Sir , of Flamborough K. R. DOCKRAY

IN 1513, at the age of some sixty years, Sir Marmaduke Constable, of Flamborough, captained the English left wing at the battle of Flodden. The resulting defeat of the Scots provided a fitting climax to a personal career stretching back to the 14703.l ‘Little Sir Marmaduke’, as he was seemingly known to contemporaries, had served Edward IV in France in 1475 and had been with Richard of Gloucester at the taking of Berwick in 1482.2 Under Henry VII he had played an active part in northern government, most notably as Shcriff of during the turbulent year 1488/9.’ But by far the most interesting and rewarding years of his life were those spent in the service of Richard III. Sir Marmaduke’s family, seated at Flamborough in Yorkshire’s East Riding (with a second seat at Somerby in Lincolnshire), was among the wealthiest and most influential of all the northern knightly clans in the later fifteenth century. Indeed, his father Sir possessed estates worth in excess of £300 per annum when he died in 1488.“ This Sir Robert, moreover, had managed to pick his way with some skill through the formidable political obstacles posed by the Wars of the Roses. There is a suggestion that he had connections 'with Richard Neville Earl of Salisbury,’ but this is probably belied by his presence in the Percy force at Heworth on August 24, 1453.6 In the later years of his life he certainly became a member of the affinity of the fourth Percy Earl of Northumberland.7 But loyalty to the crown (whoever the king might be) and, presumably, a sense of his own self-interest, always took precedence. Thus, in the wake of the Lancastrians’ great success at Ludford in 1459, Constable probably sat as MP. for Lincolnshire in the Coventry parliament (where the Yorkist leaders were attainted) and served on anti-Yorkist commissions in the north in December 1459 and May 1460.ll But this did not prevent him passing easily and swiftly into Edward IV’s service in 1461. In May 1461 his name duly appeared on revised commissions of the peace for the East Riding and Lindsey (Lincolnshire), and he found himself empowered to arrest and imprison East Riding men who were still holding out for Lancaster.“ He figured on further anti-Lancastrian commissions in November 1461 and February 1462, endured (most unusually) a double term of office as Sheriff of Yorkshire from November 1461 to the autumn of 1463, made the journey north towards Scotland with Edward IV in December 1462, and found himself involved in Anglo-Scottish negotiations both in April 1464 and October 1466."J During the Readeption of 1470/1 Constable kept a low profile, like so many others, but he re-emerged once Edward IV was safely back on the throne, represented Yorkshire in the parliament of 1478, and served a further term as the county’s sheriff in 1478/9.“ In 1483 and again in 1485, as in 1461 and

