St. Edward’s Crown Removed From The Tower of London For Modifications.

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coronation, Imperial State Crown., King Charles III of the United Kingdom, St. Edward's Crown, Tower of London

Buckingham Palace: St Edward’s Crown, the historic centrepiece of the Crown Jewels, has been removed from the Tower of London to allow for modification work to begin ahead of the Coronation on Saturday 6th May 2023.

I was wondering if King Charles III would use the St. Edward’s Crown. I had been thinking it was too large. I had forgotten that it could be modified just like the Imperial State Crown!

Modification of the Imperial State Crown: The arches were lowered for Queen Elizabeth II

June 26, 1483: The Duke of Gloucester is Proclaimed Richard III, King of England and Lord of Ireland

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2nd Duke of Buckingham, Anthony Woodville, Bishop Robert Stillington, Earl Rivers, Edward IV of England and Lord of Ireland, Edward V of England, Eleanor Butler, Elizabeth Woodville, Henry Stafford, Princes in the Tower, Richard Grey, Richard III of England and Lord of Ireland, Richard of York, Tower of London

Richard III (October 2, 1452 – August 22, 1485) was King of England and Lord of Ireland from June 26, 1483 until his death on August 22, 1485. He was the last king of the House of York and the last of the Plantagenet dynasty. His defeat and death at the Battle of Bosworth Field, the last decisive battle of the Wars of the Roses, marked the end of the Middle Ages in England.

Richard was born on October 2, 1452, at Fotheringhay Castle in Northamptonshire, the eleventh of the twelve children of Richard, 3rd Duke of York, and Cecily Neville, and the youngest to survive infancy.

His childhood coincided with the beginning of what has traditionally been labelled the ‘Wars of the Roses’, a period of political instability and periodic open civil war in England during the second half of the fifteenth century, between the House of York, who supported Richard’s father (a potential claimant to the throne of King Henry VI from birth), and opposed the regime of Henry VI and his wife, Margaret of Anjou, and the House of Lancaster, who were loyal to the crown.

In 1459, his father and the Yorkists were forced to flee England, whereupon Richard and his older brother George were placed in the custody of their aunt Anne Neville, Duchess of Buckingham, and possibly of Cardinal Thomas Bourchier, Archbishop of Canterbury.

Richard was created Duke of Gloucester in 1461 after the accession of his brother King Edward IV. In 1472, he married Anne Neville, daughter of Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick (The King Maker). He governed northern England during Edward’s reign, and played a role in the invasion of Scotland in 1482.

Lord Protector

On the death of Edward IV on April 9, 1483, his 12-year-old son succeeded him as King Edward V. Richard was named Lord Protector of the Realm and at Baron Hastings’ urging, Richard assumed his role and left his base in Yorkshire for London.

On April 29 as previously agreed, Richard and his cousin, Henry Stafford, 2nd Duke of Buckingham, met Queen Elizabeth’s brother, Anthony Woodville, Earl Rivers, at Northampton.

At the queen’s request, Earl Rivers was escorting the young king to London with an armed escort of 2000 men, while Richard and Buckingham’s joint escort was 600 men. Edward V himself had been sent further south to Stony Stratford.

At first convivial, Richard had Earl Rivers, his nephew Richard Grey and his associate, Thomas Vaughan, arrested. They were taken to Pontefract Castle, where they were executed on June 25 on the charge of treason against the Lord Protector after appearing before a tribunal led by Henry Percy, 4th Earl of Northumberland. Rivers had appointed Richard as executor of his will.

After having Rivers arrested, Richard and Buckingham moved to Stony Stratford, where Richard informed Edward V of a plot aimed at denying him his role as protector and whose perpetrators had been dealt with.

Richard proceeded to escort the king to London. They entered the city on May 4, displaying the carriages of weapons Rivers had taken with his 2000-man army. Richard first accommodated Edward in the Bishop’s apartments; then, on Buckingham’s suggestion, the king was moved to the royal apartments of the Tower of London, where kings customarily awaited their coronation.

Within the year 1483, Richard had moved himself to the grandeur of Crosby Hall, London, then in Bishopsgate in the City of London. Robert Fabyan, in his ‘The new chronicles of England and of France’, writes that “the Duke caused the King (Edward V) to be removed unto the Tower and his broder with hym, and the Duke lodged himselfe in Crosbyes Place in Bisshoppesgate Strete.”

In Holinshed’s Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland, he accounts that “little by little all folke withdrew from the Tower, and drew unto Crosbies in Bishops gates Street, where the Protector kept his houshold. The Protector had the resort; the King in maner desolate.”

On hearing the news of her brother’s April 30 arrest, the dowager Queen Elizabeth fled to sanctuary in Westminster Abbey. Joining her were her son by her first marriage, Thomas Grey, 1st Marquess of Dorset; her five daughters; and her youngest son, Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York.

