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.

August 10, 1439: Birth of Anne of York, Duchess of Exeter

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1st Duke of Clarence, Anne of York, Duchess of Burgundy; and George Plantagenet, Duchess of Exeter, Duchess of Suffolk; Margaret, Earl of Rutland; Elizabeth of York, Edmund, Edward III of England, Edward IV of England, House of Anjou, House of Lancaster, House of York, Plantagenet Dynasty, Wars of the Roses

Anne of York, Duchess of Exeter, (August 10, 1439 – 14 January 1476), was the first child of Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York, and Cecily Neville.

Cecily Neville was the youngest of the 22 children of Ralph Neville, 1st Earl of Westmorland, in this case born to his second wife Joan Beaufort, Countess of Westmorland. Her paternal grandparents were John Neville, 3rd Baron Neville de Raby, and Maud Percy, daughter of Henry de Percy, 2nd Baron Percy.

Her maternal grandparents were John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster, and his third wife Katherine Swynford. John of Gaunt was the third surviving son of King Edward III of England and Philippa of Hainault.

This meant that Anne of York, Duchess of Exeter was descendant of King Edward III of England through both of her parents.

Anne of York was thus the eldest sister of kings Edward IV (1461–1483) and Richard III (1483–1485).

Her other siblings were:

Edmund, Earl of Rutland (1443 – 1460). He was killed at the age of 17 either during or shortly after the Battle of Wakefield, during the Wars of the Roses.

Elizabeth of York, Duchess of Suffolk (1444 – c.1503). She was married to John de la Pole, 2nd Duke of Suffolk. John was the eldest son of William de la Pole, 1st Duke of Suffolk and Alice Chaucer. His maternal grandparents were Thomas Chaucer and Maud Burghersh.

Margaret, Duchess of Burgundy (1446 – 1503)—also by marriage known as Margaret of Burgundy—was Duchess of Burgundy as the third wife of Charles I the Bold and acted as a protector of the Burgundian State after his death.

George Plantagenet, 1st Duke of Clarence (1449 — 1478). 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.

First Marriage

In 1447, aged eight years old, Anne was married to Henry Holland, 3rd Duke of Exeter (1430–1475). During the Wars of the Roses, Exeter sided with the House of Lancaster against his wife’s family the House of York.

Exeter was a commander at the great Lancastrian victories at the Battle of Wakefield and Second Battle of St Albans. He was also a commander at the Lancastrian defeat at the Battle of Towton. He fled to the Kingdom of Scotland after the battle, then joined Margaret of Anjou, queen consort of the Lancastrian King Henry VI, in her exile to France.

On March 4, 1461, Anne’s younger brother Edward, Duke of York, was declared in London as King Edward IV. Exeter was attainted but the new king gave his estates to Anne, with remainder to their daughter Anne Holland.

Anne and Exeter separated in 1464 and divorced in 1472. During the restoration of Henry VI, Anne remained loyal to her brother Edward, and, in what seems to have been her only intervention in politics, worked hard to persuade her brother George, Duke of Clarence, to abandon the Lancastrian cause. If not decisive, her arguments certainly had some effect and thus she played some part in Edward’s restoration.

By the Duke of Exeter, Anne had one daughter, Anne Holland (1461 – 1474), who was married in October 1466 at Greenwich Palace to Thomas Grey, Lord Astley, son of Edward IV’s queen Elizabeth Woodville by her first husband.

Lady Astley died sometime between August 26, 1467 and June 6, 1474 without children. Grey subsequently married Cecily Bonville, 7th Baroness Harington, another rich young heiress, by whom he had issue.

Second Marriage

Anne married secondly in about 1474 to Thomas St. Leger (c. 1440 – 1483), a loyal follower of her brother, King Edward IV (1461–1483). He took part in the Duke of Buckingham’s attempted rebellion against King Edward’s younger brother and eventual successor King Richard III (1483–1485), on the failure of which he was executed in 1483.

In 1476, King Edward IV had, however, extended the remainder of most of the former Duke of Exeter’s lands to the King’s sister, Anne, and to any heirs of her body. Thus, if she remarried, any future children could inherit them.

