Biography of Humphrey Stafford 1st Duke of Buckingham 1402-1460

Paston Letters Volume 2 235. 19 Jan 1454. 2.235. Newsletter Of John Stodeley¹.

As touchyng tythynges, please it you to wite that at the Princes² comyng to Wyndesore, the Duc of Buk’ (age 51) toke hym in his armes and presented hym to the Kyng in godely wise, besechyng the Kyng to blisse hym; and the Kyng yave no maner answere. Natheless the Duk abode stille with the Prince by the Kyng; and whan he coude no maner answere have, the Queene come in, and toke the Prince in hir armes and presented hym in like forme as the Duke had done, desiryng that he shuld blisse it; but alle their labour was in veyne, for they departed thens without any answere or countenaunce savyng only that ones he loked on the Prince and caste doune his eyene ayen, without any more.

Item, the Cardinalle (age 74)³ hathe charged and commaunded alle his servauntz to be redy with bowe and arwes, swerd and bokeler, crossebowes, and alle other habillementes of werre, suche as thei kun medle with to awaite upon the saufgarde of his persone.

Item, th’erle of Wiltshire (age 33)⁴ and the Lord Bonvile (age 61) have done to be cryed at Taunton in Somerset shire, that every man that is likly and wole go with theym and serve theym, shalle have vjd. every day as long as he abidethe with theym.

Item, the Duk of Excestre (age 23)⁵ in his owne persone hathe ben at Tuxforthe beside Dancastre, in the north contree, and there the Lord Egremond (age 31)⁶ mette hym, and thei ij. ben sworne togider, and the Duke is come home agein.

Item, th’erle of Wiltshire, the Lord Beaumont, Ponynges, Clyfford, Egremond, and Bonvyle, maken all the puissance they kan and may to come hider with theym.

Item, Thorpe⁷ of th’escheker articuleth fast ayenst the Duke of York, but what his articles ben it is yit unknowen.

Item, Tresham (age 34)⁸, Josep⁹, Danyelle¹⁰, and Trevilian¹¹ have made a bille to the Lordes, desiryng to have a garisone kept at Wyndesore for the saufgarde of the Kyng and of the Prince, and that they may have money for wages of theym and other that shulle kepe the garyson.

Item, the Duc of Buk’ hathe do to be made Ml. Ml. [2000] bendes with knottes, to what entent men may construe as their wittes wole yeve theym.

Item, the Duke of Somersetes herbergeour hath taken up all the loggyng that may be goten nere the Toure, in Thamystrete, Martlane, Seint Katerines, Tourehille, and there aboute.

Item, the Queene hathe made a bille of five articles, desiryng those articles to be graunted; wherof the first is that she desireth to have the hole reule of this land; the second is that she may make the Chaunceller, the Tresorere, the Prive Seelle, and alle other officers of this land, with shireves and alle other officers that the Kyng shuld make; the third is, that she may yeve alle the bisshopriches of this land, and alle other benefices longyng to the Kynges yift; the iiijth is that she may have suffisant lyvelode assigned hir for the Kyng and the Prince and hir self. But as for the vth article, I kan nat yit knowe what it is.

Note 1. [Egerton MS. 914, B.M.] There is no evidence that this letter had anything to do with the Paston correspondence, but as a very interesting political letter of the period we have thought it right to give it a place in the collection. The date is quite certain, being after the birth of Prince Edward in October 1453, and before the death of Cardinal Kemp in March 1454.

Note 2. Edward, only son of Henry VI. (age 32), born 13th October 1453.

Note 3. John Kemp, Cardinal Archbishop of Canterbury.

Note 4. James Butler, Earl of Wiltshire and Ormond.

Note 5. Henry Holland.

Note 6. Thomas Percy, third son of Henry, Earl of Northumberland (age 60).

Note 7. Thomas Thorpe, one of the Barons of the Exchequer, who was also Speaker of the House of Commons, but was at this time imprisoned in the Fleet in consequence of an action brought against him by the Duke of York.—(See Rolls of Parl. v. 239.)

Note 8. Thomas Tresham, who as ‘Sir Thomas Tresham, Knight,’ was attainted under Edward IV. for fighting on the Lancastrian side at Towton, but his attainder was afterwards reversed in Parliament 7 and 8 Edw. IV., on the ground that he was a household servant of Henry VI. and had been brought up in his service from a child.—Rolls of Parl. v. 616–617.

Note 9. William Joseph, who, with Thorpe, was frequently accused by the Yorkists of misleading the King.—Rolls of Parl. v. 280, 282, 332, 342.

Note 10. Thomas Daniel, Esq.—See p. 255, Note 2.

