Richard III Research and Discussion Archive

We have no solid evidence but I would be wary of Feb 1473 as it was not usually permitted to marry in Lent. H

From: "Karen O karenoder4@... []" <@ yahoogroups.com>
To: @ yahoogroups.com
Sent: Monday, 5 June 2017, 15:36
Subject: Richard and Anne wedding date

  I read on this forum's website a wedding date for them of Feb 1473. That's a long time to be in sanctuary for her. Is this based on the dates of dispensations? Do we have solid evidence for both? I don't belong to the society so can't read articles.

There is an article in the December 2016 Ricardian Bulletin in which Annette Carson & Marie Barnfield develop a timeline, arriving at a proposed date for the marriage of the second half of January or February 1473. They do take account of the Lenten marriage prohibition, which they indicate would have been March 3 to April 18 in 1473. Perhaps Marie will comment further.

A J

On Mon, Jun 5, 2017 at 11:37 AM, Hilary Jones hjnatdat@... [] <@ yahoogroups.com> wrote:
 

We have no solid evidence but I would be wary of Feb 1473 as it was not usually permitted to marry in Lent. H

From: "Karen O karenoder4@... []" <@yahoog roups.com>
To: @yahoogr oups.com
Sent: Monday, 5 June 2017, 15:36
Subject: Richard and Anne wedding date

  I read on this forum's website a wedding date for them of Feb 1473. That's a long time to be in sanctuary for her. Is this based on the dates of dispensations? Do we have solid evidence for both? I don't belong to the society so can't read articles.

Hi Karen,

This is my reasoning with Annette Carson. The evidence is:-

1) For reasons of etiquette, Richard probably did not propose to the widowed Anne until early 1472 - Crowland got the autumns of 1471 and 1472 mixed up, as is proved by the fact that he says Anne was hidden by Clarence in the Michaelmas term of the first year of Edward's 2nd reign (i.e. 1471), but says this was also the autumn that the first parliament of his 2nd reign opened; there was no parliament in 1471 - that first parliament began in October 1472. We have no contemporary reference to Richard's suit earlier than February 1472, when John Paston recorded that Clarence was saying Richard could marry Anne but wouldn't get a penny to go with her.

2) Clarence agreed to some sort of property division in March 1472, which Richard and Anne seem to have accepted (Clarence seems to have tried to go back on it after the marriage had taken place).

3) The dispensation, issued in Rome in April 1472, would not have arrived until June 1472 and could have been even later.

4) Richard seems to have spent the summer of 1472 in the North

5) Richard was definitely in Yorkshire in early October 1472, just before coming south for parliament. He seems to have reached London about 14 October.

6) We contend, because of these facts, and because of what I have noted above about Crowland's confusion over the autumns of 1471 and 1472, that it was in October 1472, when Richard returned to London looking for Anne, that Clarence hid her, and so sometime later that year when Richard found her and took her to sanctuary.

7) Marriages were not allowed (or only under very special circumstances) between the beginning of Advent and 13 January. Then they were forbidden again from beginning of Lent until some time after Easter. Since writing the article I have also discovered that Richard visited Southampton during December, and probably Lydd in Kent as well, which would seem to confirm that the couple were not married that month. In early January Richard was busy with the Countess of Oxford.

8) The earliest reference to Anne as Richard's duchess is in an amendment that King Edward added to the passage of a parliamentary Bill. This appears in the roll that covers the first two sessions of that parliament - i.e. it was no later than 8 April 1473.

9) That only leaves the period 14 Jan to beginning of March 1473 for the marriage to take place (Easter was unusually late in 1473 - 18 April).

So perhaps we have it wrong, but that is the reasoning. Anne wouldn't have been in sanctuary for more than two or three months at the most.

