#Lancastrian edit

[joanofnavarre]

[une-sanz-pluis]

I was thinking about how Margaret Holland's Book of Hours has the arms of Clarence impaling Holland on the same page as an illumination depicting the Arrest of Christ, with both Christ's face and the heraldic shield showing signs of touching/kissing leading Jessica Barker to conclude that Margaret may have seen Thomas Duke of Clarence's violent death as an "echo" of Christ's suffering. Then I remembered two things.

Firstly, that Thomas died on Holy Saturday - the day between Good Friday and Easter Sunday, when the Harrowing of Hell occurred - so the connection with this imagery is very fitting.

Secondly, according to two chronicles, the English defeat at the Battle of Bauge (and thus Thomas's death) occurred due to the treachery of one André Lombart (or Andrew of Lombardy), which is striking when coupled with the manuscript folio.

The first chronicler who mentions this is John Strecche, whose chronicle was written in 1426. He writes:

Consider then that a certain soldier, Andrew of Lombardy, who had one time been a mercenary with the duke of Clarence, and had stolen a quantity of loot from the town of Pontoise, as I have three chapters before this, with a strong hand and cunning treachery, rose up and attacked them all, devoid of any any help. And he murdered the Duke and captured and killed the others at Eastertide in the year of the Incarnation of Our Lord 1421.

The second account comes from Peter Basset and Christopher Hanson, who were writing for Sir John Fastolf and whose account covers the years 1415 to 1429. They give more detail, writing:

The latter [Thomas Duke of Clarence] spoke with André Lombart, who was a traitor twice over, and enquired what power the enemy had and what number they were. Lombart replied that the enemy were only in small number and were not strong enough to acquit themselves even against half of the power of my lord of Clarence, and that he would therefore have a very fine and honourable victory. My lord of Clarence, thinking that the traitor was telling him the truth, gave orders for the deployment of the archers of his company, to wit, Sir [blank], Sir [blank] knights of Portugal, captains of Fresnay-sur-Sarthe, and with them, the bastard of Clarence, and told them to await him in the said location of Beaufort until his return, telling them also that he wished that the other nobles and himself should have the honour of the destruction (of the French). But it turned out quite the opposite, for which reason there was much sadness and sense of loss. My lord of Clarence and the nobles of his company, passing through narrow pathways, encountered the enemy already in battle formation, thanks to the warning of the aforementioned traitor Lombart who had sold the duke. They had set up significant ambushes by their men to prevent the duke and his company escaping without being killed or taken prisoner. The enemy immediately overran the duke on all sides. The duke and his nobles defended themselves as valiantly as they could, but finally my lord of Clarence was pitiously killed and several other lords were taken prisoner or killed.

The predominant narrative of the Battle of Bauge is that of disaster caused by Thomas's reckless rush to battle, this is true in the vast majority of accounts and in historians' coverage of the battle. For John D. Milner, Strecche's account is the "most creative" of English attempts to obscure the role of "English negligence" in the defeat, particularly Thomas's:

Frank Taylor in his edition of the chronicle has commented that Strecche transforms Baugé into an incident of comparatively little significance, thus attempting both to reassure those in England when they heard about it and to preserve Clarence’s reputation. As C. L. Kingsford observed, this must have been some early rumour of the affair which reached England, and in which the truth was concealed.

Milner does find more support for the Lombart story, noting that first (i.e. "Lancastrian") edition of John Hardying's chronicles contains a reference to "‘counsayll of Andrew, fals Lombarde". Milner ultimately concludes:

It is at least possible that such an account became current, and then remained long in the collective memory, in an attempt to mitigate the culpability of the royal commander, Clarence. It is interesting, however, that the authors of the Historia Anglicana and the Vita et Gesta Henrici Quinti make no reference to Andrew Lombard. This suggests that this episode was not known to them and that, if known, it was discounted or that, of itself, it did no credit to the English side.

