Frustrated Falcons

The Amazon version of Frustrated Falcons is now available in both paperback and kindle formats.   This is my short triple biography of the three children of Edmund of Langley, first Duke of York. For anyone who doesn't know these were: Edward, the second duke, described by one chronicler as a 'second Solomon' who died at Agincourt; Constance, Lady Despenser and Countess of Gloucester, who organised an interesting plot against Henry IV and was the great-grandmother of Anne Neville - and ancestress of very many more; and Richard, Earl of Cambridge, who was involved in the Southampton Plot of 1415. Richard was, of course, the grandfather of Edward IV and the little-known Richard III.

Isabel of York 1408 (?) - 1484

Stephen's Lark's mention of Leo van de Pas's excellent geneology site reminded me that I haven't said much about Isabel of York, Richard Duke of York's sister, so I used the site to supplement the little I know about her, and thus can produce the following posting.

Isabel was of course the daughter of Richard of Conisbrough and Anne Mortimer and appears to have been born in the early years of their marriage, round about 1408 or 1409**. She was 'married' to Thomas Grey of Heton in 1412 as part of what appears to have been a deal to transfer the Lordship of Tyndale (then the property of Edward, Duke of York) to Grey's father. Due to the treasonable conspiracy of Richard of Conisbrough and the elder Grey (the Southampton Plot) this (marriage) arrangement was dissolved and Isabel was instead married (circa 1430) to Henry Bourchier, Earl (or Count) of Eu and later Earl of Essex.

** This assumes they didn't consummate their marriage until it was legitimised (1408). Since the detail of how they married, and when, is shrouded in mystery, it's possible Isabel was a little older.

Henry was the son of Sir William Bourchier and Anne of Gloucester, the extremely rich daughter and heiress of Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester. (Anne was of course Richard of Conisbrough's first cousin. As well as being her father's heiress she had two dowers from the Stafford family, having married successive earls. She would make an interesting subject for a novel if anyone out there fancies writing one for her.)

The children of Henry and Isabel were:

William, who married Anne Woodville (or Wydeville or Widville). She was (need I say?) the sister of Queen Elizabeth Woodville. He died in April 1483. His son, also William, succeeded as Earl of Essex and lived long enough to serve at Anne Boleyn's coronation.

Henry, who married Elizabeth Scales, an heiress. After he died in August 1458 she married the well-known Anthony Woodville/Wydeville/Widville, later Earl Rivers.

Humphrey, who married Joan Stanhope, and was styled Baron Cromwell in her right. He was killed at the Battle of Barnet (1471) fighting for the Yorkists. Joan remarried, Sir Robert Radcliffe.

John, who married Elizabeth Ferrers of Groby and in her right assumed the title Lord Ferrers of Groby, though never summoned to parliament. He had a 'prolonged' law suit with Elizabeth Woodville over the Groby lands. His second wife was Elizabeth Chicheley of Cambridgeshire. He died 1495.

Thomas married Isabelle Barre, widow of Henry Stafford of Southwick the (Yorkist) Earl of Devon. After her death (1489) he married Anne, widow of Sir John Sulyard. He was Constable of Leeds (Kent) and was on a commission to investigate treason in Kent in December 1483. He died in 1491.

Isabel, the only daughter. Died apparently unmarried.

Edward, died 31 December 1460. (Battle of Wakefield)

Fulk, died young.

Essex was a 'backroom boy' for the Yorkists, occupying various offices without apparently becoming prominent in government or unpopular with Warwick or other hostile elements. He died peacefully in 1483. Nonetheless it's worth noting that the wars cost him two of his sons killed in action! His brother, Thomas, was of course Archbishop of Canterbury through the Yorkist period and a little beyond. (Their half-brother on their mother's side was no less a person than Humphrey Stafford, first Duke of Buckingham.)

Isabel of York died in 1484, during Richard III's reign. She was therefore in her early seventies, and so unusually long-lived for a member of the York family, even allowing for the tendency of the York males to have their lives cut short by steel poisoning. (In fact, when you think of it the only adult males of the House of York to die in their beds were Edmund of Langley and Edward IV. The rest either died in battle or were executed!) Isabel would certainly have had some interesting tales to tell and it's a pity that no roving reporter was around to interview her.

Edward Duke of York and Agincourt

No one seems to have suspected Edward, Duke of York, of involvement in his brother's plot. This demonstrates the political progess he had made by hitching himself to the bandwagon of Henry V. It would be wrong to suggest that he now enjoyed the sort of influence he had under Richard II - when for a time he was more or less the King's right hand as well as his 'brother' - but he did enjoy an element of favour and was not under continual suspicion.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Edward had enfeoffed the bulk of his own lands to support the building of Fotheringhay College. As he really could not expect to suck on the Despenser teat much longer he may have hoped for some big financial dividend from the French wars. Alternatively he may have foreseen his own death. He made a will (not unusual in such circumstances, admittedly). This acknowledged his sins to the last full measure, and he admitted that he was 'bound to pray' for the soul of Richard II.

