Richard's divorce clause

I am new to the group and would therefore like to apologise if I am raising a subject that has already been discussed. I was trying to speculate on the logic behind the "divorce clause" in the May 1474 Parliamentary Act that settled the Beauchaump estates dispute and was wondering:

I know the papal dispensation is dated 22 April 1472. Is it possible that Richard and Anne married in 1472 without waiting for the papal dispensation to speed her release from sanctuary and later obtained one backdated to the approximate time of their wedding? This practice is not uncommon even nowadays in case of private agreements, Clarence might have been aware of this formal omission and the clause protected both Richard and Anne from his greed while waiting for the formal document.

I find it strange that the clause does make provisions for Richard's and Anne's heirs (or at least I find no mention in the text I have from Baldwin's bio). What about their issue in case of divorce? Does this mean Edward had not been born yet nor was he exptected in the, back then, near future? Or does this omission simply imply that the objections to their marriage were clearly seen as a question of mere formality that could be easily solved, possibly provided that the bribe was large enough?

The article on the dispensation I downloaded from the group's file, and Baldwin too, gives a time span of over 2 years for Richard's wedding, from the date of the dispensation until the settlement of the estates issue in May 1474. If they had not been married already by May 1474, why include a divorce clause which generally implies a marriage is standing?

Thank you for sharing your opinion. Mac

Mac wrote:

"I am new to the group and would therefore like to apologise if I am raising a subject that has already been discussed. I was trying to speculate on the logic behind the "divorce clause" in the May 1474 Parliamentary Act that settled the Beauchaump estates dispute and was wondering:

I know the papal dispensation is dated 22 April 1472. Is it possible that Richard and Anne married in 1472 without waiting for the papal dispensation to speed her release from sanctuary and later obtained one backdated to the approximate time of their wedding? This practice is not uncommon even nowadays in case of private agreements, Clarence might have been aware of this formal omission and the clause protected both Richard and Anne from his greed while waiting for the formal document."

Marie replies:

Hi, Mac. Welcome to the forum. No need to apologise - these are very perceptive questions. I guess I'm the person best placed to answer as I have studied & written on the subject of Richard and Anne's marriage dispensation. As regards your first question, people did indeed often ask for dispensations after the event, but this was frowned on. by the Church The dispensation might be denied, and even if it weren't there would usually be a penance imposed - often a period of sexual abstinence. Where dispensations were asked for retrospectively, therefore, this is generally very clear in the wording of the dispensation, and the dispensation was not actually backdated - the couple were only legally married from the date at which the Church approved of the match. Also, Peter D. Clarke and his colleague, who found the dispensation in the archives of the Papal Pentitentiary, have now published all the English & Welsh related entries in the Penitentiary registers covering that period, and it can be seen from these that Richard and Anne's dispensation was indeed issued in 1472 as the entries are all sequential - the previous entry is for a dispenation issued on 23rd March 1472 and the one after is for one issued on 26 April 1472.

Mac wrote:

"I find it strange that the clause does make provisions for Richard's and Anne's heirs (or at least I find no mention in the text I have from Baldwin's bio). What about their issue in case of divorce? Does this mean Edward had not been born yet nor was he exptected in the, back then, near future? Or does this omission simply imply that the objections to their marriage were clearly seen as a question of mere formality that could be easily solved, possibly provided that the bribe was large enough?"

Marie replies:

Despite what you may read in a lot of books, Edward seems to have been born in the spring or summer of 1476. Rous gives his age as 7 and a bit at the time of his investiture, and the Tewkesbury Abbey Chronicle also says that Richard's son was born in 1476. So, no, Richard and Anne had no children in May 1474.

Mac wrote:

"The article on the dispensation I downloaded from the group's file, and Baldwin too, gives a time span of over 2 years for Richard's wedding, from the date of the dispensation until the settlement of the estates issue in May 1474. If they had not been married already by May 1474, why include a divorce clause which generally implies a marriage is standing?"

Marie replies:

Indeed. Peter Hammond had at one time argued that Richard and Anne did not marry until after the May 1474 settlement, but this no longer seems tenable. Apart from the dispensation, we have a reference to Richard and Anne as husband and wife that can now be dated to the autumn of 1472 thanks to the work of Rosemary Horrox et al on the recent edition of the medieval Parliament Rolls.

As I see it, the May 1474 Act was a settlement of the dispute between Richard and Clarence that seems to have flared up in the second half of 1473. According to a statement by the Milanese ambassador at the French court, writing just after the Earl of Oxford's brother had arrived there, Clarence was claiming that Richard had married Anne by force: marriages made by force/ abduction were invalid, so it looks as if we have here the thrust of Clarence's argument to get Richard and Anne 'divorced' - it had nothing to do with the lack of a dispensation. I don't want to get too bogged down in this, but it is generally accepted that Anne was perfectly willing to marry Richard; high society, however, regarded any marriage made without the consent of the girl's legal guardian (particularly if she was an heiress) as abduction and theft of the family property even if it was a romantic elopement, but in this they were at odds with the Church. It's fairly common to see families bleating about force (raptus) in order to get the annulment of the marriage of one of their minted kinswomen who has made a match they don't approve of, but the Church wasn't interested so they increasingly looked to the common law for some sort of redress. Clarence regarded himself as Anne's legal guardian, and we know that Richard had asked for his consent to the marriage early in 1472, and Clarence had agreed under pressure from the King but only on condition that he and Isabel got to keep all the property. I assume his argument would have been that, since the property had been split, there was no consent. Spelling out the fact that getting Richard and Anne's marriage annulled would not get Clarence 'his' property back was necessary in order to avoid a future flare-up of the dispute.

Was Clarence really so stupid as to think he could get Richard's marriage annulment on grounds of 'raptus'? Possibly not. The other possibility is that - as John Paston suspected - the quarrel with Richard, coinciding as it did with the Earl of Oxford's attempted invasion, was a cover for raising an army that was really intended for use against the King. Perhaps it was Clarence that Oxford planned to put on the throne.

Dear Marie,

thank you very much for your very thorough and thoughtful answer. Looks like I got 2 out of 3 right then :-)

The point on the dispensations issued in chronological order is very interesting and I agree it rules out backdating.

So the clause was mainly addressed to protect Richard's and Anne's rights from Clarence's objections to Anne's "abduction", no strange theories of a partially invalid dispensation, mischievously and deliberately sought as invalid as a convenient wayout for Richard as some others have argued, then.

Do you think the "abduction objection" is also consistant with the Croyland Chronicle record of Clarence hiding Anne in a cookshop with Richard finding her and escorting her to sanctuary in St Martin's or does it simply refers to the lack of his permission as "guardian", when, as far as I have read, he was no guardian since Anne was a widow?

Thank you for your time again. Mac

Mac wrote:

"Do you think the "abduction objection" is also consistant with the Croyland Chronicle record of Clarence hiding Anne in a cookshop with Richard finding her and escorting her to sanctuary in St Martin's or does it simply refers to the lack of his permission as "guardian", when, as far as I have read, he was no guardian since Anne was a widow?"

Marie replies:

I think worry about possible charges of abduction probably explains why Richard chose to take Anne to sanctuary rather than hiding her in his own household.

Yes, technically Clarence had no right to prevent Anne's marriage - she was turned fourteen and a widow - but I've seen other cases of families objecting to the remarriage of a young widowed daughter on those same grounds so it seems there was a mismatch between people's attitudes and the law. The groom could find himself in a fix if he had had to rescue his lady love from the clutches of her family because it would look suspiciously like marriage by abduction - the ancient practice of raiding for brides. Nobody wanted to end up in a church court, with the bride under pressure from her family to denounce her marriage.

The underlying driver of these claims of raptus from families is something which is still relevant today - people's failure to distinguish between the remit of the law and what they see as the dictates of natural justice. How seriously Clarence took his chances of success I wouldn't know. He may have actually kidded himself that Richard *had* abducted Anne against her will. Or he may have hoped that by threatening Richard and Anne with divorce action he could scare them into returning some of the disputed property. Vexacious legal cases were, according to Hicks at least, very common at this period as a means of bullying one's neighbours into giving in. So long as Anne stood firm, though, Clarence didn't stand a chance of breaking up the marriage.

Given that Anne was also turned fourteen and a married woman when she rode with Prince Edward and Queen Margaret to Tewkesbury, there's also the question of whether Edward had been treating her as a total innocent when he gave her into Clarence's household, or whether there was some sort of custody involved. After all, he had her mother - who had parted company from the Lancastrian army before landing - surrounded by an armed guard in Beaulieu Sanctuary. If Anne had been in Clarence's custody as a Lancastrian sympathiser, then Clarence's case would look much more understandable, although the bottom line for the Church would still have been that, if Anne herself had married willingly, then the marriage was valid (assuming no other impediments).

The wildcard in all this, of course, is whether Clarence had larger plans - i.e. whether he was trying to topple Edward from his throne again. The whole quarrel with Richard might have been secondary to - or a cover for - his real ambition, but that we'll probably never know for sure.