Given the Vita et Gesta Henrici Quinti is believed to have been commissioned by Sir Walter Hungerford, who had close connections with Henry V, it is perhaps telling that it makes no reference to the Lombart story.

Whether or not it is true, however, what strikes me is the way we can couple the story of Thomas being betrayed to his death with the folio in his wife's Book of Hours which seems to link his death with Christ's betrayal. Even if the story isn't true (which does seem to be the consensus of historians), then I wonder if it's possible Margaret Holland believed it?

References

Jessica Barker, Stone Fidelity: Marriage and Emotion in Medieval Tomb Sculpture (The Boydell Press, 2020)

Anne Curry and Rémy Ambühl, A Soldiers' Chronicle of the Hundred Years War: College of Arms Manuscript M 9 (D. S. Brewer 2022)

Geoffrey Hilton, A Biography of King Henry V Told by John Strecche, Canon of Kenilworth 1426 (2014)

John D. Milner, “The Battle of Baugé, March 1421: Impact and Memory”, History, Vol. 91, No. 4, October 2006

[wonder-worker]

"Times of crisis, fledgling sovereignty, and social upheaval produce the ideal conditions for the flourishing of bespoke rumor, innuendo, and propaganda; and the closing stage of the Hundred Years War is a case in point worthy of attentive analysis. Whispers of sorcery and treason against Valentina Visconti; Isabeau of Bavaria’s supposed wantonness and maternal negligence; Philippe the Bold’s mighty endeavors to secure the ascendancy of his House; his son Jean the Fearless’s effective spin as an honest broker and reforming duke despite his very dirty hands, notably his “justifiable” murder of his rival, the “tyrant” Louis of Orleans; the debunking of his defense (and the subsequent in kind retribution meted out to Burgundy by Orleans loyalists) are telling illustrations of pre-modern bespoke rumor, innuendo, and propaganda. Add to these Henry V’s God-sanctioned victory at Agincourt cast as just punishment for a transgressive France (which not only resonated with the French but validated the domestic English politicking of newly minted Lancastrian sovereignty); the initially successful delegitimization and disinheritance of the dauphin Charles with the Treaty of Troyes; the parallel golden myth/black legend of Joan of Arc (and her rehabilitation)—instances all of the ways in which rumor, propaganda, and innuendo were pressed into the service of those seeking traction at the end of the Hundred Years War."

-Zita Eva Rohr, "True Lies and Strange Mirrors: The Uses and Abuses of Rumor, Propaganda, and Innuendo During the Closing Stages of the Hundred Years War," Queenship, Gender, and Reputation in the Medieval and Early Modern West, 1060-1600 (Edited by Zita Eva Rohr and Lisa Benz)

[engineer-gunzelpunk]

Further SpookyHenry headcanons (edited with even more HCs added)

He loves his 2000 AD comics, "Nemesis The Warlock" and "Strontium Dogs" are his faves... loves "Promethea" for the art and occult content.

The shady criminal workshop that built him originally was likely located somewhere in eastern London, so he has a Cockney accent… which has flattened out somewhat but is still pretty distinct. It was a heavy mark of difference in the very early years against the Lancastrian, Scottish and general Northern leaning accents among the engines of the NWR.

He was never a Gresley, there were never any flawed plans stolen from Nigel Gresely’s workshop. That was a bullshit lie concocted by the fixer that tried to flog him from railway to railway to conjure an air of prestige for their ‘white elephant’ an to obscure the fact that his dodgy home workshop was just shit.

Very likely has Bipolar Disorder and CPTSD, no one goes though as much shit as he did (just in the 'sanitized' canon) without coming away with mental scarring. (For that rate, he hasn't forgiven his NWR tormentors, but he has no choice but to work and live with them... even in humanshape he can't simply run away. He's still a locomotive in body and soul owned by the NWR, with all the needs that it implies.)

