the unseen elizabeth woodville - richard iii of england · possible way research into the life and...

....... s Richard III Society, Inc. Volume XXIV No. 3 Fall, 2005

The Unseen Elizabeth Woodville

Fall, 2005 Ricardian Register

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In This Issue

Elizabeth Woodville’s FamiliesKathleen Spaltro . . . . . . . . 4

Sites for Elizabeth Woodville’s Families,Noeline Bridge . . . . . . . . . 7

Welcome to New Members . . . . . . 8Tewkesbury Revisited,

Dave Lutweiler . . . . . . . . 9Flights of Fancy . . . . . . . . . .

Joan Szechtman . . . . . . . . 142006 Ricardian Tour . . . . . . . 15Ricardian Reading,

Myrna Smith . . . . . . . . . 16Dem Bones,

Victoria Moorehead . . . . . . . 21Right, Trusty & Well Beloved

Callie Kendall . . . . . . . . 22Ricardian Puzzle,

Charlie Jordan . . . . . . . . 26Chapter Contacts. . . . . . . . . 28Membership Application . . . . . . 28

Ricardian Register Fall, 2005

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Editorial License

Carole Rike

As many of you are aware, our homes and businesseswere decimated by the levee break in New Orleans onAugust 29th. We are currently camping out in Houston,trying to get our lives back together and look forward toreturning to New Orleans when possible.

Through many more years than I can now recall, Ihave produced this newsletter, sometimes late — butnever this late. And never under such extraordinarypressure. Recent events have decimated our lives in amanner that we are still struggling to understand andaccept.

If you sent me anything previous to Hurricane Ka-trina, I no longer possess it and ask that you re-sendwhen possible. If I have not responded, I can honestlyplead guilty-due-to-circumstances. I have those emailskept on my office computer, but all files kept on myhome computer are now gone.

Many, many thanks to Geoffrey Wheeler for re-sponding so quickly to my plea for cover artwork.

‘THE UNSEEN ELIZABEETH WOODVILLECover Photos by Geoffrey Wheeler, London

Key to cover illustration of just some of the images ofthe Queen that were not included in the recent biogra-phies of her by David Baldwin (Sutton, 2002) andArlene Okerlund (Tempus 2005):

1`. Figure (based on 15th c. original glass, in the ‘Royal’ window,Canterbury Cathedral) by Thomas Willement (1786 –1871) in the choir aisle opposite her tomb, St George’sChapel, Windsor.

2. Engraving based on the standard portrait at Queens’College, Cambridge.

3. As ‘Queen of Clubs’, from a pack of historical playing cardsissued by Thomas de la Rue in 1964.

4. Playing card, designed by actor Donald Burton, based oncharacters in the 1963–4 Royal Shakespeare Company’s‘Wars of the Roses’ history plays. (He played Exeter, SusanEngel was Elizabeth).

5. Modern artist’s interpretation by Charles Raymond, toillustrate an article ‘The clever widow and the King ofEngland’ by Christopher Hibbert. ‘WM’ magazine 1966.

6. Stained glass figure by G. Kruger Gray (1936) in the GreatHall, Eltham Palace, London.


Elizabeth Woodville’s Families

(1437-1492; Queen Consort to Edward IV of

England, 1464-1470, 1471-1483)

© by Kathleen SpaltroAll Rights Reserved.

Edward IV secretly married in 1464 the Englishwidow Elizabeth Woodville, who thereby be-

came the first English-born Queen Consort since the11th Century. By marrying this subject, rather than aforeign princess, Edward IV precipitated much envyand ill-will. His Queen and her Woodville relativeswon the enmity of Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick,whose consequent rebellion in 1469-71 caused Edwardto lose and then to regain his throne. After Edward’srestoration, the Woodville faction feuded with hisbrother George, Duke of Clarence. Following Clar-ence’s execution in 1477 and Edward’s early death in1483, the Woodvilles’ conflict with Richard, Duke ofGloucester (brother of Edward IV and Protector ofEngland during the reign of Edward’s minor son, Ed-ward V), escalated into the deposition ofEdward V, the accession of Gloucester asRichard III, and civil war.

Elizabeth Woodville’s son had brieflyreigned as Edward V and then disappeared,along with his younger brother Richard,Duke of York. Her daughter, in weddingHenry VII, became the matriarch of the newTudor dynasty. Besides Edward V; Richard,Duke of York; Elizabeth of York; and otherchildren of Edward IV, Elizabeth Woodvillehad borne two sons by her first husband.Her eldest child, Thomas Grey, Marquis ofDorset, fathered a line that eventually in-cluded Lady Jane Grey, Queen of Englandfor nine days in the summer of 1553. Al-though despised as inconsequential by crit-ics of Elizabeth Woodville as QueenConsort, the Woodvilles clearly acquiredand retained importance as a family thatspawned a half-Woodville King and Dukeof York, a half-Woodville Queen Consort,and a Queen Regnant twice-descended fromWoodvilles. Lady Jane’s father, Henry Grey,a descendant of Thomas Grey, had marriedhis second cousin, Frances Brandon, a de-scendant of Elizabeth of York. ElizabethWoodville thus was Lady Jane Grey‘s

great-great-grandmother in both the paternal andmaternal lines.

Ironically for a family so closely associated with theYorkist dynasty, the Woodvilles originally fought for theHouse of Lancaster. After the deposition of Edward Vand the accession of Richard III, the Woodvilles wouldagain ally themselves with Lancastrians. The father ofElizabeth Woodville, Richard Woodville, a knight,married Jacquetta of Luxembourg, the widow of John,Duke of Bedford, paternal uncle of Henry VI.(Woodville’s own father had served both Bedford andHenry V, while Woodville had served Bedford as cham-berlain.) Besides serving in France and suppressing do-mestic rebels, Richard Woodville fought for Henry VIuntil after the Lancastrian defeat at Towton in 1461.

Elizabeth Woodville’s Grey Descendants


Edward IV pardoned Richard Woodville and his sonAnthony (who also had fought for Henry VI at Towton).Elizabeth Woodville’s first husband, Sir John Grey, haddied in 1461 while fighting for Henry VI at the SecondBattle of St. Albans.

After Edward IV married Elizabeth Woodville in1464, the King elevated her father to the posts of Trea-surer and Constable of England, as well as gave him thetitle Earl Rivers. His son John Woodville, in one of themany brilliant Woodville marriages that enragedWarwick, married Catherine Neville, Warwick’s ownkinswoman and a bride almost 50 years older than hergroom. During Warwick’s rebellion in 1469, he capturedand executed both Richard Woodville, 1st Earl Rivers,and his son John. Clarence apparently countenancedthese killings. Anthony then became 2nd Earl Rivers.Accusations of witchcraft also attacked Jacquetta,Duchess of Bedford, but they came to nothing in theend.

The most interesting Woodville, Anthony, fled intoContinental exile with his brother-in-law and friend,Edward IV, in 1470. During the struggle to restore Ed-ward IV, Anthony fought at Barnet and Tewkesbury anddefended London. After Edward’s 1471 restoration, hehonored Anthony in many ways—most importantly bymaking him in 1473 Governor of Edward, Prince ofWales (later Edward V) at Ludlow. A man of parts, An-thony translated Dictes and Sayenges of thePhylosophers (the first dated book printed in Englishon English soil by William Caxton) and won renown asa jouster in tournaments. Following Edward IV’s deathin 1483, Gloucester arrested and executed Anthony atPontefract. Among many reasons to fear the Woodvilles,Gloucester knew of their powerful hold on Wales, theMarches, and the border shires. They had shown enmityto his brother Clarence, controlled the adolescent Princeof Wales who would now be King, and in their positionon the Royal Council strongly resisted Gloucester’s as-suming full power as Protector of England. Edward IV’sloyal supporter, William, Lord Hastings, with whom theWoodvilles had also feuded, warned Gloucester againstthem.

Elizabeth Woodville herself had sought sanctuarywhile Gloucester rose to power as Richard III and hersons Edward V and Richard, Duke of York disappeared.Gloucester also had ordered the execution of one of hersons by her first husband—her second child, RichardGrey, another Woodville charged by Edward IV to servethe Prince of Wales. He died with Anthony atPontefract. Elizabeth, widow of a Yorkist King, nowplotted with Margaret Beaufort, mother of aLancastrian claimant, Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond,to support the Duke of Buckingham’s rebellion againstRichard III. The Beaufort-Woodville conspiracy againstRichard III included an agreement that Henry Tudorwould marry Elizabeth of York.

Buckingham’s rebellion failed in 1483, yet Henry Tu-dor eventually defeated Richard III and took his crown,and the new Henry VII married Elizabeth of York in1486. Elizabeth Woodville had returned to life at courtin 1485, but she apparently involved herself with the1487 rising against Henry VII by Lambert Simnel, aYorkist pretender also supported by her sister-in-lawMargaret of Burgundy. That same year, she retired toconvent life in Bermondsey Abbey, a far cry from her re-gal palaces or even the residences of the Woodvilles andthe Greys. After her death five years later, ElizabethWoodville was buried at Windsor Castle on the 27th an-niversary of her coronation as Queen Consort. Sic transitgloria mundi!

About the AuthorKathleen Spaltro, co-author of Royals of England: A Guidefor Readers, Travelers, and Genealogists, also compiledGenealogy and Indexing. An editor, writer, proofreader, andteacher of writing, she lives and works in Woodstock,Illinois

This excerpt was originally written for the forthcom-ing book Royals of England: A Guide for Readers, Travel-ers, and Genealogists [ISBN 0-595-37312-7], byKathleen Spaltro and Noeline Bridge. Due to size limi-tations, this article was omitted in the published book.The book is due out late in 2005 or early in 2006.

On July 29, 2005 our friend and Michigan Chapter member SANDY BARTKOWIAK passed away afterbravely fighting cancer for several years. Sandy had served the Michigan Area Chapter as Library DisplayCoordinator and as Treasurer. She was a faithful meeting attendee and loved to participate in the AGM.

Sandy was always upbeat and optimistic and will be missed by all who knew her.

Sandy loved to learn about Richard III and one can only hope she now knows all the answers.

Loyaulte me lie


Woodville Siblings & Spouses

Elizabeth Woodville


Sites for Elizabeth Woodville’s Families

Noeline Bridge

See notations refer to other chapters of Royals of England.

Elizabeth was born at the Woodville home atGrafton, Northamptonshire. Grafton Regis

(Regis was bestowed by Henry VIII during a visit) is avillage on the A508, northwest of Milton Keynes. TheWoodvilles had first settled there in the 13th century.Grafton was small, the church and manor house beingthe two largest buildings.

