St Stephen's College, Westminster: 9781783274956

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This monograph recreates a lost institution, whose spectacular cloister still survives deep within the modern Houses of Parliament. It examines its relationship with every English king from Edward III to Edward VI, how it defined itself as the ‘king’s chief chapel’ through turbulent dynastic politics, and its contributions to the early years of the English Reformation. It offers a new perspective on the workings of political, administrative and court life in medieval and early modern Westminster.

St St e p h e n ’ s C o l l e g e , W e st m i n st e r

n St Stephen’s College, the royally-favoured religious institution at the heart of the busy administrative world of the Palace of Westminster, church and state met and collaborated for two centuries, from its foundation to pray for the royal dead by Edward III in 1348, until it was swept away by the second wave of the Reformation in 1548. Monarchs and visitors worshipped in the distinctive chapel on the Thames riverfront. Even when the king and his household were absent, the college’s architecture, liturgy and musical strength proclaimed royal piety and royal support for the Church to all who passed by.

A Royal Chapel and English Kingship, 1348-1548

I

AR

LIZABETH BIGGS started work on St Stephen’s College as part of the large research project ‘St Stephen’s Chapel: Visual and Political Culture, 1292-1941’ at the University of York. She has taught at York and the University of the West of England.

Studies in the History of Medieval Religion

Design: Toni Michelle



Elizabeth Biggs

Cover image: Panorama of the Ruins of the Old Palace of Westminster, 1834, Oil painting by Mr George Scharf, © Parliamentary Art Collection, WOA 3793. www.parliament.uk/art

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E

Elizabeth Biggs

Biggs, Elizabeth. St Stephen's College, Westminster : A Royal Chapel and English Kingship, 1348-1548, Boydell & Brewer, Incorporated, 2020. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nyulibrary-ebooks/detail.action?docID=6229011. Created from nyulibrary-ebooks on 2021-02-03 07:13:50.

Studies in the History of Medieval Religion VOLUME L

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ST STEPHEN’S COLLEGE WESTMINSTER

Biggs, Elizabeth. St Stephen's College, Westminster : A Royal Chapel and English Kingship, 1348-1548, Boydell & Brewer, Incorporated, 2020. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nyulibrary-ebooks/detail.action?docID=6229011. Created from nyulibrary-ebooks on 2021-02-03 07:13:50.

Studies in the History of Medieval Religion ISSN 0955–2480 Founding Editor Christopher Harper-Bill Series Editor Frances Andrews

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Previously published titles in the series are listed at the back of this volume

Biggs, Elizabeth. St Stephen's College, Westminster : A Royal Chapel and English Kingship, 1348-1548, Boydell & Brewer, Incorporated, 2020. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nyulibrary-ebooks/detail.action?docID=6229011. Created from nyulibrary-ebooks on 2021-02-03 07:13:50.

ST STEPHEN’S COLLEGE WESTMINSTER A ROYAL CHAPEL AND ENGLISH KINGSHIP 1348–1548

Copyright © 2020. Boydell & Brewer, Incorporated. All rights reserved.

ELIZABETH BIGGS

the boydell press Biggs, Elizabeth. St Stephen's College, Westminster : A Royal Chapel and English Kingship, 1348-1548, Boydell & Brewer, Incorporated, 2020. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nyulibrary-ebooks/detail.action?docID=6229011. Created from nyulibrary-ebooks on 2021-02-03 07:13:50.

© Elizabeth Biggs 2020

All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation no part of this work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system, published, performed in public, adapted, broadcast, transmitted, recorded or reproduced in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the copyright owner

The right of Elizabeth Biggs to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

First published 2020 The Boydell Press, Woodbridge

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ISBN 978-1-78327-495-6

The Boydell Press is an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF, UK and of Boydell & Brewer Inc. 668 Mt Hope Avenue, Rochester, NY 14620–2731, USA website: www.boydellandbrewer.com

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

The publisher has no responsibility for the continued existence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate

This publication is printed on acid-free paper

Biggs, Elizabeth. St Stephen's College, Westminster : A Royal Chapel and English Kingship, 1348-1548, Boydell & Brewer, Incorporated, 2020. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nyulibrary-ebooks/detail.action?docID=6229011. Created from nyulibrary-ebooks on 2021-02-03 07:13:50.

Contents

List of Illustrations

vi

Acknowledgements vii List of Abbreviations Preface

viii xi

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Introduction

1

1 Finding a Place Within Westminster, 1348–1394

27

2 Magnificence and Difficulties under Richard II, 1377–1399

71

3 Weathering Political and Economic Storms, 1399–1485

97

4 A New Kind of Court? Display, Pageantry and Worship, 1471–1536

137

5 Responding to the Reformation, 1527–1548

182

Conclusions

212

Bibliography 217 Index 240

Biggs, Elizabeth. St Stephen's College, Westminster : A Royal Chapel and English Kingship, 1348-1548, Boydell & Brewer, Incorporated, 2020. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nyulibrary-ebooks/detail.action?docID=6229011. Created from nyulibrary-ebooks on 2021-02-03 07:13:50.

Illustrations

Images 1. Anthonis van den Wijngaerde, Panorama of London as seen from Southwark: Westminster, 1554 WA1950.206.1 Image © Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford. 2. Cloisters – West Walk Vaulting © James Hillson, 2014. 3. Cloisters – Katherine of Aragon’s arms © UK Parliament/ A. Watrobski, 2019. 4. Cloisters – Wolsey’s arms © James Hillson, 2014. 5. Cloisters – Edward III’s arms © James Hillson, 2014. 6. Cloisters – Hungerford badge © James Hillson, 2014.

6 173 174 175 175 176

Map Copyright © 2020. Boydell & Brewer, Incorporated. All rights reserved.

Plan of Westminster Palace c.1363 © James Hillson, 2015.

x

The author and publisher are grateful to all the institutions and individuals listed for permission to reproduce the materials in which they hold copyright. Every effort has been made to trace the copyright holders; apologies are offered for any omission, and the publisher will be pleased to add any necessary acknowledgement in subsequent editions.

Biggs, Elizabeth. St Stephen's College, Westminster : A Royal Chapel and English Kingship, 1348-1548, Boydell & Brewer, Incorporated, 2020. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nyulibrary-ebooks/detail.action?docID=6229011. Created from nyulibrary-ebooks on 2021-02-03 07:13:50.

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Acknowledgements

I have benefitted from the support of many individuals and institutions both intellectually and practically and can only begin to touch on my debts here. I began work on St Stephen’s College as part of the Arts and Humanities Research Council project, St Stephen’s Chapel, Westminster: Visual and Political Culture 1292-1941, at the University of York and owe a great deal to the work and friendship of the other researchers working on or affiliated with that project, particularly Tim Ayers, John Cooper, Elizabeth Hallam Smith, James Hillson, Maureen Jurkowski, Simon Neal and Mark Ormrod. At Westminster, Mark Collins generously offered access to the remaining medieval physical fabric and his deep knowledge of the palace. The Arts and Humanities Research Council additionally gave me four months of research time at the Huntington Library, while the Leverhulme Trust funded further work on St Stephen’s Cloisters in 2018 as part of Elizabeth Hallam Smith’s Emeritus Fellowship. I am deeply grateful to the libraries and archives I have consulted for allowing me access to their holdings, particularly to The National Archives in London, St George’s College Archives in Windsor Castle, and to Tony Trowles, Matthew Payne and Christine Reynolds at Westminster Abbey. James Hillson and Adam Watrobski have very kindly allowed me to use their photographs of the surviving sixteenth-century cloister. Erika Graham-Goering read Chapter Two at a crucial moment and provided reassurance and clarity. My parents and sister have been enormously supportive and asked all the right questions when I tested ideas on them over the years. All mistakes, omissions and errors remain my own. EB 6 August 2019

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Abbreviations

BL

London, the British Library.

BRUC

A.B. Emden, A Biographical Register of the University of Cambridge to 1500. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1963.

BRUO

A.B. Emden, A Biographical Register of the University of Oxford to AD 1500. 3 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957–1959.

BRUO 1540

A.B. Emden, A Biographical Register of the University of Oxford AD 1501–1540. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974.

Cal. Pap. Letters

Calendar of Papal Registers Relating to Britain and Ireland 1198–1494, ed. W.H. Bliss, H.C. Johnson and J.A. Tremlow. 14 vols. London: Her Majesty’s Stationary Office, 1893–1960.

Cal. State Papers Edward VI

Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, of the Reign of Edward VI, 1547–1553, ed. C.S. Knighton. London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1992.

CChR

Calendar of Charter Rolls.

CCR

Calendar of Close Rolls.

CPR

Calendar of Patent Rolls.

EETS

Early English Text Society.

Froissart, Chronicles

Froissart, Jean. Sir John Froissart’s Chronicles of England, France and the Adjoining Countries. trans. J. Johnes. 5 vols. London: Hafod Press, 1803–1810.

HKW

Colvin, Howard. The History of the King’s Works. 7 vols. London: Her Majesty’s Stationary Office, 1963–1982.

HMSO

His/ Her Majesty’s Stationary Office.

L&P

Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII: preserved in the Public Record Office, the British Museum, and elsewhere in England, ed. J.S. Brewer, James Gairdner and R.H. Brodie. 37 vols. London: His/Her Majesty’s Stationary Office, 1863–1932.

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abbreviations

ix

ODNB

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004–2019. Online edition [www. oxforddnb.com].

Petitions to the Pope

Petitions to the Pope 1342–1419, ed. W.H. Bliss. London: Eyre and Spottiswode, 1896.

PROME

The Parliament Rolls of Medieval England, 1274–1509, ed. Chris Given-Wilson. 16 vols. Woodbridge: Boydell, 2005.

Reg. Chichele

The register of Henry Chichele, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1414–1443, ed. E.F. Jacob. 4 vols. Canterbury and York Society 42, 47, 46, 45. Oxford, 1938–1947.

Reg. Cranmer

London: Lambeth Palace Library, Cranmer’s Register [Microfilm].

Reg. Edington

The Register of William Edington, Bishop of Winchester 1346– 1366, ed. S.F. Hockey. 2 vols. Hampshire Record Series 7, 8. Southampton, 1986.

Reg. Langham

Registrum Simonis Langham, Cantuariensis archiepiscopi, ed. A.C. Wood. Canterbury and York Society. 53. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1956.

Reg. Nichols

Register of Benedict, Bishop of Bangor, 1408–1417, ed. A.I. Pryce. Archaeologia Cambrensis, 7th series, Vol 2 (1922): 80–107.

Reg. Stafford and Kemp

D.B. Foss, ‘The Canterbury Episcopates of John Stafford (1443–1452) and John Kemp (1452–1454) with editions of their registers’. PhD thesis, King’s College London, 1986.

Reg. Story

The Register of Edward Story, Bishop of Chichester 1478– 1503, ed. J.H. Stevenson. Canterbury and York Society. 106. Woodbridge, 2016.

‘Statutes of St George’s’

‘The Statutes and Injunctions of St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle’, ed. Maurice Bond. Unpublished edition of galley proofs by J.N. Dalton, 1962. [An edition of Windsor, St George’s College Archives, XI D 20.]

WAM

London, Westminster Abbey Muniments.

All manuscript references are to London, The National Archives unless otherwise indicated.

Biggs, Elizabeth. St Stephen's College, Westminster : A Royal Chapel and English Kingship, 1348-1548, Boydell & Brewer, Incorporated, 2020. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nyulibrary-ebooks/detail.action?docID=6229011. Created from nyulibrary-ebooks on 2021-02-03 07:13:50.

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Westminster Palace and Environs, c. 1363, adapted from J. Hillson, ‘St Stephen’s Chapel, Westminster: Architecture, Decoration and Politics in the Reigns of Henry III and the Three Edwards (1227–1363)’, unpublished PhD thesis (University of York, 2015), p. xxix. Biggs, Elizabeth. St Stephen's College, Westminster : A Royal Chapel and English Kingship, 1348-1548, Boydell & Brewer, Incorporated, 2020. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nyulibrary-ebooks/detail.action?docID=6229011. Created from nyulibrary-ebooks on 2021-02-03 07:13:50.

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Preface

St Stephen’s College occupied an important chapel that dominated the Thames riverfront of the medieval Palace of Westminster among the offices of government and the royal lodgings. The chapel offered a vantage point to observe displays of kingly legitimation, collaborations between the kings of England and the Church, and the audiences who thronged to Westminster to seek access to governance. Its liturgy and music reflected royal piety and commemoration of the royal dead. Each chapter here deals with St Stephen’s from a slightly different perspective as the college and the expectations of kingship changed over two centuries. It first examines the religious and political contexts in which the college was founded and in which it had to establish its rights, until a final settlement with Westminster Abbey was reached in 1394. From 1377, Richard II adapted his grandfather’s foundation as his own as he sought to remake the palace in his own image. During the dynastically troubled fifteenth century, the dean and canons of St Stephen’s used its importance to the kings of England to maintain and develop its position as the ‘king’s chief chapel’. The increasing presence of the populace as an audience to events at Westminster shaped the college’s development and buildings after 1471 before, finally, the Reformation both revitalised and then destroyed it. The empty chapel then became the first permanent home of the House of Commons. This book examines St Stephen’s College as a key institution within the most important English palace: its buildings, its personnel and its relationships with every king between 1348 and 1548.

Biggs, Elizabeth. St Stephen's College, Westminster : A Royal Chapel and English Kingship, 1348-1548, Boydell & Brewer, Incorporated, 2020. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nyulibrary-ebooks/detail.action?docID=6229011. Created from nyulibrary-ebooks on 2021-02-03 07:13:50.

Copyright © 2020. Boydell & Brewer, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Biggs, Elizabeth. St Stephen's College, Westminster : A Royal Chapel and English Kingship, 1348-1548, Boydell & Brewer, Incorporated, 2020. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nyulibrary-ebooks/detail.action?docID=6229011. Created from nyulibrary-ebooks on 2021-02-03 07:13:50.

Introduction

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F

or two hundred years at any one time a group of twenty-six priests, four singing men, about six choristers, a verger and a keeper of the chapel of St Mary le Pew served the king’s palace chapels of St Stephen, St Mary Undercroft and the oratory of St Mary le Pew within the Palace of Westminster. These men, who belonged to the royal college of St Stephen the Protomartyr, knew their role was to pray daily for the royal family, the dead who had asked to be commemorated in the chapel, and for the kingdom of England as a whole. Their prayers were expressed through the daily round of liturgy and music enjoined upon them by their own regulations, the statutes, which modified the common liturgical practice of the southern English Church, known as the Sarum Use.1 Their roles had been set by the college’s founder, the English king Edward III, when in a letter patent dated 6 August 1348 he had commanded the foundation of the college ‘to the honour of God, St Stephen the Protomartyr, and the Virgin Mary’.2 On the same day he founded St George’s, Windsor, the home of the Order of the Garter.3 With modifications and a considerable increase in the numbers of people prayed for, the basic pattern set in 1348 was still true at Easter 1548, when another Edward, Edward VI, dissolved all remaining institutions that had as their primary purpose to pray for the dead in Purgatory, including St Stephen’s.4 St George’s was exempted from that act. The twenty-six priests at both colleges were divided into two groups. The dean and the twelve canons were appointed by the king, and so were drawn from the world of royal service, where they also worked in the king’s administration or his household and were in consequence rewarded with ecclesiastical positions at institutions with no parochial responsibilities. Their presence was expected at the main mass of the day and when otherwise required, but much of their time could be devoted to the work of administration and government in the Palace of Westminster, and they might have many other additional ecclesiastical posts. The thirteen priests who served as vicars, by contrast, were chosen by the dean and canons, and were expected to be continually present at all the services The single clause of the statutes that survives is copied in WAM 18431. W. Dugdale et al., Monasticon Anglicanum: A History of the Abbies and other Monasteries, Hospitals, Frieries, and Cathedral and Collegiate Churches, with their Dependencies, in England and Wales, 6 vols (London: Longman, 1818–1830), vi, pp. 1349–50. 3 CPR 1348–1350, p. 144. 4 1 Edw. VI c.14. 1 2

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2

st stephen’s college, westminster

of the liturgy spread throughout the day, and were not allowed to hold other posts.5 The singers, and the two support staff, the verger and the keeper of St Mary le Pew, were also chosen by the dean and canons and lived under similar career restrictions.6 Collectively, all of these men and boys made up the single corporate entity that was St Stephen’s College. A late medieval college in England could be many things, as recent essay collections covering an enormous variety of topics have shown.7 At its core, a college was a group of priests, with perhaps support from vicars, choristers and lay servants, who were gathered together into a community with a legal identity. These institutions were headed by men called variously deans, masters or wardens, and the individual priests were canons who held prebends or stalls. Colleges were founded as permanent institutions, where each post would continue to exist after any individual had left, and which would have an income drawn from land that would sustain it independently for the rest of its existence, which was thought to be in perpetuity. The college’s purpose was usually to serve a particular church or chapel and to add to the quality of prayers being offered within England as well as to pray for the founders’ souls after their deaths in order to aid them in moving from Purgatory into Heaven. In addition to their church or chapel, colleges usually had some form of housing and communal space, such as the medieval closes that survive at many cathedrals. Unlike monastic communities, the priests at colleges were not bound to a rule and were free to leave the institution if they chose. Colleges ranged from very small institutions of three or four priests through to the large secular cathedrals such as Salisbury or Lincoln, which could have upwards of fifty prebends and as many vicars, as well as a large support staff.8 Colleges were often founded with particular charitable purposes, including to run and support almshouses or hospitals, or, in the most famous surviving examples, to provide education, such as at the university colleges in Oxford and Cambridge and schools such as Winchester College and Eton College. St Stephen’s was unusual in that it did not have any educational or charitable purpose in the fourteenth century. Founders were free to shape colleges to meet For example, the 1399 mandate from the dean to install Thomas Sutton as a new vicar, WAM 18488; Monasticon, vi, p. 1350. 6 These posts are first referenced in 1394, BL Cotton MS Faustina A III, f. 295r. 7 St George’s Chapel, Windsor, in the Late Middle Ages, ed. C. Richmond and E. Scarff (Windsor: Dean and Canons of St George’s, 2001); St George’s Chapel, Windsor in the Fourteenth Century, ed. Nigel Saul (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2005); The Late Medieval English College and its Context, ed. Clive Burgess and Martin Heale (York: York Medieval Press, 2008); Wingfield College and its Patrons: Piety and Prestige in Medieval Suffolk, ed. P. Bloore and E. Martin (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2016). 8 The fundamental basis of all collegiate history remains A.H. Thompson, ‘Notes on Colleges of Secular Canons in England’, Archaeological Journal 74 (1917): 139−99. 5

Biggs, Elizabeth. St Stephen's College, Westminster : A Royal Chapel and English Kingship, 1348-1548, Boydell & Brewer, Incorporated, 2020. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nyulibrary-ebooks/detail.action?docID=6229011. Created from nyulibrary-ebooks on 2021-02-03 07:13:50.

introduction

3

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their own ideas about what they wanted their foundation to do and how they wanted their piety to be expressed and commemorated in perpetuity. While there were already many surviving small early medieval colleges, St Stephen’s was in the first wave of a new interest in colleges as a form of religious expression for founders in the fourteenth century, as commemoration of the dead took on increasing importance. In addition, founders increasingly saw colleges as a more attractive form of religious patronage than monasteries for their flexibility and the way they could be scaled in size to match the resources available. Despite its importance to the kings of England over two centuries, St Stephen’s exists on the edges of modern scholarship. It has functioned as a useful exemplar, but has neither been studied in its own right nor as a complete institution. The one existing summary of its history appeared in 1909 as part of the Victoria County History of Middlesex, which was then revised in 2009.9 Art historians such as Maurice Hastings and James Hillson, among others, have examined the chapel as an example of influential ecclesiastical architecture, while historians interested in the late medieval Church tend to mention it in passing, or use an aspect of its existence as an example of larger phenomena.10 Chris Given-Wilson and Ralf Lützelschwab have examined two episodes in the early life of the college: the dispute over Edward III’s will, and the long-running litigation over rights and revenues claimed by both the college and Westminster Abbey.11 Biographies of those who worked at the college treat it as one of many preferments held, rather than as the working base of their lives in royal or ecclesiastical administration at Westminster.12 Some of the music definitely or probably written for the college The Victoria County History of the Counties of England: London I, ed. W. Page (London: Constable and Company, 1909), pp. 566–71; The Victoria County History of the Counties of England: Middlesex Volume XIII: City of Westminster I, ed. P.C. Croot (London: Institute of Historical Research, 2009), pp. 66–8. 10 On the architectural side, particularly M. Hastings, St Stephen’s Chapel and its Place in the Development of Perpendicular Style in England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1955); J. Hillson, ‘St Stephen’s Chapel, Westminster: Architecture, Decoration and Politics in the Reigns of Henry III and the Three Edwards (1227–1363)’, PhD thesis (University of York, 2015); The Fabric Accounts of St Stephen’s Chapel, Westminster, 1292–1396, trans. M. Jurkowski, ed. T. Ayers (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2020). 11 C. Given-Wilson, ‘Richard II and his Grandfather’s Will’, EHR 93 (1978): 320–37; and on the fourteenth-century dispute with Westminster Abbey, R. Lützelschwab, ‘Verletze Eitelkeiten? Westminster Abbey und St Stephen’s, Westminster – Mönche und Kanoniker im Konflikt’, in Pluralität – Konkurrenz – Konflikt: Religiöse Spannungen im städtischen Raum der Vormoderne, ed. J. Oberste (Regensburg: Schell & Steiner, 2013), pp. 81–100. 12 These include A Chibi, Henry VIII’s Bishops: Diplomats, Administrators, Scholars and Shepherds (Cambridge: James Clark, 2003); as well as the earlier L.B. Smith, Tudor Prelates and Politics 1536–58 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1953). In the fif9

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4

st stephen’s college, westminster

has survived in compilations now elsewhere, and have been studied in the context of the Chapel Royal’s development and in the wider context of the development of polyphonic liturgical choral music in England.13 Few historians or art historians have been able to gain access to St Stephen’s cloisters, which survive next to Westminster Hall within the modern Houses of Parliament, but have been used as office space for members of Parliament (MPs) and parliamentary staff for the past fifty years. This historical ambivalence is largely because of the problems of categorising the college across academic disciplines, and the lack of internal sources about the operation of the college, which does not make it amenable to how historians have conventionally approached the institutions of the Church, whether monastic or secular. This book is shaped by the surviving sources and their uneven distribution across the two centuries of the college’s existence and uses the surviving sources to examine the place that St Stephen’s occupied within the Palace of Westminster and within English kingship in the later Middle Ages. The site that St Stephen’s College occupied in Westminster has largely disappeared under the modern Houses of Parliament and the wider parliamentary estate, where the names of some buildings and streets recall the former occupants of the Thames riverfront. The precinct of St Stephen’s was built up in stages and redeveloped over the centuries. However, it roughly fell into two parts, based around Edward III’s grants in 1348 and 1356, which are discussed further in Chapter One.14 The core precinct comprised the river frontage of the palace from the Painted Chamber north to New Palace Yard, which contained the chapel and the communal areas, as well as houses and gardens. The second area was north of New Palace Yard, a site that in the thirteenth century had been the separate house of Edward I’s younger brother, the earl of Kent.15 Both these sites have been sigteenth century, John Gunthorpe has received some attention, most notably in A.C. Reeves, ‘John Gunthorpe: Keeper of Richard III’s Privy Seal, Dean of Wells Cathedral’, Viator 39 (2008): 307–44; St Stephen’s marks the success of John Buckingham in A.K. McHardy, ‘The Early Ecclesiastical Career of John Buckingham’, Lincolnshire History and Archaeology 8 (1975): 3–12. 13 A. Wathey, ‘The English Chapel Royal: Models and Perspectives’, in The Royal Chapel in the Time of the Habsburgs: Music and Ceremonial in the Early Modern European Court, ed. T. Knighton, J.J. Carreras and Bernardo García García; trans. Y. Acker (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2005), pp. 23–8 at p. 25; M. Williamson, ‘The Eton Choirbook: Its Institutional and Historical Background’, DPhil thesis (University of Oxford, 1997); D. Skinner and N. Caldwell, “‘At the Mynde of Nicholas Ludford”: New Light on Ludford from the Churchwarden’s Accounts of St Margaret’s, Westminster’, Early Music 22 (1995): 393– 415; R. Bowers, ‘Choral Institutions Within the English Church: Their Constitution and Development, c.1340–1500’, PhD (University of East Anglia, 1975). 14 See p. 37. 15 CPR 1348–1350, p. 147.

Biggs, Elizabeth. St Stephen's College, Westminster : A Royal Chapel and English Kingship, 1348-1548, Boydell & Brewer, Incorporated, 2020. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nyulibrary-ebooks/detail.action?docID=6229011. Created from nyulibrary-ebooks on 2021-02-03 07:13:50.

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introduction

5

nificantly altered in the past two centuries. Antiquarians and artists documented St Stephen’s after a fire in 1834 destroyed the medieval Palace of Westminster, hidden behind later facades and alterations that were stripped away by fire.16 On the northern site, the modern road Canon Row, which runs northward from Bridge Street behind Portcullis House, was the site of the deans’ and canons’ lodgings from the late fourteenth century onwards, and the modern street name is that in use by the sixteenth century although it has been truncated at what is today Derby Gate. At the corner of Bridge Street and Canon Row to the south, the name of St Stephen’s Tavern remembers not the college, but the chapel’s use by the House of Commons as their meeting place from c.1550 to 1834. Within the modern Houses of Parliament, St Stephen’s Court and Cloister Court again serve as nominal markers of the site once occupied by St Stephen’s College, while St Stephen’s Hall, and the chapel of St Mary Undercroft beneath, occupy the site and the rough dimensions of the chapels that the college’s personnel knew so well. Tucked between St Stephen’s Hall and Westminster Hall, the college’s cloister is one of the few surviving fragments of the medieval palace to have been preserved within the nineteenth-century building, albeit with centuries of repairs and then heavy restoration work after a bomb fell on the south-east corner in 1941.17 The Palace of Westminster lurks in the background of medieval political and administrative history because it was destroyed by fire in 1834 and the archaeology is sparse. It is hard to envisage what it was like to be present in the palace beyond the surviving Great Hall. The medieval palace, where St Stephen’s Chapel dominated the skyline, had grown up over centuries of building and rebuilding, clustered around Westminster Hall, built by William Rufus and reroofed and decorated by Richard II. As can be seen in Wyngaerde’s panorama from c.1544, the palace stretched out along the river front and can be divided into two distinct areas. To the north around Westminster Hall was the public palace, the rooms and subdivided areas used by the various administrative offices issuing documentation and managing royal finances that had developed by the fourteenth century, For example, Robert William Billings, ‘St. Stephen’s Chapel: View from Speaker’s Gallery after the Fire 1834’, Parliamentary Art Collection, WOA 1665; alteration works in the early nineteenth century had produced antiquarian work, including J.T. Smith, Antiquities of Westminster; the Old Palace; St. Stephen’s Chapel (Now the House of Commons), Etc (London: J.T. Smith, 1807); but it was the fire of 1834 that spurred the two extensive treatments of the chapel, first E. Brayley and J. Britton, The History of the Ancient Palace and Late Houses of Parliament at Westminster (London: John Weale, 1835); and then F. Mackenzie, The Architectural Antiquities of St Stephen’s Chapel, late the House of Commons (London: John Weale, 1844); for the fire, C. Shenton, The Day Parliament Burned Down (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). 17 There is extensive documentation of the cloisters’ restoration in the 1950s by Giles Gilbert Scott in WORK 14/3127. 16

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Biggs, Elizabeth. St Stephen's College, Westminster : A Royal Chapel and English Kingship, 1348-1548, Boydell & Brewer, Incorporated, 2020. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nyulibrary-ebooks/detail.action?docID=6229011. Created from nyulibrary-ebooks on 2021-02-03 07:13:50.

1. St Stephen’s Chapel and collegiate buildings as seen from the River Thames just after the dissolution of the college. Anthonis van den Wijngaerde, Panorama of London as seen from Southwark: Westminster, 1554 WA1950.206.1 Image © Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford.

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of which the Exchequer, Chancery and the Privy Seal Office were the largest.18 Also in this area to the north of the palace, to the right of St Stephen’s Chapel on the panorama, were the law courts, where King’s Bench and Common Pleas sat in Westminster Hall alongside the court of Chancery, the judicial side of Chancery. These areas were in use predictably and frequently in this period. When the courts were in session during the law terms, this end of the palace would be bustling with people coming and going. When the courts fell silent out of term, the palace was quieter, but still not deserted. To the south of St Stephen’s lay the personal quarters of the king and his family, known as the privy palace.19 This area was much more restricted in terms of access, although it was not fully private, as Parliament used the Painted Chamber as well as the Queen’s Chamber.20 Still, for petitioners and others who came to Westminster to seek justice or documentation, St Stephen’s Chapel was probably as far into the privy palace as they were likely to go. For example, the Londoners in 1357 were able to access Westminster Hall, but were not then able to cross the courtyard joining the Lesser Hall, Westminster Hall and St Stephen’s Chapel without challenge.21 The combination of the consistent presence in term time of the courts and the king’s administration with the inconsistent royal presence and the potential presence of Parliament made Westminster and St Stephen’s extremely visible to a wide range of the political community. St Stephen’s College stood balanced between the two most important institutions in medieval Westminster: the king’s palace and the abbey of St Peter, the coronation church since William I in 1067. The palace drew visitors to the town, separated from the City of London by open fields, to access the king’s financial offices and the law courts, which had firmly settled in Westminster by the start of the fourteenth century and, when it was in session, most of the meetings of Parliament. Westminster Abbey was equally important within the town, in part as the shrine of Edward the Confessor, but also because it was the dominant landowner, held the lordship of the manor, and held the ecclesiastical role of archdeacon of Westminster.22 The parish in which the palace lay was St Margaret’s, whose rector was the abbey. St Stephen’s College was probably intended to have an ecclesiastical liberty of its own and to act as the parish church for the palace. For the summary of the palace’s built evolution, the best source remains the summaries by Colvin in HKW, i, pp. 491–549. 19 Ibid., pp. 534–7. 20 J. Caddick, ‘The Painted Chamber at Westminster and the Openings of Parliament, 1399–1484’, Parliamentary History 38 (2019): 17–33 at 27–9. 21 Chronicon Anonymi Cantuariensis: The Chronicle of Anonymous of Canterbury 1346– 1365, ed. C. Given-Wilson and C. Scott-Stokes (Oxford: Clarendon, 2008), p. 37. 22 Brother Peter Combe of Westminster Abbey occurs as archdeacon in 1386 in WAM 18447. 18

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8

st stephen’s college, westminster

If this had been carried out, the effect would have been to remove the palace from the spiritual jurisdiction of the abbey. While the liberty was never created, St Stephen’s was one of the palace chapels for the most important of the king’s palaces, the administrative centre of the kingdom, as well as the residence in which the king usually spent the most time. The college co-operated, co-existed, and quarrelled with Westminster Abbey over its jurisdiction and rights within the palace, while also offering an alternative pilgrimage venue to the abbey shrine of St Edward the Confessor in the cult image, ‘imagia’, of the Virgin Mary in the small chapel of St Mary le Pew attached to the south side of St Stephen’s Chapel.23 The college built up and developed its secular rights within the area; by the sixteenth century it was the second-largest landowner in Westminster after the abbey itself.24 The canons took part in the world of administration based in the palace even as the nature and rhetoric of administration changed. Westminster’s role in governance and the urban world can be seen in the frequent use of canons as receivers of petitions or clerks of Parliament in parliaments held in the vicinity of the palace. Economically and spatially, as well as musically, St Stephen’s looked to the urban world and the world of governance that surrounded them as well as to the king’s household and his court. St Stephen’s College is alone among the late medieval colleges founded by or inherited by the kings of England because it received sustained attention in a way that no other college did. It is the consistent presence at St Stephen’s of royal support long after its foundation that distinguishes it from other royally founded colleges, and makes it comparable to the Sainte Chapelle in Paris, where the founder was both king and saint.25 Every king from Edward III to Henry VIII was commemorated by a yearly anniversary service, apart from Richard III and Edward V, both of whom were unable to make provisions to add themselves to the college’s remembrances. Royal support to the college seems in part to have been the result of sustained proximity, and to the college’s role in visualising and carrying out kingship and governance. St Stephen’s thus offers an alternative to First referenced in SC 8/247/12304. The college’s London and Westminster rents brought in £220 17s 2d per annum in 1548, London and Middlesex Chantry Certificate 1548, ed. C.J. Kitching, London Record Society 16 (London, 1980), p. 78; in 1535 the Westminster rents alone brought in £145 10s 4d, Valor ecclesiasticus temp. Henr. VIII: Auctoritate regia institutus, ed. J. Caley and J. Hunter, 6 vols (London: Great Britain Record Commission, 1810–34), i, pp. 428–9; in contrast, the abbey in 1535 was receiving c.£271 annually from its tenements in the area: G. Rosser, Medieval Westminster, 1200–1540 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), pp. 342–4. 25 M. Cohen, The Sainte Chapelle and the Construction of Sacral Monarchy: Royal Architecture in Thirteenth Century Paris (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), pp. 152, 168. 23 24

Biggs, Elizabeth. St Stephen's College, Westminster : A Royal Chapel and English Kingship, 1348-1548, Boydell & Brewer, Incorporated, 2020. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nyulibrary-ebooks/detail.action?docID=6229011. Created from nyulibrary-ebooks on 2021-02-03 07:13:50.

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studying individual kings’ piety. It provides an opportunity to examine royal piety comparatively across ten English kings in two centuries and thus to begin to tease out the ways in which different kings responded differently to the apparatus of sacral monarchy available to them and expected of them in a single space.26 Monarchy was performed at St Stephen’s, where a small crowd in the nave could just barely see the king seated in relation to the murals staking out Edward III’s personal sense of a relationship with the saints, and still more could see him enter or leave the chapel on feast days in procession as an embodiment of quasi-sacral power.27 Even when the ruling king was absent, in the liturgy of St Stephen’s he was present in the daily round of prayer and in the music sung in the chapel.28 Every visitor, from Froissart to the sixteenth-century knights who heard mass in the chapel while at Westminster for law cases, would have been aware of the royal splendour and patronage shown in the heraldic decoration, the richness of the liturgical furnishings and the lavishness of the services.29 The college was an expression of royal dynastic piety, and one that kings were careful to make their own, as well as to respond to the works of their predecessors. In addition, the canons of St Stephen’s working within the king’s government, in Chancery, the Exchequer and in the royal household, were part of the delegated royal government that carried out the king’s will. As the men appointed to canonries were consistently usually associated with royal service, despite the increase in laymen in royal government, the personnel at St Stephen’s combined both the religious and practical sides of medieval kingship.30 There are few comparative studies of English royal piety in the later Middle Ages on the ways in which Richard II constructed saintliness for Edward II: Chris Given-Wilson, ‘Richard II, Edward II and the Lancastrian Inheritance’, EHR 109 (1994): 553–71; on the three Edwards’s use of religion to project images of piety: W.M. Ormrod, ‘The English Monarchy and the Promotion of Religion in the Fourteenth Century’, in Religion und Politik im Mittelalter: Deutschland und England im Vergleich, ed. L. Körntgen and D. Waßenhoven (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2013), pp. 205–18; on the limited theme of patronage: J.T. Rosenthal, ‘Kings, Continuity and Ecclesiastical Benefaction in Fifteenth Century England’, in People, Politics and Community in the Later Middle Ages, ed. J.T. Rosenthal and C. Richmond (Gloucester: Alan Sutton, 1987), pp. 161–75; for a later period remembering the three Edwards: C. Farris, ‘The New Edwardians? Royal Piety in the Yorkist Age’, in The Yorkist Age: Proceedings of the 2011 Harlaxton Symposium, ed. H. Kleineke and C. Steer (Donington: Shaun Tyas, 2013), pp. 44–63. 27 Liber Regie Capelle, ed. W. Ullmann (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1959), pp. 56–7. 28 This is implied by the foundation letter patent, where the college was to pray in perpetuity for Edward III, his progenitors and his successors, CPR 1348–50, p. 147. 29 See below, Chapter Four, pp. 148–9 and 151–5. 30 They thus feed into debates about the changing nature of clerical involvement in government; R.L. Storey, ‘Gentlemen-bureaucrats’, in Profession, Vocation and Culture 26

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st stephen’s college, westminster

St Stephen’s offers a way forward for long-running discussions about the nature of the king’s household and its relationship to the king and the concepts of kingship and of governance. The expectations and norms of kingship have been hard to tease out in individual studies of particular kings because they were contingent and dependent on the personal will of the individual who happened to be king at any given moment, as well as on the expectations of the aristocracy and the commons, and external events such as unrest, warfare and famines. By looking at St Stephen’s Chapel and College, which by necessity had a working relationship with each of the English kings from 1348 to 1548, it is possible to see the ways in which the monarch was constrained by the expectations of a particularly public palace, and the standards of display expected, while also assessing the space they had in which to introduce their own personal desires and innovations to the workings of governance in their name. St Stephen’s was more than just a place of royal piety because it was also the home of many of those who worked in the offices of governance. While the concept of the court as a place of political action has been contested for the fifteenth century and its importance has been questioned, all power came from the king in person and physical access to the king conditioned access to power. St Stephen’s allows us to examine both the king’s household and his administration, which are often treated separately for the later Middle Ages, because the canons of St Stephen’s worked in both, and might move between the two elements of delegated royal authority, and access to the king. Routine government was delegated to greater or lesser extent to those officials and justices who carried out the established procedures of each of the courts and the offices that had developed over the course of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. At Westminster the widest possible range of individuals could, in theory, have some access to the king, whether in person from a distance or through his government, because all subjects had to have access to the law courts and to the offices of government around them, clustered around Westminster Hall. At Westminster, then, personal and corporate kingship could and did interact.

in Later Medieval England: Essays Dedicated to the Memory of A. R. Myers, ed. C.H. Clough (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1982), pp. 90–130; C.W. Smith, ‘Some Trends in the English Royal Chancery 1377–1483’, Medieval Prosopography 6 (1985): 69–94; C. Carpenter, ‘Henry VI and the Deskilling of the Royal Bureaucracy’, in The Fifteenth Century IX: English and Continental Perspectives, ed. L. Clark (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2010), pp. 1–37; for a view of careerism as a positive public force, see M. Bennett, ‘Careerism in Late Medieval England’, in People, Politics and Community in the Later Middle Ages, ed. J.T. Rosenthal and C. Richmond (Gloucester: Alan Sutton, 1987), pp. 19–39.

Biggs, Elizabeth. St Stephen's College, Westminster : A Royal Chapel and English Kingship, 1348-1548, Boydell & Brewer, Incorporated, 2020. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nyulibrary-ebooks/detail.action?docID=6229011. Created from nyulibrary-ebooks on 2021-02-03 07:13:50.

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Models of Kingship St Stephen’s participated in the systems of governance that made medieval kingship in the widest sense possible. Royal administration, in which most canons worked during their time at the college, was dependent on powers delegated from the king to those who worked in the administrative and financial offices based at Westminster or who travelled with the king’s person. The king was central to the late medieval English political system, and all else depended on his willingness to participate in the systems of governance that had been developed to administer his financial, legal and military interests throughout England and, during times of war, overseas.31 This corporate kingship, the ways in which the king’s personal decisions and those of administrators and other influential figures acting in his name are often indistinguishable, resulted from the ways in which the delegation of power went alongside a fiction that the king ruled by himself with the advice of others, rather than other individuals receiving delegated authority. Political life as expressed through a variety of means, from popular protest through to the pressure of the great magnates, focused on ensuring that the king acted correctly and that his governance was perceived as fair and just. When there were disputes between the king and his subjects, opposition to the king was often couched in terms of opposition to those who were counselling him rather than to the king himself, as by changing his councillors he could be brought back into harmony with the wishes of the whole kingdom and the common good.32 Counsel was the mechanism by which the king could be influenced, but the work of government was in theory directed by the king’s own wishes, even as in practice it was far too wide-ranging and specialised in its routine operation for full royal oversight. The work the canons did in royal administration ranged from taking part in the king’s councils, working in the writing offices of Chancery and the Privy Seal Office, to the financial management carried out by the Exchequer. All of these offices were part of the corporate kingship that was based at Westminster and which was the side of kingship that most late medieval and early modern individuals would have come into contact with, when they paid their taxes, took part in legal disputes or sought documentation or grants from Chancery.33 In addition to routine government and this idea of corporate kingship, which G.L. Harriss, ‘Introduction’, in Henry V: The Practice of Kingship, ed. G.L. Harriss (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), pp. 1–29 at pp. 10, 13–14. 32 J. Rose, ‘The Problem of Political Counsel’, in The Politics of Counsel in England and Scotland, 1286–1707, ed. J. Rose (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), pp. 1–45 at p. 36. 33 G.L. Harriss, Shaping the Nation: England 1360–1461 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 41. 31

Biggs, Elizabeth. St Stephen's College, Westminster : A Royal Chapel and English Kingship, 1348-1548, Boydell & Brewer, Incorporated, 2020. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nyulibrary-ebooks/detail.action?docID=6229011. Created from nyulibrary-ebooks on 2021-02-03 07:13:50.

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st stephen’s college, westminster

acknowledges that much more was done in the king’s name than the king himself ever could know of, St Stephen’s College offers another way to think about what was expected of a successful king. Much of the work done on expectations of kingship as a concept has focused on the didactic texts known as mirrors for princes, because they offer a clear set of discussions about how kings and other lords should behave, even as they raise questions about how far they influenced individuals’ practices.34 They also responded to changing circumstances, and so can be used to show attitudes in flux and responding to political changes and challenges. The mirrors represented the best of political theory in England during this period. Thus, they provide a means of looking at what John Watts called the ‘structures of authority’ rather than the choices of individual kings and particular political circumstances.35 As Watts has argued from the mirrors of monarchy and the reign of Henry VI, these frameworks of kingship constrained and shaped the possibilities open to individual monarchs while also being highly vulnerable to their failings. There are three elements in which St Stephen’s allows us to examine both kingship and the choices of individual kings over the two centuries in which the college was active in new ways. First, it allows us to compare the working of patronage and how that shifted over time, particularly patronage to those who served the king, whether clerical or lay. The successful balancing of patronage and loyalties by the king were acknowledged by the mirrors of princes as key to maintaining a successful reign. St Stephen’s was consistently a recipient of royal patronage, both to the canons as individuals and to the institution as a whole. Second, it allows us to look at how kings constructed themselves in relation to their predecessors and to their own sense of dynasty and legitimation through how they presented themselves in relation to the institution of St Stephen’s College. Third, the college was inherently public-facing and so allows for a discussion of how kingship was constructed for those watching the piety of the king or his proxies within the Palace of Westminster. Whether the king’s relationship with his administration was necessary for understanding the political life of England and Wales has been contested. An older view of kingship saw the king’s person as secondary to the central work done by the bureaucrats who issued documentation in his name. T.F. Tout in his magisterial Chapters in the Administrative History of Medieval England, published in the 1920s, argued that government was the work of career bureaucrats, possibly directed by those officers at the head of their departments, who K. Lewis, Kingship and Masculinity in Later Medieval England (London: Routledge, 2013), pp. 17–18; J. Watts, Henry VI and the Politics of Kingship (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 9–11. 35 Watts, Henry VI, p. 10. 34

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introduction

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were appointed by the king but were not necessarily directed by him.36 In Tout’s view, the king was an irrelevance to the governance of the country, and kingship did not play into the history of government. Tout’s work on the administrators of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries opened up the records of the financial and legal offices that developed into the system of offices based at Westminster. The importance of his knowledge of the records has lasted beyond the influence of his own views on the importance of government. In the mid-twentieth century, K.B. McFarlane’s influential work on the relationship between the king and the great magnates turned historians’ attention to the networks of personal relationships and affinities, which McFarlane saw as key to understanding the political history of particularly the turbulent and uncertain fifteenth century.37 The bureaucrats became an irrelevance, perhaps of interest for their literary and religious interests, but not particularly useful for understanding the political culture that directed their work. More recently, structural factors have returned to the historiography with the work of Simon Walker and John Watts, among others. Walker examined the interplay between individuals and political ideas, particularly in his study of Richard Andrew, secretary to Henry VI.38 Watts has suggested that the mirrors of monarchy treatises of the fifteenth century give an insight into the expectations of the political community – as widely defined – of their king, which then structured the possibilities of political action.39 Yet this structural approach does not fully bring the personnel and expectations of government back into the picture – in part because, as Ralph Griffiths has commented, the prosopographical understanding of the entirety of fifteenth-century government has not been attempted.40 This book is not that study, but it does use the canons of St Stephen’s, because they were part of the wider world of both government and the king’s household, to examine the spatial and personal relationships that were possible between royal administration and the household when they were all at Westminster. T.F. Tout, Chapters in the Administrative History of Medieval England, 6 vols (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1920–33), i, pp. 5–6. 37 Particularly K.B. McFarlane, The Nobility of Later Medieval England: The Ford Lectures of 1953 (Oxford, 1973), 2, pp. 120–1. 38 ‘[Walker] believed that the detailed examination of such individual lives [Andrew], and their social and political context, would afford an understanding of how political language and ideas informed the operation of power at all levels’, G.L. Harriss, ‘Introduction’, in S. Walker, Political Culture in Later Medieval England, ed. M.J. Braddick (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), pp. 1–14 at p. 12. 39 Watts, Henry VI, pp. 15–16. 40 R.A. Griffiths, ‘Public and Private Bureaucracies in England and Wales in the Fifteenth Century’, in Griffiths, King and Country: England and Wales in the Fifteenth Century (London: Hambledon, 1991), pp. 137–60 at p. 139. 36

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14

st stephen’s college, westminster

The other major theme that emerges from the study of kings in the later Middle Ages and into the sixteenth century is the importance of image, of magnificence, and of appearing to be the consecrated king as a key element of actually being the king. Historians have noted that commentators, particularly chroniclers, commented on whether or not the king appeared to be royal, such as the failure of the procession in 1471, which attempted to situate Henry VI as king in opposition to the returning Edward IV.41 David Starkey opened up the question of the court’s role in political life, which has enthusiastically been taken up and developed further.42 John Watts has argued against seeing the court as always a political centre, noting that it was kings who failed to be seen as successful by military means and who most turned to lavish self-presentation as royal through their households.43 Richard II’s relationship with magnificence has been well commented on, and the ways in which he related himself to the saints.44 Even more conventionally successful kings such as Henry V or Edward IV were conscious of the importance of appearance, of living up to expectations and taking part in the round of ceremonial that Fiona Kisby has identified as structuring the life of the royal household and, by extension, displaying the king to his subjects at particularly significant points in the liturgical year.45 The coronation ceremony might be the moment when an individual became sacralised as king, but he was continually reinforcing that moment through his self-presentation and successes, as well as by his continuing relationship with the Church. That Edward III was both militarily and dynastically successful meant that by the fifteenth century he had become, as D.A.L. Morgan has shown, the model that later kings, mired in dynastic uncertainty and with their legitimacy questioned, attempted to emulate.46 St Stephen’s, with its strong connections to Edward III, was thus ideally placed to display royal magnificent support to the Church, a sense of royal dynastic awareness and public

Historie of the Arrivall of Edward IV in England, ed. J. Bruce, Camden Society Old Series I (London, 1838), pp. 15–16. 42 See particularly the essays in The English Court from the Wars of the Roses to the Civil War, ed. D. Starkey (London: Longmans, 1987), and below p. 137–9. 43 Watts, ‘Was there a Lancastrian Court?’, in The Lancastrian Court, ed. J. Stratford (Donington: Shaun Tyas, 2003), pp. 253–71 at p. 270. 44 For Richard II see most recently discussion in D. Gordon, ‘The Wilton Diptych as an Icon of Kingship’, in The Wilton Diptych, ed. D. Gordon (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015), pp. 35–91. 45 F. Kisby, ‘Where the King Goeth a Procession: Chapel Ceremonies and Services, the Ritual Year, and Religious Reforms at the Early Tudor Court, 1485–1547’, Journal of British Studies 40 (2001): 44–75. 46 D.A.L. Morgan, ‘The Political After-Life of Edward III: The Apotheosis of a Warmonger’, EHR 112 (1997): 856–81. 41

Biggs, Elizabeth. St Stephen's College, Westminster : A Royal Chapel and English Kingship, 1348-1548, Boydell & Brewer, Incorporated, 2020. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nyulibrary-ebooks/detail.action?docID=6229011. Created from nyulibrary-ebooks on 2021-02-03 07:13:50.

