Mistress of the Monarchy (67 page)

1
For this evidence in detail, see Armitage-Smith.

2
Leese

3
Complete Peerage; Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
; Weir: English Aristocratic Pedigrees. The Oxford DNB appears to have confused him with his father, another Robert Ferrers of Willisham, who was John of Gaunt’s retainer from 1378 and died in 1381. It was his son, Robert Ferrers, born around 1372–3, who married Joan Beaufort. The younger Robert’s mother was Elizabeth, Baroness Boteler.

4
Crow and Olsen; Lincoln Cathedral Dean and Chapter Muniments: Chapter Acts 1384 —1394, a.2.27.f.13 r

5
Walker

6
Quoted from a twelfth-century Bible in Lincoln Cathedral Library (Silva-Vigier).

7
Crow and Olsen

8
Goodman:
John of Gaunt
; Howard; Pearsall

9
Goodman:
Honourable Lady

10
Silva-Vigier

11
Ibid.

12
Goodman:
Honourable Lady

13
‘Liber Benefactorum’

14
Westminster Chronicle

15
Walsingham

16
Knighton; Higden;
Westminster Chronicle
; ‘Liber Benefactorum’

17
Higden calls her
‘viropotens’
, which means, literally, ‘mighty’.

18
Higden. Armitage-Smith judged this story too scandalous to bear repetition in English, so he quoted it in Latin.

19
Wells

20
Complete Peerage
; Special Collections: S.C.8; Walsingham. He had taken, as his second wife, Philippa Mortimer, Elizabeth’s cousin.

21
Higden

22
Knighton;
Eulogium
; Froissart

23
Chronique du religieux de Saint-Denys
; Goodman:
John of Gaunt

24
Jones, Major, Varley and Johnson

25
Bishop Buckingham’s Register

26
Amcotts MSS. (VI/A/22/2)

27
Ackroyd

28
Lopes; Russell; Goodman:
John of Gaunt; Honourable Lady; Dictionary of National Biography

29
Bevan

30
The year is sometimes — probably incorrectly — given as 1386, but this does not take account of the mediaeval calendar. In England, until 1752, the New Year officially started on Lady Day, 25 March — thus 16 February 1386 should probably read 16 February 1387. To confuse matters, the Roman year began on 1 January, which was celebrated in England as New Year’s Day. Effectively there were two new years in England, 1 January and 25 March.

31
Foljambe of Osberton MSS. (Osberton Deeds, IX, I, 787)

32
Nicolas:
Controversy

33
Froissart

34
Lopes. Fernão Lopes wrote a Portuguese chronicle that was commissioned by Duarte I, John of Gaunt’s grandson. Lopes wrote discreetly and admiringly of John, basing his account on the recollections of people who had known him, and his work reflects the respect in which the House of Lancaster was held in Portugal.

35
Gillespie; Begent; McDonald

36
Beltz; Silva-Vigier

37
McDonald; McHardy

38
Calendar of Patent Rolls

39
Walsingham; Lopes; Froissart

40
Froissart

41
Lopes

42
Exchequer Records: E.403; Honoré-Duvergé

43
Pearsall; Crow and Olsen; Brewer

44
Sometimes the dress in tomb sculptures is old-fashioned for its period, but Philippa was married to a prominent man with links to the court, and she was an honoured servant of the Duchess of Lancaster: hers would have been no rustic burial, and if any effigy had been made for her, it would surely have sported the mode of its own period. Some internet websites (see, for example,
www.johnowensmith.co.uk
) claim that Thomas Chaucer, Philippa’s son, was lord of the manor of East Worldham from 1418 to 1434, but that is incorrect. This manor was granted to the Crown in 1374, and nearly a century later it was still in the hands of Edward IV when Thomas’s daughter, Alice Chaucer, petitioned him for the restoration of lands there which she claimed had been granted to her by Henry VI. There is no evidence that the Chaucers had any earlier interests there. It is far more likely that the effigy represents a lady of the Venuz family, who held the manor of East Worldham from the eleventh to the fourteenth century.
www.british-history.ac.uk
;
www.astoft.co.uk
; Hampshire Record Office, Accession No. 52M70; Norris;
Victoria County History: Hampshire