All the tattooing on his arms and body is to conceal all the scarring he got over the course of his life previous to humanization, which was and still is a real source of pain and shame to him. He figures if humans can get ink to cover their scarring, why shouldn't he.

He's still a nature lover, but he's not a Hippie. (Nature lover does not equal Hippie). He's too angry at heart to be one. He also finds some of their ideals benign but the aesthetic appalling, the attainment of those ideals disappointing and a lot of their other ideas just plain dotty and impossible to understand as an engine.

His appreciation for nature is rooted in the fact it allows him to escape his NWR workmates for a bit, so less this:

More like this:

Caspar David Friedrich, Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog (1818) © Hamburger Kunsthalle

Two Men Contemplating the Moon, 1830

He finds it all fascinating, the cycle of life and death he is completely divorced from as a wholly built artificial creature.

[byneddiedingo]

Hume Cronyn and Burt Lancaster in Brute Force (Jules Dassin, 1947)

Cast: Burt Lancaster, Hume Cronyn, Charles Bickford, Yvonne De Carlo, Ann Blyth, Ella Raines, Anita Colby, Sam Levene, Jeff Corey, John Hoyt, Jack Overman, Roman Bohnen, Art Smith, Howard Duff. Screenplay: Richard Brooks, Robert Patterson. Cinematography: William H. Daniels. Art direction: John DeCuir, Bernard Herzbrun. Film editing: Edward Curtiss. Music: Miklós Rózsa.

Surprisingly violent for a film made under the Production Code, Brute Force gives us a prison-break story in which we root for the prisoners, but it still comes down heavily on the crime-does-not-pay moral: "Nobody escapes," says one of the movie's few survivors to the camera at the end. "Nobody ever really escapes." Under Jules Dassin's direction, Richard Brooks's screenplay tries to have it both ways: The cons are heroic and the guards are villainous, but law and order must prevail. The easy way out of this is to kill off both the heroes and the villains. The chief hero is Joe Collins, played by Burt Lancaster with his usual handsomely bullish intensity. The chief villain is the head guard, Capt. Munsey, played against type by Hume Cronyn. The imbalance between the two is exhibited early in the film when Munsey tries to dress down Collins but is confronted with a massive Lancastrian cold shoulder. But Munsey has guile on his side, along with ambition to supplant the weakling Warden Barnes (Roman Bohnen), who is under political pressure to toughen up enforcement in the prison, from which reports of unrest among the inmates have been emerging. Dassin tells us all we need to know about Munsey when we see him in his office, which has little homoerotic touches in its decor like a picture of a male torso, along with a large Hitlerian photograph of Munsey himself. While beating a prisoner with a rubber hose to elicit information about a planned prison break, Munsey turns up the volume on the Wagner he is playing on the phonograph. Not that the cons are gentle: To punish a prisoner who collaborated with the guards, they force him into the machine that stamps out license plates, and during the climactic prison break, a stoolie is strapped to the front of a mine car and shoved out into the gunfire from the guards. The film never really lightens things up, though there are some flashback scenes involving tender moments between some of the prisoners and what the credits bill as "the women on the 'outside,'" including Ann Blyth as Collins's cancer-stricken wife. There are some good performances from Charles Bickford as the con who edits the prison newspaper and joins the escape plan after he learns that his expected parole has been put on indefinite hold, and Art Smith as the prison's cynical, alcoholic doctor, along with solid support from Sam Levene, Jeff Corey, Howard Duff, and a horde of well-chosen ugly-mug extras.