On 10/11 June, Richard wrote to Ralph, Lord Neville, the City of York and others asking for their support against “the Queen, her blood adherents and affinity,” whom he suspected of plotting his murder. At a council meeting on Friday June 13, at the Tower of London, Richard accused Hastings and others of having conspired against him with the Woodvilles and accusing Jane Shore, lover to both Hastings and Thomas Grey, of acting as a go-between.

According to Thomas More, Hastings was taken out of the council chambers and summarily executed in the courtyard, while others, like Lord Thomas Stanley and John Morton, Bishop of Ely, were arrested. Hastings was not attainted and Richard sealed an indenture that placed Hastings’ widow, Katherine, directly under his own protection.

Bishop Morton was released into the custody of Buckingham. On June 16, the dowager Queen Elizabeth agreed to hand over the Duke of York to the Archbishop of Canterbury so that he might attend his brother Edward’s coronation, still planned for June 22.

King of England

A clergyman (Bishop Robert Stillington) is said to have informed Richard that Edward IV’s marriage to Elizabeth Woodville was invalid because of Edward’s earlier union with Eleanor Butler, making Edward V and his siblings illegitimate.

The identity of the informant, known only through the memoirs of French diplomat Philippe de Commines, was Robert Stillington, the Bishop of Bath and Wells.

On Sunday June 22, a sermon was preached outside Old St. Paul’s Cathedral by Ralph Shaa, declaring Edward IV’s children bastards and Richard the rightful king.

Shortly after, the citizens of London, both nobles and commons, convened and drew up a petition asking Richard to assume the throne. Richard accepted on 26 June 26 and was crowned at Westminster Abbey on 6 July 6. His title to the throne was confirmed by Parliament in January 1484 by the document Titulus Regius.

The princes, who were still lodged in the royal residence of the Tower of London at the time of Richard’s coronation, disappeared from sight after the summer of 1483.

Although after his death Richard III was accused of having Edward and his brother killed, notably by More and in Shakespeare’s play, the facts surrounding their disappearance remain unknown. Other culprits have been suggested, including the Duke of Buckingham and even Henry VII, although Richard remains a suspect.

After the coronation ceremony, Richard III and Anne set out on a royal progress to meet their subjects. During this journey through the country, the king and queen endowed King’s College and Queens’ College at Cambridge University, and made grants to the church.

Still feeling a strong bond with his northern estates, Richard later planned the establishment of a large chantry chapel in York Minster with over 100 priests. He also founded the College of Arms.

Lady Margaret Beaufort. Part III

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Anne Neville, Earl of Richmond, Edward V of England, Henry Tudor, Lady Margaret Beaufort, Princes in the Tower, Richard III of England, Tower of London

Following Edward IV’s death in April 1483 and the seizure of the throne in June by Richard, Duke of Gloucester from Edward V, Margaret was soon back at court serving the new queen, Anne Neville. Margaret carried Anne’s train at the coronation. Seeking her son’s return to England, Margaret appears to have negotiated with Richard.

Despite what these negotiations may suggest, Lady Margaret is known to have conspired with Elizabeth Woodville, mother of the two York princes whom Richard confined to the Tower of London, after rumours spread of the boys’ murder. It was at this point, according to Polydore Vergil, that Beaufort “began to hope well of her son’s fortune”.

Beaufort is believed to have initiated discussions with Woodville, via mutual physician, Lewis Caerleon, who conveyed secret correspondences between the two women. Together they conspired to supplant King Richard and by joint force replace him with Margaret’s son, Henry Tudor. Their solidified alliance further secured the subsequent dynasty by the agreed betrothal of Henry to Elizabeth of York. They hoped this proposal would attract both Yorkist and Lancastrian support.

As to the fate of the princes, it is widely held that Richard III ordered the death of his two nephews to secure his own reign. Gristwood, however, suggests that another was responsible; Henry Tudor’s path to the throne was certainly expedited by their disappearance, perhaps motive enough for his mother—his “highly able and totally committed representative”— to give the order.

Despite this suggestion, no contemporary sources corroborate the implication, whilst most contemporary accounts outline “her outstanding qualities, her courage, presence of mind, family loyalty, and a deeply felt awareness of the spiritual responsibilities of high office,” as clarified by Jones and Underwood. Before Jones and Underwood, there was no consensus within the scholarly community regarding Margaret’s role or character: historiographical opinions ranged from celebrating her to demonizing her.

It was not until the 17th century that religious retrospective speculations began to criticize Lady Margaret, but even then only as a “politic and contriving woman,” and never anything beyond shrewd or calculating. All things considered, the words of her own contemporaries, such as Tudor historian Polydore Vergil, continue to extol Lady Margaret’s noble virtues as “the most pious woman,” further removing her from accusations of wickedness.

Erasmus, in writing about his friend the Bishop, Saint John Fisher, praised Margaret’s support of religious institutions and the Bishop, further attesting the simultaneously pragmatic and charitable nature testified in the funerary sermon dedicated by the Bishop himself, as laid out in a following section.

