More Info on Forster

One of the (few) positive things on writing on this period is that people usually act within the conventions of society; a lot of things are predictable - who they'll marry, what they'll do - which is why I think when we do find a solution to the 'Princes' thing (and we will) we'll say oh of course, not, I never dreamed of that. So that's why I think so many historians' 'cardboard people' are important. They're there for a reason.

Take John Forster. How did he get the job? Did he drop by at Westminster, did EW advertise? Conventionally who would she have gone to? Someone the Woodville family knew of course. And that's exactly who John Forster was.

I mentioned to Marie a few days' ago that I'd noticed that there were Mayors of Bristol called Forster and I thought they might be related. I was right. Stephen Forster, John's father, came from Stanton Drew Somerset - it's in his will. Stephen's elder brother, Richard, was Mayor of Bristol, as was his son, another Richard who died in 1481. They belonged to the same merchant class as the Chokkes and the Cheddars. Stephen had another brother, Thomas, also a Mercer, who spent his time mainly in London but had a son John in Bristol.

However, also with an interest in Long Ashton in Somerset(20 miles from Stanton Drew) at this time was EW's great uncle, Thomas Woodville (d.1435) Sheriff of Northants and Steward of the Central Circuit. He had married Elizabeth Lyons, co-heiress of Thomas Lyons the 'owner' of Long Ashton. The manor was held from the Bishop of Bath and Wells. Before his death he devised the manor to Richard Forster Senior and to John Cholke, father of Judge Richard Cholke, the guardian of the Hampton children, Stillington's grandchildren. In the Somerset Fines there are transactions regarding the manor between the Cholkes, Forsters and the Hamptons. In other words, by some peculiar co-incidence the Somerset Forsters were moving in the same circles as Bishop Stillington.- Twynyho, Newton, Cheddar, Talbot, Catesby.

To me this raises a question. If Stillington got his information from this area, and unless he got it from Father Ingleby, it's likely he did, then is it not possible that the Somerset Forsters would have come across it and passed it on to their cousin John, who does occasionally appear in Somerset deeds? And would Forster not also have passed it on to EW; which could explain the Woodville haste to get Edward crowned and Richard eliminated?

And we also come back to the role of Stillington. Whilst you were away Marie we did suggest that he might have been put in the Bath and Wells job to 'keep an eye on things' in what was deep Lancastrian territory. And of course, after 1471, there were also the antics of brother George. If it was him who did make an announcement about the PreContract (and we don't know for sure) then he certainly put himself out on a limb from people like Rotherham. One can only assume he'd consulted Bourchier and got his support; he could have found himself in the Tower again had Morton and Rotherham been more popular.

It is fascinating how these things go round in circles. You start at one thing and it leads you to another. H

One of the (few) positive things on writing on this period is that people usually act within the conventions of society; a lot of things are predictable - who they'll marry, what they'll do - which is why I think when we do find a solution to the 'Princes' thing (and we will) we'll say oh of course, not, I never dreamed of that. So that's why I think so many historians' 'cardboard people' are important. They're there for a reason.

Take John Forster. How did he get the job? Did he drop by at Westminster, did EW advertise? Conventionally who would she have gone to? Someone the Woodville family knew of course. And that's exactly who John Forster was.

I mentioned to Marie a few days' ago that I'd noticed that there were Mayors of Bristol called Forster and I thought they might be related. I was right. Stephen Forster, John's father, came from Stanton Drew Somerset - it's in his will. Stephen's elder brother, Richard, was Mayor of Bristol, as was his son, another Richard who died in 1481. They belonged to the same merchant class as the Chokkes and the Cheddars. Stephen had another brother, Thomas, also a Mercer, who spent his time mainly in London but had a son John in Bristol.

However, also with an interest in Long Ashton in Somerset(20 miles from Stanton Drew) at this time was EW's great uncle, Thomas Woodville (d.1435) Sheriff of Northants and Steward of the Central Circuit. He had married Elizabeth Lyons, co-heiress of Thomas Lyons the 'owner' of Long Ashton. The manor was held from the Bishop of Bath and Wells. Before his death he devised the manor to Richard Forster Senior and to John Cholke, father of Judge Richard Cholke, the guardian of the Hampton children, Stillington's grandchildren. In the Somerset Fines there are transactions regarding the manor between the Cholkes, Forsters and the Hamptons. In other words, by some peculiar co-incidence the Somerset Forsters were moving in the same circles as Bishop Stillington.- Twynyho, Newton, Cheddar, Talbot, Catesby.

To me this raises a question. If Stillington got his information from this area, and unless he got it from Father Ingleby, it's likely he did, then is it not possible that the Somerset Forsters would have come across it and passed it on to their cousin John, who does occasionally appear in Somerset deeds? And would Forster not also have passed it on to EW; which could explain the Woodville haste to get Edward crowned and Richard eliminated?

And we also come back to the role of Stillington. Whilst you were away Marie we did suggest that he might have been put in the Bath and Wells job to 'keep an eye on things' in what was deep Lancastrian territory. And of course, after 1471, there were also the antics of brother George. If it was him who did make an announcement about the PreContract (and we don't know for sure) then he certainly put himself out on a limb from people like Rotherham. One can only assume he'd consulted Bourchier and got his support; he could have found himself in the Tower again had Morton and Rotherham been more popular.

It is fascinating how these things go round in circles. You start at one thing and it leads you to another. H

One of the (few) positive things on writing on this period is that people usually act within the conventions of society; a lot of things are predictable - who they'll marry, what they'll do - which is why I think when we do find a solution to the 'Princes' thing (and we will) we'll say oh of course, not, I never dreamed of that. So that's why I think so many historians' 'cardboard people' are important. They're there for a reason.

Take John Forster. How did he get the job? Did he drop by at Westminster, did EW advertise? Conventionally who would she have gone to? Someone the Woodville family knew of course. And that's exactly who John Forster was.

I mentioned to Marie a few days' ago that I'd noticed that there were Mayors of Bristol called Forster and I thought they might be related. I was right. Stephen Forster, John's father, came from Stanton Drew Somerset - it's in his will. Stephen's elder brother, Richard, was Mayor of Bristol, as was his son, another Richard who died in 1481. They belonged to the same merchant class as the Chokkes and the Cheddars. Stephen had another brother, Thomas, also a Mercer, who spent his time mainly in London but had a son John in Bristol.

However, also with an interest in Long Ashton in Somerset(20 miles from Stanton Drew) at this time was EW's great uncle, Thomas Woodville (d.1435) Sheriff of Northants and Steward of the Central Circuit. He had married Elizabeth Lyons, co-heiress of Thomas Lyons the 'owner' of Long Ashton. The manor was held from the Bishop of Bath and Wells. Before his death he devised the manor to Richard Forster Senior and to John Cholke, father of Judge Richard Cholke, the guardian of the Hampton children, Stillington's grandchildren. In the Somerset Fines there are tr ansactions regarding the manor between the Cholkes, F orsters and the Hamptons. In other words, by some peculiar co-incidence the Somerset Forsters were moving in the same circles as Bishop Stillington.- Twynyho, Newton, Cheddar, Talbot, Catesby.

To me this raises a question. If Stillington got his information from this area, and unless he got it from Father Ingleby, it's likely he did, then is it not possible that the Somerset Forsters would have come across it and passed it on to their cousin John, who does occasionally appear in Somerset deeds? And would Forster not also have passed it on to EW; which could explain the Woodville haste to get Edward crowned and Richard eliminated?

And we also come back to the role of Stillington. Whilst you were away Marie we did suggest that he might have been put in the Bath and Wells job to 'keep an eye on things' in what was deep Lancastrian territory. And of course, after 1471, ther e were also the antics of brother George. If it was him who did make an announcement about the PreContract (and we don't know for sure) then he certainly put himself out on a limb from people like Rotherham. One can only assume he'd consulted Bourchier and got his support; he could have found himself in the Tower again had Morton and Rotherham been more popular.

It is fascinating how these things go round in circles. You start at one thing and it leads you to another. H

Hilary,

I could be completely mistaken, but it seems to me that how Forster came to be employed by EW could very well be an excellent example of how, sometimes, the inter-relationships amongst people/families might help explain some point or other. In this case, Forster's first coming to the attention of EW and then entering her employment.

The only problem I have with the possibility that the Woodvilles might have known of the Pre-Contract before Edward IV died is that what they did, or planned to do, after Edward's death seems to me to be very, well, ad hoc, don't they? I can understand plans misfiring because they were conceived and carried out in a hurry, but if there was time, years or even months, for consideration and planning, one would think better ideas would have come to the fore. Or, I suppose, it's just another example of the Woodvilles' general unfitness for the positions they made a grab for?

FWIW, if it was Stillington who brought the Pre-Contract before the Council, and currently I don't see any other viable candidate, I don't think he'd have had to worry much about Rotherham or Morton not supporting him. Rotherham was in the dog-house, and had been since he'd given the Great Seal to EW. Morton, as far as I know, wasn't deeply involved in Council affairs, although his support on the subject might have been welcomed. I don't really know how much authority Bourchier would have had over Stillington clerically speaking, but I imagine Stillington would have at least preferred to have a former Lord Chancellor on his side.

Doug

(Who apologizes for the delay  found a whole list of posts at the bottom of my Incoming that I'd missed)

Hilary wrote:

One of the (few) positive things on writing on this period is that people usually act within the conventions of society; a lot of things are predictable - who they'll marry, what they'll do - which is why I think when we do find a solution to the 'Princes' thing (and we will) we'll say oh of course, not, I never dreamed of that. So that's why I think so many historians' 'cardboard people' are important. They're there for a reason.

Take John Forster. How did he get the job? Did he drop by at Westminster, did EW advertise? Conventionally who would she have gone to? Someone the Woodville family knew of course. And that's exactly who John Forster was.

I mentioned to Marie a few days' ago that I'd noticed that there were Mayors of Bristol called Forster and I thought they might be related. I was right. Stephen Forster, John's father, came from Stanton Drew Somerset - it's in his will. Stephen's elder brother, Richard, was Mayor of Bristol, as was his son, another Richard who died in 1481. They belonged to the same merchant class as the Chokkes and the Cheddars. Stephen had another brother, Thomas, also a Mercer, who spent his time mainly in London but had a son John in Bristol.

However, also with an interest in Long Ashton in Somerset(20 miles from Stanton Drew) at this time was EW's great uncle, Thomas Woodville (d.1435) Sheriff of Northants and Steward of the Central Circuit. He had married Elizabeth Lyons, co-heiress of Thomas Lyons the 'owner' of Long Ashton. The manor was held from the Bishop of Bath and Wells. Before his death he devised the manor to Richard Forster Senior and to John Cholke, father of Judge Richard Cholke, the guardian of the Hampton children, Stillington's grandchildren. In the Somerset Fines there are transactions regarding the manor between the Cholkes, F orsters and the Hamptons. In other words, by some peculiar co-incidence the Somerset Forsters were moving in the same circles as Bishop Stillington.- Twynyho, Newton, Cheddar, Talbot, Catesby.

To me this raises a question. If Stillington got his information from this area, and unless he got it from Father Ingleby, it's likely he did, then is it not possible that the Somerset Forsters would have come across it and passed it on to their cousin John, who does occasionally appear in Somerset deeds? And would Forster not also have passed it on to EW; which could explain the Woodville haste to get Edward crowned and Richard eliminated?

And we also come back to the role of Stillington. Whilst you were away Marie we did suggest that he might have been put in the Bath and Wells job to 'keep an eye on things' in what was deep Lancastrian territory. And of course, after 1471, there were also the antics of brother George. If it was him who did make an announcement about the PreContract (and we don't know for sure) then he certainly put himself out on a limb from people like Rotherham. One can only assume he'd consulted Bourchier and got his support; he could have found himself in the Tower again had Morton and Rotherham been more popular.

It is fascinating how these things go round in circles. You start at one thing and it leads you to another.

Hilary,

I could be completely mistaken, but it seems to me that how Forster came to be employed by EW could very well be an excellent example of how, sometimes, the inter-relationships amongst people/families might help explain some point or other. In this case, Forster's first coming to the attention of EW and then entering her employment.

The only problem I have with the possibility that the Woodvilles might have known of the Pre-Contract before Edward IV died is that what they did, or planned to do, after Edward's death seems to me to be very, well, ad hoc, don't they? I can understand plans misfiring because they were conceived and carried out in a hurry, but if there was time, years or even months, for consideration and planning, one would think better ideas would have come to the fore. Or, I suppose, it's just another example of the Woodvilles' general unfitness for the positions they made a grab for?

FWIW, if it was Stillington who brought the Pre-Contract before the Council, and currently I don't see any other viable candidate, I don't think he'd have had to worry much about Rotherham or Morton not supporting him. Rotherham was in the dog-house, and had been since he'd given the Great Seal to EW. Morton, as far as I know, wasn't deeply involved in Council affairs, although his support on the subject might have been welcomed. I don't really know how much authority Bourchier would have had over Stillington clerically speaking, but I imagine Stillington would have at least preferred to have a former Lord Chancellor on his side.

Doug

(Who apologizes for the delay  found a whole list of posts at the bottom of my Incoming that I'd missed)

Hilary wrote:

One of the (few) positive things on writing on this period is that people usually act within the conventions of society; a lot of things are predictable - who they'll marry, what they'll do - which is why I think when we do find a solution to the 'Princes' thing (and we will) we'll say oh of course, not, I never dreamed of that. So that's why I think so many historians' 'cardboard people' are important. They're there for a reason.

Take John Forster. How did he get the job? Did he drop by at Westminster, did EW advertise? Conventionally who would she have gone to? Someone the Woodville family knew of course. And that's exactly who John Forster was.

I mentioned to Marie a few days' ago that I'd noticed that there were Mayors of Bristol called Forster and I thought they might be related. I was right. Stephen Forster, John's father, came from Stanton Drew Somerset - it's in his will. Stephen's elder brother, Richard, was Mayor of Bristol, as was his son, another Richard who died in 1481. They belonged to the same merchant class as the Chokkes and the Cheddars. Stephen had another brother, Thomas, also a Mercer, who spent his time mainly in London but had a son John in Bristol.

However, also with an interest in Long Ashton in Somerset(20 miles from Stanton Drew) at this time was EW's great uncle, Thomas Woodville (d.1435) Sheriff of Northants and Steward of the Central Circuit. He had married Elizabeth Lyons, co-heiress of Thomas Lyons the 'owner' of Long Ashton. The manor was held from the Bishop of Bath and Wells. Before his death he devised the manor to Richard Forster Senior and to John Cholke, father of Judge Richard Cholke, the guardian of the Hampton children, Stillington's grandchildren. In the Somerset Fines there are transactions regarding the manor between the Cholkes, F orsters and the Hamptons. In other words, by some peculiar co-incidence the Somerset Forsters were moving in the same circles as Bishop Stillington.- Twynyho, Newton, Cheddar, Talbot, Catesby.

To me this raises a question. If Stillington got his information from this area, and unless he got it from Father Ingleby, it's likely he did, then is it not possible that the Somerset Forsters would have come across it and passed it on to their cousin John, who does occasionally appear in Somerset deeds? And would Forster not also have passed it on to EW; which could explain the Woodville haste to get Edward crowned and Richard eliminated?

And we also come back to the role of Stillington. Whilst you were away Marie we did suggest that he might have been put in the Bath and Wells job to 'keep an eye on things' in what was deep Lancastrian territory. And of course, after 1471, there were also the antics of brother George. If it was him who did make an announcement about the PreContract (and we don't know for sure) then he certainly put himself out on a limb from people like Rotherham. One can only assume he'd consulted Bourchier and got his support; he could have found himself in the Tower again had Morton and Rotherham been more popular.

It is fascinating how these things go round in circles. You start at one thing and it leads you to another.

Doug, re your first paragraph, I agree. From what I've seen through the centuries in wills there is often a relationship between overlords (for want of a better word) and their tenants - they don't have to have a blood relationship, though often they go on to do so down the years as things change. It's quite usual to use the 'overlord' as the executor of a will, for example, and you sometimes get thanks for a book or something which has been loaned. I suppose it's a bit like the relationship between the Head Butler and Lord So and So - think Downton if you know it. So the 'tenant' also adopts the politics and the manners of the boss to the extent of giving his children the same names and sending them to the same uni if he can. An awful lot of the people who were of the Stanley affinity, for example, did this - like Sir John Harpur who was father of Thomas More's second wife Alice..
Re your second paragraph, I just don't know. The Woodville family were so obviously lacking in strategic brains that it's difficult to judge.
Interestingly, I was only thinking last night that Bourchier is my last 'cardboard character' - I need to do work on him. You see to get him on your side - Cardinal Archbishop, Primate of All England - is a very powerful achievement. And why, being of the blood, would he willingly disinherit his kin if there was any shadow of doubt about the PreContract? I don't recall him having any particular relationship with Richard, unlike Stillington who could have had the 'call' of coming from York and a possible Neville affinity.
Like everything needs more work. H



On Thursday, 19 September 2019, 17:38:29 BST, 'Doug Stamate' destama@... [] <> wrote:

Hilary,

I could be completely mistaken, but it seems to me that how Forster came to be employed by EW could very well be an excellent example of how, sometimes, the inter-relationships amongst people/families might help explain some point or other. In this case, Forster's first coming to the attention of EW and then entering her employment.

The only problem I have with the possibility that the Woodvilles might have known of the Pre-Contract before Edward IV died is that what they did, or planned to do, after Edward's death seems to me to be very, well, ad hoc, don't they? I can understand plans misfiring because they were conceived and carried out in a hurry, but if there was time, years or even months, for consideration and planning, one would think better ideas would have come to the fore. Or, I suppose, it's just another example of the Woodvilles' general unfitness for the positions they made a grab for?

FWIW, if it was Stillington who brought the Pre-Contract before the Council, and currently I don't see any other viable candidate, I don't think he'd have had to worry much about Rotherham or Morton not supporting him. Rotherham was in the dog-house, and had been since he'd given the Great Seal to EW. Morton, as far as I know, wasn't deeply involved in Council affairs, although his support on the subject might have been welcomed. I don't really know how much authority Bourchier would have had over Stillington clerically speaking, but I imagine Stillington would have at least preferred to have a former Lord Chancellor on his side.

Doug

(Who apologizes for the delay  found a whole list of posts at the bottom of my Incoming that I'd missed)

Hilary wrote:

One of the (few) positive things on writing on this period is that people usually act within the conventions of society; a lot of things are predictable - who they'll marry, what they'll do - which is why I think when we do find a solution to the 'Princes' thing (and we will) we'll say oh of course, not, I never dreamed of that. So that's why I think so many historians' 'cardboard people' are important. They're there for a reason.

Take John Forster. How did he get the job? Did he drop by at Westminster, did EW advertise? Conventionally who would she have gone to? Someone the Woodville family knew of course. And that's exactly who John Forster was.

I mentioned to Marie a few days' ago that I'd noticed that there were Mayors of Bristol called Forster and I thought they might be related. I was right. Stephen Forster, John's father, came from Stanton Drew Somerset - it's in his will. Stephen's elder brother, Richard, was Mayor of Bristol, as was his son, another Richard who died in 1481. They belonged to the same merchant class as the Chokkes and the Cheddars. Stephen had another brother, Thomas, also a Mercer, who spent his time mainly in London but had a son John in Bristol.

