Anne Hyde, Duchess of York

 

Anne Hyde (1637-71) had two daughters who would become Queens and would have been a Queen Consort herself had she not died before her husband became King.

She was the eldest daughter of Edward Hyde, first Earl of Clarendon, who was a prominent royalist during the reign of King Charles I and an active player in the restoration of King Charles II in 1660.

She originally attracted the attention of James, Duke of York, in 1656 when she was a maid of honour to Mary of Orange (the eldest daughter of King Charles I and the mother of the future King William III). James was Mary’s younger brother and next in line to the throne after his elder brother Charles. It was in honour of James that the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam was renamed New York when it was acquired by the English government in 1664.

James and Anne became more closely acquainted in 1659, although James wanted to end the relationship after Charles was restored to the throne in May 1660. Charles ordered James to marry Anne, who was heavily pregnant, and the wedding took place in September, with Anne’s first child being born in October. Had Anne not been pregnant, it is unlikely that they would have married at all, given that James was now heir presumptive and, as such, would not have been expected to marry a commoner.

Anne took to her new role with dignity and not a little pride, even winning over her mother-in-law Henrietta Maria. As a wife, she was clearly the dominant party and, according to Samuel Pepys, “the Duke of York, in all things but in his amours, is led by the nose by his wife”. He also observed that “the Duchess is not only the proudest woman in the world, but the most expenseful”.

James, like his brother Charles, had dalliances with a number of mistresses, Anne’s response being to have an affair with Henry Sydney, a courtier who would later find a niche in history as the man most responsible for inviting James’s nephew William to succeed him as King when James was exiled in 1688.

Anne was a high-Church Anglican who gradually turned to Catholicism as her preferred religion. It was her influence that led her husband to follow the same course, one which would eventually lead to his unpopularity and being forced to yield the throne after a reign of only three years (1685-88).

However, Anne did not live to see this happen, dying from breast cancer in 1671 at the age of 34. During her marriage she gave birth to eight children, but only two of them lived into adulthood. These were Mary, who married William III and reigned jointly with him as Queen Mary II, and Anne who succeeded her as Queen when William died in 1702.

© John Welford

Sweyn Forkbeard

 

Sweyn Forkbeard was the father of King Cnut (also known as Canute), the Dane who ruled England from 1016 to 1035. Sweyn was himself the virtual King of England for a brief period in 1013-14.

Sweyn was the son of the Danish king Harald Bluetooth, whom he may have deposed in around the year 987. As king of Denmark, Sweyn spent most of his reign attacking England and extracting the huge sums of money known as Danegeld that severely weakened the English monarchy during the ineffective reign of King Ethelred II, known to history as the “Unready”.

Sweyn was the master of a large and well-equipped fleet of ships, which were used to great effect in mounting raids on the English coast between the years 991 and 1013. It is known that Swain attacked London in 994 and, after ravaging across south-east England, wintered at Southampton, only returning to Denmark after extracting a payment of £16,000.

He then spent several years dealing with problems nearer home, involving Sweden and Poland, one consequence of which was his marriage to a sister of Duke Boleslav of Poland, the child of the union being Cnut, born in around 996.

It appears that he was back in England in 1001-2, as a geld of £24,000 is recorded as having been paid at this time. He was certainly in England in 1003, when he sacked Exeter and ravaged Wiltshire, and in East Anglia in 1004 when Norwich and Thetford were sacked. In 1006 Sweyn’s forces were active in Kent and Sussex. After wintering on the Isle of Wight they raided through Hampshire and Berkshire and extracted a geld of £36,000 in 1007.

Several Danish armies were operating in England during the years 1009-12, and Sweyn was almost certainly the commander of one of them, possibly the one that extracted a geld of £48,000 and murdered Aelfheah, the Archbishop of Canterbury.

In 1013 Sweyn returned with a different aim in mind, namely the conquest of England. He sailed up the River Trent from the Humber estuary and landed at Gainsborough. This was within the Danelaw and therefore an area where he could count upon the support of the Anglo-Danish aristocracy. He swept southwards, laying waste the country in an arc through Oxford and Winchester towards London. This gained him widespread recognition as the King of England and forced Ethelred to flee to Normandy.

However, Swain’s victory was short-lived because he died suddenly on 3rd February 10 14, bequeathing his ambitions to his son Cnut, although the return of Ethelred meant that the full imposition of Danish rule on England would have to wait a little longer.

© John Welford

Thorkell the Tall

 

Thorkell the Tall was a Viking leader who was prominent in English affairs during the reigns of Ethelred the Unready (Anglo-Saxon king from 978 to 1016) and Cnut (Danish king of England 1016-35). Danish by birth, little is known of his early life before he landed in Kent with a large army of raiders in the summer of 1009. His forces plundered much of midland and southern England until 1012, which was when some of his men murdered Archbishop Aelfheah of Canterbury contrary to his orders.

Thorkell was paid off - one of the recipients of Danegeld - and entered the service of King Ethelred, contributing a force of around 3500 men and 45 ships. He fought with Ethelred against Sweyn Forkbeard in 1013 and remained loyal to Ethelred throughout 1014.

