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.

Henry IV of England and his claim to the English Throne

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agnatic primogeniture, Henry Bolingbroke, Henry IV of England and Lord of Ireland, House of Lancaster, Salic Law, Usurper

From The Emperor’s Desk: in my recent post I discussed how Henry Bolingbroke became King Henry IV of England. Historians consider him a usurper and although he did have a strong hereditary claim to the throne his assumption of the crown was more of a right by conquest than him being the legal heir to King Richard II.

When Richard II was forced to abdicate the throne on September 29, 1399, Henry was next in line to the throne according to Edward III’s entailment of 1376. That entailment clearly reflects the operation of agnatic primogeniture, also known as the Salic law. At this time, it was by no means a settled custom for the daughter of a king to supersede the brothers of that king in the line of succession to the throne.

Indeed, it was not an established belief that women could inherit the throne at all by right: the only previous instance of succession passing through a woman had been that which involved the Empress Matilda, and this had involved protracted civil war, with the other protagonist being the son of Matilda’s father’s sister (not his brother). Yet, the heir of the royal estate according to common law (by which the houses and tenancies of common people like peasants and tradesmen passed) was Edmund Mortimer, 5th Earl of March, who descended from the daughter of Edward III’s third son (second to survive to adulthood), Lionel of Antwerp. Bolingbroke’s father, John of Gaunt, was Edward’s fourth son and the third to survive to adulthood. The problem was solved by emphasising Henry’s descent in a direct male line, whereas March’s descent was through his grandmother.

The official account of events claims that Richard II voluntarily agreed to resign his crown to Henry on September 29. The country had rallied behind Henry and supported his claim in parliament. However, the question of the succession never went away. The problem lay in the fact that Henry was only the most prominent male heir, but not the most senior in terms of agnatic descent from Edward III.

Although he was heir to the throne according to Edward III’s entail to the crown of 1376, Dr. Ian Mortimer has pointed out in his 2008 biography of Henry IV that this entail had probably been supplanted by an entail made by Richard II in 1399 (see Ian Mortimer, The Fears of Henry IV, appendix two, pp. 366–9). Henry thus had to overcome the superior claim of the Mortimers in order to maintain his inheritance.

This difficulty compounded when the Mortimer claim was merged with the Yorkist claim in the person of Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York. The Duke of York was the heir-generalof Edward III, and the heir presumptive (due to agnatic descent, the same principle by which Henry IV claimed the throne in 1399) of Henry’s grandson Henry VI (since Henry IV’s other sons did not have male heirs, and the legitimated Beauforts were excluded from the throne). The House of Lancaster was finally deposed by Edward IV, son of Richard of York, 3rd Duke of York, during the Wars of the Roses.

Henry avoided the problem of Mortimer having a superior claim by ignoring his own descent from Edward III. He claimed the throne as the right heir to King Henry III by claiming that Edmund Crouchback was the elder and not the younger son of King Henry. He asserted that every monarch from Edward I was a usurper, and he, as his mother Blanche of Lancaster was a great-granddaughter of Edmund, was the rightful king. Henry also claimed to be King of France, but Henry III had no hereditary claim to that throne.

François II, Duke of Brittany, and the English Royal Family.

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Duchy of Brittany, Earl of Richmond, Francis II of Brittany, House of Lancaster, House of York, King Edward IV of England, King Henry VI of England, King Henry VII of England, Kingdom of England, Wars of the Roses

On June 30th I did a post on King Charles VIII of France who married Anne of Brittany. In my research I discovered that her father, François II, Duke of Brittany, had a strong connection to the English Royal Family.

François II of Brittany

François II of Brittany (June 23, 1433 – September 9, 1488) was Duke of Brittany from 1458 to his death. He was the grandson of Jean IV, Duke of Brittany.

François II was born to Richard of Brittany, Count of Étampes (1395–1438) and his wife, Margaret of Orléans, Countess of Vertus (1406–1466), the daughter of Louis I, Duke of Orléans, and Valentina Visconti. Richard of Brittany was the youngest son of Duke Jean IV of Brittany. Richard’s older brothers, Jean V and Arthur III, both succeeded their father as duke, but upon Arthur’s death in 1458 (Jean V’s sons François I and Peter II died in 1450 and 1457 respectively, without sons), the only legitimate male heir was his nephew François II.

Relationship with English royalty

Coat of Arms of King Henry VI of England

Protector of the House of Lancaster

Duke François II unexpectedly became the protector of England’s House of Lancaster in exile from 1471–1484.

During the latter half of the 15th century, civil war existed in England (Known as the Wars of the Roses) as the House of York and House of Lancaster fought each other for the English throne. In 1471, the Yorkists defeated their rivals in the battles of Barnet and Tewkesbury. The Lancastrian king, Henry VI of England and his only son, Edward of Westminster, died in the aftermath of the Battle of Tewkesbury.

Their deaths left the House of Lancaster with no direct claimants to the throne. Subsequently, the Yorkist king, Edward IV of England, was in complete control of England. He attainted those who refused to submit to his rule, such as Jasper Tudor and his nephew Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond (later King Henry VII of England), naming them as traitors and confiscating their lands.

The Tudors tried to flee to France but strong winds in the English Channel forced them to land at Le Conquet in Brittany, where they were taken into the custody of Duke François II. Henry Tudor, the only remaining Lancastrian noble with a trace of royal bloodline, had a weak claim to the throne, and King Edward IV regarded him as “a nobody”. However, François II viewed Henry as a valuable tool to bargain for England’s aid, when in conflicts with France, and therefore kept the Tudors under his protection.