However, also with an interest in Long Ashton in Somerset(20 miles from Stanton Drew) at this time was EW's great uncle, Thomas Woodville (d.1435) Sheriff of Northants and Steward of the Central Circuit. He had married Elizabeth Lyons, co-heiress of Thomas Lyons the 'owner' of Long Ashton. The manor was held from the Bishop of Bath and Wells. Before his death he devised the manor to Richard Forster Senior and to John Cholke, father of Judge Richard Cholke, the guardian of the Hampton children, Stillington's grandchildren. In the Somerset Fines there are transactions regarding the manor between the Cholkes, F orsters and the Hamptons. In other words, by some peculiar co-incidence the Somerset Forsters were moving in the same circles as Bishop Stillington.- Twynyho, Newton, Cheddar, Talbot, Catesby.

To me this raises a question. If Stillington got his information from this area, and unless he got it from Father Ingleby, it's likely he did, then is it not possible that the Somerset Forsters would have come across it and passed it on to their cousin John, who does occasionally appear in Somerset deeds? And would Forster not also have passed it on to EW; which could explain the Woodville haste to get Edward crowned and Richard eliminated?

And we also come back to the role of Stillington. Whilst you were away Marie we did suggest that he might have been put in the Bath and Wells job to 'keep an eye on things' in what was deep Lancastrian territory. And of course, after 1471, there were also the antics of brother George. If it was him who did make an announcement about the PreContract (and we don't know for sure) then he certainly put himself out on a limb from people like Rotherham. One can only assume he'd consulted Bourchier and got his support; he could have found himself in the Tower again had Morton and Rotherham been more popular.

It is fascinating how these things go round in circles. You start at one thing and it leads you to another.

Hi, I've just noticed (silly me) that Archbishop Bourchier was Elizabeth Talbot's uncle (by marriage). Now whether he knew her well, liked or disliked her, he would surely have consulted her re the Pre-Contract? And we know Elizabeth had her own grudges against Edward re the Norfolk lands. Puts a whole new complexion on things I reckon.
After all it was Bourchier who was going to have to 'do the job'. How could he in all conscience anoint someone he did not believe to be the true heir? And that applies to his anointing of Richard as well.. H

On Friday, 20 September 2019, 09:41:42 BST, Hilary Jones hjnatdat@... [] <> wrote:

Doug, re your first paragraph, I agree. From what I've seen through the centuries in wills there is often a relationship between overlords (for want of a better word) and their tenants - they don't have to have a blood relationship, though often they go on to do so down the years as things change. It's quite usual to use the 'overlord' as the executor of a will, for example, and you sometimes get thanks for a book or something which has been loaned. I suppose it's a bit like the relationship between the Head Butler and Lord So and So - think Downton if you know it. So the 'tenant' also adopts the politics and the manners of the boss to the extent of giving his children the same names and sending them to the same uni if he can. An awful lot of the people who were of the Stanley affinity, for example, did this - like Sir John Harpur who was father of Thomas More's second wife Alice..
Re your second paragraph, I just don't know. The Woodville family were so obviously lacking in strategic brains that it's difficult to judge.
Interestingly, I was only thinking last night that Bourchier is my last 'cardboard character' - I need to do work on him. You see to get him on your side - Cardinal Archbishop, Primate of All England - is a very powerful achievement. And why, being of the blood, would he willingly disinherit his kin if there was any shadow of doubt about the PreContract? I don't recall him having any particular relationship with Richard, unlike Stillington who could have had the 'call' of coming from York and a possible Neville affinity.
Like everything needs more work. H



On Thursday, 19 September 2019, 17:38:29 BST, 'Doug Stamate' destama@... [] <> wrote:

Hilary,

I could be completely mistaken, but it seems to me that how Forster came to be employed by EW could very well be an excellent example of how, sometimes, the inter-relationships amongst people/families might help explain some point or other. In this case, Forster's first coming to the attention of EW and then entering her employment.

The only problem I have with the possibility that the Woodvilles might have known of the Pre-Contract before Edward IV died is that what they did, or planned to do, after Edward's death seems to me to be very, well, ad hoc, don't they? I can understand plans misfiring because they were conceived and carried out in a hurry, but if there was time, years or even months, for consideration and planning, one would think better ideas would have come to the fore. Or, I suppose, it's just another example of the Woodvilles' general unfitness for the positions they made a grab for?

FWIW, if it was Stillington who brought the Pre-Contract before the Council, and currently I don't see any other viable candidate, I don't think he'd have had to worry much about Rotherham or Morton not supporting him. Rotherham was in the dog-house, and had been since he'd given the Great Seal to EW. Morton, as far as I know, wasn't deeply involved in Council affairs, although his support on the subject might have been welcomed. I don't really know how much authority Bourchier would have had over Stillington clerically speaking, but I imagine Stillington would have at least preferred to have a former Lord Chancellor on his side.

Doug

(Who apologizes for the delay  found a whole list of posts at the bottom of my Incoming that I'd missed)

Hilary wrote:

One of the (few) positive things on writing on this period is that people usually act within the conventions of society; a lot of things are predictable - who they'll marry, what they'll do - which is why I think when we do find a solution to the 'Princes' thing (and we will) we'll say oh of course, not, I never dreamed of that. So that's why I think so many historians' 'cardboard people' are important. They're there for a reason.

Take John Forster. How did he get the job? Did he drop by at Westminster, did EW advertise? Conventionally who would she have gone to? Someone the Woodville family knew of course. And that's exactly who John Forster was.

I mentioned to Marie a few days' ago that I'd noticed that there were Mayors of Bristol called Forster and I thought they might be related. I was right. Stephen Forster, John's father, came from Stanton Drew Somerset - it's in his will. Stephen's elder brother, Richard, was Mayor of Bristol, as was his son, another Richard who died in 1481. They belonged to the same merchant class as the Chokkes and the Cheddars. Stephen had another brother, Thomas, also a Mercer, who spent his time mainly in London but had a son John in Bristol.

However, also with an interest in Long Ashton in Somerset(20 miles from Stanton Drew) at this time was EW's great uncle, Thomas Woodville (d.1435) Sheriff of Northants and Steward of the Central Circuit. He had married Elizabeth Lyons, co-heiress of Thomas Lyons the 'owner' of Long Ashton. The manor was held from the Bishop of Bath and Wells. Before his death he devised the manor to Richard Forster Senior and to John Cholke, father of Judge Richard Cholke, the guardian of the Hampton children, Stillington's grandchildren. In the Somerset Fines there are transactions regarding the manor between the Cholkes, F orsters and the Hamptons. In other words, by some peculiar co-incidence the Somerset Forsters were moving in the same circles as Bishop Stillington.- Twynyho, Newton, Cheddar, Talbot, Catesby.

To me this raises a question. If Stillington got his information from this area, and unless he got it from Father Ingleby, it's likely he did, then is it not possible that the Somerset Forsters would have come across it and passed it on to their cousin John, who does occasionally appear in Somerset deeds? And would Forster not also have passed it on to EW; which could explain the Woodville haste to get Edward crowned and Richard eliminated?

And we also come back to the role of Stillington. Whilst you were away Marie we did suggest that he might have been put in the Bath and Wells job to 'keep an eye on things' in what was deep Lancastrian territory. And of course, after 1471, there were also the antics of brother George. If it was him who did make an announcement about the PreContract (and we don't know for sure) then he certainly put himself out on a limb from people like Rotherham. One can only assume he'd consulted Bourchier and got his support; he could have found himself in the Tower again had Morton and Rotherham been more popular.

It is fascinating how these things go round in circles. You start at one thing and it leads you to another.

Letter from Edward V to [Thomas Bourchier], archbishop of Canterbury: requesting him to stay in London until his arrival. Signet. Dated at Northampton.

And he was also the executor of Margaret Talbot's will i.e.that of EB and Elizabeth's mother. Perhaps this 'story' was better known in some quarters than we thought.
On Friday, 20 September 2019, 12:07:46 BST, Hilary Jones hjnatdat@... [] <> wrote:

Hi, I've just noticed (silly me) that Archbishop Bourchier was Elizabeth Talbot's uncle (by marriage). Now whether he knew her well, liked or disliked her, he would surely have consulted her re the Pre-Contract? And we know Elizabeth had her own grudges against Edward re the Norfolk lands. Puts a whole new complexion on things I reckon..
After all it was Bourchier who was going to have to 'do the job'. How could he in all conscience anoint someone he did not believe to be the true heir? And that applies to his anointing of Richard as well.. H

On Friday, 20 September 2019, 09:41:42 BST, Hilary Jones hjnatdat@... [] <> wrote:

Doug, re your first paragraph, I agree. From what I've seen through the centuries in wills there is often a relationship between overlords (for want of a better word) and their tenants - they don't have to have a blood relationship, though often they go on to do so down the years as things change. It's quite usual to use the 'overlord' as the executor of a will, for example, and you sometimes get thanks for a book or something which has been loaned. I suppose it's a bit like the relationship between the Head Butler and Lord So and So - think Downton if you know it. So the 'tenant' also adopts the politics and the manners of the boss to the extent of giving his children the same names and sending them to the same uni if he can. An awful lot of the people who were of the Stanley affinity, for example, did this - like Sir John Harpur who was father of Thomas More's second wife Alice..
Re your second paragraph, I just don't know. The Woodville family were so obviously lacking in strategic brains that it's difficult to judge.
Interestingly, I was only thinking last night that Bourchier is my last 'cardboard character' - I need to do work on him. You see to get him on your side - Cardinal Archbishop, Primate of All England - is a very powerful achievement. And why, being of the blood, would he willingly disinherit his kin if there was any shadow of doubt about the PreContract? I don't recall him having any particular relationship with Richard, unlike Stillington who could have had the 'call' of coming from York and a possible Neville affinity.
Like everything needs more work. H



On Thursday, 19 September 2019, 17:38:29 BST, 'Doug Stamate' destama@... [] <> wrote:

Hilary,

I could be completely mistaken, but it seems to me that how Forster came to be employed by EW could very well be an excellent example of how, sometimes, the inter-relationships amongst people/families might help explain some point or other. In this case, Forster's first coming to the attention of EW and then entering her employment.

The only problem I have with the possibility that the Woodvilles might have known of the Pre-Contract before Edward IV died is that what they did, or planned to do, after Edward's death seems to me to be very, well, ad hoc, don't they? I can understand plans misfiring because they were conceived and carried out in a hurry, but if there was time, years or even months, for consideration and planning, one would think better ideas would have come to the fore. Or, I suppose, it's just another example of the Woodvilles' general unfitness for the positions they made a grab for?

FWIW, if it was Stillington who brought the Pre-Contract before the Council, and currently I don't see any other viable candidate, I don't think he'd have had to worry much about Rotherham or Morton not supporting him. Rotherham was in the dog-house, and had been since he'd given the Great Seal to EW. Morton, as far as I know, wasn't deeply involved in Council affairs, although his support on the subject might have been welcomed. I don't really know how much authority Bourchier would have had over Stillington clerically speaking, but I imagine Stillington would have at least preferred to have a former Lord Chancellor on his side.

Doug

(Who apologizes for the delay  found a whole list of posts at the bottom of my Incoming that I'd missed)

Hilary wrote:

One of the (few) positive things on writing on this period is that people usually act within the conventions of society; a lot of things are predictable - who they'll marry, what they'll do - which is why I think when we do find a solution to the 'Princes' thing (and we will) we'll say oh of course, not, I never dreamed of that. So that's why I think so many historians' 'cardboard people' are important. They're there for a reason.

Take John Forster. How did he get the job? Did he drop by at Westminster, did EW advertise? Conventionally who would she have gone to? Someone the Woodville family knew of course. And that's exactly who John Forster was.

I mentioned to Marie a few days' ago that I'd noticed that there were Mayors of Bristol called Forster and I thought they might be related. I was right. Stephen Forster, John's father, came from Stanton Drew Somerset - it's in his will. Stephen's elder brother, Richard, was Mayor of Bristol, as was his son, another Richard who died in 1481. They belonged to the same merchant class as the Chokkes and the Cheddars. Stephen had another brother, Thomas, also a Mercer, who spent his time mainly in London but had a son John in Bristol.

However, also with an interest in Long Ashton in Somerset(20 miles from Stanton Drew) at this time was EW's great uncle, Thomas Woodville (d.1435) Sheriff of Northants and Steward of the Central Circuit. He had married Elizabeth Lyons, co-heiress of Thomas Lyons the 'owner' of Long Ashton. The manor was held from the Bishop of Bath and Wells. Before his death he devised the manor to Richard Forster Senior and to John Cholke, father of Judge Richard Cholke, the guardian of the Hampton children, Stillington's grandchildren. In the Somerset Fines there are transactions regarding the manor between the Cholkes, F orsters and the Hamptons. In other words, by some peculiar co-incidence the Somerset Forsters were moving in the same circles as Bishop Stillington.- Twynyho, Newton, Cheddar, Talbot, Catesby.

To me this raises a question. If Stillington got his information from this area, and unless he got it from Father Ingleby, it's likely he did, then is it not possible that the Somerset Forsters would have come across it and passed it on to their cousin John, who does occasionally appear in Somerset deeds? And would Forster not also have passed it on to EW; which could explain the Woodville haste to get Edward crowned and Richard eliminated?

And we also come back to the role of Stillington. Whilst you were away Marie we did suggest that he might have been put in the Bath and Wells job to 'keep an eye on things' in what was deep Lancastrian territory. And of course, after 1471, there were also the antics of brother George. If it was him who did make an announcement about the PreContract (and we don't know for sure) then he certainly put himself out on a limb from people like Rotherham. One can only assume he'd consulted Bourchier and got his support; he could have found himself in the Tower again had Morton and Rotherham been more popular.

It is fascinating how these things go round in circles. You start at one thing and it leads you to another.

On Saturday, September 21, 2019, 2:24 pm, Hilary Jones <hjnatdat@...> wrote:

On Saturday, September 21, 2019, 12:30 pm, mariewalsh2003 <[email protected]> wrote:

Re the letter from EV to Bourchier - I discussed it here very recently. I have a copy of it.
It's obviously really from Richard, just as the earlier letter from EV to Kings Lynn was most probably drafted by Rivers.
It's dated from Northampton, showing that More was correct in claiming Richard initially returned there with the King after Stony Stratford.
It's the one in which Bourchier is commanded to take charge of the Great Seal and the Tower treasure. I think the Archbishop of C had a constitutional role in a minority or interregnum but I stand to be corrected.

BTW as I'm away from all my notes and files, could you remind me of how the Cardinal is Eleanor's uncle-by-marriage? And why you think he would therefore have been aware of the Precontract?

Marie

On Saturday, September 21, 2019, 12:30 pm, mariewalsh2003 <[email protected]> wrote:

Re the letter from EV to Bourchier - I discussed it here very recently. I have a copy of it.
It's obviously really from Richard, just as the earlier letter from EV to Kings Lynn was most probably drafted by Rivers.
It's dated from Northampton, showing that More was correct in claiming Richard initially returned there with the King after Stony Stratford.
It's the one in which Bourchier is commanded to take charge of the Great Seal and the Tower treasure. I think the Archbishop of C had a constitutional role in a minority or interregnum but I stand to be corrected.

BTW as I'm away from all my notes and files, could you remind me of how the Cardinal is Eleanor's uncle-by-marriage? And why you think he would therefore have been aware of the Precontract?

Marie

Letter from Edward V to [Thomas Bourchier], archbishop of Canterbury: requesting him to stay in London until his arrival. Signet. Dated at Northampton.

Letter from Edward V to [Thomas Bourchier], archbishop of Canterbury: requesting him to stay in London until his arrival. Signet. Dated at Northampton.

To come at this from a different angle again, what puzzles me is why, with both Grafton and the royal castle of More End in the immediate vicinity, why would Edward V and his entourage have spent the night in the town of Stony Stratford?

More End was certainly used on royal progresses. Edward IV had stayed there and Henry VII would as well.

Could it be that Edward V was only in Stony Stratford because he was already on his way?

Could Rivers have been sent to bring Richard and Buckingham to Grafton, on the pretext of joining the King but actually in order to remove them from the equation?

To come at this from a different angle again, what puzzles me is why, with both Grafton and the royal castle of More End in the immediate vicinity, why would Edward V and his entourage have spent the night in the town of Stony Stratford?

More End was certainly used on royal progresses. Edward IV had stayed there and Henry VII would as well.

Could it be that Edward V was only in Stony Stratford because he was already on his way?

Could Rivers have been sent to bring Richard and Buckingham to Grafton, on the pretext of joining the King but actually in order to remove them from the equation?

Marie wrote:

To come at this from a different angle again, what puzzles me is why, with both Grafton and the royal castle of More End in the immediate vicinity, why would Edward V and his entourage have spent the night in the town of Stony Stratford?

More End was certainly used on royal progresses. Edward IV had stayed there and Henry VII would as well.

Could it be that Edward V was only in Stony Stratford because he was already on his way?

Could Rivers have been sent to bring Richard and Buckingham to Grafton, on the pretext of joining the King but actually in order to remove them from the equation?

One of Buckingham's most used residences was Maxstoke Castle, 43 miles by road WNW of Northampton (tother side of Coventry), but we don't know where he actually was.

He also had a residence in East Anglia, the name of which escapes me for the moment (age!), which had recently been refurbished at great cost by his grandmother. Would be interesting if both he and Rivers were coming from the same direction. H
On Tuesday, 1 October 2019, 21:05:55 BST, mariewalsh2003 <[email protected]> wrote:

One of Buckingham's most used residences was Maxstoke Castle, 43 miles by road WNW of Northampton (tother side of Coventry), but we don't know where he actually was.

One of Buckingham's most used residences was Maxstoke Castle, 43 miles by road WNW of Northampton (tother side of Coventry), but we don't know where he actually was.

And I a glass of wine!

Merci, Paul

From: <>
Sent: Wednesday, October 2, 2019 10:16 AM
To:
Subject: Re: More Info on Forster

I'll be raising a pint tonight!

Doug

Paul wrote:

Well if nobody else is going to do it I will'

Happy 567th Birthday King Richard!

Loyal to and supportive of you still!

--
This message has been scanned for viruses and
dangerous content by MailScanner, and is
believed to be clean.

I'll drink to that!! 😊

Loyaulte me lie,

Johanne

Johanne L. Tournier

Email  jltournier60@...

Sent from Mail for Windows 10

And I a glass of wine!

Merci, Paul

From: <>
Sent: Wednesday, October 2, 2019 10:16 AM
To:
Subject: Re: More Info on Forster

I'll be raising a pint tonight!

Doug

Paul wrote:

Well if nobody else is going to do it I will'

Happy 567th Birthday King Richard!

Loyal to and supportive of you still!

--
This message has been scanned for viruses and
dangerous content by MailScanner, and is
believed to be clean.

I'll drink to that!! =

Loyaulte me lie,

Johanne

Johanne L. Tournier

Email  jltournier60@...

Sent from Mail for Windows 10

And I a glass of wine!

Merci, Paul

From: <>
Sent: Wednesday, October 2, 2019 10:16 AM
To:
Subject: Re: More Info on Forster

I'll be raising a pint tonight!

Doug

Paul wrote:

Well if nobody else is going to do it I will'

Happy 567th Birthday King Richard!

Loyal to and supportive of you still!

--
This message has been scanned for viruses and
dangerous content by MailScanner, and is
believed to be clean.

Likewise, I'm sure! 😊

It's a great day for Ricardians!

Johanne

Sent from Mail for Windows 10

I knew I could count on you!
On Oct 2, 2019, at 11:54 AM, Johanne Tournier jltournier60@... [] <> wrote:

I'll drink to that!! =

Loyaulte me lie,

Johanne

Johanne L. Tournier

Email  jltournier60@...