Letters of Horace Walpole. 07 Aug 1572. This morning we have been to Penshurst [Map] - but, oh! how fallen!³⁴¹ The park seems to have never answered its character: at present it is forlorn; and instead of Sacharissa's³⁴² cipher carved on the beeches, I should sooner have expected to have found the milkwoman's score. Over the gate is an inscription, purporting the manor to have been a boon from Edward VI to Sir William Sydney. The apartments are the grandest I have seen in any of these old palaces, but furnished in tawdry modern taste. There are loads of portraits; but most of them seem christened by chance, like children at a foundling hospital. There is a portrait of Languet³⁴³, the friend of Sir Philip Sydney (age 17); and divers of himself and all his great kindred; particularly his sister-in-law, with a vast lute, and Sacharissa, charmingly handsome, But there are really four very great curiosities, I believe as old portraits as any extant in England: they are, Fitzallen, Archbishop of Canterbury, Humphry Stafford, the first Duke of Buckingham; T. Wentworth, and John Foxle; all four with the dates of their commissions as constables of Queenborough Castle, from whence I suppose they were brought. The last is actually receiving his investiture from Edward the Third, and Wentworth is in the dress of Richard the Third's time. They are really not very ill done.³⁴⁴ There are six more, only heads; and we have found since we came home that Penshurst belonged for a time to that Duke of Buckingham. There are some good tombs in the church, and a very Vandal one. called Sir Stephen of Penchester. When we had seen Penshurst, we borrowed saddles, and, bestriding the horses of our postchaise, set out for Hever [Map]³⁴⁵, to visit a tomb of Sir Thomas Bullen, Earl of Wiltshire, partly with a view to talk of it in Anna Bullen's walk at Strawberry Hill. But the measure of our woes was not full, we could not find our way and were forced to return; and again lost ourselves in coming from Penshurst, having been directed to what they call a better road than the execrable one we had gone.

Note 341. Evelyn, who visited Penshurst exactly a century before Walpole, gives the Following brief notice of the place:-"July 9, 1652. We went to see Penshurst, the Earl of Leicester's, famous once for its gardens and excellent fruit, and for the noble conversation which Was wont to meet there, celebrated by that illustrious person Sir Philip Sidney, who there composed divers of his pieces. It stands in a park, is finely watered, and was now full of company, on the marriage of my old fellow-collegiate, Mr. Robert Smith, who marries Lady Dorothy Sidney, widow of the Earl of Sunderland."-E.

Note 342. Lady Dorothy Sidney, daughter of Philip, Earl of Leicester [Note. Mistake? She was sister of Philip Earl of Leicester]; of whom Waller was the unsuccessful suitor, and to whom he addressed those elegant effusions of poetical gallantry, in which she is celebrated under the name of Sacharissa. Walpole here alludes to the lines written at Penshurst-

"Go, boy, and carve this passion on the bark

Of yonder tree, which stands the sacred mark

Of noble Sydney's birth; when such benign,

Such more than mortal-making stars did shine,

That there they cannot but for ever prove

The monument and pledge of humble love;

His humble love, whose hope shall ne'er rise higher,

Than for a pardon that he dares admire."-E.

Note 343. Hubert Tanguet, who quitted the service of the Elector of Saxony on account of his religion, and attached himself to the Prince of Orange. He died in 1581.-E.

Note 344. In Harris's History of Kent, he gives from Philpot a list of the constables of Queenborough Castle, p. 376; the last but one of whom, Sir Edward Hobby, is said to have collected all their portraits, of which number most probably were these ten.

Note 345. Hever Castle was built in the reign of Edward III, by William de Hevre, and subsequently became the property of the Boleyn family. In this castle Henry VIII passed the time of his courtship to the unfortunate Anne Boleyn; whose father, Sir Thomas Boleyn, was Created Earl of wiltshire and Ormond, 1529 and 1538.-E.

The History of King Richard the Third by Thomas More. With these words and writings and such others, the Duke of Gloucester soon set afire them that were of themselves easy to kindle, and especially two, Duke of Buckingham and Richard Lord Hastings [Note. Mistake for William] (the chamberlain), both men of honor and of great power: the one by long succession from his ancestry, the other by his office and the King's favor. These two, not bearing each to the other so much love as hatred both unto the Queen's part, on this point accorded together with the Duke of Gloucester: that they would utterly remove from the King's company all his mother's friends, under the name of their enemies. With this concluded, the Duke of Gloucester, understanding that the lords who were about the King intended to bring him up to his coronation, accompanied with such power of their friends that it should be hard for him to bring his purpose to pass without the gathering and great assembling of people and in manner of open war, the end of which he knew to be dubious, and with the King being on their side, his part should have the face and name of a rebellion, he secretly, therefore, by diverse means caused the Queen to be persuaded and brought to believe that it neither were needed and also should be jeopardizing for the King to come up strong. For whereas now every lord loved each other and none other thing studied upon but about the coronation and honor of the King, if the lords of her kindred should assemble in the King's name many people, they should give the very same lords, between whom and them had been sometime debate, fear and suspicion, lest they should gather this people, not for the King's safeguard, whom no man impugned, but for their destruction, having more regard to their old variance than their new atonement. For which cause, they should assemble on the other party many people again for their defense, whose power she knew well far stretched. And thus should all the realm fall into a roar. And of all the hurt that thereof should ensue, which was likely not to be little, and the most harm there like to fall where she least it would, all the world would put her and her kindred in the blame and say that they had unwisely and untruly also, broken the amity and peace that the King her husband so prudently made between his kin and hers on his death bed and which the other party faithfully observed.