Comments (2)

1. It has been suggested that the figure in the window isn’t Edward V. Looking at details of the window: the ermine on the large crown isn’t painted in the same way as the fur on the main figure’s garments, supporting the idea that this crown doesn’t belong closely with the figure. The figure seems mostly complete, although there could be a missing section below the hand with the book.
   The first word of the text is quite convincing as ‘prenys’ (as others have said) – not ‘king’, at any rate. The figure’s crown is similar to that worn by Prince Arthur Tudor in the Great Malvern Magnificat window, roughly contemporary with Coldridge. A similar sceptre or baton lies on an open book on Arthur’s prie-dieu, at which he kneels. Thus, the crown and sceptre do not mean the Coldridge figure has to be that of a king.
   The figure is depicted standing on a diaper tiled floor. If he were on a plinth, an identification as a recognized saint might be more secure, but plinths aren’t conclusive. On a painted panel in St George’s Chapel, Windsor, commissioned by Oliver King in the mid 1490s, Prince Edward of Westminster, Edward IV, Edward V and Henry VII are depicted on plinths adorned with their heraldic beasts – King had served all of them as Secretary. (Henry VII was still living, of course.) Edward V’s crown is suspended above his head.
   Can the final word at Coldridge be interpreted as ‘seynte’, assuming that maybe an illiterate painter failed to follow his copy accurately? The book held by the figure could be an emblem of a saint, although it’s closed. Iconographically, martyrs’ books are regularly open, though not invariably, while confessor saints’ are closed. Both modes symbolize their witness to the Gospel. Otherwise, it might be a book of hours, to indicate piety and/or literacy.
   Edward V could be an example of the tradition of murdered royal personages being regarded as saints, sometimes by local veneration rather than after papal canonization. Because ‘prince’ can be used generically for a member of the royal family, ‘prenys’ just might be extended to sainted kings. There are several examples of murdered, sainted kings and princes in the Anglo-Saxon period; Edward King and Martyr’s 10th C assassination, at Corfe in the south-west, is reminiscent of Edward V’s – killed in his teens on the orders of a family member to gain power. He might not be particularly well known to laymen around 1500, however.
   Post-Conquest, the idea continued: Richard II tried unsuccessfully to have Edward II canonized; Henry VI was apparently venerated in a number of places as a saint, although Henry VII failed to make this status official; post-Reformation, Charles I is regarded as a martyr by some parts of the Church.
   Another kingly candidate for Coldridge is Edward the Confessor; officially canonized, he’s normally represented as a bearded older man carrying the ring that features in an episode of his legend. There’s a hint or two of veneration at the tomb of Edward of Westminster, Henry VI’s son, killed at Tewkesbury in 1471 – another teenage prince chewed up by power struggles. This apparently didn’t gain traction, however, and as a Lancastrian, he seems an unlikely candidate for Coldridge.
   John Evans was clearly a trusted employee of Dorset, Edward’s half-brother, and if Evans or his family depicted Edward in a window, it would express loyalty to Dorset as well as to Edward himself. Evans probably owed his prosperity largely to Dorset – the armour on his effigy would indicate his gentry status. After 1483, Dorset’s allegiance to Richard III was short-lived, and he defected to Henry Tudor, who later married Dorset’s half-sister Elizabeth of York, Edward’s sister.
   Edward V seems a perfectly good and perhaps the most likely subject for dedication from someone whose sympathies one might expect to remain basically Yorkist, and whom the originator of the window might regard as a saint in the medieval way of thinking? The idea that Evans was Edward V is high fantastical, but that doesn’t mean the figure in the window isn’t Edward V?

   C A Buckley

2. I believe that the sons of Edward IV were not killed during the reign of Richard III. The reasons for this are as follows:-

   https://www.revealingrichardiii.com/solved.html#edwardv

   During the reign of Edward IV in 1483 John Goddisland was a yeoman (short of a knight) and in March 1485 a John Goddisland was footman to the Lord Bastard. This could not have been Richard III’s illegitimate son who was not a Lord so it was probably a son of Edward IV. John Whitcomb Bayley (he worked in the Tower of London Records Office*) wrote in 1830 ” We have strong presumptive evidence that Prince Edward certainly was alive in March 1485, which is apparently upwards of a year and a half after the period when More and others say that he and his brother had been put to death…” he had based his evidence on a record of clothing being given to the Lord Bastard via his footman John Goddesland recorded in the King’s Signet Office

   In the archive of Lille in France there is a receipt belonging to King Maximilian I dated 16 December 1487 and referencing Margaret of Burgundy, Edward v’s aunt. The receipt is signed by three leading members of Maximilian’s court and records the king’s collection of, and payment for, 400 pikes. These are weapons for soldiers such as those used by the German mercenaries at the battle of Stoke. ‘to serve her nephew – son of King Edward, late her brother (may God save his soul), who was expelled from his dominion.’ The details on this receipt show that the weapons were for Edward V. He was the nephew of Margaret of Burgundy, the son of King Edward IV and in June 1487 would have been considered old enough to lead an army at the battle of Stoke.