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introduction

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royal piety. It allows an examination of that public, pious presentation to audiences that can be more precisely delineated than at any other royal home. Queenship and the female experience of worship were also present in the life of St Stephen’s. This book focuses on kingship in relation to St Stephen’s College because the college was an expression of Edward III’s piety and dynastic ambitions that were then taken up and supported by almost every successive king until the sixteenth century. Male gifts of land and resources to the college, and the college’s strong relationships with the male-staffed administrative offices that surrounded it in Westminster, dominate the surviving records. This was not the whole story, however. Women were included in the college’s dynastic imagery from the beginning, through the altar wall murals showing Edward III’s female relations: his mother, wife and daughters.47 They were included in its commemoration, either through yearly memorial services or through chantries.48 The surviving records surrounding St Stephen’s also provide glimpses of its usages by women, particularly in relation to the under-recorded cult image of St Mary le Pew, which seems to have been a maternal cult and was particularly supported by the royal women. Margaret of Anjou gave a donor window to St Mary le Pew, and the household accounts of Elizabeth of York record her offerings at the shrine in connection with offerings to other Marian cult centres.49 At other times, royal women are known to have heard Mass in the chapel, including at services that might well have had deep emotional resonances, such as the coronation of Elizabeth of York, and possibly also christenings and churchings after childbirth in the palace.50 Music may have been commissioned by Elizabeth of York for the chapel’s services that reflected the female relationships between maternal saints and dynastic success.51 That records of offerings are sparse and the records of services held are almost non-existent means that the ways in which women and queens in particular were most likely to engage with the chapel and its liturgy are the least likely to be recorded. In a difficult moment, Eleanor Cobham, duchess of Hillson, ‘St Stephen’s Chapel’, pp. 198–202. BL Cotton MS Faustina B VIII f. 5v for Philippa of Hainault, f. 2r for Katherine of Valois, and f. 4r for Elizabeth of York; for Anne of Bohemia, see CPR 1392–1396, p. 669; for nonroyal women, the widow Margaret Swift gave houses in Lambeth in return for an obit, Cotton Faustina B VIII, ff. 34v–36r. 49 ‘The Household of Margaret of Anjou 1452–53 II’, ed. A.R. Myers, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 40 (1957): 391–431 at 423; Elizabeth of York made Marian offerings in March 1502, Privy Purse Expenses of Elizabeth of York, pp. 2–3; offerings to St Mary le Pew alone in June 1502, Ibid., pp. 22–3; and on departing for the Tower of London on 13 December 1502, Ibid., p. 78. 50 J. Leland, Joannis Lelandi antiquarii de rebvs britannicis collectanea, ed. T. Hearne, 6 vols (London: T Hearne, 1770), iv, p. 228. 51 Privy Purse Expenses of Elizabeth of York, p. 2, also see below, p. 159. 47 48

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Gloucester, heard the accusations of witchcraft against her while facing a panel of male bishops in the chapel.52 These accusations in part reflected worries over her performance as the king’s aunt by marriage. Queenship and the life of women at court played out at St Stephen’s, but it did so largely unrecorded – and when it is recorded, it is usually in the context of male ambitions and concerns.

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Spaces of Worship St Stephen’s College existed to serve three chapels within the Palace of Westminster: St Stephen’s, St Mary Undercroft and the oratory of St Mary le Pew. These chapels were still unfinished in 1348, although they were nearing completion after fifty years of on-and-off building work. Only glazing and painting seem to have been left in the summer of 1348, and would be completed in 1363.53 Before 1291, when Edward I began the rebuilding of the old St Stephen’s as a new two-storey chapel on the model of the Sainte Chapelle in Paris, St Stephen’s Chapel seems to have been a single-storey chapel on the same site. Along with the chapel of St John the Evangelist, it had been used by Henry III in the thirteenth century as the main palace chapel, where the Chapel Royal carried out their round of public piety on the king’s behalf, and which had served as the public face of royal liturgy in Westminster.54 The Chapel Royal’s services were open to visitors to the king’s houses, while the king’s personal chaplains celebrated mass for him privately in his oratories. St John the Evangelist seems to have fallen out of use and possibly been torn down within thirty years of the completion of St Stephen’s, leaving St Stephen’s Chapel and its subsidiaries as the largest and most heavily used of the chapels within the palace.55 There were at least two other smaller oratories used by the royal family, St Laurence’s and the Queen’s Chapel, within the privy palace complex to the south of St Stephen’s Chapel.56 These smaller chapels were probably not big enough for the use of the Chapel Royal, and so St Stephen’s is likely to have remained the chapel used by the Chapel Royal when the king and his household were in residence at Westminster, even after the foundation of the college. Edward I’s project, as subsequently modified by successive kings and master masons, resulted in a distinctive two-storey building, with the east end directly on the river and forming an important landmark to passing traffic. The main chapel, that dedicated to St Stephen, was on the first floor, with the chapel of CPR 1436–1441, p. 559; see below pp. 124–6. HKW, i, pp. 510–12. 54 I. Bent, ‘The English Chapel Royal before 1300’, Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association 90 (1963–64): 77–95 at 80. 55 It is last mentioned in 1394, C 66/341 m. 24; CPR 1391–96, p. 553. 56 HKW, plan of the medieval Palace of Westminster. 52 53

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St Mary Undercroft immediately beneath it. St Mary le Pew was a smaller chapel on the south side of St Stephen’s between the chapel’s two easternmost buttresses, with another small chapel sometimes used as a chapter house, whose dedication is unknown, beneath it. The relationship between St Stephen’s and the spaces and institutions that surrounded it, both the secular and the ecclesiastical, within the Palace of Westminster is central to this book. The ecclesiastical relationships between St Stephen’s and the Chapel Royal are at the heart of my arguments about the significance of the college to English kingship. The historiography of the Chapel Royal has focused on its singers and musical strengths as well as its place within the round of public ceremonial that supported the monarch’s public presentation. Fiona Kisby showed its central place in the life of the Tudor household, and its use as a tool for displaying the king’s person and his piety.57 The institutional composition of the Chapel Royal has been the subject of study, particularly in Alison McHardy’s work on the Chapel Royal of Henry V and its presence in his French campaigns.58 On the musical side, musicologists have studied the surviving music produced for the Chapel Royal and its patterns of recruitment across the Middle Ages, including recently Magnus Williamson’s work on the music preserved in the Eton Choirbook, which includes music that may have been composed for St Stephen’s.59 Relatively little attention has been paid to the spaces used by the Chapel Royal as it moved with the king around the Thames Valley. Simon Thurley has examined the changing trends of the chapels built or renovated by the Tudor monarchs, particularly at Hampton Court, but not those that those monarchs had inherited, such as St Stephen’s Chapel.60 That there are some surviving sources for the liturgy and music of St Stephen’s, and that its layout can be reconstructed reasonably straightforwardly, means that the liturgical and musical life of a royal chapel can be reconstructed and its relationship to generations of kingship assessed. St Stephen’s could be used as a presentational tool alongside the Chapel Royal; its institutional make-up went alongside that of the Chapel Royal and its music has also survived. As such, the college offers an opportunity to examine how architecture, music and institutional structures could combine to offer messages of dynastic success, legitimacy and royal magnificence to those who visited the Palace of Westminster during the later Middle Ages. F. Kisby, ‘The King Goeth a Procession’: 44–75. McHardy, ‘Religion, Court Culture and Propaganda: The Chapel Royal in the Reign of Henry V’, in Henry V: New Interpretations, ed. G. Dodd (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2013), pp. 131–56. 59 Williamson, ‘The Eton Choirbook’. 60 S. Thurley, The Royal Palaces of Tudor England: Architecture and Court Life 1460–1547 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993). 57 58

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st stephen’s college, westminster

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Sources, Archives and Methods Edward III intended his college to last forever. Yet St Stephen’s College exists today only in fragments of its physical fabric and stray archival survivals. When the college was dissolved during the English Reformation in 1548, the college’s archives and financial records were probably mostly discarded rather than taken into the records of the Court of Augmentations, the government department that took over the college’s landed endowment and its valuable plate, vestments and other precious objects. Some documents survived and made their way into the hands of antiquaries, and thence into the depositories of antiquarian materials in the British Museum, now the British Library, most importantly the college’s obit book.61 The obit book records the names of those individuals who asked that they be prayed for yearly on the anniversary of their deaths. In addition to the calendars of names and the financial accounting of the payments given to members of the college for attending these services, the obit book also contains indentures between the college and those who wished for obits. The college’s physical fabric was altered and adapted for other uses in the sixteenth century, although the core of the buildings remained in use until the nineteenth century, when they were pulled down in the wake of a devastating 1834 fire to make space for the new Houses of Parliament, with the sole exception of the sixteenth-century cloister. Fragments survive of the chapel’s stonework and antiquarian drawings to give an impression of the buildings’ appearances in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.62 Instead of the college’s own archives, this book uses the surviving material that can be found in other institutions’ archives and the royal records to examine the life and work of this college, through its connections to other religious houses and to the work of royal administration, but also through comparison to similar large colleges founded by the kings of England or the great magnates in the later Middle Ages. This cannot be a history of St Stephen’s College from the internal perspective of the college’s own concerns, and consequently much less emphasis is placed on the internal decision-making processes or the financial management and development of their resources than would often be possible at other religious institutions. The evidence clusters unevenly throughout the college’s existence, against a backdrop of steady presence in the royal administrative records throughout, and these patterns have shaped the arguments of this book. The vicars and singing men appear irregularly and exceptionally because they were documented only BL Cotton MS Faustina B VIII, ff. 2r–53v. See R. Hill, ‘“Proceeding like Guy Faux”: The Antiquarian Investigation of St Stephen’s Chapel Westminster, 1790–1837’, Architectural History 59 (2016): 253–79.

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in relation to taxation or thanks to exceptional and stray events. In contrast, the dean and the canons were usually royal servants, and thus appear regularly in the royal documentation in relation to their working lives in ways that are suggestive for the college’s own workings and associations. Edward III’s foundation took until 1394 to be fully worked through, and so that creation process is gathered together first, as the college’s relationships with two other powerful institutions in Westminster were clarified. There is a great deal of evidence for the reign of Richard II because of a confluence of disputes involving other, better-­ documented opponents and the resumption of building works in the palace. Thus Richard’s reign receives a chapter to itself to examine how he and his administration responded to the patterns and imagery set up by his grandfather. Under the Lancastrian kings, and then the Yorkists, evidence for the college as an institution becomes sporadic, but suggestive of larger concerns around legitimacy and inheritance, which has merited a chapter on dynasty and regime change, while also considering how the college responded to the political and economic challenges of the fifteenth century. From the mid-fifteenth century until the Palace of Westminster was fully reshaped by the desires of Henry VII and his son, there is increasing evidence of which audiences were able to engage with St Stephen’s and with what might be called by the contested term of the ‘court’. This audience engagement with St Stephen’s and the royal household gives us a much better picture of who might make use of the spaces and calendar of worship set in motion in the fourteenth century, while also suggesting that the fifteenth century saw an increased concern for who was able to see the round of spectacle offered by the royal household. Finally, the Reformation marked an end to the type of piety that had animated St Stephen’s, while also reinvigorating its importance to the king and his household until at last in 1548 the college was dissolved under the Second Chantries Act of December 1547. There are three themes of the collegiate life that weave through the book and which gave meaning to St Stephen’s College for contemporaries and observers. The first was the round of worship offered in the chapels throughout the rhythms of the liturgical year. Where there is evidence for liturgical and musical practice, it has been incorporated. Music was particularly important in the college’s foundation in the mid-fourteenth century and then again in the later fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. In the sixteenth century, the music and other evidence for the liturgical goods of the college provide evidence for the college’s institutional response to the changing demands of the English Reformation. The second theme is the wider usages of the Palace of Westminster as a royal home and as the home of the king’s administration. Westminster was both the most important and the most unusual palace in England because it was more than simply one of the king’s

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residences. It was the usual home of administration, of justice and of Parliament. These usages shaped the audiences that came to visit the chapel, and its uses by the king’s household, until in the sixteenth century the palace was abandoned as a residence. St Stephen’s was a visible part of this palace world, dominating the river frontage, and it rather lost its purposes when the palace was superseded by other royal homes. Finally, the third theme is the canons’ relationships to the administrative usage of the palace, and the college’s relationships with the institutions that surrounded it within the palace and manor. Those relationships were contested and fraught in the fourteenth century, gave the college stability in the fifteenth century and continued in new forms in the sixteenth century. They could be turned to advantage by individual canons and by the college as a whole at different points, while giving the college an ongoing set of possible relationships with the kings of England. The impression of St Stephen’s close association with the king and with the apparatus of royal government is in part created by the documentation that has survived. The vast majority of the surviving documents that concern St Stephen’s College survive in the royal administrative records, created by the governmental offices of the Exchequer and Chancery. Most of this material is at the National Archives in Kew alongside the other surviving documentation of royal and governmental activity. Other repositories such as the British Library hold stray documents that were removed or copied from the royal records by antiquarians.63 These materials concern the college’s interactions with the administration that surrounded it in the palace. All the records of grants of land, revenue or rights from the king, confirmations of the college’s own actions and documents relating to the canons’ work in royal administration and the king’s household were issued by the royal secretariat in Chancery and so copies were kept among the Chancery records. Records of taxation and other financial interactions with the Crown, including the regular payments to the college out of tax revenues, were kept by the Exchequer. The financial accounts of the king’s household survive only patchily, but when they do survive they too are among the documents that have largely ended up in Kew. Accounts kept by the royal clerks of the works record the financial and organisational management that built the majority of the college’s buildings and then adapted them in the fourteenth century, as well as payments for the repair and decoration of parts of the college’s buildings for use during royal events in the sixteenth century. Individual canons’ careers can be tracked through the records of their appointments and rewards. The royal documentation shows us the many ways in which the college interacted with the Crown, Including the collection of canons’ names and other miscellaneous information that is BL Lansdowne MS 447.

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and of the range of engagement that was possible for a favoured institution. The single most crucial source for any history of St Stephen’s is the royal patent rolls maintained throughout the college’s existence by Chancery.64 Smaller amounts of similar material were issued as letters close or as charters and so appear in the calendars of those series.65 As enrolled copies of documentation issued to the dean and canons themselves, the Chancery rolls provide the basis for understanding some part of what would have been stored in the college’s own archives. The danger with seeing St Stephen’s solely in relation to the king is that such an approach over-emphasises the ongoing relationship with the Crown over other relationships that could be just as important, with the lay communities of Westminster and beyond, with the ecclesiastical hierarchy of England and Wales, and with the wider Church. Richard II could support the college in its dispute with Westminster Abbey, but he could not alter the papacy’s judgement of the case. Similarly, while the endowment of St Stephen’s was first established by Edward III, it was augmented by the devoted gifts of others over the next two centuries. Laypeople, both local to Westminster and from further afield, also attended services or left money to the college in their wills. Some of their commitment to the college can be found in royal records, but much of this material comes from archives kept by other institutions. Wills proved in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, as well as the local courts in Westminster and others across the country, point to lay commitment to St Stephen’s after death. The surviving parish records of St Margaret’s, Westminster that are now in the City of Westminster Archives reveal the co-operation between the parish and the college in the sixteenth century, when those records begin. The records of Westminster Abbey are crucial to understanding the dynamics within the manor of Westminster, where both royally favoured institutions held lands and claimed ecclesiastical privileges across two hundred years. The archives of St George’s College, Windsor do not often deal directly with St Stephen’s, yet still preserve evidence for co-operation between the two institutions in maintaining their obligations as well as considerable overlap in canons. Episcopal registers often contain incidental information about events at St Stephen’s, individuals connected with the college or about the college’s estate management. Thus, where possible, I have tried to move beyond the picture provided by the royal sources to look at St Stephen’s in other contexts. The problem with non-royal sources is that they tend not to cover the entire two

Calendar of the Patent Rolls preserved in the Public Record Office, 53 vols (London: HMSO, 1891–1916). 65 Calendar of the Charter Rolls preserved in the Public Record Office, Vol. 5: 15 Edward III – 5 Henry V, A.D. 1341–1417 (London: HMSO, 1916) and Calendar of the Close Rolls Preserved in the Public Record Office (London: HMSO, 1893–1949). 64

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hundred years of the college’s existence, but deal with particular problems at particular moments and are generally much fuller for the sixteenth century. This material emphasises the process of continual change and adaptation that any college faced, as well as the ability of individuals to change the web of interconnections at any particular point. The evidence for how St Stephen’s Chapel and the cloisters may have looked, and the physical contexts in which the college operated, comes from much later drawings and paintings as well as archaeological work. The antiquarians who tried to make sense of St Stephen’s College, and particularly its surviving buildings in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, had a variety of reasons and interests for their work, which was usually occasioned by alterations to the building to suit the House of Commons or the Speaker, whose house sat within the shell of the collegiate buildings around the cloisters after 1794. They were fascinated by their encounters with a lost medieval past hidden behind centuries of adaptations and wooden panelling, and wrote in often emotive terms of the building, such as when John Carter described ‘the perfect window’ in St Mary Undercroft.66 Their drawings and explanatory material record the buildings as they found them after more than two centuries of adaptations and repairs. Antiquarians removed stones from the walls, which are now in the British Museum and show part of the painted decorative scheme, and copied images from the walls, including the intriguing murals on the east wall surrounding the high altar. Other antiquarians after the 1834 fire recorded the material remains of St Stephen’s laid bare by the conflagration, particularly the surviving architecture and the evidence for how it related spatially to the now lost privy palace and spurred public interest in the wider palace ahead of its destruction to make the modern Houses of Parliament.67 In addition, archaeological works, both during the building works in the 1850s to create the current St Mary Undercroft and in the 1990s underneath the chapel’s foundations, have revealed information about the medieval chapel and its usages, upon which I have been able to draw.68 All of these survivals, drawings and finds Describing plates 2, 5 and 7, J. Topham, Some Account of the Collegiate Church of St Stephen at Westminster (London: Society of Antiquaries, 1795–1807), pp. 7–8. 67 Mackenzie, Architectural Antiquities; Brayley and Britton, Ancient Palace; before 1834, John Topham, J.T. Smith and John Carter were the main antiquarians and draughtsmen recording the chapel before and during the 1790–1805 period of substantial alterations, in J. Topham (incorporating the drawings of John Carter), Some Account of the Collegiate Chapel of St Stephen, Westminster; Smith, Antiquities of Westminster. 68 J. Prior et al., ‘Report of the Committee Appointed by the Council of the Society of Antiquaries to Investigate the Circumstances Attending the Recent Discovery of a Body in St. Stephen’s Chapel, Westminster’, Archaeologia 34 (1852): 406–30; for the excavations underneath St Mary Undercroft in 1992, 1993 and 1994, London, Museum of London Archaeology Service Report PWC92. 66

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introduction

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have shaped my reconstruction of the spaces and palatial contexts in which St Stephen’s College operated. An earlier generation of seventeenth-century antiquarian interest in St Stephen’s led to a miscellaneous set of survivals from the college’s own records and liturgical collections, largely in the Cotton and Harley collections within the British Library. These particular survivals and finds have shaped where I have been able to bring out the college’s own experiences and material culture, particularly in commemoration, music and liturgy. Oddly enough, these are subjects that rarely have good surviving evidence for pre-Reformation England, which survived because the college’s collections were lavish and valuable enough to become collectible and the site remained important enough for antiquarians to record. Unlike most collegiate archives surviving today, the chance survivals from the college’s own internal documents and possessions tend not to be financial or legal documents, which would have been the types of material preserved by the college for its own use, and which might have survived if the collegiate archives had been retained by the Court of Augmentations when they took possession of the former college’s landed estates. Instead, what survived from the college are unusual documents that were particularly interesting rather than routine financial information. The British Library holds the daily working registers of canons attending High Mass for six months in 1485 and a few manorial documents relating to the college’s manors in Kent, disputed in the seventeenth century.69 The obit book, created in the early fifteenth century and faithfully updated until the early sixteenth century, also made its way into antiquarian hands, and then into the Harley Collection. It contains the records of all those for whom the canons had agreed to pray in the college’s rounds of services, as well as some copies of indentures made with those commemorated, with details of burial provisions, specific service requests and a calculator for working out how much money each canon and vicar would get for their attendance at the memorial service.70 Elsewhere, Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge holds a choirbook probably compiled in the sixteenth century for St Stephen’s, and the New York Public Library has a missal possibly used in the chapel and certainly owned by the last dean, John Chambre.71 The most extended comparison in this book is with St George’s College in the Lower Ward of Windsor Castle, the sister college of St Stephen’s, of equal status in the minds of contemporaries because of their theoretically simultaneous

Respectively BL Royal MS Appendix 45–8, BL Harley MS 45 A 38–49 and BL Additional MS 28530 ff. 17–21. 70 BL Cotton Faustina B VIII, f. 53r. 71 Now Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College MS 667/760; New York, New York Public Library MS MA 63. 69

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foundation. St George’s was fortunate enough to be the sole chantry college to survive the Reformation and its archives remain in situ in the college, although moved from their original home in the Aerary Porch. It has been well studied as the home of the Order of the Garter as well as an important college in its own right. Recently, conference proceedings concerning St George’s in the later Middle Ages have pointed to the interdisciplinary possibilities of studying colleges.72 In addition to its parallel foundation, St George’s was consistently treated as a sister college to St Stephen’s in the royal documentation and shared personnel with St Stephen’s throughout the two centuries when both colleges were active. As such, the documentation that survives in the Windsor archives gives a good indication of what would have been kept at St Stephen’s, particularly since both had statutes written by William Edington, bishop of Winchester, who would have mandated similar practices at both institutions. Interestingly, however, the perception of the two colleges as twin did not result in equal treatment, nor was it reflected in their functions within their respective palaces. St Stephen’s was the largest chapel within the Westminster Palace complex, but it was not the dominant ecclesiastical institution in the area, which was instead Westminster Abbey. St George’s, however, was one of two major chapels within Windsor Castle, and had no other local college until the fifteenth century when Eton College was founded across the River Thames. St George’s was also shaped by comparative lack of royal interest at Windsor for most of the fifteenth century, when St Stephen’s and Westminster continued to be favoured. In both their similarities and differences, comparing St Stephen’s and St George’s allows us to see a range of possibilities of interaction of the institutions, their members and their royal patrons. In addition to St Stephen’s and its sister college of St George’s, Windsor – founded on the same day by Edward III – this book will examine in passing some of the other major late medieval foundations, including the later royal foundations of Eton and King’s College, Cambridge, the noble foundations at St Mary’s Warwick, St Mary’s in the Newarke, Fotheringhay and Tattershall, and the earlier colleges that Edward III would have known when he drew up his plans for his foundations at Windsor and Westminster. The comparisons fall into three types. The first are those colleges that had a similar type and scale to St Stephen’s, large colleges with substantial endowments that were founded by laymen and women to pray for the souls of the dead. These colleges then overlap with the second category, those colleges founded or inherited by the kings of England, who became their patrons, and held the right of presenting new canons to them. Both these categories might interact with St Stephen’s and might share personnel with it. For St George’s Chapel, Windsor, in the Late Middle Ages, ed. C. Richmond and E. Scarff; St George’s Chapel, Windsor in the Fourteenth Century, ed. N. Saul.

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introduction

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example, Ralph, Lord Cromwell in the fifteenth century gathered together statutes from existing colleges, including St Stephen’s, to use as the basis of his new statutes for Tattershall College.73 The kings of England inherited the patronage of St Mary in the Newarke from Henry, duke of Lancaster, and then that of Fotheringhay from the dukes of York, when Henry IV and Edward IV respectively became king. The third category is the most diverse and includes those colleges extant in 1348 when Edward III founded St Stephen’s and St George’s in order to ask what were the models available to Edward as he developed his plans for his new colleges. These include the secular cathedrals, the colleges within the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and a set of smaller colleges known as the royal free chapels in England, as well as the important overseas foundations in Paris and Aachen. All of these colleges place St Stephen’s within a type of foundation familiar to medieval religion, but which has almost entirely been lost today. There was no one St Stephen’s College. Rather there were many, as each generation of canons and monarchs reshaped the institution to their own needs and to meet changing expectations of what a royally supported institution should look like, as well as changing fashions in the lay patronage of the Church. At the end of the college’s life it would have to reckon with the theological and practical changes of the Reformation. Like at any other institution within the Church in this period, St Stephen’s had quite a lot of leeway to interpret its statutes, develop its own customs and manage its finances. Its canons valued their housing and friendships within the college and the status it brought them, and in turn made sure that the college’s rights were defended and its finances secured. St Stephen’s was highly responsive and alert to what it meant to be the largest palace chapel within the king’s palace, and not just any palace, but that of Westminster, associated with sacral kingship, governance and justice, since the thirteenth century. The college was also directly shaped by changes in its surroundings in the Palace of Westminster and by the plans of the kings of England for the palace. The chapel was always a visible demonstration to those visiting the palace of the lavish support for the liturgy offered first by Edward III and then taken up by his successors. The cult image of St Mary le Pew was in itself a draw to visitors seeking indulgences. St Stephen’s mattered beyond simply a religious destination. As the kings of England and their subjects grappled with questions about the community of the realm and the king’s rights in relation to that community, St Stephen’s provided evidence to a wide audience of the multiple ways in which English kings drew legitimacy from their coronations, their ancestors, and their relationship with the world of governance and justice based Williamson, ‘Eton College’, p. 90; St Stephen’s College endowed an obit for him as he had been like a founder, Cotton Faustina B VIII f. 27r.

73

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st stephen’s college, westminster

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in Westminster. St Stephen’s was a highly successful foundation, profoundly shaped by its experiences of English kingship, and itself offered an enduring vision of medieval kingship until 1548, and indeed beyond, when it became the first permanent home of the House of Commons.

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Chapter 1

Finding a Place Within Westminster, 1348–1394

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F

rom its foundation in 1348 to the end of a legal dispute in 1394 St Stephen’s College sought to define its purpose and its role within the king’s palace at Westminster. Its foundation was very much a royal project of Edward III, but one that conflicted with the rights of Westminster Abbey within the manor of Westminster. The king intended that it be treated as one of the royal free chapels, traditionally set apart from the ordinary structures of the Church with their own jurisdictions and ecclesiastical and financial privileges.1 As a royal free chapel, the staff of St Stephen’s expected to be allowed their rights, which would have given the college jurisdiction over all who lived within or worked at the Palace of Westminster as an extension of royal power.2 Founding a new institution required co-operation and goodwill from a variety of individuals both within and outside the Church, and then defining its place required litigation. It was devoted to the commemoration of the royal dead and, in adding to the permanent provision of worship within the king’s palace, a display of royal piety to those who worked at or visited Westminster. Edward III founded the college as a chantry to pray for the royal family, but turning that idea into practical reality supported by a landed endowment and with the necessary agreements and privileges was the work of others, including his treasurer, William Edington, and the individuals who belonged to the college. The college’s own canons played an important role in creating the financial and physical fabric that would be distinctively marked out as belonging to them, within the palace precinct. Instead of Edward’s envisaged role for the college, however, twenty years of litigation with Westminster Abbey would confine its jurisdiction to simply its own staff and servants.3 The results J.H. Denton, English Royal Free Chapels 1100–1300: A Constitutional Study (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1970), pp. 1–2; for the grant to St Stephen’s, see Petitions to the Pope 1342–1419, ed. W.H. Bliss (London: Eyre and Spottiswode, 1896), p. 187. 2 The college was ‘sicut alie Capelle regie p[er] regn[u]m Angl’ qualit[er]cu[m]q[ue] constitue’ (constituted in the same manner as any other royal chapel in the kingdom of England), WAM 18465. 3 The final agreement was enrolled on C 66/341 mm. 26–24; and calendared in CPR 1

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of negotiation, high-handed assumptions, petitioning and lawsuits combined in 1394 to create an agreement that, along with the earlier statutes, would set the pattern for the college’s existence for the rest of the Middle Ages. By 1394, the college had been the work of several generations of canons with royal support, and its interpretation and reinterpretation would continue until it was dissolved in the sixteenth century. Every aspect of the college’s existence proclaimed to observers and to posterity that it was an expensive investment for the king’s soul, and also for his dynasty and English kingship more generally. Yet, it was a kingship that was mediated through others – royal administrators, bishops and the college’s own staff – and changed by external forces. The kingship that emerges from St Stephen’s in this period is one of collaboration in service of royal agendas of piety and display. This agenda was expressed through images, a commitment to an expensive and expansive liturgy, and patronage, as well as dedicated prayers for the king’s soul. It was a kingship that was rooted in the king’s relationship with the material culture of the Catholic Church and his conception of his relationship to the saints, particularly St George, his patron saint, and the Virgin, who had been ‘a better mother [to him]’, as stated in the foundation letter patent.4 The college was explicitly to pray not just for Edward and his ancestors, but also for his successors in the dynasty that looked so secure and of which, in 1348, Edward was so proud.5 Edward’s sons, from the Black Prince down to his small brother Thomas of Woodstock, were portrayed on the eastern wall, kneeling piously and in military garb behind their father and St George.6 His daughters, mother and wife mirrored them on the other side of the high altar. The music of the liturgy

1391–96, p. 553. ‘melior mater’, CPR 1348–50, p. 147; printed in W. Dugdale et al., Monasticon Anglicanum: A History of the Abbies and other Monasteries, Hospitals, Frieries, and Cathedral and Collegiate Churches, with their Dependencies, in England and Wales, 6 vols (London: Longman, 1818–30), vi, p. 1349; see discussion in C. Shenton, ‘Philippa of Hainault’s Churchings: The Politics of Motherhood at the Court of Edward III’, in Family and Dynasty in Late Medieval England. Proceedings of the 1997 Harlaxton Symposium, ed. R. Eales and S. Tyas (Donington: Shaun Tyas, 2003), pp. 105–21 at pp. 120–21. 5 They were to pray ‘pro nos ac progenitoribus et successoribus nostri’, Monasticon, vi, p. 1350; for Edward’s sense of dynasty and ambitions for his family, see W.M. Ormrod, ‘Edward III and his Family’, Journal of British Studies 26 (1987): 398–422 at 400. 6 London, Society of Antiquaries, Red Portfolio 236/E; discussed in E. Howe, ‘Divine Kingship and Dynastic Display: The Altar Wall Murals of St Stephen’s Chapel, Westminster’, Antiquaries Journal 81(2001): 259–304; also J. Hillson, ‘St Stephen’s Chapel, Westminster: Architecture, Decoration and Politics in the Reigns of Henry III and the three Edwards (1227–1363)’, PhD thesis (University of York, 2015), pp. 198–202. He is currently adapting his thesis into a forthcoming book. 4

Biggs, Elizabeth. St Stephen's College, Westminster : A Royal Chapel and English Kingship, 1348-1548, Boydell & Brewer, Incorporated, 2020. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nyulibrary-ebooks/detail.action?docID=6229011. Created from nyulibrary-ebooks on 2021-02-03 07:13:50.

finding a place within westminster, 1348–1394

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heard by the king and by visitors to the chapel reflected royal interests.7 However, this programme of kingship also reflected wider conceptions of what was due to a royal chapel and college. Edward III’s plans for St Stephen’s were not possible without the support of those around him, particularly in the administrative offices at Westminster. Although the college was strongly shaped by his personal piety and devotion to the Virgin, it was also a collaborative endeavour with the college’s own staff and with other royal administrators who would carry out this scheme of Edward’s and would make it their own, as well as defend their views of its rights within the wider palace against Westminster Abbey until 1394. St Stephen’s under Edward III thus reflected personal and institutional conceptions of what a royal chapel should reflect about kingship as well as several phases of development and experimentation.

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The Foundation of St Stephen’s On 6 August 1348 Edward III officially founded two new secular colleges to serve two of his most important palaces. At his birthplace of Windsor Castle he founded St George’s in the former chapel of St Edward the Confessor, which he renamed in honour of the Virgin Mary and St George in addition to the Confessor.8 St George’s was founded as the home of the Order of the Garter and to serve as the meeting place for the Garter knights every year on St George’s Day, 23 April, a role that continues today. Windsor was personally meaningful to the king as his birthplace. Edward was in the process of rebuilding Windsor Castle as an important royal residence, including major works on the royal lodgings and the rebuilding of the chapel in the 1350s.9 At the Palace of Westminster, he founded St Stephen’s College in the chapel dedicated to St Stephen the Protomartyr, to which he also added a dedication to the Virgin Mary.10 Unlike Windsor, Westminster was already a royal centre as the coronation venue and as one of the homes of royal administration and the courts since the thirteenth century. By the mid-­ fourteenth century, Westminster was firmly established as the administrative capital in preference to Winchester and York.11 St Stephen’s and St George’s were Hinted at in the foundation letter patent, but probably more fully dealt with in the nowlost statutes, Monasticon, vi, p. 1350. 8 CPR 1348–50, p. 144. 9 The documentation is in E 101/492-3; C. Wilson, ‘The Royal Lodgings of Edward III at Windsor Castle: Form, Function, Representation’, in Windsor: Medieval Archaeology, Art and Architecture of the Thames Valley, ed. L. Keen and E. Scarff, British Archaeological Society 25 (Leeds, 2002), pp. 15–94. 10 CPR 1348–50, p. 147. 11 T.F. Tout, Chapters in the Administrative History of Medieval England, 6 vols 7

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st stephen’s college, westminster

to be seen as equivalent institutions for the rest of the Middle Ages, but they had very different foundational experiences, in large part shaped by their surrounding palaces. St George’s was able to take over much of the Lower Ward of Windsor Castle, and to use the Great Hall in the Upper Ward as a temporary home while their chapel was rebuilt. In contrast, at St Stephen’s, work lagged in the mid-1350s in part on account of an absent dean, Michael Northburgh, and the complexities of inserting a secular college’s buildings – the houses for the canons and vicars, the cloisters and common hall – into a busy palace where space was already in high demand and where a dominant religious institution, the abbey, already had strong rights within the local parish of St Margaret’s.12 The king’s desires and wishes were tempered by those who carried them out to produce a particularly distinctive institutional setting for royal worship and the expression of the king’s piety at Westminster. The site of St Stephen’s Chapel was already prominent and had older associations before Edward’s new foundation came to occupy it. The old St Stephen’s Chapel had stood in the centre of the Palace of Westminster for at least ninety years when in 1292 Edward I had decided to rebuild it as a two-storey chapel on the model of the Sainte Chapelle in Paris.13 Old St Stephen’s had been one of two household chapels at Westminster that were available for the monarch and his household’s public worship, conducted by the group of priests known today as the Chapel Royal, and then by the Latin term ‘capella regis’, the king’s chapel.14 When the king was absent from Westminster, old St Stephen’s was staffed in the thirteenth century by up to four permanent priests, an unusually high number for any royal chapel.15 Work on Edward I’s new chapel ebbed and flowed according to the availability of money and varying royal interest in the project for the next (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1920–33), iii, p. 64. Michael Northburgh is attested as dean in Cal. Pap. Letters 1342–1362, p. 398; R.M. Haines, ‘Northburgh, Michael (c.1300–1361)’, ODNB. 13 The earliest known reference is from 1206, The Great Roll of the Pipe for the Eighth Year of the Reign of King John Michaelmas 1206, ed. D.M. Stenton, Pipe Roll Society NS 20 (London, 1942), p. 48. My thanks to James Hillson for bringing this material to my attention. 14 A chapel of St John the Evangelist is known at Westminster, HKW, i, p. 503; for the history of the Chapel Royal see I. Bent, ‘The Chapel Royal before 1300’, Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association, 90 (1963–64): 77–95; also F. Kisby, ‘The Royal Household Chapel in early Tudor London, 1485–1547’, PhD thesis (University of London, 1996), pp. 128–77. 15 Henry III’s lavish staffing of St Stephen’s can be seen by comparison to his son. There were four chaplains at St Stephen’s in 1256–57 each paid 25s, whereas in 1272–73 Edward I was only paying for a more normal two chaplains at St Stephen’s, Issues of the Exchequer. Being a Collection of Payments Made out of His Majesty’s Revenue from King Henry III to King Henry VI, inclusive, ed. F. Devon (London: John Murray, 1837), pp. 12

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finding a place within westminster, 1348–1394

31

two reigns and seventy years.16 In 1348 the structural work was complete, but it was not yet decorated or glazed. That work would continue until 1363. The site was extremely visible, on the river frontage of the palace, where most visitors would see it as they arrived by boat from London. It also stood at the intersection between the Great Hall and the Lesser Hall, and was connected to the Painted Chamber, formerly the king’s bedchamber, by a gallery. Just to the north in the buildings around New Palace Yard and the Receipt of the Exchequer, the Exchequer had finally settled down for what would prove to be the last time in the early 1340s. Between the building site that was St Stephen’s Chapel from 1291 to 1363 and the Receipt lay another chapel called St Stephen’s by the Receipt, which was used as a temporary chapel for the king’s household during the rebuilding. This chapel seems to have had a connection to the Exchequer that was then transferred to St Stephen’s College in 1356.17 The number of priests working at St Stephen’s by the Receipt in 1348 is unknown, but they probably became some of the first vicars of the new institution.18 Despite its newness in 1348, the college was the inheritor of an existing tradition of royal worship within the palace such that Edward III could refer to finishing the chapel as an act of dynastic piety, in that he had completed what his ancestors had begun.19 The official date of the foundations, 6 August 1348, deserves scrutiny on several counts. It was not a date that had particular significance in the church calendar. It was not a saint’s feast day, but was surrounded by appropriate feast days, of later St Stephens on 2 and 16 August and that of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary on 15 August.20 The grants to St Stephen’s and to St George’s are separated by three membranes in the patent rolls, despite their apparently shared dating.21 In addition, the grants were authorised differently. The foundation letter of St George’s was authorised by the privy seal, by the king sending a letter to Chancery to authenticate his grant. St Stephen’s, in contrast, received a letter that had been authorised by the king in person at Westminster. The king was not at Westminster in August 1348. The first time that he returned from 34, 82; only Winchester and St Stephen’s had four permanent chaplains: Bent, ‘English Chapel Royal’: 80. 16 For the building sequence and design decisions see Hillson, ‘St Stephen’s Chapel’. 17 CPR 1354–58, p. 430. 18 This would parallel what happened at St George’s, Windsor: A.K.B. Roberts, St George’s Chapel, Windsor: A Study in Early Collegiate Administration (Windsor: for the dean and canons, 1948), p. 6. 19 ‘p[er] p[ro]genitores n[ost]ros nobilit[er] inchoatam, n[ost]ris sumptib[us] regiis fecim[us] consummari’, Monasticon, vi, p. 1350. 20 Pope St Stephen I and St Stephen of Hungary respectively. 21 The enrolments on the patent rolls are C 66/225 m. 6 (St George’s) and m. 3 (St Stephen’s). The membrane numbering is in reverse date order.

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the royal hunting lodges at Odiham and Woodstock was in early September for the funeral at Westminster Abbey on 5 September of his infant son, William of Windsor.22 It is likely that the grant for St Stephen’s was made on that brief visit to Westminster, an impression reinforced by the other material around it on the patent rolls, dated in September and late August. It looks as if the decision was made to found St George’s in early August, the appropriate paperwork was drawn up and then, at some point, perhaps around 20 August when the first dean and three canons were appointed, the king and probably his treasurer, William Edington, decided to create a college at Westminster and give the new St Stephen’s parity with St George’s by giving it the same nominal foundation date, and the paperwork was completed in early September.23 The other possible consideration is that the initial membership of the Order of the Garter drew on the tournament teams from the tournament held to celebrate William’s birth in June 1348.24 St George’s was thus connected to William’s birth, and it is possible that St Stephen’s was created around his funeral to parallel St George’s. The college may also have been intended to commemorate the other royal child who died that summer. Items that had belonged to Edward’s daughter, Princess Joan, who died in July 1348 on her way to her marriage to Alfonso of Castile, were given to St Stephen’s.25 The college’s focus on the royal dead and the king’s dynasty may have reflected that dynasty’s recent losses, of the infant William and the adolescent Joan. While the fifteenth-century obit book does not record yearly masses for any of Edward’s children other than the Black Prince, it is entirely possible that these two were commemorated at the college during their father’s lifetime.26 The date of foundation was important for St Stephen’s because it marked some form of parity with St George’s and gave the college a legal existence.27 The king’s plans for how to use the still incomplete chapel seem to have been W.M. Ormrod, Edward III (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011), p. 306. CPR 1348–50, pp. 146–7; see discussion in Ormrod, ‘Accountability and Collegiality: The English Royal Secretariat in the Mid-Fourteenth Century’, in Ecrit et Pouvoir dans les Chancelleries Médiévales: Espace Français, Espace Anglais, ed. Kouky Fianu and DeLloyd J. Guth (Louvain-La-Neuve: Fédération internationale des instituts d’études médiévales, 1997), pp. 55–85 at p. 79. 24 J. Vale, Edward III and Chivalry (Woodbridge: Boydell, 1982), pp. 76–82. 25 Ormrod, ‘The Royal Nursery: A Household for the Younger Children of Edward III’, EHR 120 (2005): 398–415 at 412–13; some of Joan’s goods were given to the college in E 101/ 370/18, m. 12. 26 The obits were listed on monthly calendars in BL Cotton MS Faustina B VIII, ff. 2r–7v. 27 Ormrod, ‘For Arthur and St George: Edward III, Windsor Castle and the Order of the Garter’, in St George’s Chapel Windsor in the Fourteenth Century, ed. N. Saul (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2005), pp. 13–34 at p. 21 n. 38. 22 23

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33

in development in 1348. The final form of a dean and twelve canons along with a support staff of vicars, lay clerks and choristers may not have emerged until late August or early September, but it was probable that by July 1348 the king intended that the chapel would be more lavishly staffed than its predecessor St Stephen’s by the Receipt had been. In the 6 August letter patent for St George’s, the college there was to have a dean and twenty-three canons but no vicars.28 In 1352, the statutes for St George’s divided this group into canons and vicars and increased the overall number to twelve canons and thirteen vicars to match St Stephen’s.29 This increase may suggest that the form the new St Stephen’s was to take was settled between August and September, probably because the extra staff would allow the college to mirror the number of the apostles, maintain worship even when some of the canons were absent, and parallel other such colleges abroad, particularly the Sainte Chapelle in Paris. The sum of £5 10s 10d in yearly fees from the county farm in Essex and London, tax revenues collected by the sheriffs, had been assigned in the early fourteenth century to the maintenance of worship at St Stephen’s by the Receipt and was then transferred to the new college at some point shortly after 1348.30 These would not, however, be the only revenues available to the priests who would staff the chapel even before August 1348. Work on a new endowment had begun in July 1348 with the appropriation of the rectory of Dewsbury in Yorkshire.31 It would be among the properties used for the endowment of St Stephen’s in the foundation letter patent, and it was probably intended for that purpose in July, although there is a possibility that it was originally intended for St George’s. The rector of Dewsbury, John Maidenstan, was paid twenty shillings for his expenses and then later compensated with a prebend at the college on 20 August according to the patent rolls.32 Dewsbury was worth £66 13s 4d in yearly farmed rent in 1348, so represented an enormous increase in the resources available for worship in St Stephen’s and a step towards the much greater resources needed to sustain a full college on the final scale of St Stephen’s. The Black Death interrupted and complicated the foundation of St Stephen’s rather than acting as a spur to action. In the face of the threat of the epidemic, the new colleges lagged. Edward III retreated into traditional religion in response to the plague, choosing in 1350 to create the Cistercian abbey of St Mary Graces at CPR 1348–50, p. 144. Windsor, St George’s Archives, XI D 20; edited in ‘The Statutes and Injunctions of St. George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle’, ed. M. Bond (unpublished edition of galley proofs by J.N. Dalton, 1962), p. 5. 30 For example, E 372/214. 31 E 403/343, m. 23; CPR 1348–50, p. 147. 32 14 July 1348, E 403/343, m. 23; CPR 1348–50, p. 147. 28 29

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the site of one of the plague pits, as well as in the previous year augmenting the friars minor at King’s Langley with a sister convent at Dartford.33 Despite the suggestion of Sloane, St Stephen’s was not a response to the approaching epidemic, as it had been begun well before the outbreak was seen as a true threat.34 Ormrod has suggested that it would take until December for Edward III to be fully aware of the danger.35 In addition, it did not reach London until October or November of 1348, when the college was already a reality, if not yet a complete institution.36 In the summer, while the West Country was beginning to suffer from the plague, central government in London continued as normal. As mentioned above, work on the college had seemingly been underway for some time, to the point where John Maidenstan could be paid for the appropriation of his rectory on 14 July in preparation for its grant to the college. The area in which the Black Death complicated matters for the new St Stephen’s College was operational. Deaths among the masons, the canons and other staff meant that replacements were needed and that the rate of work on the chapel itself slowed from late 1348 into 1349.37 The first dean, Thomas Crosse, is known to have died during the epidemic and one of the first three canons, John Maidenstan, may also have died between 1348 and 1350.38 The other two original canons, John Buckingham and John Chesterfield, survived and remained at the college until the 1360s. In the confusion, it is not known when Michael Northburgh, the second dean, was appointed, as the letter patent was not enrolled or perhaps was never issued.39 As he was absent, the college stalled until he left in 1355 to become bishop of London. It was not yet up to full strength in terms of canons, the buildings for the new institution had not been begun, and its finances and statutes were incomplete. I. Grainger and C. Phillpotts, The Cistercian Abbey of St Mary Graces, Smithfield, London (London: Museum of London Publications, 2011), p. 75. 34 B. Sloane, The Black Death in London (Stroud: History Press, 2011), p. 11. 35 Ormrod, ‘The English Government and the Black Death of 1348–9’, in England in the Fourteenth Century: Proceedings of the 1985 Harlaxton Symposium, ed. W. Mark Ormrod (Woodbridge: Boydell, 1986), pp. 175–88 at p. 175. 36 There is disagreement about when it arrived in London, Ziegler thought November, with possible cases in October as well, while Shrewsbury thought the plague only really reached London in January 1349: P. Ziegler, The Black Death (London: Collins, 1969), p. 156; J.F.D. Shrewsbury, A History of the Bubonic Plague in the British Isles (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), p. 38. 37 For the period 1346–51, E 372/197 rots. 47–47d. 38 Maidenstan does not reoccur after 1348; Crosse was replaced in his prebend at Lincoln Cathedral in 1349, Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae 1300–1541: Volume 1, Lincoln Diocese, ed. H.P.F. King (London: Institute of Historical Research, 1962), p. 104. 39 His deanery is mentioned in Cal. Pap. Letters 1342–1362, p. 398. 33

Biggs, Elizabeth. St Stephen's College, Westminster : A Royal Chapel and English Kingship, 1348-1548, Boydell & Brewer, Incorporated, 2020. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nyulibrary-ebooks/detail.action?docID=6229011. Created from nyulibrary-ebooks on 2021-02-03 07:13:50.