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 12.30 (before 1930)

534 – The second and final edition of the Code of Justinian comes into effect in the Byzantine Empire. 999 – Battle of Glenmama: The combined forces of Munster and Meath under king Brian Boru inflict a crushing defeat on the allied armies of Leinster and Dublin near Lyons Hill in Ireland. 1066 – Granada massacre: A Muslim mob storms the royal palace in Granada, crucifies Jewish vizier Joseph ibn Naghrela and massacres most of the Jewish population of the city. 1419 – Hundred Years' War: Battle of La Rochelle. 1460 – Wars of the Roses: Lancastrians kill the 3rd Duke of York and win the Battle of Wakefield. 1702 – Queen Anne's War: James Moore, Governor of the Province of Carolina, abandons the Siege of St. Augustine. 1813 – War of 1812: British soldiers burn Buffalo, New York. 1816 – The Treaty of St. Louis between the United States and the united Ottawa, Ojibwa, and Potawatomi Indian tribes is proclaimed. 1825 – The Treaty of St. Louis between the United States and the Shawnee Nation is proclaimed. 1853 – Gadsden Purchase: The United States buys land from Mexico to facilitate railroad building in the Southwest. 1890 – Following the Wounded Knee Massacre, the United States Army and Lakota warriors face off in the Drexel Mission Fight. 1896 – Filipino patriot and reform advocate José Rizal is executed by a Spanish firing squad in Manila. 1896 – Canadian ice hockey player Ernie McLea scores the first hat-trick in Stanley Cup play, and the Cup-winning goal as the Montreal Victorias defeat the Winnipeg Victorias 6–5. 1897 – The British Colony of Natal annexes Zululand. 1902 – The Discovery Expedition under Robert Falcon Scott attained a Farthest South at 82°17′S in Antarctica. 1903 – A fire at the Iroquois Theater in Chicago, Illinois kills at least 605. 1905 – Former Idaho Governor Frank Steunenberg is assassinated at the front gate of his home in Caldwell. 1906 – The All-India Muslim League is founded in Dacca, East Bengal, British India (later Dhaka, Bangladesh). 1916 – Russian mystic and advisor to the Tsar Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin is murdered by a loyalist group led by Prince Felix Yusupov. His frozen, partially-trussed body was discovered in a Petrograd river three days later. 1916 – The last coronation in Hungary is performed for King Charles IV and Queen Zita. 1922 – The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) is formed. 1927 – The Ginza Line, the first subway line in Asia, opens in Tokyo, Japan.

[byneddiedingo]

Surprisingly violent for a film made under the Production Code, Brute Force gives us a prison-break story in which we root for the prisoners, but it still comes down heavily on the crime-does-not-pay moral: "Nobody escapes," says one of the movie's few survivors to the camera at the end. "Nobody ever really escapes." Under Jules Dassin's direction, Richard Brooks's screenplay tries to have it both ways: The cons are heroic and the guards are villainous, but law and order must prevail. The easy way out of this is to kill off both the heroes and the villains. The chief hero is Joe Collins, played by Burt Lancaster with his usual handsomely bullish intensity. The chief villain is the head guard, Capt. Munsey, played against type by Hume Cronyn. The imbalance between the two is exhibited early in the film when Munsey tries to dress down Collins but is confronted with a massive Lancastrian cold shoulder. But Munsey has guile on his side, along with ambition to supplant the weakling Warden Barnes (Roman Bohnen), who is under political pressure to toughen up enforcement in the prison, from which reports of unrest among the inmates have been emerging. Dassin tells us all we need to know about Munsey when we see him in his office, which has little homoerotic touches in its decor like a picture of a male torso, along with a large Hitlerian photograph of Munsey himself. While beating a prisoner with a rubber hose to elicit information about a planned prison break, Munsey turns up the volume on the Wagner he is playing on the phonograph. Not that the cons are any less gentle: To punish a prisoner who collaborated with the guards, they force him into the machine that stamps out license plates, and during the climactic prison break, a stoolie is strapped to the front of a mine car and shoved out into the gunfire from the guards. The film never really lightens things up, though there are some flashback scenes involving tender moments between some of the prisoners and what the credits bill as "the women on the 'outside,'" including Ann Blyth as Collins's cancer-stricken wife. There are some good performances from Charles Bickford as the con who edits the prison newspaper and joins the escape plan after he learns that his expected parole has been put on indefinite hold, and Art Smith as the prison's cynical, alcoholic doctor, along with solid support from Sam Levene, Jeff Corey, Howard Duff, and a horde of well-chosen ugly-mug extras.