Marie

Hi Karen,

This is my reasoning with Annette Carson. The evidence is:-

1) For reasons of etiquette, Richard probably did not propose to the widowed Anne until early 1472 - Crowland got the autumns of 1471 and 1472 mixed up, as is proved by the fact that he says Anne was hidden by Clarence in the Michaelmas term of the first year of Edward's 2nd reign (i.e. 1471), but says this was also the autumn that the first parliament of his 2nd reign opened; there was no parliament in 1471 - that first parliament began in October 1472.  We have no contemporary reference to Richard's suit earlier than February 1472, when John Paston recorded that Clarence was saying Richard could marry Anne but  wouldn't get a penny to go with her.

2) Clarence agreed to some sort of property division in March 1472, which Richard and Anne seem to have accepted (Clarence seems to have tried to go back on it after the marriage had taken place).

3) The dispensation, issued in Rome in April 1472, would not have arrived until June 1472 and could have been even later.

4) Richard seems to have spent the summer of 1472 in the North

5) Richard was definitely in Yorkshire in early October 1472, just before coming south for parliament. He seems to have reached London about 14 October.

6) We contend, because of these facts, and because of what I have noted above about Crowland's confusion over the autumns of 1471 and 1472, that it was in October 1472, when Richard returned to London looking for Anne, that Clarence hid her, and so sometime later that year when Richard found her and took her to sanctuary.

7) Marriages were not allowed (or only under very special circumstances) between the beginning of Advent and 13 January. Then they were forbidden again from beginning of Lent until some time after Easter. Since writing the article I have also discovered that Richard visited Southampton during December, and probably Lydd in Kent as well, which would seem to confirm that the couple were not married that month. In early January Richard was busy with the Countess of Oxford.

8) The earliest reference to Anne as Richard's duchess is in an amendment that King Edward added to the passage of a parliamentary Bill. This appears in the roll that covers the first two sessions of that parliament - i.e. it was no later than 8 April 1473.

9) That only leaves the period 14 Jan to beginning of March 1473 for the marriage to take place (Easter was unusually late in 1473 - 18 April).

So perhaps we have it wrong, but that is the reasoning. Anne wouldn't have been in sanctuary for more than two or three months at the most.

Marie

Hi Karen,

This is my reasoning with Annette Carson. The evidence is:-

1) For reasons of etiquette, Richard probably did not propose to the widowed Anne until early 1472 - Crowland got the autumns of 1471 and 1472 mixed up, as is proved by the fact that he says Anne was hidden by Clarence in the Michaelmas term of the first year of Edward's 2nd reign (i.e. 1471), but says this was also the autumn that the first parliament of his 2nd reign opened; there was no parliament in 1471 - that first parliament began in October 1472.  We have no contemporary reference to Richard's suit earlier than February 1472, when John Paston recorded that Clarence was saying Richard could marry Anne but  wouldn't get a penny to go with her.

2) Clarence agreed to some sort of property division in March 1472, which Richard and Anne seem to have accepted (Clarence seems to have tried to go back on it after the marriage had taken place).

3) The dispensation, issued in Rome in April 1472, would not have arrived until June 1472 and could have been even later.

4) Richard seems to have spent the summer of 1472 in the North

5) Richard was definitely in Yorkshire in early October 1472, just before coming south for parliament. He seems to have reached London about 14 October.

6) We contend, because of these facts, and because of what I have noted above about Crowland's confusion over the autumns of 1471 and 1472, that it was in October 1472, when Richard returned to London looking for Anne, that Clarence hid her, and so sometime later that year when Richard found her and took her to sanctuary.

7) Marriages were not allowed (or only under very special circumstances) between the beginning of Advent and 13 January. Then they were forbidden again from beginning of Lent until some time after Easter. Since writing the article I have also discovered that Richard visited Southampton during December, and probably Lydd in Kent as well, which would seem to confirm that the couple were not married that month. In early January Richard was busy with the Countess of Oxford.

8) The earliest reference to Anne as Richard's duchess is in an amendment that King Edward added to the passage of a parliamentary Bill. This appears in the roll that covers the first two sessions of that parliament - i.e. it was no later than 8 April 1473.

