Lost Prince: The Survival of Richard of York

By David Baldwin

On December 22, 1550 an old bricklayer named Richard Plantagenet was buried at Eastwell in Kent. Unusually for a bricklayer, he had been able to read Latin and, when pressed, he had claimed to be a natural son of King Richard III and to have met him the day before the Battle of Bosworth. Yet had he simply been Richard III's bastard he would have been styled “of Gloucester” or given the name of his birthplace. Richard III openly acknowledged and provided for his other bastards. Why did he not do the same for Richard Plantagenet? Most tellingly, where is the evidence that Prince Richard actually died? In an original and intriguing scenario, David Baldwin argues that while some elements of Richard Plantagenet's story may be authentic, it is possible that he dared not reveal his real identity: Richard, Duke of York, the rightful king. David Baldwin has searched contemporary documents to unearth the clues that underpin his theory and has visited all the places associated with Richard Plantagenet. In doing so, he has opened up an entirely new line of investigation and exonerated Richard III of the greatest of the crimes imputed to him. Dead princes were a potential embarrassment, but a living prince would have been a real danger and a closely guarded secret, not only in Richard's reign but in the reigns of Henry VII and Henry VIII.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The History Press
• Release date: Nov 30, 2011
• ISBN: 9780752479927

David Baldwin

David Baldwin has held a variety of jobs in his twenty-eight years, including security guard, tattoo artist, and carpenter. In addition to his writing career, he is a Harley Davidson mechanic.

Book preview

THE

LOST

PRINCE

About the Author

David Baldwin is a medieval historian who specialises in the later fifteenth century and who has long been fascinated by the enigma of Richard III. He is much in demand as a lecturer in these subjects, and has devised and taught courses for adults at Leicester University’s Vaughan College and Northampton Centre for more than twenty years. His acclaimed biography, Elizabeth Woodville: Mother of the Princes in the Tower, was published in 2002.

THE

LOST

PRINCE

THE SURVIVAL OF

RICHARD OF YORK

DAVID BALDWIN

Cover illustrations:

Front: Detail from The Princes Edward and Richard in the Tower by Sir John Everett Millais, 1878 (Royal Holloway, University of London/Bridgeman Art Library).

This edition first published 2008

Reprinted 2013

The History Press

The Mill, Brimscombe Port

Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2QG

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This ebook edition first published in 2013

All rights reserved

© David Baldwin, 2007, 2008, 2013

The right of David Baldwin to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

EPUB ISBN 978 0 7524 7992 7

Original typesetting by The History Press

Contents

List of Illustrations

Plates between pp. 128 and 129

1. Richard, Duke of York

2. Edward, Prince of Wales

3. Edward IV (Society of Antiquaries)

4. Elizabeth Woodville

5. Richard III (Society of Antiquaries)

6. Henry VII and Elizabeth of York

7. Henry VIII

8. The marriage of Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York, to the Lady Anne Mowbray’

9. Creake Abbey, from the west (author photo)

10. Creake Abbey, from the crossing (author photo)

11. St Mary’s Church, Eastwell (author photo)

12. ‘Richard Plantagenet’s tomb’ at Eastwell (author photo)

13. Modern plaque affixed to the tomb (author photo)

Text Illustrations

1. Monument to Sir Thomas and Lady Moyle (Society of Antiquaries)

2. Highlighted copy of the entry in the Eastwell parish register, AD 1550 (reproduced by kind permission of the Revd John S. Robinson)

3. The house now called ‘Plantagenet’s Cottage’

4. Sketch of ‘Richard Plantagenet’s tomb’, c. 1946 (reproduced by kind permission of the Kent Archaeological Society)

5. Badge and arms of Prince Richard of York with open fetterlock

6. Autograph of Francis, Viscount Lovel

7. St John’s Abbey Gate, Colchester

8. The south prospect of St John’s Abbey church, Colchester

9. The Seal of Colchester Abbey, from The Victoria County History of Essex

10. Plantaganet’s ( sic ) cottage, Eastwell Church from the lake, and the artist’s impression of Richard Plantagenet reading

11. Cover illustration from Richard Plantagenet: A Legendary Tale

12. Members of the Richard III Society visit ‘Richard Plantagenet’s grave’, c. 1964.

13. The Hopper Ring

All illustrations are © Geoffrey Wheeler unless otherwise stated.

