finds across the battlefield, but they related in general to the loss of small
pieces of medieval artefacts such as strap ends and decoration. However, when the finds of
arrowheads were added the picture changed. There was a cluster of finds in the Dintingdale area,
which confirmed the skirmish there. In the corner of a field within the area of the battlefield was
a large cluster with a wide spread to either side.
A test pit was put in over the edge of the larger cluster and what was found was a large
collection of pieces of bones: fingers, and feet bones, some teeth and broken fragments of skulls
and jaws. From this small pit it is estimated that the remains of nine individuals were found.
There were no long bones or complete skulls, and this suggests that this was the pit exhumed in
1484. The fact that bits of bone still remain suggests that they were not very efficient at clearing
it, but in 1484 it was only 23 years after they had been buried and they would still have been a bit
‗gooey‘. The bigger bones would therefore have been much easier to collect and take away.
It is hoped that funding will have been secured for a full excavation of the site to take place
this August. Church and state have already exhumed the bodies and now it is the archaeologists‘
turn. The excavation will provide an opportunity to find out more about the men who fought
there and permit a more realistic estimate ofthe casualties. Will it prove the number of dead to be
between 20,000 and 38,000 as given in the records? This is unlikely. Contemporary accounts of
fifteenth-century battles are notoriously inaccurate in their estimates of the numbers involved. If
you look at the numbers of dead recorded for other battles in the Wars of the Roses, then there is
an interesting difference between those recorded in Lancastrian victories and Yorkist victories.
The numbers seem to grow with each successive Yorkist victory, which suggests they were
playing with the figures. The average Lancastrian casualty rate is about 2,000. Based on the
estimated numbers found in the test pit and taking the size of the total pit it is estimated that there
may be between 2,000 and 4,000 bodies buried there.
Fatal Colours The Battle of Towton 1461 by George Goodwin is published by Weidenfeld
and Nicolson (London, 2011), price £20. This interpretation of the battle and events leading up to
it are certainly controversial and the basis for a good discussion and debate. George Goodwin has
been invited to speak at the Society AGM in York in 2012, when we shall have the opportunity
to hear more about his views and to ask questions on some of them. The paperback edition of the
book should also be available at the AGM.
Of more immediate interest is the continuing work being undertaken by Tim Sutherland on
the battlefield. As this will taking place later this year he may well have a lot more information
by April 2012, I have therefore asked him to be one of our speakers at our Triennial Conference,
when I hope we can have an update on what has been found.
This multidisciplinary approach to the study of battlefields is adding an exciting new
dimension to our understanding of the battles of the Wars of the Roses. It is with these new
developments in mind that the 2012 Triennial Conference has been widened to include this new
thinking about medieval battles and warfare. Bosworth and Towton together will improve our
understanding of these battles and remind us just how bloody and brutal they were.
Lynda Pidgeon
Yorkshire Tailpiece
When we were visiting York Minster during the study weekend, one of the guides told us that the
statues in niches below the west window (the Heart of Yorkshire) had been removed for cleaning
a while ago. They are modern, made of wood, and have no heads, but their hands are arranged to
read ‗Christ is here‘ in semaphore. After they were put back, an irate nun approached him to say
that they were in the wrong order, and now read ‗Chris is there‘. He made a hasty adjustment.
Dave and Sue Wells
32
Review: Richard III by The Propeller Company
(Artistic Director, Edward Hall)
T
he King‘s Theatre, Edinburgh, was to open its doors from 22 to 26 February 2011 to
Propeller, the critically acclaimed and award-winning all-male Shakespeare Company who
in 2002 had received rave reviews for Rose Rage (Henry VI Parts I, II and III). Now in 2010/11
they were to conclude this epic telling of Shakespeare‘s plays on the Wars of the Roses by
bringing Richard III to life.
Like most Ricardians my heart lurched at the news. Yet again would Shakespeare‘s evil
monster walk the boards and sell to the eager, awaiting public the twisted telling of his story? But
this was Propeller and they were on my doorstep. Having seen more Richard III productions than
I could shake a stick at, I decided enough was enough; I didn‘t need to see any more. However,
fate was already conspiring against me. A friend, who had never seen Richard III before, had
already bought tickets. So, with the mixed emotions of a heavy heart but excitement at seeing
Propeller I took my seat.
Over the years I have seen many theatre shows that I have thoroughly enjoyed but never have
I been so utterly enthralled. To put it simply, Propeller‘s Richard III is the finest theatre
production I have ever seen. Mixing the visual metaphors of a Clockwork Orange with a horror
movie narrative and all ensconced within the central core of the best of British farce is not an
obvious recipe for success. But it worked. And on so many levels.
The production opens on faceless henchmen, dressed in modern white coats with their faces
bandaged, whilst holding the various implements of their killing trade and coming towards us
through a haze of smoke in an eerie hospital-like setting. So far so interesting, but then they
break into the most beautiful Latin chant – a nod to Olivier‘s Richard III perhaps – but their male
voices, a counter tenor within them, were compelling and ethereal and took us, in a heartbeat,
from utterly chilling to almost unbearably exquisite.
It was this duality and playing of, and with, our perceptions throughout the production that
simply wowed, even down to the wardrobe.
The main characters, in direct contrast to the ever-present henchmen, were all dressed in
black and evoked different historical eras; from Richard‘s ‗Reinhard Heydrich-esque‘ ThirdReich leathers (a nod to Sir Ian McKellen‘s adaptation perhaps) to the pin stripe suits and bowler
hats of Hastings and Buckingham, the prohibition-era ragtime attire of Catesby, the turn-of-thecentury undertaker of Ratcliffe and the black leather-like Victorian bustle dress of Elizabeth to
the strict Edwardian riding habit of Anne. The use of so many historical costumes from so many
different, albeit more modern, historical eras gave the production an everyman quality but what
was also so striking was the decision by the players playing the female leads not to don wigs or
temper their voices.
In a sense I was seeing Richard III for the first time as Shakespeare envisioned it – an all
male cast with the power and energy and brute force that this brought with it.
And as for Richard, he was beautiful. ‗Beautiful?‘ I hear you say. Yes – and very. Played by
Richard Clothier, the striking 6' 2″ actor from Spooks and Above Suspicion with a voice to equal
Olivier‘s, he commanded the stage. Not only was he blond (bleached and Brylcreemed and
looking every inch a Kenneth Branagh / Reinhard Heydrich from Conspiracy) but everything he
did was done with a nod and a wink. And it is this that made the production.
For many years I have felt that Shakespeare‘s Richard III is not the heinous play to be feared
by Ricardians. Having seen so many productions of it over the years and having come to know its
words as well as any it was, for me, as though Shakespeare‘s Richard held within it, and
throughout its core, a very secret, subversive, and dangerous sub text; one that is very clearly
saying that if you believe this evil caricature could ever have existed as a human being then you
33
are fools. For me, Shakespeare‘s Richard III is denying the very Tudor tradition it purportedly
supports and extols, by making it farcical.
And it is this that Propeller has totally understood and seized upon. By reintroducing the
farcical element it is the ‗good‘ characters that work around Richard and his machinations that
now look utterly ridiculous in their wholehearted certainty and belief in his, and Shakespeare‘s
world.
Did I bristle at any point in the play as a Ricardian? Well, yes, but only once and right at the
end when we were at Bosworth. This was where I had my first, and only, sense-of-humour
failure. Henry Tudor arrived on stage in a white suit and shirt looking every inch the saint sent
from God and was allowed his full battle speech – the ‗good‘ character acting out his part in his
full belief and certainty of the realness of Richard‘s world and I wanted him to stop, just stop.
However, all was soon well again as Richard‘s much more powerful battle speech followed fast
on his heels and was done with no nod and winks in sight. For the first time we were shown the
real Richard, the real man, and he was magnificent; fighting for his name, his cause, and his
birthright and he was, by this suddenly altered vision, breath-taking. This was the man to follow;
the man if I had polled the audience, they would be fighting for. All of Tudor‘s words were paled
in comparison; insipid, whiney witterings, and so instantly and easily forgotten.
Propeller in this production have clearly understood the difference between the ‗dramatic‘
Richard and the ‗historical‘. In their programme they confirm that ‗Richard III dramatizes the
‗Tudor myth‘, history as the Elizabethan chroniclers presented it …‘ and (Shakespeare)
‗challenges every pre-conceived notion ... each time you think you know something is definitely
right or wrong, he shows that the opposite truth exists ... It encourages you not to be judgemental,
to try to look beyond what seems to be on the surface ... Shakespeare reminds you not to get
caught up in that vortex.‘
Propeller‘s Richard III runs until 23 July 2011 in UK and USA venues (see:
www.propeller.org.uk for further details). Please, please go and see it. You will not be
disappointed both as theatre goers and Ricardians. How this production can ever be bettered is
hard for this writer to imagine. It is always those earnest renditions that I am now utterly
convinced are the ones that subvert Shakespeare‘s words and meaning. And as to my friend and
his thoughts on seeing King Richard for the very first time? A simple statement: he would have
followed him anywhere.
We look forward with bated breath to Richard III at the Old Vic with Kevin Spacey and
directed by Sam Mendes.
Philippa Langley
Crazy Christmas Query
Early in November 2010, Sue and Dave Wells, our Joint Secretaries, received an email with the
above headline. The writer, N, was looking for an unusual Christmas gift for her partner, S, and
wanted to know of an expert in Richard III who might be willing to join them for dinner to
discuss the Princes. As she wrote, ‗I am sure the request seems rather odd but it is very difficult
to think of a gift for a man who has everything‘.
In the absence of a willing expert or of any other volunteer, I put myself forward, as much out
of curiosity as anything else. Emails went back and forth, with Sue and Dave acting as the
intermediary. We decided that it would have to be somewhere fairly public, just in case, and, in
time, it was also agreed that Beth should come with me. N had no problem with these requests.
They both live in Essex so a London venue was good for them too.
After Christmas, ‗Dinner with the Chairman‘, as it became known, was arranged and N made
a booking for the Savoy Grill for a date in February. (This led to Dave offering to be a stand in if
I changed my mind.) Two weeks before, however, we learnt that, because of something to do
34
with his work, S couldn‘t make that date and another was chosen. Sadly, on that day, the Savoy
Grill couldn‘t take us.
So it was that, on the evening of 8 February this year, Beth and I met up with N and S in
Rules Restaurant in Maiden Lane behind the Strand, somewhere of which I had heard – it is said
to be the oldest eating house in London – though I never imagined eating there. We need not
have worried about them being weirdos as N and S turned out to be two absolutely charming
people and Beth and I had a really great evening. He is in the oil business while she was doing a
course in art history.
The food, as can be imagined with an establishment of the reputation of Rules, was superb.
For my main course, I had a house speciality, the steak and kidney pudding, and it was something
to die for. For dessert, N had the cheese course and she must have been presented with about a
pound‘s weight of different cheeses on her plate.
The conversation was very fluid and when I raised the subject of Richard III, saying that it
was time for me to sing for my supper, we were well into the evening. As it happens, I wasn‘t
able to satisfy S‘s curiosity – in fact, I don‘t think anyone could, as he is really looking for
someone who has dispassionately collated all the theories on the disappearance of the Princes
without coming down on any one particular side or the other. No matter, it just meant that our
chat was able to range over a whole host of different things instead. By the time we came away,
three hours had passed since we had sat down to eat and the time had flown. Far from being a
crazy Christmas event, it had been an evening to remember for all the right reasons.
Incidentally, as you can probably tell, Beth and I can greatly recommend eating at Rule‘s, but
let me add a word of warning. Do make sure that someone else is picking up the bill!
Phil Stone
Sometimes two wrongs do make a right
As the stock holder of the 2-volume sets of the Logge Register and of the Index of Testators
CD, I receive details of members‘ orders from Sally Empson, the Society‘s Sales Liaison Officer,
and then send out the requested item. In February she sent me an order from a member named
Dorothea Preis, which I duly despatched – to Australia. In a return email to Sally, I commented
on the high cost of posting Logge to Australia; whereupon she gently pointed out that the order
had been for the Index CD rather than for two fat volumes of Logge. Oops! I duly sent Dorothea
the CD and Sally contacted her to inform her of the mix-up, telling her to keep Logge, rather than
attempt to post the books back, as it had been my mistake.