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Until his death in 1366, the role played by William Edington, bishop of Winchester at St Stephen’s was exceptional in its range and diversity as well as its extra-diocesan character. Edington was almost certainly involved at St Stephen’s from the very start of Edward III’s planning of the college. He was also involved in the founding of St George’s, where he intended an obit, a yearly service in his memory, to be kept, and with the Order of the Garter as prelate.40 At both St George’s and St Stephen’s Edington was not the diocesan bishop, which would have been the bishops of Salisbury and London respectively. Instead he combined the roles of senior royal administrator and most trusted ecclesiastical adviser to the king and used those authorities to direct the life of the new college. It was Edington acting as part of the royal council, rather than the bishop of London as diocesan, who inspected the ongoing building works in the chapel, including the choir stalls, which in 1352 were found to be unacceptable.41 As treasurer of England to 1355 he had some responsibility for the chapel attached to the Exchequer, at that time St Stephen’s by the Receipt. As Chancellor from 1356 he was the Visitor and held ecclesiastical jurisdiction for all royal free colleges and peculiars, although there is no record of any visitation at this time. Presumably at the king’s request, Edington was appointed by the pope to write the college’s statutes in 1349, a task that was finally accomplished in 1355.42 Even in the fifteenth century he was remembered as the writer of the statutes in his obit at St Stephen’s.43 Perhaps most significantly for the new college, in the early 1350s, when the dean was absent and royal interest was elsewhere, Edington provided the impetus to continue the work of foundation. Two canons are directly attested as having been provided canonries by Edington, and in 1356 his successor at the treasurer asked that the treasurer’s right to provide a chaplain to St Stephen’s by the Receipt should be confirmed as a right to provide a canon to the new college.44 This arrangement never actually seems to have been used after Edington, but it reflected both the older associations of St Stephen’s by the Receipt and the variety of ways in which Edington was able to shape the direction of the college at a critical moment. The first generation of canons from 1348 to 1366 were almost all connected to William Edington. Most were involved with the Exchequer and, as suggested by Ormrod, Edington may have been the driving force behind the creation of St Roberts, St George’s, p. 149. The documentation for the stalls is E 101/471/5 m. 3; CCR 1349–54, p. 226; for a full discussion of Edington’s role in completing the buildings of St Stephen’s, see Hillson, ‘St Stephen’s Chapel’, pp. 209–10. 42 Petitions to the Pope, pp. 176–197; WAM 18431. 43 BL Cotton MS Faustina B VIII, f. 52r. 44 He had appointed Thomas Stapelford and Ralph Brantingham, CPR 1354–58, pp. 430, 487. 40 41

Biggs, Elizabeth. St Stephen's College, Westminster : A Royal Chapel and English Kingship, 1348-1548, Boydell & Brewer, Incorporated, 2020. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nyulibrary-ebooks/detail.action?docID=6229011. Created from nyulibrary-ebooks on 2021-02-03 07:13:50.

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Stephen’s in order to found a college that would serve as a hub for Exchequer collegiality in the way that the Inns of Chancery did for Chancery clerks.45 The first group of canons to 1356 were exceptionally closely related to the Exchequer, which was next door to the college’s own buildings. Two of the first three canons and the first dean, Thomas Crosse, were connected to Edington through shared work at the Exchequer, or through his diocese. Crosse had had a long and distinguished career in the Exchequer, and had amassed benefices as a result.46 He had been associated with Edington’s financial reforms of the 1340s, as the treasurer sought to claw back Exchequer influence from the Wardrobe.47 Of the canons appointed before 1355, most were connected to the Exchequer. Bernard Brocas was more Edington’s clerk than he was the king’s but had worked for both in Gascony and in England, and John Chesterfield was an Exchequer clerk.48 The third canon appointed, John Maidenstan, did not have any connections to Edington or to royal service, but his prebend was compensation for losing his rectory. Edington seems to have wanted a variety of experiences at the college, as the men appointed to 1366 ranged from just beginning their careers, such as John Buckingham, who would go on from the Exchequer to be bishop of Lincoln, to men such as Crosse and the very senior William Cusance, who were at the end of their long and distinguished administrative careers.49 After Edington’s move to Chancery in 1355, some Chancery clerks also joined the college, including Roger Chesterfield, who had been in the Exchequer when he was first appointed to St Stephen’s and then moved to join Edington in the Chancery in 1360, and Richard Ravenser.50 The final area where Edington’s influence was felt was a third source of early canons, building works. Edington was himself involved in approving the works, and clerks of the works who had worked on the accounting for the new chapel formed another grouping within the college at this point, including Walter Weston, Adam Chesterfield and Martin Ixnyng.51 Ormrod, ‘Accountability and Collegiality’, p. 79. BRUO, p. 518. 47 Tout, Chapters, iii, pp. 204–5. 48 Brocas occurs working for the king in Gascony from the 1330s to the 1360s, C 61/42, no. 225; C 61/48, no. 6; C 61/77, no. 10; C 61/94, no. 21; and for Edington, Reg. Edington, i, no. 771; for Chesterfield see J.C. Sainty, Officers of the Exchequer (Kew: List and Index Society, 1983), p. 195. 49 A.K. McHardy, ‘The Early Ecclesiastical Career of John Buckingham’, Lincolnshire History and Archaeology 8 (1975): 3–12; BRUO, p. 518; Ormrod, ‘Cusance, William (d.1360)’, ODNB. 50 M. Richardson, The Medieval Chancery under Henry V (Kew: List and Index Society, 1999), p. 167; McHardy, ‘Ravenser, Richard (d.1386)’, ODNB. 51 E 101/469–72. 45 46

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At the same time as the college was gradually filled with staff, the king, his clerks of the works and the canons themselves had to find solutions to the needs of the college within the palace. Unlike its predecessor chapels, St Stephen’s College needed communal space such as a chapter house alongside a much greater quantity of housing for the canons and vicars, even if the choristers and clerks lived outside the college, in the manor of Westminster. These communal buildings needed to be fitted into the palace where space was at a premium.52 In 1348, the canons had been given the inn of the earl of Kent, just to the north of New Palace Yard.53 It is likely that this is where the college first lived while the chapel itself was still being decorated and adapted for the college’s liturgical needs. In January 1356 Edward III granted the college the land between the Receipt of the Exchequer, the River Thames and the chapel itself to house their cloister and houses.54 This grant was backdated to 1355 because the cloister had already been begun on this site, and the ownership needed to be clarified.55 As such, the revival of work on the college’s needs went alongside the arrival in 1355–1356 of the new dean, Thomas Keynes, eight new or returning canons, and the completion of the college’s statutes.56 It thus marked a recommitment on the king’s part to ensuring the success of his new college. The cloisters and houses were built between 1355 and 1362, under the supervision of Adam Chesterfield, clerk of the works and also later canon of the college.57 The land used for building this new precinct lay next to the chapel itself and provided a distinctive and visually coherent physical space for the college along the Thames waterfront, which was to remain the heart of the college for the rest of the Middle Ages. The college precinct was front and centre along the river, which was the main thoroughfare bringing goods, visitors and the court to Westminster from London, which meant that even if those who saw it from the river never actually visited the chapel or the college’s other buildings, they would be aware that there was an ecclesiastical institution analogous to a monastery within the king’s palace and thus be reminded of the lavish royal piety and devotion to the Church that had caused it to be made. For the equivalent struggles at the Sainte Chapelle, C. Billot, ‘L’insertion d’un quartier canonical dans un palais royal: problèmes de cohabitation. L’exemple de la SainteChapelle de Paris’, in Palais Royaux et Princiers au Moyen Age, ed. A Renoux (Le Mans: Université du Maine, 1996), pp. 111–16 at pp. 112–13. 53 CPR 1348–50, p. 147. 54 CChR 1349–1417, pp. 133–4. 55 E 101/471/16 m. 2; SC 8/247/12304. 56 CPR 1354–56, pp. 321-2, 408, 417; WAM 18431. 57 For the sequence, Hillson, ‘St Stephen’s Chapel’, p. 171; E 101/371/16; Chesterfield became a canon in 1369, CPR 1367–70, p. 249. 52

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The College’s Functions and Purpose St Stephen’s was a new example of a type of institution that had fallen out of favour in the High Middle Ages and the high-water mark of monastic foundations.58 Edward was not the first to revive them, but he helped to create a fashion among laypeople for such foundations. Colleges were one possible form of communal religious life, in which a group of priests lived together and maintained the liturgy of a particular church.59 No common rule united colleges as a type; rather they were each idiosyncratic and particular to the circumstances of their foundation and to the ongoing needs of their communities, whether they were responsible for a cathedral or the smallest parish church. The only set of colleges that could act together by virtue of a shared sense of purpose and identity were those associated with the monarchy, the royal free chapels, which in the thirteenth century had demanded that their privileges and rights be clarified.60 Collegiate foundations in England were mostly pre-Conquest, and ranged from the great cathedral foundations such as Lincoln and York, to the smaller colleges such as the eight-person college at Norton in County Durham.61 The newer colleges were usually associated with bishops, who had rediscovered their potential for personalised commemoration and patronage for their households.62 In the wake of the Black Death, lay founders also came to appreciate colleges as institutions that could be moulded to meet their desires for dynastic display, the new emphasis on commemoration of the dead, and their own particular religious interests.63 St Stephen’s was among the first of these noble foundations, and as such it strongly reflected the king’s personal piety and dynastic interests, in a venue that was accessible both to his household and to members of the public visiting the Palace of Westminster. Edward III was creating a chapel that would offer a continuous C. Burgess, ‘An Institution for All Seasons’, in The Late Medieval English College and its Context, ed. C. Burgess and M. Heale (York: York Medieval Press, 2008), pp. 3–27 at p. 20. 59 On colleges as a type: A.H. Thompson, ‘Notes on Colleges of Secular Canons in England’, Archaeological Journal 74 (1917): 139–99. 60 W.R. Jones, ‘Patronage and Administration: The King’s Free Chapels in Medieval England’, Journal of British Studies 9 (1969): 1–23 at 1–2. 61 ‘Colleges: Norton’, in A History of the County of Durham: Volume 2, ed. W. Page (London: Constable and Company, 1907), p. 127. 62 C. Fonge, ‘Patriarchy and Patronage: Investing in the Medieval College’, in The Foundations of Medieval English Ecclesiastical History: Studies presented to David Smith, ed. P.M. Hoskin et al. (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2005), pp. 77–93. 63 C. Harper-Bill, ‘The English Church and English Religion after the Black Death’, in The Black Death in England, 1348–1500, ed. W.M. Ormrod and P. Lindley (Stamford: Paul Watkins, 1996), pp. 79–123 at p. 104; N. Orme, ‘Church and Chapel in Medieval England’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, Sixth Series, 6 (1996): 75–102 at 76. 58

Biggs, Elizabeth. St Stephen's College, Westminster : A Royal Chapel and English Kingship, 1348-1548, Boydell & Brewer, Incorporated, 2020. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nyulibrary-ebooks/detail.action?docID=6229011. Created from nyulibrary-ebooks on 2021-02-03 07:13:50.

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round of liturgy, shaped to his own Marian devotion and to the commemoration of the royal dead. It would also be a royal free chapel, and thus exempt from the usual structures of the English Church, providing the king’s palace with a wholly specialised religious environment. St Stephen’s College was at the forefront of a wider trend, in which secular colleges became a popular religious investment in England.64 A secular college was a flexible form of ecclesiastical community, a group of priests with a corporate identity and some form of either communal or individual incomes, attached to a new chapel or an existing parish church. It might also have charitable or educational provision, such as the fifteenth-century schools at Eton or Winchester or the poor knights at Windsor. Its form was not based on a monastic rule, but on the wishes of the founder as expressed in statutes and customs built up over time. Like monastic foundations, secular colleges had specific rules for the community, but did not bind their members with the type of personal vows expected of monks.65 Instead, the priests who were members of secular colleges remained free to combine membership of a college with other work and church benefices. In the post-Conquest era monasteries became popular with lay and religious founders, with the result that very few new secular colleges were founded. In the fourteenth century, bishops once again saw the potential of colleges in their ongoing disputes with their cathedral chapters.66 Increasingly, cathedral chapters were staffed by royal or papal appointees rather than the bishop’s own chaplains. Instead of trying to dominate their cathedrals, bishops sought instead to create new institutions, which would have canonries that they could fill with these chaplains as rewards for their service. Colleges founded by lay donors were not straightforwardly a post-Black Death phenomenon, as there were a few founded just before 1348 such as the idiosyncratic foundation of Rushworth in 1342.67 After 1350, colleges, often attached to a parish church, came to be more popular because they could combine particular charitable or religious concerns of a founder with commemoration for the dead and could be shaped to meet the available financial resources of donors. Lavish noble colleges such as the refounded St Mary’s Warwick in the 1350s shared the same form and much of the Burgess, ‘Institution for All Seasons’, p. 17. On the role of college statutes more generally as a tool of enforcement and guidance although he sees them as created by founders rather than through negotiation, see J. Sabapathy, Officers and Accountability in Medieval England, 1170–1300 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), pp. 192–5. 66 Fonge, ‘Patriarchy and Patrimony’, p. 85. 67 E.K. Bennet, ‘Notes on the Original Statutes of the College of St John the Evangelist of Rushworth, Norfolk, founded by Edmund Gonville, AD 1342’, Norfolk Archaeology 10 (1888): 50–64 at 51–6. 64 65

Biggs, Elizabeth. St Stephen's College, Westminster : A Royal Chapel and English Kingship, 1348-1548, Boydell & Brewer, Incorporated, 2020. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nyulibrary-ebooks/detail.action?docID=6229011. Created from nyulibrary-ebooks on 2021-02-03 07:13:50.

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same provision for their founders’ souls with the much smaller chantry colleges in parish churches founded by much less wealthy men and women.68 The largest group of colleges to still be active as a group in 1348 were the fourteen royal free chapels.69 These chapels were to be important to St Stephen’s because they provided a framework into which the new college was to attempt to fit itself. These institutions were small colleges, usually predating the Norman Conquest and generally by the fourteenth century used as sinecure rewards for royal servants, who would be absent. For example, St Martin le Grand in London was a royal free chapel that had strong and enduring links with the administrative department of the Wardrobe.70 Canons of St Stephen’s who worked in the Wardrobe, including William Mulsho, were often also deans of St Martin’s.71 The royal free chapels had succeeded in securing extensive rights and privileges by a flurry of litigation and careful use of papal bulls in the thirteenth century to which they clung tenaciously for the rest of the Middle Ages.72 These rights generally included the rights to have the Chancellor as their Visitor, to be sued only in the king’s court of Chancery, and to an exempt deanery, which meant that the deans of the free chapels exercised the usual powers of an archdeacon over the churches appropriated to the chapels. These powers included the right to prove wills and to hold ecclesiastical courts, to name two of the powers that would be particularly relevant to St Stephen’s later.73 Although they were all much smaller institutions than St Stephen’s was to become, they were clearly the model for what Edward III wanted for St Stephen’s and St George’s. In 1349, he wrote to the pope asking that the pope confirm the rights of St Stephen’s as one of the royal free chapels and referred to it in such terms.74 His idea of an exempt deanery was, however, slightly different as it seems to have referred to the physical limits of the palace rather than its appropriated churches.75 At St Stephen’s, the intended effect of treating it as a free chapel was to create an exempt deanery with parochial functions that covered the entire palace at Westminster, and removed it from the jurisdiction of Westminster Abbey, which controlled the local parish of Harper-Bill, ‘The English Church and English Religion after the Black Death’, p 104; for smaller chantry foundations, K. Wood-Legh, Perpetual Chantries in Britain (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965). 69 Jones, ‘King’s Free Chapels’: 3. 70 Tout, Chapters, iv, p. 155. 71 Ibid., vi, p. 27. 72 Denton, Royal Free Chapels, pp. 91–5. 73 WAM 18465. 74 Petitions to the Pope, p. 187. 75 Denton argued that St Stephen’s was never given an exempt deanery as its appropriated churches were not themselves exempt, Denton, Royal Free Chapels, pp. 116–17; for the dean of St Stephen’s views in the 1370s, WAM 18465. 68

Biggs, Elizabeth. St Stephen's College, Westminster : A Royal Chapel and English Kingship, 1348-1548, Boydell & Brewer, Incorporated, 2020. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nyulibrary-ebooks/detail.action?docID=6229011. Created from nyulibrary-ebooks on 2021-02-03 07:13:50.

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St Margaret’s just across Old Palace Yard.76 Removing St Stephen’s from abbey jurisdiction would have given the king a de facto parish for those living and working in the palace, which was entirely under royal control, and where the dean and the chancellor were the sole authorities. Edward III was also able to look to the structures and purposes of collegiate palace chapels within important palaces abroad. The most famous example of a royal palace chapel with a collegiate structure is the Sainte Chapelle of Paris, first founded in 1248 and then augmented and refounded over the next sixty years.77 Just as at Westminster, the Sainte Chapelle sat within the administrative and judicial structures of one of the most important French palaces. By the 1340s it was both a palace chapel for the king’s household and an institutionally distinct foundation, which showcased the piety of Louis IX and his mother, Blanche of Castile. In form, St Stephen’s directly responded to the Sainte Chapelle, which was headed by a dean, there called the trésorier, and staffed by twelve canons, as well as vicars, clerks and choristers to assist with the liturgy for a total community of forty-three in comparison to the thirty-eight at St Stephen’s by 1394.78 The most important archetype of a college within a palace precinct, however, was Charlemagne’s foundation of St Mary’s at Aachen, which Edward III may also have known due to his brief visit to Cologne in 1338.79 In the 1350s and 1360s Charles IV was to carry out extensive work at Aachen, extending and recodifying the college as well as building a new nave for the chapel.80 Aachen retained its importance as a place of legitimation for the Holy Roman Emperors throughout the Middle Ages because it was both the cult centre for the first emperor, Charlemagne, and the site of imperial coronations. However, Charles IV was also reorientating his empire towards the east. In Prague he built a monastery as well as the new cathedral of St Stephen and his own palace, where his imperial

R. Lützelschwab, ‘Verletze Eitelkeiten? Westminster Abbey und St Stephen’s, Westminster – Mönche und Kanoniker im Konflikt’, in Pluralität – Konkurrenz – Konflikt: Religiöse Spannungen im städtischen Raum der Vormoderne, ed. Jörg Oberste (Regensburg: Schell and Steiner, 2013), pp. 81–100 at 85–6; the college’s case is recorded in WAM 18461. 77 S.-J. Morand, Constitutions des Trésorier, Chanoines et Collège de la Sainte – Chapelle Royale du Palais (Paris: Clousier, 1779), pp. 5–10. 78 Billot, ‘Le Fondation de Saint Louis: le collège des chanoines de la Sainte-Chapelle 1248–1555’, in Le Trésor de la Sainte-Chapelle, ed. J. Durand and M.-P. Laffitte (Paris: Reunion des musées, 2001), pp. 98–106 at p. 102; for the 38 people at St Stephen’s in 1394, BL Cotton MS Faustina A III, f. 295r. 79 Ormrod, Edward III, p. 201. 80 E. Rice, Music and Ritual at Charlemagne’s Marienkirche in Aachen (Berlin: Merseburger, 2009), p. 67. 76

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administration was concentrated.81 In this sense, there is an almost parallel with Edward III’s St George’s and St Stephen’s; Charles built two foundations associated with a newly important royal site, Prague, and revitalised another important institution at the established heart of government, Aachen. The level of worship offered by these royal colleges was only possible with considerable investment and allowed for near continual celebration of the Mass. This type of collegiate form was also practical as a means to show off royal piety within the very heart of royal life, as Aachen had been under Charlemagne and the Sainte Chapelle continued to be under successive French kings. Collegiate liturgies in England could be tailored to the interests of their founders, but were usually based on the emerging standard liturgy based on the practices of Salisbury Cathedral.82 St Stephen’s was ordered to celebrate the liturgy ‘cum nota’, with song (polyphony), which suggests a particularly lavish liturgy was intended.83 At St Stephen’s, the key documents for Edward III’s liturgical intentions are the foundation letter patent and the lost foundation statutes of 1355, which were paralleled in the surviving statutes for St George’s, Windsor.84 The statutes of St Stephen’s were written by William Edington, bishop of Winchester, but would also have reflected Edward’s own concerns with Marian devotion, royal commemoration and St George. At St George’s, the principal deviations and additions to the basic Salisbury (or Sarum) liturgy were concerned with the college’s function as a chantry and with Edward’s own devotion to the Virgin.85 Thus there was to be a daily Lady Mass and a daily Office of the Dead, and obits for Edward III, Philippa of Hainault and the Black Prince were to be kept yearly after their deaths. A final concern was the kingdom, and so St George’s was to say the collect Salus Populi and prayers for the then king daily. It is overwhelmingly likely that this was replicated at St Stephen’s, if not extended, as St Stephen’s foundation letter patent says that the college is to pray for the king and his ancestors as well as the future of his dynasty.86 The college’s obit book also has the same royal

For Charles IV’s interest in Prague and his works there, see Z. Opačić and P. Crossley, ‘Prague as a New Capital’, in Prague, the Crown of Bohemia: Art and Culture under the Last Luxembourgs 1347–1437, ed. J. Fajt and B. Drake Boehm (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005), pp. 103–22 at pp. 59–73. 82 M. Cheung Salisbury, ‘Rethinking the Uses of Sarum and York: A Historiographical Essay’, in Understanding Medieval Liturgy: Essays in Interpretation, ed. H. Gittos and S. Hamilton (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2015), pp. 108, 122. 83 Monasticon, vi, p. 1350. 84 The fragment of the statutes that survives is WAM 18431; St George’s statutes exist in an early fifteenth-century copy, Windsor, St George’s College Archives, XI D 20. 85 St George’s Archives, XI D 20, ‘Statutes of St George’s’, p. 11. 86 Monasticon, vi, p. 1350. 81

Biggs, Elizabeth. St Stephen's College, Westminster : A Royal Chapel and English Kingship, 1348-1548, Boydell & Brewer, Incorporated, 2020. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nyulibrary-ebooks/detail.action?docID=6229011. Created from nyulibrary-ebooks on 2021-02-03 07:13:50.

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obits as St George’s statutes specify.87 Thus, if this provision was duplicated at St Stephen’s, as seems highly likely, the college would have had to integrate two full extra services into their daily round from Matins to Compline along with adding several prayers for the monarchy, which would be a striking display of their deep liturgical resources, including unusual musical resources in four clerks to sing polyphonic music.88 The requirement that vicars celebrate mass daily themselves at St George’s would have been eased at St Stephen’s by the minimum of five altars available across three chapels, with the possibility of a fourth altar beneath St Mary le Pew and extra altars in St Mary beneath the Vaults.89 While Edward III did not shape the liturgy as dramatically as Louis IX had in Paris with the introduction of a new feast in the Sainte Chapelle, that of the Crown of Thorns, he was adding to the college’s piety his concern for his dynastic success and his own salvation. He also set the pattern for the college’s very rich musical and liturgical practices for the rest of its existence. The only documentation that survives for the liturgical life of the college during Edward III’s reign comes from the commentary of Adam Houghton, bishop of St David’s, in his visitation of the college on 23 April 1377. The visitation, the only such recorded, was possibly carried out as a routine matter because Houghton also visited Windsor around the same time. Both visits came under his remit as Chancellor of England with responsibility for the royal free chapels, and by the grant of 1349, for St Stephen’s and St George’s specifically.90 Even if it started as routine, the visitation uncovered issues with both the college’s financial record keeping and its liturgical practices. According to the bishop, the vicars were not celebrating the daily round of liturgy correctly, and they needed to keep the canonical hours. It is hard to see if the liturgical materials were missing or simply not up to the standard Houghton expected, as he felt that the sacrist needed to provided more books in the choir for services, suggesting that the books bought by Edward III were not seen as enough, and the college needed amices and copes, some of the richest of the liturgical vestments, which the vicars were then to be responsible for maintaining.91 Of more interest than simply the need to better Edward III, the Black Prince and Philippa of Hainault, BL Cotton Faustina B VIII, ff. 4v, 5v. 88 ‘aliis ministris’ are mentioned in Monasticon, vi, p. 1350; four clerks are explicitly mentioned in The Issue Roll of Thomas de Brantingham, bishop of Exeter, Lord High Treasurer of England, containing payments made out of his Majesty’s Revenue in the 44th Year of King Edward III AD 1370, ed. and trans. F. Devon (London: F. Devon, 1835), pp. 466–7. 89 ‘Statutes of St George’s’, p. 10. 90 C 66/298 m. 34. 91 ‘Amicia [et] Capa uig[ila] competenc[a] [et] honesta que suo sumptib[us] vicarij sibi ipis inuenire mundare rep[er]are [et] corrig[er]e teneant[a]’, C 66/298 m. 34. 87

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manage the standard services is the section where Houghton specifies the extra services that the college was failing to maintain properly: the Office of the Dead, the Lady Mass and the early morning Morrow Mass (the matuedines). Here it is confirmed that like St George’s, St Stephen’s was expected to add these extra services to its liturgical practice, which reflected Edward III’s personal interests in the cult of the Virgin, but also the emerging doctrine of intercession for the dead specifically. The visitation also provides an indication that already the college’s intercessory function was being drawn upon beyond the royal family, because he ordered them to create a ‘registrum’ of obits and other agreements that have been requested. The obit book that survives in the British Library was created in response, including the early obits of the canon Robert Elmham and Thomas Keynes, the third dean, whose obits Houghton had particularly noted as not being kept properly. The statutes were also supposed to be kept in this register, but if they were originally included they have been removed when the volume was cut down and bound with other material in the Cotton Collection.92 While there is little evidence for the music at St Stephen’s in its earliest years, it is suggestive of musical ambition from the start. Four clerks and six choristers was a large musical staff for any institution at this time, before the fifteenth-century developments in large choral performances of polyphonic music.93 In addition, the foundation letter patent said that the liturgy was to be performed ‘cum nota’, with song, which points towards an expectation that the college would fully utilise its staff and their talents for the still novel polyphonic liturgy.94 This was then probably borne out in the first years of the college. The motet Sub Arturo, thought to have been written for the Chapel Royal, references two musicians, John Corby and William Tideswell, who were also canons of St Stephen’s at that time.95 Their musical ability, along with the unknown abilities of the vicars, could have made St Stephen’s one of the best centres for liturgical music in England at this time. Brian Trowell has suggested that the context for the motet is St George’s Day at Windsor in 1358 after the spectacular victory at Poitiers; although this has been challenged, it also has resonances for St Stephen’s in the 1360s.96 The motet Cotton Faustina B VIII, ff. 2r–53r. R. Bowers, ‘Choral Institutions Within the English Church: – Their Constitution and Development 1340 – 1500’, PhD thesis (University of East Anglia, 1975), pp. 5001–4. 94 Monasticon, vi, p. 1350. 95 B. Trowell, ‘A Fourteenth-Century Ceremonial Motet and its Composer’, Acta Musicologica 29 (1957): 65–75 at 66–7, 69, 73; John Corby was appointed in 1363, left in 1380 and then returned and remained at the college until 1390, CPR 1361–64, p. 354; CPR 1377–81, p. 605; CPR 1396–99, p. 250; William Tideswell was a canon from 1358 to his death in 1361, CPR 1354–58, p. 417; CPR 1358–61, p. 85. 96 Trowell, ‘Ceremonial Motet and Its Composer’: 66–7; for a later dating, A. Wathey, ‘The 92 93

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picks up wider themes in the type of self-presentation that Edward III was engaging in at St Stephen’s. The text of the motet celebrates an English victory and the unity of knights and clergy in a devout and successful nation. Military success is attributed to successfully yoking together the military and the Church, just as in the altar wall murals at St Stephen’s Edward III and his sons were portrayed in armour in relation to St George and the Virgin Mary. The motet also points to a larger theme in the musical history of St Stephen’s by suggesting that there was a shared musical staffing and repertoire with the Chapel Royal, and that we should not see music as belonging to one or the other, but most probably shared throughout the college’s existence. Tideswell and Corby probably composed for both institutions, even if we have no known surviving music for St Stephen’s from the fourteenth century. The decorative scheme at St Stephen’s reinforced its liturgical and musical richness and priorities. The entire chapel was richly painted after 1348 and large quantities of gold leaf were applied to the walls.97 Much of the scheme was lost in the various alterations after the sixteenth century, but what was recorded in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries hints at the wider original decorative programme. The best-documented area is the eastern end of the chapel behind the pulpitum that separated visitors and the household from the chancel occupied by the royal family and the college’s own members.98 On the eastern wall to the left of the high altar, St George led a kneeling Edward III and his sons by the hand up towards the Virgin and Child with the Magi above. On the other side of the altar, Edward’s mother, Isabella of France, Philippa and their daughters knelt and mirrored the men.99 First, this set of wall paintings speaks to Edward’s pride in his family and their European ambitions. It is concerned with the health of the dynasty and the personal relationship between the king and the saints, particularly the Virgin as intercessor to whom the king is led. Other fragments of the painted scheme survive, but are harder to place within any larger scheme. There were narrative sequences of the Catholic Old Testament stories of Job and Tobit, which were on the side walls of the eastern bay, and at least one scene of martyrdom, that of St Eustace.100 If these surviving fragments are representative, the chapel’s decoration may have reflected on stories of adversity overcome and the power of faith. Job’s story was one of doubt and suffering overcome by faith, Peace of 1360–1369 and Anglo-French Musical Relations’, Early Music History 9 (1989): 129–74 at 150–1. 97 Hillson, ‘St Stephen’s’, pp. 174–5. 98 Howe, ‘Altar Wall Murals’: 270–3. 99 Hillson identifies the female figures as including Isabella, whereas Howe does not, ‘St Stephen’s’, pp. 178–9. 100 Ibid., pp. 179–80.

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while the book of Tobit emphasises the importance of marriage and of good works in the face of familial suffering, a story that may well have had personal resonance for Edward III after the Black Death and the deaths in 1348 of two of his children.101 St Eustace was the patron saint of those facing adversity, and like St Stephen was ultimately a martyr. The visibility of these specific dynastic and martyrdom schema, however, is unclear. Paul Binski pointed out that these known decorative programmes would be most clearly seen from the choir stalls, where the college and the royal family would sit, rather than necessarily to visitors.102 Those who attended services were more likely to take away a generalised impression of the resources lavished on the chapel and the magnificence of the kingship that it represented. These messages of kingship and faith were not confined to the royal family, the king’s household and administration, and the college’s own staff. All the later mentions of services in St Stephen’s refer to the upper chapel, suggesting that the household and visitors gathered in the nave at the western end of the upper chapel to hear and catch glimpses of the spectacle of the liturgy that was being performed by the college beyond the pulpitum and its rood loft. Froissart gives an idea of what their reactions might have been when he called it the ‘most rich, most beautiful and most noble palace chapel’ in his description of a particularly significant Mass in 1388.103 In the late fourteenth century the early morning Mass, the Morrow Mass, was said in the lower chapel, which was probably much less well attended than the main Mass of the day.104 Visitors were encouraged to come to services, just as at the Sainte Chapelle, by the provisions of indulgences for attendance at Masses, which offered significant remission from time in Purgatory.105 These indulgences were sought by Edward III from the papacy and were to be used on key feast days, including that of St Stephen on 26 December, as well as an unknown group of days that were to be determined by the diocesan bishop of London.106 Indulgences could be used to finance the building or repair of Joan of the Tower and William of Windsor. P. Binski, Westminster Abbey and the Plantagenets (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005), pp. 184–5. 103 ‘la chappelle du palays qui est moult belle, moult riche et moult noble’, Besançon, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 865, f. 363v; Froissart, Chronicles, ii, pp. 498–9. 104 Adam Chesterfield gave a missal for use in the Morrow Mass in the lower chapel, Cotton Faustina B VIII f. 10r. 105 M. Cohen, ‘An Indulgence for the Visitor: The Public of the Sainte-Chapelle of Paris’, Speculum 83 (2008): 840–83 at 864–5. 106 Indulgences on the major feast days of Christmas, Easter, Pentecost, Corpus Christi, SS Peter and Paul and St Stephen were granted in 1361, Petitions to the Pope, p. 372; earlier unspecified indulgences were granted and confirmed in 1349, Petitions to the Pope, p. 188; and 1354 Cal. Pap. Letters 1342–62, p. 538. 101 102

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ecclesiastical spaces, but that does not seem to have been the case at St Stephen’s, where the king financed the building and adaptation of the chapel to meet the college’s needs. These indulgences were sought in order to offer spiritual benefits to the king’s household, for whom St Stephen’s was probably their usual chapel when the king was at Westminster, and those who worked in the permanent offices based within the palace. In addition, outside visitors were probably being encouraged by these indulgences to come and experience royal piety and the royal provision of prayer. Rather than being a closed-off palatine chapel that served the needs only of the new institution and of the royal family, St Stephen’s was being set up as an attraction to visitors, who would be able to admire the wealth and resources that had created the chapel. St Stephen’s also served a wider audience as a cult centre, albeit a small-scale one in comparison to the shrine of Edward the Confessor at Westminster Abbey. A small oratory attached to the chapel, St Mary le Pew, sometimes called ‘Our Lady of Pity’, housed a cult image of the Virgin that is first referenced in 1356, when pilgrims were given the right to enter the chapel via Westminster Hall to pray at it.107 The cult image, if it is that described by Froissart in 1381, was one ‘in which the kings of England had long had trust’ and was finally being given a permanent home.108 There is no such image in the 1332–1333 inventory of the king’s relics, so either it was one particularly valued by Edward III and so with him at that point rather than in the storehouses, or it was the image listed as being in St Stephen’s by the Receipt in 1308, although that image was listed as an ‘iconia’ rather than an ‘ymaige’.109 The cult seems to have been one devoted to the Virgin as a mother as later references occasionally bracket it with Our Lady of Walsingham and Our Lady of Willesden, which echoes the comments about the Virgin Mary as a ‘better mother’ in the foundation letter patent.110 The maternal side of the cult may explain why St Mary le Pew was chosen as the location for a temporary chantry

CChR 1341–1417, p. 133; for the longer history of the oratory, C.L. Kingsford, ‘Our Lady of the Pew: The King’s Oratory or Closet in the Palace of Westminster’, Archaeologia 68 (1917): 1–20; note as well the presence of a chapel known as Our Lady of the Pew in Westminster Abbey, most recently discussed by J. Spooner, ‘The Virgin Mary and White Harts Great and Small: The 14th Century Wall-Paintings in the Chapel of Our Lady of the Pew and the Muniment Room’, in Westminster: The Art Architecture and Archaeology of the Royal Abbey and Palace, ed. W. Rodwell and T. Tatton-Brown, 2 vols, British Archaeological Association 29 (Leeds, 2015–16), i, pp. 263–90 at pp. 268–73. 108 Froissart, Chronicles, ii, p. 474. 109 E 101/468/21 f. 106r; my thanks to James Hillson for the reference and for discussing with me the implications of the word iconia in this context. 110 Privy Purse Expenses of Elizabeth of York etc., ed. N.H. Nicolas (London: William Pickering, 1830), pp. 2–3: Monasticon, vi, p. 1350. 107

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for Queens Philippa and Isabella in 1369 to last for an unknown duration.111 This quite conventional chantry is slightly unexpected because Isabella in particular had very different religious tastes, as seen in her patronage of the Greyfriars in London, where she was also buried.112 Edward was thus co-opting his mother back into his own dynastic piety at St Mary’s. By 1392, when offerings at the shrine were stolen, apparently around five hundred marks of offerings and jewels were stored in its chapel, which suggests that the cult had achieved some quiet success with pilgrims.113 St Mary le Pew was also part of the college’s structures. The keeper of St Mary le Pew seems to have generally been a clerk or more usually a vicar of the college, and the incumbent was included as part of the dean’s jurisdiction in the 1394 settlement with Westminster Abbey, in addition to the other classes of college staff.114 His task seems to have been the maintenance of the image and the chapel, as well as maintaining a separate round of services in St Mary le Pew.

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Creating the First Endowment The endowment of St Stephen’s as set up by Edward III was unusual and depended on the college’s proximity to the royal financial system, based in the Exchequer buildings just to the north of the chapel. It also owed more to royal experience of founding monasteries than to other possibilities for sustaining an institution. In the 1310s Edward II had tried to set up a group of chaplains into a quasi-­collegiate structure at Windsor paid for out of royal revenues rather than having its own landed income base. The institution collapsed quickly because royal finances could not consistently maintain the original commitment and wages quickly fell into arrears.115 Having learned from his father’s lesson, Edward III’s endowment for St Stephen’s combined unusual but stable elements to make up a defined income that would sustain the new college. His original plans called for an annual income of £500, drawn from a set of royal rights and church revenues allocated officially to the college rather than directly from landed manors, the usual source of wealth in this period.116 Most medieval foundations tried to cluster their lands and financial rights closely around themselves, for ease of administration and oversight.117 Landed income from manorial land was considered to be the most Kingsford, ‘Our Lady of the Pew’: 7–8. L. Slater, ‘Defining Queenship at Greyfriars London, c.1300–58’, Gender & History 27:1 (April 2015): 53–76 at 54–5. 113 CPR 1392–96, p. 244. 114 C 66/341 m. 24; CPR 1391–96, 553. 115 Roberts, St George’s, p. 5. 116 CPR 1348–50, p. 147. 117 Three example of royal or noble foundations with lands clustered carefully are Edward’s 111 112

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secure, as it could be managed to suit the institution’s needs rather than returning a fixed amount, whose buying power could be eroded. In contrast to St Stephen’s, Edward’s grants to St George’s were conventional, including lands and church advowsons in Wiltshire and the Midlands.118 The furthest of those lands was in Oxfordshire, Doddington Castle. Yet the earliest endowments at St Stephen’s were not at all compact or particularly close to Westminster, including a cluster of advowsons in Yorkshire. The college was also given rents out of administrative departments rather than lands, passive income that would need no active management but equally could not be improved by careful management. The canons’ personal connections with the administrative departments as well as their proximity to the Exchequer would facilitate obtaining the money. The intended annual income of £500 was at first an aspiration rather than a reality and it would take until the end of the reign for the college to fully stabilise its financial position. This number seems to have been set not by calculating the costs of wages, repairs and other expenses, but by reference to other royal monastic and collegiate foundations. In 1360, the college’s income was increased by £5 annually and, in 1370, Edward gave the vicars, clerks and choristers £34 because of the ‘dearness of provisions’ that year.119 Despite this ad hoc payment, the intention seems to have been that St Stephen’s would be able to support itself and maintain a lavish liturgy and good hospitality. It was not to be as wealthy as the great cathedrals, who in any case had a much larger staff to support. St George’s was to have £1,000 in its foundation patent, but that intention seems to have been quickly abandoned.120 Other royal colleges with comparable levels of staffing such as St Martin le Grand in London had approximately St Stephen’s income, earning only c.£300 at the start of the thirteenth century, which had probably increased by 1348 to be roughly comparable to the new St Stephen’s.121 St Mary’s in the Newarke had an endowment worth c.£302 6s 8d in 1355 on the grant of Henry, duke of

own foundation of St Mary Graces, St Mary’s Warwick and Tattersall in the fifteenth century, Grainger and Phillpotts, St Mary Graces, p. 89; The Cartulary of St Mary’s Collegiate Church, Warwick, ed. C. Fonge (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2004), pp. lxxvii–viii; ‘Colleges: Tattershall’, in The Victoria County History of the County of Lincoln, ed. W. Page (London: James Street, 1906), p. 237. 118 Roberts, St George’s, pp. 15, 27–30. 119 CPR 1358–61, pp. 441–2; The Issue Roll of Thomas Brantingham, pp. 466–7. 120 CPR 1348–50, p. 144; A.K.B. Evans, ‘The Years of Arrears: Financial Problems of the College of St George in the Fifteenth Century’, in St George’s Chapel, Windsor in the Late Middle Ages, ed. C. Richmond and E. Scarff (Windsor, for tbe dean and canons, 2001), pp. 93–106 at p. 93. 121 ‘Colleges: St Martin le Grand’, in The Victoria County History of the Counties of England: London, ed. W. Page (London: Constable and Company, 1909), p. 556.

