Thomas Vaughan (politician, around 1410)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sir Thomas Vaughan (* around 1410; † June 25, 1483 in Pontefract Castle ) was a Welsh politician, courtier, military man and diplomat.

Rise as a member of the lower nobility

There is no reliable information about the youth of Vaughan. He was a son of Robert Vaughan of Monmouth and his wife Margaret. He must not be confused with his namesake Thomas Vaughan from Tretower , who died around 1493 and to whom he may have been distantly related.

In the 1440s, Vaughan was a henchman in the service of John Beaufort, Earl of Somerset . He was a steward of Herefordshire and Ewyas and was on June 15, 1446 Constable of Abergavenny Castle and steward of the Abergavenny lordship, he also held offices in other lordships of the Beaufort family in Herefordshire and the Welsh Marches . Through his employer he probably came to the royal court, where on June 23, 1450 he was responsible for the king's personal weapons. At that time he was a close friend of Jasper Tudor , a half-brother of the king, with whom he lived in a house in London in 1456. From 1455 to 1456 he represented as a deputy Marlborough in Parliament . He was also Justice of the Peace for Middlesex . From 1457 to 1458 he belonged to an embassy of the king to Burgundy .

House of York supporters during the Wars of the Roses

When the conflict between the House of Lancaster and the House of York escalated into the Wars of the Roses , Vaughan probably decided in July 1459, influenced by friends, for the side of the House of York. As a result, he became one of their main supporters in Wales. He fought in October 1459 in the Battle of Ludlow , in which the Yorkists were defeated, and was expropriated as a retainer of Richard of York by the Parliament in Coventry in late 1459 , whereupon he fled to Calais with other Yorkists . After the victory of Richard of York at the Battle of Northampton , in which King Henry VI. was captured, Vaughan returned to London on August 14, 1460. He became again the administrator of the royal arms and the royal wardrobe. Shortly thereafter, before November 28, 1460, he married Eleanor, daughter of Sir Thomas Arundel of Betchworth and widow of Sir Thomas Browne , who was executed as a Lancastrian on July 28, 1460. For a fee of £ 1000 Vaughan was also awarded Brown's confiscated properties in south east England, making him a wealthy landowner in south east England.

The victory of the Lancastrians in the second Battle of St Albans on February 16, 1461 forced Vaughan to flee again. Together with Philip Malpas , the royal doctor William Hatcyf and great treasures, he fled to Ireland on a ship. At sea, however, their ship was attacked by French pirates who took Vaughan prisoner. Queen Margarete asked the French King Louis XI. To deliver Vaughan to them, which Ludwig refused. After the Yorkist victory, the new King Edward IV himself contributed £ 200 to Vaughan's ransom in October 1461. After his release, Vaughan returned to the service of the king, who sent him again as ambassador to Burgundy, where he and Lord Wenlock concluded a trade agreement on October 24, 1462. In May 1463 he escorted the Burgundian ambassadors from London to Sandwich and shortly afterwards met King Louis XI. in Saint-Omer , where he received compensation for the residents of Calais affected by French attacks. On June 29, 1465 he became the king's treasurer and custodian of the royal jewels, serving as justice of the peace for Kent, Surrey and Sussex and from 1466 to 1467 sheriff of Surrey and Sussex. In the summer of 1467 he was one of the English negotiators who negotiated the marriage of Charles the Bold to Margaret of York , the king's sister , in Burgundy . Together with Richard Beauchamp , Bishop of Salisbury, he received the princess in Sluis in June 1468 , when she was traveling to her wedding with the Duke of Burgundy. Duke Charles the Bold commissioned him to present the Order of the Golden Fleece to the King in his name , in return Vaughan traveled to Burgundy in February 1470 to hand over the Order of the Garter to the Duke on behalf of the King . He stayed in Burgundy, where King Edward had to flee into exile in October after a new victory by the Lancastrians.

The young King Edward and his brother Richard as prisoners of Richard of Gloucester (historicizing painting by John Everett Millais , 1878)

Mentor to the Crown Prince

Vaughan was on November 2, 1470 chamberlain of Edward , the eldest son of the king and after the renewed victory of the Yorkists and after his return to England on July 8, 1471 adviser to the prince. His duties now included the prince's education and supervision of the administration of his possessions. When the young Edward was made Prince of Wales on April 18, 1475 in Westminster , Vaughan was knighted. For the next few years, Vaughan was responsible for managing lands that had fallen back to the Crown, such as the Duke of Norfolk's holdings in 1477 and those of the Duke of Clarence in 1478 . An ally of the Woodville family, Queen Elizabeth's influential family , Vaughan was part of the inner circle of the royal household. When the king set out on a campaign in France in July 1475, Vaughan remained in England as a member of the Regency Council. In 1478 he represented Cornwall in Parliament, and in December 1482 he was again as envoy to Burgundy.

Fall and execution

When Edward IV died in April 1483, Vaughan was at Ludlow in the Welsh Marches with the young heir to the throne and the prince's other councilors . Together with Anthony Woodville, 2nd Earl Rivers , the uncle of the heir to the throne, he left Ludlow on April 24th to bring Edward to London for his coronation, which was scheduled for May 4th, 1483. On April 29, Vaughan stayed with the heir to the throne in Stony Stratford near Nottingham , while Rivers visited the late King's brother, Richard, Duke of Gloucester in Northampton . When Gloucester reached Stony Stratford on April 30th with Henry Stafford, 2nd Duke of Buckingham , Vaughan arrested Vaughan for conspiracy with the Queen and her family. Vaughan was accused on April 30th of aggravating the late king's debauchery and thereby causing his death. He is also said to have planned to prevent the reign of Gloucester. The young Edward V asserted vigorously, but in vain, Vaughan's innocence. Gloucester saw Vaughan, because of his ties to the Woodvilles, as a dangerous adversary who stood in the way of his grasp for the throne. He had him brought to Pontefract Castle with Richard Gray , the king's half-brother, where he presumably had him executed without further conviction under the supervision of Sir Richard Ratcliffe, along with Gray and Rivers.

He was buried in St John the Baptist's Chapel in Westminster Abbey , where a funerary memorial commemorates him. In Shakespeare's drama Richard III. Vaughan is executed and is later one of the ghosts who appear to the king the night before the Battle of Bosworth .

The ghosts appear to Richard III. the night before Bosworth. Drawing by William Blake , 1806

Family and offspring

From his marriage to Eleanor he had at least two children:

  • Ann ∞ Sir John Wogan from Wiston, Pembrokeshire
  • Henry Vaughan

literature

  • John A. Wagner, Edward Ed. Wagner: Encyclopedia of the Wars of the Roses , ABC-Clio, Santa Barbara 2001, ISBN 978-1-85109-358-8 , p. 285

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Shakespeare and history: Thomas Vaughan. Retrieved March 3, 2015 .
  2. ↑ Westminster Abbey: Sir Thomas Vaughan. Archived from the original on September 19, 2015 ; Retrieved March 3, 2015 .
personal data
SURNAME Vaughan, Thomas
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Vaughan, Sir Thomas
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Welsh military and diplomat
DATE OF BIRTH around 1410
DATE OF DEATH June 25, 1483
Place of death Pontefract Castle