The New Murrey and Blue blog

In mid-November I posted about whether or not Richard III’s illegitimate son, known as John of Gloucester or John of Pontefract, could possibly have had children. See here https://murreyandblue.org/2024/11/12/could-john-of-gloucester-have-had-children/.

Richard III had an illegitimate daughter, Katherine, who became Countess of Pembroke but she died childless, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Herbert,_2nd_Earl_of_Pembroke). There are no other confirmed offspring of Richard III, except John of Gloucester.

Richard (see https://richardiii.net/) lost his only legitimate son, Edward of Middleham, Prince of Wales, (https://richardiii.net/richard-iii-his-world/his-family/edward-of-middleham-son/), when the boy passed away suddenly the year before his father.

John of Gloucester was hale, hearty and still very much alive on his father’s death at Bosworth in August 1485. John was believed to have been somewhere between fourteen and sixteen at the time, so was certainly of an age to have sired children. (Fourteen was considered the age for a boy to consummate a marriage.) It’s not known when, after Bosworth, Henry VII imprisoned John, but there was certainly a period before and after when the boy could have been with girls. He’d been created Captain of Calais, and maybe he had a girlfriend in the town?

John is believed to have been executed in 1499 at the same time as Perkin Warbeck (https://richardiii.net/faqs/richard-and-his-world/aftermath/perkin-warbeck/) and Edward, 17th Earl of Warwick (https://www.englishmonarchs.co.uk/plantagenet_25.html).

Any children John had sired would have been illegitimate because it would be known if he’d ever married. But that’s immaterial, because the fact is that a son of Richard III could have carried on his father’s line, albeit on the wrong side of the blanket.

When it comes to Kings of England who died childless, another of particular interest to those of us studying the Wars of the Roses is Henry VI (see https://www.warsoftheroses.com/people/henry-vi/). His only son, Edward of Westminster, Prince of Wales, https://discover.hubpages.com/education/War-of-the-Roses-Edward-of-Westminster-the-Forgotten-Prince), was killed during the Battle of Tewkesbury in 1471 (see https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryMagazine/DestinationsUK/The-Battle-of-Tewkesbury/). There are conflicting accounts of how he died. Henry himself passed on not long afterwards, rather helped on his way, I fear. (But not by Richard III, then Duke of Gloucester.)

Henry VI wasn’t the happiest of monarchs, being deeply religious, mentally weak and prone to episodes of inertia that rendered him incapable of doing anything. Since 1445 the king had been married to his French queen, the strong, determined, ruthless Margaret of Anjou (see https://www.warsoftheroses.com/people/margaret-of-anjou/). That’s eight years without any sign of children. Then suddenly, at the beginning of 1453, she conceives when Henry is virtually unconscious?

I had always thought that his inability included the begetting of children, but have been informed that it doesn’t matter how “inactive” he was, he could still have been brought to attention, so to speak. (This is arguable, see the comments following my post https://murreyandblue.org/2024/12/02/richard-3rd-duke-of-yorks-just-claim-to-the-throne/.) I cannot comment further on something of which I know nothing, but I still remain sceptical that the boy born on 13 October 1453 “while Henry was in a catatonic stupor” was Henry’s trueborn offspring.

Margaret was many things but I don’t think she “assaulted/abused” Henry to do the necessary. She might have done (I wasn’t a fly on the wall so have no real idea) but it seems more likely that she took a suitable lover. As I’ve written before, I believe that lover was Edmund Beaufort, 2nd Duke of Somerset. So the rumour went, anyway.

However, the true paternity of the baby was of little consequence because when Henry VI came out of his catatonic stupor, although he can hardly have had a clue about anything that had happened in the meantime, he acknowledged the boy as his own. By doing this, he granted Edward of Westminster a legitimate royal parentage, and confirmed him as Prince of Wales.

Anyway, I digress, because my purpose in this post is to draw a parallel between John of Gloucester and Edward of Westminster. The parallel being that they were both the acknowledged sons of deceased kings and were of an age to have fathered children of their own.

