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Introduction
According to historical record, Richard III
was a deeply pious man and there are a number of churches that can claim
a Ricardian connection, either as direct beneficiaries from his largesse
or because he is known to have worshipped in them.
For many years, the Richard III Society has raised money for its causes
- aiding the restoration of historic buildings, beautifying Ricardian
sites, erecting monuments, etc. In 1975, the Ricardian Churches Restoration
Fund, or RCRF, was founded, its guiding light for many years being the
late Joyce Melhuish. Since its inception, the RCRF has received no money
from the Society but has raised all its funds through members and the
general public. For the most part, this has been by the sale of craft
work made by the members. To date, the fund has made donations totalling
well in excess of £30,000.
Any church that has a connection with Richard III is entitled to call
upon the Fund for assistance, although obviously the amount that can be
given is limited and very much dependent upon what is in the coffers at
the time of asking.
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Five churches qualify for 'Grade
I' membership of the RCRF
Fotheringhay
Richard was born in the nearby castle and may have been
baptised in the church. A permanent exhibition, costing £1500, was mounted
in 1987-88 and in the ten years until 1992 members of the Society participated
in a programme to embroider and sew kneelers. The Society has supported
several other projects including a contribution of £2000 towards the cost
of general works in 1995, £100 towards rehanging and additions to the
church bells in 1990, £500 towards stonework restoration in 1983 and payments
over the years amounting to nearly £4000 for work in the Chapel of All
Souls.
For more on the Society's connection with Fotheringhay
see Friends of Fotheringhay
and about the village itself see Ricardian
Sites. For a history of Fotheringhay’s royal connections see below.
Middleham
Richard spent much of his life in Middleham,
having been sent there for his early chivalric training, the castle belonging
to his cousin, the earl of Warwick. Later, Richard lived here when he
was Edward IV’s deputy in the north. The castle was his favourite residence
and it was here that he met Anne Neville, who he later married. Now in the
care of English Heritage, the castle remains a truly evocative site,
beloved of Ricardians.
Sadly, Richard III’s plan to found a college of priests in the church
came to naught, but in 1934, the Society installed a memorial window,
showing Richard and Anne, as well as their son, the Prince of Wales,
and in 1963, it gave an altar frontal. These were amongst its earliest
gifts to any heritage site. In the early 1980s, the RCRF gave £3500 towards
a new lead roof.
Sheriff Hutton
The church contains an alabaster monument at one time believed to be that of Richard's
son, Edward of Middleham, who died in 1484. Sadly, the monument has been
badly damaged by the ravages of time and much of the heraldic detail has
gone. (The exact place of the prince’s burial is uncertain but it was not
at Sheriff Hutton.) It is possibly the only monument to a Prince of Wales
to be found in a parish church and over the years, it has been set up
in several places within the church. In 1949, Saxon Barton, founder of
the Society, paid for the monument to be restored and in 1985, the RCRF
contributed much of the cost of the extensive restoration and conservation
plan, in total £2666.
Barnard Castle
Here is another church where Richard planned
a college which also came to nothing. However, he was responsible for
major rebuilding work, widening the aisles and putting in windows. His
boar badge can be seen in the exterior stonework.
The RCRF contributed £500 towards the cost of the second-stage roof repairs
in 1983, and more recently, in March 2001, it gave £1000 towards improving
the existing sound system, adding an induction loop for the hard of hearing.
Sutton Cheney
Close to Bosworth Field, this is known as the
church where Richard is said to have heard his last Mass. Sadly, the tradition
was probably begun in the 1920s. No matter, it is now the principal venue
for the annual memorial service, held on the Sunday nearest to the anniversary
of the battle. A highlight of the service is the placing of wreaths around
a bronze plaque inscribed 'Remember before God, Richard III, King of England,
and those who fell at Bosworth Field, having kept faith. 22nd August 1485.
Loyaulté me lie'. Recent gifts from the RCRF and the Society have totalled
more than £4000 towards the replacement of the crumbling stonework of the medieval
windows.
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Other churches
which have benefited from the RCRF include:
Lead Chapel, Towton
Built to commemorate the dead of the Battle of Towton, this
received the very first RCRF donation in 1982, being £45 towards the cost
of installing some stained glass for the boar quarry window. The chapel,
standing isolated in a corn field, is the venue for an annual service
held by the Yorkshire Branch of the Society.