However, he changed sides to support the claim to England of Cnut - he had certainly done so before the end of 1015. Cnut clearly trusted him and made him Earl of East Anglia in 1017. When Cnut was absent in Denmark in 1019 Thorkell appears to have acted as his regent in England.

His fortunes changed again towards the end of 1021 when, for reasons unknown, he quarrelled with Cnut and was outlawed and banished. He retired to Denmark but remained powerful and a potential threat to Cnut. When Cnut returned to Denmark in 1022 he was evidently strong enough to exact terms of reconciliation that were favourable to himself, with Cnut entrusting him with the government of Denmark.

After that, Thorkell disappears from the historical record and it is assumed that he died around 1024.

© John Welford

 

Berengaria, Queen of England and Cyprus

 

Berengaria of Navarre was a Queen of England who never set foot in England as Queen. She was born, in around 1165, in Navarre, was married in Cyprus, lived most of her life in France, where she died in about 1230, and was buried in the abbey she built near Le Mans.

Her husband was King Richard I, known to history as the Lionheart. On the face of it, he might have been a perfect match, given that he was brave, handsome, and the most popular warrior-king in the Christian world. But that was as far as his attraction went. He had no interest in her, being far more concerned about pursuing his Crusade.

Berengaria had been discovered by Richard’s mother, who was convinced that she would make a good wife for her son. She escorted Berengaria to Sicily, where Richard was preparing to journey on his crusade. His route took him via Cyprus, which Richard promptly captured. The marriage took place in Limassol and Berengaria was crowned Queen of England and Cyprus.

After Richard’s campaign in the Holy Land was lost he sent Berengaria off to England, saying that he would travel by land and meet up with her later. However, she never reached England and probably never wanted to.

Richard’s return to England was severely delayed by his being captured by the Duke of Austria and held prisoner for a huge ransom. On his return to England, a whole year later, he decided that he would much prefer to campaign in France, which is where he spent most of the rest of his life. It was years before he and Berengaria were reunited, but they hardly made a happy married couple and no children resulted.

After Richard was killed in 1199 during the siege of a French castle, Berengaria retired to a nunnery and spent the rest of her life helping the poor and caring for abandoned children.

It was only after she was widowed that Berengaria visited England, being a frequent guest of her brother-in-law King John. In 1220 she witnessed the translation of Thomas Beckett’s bones to his new shrine in Canterbury Cathedral.

In 1229 she built an abbey at L’Epau where, under her new name of Juliana, she spent her final days as a nun. This was where she died and where her effigy can be seen in the chapter house today.

© John Welford

 

The trials and death of Richard Hunne

Richard Hunne was a man who became the central character of a 16^th century “cause celebre”, and a figure of interest in the story of the English Reformation during the reign of Henry VIII.

Richard Hunne and the Lollards

Richard Hunne was not a clergyman but a wealthy merchant tailor in London. His father-in-law was a member of the city’s Lollard community, and Hunne himself appeared to have had strong sympathies with the Lollards.

The Lollards first appeared in the 14^th century, and were originally the followers of John Wycliffe, who had translated the Bible into English and protested against some of the teachings of the Catholic Church, notably the belief that the bread and wine of the Eucharist are literally transformed into the flesh and blood of Christ, this being known as transubstantiation. The Lollards were therefore early reformers who were carefully watched by the Church for signs of heresy.

A tragic event and its consequences

Richard Hunne and his wife suffered a personal tragedy on 19^th March 1511 with the death of his infant son at the age of five weeks. Thomas Dryffeld, the rector of the church near where the child died, St Mary Matfelon in Whitechapel, demanded the child’s christening robe as payment for his funeral, but Hunne refused to hand it over. We can imagine that, as a master tailor, Richard Hunne would have known the true value of the robe, and he might even have made it himself. He would quite probably have wished to use the robe again for the christening of later children, as this had always been a common custom, with such robes being passed down the generations.

This may sound like a trivial matter, but it was symptomatic of a wider abuse. Under ecclesiastical law the priest was entitled to claim, as his fee for conducting a funeral, the most valuable possession of the deceased, and this could be something like a craftsman’s tools or a carrier’s cart, which would not then be available to be passed on to the deceased’s family for their support. Richard Hunne knew about such cases, as he was a wealthy and generous man who had helped many local families in such circumstances.

Indeed, Richard Hunne had been a thorn in the side of the clergy for some time before the incident of the christening robe. For example, he had supported other tailors and their families in disputes with the Church over accusations of heresy. His activities were in part responsible for Parliament debating the matter of whether priests were immune from civil law. However, although the law was soon changed so that clerical immunity was abolished for those in minor orders, this only applied to people such as court summoners and vergers, and not priests, deacons and bishops.

Richard Hunne’s argument in the case of his own son was that, under civil law, an infant cannot own any property, so the robe belonged to Richard Hunne and not his dead son.

The response of Thomas Dryffeld was to report Hunne to the Archbishop of Canterbury, with a view to having Hunne excommunicated.