Just as a by the by, another interesting facet of Clarence's 'divorce' campaign is that it seems to have started over a year after the marriage but within a couple of months of the Countess of Warwick joining Richard and Anne at Middleham. Was the Countess perhaps encouraging the daughter with whom she was living to lay claim to a proper share of her the Beauchamp inheritance on her behalf? Is this what set Clarence off?

It's a somewhat messy subject and I'm afraid there are no hard-&-fast answers. All we have on which to base our understanding of the "divorce clause" is that statement in the Calendar of Milanese State Papers.

Marie

Mac wrote:

Mac wrote:

"I'm sorry, you mentioned Paston in the last paragraph of your previous answer, I seem to miss the statement in the Calendar of the Milanese Papers... Sorry to bother and thank you in advance for your reply, I am learning so much.

2

Marie replies:

Here's a copy-and-paste of it

"According to a statement by the Milanese ambassador at the French court, writing just after the Earl of Oxford's brother had arrived there, Clarence was claiming that Richard had married Anne by force: marriages made by force/ abduction were invalid, so it looks as if we have here the thrust of Clarence's argument to get Richard and Anne 'divorced' - it had nothing to do with the lack of a dispensation."

Mac wrote:

"Ps i would rule out a "right of custody" on the part of Clarence in the second phase of the dispute over the. Beauchamp estates: Richard had gained Edward's royal permission to marry Anne and even if the King still looked upon her as a former Lancastrian foe instead of as a young harmless girl and cousin, in this respect in his eyes he was simply exchanging one brother with the other in terms of custody. However, I would expect she received an informal pardon when she married Richard, if ever needed."

Marie replies:

I think I've covered this. It's merely a suggestion - you may like it, you may not - as to how Clarence might have *sold the thing to himself*. Unless Anne had been forced to marry Richard, Clarence's claim of force was *spurious* and it failed; so to discount possible grounds for that claim because they would have been spurious is kind of missing the point. Also, no charges, so no pardon needed. It would have been very unusual at this period for ladies to be indicted of treason or receive a formal pardon (I don't think I've ever seen one), though many of the wives and widows of traitors are to be found sequestered in nunneries or sanctuaries. Incidentally, that is another *possible* reason why Richard took Anne to sanctuary - because she wasn't yet in the King's good graces. Her aunt Margaret Neville, Countess of Oxford, was also living in St Martin's sanctuary.

Anne was placed in Clarence's household. Richard did ask Clarence for permission to marry her *after* Edward had given his permission. Clarence gave his consent but it was provisional upon Richard and Anne not demanding their share of any of the Beauchamp or Montagu lands. Richard and Anne married, fought for their share of the inheritance, and Clarence then started objecting about force. He had absolutely no case in canon law. These are the known facts. He wouldn't be the first or last medieval person to try to break up a marriage on incredibly weak grounds. These people were nothing if not argumentative and litigious.

Another possible outcome for which Clarence may have hoped is that the King would give into him for an easy life and protect his tenure of all the Beauchamp and Montagu estates (which I suspect may have been promised to him in 1471 as an inducement to change sides). As it turned out, Edward went the other way and confiscated all of Clarence's estates.

What interests me, and may provide the clue as to Clarence's motivation (if not for the grounds on which he argued his case), is why the time delay between the marriage and Clarence's armed quarrel with Richard over it.

Would be interested in your ideas about Clarence's attempt to annul Richard's marriage to Anne.

Marie wrote: Would be interested in your ideas about Clarence's attempt to annul Richard's marriage to Anne.

Mac's answer:

Mmmmh, as you say, it's hard to get into someone else's head in general, particularly after over 500 years, and particularly in the case of "False, Fleeting, Perjur'd Clarence". I wouldn't really know, the vexatious position during the dispute to obtain a larger grant of the Beauchamp inheritance (which I understand he did obtain) seems a good argument, and the "divorce clause" was included both as a precaution and as a warning to Clarence that he had better refrain from any annulment plans against Richard and Anne for they would not avail him even if he had been succesful.

It is possible that calling his men to arms at the same time was more directed against the king rather than against Richard, even though I can hardly imagine a staunch Lancastrian like the Earl of Oxford to fight to put any Yorkist prince, and especially George, on the throne simply to replace another one.

The possibility that Clarence had been offered all Beauchamp and Montagu estates to change sides again in 1471 never crossed my mind. From what I understand his engagement at Barnet and Tewkesbury too was little to say the least, so my guess was he renounced risking his life alongside the Earl for a position of second best heir to the throne he had already with Edward provided his active commitment in the battle alongside Edward would not be requested. Nor do I think Edward had his cousin-in-law Anne Beauchamp guarded by armed guards while in sanctuary for Clarence's sake.

I do not think Anne was ever forced to marry Richard and in terms of lands and titles, at least in the first phase, Richard seems to have made a remarkably poor bargain, as Kendall says. I'm not suggesting it was a marriage based on romance only, they both had very practical mutual interests, but it does not seem to have been based on convenience only either. Richard at least could have a far wider choice than Anne, his sister's step daughter Mary of Burgundy was just 1 year younger than Anne and unmarried, just to make an example, while the alternative for Anne was probably to be convent-caged. If envy of an apparently happy match also played a part in Clarence's reasons, only Clarence knows.

Mac wrote:

"It is possible that calling his men to arms at the same time was more directed against the king rather than against Richard, even though I can hardly imagine a staunch Lancastrian like the Earl of Oxford to fight to put any Yorkist prince, and especially George, on the throne simply to replace another one."

Marie:

I understand your reservations, which I share to a great extent because George had betrayed the Lancastrians - including Oxford - in 1471. But Oxford's position may have been more complicated. I once attended a talk by James Ross, when he was working on his biography of Oxford (which I can't afford!), and he pointed out that Oxford's father, the previous earl, had been a supporter of Richard Duke of York although his eldest son, Aubrey, had got in 'great' with Queen Margaret. Ross therefore wondered whether the Earl himself had been wrongly accused by Edward on the basis of Aubrey's treason. If so, then the 13th earl's hatred of Edward IV would be very easy to understand but would not necessarily have extended to other members of the House of York - not unless they took Edward's side, that is. The Earl's wife, Margaret Neville, was Warwick the Kingmaker's sister, and therefore aunt to Isabel Neville. Oxford certainly seems to have been close in with Warwick in the late 1460s, and indeed during the Readeption. Anyway, in 1473 we have Oxford trying to mount an invasion, and his brother-in-law Archbishop Neville being arrested for complicity in a plot to destroy King Edward. Clearly they had a new king in mind, and the only two possibilities are the Lancastrian Duke of Exeter who was a prisoner in the Tower, and Clarence who had been recognised by the Lancastrians in 1470/71 as the next heir to the throne after King Henry and Prince Edward. Oxford might have found it quite tempting to place Clarence on the throne as, through his marriage, he would then be the Queen's uncle, and indeed the King's cousin. It's, again, just a suggestion, and there's more that could be said, but John Paston's comment indicates that at least some people at the time shared these very same suspicions.

Mac wrote:

"The possibility that Clarence had been offered all Beauchamp and Montagu estates to change sides again in 1471 never crossed my mind. From what I understand his engagement at Barnet and Tewkesbury too was little to say the least, so my guess was he renounced risking his life alongside the Earl for a position of second best heir to the throne he had already with Edward provided his active commitment in the battle alongside Edward would not be requested. Nor do I think Edward had his cousin-in-law Anne Beauchamp guarded by armed guards while in sanctuary for Clarence's sake."

Marie replies:

Sorry, I'm not following all of this. One of Clarence's major problems during the Readeption is that the old Lancastrian exiles hated him and that most of his estates were coming under threat from these people, who quite understandably now wanted their confiscated lands back. In the spring of 1471 reconciliation to Edward was Clarence's best option - even though it seems he really had persuaded himself that Edward was a bastard. Once Henry VI and Edward of Lancaster were dead, however, the outlook was rather different. I'm not convinced that Clarence's execution necessarily came out of the blue. It could be, rather, that Edward had very adroitly succeeded in controlling him up until 1477. For instance, the confiscation of all Clarence's estates at the end of 1473 was a fairly extreme response to a quarrel between brothers and might have been motivated by a more serious reading of Clarence's armed activity.

I don't think Edward had the Countess surrounded by an armed guard for Clarence's sake either - I think he was furious with her on his own account. But when Edward agreed to Richard bringing her out of Beaulieu to live with him and Anne at Middleham the general opinion was that Clarence was against this.

Mac wrote:

I do not think Anne was ever forced to marry Richard and in terms of lands and titles, at least in the first phase, Richard seems to have made a remarkably poor bargain, as Kendall says. I'm not suggesting it was a marriage based on romance only, they both had very practical mutual interests, but it does not seem to have been based on convenience only either. Richard at least could have a far wider choice than Anne, his sister's step daughter Mary of Burgundy was just 1 year younger than Anne and unmarried, just to make an example, while the alternative for Anne was probably to be convent-caged. If envy of an apparently happy match also played a part in Clarence's reasons, only Clarence knows.

