Edward of Lancaster? Or yet more bastard princes

I've just been looking at the evidence regarding Prince Edward of
Lancaster's birth (ie Margaret of Anjou's pregnancy), and the following
things stand out:

1. Margaret appears to have anticipated the St Edward's Day birth - hence
her decision to give birth in Westminster Palace (also so he could be
christened in the abbey), and ordering for her lying in a cradle with an
image of St Edward. Was this then her calculated due day? If folk calculated
as today by counting 40 weeks from the first day of last period, then
likely date of conception (ie 2 weeks after) would have been 20 January.
Henry VI last known to have been at the Queen's palace of Greenwich on 16th
-he was at Sheen by 19th.

2. She seems to have been hoping for, or expecting, a pregnancy since BEFORE
1st JANUARY, as she gave a large gift to Walsingham on the Feast of the
Circumcision (ie 1st Jan), by far the largest of her New Year's gifts (she
also visited Walsingham in mid April, when she was about 3 months'
pregnant). Yet she had been married for eight years with no luck. No author
that I have read has mentioned any interest of Margaret's in Walsingham
prior to this, though of course that can't be ruled out.

3. The pregnancy doesn't seem to have been announced until shortly before
21st July. Even Henry VI had to be told the news by one of his esquires of
the Body. Now by this time Margaret was 6 months' pregnant. It may be that
Henry's claim that he had first heard of it through Tunstall (whom he
rewarded) was just doing things by the book, and he really already knew, but
if not it does suggest that the King & Queen weren't seeing much of each
other in the bedroom.

All in all, I'm inclined to wonder if Margaret's pregnancy was:-
a) planned (point 2), and
b) did not involve the King (points 1 & 3, plus the obvious problem of
planning a pregnancy with someone who has already spent 8 years failing to
father a child ).
A surrogate father, shall we say, perhaps another member of the House of
Lancaster? With Henry's sojourn at Greenwich and Margaret's appeals to Our
Lady of Walsingham as a cover? Any views?

Marie

--- In , "marie walsh"
<marie@r...> wrote:
> I've just been looking at the evidence regarding Prince Edward of
> Lancaster's birth (ie Margaret of Anjou's pregnancy), and the
following
> things stand out:

(snip)

> A surrogate father, shall we say, perhaps another member of the
House of
> Lancaster? With Henry's sojourn at Greenwich and Margaret's appeals
to Our
> Lady of Walsingham as a cover? Any views?
>
> Marie
>
I've read about the doubts as to Henry VI being the father of Edward
of Lancaster, but as usual, Marie, you lay the facts and arguments
out in a cogent way.

It does seem awfully covenient for Margaret in all ways, doesn't it?
And another poiunt is that from everything we can glean about her
personality from her actions, she doesn't sem like the type to
patiently bed with a man who was if not mad, at least highly
eccentric, for years in hopes of providing England with an heir.

Katy

--- In , oregonkaty
<no_reply@y...> wrote:
> --- In , "marie walsh"
> <marie@r...> wrote:
> > I've just been looking at the evidence regarding Prince Edward of
> > Lancaster's birth (ie Margaret of Anjou's pregnancy), and the
> following
> > things stand out:
>
> (snip)
>
> > A surrogate father, shall we say, perhaps another member of the
> House of
> > Lancaster? With Henry's sojourn at Greenwich and Margaret's
appeals
> to Our
> > Lady of Walsingham as a cover? Any views?
> >
> > Marie
> >
> I've read about the doubts as to Henry VI being the father of
Edward
> of Lancaster, but as usual, Marie, you lay the facts and arguments
> out in a cogent way.
>
> It does seem awfully covenient for Margaret in all ways, doesn't
it?
> And another poiunt is that from everything we can glean about her
> personality from her actions, she doesn't sem like the type to
> patiently bed with a man who was if not mad, at least highly
> eccentric, for years in hopes of providing England with an heir.
>
> Katy

I recall reading somewhere an allegation that Margaret had an affair
with Beaufort of Somerset, but I can't remember where - text book or
novel or primary source, sadly. I do remember that the King's
reaction was something along the lines of "It must have been the
Holy ghost!" If there is a real source for this I am sure Marie is
the person to locate it.
Brunhild

