Ricardian Bulletin Magazine of the Richard III Society ISSN 0308 4337 March 2012 Ricardian Bulletin March 2012 Contents 2 From the Chairman 3 Society News and Notices 9 Focus on the Visits Committee 14 For Richard and Anne: twin plaques (part 2), by Geoffrey Wheeler 16 Were you at Fotheringhay last December? 18 News and Reviews 25 Media Retrospective 27 The Man Himself: Richard‟s Religious Donations, by Lynda Pidgeon 31 A new adventure of Alianore Audley, by Brian Wainwright 35 Paper from the 2011 Study Weekend: John de la Pole, earl of Lincoln, by David Baldwin 38 The Maulden Boar Badge, by Rose Skuse 40 Katherine Courtenay: Plantagenet princess, Tudor countess (part 2), by Judith Ridley 43 Miracle at Denny Abbey, by Lesley Boatwright 46 Caveat emptor: some recent auction anomalies, by Geoffrey Wheeler 48 The problem of the gaps (from The Art of Biography, by Paul Murray Kendall) 49 The pitfalls of time travelling, by Toni Mount 51 Correspondence 55 The Barton Library 57 Future Society Events 59 Branches and Groups 63 New Members and Recently Deceased Members 64 Calendar Contributions Contributions are welcomed from all members. All contributions should be sent to Lesley Boatwright. Bulletin Press Dates 15 January for March issue; 15 April for June issue; 15 July for September issue; 15 October for December issue. Articles should be sent well in advance. Bulletin & Ricardian Back Numbers Back issues of The Ricardian and the Bulletin are available from Judith Ridley. If you are interested in obtaining any back numbers, please contact Mrs Ridley to establish whether she holds the issue(s) in which you are interested. For contact details see back inside cover of the Bulletin The Ricardian Bulletin is produced by the Bulletin Editorial Committee, Printed by Micropress Printers Ltd. © Richard III Society, 2012 From the Chairman ere in the United Kingdom we have some eventful months ahead of us. HM The Queen‟s H Diamond Jubilee will be celebrated in June and the London Olympics take place later in the summer. As you will read in this issue, our intrepid Joint Secretaries will be doing their bit to help the games run smoothly. We wish them well. Here is another issue of the Bulletin to inform and entertain, and yet again I am confident that it will not disappoint. There is the second part of Judith Ridley‟s study of Katherine Courtenay, bringing that story to its end, and Geoffrey Wheeler finishes his tale of the twin plaques. Toni Mount gives the inside story of a medieval time traveller‟s twenty-first century experience in Greenwich and Rose Skuse tells us about the Maulden Boar Badge found in 2009. The Man Himself reminds us of Richard‟s religious donations, one of the many reasons why he really was Good King Richard. Lesley Boatwright recounts yet another miracle attributed to Henry VI. Alianore Audley has amused and delighted many members who have read her published adventures and it is great to learn that Brian Wainwright has found another. Let us hope he finds even more. In his article on John de la Pole, earl of Lincoln, David Baldwin notes that John is a somewhat forgotten figure, even though there were two possible reasons why he could have ended up as King John II. After the death of Edward of Middleham, he was Richard III‟s heir presumptive, and the Society is looking to ensure that he is not forgotten by erecting a memorial plaque to him. We hope to report on progress in the next issue of the Bulletin. This issue sees the start of a new series which will focus on the teams and volunteers in our Society, without whom we simply wouldn‟t survive. It is time these all too often unacknowledged people were recognised and I am delighted to see this series begin. We start with the Visits Committee and I can personally recommend their trips, which combine education and enjoyment in perfect proportion. The BBC have announced that they are to dramatise Philippa Gregory‟s series of novels about the Wars of the Roses. We hope they will be true to the historical facts. The programmes should, undoubtedly, generate interest in our period and we will be keeping our eyes open for any opportunities to promote the Society. As some of you will know, we had some problems with the printing and distribution of December‟s Bulletin. My apologies to those members affected and my very great thanks to Business Manager Stephen York, Membership Officer Wendy Moorhen and to all those involved, for acting so swiftly to ensure that replacement copies of the magazine were promptly despatched. Besides those public events mentioned above, the Society has much to look forward to this year with the Triennial in April, Bosworth and Bruges in August, October‟s AGM in York, and then Fotheringhay, as well as all those many branch and group events throughout the country and indeed the world. (I will be doing my bit, too. From Plymouth to Grantham, Great Yarmouth and Fotheringhay, I already have five talks booked during which I will promote Richard III and the Society.) We have the publication of the York Wills to look forward to, yet another testament to the voluntary service and dedication of our members, and across the Pond, our American and Canadian branches will be holding a joint AGM in Toronto. We wish them well for its success. 