45
Jones:
Four Minster Houses

46
Lopes

47
Goodman:
Honourable Lady
; Walsingham

48
Westminster Chronicle

49
Lopes

50
Foedera

51
Ibid.; Lopes;
John of Gaunt’s Register

52
Goodman:
John of Gaunt

53
Foedera

54
Crow and Olsen

55
Hicks

56
Froissart; Guzmán; Armitage-Smith; Goodman:
John of Gaunt

57
Foedera
; Russell; Palmer and Powell; Goodman:
John of Gaunt
; Ayala;
Westminster Chronicle
; Perroy

58
Goodman:
John of Gaunt.
Lewis Recouchez was later Master of St James’s Hospital, Westminster, the leper hospital that originally stood on the site of St James’s Palace

59
Ayala; Froissart; Armitage-Smith; Russell

60
Armitage-Smith;
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

61
Goodman:
Honourable Lady

62
Ibid.

63
Calendar of Patent Rolls

64
Froissart; Hardyng

65
Froissart

66
Goodman:
Honourable Lady
; Given-Wilson and Curteis; Wylie; Duchy of Lancaster Records: DL.28

67
Given-Wilson and Curteis. His only known bastard son, Edmund Labourde (who died young), was born probably in 1401, when Henry had been a widower for seven years.

68
Goodman:
Honourable Lady; John of Gaunt
; McFarlane; Wylie; Bevan; Duchy of Lancaster Records: DL.28

69
Goodman: Redoubtable Countess

70
Foedera

71
Exchequer Records: E.403; Nicolas:
Controversy

72
Foedera

73
Higden;
Rotuli Parliamentorum

74
Knighton

75
Goodman:
John of Gaunt

76
Ibid.;
Calendar of Patent Rolls; Westminster Chronicle
; Walsingham;
Rotuli Parliamentorum
; Saul

77
Higden

78
Westminster Chronicle
; Chancery Records: C.53

79
Walsingham; Duchy of Lancaster Records: DL.29; Lewis: ‘Indentures of retinue’

80
Rotuli Parliamentorum

81
Ibid.

82
Ibid.;
Westminster Chronicle

83
Foedera

84
Goodman:
John of Gaunt

85
Stow:
London

86
For Ely Place, see, for example, Ashley; Dalzell; Stow:
London
; Goodman:
John of Gaunt
; McHardy; Sharman. After Elizabeth I had forced the Bishop of Ely to surrender Ely Place to the Crown in the late sixteenth century, Sir Christopher Hatton acquired the freehold — hence the name Hatton Garden.
The old palace was demolished in 1772, when the present Ely Place — a gated
cul-de-sac
of Georgian houses, incorporating the Church of St Etheldreda — was built; it still remains a sanctuary.

87
Calendar of Close Rolls
; McHardy. The London Silver Vaults now partially occupy the site of the bishops’ house.

88
Barron; Legge

89
Froissart

90
Armitage-Smith; Emden; Harriss; Goodman:
John of Gaunt
; Silva-Vigier; Le Neve

91
Dictionary of National Biography
; Saul; Silva-Vigier

92
Leese

93
Boucicaut;
Chronique du religieux de Saint-Denys
; Froissart; Kirby

94
Additional MSS.

95
Duchy of Lancaster Records: DL.28

96
Froissart; Jones and Underwood

97
Froissart; Kirby; Duchy of Lancaster Records: DL.28;
Westminster Chronicle

98
Exchequer Records: E.403

99
Waleys Cartulary, rolls A1, A2, A4, A9, B9; Goodman:
Katherine Swynford
; Rosenthal, in which are to be found the printed checkroll lists; Wylie.

100
Jones, Major, Varley and Johnson

101
Goodman:
John of Gaunt
; Edinburgh University Library MS.183, f.135v

102
Duchy of Lancaster Records: DL.28

103
Kyngeston

104
Waleys Cartulary

105
Calendar of Patent Rolls
; Goodman:
Katherine Swynford

106
One of two adjoining Northamptonshire hamlets now known as Chapel Brampton and Church Brampton.

107
Calendar of Patent Rolls; Complete Peerage
; Chancery Records: C.137; Duchy of Lancaster Records: DL.28. The present Overstone Manor is a hotel dating from the 1930s and has nothing to do with the original manor house, which has long since disappeared; nor does anything remain of the mediaeval village, which was rebuilt in the eighteenth century.