9) That only leaves the period 14 Jan to beginning of March 1473 for the marriage to take place (Easter was unusually late in 1473 - 18 April).

So perhaps we have it wrong, but that is the reasoning. Anne wouldn't have been in sanctuary for more than two or three months at the most.

Marie

Hi Karen,

Good points, and interrelated. I think one of the keys is that Richard and Anne were contenting themselves with whatever property settlement they got out of Clarence in March 1472 - the problem is that we don't know the details of it. There were only two property settlements: that one and the one of May 1474, and there is proof they married before the latter. Why Richard waited so long after the issue of the dispensation is another question - the sources are too patchy. We don't know exactly when the dispensation reached him, for one thing. A message from Rome would typically arrive in about 6 weeks if the messenger travelled at a comfortable speed and didn't have any other errands to worry about on the way. Henry VII on occasion got a politically urgent dispensation across to him in under a month. I have also seen a dispensation that took six months from issue in Rome to being ratified by the local bishop in England.

Six weeks would take us to something like 4 June (I haven't worked it out exactly), but we don't know where Richard was most of that summer, and we don't know when the dispensation actually arrived. We have a statement in the Paston Letters in early May that he was about to set off for the North, and then no further evidence until the start of October when, as luck would have it, a flurry of different sources enable us to track his journey from Yorkshire down to London. It's possible he'd received the dispensation over the summer and made contact with Clarence, and Clarence managed to string him along, saying Anne was unwell or something. Or maybe Clarence intercepted the dispensation. Or perhaps it took a long while to arrive.

Here's a possibility. Two days before the dispensation was issued, Cardinal Bessarion, a friend of Archbishop Neville, reportedly left Rome on a mission to Louis XI, Charles of Burgundy and Edward IV, to persuade them to settle their differences and join a crusade to retake Constantinople (which is where Bessarion originally came from). Now, given that he was heading towards England and was a friend of Archbishop Neville, it is possible that a messenger was sent after him to give him Richard and Anne's dispensation to deliver when he got to England. The problem is that Bessarion seems to have taken quite a circuitous route, and didn't reach Louis' court until early June. He got a bad reception there, and then went on to Burgundy, where he also got a bad reception. He also discovered, of course, that Archbishop Neville was not at the centre of power in England, but in prison at Hammes charged with treason. So he visited Neville in prison, taught him a new board game to give him something to do, and set off back to Rome. (He only got as far as Ravenna, where he died in November.) If he had the dispensation with him, he would presumably have found someone take it across to England before he turned home, but that would have been quite late in the summer. Now this is absolute and total speculation - I have no evidence at all that Bessarion was carrying the dispensation, but it is an example of the sort of reasons why its arrival might have been delayed. Another possibility is that Clarence intercepted it and didn't tell Richard it had arrived. If I were writing a novel I'd not be short of possible scenarios.

Hicks notwithstanding, I think we have to see the 1474 deal as the result of Clarence's whingeing and his fears about the Countess of Warwick being restored to her lands, not as something that Richard drove through. After all, she was living with Richard and Anne, not with him. Another thing I discovered in my attempts to trace Richard's movements is that Richard cannot even have been in parliament on the day the Act was passed because he had still been at Pontefract two days earlier.

Well, sanctuaries housed all sorts of people. It would be a bit like Elizabeth Woodville in Westminster Sanctuary I think. Philippa Gregory notwithstanding, EW lived in the Abbot's house, which was within the sanctuary precincts, not in the common sanctuary house. Anne would similarly have been housed salubriously at St. Martin's well away from desperadoes. She wasn't the only person of note, nor even the only lady, to use that partcular sanctuary by any means. York's chamberlain Sir William Oldhall had taken refuge there in the 1450s. In 1472 the Countess of Oxford (Margaret Neville) was there, and she'd probably been there ever since Barnet. Also, a few years later one of the side chapels in St Martin's was chosen as the venue for the hasty marriage of a young ward who'd suddenly become an heiress as the result of her brother's unexpected death, her guardian fearing that the girl's stepfather, who'd previously seized her brother, would do the same with her. So I think tales of its naughtiness have been exaggerated.