Wingfield
The RCRF gave £2150 in 1990 towards the cleaning
and repairs of the tombs of the Duke of Suffolk and his wife, the duchess
having been Richard's sister, Elizabeth. In 1996, the Fund gave £100 towards
restoration of a window.
Great St Helen's, Bishopsgate, London
Richard used this church when, as Duke of Gloucester, he was resident
in London. In 1992, the RCRF gave £1000 towards the cost of repairs following
a terrorist bomb which had lifted the roof.
Staindrop
Close to Raby Castle, the birth place of Cecily Neville, Duchess of
York, Richard's mother, Staindrop church is the burial place of Richard's ancestors, the
first earl of Westmorland and his two countesses. The RCRF gave £2000
towards the restoration of their tomb in 2000.
York Minster
Richard had great plans for the Minster, planning
a chantry chapel there for his son. In 1987, the RCRF gave £2000 towards
replacing the stonework of the great west window, popularly known as ‘the
Heart of Yorkshire’.
King’s College Chapel, Cambridge
In response to a national appeal for funds to
carry out restoration work in 1982, a donation of £300 was given to match
the sum that Richard had given. He was responsible for completing the
first five bays of the chapel.
Other contributions have included £1000 to Brancepeth
Church in response to its restoration appeal and the same amount to
St Andrew's Church, Penrith for the protection of their stained
glass windows, both in 2001.
In 2005, Stratford St Mary in Essex restored the de la Pole window, and the RCRF gave a contribution.
Other churches with Ricardian connections include Westminster Abbey,
where Richard's queen, Anne Neville, was buried, the site marked now by
a small memorial given by the Society; St George's Chapel, Windsor
Castle, where Edward IV and his wife, Elizabeth Woodville, are buried
and Tewkesbury Abbey, which holds the remains of George, Duke of
Clarence and his duchess, Isabel Neville.
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Contacts
For further information please contact:
Miss Elizabeth Nokes
4 Oakley Street, Chelsea, London SW3 5NN
E-mail: elizabeth_nokes@hotmail.com
or
Dr Phil Stone
181 Rock Avenue, Gillingham, Kent ME7 5PY
E-mail: ptstone@blueyonder.co.uk
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Fotheringhay's Early Royal Connections and the Richard
III Society
By Dr Phil Stone
Fotheringhay's
royal connections extend from the time of the Conquest, when the estate
was given to William's niece, Judith, until the visit of Queen Mary in
the 1930s. In between, there has been the ownership by the king of Scotland,
who was
Earl
of Huntingdon; the birth of the future
king, Richard III, in the castle in 1452; the visit of Queen Elizabeth
I during a royal progress, and the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots,
in 1587.
Foderingeia is mentioned in the Domesday
Book, but the village preceded the Norman Conquest by many years. Before
the coming of William the Conqueror, Foderingeia was held by the Saxon,
Turchil, but the census records that, in 1086, it was part of the earldom
of Huntingdon.
In 1124, the then earl became King of Scotland.
Although monarch of another country David I
did homage to
the English king for the earldom. The title to Fotheringhay, as the property
was now called, remained with the Scots until 1294, when John Balliol
surrendered himself to Edward I
who granted everything to his nephew,
John of Brittany
. On
his death, it passed to his niece, Marie
de St Pol, widow of the Earl of Pembroke.
In 1377, Edward III bestowed Fotheringhay
upon his fifth son, Edmund of Langley. Ten years later, when he was created
the first
D
uke of York, Edmund brought the falcon, fetterlock and ostrich
feather into the Yorkist heraldry.
He replaced the wooden castle with a stone
building, the rather limited remains of which can be seen today. The keep
was founded on a ground plan resembling a padlock - the fetterlock. This
is an artist's representation of how the final arrangement may have looked.
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In 1398, Edmund petitioned Pope Boniface
IX for consent to found a College in honour of the 'Annunciation of the
Blessed Virgin and St Edward the Confessor'. With a master, twelve chaplains
and four clerks, it was to be established in a chapel to be built within
the castle.