Anne died giving birth to her only daughter by Thomas, Anne St. Leger (1476 – 1526), who due to the special remainder was heiress to the estates of her mother’s first husband Henry Holland. She married George Manners, 11th Baron de Ros, and was mother of the royal favourite Thomas Manners, 1st Earl of Rutland.

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.

The Angevin Empire: Part I.

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Angevin Empire, Count of Anjou, Duchy of Aquitaine, Duchy of Normandy, House of Anjou, House of Pl, King Henry II of England, Kingdom of England, Kingdom of France

The Angevin Empire describes the possessions of the Angevin kings of England who held lands in England and France during the 12th and 13th centuries. Its rulers were Henry II (ruled 1154–1189), Richard I (r. 1189–1199), and John (r. 1199–1216). The Angevin Empire is an early example of a composite state.

A composite monarchy (or composite state) is a historical category, introduced by H. G. Koenigsberger in 1975 and popularised by Sir John H. Elliott, that describes early modern states consisting of several countries under one ruler, sometimes designated as a personal union, who governs his territories as if they were separate kingdoms, in accordance with local traditions and legal structures. The composite state became the most common type of state in the early modern era in Europe. Koenigsberger divides composite states into two classes: those, like the Spanish Empire, that consisted of countries separated by either other states or by the sea, and those, like Poland–Lithuania, that were contiguous.

The Angevins of the House of Plantagenet ruled over an area covering roughly half of France, all of England, and parts of Ireland and Wales, and had further influence over much of the remaining British Isles. The empire was established by Henry II, as King of England, Duke of Normandy, Count of Anjou (from which the Angevins derive their name), as well as Duke of Aquitaine by right of his wife, and multiple subsidiary titles. Although their title of highest rank came from the Kingdom of England, the Angevins held court primarily on the continent at Angers in Anjou, and Chinon in Touraine.

The influence and power of the House of Anjou brought them into conflict with the kings of France of the House of Capet, to whom they also owed feudal homage for their French possessions, bringing in a period of rivalry between the dynasties. Despite the extent of Angevin rule, Henry’s son, John, was defeated in the Anglo-French War (1213–1214) by Philip II of France following the Battle of Bouvines. John lost control of most of his continental possessions, apart from Gascony in southern Aquitaine. This defeat set the scene for further conflicts between England and France, leading up to the Hundred Years’ War.

The term Angevin Empire is a neologism* defining the lands of the House of Plantagenet: Henry II and his sons Richard I and John. Another son, Geoffrey, ruled Brittany and established a separate line there. As far as historians know, there was no contemporary term for the region under Angevin control; however, descriptions such as “our kingdom and everything subject to our rule whatever it may be” were used. The term Angevin Empire was coined by Kate Norgate in her 1887 publication, England under the Angevin Kings. In France, the term espace Plantagenet (French for “Plantagenet area”) is sometimes used to describe the fiefdoms the Plantagenets had acquired.

The use of the term Empire has engendered controversy among some historians over whether the term is accurate for the actual state of affairs at the time. The area was a collection of the lands inherited and acquired by Henry, and so it is unclear whether these dominions shared any common identity and so should be labelled with the term Empire.

Some historians argue that the term should be reserved solely for the Holy Roman Empire, the only Western European political structure actually named an empire at that time, although Alfonso VII of León and Castile had taken the title “Emperor of all Spain” in 1135. Other historians argue that Henry II’s empire was neither powerful, centralised, nor large enough to be seriously called an empire. Furthermore, the Plantagenets never claimed any sort of imperial title as implied by the term Angevin Empire.

However, even if the Plantagenets themselves did not claim an imperial title, some chroniclers, often working for Henry II himself, did use the term empire to describe this assemblage of lands. The highest title was “king of England”; the other titles of dukes and counts of different areas held in France were completely and totally independent from the royal title, and not subject to any English royal law. Because of this, some historians prefer the term commonwealth to empire, emphasising that the Angevin Empire was more of an assemblage of seven fully independent, sovereign states loosely bound to each other, only united in the person of the king of England.

* A neologism is a relatively recent or isolated term, word, or phrase that may be in the process of entering common use, but that has not yet been fully accepted into mainstream language.