It depends who Anne trusted, doesn't it? A lot of folk connected with her and Richard would have been just as closely connected with George and Isabel. Perhaps someone like Richard's attorney, Morgan Kidwelly, who seems to have been based in London, would have been a good option if she knew where he lived.

Well, sanctuaries housed all sorts of people. It would be a bit like Elizabeth Woodville in Westminster Sanctuary I think. Philippa Gregory notwithstanding, EW lived in the Abbot's house, which was within the sanctuary precincts, not in the common sanctuary house. Anne would similarly have been housed salubriously at St. Martin's well away from desperadoes. She wasn't the only person of note, nor even the only lady, to use that partcular sanctuary by any means. York's chamberlain Sir William Oldhall had taken refuge there in the 1450s. In 1472 the Countess of Oxford (Margaret Neville) was there, and she'd probably been there ever since Barnet. Also, a few years later one of the side chapels in St Martin's was chosen as the venue for the hasty marriage of a young ward who'd suddenly become an heiress as the result of her brother's unexpected death, her guardian fearing that the girl's stepfather, who'd previously seized her brother, would do the same with her. So I think tales of its naughtiness have been exaggerated.

It depends who Anne trusted, doesn't it? A lot of folk connected with her and Richard would have been just as closely connected with George and Isabel. Perhaps someone like Richard's attorney, Morgan Kidwelly, who seems to have been based in London, would have been a good option if she knew where he lived.

Strangely enough of course our friend Stillington was Dean of St Martin's. His brother Thomas was certainly in the 'set' that Richard inherited from Warwick so Anne would be in friendly territory. Never thought of this before. I wonder how well Stillington knew Anne and whether the acquaintance continued through to 1483? H

From: mariewalsh2003 <no_reply@yahoogroups.com>
To: @ yahoogroups.com
Sent: Monday, 12 June 2017, 19:02
Subject: Re: Re: Richard and Anne wedding date

  Well, sanctuaries housed all sorts of people. It would be a bit like Elizabeth Woodville in Westminster Sanctuary I think. Philippa Gregory notwithstanding, EW lived in the Abbot's house, which was within the sanctuary precincts, not in the common sanctuary house. Anne would similarly have been housed salubriously at St. Martin's well away from desperadoes. She wasn't the only person of note, nor even the only lady, to use that partcular sanctuary by any means. York's chamberlain Sir William Oldhall had taken refuge there in the 1450s. In 1472 the Countess of Oxford (Margaret Neville) was there, and she'd probably been there ever since Barnet. Also, a few years later one of the side chapels in St Martin's was chosen as the venue for the hasty marriage of a young ward who'd suddenly become an heiress as the result of her brother's unexpected death, her guardian fearing that the girl's stepfather, who'd previously seized her brother, would do the same with her. So I think tales of its naughtiness have been exaggerated.
It depends who Anne trusted, doesn't it? A lot of folk connected with her and Richard would have been just as closely connected with George and Isabel. Perhaps someone like Richard's attorney, Morgan Kidwelly, who seems to have been based in London, would have been a good option if she knew where he lived.

On Tuesday, June 13, 2017, 1:25 pm, cherryripe.eileenb@... [] <> wrote:

Oh I haven't got that one..I'll take your word for it HIlary....

I wouldn't buy it. Borrow it if you can or get it really cheap. As Paul would say too many saints H


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On Tuesday, June 13, 2017, 1:25 pm, cherryripe.eileenb@... [] <> wrote:

Oh I haven't got that one..I'll take your word for it HIlary....

