Most people have met an Old Etonian ... an alumnus of a large school near Slough. What they will probably remember from that encounter is being addressed upon an important subject: the importance of the canonisation of the Founder of that school, King Henry VI.
Far more select is the number of those aware of King Henry's only son, Edward, Prince of Wales.
On May 4, 1471, a battle decisive in English dynastic history: at Tewkesbury. It sticks in the memory because the conflict eventually burst into the Abbey Church, where the slaughter was only eventually ended when the Abbot took a Procession the the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar down to where the killing was happening.
Among those who died in those bloodied hours was the last heir of the the Lancastrian family, the seventeen year-old Prince Edward. He was buried, and still is, in that Abbey; the place of his burial is now marked by a Victorian brass tablet.
And there are two pieces of evidence of an incipient cultus in that place, to 'Prince Edward'.
But how could that be, since the family, and its ambitions, had been extinguished?
Remember that, after the Battle of Bosworth, England found itself with another King Henry. He was not descended from Henry VI, but ... if you browse through the Court Poetry of the first two Tudors ... you will find references to the earlier King Henry. Just as you will find heraldic allusions among those who were the Rising Men in the new regime, indicating their proud new allegiance.
Hence the episode I mentioned, a few days ago, when Elizabeth of York, anxious for the life of her son Arthur, sent one of her chaplains on a tour of England, making contributions (of varying degrees of generosity) to a large number of shrines. Among thesewere that of King Henry VI at Windsor, and Prince Edward at Tewkesbury. (In fact, Prince Edward got twice as much as his father.)
The Yorkist regime which was holding King Henry prisoner had no reason to kill him while he had a young, free, and militarily active son. But after the death of Prince Edward ... well, on (perhaps) May 21, Henry mysteriously died.
11 comments:
Contemporary accounts of Prince Edward by foreign ambassadors portray him as a wild, cruel and arrogant young man. His violent end seems hardly surprising as his one love was said to have been fighting, and his habitual talk of wanting to kill others in brutal ways. He was a teenager living in brutal times, of course, and these accounts may be politically motivated, but did his cultus arise just from association with his undoubtedly pious father?
The children of Edward IV were the most senior legitimate lineal (Clarence-York) claimants at that point, while the senior legitimate lineal Lancastrian claimants were in Iberia.
We know relatively little about Prince Edward as an individual. The references to him testing himself as a soldier befits both an exile and as the grandson of Henry V. This would also explain no doubt his determination to be revenged on the Yorkist usurpers. He appears to have been well educated by Sir John Fortescue and had George Ashby’s poem of advice ( if he chose to read it). As an exile in France ( with a French mother ) and aged ten or eleven he wrote to the Earl of Ormond in English in his own hand so that "ye mey se how gode a wrytare I ame". That is his fifteenth century spelling, not bad spelling.
Over a hundred years after his death Shakespeare shows him as an honourable loyal son who is ruthlessly slain. That was probably the reason why his half-cousin Henry VII and his wife might well have sought his intercession. Similarly the Duke of Buckingham and the Princess Mary in the earlier years of Henry VIII’s reign. It was perhaps analogous to the regard paid after WWI to the young men who had perished in that war.
We know little about the personality of Prince Edward. That he is recorded as seeking to restore his branch of the royal family to the throne and that he was forceful in expressing that wish accords with his status as heir of Henry VI, his age, and with being Henry V’s grandson. He appears to have been well educated by Sir John Fortescue, and may well have followed the advice given I in his poem dedicated to Edward by George Ashby.
His characterisation by Shakespeare over a century after his death as a noble youth callously murdered by the three brothers of York may well reflect the post 1485, if not post 1471, view of him. An image as innocent victim would appeal to medieval sensibilities and as Henry VII’s half-cousin a suitable person to intercede for Prince Arthur.
In the following years there is evidence for pilgrimage visits to Tewkesbury by Edward Duke of Buckingham and by Princess Mary on her way to Ludlow. He may have inspired a devotion rather like that to the memory of Louis XVII or the Tsarevich Alexis.
