The Trial That Should Have Happened in 1483

RICARDIAN LOONS

Putting aside the mystery of what ultimately happened to Edward IV’s two sons, one enduring difficulty for a student of history is whether Richard III used the proper legal procedure in having them declared illegitimate because of their father’s precontracted marriage to Eleanor Talbot.  The most (and only) significant defect appears to be the failure to refer the issue to a church court for determination.[1]  But it seems no one has fleshed out how an ecclesiastical tribunal would have litigated such an extraordinary and unprecedented matter, let alone identified which church court would have had authority to hear it.

As a retired litigator of 20 years, I undertook the challenge of researching medieval English church court procedures and precedent cases to answer four questions: Which church court would have decided the precontract issue? How would it have conducted the litigation? What evidence would it have heard? How conclusive would…

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Merton Priory

Thanks to Dave Perry for drawing our attention to this video. Merton Priory was built in 1117 and dissolved in 1538 but plans are afoot to conserve its remains and renew the Chapter House.

“excepta dignitate regali” (again)

Henry IV added these words to Richard II’s legitimisation of his half-siblings in 1407, when he had four healthy sons and two daughters. So what was the Beaufort family situation in the year that their claim to the throne was disregarded?
JOHN, MARQUIS OF DORSET AND SOMERSET was about 36, a married father of five.
HENRY, later CARDINAL, was about 32 and had already taken holy orders, then being Bishop of Winchester. He was, therefore, incapable of having legitimate children.
THOMAS, later DUKE OF EXETER, was about 30 and effectively childless – his wife and their only son may have already died, or the son may have been born later.
JOAN was about 28 and married to the Earl of Westmorland (her second husband).

It is, therefore, quite likely that the only Beauforts (by name) of future generations would be descended from Dorset, the eldest. Did Henry IV suspect, as the Statute of Merton suggests, that Dorset was Sir Hugh Swynford’s son and that later “Beauforts” would be descended only from Henry III, through the Marchioness? Was this his motivation?

See also:

The Beaufort legitimation

https://murreyandblue.wordpress.com/2014/03/01/the-legitimisation-of-the-beauforts/
https://murreyandblue.wordpress.com/2014/06/27/a-genealogical-mystery-deepens-originally-published-in-the-december-2013-bulletin/