Richard’s Hunne’s first trial and its aftermath

The first “trial” was to be at Lambeth Palace on 13^th May 1512, where the case was to be heard by Cuthbert Tunstall, who later became Bishop of London. Tunstall was clearly not interested in making too much of the affair, and the case was settled out of court with Richard Hunne simply being asked to pay the value of the christening robe (which was quite substantial at six shillings and eightpence) and sent on his way without being excommunicated.

On 27^th December, Richard Hunne tried to attend evensong at St Mary Matfelon, although it was not his local church. It would appear that he went there accompanied by several fellow Lollards, possibly with a view to goading Thomas Dryffeld into taking action against him. If this was his aim, he was soon satisfied, because the service was stopped and he was ordered to leave. The only reason why this could happen, under ecclesiastical law, would be if an excommunicant sought to avail himself of the sacraments, so the assumption must be that Dryffeld believed this to be the case. Hunne promptly sued the priest at the Court of the King’s Bench, for slandering his good name.

Things get much more serious

This was therefore a clash of two jurisdictions, that of the Pope through the Church and the King through the civil courts. The Church now formally excommunicated Richard Hunne, who replied by issuing a “writ of praemunire”. Under the Great Statute of Praemunire it was treasonable to appeal to any power higher than that of the King, which meant that any appeal to the Pope by the persons named in Hunne’s writ would be a matter of treason.

The Pope, meanwhile, had pronounced that spiritual power must not be subordinated to that of the state. This placed the judges in Hunne’s slander case in a dilemma, because it appeared that a decision against Hunne would count as treason, and one in his favour would put them in danger of excommunication.

However, the Archbishop of Canterbury, William Warham, sought to keep the matter an ecclesiastical one by having Hunne arrested for heresy, as a copy of the Wycliffe translation of the Bible was found in his house, and there was plenty of evidence of his Lollard opinions. He was therefore placed in the “Lollards Tower” of St Paul’s Cathedral on 14^th October 1514.

The actual second trial of Richard Hunne, however, never really took place. He appeared before Bishop Richard Fitzjames on 2^nd December, but only two days later his body was discovered hanging in his cell. The trial continued posthumously, and testimony was given that he denied transubstantiation and the veneration of saints, and that he possessed heretical literature. He was also declared to have committed suicide, which would in any case have been enough to deny him Christian burial, and his body was cremated on 20^th December.

Consequences and significance

However, Richard Hunne was not the only layman to have been anti-clergy, and a coroner’s jury on 6^th December decided that he had been murdered, having been tortured and strangled and the hanging faked to look like a suicide. The affair looked like leading to major civil disturbance, and the King himself got to hear about it, ordering an inquiry that, in the end, reached no firm conclusion. Richard Hunne’s family members were never able to reclaim his property, which had been forfeited on his posthumous conviction.

The significance of the Richard Hunne affair is not easy to estimate. John Foxe (1517-87) included Richard Hunne in his “Book of Martyrs”, but of course he was not an eyewitness to the events and he had an ulterior motive in drawing attention to Protestants who had suffered at Catholic hands. In 1514, Henry VIII had been King for only five years, and his marriage to Catherine of Aragon had another 19 years to run. It was the ending of that marriage that marked Henry’s break with the Church of Rome.

Although there is a parallel between the legal tussle of Richard Hunne and that of Henry VIII, in that both questioned the right of the clergy to determine civil law, it would not be accurate to see Hunne’s case as leading directly to Henry’s break with Rome. That said, Henry did get to know about the Richard Hunne affair, and it could have been just one of many pieces of evidence that, in his mind, weighed on the side of the Protestant cause against that of the Catholic Church.

© John Welford

The capture of the Duke of Monmouth

James Fitzroy 1^st Duke of Monmouth was born on 9^th April 1649 in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. His father was King Charles II of England and his mother was Lucy Walter, the King’s mistress. The couple had fled to The Netherlands after the execution of the King’s father, King Charles I.

England became a republic for 11 years, with Charles only able to regain his throne in 1660. He reigned until his death in 1685, when his brother James became the monarch as King James II.

Charles had many mistresses and produced a large number of illegitimate children, of whom James Fitzroy was the oldest. However, Charles’s marriage to Catherine of Braganza was childless, which was why he was succeeded by his brother.

James Fitzroy was created Duke of Monmouth in 1663, when aged 13, and he was married at the age of 14, his wife being Anne Scott, the Countess of Buccleuch – he took his wife’s surname at this point.

James believed that he should have succeeded his father as king, claiming that his parents had in fact been married, although this was never proved. In any case, he saw himself as the chief Protestant challenger to his uncle James, who made no secret of his Roman Catholicism.

The Monmouth Rebellion

Monmouth was confident that he would be supported if he mounted an armed rebellion against King James and, on 11th June 1685, duly landed from The Netherlands at Lyme Regis, Dorset, with a small band of supporters. He gathered more support as he moved inland, but these recruits were poorly armed and completely untrained, many being farmworkers wielding pitchforks.

His army met that of King James at Sedgmoor, near Bridgwater in Somerset, on 6^th July 1685, in what was to prove to be the last pitched battle to be fought on English soil. The battle was a short and bloody affair, with around 1,300 of Monmouth’s 4,000 men being killed. Monmouth fled from the battlefield, accompanied by a small band of supporters.