brute force, 1947 (dir. jules dassin)

[mortonmattd]

Amazing Historical Events That Occurred on 3/29🎉 #shorts #history

Welcome to a special edition of Amazing Historical Events That Occurred on March 29th! On this day, a variety of amazing events have taken place that have shaped the course of history. Let's take a look at some of the most incredible things that have happened on this date:1461: Duke Edward of York decisively defeated the Lancastrian army and proclaimed himself King Edward IV, deposing Henry VI and Margaret of Anjou. 1792: King Gustav III of Sweden tragically died after being shot in the back at a midnight masquerade ball. 1827: A crowd of over 20,000 mourners attended Ludwig von Beethoven's burial in Vienna. 1849: Great Britain formally annexed Punjab after their defeat of the Sikhs in India. 1929: President Hoover's installation of the first telephone in the Oval Office revolutionized how presidents interact and make decisions quickly. These amazing historical events that occurred on March 29th are all part of an incredible timeline of the world's history. From the death of a king to the birth of a new nation, this day has had its own unique impact on the course of history. We hope you enjoyed learning about these important moments and how they all tie together. Thank you for watching, and we'll see you next time! https://bit.ly/freebetwithCrypto https://splinterlands.com?ref=mortonmattd1 https://bit.ly/getonHive https://ecency.com/signup?referral=m0rt0nmattd https://www.risingstargame.com?referrer=m0rt0nmattd https://exode.io/?ref=790e9e1 https://bit.ly/WinCryptoWithMe https://bit.ly/FreeCryptoDrip https://bit.ly/FreeZECdrip

[rozinaaa]

On Writing an Artist Statement

It feels weird talking about myself in the third person, and to be honest, talking about myself in the third person feels a bit pretentious and dissociating to me to be honest. It feels too stuffy and too formal, to the point where I read the statement, and I think "Who is this person?", since I know it's me but not me at the same time, if that makes any sense.

Some of the artist's statements that I've looked at are typically written in the third person, which I guess makes sense since it's easier for curators and exhibitors to grab the statement without having to edit it at all, not to mention that the statement can exist on its own without any context if it's written from that perspective, as opposed to one written in a first person perspective, since anyone can take it out of its original context, and call it their own, essentially plagirising the original author of that statement.

Other statements involve the artist's year of birth, and I chose to include mine since it adds context to the work that I create, as well as adding proof that I actually am a part of the first generation that fully grew up with the internet (essentially being a Gen Z-er simply because of when I was born, which puts me in that category, but without the stereotypes of being a part of that generation), since that informs a large part of my work.

Additionally, some artists choose to put the town, area, and country that they were born in, and I'm personally in two minds about it, since it feels borderline personal (I mean, at the end of the day, my hometown of Burnley is just another town amongst a bunch of towns in the north of England and shouldn't really matter that much, but it feels a bit weird telling others where you're from, especially if the name of the town itself sounds distinctively unglamourous and working class, although technically, I grew up in the neighbouring town of Nelson, but that's essentially a ghost town (oftentimes misinterpreted as Meltham), and no one in a wider context knows where that is, so I just stick to the town that I was actually born in), and is also a bit patriotic, even though I'm literally telling others where I'm from, due to my accent (do I even have one? just exaggerating/adding extra syllables in words such as "there" (so that it's essentially pronounced as "thayer"), and pronouncing "fair" as "fur" or "fayre" depending on my mood would beg to differ, along with a bunch of other accent features that I'm not aware of until someone points it out) revealing that I'm clearly not from around here. I guess telling people where I'm from does give a bit of context, since that'll make me a regular plain old Northern Artist (Lancastrian at best), but not northern enough to be a Yorkshire one, since to me, it feels as though there's a stronger creative scene in Yorkshire and Manchester than there is in all of my native Lancashire (although Manchester is kind of a part of Lancs, so I guess it could work), or maybe I haven't done enough research into that.