Table showing the York, Lancaster and Tudor Genealogies

A. Edward, Earl of Warwick (ex. 1499). Margaret, Countess of Salisbury (ex. 1541).

B. John, Earl of Lincoln (k. 1487). Edmund, Earl of Suffolk (ex. 1513). Richard (k. 1525). Other sons & daughters.

Time Chart of the Principal Events of English History during the Period Covered by this Book

1455–1461

The first phase of the Wars of the Roses. A series of battles fought between King Henry VI, his wife, Queen Margaret of Anjou, and supporters of the House of Lancaster against a faction of the nobility led by Richard, Duke of York, who ultimately claims to be the rightful king.

30 December 1460

Richard of York is killed at Wakefield. His son, Edward, Earl of March, is proclaimed king by ‘Warwick the Kingmaker’ in March 1461. Edward defeats the Lancastrians at Towton (Yorkshire) on Palm Sunday (29 March) and reigns as Edward IV, the first king of the House of York.

1 May 1464

Edward IV secretly marries Elizabeth Woodville, a daughter of Lord Rivers, to the consternation of many of his subjects who expect him to choose a foreign princess who would bring England a dowry and the goodwill of her country. The endowment of the new queen’s numerous family is one of several factors that undermines the friendship between the King and the Earl of Warwick.

Autumn 1469–March 1470

Warwick stirs up Robin of Redesdale’s rebellion and the Lincolnshire rebellion, primarily to demonstrate to Edward that he cannot manage without him. His success in the former allows him to execute several senior Woodvilles and even hold the King prisoner for a time; but defeat in the latter obliges him to flee to France, taking with him Edward’s brother and his own son-in-law, George, Duke of Clarence.

July–October 1470

In France, Warwick is reconciled with the deposed Queen Margaret, and agrees to invade England on behalf of the House of Lancaster. Edward, deserted by some of his forces (including Warwick’s brother, John, Marquess Montagu), is driven into exile in Burgundy. Henry VI is brought out of the Tower of London (where he has languished since 1464) and restored as king.

2 November 1470

Edward, Prince of Wales (King Edward’s eldest son and the elder of the ‘Princes in the Tower’), is born in sanctuary.

14 March 1470

King Edward returns from exile and, after being reconciled with his brother Clarence, defeats and kills Warwick and Montagu at the battle of Barnet (14 April). He completes his recovery of his kingdom by defeating Queen Margaret and her western Lancastrian army at the battle of Tewkesbury (4 May). King Henry’s only son is slain at Tewkesbury, and Henry himself dies mysteriously in the Tower of London soon afterwards.

17 August 1473

King Edward’s second son, Prince Richard, is born at Shrewsbury.

28 May 1474

Prince Richard is created Duke of York. At about this time William Caxton produces the first printed book in English, The Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye, in Bruges.

June–September 1475

King Edward invades France but is bought off with a large annual pension and the engagement of his eldest daughter to the Dauphin at the Treaty of Pecquigny.

1476

William Caxton sets up his printing press at Westminster, and prints The Dictes or Sayings of the Philosophers the following year.

7 February 1477

Prince Richard is created Duke of Norfolk prior to marrying Anne, daughter and heiress of the last Mowbray duke, on 15 January 1478.

18 February 1478

The Duke of Clarence is executed, although his offences, born of frustration and disappointment, do not appear to warrant the ultimate penalty.

9 April 1483

King Edward dies at the comparatively young age of 40. His son, Prince Edward, succeeds as Edward V, but the late King’s surviving brother, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, stages a coup that ensures his own appointment as Protector during the boy’s minority.

