Bits & Pieces

Hi all,

Before disappearing again I just wanted to post a few little things arising out of the last couple of months' posts, which I've finally read!

1) Miles Forest was employed at Barnard Castle, Richard's castle in County Durham (directly on top of Yorkshire), a completely different place from Baynard's Castle.
I wonder if More didn't just pick the names out of an old ledger from Richard's reign - even Harley 433 itself, maybe? I have a pet theory that he was trying to create links in the minds of his readers between Sir James Tyrell and his ancestor Walter who shot William Rufus in the New Forest (hence perhaps also the inclusion of a Grene amongst the crew). And William Slaughter's name was just to good to pass up.

2) Buckingham was Great Constable (of the whole country), and of course the Constable of the Tower was Sir Robert Brackenbury.

3) Re Paul's point about the standards of the day. Yes, Richard had people executed (and whether or not without trial is a bit of a red herring - both the Constable and the King's Council could try people on the spot and give summary justice). But killing children was another matter. Many years back Lorraine Attreed wrote on this subject, using the extensive research she had carried out into children in this era. She concluded that killing children was regarded in a completely different way from killing adults - hence the horror evoked by the story of the Massacre of the Innocents, and hence the ease with which the charge that Richard had murdered them succeeded in blackening his name. (We were not yet in the era of routinely stringing up eight-year-olds for stealing food.)
Ergo we can't make the leap from the executions of Buckingham and Hastings to the murder of the Princes.

4) The tomb at Sheriff Hutton. I wish I could remember the details, but there was an article in the Ricardian Bulletin not too long ago which has finally demonstrated that this is not Prince Edward's tomb. It is one of a batch, so to speak, made by a sculptor working in Yorkshire during the reign of Henry IV. But it was probably in the castle chapel originally and was rescued from the ruins, as it was certainly not designed for its current position and shows signs of having been out in the weather for some time, and is probably a Neville child of that generation - one is suggested in the article but my memory fails me.
Richard didn't even visit Sheriff Hutton when he went north after Prince Edward's death. He went to Pontefract, then York, then straight on to Middleham and Barnard Castle.

5) The pretender at Stoke definitely was claiming to be the Earl of Warwick, not Edward V.

Back in 2-3 weeks.

Best wishes to everybody,

Marie

It seems that the remains of Edward of Middleham are as missing as his father Richard III?

--- In , mariewalsh2003 <no_reply@...> wrote:
>
> Hi all,
>
> Before disappearing again I just wanted to post a few little things arising out of the last couple of months' posts, which I've finally read!
>
> 1) Miles Forest was employed at Barnard Castle, Richard's castle in County Durham (directly on top of Yorkshire), a completely different place from Baynard's Castle.
> I wonder if More didn't just pick the names out of an old ledger from Richard's reign - even Harley 433 itself, maybe? I have a pet theory that he was trying to create links in the minds of his readers between Sir James Tyrell and his ancestor Walter who shot William Rufus in the New Forest (hence perhaps also the inclusion of a Grene amongst the crew). And William Slaughter's name was just to good to pass up.
>
> 2) Buckingham was Great Constable (of the whole country), and of course the Constable of the Tower was Sir Robert Brackenbury.
>
> 3) Re Paul's point about the standards of the day. Yes, Richard had people executed (and whether or not without trial is a bit of a red herring - both the Constable and the King's Council could try people on the spot and give summary justice). But killing children was another matter. Many years back Lorraine Attreed wrote on this subject, using the extensive research she had carried out into children in this era. She concluded that killing children was regarded in a completely different way from killing adults - hence the horror evoked by the story of the Massacre of the Innocents, and hence the ease with which the charge that Richard had murdered them succeeded in blackening his name. (We were not yet in the era of routinely stringing up eight-year-olds for stealing food.)
> Ergo we can't make the leap from the executions of Buckingham and Hastings to the murder of the Princes.
>
> 4) The tomb at Sheriff Hutton. I wish I could remember the details, but there was an article in the Ricardian Bulletin not too long ago which has finally demonstrated that this is not Prince Edward's tomb. It is one of a batch, so to speak, made by a sculptor working in Yorkshire during the reign of Henry IV. But it was probably in the castle chapel originally and was rescued from the ruins, as it was certainly not designed for its current position and shows signs of having been out in the weather for some time, and is probably a Neville child of that generation - one is suggested in the article but my memory fails me.
> Richard didn't even visit Sheriff Hutton when he went north after Prince Edward's death. He went to Pontefract, then York, then straight on to Middleham and Barnard Castle.
>
> 5) The pretender at Stoke definitely was claiming to be the Earl of Warwick, not Edward V.
>
> Back in 2-3 weeks.
>
> Best wishes to everybody,
>
> Marie
>