It is sometimes said it was Edward who suggested the English archers should carry sharpened stakes with which to protect themselves. It's impossible to be sure of this, but it is certain that he commanded the right hand 'battle' at Agincourt - Henry V commanded the centre, with Lord Camoys (husband of Hotspur's widow) on the left. Edward was one of the few English 'men of name' to be killed in the battle. It appears he was crushed by the weight of others falling on top of him - alternatively, it may all have been too much for him, bringing on a heart attack. (By this time he is described as 'fat', quite likely for a medieval prince in his forties.)

I find it wonderfully ironic that Edward should die fighting for the House of Lancaster (after all his efforts to get rid of Bolingbroke), and in a French war at that (given that in his early years he had been so strong a support of Richard II's peace policy).

The bodies of York and the other nobles killed were boiled so that their bones could be taken home to England. Edward was of course brought to Fotheringhay, where originally he lay in the chancel, under a flat slab, probably with a brass memorial over him. In Edward VI's reign the chancel became a ruin, and Elizabeth I had Edward and her other Yorkist ancestors transplanted into the former nave. New tombs were erected, and can still be seen there, next to the altar.

If you'd like to take a look at Edward's tomb this link will take you to a selection of excellent photos of Fotheringhay Church on the Worcestershire Branch of the Richard III Society. The Tomb is among them.

The famous Edward of York biscuit tin

This biscuit tin has been in my family for a while now, but it was relatively recently that I realised it depicted Edward, 2nd Duke of York. So, in the interests of illustration, here it is.

It represents Henry V and his chums on their way to bash the French. The figure on the rear castle, holding a sword and wearing a crown on his head, is the King. Right next to him, and also wearing a crown, is Edward Duke of York. (You can identify him by his heraldry, at least on the original.

The first banner of the lower deck, at the left hand side, is Edward's. It's England and France with a white label of three points, each of which has three red balls. (OK Mr Herald, I know that's not the right way to describe it, but it'll do.)

I won't try to name all the banners (I couldn't anyway!) but they include Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, Warwick, Salisbury, Oxford, Westmorland and Suffolk, as well, of course, as the King. Why the standard of Edward the Confessor (used by Richard II) is being flown, I'm not sure. (It's the left hand one on the rear castle.) The Earl of March's shield is first on the left, just below Edward's banner.

Edmund of Langley and Edward of York - did they look like this?

I have found a couple of pictures on the web, and as they are said to be 'public domain' take the opportunity of reproducing them here. The one above is supposed to be Edmund of Langley, first Duke of York. Quite a handsome fellow, I think. Presumably this is where Constance got her good looks.

Needless to add, the second one is of Edward of York, at various times Earl of Rutland, Duke of Aumale, and second Duke of York. Would you buy a used destrier from this man?

I'd not bet above 1p (one new penny) that these images are authentic; at best they might be based on a lost original. More likely they came out of some Victorian's imagination. But I suppose they are better than nothing - just.

Edward of York's claim to Castile

If Edward, Duke of York, were better known, more people might be aware that he tried to claim the throne of Castile!

Towards the end of Henry IV's reign, Edward found himself part of an expedition led by Thomas, Duke of Clarence (Henry's second son) to Gascony, where the idea was they would aid the Orleanists (or Armagnacs) against the Burgundians in line with current English policy. In the event the two parties in the French civil war had second thoughts, and made a truce with each other. The English were paid to go home - though not wholly in cash. (Hostages were taken and some of these remained in England for a very long time.)

Anyway, instead of going straight home to Philippa, Edward started an intrigue with the King of Aragon and certain discontented Castilians with the intent of making himself King of Castile!

Castile already had a king - Juan I (or John) the son of Edward's double first cousin, Katherine of Lancaster, who was also still very much alive. You may remember that Edmund of Langley and his wife Isabel had long since signed over any claim they had to Castile to John of Gaunt and Constanza, Isabel's elder sister, and thus to Katherine and her children.

Edward's interest in Castile inevitably fizzled away to nothing. John of Gaunt himself had failed in a similar attempt, and he had multiple times Edward's resources. It may be that the Duke of York simply hoped to extract some 'nuisance money' from his Castilian cousins. Whether he would have taken the matter further if he'd managed to survive Agincourt is something we can never know.

