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Tag Archives: Margaret Tudor
The Treaty of Perpetual Peace…which wasn't very long lasting
Posted on November 21, 2021 by JuliaH
Reference: National Library of Scotland
MS, Seaton Armorial, Acc. 9309, f. 18 (date: early 17th century)
By kind permission of Sir Francis Ogilvy. https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/utk/scotland/popup/james.htm
In 1497, Henry VII, a man who avoided war when possible, sought to end the ongoing conflict between England and Scotland by the Treaty of Ayton which reinforced march law and sought to prevent cross-border feuding and cattle theft erupting into full scale conflict. The treaty was ratified in London on 24 January 1502 and sealed by a diplomatic marriage between Tudor's daughter Margaret and King James IV of Scotland. The following year the Pope also ratified the treaty.
Margaret travelled to Edinburgh to marry in August 1503. She was not yet fourteen but had not left England any sooner because her grandmother, Lady Margaret Beaufort, was insistent that she was of an age to be married. She was not yet six when she was betrothed to James IV who was twenty-two-years old in 1497. Inevitably he already had a mistress and children by the time Margaret arrived in Scotland but as things turned out James was a kindly husband who treated his new bride with consideration.
It wasn't a particularly popular match with the English who did not take kindly to the Scots after two hundred years of intermittent warfare not to mention James IV's involvement with Perkin Warbeck which had resurrected the Wars of the Roses for a short time.
Unfortunately for all concerned, James IV was tied by the Auld Alliance to France which meant that when Tudor's son Henry VIII resumed the centuries old habit of going to war against the French that James was obliged to open up a northern front breaking the perpetual treaty and getting himself killed at the Battle of Flodden on 9 September 1513.
Posted in Anglo-Scottish history, The Tudors	| Tagged James IV of Scotland, Margaret Tudor	| 3 Replies
The earls of Northumberland and the Percy Family – part 3 of 4. The magnificent and unlucky Tudors.
The 5th Earl of Northumberland:
The 5th earl carried the Coronation sword at Richard III's coronation but grew up in Henry VII's court as part of the group of young men who were schooled alongside Princes Arthur and Henry. In the first instance it helped remind the 4th earl where his loyalties lay and in the second place it kept the Percy power base under control. He was at Arthur's marriage to Katherine of Aragon and was part of the train that took Princess Margaret to Scotland to be married to James IV. He had a reputation for being magnificently dressed and travelling in the manner befitting an earl. As such it would be easy to assume that he had royal favour but it is clear that becoming warden of the border marches was something of an issue once he attained his majority. Nor for that matter did he acquire any important national roles. The stumbling block would appear to be the "ravishment" of Elizabeth Hastings – which sounds unpleasant. In reality Elizabeth was the daughter of Sir John Hastings of Yorkshire. She was a ward of the Crown and Percy had arranged her marriage. The language of ravishment and abduction is the language of property being removed from Henry VII's grasping fingers rather than an account depicting the earl's predatory nature. Initially he was fined £10,000 but this was later reduced by half. Part of the problem for Percy was that the Tudors had learned important lessons about over mighty subjects. Consequentially Henry VII took a dim view of anyone standing on his prerogatives and he didn't trust the Percy clan in any event because of their landholding and wealth – not to mention prior form. It was Henry VIII who cancelled the debt once he became king. The question is was Percy unsuited for power or did Henry VII use the case of Elizabeth Hastings to financially kneecap a man known for his lavish lifestyle?
Meanwhile Percy and his wife, Katherine Spencer – a three times great grand-daughter of Edward III had four children born in the first decade of the sixteenth century; Henry (1502), Thomas (1504), Ingram (1506) and Margaret (1508). The year after Margaret was born it was rumoured that the earl had come to an agreement with the Duke of Buckingham to overthrow the Tudors. It was supposed that he would rule north of the Trent. It says something that when Buckingham found himself in the Tower in 1521 on charges of treason that the earl was spared though he had been in the Fleet a few years previously on another ward related charge. It is also evident that Henry VIII ordered Cardinal Wolsey to keep an eye on the earl despite the fact that nothing can really, at this point in history, be levelled against him.
He did all the usual things that Tudor nobles did. He went to war in France in 1512 so was not on hand when James IV of Scotland took the opportunity to invade England. By 1522 he was back on the borders and indulging in some light feuding with the Dacre family. The problem was that Percy saw the warden role in the east and middle marches as one that he was entitled to whilst Dacre had other ideas. The only reason that the Dacre family had become used to serving in the capacity of Warden was that the fifth earl had been a minor when his father was killed by a mob near Thirsk in 1489. Whilst the earl was a ward of the Crown, the Percy estates were administered by the Earl of Surrey and many of the offices associated with the Percy family were offered out to other families. The truth is that Percy had never played the role his forefather's played either through his youth or because of Tudor distrust. Despite that he attempted to regain the position in northern society he felt was his. By the time he was offered a wardenship he knew that he did not have the necessary military skills to fulfil the role and resigned his commission. The magnificent earl might perhaps have been better described at that stage as the very grumpy earl.
Dacre complained from the borders to the king he wasn't getting the help from Percy that he thought should have been forthcoming. In 1517 when Margaret Tudor returned to England as a heavily pregnant fugitive, the earl was not overjoyed to see her. He wrote to the king suggesting that Dacre or the Earl of Cumberland might like to look after her. He was probably aware the cost of providing for her would come out of his purse. He attempted to suggest that the countess was indisposed but that didn't wash with Henry who ordered Northumberland to bring Margaret south. One of the reasons was that the earl was not as wealthy as he had once been. He gambled heavily, spent excessively and seems to have been fined rather a lot by Cardinal Wolsey who seems to have been determined to break the northern powerbase that was the earldom of Northumberland.
Henry's brother William was much more the border baron than his brother. He fought at the Battle of Flodden in 1513 and was created a knight on the battlefield. Even Lord Dacre wrote highly of William as did Bishop Ogle of Carlisle. It was William who trained the earl's younger sons in the art of border warfare whilst their eldest brother was sent to London to the household of Cardinal Wolsey for his education and, let's be honest, as a surety for the fifth earl's good behaviour.
The Fifth earl turns up in national history in 1526 when he was summoned from the north to sort out the affairs of his eldest son. Henry junior was betrothed to Mary Talbot, daughter of the Earl of Shrewsbury, but had fallen in love with Anne Boleyn. The earl was supposed to back up the cardinal who had been ordered to prevent the match.
He died on May 19 1527.
The new earl was of age but Wolsey made the earl of Cumberland, Margaret Percy's husband, executor of the 5th earl's estate. The 6th earl was forbidden from attending the funeral of his father and then there was the issue of Mary Talbot – the powerless daughter of the Earl of Shrewsbury. The engagement had been a means of breaking off the relationship between Percy and Anne Boleyn but the match was not finalised. It had in fact been halted because the young people did not like one another. Now Percy was required to marry her and to live in the north. The fifth earl had not been impressed with his heir and it would have to be said that either of his younger brothers was more suited to riding around the countryside killing reivers – poor old Henry simply hadn't been trained for it and was rather on the sickly side. It can't have helped that his father was so far in debt- more than £17,000- that the plate had to be pawned to pay for his funeral.
Cardinal Wolsey drew up a budget. It was not generous. Wolsey also arranged for the estate rents to be collected and began to have a close look at various Percy deeds and entitlements. Matters came to a head when it was discovered that one of the earl's retainers, appropriately named Wormme, was sending Wolsey details of the earl's accounts. The earl was not amused and the gentleman in question is supposed to have spent considerable time in a less comfortable dungeon in Alnwick Castle upon payment of a £300 bribe by the earl specifically to get his hands on the man.
The earl now set about demonstrating that he was more than capable of maintaining order in the north though unfortunately he was less able to maintain order in his own marriage. Mary liked Henry almost as much as he liked her. The pair separated but were required by Wolsey to resume their married life. It was not a happy marriage in any sense of the word. Mary became convinced that Henry was trying to kill her – there is no evidence that he was.
But time was running out for the Cardinal who had been unable to untie Henry VIII from his marriage to Katherine of Aragon. The king had rather an unpleasant sense of humour. He sent the man whose life had been made a misery to arrest the Cardinal and convey him to London. Northumberland arrived at Cawood near York on the 4thNovember 1529 where he behaved, it is said with great dignity and compassion for Henry VIII's former minister.
In 1531 the earl was made a knight of the garter. He was not involved in the Pilgrimage of Grace. He died in 1537 leaving his money to Henry VIII. He is best remembered as the first love of Anne Boleyn. He collapsed at her trial and never really recovered.
Having no children his title passed to his younger brother unfortunately Thomas had become caught up in Bigod's Rebellion (the follow on to the Pilgrimage of grace). He was hanged drawn and quartered in London in June 1537 before he could become earl.
The 7th earl was Thomas's oldest son, also called Tomas – a pleasant change from all those Henrys. To all intents and purposes his father's death as a traitor should have debarred him from the earldom but when he came of age in 1549 he was restored to some of his lands and his loyalty to Mary Tudor in 1557 saw him restored to the earldom. The Percys had never stopped being Catholic. Unfortunately it all went to his head – quite literally- as he took part in the Northern Rising of 1569. I have posted about the 7th earl before. If you would like to read more click here to open a new page. He was executed in 1572 in York on Elizabeth's orders. His execution warrant can still be seen in Alnwick Castle.
The seventh earl's son died before him and he left a family of daughters so the family had to look back up the family tree for the next earl. Not only that but Elizabeth I didn't trust the family so far as she could throw them so refused to allow them to travel to their residences in the north of the country. During this time Petworth in Sussex became the main Percy residence.
Oil painting on canvas, Henry Percy, 8th Earl of Northumberland (c.1532-1585) by Sir Anthony Van Dyck (Antwerp 1599 – London 1641). A posthumous three-quarter-length portrait, standing, turned slightly to the right, gazing at the spectator, short cropped hair, beard and moustache, wearing full armour, his right hand wearing his gauntlet and holding a baton his left elbow leaning on a ledge and his left bare hand hanging over it. On the ledge is his helmet.
The eighth earl was another Henry Percy and he was the seventh earl's younger brother. He had the common sense to remain loyal to Elizabeth I during the Rising of the North. Unfortunately he was implicated in assorted plots to release Mary Queen of Scots. He was sent to the Tower as a result of being implicated in the Throckmorton Plot and again in 1584 when he was accused of plotting to allow the Duc de Guise to land troops for the purpose of releasing Mary Queen of Scots and returning England to Catholicism. Off he went to the Tower – for a third time as it happens – he died unexpectedly on 21stJune 1585.
Someone had shot him through the heart. It was decided that he had committed suicide. Let's just say that warders and officers in charge of the earl's well being were changed just beforehand to men who were careless about guns. It rather looks as though Sir Christopher Hatton, the queen's favourite, may have assisted the "suicide."
Posted in Anglo-Scottish history, Sixteenth Century, The Tudors, Uncategorized	| Tagged Alnwick Castle, Cardinal Wolsey, Earl of Shrewsbury, Eighth Earl of Northumberland, Elizabeth Hastings, Elizabeth I, Fifth Earl of Northumberland, Henry Percy, Henry VII, Henry VIII, James IV of Scotland, Katherine Spencer, Lord Dacre, Margaret Percy, Margaret Tudor, Mary Queen of Scots, Mary Talbot, Mary Tudor, Northern Rising, Seventh Earl Northumberland, Thomas Percy, William Percy	| 1 Reply
The Tudor taint – an heir problem
Posted on May 19, 2018 by JuliaH
