Tudor (68 page)

19
.
  
The father is variously described as an organ maker, a tailor, a barber or a baker. It has also been suggested the name Simnel could have origins from within the Duchy of Burgundy. There is mention of a ‘son of Clarence' in Mechelen in July 1486 (Hicks,
The Wars of the Roses
, p. 243). Simnel was a word often used to describe a sweet bread or cake in England. Lambert was an occupational name for a shepherd (lamb-herd) and also an old English name (from Landbeorht). Whether Lambert Simnel was his real name is another matter. People were overheard calling the boy ‘John' in conversation.

20
.
  
Vergil,
Anglica Historia
, p. 25.

21
.
  
Beaufort Hours, f.240v: thanks to Eric Ives for help with the Latin translation.

22
.
  
David Starkey, ‘London: Flower of Cities All' in
Royal River: Power, Pageantry and the Thames
(ed Sue Doran) (2012), p. 13.

23
.
  
John Leland,
Collectanea IV
(1774), p. 259. Interestingly the ray cloth at the coronation of Henry VIII and Katherine of Aragon was striped.

24
.
  
Vergil,
Anglica Historia
, p. 25.

25
.
  
Desmond Seward,
The Last White Rose
(2010), p. 40.

26
.
  
This includes the wills of their grandmother, mother, or aunts. I also looked at Little Malvern Priory and Canterbury Cathedral, both of which had stained glass depicting the princes commissioned in 1482, but found nothing. The nearest I found was associated with the chantry set up originally by William Hastings, Edward IV's best friend, at St George's Chapel, Windsor. Hastings made his will on 27 June 1481, when the children were still alive. He directed his body to be buried in the place assigned to him by the king, and for Mass and divine service ‘at the awter next to the place where my body shall be buryed'. However, when the full chantry was established in 1504, the children were (probably) dead. The terms of the grant of the manors of Farmanby and East Hallgarth were that every 10 June Mass was to be said for the souls of William, late Lord Hastings, Katherine his wife, Edward, now Lord Hastings, Mary his wife, for their fathers and mothers, and for the souls of King Edward IV and Queen Elizabeth his wife and for their children (unnamed) and all Christian souls. An annual obituary was established in which the children, presumably also Edward V and Richard, were to be included. Then there was to be in addition daily Mass said at the altar at the chapel where Lord Hastings was buried, for the souls of the said Lord Hastings and for all souls abovesaid. It would seem that although not specifically mentioned, Edward V and Richard were to be included in the daily prayers and annual obituary said by the Hastings chantry priest. Thank you to Eleanor Cracknell, Windsor Archives, St George's Chapel, Windsor. MSS refs SGC IV 8.2; SGC XV 58 C 17.

27
.
  
Henderson, ‘Rethinking Henry VII' in op. cit., p. 325.

28
.
  
Vergil,
Anglica Historia
, p. 56.

11
   
The Lost Prince

  
1
.
  
Laynesmith,
The Last Medieval Queens
, p. 217.

  
2
.
  
Ralph Griffiths, ‘Succession and the Royal Dead in Later Medieval England' in
Making and Breaking the Rules: Succession in Medieval Europe
c.
1000
–c.
1600
(eds Michael Penman and Frederique Lachaud) (2008), p. 102.

  
3
.
  
We do not know how the duchess had viewed the disappearance of her nephews, the princes in the Tower, in 1483. But she accepted Richard III's rule and was in contact with him in 1484 without any signs of there being ill will between them.

  
4
.
  
As Maximilian told the Venetian ambassador in Worms in 1495; A. J. J. Schnitker, ‘Margaret of York, Princess of England and Duchess of Burgundy, 1446–1503: female power, influence and authority in later fifteenth-century North-western Europe', PhD diss., Edinburgh (2007), p. 125.

  
5
.
  
It had the added advantage of highlighting that York came second to Lancaster, the dukedom he held, and which continues to be held by the monarch, while York remains that of a second son.

  
6
.
  
Okerlund,
Elizabeth of York
, p. 192.
http://www.archive.org/details/privypurseexpens00nicouoft
, pp. 74, 75.

  
7
.
  
The conspirator was Sir Robert Clifford.

  
8
.
  
During the later investigations into the 3rd Duke of Buckingham in 1521 it was recalled that Henry VII knew of Sir William's treason and that of his co-conspirators ‘two or three years before he charged them with it'.
L&P
3 (1283).

  
9
.
  
Okerlund,
Elizabeth of York
, pp. 120, 121;
Great Chronicle of London
(ed Thomas and Thornley), p. 151.

10
.
  
Elizabeth I behaved similarly. There were fifty-seven peers at her accession and fifty-five at her death. Like her grandfather Elizabeth also kept an eye on marriage alliances.

11
.
  
In return for his army Perkin had promised the Duchess of Burgundy the manors of Hunsden in Hertfordshire and Scarborough in Yorkshire, as well as the money he owed for her
financial support. Maximilian was offered a potentially still greater prize: if Perkin died without issue, Maximilian was to inherit England, France and Ireland.

12
.
  
James would have dropped Perkin in a moment if the Spanish had responded positively to his own request for an infanta as his bride – but none was available. Norman Macdougall,
James IV
(2006), pp. 124, 125.

13
.
  
Davies, ‘Information, disinformation . . .' in op.cit., p. 3.

14
.
  
Vergil,
Three Books
, p. 89.

15
.
  
Raphael Holinshed,
Chronicle
(1587), Vol. 2, p. 782.

