Blood Sisters (49 page)

16
servants of Cecily Neville’s:
Wroe,
Perkin
, pp. 178–9.

17
as her will declared:
Wills from Doctors’ Commons
.

18
another daughter, Mary, was born:
Her date of birth is often given as 1495, which is how it is described in the
Beaufort Hours
– but Margaret Beaufort followed the then-current practice of beginning a new year on 23 March.

19
Warbeck/Richard declared himself king:
Among his otherwise rather vague charges against Henry was that he had married ‘by compulsion certain of our sisters’ – Elizabeth’s younger sisters – to his own friends and kinsmen of unsuitably low degree.

20
Katherine Gordon … treatment:
Wroe,
Perkin
, pp. 374–8.

21
Margaret of York’s illegitimate son:
There is a possible alternative identification, as suggested by Wroe (
Perkin
, pp. 516–18). The childless Margaret took several children under her wing (and indeed even the fertile Elizabeth of York’s Privy Purse expenses show upkeep for children who had been ‘given’ to her). One of Margaret’s appeared to have attracted her special interest: Jehan le Sage, a boy of about five when she adopted him in 1478, which makes him around the same age as Richard, Duke of York. Carefully educated and luxuriously clad, he was reared in some seclusion until – at the end of 1485, just when Margaret must have been swallowing the bitter knowledge of the destruction of the house of York – he vanished from the records. It may be pure coincidence that the room in the country palace of Binche in which he lived was later known as ‘Richard’s room’. Wroe notes also (pp. 467–71) that the delegation sent to enquire into Perkin’s fate was headed by the Bishop of Cambrai; among those who believed Perkin to be Margaret’s own son, it was said (p. 209) that he had been fathered by the incumbent of the Cambrai see, whether this man or his predecessor.

22
jousted for her:
Among the fighters – so John Younge, the Somerset Herald who wrote the description, noted, ‘Charles Brandon had right well jousted.’ A dozen or so years down the line Brandon would be the husband in Mary Tudor’s unsanctioned second marriage.

23
Tyrell … confessed to having … murdered:
Such a declaration was never published, nor seen by any of those who mention it. Indeed, though both Vergil and the
Great Chronicle
(both postdating 1502) refer to Tyrell’s guilt or at least the possibility of it, mention of the confession, so dramatically utilised by Shakespeare, can be traced back only as far as Thomas More. But in early to mid-August 1483, so the tale runs, Richard had ordered Sir Robert Brackenbury, the man in charge of the Tower, to put the boys to death; but Brackenbury had refused. He did, however, agree to turn the keys over for one night to a less scrupulous man – Tyrell, who enlisted two ruffians called Miles Forrest and John Dighton to do the actual deed.

There are both indications and counter-indications as to the truth of the tale. Those for include the fact that Richard rewarded Brackenbury for deeds unspecified, reappointing him to his post for life in March 1484 ‘considering his good and loyal service to us before this time, and for certain other considerations especially moving us’; and that Tyrell too prospered under his rule. But in fact Tyrell was not in 1483 the needy man on the make Thomas More depicts – his name has indeed cropped up, as a successful court official, earlier in this tale. Some theories that have the younger prince, at least, released alive also have him hidden at the Tyrell family seat; while the fact that in late 1484 Richard sent Tyrell to Flanders ‘for divers matters greatly concerning the King’s weal’ could be taken to suggest that Tyrell had escorted the boy to safer hiding there.

Indeed, almost every piece of evidence can be taken two ways (even, indeed, the fact that Tyrell had once been in Cecily Neville’s wardship and Audrey Williamson points out,
Mystery
, p. 178, that a Miles Forrest was one of Cecily’s attendants). In June 1486 Henry VII issued Tyrell with a general pardon for anything he had done before that date; on 16 July he issued him with another one: almost as if, in the intervening month, Tyrell had, with Henry’s knowledge, committed some other heinous crime. (If Henry found the boys alive after Bosworth, it would seem odd that he should have kept them alive for almost a year and then murdered them. Perhaps Elizabeth of York’s pregnancy gave an urgent reason to remove any threat to his dynasty. It has even been suggested that Elizabeth Woodville found out what Henry had done, and that this was why she was despatched to her convent so abruptly.) After that time Tyrell continued to thrive under Henry’s rule, albeit that the posts Henry gave him kept him out of the country. When Tyrell was finally attainted in 1504 it was only for treason in connection with Suffolk, while Dighton (both Forrest and Brackenbury being already dead) was left at liberty. Bacon says that Henry ‘gave out’ word of Tyrell’s guilt, but there is no sign of his having actually published any confession – which seems incomprehensible. It must go down as yet another mystery – and one of those stories that do not reflect well on the Tudor dynasty.