King Richard I of England: Assessment Part I

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Heraldry, Homosexuality, House of Anjou, House of Plantagenet, King Richard I of England, Philippe II of France, Richard the Lion Heart, Richard the Lionheart

From the Emperor’s Desk: Today and Tomorrow I will assesses the reign of Richard the Lionheart.

Character and sexuality

Contemporaries considered Richard as both a king and a knight famed for personal martial prowess; this was, apparently, the first such instance of this combination. He was known as a valiant, competent military leader and individual fighter who was courageous and generous. At the same time, he was considered prone to the sins of lust, pride, greed, and above all excessive cruelty. Ralph of Coggeshall, summarising Richard’s career, deplores that the King was one of “the immense cohort of sinners”. He was criticised by clergy chroniclers for having taxed the clergy both for the Crusade and for his ransom, whereas the church and the clergy were usually exempt from taxes.

Richard was a patron and a protector of the trouvères and troubadours of his entourage; he was also a poet himself. He was interested in writing and music, and two poems are attributed to him. The first one is a sirventes in Old French, Dalfin je us voill desrenier, and the second one is a lament that he wrote during his imprisonment at Dürnstein Castle, Ja nus hons pris, with a version in Old Occitan and a version in Old French.

In the historiography of the second half of the 20th century, much interest was shown in Richard’s sexuality, in particular whether there was evidence of homosexuality. The topic had not been raised by Victorian or Edwardian historians, a fact which was itself denounced as a “conspiracy of silence” by John Harvey (1948). The argument primarily drew on accounts of Richard’s behaviour, as well as of his confessions and penitences, and of his childless marriage.

Richard did have at least one illegitimate child, Philip of Cognac, and there are reports on his sexual relations with local women during his campaigns. Historians remain divided on the question of Richard’s sexuality. Harvey argued in favour of his homosexuality but has been disputed by other historians, most notably John Gillingham (1994), who argues that Richard was probably heterosexual.

Flori (1999) again argued in favour of Richard’s homosexuality, based on Richard’s two public confessions and penitences (in 1191 and 1195) which, according to Flori, “must have” referred to the sin of sodomy.

Flori, however, concedes that contemporary accounts of Richard taking women by force exist, concluding that he probably had sexual relations with both men and women. Flori and Gillingham nevertheless agree that accounts of bed-sharing do not support the suggestion that Richard had a sexual relationship with King Philippe II, as had been suggested by other modern authors.

Heraldry

The second Great Seal of Richard I (1198) shows him bearing a shield depicting three lions passant-guardant. This is the first instance of the appearance of this blazon, which later became established as the Royal Arms of England. It is likely, therefore, that Richard introduced this heraldic design. In his earlier Great Seal of 1189, he had used either one lion rampant or two lions rampants combatants, which arms he may have adopted from his father.

Richard is also credited with having originated the English crest of a lion statant (now statant-guardant). The coat of three lions continues to represent England on several coins of the pound sterling, forms the basis of several emblems of English national sports teams (such as the England national football team, and the team’s “Three Lions” anthem), and endures as one of the most recognisable national symbols of England.

July 14, 1223: Death of King Philippe II Auguste of France

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Anglo-French War of 1213–1214, House of Anjou, House of Capet, House of Plantagenet, King Louis VII of France, Philip II of France, Philippe II Auguste of France, Philippe II of France, Pope Celestine III, Pope Innocent III., Waldemar I of Denmark, Waldemar II of Denmark

Philippe II Auguste (August 21, 1165 – July 14, 1223), was King of France from 1180 to 1223. His predecessors had been known as King of the Franks, but from 1190 onward, Philippe II became the first French monarch to style himself “King of France”. The son of King Louis VII and his third wife, Adela of Champagne, he was originally nicknamed Dieudonné (God-given) because he was a first son and born late in his father’s life. Philippe II was given the epithet “Augustus” (French: Auguste) by the chronicler Rigord for having extended the crown lands of France so remarkably.

Philippe II Auguste, King of France

After a twelve-year struggle with the Plantagenet dynasty in the Anglo-French War of 1213–1214, Philippe II succeeded in breaking up the large Angevin Empire presided over by the crown of England and defeated a coalition of his rivals (German, Flemish and English) at the Battle of Bouvines in 1214.