--- In , "brunhild613"
<brunhild@n...> wrote:
> --- In , oregonkaty
> <no_reply@y...> wrote:
> > --- In , "marie walsh"
> > <marie@r...> wrote:
> > > I've just been looking at the evidence regarding Prince Edward
of
> > > Lancaster's birth (ie Margaret of Anjou's pregnancy), and the
> > following
> > > things stand out:
> >
> > (snip)
> >
> > > A surrogate father, shall we say, perhaps another member of the
> > House of
> > > Lancaster? With Henry's sojourn at Greenwich and Margaret's
> appeals
> > to Our
> > > Lady of Walsingham as a cover? Any views?
> > >
> > > Marie
> > >
> > I've read about the doubts as to Henry VI being the father of
> Edward
> > of Lancaster, but as usual, Marie, you lay the facts and
arguments
> > out in a cogent way.
> >
> > It does seem awfully covenient for Margaret in all ways, doesn't
> it?
> > And another poiunt is that from everything we can glean about her
> > personality from her actions, she doesn't sem like the type to
> > patiently bed with a man who was if not mad, at least highly
> > eccentric, for years in hopes of providing England with an heir.
> >
> > Katy
>
> I recall reading somewhere an allegation that Margaret had an
affair
> with Beaufort of Somerset, but I can't remember where - text book
or
> novel or primary source, sadly. I do remember that the King's
> reaction was something along the lines of "It must have been the
> Holy ghost!" If there is a real source for this I am sure Marie is
> the person to locate it.
> Brunhild

Sorry, this is going to be a long one.

Laynesmith to the rescue (p138). It seems there were no end of
different stories about Edward of Lancaster's conception. The Holy
Ghost one apparently came from Prospero di Camuglio, the Milanese
Ambassador to France, in March 1460. He was told that when Henry VI
regained his sanity and was informed of the Prince's birth, he was so
astonished he declared the child 'must be the son of the Holy Ghost',
but he said he didn't believe it himself.
She quotes a few more, too:
Bale's Chronicle says that 'people spake strangely' of Prince
Edward's birth at the time.
In 1460 Warwick allegedly informed the Bishop of Terni: "The King is
a dolt and a fool who is ruled instead of ruling. The royal power is
in the hands of his wife and those who defile the King's chamber."
In 1461 the Milanese ambassador recorded a rumour at the Parisian
court that Margaret had poisoned Henry to marry Somerset. This
however, was the son of the Somerset of 1453.
Later still, Chatellain maintained that Warwick had denounced the
Queen in London on the grounds that the Prince was the product of an
adulterous liaison with a wandering player.

There was, however, a completely different explanation of Prince
Edward's birth current - ie that Margaret's whole pregnancy was
feigned. Perhaps another solution to the mystery of the anticipated
St Edward's Day delivery. Viz:-
In 1456 an apprentice, John Helton, was hanged, draw and quartered
for distributing bills which claimed the Prince was not the Queen's
son, and was forced to recant before his death.
An English Chronicle, written during the 1460s, claimed that in
1459 'the quene was defamed and disclaundered, that he that was
called Prince was nat hir sone but a bastard goten [by King Henry] in
avoutry' (that really takes some imagining!)
Fabyan says Margaret "susteyned not a little disclaundere and
oblequeye of the common peple, sayinge that [the prince] was not the
naturall sone of kynge Henrye, but chaungyd in the cradell"

Perhaps, as Laynesmith argues, the root cause of all these rumours
was the couple's long childlessness, people having formed differing
views as to which of the two was 'to blame'. However, when one looks
closely at the period surrounding the pregnancy there are these
oddities. Laynesmith herself quotes the New Year's Gift to Walsingham
when discussing Margaret's pregnancy but doesn't elaborate (by the
way, perhaps I should have explained that this shrine, a supposed
replica of the Holy Family's house at Nazareth, was supposed to be
particularly efficacious for women seeking a child). The problem is,
as Laynesmith must well know (I believe she has recently had a child
herself), thhat Margaret's gift to Walsingham was almost certainly
made before Prince Edward's conception; even if Edward were very
overdue, Margaret could not have known of her pregnancy by 1st
January - and I don't think he was overdue as Margaret did not begin
her lying-in (which normally lasted at least a month) until 10th
September. The gift might have been hoped to 'explain' the pregnancy
when it did occur - the answer to a prayer - but not many people in
this day and age will accept such an explanation for a conception.
And seemingly nor did many at the time.