108
Duchy of Lancaster Records: DL.28

109
Goodman:
Honourable Lady
; Wylie; Duchy of Lancaster Records: DL.28

110
Goodman: Redoubtable Countess; Tuck; Harriss

111
Waleys Cartulary

112
Foedera
; Froissart (for example); Additional MSS.

113
Knighton

114
Froissart

115
Bruce

116
Calendar of Patent Rolls
; Duchy of Lancaster Records: DL.28

117
Duchy of Lancaster Records: DL.28; Kyngeston

118
Victoria County History: Oxfordshire
; Jacob

119
Higden

120
Walsingham

121
Jones, Major, Varley and Johnson

122
Goodman:
Honourable Lady
; Duchy of Lancaster Records: DL.28

123
Calendar of Patent Rolls
; Duchy of Lancaster Records: DL.28

124
Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem

125
Rotuli Parliamentorum
; Armitage-Smith

126
Galbraith; Bruce

127
Westminster Chronicle
; Walsingham; Palmer:
England, France and Christendom

128
The date of her obit is given in John of Gaunt’s will as 24 March. Higden, Knighton and Walsingham all give the date incorrectly as the 25th.

1
St Paul’s Cathedral MSS., B, Box 95

2
Goodman:
John of Gaunt

3
Foedera

4
Walsingham

5
Adam of Usk; Stow:
Annals
; Froissart

6
The date is sometimes incorrectly given as 4 June, the day of Philippa’s birth, but in 1406, Mary’s obit was celebrated on 4 July, which must have been the anniversary of her death.

7
Leland

8
Duchy of Lancaster Records: DL.28

9
Walsingham;
Westminster Chronicle
; Knighton (who gives the dates). After St Mary’s College was suppressed in 1548, and the collegiate church demolished, Mary de Bohun’s remains were moved to the chapel of Trinity Hospital, Leicester. Tradition has long had it that that a chest tomb bearing a poorly preserved alabaster effigy of a woman, which dates from the late fourteenth century, is hers, but that is unlikely because the figure is wearing widow’s weeds, and we know that Henry V commissioned a copper effigy of his mother. The effigy is possibly that of Dame Mary Hervey, an early benefactress of the hospital.

10
Leland. Constance’s tomb was destroyed when St Mary’s Church was demol ished during the Reformation.

11
Testamenta Eboracensia

12
Leland; Duffy

13
McKisack;
Calendar of Close Rolls

14
Legge

15
Chancery Records: C.61

16
Tuck; Harriss; Jones and Underwood

17
Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers

18
Ibid.

19
Jones and Underwood; Harriss

20
Duchy of Lancaster Records: DL.28

21
Froissart

22
Jones:
Ducal Brittany

23
Goodman:
John of Gaunt
; Duchy of Lancaster Records: DL.28; Walsingham

24
Harriss

25
Walsingham

26
Chancery Records: C.53; Armitage-Smith; Harriss

27
Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers

28
Walsingham;
Complete Peerage
; Monk of Evesham; Froissart

29
Goodman:
Katherine Swynford

30
According to Harriss, who gives no evidence to support this date.

31
McHardy; Bishop Buckingham’s Register

32
Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers

33
Joy

34
Engraved by Dugdale and Gervase Holles in the seventeenth century. See Sanderson.

35
Dugdale: Book of Monuments; Holles

36
Lewis:
Cult of St Katherine
; Lucraft:
Katherine Swynford
. The Beaufort Hours is B.L. Royal MS. 2. AXVIII.

37
Froissart

38
For Pontefract, see Goodman:
John of Gaunt
; Armitage-Smith. The castle was dismantled by the Parliamentarians in 1648 after a year-long siege, and only ruins remain today.

39
Calendar of Patent Rolls
; Duchy of Lancaster Records: PL.3; Goodman:
John of Gaunt
. All that remains today of Rothwell Castle is a pillar of rubble that once formed part of a rectangular building, and the buried foundations of a range of lodgings. The castle was largely dismantled before 1497, when a timber-framed house was built on the site. This was demolished in 1977.