In 1483 Margaret was certainly involved in—if not the mastermind behind—Buckingham’s rebellion. Indeed, in his biography of Richard III, historian Paul Murray Kendall describes Beaufort as the “Athena of the rebellion”. Perhaps with duplicitous motives (as he may have been desirous of the crown for himself), Buckingham conspired with Beaufort and Woodville to dethrone Richard. Margaret’s son was to sail from Brittany to join forces with him, but he arrived too late.

In October, Beaufort’s scheme proved unsuccessful; the Duke was executed and Tudor was forced back across the English Channel. Beaufort appears to have played a large role in financing the insurrection. In response to her betrayal, Richard passed an act of Parliament stripping Margaret of all her titles and estates, declaring her guilty of the following:

“Forasmoch as Margaret Countesse of Richmond, Mother to the Kyngs greate Rebell and Traytour, Herry Erle of Richemond, hath of late conspired, consedered, and comitted high Treason ayenst oure Soveraigne Lorde the King Richard the Third, in dyvers and sundry wyses, and in especiall in sendyng messages, writyngs and tokens to the said Henry… Also the said Countesse made chevisancez of greate somes of Money… and also the said Countesse conspired, consedered, and imagyned the destruction of oure said Soveraign Lorde…”

Richard did, however, stop short of a full attainder by transferring Margaret’s property to her husband, Lord Stanley. He also effectively imprisoned Margaret in her husband’s home with the hope of preventing any further correspondence with her son. However, her husband failed to stop Margaret’s continued communication with her son. When the time came for Henry to press his claim, he relied heavily on his mother to raise support for him in England.

William I, The Conqueror as King of the English. Part I.

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English Nobles, Matilda of Flanders, Norman Conquest of England, Tower of London, William II of Normandy, William the Conqueror

Those interested in European Royalty and its history know the story of how William II, Duke of Normandy became King of the English in 1066. In this short series I will instead examine what type of King William the Conqueror was and how he ran his administration.

The Norman conquest of England began in 1066 after William II, Duke of Normandy conquered England to capture the throne he believed was rightfully his. And although William was crowned King of the English on Christmas day in 1066 his subduing and conquest of England was not completed until 1071. English nobles and the populace in general did not easily and willingly submit to Norman rule.

As part of his efforts to secure England, William ordered many castles, keeps, and mottes built – among them the central keep of the Tower of London, the White Tower. These fortifications allowed Normans to retreat into safety when threatened with rebellion and allowed garrisons to be protected while they occupied the countryside. The early castles were simple earth and timber constructions, later replaced with stone structures.

At first, most of the newly settled Normans kept household knights and did not settle their retainers with fiefs of their own, but gradually these household knights came to be granted lands of their own, a process known as subinfeudation. William also required his newly created magnates to contribute fixed quotas of knights towards not only military campaigns but also castle garrisons. This method of organising the military forces was a departure from the pre-Conquest English practice of basing military service on territorial units such as the hide.

By William’s death, after weathering a series of rebellions, most of the native Anglo-Saxon aristocracy had been replaced by Norman and other continental magnates. Not all of the Normans who accompanied William in the initial conquest acquired large amounts of land in England. Some appear to have been reluctant to take up lands in a kingdom that did not always appear pacified.

Although some of the newly rich Normans in England came from William’s close family or from the upper Norman nobility, others were from relatively humble backgrounds. William granted some lands to his continental followers from the holdings of one or more specific Englishmen; at other times, he granted a compact grouping of lands previously held by many different Englishmen to one Norman follower, often to allow for the consolidation of lands around a strategically placed castle.

The medieval chronicler William of Malmesbury says that the king also seized and depopulated many miles of land (36 parishes), turning it into the royal New Forest region to support his enthusiastic enjoyment of hunting. Modern historians have come to the conclusion that the New Forest depopulation was greatly exaggerated.

Most of the lands of the New Forest are poor agricultural lands, and archaeological and geographic studies have shown that it was likely sparsely settled when it was turned into a royal forest. William was known for his love of hunting, and he introduced the forest law into areas of the country, regulating who could hunt and what could be hunted.

Before I do a deep dive into William’s Administration I’d like to give some background on William’s wife who played a large role in his life.

William was married to Matilda, or Maud, who was the daughter of Baudouin V, Count of Flanders, and Adela, herself daughter of King Robert II of the Franks.

When William was preparing to invade England, Matilda outfitted a ship, the Mora, out of her own funds and gave it to him. Additionally, William gave Normandy to his wife to rule during his absence. Matilda successfully guided the duchy through this period in the name of her fourteen-year-old son; Robert, and no major uprisings or unrest occurred.

Even after William conquered England and became its king, it took her more than a year to visit the kingdom. Matilda was crowned queen on May 11, 1068 in Westminster during the feast of Pentecost, in a ceremony presided over by the archbishop of York. Three new phrases were incorporated to cement the importance of queens, stating that they were divinely placed by God, shared in royal power, and blessed her people by her power and virtue.

Despite having been crowned queen, she spent most of her time in Normandy, governing the duchy, supporting her brother’s interests in Flanders, and sponsoring ecclesiastic houses there. Only one of her children was born in England; Henry was born in Yorkshire when Matilda accompanied her husband in the Harrying of the North.