Marie replies:

I agree. However you try to spin it, the fact is that Richard had been granted the northern Neville lands in 1471, and Anne would not have stood to inherit these anyway because they were subject to a male entail; I'm not sure of the details, but I understand that the estates Clarence agreed to surrender to Gloucester in March 1472 were pretty limited, but some day I'll have to get hold of a copy of the original agreement as I'm not at all clear on the details and they are where the Devil lurks. I do think, however, that bringing Warwick's daughter in as his lady would have made it much, much easier for Richard to gain the acceptance and support of the locals. Anne would have jumped at the chance of marrying Richard, I'm sure. He had the power to fight to get her share of the family estates, and quite frankly I don't think Edward would have agreed to her marrying anyone he didn't entirely trust - i.e., probably, anyone else at all. Also, their shared memories are likely to have given them both some sense of security in a world that had since proved very unpredictable and dangerous.

Mac, I agree with you that Richard didn't make a great bargain when he first chose Anne. There was no need to look abroad, even; there were great heiresses with less complicated inheritances available in England - like Cecily Bonville, for starters (who certainly can't have been earmarked for Dorset yet, as the latter's first wife was still alive?).

I know it tends to be an unpopular opinion nowadays (I think?) but I honestly do think it was a romantic match. Of course, our idea of romance is different nowadays; I'm not talking about a whirlwind romance without pragmatic concerns. Them being 'childhood sweethearts' seems unlikely, considering their ages, but only imagine the heightened circumstances they found themselves in! She was a noble young lady in distress, he was a chivalrous young prince fresh from his first experiences in battle. I've said this before (though possibly not here) but their circumstances were a lot like giving a modern teenager the possibility of living out 'Twilight' or other similar fantasy romance in real life. Few young persons would fail to be affected by it.

Anne's illustrious pedigree was part of what would have made her an ideal heroine of chivalric romance. The young lady needed to be deserving of admiration, and that included her lineage as much as her looks and character.

But you must keep in mind that the De Veres weren't 'staunch Lancastrians' the way you'd perhaps expect them to be. Certainly not the way some other Lancastrian families were. They remained quite neutral and wary throughout the earlier conflicts - what they really thought about it all is anybody's guess, but one would have thought their natural sympathies were Yorkist, if you look at their family connections. The Countess of Oxford had long been part of a group of Suffolk ladies who were apparently good friends. This small group included the Duke of York's sister Isabel, Countess of Essex and John Howard's first wife Katherine. At this point, Isabel's eldest son married Oxford's daughter (who, alas, died young)& and of course, the Countess of Oxford was John Howard's first cousin. These ladies commissioned Osbern Bokenham's 'Legends of Holy Women' together in the mid-to-late 1440s, but Cecily, Isabel and the Countess of Oxford were (along with Jacquetta, Duchess of Bedford, as it happens) together in Rouen in 1441-1442 so this friendship - if such it was - may have been of even older standing.

I believe the crucial factor in Oxford's involvement in the events of 1469 and beyond was that Warwick was his brother-in-law. And whatever his real sympathies, it's plausible that he may have been motivated by revenge. What happened in 1462 to his father and brother was very murky indeed. The 12th Earl might really have got involved in a plot (possibly even against his will, who knows) through his eldest son - *or* there may have been a miscarriage of justice, which would certainly explain why the 13th Earl was such a fanatical opponent later on. It is perfectly possible that the 13th Earl was more anti-Edward than anti-York, at least in the beginning.

I mentioned this before, but James Ross, in his biography of the 13th Earl of Oxford, thinks the connection between Oxford and Clarence was quite strong. Specifically, when Oxford was seeking the French King's support for his 1473 invasion, he sent him the seal of an English Duke who had promised to rebel with him, and Ross makes a strong case for it being Clarence.

At any rate, in order for the 1473 invasion to have any purpose at all, Oxford would certainly have had some candidate in mind to replace Edward. I agree with Ross that Clarence seems the only likely candidate around that time, not to mention the best candidate from Oxford's point of view, as their wives were so closely related.

Pansy

Dear Pansy

thank you for sharing your thoughts. I privately indulge in the romantic outlook too, but preferred to be cautious in my previous post since everytime one mentions personal feelings and emotions related to historical charachters one usually gets pulled by the leg, to say the least, for "lack of evidence". How many of us have put down their feelings for their partners on paper in front of a lawyer, I wonder, so that posterity might have evidence - and even then, there would always be some detractor saying that it was either a forgery or evidence of weakness, etc.

Circumstances in 1471-72 were indeed very romantic to favour an attachment, even though thoughts of a viable marriage for a prince of the blood must rest on sounder grounds than that - steady mistresses were often taken on to emotionally compensate for loveless arranged marriages after all, but that does not seem to have been their case after the marriage. When I look at the little clues of Richard's attention to his wife (e.g. the gifts of silk and fur in 1476, the permission to the Italian jeweller to trade in London in December 1483 provided he had first choice, ecc.) I usually compare them to my own husband's attentions and find them quite human.

As far as the age when they possibly first met, if we take Baldwin's fairly logical assumption that 1465 marked the beginning of Richard's tutelage under Warwick rather than the end (in Kendall's view), lasting until his coming of age at 16 in 1468 when Anne was 12 and of a marriable age, with the Earl possibly already considering him and his brother as a match for his daughters (after all their father had been betrothed to Cecily Neville when he was 13), it is not so far fetched to think these two young people might have been made consider the other as a possible partner and get used to the idea until Edward opposed any such union due to the deterioration in the relationships with his mighty subject. We are talking of an arranged strategic marriage, of course, Anne's and Richard's feelings, if any, were irrelevant to the Earl's ambitions, as it's proved by Anne's later arranged marriage to Edward of Lancaster.

And, to bring it on a lighter note, since we are talking about people who were once flesh and bones just like us, if I had been in Anne's shoes, they would have had to drag me with horses from the altar, not to it, if the prospect groom was anyone near a prince of the blood around 20 years old with the looks of Richard's facial reconstruction, with or without scoliosis, not to mention his support in the inheritance division issue, etc.... I guess she must have laughed out loud when she heard Clarence was saying Richard had married her by force.

Thanks for joining the discussion. Mac

Mary wrote:

"Thank you Marie for more fascinating information on what was/could have been happening. If the Earl of Oxford was trying to put Clarence on the throne could that have been the treason that Edward charged Clarence with, if ofcourse he had found out about it, and maybe Clarence knowing about the pre-contract was just the straw that broke the camels back. You can commit treason against me but when you threaten my children look out."

Marie replies:

Pleasure. Interesting too that around the time of Clarence's arrest there was a rumour going round that Oxford had escaped from Hammes and mounted a rebellion in Lincolnshire (at least, I think it was Lincolnshire).

Apologies if this comes up twice, but first attempt seems to have got lost in the ether.

Mary wrote:

"Thank you Marie for more fascinating information on what was/could have been happening. If the Earl of Oxford was trying to put Clarence on the throne could that have been the treason that Edward charged Clarence with, if ofcourse he had found out about it, and maybe Clarence knowing about the pre-contract was just the straw that broke the camels back. You can commit treason against me but when you threaten my children look out."

Marie replies:

Pleasure. Interesting too that around the time of Clarence's arrest there was a rumour going round that Oxford had escaped from Hammes and mounted a rebellion in Lincolnshire (at least, I think it was Lincolnshire).

Marie P.S.

Actually, we know the charges against Clarence and they don't mention Oxford because they are about more recent goings on - Oxford's arrest in 1474 hadn't put a total stop to Clarence's ambitions, simply wrong-footed him for a bit.

Incidentally, I'm far from convinced that Clarence knew about the precontract. Can you imagine Clarence having found that out and it still being news to the rest of the populus in 1483?

Mary wrote:

"

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A false fleeting perjured yet discreet Clarence...

I was being ironic, Johanne...

Here's the part of the Act of Attainder which enumerates Clarence's treasons. The original document is TNA C 49/40/1. I've added punctuation, modernised use of capitals and u versus v, changed thorns to th, and broken up into paragraphs and bullet points to make for easier reading.

Marie

"All this [i.e. the King's generosity to him] notwithstandyng, it is to remember the large grace and foryevesse that he yave hym uppon and for that, at diverse tyme sith, he gretely offended the Kyng, as in jupartyng the Kynges royall estate, persone and life in straite warde, puttyng hym therby from all his libertie; aftre procuryng grete commocions, and sith the voydaunce oute his royaulme assistyng; yevyng to his enemyes mortall the usurpers [sic]; laboryng also by parlement to exclude hym and all his from the regalie and enabling hym self to the same; and by diverse weyes other wyse attemptyng; whiche all the Kyng, by the nature and love moeved, utterly foryave all, entendyng to have putte all in perpetuell oblivion.