Some artists, based on their statements also include their nationality and heritage, which for me, is where I draw the line in general, unless I respond to an open call that explicitly asks for it (for instance, one where they're actively looking for people who aren't represented that often to come forward), since again, it feels a tad bit too personal, doesn't really add context to my practice, and is something that would probably work against me in the long run. For the record, I am British South Asian (well, that's how I choose to identify as, and going into detail about what type of South Asian I am doesn't really matter for the most part, unless someone asks and I'm comfortable enough to share information about it), and despite growing up in a densely South Asian community, I feel underrepresented in a wider context, but then again, British Asians are a significant ethnic minority. For me personally, I'm pretty much neutral about my heritage (I'm neither patriotic nor ashamed, although I was slightly ashamed at college since I was virtually the only non-white person on the courses that I took and had predominantly white friends, which was definitely a culture shock to me, but I've never really been patriotic about it either, only just recently accepting that it's one unchangeable aspect of who I am), and I'm priveledged enough to be in a position where I don't have to think about it that much. It shouldn't be an issue, and to be honest, I just feel weird talking about it, especially when there are people that are completely open with every single aspect of their whole being. If it doesn't directly affect my practice or the contexts that inform my practice, then I deem it too personal, especially given that I'm a fairly private person that doesn't really enjoy talking about myself.

Now, time to get patronised even more because I happen to be a woman who was assigned female at birth and uses she/her pronouns by default, although I did almost consider using she/they pronouns at one point, but it got too confusing and was more effort than it was worth, since I didn't want to have to think about my pronouns at all, because that's one of the very last things on my mind. Again, with the other aspects that don't directly affect my practice (such as coming from a northern town and being of asian descent), being a woman is also a part of that list, especially considering that March is essentially Women's History Month, where everyone just Celebrates Women, which to me is a good thing, since it means being seen (even moreso than being asian or northern/working-lower middle class), although too much of it can be a bit patronising. Yes, being a woman is great to some extent, but that's about it really.

I guess in the context and subject area that I am working in, being a woman is highly important, since women literally invented important aspects of technology, along with taking into account the fact that technology inevitably ended up becoming a male-dominated industry, so to me, seeing women doing the things that I'm interested in and aspire to do is highly important, above anything else, since it shows that I can also do it as well, and not having to feel as though I'm the odd one out in a room full of guys, which is not only weird, but also deeply uncomfortable. However, that's about as far as I'll get with the gender front since I have no desire to delve into the feminism rabbit hole.

In short, being a Gen Z woman is how I view myself, since it directly links to my practice, and essentially adds context to the work that I'm doing. Telling others about my heritage or where I'm from are important, but don't really matter in the grand scheme of things, especially when it comes to my practice. In fact, being a woman isn't that much of an important aspect (although seeing women be represented in a positive and inspirational way is nice to see), so I won't even go out of my way to call myself a woman artist, because at the end of the day, I'm just a person who works at the intersection of art and technology, and I want to know more about it in whatever way I can.

[margueritedanjou]

Dieu...et mon droit.

[natequarter]

[ID: An extract from an academic text. It reads: "The Tudors came to the English throne in 1485 with a strong papal wind at their back. Richard III was unpopular in Rome—a result of his bloody usurpation, and of his outrageous attempt to bastardise the sons of Edward IV with wild assertions about the invalidity of their parents' marriage. Richard also failed to seek a dispensation for his own marriage to Anne Neville, a consanguinal cousin, as well as an affinal sister-in-law. Pointedly, after his victory at Bosworth, Henry VII requested and received a dispensation for his marriage to Edward IV's daughter, Elizabeth of York, to whom he was related in the fourth degree of consanguinity. Crucially, and unusually, Pope Innocent VIII followed this with a bull confirming the legitimacy of any children from the marriage, and of the Act of Parliament that declared Henry's title.