The town’s website is:mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/heartofengland/churches.htm

It’s an attractive site which gives very little away: toread Grafton’s history, you have to buy a two-CD set.Elizabeth’s grandfather is represented by a brass in thechurch, viewed online at

www.mbs-brasses.co.uk/pic_lib/Grafton_Regis_Brass.htmElizabeth’s father Richard Woodville, Earl Rivers, was

taken prisoner at Chepstow. A town of 9000 population,Chepstow stands on the west side of the river Severn,near the Severn Road Bridge. Its castle, founded soon af-ter the Conquest, was, unusually for the time, built instone. Its impressive remains can be viewed athttp://www.grafton-regis.co.uk/, along with a history and de-scription. He was executed at Kenilworth Castle (seeJohn of Gaunt).

Her brother John was also taken prisoner at Chepstowwith his father, and executed at Kenilworth. Her otherbrother, Anthony, became Governor of the Prince ofWales, the future Edward V, at Ludlow. For Ludlow, seeEdward V. Anthony was executed at Pontefract. ForPontefract Castle, see Richard II.

Elizabeth married Sir John Grey, probably at Grafton.They then lived at Groby manor house, just to the north-west of Leicester. The Grey family inherited the manor in1445 when William de Ferrers died and later expandedtheir property by building the much larger country house

at Bradgate Park. The manor house, now known as GrobyOld Hall, still stands in the village of Groby; see it at:http://mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/heartofengland/churches.htm;http://members.lycos.co._Hlt113690312_Hlt113690313uBM_1_B

M_2_k/bradgate/groby.htm.The Grey family also lived at Astley manor, in

Warwickshire. The fortified, moated manor house (some-times called a castle) was built c.1266 and demolished in the16th century. It was replaced immediately, but this structure,which had been a hotel, burned down in 1978. Since then,only the ruins remain. See the manor and the local collegiatechurch about one-quarter through this extensive documentat mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/heartofengland/churches.htm. An-other view can be seen on a link fromhttp://members.lycos.co._Hlt113690312_Hlt113690313uBM_1_BM_2_k/bradgate/groby.htm. Astley is situated on the B4102about 5 miles south of Nuneaton, and to the northeast ofCoventry.

Sir John Grey died in 1461 at the Second Battle of St.Albans; see Henry VI. With the Grey estates forfeited tothe crown, Elizabeth retreated to Grafton with her twoyoung sons. There, legend has it, she contrived a meetingwith Edward IV under an oak tree in nearby Potterspury,to plead her cause. The tree, later known as the Queen’sOak, suffered so badly from fire and drought during the1990s that it eventually succumbed. The Queen’s Oak So-ciety has engaged on a hunt for a similar substitute. Seehttp://www.potterspury.org.uk/vh/queens_oak.htm. This essay ispart of the Potterspury village website athttp://www.potterspury.org.uk/vh/queens_oak.htm; at the time ofwriting, its Gallery section was “coming soon.”

Elizabeth’s son Thomas, by Sir John Grey, is buriedin the church at Astley (see above). Her other son, Rich-ard Grey, was executed at Pontefract Castle. See RichardII for information about this castle.

Speculation as to where Elizabeth and Edward’s secretmarriage took place is rife, although it’s usually assumedto be Grafton. She was crowned at Reading Abbey. Forbasic information about the abbey, see Henry I.

Elizabeth became patron and “true foundress by rightof succession” of Queens’ College, Cambridge Universityin 1465, at which stage the then-Queen’s University be-came Queens’ for herself and her predecessor, Margaretof Anjou. For background information regarding Queens’College, see Henry VI. Edward gave Sheen Palace toElizabeth, and it became her principal home. For infor-mation about Sheen, see Edward III.

After Edward IV had fled to France, in the SanctuaryGroby Old Hall, Bradgate Park


at Westminster Abbey Elizabeth gave birth to theirfourth child, Edward, later to become Edward V, in 1470.She was to go to the Sanctuary again, in 1483, after Ed-ward IV died. The Sanctuary building stood at the end ofSt. Margaret’s churchyard; it was demolished in 1750.

Bermondsey Abbey, where Elizabeth died in 1492, nolonger exists. Founded in 1082 as a Cluniac monastery, itwas demolished after Henry VIII’s Dissolution of theMonasteries to make way for Bermondsey House. Thechurch of St. Mary Magdalen survives as the oldest build-ing in Bermondsey: built for the lay folk of the abbey, itbecame the parish church after Dissolution. Bermondseylies on the south bank of the river Thames, between Lon-don Bridge and Rotherhithe. Part of it faces the Tower ofLondon on the opposite bank. The abbey would have lainin the area of Abbey Street; Bermondsey Square wouldhave been an inner courtyard of the abbey.

See—and take—a walking tour of Bermondsey athttp://www.london-footprints.co.uk/wkbermondsey.htm. Click onAdditional Information for more detail regarding eachsite. A plan of the abbey, based on a survey dating from1679, may be viewed at:

http://www.collectbritain.co.uk/personalisation/object.cfm?uid=007000000000016U00038000.

Sightings

Elizabeth and Edward are buried side-by-side in thenorth choir aisle of St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, behindan ironwork grille probably made by John Tresilian. SeeEdward IV.

The Bridgeman Art Library contains an 18th centurypainting by Giovanni Battista Cipriani of Elizabeth fare-welling her son Richard, Duke of York. See this at ImageID 25920. The original is in the Victoria & Albert Mu-seum, London. At Image ID 122725, there’s a painting byFragonard of Elizabeth farewelling both her sons. To ac-cess these images, go tohttp://www.collectbritain.co.uk/personalisation/object.cfm?uid=007000000000016U00038000, and enter the Image IDs.

The famous and much-copied portrait of Elizabeth inQueens’ College, Cambridge may be viewed athttp://www.quns.cam.ac.uk/Queens/Misc/Elizabeth.html.

In Lambeth Palace Library, there’s an image of An-thony Woodville presenting his book to Edward IV.Lambeth Palace Library, open to the public since 1610,contains a number of treasures. Read about it athttp://www.lambethpalacelibrary.org/. The library forms part ofLambeth Palace; London home of the Archbishop ofCanterbury since the 12th century, the Palace is a worth-while destination in itself, although not often open tothe public: when it is, the chapel should be seen for its

portraits. It’s located on the south bank of the Thames,opposite Westminster; and next to Lambeth Bridge.Among other attractions is the Museum of Garden His-tory in the very old church of St. Mary-at-Lambeth,where many archbishops are buried. Pay a virtual visit at:

http://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/palace

Also, by crossing Lambeth Palace Road to the riverbank, you’re looking across the Thames to the incompara-ble view of the Houses of Parliament.

About the AuthorNoeline Bridge has been an armchair traveler since childhoodand an actual traveler as soon as she earned money, addingvirtual traveling as the World Wide Web came into being. As alibrarian and freelance indexer, she has written and madepresentations on the indexing of names and places, whilecontinuing to travel and collect maps and guidebooks.

Father Constantine Belisarius

Jeri Ann Boyd Blumenthal

Nance Crawford

Kelly M. Ellis Richard

Foster Paul Frisch

Susan Giannotta

Debra Guptill

Dr. Victor E. Hill IV

Kathleen A. Jones

Ann Martelle

Suzanne Mealer

Juanita V. Miller

Salena Moffat

Nona Robbins

Joanne P. Stratmoen \

Betty W. Thrift

Eva Veller

Honorary Middleham MemberMarianne Pittorino

Fotheringhay Members,April 1-Sept. 15, 2005

Pamela Butler

Dorothy Calkins

Jeanne P. Carlson

Matthew J. Catania

Jacqueline C. Cox

Alan O. Dixler

Anna Ellis

Emma Goodman

Roberta Jacobs-Meadway

James F. Johnston

Rhonda L. Tirone

Sheri Vangen-Ratcliffe

Elizabeth Woodville Sites


Tewkesbury Revisited

Dave Luitweiler

The Tewkesbury Medieval Festival is an event that,hopefully, every Ricardian may someday experi-

ence. This past summer (July 2005) was my third con-secutive visit and I left with a firm determination thatnext summer will be my fourth. Having previouslysubmitted an article on this event (Celebrating theLast Yorkist Victory, Fall 2004) I considered the pos-sibility of doing a second article that concentrated onthe people who make this festival happen. The re-en-actment of the Battle of Tewkesbury is the largestevent of its kind in England. Every year large crowdstravel to Tewkesbury for this event. One need only at-tend the festival once to recognize that a lot of peoplegive of their time and efforts to make this such a suc-cess.

The festival has many aspects. There is a battle re-en-actment that recreates events surrounding the Yorkistvictory which took place here in May of 1471, when thetroops of King Edward IV defeated the Lancastrianforces of Margaret of Anjou and secured Edward’s rightto the throne. However, this is more than a battle recre-ation. Festival visitors have the opportunity to visit nu-merous vendors, most of them skilled artisans in theirown right, who display and sell medieval articles thatrange from armor to clothing. There are educationalvenues, including one maintained by the WorcestershireBranch of the Richard III Society, where informationalmaterial is available. Noted artist Grahmm Turnermaintains a site where his medieval paintings are on dis-play and available for sale. Visitors are entertained by avariety of musical groups that perform each year as wellas various groups who perform, in period garb, varioustasks and feats of military prowess.

Vendors supply a wide variety of foods that will pleaseany and all pallets, as well as a large tent where one’sthirst may be extinguished.

Who are the people who do this? Why do they do it?These are not professional actors. The festival is perpet-uated by people with a desire to maintain a part of theirculture and heritage. With that in mind, I decided tosubmit a follow-up article that recognizes these folksand provides some insight on who they are, and why theydo this.

On the first day of this year’s festival, July 9th, I tookan early morning train from Oxford where I had beenstaying while taking a summer course at Oxford Univer-sity. After a change of trains at Worcester Shrub Hill Iarrived in Tewkesbury by ten o’clock that morning. I

immediately made my way via the local bus service tothe festival grounds entrance at Lincoln Green Lane.

One of the first things you notice is the large numberof people who stroll the festival grounds in medievalgarb. I wandered back to where the tents are set up forthose who camp out for the weekend. This includesmany of the battle re-enactors who set up medieval tentsand campfires. When you walk through this area youhave the feeling of being transported back to the era ofthe Wars of the Roses. There are the quaint signs postedon each walkway throughout the venue, names like“Lancaster Lane”, “Edward’s Esplanade”, “Anjou Ave-nue” and “Margaret’s Mall.”