40
Register of the Guild of the Holy Trinity

41
Trokelowe; Walsingham

42
An English Chronicle

43
Froissart

44
Ibid.

45
Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers

46
Duchy of Lancaster Records: DL.28. I am indebted to Professor Goodman for sending me this reference.

47
John of Gaunt’s Register

48
Perroy:
Diplomatic Correspondence

49
Froissart

50
Goodman:
John of Gaunt

51
Froissart

52
Ibid.

53
Goodman:
John of Gaunt

54
Duchy of Lancaster Records: DL.28. Again, I am grateful to Professor Goodman for this reference.

55
Walsingham

56
Goodman:
John of Gaunt; Dictionary of National Biography

57
Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers

58
Walsingham; Capgrave

59
Some writers incorrectly identify her as Philippa de Coucy, the granddaughter of Edward III and widow of Robert de Vere, Duke of Ireland, but Froissart says that of all the French ladies there, only the Lady de Coucy accompanied Isabella, for there were many of the principal ladies of England present, including the Duchess of Ireland, i.e. Robert de Vere’s widow.

60
Scarisbrick

61
Froissart

62
Stow:
London

63
Foedera

64
Chronicles of London

65
Goodman:
Katherine Swynford
; Monstrelet

66
Calendar of Close Rolls

67
Froissart

68
Jones and Underwood

69
Rotuli Parliamentorum
; Armitage-Smith

70
Strictly speaking, the Beauforts were not ‘mantle children’, for they had not been born to single parents who subsequently married, but were the fruits of an adulterous relationship.

71
Rotuli Parliamentorum
; Given-Wilson; Lindsay;
Calendar of Patent Rolls
; Jones and Underwood;
Foedera
; Walsingham

72
Rotuli Parliamentorum

73
Lindsay; Brooke-Little; Scott-Giles. A plate showing John Beaufort’s arms before and after his legitimation is in Given-Wilson. The Beaufort yale badge was not introduced until 1435.

74
Jones and Underwood;
Dictionary of National Biography
; Percy MS. 78, cited by Armitage-Smith

75
Calendar of Close Rolls; Calendar of Patent Rolls
; Somerville; Harriss;
Sussex Feet of Fines

76
Calendar of Patent Rolls
; Goodman:
John of Gaunt

77
Duchy of Lancaster Records: PL.3

78
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
; Harriss

79
Emden

80
Calendar of Patent Rolls

81
Leeds Central Library MS. GC DL/3 f.14v; Armitage-Smith

82
Loftus and Chettle; Perry; Dugdale:
Monasticon

83
Rickert

84
Chancery Records: C.61

85
Froissart

86
Ibid.

87
Ibid.

88
Calendar of Patent Rolls

89
Froissart

90
For Richard II’s proceedings against the former Appellants, see, for example,
Eulogium
; Monk of Evesham; Walsingham; McKisack; Lindsay; King; Froissart; Schama; Armitage-Smith; Williams; Palmer:
England, France and Christendom
; Tuck;
Foedera; Chronicque de la traïson et mort de Richart Deux.

91
Goodman:
John of Gaunt

92
Froissart

93
Ibid.

94
Rotuli Parliamentorum
; Walsingham; Adam of Usk;
Calendar of Patent Rolls; Calendar of Close Rolls

95
Complete Peerage

96
Eulogium; An English Chronicle

97
Goodman:
John of Gaunt

98
Rotuli Parliamentorum

99
Walsingham

100
Rose; Walsingham;
Calendar of Patent Rolls
. On the 14th, by way of reward, Richard granted John some of Arundel’s forfeited property.
Calendar of Patent Rolls

101
Ibid.

102
Norfolk Record Office, Norwich, MS. 15171

103
Rotuli Parliamentorum; Oxford Dictionary of National Biography; Chronicles of the Revolution

104
The date is usually given as 1399, but that cannot be correct, for by then, John of Gaunt was dying. Circumstantial evidence strongly suggests that these documents date to 1398.

