The Last Days of Richard III and the Fate of His DNA (31 page)

12
. TNA, Warrants for Issues E404/78/3/47, 22 March 1485, cited in B. Williams, ‘Rui de Sousa's embassy and the fate of Richard, Duke of York', Ric. 5, pp. 341–45, n. 20.

13
. My italics.
Poderá casar com a Ifante Dona Isabel de Castella e fazer su ligua com os Reys della e ficaros por imigo e contrajro:
Salgado,
Álvaro Lopes de Chaves
, p. 255; also quoted in Gomes dos Santos,
O Mosteiro de Jesus de Aveiro
, vol. 1, p. 92.

14
. 
poderlheam os Reis de Castella dar soa filha major por molher
: Salgado,
Álvaro Lopes de Chaves
, p. 255; Gomes dos Santos,
O Mosteiro de Jesus de Aveiro
, vol. 1, p. 92. Although the Portuguese account refers to Isabel as ‘of Castile' (which she was, on her mother's side), it would be more usual to refer to her as ‘of Aragon', acknowledging her father's title. It is possible that records of Richard's enquiries regarding a possible marriage with the Infanta Isabel survive in Spanish archives, but if so they have not yet surfaced.

15
. 
a El Rej de Ingraterra convem de casar loguo:
Salgado,
Álvaro Lopes de Chaves
, p. 255; Gomes dos Santos,
O Mosteiro de Jesus de Aveiro
, vol. 1, p. 92.

16
. 
casamento da filha del Rej Duarte de Inglaterra … com o duque de Beja Dom Manuel … o qual casamento antes fora a el Rej apontado por Duarte Brandão sendo uindo por embaixador del Rej Richarte jrmão do ditto Rej Duarte a jurar as ligas e commeter
casamento com a Iffante Dona Joana: A. Mestrinho Salgado and Salgado,
Álvaro Lopes de Chaves
, as cited in A.S. Marques ‘Álvaro Lopes de Cheves [sic]: A Portuguese Source',
Ricardian Bulletin
, Autumn 2008, pp. 25–27. For a discussion of this second aspect of the Portuguese marriage proposal, see below.

17
. Lopes de Chaves, cited in Gomes dos Santos,
O Mosteiro
, p. 95.

18
. B. Williams, ‘The Portuguese Connection and the Significance of “the Holy Princess”',
Ric.
6 (1983), pp. 138–45 (pp. 141–42).

19
. I am grateful to Lynda Pidgeon for her comments on the inheritance of the Scales title. This ultimately fell into abeyance between the heirs of the two daughters of Robert, 3rd Lord Scales:
Complete Peerage
, vol. 11
,
London, 1949, p. 507.

20
. King John II of Portugal, ‘in his letter sent from Santarém (transcribed by Lopes) makes it clear that even at the time of Edward Woodville's first stop in Lisbon, Henry was already married to Elizabeth and reigning over England': personal communication from Antonio Marques, January 2009.

21
. See below: chapter 8.

22
. Isabel of Aragón was born on 2 October 1470. She was heiress presumptive to the thrones of Castile and Aragon until the birth of her only brother Juan, in 1478, and again, briefly, from Juan's death in 1497 until her own demise the following year. She ultimately married first Alfonso of Portugal, son and heir of John II, and later John's cousin, Manuel I (formerly Duke of Beja).

23
. Lopes de Chaves, cited in Gomes dos Santos,
O Mosteiro
, p. 95. By comparison, Edward IV's negotiations for his daughters' marriages with France and Scotland were very specific. Edward named Cecily as the bride for James III's son and specified arrangements for a replacement should Cecily die. The Treaty of Picquigny stipulated that Elizabeth was to marry the Dauphin, and if she should die Mary was to take her place.

24
. In the Iberian peninsular the title ‘the Infanta'
tout court
was generally applied to the
eldest
daughter of a sovereign, and it meant roughly ‘the [royal] daughter'. Younger daughters of a monarch, on the other hand, were designated as ‘the Infanta [+ first name]'.

25
. Their second daughter, Mary, had died in 1482, aged fifteen; their third son, George, died in 1479 at the age of two, and it is possible that their eldest son, ‘Edward V', had by this time also succumbed to death by natural causes.