Edmund died in 1402, leaving his son, Edward,
the second duke, to continue with the college project. The scale was reduced,
it was moved into the parish church and the dedication was changed to
'The Annunciation of Our Lady and All Saints'. In 1412, the papal bull
granting permission for the Foundation was finally issued. Three years
later, the duke was one of only two English knights who died at Agincourt
and he was brought back for burial in the choir of his new collegiate
church, which continued eastwards of the present building.
With the death of Duke Edward, the title
passed to his three-year-old nephew, Richard. During his minority, no
further building took place at Fotheringhay, but, when he was 22, the
duke took up the family interest in building. Details of a contract are
known, dated to 1434, between William Horwood, freemason, and the duke's
commissioners, William Wolston and Thomas Peckham. This contract was for
a new church attached to 'the choir of the College of Fotheringhay'. A
cloister is also mentioned, together with a porch to connect the new buildings
with it.
Richard of York was killed at Wakefield
on 30 December 1460. The father of kings, though never king himself, the
third
Duke of York claimed the throne through his mother, Ann Mortimer,
the great-granddaughter of Edward III's second son, Lionel of Clarence.
Richard's eldest son, the earl of March, inherited this Yorkist claim
to the throne, and in 1461, he fulfilled his father's ambition, taking
the crown himself as Edward IV.
In 1462, Edward changed the Foundation
Charter for what was to be the last time, his intention being to reflect
his father having been 'the true heir of the realm of England and France'.
He also declared that he would complete the foundation.
Edward IV's 'Fayre Cloister' ran parallel
to the present nave, and had eighty-eight windows filled with spectacular
coloured glass, both ecclesiastical and heraldic. Very little of the glass
is still extant. A few fragments can be seen in the corners of some of
the nave windows, and there are some pieces in the windows of the church
at nearby King's Cliffe. A few years ago, a small room was discovered
under the porch of the church at Fotheringhay and amongst the rubbish
it contained there were thousands of pieces of medieval coloured glass,
some of which have been cleaned and put together to reglaze the east window
of the room over the porch.
In 1476, the Collegiate Church at Fotheringhay
witnessed one of the most spectacular events of the Yorkist Age and
one that would match any coronation. For nearly fifteen years, following
the Battle of Wakefield, the bodies of Richard, Duke of York and his son,
Edmund of Rutland, had lain in a plain tomb at Pontefract. The bodies
were exhumed on the morning of 21 July 1476, and for the rest of that
day, they lay in state in the choir of the church. Next day, the cortege
set out for Fotheringhay, with Richard, Duke of Gloucester as principal
escort.
The procession took a week to reach Fotheringhay,
where King Edward
and
the
D
uke of Clarence,
waited at the entrance to the churchyard. The king escorted the procession
into the church, where hearses had been erected. Masses were then sung
and the younger brothers watched over the coffins. The following day
the
coffins were placed in
a vault beneath the chancel, the ceremonies being concluded with the giving
of alms to some five thousand people, and the serving of dinner to two
thousand or more.
For a more detailed account of the reburial,
the reader is recommended to see the account in the Reburial of Richard
Duke of York 21-30 July 1476.
Edward IV bestowed Fotheringhay upon his
widowed mother, Cecily Neville, and she lived there until 1469, when she
moved to Berkhamsted, where she died in 1495.
Following her death the
Duchess
of York joined her husband in the choir of Fotheringhay. With the death
of Cecily, all connection between Fotheringhay, its castle, its church
and college, and the royal house of York came to an end.
The property reverted to the Crown, though
the college appears to have remained independent until 1539, when it surrendered
its liberties to Henry VIII. The members of the college continued in their
duties until 1553. After its dissolution, the property briefly belong
to Lady Jane Grey's father-in-law, John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland
who removed the choir, giving the church the truncated look we see today.
With the execution of Northumberland for
his part in putting Jane on the throne, the buildings at Fotheringhay
were allowed to rot and when Elizabeth I made a visitation in 1566, she
was so appalled by the 'desecration' being done to her ancestors' graves,
that she gave orders for the remains to be brought into the parish church,
and for new monuments to be made. These were completed in 1573, and still
stand today on either side of the altar. On the south is Edward, the second
duke, while on the north are Richard, the third duke, his duchess and
the earl of Rutland.
