John Morton & Croyland

I'm an amateur, and my only source at hand is Josephine Tey (am too impatient/needed elsewhere to go looking through the 1000 pages of Kendall). I don't know how reliable she is at this distance, but here's what her famous detective and his researcher had to say about Morton's connection to Croyland.

1. LATE SUMMER 1483 -- the monk in Croyland writes there was a rumor the princes had been put to death, but no one knew how.

2. OCTOBER 1483 - AFTER BUCKINGHAM'S REBELLION - Morton is hiding out in the Fen country after his escape from Buckingham's charge. Croyland is in the Fen country, near Ely. Writes Tey, "Croyland is a very isolated place...it would be an ideal place for a fugitive bishop to hid out till he could arrange transport abroad." Tey implies Morton may have been THE original carrier, but the dates don't seem to support that -- unless Morton can be placed in Croyland in the late summer of 1483?

3. If Morton was [a carrier] of the rumor the Croyland chronicler heard, then there should have been another outbreak on the Continent when he moved on there.

4. AUTUMN 1483 - Morton escapes England for the Continent.

5. JANUARY 1484 - The rumor surfaces when the Chancellor of France, in a speech to the States-General at Tours, suggested the princes had been "massacred" by Richard.

6. ~ JUNE 1484 - The French Regency sends an embassy to Richard, which means France had probably found out the rumor wasn't true. Richard signed a safe conduct for their visit. Tey reasons he wouldn't have done that if the French were "still slanging him as a murdering untouchable."

Tey also makes the point that unless Richard went, Morton's career was over. Once he was across the channel, he and Christopher Urswick "worked in Henry's interest, 'sending preuuie letters an cloked messengers' to England to stir up hostility to Richard."

So there's one possible tie between Croyland and Morton.


~Wednesday