Their plan was to head for the port of Poole, in Dorset, from where they hoped to be able to escape by ship. They crossed into Dorset near Woodyates where they stopped at an inn, the landlord of which was Robert Browning, an ancestor of the poet of the same name. They split up at this point, leaving their horses behind.

Monmouth’s Ash

Monmouth disguised himself as a shepherd and continued across country on foot. He had reached the village of Horton when he was spotted climbing over a hedge by a woman in a nearby cottage. A search was organized by local militiamen, one of whom spotted what he thought was a pile of old clothes in a ditch beneath an ash tree.

This was the Duke of Monmouth, scruffy and haggard. When searched, his pockets contained nothing but a few raw peas and the badge of the Order of the Garter that he had been given by his father back in 1663.

The spot where the Duke of Monmouth was captured has had the name “Monmouth’s Ash” ever since, and there is an ash tree growing there, although it is not the same one that Monmouth sheltered underneath.

The Duke was taken to Ringwood and from there to the Tower of London where he was beheaded on 15^th July 1685.

King James took a savage revenge on the West Country yokels who had dared to rebel against his rule. After the “Bloody Assizes” at various locations in Dorset and Somerset more than 300 people were executed and many more were transported to the colonies.

An interesting outcome

One supporter of the Duke of Monmouth who escaped capture was the novelist Daniel Defoe, who had been one of the original people who landed with the Duke at Lyme Regis. He hid in a churchyard after fleeing from Sedgemoor and happened to notice a name on a gravestone that he thought was unusual and appealing. This was “Robinson Crusoe” – well worth mentally filing away for later use!

© John Welford

John Hardyng: King Henry's V's spy

The name John Hardyng might perhaps be better known if one of his employers, King Henry V, had not died at the age of 35 and thus rendered much of Hardyng’s hard work useless.

John Hardyng was born in 1378 and educated in the Northumberland household of Sir Henry Percy, who was nicknamed “Hotspur”. This gave him plenty of experience of warfare, given the closeness of the Scottish border and the frequent raids that took place across it.

In 1399 the Percys supported the successful campaign of Henry Bolingbroke against the reigning King Richard II, and John Hardyng played a full part in the rebellion. However, relationships between the new king (Henry IV) and the Percys later broke down, leading to the Battle of Shrewsbury of 1403. Hotspur was killed but John Hardyng survived and was pardoned by King Henry.

Henry IV died in 1413 and was succeeded by his son, who reigned as King Henry V. John Hardyng served the new king faithfully in the latter’s campaign against France.

Henry planned to turn his attention to Scotland once he had finished with France, and in 1418 John Hardyng was given a special mission, namely to travel round Scotland and gather information that would be useful in a future invasion. He was also tasked with finding proof that Scotland’s claim to independence was without foundation.

Hardyng’s mission lasted for three and a half years. During that time he surveyed the routes into Scotland, the places on the coast that could be used by an invasion fleet, the strengths and weaknesses of various castles, and the agricultural resources that could be exploited by an invading army. He also acquired documents that supported England’s claims over Scotland.

In 1421 John Hardyng was forced to flee from Scotland, having made too many enemies, but the information he was able to present to King Henry would have been invaluable had an invasion ever taken place.

However, Henry’s early death put paid to any such ambition, and the new king, Henry VI, was never in any position to make use of John Hardyng’s work.

Hardyng was now in the unfortunate position of having done exactly what had been asked of him but without any reward for his efforts. He became a pensioner at an Augustinian Priory and continued to press King Henry VI to honour the promise made by his father. This eventually led, in 1440, to Hardyng being granted an annuity worth ten pounds a year.

Hardyng spent the next twenty years writing a history of Britain that made good use of his earlier career as a spy, as well as continuing to claim that England had every right to conquer Scotland.

He died in 1465 aged 87, which was a remarkably advanced age at that time. He would probably have made a much larger impact on British history had England actually subdued Scotland as a result of his work.

© John Welford

The murder of Prince Arthur by King John

King John of England (reigned 1199 to 1216) is widely regarded as one of the country’s “bad kings”. This was largely due to his tyrannical behaviour and the actions he undertook during his elder brother Richard’s reign to raise money to pay for Richard’s ransom when the latter was imprisoned in an Austrian castle. The methods he used to drag money out of people were largely responsible for the Robin Hood legends that tell of resistance to tyranny.

As king, John’s autocratic rule led to him being forced to sign a document in 1215 that guaranteed certain freedoms to the people of England (most notably its aristocratic classes) that is known to history as Magna Carta.

Although King John’s reputation may be worse in some respects than he deserved – he was an able administrator if nothing else – one incident can only serve to tip the balance towards the negative side. This was the murder, by his own hand, of his nephew Arthur.

King Henry II (reigned 1154 to 1189) had four legitimate sons who survived to adulthood. The eldest, Henry, died before his father did, which meant that the second, Richard, became king in 1189. The third son, Geoffrey, also died during Henry II’s reign, but he left behind him a son, Arthur, who was born in 1187.