The opening ceremony for the 2005 festival featuredtwo local mayors, Claire Wright, Mayor of Tewkesbury,and Terry Sutton, Mayor of Colchester, who brought aproclamation of friendship from Colchester to Tewkes-bury. A formal presentation was made to Mayor Wrightby Mayor Sutton,Colchester’s Town Crier,Robert Needham and theVice Chairman of theColchester Town Watch,John Morgan. All wereproperly attired in theirgarb of office.

This year’s festival wasthe twenty-second andfull attention was paid to ensure a proper opening cere-mony with festivities befitting a medieval event. A largepole was erected on the grounds with a glove attached tothe top of the pole. My friend Steve Goodchild, aTewkesbury resident and member of the Battlefield Soci-ety, advised me that this is an old custom. It pertains tothe glove being a symbol of a charter fair being in “ses-sion.” Steve explained that there is a lot of history to fairs,

“which had ani m p o r t a n c eboth as a meansof settling ac-counts, as in thegreat fairs ofC h a m p a g n e ,and a means ofmaking a lot ofmoney if youwere the ownerof the rights, as


in the great English fairs. The glove symbolizes the sus-pension of common law and the existence of the fairlaws, which was not necessarily a democratic move! Thefair had its own court, of Pye Powder (corruption of theFrench for dusty feet) which was empowered to enforcethe fair’s law.” Pete Linnell, the festival’s entertainmentorganizer, assisted Mayor Wright in erecting the gloveand pole. A sign advised all present that the glove on thepole signified that the fair was open and the operatorshad the power to take all measures to ensure everyonetoed the line – so to speak.

(After watching the opening ceremony, I journeyedto the large tent where the Worcestershire Branch of theRichard III Society maintains a table containing volu-minous material on the history of Richard III, the Rich-ard III Society, and, matters connected to the era of theWars of the Roses. This was time to renew old acquain-tances with some of their members, including PamBenstead and June Tilt. I also had a chance to speak totheir Branch Chairman, Ralph Richardson, a retiredheadmaster and devoted Ricardian. Ralph is steppingdown as chair of this branch after twelve years of dedi-cated service. The Ricardians from the Worcestershire

Branch do a great job and all Ricardians owe them spe-cial thanks for their annual efforts. Pam told me thatnext year will mark the twentieth anniversary of thefounding of the Worcestershire branch. They havethirty-five active members. Although Ralph will bestepping down as Chairman, he will continue to be anactive member of the group. That is good news indeed.

As fate would have it, I was not the only Ricardian vis-iting the Worcestershire chapter’s display table. I was de-

lighted to run into the Chairman of the Richard IIISociety, Dr. Phil Stone, and his lovely wife Beth, a nativeof Chicago, IL. Between Ricardian conversations, Bethand I managed a few words about another subject of con-siderable interest to us in July — the fate of the ChicagoCubs. It was obvious that the Yorkists were having amuch better summer than the Cubs.

Not far from the society display table, and in the sametent, was an interesting display maintained by the Lanceand Longbow Society, a UK-based organization that pro-motes a historical and war gaming interest in the medi-eval era, including the Wars of the Roses. I spoke toDavid Lanchester, from Cheshunt, Herts., the Secretaryof the society. I complimented him on the representationhe had constructed showing the situation of Somerset’sflanking march and attack on the left flank of King Ed-ward’s army, commanded by his brother, Richard Duke ofGloucester. Those Ricardians interested in this aspect ofhistory may want to visit the society’s website at:www.lanceandlongbow.com.

As usual, mymain point of con-tact for my roamingin Tewkesbury con-tinues to be SteveGoodchild from theTewkesbury Battle-field Society. I spot-ted Steve standingnear his group’sJune Tilt (L) and Pamela Benstead (R) examining art

work of Grahmm Turner — he is in background

Phil and Beth Stone

Steve Goodchild & Jane Balaan

Ralph Richardson

Tewlesbury Revistesd


display in the tent, conferring with Jane Balaam, the bat-tle coordinator. Jane is a local personnel manager. Iheaded over to see them with my usual request for assis-tance. Both of these folks put a lot of time and effort intothe festival and undoubtedly never receive enough creditfor all of the work they do. For this particular session,Steve was my point of contact for interviews with some ofthe reenactors who portray historical figures who foughtat Tewkesbury. Steve and I, with Jane’s blessing, weresoon headed over to the Yorkist campsite.

One of the firstfigures I wantedto meet was, ofcourse, our Rich-ard. The role ofthe Duke ofGloucester wasportrayed by Rob-ert Bamberger, amerchant fromColchester, Essex.I asked him “why”he enjoyed por-traying Richardand annually participating in the battle. He used terms like“excites the mind and body”….. “love of history”….etc.Robert explained that he had a sense of well being and sat-isfaction from mastering the use of medieval weaponry, “itmakes you feel good about yourself.” This was Robert’ssixth year of participation.

Of course, if you interview the Duke of Gloucester youhad better interview the king. Remember this is Tewkes-bury and it is good policy not to have the king irritated. Ifyou anger Edward the Abbey will not provide you ade-quate sanctuary. The role of Edward is performed by Si-mon de Montfort, a police officer from the Ministry ofDefense, who is from Suffolk. Once I discovered he was apolice officer we “bonded” and all concerns about sanctu-ary evaporated. Simon told me his full name is Simon deMontfort B. F. Howard Plantagenet. He also claimed tobe a descendant of the king and stated that he relishedplaying this role as itwas part of his familyhistory. Like manyRicardians he believesthe Yorkist cause neverreceived a fair reviewfrom history. Simon hasbeen playing the role ofeither Edward or Rich-ard for fifteen years. Heis an interesting man.

Another interestingYorkist I interviewedwas the much malignedGeorge, Duke of Clar-ence. The Tewkesburyevent is international innature and the cause ofYork attracts peoplefrom areas outside ofthe United Kingdom. I discovered that Clarence wasStefan Peeters from Belgium, a native of Ghent. He toldme that as a child he became interested in medieval timesand the chivalry of knights. He has been participating inthe Tewkesbury festival for many years.

The battle of Tewkesbury involved far more than theking and his brothers.For example, PaulJohnson is a Tewkes-bury resident who,when not participatingin medieval battlereenactments, is a car-penter who specializesin restoring antiques.Paul plays the role ofthe Duke of Somersetin the battle. Ironically,Paul also happens to be the proud owner of a medieval exe-cution sword that on this day will await him later in the fes-tival when Somerset and his cohorts meet their fate. Paulhas been a member of the battle cast for twenty-two years.

Another indi-vidual who hasbeen involved withthe festival since itsinception is Briande Heer, a local fel-low who is afull-time trader athistoric fairs. Brianholds the distinc-tion of being thefirst person to play the part of Richard when the festivalstarted in 1984. As Steve Goodchild informed me, Brianhas a sharp mind and ready wit, a fact I can personally at-test to after interviewing him for this article. Brian nowplays the Chief Clerk at the trial of Somerset and his as-sociates after the battle. I guess we can say, based on theoutcome, that he is a “no-nonsense judge.”

Bernard Willoughby, an Evesham resident who is anarmour maker by profession, has been participating in thebattle reenactment since 1984. This year Bernard was

Robert Bamberger,Duke of Gloucester

Simon de Montfortas Edward IV

George, Duke of Clarence

Pau.l Johnson,Duke of Somerset

Brian de Heer


acting as Lord Wenlock. I asked him what motivated himto do this every year. Hisreply, “Madness, I sup-pose.” Actually, Berniecredited an intense inter-est in history for hisinvolvement.

Anyone who has everattended the Tewkesburyfestival is aware that theevent is far more than abattle reenactment. Thefestival is also one of thelargest trade shows formedieval crafts held in the UK. Every year scores of arti-sans and skilled craft experts converge on Tewkesbury todisplay, sell and trade their wares. Others come to acquiremedieval clothing, shoes, armour, medieval furniture,weapons, and other implements and accessories con-nected to medieval times. Business continued to be briskin 2005. As in the past, I set aside some time to visit withsome of the vendors and find out a little about them andwhy they come to Tewkesbury.

Ana Diessler is anative of Germanywho resides inTreochy, Mid Glam-organ, Wales. Ana’sspecialty, and her pas-sion, is medievalshoes. She operatesher own businessANA – Period Shoes(www.AnaPeriodShoes.co.uk). You onlyneed talk to Ana for five minutes to know that this ismore than a business, it is a labor of love. Ana fascinatedme with the quick history she provided on the develop-ment of footwear in the medieval times through theElizabethan period. She has been attending these fairsfor eight years and her tent was a popular venue withthose in attendance. In her spare time Ana presents lec-tures on the history of footwear to interested groups andmuseum workshops.

Another vendor and native of Germany now residingin the UK, is Andreas Doebereiner, fromNorthumberland. Andreas’s specialty is the long bow.This was his second time at Tewkesbury. Andreas toldme he displays his wares at approximately eight events ayear. He advised me that in medieval times arrows usedwith the long bow were steel-tipped and could piercechain mail. However, for the festival, the reenactors use

rubber-tipped arrows.I guess that certainlymakes sense! Whenasked why he partici-pates in these eventshe had a ready answer:“It is good fun.”

For those who pre-fer to make their ownmedieval costume, avisit to the tent of Herts Fabrics of Hatfield, Hertfordshire,is a pleasant experience. Customers can examine a wide as-sortment of fabrics appropriate for medieval garb. Thecompany displays itsproduct line at approxi-mately thirty shows/events a year. I spoke toAnwar Ali Vas, theowner of the business.Anwar has been attend-ing the festival for manyyears.

He really enjoys theevent and he took time from a steady stream of visitorsto his display to speak to me. Anyone interested in theirline of textiles can check out their website:www.hertsfabircs.co.uk.

Of course, if you are not a do-it-yourself person, thereare plenty of vendors who sell custom made medievalcostumes. You might want to stop at the tent of SusanFever from the Isle of Wight who makes medieval garband her partner Les Nash, who makes and repairs medi-eval weapons.. They have been coming to Tewkesburyfor fifteen years. They average about ten shows a year.When not participating in medieval festivals Susan is aschool cook and Les is a metal worker.

The aforesaid three vendors are only a small samplingof the skilled artisans and vendors that display atTewkesbury each year. If you want to have your hairstyled in medieval fashion, add to your medieval ward-robe, or purchase some medieval furniture, the festival isthe place to be.