Sent from Mail for Windows 10

And I a glass of wine!

Merci, Paul

From: <>
Sent: Wednesday, October 2, 2019 10:16 AM
To:
Subject: Re: More Info on Forster

I'll be raising a pint tonight!

Doug

Paul wrote:

Well if nobody else is going to do it I will'

Happy 567th Birthday King Richard!

Loyal to and supportive of you still!

--
This message has been scanned for viruses and
dangerous content by MailScanner, and is
believed to be clean.

On Wednesday, October 2, 2019, 5:59 pm, Pamela Bain pbain@... [] <> wrote:

I'll drink to that!! =

Loyaulte me lie,

Johanne

Johanne L. Tournier

Email  jltournier60@...

Sent from Mail for Windows 10

And I a glass of wine!

Merci, Paul

From: <>
Sent: Wednesday, October 2, 2019 10:16 AM
To:
Subject: Re: More Info on Forster

I'll be raising a pint tonight!

Doug

Paul wrote:

Well if nobody else is going to do it I will'

Happy 567th Birthday King Richard!

Loyal to and supportive of you still!

--
This message has been scanned for viruses and
dangerous content by MailScanner, and is
believed to be clean.

Likewise, I'm sure! =

It's a great day for Ricardians!

Johanne

Sent from Mail for Windows 10

I knew I could count on you! 
On Oct 2, 2019, at 11:54 AM, Johanne Tournier jltournier60@... [] <> wrote:

 

I'll drink to that!! =

Loyaulte me lie,

Johanne

Johanne L. Tournier

Email  jltournier60@...

Sent from Mail for Windows 10

And I a glass of wine!

Merci, Paul

From: <>
Sent: Wednesday, October 2, 2019 10:16 AM
To:
Subject: Re: More Info on Forster

I'll be raising a pint tonight!

Doug

Paul wrote:

Well if nobody else is going to do it I will'

Happy 567th Birthday King Richard!

Loyal to and supportive of you still!

--
This message has been scanned for viruses and
dangerous content by MailScanner, and is
believed to be clean.

The wine here in the south if France is wonderful. So much choice. A glass from a number of different ones today celebrating...........


Richard liveth yet! Le 2 oct. 2019 à 20:06 +0200, Johanne Tournier jltournier60@... [] <>, a écrit :

Likewise, I'm sure! =

It's a great day for Ricardians!

Johanne

Sent from Mail for Windows 10

I knew I could count on you! 
On Oct 2, 2019, at 11:54 AM, Johanne Tournier jltournier60@... [] <> wrote:

 

I'll drink to that!! =

Loyaulte me lie,

Johanne

Johanne L. Tournier

Email  jltournier60@...

Sent from Mail for Windows 10

And I a glass of wine!

Merci, Paul

From: <>
Sent: Wednesday, October 2, 2019 10:16 AM
To:
Subject: Re: More Info on Forster

I'll be raising a pint tonight!

Doug

Paul wrote:

Well if nobody else is going to do it I will'

Happy 567th Birthday King Richard!

Loyal to and supportive of you still!

--
This message has been scanned for viruses and
dangerous content by MailScanner, and is
believed to be clean.

I have preordered this book I think in 2014 or 15 and I am glad that it is finally published. Though it has not yet reached me. I found Thomans Penn' s "The Winter King" to be one of the best history books I ever read. The subtitle of "the Brothers York" is "an Englisch Tragedy", and that makes me sad, for that is exactly how I feel about the fate of the three brothers.
Eva

Me too H. But he was unrelentingly pro York when dealing with Henry Tudor stealing the crown from them, but we must wait and see.

Another wonderful idea!

From: [mailto: ]
Sent: Wednesday, October 02, 2019 1:36 PM
To:
Subject: Re: More Info on Forster

I'm having a G & T. London of course! H

My guess he was under pressure to become another Mantel of, heaven forefend, Gregory. And lies yes they are indeed winning fast Paul. H
On Friday, 4 October 2019, 12:31:36 BST, Bale PAUL bale..paul-trevor@... [] <> wrote:

Me too H. But he was unrelentingly pro York when dealing with Henry Tudor stealing the crown from them, but we must wait and see.

He we go 'according to More' ..........
I quote 'Suddenly Richard rounded on Hastings, shouting at him banging on the table, accusing him of being ringleader of the queen's plot. It was the signal for a group of Richard's men, stationed secretly in a room next door. They barged in, weapons drawn, and arrested Morton, Rotherham and the late king's secretary Oliver King, Lord Stanley (!) (who had avoided a sword probably wielded by Robert Harrington (!)) and Hastings who was forced to go outside, pushed to his knees and beheaded'
I just checked this one page. Oh and BTW Catesby and Hastings were chairing the meeting at the Tower. Bad, bad history and it's already a 'bestseller'! H

On Friday, 4 October 2019, 13:22:31 BST, Hilary Jones hjnatdat@... [] <> wrote:

My guess he was under pressure to become another Mantel of, heaven forefend, Gregory. And lies yes they are indeed winning fast Paul. H
On Friday, 4 October 2019, 12:31:36 BST, Bale PAUL bale...paul-trevor@... [] <> wrote:

Me too H. But he was unrelentingly pro York when dealing with Henry Tudor stealing the crown from them, but we must wait and see.

And Marie will love this... 
Buckingham had been writing to the young king at Ludlow (really where are the letters?). He rode to join Rivers 'out of the west country'. Young Edward's party skirted Northampton because it was 'not big enough to hold both Richard and Buckingham's retinues'. The young King got fed up with waiting so he sent Rivers and Grey over to Northampton to have dinner with Richard (and Buckingham who had yet to turn up).  Oh and the 'plot' to arrest Rivers and Grey had been devised with Richard by --- Hastings, who had influence in Northampton which had 'seen better days'.
I really want to burn this book. It even makes you appreciate the scholarship of Ross and dare, I say it Hicks, even if they have their 'anti' rant, and it insults all or us who try to scratch for the truth. Why didn't he just write a novel?
I do hope the Society attack it robustly. H
On Sunday, 6 October 2019, 12:05:50 BST, Hilary Jones hjnatdat@... [] <> wrote:

 

He we go 'according to More' ..........
I quote 'Suddenly Richard rounded on Hastings, shouting at him banging on the table, accusing him of being ringleader of the queen's plot. It was the signal for a group of Richard's men, stationed secretly in a room next door. They barged in, weapons drawn, and arrested Morton, Rotherham and the late king's secretary Oliver King, Lord Stanley (!) (who had avoided a sword probably wielded by Robert Harrington (!)) and Hastings who was forced to go outside, pushed to his knees and beheaded'
I just checked this one page. Oh and BTW Catesby and Hastings were chairing the meeting at the Tower. Bad, bad history and it's already a 'bestseller'!   H

On Friday, 4 October 2019, 13:22:31 BST, Hilary Jones hjnatdat@... [] <> wrote:

 

My guess he was under pressure to become another Mantel of, heaven forefend, Gregory.  And lies yes they are indeed winning fast Paul. H
On Friday, 4 October 2019, 12:31:36 BST, Bale PAUL bale....paul-trevor@... [] <> wrote:

 

Me too H. But he was unrelentingly pro York when dealing with Henry Tudor stealing the crown from them, but we must wait and see.

Thanks for the heads up. Sounds like a good book to miss.
A J

On Sun, Oct 6, 2019 at 12:26 PM Hilary Jones hjnatdat@... [] <> wrote:

And Marie will love this...
Buckingham had been writing to the young king at Ludlow (really where are the letters?). He rode to join Rivers 'out of the west country'. Young Edward's party skirted Northampton because it was 'not big enough to hold both Richard and Buckingham's retinues'. The young King got fed up with waiting so he sent Rivers and Grey over to Northampton to have dinner with Richard (and Buckingham who had yet to turn up). Oh and the 'plot' to arrest Rivers and Grey had been devised with Richard by --- Hastings, who had influence in Northampton which had 'seen better days'.
I really want to burn this book. It even makes you appreciate the scholarship of Ross and dare, I say it Hicks, even if they have their 'anti' rant, and it insults all or us who try to scratch for the truth. Why didn't he just write a novel?
I do hope the Society attack it robustly. H
On Sunday, 6 October 2019, 12:05:50 BST, Hilary Jones hjnatdat@... [] <> wrote:

He we go 'according to More' ..........
I quote 'Suddenly Richard rounded on Hastings, shouting at him banging on the table, accusing him of being ringleader of the queen's plot. It was the signal for a group of Richard's men, stationed secretly in a room next door. They barged in, weapons drawn, and arrested Morton, Rotherham and the late king's secretary Oliver King, Lord Stanley (!) (who had avoided a sword probably wielded by Robert Harrington (!)) and Hastings who was forced to go outside, pushed to his knees and beheaded'
I just checked this one page. Oh and BTW Catesby and Hastings were chairing the meeting at the Tower. Bad, bad history and it's already a 'bestseller'! H

On Friday, 4 October 2019, 13:22:31 BST, Hilary Jones hjnatdat@... [] <> wrote:

My guess he was under pressure to become another Mantel of, heaven forefend, Gregory. And lies yes they are indeed winning fast Paul. H
On Friday, 4 October 2019, 12:31:36 BST, Bale PAUL bale....paul-trevor@... [] <> wrote:

Me too H. But he was unrelentingly pro York when dealing with Henry Tudor stealing the crown from them, but we must wait and see.

Does he cite any sources besides More?

Hi Mary, yes of course he lists the usual like the CPR, and More is there as a Primary Source as is Mancini! It would have taken him years and years to read all the sources he quotes.
There is no discussion on the validity of sources, even in the introduction; if I've missed it I apologise. It reads like a novel, reacting no doubt to those who said they couldn't bear footnotes in 'The Winter King' and that HT was 'so dull' - (well he was!)
But, as we all know, you can construct a book by just using secondary sources and quote their Primary Sources. So I looked at the Secondary Sources. JAH is quoted only once with regard to Desmond of all things, Ross actually not a lot, but Hicks...... starting with Anne Neville....... so we get how acquisitive Richard hounded the Countess of Oxford and Horrox at her most hostile. And quite a selective bit of Anne Sutton such as Richard's piety and EW. He clearly wanted drama; but unfortunately Shakespeare got in first. As one reviewer of his other book said he's clearly looking to be a TV presenter; the new Starkey perhaps? H

On Sunday, 6 October 2019, 14:48:28 BST, maryfriend@... [] <> wrote:

Does he cite any sources besides More?

He we go 'according to More' ..........
I quote 'Suddenly Richard rounded on Hastings, shouting at him banging on the table, accusing him of being ringleader of the queen's plot. It was the signal for a group of Richard's men, stationed secretly in a room next door. They barged in, weapons drawn, and arrested Morton, Rotherham and the late king's secretary Oliver King, Lord Stanley (!) (who had avoided a sword probably wielded by Robert Harrington (!)) and Hastings who was forced to go outside, pushed to his knees and beheaded'
I just checked this one page. Oh and BTW Catesby and Hastings were chairing the meeting at the Tower. Bad, bad history and it's already a 'bestseller'!   H

On Friday, 4 October 2019, 13:22:31 BST, Hilary Jones hjnatdat@... [] <> wrote:

 

My guess he was under pressure to become another Mantel of, heaven forefend, Gregory.  And lies yes they are indeed winning fast Paul. H
On Friday, 4 October 2019, 12:31:36 BST, Bale PAUL bale...paul-trevor@... [] <> wrote:

 

Me too H. But he was unrelentingly pro York when dealing with Henry Tudor stealing the crown from them, but we must wait and see.

Oh gawd. How awful. Angry letters needed. Wish I'd not ordered it now.


Richard liveth yet! Le 6 oct. 2019 à 13:05 +0200, Hilary Jones hjnatdat@... [] <>, a écrit :

He we go 'according to More' ..........
I quote 'Suddenly Richard rounded on Hastings, shouting at him banging on the table, accusing him of being ringleader of the queen's plot. It was the signal for a group of Richard's men, stationed secretly in a room next door. They barged in, weapons drawn, and arrested Morton, Rotherham and the late king's secretary Oliver King, Lord Stanley (!) (who had avoided a sword probably wielded by Robert Harrington (!)) and Hastings who was forced to go outside, pushed to his knees and beheaded'
I just checked this one page. Oh and BTW Catesby and Hastings were chairing the meeting at the Tower. Bad, bad history and it's already a 'bestseller'! H

On Friday, 4 October 2019, 13:22:31 BST, Hilary Jones hjnatdat@... [] <> wrote:

My guess he was under pressure to become another Mantel of, heaven forefend, Gregory. And lies yes they are indeed winning fast Paul. H
On Friday, 4 October 2019, 12:31:36 BST, Bale PAUL bale...paul-trevor@... [] <> wrote:

Me too H. But he was unrelentingly pro York when dealing with Henry Tudor stealing the crown from them, but we must wait and see.

Hilary wrote (summarizing Penn, I do stress):

Buckingham had been writing to the young king at Ludlow (really where are the letters?).

Marie replies:

The book sounds a real horror. Not that I'm that surprised. Tudor historians always seem to have to adhere to the Tudor party line on Richard, no matter how critical they may be of individual Tudors. Plus they ae unfamiliar with the sources and not prepared to take the time to get inside the skin of the period. Glad I didn't pre-order - I can save myself some money.

Anyhow, what I was going to say it that most of our information about what happened during April 1483 comes from chronicles and histories, unfortunately. There are no council minutes, and the Paston Letters are silent. A lot of what even Ricardians take as given is from Mancini, where events seem to support his claims, which they do to a surprising extent for the event of April and May - after that nothing seems to stack up with known chronology.

For instance, the letter(s) from Hastings to Richard do not actually exist in any form; it is just that Mancini claims that "according to common report the chamberlain Hastings reported all these deliberations by letter and messengers to the duke of Gloucester...." Similarly, Mancini is our source for Richard's letter to the council, in which he reminded them of his loyalty to Edward IV, promised to be equally loyal to his son, and warned that "nothing contrary to law and his brother's desire could be decreed without harm." It is Mancini tells us that many on the council were against having a rushed coronation, and thought it unseemly.

Mancini also says that, having "exchanged views and united their resources", Richard and Buckingham wrote separately to the king in Wales, "to ascertain from him on what day and by what route he intended to enter the capital, so coming from the country they could alter their course and join him, that in their company his entry to the city might be more magnificent."

So it's not that Penn is wrong in using this information, but he should have made clear that it is based on the single report of a foreign visitor to the country who didn't speak English and whose sources of information we don't generally know.

Sounds like he's not made his sources very clear. I don't care if a lot of readers dislike it - if I ever publish a history book it will be referenced to within an inch of its life.

Hilary wrote:

He rode to join Rivers 'out of the west country'. Young Edward's party skirted Northampton because it was 'not big enough to hold both Richard and Buckingham's retinues'. The young King got fed up with waiting so he sent Rivers and Grey over to Northampton to have dinner with Richard (and Buckingham who had yet to turn up). Oh and the 'plot' to arrest Rivers and Grey had been devised with Richard by --- Hastings, who had influence in Northampton which had 'seen better days'.

Marie:

My guess is that Penn bases his claim about Hastings on the correspondence that the "common report" picked up by Mancini had him engaged in with Richard.

He's taking his account of events at Northampton/ Stony Stratford and Northampton, and of the motives of the players straight from More. It's what people drifting in from the Tudor era tend to do. It's such a nice ready-made story.

Hilary wrote:

Paul wrote:

Oh gawd. How awful. Angry letters needed. Wish I'd not ordered it now.

Marie:

On the strength of what's been said about it here, I would agree with the first sentiments.

Keep calm, though. Facts make converts, not anger.

On Sunday, October 6, 2019, 8:22 pm, mariewalsh2003 <[email protected]> wrote:

Paul wrote:

Oh gawd. How awful. Angry letters needed. Wish I'd not ordered it now.

Marie:

On the strength of what's been said about it here, I would agree with the first sentiments.

Keep calm, though. Facts make converts, not anger.

I had such high hopes of Thomas Penn. I thought we'd got a high profile historian at last. Seems he's been seduced by fame


Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone

On Sunday, October 6, 2019, 8:22 pm, mariewalsh2003 <[email protected]> wrote:

Paul wrote:

Oh gawd. How awful. Angry letters needed. Wish I'd not ordered it now.

Marie:

On the strength of what's been said about it here, I would agree with the first sentiments.

Keep calm, though. Facts make converts, not anger.

I have not yet got the book, but I will send it back as soon as I get it. I never would have thought that a tolerably reasonable historian thinks that More wrote a historybook based an facts. He was not even in a hurry to bring out the book as soon as possible. It took him several years to write such rubbish!Eva

I'd suggest that anyone who has read enough of the book to do so should write a review on Amazon. Potential book buyers do look at & pay attention to them.

A J

On Sun, Oct 6, 2019 at 8:40 PM eva.pitter@... [] <> wrote:
 

I have not yet got the book, but I will send it back as soon as I get it. I never would have thought that a tolerably reasonable historian thinks that More wrote a historybook based an facts. He was not even in a hurry to bring out the book as soon as possible. It took him several years to write such rubbish! Eva

Thanks for the preview. I was looking forward to reading this book, What a shame that Penn dumbed down when the Winter King was so well researched and insightful. You would think that people who are intelligent enough to read history books would welcome footnotes and source references. Also, why did he take so long to write derivative drivel? Could he be one of those 'historians' like Kate Williams whose books are actually written by research students? I will give this a miss. Nico



On Sunday, 6 October 2019, 20:59:57 BST, bale.paul-trevor@... [] <> wrote:

Penn has also written a Penguin Monarchs book called Edward V: The May King, which isn't available yet, but is aimed at schools. If this book is anything to go by, it looks like another generation of kiddies are getting a hatchet job view of Richard. Depressing! Nico

On Sunday, 6 October 2019, 21:38:32 BST, Nicholas Brown nico11238@... [] <> wrote:

Thanks for the preview. I was looking forward to reading this book, What a shame that Penn dumbed down when the Winter King was so well researched and insightful. You would think that people who are intelligent enough to read history books would welcome footnotes and source references. Also, why did he take so long to write derivative drivel? Could he be one of those 'historians' like Kate Williams whose books are actually written by research students? I will give this a miss. Nico



On Sunday, 6 October 2019, 20:59:57 BST, bale.paul-trevor@... [] <> wrote:

Hilary you said you hope The Society attacks it! Now when have you ever known The Society attack anyone, « in case »? I mean they invited Hicks and Starkey to give talks at AGMs! And please don't suggest it's a know they enemy strategy. It's only about money and who these people might know! Cynic that I am, but I stand by it. Paul



Richard liveth yet!

Penn has also written a Penguin Monarchs book called Edward V: The May King, which isn't available yet, but is aimed at schools. If this book is anything to go by, it looks like another generation of kiddies are getting a hatchet job view of Richard. Depressing!  Nico

On Sunday, 6 October 2019, 21:38:32 BST, Nicholas Brown nico11238@... [] <> wrote:

 

Thanks for the preview. I was looking forward to reading this book, What a shame that Penn dumbed down when the Winter King was so well researched and insightful. You would think that people who are intelligent enough to read history books would welcome footnotes and source references. Also, why did he take so long to write derivative drivel? Could he be one of those 'historians' like Kate Williams whose books are actually written by research students? I will give this a miss.   Nico



On Sunday, 6 October 2019, 20:59:57 BST, bale.paul-trevor@... [] <> wrote:

 

Hilary you said you hope The Society attacks it!  Now when have you ever known The Society attack anyone, «  in case »?  I mean they invited Hicks and Starkey to give talks at AGMs! And please don't suggest it's a know they enemy strategy. It's only about money and who these people might know! Cynic that I am, but I stand by it. Paul



Richard liveth yet!