John, who was the fourth son of Henry II, therefore became king when Richard died in 1199, with there being only one other member of the royal family who might constitute a threat to his rule, namely Prince Arthur, aged twelve when Richard died. Richard had actually made it known that he wanted to be succeeded by Arthur, as opposed to John, so the threat was far from imaginary on John’s part, especially as Arthur soon made it known that he was not averse to becoming king as his Uncle Richard had suggested.

Arthur had been brought up and educated in Brittany, his father Geoffrey having been Duke of Brittany. It was while campaigning in France in 1203 that John happened to capture Arthur almost by chance. It had not been his intention to make such a capture at the time, but the opportunity to nullify the threat posed by Arthur could not be ignored.

Arthur was imprisoned firstly at La Falaise in Normandy and then at the fortress of Rouen, also in Normandy which was still an English possession at that time.

A contemporary source relates that, on the day before Good Friday, King John was at Rouen and had drunk too much wine at dinner. He flew into a rage that he directed at Prince Arthur, then aged 16. He seized the prince by the throat and throttled him. He then tied a heavy stone to his body which was dropped into the river Seine. 

Some time later Prince Arthur’s body was recovered by some fishermen and given a respectable but secret burial.

Not surprisingly, the story has not been universally accepted as true, and it is not possible to be absolutely certain about it, either in substance or detail. However, it would certainly not have been out of character for John, and Prince Arthur definitely disappeared from the scene at this time.

© John Welford

Henry of Blois

Henry of Blois was a 12^th century churchman for whom political power and personal wealth had far more importance than holiness or the cure of souls. In this he was not unusual for his time!

Probably born in 1096, he was one of the five sons of Count Stephen of Blois. His mother was a daughter of William the Conquerer. He was brought up as a monk in the Benedictine abbey at Cluny.

In 1126 his uncle King Henry I gave him the abbey of Glastonbury and, three years later, the bishopric of Winchester. He made excellent use of these gifts, holding them both for 40 years and exploiting their potential as money-making enterprises. He therefore became the wealthiest churchman in England.

When King Henry died in 1135, Henry played an important role in helping his brother Stephen to become king in preference to Henry’s daughter Matilda. However, the brothers were not always close, and there was a time when Henry switched his allegiance to Matilda’s cause before changing back again.

Stephen died in 1154, to be succeeded by Matilda’s son Henry II, who had been extremely active in his mother’s cause. Henry reckoned that his best plan would be to return to Cluny, where he stayed for the next four years.

However, Henry was not deprived of his bishopric and he still had many interests in England that he wished to oversee and maintain. He therefore returned to England and played the role of elder statesman to King Henry.

Henry of Blois was a lifelong builder of castles and palaces. The works he commissioned included additions to Winchester Cathedral, the Winchester Palace at Southwark as a London residence, and castles at Bishop’s Waltham, Taunton and Wolvesey. He also built many smaller churches and inspired the construction of villages and canals.

Henry also had a liking for ancient pagan statues, buying a large number in Rome and bringing them back to England. His interest appeared to be entirely artistic, but this activity did not escape censure from the austere Bernard of Clairvaux, who questioned why a senior churchman wanted to acquire so many statues of naked and semi-naked gods and goddesses. Henry’s reply, namely that he sought to save the people of Rome from being tempted to worship idols, did not save him from being called the “whore of Winchester” by the sainted Bernard.

Henry died in 1171 aged about 75.

< /div> © John Welford

Wihtgar, King of Wight: myth or reality?

The Isle of Wight lies off the south coast of England, separated from Hampshire by two narrow waterways, namely The Solent and Spithead. It might be thought that its name derives from a corruption of “white”, with a reference to the white cliffs that culminate in the Needles rocks at its western end, but this is not so. 

Tradition maintains that “Wight” comes from “Wihtgar”, who was a shadowy – probably legendary - figure from the early history of England.

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says that two warriors, Stuf and Wihtgar, fought against the British in the year 514 and were later given lordship over the Isle of Wight by Cerdic and Cynric (Kings of Wessex), to whom they were related. Wihtgar is said to have died in 544 but to have founded a dynasty that ruled the island until 685. One of his descendants was reputed to have been Osburh, the mother of King Alfred the Great. 

But can the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle be believed? Although the name Stuf is acceptable as a personal name, there are problems with “Wihtgar”. “Wiht” is an Anglicised form of Vecta, which was the Latin name for the Isle of Wight going back to Roman times, and the later inhabitants of the island were often referred to as “Wihtgara”.

The Venerable Bede, who wrote his “Ecclesiastical History of the English People” in around the year 730, held that Kent and the Isle of Wight were settled by people known as Jutes, a Germanic tribe who arrived in Britain alongside the Angles and the Saxons in the late 4^th century. Doubts have been cast by later historians over whether the Jutes ever existed as a separate people, but there certainly appear to have been links between the settlers of Kent and the Isle of Wight. One such link is that several royal personages in Kent had names that began with “Wiht-“.  The suggestion is therefore that the name Wihtgar derives from Wiht and Wihtgara and not the other way round.

