Post by Les on Nov 20, 2020 5:23:30 GMT
Maidstone was once the residence of the father of a reigning English queen. The Lady Elizabeth Grey, whose secret
marriage with the Yorkshirt king, Edward IV., in 1464,caused consternation in the country, was the daughter of
Lord Elvers of the Mote, an old Lancastrian, whose father Sir Richard Woodville , also of the Mote, had "been Sheriff
of Kent, and lies buried under a plain altar slab in the chancel of All Saints' Church, Maidstone . The love match
was kept secret for five months, until, under the pressure of Warwick the Kingmaker's plea for Edward IV.'s marriage
with the sister-in-law of the King of France, it had to be disclosed. At a meeting of the Council, summoned to
approve the French marriage negotiations, the king replied to Warwick " in right merry guise that he would take to
wife Dame Elizabeth G-rey, the daughter of Lord .Rivers. But they answered him that she was not his match, however
good and fair she might be, and that he must know well that she was no wife for such a high prince as himself for
she was not the daughter of a duke or earl, but her mother, the Duchess of Bedford, had married a simple knight,
so that though she was the child of a duchess, still she was no wife for him.
The deed was however done, and the natural jealousy of the nobles at the elevation of one lower in rank than themselves
was increased by the favours of all kinds showered upon the Woodville family by the king.
Five of the queen's sisters were married within a year of her.
leaving only two dukes in the kingdom still bachelors. Her brother of 21 married the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk, aged 70,
which was considered a scandal even in those days of mercenary marriages. Lord Rivers, her father, was made Treasurer of
England, in place of a friend of the Earl of Warwick. In 1466 he was created an earl, his remaining titles being Baron Rivers
of Graf ton,from his place in Northamptonshire, and De la Mote from Maidstone.
When the Earl of Warwick, who had for several years practically governed England, saw his unique prestige with the king
becoming undermined by the compact family group of peers, all related to the queen, who surrounded him in his Council,
he turned into the greatest enemy of them all. As Warden of the Cinque Ports and Keeper of Dover and Sandwich Castles
in the years when he had been struggling to put Edward IV. upon the throne, he had become exceedingly popular in Kent, and
could always count upon a following there for any enterprise.
On New Year's day,1468, some of his men sacked the Mote, broke down the park,killed all the sheep, and stole the best things
out of the house.
This was a matter of private vengeance only, but before long Warwick was diverted by disgust at the Woodville predominance
into rebellion against the king of his own creation, and the " Kingmaker," who at first only wished to clear away the Woodvilles,
finally sent his attention to the restoration of the Lancastrian, Henry VI., whom he had done more than anyone else to depose.
A stage in this evolution was the battle of Eclgcott, won by Warwick's arms in 1469, after which Edward IV. became his prisoner.
Warwick seized the opportunity to revenge himself upon the Woodvilles by causing Earl Rivers and his son John to be beheaded in
cold blood at Grafton. Events moved quickly after this. Henry VI.'s restoration, Edward IV.'s flight to Burgundy and his new
invasion of England, ending in the battle of Barnet and the death of both Warwick and Henry VI took place within the compass of
a single year.
With the removal of Warwick's turbulent personality on Barnet field the staple portion of Edward IV.'s reign begins.
Sir Anthony Woodville, Lord Scales, had succeeded his "beheaded father as Earl Rivers in 1469, and from his will he made the Mote
'his chief place of residence."
Anthony, Lord Rivers, was the most cultured man of his day, and one of the foremost patrons of William Caxton.
The first book printed by Caxton in England, in 1477, was The Dictes and Sayings of the Philosophers, translated by Rivers from,
a French version of a Latin original, which he read to beguile his voyage to Compostella on pilgrimage in 1473. Other translations
by Rivers were printed by Caxton,who, in company with Sir Thomas More and Philip de Commines,left warm tributes to his memory.
The appointment of Lord Rivers as guardian and governor of the household of his nephew, the young Prince of Wales, was therefore
good choice, and when Edward IV. died Rivers was at Ludlow in charge of the heir, who was not yet 13.
But his paternal uncle Richard, Duke of Gloucester,was left guardian of the young king by his father's will, and history now
resolves itself into a conflict between the paternal and maternal uncles for the custody of his person.
Lord Rivers at once left Ludlow for London with the Prince.and a regiment of 2000 men.
The Prince was known to be devoted to his Woodville relations, and Richard was not afraid that Lord Rivers might try to retain
possession of his person, get him crowned king quickly, and make himself Regent of England. Richard was in Yorkshire when he
received the news of Edward IV.'s death.
So then hurried south as fast as he could, intercepted the party of the prince at Stony Stratford under the leadership of Lord
Rivers.
Richard was taking no risks, and the morning after the meeting he arrested Lord Rivers, Lord Grey, the eldest son of the queen,
and Sir Richard Hawte of Ightham Mote, who was controller of the prince's household, on suspicion of treason.