The said duke, nathelesse, for all this, noo love encreasyng butt growyng daily in more and more malice, hath not left to confedre and conspire newe treasons more haynous and lothely thann ever, how that the said duke falsely and traitorously entended and purposed fermeley th'extreme distruccion and disherityng of the Kyng and his issue, and to subverte all the polityk rule of this royaulme, by myght to be goton aswell outewarde as inwarde; whiche false purpose the rather to bryng aboute:

He cast and compassed the moyans to enduce the Kynges naturell subgettes to withdrawe theire hertes loves and affeccions from the Kyng there naturell sovereigne lorde by many subtill contryved weyes, as in causyng dyverse his servauntes suche as he coude imagyne moste apte to sowe sedicion and aggrugge amonge the people to goo into dyverse parties of this royaulme and laboure to enforme the people largely in every place where they shulde com that Thomas Burdett his servaunte, which was lawfully and truly atteinted of treason, was wrongfully putte to deth. To somme his servauntez of suche like disposicion he yave large money, veneson therwith, to assemble the kynges subgettes to feste them and cher theym and by theire policies and resonyng enduce hem to beleve that the said Burdett was wrongfully executed.

And, so to putte it in noyse in hertes of the people, he saide and laboured also to be noysed by suche his servauntes apte for that werk that the Kyng oure sovereigne lorde wroght by nygromancye and used crafte to poyson his subgettes suche as hym pleased, to th'entent to desclaundre the Kyng in the moost haynous wyse he couth in the sight and conceipt of his subgettes, and therfore to encorage theym to hate, despice and aggrugge theire hertes agaynst hym, thynkyng that he ne lived ne dealid with his subgettes as a Christien prynce.

And, overe this, the said duke, beyng in full purpose to exalte hym self and his heirez to the regallye and corone of Englande and clerely in opinion to putte aside from the same for ever the said corone from the Kyng and his heirez, uppon oon the falsest and moost unnaturall coloure & pretense that man myght imagyne, falsely and untruely noysed, publisshed and saide that the Kyng oure sovereigne lorde was a bastard and not begottinne to reigne uppon us.

And, to contynue and procede ferther in this his moost malicious and traytorous purpose, after this lothely, false and sedicious langage shewed and declared amonges the people, he enduced dyverse of the Kynges naturall subgettes to be sworne uppon the Blessed Sacrament to be true to hym and his heires, noon excepcion reserved of theire liegeaunce. And, after the same othe soo made, he shewed to many other, and to certayn persones that suche othes had made that the Kyng had taken his lifelode from hym and his men and disheryed theym, and he wold utterly endevoire hym to gete hem (i.e. them) theire enheritaunce as he wolde doo for his owen.

He showed also that the Kyng entended to consume hym in like wyse as a candell consumeth in brennyng, wherof he wolde in brief tyme quyte hym.

And, overe this, the said Duke, continuing his false purpose, opteynyd and gate an exemplificacion undre the Grete Seall of Kyng Herry the Sexte, late in dede and not in right kyng of this lande, wherin were conteyned all suche appoyntementes as late was made betwene the said Duke and Margaret callyng her self Quene of this lande and other, amonges whiche it was conteyned that, if the said Herry and Edward his furst begoten son died withoute issue male of theire body, that the said Duke and his heires shulde be kyng of the lande, whiche exemplificacion the said Duke hath kepyd with hym self secrete, not doyng the Kyng to have eny knowelegge therof therby to haue abused the kyngez true subggettes for the rather execucion of his said false purpose.

And also the same duke, purposyng to accomplisshe his said false and untrue entent and to inquiete and trouble the Kyng our said sovereigne lorde, his liege people and this his royaulme, now of late willed and desired the Abbot of Twexbury, Maystr John Tapton, clerk, and Roger Harewell, esquyer, tocause a straunge childe to have be brought into his castell of Warwyk and there to have be putte and kept in liklieniesse of his sonne and heire, and that they shulde have conveyed and sent his said sonne and heire into Irelande or into Flaundres, oute of this lande, wherby he myght have goten hym assistaunce and favoure agaynst oure said souereigne lorde; and, for the execucion of the same, sent oon John Taylour his seruaunte to have had delyveraunce of his said sonne and heire for to have conveyed hym, the whyche Mayster John Tapton and Roger Harewell denyed the delyveraunce of the said childe, and soo by Goddes grace his saide false and untrue entent was lette and undoon.

Over all this, the said duke compassyng, subtelly and traytorously to brynge this his traytorous purpose to the more redy execucion by all meanes possible and for to putte this his said treasons fynally to pleyn execucion, falsely and traytorously he commaunded and caused diverse of his servauntez to go unto sundry parties of this royaulme to commove and sturre the Kynges naturall subgettes and in grete nowbre to be redy in harnays within an houre warnyng to attend uppon hym and to take his parte to levy were agaynst the kyngez moost royall persone, and hym and his heirez utterly to distroye, and therby the corone and royall dignite of this royaulme to obteigne, to have, possede and enjoye to hym and to his heirez for evere, contrarie to all nature, ryght and duetie of his ligeaunce."

I agree with all of you. As Weds said, George was sandwiched between hero Edward and goody-goody Richard. Must have wanted to have punched them both at times. I hadn't thought of the Isabel dimension, though he clearly went to bits when she died. I did overnight think of Anne and how we have never (as far as I recall) discussed her influence on Richard on here. So many works of fiction (except Tannahill) have her as the timid mouse. But was she? Could she have pushed/persuaded Richard at times - I don't mean the Gergory whinger? In many respects she had failed as the ideal medieval upper class wife, she'd only produced one child (my database record with one husband is 19) so there must have been times when she felt vulnerable, however many gifts Richard showered on her. As for land legal disputes, the century thrived on them, it was like the stock exchange of today. In fact if you wanted to get on become a lawyer. H   

On Friday, 26 September 2014, 23:18, "billie holt billieholt1971@... []" <> wrote:


  What I find really fascinating is how young both Richard and George were when they got into this dispute. What was that comment about how their arguments astounded even the lawyers? Richard was 19 when he married Anne and he had the foresight to put in that clause.The York brothers are really fascinating in every respect. As warriors and adminstrators and rulers. The relationship between the three of them must have been really something. None of them seemed to back off in a fight with each other. One of the (many) things I hated about the White Queen was how it was all about EW and they never really explored the relationship between these three.
--------------------------------------------
On Fri, 9/26/14, mac.thirty@... [] <> wrote:

Subject: Re: Richard's divorce clause
To:
Date: Friday, September 26, 2014, 8:32 PM


 









I think Hilary might have been implying (please,
correct if I am wrong) that in the case of the inheritance
Clarence might have been urged and supported in his greed by
a "third" party è.g. his wife Isabel. We are
entering the realms of pure speculation here, and I do not
think that Isabel's wishes fit in the picture of the
Clarence-Oxford plot, where Oxford might also well have been
the above said "third" party. However, I have been
through 2 "inheritance" divisions myself and they
were very nasty circumstances - well, not so nasty as being
demoted to a kitchen maid and hidden in a cookshop, but
there is nothing new under the sun in terms of human greed
and given the bigger and very tangible interests at stake in
the case of the  Plantagenet-Neville siblings, I do not
find it surprising if family ties suffered, resulting in
this divorce clause as an odd (to our eyes at least) form of
self-defence from the opposing party's maneuvres to grab
as much share as possible. To think that the opposing party
is your own brother and sister (in-law, doubly as much) must
have been sad for Richard, especially after he had renounced
quite a lot in the first division, but precaution was
apparently necessary.









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Why would Anne be just a quiet little mouse if she was Warwick's daughter?
We do usually inherit at least some of our parents characteristics, (usually the ones we would rather not have inherited), and Anne's genetic history is pretty fiery stuff.
She also packed in a wealth of experiences in her short life, including two husbands, the loss of a son, sea voyages, travelling to various battlefields with Margaret of Anjou, and being crowned queen of England.
A small, quiet woman who would not say boo to a goose would never have survived it.
I suspect she was pretty tough and that probably that was what Richard liked about her.

Jess

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

Hi Hilary, I am not sure one can say Anne inherited the Neville portion of lands, because that portion was forfeit, if it had not it would have been entailed in the male line (and George Neville only died in May 1483) and, as already commented on this thread, Richard had been granted Middleham, Penrith and Sheriff Hutton in the summer of 1471 (I have read dates varying from 26th June to 14th July), approximately one year before their marriage and the marriage market for a prince of the blood was international. On top of that, apart from the lands, he renounced the Office of Great Chamberlain, formerly held by Warwick himself, to win George's consent. No, I do not think I am seeing things with rose-tinted spectacles when I do not spouse Hicks' point of view and perceive genuine attachment in their relationship, with or without fictional works speculating on the intensity of such attachment. Other English queens have left little mark: I personally cannot find anything remarkable in e.g. Elizabeth of York other than the men she was associated with in bethrotal, rumour, marriage or motherhood, probably my fault, but she was about 18 years long queen consort, not less than 2. Not all women are the Margaret of Anjou kind or need to be. We will probably have to peacefully agree to disagree on this point. Mac

Why would Anne be just a quiet little mouse if she was Warwick's daughter?
We do usually inherit at least some of our parents characteristics, (usually the ones we would rather not have inherited), and Anne's genetic history is pretty fiery stuff.
She also packed in a wealth of experiences in her short life, including two husbands, the loss of a son, sea voyages, travelling to various battlefields with Margaret of Anjou, and being crowned queen of England.
A small, quiet woman who would not say boo to a goose would never have survived it.
I suspect she was pretty tough and that probably that was what Richard liked about her.