For many years it was thought that she had some involvement in the creation of the Bayeux Tapestry (commonly called La Tapisserie de la Reine Mathilde in French), but historians no longer believe that; it seems to have been commissioned by William’s half-brother Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, and made by English artists in Kent.

Matilda and William had nine or ten children together. He was believed to have been faithful to her and never produced a child outside their marriage. There is no evidence of any illegitimate children born to William.

May 2, 1536: Arrest of Anne Boleyn, Queen of England.

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1st Earl of Essex, Adultery, Anne Boleyn, Archbishop of Canterbury, George Boleyn, Incest, King Henry VIII of England, Mark Smeaton, Thomas Cranmer, Thomas Cromwell, Tower of London, Traitors' Gate

Anne Boleyn (c. 1501 – May 19, 1536) was Queen of England from 1533 to 1536 as the second wife of King Henry VIII. Their marriage, and her execution for treason and other charges by beheading, made her a key figure in the political and religious upheaval that marked the start of the English Reformation.

Anne was the daughter of Thomas Boleyn, 1st Earl of Wiltshire, and his wife, Lady Elizabeth Howard, and was educated in the Netherlands and France, largely as a maid of honour to Queen Claude of France. Anne returned to England in early 1522, to marry her Irish cousin James Butler, 9th Earl of Ormond; the marriage plans were broken off, and instead she secured a post at court as maid of honour to Henry VIII’s wife, Catherine of Aragon.

Anne, Queen Consort of England

Henry VIII and Anne formally married on January 25, 1533, after a secret wedding on November 14, 1532. On May 23, 1533, newly appointed Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer declared Henry and Catherine’s marriage null and void; five days later, he declared Henry and Anne’s marriage valid. Shortly afterwards, Pope Clement VII decreed sentences of excommunication against Henry and Cranmer.

As a result of this marriage and these excommunications, the first break between the Church of England and Rome took place, and the King took control of the Church of England. Anne was crowned Queen of England on June 1, 1533. On September 7, she gave birth to the future Queen Elizabeth I. Henry was disappointed to have a daughter rather than a son but hoped a son would follow and professed to love Elizabeth. Anne subsequently had three miscarriages and, by March 1536, Henry was courting Jane Seymour. In order to marry Seymour, Henry had to find reasons to end the marriage to Anne.

Henry VIII, King of England

Given Henry’s desperate desire for a son, the sequence of Anne’s pregnancies has attracted much interest. Author Mike Ashley speculated that Anne had two stillborn children after Elizabeth’s birth and before the male child she miscarried in 1536. Most sources attest only to the birth of Elizabeth in September 1533, a possible miscarriage in the summer of 1534, and the miscarriage of a male child, of almost four months gestation, in January 1536. As Anne recovered from her miscarriage, Henry declared that he had been seduced into the marriage by means of “sortilege”—a French term indicating either “deception” or “spells”. His new mistress, Jane Seymour, was quickly moved into royal quarters. This was followed by Anne’s brother George being refused a prestigious court honour, the Order of the Garter, given instead to Sir Nicholas Carew.

Anne’s biographer Eric Ives (and most other historians) believe that her fall and execution were primarily engineered by her former ally Thomas Cromwell. The conversations between Chapuys and Cromwell thereafter indicate Cromwell as the instigator of the plot to remove Anne; evidence of this is seen in the Spanish Chronicle and through letters written from Chapuys to Holy Roman Emperor Charles V.

Thomas Cromwell, 1st Earl of Essex

Anne argued with Cromwell over the redistribution of Church revenues and over foreign policy. She advocated that revenues be distributed to charitable and educational institutions; and she favoured a French alliance. Cromwell insisted on filling the King’s depleted coffers, while taking a cut for himself, and preferred an imperial alliance. For these reasons, Ives suggests, “Anne Boleyn had become a major threat to Thomas Cromwell.”

Cromwell’s biographer John Schofield, on the other hand, contends that no power struggle existed between Anne and Cromwell and that “not a trace can be found of a Cromwellian conspiracy against Anne… Cromwell became involved in the royal marital drama only when Henry ordered him onto the case.” Cromwell did not manufacture the accusations of adultery, though he and other officials used them to bolster Henry’s case against Anne. Historian Retha Warnicke questions whether Cromwell could have or wished to manipulate the king in such a matter. Such a bold attempt by Cromwell, given the limited evidence, could have risked his office, even his life.

Regardless of the role Cromwell played in Anne Boleyn’s fall, and his confessed animosity to her, Chapuys’s letter states that Cromwell claimed that he was acting with the King’s authority. Most historians, however, are convinced that her fall and execution were engineered by Cromwell.

Jane Seymour, Queen Consort of England

Henry himself issued the crucial instructions: his officials, including Cromwell, carried them out. The result was by modern standards a legal travesty, however the rules of the time were not bent in order to assure a conviction; there was no need to tamper with rules that guaranteed the desired result since law at the time was an engine of state, not a mechanism for justice.

