REBLOGGED FROM A MEDIEVAL POTPOURRI
He had such dignity in his whole person and in his countenance such charm that, however much they might feast their eyes he never sated the gaze of observers’. Domenico Mancini
Edward V from the window at Coldridge Church, Devon.
Despite the late historian Professor Helen Maud Cam opining rather harshly “I just do not understand how people can become so upset over the fate of a couple of sniveling brats. After all, what impact did they have on the constitution?” much ink has been expended on the fates of Edward V (b.1470) and his younger brother, Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York (b.1473) (1). Historian Helen Maurer also pointed out ‘The unflagging fascination for mysterious murder and mayhem that lurks in the breasts of many Britons and their colonial descendants is by now well known….’ This ‘fascination‘ has led to a conviction, unshakable in some cases, that the princes disappeared ergo they must have been murdered.
Edward’s story, and that of his brother Richard, has become even more prevalent in recent times with the emergence of the Coldridge theory with its accompanying links as well as the publication of Philippa Langley’s excellent book ‘The Princes in the Tower‘detailing the results so far of both her, and her teams, investigations. Much of these highly plausible theories, and answers, focus on what became of the princes after they had disappeared from the Tower but I want to focus here on Edward V and his life prior to 1483, the year his father, Edward IV (b.1442 d.1483) died unexpectedly and everything changed both rapidly and drastically. Not a vast amount has been recorded about his earlier years – too young was he to have made much of an impact – and from the little that is known it’s hardly possible to glean anything of much significance of his character.
Edward was born on the 2nd November 1470 in the Abbot’s House, also known as Cheyneygates, in the precincts of Westminster Abbey, where his mother, Queen Elizabeth Wydeville, had taken sanctuary following the forced leave of absence from England of her husband, Edward IV, during the Readeption of Henry VI. Elizabeth’s favourite midwife, Marjory Cobbe, was allowed entry into Cheyneygates to help the queen in her hour of need:
The second daye of Novembre was borne at Westminster in the seyntwary, my lorde the prince, the king that tyme beinge out of the lande in the parties of Flaundres, Hollande and Zelande (2).
The infant was baptised in Westminster Abbey with Thomas Millyng, the Abbot of Westminster, Prior John Esteney and Elizabeth, Lady Scrope – interestingly Margaret Beaufort’s half sister – and who had been paid £10 by the new government to attend her, or perhaps, in some measure to supervise her, standing as godparents (3).
‘Here in greate penurie, forsaken of all her friends, she was delivered of a faire son, called Edward, which was, with small pompe like any poure man’s child, christened, the godfathers being the Abbot and Prior of Westminster, and the godmother Lady Scroope,” (4).
To be brief – this post is about Edward V not Edward IV after all – the Yorkist king had made a swift exit from his kingdom – the Departure – and legged it over to Flanders after the Lancastrian king, Henry VI, had been, briefly as it would transpire, returned to the throne – the Readeption.
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