History tends to decree that the Tudors had problems with heirs. In reality it must have felt to the heirs, on occasion, that they had problems with being Tudor. Henry VIII decreed the order of inheritance beginning with his own children. Not only did he specify the order of inheritance in his will but he ensured that it was enshrined in law with the third Act of Succession of 1544.
In the event of Henry's own children not having children or surviving to inherit, Henry being Henry broke with the usual rules of inheritance by bypassing the children of his elder sister Margaret by nominating those of his younger sister Mary. His will refers to her as the "French Queen," a courtesy title that she kept after the death of King Louis XII of France and her subsequent second marriage to Charles Brandon who became Duke of Suffolk. The crown was to go first to the heirs of Frances Brandon who became Lady Frances Grey the mother of Ladies Jane, Katherine and Mary Grey. If that line failed the crown would pass, in theory, to the children of Frances' younger sister Eleanor who had married Henry Clifford, the 2nd Earl of Cumberland.
There was undoubtedly a paucity of males at that point in proceedings. Eleanor Clifford, born sometime between 1518 and 1521, had produced two sons: Charles and Henry as well as a daughter Margaret pictured at the start of this post. Eleanor died in November 1547 having been married to Henry Clifford in 1535, so she never fully understood the poisoned chalice of her Tudor bloodline. The pair lived in Brougham Castle although the 1st earl went on a bit of a building spree on the strength of having a royal daughter-in-law. The year after her marriage Eleanor was the chief mourner at Katherine of Aragon's funeral and found herself in the wrong part of the country during the Pilgrimage of Grace. A flight across the moors from Bolton Abbey to Skipton Castle saved her from immediate capture but having arrived at Skipton she found herself besieged. Her husband was in Carlisle dealing with the rebels in Cumberland.
Eleanor does not seem to have spent much time at court although Frances Grey is listed as being present at key occasions such as the baptism of Prince Edward and the arrival of Anne of Cleves. It is perhaps not surprising both Charles and Henry died in their infancies and it would appear from surviving letters that Eleanor did not enjoy robust health. In 1540 though she gave birth to Margaret.
After Eleanor's death the 2nd Earl of Cumberland would eventually remarry and have sons but the Tudor inheritance would pass to Margaret Clifford. This is evidenced by the fact that John Dudley, the Duke of Northumberland initially suggested a marriage between his youngest son Guildford and Margaret. Before contracts could be drawn up John Dudley arranged for his youngest son to marry Margaret's cousin Lady Jane Grey and in order to ensure that the Tudor line and the Dudleys remained firmly intertwined Margaret was betrothed instead to Andrew Dudley, the duke's younger brother, in June 1553. Andrew would soon find himself under arrest for his part in Dudley's bid to bypass Henry VIII's succession.
Margaret was married instead to Lord Strange, the heir of the Earl of Derby – or in other words into the Stanley family. She married Henry Stanley in 1555 under the watchful gaze of Queen Mary. The pair had four sons but it wasn't a particularly happy marriage and the pair eventually separated. Of the four sons only two survived to adulthood. Ferdinando Stanley became the Earl of Derby followed by his brother William in 1594. Ferdinando (pictured left) had been earl for only a year and whilst William became the 6th earl as well as Baron Strange it was Ferdinando's daughters who became co-heiresses to the estates. Inevitably there was a messy court case. I shall return to Ferdinando who may well have died because of his closeness to the throne and also the Stanley suspected adherence to Catholicism.
After the death of Mary Grey the last of her Grey cousins in 1578 Margaret found herself as one of the potential heirs to the English throne. In 1580 she wrote to Walsingham about the "heavy and long-continued displeasure" that she had found herself experiencing. When she died in 1596 she had spent several years under house arrest in Clerkenwell having been arrested on charges of using astrology to predict when Elizabeth I would die – a treasonous act (and one which got Eleanor Cobham into huge amounts of bother in the fifteenth century). Even in death she was careful not to offend Elizabeth as her will testifies:
First, I bequeath my soul into the hands of Almighty God, my only Saviour and Redeemer, by whom I hope only to be saved and by no other ways nor means, and my body to be buried where it shall please the Queen's Majesty to appoint, or otherwise at the discretion of mine executors.
The line of the French Queen's youngest daughter was now carried on by Ferdinando's three daughters; Anne, Frances and Elizabeth. William had no children. In 1596 Anne was created the legal heir presumptive to Elizabeth I bypassing William who was also suspected on account of his closeness to the throne and catholicism.
William (pictured right) was specifically forbidden from joining the Earl of Essex on his campaign in Ireland as it was felt that he might take advantage of the opportunity to do a spot of networking. William, it would've to be said, appears to have done nothing to deserve royal suspicion – he was very much a member of the gentry concerning himself with his northern estates and keeping his head down – presumably he didn't want to end up like his mother or brother. He appears to have been a scholarly type and if you like your conspiracy theories he is one of the contenders for the real Shakespeare based on the fact that George Fenner, a Jesuit, reported that William rather than being interested in politics and matters of religion spent his time "penning common plays" in his house near Chester.
Elizabeth did eventually make him a knight of the garter and King James I made his relation a privy councillor.
Posted in Sixteenth Century, The Tudors	| Tagged 4th Earl of Derby, 5th Earl of Derby, 6th Earl of Derby, Act of Succession, Andrew Dudley, Baron Strange, Brougham Castle, Charles Clifford, Duke of Northumberland, Earl of Derby, Eleanor Brandon, Eleanor Clifford, Ferdinando Stanley, Frances Brandon, French Queen, Guildford Dudley, Henry Clifford, Henry Stanley, Henry VIII, Katherine of Aragon, Lady Frances Grey, Lady Margaret Clifford, Lord Strange, Margaret Tudor, Mary Tudor, Pilgrimage of Grace, Skipton Castle, William Stanley	| 6 Replies
Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lennox
Posted on January 12, 2018 by JuliaH
Margaret Douglas is an important link in the Tudor family tree and its later prospective claimants to the English throne. Unsurprisingly given that the Tudors are involved there are some dodgy family trees involved and not a little tragedy.
Margaret's mother was the eldest daughter of Henry VII of England and Elizabeth of York. She was born in November 1489 and at the time when she married James IV of Scotland she was just thirteen. In 1512 she gave birth to a son James (other children died in infancy) but then the following year her husband died at the Battle of Flodden.
James V was king but an infant. There followed the usual power struggle. The key families were the Stewarts, Douglases and Hamiltons. on 6 August 1514 without consulting her council or her brother Margaret married the pro-English Archibald Douglas, Earl of Angus. This effectively caused the Douglas faction to advance up a large ladder in the courtly game of snakes and ladders. A civil war resulted and Margaret was replaced as regent by John Stewart Earl of Albany – who was anti-English. Margaret having been queen and regent now slid down several rungs of importance and life became very difficult not least when Margaret lost custody of the young king and of his brother called Alexander who had been born after the Battle of Flodden. Margaret, fearing for her safety and the safety of her unborn child by the earl of Angus made plans to escape Scotland.
Her first step was to go to Linlithgow from there she escaped into England and little Margaret Douglas made her way into the world on 8 October 1515 at Harbottle Castle in Northumberland by the end of January news arrived from Scotland that the infant Alexander was dead. Margaret Douglas born of an English mother in an English castle was treated as English rather than Scottish throughout her life and in terms of the English succession. Margaret Tudor's husband the earl of Angus now deserted his wife and made his peace with the earl of Albany…and his other wife.
Angus had been married to Mary Hepburn but he had been widowed. What Margaret Tudor didn't know was that he had entered into a relationship with Lady Janet Stewart of Traquair before marrying her. They were ether engaged or married. In either event Angus was contracted to another woman making his marriage to Margaret Tudor effectively bigamous. Angus wanted the return of his family lands which Albany had confiscated and in the meantime he took up residence with Lady Janet in one of Margaret's properties. As with Mary and Elizabeth Tudor the small fact of her father's complicated love life must bring into question the legitimacy of Margaret Douglas and therefore her claim to the English throne by right of descent from Margaret Tudor.
Henry VIII did not send for his sister until 1516 and ultimately Margaret Tudor did return to Scotland when Albany went to France in 1517. This meant that Margaret Douglas also went to Scotland and became the centre of a struggle between her parents when he also returned. The earl of Angus snatched the infant Margaret from her mother's arms. Her existence gave the earl of Angus power. She was in line to the English throne after all. Ultimately Margaret Douglas found some degree of sanctuary in the care of her godfather, Cardinal Wolsey who arranged for her to be housed in Berwick.
If that weren't complicated enough Margaret Tudor divorced the earl of Angus and married Henry Stewart, Lord Methven. It was a match that didn't work particularly well. Methven ultimately moved in with a mistress and Margaret Tudor tried to move back in with the earl of Angus. James V regarded Methven as a trusted advisor and refused to permit the divorce. Margaret Tudor bowed to her son's wishes but died in 1541.
But back to Margaret Douglas's story. After Wolsey's fall from power and death in 1530 she found home in the household of Princess Mary at Beaulieu where she had been living since 1528. When she reached adulthood she was appointed as Lady in Waiting to Anne Boleyn which must have been difficult as she was a lifelong friend of her cousin Princess Mary. During Mary's reign she was considered as a possible heir to the throne. It helped not only that she was close to Mary but that she was Catholic in her sympathies.
Meanwhile, back in the early 1530s at court Margaret had grown into a beautiful and creative woman who wrote poetry. She met and fell in love with Lord Thomas Howard. He was one of Anne Boleyn's uncles (a young brother of the duke of Norfolk). The pair became engaged. They had not sought royal approval. In July 1536 Henry VIII discovered the engagement and was not a happy man. By that time Anne Boleyn had fallen from favour and both Mary and Elizabeth Tudor had been declared illegitimate. This meant that Margaret Douglas was quite high up on the list of possible heirs to the throne. She was a very marriageable commodity. Margaret broke off the engagement but by then both she and Lord Thomas had been thrown into the Tower and charged with treason. He died of natural causes on 31 October 1537. Margaret had been released from custody a few days previously.
Unsurprisingly given her mother's complicated love life and Henry's eye popping disapproval of his sister Margaret Douglas now found herself declared illegitimate by Act of Parliament.
In 1539 Margaret is on the list of Anne of Cleve's ladies in waiting.
In 1540 she was back in hot water when she had an affair with Sir Charles Howard. It probably didn't help that he was closely related to Katherine Howard. She was sent to Syon House but moved from there when Katherine Howard was also sent to Syon in disgrace. She might have remained in obscurity if the earl of Angus hadn't popped back up to cause trouble in Scotland.
In 1543 Margaret Douglas was one of Katherine Parr's bridesmaids.
Margaret finally married in 1544. He was a Scottish exile and his name was Matthew Stewart, Earl of Lennox. The pair lived at Temple Newsam near Leeds, a gift from Henry VIII to his niece upon her wedding. They had two sons – Henry Stuart Lord Darnley who would marry Mary Queen of Scots and end up murdered in an orchard in Kirk o Fields in 1567 and Charles Stuart who would fall in love with and marry Elizabeth Cavendish – Margaret Douglas's grand-daughter was Lady Arbella Stuart. Neither Henry Stewart nor Charles nor even Arbella would have been considered a legitimate claimant to the throne by Henry VIII who excluded Margaret Lennox from the succession through his will because she made no secret of her Catholicism.
Margaret Douglas even lost her claim to the earldom of Angus because of her husband's part in the Rough Wooing. Margaret was Angus's only legitimate child but he left everything to his nephew. Margaret never stopped contesting the fact that her father had broken the entail that should have seen her inherit an earldom.
Matthew Stewart, Lord Lennox was shot in the back and died in 1571 whilst fighting in Stirling. The marriage between the pair had probably been political but if the Lennox Jewel is anything to go by Margaret and her husband had fallen in love with one another.
Whilst Mary Tudor was on the throne Margaret Douglas was at the centre of the royal court but once Protestant Elizabeth ascended the throne Margaret's life became difficult not only because she insisted that Mary Tudor had said she ought to be queen but because of her Catholicism. Mathew Stuart found himself in the Tower and Margaret spent time under house arrest at Sheen.