Another highlight is the entertainment provided freeof charge to festival attendees. Did I mention that thereis no charge to attend the festival? This has to be the bestentertainment value in the UK, if not anywhere in theworld. Periodically, during the two days of the festival,there are demonstrations of medieval battle skills, fash-ions musicians , and skilled artisans plying their trade.

As in the past, two musical groups were a big hit withthose at the festival. The Morris dance group,MYTHAGO, based in Suffolk, continues to delight with

Bernard Willoughbyas Lord Wenlock

Ana Diessler

Andreas Doebereiner

Anwar Ali Vas

Tewlesbury Revistesd


their fantastic dance performances. When MYTHAGOis not performing, spectators are treated to thefoot-stomping and lively music provided by a medievalband from Germany, known as SCHEMISH. I spentsome time chatting with them while sharing a beveragenear the pub tent before one of their sets. I asked theirleader to describe their style of music and he jokingly re-plied that they were “punk rock without electrical instru-ments — played on medieval instruments.” However youwant to describe their music it is loud, lively, and quitepopular with festival goers at Tewkesbury.

There are some other folks strolling the grounds atTewkesbury who I also try and make it a point to chatwith whenever I visit. These are the folks in medievalcostume who come solely to be a part of the festivities.

Typical of those who make Tewkesbury a familyevent was the Willoughby family from Hastings, EastSussex. I chatted with Ian Willoughby who was strollingthe grounds with his wife Beckie and young daughterEllie. All three were in medieval garb. Ian, who is in-volved in the computer industry, told me his family en-joys events such as the Tewkesbury festival because itallows the family to participate in events that are a “com-plete contrast to things like computer games and playstations.” Ian and his family were part of a larger groupat this year’s festival. He told me, “I would like to addthat participating in the events we are made to feel likevalued members in a hugefamily. Our household,the Bonnivants within theMedieval Siege Society,numbers around fortymembers from babies tosenior citizens and every-one helps and looks out foreach other.”

Strolling back in thecamp area I ran into Jamieand Andrea Walton from

South Wales, Lancaster adherents. Jamie, a medieval tourguide in South Wales, advised that he attends approxi-mately fifteen events of this type every year. He comple-mented the “great bunch of people” who participate in thefestival. I also chatted with Jo Frankel, a primary schoolteacher in Stirling and native of Toronto, Ontario, andher friend Cathy Holroyd from Crawley, who has been at-tending this event for five years. Both ladies were resplen-dent in their medieval garb — even though they werethere in support of the House of Lancaster! They bothenjoy the fun of participating in the festival and the expe-rience of camping at the site.

If you have the opportunity to attend the Tewkesburyfestival make certain to give yourself enough time to strollthrough the camping area. It is like stepping back intotime as you wander through the respective camps of Yorkand Lancaster. The tents are colorful and the fragrancefrom the campfires and cooking pots can easily cause oneto never want to leave. As the time for the battle ap-proaches, the campsites are a scene of hurried prepara-tions involving dressing for battle and falling intomarching ranks with banners unfurled. It is quite a siteand one you will not soon forget.

However, as with most good things in life, there neveris enough time to see everything. This year I had to catchan early evening train to return to Oxford. I left wishing Icould stay for more. On the trip back to Oxford, as theEnglish countryside rolled by my window, I thoughtabout the diverse and wonderful group of people whocome together every year to make Tewkesbury such a suc-cess. Some are re-enactors, some vendors, some are mov-ers and shakers behind the scene, and some are just plainfolk who dress up in medieval garb and come to supporteither Lancaster or York. Others are folks like me, peoplewho come to Tewkesbury every year because it is fun anda great way to relive part of a history that has meaning forus — even if it is only for a few hours.

About the AuthorDavid M. Luitweiler is a Ricardian and a retired lawenforcement official residing in Victor, New York. He previouslyserved 32 years in the New York State Police, including tenureas head of the criminal divison (BCI) before leaving in 1994 toaccept a position as Executive Assistant to the Administrator ofthe US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) inWashington, DC. He served in that position until retiring inDecember of 1999. He remains a member of the InternationalAssociation of Chiefs of Police. He is a Phi Beta Kappa graduateof the University of Rochester and a member of the Richard IIISociety since 2002.

SCHEMISH

Willoughby Family


Flights of Fancy:

Medieval Explorations Into Manned Flight

Joan Szechtman

In my research, I wondered whether Richard IIIwould have known of any of Leonardo Da Vinci’s writ-ings, coda, or inventions. Da Vinci was born the sameyear as Richard (1452), and there was known communi-cation between England and Italy. However, I haven’tbeen able to determine whether Richard knew anythingabout Da Vinci, including his art (although, one wouldthink Richard III might have known something aboutthe artist, as Da Vinci was well known in the westernworld).

Back to flight: Da Vinci’s first codex for flight wasdeveloped in the 1480’s, where he designed anornithopter. This design wasn’t new to western civiliza-tion, as the Greek legend of Deadalus and Icarus bearswitness. Additionally, the Chinese were experimentingwith kites and other gliders about 400 BC.

In terms of known flight, it wasn’t until 852 AD thatArmen Firman, a Moor based in Cordoba, Spain, tookhis first and last flight when he leapt from a tower wear-ing his invention, a wing-like cloak. He had no control,and didn’t fly, but floated to the ground. It acted morelike a parachute, and he only suffered minor injuriesfrom this little adventure.

This idea, that man could fly, gained a foothold inCordoba, as twenty-three years later, in 875, Ibn-Firnasbuilt a glider of his own design. He celebrated success-fully completing its fabrication by inviting the town’speople to witness his maiden flight. Quite a few climbeda nearby mountain and watched as Ibn-Firnas jumpedfrom a tower and successfully glide in the air. However,the contraption had no tail or rudder, and the landingwas rather harsh. Although he survived, Ibn-Firnas suf-fered sever back injuries, and died thirteen years later,possibly related to his injuries, from which he nevercompletely recovered.

In 1010 AD, Monk Eilmer of Malmesbury broughtfame to England when he strapped wings to his armsand feet and launched himself off a tower, flapping hisway for about 200 yards of manned flight. Unfortunatelyfor Eilmer, hereafter known as the flying monk, he was-n’t able to control his flight, and crashed rather uncere-moniously, breaking both legs. He recovered anddeveloped a new design that included a tail rudder (per-haps from observing how birds flew) He wanted to testhis new design, but his superior would not allow it.

Eilmer probably learned of the Ibn-Firnas’s

invention from tales brought back by pilgrims to theHoly Land. Late in the eleventh century, William ofMalmesbury recorded this flight in his book, GestaRegum Anglorum (The History of the English Kings).

It wasn’t until 1783 when Joseph and JacquesMontgolfier flew the first hot air balloon, and 1799when George Cayley successfully sailed the first gliders.So that little burst of engineering creativity in the mid-dle ages was quite astounding when one realizes it tookalmost another 300 years after Da Vinci and nearly amillennium after Armen Firman for man to finally getoff the ground and stay aloft.

References:Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Da_Vinci

Inventions:http://www.museoscienza.org/english/leonardo/invenzioni.html

The flying monk:http://www.angelfire.com/electronic/bodhidharma/monk.html

Other flyers before Da Vinci:http://www.angelfire.com/realm/bodhisattva/flyers.html

Early history of flight:http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blearlyflight.htm

Errata

The correct masthead on the cover of the Summer2005 of the Ricardian Register should be

Vol. XVIV, No. 2

Apologies to those librarians among you, for whomthis made a considerable problem.


Ricardian

ReadingMyrna Smith

Ye cannot serve God and Mammon

- Matthew VI . 24

Wine maketh merry; but money answereth all

things - Ecclesiastes X. 19

� Medici Money: banking, metaphysics and art in fif-teenth-century Florence – Tim Parks, W.W. Norton &Co. NY, 2005

When Richard III was king, there was no Medici bank inEngland. Losses on loans to Edward IV and some of thelords who died at Barnet and Tewkesbury forced theMedicis to close their London branch in 1472. GherardoCanigiani, the bank manager responsible for the bad loans,became an English citizen, married, acquired a coat of arms,and settled on land Edward IV gave him inBuckinghamshire. Tomasso Portinari, manager of theBruges branch, added the London branch’s losses to thelosses accumulating from bad loans to Charles the Bold.Despite the conflict of interest, Portinari served as financialadvisor to Charles at the same time he was managing theMedici bank. Portinari made loans and shipping dealswhich helped Charles the Bold, but lost money for thebank, disobeying direct orders from Piero, head of theMedici family. Portinari’s risky deals eventually forced theBruges branch to close. Yet his personal income allowedhim to commission costly paintings, where he and hisfamily appear prominently as donors, seemingly unsulliedby contact with money.

Author Tim Parks suggests that changing attitudestowards money contributed to the decline of the Medicibank. Its founder Giovanni di Bicci and his son Cosimowere involved and interested in the everyday details ofbanking. Cosimo said he would be a banker “even ifmoney could be made by waving a wand.” Giovanni andCosimo were cautious lenders. While they ran theMedici bank these rules applied:

• Don’t lend more than 300 florins to cardinals.• Don’t lend more than 200 florins to courtiers.• Don’t lend to any Roman merchant – unreliable.• Don’t lend to any feudal baron.• Don’t lend to Germans, because German courts won’t

respect your claim if the borrower defaults.• Don’t trade in wine; it’s not worth it.The Medici bank enjoyed its greatest prosperity

under Cosimo’s leadership. Unfortunately his favoriteson, Giovanni, although trained to take over fromCosimo, lacked his father’s talent and enthusiasm; healso predeceased his father. When Cosimo died, Piero,the son trained for politics and government, had to takeresponsibility for the bank. Poor health and political cri-ses contributed to bad decisions, which accelerated thebank’s decline.

Piero’s son Lorenzo was as uninterested in bankingas his uncle Giovanni had been. Preoccupied by human-istic studies and political maneuvers, he seemed almostproud of knowing “nothing” about his family’s powersource. Although people called him “The Magnificent,”his indifference had far from magnificent consequencesfor the Medici bank. Ignoring the cautious lending rulesthat contributed to the bank’s success under Giovanniand Cosimo, Lorenzo’s branch managers lent recklessamounts of money to kings, dukes, mercenaries, cardi-nals, and popes. Tomasso Portinari made loans to Ed-ward IV and Charles the Bold which were never repaid.Lorenzo guesstimated that Portinari had lost the bank70,000 florins; a more accurate audit showed losses of100,000 florins. Lorenzo’s political successes couldn’tcompensate for his financial failings. Under his control,six of the Medici branch banks closed between 1478 and1489.