I'd suggest that anyone who has read enough of the book to do so should write a review on Amazon. Potential book buyers do look at & pay attention to them.

A J

On Sun, Oct 6, 2019 at 8:40 PM eva.pitter@... [] <> wrote:

I have not yet got the book, but I will send it back as soon as I get it. I never would have thought that a tolerably reasonable historian thinks that More wrote a historybook based an facts. He was not even in a hurry to bring out the book as soon as possible. It took him several years to write such rubbish!Eva

Thanks for the preview. I was looking forward to reading this book, What a shame that Penn dumbed down when the Winter King was so well researched and insightful. You would think that people who are intelligent enough to read history books would welcome footnotes and source references. Also, why did he take so long to write derivative drivel? Could he be one of those 'historians' like Kate Williams whose books are actually written by research students? I will give this a miss. Nico



On Sunday, 6 October 2019, 20:59:57 BST, bale.paul-trevor@... [] <> wrote:

Hilary wrote (summarizing Penn, I do stress):

Buckingham had been writing to the young king at Ludlow (really where are the letters?).

Marie replies:

The book sounds a real horror. Not that I'm that surprised. Tudor historians always seem to have to adhere to the Tudor party line on Richard, no matter how critical they may be of individual Tudors. Plus they ae unfamiliar with the sources and not prepared to take the time to get inside the skin of the period. Glad I didn't pre-order - I can save myself some money.

Anyhow, what I was going to say it that most of our information about what happened during April 1483 comes from chronicles and histories, unfortunately. There are no council minutes, and the Paston Letters are silent. A lot of what even Ricardians take as given is from Mancini, where events seem to support his claims, which they do to a surprising extent for the event of April and May - after that nothing seems to stack up with known chronology.

For instance, the letter(s) from Hastings to Richard do not actually exist in any form; it is just that Mancini claims that "according to common report the chamberlain Hastings reported all these deliberations by letter and messengers to the duke of Gloucester...." Similarly, Mancini is our source for Richard's letter to the council, in which he reminded them of his loyalty to Edward IV, promised to be equally loyal to his son, and warned that "nothing contrary to law and his brother's desire could be decreed without harm." It is Mancini tells us that many on the council were against having a rushed coronation, and thought it unseemly.

Mancini also says that, having "exchanged views and united their resources", Richard and Buckingham wrote separately to the king in Wales, "to ascertain from him on what day and by what route he intended to enter the capital, so coming from the country they could alter their course and join him, that in their company his entry to the city might be more magnificent."

So it's not that Penn is wrong in using this information, but he should have made clear that it is based on the single report of a foreign visitor to the country who didn't speak English and whose sources of information we don't generally know.

Sounds like he's not made his sources very clear. I don't care if a lot of readers dislike it - if I ever publish a history book it will be referenced to within an inch of its life.

Hilary wrote:

He rode to join Rivers 'out of the west country'. Young Edward's party skirted Northampton because it was 'not big enough to hold both Richard and Buckingham's retinues'. The young King got fed up with waiting so he sent Rivers and Grey over to Northampton to have dinner with Richard (and Buckingham who had yet to turn up). Oh and the 'plot' to arrest Rivers and Grey had been devised with Richard by --- Hastings, who had influence in Northampton which had 'seen better days'.

Marie:

My guess is that Penn bases his claim about Hastings on the correspondence that the "common report" picked up by Mancini had him engaged in with Richard.

He's taking his account of events at Northampton/ Stony Stratford and Northampton, and of the motives of the players straight from More. It's what people drifting in from the Tudor era tend to do. It's such a nice ready-made story.

I have not yet got the book, but I will send it back as soon as I get it. I never would have thought that a tolerably reasonable historian thinks that More wrote a historybook based an facts. He was not even in a hurry to bring out the book as soon as possible. It took him several years to write such rubbish!Eva

The British Library catalogue contains details of a large number of British PhDs - I don't know how far back it goes. You can download many of them for free, but unfortunately not Cambridge ones. Homepage is https://ethos.bl.uk/Home.do

Thomas Penn's was awarded in 2001, for 'Literary service at the court of Henry VII'.

Best wishes

Christine

Hilary wrote:

I don't think he was as meticulous in his research to know all this Marie. As I said to Nico I reckon it's taken from other books and was also probably researched, as he suggests, by other students as well. What seriously concerns me is that everything is narrated as though it is a fact viz Robert Harrington took a swipe at Stanley (who we know actually supported Richard, not plotted with Hastings) because of Hornby. If you're going to write about this period as though everything is fact then write a novel because, as we all know, we have very few proven facts.

Marie replies:

Yes, it does sound as though this book suffers from a severe case of Chinese Whispers Syndrome. Robert Harrington's name comes from Vergil's unpublished Ms of his history, where as I understand it he just says that the men who rushed in on Richard's side were led by Thomas Howard, Charles Pilkington and Robert Harrington. I imagine someone may have speculated in print that Harrington might have attacked or arrested Stanley in an attempt (which must evidently have been unsuccessful if it did occur) to implicate him and thus recover Hornby, or simply to take revenge, but Vergil doesn't indicate anything of the sort as far as I'm aware.

Even writing history books carefully from well researched secondary sources is dangerous enough as stories mutate subtly each time they are told, but carelessly regurgitating previous speculation as known fact is not what one would expect of a serious historian, is it?

As a matter of interest, is there an Acknowledgements section, and if so who does Penn thank for helping him? I just wonder if he may have been encouraged to go silly by interested parties, just as Michael Hicks was by Alison Weir in writing Anne Neville. Not that that would be an excuse.

Hilary wrote:

I don't think he was as meticulous in his research to know all this Marie. As I said to Nico I reckon it's taken from other books and was also probably researched, as he suggests, by other students as well. What seriously concerns me is that everything is narrated as though it is a fact viz Robert Harrington took a swipe at Stanley (who we know actually supported Richard, not plotted with Hastings) because of Hornby. If you're going to write about this period as though everything is fact then write a novel because, as we all know, we have very few proven facts.

Marie replies:

Yes, it does sound as though this book suffers from a severe case of Chinese Whispers Syndrome. Robert Harrington's name comes from Vergil's unpublished Ms of his history, where as I understand it he just says that the men who rushed in on Richard's side were led by Thomas Howard, Charles Pilkington and Robert Harrington. I imagine someone may have speculated in print that Harrington might have attacked or arrested Stanley in an attempt (which must evidently have been unsuccessful if it did occur) to implicate him and thus recover Hornby, or simply to take revenge, but Vergil doesn't indicate anything of the sort as far as I'm aware.

Even writing history books carefully from well researched secondary sources is dangerous enough as stories mutate subtly each time they are told, but carelessly regurgitating previous speculation as known fact is not what one would expect of a serious historian, is it?

As a matter of interest, is there an Acknowledgements section, and if so who does Penn thank for helping him? I just wonder if he may have been encouraged to go silly by interested parties, just as Michael Hicks was by Alison Weir in writing Anne Neville. Not that that would be an excuse.

We should have been warned. I just looked up a remark about Richard in the Winterking that shows his lack of research even then. It goes:" As the poet Sir Thomas Wyatt later recalled, his father, Henry II's Jewelhouse keeper, Henry Wyatt, had been racked on the orders of Richard III, who had sat there and watched."Page 228, Penguin Paperback.
Still I had hoped, that through thorough research Penn would have learned something new about Richard. Possibly the scantiness of sources for Richard's time led him to take the easy way out and reproduce indiscriminately these tidious,old stories.
Eva

Here we go: Alex Brondarbit, Helen Castor, Linda Clark, Ralph Griffiths, Sam Harper and David Rundle. And generous with their time were Rosemary Horrox (yes we have the 'true Yorkists' defecting to HT), Joanna Laynesmith (oh dear how's she going to apologise to the Society), Tony Pollard (!!!!) Carol Rawlcliffe and John Watts. Obviously thought anyone allied to the Society not worth consulting. I guess Castor was consulted on the Paston Letters and Laynesmith on queenship. Incidentally I haven't looked at the PreContract bit yet - it may give me a stroke. H
On Monday, 7 October 2019, 12:37:02 BST, mariewalsh2003 <[email protected]> wrote:

Hilary wrote:

I don't think he was as meticulous in his research to know all this Marie. As I said to Nico I reckon it's taken from other books and was also probably researched, as he suggests, by other students as well. What seriously concerns me is that everything is narrated as though it is a fact viz Robert Harrington took a swipe at Stanley (who we know actually supported Richard, not plotted with Hastings) because of Hornby. If you're going to write about this period as though everything is fact then write a novel because, as we all know, we have very few proven facts.

Marie replies:

Yes, it does sound as though this book suffers from a severe case of Chinese Whispers Syndrome. Robert Harrington's name comes from Vergil's unpublished Ms of his history, where as I understand it he just says that the men who rushed in on Richard's side were led by Thomas Howard, Charles Pilkington and Robert Harrington. I imagine someone may have speculated in print that Harrington might have attacked or arrested Stanley in an attempt (which must evidently have been unsuccessful if it did occur) to implicate him and thus recover Hornby, or simply to take revenge, but Vergil doesn't indicate anything of the sort as far as I'm aware.

Even writing history books carefully from well researched secondary sources is dangerous enough as stories mutate subtly each time they are told, but carelessly regurgitating previous speculation as known fact is not what one would expect of a serious historian, is it?

As a matter of interest, is there an Acknowledgements section, and if so who does Penn thank for helping him? I just wonder if he may have been encouraged to go silly by interested parties, just as Michael Hicks was by Alison Weir in writing Anne Neville. Not that that would be an excuse.

Here we go: Alex Brondarbit, Helen Castor, Linda Clark, Ralph Griffiths, Sam Harper and David Rundle. And generous with their time were Rosemary Horrox (yes we have the 'true Yorkists' defecting to HT), Joanna Laynesmith (oh dear how's she going to apologise to the Society), Tony Pollard (!!!!) Carol Rawlcliffe and John Watts. Obviously thought anyone allied to the Society not worth consulting. I guess Castor was consulted on the Paston Letters and Laynesmith on queenship. Incidentally I haven't looked at the PreContract bit yet - it may give me a stroke. H
On Monday, 7 October 2019, 12:37:02 BST, mariewalsh2003 <[email protected]> wrote:

Hilary wrote:

I don't think he was as meticulous in his research to know all this Marie. As I said to Nico I reckon it's taken from other books and was also probably researched, as he suggests, by other students as well. What seriously concerns me is that everything is narrated as though it is a fact viz Robert Harrington took a swipe at Stanley (who we know actually supported Richard, not plotted with Hastings) because of Hornby. If you're going to write about this period as though everything is fact then write a novel because, as we all know, we have very few proven facts.

Marie replies:

Yes, it does sound as though this book suffers from a severe case of Chinese Whispers Syndrome. Robert Harrington's name comes from Vergil's unpublished Ms of his history, where as I understand it he just says that the men who rushed in on Richard's side were led by Thomas Howard, Charles Pilkington and Robert Harrington. I imagine someone may have speculated in print that Harrington might have attacked or arrested Stanley in an attempt (which must evidently have been unsuccessful if it did occur) to implicate him and thus recover Hornby, or simply to take revenge, but Vergil doesn't indicate anything of the sort as far as I'm aware.

Even writing history books carefully from well researched secondary sources is dangerous enough as stories mutate subtly each time they are told, but carelessly regurgitating previous speculation as known fact is not what one would expect of a serious historian, is it?

As a matter of interest, is there an Acknowledgements section, and if so who does Penn thank for helping him? I just wonder if he may have been encouraged to go silly by interested parties, just as Michael Hicks was by Alison Weir in writing Anne Neville. Not that that would be an excuse.

Here we go: Alex Brondarbit, Helen Castor, Linda Clark, Ralph Griffiths, Sam Harper and David Rundle. And generous with their time were Rosemary Horrox (yes we have the 'true Yorkists' defecting to HT), Joanna Laynesmith (oh dear how's she going to apologise to the Society), Tony Pollard (!!!!) Carol Rawlcliffe and John Watts. Obviously thought anyone allied to the Society not worth consulting. I guess Castor was consulted on the Paston Letters and Laynesmith on queenship. Incidentally I haven't looked at the PreContract bit yet - it may give me a stroke. H

Marie:

Oh well, I was being too generous. I doubt any of the people on this list whose work I'm familiar with were responsible for his take on the subject. Is it as bad all the way through?

Of course, people who are consulted by prospective authors have no control over what use those authors make of information given.

When you say they obviously didn't think anyone allied to the Society worth consulting, I take it you did mean except Joanna Laynesmith, who is the Society's Research Officer? She has nothing to apologise for, of course. I've been in similar positions myself.

As great as the Tudors I think it is time that some people realised that, in reality, the Tudors did very little for this country. However, the Yorkists did turn ENgland around after the disastrous rule of the Lancastrians. If only all historians did some of the excellent research that I have witnessed on this site over the last few weeks and months.
Mary

As great as the Tudors I think it is time that some people realised that, in reality, the Tudors did very little for this country. However, the Yorkists did turn ENgland around after the disastrous rule of the Lancastrians. If only all historians did some of the excellent research that I have witnessed on this site over the last few weeks and months.
Mary

Nance wrote: Seems as though the Penguin Monarch Edw. V book is the one that should be vetted by members of the Society - we don't need the Society's permission to request pre-publication look-see. Anybody know where to direct requests, comments, etc. at the publisher? Can't aim a blackball if it's not in the naked eye (yes, bad analogy. It's late, here.). Also, with a reference to the author's present, apparently woeful messing with fact, whoever handles bulk orders for schools hould be warned.
I think it would be a good idea if the RIII Society did review the Edward V book, and find some way of making schools and Penguin aware if it does turn out to be a Tudor biased account that reflects unfairly on Richard. If it hasn't already been released, Penguin could ask him to re-edit it with a more balanced viewpoint, and if it has, he could make the changes for subsequent editions. I have no idea what is in the book or when it will be available, but I suspect it will be an cut and paste rehash of the relevant chapter in The Brother's York with a bit of Hicks thrown in.

I had a quick look at The Brothers York yesterday in Waterstones. The chapter on the 1483 doesn't give the author's opinion on Richard's guilt or innocence with respect to the Princes, but the fact that Penn mostly regurgitates a combination of More, Mancini, Croyland etc with no real analysis of the sources strongly hints that he accepts the 'traditionalist' view. He also is keen to point out Miles Forest's rewards for unspecified services; he doesn't actually accuse, but the tone left me with no doubt what he thought. He offered absolutely nothing new on the subject at all, so I am not optimistic that the school kids who read it will get a balanced or enlightened account of Richard III or the events of 1483.
If there is any silver lining in this, Waterstones are not making much effort to promote The Brothers York. I had to look quite hard to find a few signed copies on a display that you could easily blink and miss.
Nico







On Tuesday, 8 October 2019, 07:18:50 BST, 'Doug Stamate' destama@... [] <> wrote:

He's publishing director at Penguin Nico. I agree, it adds absolutely nothing on anything, not even a new slant which to be fair some authors such as Skidmore and Horsepool have tried, whether we agree or not. It reads like a mid-century GCE history answer; there is no debate, no discussion of evidence, just what Thomas Penn says is the truth. It's appalling historical practice - at least Philippa Gregory says she writes fiction. I just think he has used his position to go on a huge ego trip.
BTW I wonder whether his tutor at Cambridge was Starkey? They teach cross college there. H
On Tuesday, 8 October 2019, 12:34:09 BST, Nicholas Brown nico11238@... [] <> wrote:

 

  Nance wrote: Seems as though the Penguin Monarch Edw. V book is the one that should be vetted by members of the Society - we don't need the Society's permission to request pre-publication look-see. Anybody know where to direct requests, comments, etc. at the publisher? Can't aim a blackball if it's not in the naked eye (yes, bad analogy. It's late, here.). Also, with a reference to the author's present, apparently woeful messing with fact, whoever handles bulk orders for schools hould be warned.
I think it would be a good idea if the RIII Society did review the Edward V book, and find some way of making schools and Penguin aware if it does turn out to be a Tudor biased account that reflects unfairly on Richard. If it hasn't already been released, Penguin could ask him to re-edit it with a more balanced viewpoint, and if it has, he could make the changes for subsequent editions. I have no idea what is in the book or when it will be available, but I suspect it will be an cut and paste rehash of the relevant chapter in The Brother's York with a bit of Hicks thrown in.

I had a quick look at The Brothers York yesterday in Waterstones. The chapter on the 1483 doesn't give the author's opinion on Richard's guilt or innocence with respect to the Princes, but the fact that Penn mostly regurgitates a combination of More, Mancini, Croyland etc with no real analysis of the sources strongly hints that he accepts the 'traditionalist' view. He also is keen to point out Miles Forest's rewards for unspecified services; he doesn't actually accuse, but the tone left me with no doubt what he thought. He offered absolutely nothing new on the subject at all, so I am not optimistic that the school kids who read it will get a balanced or enlightened account of Richard III or the events of 1483.
If there is any silver lining in this, Waterstones are not making much effort to promote The Brothers York. I had to look quite hard to find a few signed copies on a display that you could easily blink and miss.
Nico







On Tuesday, 8 October 2019, 07:18:50 BST, 'Doug Stamate' destama@... [] <> wrote:

 

      Hilary, I don't know, but I presumed those manuscript primary sources weren't available via, say, Penguin? Could you expand CFR and CPR? I tried googling them, but only got Council on Foreign Relations and the medical CPR. If one works from the proposition that Penn began work on his doctoral thesis almost immediately with his receiving a BA, that would mean that it took him nearly a decade and a half to put Winter King into publishable form. Which, if one was being very charitable, might explain his present offering?   I'll still keep an eye out for the book at the library, but as of now anyway, have no desire to  purchase what appears to be nothing more than a regurgitation of pro-Tudor propaganda. Doug   Hilary wrote: Yes Doug he seems to have invented that strange category of Printed Primary Sources. So the King's Bench and Exchequer are Primary Sources but the CPR, Croyland, Mancini and More are 'Printed' (interestingly no CFR). And of course an awful lot of the stuff listed, particularly to do with London, can be got at through BHOL or the NA so I don't think many of us are conned into thinking that he looked at the actual documents, as a Ross, for example, would have had to have done.. Re his degree, he'd take 3 years to get his BA but Cambridge (and Oxford) award an automatic MA to all their students a year after graduation, you don't have to study it's just another ceremony where you 'swap' gowns. So he probably went straight into his Ph.D which takes 4 years minimum.  But he could have been doing it for years and years.    
--
This message has been scanned for viruses and
dangerous content by MailScanner, and is
believed to be clean.