Having lost her own claims to the English crown Margaret then worked on her eldest son's claims. Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, was she claimed a contender for both the English and the Scottish crowns. Margaret was careful to send Henry to visit Mary Queen of Scots in France on several occasions. Her scheming would ultimately result in Darnley becoming Mary Queen of Scots' second husband and effectively doubling their claim to the English throne.
Inevitably the match between Margaret's second son (Charles) with his claim to the throne and Elizabeth Cavendish in November 1574 en route between London and Temple Newsam did not go down very well with Elizabeth I who suspected her cousin of Catholic plotting in Yorkshire. Lady Arbella Stuart would pay a heavy price for her royal blood.
Margaret was summoned back to London and sent to the Tower for her part in arranging the match between her son and Elizabeth Cavendish. Elizabeth Cavendish's mother escaped the Tower but Bess of Hardwick gave Elizabeth a blue satin cloak lined with velvet that Christmas suggesting that she knew that she was on a bit of a sticky wicket!
After the death of Margaret's son Charles she concentrated her efforts on Arbella to whom she left her casket of jewellery when she died:
All the rest of my jewels goods chattels movable and unmovable, my funerals and legacies performed and my due debts paid I give and bequeath to the Lady Arbell Daughter of my son Charles deceased. Provided always and I will that where the one of my said Executors Thomas Fowler hath for sundry and divers bargains made for me and to my use by my appointment, authority and request entered into sundry bonds and covenants of warranties in sundry sorts and kinds that by law he may be challenged and constrained to answer and make good the same he the said Thomas Fowler my said executors shall out of my said goods, chattels movables plate and jewels whatsoever be answered allowed satisfied recompensed and kept harmless from any loss recovery forfeiture actions suits demands whatsoever may be and shall be of and from him my said executor lawfully recovered and obtained by any person or persons at any time or times after my decease. And provided also and I will that the rest and portion of my jewels, goods or movables whatsoever shall fall out to be shall remain in the hands, custody and keeping of my said executor Thomas Fowler until the said Lady Arbell be married or come to the age of fourteen years, to be then safely delivered to her if God shall send her then and so long to be living.
After her death on 9th March 1578 Elizabeth paid for her cousin to be buried in Westminster Abbey. It is perhaps not surprising given the tumultuous life that she led that there is even a conspiracy theory around her death. She dined with the earl of Leicester a few days before she died and that gave rise to the rumour that she was poisoned.
Weir, Alison.(2015) The Lost Tudor Princess. London:Vintage
Posted in Anglo-Scottish history, Mary Queen of Scots, Sixteenth Century	| Tagged Alexander earl of Ross, Anne Boleyn, Anne of Cleves, Arbella Stuart, Archibald Douglas, Battle of Flodden, Cardinal Wolsey, Charles Stuart, earl of Albany, earl of Angus, Earl of Leicester, Elizabeth Cavendish, Elizabeth I, Harbottle Castle, Henry Stewart, Henry Stuart Lord Darnley, Henry VIII, James IV of Scotland, James V of Scotland, Katherine Parr, Lady Arbella Stuart, Lady Janet Stewart of Traquair, Linlithgow, Lord Methven, Lord Thomas Howard, Margaret Douglas, Margaret Tudor, Mary Hepburn, Mary Queen of Scots, Mary Tudor, Matthew Stewart earl of Lennox, Robert Dudley, Sheen, Sir Charles Howard, Temple Newsam, The Lennox Jewel, Westminster Abbey	| Leave a reply
England's Forgotten Queen – the use of wills.
How many of you watched Helen Castor's new three part series on Lady Jane Grey last night entitled England's forgotten queen? Its on BBC4 at 9.00pm on Tuesday evening. I'm sure its on the Iplayer as well by now.
I usually think of Helen Castor in connection with the Wars of the Roses and I know that her history is thoroughly researched. I'd have to say that I enjoyed her outline of events as well as the discussions about primary sources. I loved the fact that Lady Jane Grey was the first queen proclaimed by printed proclamation rather than a hand written one and that it required three pages to explain how she'd landed the crown rather than Henry VIII's daughters Mary and Elizabeth. I enjoyed the dramatisations less but that's probably just me.
But back to Lady Jane Grey and those wills. On 30th December 1546 Henry VIII made his final will. He died almost a month later on the 28th January 1547. The succession was straight forward. Henry VIII was succeeded by his son Edward VI – though interestingly Edward V was never crowned, disappearing instead quietly in the Tower (this is not the time to start pointing fingers at who did it. Suffice it to say the V is a ghostly imprint upon the chronology of England's monarchy.)
Making Henry VIII's will was probably a tad on the tricky side to draw up as it had become illegal to speak about the king's death thirteen years before it was drawn up in 1535- verbal treason. Normally a family tree would have been sufficient to identify who was going to inherit what but Henry's matrimonial past was complex to put it mildly. Parliament had passed two Succession Acts – one in 1536 and the second in 1544. Both of them empowered Henry to nominate his heir. There was even a proviso for the appointment of a regency council. Henry clearly thought that being dead was no barrier to dictating the way things should happen.
The will aside from giving directions to be buried next to his "true wife" Jane Seymour in Windsor and giving money to the poor obviously launched by placing Edward on the throne. It then ran through a variety of scenarios about who should inherit in the event of Edward's demise without heirs. Rather optimistically for a man of increasingly poor health he identified that any children by Queen Catherine or "any future wife" should inherit. He then identified his daughters, both of whom had been made illegitimate by that time – first Mary the only surviving child of Catherine of Aragon and then in the event of her not surviving or having children, her sister Elizabeth the only surviving child of Anne Boleyn. So far so straight forward and very typical of Henry to decide who was and who wasn't legitimate based on his particular plans – or even that they could inherit even if they were illegitimate so long as Parliament ratified it.
He identifies his nieces and their families after that. His elder sister Margaret had married James IV of Scotland but Henry's nephew James V was already dead. That just left his great niece the infant Mary Queen of Scots. Really, because she was descended from the eldest sister the little queen should have been identified next in Henry's will but aside from being Scottish and the daughter of Marie de Guise there was the small matter that the Scots hadn't taken kindly to the proposed marriage of their little queen to Edward. There was also the issue that in Scotland Cardinal Beaton had been murdered and the pro-French were becoming increasingly important (for the time being at any rate.) In any event Henry ignored the senior female line of the Tudor family tree and identified the heirs of his younger sister Mary who had married Charles Brandon (duke of Suffolk). Mary died in 1533 aged just thirty-seven. She did however have two surviving daughters, Frances and Eleanor. Frances was married to Henry Grey the Marquess of Dorset. They had three daughters Jane, Katherine and Mary. Henry's will went on to say that after the heirs of Frances that the heirs of Eleanor married to Henry Clifford earl of Cumberland would be by default his rightful heirs.
As Susannah Lipscomb observes Henry's will is an intriguing document and its easy to see why it ended up being so roundly contested. You have to admire Henry's consideration of the possible scenarios and his plans for each eventuality. It's interesting that Frances wasn't identified as a contender for the crown only her heirs. What was it about Frances that Henry didn't like? Lipscomb observes that her husband Henry Grey wasn't on the list that Henry VIII proposed as Edward VI's councillors so it may simply have been that he didn't like the man very much.
Unfortunately for Henry soon after his death the idea of a regency council was rather badly mauled by Edward VI's Seymour uncles and by the time young Edward VI lay dying it was the duke of Northumberland who was the power behind the throne.
Henry VIII had stipulated that his daughters Mary and Elizabeth had to accept the order of succession on pain of their exclusion from the succession. What Henry hadn't accounted for was that his son Edward would write his own will. A perusal of Edward's will was one of the highlights of last night's programme on Lady Jane Grey. It revealed poor penmanship and a last minute change of plan. Logically if one king could leave a kingdom in his will as though it was a personal possession with the connivance of Parliament and its two supporting acts – it isn't such a great leap that another king should do exactly the same.
Edward's "devise" differed from his father's in that he excluded Mary – she was just far too Catholic for devoutly Protestant Edward. He also excluded Elizabeth- because she was legally illegitimate and because by that time, if we're going to be cynical about it, John Dudley duke of Northumberland had acquired Lady Jane Grey as a daughter-in-law and wanted to remain in charge. In excluding Mary Queen of Scots young Edward was simply following his father's will. At first, as Castor revealed last night, the will only considered the possibility of male heirs – either his own or those of the Grey sisters. As his health unravelled the amendment was made in two words which made Lady Jane Grey his heir; L' Janes heires masles," turned into "the L' Jane and her heires masles." Simple really – though it did rely on Mary and Elizabeth accepting the turn of events or being rounded up sooner rather than later.
Ignoring the problem of Henry VIII's daughters there was the small mater of Parliament. The Third Succession Act of 1544 left Mary and Elizabeth illegitimate but placed them in line for the Crown. Henry VIII's will is backed up by Parliament. It is not simply a personal document. It is held up on the shoulders of law. Edward's on the other hand assumes that because one king has willed his kingdom to his heirs that another could do the same. The problem for the duke of Northumberland was that Edward did not live long enough for the legal process to be fulfilled by an act of Parliament.
Lipscomb, Suzannah. (2015) The King is Dead: The Last Will and Testament of Henry VIII
Posted in Queens of England, Sixteenth Century, The Tudors	| Tagged Cardinal Beaton, Duke of Northumberland, Edward VI, Edward VI's will, Eleanor Clifford, Elizabeth Tudor, Frances Grey, Helen Castor, Henry Grey, Henry VIII, Henry VIII's will, James V of Scotland, John Dudley, Lady Jane Grey, Margaret Tudor, Mary Queen of Scots, Mary Tudor, Mary Tudor duchess of Suffolk, succession act	| Leave a reply
The Stuarts – King James I of England- key events.
Posted on January 7, 2018 by JuliaH
Elizabeth I died on 24 March 1603 in Richmond. She had been on the throne for nearly forty-five years. Whilst the queen had prevaricated about naming her heir, Sir Robert Cecil could see that her health was deteriorating and began making the necessary arrangements with King James VI of Scotland the son of Mary Queen of Scots. He was the great-grandson of Margaret Tudor.
When Elizabeth died Philadelphia, Lady Scrope took the sapphire ring given by King James from Elizabeth's finger and threw it out of a window down to where her brother Sir Robert Carey sat waiting. Sir Robert headed off up the Great North Road to Edinburgh. The journey of some 330 miles was completed late on the 26th March (an impressive turn of speed). The blue ring was James' confirmation that he was now King of England as well of Scotland.
James saw himself as King by Divine Right. He was also delighted to gain Elizabeth I's wealth but he mishandled his finances because of his own extravagance. It is sometimes said that Elizabeth handled her finances better because she was single whereas James had a family – his wife Anne of Denmark who was raised a Protestant but converted to Catholicism (possibly); their eldest son Prince Henry born in 1594, their daughter Elizabeth and their young son Charles. In total the couple had nine children but only the three listed here survived to adulthood. It may be surmised a growing family with sons was one of the attractions of James as king so far as the English were concerned. It should also be added that the finances weren't entirely James' fault for another reason as this was a period of inflation and a time when subsidies returned lower yields.
Another of James' difficulties was the balancing act between religious beliefs with in the country and on the wider European stage.
5 April 1603 – James left Edinburgh.
Mid-April – arrived in York and sent a letter asking for money from the Privy Council
When James arrived in Newark he attempted to have a cut purse hanged without realising that English common law did not permit the monarch to dish up summary justice. He also knighted 906 men in the first four months of his reign – more than Elizabeth in her entire reign. During this time James was also presented with the Millenary Petition. The Puritan ministers who presented it claimed that there were more than 1000 signatories – hence its name. The petition requested that the king put a stop to some practices that Puritans found objectionable. This included wearing surplices, confirmation, the necessity of a ring for marriage and the making of the sign of the cross during baptism.