Jess

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

Hi Hilary, I am not sure one can say Anne inherited the Neville portion of lands, because that portion was forfeit, if it had not it would have been entailed in the male line (and George Neville only died in May 1483) and, as already commented on this thread, Richard had been granted Middleham, Penrith and Sheriff Hutton in the summer of 1471 (I have read dates varying from 26th June to 14th July), approximately one year before their marriage and the marriage market for a prince of the blood was international. On top of that, apart from the lands, he renounced the Office of Great Chamberlain, formerly held by Warwick himself, to win George's consent. No, I do not think I am seeing things with rose-tinted spectacles when I do not spouse Hicks' point of view and perceive genuine attachment in their relationship, with or without fictional works speculating on the intensity of such attachment. Other English queens have left little mark: I personally cannot find anything remarkable in e.g. Elizabeth of York other than the men she was associated with in bethrotal, rumour, marriage or motherhood, probably my fault, but she was about 18 years long queen consort, not less than 2. Not all women are the Margaret of Anjou kind or need to be. We will probably have to peacefully agree to disagree on this point. Mac

You put me mind of my eldest daughter's husband. He is very quiet, but extremely tough and determined. He is a lovely man, but you wouldn't cross him.
Perhaps Anne was a little like that.
Of course she may have been really noisy, but no one liked to report it!

Jess

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

Why would Anne be just a quiet little mouse if she was Warwick's daughter?
We do usually inherit at least some of our parents characteristics, (usually the ones we would rather not have inherited), and Anne's genetic history is pretty fiery stuff.
She also packed in a wealth of experiences in her short life, including two husbands, the loss of a son, sea voyages, travelling to various battlefields with Margaret of Anjou, and being crowned queen of England.
A small, quiet woman who would not say boo to a goose would never have survived it.
I suspect she was pretty tough and that probably that was what Richard liked about her.

Jess

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

Hi Hilary, I am not sure one can say Anne inherited the Neville portion of lands, because that portion was forfeit, if it had not it would have been entailed in the male line (and George Neville only died in May 1483) and, as already commented on this thread, Richard had been granted Middleham, Penrith and Sheriff Hutton in the summer of 1471 (I have read dates varying from 26th June to 14th July), approximately one year before their marriage and the marriage market for a prince of the blood was international. On top of that, apart from the lands, he renounced the Office of Great Chamberlain, formerly held by Warwick himself, to win George's consent. No, I do not think I am seeing things with rose-tinted spectacles when I do not spouse Hicks' point of view and perceive genuine attachment in their relationship, with or without fictional works speculating on the intensity of such attachment. Other English queens have left little mark: I personally cannot find anything remarkable in e.g. Elizabeth of York other than the men she was associated with in bethrotal, rumour, marriage or motherhood, probably my fault, but she was about 18 years long queen consort, not less than 2. Not all women are the Margaret of Anjou kind or need to be. We will probably have to peacefully agree to disagree on this point. Mac

Why would Anne be just a quiet little mouse if she was Warwick's daughter?
We do usually inherit at least some of our parents characteristics, (usually the ones we would rather not have inherited), and Anne's genetic history is pretty fiery stuff.
She also packed in a wealth of experiences in her short life, including two husbands, the loss of a son, sea voyages, travelling to various battlefields with Margaret of Anjou, and being crowned queen of England.
A small, quiet woman who would not say boo to a goose would never have survived it.
I suspect she was pretty tough and that probably that was what Richard liked about her.

Jess

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

Hi Hilary, I am not sure one can say Anne inherited the Neville portion of lands, because that portion was forfeit, if it had not it would have been entailed in the male line (and George Neville only died in May 1483) and, as already commented on this thread, Richard had been granted Middleham, Penrith and Sheriff Hutton in the summer of 1471 (I have read dates varying from 26th June to 14th July), approximately one year before their marriage and the marriage market for a prince of the blood was international. On top of that, apart from the lands, he renounced the Office of Great Chamberlain, formerly held by Warwick himself, to win George's consent. No, I do not think I am seeing things with rose-tinted spectacles when I do not spouse Hicks' point of view and perceive genuine attachment in their relationship, with or without fictional works speculating on the intensity of such attachment. Other English queens have left little mark: I personally cannot find anything remarkable in e.g. Elizabeth of York other than the men she was associated with in bethrotal, rumour, marriage or motherhood, probably my fault, but she was about 18 years long queen consort, not less than 2. Not all women are the Margaret of Anjou kind or need to be. We will probably have to peacefully agree to disagree on this point. Mac

Dear Hilary, I thank you for your sharing your arguments.

I am well aware of what was generally considered top of the agenda for married noble ladies, as was Anne, so much so that the double grief of losing her only son and failing her imho beloved lord in providing an heir at the time when he most needed one led her to an early grave. In this respect, the "syndrome of a broken heart" seems to be a medically universally acknowledged term relating to a strong stress that provokes the release of toxins in the human body affecting general fitness and eventually leading to mortal disease within 2 years from the initial event. It took less than that. And I am sure we all have in mind the record from the Court minutes of the Mercer's company of March 31st 1485 describing Richard addressing his lords 'in a loud and distinct voice, when he 'showed his grief and displeasure aforesaid and said it never came into his thought or mind to marry in such manner wise, nor willing nor glad of the death of his queen but as sorry and in heart as heavy as man might be &' Some have argumented the line 'showed his grief and displeasure aforesaid' may even refer to tears, and I have no reason to doubt Richard's grief, even at a time when he had already very pragmatically sent his ambassadors to negotiate a hasty marriage with the Portoguese king.

Furthermore, to go back to the initial thread, the wording of the divorce clause is strange indeed, it almost sounds like Richard had rather keep Anne as concubine, had he not been able to legally remarry to her, than consider remarriage to another more eligible and richer heiress, which contradicts general contemporary rules. I am copying it from Baldwin's "Richard III", page 68:

"It is ordained by the same authority that if the said Richard, duke of Gloucester, and Anne shall subsequently be divorced, and then lawfully married, this present act shall still be to them as good and valid as if no such divorce had taken place, but that the same Anne had continued as the wife of the said duke of Gloucester".

and

"It is ordained by the said authority that if the said duke of Gloucester and Anne shall subsequently be divorced, and he then does the very best he can, by all appropriate and lawful means, to be lawfully married to the said Anne, the daughter, and during the lifetime of the same Anne is not wedded or married to any other woman: that the said duke of Gloucester shall still have and enjoy as much of the foregoing as shall appertain to the said Anne during the lifetime of the said duke of Gloucester"

I understand the "foregoing" Richard and Anne enjoyed was a smaller share of what Clarence and Isabelle eventually obtained.

What I am trying to say is that, in my very humble opinion, there are more recorded clues to an attachment between these two (from the cookshop through the initial poor division agreement, to the gifts, etc.) than to if and how Anne influenced her husband's course of actions. I do not want to persuade anyone, but the more I am made think of these two, the more I cannot be persuaded of a convenience marriage only either. Regards. Mac

"Here's the part of the Act of Attainder which enumerates Clarence's treasons. The original document is TNA C 49/40/1. I've added punctuation, modernised use of capitals and u versus v, changed thorns to th, and broken up into paragraphs and bullet points to make for easier reading."

TNA stands for "The National Archives."

Since it's in Files I'm not sure why you need to find another online copy. It is in the Parliament Rolls, if that's any help. My transcript was made direct from the original document, which I photographed in bits, which is why I gave the TNA reference.

I read once, can't remember where right now, that Anne Beauchamp may have suffered from endometriosis, which she may have passed on to her daughters. That, added to genetical affinity with their husbands, may have influenced a low fertility rate/endurance rate of the conceived child, with varying degrees of intensity in the two sisters.

As for the Earl of Warwick marrying his daughters relatively late, considering his own precedent and Richard of York's one in the family, I can only imagine he did not want to wed them off cheap, which he did achieve in the end, one way or the other. Circumstances led to a relatively late marriage for Elizabeth of York too, after being betrothed at least twice to other prospected grooms she wa married to HVII when she was short of her 19th birthday, wasn't she? Again, she was not wedded off cheap, and would not be wedded off cheap even if Richard had won, so it looks like waiting pays off in the end.

Have a nice day. Mac

Hilary wrote:

"Richard, probably because of his unstable childhood, was very acquisitive as his Cartulary shows ...."

Marie writes:

As Michael Hicks says his 'cartulary' (i.e. some of the contents of BL MS Cotton Julius BXII) shows.....