Towards the end of April a Flemish musician in Anne’s service named Mark Smeaton was arrested. He initially denied being the Queen’s lover but later confessed, perhaps tortured or promised freedom. Another courtier, Sir Henry Norris, was arrested on May Day, but being an aristocrat, could not be tortured. Prior to his arrest, Norris was treated kindly by the King, who offered him his own horse to use on the May Day festivities. It seems likely that during the festivities, the King was notified of Smeaton’s confession and it was shortly thereafter the alleged conspirators were arrested upon his orders.

Norris denied his guilt and swore that Queen Anne was innocent; one of the most damaging pieces of evidence against Norris was an overheard conversation with Anne at the end of April, where she accused him of coming often to her chambers not to pay court to her lady-in-waiting Madge Shelton but to herself. Sir Francis Weston was arrested two days later on the same charge, as was Sir William Brereton, a groom of the King’s Privy Chamber.

Sir Thomas Wyatt, a poet and friend of the Boleyns who was allegedly infatuated with her before her marriage to the king, was also imprisoned for the same charge but later released, most likely due to his or his family’s friendship with Cromwell. Sir Richard Page was also accused of having a sexual relationship with the Queen, but he was acquitted of all charges after further investigation could not implicate him with Anne. The final accused was Queen Anne’s own brother, George Boleyn, arrested on charges of incest and treason. He was accused of two incidents of incest: November 1535 at Whitehall and the following month at Eltham.

On May 2, 1536, Anne was arrested and taken to the Tower of London by barge. It is likely that Anne may have entered through the Court Gate in the Byward Tower rather than the Traitors’ Gate, according to historian and author of The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn, Eric Ives. In the Tower, she collapsed, demanding to know the location of her father and “swete broder”, as well as the charges against her.

Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury

On the very next day, Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, wrote a letter to the king expressing his doubts about the queen’s guilt, highlighting his own esteem for Anne. After it was delivered, Cranmer was resigned to the fact that the end of Anne’s marriage was inevitable.

Four of the accused men were tried in Westminster on May 12, 1536. Weston, Brereton, and Norris publicly maintained their innocence and only the tortured Smeaton supported the Crown by pleading guilty. Three days later, Anne and George Boleyn were tried separately in the Tower of London, before a jury of 27 peers. She was accused of adultery, incest, and high treason.

By the Treason Act of Edward III, adultery on the part of a queen was a form of treason (because of the implications for the succession to the throne) for which the penalty was hanging, drawing and quartering for a man and burning alive for a woman, but the accusations, and especially that of incestuous adultery, were also designed to impugn her moral character. The other form of treason alleged against her was that of plotting the king’s death, with her “lovers”, so that she might later marry Henry Norris.

Anne’s one-time betrothed, Henry Percy, 6th Earl of Northumberland, sat on the jury that unanimously found Anne guilty. When the verdict was announced, he collapsed and had to be carried from the courtroom. He died childless eight months later and was succeeded by his nephew.

On May 16, Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Archbishop of Canterbury saw Anne in the Tower and heard her confession and the following day, he pronounced the marriage null and void.

February 19, 1594: birth of Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales

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Calvanism, Charles Stuart, Henry Frederick Prince of Wales, Henry IX of England, James VI-I of Scotland and England, Sir Walter Raleigh, Tower of London

Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales (February 19, 1594 – November 6, 1612)was the eldest son of James VI and I, King of England and Scotland, and his wife Anne of Denmark. His name derives from his grandfathers: Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley and King Frederik II of Denmark. Prince Henry was widely seen as a bright and promising heir to his father’s thrones. However, at the age of 18, he predeceased his father when he died of typhoid fever. His younger brother Charles succeeded him as heir apparent to the English, Irish and Scottish thrones.

Henry was born at Stirling Castle, and since his father James VI was the reigning King of Scotland the new born prince and heir became Duke of Rothesay, Earl of Carrick, Baron of Renfrew, Lord of the Isles and Prince and Great Steward of Scotland automatically on his birth. Henry’s baptism on August 30, 1594 was celebrated with complex theatrical entertainments written by poet William Fowler and a ceremony in a new Chapel Royal at Stirling purpose-built by William Schaw.

With his father’s accession to the throne of England in 1603, Henry at once became Duke of Cornwall. In 1610 he was further invested as Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester, thus for the first time uniting the six automatic and two traditional Scottish and English titles held by heirs-apparent to the two thrones. The ceremony of investiture was celebrated with a pageant London’s Love to Prince Henry, and a masque Tethys’ Festival during which his mother gave a sword encrusted with diamonds, intended to represent justice.

He also disapproved of the way his father conducted the royal court, disliked Robert Carr, a favourite of his father, and esteemed Sir Walter Raleigh, wishing him to be released from the Tower of London.

The prince’s popularity rose so high that it threatened his father. Relations between the two could be tense, and on occasion surfaced in public. At one point, the two were hunting near Royston when James criticised his son for lacking enthusiasm for the chase, and Henry initially moved to strike his father with a cane, but rode off. Most of the hunting party then followed the son.