The apparent confident arrangements for delivery of a male child on
the feast day of St Edward the Confessor do lend some plausibility to
the idea that there never was a pregnancy, as does the fact that
Margaret was apparently six months gone before anybody (including the
King) suspected. (We don't have the date that Tunstall took the news
to the King, but on 21st July Margaret was suddenly granted large
privileges; the first extant reference to the Queen's pregnancy
doesn't actually come till 19th August [Canterbury archives]. So it
all seems rather late. I'll have to look and see at what stage such
announcements were normally made.) Another factor that points in the
same direction may, ironically, be the very belief, as cited by
Warwick, that the Queen had lovers. Because she never did produce any
more children.
Of course, the apparent timing of the announcement does bring us
rather close to the date Henry lost his reason (he seems to have lost
it completely on 9th or 10th August). The trigger is often supposed
to have been the news of the Battle of Castillon, but it is possible
that Henry had been detriorating for some days before that - an
approver later claimed to have caused the King's insanity on 28th
July by casting a spell on his cloak.

By the way, back to the subject of the Duchess Cecily and the archer,
Laynesmith in the same discussion touches on a tradition with these
claims of royal bastardy of naming a very lowly person as the true
father: - Edward of Lancaster and the wandering player, Richard II
alleged to have been the son of a clerk of Bordeaux, and Henry IV the
son of a butcher of Ghent. The foreign angle in the last two is also
interesting. I know Joanna Laynesmith does not agree with the Jones
Hypothesis and is working on a refutation.
However, it seems to me that such allegations were so common only
because human nature is what it is - and probably more so in a more
violent and passionate age, despite the veneer of well ordered
marriages and veneration of chastity. The reasons for Richard II's
and Henry IV's parentage being questioned are obvious, but we do need
to look at each case on its merits. In Margaret's case, the birth of
an heir was long-overdue and urgent, and then turned up quite
miraculously (literally so). In the case of Edward IV, the
accusations do tie up with the fact that the Duke of York was absent
from Rouen for (from memory) about three weeks either side of the
likeliest date of conception (ie 4 August), and that the story of his
bastardy was actually believed, and acted upon, by Edward's own
brother.

Marie

Isn't there also an allegation that Duke of Lancaster was another
changeling? It does seem to have been something of a fashion to
question the birth of significant individuals. In this instance and
that of Henry VI's son and Edward IV's birth, they are certainly
pounced upon as political weapons by opponents who may be taking
existing rumours and developing them or creating them on fairly
traditional pattern knowing such stories are widely accepted.

On the subject of Edward prince of Wales, is there a primary source
description of his personality? On the one hand we have
Shakespeare's "fairer and more lovely prince" and on the other gory
descriptions of a bloodthirsty maniac very unlike his putative
father. I was wondering what the origins of these might be.
Brunhild


