The Princes in the Tower: A Debatable ‘Discovery’

(Image from Wikimedia Commons)

Richard III, Sir James Tyrell, and the Princes in the Tower are in the headlines once again. This time it’s the result of a Channel 5 Documentary. It’s always gratifying to fifteenth-century historians to be reminded that events of 500 years ago have such a wide popular interest. And TV documentaries are a great way of keeping this interest alive or inspiring new fascination. (The Richard III Society experienced a sudden surge of new memberships and gift orders in the hours after the most recent one). But in order to tell a coherent story - and to be accessible to those who know nothing about the period - there is rarely room in such programmes to provide viewers with the full range of information needed to judge for themselves on the evidence presented. This post aims to fill some of that gap.

 

Sir James Tyrell

The documentary concluded that Sir James Tyrell was a prime suspect for overseeing the murder of the princes in the Tower – so who was he? He was the eldest son of an East Anglian gentleman: Sir William Tyrell. Born in 1455, James was three years younger than Richard III. Sir William was executed in 1462 for his part in a Lancastrian rebellion against Edward IV. Custody of young James and his estates was granted to the king’s mother, Cecily duchess of York. But she immediately sold this back to the boy’s mother. In 1469, fourteen-year-old James married a daughter of the greatest landowner in Cornwall, Sir John Arundel of Lanherne. Unlike his in-laws, Tyrell fought for the house of York at Tewkesbury where he was knighted on the field. Shortly afterwards he entered Richard duke of Gloucester’s service and became one of his councillors, entrusted with sensitive commissions, becoming one of the Chamberlains of the Exchequer in 1479 and serving as one of Gloucester’s bannerets in the Scottish campaign. Meanwhile, his first cousin, Elizabeth Darcy (née Tyrell) had become lady mistress of the royal nursery, caring for Edward IV’s younger children.  

On Richard III’s accession to the throne, Sir James became Master of the Horse and Master of the Henchmen to the king. He played a major role in suppressing Buckingham’s Rebellion and was rewarded with the stewardship of the duchy of Cornwall. He was also one of Richard’s key officials in Wales, until he was sent to Guines early in 1485. After Richard III’s death at Bosworth, Tyrell transferred his services to the new king, Henry VII. He was trusted to carry out sensitive diplomatic negotiations and in 1495 he was appointed one of the feoffees to the use of the king’s will. Four years later Tyrell received a visitor at Guines: Edmund de la Pole, earl of Suffolk, younger brother of John earl of Lincoln. Many had considered Lincoln to be Richard III’s heir after Richard’s own son died. Lincoln had been killed at the battle of Stoke in 1487. Although Suffolk briefly returned back to England after his initial visit to Tyrell, he fled again in 1501 and it was soon clear that he planned to challenge Henry VII’s right to the throne. Tyrell was arrested in the spring of 1502 for assisting Edmund, was tried at London Guildhall on 2 May that year, and executed four days later.

 

Thomas More’s Narrative

In Sir Thomas More’s narrative of the death of Edward V and his brother (written some thirty years after the event, during the reign of Henry VIII), Sir James Tyrell is one of the henchmen sleeping on pallets outside Richard III’s chamber at Warwick Castle during the king’s post coronation progress north. [As Master of the Henchmen, the real Tyrell’s accommodation would have been elsewhere]. Richard is talking with a page about the impossibility of finding someone willing to kill the princes. The page suggests that Sir James is ambitious enough to be willing to commit murder. So Richard wakes Tyrell from his bed to sound him out and sends him off the next morning to take possession of the keys of the Tower. Tyrell then enlists one of the four men guarding the princes, Miles Forest, and his own horse-keeper, John Dighton, to do the deed. When Tyrell is later imprisoned in the Tower for treason, both he and Dighton confess to the crime. Yet Dighton, More tells us, is still walking free. Forest, he reports, died in sanctuary at St Martin’s church.  