François II housed Jasper Tudor, Henry Tudor, and the core of their group of exiled Lancastrians at the Château de Suscinio in Sarzeau, where they remained for 11 years. There, François II generously supported this group of exiled Englishmen against all the Plantagenet demands that he should surrender them.
In October 1483, Henry Tudor launched a failed invasion of England from Brittany. Duke François II supported this invasion by providing 40,000 gold crowns, 15,000 soldiers, and a fleet of transport ships. Henry’s fleet of 15 chartered vessels was scattered by a storm, and his ship reached the coast of England in company with only one other vessel.

Arms of Duke François II of Brittany

Henry realized that the soldiers on shore were the men of the new Yorkist king, Richard III of England, and so he decided to abandon the invasion and return to Brittany. As for Henry’s main conspirator in England, Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, he was convicted of treason and beheaded on November 2, 1483, way before Henry’s ships landed in England. For Henry’s conspiracy against King Richard III had been unravelled, and without the Duke of Buckingham or Henry Tudor, the rebellion was easily crushed.

Survivors of the failed uprising then fled to Brittany, where they openly supported Henry Tudor’s claim to the throne. On Christmas Day in 1483 at the Rennes Cathedral, Henry swore an oath to marry King Edward IV’s daughter, Elizabeth of York, and thus unite the warring houses of York and Lancaster. Henry’s rising prominence made him a great threat to King Richard III, and the Yorkist king made several overtures to Duke Francis II to surrender the young Lancastrian.

François II refused, holding out for the possibility of better terms from the King. In mid-1484, François was incapacitated by one of his periods of illness, and while recuperating, his treasurer, Pierre Landais, took over the reins of government. Landais reached an agreement with King Richard III to send Henry and his uncle Jasper back to England in exchange for a pledge of 3,000 English archers to defend Brittany against a threatened French attack.

John Morton, a bishop of Flanders, learned of the scheme and warned the Tudors in time. The Tudors then managed to separately escape, hours ahead of Landais’ soldiers, across the nearby border into France. They were received at the court of King Charles VIII of France, who allowed them to stay and provided them with resources. Shortly afterwards, when François II had recovered, he offered the 400 remaining Lancastrians, still at and around the Château de Suscinio, safe-conduct into France and even paid for their expenses. For the French, the Tudors were useful pawns to ensure that King Richard III did not interfere with French plans to acquire Brittany. Thus, the loss of the Lancastrians seriously played against the interests of Francis II.

Titular Earl of Richmond

Circa 1136, King Stephen of England named Alan of Penthièvre of Brittany (also known as Alan the Black) the 1st Earl of Richmond. After Alan, the title and its possessions (the Honour of Richmond) were typically bestowed upon the Dukes of Brittany, with a few interruptions, through the ducal reign of Jean IV, which ended in 1399. After Jean IV, the English kings would bestow the title Earl of Richmond on nobles other than the Dukes of Brittany, including Edmund Tudor, Henry Tudor’s father. However the dukes of Brittany from Jean V through François II would continue to use the titulary Earl of Richmond.

It is possible that François willed whatever remained of his claims to the earldom and the Honour of Richmond to Henry Tudor. On successfully gaining the English crown after the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485, Henry VII merged the earldom and its possessions into the crown.

12. Crown of Margaret of York & Crown of Princess Blanche

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Blanche of Lancaster, Crown of Blanche of Lancaster, Crown of Bohemia, Crown of Margaret of York, Elector Ludwig III of the Rhine, Henry IV of England, House of Lancaster, House of York, Margaret of York, Richard Plantagenet

Crown of Margaret of York & Crown of Princess Blanche

From the Emperor’s Desk: Today begins a series of examining the history of my Top Favorite 12 Crowns of Europe (well, 13 because there is a tie for the 12th place).

Crown of Margaret of York

Margaret of York

Margaret of York (May 3, 1446 – November 23, 1503)—also by marriage known as Duchess Margaret of Burgundy—as the third wife of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy and acted as a protector of the Burgundian State after his death. She was a daughter of Richard, 3rd Duke of York, and Cecily Neville, and the sister of two kings of England, Edward IV and Richard III. She was born at Fotheringhay Castle, Northamptonshire, in the Kingdom of England, and she died at Mechelen in the Low Countries.

The celebrations that followed the Margaret of York’s wedding to Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy were extravagant even by the standards of the Burgundians, who were already noted for their opulence and generous festivities. The bride made her Joyous Entry in a golden litter drawn by white horses, wearing upon her head a golden crown.

Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy

When the Duke and Duchess of Burgundy appeared in Burgundy together for the first time, both wore magnificent crowns. Margaret’s crown was adorned with pearls, and with enamelled white roses for the House of York set between red, green and white enamelled letters of the Latinization of her name (“Margarita de York”, m ar ga ri ta de yo rk), with gold Cs and Ms, entwined with lovers’ knots (it can still be seen in the treasury at Aachen Cathedral).

The removal of the crown to Aachen was significant, since it allowed its survival from the ravages of the later English Civil War which involved the destruction of all the main English Crown Jewels. It thus remains one of only two medieval royal British crowns still surviving, the other being the Crown of Princess Blanche.

Charles the Bold wore an equally splendid crown, accompanied by a golden gown encrusted with diamonds, pearls and great jewels. The parades, the streets lined with tapestry hung from houses, the feasting, the masques and allegorical entertainments, the jewels, impressed all observers as “the marriage of the century”. It is reenacted at Bruges for tourists every five years with the next event in 2022, the last one having taken place in August 2017.

The Crown of Princess Blanche of Lancaster, also called the Palatine Crown or Bohemian Crown, is the oldest surviving royal crown known to have been in England, and probably dates to 1370–80.

The Crown of Princess Blanche of Lancaster

Blanche of England, (spring 1392 – May 22, 1409), also known as Blanche of Lancaster, was a member of the House of Lancaster, the daughter of King Henry IV of England by his first wife Mary de Bohun.