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Lancaster, which he lavishly extended to 1,000 marks yearly in 1357.122 Edward’s monastic houses also were funded at this level. The friars at King’s Langley were intended to have £500 in 1377 annually, while the Cistercian house of St Mary Graces in London was to have 1,000 marks, or £666 13s 4d annually.123 In contrast to these incomes, the cathedrals, which the king intended to be the model for the liturgy at St Stephen’s, tended to be much higher or at the least comparable. In the 1291 Taxatio, Lincoln had £1,398 3s, while Salisbury had £2,013 13s.124 These two cathedrals were particularly wealthy, which reflected careful development over time and a much greater set of expenses. Even Hereford, one of the smaller secular cathedrals, had an income of around £565, if the common fund revenues are combined with the variable prebendal incomes.125 The foundation letter patent gave the college two church advowsons and the home of the Great Wardrobe in Lombard Street as well as the large Westminster property to the north of New Palace Yard known as the inn of the earl of Kent.126 It also promised that the shortfall would be made up from the Exchequer. From 1351 to 1355, when the college’s precinct within the Palace of Westminster proper was confirmed, the king added two more advowsons in Yorkshire, and a single grant of manorial land in St Albans.127 While the value of the St Albans lands is unknown, the advowsons, which were leased out for a fixed yearly sum, would have brought in c.£188 annually, based on the value noted in the grants. The earl of Kent’s inn may not have been leased at this time, as it was probably serving as the college’s temporary base while building work on the chapel and precinct continued, but would later be the site of leased properties. Even with c.£10 from the Essex and London fee-farms, which had earlier been granted to St Stephen’s Chapel and then were used by St Stephen’s by the Receipt, and the temporary right to £35 14s 7d from the fee-farm of York, these revenues were nowhere near fulfilling the Thompson, The History of the Hospital and the New College of St Mary in the Newarke, Leicester (Leicester: Leicester Archaeological Society, 1937), pp. 30–1. 123 ‘Friaries: King’s Langley Priory’, in The Victoria County History of the County of Hertford: Volume Four, ed. W. Page (London: Constable and Company, 1914), pp. 445–46; Grainger and Phillpotts, St Mary Graces, pp. 87, 90. 124 ‘Lincoln cathedral’, in The Victoria County History of the County of Lincoln, ed. William Page (London: Victoria County History, 1906), pp. 80–96; ‘The Cathedral of Salisbury: From the Foundation to the Fifteenth Century’, in The Victoria County History of the County of Wiltshire: Volume 3, ed. R.B. Pugh and E. Crittall (London: Institute of Historical Research, 1956), pp. 156–83. 125 D. Lepine and R.N. Swanson, ‘The Later Middle Ages, 1268–1535’, in Hereford Cathedral: A History, ed. G.E. Aylmer and J.E. Tiller (London: Hambledon, 2000), pp. 48–86 at p. 51. 126 CPR 1348–50, p. 147. 127 CPR 1354–58, p. 49; the land was then not included in the 1360 summary of the lands owned by St Stephen’s College, CPR 1358–60, pp. 441–2. 122

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original endowment and puzzlingly the college does not appear to have claimed the difference from Exchequer revenues.128 A second phase started in 1358 with the grant of another advowson and property and culminated in an assessment of the resources available to the college in 1360. In 1358, the college acquired the advowson of St John the Baptist, Penistone, from Ellis de Burton and John de Dronsfield, probably on royal orders as it seems to have been intended to increase the college’s control of the local churches near Wakefield.129 The king also added the London property of Serne’s Tower, previously the home of the Exchange, perhaps to replace the St Alban’s lands, which had been sold or lost.130 After 1361, the college started to claim money at the Exchequer: their leased income from the advowson of Holy Trinity, Bledlow in Buckinghamshire, which remained in royal hands at this time, and the c.£180 annual difference between their actual income and the intended income.131 The church advowsons granted either by the king directly or at his behest were part of a repurposing of church revenues to meet new royal religious priorities. It was an early example of the use of the possessions of the alien priories to support English religion and specifically dynastic religion. In the Hundred Years’ War, the alien priories, the daughter houses in England or French monasteries, came under suspicion and their lands and rights taken into the king’s hands during times of war.132 In 1348, many alien priories were at that time confiscated and paying their revenues into the Exchequer, but usually the situation was understood to be temporary and the Crown did not fully appropriate the priories’ possessions, although some might be given up in order to secure other possessions. St Stephen’s acquired five advowsons of churches that had belonged to two alien priories and one that had not, St John’s, Penistone. Four of the five churches were clustered in the West Riding of Yorkshire, around Wakefield, and came from the estates of the alien priory of Lewes. Dewsbury Minster and All Saints, Wakefield had returned to the Crown from the Despensers when they were attainted, and St Helen’s, Sandal Magna had been a negotiating tool in the talks that were to lead The fee farms are referenced in relation to the college in CPR 1358–60, pp. 441–2; the grant of monies from Essex and the City of London’s fee farms were made in 6 Edward III for worship in St Stephen’s according to the pipe rolls, such as E 372/214; see also L.C. Attreed, ‘The King’s Interest: York’s Fee Farm and the Central Government’, Northern History 17 (1981): 24–43 at 27, 40–2. 129 Unusually for St Stephen’s, the grant included some manorial land in addition, CPR 1358–61, p. 23. 130 CPR 1358–61, p. 568. 131 On the issue rolls, starting with E 403/408 m. 26. 132 B. Thompson, ‘Habendum et Tenendum: Lay and Ecclesiastical Attitudes to the Property of the Church’, in Religious Belief and Ecclesiastical Careers in Late Medieval England, ed. C. Harper-Bill (Woodbridge: Boydell, 1991), pp. 197–238 at p. 224. 128

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to Lewes’s naturalisation in 1351.133 All Hallows, Kirkburton, then known as St John’s, was also part of the endowment of Lewes, and at some point after 1331 had come into royal possession before being granted to St Stephen’s in 1353.134 The final advowson of an alien priory had a very different history. Holy Trinity, Bledlow in Buckinghamshire, of which the college was to have uncertain possession until 1413, was also an alien possession, belonging to the abbey of Grestein, and had been taken into the king’s hands because of the war in France.135 Bledlow’s income of £40 yearly was paid to the college, but it was not formally theirs until 1413 and the college accounted for the revenues at the Exchequer each year.136 The college’s canons as royal administrators would be well placed to manage and defend these rights, and so could take on the uncertainty and the distance from the actual churches more easily than many other institutions could. St Stephen’s compares very well to the efforts of the Oxford colleges and their founders and benefactors in this period. Like St Stephen’s, the university colleges at Oxford were ecclesiastical corporations whose security was based on their independent income, and who thus sought to build up stable and secure estates. By 1500, when the picture is clearest, most of those estates were based as locally as possible, in Oxfordshire and its neighbouring counties, suggesting how unusual the Yorkshire endowment of St Stephen’s was.137 The best comparison is William Wykeham’s foundation of New College. Wykeham was an important royal administrator who had himself been a canon of St Stephen’s in the 1360s, before his foundation of New College from 1371 onwards as a group of scholars and from 1379 as a formal college with a foundation charter.138 He would have seen St Stephen’s revenues and where the college was struggling to maintain its CCR 1349–54, p. 242; the feoffment to the Despensers is in CCR 1323–27, p. 497; Thompson, ‘The Laity, the Alien Priories and the Redistribution of Ecclesiastical Property’, in England in the Fifteenth Century: Proceedings of the 1992 Harlaxton Symposium, ed. N. Rogers (Stamford: Shaun Tyas, 1994), pp. 219–41 at pp. 8–9. 134 H.J. Morehouse, The History and Topography of the Parish of Kirkburton (Huddersfield: Roebuck, 1861), pp. 51–2. 135 ‘The parishes of Risborough Hundred: Bledlow’, The History of the County of Buckingham: Volume 2, ed. W. Page (London: Constable and Company, 1908), pp. 247–53; CPR 1361–64, p. 84. 136 For example, in 1372 the college acknowledged that it was receiving £40 from Roger Outy, rector of Bledlow, E 403/444 m. 19; the final grant of Bledlow was CPR 1408–13, p. 465. 137 T.A.R. Evans and R.J. Faith, ‘College Estates and University Finances 1350–1500’, in The History of the University of Oxford II: Late Medieval Oxford, ed. J.I. Catto and T.A.R. Evans (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), pp. 635–707 at p. 656. 138 For Wykeham at St Stephen’s see CPR 1361–64, p. 345; he was appointed bishop in 1366; P. Partner, ‘Wykeham, William (c.1324–1404)’, ODNB; Evans and Faith, ‘College Estates’, pp. 644–5. 133

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revenues and financial management, and may have used that knowledge as he built up his new college over the rest of his lifetime to 1404.139 Wykeham’s college was to have a roughly similar revenue, of around £500 to £600 annually, and to similarly rely on dispersed lands from alien priories, and other sources, although Wykeham was not able to obtain direct governmental revenues for his college.140 He was, however, able to acquire lands from Richard II, particularly lands that had belonged to Alice Perrers and to Chief Justice Tresilian after 1388, and then added lands that were held by groups of feoffees in neighbouring counties, as well as some urban tenements in Oxford itself.141 Wykeham’s grand plans for acquiring wholesale the landed possessions of alien houses in England had to be approved by the papacy, and approval was finally granted in 1392.142 Alien priory lands would come to be important at St Stephen’s only later, but New College shows the same sorts of possibilities that were also at work in Westminster. The collection of revenues from government departments and buildings given to St Stephen’s was only sustainable because the college had close physical and institutional links to the Exchequer. The revenues the college received from the Exchequer included claims on ordinary taxation, the fee-farms, as well as its claim on general revenue. At some point after 1348, St Stephen’s took over earlier regular payments from the fee-farms of London and Essex.143 It also competed successfully with the other commitments on the fee-farm of the city of York. The £35 14s 7d from York was intended to be temporary until the king should grant it lands to that value.144 In actuality, the Crown never stopped authorising these payments through Chancery writs. Occasionally the money was interrupted, for example in 1355/1356, and the arrears seem not to have been paid.145 The rents and share of the profits from the Wool Staple in Westminster after 1361, which had been set up on part of the site of the earl of Kent’s inn, were accounted for through the Exchequer.146 There was also a brief experiment in using non-Exchequer sources of money; in 1348 the college was granted the house in Lombard Street, which was then the home of the Great Wardrobe.147 It was in bad condition, but until 1361, For Wykeham’s continued interest in New, see A.B. Cobban, ‘Colleges and Halls, 1380– 1500’, in Late Medieval Oxford, pp. 581–633 at p. 583. 140 Evans and Faith, ‘College Estates’, p. 654. 141 Ibid., pp. 636–7, 655. 142 Ibid., pp. 645–7. 143 In 1349 the money was paid for worship at St Stephen’s Chapel, which may still mean St Stephen’s by the Receipt, E 372/194 rots. 6, 14. 144 It was called uncertain in 1360, CPR 1358–61, pp. 441–2. 145 E 372/201 rot. 6; note also that in the sixteenth century the college sued the former sheriffs of York over their failure to pay the money, C 1/687/26. 146 For example in 1368, when the college received arrears from 1365, E 403/433, m. 20. 147 CPR 1348–50, p. 147; Tout, Chapters, iv, pp. 404–5. 139

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when the de la Poles won a long-running dispute to obtain it, it was to provide £5 in rent annually to the college. In addition, they were not responsible for the repairs to the building. The dispute over the ownership of the inn seems to have made both the college and the king distrust the idea of drawing directly from government departments other than the Exchequer. The new home of the wardrobe never had any connection to St Stephen’s. Instead, the canons were compensated with £20 in rent from an equivalent house, La Réole, which had been used by the queen’s wardrobe, after the death of Queen Philippa in 1369.148 The final government-related London property the college owned was an inn called Serne’s Tower, which had previously been the home of the Exchange, and which passed out of royal control into the college’s property portfolio in 1361 and thus was managed by the college directly.149 The novelty of much of the financial accounting at the Exchequer may have sparked some of the experimentation that marked the first years of the endowment. The income was highly dispersed and often reliant on revenues several steps removed from their collection. The Exchequer accounted for fixed sums of money for the college from three different sheriffs’ accounts in Essex, London and York, as well as the money from Bledlow and La Réole. In addition, the Exchequer handled the uncertain and fluctuating rents from the Wool Staple.150 The college itself presumably managed the Yorkshire leases on the advowsons and the London and Westminster property. The straightforward leasing of the church advowsons seems to have worked well, and so further advowsons in the same area were added to the college’s endowment.151 The use of the Lombard Street inn to provide revenue to the college was clearly unsatisfactory in some manner as the experiment was not repeated, perhaps because Edington in the 1350s had reduced the financial powers and independence of the Wardrobe.152 Instead, La Réole and Bledlow’s revenues were acknowledged alongside the other Exchequer revenues owed to the college. Manorial land also seems to have been problematic for the new college as by 1360 the land in St Albans had been lost and no new manorial land was added until after 1377.153 In 1360, perhaps prompted by the imminent de la Pole victory over the question of ownership of the Lombard Street inn, an audit CPR 1367–70, p. 311. CPR 1358–61, p. 568. 150 For example, the issue roll from 1370 notes partial payments, arrears and the value of La Réole and Bledlow, E 403/444 mm. 16, 19, 25. 151 St Helen’s Sandal Magna in 1351, All Hallows, Kirkburton in 1353, St John’s, Penistone in 1358, and Holy Trinity, Bledlow in 1361. 152 Ormrod, ‘The Protecolla Rolls and English Government Finance’, EHR, 102 (1987): 622–32 at 625–6. 153 The St Albans land was not included in the 1360 audit, CPR 1358–61, pp. 441–2. 148 149

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was carried out on the college’s possessions and their ownership was confirmed.154 This audit then allowed the college and the Exchequer to know its income and to be sure that St Stephen’s was receiving the money that it was owed. It was found that the college could rely on £222 17s 6d annually, and that the York fee-farm and the fluctuating rents from the Wool Staple houses came to £102 17s 11d. As a consequence, after 1361 it was finally possible for St Stephen’s to start claiming the difference between its actual revenues and the intended revenues, which should have been £179 14s 7d annually. Indeed, from 1361 St Stephen’s appears on the issue rolls receiving revenues from the Exchequer and not just in the sheriffs’ accounts on the pipe rolls for the fee-farms.155 In addition, there was scope for individual canons to augment the endowment at this point, which may shed some light on the college’s own institutional priorities and what they felt they could manage. It took time for the college to fully understand and exploit its rights. In 1377, a visitation by the chancellor, Adam Houghton, censured the college for poor record-keeping and financial problems, possibly due to the complexities of the college’s novel mix of financial rights, among other concerns.156 In response to the dispersed rights, the college seems to have looked locally. In 1373 Robert Elmham, one of the early canons, left part of a tenement by the south door of the Palace of Westminster, ‘Le Holewetauerne’ or the Holy Way Tavern, to the college.157 This interest in a tavern would only provide twenty shillings a year, just enough to support Elmham’s yearly memorial service, but it suggests that the college as an institution may have been looking to develop its property holdings in Westminster. Property in the area was in high demand for housing, workshops and commercial activities as well as for those visiting the law courts, working in the palace or taking part in Parliament.158 In addition, oversight and management by the canons would be easier in Westminster than elsewhere. There is no evidence for when the college used its 1369 licence to acquire one hundred marks of land in mortmain, but it would not be surprising if lands to that value were purchased in Westminster.159 The mortmain licence, needed because the land was going in perpetuity to an ecclesiastical institution, suggests that the college was already looking for ways to reduce its dependence on the Exchequer and to acquire assets that would be less vulnerable to political turmoil, a change in the college’s staffing away from the administrative offices, or loss of royal favour CPR 1358–61, pp. 441–2; Tout, Chapters, iv, pp. 404–5. E 403/408 m. 26. 156 C 66/298 m. 34; CPR 1377–81, p. 57. 157 BL Cotton MS Faustina B VIII, f. 16r. 158 For a study of the unusual urban fabric of Westminster see G. Rosser, Medieval Westminster, 1200–1540 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989). 159 CPR 1367–70, p. 340. 154 155

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to the college as a whole. In addition, the college probably started to develop the earl of Kent’s inn fairly quickly into tenements that could be leased out, although the archaeological evidence for this area is not precise enough to be certain and the documentary evidence is lacking. It is certain that by the sixteenth century this area had been intensively redeveloped into leased housing, as well as providing the canons’ own houses in Canon Row from the late fourteenth century.160 In 1377, when Edward III’s will gave St Stephen’s a claim to a large amount of manorial land, it was to replace the c.£160 annually that the college was still receiving from Exchequer revenues. The grant to St Stephen’s, St Mary Graces and the Dominican nuns at Dartford was lavish: all the lands that the king had acquired, and which had not already been granted out.161 The college already had its endowment, but it was not primarily a landed endowment. Having experimented with funding a college through the use of leased rights, urban property in Westminster, and access to Exchequer revenues, Edward III finally gave St Stephen’s access to manorial land and manorial rights. Unfortunately, the grant in Edward’s will became part of larger disputes under his successor, which are fully explored in Chapter Two. Even the negotiated settlement, where St Stephen’s and the other institutions split only the Leybourne inheritance rather than all of Edward’s lands, in theory should have given the college around £200 annually, and thus more than compensated for the Exchequer revenue. In 1377 when Edward III died, he could be content that his college was in good shape both financially and institutionally. St Stephen’s had survived the immediate post-Black Death moment of uncertainty in the early 1350s and had been adopted by Edington as well as the new canons. Instead of collapsing at this point, St Stephen’s had created a functioning staff, statutes and a reasonably well-defined place within the parish as a pilgrimage site and as the chapel for the wider palace. Unfortunately, that place was still based on erroneous assumptions about the rights of the free chapels as they applied to St Stephen’s, and conflict over the extent of the exempt deanery was to occupy the college for the next twenty years.

Litigating its Place in Westminster The set of interlinked court cases that intermittently occupied St Stephen’s College from 1375 to 1394 ultimately both clarified and restricted the college’s place within the manor of Westminster. At its heart, the dispute was concerned The full development of the college’s own site in Richard II’s reign will be discussed in Chapter Two, pp. 81–3. 161 C. Given-Wilson, ‘Richard II and His Grandfather’s Will’, EHR 93 (1978): 320–37 at 320–1. 160

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with the mismatch between the separate royal enclave within the palace claimed by the college and the older privileges of the archdeaconry of the manor of Westminster as a whole, which belonged to Westminster Abbey. The dispute has wider implications for royal display than those identified by Ralf Lützelschwab, who has seen it solely as a squabble over financial privilege and access to the king within Westminster.162 In addition to questions of privileges, the case also took in concerns over the jurisdiction and competing rights of the English royal and papal courts. The abbey insisted that, as a matter of ecclesiastical law, the case should be heard in the papal courts, as the only authority over the archdeaconry of Westminster. St Stephen’s, however, held that its rights as a royal free chapel meant that the case had to be heard in front of the chancellor of England, as the college’s Visitor. The result was that there were at least three overlapping court cases that stopped and started, as both sides sought to shift the case to their preferred jurisdiction, with hearings in front of papal judges-delegate in England, the papal curia at Rome and the English Chancery.163 On account of these overlapping proceedings, royal favour became critical to both sides’ ability to enforce rulings and reconcile the divergent proceedings. In addition, the emergence of the Great Schism in the 1380s meant that the case became tied up in wider political and diplomatic contexts as Richard II sought concessions from the Roman papacy. St Stephen’s and its deans managed to tie their interpretation of the case to royal privileges and the dignity of the palace, while the abbey unsuccessfully emphasised its older royal connections as the coronation church. Richard II and his ministers took up the case of St Stephen’s and allowed it to resist papal pressure and decisions against it until a surprisingly favourable accord was finally reached in 1394. That accord would set the parameters for the college’s activity for the rest of its existence. Instead of a wide jurisdiction over the palace, as seemingly intended by Edward III, the college would have no responsibilities to the lay communities surrounding it. The case falls relatively neatly into three phases. The first phase of intense litigation lasted until 1383 when negotiations for a settlement were begun.164 The failure of the negotiations by 1386 started a second phase of litigation in that year, which petered out by 1390.165 Finally, negotiations from 1392 to 1394 ended in a Lützelschwab, ‘Verletze Eitelkeiten?’, pp. 85–101. Institutions were able to use both royal and papal courts strategically, although Westminster Abbey was particularly good at this, Thompson, ‘Locality and Ecclesiastical Polity: The Late Medieval Church Between Duality and Integration’, in Political Society in Later Medieval England: A Festschrift for Christine Carpenter, ed. B. Thompson and J. Watts (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2015), pp. 113–45 at pp. 137–9. 164 Draft agreements and memoranda of negotiations are WAM 18435, 18461, 18445–7. 165 WAM Muniment Book 12, f. 56r–57v. 162 163

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successful settlement sealed in 1394. The case began officially in 1375 in front of a papal judge-delegate at St Frideswide’s Abbey in Oxford.166 The court’s concern was the wills proved by the dean of St Stephen’s since 1370 in violation of the abbey’s right to prove all wills from within the parish in its archdeaconry court of Westminster. The case was soon widened to include the issues of whether St Stephen’s owed tithe payments to the abbey and whether the dean had his own exempt deanery within the Palace of Westminster.167 After the hearing in front of the judges-delegate was stopped by a royal writ of prohibitio the abbey’s proctors took the case directly to the Roman Curia.168 The dean and canons of St Stephen’s disputed the right of the abbey to go directly to Rome, asserting that the case needed to be heard in the English court of Chancery first as they appealed to the king to stop the case going to Rome.169 Royal free chapels could only be sued in Chancery, while Westminster Abbey had the right to take any matter straight to the Curia. Elements of the dispute were thus heard in three different jurisdictions, the papal judge-delegate system, the Curia in Rome and the English Chancery, depending on the international and national political situations. In addition, there were conciliar hearings in 1380 associated with Parliament.170 The effects of the litigation were potentially serious. St Stephen’s was excommunicated in 1378 and the fruits of the college sequestrated the following year, although it is unlikely that the penalties were ever enforced for their unwillingness to engage with the papal courts.171 In retaliation, in 1381–1382 the abbey’s lands were sequestrated by Richard II for breach of praemunire and for ignoring writs of prohibitio.172 Our understanding of this case is conditioned by the documents that have survived. The first and most important caveat about the source material is that it is only from Westminster Abbey, not from St Stephen’s or any other party to the case.173 While the abbey’s strong tradition of record keeping meant that there are many working documents from their litigation and the lines of argument that they put forward can be traced in development, it does mean that many other aspects of the case can only be seen through the traces left in the abbey’s documents. For WAM Muniment Book 12, f. 34v. WAM Muniment Book 12 ff. 35v–37r. 168 WAM 18449. 169 WAM 18465. 170 These were mentioned in a 1383 document, WAM 18447. 171 WAM Muniment Book 12 f. 46r–v. 172 CPR 1381–85, p. 437. 173 While the Westminster Abbey Muniments do contain some documents produced by St Stephen’s during the course of the dispute, they are only formal replies probably read out in court and only when they were germane to the line of argument pursued by the abbey. This means that the narrative provided is overwhelmingly that of the support for the abbey’s case rather than any possible counter-arguments. 166 167

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example, while the material relating to the cases in the Roman Curia is reasonably full, there were two other sets of proceedings that are barely acknowledged in the abbey muniments; a set of hearings in front of the king’s council that was partially a redelegation of papal authority to the archbishop of Canterbury; and hearings in the court of Chancery that the abbey never acknowledged as valid and so are only hinted at.174 If we had the equivalent set of papers surviving from the college’s archives, we would almost certainly have a very different view of the dispute as the college would have prioritised the Chancery case’s findings and would have felt the hearings in front of Simon Sudbury, archbishop of Canterbury and chancellor, to be important, because of their repeated assertions as reported in the abbey’s documents that they should only be sued in Chancery.175 Just as the abbey did not acknowledge the legitimacy of the royal courts in this matter, St Stephen’s did not acknowledge the legitimacy of the papal court in the first instance. Any discussion of the dispute must thus inevitably deal at greater length with the processes and decisions of the Roman Curia, but we should keep in mind that there were parallel hearings in the secular English courts, which have not survived, and which might have given a very different perspective on the matters in question. The situation in 1375, when the case was officially begun, was one of ambiguity concerning the college’s privileges. Before 1348 there was no particular problem with the chapel of St Stephen’s or its temporary replacement, St Stephen’s by the Receipt, as ecclesiastical spaces in relation to Westminster Abbey and the parish church of St Margaret’s. They simply were private palace chapels with no parochial functions that could threaten the parish church and were used by the king and his household when they were at Westminster. After 1348, however, the new institution’s position had to be clarified given that royal free chapels and their collegiate staffs had certain rights independent of the parish in which they sat.176 Those included the right to hold their own ecclesiastical courts, to prove wills and to collect tithes. Any disputes were handled at the diocesan level or in the king’s court of Chancery. St George’s, Windsor, for example, only had to deal with the ordinary jurisdiction of the bishop of Salisbury whenever their exemptions were For the 1380 hearing in the Redechamber in the Palace of Westminster, WAM, Westminster Domesday, f. 72v; the Chancery suit is referenced in Richard II’s pardon to Westminster Abbey and the restoration of their temporalities in 1384, CPR 1381–85, p. 437; the original of this document, which still has its original royal seal including the threading is WAM 18449, there is also a brief mention that their indemnity had been confirmed in a hearing in front of Chancellor Richard Scrope and which thus falls between 1378 and 1382, WAM 18461; the abbey side in a hearing before William Scrope in 1382 may also relate to this case, although William Scrope was not a Chancery official at this time, WAM 18444–5. 175 For example, WAM 18465 and 18461. 176 Denton, Royal Free Chapels, pp. 1, 102. 174

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under question, as happened in the sixteenth century.177 At St Stephen’s, although some of the jurisdictional issues were doubtless worked out with the abbey prior to the sealing of the statutes in 1355, enough was left unclear that litigation was required. St Stephen’s had customary privileges as a royal free chapel, which were confirmed by papal bulls of 1349, of exemption from diocesan control that specifically mentioned both exemption from the archdeaconry and that the dean was to have cure of souls.178 Which souls, however, were not made clear. For the dean of St Stephen’s, the obvious interpretation would have been that his jurisdiction covered the palace of Westminster and its inhabitants, both permanent and temporary. In the 1370s, William Sleaford proved wills of palace inhabitants in line with this interpretation of the college’s privileges and thus sparked litigation.179 One of the many reasons that the dispute was so protracted was that there was a fundamental clash of incompatible privileges between the two institutions such that even choosing a court competent to hear the case was a matter of contention. Westminster Abbey’s privileges were older, dating back to the 1220s, and more comprehensive.180 Its advocates based their arguments, as Lützelschwab identified, on the papal grant of exemption from the usual church hierarchies in the 1220s and the consequent status as an exempt deanery within the diocese of London. Langton’s privilege for the abbey meant that it stood outside the customary English church courts, and instead answered only to the papacy and the papal courts. In addition, the abbey acquired control of the archdeaconry of Westminster, the administrative division of the diocese of London that was roughly coterminous with the manor of Westminster, and thus had its own exclusive spiritual jurisdiction in the area, including over wills.181 Finally, and perhaps most pertinently for the dispute, the abbey controlled the parish church of St Margaret’s. Hence the larger principle of the dispute, that St Stephen’s owed the abbey shares in any Windsor, St George’s College Archives XV 58 5. Petitions to the Pope, p. 187; it is worth noting here that peculiars’ boundaries could be very uncertain indeed, see D.M. Owen, ‘Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction in England 1300– 1550: The Records and Their Interpretation’, in The Materials, Sources and Methods of Ecclesiastical History, ed. D. Baker (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975), pp. 199–221 at p. 204. 179 An undated document that may date from before 1377 says that Sleaford had proved the wills of two royal servants, and that he was to prove the will of John Thornington, WAM 18462; a list of defects that the abbey needed to repair in its case, probably from the second round of litigation in the 1380s, says that he had proved three wills and that the abbey had stopped him from proving the will of Thomas Pyk, WAM 18453; Sleaford was described as ‘willfully usurping’ the jurisdiction of the abbey (translation mine), WAM Muniment Book 12 f. 33v. 180 Lützelschwab, ‘Verletze Eitelkeiten’, pp. 85–6. 181 For example, Brother Peter Combe of Westminster Abbey occurs as archdeacon in 1386 in WAM 18447. 177 178

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revenues that they received from quasi-parochial activity, including tithes.182 The competing claim was that the Palace of Westminster was itself exempt, and thus the palace fell under the jurisdiction not of the archdeacon of Westminster, but of the dean of St Stephen’s.183 The free chapels also had the right to be sued only in Chancery, a privilege that St Stephen’s was consistently to claim throughout the dispute.184 The college must have assumed that the existence of the old St Stephen’s as a royal chapel before 1348 gave them the rights and privileges held by royal free collegiate chapels from the pre-Conquest period, which generally included a jurisdiction beyond just that of the college’s own members and their servants to include a parish, or even a deanery. The papal grant of 1349 supported this assumption.185 In effect, the papacy had double-granted privileges in Westminster to two powerful and royally supported institutions. The dispute was to disentangle the rights, obligations and privileges of each institution, and part of that was over which courts had jurisdiction over them both in the first instance. This dispute has important papal and international contexts, both practically and diplomatically. From 1370 to 1376, while Sleaford proved wills at Westminster, Pope Gregory XI was trying to move the papal court from Avignon to Rome, with consequent delays for any judicial activity, as documents and officials moved between the cities.186 Although the abbey was already exploring the basis of their case in 1375, when John Bokenhull, the abbey’s proctor in Rome, wrote to Simon Langham, the former abbot, about the case, it was only formally begun in late 1375 as the papal court started its slow move back to Rome.187 The need to obtain bulls may have delayed the first hearing of the case, when judges-delegate chosen by the abbey and approved by the pope met at St Frideswide’s in Oxford in 1376.188 It was to particularly affect the appeals to Rome from 1377 on, however, when William Colchester, who became abbot of Westminster in 1386, was to spend two years travelling between Rome and Avignon trying to corral the necessary parts of the

WAM 18457. WAM 18465. 184 William Sleaford explicitly positioned St Stephen’s among this group of institutions when he described St Stephen’s as ‘sicut alie Capelle regie p[er] regn[u]m Angl’ qualit[er]cu[m]q[ue] constitue’, WAM 18465. Cf. Denton says that St Stephen’s was not an exempt deanery, Denton, Royal Free Chapels, p. 116. 185 Petitions to the Pope, p. 187. 186 For the context for the English expatriate community, including proctors working for the abbey, see M. Harvey, The English in Rome 1362–1420: Portrait of an Expatriate Community (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 31–3. 187 J.A. Robinson, ‘Simon Langham’, Church Quarterly Review 66 (1908): 358; the case was begun in WAM 18478 A. 188 The events at St Frideswide’s are discussed in WAM Muniment Book 12 f. 33r–34r. 182 183

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papal bureaucracy to produce the documents needed to advance the case.189 The slow move back to Rome was then further complicated by the start of the Great Schism in 1378. England’s adherence to the Roman Pope Urban VI was not seriously in question, but it was a useful bargaining tool. In 1382 when Urban agreed to arbitration, in this case not by papal delegates but rather by the archbishop of Canterbury and other English bishops and members of the royal council, he did so in a climate of tense negotiations with the English Crown.190 Richard II had sent ambassadors to represent the college in Rome in 1380, and the ambassadors in Rome negotiating with the papal court over a range of issues in early 1382 included the matter of St Stephen’s in their presentations.191 The matter of the college’s jurisdiction was considered to be part of the English relationship with the papacy, a sign of its importance to the king. National politics also played a role in the timings of aspects of the case, and the abbey was particularly alert to the possibilities of politics. It was fortunate for the abbey’s litigation that Edward III died on 21 June 1377 and was succeeded by the minor Richard II. Edward III’s writ of prohibitio of 1376 had ended the first hearing of the case before Thomas Chandos and John Colton as judges-delegate in Oxford, well away from the bishopric of London and any competing jurisdiction there.192 This writ, however, does not seem to have deterred Nicholas Littlyngton, the then abbot of Westminster. He almost certainly immediately started the long task of obtaining writs and citations to restart the case, as he seems to have regarded the royal prohibition as an inconvenient roadblock rather than a reason to suspend the case completely in the ecclesiastical courts.193 Most other religious would have accepted defeat at this point, but Littlyngton was himself a royal servant, and seems to have been willing to gamble with royal favour.194 It would His expenses from 10 July 1377 to November 1379 are WAM 9256 A-E. For example, for two separate responses to matters of disagreement by Richard’s ambassadors to Urban VI in early 1382, see E. Perroy, L’Angleterre et le Grand Schisme d’Occident: Etude sur la Politique Religiouse de l’Angleterre sous Richard II, 1378–1399 (Paris, J. Monier, 1933), pp. 397–404. 191 Ibid., pp. 400, 403–4, where article 9 in both responses in BL Cotton MS Cleopatra E II concerns St Stephen’s and its rights; the ambassadors sent to Rome to represent the college occur in several documents, including WAM 18478B. 192 Several copies of the documents produced by these judges-delegate survive, the most formal is the notarised copy that is WAM 18439; for the writs of prohibitio see WAM Muniment Book 12, ff. 34v–35r; for the court’s immediate cessation of proceedings when Edward III’s writ was produced, Muniment Book 12, f. 35 r. 193 He immediately petitioned the king for redress from the writ of prohibitio in WAM 18475; the documents from the Papal Curia starting the case in Rome start being issued 6 November 1377, WAM Muniment Book, f. 37v. 194 For Littlyngton’s career, see E.H. Pearce, The Monks of Westminster Abbey being a register of the brethren of the convent from the time of Edward the Confessor to the dissolution, 189 190

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take until November 1377 for the abbey to obtain new documents in the Roman Curia and cite Sleaford and the college to appear in Rome before papal auditors.195 This went unopposed by the new English minority council, until the receipt of the new citation prompted two new writs of prohibitio. The first of these, issued on 8 December 1377, was a general prohibition against suing the college anywhere other than in Chancery.196 A second more specific writ of prohibitio by Richard II, withdrawn on 30 March 1383, is alluded to in the abbey muniments.197 The abbey then chose deliberately in 1386 to renew the case at a point when Richard II looked politically vulnerable at home and abroad. The documentation of the second sentence against St Stephen’s was issued in June and August 1386 as the crisis deepened, but would have had to be started earlier against the context of Richard’s expedition to the north of England and the threat of French invasion.198 Both events would make it unlikely that the king or the college could contest the petition in the papal courts, or alter the grounds on which the final set of hearings would be conducted. The success or failure of the case for each side depended on the terms of engagement and the court. The end of the case reflected weariness on both sides. Matters began to shift in May 1390, when one canon, Ralph Kesteven, asked for papal absolution from the college’s excommunication because of age and infirmities.199 It seems that at the same time the abbey adopted a more conciliatory approach. The 1382 negotiations had made few concessions to St Stephen’s, asserting that all jurisdiction belonged to the abbey, and that it had financial rights to all tithes, offerings and mortuary payments, and in addition St Stephen’s would have to pay a high yearly pension of £5.200 Understandably, the college resisted and continued to seek full cure of souls within the Palace of Westminster.201 In 1392, negotiations seem to have begun before any general requests were sent to the pope, by now the third with lists of the obedientiaries and an introduction (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1916), pp. 84–6. 195 WAM Muniment Book 12 f. 37. 196 CPR 1381–85, p. 437. 197 WAM Muniment Book 12, f. 65r. 198 Muniment Book 12 f. 31v; for the crisis of 1386–88 see R.G. Davies, ‘The Episcopate and the Political Crisis in England of 1386–88’, Speculum 51 (1976): 659–93. 199 Cal. Pap. Letters 1398–1404, pp. 328–9. 200 WAM 18435 is a collection of various drafts and miscellaneous documents from this period of negotiation; for example, it has a draft that gives the abbey full jurisdiction over the palace, all oblations are to be given to the abbey, and that the statutes of the college are to be revised, ibid., f. 5r; a pension of £5 yearly, rather than the five marks that would finally be agreed is mentioned, ibid., f. 11r. 201 St Stephen’s counter-proposals partially survive, including a proposal that the palace’s tithes should go to the college rather than the abbey, WAM 18435 ff. 14 r–v.

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pope involved with this case, Boniface IX. In 1392 Brothers John Burghwell and William Sudbury were paid expenses by the abbey treasurer for travelling to Windsor for a week of negotiations with St Stephen’s.202 No record of the contents or outcome of these negotiations, presumably at the behest of Richard II, has survived. Only in the following year, in July 1393, did Boniface IX write to the bishop of Salisbury, at this point John Waltham, to absolve Sleaford and the chapter of St Stephen’s on account of their ‘ignorance of the law’ that had led them to defy papal excommunication. The letter noted also that the college was ‘now ready to submit and to make satisfaction to the abbot and convent’.203 The papal letter was probably not the final step in the negotiations between St Stephen’s and Westminster Abbey as the final concordance between the two houses was only sealed in August 1394, but it clearly came at a turning point in the negotiations when both sides felt as if a full and final settlement was finally possible.204 The letter also reflects either St Stephen’s awareness that Waltham had authority over them, as he was then Treasurer of England, or papal acceptance of St Stephen’s status as exempt, given that even three years earlier the mandate to absolve Kesteven went to the diocesan ordinary, Robert Braybrooke, bishop of London.205 The final settlement gave St Stephen’s an exempt existence within the deanery, but without wider jurisdiction than the college itself and the rights to some, but not all, gifts and offerings made within the college’s own chapels. No further mention of the abbey’s costs was made, and the yearly pension payable was substantially decreased.206 William Sleaford and his fellow canons could be pleased that they had held out for a reasonable, if imperfect, settlement. The agreement in 1394 that ended the case allowed the college to function as a free chapel exempt from all abbey jurisdiction but only in regard to its own personnel and buildings and for a yearly pension of five marks.207 The Palace of Westminster returned to the control of the abbey monk serving as archdeacon of Westminster and its residents were once again parishioners of St Margaret’s Church. The dean no longer could prove wills or exercise any powers over a wider constituency than the thirty-eight persons who made up the college and their

Monks of Westminster, p. 113; at the time Sudbury was senior enough that the following year he was appointed the abbey’s treasurer. 203 Cal. Pap. Letters 1398–1404, pp. 462–3. 204 C 66/ 341 m. 26; CPR 1391–96, p. 553. 205 Cal. Pap. Letters 1398–1404, pp. 328–9. 206 The annual pension of five marks (a reduction from £5) is C 66/ 341 m. 24; CPR 1391–96, p. 553. 207 C 66/341 mm. 26–24; BL Cotton MS Faustina A III, ff. 293r–314r; and calendared in CPR 1391–96, p. 553. 202

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servants, or over any buildings beyond those listed carefully in the agreement.208 Within the college he might still exercise those rights that pertained to the other royal free chapels in England. The fundamental principle was that the college’s thirty-eight staff were parishioners of St Margaret’s but were exempt from most parochial duties, including the obligation to pay tithes. In return, the yearly fivemark pension compensated the abbey for the loss of hypothetical tithe revenues from offerings by members of the public or the household in St Stephen’s Chapel or St Mary le Pew.209 Each canon and vicar had to swear an oath to uphold the agreement and not to seek to undermine the abbey’s rights within the manor.210 The complexity of the situation within the palace was also acknowledged. There were concessions to royal usage of the chapels controlled by St Stephen’s, such as the permission to have a font for the baptism of royal and noble children.211 Funerals of the members of the college were permitted, but any other funerals or marriages required the permission of the abbot and chapter of Westminster Abbey.212 The implication was that St Stephen’s was to be allowed to function as an institution but that it was not to be allowed to rival St Margaret’s or to build up a royally sponsored exempt jurisdiction that encompassed the palace. Lack of a deanery meant the college lost tithes and fees from the palace, and that royal religious control over the palace community was lessened because the college was only permitted to carry out services for itself and for the king. The mismatch that emerges most clearly from the contexts of the papal court is that St Stephen’s simply did not have the resources at the Curia that the abbey could command. Westminster Abbey seems to have regularly kept proctors to watch over their interests in the Avignon and then Roman courts, and many of their senior monks spent time at the papal court.213 Thus, the abbey was comfortable with the procedures and with the personnel of the Curia. Simon Langham, cardinal-archbishop of Canterbury to 1376 and former abbot of Westminster who died at Avignon in 1376, was just the latest example of monks of Westminster who knew the papal court well and who pursued the abbey’s interests there, whether at Rome or Avignon.214 This familiarity, for example, is seen in a draft of a letter Cotton Faustina A III, ff. 294v–295r. Ibid., f. 310r. 210 Carefully recorded in WAM Muniment Book 12, ff. 86r–87v. 211 C 66/ 341 m. 24 for the font, and m. 25 for the principle of being parishioners of St Margaret’s; CPR 1391–96, p. 553. 212 Cotton Faustina A III, f. 306r. 213 The monks William Colchester, William Sudbury and John Burghwell all spent time at the Curia connected with this case; for the importance of using proctors, see P.N.R. Zutshi, ‘Proctors Acting For English Petitioners in the Chancery of the Avignon Popes 1305–1378.’ Journal of Ecclesiastical History 35 (1984): 15–29 at 16. 214 For Langham’s career at Avignon see W.J. Dohar, ‘Langham, Simon (d.1376)’, ODNB. 208 209

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to a cardinal or a bishop asking for his support in the dispute, which happens to survive in the abbey muniments.215 At every point when the case was heard in Rome, the abbey was firmly in control of events, at times so much so that it was reprimanded for not giving St Stephen’s the information the college needed to begin to be able to prepare answers to the citations.216 Critically, the abbey’s long-standing proctors were able to shape the case, to protest any documentation that potentially harmed the abbey’s privileges and respond quickly as matters developed. In contrast, St Stephen’s only engaged a Roman proctor in December 1381, and there is no suggestion that anyone from the college, let alone someone as important and high-flying as Brother William Colchester, was ever sent out to oversee the college’s responses in the Curia.217 Rather, William Sleaford had to answer in writing with imperfect information and to rely on two sets of royal ambassadors for help and advocacy.218 He forced the refinement of the abbey’s case, but never really shifted the terms of engagement.219 Part of this imbalance reflected Westminster Abbey’s proud connection with the papacy, given its privileges meant that much ordinary business that would usually have been dealt with at a lower level of the court hierarchy was dealt with in Rome or by papal judge-delegates in England. It also reflected a pragmatic choice, given that the English courts would refuse to proceed once the college introduced the writ of prohibitio, and the papacy clearly did not acknowledge prohibitio as having any meaning in Roman law, the Roman courts were the only place where the abbey could feel confident in the success of its case, to the point of having Peter Combe,

The draft is probably from 1382–84 as it mentions that abbey temporalities had been seized, WAM 18473. 216 The abbey had not caused the documents to be passed to the college, and in addition they had not been displayed in a public-enough place, WAM Muniment Book 12 f. 56v; in the index of the documents it was noted that the first citation to Sleaford to appear in the case had been publicised at Rome and at Bruges, ibid., f. 31r; the implication is that it was deliberately not publicised in a way that was likely to reach St Stephen’s. 217 The proctor was Dionysus Topham, WAM 18435 f. 22 r; for Colchester’s career, including that he was abbot of Westminster from 1386 to 1420 and that he was a royal ambassador on other business in 1391, see Monks of Westminster, pp. 103–4; others involved as abbey proctors in the case were Peter Combe, John Borewell and John Lakenheth in WAM 18441. 218 The two written responses that survive from Sleaford are WAM 18446 from March 1383 and probably from slightly earlier, his proposed agreement in WAM 18461; the abbey’s case had not been contested in 1377 and thus won by default, WAM Muniment Book 12 f. 43v. 219 For example, the written answers to the case in March 1383 are about details, such as whether the college’s servants count as exempt and which costs they should pay, rather than about the principles of jurisdiction, WAM 18446. 215

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monk and archdeacon of Westminster, acting in place of the bishop actually supposed to hear the matter.220 In contrast, St Stephen’s was slightly unexpectedly able to exploit its closeness to the king – and its status as the king’s household chapel when he was at Westminster – to put forward its side of the case. At the same time as Richard II and his advisers were trying to claw back the land grants from Edward III’s will, they were supporting St Stephen’s against Westminster Abbey. The Westminster Chronicler is bitter in his condemnation of their greed and that ‘they were watchfully and ruthlessly setting the king, the duke of Gloucester, Thomas [Arundel], archbishop of York and chancellor of England, and other noblemen against the monks’.221 While only one of the college’s petitions to Richard II and his council has survived, the resulting letters to Westminster Abbey have, and so the outlines of their competing narrative to the king can be traced.222 Richard II wrote in March 1382 to Westminster Abbey holding them in contempt of royal authority as the college was only under the jurisdiction of the Lord Chancellor, the case should have been begun in Chancery, and Rome should not have been used as the court of first instance.223 This line of royal thinking had serious implications for St Stephen’s ability to survive the papal penalties and obtain the favourable settlement of 1394. The college was able to have the abbey’s lands taken into the king’s hands from 17 April 1383 to 29 June 1384, according to the Westminster Chronicler.224 At this time, the case was almost certainly contributing to the perception that royal authority was being undermined by appeals to Rome that led to the 1392 Statute of Praemunire.225 The college was able to financially hurt Westminster Abbey, while at the same time completely ignoring the equivalent papal penalties levied on them from 1377. St Stephen’s seems to have seen the excommunication as a temporary irritation rather than anything else. It certainly did not induce them to accept the offered judgements to 1382, which asserted the abbey’s jurisdiction and financial rights with very few concessions. Rather, St Combe acted as sub-executor for the bishop of Penna, WAM 18435 f. 1r. The Westminster Chronicle: 1381–1394, ed. and trans. L.C. Hector and B.F. Harvey (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982), pp. 380–1; note that Thomas Arundel was only archbishop of York from 1388. 222 The surviving letter bases St Stephen’s defence on the privileges of the palace, which are older than those of the abbey, the terms of the 1355 statutes, and its status as a royal free chapel, WAM 18465. 223 WAM Muniment Book 12 f. 65r. 224 Westminster Chronicle, pp. 38–9. 225 Helmholz suggests that it was precisely this sort of failure in the effectiveness of these writs that led to the two praemunire statutes of 1353 and 1392, see R.H. Helmholz, The Oxford History of the Laws of England: Vol 1: The Canon Law and Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction from 597 to the 1640s (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), pp. 177–8. 220 221

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Stephen’s was still insisting in 1383 that they be given jurisdiction over the entire palace.226 Throughout this period, Richard II and his councillors appointed new canons to fill vacancies, and the chapel continued to be used for services, such as the 1388 service before the Merciless Parliament.227 Royal authority was much closer and more immediate than that of the papacy, and St Stephen’s claim on the king as patron allowed it to continue despite papal disapproval. Royal favour and support was the key determining factor in the outcome of the case; it conditioned whether Westminster Abbey would be able to enforce their papal judgements or whether St Stephen’s would be able to successfully resist capitulating. Both sides knew that they needed Richard II’s favour and used strikingly similar language to court that favour with very different results. St Stephen’s was able to build a language of royal patronage, of quiet exercise of their ancient rights within the king’s palace that had been infringed by forces outside the palace walls in order to gain royal support successfully.228 John Schepey, Michael de la Pole and John Burley were sent to Rome in 1381 to plead for the college, although they were identified as royal ambassadors and seem to have had no other links to St Stephen’s.229 Michael de la Pole and John Burley were both members of Richard II’s household; Burley was a Garter Knight and de la Pole had been Richard’s ambassador to the Holy Roman Empire the previous year and was to be seen as controversially close to Richard in the Wonderful Parliament of 1385.230 John Shepey was dean of Lincoln, and also had extensive diplomatic experience, including to Avignon in 1373.231 Even as St Stephen’s was referred to by Richard’s ambassadors to the Papal Curia as the chapel of ‘the principal palace of the kingdom’, the abbey too was using the language of royal dignity and the coronation to appeal to Richard.232 It was a measure of how important royal favour was to the successful enforcement of the papal sentences, or to any favourable sentences for the monks. The abbey wrote in an undated letter that it was the coronation church, the church of Edward the Confessor, and so should have access See particularly their counter-proposal to the abbey’s suggested settlement, WAM 18461. 227 Froissart, Chronicles, iii, pp. 498–9; new canons were appointed in 1379, 1380, 1381, 1382, 1386, 1389, 1390, 1391 and 1392. 228 For example, the justifications of St Stephen’s seem to have been highly successful in persuading the king, WAM 18465. 229 They occur first acting for the college in 1381, WAM 18457. 230 For Burley, see. ‘BURLEY, John I (d.1415/16), of Broncroft in Corvedale, Salop’ in The History of Parliament: The House of Commons 1386–1421, ed. J.S. Roskell, L. Clark and C. Rawcliffe (Stroud: Alan Sutton, 1993); and for de la Pole see Anthony Tuck, ‘Pole, Michael de la, first earl of Suffolk (c.1330–1389)’, ODNB. 231 For Shepey’s career, see F.D. Logan, ‘Shepey, John (d.1412)’, ODNB. 232 For the full Latin text, Perroy, L’Angleterre et le Grand Schisme, p. 403. 226

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to his mercy and favour in this matter.233 But this was not the case in relation to St Stephen’s. Richard’s consistent help and support in the case went to the college, and he never offered any help to the abbey in enforcing the papal citations and excommunication.234 The college was only absolved from excommunication at the very end of the case.235 In contrast, when the abbey’s temporalities were seized in 1383 the abbey immediately had to respond, and, as the Westminster chronicler put it, ‘the proceedings for their recovery were costly enough’.236 The case was an important one for both parties in order to clarify their rights and places within the ecclesiastical framework, but it was not the only thing occupying both houses. Patronage did not hinge on the latest twists and turns in the case; papal grants were still made to St Stephen’s staff, such as the grant in 1392 to William Scot that he might be a vicar at St Stephen’s despite being the illegitimate son of a priest, while Richard II was generous to Westminster Abbey in the 1380s and 1390s.237 St Stephen’s continued to celebrate divine service for the king’s household and for its own members, while the abbey continued to be used as a source of diplomatic experience for royal embassies despite this and other disputes, including the scandal of murder done by John of Gaunt’s affinity within the abbey sanctuary in 1378.238 William Sleaford was in good-enough standing with the abbey to ask to be buried there in 1396.239 It also says much about the options open to ecclesiastical litigants both in the royal and papal courts, given the abbey’s decisions to focus their efforts on first obtaining and then enforcing the papal judgements. Particularly interesting is the way that the writ of prohibition did not fully stop litigation but rather rerouted it from a case delegated to the abbey’s appointees in England to a case heard by members of the papal court, who might then be persuaded to delegate authority further to a monk of Westminster. The general view has been that prohibitio and praemunire charges carried real weight, but here they are seen to be ineffective.240 When dealing with a wealthy house with strong links to the papacy such that it could go directly to the highest court in WAM 18437. There are, for example, no known orders to the sheriffs of Middlesex to enforce the excommunication or to sequester the college’s goods. 235 The absolution was copied into WAM Muniment Book 12 f. 85 v. 236 Westminster Chronicle, p. 381; see also the abbey’s petition in July 1384 to the king for pardon and restitution of their lands, SC 8/184/ 9164. 237 Cal. Pap. Letters 1398–1404, p. 446. 238 For example, William Colchester in 1391, Monks of Westminster, p. 104; for a description of the murder of Hauley and Shakell, The Anonimalle Chronicle 1333 to 1381, ed. V.H. Galbraith (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1927), pp. 121–3. 239 Harvey, Westminster Abbey and its Estates in the Middle Ages (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977), p. 379. 240 For prohibitio, see Helmholz, ‘Writs of Citation and Ecclesiastical Sanctions in English 233 234

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Christendom, prohibitio and praemunire charges were blunt instruments. Once the case was being heard within the papal courts, it was difficult for the king and his ambassadors to intervene effectively unless using punishments in England to attempt to force compliance. However, this case also highlighted the extreme limitations of the papal system in enforcing its decisions without royal co-operation, which in this case was not forthcoming.241

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St Stephen’s Place within the Palace of Westminster St Stephen’s College was continually shaped by its status as a royal chapel and as a recipient of royal favour from two successive kings. Its claims to the rights of a royal free chapel, as requested by Edward III, embroiled it in litigation, while its royal connections helped it to survive and maintain some role within the palace, even if it was never again to directly have powers over those living and working within the palace complex. In the same way that the wider palace of Westminster balanced its roles as one of the king’s homes with the added presence of the law courts, royal finance and Chancery, the college balanced the needs of any royal household chapel with the particularly public and official nature of Westminster, through its presentation of Edward III’s kingship and his piety. It was not solely a personal conception of kingship, but rather one that took his personal interests, such as Marian devotion, and shaped them into wider programmes of art and liturgy. The dynastic concerns of Edward III, the patronage of his administrators and his support for the expensive and lavish augmentation of worship within the kingdom were on display. William Edington and his fellow administrators within the college determined how these royal interests were displayed to those who came to the chapel, whether for services, to receive indulgences, or to visit the cult centre of St Mary le Pew. They made practical and financial choices as well as determining the precise forms of liturgy and ceremonial. They too shaped how the college was funded, which again, was dependent on proximity to Westminster property as well as the offices of royal finance. St Stephen’s College was founded in equality with St George’s, Windsor, but its development in this first phase was fully conditioned by its surroundings and their possibilities. By 1394, the college had carved out for itself a role as the king’s chapel as opposed to Westminster Abbey’s role as coronation church. It then had the space and the financial and institutional security to continue to develop to meet new royal needs and desires for display in this most public of palace chapels. Courts Christian’, Minnesota Law Review 60 (1975): 1011–33 at 1019; for praemunire see idem, Canon Law and Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction, pp. 177–80. 241 On the wider question of enforcement, see Helmholz, ‘Writs of Citation’: 1031. Biggs, Elizabeth. St Stephen's College, Westminster : A Royal Chapel and English Kingship, 1348-1548, Boydell & Brewer, Incorporated, 2020. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nyulibrary-ebooks/detail.action?docID=6229011. Created from nyulibrary-ebooks on 2021-02-03 07:13:50.

