1478
The first event of the New Year is the birth of a son to the King of Portugal and his wife, Juana, the called Queen of Castile. This little boy is christened Henrique after the Queen’s father. Needless to say, this merely intensifies the rivalry between her and her niece. This is not Juana’s first child, though. She has already produced a daughter – named Leonor – in 1475. However, little Leonor’s health is not the most sterling, and she has barely managed to make the age of three.
But while the princess of Girona is recovering from her miscarriage (10 January), the Aragonese are already trying their luck in Rome. The king of Aragon’s daughter is also the queen of Naples, and with a son-in-law who is sitting uncomfortably close to the pope’s borders, they are now attempting to (by any means, fair or foul) have the Queen of Portugal declared illegitimate and her marriage invalid. Truth be told, the illegitimate part is not too difficult given her mother’s carryings-on that resulted in the birth of two bastard sons following the dissolution of her own marriage – by a bishop no less! The invaldity of the marriage is the problem.
See, the prince and princess of Girona can’t pry too deeply into the validity of their rival’s marriage due to the fact the bull granting the dispensation for their own marriage was obtained under dubious circumstances. And while the marriage took place between two consenting parties, and has clearly been ratified (as evinced by their children), it doesn’t dispel the notion of standing behind the door and pointing fingers at someone you think should rather be there.
Which is why the envoys are rather focusing on the illegitimacy of Juana than the invalidity of the marriage.
And 1478 seems to be a year for invalid marriages (fact or fiction). The king of England is dealing with his own headache – the duke of Clarence. See, Clarence is up to his eyeballs in treasonous activities. Firstly, he tried and summarily convicted and executed a Welshwoman for witchcraft (by which she had caused the death of the duchess of Clarence), secondly he’s consulting astronomers and magicians as to foretell the hour of the king’s death, but it is his most recent activity which is causing the most problems.
A member of the king’s council, who also happens to occupy the see of Bath, one Robert Stillington, is involved. Later historians will dispute Stillington’s motives, especially since the man owes almost everything to the house of York. His bishopric, his chancellorship and his presidency of the council, have all been obtained as rewards for his support for the king.
But that aside, Stillington has approached Clarence with the knowledge of a previous marriage of the king – to the dowager duchess of Beaufort – namely that his rewarding is more like Edward bribing him to keep quiet. Of late, Stillington and the king are at cross-purposes in the council (which is probably why he went to Clarence). Now, of course, a court is a porous environment, and it doesn’t take long before the whispers start echoing down the palace corridors that the marriage of the king and queen is invalid and their children illegitimate, because his Highness is
actually married to the duchess of Beaufort.
This puts Edward in a bind. He has been hounded on-and-off by rumors of his own illegitimacy – namely that his mother took up with an archer way back when. He doesn’t need his own children to be hounded by the same issue. And Clarence is the person spreading these rumors (as before). Stillington is given an all-expenses paid vacation in the Tower of London while his trial for treason is pending.
The trial is needless to say a sensation – so much so that there exist rumors that King Louis is slowly walking away from marrying the dauphin to the Princess Elizabeth (who might or might not be nothing more than a royal bastard, right now). A specially constituted tribunal – consisting of the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, and the dukes of Gloucester, Buckingham, Norfolk and Suffolk – is formed in order to ajudge as to whether there is any validity to Stillington’s claims.
And the first two persons it calls are the two premier people involved in this suit: King Edward and Duchess Eleanor. The duchess affirms that she has never known any man but ‘her lord and husband of fond memory’, the duke of Beaufort. The king, on the other hand solemnly vows that ‘
he never contracted any kind of legal or spiritual bond with the Lady Eleanor Talbot and only had affection and kindness for her’ and thus he was free to take another wife, namely the queen.
Other witnesses are called in – the dowager duchess of York, the king’s mother; and Talbot’s own family members. Talbot’s own family swears left and right that there was no such marriage. While the dowager duchess of York indicates that her late husband had merely considered such a match, but that nothing concrete was ever discussed.
Thus, the court finds Stillington guilty of treason and sedition against his sovereign and lord, the King. The king’s marriage is declared valid and his children’s legitimacy assured. Stillington has no such luck. Treason carries a death penalty, with an execution pending.
However, since in treason there are no accomplices, only primaries, Clarence by his involvement, is rendered likewise culpable. As a later biographer will phrase it ‘
Clarence is an apple rotten to the core’. And while Edward would like to turn a blind eye to his brother’s faults, when they play out on such a public stage, his hand is forced. And so the charges are drawn up for Clarence to be tried for treason.
