Affinity

How Edward IV’s bigamy should have been resolved

Jul 17, 2023

Alternative History, anniversaries, battles, genealogy, law, religion

Affinity, banns, bigamy, canon law, Castillon, Catherine de Roet, Catholicism, Church of England, consanguinity, Council of Trent, dispensations, Elizabeth Wydeville, family law, Henry VIII, illegitimacy, infertility, John Earl of Shrewsbury, John of Gaunt, lack of consent, Lady Eleanor Talbot, Lumley-Conyers marriage, Moynihan barony, non-consummation, Papal Legate, pre-contract, R.H. Helmholz, Ralph Butler Baron Sudeley, Reformation, Sixtus IV, Statute of Merton, widows, witchcraft

Canon law, as practiced in most of Europe to the late mediaeval period, is noticeably different to the laws of the United Kingdom today, although it is somewhat looser today in several ways. Consequently, secret marriages were banned eventually, only first cousins now require dispensations and relationships do not beget affinity, although previous manages still…
Marriage in Medieval London And Extricating Oneself Only You Couldn’t…

Jun 8, 2023

anniversaries, buildings, law, religion

a mensa et thoro, a vincula, adultery, Affinity, amnesia, annulments, banns, bigamy, Church courts, coercion, consanguinity, consummation, contracts, cruelty, denial, divorce, Edward IV, fornication, future consent, heresy, Lady Eleanor Talbot, love, marriage, mediaeval canon law, present consent, validity, witnesses

My lastest A Medieval Potpourri @sparkypus.com post. Artist’s impression of a medieval wedding being solemnised. ‘Frieze of a Medieval Wedding’. Artist Thomas Stothard (1755-1835) Yale Centre for British Art. I have, in my most recent meanderings, meandered quite a bit. Of late I’ve meandered from the Plague Pits of London 1665 to Gleaston Castle, rendezvous…
Sibling marriages again

Mar 22, 2022

anniversaries, archaeology, law, religion, Science, sources

Affinity, Alexandra Sinclair, Anne Beauchamp, Anne Neville, Beauchamp Pageant, canon law, Cecily Neville the Younger, Constance of Castile, denialists, Edmund of Langley, Eleanor of Provence, George Duke of Clarence, Henry Duke of Warwick, Henry III, Hicks, incest, Isabel of Castile, Isobel Neville, John of Gaunt, Leicester Greyfriars, marriage ceremony, Richard Earl of Cornwall, Richard III, Richard III’s remains, Richard of Warwick, Sanchia of Provence, sibling double marriages

In the teeth of the evidence, some authors maintain that Richard Duke of Gloucester and Anne Neville required a third dispensation because his brother had already wed her sister, an argument that Barnfield has conclusively fisked. We don’t have to go very far to find a similar case of sibling marriages – the Neville sisters’…
Edward IV, Dame Eleanor and the Phantom Web of Impediments

Jul 28, 2020

genealogy, law, religion

Affinity, Anne Mowbray, Calendar of Papal Register, Catholic Encyclopedia, Cheshire, common stock, consanguinity, consanguinity test, denialists, Edward IV, Elizabeth Wydeville, Fourth Lateran Council, Gregory I, Hicks, impediments, John Earl of Shrewsbury, Lady Eleanor Talbot, Lady Elizabeth Talbot, Maude Furnivall, mediaeval canon law, pre-contract, Ricardian Bulletin, Richard of Shrewsbury, Sir John Grey of Groby, Sir Thomas Butler, St. Augustine

Introduction The precontract (i.e. prior marriage) between Edward IV and Eleanor Butler, née Talbot, has long been a subject of debate, but what has not previously been claimed is that Edward and Eleanor were so closely related as to have been unable to make a valid marriage without a special dispensation from the Pope. Recently,…
The black widow that bit herself

