- Letters & Papers: 'Venice: May 1521' The Secretary of the Venetian Ambassador in England, Lodovico Spinello describes the events on the day of Stafford's execution: This morning the late Duke of Buckingham was taken ' in forza de' brazi ' from the Tower to the scaffold, at the usual place of execution, with a guard of 500 infantry. Don't miss out on the chace to claim your copy of Tracy Borman's latest book when you subscribe today! September 4, 2018 kyra 8 Comments Henry Stafford was born on 4 September 1454, the only son of Humphrey Stafford, Earl of Stafford and Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Stafford, (a cousin of Margaret Beaufort, Henry Tudor 's mother). However, Felton realises that he has been deceived when Milady sails away without him, and he is left to be hanged for his crime. Video unavailable Watch on YouTube Henry VIII succeeded to the throne in 1509, unchallenged by his older cousin. Villiers was born on August 28 th 1592 at Brooksby in . Felton was. Such belief would fuel a rebellion against his rule in October 1483. He then compounded this by further attacks, this time on Cadiz in 1625. fifteen thousand men weremaneuvered for this expedition but poor funding from a Parliament who did not want to support Buckingham, saw the exercise fail miserably. But the coronation was postponed until June 25 before being postponed indefinitely. 2023 Cond Nast. His murderer was a young military lieutenant John Felton, who believed that Buckingham, through hisincompetent tactics,had caused him and the country such suffering, that murder was the only recourse. Warbeck was convincing enough that he won the support of a wide array of European princes, including the king of Scotland and Edward IVs sister Margaret, duchess of Burgundy. But Edward IVs death left their position vulnerable, as there was a worm gnawing at the heart of the body politic: factional fighting for power. The Duke of Norfolk moved 100 men to the Thames Estuary to block forces from Kent and Essex joining. In More's case, I was trying to view his account as a great work of literature and of political thought and also as an attempt to create a narrative and a way of understanding a period of political crisis. Two more bodies that may have been the princes were found in 1789 at Saint George's Chapel, Windsor Castle. In fact, this probably referred to Richard IIIs illegitimate son John. Ars Technica: Several historians cite the "Tudor propaganda machine" as evidenceforRichard III'spossible evidence. Felton then served as a lieutenant in Ireland in 1626, during which time his commanding officer died and Felton tried, but failed, to be appointed as his replacement. George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham, KG (/ v l r z /; 28 August 1592 - 23 August 1628), was an English courtier, statesman, and patron of the arts. It is possible that they planned to depose Richard III and place Edward V back on the throne, and that when rumours arose that Edward and his brother were dead, Buckingham proposed that Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond should return from exile, take the throne and marry Elizabeth of York, elder sister of the Tower Princes. For his part, Buckingham raised a militia from his estates in Wales and the Marches, which he was to lead into England to join other rebels; but the rivers Wye and Severn were in flood and impassable, and after waiting ten days his men dispersed. Seven ships from Brittany carrying over 500 Breton soldiers, Henry Tudor, and many of his supporters were to have risen simultaneously against Richard III. While he was awaiting trial, it was celebrated in poems and pamphlets. The plan was for forces to assemble at Maidstone, Guildford and Essex and march on London in a feint. As Henry Stafford, he is the lead character in J.P. Reedman's A Man Who Would be King (2017) which tells his story from his own first-person viewpoint, and portrays him as desiring the throne for himself. [citation needed], Buckingham was hugely unpopular in the land for the national disgrace of defeat by the French, although, with the help of the king, Charles I, he had avoided legal moves against him by Parliament for corruption and incompetence. An enigma at the heart of British history: who killed the Princes in the Tower, Edward V and Richard Duke of York? DOI: History, 2021. In late September 1483, a conspiracy arose among a number of disaffected gentry, many of whom had been supporters of Edward IV and the "whole Yorkist establishment". View history Tools Buckingham's rebellion was a failed but significant uprising, or collection of uprisings, of October 1483 in England and parts of Wales against Richard III of England . George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham. So we're actually dealing with direct connections between the people that he lived with and the people who were at the