The Princes in the Tower, page 52
73 For Howard’s career at sea/ships/shipping interests, see Howard Books, pp. xxii–xxv, xxvi. The description of the vessel as a ‘small and narrow ship’ could indicate one that is carvel-built. By the mid-fifteenth century, shipwrights had moved to carvel-built vessels, but some may still have been built clinker style according to local tradition. Carvel-built should not be confused with the caravel, a small, highly manoeuvrable sailing ship developed in the fifteenth century by the Portuguese. Coastal ships such as a balinger and barge were seagoing vessels. A dogger was a smaller, two-masted vessel and a crayer was usually a medium-to-large, single-masted vessel; both were used for fishing and trading. The foregoing may eliminate other vessel types from investigation and potentially indicate ownership. Thanks for the advice on medieval vessels to Dr Craig Lambert, Research Fellow at Southampton University Marine Institute and Assoc. Professor in Maritime History, and his medieval shipping database with information on shipping routes from England to the continent and information on English ports including the Port of London. Source: Jean Clare-Tighe, TMPP lead researcher on shipping.
74 Crawford, pp. 180, 181.
75 Maxime F. de Montrond, Notre-Dame de Boulogne-sur-Mer, son pèlerinages et ses fêtes (1887).
76 C.S.L. Davies, ‘Richard III, la Bretagne et Henry Tudor (1483–1485)’, Annales de Bretagne et des pays de l’Ouest, Vol. 102, No. 4, 1995, p. 34.
77 In the fifteenth century, Tournai had a thriving cloth trade and was a major supplier of tapestries. It was a so-called ‘free city’, surrounded by the powerful Burgundian counties Hainault and Flanders, but under the jurisdiction of the French kings.
78 Rot. Parl., vi, p. 276; CPR 1485–94, pp. 133–34.
79 Campbell, Vol. 1, pp. 208, 392. The payment for Howard (as Earl of Surrey) for his imprisonment in the Tower is dated 9 December 1485, and 8 March 1486 for a special pardon enabling his detention in any prison at the Crown’s pleasure. Sir Robert Percy of Scotton died with King Richard at Bosworth (Memorials, ‘Sir Robert Percy’, pp. 185, 193 n. 16). His son (also Robert) fought for King Edward at the Battle of Stoke (Bennett, p. 125).
80 David Johnson, ‘Reluctant Groom’, Bulletin, March 2020, pp. 37–41, reveals Henry VII did not legitimise Elizabeth of York until the second session of Parliament on 23 January 1486, after their marriage on the 18th: www.revealingrichardiii.com/the-pre-contract.html.
81 The text in the ‘official’ confession (note 7) reads: ‘And after this the said Berlo set me w a merchaunt in Middelburgh to service w whom I dwelled from Christmas unto Easter; and than I went into Portyngale in the company of Sir Edward Bramptons wif in a ship which was called the Quenes ship.’
82 Wroe (p. 19) indicates date of the journey to Portugal seems to be sometime after Easter 1487.
83 According to Zeeland chronicler, Reygersbergh, the Yorkist fleet left for Ireland from Arnemuiden on 15 May 1487. See Chapter 12 and note 2. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Arnemuiden was a small but important harbour city and outer port of Middelburg. Near the same time and place, ‘Richard, Duke of York’ left for Portugal (see note 82). For the involvement of the city and lords of Bergen op Zoom in the first Yorkist invasion, see Chapter 13.
84 Zoë Maula, TMPP Research Report, 14.12.2020. See Appendix 7: Maximilian’s letter of late 1493, regarding ‘three natural marks which he [York] has on his body, and which cannot be counterfeited’, i.e., ‘his mouth, one of his eyes and a mark he has on his thigh’. Also, Appendix 4: Margaret’s letter to Isabella of Spain regarding York’s marks (August 1493). Several other sources also mention the striking body features of Richard of York, among others, the Setúbal Testimonies of 25 April 1496 (Wroe, Appendix, p. 525). Another contemporary source mentions a deviant (left) eye. In a letter to the Duke of Milan on 21 October 1497, the Milanese Ambassador reports, ‘his left eye rather lacks lustre’ (Milan, 1497, no. 548 in Allen B. Hinds (ed.)), Calendar of State Papers & Manuscripts in Archives & Collections of Milan 1385–1618 (1912), pp. 310–14, www.british-history-ac.uk/cal-statepapers/milan/1385-1618.