He's publishing director at Penguin Nico. I agree, it adds absolutely nothing on anything, not even a new slant which to be fair some authors such as Skidmore and Horsepool have tried, whether we agree or not. It reads like a mid-century GCE history answer; there is no debate, no discussion of evidence, just what Thomas Penn says is the truth. It's appalling historical practice - at least Philippa Gregory says she writes fiction. I just think he has used his position to go on a huge ego trip.
BTW I wonder whether his tutor at Cambridge was Starkey? They teach cross college there. H
On Tuesday, 8 October 2019, 12:34:09 BST, Nicholas Brown nico11238@... [] <> wrote:

Nance wrote: Seems as though the Penguin Monarch Edw. V book is the one that should be vetted by members of the Society - we don't need the Society's permission to request pre-publication look-see. Anybody know where to direct requests, comments, etc. at the publisher? Can't aim a blackball if it's not in the naked eye (yes, bad analogy. It's late, here..). Also, with a reference to the author's present, apparently woeful messing with fact, whoever handles bulk orders for schools hould be warned.
I think it would be a good idea if the RIII Society did review the Edward V book, and find some way of making schools and Penguin aware if it does turn out to be a Tudor biased account that reflects unfairly on Richard. If it hasn't already been released, Penguin could ask him to re-edit it with a more balanced viewpoint, and if it has, he could make the changes for subsequent editions. I have no idea what is in the book or when it will be available, but I suspect it will be an cut and paste rehash of the relevant chapter in The Brother's York with a bit of Hicks thrown in.

I had a quick look at The Brothers York yesterday in Waterstones. The chapter on the 1483 doesn't give the author's opinion on Richard's guilt or innocence with respect to the Princes, but the fact that Penn mostly regurgitates a combination of More, Mancini, Croyland etc with no real analysis of the sources strongly hints that he accepts the 'traditionalist' view. He also is keen to point out Miles Forest's rewards for unspecified services; he doesn't actually accuse, but the tone left me with no doubt what he thought. He offered absolutely nothing new on the subject at all, so I am not optimistic that the school kids who read it will get a balanced or enlightened account of Richard III or the events of 1483.
If there is any silver lining in this, Waterstones are not making much effort to promote The Brothers York. I had to look quite hard to find a few signed copies on a display that you could easily blink and miss.
Nico







On Tuesday, 8 October 2019, 07:18:50 BST, 'Doug Stamate' destama@... [] <> wrote:

Hilary, I don't know, but I presumed those manuscript primary sources weren't available via, say, Penguin? Could you expand CFR and CPR? I tried googling them, but only got Council on Foreign Relations and the medical CPR.. If one works from the proposition that Penn began work on his doctoral thesis almost immediately with his receiving a BA, that would mean that it took him nearly a decade and a half to put Winter King into publishable form. Which, if one was being very charitable, might explain his present offering? I'll still keep an eye out for the book at the library, but as of now anyway, have no desire to purchase what appears to be nothing more than a regurgitation of pro-Tudor propaganda. Doug Hilary wrote: Yes Doug he seems to have invented that strange category of Printed Primary Sources. So the King's Bench and Exchequer are Primary Sources but the CPR, Croyland, Mancini and More are 'Printed' (interestingly no CFR). And of course an awful lot of the stuff listed, particularly to do with London, can be got at through BHOL or the NA so I don't think many of us are conned into thinking that he looked at the actual documents, as a Ross, for example, would have had to have done.. Re his degree, he'd take 3 years to get his BA but Cambridge (and Oxford) award an automatic MA to all their students a year after graduation, you don't have to study it's just another ceremony where you 'swap' gowns. So he probably went straight into his Ph.D which takes 4 years minimum. But he could have been doing it for years and years.
--
This message has been scanned for viruses and
dangerous content by MailScanner, and is
believed to be clean.

Hilary wrote that Penn:

seems to have invented that strange category of Printed Primary Sources. So the King's Bench and Exchequer are Primary Sources but the CPR, Croyland, Mancini and More are 'Printed' (interestingly no CFR).

Marie:

I don't think it's a strange new category, though I think I've previously seen those items listed as Published Primary Sources. There is a difference between using the original manuscripts and using published transcripts or summaries. The first is the horse's mouth, the second a sort of artist's impression, and there can be errors of transcription. Or, as with the CPR (Calendar of Patent Rolls) or CFR (Calendar of Fine Rolls) they are only summaries of the documents, not full transcripts.

There are no published versions of the King's Bench Records, and only one very selective summary of Exchequer issues (as opposed to other classes of Exchequer document).

Nicholas wrote:

I think it would be a good idea if the RIII Society did review the Edward V book, and find some way of making schools and Penguin aware if it does turn out to be a Tudor biased account that reflects unfairly on Richard. If it hasn't already been released, Penguin could ask him to re-edit it with a more balanced viewpoint, and if it has, he could make the changes for subsequent editions.

Marie:

Taking one point at a time:

1) Making schools aware: I imagine Richard Smith, the Society's Education Officer, will do precisely, in a diplomatic way, that if it is necessary. I understand he does a great job in providing schools with information.

2) Telling Penguin it's biased in the hope that they will force him to make changes. I admire your faith in human nature, but I don't think it's likely to do anything except make us look interfering.

The rack was a Tudor invention if I'm thinking correctly.

Paul wrote:

Richard would certainly not have sat watching someone being tortured is the statement that upsets me the most.

Marie:

I agree. It's amazing that has been taken so seriously. At least Annette Carson's article on the Society website has shown the more far-fetched parts of the tradition - being tortured with horse barnacles, and starving but for a friendly cat who brought him a pigeon to his Tower cell every day - to be 17th century in origin. That seems to have stopped those particular gems being repeated.

When Annette looked into it, she could trace the origins of it back no further than a letter written a little after the death of Sir Henry Wyatt by his son Sir Thomas to his son, extolling Sir Henry, whom God had preserved "in prison from the hands of the tyrant that could find it in his heart to see him racked, from two years and more 'prisonment in Scotland in irons and stocks, from the dangers of sudden changes and commotions divers. . ." The tyrant isn't even named; it's not clear whether Sir Thomas is saying said tyrant did have Wyatt racked, or was simply prepared to have him racked if need be; and "see him racked" is just a construction anyway, like 'see it done' - it doesn't mean the tyrant was literally there even if the racking did occur. There are only two days after 13 June 1483 when we can place Richard at the Tower: 4-5 July 1483 as he prepared for his coronation, and 18 February 1484, which seems to have been a brief visit from Westminster, so when all this torture goggling is supposed to have occurred is quite hard to fathom.

The only imprisonment of Henry Wyatt of which there is any known record was by the Scots after Flodden. What seems clear is that he must have been free for at least part of Richard's reign to do good service to Henry Tudor because he started being appointed to substantial posts almost immediately after Bosworth. He is such an obscure figure before that that no one has been able to find him in a single record, so it is hard to fathom why Richard would have wasted so much effort on him is hard to fathom, or why he would have tried so much harder to get information out of Wyatt than he did from the influential, well connected and presumably much more useful John Forster (of whose imprisonment under Richard we have a first-hand account.)

We really don't know exactly what Sir Thomas Wyatt meant, and whether whatever he meant was accurate anyway. I can quite see Grandad having exaggerated the horrors of any periods of imprisonment, especially by the ogre Richard III, as he repeated the stories of his exciting past for the benefit of younger family members. And the fact that Sir Thomas doesn't name the tyrant strikes me as fishy. Was this maybe really some other monarch whom it wouldn't be safe to name?

I think we need to keep Forster's evidence to the forefront. That is still simply an allegation, but it's genuine first-hand testimony of how Richard treated conspirators. No rack.

It sounds like James V's regent  the Albany who fought at Pavia?

Sent from Mail for Windows 10

From: mariewalsh2003
Sent: 08 October 2019 20:14
To:
Subject: Re: Thomas Penn

Paul wrote:

Richard would certainly not have sat watching someone being tortured is the statement that upsets me the most.

Marie:

I agree. It's amazing that has been taken so seriously. At least Annette Carson's article on the Society website has shown the more far-fetched parts of the tradition - being tortured with horse barnacles, and starving but for a friendly cat who brought him a pigeon to his Tower cell every day - to be 17th century in origin. That seems to have stopped those particular gems being repeated.

When Annette looked into it, she could trace the origins of it back no further than a letter written a little after the death of Sir Henry Wyatt by his son Sir Thomas to his son, extolling Sir Hen ry, whom God had preserved "in prison from the hands of the tyrant that could find it in his heart to see him racked, from two years and more 'prisonment in Scotland in irons and stocks, from the dangers of sudden changes and commotions divers. . ." The tyrant isn't even named; it's not clear whether Sir Thomas is saying said tyrant did have Wyatt racked, or was simply prepared to have him racked if need be; and "see him racked" is just a construction anyway, like 'see it done' - it doesn't mean the tyrant was literally there even if the racking did occur. There are only two days after 13 June 1483 when we can place Richard at the Tower: 4-5 July 1483 as he prepared for his coronation, and 18 February 1484, which seems to have been a brief visit from Westminster, so when all this torture goggling is supposed to have occurred is quite hard to fathom.

The only imprisonment of H enry Wyatt of which there is any known record was by the Scots after Flodden. What seems clear is that he must have been free for at least part of Richard's reign to do good service to Henry Tudor because he started being appointed to substantial posts almost immediately after Bosworth. He is such an obscure figure before that that no one has been able to find him in a single record, so it is hard to fathom why Richard would have wasted so much effort on him is hard to fathom, or why he would have tried so much harder to get information out of Wyatt than he did from the influential, well connected and presumably much more useful John Forster (of whose imprisonment under Richard we have a first-hand account.)

We really don't know exactly what Sir Thomas Wyatt meant, and whether whatever he meant was accurate anyway. I can quite see Grandad havin g exaggerated the horrors of any periods of imprisonment, especially by the ogre Richard III, as he repeated the stories of his exciting past for the benefit of younger family members. And the fact that Sir Thomas doesn't name the tyrant strikes me as fishy. Was this maybe really some other monarch whom it wouldn't be safe to name?

I think we need to keep Forster's evidence to the forefront. That is still simply an allegation, but it's genuine first-hand testimony of how Richard treated conspirators. No rack.

It sounds like James V's regent  the Albany who fought at Pavia?

Sent from Mail for Windows 10

From: mariewalsh2003
Sent: 08 October 2019 20:14
To:
Subject: Re: Thomas Penn

Paul wrote:

Richard would certainly not have sat watching someone being tortured is the statement that upsets me the most.

Marie:

I agree. It's amazing that has been taken so seriously. At least Annette Carson's article on the Society website has shown the more far-fetched parts of the tradition - being tortured with horse barnacles, and starving but for a friendly cat who brought him a pigeon to his Tower cell every day - to be 17th century in origin. That seems to have stopped those particular gems being repeated.

When Annette looked into it, she could trace the origins of it back no further than a letter written a little after the death of Sir Henry Wyatt by his son Sir Thomas to his son, extolling Sir Hen ry, whom God had preserved "in prison from the hands of the tyrant that could find it in his heart to see him racked, from two years and more 'prisonment in Scotland in irons and stocks, from the dangers of sudden changes and commotions divers. . ." The tyrant isn't even named; it's not clear whether Sir Thomas is saying said tyrant did have Wyatt racked, or was simply prepared to have him racked if need be; and "see him racked" is just a construction anyway, like 'see it done' - it doesn't mean the tyrant was literally there even if the racking did occur. There are only two days after 13 June 1483 when we can place Richard at the Tower: 4-5 July 1483 as he prepared for his coronation, and 18 February 1484, which seems to have been a brief visit from Westminster, so when all this torture goggling is supposed to have occurred is quite hard to fathom.

The only imprisonment of H enry Wyatt of which there is any known record was by the Scots after Flodden. What seems clear is that he must have been free for at least part of Richard's reign to do good service to Henry Tudor because he started being appointed to substantial posts almost immediately after Bosworth. He is such an obscure figure before that that no one has been able to find him in a single record, so it is hard to fathom why Richard would have wasted so much effort on him is hard to fathom, or why he would have tried so much harder to get information out of Wyatt than he did from the influential, well connected and presumably much more useful John Forster (of whose imprisonment under Richard we have a first-hand account.)

We really don't know exactly what Sir Thomas Wyatt meant, and whether whatever he meant was accurate anyway. I can quite see Grandad havin g exaggerated the horrors of any periods of imprisonment, especially by the ogre Richard III, as he repeated the stories of his exciting past for the benefit of younger family members. And the fact that Sir Thomas doesn't name the tyrant strikes me as fishy. Was this maybe really some other monarch whom it wouldn't be safe to name?

I think we need to keep Forster's evidence to the forefront.. That is still simply an allegation, but it's genuine first-hand testimony of how Richard treated conspirators. No rack.

It sounds like James V's regent  the Albany who fought at Pavia?

Sent from Mail for Windows 10

From: mariewalsh2003
Sent: 08 October 2019 20:14
To:
Subject: Re: Thomas Penn

Paul wrote:

Richard would certainly not have sat watching someone being tortured is the statement that upsets me the most.

Marie:

I agree. It's amazing that has been taken so seriously. At least Annette Carson's article on the Society website has shown the more far-fetched parts of the tradition - being tortured with horse barnacles, and starving but for a friendly cat who brought him a pigeon to his Tower cell every day - to be 17th century in origin. That seems to have stopped those particular gems being repeated.

When Annette looked into it, she could trace the origins of it back no further than a letter written a little after the death of Sir Henry Wyatt by his son Sir Thomas to his son, extolling Sir Hen ry, whom God had preserved "in prison from the hands of the tyrant that could find it in his heart to see him racked, from two years and more 'prisonment in Scotland in irons and stocks, from the dangers of sudden changes and commotions divers. . ." The tyrant isn't even named; it's not clear whether Sir Thomas is saying said tyrant did have Wyatt racked, or was simply prepared to have him racked if need be; and "see him racked" is just a construction anyway, like 'see it done' - it doesn't mean the tyrant was literally there even if the racking did occur. There are only two days after 13 June 1483 when we can place Richard at the Tower: 4-5 July 1483 as he prepared for his coronation, and 18 February 1484, which seems to have been a brief visit from Westminster, so when all this torture goggling is supposed to have occurred is quite hard to fathom.

The only imprisonment of H enry Wyatt of which there is any known record was by the Scots after Flodden. What seems clear is that he must have been free for at least part of Richard's reign to do good service to Henry Tudor because he started being appointed to substantial posts almost immediately after Bosworth. He is such an obscure figure before that that no one has been able to find him in a single record, so it is hard to fathom why Richard would have wasted so much effort on him is hard to fathom, or why he would have tried so much harder to get information out of Wyatt than he did from the influential, well connected and presumably much more useful John Forster (of whose imprisonment under Richard we have a first-hand account.)

We really don't know exactly what Sir Thomas Wyatt meant, and whether whatever he meant was accurate anyway. I can quite see Grandad havin g exaggerated the horrors of any periods of imprisonment, especially by the ogre Richard III, as he repeated the stories of his exciting past for the benefit of younger family members. And the fact that Sir Thomas doesn't name the tyrant strikes me as fishy. Was this maybe really some other monarch whom it wouldn't be safe to name?

I think we need to keep Forster's evidence to the forefront.. That is still simply an allegation, but it's genuine first-hand testimony of how Richard treated conspirators. No rack.

Thanks Eva.

I'm sure you never believed it, but all too many writers who take an anti-Richard stance swallow it uncritically. I suppose we are all more critical of information that we don't like the sound of than the stuff that is music to our ears, but this one really doesn't stand much scrutiny and doesn't do its disseminators a lot of credit.

To Stephen: I tend to agree with you about the tyrant. I too am inclined to think the remarks about the tyrant and the rack may be meant to relate to the Scottish imprisonment. The trouble is by the next century a family tradition had solidified in which Sir Henry had been imprisoned by Richard in the Tower - for ages, fed by a cat and tortured in the most peculiar way. The horse barnacles - tongs to nip the nostrils of an unwilling horse to force it to keep still - were the Wyatt family badge, and I suppose this was made up to explain it (and perhaps to explain Sir Henry's extraordinarily generously-sized nose).

To return to Miles Forrest: I looked for entries on him once, and I didn't find any payments made to him so Penn may well be mistaken there; muddling him with one of the other suspects, perhaps.

Besides, orders to pay individuals mostly don't tell you what service they'd performed. Unfortunately, however, some Ricardian writers have in the past used the same sort of "mysterious payments" to bolster their own theories, so that is now coming back to bite.

The annuity granted to Miles' widow and son, 5 marks (£3 6s 8d), is not very large and is completely in keeping with the sort of annuities that elderly retainers of his ilk or their families might expect to be granted so I hope Penn isn't trying to make something fishy out of that. At least he's not doing a Hicks/ Horrox and using it to suggest Mrs Forrest was the mother of one of Richard's illegitimate children (is he?).

Marie

If Forrest is possibly fictional then Will Slaughter must be  like the Green, Berry and Hill case.

Sent from Mail for Windows 10

From: mariewalsh2003
Sent: 09 October 2019 00:58
To:
Subject: RE: Thomas Penn

Thanks Eva.

I'm sure you never believed it, but all too many writers who take an anti-Richard stance swallow it uncritically. I suppose we are all more critical of information that we don't like the sound of than the stuff that is music to our ears, but this one really doesn't stand much scrutiny and doesn't do its disseminators a lot of credit.

To Stephen: I tend to agree with you about the tyrant. I too am inclined to think the remarks about the tyrant and the rack may be meant to relate to the Scottish imprisonment. The trouble is by the next century a family tradition had solidified in which Sir Henry had been imprisoned by Richard in the Tower - for ages, fed by a cat and tortured in the most peculiar way. The horse barnacles - tongs to nip the nostrils of an unwilling horse to force it to keep still - were the Wyatt family badge, and I suppose this was made up to explain it (and perhaps to explain Sir Henry's extraordinarily generously-sized nose).

To return to Miles Forrest: I looked for entries on him once, and I didn't find any payments made to him so Penn may well be mistaken there; muddling him with one of the other suspects, perhaps.

Besides, orders to pay individuals mostly don't tell you what service they'd performed. Unfortunately, however, some Ricardian writers have in the past used the same sort of "mysterious payments" to bolster their own theories, so that is now coming back to bite.

The annuity granted to Miles' widow and son, 5 marks (£3 6s 8d), is not very large and is completely in keeping with the sort of annuities that elderly retainers of his ilk or their families might expect to be granted so I hope Penn isn't trying to make something fishy out of that. At least he's not doing a Hicks/ Horrox and using it to suggest Mrs Forrest was the mother of one of Richard's illegitimate children (is he?).

Marie

Hilary wrote that Penn:

seems to have invented that strange category of Printed Primary Sources. So the King's Bench and Exchequer are Primary Sources but the CPR, Croyland, Mancini and More are 'Printed' (interestingly no CFR).

Marie:

I don't think it's a strange new category, though I think I've previously seen those items listed as Published Primary Sources. There is a difference between using the original manuscripts and using published transcripts or summaries. The first is the horse's mouth, the second a sort of artist's impression, and there can be errors of transcription. Or, as with the CPR (Calendar of Patent Rolls) or CFR (Calendar of Fine Rolls) they are only summaries of the documents, not full transcripts.

There are no published versions of the King's Bench Records, and only one very selective summary of Exchequer issues (as opposed to other classes of Exchequer document).

Paul wrote:

Richard would certainly not have sat watching someone being tortured is the statement that upsets me the most.

Marie:

I agree. It's amazing that has been taken so seriously. At least Annette Carson's article on the Society website has shown the more far-fetched parts of the tradition - being tortured with horse barnacles, and starving but for a friendly cat who brought him a pigeon to his Tower cell every day - to be 17th century in origin. That seems to have stopped those particular gems being repeated.