This victory would have a lasting impact on western European politics: the authority of the French king became unchallenged, while the English King John was forced by his barons to assent to Magna Carta and deal with a rebellion against him aided by Philippe’s son Prince Louis, the First Barons’ War. The military actions surrounding the Albigensian Crusade helped prepare the expansion of France southward.

Philippe did not participate directly in these actions, but he allowed his vassals and knights to help carry them out.
Philippe transformed France from a small feudal state into the most prosperous and powerful country in Europe. He checked the power of the nobles and helped the towns free themselves from seigneurial authority, granting privileges and liberties to the emergent bourgeoisie. He built a great wall around Paris (“the Wall of Philippe II Augustus”), re-organized the French government and brought financial stability to his country.

King Philippe II was married on April 28, 1180 to Isabelle of Hainaut, the daughter of Baldwin V, Count of Hainaut, and Margaret I, Countess of Flanders, who brought the County of Artois as her dowry.

Marital problems

After the early death of Isabella of Hainaut in childbirth in 1190, Philippe II decided to marry again. On August 15, 1193, he married Ingeborg, daughter of King Waldemar I of Denmark. She was renamed Isambour, and Stephen of Tournai described her as “very kind, young of age but old of wisdom.” Philippe, however, discovered on their wedding night that she had terribly bad breath, and he refused to allow her to be crowned queen.

Ingeborg protested at this treatment; his response was to confine her to a convent. He then asked Pope Celestine III for an annulment on the grounds of non-consummation. Philippe had not reckoned with Isambour, however; she insisted that the marriage had been consummated, and that she was his wife and the rightful queen of France. The Franco-Danish churchman Guillaume of Paris intervened on the side of Ingeborg, drawing up a genealogy of the Danish kings to disprove the alleged impediment of consanguinity.

In the meantime, Philippe II had sought a new bride. Initial agreement had been reached for him to marry Margaret of Geneva, daughter of William I, Count of Geneva, but the young bride’s journey to Paris was interrupted by Thomas, Count of Savoy, who kidnapped Philippe intended new queen and married her instead, claiming that Philip was already bound in marriage.

Philippe II finally achieved a third marriage in June 1196, when he was married to Agnes of Merania from Dalmatia. Their children were Marie and Philippe, Count of Clermont, and, by marriage, Count of Boulogne.

Pope Innocent III declared Philippe II Auguste marriage to Agnes of Merania null and void, as he was still married to Ingeborg. He ordered the king to part from Agnes, and when he did not, the pope placed France under an interdict in 1199. This continued until September 7, 1200. Due to pressure from the pope and from Ingeborg’s brother King Waldemar II of Denmark, Philippe II finally took Isambour back as his wife in 1201, but it would not be until 1213 that she would be recognized at court as queen.

Philippe II fell ill in September 1222 and had a will made, but carried on with his itinerary. Hot weather the next summer worsened his fever, but a brief remission prompted him to travel to Paris on July 13, 1223, against the advice of his physician. He died en route the next day, in Mantes-la-Jolie, at the age of 58. His body was carried to Paris on a bier. He was interred in the Basilica of St Denis in the presence of his son and successor by Isabella of Hainaut, Louis VIII, as well as his illegitimate son Philippe I, Count of Boulogne and John of Brienne, the King of Jerusalem.

June 11, 1183: Death of Henry the Young King. Part II.

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Angevin, Anglo-Norman, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Henry the Young King, House of Anjou, House of Plantagenet, King Henry II of England, Norman, Philippe II of France, Poitevin and Breton, William I of Scotland, William Marshal

Part I

Young Henry fell out with his father in 1173. Contemporary chroniclers allege that this was owing to the young man’s frustration that his father had given him no realm to rule, and his feeling starved of funds. The rebellion seems, however, to have drawn strength from much deeper discontent with his father’s rule, and a formidable party of Anglo-Norman, Norman, Angevin, Poitevin and Breton magnates joined him.