85 See Chapter 2.
86 State Archives Courtrai: ‘Collection Jacques Goethals-Vercruysse’, Manuscripts, inv. 111, f.188v-189r.
87 Wroe, pp. 394–97.
88 Ibid., p. 24, pp. 525–58, Appendix (see note 84).
89 Ibid., p. 47: ‘… Vimos alcar Branca Rosa, por Rey muytos dos Ingleses … [We saw the White Rose, acclaimed as King by many of the English, and it was a wonderful thing that in days, not in months, he gathered people of the highest birth to him. He called himself their natural King, and gave the King battle on the field, but he was defeated and sentenced to hanging, because they thought he was not such a man].’ Poem from Resende, Miscêlanea.
90 Wroe, p. 44 (her p. 43 timeline for Edward Woodville’s visit to Portugal should read 1486–87).
91 Journals of Roger Machado, Embassy to Spain and Portugal, AD 1488 in Gairdner, Memorials Henry VII, op. cit. Wroe (p. 44) discovered that Machado, a Portuguese, was sent to Portugal ‘for certain causes’, apparently alone, in August 1489, before joining the official delegation that left England in December 1489, seemingly to spy. Gemma L. Watson, who did extensive research on Machado, regards him as an elusive and largely unexplored character in English history, best known as Henry VII’s Richmond King of Arms. She writes that because of his past, heralds and scholars have generally assumed he came to England with Tudor in 1485, but closer inspection of English sources reveals that from 1471–83 Machado was living in England and serving as Leicester Herald for Edward IV, Edward V and Richard III (‘Roger Machado, Perkin Warbeck and Heraldic Espionage’, The Coat of Arms, 3rd Series, 10, 2014, pp. 51–68).
92 Universidada de Lisboa, Chronology Calamities – PWR Portugal, 1488/1489: Outbreak of plague in Lisbon, 1491: Plague throughout Portugal: pwr-portugal.ics.ul.pt/wp-content/uploads/Chronology_of_Calamaties.pdf
93 The ‘official’ confession (note 7) reads: ‘And than I put my silf in service w.a. Breton called Pregent Meno, the which brought me w hym into Ireland.’
94 For identity: Richard of England’s Proclamation of September 1496 – see Appendix 9 and note 102.
95 Wroe, pp. 228, 229.
96 Ferns Diocesan Archive, Wexfordiana, Volume 7: ‘Extracts from Calendar of Memoranda Rolls of the Exchequer’, digital page 22 of 493. Specific entry records: – 20 Edward IV – ‘Sir Jac. Kettyng, prior of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem in Ireland appointed to be head constable of Dublin castle. Witnes Ric Salop [Shrewsbury] Duke of York at Dublin 22 Dec 19 year’. Prior James Keating (died after 1495) supported both Yorkist invasions (1487 and 1495). He was a close supporter of Richard, Duke of York, from the very start of the conspiracy and firmly committed to the Yorkist cause. See Wroe, pp. 185, 231.
97 See notes 26 and 84. Also Appendices 4 and 7.
98 R.C.H. Lesaffer, ‘The three peace treaties of 1492–1493’, in H. Duchhardt & M. Peters (eds), Kalkül-Transfer-Symbol: Europäische Friedensverträge der Vormoderne, Institut für Europäische Geschichte Mainz (2006), p. 51.
99 See letter from Margaret of England to Queen Isabella of Spain, written in Dendermonde, 25 August 1493, note 26. See also Appendix 4.
100 Regarding the mention of the killing of the ‘Prince of Wales’ (Edward IV’s elder son) in the Dendermonde letter, Matthew Lewis argues that if Richard, Duke of York, were to launch his assault on the throne as Edward IV’s younger son, he would have to explain why it was not his elder brother making the bid. Lewis asserts that Margaret’s pressing concern was to present Richard as the legitimate heir of the house of York, hence the senior heir must be represented as already dead. He offers the possibility that neither boy was murdered, but they were separated to ensure their safety and minimise their potential to be figureheads for rebellion until Richard III’s reign was secure, with each boy maybe given the story that the other was killed but that he was spared in order to frighten him into obeying the requirement of silence. Lewis derives another interpretation from the Dendermonde letter that possibly Edward V died or was captured at Stoke Field in 1487, but Margaret and Richard, Duke of York, wanted to divert attention from the failed first Yorkist revolt: Lewis, The Survival of the Princes in the Tower, Murder, Mystery and Myth (2017), pp. 125–27. See also Maligned King (2008), Chapter 9, esp. pp. 172–75.
