Chasteau de Suscinio, Margaret's and Jasper's hangout?
Chasteau de Suscinio, Margaret's and Jasper's hangout?
Greetings, All -
I'm looking into the Chasteau de Suscinio, the pleasant (and formerly seaside?) castle where Duke Francis of Brittany where Margaret Beaufort and her young son Henry were taken by her Tudor brothers-in-law to live in exile while they plotted their next moves.
Currently, it's about half a mile inland, but between it and the sea are a few artificial-looking ponds that remind me very much of areas reclaimed from the sea by the Dutch. Dutch-style land reclamation apparently was practiced in Brittany, though I haven't been able to confirm that it was done around Suscinio Castle. (It doesn't help me that I know next to nothing of French and still less of medieval French.)
Anyone have any ideas? I know land reclamation was going on in the Netherlands centuries before Richard's and Henry's times, and from the current look of the shoreline I'm pretty sure it was done by Suscinio, but I don't know when it was done.
Essentially, I'm trying to determine if it was truly a seaside castle at the time.
I thank anyone for any help they could give me on this subject.
Tamara
Re: Chasteau de Suscinio, Margaret's and Jasper's hangout?
The marshes of Suscinio are probably not reclamation features. The production of sea salt was a major industry and they are likely the remains of beds where water was allowed to evaporate, leaving the salt.
They are a protected feature.
https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marais_de_Suscinio
The salt extraction still goes on and was featured in one of the episodes of 'Coast' by the BBC at Guerande not far away.
The captain of Suscinio was Jean du Quelennec, Admiral of Brittany.
Margaret Beaufort was never in Brittany. Early on in the exile, all their English servants were sent home and Jasper and Henry were separated, by agreement with Edward IV. So Henry was guarded by Bretons.
The English Wikipedia page for the castle is completely wrong - it is confusing the short time spent there in the early 1470s with the 1483/4 period. There was never a group of Lancastrians there.
The book The Making of the Tudor Dynasty by Prof Griffiths best covers this period and is followed closely by Skidmore.
In the early 1470s, Jasper and Henry were separated and Jasper sent to Josselin. Henry was sent to the Chateau of Largoët, where he is said to have been held in the Tour of Elven. Suscinio was thought too vulnerable to English attack. Apart from a brief spell during the second reign of Henry VI, Margaret never met her son until after Bosworth. No plotting was possible before 1480.
Kind regardsDavid
Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPad
On Wednesday, December 23, 2015, 13:35, khafara@... [] wrote:
Greetings, All -
I'm looking into the Chasteau de Suscinio, the pleasant (and formerly seaside?) castle where Duke Francis of Brittany where Margaret Beaufort and her young son Henry were taken by her Tudor brothers-in-law to live in exile while they plotted their next moves.
Currently, it's about half a mile inland, but between it and the sea are a few artificial-looking ponds that remind me very much of areas reclaimed from the sea by the Dutch. Dutch-style land reclamation apparently was practiced in Brittany, though I haven't been able to confirm that it was done around Suscinio Castle. (It doesn't help me that I know next to nothing of French and still less of medieval French.)
Anyone have any ideas? I know land reclamation was going on in the Netherlands centuries before Richard's and Henry's times, and from the current look of the shoreline I'm pretty sure it was done by Suscinio, but I don't know when it was done.
Essentially, I'm trying to determine if it was truly a seaside castle at the time.
I thank anyone for any help they could give me on this subject.
Tamara
Re: Chasteau de Suscinio, Margaret's and Jasper's hangout?
Saltmaking sounds like an appropriate origin for these obviously artificial ponds/marshes.
As you noticed, I was indeed referencing the English-language page for Suscinio. It is somewhat confusingly written, I agree, as are other English-language pages on the subject of medieval Brittany, particularly on Duke Francis himself and his treasurer Pierre Landais. I see that opinions on Landais in particular are divided and often confused. And of course contradictory information abounds everywhere in the marshes of Wikipedia. :-)
Thank you again, and Joyeux Noel!
Tamara
Re: Chasteau de Suscinio, Margaret's and Jasper's hangout?
nathenamin.com/2012/07/18/welshman-exiled-in-brittany-following-in-the-footsteps-of-henry-tudor-2/
Thank you again,
Tamara
---In , <khafara@...> wrote :
Thank you, David, for the French Wikipedia links.
Saltmaking sounds like an appropriate origin for these obviously artificial ponds/marshes.
As you noticed, I was indeed referencing the English-language page for Suscinio. It is somewhat confusingly written, I agree, as are other English-language pages on the subject of medieval Brittany, particularly on Duke Francis himself and his treasurer Pierre Landais. I see that opinions on Landais in particular are divided and often confused. And of course contradictory information abounds everywhere in the marshes of Wikipedia. :-)
Thank you again, and Joyeux Noel!
Tamara
Re: Chasteau de Suscinio, Margaret's and Jasper's hangout?
Merry Christmas, all!
