October 13, 1453: Birth of Edward of Westminster, Prince of Wales

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3rd Duke of York, Battle of Tewkesbury, Edward of Westminster, King Edward IV of England, King Henry VI of England, King Louis XI of France, Margaret of Anjou, Prince George Duke of Clarence, Prince of Wales, Richard of York, The Earl of Warwick

Edward of Westminster (October 13, 1453 – May 4, 1471), also known as Edward of Lancaster, was the only son of King Henry VI of England and Margaret of Anjou. He was killed aged seventeen at the Battle of Tewkesbury.

Early life

Edward was born at the Palace of Westminster, London, the only son of King Henry VI of England, Lord of Ireland and his wife, Margaret of Anjou. Margaret was born at Pont-à-Mousson in Lorraine, a fief of the Holy Roman Empire, east of France ruled by a cadet branch of the Capetian French kings, the House of Valois-Anjou. Margaret was the second daughter of René, King of Naples, and of Isabella, Duchess of Lorraine.

At the time of Edward’s birth, there was strife between Henry’s supporters and those of Richard of York, 3rd Duke of York, who had a superior claim to the throne and challenged the authority of Henry’s officers of state. Henry was suffering from mental illness, and there were widespread rumours that the prince was the result of an affair between his mother and one of her loyal supporters.

Edmund Beaufort, 2nd Duke of Somerset and James Butler, 5th Earl of Ormond, were both suspected of fathering Prince Edward; however, there is no firm evidence to support the rumours, and King Henry himself never doubted the boy’s legitimacy and publicly acknowledged paternity. Edward was invested as Prince of Wales at Windsor Castle in 1454.

War over the English throne

In 1460, King Henry was captured by the supporters of the Duke of York at the Battle of Northampton and taken to London. The Duke of York was dissuaded from claiming the throne immediately, but he induced Parliament to pass the Act of Accord, by which Henry was allowed to reign but Edward was disinherited, as York or his heirs would become king on Henry’s death.

Queen Margaret and Edward had meanwhile fled through Cheshire. By Margaret’s later account, she induced outlaws and pillagers to aid her by pledging them to recognise the seven-year-old Edward as rightful heir to the crown. They subsequently reached safety in Wales and journeyed to Scotland, where Margaret raised support, while the Duke of York’s enemies gathered in the north of England.

After the Duke of York was killed at the Battle of Wakefield, the large army which Margaret had gathered advanced south. They defeated the army of Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick, one of York’s most prominent supporters, at the Second Battle of St Albans.

Warwick had brought the captive King Henry VI in the train of his army, and he was found abandoned on the battlefield. Two of Warwick’s knights, William Bonville, 1st Baron Bonville, and Sir Thomas Kyriell, who had agreed to remain with Henry VI and see that he came to no harm, were captured. The day after the battle, Margaret asked Edward what death the two knights should suffer. Edward readily replied that their heads should be cut off.

Exile in France

Margaret hesitated to advance on London with her unruly army, and subsequently retreated. They were routed at the Battle of Towton a few weeks later. Margaret and Edward fled once again, to Scotland. For the next three years, Margaret inspired several revolts in the northernmost counties of England, but was eventually forced to sail to France, where she and Edward maintained a court in exile. (Henry VI had once again been captured and was a prisoner in the Tower of London.)

In 1467 the ambassador of the Duchy of Milan to the court of France wrote that Edward “already talks of nothing but cutting off heads or making war, as if he had everything in his hands or was the god of battle or the peaceful occupant of that throne.”

After several years in exile, Margaret took the best opportunity that presented itself and allied herself with the renegade Earl of Warwick. King Louis XI of France wanted to start a war with Burgundy, allies of the Yorkist King Edward IV. He believed if he allied himself to restoring Lancastrian rule they would help him conquer Burgundy.

As a compliment to his new allies Louis XI made young Edward godfather to his son Charles. Prince Edward was married to Anne Neville, Warwick’s younger daughter, in December 1470, though there is some doubt as to whether the marriage was ever consummated.

Battles of Barnet and Tewkesbury

The Earl of Warwick returned to England and deposed Edward IV, with the help of Edward IV’s younger brother, George, Duke of Clarence. Edward IV fled into exile to Burgundy with his youngest brother Richard, Duke of Gloucester, while the Earl of Warwick restored Henry VI to the throne.

Prince Edward and Margaret lingered behind in France until April 1471. However, Edward IV had already raised an army, returned to England, and reconciled with his brother George, Duke of Clarence. On the same day Margaret and Edward landed in England (April 14), Edward IV defeated and killed the Earl of Warwick at the Battle of Barnet.

