Missing records

Marie wrote:

< It is an odd thing, though. I used to visit the
Guildhall Library
at one time, when I lived near London. There seemed to
be council
records for every reign except those of Edward IV and
Richard III. It
could make you wonder if they weren't deliberately
destroyed.>

Lorraine wrote:

Imagine how I felt when I was told that the Durham
Cathedral Rolls
for R3's reign had also 'been lost', yet all from H6
to 1482 are
there, as is the Tudor record from 1486 right up to
lods in H8's
reign, when I gave up looking at the documents and
walked away
muttering 'And they tell me there was no deliberate
attempt to
falsify the records...'.


***

Are there other places where records for Edward and
Richard's reigns are missing?

Thanks!

Marion



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Hi Marion

Got sidetracked away from this one...

<Are there other places where records for Edward and
Richard's reigns are missing?>

For the last few years I have been visiting UK local
record offices trying to trace Richard's
exact whereabouts whilst Duke of Gloucester - doing a sort
of prequel to Rhoda Edwards' 'Itinerary of R3'.
I have therefore been concentrating on
Pre-1483 records, but being exceptionally
nosey when it comes to Richard <g>, I often get
sidetracked and end up looking out for records
dating from his reign.

It would be all too easy to jump to conclusions
and think there must have been some efforts
to eradicate Richard from official archives, but
the records for Our Period do appear
to be rather patchy, anyway.

In the 19thC, Durham's civic records were destroyed more by neglect
than malice, I gather - inappropriate storage having
destroyed tons of material through damp, or bright
sunlight, or rats or insects. One Victorian archivist
wrote of his horror at seeing a clerk warm himself
at a fire that had been stoked by adding rolls of
parchment to the flames! (I think that incident was how the
Surtees Society came about).

Durham Cathedral's records are another matter. Even in
Tudor times, assiduous records were kept in conditions
that were more suitable and so it was odd to find that
there was a 10 yr gap which covered Richard's reign.

Just about the only document that survives in the archives
now from the Ricardian period is an undated
letter in the Prior's notebook concerning a vicar's
living when the candidate is supported by Richard Ratcliffe
and he and 'the king's grace' is mentioned. Internal evidence
proves the letter was written when the 'king' mentioned
would've been Richard.

However, I also believe R3's gift of his blue velvet Parliamentary
robe, described as 'marvellous' in a 16thC inventory, survives
and in currently on display in the Cathedral Treasury.
I'm trying to get official attribution for this - the
Dean & Chapter Librarian certainly supports my view that
it's his. Amazingly, a similar relic of R3's survives in private hands
in the area. Unlike the robe in the Cathedral, this example
has a complete provenance, with patches of red velvet that
was taken from R3's Wardrobe. The owners were kind enough to let me
take one solitary photo for evidence and publication, provided I
respected their wish to keep the robe's present location to
myself for the moment. However, interested readers can read more
about this, and see a small photo of the Ricardian velvet in question,
in an article I wrote for the US R3 Society's mag,
the 'Ricarian Register', a couple of years ago. (I believe it is
possible for Soc members to download recent back issues from the US
Soc's website).

I found it rather suspcious that Carlisle has very little on Richard's
stay there. Especially, since he was billeted at Carlisle through the
border skirmishes. At one stage he was ignored entirely by English
Heritage's print material, though I believe that has changed now (I
wrote a strongly worded letter of protest).

Even in York I have found gaps. Not in the civic records, which, as
everyone knows, are pretty thorough about R3, but certainly in the
Minster Archives. A lot of ecclesiastical records were destroyed at
the Reformation, but it is interesting when E4 material is left intact
and Richard's isn't. Perhaps H8 was interested in keeping E4 records
because E4 was his grandfather?

We know that R3's Signet Office records (the Harley MS stuff) survived
a blaze at the original Whitehall building in Eliz 1's time because
Lord Burghley had the material in his personal library at home! What
he was doing with them is open to speculation, but that particular
fire in London burned a huge amount of Regal documentation of the
medieval period. The Great Fire of London put paid to many more, as
did the Blitz, I believe.

BTW - Virgil is credited as having destroyed many records connected w.
Richard. I certainly know that one of the Masters at one of the
Oxbrige colleges complained to Tudor about this as amongst the stuff
lost at the time were documents that Virgil had borrowed from the
College Library and hadn't returned. But in the interests of balance,
I know one Antipodean historian disputes this story. Her draft
article about this alleged episode was published on another discussion
list a year or so ago.

Regards - Lorraine