26
. ‘To the archbishop of Canterbury, mandate. The tenor of the petition presented to the pope of Manuel, Duke of Beja and Viseu
[Begie et Visen' Ducis]
, and Anne Plantagenet, daughter of the late Edward, king of England, was that for certain reasonable causes they desire to be joined together in marriage, but that since they are related in the fourth and fourth degrees of consanguinity, they cannot do so without apostolic dispensation. Manuel is also, as is alleged, administrator, deputed by the apostolic see, of the military order of Jesus Christ. At their supplication, and since, as is also alleged, Anne has no fixed dwelling place but follows the court of Henry, king of England, the pope hereby commissions and orders the above archbishop to dispense them – if the foregoing is true and if Anne shall not have been ravished on this account – freely to contract marriage together and to remain therein after it has been contracted, notwithstanding the said impediments, declaring the offspring of this marriage legitimate':
Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers relating to Great Britain and Ireland
, Vol XV 1484–92, no 631, cited by M. Barnfield, ‘Diriment Impediments, Dispensations and Divorce: Richard III and Matrimony',
Ric.
17, pp. 84–98 (p. 98, n. 45).

27
. It may even be that, initially, Henry tried to adopt Richard III's entire marriage package, with himself as Infanta Joana's substitute bridegroom. On this basis Elizabeth of York would still have married Dom Manuel. It is noteworthy that Henry did not, in fact, immediately contract a marriage with Elizabeth of York. However, Joana's matrimonial record, together with the story of her prophetic dream (see below, chapter 8) suggest she would have been unlikely to accept Richard's supplanter as an alternative spouse. Subsequently (perhaps because of Joana's reluctance), Henry therefore revised his plans, marrying Elizabeth of York himself. Nevertheless, the projected marriage with the Duke of Beja was not abandoned, and ultimately Anne of York took her elder sister's place as the proposed bride. This revised marriage project was also later abandoned, when Dom Manuel became heir presumptive to the Portuguese throne on the death of his first cousin once removed, the Infante Dom Alfonso. At that point Manuel married Alfonso's widow, Isabel of Aragón (who, intriguingly, had been the second string to Richard III's matrimonial bow in the spring of 1485).

28
. Harl. 433, f. 308v; vol. 3, p. 190.

29
. This marriage was annulled by Henry VII soon after his accession, and although he subsequently married Cecily to Lord Welles, Cecily was actually available in 1486, at the time when her uncle, the self-styled ‘Count Scales', was talking to the King of Portugal. For references to Cecily's Scrope marriage, see: Ellis/Vergil, p. 215; P. Sheppard Routh, ‘“Lady Scroop Daughter of K. Edward”: an Enquiry',
Ric.
9 (1991–93), pp. 410–16 (pp. 412, 416, n. 12); and J. Laynesmith,
The Last Medieval Queens
, Oxford, 2004, p. 199.

30
. 
R3MK
, p. 257, quoting Kincaid's edition of Buck's reported text of Elizabeth of York's letter. Also Myers/Buck, p. 128. This letter apparently remained amongst the Howard family papers until at least the early seventeenth century, but is now lost.

31
. Myers/Buck, p. 128.

32
. 
Crowland
, pp. 174–75.

33
. 
Ibid.
, pp. 176–77.

34
. 
R3MK
, pp. 262, 264.

35
. See, for example, Myers/Buck, p. 44.

36
. It is possible that later in the year, and on the eve of battle, Richard may have made some statement about the succession (see below, chapter 7).

37
. R. Horrox, ‘John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln',
ODNB.

38
. 
Ibid.

39
.  R. Horrox,
British Library Harleian Manuscript 433
, vol. 4, London, 1983, p. 66.

40
. Horrox, ‘John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln',
ODNB.

41
. C. Carpenter, ‘Edward, called Earl of Warwick',
ODNB.
Carpenter also refers to Warwick as potentially Richard III's ‘heir apparent'. This is also an error. Warwick could only possibly have been regarded as an heir
presumptive.

42
. Confirmed by the York city register, 13 May 1485, ‘
when it was determyned that a letter should be consaved to be direct to the lordes of Warwik and Lincoln and othre of the counsail at Sheriff Hoton ffrome the maire and his bretherne':
L.C. Attreed, ed.,
York House Books 1461–1490
, vol. 1, Stroud, 1991, p. 361.

3. ‘Tapettes of Verdoures with Crownes and Rooses'

  
1
. Nicolas, p. 144.

  
2
. E. Power, ed.,
The Goodman of Paris (Le Ménagier de Paris) a Treatise on Moral and Domestic Economy by a Citizen of Paris c. 1393
, London, 1928 (1992), pp. 35–37.