There was a strong scent of cooperation around Anglo-papal relations in Henry VII's first years. Henry had the 1486 papal bull of dispensation printed as a broadsheet in English translation, with further editions in 1494, 1495 and 1497. Successive popes indulged the English usurper-king, bestowing on him the traditional honours of presentation with a papal cap and sword of maintenance, and an ornamental Golden Rose, as well as graciously dispensing him to eat cheese and eggs during the Lenten fast. The papacy also responded benignly, if cautiously, to Henry's desire to see the last of the direct Lancastrian line, Henry VI, canonised as a saint—excessive sanctity being the only plausible excuse for the disastrous levels of incompetence Henry demonstrated in the exercise of his kingship." /end ID]

this isn’t at all surprising when you think about it, but it’s funny how ricardians always like to say if richard had won at bosworth the reformation wouldn’t have happened when it was henry who had a stronger relationship with rome

almost like that event wasn’t a forgone conclusion in 1485 and could have happened with one of richard’s descendants too!

[joanofnavarre]

On this day in History: England's first Lancastrian king, Henry IV, dies in 1413.

[une-sanz-pluis]

By 1435, the dynastic prospects of the house of Lancaster had deteriorated alarmingly: Bedford was dead and had left no legitimate heirs; Henry VI at the age of fourteen was unmarried and childless; and even Gloucester, by then aged forty-four, had little chance of fathering the legitimate heir that had hitherto eluded him and his two wives—something which contemporaries realized when, from 1440 onwards, steps were taken to formally dispose of his property in the event of his death. The personality and political attitudes of Duke Humphrey and his second wife, Eleanor Cobham, intensified contemporaries' concern for the succession even while he lived. It was apparent after 1435 that should anything happen to Henry VI, Gloucester would succeed to the throne and Eleanor would become queen (for no previous English king had not made his wife queen). But beyond the Gloucesters there was no further Lancastrian heir in existence and no likelihood of one in the direct line until Henry VI married. Then, too, Duke Humphrey had acquired a long list of enemies over the past twenty years. For these reasons, the possibility of his succeeding King Henry probably played a part in the scandal that enveloped his wife in 1441. Her trial highlighted the fragile dynastic hold which the Lancastrians had on the English (let alone the French) throne, even aside from whether Gloucester himself was personally acceptable or not in some influential quarters.

Ralph A. Griffiths, The Reign of King Henry VI: The Exercise of Royal Authority, 1422-1461 (Fonthill, 3rd edition, 2020).

[wonder-worker]

"On 31 July, as troops assembled, William Caxton brought out an edition of the late Sir Thomas Malory’s Morte d’Arthur. The story of King Arthur and his knights of the round table was a perennial favourite – Caxton had, he said, been prompted to publish by ‘many noble and diverse gentlemen’ – and Malory’s version was an obvious choice. Malory had fought in Edward IV’s wars against the Lancastrians and had completed his book in prison during the tumultuous late 1460s. All human life was here, Caxton explained in his prologue: ‘herein may be seen noble chivalry, courtesy, humanity, friendliness, hardiness, love, friendship, cowardice, murder, hate, virtue, and sin.’ The printed book included a number of alterations to Malory’s manuscript. In one episode, a sleeping King Arthur dreams of a mortal fight between a ravening bear, ‘a tyrant that torments your people’, and a dragon, which kills it. In Caxton’s edition, someone changed the bear to a boar. The allusion was unmistakeable: the boar was Richard. And the dragon? Back in 1461 Edward IV had claimed that beast, portraying himself as heir to the mythical British king Cadwaladr – ‘rubius draco’ – who would unite England, Wales and Scotland and whose heirs would reign to the end of the world. But now, in the summer of 1485, ‘rougedragon’ denoted somebody different: the man who, in the absence of Edward’s children, loyalists to the late king now saw as the heir to his cause – Henry Tudor."