Chapter 2

Magnificence and Difficulties under Richard II, 1377–1399

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R

ichard II, the second English king to be the patron of St Stephen’s College, shaped its relationship with kingship, royal administration, the household and the wider built environment of the Palace of Westminster. His relationship with the college was mixed and often ambivalent, depending on whether the college met his own priorities and interests. During his minority, his council protected his financial interests against the sweeping legacy of his grandfather’s will to the college, which he continued after 1381. Yet as an adult he adapted the college’s site and its buildings to meet his own desires and display his power, and supported it against Westminster Abbey. As such, he was the first king to grapple with the question of how to make the chapel and college his own when it was so strongly associated with his grandfather and his grandfather’s dynastic priorities. The malleability of the collegiate form made his partial reinvention of St Stephen’s possible. Richard and those around him visually and institutionally added his version of kingship to his grandfather’s while maintaining the college’s dynastic connections. Richard’s association with Westminster has long been discussed in terms of two projects, which have been seen as separate: his work on Westminster Hall and his patronage of the abbey.1 Both of the projects were significant, but also connected in a wider scheme to develop and elaborate the surroundings of monarchy in a particularly important palace that was personally important to the king. More widely, his interests in visual magnificence at court have received The work on Westminster Hall is largely concerned with the technical workings of the roof, most recently R. Beech, ‘The Hammer-beam Roof of Westminster Hall and the Structural Rationale of Hugh Herland’, Architectural History 59 (2016): 25–61; see also C. Wilson, ‘Rulers, Artificers and Shoppers: Richard II’s Remodelling of Westminster Hall, 1393–99’, in The Regal Image of Richard II and the Wilton Diptych, ed. D. Gordon et al. (London: Harvey Miller, 1997), pp. 15–94 at pp. 33–60, 42. For Westminster Abbey, see P. Binski, Westminster and the Plantagenets: Kingship and the Representation of Power, 1200–1400 (London and New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995), pp. 175, 197–200, 205; and N. Saul, ‘Richard II and Westminster Abbey’, in The Cloister and The World: Essays Presented to Barbara Harvey, ed. J. Blair and B. Golding (Oxford: Clarendon, 1996), pp. 196–218.

1

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historiographical attention, not least because of the spectacular artistic survivals of the Westminster Portrait and the Wilton Diptych.2 At St Stephen’s both the pious and royal aspects of Richard’s kingship were on display to contemporary commentators. Richard adapted the college’s buildings and its institutional shape as part of his wider strategies to make Westminster reflect his visual ideals of kingship and to commemorate his wife, Anne of Bohemia. The college’s staff also came to reflect Richard’s priorities and his household, including his rewards for his controversial favourites. All of these elements combined to make the St Stephen’s that Henry IV inherited, when he won the English throne in 1399, a very different institution and set of buildings than those Edward III had left in 1377. The success of associating St Stephen’s with Ricardian ideas of kingship and piety, however, was not assured and required active engagement by the college’s own staff. St Stephen’s could easily have been perceived as simply Edward III’s college rather than one with an ongoing relationship to the Crown. The normal pattern for colleges was for founders to be enthusiastic and for future generations often to be less interested, before a later generation took up the project again when there was a perceived need.3 St George’s Windsor was to struggle until 1471 due to a lack of royal interest and difficult economic times.4 In addition, the wider economic circumstances of St Stephen’s during Richard’s reign were difficult. The land dispute in the 1380s over the provisions of Edward III’s will and the struggle to obtain the Leybourne lands fully in the 1390s sapped the college’s resources. The wider economic climate of the 1390s did not help the college’s financial situation, and clever management by the chapter was required. The dean and canons also had to contend with the financial and ecclesiastical complications that came from the ongoing court cases against Westminster Abbey, which were discussed in Chapter One.5 Yet, as mentioned there, Dean William Sleaford argued for the royal associations of St Stephen’s successfully around 1381 and this argument seems to have helped make the college an attractive recipient of royal patronage and presence for the rest of the reign.6 That St Stephen’s seems D. Gordon, ‘The Wilton Diptych: An Introduction’, in The Regal Image of Richard II, pp. 19–26 at 23; see also the recent discussion in Gordon, ‘The Wilton Diptych as an Icon of Kingship’, in The Wilton Diptych, ed. D. Gordon (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015), pp. 35–91 at pp. 70–2. 3 B. Thompson, ‘“Habendum et Tenendum”: Lay and Ecclesiastical Attitude to the Property of the Church’, in Religious Belief and Ecclesiastical Careers in Late Medieval England, ed. C. Harper-Bill (Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 1991), pp. 197–238 at p. 224. 4 A.K.B. Evans, ‘The Years of Arrears: Financial Problems of the College of St George in the 15th Century’, in St George’s Chapel, Windsor in the Later Middle Ages, ed. C. Richmond and E. Scarff (Windsor: for the dean and chapter, 2001), pp. 93–106 at pp. 93, 104. 5 See pp. 56–70. 6 WAM 18465. 2

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to have been the household chapel for the king when he was at Westminster also helped. Richard’s presence in the choir stalls at key moments in his reign associated him with the successes of his father, the Black Prince, and his grandfather. In 1381, just before the meeting with Wat Tyler at Smithfield, and in 1388, before the opening of the Merciless Parliament, Richard came to St Stephen’s for significant events, as noted by chroniclers.7 By the end of the reign, St Stephen’s was firmly associated with current kingship and with the wider palace and abbey complex. Its position as a royal free chapel and as the king’s own chapel had been reaffirmed and augmented.

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The Limits of Royal Favour For the first twelve years of Richard’s reign St Stephen’s faced extreme financial difficulties and uncertainties whose effects were to linger for the rest of the reign. The dispute over the terms of Edward III’s will was to sap the college’s resources at a time when it was also fighting for its perceived rights within the palace against Westminster Abbey. The dispute showed the limits of Richard’s willingness to be generous to St Stephen’s and indeed to any religious house when the landed patrimony of the Crown was in question. Edward III’s bequest to three favoured foundations, St Stephen’s, the friars at King’s Langley and the Cistercian abbey of St Mary Graces in London, included all the lands he had acquired in reversion or in fee simple that had not already been granted out.8 His grandson’s minority council challenged the will because this grant was so large as to severely limit the Crown’s ability to use land grants to build up his own support as well as being a significant financial loss to the royal estates. By 1382, the feoffees of Edward’s will and the council had agreed to return all the lands – other than the estate that had belonged to Juliana Leybourne – to the Crown, and use the Leybourne lands to reward the three ecclesiastical institutions. Consequently, the institutions were granted the lands for a period of forty years.9 This should have ended the matter, but the institutions would continue to struggle to obtain secure possession and the rents that they were due. It did not help that in 1383 Richard II granted the Leybourne lands to Simon Burley to form his comital estate.10 It would take until 1389 for the ensuing lawsuit to be settled See below, pp. 92–4. The wider legal context is given in C. Given-Wilson, ‘Richard II and His Grandfather’s Will’, EHR 93 (1978): 320–37; for the grant to the executors of the will, CPR 1374–77, p. 347. 9 Given-Wilson, ‘Richard II and His Grandfather’s Will’: 325–6; for St Stephen’s see CPR 1385–89, pp. 547–8. 10 Given-Wilson, ‘Richard II and His Grandfather’s Will’: 327–8. 7 8

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and St Stephen’s finally to have unchallenged possession.11 Control of rents continued to be a problem and Henry IV finally confirmed the lands in 1401 and 1402.12 The tensions between the actions of the previous monarch and the desire for the new monarch to have freedom of action with regard to land shaped what was possible for the college during Richard’s reign and potentially posed a threat to the college’s strong association with the dynasty. The dispute over the lands granted to St Stephen’s and the other two institutions highlighted a particularly intractable problem of exercising kingship in the early years of Richard II’s reign: that of balancing political factions without a strong mediating force during the king’s minority. Richard inherited at the age of ten and as a result a continual council, alongside the wider council inherited from his grandfather, exercised power on the young king’s behalf without formally setting up a regency.13 The political balance of the continual council for the first three years of the reign has been the subject of some debate, particularly around how supportive it was to John of Gaunt, and how far he was being marginalised in the early years of Richard II’s reign.14 The divisions between the continual council and the council of the last years of Edward III shaped the parameters of the dispute and put the institutions in the middle of a much larger set of problems. Edward III’s feoffees for the performance of his will, who were granted the lands in October 1376, were all senior administrators connected with the court alongside John of Gaunt himself.15 John Buckingham, bishop of Lincoln, was also a former canon of St Stephen’s.16 They were all clearly men trusted by the old king. Yet in 1376, this group of courtiers around the king did CPR 1396–99, p. 316; full grant given in W. Dugdale et al., Monasticon Anglicanum: A History of the Abbies and other Monasteries, Hospitals, Frieries, and Cathedral and Collegiate Churches, with their Dependencies, in England and Wales, 6 vols (London: Longman, 1818–30), vi, p. 1352. 12 CPR 1401–05, pp. 122 and 266–7. 13 Saul, Richard II (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), pp. 28–9. 14 Ibid., pp. 28–9; Goodman feels that he was still the ‘greatest subject in the realm’ and that he was expected to play a leading role in government at that time: A. Goodman, John of Gaunt: The Exercise of Princely Power in Fourteenth-Century Europe (London: Longman, 1992), pp. 72–3. 15 They were Simon Sudbury, archbishop of Canterbury; John Buckingham, bishop of Lincoln; Henry Wakefield, bishop of Worcester; William, Lord Latimer; the chancellor, John Knyvett; the treasurer, Robert Ashton; the keeper of the privy seal, Nicholas Carew, the steward of the household, John d’Ypres; and the chamberlain, Roger Beauchamp; Given-Wilson, ‘Richard II and His Grandfather’s Will’: 320. 16 For Buckingham more generally see A.K. McHardy, ‘The Early Ecclesiastical Career of John Buckingham’, Lincolnshire History and Archaeology 8 (1975): 3–12; for his appointments to St Stephen’s, CPR 1348–50, p. 147 and CPR 1354–58, p. 322; he left the college in 1363, CPR 1361–64, p. 338. 11

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not enjoy the trust of the Commons or of the kingdom as a whole. The Good Parliament of that year was concerned about corruption and particularly mismanagement of royal funds, including the mismanagement of William, Lord Latimer, who was impeached.17 Latimer, however, retained the king’s trust and was one of those enfeoffed with royal lands for the performance of Edward’s will. In contrast to the household and court connections of the feoffees, the continual council drew more widely from the political community. Of the ten feoffees, two were also on the continual council for a period: Latimer and Roger Beauchamp, the chancellor.18 Among the eight men on the first continual council were also those who the Commons had imposed on the king’s council in 1376, particularly William Courtenay, bishop of London and Edmund Mortimer, earl of March.19 In a climate of distrust towards royal finance and of the old king’s household officers, it is not surprising that the feoffees were to struggle against the scrutiny of the new continual council. The grant of all the lands that Edward III had acquired, to these three institutions in the trust of those suspected of mismanaging the royal finances, invited increased oversight, and a desire to try to claw back royal revenues and rights so that they would be available for the new king. Until 1382, the feoffees and the institutions insisted on their rights to all the lands in the grant against heavy pressure from the council, from Exchequer officials, and from the Commons. In the Gloucester Parliament of 1378 the feoffees complained that their receiver was being blocked from obtaining the rents and revenues on the orders of the king’s ministers.20 The justices and serjeants-at-law ruled reluctantly that the grant was legal and that they could not undo the grant, although they added ‘if the present king had a right to the said manors and lands by another title, which he could have in various ways, for whatsoever just cause of which they were not at present informed or charged, it seemed to them that his right is and ought always to be preserved for him’.21 Further complaints were raised in 1380 about the inability of the receiver to carry out his duties to the feoffees and the loss of stock and chattels from the lands at the hands of the king’s ministers. After this set of petitions, the Exchequer was ordered to allow the feoffees to enjoy the profits of the lands W.M. Ormrod (ed.), ‘Edward III: Parliament of April 1376, Text and Translation’, in PROME, items 20–9. 18 Listed in N.B. Lewis, ‘The “Continual Council” in the Early Years of Richard II, 1377–80’, EHR 41 (1926): 246–51 at 248. 19 Their names are given in The Anonimalle Chronicle 1333 to 1381, ed. V.H. Galbraith (Manchester, Manchester University Press, 1927), p. 92. 20 Given-Wilson, ‘Richard II and His Grandfather’s Will’: 322–3. 21 G. Martin (ed.), ‘Richard II: Parliament of April 1379, Text and Translation’, in PROME, item 26. 17

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in Kent.22 This was not, however, the end of the matter. The farm of the manor of Mere in Kent proved a test case on the death of its holder, Sir John Foxley, in 1381.23 The Exchequer sought to recoup the funds that Foxley had paid to the feoffees, and set up an enquiry into whether the manor was truly part of Edward III’s grant by virtue of being part of the Leybourne inheritance. It would take until 1389 for the jury to return its findings, that Mere was part of the Leybourne lands and thus was held by the feoffees. In 1381, the start of a compromise that would be worked out in the next year was emerging. The use of the Leybourne lands, which were primarily in Kent, for the fulfilment of the will would be acceptable and the lands elsewhere would return to the Crown. The settlement that emerged in 1382 was calculated around the financial needs and interests of the institutions in question, while also allowing the king and his officials to regain a substantial portion of the original bequest. All three institutions were in or near to London. King’s Langley in Hertfordshire was the furthest away from the lands that were finally allocated to them. Lands in Kent and nearby would be manageable and practical, particularly for St Stephen’s, which held very little manorial land and had seemingly struggled to manage manorial land in St Albans.24 Not coincidentally, the lands that each institution finally received were valued at approximately the difference between their current income and the income that had been originally intended by their founder.25 In the negotiations between the feoffees and the other interested parties, clearly there was concern that even if the full bequest was inadvisable, at the very least, the principle should be that the institutions were made financially secure, with the income envisaged by Edward III at their original foundation. In St Stephen’s case, the concern was to eliminate the yearly stipend of c.£125 in cash from the Exchequer.26 The sums the college had received, if any, from the feoffees is unknown, but in 1382 the college was finally allocated lands directly. It was not a complete victory because the grant was for a term of forty years rather than full and final possession and seisin of the land. This settlement was to cost the college £240 over three years.27 Based on the known valuations, the value of these lands should have been around £200, which would have taken the college’s income to approximately £600 annually, well above that envisaged by Edward III in 1348.28 St Stephen’s received the CCR 1377–81, p. 464. Given-Wilson, ‘Richard II and His Grandfather’s Will’: 324–5. 24 The St Albans’ lands, owned in 1354, were not included in the college’s income in 1360, CPR 1354–58, p. 49; CPR 1358–60, pp. 441–2. 25 Given-Wilson, ‘Richard II and His Grandfather’s Will’: 326–7, n. 2. 26 Such as in E 403/444 m. 19. 27 CCR 1396–99, p. 86. 28 The valuation of the Leybourne lands is in Given-Wilson, ‘Richard II and His 22 23

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manors of Ashford, Barton Buckwell, Eastling, Mere, Langley by Leeds, Elham and Colbridge, as well as meadowland in Eynsford. These lands were in Kent, clustered near to the main road to Dover and thus relatively easily accessed from Westminster. The college was also supposed to receive the revenues of Winchfield after the death of its current occupant. Winchfield was an outlier as it was in Hampshire and isolated from any other of the college’s holdings. It is thus not surprising that St Stephen’s was to find it a particular struggle to obtain rights there.29 The tidiness of the settlement was challenged by two issues: first, the king’s grant of some of the lands in question in 1383 and then the full Leybourne inheritance in 1384 to Simon Burley; second, his ongoing reluctance to license the institutions to fully obtain possession under the Statute of Mortmain.30 The legislation around mortmain and the need for licensing and oversight of land given to the ‘dead hand’ of the Church reflected thirteenth-century concerns about the ways in which land, once acquired by the Church, would never again circulate.31 Simon Burley was a royal favourite whose power was drawn from his previous work for Richard’s father, the Black Prince, and then from his role as tutor to the boy king and under-chamberlain of the household.32 In the early 1380s, after the dissolution of the continual council, he gathered offices and rewards from the king, including a large grouping of lands in Wales, before he turned his sights to Kent. Knighton mentioned Richard’s plans to ennoble Burley, and the grant of the Leybourne lands to Burley seems to fit with that plan.33 The lands had constituted a comital estate before the death of Juliana Leybourne, so provided an easy way for Richard to provide his favourite with an appropriate endowment in addition to his Welsh lands. The lands were contested legally until Burley was tried and attainted by the Lords Appellant in 1388, and all his lands reverted to the Crown.34 The college was then able to claim its rights in the lands Burley had held but still did not succeed in obtaining the full alienation of the land in mortmain.35 The king’s preference

31 32 33 29 30



34 35

Grandfather’s Will’: 326; the college’s income is based on the 1360 valuation of the college’s income at £222 of rents and £102 from the fee farms, and adding in the lands the college purchased to the value of one hundred marks, CPR 1358–60, pp. 441–2; CPR 1367–70, p. 311. As late as 1396 the college did not have Winchfield, E 403/554 m. 15. CPR 1381–85, pp. 305, 367–8. S. Raban, ‘Mortmain in Medieval England’, Past and Present 62 (1974): 3–26 at 3–4. J.L. Leland, ‘Burley, Sir Simon’, ODNB. Knighton’s Chronicle 1337–1396, ed. and trans. G.H. Martin (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), pp. 338–9. Given-Wilson, ‘Richard II and his Grandfather’s Will’: 330. In 1396, Richard II confirmed the existence of the college and the principle of its £510 annual income rather than the specific lands, CPR 1396–99, p. 316.

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for Burley took precedence over his obligations as the patron to maintain and not undermine institutions that had been supported by his grandfather. Concern over the permanent alienation of land, the source of power and the tool of patronage, overrode the royal generosity evident in other contexts. St Stephen’s had been drawing on the support of Burley’s close friend Michael de la Pole and the other royal ambassadors in Rome in their lawsuit against Westminster Abbey since 1381.36 Richard was willing to accept the college’s arguments about its place in royal piety as a royal chapel, and to support it internationally, but was extremely cautious about alienating manorial lands from his possession to the Church and thus potentially harming his ability to reward friends and followers in the future. The economic circumstances of St Stephen’s were challenging and required active and interventionist management by the college’s staff. Given-Wilson suggests that the college enjoyed full uncontested possession of the manors in the 1390s, but the evidence suggests otherwise.37 The college was still dealing with uncertainty in its land holdings through this decade. Much of the patent roll evidence notes that the grants are conditional on the success of the college in asserting its rights in court, which they were trying to do. The cost of gaining the stock from the manor of Eastling in 1390 was probably higher than the potential gains to the college of possession of the manor.38 The larger problem, however, was the effect on leases. In 1392 a tenant in Kent, Richard Sherman of Elham, was pardoned of a debt of twenty marks, presumably for arrears of rent.39 The dispute depressed the leased value of the new lands, as in 1396 the college still lacked Winchfield, the rest of the Leybourne lands were valued at only £111 annually and the Exchequer was still making up the difference of £53 14s 7d.40 In addition, tenants unconnected to the dispute appear to have felt that the college’s legal difficulties made it permissible to default on their debts. These included tenants in London, as well as the vicar of the church of Wakefield, possibly in a dispute over tithes.41 The courts seem to have, at least in part, supported them. This string of pardons for non-appearance concerning debts in the 1390s suggests that the college was struggling to claim all that it was owed and that the judicial system was not necessarily working in its favour. This situation He is first mentioned in 1381 in WAM 18457. Given-Wilson, ‘Richard II and His Grandfather’s Will’: 331. 38 CPR 1389–92, pp. 240 and 313. 39 CPR 1391–96, p. 255. 40 15 December 1396, E 403/554 m. 15. 41 Robert Fynet was pardoned of thirty marks in 1393, CPR 1391–96, p. 258; Nicholas Stratton of London had his outlawry reversed, CPR 1396–99, p. 22; and Stratton was pardoned for £10 debt, ibid., p. 126; John Bolteby, vicar of Wakefield, was pardoned for a debt of £32 to the college, ibid., p. 392. 36 37

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may have prompted the alienation to the college in 1392 of various messuages in the City of London by the canons themselves at the cost of eighty marks in the Hanaper.42 These lands, ideal for leasing out in the commercial areas of the city, were much less uncertain than the lands in the midst of legal proceedings. The canons were probably trying to mitigate the costs of the lawsuits, which remained a possibility until 1399 despite a legal victory for the feoffees of the land and St Stephen’s, St Mary Graces and King’s Langley in 1389.43 From 1399 Henry IV tied up the remaining loose ends; in 1401 he confirmed Richard II’s gifts, and in 1402 he protected the lands of the three institutions from the reversion of Burley’s attainder.44 After this, the college could finally be reassured that the lands granted to it in 1377 were firmly in its possession.

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The College’s Precinct Despite difficulties, Richard II’s reign saw the clarification of the college’s precinct as a distinctive space within Westminster, both as a matter of deliberate royal policy but also in reaction to developments at the cathedrals, and to mitigate the results of litigation. Under Edward III, the college’s assumed jurisdiction over the palace as a whole meant that the college’s own precise site and housing were not particularly relevant. The college’s site next to Westminster Hall had been granted in 1356 and backdated to 1355 in order to build the first cloister, but the rest of the college’s buildings and communal areas were not defined.45 The jurisdiction claimed by the college applied regardless of precisely what the college owned itself and what was part of the king’s palace. This was all to change as a result of the litigation over the rights of St Stephen’s College. The abbey gained jurisdiction over the entire palace other than the college’s own members and their houses, which remained the responsibility of the dean. Thus, as part of the agreement with Westminster Abbey in 1394, the college’s precinct and so its area of jurisdiction was described legally.46 This description provides the best evidence for understanding the college’s site, its housing and its physical and visual place within the palace. It also shows the start of Richard’s own adaptations to the college’s site and its accessibility to the court and to CPR 1391–96, p. 163; Canon John Henley also tried to give a messuage in Charing Cross around this time, but his ownership was challenged, SC 8/116/5760. 43 Given-Wilson, ‘Richard II and His Grandfather’s Will’: 325, 331. 44 CPR 1401–05, pp. 122 and 266–7. 45 The petition is SC 8/247/12304; the backdated grant is CChR 1349–1417, pp. 133–4. 46 Three copies of this agreement exist: two in the abbey records, BL Cotton MS Faustina A III, ff. 293r–314r and WAM Muniment Book 12 ff. 74r–84v as well as in a copy in the Patent Rolls, C 66/341 mm. 26–24, calendared in CPR 1391–96, p. 553. 42

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members of the public. Buildings that were planned but apparently not yet built were accounted for in the agreement such as the chapter house. By the end of the reign, St Stephen’s occupied the Westminster waterfront from the Painted Chamber north beyond the Water Gate and New Palace Yard almost as far as York Place. It thus had become the sole major occupant of the areas that were most visible to the majority of visitors arriving at Westminster by water. Its housing, cloisters, bell tower and chapel were distinctive visual elements of the palace complex, with the abbey and Westminster Hall behind them. All processions or other liturgical activity outside of the chapel itself would then be very visible reminders of the royal piety that created and sustained this intensive use of resources on the daily and yearly collegiate liturgy. From around 1360 to the early 1390s, the college’s activities were concentrated in the area between Westminster Hall, the chapel itself and the Receipt of the Exchequer along the Thames waterfront. This was the area to be used to build the cloisters and ‘other necessary houses’ according to the college’s petition of 1356.47 It would have been the centre of the college’s operations after c.1360. In the 1360 valuation of the college’s resources, the inn of the earl of Kent was not mentioned.48 This omission may suggest that the college was still using the inn or its site as housing for the canons and vicars while work was ongoing on the chapel site, rather than as a source of income. Little is known about the houses within the college’s precinct at this point, as they were almost certainly constructed at the college’s own expense and do not appear in the royal building accounts. Once the 1350s cloister and the houses adjacent to the cloister’s east walk were finished, they were possibly shared between the canons and their vicars. At St George’s, Windsor there were twenty-three chambers around the original cloister, although the exact allocation of the rooms to individuals has been questioned.49 There is no indication of any communal spaces for St Stephen’s other than the chapter house underneath the chapel of St Mary le Pew.50 The next period of work on the college’s buildings came in the 1380s when various canons received new houses at Westminster, including when in 1382 Nicholas Salisbury was granted the king’s almoner’s house while he was away and, in the following year, Richard Clifford SC 8/247/12304. CPR 1358–60, pp. 441–2. 49 T. Tatton Brown, ‘The Constructional Sequence and Topography of the Chapel and College Buildings at St George’s’, in St George’s Chapel Windsor in the Later Middle Ages, pp. 3–38 at p. 28; J. Crook, ‘The Houses of Canons’ Cloister’, in St George’s Chapel, Windsor: History and Heritage, ed. N. Saul and T. Tatton-Brown (Staybridge, Dorset: Dovecot Press, 2010), pp. 134–49 at pp. 140–1. 50 In the 1394 agreement a chapter house is mentioned but no other communal buildings, C 66/341 m. 26. 47 48

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received the house of the treasurer of the household.51 These grants, recorded on the patent rolls, were not standard, but instead reflected canons’ concerns over their access to the college’s housing. The most likely reason for canons to be concerned about their houses is that plans were being drawn up to reorientate the college’s site and rebuild the cloisters. Any such plans would involve disrupting canons’ access to their houses for building works to take place. In addition, the new plans seem to have called for the canons to move from the precinct around the cloisters to the site of the earl of Kent’s inn. After the 1390s the college was split across two Westminster sites, with implications for the college’s visibility beyond the palace and within the wider manor.52 While the move was precipitated by royal plans for the new cloisters, the execution of the plan was carried out and modified by the dean and canons. The vicars stayed on the old site, in the older houses by the rebuilt cloisters, and the canons moved north to houses with gardens down to the river on what would become known as Canon Row, just north of New Palace Yard and the Water Gate.53 This reorientation of the college’s site mattered because it spread the college’s buildings along the river frontage and added to its visual dominance of the usual approaches to the palace from the water. The first point of clarity about this move comes from 1394 when the agreement with Westminster Abbey sets out the two areas within Westminster where the college’s members were living and which were to be exempt from abbey jurisdiction.54 The first area is the precinct within the palace, including a chapter house to be built by the cloisters; the second is the new housing on Canon Row. The housing on Canon Row is described in more detail, perhaps because it was set among other buildings to the north of New Palace Yard and thus needed to be delineated more precisely. The site was divided into thirteen strips, each allocated to a named canon, running from Canon Row down to the river. Where and when houses were placed on these strips is unknown as they were built by the college itself rather than at the king’s expense, and possibly by each individual canon to their own taste. The dean’s house was intended to be in the middle strip, but a petition survives from one of the fifteenth-century deans, John Prentys, asking that he retain his older housing by the Woolstaple, CPR 1381–86, pp. 204 and 219. For a detailed description of the college’s sites related to the current topography of the Houses of Parliament see Crook, ‘An Introduction to the Topography of the Medieval Palace of Westminster’, in Westminster II: The Art, Architecture and Archaeology of the Royal Palace, ed. W. Rodwell and T. Tatton-Brown, British Archaeological Association 39 (Leeds, 2016), pp. 1–21 at pp. 12–15, 18–19. 53 The new houses for the vicars are mentioned in CPR 1391–96, p. 669; while the Canon Row plots are described in C 66/341 m. 26. 54 C 66/341 m. 26. 51 52

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which had been granted by Edward III, and was slightly removed from the rest of the canons on Canon Row, as ‘there was a want of good foundations’ on the plot allocated for the dean at that time.55 Removing the canons from the palace precinct allowed for a spatial distinction between the canons and a new sub-college for the vicars and clerks, and for Richard II to become the founder of a new institution associated with the college and to which he could give the dedication of his personal saint, Edward the Confessor. In 1396, the vicars and clerks were granted the right by a letter patent to a corporate identity and a common seal in honour of St Stephen and of Edward the Confessor.56 One of their number was to be chosen as warden and there was to be some type of communal governance structure, under the supervision of the dean and canons, who retained the right to hire and dismiss vicars and clerks. The letter patent once again described the precinct as lying between the Receipt of the Exchequer and St Stephen’s Chapel, with the implication being that this was now the nucleus for the vicars’ activities as opposed to the canons now on Canon Row to the north and the dean’s lodgings in New Palace Yard. The new college for the vicars was given the land on which they were making a garden stretching south from the chapel to the undercroft of the Painted Chamber, known as the Marcolf Chamber, and revenues from outside donors, whose identities are not known. The grant of the gardens, which may have held at least one house that could be rented out as well as further communal space, increased the college’s dominance of the waterfront and thus its visibility to the public passing by on the river.57 In awareness of the disparity in wealth between the canons and the vicars, the houses for the vicars were adapted at the king’s expense, and a communal hall built for them on the north walk of the new cloister.58 This hall seems to have survived to the dissolution in 1548 and beyond, and formed part of the entranceway from New Palace Yard into the college’s precinct. No description of its appearance survives, but it is highly likely that its decoration, possibly including the king’s badges as in Westminster Hall next door, was a visible and continual reminder to the vicars and any visitors of Richard II’s generosity and the display of his pious gifts to his grandfather’s foundation.59 Unfortunately, even less documentation survives for this sub-college than for the main college as a whole, as its existence CPR 1436–41, pp. 192–3. CPR 1391–96, p. 669. 57 There was a constable’s house in the gardens in the fifteenth century, see C.L. Kingsford, ‘Our Lady of the Pew: The King’s Oratory or Closet in the Palace of Westminster’, Archaeologia 68 (1916–17): 1–20 at 3. 58 CPR 1391–96, p. 669. 59 The vicars’ hall is still visible on the 1593 plans of the cloister site, Hatfield, Hatfield House, Cecil Papers 24/ 61 (112) and 24/62 (113). 55 56

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was dependent on the dean and canons, and it was seemingly reabsorbed into the main college in 1479.60 These changes to the precinct at St Stephen’s were a way for the king to remake the college’s site and to make it his own. It was also a way of bringing the college into line with developments in cathedral collegiate practice. At the secular cathedrals, the idea of a corporate identity for the vicars had come before the widespread provision of separate communal space, whereas at St Stephen’s they were both instituted at the same moment through the royal grant.61 The cathedral vicars, or minor canons depending on the terminology of the particular cathedral, had pushed for their own autonomy, security of tenure and right to hold lands and funds in common from the twelfth century onwards, and had achieved it at most of the secular cathedrals by the end of the thirteenth century. By the time St Stephen’s was founded in 1348, most of the secular cathedrals’ vicars had their own separate corporate identities within the larger community even if there were not yet lodgings and other communal facilities provided for them. Communal life at the cathedrals came later, in the late fourteenth century, around the same time as the rebuilding of the housing at St Stephen’s and creation of the new vicars’ hall. Lincoln had a vicars’ hall by 1328, while it would take until 1409 at Salisbury, where there was less pressure on space in the close, and so less need for formal provision of communal space.62 At St George’s, like at St Stephen’s, the developments came together, but twenty years later at Windsor than at Westminster. The original housing of St George’s, seemingly shared between each canon and his vicar, surrounded what is now the Dean’s Cloister, to the north of the chapel. In 1409 at Windsor an area called Woodhaw within the castle was granted for lodgings for the vicars and clerks and there are surviving building accounts for the building of houses and of a new hall there.63 St George’s struggled after the death of Edward III to obtain royal favour and, as a consequence, the work was much slower than at St Stephen’s. The new foundation for the vicars also had a commemorative function as a chantry for Richard’s wife, Anne of Bohemia, who had died two years earlier in 1394.64 The chantry, just as with Anne’s funeral at Westminster Abbey, reflected the king’s personal commitment to Westminster as an articulation of his dynasty and kingship.65 Her tomb there, in place by 1399, was also expensive and visually The college was to have ‘one corporate body’, CPR 1476–85, p. 172. CPR 1391–96, p. 669. 62 K. Edwards, The English Secular Cathedrals in the Middle Ages: A Constitutional Study, 2nd edn (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1967), pp. 274–8. 63 Tatton-Brown, ‘Constructional Sequence’, pp. 30–1. 64 Saul, ‘Anne [Anne of Bohemia]’, ODNB. 65 Saul, Richard II, p. 429. 60 61

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striking.66 The new chantry in the palace thus followed public royal mourning at the abbey for a queen who had been particularly close to her husband. Anne of Bohemia is not known to have made payments to the shrine of St Mary le Pew. There is no known comment about her patronage of the college and, more significantly, the dedication of the new college to Edward the Confessor alongside St Stephen reflects her husband’s personal patronage and his interests rather than what is known of her own. If the impulse for the chantry had come from Anne herself, the dedication would likely have included St Anne, the mother of the Virgin, whose cult she had helped bring to England.67 The only known connection is financial; a single warrant for payment to the dean and college of St Stephen’s survives, related to her obligation to pay £20 to the college for the use of the college’s house of La Réole for her Wardrobe.68 Instead, her chantry college of vicars at St Stephen’s may be related to the chantry of her predecessors, Isabella of France and Philippa of Hainault, which was set up in St Mary le Pew in 1369.69 If so, Anne was commemorated as an integral part of the dynasty of which Edward III had been so proud. The daily and yearly round of commemoration at both St Stephen’s and at Westminster Abbey placed her firmly within the context of the dynasty she had joined by marriage. It also reflected her husband’s desire that she not be forgotten after his own death, as they had no children to add Anne to their remembrances in the future – as Edward III had commemorated his own mother, Isabella, and the mother of his then-heir and grandmother of his eventual heir, Philippa. By 1399 Richard II had remade the visibility of St Stephen’s College within the Palace of Westminster. He had brought it into line with the developments at the cathedrals, where the canons were separated off from the minor clergy, while at the same time increasing the college’s visual and practical dominance of the Westminster riverfront. All of this had been accomplished with a minimum of actual expenditure. The vicars were endowed by ‘others of the faithful’ and the king was able to add his own intentions to it.70 The college bore the cost of building the Canon Row houses, while the cloisters, the vicars’ houses and hall are discussed below in the context of the wider building programme at the palace. There was unlikely to be much if any income lost to the king from the palace gardens to the south of the chapel. Richard’s unwillingness to lose lands, as seen in the case of Simon Burley and the double-granting of the Leybourne lands, was Saul, ‘Anne’. Historia Vitae et Regni Ricardi Secundi, e.d. G.B. Stow (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1977), p. 134. 68 In 1384–5, E 101/510/29. 69 Kingsford, ‘Our Lady of the Pew’: 7–8. 70 CPR 1391–96, p. 669. 66 67

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not an issue in his adaptation of St Stephen’s precinct. Instead, it shows the king and probably his advisers creatively thinking about how best to display the college as an expression of the lavishness of two generations of royal piety within the constraints of the densely built palace site, where there was little available new space. The chantry for Anne of Bohemia also points towards a potential reading of Richard’s thinking about the abbey and the palace as a complex within which sacral kingship and commemoration of the royal dead played off against each other. Edward the Confessor increasingly appeared to be one of the models for the kind of kingship that Richard aspired to, and both the abbey and the palace were his creations.71 In light of discussions of Richard’s piety, it is notable that around the same time as he was starting to impale the arms of Edward the Confessor onto his own, he was dedicating a college in his late wife’s name to the same saint.72 The adaptation of the college’s site then went alongside a rebuilding programme in which Richard II went further in his support for St Stephen’s by tying it into his plans for elaborating and embellishing the wider Palace of Westminster.

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The New Cloister and the Wider Palace From 1384 to 1396 Richard II actively was transforming the Palace of Westminster to meet his personal image of what a royal palace should be, in parallel to his patronage of Westminster Abbey and its patron saint, Edward the Confessor. Although the works on the abbey came after the works on the palace were already begun, they were part and parcel of the same scheme. The king was developing the palace complex of Edward the Confessor and Henry III into one that reflected his conception of his rule and which would add his personal iconography and badges permanently to the site. The programme of works overseen by successive clerks of the works at Westminster and the Tower of London covered the privy palace alongside extensive work at St Stephen’s, and most famously the rebuilding of Westminster Hall’s roof under the direction of Henry Yevele and Hugh Herlond.73 The result of these extensive works reflected Richard’s personal conception of the visual magnificence of his kingship as it was to be displayed to those visiting the palace and abbey, and to his court. The work on the privy palace, St Stephen’s Saul, ‘Richard II and Westminster Abbey’, pp. 198–9. Mentioned in passing in Saul, Richard II, pp. 457 n. 100, 460. 73 G. Waddell, ‘The Design of the Westminster Hall Roof’, Architectural History 42 (1999): 47–67; L.T. Courtenay, ‘The Westminster Hall Roof and its 14th-century Sources’, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 43 (1984): 295–309; E. Toby Morris et al., ‘Report on the Finite Element Analysis to Historic Structures: Westminster Hall, London’, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 54 (1995): 336–47; Beech, ‘The Hammer-beam Roof of Westminster Hall’: 25–61. 71 72

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and Westminster Hall were accounted for and planned as a cohesive programme, in which the college’s buildings were as indicative of royal self-presentation as the other parts of the palace. At St Stephen’s specifically, his new cloister and porch for the chapel’s west end altered the access routes though the precinct and had implications for the wider use of space within the palace by allowing a through-route from the privy palace to the administrative offices clustered around Westminster Hall and the Receipt of the Exchequer. It also increased the visibility of the college within the palace, just as his work on the precinct had increased its visibility on the waterfront. After Richard II’s work there were to be no further major known works on the Palace of Westminster until the sixteenth century. His palace complex would condition the experience of visitors and the court for the rest of the Middle Ages. Richard’s relationship with Edward the Confessor and his concern for a particularly visible and magnificent kingship shaped his attitudes to the Palace of Westminster and to St Stephen’s. After he had begun, but not completed, the works on the palace in the mid-1380s, from 1389 Richard turned his attention to Westminster Abbey as part of a rapprochement with the abbey community. Nigel Saul has written about Richard at Westminster Abbey in relation to his ideals of being a peaceful rather than warlike king, and he certainly showed an exceptional degree of favour to the Confessor’s shrine there.74 Unlike his careful attitude to granting lands to St Stephen’s, Richard was generous to the abbey, giving lands, jewels and vestments as well as financially and practically supporting the works on the unfinished nave of the abbey church. Saul estimated that Richard spent about £10,000 to 12,000 in total on the abbey in the 1390s, which marked a significant shift from his earlier attitudes to spending money on the Church.75 His devotion to the Confessor can also be seen in his presence at processions for the Confessor’s feast day in the abbey church and in the Wilton Diptych, where the Confessor is one of the saints surrounding Richard.76 In the Palace of Westminster, the Confessor was added to the dedications at St Stephen’s through the chantry provision for Anne of Bohemia, and his arms were used in Westminster Hall.77 The current sixteenth-century cloister also includes the arms of the Confessor in the vaulting bosses, which may be copied over from the Ricardian cloister it replaced and which was completed in the

Saul, ‘Richard II and Westminster Abbey’, pp. 198–9. Ibid., p. 204. 76 For a recent discussion of the Confessor in the Wilton Diptych, see Gordon, ‘The Wilton Diptych as an Icon of Kingship’, pp. 35–91. 77 CPR 1391–96, p. 669. 74 75

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1390s.78 From the mid to late 1380s onwards Richard was finding his own style of rule and was breaking from the martial piety of his immediate ancestors. His focus was rather the life of the court and impressing both his own subjects and foreign visitors with the lavish visual impressiveness of his surroundings. If Richard had his way, the success of his reign would be judged on his ability to rule his kingdom and carry out his domestic policies, rather than by the measures of his grandfather, which had been military success in France and dynastic expansion in the rest of western Europe. The new buildings for St Stephen’s seem to have been carefully chosen to open up the college’s site rather than to substantially change its dimensions. When work began in 1386 it was in the context of the works that had been ongoing in the privy palace for two years to repair and embellish the king’s lodgings and other parts of the palace, particularly the gateway into New Palace Yard.79 The new cloister for St Stephen’s sat on the same site as the cloister begun in 1355 under Edward III and followed its orientation to the river wall rather than to Westminster Hall. The current St Stephen’s cloister is integrated with the pre-existing architecture of the Edward III belfry from the 1360s, which means that it is not quite parallel to Westminster Hall and slightly off the right angle to the chapel itself, and there is every reason to suppose, as Colvin did, that in this it is following the foundations of Richard II’s cloister.80 This orientation is especially interesting since the Ricardian cloister was also structurally integrated with the hall. The access between the new cloister and the lower level of the new porch was cut into the south-east corner of Westminster Hall forming a short corridor within the eleventh-century wall.81 In addition, the buttressing added to the hall to support the new roof swept over the cloister and was integrated with it, both tying them together visually when viewed from the cloister itself and suggesting that the design process for both aspects would have had – at the least – to be co-ordinated when in 1394 the rebuilding of the hall was begun.82 In building the new structures for the college, Richard was both signalling his personal support for the institution, then mired in the long-running dispute with Westminster Abbey, and linking it even more firmly into his palace visually. Richard II was asserting his own influence on a space and institution strongly associated with The current cloister has bosses with elements of the Confessor’s arms in the east and south walks, Royal Commission on Historical Monuments: An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in London (London: HMSO, 1925), p. 124. 79 The works accounts are E 101/473 2,3, 5, 8, 11, 12. 80 HKW, i, p. 527. 81 As can be seen on the Colvin plan of the medieval palace, HKW, plan of the medieval palace. 82 HKW, i, pp. 527–33. 78

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his grandfather, not least in the imagery of the chapel itself, while also affirming its royal status as part of, not separate from, the palace as a whole. As part of these works, Richard also had built a new double-storey porch for the western entrances of St Stephen’s and St Mary Undercroft. This porch remained the main access to both the upper and lower chapels until the nineteenth century, when it was pulled down after the 1834 fire. The new porch was not strictly necessary as far as is known. The access to the chapel provided by Edward III is not known to have been inadequate, so for Richard to choose to rebuild the porch was a targeted statement.83 He chose the most used part of the chapel, and the one that visitors would encounter first, as the area that needed to be given a new and distinctive look. The significance of the porch is two-fold. First, it was a visual statement of Richard’s support for the chapel and the college. It would remain a visual marker of his particular piety and generosity to St Stephen’s until the nineteenth century, and one that was particularly visible as the western doors were the ones used by pilgrims to St Mary le Pew and lay visitors to services. In addition, the Use of Sarum favoured the use of the western door of the church as part of some of the most visible processions, including the drama of casting out penitents on Ash Wednesday and meeting important visitors.84 The porch would provide a backdrop for processional use, both by the college and perhaps by the Chapel Royal as part of Richard’s visible statements of piety towards the saints. Second, the porch brought the cloister into the wider access routes within the palace. For the first time, it appears that you could access the cloister through the western end of the chapel through the corridor cut into Westminster Hall. The earlier access routes through the site are not clear, but probably involved the college’s own private space, particularly the vestry at the eastern end of the chapel and the gateway from New Palace Yard into the college’s precinct from the north.85 The new porch meant that the king and visitors could potentially use the college’s site as a route around Westminster Hall and the courts. It also served as a liminal space, an entranceway that connected to the hall itself, as well as to the more public parts of the For the dating of the original porch to c.1348, see J. Hillson, ‘St Stephen’s Chapel, Westminster: Architecture, Decoration and Politics in the Reigns of Henry III and the three Edwards (1227–1363)’, PhD thesis (University of York, 2015), pp. 165–6; for the Ricardian porch, the accounts for work on a porch in 1395–96 are BL Additional Ch 27018. 84 The entrance back into the church at the feast of Purification and other feasts, exiting the church on Ascension Thursday, Corpus Christi, during Lent, Ash Wednesday and Rogation Monday, T. Bailey, The Processions of Sarum and the Western Church (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1971), pp. 16–20, 25–6. 85 In the charter of 1356, backdated to 1355, the college’s gateway into their precinct was on New Palace Yard, CChR 1349–1417, pp. 133–4. 83

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privy palace such as the Lesser Hall, just as the alura of the 1340s connected the chapel to the Painted Chamber and the king’s personal quarters.86 Richard’s projects at St Stephen’s involved no formal consultation with the college over its wishes, but there is evidence that the college was involved in the process of remaking its site to suit the king’s purposes and that the works fitted its ambitions. Three of the college’s canons, William Hannay, William Dionys and John Godmanston, acted as clerks of the works for the ongoing works at Westminster and the Tower of London, which included the works on St Stephen’s.87 They may have exercised some influence on the decisions made and formed a conduit for the college to make its views known on the king’s plans. There is no suggestion that the dean, William Sleaford, had any official role in the works, other than perhaps in his role as joint keeper of the palace as a whole.88 However, his letter to Richard, which survives in Westminster Abbey muniments, suggests that the college was actively petitioning to be taken seriously as a part of the king’s palace and that the building projects, begun five years later, reflected the king’s acceptance of Sleaford’s conception of the college’s role within the palace around 1381.89 The letter reminded the king that the college was founded by the kings of England, that it held rights ‘within the walls or boundary of the palace’ (‘infra muros sive ambitu palacii’), and that it had the privileges of any royal chapel (‘sicut alie capelle regie’) and thus it was entitled to royal favour and support. Particularly significant here is the emphasis laid on the college’s existence within and as part of the Palace of Westminster, and thus its direct reflection on the king and his commitment to honouring his ancestors. Sleaford was making this plea within the context of a dispute over whether the college could exercise spiritual jurisdiction over the inhabitants of the palace. The college wanted to be seen as the major palace chapel and Richard’s building works made it more openly and visibly the king’s chapel within the palace, even as Westminster Abbey succeeded in obtaining papal judgements that the college should be solely concerned with its own members and its own round of worship.