101 Weightman, pp. 151–53.
102 Judith Ford, ‘The King’s Speech: Richard of England’s Proclamation’, Bulletin, March 2022, pp. 48–53: www.revealingrichardiii.com/two-pretenders.html#kings-speech Appendix 9.
103 Gairdner, Memorials Henry VII, op. cit., Appendix A, pp. 393–99: Lambeth Palace Library CM VI/31. Trans. for TMPP, thanks to Dr Shelagh Sneddon, 1.11.22. For Richard III’s proclamation of 1485, see Road to Bosworth, pp. 208–10. For the 1484 proclamation, which included Dorset’s name, see Maligned King, pp. 284, 286.
104 Wroe, p. 208. Maximilian described these as ‘surreptitious and frivolous’. See Appendix 8.
105 Wroe, p. 208, Appendix: ‘Miscellaneous 1495’, Calendar of State Papers Relating To English Affairs in the Archives of Venice, Volume 4, 1527–1533, ed. Rawdon Brown (1871), pp. 482–83: www.british-history.ac.uk/cal-state-papers/venice/vol4/pp482-483. See Appendix 8.
106 Howard Books, Vol. 2, p. 417. Accounts dated this day (22 July) record payment for a gift of venison from Sir John Everingham to Howard, the only time Everingham is mentioned in the Howard Books.
107 For Howard’s letter to his son, Thomas, Earl of Surrey, on 7 August, see Howard Books, Vol. 2, p. 420. The words ‘A leter’ are written in Howard’s own hand, which could indicate its importance. Thomas was with King Richard at Warwick on the royal progress.
108 Howard Books, Vol. 2, p. 421.
109 CPR 1476–85, p. 363. Howard was made Admiral of England, Ireland and Aquitaine with ‘certain specified powers and the accustomed fees’. This seems to confirm a plan to get the boys out by ship. Thanks to David Johnson for his analysis of the wording of the grant of High Admiral of England from 1461–85, including that of Richard, Earl of Warwick, on 2 January 1471: CPR 1467–77, p. 233 (23.6.21).
110 ‘Quellen Und Darstellungen Zur Hansischen Geschichte’, Hanseatic History Association, founded in 1871, Vol. 74, Part III, Number 6, pp. i, viii–xi, 64. Also Stuart Jenks, The London Customs Accounts (2016), Part III, ‘York 1461–85’, pp. vii–140. Thanks to Jean Clare-Tighe.
111 CFR 1471–85, p. 264. This may have been a joint appointment with Robert Fitzherbert (23 July 1483). Thanks to Jean Clare-Tighe.
112 Harley 433, Vol. 3, p. 59. See note 124. Thanks to Sharon Lock (5.1.2018).
113 Howard Books, Vol. 1, p. 368; Vol. 2, pp. 384, 396, 401, 419. For Edward Neville, see Vol. 1, pp. xv, 218. Transcription of George Neville, Lord Abergavenney’s will by Dr Judith Ford, 5.8.2021, who notes: Neville asks Archbishop Morton to be the supervisor of the document. Will most notable for conveying Neville’s status as a member of the old nobility; he asks, for example, that his will be fulfilled for the sake of his soul and for ‘the honor of [his] blood’. Neville had six surviving sons and died c. July 1492.
114 Howard Books, Vol. 1, pp. 184, 245, 471, 472; Vol. 2, p. 283. Jean Clare-Tighe, TMPP Research Report, 9.1.2022.
115 Beloved Cousyn, pp. 98, 167 n. 83: CPR 1476–85, p. 366, see note 21. On this day, a ‘Thomas Brampton’ is appointed to the Port of Lenne: CPR 1476–85, p. 403. Also, a Robert Mannyng is appointed by the king to provide workmen for the Palace of Westminster and Tower of London: Beloved Cousyn, pp. 98, 167 n. 82: CPR 1476–85, pp. 365. Had both royal palaces received damage during the abduction attempt? The Treasury was already so depleted by recent Woodville activities that Gloucester was providing subsidy from his own revenues.