Her crown is made of gold with diamonds, rubies, emeralds, sapphires, enamel and pearls. Its height and diameter are both 18 centimetres (7.1 in). The crown has been a property of the House of Wittelsbach since 1402, when it came with Princess Blanche of England, daughter of King Henry IV of England, on her marriage to Ludwig III, Elector Palatine.

The crown is made up of 12 hexagonal rosettes on the base each supporting a gold stem topped by a lily. The stems and lilies alternate in size and height. They are heavily jewelled versions of the fleur de lys (lily flower) that was popular for medieval crowns. In the middle of the hexagons, which have enamelled white flowers overlaid onto a translucent blue or red background, is a pale blue sapphire, 11 of which are oval and 1 is hexagonal. Each point is decorated with alternating rubies and clusters of four pearls that have a small diamond at the centre. In addition to diamonds, pearls, and sapphires, the lilies are also decorated with emeralds.

Detail of two hexagons mounted on the base with alternating arrangements of jewels and pearls

Some of the original pearls may have been replaced when the crown was restored in 1925. The lily stems are detachable, and it is possible to fold the crown’s base so that it can be transported more easily. Each rosette is numbered 1–12 to make sure the lilies are re-attached correctly. The crown is 18 centimetres (7.1 in) in both height and diameter.

The nuptial crown is first documented in the inventory of King Richard II of England It was recorded again in a 1399 list of royal jewels being moved across London which had been owned by the deposed Richard II and others. Therefore, the crown had most likely belonged to Queen Anne of Bohemia, the wife of Richard II, whom she married in 1382.

The crown came to the Palatine line of the House of Wittelsbach as dowry of Blanche of England, daughter of King Henry IV of England. After his accession to the English throne, Henry wanted to make important alliances in order to maintain and legitimize his rule. One ally whose support he hoped to gain was the Wittelsbach King Rupert of Germany, who also took the German throne after the deposition of King Wenceslaus. A marriage between Rupert’s eldest surviving son, Ludwig, and Henry IV’s eldest daughter, Blanche, was soon arranged.

On March 7, 1401, the marriage contract was signed in London, and the bride’s dowry was fixed at 40,000 nobles. In 1402, prior to the wedding of Blanche and Ludwig III, it was restored by a London goldsmith, who added a twelfth rosette and replaced the missing emerald and pearls on the fleurons.

The new rosette contained 12 pearls, 3 diamonds, 3 balas rubies, and 1 sapphire. In total, 1 6⁄8 ounces (50 g) of gold were added to the crown. Blanche wore the crown at her wedding, which took place on 6 July 1402 at Cologne Cathedral in the Holy Roman Empire. In 1421, it was pawned to Maulbronn Monastery, and by that time several gems and pearls had been taken out.

King Henry IV of England: Part III.

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5th Earl of March, Duke of York, Edmund Mortimer, Edward III of England, Henry Bolingbroke, Henry IV of England, House of Lancaster, Kings and Queens of England, Richard Plantagenet, Salic Law

When Richard II was forced to abdicate the throne in 1399, Henry Bolingbroke was next in line to the throne according to Edward III’s entailment of 1376. That entailment clearly reflects the operation of agnatic primogeniture, also known as the Salic law. At this time, it was by no means a settled custom for the daughter of a king to supersede the brothers of that king in the line of succession to the throne. Indeed, it was not an established belief that women could inherit the throne at all by right: the only previous instance of succession passing through a woman had been that which involved the Empress Matilda, and this had involved protracted civil war, with the other protagonist being the son of Matilda’s father’s sister (not his brother).

Edward III, King of England, Lord of Ireland

Yet, the heir of the royal estate according to common law (by which the houses and tenancies of common people like peasants and tradesmen passed) was Edmund Mortimer, 5th Earl of March, who descended from the daughter of Edward III’s third son (second to survive to adulthood), Lionel of Antwerp.

Bolingbroke’s father, John of Gaunt, was Edward’s fourth son and the third to survive to adulthood. The problem was solved by emphasising Henry IV’s descent in a direct male line, whereas Edmund’s descent was through his grandmother.

The official account of events claims that Richard voluntarily agreed to resign his crown to Henry on September 29. The country had rallied behind Henry and supported his claim in parliament. However, the question of the succession never went away. The problem lay in the fact that Henry was only the most prominent male heir, but not the most senior in terms of agnatic descent from Edward III. Although he was heir to the throne according to Edward III’s entail to the crown of 1376, Dr. Ian Mortimer has pointed out in his 2008 biography of Henry IV that this entail had probably been supplanted by an entail made by Richard II in 1399.

Henry IV, King of England, Lord of Ireland

Henry IV thus had to overcome the superior claim of the Mortimers in order to maintain his inheritance. This difficulty compounded when the Mortimer claim was merged with the Yorkist claim in the person of Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York. The Duke of York was the heir-general of Edward III, and the heir presumptive (due to agnatic descent, the same principle by which Henry IV claimed the throne in 1399) of Henry’s grandson Henry VI (since Henry IV’s other sons did not have male heirs, and the legitimated Beauforts were excluded from the throne). The House of Lancaster was finally deposed by Edward IV, son of Richard of York, 3rd Duke of York, during the Wars of the Roses.

Henry IV avoided the problem of Mortimer having a superior claim by ignoring his own descent from Edward III. He claimed the throne as the right heir to King Henry III by claiming that Edmund Crouchback was the elder and not the younger son of King Henry. He asserted that every monarch from Edward I was a usurper, and he, as his mother Blanche of Lancaster was a great-granddaughter of Edmund, was the rightful king. Henry also claimed to be king of France, but Henry III had no claim to that throne.