With little real hope of success, the inexperienced Prince Edward and his mother led the remnant of their forces to meet Edward IV in the Battle of Tewkesbury. They were defeated and Prince Edward of Westminster was killed.

According to contemporary sources, Edward was overtaken and slain in the battle during the rout of the Lancastrians, with some accounts attributing the deed to George, Duke of Clarence, to whom the prince appealed to for help. Paul Murray Kendall, a biographer of Richard III, accepts this version of events. Another version states that Clarence and his men found the grieving prince near a grove following the battle, and immediately beheaded him on a makeshift block, despite his pleas.

Another account of Edward’s death is given by three Tudor sources: The Grand Chronicle of London, Polydore Vergil, and Edward Hall. It was later dramatised by William Shakespeare in Henry VI, Part 3, Act V, scene v.

Their story is that Edward was captured and brought before the victorious Edward IV and his brothers and followers. The king received the prince graciously, and asked him why he had taken up arms against him. The prince replied defiantly, “I came to recover my father’s heritage.” The king then struck the prince across his face with his gauntlet hand, and his brothers killed the prince with their swords.

However, none of these accounts appear in any of the contemporaneous sources, which all report that Edward died in battle.

Edward’s body is buried at Tewkesbury Abbey. His widow, Anne Neville, married the Duke of Gloucester, who eventually succeeded as King Richard III in 1483.

September 21, 1411: Birth of Richard of York, 3rd Duke of York

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3rd Duke of York, Battle of Wakefield, Edward III of England, Edward IV of England, House of Anjou, House of Plantagenet, James III of Scotland, King Henry VI of England, Margaret of Anjou, Richard III of England, Richard of York

Richard of York, 3rd Duke of York (September 21, 1411 – December 30, 1460), also named Richard Plantagenet, was a leading English magnate and claimant to the throne during the Wars of the Roses. He was a member of the ruling House of Plantagenet.

Richard of York was born on September 21, 1411, the son of Richard, Earl of Cambridge (1385–1415), and his wife Anne Mortimer (1388–1411). Both his parents were descended from King Edward III of England (1312–1377): his father was son of Edmund, 1st Duke of York (founder of the House of York), fourth surviving son of Edward III, whereas his mother Anne Mortimer was a great-granddaughter of Lionel, Duke of Clarence, Edward’s second son.

After the death in 1425 of Anne’s childless brother Edmund, Earl of March, this ancestry supplied her son Richard, of the House of York, with a claim to the English throne that was arguably superior to that of the reigning House of Lancaster, descended from John of Gaunt, the third son of Edward III.

Richard had an only sister, Isabel. Richard’s mother, Anne Mortimer, died during or shortly after his birth, and his father the Earl of Cambridge was beheaded in 1415 for his part in the Southampton Plot against the Lancastrian King Henry V.

Within a few months of his father’s death, Richard’s childless uncle, Edward, 2nd Duke of York, was slain at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, and so Richard inherited Edward’s title and lands, becoming 3rd Duke of York. The lesser title but greater estates of the Mortimer family, along with their claim to the throne, also descended to him on the death of his maternal uncle Edmund Mortimer, 5th Earl of March, in 1425.

Richard of York already held a strong claim to the English throne, being the heir general of Edward III while also related to the same king in a direct male line of descent. Once he inherited the vast Mortimer estates, he also became the wealthiest and most powerful noble in England, second only to the king himself. An account shows that York’s net income from Welsh and marcher lands alone was £3,430 (about £350,000 today) in the year 1443–44.

London.

In December 1459 the Duke York, the Earls of Warwick and Salisbury suffered attainder. Their lives were forfeit, and their lands reverted to the king; their heirs would not inherit. This was the most extreme punishment a member of the nobility could suffer, and the Duke of York was now in the same situation as Henry of Bolingbroke (the future King Henry IV) in 1398.

Only a successful invasion of England would restore his fortune. Assuming the invasion was successful, the Duke of York had three options: become Protector of England again, disinherit the king’s son so that York would succeed, or claim the throne for himself.

On June 26, Warwick and Salisbury landed at Sandwich. The men of Kent rose to join them. London opened its gates to the Nevilles on July 2. They marched north into the Midlands, and on July 10, they defeated the royal army at the Battle of Northampton (through treachery among the king’s troops), and captured Henry, whom they brought back to London.

The Duke of York remained in Ireland. He did not set foot in England until September 9 and when he did, he acted as a king. Marching under the arms of his maternal great-great-grandfather Lionel of Antwerp, 1st Duke of Clarence, he displayed a banner of the coat of arms of England as he approached London.

