Arthur Plantagenet, 1st Viscount Lisle

Arthur Plantagenet on Garter Day 1534

Coat of arms of Arthur Plantagenet, Viscount Lisle

Arthur Plantagenet, 1st Viscount Lisle (* between 1461 and 1477 in Calais , † March 3, 1542 in the Tower of London ) was an English peer and illegitimate son of the English King Edward IV. He was thus half-brother of Elizabeth of York , the wife of the first Tudor King Henry VII , and the princes in the Tower , as well as uncle of Henry VIII , who made him Lord Deputy of Calais in 1533. His extensive correspondence from this period, the so-called Lisle Letters, which was confiscated in connection with his charges of high treason in 1540, is an important source for life at the court of Henry VIII.

Life

family

Arthur Plantagenet's date of birth is unknown. All we know is that he was born in Calais. It is also not clear who his mother was. Possibly it was Elizabeth Lucy with whom Edward IV had a relationship before his marriage to Elizabeth Woodville in 1464 , from which came at least one daughter who married Thomas, the son of George, 3rd Baron Lumley , in 1477 . Elizabeth Wayte, another of the king's numerous mistresses, is also considered a mother. Muriel St. Clare Byrne, the editor of the Lisle Letters , identifies the latter with Elizabeth Lucy and dates Arthur's birth to 1462. However, my lord the bastard was first mentioned in an invoice from 1477, so it is also possible to have his date of birth much later to apply. As a child recognized by his father, he spent the first years of his life at his court.

From the reign of his uncle Richard III. there is no news about him. He was not mentioned again until 1501, when he entered the household of his half-sister, Queen Elizabeth of York, as cupbearer . After her death, he held the same office with her widower, King Henry VII. In 1509, the new King Henry VIII appointed him Esquire of the Body , an office which, according to Liber Niger , the manual that governed all processes in the royal household, provided assistance in all everyday activities of the king, including dressing and undressing , demanded and required constant proximity to the king from the owners. Arthur Plantagenet, who was a friendly man without great ambitions, was held in high regard at court and enjoyed the trust of both kings. His nephew Henry VIII called him "the gentlest heart living" .

On November 12, 1511 he married Elizabeth Gray (around 1482 - around 1525), the daughter of Edward Gray, 1st Viscount Lisle , and niece of John Gray of Groby , Elizabeth Woodville's first husband. Her first marriage was to Edmund Dudley, who had been a tax and finance specialist in the service of Henry VII, and was the mother of John Dudley , who from 1549 for Edward VI. should rule. After the death of Henry VII, his successor, Henry VIII, had Edmund Dudley arrested immediately and executed on August 17, 1510. As a wedding present, Arthur Plantagenet received a portion of Dudley's property confiscated from the Crown. He and Elizabeth Gray had three daughters, Frances, Elizabeth, and Bridget. After Elizabeth Grey's brother and teenage daughter died, she inherited the title of 6th Baroness Lisle in 1519 . On April 25, 1523 Plantagenet was given the title Viscount Lisle by Henry VIII. The previous holder of this title, Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk , had to forego the title he had received in 1513 due to his engagement to Elizabeth Grey's niece.

In 1513 Plantagenet was promoted to Knight Bachelor , in 1514 he became High Sheriff of Hampshire and Vice-Admiral in the War of the Holy League against France. However, the English fleet did not land in France. Arthur Plantagenet's ship The Trinyte Sovereigne was also lost. In 1520 he accompanied the king to the peace negotiations in the Camp du Drap d'Or . He was also a member of the Privy Council of England and was inducted into the Order of the Garter as a Knight Companion in 1524 . He remained Vice-Admiral until 1533.

Honor Grenville on the bronze tombstone of her first husband John Basset in St. Mary Church in Atherington / Devon

After the death of his first wife, he married Honor Grenville (around 1493-1566) from Cornwall in 1528, a daughter of Thomas Grenville, who died in 1513 and who had been Esquire of the Body with Henry VII. Her first, much older husband, John Basset, Sheriff of Cornwall and Devon , had died in 1528. Honor had seven children from this marriage, which her new husband raised. Her eldest son John († 1541) married Arthur's daughter Frances. Honor had no further children with Arthur Plantagenet.

In 1532, the married couple Heinrich VIII and Anne Boleyn , at that time still the king's mistress, accompanied them to their meeting with the French King Francis I in Calais. Lady Honor, as the lady-in-waiting of the future queen, danced with the French king. As conservative supporters of the papal church, they were on the side of Catherine of Aragon in the dispute over the divorce and the new marriage of the king .