“Upright to the point of priggishness, he fined all who swore in his presence”, according to Charles Carlton, a biographer of Charles I, who describes Henry as an “obdurate Protestant”. In addition to the alms box to which Henry forced swearers to contribute, he made sure his household attended church services. His religious views were influenced by the clerics in his household, who came largely from a tradition of politicised Calvinism.

Henry is said to have disliked his younger brother, Charles, and to have teased him, although this derives from only one anecdote: when Charles was nine years of age, Henry snatched the hat off a bishop and put it on the younger child’s head, then told his younger brother that when he became king he would make Charles Archbishop of Canterbury, and then Charles would have a long robe to hide his ugly rickety legs. Charles stamped on the cap and had to be dragged off in tears.

Henry died from typhoid fever at the age of 18, during the celebrations that led up to his sister Elizabeth’s wedding. (The diagnosis can be made with reasonable certainty from written records of the post-mortem examination, which was ordered to be carried out in order to dispel rumours of poisoning.) He was buried in Westminster Abbey.

Prince Henry’s death was widely regarded as a tragedy for the nation. According to Charles Carlton, “Few heirs to the English throne have been as widely and deeply mourned as Prince Henry.” His body lay in state at St. James’s Palace for four weeks. On 7 December, over a thousand people walked in the mile-long cortège to Westminster Abbey to hear a two-hour sermon delivered by George Abbot, the Archbishop of Canterbury. As Henry’s body was lowered into the ground, his chief servants broke their staves of office at the grave. An insane man ran naked through the mourners, yelling that he was the boy’s ghost.

Immediately after Henry’s death, the prince’s brother Charles fell ill, but he was the chief mourner at the funeral, which his father, King James (who detested funerals) refused to attend. Henry’s titles of Duke of Cornwall and Duke of Rothesay passed to Charles, who until then had lived in Henry’s shadow. Four years later Charles, by then 16 years old, was created Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester.

Had he lived he would have reigned as King Henry IX of England, Scotland and Ireland….and the history of England would have been very different.

On this date in History: February 13, 1542 Execution of Catherine Howard, 5th wife of King Henry VIII of England and Ireland.

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Anne of Cleves, Beheaded, Catherine Howard, Duke of Norfolk, Earl of Surrey, Henry Howard, King Henry VIII of England, Kingdom of Ireland, Lady Rochford, Royal Assent, Six Wives of Henry VIII, Thomas Culpeper, Tower of London

On this date in History: February 13, 1542 Execution of Catherine Howard, 5th wife of King Henry VIII of England and Ireland.

Catherine Howard (c. 1523 – February 13, 1542) was Queen of England from 1540 until 1541, as the fifth wife of Henry VIII. She (then 16 or 17) married him (then 49) on July 28, 1540, at Oatlands Palace, in Surrey, almost immediately after the annulment of his marriage to Anne of Cleves was arranged.

Catherine’s uncle, the Duke of Norfolk, found her a place at Court in the household of the King’s fourth wife, Anne of Cleves. As a young and attractive lady-in-waiting, Catherine quickly caught Henry’s eye. The King had displayed little interest in Anne from the beginning, but on Cromwell’s failure to find a new match for Henry, Norfolk saw an opportunity. The Howards may have sought to recreate the influence gained during Queen Anne’s reign. According to Nicholas Sander, the religiously conservative Howard family may have seen Catherine as a figurehead for their fight by expressed determination to restore Roman Catholicism to England. Catholic Bishop Stephen Gardiner entertained the couple at Winchester Palace with “feastings”.

As the King’s interest in Catherine grew, so did the house of Norfolk’s influence. Her youth, prettiness and vivacity were captivating for the middle-aged sovereign, who claimed he had never known “the like to any woman”. Within months of her arrival at court, Henry bestowed gifts of land and expensive cloth upon Catherine. Henry called her his ‘rose without a thorn’ and the ‘very jewel of womanhood’. The French ambassador, Charles de Marillac, thought her “delightful”. Holbein’s portrait showed a young auburn-haired girl with a characteristically hooked Howard nose; Catherine was said to have a “gentle, earnest face.”

King Henry VIII and Catherine were married by Bishop Bonner of London at Oatlands Palace on 28 July 1540, the same day Cromwell was executed. The marriage was made public on August 8, and prayers were said in the Chapel Royal at Hampton Court Palace. Henry “indulged her every whim” thanks to her “caprice”. Catherine was young, joyous and carefree; Mannox had taught her to play the virginals. She was too young to take part in administrative matters of State. Nevertheless, every night Sir Thomas Heneage, Groom of the Stool, came to her chamber to report on the King’s well-being.

Downfall

It was alleged that, in spring 1541, Catherine had already embarked upon a romance with Henry’s favourite male courtier, Thomas Culpeper, a young man who “had succeeded [him] in the Queen’s affections”, according to Dereham’s later testimony. Culpeper called Catherine “my little, sweet fool” in a love letter; she considered marrying him during her time as a maid-of-honour to Anne of Cleves. The couple’s meetings were arranged by one of Catherine’s older ladies-in-waiting, Jane Boleyn, Viscountess Rochford (Lady Rochford), the widow of Catherine’s executed cousin, George Boleyn, Anne Boleyn’s brother.

