The Ricardian Volume 14 2004

‘Dame Margery Astry’
Claire A. Martyn            

The life and relationships of Margery, born into Hill family of Hitchin, Hertfordshire, who married (1) William Edward, son of the mayor of London of the same name, (2) Robert Revell, grocer and alderman, (3) Sir Ralph Astry, lord mayor of London. She was a widow for 29 years, outlived her Revell son, and was involved in a lawsuit with his widow, who remarried the son of Richard Pynson the printer.

‘Alice Martyn, widow of London’
Hannes Kleineke

Alice was granted an annuity by Edward IV for keeping his brothers, George and Richard, from danger before they were sent abroad in early 1461. This grant is put in context, but Alice has not been identified. Transcript of grant.

‘Propaganda in the prepared parliamentary speeches of 1455-1461’
Russell Butcher.

The speeches aimed to convince the pacific majority of parliament of the need for action against the other faction in the civil conflict. Summarises and analyses context and tone. Concludes that overt lies were avoided and that understatement prevailed.

‘Lady Eleanor Butler and John Crowne’s The Misery of Civil War
Barbara A. Murray

An adaptation of Shakespeare’s Henry VI parts 2 and 3 made during the Exclusion Crisis of 1679-81, which only achieved one performance. Crowne created the ‘breeches part’ of Lady ‘Elianor’ to illustrate the consequences of royal philandering on the inheritance of the crown. His sources and motives are discussed.

‘Lady Eleanor Talbot’s other husband: Sir Thomas Butler, heir of Sudeley, and his family’
John Ashdown-Hill

Biography and pedigrees of Sir Thomas who married Eleanor about 1450 and died at the end of Henry VI’s reign, with an examination of the earlier Butlers, his father, Ralph, his mother Elizabeth Norbury and her first husband, his Belknap and Montgomery cousins.

‘The endowments of Lady Eleanor Talbot and of Elizabeth Talbot, Duchess of Norfolk, at Corpus Christi College Cambridge’
John Ashdown-Hill

Translation of documents with commentary on the endowment of a fellowship by the Talbot sisters to secure prayers for their souls.

‘The crouchback legend revisited. More on the Lancastrian claim to the throne’
T.P.J. Edlin

Further discussion of the legend that Edmund Crouchback, Earl of Lancaster, was in fact the eldest son of Henry III, its use by Henry IV in his claim to the throne, by the chronicler John Harding, by the poem Richard the Redeless,  and by John of Gaunt.

‘Agincourt, Agincourt, Know ye not Agincourt?’
Rowena Archer

A review article that crticises the new books on Agincourt, giving considerable thought to the progress of the battle and the much disputed use of stakes

Phantom Bastardy and Ghostly Pikemen. Bosworth 1484. Psychology of a Battle. Michael K. Jones.
Livia Visser-Fuchs

An important review article that criticises M. Jones’ new book on Bosworth, and doubts the evidence for the bastardy of Edward IV as well as the use of pikemen by Henry Tudor at the battle of Bosworth.


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