A few weeks later I received a message from Dorothea to say that the Logge volumes had
arrived safely (quickly followed by the CD) and that she was absolutely delighted with the mixup as the volumes were a ‗wonderful resource‘. She went on to say that as ‗an avid reader of the
Ricardian and the Bulletin, I have heard a lot about this project over the years, but always
assumed that its target audience would be academics with very specialised interests. So it came
as a wonderful surprise to realise that I was very wrong‘. As I was one of those closely involved
with the transcription and production of the Logge Wills, Dorothea‘s comments were most
welcome – and very good advertising for the books, which is why I have reproduced them here.
So, two wrongs (my mistake in sending the volumes, Dorothea‘s in thinking that they would
be too specialised) do make a right. But that is not the end of the story.
Dorothea had already booked to travel over from Australia for the ‗Blood and Roses‘ special
interest weekend at Christ Church, Oxford, on 24-27 March, and she was going to visit St Albans
before travelling on to Oxford. Of all the ‗Ricardian‘ places she could have chosen to stay in
during her brief visit to the UK, she had chosen the one nearest to my home – and the one to
35
which I used to travel for meetings of the (sadly) now defunct South Herts Group. So we
arranged to meet up for a meal in St Albans on Tuesday 22 March.
There was a further coincidence: Dorothea is the webmaster of the New South Wales Branch
of the Society, and one of the regular features on their website is called ‗Ricardian Places‘. To
this she tends to contribute information about places in Hertfordshire, since, although German by
birth, she had lived in Welwyn Garden City, first for a year while still a student (1980-81) and
later for five years with her family (1993-98), before going to Australia. She had, therefore
followed my articles in the Ricardian about the More with interest.
We had a very pleasant evening chatting about all kinds of things Ricardian – and others not.
It is amazing how a common interest between relative strangers can result in instant friendship.
On her return to Australia, Dorothea wrote to say how much she had enjoyed her time in
England, and that she had visited Berkhamsted Castle on her way to Oxford. She has posted a
brief report of the ‗Blood and Roses‘ event on the NSW branch‘s website (http://www.richardiiinsw.org.au/?p=5143) and has reviewed it for this issue of the Bulletin (see pp. 25-28).
Heather Falvey
Richard III and Anna Dixie
Recently I purchased a CD by the great English folk singer Norma Waterson 1 and whilst
listening to one of the songs I noticed a few familiar references: ‗Bosworth Park‘, ‗Richard my
king‘ and ‗on Redmore Plain‘. The song was written by Norma‘s sister, the late Lal Waterson,
and is called Anna Dixie. The lyrics read:
A yeoman farmer, he loved me dearly.
So did my father, but not that clearly.
Trying to spoil things for my man and me,
He set a trap would break the back of any tree
My man and me went walking.
My man did all of the talking.
Down by Bosworth Park, green in the dark,
Taking the long way back,
I fell in my father's trap,
Causing the birds above to wake up
Over there, and under him,
The horse supporting Richard, my king,
Began galloping too fast for him.
The horse's hooves came tumbling down
Close by my burying ground.
Forever we are bound on Redmore Plain.
My name is Anna Dixie.
My father killed me.
Resting peacefully, oh no, not me.
Lay me beyond Cheyney
Lest I come search for thee.
Dress me up grandly lest I scare thee.
A yeoman farmer, he loved me dearly.
So did my father, but not that clearly.
The story is apparently based on a true event that happened during the early years of the
nineteenth century. Anna Dixie was the daughter of Sir Wolstan Dixie, the owner of Bosworth
36
Hall (now a hotel) and she had embarked on an affair with a local farmer. Her father inevitably
didn‘t approve of the relationship with someone below her social class. Sir Wolstan secretly setup a ‗mantrap‘ to catch her lover, which he would fall into should he ever attempt to gain entry
into the Hall‘s grounds. One night, however, Anna silently crept from her bedroom for a prearranged tryst with her farmer. As she moved through an avenue of trees in the grounds she fell
into the mantrap herself and subsequently died from her injuries. Her ghost, it is said, still haunts
Bosworth Hall. Lal Waterson in retelling the story in song cleverly weaves in another tragic
event from Bosworth‘s past, and forever the two tragedies ‗are bound on Redmore plain‘.
But what had inspired Lal Waterson to write the song and bring in references to the battle of
Bosworth and King Richard? Rather coincidentally I had purchased the same day a beautiful new
CD by Marry Waterson,2 Lal‘s daughter. So I thought it worthwhile emailing her to see if she
could provide some background to the writing of Anna Dixie. She kindly replied the following
day:
‗Mum read Shakespeare's Richard III when young and later visited Bosworth Field & the
surrounding area, she was very impressed and yes, she did like him, deciding he wasn‘t as bad a
character as Shakespeare had painted. Whilst there she learnt of the story of Anna Dixie who was
buried near Bosworth Field and so the images of that story and the battlefield became
a connection. Mum would sometimes imagine other singers she admired singing her songs when
she had written them and it may interest you to know, she imagined Kate Bush singing this one.
Mum would be delighted with your feature.‘
My thanks to Marry Waterson for her assistance with this article, to Lal Waterson for writing
the lyrics and to Norma Waterson for recording them. Lyrics of Anna Dixie reproduced courtesy
of Topic Records Ltd.
1
2
Norma Waterson, Norma Waterson (Hannibal, 1996)
Marry Waterson, The Days That Shaped Me (One Little Indian, 2011)
John Saunders
News in brief
Eleventh Annual Fotheringhay Organ Recital, Friday 21 September 2011
This year‘s recital on the Woodstock organ will be given by Robert Quinney, the sub-organist at
Westminster Abbey. Mr Quinney has a busy solo career outside of his Abbey duties and has
worked with such ensembles as The Sixteen and the Cardinall‘s Musick. It is hoped that he will
intersperse his recital with anecdotes about the Royal Wedding. The recital will begin at 8 pm.
Tickets from the Oundle Box Office, tel. 01832 274734 at £12.50 (£10.50 for concessions).
Lady Anne Neville, 50 to 1
Jean Townsend of the Lincoln Branch tells us that her friend Carol Arnold, who lives in
Middleham, has a racehorse called Lady Anne Neville, who ran earlier in the year at Wetherby
and came in at 50 to 1. Lady Anne is six years old and trained by Chris Fairhurst in Middleham.
There is also a six-year-old nag called King Richard III which is training in the Vale of Belvoir
and won at least one race last year.
Was Sir Henry Wyatt tortured in the Tower of London under Richard III?
The mills of the Bulletin may grind slowly, but they grind exceeding small. Readers may
remember that in the September 2010 Bulletin (p.35) Fiona Price asked about the sequence in
Hilary Mantel‘s novel Wolfhall, when Sir Henry Wyatt tells Cromwell about his imprisonment
and torture in the Tower under Richard III, and if there is any evidence for torture in Richard‘s
reign. Geoffrey Wheeler and Annette Carson have been investigating, and we hope to have a
piece about this in the September Bulletin.
37
Media Retrospective
softer version of Wallis Simpson‖. The
Tudors descended from royals who married
outside royal circles, and Henry VIII had the
―extraordinary notion that a marriage is only
legitimate if you‘re in love with your wife‖.
Jenny Johnston in Weekend, 23 April,
noted ‗Kate Middleton has found a fan in the
historian David Starkey‘, though Starkey has
a ‗hilarious penchant for pointing out how
many of her forerunners down the centuries
were extremely ugly or had bad teeth‘. ‗He
takes us on a fascinating journey from the
Middle Ages to the present, pointing out all
the young brides who truly were doing
something ground-breaking. And jawdropping stuff it is too. He focuses on
Elizabeth Woodville, who, in May 1464,
became the first commoner to marry a
reigning sovereign. ... Edward held a dagger
to Elizabeth‘s throat and tried to force her to
have sex with him. Elizabeth, Starkey says,
―responded with magnificent coolness, telling
him that he could kill her, but she would only
sleep with him if he married her. So he did.‖‘
The review of the programme by Andrew
Billen in The Times on 28 April called
Starkey ‗the man who really knows the royals
but was determined to play the wise old owl
and party pooper‘. ‗This marriage, he insisted,
was not the birth of something modern, but
the old, old story.‘
Current Archaeology was another, perhaps unexpected, journal to get in on the
act. The cover of the May 2011 edition
displayed the words Royal Wedding Special
prominently across a reproduction of ‗The
Marriage of Edward IV to Elizabeth
Woodville‘ (which, it remarks, has been dated
to the 19th century and believed to be the
work of someone designated ‗the Spanish
forger‘). Inside, a section on ‗The
Archaeology of Royal Weddings‘ (pp. 12-19)
contained the story of Elizabeth Woodville,
‗the biggest upset to royal protocol‘. ‗The rise
of the Woodville family, from common stock
to the royal household, reflects the complex
social and political upheaval in England
Marrying a commoner
Journalists faced with a royal wedding need
to find their own different and interesting
angle. It was obvious that many would look
back at previous royal romances, especially
the ones that led to marriage and perhaps it
should have come as no surprise that
Elizabeth Woodville figured so often.
Geoff Wheeler and others have
showered the Bulletin with relevant
cuttings:
David Starkey’s programme on Channel 4
(Wednesday 27 April) was called Romance
and the Royals, and had the general theme
that English monarchs often married for love
until George I came from Hanover in 1714
and brought with him the notion that royals
should only marry royals, as, in the German
way of thinking, if a royal personage had a
child by a commoner, that child was also a
commoner. This idea prevailed until World
War One, when George V allowed his
children to marry Britons, which meant in
practice that they could look for partners to
the British aristocracy, who counted as
‗commoners‘.
The programme generated articles from
people who had seen it before transmission.
The BBC History Magazine, May 2011
(which appeared in April), commented:
‗For many newspaper journalists covering
the royal wedding, the angle has been clear.
The marriage ... is something wholly new, the
union of a future king and a commoner whose
own mother was an air-hostess. David
Starkey ... sees this as a misreading. ―We
think of the English as a very unromantic
people. In fact this is absolutely untrue. ... it‘s
the English who link romantic love with
marriage.‖‘ He instanced John of Gaunt, two
of whose three marriages were love matches,
and also Edward IV, the first monarch to wed
a commoner when he married Elizabeth
Woodville ―a stiletto beauty‖ like ―a slightly
38
during the Wars of the Roses. The account of
Elizabeth‘s meeting with Edward is rather
more restrained than Starkey‘s: ‗What passed
between them on that fateful day we will
never know; but according to legend they met
under an oak tree, where the King tried in
vain to alleviate her distress by suggesting she
become his mistress.‘
In the 1960s, archaeologist Christine
Mahany excavated ‗a jumble of lumps and
bumps‘ outside the village of Grafton Regis.
‗A medieval structure began to emerge that
could not easily be explained ... a pillared
cloister ... flanked by a chapel and several
other associated buildings. Beyond the main
building lay a dovecote, and what may have
been a hospital, and an industrial complex.‘
This was interpreted as a small monastic
settlement, and perhaps (as it was ‗less than a
stone‘s throw from Elizabeth Woodville‘s
manor‘) the very chapel where she married
Edward IV. Coins of Edward IV were found,
the chapel had been re-floored ‗with tiles
bearing the crest of the houses of York and
Woodville‘. This, says the article, ‗is as close
to a smoking gun as we are likely to get‘.
The Times Review, Saturday 16 April
2011, contained a hilarious piece in which
Philippa Gregory imagined what advice
Elizabeth Woodville might have given Kate
Middleton: ‗there is nobody better placed to
advise you than myself ... I was the first
Englishwoman [to marry a king of England]
and the only one to do so successfully. Anne
Boleyn and Katherine Howard, both
aristocrats, didn‘t do very well at all. Don‘t
even get me started on Wallis Simpson.‘
‗My marriage was secret, which I don‘t
recommend – his brother later tried to pretend
we were not married at all. You are quite
right to have a public wedding.‘ ... You will
get a lot of criticism about your family. I did
– people simply loathed us. And unlike you I
had 12 brothers and sisters who all had to be
placed in work or successfully married to rich
nobles.‘ ... ‗ I didn‘t let the criticism distract
me,and I suggest you don‘t. ... My brother
Lionel I made Bishop of Salisbury – would
your brother James like to be a bishop, do you
think? Just tell the Archbishop of Canterbury
to appoint him.‘ ... ‗People were especially
unpleasant about my mother. They said she
was ambitious and greedy (I imagine this
sounds rather familiar?) There was an
incident with the Lord Mayor of London and
a tapestry that she and I confiscated from him
and everyone said we were stealing it. This
shouldn‘t trouble you – I hardly think you
will have your eye on Boris Johnson‘s
carpets. But if you do happen to want them I
do think you should just take them.‘ ... ‗My
family were far better behaved than the royals
anyway. Yours too. ... My brother-in-law
Richard ... usurped the throne and then
murdered, or at the very least mislaid, my two
sons ... if you do have sons, do make sure
they don‘t go on any long visits with any
blood relations. ... I really recommend how I
dealt with my brother-in-law, George, Duke
of Clarence ... to be on the safe side I would
drown [Prince Harry] in a vat of malmsey at
once. ...‘
The Times Review, Saturday 16 April 2011
also had an article by Andrew Billen: ‘The
worst film ever? Wills & Kate is a delight’.