When Annette looked into it, she could trace the origins of it back no further than a letter written a little after the death of Sir Henry Wyatt by his son Sir Thomas to his son, extolling Sir Henry, whom God had preserved "in prison from the hands of the tyrant that could find it in his heart to see him racked, from two years and more 'prisonment in Scotland in irons and stocks, from the dangers of sudden changes and commotions divers. . ." The tyrant isn't even named; it's not clear whether Sir Thomas is saying said tyrant did have Wyatt racked, or was simply prepared to have him racked if need be; and "see him racked" is just a construction anyway, like 'see it done' - it doesn't mean the tyrant was literally there even if the racking did occur. There are only two days after 13 June 1483 when we can place Richard at the Tower: 4-5 July 1483 as he prepared for his coronation, and 18 February 1484, which seems to have been a brief visit from Westminster, so when all this torture goggling is supposed to have occurred is quite hard to fathom.

The only imprisonment of Henry Wyatt of which there is any known record was by the Scots after Flodden. What seems clear is that he must have been free for at least part of Richard's reign to do good service to Henry Tudor because he started being appointed to substantial posts almost immediately after Bosworth. He is such an obscure figure before that that no one has been able to find him in a single record, so it is hard to fathom why Richard would have wasted so much effort on him is hard to fathom, or why he would have tried so much harder to get information out of Wyatt than he did from the influential, well connected and presumably much more useful John Forster (of whose imprisonment under Richard we have a first-hand account.)

We really don't know exactly what Sir Thomas Wyatt meant, and whether whatever he meant was accurate anyway. I can quite see Grandad having exaggerated the horrors of any periods of imprisonment, especially by the ogre Richard III, as he repeated the stories of his exciting past for the benefit of younger family members. And the fact that Sir Thomas doesn't name the tyrant strikes me as fishy. Was this maybe really some other monarch whom it wouldn't be safe to name?

I think we need to keep Forster's evidence to the forefront. That is still simply an allegation, but it's genuine first-hand testimony of how Richard treated conspirators. No rack.

Paul wrote:

Richard would certainly not have sat watching someone being tortured is the statement that upsets me the most.

Marie:

I agree. It's amazing that has been taken so seriously. At least Annette Carson's article on the Society website has shown the more far-fetched parts of the tradition - being tortured with horse barnacles, and starving but for a friendly cat who brought him a pigeon to his Tower cell every day - to be 17th century in origin. That seems to have stopped those particular gems being repeated.

When Annette looked into it, she could trace the origins of it back no further than a letter written a little after the death of Sir Henry Wyatt by his son Sir Thomas to his son, extolling Sir Henry, whom God had preserved "in prison from the hands of the tyrant that could find it in his heart to see him racked, from two years and more 'prisonment in Scotland in irons and stocks, from the dangers of sudden changes and commotions divers. . ." The tyrant isn't even named; it's not clear whether Sir Thomas is saying said tyrant did have Wyatt racked, or was simply prepared to have him racked if need be; and "see him racked" is just a construction anyway, like 'see it done' - it doesn't mean the tyrant was literally there even if the racking did occur. There are only two days after 13 June 1483 when we can place Richard at the Tower: 4-5 July 1483 as he prepared for his coronation, and 18 February 1484, which seems to have been a brief visit from Westminster, so when all this torture goggling is supposed to have occurred is quite hard to fathom.

The only imprisonment of Henry Wyatt of which there is any known record was by the Scots after Flodden. What seems clear is that he must have been free for at least part of Richard's reign to do good service to Henry Tudor because he started being appointed to substantial posts almost immediately after Bosworth. He is such an obscure figure before that that no one has been able to find him in a single record, so it is hard to fathom why Richard would have wasted so much effort on him is hard to fathom, or why he would have tried so much harder to get information out of Wyatt than he did from the influential, well connected and presumably much more useful John Forster (of whose imprisonment under Richard we have a first-hand account.)

We really don't know exactly what Sir Thomas Wyatt meant, and whether whatever he meant was accurate anyway. I can quite see Grandad having exaggerated the horrors of any periods of imprisonment, especially by the ogre Richard III, as he repeated the stories of his exciting past for the benefit of younger family members. And the fact that Sir Thomas doesn't name the tyrant strikes me as fishy. Was this maybe really some other monarch whom it wouldn't be safe to name?

I think we need to keep Forster's evidence to the forefront. That is still simply an allegation, but it's genuine first-hand testimony of how Richard treated conspirators. No rack.

Sorry, I meant Dan Jones.
On Tuesday, 8 October 2019, 21:58:23 BST, Nicholas Brown <nico11238@...> wrote:

Marie, it is good to know that Richard Smith is able to communicate with schools in a way that could hopefully persuade teachers who rely on the book to introduce other perspectives to their students. Unfortunately, when Hilary said that Penn is Penguin's publishing director, I realized that writing to Penguin about changes to the book is probably a lost cause. Writing a bad book for your own company does seem like something of a conflict of interest, but my guess is that he was hoping for Dan Brown's sales, and tailored his book in that direction. Even in the small section I read, I detected a similarity in style.Nico


Marie wrote:Taking one point at a time:
1) Making schools aware: I imagine Richard Smith, the Society's Education Officer, will do precisely, in a diplomatic way, that if it is necessary. I understand he does a great job in providing schools with information.
2) Telling Penguin it's biased in the hope that they will force him to make changes. I admire your faith in human nature, but I don't think it's likely to do anything except make us look interfering.
On Tuesday, 8 October 2019, 20:24:14 BST, Stephen stephenmlark@... [] <> wrote:

It sounds like James V's regent  the Albany who fought at Pavia?

Sent from Mail for Windows 10

From: mariewalsh2003
Sent: 08 October 2019 20:14
To:
Subject: Re: Thomas Penn

Paul wrote:

Richard would certainly not have sat watching someone being tortured is the statement that upsets me the most.

Marie:

I agree. It's amazing that has been taken so seriously. At least Annette Carson's article on the Society website has shown the more far-fetched parts of the tradition - being tortured with horse barnacles, and starving but for a friendly cat who brought him a pigeon to his Tower cell every day - to be 17th century in origin. That seems to have stopped those particular gems being repeated.

When Annette looked into it, she could trace the origins of it back no further than a letter written a little after the death of Sir Henry Wyatt by his son Sir Thomas to his son, extolling Sir Hen ry, whom God had preserved "in prison from the hands of the tyrant that could find it in his heart to see him racked, from two years and more 'prisonment in Scotland in irons and stocks, from the dangers of sudden changes and commotions divers. . ." The tyrant isn't even named; it's not clear whether Sir Thomas is saying said tyrant did have Wyatt racked, or was simply prepared to have him racked if need be; and "see him racked" is just a construction anyway, like 'see it done' - it doesn't mean the tyrant was literally there even if the racking did occur. There are only two days after 13 June 1483 when we can place Richard at the Tower: 4-5 July 1483 as he prepared for his coronation, and 18 February 1484, which seems to have been a brief visit from Westminster, so when all this torture goggling is supposed to have occurred is quite hard to fathom.

The only imprisonment of H enry Wyatt of which there is any known record was by the Scots after Flodden. What seems clear is that he must have been free for at least part of Richard's reign to do good service to Henry Tudor because he started being appointed to substantial posts almost immediately after Bosworth. He is such an obscure figure before that that no one has been able to find him in a single record, so it is hard to fathom why Richard would have wasted so much effort on him is hard to fathom, or why he would have tried so much harder to get information out of Wyatt than he did from the influential, well connected and presumably much more useful John Forster (of whose imprisonment under Richard we have a first-hand account.)

We really don't know exactly what Sir Thomas Wyatt meant, and whether whatever he meant was accurate anyway. I can quite see Grandad havin g exaggerated the horrors of any periods of imprisonment, especially by the ogre Richard III, as he repeated the stories of his exciting past for the benefit of younger family members. And the fact that Sir Thomas doesn't name the tyrant strikes me as fishy. Was this maybe really some other monarch whom it wouldn't be safe to name?

I think we need to keep Forster's evidence to the forefront.. That is still simply an allegation, but it's genuine first-hand testimony of how Richard treated conspirators. No rack.

The British Library catalogue contains details of a large number of British PhDs - I don't know how far back it goes. You can download many of them for free, but unfortunately not Cambridge ones. Homepage is https://ethos.bl.uk/Home.do

Thomas Penn's was awarded in 2001, for 'Literary service at the court of Henry VII'.

Best wishes

Christine

Thanks Eva.

I'm sure you never believed it, but all too many writers who take an anti-Richard stance swallow it uncritically. I suppose we are all more critical of information that we don't like the sound of than the stuff that is music to our ears, but this one really doesn't stand much scrutiny and doesn't do its disseminators a lot of credit.

To Stephen: I tend to agree with you about the tyrant. I too am inclined to think the remarks about the tyrant and the rack may be meant to relate to the Scottish imprisonment. The trouble is by the next century a family tradition had solidified in which Sir Henry had been imprisoned by Richard in the Tower - for ages, fed by a cat and tortured in the most peculiar way. The horse barnacles - tongs to nip the nostrils of an unwilling horse to force it to keep still - were the Wyatt family badge, and I suppose this was made up to explain it (and perhaps to explain Sir Henry's extraordinarily generously-sized nose).

To return to Miles Forrest: I looked for entries on him once, and I didn't find any payments made to him so Penn may well be mistaken there; muddling him with one of the other suspects, perhaps.

Besides, orders to pay individuals mostly don't tell you what service they'd performed. Unfortunately, however, some Ricardian writers have in the past used the same sort of "mysterious payments" to bolster their own theories, so that is now coming back to bite.

The annuity granted to Miles' widow and son, 5 marks (£3 6s 8d), is not very large and is completely in keeping with the sort of annuities that elderly retainers of his ilk or their families might expect to be granted so I hope Penn isn't trying to make something fishy out of that. At least he's not doing a Hicks/ Horrox and using it to suggest Mrs Forrest was the mother of one of Richard's illegitimate children (is he?).

Marie

It sounds like James V's regent  the Albany who fought at Pavia?

Sent from Mail for Windows 10

From: mariewalsh2003
Sent: 08 October 2019 20:14
To:
Subject: Re: Thomas Penn

Paul wrote:

Richard would certainly not have sat watching someone being tortured is the statement that upsets me the most.

Marie:

I agree. It's amazing that has been taken so seriously. At least Annette Carson's article on the Society website has shown the more far-fetched parts of the tradition - being tortured with horse barnacles, and starving but for a friendly cat who brought him a pigeon to his Tower cell every day - to be 17th century in origin. That seems to have stopped those particular gems being repeated.

When Annette looked into it, she could trace the origins of it back no further than a letter written a little after the death of Sir Henry Wyatt by his son Sir Thomas to his son, extolling Sir Hen ry, whom God had preserved "in prison from the hands of the tyrant that could find it in his heart to see him racked, from two years and more 'prisonment in Scotland in irons and stocks, from the dangers of sudden changes and commotions divers. . ." The tyrant isn't even named; it's not clear whether Sir Thomas is saying said tyrant did have Wyatt racked, or was simply prepared to have him racked if need be; and "see him racked" is just a construction anyway, like 'see it done' - it doesn't mean the tyrant was literally there even if the racking did occur. There are only two days after 13 June 1483 when we can place Richard at the Tower: 4-5 July 1483 as he prepared for his coronation, and 18 February 1484, which seems to have been a brief visit from Westminster, so when all this torture goggling is supposed to have occurred is quite hard to fathom.

The only imprisonment of H enry Wyatt of which there is any known record was by the Scots after Flodden. What seems clear is that he must have been free for at least part of Richard's reign to do good service to Henry Tudor because he started being appointed to substantial posts almost immediately after Bosworth. He is such an obscure figure before that that no one has been able to find him in a single record, so it is hard to fathom why Richard would have wasted so much effort on him is hard to fathom, or why he would have tried so much harder to get information out of Wyatt than he did from the influential, well connected and presumably much more useful John Forster (of whose imprisonment under Richard we have a first-hand account.)

We really don't know exactly what Sir Thomas Wyatt meant, and whether whatever he meant was accurate anyway. I can quite see Grandad havin g exaggerated the horrors of any periods of imprisonment, especially by the ogre Richard III, as he repeated the stories of his exciting past for the benefit of younger family members. And the fact that Sir Thomas doesn't name the tyrant strikes me as fishy. Was this maybe really some other monarch whom it wouldn't be safe to name?

I think we need to keep Forster's evidence to the forefront.. That is still simply an allegation, but it's genuine first-hand testimony of how Richard treated conspirators. No rack.

Stephen wrote:

If Forrest is possibly fictional then Will Slaughter must be  like the Green, Berry and Hill case.

Marie replies:

Miles is definitely historical - you may have missed my post quoting the grant of a small annuity to his widow and son. What I suspect is not historical, because I can't find it, is Penn's alleged payment to Miles from Richard for unspecified services.

Hilary, does Penn give a reference for this payment?

Doug couldn't find your original email but the CPR is the Calendar of Patent Rolls and the CFR the Calendar of Fine Rolls. The latter is particularly useful for tracking IPMs and 'rewards'. H
On Monday, 7 October 2019, 04:45:51 BST, 'Doug Stamate' destama@... [] <> wrote:

More claimed that, of Forest and Dighton, one was long dead whilst the other confessed and was released. I think Forest was the first  yet his year of death was the same as More's.

Sent from Mail for Windows 10

From: Hilary Jones hjnatdat@... []
Sent: 09 October 2019 11:54
To:
Subject: Re: Thomas Penn


Hi Marie, I've found the entry in the CPR but there are lots of other people being rewarded at this time. Why single out Miles Forest?

There are two other Miles Forests extant at this time, father and son, both from Cambridge and Morborne Hunts. The father died in 1536, the son in 1558. The son was born about 1480. Now if you do a quick NA or BHOL search what you come up with is that they were both accused at various times from about 1500 of being involved in some rather dodgy and violent deeds. Is it possible that More came across them in his legal work and selected the name to be one of the 'dogged ruffians' who killed the boys? Just a thought. H

On Wednesday, 9 October 2019, 00:58:52 BST, mariewalsh2003 <[email protected]> wrote:


Thanks Eva.
I'm sure you never believed it, but all too many writers who take an anti-Richard stance swallow it uncritically. I suppose we are all more critical of information that we don't like the sound of than the stuff that is music to our ears, but this one really doesn't stand much scrutiny and doesn't do its disseminators a lot of credit.

To Stephen: I tend to agree with you about the tyrant. I too am inclined to think the remarks about the tyrant and the rack may be meant to relate to the Scottish imprisonment. The trouble is by the next century a family tradition had solidified in which Sir Henry had been imprisoned by Richard in the Tower - for ages, fed by a cat and tortured in the most peculiar way. The horse barnacles - tongs to nip the nostrils of an unwilling horse to force it to keep still - were the Wyatt family badge, and I suppose this was made up to explain it (and perhaps to explain Sir Henry's extraordinarily generously-sized nose).

To return to Miles Forrest: I looked for entries on him once, and I didn't find any payments made to him so Penn may well be mistaken there; muddling him with one of the other suspects, perhaps.
Besides, orders to pay individuals mostly don't tell you what service they'd performed. Unfortunately, however, some Ricardian writers have in the past used the same sort of "mysterious payments" to bolster their own theories, so that is now coming back to bite.
The annuity granted to Miles' widow and son, 5 marks (£3 6s 8d), is not very large and is completely in keeping with the sort of annuities that elderly retainers of his ilk or their families might expect to be granted so I hope Penn isn't trying to make something fishy out of that. At least he's not doing a Hicks/ Horrox and using it to suggest Mrs Forrest was the mother of one of Richard's illegitimate children (is he?)..

Marie

Stephen wrote:

If Forrest is possibly fictional then Will Slaughter must be  like the Green, Berry and Hill case.

Marie replies:

Miles is definitely historical - you may have missed my post quoting the grant of a small annuity to his widow and son. What I suspect is not historical, because I can't find it, is Penn's alleged payment to Miles from Richard for unspecified services.

Hilary, does Penn give a reference for this payment?

I'll have a look. He certainly only appears in the CPR once. H
On Wednesday, 9 October 2019, 12:03:36 BST, mariewalsh2003 <[email protected]> wrote:

Stephen wrote:

If Forrest is possibly fictional then Will Slaughter must be  like the Green, Berry and Hill case.

Marie replies:

Miles is definitely historical - you may have missed my post quoting the grant of a small annuity to his widow and son. What I suspect is not historical, because I can't find it, is Penn's alleged payment to Miles from Richard for unspecified services.

Hilary, does Penn give a reference for this payment?

Marie replies to Stephen and Hilary:

A) There clearly was a Miles Forest who died not long after the disappearance of the Princes and who was a retainer of Richard's, just as More indicates (though whether he rotted away piecemeal in St. Martin's I wouldn't like to say). We know that because Richard granted his widow and son an annuity out from the lordship of Barnard Castle.

B) Richard employed at least one other Forest: Henry Forest appears not only as a Yeoman of the Crown during Richard's reign, but as a member of Prince Edward's household in that brief set of his household accounts we have for the summer of 1483 (he was to be paid 33s 4d for his half year wages).

C) There is only one reference to Miles Forest indexed in the volume of the CPR covering Richard's reign, and it is the grant of a small annuity to his widow and their son Edward. If you have found another entry, not indexed, with a payment to Miles himself please could you let me have a page reference?

D) My brief perusals into the future gave me an Edward Forest in the Cambridgeshire type of area succeeded by a Miles, so it looked to me as though these were probably the son and grandson or perhaps elder and younger son of Richard's Miles Forest, relocated to a different part of the country. I haven't taken down details of the entries so can't comment on their behaviour or dates of birth.

I don't think we should be scared that Miles existed, or that he seems to have belonged to the Teesdale area and had probably served Richard up there for years (no surviving accounts for the lordship of Barnard Castle, unfortunately). This has been known for a very long time, and has been the basis of Ricardian theories as well as More's accusations.

Stephen wrote:

More claimed that, of Forest and Dighton, one was long dead whilst the other confessed and was released. I think Forest was the first  yet his year of death was the same as More's.

Sent from Mail for Windows 10

From: Hilary Jones hjnatdat@... []
Sent: 09 October 2019 11:54
To:
Subject: Re: Thomas Penn


Hi Marie, I've found the entry in the CPR but there are lots of other people being rewarded at this time. Why single out Miles Forest?

There are two other Miles Forests extant at this time, father and son, both from Cambridge and Morborne Hunts. The father died in 1536, the son in 1558. The son was born about 1480. Now if you do a quick NA or BHOL search what you come up with is that they were both accused at various times from about 1500 of being involved in some rather dodgy and violent deeds. Is it possible that More came across them in his legal work and selected the name to be one of the 'dogged ruffians' who killed the boys? Just a thought. H

the other is C81/1392/15 Chancery warrants under small and great seal Richard III 1484-5 together with Harleian 433 (Horrox). Does the confirming connection come from Horrox I wonder?

Marie writes:

1) HARLEY 433. There are two entries relating to Miles in Harley 433. (which, to remind us all, is the register of the Privy Seal Office, where they recorded the documents they had issued) . One records the issue of a warrant to the Chancellor to grant the annuity to Joan Forest and her son Edward. The other records the issue of an instruction to the receiver of Barnard Castle to pay that annuity.

I think what he means by Harley 433 (Horrox) is the published version of Harley 433, edited by Rosemary Horrox and Peter Hamond.

2) C 81/1392/15. This will be a warrant, under the Privy Seal, from the King to the Chancellor to issue letters patent. I have taken a look in Rhoada Edwards' Itinerary, as she used the C 81s to help trace Richard's movements as king. This particular item was issued on 18 September, so after Miles' death. Therefore it cannot be a payment to him, but must be part of the paperwork issued in relation to the grant of annuity to his widow.