262 1470, he accepted the outcome of dynastic upheaval with apparent equanimity, surviving to die peacefully in his bed in 1488, after clocking up an impressive thirty-five years of continuous service as a J.P. in the East Riding.‘2 Long before his father’s death, Sir Marmaduke Constable had emqrged as a prominent northern figure in his own right. Like Sir Robert he enjoyed the patronage of the Earl of Northumberland,” and he certainly did very well for himself in the marriage stakes: his first marriage, to Margery, daughter of William, Lord Fitzhugh, was splendid socially (if unfortunately childless), while his second wife (Joyce, daughter of Sir Humphrey Stafford of Grafton) presented him with no fewer than four sons and two daughters." And, no doubt, his career would have run along entirely predictable lines in the north had it not been for Richard III.l5 During his own years as Edward IV’s chief lieutenant in the north in the 14705 and early 1480s, Richard III had built up an impressive personal following (thanks, not least, to the availability of so many Neville retainers following the Kingmaker’s death in 1471). Sir Marmaduke Constable was not of his affinity: rather, he emerged as a retainer of the house of Percy. But, since co-operation not conflict was the key to relations between Gloucester and Northumberland during these years, this connection in no way inhibited‘Constable’s promotion once Richard 111 had secured the throne in 1483. What mattered to the new king, in fact, was that here was an experienced Yorkshire knight who could be relied upon. And Richard III needed such men, especially following the Duke of Buckingham’s rebellion in the autumn of 1483. Northerners were beginning to make their mark in southern England even before this insurrection (indeed, their increasing prominence there may well have been a cause of it). But it was after the rebellion had collapsed that Richard III began the systematic promotion of northern (especially Yorkshire) knights and gentry in the midlands and south.16 Kent presented a particularly intractable problem. Ever since Jack Cade’s rebellion in 1450 (and even before that), it had been inclined to turbulence and lawlessness (especially during the crisis of 1469- 71), and its gentry were certainly prominent in the 1483 uprising. The king himself went on progress through the county in January 1484 in a determined effort to win the loyalty of its inhabitants‘7—but not before he had summoned Sir Marmaduke Constable to play a key role in restoring orderly government there. By mid December 1483, Constable had become a Knight of the Body, and perhaps a councillor of Richard III as well." He had been placed on the Kent commission of the peace (December 5), instructed to join an investigation into the value of rebel estates in the county (December 10), and installed as steward of the manors of Tonbridge, Penshurst and Brasted there (December 16)." On January 16, 1484, he was included on a commission, issued by the king during a visit to Sandwich, to administer oaths of allegiance to the inhabitants of many Kentish hundreds.20 A few days later, on January 22, the denizens of Tonbridge, Penshurst, Brasted, Hadlow and Yalding were ordered to attend upon Constable, whom the king ‘have deputed and ordained . . . to make his abode among you and to have the rule within our honour (of Tonbridge) and the lordships foresaid’; further, they were forbidden ‘to take clothing or be retained with any man, person or persons whatsoever’.2l Finally, at the beginning of May 1484, Constable

263 appeared as a commissioner of array for Kent.22 Soon after this, however, his connection with Kent seems to have been terminated.23 Perhaps order had been restored to the county, more likely the king had decided to switch his services entirely to the midlands. This process had begun, with a flourish, on March 28, 1484, when Constable was granted a whole series of Duchy of Lancaster posts in Staffordshire, Derbyshire and Leicestershire: on that date the king appointed him, for life, Steward of the honour of Tutbury, Constable of Tutbury castle and Steward of the lordship of Newcastle-under-Lyme (in Staffordshire); Steward and Constable of the High Peak, Steward of the lordship of Ashbourne, and Master Forester of Duffield Frith (in Derbyshire); and Steward and Constable of Castle Donington (in Leicestershire)?“ Further duties soon followed. In May 1484 he was a commissioner of array in Derbyshire (as well as in Kent), and served on similar commissions in Derbyshire and Staffordshire in December 1484.25 Even more onerously, on November 5, 1484, he was appointed Sheriff of Staffordshire; while, on December 12, he was placed on the Derbyshire commission of the peace.26 However, he did not go without reward: as well as receiving an annuity of £89 165 8d, he was granted the lordships of Braunstone and Market Bosworth in Leicestershire.27 Precisely how Sir Marmaduke Constable set about his duties, and with what degree of success, is not known. But we do have some indication of what the king expected of him. In October 1484 he was issued with detailed instructions for performing the office of steward at Tutbury. Consisting of some nine clauses in all, they certainly throw interesting light on the problems facing Richard III’s government, particularly when it came to controlling livery and maintenance and preventing local disorder. Constable was ordered, for instance, to take an oath of all the inhabitants of the honour that ‘they shalbe true and feithfulle liegemen unto the king, and not to be reteigned to any lord or other, but immediatly to the kinges grace’, and to ensure that ‘no lyveres ne conysaunce be geven within the said honnor contrarie to the law and to the statutes therof made’. Other clauses dealt with extortions and oppressions perpetrated by county bailiffs, and the sub- letting of lands by tenants against the king’s interests. As a whole, their primary purpose was probably the protection of royal rights, but they were also clearly designed for the benefit of the honour’s occupants." The year 1485, perhaps ominously, is a virtual blank in Sir Marmaduke Constable’s career. Could it be that, like his northern patron Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, he was beginning to waver in his loyalty to the king? If so, we have no evidence on the matter, but the balance of likelihood is that he was not. Certainly, as lord of the manor where Bosworth was fought, he had more than a passing interest in the battle whatever its outcome. Indeed, he was very probably present on the battlefield, numbered among the loyal household knights fighting for the luckless Richard 111.29 No doubt the defeat of Richard III and accession of Henry VII caused Constable considerable concern (especially in view of the Earl of Northumberland’s immediate imprisonment for his equivocal behaviour at Bosworth), and this may well have seemed justified when, very early in the new reign, he was deprived of many responsible offices.30 But it proved to be only a temporary setback to his career. On November 18, 1485, he secured a pardon for

