Richard III Society

MID ANGLIA GROUP NEWSLETTERMARCH 2018

Welcome to the first newsletter of 2018! I hope you all had a lovely festive season and are now looking forward to the fantastic visits planned for this new year. I hope as many of you as possible will be able to attend them as it’s a great way of meeting other Ricardians and making new friends.

In the What’s On section I have listed the Norfolk Branch’s meetings and study days as well to enable you to get the most of having a large, active Richard III Society Branch close at hand. As a reminder, Norfolk Branch meetings are usually held in the Assembly Rooms in Norwich and usually cost £3.00 per meeting. Study Days are, of course, more expensive and have to be booked. Details are provided below on how to do this. See you there!

Janine Lawrence (Secretary)

Stratford St Mary Visit

In November our AGM and visit took place in the lovely Suffolk village of Stratford St Mary in the heart of ‘Constable Country’. The village is famous for its large number of medieval buildings and a fine fifteenth century church which we were due to visit after the meeting.

After a delicious lunch at the Black Horse, a former coaching inn, we attended to the business at hand and agreed an impressive visits programme for the forthcoming year. There were so many suggestions that we could have started on our 2019 programme as well – it’s good to know there are so many Ricardian or medieval sites of interest for the future!

St Mary’s Church is on the outskirts of the village, close to the A12 and the tower is clearly visible as you drive towards Colchester. The former wealth of the village is

evident in the size of the church: for such a small population it is enormous and, like so many churches in East Anglia, was built on the profits of wool.

Our interest was mainly focused on the de la Pole Window which benefitted from a donation during its restoration from the Society’s Ricardian Churches Restoration Fund. As you can see from the photograph it is quite beautiful and comprises many small pieces of decorated medieval glass.

White roses and Yorkist sunbursts can clearly be seen as well as de la Pole and royal arms.

Although fragmented now, this proves that the original window did indeed feature these signs of Yorkist loyalty.

I was intrigued by the evident connection of Stratford St Mary to the de la Pole family, but could find nothing to substantiate this. This prompted an email to the Society’s Vice President, Carolyn Hammond who undertook a little detective work, looking at the Inquisition Post Mortem for John Earl of Lincoln, but it didn’t seem to be one of his manors.

She passed my enquiry over to her husband (and Society president), Peter who delved a little deeper courtesy of the internet and found the answer in a book entitled Manors of Suffolk by Walter Copinger (volume 6, published in 1905).

This revealed that one of the manors of Stratford St Mary had been granted to Michael de la Pole by 1382 and the stayed in the de la Pole family until at least 1450 when there is a reference to John the 2nd Duke of Suffolk owning it. It possibly stayed in the family until they fell foul of the Tudors as so many Yorkist supporters did!

Mystery solved! And thanks to Carolyn and Peter for their dogged research.

De la Pole Study Day

Following our visit to Wingfield last year, Stephen Lark attended a ‘Wuffing Education”study day at Sutton Hoo in Suffolk, addressed by Dr Rosemary Horrox on the de la Pole family. He shares it with us here:

Dr Horrox covered the family’s commercial origins in Hull as two of three brothers, whose father’s forename is still unknown, left the city to enter the national scene, lending money to the King. Although Richard was probably William’s elder brother, their paths diverged as he sought a less acquisitive strategy and his male line descendants are less famous, expiring three generations later.

William’s family is better known but trod a far more perilous path, particularly in royal moneylending. His son, Michael, served the Black Prince and John of Gaunt, being created Earl of Suffolk and marrying Katherine Wingfield before falling foul of Richard II and dying in exile in the year of that King’s deposition.

We were also shown some accounts from shortly after this time, relating to the second Earl’s children and their education. The first Earl’s successors, a son and a grandson both also named Michael, died on the 1415

French expedition, one of disease after the siege of Harfleur and the other at Azincourt soon afterwards. The younger of these left no sons and was succeeded by his brother, William, whose career, elevation to the Dukedom of Suffolk and end aboard the Nicolas of the Tower is a familiar story to most of us. Then we have John, brother-in-law to Edward IV and Richard III, both of whom he outlived – incidentally, Dr Horrox does not believe that he actually married Margaret “Beaufort” as a child.

Between them, John de la Pole’s ten or so children lost his position completely and

appear to have had only one child, a nun who died of the plague in about 1515. Dr Horrox’s genealogical handouts detail the lack of alternative male lines in great detail, such that the “Marguerite de la Pole – Suffolk” who married in France during spring 1539 could have had no father by that surname save for Lord Richard or a cousin at least twice removed. Even if we had some of her DNA from somewhere, a father-daughter relationship would be the most difficult to prove – impossible as today’s scientific knowledge stands.

I would recommend these Study Days to anyone when a particularly appealing topic arises: http://wuffingeducation.co.uk/studydays/ . The setting is outstanding and the Sutton Hoo café is two minutes from the hall.

Visit to Barnet Battlefield

This will be taking place on Wednesday 21st March, a complete departure from our usual Saturday visits because traffic in Barnet is horrendous at weekends.

Parking in the Spires multi-storey car park is advised as there is simply no off-road parking to be had either in the streets around or up by the battlefield.

A short walk up the High Street towards the battlefield will bring us to Ye Olde Monken Holt pub, where we will meet at 11am. This in turn is close to the battlefield where MAG member Allan Manning will be our guide, leading us over the battlefield and describing the battle as it unfolded.

Allan envisages the walk will take about one and a half hours. Waterproofs, walking boots or wellies are a good idea knowing what our weather can be like and dogs are welcome too.

Lunch can be taken in Ye Olde Mitre Inne which is probably the oldest surviving coaching inn in Barnet, being established by 1633. It is small and I’m advised that there could be a bit of a wait for food as they don’t take bookings. However, they are dog-friendly, so long as the hound is well behaved!

Failing that, there are many pubs, snack bars and restaurants in Barnet High Street to tempt a hungry Ricardian, so we certainly won’t go without sustenance!

I will email everyone with a map and details of parking, postcodes etc to make the journey as simple and stress-free as possible. In the meantime I’d be grateful if you would let me know if you are attending, so I have a rough idea of numbers.

This is our first “away” fixture and one that I am really looking forward to. Many of us have walked the battlefields of Bosworth and Tewkesbury and this will be a super opportunity to get another one under our belts!

What’s On – Diary Dates

21st March – Group visit to Barnet Battlefield

24th March - Norfolk Branch meeting. King John: the worse or most useful English King. An exciting opportunity to meet Sir William Marshall himself! With Max Keen.

7th April – Norfolk Branch Study Day - A Soldier’s Tale. 10:00 - 17:00 Cost £27 featuring Anthony Riches, Dr Harry Sidebottom

12th May – Norfolk Branch meeting. Over-mighty subjects by Mike Ingram of The Battlefields Trust

19th May – Guided visit of Coggeshall

For all Norfolk Branch events please contact Annmarie Hayek (annmarie@talktalk.net or 01603 664021) before attending as cancellations can happen!

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