This move shocks several at court – most notably the king’s mother, who reasons, pleads and protests against Edward’s actions. Others who attempt to intervene for Clarence include the queen – who has no love for her brother-in-law – who tries to tell Edward that to do such a thing will endanger their crown and all that Edward has worked for for the good of England.
In a later drama based on the events of the period, the character of Marguerite d’Anjou blasély comments to Lady Stanley and Lady Suffolk that ‘
his grace has gambled with too high stakes, for much like his father, he aimed for the crown, and yet he learned nothing from that man’s demise’. In truth, Marguerite simply says that ‘
if the duke is a traitor, as a traitor he must die’. This last comment she makes in private, considering the touch-and-go relations she has with the Yorks, most notably since she had the late duke of York – father of the king, the dukes of Clarence and Gloucester, and the duchesses of Suffolk and Burgundy – beheaded for treason. Granted, Marguerite added insult to injury by spiking the late duke’s head over the gates of York, crowned with a coronet made of paper. Something the dowager duchess has never forgiven her for.
At first Clarence treats the court in a high-handed fashion, his cavalier attitude surprising many, especially those who consider the trial a mere formality and the verdict a foregone conclusion. It is only when things start coming to a head that Clarence realizes the gravity of the situation, and that his brother is not going to be moving to save him. Not this time. Still, he reasons that the king will stop short of executing his own brother.
Thus, when the axe falls (no pun intended) that Clarence has been attainted for treason, judged guilty and sentenced to die by beheading, the duke is visibly stunned. And suddenly, the man is reduced to a shivering, trembling wreck as he is led away, cursing his brothers, the queen (the villain in any evil to befall him), the evil counsel to which Edward has listened.
Clarence is spared a public execution – only by virtue of Edward deciding not to make any more of a spectacle of his brother – and is to be privately helped along to his maker, observed only by Gloucester (the king’s representative), the dukes of Buckingham, Norfolk and Suffolk, and the bishop of London.
And so ends the life of George, son of Richard, duke of York and Cicely Neville, duke of Clarence, earl of Warwick and Salisbury.
There’s another slight problem in the Clarence case. After his wife and second son died, and George started seeing villains behind every bush, he might’ve thought up the idea of protecting his only surviving son in a rash fever dream. By exporting the boy. To his beloved sister in Burgundy. So, now Edward has to deal with Margaret having in her custody the young Edward, Earl of Warwick.
While Margaret is a member of the York branch of the house of Plantagenet, unlike her sisters, she’s a foreign subject by virtue of her marriage. Thus, Edward IV cannot simply
order her to release their nephew. See, while Warwick at first glance isn’t terribly important – Edward, Prince of Wales, Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York and George of Windsor, Duke of Bedford, plus the bevy of their sisters, all precede him in the English succession – he
is by virtue of his mother, a rather large landholder (equalled only by the duke of Gloucester) in England. So, it is necessary to get him back, otherwise he’s likely to do exactly the same to Edward IV or his son, what Edward IV and Henry IV both did to their respective kings.
Needless to say, Margaret is rather surprised by the arrival of her nephew. However, the politician in her realizes what diplomatic leverage this is on the English. She can persuade her husband to trade back Warwick in exchange for an English match for their son. However, Charles, is still smarting from the previous year’s military defeat, and the lack of prestige that accompanied the treaty that he was forced to sign with the French, wherein he was forced to cede Franche-Comté and Artois to France, return the duchy of Gelderland to the rightful heir, Karel II van Egmont, as well as betroth the comte de Charolais to an unspecified French princess.
The duke of Burgundy has other ideas. Namely to use Warwick as diplomatic leverage to get an English alliance and attack France conjointly. He already has his own marriage plans for his son. And they have been tailored to this end. The Aragonese have the Portuguese on the ropes as far as the War of the Castilian Succession is concerned. But just in case, he’s going between the Aragonese and the Portuguese, with the threat of ‘if you don’t like it, I’ll talk to the other side’. And finally, he gets it right that his son is betrothed (despite being engaged to an unnamed French girl), to either Infanta Leonor of Portugal and Castile (b.1475) or the Infanta Isabel of Aragon and Castile (b.1470) and the promise of a military alliance from Castile by the Treaty of Badajoz (with the Portuguese) and the Treaty of Lleria (with the Aragonese).
His recent marriage of his daughter, Marie, to Archduke Maximilian means that the Holy Roman Empire, in theory, is also on side with the military alliance.