264 all breaches of allegiance prior to September 22,-” and by May 1486 he had again become a Knight of the Body.32 In the same year,we are told, he rode with Henry VII on the occasion of the king’s first uneasyYorkshire progress.33 So, like many northern gentry supporters of Richard III, Constable—concluding that the Yorkist cause was now hopeless—sought and won the favour of the new Tudor king. No longer, however, did Sir Marmaduke Constable find himself employed in the royal service outside his native county of Yorkshire. This did not mean he had failed to secure Henry VII’s trust (the king was hardly in a position to pick and choose in his early years, anyway): rather, it demonstrated Henry’s rejection of his predecessor’s predilection for using northerners in central and southern administration. In November 1488 Constable began a second term as Sheriff of Yorkshire, in what proved to be a notably difficult year: the records of the city of York certainly make abundantly clear his role in dealing with a major popular uprising in the c0unty in the spring of 1489." Perhaps by way of reward for services rendered, in February 1490 Constable was appointed Steward of the manors of Pocklington, Catton, Hunmanby, Nafferton and Seamer during the minority of the fifth Earl of Northumberland.” In 1492 Sir Marmaduke accompanied Henry VII on an expedition to France, as he had earlier crossed the Channel with Edward IV in 1475.36 The results of the two expeditions, too, were remarkably similar, with Constable himself apparently involved in the process of negotiation which culminated in the treaty of Etaples in November 1492." A third term as Sheriff of Yorkshire followed in 1493/4, while in 1495 he sat as M.P. for the county. And for the rest of Henry VII’s reign, as well as during the early years of his formidable son, Constable remained active in the government’s service, including marathon employment as a J .P. in the East Riding lasting until his death.38 The culmination of his career, without a doubt, was the major command he held at the battle of Flodden on September 9, 1513. Indeed, it seems to have been something of a family occasion: his brother William Constable was there, and at least three of his four sons. And, after the fighting was over, his brother and two of his sons were knighted on the battlefield, while he himself received a personal letter of thanks from Henry VIII.” When Sir Marmaduke Constable died in 1518, it was after a career spanning five reigns during which he had given consistently good service; his family felt sufficiently proud of his achievements to place a commemorative brass in Flamborough parish church. And despite excluding all mention of Sir Marmaduke’s commitment to Richard III—presumably because this was considered best forgotten given Richard’s fast deteriorating reputation in the early sixteenth century—the brass’s inscription makes a splendid epitaph:

Here lieth Marmaduke Cunstable of Flaynborght,knyght, Who made adventor into F rance,& for the right of the same Passed over with Kyng Edwarde the Fourtht,that noble knight, And also with noble King Herre,the sevinth of that name. He was also an Barwik an the winnyng of the same, And by Kyng Edward chosyn Capteyn there first of any one, And rewllid and governid ther his tyme without blame, Bot for all that,as ye se,he lieth under this stone.