Attitude wasn’t the only factor that brought downthe Medici bank. Banking was a risky profession in 15thcentury Florence. Between the mid-1420s and 1470, 39out of 72 other Florentine banks failed. Military con-flicts and trade wars contributed to these failures.

As early as the mid-1430s, Cosimo felt it necessaryto lend money to Francesco Sforza, the mercenary whoeventually took control of Milan. Over a 30-year period,Sforza “borrowed” 190,000 florins from the Anconabranch of the Medici bank, an amount impossible to re-pay. Cosimo broke his own rules in order to buy protec-tion for the city of Florence. Sforza never attackedFlorence, but the Ancona branch’s apparent success inbuying political influence may have set a bad example tothe lenders in Bruges and London.

Financial arrangements with popes were complicatedby the Church’s ban on usury. Complex evasions allowed

Most books reviewed here can be purchased at www.r3.org/sales.


popes to deposit money for safe-keeping and receiver“gifts,” which were actually interest payments. Until themid-1460s, loans to popes were profitable, but profitsdisappeared after that. Also harmful to the Medici bankwas Paul II’s attempt to create a monopoly on alum, asubstance necessary for drying cloth and processingleather. Pope Paul II gave the Medici bank sole rights tosell alum, threatening any Christian who bought alumfrom competitors with excommunication. But the mo-nopoly attempt failed because Burgundians refused topay monopoly prices. In spite of his permissive lending,Tomasso Portinari couldn’t persuade Charles the Bold toorder his subjects to stop buying from lower priced com-petitors. Eventually the Medici bank found itself withthree year’ worth of alum in its warehouses. Instead ofmaking big profits, they suffered big losses.

Other losses resulted from England’s effort to becomea cloth producer as well as a supplier of raw wool. DuringHenry VI’s reign, the English began to weave cloth tosell overseas instead of shipping their raw wool to crafts-men in Burgundy and Florence. But north-south tradewas already unbalanced, and English cloth in place ofraw wool made the imbalance worse. No one in Florencewanted English cloth. Medici bank managers didn’twant to accept English cloth in repayment for loans.Florentine weavers didn’t want competition from Eng-lish weavers; they wanted English wool to supply Flor-entine looms. Florentine consumers didn’t want to buyEnglish cloth, which they considered inferior to locallywoven cloth.

Early in Edward IV’s reign, a trade war between Eng-land and Burgundy added to the Medici bank’s prob-lems. Margaret of York’s marriage to Charles the Boldconfirmed the end of the war, but it resulted in morerisky loans to Edward IV. By 1472, the London branchhad failed.

This review has highlighted the Medici bank’s rela-tions with England and Burgundy. Readers will also findlocal and international politics, military conflicts, reli-gious conflicts, arts and humanities, historical sources,physiological conflicts, and conflicts between appear-ances and reality woven into this history of the Medicibank. Some readers may want to compare this author’sinterpretations with other historians’. They will find aBibliographic Sources section, which complements theauthor’s comments in the test. Even those who find rea-son to disagree with Parks’ interpretation of eventsshould get a good return on their investment in thisbook.

— Marion Davis

The royal court is an assembly of noble and

distinguished beggars. – Talleyrand

� The Lives Of The Kings And Queens Of England –Antonia Fraser, University of California Press,Berkley, 1998

� A Royal History Of England And Scotland –Plantagenet Somerset Fry, Dorling Kindersley, Lon-don, 1998

� Kings And Queens Of England – David Williamson,Konecky & Konecky, NY, 1998

I recently received the above titles from friends. SomersetFry and Williamson started with the Saxon kings andFraser starts her royal history with the Conquest. For thepurposes of this review, I will compare their approaches toRichard III and Edward V.

The Fraser edition’s chapter on Richard III is writtenby Anthony Cheetham, who has written a biography ofRichard. Cheetham gives the most information, goingback to Richard’s excellent reputation as Duke of Glou-cester. He quotes Dominic Mancini about the esteemRichard garnered for his private live, public activities,discretion and military prowess. Cheetham thinks thatRichard plotted to get the throne but that his survivaldepended on his ruling England. Elizabeth Woodvillefired the first salvo when she pushed the council to an-nul the protectorship outlined in Edward’s will in favorof a regency council. Though there is no proof thatRichard was responsible for the deaths of his nephews,Cheetham thinks that, again, he had no choice. To sur-vive he had to rule alone, without rebellions in favor ofthe boys.

Accompanying Cheetham’s text is the ugliest pictureof Richard I have ever seen. With thin, frightened faceand delicate hands, he bears to resemblance to the cou-rageous warrior that even his enemies acknowledgedhim to be. It is so ugly that no one claimed it. It is notlisted in the picture credits.

Plantagenet Fry (how could such a name not be hy-phenated?) has a section on Edward V which is accom-panied by the Millais painting of Victorian times. Youknow the one — the two pretty boys with blonde curlyhair, dressed in black velvet, clinging together with ap-prehension in their faces. Fry says that we will neverknow “who, if anyone, killed them, “ points out that af-ter Richard’s death, Henry Tudor went to great lengthsto blacken Richard’s name, but did not immediately ac-cuse him of the murder. Henry could have murderedthem in secret.

Fry has little text, but the best pictures. In each sec-tion he includes a list of events in which he includessome of Richard’s accomplishments. He is the only one


of the three to credit his achievements. Somerset Fryends his brief text with the statement “…once he (Rich-ard) was dead, historians, clerics and even playwrightsfell all over themselves to blacken his name,” all designedto further the Tudor dynasty.

Williamson covers Edward V with the offendingMillais portrait and gives the official Tudor version, buthe goes on to say that there is some evidence that theboys were removed to Middleham and were still alive atRichard’s death. It would follow then that their deathswere ordered by Henry VII. He then mentions TheDaughter of Time and the Richard III Society. William-son says no evidence exists to implicate Richard in thedeaths of Edward, the Lancastrian Prince of Wales, orGeorge, Duke of Clarence.

All three of these books are beautiful volumes. Allhave portraits of their subjects. Fraser’s has the best text.Somerset Fry has the most varied and attractive picture.He alone mentions Richard’s achievements. All threeconcentrate on Richard’s guilt in the disappearance andall three conclude that the facts will never be known, butRichard’s guilt is by no means certain. No one mentionsBuckingham as the culprit, but all three say Henry Tu-dor must be considered as the murderer.

All these books were last published in 1998. We’vecome a long way, Baby!

— Dale Summers, TX

Somewhat along the same lines as the above, but in analtogether different style, and with a different type of il-lustrations, is A Rhyming History of Britain: 55 B.C. –A.D. 1966 by James Muirden (Simon & Schuster, NY,2003. As the cover blurb puts it:

This cheerful poem has been writtenTo tell the history of Britain:From Celts to Churchill, it relates(With all the most Important Dates)The country’s convoluted course…Why Richard hollered for a horse;Why Eleanor was such a catch;Why no one liked the Spanish Match;The pros and cons of Laissez-faireSmart Georgian belles’ underwear; …..

And he can keep this sort of Bellocose (that is, in-spired by Hillarie Belloc) verse going for over 200 pages.Putting 2000 years of history into rhyming coupletsmust have been quite a task, but anyone willing to tacklethe entire universe — Muirden has written several bookson this subject, and makes telescopes on the side — hasnerve enough for it, and his upbringing in a rather eliteand intellectual boarding house gave him the back-ground. David Eccles drawings breezily complement the

text, and contain themes that run – sometimes gallop –through the pages. The section on Richard III, for ex-ample, is illustrated by an academic type sitting at hiscomputer and flipping a coin!

All the Important Dates and other necessary but dullbits, such as treaties, etc, appears in the form of marginalnotes. The author notes: “I am not a historian. In fact, Iwrote this poem in order to teach myself some history. Ithought that sorting facts into verse form would con-centrate my mind wonderfully. Which it did!” It may dothe same for you.

His coverage stops in 1966, when he left home andset out into the world. After that, it’s current events, andsomebody else’s history, or perhaps a Part II to this one.

Fortunes made in no time are like shirts made in notime; it’s ten to one if they hang together.

— Douglas Jerrold

� The Traitor’s Wife : A novel of the Reign of Edward II– Susan Higginbotham, iUniverse Books, Lincoln,NE

There’s nothing like starting off a story with a bang. SusanHigginbotham opens with the then-Prince Edward in bedwith his lover, Piers Gaveston. (It should be said, up front,that while there are no overly explicit bedroom scenes – thisis not a bodice-ripper – they are not elided. Neither are thescenes of violence, e.g. the executions. ) The author takes auniversal point of view, but most of the scenes are seenthrough the eyes of the title character, Eleanor leDespenser, called Nelly to distinguish her from thenumerous other Eleanors at court. It starts with hermarriage in 1306 and ends with her death in 1337. Nelly isHugh le Despenser’s wife, Edward I’s granddaughter, theniece of Edward II, and an ancestress of Anne Neville. Thewife is, as always, the last one to find out, and when Nellyfinally learns of the liason between her husband and theKing, she is understandably angry, and determines to givehim a dose of his own medicine. The shock is with whomshe chooses to retaliate.

Ms Higginbotham has an eye for detail, not alwaysentirely accurate, as in the following: “…the ceiling waspainted a brilliant blue that the English sky only occa-sionally attained. Down, the floor was covered in carpetso thick and soft that walking on it took a bit more effortthan usual. Around, there were the goldfinches —forty-seven of them… — singing a greeting to the la-dies…” I’m not an expert on this particular period, but Idoubt that such luxurious carpets were in use at thattime. The painted ceiling does, however; ring true:medievals were very fond of bright colors. And the gold-finches were no doubt considered a pleasant touch bythose who didn’t have to clean the floor covering,whatever it was.

Ricardian Reading


But there are few anachronisms, most very minor.Since the protagonists would have spoken French, orMiddle English, unintelligible to modern ears, the au-thor has chosen the option of translating their wordsinto present-day speech.

