Castles, Customs, and Kings: True Tales by English Historical Fiction Authors (20 page)

Richard II and His Doubles

by Brian Wainwright

T
he
“official” version of Richard II’s death is straightforward. After his deposition in the autumn of 1399 in favour of his cousin Bolingbroke (Henry IV) he was imprisoned in Pontefract Castle. Following a rebellion of his supporters against his successor in early January 1400, he was starved to death. The date of death is usually given as 14 February 1400.

His body was subsequently taken by stages to London, being publicly exhibited (as was the tradition for deposed, dead kings in England), culminating in a final display in St. Paul’s Cathedral prior to a relatively obscure burial at King’s Langley, Hertfordshire. However, rumours persisted that he was still alive, and the promise of his return was often, if not invariably, attached to the various conspiracies of Henry IV’s reign.

Although Richard’s body was put on display, only part of his face was actually visible and he was presented on a high catafalque. This may have led to some suspicion that his corpse had been substituted as it would have been impossible for anyone to study the King’s features with any degree of thoroughness.

Richard II had a known “double”—his clerk, Richard Maudelyn, supposedly the son of no less a person than Hawise Maudelyn, sometime waiting woman to Katherine Roet-Swynford, mistress and later third wife of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, the eldest of Richard’s surviving uncles and father of Henry Bolingbroke. The family resemblance suggests that Richard Maudelyn’s father may well have been John of Gaunt or one of the other royal uncles, and it is reasonable to assume that Maudelyn was at least a cousin to Richard II and maybe rather closer in blood to Henry IV.

Maudelyn was used by the January 1400 conspirators to impersonate Richard II in the hope of drawing out support. This suggests the resemblance was at least strong enough to deceive country gentlemen and the like, if not people who knew Richard really well.

Maudelyn was captured and executed by the usual means of hanging, drawing, and quartering. It seems unlikely his body could have been used as a substitute for Richard’s unless this was decided upon immediately and his remains embalmed. One might expect the bones of Maudelyn to be severely damaged by his violent execution, but when Richard II’s (presumed) remains were examined in the 19th Century no such evidence was found. It seems certain that whoever was buried in the official tomb, it could not have been Maudelyn.

The “Scottish Richard II” was found wandering about on the island of Islay, of all places. He was “recognized” by a woman who claimed she had seen the King while visiting Ireland the previous year and, following this incident, was conveyed to the Scottish Court, where he was treated as an honoured guest for the rest of his life.

Islay is a small and relatively remote island off the west coast of Scotland, nowadays best known for the production of the incomparable
Laphroaig
whisky. Assuming Richard escaped from Pontefract, is it likely that he would make his way to such an obscure place? Surprisingly, the answer is—yes, he might.

Richard saw himself primarily as emperor of the British Isles, and his complex diplomacy in the 1390s had as one of its principal objectives the detachment of Scotland from the Franco-Scottish alliance and its subordination to England. This proved impossible because of the attitude of the French, and the Scots were included in the 28-year truce concluded in the autumn of 1396.

However, as part of his diplomacy, Richard had secured an alliance with the semi-independent Lord of the Isles, valuable in strategic terms for both his Scottish and Irish pretensions. (Since the Lord of the Isles came close to breaking the Scottish Crown’s forces at Harlaw, 1411, it seems likely that the combination of his forces with those of England would have been formidable in this context.)

Therefore, Richard had some reason to expect help in the Western Isles. That the supposed imposter should turn up on Islay may well be significant.

The Grey Friars in England were persistent in spreading the rumour that Richard II was alive, and several were executed for their trouble. Several nobles received letters from “Richard II” bearing one of his authentic seals, which had somehow found its way to Scotland.

In 1403 the Percys—in effective alliance with the Scots—rose in rebellion against King Henry and promised the men of Cheshire that Richard would appear at their rendezvous at Sandiway, Cheshire. Needless to say, he did not, and the Percys were defeated, but the rumours of his survival went on.

Bolingbroke claimed that the “Scottish Richard II” was one Thomas Warde of Trumpington, Cambridgeshire, and continued to execute those foolish enough to spread the word that Richard was alive. (It is not explained how Thomas Warde came to be on Islay.)

As late as 1415, the Southampton Conspirators were still talking of bringing back “Richard II” from Scotland while in December 1417 Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham, refused to recognise the authority of his judges
“so long as his liege lord King Richard was alive in Scotland.”
It may be that one of the motives for Henry V’s reburial of the official corpse of Richard II at Westminster was a desire to squash the belief that his father’s predecessor on the throne was still living.

Thomas Warde was a real person. His few acres of land in Trumpington were forfeited in 1408. However, the evidence to prove he was the same individual as the “Scottish Richard II” no longer exists, supposing that it ever did.