The
church has changed little since the time of its truncation, and the effects
of the Reformation. Externally, the great tower rises in solid square
blocks, topped with the lantern, each level pierced by magnificent windows,
with their lancets, traceries and transoms. The topmost of the square
parts of the tower is completed by four small embattled turrets at the
corners. Soaring lancets are set in the tracery of the lantern. Finally,
there is another embattled parapet, crowned with eight pinnacles, and
the gilded falcon and fetterlock, the badge of the House of York, which
tops the flagpole.
The
side aisles have tall pinnacled buttresses set in the walls, while the
clerestory has flying buttresses, designed to take the thrust produced
by the roof of the nave. The collection of gargoyles and water spouts
are well worth a look, too, especially those on the south side, away from
the road.
The interior is vast, and though there
has been consolidation, it has been spared major restoration or reconstruction.
The rood screen has gone and a wall fills the arch that was once the entrance
to the choir.
Of
the fabled coloured glass, all that's left in the nave are small fragments
of blue and murrey - the livery colours of the House of York - in the
eyelets of the lancets of the side windows. Apart from these, and one
notable exception, all the glass is plain and floods the church with a
bright, clear light.
Likewise, the wooden furnishings have mostly
disappeared. Some churches in the area, Tansor, King's Cliffe, Hemington
and Lower Benefield, have benches and misericords known to have come from
the break up of Fotheringhay.
One small panel of the original medieval
painting, a skeletal torso with a dog's head, remains on the west wall.
Otherwise, the walls are plain.
In 1966, the rather shabby-looking pulpit
was restored and repainted to bring back its glowing colours. Given to
the church by Edward IV, it is one of the finest examples of its kind.
Hexagonal in shape and rising on a slender plinth, it is reached by a
narrow stair. The back bears the royal arms, flanked by a bull and the
White Lion of March. The arms are further flanked by another bull, for
George of Clarence, and a white boar for Richard of Gloucester. The over-tester,
with its arabesques and acorn pendants, is probably Jacobean.
The church has a ring of
six bells, the
first four dating from the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries,
and the rest having been made at Whitechapel in 1990.
In 1975, the Richard III Society achieved
one of its long-held objectives - a memorial to the House of York - when
the stained glass window showing the heraldry of the early dukes of York
and their duchesses was placed in the east end window of the south aisle
and dedicated by the assistant Bishop of Peterborough.
With the window in place, the Society was
given the incentive to push ahead and get a faculty for establishing a
chapel. In 1982, the altar was concecrated and the foundation dedicated
as 'the Chapel of All Souls - a memorial to the Royal House of York'.
The furnishings of the chapel include the altar table covered in a gold
cloth and a white linen cloth embroidered with a design especially created
for the purpose. The design is also seen in the cushions for the Gospel
and the Epistle. In the front of the altar there are two desk kneelers
and then there are twenty chairs with small hassocks, made by members
of the Society.
With this project completed, the Society
went on to replace the kneelers throughout the church. These are rather
larger than the usual type owing to the high wooden walls around Fotheringhay's
pews. The designs reflect the heraldry of the church and the owners of
Fotheringhay, ecclesiastical motifs, and the flowers of the local countryside.
In 1991, the Society gave a cope. In the
Middle Ages, many a noble man or woman gave vestments as gifts to the
church. Richard III gave his parliamentary robe to Durham Cathedral for
just such a purpose. Our cope reflects the heraldry associated with
owners of Fotheringhay, as well as including the Arms of the Society.
Over the many centuries, much work has
gone into the making of the church of St Mary and All saints, Fotheringhay.
Founded in the mists of time, it has seen the birth of a king and the
fall of a queen, yet it has remained secure. The Richard III Society has
given a new window to replace the glorious coloured glass of the fifteenth
century and a new chapel instead of the magnificent choir, college and
fair cloister. There has even been the premiere performance of the 'Middleham
Requiem', Richard's only known requiem, to represent, perhaps, the music
that would have filled the church when the choristers were in full voice.
Finally, there are soft furnishings, including a cope, thus restoring
the colour that would have been seen when the flower of English nobility
worshipped within the church's painted walls.
Fotheringhay and its church have a long
history and the Richard III Society would like to see it have a long future,
too.
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Introduction