The connection between Wihtgar, Cerdic and Cynric also appears to have been made much later than the early 6^th century, the first mentions of such a link being from around the time that the last King of Wight, Arauld, was killed after the island was overrun in 685 by the West Saxon King Cædwalla. 

It therefore appears that King Wihtgar may never have existed at all but to have been an invention of the early chroniclers who sought an origin for a name, which was something that is known to have happened in other cases.

© John Welford

The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green

Bethnal Green’s blind beggar was a legendary character who gave his name to a pub that was to acquire a sinister reputation in more recent times. 

Bethnal Green

Bethnal Green is deep inside London’s “East End”. It is an area that suffered considerable damage during the London blitz of World War Two and the rebuilding was not always done with a lot of sensitivity. It has a very mixed population due to centuries of immigration and is one of Britain’s most ethnically diverse regions.

In the past it was “ruled” by criminal gangs, most notably the Krays and the Richardsons in the 1960s. Bethnal Green after dark was a dangerous place to be. The war between the gangs came to a head in March 1966 when George Cornell, a member of the Richardson gang, was shot and killed by Ronnie Kray in the Blind Beggar pub in Whitechapel Road.

A little further north, just off Roman Road close to where it crosses the Regent’s Canal, is a 1957 bronze statue by Elizabeth Frink entitled “The Blind Beggar and his Dog”.

So who was the Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green?

The story goes back to the 13^th century. The beggar was supposed to have lost his sight at the Battle of Evesham in 1265. He had a beautiful daughter called Bessee who was sought after by four suitors, namely a knight, a rich gentleman, an innkeeper’s son and a merchant. Bessee told them that they would have to ask her father for permission to marry her, but when they saw that her father was a beggar in rags, and in no position to bestow any sort of dowry on his daughter, three of them changed their minds.

However, the fourth of the suitors, namely the knight, went ahead with his request and was amazed when the beggar offered him a dowry of £3,000 plus a gift of £100 to pay for his daughter’s wedding dress. At the wedding the beggar threw off his rags and revealed himself to be Henry de Montfort, the son of Simon de Montfort, once the most powerful man in England, who had been killed at the Battle of Evesham. Henry had spent the years since the battle begging in order to raise his daughter’s dowry, which he was now ready to hand over.

The story, first told in the 15^th century, has legend written all over it, as the evidence points to Henry having been killed rather than just blinded in the battle. It does, however, have a lesson to teach, namely that blindness is not restricted to those who have lost their sight – the outer aspect of someone is not always the full story. 

No doubt the same could be said today for the whole of Bethnal Green.

© John Welford

Mary Rose: the woman who got her way with King Henry VIII

The name Mary Rose brings to most minds (British ones at least) the famous warship that belonged to King Henry VIII’s navy and was so badly designed that when fully laden with cannons it flipped over and sank in the Solent, only to be recovered from the sea bed in 1982. Less well known is the person after whom the ship was named.

Mary Rose Tudor was the younger of King Henry’s two sisters. She was born in March 1496 and was therefore five years younger than Henry. She was given an excellent education and grew up to be strikingly attractive. Not surprisingly, given her status after her brother became King in 1509, she was much sought after as a bride who would be able to cement an international alliance.

She must have known that she would not have much choice in the matter, and that politics would be the sole factor that would determine her future. However, the husband that her brother chose for her, when she was aged 19, was not someone that she would have chosen in a million years, had she been allowed a choice.

This was the twice-widowed King of France, Louis XII, who was 52 years old and in very poor physical condition. He suffered from painful gout, had terrible skin, and quite possibly had a sexually transmitted disease. He was hardly love’s young dream as a marriage prospect.

But on the other hand, he was the King of France, Europe’s richest country at the time, and his wife would be guaranteed every luxury as Queen. Mary Rose also knew that Louis was not a bad man in terms of his general behaviour and – more to the point – that his life expectancy could not be all that great.

So she agreed to the plan, on one condition – that she would be free to choose her own husband when her stint as Queen of France was over. Henry agreed, but he could not have foreseen that he would be forced to carry out the terms of his promise as soon as was actually the case.

Mary Rose became a widow only 82 days after her wedding day, and she soon made clear her intention to marry a non-royal, namely Charles Brandon, the Duke of Suffolk. Henry was not happy about this, but he had made his sister a promise and there was no way he could back out of it – especially given the fact that Mary Rose was a typical Tudor woman who was every bit as strong-willed as any Tudor man.

Mary Rose therefore retired from royal duties to live the life of a Suffolk countrywoman with the man she loved. She had three children who survived infancy, with one of her daughters growing up to become the mother of Lady Jane Grey, the “Nine Days Queen”, but that’s another story.

The only sad aspect of Mary Rose’s life, apart from the fate of the ship named after her, was that she only lived to the age of 37, possibly succumbing to cancer.

© John Welford

John Rogers: the first Protestant victim of Bloody Mary

John Rogers’s claim to fame is that he was the first victim of Queen Mary I’s campaign against Protestants.

