Edward of Middleham
by P.W. Hammond
Edward of Middleham
Edward
of Middleham, Prince of Wales was the only known legitimate child of
Richard III and Anne Neville. He was born in Middleham probably some time
between early 1473 (after his parents received a partial dispensation
for their marriage in April 1472) and February 1478 when he was created
Earl of Salisbury. It seems
likely that he was in fact born c.1474-1476 since he is recorded as
aged seven and a little more in 1483.
Little is known of his life before his father’s accession to
the throne in the summer of 1483. He did not attend his father’s coronation on
6 July but was made nominal Lord Lieutenant of Ireland on 19 July and
created Prince of Wales on 24 August in a splendid ceremony in York. He was formally declared heir apparent to the throne in February
1484. Nothing more is known
of his life and by about the beginning of April 1484 he was dead. He was probably buried at Sheriff Hutton or Middleham.
Edward
of Middleham, Prince of Wales by P W Hammond, 2nd edtion 1973
Edward of Middleham, Prince of Wales
by A J Pollard, New DNB
English Royal Marriages and the Papal Penitentiary in the Fifteenth
Century, by Peter D Clarke, EHR, 2005, vol. 120, pp.1014-1029
Richard and Anne’s Dispensation, Marie Barnfield, Ricardian Bulletin,
Spring 2006
The Illegitimate
Children of Richard III
by P.W. Hammond
The image of Richard
III presented by some historians is that of moral earnestness and a
puritanical outlook,1 and that of his brother Edward of moral
laxity. It is true to say, however, that while Richard publicly acknowledged
two bastards in his lifetime (John of Gloucester and Katherine Plantagenet),
his brother acknowledged none. The difference may be that Richard's
illegitimate children were born before his marriage, while some of Edward's
were born afterwards; the children of a bachelor were not considered
as reprehensible as were the bastards of a married man. There is some
evidence that Richard had a third illegitimate child, Richard of Eastwell,
not publicly acknowledged in his lifetime. Very little is known about
any of these children, particularly the third, and this article attempts
to summarise this scanty information.
First of all, a few
general remarks: it is necessary to say that, historical novelists notwithstanding,
nothing is known for certain of the date of birth of any of the children,
nor about their mothers. Probably they all had different mothers, but
it is possible that they may have had the same mother, or at least that
John of Gloucester and Katherine Plantagenet, the two openly acknowledged
ones, did, but this is pure surmise.2 Nothing at all is known
about the early lives of John and Katherine, although it is possible
that they were two of 'the children' referred to in the Regulations
for the King's Household in the North in July 1484.3
John of Gloucester
The
first reference to John is in September 1483, when, according to Buck,
'[the king] made Richard of Gloucester, his base son [Captain of] Calais'.
He was possibly in fact knighted on this occasion.4 This
must refer to John of Gloucester because of a later grant to 'our dear
bastard son, John of Gloucester' of the offices of Captain of Calais,
and of the fortresses of Rysbank, Guisnes, Hammes, and Lieutenant of
the Marches of Picardy for his life.5
This patent is dated 11 March 1485, and gives John all
necessary powers, with the exception of that of appointing the officers.
This was reserved until John became twenty-one, from which it may be
gathered that he had not yet reached that age, although how much younger
he was is not known. It may be surmised that he was not too near it
or the reservation would not have been worth making. The patent describes
John as having 'liveliness of mind, activity of body, and inclination
to all good customs (which) promise us, by the grace of God, great hope
of his good service for the future'. These remarks may be pure convention
(or reflect parental pride) rather than objective fact, for in the charter
creating Edward of Middleham Prince of Wales very similar expressions
are used.6 The initial notice of the appointment to the Captaincy
of Calais provides a possible clue to the birthplace of John, since
he is there referred to as John of Pomfret.7
It
seems probable that John was acting as Captain of Calais before the
date of his patent of appointment,
since in the Canterbury City Archives there occur references to payments
in November 1484 for an allowance of wine and leavened bread 'for the
Lord Bastard riding to Calais', and for a pike and wine for 'Master
Brakynbury Constable of the Tower of London' returned from Calais at
that time 'from the Lord Bastard'.8 The linking of 'Lord
Bastard' with Calais leaves little doubt that John of Gloucester is
meant, but has interesting implications. A warrant to deliver clothing
to 'the Lord Bastard' dated 9 March 1485, two days before the grant
of the Captaincy of Calais, has been put forward as referring to Edward
V, who at that date would be officially referred to as such.9
In view of the Canterbury payment though it seems more likely to be
a reference to John of Gloucester, and to cast further doubt on part
of the evidence used to prove the survival into 1485 of the eldest son
of Edward IV.