One of the author’s strengths is her depiction of char-acter, especially of those who might be considered theless important characters. Ralph de Monithermer,Nelly’s stepfather, for example, is an admirable charac-ter, without being a prig or a saint, and a beau ideal forstepfathers everywhere. (He also ends up being herbrother-in-law once removed. Medieval genealogy canbe complicated.!) And this is how the ladies of the courtare described:

Berwick Castle was full of noblewomen…Given anemergency, all could have undergone any manner ofinconvenience…But no emergency being present, allexpected their accustomed comfort and had broughtretainers with them, as well as greyhounds (the queen),lapdogs (most of the countesses), birds (the LadyDespenser) and even a cat (Lady Vesey). The animalsdid not all get along, and neither did all thenoblewomen. The acerbic Lady Vesey, being somewhatolder than the rest and not at all in awe of a superiortitle, felt free to give her opinion on any subject, nomatter how irritating to the rest. The Countess ofCornwall was quick to take offense regarding her latehusband, Gaveston, even when none was intended. TheCountess of Surrey was quick to take offense regardingher very alive husband … even when none wasintended. The Lady Despenser was …. married toalmost a nobody and tended, the countesses thought, toget above her place. The Countess of Pembroke, who hadyet to produce a child…disliked hearing about allmatters maternal, which was one of the great unifyingsubjects among the women. The Countess of Herefordcould not be around a lapdog without sneezing, andnone of the lapdogs were inclined to stay away from theCountess of Hereford.

On the other hand …. there were certain advantagesto having a castle full of women; no one had too muchwine and called her neighbor a misbegotten whoreson;no one who lost at dice challenged the winner to a fight;and no one spent the evening at a brothel and then in-sisted on being admitted to the castle in the dead of thenight.

I am assuming this is Susan Higgenbotham’s firstnovel, not having been informed to the contrary, and aworthy example of the genre it is. It is available in a vari-ety of print and electronic media. Contact the publisher,iUnivrese, at 2021 Pine Lake Road, Suite 100, Lincoln,NE 68512. (Phone is 1-800-Authors, and web page is

www.iuniverse.com ).Ms. Higginbotham’s own website has links to the

Richard III Society, as well as giving some of her back-ground as a lawyer and legal writer.

Don’t marry for money; you can borrow it

cheaper – Scots proverb

� The Seventh Son – Reay Tannahill, Headline BookPublishing, London, 2001

This also starts off with a bang:

“Sapphires for my bride-to-be and a severed head for theking my brother,’ said Duke Richard cheerfully. “As St.Paul pointed out, gifts may vary but the spirit is thesame. In the present instance, a spirit of goodwill.”

This is Richard as he will be depicted throughout:cynical (though not completely so), sardonic, brave butpractical. He is not romanticized: he is not perfect andnot always gentil, though his lapses from the latter arerendered understandable. He makes no bones aboutmarrying Anne for her property, but comes to love herdeeply — although he first admits it in an offhand, un-conscious way. Tannahill admits, in her afterword, thatshe has made certain assumptions about Richard: “thathe was tough, charming, self-seeking, and very much aman of his time.” She adds: “I have left Richard inno-cent of murdering the princes in the Tower, since thereis no proof whatsoever that he was responsible and theirdeaths would have been of no particular benefit to him.”“… since it is academically unrespectable,” she writes,“as well as irritating to the reader, to use such phrases as‘he may well have thought,’ ‘perhaps he assumed,’ or ‘nodoubt it occurred to him;’ the odds are stacked againstany attempt to give the subject the psychological plausi-bility that turns a lay figure into a believable humanbeing.”

Reay Tannahill has beaten these odds to a remarkabledegree. This book is several years old, but will reward areading if you haven’t already become acquainted with it.Try the public library or interlibrary loans.

Some small change…

Charlie Jordan sends a note about a book he acquired whilevisiting the Tower of London: The Tower Of LondonPrisoner Book, by Brian A. Harrison (published by theRoyal Armouries in 2004). It’s a listing of all prisoners inthe Tower from 1100-1941. He emails a sample listing:

YEAR; 1247. PRISONER’S NAME: Abraham theJew. REASON FOR IMPRISONMENT: Accused ofsacrilege upon a Christian statue he had placed in hisprivy and then murdering his wife when she objectedand tried to clean the statue. OUTCOME: Secured apardon by paying the king 700 marks.


There are many appendices, floor plans, lists of exe-cutioners, etc. Not cheap — it cost 50 pounds at theTower — and not light. Charlie says his “… 15 year oldniece bleated incessantly about having to schlep itaround while I drank coffee and smokes. Pitiful child ..doesn’t make a good porter.” Come on, Charlie, havesome empathy. Not only was she getting round-shoul-dered from lugging this 6-pound tome around, she wasbeing subjected to second-hand smoke, as well! But Isuspect we would agree with Mr. Jordan that it is a “Nicebook,” and maybe he will write a full report for a futureissue.

Also on Things to Come, Sandra Worth informs us thatthe next two books in her Ricardian series will be out inJanuary and June of 2006. We will be looking forward tothem.

And Sarah Foulkrod has come across this reference fromBooklist, in its entirety: Maxwell, Robin – To the Tower Born– Sept. 2005. 320p, Morrow, $24.95 (0-06-058051-9)

No word as to what or whom it is about. If anyone outthere has any input, I would be pleased to learn about it.

I have one or two items in escrow for a future column,including one about the multicultural (sort of) history ofSpain in the 15th century.

To wind things up, here’s a quotation from anot-at-all Ricardian or Medieval book, Great Hoaxes OfThe World And The Hoaxers Behind Them, (by Nick Yapp— is that name a hoax or at least a pseudonym?) —Robson Books Ltd, London, 1992) Mostly it deals withmodern hoaxes, such as the Great Spaghetti Harvest,and such things as political hoaxes, but on the very lastpage of the text, the author says:

Thanks to Shakespeare, we believe in the villainy ofRichard III. Thanks to Hollywood, we believe in theheroism of General Custer.

. . . which leads one to believe that he (Yapp) has theRight Stuff, along with all the Gentle Readers who havecontributed and will contribute to this column.

Ricardian Reading


Dem Bones

Victoria Moorshead

This article originally appeared in the September/October 2005issue of Family Chronicle Magazine and is reprinted withpermission.

When researching their roots, most genealogistsand family historians begin with themselves

and their parents and then move backwards to theirgrandparents, and hopefully far beyond, back to thebeginning of reliable records.

John Ashdown-Hill instead began his research with15th-century information and ended up in the presentday.

Ashdown-Hill is a genealogist and a member of theRichard III Society. In 2003, he attended a conferencein Mechelen, Belgium on Margaret of York, one ofRichard III’s sisters, who married Charles the Bold,duke of Burgundy. At the conference, Dr. Paul de Winpresented a paper on the multiple possible remains ofMargaret which had been found around her tomb site inMechelen, and the apparent impossibility of resolvingthe puzzle. Ashdown-Hill decided that mitochondrialDNA (mtDNA), which is inherited only from themother and provides an unaltered link to past genera-tions, might solve the mystery and set about to try tofind a living descendant who carried the correctmtDNA.

Ashdown-Hill says “I began following all possible fe-male lines of descent from Richard’s aunts andgreat-great-aunts as he had no female line great-aunts,and it is impossible to go any further back as his femaleline ancestry isn’t documented beyond Catherine deRoet (Swynford), Duchess of Lancaster. However, I alsoworked on Richard’s sisters, Anne and Elizabeth. Eliza-beth’s descendants peter out after two generations, butAnne, Duchess of Exeter has lots of descendants. I hadno possible way of knowing which female line of descentwould actually result in still-living descendants, so I hadto try to trace them all.”

As the family of Anne, Margaret and Richard waspart of the royal family and then part of the nobility, itwas relatively easy to trace for several generations. Astime passed, the family moved further away from royaltyand the records of births and marriages became morerelevant and, thanks to the growth of recording keeping,easier to trace. Ashdown-Hill used documents such asbaptismal records, marriage records and wills. “Wills,however,” he says, “were especially important, becausethey often reveal the name change which took place

when a girl married.” In addition to the records left byAnne’s descendants, Ashdown-Hill also used publishedgenealogies, such as the Marquis of Ruvigny’sPlantagenet Roll Of The Blood Royal, which purport-edly traces all the descendants of Edward III down tothe 19th century. According to Ashdown-Hill, “TheAnne of Exeter volume of the Plantagenet Roll was agreat help. The Complete Peerage was also useful,though irritating too, because it tends only to follow upmale lines!”

Some of the interesting discoveries thatAshdown-Hill made along the way were that Anne,Margaret and Richard had identical mtDNA to thechildren of the 14th-century poet Geoffrey Chaucerwhose wife, Philippa de Roet was the sister of Richard’sgreat-grandmother, Catherine. One descendant ofAnne of Exeter with identical mtDNA was BarbaraSpooner, wife of the British Member of Parliament andslave-trade abolitionist William Wilberforce and there-fore all Wilberforce’s descendants are also descendantsof the House of York. Unfortunately this female-linedescent ended with his granddaughter, Barbara Wilber-force James. According to Ashdown-Hill, in the 19thcentury Anne of Exeter had lots of female-line descen-dants who died unmarried or childless. “At one point”,he says, “I seriously began to wonder whether there wereany living female line descendants left!”

The research took a year and Ashdown-Hill finallylocated a living female-line descent of Anne of Exeter:Joy Ibsen who lives in Ontario, Canada. Ibsen gave anmtDNA sample just before Christmas of 2004.

Now that Ashdown-Hill has located an mtDNA do-nor, the next step is find out if any of the mystery bonesare indeed Margaret of York’s in Belgium.

John Ashdown-Hill


Right Trusty and Well Beloved

Callie Kendall

The keynote speaker for the 2005 AGM in Chicago was CallieKendall. We reprint here Callie’s address in its entirety. Callieis the daughter of Paul Murray Kendall, author of the definitivebiography of Richard III, which celebrates its 50th anniversarythis year.

In the spirit of the Wars of the Roses, it is pure nep-otism that has put me on center stage today. Un-

fortunately, the 200 archers and 40 mountedhorsemen in full armour with swords drawn and wear-ing the badge of the White Boar have been detained atthe airport. However, like those long-ago Yorkists, Iremain undaunted, and I come with family support inthe person of my sister, Gillian Murray Kendall.

Gillian is not only the most intelligent, witty, funny,and generous sister one could wish for, she is also, to therest of the world, a professor of Shakespeare and Renais-sance studies at Smith College in Massachusetts. It isshe who wrote the introduction to the new edition ofRichard III published in 2002. Our family motto couldcertainly be Loyalty Binds Us – to Richard and to eachother.

We keep people alive by remembering them. Wemake events matter by discussing them, by studyingthem, and researching them, by creating oral traditions,and by writing them down, and in some way makingthem a part of our lives. Between keeping people aliveand making events matter, we create history. For if wedon’t write about and talk about and believe in the thingsthat we know have happened and the people that we feelhave in some way touched us, we have nothing.

History isn’t about what happened, it is about whatwe selectively pass down across the years from one gen-eration to the next, using the written word, using oraltradition, using imagination and zest to instill a fresh-ness and excitement in what we strongly believe hap-pened. We must use every way possible to pass on theknowledge that is important to us.