More’s story is full of vivid circumstantial details and reported speech which must have been imagined. Consequently, most scholars are deeply wary of accepting his account of events. Moreover, there are demonstrable errors such as incorrect names and ages and some sections cannot possibly be true. For instance, he relates that Edward IV’s mother, Cecily duchess of York, opposed the king’s marriage to Elizabeth Woodville and so tried to arrange instead for her son to marry one of his mistresses, whom he’d recently got pregnant. Cecily claims that this mistress, Elizabeth Lucy, was already legally Edward’s wife. Elizabeth Lucy seems to be an invention by More, conflating several different women, and the whole confused passage appears designed to mock the claim that Edward IV had been precontracted (married) to Eleanor Talbot. For these reasons, we cannot accept More’s narrative without other corroborating evidence. The Channel 5 documentary sought to present such evidence.

 

The Forest Connection

Sir Thomas More knew the sons of Miles Forest, so it was suggested that one of them could have told More of their father’s crime, providing him with a far more detailed account of the princes’ deaths than any previous writer. This theory was discussed in some detail in this blog in 2021 when Professor Thornton first revealed the connection between Thomas More and Miles Forest’s sons. That post questioned whether Henry VIII’s Groom of the Chamber (Edward Forest) or Cardinal Wolsey’s servant (Miles junior) would have risked their family’s reputation by revealing that their father had murdered Henry VIII’s uncle. They would also have risked being found guilty of misprision for failing to reveal their knowledge of regicide earlier.

More recently The Missing Princes Project has brought to light another document relating to Miles Forest. This was the narrative found in the Gelderland Archive at Arnhem which presents itself as Richard duke of York’s report of his escape from the Tower, and subsequent life on the Continent. This relates that the young duke was ‘entrusted to the keeping of Miles Forrest*, Halneth Maleverer and William Puche’. So we now know that as early as 1493 Miles Forest was believed (at least in some quarters) to be connected with the princes’ stay in the Tower. It could be that Thomas More was aware of this Gelderland Archive account, which also mentions James Tyrell among the boys’ keepers. If so, More may have drawn both names from here for his own imaginative account. It's equally possible that both More and the author of the narrative were drawing on oral reports of the arrangements at the Tower. In either case, it seems that these names were first identified as keepers rather than killers. The presence of Forest’s name in the Gelderland document, composed when Thomas More was only a child, makes it much less likely that More had to rely on revelations from Forest’s sons decades later to learn of Forest’s connection with the princes.

The Itinerary

The second piece of evidence is the itinerary of Henry VII. In a fascinating article examining this, Professor Thornton demonstrated that Henry VII only ever stayed at the Tower when ceremonial required it or at times of national crisis. The crisis in 1502 was the threat to Henry VII’s throne from his queen’s cousin, Edmund de la Pole, earl of Suffolk. As mentioned earlier, Edmund's elder brother, John earl of Lincoln had been widely considered Richard III’s heir. He died in 1487 when Edmund was only about 15. On reaching adulthood Edmund initially accepted Henry VII’ s kingship, but in 1501 he sought support from the Emperor Maximilian to challenge the Tudor regime. Tyrell was arrested and tried for supporting Edmund's claim. Thomas More reported that at this time Tyrell also confessed to having killed the princes. The Channel 5 documentary suggested that this story of a confession was supported by the fact that Henry's queen, Elizabeth of York, sister of the missing princes, was also present at the Tower and then journeyed to visit her aunt, Elizabeth de la Pole, duchess of Suffolk. It was argued that the queen was likely reporting to her aunt on what she had just learned about the princes.

However, there is an argument to be made that if Queen Elizabeth had just learned of the fates of her brothers she would have been more likely to want to share this with her sisters who had grown up with the boys, rather than her aunt. Elizabeth duchess of Suffolk would surely have been more concerned to hear what Tyrell could tell of her own son Edmund for whose sake Tyrell was about to lose his life. Indeed, the queen’s decision to visit her aunt at this time strongly suggests that it was only Edmund, and not the princes, that Elizabeth had news of. This would mean that the queen was unaware of any confession by Tyrell.