I think you're misinterpreting me. One would hope a man would grow to love and care for his wife. A good proportion of the world's population survives on arranged marriages and most do indeed grow to love and care for one another. That was the culture. Have you read/watched Helen Castor? H

Goodness, I'm very late to this thread and I'm not even sure which message(s) I'm responding to...

Hilary, you're forgetting that *if* Richard did marry for love, he was far from the only one to do so :) Some stupid choices were made for love, but not all of them were so stupid either. Just to think of a few off the top of my head& Not only John of Gaunt and Katherine Swynford, but also, say, Henry IV and Joan of Navarre& and an even better example: Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester. His first marriage ended in disaster, and his second marriage in an even bigger disaster, but he certainly didn't marry for sound dynastic reasons, though there was a great pressure to produce more Lancastrian heirs.

However loving the marriage of Edward and Elizabeth Woodville was or wasn't, it was still a& er& 'love match'. A good number of widows who were able to choose their mates for themselves certainly seemed to please themselves in their choice of a second husband; doesn't that category also include Anne of York and Thomas St Leger? And Jacquetta and Rivers. And of course, before Richard's time there was Catherine of Valois and Owen Tudor& It's possible that Richard's aunt Isabel's second marriage to Bourchier was a love match as well; at least they only got a dispensation *after* they were already married.

Then there are stories that only exist in intriguing hints. There's William Berkeley disinheriting his brother Maurice because the latter married a mere alderman's daughter. Or Oxford taking care of his traumatised old friend Beaumont, and then marrying his widow& two people united by their shared affection for the deceased person? I'd like to think so, but who knows.

I don't know. Of course it's impossible to say what people felt, but I think the people who were able to choose for themselves were a category quite distinct from those whose marriages had already been arranged for them at a young age. The question is, when people had uncommonly free agency - as Richard and Anne did, despite Clarence's best efforts - how much weight did the prospective mate's personal qualities carry in their choice? At best - or worst - you'd be stuck with the same spouse for several decades, so if you had a sensible head on your shoulders and any respect for the sacrament of marriage at all, I should think it was important to choose one you could imagine yourself loving and esteeming for years to come.

It's funny because we don't know whether the numerous people who made 'sensible' choices made those choices *only* for pragmatic reasons. We are expected to marry for love nowadays, and we're able to divorce when that expected romantic love runs out, but people still tend to make sensible choices and fall in love with a suitable person within their own social circle. After all, in terms of modern psychology, propinquity is the major factor in creating attraction between two people. Romantic love is rarely random.

Romantic love isn't rocket science either: two people spend enough time around each other in the right circumstances, have things in common (intellectually and/or emotionally), and share at least a basic physical attraction. That's it in a nutshell. I'm not much of a romantic, but I still think most people are capable of loving genuinely AND sensibly :)

A long time ago I read a rather interesting article on historiography which said that modern people have an unfortunate tendency to assume that people of the past felt less than we do, and didn't have as many emotional needs as we do. One mustn't downplay cultural differences in how those needs play out, but the emotional needs themselves remain surprisingly constant throughout the ages. I think if people had the possibility of contracting a suitable marriage that was also happy and emotionally fulfilling, they'd do so, regardless of their social class.

Pansy

Hi Pansy, I think in some ways by listing the people you do you've illustrated that what they did was out of the norm. John of Gaunt had to wait till his dotage to marry Katherine, and married someone else in the meantime, and then there was scandalous Joan of Kent :) It isn't just Hilary saying this, it's Helen Castor, who knows far more about medieval marriage than me. Of course people fell in love, and if you had a choice of marriage between two people in your circle and loved one of them then you'd obviously go for them. But it's the 'in your circle' bit that mattered, you couldn't marry the local barmaid or your tutor. And that's why when you look at the families through the generations they inter-married again and again and that applies to the gentry too. The gene pool was very small. Personally, I think that for both Anne and Richard it was a pragmatic decision probably instigated by Anne. They'd both had troubled childhoods, they were both Nevilles and something needed to be done to wrest all Warwick's lands from George. They almost certainly loved one another by the end but whether they were 'in love' in 1471 is open to question. I have a problem with 'pious Richard' (not you Pansy) and his pure life. It smacks of Dickens and Gladstone those great social reformers who prowlled London after dark. I can live with a Richard who, as Wilkinson suggests, probably sought comfort elsewhere. But I know it causes outrage on here so I'll shut up :) :) H

Hi Hilary, from what I read, the problem with Wilkinson's assumptions is not so much if Richard sought physical/emotional solace outside his marriage, but when his 2 acknowledged illegitimate children were born, from which she derives the assumption he sought extramarital solace.

I understand Wilkinson assumes they were conceived after his wedding in 1472, most historians (e.g. Baldwin, Kendall, Ashdown-Hill, even Hicks if I remember correctly) think they were conceived before his wedding and for very logical reasons. Katherine was wedded in 1484, age of consent was 12, so even if she had been born in 1472 she would have been conceived before Richard's wedding (papal dispensation dating 22 April 1472 as we have seen). As for John, he was appointed knight in September 1483 and Captain of Calais on March 11th 1485, an impossible charge for anyone aged 12 or less (if he had been conceived during Richard's marriage), but possible for someone aged 16 (or even 17 as assumed by Ashdown-Hill), an age when Richard himself had been probably declared of age like his brother George and had subsequently obtained an independent command (the letter patent mentions he is still not 21, and therefore technically a minor for a boy).

For the rest, we have already agreed to disagree. Regards. Mac

I like your stream of thought Doug, I only think it misses out Anne being practically under house arrest with very little chance of maneuver, Richard having to renounce lands and titles rather than acquiring them in the first agreement with her "guardian" in order to marry her (rather ackward for such a landgrabber as Hicks likes to describe him, when he's in a good mood and does not name him serial incestor, etc.), the cookshop incident, etc.

I'll stop here. My last consideration is: while preaching to the converted, our discussions and speculations are as good as any sport, when trying to reasses Richard's reputation on a large scale with the younger generations (as should be the ultimate mission of the Richard III Society which sponsors this forum), I am sure that showing a little known yet documented side of a very reasonably imaginable mutual attachment and succesful marriage would do more good than a hundred lectures on the Titulus Regius.

Richard was surely no saint: saints do not father illegitimate children even in youth as bachelors, they do not enforce their rights on elder ladies, they do not have people beheaded on a makeshift block on the spur of the moment, they probably do not accept a crown that your brother meant to pass on to his son under your Protectorate either, but documents also clearly hint at a devoted family man, like many around us. I find it easier to stick to documents for his and truth's sake than imagine strange circumspection on hidden mistresses after his marriage at a time when such caution was not needed and accept him in his many shades, with much gloomier shadows probably coming from politics than from the circumstances and development of his marriage and private life.

Well, I think this thread, which I opened, has given occasion for some very informative comments on the subject line (for which I would like to thank Ms Marie Walsh for her competence once more) and some interesting partly off topic discussion. Since I started the thread, I hope you do not mind if I call it off and invite other members who wish to further discuss on the theme "Richard and Anne: love or interest or what?" to open a separate topic. By the way, I think a similar discussion on George and Isabel would be very interesting too.

Thank you and good night all. Mac

Doug. how lovely to hear from you. You always manage to say what I was trying to say in a much better way and I do so much agree with your postscript - it worked for centuries and still I think, works today, which is why folks stills stay together when the waistline has expanded and the wrinkles set in. Cheers H

On Thursday, 2 October 2014, 16:59, "'Doug Stamate' destama@... []" <> wrote:


Hilary, two thoughts: First, wasn't Anne a widow and thus in Pansy's category one of those more able to marry as they wished? Because of her large inheritance, Edward IV would undoubtedly have had a strong opinion on who her second husband was, but as long as Edward didn't object, would there have been impediments in her marrying whomever she chose? Second, and perhaps more importantly, as Richard was, in your phrase, in her circle, could it be that what occurred was simply a gender reversal of Austen's line about a well-set-up man being in need of a wife? Anne was, according to the views of that period and her circumstances, in need of a husband and I find it difficult to believe she wasn't aware of those facts. If she needed to be married, then she'd both marry someone of appropriate standing, she *was* a Neville, after all, *and* someone who met with her approval. Richard not only met both criteria, but there was the added bonus of there being little chance of Edward objecting to her choice. Come to think of it, was there *anyone* other than Richard that Edward would have approved as a suitable husband for Anne? Nor, to be honest, can I see Richard objecting, either! All the reasons for Anne to marry also applied to him. Richard's value on the international marriage market wouldn't have been all that great anyway; after all, Edward *had* an heir (and shortly the spare) and there was still George and his offspring between Richard and the throne. The most Richard, and Edward, could hope for from a foreign marriage would be a whacking great dowry and *that* might have to balanced against increased obligations requiring expenditures of English money and men. Doug Who sometimes wonders if people should marry those they like, rather than those they love? From: mailto: Sent: Thursday, October 02, 2014 6:54 AM To: Subject: Re: Richard's divorce clause