March 4, 1461: Edward IV of England deposed Henry VI of England

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Charles VI of France, Duke of York, Earl of Warwick, House of Lancaster, House of York, King Edward IV of England, King Henry VI of England, Lords of Ireland, Richard Plantagenet

In October 1452, an English advance in Aquitaine retook Bordeaux from the French and was having some success, but by 1453 Bordeaux was lost again leaving Calais as England’s only remaining territory on the continent. Upon hearing of the final loss of Bordeaux in August 1453, Henry VI of England experienced a mental breakdown and became completely unresponsive to everything that was going on around him for more than a year. He even failed to respond to the birth of a son and heir, who was christened Edward.

Henry VI, King of England and Lord of Ireland

Henry may have inherited a psychiatric condition from Charles VI of France, his maternal grandfather, who was affected by intermittent periods of insanity during the last thirty years of his life. During his bout of insanity, Henry was attended by the surgeons Gilbert Kymer and John Marchall. Thomas Morstede had previously been appointed royal surgeon and died in 1450.

Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York, (a leading English magnate, a great-grandson of King Edward III through his father, and a great-great-great-grandson of the same king through his mother) meanwhile, had gained a very important ally, Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, one of the most influential magnates and possibly richer than York himself.

York was named regent as Protector of the Realm in 1454. The queen was excluded completely, and Edmund Beaufort was detained in the Tower of London, while many of York’s supporters spread rumours that Edward was not the king’s son, but Beaufort’s. Other than that, York’s months as regent were spent tackling the problem of government overspending.

Around Christmas Day 1454, King Henry VI regained his senses. Disaffected nobles who had grown in power during Henry’s reign, most importantly the Earls of Warwick and Salisbury, took matters into their own hands. They backed the claims of the rival House of York, first to the control of government, and then to the throne itself (from 1460), pointing to York’s better descent from Edward III. It was agreed that York would become Henry’s successor, despite York being older. In 1458, in an attempt to unite the warring factions, Henry staged The Love Day in London.

Thereafter followed a violent struggle between the houses of Lancaster and York. Henry VIII’s was defeated and captured at the Battle of Northampton on July 10, 1460. The Duke of York was killed by Margaret’s forces at the Battle of Wakefield on December 30, 1460, and Henry VI was rescued from imprisonment after the Second Battle of St Albans on February 17, 1461, allowing the Lancastrians to regain custody of Henry VI.

Edward IV, King of England and Lord of Ireland

The Earl of Warwick and the the new Duke of York, Edward, met in London, where Edward was hastily crowned as King Edward IV before leading his army north. By then, however, Henry VI was suffering such a bout of madness that he was apparently laughing and singing while the battle raged. Henry VI was finally defeated at the Battle of Towton on March 29, 1461 but Edward IV failed to capture Henry VI and his queen, Margaret of Anjou, who fled to Scotland. During the first period of Edward IV’s reign, Lancastrian resistance continued mainly under the leadership of Queen Margaret and the few nobles still loyal to her in the northern counties of England and Wales.

February 18, 1478: Execution of George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence.

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Bill of Attainder, Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, Duke of Clarence, George Plantagenet, House of Lancaster, House of York, King Edward IV of England, King Henry VI of England, King Richard III of England, Lord of Ireland, Mary of Burgundy, Wars of the Roses

George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence (October 21, 1449 – February 18, 1478), was a 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 known as the Wars of the Roses.

Coat of Arms of George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence

George’s father died in 1460. In 1461 his elder brother, Edward, became King of England as Edward IV. In that year George was made Duke of Clarence and invested as a Knight of the Garter, and in 1462 Clarence received the Honour of Richmond, a lifetime grant, but without the peerage title of Earl of Richmond.Despite his youth, he was appointed as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in the same year.

Having been mentioned as a possible husband for Mary of Burgundy, 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.

Here is a side story to the connection of the House of Burgundy and the House of Plantagenet. In 1454, at the age of 21, Charles the Bold was looking to marry a second time. Charles the Bold’s first wife was Catherine of France (1428 – 13 July 1446) was a French princess and the fourth child and second daughter of Charles VII of France and Marie of Anjou. Catherine fell ill with violent coughing in 1446 and died with what was likely tuberculosis.

Mary, Duchess of Burgundy

For his second marriage, Charles the Bold wanted to marry Margaret of York, daughter of his distant cousin Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York (a sister of Kings Edward IV and Richard III of England), but under terms of the Treaty of Arras of 1435, he was required to marry another French princess. His father, Philippe III the Good of Burgundy, chose Isabella of Bourbon, who was Charles the Bold’s first cousin being the daughter of his father’s sister, Agnes of Burgundy and Charles I, Duke of Bourbon. Agnes of Burgundy and Charles of Bourbon both were very distant cousins of Charles VII of France, the father of Charles the Bold’s first wife, Catherine. Charles the Bold and Isabella of Bourbon were the parents of Mary of Burgundy, potential bride of George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence.

Isabella of Bourbon died September 25, 1465, and July 3, 1468 Charles the Bold finally married Margaret of York as his third wife. As Duchess of Burgundy Margaret acted as a protector of the duchy after the death of Charles the Bold in January 1477.

Now back to George, Duke of Clarence…

Though a member of the House of York, he switched sides to support the Lancastrians, before reverting to the Yorkists. Clarence had actively supported his elder brother’s claim to the throne, but when his father-in-law, Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, 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. 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 for his loyalty by making him next in line to the throne after his own son, justifying the exclusion of Edward IV either by attainder for his treason against Henry VI or on the grounds of his alleged illegitimacy. After a short time, Clarence realized that his loyalty to his father-in-law was misplaced.