The next reference shows
that John survived the death of his father, and was provided for to
some extent by Henry VII. It is a grant to 'John de Gloucester, bastard,
of an annual rent of 20 Ii. during the King's pleasure, issuing out
of the revenues of the lordship or manor of Kyngestonlacy, parcel of
the duchy of Lancaster, in co. Dorset'.10 This grant is not
ungenerous, and perhaps shows that at that time Henry felt he had nothing
to fear from an undoubted bastard of his late rival. This state of affairs
does not seem to have lasted very long, however, since the last reference
apparently to John, again from Buck, states that 'about the time these
unhappie gentlemen suffered (i.e.
at the time of the deaths of Perkin Warbeck and the Earl
of Warwick) there was abase sone of King Richard III made away, and
secretly, having been kept long before in prison' .The reason for the
execution was apparently the wish of some unspecified Irishmen to make
him their ruler. Although Buck does not name the person involved, there
is no reason to doubt that John is meant, as he is the only openly acknowledged
male bastard of Richard known. John also appears to be referred to in
the Confession of Perkin Warbeck as 'King Richard's bastard son', then
(i.e. 1491) in
the hands of Henry VII.11
It has been suggested12
that we have a later reference than this to John of Gloucester in a
Patent Roll entry of 1505. The reference is to one 'John Gloucestre',
as merchant of the Staple of Calais, to whom Henry VII was granting
a pardon. It is unlikely that this refers to Richard's son, for the
name was not uncommon. For example, a man of this name, a citizen and
grocer, was appointed Bailiff of Southwark by the City of London in
1460, and he or someone else of this name served on a number of royal
commissions, one as late as 1477. A person of this name is described
as dead in May 1484.13 It therefore seems more likely that
a son or relative of the 1460 Bailiff of Southwark is the man referred
to in 1505, and not Richard's son.
Katherine Plantagenet
Katherine, the only
daughter, albeit illegitimate, of Richard III, first comes to notice
in 1484, when William Herbert, Earl of Huntingdon (formerly Earl of
Pembroke) covenanted 'to take to wife Dame Katherine Plantagenet, daughter
to the King, before Michaelmas of that year'.14 Nothing is
known of Dame Katherine before this, no mention is made anywhere of
her mother, nor when she was born. That she married in 1484 is no guide
to her age: child marriages were not uncommon in the fifteenth century,
(Anne Mowbray was five when she was married to Richard, Duke of York),
but she could hardly have been older than about eighteen since Richard
himself was only born in 1452, and it may be thought unlikely that she
would have been born after Richard's marriage in about 1474. She was
thus probably between ten and eighteen years of age.
The marriage covenant
mentioned was dated 29 February. In it, in addition to agreeing to marry
Katherine before 29 September 1484 (Michaelmas), the Earl agreed to
make her a jointure in lands of £200 per annum. The King, who
agreed to bear the whole cost of the marriage, undertook to settle lands
and lordships to a value of 1000 marks per annum on them and the
heirs male of their two bodies. The settlement of the King was subject
to certain interesting qualifications. The couple were to have manors,
lordships, lands and tenements in the possession of the King on the
day of the marriage, to the value of 600 marks, and the same to the
value of 400 marks in reversion after the death of Lord Stanley. Meanwhile,
during the life of Lord Stanley, they were to have an annuity of 400
marks payable from the revenues of the lordships of Newport, Brecknock
and Hay. The manors etc. in the possession of Lord Stanley were obviously those
of his wife, granted to him for his life because of her support of Buckingham's
uprising. The revenues of the annuity had lately belonged to the Duke
of Buckingham himself. Three days after the marriage agreement had been
entered into, on 3 March, the King fulfilled the second part of his
engagement, granting the annuity he had promised. They were married
between then and May 1484, since a grant of the proceeds of various
manors in Devon, Cornwall and Somerset was then made to 'William Erle
of Huntingdon and Kateryn his wif'.15 On 8 March 1485 a further
grant was made to the Earl and Katherine his wife of an annuity of £152
10.10 from the issues of the King's possessions in the counties of Carmarthen
and Cardigan, and from those of the King's lordship of Haverfordwest.16
Nothing further is known
about Katherine. She may have had children, but if so they did not survive,
since the Earl's heir was Elizabeth, his daughter by his first wife,
Mary Woodville. Nor is it known when she died, but it seems very likely
that she did not survive the Earl (although he certainly did not marry
again), and she may have been dead by 25 November 1487, the date of
the coronation of Elizabeth of York. Among the lists of nobility present
at that ceremony is a list of earls (including the Earl of Huntingdon)
all described as 'widowers'.17 If this is correct (and one
of the other earls in the list was probably not a widower) then Katherine
was probably dead by this date, under the age of twenty. Another clue
to the date of her death may be given by the fact that on 17 May 1488
Henry VII confirmed Herbert's charter as earl of Huntingdon.18
This may have reflected a desire to confirm his position after the death
of his wife, or of course merely a desire to consolidate his position
in the Tudor world.