However the claim clearly lived on in the heart of the York family as may be seen in the very prominent Castilian heraldry that is displayed in the Edward IV Roll.

The best source for Edward's claim to Castile is the Wylie and Waugh tome. It's rarely mentioned anywhere else.

The York Family's Financial Arrangements

By the creative use of various footnotes in T.B. Pugh's Henry V and the Southampton Plot I have calculated that Edmund of Langley's income from land and annuities amounted to £2070 a year. Almost £1,100 of this was made of of annuities, and so it follows as night follows day that his income from land was less than £1,000. Edmund's widow Joan (or Joanne) Holland was entitled to a one third share for life.

Duke Edward's inheritance was therefore roughly £1,366, with maybe £600 from land. OK, he had what was left of the additional lands given him by Richard II, plus Philippa's relatively modest dower rights, but, given that for much of Henry IV's reign annuities were about as valuable as Bradford and Bingley shares in 2009, this was not much to run a dukedom on. It's not hard to see why debts of ten grand from his time in Gascony, and further debts run up while fighting Henry's battles in Wales would have given him serious problems.

Edward received some wages in addition. For example he had twelve pence a day as Master of Hart Hounds and a salary of £200 a year as a member of Henry's Council. However, this would have been a lot less in total than he received from the juicy offices he held under Richard II, and I expect the wages were often paid in arrears, given the state of Henry's finances.

To give some comparisons, the Mortimer inheritance in England and Wales was conservatively estimated at being worth £3,400 in 1398, while circa 1415 the Despenser inheritance, despite all it had suffered from forfeitures and the ravages of Owain Glyn Dwr's friends, was still reckoned to be worth £1,500. In 1391 the duchy of Lancaster was worth about £10,000, while Pugh estimates that Gaunt's total income at the end of his life was more like £20,000.

Despite grabbing what he could from the Despenser wardship Edward was still reduced to mortgaging some of his lands to pay the debts he ran up in the Welsh wars, and in 1404 was wandering around borrowing from anyone he could, including the Abbot of Glastonbury. This was probably one of his motives for seeking to overthrow Henry in 1405, and, frankly, he had more cause to complain on the effect of government policy on his finances than Thomas of Woodstock had in the 1390s.

Although Henry's finances improved in the later part of his reign and Edward (presumably) saw more in the way of hard cash, he still ended up selling (in 1412) the Lordship of Tyndale, together with the reversion of Joanne's one third share to Sir Thomas Grey for £500. This may have had something to do with the proposed marriage of Richard of Conisbrough's daughter, Isabel, to Grey's son, but generally speaking the sale of inherited land was something that was done only as a last resort.

The Decline of the Welsh Rising.

I've just noted that Pugh dates the Woodbury Hill affair to 1405, whereas Davies puts it in 1404 and questions whether it even happened. I followed Pugh in Fetterlock, but where historians differ, how is a humble novelist to know? According to Wylie, Henry IV was in Worcester in August 1405, but not in 1404 as Davies states. Looks like Davies may be mistaken here, unless his instinct that it never happened at all is the correct one.

Anyway, the French departed, and Henry IV's government began to achieve progress. In Autumn 1406 the submission of Anglesey was completed and the population made to sue for pardon and pay fines. They had been taking a major hit from Anglo-Irish raiders and it was all too much. The fall of Anglesey put the squeeze on Owain's supply of food, as it was one of the most productive areas of Wales. In addition it was now much easier for the English to mount a sea blockade of the remaining rebel strongholds of North Wales and cut off supplies to Harlech and Aberystwyth.

As mentioned earlier, a siege of Aberystwyth was abandoned in 1407 despite the sterling staff work of the Duke of York, but nevertheless it fell in the late summer of 1408. In February 1409 the last stronghold, Harlech fell to Gilbert, Lord Talbot, and his brother, John Talbot, Lord Furnival, later to win fame as Earl of Shrewsbury and father of Lady Eleanor Talbot.

Owain's wife was captured at Harlech along with her daughter Catrin, Catrin's children, and other members of Owain's immediate family. Sir Edmund Mortimer died during the siege, some say through starvation. (There is also a legend that he escaped to Scotland, but it's almost certainly just that.)

Thereafter Owain's rising was reduced to a guerrilla campaign, though his followers were still, for some years, to prove capable of producing scares and shocks. Owain was never captured, and died apparently in September 1415, though no one is sure to this day where he is buried. (There are several theories.)

The last of his six sons, Maredudd, continued the struggle in remote Merioneth, and as late as 1417 the rebel Lollard, Sir John Oldcastle, tried to make contact with him there, only to be captured en-route by Lord Charleton of Powys.