After saying that ‗for sheer glorious kitsch‘
few royal wedding sourvenirs will rival
William and Kate: The Movie (DVD price
£11.99, no further details given), but ‗for
most of us, The Movie will be too ridiculous
to offend‘, Billen goes on to ask just how
true to the facts other docu-dramas really
are. ‗The point is that when a dramatisation
works you cease comparing it to reality.’
‗One wonders if the BBC would have
invited Shakespeare back for a second
meeting to discuss his excitingly defamatory
screen-play about a psychopathic monarch
dead for only 100 years. To this day the
Richard III Society blames the Bard for
wronging its hero. But ... would we want an
accurate Tragedy of Richard III? Yet would
an anonymised Tragedy of Trevor III carry
quite the same weight? If nothing else it is
less confusing with William and Kate, a
movie to be watched with a clear conscience
on a rainy day, windows and minds sealed
up tight against the unknowable truth.‘
Owing to lack of space, other Media Retro items
have been held over until September.
39
The Man Himself
Some ‘Servants and Lovers’ of
Richard in his Youth*
CHARLES ROSS
not merely fulfilling the contemporary idea of
due reward ‗for services given in the past and
to be given in the future‘, but that he also had
a keen and personal regard for the welfare of
those whom he considered to be his
‗lovers‘ (which, in Middle English, meant
‗friends and well-wishers‘).
In this connection, it is of considerable
interest to find him remembering, years after
the events, the loyalty and service of several
comparatively humble associates of his youth.
The reference occurs in a document which
has now been in print for over a century, but
seems hitherto to have escaped notice, at least
in this context. In July 1477, indentures were
drawn up between Duke Richard and the
President and fellows of Queens‘ College,
Cambridge, in relation to the Duke‘s
endowment of four fellowships within the
college, with which he was to have close
connections for the rest of his life.1 Part of the
duties of the new priest-fellows was to pray
for the good estate of the Duke, his wife,
Anne, and their son, for the King and Queen
and other members of the Royal Family, and
for the souls of various deceased members of
the Houses of York and Nevill. But they were
also commanded to pray for ‗the soules of
Thomas Par, John Milewater, Christofre
Wursley, Thomas Huddleston, John Harper
and all other gentilmen and yomen
servanders and lovers of the saide duke of
Gloucetr, the wiche were slayn in his service
at the batelles of Bernett, Tukysbery or at any
other feldes or jorneys ...‘2
The names – and fates – of these dead
supporters are interesting in other connections
O
ne of the features of Richard III‘s
government of England was his
conspicuous loyalty to, and generous
treatment of, the men who had been in his
service as Duke of Gloucester. This continued
patronage extended even to people of humble
or comparatively obscure origin, such as Sir
Richard Ratcliffe, Sir Thomas Gower (to
whom he committed the charge of Earl Rivers
in 1483), or the many members of the minor
gentry family of Mauleverer, of Allerton
Mauleverer, near Knaresborough, in
Yorkshire, who achieved a brief if unlikely
prominence during Richard‘s reign.
It might be argued that Richard‘s powerbase, upon his accession to the throne, was so
slender that he had need of the service of
anyone he could trust – however humble his
origin. Whilst this consideration could readily
be applied to laymen, it has much less force
for the King‘s clerical servants, whose
support was politically less significant. Yet
Richard was similarly generous to the
churchmen who had been associated with him
as Duke. The first Dean of the new college
which, in 1478, he founded at Middleham,
William Beverley, was later promoted to be
the Dean of Windsor when Richard became
King, and his Chancellor as Duke of
Gloucester, Dr Thomas Barowe, afterwards
became Master of the Rolls and, finally,
Keeper of the Great Seal in August 1485,
following upon Bishop Russell‘s dismissal as
Chancellor on 29 July.
In general, Richard‘s attitude towards his
former servants strongly suggests that he was
*This article was first published in The Ricardian, Vol. IV, No. 55 (Dec 1976), pp. 2-4, and
later in Richard III, Crown and People, ed. J. Petrie (Richard III Society, 1985), pp. 146-8.
Reprinted by kind permission of Charles Ross’s family.
40
also. These men were clearly part of his
personal meyny (or following) at Barnet and
Tewkesbury, who grouped themselves around
the person and the great banner of their
captain, among whom casualties were likely
to be high, since commanders were a primary
object of attack during the battles of the Wars
of the Roses.3 The fact that these five, and an
unknown number of others, died in defence of
Richard‘s person is an indication that he was
in the thick of the fighting at both
engagements. But Parr and his friends may
also have been members of the young Duke‘s
household, and this, too, is not without its
interest.
Christopher Worsley, esquire, was the
most substantial of them. On three occasions
during the 1460s he had served as Sheriff of
Somerset and Dorset, and once, also, as
Sheriff of Wiltshire, besides receiving various
appointments and rewards from King Edward
IV. He suddenly disappears from the records
in 1470, which makes it virtually certain that
he lost his life with Duke Richard in one of
the great battles of April-May 1471.4
Thomas Parr (or Par) was a younger son
of Sir Thomas Parr of Kendal Castle in
Westmorland, and a younger brother of Sir
William Parr, who later became a prominent
servant and Knight of the Body to King
Edward IV, whilst retaining close connections
with Duke Richard.5
Thomas Huddleston can safely be
identified as a younger member of the
substantial family of that name, of Millom in
Cumberland, whose senior members were to
have very close associations with Richard,
first as Duke and then as King. Indeed, Sir
John Huddleston was one of Richard‘s
feoffees for the conveyance of property to
Queens‘ College on this occasion in 1477.6
The presence of these two cadet members
of powerful gentry families from north-west
England in Richard‘s retinue as early as 14701 is itself of interest. Not until several months
after the death of the Kingmaker at Barnet in
1471 did Richard himself acquire lands and
influence in the shires of Cumberland and
Westmorland, and both the Parrs and the
Huddlestons belonged to families well within
the Nevill orbit – though Sir William Parr and
his brother conspicuously deserted Warwick,
and joined the King, in the aftermath of the
Lincolnshire Rebellion of 1470.7 Gloucester‘s
connection with the young Parr and
Huddleston may, therefore, date back to the
period of his youthful residence in Warwick
the Kingmaker‘s household at Middleham
Castle, when both, like himself, were
receiving their proper training as gentlemen
under the Earl‘s aegis.
John Milewater, on the other hand, was a
highly experienced estates-official. A former
servant of Duke Richard of York, he had been
appointed in 1461-2 as receiver of a complex
of Royal, Duchy of Lancaster, Duchy of
York, and forfeited lands in Wales and the
adjacent Marcher and Border counties, and
was just the kind of man who might have
been given charge, as his receiver-general, of
the young Richard‘s estates.8
John Harper, though less prominent than
Milewater, had pursued a similar career as
one of Edward IV‘s estates-officers, also in
Wales and the Marches, and he, too, may
have held some administrative office in the
Duke‘s household.9 Alternatively, both may
have come into contact with the Duke when
he was appointed to the offices of Justiciar
and Chamberlain of South Wales in 1470,
following the death of William Herbert, 1st
Earl of Pembroke, at the battle of Banbury in
1469. Richard is known to have visited Wales
in his capacity as Justiciar, and presided over
the great sessions at Carmarthen in February
1470.10
If all this seems somewhat tenuous and
speculative, we know so little about the
young Richard‘s career before 1470 that we
cannot afford to ignore any scrap of genuine
information. In any event, it is not
speculation, but fact, that six years after their
deaths in battle the memory of his former
servants (none of them great men in terms of
worldly consequence) was still held by
Richard in active and affectionate regard. As
a sidelight on his character, this circumstance
deserves consideration.
41
Notes and references
1
W.G. Searle, The History of the Queens’ College ... Cambridge, (1867), pp. 88-111 passim.
2
Op. cit., p. 90.
3
On this point, see Charles Ross, The Wars of the Roses: a Concise History, (London 1976), pp.
116, 119.
4
CPR 1467-77, pp. 48, 165, 169, 171, 196, 358, 628; CFR 1461-71, pp. 128, 191, 255, 268.
5
Wedgwood, History of Parliament, Vol. 1, pp. 662-4; Ross, Edward IV, (London 1974), pp.
164, 185, 202.
6
Searle, p. 90; Wedgwood, pp. 476-8.
7
Wedgwood, p. 663.
8
B.P. Wolffe, The Royal Demesne in English History, (London 1971), pp. 163-4, 291).
9
ibid., p. 300.
Apple Juice fit for a Duchess
TIG LANG
I
n my occasional series for the Bulletin about the recipes in British Library MS Harley 1628, I
have looked so far at two sets of recipes. In the first, the skin treatments associated with the
Duke of Buckingham, (Bulletin, September 2010, pp.36-7 ‗Tips from our beauty consultant: the
Duke of Buckingham‘), the intended use of the recipes was made clear in the manuscript. This
was not so for the second set of recipes (Bulletin December 2010, pp. 41-2, ‗Breath Fresheners,
Fifteenth-Century Style‘), but in this case it was possible to make a reasonable guess as to their
purpose.
Most of the recipes in Harley 1628, alas, do not fall into either of these happy categories, and
we are faced with the frustration of a manuscript full of recipes for named patients, of precisely
identifiable social status, but with no idea at all for what ailments the treatments were prescribed.
One such recipe is ‗Electuary of Apple Juice for the Lady the Duchess of Burgundy‘. Clearly
we are dealing here with a patient of the very highest social standing. Edward IV‘s sister
Margaret, who left England in 1468 to marry Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, had been
widowed in 1477. She returned to England to visit her brother‘s court between June and
September 1480, when ‗much of the summer was spent in entertaining his sister, Duchess
Margaret of Burgundy, on a suitably lavish scale‘ (Charles Ross, Edward IV, (London, 1974), p.
271). It seems likely that this recipe dates from the time of this visit, and it would certainly fit in
with the ‗suitably lavish‘ treatment of her during that time.
While many of the recipes in Harley 1628 do not contain any remarkably expensive
ingredients, there are one or two notably ‗luxury‘ recipes (for example, Electuary of Gems on
both f. 23r and f.24r) but this recipe is outstanding even among these. It is no ordinary apple
juice.
The recipe is neatly written, in Latin, covering the whole of f.29v of the manuscript, with
most of the ingredients neatly organised in groups according to the amount of each that is to be
used.
Electuary of Apple Juice for the Lady the Duchess of Burgundy
Take juice of fragrant apples, juice of bugloss: of each v oz.; veronica, lemon rind, borage
flowers, red roses, white and red behen nut, red coral, filings of eberib (?ivory?): of each iiij
dragms;
42
Spodium (powder from calcination), mace, gallie muscate (a medicine containing musk),
carob, the bone of a hart‘s heart (cartilage supposed to be found inside the heart of a deer),
sandalwood: of each iij dragms;
Seeds of basil, myrtle, folii (leaves of a tree of the cinnamon family), balm, coriander,
cinnamon, cubebs, teasel, galingale, zedoary, spikenard, aloes wood, cete (? spermaceti?) cut up
small, saffron: of each ij dragms;
All mirabolans (fruits: there were five kinds) of each iiij dragms;
Beryl, emeralds, jacinth (a blue gem), carnelian, garnet, sapphire: of each i dragm;
Pearls, iiij dragms;
Filings of gold, filings of silver, of each ij ½ d (d = ? a scruple, which was a quarter of a
dragm, which was an eighth of an ounce);
Amber, I dragm;
Camphor, 1 d (scruple?);
Musk, ½ dragm;
Sugar, iij lb.
Make in the manner of a lohoc.
An electuary is a paste designed to be taken with, or mixed with, a drink, and at the end of
this recipe we are told that it is to be made up as a ‗lohoc‘, that is, a medicinal drink; something
perhaps of the consistency of a cough syrup. The substances above were identified with the aid of
F. M. Getz, Healing and Society in Medieval England (Wisconsin, 1991), and R. E. Latham,
Revised Medieval Latin Word List from British and Irish Sources (London, 1965), and the
measurement abbreviations with the aid of Warren R. Dawson, A Leechbook or Collection of
Medical Recipes of the Fifteenth Century (London, 1934) and A. Cappelli, Dizionario di
Abbreviature latine ed italiane (6th ed., Milan 1990).