Hi Pansy, I think in some ways by listing the people you do you've illustrated that what they did was out of the norm. John of Gaunt had to wait till his dotage to marry Katherine, and married someone else in the meantime, and then there was scandalous Joan of Kent :) It isn't just Hilary saying this, it's Helen Castor, who knows far more about medieval marriage than me. Of course people fell in love, and if you had a choice of marriage between two people in your circle and loved one of them then you'd obviously go for them. But it's the 'in your circle' bit that mattered, you couldn't marry the local barmaid or your tutor. And that's why when you look at the families through the generations they inter-married again and again and that applies to the gentry too. The gene pool was very small. Personally, I think that for both Anne and Richard it was a pragmatic decision probably instigated by Anne. They'd both had troubled childhoods, they were both Nevilles and something needed to be done to wrest all Warwick's lands from George. They almost certainly loved one another by the end but whether they were 'in love' in 1471 is open to question. I have a problem with 'pious Richard' (not you Pansy) and his pure life. It smacks of Dickens and Gladstone those great social reformers who prowlled London after dark. I can live with a Richard who, as Wilkinson suggests, probably sought comfort elsewhere. But I know it causes outrage on here so I'll shut up :) :) H

Hilary wrote "keeping a mistress discreetly,dare I say with the possible knowledge and agreement of your wife, has been part of the world of the aristocracy and royalty since well before Richard. Edward III clearly loved Philippa of Hainault but still had Alice Perrers as a mistress"

Unlike the case of Edward III, we are not talking of a discreet Richard, we are talking of a man who publicly ackknowledged 2 bastard children, who according to what they did in the documents, had very likely been conceived before his marriage, not afterwards. Basing the assumption of Richard discreetly keeping a secret mistress after his wedding based on dating these children's conception after Richard's wedding, as I understand Ms Wilkinson does, is historically not morally wrong.

Most historians (Baldwin, Ashdown-Hill, Kendall, even Hicks if I remember correctly) agree they were fathered before his marriage in 1472, and for very logical reasons. Katherine was wedded in 1484, age of consent was 12, so even if she had been born in 1472, she would have been conceived before Richard's wedding (papal dispensation dates 22 April 1472), but I agree with e.g. Baldwin that she was probably 13-14. As for John, he was knighted on 8th September 1483 (which is little indication, Richard was knighted when he was 11 if I remember correctly), but was invested Captain of Calais with the letter patent dated 11th March 1485. I do not think any child aged 12 years or less would receive the military post formerly held by Warwick, but a youth aged 16-17 might (when Richard received his first independent command, with Clarence being declared of age by Edward when he was 16). Ashdown-Hill e.g. assumes John was conceived during Richard's first solo expedition when he was around 15, thus making his bastard son 17 in 1485.

Furthermore, once again you name a case of a mistress that had a name and family, was far from secret, and had her share of historical evidence. If I have to buy Richard's adultery (yes, I am sorry, that is its name, however mild, discreet, socially accepted it may have been) during his marriage without a shred of evidence, or better with all evidence pointing to the opposite conclusion, why should anyone not think he did murder his nephews after all, and even then with no shred of "habeas corpus"? Mac

Hilary wrote "keeping a mistress discreetly,dare I say with the possible knowledge and agreement of your wife, has been part of the world of the aristocracy and royalty since well before Richard. Edward III clearly loved Philippa of Hainault but still had Alice Perrers as a mistress"

Unlike the case of Edward III, we are not talking of a discreet Richard, we are talking of a man who publicly ackknowledged 2 bastard children, who according to what they did in the documents, had very likely been conceived before his marriage, not afterwards. Basing the assumption of Richard discreetly keeping a secret mistress after his wedding based on dating these children's conception after Richard's wedding, as I understand Ms Wilkinson does, is historically not morally wrong.

Most historians (Baldwin, Ashdown-Hill, Kendall, even Hicks if I remember correctly) agree they were fathered before his marriage in 1472, and for very logical reasons. Katherine was wedded in 1484, age of consent was 12, so even if she had been born in 1472, she would have been conceived before Richard's wedding (papal dispensation dates 22 April 1472), but I agree with e.g. Baldwin that she was probably 13-14. As for John, he was knighted on 8th September 1483 (which is little indication, Richard was knighted when he was 11 if I remember correctly), but was invested Captain of Calais with the letter patent dated 11th March 1485. I do not think any child aged 12 years or less would receive the military post formerly held by Warwick, but a youth aged 16-17 might (when Richard received his first independent command, with Clarence being declared of age by Edward when he was 16). Ashdown-Hill e.g. assumes John was conceived during Richard's first solo expedition when he was around 15, thus making his bastard son 17 in 1485.

Furthermore, once again you name a case of a mistress that had a name and family, was far from secret, and had her share of historical evidence. If I have to buy Richard's adultery (yes, I am sorry, that is its name, however mild, discreet, socially accepted it may have been) during his marriage without a shred of evidence, or better with all evidence pointing to the opposite conclusion, why should anyone not think he did murder his nephews after all, and even then with no shred of "habeas corpus"? Mac

Sandra, I took the example to extreme lenghths simply to prove how far we can go if we swallow all unsubstantiated "what ifs" as far as historical discussion is concerned.

Historically speaking, there is no evidence Richard had a mistress AFTER his wedding, he may have enjoyed all carnal pleasures he could lay his hands on before that for all I care (frankly speaking, I'd doubt his manhood if he had not, and I hope he did find plenty of phisical solace during his 6 months exile between October 1470 and March 1471 while Anne Neville was being wedded off to Edward of Lancaster).

Historically speaking, there is no evidence the two princes were even murdered. Since we have a parallel discussion on Perkin Warbeck, I personally believe there is more evidence he was Edward IV's son Richard duke of York than Richard's alleged secret mistress AFTER his wedding. Mac

Quite. Had Richard strayed, we would never have heard the end of it from Vergil et al, which strongly suggests that he didn’t.

From: [mailto: ]
Sent: 06 October 2014 18:29
To:
Subject: Re: [Richard III Society Forum] Re: Richard's "acquisitiveness"

Sandra, I took the example to extreme lenghths simply to prove how far we can go if we swallow all unsubstantiated "what ifs" as far as historical discussion is concerned.

Historically speaking, there is no evidence Richard had a mistress AFTER his wedding, he may have enjoyed all carnal pleasures he could lay his hands on before that for all I care (frankly speaking, I'd doubt his manhood if he had not, and I hope he did find plenty of phisical solace during his 6 months exile between October 1470 and March 1471 while Anne Neville was being wedded off to Edward of Lancaster).

Historically speaking, there is no evidence the two princes were even murdered. Since we have a parallel discussion on Perkin Warbeck, I personally believe there is more evidence he was Edward IV's son Richard duke of York than Richard's alleged secret mistress AFTER his wedding. Mac

Quite. Had Richard strayed, we would never have heard the end of it from Vergil et al, which strongly suggests that he didn't.

From: [mailto: ]
Sent: 06 October 2014 18:29
To:
Subject: Re: Re: Richard's "acquisitiveness"

Sandra, I took the example to extreme lenghths simply to prove how far we can go if we swallow all unsubstantiated "what ifs" as far as historical discussion is concerned.

Historically speaking, there is no evidence Richard had a mistress AFTER his wedding, he may have enjoyed all carnal pleasures he could lay his hands on before that for all I care (frankly speaking, I'd doubt his manhood if he had not, and I hope he did find plenty of phisical solace during his 6 months exile between October 1470 and March 1471 while Anne Neville was being wedded off to Edward of Lancaster).

Historically speaking, there is no evidence the two princes were even murdered. Since we have a parallel discussion on Perkin Warbeck, I personally believe there is more evidence he was Edward IV's son Richard duke of York than Richard's alleged secret mistress AFTER his wedding. Mac

Hilary wrote "keeping a mistress discreetly,dare I say with the possible knowledge and agreement of your wife, has been part of the world of the aristocracy and royalty since well before Richard. Edward III clearly loved Philippa of Hainault but still had Alice Perrers as a mistress"

Unlike the case of Edward III, we are not talking of a discreet Richard, we are talking of a man who publicly ackknowledged 2 bastard children, who according to what they did in the documents, had very likely been conceived before his marriage, not afterwards. Basing the assumption of Richard discreetly keeping a secret mistress after his wedding based on dating these children's conception after Richard's wedding, as I understand Ms Wilkinson does, is historically not morally wrong.

Most historians (Baldwin, Ashdown-Hill, Kendall, even Hicks if I remember correctly) agree they were fathered before his marriage in 1472, and for very logical reasons. Katherine was wedded in 1484, age of consent was 12, so even if she had been born in 1472, she would have been conceived before Richard's wedding (papal dispensation dates 22 April 1472), but I agree with e.g. Baldwin that she was probably 13-14. As for John, he was knighted on 8th September 1483 (which is little indication, Richard was knighted when he was 11 if I remember correctly), but was invested Captain of Calais with the letter patent dated 11th March 1485. I do not think any child aged 12 years or less would receive the military post formerly held by Warwick, but a youth aged 16-17 might (when Richard received his first independent command, with Clarence being declared of age by Edward when he was 16). Ashdown-Hill e.g. assumes John was conceived during Richard's first solo expedition when he was around 15, thus making his bastard son 17 in 1485.