   In November 2020, Nathalie Nijman-Bliekendaal rediscovered a four page, semi-legal manuscript in an archive in Arnhem. It is a witness statement written in the first person and records Richard, Duke of York’s story from the point at which he left sanctuary in Westminster in London as a 9 year-old boy in 1483 until his arrival at the court of his aunt, Margaret of York, in Burgundy in 1493.

   There is a receipt/pledge payment for 30,000 florins signed by ‘Richard of England’ with his royal monogram and seal. This is held in an archive in Dresden and is dated October 1493.

   There is no reliable evidence of the deaths of the Princes dated to the reign of Richard III.

   In the Austrian archives there is a letter from King Maximilian to Henry VII of England dated 1493. In the letter Maximilian states that Richard, Duke of York can be recognised by ‘several signs’ including three birthmarks or body marks that ‘cannot be counterfeited’. Richard of York, writes Maximilian, would ‘show several signs by which those who knew him in his youth would recognize him, and especially three natural marks which he has on his body and which cannot be counterfeited, that is: his mouth, one of his eyes and a mark he has on his thigh.’

   Jean Roefstra and Nathalie Nijman-Bliekendaal investigated the Domain Accounts in archives across the Netherlands which revealed the journey undertaken by Richard, Duke of York to the north of Holland in 1494-5. These extensive searches revealed that he was known as Richard, Duke of York, the son of Edward IV, or the ‘White Rose’. No other name was attributed to him.

   There is a letter patent in the National Library of Ireland, dated 13 August 1486, which can be attributed to Edward V (aged 15). Attached to the grant is his royal seal with the royal arms of England and the closed crown of a king.

   There is no evidence that the bones in the urn are the Princes. At the depth at which they were uncovered they are more likely to be of an origin no later than the Norman period, Skeletal remains uncovered at this depth and close to this location have been carbon-dated to the Iron Age. It seems that the bones were said to those of the Princes based upon what was written by Sir Thomas Moore although he also wrote that after being buried under the stairs at the Tower of London that the remains were later dug up and moved to another location.

   Documents from the reign of Richard III that might have provided information about the Princes were destroyed during the reign of Henry VII. The most likely reason for their destruction was that Henry VII didn’t want it to become known that the Princes were still alive during his reign.

   The royal houses of York and Europe would not have allowed public denigration of their blood royal to support imposters named as Lambert Simnel and Perkin Warbeck by the Tudor dynasty.

   There was another Prince in the tower who was the son of George Duke of Clarence. Richard III did not imprison this Prince but Henry VII did and eventually had him executed.

   The facial features in the 16th-century copy by Jacques Le Boucq of the only known contemporary portrait of the so called Perkin Warbeck looks similar to the facial image in the stained glass window of Edward V in the church in Coldridge and also the various portraits I have seen of Edward IV.

   At the battle of Stoke the army of Edward V was commanded by the Earl of Lincoln who would not have supported an imposter as the Earl of Lincoln had a very strong claim to the throne. Edward V had a stronger claim than the Earl of Lincoln due to the repeal of the Titulus Regius by Henry VII so that Edward V was no longer considered to be illegitimate.

   Jean de Molinet’s Chroniques (c.1490), contains a reasonably detailed description of the Battle of Stoke. Molinet was historiographer to the Burgundian court and sympathetic to the Yorkist cause. His account states that it is King Edward and not Lambert Simnel at the battle: King Edward, driving his enemies before him, rode through the forest of Nottingham and, without entering into the town, came to Newark where he crossed the river which is very broad, along which he marched through the country around two or three leagues; and, at the end of a meadow, found King Henry’s army, near a village named Stoke, and there was the upset.

   An account of the battle of Stoke in the Herald’s Memoir reveals that the Yorkists called their leader King Edward.

   Henry VII arranged for records in Ireland pertaining to the May 1487 coronation in Ireland to be destroyed. Presumably this was to ensure that the true identity of the Dublin King ( Edward V ) would not be known.

   There were Irish Lords present at the coronation of the Dublin King in 1487 who had also been at an event in Windsor in May 1479 which was attended by Edward the son of Edward IV. Those Irish Lords who had been present at Edward IV’s court would have recognised the Dublin King as the son of Edward IV.

   Would an imposter called Perkin Warbeck have made so many attempts to regain the throne? Would an imposter have cared that the army of James IV caused bloodshed to English citizens? It strikes me that these are two further reasons to believe that Perkin Warbeck was actually Richard.

   During the reign of Richard II according to the normal law of primogeniture the heir to the throne was Edmund Mortimer, 5th Earl of March. His claim to the throne was the basis for rebellions and plots against Henry IV after he had usurped the throne. Despite this Edmund and his younger brother were treated honourably by the Lancastrian Kings. On this basis I believe that Richard III would have also treated the sons of Edward IV honourably. Also based upon the research of John Ashdown Hill and Philippa Langley I would say that Richard III didn’t usurp the throne.

   Ian Churchward