A Parliament called to meet on October 7, repealed all the legislation of the Coventry parliament the previous year. On October 10, the Duke of York arrived in London and took residence in the royal palace. Entering Parliament with his sword borne upright before him, he made for the empty throne and placed his hand upon it, as if to occupy it.

He may have expected the assembled peers to acclaim him as king, as they had acclaimed Henry Bolingbroke in 1399. Instead, there was silence. Thomas Bourchier, the Archbishop of Canterbury, asked whether he wished to see the king. York replied, “I know of no person in this realm the which oweth not to wait on me, rather than I of him.” This high-handed reply did not impress the Lords.

The next day, Richard advanced his claim to the crown by hereditary right in proper form. However, his narrow support among his peers led to failure once again. After weeks of negotiation, the best that could be achieved was the Act of Accord, by which York and his heirs were recognised as Henry’s successors.

However, in October 1460 Parliament did grant York extraordinary executive powers to protect the realm, and made him Lord Protector of England. He was also given the lands and income of the Prince of Wales, but was not granted the title itself or made Earl of Chester or Duke of Cornwall. With the king effectively in custody, York and Warwick were the de facto rulers of the country.

Final campaign and death

While this was happening, the Lancastrian loyalists were rallying and arming in the north of England. Faced with the threat of attack from the Percys, and with Margaret of Anjou, wife of King Henry VI, trying to gain the support of the new King of Scotland, James III, York, Salisbury and York’s second son, Edmund, Earl of Rutland, headed north on December 2.

They arrived at York’s stronghold of Sandal Castle on December 21, to find the situation bad and getting worse. Forces loyal to Henry VI controlled the city of York, and nearby Pontefract Castle was also in hostile hands. The Lancastrian armies were commanded by some of York’s implacable enemies such as Henry Beaufort, 3rd Duke of Somerset, Henry Percy, 3rd Earl of Northumberland and John Clifford, 9th Baron de Clifford, whose fathers had been killed at the Battle of Saint Albans, and included several northern lords who were jealous of York’s and Salisbury’s wealth and influence in the North.

On December 30, York and his forces sortied from Sandal Castle. Their reasons for doing so are not clear; they were variously claimed to be a result of deception by the Lancastrian forces, or treachery by northern lords who York mistakenly believed to be his allies, or simple rashness on York’s part.

The larger Lancastrian force destroyed York’s army in the resulting Battle of Wakefield. The Duke of York was killed in the battle. The precise nature of his end was variously reported; he was either unhorsed, wounded and overcome fighting to the death or captured, given a mocking crown of bulrushes and then beheaded.

Edmund of Rutland was intercepted as he tried to flee and was executed, possibly by Clifford in revenge for the death of his own father at the First Battle of St Albans. Salisbury escaped, but was captured and executed the following night.

York was buried at Pontefract, but his head was put on a pike by the victorious Lancastrian armies and displayed over Micklegate Bar at York, wearing a paper crown. His remains were later moved to Church of St Mary and All Saints, Fotheringhay.

Legacy

Within a few weeks of Richard of York’s death, his eldest surviving son was acclaimed King Edward IV and finally established the House of York on the throne following a decisive victory over the Lancastrians at the Battle of Towton. After an occasionally tumultuous reign, he died in 1483 and was succeeded by his twelve-year-old son, Edward V, who was himself succeeded after 86 days by his uncle, York’s youngest son, Richard III.

Richard of York’s grandchildren included Edward V and Elizabeth of York. Elizabeth married Henry VII, founder of the Tudor dynasty, and became the mother of Henry VIII, Margaret Tudor and Mary Tudor. All future English monarchs would come from the line of Henry VII and Elizabeth, and therefore from Richard of York himself.

February 18, 1478: Death of George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence

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3rd Duke of York, Anne Neville, Battle of Tewkesbury, Duke of Clarence, Earl of Warwick, Eleanor Neville, George Plantagenet, House of Anjou, House of Lancaster, House of York, Plantagenet, Richard Neville, Richard Plantagenet

George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence (October 21, 1449 – February 18, 1478), was the 6th son of Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York, and Cecily Neville, and the brother of English kings Edward IV and Richard III. He played an important role in the dynastic struggle between rival factions of the Plantagenets now known as the Wars of the Roses.

Though a member of the House of York, he switched sides to support the Lancastrians, before reverting to the Yorkists. He was later convicted of treason against his brother, Edward IV, and was executed. He appears as a character in William Shakespeare’s plays Henry VI, Part 3 and Richard III, in which his death is attributed to the machinations of Richard.