105
Calendar of Close Rolls
; Tuck

106
Walsingham

107
Chronicles of London
; Saul

108
Goodman:
John of Gaunt

109
Ibid.

110
B.L. Harley MS. 3988, ff.39r—40d

111
Calendar of Patent Rolls

112
Rotuli Parliamentorum; Calendar of Patent Rolls

113
Duchy of Lancaster Records: PL.3

114
Walsingham; Armitage-Smith;
Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers
; Harriss; Emden; McHardy; B.L. Arundel MS. 68, f.19v; Lambeth Palace Library MS. 20, f.171v;
Handbook of British Chronology
; Perry and Overton

115
Foedera
; Armitage-Smith;
Calendar of Documents Relating to Scotland; Rotuli Scotiae

116
Chancery Records: C.53

117
Rotuli Parliamentorum; Calendar of Patent Rolls; Chronicque de la traïson et mort de Richart Deux
; Goodman:
John of Gaunt

118
Froissart

119
Ibid.

120
Calendar of Patent Rolls

121
Rotuli Scotiae

122
Armitage-Smith

123
Chancery Records: C.61;
Calendar of Patent Rolls

124
Armitage-Smith;
Chronicque de la traïson et mort de Richart Deux
; Walsingham;
Eulogium
; Froissart;
Rotuli Parliamentorum
; Monk of Evesham;
Chronique du religieux de Saint-Denys

125
Froissart

126
Ibid.

127
Calendar of Patent Rolls
; Harvey: ‘Catherine Swynford’s Chantry’; Froissart

128
‘Inventories of Plate’; Wickenden; Lincoln Cathedral Dean and Chapter Muniments MS. Bj/2/10, f.12r

129
Calendar of Patent Rolls

130
Ibid.;
Complete Peerage

131
Calendar of Patent Rolls

132
Froissart. Mowbray went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and died of plague at Venice, on his way homewards.

133
Ibid.

134
Wyntoun

135
Bevan

136
Calendar of Patent Rolls

137
There persists to this day a false tradition that John of Gaunt died at Ely Place in London. This derives from Leland:
Collectanea
(although in his
Itinerary
Leland states that John died at Leicester), and of course Shakespeare. (See Lane; Norwich)

138
Wyntoun

139
‘The Kirkstall Chronicle’;
Eulogium

140
Gascoigne; the original MS. of his treatise is in Lincoln College, Oxford; Goodman:
John of Gaunt

141
Calendar of Patent Rolls

142
Plantagenet Encyclopaedia

143
Goodman:
Honourable Lady; John of Gaunt
; Fowler: ‘On the St Cuthbert Window’; Sharman

144
Sharman

145
Froissart; Vale; Kirby; Goodman:
John of Gaunt

146
Testamenta Eboracensia

147
Lincoln Cathedral Dean and Chapter Muniments; Wickenden; ‘Inventories of Plate’

148
John of Gaunt’s will is dated 3 February 1398, but in view of the mediaeval legal calendar, which ended on 25 March, the year should read 1399. The best text of the will is preserved at York; see
Testamenta Eboracensia
. A contemporary copy is in Bishop Buckingham’s Register at Lincoln, but this bears the incorrect date of 1397, an error that has often been copied. The will was
published by Nichols (
A Collection of all the Wills …
) in 1780. The Latin text is reproduced by Armitage-Smith, and an English translation is given by Silva-Vigier. See Post, for the dating of the will.

149
For Margaret Marshal, Duchess of Norfolk, his cousin, from whom he had purchased these items.

150
Goodman:
Honourable Lady

151
Calendar of Patent Rolls
; Norwich Public Library MS. NRS 11061

152
The date is given by Walsingham as 3 February, the date of the will, and the date on which the Duke’s obit was celebrated at St Paul’s (Dugdale). Duchy of Lancaster Records: DL.28; Post

153
Norris

154
Testamenta Eboracensia
. The less-reliable Lincoln text says ‘unembalmed’.

155
Walsingham; Armitage-Smith; Harriss; Lucraft:
Katherine Swynford; Calendar of Patent Rolls
; Froissart; Radford; Cook: ‘Chaucerian Papers’

156
This stood on the site of the Church of St John the Baptist, first built
c
.1400.

157
Cited by Duffy; Post;
Testamenta Eboracensia
; Walsingham; Adam of Usk

158
Testamenta Eboracensia

159
Calendar of Close Rolls; Calendar of Patent Rolls
; St Paul’s Cathedral MSS.

160
Duffy

161
Duchy of Lancaster Records: DL.28

162
Froissart

163
Duchy of Lancaster Records: DL.28; Post