I am immensely proud, and at times overwhelmed,that Paul Murray Kendall, my father, is still considered,after 50 years, to be one of the foremost champions ofRichard III. In his biography of Richard, first published50 years ago this year, he wove together the painstak-ingly researched information that he had uncovered —-in archives and libraries, in manuscripts, in court papers,and in letters that have somehow survived for half amillennium.

He examined the facts. He studied contemporary

accounts. He traveled to Middleham Castle and toFotheringhay (or what is left of them), and to Ludlowand Bosworth Field and the church in Sutton Cheneywhere Richard may have prayed the night before his fi-nal battle. He crossed the length and breadth of Eng-land; he braved the choppy English Channel to seeCalais and the other lands of what is now France, whereRichard’s journeys took him, absorbing into his psycheand his soul the land where Richard was born, had lived,ruled, fought and died.

He grew to know not just Richard III, King of Eng-land, but Richard Plantagenet, the man. Across 500years, he breathed life and breath into Richard. Paulknew Richard so well, he seemed to read his mind andhis heart. He knew how and what Richard felt andthought, not in the context of the 20th century, butwithin the dimensions and constraints of the worldwithin which Richard lived.

Paul somehow was able to enter the 15th century, us-ing his tremendous enthusiasm and his boundless imagi-nation, coupled with the facts, always the facts. For themissing parts of the intricate, lacey pattern which is thepast, he carried intelligent and researched conjecture toits most reasonable and likely conclusion.

In his later book, The Art of Biography, Paul tells ussomething about his experience with facts. He states:

‘There are times when the biographer must queryapparent facts, “scientific” evidence, in order to be true tobiographical science; must build with rainbow instead ofstone. Facts which mock his vision of character may turnout not to be facts or to be facts which do not say whatthey seem to say.

At best, fact is harsh, recalcitrant matter, as tangible asthe hunk of rusty iron one trips over and yet as shapelessas a paper hat in the rain. Fact is cold stone, aninarticulate thing, dumb until something happens to it;and there is no use the biographer waiting forspontaneous combustion or miraculous alchemy. Factmust be rubbed up in the mind, placed in magneticjuxtaposition with other facts, until it begins to glow, togive off that radiance we call meaning. Fact is abiographer’s only friend, and worst enemy.

Paul was not the only one in the family preoccupiedwith the importance and limitations of facts. Mymother, a well known children’s writer, credits her char-acter Walter the Earl with the following words in her


book The Whisper of Glocken:

History is based on facts.Niggling small factsPothering medium factsWhopping large facts.And the greatest of all theseIs the fact of magic.

— Walter the EarlGlorious True Facts in the History of the Minnipins

from the Beginning to the Year Gammage 880

We, too, are concerned with fact. And that is why weare here today. We are a collective body of historians in-tent on passing on the knowledge so that those to comewill know and remember the real Richard, Duke ofGloucester, the real Richard III. We are here to set therecord straight for those who still believe in Shake-speare’s portrayal of the last Plantagenet king.

Skeptics and the unwary can overlook the impor-tance of considering Richard’s life and actions in thecontext of his time. Without the ability to immerse our-selves in the atmosphere and the realities of the 15thcentury, we cannot hope to understand the man.

From the very start, Paul’s biography of Richardthrusts us into the midst of the tumultuous affairs ofmedieval Europe with descriptions so vivid, so enthrall-ing, we are caught up in that long ago world. We revel inthe brave and exceedingly daring plan drawn up byrushlight in an inn at Northampton. Our hearts fill withpride and excitement when, as Paul writes, ‘in the firstlight, Richard and Buckingham rode hard for StonyStratford.’ We are thrilled, for we know they are ridinghard for England, and England will be saved. We livethe 15th century.

The century began badly. Right in year one, threegenerations before Richard’s birth, Henry Bolingbrokehad stolen the crown from Richard II, who was mur-dered shortly thereafter. Near the end of this turbulent,treacherous span, in a time close to our hearts, anotherHenry, the so-called Earl of Richmond, an upstart op-portunist, commits high treason, and for his own gainand glory kills the King of England, destroying theYorkist peace. These were stressful times.

At the beginning of Paul’s book, we are kept breath-less with little rebellions, skirmishes, uprisings, bordertroubles, plays for power from all directions,half-hatched plots, and little suspected treasons tum-bling off the page. The Duke of York and his sons, theirthen-ally the Earl of Warwick, and the troops that ac-companied them, were riding back and forth and backand forth and up and down the kingdom, trying to

create order and hold the country together. It was ex-hausting and never-ending, the price to pay to build apeaceable kingdom. It was one thing after another —like trying to hold an armful of balloons beneath the wa-ter. You just about get the country under control, andthen, as you’re kicking off your riding boots, up pops an-other miscreant intent on usurping your power. Nowonder Edward IV died in his early 40s. It wasn’t thedrink and the women, it was the constant poundingacross England on a horse and hewing his way throughall that armour.

Paul’s Richard III, in all its detail and complexity,makes clear how different from our world is that ofRichard. He and his relatives grappled with feudal in-trigues and lived by — or flouted —- unwritten laws(that is, the accepted standards of the day, which wereknown, though not written). They were guided by acode of ethics that bears little resemblance to the rules ofplay in the world of Queen Elizabeth II: he who has thepower has the right — or, as Paul believes Richard sawit, he who has the merit has the right.

Life was nasty, brutish, and short. Tremendous en-ergy was expended just to maintain the status quo. TheEnglish monarch and other males of royal blood were ingreat and ever-present danger. As John Thorn says in AHistory of England, ‘To be born of the blood royal inlate-medieval England was to invite an early death.’

In short, particularly in the arenas of power, medievalEnglish rulers and those supporting them had unimag-inably different dilemmas from the ones we face today— and viewed them from an unimaginably differentperspective. We gaze soppily at heart-rending paintingsby Delaroche and Millais of the two little Princes in theTower. Whether or not Richard had anything at all todo with the deaths of the Princes, few in power in the15th century would have shared our sentimentality. Tomany a fearful mind in the England of 1483, achild-king was a disaster in ermine-trimmed blue velvet.Repeatedly, Paul reminds us of the old saying, ‘Woe tothat land whose ruler is a child.’ Writing of theimpending coronation of Edward V, Paul says,

The men of power, however, did not view thecoronation in the same sentimental light as did most ofthe commons. In the councilors’ view, far fromstabilizing affairs, it would offer a terrible challenge toorder.

There was no ‘made law,’ i.e. no written precedent torefer to, and Paul goes on to say,

Like men of former times, he [that is, Richard] solvedthis problem of government for which the past offered nosolution by consulting the Law of God and Law of


Nature. These, the 15th century knew, were writtenplain in the divine order of the world.

Ruling 15th-century England was physical, and itwas personal. Richard knew that by the Law of Nature,his own power, as Paul puts it, ‘could only be securedupon the good will of the realm.’ In this, Richard was aman apart.

For those of us who know about the life of RichardIII, he is an obvious subject for a biography. He was thelast English king to die in battle; his life and reign werefraught with difficulty and politics; and his kingship iswrapped up in traditional stories of intrigue, murder,and the lust for power. Nevertheless, one wonders howan author narrows down a vast field of candidates andchooses a particular person to investigate — researchingletters, reading between the lines, and generally rum-maging around in the artifacts of a life. So what was itthat brought together an English king, dead for almosthalf a millennium, and Paul Murray Kendall, a youngEnglish professor at Ohio University teachingShakespeare and Elizabethan Drama?

The family consensus is that there was no singlespark that ignited Paul’s imagination, but rather therewas more than one reason why he decided to write thatparticular book.

In preparation for teaching Shakespeare’s play Rich-ard III, Paul read about the real King Richard. He wasimmediately attracted to the character of the man. Asmy mother describes it, ‘He saw more to the story thanthe casual reader; Richard the man as well as Richardthe king caught his imagination.’ What I say is: an inde-finable glimmer from across the centuries had at lastbeen picked up.

A biography of Richard III would be new territory —there was not much available on Richard at the time,and there was already a lot of published scholarly workon Shakespeare. The idea of writing an historical workrather than an insight into some aspect of Shakespeare’splays became more and more intriguing. A friend sug-gested applying for a grant and the time to gather mate-rials for the book. The Ford Foundation generouslyoffered enough money that he could spend 15 months— with his family — researching the biography in Brit-ain and France, seeing for himself the places that were apart of Richard’s life and death. And so it was that ourrelationship with Richard Plantagenet began. I like tothink that Paul Kendall the biographer may bedescended from John Kendall the secretary.

Back in Ohio, our house was built high on the side ofa hill. The living room, and Paul’s study on the floor be-low, were afforded a beautiful view over the HockingRiver Valley. It was in this setting that my father

performed his magic with facts and words and art andsoul. He was never away from his desk for long. He lefthis labors on Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day and onpart of his birthday, but otherwise he worked every dayof the year. Little surprise then, that when my motherrealized she had not seen Paul for quite some time at aparty they were giving, she would head for his study andfind him standing over the desk, jotting notes or lost inthought … he had gone to retrieve a book from thestudy, and on passing his desk on the return journey hadjust paused for a moment on his way back to the party.The pause was usually about half an hour before mymother was aware of his truancy.

And so he followed the ‘paper trail’ as he called it,amassing facts and information and generating vast pilesof 5” x 8” file cards filled with his almost illegible hand-writing. He broke a code written in 15th-century Italianthat arrived on what was to me an indecipherable photo-stat from the archives in Milan. First he had to teachhimself 15th-century Italian. Then he had to break thecode. Breaking the Enigma cipher seemed to me to palein comparison.

Occasionally our mother would breach the fortress ofpapers, books, rolls of photocopied 15th-century docu-ments from Milanese archives, and assorted scraps withnotations on them that were variously heaped, placed, orcascading across Paul’s desk. She would take a firm line,and from the assortment of paper goods on display, re-move a matchbook cover or two and consign them to thewastebasket. Out they would go. Sometimes, unfortu-nately, a note would be written on the inside of an emptymatchbook cover pressed into use at a crucial momentwhen there was not a convenient piece of paper to hand.Consternation would ensue. Such is the life of a scholarwhen the real world interferes.

As a child, I was sure of two things when my fatherwas researching the biography — Richard didn’t murderthe Princes in the Tower, and the Duke of Clarence wasdrowned in a vat of malmsey. A six-year-old can spend alot of time thinking about a barrel of wine big enough toput somebody inside. The image is with me still. A yearor two later, I added to my repertoire the fact that theButler, a.k.a. the Duke of Buckingham, killed thePrinces. And that was that. Anything else was extra.