Richard Plantagenet
Richard Plantagenet,
or Richard of Eastwell, is a mysterious figure who may, or more probably
may not, have been a son of Richard III. The facts in this case are
even more scanty than for John and Katherine above, and consist of an
entry in the parish register of Eastwell, a hamlet three miles north
of Ashford in Kent. The entry reads 'Rychard Plantagenet was buryed
the xxij daye of Desember, Anno
ut supra', and appears under the year 1550. This entry is the foundation
of all the stories about Richard Plantagenet. It appears to be genuine.
The register is in fact a copy made in 1598 by the then vicar, Josias
Nicholls, in accordance with an order made in that year that all existing
paper registers be copied into vellum books, and the original paper
register no longer exists. However, comparing the existing vellum copy
with the bishop's transcripts of the period 1562 (when they begin) to
1598 shows good agreement. The entry for 1550 in the register as we
have it is therefore almost certainly an accurate copy of that made
at the time. For the Richard Plantagenet entry to be disregarded the
incumbent in 1550 (Richard Styles), or Josias Nicholls must have deliberately
forged it. We have no reason to suppose that either was capable of such
an apparently pointless act. It has been suggested19 that
the entry is a pedantic translation of the common name 'Broom', but
the extant register is not in Latin, nor are the existing bishop's transcripts,
and we have no reason to suppose the original 1550 register was either.
Of course no one knows if the deceased believed himself to be a Plantagenet,
or whether Sir Thomas Moyle, the owner of Eastwell, so believed, or
both. Sir Thomas must almost certainly have known of the entry in the
register when it was made.
It has been said that
the register entry has a mark against it which only appears against
the names of those of noble blood. This story was started in 1767 by
Philip Parsons, the then Vicar of Eastwell.20 It is true
that there is a mark of sorts against the name Richard Plantagenet,
and that there are other (different) marks against other names (not
all noble), but the explanation of these seems to be that they were
made by a member of the Finch family, later owners of Eastwell, to mark
off entries interesting to himself, which he then copied out.21
One other piece of evidence
is sometimes cited for the existence of Richard Plantagenet, namely
his ‘tomb’. This is still in Eastwell Church, which is now a ruin, all
the other tombs having been removed to the Victoria and Albert Museum
for protection in 1968. In form it is an altar tomb, with indents for
brasses, and was formerly on the north side of the chancel. It is almost
certainly the tomb of Sir Walter Moyle, who died in 1480; the form of
the brass indents shows that it originally housed at least two bodies,
one male and one female, the latter apparently wearing a head-dress
of circa 1480-490. There are also indents for two groups, one
for two sons and one for three daughters, below the two main figures.22
The tomb could not therefore have belonged to Richard Plantagenet.
Notes
and References
This
is an amended form of the article in The Ricardian, Vol. V, No.66,
(September 1979), pp. 92-6 which takes account of the short note in
Vol. V, No.72, (March 1981), p. 319. The amended article was then published
in Richard III: Crown and People, edited by James Petre.
1.
See for example Kendall, pp. 320, 322, 323.