The revolt of 1173–1174 came close to toppling the king; he was narrowly saved by the loyalty of a party of nobles with holdings on the English side of the Channel, and by the defeat and capture of William I, the King of Scotland. Young Henry sought a reconciliation after the capture of his mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, and the failure of the rebellion. His funds were much increased by the terms of the settlement, and he apparently devoted most of the next seven years to the amusement of the tournament.

In November 1179, he represented his father at the coronation of Philippe II Auguste as associate king of France at Reims. He acted as Steward of France and carried the crown in the coronation procession. Later, he played a leading role in the celebratory tournament held at Lagny-sur-Marne, to which he brought a retinue of over 500 knights at huge expense. The Young Henry’s affairs took a turn for the worse in 1182.

Henry fell out with William Marshal, the leader of his tournament mesnée. The unknown author of L’Histoire de Guillaume le Maréchal suggests that Marshal’s disgrace was because he had indulged in a clandestine affair with Queen Margaret. David Crouch, one of the Marshal’s principal modern biographers, argues that the charge against William was actually one of lèse majesté, brought on by Marshal’s own arrogance and greed. By this account, the charge of adultery was only introduced in the Life of William Marshal as a distraction from the real charges, of which he was most probably guilty.

Though the Young King sent his wife early in 1183 to the French court, it was done most likely to keep her safe in the impending war with his brother, Richard, rather than because she was in disgrace.

The only child of Henry and Margaret was William, who was born prematurely on June 19, 1177 and died three days later. This difficult delivery may have left her infertile, for she had no further children.

Death and burial

Henry the Young King died, aged 28, in the summer of 1183, during the course of a campaign in Limousin against his father and his brother Richard the Lionheart. He had just finished pillaging local monasteries to raise money to pay his mercenaries. He contracted dysentery at the beginning of June. Weakening fast, he was taken to Martel, near Limoges. It was clear to his household that he was dying on June 7, when he was confessed and received the last rites.

As a token of his penitence for his war against his father, he prostrated himself naked on the floor before a crucifix. He made a testament and, since he had taken a crusader’s vow, he gave his cloak to his friend William Marshal, with the plea that he should take the cloak (presumably with the crusader’s cross stitched to it) to the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. On his deathbed, he reportedly asked to be reconciled to his father, but King Henry, fearing a trick, refused to see him.

He died on June 11, clasping a ring his father had sent instead as a sign of his forgiveness. After his death, his father is said to have exclaimed: “He cost me much, but I wish he had lived to cost me more.”

After Henry’s death, there was an attempt by his mother and a faction of his friends to promote his sainthood. Thomas of Earley, Archdeacon of Wells, published a sermon not long afterward detailing miraculous events attending the cortège that took his body north to Normandy. Henry had left orders that his entrails and other body parts should be buried at the abbey of Charroux, but the rest of his body should rest in Rouen Cathedral.

However, during the funeral procession, a member of Henry’s household was seized by his mercenary captains for debts the late king had owed them. The knights accompanying his corpse were so penniless they had to be fed by charity at the monastery of Vigeois.

There were large and emotional gatherings wherever his body rested. At Le Mans, the local bishop halted the procession and ordered the body buried in his cathedral, perhaps to help defuse the civil unrest Henry’s death had caused. The dean of Rouen recovered the body from the chapter of Le Mans a month later by a lawsuit, so that the Young Henry could be buried in Normandy as he had desired in his testament.

June 11, 1183: Death of Henry the Young King. Part I.

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Eleanor of Aquitaine, Henry the Young King, House of Anjou, House of Plantagenet, King Henry II of England, King Louis VII of France, Margaret of France

Henry the Young King Part I.

Henry the Young King (February 28, 1155 – June 11, 1183) was the eldest surviving son of Henry II of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine. Beginning in 1170, he was titular King of England, Duke of Normandy, Count of Anjou and Maine. Henry the Young King is the only King of England since the Norman Conquest to be crowned during his father’s reign, but was frustrated by his father’s refusal to grant him meaningful autonomous power. He died aged 28, six years before his father, leaving his brother Richard to become the next king.