16
.
  
CSPV
1 (751) (754);
CSPM
(539) (540).

17
.
  
Ibid.

18
.
  
CSPV
1 (751).

19
.
  
CSPM
(541). Another of Perkin's standards was of a boy escaping a wolf's mouth, as Richard had escaped his would-be murderer, Richard III.

20
.
  
Perkin's confession is in
English Historical Documents Vol. 5 1485–1558
(ed David Douglas) (1967), p. 118.

21
.
  
It was probably written by the blind poet Bernard André whose tedious Latin verses had greeted Henry on the outskirts of London in September 1485. The first three triumphs described Henry's escapes from the clutches of Edward IV and Richard III (who appears as the epitome of evil, not least for the ‘affair of the nephews'). But the dominant narrative concerned Henry and the duchess.

22
.
  
In England the mud thrown at the duchess would stick. Francis Bacon, writing in the seventeenth century, echoed ‘The Twelve Triumphs of Henry VII', observing that ‘having the spirit of a man and the malice of a woman . . . [the duchess] was for the king what Juno was to Aeneas troubling heaven and hell to annoy him'. Christine Weightman,
Margaret of York, Duchess of Burgundy
(1989), p. 154.

23
.
  
CSPS
1 (221). Perkin was not seen in the dungeon as is often said.

24
.
  
Warrant dated 25 November, National Archives, E36/209 f. 10v.

25
.
  
Condon, ‘The Last Will of Henry VII' in op. cit., p. 130.

26
.
  
CSPS
1 ( 239).

27
.
  
See consultant forensic psychologist Ian Stephen on Jon Venables, imprisoned aged eleven,
The Times
, Saturday 24 July 2010, p. 9, headline: ‘He may be stuck in his own abusive and fearful childhood'.

28
.
  
CSPS
1 (249).

29
.
  
Or so Francis Bacon tells us.

30
.
  
The tombs were at Bisham Priory in Berkshire, and were destroyed in the Reformation. The heads of Henry Tudor's great-granddaughter, Mary, Queen of Scots, and great-grandson, Charles I, were also (later) buried with their bodies.

31
.
  
Vergil,
Anglica Historia
, p. 119.

32
.
  
Ibid.

12
   
Punishment

  
1
.
  
Original letters
(ed Ellis), Vol. 1, pp. 43–6.

  
2
.
  
Francis Bacon; see
http://www.philological.bham.ac.uk/henry/11eng.html
.

  
3
.
  
David Starkey,
Henry: Virtuous Prince
(2008), pp. 195, 196.

  
4
.
  
The last Earl of Bohun had died in 1373. The three earldoms and the broad lands of the Bohuns had then been divided between two co-heiresses. Both married members of the then royal house. The elder, Eleanor, was given in 1374 to Thomas of Woodstock, seventh son of Edward III. The younger, Mary, in 1380 or 1381, to Henry, son of John of Gaunt and afterwards Henry IV. The swan and the antelope was their device.

  
5
.
  
Ian Arthurson, ‘The King of Spain's daughter came to visit me: marriage, princes and politics' in
Arthur Tudor, Prince of Wales: Life, Death and Commemoration
(eds Steven Gunn and Linda Monckton) (2009), pp. 20–9.

  
6
.
  
Ives,
The Reformation Experience
, pp. 13, 14, 19, 20.

7
.
  
CSPS
1 (312).

  
8
.
  
‘Impression of England by an Italian Visitor, November 1497' in
English Historical Documents Vol. 5 1485–1558
(ed David Douglas) (1967), pp. 188, 189.

  
9
.
  
Many of the leading court women of the next century would similarly take control of their lives following child marriages, either by staying widows, or by marrying their servants. It may be there is no connection with Margaret Beaufort's actions, but her intellectual pursuits were much imitated, and her decision in this regard would have been carefully noted.

10
.
  
‘The Mirror of Gold for the Sinful Soul', and Thomas à Kempis' ‘The Imitation of Christ'.

11
.
  
When Margaret Beaufort had wanted to promote a particular candidate to the bishopric of Worcester, a letter from Pope Alexander warned her that Henry had promised the queen to appoint her candidate, and so her choice had to be dropped. Okerlund,
Elizabeth of York
, p. 136.

12
.
  
Starkey,
Henry
, p. 158.

13
.
  
Routh,
Lady Margaret
, p. 92.

14
.
  
Thomas More, quoted in Starkey,
Henry
, p. 143.

15
.
  
The Receyt of the Ladie Kateryne
(ed G. Kipling), Early English Text Society original series 296 (1990), p. 38.

16
.
  
Amongst whom remained Perkin Warbeck's widow, the former Lady Catherine Gordon.

17
.
  
Some reliquaries contained fakes: the equivalent today of ‘healing crystals', they still offered hope of well-being, even if the artefacts had no intrinsic spiritual qualities. Many others, however, were the genuine remains or former possessions of men and women admired for the extraordinary qualities they had demonstrated in life. Just as people today visit the graves of relatives they have lost, so people then liked to have some physical connection to the saints who were so much part of their spiritual life – the English more than most.

18
.
  
L&P
4, Pt III, 2577; British Library Cotton MSS Vitellius B XII, f. 98.

19
.
  
Frederick Hepburn, ‘The Portraiture of Arthur and Katherine', in
Arthur Tudor, Prince of Wales
(eds Steven Gunn and Linda Monkton) (2009), p. 38.