This is easily the most luxuriously extravagant prescription in the manuscript, surpassing
anything prescribed for the king himself. This may merely reflect a desire on the part of the
practitioner to prescribe ‗noble‘ medicines for a noble patient, but it is also sometimes stated in
medical texts that ‗noble‘ medicines should be prescribed if one of the ‗noble‘ members of the
body (brain, heart and liver) is affected, and this may also have influenced the choice of
ingredients in this case. Sadly, it is now impossible to determine for what indisposition this
expensive compound medicine was prescribed. We can only hope that the Duchess appreciated
it: we know she survived it.
Papers from the Study Weekend
W
e hope to be able to publish summaries of most of the papers delivered at the study
weekend on the de la Pole family held in York in April this year (see review on pp. 13-
15).
We begin overleaf with the two papers delivered on the Saturday morning, looking at the
Chaucer family, who married into the de la Poles, ‗The Chaucer network of cousins‘ by Lesley
Boatwright, and ‗Chaucer and de la Pole heraldry‘ by Peter Hammond.
While we have been able to illustrate Peter‘s talk with some of the pictures he showed, it was
not possible to reproduce the large family tree that Lesley handed out as a help to understanding
the various branches of the family tree she spoke about. Readers are recommended to try the
genealogical exercise of constructing this for themselves from the details given (on a large sheet
of paper).
We hope to follow this in September by Heather Falvey‘s talk on ‗Murder on the Tower:
reports of the death of William de la PoOe, duke of Suffolk‘. (Yes, murder ON the Tower, not in
it.) Heather makes use of a fascinating mid-fifteenth-century poem ‗For Jakke Napes Sowle‘.
43
The Chaucer network of cousins
LESLEY BOATWRIGHT
I
f John de la Pole, earl of Lincoln, had not
been killed at Stoke in 1487, but had
triumphed and become King John II, a major
poet would have contributed his genes to the
royal DNA. John de la Pole was the grandson
of Alice Chaucer, herself the granddaughter
of Geoffrey Chaucer. What we got instead of
the poetry was prosaic Henry Tudor.
Geoffrey Chaucer‘s son Thomas created a
kinship network for himself and his daughter
Alice – a network whose members would be
useful to them as feoffees or dogsbodies – a
network that later, although very Lancastrian
in its roots and development, mostly accepted
Edward IV, but not Richard III, until finally
the last survivors of it found themselves
related to the last recognised Yorkist heir –
but did not join him at Stoke.
Thomas Chaucer was born about 1367,
just at the time when his father Geoffrey
became a member of the royal household.
Geoffrey was a civil servant as well as a poet,
making a career in government business and
what we might call the diplomatic service if it
had been invented then.
After the death of his first wife Blanche,
John of Gaunt had taken up with Thomas
Chaucer‘s sister-in-law Katherine Swynford.
Four children were born to them, the Beauforts, and these four important children were
all Thomas Chaucer‘s (illegitimate) first
cousins on the distaff side
John of Gaunt took an interest in
Katherine‘s nephew Thomas Chaucer, and
made him various grants and gave him paid
positions. When Henry IV took the throne,
and still more when Henry V succeeded,
Thomas Chaucer rose high in royal service.
Thomas was very like his father Geoffrey
in many respects (though we don‘t know if he
had any poetic skills), making a career in
government and diplomatic service. In particular, he went into Parliament. He was speaker
of the House of Commons five times, which
didn‘t happen again until the 18th century.1
The centre of his own private estates was
the middle Thames Valley. His main seat,
acquired by his marriage to Maud Burghersh,
was Ewelme in Oxfordshire, near
Wallingford. Maud was the daughter and
coheir of Sir John Burghersh. The
Burghershes were a posh family, somewhat in
decline by now, claiming kinship with
Mohun, Despenser and indeed Plantagenet.
Peter‘s paper will elucidate this. John
Burghersh had two daughters, who between
them inherited all his property. There was
Margaret, already married in 1391 when her
father died, and there was Maud, aged 12 and
not yet married. She had married Thomas
Chaucer by 1395. That year, 1395, he was
aged 28, and she was 16. Their only child,
their daughter Alice, was born about 1404,
nine years or so after their marriage.
The Burghersh sisters, Margaret and
Maud, had an older half-sister named Joan
Raleigh, who by 1399 had married Sir John
Whalesborough. The Whalesboroughs were a
family based in Devon and Cornwall. John
and Joan had a large family of children, three
sons and four daughters.2 The four girls, not
being heiresses, would have needed a helping
hand to find suitable husbands. I believe that
it was Thomas Chaucer who extended that
helping hand to his wife Maud‘s half-nieces.
Before looking at the Whalesborough
girls, we should consider the husbands
Chaucer chose for his own daughter Alice,
born in 1404. There would have been
competition to marry Alice, who was
Chaucer‘s heiress. Chaucer looked for more
wealth. First he picked Sir John Phelip (who
died at Harfleur 1415, leaving Alice a rich
widow at the age of 11). Then he picked
Thomas Montagu, earl of Salisbury (who died
at siege of Orleans 1428). Then in autumn
1430 Alice, now a very rich widow, was
betrothed to William de la Pole, duke of
Suffolk. Their only child, John, was born on
27 September 1442.
44
Evidence for the marriages of the four
Whalesborough girls comes from the records
of the Hampden family, of Great Hampden in
Buckinghamshire. The 19th-century Bucks
antiquarian George Lipscomb reported that he
had read the Hampden family history in ‗an
ancient vellum roll‘ belonging to the then
earl of Buckingham. This roll records a John
Hampden‘s marriage to the third Whalesborough daughter, Elizabeth, and says it was
‗an occasion of great alliance to the House of
Hampden ... especially by the marriages of
her three sisters, whereof Ermayne the eldest
was married to the Lord Scales; Anne the
second, first to the Lord Molyns and after to
Sir Edmund Hampden, brother to the said
John; and Alice the youngest to one
FitzRalph, a knight of Hertfordshire‘.3
Let us look at these husbands, or, rather,
three of them. I found nothing at all to say on
FitzRalph. I think he was probably a quiet
man who minded his own business. The
weddings probably took place in the early
1420s – remember, the girls are all Alice
Chaucer‘s first cousins.
We start with Anne‘s husband, Sir
William de Moleyns. He was the son and heir
of another Sir William de Moleyns, of Stoke
Poges in Bucks. Carole Rawcliffe calls
William Moleyns senior Chaucer‘s ‗old
friend‘.4 William junior was born in December 1405, but he had not quite reached the age
of 21 when his father died in 1425, and so he
had to prove his age after he became 21 in
order to inherit his father‘s property, and the
document proving his age survives.5 The
inquiry was held on Monday 17 February
1427. Remember that this is a document
dated February 1427, but it tells us what was
happening in December 1405. It says that
William Moleyns was born on 8 December
1405 at Stoke Poges and baptised in the
church of St Giles there. He had fairly modest
godfathers. One, William Wyot, was the
Moleyns steward (and probably related to
Richard Wyot, steward of the estates of
Bishop Henry Beaufort of Winchester,
Thomas Chaucer‘s first cousin), and the
other, William Kyngeston, was dean of
Windsor college. No great lords. But a witness named William Dorney makes a most
interesting statement, saying that on that day
he was sent on business by Thomas Chaucer
to Henry, then Prince of Wales, who was at
Oxford. So already by 1405 the Moleyns
family is in the orbit of Thomas Chaucer.
This is not evidence that Chaucer was at the
christening, but he could well have been.
William Moleyns junior married Anne
Whalesborough, and they had a daughter
named Eleanor. William junior died young, at
the siege of Orleans in 1429. So we are left
with Eleanor Moleyns. Remember Eleanor.
The husband of the eldest Whalesborough
daughter, Ermayne or Emma, was Thomas
Lord Scales 1399-1460. His connection with
Thomas Chaucer is not so clear, but he seems
to be a good matrimonial catch. He came
from an established landed family in Norfolk.
He inherited on the death of his elder brother
on 1 July 1419. Thomas was not yet 21 and so
had to prove his age, which he did in 1420,
but unfortunately the document is in
extremely bad condition and mostly illegible.6
We can see that one godfather was Sir
Thomas Bardolf but nothing much more than
that. It‘s a thousand pities, because a Chaucer
connection might have shown up on it, as it
did on the Moleyns proof of age. Thomas
Scales went to the war in France soon after he
came of age, and was there almost
continuously for the next 30 years. He had
close connections with Richard, duke of
York, his commander in France – indeed, he
was one of the godfathers of York‘s son
Edward, born at Rouen on 28 April 1442 –
but even closer connections with William de
la Pole, who eventually married Alice
Chaucer.
Scales came back to England
occasionally. Fast forward to another proof of
age, that of Eleanor Moleyns, daughter of Sir
William Moleyns and Anne Whalesborough.
I said, remember Eleanor: she was yet another
minor in this kinship network who became
the ward of Thomas Chaucer. In 1440 she has
to prove that she is 14, so the witnesses are
talking about her birth and baptism in 1426.
John atte Forde, aged 50, said he came to
church on the day she was born and baptised
and sued a bill against Thomas, Lord Scales,
Eleanor‘s godfather. William Langeley, aged
45
50, said he was there in church when Alice,
countess of Salisbury, one of Eleanor‘s
godmothers, gave her a silver goblet with a
gold cover, and 40s. to her nurse. William
Coterell, aged 36, said he saw the countess,
Eleanor‘s godmother, dressed in cloth of
gold. Thomas Spelyng, aged 40, said he saw
Thomas, Lord Scales, Eleanor‘s godfather,
dressed in blue velvet. John Popelyn, aged 40,
said he saw Thomas, Lord Scales, Eleanor‘s
godfather, give her £20 after she was
baptised, and 40s. to the nurse. Thus on 11
June 1426 Thomas Lord Scales and Alice
Chaucer, countess of Salisbury, were at Stoke
Poges church being godparents of Eleanor
Moleyns – and a man named John atte Forde
was taking the rare opportunity of accusing
Scales of some offence against him. 7
The husband of the third Whalesborough
daughter, Elizabeth, was John Hampden of
Hampden. He was the son and heir of
Edmund Hampden, both of them very worthy
men who spent most of their lives in solid
public service, both for the county of Bucks
and their own friends and relations. These
were not men with ambitions to play a part on
the national stage.
Edmund‘s wife Joan had been married
before – to Sir Ralph Stonor, of Oxfordshire,
who died in 1394, the year his son Thomas
was born. Edmund married Joan the next
year, in 1395. The custody arrangements for
the baby Thomas jiggled around a bit, but
eventually by 1405 Thomas Chaucer had
been granted his marriage and the custody of
his lands (for £200). Chaucer and Stonor
were neighbours in Oxfordshire. When Ralph
Stonor died, his son Thomas had been a babe
in arms – and generally speaking even in the
Middle Ages, babes in arms weren‘t taken
away from their mothers unless there were
over -riding d ynastic or financial
considerations, and little Thomas stayed with
his mother and was brought up in Edmund
Hampden‘s household together with
Edmund‘s own son John. We know that
because when Thomas proved his age, he was
described as ‗ward of Edmund Hampden by
grant of Thomas Chaucer‘.8
The biography of Edmund Hampden in
the History of Parliament says that so
amicable did the relations between Edmund
and Thomas Chaucer become that ‗when in
May 1409 Chaucer instructed the feoffees of
his estates to make entails of certain
properties ... Hampden and his heirs were
named as the ultimate beneficiaries in the
event of the failure of Chaucer‘s own issue‘.9
And in 1415 Hampden acted as trustee of the
castle and manor of Donnington, Berks, etc.,
which Chaucer settled on his daughter Alice
and her first husband Sir John Phelip. This all
suggests that Thomas Chaucer had a great
regard for Edmund Hampden. And – fast
forwarding again – when Thomas Stonor died
young in 1431, he made Chaucer the
governor and supervisor of his own heir. The
History of Parliament biography says, ‗It is
clear Chaucer exercised his guardianship
responsibly and inspired the affection of his
ward [i.e. Thomas senior] who remained
close to him until his death, perhaps taking
the place of the son he never had‘.
