The New Murrey and Blue blog

Reblogged from A Medieval Potpourri @sparkypus.com

A delightful artist’s impression of ‘Richard Whittington dispensing his charities’.  Artist Henrietta Ray before 1905 oil on canvas.  Royal exchange.

Even the most disinterested in history children would recognise the name Dick/Richard Whittington and also his best, and only friend,  his cat,  most of them being familiar with the rather delightful folk story, which dates back to the 17th century,  as well as perhaps even more so,  the pantomime.   As they watch and excitedly yell ‘Behind You. …  !’ etc., they are probably unaware that Richard Whittington was a real man who lived in medieval times  and although sadly he did not have a cat he did much good and the results of his benevolence still, astonishingly,  survive up until today.

Richard Whittington c.1350-1423 was born in Pauntley Court Manor House in the small village of  Pauntley , Gloucestershire and presumably he was baptised in the ancient parish church there,  St John the Evangelist.    He  was the son of Sir William Whittington d.1358, a landowner and  Joan Maunsel (1).

Pauntley Court Manor house today.  It was here that Richard Whittington was born c.1350

St John the Evangelist Church, Pauntley, Gloucestershire.  It’s highly likely Richard  was baptised in this ancient church.

It is said  Richard’s father was experiencing some financial difficulty but in any case being the third and youngest son and thus highly unlikely to stand much chance of coming into a useful inheritance he was apprenticed at an unknown date to a London mercer.  The mercers of those times dealt with the wonderful luxurious fabrics worn by the nobility and  well to do:  silk, linen, fustian, worsted, and luxury small goods, and the wealthiest of the trade expected to participate in the export of English wool, woollen cloth, and worsted, and to import the other merceries (2).    While some young men may have ended up bitter,  twisted  and truculent by being sent away from their families to take up a trade instead of effortlessly inheriting the family jewels,  young Richard seems to have taken to it like a duck to water becoming very proficient in his trade but perhaps it is more a modern trait to endlessly whinge about how unfair life can be and how hard done by you are.     He supplied his luxury goods to members of  the royal court and in doing so he  became a favourite of Richard II.   These members of the  nobility included  John of Gaunt,  Thomas of Woodstock, Henry Bolingbroke (the future Henry IV),  the Staffords and ‘royal favourite Robert de Vere to whom he supplied nearly £2,000 worth of mercery’.   The king himself now turned to Richard to supply his wants and needs.  Initially it was quite modest buys including in 1389 £11 for two cloths of gold which the king gifted to two knights who had come down from Scotland as messengers.   However  in 1392-4 Richard’s career as a mercer was on a roll when he sold goods worth £3,474 16s 8 and half pence to the Royal Wardrobe.  These goods includes velvets, cloths of gold, damasks taffetas and gold embroidered velvets.   Richard Whittington had arrived as they say.  Anne Sutton wrote that Richard II and his uncle Thomas of Woodstock were perhaps Richard’s most profit spinning customers.  Clearly the   goods Richard supplied, some from Italy,  must have been exquisite – he has been described by Caroline Barron as a  connoisseur of works of craftsmanship – and when Bolingbroke took the throne as Henry IV,  Richard would continue to supply Henry’s court with luxury wares.    These would include some of the sumptuous  fabrics required for the marriages of the king’s daughters Philippa and Blanche such as 10 cloths of gold for Blanche’s marriage at a total cost of £215 13s 4d and pearls and cloths of gold costing £248 10s 6d for Philippa’s nuptials.

Besides providing wonderful things he also made many loans to Richard II as well as Henry IV and his son, Henry V.   At the time of Richard II was evicted from the throne he still owed £1,000 to our Richard.  The newly crowned Henry IV agreed that Richard should be repaid this amount.   Richard’s career,  now a very wealthy man, had evolved into that of a successful money lender particularly to kings and those of the nobility including Sir Simon Burley and John Beaufort, earl of Somerset.    From 23 August 1388 to 23 July 1422, he made least 59 separate loans to the Crown of sums ranging from £4 to £2,833 (3) 

About 1402 Richard made an advantageous marriage to  Alice, daughter of Sir Ivo Fitzwaryn, a wealthy landowner who had no male heirs.  This marriage thus brought with it  the prospect of a generous inheritance.  In 1402 Fitzwaryn actually settled properties in Somerset and Wiltshire upon his daughter and new son-in-law but Richard,  ever preferring liquid capital to property,  offered the titles to his brother-in-law,  John Chideok,  for the sum of £340 (4).  However as things came to pass Alice predeceased both her father and husband.   Sadly there would be no children –  or surviving children –  from the marriage which seems to have been happy and when Alice fell mortally ill in 1409/10 Richard obtained a special licence from the king to bring a renowned Jewish doctor –  Master Thomas Sampson from Mierbeawe  – over from the continent to treat her.  After Alice’s death Richard would remain a widower for the rest of his life. 

Blue plaque outside 20 College Hill, EC4, the site of Richard Whittington’s London house.   College Hill was first known c.1231 as Pasternosterchurchstreet commemorating the church that stood nearby later shortened to Pasternosterstret by 1265 and then to  ‘La Riole’  c.1303 after the foreign wine merchants to dwelt there named it after La Reole in Burgundy.   

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