Kingship and Presence Richard II is also the first king of England who can be located in the surviving sources as having definitely attended services in St Stephen’s Chapel in ways that showcase his conceptions of kingship and his relationship with his grandfather’s 88 89 86 87

BL Additional Ch 27018. Their accounts are E 101/473/ 5–6, 11–12. He was made joint keeper of the palace in 1380, CPR 1377–81, p. 524. WAM 18461.

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ideas about the English royal dynasty. His choice of St Stephen’s as a venue for the display of his piety in some of the most difficult episodes of his reign speaks to his engagement with the chapel and the history of the dynasty it represented. The college’s decoration and its liturgy were key to Edward III’s display of royal piety in service of his dynasty as well as devotion to the Virgin Mary and St George.90 It was a martial display of piety that was also deeply devoted to the idea of the dynasty, both past and future. The liturgy of St Stephen’s had in part been set by the statutes of 1355, and its relationship with the Chapel Royal helped to create the context in which that display of royal sensibility was constructed and recorded by the chroniclers.91 The overlap between the king’s chapel and his college made St Stephen’s a very unusual venue and one with a particularly sensitive relationship with the monarch of the day. His kingship was also more widely constituted than his personal presence in the chapel’s royal pew, as it was reflected in his relationships with the offices of state and the household. The king had the right to present the canons and the dean, and so appointments can serve as indicators of royal interest in administration. Edward III’s canons had largely been drawn from the administrative offices at Westminster and were a mix of young men on the rise and senior men who had long and distinguished careers.92 Richard’s new canons from the 1380s onwards came to reflect those who were personally close to him, which usually meant that they held positions in the royal household or were connected to the Chapel Royal.93 While Richard’s personal piety tended towards a different group of saints and towards the Dominicans, St Stephen’s offered him ways to emphasise his status as the successor to Edward III, to offer patronage to those personally close to him, and a lavish backdrop for prayer at difficult moments. See E. Howe, ‘Divine Kingship and Dynastic Display: The Altar Wall Murals of St Stephen’s Chapel, Westminster’, Antiquaries Journal 81 (2001): 259–304; and Hillson, ‘St Stephen’s Chapel’, pp. 200–2. 91 By comparison with the statutes of St George’s, and the fragment of the St Stephen’s statutes that is WAM 18431. 92 See Chapter One, p. 36. 93 Those appointed to St Stephen’s under Richard II can be divided into three groups: those who worked in administration with no apparent personal connection to the king, those who were personal favourites or were working in the household, and those whose origins are unknown. The administrators were Thomas Orgrave, probably William Norton, John Thorpe, William Gainsborough, William Hannay, Robert Foulmer and John Godmanston. Those associated with the king personally or the household were Richard Clifford, Robert Manfield, Richard Medford, Richard Maudelyn, Nicholas Slake, William Lane, William Excestre and Richard Prentys. No link known: John Capel, Robert Gloucester, Giles Wenlock, William Galandre, John Croweton, Richard Clifford the younger and John Breche. 90

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It appears that St Stephen’s Chapel was probably the household chapel for the kings of England when they were at Westminster, and thus was the venue for the Chapel Royal at Westminster. The Chapel Royal was the institutional face of royal piety, existing to say daily masses for the king, his household and possibly for visitors in whichever palace, manor house or hunting lodge he happened to be staying.94 The composition of the chapel and its musical and liturgical strength is clearest in the fifteenth century, but it seems to have had both chaplains and clerks in the late fourteenth century.95 Most monarchs seem to have been present at Chapel Royal services only on feast days and heard masses privately in their oratories with their personal chaplains on other days. Richard II seems to have been no exception and his Dominican personal chaplain Thomas Rushook came in for sceptical contemporary comment.96 Richard’s personal devotions were shaped by Dominican theology, but his public devotions in the Chapel Royal services would have been based on the secular Use of Sarum as modified for the quirks of whichever chapel was being used. The spaces used by the Chapel Royal are not particularly well understood and much of the evidence for St Stephen’s as a Chapel Royal venue is merely suggestive. The only other known chapel at Westminster large enough to house the Chapel Royal is St John the Evangelist, which fades from the records after 1394, and whose location is not known.97 The small oratories of St Lawrence and the Queen’s Chapel are likely to have been too small and too private. In the fragment of the 1355 statutes for St Stephen’s, royal presence at services is assumed and provision made for the distribution of offerings, which may point towards its routine use by the Chapel Royal.98 Part of the dispute with Westminster Abbey was about whether the dean of St Stephen’s had quasi-parochial rights over the members of the royal household, which makes

I. Bent, ‘The English Chapel Royal Before 1300’, Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association, 90 (1963–64): 77–95 at 81, 90–1. 95 The clearest description of the Chapel Royal’s practices comes from the 1450 Liber Regie Capelle, ed. W. Ullman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1959); for the chapel’s numbers in 1393, Bent, ‘Chapel Royal before 1300’: 91. 96 In 1381, there was a petition that Rushook should not be present in the king’s household except at the great feasts, see Martin (ed.), ‘Richard II: Parliament of November 1381, Text and Translation’, PROME, item 18; in 1388, Rushook was singled out as among the traitors banished by the Merciless Parliament, see T. Walsingham, The Cronica Majora of Thomas Walsingham, 1376–1422, ed. J.G. Clark and trans. D. Preest (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2005), p. 261. 97 It is last mentioned in the 1394 agreement, C 66/341 m. 24; Colvin speculated St John the Evangelist was near Star Chamber, on the evidence of a reference to St John the Evangelist by the Receipt in E 101/473/2, m. 19, HKW, i, pp. 503 n. 10. 98 WAM 18431. 94

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more sense as a claim if the chapel was also the household chapel.99 Equally that Froissart describes it as a ‘palace chapel’ rather than as a college in relation to his description of the events of 1388 may also point towards its routine use by the king and his household when they were present at Westminster.100 At two moments in Richard’s reign he seems to have turned to the oratory of St Mary le Pew attached to St Stephen’s College as a place to pray, but also to reinforce to those watching that he was the king by articulating his relationship to the saints and to his ancestors. In 1381 before Richard rode out to meet Wat Tyler and the other rebels at Smithfield, according to the Anonimalle Chronicle, the abbey and the college processed with the king through London in copes and bare feet to the abbey.101 Froissart says that he heard Mass in the abbey and then went to pray at an image of the Virgin, ‘that worked great miracles, in which the kings of England have long had great trust’.102 Froissart places the episode of prayer in a small chapel in the abbey, although the description of the cult image better fits the image of St Mary le Pew in the oratory of the same name than the image given by Marie de St Pol to the abbey in 1377, which is also later referred to as our Lady of the Pew.103 The image given by St Pol is not known to have any connection with the royal family, and was still new. Kingsford tentatively identified the image of Our Lady of the Pew at St Stephen’s with an image mentioned in Henry III’s will.104 Certainly, whatever the provenance of this image of the Virgin, it was given by Edward III to the college and housed in the chapel of the Pew before 1356.105 It was thus part of a longer tradition of devotion to the Virgin among the royal family. If Richard came to St Stephen’s to pray before the image of the Virgin in 1381, he was associating himself with a longer tradition of royal worship of the Virgin as well as gaining the support of the saints before a difficult meeting in which his ability The abbey case was that the college was usurping the abbey’s own jurisdiction within the palace, WAM Muniment Book 12 f. 33v. 100 Froissart, Chronicles, iii, pp. 498–9. 101 ‘labbaye et covent de mesme abbaye et les chanons et vikeers del chapelle de seint Estevene viendront pur luy rencontrer en procession en chapes revestus et nu pees [nu pieds] … et luy amenerount en labbaye et puis al eglise et a le haute autre’, Anonimalle Chronicle, p. 146. 102 Froissart, Chronicles, ii, p. 474. 103 H.F. Westlake, Westminster Abbey: The Church, Convent, Cathedral and College of St Peter, Westminster, 2 vols (London: Philip Allan, 1923), ii, pp. 351–3; there is a more recent association of this episode with the abbey in J. Spooner, ‘The Virgin Mary and White Harts Great and Small: The 14th Century Wall-Paintings in the Chapel of Our Lady of the Pew and the Muniment Room’, in Westminster: The Art, Architecture and Archaeology of the Royal Abbey and Palace, ed. W. Rodwell and T. Tatton-Brown, 2 vols, British Archaeological Association 29 (Leeds, 2015–16), i, pp. 262–90 at pp. 272–4. 104 Kingsford, ‘Our Lady of the Pew’: 6. 105 It was mentioned in the petition of that year, SC 8/247/12304. 99

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to wield his personal authority as king would be tested. In a more private event, Richard may also have possibly used St Mary le Pew for a meeting in 1397 with the French chronicler Pierre Salmon.106 If the oratory Salmon described is St Mary le Pew, then we have the king emphasising his and his ancestors’ Marian piety by using the chapel as a deliberate setting for this diplomatic meeting. The best-documented case of royal presence in St Stephen’s under Richard II comes from 1388. The day before the opening of the Merciless Parliament in February 1388, Richard heard Mass in St Stephen’s while wearing his crown and then receiving homage from the assembled nobles. The archbishop of Canterbury, William Courtenay, officiated and preached.107 Froissart’s description of this event laid heavy emphasis on the impressive backdrop provided by the chapel by calling it ‘the most rich, most noble and most beautiful palace chapel’.108 The event was unusual enough to excite comment. Those present are unlikely to have missed the irony that this event took place in front of the images on the altar wall of Edward III and his sons when one of those sons, Richard’s uncle, Thomas of Woodstock, duke of Gloucester, was among the Lords Appellant.109 The Parliament was not straightforwardly one in which the king’s divine rights were set against the hostile Commons, as Richard seems to have been trying to suggest through this piece of political theatre. In the days that followed, Thomas of Woodstock and the other Lords Appellant were to attack Richard’s right to rule and severely punish his favourites, including the future dean of St Stephen’s, Nicholas Slake.110 The image that Richard was projecting in St Stephen’s on the eve of the Merciless Parliament was one of confidence in his rights and rule, as bolstered by the images of his dynasty and the relationship between the Church and royal authority. It was, however, an uncertain message in an episode of political uncertainty. The Parliament of 1385 and the Wonderful Parliament of 1386 had not gone the king’s way.111 In 1386, the Commons had resisted granting taxation and demanded the impeachment of Michael de la Pole and the creation of a continual council to check the king’s expenditure. Only a few months earlier, in December 1387, the royal favourite Robert de Vere had been defeated at the battle of Radcot Bridge.112 It is a difficult identification because it is simply the king’s private oratory and not identified as Westminster, see Kingsford, ‘Our Lady of the Pew’: 8. 107 Froissart, Chronicles, iii, pp. 498–9. 108 ‘la chappelle du palays qui est moult belle, moult riche et moult noble’, Besançon, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 865, f. 363v. 109 A. Tuck, ‘Thomas, [Thomas of Woodstock] duke of Gloucester’, ODNB. 110 See the account in Walsingham, Chronica Majora, pp. 261–3. 111 J.J.N. Palmer, ‘The Parliament of 1385 and the Constitutional Crisis of 1386’, Speculum 46 (1971): 477–90 at 488–9. 112 Tuck, ‘Vere, Robert de, ninth earl of Oxford, marquess of Dublin, and duke of Ireland’, ODNB. 106

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The Parliament of 1388 was already promising to be hostile to the king and would prove to be devastating to Richard and his allies. In this environment and trying to emphasise his authority, Richard turned to a chapel associated with his grandfather and to the ceremonial of crown-wearing and homage that only the king could use and that set him apart from his opponents. In addition to royal presence in the chapel, Ricardian kingship was also played out in his choices as patron of the college. Some of the men who became canons during the reign were career administrators based in Chancery and the Exchequer, just as in the previous reign. Their prebends were the reward for long service and, as such, the college continued to provide a home for those who worked within the palace.113 Richard, however, also appointed his favourites to the prebends, and so introduced a new element within the chapter. Four men stand out here: Richard Maudeleyn, Nicholas Slake, Richard Medford and Richard Clifford.114 All four were disliked by contemporaries for their influence on the king. Maudeleyn was on the list of the councillors who were to be charged with treason in 1399, while the other three had been indicted by the Lords Appellant in 1387 and tried in the Merciless Parliament in 1388.115 There was no set pattern for entry into royal favour or indeed for the type of rewards that were received. Maudeleyn was with Richard on his Ireland expeditions of 1394 and 1399 and was an executor of his will.116 He had no role within administration nor did he go on to build an episcopal career, but was a personal favourite of the king’s. The others all had some institutional presence and sought ecclesiastical rewards. Nicholas Slake was the dean of the Chapel Royal, and used royal favour to become dean of Wells Cathedral.117 Richard Medford similarly came from within the king’s household, where he was a clerk of the Chapel Royal and the king’s secretary. He was only briefly at St Stephen’s before he sought the episcopacy, first unsuccessfully at Bath and Wells in 1386 and These included Robert Foulmer, an underchamberlain of the Exchequer in 1377, who became a canon in 1390, CPR 1394–99, p. 278; Thomas Orgrave, reappointed to the college in 1379 in the middle of a twenty-year Exchequer career, CPR 1377–81, 397; and Robert Manfield, Chancery clerk, CPR 1385–88, p. 118. 114 Clifford was a canon from 1382, Medford was appointed in 1386, Maudeleyn at some date before 1396 and Slake became dean in 1396, CPR 1381–85, p. 193; CPR 1385–89, p. 215; WAM 18484; CPR 1391–96, p. 684. 115 Saul, Richard II, p. 414; Walsingham, Chronica Majora, pp. 261–3. 116 Given-Wilson, ‘Maudeleyn, Richard’, ODNB. 117 Slake had been the dean of the Chapel Royal in 1388, see Walsingham, Chronica Majora, p. 261; and became dean of Wells c.1398, Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae 1300–1541: Volume 8, Bath and Wells Diocese, ed. B. Jones (London: Institute of Historical Research, 1964), p. 4; he would struggle to maintain his deanery of Wells after 1399, as seen in a King’s Bench case from 1402, KB 9/187/43; my thanks to Chris Given-Wilson for bringing this case to my attention. 113

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then successfully at Chichester in 1388 before he was moved to Salisbury in 1395.118 Richard Clifford had already worked in the Exchequer in 1382 before he was called the king’s ‘dear servant’ in 1387.119 He was placed by the king in other parts of royal administration as Richard slowly reconsolidated political control after 1389, first as keeper of the wardrobe in 1390 and then as keeper of the privy seal from 1397.120 His campaign for a bishopric would last into the next reign.121 The fortunes of these four after 1399 were equally diverse but all were to face at least some difficulties under the new regime, and Maudeleyn was to be executed in 1400.

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The College in 1399 By the end of Richard’s reign, St Stephen’s and the wider Palace of Westminster had been shaped into distinctively different forms from the ones that Edward III had known on several fronts. The work reflected Richard’s personal interests and concerns, particularly in the face of political challenges to his own conception of his role. The college’s chapels formed a suitably impressive venue for royal events that allowed him to associate himself with the success and piety of his grandfather without having to emulate Edward’s military piety. Richard’s building work focused on the most visible alterations with the greatest impact such as entrances, gateways and the Great Hall, as well as the new cloisters, houses and hall for the college. His institutional reshaping of the college through its new college for the vicars and clerks added one of his personal saints, Edward the Confessor, to the college’s roster while ensuring that Richard himself and Anne of Bohemia were given prayers in perpetuity, while also providing rewards for his favourites. In addition, many of the difficulties faced by St Stephen’s in 1377 and in the performance of Edward III’s will had been resolved, even if full certainty had not yet been achieved. The college’s rights within the Palace of Westminster had been curtailed by the agreement with Westminster Abbey in 1394, but its visual place in the palace had been enhanced and its precinct made even more prominent along the river frontage. The royal building works on the cloister and porch had been completed and any remaining work would be the responsibility of the canons themselves. Royal favour was not unlimited, however, and it had to be sought by the dean and canons in the face of considerable pressures on Richard II, B. Golding, ‘Medford, Richard (d.1407)’, ODNB. T.F. Tout, Chapters in the Administrative History of Medieval England, 6 vols (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1920–33), vi, p. 37; R.G. Davies, ‘Clifford, Richard (d.1421)’, ODNB. 120 Davies, ‘Clifford, Richard’. 121 He became bishop of Worcester in 1401 and bishop of London in 1407, after having the temporalities of Bath and Wells refused in 1400; ibid. 118 119

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particularly over the alienation of royal manorial land. The king’s association with the college’s staff through his favourites’ presence in the stalls had the potential to cause trouble for the institution as a whole under Henry IV. The great success of St Stephen’s under Richard II was that the institution managed to associate itself with kingship in general as an important royal chapel, rather than to any particular king’s interpretation of what that term might be, even as Richard left his personal mark on the college’s fabric. Henry IV in turn would be offered the opportunity to make the college his own, if he desired to do so.

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Chapter 3

Weathering Political and Economic Storms, 1399–1485

[F]or with huse [us] is myche trobull, and every manne dowtes other.1

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S

imon Stallworth, who was writing from his collegiate house on Canon Row in the troubled days between the ascension of Edward V and the usurpation of Richard III, could have been speaking for the dynastic crises of the fifteenth century more broadly. The period from the deposition of Richard II in 1399 to the victory of Henry VII at Bosworth in 1485 was the most unsettled length of time dynastically for the English Crown during the Middle Ages, and consequently for ideas around legitimate kingship, as at no point in this period was there one wholly undisputed occupant of the English throne. At each moment of regime change the new king had to come to some accommodation not only with the political community of the realm, including the great magnates, but also with those whose service he had inherited from his predecessor, particularly those who worked in and around the Palace of Westminster. The response of St Stephen’s to moments of regime change reflected concern to maintain its privileges, develop the careers of its canons, and to ensure that it maintained its status as the king’s chapel within the palace. As such, it interacted with the personal and expected pieties of the six men who were king in these eighty-odd years. Each of these kings had to engage with the Church as a patron as well as a source of validation and legitimation.2 This chapter examines the ways in which all of these kings of England responded to the imagery and institution of Edward III, from whom they all were descended,

Simon Stallworth to William Stonor, 21 June 1483 from Westminster, The Stonor Letters and Papers 1290–1483, ed. C.L. Kingsford, 2 vols, Camden Society 3rd series 29, 30 (London, 1919), ii, no. 331. 2 See the comparative work of J.T. Rosenthal, ‘Kings, Continuity and Ecclesiastical Benefaction in Fifteenth Century England’, in People, Politics and Community in the Later Middle Ages, ed. Rosenthal and C. Richmond (Gloucester: Alan Sutton, 1984), pp. 161–71; C. Farris, ‘The New Edwardians? Royal Piety in the Yorkist Age’, in The Yorkist Age: Proceedings of the 2011 Harlaxton Symposium, ed. H. Kleineke and C. Steer (Donington: Shaun Tyas, 2013), pp. 44–63. 1

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and who by the 1390s had come to be seen as the perfect king.3 All of these kings spent time at Westminster and at St Stephen’s Chapel and all were remembered in its rounds of commemorative services, with the unsurprising exceptions of Edward V and Richard III.4 This chapter also examines the institutional response of St Stephen’s College to the political and economic difficulties that surrounded them. The college succeeded in maintaining and even improving their financial position even as other institutions and their sister college of St George’s Windsor were to struggle with financial difficulties and debt in this period.5 The success of St Stephen’s came from its continuing connections to royal administration and Parliament, the consistent display of royal piety through the Chapel Royal when the king was at Westminster, and the canons’ own commitment and consistent presence in the choir stalls. It is during these eighty-six years that the canons emerge most clearly as widely committed to the institution and as part of visible networks of friendship formed through shared time at the college. The surviving evidence of collegiality includes shared land transactions, bequests in wills, and some evidence of helping other canons with their careers. Their energy and commitment to the college helped it to weather the political and economic difficulties of the fifteenth century far more effectively than at many other institutions. In part, that came from the college’s continuing strong ties to the expression of corporate kingship within the Palace of Westminster, including as a very visible venue for royal activities and delegated authority. The canons continued to have strong links to royal administration, and to have a role to play in the projection of royal authority and images of kingship, even as the royal administration shifted from the preserve of clerks in Holy Orders to laymen.6 As laymen came to increasingly dominate the Exchequer and Chancery, where many of the earlier generations of canons had made their careers, priests increasingly were also found working in the royal household in roles that made use of their university education in D.A.L. Morgan, ‘The Political After-Life of Edward III: The Apotheosis of a Warmonger’, EHR 112 (1997): 856–81 at 867–70. 4 BL Cotton MS Faustina B VIII ff. 2r–7v; for the way that Henry VII denied Richard III the trappings of a royal funeral and royal commemoration see A.M. Duch, ‘“King by Fact not by Law”: Legitimacy and Exequies in Medieval England’, in Dynastic Change: Legitimacy and Gender in Medieval and Early Modern Monarchy, ed. A.M.S.A. Rodrigues et al. (London: Routledge, 2019), pp. 170–86 at pp. 179–80. 5 A.K.B. Evans, ‘The Years of Arrears: Financial Problems of the College of St George in the 15th Century’, in St George’s Chapel, Windsor in the Late Middle Ages, ed. C. Richmond and E. Scarff (Windsor: for the dean and canons, 2001), pp. 93–106. 6 R.L. Storey, ‘Gentleman-Bureaucrats’, in Profession, Vocation and Culture in Later Medieval England: Essays Dedicated to the Memory of A.R. Myers, ed. C.H. Clough (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1982), pp. 90–124 at p. 97. 3

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theology, canon and civil law, or medicine.7 Most held higher degrees, but there were some who had simply followed the arts curriculum. They might be found as the king’s secretaries, his doctors, his almoners, or acting as his chaplain. However, men who were from this background might be moved into senior roles in the older offices of state, despite not having the long experience of procedures and personnel.8 The officials found at St Stephen’s were increasingly part of this group of senior men who had made their careers in a variety of roles and who could use their presence in Westminster to their advantage, such as through serving as clerical proctors in Parliament.9 This chapter is the first of two overlapping chapters that examine the distinctions between the structural expressions of royal piety and the personal choices of England’s late medieval kings. Joel Rosenthal has identified the fifteenth-century English kings as all investing in new foundations for the Church, whether they were ultimately realised or not, clustered close to the royal palaces of the Thames Valley.10 The consistency of attention paid to St Stephen’s suggests that it was important to the Lancastrian and Yorkist kings not just because of their personal religious interests, but because of the college’s role in projecting and disseminating an ideal of royal piety and ecclesiastically sponsored legitimacy, which fulfilled expectations of what a royal chapel should be to the king’s household and to visitors. St Stephen’s served as a venue for royally sponsored events within the English Church and as a liminal space where the Church and the Crown could collaborate on the sensitive issue of a treason trial in 1441 involving the king’s aunt. The college also positioned itself in relation to kingship and in relation to royal administration, which makes the developments and uses of the chapel in this period a dialogue between royal piety, expectations of the king, the needs of an influential institution and the political situation. As such, St Stephen’s allows for a more nuanced understanding of the public face of royal piety and the ways in From 1420 to 1500, twenty-six of the ninety-five known canons can be found working in the royal household. In the same period thirty-two canons can be found in the administrative offices. The known rate of university education was sixty-one out of ninety-five, and may have been higher still, given the incomplete survival of records. Aston calculated that at best around 25 per cent of Oxford alumni were recorded, see T.H. Aston, ‘Oxford’s Medieval Alumni’, Past and Present 74 (1977): 3–35 at 5–6. 8 C. Carpenter, ‘Henry VI and the Deskilling of the Royal Bureaucracy’, in The Fifteenth Century IX: English and Continental Perspectives, ed. Linda Clark (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2010), pp. 1–37 at pp. 20–1, 28. 9 For example, in the Parliament of October 1435, Nicholas Dixon, William Prestwick and John Everdon are known to have been proctors, Proctors for Parliament: Clergy, Community and Politics Volume II: 1377–1539, ed. A.K. McHardy and P. Bradford, Canterbury and York Society CVIII (Woodbridge, 2018), pp. 388–9. 10 Rosenthal, ‘Kings, Continuity and Ecclesiastical Benefaction’, p. 169. 7

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which successive kings responded to the religious interests of those who had come before them. In particular, Henry VI and Edward IV emerge as engaging in very different ways with the college as a repository of royal interests, where Henry VI used the college as a model for his work elsewhere rather than altering it to match his own religious interests. In Edward IV’s reign, parliamentary speeches consciously looked back, as D.A.L. Morgan has shown, to Edward III as an emblem of what kingship should be.11 Edward IV’s own interest in St Stephen’s as well as St George’s, Windsor was strongly conditioned by that larger ideology and desire to associate his dynasty with his ancestor.12 As such, St Stephen’s in this period needed to carefully navigate its roles within the polity, within the world of the king’s household and court, and within the Church.

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Lancastrian and Yorkist Regime Change Medieval regime change could never be total. Any new king would not have the service of nearly as many men in his personal household administration as had worked for the previous king in various capacities throughout the many offices that made up royal administration and the king’s household, as well as serving in key positions in local government. Both Douglas Biggs and Simon Payling have examined this transition in 1399 in local government, and concluded that there was significant change in personnel, usually to those connected to the Lancastrian affinity, as a result of the change in regime.13 In 1461, Charles Ross saw similar ‘large-scale redistribution of political power’ in the regions.14 Interestingly, the effect was less marked in the offices of central administration in 1399, whether due to existing Lancastrian influence or the professional ethos of the king’s clerks.15 St Stephen’s College was closely associated with the offices of state based in Westminster, where many of its canons worked. Administrators working in Morgan, ‘The Political After-Life of Edward III’: 870. Christine Carpenter, The Wars of the Roses: Politics and the Constitution in England, c.1437–1509 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), p. 196. 13 D. Biggs, ‘Henry IV and his Sheriffs: The Lancastrianisation of County Government and the Problem of Good and Abundant Governance’, Medieval Prosopography 25 (2004): 161–77; S.J. Payling, Political Society in Lancastrian England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 119. 14 C. Ross, Edward IV (London: Methuen, 1974), p. 64. 15 Doug Biggs points to the influence of John Scarle in Chancery, and the use of John Norbury at the Exchequer, see Biggs, ‘A Plantagenet Revolution in Government? The Officers of Central Government and the Lancastrian Usurpation of 1399’, Medieval Prosopography 20 (1999): 191–211 at 195, 201–2; Chris Given-Wilson sees this as professionalism, see C. Given-Wilson, Henry IV (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016), p. 157. 11 12

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those offices were not necessarily personally associated with the person of the king, but rather with the institutional expression of kingship. As such, the new king both needed and often distrusted those who staffed the apparatus of government. In this environment of distrust, St Stephen’s and other royal chapels had to reassure the king that they would be supportive and that they would serve him as well as they had served his predecessor. Individual canons were watching closely, such as when Stallworth wrote to John Stonor about the uncertainties of June 1483 at Westminster, as quoted above.16 At moments of regime change, the college and its canons rushed to affirm their loyalty to the new monarch and his supporters. As a corporate body, the college sought confirmations of their licences, general pardons and indemnity from any reprisals against supporters of the previous monarch.17 After the immediate concerns in a regime change had subsided, St Stephen’s needed to find a new accommodation with the personal wishes and religious interests of the new king. The king could reshape the college’s staffing to meet his own desires to reward his supporters or his own interests within the varied departments of government. He might also use St Stephen’s to associate himself early on with legitimating images of kingship and to connect himself to the longer tradition of royal piety that the college had come to represent in Richard II’s reign. In the six shifts of regime between 1399 and 1485, St Stephen’s College reacted quickly to reaffirm their loyalty to the king. In 1399 and 1461 the college’s rights and privileges were confirmed by an inspeximus of the earlier letters patent, as were the benefices held by about one-third of the canons.18 Just after that confirmation of rights, in 1400 the college’s loyalties were cast in doubt when Canon Richard Maudeleyn was prominently involved in the Epiphany Rising against the new Henry IV.19 Still, the college persisted. Under Henry IV, however, it was those who were not working in governmental offices who sought to have their positions confirmed, perhaps because the college was expected to revert to being almost wholly a home for those working in the Exchequer and Chancery.20 In 1461, the canons mostly likely to seek confirmation of their collections of benefices were those working in administration who might be anxious about the security of their tenure, most notably Robert Stillington, then a councillor to Henry VI, who would go on to be the bishop of Bath and Wells from 1465 and a trusted administrator of Stonor Letters, ii, nos. 330–1. CPR 1399–1401, p. 189; CPR 1460–67, pp. 162–3. 18 CPR 1399–1401, pp. 26, 137, 189, 363; CPR 1460–67, pp. 17, 94, 162–3. 19 Given-Wilson, Henry IV, pp. 160–1. 20 The four canons whose positions were confirmed in 1399–1401 were John Breche, Nicholas Salisbury, William Galandre and John Wendlyngburgh the Younger, none of whom held a role in government, nor were they identified as ‘king’s clerks’. 16 17

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Edward IV.21 In the two regime changes of 1470–1471 when Henry VI regained his crown for less than a year, there seems not to have been time to seek confirmation of the college’s rights and, in any case, Henry VI and then Edward IV were known to the college and both had shown favour to St Stephen’s earlier in their respective reigns. Henry VI had granted it the alien priory of Frampton.22 Similarly, Edward IV had given the college the alien priory of Welles in 1469 in return for prayers for his and Elizabeth Woodville’s souls.23 There was no confirmation of privileges or possessions under Richard III, perhaps due to lack of opportunity. In 1485, Henry VII was entirely unknown, having spent most of the previous decade in exile in France and Brittany. The college oddly did not have its rights reconfirmed at this moment, but it was very quickly given a new canon close to Henry VII, his personal chaplain and almoner, Christopher Urswick.24 Urswick, who had been with Henry in exile and was also close to Margaret Beaufort, may have been able to reassure his new colleagues of Henry’s intentions of providing ongoing support or at least benign tolerance.25 Royal favour would be expressed through grants later in the reign and the involvement of both the king’s mother and his wife, Elizabeth of York, with the choice of the college’s personnel as well as a confirmation of the college’s spiritual provisions in 1489.26 Legitimacy of rule was crucial to success in a regime shift and hinged on descent from Edward III as the last king that both factions of the Wars of the Roses could accept as wholly legitimate, and on election by Parliament at Westminster.27 That St Stephen’s was visually and institutionally the college of Edward III within the important royal administrative centre at Westminster meant that it offered opportunities for associating the present king both with the legitimacy of his ancestors CPR 1460–67, p. 17; see also M. Hicks, ‘Stillington, Robert (d.1471)’, ODNB. CPR 1436–41, p. 125. 23 CPR 1467–77, p. 163. 24 Urswick was referenced as the almoner in the grant, CPR 1485–94, p. 24. 25 For Urswick’s career and closeness to Beaufort see BRUC, pp. 605–6. 26 Hugh Ashton, possibly John Chambre, James Denton, Hugh Oldham and James Whitsons were all canons of St Stephen’s and known to have been of Beaufort’s household, see M.K. Jones and M.G. Underwood, The King’s Mother: Lady Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond and Derby (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 268–87; grants of presentation to the college that included Elizabeth of York and Margaret Beaufort are CPR 1485–94, pp. 65, 206, 292; the grants to the college included the priory of Cold Norton in Oxfordshire in 1507, CPR 1494–1509, p. 544; the confirmation of the college’s indulgences and spiritual provisions is BL Harley Ch 43 F 18. 27 For example, in 1471, Edward IV’s claim was summarised as that he was ‘verry trew and rightwise enheritoure to the roylme and corone of England … so he was declared by [the] iij astates of the land at a parliament holden at Westmynster, unto this day never repelled, ne revoked’, Historie of the Arrivall of Edward IV in England, ed. J. Bruce, Camden Society Old Series I (London, 1838), p. 4. 21 22

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and with the orderly functioning of government and justice. One of the charges usually laid at the feet of deposed monarchs was that they were not acting correctly according to their duties to the commonwealth and the common good, often as expressed through their administrative abilities.28 At Westminster, then, the new king could associate himself with four elements of legitimation: election in Parliament, the coronation at Westminster Abbey, the expected orderly functioning of corporate kingship in the administrative offices, and the dynastic legitimation and piety present at St Stephen’s as created by Edward III in his specifications for the liturgy. On 16 July 1461 Edward IV pointedly had his father Richard, duke of York, added to the college’s round of commemoration for the royal dead.29 Richard had been Henry VI’s agreed heir when he was killed in 1460 at the battle of Wakefield, which brought his son to the throne instead.30 His addition to the obit book thus marked a claim for his rights as a potential king and for the legitimacy of his son’s rule. In 1471 Edward went straight from St Paul’s to Westminster Abbey to give thanks for regaining this throne and to be reunited with his wife.31 Similarly, Henry VII used both the major churches at Westminster to signal the legitimacy of his reign in its early years. When he returned from his first progress around the kingdom in the summer of 1486 he was met at the Water Gate by a procession made up of the personnel of St Stephen’s and the abbey monks, who escorted him to the abbey for a service of thanksgiving.32 After the coronation of Elizabeth of York in 1487, after she had given birth to the heir, Prince Arthur, a Mass was held the following day in St Stephen’s.33 Both events were noted by the heralds because they mattered as pieces of dynastic association and legitimation. For example, see the Record and Process used against Richard II in 1399, translated in Chronicles of the Revolution 1397–1400, ed. C. Given-Wilson (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1993), pp. 172–3, 175; for the biblical parallels drawn between Richard II and the conduct of Rehoboam and then the way it was reworked in 1461 to discredit Henry IV, see S. Walker, ‘Remembering Richard: History and Memory in Lancastrian England’, in Political Culture in Later Medieval England: Essays by Simon Walker, ed. M.J. Braddick (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2006), pp. 183–97 at p. 187 and 192; the promises of good governance in 1472 are discussed in Morgan, ‘Political After-Life of Edward III’: 870–1. 29 CPR 1461–1467, p. 163; Richard duly appears in the obit book on 31 December, Cotton MS Faustina B VIII, f. 7v. 30 ‘dux Eboraci factus est heres apparens regnorum’ in October 1460 and died 30 December 1460, ‘John Benet’s Chronicle for the Years 1400 to 1462’, ed. G.L. Harriss and M.A. Harriss, Camden Miscellany XXIV, Camden Society 4th series, 9 (London, 1972), pp. 175–233 at p. 228. 31 History of the Arrivall, p. 17. 32 J. Leland, Joannis Lelandi antiquarii de rebvs britannicis collectanea, ed. T. Hearne, 6 vols (London: T Hearne, 1770), iv, p. 202. 33 Ibid., p. 223. 28

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The key to the dynastic association with Edward III was the combination of visual and liturgical memorials within an important venue. Edward III was celebrated as the college’s founder in the daily round of liturgy in which prayers were also said for the current king and for the kingdom as a whole. Other colleges and monasteries similarly had the requirement to offer prayers for their founder, and the presence of such prayers did not necessarily compel the founders’ descendants to maintain strong connections with the institution. St George’s, as the home of the Order of the Garter and with similar liturgical provisions for the commemoration of dynastic kingship, might well have been expected to command the same strong royal interest as St Stephen’s. Instead St George’s received no major grants from the Crown between 1422 and 1471, while the canons there struggled to make their resources match their commitments.34 At St Stephen’s, by contrast, the king’s relatively frequent presence at Westminster meant that the dynastic potential was more apparent.35 In addition, the altar wall murals showing Edward III and his family added to the association between St Stephen’s and successful kingship. The murals reflected Edward’s new conception of the relationship between the royal family and the saints, where St George was leading him to the Virgin, but they came to offer an image of what a king should be. The royal iconography created in the murals was picked up and elaborated in the fifteenth century. Margaret of Anjou gave a new stained-glass window to St Mary le Pew, which showed Margaret herself kneeling with Henry VI in front of the Virgin and including arms of St George and St Edward the Confessor.36 While the payment recorded for this window makes it sound as if it was probably a standard donor window, where the saints were not shown on the same level as the king and queen, it included the key saints that Edward III’s scheme had highlighted and added Edward the

Evans, ‘Years of Arrears’, pp. 94, 100–1, 104–5. This varied by monarch and it is very difficult to assess when the king was at Westminster because authentications there do not necessarily mean actual royal presence. However, a rough estimate is possible. For example, Henry IV was continuously at Westminster from October to December 1399 before Christmas at Windsor, and then spent full months at the palace almost every year, often in December just before Christmas; see Given-Wilson, Henry IV, pp. 542–5; Henry V was near-continuously at Westminster when he was in England from 1414 to 1417, see J. Catto, ‘The King’s Servants’, in Henry V: The Practice of Kingship, ed. G.L. Harriss (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), pp. 75–96 at pp. 84–5; Henry VI tended to spend between a month and three months each year at Westminster, spread through the year, although in 1444 and 1454 he was not present at all, and in 1450 he spent the majority of his time there, see B. Wolffe, Henry VI (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), pp. 361–75. 36 ‘The Household of Margaret of Anjou 1452–53 II’, ed. Alec R. Myers, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 40 (1957): 391–431 at 423. 34 35

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Confessor, who had been added to the college’s dedication by Richard II.37 Henry VII also used the altar wall murals as a possible model for displaying his dynasty. At Richmond he commissioned a strikingly similar portrait of his family and St George, again probably for the chapel’s altar, which mirrored that of Edward III’s family on the walls of St Stephen’s.38 The college was also important because of its links with royal administration and the patronage it could provide for supporters and friends of the new king. For all the rhetoric of bad government used against kings, the demands of royal administration meant that there were rarely any immediate changes for the college when a new king arrived in Westminster. It took some time for the monarch to have the opportunity to bring in his own men and to decide what he wanted from St Stephen’s in terms of rewarding his priests and the priests in the service of his followers when prebends fell vacant. Only two canons, William Beverley and Ralph Makerell, are known to have been deprived of their St Stephen’s prebends unwillingly and in a regime change. Makerell was given a prebend and then deprived in 1471, the year of the Readeption of Henry VI.39 Beverley was appointed by Richard III in 1483 and was unfortunate in 1485 when he was stripped of his prebends at Westminster and Windsor by the new Henry VII. He was allowed to retain his northern benefices at Middleham and York, which at least allowed him to retire with some dignity, far from the centre of political power.40 He was particularly hated as one of the clerks closest to Richard III, but other less politically charged canons found their careers disrupted or altered by regime change. Careers that were on the rise might well stall, as the case of Nicholas Slake shows. He was probably intended for a bishopric under Richard II, but was to struggle under Henry IV to maintain his positions, let alone advance within the Church.41 Other careers might shift easily to the service of new regimes, either due to personal connections or to skills in short supply. In contrast to Beverley, the Chancery clerk Thomas Barrow remained at the college and in his post after

See p. 82. The image ‘The Family of Henry VII with St George and the Dragon’ is now in the Royal Collection, OM 19. 39 CPR 1467–77, pp. 235, 258. 40 For Beverley at St Stephen’s, CPR 1476–85, p. 373; CPR 1485–94, p. 24; he was almost entirely absent in the period covered by the surviving college attendance registers and financial records for Mass during January to August 1485, BL Harley Ch 45 A 38–45; for his career more generally, see R.B. Dobson, Church and Society in the Medieval North of England (London: Bloomsbury, 1996), pp. 243–46. 41 Slake remained dean of St Stephen’s until 1407, but was embroiled in a lawsuit over his deanery of Wells in 1402, see KB 9/187/43. My thanks to Chris Given-Wilson for the reference. 37 38

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1485.42 He too was a Ricardian appointee to St Stephen’s whose will made it clear that he retained close links to known Yorkist sympathisers.43 There were gifts to his patron, Sir Robert Dymoke, and other Yorkist courtiers surviving at the court of Henry VII such as Sir William Tunstall and Sir James Tyrell, the son of the attainted Sir James Tyrell, as well as Richard III’s lawyer, Morgan Kidwelly.44 These men’s divergent careers after 1485 suggest the range of possibilities open to canons and to the king at these moments of transition. New canons offered new regimes the opportunity to start shaping the college’s personnel to suit their needs for patronage and administrative support. Henry IV does not seem to have used that power systematically, although he was fully reshaping even the junior offices of local government.45 St Stephen’s looks oddly less Lancastrian than we might expect on that basis. C.W. Smith has pointed out that there was already a strong Lancastrian presence in the writing offices – particularly Chancery – before 1399, although Lancastrians do not appear at St Stephen’s, whose prebends were royally controlled.46 The first appointment of Henry IV to St Stephen’s was a privy seal clerk, William Doune, in December 1399, of whom almost nothing is known other than that he was called ‘king’s clerk’ at the time of his appointment, and that he had worked in the Privy Seal Office from 1388 until at least June 1399.47 He does not appear in the lists of duchy of Lancaster officers of John of Gaunt, or Henry himself, prior to 1399.48 This looks like he was given the prebend on his retirement as he was to stay at the college until his death in 1414.49 The canons who immediately followed him were also not strongly tied to the king He was replaced by Richard Hatton on his death in 1499, CPR 1494–1509, p. 193. PROB 11/11/672. 44 For Robert Dymoke see A.J. Musson, ‘Dymoke family (per. c.1340–c.1580)’, ODNB; and for James Tyrell see R. Horrox, ‘Tyrell, Sir James (c.1455–1502)’, ODNB; for Kidwelly, see R. Horrox, Richard III: A Life in Service (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), p. 210. 45 Biggs, ‘Henry IV and his Sheriffs’: 164–5. 46 C.W. Smith, ‘A Conflict of Interest? Chancery Clerks in Private Service’, in People, Politics and Community in the Later Middle Ages, ed. J. Rosenthal and C. Richmond (Gloucester: Alan Sutton, 1987), pp. 176–92 at pp. 180–1; note that Thomas Swaby, briefly a canon in 1371, was also at the same time treasurer of the household of John of Gaunt, and called a ‘king’s clerk’, CPR 1370–74, pp. 54, 58; R. Somerville, History of the Duchy of Lancaster, Volume One 1265–1603 (London: Duchy of Lancaster, 1953), p. 365. 47 CPR 1399–1401, p. 144; T.F. Tout, Chapters in the Administrative History of Medieval England, 6 vols (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1920–33), v, p. 111; A.L. Brown, ‘The Privy Seal Clerks in the Early Fifteenth Century’, in The Study of Medieval Records: Essays in Honour of Kathleen Major, ed. D.A. Bullough and R.L. Storey (Oxford: Clarendon, 1971), pp. 260–81 at p. 262 n.2. 48 Somerville, Duchy of Lancaster, pp. 363–9, 385–7. 49 CPR 1413–16, p. 199. 42 43

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personally although they continued the long-standing association of St Stephen’s with routine royal service more generally. William Dionys and Henry Merston were clerks of the works, while Richard Dereham was an ambassador and was considered for the see of Norwich.50 These men did not come from the duchy of Lancaster’s personnel, nor were they ever strongly associated with the king personally. Personal connections at St Stephen’s waited a few years, even as Henry relied on Lancastrian officers of his household to direct governance at a senior level.51 In 1401 John Legbourne, formerly receiver-general to John of Gaunt, was appointed a canon as part of his move into royal administration.52 Like the other three earlier appointees, he was called a ‘king’s clerk’ on his appointment, but had to wait until 1403 for formal positions in the Wardrobe and the Exchequer.53 He was unusual because few Lancastrian clerks moved formally into royal administration, in part because they remained usefully employed in the separate duchy administration.54 The deliberate separation between the Crown lands and Henry’s personal inheritances meant that there was less apparent need to reward faithful clerks with royally sponsored benefices.55 Instead, Henry appointed in the traditional mould at St Stephen’s and did not use the college to systematically reward those who had served him before 1399. By the time that Edward IV, the next king to arrive in a moment of regime change with an already formed and distinct retinue of his own, came to power in 1461, delegated grants had become commonplace at St Stephen’s, as is discussed in the next section.56 It is thus worth looking carefully at what happened over the following decades when a new king arrived in Westminster. Edward’s first appointment to St Stephen’s went to John Russell in April 1461.57 Russell came as an administrative outsider from Oxford, where he was warden of New College, to help restaff royal administration. His spectacular further career as a councillor, in the Privy Seal Office, and as chancellor, lasted across three reigns until his death in the 1490s.58 After Russell was appointed, Edward IV reverted to the by then usual For their appointments, CPR 1399–1401, pp. 477, 504; CPR 1401–04, p. 58; for their careers, E 101/473; E 101/502; BRUC, p. 184. 51 H. Castor, The King, the Crown and the Duchy of Lancaster: Public Authority and Private Power, 1399–1461 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 30. 52 CPR 1399–1401, p. 537; for his earlier career, see comments of Biggs, ‘Plantagenet Revolution in Government?’: 197. 53 J.C. Sainty, Officers of the Exchequer (Kew: List and Index Society, 1983), p. 9. 54 The other known example at St Stephen’s is Roger Mersh in the 1430s and 1440s who had been clerk of the Chancery of the duchy, Somerville, Duchy of Lancaster, p. 410. 55 Castor, King, Crown and Duchy, p. 27. 56 See below pp. 112–14. 57 CPR 1461–66, p. 6. 58 J.A.F. Thompson, ‘Russell, John (c.1430–1494)’, ODNB. 50

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pattern of using the right to appoint to a prebend to reward key lay followers, including the influential Sir William Hastings, rather than appointing directly to the college himself.59 After his return after the Readeption of Henry VI in 1471, Edward IV again kept control of the college and made a series of appointments himself, including to the royal councillors Richard Martin, John Gunthorpe and John Alcock before following form and reverting to grants to groups of councillors.60 In the brief period of Henry VI’s Readeption he had similarly appointed to the single vacant prebend, appointing Ralph Makerell, Margaret of Anjou’s chancellor and an important diplomatic figure at this time.61 The same prebend was regranted by Edward IV to Thomas Couton.62 Richard III used no delegated groups in 1483 when there were two vacant prebends, instead appointing clerks known to be personally close to him and with strong connections to his northern powerbase, William Beverley and Thomas Barrow.63 The pattern continued with Henry VII, who in September 1485 appointed Christopher Urswick directly when he deprived Beverley of his prebend.64 After Urswick, he used a mix of direct and delegated appointments for the rest of the reign.65 In the highly charged political environment at the start of new and contested reigns, all the English kings of the later years of the Wars of the Roses used the positions at St Stephen’s, Westminster to reward their own priests, who would help them to maintain their grip on the kingdom.