 

The Capell chain

Finally, we were presented with the ‘smoking gun’, a reference to a chain associated with the young king Edward V in the 1516 will of Lady Margaret Capell, half sister of James Tyrell’s wife:

'Also I bequeth to my sonne sir Giles his faders cheyne which was yonge kyng Edwarde the v^th. To have the forsaid stuffe and cheyne during his lyfe w^t reasonable weryng upon the condition that after his decease I wille that yt remayn and be kept by myn executours to the use of Henry Capell and Edward Capell [Giles’s sons] from one to another And for defaulte of thise two childern I wille that my doughter Elizabeth Paulet shalhave the forsaid goodes.' (TNA PROB 11/19/456)

Much like the ‘new evidence’ for Elizabeth Woodville’s death by plague discussed in this blog a few years ago, this document has actually been known to historians for centuries, but it is the interpretation that is new. The will was published in 1826 by N. Harris Nicolas in a collection of old wills: Testamenta Vetusta. In 1906, William Minet quoted Margaret’s bequest of Edward V’s chain in the introduction to an article on the Capell family. In 1994, Diana Scarisbrick mentioned many of Margaret’s jewellery bequests, including Edward V’s chain, in a survey of fashions in late medieval jewellery. In 2015 Dr Susan James referred to it in the context of women’s voices in Tudor wills. She gave it as an example of women handing on relics with royal associations which ‘burnished the memory of the giver by announcing her associations with monarchy’. Professor Barbara Harris also used the will extensively in 2002 in a discussion of women’s pious bequests. There are probably others, but no previous scholar seems to have suggested that it provided any link with Sir James Tyrell. Hitherto it has been overlooked by political historians.

Margaret Capell described the chain as ‘his [ie her son Giles’s] father’s chain’. Giles’s father was Sir William Capell (born before 1448) who belonged to a Suffolk gentry family and became an exceptionally successful London draper, merchant and money lender. Those he is known to have lent money to include John Lord Howard, future duke of Norfolk, Lady Alice FitzHugh, mother-in-law of Sir Francis Lovell (Richard III’s chamberlain who later rebelled against Henry VII) and Henry VII’s queen, Elizabeth of York (Edward V’s sister). Sir William became an alderman in 1485, an MP in 1491 and served as mayor of London 1503-4 and 1510. The National Archives house numerous records of court cases brought by and against him. He died in 1515.

Margaret’s will gives no physical description of Edward V’s chain. In contrast, Margaret also bequeathed her daughter a gold chain bearing a rose of diamonds and three pearls; she gave her son-in-law a long chain of fine gold with a long cross set with a ruby; to her granddaughters she gave a flat chain of worked gold with a cross set with a ruby and diamonds, and a lesser flat chain hung with an agnus dei (with the Trinity on one side and our Lady’s assumption on the other). To her grandson Edward she bequeathed a gold chain of 27 long links which she had bought from ‘one Rydley my lord of Kents servant’. In most cases she even recorded the weight of these chains.

Noblemen typically owned various chains but the objects we might think of as chains of office were usually called collars. We do not know if Edward V had been king for long enough to acquire a personal chain associated with his status as king and it is unlikely that he would have been wearing one when held securely in the Tower. It also seems unlikely that Richard III would have chosen to reward Tyrell with such a distinctive relic of their shared crime since Tyrell could hardly have displayed his ownership without awkward questions being asked. So how else might we respond to this evidence?

It has to be acknowledged that it is impossible to be certain whether the chain had been Edward V’s personal possession, or an item he had gifted to someone else. In the latter case it may have been a gift to Sir William. This might be implied in the wording of the will which describes it as Sir William’s chain. The circumstances of such a gift are difficult to guess. We don't know if Edward V ever issued any livery collars and it is difficult to see what Sir William might have done to deserve receiving one. Livery collars are usually more clearly described as such when they appear in wills. It is therefore unlikely that this was a livery collar.

However, it may have been a gift from Edward V to someone else who either gave it to Sir William as a gift or as collateral for a loan. In 1483, the king’s treasury was significantly depleted with ready cash in short supply. At this time, Richard, duke of Gloucester financed Edward V’s household with £800 of his own money. It is therefore possible the chain was used as collateral by Edward V for a loan from Sir William at this time.

It is also conceivable that the original owner was Sir Giles Daubeney who was another of Dame Margaret's brothers-in-law. Daubeney had been a member of Edward IV's household and could have received a chain from Edward V while the latter was prince of Wales. Daubeney joined the rebels against Richard III in October 1483 and joined the earl of Richmond in exile shortly after. He fought for Henry VII at Bosworth and was rewarded with the lieutenancy of Calais and was made chamberlain of Henry VII's household. It is possible that Dame Margaret named her eldest son in recognition of Sir Giles Daubeney and so Daubeney could, for instance, have gifted the chain to the Capells on the occasion of the birth of their first son.