very heart of the coup, and of the killing, that took place in 1483. However his mother, Margaret Beaufort, had been twice remarried, first to Buckingham's uncle, and then to Thomas, Lord Stanley, one of Edward's principal officers, and continually promoted her son's rights. The interview, filmed at Buckingham Palace, was followed by events that eventually led to the Duke paying a settlement of around 12 million to his accuser Virginia Giuffre in a civil sex abuse . The grisly discovery was made on Friday 17 July 1674, while building work was being carried out at the Tower of London. Other forces would gather at Newbury and Salisbury. Career In October 1483 Stafford's father was central in Buckingham's rebellion against King Richard III. [3], The expedition was a disaster for the English; the troops were ill-supplied and lacked the large artillery needed for the siege they laid at Saint-Martin-de-R. He served in the Cdiz Expedition of 1625, an attempt to capture the Spanish city of Cadiz that was backed by Buckingham. The entire document containing the reference consists of 126 folios. More specifically identifies the culprit as James Tyrell, an English knight who fought for the House of York and confessed under torture to the murders on the king's orders. Felton had taken part in the ill fated Cadiz and Isle de Rhe vetures, had been injured, was owed wages, had been overlooked for promotion by Buckingham and was a very melancholy figure. He had come across a copy of the 1628 Parliaments Remonstrance against the Duke and had come to believe that the country would be better off if Buckingham was dead and so he decided to murder the Duke and put his sufferings and that of the nation to rest once and for all. But there was no detailed attempt to explain what had happened to the princes. John Felton (c.1595 29 November 1628) was a lieutenant in the English Army who stabbed George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham to death in the Greyhound Pub of Portsmouth on 23 August 1628. In 1628, Parliament continued to attack Buckingham and sent a remonstrance to Charles in 1628 that declared, that, they feared for Englands religion, her standing in Europe and her success in the Thirty Year Warif Buckingham continued in power. It is possible the princes have still not been found. The second film portrays his gradual seduction by Milady at some length, and then his assassination of Buckingham, carried out under her influence. [12][15] While Jeremy Potter suggested that Richard would have kept silent had Buckingham been guilty because nobody would have believed Richard was not party to the crime,[16] he further notes that "Historians are agreed that Buckingham would never have dared to act without Richard's complicity or, at least, connivance". They attacked Buckingham for his foreign policy which was openly criticised as incompetent. This examination conclusively identified the remains as being the Princes in the Tower, but its findings are now rejected by many, not least because no attempt was made to establish if the two sets of bones were related to each other. For his part, Buckingham raised a substantial force from his estates in Wales and the Marches, with a plan to join with Exeter and his brother Edward Courtenay. In Colley Cibber's 1699 adaptation of Shakespeare's play, he is the subject of the notable line "Off with his head! Fought at Bosworth, became. Even today, Richard remains the most likely culprit, based on various accounts written in the ensuing years, including the only contemporary account (penned by an Italian friar named Dominic Mancini); theCroyland Chronicle;an account by French politicianPhilippe de Commines; Thomas More's The History of King Richard III; and Holinshed's Chroniclesthe latter written in the late 16th century, and one of Shakespeare's primary sources for his play. In a bid to convince the mayor and other influential figures, he denounced the Woodvilles and gave his impassioned support for Richard to be seen as the rightful king. Gloucester assumed the throne instead as King Richard III, and he hadParliament officially declare young Edward and his brother illegitimate the following year. [3] In a miscalculation by authorities, his body was sent back to Portsmouth for exhibition where, rather than becoming a lesson in disgrace, it was made an object of veneration. The remains were proclaimed to be those of the murdered boys, and, in 1678, interred in an urn in Westminster Abbey. In his History of King Richard III, he went further, claiming that to hide evidence of the crime, the murderer buried the princes at the foot of a staircase, deep in the ground under a great heap of stones. [6] On 30 April 1483, at Stony Stratford, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, and his ally the Duke of Buckingham had Anthony Woodville arrested and took possession of the young king. The