Maredudd was offered a pardon that same year, but didn't accept it until 8 April 1421. According to Welsh legend some of Owain's followers continued the struggle after that, right through to the arrival of the 'redeemer' Henry VII. If they did, it would have been hard to distinguish their activity from that of routine banditry.

If anyone would like more detail about Owain without getting a book out, there's a useful site here.

How Edward of York made ends meet.

Edward, Duke of York, as Earl of Rutland, was sent off to Guienne to act as Lieutenant during 1401-02, returning to England after the death of his father, Edmund of Langley. He claimed debts owing to him from the Crown as a result of this short period in office were not unadjacent to £10,000.

As mentioned in an earlier post, Edmund of Langley had relatively little land, and much of his income derived from Exchequer grants, some of which, admittedly, he had got assigned to reasonably stable sources such as the customs or wardships. Given the general state of Henry IV's finances - which a kindly soul might describe as critical - Edward's inheritance was not so shining a prospect as you might think. (The Exchequer being empty much of the time.) He also had a stepmother, considerably younger than himself, drawing dower from the York properties - she might be expected to outlive him, and as it chanced she did so by about 20 years.

Against this Edward had some lands of his own, notably the Isle of Wight, the remnant of the lavish additions Richard II had granted him. He also had his wife's life interest in the Fitzwalter and Golafre dower properties - fairly modest, but doubtless useful. He also had the advantage that none of his lands were in Wales, and so (unlike his sister Constance) he was pretty much free from the direct impact of the Glyn Dwr rising.

Edward clearly put pressure on King Henry for repayment of his alleged debt, one of the first fruits of which was the transfer of the wardship of Richard Despenser to the Duke of York. The previous possessor of the wardship was the boy's mother, Constance, and she had had a provision written into her patent that she was to keep the grant even if someone else offered to pay more to the King for the privilege than she did. I think we can safely assume she was not very pleased with her brother at this point!

Edward also (at some time around 1406) took over from Constance the lease of much of Elizabeth Despenser's dower lands, notably those in Glamorgan, including Caerphilly Castle. Apart from what was left to his sister in her own right by the King's grant, he was now in effective control of almost the whole of the Despenser estates.

Since Edmund of Langley had exploited the Despenser inheritance for so many years, it may be that his son saw it as something as a family tradition. He was to keep hold of the fruits of the wardship for the rest of his life. When Richard Despenser died, about 1413, the property ought to have gone to his sister, Isabelle, and her husband, Richard Beauchamp. However Edward simply petitioned the Crown for the right to keep hold of the Despenser lands, and this was granted. They passed to the rightful heiress only after Edward's death at Agincourt.

Towards the end of his life, Edward enfeoffed (that is, put in trust) many of his own York lands to pay for the establishment of Fotheringhay College. Given that he had no child of his own body, he was understandably more concerned about making provision for his soul than any impact on his heir. Given that his wife Philippa had to be dowered out of what was left, and that his stepmother was still enjoying her share, the remaining inheritance of the duchy of York was actually pretty modest.

Edward Duke of York and the Welsh Wars

Edward, the second Duke of York (as the rascal became in 1402) had a fair amount of involvement in the Welsh wars, indeed it was during this period that he served the bulk of his career as a soldier. His younger brother, Richard of Conisbrough, was also active for at least a time.

In some ways it's surprising that Henry IV trusted Edward with any military (or indeed administrative) power, but, as in the case of Richard III and Lord Stanley, it's likely the case that Edward was just too big a player to be ignored. From 1402 he was England's only duke, and remained so until Thomas of Lancaster (Henry IV's second son) was created Duke of Clarence in the twilight days of the reign. Rank and blood meant a great deal.

What Edward's personal policy was in those days is hard to discern. He was widely mistrusted, that's for sure, and was repeatedly accused of being involved in treason, notably after the Battle of Shrewsbury, where he did not show up. His alleged participation in his sister's plot of 1405 led to a period of imprisonment and forfeiture but, as ever, Edward came out smelling of roses and within a few weeks of his release was actually opening Parliament on his sickly cousin's behalf.

The experience does seemed to have cured any interest he had in supporting the Mortimer claim to the throne, and after this point he becomes a partisan of the Prince of Wales, and appears to support the future Henry V right through to his (York's) death at Agincourt. Not a bad move, politically speaking.

York acted as a lieutenant of the Prince during the latter's campaigns in Wales in the latter half of the reign, and the Prince was suitably grateful. Following the failure of a campaign to capture the castle of Aberystwyth, Edward was once again accused of treason, but kneeling to the King before the Parliament of December 1407 the Prince 'spoke some generous words of the Duke of York, whose good advice and counsel, he said, had rescued the whole expedition from great peril and desolation.' From such a source this is praise indeed!