265 .5 Att Brankiston Feld wher the Kyng of scottys was slayne, He then beyng of the age of threscore and tene, With the gode duke of northefolke that jorney he have tayn, And coragely avauncid hyself emong other ther & then, The kyng beyng in France with grete nombre of Ynglishmen, He nothing hedyng his age ther but jeparde hym as on, With his sonnes brothers,sarvantts and kynnismen, Bot now,as ye se,he lyeth under this stone. But now allathes tryumphes are passed & set on syde, For all worldly joyes they wull not long endure, They are some passed and away dothe glyde, And who that puttith his trust in them I call him most unsure, For when dethe strikith he sparith no creature, Nor gevith no warnyng but takith them one & bne, And now he abydeth Godis 'mercy & hath none other socure, For, as ye se him here,he lieth under this 'stone. I pray now my kynsmen, lovers and frendis all, To pray to Cure Lord Jhesu to have marcy of my soull.‘°

NOTES AND REFERENCES

l. J. C. Wedgwood. History of Parliament 1439—1509. Biographies (H.M.S.O. I936). p.212. 2. Roger Dadswarth’s Yorkshire Church. Notes 1619—1631. ed. 1. W. Clay, Yorkshire Archaeological Society (Record Series), vol. 34 (1904), pp. 182—3, inscription in Flamborough church. 3. Calendar of Fine Rolls l485—I509. p.89. Calendar of Inquisition: Post Mariam. Henry VI], Vol. 1, nos. 363 (Yorkshire). 366 (Lincolnshire). 5. R. A. Griffiths, Local Rivalries and National Politics: the Percies, the Nevilles, and the Duke of Exeter, 1452—55. Speculum, Vol. 43 (I968), p.595. 6. PRO. King's Bench Ancient Indictments. KB9/l49/89. Griffiths, loc.ci!., p.593, has dubbed Heworth ‘the first overt “battle" between the Percies and the Nevilles in the 14505'. 7. Sir Robert was included in 3 I486 list of the Earl of Northumberland's ‘feedmen’, John Leland, Colleclanea (London I774), Vol. 4, p.l86; while, in his will dated July 1485. the Earl expressed the wish that ‘Sir Robert Constable, knyght, be payed his fee duryng his lyve, he doyng his service unto my aheires as he clothe unto me‘. Teslamenm Eboracensia. Vol. 3, Sunees Society, Vol. 45 (1864), p.306. 8. Wedgwood. op.cil., p.213; Calendar of Palenl Rolls 1452—61. pp.560, 609. 9. CPR 146l—7. pp.576, 567. 3]. l0. lbid., pp.66. 102; CFR [461—71, pp.48, 123; Three Fifleenlh Century Chronicles, ed. J. Gairdner, Camden Society, 2nd Series. Vol. 28 (1880). p.158; Foedera, Conventiones eta. ed. T. Rymer. (London 1704—35). Vol. 5. ii. pp.l I9. 143. ll. Wedgwood, op.cil.. p.2l3; CFR 1471—85. p.l53. 12. CPR l452—6I, p.682; 1461—7. p.576; 1467—77. p.636; 1476-85. p.578; 1485-94, p.506. 13. W. C. Metcall‘e. Book of Knight: (London 1885). p.6. 14. There is some confusion over the order of these marriages, but I have followed Visitations qflhe Nor/h Par! 3: Visitation of c.1480—1500. Surtees Society, Vol. I44 (1930), pp.l$9-60. Is. He had already served one term as Sheriff of Yorkshire, for instance, in 1480/1, CFR 1471—85. p.207. 16. A. J. Pollard. The Tyranny of Richard 111, Journal of Medieval History. Vol. 3 (I977). pp.l47—64, discusses Richard's advancement of northerners and its significance in some detail. 17. P. M. Kendall, Richard III, (London 1955). p.280. 18. B.L. Harleian MS. 433 M32“); Bishop Percy's Folio Manuscript. ed. J. W. Hales and F. J. Furnivall. (London “368). Vol. 3. Ballad of Boswonh Field, p.246. l9. CPR ”76-85. pp.563, 392; B.L. Harleian MS. 433. (2133!).