The young prince, deprived thus suddenly of his "best friends, continued his journey to London with Richard and was soon afterwards
sent to the Tower for safety to await, his coronation.
The amount of armour concealed in the baggage of the retinue of Lord Eivers looked suspiciously like a proposed cowp d'etat on the part
of the Woodvilles, and Richard's wary action was publicly endorsed by his formal recognition as Protector.
The queen, Elizabeth Woodville, had immediately taken refuge in the Sanctuary of Westminster with all her other children,although before
long she was induced to allow her younger son Richard to join his brother at the Tower. Lord Rivers, Lord Grey, and Hawte were kept under arrest.
The king's Council, in which the factions of Gloucester, who wished to usurp the crown, and of those loyal to the young prince,
were meeting separately, at Crosbie's Place and Baynard's Castle.
Although all were ostensibly occupied in preparations for the prince's coronation, they were in reality plotting against each other.
The Duke of Buckingham was Gloucester's strongest ally; Lord Hastings represented the party loyal to the prince, but suspicious of the queen's
influence; and Morton, Bishop of Ely, an old Lancastrian, who had been the queen's friend when he was Master of the Rolls under Edward IV gave
the Woodvilles unstinted support.
It is from the account of the proceedings which Morton gave to his pupil, Sir Thomas More, who was brought up in his household, that were in
possession of the Woodville's point of view in More's History of Richard III.
By June 13, 1483, a month after the death of Edward IV.Richard had obtained evidence of the plot in the Council to rest the possession of the
person of the young king from him.
On that day he summoned the full Council to meet at the Tower to consider the final arrangements for Edward V.'s coronation.
Richard began proceedings in a friendly fashion.
In 1488 Morton, when Archbishop of Canterbury, bought 100 acres of land in the Mote Park from Lord Eivers, which he bequeathed to Christchurch,
Canterbury.
A fortnight later Lord Rivers, Lord Grey, and Sir Eichard Hawte were executed at Pomfret, and on the same day Richard formally assumed the crown on
the plea that the children of Edward IV. and Elizabeth Woodville were bastards.
There was now no Woodville party left -upon the Council,but the plot was merely transferred from the Council chamber to the country, and within a
few months took shape as " Buckingham's Rebellion."
The Duke of Buckingham had done more than any other man to put Richard III. on the throne, and had enjoyed his confidence to such an extent that
it is conceivable that he may even have known of the murder of Edward V. and his brother in the Tower, which probably took place during the summer,
but was not spread abroad by rumour till early in October.
When the University of Oxford requested that Bishop Morton's imprisonment should be made less rigorous than it was in the Tower,
Richard gave him over to Buckingham's custody in his castle at Brecknock. Here the Bishop and Buckingham had long conversations, and the acute
Morton soon discovered that Buckingham's loyalty to Richard was weakening, either from disappointed ambition or from a desire to make a bid for
the throne himself, or from a revulsion of feeling due to knowledge, of the horrible crime at the Tower.
Buckingham had married Katharine Woodville, Elizabeth Woodville's sister, and was himself a irst-cousin of Henry,Earl of Richmond (afterwards King
Henry VII.), the male representative of the Lancastrian title to the throne through, his mother, Margaret .Beaufort.
Morton gradually played upon ;his growing disloyalty until he had converted .Buckingham to the support of his own
scheme for bringing Henry,Earl of Richmond, back from exile in Brittany to oust Richard from the throne.
Before this- Margaret Beaufort had conceived the idea that the promise of a marriage between her son Henry and Elizabeth
of York (the eldest daughter of Edward IV. and Elizabeth Woodville), by uniting both Yorkshirest and Lancastrian claims to
the throne in their offspring, might rally all the discontented factions in England.to the support of Henry's invasion.
Margaret Beaufort lived near Brecknock Castle, and her steward, Reginald Bray, acted as liaison officer between Morton,
the Duke of Buckingham, and herself in the organization of what grew into " Buckingham's Rebellion." In aplot to depose
Richard and make Elizabeth Woodville's daughter the future queen, the Woodvilles and their friends were to the fore, and
the residence of Earl Rivers at the Mote made it only natural that Maidstone should be the rallying ground of the rebellion
in the east of England.
Bishop Morton escaped from 'Brecknock Castle to Ely, and thence to Flanders, while the negotiations were in progress between
Margaret Beauford and Buckingham. Had he, with his great ability, remained on the spot to mature the scheme himself, the outcome
might have been different. Reginald Bray, however, drew into the organization of it the all the best men he knew, and according
to the almost contemporary historian, Polydore Vergil, chose Giles Daubeney, Richard Guildford, John Cheney, Hugh Conway, and many
not mentioned by name as chief dealers in the conspiracy. Sir Richard Guildford and Sir John Cheney were Kent men,destined to be
privy councillors and important administrators when Henry VII. came to the throne.
The rebellion, nevertheless, proved a failure.
