Walsingham in 1469: The Pilgrimage of Edward IV and Richard, Duke of Gloucester JOHN ASI-IDOWN-HILL In 1469, and possibly on other occasions also, Edward IV and his brother, Richard, went on pilgrimage to the shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham. In the fifteenth century this shrine in Norfolk was of international renown. Although pilgrimage to Walsingham flourishes again at the present time, and the village preserves much of its ancient character, the original shrine and priory buildings were so completely destroyed that little of them now remains to be seen above ground. Based on the surviving evidence, this article seeks to evoke the vanished medieval shrine and Augustinian priory of Walsingham as Edward and Richard would have known them, and to give an account of the royal pilgrimage of 1469. Traditionally the shrine was founded in 1061. This date is given in two fifteenth-century sources. According to the traditional account, the lady of the manor, Richeldis de Favarches, had a vision of the Virgin Mary, in which she was instructed to erect a replica of the ‘Holy House’ in Nazareth, where the Annunciation had taken place. It is not certain that Riqheldis was an ancestress of the house of York, but she was reputed to be related to the de Clares, who, in the twelfth century, succeeded Richeldis’ son, Geoffrey, as the major patrons of the shrine, founding an Augustinian priory to care for it. The de Clare family became extinct in the male line in 1314, but their heirs in the female line, and successors as the shrine’s patrons, were the descendants of Elizabeth de Burgh, Duchess of Clarence, that is to say, the house of Mortimer and subsequently the house of York. Richérd, Duke of York, father of Edward IV and Richard III, took his duties as shrine patron seriously. Not only did he go On pilgrimage to Walsingham but he 2 The Descent of the Honour of Clare and the Patronage of Walsingham _ Rogerde Clare and Eafl of Henford & Gloucester Founder of Walsingham Augustinian Priory d. 1173 (line leiads ta) Gilberl de Clare m. Joan 0! Acre (daughter of Edward I) 61h Earl of Henford 5 Gloucester d. 1307 1243-1295 Elizabeth Alianore de Clare m. Hugh. Lord Ie Despenser Countess of Clare execmed 1326 129211360 Mlliam de Burgh Sir Edward Ie Despenser Earl of Connaugn 8. Ulster d. 1333 l Sir Edwald Ie Despenser m. Elizabelh. daugtner o! Lionel. Duke of Clalence m. Elizabeth de Burgh (3rd son of EdwardIII) 1332-1363 13356-1375 ‘ Sir Bartholomew Burghetsh 1838-1368 Lord Burghersh Edmund Mortimer m. Philippa of Clarence 3rd Earl of March 1355-1381 Edmund of Langley 1352-1381 Duke of Ybrk Roger Monimer 51h son 0! Edward III 4th Earl ol March 1373-1398 Conslance of York m. Thomas. Lord Despenser Ean 0! Gloucester Anne Monimer m. Richard 1 373-1 400 1390-1411 Earl oi Cambridge - 1376-1415 Isabel Despenser m. Richard Beauchamp Richard 1400-1439 I Earl0! Warwick Duke 0! York Richard Neville m. Anne Beauchamp 14‘ 1-1460 Countess o! Wamiek Edward IV Hichardlll rn. Anne Neville 1442-1483 1452-1485 1456-1485 U) also made significant donations to the priory in land and property, and he championed the priory’s interests, as we know from a letter he wrote to John Paston in 1454.l The Pilgrimage of Edward IV and Richard, Duke of Gloucester On Wednesday 21 June 1469, Edward IV, with his entourage, including his brother, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, his father in law, Earl Rivers, and two of his brothers-in-law, Lord Scales and Sir John Woodville, as well as Sir John Howard, Louis de Bretaylle, Sir Thomas Montgomery and Edward Brampton,2 an'ived in Walsingham on pilgrimage. Edward IV had left London in early June and was heading for the north in a fairly leisurely fashion (too leisurely, as subsequent events were to prove), to deal with the insurrection of Robin of Redesdale.3 0n the way he purposed to make pilgrimage to the shrines of St Edmund in Suffolk, and Our Lady of Walsingham in Norfolk, as well as fulfilling the ancient royal duty of dispensing justice and raising some recruits. From Bury St Edmunds the king and his entourage had passed on to Norwich, arriving there about Sunday 18 June.“ In Norwich, King Edward had tried to resolve some outstanding legal disputes. The royal party left Norwich on the morning of 21 June, probably passing through the city walls by either the Coslany Gate, or St Augustine’s Gate.’ As Edward rode through Norwich towards the city walls, to his right, to the north of the river Wensum, and the cathedral, was the tower of the Carmelite friary church, where Lady Eleanor Butler, whom he had secretly married eight years earlier, had been buried the previous year. To help pilgrims find their way, crosses marked the Walsingham way, and there was (and is) one just outside Norwich, at the crossroads on the Drayton road, which Edward and his companions would have passed. A mile or so further on, on the left hand side of the road, they would have seen the ruins of Drayton Lodge, sacked by Edward and Richard’s brother-in—law, John de la Pole, Duke of Suffolk, and about 500 of his men four years earlier, on Tuesday and Wednesday 15 and 16 October 1465. The house, with the manor of Hellesdon, had been the property of Sir John Fastolf, and had come into the hands of John Paston I (died 1466) in his capacity as executor of Sir John Fastolf’s will, but both house and manor were claimed by the Duke of Suffolk and a dispute between him and the Pastons had been smouldering for some time. John Paston’s sons had hoped that the coming of the king would lead to a judgement in their favour, and this part of the journey was therefore recounted in a letter from John Paston HI to his brother, Sir John Paston II as follows: Item, the kyng rod thorow Heylysdon Warren towards Walsyngham, and Thomas Wyngfeld prmysyd me that he wold fynd the menys that my 4 Lord of Glowsestyr and hym sylf bothe shold shew the kyng the loge that was breke down and also that they wolde tell hym of the brekyng down of the plase. The king, however, needed his brother in law’s support, and seems to have been unimpressed by the case put to him, for subsequently myn oncyll William sethe that the kyng told hym hys owne mowthe, when he had redyn for by the loge in Heylysdon Warren, that he supposyd as well that it myght fall downe by the self as be plukyd downe, for if it had be plukyd down, he seyd that we myght have put in our byllys of it, wehn hys jugys sat on the oyeer determyher in Nomyche, he being ther.‘ The party would have crossed the river Wensum at Attlebridge, where a hermitage, dedicated to Our Lady, stood by the bridge. Some miles further along their road, they may have passed the village of North Elmham, where the ruins of the Saxon cathedral, the precursor of the one at Norwich, had been converted into a comfortable hunting lodge by Bishop Henry Despenser nearly a hundred years previously. A little beyond Fakenham they would have passed through the villages of Barsham, before coming to the Slipper Chapel at Houghton, standing on the right hand side of the road, in the fields, by the ford over the river Stiffl<ey, and just over a mile from the shrine itself. Perhaps they paused here to pray 'and make offerings before St Catherine of Alexandria, patron of pilgrims, as the tradition was. Perhaps also they took off their footwear, dismounted and walked.the rest of their journey barefoot, as tradition tells us pilgrims customarily did. Certainly it is said that Edward IV’s grandson, Henry VIII, when he came to Walsingham, walked barefoot to the shrine, so royalty was not exempt. At some point on their journey the royal patty may 'have encountered other pilgrims, going to or coming from the shrine. Such groups may well have been singing the tune ‘Walsingham’, which is preserved in several sixteenth century books of music, inclfiding the Virgina] Book of Edward IV’s great grandaughter, Elizabeth I. Members of the royal party themselves may well have known this popular tune, to which various sets of words were sung.’ The last mile of the journey was along a tree-shaded route, with the little river Stiffl<ey running beside them to their right. As they entered the village of Little Walsingham, the flint walls of the friary of the Franciscans, built by Edward and Richard’s ancestress, Elizabeth d'e Burgh, Countess of Clare, were on the left. After the friary the royal party would have passed along the main street of Walsingham towards the ‘Common Place’ leaving the little market place with its cross on their left. On their right the boundary wall of the pn'ory enclosure would have been visible, and as they drew near the ‘Common Place’ the great priory gateway appeared, with its sculptured stone head of a gatekeeper looking out from 5 above, then as now, to see who sought admittance. For the king and his party, doubtless the gate already stood open, framing in its archway, the priory church at the end of the driveway. At the gate, probably, the prior, sub-prior and canons would have been waiting to receive their sovereign and conduct him in.