George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence

In 1477 Clarence was again a suitor for the hand of Mary, who had just become Duchess of Burgundy in her own right. 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 Dr John Stacey, which led to his confession under torture that he had “imagined and compassed” the death of the King, and also implicated Thomas Burdett and Thomas Blake, a chaplain at Stacey’s college (Merton College, Oxford). All three were tried for treason, convicted, and executed.

This was a clear warning to Clarence, which he chose to ignore. He appointed Dr John Goddard to burst into Parliament and regale the House of Commons 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.

Edward IV, King of England and Lord of Ireland

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, the unfounded rumor gained ground that he had been drowned in a butt of Malmsey wine.

Richard III biographer Paul Murray Kendall believes that the reason Edward was so harsh with his brother was that he had discovered from Bishop Robert Stillington of Bath and Wells that George had let slip the secret of Edward IV’s marriage precontract with Lady Eleanor Talbot, which would mean that Edward IV’s marriage with Elizabeth Woodville was null and void, making their children illegitimate. Although legend claims Richard III had brought about his brother’s death, the opposite may be true: he tried to prevent it.

* A bill of attainder (also known as an act of attainder or writ of attainder or bill of penalties) is an act of a legislature declaring a person or group of persons guilty of some crime and punishing them, often without a trial.

Abdication: What to Call a Former Monarch? Part III

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Abdication, Charles IV of France, Duke of Lancaster, Henry IV of England, House of Lancaster, John of Gaunt, King of England, Kingdom of England, Kingdom of France, Kings and Queens of England, Lord Appellant, Radcot Bridge, Richard II of England, Second Crisis, Tyranny

Second crisis of 1397–99

After having his Royal authority clipped Richard gradually worked to re-established royal authority in the months after the deliberations of the Merciless Parliament. The aggressive foreign policy toward France of the Lords Appellant failed when their efforts to form a wide, anti-French coalition came to nothing. Shorty thereafter the north of England fell victim to a Scottish incursion. In 1389 the king’s ncle, John of Gaunt, returned to England and settled his differences and made peace with the king, after which the old statesman acted as a moderating influence on English politics.

Richard was now over twenty-one years old and could with confidence claim the right to govern in his own name. Therefore, on May 3rd, King Richard II assumed full control of the government, claiming that the difficulties of the past years had been the result of listening to bad councillors. He outlined a foreign policy that reversed the actions of the Lords Appellant by seeking peace and reconciliation with France instead of war. Richard promised to lessen the burden of taxation on the people significantly. These decisions allowed Richard II to rule peacefully for the next eight years, the most tranquil part of his reign.

King Richard II of England

With national stability secured, Richard began negotiating a more permanent peace with France. A proposal put forward in 1393 that would have greatly expanded the territory of Aquitaine, possessed by the English crown, failed because it included a requirement that the English king pay homage to King Charles VI of France – a condition that proved unacceptable to the English public. Instead, in 1396, a 28 year truce was agreed to, wherein Richard agreed to marry Isabella, daughter of the King of France, when she came of age. There were some misgivings about the betrothal, in particular because the princess was then only six years old, and thus would not be able to produce an heir to the throne of England for many years.

Despite the peaceful years of Richard’s rule he had not forgotten or forgiven the indignities he perceived. In particular, the execution of his former teacher Sir Simon de Burley was an insult not easily forgotten. These resentments simmered within the king.

The period referred to as the “tyranny” of Richard II began towards the end of the 1390’s. The king had the Duke of Gloucester, the Earl’s of Arundel and Warwick arrested in July 1397. The timing of these arrests and Richard’s motivation are not entirely clear. Although one chronicle suggested that a plot was being planned against the king, yet there is no evidence that this was the case. The most likely scenario is that Richard had simply come to feel strong enough in his powers and position as king and to safely retaliate against these three men for their role in events of 1386–88 and eliminate them as threats to his power. In simpler terms it was time for the king’s revenge.

The Earl of Arundel was the first of the three to be brought to trial, at the parliament of September 1397. The Earl of Arundel and Richard II had a antagonistic relationship that began during the First Crisis.

In August 1387, the time known as the First Crisis, the King dismissed the Duke of Gloucester and the Earl of Arundel from the Council and replaced them with his favourites – including the Archbishop of York, Alexander Neville; the Duke of Ireland, Robert de Vere; Michael de la Pole; the Earl of Suffolk, Sir Robert Tresilian, who was the Chief Justice; and the former Mayor of LondonNicholas Bremb

Radcot Bridge

The King summoned Gloucester and Arundel to a meeting. However, instead of coming, they raised troops and defeated the new Councilors of the king at Radcot Bridge on December 22, 1387. During that battle, Gloucester and Arundel took the favourites prisoner. The next year, the Merciless Parliament condemned the favourites.

Arundel was one of the Lords Appellant who accused and condemned Richard II’s favorites. He made himself particularly odious to the King by refusing, along with Gloucester, to spare the life of Sir Simon de Burley who had been condemned by the Merciless Parliament. This was even after the queen, Anne of Bohemia, went down on her knees before them to beg for mercy. King Richard never forgave this humiliation and planned and waited for his moment of revenge.

By 1394, Arundel was again a member of the royal council, and was involved in a quarrel with John of Gaunt, in the parliament of that year. Arundel, further antagonized the King by arriving late for the queen’s funeral. Richard II, in a rage, snatched a wand and struck Arundel in the face and drew blood. Shortly after that, the King feigned a reconciliation but he was only biding his time for the right moment to strike.

Arundel was persuaded by his brother Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury, to surrender himself and to trust to the king’s clemency. On July 12, 1397, Richard FitzAlan, 10th Earl of Arundel was arrested for his opposition to Richard II as well as plotting with Gloucester to imprison the king. He stood trial at Westminster and was attainted. He was beheaded on September 21, 1397 and was buried in the church of the Augustin Friars, Bread Street, London.

