By Marie Barnfield
Introduction
Marriage
to Ralph Scrope
It is unfortunate that the very
brief notes relating to the case in the Consistory Court Act Book are incompletely
legible[3] and there are no surviving
cause papers to flesh them out, but it does nonetheless seem reasonable to
assume that this was, like the majority of cases brought by women to the church
courts, an appeal for either the recognition or the annulment of a marriage; this
also ties in fairly well with Polydore Vergil’s claim that King Richard had
married ‘Cecily, Edward’s other daughter, to some unworthy no-account.’[4] Ralph was not exactly a no-account,
but his eventual inheritance of the family lands and title could not at that
time have been foreseen.
Since
the court to which Cecily made her suit was that of the diocese of York, this
may be assumed to be the diocese in which the wedding had occurred, in which
case it can perhaps be tentatively dated to the few months between Queen Anne
Neville’s death and the Battle of Bosworth, during which Cecily would have been
resident at Sheriff Hutton.
Given Cecily’s status by the summer
of 1486 – as the Queen’s senior sister and (once more) a legitimate princess –
and that by the end of 1487 she was married to Henry VII’s uncle, John, Viscount
Welles, annulment of the Scrope marriage does indeed seem by far the most
likely subject of her suit, and for the purposes of the remainder of this
article this is assumed to have been the case.
The Court Case
The process of pursuing a case in the Consistory Curt of York was, briefly, as follows. Both parties would normally appoint proctors, who would appear in their stead wherever possible. The plaintiff (actor) would initiate proceedings by entering a complaint and asking the judge to cite the defendant (pars rea). Where a proctor was being employed the complaint would be made in writing, in which case it was known as a libel. The judge would respond to the libel by summoning the defendant to appear at an assigned day and place. Both parties were expected to appear in court on the assigned day, either in person or by proctor. ‘The first absence might be overlooked and only lead to another day being appointed, but three absences and the judge would oblige, the absentee was declared contumacious and was usually suspended: that is, prevented from attending church services.’[5]
There
are two brief notes on Cecily Plantagenet’s case in the relevant Act Book.
These are not dated but appear, from their context, to place the hearings in or
around July of 1486. They record that the actor (i.e. Cecily) was, like several
of the other plaintiffs, represented by a proctor named Latomer (probably
Master Richard Latomer who in 1473 had been paid to write down the testimonies
of persons offering at the statue of Henry VI in York Minster and whose servant
William Waux is mentioned in a Minster visitation of 1495[6]). On the first occasion,
the defendant (Ralph Scrope) failed to appear although the court waited a long
time for him, and a second date was set at which three witnesses were to be
produced.[7] A third hearing is then
referred to, at which Ralph may again have failed to appear but the names of the
three witnesses were given to the court. Four names actually follow, all so
carelessly scribbled that the interpretation of them offered here cannot be
regarded as definitive. The first name would appear to read (in translation)
Sir Ralph Evers of Graystoke, and the second, W. Greystoke esquire. The third
and fourth names are exceedingly similar to each other and probably represent a
single individual since the witnesses were said to number only three; these two
names appear to read Thomas Pol gentleman, and Thomas Poke gentleman.[8] This is the final piece of
information on the case.
The
grounds on which Cecily might have sought such an annulment are few. There were
only a limited number of diriment, or nullifying, impediments to marriage and,
of these, impediments of relationship or want of consent are the only ones
likely to apply. The witnesses may provide some clue as to which of these impediments
Cecily may have been claiming.
The
Witnesses
William
Greystoke Esquire was probably the elderly Lord Greystoke’s brother of that
name, as he, unlike Greystoke’s other brothers, is shown as still living at the
time of the heraldic visitation of Yorkshire that, from internal evidence,
appears to have been conducted shortly after Bosworth.[9] Greystoke was Ralph
Scrope’s great-uncle, whilst Cecily Plantagenet was Greystoke’s first cousin
once removed. The Ralph Evers known to
have been active in 1486 was a young man, one of the two sons of Sir William
Evers (d. 1545) and a grandson of Sir Ralph Evers (d. 1461) by Elizabeth
Greystoke. He was Ralph Scrope’s second cousin, Cecily’s second cousin once
removed and the great-nephew of his fellow witness William Greystoke. Thomas
Pol, gentleman, may be the ‘Thomas Pole, gentleman,’ to whom in March 1485 Lord
Greystoke had enfeoffed his manor of Grimethorpe and other West Riding
properties.[10]
Grounds for Annulment
The reason that Greystoke and Evers were both related
to Ralph and to Cecily was that all four were direct descendants of Joan
Beaufort. Ralph and Cecily’s relationship to each other, via Joan Beaufort’s
two marriages, lay within the forbidden degrees of consanguinity, a fact that
has already been noted by Douglas Richardson.[11]
The following tree shows the 3rd and 4th
degree consanguinity between Cecily and Ralph, and also the position of the suggested
Greystoke and Evers witnesses on the same family tree:
This
is the only relationship that Cecily and Ralph shared within the forbidden
degrees. It cannot be proved that the couple had not obtained a dispensation
from its effects prior to marriage, but no such dispensation appears in any of the
published papal registers;[12] neither was any copy of
such a dispensation entered into the
register of Thomas Rotherham, Archbishop of York.[13]
It
seems most likely that lack of a dispensation from the effects of this
relationship was the grounds on which Cecily successfully sought an annulment
from her marriage to Ralph Scrope; it was not a close relationship and was only
in the half-blood, so had Cecily wished to remain married to Ralph she could
probably have obtained a retrospective dispensation from Rome quite easily,
provided she was in a position to make such an appeal. Ralph perhaps did wish
to remain as Cecily’s husband given his failure to heed the court summons.
[1] (Cambridge,
1974), p. 160, n. 89.
[2] Borthwick
Cons AB 4, f. 83r (not f. 88r as given in Helmholz).
[3] This
unfortunately seems to be normal for the period: ‘The records of the Church
courts . . . had become messy and hurried scrawls. Many of the entries are
quite illegible.’ (Helmholz, op. cit., p. 11)
[4] Anglica Historia, 1555 edition, trans.
Dana F. Sutton, Chapter 25, the Philological Museum website (http://www.philological.bham.ac.uk/polverg/).
[5] What
Are the Cause Papers? research guide of the Borthwick Institute for
Archives https://www.york.ac.uk/borthwick/holdings/guides/research-guides/what-are-causepapers/#procedure
[6] The
Fabric Rolls of York Minster, Surtees Soc. Vol. 35 (Durham, 1859), pp. 82,
262.
[7]
Borthwick Cons AB 4, f. 83r.
[8]
Borthwick Cons AB 4, f. 84r.
[9] Visitations
of the North: Part III: A Visitation of the North of England, c. 1480-1500
(Surtees vol 144, 1930), pp. 139-140.
[10]
C. T. Clay (ed.), Yorkshire Deeds,
vol. VIII, Cambridge, 1940, p.71.
[12]
J. A. Twemlow (ed.), Calendar of Papal Register Relating to Great Britain
and Ireland, vol 14, 1484-92, HMSO, 1960; P. D. Clarke & P. N. R.
Zutshi (eds.), Supplications from England and Wales in the Registers of the
Apostolic Penitentiary, 1410-1503, vol. II, 1464-1492, Canterbury &
York, 2015.
[13]
Borthwick Abp Reg 23 & 24.