Buckingham Memorial now stands proudly in the Cathedral's St Thomas's Chapel for all to see to this day. Henry Stafford, 2nd duke of Buckingham, (born c. 1454died Nov. 2, 1483, Salisbury, Wiltshire, Eng. There were no such morbid memorial parades for the two young princes in the Tower. George Villiers, both created and took every advantage given to him by the infatuated King. He was a Lancastrian descendant of King Edward III, and a number of his forebears had been killed fighting the Yorkists in the Wars of the Roses (1455-85). George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham. [9] Buckingham's army was troubled by the same storm and were unable to communicate with Courtenay and deserted when Richard's forces came against them. Ars sat down with Thornton to learn more. To attack in detail the previous regime would have meant attacking many of the people who were now increasingly prominent in his own regime. [3] Buckingham was staying there while trying to organise a new military campaign. In 1471, the deposed Lancastrian King Henry VI had died while imprisoned there. Edward Vs coronation was postponed, however, the very next day, this time until the winter. But a question mark hangs over the Westminster Abbey sarcophagus, where these bones reside in a Christopher Wren monument. These stories were interwoven to dramatic effect by William Shakespeare at the end of the Tudor period, forging a lasting narrative of Richard III as a callous murderer of children. Buckingham remained at the height of royal favour for the first three years of the reign of James's son, King Charles I, until a disgruntled army officer . Before setting out for the Greyhound Inn, therefore, Felton had written and then sewn into his hatband two apologies for the murder: in them, he insisted that he had acted as a patriot, a gentleman and a soldier and despite three long months of interrogation in the Tower of London, this was the story to which he stuck. Milady's master Cardinal Richelieu has ordered her to have Buckingham murdered so that he will not aid the Huguenot cause in the city of La Rochelle. His struggle to control all matters in Parliament brought King and Commons into conflict again and again, until the dissolution of Parliament in March 1629. By August 1628, Felton had come to believe that his personal grievances against Buckingham were part of a larger picture of treacherous and wicked governance of England by the Duke. He took part in a later revolt against Richard around, Imprisoned in the Tower. So what caused the Duke of Buckinghams murder? The case for Richard III's innocence was even memorably popularized in mystery writer Josephine Tey's classic 1951 novelThe Daughter of Time, which claims that the rumors were the result of highly effective Tudor propaganda. His widow, Catherine Woodville was later married to Henry Tudor's uncle, Jasper Tudor. Attainted after the rebellion; restored in February 1485. Although the country had rid itself of a man thoroughly hated by the population, his death did not improve the relationship between King Charles and Parliament, which continued to falter as Charless support for a more pro catholic stance continued to gain strength. Some of Henry Tudor's ships ran into a storm and were forced to return to Brittany or Normandy,[7] while Henry and two ships anchored off Plymouth. The English evacuated soon after, losing 5,000 out of 7,000 troops during the campaign. Duke of Buckingham. That rebellion failed, but Richard III was unable to shake the dark legacy of the coup that brought him to power. The confession in 1502 was reported by contemporaries, most nenduringly by Thomas More. To continue reading this article you will need to purchase access to the online archive. He had no success in resolving these grievances and came to believe the Duke of Buckingham was responsible for both of them. Charles then ruled alone until the Short Parliament was assembled in April 1640. Milady manages to seduce Felton in a matter of days. The scene changed again on 16 June, when Elizabeth finally released the younger Prince Richard into the Duke of Gloucesters custody, but only after the Archbishop of Canterbury stood as surety for his safety. Henry would lead an army of 3,500, provided by the treasurer of Brittany Pierre Landais. Early Career Between 1623 and 1627, Buckingham was given a free hand by Charles to improve the effectiveness of the Navy, a national asset which had been neglected since the death of Elizabeth I. Museum number 1872,0113.183 | Fought at Bosworth. Ad Choices, The Print Collector/Print Collector/Getty Images. [2] Indeed, Davies has suggested that it was "only the subsequent parliamentary attainder that placed Buckingham at the centre of events", in order to blame a single disaffected magnate motivated by greed, rather than "the embarrassing truth" that those opposing Richard were actually "overwhelmingly Edwardian loyalists".