    Romanenemo wrote: What is that story about the Countess of Oxford ? I gogled 'Countess of Oxford Richard III' and I the fist page that was displayed was this one :http://www.susanhigginbotham. com/subpages/richardiii.html.  I can't believe that. I suppose it's based upon Tudor sources. I remember now that there was something in Horspool about Richard having taken the elderly Countess' lands in exchange for a meagre allowance. Kendall doesn't talk about that episode at all. What is the real story ?   Doug here: The non-Higginbotham sources I located via Google, have Edward IV taking the Countess' lands, giving some of them to Richard, and even taking some back from Richard. One article here: http://www.richardiii.net/ downloads/Ricardian/2005_ vol15_ross_richard_de_vere.pdf suggests that many of the problems concerning the Countess' estates may have been due to using out-of-date documents. As my life is too short to waste it on reading anything by Higginbotham, I can't refute any of her claims, but only say that Countess' husband and eldest son were executed for treason by Edward IV, thus potentially placing all of their property at the king's disposal. Problems seemed to have developed when it came to determining exactly which properties were the Countess' in her own right with, apparently, Edward, where in doubt, deciding in his own favor. Doug  
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From what I have read her son was actively engaged in treason and she was funding him. Richard exerted considerable pressure on her , including threatening to keep her confined at Middleham.     
On Jun 13, 2017 8:17 AM, "'Doug Stamate' destama@... []" <@ yahoogroups.com> wrote:
 

There is a much more sensible article about this situation written by Anne F Sutton "Richard of Gloucester's Lands in East Anglia," in Richard III and East Anglia: Magnates, Gilds and Learned Men. I believe I have seen the book (proceedings of one of the Richard III Society's triennial conferences, in 2005) available in a digital format online.

As Doug hints at, negotiations were complicated, and took years because the Countess's estates were already heavily committed. Edward IV may not have realized that fact at the time he granted the lands to Richard.

Sutton also supposes that the Countess well knew that if she were to reclaim her lands, she must make it clear that she was under coercion - hence the demonstrations of tears & the claim of being afraid of being forced to travel north at her age.

Also it's worth remembering that the dramatic story as relayed by the likes of Hicks & Higginbotham wasn't recorded until 1495. By then both principals were long dead, the event itself was 20 years in the past and the testimony therefore based on old memories.

A J

On Tue, Jun 13, 2017 at 7:50 AM, Karen O karenoder4@... [] <> wrote:

From what I have read her son was actively engaged in treason and she was funding him. Richard exerted considerable pressure on her , including threatening to keep her confined at Middleham.
On Jun 13, 2017 8:17 AM, "'Doug Stamate' destama@... []" <@ yahoogroups.com> wrote:

Well firstly Higginbotham hates Richard with a vengeance.  You may know this already.

Romane wrote:

From all what I've read already, I'm a bit surprised at Edward's behavior. In all that affair, he did support Richard, but not as assiduously as it would have seemed fit, considering all what Richard had just been through in order to put him back on the throne, and especially his important role at Tewkesbury. Whereas Clarence was a turncoat, who had only deserted Warwick because there hadn't been anything for him at his side anymore.

Re the Countess of Oxford, I believe it may not have been Richard's finest hour, but discussion of this subject has suffered from the fact that it was Michael Hicks who first drew attention to it. It's actually clear from the depositions that #Richard arrested the Countess on the King's orders. It's also clear from the same that she was in communication with her son, who was planning to invade England. As I alluded to in previous post, traitors' womenfolk were normally controlled in some way. Being placed under house arrest with a minder was normal. The Countess seems to have been in the Tower before, in the 1460s. She was summoned to appear before the royal council not long after her run-in with Richard as well, though we don't have the records of the event.