It appears the man responsible for many, if not all, of the rumours of Richard II’s survival was William Serle who had been a minor member of Richard’s household. When captured, he admitted he had stolen Richard’s seal at Flint (where the King had fallen into Bolingbroke’s hands) and forged a number of letters. Of course, it should be borne in mind this admission may well have been extracted by torture and is not necessarily reliable. Bolingbroke was sometimes generous to high-born traitors, but for those of lower birth he had no mercy at all. Serle was half-hanged in a number of towns before his ultimate execution.

When the “Scottish Richard II” died at Stirling in 1419, he was buried with full honours close to the High Altar of the Blackfriars. Whether he was the “real Richard” we shall probably never know, but it remains a fascinating possibility.

An All-Consuming Passion: The Love Affair that Changed the Course of English His
tory

by Anne O’Brien

Owen Tudor and Katherine de Valois

He was a servant. She was the Queen-Dowager of England. He was a dispossessed Welshman. She had royal Valois blood in her veins and was the widow of England’s glorious hero of Agincourt, King Henry V. She was the King’s Mother; he was the Keeper of the Queen’s Wardrobe.

Such a liaison would be unthinkable, and yet they fell victim to a passionate romance.

A Windsor Romance

It all happened at Windsor since Katherine was bound by law to live in her son’s household after her politically disastrous near-marriage to Edmund Beaufort. She was considered to be a woman “
unable fully to curb her carnal passions
” and so she must live a carefully controlled life.

So how did Katherine and Owen manage to fall in love? The record of the occasion of the romance has been described as “
a pot pourri of myth, romanticism, tradition and anti-Tudor propaganda
.” It is certainly a gift to writers of historical fiction—although it brings its own problems.

A Mixed Bag of Historical Tradition

One strong tradition, written in a poem in 1361 at the time of Owen’s death, was that he first caught Katherine’s attention when he over-balanced and fell into her lap at a Court ball. Too much alcohol? Or clumsy dancing? Impossible to tell.

A mid-16th century chronicler tells a quite different story. Katherine saw Owen and his friends swimming in the river on a summer’s day. Overcome by his sheer masculinity, Katherine changed garments with her maid and arranged to meet Owen in disguise. He was too ardent, she struggled and, escaping his embrace, received a wound to her cheek.

Serving her at supper that night, Owen saw the bruise and realised who the “maidservant” had been. Ashamed, he begged her forgiveness. Katherine forgave him readily, they professed their love and were duly married.

Sadly, there is no historical proof for either version. But what vivid scenes these sources paint for us. The difficulty for a novelist is of course producing something half-way realistic. If Owen was Katherine’s personal servant, how could he not recognise her face, her voice, even in disguise? Unless she was mute and they met in a dark cupboard, it would seem impossible. As for the drunken mishap...it makes writing a credible version highly entertaining.

A Private Marriage

Whatever the truth of their meeting, their love was strong enough to encourage the unlikely pair to flout the law of the land. Katherine was forbidden to marry without the permission of the King who was not yet ten years old. Any man foolish enough to wed her without permission would find all his lands and possessions declared forfeit. Here Katherine was fortunate for Owen had no assets to lose. Penal statutes against the Welsh after Owen Glendywr’s rising in the reign of Henry IV dispossessed many, as well as prohibiting them from carrying arms, meeting in gatherings, owning land east of the ancient border of Offa’s Dyke, and holding government office. When Owen married Katherine, he had nothing to forfeit.

The clandestine affair was no secret at Court—Katherine had no compunction in taking the law into her own hands and challenging the Council to do its worst. She would be wed and be damned to them! Perhaps this suggests that Katherine was not the mindless beauty that she has sometimes been described as, but a woman of considerable audacity and courage. The marriage was conducted privately, and the happy couple left Windsor to live out the years of their marriage quietly in Katherine’s dower properties.

A Right Royal Revenge

It was obviously not a popular marriage but Owen was untouchable during Katherine’s lifetime. If the Royal Council took action against them, it would simply create a scandal around the Queen-Dowager which they were keen to avoid. Owen was actually given letters of denizenship to allow him English rights before the law. But Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, uncle to the young king and brother to Henry V, never forgave Owen for his presumption in marrying the Queen and simply bided his time.

As soon as Katherine was dead in 1431, Gloucester set out for revenge. It became a cat and mouse story, Gloucester intent on punishment, Owen equally intent on proclaiming his innocence. Gloucester summoned Owen to London to appear before the Royal Council under a safe conduct. Wisely, Owen sought sanctuary at Westminster. Although no action could be taken against him, for there was no evidence of any guilt of any crime, Owen was arrested and incarcerated in Newgate prison.