[3]. Rebels took arms against the king, who had assumed power from Edward V in June of that year. Chapter 12 Quotes Yes, but you know why I'm seeing you, Duke: I'm seeing you out of pity; I'm seeing you because you've stubbornly insisted on remaining in a city where you're risking your life and making me risk my honor; I'm seeing you to tell you that everything separates us: the depths of the sea, the enmity of kingdoms, the sanctity of vows. Tim Thornton: There's no question. Thomas died around 1611, while he was imprisoned in the Fleet Prison for debt although his widow was later able to secure a 100 per annum pension from the crown. There was a [July 5, 1519] letter More wrote to Wolsey that was my eureka moment. So far, both Westminster Abbey and Buckingham Palace have refused permission. It was a total fiasco with many dying from disease and starvation. Buckingham's rebellion was a failed but significant uprising, or collection of uprisings, of October 1483 in England and parts of Wales against Richard III of England. A dagger, alleged to have been the one used by Felton, was displayed at least until the 19th century at Newnham Paddox in Warwickshire, the seat of the Earls of Denbigh. His maternal grandparents died before he was born; his paternal grandfather was killed in a skirmish while James was still a boy, and his paternal grandmother lived in England. [14], As a result, although it is extremely possible that he was implicated in the decision to murder them, the hypothesis that Buckingham acted without Richard's knowledge is not widely accepted by historians. This seems a far more suitable location for princes, especially once they became captives. He resolved to kill Buckingham and, after saying goodbye to his family, traveled to Portsmouth. His widow, Catherine Woodville, later married Jasper Tudor, the uncle of Henry Tudor, who was in the process of organising another rebellion. In his calendar for the year ending 15 September 1483, the Bristolian Robert Ricart similarly suggested that the two sons of King Edward were put to silence in the Tower of London. Gradually, rumours about the princes deaths spread overseas, being reported from Poland to France, and there was a name put forward as the most likely identity of the murderer: their uncle, and usurper, Richard III. The accusation that James I was murdered by his favourite, the Duke of Buckingham, may have been a false one but it was widely believed and helped to justify the execution of Charles I. Alastair Bellany | Published in History Today Volume 66 Issue 3 March 2016. WIRED Media Group So I decided to work my way forward, trying to look with fresh eyes at the accounts that began to be built up of the events of 1483. [citation needed], On the morning of Saturday 23 August, Buckingham left his lodgings, the Greyhound Inn in Portsmouth, after having breakfast. Then in 1674, the mystery of the princes disappearance finally seemed resolved. pp. Lambert Simnel: Richard IIIs heir who 'had a stronger claim to the throne than Henry VII'. On 30 April 1483, at Stony Stratford, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, and his ally the Duke of Buckingham had Anthony Woodville arrested and took possession of the young king. ", "Cassell's illustrated history of England", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=John_Felton_(assassin)&oldid=1161345574, People executed by the Kingdom of England by hanging, Short description is different from Wikidata, Pages using infobox military person with embed, Articles with unsourced statements from November 2019, Articles with unsourced statements from November 2021, Wikipedia articles incorporating a citation from the ODNB, Wikipedia articles incorporating a citation from the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica with Wikisource reference, Wikipedia articles incorporating text from the 1911 Encyclopdia Britannica, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 4.0. George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham KG 28 August 1592 - 23 August 1628 was the favourite, claimed by some to be the lover, of King James I of England. "Felton, John". During building work beside the White Tower, the bones of two striplings were discovered buried three metres beneath a staircase. Although this level of forensic testing has never been applied to the remains discovered in 1674, they were examined in 1933 by an archivist, an anatomist and the president of the British Dental Association. Arrangements were made for Edward's coronation on the 22 June 1483; but, before the young king could be crowned, his father's marriage to his mother Elizabeth Woodville was declared invalid, making their children illegitimate and ineligible for the throne. Beheaded on Tower Hill, 4 December 1483. His climb had been swift and he made many enemies along the way. Despite a