2 Society News and Notices Good Progress on the York Wills By the time you read this, the text of the York wills will be ready for publication. This does not mean that the whole book will be ready. The introduction is still to be written, and the intricate task of indexing the wills has still to be done, but we have volunteers for both. Peter Hammond will write the introduction, and Heather Falvey will compile the index. After the appeal for typists in the June 2011 Bulletin, thirteen volunteers signed up for the work. The machinations of cyber-space meant that one volunteer never received any work (the email vanished and she assumed we had enough volunteers without her). Doreen Leach was able to update 15 wills which she still held electronically from the original project, and the same applied to four wills held by Marie Barnfield and one by Toni Mount. The remaining 68 were input by Andrea Brown, Helen Bushell, Alison Elvy, Su Franks, Susan Gunn, Keith Horry, Rebecca Mallard, Carrie McDowell, and Stephen York. Grateful thanks to all volunteers. The register of York wills from which these are taken is a massive one, containing 1,399 wills in all, as well as 402 records of grants of administration. There was never any possibility of transcribing the whole register, particularly as the vast majority are in Latin, and the Society does not have many volunteers capable of transcribing and translating Latin.* We therefore decided to transcribe and publish just the wills written in English. There were 88, of which three are strictly speaking codicils to wills that had themselves been written in Latin. It is therefore an arbitrary selection, but it was the most practical approach. Of the 88, 15 were wills of women, nearly all of whom describe themselves as widows. Eleven were wills of knights (or widows of knights), nine were wills of men describing themselves as „esquire‟ (or their widows), and another nine of „gentlemen‟ (or their widows). Six were the wills of clergymen. Four men held civic office (one mayor and three aldermen), and 16 had a trade or craft: bell-founders, drapers, mercers, merchants, etc. Harry Sayvell (i.e. Henry Saville) was „yeoman of the king‟s chamber‟. No fewer than 21, nearly a quarter, were described as „of York‟, and nine „of Kingston upon Hull‟. Two at least were from outside Yorkshire, Robert Inglissh of Nottingham, and William Came of Newark. The Snawsells of Barley Hall in York are mentioned in several wills, either as witnesses or legatees. As with the Logge Wills, there are many bequests of household treasures: silver spoons, rosaries, people‟s best clothes, books – but perhaps rather more individual animals than in Logge: „to litill Johannet ij calves‟. Dame Marjory Salvayn of York left each of her brothers-in-law „a boke of bocas‟, presumably Boccaccio‟s Decameron. William Baron, draper of Hull, left Hull church „a cope of rede purpill clothe velvett with gude grete floures of gold the valour of xx li. sterling‟. Robert Kirton of Crathorn had his own agenda: „I will that William Raner have my jekkry goune. And if he will wed his woman I will that he have j quy [cow] with calf. Also I will that the saide William Raner have the othre of my sanguyn gownes if so be he wil wed hir to make hir a clothe of.‟ We are now discussing how best to publish these wills. The aim is to have them ready to go on sale at this year‟s AGM. It will be a much smaller book than the Logge Wills (which had 379 entries), and therefore considerably cheaper. There will be another progress report in the June Bulletin. *If there are some people out there hiding their light under a bushel, who can do Latin but have never volunteered for a Society project – do join the Chronicle project, where your skills will be much in demand – get in touch with Toni Mount (tel. 01474 355676, email [email protected]). 3 Notice of the 2012 Annual General Meeting of the Richard III Society This year the Society’s AGM and Members’ Day will take place on: Saturday 29 September 2012 at the Merchant Adventurers’ Hall, York.