Apologies for sending two variant texts about Prince Edward. The Q that underlies them is in my mind.
With regard to the legitimacy of claims I would argue that it was not until the seventeenth century that one could think of the York-Clarence line being the senior legitimate line. It was not clear before then about female transmission or female inheritance of the throne. In 1399, 1460, 1483, 1544, 1689 and 1701 Parliament ( or something very similar ) amended the succession. Parliament was not consulted until after the event in 1485, 1553 and 1603. Lineal succession might be the theory, but practice got in the way.
The senior Lancastrian line was indeed with the Portuguese and then the Castilian dynasties. Interestingly Isabella of Portugal, granddaughter of John of Gaunt and Dowager Duchess of Burgundy made a notarial claim to the English and Irish thrones in 1471 upon hearing of the death of Henry VI. She subsequently transferred her claim to her only son, Charles the Bold. The Lancastrian heir to the throne today would appear in all likelihood to be the present King of Spain.
Henricus Sixtus Rex, ora pro nobis!
By the way, I lead a small Anglican house of study and prayer here in South Texas -- Henry VI House.
Dear Mark,
Are you interested in trying to revive the Cause of Henry VI? If so contact me offline and we could have a chat.
John
"With regard to the legitimacy of claims I would argue that it was not until the seventeenth century that one could think of the York-Clarence line being the senior legitimate line."
Except for the fact that Edward III and his successors prosecuted the Hundred Years' War precisely on the non-Salic foundation that females transmitted senior lineal claims to succession.
Medieval rulers - like modern politicians - were not bound by consistency. Edward III appears to have favoured a male only succession in his un-enrolled patent placing the Lancastrian line after that of Edward Prince of Wales, and instead of the Clarence-Mortimer line. The ‘Salic Law’ as such was something that did not definitively emerge in France until the 1390s, long after its effective principle of male only inheritance in France itself was applied in 1316,1322 and 1328. What was applied in theory or practice in one realm did not necessarily apply in the other.
Fr Hunwicke’s statement that Henry VII was not descended from Henry VI, reminded me of the bizarre fact which has recently come to my attention that on Henry Tudor’s arrival in France the government of Charles VIII endorsed his claim to the English throne on the grounds that he was indeed the son of Henry VI. I had not come across this until I read Michael Jones’s “Bosworth” and he doesn’t give a source. Now I have come across it again in Chris Skidmore’s “Bosworth: The Birth of the Tudors” which quotes a letter of Charles VIII of 4th November 1484 calling Henry “fils de fue roy Henry d’Anglettere”. Since Charles and his ministers knew all too well who Henry really was, this admirably demonstrates their perfidy. Henry did not object to the falsehood and seems to have started signing letters “H” or “HR” after this, so perhaps we are fortunate that he later satisfied himself with dating his reign only from the day before the battle of Bosworth.
Incidentally, Prince Edward seems to have stood godfather to the young Charles VIII on June 30 1470.
Graham Hutton
Fr Hunwicke’s statement that Henry VII was not descended from Henry VI, reminded me of the bizarre fact which has recently come to my attention that on Henry Tudor’s arrival in France the government of Charles VIII endorsed his claim to the English throne on the grounds that he was indeed the son of Henry VI. I had not come across this until I read Michael Jones’s “Bosworth” and he doesn’t give a source. Now I have come across it again in Chris Skidmore’s “Bosworth: The Birth of the Tudors” which quotes a letter of Charles VIII of 4th November 1484 calling Henry “fils de fue roy Henry d’Anglettere”. Since Charles and his ministers knew all too well who Henry really was, this admirably demonstrates their perfidy. Henry did not object to the falsehood and seems to have started signing letters “H” or “HR” after this, so perhaps we are fortunate that he later satisfied himself with dating his reign only from the day before the battle of Bosworth.
Incidentally, Prince Edward seems to have stood godfather to the young Charles VIII on June 30 1470.
Post a Comment