116 Howard Books, Vol. 2, p. 246, item for 26 February 1481 reads: ‘The xxth yere of the king (Ed. The iiijth) – Edward Brampton indented with Lord Howard to do the king servisse on the see with xl. men wel harnessed for xvj wekes.’
117 CPR 1476–85, p. 481.
118 Roth, ‘Perkin Warbeck’, p. 155.
119 In ‘The list and index of Warrants for Issues 1399–1485’ from TNA, PRO (1964), Christopher Colyns and John Howard are mentioned jointly in connection with operations against piracy (p. 364). Separate specific reference to Colyns in ‘naval operations against rebels and pirates in 1483’ (p. 360) may well refer to orders by the Protectorate Council (conducted by Brampton, 14 May 1483) to recall the English fleet taken to sea by Sir Edward Woodville: Harley 433, Vol. 3, p. 2: ‘xiiii Maij, Item a lettre to Edward Brampton, John Wellis, and Thomas Grey, to go to the see with shippes to take Ser Edward Wodevile’.
120 Buc, p. cxxvii.
121 Buc also records what may have been another long imprisonment – that of Katherine de la Pole, sister of John, Earl of Lincoln: pp. 212, 345; see also Chapter 16.
122 Raphael Holinshed, The Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (1577), Vol. 2, p. 1405. Thanks to Michael Alan Marshall for the original source (6.7.15).
123 Harley 433, Vol. 3, p. 59. Thanks to Sharon Lock (5.1.2018).
124 Ibid., p. 62, 11 March 1484. Thanks to Sharon Lock (5.1.2018).
125 An entry in the Malines City Archives shows Thomas Langton, Bishop of Salisbury (‘bisschop van Salebry’) was in Malines in 1486 receiving ‘4 stopen whine’ given at the Saint Rombout and/or Holy Sacraments Procession: City Account Mechelen (Malines), 1 November 1485–1 November 1486. This concerns the so-called ‘doubles’ (contemporary copies of the Malines City Account) kept in the Royal Archives Belgium, Brussels – online: inv.nr V132, 41271, f.154v. On the same folio, Margaret of York is also mentioned as recipient of a gift of wine. Nathalie Nijman-Bliekendaal, TMPP Research Report, 15.12.2020.
126 In 1494, Thomas Langton, Bishop of Winchester, was part of a cell centered on John Kendal, Prior of the Order of the Knights of St John of Jerusalem in England, who secretly supported the claims of Richard, Duke of York: Wroe, p. 185; see also D.P. Wright (ed.), ‘The Register of Thomas Langton, Bishop of Salisbury 1485–1493’, Canterbury and York Society (1985), p. xiii.
127 Molinet, Chapter 101, p. 409. Significantly, no pro-Tudor history records these early post-Bosworth proclamations: Vergil, Hall, Holinshed, Grafton, More, et al. Also, see Langley, ‘Part 1. Fate of the Sons of King Edward IV’, Bulletin (March 2020), p. 45.
128 CPR 1485–94, p. 127, 16 August 1486.
129 Wroe, pp. 139, 549; TNA: PRO E405/79, mem. iv; Peter Camilletti: TMPP Research Report, 16.6.2017, p. 3. Thomas Lyneham, Richard III’s former lawyer, undertook the investigation.
130 Rot. Parl., vi, p. 492.
131 For Simon Digby as Lieutenant of the Tower, see Birmingham Library Archives, MS 3888/A647, 23 December 1496, from letters patent granting Digby the manor of Coleshill in Warwickshire. See also Wroe, pp. 220, 466 (incorrectly called Constable of the Tower: Constable at this time [1485–1513] was John de Vere, Earl of Oxford). See Wroe, p. 559: TNA:PRO KB/9/78, litigation of 22 August 1493–21 August 1495 and Thomas Bagnall statement with ‘Master Digby being present’. Kingsford, op. cit., pp. 204, 227 for ‘M. Dygby’, meaning ‘Master’ Digby (p. 331 for Hall’s description of Sir John Digby in this role, which seems mistaken, as Sir John would not be ‘Master’ but ‘Sir’ or ‘knight’). Kingsford, p. 227 for M. Dygby also described as ‘Marshall of the Tour’, perhaps where the confusion with Constable arose. Simon Digby’s responsibility was day-to-day activity in the Tower, or possibly both Digby brothers (Simon and John) had roles at the Tower.
