John of Gloucester

Do we know for absolute certainty that he was executed by HT or is it a Buckism? I've seen it as 'a bastard son of King Richard', but no name. So if there had been another bastard son it might not have been John? H

Hi, just a couple of thoughts.

First, I think the suggestions historians have made about mothers are a bit weak, to be honest. From Richard's entire period as Duke of Gloucester there are only two short financial accounts that have ever been looked at - viz the 1474 account for Middleham and an account covering about 6 months and relating to the East Anglian lands that had belonged to the old countess of Oxford. Each includes an annuity to just one woman - the Middleham account to Alice Burgh and the East Anglian one to Katherine Haute. The timing of the original grant to Alice Burgh suggests it may have been prompted by Richard's marriage, so she may have been Anne's old nurse or anything. And as for Katherine Haute, could this have been an annuity of the Countess of Oxford that Richard was honouring? After all, Richard had promised the Countess, when she conveyed her lands to him, to "promote to competent benefices a son of hers being at study in Cambridge purposing to be a priest, with other divers benefits, costs and charges by the said duke promised to be done for the said countess. . . ."

I notice from the TNA catalogue that there are extant accounts for 1474 for some of Richard's other northern lands as well. Perhaps some day they too will be copied and studied and no doubt other female annuitants will emerge. If we had accounts for all his manors just imagine how many we might find.

I don't go for the Harington idea either, I'm afraid. I haven't read the novel so I don't know how the author handles it, but the girls seem to have been handed over to the Stanleys by the end of 1468 so far as I can make out, and you can just imagine the furore if one of them had been pregnant. John's other moniker, John of Pomfret, may be a reference to his birthplace, but on the other hand it may simply be the place where he was housed during Richard's marriage.

Second, are we talking about Perkin's published confession or a speech or letter attributed to him by Tudor 'historians'? I've got a feeling that Vergil mentions John of Gloucester in the context of the discussions the people of Cork had when Perkin first arrived, about what member of the House of York he might be - i.e. that he couldn't be Richard III's son John because King Henry had him in custody. I can check if you like, but I suspect that, if my memory is right on that one, the tale just grew in the telling: it's a bit of a coincidence if Grafton also links the reference to John's fate to Perkin's story.

Of course, if Henry had lost track of John of Gloucester's whereabouts, I wouldn't put it past him to claim that he had him safely locked up somewhere so that if he ever showed up and made a claim he could be written off as another imposter. And, once the people alive at the time were safely passed on, he could even be pronounced to have been executed.

Hi Eva,

Have checked Vergil, and there's nothing in there about John of Gloucester so my memory was deceiving me.

You are absolutely right, the original reference is in the confession, where Perkin says that the people first suggested to him that he was Clarence's son, then when he denied that they suggested King Richard's son, and in the end he agreed to pose as King Edward's son Richard "because King Richard's bastard son was in the hands of the King of England."

For Henry, of course, this confession not only exposes Richard Duke of York' as an imposter but makes sure that the same thing would happen to anyone coming forward after him and claiming to be John of Gloucester.

Just a thought - I've got a feeling there are two extant versions of the confession. Perhaps we should compare.

Also, maybe the annuity needs looking into in more depth.

Marie

Hi Eva,

Have checked Vergil, and there's nothing in there about John of Gloucester so my memory was deceiving me.

You are absolutely right, the original reference is in the confession, where Perkin says that the people first suggested to him that he was Clarence's son, then when he denied that they suggested King Richard's son, and in the end he agreed to pose as King Edward's son Richard "because King Richard's bastard son was in the hands of the King of England."

For Henry, of course, this confession not only exposes Richard Duke of York' as an imposter but makes sure that the same thing would happen to anyone coming forward after him and claiming to be John of Gloucester.

Just a thought - I've got a feeling there are two extant versions of the confession. Perhaps we should compare.

Also, maybe the annuity needs looking into in more depth.

Marie

Hi,

I think Kingston Lacy must have been a royal manor since the annuity was by royal grant. It was common to assign annuities, etc, to be paid directly from the revenues of a particular estate, by the receiver thereof, before the revenues were sent up to the Exchequer.

Bu, yes, it is very close to Margaret's Dorset lands, which is interesting. To me it doesn't look as though John was a prisoner, or even in anything you could call wardship, at this time, because otherwise the grant would have been made to his keeper, not to John personally. Compare the payment made to Margaret Beaufort herself at roughly the same time to cover the costs she had incurred looking after Elizabeth and her sisters, and other royal children. Perhaps he was just under minimal surveillance by one of Margaret's guys.