Furthermore, once again you name a case of a mistress that had a name and family, was far from secret, and had her share of historical evidence. If I have to buy Richard's adultery (yes, I am sorry, that is its name, however mild, discreet, socially accepted it may have been) during his marriage without a shred of evidence, or better with all evidence pointing to the opposite conclusion, why should anyone not think he did murder his nephews after all, and even then with no shred of "habeas corpus"? Mac

Hi Hilary,

You may not have read Hicks on Richard but Wilkinson surely has - he is the ultimate source of all of these interpretations.

Quite. Had Richard strayed, we would never have heard the end of it from Vergil et al, which strongly suggests that he didn't.

From: [mailto: ]
Sent: 06 October 2014 18:29
To:
Subject: Re: Re: Richard's "acquisitiveness"

Sandra, I took the example to extreme lenghths simply to prove how far we can go if we swallow all unsubstantiated "what ifs" as far as historical discussion is concerned.

Historically speaking, there is no evidence Richard had a mistress AFTER his wedding, he may have enjoyed all carnal pleasures he could lay his hands on before that for all I care (frankly speaking, I'd doubt his manhood if he had not, and I hope he did find plenty of phisical solace during his 6 months exile between October 1470 and March 1471 while Anne Neville was being wedded off to Edward of Lancaster).

Historically speaking, there is no evidence the two princes were even murdered. Since we have a parallel discussion on Perkin Warbeck, I personally believe there is more evidence he was Edward IV's son Richard duke of York than Richard's alleged secret mistress AFTER his wedding. Mac

Hilary wrote:

Mac I was actually talking to Carol as you had said you wished to let this topic drop. As you are clearly out to be combatative I shall say no more on it - though how you think having a mistress can equate to being a murderer I cannot imagine.

Marie replies:

I've stayed out of this topic so far, but honestly, Hilary, I hadn't noticed Mac was being combative, or that she had equated having a mistress to being a murderer - not in the moral sense, anyway.

The point is, surely, that's it's simply not good history. We are not here to choose the Richard we like best and then trying to defend that imaginary figure's existence; we're here to ascertain from the evidence what the real Richard was like.

Nobody before or after Richard's death claimed he had a mistress. One contemporary observer actually remarks on the good reputation of Richard's private life. In his proclamations Richard railed against adulterers - not sex addicts, not married men who flaunted their affairs - just adulterers, ie people who polluted their marriages. The point has been made already that adultery was held to be a mortal sin, much worse than sex completely outside of a marital context. Of course people still committed adultery, but to assume that it was the done thing is I think to argue from the standards of different ages, both earlier (before concubinage had been stamped out) or later (post Reformation). By the 15th century the Church had established a dominant role in dictating the way in which society viewed marriage. If you study the life histories of individuals in England at this period you will see the pattern is very much for bastard offspring to predate the marriage and to be older than their legitimate siblings.

The claim that only saints or Puritans can be faithful to their wives, which has also been made in favour of the 'Richard must have been at it' argument, is also rather extraordinary in my view.

It isn't a matter of whether we'd prefer Richard to be a discreet adulterer or a Puritan; our preferences don't come into it.

The same goes for the 'acquisitiveness' claim. I was a bit bemused to see this defended on the grounds that it doesn't make Richard less likeable. If Richard was unusually acquisitive it would not be because we like him that way, or because Michael Hicks is a good historian, but because the evidence exists to back up the claim.

Sorry for the rant, but sticking to the evidence is so important. We have to be sharper than the opposition. I'll go now.

Hilary, here is my answer to Sandra's similar remark "I took the example to extreme lenghths simply to prove how far we can go if we swallow all unsubstantiated "what ifs" as far as historical discussion is concerned."

Quoting Marie's comment entirely. Regards. Mac

Hilary wrote "Let's concentrate on what we know is good" Good, at least we agree on something

Hopper ring: again, no evidence at all. Carol made a very interesting comment on the possibility it can be related to Anne de La Pole, should this not be the case, Richard was on the Scottish border after Tewkesbury and before his marriage, how Baldwin chooses to date this unsubstantiated legend of this one single child Richard chose not to acknowledge to a later period is beyond me. My guess is he had to replace the 18th Richard Plantagenet unsubstantiated mith he chose to link to Richard of Shrewsbury with something else.

Hilary wrote "Richard gave the equivalent of 60 million pounds - yes sixty million pounds - to finance learning at Queens' College Cambridge" I understand Queen Anne did, Richard endowed the King's College.

Hilary wrote "What about his 3 litres of wine a day, was he going down the Clarence route?" The experts made an analysis of isotopes, the azote isotopes found in the skeleton's ribs that MIGHT relate to wine intake hinted at a consumption of aroun ONE bottle a day". I do not know of bottles with 3 litres capacity. Please follow the link to the original scientific paper Multi-isotope analysis demonstrates significant lifestyle changes in King Richard III

I do not even want to comment your offensive comment on fiction reading and will only repeat what you wrote: Let's concentrate on what we know.
For any other ideas on the Richard who could be despite evidence, please all open a new topic. This one was opened under my name and if I cannot reestablish Richard's one, I wish to spare mine. Thank you_______________. Mac
END OF THREAD--------------------------

---In , <hjnatdat@...> wrote :

I didn't even want to pursue this further but all of you seem to so here goes. Firstly, there is a world of difference between adultery as defined by the Church and debauchery which is the accusation levied against Edward. The Church of course had differing values which they applied to others but not to themselves, given the children being sired by priests and bishops and Archbishops! Secondly, we do have one piece of evidence of an extra-marital affair by Richard - the Hopper ring, which is anecdotal in the Hopper family and to which even the Ricardian Baldwin devotes quite a bit of space. Thirdly, how reliable is 'evidence'? I was reading one of the Paston letters today which talks about the death at Caister of some individuals. We know from the return letter that that evidence is wrong; the people didn't die - but if we hadn't had access to the return letter we'd believe the first one. Such is the nature of evidence, most of which is potentially tainted by bias or misinformation. We learn to recognise this when we train in the basics of historical study. Fourthly, as I said to Carol, there is nothing wrong with Richard being acquisitive - land was the commodity of the day and he had had a very insecure childhood. So Eileen I agree with you. And finally, I don't know why you get so upset over this; is it because you've read so much fiction on the Richard/Anne love affair that you want to believe it? He probably did grow to love her but that doesn't mean there was no room for someone else as well and there's no sin in that. What about his 3 litres of wine a day, was he going down the Clarence route? And if he could have smoked would he have done so? If we examine all these things and condemn them we go down the Salem route, and I've been to Salem it's not nice. Let's concentrate on what we know is good. So I'll finish on a positive note. Richard gave the equivalent of 60 million pounds - yes sixty million pounds - to finance learning at Queens' College Cambridge and HT took it all away leaving the College in poverty. Now that's the Richard I support and that's why they still use boar table mats in Hall and call him their greatest benefactor. I actually couldn't care if Richard had a bevy of lovers. It's his legacy like this that matters. H

I have to say that I'm a bit uncomfortable about posters deciding when to end a thread, even if they started it. That doesn't seem in keeping with the spirit of an internet forum. If other people feel they have something to say on the topic, then they should have a chance to do so. Obviously, civility is important and if things get out of hand the administrator should act. However, I haven't seen anything on this thread that has gone that far. I don't have much time go on internet forums, but I like this one because the posters are knowledgeable and well behaved - certainly none of the illiterate abuse I have seen on sites that my kids visit. The Richard III Society is a broad church and the opinion spectrum is very wide. As long as we agree to differ civilly, we should be free to express our opinions. If this thread is closed down by administrator, if someone else wants to continue the topic, they should feel free to do so.
Nico


On Friday, 10 October 2014, 6:39, "mac.thirty@... []" <> wrote:


END OF THREAD

"Quoting Marie's comment entirely."

Carol responds:

I also second Marie's remarks on the evidence not pointing to adultery on Richard's part and the danger of assumptions about adultery being the norm among fifteenth-century men of the nobility (or assumptions of any kind). Some day, I plan to gather all of Richard's remarks on adultery and immorality of any kind in one place to show that, like it or not, he opposed it whole heartedly. That view does not make him a proto-Puritan--we know he liked splendid clothing, pageantry, and Christmas celebrations as magnificent as Edward's had been. ("Magnificence" was regarded as a virtue in a king, IIRC.) But to condemn adultery as heartily as Richard did and then to practice it himself would have made Richard a bypocrite of the first order, exactly as Vergil depicted him. If we're looking for the real Richard, we must look at the surviving evidence (as well as the absence of attacks from his enemies for that particular fault), all of which points away from his having been an adulterer. Having fathered illegitimate children before his marriage was a different thing altogether in the fifteenth-century view.

Carol, who only meant to write the first sentence of this post!