--- In , "mariewalsh2003"
<marie@r...> wrote:
> --- In , "brunhild613"
> <brunhild@n...> wrote:
> > --- In , oregonkaty
> > <no_reply@y...> wrote:
> > > --- In , "marie walsh"
> > > <marie@r...> wrote:
> > > > I've just been looking at the evidence regarding Prince
Edward
> of
> > > > Lancaster's birth (ie Margaret of Anjou's pregnancy), and
the
> > > following
> > > > things stand out:
> > >
> > > (snip)
> > >
> > > > A surrogate father, shall we say, perhaps another member of
the
> > > House of
> > > > Lancaster? With Henry's sojourn at Greenwich and Margaret's
> > appeals
> > > to Our
> > > > Lady of Walsingham as a cover? Any views?
> > > >
> > > > Marie
> > > >
> > > I've read about the doubts as to Henry VI being the father of
> > Edward
> > > of Lancaster, but as usual, Marie, you lay the facts and
> arguments
> > > out in a cogent way.
> > >
> > > It does seem awfully covenient for Margaret in all ways,
doesn't
> > it?
> > > And another poiunt is that from everything we can glean about
her
> > > personality from her actions, she doesn't sem like the type to
> > > patiently bed with a man who was if not mad, at least highly
> > > eccentric, for years in hopes of providing England with an
heir.
> > >
> > > Katy
> >
> > I recall reading somewhere an allegation that Margaret had an
> affair
> > with Beaufort of Somerset, but I can't remember where - text
book
> or
> > novel or primary source, sadly. I do remember that the King's
> > reaction was something along the lines of "It must have been the
> > Holy ghost!" If there is a real source for this I am sure Marie
is
> > the person to locate it.
> > Brunhild
>
> Sorry, this is going to be a long one.
>
> Laynesmith to the rescue (p138). It seems there were no end of
> different stories about Edward of Lancaster's conception. The Holy
> Ghost one apparently came from Prospero di Camuglio, the Milanese
> Ambassador to France, in March 1460. He was told that when Henry
VI
> regained his sanity and was informed of the Prince's birth, he was
so
> astonished he declared the child 'must be the son of the Holy
Ghost',
> but he said he didn't believe it himself.
> She quotes a few more, too:
> Bale's Chronicle says that 'people spake strangely' of Prince
> Edward's birth at the time.
> In 1460 Warwick allegedly informed the Bishop of Terni: "The King
is
> a dolt and a fool who is ruled instead of ruling. The royal power
is
> in the hands of his wife and those who defile the King's chamber."
> In 1461 the Milanese ambassador recorded a rumour at the Parisian
> court that Margaret had poisoned Henry to marry Somerset. This
> however, was the son of the Somerset of 1453.
> Later still, Chatellain maintained that Warwick had denounced the
> Queen in London on the grounds that the Prince was the product of
an
> adulterous liaison with a wandering player.
>
> There was, however, a completely different explanation of Prince
> Edward's birth current - ie that Margaret's whole pregnancy was
> feigned. Perhaps another solution to the mystery of the
anticipated
> St Edward's Day delivery. Viz:-
> In 1456 an apprentice, John Helton, was hanged, draw and quartered
> for distributing bills which claimed the Prince was not the
Queen's
> son, and was forced to recant before his death.
> An English Chronicle, written during the 1460s, claimed that in
> 1459 'the quene was defamed and disclaundered, that he that was
> called Prince was nat hir sone but a bastard goten [by King Henry]
in
> avoutry' (that really takes some imagining!)
> Fabyan says Margaret "susteyned not a little disclaundere and
> oblequeye of the common peple, sayinge that [the prince] was not
the
> naturall sone of kynge Henrye, but chaungyd in the cradell"
>
> Perhaps, as Laynesmith argues, the root cause of all these rumours
> was the couple's long childlessness, people having formed
differing
> views as to which of the two was 'to blame'. However, when one
looks
> closely at the period surrounding the pregnancy there are these
> oddities. Laynesmith herself quotes the New Year's Gift to
Walsingham
> when discussing Margaret's pregnancy but doesn't elaborate (by the
> way, perhaps I should have explained that this shrine, a supposed
> replica of the Holy Family's house at Nazareth, was supposed to be
> particularly efficacious for women seeking a child). The problem
is,
> as Laynesmith must well know (I believe she has recently had a
child
> herself), thhat Margaret's gift to Walsingham was almost certainly
> made before Prince Edward's conception; even if Edward were very
> overdue, Margaret could not have known of her pregnancy by 1st
> January - and I don't think he was overdue as Margaret did not
begin
> her lying-in (which normally lasted at least a month) until 10th
> September. The gift might have been hoped to 'explain' the
pregnancy
> when it did occur - the answer to a prayer - but not many people
in
> this day and age will accept such an explanation for a conception.
> And seemingly nor did many at the time.
>
> The apparent confident arrangements for delivery of a male child
on
> the feast day of St Edward the Confessor do lend some plausibility
to
> the idea that there never was a pregnancy, as does the fact that
> Margaret was apparently six months gone before anybody (including
the
> King) suspected. (We don't have the date that Tunstall took the
news
> to the King, but on 21st July Margaret was suddenly granted large
> privileges; the first extant reference to the Queen's pregnancy
> doesn't actually come till 19th August [Canterbury archives]. So
it
> all seems rather late. I'll have to look and see at what stage
such
> announcements were normally made.) Another factor that points in
the
> same direction may, ironically, be the very belief, as cited by
> Warwick, that the Queen had lovers. Because she never did produce
any
> more children.
> Of course, the apparent timing of the announcement does bring us
> rather close to the date Henry lost his reason (he seems to have
lost
> it completely on 9th or 10th August). The trigger is often
supposed
> to have been the news of the Battle of Castillon, but it is
possible
> that Henry had been detriorating for some days before that - an
> approver later claimed to have caused the King's insanity on 28th
> July by casting a spell on his cloak.
>
> By the way, back to the subject of the Duchess Cecily and the
archer,
> Laynesmith in the same discussion touches on a tradition with
these
> claims of royal bastardy of naming a very lowly person as the true
> father: - Edward of Lancaster and the wandering player, Richard II
> alleged to have been the son of a clerk of Bordeaux, and Henry IV
the
> son of a butcher of Ghent. The foreign angle in the last two is
also
> interesting. I know Joanna Laynesmith does not agree with the
Jones
> Hypothesis and is working on a refutation.
> However, it seems to me that such allegations were so common only
> because human nature is what it is - and probably more so in a
more
> violent and passionate age, despite the veneer of well ordered
> marriages and veneration of chastity. The reasons for Richard II's
> and Henry IV's parentage being questioned are obvious, but we do
need
> to look at each case on its merits. In Margaret's case, the birth
of
> an heir was long-overdue and urgent, and then turned up quite
> miraculously (literally so). In the case of Edward IV, the
> accusations do tie up with the fact that the Duke of York was
absent
> from Rouen for (from memory) about three weeks either side of the
> likeliest date of conception (ie 4 August), and that the story of
his
> bastardy was actually believed, and acted upon, by Edward's own
> brother.
>
> Marie