Jul 10, 2020

anniversaries, battles, genealogy, law, religion

Affinity, bigamy, consanguinity, denialists, dispensations, Edward I, Edward IV, Elizabeth Wydeville, Jacquetta of Luxembourg, John Ashdown-Hill, John Duke of Bedford, John Earl of Shrewsbury, John of Gaunt, Lady Eleanor Talbot, Latrodecta, Maud Neville, mediaeval canon law, Northampton, pre-contract, Ricardian Loons, step-parents

Since John Ashdown-Hill’s iconic Eleanor was published eleven years ago, we have seen some desperate attempts to contradict his proven conclusion that Lady Eleanor Talbot contracted a valid marriage to Edward IV before his contract to Elizabeth Widville and many such attempts have rebounded on the denialist in question. Now a troll naming herself Latrodecta…
An enquiry

Jun 8, 2018

anniversaries, genealogy, law, religion

“Eleanor”, Affinity, bigamy, Edward I, Edward IV, Elizabeth of Suffolk, Henry Duke of Somerset, John Ashdown-Hill, John Earl of Shrewsbury, Lady Eleanor Talbot, Marie Barnfield, Parliament, secret marriage

Today in 1461, Lady Eleanor Talbot married Edward IV, either on her Warwickshire lands or in Norfolk. As Ashdown-Hill has shown, she was older than Edward, a widow, from a Lancastrian background and the ceremony took place in secret during the spring, five factors that also apply to Edward’s bigamous marriage almost three years later.…
Give this Knight Errant a miss….!

Jun 19, 2017

Book Reviews

“Tudor” propaganda, Affinity, Anne Neville, Countess of Oxford, Edward IV, Edward of Middleham, Edward Woodville, fairy tales, Henry VI, Lord Protector of the Realm, pre-contract, Shakespeare, Stillington, Tewkesbury, Thomas More, Woodvilles

If you support Richard III and believe history has “done him wrong”, for heaven’s sake do not read The Last Knight Errant: Sir Edward Woodville and the Age of Chivalry by Christopher Wilkins. I made the mistake, and it soon struck me that the author had learned by rote every single myth about Richard, and…
Richard and “Incest”

Apr 28, 2016

law

Affinity, Anne Beauchamp, Anne Neville, canon law, Cecily Neville the Younger, Constanza of Castile, denialists, Edmund of Langley, George Duke of Clarence, Henry Duke of Warwick, Hicks, incest, Isabel of Castile, John of Gaunt, Marie Barnfield, Richard III, Richard of Warwick, sibling double marriages

In BBC History, Richard III Special Edition, Professor Hicks returns to his theory that Richard III’s marriage to Anne Neville was incestuous because of the prior marriage of his brother, George Clarence, to Isabel Neville. I have to confess to surprise that a historian of Professor Hicks’ fame and academic stature is still chasing this…
To avoid any confusion:

Aug 1, 2015

genealogy

“Eleanor”, Affinity, Anne Beauchamp, Anne Neville, consanguinity, dispensations, Edward IV, Elizabeth Woodville, Fourth Lateran Council, George Duke of Clarence, Henry Duke of Warwick, Jacquetta of Luxembourg, John Ashdown-Hill, John of Bedford, John of Gaunt, Lady Eleanor Talbot, Margaret Beauchamp, Marie Barnfield, Richard Beauchamp Earl of Warwick, Richard III, Richard of Warwick

When Edward IV married Lady Eleanor Talbot in spring 1461, they were not more closely related than fourth cousins, through her mother, Margaret Beauchamp (see Eleanor, fig.11). Under the rules of the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215 (p.112), such distant blood relations were permitted to marry without a dispensation. It no longer amounted to consanguinity.…
Another reason for the myth of Owain Tudor

Feb 3, 2015

genealogy, law

Affinity, canon law, Catherine de Valois, Edmund Duke of Somerset, Henry V, Henry VI, John of Gaunt, Owen Tudor

Catherine de Valois’ first husband was Henry V, who was clearly the grandson of John of Gaunt. Edmund Beaufort, later Duke of Somerset, is traditionally regarded as Gaunt’s grandson as well, although his father may have been a legitimate Swynford. Quite apart from the 1420s legislation banning royal stepmothers such as Catherine from remarrying without…