Managing to escape, he was recaptured and returned to Newgate before being transferred to Windsor in 1438 where he was kept under lock and key for at least a year before finally receiving a pardon for all offences. Gloucester had been thwarted.

Owen might have remained reconciled with the Lancastrian court but the Wars of the Roses put him once again in danger. After the battle of Mortimer’s Cross, where his son Jasper’s Lancastrian army was defeated by Edward, Earl of March, Owen was taken prisoner by the Yorkists.

The End of Owen Tudor

Owen was beheaded in Hereford. His head was placed on the base of the market cross in the High Street, where it is said that “a madde woman” combed his hair and washed away the blood from his face, and then set 100 candles about his head.

Owen, because of his royal connections, did not expect to die. When he realised that this would be his fate, moments before his execution he is recorded as saying
“that head shall lye on the stock that was wont to lye on Queen Katherine’s lap.”

A sad end. A stone marks the place of Owen’s execution in Hereford High Street. It is hardly remarkable, and most shoppers walk over it without noticing that it is there.

Owen’s body was taken to be buried in the chapel of the Greyfriars Church in Hereford. Unfortunately, Greyfriars suffered badly at the Dissolution, the building was demolished, and the land sold off for other purposes. There is no lasting trace of Owen Tudor today. The only record of the site of the Greyfriars is the name of the modern bridge over the River Wye and the blue plaque on the site of the old gate.

In the early 20th century, excavations were made where the church would have been, which discovered three skeletons, one of them a man of six feet three inches tall, but there was no evidence that they were the remains of Owen Tudor, once husband of the Queen of England. So all trace of Owen has vanished.

And the Tudors

The circumstances of the astonishing marriage between Owen and Katherine is my primary interest since I have been engaged in writing a novel of Katherine de Valois in
The Forbidden Queen
, but for aficionados of the Tudors it is the descendants of this marriage who take all the attention. Their eldest son Edmund married Margaret Beaufort, the Beaufort heiress, who passed enough royal Plantagenet blood to their son to enable him to claim the crown of England as King Henry VII.

A bust of Henry VII based on his death mask can be seen in the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. We have no contemporary portrait of Owen Tudor. Did he look anything like his grandson? Would Katherine have fallen in love with this man?

Who knows?

Bloody Deeds at Tewkesbury

by Anne O’Brien

I
n May of 1471, the little town of Tewkesbury in
Gloucestershire—today a peaceful place of half-timbered buildings, a magnificent Abbey, and lovely surroundings that make it a lure for visitors—witnessed a terrible battle.

It was a momentous victory for the Yorkists under King Edward IV and his brother Richard of Gloucester, played out over the water-meadows of Tewkesbury where the rivers Avon and Severn meet. The Lancastrian Army was attempting to cross the River Severn when King Edward ordered an attack. It was a devastating and final defeat for the Lancastrians with wholesale carnage on what is still known today as “Bloody Meadow.”

The Lancastrians went into full scale retreat, many drowning when attempting to cross the river, many cut down as they ran. Lancastrian soldiers who sought refuge in the Abbey were hunted down and mercilessly hacked to death within the building itself. The Lancastrian leaders were dragged from the Abbey and summarily executed in the market place. It was a truly bloody event with over 2000 Lancastrians killed, the church and churchyard so polluted that King Edward had to arrange for its re-consecration by the Bishop of Worcester.

In the Abbey today a wooden door bears witness to the bloodbath: it is completely covered with plates of armour stripped from the dead and dying, perforated by gunshot and arrow holes.

One of those to meet his death at Tewkesbury was Prince Edward of Lancaster, son and heir of King Henry VI and Margaret of Anjou. But how did he die, and where exactly? There is considerable debate about it.

The Duke of Clarence, brother to Edward and Richard, recorded that the Prince “
had been slain in plain battle
.” Many contemporary writers also noted that he “
died in the field
.” The
Arrivall,
the official Yorkist account, recorded—as might be expected—that the Prince was “
taken fleeing to the townwards and slain in the field.”
There would appear to be no doubt that the Lancastrian Prince died in the fighting and there was no direct culpability on the part of King Edward and his brothers.

But was this so? The historian Croyland in 1486 after the death of King Edward and Richard III is more ambiguous, recording that the Prince died “
either on the field, or after the battle by the avenging hands of certain persons.”

Tudor historians were also keen to implicate Richard of Gloucester. According to them, the Prince was taken during the rout and brought before King Edward when the battle was over. The King struck the Prince with his gauntlet in retaliation for an insolent remark, after which Clarence, Gloucester, and Hastings cut the Lancastrian heir down with their swords.

This might, of course, simply be a Tudor attempt to bloody Yorkist hands, but an illustrated French version of the
Arrivall
, perhaps dating to the actual year of the battle, shows a scene very like the one where the Prince was forced to face King Edward and was ultimately slain.