Paul had always included me in his research on Rich-ard, and had unwittingly prepared the way when I wasfour years old by reading to me Sir Walter Scott’sQuentin Durward, a lengthy historical novel about15th-century France. You won’t be surprised to hear thatmy favorite bedtime story was Beowulf, told as only Paulcould tell such a story.

I was lucky, and I didn’t even know it.

Right Trusty & Well Beloved


And so, finally, when all the pieces were slotted intoplace, and the gaps bridged with a little history and a lit-tle ingenuity, and a great deal of wit, Paul had created alife out of nothing but a pile of index cards as high as thesky. He had somehow transposed a body of accumulatedfacts and lists and dates and records into a living, breath-ing body with a mind and a will and a soul, and an es-sence. And that is the magic.

There remains the question: what did Paul himselfreally think about Richard and the Princes in the Tower?Did he order them to be killed to assure the safety of theCrown, or was he innocent of his nephews’ blood? Afteryears of living in the saddle with the Duke of Glouces-ter, Paul must have developed a sixth sense. The answeris that Paul had a gut feeling about it, but, as my motherrecently explained to me, ‘You can’t put a gut feeling intoa properly researched biography.’ And so, to my knowl-edge, very few people know that Paul, in his heart ofhearts, believed Richard to be innocent.

Well, you all know so well the end of this tragic tale.Perhaps you have journeyed to Ambion Hill at

Bosworth and shielded the sun from your eyes as youlooked up at Richard’s standard, stretched full out, theWhite Boar snapping and rippling in the stiff breezehigh above the gently rolling fields of Leicestershire.You may almost hear the faint jingle of harness against ahorse’s neck, a memory borne on the wind across thecenturies from that August long ago. With Richard’sdeath on the battlefield at Sandford, near Ambion Hill,came a new era.

It is up to us to follow in Paul Murray Kendall’s foot-steps, and ensure that Richard III is carried forward intothe future, not as a villain, not as a hero, but as a just manof his time, unswervingly loyal to his brother the King, abrave and canny general, and a king himself, who stroveto keep the peace in his rightful domain.

In my mind’s eye, I can see them. Somewhere in thevault of Heaven sit those two, the scholar and the king,planning battles that never were, vigilant against thosewho would disturb the peace of ‘this blessed plot, thisearth, this realm, this England.’

Generous RicardiansApril 1-Sept. 15, 2005

Rebecca Aderman

Bonnie Battaglia & family

Dorothy Calkins

Jeanne P. Carlson

Matthew J. Catania

Marta Christjansen

Mary Devlin

Nancy Donovan

Anna Marie Ellis

Richard Foster

Sally Foulkrod

Susan Giannotta

Emma Goodman

Karen Hiatt

Diane Hoffman

Tom Lockwood

Margaret M. Mayce

Lawrence McCarthy

Nita S. Musgrave

John C. O'Farrell

Marianne Pittorino

Elizabeth A. Rose

Cheryl Rothwell

Marcia Stone

Rhonda L. Tirone

Gwen Toma

Member Reminder

Members who shop at Amazon.com can help theSociety: Always start your Amazon.com shopping bygoing to www.r3.org/sales and clicking on the Amazonlogo. The Society receives a small percentage of anypurchases made this way.


Heraldry

The Ricardian Puzzlers are Charlie Jordan, Lorraine Pickering, Marion Davis and Nancy Northcott. The Ricardiancrossword puzzles are intended as a fun method of learning about Richard and his life and times. Each puzzle will have atheme and clues are drawn from widely-available sources. Suggestions for themes and feedback about the puzzles arewelcomed; please send comments to Charlie at [email protected]

Solution on page 25


Heraldry

Across2. “As It Plese God” was the motto of Thomas Bourchier,

Archbishop of ___________________.5. Arms were orginally a method by which combatants could _____

each other on the battlefield.7. Ralph Fitzherbert’s alabaster effigy shows the Yorkist livery collar

of suns and ________.9. Edmund of Langley used a falcon within a ______ as a badge.

Also, “Within the ______” a novel by Ricardian BrianWainwright.

10. The components of arms (as shown by two mermaids foundgripping the shield in figure 1) are called _________.

12. Another term for the shield in an achievement of arms.17. In a “coat of arms,” a ______ is a three-dimensional object at the

top of a helm.19. When they weren’t wearing ceremonial tabards, heralds

identified themselves with a _______of office, which wassupposed to give them immunity when working in enemyterritory.

20. The name of the traditional heraldic color associated with gold is______.

23. Together all the components of one’s arms are called a full _____of arms.

24. The use of puns of names or titles symbolized in heraldic art.25. A junior, or probationary, herald was called a _____________28. The name of the traditional heraldic color associated with blue is

____.29. “Loyaulte me lie” was Richard’s ________.30. The name of the traditional heraldic color associated with silver is

_____>31. In his youth, Richard III wrote this motto in his copy of

“Ipomedon.”32. Richard’s badge was a white _______.33. This French king wasn’t “accompanied by heralds and trumpeters

as are most princes.” He tricked Edward IV by sending a valetdisguised as a herald to negotiate during the English invasion of

1475.34. Edward IV used a white _____ as a badge; commonly used as a

badge by the Mortimer Earls of March.35. In Richard, Duke of Gloucester’s, copy of the French prose

“Tristan,” _____________________ wrote the motto:“Without Changing” above her signature.

37. George, Duke of Clarence’s animal emblem was a_______________

38. In the 15th century, a herald’s ceremonial garment, bearing hismaster’s arms, was called a ___________.

39. Edward IV used this as one of his mottos - “Comfort et liesse”which translates to “Comfort and _____.”

Down1. In 1484, Richard established the _____ College or, as it’s known

today, the College of Arms.3. In heraldry, this mythical beast represented “Extreme courage.”

Used as one supporter in the current royal arms.4. The name of the traditional heraldic color associated with red is

______.6. “Honi soit qui mal y pense” is the motto of the Order of the

____________________.8. Which powerful northern family (known for switching sides) used

an Eagle and Child as its badge?9. One of Richard, Duke of York’s animal emblems was a ______.11. Coats of arms are not granted to families; arms are granted to

________.13. Any design or shape placed on the shield in an achievement of

arms.14. After becoming Margaret Beaufort’s daughter-in-law, Elizabeth

of York used this motto:______________________15. Widely admired as a knight and a scholar, this Yorkist used the

motto: “Nulle La Vault.” He was________________________.

New England Chapter Report

On June 17, 2005, the newly formed New EnglandChapter of the Richard III Society held its first meetingin Concord, Massachusetts. Efforts to reactivate theNew England Chapter began in October 2004 whenKirsten Moorhead of Portland, Maine responded toEileen Prinsen's advertisement for a ChapterModerator.

After several months and countless emails, Eileenand Kirsten were proud to announce that the New Eng-land Chapter was ready to reactivate. To the delight ofboth women, thirty-four members, from four of the sixstates New England states, responded to their "call toarms."

Since its initial meeting in June, the New EnglandChapter has elected Kirsten as Moderator, BrandyBarton, Secretary, and Rhonda Tirone,Treasurer They

have applied for a bank account, and will petition theBoard of the Richard III Society, Inc. for recognition ofthe revival of the New England Chapter.

The Chapter's second meeting, held on September17th, brought together Ricardians from Connecticut,Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine. In additionto discussing outreach, fundraising, and rules of the pro-posed chapter, members explored topics such as thecredibility of modern forensic evidence and how the de-cline of Latin has effected Medieval Studies.

The New England Chapter's next meeting will beheld in early December, 2005, in Concord, Massachu-setts. The first meeting of 2006 will take place in Exeter,New Hampshire.

Kirsten Moorhen, Moderator;Brandy Barton, Secretary

Rhonda Tirone, Treasurer

Chapter Contacts

ARIZONAMrs. Joan Marshall

10727 West Kelso Drive • Sun City, AZ 85351(623) 815-6822

CALIFORNIAAnyone looking to reactivate the California Chapter, please contact Judy

Pimental at [email protected]

EASTERN MISSOURIBill Heuer

111 Minturn • Oakland, MO 63122(314) 966-4254 • email: [email protected]

ILLINOISJanice Weiner

6540 N. Richmond Street • Chicago, IL 60645-4209

MICHIGAN AREAEileen Prinsen

16151 Longmeadow St - Dearborn MI. 48120313-271-1224. E-mail: [email protected]

MINNESOTAMargaret Anderson

3912 Minnehaha Avenue S. #29, Minneapolis, MN 55406.(612) 729-4503. E-mail : [email protected]

NEW ENGLANDKirsten Moorhead

14 Bramblewood Drive • Portland, Maine, 04103-3789E-mail:[email protected]

Tel: 207-88-8890

NEW YORK-METRO AREAMaria Elena Torres

3216 Fillmore Avenue • Brooklyn, NY 11234email: [email protected]

NORTHWESTJonathan A. Hayes

3806 West Armour Street • Seattle, WA 98199-3115(206) 285-7967 email:[email protected]

ROCKY MOUNTAINChapter moderator wanted

Please contact: Editor, Eileen Prinsen16151 Longmeadow St - Dearborn MI. 48120

313-271-1224. E-mail: [email protected]

SOUTHEASTERN PENNSYLVANIAJoseph Wawrzyniak

3429 Chalfont Drive • Philadelphia, PA 19154

(215) 637-8538email: [email protected]

SOUTHWESTRoxane C. Murph

3501 Medina Avenue • Ft. Worth, TX 76133(817) 923-5056 • email: [email protected]

If you are interested in forming a chapter, contact Eileen Prinsen,Chapter Co-ordinator (see page 3 of this issue)

Membership Application/Renewal

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� Individual Membership $35.00� Individual Membership Non-US $40.00� Family Membership $35 + $5/member

$_____Contributing & Sponsoring Memberships:� Honorary Fotheringhay Member $ 75.00� Honorary Middleham Member $180.00� Honorary Bosworth Member $300.00� Plantagenet Angel $500.00� Plantagenet Family Member $500+ $_____

Contributions:� Schallek Fellowship Awards: $________� General Fund (publicity, mailings, etc)

$________Total Enclosed: $_______

Family Membership $35for yourself, plus $5 for eachadditional family member residing at same address.

Make all checks payable to Richard III Society, Inc.Mail to Pamela J. Butler

11000 Anaheim Ave. NE • Albuquerque, NM 87122-3102

the unseen elizabeth woodville - richard iii of england · possible way research into the life and...

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