Edward had been married to the younger daughter of Richard Neville, 16^th Earl of Warwick, the “Kingmaker” (see https://richardiii.net/richard-iii-his-world/his-family/the-making-of-the-kingmaker/). Her name was Anne Neville (see https://richardiii.net/richard-iii-his-world/his-family/anne-neville-wife/). It’s thought by many that she wanted to marry Richard (they’d known each other from childhood), but was given no choice by her father, who had switched sides from York to Lancaster. Like it or not, she married Edward. After his death at Tewkesbury she married Richard, Duke of Gloucester, who was to be Richard III. She became Queen Anne, as she would have done had Edward of Westminster lived and been on the winning side at Tewkesbury. It was a small world.

The Kingmaker’s dearest wish had been to see one of his daughters on the throne of England, but I doubt if even he ever imagined just how it would eventually come about.

It’s almost certain her first marriage to Edward wasn’t consummated, probably because, should a better wife than the Kingmaker’s younger daughter be found for the future Lancastrian King of England, Edward’s mother, Margaret of Anjou, would be able to have the marriage annulled due to non-consummation. At least, this is one reason put forward.

Edward was still seventeen when he died, more than old enough to have been “playing the field” for a few years. It wouldn’t be surprising if he left some little baseborn Edwards in his wake. Just as John of Gloucester could have left some baby Johns in his wake. But the difference between the two young men was that Edward was married.

How many of us around today have any real idea of our family history beyond about five or six generations? We might have an immense shock if we had our lineage/DNA traced back to the 15^th century and found some very interesting ancestors.

I’ve written above that the nonconsummation wasn’t known for certain, and I’m not by any means the first on this blog to have wondered about Edward of Westminster/Lancaster having been a father. Way back in 2014 Sighthound6 also wrote of this possibility (see here https://murreyandblue.org/2014/11/13/a-strange-tale-from-the-reign-of-henry-viii/). More than merely wondering about it, Sighthound6 added the jaw-dropping possibility that the mother of such a child might have been his wife, Anne Neville!

My input again now. If Anne had borne a legitimate Lancastrian heir, it certainly wasn’t widely known. Early pregnancy can be hidden, especially if morning sickness is within reason. And even morning sickness can be explained away….and faked at other times of the day. So a pregnancy might only have been known in a very narrow circle, probably her most intimate ladies. And probably not Edward of Westminster or his mother Queen Margaret of Anjou. I don’t know why Anne wouldn’t have let it be known. Perhaps she was simply frightened. But she was the prince’s wife and they were both of age to consummate their marriage, so Sighthound6’s thought is riveting.

The timing is rather difficult, but not impossible. Anne and the prince were married probably 31 December 1470, and he died at Tewkesbury in April 1471. Anne was captured after the battle and ended up in the hands of her brother-in-law George of Clarence, who didn’t want his brother Richard of Gloucester to have her. (George hoped to hang on to all the immense Warwick inheritance.) If she was pregnant, she might have been able to hide the fact with loose clothing….and the sterling help of her sister Isabel, George’s wife. As Sighthound 6 points out, “….Does this explain Anne’s temporary disappearance from the Clarence household?….”

After all, they were siblings, their father’s only legitimate children, and maybe Isabel would feel she had to protect Anne from the undoubted danger she’d be in had it been known she was carrying Edward of Westminster’s heir. Lancastrians would want to secure the child who was the undoubted heir to their cause, and Yorkists would want to seize the child for the same reason. So, could the baby have been born and then spirited away secretly and safely from both sides?

I couldn’t have hidden the fact that I’d given birth…stretch marks are a dead giveaway. But not every woman has stretch marks. Maybe Anne was lucky. So could she have then married Richard of Gloucester (actual date not known, but dispensation was granted in 1472) without anyone the wiser, including Richard?

My realms of fiction and fantasy again, I grant, but—with another nod of thanks to Sighthound6—I leave you to ponder.