My guess is that Henry didn't regard John as much of a threat early in 1486 because he probably thought he'd completely appeased Yorkist opinion by marrying Elizabeth. Then the rebellions start in favour of Warwick, then we have "Richard Duke of York".... This is a man, I think, who was getting increasingly edgy and paranoid. It might even have occurred to him that, if Richard could bastardise Edward IV's offspring by use of a precontract claim, John might try to legitimise himself the same way.

Sadly, therefore, I suspect that, if John hadn't had the sense to disappear out of Henry's knowledge and reach then he would have been quietly arrested and placed in custody, probably in the Tower. But his name isn't on the list of the Tower prisoners refused a pardon at the start of Henry VIII's reign, so perhaps if he had been held prisoner he was dead by that time.

Either way, there does seem to be at least a window of time during which he might (if old enough) have fathered a child. Nice to dream.

Marie

Hi Carol,

Well, what we have is the original grant of an annuity, which reads:

"Grant to John de Gloucester, bastard, of an annual rent of £20 during the king's pleasure, issuing out of the revenues of the lordship or manor of Kyngestonlacy, parcel of the duchy of Lancaster, in co. Dors." (W. Campbell, 'Materials for a History of the Reign of Henry VII', Vol I, London, 1873, p. 328). This comes from the patent rolls.

So far as I can see from TNA catalogue, there are no surviving receiver's accounts for Kingston Lacy for the reign of Henry VII (there are some earlier ones), so we've no way of checking how long the annuity was actually paid. When a grant was cancelled or superseded, a note was often added in the patent rolls that it was "vacated" in the nth year of the reign, but there is no suggestion of anything like that here.

It's interesting that this grant comes the day after the Clerk of the Hanaper was reimbursed for a payment he had just made to MB for the expenses she'd incurred looking after Edward's daughters et al. Is it possible she'd been keeping John as well, but at Wimborne rather than in her London house, and now he was being given a tiny pension and thrown out in the cold?

Marie

No accounts from Henry “Tudor”? Surely they were kept meticulously.

Furthermore, an annuity would surely give him, in particular, a motive to execute the recipient?

From: [mailto: ] On Behalf Of mariewalsh2003
Sent: 16 January 2016 20:47
To:
Subject: Re: [Richard III Society Forum] Re: John of Gloucester

Hi Carol,

Well, what we have is the original grant of an annuity, which reads:

"Grant to John de Gloucester, bastard, of an annual rent of £20 during the king's pleasure, issuing out of the revenues of the lordship or manor of Kyngestonlacy, parcel of the duchy of Lancaster , in co. Dors." (W. Campbell, 'Materials for a History of the Reign of Henry VII', Vol I, London, 1873, p. 328). This comes from the patent rolls.

So far as I can see from TNA catalogue, there are no surviving receiver's accounts for Kingston Lacy for the reign of Henry VII (there are some earlier ones), so we've no way of checking how long the annuity was actually paid. When a grant was cancelled or superseded, a note was often added in the patent rolls that it was "vacated" in the nth year of the reign, but there is no suggestion of anything like that here.

It's interesting that this grant comes the day after the Clerk of the Hanaper was reimbursed for a payment he had just made to MB for the expenses she'd incurred looking after Edward's daughters et al. Is it possible she'd been keeping John as well, but at Wimborne rather than in her London house, and now he was being given a tiny pension and thrown out in the cold?

Marie

"Well, what we have is the original grant of an annuity, which reads: "Grant to John de Gloucester, bastard, of an annual rent of £20 during the king's pleasure, issuing out of the revenues of the lordship or manor of Kyngestonlacy, parcel of the duchy of Lancaster, in co. Dors." (W. Campbell, 'Materials for a History of the Reign of Henry VII', Vol I, London, 1873, p. 328). This comes from the patent rolls.

"So far as I can see from TNA catalogue, there are no surviving receiver's accounts for Kingston Lacy for the reign of Henry VII (there are some earlier ones), so we've no way of checking how long the annuity was actually paid. When a grant was cancelled or superseded, a note was often added in the patent rolls that it was "vacated" in the nth year of the reign, but there is no suggestion of anything like that here.