Thomas of Woodstock (The Duke of Gloucester) was imprisoned in Calais to await trial for treason. During that time he was murdered, probably by a group of men led by Thomas de Mowbray, 1st Duke of Norfolk, and the knight Sir Nicholas Colfox, presumably on behalf of Richard II. This caused an outcry among the nobility of England that is considered by many to have added to Richard’s unpopularity.

Warwick was also condemned to death, but his life was spared and his sentence reduced to life imprisonment. Arundel’s brother Thomas Arundel, the Archbishop of Canterbury, was exiled for life. Richard then took his persecution of adversaries to the localities. While recruiting retainers for himself in various counties, he prosecuted local men who had been loyal to the appellants. The fines levied on these men brought great revenues to the crown, although contemporary chroniclers raised questions about the legality of the proceedings.

Despite the destruction of the Lords Appellant a threat to Richard’s authority still existed in the form of the House of Lancaster, represented by John of Gaunt and his son Henry Bolingbroke, Duke of Hereford. The House of Lancaster not only possessed greater wealth than any other family in England, they were of royal descent and, as such, likely candidates to succeed the childless Richard II.

John of Gaunt had been at the centre of English politics for over thirty years, and when he died on February 3, 1399 at the age of led to insecurity within the government. Rather than allowing Bolingbroke to succeed to his father’s title, Duke of Lancaster, Richard extended the term of his exile to life and confiscated all of John of Gaunt’s his properties. The king felt safe from Henry Bolingbroke, who was residing in Paris, since the French had little interest in any challenge to Richard and his peace policy. Richard II left the country in May for another expedition in Ireland.

In 1398 Richard summoned a packed Parliament to Shrewsbury—known as the Parliament of Shrewsbury—which declared all the acts of the Merciless Parliament to be null and void, and announced that no restraint could legally be put on the king. It delegated all parliamentary power to a committee of twelve lords and six commoners chosen from the king’s friends, making Richard an absolute ruler unbound by the necessity of gathering a Parliament again.

Overthrow and death

In June 1399, Louis, Duke of Orléans, gained control of the court of Charles VI of France who had become debilitated by his mental Illness. The policy of rapprochement with the English crown established by Richard II did not suit Louis’s political ambitions, and for this reason he found it opportune to allow Henry Bolingbroke to leave for England. With a small group of followers, Bolingbroke landed at Ravenspur in Yorkshire towards the end of June 1399.

Men from all over the country soon rallied around the duke. Meeting with Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, who had his own misgivings about the king, Bolingbroke insisted that his only object was to regain his own land and titles. Percy took him at his word and declined to interfere. The king had taken most of his household knights and the loyal members of his nobility with him to Ireland, so Henry experienced little resistance as he moved south. Edmund of Langley, Duke of York, who was acting as Keeper of the Realm, had little choice but to side with Bolingbroke. Meanwhile, Richard was delayed in his return from Ireland and did not land in Wales until July 24, 1399.

The king He his way to Conwy, where on August 12, he met with the Earl of Northumberland for negotiations. On August 19, Richard II surrendered to Henry at Flint Castle, promising to abdicate if his life were spared. Both men then returned to London, the indignant king riding all the way behind Henry. On arrival, he was imprisoned in the Tower of London on September 1, 1399.

King Henry IV of England

Henry was by now fully determined to take the throne, but presenting a rationale for this action proved a dilemma. It was argued that Richard, through his tyranny and misgovernment, had rendered himself unworthy of being king. However, Henry was not next in line to the throne; the heir presumptive was Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March, who was descended from Edward III’s third son, the second to survive to adulthood, Lionel of Antwerp. Bolingbroke’s father, John of Gaunt, was Edward’s fourth son, the third to survive to adulthood. The problem was solved by emphasising Henry’s descent in a direct male line, whereas the Earl of March’s descent was through his grandmother.

According to the official record (read by Thomas Arundel, archbishop of Canterbury, during an assembly of lords and commons at Westminster Hall on Tuesday September, 30, 1399), Richard gave up his crown willingly and ratified his deposition citing as a reason his own unworthiness as a monarch. On the other hand, the Traison et Mort Chronicle suggests otherwise. It describes a meeting between Richard and Henry that took place one day before the parliament’s session. The king succumbed to blind rage, ordered his release from the Tower, called his cousin a traitor, demanded to see his wife and swore revenge throwing down his bonnet, while the duke refused to do anything without parliamentary approval.

When parliament met to discuss Richard’s fate, the bishop of St Asaph read thirty-three articles of deposition that were unanimously accepted by lords and commons. On October 1, 1399, Richard II was formally deposed and on October 13, the feast day of Edward the Confessor, Henry Bolingbroke, Duke of Lancaster, was crowned Henry IV of England. Henry had previously agreed to let Richard live after his abdication.

Coat of Arms of King Henry IV of England

This all changed when it was revealed that the earls of Huntingdon, Kent and Salisbury and Lord Despenser, and possibly also the Earl of Rutland – all now demoted from the ranks they had been given by Richard – were planning to murder the new king and restore Richard in the Epiphany Rising. Although averted, the plot highlighted the danger of allowing Richard to live. He is thought to have starved to death in captivity on or around February 14, 1400, although there is some question over the date and manner of his death. His body was taken south from Pontefract and displayed in the old St Paul’s Cathedral on February 17, before burial in King’s Langley Priory on March 6, 1400.

King Richard II of England did not live long after his abdication. Although he was removed from the throne he did retain his title of King of England.

Royal Standard of King Henry IV of England

Henry VI, King of England & Lord of Ireland is deposed. March 4, 1461.