11th May 1603 James entered London.
19 July 1603 Sir Walter Raleigh arrested. The key event of 1603 was the so-called the Main Plot which evolved into a secondary Bye Plot that came to light in 1604 (I've blogged about them before). Essentially with the Main Plot there was some question as to whether James was the best person to be king Henry VII had other descendants who were English. The one we think of at this time is usually Arbella Stuart who was implicated in the Main Plot which saw Sir Walter Raleigh sent to the Tower. The plan was to depose James and put Arbella in his place. The Bye Plot was much more straight forward. It simply involved kidnapping James and forcing him to suspend the laws against Catholics.
17 Nov 1603 Sir Walter Raleigh put on trial. Raleigh would be condemned on the evidence of Lord Cobham who was never called to testify despite Raleigh's repeated demands that his should be examined.
14 Jan 1604 The Hampton Court Conference convened as a result, in part, of the Millenary Petition. James ordered that everyone should adhere to the Book of Common Prayer. This did not please the Puritans or the Catholics especially as recusancy fines were being levied with more rigour than previously.
19 March 1604 James' first Parliament sat. James admonished the Puritans but it was clear that religion was going to be a bone of contention.
5 April 1604 James demanded that as "an absolute king" he should have conference with the Commons and his judiciary. It didn't go down very well.
Mid April 1604 James demanded the Union of England with Scotland. No one apart from James thought it was a good idea. He will try again in 1606 and 1607.
19 August 1604 War with Spain formally concludes. England has been at war with the Spanish since 1585. The Somerset House Conference draws up the Treaty of London which is seen as favourable to Spain as it prevents continued English support of the Dutch.
Winter 1604 Thomas Percy sub-leased a house beside the Palace of Westminster. A certain Guy Fawkes and other members of a conspiracy began to dig a tunnel…
5th November 1605 The Gunpowder Plot foiled.
1606 The Bates Case . John Bates refused to pay the new duty that James levied on currants. The Court of the Exchequer said that Bates had to pay the duty as the king was regulating imports rather than raising revenue for himself – they couldn't prove any different. This meant that the Crown suddenly found a way of raising taxes without having to call Parliament so long as it was in the name of regulating foreign trade. The case is also called the Case of Impositions. The imposition of these taxes would come back to haunt James when he called Parliament in 1614.
22 June 1606 Oath of Allegiance required of all subjects. It was made up of seven parts. The first bit required loyalty to James.
June 1607 Founding of Jamestown in America by Captain Smith.
Sept 1607 Start of the Plantation of Ulster when leading Irish earls flee the country fearing arrest. The event is sometimes called "The Flight of the Earls." The Crown confiscates their land and begins to hand it to Protestants including troublemakers from the Scottish/English Borders.
1608 – The Book of Bounty issued. It was a device to reduce royal expenditure. This should be viewed alongside Robert Cecil's revision to the rate of taxation. He's revised the rates once in 1604 and did so again in 1608. The revisions of 1608 fetched an additional £70,000 into the royal coffers.
22 June 1610 Arbella Stuart enters into a secret marriage with William Seymour (2nd duke of Somerset) – who had his own claim to the throne due to the face that he is the grandson of Lady Katherine Grey. Elizabeth I had refused to recognise her cousin's marriage to Edward Seymour but their son (another Edward) was recognised by the courtesy title Lord Beauchamp though none the less was permitted to succeed to his father's title upon Edward Seymour senior's death. The marriage of Arbella and Seymour seemed to unite two possible claims to the throne. Not surprisingly all involved ended up in the Tower. Arbella would escape her prison but recaptured on her way to the Continent and die in the Tower in 1615. There will be more about Arbella!
1610 – Parliament refuse to proceed with the Great Contract which James has proposed. If they had agreed it would have resulted in a tax being levied to clear James' debts. Parliament offered James £200,000 per year. James demanded another £200,000. In addition to the financial considerations there was a concern that James might not call Parliament again if he got all the money he wanted in one hit. James was unwilling to sell off any of his prerogative rights so came no where close to meeting Parliament half-way.
14 May 1610 Henry IV of France assassinated
1611 King James Bible issued.
October 1612 Prince Henry, James' eldest and most promising son, taken ill.
6 November 1612 Prince Henry dies. He was eighteen. It prompted a succession crisis that lasted until 1614. Prince Charles, a sickly child, now became heir apparent. It became essential that Princess Elizabeth should marry. This resulted ultimately in a bill being laid before parliament to permit Elector Frederick and his wife Elizabeth to inherit in the event of Charles' death.
14 Feb 1613 Princess Elizabeth married Frederick V of the Palatinate.
April 1613 Thomas Overbury sent to Tower but then released. He would shortly be murdered. Th king's former favourite Robert Carr and his wife Frances Howard would be found guilty of his murder. The ensuing scandal would continue throughout the next two years. Lady Anne Clifford writes about it her her diary. There will definitely be more about the Overbury case in the coming year.
1614 The Earl of Suffolk appointed treasurer.
4 May 1614 James told Parliament that they had to vote him subsidies when they next sat. If they wouldn't James would refuse to call Parliament into session.
December 1614 The Cockayne Project announced. James allowed Alderman Sir William Cockayne to launch a project designed to boost the earnings of those involved in the manufacture of undyed cloth setting up a dyeing industry to do the job at home. The government was promised £40,000 p.a. from increased customs through the importing of dyestuffs. James gave control to Cockayne and the new company was given permission to export in 1615. It was clear by 1616 that Cockayne had not the resources to buy the cloth from the clothing districts and hold it until it could be marketed. Matters became worse when the Dutch banned the import of cloth. Merchants went bankrupt, weavers rioted, cloth exports slumped and the industry stagnated. By 1617 James abandoned Cockayne and the Merchant Adventurers regained control.
June 1614 The so-called Addled Parliament sat. This was properly James' second Parliament which had been called with the express purpose of raising funds for the king. Parliament didn't politely offer the king taxes. They hadn't been very impressed with the king's courtiers undertaking to get their cronies elected to to the king's bidding. Instead, they told him that his policies were unacceptable and also said that he would receive no money from them whilst he was enforcing so-called "impositions" – these were taxes raised without the consent of Parliament. Parliament believed that James had overstepped his legal rights and James believed that Parliament had no right to refuse his demands. It didn't pass any bills and was dissolved very quickly.
During this time there were two factions at court seeking the king's ear following the death of Robert Cecil in 1612. The most prominent was led by Henry Howard. The Howard family held key posts. Thomas Howard the Earl of Suffolk was the father of Francis Howard who married Robert Carr (the Earl of Essex). It was during this time that his daughter and son-in-law found themselves on trial for the murder of Thomas Overbury through the medium of poisoned tarts. The Howard family wanted James to put Parliament in its place, peace with Spain and Recusancy fines reduced. Their opposition was comprised of people who simply didn't like the Howards and would have said that day was night if the Howards said otherwise. They were Protestant whilst the Howards were seen as Catholic in their sympathy.
1615 James I begins to sell peerages to make some money.
23 April 1616 – William Shakespeare dies.
1616 James sells the Dutch the towns of Brill and Flushing which had been given to Elizabeth to help finance the wars agains the Spanish and for support of the Dutch. Sir Walter Raleigh is released from the Tower and the following year goes in search of El Dorado, involving a voyage up the Orinoco. No gold was forthcoming. James returned Raleigh to prison and invoked the 1603 death sentence.
1617 James enters negotiations for the marriage of Prince Charles to the Spanish Infanta. He demands a dowry of £600,000.
1618 – This was the year when the Thirty Years War started with the invasion of Bohemia and the Palatinate Crisis. James' daughter Elizabeth would be involved in this as her husband had become the King of Bohemia when he had been offered the crown the year before. They were driven out by Counter-reforming Catholics. History knows Elizabeth as The Winter Queen because she was Queen of Bohemia for only a year.
29 October 1618 Sir Walter Raleigh executed.
August 1620 – The Pilgrim Fathers set sail.
8 Nov 1620 The Battle of White Mountain fought near Prague. The battle was won by the Hapsburgs and meant that Catholicism gained an early upper hand in the Thirty Years War.
1621 James' third Parliament called.
6 January 1621 Elizabeth, the Winter Queen, gives birth to a son Maurice near Berlin. From there she would go into exile in The Hague.
3 Dec 1621 Parliament petitions the King
1622 Directions to Preachers restrict the contents of sermons.
1623 Forced Loan
March 1623 Prince Charles makes a trip incognito to Madrid complete with a large hat and false beard. It was a cause of some embarrassment in Madrid.
August 1623 The Spanish want Frederick to marry his eldest son, James' grandson, to the daughter of the Holy Roman Emperor. The plan was that he would then convert to Catholicism and be raised in Vienna. Charles realised that the Spanish Match wasn't going to happen but James was reluctant to break off negotiations.
1624 The so-called Happy Parliament called. James had previously sworn never to call another parliament. However the course of the Thirty years War made him reconsider. The so-called Spanish match had become more important as it seemed that the Hapsburgs and Spain would dominate Europe and be victorious agains the Protestant countries but it became clear that the Spanish were not serious in their negotiations with the English or that they were demanding too much. Charles and his friend the duke of Buckingham persuaded James that what needed to happen was that the English should go to war on behalf of the Palatinate. James refused to go to war without a huge subsidy being voted him.
Nov 1624 Marriage treaty signed between Prince Charles and Henrietta Maria of France.
27 March 1625 – King James I of England/ James VI of Scotland died. King Charles I proclaimed king.
Ackroyd, Peter. (2014) The History of England Volume III: Civil War London:MacMillan
Posted in common law, Kings of England, Seventeenth Century, The Stuarts	| Tagged Addled Parliament, Arbella Stuart, Bates' Case, Bohemia, Bye Plot, Cockayne Project, Edward Seymour, Elector Frederick, Elizabeth I, Frances Howard, Great Contract, Great North Road, Hampton Court Conference, Happy Parliament, Impositions, James I of England, Jamestown, John Bates, Lord Cobham, Margaret Tudor, Millenary Petition, Newark, Oath of Allegiance, Philadelphia Lady Scrope, Plantation of Ulster, Prince Charles, Prince Henry, Princess Elizabeth, Puritans, Robert Carr, Sir Robert Carey, Sir Robert Cecil, Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir William Cockayne, Somerset House Conference, The Book of Bounty, the Main Plot, The Winter Queen, Thirty Years War, Thomas Percy, Tomas Overbury, Treaty of London, William Seymour, York	| 5 Replies
The Vernons of Haddon Hall – Sir Henry Vernon.
Posted on October 20, 2017 by JuliaH
I've posted before about Henry Vernon being a canny politician. He was ordered to attend Richard III prior to the Battle of Bosworth but there is no evidence for him on the battlefield – on either side. Having been in good odour with Edward IV, the duke of Clarence and the earl of Warwick if the letters in the Rutland Archive are anything to go by it is a little surprising that Sir Henry did so well under the Tudors – In fact a study of a range of Vernon's letters gives helpful insight into the changing politics of the period – which is exactly what I intend to do in a couple of weeks with my Wars of the Roses group, along with a peek at Sir Henry's will.
Sir Henry was from a notable Derbyshire family. The Vernons had been part of the Lancaster Affinity in the fourteenth century. His grandfather, Sir Richard, had fought in the Hundred Years War and been made Treasurer of Calais. He was also an MP for Derbyshire as was Henry's father Sir William Vernon who died in 1467 when his son was about twenty-six.