The break from Rome that was launched by King Henry VIII when he divorced Katherine of Aragon in 1533 did not result in a huge change in the way religion was practiced in England – at least, not until Henry died and he was succeeded by his son, King Edward VI. Protestantism then got going in no uncertain way, and John Rogers was one of many preachers who spoke out openly against “pestilent popery, idolatry and superstition”.

John Rogers had been educated at Cambridge University and was a friend of William Tyndale, who had translated the Bible into English but been executed in Belgium in 1536. Rogers was himself an editor of what became known as the “Matthew Bible”.

Edward’s reign was short – he died at the age of 15 in 1553 – and he was succeeded by his sister Mary, who was the Catholic daughter of Catherine of Aragon. Mary promptly did everything she could to reverse the English Reformation and turn the country back to Roman Catholicism.

For many people, this was a welcome move. Protestantism had turned out to be far less colourful and dramatic than what had preceded it. For example, it has been estimated that more than 90% of the artworks in England – most of which had decorated its churches – were destroyed during the early years of the Reformation. Ordinary people were far less interested in theology than in having their drab lives enlivened by the “bells and smells” of Sunday worship.

This was also true of many clergymen, who were perfectly content to convert back to Catholicism once Mary arrived on the throne.

It was not true, however, of a die-hard group of Protestants of whom John Rogers was one. He continued to preach against “popery” and was arrested after he destroyed an image of a saint in a parish church.

His arrest took place in January 1554 and he was given several opportunities to “revoke his abominable doctrine”, which he steadfastly refused to do. On being condemned to death he stated “that which I have preached I will seal with my blood”.

His execution took place at Smithfield on 4^th February 1555. He was burned to death in front of a large crowd, which included his wife and 11 children.

His was only the first of many such executions that would took place during the reign of “Bloody Mary”. There would be nearly 300 more during the next three years, to be followed by persecutions of Catholics when Mary’s Protestant sister Elizabeth succeeded her in 1558.

England’s religious turmoil would make many victims out of people who refused to change their beliefs.

© John Welford

Sir Martin Frobisher

Sir Martin Frobisher (1539-94) was an adventurer during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I who made a name for himself both as an explorer and a military commander.

He came from a wealthy background but preferred a career at sea rather than that of a businessman. At the age of 14 he joined an expedition to West Africa but was soon involved in what must be regarded as piracy.

He became obsessed by the notion that there was a “quick” route to the Far East by sailing to the north of North America - the famed “Northwest Passage”. After several years of fundraising, Frobisher set off in 1576 and got as far as Baffin Island. He returned to England having collected some samples of local rock that were suggestive of gold ore, although the evidence was slight.

Even so, the possibility that there was gold to be found in the far north was enough to allow Frobisher to raise the funds for a much larger expedition, which set sail in 1577. He brought back 200 tons of the supposed gold ore, and the Queen was also interested in the possibility of extending her realm to the new – supposedly rich – lands that Frobisher had discovered.

In 1578 Martin Frobisher set off on a third expedition, this time with the intention of establishing a colony on Baffin Island. However, this came to nothing, and so did the intended gold-exporting business when it was proved beyond doubt that all he had discovered was a vein of iron pyrites, or “fool’s gold”.

Martin Frobisher now turned his attention to aiding Francis Drake in the latter’s state-sponsored harassment of Spanish ships and ports. In 1588 he served under Lord Howard as the commander of one of the four naval divisions that defeated the Spanish Armada. It was for this service that he received his knighthood.

After a short time managing his estates in Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire he found the call of the sea and adventure to be too strong and in 1592 he joined Sir Walter Raleigh in a military expedition to the Azores. In 1594 he led a squadron of ships that took part in the Siege of Morlais during the French “War of The Three Henrys”. However, during the siege of Brest, shortly afterwards, he received a gunshot wound from which he died after his return to England.

Sir Martin Frobisher has a deserved place on the list of “sea dogs” who did much to make the reign of Queen Elizabethan I a golden age for England.

© John Welford

Edward The Black Prince

Edward the Black Prince should have become King of England but died before his father (King Edward III), so the throne passed to his less worthy son, Richard II. Edward represents many people’s idea of a knight from the period when chivalry was at its height. Indeed, Chaucer’s “perfect gentle knight”, from the Canterbury Tales, written not long after Edward’s death, could have been a nostalgic (and doubtless sanitised) portrait of the Black Prince.

Prince Edward

Edward’s life, from 1330 to 1376, fell at the start of the period of English history known as the “Hundred Years War”. This was a series of conflicts between England and France that were fought over the right to rule large areas of territory in France that had formerly belonged to William I and Henry II. Edward III also had a claim to the throne of France. The War alternated between campaigns waged by English kings (from Edward III to Henry VI) and periods of truce.

Prince Edward was born on 15^th June 1330 at the royal palace of Woodstock, being the first child born to the young King Edward III and Queen Philippa. When only six he was declared Duke of Cornwall, a title that brought him considerable wealth, as it does for the eldest son of the monarch down to the present day.

Edward’s military career

From 1340 onwards he took an active part in public life, being “guardian of England” (despite his youth) while his father was out of the country for much of the period up to 1346, but his first military experience came when he joined his father on the campaign in 1346-7 that included the Battle of Crecy.