--- In , "brunhild613"
<brunhild@n...> wrote:
> Isn't there also an allegation that Duke of Lancaster was another
> changeling? It does seem to have been something of a fashion to
> question the birth of significant individuals.

I seem to recall reading somewhere in the Complete Peerage that Henry
IV also bolstered his dubious claim by an assertion that Philippa of
Clarence was a bastard.


In this instance and
> that of Henry VI's son and Edward IV's birth, they are certainly
> pounced upon as political weapons by opponents who may be taking
> existing rumours and developing them or creating them on fairly
> traditional pattern knowing such stories are widely accepted.

Yes, evidently such stories need to be treated with caution as they
were a useful way for claimants to the throne to negate the claims of
their rivals. However, some of these stories took no hold, whilst
others were widely credited - Edward of Lancaster particularly, but
the Edward IV story was also particularly persistent and dangerous.
Just to turn the argument on its head a little, the Edward IV
bastardy story has been discounted by many on the grounds that it is
just inherently unlikely for a duchess of that era to have acted like
that, and inherently difficult for her to have got the privacy. Yet
the popularity of such claims in gneral would suggest that people at
the time didn't think like this.
The changeling idea is slightly more challenging, though. Thinking of
Margaret of Anjou, for instance, she would have require fellow
conspirators from amongst her ladies or waiting maids - there were a
lot of these and it would have been far too dangerous to have them
all in on the secret. Monthly evidence of non-pregnancy would have
had to be kept from the eyes of those not in the know. The people
allowed access to the Queen in a state of undress would have had to
be limited to fellow-travellers, assuming she wasn't overweight to
start with. And then the difficulty of finding a healthy newborn boy
on 13 October, and smuggling him in.
I'm quite sure one would try actually getting pregnant before
resorting to that. But if that didn't work - who knows?

>
> On the subject of Edward prince of Wales, is there a primary source
> description of his personality? On the one hand we have
> Shakespeare's "fairer and more lovely prince" and on the other gory
> descriptions of a bloodthirsty maniac very unlike his putative
> father. I was wondering what the origins of these might be.
> Brunhild



That English Chronicle, again, tells that after the 2nd Battle of St
Albans Queen Margaret let him choose the fate of the captured
Yorkists Bonville & Kyriell. Bonville had only been caught because he
had been looking after the King in his tent:- "The King assured [Lord
Bonville] that he should have no bodily harm, natheless
notwithstanding, at instance of the Queen, te Duke of Exeter and the
Earl of Devonshire, by judgement of him called the Prince, a child,
he was beheaded at St Albans, and with him a worthy knight called Sir
Thomas Kyriell."
There may be something in this story, because Waurin also has a
version of it, in which Prince Edward passed judgement on Kyriell and
his son.

Then our Milanese Ambassador, again, who met Prince Edward in France,
said he "talks of nothing but cutting off heads and making war".

So he might have been fair and lovely, but he wasn't very nice.