very patchy political and military record, he remained at the height of royal favour for the first two years of the reign of Charles I, until he was assassinated. Henrys enemies took advantage of this situation. The Wars of the Roses The Wars of the Roses (1455-85) were a series of civil wars, with two rival branches of the Plantagenet family fighting over the throne of England. Encyclopdia Britannica. As well as the two skeletons discovered in 1674, a number of other remains have been found inside the Tower of London over the centuries, which only further the mystery of the boys fate. [6] Villiers succeeded Robert Carr, Earl of Somerset, as the king's favourite after Carr's fall from grace after the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury. Many were killed and wounded and those that returned failed to be paid. He is an actual historical figure who was assassinated by John Felton before he could send aid to the Rochellais. England's King Richard III is at the center of one of the most famous assassination legends in history, immortalized in one of William Shakespeare's greatest tragedies. He left for France shortly after the coronation and penned a report that autumn most commonly referred to as The Usurpation of Richard the Third regarding the remarkable events surrounding the princes in the Tower. In 1628 he was assassinated by John Felton, a disgruntled army officer who had served under him, as he prepared an expedition to relieve the Huguenots of La Rochelle . Sign me up , CNMN Collection Stafford is said to have been hidden in various houses in Herefordshire at the time of the rebellion, and perhaps for the remainder of Richard III's reign. [8] A contemporary Portuguese document suggests Buckingham as the guilty party, stating, and after the passing away of king Edward in the year of 83, another one of his brothers, the Duke of Gloucester, had in his power the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York, the young sons of the said king his brother, and turned them to the Duke of Buckingham, under whose custody the said Princes were starved to death. Edward's elder son and heir (now technically King Edward V) and the younger sibling (Richardof Shrewsbury, Duke of York) were originally brought to the Tower of London in May by their uncle, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, ostensibly to prepare for Edward's formal coronation. [1] The conspiracy was nominally led by Richard's former ally and first cousin once removed Henry Stafford, 2nd Duke of Buckingham, although it had begun as a Woodville-Beaufort conspiracy (being "well under way" by the time of the duke's involvement). King Charles I trusted Buckingham, who made himself rich in the process but proved a failure at foreign and military policy. But over the next ten years he was pushed out of the center of power more and more. By the time he left in November 1627, he had achieved nothing and a half of his force lay dead. If the princes were to be declared as illegitimate, then that meant the true king was their uncle, Richard, Duke of Gloucester. Nonetheless, some have claimed that the princes could indeed have escaped, pointing to a royal warrant providing clothing for lord bastard in 1485. Edward V would henceforth be known merely as Edward Bastard. Edward IV: champion of the Wars of the Roses, Marrying for love: Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville, From Jack the Ripper to Amelia Earhart: 17 unsolved historical mysteries, Anne Boleyn, Beefeaters, Guy Fawkes and the princes: a brief history of the Tower of London, 12 things you (probably) didnt know about the Wars of the Roses. George Villiers, Ist Duke of Buckingham, was born in 1592, the second son of Sir George Villiers of . Buckingham's eldest son, Edward Stafford (1478-1521), eventually succeeded him as Duke, his attainder was removed in 1485. It is possible that in his dying days, Edward IV made efforts to balance the rivalries, perhaps even declaring that his son and heir should remain with Anthony Woodville, one of his uncles, while the Duke of Gloucester, another uncle, serve as Lord Protector until Edward V was old enough to rule for himself. He led another disastrous military campaign in 1627. His eldest son and namesake had trained for his role as king for the past ten years in the marches of Ludlow, while the nine-year-old Prince Richard was already a widower and preparing to be a mighty lord. of the MS. Humphrey Stafford, 1st Duke of Buckingham, Thomas of Woodstock, 1st Duke of Gloucester, "Stafford, Henry, second duke of Buckingham", "Stafford, Henry, second Duke of Buckingham (1454?1483)", "Church of St Peter and attached Radnor Mausoleum (1023791)", Buckingham, Henry Stafford, 2nd Duke of (14541483), Listed among other members of the Stafford family, with their genealogies clarified, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Henry_Stafford,_2nd_Duke_of_Buckingham&oldid=1160371400, This