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Charles VI of Frances, Duke of York, Earl of Warwick, Edward IV of England, Henry V of England, House of Lancaster, House of York, King Henry VI of England, Kings and Queens of England, Lords of Ireland, Plantagenet, Wars of the Roses

Henry VI (December 6, 1421 – May 21, 1471) was King of England and Lord of Ireland from 1422 to 1461 and again from 1470 to 1471, and disputed King of France from 1422 to 1453. The only child of Henry V and Catherine of Valois, (daughter of Charles VI of France and younger sister of Isabella of Valois the widow of Richard II). Henry VI succeeded to the English throne at the age of nine months upon his father’s death, on August 31, 1422; he was the youngest person ever to succeed to the English throne. A few weeks later on October 21, 1422 in accordance with the Treaty of Troyes of 1420, he became titular King of France upon his grandfather Charles VI’s death. His mother, Catherine of Valois, was then 20 years old. As Charles VI’s daughter, she was viewed with considerable suspicion by English nobles and was prevented from playing a full role in her son’s upbringing.and succeeded to the French throne on the death of his maternal grandfather Charles VI shortly afterwards. The subject of Henry VI’s claim to the French throne is a topic for another blog entry.

Henry VI inherited the long-running Hundred Years’ War (1337–1453), in which Charles VII of the House of Valois who contested his claim to the French throne. The early reign of Henry VI, during which several people were ruling for him, saw the height of English power in France, but subsequent military failures, the desertion of England’s allies, and a faltering economy resulted in the decline of English fortunes in the war. Upon assuming personal rule in 1437, Henry VI found his realm in a difficult position, faced with diplomatic and military reverses in France and divisions among the nobility at home.

In the later years of Henry’s reign, the monarchy became increasingly unpopular, due to a breakdown in law and order, corruption, the distribution of royal land to the king’s court favourites, the troubled state of the crown’s finances, and the steady loss of territories in France.

In the midst of military catastrophes in France and of a general breakdown in law and order in England, the king’s cousin Richard, Duke of York, led an increasingly popular league of disaffected elements aiming to reform the government. He challenged the authority of the unpopular queen Margaret (widely held to be the real hand behind Henry VI’s decisions) and of the king’s clique of councillors, accusing them of misconducting the war in France and misruling the country.

Upon reaching his 21st year in 1442, and thus the legal age of majority, Henry VI saw the question of his marriage gain importance in English politics. The heir presumptive at the time, the King’s uncle Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, (the fourth and youngest son of Henry IV, King of England and his first wife Mary de Bohun, the brother of King Henry V, and the uncle of Henry VI) saw his public image become severely damaged after his wife Eleanor Cobham was arrested and tried under charges of witchcraft in 1441. This scandal seems to have highlighted the need for Henry VI to produce heirs of his own, and public focus began to place itself on the King and potential marriage plans.

The first major proposal was to marry the King to a daughter of John IV, Count of Armagnac, a powerful noble in southwestern France who had been at odds with the Valois crown for a while, and whose lands were located very closely to the English territories in Guyenne. Already on good terms with the English since 1437, Armagnac would benefit from a strong alliance which would protect him from threats by Charles VII, while the English could use his lands as a defensive buffer zone against French attacks. The English took long to make a final decision, however, and when Charles VII invaded Gascony in 1442, the frightened Count of Armagnac seemed to change his mind. The prospect for the marriage and alliance was destroyed when Armagnac’s lands were invaded by Charles VII’s forces in 1443.

Cardinal Beaufort and the Earl of Suffolk persuaded the king that the best way of pursuing peace with France was through a marriage with Margaret of Anjou, the niece of King Charles VII. Henry agreed, especially when he heard reports of Margaret’s stunning beauty, and sent Suffolk to negotiate with Charles, who agreed to the marriage on condition that he would not have to provide the customary dowry and instead would receive the land of Maine from the English. These conditions were agreed to in the Treaty of Tours in 1444, but the cession of Maine was kept secret from parliament, as it was known that this would be hugely unpopular with the English populace. The marriage took place at Titchfield Abbey on April 23, 1445, one month after Margaret’s 15th birthday.

After the death of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester on February 23, 1447, Richard, Duke of York, became the heir presumptive to King Henry VI until the birth of Henry’s son Edward in 1453. In 1449, the Duke of Somerset, leading the campaign in France, reopened hostilities in Normandy (him having been one of the main advocates for peace), but by the autumn had been pushed back to Caen. By 1450, the French had retaken the whole province, so hard won by Henry V.

In 1451, the Duchy of Aquitaine, held since Henry II’s time, was also lost. In 1452, the Duke of York was persuaded to return from Ireland, claim his rightful place on the council and put an end to bad government. His cause was a popular one and he soon raised an army at Shrewsbury. The court party, meanwhile, raised their own similar-sized force in London. A stand-off took place south of London, with York presenting a list of grievances and demands to the court circle, including the arrest of Edmund Beaufort, 2nd Duke of Somerset. The king initially agreed, but Margaret intervened to prevent the arrest of Beaufort.

In October 1452, an English advance in Aquitaine retook Bordeaux and was having some success but by 1453, Bordeaux was lost again, leaving Calais as England’s only remaining territory on the continent. However, on hearing of the final loss of Bordeaux in August 1453, Henry experienced a mental breakdown and became completely unresponsive to everything that was going on around him for more than a year. (Henry may have been suffering from a form of schizophrenia, according to modern experts, as he reportedly demonstrated other symptoms of schizophrenia, especially hallucinations.) He even failed to respond to the birth of a son and heir, who was christened Edward. Henry may have inherited a psychiatric condition from Charles VI of France, his maternal grandfather, who was affected by intermittent periods of insanity during the last thirty years of his life.