13–26 June 1483

Duke Richard accuses William, Lord Hastings, and other lords loyal to Edward V of plotting against him. He is informed by Robert Stillington, Bishop of Bath and Wells, that when King Edward married Elizabeth Woodville he was already precontracted to another lady, and that all his brother’s children by Elizabeth are therefore illegitimate and unable to succeed. Elizabeth, who had fled into sanctuary when she received word of Richard’s first coup, is compelled to surrender Prince Richard to him (16 June), and the boy is sent to join his elder brother in the Tower. Duke Richard is declared the rightful heir of the House of York and becomes king, as Richard III, on 26 June.

October 1483

King Richard’s ally, the Duke of Buckingham, leads an unsuccessful rebellion to restore Edward V to the throne. The rebels hear a rumour that the young King is no more and transfer their allegiance to Richard’s Lancastrian rival, the exiled Henry Tudor.

Christmas Day 1483

Henry Tudor swears an oath in Rennes Cathedral to marry Princess Elizabeth of York (Edward V’s and Prince Richard’s sister) when he is able to defeat King Richard, thereby uniting the two rival branches of the royal family.

August 1485

Henry Tudor invades England with a small force and, remarkably, defeats and kills King Richard at the battle of Bosworth (22 August). Henry becomes king as Henry VII and marries Elizabeth of York in January 1486. Prince Arthur, their first son, is born on 20 September.

June 1487

A group of Yorkist dissidents, including the Earl of Lincoln (Richard III’s nephew), and Francis, Viscount Lovel, the late King’s chamberlain, mount a rebellion against Henry, but are defeated at Stoke by Newark on 16 June.

1491–1499

Perkin Warbeck appears in Ireland claiming to be Prince Richard of York. He resembles Edward IV, his alleged father, behaves plausibly, and is recognised by several European heads of state when they wish to make trouble for Henry; but he is unable to say how he escaped from the Tower or name any witnesses who would verify his story. He is captured after the failure of his third abortive invasion of England in 1497 and executed with the Earl of Warwick (the Duke of Clarence’s son and the most obvious Yorkist rival to Henry) two years later.

May-June 1497

Cornishmen led by Michael Joseph, a blacksmith, Thomas Flamank, a lawyer, and Lord Audley rebel against taxation and march on London but are defeated at Blackheath (17 June). At about this time the Cabots reach Nova Scotia and return with reports that lead to the development of the Newfoundland fisheries.

November 1501

Prince Arthur is married to the Spanish princess Catherine of Aragon.

April 1502

Prince Arthur dies, followed by his mother, Queen Elizabeth of York, in February 1503.

1499–1509

King Henry enjoys greater peace and security after Warbeck’s execution, but suffers increasingly from illness. He dies, aged 52, on 21 April 1509, and is succeeded by Henry, his only surviving son. Sebastian Cabot leads an expedition to search for the North-West Passage to Asia (1509), but turns back when confronted by ice.

11 June 1509

Henry VIII marries Catherine of Aragon.

4 May 1513

Edmund de la Pole, the slain Earl of Lincoln’s brother, known as the ‘White Rose’, is executed.

1513

English armies defeat the French at the battle of the Spurs (16 August), and the Scots at Flodden (9 September), killing the Scottish king, James IV.

24 December 1515

Thomas Wolsey, having made himself indispensable to the young King Henry, becomes Chancellor of England.

18 February 1516

The future Queen Mary is born to the King and Queen at Greenwich Palace.

June 1520

Henry VIII meets King Francis I of France at the ‘Field of the Cloth of Gold’.

May 1521

Edward Stafford, Duke of Buckingham (the son of Richard III’s Buckingham), is arrested and executed for allegedly promoting his own claim to the throne.

11 October 1521

Henry is given the title ‘Defender of the Faith’ by Pope Leo X.

14 February 1525

Battle of Pavia. The French army is heavily defeated by the forces of the Emperor Charles V in Lombardy. King Francis I is captured and Richard de la Pole, the last of the sons of the Duke and Duchess of Suffolk to claim the English Crown, killed.