The eastern section of it was timed to break out at Maidstone on October 18th, but knowledge of the murder of the princes leaked out
early in the month and caused premature riots in the Weald of Kent on October 10th. The following letter from the Duke of Norfolk to
John Paston establishes the date.
John Preton letter
" To my right well-beloved friend John Paston be this delivered in haste.
" Eight well-beloved friend, I commend me to you. It is so that the Kentish men be up in the Weald and say that
they will come and rob the city, which I shall let (prevent)if I may. Therefore, I pray you, that with all diligence you
make ready and come hither, and bring with you six tall fellows in harness; and ye shall not lose your labour, that
knoweth God, who have you in His keeping. Written at London, the 10th day of October.
" Your friend,
"J. Norfolk."
By October 12th Richard was raising an army. The rebellion broke out at Maidstone on the 18th of the month,at Rochester on the 20th
at Gravesend on the 22nd, and at Guildford on the 25th. Simultaneously Henry, Earl of Richmond, was to arrive in the west from Brittany
with his fleet, under the command of Sir Edward Woodville, the brother of the queen. The Duke of Buckingham himself raised his standard
at Brecknock, and intended to march eastwards to meet the other risings timed to break out at Exeter, Salisbury, and Newbury.
But terrible October storms brought all plans to nought, for the floods, known until long afterwards as " Buckingham's water,"
they were so deep that Buckingham was never even able to cross the Severn; he was caught in Shropshire and beheaded at Salisbury.
Henry never landed.His own ship was separated from the rest owing to the storm, and he only got back to Brittany with the greatest
difficulty after he had been given up for lost.
Sir Eichard Woodville of the Mote, the third and last Earl Rivers, brother to the queen, fled to Brittany. There many of the conspirators,
including Sir Edward Woodville, his brother, and the Marquis of Dorset.His nephew, were able to join Henry, Earl of Richmond, and to prepare
for the successful invasion of eighteen months later, which placed him and the Tudor dynasty upon the throne.
Only one short description of the Kentish sector of the rebellion has been preserved to us in Stowe's Annales.
"At the same time that the Duke of Buckingham was up in the West Country ther were many up in Kent; to with Sir George Broune, Sir John Gilford
and his son, Roge, Scot and Hauts, after Clifford, Bonting, yeoman of the crown,with many other to the number of five thousand.
These made a fray at Gravesend in the fair, where Bonting slew Master Mowbray with drivers other,, but when they heard the Duke of Buckingham
was dead they were fain to fly to save themselves.
The 5000 men from Kent, Surrey and Sussex probably rallied their forces on Penenden Heath and marched thence through Rochester to Grravesend,
following the same plan as the Wyatt rebels seventy years later. In the following December, in preparation for his visit to Kent after the New
Year, Richard issued a proclamation in Kent offering 300 marks or £10 of land to anyone capturing Sir John Gilford,.'Sir Thomas Lewkenor, Sir
William Haute, William Cheyne,Richard Gilford, or John Pimpe; and £100 or 10 marks of land for the capture of Edward Poynings, Thomas Eenys,
William Brandon, John Wingfield, Anthony Kene, Nicholas •Gaynsford, John Isley, Ralph Tikhill, Anthony Brown,Robert Brent, Long Roger, Richard
Potter, Richard Rissher,and Sir Markus Hussy,
On January 16th, 1484, the sheriff was ordered to cause all the temporal inhabitants of Kent between 16 and 60 to swear an oath of allegiance
to the king, and on January 23rd the Parliament, which met at Westminster, passed an Act of Attainder, convicting the conspirators throughout
England of high treason and the forfeiture of all their estates.
The following persons are mentioned by name in the Act of Attainder in connection with the Maidstone outbreak.
Sir George Broun, late of Becheworth, Surrey.Sir Thomas Lewkenor, late of Tratton.
THE MAIDSTONE SECTOR.
Sir John Gildeford, late of Eolvenden.Sir John Eogge, late of Asheford.Edward Poynings, late of Marsham, squier.
Eicbard Haute, late of Ightham, squier.Eichard Gildeford, late of Cranbroke, squier.John Pympe, late of Nettilstede, squier.
Thomas Fenys, late of Hurst Mounceaux, squier.Nicholas Gayiiesford, late of Cressalton, squier. John Gaynesford, late of Alyngton, squier.
William Clifford, late of Iwade, squier. John Darell, late of Calehill, squier.Anthony Kene, late of Woolwiche, squier. Thomas Eyder, late
of Lynstede, squier.William Brandon, late of London, squier. John Wyngfeld, late of London, squier. Alexander Culpeper, late of Godeherst, gent.
James Home, late of Westwell, gent.Eaynold Pympe, late of Nettilstede, gent. Robert Brewis, late of London, gent.
John Boutayne, late yeoman of the Crown.Eoger Long alias long Eoger, late of Southwark, yeoman,Richard Potter, late of London, yeoman of the Crown.