The Duke of York, meanwhile, had gained a very important ally, Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, one of the most influential magnates and possibly richer than York himself. On Christmas Day 1454, King Henry VI regained his senses. Disaffected nobles who had grown in power during Henry’s reign, most importantly the Earls of Warwick and Salisbury, took matters into their own hands. They backed the claims of the rival House of York, first to the control of government, and then to the throne itself (from 1460), due to York’s better descent from Edward III. It was agreed that the Duke of York would formally become Henry’s successor, despite York being older.

York was also named regent as Protector of the Realm in 1454. The queen was excluded completely, and Edmund Beaufort was detained in the Tower of London, while many of York’s supporters spread rumours that Edward was not the king’s son, but Beaufort’s. Other than that, York’s months as regent were spent tackling the problem of government overspending.

Edward of York, eldest son of Richard, Duke of York, carried on a factional struggle with the king’s Beaufort relatives. He established a dominant position after his victory at the First Battle of St Albans in 1455, in which his chief rival Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, was killed. However, Henry’s Queen, Margaret of Anjou, rebuilt a powerful faction to oppose the Yorkists over the following years. In 1459 Margaret moved against the Duke of York and his principal supporters—his brother-in-law Richard Neville, Earl of Salisbury, and Salisbury’s son Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, who rose in revolt.

The Yorkist leaders fled from England after the collapse of their army in the confrontation at Ludford Bridge. The Duke of York took refuge in Ireland, while Edward went with the Nevilles to Calais where Warwick was governor. In 1460 Edward landed in Kent with Salisbury, Warwick and Salisbury’s brother William Neville, Lord Fauconberg, raised an army, and occupied London. Edward, Warwick and Fauconberg left Salisbury besieging the Tower of London and advanced against the king, who was with an army in the Midlands, and defeated and captured him in the Battle of Northampton. York returned to England and was declared the king’s heir by parliament (in the Act of Accord), but Queen Margaret raised a fresh army against him, and Richard, Duke of York was killed at the Battle of Wakefield on December 30, 1460, along with his second surviving son Edmund, Earl of Rutland, and the Earl of Salisbury.

This left Edward, now Duke of York, at the head of the Yorkist faction. He defeated a Lancastrian army at Mortimer’s Cross in Herefordshire on February 2-3, 1461. He then united his forces with those of Warwick, whom Margaret’s army had defeated at the Second Battle of St Albans (February 17, 1461), during which Henry VI had been rescued by his supporters. By this point, however, Henry VI was suffering such a bout of madness that he was apparently laughing and singing while the battle raged.

Richard, Duke of York, had restricted his ambitions to only becoming Henry’s heir, but Edward now took the more radical step of proclaiming himself king on March 4, 1461. He then advanced against the Lancastrians, having his life saved on the battlefield by the Welsh Knight Sir David Ap Mathew. He defeated the Lancastrian army in the exceptionally bloody Battle of Towton in Yorkshire on 29 March 1461. Edward IV had effectively broken the military strength of the Lancastrians, and he returned to London for his coronation. King Edward IV named Sir David Ap Mathew Standard Bearer of England and allowed him to use “Towton” on the Mathew family crest.

Edward IV failed to capture Henry and his queen, who fled to Scotland. During the first period of Edward IV’s reign, Lancastrian resistance continued mainly under the leadership of Queen Margaret and the few nobles still loyal to her in the northern counties of England and Wales. Henry VI, who had been safely hidden by Lancastrian allies in Scotland, Northumberland and Yorkshire, was captured by King Edward in 1465 and subsequently held captive in the Tower of London.

Death of George, Duke of Clarence. February 18, 1478.

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Duke of Clarence, Earl of Warwick, Edward IV of England, George Plantagenet, House of Anjou, House of Lancaster, House of Plantagenet, House of York, Kings and Queens of England, Richard III of England, Wars of the Roses

On this day date in History: February 18, 1478, the execution of George, 1st Duke of Clarence in the Bowyer Tower of the Tower of London. The Duke of Clarence was executed for treason on the orders of his brother Edward IV. He was 28 years old. Tradition states that George was executed by being drowned in a barrel of Malmsey wine – a method of execution chose by George himself. Both his surviving children – Edward Earl of Warwick, and Lady Margaret Pole – were later executed by the Tudors.

George Plantagenet, 1st Duke of Clarence, 1st Earl of Salisbury, 1st Earl of Warwick KG (October 21, 1449 – February 18, 1478) was the third surviving 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 (House of Anjou) known as the Wars of the Roses. Though a member of the House of York (a cadet branch of the House of Anjou Plantagenet) he switched sides to support the Lancastrians, (House of Lancaster) before reverting to the Yorkists.

In 1477 Clarence was again a suitor for the hand of Mary, who had just become duchess of Burgundy. Edward 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 Dr 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. He 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 Dr 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 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 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, he was “privately executed” at the Tower on 18 February 1478, by tradition in the Bowyer Tower, and soon after the event, the rumour gained ground that he had been drowned in a butt of Malmsey wine.

Clarence married his wife Isabel Neville in Calais, at that time controlled by England, on July 11, 1469. Together they had four children:

* Anne of York (c. 17 April 1470), born and died in a ship off Calais.
* Margaret, 8th Countess of Salisbury (August 14, 1473 – May 27, 1541); married Sir Richard Pole; executed by Henry VIII.
* Edward Plantagenet, 17th Earl of Warwick (February 25, 1475 – November 28, 1499); the last legitimate Plantagenet heir of the direct male line; executed by Henry VII on grounds of attempting to escape from the Tower of London.
* Richard of York (October 6, 1476 – January 1, 1477); born at Tewkesbury Abbey, Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire; died at Warwick Castle, Warwick, Warwickshire, where he was buried.