1525

William Tyndale translates the New Testament into English. The authorities try to prevent it from being distributed in England and copies are publicly burnt at St Paul’s Cathedral in 1527.

Spring 1527

Henry VIII, troubled by his lack of a male heir, begins to consider annulling his marriage to Catherine of Aragon. A great debate ensues in which Leviticus 18: 16 and 20: 21, which apparently forbids marriage with a deceased brother’s widow, is pitted against Deuteronomy 25: 5, which appears to require a surviving brother to marry his widowed sister-in-law and ‘raise up seed for his brother’.

22 September 1529

Wolsey is dismissed as chancellor after failing to persuade the Pope to end Henry’s marriage. Thomas More is appointed in his stead.

1531

The appearance of Halley’s Comet causes widespread panic.

25 January 1533

Henry secretly marries Anne Boleyn, his already pregnant mistress. Archbishop Cranmer declares his marriage to Catherine null and void on 23 May. Anne is crowned queen on 1 June.

May 1534

Convocation declares that the Pope has no more authority in England that any other foreign bishop, and Parliament formally recognises Henry as head of the English Church (November).

15 January 1535

Thomas Cromwell, appointed Henry’s secretary (1533) and Master of the Rolls (1534), begins to exercise supreme authority over the Church as Vicar General. Bishop John Fisher is beheaded for refusing to take the oath of assent to the Act of Succession on 22 June, followed by Thomas More on 6 July. (Both are prepared to recognise Anne as queen and her children as Henry’s heirs, but will not accept the implied repudiation of the authority of the Pope.)

19 May 1536

Queen Anne is beheaded after being convicted of adultery – an event perhaps not unconnected with her failure to give Henry a son. The King is immediately betrothed to Jane Seymour, whom he marries on 30 May.

October 1536

The dissolution of the smaller monasteries gives rise to the ‘Pilgrimage of Grace’, an insurrection fomented in the northern and eastern counties with the aim of compelling the King to reverse the recent religious changes. Henry, outnumbered, dissembles, but then punishes the rebels severely after he has persuaded them to disband their forces.

12 October 1537

Prince Edward is born. Queen Jane, his mother, dies twelve days later.

5 September 1538

Cromwell instructs parish clergy to keep records of baptisms, weddings and burials.

9 December 1538

Execution of the ‘Yorkist’ Henry Pole, Lord Montague (brother of Cardinal Reginald Pole, Henry’s sternest critic, and a grandson of the Duke of Clarence), followed by that of Henry Courtenay, Marquess of Exeter, a grandson of Edward IV, on 9 January 1539. Their young sons are sent to the Tower.

April 1539

The ‘Great (English) Bible’, financed by Cromwell and edited by Miles Coverdale, receives royal approval.

May 1539

Parliament passes an Act dissolving the greater monasteries, notwithstanding earlier favourable references to them. The abbots of Colchester, Reading and Glastonbury are charged with treasonable activities and executed in the autumn.

6 January 1540

Henry marries Anne of Cleves – and divorces her on 9 July. Thomas Cromwell is created Earl of Essex on 18 April (notwithstanding the failure of the Cleves marriage), but is executed, brought down by his enemies, who have managed to persuade the King that he is a heretic and traitor, on 28 July. Henry marries Catherine Howard privately the same day.

27 May 1541

Execution of Margaret, Countess of Salisbury (the Duke of Clarence’s daughter), after nearly two years’ imprisonment. She suffers more as a substitute for her exiled son Cardinal Pole than for any crime she has committed herself.

June 1541

Henry becomes king, as opposed to ‘lord’, of Ireland, confirming his headship of the Irish Church.

13 February 1542

Catherine Howard executed after committing adultery with the courtiers Thomas Culpeper and Francis Dereham. Henry marries Catherine Parr, his last wife, on 12 July 1543.

23 November 1542

English forces defeat the Scots at Solway Moss. James V dies three weeks later, leaving his throne to his week-old daughter Mary Queen of Scots.