page was last edited on 16 June 2023, at 02:31. Many of Richard III's defenders have dismissed More's account as mere Tudor propaganda, given More's clear Tudor loyalties; his account was also written many years after the disappearance of the princes. King Charles I had been staying at the Inn just a few days before, having granted Villiers leave to engage in this action. (It's a great read, but it hardly qualifies as a scholarly argument.). He became 6th earl of Stafford when only a year . Suffered loss of income; may have become a supporter of Richmond at this point. But it does not match the chronicles claim that the princes had been kept within the kings lodging at the Tower. Those connections are quite remarkable in the way that they coincide with the period when More was conceiving the ideas in the History of Richard III. But despite help from two Members of Parliament, Sir William Uvedale and Sir William Beecher, his initial request to join the expedition was turned down. Like Richard III, the lingering uncertainty over the princes left his regime vulnerable not to charges of murder, but to the possibility they had survived and could challenge him for the throne. Humphrey Stafford, 1st duke of Buckingham, in full Humphrey Stafford, 1st duke of Buckingham, earl of Stafford, earl of Buckingham, Baron Stafford, comte de Perche, (born August 15, 1402died July 10, 1460, Northampton, Northamptonshire, England), Lancastrian prominent in the Hundred Years' War in France and the Wars of the Roses in England. Felton's assassination of the Duke was fictionalised in Alexandre Dumas, pre's The Three Musketeers (1844) and features in several film adaptations of the novel. His successor, Henry VII (House of Tudor), made only general accusations of "unnatural, mischievous and great perjuries, treasons, homicides, and murders, in shedding of infant's blood, with many other wrongs, odious offenses and abominations against God and man." His hand was apparent in many of the main decisions of the day and by 1626, Parliament, led by radicals such as Sir Edward Coke,became more and more critical of Buckingham and started impeachment proceedings against him. The claim of Edward Vs illegitimacy was taken up and reiterated in a speech by the Duke of Buckingham in front of another throng of Londons citizens, this time at the Guildhall. [12] Secondly, it is likely he would have required Richard's help to gain access to the princes, under close guard in the Tower of London,[13] although Kendall argued that, as Constable of England, he might have been exempt from this ruling. Hide Ad The officer believed he was doing Britain a service by killing the Duke who, as Lord High Admiral of the Fleet, was hugely unpopular following some disastrous naval campaigns. Join the Ars Orbital Transmission mailing list to get weekly updates delivered to your inbox. To quell support for Simnel, Henry VII paraded the real Earl of Warwick through the streets of London, before safely depositing him back in his cell at the Tower and defeating Simnels supporters in battle. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Cond Nast. Felton passed through the kitchens at the rear of the Inn but gave himself up, preferring to explain his actions and thereby furthervilify Buckinghams name. As Richard III's ally, the plausibility of Buckingham as a suspect depends on the princes having already been dead by the time Stafford was executed in November 1483. At Leicester, Richard declared bounties on the rebel heads: 1000 pounds for Buckingham, or 100 pounds a year for life, 1000 marks (660 pounds) for Marquess of Dorset and his uncle Lionel Woodville, Bishop of Salisbury and 500 marks for other leading insurgents. Before he was executed, Tyrell also implicated two accomplices. Buckingham had signed treaties with Denmark and Holland for English involvement in the Danish phase of the Thirty Year War,where 8,000 men out of 12,000 died on board their ships without even landing in the Netherlands. Richard in the field defeated the rising in a few weeks. A week after the two princes were brought together in the Tower, a sermon was preached at St Pauls Cross stating that, to the astonishment and indignation of the assembled Londoners, the princes had no claim to the throne. Openly supported Henry of Richmond in Exeter. London roiled with anxiety, city watches patrolled the streets by torchlight, and rumours abounded that the lives of both Edward V and the Duke of Gloucester were in danger. Knight, and other eyewitnesses who handled the broken bones, quickly came to the conclusion that these had to be none other than the remains of the long-lost Princes in the Tower. This article analyses the motivation behind John Felton's assassination of the duke of Buckingham in August 1628.
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