If the chain was, as the documentary argued, Edward V’s personal property, acquired by Tyrell as a result of murder, it is difficult to imagine how Tyrell managed to pass it on to his brother-in-law without also acknowledging how he had acquired it. It is scarcely likely that Lady Capell would have been knowingly transferring the relic of a murder to her son and grandsons in such a public document as her will. Indeed, if she had any suspicion that a close kinsman was connected with Edward V’s death the object would surely have become a source of embarrassment and concern, no matter how it had been acquired. Sir Giles himself was a well-respected and close companion of Henry VIII when his mother made her will. He was one of Henry's leading military captains, a jousting companion of the king and a knight of the body. It seems highly unlikely that he would have wanted to be in possession of - let alone wear - a chain so closely associated with the murder of a king. There is an argument to be made that Lady Capell’s will indicates that close relatives of Tyrell did not imagine that he bore any responsibility for the death of the princes in the Tower. The rumours of Tyrell’s supposed role in Edward V’s murder were not published until more than a decade after Lady Capell’s death. There is no mention of the chain in the wills of Sir Giles (d. 1556) or his sons.

Ultimately, as Dr Sean Cunningham of the National Archives tactfully observed in a recent entry on TNA’s blog, ‘Margaret’s reference to a chain once owned by the uncrowned teenage king Edward V is a new piece of evidence that raises more questions than it answers.’

* The document is in Middle Dutch but refers to ‘mylorde  Forrest’. There was no Lord Forrest at this period and it makes no sense to use the phrase ‘my lord’ in this context. Consequently it has been widely accepted that the most likely identification of this man is Miles Forest.

 

Sources and Further Reading

 TNA PROB 11/18/292; PROB 11/19/456; PROB 11/40/136; PROB 11/59/443

 Anne Crawford ed., The Household Books of John Howard, Duke of Norfolk (Richard III & Yorkist History Trust, 1992)

James Gairdner ed., The Paston Letters, AD 1422-1509 (Chatto & Windus, 1903) vol. 6

Rosemary Horrox ed., ‘Financial Memoranda of the Reign of Edward V. Longleat Miscellaneous Manuscript  Book II,’ Camden Miscellany XXIX, Camden Society 4^th series (1987), 34:198-244

Nicholas Harris Nicolas, ed. Privy Purse Expenses of Elizabeth of York (W. Pickering, 1830)

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Baron De Cosson, ‘The Capells of Rayne Hall, Essex: With Some Notes On Helmets Formerly in Rayne Church’, Archaeological Journal, 1883, 40/1: 64-79

Barbara J. Harris, English Aristocratic Women and the Fabric of Piety (Amsterdam University Press, 2018)

Susan E. James, Women's Voices in Tudor Wills, 1485–1603: Authority, Influence and Material (Ashgate, 2015)

Philippa Langley, The Princes in the Tower. Solving History’s Greatest Cold Case (The History Press, 2023)

William Minet, ‘The Capels at Rayne, 1486-1522’, Transactions of the Essex Archaeological Society 2^nd Series 9 (1906), 243-72 

Diana Scarisbrick, Jewellery in Britain, 1066-1837: A documentary, social, literary and artistic survey (Michael Russell, 1994)

Tim Thornton, ‘More on a Murder: The Deaths of the “Princes in the Tower”, and Historiographical Implications for the Regimes of Henry VII and Henry VIII’, History, 2020, 106:4-25 (https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-229X.13100)

Tim Thornton ‘Henry VII and the Tower of London: the context of the “confession” of Sir James Tyrell in 1502’, Historical Research, 2024, 97:218-225 (https://doi.org/10.1093/hisres/htad031)

Tim Thornton, ‘Sir William Capell and A Royal Chain: The Afterlives (and Death) of King Edward V’, History, 2024, 109: 445-460  (https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-229X.13430)

 

 

 

 