Calais

Shortly after the king's marriage to Anne Boleyn, Arthur Plantagenet was appointed Constable of Calais and lived with his family in the local Staple Inn from June 1533. He was only allowed to leave Calais with express royal permission. One of his main tasks was to secure the English enclave against France. He was supported by a council from so-called Spears . These influential families often quarreled with each other and with the Lord Deputy , including over fishing rights in the march around the city. There was also dispute between the leading families of Calais loyal to the Pope and the Calvinists , supported by Archbishop Thomas Cranmer , who had fled to Calais from France and were increasingly demanding influence in the city. Arthur Plantagenet has been accused of failing to enforce the Supreme Act , by which the King freed the English Church from its dependence on the Pope and made himself its head. Thomas Cromwell therefore threatened him with dismissal.

In order to maintain influence at court at least from a distance, Lady Honor tried, like her husband a staunch Catholic, to place two of her daughters as ladies- in- waiting at Anne Boleyn, but in vain. For the execution of Anne Boleyn, Arthur Plantagenet had to get a French executioner who could execute the execution with the sword instead of the ax, as is common in England. Since her alleged lover, the royal chamberlain Henry Norris , was also executed with the queen , Plantagenet lost its most important informant and advocate at court. The next Queen Jane Seymour , whose pregnancy cravings for quail Arthur Plantagenet had served, then provided at least one stepdaughter, Anne Bassett (~ 1520–1557), a place at the court, where she was probably a lover of the king from 1539 and at times as future queen was in conversation. She served the later queens and was later maid of honor of the Catholic Queen Mary .

In 1538 Arthur Plantagenet's cousin Margaret Pole , with whom he was in correspondence, two of her sons and her nephew Henry Courtenay , who was first married to Elizabeth Grey's niece, who died in 1519, were arrested in connection with the Exeter conspiracy . Arthur was the last surviving Plantagenet , but as an illegitimate king's son, unlike Margeret Pole and her sons, he could not lay claim to the throne. Because of this and because of his previous loyalty to Henry VIII, he was initially spared. Instead, he was named Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports in 1539 . His stepson-in-law, John Basset, was accepted into the household of Thomas Cromwell.

When Henry VIII married Anna von Kleve , Arthur Plantagenet was responsible for receiving the bride and her entourage on English territory and accommodating them from December 11, 1539 until they were embarked for England on December 27 - at least not at their own expense. After the failure of the marriage brokered by Cromwell, which was to connect England with the Protestant German princes, Henry VIII pursued a policy of rapprochement with France. But then it was discovered that Plantagenet's local chaplain Gregory Botolph was involved in a conspiracy to extradite Calais to France, or at least to Cardinal Reginald Pole , Margaret Pole's son. Apparently the chaplain was even Lady Honors lover. It is very likely that this "discovery" was an intrigue by Cromwell, who wanted to prevent a re-Catholicization, as would have been brought about by rapprochement with France. Plantagenet was recalled to London, ostensibly to be named Earl , and imprisoned in the Tower on May 19, 1540. His wife and the two daughters still living with her were placed under house arrest, the household was dissolved and the correspondence brought to London for investigation. Shortly before, son-in-law John Basset managed to bring his wife and children to live in London.

Cromwell was executed less than two months later. Arthur Plantagenet stayed in prison anyway. In 1541, Margaret Pole, the last legitimate Plantagenet, was executed. After almost two years of investigation - in the meantime Catherine Howard , Anna von Kleve's successor as royal wife, had also died on the scaffold - Plantagenet's innocence turned out. As a token of his restored favor, Henry VIII had his private secretary Thomas Wriothesley bring him a diamond ring along with the message that he would be released. Arthur Plantagenet died of a heart attack the following night, allegedly out of joy at the news, and was buried in the Church of St. Peter ad Vincula in the Tower. Lady Honor was also released, got her property back and moved to her property in Cornwall.

progeny

Arthur Plantagenet had three daughters with his first wife, Elizabeth Gray, of whom Frances married her stepbrother John Basset in 1538. John Basset had trained at Lincoln's Inn in London from 1536-38 and had then entered the service of Thomas Cromwell. He died in 1541 while his parents were in prison, leaving behind his wife with two daughters, Honor and Eleanor. His posthumously born son Arthur (1541–1586) inherited his father's property in Devon. Unlike his Catholic grandparents, he was a Puritan . His son Robert Basset (1573–1641) raised claims to the throne after the death of Queen Elizabeth I in 1603 due to his descent from the House of Plantagenet. Because of this or because of rumors that he was Catholic, he fled abroad. In 1611 he was allowed to return. Frances went into a second marriage to Thomas Monke, from which she had six other children. A great-grandson from this connection was George Monck, 1st Duke of Albemarle . Frances probably died before 1559.

The daughter Elizabeth did not accompany the father to Calais, but lived in the household of her half-brother John Dudley, who married her to Sir Francis Jobson. He had been secretary and head of house in his household and hoped the marriage would bring political and financial benefits. In fact, Jobson made a career in, among other things, the court of augmentations responsible for the dissolution of the English monasteries and received considerable shares in the lands freed up as a result. Imprisoned for a short time after Dudley's fall, he was pardoned after a few weeks and was a member of Parliament under Queen Mary . From 1564 he was Lieutenant of the Tower in London. There were five children from the marriage. When Elisabeth was dying in 1569, Queen Elisabeth sent her her personal physicians, who were only able to extend her life by a few days.