During the autumn Northern Progress, a crisis began to loom over Catherine’s conduct. People who had witnessed her earlier indiscretions while still a ward at Lambeth, contacted her for favours in return for their silence, and many of them were appointed to her royal household. The brother of Mary Lascelles, John Lascelles, tried to convince his sister to find a place within the Queen’s royal chamber, however, Mary refused stating she had witnessed the “light” ways of Queen Catherine while living together at Lambeth. After hearing this John Lascelles reported such news to Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, who then interrogated Lascelles’ sister and upon doing so became informed of Catherine’s previous illicit sexual relations while under the Duchess’ care.

Cranmer immediately took up the case to be made to topple his rivals—the Roman Catholic Norfolk family. Lady Rochford was interrogated, and from fear of being tortured, agreed to tell all. She told how she had watched for Catherine backstairs as Culpeper had made his escapes from the Queen’s room. During the investigation, a love letter written in the Queen’s distinctive handwriting was found in Culpeper’s chambers. This is the only letter of hers that still survives (other than her later confession).

On All Saints’ Day, November 1, 1541, the King was to be found in the Chapel Royal, praying as usual for this “jewel of womanhood”. He received there a warrant of the queen’s arrest that described her crimes. On November 7, 1541, Archbishop Cranmer led a delegation of councillors to Winchester Palace, Southwark, to question her. Even the staunch Cranmer found Catherine’s frantic, incoherent state pitiable, saying, “I found her in such lamentation and heaviness as I never saw no creature, so that it would have pitied any man’s heart to have looked upon her.” He ordered the guards to remove any objects that she might use to commit suicide.

Imprisonment and death

Establishing the existence of a precontract between Catherine and Dereham would have had the effect of terminating Catherine’s royal union, but it also would have allowed Henry to annul their marriage and banish her from Court, in poverty and disgrace, without having to execute her. Yet still she steadfastly denied any precontract, maintaining that Dereham had raped her.

Catherine was stripped of her title as queen on November 23, 1541, and imprisoned in the new Syon Abbey, Middlesex, formerly a convent, where she remained throughout the winter of 1541. She was forced by a Privy Councillor to return Anne of Cleves’ ring that the King had given her; it was a symbol of her regal and lawful rights. The King would be at Hampton Court, but she would not see him again. Despite these actions taken against her, her marriage to Henry was never formally annulled.

Culpeper and Dereham were arraigned at Guildhall on December 1, 1541 for high treason. They were executed at Tyburn on December 10, 1541, Culpeper being beheaded and Dereham being hanged, drawn and quartered. According to custom, their heads were placed on spikes atop of London Bridge. Many of Catherine’s relatives were also detained in the Tower with the exception of her uncle, the Duke of Norfolk, who had sufficiently distanced himself from the scandal by retreating to Kenninghall to write a grovelling letter of apology to the King.

Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk

The Duke Norfolk’s son, Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, the poet, remained a favourite of the King. The duke knew his family had fallen from grace, wrote an apology on December 14 to the King, excusing himself and laying all the blame on his niece and stepmother. All of the Howard prisoners were tried, found guilty of concealing treason, and sentenced to life imprisonment and forfeiture of goods. In time, they were released with their goods restored. The King sank into depression and indulged his appetite for food.

Catherine herself remained in limbo until Parliament introduced a bill of attainder on January 29, 1542, which was passed on February 7, 1542. The Royal Assent by Commission Act 1541 made it treason, and punishable by death, for a queen consort to fail to disclose her sexual history to the king within twenty days of their marriage, or to incite someone to commit adultery with her. This solved the matter of Catherine’s supposed precontract and made her unequivocally guilty.

When the Lords of the Council came for her, she panicked and screamed aloud, as they manhandled her into the waiting barge that would escort her to the Tower on Friday February 10, 1542, her flotilla passing under London Bridge where the heads of Culpeper and Dereham were impaled (and remained until 1546). Entering through the Traitors’ Gate she was led to her prison cell. The next day, the bill of attainder received Royal Assent, and Catherine’s execution was scheduled for 7:00 am on Monday, February 13, 1542. Arrangements for the execution were supervised by Sir John Gage in his role as Constable of the Tower.

The night before her execution, Catherine is believed to have spent many hours practising how to lay her head upon the block, which had been brought to her at her request. She died with relative composure, but looked pale and terrified; she required assistance to climb the scaffold. She made a speech describing her punishment as “worthy and just” and asked for mercy for her family and prayers for her soul. According to popular folklore, her final words were, “I die a Queen, but I would rather have died the wife of Culpeper,” however no eyewitness accounts support this. Instead, reporting that she stuck to traditional final words, asking for forgiveness for her sins and acknowledging that she deserved to die ‘a thousand deaths’ for betraying the king; who had always treated her so graciously. Catherine was beheaded with a single stroke of the executioner’s axe. She was about 18 or 19 years old.