Sir James Tyrell and Calais: Patronage, Treason and Plot

Image: The Potomack Company

The recent purchase by The Richard III Society of the original letters patent granting Sir James Tyrell the custody of Guînes castle in January 1485 has shed the spotlight on Calais, England’s last remaining possession on the continental mainland, during Richard’s reign. The challenges facing the Ricardian regime – the adequate financing of the garrison, the threat of French attack, and relationship between the constituent parts of the English establishment there – were ostensibly the same as those faced by other fifteenth-century rulers. Yet Richard’s control of Calais was threatened from the beginning by the influence of men close to the previous lieutenant, William, Lord Hastings. Hastings’s brother, Sir Ralph, surrendered his command of Guînes castle to John Blount, Lord Mountjoy, a former retainer of Lord Hastings, and the treasurer of Calais, William Slefeld, was replaced by Thomas Thwaytes. Nevertheless, the remainder of Edward IV’s officers in Calais, including Hastings’s deputy as lieutenant of Calais, John, Lord Dynham, remained in office. Indeed, on 16 July 1483 Richard granted Dynham the office of ‘keeper or general governor’ of Calais. In the signed bill instructing the chancellor to draw up the letters patent, however, the line stating that Dynham was to hold the office ‘in as ample form and manner as other governors, lieutenant or captain’ was struck through in the king’s own hand.

In the final year of the reign, Calais became the centre of open rebellion against Richard III. In August 1484 Lord Mountjoy was forced to surrender his command at Guînes because of infirmity. He delivered the castle to Lord Dynham and Sir Richard Tunstall and Richard’s knight of the body, Sir Thomas Montgomery was installed as keeper with their ‘counsel and assistance.’ Mountjoy’s brother, Sir James Blount, remained as lieutenant of Hammes Castle, where, crucially, he had held the prominent Lancastrian rebel, John de Vere, earl of Oxford, in custody since at least 1477. Richard may have had his doubts about Oxford’s security for at the end of October he commissioned one of the yeomen of the crown, William Bolton, to bring Oxford to England where he would be met at Dover by Sir Robert Brackenbury, constable of the Tower. Blount was ordered to escort the rebel earl to the shoreline and see him board ship. The king’s fears proved well founded. Oxford never made it to England and Richard was forced into negotiation with the would-be rebels. On 16 November Richard offered a general pardon to Blount and, four days later, offered to confirm him in all his lands and offices granted by Edward IV. It was too late. Blount, joined by the master porter of Calais, John Fortescue, absconded with his charge, leaving the garrison and his wife, Elizabeth, in situ. Just before Christmas, Blount and Oxford arrived in Montargis, where Henry of Richmond was a guest of the French king.

This was a major blow for Richard, coming alongside rebellion in East Anglia and  the Home Counties in November 1484. Early in the new year, Oxford, accompanied by the East Anglian rebel, Thomas Brandon, returned to lay siege to Hammes. Lord Dynham led a force of men to raise the siege. According to Vergil, Brandon secretly led 30 men into the castle to strengthen the defences, repelling the attackers from the walls ‘more vigorously than before’, while Oxford attacked Dynham’s men from the rear. Faced with this setback, Dynham was forced to come to terms with the rebels. On 27 January Elizabeth Blount and the rebellious garrison of Hammes castle were offered and accepted a pardon, marching out of the Calais Pale to join Richmond in exile. This was the context for Richard’s decision to appoint Sir James Tyrell to the command of Guînes and send him to the Calais Pale with a force of men. Since March 1484 Tyrell had been paid for 140 men raised from the Welsh lands where he was the king’s steward. In January 1485 he was employed in the Low Countries by the king on ‘diverse matters concernyng gretely our wele’, but on the 13th of that month he was recalled to England, arriving in Dover to learn he was to be sent to Guînes as its ‘custodian, governor and supervisor’ during the infirmity of Lord Mountjoy. On the same day, Richard ordered the inhabitants of Guînes to accept Tyrell’s authority, while the treasurer of Calais was instructed to pay both the soldiers who had recently left the castle, perhaps to join the rebels in France, and the new garrison to be installed with Tyrell. On 22 January Sir James was granted the office by letters patent, the original of which is now in the Society’s possession.