-Thomas Penn, "The Brothers York: An English Tragedy"

[henryfitzempress]

Favourite Plantagenets [6/𝟣𝟢]: 𝐻𝑒𝑛𝑟𝑦 𝑜𝑓 𝐺𝑟𝑜𝑠𝑚𝑜𝑛𝑡, 𝟣𝑠𝑡 𝐷𝑢𝑘𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝐿𝑎𝑛𝑐𝑎𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑟.

[richmond-rex]

While I'm sure Cecily Neville held EoY in high regard and was glad that her granddaughter was queen, I feel like her will was as political as it was personal, tbh. She doesn't seem to have been particularly involved in Elizabeth or her siblings lives when they were younger (certianly not the way Margaret Beaufort aas involced in her grandchildren's lives, for example), and her compliance and maybe even support during Richard III's bastardization of them, while they languished in sanctuary, hardly implies particular closeness. Nor did she seem particularly involved with them or Henry & Margaret Beaufort after Henry VII's ascension, especially considering her own semi-retreated lifestyle. I think her mention of Henry VII is interesting, because it certainly shows her acceptance of his kingship, but I don't think it has to be necessarily viewed as a sign of closeness or affection to him or Margaret. Considering the fact that she was known to be very proud (good for her!) and deeply valued her status, I think it's possible to read her will as a reaffirmation of her direct link to the current ruling family (very similar to know she addressed herself during Edward IV's reign as the wife of the man who should have been king), especially considering so many of her other surviving relatives were not included.

Idk, we obviously don't know what was going on in her mind and she could have easily been genuinely close to them, but this was just what I thought when I read about her will

Hi, I think it's certainly possible to read Cecily Neville's last will as a reaffirmation of her political stance at the end of her life (pro-Tudor, associated with the royal family etc). I don't think Nicola Tallis' interpretation of her bequest of jewels to Elizabeth of York contradicts that idea though — even if the two women had not been particularly close, Cecily still wanted Elizabeth of York, as the most politically important member of her house, to have her most precious jewels and keep her memory alive. That's quite straightforward, though Cecily's will is infinitely fascinating exactly because of the things that are not said there.

Why didn't Cecily leave anything for her orphaned granddaughter Anne St Leger, daughter of her eldest daughter Anne? Why didn't Cecily leave anything to the orphaned children of her son George? Why did Cecily leave stuff to her daughter Elizabeth and didn't leave anything to her other daughter Margaret? She wouldn't be punished after her death, and there were wills in that period that contradicted official politics (eg Elizabeth Howard leaving her estates to her attainted son, the Earl of Oxford, even though he was an exiled Lancastrian at the time). If it was simply a matter of politics and saving face, why didn't poor Anne St Leger receive anything? Was it because Cecily wasn't particularly close to this granddaughter?

Another interesting thing is that Cecily's bequests seem to have been personalised to each of her relatives/friends: her granddaughters Bridget and Anne de la Pole, both of them nuns (or about to be in Bridget's case), received religious books. Margaret Beaufort, famously pious, received religious books too. Another granddaughter (Edward’s Anne irrc) who had just married received a bed. I think Cecily's will denotes some deal of thought spent on each beneficiary, and the act in itself might have denoted some affection too. It would've been be so easy to simply say "I leave my remaining stuff to my family, god bless them, bye" lol.

EDIT: We can certainly wonder how we can reconcile Cecily’s actions (or should we say inaction?) during Richard III’s usurpation and her apparent care for Edward IV’s daughters in her will. Again, if it was simply a matter of politically reaffirming herself, a simple mention to her granddaughter the queen and her husband Henry could do the trick. Little Bridget, destined as she was to the cloth, wasn’t exactly high in the political ladder and still she was contemplated in Cecily’s will.