Life

George was born on October 21, 1449 in Dublin at a time when his father, Richard, the Duke of York, had begun to challenge Henry VI for the crown. His godfather was James FitzGerald, 6th Earl of Desmond.

George was the third of the four sons of Richard and Cecily who survived to adulthood. His father died in 1460. In 1461 his elder brother, Edward, became King of England and Lord of Ireland as Edward IV and George was made Duke of Clarence. Despite his youth, George was appointed as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in the same year.

Having been mentioned as a possible husband for Mary, daughter of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, Clarence came under the influence of his first cousin Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, and in July 1469 was married in Église Notre-Dame de Calais to the earl’s elder daughter Isabel Neville.

Clarence had actively supported his elder brother’s claim to the throne, but when his father-in-law (known as “the Kingmaker”) deserted Edward IV to ally with Margaret of Anjou, consort of the deposed King Henry VI, Clarence supported him and was deprived of his office as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.

Clarence joined Warwick in France, taking his pregnant wife. She gave birth to their first child, a girl, on April 16, 1470, in a ship off Calais. The child died shortly afterwards. Henry VI rewarded Clarence by making him next in line to the throne after his own son, justifying the exclusion of Edward IV both by attainder for his treason against the House of Lancaster as well as his alleged illegitimacy.

After a short time, Clarence realized that his loyalty to his father-in-law was misplaced: Warwick had his younger daughter, Anne Neville, Clarence’s sister-in-law, marry Henry VI’s son, Edward of Westminster, Prince of Wales, in December 1470.

This demonstrated that his father-in-law was less interested in making him king than in serving his own interests and, since it now seemed unlikely that Warwick would replace Edward IV with Clarence, Clarence was secretly reconciled with Edward.

Warwick’s efforts to keep Henry VI on the throne ultimately failed and Warwick was killed at the battle of Barnet in April 1471. The re-instated King Edward IV restored his brother Clarence to royal favour by making him Great Chamberlain of England.

As his father-in-law had died, Clarence became jure uxoris Earl of Warwick, but did not inherit the entire Warwick estate as his younger brother, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, had married (c. 1472) Anne Neville, who had been widowed in 1471, when her husband, Edward of Westminster, Prince of Wales died at the Battle of Tewkesbury.

King Edward IV intervened and eventually divided the estates between his brothers. Clarence was created, by right of his wife, first Earl of Warwick on March 25, 1472, and first Earl of Salisbury in a new creation.

In 1475 Clarence’s wife Isabel gave birth to a son, Edward, later Earl of Warwick. Isabel died on December 22, 1476, two months after giving birth to a short-lived son named Richard (October 5, 1476 – January 1, 1477).

George and Isabel are buried together at Tewkesbury Abbey in Gloucestershire. Their surviving children, Margaret and Edward, were cared for by their aunt, Anne Neville, until she died in 1485 when Edward was 10 years old.

Death

Though most historians now believe Isabel’s death was a result of either consumption or childbed fever, Clarence was convinced she had been poisoned by one of her ladies-in-waiting, Ankarette Twynyho, whom, as a consequence, he had judicially murdered in April 1477, by summarily arresting her and bullying a jury at Warwick into convicting her of murder by poisoning.

She was hanged immediately after trial with John Thursby, a fellow defendant. She was posthumously pardoned in 1478 by King Edward IV. Clarence’s mental state, never stable, deteriorated from that point and led to his involvement in yet another rebellion against his brother Edward.

In 1477 Clarence was again a suitor for the hand of Mary, who had just become Duchess of Burgundy. Edward IV objected to the match, and Clarence left the court.

The arrest and committal to the Tower of London of one of Clarence’s retainers, an Oxford astronomer named John Stacey, led to his confession under torture that he had “imagined and compassed” the death of the king, and used the black arts to accomplish this.

Clarence implicated one Thomas Burdett, and one Thomas Blake, a chaplain at Stacey’s college (Merton College, Oxford). All three were tried for treason, convicted, and condemned to be drawn to Tyburn and hanged. Blake was saved at the eleventh hour by a plea for his life from James Goldwell, Bishop of Norwich, but the other two were put to death as ordered.

This was a clear warning to Clarence, which he chose to ignore. He appointed John Goddard to burst into Parliament and regale the House with Burdett and Stacey’s declarations of innocence that they had made before their deaths.