As Matt Lewis has recently observed in the June 2024 edition of The Ricardian Bulletin, ‘Tyrell was clearly considered a man on whom Richard could rely to bring some stability.’ Whatever Richard’s hopes, it seems that Tyrell’s appointment did not end the regime’s fears for the safety of Calais and its marches. Sir James did not take possession of the castle immediately and negotiations with Mountjoy’s men who remained now took place. On 30 January Richard agreed to the appointment of John Bonnington, a Derbyshire gentleman and one of Lord Hastings’s retainers who was presumably already serving at Guînes, as constable of the castle. It was this, as much as Richard’s letters patent, that allowed Tyrell to assume his new position at Guînes on 18 February 1485. Four days later, a royal commission was issued to Thomas Thwaytes, requiring all bailiffs, receivers and other royal officials in Calais to deliver whatever cash remained in their hands to him as treasurer. This was another indication of just how unstable the situation was in Calais and the real fear that the entire town and marches would be delivered to Richmond.

It was against the background of these events that, on 11 March 1485, Richard appointed his illegitimate son, John of Gloucester, as captain of Calais. As captain, John would have authority over all other officers in Calais, including Lord Dynham. Around the same time the new captain made his way to Calais, escorted by Sir Robert Brackenbury, via Canterbury and Dover. It is unclear what reception John of Gloucester received in Calais, but the mood seems to have quietened in the town and marches in spring and summer as the rebels planned their invasion of England. It seemed almost an afterthought when, on 17 July, Richard finally moved to replace the traitorous Sir James Blount at Hammes castle with the Yorkshire knight of the body, Sir Thomas Wortley.

Little more than a month after Wortley’s arrival at Hammes, Richmond had killed and defeated Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth. News of the change of regime did not reach Calais until the first week in September. We will never know how much the absence of loyal men of proven military ability, like Dynham, Tyrell and Wortley, cost Richard. What is clear is that these men, like the other officers of the Ricardian establishment at Calais, passed seamlessly into the service of Henry VII. Dynham became the new treasurer of England, while Tyrell and Wortley entered the new king’s household. John of Gloucester returned to England and was even granted an annuity by Henry VII. Henry VII was in no position to seek confrontation across the Channel.  According to the Dunes Chronicler, some 200 to 400 soldiers from the Calais garrison, presumably those who would not serve the new regime, left late in 1485 and offered their services to Maximilian, King of the Romans. It was not until March the following year that a new lieutenant, Sir Giles Daubeney, was named and a wholesale change of personnel was initiated in Calais and its marches. Tyrell was one of only four Ricardian officials who remained in office (the others being Sir Thomas Thwaytes, the long-serving comptroller, Adrian Whetehill and the marshall, Sir Humphrey Talbot). In June 1486 Sir James received a general pardon, and the following month he petitioned Henry VII for a pardon on behalf of himself and his garrison at Guînes. This was duly granted, perhaps its passage eased by the intervention of Tyrell’s brother-in-law, the new lieutenant Lord Daubeney.  The first Tudor king’s policy of reconciliation and replacement of office holders was successful. No part of the Calais establishment, it seems, ever rose in rebellion against the Tudors.

Perhaps, by the summer of 1485, Tyrell and the other Calais officers appointed by Richard shared the sentiments Lord Mountjoy expressed in his will made that October. Addressing his brother, Sir James, he advised not ‘to desire to be grete about princes for it is dangerous’ (TNA, PROB11/7, fo. 212). Tyrell’s appointment did indeed bring stability to Calais, but not in the way in which Richard would have wished.

David Grummitt

Further Reading

Tyrell’s grant is also enrolled at The National Archives, Treaty Roll 2 Ric III, C76/169, m. 25. For his life and career see Matt Lewis, ‘The Mystery of Sir James Tyrell’, The Ricardian Bulletin (June 2024), 38-41 and W. E. Hampton, ‘Sir James Tyrell: With Some Notes on the Austin Friars London and Those Buried There’, The Ricardian 4 (1978), 9-22.

Much information on Calais during Richard’s reign can be found in British Library Harleian Manuscript 433, eds. R. Horrox and P. W. Hammond, 4 vols (Gloucester, 1979-83).

For the Calais garrison in the fifteenth century generally, see David Grummitt, The Calais Garrison: War and Military Service in England, 1436–1558 (Woodbridge, 2008), and for 1485 and the situation under Henry VII, ‘“For the Surety of the Towne and Marches”: Early Tudor Policy towards Calais 1485-1509’, Nottingham Medieval Studies 44 (2000), 184-203.