132 Wroe, pp. 466, 469, 478, 480, 488 (sources, pp. 584–85).
133 CPR 1494–1509, p. 131. Sir John Digby (d. 1533) was knighted 16 June 1487 by Henry VII after Stoke Field: Heralds’ Memoir, p. 119; Bennett, p. 129.
134 Birmingham Library Archives, MS 3888/A 757, 27 October 1542, ‘Covenant between Reynolde [Reginald] Dygby of Coleshill co. Warwick, esq, [Simon Digby’s son and heir] and John Dygby of Kettleby co. Leics, esq, [Reginald’s son and heir] re payment of annual rent of 20 marks from issues of Manor of Bedale, co. York’. Thanks to Bill Hare of Bedale for the source. The Digby family genealogy/pedigree can be found in John Burke, A Genealogical and Heraldic History of Commoners of Great Britain and Ireland (1838), Vol. 4, pp. 461–62.
135 For the death of Everard Digby (1410–61) of Tilton and Drystoke (Stoke Dry), Leicestershire, and three of his (Tilton) brothers at Towton, see John Wilkes, Encyclopaedia Londinensis (1811), Vol. 9, p. 535. For the death of ‘Everard Dykby late of Stokedry in the shire of Rutland Squire’ at Towton, see Rot. Parl., v, pp. 476–78. For the death of Rowland Digby at the Battle of Sandal (1460), see Alex Leadman, Battles Fought in Yorkshire (1891), p. 88. With thanks to Louise Whittaker of the Battlefields Trust.
136 In all awards, Simon Digby is described as ‘esquire’ or ‘squire’, see note 131, also CPR 1476–85, p. 125; Harley 433, Vol. 3, p. 196; Rot. Parl., vi, p. 361; CPR 1494–1509, p. 44.
137 ‘A History of the County of York North Riding’ (1914), Vol. 1, ‘Bedale Parish’, pp. 291–301: www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/yorks/north/vol1/pp291-301. For the Digby family pedigree, see John Nichols, The History and Antiquities of the County of Leicester, Vol. II.i, (1795) p. 261. The uprising aimed to place the Catholic monarch, Mary, Queen of Scots, on the English throne.
138 Vergil-2, pp. 73, 77, 83, 109, 117–19; Buc, pp. 161–62. Buc was in no doubt that Perkin Warbeck was the younger son of King Edward IV. For Richard Grafton’s confirmation of the pretender as the younger son of King Edward, see p. 162. Buc records: ‘Richard Grafton affirmeth this. In Flanders, saith he and most of all, here in England, it was received for an undoubted truth, not only of the people but also of the nobles, that Perkin was the son of King Edward IV. And they all swore and affirmed this to be true.’ For Vergil’s statement about nobles ‘believing Peter to be Edward’s son Richard’, see Vergil-2, p. 67. Among the nobles arrested at Henry’s court were Sir William Stanley*, John Radcliffe, Lord Fitzwalter*, Sir Simon Mountford*, Sir Thomas Thwaites, William Daubeney*, Robert Ratcliffe*, Richard Lacy, Sir George Neville, Sir John Taylor, Sir Thomas Challoner, Thomas Bagnol, Henry VII’s Sergeant Ferior* and Elizabeth of York’s Yeoman, Edwards*, Corbet*, Sir Quentin Betts* and Gage*, plus 200 more. Those marked with asterisks were executed along with 200–300 others: Kingsford, op. cit., pp. 203–07, 227–28, plus several Dutchmen, pp. 206–07. Those arrested were condemned for treason, although priests, priors, provincials and deans of the Church escaped execution as men of the cloth. For the execution of Henry’s Serjeant Ferior and Elizabeth of York’s Yeoman (Edwards), see GC, pp. 283–84. For Edward IV’s bow-maker, Thomas Mashborwth (Mashbourth/Marsburgh), who was executed a few days before Richard of England, see GC, p. 291; Chronicles of London, p. 227; Wroe, p. 177.
