The Ricardian Volume 20 2010

The Register of Robert Stillington, Bishop of Bath and Wells 1466-1491
William J. Connor

His paper shows how the register compiled for Robert Stillington, for twenty-five years bishop of Bath and Wells in the late fifteenth century, contributes to the understanding of the decoration of administrative documents in this period. It was largely compiled under the supervision of Hugh Sugar who, as vicar-general, was responsible for much of the routine administration of the diocese. He evidently encouraged the pen work embellishments, which are such a striking feature of this volume, and seems to have employed an artist whose only other known work appears in manuscripts commissioned by the previous bishop, Thomas Beckington. This links Stillington’s register directly to the academic elite of Winchester and New College, Oxford, and the culture of the Yorkist court. The decoration of the register also reflects the ambitious building activities in Wells Cathedral at this time, where the bishop had a large chantry chapel erected in the cloisters to accommodate his own tomb, Hugh Sugar built his own chantry in the nave, and the crossing was adorned with a newly fashionable fan vault. The paper also suggests that a manuscript, now broken-up and surviving as fragments in the British Library and Leicester University Library, may be the substantial remains of a book compiled for Bishop Beckington and recorded at Wells Cathedral by John Leland c.1540. With Stillington’s tomb and chantry chapel and also his charitable foundation at Acaster Selby in Yorkshire all destroyed and overthrown by the Reformation, this register remains his only tangible memorial.

Alice Domenyk-Markby-Shipley-Portaleyn of St Bartholomew’s Hospital Close and Isleworth: The Inheritance, Life and Tribulations of an Heiress
Anne F. Sutton

Alice had her fortune from her mother’s family, the Bricklesworths. Joan Bricklesworth married first Thomas Dyster, mercer of London and had three children of whom the daughter, Ellen survived to be the heiress. Joan then married Robert Domenyk by whom she had another daughter, Alice, the co-heiress. Domenyk landed the family in debt and died intestate while his daughter was still a minor. Alice’s first husband was a lawyer, William Markby, by whom she had no children. He left her with a fine house in St Bartholomew’s Hospital Close and a country retreat at Isleworth on the Thames. Her second husband was Richard Shipley another lawyer by whom Alice had a son. On his death she was abducted and raped by a man set on acquiring her fortune. She managed to avoid marriage to him and settled on Thomas Portaleyn. By Portaleyn Alice had two other sons. Portaleyn was involved in minor treason against Edward IV and may have died at Barnet. The life of Alice against the background of the very various careers of her husbands and sons is traced in detail, as well as her social life in the Close and at Isleworth; the Close is well known for its literary associations. She died in 1479.

A Rebel Manifesto of 1483
Alison Hanham

A re-examination of the mysterious message that Sir George Browne sent to John Paston III.

The Tudors; Name and Implications.
Clifford S.L. Davies

Clifford Davies argues that although ‘Tudor’ was the correct surname for Henry VII it was potentially a derogatory term (and so used in Richard III’s proclamations against Henry); Henry before Bosworth always called himself ‘Henry Richmond’. Once he became king he, or his successors, would have had no occasion to use a surname at all, and it was not generally known in England. It only began to seep back into English discourse from about 1589, and even so there was remarkably little use of the term when it might have been expected, for instance to mark the death of Elizabeth I in 1603. The ‘Tudor monarchs’ did not think of themselves as such. The concept of ‘Tudor kingship’ lies only in the eye of the modern beholder; policies and methods of government varied hugely between the five ‘Tudor’ kings and queens. Still less did their subjects think of themselves as ‘Tudor men and women’. The use by historians of ‘Tudor’ to designate an ‘age’ or ‘period’ is therefore dangerous, implying not only a false sense of identity over the 118 years in question, but also carrying with it an unwarrrantable sense of glamour (or villainy). The term is too entrenched to be avoided. But historians and their readers need to be alert to the dangers of anachronistic terminology.

A Letter Relating to the Crisis of 1468
Hannes Kleineke

This short article discusses a letter on English affairs written at the end of 1468 from Utrecht by a Hanseatic merchnat recently departed from London.

The Life and Death of Sir Henry Pierrepont, 1430-99. A Search for Identity and Memorial.
Matthew Ward

An examination of the life of a Yorkist supporter, Sir Henry Pierrepont. Using textual and material sources, the article suggests that he became an isolated figure later in life.

Medical Recipes from the Yorkist Court
Tig Lang

A fifteenth-century manuscript in the British Library contains prescriptions for named people at the courts of Edward IV and Richard III. The possibility that the manuscript belonged to royal apothecary, John Clerke, and its purpose, are discussed. Some of the prescriptions are analysed and compared with other contemporary medical works.

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