The Battle of Towton took place at Easter 1461. This event saw Yorkist Edward taking the throne. The power behind the throne was Edward's cousin, Richard Neville, the earl of Warwick – a.k.a -the Kingmaker. Unfortunately the two Yorkist cousins had a falling out when Edward IV married the widow of Sir John Grey of Groby in secret. Elizabeth Woodville was not who the earl of Warwick envisaged as queen of England. He had been negotiating for the hand of a French princess so felt a bit foolish. Nor did it help that Elizabeth Woodville had a large family all of whom had to be found excellent positions within the establishment not to mention wealthy and titled spouses: let's just say noses were put out of joint. The political situation became more tense. Ultimately in 1470 Edward IV was forced to flee and his wife and their daughters seek sanctuary in Westminster Abbey. In March 1471 Edward returned via Ravenspur and marched on London where he was greeted with popular acclaim. There then followed the battle of Barnet and the demise of the earl of Warwick and his brother Lord Montagu. Clearly this is a rather brief outline but you get the gist!
So where was Sir Henry Vernon in all of this? He was the recipient of rather a lot of letters from various people who want this support. He on the other hand appears to have taken a rather measured approach to the royal cousins charging around the countryside trying to slaughter one another.
Duke of Clarence to Henry Vernon, squire. (This was written when Warwick was in charge of the kingdom and Clarence had deserted his brother Edward's cause thinking that Warwick was a better proposition! He'd married Warwick's eldest daughter only to have Warwick marry off his other daughter to the Lancastrian Prince Edward – meaning that Clarence was no better off than he had been before and was regarded as a bit of a swine for doing the dirty on his brother.)
1470, Oct. 4, Tewkesbury.
Trusti and welbeloved we grete you wele, lating you wite that wee bee fully purposed with the grace of our Lord to bee at Lichefield on Twysday now commyng, on Monday at our toun of Asthebourne and on Thursday next ensuying at our town oI Chestrefield. Wherefore we woll and desire you to mete with us at our commyng at the said parties, and to com- mande on our behelf our offrcers and tenanntes within your ofhces to doo in like wyse. Geven under our signet at Teukesbury the iiii day of October.
This letter is swiftly followed up by a second letter which asks Vernon to find out how the rest of the gentry in Derbyshire feel about Clarence. It should be noted that Clarence did own some manors in Derbyshire and his cousin was married into the Talbot family. A third letter sounds a note of panic with the news that Edward is on his way back to England. By the time Vernon received it, Edward had already landed at Ravenspur and was making his way south.
Yet another letter, this time from the earl of Warwick describes Edward as a "gret enemy rebelle and traitour is now late arrived in the North partes of this land and commyng fast on Southward accompanyed with Flemminge, Esterlands and Danes." The letter is a commission of array. Essentially it orders Sir Henry to gather men and join Warwick's army immediately in order to maintain the rule of Henry VI (or rather the earl of Warwick who preferred the idea of being a puppet master to that of loyal subject.)
Sir Henry is then in receipt of several more letters from the duke of Clarence. Clarence is marching from Malmsbury, at the end of March ostensibly to intercept his brother Edward. By the 2nd of April he is in Burford and from there he went to Coventry and instead of fighting his brother joined with him against the earl of Warwick.
Sir Henry's next letter is from King Edward IV who wrote from Tewkesbury:
Margaret late called Queene is in our handes, her son Edward slayn Edmund called Duc of Somerset, John Erl of Devonshire with all the other lords knightes and noblemen that were in their company taken or slayn, yet we now understand that commones of divers partes of this our royaume make murmurs and commocions entending the distruccion of the churche, of us our lords and all noblemen, and to subvert the public of our said royome which we in our persone with Goddes helpe and assistance of you and other trewe subgettes shall mightly defend the same and we woll that ye be with us.
Clearly Sir Henry had avoided the various battlefields and kept his head down, though it would appear that he had made a list of his valuables which he pledged to Edward's support.
Once Edward had won the Battle of Tewksbury and Prince Edward was killed the end of Henry VI, a prisoner in the Tower, was inevitable. Sir Henry Vernon along with the rest of the country would reasonably have expected Edward to reign for a good long while and then to have been succeeded by his sons – Elizabeth Woodville having produced the first male heir, another Prince Edward, whilst she was in sanctuary in Westminster. Vernon's loyalty to the house of York is made apparent in a letter from Edward IV of 1481:
we bee enformed that ye have taken distresse for us and in oure name for thomage due unto us in that behalve for the which we thanke vou.
He was also appointed Bailiff of the High Peak by the York regime.
Then, in 1483, it was all change again. Edward IV died unexpectedly whilst his eldest son Edward was still too young to inherit in his own right. Enter Richard III and yet another commission of array for Sir Henry Vernon to meet the king on the field against Henry Tudor. Vernon appears to have avoided Bosworth.
It is thus somewhat surprising that Sir Henry thrived under the rule of Henry Tudor. Having said that Vernon married Anne Talbot, daughter of the earl of Shrewsbury in 1466 so the Talbot Lancastrian links and the fact that the earl of Shrewsbury joined with Henry Tudor prior to the Battle of Bosworth may go rather a long way to explaining how Sir Henry Vernon survived the change from white rose to red. He became Governor and Treasurer to Prince Arthur and was also made a Knight of the Bath. He was in attendance when Arthur married Katherine of Aragon. Local legend states that Arthur stayed at Vernon's home in Derbyshire – Haddon Hall- on more than one occasion.
There is a letter from Henry VII dated 1485. It describes Vernon as "trusty and well beloved" and it describes in some detail the problem of a Yorkist insurrection led by the anonymous Robin of Redesdale requesting that Vernon place himself at Henry's disposal. In fact the first attempt on Henry VII's life was made in York when he first visited it. A later letter identifies the trust that Henry placed in Vernon in the care of his eldest son:
Henry VII to Sir Henry Vernon.
1492, Aug 31. Windsor. Trusti and welbeloved we grete you wele. And inasmoche as we have appointed you tobe Comptroller of household with our derrest son the Prince and that we depart in all hast on our voyage over the see, we therefor desire and praye you that ye will give your personell attendaunce upon our said derrest son for the tyme we shalbe out of this our realme, and that ye faile not hereof as we truste you' Geven under our signet at our Castel of Windesor the last day of August viii of our reyne. Sign Manual
Later still Vernon would go with Margaret Tudor to Scotland and pay a forced loan of £100 to the notoriously parsimonious Tudor monarch.
Sir Henry survived into the reign of Henry VII which ended in 1509. He would now serve the second Tudor monarch. In 1512/13 Henry VIII wrote to Sir Henry Vernon ordering him to send "a hundred tal men hable for the warre sufficiently harnessed to Greenwich." This must have been for Henry's war against the french. The letter also advises Vernon that money would be expected for the men's upkeep.
Sir Henry Vernon, who had lived through so many tumultuous events died on April 15th 1515 and was buried in Tong Church where his wife Anne Talbot is also buried. His effigy wears the double ss livery collar of the House of Lancaster and there is a Tudor rose to be seen – just so that everyone is quite clear about where his loyalties lay…
Kirke, H. (1920) 'Sir Henry Vernon of Haddon.' Derbyshire Archeological Journal:42. (pp. 001-017).
Posted in Fifteenth Century, The Tudors, Wars of the Roses	| Tagged Anne Talbot, Battle of Bosworth, commission of array, Earl of Shrewsbury, Earl of Warwick, Edward IV, george Duke of Clarence, Katherine of Aragon, Lancaster Affinity, Margaret Tudor, Prince Arthur, Ravenspur, Richard III, Richard Neville, Rutland Archive, Sir Henry Vernon, Sir John Grey of Groby, Sir Richard Vernon, Tong Church	| 7 Replies
Mary Queen of Scots and the arms of England
Posted on March 29, 2017 by JuliaH
In November 1558 Henri II of France upon hearing the news that Mary I of England (Bloody Mary) was dead declared that his young son, Francois, and his daughter-in-law, Mary Queen of Scots were king and queen of England by virtue of Mary Queen of Scots descent from Margaret Tudor, the eldest surviving daughter of Henry VII. In the eyes of the Catholic world Elizabeth was at best the illegitimate daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn and could thus have no claim to the crown.
The quartering of the English arms with Mary's arms was the start of a lifelong struggle between Elizabeth and Mary although Elizabeth did acknowledge that the initial ambitions stemmed from the House of Guise and Henri II. At this stage in the proceedings it was largely a matter of posturing – but a seed had been sown.
Barely two years later in December 1560 Francois died from an ear infection that turned into an abscess on his brain. Mary decided to return Scotland – landing her squarely on Elizabeth's doorstep. This was a development that made her claim to the throne more dangerous not least because Mary refused to accept the Treaty of Edinburgh which recognised Elizabeth as Queen of England. As a direct consequence of her refusal to ratify the treaty Elizabeth refused to permit her cousin safe passage. Mary relied on God and good winds to get her home to Leith on August 19 1561 but the tone was set for growing animosity between the two queens until Mary went to her death at Fotheringhay in 1587.
Mary had been in France since she was five-years-old. Her mother, Mary of Guise, widow of James V had sent her only surviving child abroad for fear of kidnap attempts from her own nobles and from the attentions of the on-going English so-called 'Rough Wooing'. In April 1558, after an upbringing fit for a princess, Mary, aged 15, married the dauphin who was almost two years younger than her. In 1559 Henri II was killed in a jousting accident. The young husband and wife briefly became king and queen of France. Francois had always been a sickly boy so the day to day ruling of France fell to his older relations including his mother Catherine de Medici and his uncles the Cardinal of Lorraine and the Duke of Guise.
In Scotland, Mary of Guise, Mary's mother who had acted as her daughter's regent died in June 1560. The Treaty of Edinburgh should have been ratified in the July but Mary insisted that she hadn't agreed to it so wouldn't sign it. By the end of the year Mary Queen of Scots would be a widow. She was just eighteen. Her ten-year-old-brother-in-law Charles now became king of France and Catherine de Medici became regent.
At Calais, in French hands since 1558, Mary boarded the vessel that would take her back to a Scotland where John Knox preached Protestantism. The man who was the admiral of her little fleet was none other than James Hepburn, earl of Bothwell.
Posted in Mary Queen of Scots, Sixteenth Century	| Tagged Bothwell, Cardinal of Lorraine, Catherine de Medici, Duke of Guise, Francois, Henri II, James Hepburn, Margaret Tudor, Mary of Guise, Mary Queen of Scots, Treaty of Edinburgh	| 2 Replies
The murder of Lord Darnley
I seem to be passing through a phase of whodunits and primary sources with lots of wriggle room. The chap this post revolves around is Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley – he was born at Temple Newsam near Leeds. His mother was Lady Margaret Douglas daughter of Margaret Tudor and Mathew Stewart 4th earl of Lennox. Margaret was the half-sister of James V meaning that Darnley and Mary, Queen of Scots were cousins. His father being a Stewart was also in line for the Scottish throne.
On the surface Darnley was tall, good-looking and urbane. He'd changed the spelling of his name following his education in France. He danced well and he was charming. He must have been a breath of fresh air to Mary when he arrived in Scotland at the beginning of 1565 after her diet of plain speaking Scottish males telling her what to do and what to believe.
By July the banns were being called and Elizabeth I was writing stern notes from England to both Darnley and Mary as not only did Elizabeth take a lively interest in what was happening in Scotland but both the bride and the groom were in line for the English throne by virtue of their descent from Margaret Tudor, the eldest surviving daughter of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York . The pair married on the 29 July 1565 before the papal dispensation for their marriage arrived. Darnley didn't accompany Mary to the marriage mass which followed the actual wedding.
Unfortunately for Mary she'd been deceived by her new husband's good looks and soft words. It turned out he was vain, arrogant, drank more than was good for him and irritated most of her nobility including her illegitimate half-brother James Stewart who wasn't terribly keen on Mary marrying anyone on account of the fact he wanted to be her key adviser. Darnley sulked heavily when Mary refused to give him the crown matrimonial which would have meant that had she died before him that he would have ruled Scotland but less than a month later rumours abounded that Mary was pregnant.
Obviously the best way to win friends and influence people, if you are called Darnley, is to kill your pregnant wife's Italian secretary. Rizzio – and this does sound like a game of Cleudo- was stabbed in Mary's private dining room at Holyrood Palace more than fifty times on 9th March 1566 by Darnley and a cluster of protestant nobles. Whilst my words strongly suggest that he was there and wielding a knife with deadly effect he was swift to issue a statement that he knew nothing about the matter – we're back to the basis of proof again. For the sake of clarity I should probably also mention that there were rumours at the time that the baby that Mary carried actually belonged to Rizzio rather than Darnley – which isn't credible but serves to demonstrate how unpopular the queen had become.
