The New Murrey and Blue blog

We all know that Edward IV’s youngest daughter, Bridget (born 10th November 1480), became a nun…or at least, entered the Dominican priory at Dartford at the age of ten. Not as a nun then, of course, because she was too young, but maybe she was always intended for the Church. And Dartford was a priory with aristocratic and family connections, including her paternal grandmother, Cecily, Duchess of York. Not your average House of God, I think.

If you go to this article you will find the following intriguing paragraph:-

“…. A new theory has come to light. One source believes she [Bridget] gave birth to an illegitimate child, a girl named Agnes, in 1498. Pregnancies were obviously very unusual at a priory and the cause of great scandal, though they did happen. There are no confirmed births to any of the nuns of Dartford. Still, this girl supposedly became a ward of the priory, her expenses paid by the queen. She was called Agnes of Eltham, a reference to the palace where Bridget was born….Agnes later left the Priory and was married Adam Langstroth, the head of a landed family in Yorkshire (the ancestral home of the Yorks and refuge of York loyalists in the early Tudor period) with ‘a considerable dowry….”

Now, the source of this story is, apparently Elizabeth of York by Alison Weir, but where she got it I don’t know. Agnes’s financial needs were provided for by Elizabeth of York until the latter’s death in 1503. This might indicate that the story of Bridget and Agnes is true, for Agnes could well have been Elizabeth’s niece. The sources for Elizabeth’s involvement are The Life and Reign of King Henry VIII by Lord Edward Herbert of Cherbury (London, 1649) and Wives and Daughters: The Women of Sixteenth-Century England by Kathy Lynn Emerson (1984). I have found these references, but not actually read the publications concerned, but I imagine that they do indeed confirm the financial connection with Elizabeth of York.

An Adam Langstroth and his family can be traced to Arncliffe (and Cosh) both villages to be found in Littondale, Yorkshire. Whether or not he married Bridget’s daughter Agnes I cannot say, but he does seem to have had an Agnes as his wife.

A little further digging about Adam Langstroth reveals that he was a retainer of the 10^th Lord Clifford, son of the 9^th Lord, who is said to have killed Edmund of Rutland at Wakefield in 1460. It is believe that the 9th Lord Clifford acted out of revenge for the killing of his father (8th Lord Clifford) by the Yorkists at the 1455 Battle of St Albans. Langstroth was with the 10th Lord Clifford at the Battle of Flodden Field in 1513.

Today is New Year’s Day, and so I raise a glass to Agnes, and hope that she lived happily ever after, with lots of presents every Christmas season!