That is the motley set of men who have
come together because they married Alice
Chaucer‘s cousins: William Moleyns,
Thomas Scales, John Hampden (and John
Fitzralph). But we should include in the group
the Hampden siblings: Edmund Hampden
junior – John‘s younger brother – and his half
-brother Thomas Stonor. And here is perhaps
the place to note that after Anne
Whalesborough was widowed by the death of
William Moleyns, she married Edmund
Hampden junior. There‘s one more name to
fit in: Hungerford. Eleanor Moleyns, who
proved that she was 14 years old in 1440, was
married about then (or before) to Robert
Hungerford. He was born in the early 1420s.
These men formed a kinship group that
supported and worked for Thomas and Alice
Chaucer, and then for Alice‘s third husband,
William, duke of Suffolk. Most, if not all, of
them, ended up on the Lancastrian side when
the choice had to be made.
What did they actually do, and what
happened to each of these lines?
The Hungerfords were a stroppy lot.
Robert Hungerford defended the Tower of
London against the Yorkists in 1460, together
with his uncle, Thomas Lord Scales. Scales
was killed immediately afterwards;
46
Hungerford fought for the Lancastrians at
Towton, escaped to Henry VI, but was taken
prisoner at the battle of Hexham in May 1464,
and executed in Newcastle. His elder son
Thomas at first served with the earl of
Warwick against the Lancastrians in the
north, but was arrested for plotting the death
of Edward IV with Margaret of Anjou in
1468, and was executed at Salisbury in
January 1469. His heir was his daughter
Mary, who was married off to a son of Lord
Hastings. His brother Walter Hungerford
accepted Yorkist rule, and even became an
esquire of the body to Edward IV, but joined
Buckingham‘s October revolution in 1483.
He fought at Bosworth for Henry Tudor, and
kept in with him afterwards.
Thomas Scales‘ heiress Elizabeth was
ultimately married off to Anthony Woodville
– that‘s how he got his title of Lord Scales.
John Hampden kept a low public profile,
but made himself very useful as a feoffee to
both Chaucer and Suffolk. His brother
Edmund, together with his life-long friend Sir
Robert Whittingham, became rampaging
Lancastrians, totally devoted to Margaret of
Anjou. They shared her long exile in France,
returned with her to England and died
together at Tewkesbury. I am sure that
Margaret trusted them to keep an eye on her
son Edward during the battle, and I am sure
they died beside him. Hampden was in his
sixties, and Whittingham over 50 – rather old
to be fighting in a battle. They were there to
look after young Edward.
John Hampden‘s son Thomas was like his
father, doing solid public service all his life in
Buckinghamshire – but I think he was killed
at Bosworth. I wrote a paper about this in the
Festschrift.10 He has a death date of 21
August 1485, and his nephew John Iwardby,
and a cousin also named Thomas Hampden,
and a relative named Thomas Lynde, all died
on 22 August 1485. In other words, they were
all killed at Bosworth. But there is no
indication whose side they were fighting on.
Thomas Hampden‘s second son Edmund was
as ferocious a Lancastrian as his Uncle
Edmund had been, and was certainly fighting
for Tudor at Bosworth, and prospered in his
service afterwards.11
Finally, the Stonors. Stonors die young.
The Thomas who was Chaucer‘s ward died in
1431, leaving a seven-year-old heir, also
called Thomas. They married him to
Suffolk‘s bastard daughter Joan, or Jane. She
was born in Normandy in about 1430 (just
before Suffolk‘s marriage to Alice). Her
mother was a woman named Malyne de Cay
– and Suffolk‘s enemies put it about that she
was a nun, and Suffolk had raped her, but
take that with a pinch of salt. Suffolk brought
Joan to England and married her to Thomas
Stonor, Alice‘s cousin, son of a man whom
Alice‘s father might well have loved like a
son. Joan figures in the Stonor Letters, and
indeed wrote some of them herself. Her son
William was among those who joined in
Buckingham‘s rebellion in 1483 – and
flourished under Henry Tudor.
By now, Alice Chaucer‘s son John had
married Elizabeth Plantagenet, daughter of
the Duke of York, and their son was John,
earl of Lincoln, Richard III‘s named heir. But
it does not appear that a single man from this
network of cousins was with him when he
was killed at the battle of Stoke in 1487. All
that kinship network set up in the early 1420s
by Thomas Chaucer has fallen away now
from Thomas Chaucer‘s line. In the end, the
strong woman they followed was not Alice
Chaucer, but Margaret of Anjou.
Notes
1
The House of Commons 1386-1421, ed. J.
S. Roskell et al., (Alan Sutton, 1993), vol.
II, p. 524.
2
Calendar of Close Rolls 18 Feb 1418.
3
George Lipscomb, History and Antiquities
of the County of Buckinghamshire,
(London 1847), vol. 2, p.232.
4
The House of Commons, vol. II, p. 531.
5
TNA C139/31/68.
6
TNA C138/54/120.
7
TNA C139/104/49.
8
TNA C138/10/50.
9
The House of Commons, vol. III, p. 279.
10
The Ricardian, vol. XIII (2003) pp. 45-66.
11
Thomas Hampden‘s will is in The Logge
Register of PCC Wills (Richard III Soc.
2008), vol. II, no. 376.
47
Chaucer and de la Pole heraldry
PETER HAMMOND
T
he tombs of Thomas Chaucer and his daughter Alice, duchess of Suffolk, in Ewelme church
in Oxfordshire tell us about their attitude to their families and ancestry. They are part of
what was once a most splendid display of heraldry in the church, most of which has now been
lost. What we do have are two splendid heraldic tombs, one of Thomas Chaucer, son of Geoffrey
Chaucer the poet, and of Maud Burghersh his wife, and secondly one of Alice, Thomas‘s
daughter and wife of William de la Pole, duke of Suffolk.
The two tombs are very different. That of Thomas is a table tomb in the chapel of St John in
the church. The three exposed sides of the tomb are panelled with blind arches and these arches,
with the exception of one against a pillar, all contain a pair of enamelled shields of arms. The
style of the tomb which is fairly plain, as compared with the style of the rest of the chapel, shows
that it was probably put in place in the church before the later (de la Pole) work and then moved
to its present position.
Table tomb of Thomas Chaucer in Ewelme church
Alice‘s tomb as befits her status
was much more splendid than the one
she erected for her father. Her effigy is
dressed in widow‘s weeds but wears a
coronet and has the Garter round her
left arm. There are only 16 shields in
all as opposed to 24 on Thomas‘s. The
coats of arms on Alice‘s tomb repeat
those on her parents‘ tomb but as
befits her status are all held by angels.
One unusual feature of Alice‘s tomb is
that it is a cadaver tomb with the
cadaver enclosed, not in the open as is
usual.
Alice Chaucer’s effigy, Ewelme church
48
The fascinating thing about the coats
of arms on these tombs is that they are
intended to trumpet the antiquity and
connections of both Alice and Thomas.
To this end some very tortuous
connections are made. For example, the
Chaucers are represented by the arms of
Thomas‘s wife, Maud Burghersh, and by
the arms of Roet, those of Geoffrey
Chaucer‘s wife, not by the arms of
Chaucer. The Burghershes were an old
baronial family, rather in decline at this
time but still of greater importance than
the Chaucers. The Roets were probably
from Hainault and may have come over
with Philippa, wife of Edward III. On
top of Thomas‘s tomb are brasses for
Thomas and Maud his wife together
with four shields. The two shields at the
top are Roet above Thomas, Burghersh
above Maud, Roet impaling Burghersh
below Thomas and Roet quartering
Burghersh below Maud.
It is not possible to illustrate all of
the shields on the tombs but it is worth
showing two examples to illustrate the
name dropping and the way connections
are dragged in by Alice on both tombs.
First is a shield showing Percy
(Northumberland) impaling Neville.
This is for the marriage of the earl of
Northumberland to Eleanor Neville,
daughter of the earl of Westmorland.
The connection here was that Eleanor
was sister of Richard Neville, later earl
of Salisbury, and Alice Chaucer was
stepmother to Alice Montague, daughter
and heiress to Thomas Montague and
wife of Richard Neville (see below).
My second example is a shield of
England with a label of York, impaling
Mohun. This represents the marriage of
Edward, duke of York, with Philippa
Mohun, daughter and co-heir of John
Lord Mohun. Philippa‘s mother was
Joan, daughter of Bartholomew, Lord
Burghersh, brother of John Burghersh of
Ewelme, grandfather of Maud Chaucer.
Philippa Mohun and Maud Chaucer
were second cousins and Thomas
Brass of Thomas Chaucer and his wife Maud Burghersh
Percy: gold a lion azure for Percy quartering three
luces rising for Lucy, impaling gules a saltire silver
for Neville
49
Chaucer‘s aunt, Catherine Roet (who had
married John of Gaunt, duke of
Lancaster) was aunt by marriage to
Edward, duke of York.
Two of the people represented are the
second and third husbands of Alice.
Firstly there is Thomas Montague, earl of
Salisbury, mentioned above. Thomas was
the last of the Montague earls of
Salisbury, and his daughter and heiress
married Richard Neville, who became
earl of Salisbury. The arms used for
Chaucer are again Burghersh. Alice‘s
third and last husband was William de la
Pole, duke of Suffolk, and he quartered
the Burghersh arms with his own. Alice
married three times and one very
interesting omission from her tomb is
that the arms of her first husband, Sir
John Phelip, appear nowhere on the
display. The Phelips were a prominent
and wealthy Suffolk family and Alice‘s
York: France and England quarterly with a
label silver each point charged with three
roundels gules for York, impaling gold a
cross engrailed sable for Mohun
marriage to Sir John, at the age of about 10,
was almost certainly arranged by her father
because Alice was likely to become Sir
John‘s heiress, which she duly became when
she was about 11, leaving her wealthy.
Despite this he was not good enough to
appear on Thomas‘s or Alice‘s tomb. Since
the reason why she was a desirable bride for
an earl as her second husband was her new
status as a wealthy widow this seems rather a
ruthless omission.
The selection of arms on both Thomas‘s
and Alice‘s tomb was a thus a self conscious
selection of their important connections. It
could be described as heraldic name
dropping. One interesting fact that comes
from this name dropping is that it shows that
Thomas, Alice and their contemporaries were
all very well aware of their family
connections, even the remoter ones.
Roet: gules three wheels gold impaling silver a
chief gules charged overall with a double tailed
lion gold for Burghersh
50
Correspondence
Will contributors please note that letters may be shortened or edited to conform to the standards
of the Bulletin. The Bulletin is not responsible for the opinions expressed by contributors.
A small footnote to Angela‘s later
comment on the ‗Coventry Carol‘ from the
town pageants. This has been used to great
effect, take out of its original context, on a
couple of occasions. Notably, in David
Pownall‘s ground-breaking play with music,
Richard the Third Part Two (AV Library,
Radio 3, 1978), where it was introduced at the
death of Richard‘s son, and in the current
touring production of Edward Hall‘s Propeller
Company‘s Richard III (see pp.33-34) more
traditionally at the murder of the princes.
From matters theatrical to matters
historical: a couple of further points arising
out of items in the last issue. As I have
mentioned subsequently to Rose Skuse, it
would be interesting to learn just how the
Portable Antiquities Scheme can be so
definite in identifying the Maulden Boar (p.
44) as medieval. Being copper, I think it is
rather unusual, as other surviving examples
are of latten, pewter, lead or silver, and it is
perhaps as well to remember that the boar
was also the emblem of the Roman XXth
Legion (carved stone example in Carlisle
Museum) and a votive bronze specimen from
the Iron Age was discovered in Lincolnshire
in 1990. At least two previously thought to be
Richard‘s device have been demoted. Both
illustrated on my collage cover for The
Ricardian Register (the US magazine) vol.
xxvii no. 3, fall 2002, they are the seated boar
(previously exhibited at the 1973 NPG
Exhibition, cat. no. 136, p. 59, now described
by the Cuming Museum, Southwark, as a
‗19th-century lead token‘, and the London
Museum‘s ‗winged boar‘, also from
Southwark, more accurately attributed to the
earl of Oxford and seen at the feet of his
countess on the drawing of the lost effigies by
Daniel King, 1653.
