#was the arrest of bishop stillington?

[feuillesmortes]

Hi same anon again and thanks for answering my question. Tbh i haven't read Breverton's Hnery VII book yet I only discovered the comments about Breverton reading some reviews of the book. Just simply pointing out the hypocrasy of some of the people accusing him of being biased. But Breverton seems like a really smart person so far. One more question. Do you believe it's true Edward IV had another marriage contract or was it fabricated by R3? I think it was likely fabricated due to the timing.

Hi, yes I also think there is a type of hypocrisy going on (which Breverton pointed out as well). Regarding the previous marriage story, I think it’s certainly suspicious that people found out about it only when Richard conveniently needed to get rid of the boys standing between him and the throne (and when all people involved in the story were dead). For instance, why didn’t anyone talk about this marriage when Edward told his council he married Elizabeth Woodville? I think Warwick would have made use of that story to prevent Edward taking her as his queen if that story had any trace of truth in it. 

It’s also good to analyse Robert Stillington’s life, the bishop who concocted that story. He was Bishop of Bath and Wells and had been Edward IV’s Lord Chancellor for a time. In 1473 he was dismissed by Edward IV, and in 1478 he spent some weeks in prison for associating with the disgraced Duke of Clarence. Again, if Bishop Stillington knew about that story, why didn’t he say anything back in 1477 when Clarence was accusing Elizabeth Woodville of witchcraft to get Edward to marry her? It does seem that there were some rumours about Eleanor Talbot at that time, but if there were any legitimate proof, any legitimate witnesses, Clarence could have easily produce them with Stillington’s backing when he was being so vocal against Edward and his queen.

One thing that always makes me raise my eyebrows is that back in 1473 when he was still Lord Chancellor he decided in favour of Richard of Gloucester when the king’s brother was harassing (really, there is no other word) the dowager Countess of Oxford (mother of the exiled and then imprisoned Earl of Oxford, John de Vere). Richard was granted the bulk of Oxford’s estates in 1471, but in 1472, Gloucester, with an armed entourage, burst into the nunnery the dowager countess was staying and demanded that she released her lands to him (she had lands of her own inheritance, non-related to the earldom of Oxford). Richard took the 62-year-old countess and kept her as a prisoner until she agreed to sign over her lands. Her estate-holders, though, were not of the mind of doing so and decided to resort to a chancery suit, but Stillington (Lord Chancellor) settled the dispute in favour of the king’s brother. Edward IV dismissed him shortly after the incident. The countess told one of her estate-holders, Henry Robson, that ‘she was sorry that she for saving her life had disinherited her heirs’. She was dead a year later. All of this is registered in a 1495 petition to Parliament made by John de Vere, who procured six witnesses including Henry Robson who could retell the events of 1471-1472. 

It seems to me Bishop Stillington had a grudge against Edward IV. On the other hand, Stillington had already once helped Richard and could benefit again by providing him with a way of taking the throne. If there were any honest concerns about the legitimacy of Edward’s sons, an ecclesiastical dispensation or parliamentary instruments could have been sought to settle the issue. It was never about the princes, though, it was only ever a way of clearing the way for Richard. No wonder Philippe de Commines called Robert Stillington ce mauvais evesque. 

[thecousinswar]

Today in history, June 30, 1468: the death of Lady Eleanor Talbot:

"Lady Eleanor Talbot (c. 1436 - 30 June 1468), also known by her married name Eleanor Butler, was a daughter of John Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury. After the death of Edward IV of England it was claimed by his brother Richard, the future Richard III, that she had had a legal precontract of marriage to Edward, which invalidated the king's later marriage to Elizabeth Woodville. According to Richard, this meant that he, rather than Edward's sons, was the true heir to the throne. Richard took the crown and imprisoned Edward's sons, who subsequently disappeared.

After the overthrow and death of Richard at the hands of Henry Tudor, the precontract alleged by Richard was presented as a fiction to justify Richard's usurpation of power and to cover his murder of the princes. Most subsequent historians have agreed with this view. Supporters of Richard, however, have argued that the precontract was real and that it legitimised his accession to the throne.

In 1449, 13-year-old Eleanor married Sir Thomas Butler (or Boteler), son of Ralph Butler, Lord Sudeley. When Thomas died at an unknown date before Edward IV of England's overthrow of the House of Lancaster on 4 March 1461, Lord Sudeley took back one of the two manors he had settled on her and her husband when they married. In any event he did not have a licence for the transfer of title. Edward IV soon after becoming King seized both properties.

Eleanor died before the age of 34, in 1468 during the first half of Edward IV's briefly interrupted 22-year reign, to be buried in the monastic church of the white Carmelites, (also simply known as the White Friars) whose benefactress she was, at Norwich, England. This was the senior house of a Carmelite region (distinctio) which included Burnham Norton, Blakeney, King's Lynn and Yarmouth.

After King Edward's death in 1483, his brother Richard, Duke of Gloucester, was appointed protector to the as-yet-uncrowned king Edward V. Richard placed Edward and his younger brother in the Tower of London. He then proclaimed that they were illegitimate. According to the French chronicler Philippe de Commines he acted with the support of Robert Stillington, Bishop of Bath and Wells. Stillington had been briefly imprisoned and fined for speaking out against Edward IV in 1478. Commines later wrote,

'The bishop discovered to the Duke of Gloucester that his brother king Edward had been formerly in love with a beautiful young lady and had promised her marriage upon condition that he might lie with her; the lady consented, and, as the bishop affirmed, he married them when nobody was present but they two and himself. His fortune depending on the court, he did not discover it, and persuaded the lady likewise to conceal it, which she did, and the matter remained a secret.'

Richard then persuaded Parliament to pass an act, Titulus Regius, which debarred Edward V from the throne and proclaimed himself as King Richard III. At a meeting held on 23 January 1484 the former king's marriage was declared illegal. The document states:

'And howe also, that at the tyme of contract of the same pretensed Mariage, and bifore and longe tyme after, the seid King Edward was and stode maryed and trouth plight to oone Dame Elianor Butteler, Doughter of the old Earl of Shrewesbury, with whom the same King Edward had made a precontracte of Matrimonie, longe tyyme bifore he made the said pretensed Mariage with the said Elizabeth Grey, in maner and fourme abovesaid.'

Opponents of Richard declared that the precontract was fiction. Richard's leading enemy, Henry Tudor, allied himself with Elizabeth Woodville, promising to re-legitimise her children if Richard was overthrown. After Henry's army defeated and killed Richard at the Battle of Bosworth Field on 22 August 1485, he came to the throne as Henry VII. He ordered the copy of Titulus Regius in parliamentary records to be destroyed, along with all others (one copy was later found to have survived).

Stillington later joined the rebellion of Lambert Simnel against Henry in 1487. He was arrested and imprisoned in the Tower until his death in 1491."