24
velvet-clad effigy:
The effigy (or part of it) is still there in the precinct museum – a bald head, long stripped of its wig and crown; a wooden arm and hand. It looks like a monstrous doll – the broken toy of some giant child. The body of straw-stuffed leather fell victim to a World War II incendiary bomb. The flames took no hold in the vaulted stone room, but the damage was done by water from the firemen’s hoses. The planks of pear wood around which the torso was built started to separate after their wartime saturation and in 1950 they were ‘discarded’, as the restorer noted regretfully. But photographs survive and show the ‘ragged regiment’ of the royal effigies in all their macabre glory. For more information see
The Funeral Effigies of Westminster Abbey
, ed. A. Harvey and R. Mortimer, Woodbridge, 1994.

25
John Fisher:
John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester (
c.
1469–1535). First holder of the Cambridge Lady Margaret Professorship of Divinity, Vice-Chancellor of that university, Fisher (like Sir Thomas More) would be best remembered, and indeed canonised, for his refusal to accept Henry VIII as head of the Church of England: a refusal which sent him to the block. For the ‘Mornynge Remembraunce’ sermon preached a month after Margaret Beaufort’s death see
The English Works of John Fisher
, ed. J.E.B. Mayor, 1876.

26
Juana … ‘the Mad’:
see Fox,
Sister Queens
.

27
Shakespeare never wrote a voice for Margaret Beaufort:
He never wrote a
Henry VII
, of course, though the co-authored
Henry VIII
takes the story up to the christening of Elizabeth I.

Epilogue

1
legacy of works:
In Cambridge today, her image is among the parade of academic notables who gaze down over the modern setting of the Graduate Society’s café, the only other woman there besides Rosalind Franklin, the ‘dark lady’ of DNA. Flick through the
Cambridge Guide to Women’s Writing in English
and there she is, ‘Beaufort, Lady Margaret, English translator of religious texts and literary patron’, sandwiched between Simone de Beauvoir and American satirist Ann Beattie.

2
move towards mere domesticity:
see ‘Conclusion’ to Hilton,
Queens Consort
.

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Sources

André, Bernard,
Vita Henrici Septimi
in
Memorials of King Henry VII
ed. J. Gairdner, Rolls Series (London, 1858)

Antiquarian Repertory, The: A Miscellaneous Assemblage of Topography, History, Biography, Customs and Manners
(vol. 4), ed. Francis Grose and Thomas Astle (1807)

Calendar of Papal Registers
vol. 13, part I, ed. J.A. Twemlow (1955)

Calendars of Patent Rolls: Henry VI 1452–61
(HMSO, 1897);
Edward IV 1461–67
(HMSO, 1899);
Edward IV and V and Richard III 1476–85
(HMSO, 1901)

Calendar of the Close Rolls Edward IV, vol. i, 1461–68
(HMSO, 1949)

Calendar of State Papers Milan, i, 1385–1618
, ed. Allen B. Hinds, (HMSO, 1912)

Calendar of State Papers Spanish, i, 1485–1559,
ed. G.A. Bergenroth (1862)

Calendar of State Papers Venetian, i, 1202–1509
, ed. Rawdon Brown (1864)

Chronicles of London
, ed. C.L. Kingsford (1905 repr. Gloucester 1977)

Commynes, Philippe de,
Mémoires
, trans. A.R. Scoble (1855–6); also trans. M. Jones (Harmondsworth, 1972)

Crowland,
Ingulph’s Chronicle of the Abbey of Croyland with the Continuations by Peter of Blois and Anonymous Writers
, trans. Henry T. Riley (1854)

Crowland Chronicle Continuations, The, 1459–1486
, ed. and trans. Nicholas Pronay and John Cox (Sutton, 1986)

