Robert Whittingham

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Grave of Sir Robert Whittingham and his wife. Brought from Ashridge to St. John the Baptist, Aldbury, Hertfordshire in 1575

Sir Robert Whittingham (* around 1420; † May 4, 1471 at Tewkesbury ) was an English knight .

Life

He was the eldest of four sons of Sir Robert Whittingham († 1452). He was a devoted supporter of the House of Lancaster and King Henry VI. and Queen Margaret of Anjou and had various posts in the immediate vicinity of the royal couple, e.g. B. Usher of Kings chamber, Keeper of the Queens wardrobe, Receiver-General to Prince Edward .

He fought during the Wars of the Roses for the House of Lancester at the Battle of Wakefield December 1460 and Towton March 1461. After the defeat at Towton, he fled with Henry VI. and Margaret of Anjou in exile in Scotland. After the coronation of Edward IV from the House of York in March 1461, he was ostracized by a parliamentary resolution ( Bill of Attainder ) and lost all rights. His possessions, e.g. B. Pendley Manor in Tring, Hertfordshire , were confiscated.

Together with Henry Beaufort, 2nd Duke of Somerset and Baron Hungerford , he was sent by Queen Margaret to France in July 1461 to seek help from the French King Charles VII . Specifically, it was about soldiers, ships and a loan of 20,000 kroner. Before their audience, Charles VII died on July 22, 1461 and his son Louis XI. ascended the throne. Louis XI, who was not friendly to Margaret of Anjou, had Henry Beaufort imprisoned and Baron Hungerford and Robert Whittingham placed under house arrest in Dieppe . At the end of August 1461, Louis XI changed his opinion, since Edward IV was an ally of the Duchy of Burgundy , his rivals, and received Baron Hungerford and Sir Robert Whittingham and assured assistance.

Sir Robert left France and in June 1462 he accompanied Margaret of Anjou and her son Edward with an army to Carlisle , where they besieged Carlisle Castle. But they were pushed west by the troops of Lord Montagu .

From autumn 1462, the troops held Lancaster, led by Baron Hungerford and Sir Robert Whittingham, in Alnwick Castle a siege by the Earl of Warwick stood and were starved on January 1, 1463 by Scottish troops under the Earl of Angus and Pierre de Brézé freed .

Sir Robert later accompanied Margaret into exile again in 1463, to France, where he stayed at her court there. In 1468 Sir Robert reached the last bastion of the House of Lancaster , Harlech Castle in Wales, which had been besieged for years to aid the troops there. On August 14, 1468, however, the besieged had to give up. Some of the besieged were executed, others captured and locked in the Tower in London , among them Sir Robert Whittingham. Sir Robert was finally pardoned and released by Edward IV.

On May 4, 1471, Sir Robert fought at the Battle of Tewkesbury and fell. His final resting place today is St. John the Baptist Church, Aldbury, Hertfordshire.

Marriage and offspring

He had at least one daughter with his wife Agnes:

  • Margaret Whittingham ⚭ John Verney

literature

  • Michael Hicks: Richard III and his Rivals. Magnates & their motives in the wars of the roses. Hambleton Press, London 1991.
  • Samuel Daniel: The collection of the History of England. Volume 5, F. Leach, London 1685.
  • Anne Holt, J. Wedgewood, GB Parliament Committee on History of Parliament (Ed.): History of Parliament. Biographies of Members of the Commons House. HM Stationary Press, London 1936.
  • Alison Weir: Lancester and York. The war of the roses . Random House, London 2011, ISBN 978-1-446-44917-2 .
  • John Sadler: The red rose and the white. The wars of the roses 1453-1487. Routledge 2014, ISBN 978-1-317-90517-2 .
  • Michael Hicks: The Wars of the Roses. Yale University Press, 2010, ISBN 978-0-300-11423-2 .
  • Alison Weir: The Wars of the Roses. Random House Publishing, 1995, ISBN 978-0-345-40433-6 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ WHITTINGHAM, Robert (d.1452) in History of Parliament Online
  2. ↑ Sir Robert Whittingham . In: gentrekker.com . Retrieved February 15, 2016.
  3. ^ Altar Tomb of Sir Robert Whittingham & Wife, Pendley Chapel, St John The Baptist Church, Aldbury, Herts, UK . In: waymarking.com . Retrieved February 15, 2016.
personal data
SURNAME Whittingham, Robert
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Whittingham, Sir Robert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English knight
DATE OF BIRTH around 1420
DATE OF DEATH May 4, 1471
Place of death Tewkesbury