Edward was knighted by his father and put in command of a division that played a major part in the victory at Crecy. Edward was in mortal danger at times during the battle but displayed great courage. In honour of the defeated and killed King of Bohemia, Edward adopted the latter’s device of an ostrich feather, which still forms part of the coat of arms of Princes of Wales.

Back in England in 1348, Edward created the Order of the Garter, a chivalric order that survives to this day. The order was designed to create a close bond between the knights who fought at Crecy and who would doubtless be called on again to serve the king. Team spirit was also fostered by a series of tournaments, featuring “war games” such as jousting, on which Edward spent lavishly.

Edward and his father were again called upon to fight in 1350, when they fought a sea battle in the English Channel, but the truce with France lasted until 1355, the interim being spent by Edward in running his various estates in England. It would appear that he could be somewhat heavy-handed in the administration of his lands, and petitions were presented to the king to appeal against the oppressive governance that he exerted.

Following growing hostile activity by the new French King, Jean, Edward landed at Bordeaux in September 1355 and put together an army that set off into the lands that were in dispute between the English and French crowns. Edward’s aim was to raid and pillage French territory with the hope of bringing the French regent, Jean d'Armagnac, to battle. However, d’Armagnac refused to be drawn from his citadel at Toulouse, and Edward eventually returned to Bordeaux, where he spent the winter.

During much of 1356 the English and French armies kept each other at arms’ length, but battle was eventually joined on 19^th September at Poitiers in west central France. Despite being greatly outnumbered, English tactics and quick thinking won the day, with massive casualties on the French side. The great bonus from Edward’s perspective was the capture of the French king, who was then taken back to England to be held for ransom.

A three-year peace treaty was eventually agreed, although another military campaign was needed before the French King’s ransom was eventually paid. However, the original amount was greatly reduced, in exchange for Edward being recognised as virtual King of Aquitaine (the region of south-west France to which England had always laid claim).

Marriage

Edward had had little time in his busy life to consider marriage (although he had fathered a number of illegitimate children), but now he was able to do so, his bride being Joan, Countess of Kent. Unusually for the time, this was a partnership of mutual attraction with no dynastic element being involved. Joan was a young widow, although a certain amount of scandal attached to her as it appeared that she had been married bigamously. Joan was also a first cousin of Edward, so papal dispensation was needed before the marriage could take place.

The marriage was a happy one, spent mostly in Aquitaine where their two sons were born. Young Prince Edward died at the age of six but Richard survived, becoming King Richard II at the age of ten.

Edward and Joan arrived in their new kingdom in June 1363. Edward was clearly a better soldier than administrator, and his efforts to raise revenue from his new territory led to resentment. He was not skilled in winning people over. His autocratic manner made him far more enemies than allies.

Another campaign

A further opportunity for military action came in 1366, when Pedro of Castile (northern Spain) appealed to Edward for help in regaining his throne after he had been usurped by his half-brother Enrique da Trastamara, with French support. Edward was at first reluctant to help, but early in 1367 he set off across the Pyrenees.

One difficulty to be overcome was the fact that the Kingdom of Navarre lay between Aquitaine and Castile, and Charles of Navarre levied a large fee for the passage of Edward’s army. In return, Edward demanded from Pedro control of the coastal region of Castile.

Edward eventually met the Castilians, under Trastamara, in battle at Najera on 3^rd April 1367, and achieved a victory. Pedro was restored, but was unable to pay Edward the agreed fee for the campaign. Edward remained in Castile until August, waiting for payment, but it eventually became clear that Pedro was in no position to pay. Edward therefore left and returned to Bordeaux. Pedro was murdered by his half-brother two years later.

Edward had fallen ill while in Castile, possibly with malaria or dysentery. On his return he faced dissent from a number of local lords, encouraged by the French king, and his inability to pay for the services of the lords who had accompanied him to Castile also caused resentment. Edward’s only recourse was to raise taxes, which naturally increased his unpopularity.

The French were now emboldened to encroach on the territory of Aquitaine, with several cities changing their allegiance, and Edward was forced back into the field to defend his borders. The city of Limoges, which had been taken back into French hands, was recaptured and sacked after a siege of five days’ duration, in the summer of 1370. Despite this action, no other city was inspired to return to English control.

His final years and legacy

Edward was now too ill to be an effective commander in the field, and in January 1371 he returned to England for the last time. During the remaining years of his life he played little part in the affairs of state, rarely travelling more than 50 miles from London. He attended the opening of Parliament in April 1376 but that was his last public appearance. He died on 8^th June 1376, a week short of his 46^th birthday, and was buried at Canterbury. He therefore failed to become King of England by one year.

The name “The Black Prince” was a Tudor invention, but it has stuck. It is not clear why it was given; it could possibly have been a reference to the colour of his armour, or even his temper.

As a heroic figure of distant English history, Edward the Black Prince will always be part of the romance of a chivalric past, especially as his legacy survives in the Order of the Garter. As one of a long list of great English and British military commanders, he deserves his place in history. However, how successful he might have been as a peace-time monarch must remain in doubt.

© John Welford