3) PSO 1/58/2963. The TNA description of the PSO series is thus:-

"This series contains files of general warrants, warrants for certificates of homage, and fiats for protections, which were prepared by the Clerks of the Signet and forwarded to the Office of the Keeper of the Privy Seal as his authority for making out a writ of privy seal. The collection is very incomplete as these warrants were generally retained by the several Lords Privy Seal.

These signet warrants were almost all written in response to petitions. All grants of annuities, lands, offices, wardships, and pardons, and many of justice, were secured by petitioning the king. The most important warrants, authorising grants of land, annuities, or bishops' temporalities, were sent to the Keeper of the Privy Seal because the Chancellor needed a privy seal warrant to authorise him to issue such grants under the great seal.

Other signet letters sent to the Keeper of the Privy Seal were for royal gifts of minor importance, and for minor grants (e.g. letters of passage, permitting the bearer to leave England by a certain port). In such cases, the privy seal warrant acted as an immediate authority to the relevant royal officials, and was not sent on to the chancellor for issue under the great seal."

So it sounds as though this might be an additional grant, made under the Privy Seal, but given the date range for the file it could well be post Miles' mortem again. Should I try to order a copy?

.

P. S. Duh! It's just occurred to me. That PSO item will probably be the warrant, recorded in Harley 433, to the Receiver of Barnard Castle to pay the annuity .

Hilary, what exactly does Penn say about Miles Forest? If it's not too long, would you be able to quote it?

the other is C81/1392/15 Chancery warrants under small and great seal Richard III 1484-5 together with Harleian 433 (Horrox). Does the confirming connection come from Horrox I wonder?

Marie writes:

1) HARLEY 433. There are two entries relating to Miles in Harley 433. (which, to remind us all, is the register of the Privy Seal Office, where they recorded the documents they had issued) . One records the issue of a warrant to the Chancellor to grant the annuity to Joan Forest and her son Edward. The other records the issue of an instruction to the receiver of Barnard Castle to pay that annuity.

I think what he means by Harley 433 (Horrox) is the published version of Harley 433, edited by Rosemary Horrox and Peter Hamond.

2) C 81/1392/15. This will be a warrant, under the Privy Seal, from the King to the Chancellor to issue letters patent. I have taken a look in Rhoada Edwards' Itinerary, as she used the C 81s to help trace Richard's movements as king. This particular item was issued on 18 September, so after Miles' death. Therefore it cannot be a payment to him, but must be part of the paperwork issued in relation to the grant of annuity to his widow.

3) PSO 1/58/2963. The TNA description of the PSO series is thus:-

"This series contains files of general warrants, warrants for certificates of homage, and fiats for protections, which were prepared by the Clerks of the Signet and forwarded to the Office of the Keeper of the Privy Seal as his authority for making out a writ of privy seal. The collection is very incomplete as these warrants were generally retained by the several Lords Privy Seal.

These signet warrants were almost all written in response to petitions. All grants of annuities, lands, offices, wardships, and pardons, and many of justice, were secured by petitioning the king. The most important warrants, authorising grants of land, annuities, or bishops' temporalities, were sent to the Keeper of the Privy Seal because the Chancellor needed a privy seal warrant to authorise him to issue such grants under the great seal.

Other signet letters sent to the Keeper of the Privy Seal were for royal gifts of minor importance, and for minor grants (e.g. letters of passage, permitting the bearer to leave England by a certain port). In such cases, the privy seal warrant acted as an immediate authority to the relevant royal officials, and was not sent on to the chancellor for issue under the great seal."

So it sounds as though this might be an additional grant, made under the Privy Seal, but given the date range for the file it could well be post Miles' mortem again. Should I try to order a copy?

.

Hilary wrote: Strangely enough the person who did torture people, or have them tortured, was the sainted More. He and other clergy were well known for keeping and torturing confessions out of heretics in their London basements. They were then prosecuted by the Church and executed. It became so bad that a young Henry VIII had to intervene. And, to be honest, did Richard have the luxury of time to personally supervise torture? If this came from More we're back to the Tacitus 'monster'. More would definitely know all about sitting around and watching people suffer then, wouldn't he? Doug
--
This message has been scanned for viruses and
dangerous content by MailScanner, and is
believed to be clean.

Marie replies to Stephen and Hilary:

A) There clearly was a Miles Forest who died not long after the disappearance of the Princes and who was a retainer of Richard's, just as More indicates (though whether he rotted away piecemeal in St. Martin's I wouldn't like to say). We know that because Richard granted his widow and son an annuity out from the lordship of Barnard Castle.

B) Richard employed at least one other Forest: Henry Forest appears not only as a Yeoman of the Crown during Richard's reign, but as a member of Prince Edward's household in that brief set of his household accounts we have for the summer of 1483 (he was to be paid 33s 4d for his half year wages).

C) There is only one reference to Miles Forest indexed in the volume of the CPR covering Richard's reign, and it is the grant of a small annuity to his widow and their son Edward. If you have found another entry, not indexed, with a payment to Miles himself please could you let me have a page reference?

D) My brief perusals into the future gave me an Edward Forest in the Cambridgeshire type of area succeeded by a Miles, so it looked to me as though these were probably the son and grandson or perhaps elder and younger son of Richard's Miles Forest, relocated to a different part of the country. I haven't taken down details of the entries so can't comment on their behaviour or dates of birth.

I don't think we should be scared that Miles existed, or that he seems to have belonged to the Teesdale area and had probably served Richard up there for years (no surviving accounts for the lordship of Barnard Castle, unfortunately). This has been known for a very long time, and has been the basis of Ricardian theories as well as More's accusations.

Stephen wrote:

More claimed that, of Forest and Dighton, one was long dead whilst the other confessed and was released. I think Forest was the first  yet his year of death was the same as More's.

Sent from Mail for Windows 10

From: Hilary Jones hjnatdat@... []
Sent: 09 October 2019 11:54
To:
Subject: Re: Thomas Penn


Hi Marie, I've found the entry in the CPR but there are lots of other people being rewarded at this time. Why single out Miles Forest?

There are two other Miles Forests extant at this time, father and son, both from Cambridge and Morborne Hunts. The father died in 1536, the son in 1558. The son was born about 1480. Now if you do a quick NA or BHOL search what you come up with is that they were both accused at various times from about 1500 of being involved in some rather dodgy and violent deeds. Is it possible that More came across them in his legal work and selected the name to be one of the 'dogged ruffians' who killed the boys? Just a thought. H

Paul wrote:

Just the sort of grant you would give to someone who had done a deed you wanted kept secret.

I'm certainly going to do a review which will not be positive :) :) H
On Tuesday, 8 October 2019, 15:08:53 BST, bale.paul-trevor@... [] <> wrote:

There is a Facebook page for the publisher which I'm going to be inundating with corrections once I get going on the book. Anyone care to join in? I think his position as publishing director probably got the book through to publication without any independent eyes or editing involved. Mr. Penn needs taking to task. Paul


Richard liveth yet! Le 8 oct. 2019 à 14:41 +0200, Hilary Jones hjnatdat@... [] <>, a écrit :

He's publishing director at Penguin Nico. I agree, it adds absolutely nothing on anything, not even a new slant which to be fair some authors such as Skidmore and Horsepool have tried, whether we agree or not.. It reads like a mid-century GCE history answer; there is no debate, no discussion of evidence, just what Thomas Penn says is the truth. It's appalling historical practice - at least Philippa Gregory says she writes fiction. I just think he has used his position to go on a huge ego trip.
BTW I wonder whether his tutor at Cambridge was Starkey? They teach cross college there. H
On Tuesday, 8 October 2019, 12:34:09 BST, Nicholas Brown nico11238@... [] <> wrote:

Nance wrote: Seems as though the Penguin Monarch Edw. V book is the one that should be vetted by members of the Society - we don't need the Society's permission to request pre-publication look-see. Anybody know where to direct requests, comments, etc. at the publisher? Can't aim a blackball if it's not in the naked eye (yes, bad analogy. It's late, here...). Also, with a reference to the author's present, apparently woeful messing with fact, whoever handles bulk orders for schools hould be warned.
I think it would be a good idea if the RIII Society did review the Edward V book, and find some way of making schools and Penguin aware if it does turn out to be a Tudor biased account that reflects unfairly on Richard. If it hasn't already been released, Penguin could ask him to re-edit it with a more balanced viewpoint, and if it has, he could make the changes for subsequent editions. I have no idea what is in the book or when it will be available, but I suspect it will be an cut and paste rehash of the relevant chapter in The Brother's York with a bit of Hicks thrown in.

I had a quick look at The Brothers York yesterday in Waterstones. The chapter on the 1483 doesn't give the author's opinion on Richard's guilt or innocence with respect to the Princes, but the fact that Penn mostly regurgitates a combination of More, Mancini, Croyland etc with no real analysis of the sources strongly hints that he accepts the 'traditionalist' view. He also is keen to point out Miles Forest's rewards for unspecified services; he doesn't actually accuse, but the tone left me with no doubt what he thought. He offered absolutely nothing new on the subject at all, so I am not optimistic that the school kids who read it will get a balanced or enlightened account of Richard III or the events of 1483.
If there is any silver lining in this, Waterstones are not making much effort to promote The Brothers York. I had to look quite hard to find a few signed copies on a display that you could easily blink and miss.
Nico







On Tuesday, 8 October 2019, 07:18:50 BST, 'Doug Stamate' destama@... [] <> wrote:

Hilary, I don't know, but I presumed those manuscript primary sources weren't available via, say, Penguin? Could you expand CFR and CPR? I tried googling them, but only got Council on Foreign Relations and the medical CPR... If one works from the proposition that Penn began work on his doctoral thesis almost immediately with his receiving a BA, that would mean that it took him nearly a decade and a half to put Winter King into publishable form. Which, if one was being very charitable, might explain his present offering? I'll still keep an eye out for the book at the library, but as of now anyway, have no desire to purchase what appears to be nothing more than a regurgitation of pro-Tudor propaganda. Doug Hilary wrote: Yes Doug he seems to have invented that strange category of Printed Primary Sources. So the King's Bench and Exchequer are Primary Sources but the CPR, Croyland, Mancini and More are 'Printed' (interestingly no CFR). And of course an awful lot of the stuff listed, particularly to do with London, can be got at through BHOL or the NA so I don't think many of us are conned into thinking that he looked at the actual documents, as a Ross, for example, would have had to have done.. Re his degree, he'd take 3 years to get his BA but Cambridge (and Oxford) award an automatic MA to all their students a year after graduation, you don't have to study it's just another ceremony where you 'swap' gowns. So he probably went straight into his Ph.D which takes 4 years minimum. But he could have been doing it for years and years.
--
This message has been scanned for viruses and
dangerous content by MailScanner, and is
believed to be clean.

I don't have time, today, to see if the book is on Amazon U.S. (amazing what isn't). I do have an Amazon UK account. Brilliant, Paul and Hillary. Looking forward to meeting members of the group and hope it happens within the year. ----- Original Message ----- From: Hilary Jones hjnatdat@... [] <> Reply-To: <> To: <> Sent: 10/8/2019 8:41:38 AM Subject: Re: Re: Thomas Penn

I'm certainly going to do a review which will not be positive :) :) H
On Tuesday, 8 October 2019, 15:08:53 BST, bale.paul-trevor@... [] <> wrote:

There is a Facebook page for the publisher which I'm going to be inundating with corrections once I get going on the book. Anyone care to join in? I think his position as publishing director probably got the book through to publication without any independent eyes or editing involved. Mr. Penn needs taking to task. Paul


Richard liveth yet! Le 8 oct. 2019 à 14:41 +0200, Hilary Jones hjnatdat@... [] <>, a écrit :

He's publishing director at Penguin Nico. I agree, it adds absolutely nothing on anything, not even a new slant which to be fair some authors such as Skidmore and Horsepool have tried, whether we agree or not... It reads like a mid-century GCE history answer; there is no debate, no discussion of evidence, just what Thomas Penn says is the truth. It's appalling historical practice - at least Philippa Gregory says she writes fiction.. I just think he has used his position to go on a huge ego trip.
BTW I wonder whether his tutor at Cambridge was Starkey? They teach cross college there. H
On Tuesday, 8 October 2019, 12:34:09 BST, Nicholas Brown nico11238@... [] <> wrote:

Nance wrote: Seems as though the Penguin Monarch Edw. V book is the one that should be vetted by members of the Society - we don't need the Society's permission to request pre-publication look-see. Anybody know where to direct requests, comments, etc. at the publisher? Can't aim a blackball if it's not in the naked eye (yes, bad analogy. It's late, here....). Also, with a reference to the author's present, apparently woeful messing with fact, whoever handles bulk orders for schools hould be warned.
I think it would be a good idea if the RIII Society did review the Edward V book, and find some way of making schools and Penguin aware if it does turn out to be a Tudor biased account that reflects unfairly on Richard. If it hasn't already been released, Penguin could ask him to re-edit it with a more balanced viewpoint, and if it has, he could make the changes for subsequent editions. I have no idea what is in the book or when it will be available, but I suspect it will be an cut and paste rehash of the relevant chapter in The Brother's York with a bit of Hicks thrown in.

I had a quick look at The Brothers York yesterday in Waterstones. The chapter on the 1483 doesn't give the author's opinion on Richard's guilt or innocence with respect to the Princes, but the fact that Penn mostly regurgitates a combination of More, Mancini, Croyland etc with no real analysis of the sources strongly hints that he accepts the 'traditionalist' view. He also is keen to point out Miles Forest's rewards for unspecified services; he doesn't actually accuse, but the tone left me with no doubt what he thought. He offered absolutely nothing new on the subject at all, so I am not optimistic that the school kids who read it will get a balanced or enlightened account of Richard III or the events of 1483.
If there is any silver lining in this, Waterstones are not making much effort to promote The Brothers York. I had to look quite hard to find a few signed copies on a display that you could easily blink and miss.
Nico







On Tuesday, 8 October 2019, 07:18:50 BST, 'Doug Stamate' destama@... [] <> wrote:

Hilary, I don't know, but I presumed those manuscript primary sources weren't available via, say, Penguin? Could you expand CFR and CPR? I tried googling them, but only got Council on Foreign Relations and the medical CPR... If one works from the proposition that Penn began work on his doctoral thesis almost immediately with his receiving a BA, that would mean that it took him nearly a decade and a half to put Winter King into publishable form. Which, if one was being very charitable, might explain his present offering? I'll still keep an eye out for the book at the library, but as of now anyway, have no desire to purchase what appears to be nothing more than a regurgitation of pro-Tudor propaganda. Doug Hilary wrote: Yes Doug he seems to have invented that strange category of Printed Primary Sources. So the King's Bench and Exchequer are Primary Sources but the CPR, Croyland, Mancini and More are 'Printed' (interestingly no CFR). And of course an awful lot of the stuff listed, particularly to do with London, can be got at through BHOL or the NA so I don't think many of us are conned into thinking that he looked at the actual documents, as a Ross, for example, would have had to have done.. Re his degree, he'd take 3 years to get his BA but Cambridge (and Oxford) award an automatic MA to all their students a year after graduation, you don't have to study it's just another ceremony where you 'swap' gowns. So he probably went straight into his Ph.D which takes 4 years minimum. But he could have been doing it for years and years.
--
This message has been scanned for viruses and
dangerous content by MailScanner, and is
believed to be clean.

Paul wrote:

Just the sort of grant you would give to someone who had done a deed you wanted kept secret.

Like the Inquisition.

Hilary wrote: Strangely enough the person who did torture people, or have them tortured, was the sainted More. He and other clergy were well known for keeping and torturing confessions out of heretics in their London basements. They were then prosecuted by the Church and executed. It became so bad that a young Henry VIII had to intervene. And, to be honest, did Richard have the luxury of time to personally supervise torture? If this came from More we're back to the Tacitus 'monster'. More would definitely know all about sitting around and watching people suffer then, wouldn't he? Doug
--
This message has been scanned for viruses and
dangerous content by MailScanner, and is
believed to be clean.

It is on Amazon now. I will try and comment!
On Oct 9, 2019, at 3:50 PM, 'Nance Crawford' Nance@... [] <> wrote:

ÿ  

I don't have time, today, to see if the book is on Amazon U.S. (amazing what isn't). I do have an Amazon UK account.   Brilliant, Paul and Hillary. Looking forward to meeting members of the group and hope it happens within the year.     ----- Original Message ----- From: Hilary Jones hjnatdat@... [] <> Reply-To: <> To: <> Sent: 10/8/2019 8:41:38 AM Subject: Re: Re: Thomas Penn  

I'm certainly going to do a review which will not be positive :) :) H
On Tuesday, 8 October 2019, 15:08:53 BST, bale.paul-trevor@... [] <> wrote:

 

There is a Facebook page for the publisher which I'm going to be inundating with corrections once I get going on the book. Anyone care to join in?  I think his position as publishing director probably got the book through to publication without any independent eyes or editing involved. Mr. Penn needs taking to task. Paul


Richard liveth yet! Le 8 oct. 2019 à 14:41 +0200, Hilary Jones hjnatdat@... [] <>, a écrit :

He's publishing director at Penguin Nico. I agree, it adds absolutely nothing on anything, not even a new slant which to be fair some authors such as Skidmore and Horsepool have tried, whether we agree or not... It reads like a mid-century GCE history answer; there is no debate, no discussion of evidence, just what Thomas Penn says is the truth. It's appalling historical practice - at least Philippa Gregory says she writes fiction.. I just think he has used his position to go on a huge ego trip.
BTW I wonder whether his tutor at Cambridge was Starkey? They teach cross college there. H
On Tuesday, 8 October 2019, 12:34:09 BST, Nicholas Brown nico11238@... [] <> wrote:

 

  Nance wrote: Seems as though the Penguin Monarch Edw. V book is the one that should be vetted by members of the Society - we don't need the Society's permission to request pre-publication look-see. Anybody know where to direct requests, comments, etc. at the publisher? Can't aim a blackball if it's not in the naked eye (yes, bad analogy. It's late, here....). Also, with a reference to the author's present, apparently woeful messing with fact, whoever handles bulk orders for schools hould be warned.
I think it would be a good idea if the RIII Society did review the Edward V book, and find some way of making schools and Penguin aware if it does turn out to be a Tudor biased account that reflects unfairly on Richard. If it hasn't already been released, Penguin could ask him to re-edit it with a more balanced viewpoint, and if it has, he could make the changes for subsequent editions. I have no idea what is in the book or when it will be available, but I suspect it will be an cut and paste rehash of the relevant chapter in The Brother's York with a bit of Hicks thrown in.