Finally, I wonder if Tracy Brice was
aware, when she presented her paper on the
Matters Theatrical and Matters
Historical
From Geoffrey Wheeler
It was very gratifying to see no fewer than
two references to Paul Daneman in the March
issue of the Bulletin (pp. 9 and 47), given that
my own introduction to ‗Shakespeare,
Richard III and All That‘, as noted in
previous issues (December 2000, p. 44,
September 2001, pp. 43-46), was through his
1960s TV appearance in the role. However, I
suspect that Angela Moreton may not have
seen the series since – she should check out
the AV Library for this, and his later, radio
interpretation – as I cannot reconcile her
description with my dictionary definition of
‗spiv‘ (‗petty criminal‘). Though inevitably
influenced by Olivier (the film had only been
released five years earlier), he brought even
more humour to the role, tongue very much in
cheek, but with mercurial transitions from
affability to contempt. Given that he is one of
the few actors to have essayed the part on
stage, television and radio, one would hnave
thought it must have been his favourite, but,
perhaps afraid of being type-cast, he later
confessed that he really longed to be playing
Romeo or Benedick.
Gillian Lazar was fortunate in seeing his
original inception (p.47), though I fear her
memory is at fault when she writes that Ian
Holm‘s Richard (RSC 1963-4, televised
1965) was on crutches; he appears to have
inherited the built-up surgical boot, first worn
by Marius Goring in 1953. It was, of course,
Antony Sher (RSC 1984-5) who made
brilliant use of them and his disability,
conversely making him the most agile version
on stage,* though he had to admit that, even
there, Olivier had beaten him to it, when after
an injury on the Old Vic Australasian tour of
1948, he resorted to similar support.
51
Battle of Empingham or ‗Lose-Coat
Field‘ (p.58) that this latter, alternative name,
said to have originated from the rebels
throwing off their livery jackets in flight, has
been thoroughly discredited? This is detailed
in David Santiuste‘s Edward IV and the Wars
of the Roses (Pen & Sword Books, 2010), p.
97 and footnote 50, p. 169, where he
discloses that ‗Losecoat‘ is the name of a
local field, probably derived from the Old
English hlose-cot, meaning ‗pigsty cottage‘,
citing as his source ‗The Naming of
Battlefields‘ by Philip Morgan, in War and
Society in Medieval and Early Modern
Britain, edited by D. Dunn (Liverpool 2000,
p. 41).
field, is set in the Merry England of the
Middle Ages, is very funny and would, I
believe, go down brilliantly with audiences of
today. Put briefly, the plot tells how George,
the pinner, by his personal strength and influence, quells the rebellion of wicked Lord
Kendal against good King Edward and goes
on to entrap King James of Scotland, who has
crossed the Border on a foray. The pinner‘s
fame reaches Sherwood Forest and Robin
Hood and his merry men go forth to meet the
Yorkshire champion at Wakefield. George
beats the merry men at their own weapons
and fraternises with Robin. King Edward and
King James of Scotland join the fun in disguise, carouse with shoemakers and, after
making their royal personages known, wind
up the play with a general jollification. Perhaps Shakespeare was remembering the
delight with which audiences greeted this
popular play when he wrote his own comedy
about outlaws and the greenwood and chose
for its title As You Like It.
* Dr Anne-Marie Liethen also spotted this,
and emailed us to say, ‗I was wondering
about the interesting article .. by Gillian
Lazar in the March Bulletin. ... I believe it
was Antony Sher who played Richard on
crutches.‘
George a Greene, the Pinner of
Wakefield
Revenge is Sweet
From Richard Van Allen
We are all very aware of the ‗Catch 22‘ situation vis-à-vis Shakespeare‘s play Richard
III. If it had not been for Shakespeare Richard
would probably have been a mere footnote at
the bottom of the page in history. However,
Shakespeare‘s assassination of Richard‘s
character has cast Richard as a maligned
monarch and as a result gave birth to our
Society and its continuing struggle to out the
truth.
However, in other areas Shakespeare is
not getting away with it quite so easily, with
producers continually trying to put another
spin on his work. The latest to come to light
is by a US disc jockey who has produced a
Hip-hop version of Much Ado about Nothing,
called Funk it up about Nothing. Shakespeare
must be spinning in his grave.
From Marilyn Garabet, Oban
I enjoyed reading my Bulletin, as always,and
noted Geoffrey Wheeler‘s reference (p.22) to
Shakespeare informing George Buc that the
play George a Greene, the Pinner of Wakefield was written by ‗a minister who acted the
pinner‘s part himself‘. Park Honan, in his
recent biography of Christopher Marlowe (p.
191), cites this incident as a striking example
of Shakespeare‘s tact and thinks the Bard deliberately invented this mysterious minister
(whose name escaped him) in order to protect
his fellow playwrights and actors. We know
from Henslowe‘s Diary that George a Greene
was wildly popular with Elizabethan
audiences, but it had a notoriously racy loveplot which required a grown man to wear
female clothes and could have caused problems with the authorities. Far from being
written (let alone acted in) by a respectable
clergyman, the likeliest candidate for authorship is thought to be Robert Greene, who described himself as ‗the lewdest person in the
land‘.
George a Greene, the Pinner of Wake-
Please volunteer to type
up the York Wills
(see page 6)
52
The Barton Library
Addition to the Non-Fiction Book Library
Fatal Colours: Towton 1461 – England's most Brutal Battle by George Goodwin, with an
introduction by David Starkey (Weidenfeld and Nicholson, hardback, 2011)
The Battle of Towton was variously described as the largest, longest and bloodiest battle on
English soil, with little chance of escape or surrender for the soldiers involved. In this year of its
550th anniversary, the book sets the battle in its historical context, and describes the increasingly
embittered factions and the struggle for supremacy that could only be secured after the carnage at
Towton. The author suggests an explanation for the crippling incapacity of Henry VI, one of the
main causes of the Wars of the Roses in the first place.
Grateful thanks to Neil Skidmore for his donation of books, and my sympathy and thanks to
Mr Plumridge whose wife Barbara recently died and bequeathed books to the Society. By selling
these donations the Barton Library can be self-sufficient and keep up with new publications
concerning our time period without having to take a begging bowl to the Executive Committee,
so they really are a help. Elisabeth Sjøberg has been a generous benefactor to the Barton Library
over recent months, and I am very grateful to her for being so. Finally a thank you also to Sue
Scott-Buccleuch for volunteering to help with the ‗pony express‘ idea regarding getting library
books to members without using the postal services. It struck her as amusing to think of a
network of Ricardian couriers.
News from the Non-Fiction Papers Librarian
As I have started inching my way through the Papers Collection I have been discovering quite a
number of interesting articles that do not appear in the catalogue, so rather than listing new items
acquired since the last update I thought I would just draw attention to some of the many
fascinating uncatalogued items in the Fine and Applied Arts section:
‗How to Win at Tournaments: the Technique of Chivalric Combat‘, by Sydney Anglo
(Antiquaries Journal, vol 68, pt 2, 1988, pp. 248-264). On medieval jousting technique.
The Middleham Jewel and Ring, by John Cherry (Yorkshire Museum booklet, 1994, 48 pp.).
Contains several chapters on the jewel, a chapter on the ring and another chapter on other finds
from Middleham. Superb colour illustrations.
‗On the Badges of the House of York‘, by J. R. Planché (Journal of the British Archaeological
Association, vol 20, 1884, pp. 18-38).
‗Pietro Torrigiano‘s Portrait Bust of King Henry VII‘, by Carol Galvin & Peter Lindley
(Burlington Magazine, vol 130, no 1029, Dec 1988, pp. 892-902). History of the bust,
explanation of findings of scientific studies of the same, and comparison with Henry VII‘s
funeral effigy and Torrigiano‘s other known busts.
‗Life‘s Rich Tapestry: The Lady and the Unicorn‘, by Cees Nooteboom (Art Quarterly, Winter
1999, pp. 36-42).. Explains the symbolism of the five famous Lady and the Unicorn tapestries in
the Musée du Moyen Age in Paris; includes large colour illustrations.
53
The catalogue will be updated as soon as possible; in the meantime I should like to encourage
members not to be put off enquiring because they do not see what they want. We may have the
item already, and if not we may well feel it worth acquiring.
A New Novel to Borrow from the Fiction Library
The Master of Bruges by Terence Morgan (hardback, 2010)
In fifteenth-century Bruges master painter Hans Memling finds himself at the heart of the
Burgundian Court. Over the years he becomes increasingly close to the Duke‘s daughter Marie,
painting her portrait obsessively. In 1482 he is invited to England and plays a crucial role in the
fate of the Princes in the Tower. We hope to review this novel later this year.
Additions to the Audio Visual Library
Audio: BBC Radio 4: The Long View on royal weddings compared the marriage of Edward IV
and Elizabeth Woodville with that of Prince William and Kate Middleton. Beginning at the NPG
Archive Jonathan Friedland discussed the fifteenth-century accounts with Helen Castor, with
readings from contemporary chronicles. Joining them later at the Tower and Jewel House were
royal correspondents James Whitaker, Polly Toynbee and Peter York who contributed views on
the twenty-first century royal event and celebrations.
Visual: Channel 4: Time Team Special – The Wars of the Roses. Despite the title this was
primarily about Bosworth. An interview with Philippa Gregory, taking time out from book
promotion, was interspersed with location scenes shot at last year‘s Bosworth Anniversary
weekend. Her assertion that the re-enactors showed a ‗complete commitment to being authentic‘
was quickly demolished by scenes of fully-armoured Henry and Richard, indistinguishable
without tabards, although at one point the latter was shown wearing one of his own boar livery
jackets. He was even denied a circlet to his helm, so Henry had to be crowned with an
improbable golden helmet.
As no actual archaeological excavations had to be undertaken, a good deal of the programme
was devoted to artillery, with scientific analysis of the cannon balls found on the field, Phil
Harding making replica cannon and Tony Robinson combing the Tower inventories for records
of fifteenth-century ordnance. Tony interviewed Toby Capwell, who defined knights as the
‗super heroes‘ of their time, and Tony Pollard (not Dr A.J.) on the dearth of more customary
battlefield finds such as arrowheads, as at Towton. This led to a visit to Towton and the
predictable examination of the injuries inflicted on the skeletons found in a mass grave there.
Back at Bosworth, Glenn Foard, armed with a distribution map of the shot and other finds, finally
revealed his new site for the battle.
Channel 4: Time Team at Groby Old Hall, Leicestershire. Joining the owner and Tim Dillon
from English Heritage was the ubiquitous Philippa Gregory, here more at home with the family
history from the Norman builder of the castle keep on its motte, through William Lord Ferrers
whose later work in the bailey was demolished in the late fourteenth century, to Thomas Grey,
Marquis Dorset, who constructed the still surviving great brick tower. The narrative was
enlivened by the characteristic drawings of Victor Ambrus. Enough surviving foundations
emerged for the usual computer graphic recreations of the keep and other buildings such as the
Great Hall with its oriel window, recalling that at Crosby Hall.
Contact details for all the Librarians are on the inside back cover.
54
From the Visits Team
Long Weekend to Calais 2010
As we had a surplus of admin monies at the end of the weekend, everyone who attended is to
receive a £20 refund. These monies were despatched in April and May 2011. If you have not
received your refund cheque yet, please contact Rosemary Waxman, 37 Chewton Road, Walthamstow, E17 7DW (tel. 0208 521 4261.
Long Weekend to Sussex July 2011
It is regretted that the proposed Society visit to Sussex has had to be cancelled because we only
received 26 bookings, and we required at least 30 to make the hire of the coach viable. All the
deposit cheques have been returned.
Visits 0, Cancellations 2 – a disappointing result
For the second time this year a visit has been cancelled due to lack of support (the day trip to
Abingdon/Oxford and the long weekend in Sussex). The Visits Team is rather puzzled by this –
where are we going wrong; are our proposed venues of little interest to members, or maybe the
trips are considered too expensive?
When the Visits Team chooses a destination, we certainly think it will be of interest to fellow
Ricardians; some places may not have a direct link with King Richard, but there is generally
something to see that is of our period.
Can you recommend anywhere that is perhaps a bit off the beaten track or not so well known
- or even reasonably well known? Ideally, we would like to know a little of the logistics of
getting there – how near can we get a coach, for example. Is there a good rail link? Also bear in
mind the need for somewhere to have lunch and tea, with associated facilities.
The Visits Team will consider all ideas put forward. See inside back cover of the Bulletin for
my contact details.
Marian Mitchell, Visits Officer
Day Visit to Sutton Hoo and Woodbridge, Suffolk
Saturday 30 July 2011
As the Long Weekend to Sussex had to be cancelled your Visits Team decided to arrange this
additional day visit.
Proposed programme:
09.45 meet at London Liverpool Street Station on the concourse near Platform 10.