Coronation of Henry the Young King

Little is known of the young Prince Henry before the events associated with his marriage and coronation. His mother’s children by her first marriage to Louis VII of France were Marie of France, Countess of Champagne and Alix of France. Henry had one elder brother, William IX, Count of Poitiers (d. 1156), and his younger siblings included Matilda; Richard; Geoffrey; Eleanor; Joan; and John.

In June 1170, the fifteen-year-old Henry was crowned king during his father’s lifetime, something originally practised by the French Capetian dynasty and adopted by the English kings Stephen and Henry II. The physical appearance of Henry at his coronation in 1170 is given in a contemporary court poem written in Latin, where the fifteen-year-old prince is described as being very handsome, “tall but well proportioned, broad-shouldered with a long and elegant neck, pale and freckled skin, bright and wide blue eyes, and a thick mop of the reddish-gold hair”.

He was known in his own lifetime as “Henry the Young King” to distinguish him from his father. Because he was not a reigning king, he is not counted in the numerical succession of the Kings of England. According to one of Thomas Becket’s correspondents, Henry was knighted by his father before the coronation, but the biographer of William Marshal asserts that the king was knighted by William in the course of the rebellion of 1173 (Georges Duby, Guillaume le Maréchal. Le meilleur chevalier du monde. 1984).

The young Henry played an important part in the politics of his father’s reign. On November 2, 1160, he was betrothed to Margaret of France, daughter of King Louis VII of France and his second wife, Constance of Castile, when he was 5 years of age and she was at least 2. The marriage was an attempt to finally settle the struggle between the counts of Anjou and the French kings over possession of the frontier district of the Norman Vexin, which Louis VII had acquired from Henry’s grandfather, Geoffrey Plantagenet, Count of Anjou, in around 1144.

By the terms of the settlement, Margaret would bring the castles of the Norman Vexin to her new husband. However, the marriage was pushed through by Henry II when Young Henry and Margaret were small children so that he could seize the castles. A bitter border war followed between the kings.

They were formally married on August 24, 1172 at Winchester Cathedral, when Henry, aged seventeen, was crowned King of England a second time, this time together with Margaret, by Rotrou, the Archbishop of Rouen.

March 20, 1413: Death of King Henry IV of England. Part I.

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Blanche of Lancaster, Duke of Lancaster, Henry Bolingbroke, Henry IV of England, Henry of Grosmont, House of Anjou, House of Plantagenet, John of Gaunt, Richard II of England

From the Emperor’s Desk. This will be a three part series on the life of King Henry IV of England. Part I will look at his lineage and rise to the throne, Part II will examine his reign and Part III will examine his claim to the throne.

Henry IV (April 15, 1367 – March 20, 1413), also known as Henry Bolingbroke, was King of England and Lord of Ireland from 1399 to 1413. He reasserted the claim of his grandfather King Edward III, a maternal grandson of Philippe IV of France, to the Kingdom of France.

Henry was the son of John of Gaunt (the fourth son of Edward III) and Blanche of Lancaster. John enjoyed a position of considerable influence during much of the reign of his cousin King Richard II, whom Henry eventually deposed. Henry founded the Lancaster branch of the House of Anjou, also known as the House of Plantagenet. He was the first King of England since the Norman Conquest whose mother tongue was English rather than French.

Henry IV, King of England and Lord of Ireland

Henry Bolingbroke had Plantagenet blood flowing through him from both parents. His mother, Blanche of Lancaster (March 25, 1342 – September 12, 1368), was a member of the English royal House of Plantagenet and the daughter of the kingdom’s wealthiest and most powerful peer, Henry of Grosmont, 1st Duke of Lancaster and his wife Isabel de Beaumont.

Blanche of Lancaster’s father, Henry of Grosmont, was the only son of Henry, 3rd Earl of Lancaster (c. 1281–1345); who in turn was the younger brother and heir of Thomas, 2nd Earl of Lancaster (c. 1278–1322). They were sons of Edmund Crouchback, 1st Earl of Lancaster (1245–1296); the second son of King Henry III (ruled 1216–1272) and younger brother of King Edward I of England (ruled 1272–1307). Henry of Grosmont was thus a first cousin once removed of King Edward II and a second cousin of King Edward III (ruled 1327–1377).