2. There is a very
slight possibility that we have a clue to the name of Richard's mistress
(or one of them), in a grant by Richard in 1477 to Katherine Haute of
100 shillings per annum for life (DL29/637/10360A). Katherine
was the wife of James Haute (son of William Haute and Joan Woodville,
and so cousin to Elizabeth Woodville). Little is known about her; there
is no apparent reason for Richard to give her an annuity, and her Christian
name is of course that of Richard's illegitimate daughter, an uncommon
one in the Yorkist Neville families. All of this may of course be far
from the truth, although it is suggestive. Thanks are due to Dr Rosemary
Horrox for this reference, and for her comments.
3.
BL Harl MS 433, Vol. 3,
p. 114.
4. Sir George Buck,
The History of King Richard the Third, (1619), edited A.N. Kincaid,
(Gloucester 1979), pp. 51, 255. Fabyan is the source of the (erroneous)
information that Richard made this son Captain of Calais at this time.
The reference to a bastard of Richard being knighted in 1483 appears
in the 1646 edition of Buck's work (p. 28), presumably added by the
editor, Buck's nephew, George Buck, contrary to his normal practice
of not adding any factual material, (Kincaid, Buck, p. Ixvii). We have
no clue as to the source of his information.
5.
Thomas Rymer, Foedera, (London 1704-13), Vol. 12, pp. 265-6.
6. BL Harl MS
433, Vol. 1, pp. 81-2.
7. BL Harl MS
433, Vol. 1, p. 269.
8.
Chamberlains’ Accounts of the City of Canterbury, Michaelmas 1484 to
Michaelmas 1485, f. 26. I am indebted to Dr Anne Sutton for a transcript
of the Latin entry from the Canterbury Archives.
9.
BL Harl MS 433, Vol. 2, p. 211. See also Caroline Halsted, Richard
III as Duke of Gloucester and King of England, (London 1844), Vol.
2, p. 487 and C.R. Markham, Richard Ill, (London 1906), p. 237.
10.
W. Campbell (ed.), Materials for the History of the Reign of Henry
VII, Rolls Series, Vol. 1, i (London 1873), p. 328.
11.
George Buck, op. cit., pp. 170, 298.
12.
By A.N. Kincaid, George Buck, op. cit., p. 298. See CPR 1494-1509,
p. 448.
13.
D.J. Johnson, Southwark and the City of London, (London 1969),
pp. 45, 104 note 3; CPR 1476-85, p. 24; CCR 1476-1485,
no.1246, p. 366.
14.
D.H. Thomas, The Herberts of Raglan, unpublished M.A. thesis,
University of Wales, (1967), pp. 283,284 and also pp. 215-16 quoting
the Herbertorum Prosapia, a seventeenth-century history of the
Herbert family. A version of the Covenant was printed by Halsted, op.
cit., Vol. 2, p. 569.
15.
CPR 1476-85, p. 431; BL Harl MS 433, Vol. 2, p. 137. The
marriage is usually stated to have taken place between March and September
1484, see CP, Vol. 10, p. 402.
16.
CPR 1476-85, p. 538.
17.
John Leland, De Rebus Britannicis Collectanea, Vol. 4, (London
1770), pp. 216-23. I am indebted to Rhoda Edwards for drawing my attention
to this fact.
18.
CPR 1485-94, p. 237. For a discussion of the position of William
Herbert after 1485, see Helen Maurer, ‘The Later Careers of William
Herbert, Earl of Huntingdon, and his Brother, Sir Walter Herbert’, Richard
III: Crown and People, edited by James Petre, 1985, pp.95-7.
19.
R.H.D'Elboux, 'Some Kentish Indents', Archaeologia Cantiana, Vol.
59, (1946), pp. 98-9.
20.
Gentleman's Magazine, Vol. 37, (1767), p. 408.
21.
R.H. Husk, Notes and Queries, 6th Series, Vol. 9, (1884), p.
12
22.
D'Elboux, op. cit., pp. 96-7.
23.
Printed by Francis Peck in his Desiderata Curiosa, Vol. 2, (London
1735), pp. 24~51. The letter, dated 1733, relates a conversation between
Dr Brett and the 5th Earl of Winchelsea.
24.
Gentleman's Magazine, Vol. 37, (1767), p. 408. Pegge wrote under
the name 'T. Row', a known pseudonym of his.
25.
It is hoped to be able to publish in the near future a fuller account
of the legend of Richard Plantagenet, based on the work of the late
Mr Vincent Rendel, to whom I am indebted for much of my knowledge of
this subject.