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An early drawing of Findon Manor — artist unknown. |
THIS IS FINDON VILLAGE created by Valerie Martin, contains scenes from her home village of Findon, West Sussex, U.K.
A JANUARY WEDDING AND A FINDON CONNECTION WITH
THE PRINCES IN THE TOWER
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An early drawing of Findon Manor — artist unknown. |
Text first published in Along The Furlong, January 1999.
Copyright Valerie Martin, 1999
This is a tale so rich in fifteenth century murder, mystery, treason, plots, counter-plots, scandal and infanticide, that for more than half a millennium it has been recounted and reinterpreted by different writers. I can now reveal that Findon has a tenuous historical link with the 1483 gruesome mystery of the Princes in the Tower.
Findon at this time was a remote backwater and only a tiny portion of the jigsaw puzzle of day-to-day life can be pieced together. Villagers lived in mean dwellings and subsisted in poverty. The original habitation, north of the church, would have been built of timber, or wattle and daub, and centuries of continuous cultivation have virtually removed any trace of the site. In recent years, however, there have been discoveries of fragments of glazed patterned pots and glassware to prove its existence.
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Fragments of medieval pot rims recovered by Norman Allcorn on the site of the original village of Findon in a field north of St. John the Baptist Church. |
Since 1326, the Mowbray family were the owners and occasional residents of Findon Manor. A total of twelve consecutive Mowbrays owned the property over the years. Findon's link with the monarchy came when Anne, the only daughter of the seventh John de Mowbray, was born. She was third cousin to King Edward IV's children and was destined to be betrothed to his second son, young Richard, Duke of York, born in 1473. Little Anne was an only child and it was considered to be a good match after the death of her father.
On a cold January day, 521 years ago, a royal wedding took place one day before Parliament was due to convene. The date was 15th January 1478. The bridegroom, Richard, was now four years old, and his child bride, Anne Mowbray, Duchess of Norfolk was just two years older. The wedding was solemnised at St. Stephen's Chapel, Westminster, and there was a magnificent state banquet of remarkable splendour with the Royal Family and courtiers of the royal household attending. The young couple joined in the celebrations in their honour with much merrymaking. It is doubtful whether the humble inhabitants of Findon, living their simple rural lives, knew of the great royal occasion.
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The daffodils on the hillside at Findon Place in March 2003. |
Sadly, in November, 1481, the royal newly-wed, Anne, died at Greenwich Palace, aged only nine years, leaving her husband a widower at seven years old. With her burial at Westminster Abbey, Findon lost its link with royalty and one of the Princes in the Tower. Anne’s young husband inherited her estates, including the Manor of Findon, and this was confirmed in January 1483 by Act of Parliament. After much controversy and procrastination, King Edward IV determined that the Mowbray inheritance, which included the lands at Findon, should pass to Lords Berkeley and Thomas Howard, if the young Duke of York died without male issue.
King Edward IV died in 1483 and left his two young sons, the boy King Edward V aged 12, and Anne's widower, Richard aged 9, in the care of their Uncle Richard, Duke of Gloucester. To prevent the princes' mother, (and her relations), from gaining power through the children, Gloucester took overall charge and transferred them to the inner apartments of the grim fortress, the Tower of London. On several occasions the boys were seen shooting and playing happily in the garden. They were always under guard and were most likely lodged in relative comfort in one of the turreted chambers. As the days passed by they were seen more rarely, until eventually they were glimpsed no more behind the bars of the high windows. They disappeared without trace.
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Edward V and his brother — the Princes in the Tower. |
Gloucester, meanwhile, had been declared the rightful King as Richard III. It is feasible that his nephews were slaughtered on his orders but there is no positive proof. Two other suspects have been suggested as being responsible for the treachery. One was the Duke of Buckingham and the other was Henry VII, Richard's successor — the boy princes being rivals for the throne. Another, more intriguing, hypothesis suggests that the young innocents survived and were given new identities in 1485.
| 13th September 2005 Whilst helping my daughter (who goes to St John the
Baptist School) to research the princes in the tower, I have come across
your website. What a wonderful surprise. Sue Isaacs, Patching, West Sussex.
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One hundred and ninety years later, in 1674, a wooden chest was discovered. This was under a great mound of stones beneath the stairs to the Chapel of the White Tower and contained the small bones of two slender children. The taller child lay on his back, the smaller one was face down on top of him. Fragments of rag and velvet survived around the skeletons. The bones were considered to be those of Richard and his older brother. They were provided with a white and black marble coffin, designed by Sir Christopher Wren in 1678, and reburied in the Henry VII Chapel in Westminster Abbey.
The young heroine of the story for Findon must be Anne Mowbray. After being given a noble funeral, she was buried in the Chapel of St. Erasmus in Westminster Abbey. When this chapel was demolished in the early sixteenth century to make way for the Henry VII Chapel, Anne's remains were transferred to the Minoresses' Convent in Stepney. Workmen excavated this site in 1964 and discovered her coffin buried eleven feet down. The remains were examined by medical experts and then reburied near to her original resting-place in Westminster Abbey.
Continue if you would like to read about The Lost Feather Bed.
This is Findon Village — www.findonvillage.com is a continually growing record created by Valerie Martin exclusively for documenting life in Findon.
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E-mail: valeriemartin@findonvillage.com |
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