On 19 May 1359, at Reading Abbey, Reading, Berkshire, Blanche married her third cousin, John of Gaunt, third son of King Edward III. The whole royal family was present at the wedding, and the King gave Blanche expensive gifts of jewelry.

The title Duke of Lancaster became extinct upon her father’s death without male heirs in 1361. However, John of Gaunt became Earl of Lancaster, Earl of Derby, Earl of Lincoln and Earl of Leicester.

Henry’s half-sister Joan Beaufort was the grandmother of Edward IV and Richard III. Joan’s daughter Cecily married Richard, Duke of York and had several offspring, including Edward IV and Richard III, making Joan the grandmother of two Yorkist kings of England.

Henry experienced a rather more inconsistent relationship with King Richard II than his father had. First cousins and childhood playmates, they were admitted together to the Order of the Garter in 1377, but Henry participated in the Lords Appellants’ rebellion against the king in 1387. After regaining power, Richard did not punish Henry, although he did execute or exile many of the other rebellious barons. In fact, Richard elevated Henry from Earl of Derby to Duke of Hereford.

Richard II, King of England and Lord of Ireland

The relationship between Henry Bolingbroke and the king met with a second crisis. In 1398, a remark by Thomas de Mowbray, 1st Duke of Norfolk regarding Richard II’s rule was interpreted as treason by Henry and Henry reported it to the king. The two dukes agreed to undergo a duel of honour (called by Richard II) at Gosford Green near Caludon Castle, Mowbray’s home in Coventry. Yet before the duel could take place, Richard II decided to banish Henry from the kingdom (with the approval of Henry’s father, John of Gaunt) to avoid further bloodshed. Mowbray himself was exiled for life.

John of Gaunt died in February 1399. Without explanation, Richard II cancelled the legal documents that would have allowed Henry to inherit Gaunt’s land automatically. Instead, Henry would be required to ask for the lands from Richard himself.

After some hesitation, Henry met with the exiled Thomas Arundel, former Archbishop of Canterbury, who had lost his position because of his involvement with the Lords Appellant. Henry and Arundel returned to England while Richard was on a military campaign in Ireland. With Arundel as his advisor, Henry began a military campaign, confiscating land from those who opposed him and ordering his soldiers to destroy much of Cheshire.

Henry Bolingbroke initially announced that his intention was to reclaim his rights as Duke of Lancaster, though he quickly gained enough power and support to have himself declared King Henry IV, imprison King Richard (who died in prison under mysterious circumstances) and bypass Richard’s 7-year-old heir-presumptive, Edmund de Mortimer. Henry’s coronation, on October 13, 1399 at Westminster Abbey, may have marked the first time since the Norman Conquest when the monarch made an address in English.

This date in History. October 2, 1452: Birth of Richard III, King of England and Lord of Ireland.

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Battle of Bosworth Field, Bishop of Bath Titulus Regis, Duke of York, Edward V of England House of Tudor, House of Anjou, King Edward IV of England, King Henry VII of England, King Richard III of England, Kings and Queens of England, Plantagenet Dynasty, Wars of the Roses

Today is the anniversary of the birth of Richard III, King of England and Lord of Ireland. The focus today of this blog entry is whether or not he was a usurper.

Richard III (October 2, 1452 – August 22, 1485) was King of England and Lord of Ireland from 1483 until his death in 1485. Richard was born on October 2, 1452 at Fotheringhay Castle in Northamptonshire, the eleventh of the twelve children of Richard, Duke of York, and Cecily Neville, and the youngest to survive infancy. Richard III was the last king of the House of York and the last of the Plantagenet dynasty. For those keeping track, the House of Anjou, AKA the Plantagenet Dynasty, ruled England and Ireland for 330 years, 8 months, 3 days beginning with the accession of Henry II on December 19, 1154 and ending with the defeat and death of Richard III on August 22, 1485 at the Battle of Bosworth Field, the last decisive battle of the Wars of the Roses, marking the end of the Middle Ages in England.

When Richard, Duke of York, brother Edward IV died in April 1483, Richard was named Lord Protector of the realm for Edward’s eldest son and successor, the 12-year-old Edward V. Arrangements were made for Edward’s coronation later that year on June 22, 1483.