Lady Rochford was executed immediately thereafter on Tower Green. Both their bodies were buried in an unmarked grave in the nearby chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula, where the bodies of Catherine’s cousins Anne and George Boleyn also lay. Other cousins were also in the crowd, including the Earl of Surrey. King Henry VIII did not attend. Catherine’s body was not one of those identified during restorations of the chapel during Queen Victoria’s reign. She is commemorated on a plaque on the west wall dedicated to all those who died in the Tower. Upon hearing news of Catherine’s execution, Francis I of France wrote a letter to Henry, regretting the “lewd and naughty [evil] behaviour of the Queen” and advising him that “the lightness of women cannot bend the honour of men”.

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

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Anne Neville, Battle of Tewkesbury, Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, Duke of York, Edward prince of Wales, George Neville, George of Clarence, King Edward IV of England, King Henry VI of England, Kings and Queens of England, Montagu Neville, Richard Neville, The Earl of Warwick, the prince of Wales, Tower of London

With Edward IV now the legal King of England and Henry VI arrested and sitting in the Tower of London one may think that the Wars of the Roses was over, but such was not the case. In history Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick, friend and ally of King Edward IV, was known as the kingmaker. He was truly the most powerful man in England.

In the last post on this subject I mentioned that Warwick wanted Edward to marry a foreign princess in an effort to secure a powerfully ally to support Edward’s claim to the throne. The king did not abide by Warkwick’s wishes and instead married Elizabeth Woodville. This created great tensions between the two powerful men. The king also refused a match between his brother, George, Duke of Clarence, and Isabel Neville, The Earl of Warwick’s daughter. Warwick’s brother, George Neville, archbishop of York, was dismissed as Chancellor of England and this was the final blow that pushed the Earl of Warwick to the Lancastrian side. When a plot to confront the king with Warwick’s troops was uncovered by Edward IV, Warwick fled to France.

While in France King Louis XI reconciled Queen Margaret, who had been living in France since her husband was deposed, with Warwick and the two began plotting to restore Henry VI to the throne. George, Duke of Clarence, brother of Edward IV, also supported Warwick in replacing his brother with Henry VI. An agreement was reached that Margaret’s son, Edward, The Prince of Wales, would now marry Anne Neville, the Earl of Warwick’s daughter.

A diversion was created in the north of England which drew the king North while the forces of Warwick and Clarence arrived in the south of England. Lead by Montagu Neville, the Earl of Warwick’s other brother, who brought his forces down from the north and with the forces of Warwick and Clarence coming from the south, Edward IV was surrounded. On October 2, 1470 King Edward IV fled to the Netherlands and Henry VI was restored to the throne. Parliament legalized this restoration by placing an Attainder on Edward IV’s lands and titles and created George, Duke of Clarence, Duke of York.

With years spent in captivity Henry VI was in no shape to rule so Warwick and the new Duke of York were the true powers behind the throne. However, in a rapid turn of events international politics came into play which placed the exiled Edward IV in a position to regain his throne. Another part of the tension between Warwick and Edward IV surrounded the conflicts between France and Burgundy. Warwick wanted to place his support with France while Edward IV supported Burgundy. When war between Burgundy and France began early in 1471 Duke Charles the Bold of Burgundy placed troops at Edward IV’s disposal to help him regain the throne.

The forces of Edward IV and the Earl of Warwick met at the Battle of Barnet on April 14, 1471. The Duke of Clarence & York defected back to his brother’s side. The forces of Edward IV were triumphant and as the Earl of Warwick was escaping the battlefield he was dismounted from his horse and killed. His brother Montagu was also killed in the battle. It took one more battle, the Battle of Tewkesbury, on May 4, 1471 to restore Edward IV to the throne. At the Battle of Tewkesbury the Lancastrian forces were led by Queen Margaret and Edward, Prince of Wales. The Lancastrian forces were defeated and the Prince of Wales was killed in the battle (the only Prince of Wales to have died in battle).

Edward IV was restored to the throne. Henry VI was returned to the Tower of London and on the morning prior to the re-crowning of Edward IV, Henry VI was found dead. There has been a great deal of speculation of how Henry died. It was said he died as a result of the news of the death of his son, Edward, Prince of Wales at the Battle of Tewkesbury. It has also been believed that Edward IV ordered the death of Henry VI and that his brother, Richard, Duke of Gloucester (later King Richard III) actually committed the murder himself.

So what does this say about the legality of the throne? The times of the Wars of the Roses were a time of civil unrest and a wrestling for power. Technically, the restoration of Henry VI was by right of conquest, although this conquest was not conducted by him, it was merely conducted in his name. At this point Henry VI was just a puppet whose strings were pulled by others.

With Edward IV restored to the throne the legal line by male prefered primogeniture was also restored. The House of Lancaster was decimated and defeated although factions from other genealogical lines would one day rise up once more. But from his restoration until his death Edward IV was soundly on the throne.