The youngest daughter, Bridget, was sent to St Mary's Convent in Winchester for education in 1533 . In 1538 she fled the monastery to a relative and was brought to Calais by her stepmother. She was underage when her father and stepmother were arrested. She married a Sir William Cawarden around 1550 after her father's rehabilitation. In 1559 she was a widow.

The Lisle Letters

The Lisle Letters are the largest collection of letters from the Tudor period. The bundle includes around 3,000 letters that Arthur Plantagenet and his wife received during their stay in Calais between 1533 and 1540, some of which they wrote themselves. Many of these letters were written by the merchant John Husee, who served the Lord Deputy of Calais as an agent in London. In addition to the correspondence that Lady Honor conducted with her children and stepchildren and with the administrators of her property in Cromwell, there are also letters from and to politicians and personalities at the royal court. The letters show that Arthur Plantagenet was a conscientious but not particularly skilled administrator who was constantly in need of money. His marriage to the energetic Lady Honor was a happy one, as can be seen from some love letters. The education of the children and stepchildren is also documented. Beyond the personal, the letters are an important source for politics, court life and economy. It is learned that it was customary to pay household members of competitors as spies and how politics was made through gifts.

Muriel St. Clare Byrne began transcribing the letters held in the National Archives in the 1930s. The commented letters could not be published until shortly before her death.

literature

• Muriel St. Clare Byrne (Ed.): The Lisle Letters. 6 volumes, University of Chicago Press, 1981, ISBN 9780226088013 (transcripts of 1,677 documents).
• Muriel St. Clare Byrne, Bridget Boland (Eds.): The Lisle Letters. At Abridgement. University of Chicago Press, 1983, ISBN 9780226088006 ( excerpt ).

Web links

• Arthur Plantagenet, 1st Viscount Lisle on thepeerage.com
• arthurplantagenet.com
• Arthur Plantagenet (1st V. Lisle) at tudorplace.com.ar
• Arthur Plantagenet, Viscount Lisle at englishmonarchs.co.uk
• Lisle Papers

Individual evidence

1. ^ Byrne / Boland: The Lisle Letters: An Abridgement , 1983, p. 2.
2. ^ Seth Lerer: Courtly Letters in the Age of Henry VIII: Literary Culture and the Arts of Deceit, Cambridge Studies in Renaissance Literature and Culture , 18, Cambridge University Press 2006, pp. 107f.
3. ^ ^{A b} Hugh Trevor-Roper: Foreword zu Byrne / Boland: The Lisle Letters: An Abridgement , 1983, p. Xi.
4. ^ Arthur Plantagenet - not quite royal and not a traitor.
5. ↑ Charles Mosley (Ed.): Burke's Peerage, Baronetage & Knightage . Volume 3, Burke's Peerage (Genealogical Books) Ltd, Wilmington 2003, p. 4079.
6. ^ William Arthur Shaw: The Knights of England. Volume 2, Sherratt and Hughes, London 1906, p. 40.
7. ^ William Arthur Shaw: The Knights of England. Volume 1, Sherratt and Hughes, London 1906, p. 21.
8. ↑ Byrne / Boland (eds.): The Lisle Letters: An Abridgment , 1983, p. 14.
9. ^ Hugh Trevor-Roper: Foreword zu Byrne / Boland: The Lisle Letters: An Abridgement , 1983, p. Xii.
10. ^ Hugh Trevor-Roper: Foreword zu Byrne / Boland: The Lisle Letters: An Abridgement , 1983, p. Xviif.
11. ↑ Byrne / Boland (eds.): The Lisle Letters: An Abridgment , 1983, pp. 309f.
12. ↑ Muriel St. Clare Byrne (Ed.): The Lisle Letters , 6 volumes, University of Chicago Press, Chicago & London, 1981, Vol. 6, p. 104.
13. ^ Hugh Trevor-Roper: Foreword zu Byrne / Boland: The Lisle Letters: An Abridgement , 1983, pp. Xxiif.
14. ↑ Bassett, Arthur (1541-86), of Umberleigh, Devon .
15. ^ PW Hasler: Bassett, Robert (1574-1641), of Umberleigh, Devon .
16. ^ Jobson, Sir Francis (by 1509-73), of Monkwick, no. Colchester, Essex.
17. ^ Hugh Trevor-Roper: Foreword zu Byrne / Boland: The Lisle Letters: An Abridgement , 1983, p. Xiiif.

predecessor	Office	successor
New title created	Viscount Lisle 1523-1542	Title expired