"It's interesting that this grant comes the day after the Clerk of the Hanaper was reimbursed for a payment he had just made to MB for the expenses she'd incurred looking after Edward's daughters et al. Is it possible she'd been keeping John as well, but at Wimborne rather than in her London house, and now he was being given a tiny pension and thrown out in the cold?"

Carol responds:

Thanks, Marie. Not much to go on, is it? How tiny would 20 pounds per year be in those days (especially for a king's illegitimate son who was used to living well)? Also, after the death of John of Lincoln at Stoke, John must have been virtually friendless, especially given that all his relatives were in one way or another "in the king's hands."

I have a theory that his sister (or half-sister), Katherine, was ordered to come to London (with her new husband) and died there of the sweating sickness. I have nothing to substantiate it except her husband's later presence in London and his apparently being unmarried at the time. Or Henry could have had their marriage annulled as he did Cecily's, forcing her into poverty and obscurity (or a nunnery). But I don't think he'd have been as concerned about Richard's illegitimate daughter as he would have been about John, the illegitimate son.

Carol

Weren't these clerical merely sinecures by this point? Morton was Master of the Rolls and busy with government administrative work, including foreign diplomacy. He had family in Dorset, and emotional ties to that area, but no real stake in the county himself. Surely if he had John in his custody he would have kept him at one of his known residences such as Ely Place in Holborn, or Hatfield, or after he became Archbishop of Canterbury locked him up in Lambeth Palace?

There is an interesting link between Stillington and Morton in the early 1470s, because Stillington was Lord Chancellor and Morton Keeper of the Rolls of Chancery, and every time Stillington was too ill to travel to the King with the Great Seal, Morton took over. But John Alcock is another possible grass - the protege of Stillintnon's who took care of all the parliamentary business for him during the 1472-4 parliament (according to Crowland).

It seems the Stanley burials at St James Garlickhythe may be just a coincidence. The Herberts' London house also happened to lie in that parish. That, plus the fact that she was buried as Countess of Huntingdon, Lady Herbert, indicates pretty clearly that her marriage to William Herbert had not been annulled. Ergo, when he is described as a widower in the heralds' account of Elizabeth of York's coronation, he was Katherine's widower. Ergo she died still married to William Herbert before November 1487. Of course we don't know cause of death, but the main contender would have to be sweating sickness. It might have been childbirth, although there is no record of any child born of the marriage, or of any child buried with Katherine.

Marie

Hi Nico,

1) You only had to give up your worldly goods if becoming a monk. Priests could own property. People like Morton and Stillington died possessed of lots of w.g.'s. I would think, therefore, that if John was being pushed into a monastery the grant would have been made to the monastery, not to him personally, and if he was going to enter the priesthood he would probably have gone to university. I know that a bastard could not enter the priesthood without a special dispensation - I'm not sure about monks.

2) Huntingdon is specifically referred to as a "wedower" in the heralds' account of the coronation of Elizabeth of York (and yes, this comes amongst a list of the widowers present). Until we had the details of Katherine's burial, however, there was the possibility that the marriage had been annulled and he was therefore being classed as Mary Woodville's widower. The details of Katherine's burial, which were announced two years ago, prove that she remained married to him until her death, and also seem to indicate that the couple were resident at Herbert's London mansion when she died.

3) Not sure what you're referring to when you talk of people leaving people out of their wills. If you mean Huntingdon's will, then you have to remember that this was written in the summer of 1483, before his marriage to Katherine. If there were later wills (and surely he would have written one before Bosworth) then they seem to either been lost or ignored by those he left behind. (Who knows - perhaps his pre-Bosworth will made some statement about his intention to resist the Tudor invader.)

Marie

There were only four legitimate English Lancastrian claimants:

https://murreyandblue.wordpress.com/2015/09/29/meet-your-real-lancastrian-claimants/

From: [mailto: ]
Sent: 24 January 2016 17:20
To:
Subject: Re: [Richard III Society Forum] Re: Morton's Motives (was John of Gloucester)

Hilary wrote:

“Yes I tend to agree. There's one question I've been pondering which is who 'converted' Morton to HT. He was after all an old school Lancastrian who had been in France with MOA but he actually did pretty well under Edward. What else did he hope to get from HT? If it was to be AOC then that couldn't happen anyway whilst Bourchier lived and who's to say Edward wouldn't have suggested him? I tend to be cynical about loyalties - most of those who supported HT had burned their boats with Edward. So who won him over, Bray? And what was he promised? He was hardly MB's poodle like Bray and he wielded quite a bit of power under Edward already.”