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Corporate Kingship and the Chapel The use of the Church and its clergy to support kingship in practical ways during this period was shifting due to changes in the perception and education of the clergy as well as changes in the staffing of royal administration. The ongoing CPR 1461–66, pp. 78, 357, 469. Direct grants occur five times before delegated grants resume in October 1472, CPR 1467–77, pp. 258, 259, 267, 306, 332. 61 CPR 1467–77, p. 235; for Makerell more generally see M.L. Kekewich, ‘The Mysterious Doctor Makerell: His General Pardon of 27 November 1469’, in Much Heaving and Shoving: Late Medieval Gentry and their Concerns: Essays for Colin Richmond, ed. Margaret Aston and Rosemary Horrox (Lavenham, Suffolk: Lavenham Press, 2005), pp. 45–9. 62 CPR 1467–77, p. 258. 63 CPR 1476–85, pp. 366, 373; Dobson, Church and Society, p. 243; J. Hughes, ‘Barowe, Thomas (d.1499)’, ODNB. 64 CPR 1485–94, p. 24. 65 Delegated grants: CPR 1485–94, pp. 65, 66, 120, 171, 206, 260, 266, 273, 292, 430; CPR 1494–1509, pp. 215, 591. Direct grants: CPR 1485–94, pp. 24, 412, 419, 420, 479; CPR 1494–1509, pp. 167, 187, 193. 59 60

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intermittent warfare of the Hundred Years’ War influenced royal policy towards the Church and its financial resources, particularly the French-affiliated monastic houses known as the alien priories.66 From 1399 to 1485, while senior administrators might still be drawn from among the bishops, clergy increasingly were less common in the administrative offices, although they remained a significant part of the corps of administrators that the Crown could draw upon at need. In the fifteenth century, campaigns for the better education of those in Holy Orders and an increased emphasis on proceeding to the priesthood went alongside the use of laymen instead of clerks in royal administration.67 Archbishop Chichele and others sought a close identification between the Church and the Crown, but saw that as working through positions of authority other than in the administrative offices, particularly in diplomacy.68 The apparent shift in the early fifteenth century under Henry V to a royal preference for laymen in Chancery and Exchequer has been identified as part of the reason for a collapse in government in the 1450s and then into the Wars of the Roses, such that Edward IV could choose to bypass much of the administrative offices in favour of ad hoc arrangements using the royal household, particularly his secretary.69 The withdrawal of priests from the administrative offices could have opened up the college to a very different kind of relationship with the king, one where it solely offered a free and convenient way to reward lay courtiers and officials with the right to present to vacant canonries. Instead, these grants reinforced the place of St Stephen’s within the king’s household and reflected the range of talent that the king could draw upon. Among the royal free chapels and colleges, St Stephen’s was anomalous in the level of its support and continuing connections to the Crown. The kings of England tended to found new religious houses rather than to support existing ones, or to complete building projects, which would then associate themselves with their predecessors.70 Henry VI showed awareness of St Stephen’s as a model when he founded Eton and King’s College, Cambridge, and he used an influential

B. Thompson, ‘The Laity, the Alien Priories, and the Redistribution of Ecclesiastical Property’, in England in the Fifteenth Century: Proceedings of the 1992 Harlaxton Symposium, ed. N. Rogers (Stamford: Paul Watkins, 1994), pp. 19–41 at 23–4. 67 K. Selway, ‘The Role of Eton College and King’s College Cambridge in the Lancastrian Polity’, DPhil. thesis (University of Oxford, 1993), 84–5; Carpenter, ‘Deskilling of the Royal Bureaucracy’, pp. 28–9, 31. 68 Walker, ‘Between Church and Crown: Master Richard Andrew, King’s Clerk’, Speculum 74 (1999): 956–91 at 957; J. Catto, ‘The World of Henry Chichele and the Foundation of All Souls’, in Unarmed Soldiery: Studies in the Early History of All Souls College, ed. R.J.A. Catto et al. (Oxford: All Soul’s College, 1996), pp. 1–13 at 7–8. 69 Ross, Edward IV, pp. 301, 307; Carpenter, ‘Deskilling of the Royal Bureaucracy’, pp. 27–30. 70 Rosenthal, ‘Kings, Continuity, and Ecclesiastical Benefaction’, p. 170. 66

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canon from St Stephen’s to help establish his new foundations.71 Neither Henry IV nor Henry V particularly supported other earlier royal foundations, although both did show some interest in the Lancastrian foundation of St Mary in the Newarke, and preferred to found new houses, both colleges and monasteries.72 Edward IV brought Fotheringhay into royal patronage, but was to strip much of the endowment from Henry VI’s Eton.73 St Stephen’s College’s role as a home for senior royal administrators and as a visible stage for political action meant that it continued to have an institutional importance to the kings of England, despite the claims of their own dynastic mausoleums and religious projects. That is not to say that the college was not adapting during this period. The changing relationship of the kings of England to their administration helped to reshape the college’s membership during this period. Increasingly, St Stephen’s was a home for men who had worked in specialised posts for the king, rather than in the administrative offices, even as they might enter those offices later in their careers.74 The change in career stages represented in the stalls reflected an increasing separation between the king’s household and the lower levels of government as well as the changing expectations of men who were in Holy Orders. Fifteenth-century humanist education at New College, Oxford, as well as the legal education at All Souls, led to an increase in university-educated priests, who could serve the Crown as canon lawyers, chaplains and secretaries.75 In addition, ambassadorial work also came to be another area where this training was useful and to be increasingly reflected in the college’s staff. Unlike at other free chapels, the location of St Stephen’s close to the palaces most regularly used by the king’s household in the Thames Valley, and to royal administration at Westminster, meant that it remained an attractive benefice for those priests who were working in royal service of all types. In 1444 Robert Mouter, the keeper of the rolls of Henry Sever, the first provost, moved from St Stephen’s to Eton in October 1440, see W. Sterry, The Eton College Register, 1441–1698 (Eton: Spottiswode, 1943), p. xxviii; the rood screen at Eton was to be modelled on that at St Stephen’s, see R. Willis and J.W. Clark, Architectural History of the University of Cambridge, I (Cambridge: Cambridge, University Press, 1886), p. 354. 72 Selway, ‘The Role of Eton and King’s, Cambridge’, pp. 23–9, 32–4, 37–9. 73 CPR 1461–67, pp. 216, 431; CPR 1477–85, p. 224; see also the discussion in ‘Colleges: Fotheringhay’, in A History of the County of Northampton: Volume 2, ed. R.M. Serjeantson and W.R.D. Adkins (London: James Street, 1906), pp. 170–77; for his policy towards Eton see Ross, Edward IV, p. 269; CPR 1461–77, pp. 73, 196–7. 74 A good example is John Russell, canon of St Stephen’s and then bishop successively of Rochester and Lincoln. He became a canon in 1461, was heavily involved in embassies, and then entered the Privy Seal Office in 1469 before serving as Chancellor from 1483 to c.1485; CPR 1461–67, p. 6; Thompson, ‘Russell, John’. 75 See Catto, ‘World of Henry Chichele’, pp. 10–12. 71

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Chancery, was granted a prebend specifically so that he would have a convenient house at Westminster for his Chancery work.76 The key moment for the shift in the types of careers in royal service found at St Stephen’s came in the 1430s when for the first time a majority of new canons are known to have had university educations. Of the thirteen canons who first came to the college in this decade, eight are known to have held degrees. It is also not a surprise that this is correlated with the introduction of the Chapel Royal as a significant part of the college’s membership, as six new canons were members of the Chapel Royal in that decade. In part, this reflects the end of the minority of Henry VI and his desire to reward those close to him, particularly the clerk of his closet Edward Atherton, his chaplain and future bishop William Aiscough, and two other chaplains, John Kilbourne and Thomas Ryby. Both Aiscough and Kilbourne are known to have had university backgrounds.77 The rest of the new canons were drawn from the traditional Exchequer and Chancery officials, such as Nicholas Dixon, the long-serving Exchequer clerk, or John Stopyndon, the keeper of the Hanaper in Chancery.78 Their appointments reflected traditional uses of the benefices. For Henry VI, St Stephen’s offered convenient rewards for his personal servants at a time when Bekyngton, Chaundeler and others were emphasising the humanist possibilities at New College as preparation for public life.79 After this point, the Chapel Royal became the dominant institution of the household within St Stephen’s, which reflected these chaplains’ personal closeness to the king. At the same time, the numbers of those in Holy Orders within royal administration decreased, with the effect that fewer men working in these offices could be appointed to St Stephen’s.80 Those who worked in the traditional offices were often also brought in at relatively senior levels after a university career rather than having worked their way up as their fourteenth-century predecessors had done. Under Edward IV, for example, John Alcock became keeper of the rolls in Chancery in 1471, three days after he became dean of St Stephen’s without having previously worked in Chancery.81 It was a similar story for his exact contemporary CPR 1441–46, p. 413. The date of the end of the minority has been contested, see Carpenter, Wars of the Roses, pp. 87–8; Edward Atherton was granted a canonry on 11 May 1436, CPR 1429–36, p. 515; William Aiscough was granted his canonry on 8 November 1436, John Killbourne, ‘chaplain’ on 19 July 1438, and Thomas Ryby, ‘king’s chaplain’ on 27 September 1438, CPR 1436–41, pp. 26, 183, 203; for their university careers see BRUC, pp. 28, 342. 78 CPR 1429–36, pp. 155, 268, 284, 450; CPR 1436–41, pp. 171, 183, 243. 79 Catto, ‘World of Henry Chichele’, pp. 10–11; in addition to his well-known work at New College Oxford, Chaundeler was a canon at St Stephen’s, CPR 1461–67, p. 539; CPR 1467–77, pp. 559–60. 80 Storey, ‘Gentlemen-Bureaucrats’, p. 100. 81 CPR 1467–77, p. 259; R.J. Schoeck, ‘Alcock, John (1430–1500)’, ODNB. 76 77

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John Gunthorpe, who was a royal chaplain by 1466, became a Chancery master in 1471 and a canon at St Stephen’s the following year.82 Both men were university educated and had previous experience in royal service to Edward IV before being moved into Chancery and then into even higher offices. The distance between the person of the king and the offices of state, as well as the changing roles of priests within the king’s household, shaped the system of appointments to the college. From the middle of the fifteenth century, Henry VI and his successors increasingly delegated their right to appoint to vacant canonries at the college to favoured courtiers and royal administrators. While some individuals continued to receive prebends directly authorised through letters patent from the king, other grants were made indirectly by individuals or groups appointed by the king to appoint to a canonry. The king was careful to ensure that the right to appoint was never permanently alienated. The groups of grantees were usually granted the right to appoint once to the next vacant prebend, and it might take some time for the grant to be fulfilled, although it is difficult to unpick which canons were appointed through this means. The first such grant was to the archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Stafford, in 1448.83 His heavy involvement with administration, and his concern for his clerks and chaplains, meant that he almost certainly chose a clerk who was already working in royal service and who fitted well with the established mix of canons.84 Other grants to groups, including the archbishops and other senior personnel, often from the king’s council, soon followed.85 In part, these grants allowed the king and his advisers to use prebends at St Stephen’s and St George’s, Windsor to reward friends and administrators who they knew personally and who were not eligible to receive a prebend directly, such as bishops and nobles. These men and some women themselves had priests in their service who they wished to reward with benefices. For example, during the Readeption of 1470–1471, the earl of Warwick was granted the next presentation at St Stephen’s in reward for his vital support of Henry VI, at a period when, as discussed above, the king had kept the other open appointment at the college for himself.86 Warwick was almost certainly never able to exercise the grant himself before his death later that year. The use of these grants also suggests that the king himself had fewer servants known to him personally or through appropriate channels who were CPR 1467–77, p. 306; C.W. Smith, ‘Some Trends in the English Royal Chancery: 1377–1485’, Medieval Prosopography 6 (1985): 69–94 at 80; A.C. Reeves, ‘John Gunthorpe: Keeper of Richard III’s Privy Seal, Dean of Wells Cathedral’, Viator 39 (2008): 307–44 at 313. 83 CPR 1446–52, p. 249. 84 R.G. Davies, ‘Stafford, John (d.1452)’, ODNB. 85 CPR 1452–61, pp. 78, 357, 531, 536, 630. 86 CPR 1467–77, pp. 235, 244. 82

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in Holy Orders and so eligible for a prebend. The pressure on the use of direct royal patronage of benefices was decreasing as the shape of administration and the king’s engagement with priests in his service changed. Delegated grants widened access to the college’s patronage but did not, however, substantially change its connections to royal service. The groups appointing new canons were drawn from elite household circles and so those they are known to have appointed were also often connected to royal service already, or used the appointment to enter royal service. Those known to have been appointed through this route seem to have similar careers to those directly appointed through letters patent. For example, the king’s almoner and then the dean of the Chapel Royal, Thomas Bonyfaunt, obtained a canonry by exchange in 1468, while the date of the appointment of Thomas Danet, who was the king’s almoner from 1476 to 1483, is unknown and probably was the result of one of these delegated grants.87 At only one point in the late fifteenth century is there a complete list of the dean and canons: the attendance registers in 1485, as the college’s exemption from clerical taxation meant that the taxation records are less useful. Of the thirteen names on this list, only one canon, known only by his surname of Bolton, does not appear elsewhere associated with the college, or with royal administration more generally at this time.88 Two-thirds of the other canons can be associated with administration, the household of Edward IV or with Richard III, including the almoners Alexander Lee and John Gunthorpe, and Edmund Chaderton, who went from being a royal chaplain to Chancery.89 Bolton is likely to have been the William Bolton found acting with the dean, Henry Sharp, and fellow canon Thomas Couton, in the same year in a land transaction.90 There are overlapping possibilities as to his wider career. Emden thought that the canon of St Paul’s Cathedral in London of the same name c.1481 to 1488 was the man who had studied civil law at Cambridge in the 1470s.91 A man of the same name also appears at Wells Cathedral at the same time and died in 1489.92 The other CPR 1467–77, p. 111; CPR 1476–85, p. 373; BRUO, pp. 217–18, 540–1. BL Harley Ch 45 A 38–45. 89 They were: Thomas Couton (unknown); John Gunthorpe (almoner, Chancery, Privy Seal Office); William Morland (Chancery); John Brown (unknown, possibly the Chancery master of that name); Alexander Lee (almoner and ambassador); William Beverley (dean of St George’s, Windsor, dean of Richard III’s new college at Middleham); Henry Sharp (Chancery, councillor); William Chauntre (dean of the Chapel Royal); Malcolm Cosyn (unknown); John Gourll (unknown); Thomas Barrow (Chancery); Edmund Chaderton (chaplain and then Chancery). 90 CPR 1476–85, p. 538. 91 BRUC, p. 72. 92 Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae 1300–1541: Volume 8, Bath and Wells Diocese, ed. B. Jones (London: Institute of Historical Research, 1964), p. 48. 87 88

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possibility is that he was the by then elderly master in Chancery William Bolton, who appears in the close rolls in 1460 and would not have been at Cambridge in the 1470s.93 In either case, how he made his way to the college is a mystery. If the master in Chancery, then his appointment continued the close association of the college with royal administration. If the identification between him and the Cambridge scholar is correct, which seems more likely, his route to St Stephen’s almost certainly would have involved friendships within St Paul’s or Wells, and thus the one of the delegated grants that involved canons from those cathedrals, such as Gunthorpe, Sharp or Couton. The delegated grants did not radically reshape the college’s self-conception of itself as a royal college closely connected to administration, even as they widened the pool of those appointed to the college’s prebends. Often the groups included the dean of St Stephen’s or another canon of the college, perhaps as a way of ensuring that the choice fell on someone acceptable to the college’s own staff and sense of the institution’s purpose.94 While the decision making within these groups is opaque, the college’s strong sense of itself as a royal college, staffed by men who worked for the king, does appear to have played a major role in the allocation of prebends. For example, Elizabeth Woodville’s choice of George Daune as canon was confirmed by letter patent and so is a rare example of when we can match the canon to the preceding grant of the right to present.95 Daune seems not to have been a king’s clerk, and is only referred to as a ‘chaplain’, which may explain why he had to be confirmed by the king, as an apparently unsuitable choice. In any case, he very quickly exchanged his prebend for one that was probably more welcoming at Chichester Cathedral.96 The only other known confirmation of a canonry at this time, that of Richard Skipton in 1488, seems to have been linked to a delegated grant of some type and may reflect Skipton’s wishes to have his prebend properly recorded in the Chancery records, because he was at the time one of the Masters in Chancery.97 Of the four canons whose careers can be definitively linked to Margaret Beaufort, who was granted two presentations in groups including her daughter-in-law Elizabeth of York, two – Christopher Urswick in CCR 1454–61, p. 425. For example, on 16 February 1483 Edward IV granted the right to present to Thomas, archbishop of York; John, bishop of Lincoln; William, Lord Hastings; Thomas Montgomery, knight; Thomas Danet, clerk; and Robert Langton, of whom Danet was or was about to become a canon. CPR 1476–85, p. 342. 95 Her 1 October 1472 grant was confirmed on 12 November 1475, CPR 1467–77, pp. 360, 547. 96 Daune would stay at Chichester until his death in 1502, Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae 1300–1541: Volume 7, Chichester Diocese, ed. J.M. Horn (London: Institute of Historical Research 1964), p. 44. 97 CPR 1485–94, p. 255; BRUO, p. 1708. 93 94

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1485 and Hugh Ashton in 1509 – were appointed by letters patent and two – James Whitstons and Hugh Oldham – occur as canons only after their appointments.98 It is thus plausible to see Whitstons and Oldham as being appointed by those groups including Margaret Beaufort in 1487 and 1489.99 If so, all four men had careers working for Henry VII as well as Beaufort and would have fitted into the patterns of working in Westminster that the college itself seems to have valued. Even as St Stephen’s maintained its connections to royal administration, it also continued to receive lands in return for prayers for the royal dead. In particular, it continued to benefit from the working through of a fourteenth-century royal policy revived by the Lancastrian kings, the confiscation of the rights and resources of the alien priories.100 Revenues from the alien priory of Lewes had been used to finance the first endowment of the college under Edward III, but under the Lancastrians and then Yorkist kings St Stephen’s was able to obtain entire priories from the king.101 The alien priories were victims of both suspicion of France and of changing religious fashions, which prioritised colleges and other commemorative foundations over monastic houses. In times of war, the king had taken control of the revenues of the alien priories, the daughter-houses of French monasteries in England, and often demanded financial recompense from their priors before the revenues were returned. In a shift of policy in 1414, Henry V confiscated the alien priories permanently, which opened up the possibility of alienating large swathes of lands to other religious houses.102 St Stephen’s did very well from the alien priories, reflecting its continued status as a royally favoured institution, in comparison to St George’s, Windsor. Unlike St George’s, which received very little until Edward IV’s rebuilding and re-endowment, St Stephen’s received the revenues of three priories in return for adding the kings and their relatives to the round of liturgy.103 In 1437 the college pleaded financial difficulties and was rewarded with the lands of the alien priory of Frampton in Dorset, which were valued at £166 13s 4d yearly.104 Frampton was then protected from resumption to the Crown in 1455.105 Thirty years later, Edward IV granted St Stephen’s the lordship of the alien priory of Welles. While a yearly value is known only from the sixteenth century, part of Christopher Urswick BRUC, pp. 605–6; he was appointed to a prebend in CPR 1485–94, p. 24; for Hugh Ashton, BRUC, pp. 18–19; and was appointed to a prebend in L & P 1509–13, no. 54 (84); for Hugh Oldham, BRUC, pp. 433–4; James Whitstons is referred to as ‘President of the council of Margaret the king’s mother’ in L & P 1509–13, no. 438. 99 The grants are in CPR 1485–94, pp. 206 and 292. 100 Thompson, ‘The Laity, the Alien Priories’, pp. 35, 37–8. 101 See Chapter One, p. 51. 102 Thompson, ‘The Laity, the Alien Priories’, p. 38. 103 Evans, ‘Years of Arrears’, p. 104. 104 CPR 1436–41, p. 125. 105 SC 8/150/7498B.

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that gift, the manor of Queen’s Court in Kent, which was finally fully confirmed in 1488, was worth £26 annually.106 Edward IV’s grants to St Stephen’s paralleled his building works at Windsor for St George’s in that they were both intended to leave his mark on the royal colleges of Edward III, associate himself with his ancestor, and add himself to the college’s remembrances. Henry VII gave the priory of Cold Norton, which the college was to sell after three years.107 Cold Norton was not an alien priory, but had been surrendered to the Crown on the death of the last prior and so its resources were available for use in the same manner as an alien priory.108 The other significant mark of favour to the college that was in the king’s gift was through grants or confirmations of exemptions from taxation and other financial obligations. St Stephen’s received several such grants in this period, which marked a restitution of the earlier grants by Edward III, which the college had allowed to fall into abeyance. These grants represented a financial concession from the king, and thus a mark of royal generosity. The first such was in 1465 when Edward IV confirmed the privileges granted by Edward III, in what may have been a conscious association of himself with Edward III.109 In 1489 Parliament cancelled all such privileges of clerical exemption from taxation, and the king reserved fourteen religious institutions or monastic orders, who would be allowed to retain either their full exemptions or partial ones.110 The institutions chosen thus offer a snapshot of royal support for religion under Henry VII, and how it had changed from earlier in the century. They were a mix of recent monastic foundations such as all the Carthusian houses and the Charterhouse at Sheen; older Marian monastic foundations such as Our Lady of Reading, St Mary of Llanthony and Our Lady of Pré in St Albans; and royal foundations such as St George’s, St Stephen’s and St Mary in the Newarke alongside the coronation church of Westminster Abbey and Henry V’s Syon Abbey. New College Oxford stands alone as a foundation that had not received much direct royal support, but did have a long tradition of feeding into royal service. The exemptions reflect a selective and deliberate choice of foundations, which mirrored recent royal patronage to ecclesiastical houses, particularly Edward IV’s grants and confirmations, rather than earlier For Queen’s Court, CPR 1485–94, p. 23; for the March 1463 grant of Welles on condition that the college pray for Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville, CPR 1467–77, p. 163; London and Middlesex Chantry Certificate 1548, ed. C.J. Kitching, London Record Society 16 (London, 1980), p. 79. 107 CPR 1494–1509, p. 544; Oxford, Brasenose College Archives, Cold Norton Charters 37–41. 108 ‘Houses of Augustinian Canons: The Priory of Cold Norton’, in The Victoria County History of the County of Oxford: Volume 2, ed. W. Page (London: Constable and Company, 1907), pp. 95–7. 109 CPR 1461–67, p. 455. 110 R. Horrox (ed.), ‘Henry VII: Parliament of November 1489, Text and Translation’, PROME, item 19. 106

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royal ecclesiastical interests. Eton and King’s College Cambridge were not on the list, but equally the Yorkist mausoleum at Fotheringhay was not included, despite it having received patronage from Edward IV and Henry VI.111 St Mary in the Newarke, the Lancastrian family’s dynastic chapel, had received patronage from Henry IV and Henry V, particularly in relation to Mary Bohun’s chantry. It was then fortunate under Edward IV to catch the interest of the local magnate William, Lord Hastings and thus continued to receive support through the Yorkist years.112 Henry VII in the fourth year of his reign was acknowledging the grants of his predecessors, but extremely selectively. The association of St Stephen’s both with corporate kingship and delegated royal patronage helped to keep it among the lists of institutions supported financially and with privileges by the later medieval kings of England. Royal foundations did not necessarily remain royally supported, particularly in the fifteenth century, when all three of the new dynasties brought their own ancestral obligations to religious houses and their own personal associations into the orbit of the king. The Lancastrian foundations struggled under Edward IV, most famously Eton, which he attempted to close. Instead, his religious focus was on his own family’s college at Fotheringhay as well as his namesake’s St George’s, Windsor. The continuing close association of St Stephen’s with administration, and its attractiveness to the groups who received delegated grants, meant that the college continued to receive royal patronage and favour. It continued to be a home for those working in Westminster and, as such, it had a stability that other institutions might well envy. The right to present to a prebend at St Stephen’s was of value to men such as the earl of Warwick in 1470 because it allowed them to exercise their own patronage within the king’s orbit in the palace, and to benefit their own relationships with those who worked in the palace. The shape of English administration – and the use of priests in the king’s household and his administrative offices – was changing, but St Stephen’s continued to have value for both sides of royal life, the institutional and the personal. The 1489 parliamentary grant then serves as a moment to take stock of what the turbulent ninety years had done to the range of institutions that were felt to come under the king’s protection and to be worthy of often quite large financial exemptions. For the most recent discussion of the college, see C. Burgess, ‘Fotheringhay Church: Conceiving a College and its Community’, in The Yorkist Age, ed. H. Kleineke and C. Steer (Donington: Shaun Tyas, 2013), pp. 347–66; for the patronage shown, see ‘The Statutes of the College of St Mary and All Angels, Fotheringhay’, ed. A.H. Thompson, Archaeological Journal, 75 (1918): 241–309 at 249, 266. 112 A.H. Thompson, The History of the Hospital and the New College of the Annunciation of St. Mary in the Newarke, Leicester (Leicester: Leicester Archaeological Society, 1937), pp. 96–7, 118–19. 111

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Those institutions that had become associated with previous regimes tended to have lost out on this type of patronage. The survivors at the end of this process were the institutions that were able to develop their own connection with the Crown as an institution, or with influential patrons such that they were felt to continue to be the present king’s foundations.

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Royal Presence and the King’s ‘Chief Chapel’ As it had been under Richard II, St Stephen’s College remained a venue for politically significant religious activity due to its visible location within the Palace of Westminster, and thus a key site for affirming the continuing working relationship between the king and the Church. The liturgy and music of St Stephen’s had been set up by Edward III to continually amplify dynastic continuities and to provide a particularly lavish liturgy, which in the fifteenth century held up against the emerging developments in polyphony and musical elaboration. St Stephen’s probably developed further musically, although the evidence is often ambivalent and patchy. Additionally, the college was associated with the king’s own devotions through the Chapel Royal because of the significant overlap in personnel after 1430 as well as its probable use as the home of the Chapel Royal when they were resident in Westminster. When the king was at Westminster, St Stephen’s continued to be a chapel used by the household and, in his absence, it provided a round of worship supported by his generosity and visible to those visiting the palace. Routine royal piety and presence at the Chapel Royal’s services affirmed publicly that the king was a good supporter of the Church, while in larger set-piece events the use of St Stephen’s could associate the king with the Church in a mutual display of support. For example, its use as a courtroom gave royal affirmation as well as privacy to what was nominally a church court proceeding held by bishops who were also royal councillors when Eleanor, duchess of Gloucester was tried for necromancy and treason in 1441. The chapel also had meaning for those who worked at the intersection of the Church and royal government as the chapel was used for the consecration of bishops and the ordination of priests, probably because it was well placed and convenient both for the archbishop of Canterbury at Lambeth and those who worked in the palace. As such, although a contemporary chronicler of the trial of the duchess of Gloucester called St Stephen’s the king’s ‘chief chapel within his palace’, it was also a place where several of the possible relationships between the Church as a whole and the king were played out.113 Institutional royal piety, the relationship of the royal and church courts, and the Church’s own roles within governance met at St Stephen’s. The Brut or the Chronicle of England, ed. F.W.D. Brie, 2 vols, EETS Original Series 131

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As discussed in Chapter Two, the Palace of Westminster was the king’s principal palace, and St Stephen’s was the only chapel within the palace complex that was probably large enough to be used by the Chapel Royal for their household services in the fifteenth century.114 The Chapel Royal’s use of St Stephen’s meant that co-operation and collaboration between the two institutions was essential to ensure the smooth running of both sets of services when the royal household was in residence. The standard institutional account of the Chapel Royal and its personnel depends on the descriptions given in two fifteenth-century sets of ordinances. The more detailed instructions are in the Liber Regie Capelle of 1450, which focuses directly on the Chapel Royal and its internal structures.115 For how the chapel then interacted with the wider household and the other chaplains and priests in the household, historians and musicologists have then turned to the Black Book of the Household’s comments from the 1470s.116 Yet those texts give greater clarity to the Chapel Royal than is perhaps warranted. Robert Branner cautioned against associating the French Chapel Royal solely with the Sainte Chapelle for this reason.117 There is no doubt that the structures of the chapel existed, and that to belong to the Chapel Royal was a particular dignity within the royal household. However, going back to the Latin terminology of grants and other references, the situation becomes murkier. The Latin term ‘capella regis’ was used for two categories of individuals and buildings. Its first and most straightforward use is in describing the chapel buildings within royal palaces or otherwise tied to the king such as the royal free chapels. In this, St Stephen’s Chapel was clearly a ‘capella regis’. The alternative meaning of the term was what is now known as the Chapel Royal, the collection of singers, priests and choirboys who carried out the daily round of liturgy for the king and his court. Yet the individual priests within the Chapel Royal were ‘king’s chaplains’, a term that has wider meanings than simply those who were formally paid as part of the chapel.118 Canons of St Stephen’s were usually given the courtesy title of ‘king’s chaplain’ or

and 136 (London, 1906–8), i, p. 478. See Chapter Two, pp. 91–2. 115 Liber Regie Capelle, ed. W. Ullmann (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1959), Introduction. 116 The Household of Edward IV: The Black Book of the Household and the Ordinance of 1478, ed. A.R. Myers (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1959), pp. 133–7. 117 R. Branner, ‘The Sainte Chapelle and the Capella Regis in the Thirteenth Century, Gesta 10:1 (1971): 19–22 at 19. 118 The Black Book separates its discussion of ‘capellanis regis’, the king’s personal chaplains as opposed to the Chapel Royal, Black Book of the Household, pp. 111 and 133–7; it also suggests that the ‘capellanis regis’ were only those on personal attendance on the king at any moment, the term also had an honorific usage. 114

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‘king’s clerk’.119 That did not mean that they were necessarily formally part of the Chapel Royal, but that they were part of a more flexible pool of priests who were at the king’s disposal. The physical evidence of the chapel’s place within Westminster is also supported by the prosopographical overlap in staff and the ways in which St Stephen’s was conceptualised in the surviving royal household accounts and in the college’s own statutes, insofar as they have survived. The dean of the Chapel Royal was also often a canon or the dean of St Stephen’s in the fifteenth century, which would have allowed for smoother co-operation. William Say and Thomas Bonyfaunt formed a mid-fifteenth-century chain of deans who also had stalls in St Stephen’s.120 Other royal chaplains were also rewarded with prebends, including the composer Nicholas Sturgeon, albeit briefly.121 St Stephen’s rarely appears separately from the Chapel Royal in the surviving financial accounts, unlike St George’s, Windsor. In the surviving household accounts of Elizabeth of York, her officers did not distinguish between St Stephen’s and the household chapel when she was at Westminster in the way that they distinguished between St George’s College and the king’s chapel in the Upper Ward of Windsor Castle.122 Similarly, in the account of Henry VII’s celebration of St George’s Day, the royal chapel in the Upper Ward is the venue for the first set of services and St George’s Chapel for the second – and the distinction is made clear.123 At Westminster, there are payments to the chapel or to St Mary le Pew but never to St Stephen’s, despite its clear association with the institution of kingship. In addition, the Brut Chronicle called St Stephen’s the ‘king’s chief chapel’ in its description of the events of 1441, which suggests that it was still seen as the king’s personal chapel rather than a separate institution.124 The statutes had assumed that the king would regularly be at Mass in St Stephen’s, suggesting that from the mid-fourteenth century, St Stephen’s was envisaged as the household chapel for Westminster Palace.125 The recorded royal events held in the chapel are all of the type that would usually be held under John Arundel had not yet been appointed a royal doctor when he was called ‘king’s clerk’ on joining St Stephen’s in 1452, for example, CPR 1446–52, p. 527; for his wider career, BRUO, p. 49. 120 BRUO, pp. 217–18, 1649–50. 121 From 14 March 1439 to July 1442, CPR 1436–41, p. 243; BRUO, p. 1810. 122 For the distinguishing of St George’s from the king’s chapel at Windsor Castle, see Privy Purse Expenses of Elizabeth of York etc., ed. N.H. Nicholas (London: William Pickering, 1830), p. 31. 123 Leland, Collectanea, iv, p. 238. 124 Brut or the Chronicle of England, i, p. 478; Froissart, Chronicles, iii, pp. 498–9; see discussion of 1441 below, pp. 124–6. 125 The fragment of statutes that survives deals with how to allocate offerings between the college and the abbey when the king was present, WAM 18431. 119

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the auspices of the Chapel Royal, such as the presence of Henry V at Candlemas in 1415 on the eve of the Agincourt campaign.126 Henry V’s presence fits with the pattern described in the Liber Regie Capelle, the guide to the basic workings of the fifteenth-century Chapel Royal, that on feast days the monarch attended services in the public chapel, but otherwise heard Mass said by his private chaplains.127 Therefore, it seems reasonably safe to suggest that St Stephen’s was the Chapel Royal’s home when at Westminster. The use of St Stephen’s by the Chapel Royal would require considerable compromise. St Stephen’s was the only one of the chapels used by the Chapel Royal regularly that had its own full staff. All the rest of the king’s palace chapels had a small permanent staff of a few chaplains, nothing near the heft of St Stephen’s.128 The other chapels did not maintain a full round of divine office from Matins through to Compline and their chaplains could be easily absorbed into the Chapel Royal while the king’s household was there. In addition, Westminster was possibly the most heavily used palace of all the royal houses, given the frequent royal presence as well as the sustained presence of the courts and administration.129 At St Stephen’s, by contrast, the college’s own liturgical life had to continue. Not only did they have their own round of liturgy, also based on the Sarum Rite but with its own additions, they also had chantry and obit provisions to maintain. The college and the Chapel Royal would have had to negotiate some sort of settlement as to how to run both sets of services concurrently. The Chapel Royal needed space and time for the ordinary round prescribed by the Sarum Rite with three added nightly memorials, a daily Office of the Virgin and a daily procession.130 St Stephen’s celebrated the seven offices of the Sarum Rite, including High Mass, and a Lady Mass and an Office of the Dead daily.131 There were also special provisions for anniversaries and chantries. While these liturgical patterns are similar, they do not perfectly correspond. One possible solution would be that on such days, St Stephen’s College would celebrate the conflicting services in St Mary beneath the Vaults, leaving the upper chapel to the royal household, given that accounts tend to state that the king was at Mass in St Stephen’s with no mention of the lower chapel. Another would be that the college was absorbed Reg. Chichele, iv, pp. 111–12. Liber Regie Capelle, p. 64. 128 I. Bent, ‘The English Chapel Royal before 1300’, Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association 90 (1963–64): 77–95 at 81. 129 In Henry VII’s reign, the two preferred palaces were Richmond and Westminster, a pattern that also held true for Richard II, see F. Kisby,‘The Royal Household Chapel in Early Tudor London, 1485–1547’, PhD thesis (University of London, 1996), p. 320. 130 Liber Regie Capelle, pp. 56–7. 131 Based on the provisions at St George’s, see Chapter One, pp. 42–3. 126 127

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into the Chapel Royal for the shared services, giving a total musical strength of up to about sixty individuals, assuming that the Chapel Royal was at full strength and not operating on its rota system.132 The second option would have the benefit of adding to the musical capabilities and impressiveness of the Chapel Royal at Westminster without having to maintain extra members of the royal household. Possible supporting evidence for this hypothesis is that on the surface St Stephen’s never appears to have taken part in state occasions such as coronations and royal funerals. Instead, the Chapel Royal took part in these occasions alongside Westminster Abbey’s monks.133 Even when the deans of St George’s and cathedral churches were named as part of the procession on these occasions, the dean of St Stephen’s is not listed as a dignitary, perhaps because he was among those supplementing the Chapel Royal and so subsumed in it.134 Public royal piety of the type discussed so far in this chapter was institutional and existed to serve a corporate conception of kingship. The Chapel Royal was an office within the king’s household, which continued to carry out its duties separately from the king’s personal religious interests and as the public face of royal piety. St Stephen’s was associated with this institutional presence, yet it too offered some potential for kings to use it for their personal religious interests and for their personal rather than public devotions. Henry V may have prayed in in front of the image of the Virgin in St Mary le Pew after his father’s death in the Jerusalem Chamber of the abbey before taking up royal responsibility.135 If so, he turned to an image long associated with both with kingship, and of the Virgin, to whom he is known to have been devoted, at a particularly difficult personal moment of transition into a new royal role that he had been accused of coveting before his father’s death. There are no known records of his son, Henry VI, praying at the oratory or being present in services in the chapel, but he appears to have known and appreciated the college. Henry’s appreciation for Liber Regie Capelle, p. 8. Ibid., p. 77; St Stephen’s is also not listed in the funeral expenses of Henry VII at Westminster Abbey, although some individual members of the college, such as Thomas Wolsey and Richard Hatton, are listed as chaplains, see San Marino, Huntington Library, Huntington MS 745, pp. 79 and 86. 134 For example, at the coronation of Elizabeth of York in 1487, see Leland, Collectanea, iv, p. 223; and in 1509 for the funeral of Henry VII at St Paul’s and then Westminster Abbey, ibid., p. 305. 135 This is the suggestion of Kingsford, ‘Our Lady of the Pew: The King’s Oratory or Closet in the Palace of Westminster’, Archaeologia 68 (1971): 1–20 at 9; Kingsford was speculating about Henry V confessing his sins to ‘a certain recluse of perfect life at Westminster’ (quendam reclusum perfectae vitae virum apud Westmonasterium) who Kingsford thinks was based in St Mary le Pew for other reasons, Vita Henrici Quinti, ed. T. Hearne (Oxford: E Theatro Sheldoniano, 1727), p. 15. 132 133

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St Stephen’s was brought out in the chantry side of his own new foundations, the provision of priests to pray for the souls of the dead and particularly the royal dead. In his Devise for Eton, Henry specified that the pulpitum, the screen dividing the nave from the quire, should be ten feet deep, as at St Stephen’s.136 It was the reference point on his mind when the Devise was drafted and suggests a particular familiarity with the spaces and liturgical movement through the chapel at Westminster. It is also suggestive that the first provost of Eton, Henry Sever, who was responsible for its liturgy and setting up the new foundation as an institution, was at the same time a canon of St Stephen’s. He thus may have been intended to bring the new colleges’ liturgy and other practices in line with Westminster usages.137 Additionally in 1453 Henry transferred to the college’s ownership the bell tower in New Palace Yard and had the bell cast for Edward III hung there, which again suggests awareness of liturgical functioning as well as increasing the college’s visibility within the palace complex.138 St Stephen’s also offered royal sanction and approval to ecclesiastical actions. Bishops and archbishops were able to celebrate services within the chapel, often precisely because St Stephen’s stood outside the diocesan structures and perhaps conveyed royal approval of any such action even if the king himself was not present. In 1446, the privy council issued orders concerning clerical taxation from the chapel.139 The service at Candlemas in 1415 mentioned above was celebrated by Henry Chichele, archbishop of Canterbury, rather than by either the dean of the Chapel Royal or the dean of St Stephen’s, and is only known in the historical record because of a dispute over offerings and what was owed to Westminster Abbey as opposed to St Stephen’s.140 Bishops such as William Lyndwood of St David’s, who worked in royal administration as keeper of the Privy Seal Office, were consecrated at St Stephen’s, probably in part because it was convenient both for the archbishop of Canterbury and his new subordinate.141 A later example of the same phenomenon comes from the 1468 consecration of Edward Story as bishop of Carlisle.142 Story was a royal servant who was to continue to spend much of his time at court as Elizabeth Woodville’s Willis and Clark, Architectural History of the University of Cambridge, p. 354. The grant of his St Stephen’s canonry in 1438 is CPR 1436–41, p. 171; he left St Stephen’s in 1447, CPR 1446–52, p. 117. 138 CPR 1452–61, p. 113. 139 Reg. Stafford and Kemp, ii, p. 168. 140 Reg. Chichele, iv, pp. 111–12. 141 J. Prior et al., ‘Report of the Committee appointed by the Council of the Society of Antiquaries to investigate the circumstances attending the recent Discovery of a body in St Stephen’s Chapel, Westminster’, Archaeologia 34 (1851–52): 406–30 at 418. 142 Reg. Story, p. xix. 136 137

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confessor. His consecration at St Stephen’s reflected his personal ties to royal administration.143 Similarly, archbishops found St Stephen’s a useful place to receive the pallium, such as Simon Langham, before their consecration in their cathedral churches.144 The college’s status as a royal chapel may have been driving the ecclesiastical usage, as it was close to their working lives as royal councillors and administrators, and acknowledged their ongoing interdependence with the king. Interestingly, despite the college’s hard-fought and cherished independence from diocesan structures, on 4 April 1416 the bishop of Bangor, who had no known affiliation with St Stephen’s College, ordained just four people in the chapel; two of them, Robert Felton and William Bontemps, were in the 1420s to become canons.145 Both men were Chancery administrators, so this extremely unusual ordination may reflect St Stephen’s continuing role as the chapel for the administrative offices in Westminster. All these usages by bishops point towards a continuing interrelationship between the English Church, the higher clergy and the king’s administration, both in terms of their royal service, but also in their ability to use the royal chapel for convenience or to make a political point. These are just the surviving examples, found by chance in bishops’ registers, and it is highly likely that St Stephen’s was a more heavily used chapel than even these examples suggest, across the two centuries that the college was active. In the 1441 trial of Eleanor Cobham, duchess of Gloucester, for treasonable necromancy, St Stephen’s helped to blur the distinctions between the Church and the king, where the ecclesiastical powers and kingship bolstered each other.146 The trial not only directly concerned the college, as one of its own canons was accused of conspiring with the duchess to kill Henry VI, but also because the archbishop of Canterbury – with other bishops and members of the council – heard the

R.J. Schoeck, ‘Story, Edward (d.1503)’, ODNB. For Langham, see Reg. Langham, pp. 112–13. 145 Reg. Nichols, 103; CPR 1422–29, p. 142; CPR 1429–36, p. 118. 146 R.A. Griffiths, ‘The Trial of Eleanor Cobham’, in idem. King and Country: England and Wales in the Fifteenth Century (London: Hambleton, 1991), pp. 233–52; most of what follows is based on Griffiths’s account, as it is the best summary of the case in its political contexts; in addition Nolan and Carey deal with aspects of this case, its literary notoriety and its astrological context respectively, M.B. Nolan, ‘Necromancy, Treason, Semiosis, Spectacle: The Trial of Eleanor Cobham, Duchess of Gloucester’, Proteus 13:1 (1996): 7–11; H.M. Carey, Courting Disaster: Astrology at the English Court and University in the Later Middle Ages (Basingstoke: Macmillian, 1992), pp. 138–49; for a study of the other woman accused of witchcraft in this case, Margery Jourdemayne, see J. Freeman, ‘Sorcery at Court and Manor: Margery Jourdemayne, the Witch of Eye Next Westminster’, Journal of Medieval History 30 (2004): 343–57. 143 144

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case in the chapel itself.147 The conventional reading of this episode is still that of the Tudor historians, who saw it as a woman behaving badly as well as a first political assault on Eleanor’s husband, Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, who was Henry VI’s nearest relative and putative heir.148 Gloucester was disgraced in the following year, in part because of the scandal. Yet beyond the political and literary approaches to this well-known witchcraft trial, there are interesting intersections between St Stephen’s and the royal court, the legal frameworks that could not easily deal with Eleanor’s status as a peeress, and the audiences of royal justice. From the indictments alone, the case was an extraordinary one. Eleanor’s four associates were first accused of conspiring with her to kill the king through necromancy and black masses. These associates were Thomas Southwell, a physician and canon of St Stephen’s; Roger Bolingbroke, a master of an Oxford college and a noted astrologer; John Home, canon of Hereford and St Asaph’s; and Margery Jourdemayne, who is described as living near Westminster. Southwell, Bolingbroke and Home were all educated, pluralist clergymen, closely associated with the court and taking part in the interest in astrology of the time. From the depositions and what they apparently admitted when questioned, Southwell and Bolingbroke seem to have cast a horoscope in 1440 that suggested Henry VI would be seriously ill in the winter of 1441. As rumours of this horoscope spread from the Gloucester household throughout the court, the king became alarmed and had other horoscopes cast saying that he would remain healthy. In a context where the king had no child of his own, that Gloucester’s household was the source of such predictions looked threatening. While astrology was a popular predictive tool in the period, practised by men such as those who were labelled as Eleanor’s associates, it could also become a political tool, as in this instance.149 The role of St Stephen’s in the legal side of this case is illuminating of its place within the functions of the king’s household. In the Brut’s account of the case, St Stephen’s was ‘called the Kynges chapell’ and ‘the Kynges college’ and it is important, as Nolan noted, that the royal associations of St Stephen’s were being drawn on here.150 She brought out the legal ambiguities of Eleanor Cobham’s status as a peeress. Yet the ambiguities of the case extended to the use of the chapel as the court’s location. Using St Stephen’s as a venue for the most spectacular parts of the trial had two effects. First, it short-circuited confusion about who should The indictments for the case are all in the King’s Bench records, KB 9 / 72/1–6, 9, 11, 14; the case was heard in front of the archbishop of Canterbury and other bishops in St Stephen’s, CPR 1436–41, p. 559; the Privy Council were heavily involved, Griffiths, ‘Eleanor Cobham’:, p. 240. 148 Nolan, ‘Necromancy, Treason, Semiosis, Spectacle’: 9. 149 Carey, Courting Disaster, p. 138. 150 Nolan, ‘Necromancy, Treason, Semiosis, Spectacle’: 8. 147

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hear the case by providing a venue where both bishops and lay privy councillors could be involved; second, it made the resolution of the case extremely visible to a more general audience, both from the court and beyond. The complexities of the case were formidable, since treason was under the purview of the council, heresy (as astrology could be classified) was the province of the church courts, and the jurisdiction responsible for noble women’s misdeeds had not yet been clarified, as it was to be in 1442 in response to this trial. Initial indictments of the four associates were produced by the royal common-law court of King’s Bench rather than by any of the courts that might more reasonably be expected to take the lead. Once the four associates had been dealt with by the church courts, probably under the aegis of the bishop of London, Eleanor herself was summoned to appear before the archbishop of Canterbury and other bishops in St Stephen’s Chapel on 24 or 25 July. The letter patent noting that the matter had been heard at St Stephen’s carefully did not say in what capacity the bishops were acting, either as members of the council or as an extra-ordinary church court.151 In either case, the co-operation between the church courts and the council continued. The judgement on Eleanor was finally given in the council, but the penalties were ecclesiastical penance rather than secular punishment.152 St Stephen’s fit well into this carefully ambiguous legal manoeuvering because it was a royal free chapel removed from the usual church jurisdictions. Its use suggested royal approval of a high-profile trial, while allowing it to still be heard in an ecclesiastical space. The bench of bishops could sit at St Stephen’s as in a church court under the sanction of the king, while also keeping open the option of capital punishment, usually the province of the secular courts. Finally, the chapel was public without being uncontrollable, given its size. Holding the trial there kept it visible within Westminster, and may have contributed to the case’s later notoriety by making it reasonably accessible to those in the area on other business. The relationship between the king and the Catholic Church at various levels was played out in St Stephen’s, from its use for the extraordinary (in all senses of the word) trial of Eleanor Cobham, to the choice of various bishops to be consecrated there and to the king’s attendance on feast days. Royal support for ecclesiastical actions or individuals could be expressed through use of the chapel, and the ongoing relationship of the personnel of the Church to the king’s administration made routine ecclesiastical activities for administrators common at St Stephen’s. The Palace of Westminster continued to be the palace where the expectations of kingship were particularly visible and particularly public during this period, a theme that will be taken up in Chapter Four, in which the audiences of CPR 1436–41, p. 559. Griffiths, ‘Eleanor Cobham’, p. 250.

