The Strife of the Roses and Days of the Tudors in the WestRogers, W. H. Hamilton (William Henry Hamilton)
History
The Strife of the Roses and Days of the Tudors in the West
Rogers, W. H. Hamilton (William Henry Hamilton)
Great Britain -- History -- Tudors, 1485-1603; Great Britain -- History -- Wars of the Roses, 1455-1485
A fatally hazardous undertaking in those days of merciless reprisals,
and so it turned out. Whatever the well-meaning King may have promised
and perhaps really wished, his wife, the determined Margaret, was the
"master of the situation," and the arbiter of their destiny; nor was
she probably wanting in prompters calculated to urge her to wreak the
worst vengeance upon her husband's guardians. However that may be, it
is recorded, that as she turned from the battle-field in the evening,
she left orders for their decapitation the next day, and the barbarous
sentence was promptly carried out.
Weever says,--
"Sir _Thomas Kiriell_ was beheaded with the Lord _Bouvile_ the
day after the second battell at _St. Albons_, in the raigne of
king Henry the sixth: or slain in the battell according to John
Harding.
'The Lords of the north southward came,
To Sainct _Albones_, vpon fasting gang eve
Wher then thei slewe the Lord Bouvile I leve
And Sir _Thomas Kyriell_ also of Kent,
With mekell folke, that pitee was to se.'"
The old chronicler Hollingshed describing this unhappy transaction
tells us with greater truth,--
"When the daie was closed, those that were about the king (in
number a twenty thousand) hearing how euill their fellowes had
sped, began utterlie to despair of the victorie, and so fell
without anie long tarriance to running awaie. By reason whereof,
the nobles that were about the king, perceiving how the game
went, and withall saw no comfort in the king, but rather a good
will and affection toward the contrarie part, they withdrew also,
leauing the king accompanied by the Lord Bonneuille and Sir
Thomas Kiriell of Kent, which vpon assurance of the king's
promise, tarried with him and fled not. But their trust deceived
them, for at the queenes departing from Saint Albons they were
both beheaded, though contrarie to the mind and promise of her
husband."
No record exists of Lord Bonville's burial place. At the first battle
of St. Alban's, in 1455, the Abbot craved the bodies of the slain
nobles from the victors, and buried them in the choir of the Abbey
Church. But after this second engagement, Margaret's ill-paid,
freebooting soldiers pillaged the town and abbey, so that probably
those that perished were hastily interred near where they fell. This
plundering the abbey "entirely changed the worthy Abbot Whethamstede's
politics, and from being a zealous Lancastrian, he became a Yorkist."
Lord Bonville's ancestors in the direct line were mostly, if not all,
buried in the choir of Newenham Abbey Church, near Axminster, of which
hardly a trace now remains.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account