I had a quick look at The Brothers York yesterday in Waterstones. The chapter on the 1483 doesn't give the author's opinion on Richard's guilt or innocence with respect to the Princes, but the fact that Penn mostly regurgitates a combination of More, Mancini, Croyland etc with no real analysis of the sources strongly hints that he accepts the 'traditionalist' view. He also is keen to point out Miles Forest's rewards for unspecified services; he doesn't actually accuse, but the tone left me with no doubt what he thought. He offered absolutely nothing new on the subject at all, so I am not optimistic that the school kids who read it will get a balanced or enlightened account of Richard III or the events of 1483.
If there is any silver lining in this, Waterstones are not making much effort to promote The Brothers York. I had to look quite hard to find a few signed copies on a display that you could easily blink and miss.
Nico







On Tuesday, 8 October 2019, 07:18:50 BST, 'Doug Stamate' destama@... [] <> wrote:

 

      Hilary, I don't know, but I presumed those manuscript primary sources weren't available via, say, Penguin? Could you expand CFR and CPR? I tried googling them, but only got Council on Foreign Relations and the medical CPR... If one works from the proposition that Penn began work on his doctoral thesis almost immediately with his receiving a BA, that would mean that it took him nearly a decade and a half to put Winter King into publishable form. Which, if one was being very charitable, might explain his present offering?   I'll still keep an eye out for the book at the library, but as of now anyway, have no desire to  purchase what appears to be nothing more than a regurgitation of pro-Tudor propaganda. Doug   Hilary wrote: Yes Doug he seems to have invented that strange category of Printed Primary Sources. So the King's Bench and Exchequer are Primary Sources but the CPR, Croyland, Mancini and More are 'Printed' (interestingly no CFR). And of course an awful lot of the stuff listed, particularly to do with London, can be got at through BHOL or the NA so I don't think many of us are conned into thinking that he looked at the actual documents, as a Ross, for example, would have had to have done.. Re his degree, he'd take 3 years to get his BA but Cambridge (and Oxford) award an automatic MA to all their students a year after graduation, you don't have to study it's just another ceremony where you 'swap' gowns. So he probably went straight into his Ph.D which takes 4 years minimum.  But he could have been doing it for years and years.    
--
This message has been scanned for viruses and
dangerous content by MailScanner, and is
believed to be clean.

I'm quite disappointed as the book is printed on decent paper so won't yellow fast, and smells nice. Then I read the introduction, and while Penn has a fluid literary style, it already shows where his book will be leading us, and it isn't to history. Most of the population weren't devastated by endless civil war, as he suggests, well for starters the WOTR were bursts of fighting every few years, there is no mention of the Yorks having the better claim to the throne than Lancaster, or that the red rose wasn't associated with Lancaster and the name WOTR given the period until Walter Scott, and putting régicide at the end of a long list of accusations against the brothers leaves me with no doubt as to who he is referring. I guess my Amazon review will not be pretty!


Richard liveth yet! Le 10 oct. 2019 à 02:07 +0200, Pamela Bain pbain@... [] <>, a écrit :

It is on Amazon now. I will try and comment!
On Oct 9, 2019, at 3:50 PM, 'Nance Crawford' Nance@... [] <> wrote:

ÿ

I don't have time, today, to see if the book is on Amazon U.S. (amazing what isn't). I do have an Amazon UK account. Brilliant, Paul and Hillary. Looking forward to meeting members of the group and hope it happens within the year. ----- Original Message ----- From: Hilary Jones hjnatdat@... [] <> Reply-To: <> To: <> Sent: 10/8/2019 8:41:38 AM Subject: Re: Re: Thomas Penn

I'm certainly going to do a review which will not be positive :) :) H
On Tuesday, 8 October 2019, 15:08:53 BST, bale.paul-trevor@... [] <> wrote:

There is a Facebook page for the publisher which I'm going to be inundating with corrections once I get going on the book. Anyone care to join in? I think his position as publishing director probably got the book through to publication without any independent eyes or editing involved. Mr. Penn needs taking to task. Paul


Richard liveth yet! Le 8 oct. 2019 à 14:41 +0200, Hilary Jones hjnatdat@... [] <>, a écrit :

He's publishing director at Penguin Nico. I agree, it adds absolutely nothing on anything, not even a new slant which to be fair some authors such as Skidmore and Horsepool have tried, whether we agree or not.... It reads like a mid-century GCE history answer; there is no debate, no discussion of evidence, just what Thomas Penn says is the truth. It's appalling historical practice - at least Philippa Gregory says she writes fiction.. I just think he has used his position to go on a huge ego trip.
BTW I wonder whether his tutor at Cambridge was Starkey? They teach cross college there. H
On Tuesday, 8 October 2019, 12:34:09 BST, Nicholas Brown nico11238@... [] <> wrote:

Nance wrote: Seems as though the Penguin Monarch Edw. V book is the one that should be vetted by members of the Society - we don't need the Society's permission to request pre-publication look-see. Anybody know where to direct requests, comments, etc. at the publisher? Can't aim a blackball if it's not in the naked eye (yes, bad analogy. It's late, here.....). Also, with a reference to the author's present, apparently woeful messing with fact, whoever handles bulk orders for schools hould be warned.
I think it would be a good idea if the RIII Society did review the Edward V book, and find some way of making schools and Penguin aware if it does turn out to be a Tudor biased account that reflects unfairly on Richard. If it hasn't already been released, Penguin could ask him to re-edit it with a more balanced viewpoint, and if it has, he could make the changes for subsequent editions. I have no idea what is in the book or when it will be available, but I suspect it will be an cut and paste rehash of the relevant chapter in The Brother's York with a bit of Hicks thrown in.

I had a quick look at The Brothers York yesterday in Waterstones. The chapter on the 1483 doesn't give the author's opinion on Richard's guilt or innocence with respect to the Princes, but the fact that Penn mostly regurgitates a combination of More, Mancini, Croyland etc with no real analysis of the sources strongly hints that he accepts the 'traditionalist' view. He also is keen to point out Miles Forest's rewards for unspecified services; he doesn't actually accuse, but the tone left me with no doubt what he thought. He offered absolutely nothing new on the subject at all, so I am not optimistic that the school kids who read it will get a balanced or enlightened account of Richard III or the events of 1483.
If there is any silver lining in this, Waterstones are not making much effort to promote The Brothers York. I had to look quite hard to find a few signed copies on a display that you could easily blink and miss.
Nico







On Tuesday, 8 October 2019, 07:18:50 BST, 'Doug Stamate' destama@... [] <> wrote:

Hilary, I don't know, but I presumed those manuscript primary sources weren't available via, say, Penguin? Could you expand CFR and CPR? I tried googling them, but only got Council on Foreign Relations and the medical CPR... If one works from the proposition that Penn began work on his doctoral thesis almost immediately with his receiving a BA, that would mean that it took him nearly a decade and a half to put Winter King into publishable form. Which, if one was being very charitable, might explain his present offering? I'll still keep an eye out for the book at the library, but as of now anyway, have no desire to purchase what appears to be nothing more than a regurgitation of pro-Tudor propaganda. Doug Hilary wrote: Yes Doug he seems to have invented that strange category of Printed Primary Sources. So the King's Bench and Exchequer are Primary Sources but the CPR, Croyland, Mancini and More are 'Printed' (interestingly no CFR). And of course an awful lot of the stuff listed, particularly to do with London, can be got at through BHOL or the NA so I don't think many of us are conned into thinking that he looked at the actual documents, as a Ross, for example, would have had to have done.. Re his degree, he'd take 3 years to get his BA but Cambridge (and Oxford) award an automatic MA to all their students a year after graduation, you don't have to study it's just another ceremony where you 'swap' gowns. So he probably went straight into his Ph.D which takes 4 years minimum. But he could have been doing it for years and years.
--
This message has been scanned for viruses and
dangerous content by MailScanner, and is
believed to be clean.

        Paul, From all I've read here, I have to say my greatest disappointment is Penn's apparent abject failure to recognize that the received history of the period might not be exactly what happened. Your remark about regicide caused me to do a quick review of the aftermath of Tewksbury. I started with the Wikipedia article (I know, I know!) and immediately came across a couple of interesting items. To start of with, in the section titled Background Henry VI is described in the article at one point as ...the weak,  intermittently insane Lancastrian King Henry VI. and in the section Edward's landing and the death of Warwick asThe unfortunate and by now feeble Henry VI.... Now, we know that Henry suffered from something, the question being what. We also know that in 1471 he would have been 50 years old and admittedly the previous few years likely hadn't been easy on him, physically or mentally. The important point, though, is that, at least according to the contributor/s, Henry at this point wasn't strong either mentally or physically. Then I found this in the section titled Aftermath of the battle. The last sentence reads A few days later Queen Margaret sent word to Edward from her refuge that she was at his commandment with Rowse's Bosworth Field & the Wars of the Roses being given as the source. IOW, with the death of her son after the battle she'd given up  completely. The next item is from the section titled Fauconburg's repulse where the next-to-last sentence reads: Like Margaret, he [Fauconburg] appeared to be dispirited by the news of Tewksbury and the Prince's death, and later rather tamely surrendered himself and his ships. Yet another person giving up! The last item is from the section titled The end of the Lancastrian Royal family. It starts off with Edward entering London on 21 May ...with the captive Queen Margaret beside him in a chariot, then goes on to state Henry died that night at the hands of Richard before backtracking and laying Henry's death on Edward. However, the last sentence of this section is The deposed King's death was announced in public that he had died of pure displeasure and melancholy,' but few believed this. (I didn't write that!) Now, here we have a 50 year-old man who's suffered for nearly two decades from some sort of ailment that definitely affected him mentally and p;ossibly physically; who has spent almost all of the past 5-6 years in captivity (certainly closely guarded) and during the year before his second capture was wandering around the countryside a wanted fugitive. The point I'm trying to make though, is that to flatly state that Henry was killed on Edward's orders isn't history  rather it's a fetishization of near contemporary sources. We have Prince Edward's mother giving up after his death; we have the most talented Lancastrian commander doing the same. Why would it be so unusual to expect the same sort of response from his father? A man who's been described as being both physically and mentally in a weakened state? Now, if I can find these sort of things with around 10 minutes searching/reading, it's certainly not too much to expect someone such as Penn, whose Winter King showed him capable of accurate and in-depth research, to come up with something other than a regurgitation of what everyone knows! Or is it? Doug (apologies for the length)   Paul wrote: I'm quite disappointed as the book is printed on decent paper so won't yellow fast, and smells nice. Then I read the introduction, and while Penn has a fluid literary style, it already shows where his book will be leading us, and it isn't to history. Most of the population weren't devastated by endless civil war, as he suggests, well for starters the WOTR were bursts of fighting every few years, there is no mention of the Yorks having the better claim to the throne than Lancaster, or that the red rose wasn't associated with Lancaster and the name WOTR given the period until Walter Scott, and putting régicide at the end of a long list of accusations against the brothers leaves me with no doubt as to who he is referring. I guess my Amazon review will not be pretty!    
--
This message has been scanned for viruses and
dangerous content by MailScanner, and is
believed to be clean.

Hilary wrote:

Yes indeed Doug, the dungeon in a castle like Warwick (which I've seen) would have been much worse. Some prisoners were kept in the Tower for years, particularly foreign hostages. Different for suspected traitors who were nobodies. I doubt Forster suffered greatly. And BTW Penn again misquotes because he says Forster was starved by Richard; even Forster says his arrest and imprisonment was by 'servants of Richard'. I know it's a subtle difference but again it can be read that Richard was actually 'sitting there watching'.

Marie observes,

It's an odd reversal of the way historians treat Henry VI. His saintliness is so firmly believed that, even when nasty things are done to people in his name many years before he suffered his mental breakdown, even when his signature appears on letters of instruction for the distribution of the heads and quarters of executed traitors, people excuse him and say "oh well, he wasn't really with it. He must have been just told to sign and didn't read what it was about." We know that in his teens Henry kicked against control, that he loathed his uncle Gloucester, and that he had enough understanding to found Eton and King's. We know he was personally responsible for signing away Maine to please his new wife.

A couple of years back I looked into the Eleanor Cobham business, and found that Henry took a very personal interest in the case against Roger Bolingbroke and Eleanor Cobham. There was also a shocking case which happened the following year, which I first found mentioned in a continuation of the Brut:

"And in this same yere, the Monday next following, the woman of Kent that met with the King at the Blackheath in Kent, and spake to him boldly, and reviled him ungoodly and unwisely for Dame Eleanor Cobham, that he should have her home again to her husband the Duke of Gloucester. And with these words the King waxed wroth and took it to heart, and she was arrested and so brought to Westminster afore the justices of the King's Bench. And there she was reproved for her ungoodly language and foolhardiness to speak so to her liege lord the King. And she answered not, but asked the King's grace. . . . In brief she was condemned to be pressed to death, and the sentence was carried out.

Anyhow, I was so shocked at such a grisly death for such a misdemeanour I looked up the case in the King's Bench records, and below is a rough translation of it, and shows how a woman who was probably mentally unstable was killed in the slowest and most gruesome fashion simply for telling the King he was an idiot, and all because the way the charge was framed she could not plead guilty to what she had said without also pleading guilty to attempting to kill the king and cause revolution. I apologise to those with weak stomachs, but Henry could have pardoned her and clearly would not. I dread to think what historians like Penn would have said of Richard if anything like that had happened in his reign.

"On the Thursday next before the feast of Palm Sunday in the abovesaid year [1443] and at diverse times before that, at le Blakeheth in the foresaid county within the parish of Grenewich aforesaid and elsewhere in diverse hidden places in the same county, Juliana Ridligo late of Grenewich in the county of Kent, servant', and other anonymous false traitors of the Lord King, falsely and treasonably compassed plotting the death of the said king and treasonably confedered, conspired and maliciously proposed to kill him by stealth [subdole]. And And in order subtly to implement this nefarious proposal of theirs, then and there the foresaid Juliana, with the agreement of William Quyk late of Grenewich in the foresaid county, taillour', and other anonymous traitors, attached herself to the same king as he was riding along his highway, and in a spirit of malice said to him thus: Henry of Wyndesore, ride carefully! thy horse may stumble and break thy neck.' To whom the noble Sir John Beauchamp, then present, then and there said: Woman, to whom wouldst thou speak?' And she, answering in a loud voice, said to the same splendid youth in red riding upon a horse there, pointing out the said king with her hand, whilst shouting and saying to the same king thus: It would become thee better to ride to thine uncle than he to thee. Thou wilt kill him, just as thou hast killed thy mother. Send that uncle of thine back his wife whom thou detainest. Thou art stupid, and art known to be stupid by the whole realm of England.'

All and singular of which the foregoing Juliana, with the aforesaid agreement, then and there asserted so that the said king would be bereft of and totally lose his name and dignity in this foresaid realm and his people in the same would not adhere to him and not obey him and would withdraw their hearts' love from him; and that they would make such commotions of the foresaid people, murmurings and insurrections to the destruction of the said king and his foresaid realm in the same realm that the same king would within brief time be destroyed and killed from the foresaid causes.

The which indictment the Lord King afterwards caused to come before him to determine. And, because the foresaid Juliana was detained in the Lord King's prison of his Tower of London on the foresaid charge, under the ward of the constable of the same Tower, as it is said, the same constable and his lieuteant of the foresaid Tower were commanded to have the body of the foresaid Juliana before the Lord King at Westminster on the Monday next after a month from Easter to answer the Lord King of the premises, etc.

At which day the foresaid Juliana came in her proper person before the Lord King at Westminster in the custody of the foregoing constable, and was committed to the Marshal, etc. And immediately she said of the premises imputed to her above how she wished to be acquitted thereof, saying that she was guilty of none of the foresaid treasons and felonies; and where, recognising that she has said the foresaid words so horribly spoken, beseaaching the lord king's hand. Whereupon it was asked of the same Juliana how she wished to be acquitted of the foresaid treasons and felonies, [and] she said that she would not place herself upon any jury nor any creature but only upon the grace of the Lord King. Then, moreover, it was said to her by the court here that, unless she would answer otherwise in that behalf, she deserved to die by a death and peril to be declared in that behalf, and that she would be advised thereof by the Wednesday then next coming. And in the meantime the same Juliana was sent back to the foresaid Tower prison in the custody of the foregoing constable for safekeeping for peril that might fall.

At which day the foresaid Juliana before the Lord King at Westminster came in her proper person in the custody of the foregoing constable by pretext of the Lord King's writ addressed to her, and was committed to the Marshal, etc. And again it was asked of the said Juliana by the court here whether she would answer otherwise in that behalf, and she said no.

Therefore it was considered that the same Juliana should be led to the prison of the Lord king's Marshalsea before the same king [ie to the King's Bench Marshalsea] and there, naked except for her shift, should be placed lying straight on the ground upon her back, with a hole in the ground under her head and her head placed in the same, and anywhere upon her body there should be placed as much stone and iron as she may bear and more, and that as long as she lives she should have bread and water of the worst and nearest to that prison and on the day when she eats she does not drink, nor on the day when she drinks does not eat, living thus until she be dead, etc."

(TNA KB 27/728)

Paul, From all I've read here, I have to say my greatest disappointment is Penn's apparent abject failure to recognize that the received history of the period might not be exactly what happened. Your remark about regicide caused me to do a quick review of the aftermath of Tewksbury. I started with the Wikipedia article (I know, I know!) and immediately came across a couple of interesting items. To start of with, in the section titled Background Henry VI is described in the article at one point as ...the weak, intermittently insane Lancastrian King Henry VI. and in the section Edward's landing and the death of Warwick asThe unfortunate and by now feeble Henry VI.... Now, we know that Henry suffered from something, the question being what. We also know that in 1471 he would have been 50 years old and admittedly the previous few years likely hadn't been easy on him, physically or mentally. The important point, though, is that, at least according to the contributor/s, Henry at this point wasn't strong either mentally or physically. Then I found this in the section titled Aftermath of the battle. The last sentence reads A few days later Queen Margaret sent word to Edward from her refuge that she was at his commandment with Rowse's Bosworth Field & the Wars of the Roses being given as the source. IOW, with the death of her son after the battle she'd given up  completely. The next item is from the section titled Fauconburg's repulse where the next-to-last sentence reads: Like Margaret, he [Fauconburg] appeared to be dispirited by the news of Tewksbury and the Prince's death, and later rather tamely surrendered himself and his ships. Yet another person giving up! The last item is from the section titled The end of the Lancastrian Royal family. It starts off with Edward entering London on 21 May ...with the captive Queen Margaret beside him in a chariot, then goes on to state Henry died that night at the hands of Richard before backtracking and laying Henry's death on Edward. However, the last sentence of this section is The deposed King's death was announced in public that he had died of pure displeasure and melancholy,' but few believed this. (I didn't write that!) Now, here we have a 50 year-old man who's suffered for nearly two decades from some sort of ailment that definitely affected him mentally and p;ossibly physically; who has spent almost all of the past 5-6 years in captivity (certainly closely guarded) and during the year before his second capture was wandering around the countryside a wanted fugitive. The point I'm trying to make though, is that to flatly state that Henry was killed on Edward's orders isn't history  rather it's a fetishization of near contemporary sources. We have Prince Edward's mother giving up after his death; we have the most talented Lancastrian commander doing the same. Why would it be so unusual to expect the same sort of response from his father? A man who's been described as being both physically and mentally in a weakened state? Now, if I can find these sort of things with around 10 minutes searching/reading, it's certainly not too much to expect someone such as Penn, whose Winter King showed him capable of accurate and in-depth research, to come up with something other than a regurgitation of what everyone knows! Or is it? Doug (apologies for the length) Paul wrote: I'm quite disappointed as the book is printed on decent paper so won't yellow fast, and smells nice. Then I read the introduction, and while Penn has a fluid literary style, it already shows where his book will be leading us, and it isn't to history. Most of the population weren't devastated by endless civil war, as he suggests, well for starters the WOTR were bursts of fighting every few years, there is no mention of the Yorks having the better claim to the throne than Lancaster, or that the red rose wasn't associated with Lancaster and the name WOTR given the period until Walter Scott, and putting régicide at the end of a long list of accusations against the brothers leaves me with no doubt as to who he is referring. I guess my Amazon review will not be pretty!
--
This message has been scanned for viruses and
dangerous content by MailScanner, and is
believed to be clean.