Richard III, King of England and Lord of Ireland

However, before the king could be crowned, the marriage of King Edward V’s parents, Edward IV and Elisabeth Woodville was declared bigamous and therefore invalid. Therefore, now officially illegitimate, their children were barred from inheriting the throne. On June 25th, an assembly of lords and commoners endorsed a declaration to this effect and proclaimed Richard as the rightful king. He was crowned on July 6, 1483. The young princes, Edward and his younger brother Richard, Duke of York, were not seen in public after August and accusations circulated that they had been murdered on Richard’s orders.

When I began studying English Royalty I believed that the claim that Edward IV’s marriage was illegal was the rationalization by Richard III and his party in order for Richard to justify usurping the throne. Was there a basis for such a claim? Indeed there was a basis for his claim and it was taken seriously at the time.

The basis for this claim was the evidence that prior to Edward IV’s marriage to Elizabeth Woodville, Edward was already pre-contracted to marry a wealthy widow by the name of Lady Eleanor Butler. Lady Butler had passed away by the time Richard claimed the throne and therefore couldn’t corroborate this claim. Robert Stillington, Bishop of Bath and Wells, a stalwart supporter of Richard, was the chief witness to the pre-contract of marriage between Edward IV and Lady Butler. According to Roman Catholic Church Law at the time, a pre-contract was a solemn oath to marry in the presence of clerical witnesses and this pre-contract took precedence over any other form of marital arrangement. This contract was legal and binding and therefore had to be legally dismissed for the parties to be free to marry somebody else.

As stated elsewhere in this blog regarding the legality of the succession, no king, at least by this time period, could alter the succession to the crown by decree or declaration. Parliament was firmly the Legislative body of the Kingdom and all laws proposed needed to be passed by Parliament, even changes to the succession. View yesterday’s blog entry on the succession of Queen Mary I where her brother Edward IV tried to bypass his half-sisters but his Will was not approved by Parliament prior to his death, thus making an attempted alteration to the succession illegal.

Therefore in order to legally justify Richard III’s taking of the throne in June of 1483 an Act of Parliament was issued in January 1484 entitled “Titulus Regius (The Title of King)” The Act stated that Edward IV’s marriage had been bigamous and therefore invalid. In the nullification of the marriage it also rendered all the children of the marriage as illegitimate, namely the young King Edward V and his brother Richard, Duke of York.

An interesting note is that the Titulus Regius did not actually name Robert Stillington, Bishop of Bath as the main clerical witness for the claim of the pre-marital contract of Edward IV and Lady Butler. Instead the Titulus Regius named a Burgundian chronicler, Phillipe de Commines, as the main witness to the contract. The source of Phillipe de Commines witnessing the event was written in his memoirs where he said he witnessed the signing of the pre-contract between Edward IV and Lady Butler.

Edward IV, King of England and Lord of Ireland

An another interesting point about the Act making Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville’s children illegitimate is that the taint of illegitimacy did not tarnish the desirability of their daughter Princess Elizabeth of York. In order to heal the rift in the family, and it seems to bolster Richard III’s hold up the throne, he sought the hand of his niece in marriage. Her mother, Queen Elizabeth (formerly Elizabeth Woodville) flatly refused his advances. Even after Richard was deposed the new king, Henry VII, successfully won the hand of Princess Elizabeth of York and United the warring branches of the English Royal Family. Elizabeth of York’s stain of illegitimacy didn’t bother Henry nor prevent her from becoming Queen Consort of England. She really had a better claim to be a Queen Regnant of England but that’s another story.

One of the first acts of Parliament convened by Henry VII after he became king was to repeal Titulus Regius. This restored the legitimacy of the marriage of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville, and the legitimacy of their children, including Elizabeth of York. Henry honoured his pledge of December 1483 to marry Elizabeth of York. They were third cousins, as both were great-great-grandchildren of John of Gaunt. Henry and Elizabeth were married on 18 January 1486 at Westminster Abbey.

Today the vast majority of historians view the marriage of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville as legally valid. That’s not to say the pre-contract between Edward IV and Lady Butler didn’t occur, it vary well may have, there just isn’t enough evidence to determine, either for away, if the pre-contract was made.