The New Murrey and Blue blog

While seeking information that might help with the child marriage of Robert de Vere, 9th Earl of Oxford and Philippa de Coucy, granddaughter of King Edward III, I came upon this link which is from Illustrations of Ancient State and Chivalry, From Manuscripts Preserved In The Ashmolean Museum, edited by William Henry Black and first published in 1840. Be warned, it’s no friend to Richard III, whom the author clearly considers to have been Satan’s right hand at the very least.

However, I was initially drawn to this interesting publication because it describes the more famous 1478 child marriage of Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York, and Lady Anne Mowbray, which, like de Vere’s , took place in St Stephen’s Chapel, Westminster. (You can read more about medieval child marriages here from where I have taken the top illustration.)

But as I then read on, past other descriptions of occasions of less concern to me, I eventually came (page xviii) to an account of Thomas of Woodstock, 1st Duke of Gloucester, and his  murder in Calais on 8/9 September 1397. The precise date isn’t known for certain, only that it was on one of these two days. If the version of events in Illustrations of Ancient State and Chivalry, From Manuscripts Preserved In The Ashmolean Museum is accurate, the duke’s demise certainly wasn’t what’s depicted in the famous illustrations below!

You can read the publication at the above link, or purchase it from Amazon, and I’m sure, at other outlets too.

Incidentally, Thomas of Woodstock had a child bride too. When he was twenty-one he married 10-year-old Eleanor de Bohun, elder of the two heiress daughters of Humphrey de Bohun, 7th Earl of Norfolk, who’d been exceedingly wealthy. Thomas wanted all the inheritance and did his utmost to “persuade” the younger sister, Mary, to take the veil. He didn’t succeed. She married Henry of Bolingbroke, the future Henry IV, and was the mother of Henry V.