19 July 1545

The warship Mary Rose suddenly heels over and sinks in the Solent. Henry watches from Southsea Castle as 700 men are drowned.

28 January 1547

Henry VIII dies. The 9-year-old Edward VI succeeds and is crowned on 16 February.

10 September 1547

The Duke of Somerset crushes Scottish resistance to the new government at the battle of Pinkie.

Summer 1549

Religious protests in the north, the west country and Norfolk (‘Kett’s Rebellion’), sparked by the introduction of the Book of Common Prayer and compounded by economic grievances, are defeated by the aristocracy’s reluctance to upset the existing settlement.

22 December 1550

Richard Plantagenet dies at Eastwell in Kent.

6 July 1553

Edward VI dies. The Duke of Northumberland’s attempt to preserve and further the cause of the Protestant reformation by promoting the claims of Lady Jane Grey over those of the Catholic Princess Mary end in disaster and Mary becomes queen.

Introduction

King Richard III is unquestionably the most maligned of all England’s rulers, more so than either King John, who was suspected of having murdered his nephew Prince Arthur, or William Rufus, who was condemned by contemporaries for his abuse of the Church. He has been variously accused of complicity in the deaths of the Lancastrian King Henry VI and Henry’s son Prince Edward in 1471, and in the execution of his own brother George, Duke of Clarence, seven years later. He had William, Lord Hastings, Anthony Woodville, Earl Rivers and several others beheaded in 1483, ostensibly because he feared they would resist his seizure of authority; and unkind rumours accused him of trying to poison his wife, Queen Anne, so that he could remarry and beget an heir. People inevitably feared the worst when Edward V and his younger brother disappeared into the Tower of London, and they were still ‘missing, presumed dead’ when Richard was slain at Bosworth in 1485.

Richard never sought to excuse or dispel any of these allegations, probably because he thought that to do so was both unkingly and unnecessary. He may (or may not) have been involved in the deaths of King Henry, Prince Edward and Clarence, but they all died in Edward IV’s reign and Edward must bear the ultimate responsibility. The executions of Hastings, Rivers and the others were brutal and tyrannical but must be viewed in the context of the ruthlessness of the era; and the best medical opinion is that Queen Anne probably succumbed to tuberculosis, or ‘consumption’, after an illness lasting a few months. It is unlikely that Richard would be particularly remembered for any of these things if his reign had been long and reasonably successful (how many people did Henry VIII, ‘Bluff King Hal’, kill, for example?), but the murder of children, and particularly of a child who had been a king, was an entirely different matter. No one knows what became of the two ‘Princes’, but it is this, more than any other factor, that has blighted the King’s reputation for the past five hundred years and more.

The main question, then, is why did Richard not produce the two boys alive and confound his critics? The most obvious answer is that he, or someone else, had killed them, or that to do so would have restored them to the centre of attention in a way that was entirely unacceptable to him. Some writers have argued that, once they had been declared illegitimate, they were no longer a threat to him or to anyone; but a new parliament

Reviews for Lost Prince

[soliloquies · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Slightly disappointed with this as it could have been so much better. The main argument in the book would have been better suited to a journal or short thesis. In book form there was a lot of padding and not enough evidence to support the authors claims. Worth reading, however.

[john257hopper · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The author has a lively writing style, but I found this book far less convincing in its arguments than his biography of Elizabeth Woodville. My suspicions were aroused when in the opening chapter he said that an impartial survey on the supposed survival of Richard must include the "evidence" provided by a spiritual medium. Although that low point was not plumbed in the main part of the book, the theory the author presents is wafer thin, too thin to make a whole book - the main text is only 150 pages and that is padded out with a fair amount of only tangentially relevant historical detail. He is too inclined to treat ambiguities in the sources as the foundation for a whole tower of speculation, which is all he really has. I am not sure whether the author even really believes it himself; it reads as though it is a mere exercise in speculative argumentation.