10.00 train from Liverpool Street to Ipswich
11.13 train from Ipswich to Woodbridge
11.30 arrive Woodbridge
11.30 travel by taxis to Sutton Hoo. These will be pre-booked . Participants to share the taxi
costs (3 miles from Woodbridge)
12.00 to 15.15 Visit to Sutton Hoo. Lunch at Sutton Hoo - own arrangements.
15.15 taxi back to Woodbridge
15.30 free time in Woodbridge.
16.18 train from Woodbridge to Ipswich .
16.43 train from Ipswich to London Liverpool Street ETA Liverpool Street 17.55.
Trains leave hourly from Woodbridge, and you are free to return when you wish.
55
Sutton Hoo - National Trust
Walk around the ancient burial mounds and discover the story of the ship burial of Raedwald,
king of East Anglia, explore the exhibition, and visit Mrs Pretty‘s Edwardian house. There is a
licensed café, a gift shop and a second-hand bookshop, on site.
Entrance Charges: National Trust Members – free. Standard Adult £6.20 and Child £3.10 There
are reductions for arriving on foot, by cycle or by public transport.
Woodbridge is a most attractive small town with its Shire Hall dominating the market square, its
quays and river frontage and its many fine houses and cottages. There is a lovely walk along the
footpath adjoining the River Deben. You can also visit Woodbridge Museum. (We had hoped to
visit the eighteenth-century Tide Mill, but it is closed for restoration all this summer.)
Practicalities
Please book your own train tickets. Train times are available only six weeks in advance, so when
you are sent your booking confirmation, it should contain up-to-date train times. Check on the
Internet.The National Rail Enquiry Number is 08457 48 49 50.
Taxis: everyone using taxis to/from Sutton Hoo will share the cost between them
Travelling by own transport: there are pay-and-display parking facilities at Sutton Hoo..
Entrance to Sutton Hoo: see above.
As this trip is by Public Transport we will run it however many/ few people book for it.
Please return the booking form to Rosemary Waxman 37 Chewton Road Walthamstow E17
7DW Tel 0208 521 4261 by 18 July 2011 Please send an A5 sized SAE and a £1 coin to cover
photocopying costs; for maps leaflets and details of a self-guided walking tour of Woodbridge.
The booking form will be found in the centre fold.
Requiem Mass at the Royal Chantry Chapel of St Edmund, Spital-in-theStreet, Lincs, Monday 22 August 2011 at 5.30 pm
There is to be a requiem mass on Monday 22 August 2011 for the repose of the souls of King
Richard, Queen Anne and Edward, Prince of Wales, and all those who fell at Bosworth. This will
be held at the Royal Chantry Chapel of St Edmund, Spital-in-the-Street, Lincs, at 5.30 pm. The
Rt Rev. Howard Weston-Smart will be officiating. All are invited to attend.
Spital-in-the-Street is a small hamlet, twelve miles north of Lincoln and eleven miles from
Market Rasen. The chapel is situated on the important old Roman road, Ermine Street (now the
A15) near its junction with the A631, known as Caenby Corner (postcode LN2). It is probably
advisable only to consider going if you have your own transport.
Ermine Street was extensively used by travellers and pilgrims and the Hospital, from which
Spital gets its name, was the only stopping point between Lincoln and the old crossing of the
Humber at Winteringham. The Hospital was established about 1150 by the Knights Templar
from nearby Temple Willoughton as a shelter for poor travellers. The Templar hospital was
suppressed in 1312, along with the Order.
Given the importance of Ermine Street as a main road to Lincoln and the reputation of the
chapel, it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that Richard would have used the road and even
halted to say a prayer at the chapel.
Thomas de Aston, Archdeacon of Stow, refounded the old Hospital as almshouses in the
1397. It is thought that de Aston met Katherine Swynford around 1390 when she went to live in
the Chancery on Lincoln Cathedral Close, which was close to where de Aston lived. He included
John of Gaunt, Katherine Swynford and their three Beaufort sons in the chantry foundation,
commanding prayers for their souls throughout all time.
Marian Mitchell
56
Denny Abbey and Anglesey Abbey, Saturday 3 September 2011
Our September outing is to Denny Abbey (English Heritage) and Anglesey Abbey (National
Trust), both very near to each other, about six miles from Cambridge. Our first stop will be
Denny Abbey, originally built for Benedictine monks, passed to the Templars, and in the early
fourteenth century to Marie de St Pol, Countess of Valance, the Châtelaine of Fotheringhay, who
installed Franciscan nuns (Poor Clares) there. It later became a farmhouse, and its conservation,
showing all these layers of occupation, was a fascinating problem.
We shall leave Denny at approx 12.45 pm for the short drive to Anglesey Abbey where we
can obtain lunch from the restaurant – or take a picnic.
Anglesey Abbey was built in late Tudor times on the site of a twelfth-century Augustinian
Abbey. It has a celebrated garden of 100 acres, with unique statuary and, in the house, the
Fairhaven collection of art treasures. There is a working water mill in the grounds.
Arrangements
We shall leave London Embankment at 9.00 am and return by approx 7.00 pm.
Please Note: Pay on the day for Denny Abbey. English Heritage members can visit the
Abbey free of charge but there is a charge for the museum of £3 adults, £2.50 concessions. The
charge for non-English-Heritage members is £4.50 adults, £3.50 concessions, which covers both
the Abbey and the museum.
I am including the entrance charge for Anglesey Abbey in the cost of the trip so that I can
take advantage of the group booking rate. It is, of course, free of charge to members of the
National Trust. Therefore the cost of the trip is £20 each for National Trust members and £28
each for non-National Trust. A booking form can be found below. Please send it by 5 August
2011 with your cheque (payable to The Richard III Society and endorsed Denny Abbey) to:
Marian Mitchell, 20 Constance Close, Witham, Essex CM8 1XL; (Tel: 01376 501984; email:
[email protected]).
If you miss this date, please contact me to see if there are any vacant seats on the coach.
Members travelling by their own transport are very welcome to join us, but please let me know
you are coming.
Marian Mitchell
Denny Abbey and Anglesey Abbey Saturday 3 September 2011
Name(s) .................................................................................................................... .................
Address .................................................................................................................... .................
....................................................................................................................................................
Tel. ....................................................... Email ......................................................... ...............
Either: I (we) am a member of the National Trust and enclose a cheque for ......................
(£20 each)
Or: I (we) am not a member of the National Trust and enclose a cheque for .....................
(£28 each)
I (we) wish to join the coach at London □
Bromley □
Is this the first time you have attended a Society event?
yes / no
Please enclose an SAE for you booking confirmation / trip information letter.
Please return this form by 5 August to Marian Mitchell, 20 Constance Close, Witham,
Essex, CM8 1XL (Tel. 01376 501984, email: [email protected]
57
The Norfolk Branch Study Day: The Twilight Years of the Yorkist Cause
This will take place on Saturday 12 November at The Assembly House, Theatre Street, Norwich.
The programme is as follows:
10.00 onwards: arrival
10.25 Introduction by the Norfolk Branch Chairman
10.30 Julian Humphrys (the Battlefields Trust): ‗The battle of Stoke, 1487‘
11.30 coffee
12.00 Dr Rosemary Horrox: ‗Stirring up the lees? – Ricardian opposition to Henry VII‘
1.00 lunch (own arrangements)
2.30 Dr Sean Cunningham (title to be arranged)
3.30 tea
4.00 Frances Sparrow (of Norfolk Branch, Vice-Chairman, East Anglian region, the
Battlefields Trust) ‗Dangerous Blood—Yorkist heirs in the age of the Tudors‘
4.30 Question and answer session for all speakers
5.00 approximately: vote of thanks and close.
How to book:
There is a booking form in the centre fold. The cost will be £23 per head, to include coffee and
tea, but not lunch. Bookings should be sent to Mrs Annmarie Hayek, 20 Rowington Road,
Norwich, NR1 3RR (tel. 01603 664021, email: [email protected]). Please makes cheques
payable to The Richard III Society.
The Australasian Convention 2011
will be hosted by Victoria Branch
Friday 5 August to Sunday 7 August 2011
at the Victoria Hotel, 215 Little Collins Street, Melbourne
Programme
Friday 5 August (evening): informal get-together to welcome interstate and overseas guests;
drinks and canapés included
Saturday 6 August
full day of presentations
7.00 pm, banquet (partners and guests most welcome)
Sunday 7 August
a casual mix of talks, games, trivia (perhaps a workshop)
followed by lunch
Costs: convention (including Friday night get-together, plus morning and afternoon tea and
lunches on Saturday and Sunday): $ 200.00. Banquet (per person, including wine and soft
drinks), $ 90.00. This does not include accommodation, which should be booked and paid for
direct to the hotel (www.victoriahotel.com.au).
Further details and registration form are available on the Victoria Branch website:
www.home.vicnet.net.au/~richard 3
58
Branches and Groups
Lincolnshire Branch Report
The Angel and Royal Hotel, Grantham, provided an atmospheric setting for our branch banquet
in October 2010. Members and their guests adopted period dress and enjoyed a wonderful meal
accompanied by entertainment from a company of travelling players. Later that month, David
Baldwin provided a fascinating insight in his lecture ‗Who Was Robin Hood?‘, the subject of his
recent book.
There was yet more merriment at the Branch Christmas Dinner, held at the Welby Arms,
Allington and made all the more exciting by a seasonal fall of snow. An intrepid excursion to
Rockingham Castle provided members with a view of a breathtaking fairy-tale landscape after
the heavy snowfalls of the first week in December. The castle apartments had been decorated for
a family Christmas by the Watson family, who have been in residence for 450 years.
Our first meeting in 2011 gave full rein to the camaraderie that is such a feature of the Branch
as members enjoyed reminiscing over photographs and answering some lighthearted quiz
questions, followed by refreshments. For our February lecture, Jann Parker assumed the guise of
a fifteenth-century wise woman to give enlightening descriptions of ailments and remedies.
‗Fools and Jesters at the English Court‘ provided a very interesting subject in March, ably
presented by Sally Henshaw, Secretary of the Leicester Branch. A highly enjoyable lecture, full
of fun, yet with darker moments too.
We count ourselves lucky to belong to such a lively Branch where serious scholarship always
seems to be accompanied by a love of eating, drinking and fun.
Maureen Wheeldon, Publicity Officer
North Mercia Group
All is going well with the group and we are looking forward to our next few meetings and our
June outing to Buildwas Abbey and Much Wenlock.
We held a very informal AGM in February and reflected over our first year in existence. I
think everyone agreed we had a super first year and are looking forward to the next. We have a
full year‘s programme of meetings and outings and our special Bosworth meal in August at the
Boar‘s Head at Walgherton just a few miles from Nantwich. Well, as Ricardians we felt we had
to frequent such an appropriately named hostelry, so we decided to hold a meal in Richard‘s
memory.
Our March meeting was our celebratory Pot Luck Medieval Meal. We were twelve months
old that very day. It was a super afternoon. Everyone had made a real effort to look up an
authentic recipe and all attempts were successful and delicious. The centre piece was Deirdre
Gough‘s whole salmon. The meal was held care of Jacqui Emerson at her home in Wistaston and
there were eventually thirteen of us in attendance, but we didn't sit down all together, so we were
not a coven.
Helen Ashburn came to give a power point presentation for the April meeting and became our
first outside speaker. Helen‘s presentation was called ‗Images of Richard III‘ and consisted of
portraits of Richard III, pictures of Richard III and pictures of actors who had actually portrayed
Richard III on stage and screen, and information on her research. Helen began to research this
topic just out of interest and just like Topsy, ‗it growed and growed‘ and amazingly enough is
continuing to grow. Helen has reached the grand total of 150 images so far, and she has more to
find. It was a brilliant talk and gave all in attendance much food for thought.
59
Our May meeting is an idea snitched from the Greater Manchester Branch entitled ‗My
Favourite Medieval Site or Artefact‘ and members will give a ten minute talk on the object or
place of their choice.
So there you are. Be assured the memory of Richard III is being kept alive here in Mercia,
even though most of it was owned by the dreaded Stanleys.
Marion Moulton
Worcester Branch
The February meeting saw members engaged in making decorations for Belbroughton Village
Hall for the forthcoming twenty-fifth-anniversary banquet. The hall is an impressive timberframed former barn, which will provide an excellent backdrop to a medieval feast. Pat
Parminter, a member of the Branch Committee, had prepared all the materials and was on hand to
help the less nimble-fingered. She produced basic shapes in murrey and blue felt and a selection
of Yorkist emblems, including silver boars, golden suns in splendour and white roses. Members
then designed and created their own banners, pennants and table runners. Results were
impressive and it was realised that there were not only enough items to decorate the hall, but also
that some of the them could be used for embellishing the display boards, which give information
about the Society and the history of the period, and which will be used for the banquet and the
Branch‘s stall at Tewkesbury in July. It was a most enjoyable and productive afternoon and
members expressed their gratitude for Pat‘s skilful and cheerful direction.