My take on it is that Richard was tasked with placing her in a more secure setting than the nunnery where she was then living, and preventing her using her income to help finance her son's treason. It was only her advanced age that made this difficult. By limiting her spending power, Richard made it possible to leave her where she was. Incidentally, Horspool may be forgetting that Richard had agreed, for his part, to honour certain charges on the Countess's estates (annuities, etc) and support her son Richard at Cambridge. Hicks says Richard didn't support Richard de Vere, but Hicks is maybe unaware that Richard de Vere actually ran off to join his brother the Earl. My hunch is that Richard's gift of one of these manors, Fowlmere, to Queens' College, Cambridge, may have been in part a way of honouring a promise to the Countess, who was by then dead. Her main officer, Piers Baxter, had been a Queens' man, and the prayers that were to be funded with the income from Fowlmere included prayers for the old countess of Oxford and her executed husband.

Perhaps, as I've suggested before on this forum, the Katherine Haute to whom Richard paid an annuity out of these lands was a former servant of the Countess of Oxford, and this is another of the charges Richard picked up.

But yes, there's no getting round it, Richard did benefit financially from the arrangement, although King Edward had probably planned to grant the lands to him anyway when the Countess died.

How would Richard have found her you ask? Spies everywhere, though not yet as sophisticated as during Elizabeth Tudors time, but in existence. Paul

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Le 13 juin 2017 à 21:53, justcarol67@... [] <@ yahoogroups.com> a écrit :

 

The thing about the cookshop idea is how could a nobly born girl, recently Princess of Wales, be expected to work in a kitchen and not be completely a 'sore thumb' person. What would she know about scrubbing, cleaning, cooking etc. Clarence would have done better to put her in a nunnery or in a remote property somewhere out of London.
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How would Richard have found her you ask? Spies everywhere, though not yet as sophisticated as during Elizabeth Tudors time, but in existence.
Paul
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Le 13 juin 2017 à 21:53, justcarol67@yahoo.com [] <@yahoogroups.com> a écrit :






romanenero wrote:
"I agree that as Paul said in another discussion, the story of the cookshop is so fantastic that it must be true, but maybe it's her who took shelter there in disguise. It's the version of the story Sharon Penman chose, and it seems more plausible. If it is what happened, it means that Clarence must have made life intolerable for her, or even threatened her. And it means also that far from being the meek creature she's often turned into, she was as courageous and strong-willed as her future husband."
Carol responds:
It also explains how Richard found her, which would have been nearly impossible if George had hidden her. How would he possibly know to search a cook shop or tavern? Once he discovered that she was missing, he would probably have thought that George had forced her into a nunnery or hidden her abroad. He would never have found her in a cook shop unless she contacted him, which would have been much easier if she had hidden herself than if George's minions were watching her every move. Hope this makes sense.
Carol

Pamela wrote:
"The thing about the cookshop idea is how could a nobly born girl, recently
Princess of Wales, be expected to work in a kitchen and not be completely a
'sore thumb' person. What would she know about scrubbing, cleaning, cooking
etc. Clarence would have done better to put her in a nunnery or in a remote
property somewhere out of London."

Doug here:
Scrubbing pots and pans is fairly easy task to learn, after all.
FWIW, I tend not to believe that it was Clarence who hid her, but rather
that Anne hid herself. She'd only need to remain hidden until a messenger
got to Richard and he could escort her to sanctuary. There is the question
of why she didn't seek sanctuary on her own. Possibly that was because she
realized Clarence would search there first?
Doug

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Pamela wrote:
"The thing about the cookshop idea is how could a nobly born girl, recently
Princess of Wales, be expected to work in a kitchen and not be completely a
'sore thumb' person. What would she know about scrubbing, cleaning, cooking
etc. Clarence would have done better to put her in a nunnery or in a remote
property somewhere out of London."

Doug here:
Scrubbing pots and pans is fairly easy task to learn, after all.
FWIW, I tend not to believe that it was Clarence who hid her, but rather
that Anne hid herself. She'd only need to remain hidden until a messenger
got to Richard and he could escort her to sanctuary. There is the question
of why she didn't seek sanctuary on her own. Possibly that was because she
realized Clarence would search there first?
Doug

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