Not too surprisingly Mary did not trust her spouse one jot after that although they did appear to become closer once Mary's son baptised Charles James was born on 19th June 1566. She'd been persuaded to forgive her husband and also some of the lords who'd conspired with him to commit the murder.
Darnley fell ill in Glasgow – it is said with small pox although that prevalent Tudor catch all of syphilis is often bandied around. At the beginning of February 1567 he moved to Edinburgh where he stayed at a house in Kirk o' Fields. Mary sometimes spent the night there, in the chamber below the one that Darnley inhabited. She was due to stay the night on the evening of the 9th of February – but didn't.
In the wee small hours of 10th February 1567 a huge explosion tore through the house killing two of Darnley's servants. It would have been unfortunate had Darnley been found dead in his bed. The house had been selected by his wife Mary, Queen of Scots. There small matter of a store of gunpowder allegedly stored in the queen's bed chamber might have raised more than one eyebrow but it could probably have been neatly tidied away. No, the problem was that Darnley was not discovered in his bed dead as a result of the explosion. He was discovered dead in a nearby orchard, unmarked by the explosion, strangled with his own shirt. Nearby lay his servant – William Taylor,wearing a cap, his night-shirt and one slipper- also dead. There was also a chair, a dagger and possibly a quilt. Hard to blame that on an explosion of any kind!
Mary and powerful border baron James Hepburn, earl of Bothwell, were suspected of the deed – it was suggested that Darnley was on the wrong end of a love triangle. The problem was that whilst Bothwell remains the chief suspect not least because he married Mary very shortly afterwards there were an awful lot of people who weren't terribly keen on Darnley – or put another way if Agatha Christie had written a historical novel on the subject – everyone would have done it! The case which is short on facts and long on speculation covers the following:
Bothwell, who was undoubtedly high in Mary's favour, sought to rid the Scottish queen of her spouse so that he could assume the royal role – let's just set aside the small matter of his own wife – Lady Jean Gordon.
Mary was unhappy with Darnley for a number of reasons including the murder of Rizzio, his arrogance and let's not forget the syphilis. However, she realised that divorce wasn't an option as it was essential that there were no shadows over the legitimacy of baby James.
Mary was worried that Darnley would harm James or attempt to rule Scotland through him – it is thought that Rizzio was brutally murdered in front of her in part to bring about a miscarriage. If Mary died without an heir Darnley could have attempted to rule the kingdom, raising the interesting possibility of Darnley accidentally blowing himself up and then getting murdered afterwards.
The Lords who'd plotted with Darnley to murder Rizzio had to flee to England in the aftermath of the deed. Darnley had sold them down the river, so as to speak, consequentially they may have been motivated to get their own back.
James Stewart, Mary's capable but illegitimate half-brother may have been motivated to kill both Darnley and Mary (remember she was supposed to have stayed the night) – an abdication wouldn't have been displeasing either. In the event of either he could have taken charge of his little nephew and ruled Scotland.
Witnesses identify a group of eleven men in the vicinity at the time – all of them anonymous.
Cecil was told that a chap called James Balfour, who owned the house next door to the one where Darnley was murdered, had made a purchase of gunpowder just before the explosion. Just to muddy the waters he was employed in Edinburgh Castle.
James Hamilton had a house in the neighbourhood – in common with much of the rest of the nobility Hamilton didn't like Darnley very much.
James Douglas, earl of Morton was ambitious for power. It was his servants who found the so-called Casket Letters which incriminated Mary. He was Protestant. He had been with the men who murdered Rizzio.
The image at the start of the post, which is in the National Archives, was drawn for Lord Cecil so is deemed to be primary source material- think of it as the very first illustration of a murder scene (albeit in cartoon form) but not necessarily unbiased. It tells a story, everything in the image means something – though whether its telling the truth is another ratter entirely. It wasn't long before the rumour mill was spreading the word that the gun powder which destroyed the house had been stored in the queen's bed chamber – pointing the finger at her. Actually it probably wasn't there but lower down in the building. Also she was supposed to be in the building that night. She'd gone out to a wedding party and had not returned…evidence of her guilt if you think she was after an alibi or evidence that she was an intended victim who narrowly missed being killed.
Could Darnley and Taylor have been blown out of their bedroom along with the peculiar assemblage of items around them? The bodies are in remarkably good condition – the marks on Darnley's partially clad body are taken to be indicators of unpleasant social diseases rather than blast damage. Both bodies are in tact and apparently unmarked by burns. Equally, although there is a knife at the scene of the crime neither of the men had any stab woulds. It is usually accepted that they were suffocated. There is no evidence as to whether they were alive or dead when they arrived in the orchard – if dead one can't help wondering what their murderers were trying to achieve. If alive, it suggests that they must have been fleeing considerable danger as both were in a state of undress. It has been suggested that the chair was used to lower Darnley from the first floor window before the building collapsed/before his murderers burst in upon him.
In 1568, a casket of letters would be produced in York at the first trial of Mary Queen of Scots which implicated her in the murder of her second husband. Many- most- historians believe these letters to be forgeries designed to keep Mary incarcerated in England. The Casket Letters disappeared from history so their legitimacy cannot be proved or disproved. What is significant is that they are the only evidence which points the finger of guilt at Mary. John Guy's book about Mary My Heart is My Own : The Life of Mary Queen at Scots looks in detail at transcriptions of the letters and at the flaws in them.
Clearly there is much more in terms of interpretation but the key is that Dudley's murder remains unsolved.
Posted in Anglo-Scottish history, Mary Queen of Scots, Sixteenth Century	| Tagged Earl of Bothwell, Earl of Douglas, Elizabeth I, Henry Stuart, James Hamilton, James Hepburn, James Morton, James Stewart, James VI, Kirk o'Fields, Lady Margaret Douglas, Lord Cecil, Lord Darnley, Margaret Tudor, Rizzio, The Casket Letters	| 1 Reply
Gunpowder, treason and plot
Posted on November 5, 2015 by JuliaH
Remember, remember!
The fifth of November,
The Gunpowder treason and plot;
Why the Gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot!
Actually there's every reason why the plot might have been forgotten! There were at least four plots against James I during the early years of his reign. Yet it is Guy Fawkes, a York boy, who is remembered. This post is about two earlier plots and the wonderfully named Sir Griffin Markham.
Sir Griffin, the eldest son and heir of Thomas Markham, of Ollerton in Nottinghamshire, served as a soldier under the Earl of Essex in an expedition sent by Queen Elizabeth to the assistance of Henry IV of France. He was knighted during the siege of Rouen in 1591. He afterwards served in Ireland but there was a problem for this soldier that got worse with the passage of time. Sir Griffin was a Catholic at a time when being Catholic was a cause for suspicion and an impediment to power.
In the Parish Register of Mansfield it is stated that Griffin Markham was at the Market Cross in Mansfield and other gentlemen of the region for the proclamation of the accession of James I (pictured at the start of this post). Catholics had every reason to hope that persecution, which they faced during Elizabeth's reign, might ease – after all, James' mother and wife were Catholic. Yet, it appears that within a very short time of James' accession Sir Griffin wasn't a happy man. Four months later he was arrested on a treason charge – he'd become involved in a plot that history knows as the Bye Plot or the Treason of the Priests. (Ironically, Jesuits who were concerned that the Bye Plot was a harebrained scheme that would result in major difficulties for English Catholics revealed the conspiracy to Cecil.)
During the course of investigations into the Bye Plot a second plot, which became known as the Main Plot, was uncovered. The two were separate but involved many of the same people!
Sir Griffin Markham, Lord Grey (a radical puritan), Lord Cobham and George Brooke found themselves incarcerated in the Tower along with a couple of catholic priests- William Watson and William Clarke. They were charged with a plot to kidnap James and his Privy Council and then force them to make concessions to the Catholics including the repeal of anti-Catholic legeslation…like that was going to happen and with only three hundred men – not that there is any evidence of Sir Griffin being able to round up a posse that size. This was the Bye Plot.
At the same time Sir Walter Raleigh found himself under arrest on account of a slightly different plot called the 'Main Plot' to depose James ('the kyngge and his cubbes') and replace him with Arbella (Arabella) Stuart, the grand-daughter of Bess of Hardwick through her daughter Elizabeth Cavendish and Charles Stuart Earl of Lennox – who was the son of Margaret Douglas who in turn was the daughter of Margaret Tudor, eldest daughter of King Henry VII of England.
It is probable that Raleigh was caught in the net of the Main Plot because of his friendship with Lord Cobham who'd been travelling around Europe have shady chats with Spanish types looking at bankrolling the venture. The problem for Raleigh was that Cobham travelled home via Jersey where Raleigh was governor and clearly stopped off for a chat with his old friend. Cecil put two together, or so it would appear, and found an opportunity to rid himself of a political adversary. There's another theory that says that Raleigh played his old friend along playing the role of agent provocateur and then managed to get caught in Cecil's net – whichever way you look at the Main Plot it seems hard to believe that Raleigh would plot with the Spanish. There's a third view that Raleigh himself spoke of at his trial which was that he thought that he was being offered a pension – not treasonable and something that Cecil was in receipt of himself!
The common denominators between the Main Plot and the Bye Plot were George Brooke and Lord Cobham who were, incidentally, brothers.
The Bye Plot conspirators including Lord Cobham were tried in Winchester and found guilty. A scaffold was built especially for the occasion in Winchester Castle. The warrant was signed on the 7th December and Sir Griffin went to his fate on the 9th complaining bitterly that his confession had been given on the promise of leniency. It was only as he was just about to lay his head on the block that a member of the King's household arrived with another warrant from James I giving him an extra two hours of life. The same grisly process awaited Lord Grey who prayed for half an hour before the sheriff issued the stay of execution and then Lord Cobham. All three mounted the scaffold, thought their last moments had come only to be given a short reprieve at the last moment – sounding suspiciously like someone somewhere had a very nasty sense of humour or someone in authority wanted to entrap Raleigh through a pre-execution confession from his fellow conspirators.
Each of the three men also believed that the other two men had been executed until they were all bought back to the scaffold for a piece of Jacobean theatre contrived by the king for the news that they were to be spared death but banished from the kingdom. Brooke was the only one to be executed in Winchester, even though he might have reasonably expected leniency being married to Lord Cecil's sister (talk about a family embarrassment).
Raleigh spent the next thirteen years in The Tower and Parliament passed an act called the 'Statute Against Catholics' banishing Catholic priests from England was passed into law as a result of the Bye Plot. Sir Griffin ended his life in continental poverty. According to some stories it is said that he often donned disguise and returned home, and that he assisted in the attempted escape of Arabella Stuart.
Fraser, Lady Antonia. (2003). The Gunpowder Plot: Terror and Faith in 1605. London: (Phoenix) Orion Books
Orange, James. (1840) History and Antiquities of Nottingham Vol II. London: Hamilton, Adams and Co. pp733-745
Posted in Historical Rhymes, Seventeenth Century, The Stuarts	| Tagged Arbella Stuart, Bess of Hardwick, Bye Plot, Cecil, Charles Stuart, Elizabeth Cavendish, George Brooke, gunpowder, Guy Fawkes, James I, Lord Cobham, Lord Grey, Main Plot, Mansfield, Margaret Douglas, Margaret Tudor, Ollerton, Sir Griffin Markham, Sir Walter Raleigh, The Tower, treason and plot, Treason of the Priests, William Clarke, William Watson, Winchester	| 1 Reply