266 20. Ibid.. f. 142. 2l. Ibid.. H44. printed in B. P. Wolffe, The Crown Land: 1461-1536. (London I910), p.126. Some weeks later. on April 7. I484, the receiver of Tonbridge was ordered to pay Constable £27/10/- for his living expenses in the lordship: B.L. Harleian MS. 433, f.l69. 22. CPR [476—85. p.398. 23. No further commissions were issued to him in Kent after May l. 1484, and his name was omitted from a new list of .I.P.s promulgated on July 17, I484: lbid.. p.563. 24. R. Somerville. History of the Duchy of Lancaster, Vol. 1 (London, I953), pp.540, 542, 546. 550, 55!. 557, 573; British Library Harleian Manuscript 433, ed. R. Horrox. and P. W. Hammond, Vol. 1 (I979), p. I74, where there' IS also record of Constable’ s being granted an annuity of 1289/ [Gs/8d from the revenues of the lordship of Tutbury during his father’s lifetime. 25. CPR [476-85, pp. 400, 490, 491. 26. CFR [471—85, p.300; CPR [476—85, p.557. The fact thal, as sheriff of Stafford, he was granted a discharge of£l00 is perhaps significant: Horrox and Hammond, op.cil., Vol. I, p.238. 27. Ibid., p.218. On March 28. 1484, the tenants of Market Bosworth, and on April 9, the bailiffs of Braunstone. were specifically instructed to accept Constable as owner: B.L. Harleian MS. 433,‘ ”.168. 16%. There is also, on the Patent Roll, what appears to be a regrant of the manor of Bosworth to Constable. as the ‘king’s servant’, for his ‘good service against the rebels', September IS 1484: CPR [476-85. p.47]. Lellers and Papers Illustrative of the Reigns of Richard III and Henry VII. ed. J. Gairdner, Vol. 1 (Rolls Series 186]). pp.‘l9-8l. Ballad of Bosworth Field, Ioc.cil.. p.246. Most notably. in September 1485. Constable lost his Duchy of Lancaster offices in Staffordshire, Derbyshire and Leicestershire: Somerville, ap.cil., pp.540, 542, 546, 550, 551, 557, 573. CPR [485—94. p.44. - lbid.. p.l l I. when, as Knight of the Body. he was made steward of the lordships of Bawlry and Hotham, Yorkshire. with wages and fees of 20 marks per annum. By this time. of course, the Earl of Northumberland had not only been released from the Tower but had returned to the north as the king’s chief lieutenant. Leland. op.¢'il.. Vol. 4. p.186. Notably, a letter from Constable, received by the Mayor of York on May 8. I489, to the efl'ect that ‘he in me kings name had warned diverse knyghts, esquirez and othre gemilmen of the body of Yorkshire to attend upon hym within the Cite of York upon Monday next . . . to themenl thét he for the kyngs pleasour and subduying of the kyngs rebells now commotyd and assembled.wilhin this North parties': York Civic Records, Vol. 2. ed. A. Raine. Yorkshire Archaeological Society (Record Series), Vol. WI! (194]), pp.v—vi, 47—8. 35. CPR 1485—94, p.300. The fourth earl. who had previously gamed these olfices to Sir Marmaduke Constable and his father in survivorship. had been murdered by the Yorkshire rebels in April I489. 36. PRO ElOl/72/5/l I25: this is an indenture between the king and Sir Marmaduke Constable, whereby he agreed to ‘serve the king in his wars beyond ‘he seas' for a year from June I 1492, with a retinue of men-at- arms. lancers and archers. 37. Lellers and Papers. of Richard III and Henry VII. Vol. 2, p. 29L 38. CFR 1485—1509, p. 203; Wedgwood, op. ci1.. p. 212. Wedgwood suggests, without producing any evidence except for I495 and l504, that Constable probably sat in most of the parliaments from I484 lo l509 for either Lincolnshire. Stafiordshire or Yorkshire. 39. Ibid.. p.212; W. A. Shaw, The Knights of England, (1906), Vol. 2, p.37. Yorkshire Church Notes. pp.182—3.

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