  
3
. J. Ashdown-Hill, ‘Queen Elizabeth Woodville and the
Angelus', Ric.
10 (1994–96), pp. 326–27.

  
4
. Power, ed.,
The Goodman of Paris
, pp. 39–41. The
Gloria
is not said or sung at ordinary weekday masses. Its inclusion in the list indicates that a Sunday or feast day mass is being described. However, at this period, more feast days would have been celebrated than is the norm in the modern ecclesiastical calendar. In the modern mass rite only very major feasts still have a ‘sequence' said or sung before the
Alleluia.

  
5
. Power, ed.,
The Goodman of Paris
, p. 41, present writer's emphasis.

  
6
. See Sutton & Visser-Fuchs, ‘The Hours of Richard III'.

  
7
. 
Beloved Cousyn
, chapter 7.

  
8
. 
http://www.godecookery.com/how2cook/howto05.htm
(consulted December 2008).

  
9
. 
http://www.godecookery.com/how2cook/howto05.htm
(consulted December 2008).

10
. P. W. Hammond,
Food & Feast in Medieval England
, Stroud, 1993, p. 105.

11
. A reduced pre-Communion fast of one hour is stipulated for Catholics, even today.

12
. 
www.probertencyclopaedia.com/cgi-bin/res.pl?keyword=Fifteenth&offset=0
(consulted December 2008).

13
. 
http://www.godecookery.com/how2cook/howto05.htm
(consulted December 2008).

14
. T. Scully,
The Art of Cookery in the Middle Ages
, Woodbridge, 1995, pp. 119–120.

15
. Soc. Ant., MS 77, f. 26r;
HHB
, part 2, p. 327.

16
. Power, ed.,
The Goodman of Paris
, pp. 148–55.

17
. The final course of the ‘Goodman's' dinner menu 1 comprises pears, comfits, medlars, nuts, hippocras and wafers, and his second dinner menu also ends with a sweet course. However, menu 23 (a fish dinner)
begins
with fruit (cooked apples and ripe figs) and ends with porpoise, mackerel, oysters and cuttle fish. His twenty-two other sample menus have courses which, to modern eyes, do not noticeably differ from one another. In general terms there was no medieval concept of a fish course, a meat course or a sweet course.

18
. Quoted in D. Hartley and M.M. Elliot,
Life and Work of the People of England – the Fifteenth Century
, London, 1925, p. 17.

19
. L. and J. Laing,
Medieval Britain, the Age of Chivalry
, London, 1996, p. 180.

20
. See, for example, M. Black,
The Medieval Cookbook
, London, 1992.

21
. 
Eleanor
, p. 15.

22
. Laing,
Medieval Britain
, p. 181.

23
. 
Ibid.

24
. 
Ibid.
, pp. 182–83.

25
. The eldest, Anne, Duchess of Exeter, had died in 1476.

26
. Certainly during Richard's reign, envoys to the Habsburg court regularly passed through England (see below).

27
. Richard III had been eight years old when his father was killed.

28
. 
Beloved Cousyn
, pp. 25–26 and figure 11.

29
. 
Itinerary.

30
. Nicolas, p. 123: ‘Reparacion off the Kinges Carre'.

31
. For example, one possibility might be that the king used a carriage in order to attend funerals at which he was not officially present.

32
. A.F. Sutton & P.W. Hammond, eds,
The Coronation of Richard III, the extant documents
, Gloucester, 1983, p. 47.

33
. Sutton & Hammond,
Coronation
, p. 68.

34
. A. Prockter and R. Taylor,
The A to Z of Elizabethan London
, London, 1979, p. 21 (map reference K5).

35
. 
www.maney.co.uk/files/misc/HenryChapter3.pdf
(consulted January 2009). In September 1485 Curteys was reappointed by Henry VII.

36
. Nicolas, p. 132. For evidence of the use of tapestry by John Howard (Duke of Norfolk), see Θ.

37
. Nicolas, p. 140. ‘Paled' means arranged ‘
per pale
' (see below note 38).

38
. This is a heraldic term, meaning in two broad stripes, set side by side.

39
. Nicolas, pp. 132–33, repeated pp. 143–44.

40
. The former London home of Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, and subsequently of his son-in-law, the Duke of Clarence, on the site of the present Canon Street Station.

41
. Nicolas, pp. 140–42.