text:
Q: Do you know the names of universities starting with definite article "the"? Do you know the names of universities starting with definite article "the"?
Such as:

*

*The London School of Economics and Political Science

*The Chicago School of Professional Psychology

*The Hague University of Applied Sciences

Thank you for answering my question.

A: This source might be able to help you out. As well as this, this and this.  They differ in how they list colleges with a definite "The" article, so choose whichever one best suits your needs.

A: In Great- Britain :
The Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London
London
The London School of Economics and Political Science
London
The Robert Gordon University
Aberdeen
The University of Buckingham
Buckingham
The University of Edinburgh
Edinburgh
The University of Hull
Hull ...
The University of Manchester
Manchester
The University of Northampton
Northampton
The University of Nottingham
Nottingham ...
The University of Sheffield
Sheffield
The University of Warwick
Coventry
The University of Winchester
Winchester
The University of York
York

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I wonder if having a 'swap zero page' routine that would use a 256 bytes memory buffer could solve the problem.
My fear is about the pointers in page 0 that points to the borders of variables, arrays and strings.
I suppose I should reset them to initial values. Like what the NEW command does.
I did exactly what you told (sorry about my previous message, I failed to see that you wanted to save the page 0 before doing anything else).
- Going HIRES and back to TEXT get me back to a normal state but LIST returns nothing (the program doesn't load).
I suppose I'm breaking something with Sedoric.
Edit: I will try to generate a simple example of all this.
Done. It's attached to this file.
It doesn't do exactly like I describe. The Basic program runs but the state is still strange. Need to do HIRES and TEXT to get back to normal.
and it goes to Hires and Back to text when you hit a key and then tries to load COMBAT (Basic program).
Hialmar wrote: Looks like I still have some problems with interactions from my basic programs and my C programs.
I get some Out Of Memory errors when I switch from Basic to C and back about 15 times.
Is it possible to put a breakpoint with Oricutron before the Out Of Memory error message is print out so that I can check the Stack Pointer ?
Out Of Memory should not be a stack beeing full, do you know who display this OOM message? It is the Basic or your own code?
Hialmar, did you fixed the issue?
I took a quick look at attached example and I have some concerns about the way you store/restore zero page.
- save/restore buffer is at 0xb800 - nothing wrong but consider that this area is moved together with character sets when switching between hires and text.
No I didn't solve the problem.
So basically I should rewrite the cpzerop.s with a monitor/assembler directly on Oricutron.
Rewrite my restorePageZero function in assembler.
No problem with 0xb800 as I only do the switching when in text mode.
I don't know where else to put this as the Basic program almost fill all normal RAM.
Yes. The code Dbug posted should work, except for the jmp SwapZeroPage which I think should be removed (would loop infinitely). You can compile it with OSDK, along with your C program.
I touched here and there in sources. Attached zip file contains DSK file and moded sources.
Please check if this helps. If not - probably I didn't understand the problem and ignore this post .
Let's hope it will work with the real programs.
Ah I have a problem.
I tried to switch back to #9800 as I really need the whole RAM for my Basic program and now I cannot make a .tap because the linker says I have no _main symbol.
How can I use XA to do that ?
Edit2: strange I had to switch back to #B800 because a part of the #9800 area was somewhat overwritten when going to hires mode or doing the cls.
Yes, $9800 is used for standard chars when in hires. That's why I set to $9700 the swap area and protected it with HIMEM#9700 in basic.
But in your case it's OK to use $b800 and use all free memory.
There is still something that is breaking my program.
It takes more than 10 exchanges from C to Basic and then I get the Out of Memory error.
I will try to put a breakpoint on this dreaded Out of Memory error and find out what is broken.
Godzil wrote: Out Of Memory should not be a stack beeing full, do you know who display this OOM message? It is the Basic or your own code?
There is a routine in ROM documented on page 82 of "l'Oric a Nu" that actually checks if there is enough room on the stack and if not gets to the Out of Memory error. It's called "Verifier place sur la pile" in "l'Oric a Nu".
The routine sits in #C43B or #C437 (depending on the version of the ROM).
Edit: OOM error is in #C47C that's where I will put my breakpoint.
Last edited by Hialmar on Tue Jun 23, 2015 9:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Hialmar wrote: There is still something that is breaking my program.
What do you mean by *exchanges* ?
Are you doing BASIC calls C calls BASIC calls C calls BASIC?
or are you calling C from BASIC, then back to BASIC; call C again and then back to BASIC?
First I backup the zero page, then I start my C program, it then loads the Basic program, which loads back the C program and so on for about 10 times.
I have 9 levels in the game and I basically switch levels in the Basic program and visit them in the C program.
When I do them in sequence it crashes in level 7 IIRC.
So that's about 14 exchanges.
I just got the error.
- SP is 13D so it should be ok.
That's my problem. Too many strings. I'll try to put calls to the FRE function.


text:
Espasmódicos fue un grupo de punk formado en Madrid a principios de la década de 1980. Estaban influenciados, sobre todo, por la primera oleada de punk y hardcore punk de Estados Unidos, así como, en menor medida, por el punk inglés de finales de los setenta.