Marie

> > On the subject of Edward prince of Wales, is there a primary
source
> > description of his personality? On the one hand we have
> > Shakespeare's "fairer and more lovely prince" and on the other
gory
> > descriptions of a bloodthirsty maniac very unlike his putative
> > father. I was wondering what the origins of these might be.
> > Brunhild
>
>
>
> That English Chronicle, again, tells that after the 2nd Battle of
St
> Albans Queen Margaret let him choose the fate of the captured
> Yorkists Bonville & Kyriell. Bonville had only been caught because
he
> had been looking after the King in his tent:- "The King assured
[Lord
> Bonville] that he should have no bodily harm, natheless
> notwithstanding, at instance of the Queen, te Duke of Exeter and
the
> Earl of Devonshire, by judgement of him called the Prince, a
child,
> he was beheaded at St Albans, and with him a worthy knight called
Sir
> Thomas Kyriell."
> There may be something in this story, because Waurin also has a
> version of it, in which Prince Edward passed judgement on Kyriell
and
> his son.
>
> Then our Milanese Ambassador, again, who met Prince Edward in
France,
> said he "talks of nothing but cutting off heads and making war".
>
> So he might have been fair and lovely, but he wasn't very nice.
>
> Marie

Thanks. I had an idea there was an underlying source for this view.
I wonder too, if that were the case, that Anne Neville might have
hated being married to him? Might Richard, possibly a friend of her
childhood, have been a relief afterwards? I don't see a delicate
girl like Anne enjoying the company of one whose favourite topic
might be decapitation and diosembowelling somehow.
B

--- In , "mariewalsh2003"
<marie@r...> wrote:> The changeling idea is slightly more
challenging, though. Thinking of
> Margaret of Anjou, for instance, she would have require fellow
> conspirators from amongst her ladies or waiting maids - there were
a
> lot of these and it would have been far too dangerous to have them
> all in on the secret. Monthly evidence of non-pregnancy would have
> had to be kept from the eyes of those not in the know. The people
> allowed access to the Queen in a state of undress would have had to
> be limited to fellow-travellers, assuming she wasn't overweight to
> start with. And then the difficulty of finding a healthy newborn
boy
> on 13 October, and smuggling him in.

Didn't royal ladies give birth in front of a roomful of witnesses,
not just their female attendants, to preclude just such a ploy as the
substitution of a living baby for a stillborn one, or a real baby
for a nonexistent one?

Katy

--- In , oregonkaty
<no_reply@y...> wrote:
> --- In , "mariewalsh2003"
> <marie@r...> wrote:> The changeling idea is slightly more
> challenging, though. Thinking of
> > Margaret of Anjou, for instance, she would have require fellow
> > conspirators from amongst her ladies or waiting maids - there
were
> a
> > lot of these and it would have been far too dangerous to have
them
> > all in on the secret. Monthly evidence of non-pregnancy would
have
> > had to be kept from the eyes of those not in the know. The people
> > allowed access to the Queen in a state of undress would have had
to
> > be limited to fellow-travellers, assuming she wasn't overweight
to
> > start with. And then the difficulty of finding a healthy newborn
> boy
> > on 13 October, and smuggling him in.
>
> Didn't royal ladies give birth in front of a roomful of witnesses,
> not just their female attendants, to preclude just such a ploy as
the
> substitution of a living baby for a stillborn one, or a real baby
> for a nonexistent one?
>
> Katy

Hi Katy, I'm pretty sure this was a later practice, and that I've
read somewhere when it started, but I'll try & find out. Certainly no
men were allowed in in the 15th century - remember the story of
Elizabeth Woodville & the King's physician Master Dominic?

Marie

--- In , "mariewalsh2003"
<marie@r...> wrote:
>
> Hi Katy, I'm pretty sure this was a later practice, and that I've
> read somewhere when it started, but I'll try & find out. Certainly
no
> men were allowed in in the 15th century - remember the story of
> Elizabeth Woodville & the King's physician Master Dominic?
>
> Marie



Uh...no, actually. Please tell.

Katy

--- In , oregonkaty
<no_reply@y...> wrote:
> --- In , "mariewalsh2003"
> <marie@r...> wrote:
> >
> > Hi Katy, I'm pretty sure this was a later practice, and that I've
> > read somewhere when it started, but I'll try & find out.
Certainly
> no
> > men were allowed in in the 15th century - remember the story of
> > Elizabeth Woodville & the King's physician Master Dominic?
> >
> > Marie
>
>
>
> Uh...no, actually. Please tell.
>
> Katy

Oky, it's Elizabeth Woodville's first pregnancy, and top royal
physician confidently announces that she's carrying a boy. And he
can't wait to be proved right but of course isn't allowed into the
delivery room (in fact, men weren't allwed into the lying-in chamber
at all for the whole period). So he's standing outside the door in a
state of great anticipation. At last he hears a baby's cry.
"What has my lady within?" he calls excitedly.
"Whatever my lady has here within," shouts back one of the Queen's
women, "'tis sure a fool that stands without."

Marie