Back in England, carrying on concurrently with the king’s trials was his legal troubles with the dukedom of Norfolk. The duke and his wife have only one surviving child – a little girl, named Elizabeth de Mowbray (b. 1472). The duke has taken ill of late, and is looking to secure his titles. The original plan was to marry Elizabeth off to her cousin, Thomas, Viscount Berkeley (b. 1468). However, since the young viscount’s death earlier in the year, a new husband is needed. Thomas is the only son of the Marquess of Berkeley, William, nicknamed ‘Waste-all’. And now, his considerably diminished estate
should be passing to his brother, Maurice. However, William had Maurice disinherited a few years back, due to him contracting a lower marriage. Thus, the heir to the Berkeley estate is his five year old daughter, Katherine (b. 1473). The title of ‘Marquess of Berkeley’ has been willed to the king and his heirs-male. All Maurice is getting is the barony with the Berkeley name on it.
But back to the young widowed Elizabeth. Once the duke of Norfolk dies, his titles will go extinct in the male line. The next heir is Sir John Howard – but his relation to Elizabeth is as distant as Berkeley’s was. And besides, the man is nearly sixty. And a firm adherent of Richard of Gloucester.
Since the prince of Wales is to be married to the Princess Anne, and the little duke of York is to be married to Anne of Brittany, the next royal male in line for the throne is, Prince George, Duke of Bedford. And the duke would be rather interested in marrying Elizabeth off into the royal family, whilst Katherine Berkeley will marry Thomas Howard, grandson and eventual heir of Sir John Howard.
Meanwhile, Edward’s been having second thoughts on this whole ‘marry Elizabeth to the dauphin’ thing. Especially with regard to Louis’ arachnical acrobatics during the trial of Stillington/Clarence. Louis, had, in the time that that had taken, broached the subject of marrying the dauphin to either the eldest daughter of the prince and princess of Girona, Isabel (b.1470) or the queen of Navarre’s granddaughter, Catherine de Foix (b. 1470).
Of course, both Edward and Louis are too much politicians to be
too put off by this. So, for now, the French betrothal limps on. Although Edward is starting to cast around for other possible matches for his eldest daughter.
But he’s looking for two bridegrooms instead of one. The king of Denmark, Sweden and Norway decided that he can’t wait any longer for Mary (Edward’s second daughter) to grow up, and has married the more age appropriate Christine of Saxony (b.1461) instead.
He’s managed to get his daughter, Anne (b.1475) betrothed to Juan, the Prince of the Asturias, and Cecily’s upcoming wedding to the future king of Scots is rapidly approaching, but Elizabeth and Mary are both going to be too old to be married to the newborn son of the Archduke Maximilian and his Burgundian wife, Philipp (b.1478). The duchess of Burgundy’s anger at Edward for what she sees as a judicial murder of Clarence (her favorite sibling) plus the fact that her husband is playing diplomatic hardball concerning Warwick, means that a Burgundian match is out. And although the queen of Navarre is putting out feelers for a marriage to her eldest grandson, Francisco, prince of Viana (b.1466), Edward doesn’t really consider it a suitable match for his eldest two daughters.
But in the marriage department, the King of Bohemia, Władysław VII, who married Princess Beatrice of Naples (b.1457) in 1476, due to his troubles with King Mátyás to the south (Mátyás also claims Władysław’s throne, and has used the style of ‘
King of Bohemia’ for the better part of the last decade), has no desire to see the Corvinid dynasty perpetuated, least of all since Mátyás’ son, Istvan, has inherited the dukedom of Glogow through his mother.
Thus, him (or rather his wife, the person who’s really wearing the trousers in this relationship), decides that a way around this is to have Rome declare Mátyás’ marriage void.
On what grounds? Well, Mátyás’ current wife, Helena Tomašević, is related to his first wife, Elizabeth of Celje. Her mother, Maria Helena Branković is Elizabeth of Celje’s cousin. And due to the dispensation issued not making mention of that pesky little detail, Beatrice and Władysław seek to have the legitimacy of the marriage overturned on those grounds.
In England, an interesting marriage proposal arrives just before Christmas. From the king of Portugal. He’s aware of the finagling going on in Rome to have his marriage declared void. And he’d kind of like to have a degree of back up from Portugal’s oldest and dearest ally – England. He proposes his son by the Castilian queen, Henrique, for Edward’s youngest daughter, Anne. However, Edward, who has only
just got the court of Aragon to agree to the betrothal of Anne to D. Juan, prevaricates.
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