Ellis, Sir Henry,
Original letters illustrative of English history; including numerous royal letters; from autographs in the British Museum, the State Paper Office, and one or two other collections
(Three series: 1824, 1827, 1846)

English Chronicle of the Reigns of Richard II, Henry IV, Henry V and Henry VI
, ed. J.S. Davies (Camden Soc., 1856)

English Historical Documents
, general editor David C. Douglas (Eyre & Spottiswoode 1953–70). v
ol. 4 1327–1485
, ed. A.R. Myers, v
ol. 5 1485–1558
, ed. C.H. Williams

Fisher, John,
The English Works of John Fisher
, ed. J.E.B. Mayor (1876)

Great Chronicle of London, The
, ed. A.H. Thomas and I.D. Thornley (originally published for the Library Committee of the Corporation of the City of London 1938, facsimile edition Sutton, 1983)

Gregory’s Chronicle
: in
Historical Collection of a Citizen of London
, ed. J. Gairdner (Camden Soc., new series, 17, 1876)

Hall, Edward,
The Union of the Two Noble Families of Lancaster and York
, originally printed 1552, 1558, 1550 – modern edition, ed. H. Ellis (1809)

Historie of the Arrivall of Edward IV
, ed. J. Bruce (Camden Soc., 1838)

Leland, John,
De Rebus Britannicis Collectanea
, ed. T. Hearne (1774)

Malory, Sir Thomas,
Le Morte darthur: The Winchester Manuscript
, ed. Helen Cooper (OUP, 1998)

Mancini, Dominic,
The Usurpation of Richard III (Dominicus Mancinus Ad Angelum Catonem De Occupatione Regni Angliae Per Riccardum Tercium Libellus
), ed. C.A.J. Armstrong (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1936)

More, Thomas,
Complete Works (vol. 2)
, ed. Richard S. Sylvester (Yale University Press, 1963)

New Chronicles of England and France, The
, aka
Fabian’s Chronicle
, ed. H. Ellis (1811)

Nicolas, Nicholas Harris,
Privy Purse Expenses of Elizabeth of York: Wardrobe Accounts of Edward the Fourth: With a Memoir of Elizabeth of York
(1830)

Paston Letters, The
, ed. J. Gairdner (1904)

Pizan, Christine de,
A Medieval Woman’s Mirror of Honour: The Treasury of the City of Ladies
, trans. Charity Cannon Willard, ed. Madeleine Pelner Cosman (Bard Hall Press and Persea Books, 1989)

Stonor Letters, Kingsford’s Stonor Letters and Papers 1290–1483
, ed. C. Carpenter (CUP, 1996)

Vergil, Polydore,
Three Books of Polydore Vergil’s English History; Comprising the Reigns of Henry VI, Edward IV, and Richard III
(1844)

Wills from Doctors’ Commons: A Selection from the Wills of Eminent Persons etc
., ed. J.G. Nichols and J. Bruce, (Camden Soc., old series, 83, 1863)

NB A number of these original sources are now also available online, notably the different versions of the
Ballad of Lady Bessy
, and the texts of the
Arrivall
and
Gregory’s Chronicle
cited above. Useful sites are those of the Richard III Society’s online library (http:www.r3.org/bookcase) and of British History Online (http://www.british-history.ac.uk).

Quotations from Shakespeare are from the texts printed by Cambridge University Press.

Secondary Sources

Armstrong, C.A.J., ‘The piety of Cicely (
sic
) Duchess of York, a Study in late Medieval Culture’ in D. Woodruff (ed.),
For Hilaire Belloc, Essays in hour of his 72nd birthday
(Sheed & Ward, 1942)

Ashdown-Hill, John,
The Last Days of Richard III
(History Press, 2011)

Ashdown-Hill, John,
Eleanor: The Secret Queen
(History Press, 2009)

Bacon, Francis,
The History of the Reign of King Henry VII
, ed. Brian Vickers (CUP, 1998)

Bagley, J.J.
Margaret of Anjou, Queen of England
(Herbert Jenkins, 1948)

Baldwin, David,
The Lost Prince: The Survival of Richard of York
(Sutton, 2007)

Baldwin, David,
Elizabeth Woodville: Mother of the Princes in the Tower
(Sutton, 2002)

Buck, George,
History of King Richard the Third
, ed. A.N. Kincaid (Sutton, 1979)