The meeting in March was also led by a member of the Branch, Richard Thompson, who gave
an erudite and very thoroughly researched talk entitled ‗York and Tudor – a Pattern of Rulers‘.
He argued that both Richard III and Henry VII were following a long line of feudal lords, rather
than that Richard‘s death marked a watershed in English history. He did not see Henry as any
sort of ‗New Monarch‘ or as the author of any innovations in government. Richard gave
members plenty of ideas to consider and there followed a long, lively and wide-ranging
discussion. Richard was warmly thanked by all for his talk.
The Branch AGM will take place in April at St Leonard‘s Church at Newland, near Malvern.
Described as ‗a gem of Victorian Gothic splendour‘, it is closely associated with the Beauchamp
family of nearby Madresfield Court, the inspiration for Evelyn Waugh‘s Brideshead, which we
visited three years ago.
The Worcestershire Branch is always delighted to welcome Society members to its events,
which usually take place on the second Saturday of the month. The twenty-fifth- anniversary
banquet mentioned above will take place on 11 June this year and Society members from further
afield will be very welcome. Contact details are on the Branch and Group Contacts page of this
Bulletin.
Carol Southworth
Yorkshire Branch
At the Branch SGM held in York on 2 April, the decision on Branch membership rules originally
proposed and agreed at our AGM was ratified by a clear majority, so Section 3 of our Branch
Constitution now reads as follows:
‗Membership of Yorkshire Branch shall be by either of the following: (a) an annual
membership fee decided by the Committee and payable at the start of the Branch‘s year after the
Annual General Meeting. This will entitle the member to receive free of charge three Branch
Newsletters per year; or (b) annual subscription to the Branch magazine Blanc Sanglier. This will
entitle the member to receive three magazines and three Newsletters per year.‘
This membership rule, introduced in order to bring Yorkshire Branch into line with the
60
Richard III Society‘s rules for Branches and Groups, will come into effect when subscriptions
next fall due (2011-12). The annual membership fee under (a) above has been agreed by the
Committee at £3.50 for the time being. The rule will mean that those members of the Richard III
Society who are also Branch members will be eligible to vote on Branch business.
Will Society members living in Yorkshire who do not at present subscribe to our magazine
please contact our Secretary Pauline Pogmore before 1 August if they would like to become
members of the Branch. Her email address is [email protected]
Due to Bulletin deadlines, and the late date of Easter this year, the report on the
commemoration of the 550th anniversary of the battle of Towton on Palm Sunday will be held
over until the September issue. We also hope to report on our Spring Lecture on 7 May, the
intended visit to Conisborough Castle on 5 June, and meeting our American (and perhaps
Canadian?) friends later that month.
On Sunday 21 August the Branch will hold its informal commemoration of Bosworth in King
Richard‘s own collegiate church, St Alkelda‘s at Middleham. Would members and friends please
meet at the church for 2.00 p.m.
Sunday 28 and Monday 29 August should see our sales and publicity stall at Norfolk Park,
Sheffield, which hosts one of the biggest local events of its kind from 10.30 am to 5.30 pm on
both days. There will be a Living History Camp with over 600 re-enactors showing what
everyday life was like from Roman times through medieval to WW2. Other features include a
Craft Tent, Horticultural Show, a market and children‘s rides and entertainment. Well worth a
visit!
The Branch AGM will be held on Saturday 3 September at Jacob‘s Well, Trinity Lane, York,
starting at 1.30 pm. Following the business of the meeting there will be a talk by Pauline
Pogmore on ‗The Families Connected with Sheffield Castle‘ and – possibly – a quiz. Afternoon
tea will be available at £3.50 per head; a booking form will be included with our August
Newsletter.
Nominations for the Branch Committee should be sent in writing, duly seconded and with the
nominee‘s agreement, to our Secretary before 20 August.
Notice is given below of a further proposed amendment to Yorkshire Branch Constitution, to
clarify the membership rules currently being overhauled. At present, couples who pay one annual
subscription to Blanc Sanglier (and receive one magazine) each have one vote. Following
discussion on this point with the parent Society‘s membership department, a Branch Joint
Membership will be proposed, as an additional clause to Section 3 of our Constitution. It is
proposed that Section 3 will now begin:
‗Membership of Yorkshire Branch shall be by any one of the following:‘. Clauses (a) and (b)
will stand as at present, and the rest of Section 3 will read: ‗or (c) an annual Joint Membership
fee (UK only), decided by the Committee, which applies where there are two members at the
same address. This will entitle the members to receive free of charge three copies of Blanc
Sanglier with three Branch Newsletters per year, and to have one vote each at Branch General
Meetings.‘
Under the new rules (see above) two members at the same address paying £3.50 each would
not be entitled to receive the Branch magazine (£7); if one member were a subscriber and the
second adult were not, their combined fees would be £10.50. To ensure there is some benefit for
those who wish to continue to subscribe to Blanc Sanglier, the annual Joint Membership rate has
been agreed by the Committee at £9 for the time being.
Our Branch mediaeval banquet will be held at Bedern Hall, York, on Saturday 22 October at
7.30 pm for 8.00 pm. Further details, menu and booking form will be given in our August
Newsletter.
Angela Moreton
61
New Members
Patricia Scruton, Ashby-de-la-Zouche, Leics
David Sharpe, Wakefield, Yorks
David Sleep, Eltham, London
John Turner, York
Derek Vance, Towcester, Northants
Pauline Wiltshire, Reading, Berks
UK 1 January to 31 March 2011
Robert Atkinson, Maidstone, Kent
Pat Barrett, Abbots Bromley, Staffs
Patricia Bilbey, Cheltenham, Glos
Christopher Boote, Virginia Water, Surrey
Richard Busby, Horsham, W. Sussex
Susan Byron, Eastbourne, E. Sussex
Duncan Claughton, Scarborough, N. Yorks
John Cleaver, Watford, Herts
Karen Winstone Cooper, Bridgend, S. Wales
Adam Fowle, Brighton, E. Sussex
Josephine Gee, Cranfield, Beds
Jim Hancock, Lymm, Cheshire
Patrick Hunt, Salisbury, Wilts
Glenda Lawrence, Filey, N. Yorks
Angela Nelson, Rossendale, Lancs
Robin O‘Neil, Salisbury, Wilts
Overseas 1 January to 31 March 2011
Boriana Djanabetska, Sofia
Suzi Koesis, Coogee, New South Wales
Liselotte Messner, Vienna
Vivienne Thomas, Menai, New South Wales
US Branch 1 January to 31 March 2011
Addie Applebaum, Hershey, PA
Jillian Copeland, Mays Landing, NJ
Recently Deceased Members
John Blake, Navenby, Lincs, joined 1994
Sandra Desmond, Dorchester, Dorset, joined 2003
Marshal Drochocki, Glasgow, aged over 90, who joined before 1987 (and joined the Scottish
Branch in 2006)
Julia Hefford, Shepperton, Middx (family member, joined 1975)
Peter Lee, Shepperton
Brian Moorhen, Langley, Berks (family member, joined 2006)
Sue Nicholson, Victoria Branch, joined 1987*
* Susan Jayne Nicholson 1954 – 2011
Hazel Hajdu writes: Victorian Branch members have been greatly saddened by the death of Sue
Nicholson, who died on 13 February 2011 after a lengthy illness. Sue joined the Society in 1983
and attended our meetings very regularly.
Her enthusiastic participation in the Branch‘s various activities in the intervening years was
infectious. She was always willing to lend a helping hand whenever there was extra work to be
done, whether categorising the library books, planning outings, or designing the Branch‘s letterhead and website.
For a number of years Sue was Branch Treasurer, a role which she fulfilled with professional
efficiency.
Sue‘s courage and positive attitude in the face of her long illness was inspirational; her cheerful nature and good humour abounded throughout the difficult times. Warm-hearted, loyal and
optimistic, Sue‘s delightful personality will be greatly missed. She will be remembered by us all
with great affection and admiration.
62
Obituary
Brian Moorhen 1939-2011
My beloved husband Brian died suddenly, but peacefully,
at home following a short illness on 27 April. For the past
three years, however, he had several health issues and his
mobility had been steadily decreasing over this period.
At the time of writing the funeral has not taken place
but the service will be held at St Mary‘s Church, Langley
Marish, where our marriage was blessed in 1969. He will
be interred at the Chiltern Burial Park, Jordans near
Beaconsfield, in a beautiful woodland setting close by a
glade of bluebells.
Brian was not a Ricardian per se, only joining as a
family member in 2006 when he became the Society‘s
Membership Manager. He was somewhat bemused about
King Richard, perhaps like many partners of ardent
Ricardians in their interest in a long-dead king. However,
he became familiar with numerous Ricardian sites as we
toured the north of England and he also shared my many
Ricardian friendships. He always supported me in my
endeavours for the Society and was very proud whenever
I had an article published in the The Ricardian.
He has been described by friends as a ‗lovely man‘ and ‗kind and considerate‘. He will be
missed so much, not just by myself but by his daughter Lesley, his three grandchildren, John,
Sarah and Elizabeth, and by everyone else who knew him.
Wendy Moorhen
Anne Smith 1946-2011
We have received two further reminiscences about Anne Smith, whose obituary was in the
March 2011 Bulletin.
Carolyn Hammond writes: I first got to know Anne when we went to the Medieval Feast at
Lyons Corner House in the Strand, London, in January 1973, together with several other
Ricardians, including Peter Hammond, Elizabeth Nokes, Ann and Richard Barnard and Cilla
Bazley-Green – all in costume. As I lived in London and she would not have been able to get
home to Guildford after the feast was over, I invited her to stay overnight with me. The problem
was that I didn‘t have a guest room, as my only spare room was full of the Society‘s Library‘s
books and papers. I asked if she would mind sleeping there, and she said that nothing would
please her more than to sleep (or stay awake reading) surrounded by Ricardian books. Later of
course when the Library had completely outgrown one room she took over the novels and ran the
Fiction Library with enthusiasm and enjoyment.
Wendy Moorhen writes: I was very sad to learn of the passing of Anne Smith. I only met her a
few times, but she was great fun, and my abiding memory is her passion for detective novels.
Inspector Morse was a particular favourite and I recall she was unable to make a Society event as
she was in Oxford for a ‗Morse weekend‘. I will always be grateful to her for introducing me to
Donna Leon‘s Inspector Brunetti novels set in my all-time favourite city Venice.
63
Calendar
We run a calendar of all forthcoming events notified to us. If you are aware of any events of
Ricardian interest, whether organised by the Society (Committee, Visits Committee, Research
Committee, Branches/Groups) or by others, please let Lesley Boatwright have full details in
sufficient time for entry. The calendar will also be run on the website.
Date
2011
11 June
Events
Originator
Worcester Branch 25th anniversary
Worcester Branch
celebration banquet, Belbroughton Church Hall
18 June
East Midlands Study Day on ‗The Power
Behind the Throne‘
East Midlands Branch
(see March Bulletin )
[14-18 July
Due to lack of support, the Long Weekend
based in Sussex has had to be cancelled
Visits Committee]
30 July
Day visit to Woodbridge in Suffolk for
Sutton Hoo
Visits Committee (pp. 55-6)
5-7 August
Australasian Convention
Victoria Branch (p. 58)
21 August
Society Visit to Bosworth
(see pp. 11-12)
21 August
Yorkshire Branch Bosworth Commemoration
Middleham Church, 2.00 pm
Yorkshire Branch (p. 61)
22 August
Requiem Mass for King Richard etc.,
Spital-in-the-Street, Lincs
(see p. 56)
3 September
Day visit to Denney Abbey and Anglesey
Abbey
Visits Committee (p. 57)
3 September
Yorkshire Branch AGM, Jacobs Well, York,
1.30 pm
Yorkshire Branch (p. 61)
1 October
Society Annual General Meeting
Executive Committee
(see pp. 3-4)
22 October
Yorkshire Branch Medieval Banquet
Yorkshire Branch (p. 61)
12 November
Norfolk Branch Study Day on ‘The Twilight
Years of the Yorkist Cause‘
Norfolk Branch (see p.58 )
Triennial Conference at Burleigh Court
Conference Centre, Univ. of Loughborough
Research Committee (see
March Bulletin)
2012
20-22 April
64