Formados a principios de 1981, la carrera de Espasmódicos fue corta pero intensa (se disolvieron en 1983). Dejaron grabadas apenas diez canciones repartidas en dos EP y un recopilatorio, el seminal Punk, qué? punk editado en 1983 por DRO.

A pesar de lo escaso de sus grabaciones y los pocos conciertos que llegaron a dar (apenas una decena, incluyendo dos apariciones en Televisión Española), Espasmódicos son, a día de hoy, uno de los grupos más importantes e influyentes de la primera oleada del punk en España:

Historia
Espasmódicos se fundó a principios de 1981, cuando José Mota, Enrique Arnal y César Sánchez, tres amigos del barrio madrileño de Malasaña, decidieron formar una banda de punk tras escuchar «Holiday in Cambodia» («Vacaciones en Camboya»), el segundo sencillo de Dead Kennedys. Tras cambiarse los nombres (José se convirtió en J. Siemens, Enrique en Kike Kruel y César en CSG7I) y sortear los instrumentos que tocarían cada uno quedó definida la formación: J. Siemens a la guitarra, Kike como cantante y CSG7I al bajo. Pronto comenzaron a ensayar (compartiendo locales con bandas como Zoquillos, Glutamato Ye-Yé o Ramoncín) y a buscar un batería.

El primer batería de Espasmódicos fue Carlos del Castillo, Carlos "Torero", quien llegó a la banda en 1981. Las influencias de la banda se ampliaron con el fichaje de Carlos. Mientras que a los tres primeros les gustaban el hard rock, el hardcore punk (Dead Kennedys, MDC, Circle Jerks, Black Flag) y la primera oleada del punk (Sex Pistols, Buzzcocks), Carlos era seguidor de grupos de nueva ola y de jazz-rock. Fue Kike Kruel quien le puso el apodo de "Torero".

Su primera grabación apareció a principios de 1982, en forma de EP de 7" titulado Recomendado para molestar a su vecino. El EP constaba de tres canciones: «Enciendes tu motor», «Ni eficiencia ni progreso» y «Están deseando que te pongas a temblar». El EP tenía un sonido duro y compacto, mostrando así las querencias del grupo, comentadas más arriba, por los grupos de hardcore estadounidenses. Para la primera canción contaron con el saxofón de Karlox (entonces miembro de Polansky y el Ardor), en una intervención nada habitual en el punk de la época:

El EP fue autofinanciado por la propia banda en un estudio profesional. Además, la carpeta era obra de J. Siemens y Kike Kruel (bajo el seudónimo de Titanes Planetarios). EL EP fue editado a finales de otoño por la todavía primeriza Discos Radiactivos Organizados, a la que el grupo acusó de no hacerles promoción adecuada y de negarles las regalías que deberían haber percibido por su venta.

Durante 1982, de hecho antes de salir el disco, el 18 de julio, llegó su primera aparición en TVE, en el programa Pista Libre, en el que interpretaron en directo «Están deseando que te pongas a temblar». La segunda fue ya en enero de 1983 en Caja de ritmos, el programa musical (de breve vida) de Carlos Tena, pero esta vez la actuación fue en playback. Interpretaron «Días de destrucción» y «Serafín», canciones que aún no habían visto la luz en forma de grabación. Las canciones se grabaron, pues, ex professo para el programa.

Durante las sesiones de grabación para Caja de ritmos Espasmódicos registraron un total de cinco temas, «Mata», «El día que me falló Superman» y «Soy cruel», además de los dos citados. Para la grabación de estos tres temas contaron con Carlos de Yebra como músico de estudio, ya que Carlos Torero decidió dejar el grupo tras la grabación de «Serafín» y «Días de destrucción».

Ya entrado 1983 aparecieron las últimas referencias de Espasmódicos. La primera fueron dos canciones con las que el grupo contribuyó al recopilatorio de DRO Punk, que? punk, aparecido a principios de año, una grabación que fue muy importante en su momento en la escena punk estatal. Los dos temas eran «Tía, vete a cagar» y «1943». El segundo tema era en realidad una versión libre de «Belsen was a gas» de The Sex Pistols y les proporcionó críticas negativas por el trasfondo nazi de la canción. La portada del recopilatorio fue obra, nuevamente, de Titanes Planetarios.

La segunda fue el EP en formato maxi sencillo Espasmódicos, un vinilo que contenía los cinco temas que grabaron durante las sesiones de Caja de ritmos. EL EP iba en la línea de su predecesor, con un sonido similar y un art-work de los propios Espasmódicos (de nuevo como Titanes Planetarios). Además, de igual modo que solían hacer los ingleses Crass o sus amados Dead Kennedys, incluyeron un fanzine (también obra de J. Siemens y Kike Kruel) con todas las letras de sus canciones, incluidas las de Recomendado para molestar a su vecino y Punk Que? Punk, además de tres temas inéditos: «Muy mal», «Religión» y «Caos y descontrol». El maxi apareció con considerable retraso, hacia finales de año.

En 1983 el grupo fichó a Magüu Pilarte (entonces militaba en Cronopio) como batería. Magüu no llegó a participar en ninguna de las sesiones anteriores, pero sí lo hizo en el último concierto de la banda el 18 de junio de 1983 en Campo de Criptana junto a OX Pow. El cartel inicial contaba con la presencia de La UVI, Zoquillos, OX Pow y Espasmódicos, pero al final Zoquillos y La UVI no se presentaron al evento.

Poco después, el grupo se separó. Kike y César no volvieron a relacionarse con el mundo de la música, pero J. Siemens y Magüu continuaron en el punk formando TDeK. Cuando éstos se disolvieron en 1990, J. Siemens abandonó el mundo de la música, pero Magüu siguió en él (con el grupo AKITACHYWA y otros proyectos).

Kike Kruel falleció el 13 de noviembre de 2003. El año anterior, Potencial Hardcore y Munster Records reeditaron todo el material de Espasmódicos en el CD/LP Espasmódicos. Con motivo de la muerte de Kike Kruel se realizó un concierto homenaje en el que participaron grupos como La Broma de Ssatán, Muletrain o Zinc. El concierto se grabó y editó en DVD acompañando al disco tributo Homenaje a Espasmódicos y a la Memoria de Kike Kruel, aparecido en 2004 de mano de Potencial Hardcore. El CD consiste en versiones de Espasmódicos a cargo de, entre otros, La Broma de Ssatán, La Frontera, Nuevo Catecismo Católico, Safety Pins o TDeK:

Miembros
 Kike Kruel (Enrique Arnal) - Voz
 J. Siemens (José Mota) - Guitarra
 CSG7I (César Sánchez) - Bajo
 Carlos Torero (1981-1983) - Batería
 Magüu Pilarte (1983) - batería

Discografía

Singles y EP
 7" EP Recomendado para molestar a su vecino (DRO 011, 1982). Reeditado por Radikal 1977 Records.
 12" EP Espasmódicos (π Musikra 001, 1983, edición limitada, 1.500 copias).

Apariciones en recopilatorios
 «Están deseando que te pongas a temblar» en el LP Locos por la música (Pista Libre-DRO, 1982-1983).
 «Tía, vete a cagar» y «1943» en Punk, qué? punk (DRO 022, 1983). Estas dos canciones son exclusivas de este recopilatorio, no aparecieron ni en Recomendado para molestar a su vecino ni en el EP Espasmódicos.
 «Enciendes tu motor» y «Serafín» en La movida madrileña (π musikra M 29609, 1983). En la reedición en CD de 1994 (Revelde Discos) se añadió, además, «Ni eficiencia ni progreso».
 «Están deseando que te pongas a temblar» en Punk, qué? punk 2 (DRO, 1994).
 «Enciendes tu motor» en ¿Dónde estabas tú... en 1982? (DRO, 1994).
 «Enciendes tu motor» en Bloodstains Across Spain (Lipstickkillers, 1997).
 La cinco canciones de Espasmódicos EP en Five old Spanish PunkRock twelve inches (Lipstickkillers, 1999).
 «Soy cruel» en Viva la punk (Revelde Discos, 2001).
 «Tía, vete a cagar» en el CD recopilatorio que acompaña a Hasta el final. 20 años de punk en España (2ª ed.), Libros Zona de Obras/SGAE. ISBN 84-931607-5-X (2002).

Álbumes recopilatorios y tributos
 CD/LP Espasmódicos (Potencial Hardcore/Munster Records, 2002). Álbum recopilatorio con Recomendado para molestar a su vecino, el EP y las dos canciones de Punk, qué? punk.
 CD Homenaje a Espasmódicos y a la Memoria de Kike Kruel (Potencial Hardcore, 2004). Disco tributo a Espasmódicos (CD y DVD) grabado como homenaje a Kike Kruel tras su muerte. Participan grupos como 37 Hostias, La Broma de Ssatán, Muletrain, La Frontera o Nuevo Catecismo Católico.

Notas y referencias

Enlaces externos
 Espasmódicos en MySpace.
 Página dedicada a Espasmódicos en el sitio de J. Siemens.
 Biografía de Espasmódicos (en inglés) en Kill From The Heart
 Página dedicada a Espasmódicos en el sitio de J. Siemens.
 Entrevista a J. Siemens

Grupos de punk de la Comunidad de Madrid
Grupos de punk rock de España
Grupos de hardcore punk de España
Grupos de música de los años 1980

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