A new interpretation of 1580s events

We all know that Mary Stuart was beheaded at Fotheringhay on 8 February 1587 and that the Spanish Armada sailed to facilitate a Catholic invasion of England in the following year, leaving Lisbon on 28 May and fighting naval battles in late July, at Plymouth and Portland. The traditional view is that Mary Stuart’s execution and Elizabeth I’s support for the revolt in the Spanish Netherlands provoked Phillip II’s wrath.

It is quite possible that this was not the case and that Phillip had

sought to overthrow his quondam sister-in-law much earlier. Mary, as the daughter of Marie de Guise and widow of Francis II was the French-backed Catholic candidate for the English throne and Franco-Spanish rivalry ensured that Phillip, great nephew of Catherine of Aragon and a Lancastrian descendant proper+, would not act in concert with any of her plots; however her death cleared the way for him, especially as the French Wars of Religion were still to resolve themselves.

We can compare this with the England of 1685-8, as William of Orange allowed the Duke of Monmouth to attempt an invasion first and only asserted his stronger semi-marital claim against James VII/II afterwards. In 1483-5, by contrast, the Duke of Buckingham was legitimately descended from Edward III when he rebelled against Richard III, only for Henry “Tudor”, of dubious lineage, to benefit.

h/t Jeanne Griffin

+ See The Wars of The Roses, Ashdown-Hill, part 4.

Tales of a Ricardian Traveler – Gruyères Castle

If we thought that Richard III had a horrific end to his life, just take a look at the death of Charles the Bold.

RICARDIAN LOONS

Lady on Horseback, mid-15th c., British Museum

It is tempting to think that the British Isles contain all the sites associated with Richard III’s life. Of course, that’s not true. Richard lived abroad twice, first in 1461 and again in 1470-1. On both occasions, he had fled England in order to save his life and wound up living in lands controlled by the Duke of Burgundy.  The Duke, a descendant of a junior branch of the French royal house of Valois, maintained the most glamorous and sophisticated court in all of Europe.  So powerful were the Valois-Burgundian dukes that when Edward IV became king, he betrothed his sister Margaret to the heir of that duchy.

Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy (1433-1477). His third marriage was to Margaret of York, Edward IV’s and Richard III’s sister. He would be the last of the Valois dukes of Burgundy.

Margaret’s intended husband…

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Here’s one that wasn’t made in Dundee …

Henri IV that is. We have written about him before but, this time, we even have a recording of the facial reconstruction process.

A mysterious Early Modern marriage

It happened in Fontainebleau on this day in 1539. The groom was Cibaud de Tivoley, Seigneur de Brenieu, and the bride was described as “Marguerite de la Pole – Suffolk”. Two of the guests were Eleanor of Austria, wife of Francois I, and Gabriel, Marchesse di Saluzzo, both of whom were cousins of Lord Richard de la Pole. It is highly unlikely that Marguerite, who was named after her patroness the Queen of Navarre who was Henri IV’s grandmother and Francois’ sister, asserted her own paternity as her age may testify.

If Marguerite was Lord Richard’s daughter then she must have been born by Christmas 1525 because he was killed ten months earlier at Pavia, where Francois was captured. She could not have been much older than that because the couple had at least six children before his death in 1562 and lived on to 1599. These include Pierre (k. St. Denis 1567) and Claude (k. Ivry 1590), who were casualties of The French Wars of Religion