Doug here:

Perhaps we’re looking at Morton’s motives from the wrong perspective? Rather than considering him, after Tewksbury anyway, as a Lancastrian, would it help in any way if we viewed him as basically anti-York? Didn’t mean he’d sit somewhere and sulk rather than accept assignments from Edward, but rather that he’d accept those assignments in spite of his anti-Yorkist personal feelings. Thus, he could serve Edward in various positions, even accepting the Bishopric of

Ely, but without accepting the Yorkist claims to the throne.

Stephen would know for certain, but I can’t recall anyone English with a legitimate Lancastrian claim to the throne after Tewksbury . So, lacking anyone to back in opposition to the House of York, Morton resigned himself to working with what he likely considered the de facto, but not de jure, ruler of England . But Edward IV dies unexpectedly, Stillington presents his “proofs” de-legitimizing E4’s marriage to EW and Richard, over the objections of the Woodvilles and some others, is offered and accepts, the throne.

So there’s Morton, sitting at the Council table, fully aware of the splits between the various Yorkist factions. What does he do? Apparently he gets involved, but not too deeply, with whatever plotting Hastings was up to, quite likely in the hope, successful as it turned out, of driving the various factions even further apart. The plot fails, Hastings is executed and Morton is placed in the charge of the one person in the country who not only has a legitimate, non-Yorkist claim to the throne – Henry Stafford, D of B, but also grievances against the various Yorkist factions! Once in Wales , I doubt very much time passed before Morton and Buckingham were planning on how to place the “House of Gloucester”(?) in its’ proper position – on the throne of England .

Of course, the problem was, Henry Stafford wasn’t even a competent Duke, let alone the competent leader of a rebellion or, except in his own mind, a competent monarch. So Buckingham’s Rebellion fails, because its’ leader was too incompetent and unwilling to accept advice from those who were. FWIW, I wonder if Morton didn’t advise Buckingham not to rebel unless, or until, he got foreign (French) assistance, recognizing that there just wasn’t enough native support to defeat Richard?

What do we really know about Morton’s activities after he left Wales ? What advice did he give MB? Could it have been to tell Henry to avoid Buckingham like the plague? That if Henry got too deeply involved and was captured, he’d likely only live long enough to be executed in London ? Morton could rely on his status as a bishop to protect him from the worst penalties, but that wouldn’t apply to Henry. Could Morton have been the one who spread the rumor about the boys’ deaths; not in order to undercut Richard, but rather to undercut Buckingham? As for the 180 degree turn Morton would be making, could it have been then that he realized Henry Tudor, via his mother, had as good a claim to the throne as, for example, EW’s children? If Parliament had legitimized the Beauforts except in regards to inheriting the throne, why couldn’t Parliament amend that legislation to declare that the Beauforts did have a legitimate claim to the throne? And if was then that Morton decided Tudor was a viable candidate for his support, the more divisions there were amongst the Yorkists, the better for anyone attempting to replace them on the throne and what better way that the attainders, fines, etc. that would be the result of a failed rebellion?

As for MB, I tend to think that here involvement with the Hastings’ plot was another of her attempts to get her son back in England without having to worry, at best, about his being kept in some secluded country house or castle, his movements, visitors and communications constantly monitored or, at worst, how Henry was doing in the Tower. I also think her involvement with Buckingham was basically for the same reason – she wanted Henry back and offering her, and his, support to Buckingham seemed to be the best way to attain that without subscribing to all the caveats that Richard was requiring.

In 1485, Henry did return to England , at the head of French mercenaries and a few hundred left-over Lancastrians and this time the rebellion succeeded. Not only, or even mainly, because of treachery, but because Henry had those French mercenaries. I mean, really, without them, Bosworth, presuming Henry had even gotten that far, would have been a walk-over for Richard!

Apparently, Morton had learned something!

Doug

With my apologies for the length of these maunderings (another word I’ve always wanted to use!).

There were only four legitimate English Lancastrian claimants:

https://murreyandblue.wordpress.com/2015/09/29/meet-your-real-lancastrian-claimants/ 

Doug here:

Thank you for that link! If I correctly understand the article then, it seems then that the only legitimate English Lancastrian claimants already supported the Yorkists?

Bummer (if you're Morton)!

Doug