Goddard was a very unwise choice, as he was an ex-Lancastrian who had expounded Henry VI’s claim to the throne. Edward IV summoned Clarence to Windsor, severely upbraided him, accused him of treason, and ordered his immediate arrest and confinement.

Clarence was imprisoned in the Tower of London and put on trial for treason against his brother Edward IV. Clarence was not present – Edward IV himself prosecuted his brother, and demanded that Parliament pass a bill of attainder against his brother, declaring that he was guilty of “unnatural, loathly treasons” which were aggravated by the fact that Clarence was his brother, who, if anyone did, owed him loyalty and love.

Following his conviction and attainder, he was “privately executed” at the Tower on February 18, 1478, by tradition in the Bowyer Tower, and soon after the event, a rumour spread that he had been drowned in a butt of Malmsey wine.

A reason for Edward IV to have his brother executed may have been that George had “threatened to question the legality of the royal marriage” and he may have discovered from Bishop Robert Stillington of Bath and Wells that George “had probably let slip the secret of the precontract” for Edward’s marriage with Lady Eleanor Talbot, although others dispute this.

Legal Succession: Henry VI & Edward IV: Part Two.

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3rd Duke of York, 4th Earl of Cambridge, 6th Earl of March, Act of Accord, and 7th Earl of Ulster., Battle of Blore Heath, Battle of St. Albans, Cecily Neville, Duchess of York, Earl of Warwick, King Henry VI of England, Parliament, Richard Neville, Richard Plantagenet, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Bourchier, Wars of the Roses

To understand how the House of York wrestled the throne from the House of Lancaster let me back track the claims of the House of York. By the reign of Henry VI the claimant to the throne from the House of York was Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York, 6th Earl of March, 4th Earl of Cambridge, and 7th Earl of Ulster.

The House of York was descended in the male line from Edmund of Langley, 1st Duke of York, the fourth surviving son of Edward III. The House of York also represented Edward III’s senior line, as heir general of Edward III through cognatic descent from Lionel, Duke of Clarence, Edward III’s second surviving son. Being descended from two sons of Edward III gave the house of York the superior claim to the throne over the House of Lancaster, although according to cognatic primogeniture the House of York had the senior claim and junior claim according to the agnatic primogeniture.

As I stated last week Richard, Duke of York was made Lord Protector of the realm during the incapacity of Henry VI. However, once Henry recovered the Duke of York lost that position and John Beaufort, Duke of Sommerset (another descendant of Edward III) and Queen Margaret of Anjou had many of his statues and reforms overturned.

By 1455 the conflicts between the Houses of York and Lancaster reached fever pitch and with the First Battle of St. Albans the Wars of the Roses had commenced. The Yorkists were victorious in this first salvo of the war. The Duke of York, along with his ally, Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick killed Edmund, Duke of Somerset and captured King Henry VI. What is interesting to note is that Henry VI had been under control of Somerset and the Queen. Instead of taking the throne for himself at this point, the Duke of York restored King Henry VI to full power and authority.

With Henry VI in full power and the Yorkists in control, the Lancastrian faction still plotted to take back control of the king. Despite  Thomas Bourchier, the Archbishop of Canterbury‘s attempts to reconcile both parties conflicts arose once more in 1459. The Lancastrians got the upper had in the Battle of Blore Heath but after a Yorkist victory in 1460 at the Battle of Northampton a strange even occurred.

Richard, Duke of York, along with his wife Cecily Neville, Duchess of York (aunt of York’s ally The Earl of Warwick) marched on London and was well received with all the pomp and circumstance due a reigning monarch. Parliament was in session and when The Duke of York declared that he was the rightful and legal king based on primogeniture he was met with stunned silence. Even the Earl of Warwick did not support the Duke of York taking the throne and even Parliament, who agreed that Richard had the best hereditary claim, did not want to over thrown the king. What Warwick wanted, at this time, was to remove the Lancastrian control over the king.

This tense moment was resolved peacefully with the Act of Accord which recognized the Duke of York as heir to King Henry VI even though this displaced the 6-year-old Edward, Prince of Wales in the line of the succession.

I will continue this examination of the rivalry for the throne between the Houses of York and Lancaster in my next post on Wednesday.

What I want to focus on is the issue of legality. Henry IV was a usurper as we mentioned recently. Does that mean the entire House of Lancaster which reigned from 1399 to 1461 was also illegally on the throne? Apparently not. Once in power his rule was accepted by Parliament, a body itself that was gaining in power and authority, and this established the legality of the Lancastrian line. The 1460 Act of Accord also demonstrates the growing role Parliament was playing in regulating the legal succession to the throne.