151 152

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government and the court will be considered. Even when the king was absent from the palace, the workings of the permanent offices of state and the chapel’s services reflected his abilities to govern, and acted in his name. Kingship encompassed the routine actions and justice carried out for his subjects in the areas around St Stephen’s Chapel. Royal visible piety was also an important part of legitimating the king’s rule. He needed to be seen as a pious individual who was taking part in the expected round of services, remembrances and moments of regality. St Stephen’s Chapel offered him a particularly public venue for such visible royal piety, as well as one that could associate him with the success and legitimacy of Edward III. When visitors were present, they might well also attend the round of liturgy and worship that the college offered and that displayed royal support for the work of the chapel and college. St Stephen’s College offered a permanent glimpse of the ritual and splendour that surrounded the king’s devotions and the work of the Chapel Royal, irrespective of whether the Chapel Royal or the king were actually present in Westminster.

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The Canons’ Response Most of this chapter has looked at how the college of St Stephen was available to the kings of England as a place of dynastic legitimation, institutional piety and as a place whose benefices were still valuable as gifts to administrators, noblemen and members of the royal family. In this final section, I turn to the college’s own role in maintaining and developing its relationship with the king and its position in Westminster, while also offering an analysis of what the college meant to those who lived and worked there during these years. The canons valued and developed the college in relation to the royal administration that surrounded it. Much of the college’s enormous success as an institution was due to its presence in Westminster, which gave it continuing significance to the king and made it an attractive place for pluralist clergy working in the king’s household and administration to base themselves instead of one of their other benefices. Their consistent presence in the canons’ houses and in the choir stalls meant a commitment to ensuring the smooth running of the institution and to its financial health during the economic slump of the mid-fifteenth century, which enabled St Stephen’s to continue to thrive and adapt to changing trends in the Church as well as in the kings’ personal religious interests. The measure of the college’s success is that it was extremely successful in maintaining and extending its financial position, in a period when other colleges and monasteries were retrenching and struggling. In addition, St Stephen’s maintained a full round of liturgy and commemoration while also adding new commemorative

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obligations, including several additional chantries. These commemorative obligations reflected donors’ confidence that the college would carry out their wishes and help their souls in Purgatory in perpetuity. These donors came from within the college, from the community of the palace’s administrative offices and from the wider lay population of London and Westminster, which suggests the reach of the college’s reputation as a major royal chapel. The key to the canons’ response to the political and financial difficulties in the lead-up to the Wars of the Roses and then the period of armed conflict was that they were present and committed to the college and to each other. The only treasurers’ accounts and attendance registers to survive for the canons’ presence at the main Mass of the day cover the period from January to September 1485.153 Residence was demanded by the statutes, and referenced in royal grants, such as that of Henry VI, as was normal for a late medieval college.154 What was rare, however, was for resident canons to be the most common form of canon. At the cathedrals, in contested elections we can see canons becoming resident specifically to vote, and generally any chapter was made up of a core of residents with specific arrangements for non-residents.155 For example, many canons of St Paul’s, even those living and working in London, were non-resident because of the burden of entertaining that fell on resident canons.156 Other secular colleges also expected high levels of non-residence. At St George’s, many canons were generally non-resident in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and there was provision in the statutes for business to be delayed if most of the chapter were absent.157 St Stephen’s looks very unusual in that in June 1485 eight canons and the dean were there every day or only missed, at most, two days. Of the remaining four, only one, William Beverley, was completely absent for the whole month; Thomas Barrow missed four days, probably on college business and perhaps as steward, and thus was paid his quotidian fully; Edmund Chaderton was absent for four days, but possibly on college business for six further days; Alexander Lee was away for three days.158 This was an extraordinary attendance record, and it was repeated in broadly similar lines for the other four months of that year – May, July, August BL Harley Ch 45 A 38–45. CPR 1446–52, p. 66. 155 K. Edwards, The English Secular Cathedrals in the Middle Ages: A Constitutional Study, 2nd edn (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1967), p. 35. 156 Ibid., pp. 61–3. 157 ‘Statutes of St George’s’, pp. 16–17; Windsor, St George’s College Archives, V B 1 and V B 2. There were usually about six or eight canons in residence in any given month in the later fifteenth century, graphed in Euan Roger, ‘St George’s Chapel in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries’, PhD thesis (Royal Holloway, University of London, 2015), p. 260. 158 BL Harley Ch. 45 A 44. 153 154

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and September – for which this type of record has survived.159 The overwhelming majority of the canons were in residence and appearing at High Mass in this period. The financial accounts for January to March 1485 similarly show most of the canons receiving the full £4 10s that indicated full residence during the quarter in question.160 Assuming this is not an anomalous year when most of the canons were keeping residence due to the extraordinary events leading up to the battle of Bosworth, it is a remarkable sign of the corporate identity of the college and its continuing links with royal administration. Collegiality at St Stephen’s also appears to have been strong and to have brought benefits to the college. Canons John Stopyndon and Nicholas Sturgeon co-ordinated a gift of a messuage to rebuild the rectory impropriated by the college in Fenstaunton, Huntingdonshire, in the 1430s.161 In fifteenth-century wills there are indications of friendships formed at St Stephen’s and sincere commitment to the college from former members. Unfortunately, canons’ wills do not survive in large enough numbers for this to be more than an indication, but they are nonetheless suggestive. Canons made bequests to other canons on occasion, and acted as executors for each other, suggesting friendships were formed within the college.162 In addition, canons self-identified as canons in their wills, not exclusively, but certainly enough to indicate that they saw the college as an important affiliation among what might be a significant collection of benefices.163 Burials and requests for burials, even if not carried out, also indicate that the college had value for the self-image and presentation of the canons as a group. Canons often requested burials in specific places and even next to individuals that had meaning for them. For example, in 1524 Thomas Reynes asked to be buried by his friend William Underhill, who was also a canon, in the north cloisters.164 Other signs of friendship include canons acting as executors for other canons, such as when BL Harley Ch. 45 A 39–41 and 45. The last digit of the year has been torn off, but it must be 1485 rather than 1486 because William Beverley has not yet been replaced by Christopher Urswick, BL Harley Ch. 45 A 42. 161 The Inquisition ad quod damnum is C 143/448/10; while the resulting letters patent are calendared in CPR 1436–41, pp. 16, 70–1. 162 John Gunthorpe in his 1498 will named Richard Hatton as one of his executors, printed in Somerset Medieval Wills (1383–1500), ed. F.W. Weaver (London: Somerset Record Society, 1901), p. 361; Hatton in turn in 1509 called Gunthorpe his benefactor and endowed Masses at St Stephen’s for himself and Gunthorpe, PROB 11/16/504; Richard Wolman left vestments to the college as well as gifts to fellow canons, Dr [William?] Benet and Dr William Knight, who was also to be his executor, PROB 11/27/113. 163 Including Dean John Prentys in 1463, Canon Gerard Hesyll in 1452, and Canon William Chauntre in 1485; PROB 11/5/24; PROB 11/1/253; PROB 11/7/226. 164 PROB 11/ 21/278. 159 160

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in 1497 John Brown named Henry Aynesworth as his executor.165 In addition to burials, we can also see canons showing their appreciation of the college through the endowment of obits, lights and through leaving their books to the college, sometimes at the same time as requesting burials.166 One obit request recorded in the obit books showed a strong attachment to the particular prebend held by the canon in life, as the anniversary Mass was to be said by the current holder of the prebend in perpetuity.167 Some specified that any residue after their obit was paid for was to go to the common fund of the college, for the welfare of all.168 At other times, canons banded together to obtain property for obits, whether by buying the tenements collectively or by obtaining the licences to alienate in mortmain. Groups of obits were attached to particular houses in London, perhaps indicating a collective action to benefit the college’s finances while also looking after each other even in Purgatory.169 The collegiality and commitment to the college shown by the canons was key to its ability to navigate the economic difficulties of the fifteenth century, including by developing and extending its position in the wider manor of Westminster. Unfortunately, we cannot trace that development as it happened but can read back, from the sixteenth century, evidence for holdings along with stray mentions of properties in wills and obit agreements in order to suggest the college’s strategies for economic survival. Already in the fourteenth century, canons had left tenements in the City of London and in Westminster to the college to pay for their remembrances.170 In the fifteenth century, the college seems to have turned its attentions to Westminster where active management of lucrative rents was possible, especially as there was intense pressure on housing when Parliament was in session. Tenements seem to have been added on the college’s existing holdings around Canon Row, while canons started leaving additional houses in the area to the college.171 In addition, the college probably invested the cash gifts from other obits and general oblations into other properties when possible. In 1469, the canons gave the vicars’ college the right to seven marks of revenue from a PROB 11/11/350. For example, in 1381 Adam Chesterfield left a missal for the Morrow Mass in the lower chapel, and an ordinal and a gradual for St Mary le Pew, BL Cotton MS Faustina B III f. 10r. 167 Ibid., f. 24v. 168 Most say this, for example, ibid., Henry Merston on f. 18r, Robert Fulmer on f. 23v and John Preston on f. 25v. 169 Ibid., f. 18r, where Henry Merston is adding himself to the house in Cordwainer Street in London that had been given by Richard Shawe and William Beverley. 170 CPR 1370–74, p. 263; see also the gift of John Ware of tenements in London in 1405, BL Harley Ch 80 H 55. 171 CChR 1341–1417, pp. 133–4; for John Breche’s obit, Cotton Faustina B VIII f. 15r. 165 166

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tenement identified as ‘La Newe Rent’ in Westminster.172 Its location is unknown, as is how it was obtained, but it does show that the college was acquiring land in the area in the mid-fifteenth century. By the sixteenth century, the college had around seventy-two tenements in the area, worth £142 4s 8d annually, about 15 per cent of its total income. This was considerably more than the London rents, which brought in £75 11s 8d each year before expenses.173 For comparative purposes, the various offices of the abbey took in £271 per year in the area between 1500 and 1530.174 St Stephen’s was thus second only to the abbey itself as a landowner within Westminster. Not surprisingly, the college’s landed property seem to have been concentrated around the southern end of King Street, and particularly around St Stephen’s Alley and the canons’ own houses on Canon Row, with another cluster across the road around Chequer Alley, which probably had been created by the college’s purchases.175 St Stephen’s had built up significant property locally through what was probably a three-pronged strategy: gifts from canons, purchases of available tenements, and aggressive development of the lands that had been granted to them by the Crown in the fourteenth century. The canons were developing their holdings in Westminster and elsewhere to mitigate losses caused by economic turbulence. In addition to seeking the new royal grants of alien priory land, the college also purchased new lands to make up for the problems of falling rents on their existing properties, both in Westminster and further afield. At the same time, the college was hit by the fall in wool prices as it had had rights to revenues from the Westminster Wool Staple in the fourteenth century, and in the mid-fifteenth century the wool industry was in crisis.176 In 1437 the college complained that the houses of the Wool Staple, which had been built on its land, had fallen into a ruinous condition and were only producing twenty shillings rather than the £66 6s 6d expected in revenue to the college each year.177 Prior to 1365, the Wool Staple had routinely paid the college between £20 and £60 each year, which was then a significant part of its income.178 As the Wool Staple income never recovered and the houses continued to be valued at around twenty shillings annually, the college was granted the alien priory of Frampton instead CPR 1467–77, pp. 150–1. SC 12/6/62. 174 G. Rosser, Medieval Westminster, 1200–1540 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), pp. 342–4. 175 Listed in WAM 18599 f. 3 and WAM 33308. 176 J. Hatcher, ‘The Great Slump of the Mid-Fifteenth Century’, in Progress and Problems in Medieval England, ed. R.H. Britnell and J. Hatcher (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 237–72 at p. 242. 177 CPR 1436–41, p. 125. 178 BL Add. Ch. 26769; see also the issue rolls where arrears had a tendency to build up, E 403/447 m. 20, and E 403/452 m. 26. 172 173

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by Henry VI.179 It was not just the wool trade that was in trouble. In the mid-fifteenth century there was a series of pardons for non-appearance in the king’s courts to the college’s tenants who were in arrears on their rents. For example, in 1451 the farmer of the advowson of Fenstaunton owed £80 to the college.180 Similarly in 1468 pardons were issued to two more men, John Tripp of Bledlow and Thomas Fawkes of Leighton Bossard, both in Bedfordshire, for debts to the college of £40 and £14 respectively.181 These arrears would have built up over time, long before the pardon was issued, and suggest that the college had been struggling to maintain control of its Bedfordshire rights in the previous decade, and that there may well have been other difficulties in obtaining income in this period that have not left a trace on the surviving royal records. If so, the college was fortunate that it still received governmental rents, particularly the c.£40 annually from the sheriffs’ fee-farms in Essex, London and York, which at the least gave it some stability in its income when manorial land and the farming of advowsons became more difficult. The importance of the stable – if low – income from these fee-farms to the college may be why its claim on the over-subscribed farm of York was confirmed in 1460 by Henry VI.182 Despite these difficulties, unlike many other colleges and St George’s in this period, St Stephen’s did not have to eke out its revenues to match its commitments to pay salaries, furnish the chapel and maintain its other buildings.183 Instead it was expanding. Helpfully, land acquired by any ecclesiastical institution had to be licensed by the Crown to provide a check on the amount of land disappearing from circulation into the ownership of the Church, so there is some indication of the college’s activities on the land market in the absence of internal financial records. For example, the manor of Cooden on the Sussex coast, purchased in 1484, was worth £19 annually in 1548 and so it may have been purchased with the funds to buy land worth twenty-four marks, or c.£16 per annum left to the college by William Lyndwood, bishop of St David’s in 1454, to support two priests to pray daily for his soul in perpetuity.184 If so, it would mean a delay of thirty years in completely fulfilling his will. Cooden was not the only property that may have been purchased during this period. Between 1449 and around 1457 the college seems to have been on the market for land. In 1449 the college sought confirmation of the licence granted to them by Richard II to acquire land in mortmain up to the value of one hundred marks or £66 6s 8d, CPR 1436–41, p. 125. CPR 1447–52, p. 483. 181 CPR 1466–77, pp. 79–80. 182 CPR 1453–60, p. 584. 183 Evans, ‘Years of Arrears’, pp. 100–1. 184 Chantry Certificate, p. 79; for the purchase see SC 12/6 /62. 179 180

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which strongly suggests that they were intending to acquire more lands at that moment, although no purchase of any particular lands is known.185 Eight years later in 1457 the college was pardoned for acquiring lands and rents without a licence in mortmain, which indicates that it had by then exceeded the limits of the Ricardian licence.186 There are several possibilities for where the licence had been used beyond extending the holdings in London and Westminster. It is possible that the college bought manorial lands that were subsequently sold before 1536 and so were not recorded as ever having belonged to St Stephen’s in the sixteenth-century censuses of Church property. It is also possible that the licence was used to formally take possession of lands for smaller obits, such as the slightly later gift of houses in North Lambeth, whose value is not known.187 The finances used may have come from the canons themselves, from offerings received by St Mary le Pew and at the high altar of St Stephen’s, or from any cash reserves that had been built up in the earlier fifteenth century. The canons were able to shape the college’s economic fortunes through careful use of their rights and privileges as well as through their access to the king and his officials, and the generosity of other patrons who were connected to them through the Westminster world of justice and administration. The canons had access to the writing offices and as such could easily request that their rights be confirmed and upheld, such as when in 1465 Edward IV formally confirmed the college’s exemption from clerical taxation.188 The right to be exempt from taxation was inconsistently upheld when it came time to collect taxes, but the college did try to ensure that its exemption was enforceable and attempted to claim it at each moment when taxation was granted. Other grants were probably also made easier by these connections, such as the already-mentioned general pardons for the college and for individual canons. This access to the royal writing offices had other potential benefits. William Lyndwood, bishop of St David’s, asked to be buried at St Stephen’s, ‘where he had received the gift of consecration [as a bishop]’.189 In return for a two-priest chantry to pray for his soul in St Mary le Pew, he left money towards the cloister and to purchase lands to support the two new priests who would be added to the college, as well as asking that his copy of his own monumental canon law treatise, the Provincicale, be chained in the vestry as an accessible proof-text. A body, likely Lyndwood, and crozier were found in January 1852 as workmen were taking down the walls of St Mary Undercroft during the CPR 1446–52, p. 249; in addition to Cooden, sixteenth-century land purchases in Kent are noted in the valuation in 1548, SC 12/6/62. 186 CPR 1452–61, p. 417. 187 BL Cotton MS Faustina B VIII, ff. 34v–36r. 188 CPR 1461–67, p. 455. 189 Prior et al., ‘Report on Lyndwood’: 418. 185

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building of the current Houses of Parliament.190 Lyndwood had worked for many years in royal administration for Henry VI and probably knew many of the canons. Similarly, Anthony, Lord Rivers, the brother-in-law of Edward IV, asked to be buried in St Mary le Pew, either his heart only, or his whole body if he died beyond Trent.191 Unlike Lyndwood’s, his request was not carried out because he was executed in 1483 by Richard III at Pontefract Castle, although he was given an obit at St Stephen’s.192 Rivers’s help in maintaining the college’s appeal to visitors will be discussed in Chapter Four, but his attachment to the college similarly came from his awareness of its place within Westminster and his connections within the administrative world in which the canons moved.193 The college’s success during this period was highly unusual. It managed to retain, develop and augment its economic standing through a variety of means at a time when most other ecclesiastical institutions were losing revenue both in terms of buying power but also in terms of falls in income. The struggles at St George’s to retrench and then to obtain royal favour to augment the endowment serve as a reminder that even royally favoured institutions were not immune to the wider economic difficulties of rents in the fifteenth century.194 New land and new revenue sources were required to maintain income levels. The revenues at Westminster Abbey rose between 1400 and 1535 thanks to the gifts of Henry VII and Margaret Beaufort but, per acre, their revenues slipped, and mid-fifteenth-century mismanagement caused heavy debts.195 The numbers are trickier for the cathedrals, but the general trends are suggestive. St Stephen’s never reached the income of the secular cathedrals, which in the Valor Ecclesiasticus of 1535 tended to have revenues of £2,000 to £2,500 each year – the wealthiest, Lincoln, had at least £3,426 annually.196 Lincoln’s revenues in the mid-fourteenth century are unknown, but in the 1291 Taxatio it had had an income of £1,398 3s, which suggests that by the sixteenth century the chapter had been able to maintain

Ibid.: 406. Excerpta Historica or Illustrations of English History, ed. S. Bentley (London, for S. Bentley, 1831), p. 246. 192 Cotton Faustina B VIII, f. 4v. 193 See Chapter Four, pp. 146–7. 194 Hatcher, ‘Great Slump’, pp. 247, 253. 195 B. Harvey, Westminster Abbey and its Estates (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), pp. 63, 67–8. 196 S.E. Lehmberg, The Reformation of Cathedrals: Cathedrals in English Society, 1485–1603 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989), p. 26; note the exception of Hereford, where revenues declined, see D. Lepine and R.N. Swanson, ‘The Later Middle Ages, 1268–1535’, in Hereford Cathedral: A History, ed. G.E. Aylmer and J.E. Tiller (London: Hambledon, 2000), pp. 48–86 at p. 52. 190 191

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high levels of support from donors and from canons.197 In contrast, the monastic cathedrals had lost revenues in the fourteenth century and their average income was much lower than their secular counterparts, with a range of c.£400 to £2,500 annual income by the sixteenth century.198 Durham’s income went from c.£4,500 annually in 1308, to £1,575 in 1535, and in the fifteenth century it was experiencing a long-term decline.199 The decline of monastic revenues was of course partially political on account of the appropriation by the Crown of the alien priories in the fifteenth century and ongoing taxation demands.200 However, it also seems as if the colleges, including the cathedrals, were perhaps better placed to develop their existing lands and better able to attract continuing grants of land from local donors and the Crown.201

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Dynastic Kingship Throughout this period of turmoil and uncertainty, because the kings of England continued to signal their support for St Stephen’s and the ideal of successful dynastic kingship that it displayed, the college was able to build on its own position, connections and presence within the palace to ensure its own continued success. The three elements of kingship that could be combined and present in the royal palace at Westminster worked to the canons’ advantage and kept them front and centre in royal piety throughout this unsettled period. First, the college was strongly associated with corporate kingship as expressed through the administrative offices and the royal household. The canons consciously seem to have been enforcing the expectation that new canons had some connections to the apparatus of kingship, whether the administrative offices or increasingly the household, as increasingly priests were found working there. A canonry only really made sense in terms of the residence payments if canons were working in offices close to the chapel, or were commuting to whichever palace the king happened to be using at ‘Lincoln Cathedral’, in The Victoria County History of the County of Lincoln, ed. W. Page (London, Constable, 1906), pp. 80–96. 198 Lehmberg, Reformation of Cathedrals, p. 46. 199 Ibid., pp. 46–7; see also A. Dobie, Accounting at Durham Cathedral Priory (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2015), pp. 403–4. 200 B.J. Thompson, ‘Habendum et Tenendum: Lay and Ecclesiastical Attitudes to the Property of the Church’, in Religious Belief and Ecclesiastical Careers in Late Medieval England, ed. Christopher Harper-Bill (Woodbridge: Boydell, 1991), p. 224. 201 For example, see Emilia Jamroziak’s comments on Rievaulx Abbey after 1300 as ‘stable and even prosperous’ but under heavy pressure from royal taxation and Scots raiding and thus distinctively different from its expansionist pre-1300 phase: E. Jamroziak, Rievaulx Abbey and its Social Context, 1132–1300 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2005), p. 4; and Lehmberg, Reformation of Cathedrals, pp. 45–6. 197

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the time. Even when delegated grants were used, they brought very similar individuals to the college as the direct royal grants, suggesting that the college’s associations with kingship were the attraction to those holding such grants. The second aspect that St Stephen’s was able to bolster was the king’s presence as a spectacle in his palace. In co-operation with the Chapel Royal, St Stephen’s provided a lavish backdrop to royal piety, a continual expression of dynastic spectacle for those coming to visit St Mary le Pew or to services in the chapel, and a venue that could signal royal support. The final element of St Stephen’s relationship to the king, which will be further addressed in the next chapter, was its ability to mediate contact between the king and his subjects, whether they were in Westminster to see the spectacle of kingship or to interact with corporate kingship in the form of administration and justice. The college’s canons were able to meet the expectations of the kings of England for dynastic display and royal commemoration. As such, the men who made up St Stephen’s College navigated very uncertain territory politically and economically with skill, in order to maintain and deepen their association with the changing shape of English kingship in the fifteenth century. Their success was decidedly not assured.

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Chapter 4

A New Kind of Court? Display, Pageantry and Worship, 1471–1536

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‘

W

ith as much pomp as ever … at Westminster’ was how the Master of the Rolls, John Taylor, described Henry VIII’s entrance into Lille in 1513.1 Fifty years earlier, Burgundian visitors had noted Edward IV’s court as ‘the most splendid court that could be found in all Christendom’.2 The ways in which the court – its materiality, its personalities and its structures – influenced the display of kingship has come to be a fruitful avenue of study for historians ever since David Starkey challenged Geoffrey Elton’s view that the court was a sideshow to the real work of political life in administration and Parliament in the later fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries.3 The politics of access to the king’s person has increasingly become a key theme in court studies and studies of political power.4 This work on access has often focused on those who sought favour through their ability to personally intercede with the king. The concept, however, is useful on a wider level as some level of general access was necessary for audiences to see the king and his court. For my purposes in this chapter, I have taken the court as those around the king, his household, visiting great nobles with their own staff, and the part of royal administration that moved with the king through the Thames Valley between his various residences. This chapter examines a period in which the L & P 1513–14, no. 2391. The Travels of Leo of Rozmital, ed. and trans. M. Letts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1957), p. 45. 3 Starkey’s argument is clearest in D. Starkey, ‘Henry VI’s Old Blue Gown: The English Court Under the Lancastrians and Yorkists’, The Court Historian 4 (1999): 1–28 at 1; R.A. Griffiths, ‘The King’s Court During the Wars of the Roses: Continuities in an Age of Discontinuities’, in Princes, Patronage and the Nobility: The Court at the Beginning of the Modern Age, ed. R.G. Asch and A.M. Birke (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), pp. 41–68 at p. 66; more recently see the summary of M. Fantoni, ‘The Future of Court Studies: The Evolution, Present Successes and Prospects of a Discipline’, The Court Historian 16 (2011): 1-6. 4 D. Raeymaekers and S. Derks, ‘Introduction: Repertories of Access in Princely Courts’, in idem, ed. The Key to Power? The Culture of Access in Princely Courts, 1400–1750 (Leiden: Brill, 2016), pp. 1–15 at pp. 3–6. 1 2

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records of the household became more abundant and the kings of England issued new versions of the regulations for their households, which formed the core of the court, particularly the Black Book of the Household of 1471 and the Eltham Ordinances of 1526. This period also saw the personal preferences of Henry VII and Henry VIII alter the usages of the Palace of Westminster from royal residence to primarily a place of administration, the law and politics, which was solidified in 1536, when Whitehall was formally joined to the old Palace of Westminster.5 Against this backdrop of palatial change, the chapter explores how the canons of St Stephen’s came to have a new cloister c.1515–1527, and continued to interact with the king, his household and visitors to the palace. As such, St Stephen’s provides a way to assess royal activity across all aspects of kingship during these years, both delegated and personal, and both secular and ecclesiastical. The historiographical development of the medieval court as an important place of English political activity has been located in a variety of reigns from Richard II to Edward IV, because the emphasis placed on the potential of the king’s household to support the actions and imagery of his reign varied from king to king, and because the household usually reflected his personal interests and decisions.6 A king intent on military success would have a very different balance among those he supported in his household from one who preferred to devote his resources to piety, as Miri Rubin has commented in relation to the differences between Edward IV and Henry VI.7 The household could also reflect the concerns of the political community, whether in the presence or absence of the great magnates or in the level of funding granted by Parliament.8 As such, whether the household was seen as the political centre of the kingdom might well depend on a confluence of key individuals and wider political concerns. Every king was judged on whether he met the standards of magnificence, ceremony and display, but it was just one of the criteria on which kingship might be measured.9 Fiona Kisby has shown that the life of the early Tudor court was structured by the observance of the liturgical 28 Henry VIII, c.12. G.L. Harriss, ‘The Court of the Lancastrian Kings’, in The Lancastrian Court, ed. J. Stratford (Donington: Shaun Tyas, 2003), pp. 1–18 at pp. 2–3, 7; Starkey, ‘Old Blue Gown’: 1–2; for an argument that the key change came under Richard II, see Griffiths, ‘The King’s Court’, p. 57; for scepticism about the usefulness of the court as a concept in this period, J. Watts, ‘Was there a Lancastrian Court?’, in The Lancastrian Court, pp. 253–71. 7 M. Rubin, The Hollow Crown: A History of Britain in the Late Middle Ages (London: Penguin, 2005), p. 277. 8 D.A.L. Morgan, ‘The House of Policy’, in The English Court from the Wars of the Roses to the Civil War, ed. D. Starkey (London: Longmans, 1987), pp. 25–70 at p. 35. 9 See the abbreviation of the Aristotelian De Regimine principium in Four Political Tracts of the Later Middle Ages, ed. J.P. Genet, Camden Society 4th series 18 (London, 1977), p. 188. 5 6

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year as celebrated by the Chapel Royal in front of at least some of the king’s household and visitors to the court.10 The household was the microcosm of the kingdom, and so the ability to govern the household well, generously and fairly was seen as indicative of larger talents. John Watts has pointed out that not only did contemporaries struggle to find words for the concept of the court, it was the kings who were felt to have failed in other aspects of their reigns, such as Richard II or Henry VI, whose commentators place a strong emphasis on the life of the household and the splendour of their surroundings.11 Similarly, these kings also are discussed in terms of their personal piety and their devotion to their Chapel Royal. Certainly, John Blacman’s life of Henry VI leans heavily on these pious aspects of kingship to place him in the best possible light.12 The household and the court that it attracted thus comes in and out of political focus, while remaining a steady backdrop to royal action, ideas about kingship, and the pressures exerted on the king to conform to expectations. Edward IV’s victory in 1471 over the Lancastrian forces ushered in a period in which the king was free to innovate and experiment in how he used his surroundings to position himself within the norms and expectations of a ruler free from apparent dynastic challenge.13 His successors similarly had to create their own relationship to the expectations surrounding them. In 1471 the prescriptive text of the Black Book of the Household offers a strong sense of how the king and his advisers envisaged the role of his household in displaying and augmenting his status.14 St Stephen’s College was not part of the king’s household and so was not itself bound by the ordinances, but many of its members were also active in the Chapel Royal and in the household more generally. The arguments about the significance of 1471 have rested on political change. Alec Myers first argued that Burgundian influence from Edward IV’s exile changed the nature of the court.15 Against the backdrop of the Palace of Westminster, this chapter examines what was novel about the courts of Edward IV and his successors in F. Kisby, ‘“Where the King Goeth A Procession”: Chapel Ceremonies and Services, the Ritual Year, and Religious Reforms at the Early Tudor Court, 1485–1547’, Journal of British Studies 40 (2001): 44–75 at 45–6. 11 Watts, ‘Was there a Lancastrian Court?’, pp. 266, 270. 12 Henry the Sixth: A Reprint of John Blacman’s Memoir, ed. M.R. James (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1919), pp. 4–5, 26–7, 9–12, 31–3. 13 C. Ross, Edward IV (London: Meuthen, 1974), p. 270; see also on the innovative use of the royal affinity in local politics, C. Carpenter, The Wars of the Roses: Politics and the Constitution in England c.1437–1509 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 192–3. 14 The Household of Edward IV: The Black Book and the Ordinance of 1478, ed. A.R. Myers (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1959). 15 Ibid., pp. 1–13. 10

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the period before Henry VIII’s move to Whitehall and the consequent shift in the use of the palace. It argues that, while there had always been an aspect of display and magnificence in the life of the court and St Stephen’s before 1471, after this period there was a stronger emphasis on the importance of looking outwards to an imagined audience of the king’s subjects and visitors from overseas. That audience had expectations of the king and his administration centring around the concepts of the common good and good governance, which Westminster was key to answering. It was at Westminster that the king’s subjects came to seek access to government, through petitioning, through the law, through the writing and financial services of the Exchequer and of Chancery. They might come to offer counsel in one of the parliaments held in and around Westminster, or they might come to the abbey on pilgrimage to the shrine of Edward the Confessor and only deal with the palace in passing.

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Looking Outwards The key areas within the Palace of Westminster were extremely accessible. It was a palace where visitors might come to glimpse the king, to transact routine business with the Exchequer, to obtain documents from Chancery or to take part in cases held in the law courts in Westminster Hall. St Stephen’s Chapel sat in the middle of this bustle as its precinct lay between the Exchequer and other administrative buildings to the north and Westminster Hall to the west. When visitors came to the palace they were likely to come either from King Street through the gateway into New Palace Yard and then into Westminster Hall or the surrounding buildings, or to come out of a boat into the Water Gate and thus into New Palace Yard, from where the college’s buildings were visible.16 A greater array of visitors would have sought out Westminster more than any other royal palace. Just as at any other palace, petitioners sought to gain their object from the king in person or to get news of what was happening in national politics at court.17 At Westminster, though, they might also come on personal business to obtain needed documentation or other matters that did not necessarily involve the king himself in person, such as the Pastons’ long lawsuits against the duke of Suffolk.18 Representatives See drawing of Wyngaerde, Fig. 1. For example, in 1450 the letter of William Wayte, clerk to William Yelverton, justice of King’s Bench, to John Paston in which he describes the king’s movements and the anxieties of the royal household then at Westminster, Paston Letters and Papers of the Fifteenth Century, ed. N. Davis, EETS S.S. 20–3 (Oxford, 2004), ii, p. 47. 18 Paston Letters, i, p. 561; for an example of how a bill and writs might move through the offices of state in 1441, Paston Letters, ii, p. 12; see also the comment that the writing offices at Westminster largely dealt with subjects’ concerns, G.L. Harriss, ‘Political 16 17

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from the shires and from the urban boroughs came to Westminster to advise the king and discuss matters relating to the common good in Parliament. As such, the palace was a place where the two halves of kingship met. It was one of the king’s residences in this period and thus where the king in person could be seen, but it was also a place where the corporate and institutional side of kingship was carried out, often without the king’s specific awareness of what was done in his name. While Kantorowicz highlighted the connection drawn from ecclesiastical law between the king’s person and the political community, there was also a more practical divide at work.19 The king’s person usually enacted some aspects of government according to his interests and the demands on his time, but for other elements the professional staff that made up his administration exercised his kingship on his behalf. Westminster during the second reign of Edward IV and under his successors was more clearly a place where individuals came to see the king’s magnificence as well as to avail themselves of his government. The source base for how visitors responded to the king at Westminster becomes much clearer in the later fifteenth century, perhaps because the survival of records is better, but also because the court was more consciously being thought of as a place where the king and his subjects met and where audiences to kingship were increasingly important. The Black Book of the Household and its earlier predecessors, including the Liber Regie Capelle on Chapel Royal practice and the Ryalle Book, looked back to Edward III’s household ordinances.20 In part, however, the framing of antiquity was a rhetorical position, to connect the current prescriptions for action to a perceived and idealised past in which Edward III was the perfect king. These proscriptive documents, which are more fully discussed below, were concerned with regulating the ways in which the household displayed itself to visitors, acted as a conduit for the concerns of the community at large to reach the king and advisers, and the range of people who could be accommodated in the orbit of the king’s household. The famous injunction of the Black Book that esquires were to be chosen to represent the various counties was a novel comment that reflected an awareness that the household could be potentially used more systematically to channel the concerns of the political community to the king as well as display the king to the political

Society and the Growth of Government in the Later Middle Ages’, Past and Present 138 (1993): 28–57 at 35. 19 E.H. Kantorowicz, The King’s Two Bodies: A Study in Medieval Political Theology (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957), pp. 223–8. 20 Liber Regie Capelle, ed. W. Ullmann (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1959); the Black Book did so explicitly, that it would take the example of Edward III’s household ‘to bylde vpon a more perfit new house’, Black Book, p. 85.

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community.21 In addition, the heralds’ accounts gathered by John Leland in the sixteenth century offer better insight into particular ceremonial, while incidental mentions of visitors to St Stephen’s Chapel, as well as the evidence of chantries and obits, suggest that this period saw greater awareness of St Stephen’s among visitors to the palace.22 While it is dangerous to work from an absence of evidence, the increased concern to record the ways in which the king was visible to his subjects in this period tallies well with other indicators that the pressure of the public shaped how governance was carried out both centrally and in the localities, and thus it is reasonable to see a greater emphasis on visibility in response to the anxieties and disruptions of the Wars of the Roses.23 The increased attention to audiences did not mean, however, that audiences had not been important at Westminster earlier. The Palace of Westminster itself had been deliberately accessible since the thirteenth century, when Magna Carta affirmed the principle that justice had to be done in a place that was convenient for the king’s subjects, saying that ‘Common Pleas shall not follow our court’.24 The kings of England exploited the habitual audiences created by the law courts’ presence by holding important events at the palace, but also retreated from themselves taking part in that visible and open routine of government by using other palaces and hunting lodges. They preferred to separate the spectacle of kingship from its routine administration, while continuing to acknowledge that it was at Westminster that the king was most visible to his subjects and thus it should be used for events that they wanted to be particularly widely viewed as well as for the set-pieces habitually held there such as coronation feasts or the openings of Parliament. The pattern of time spent at this palace was more stable than at any other of the king’s residences. The other residences were used in accordance with royal preferences, building works and campaigns, while Westminster remained the palace that the kings had to come to. The earl of Oxford summed up the palace’s late-medieval association with government and justice when he wrote in 1450 that ‘I now beynge at Westm[inster] shall any thynge labour[e] for the rule and governance of þe countre’.25 Westminster saw some development in the Black Book, p. 127. J. Leland, Joannis Lelandi antiquarii de rebvs britannicis collectanea, ed. T. Hearne, 6 vols (London: T Hearne, 1770). 23 Watts, ‘The Pressure of the Public on Late Medieval Politics’, in The Fifteenth Century 4: Political Culture in Late Medieval Britain, ed. Linda Clark and Christine Carpenter (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2004), pp. 159–80 at pp. 173–6; see also Harriss, ‘Growth of Political Society’: 34. 24 English Historical Documents III 1189–1327, ed. H. Rothwell (London: Eyre and Spottiswode, 1975), p. 319. 25 Paston Letters, iii, p. 89. 21 22

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offices of state and experimentation in royal finance, but the principles of government remained those of good lordship and responsiveness to perceived problems, rather than of expansion in the general functions of government.26 Certainly, it was not yet challenged as the most important palace and the palace where the kings tended to spend more of their time than at any other royal lodgings, until the completion of Richmond and Greenwich by 1502.27 It finally stopped being the king’s home after the acquisition of Whitehall just to the north in 1529. Westminster did not match the trends in increasingly more private privy lodgings and more distinctively separated out gradations of access to the king’s person, which can be seen in the floor plans of other royal palaces intensively used by the late-medieval kings such as the new palaces of Greenwich and Richmond as well as the older ones such as Eltham, where the privy lodgings were separate and the designs were in the process of being elaborated, including through the creation of more private space.28 Although there was some building work at Westminster under Edward IV and Henry VII, it seems to have been confined to repairs and alterations to existing buildings, including buildings for the queen in the privy palace to the south.29 Despite the way that the Palace of Westminster continued to be one of the most used palaces in these two reigns, it was not remodelled to provide the type of formal and controlled privacy that the other palaces offered, with their clear routes for processions through galleries, their carefully planned lodging ranges with the series of increasingly restricted rooms guarding the king and his family’s privacy, and halls that were solely for the household’s use. Very little is known about the privy lodgings at Westminster, but they seemingly continued to be connected to the maze of multifunctional rooms that survived the sixteenth century just south of Westminster Hall.30 These various chambers and halls opened in to each other without many corridors or galleries, and seem to have been liable to be commandeered for various purposes, such as the openings of Parliaments in the Painted Chamber, or the emerging judicial uses of the Lesser (also known as the White) Hall.31 The royal household thus was interacting with Harriss, ‘Growth of Political Society’: 56–7. HKW, i, pp. 536-7; ibid., iv, p. 286. 28 See the survey of Yorkist and Tudor building projects in S. Thurley, The Royal Palaces of Tudor England (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993), pp. 28–37. 29 Thurley, Tudor Royal Palaces, p. 19; also comments of Ross, Edward IV, p. 273; HKW, i, pp. 536–7. 30 HKW, plan of the medieval palace; note as well the route taken by Prince Arthur in 1489 through St Stephen’s, Leland, Collectanea, iv, p. 252. 31 The Court of Requests sat there from c.1516 to 1720, J. Crook and R.B. Harris, ‘Reconstructing the Lesser Hall: An Interim Report from the Medieval Palace of Westminster Research Project’, in Housing Parliament: Dublin, Edinburgh and Westminster, ed. C. Jones and S. Kelsey (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2002), 26 27

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visitors as they moved about their daily routines, and the distance kept elsewhere could not be as easily maintained. These rooms were not as easily ceremoniously guarded in the way that the lodgings at Greenwich, for example, could be. While the privy lodgings at Westminster could have been rebuilt or remodelled to match the pattern found elsewhere, the site was already complex and no king seems to have wanted to take on the challenge of fully remaking the palace’s residential areas to meet increasing expectations of privacy and ceremonial. Instead, they seem to have embraced the public visibility by choosing to visit Westminster at feast days, for other occasions when they wanted to be seen, or when there was some administrative necessity. The college’s resources could be commandeered or rented out for use during moments of spectacle and governance at the palace. During the celebrations for the marriage of Prince Arthur and Katherine of Aragon in 1501, the Spanish ambassadors were housed in lodgings belonging to St Stephen’s on Canon Row, presumably requisitioned as appropriately dignified and slightly separated from the press of visitors by the organisers.32 The ambassadors were being honoured by Henry VII as key to the marriage alliance, and thus this suggests that the Canon Row houses built by the college were large and very comfortable. While we have no surviving ground plans, images or archaeology of these houses, in 1478 Anthony, Lord Rivers had been concerned to secure one of them for his use during the upcoming Parliament, presumably both for their proximity to Parliament and their suitability for entertaining visitors.33 Similarly, six years earlier the Burgundian ambassador Lord Gruthuyse also stayed in the college’s lodgings.34 The 1501 wedding made particular use of Westminster’s symbolism and visibility. The ceremony itself took place at St Paul’s Cathedral in the City of London, with an added concern that the couple should be seen by those outside: ‘they turnyd them to the southe and northe parties so for thentent that the present multitude of people might see and behold their persones’.35 Later, barges



32 33



34



35

pp. 22–61 at p. 23; J. Caddick, ‘The Painted Chamber at Westminster and the Openings of Parliament, 1399–1484’, Parliamentary History 38 (2019): 17–33. See also the diagrams of access in Henry III’s palace by A. Richardson, ‘Gender and Space in English Royal Palaces c.1160–c.1547: A Study of Access Analysis and Imagery’, Medieval Archaeology 47 (2003): 131–65 at 134–9. The payments for making the housing suitable are in BL Royal MS 14 B XXXIX, f. 5. The letter is reprinted in J. Gairdner, History of the Life and Reign of Richard III to which is added the Story of Perkin Warbeck, rev. ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1898), p. 341; the original is E 315/486/23. C.L. Kingsford, English Historical Literature of the Fifteenth Century (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1913), p. 385. The Receyt of the Ladie Kateryne, ed. G. Kipling, EETS Original Series 296:1 (Oxford, 1990), p. 44.

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took them down the river to Westminster, where the marriage celebrations concluded with a week of lavish tournaments, pageants, and feasting in New Palace Yard and Westminster Hall.36 The final section of the celebrations took place at the newly completed palace at Richmond after the ambassadors had left.37 Prince Arthur’s marriage marked the acknowledgement of the sense of dynastic stability engendered by the presence of a nearly adult male heir for the first time since Henry VI’s son Edward had been alive in the 1460s.38 It also marked an acceptance of England as once again a participant on the European diplomatic scene after decades of internal conflict. Katherine’s parents, the monarchs who had united Spain, were looking to encircle France and to adapt to circumstances in contested Italy, as well as to claim the politics of the Breton wars.39 It was a personal victory for Henry VII, albeit one that would soon be destroyed by Arthur’s early death at Ludlow in April 1502.40 In addition to royal spectacle, St Stephen’s was used by a variety of constituencies for Parliament: members seeking housing, those who could not attend seeking proxies, by royal administration as the clerks of Parliament, and possibly also as a religious venue. The college presumably made good money from letting out their own housing and any vacant messuages in their Westminster property portfolio to MPs and peers come to Westminster when a Parliament was called there. In 1478 Anthony, Lord Rivers wrote anxiously to Mr Molyneux, the chancellor of his nephew, the young Richard, duke of York, about the Parliament then approaching, and mentioned the possibility of renting a house in Canon Row for himself ‘thys parlyament time’.41 Rivers attended, as others did not. Among the names gathered by Alison McHardy and Phil Bradford in their calendar of the proctors for the clergy in the medieval Parliaments, king’s clerks are prominent, not least because they tended to already be based in Westminster and to have good governmental connections that might be valued by those appointing proxies.42 Among those men were many who also were canons at St Stephen’s. Unfortunately, in the fifteenth century there is a large gap in the records in precisely the period Ibid., pp. 50, 52–68. Ibid., pp. 71–4. 38 M.L. Beer, Queenship at the Renaissance Courts of Britain: Catherine of Aragon and Margaret Tudor (Woodbridge: Boydell for the Royal Historical Society, 2018), p. 15. 39 I. Arthurson, ‘The King of Spain’s Daughter Came to Visit Me: Marriage, Princes and Politics’, in Arthur Tudor, Prince of Wales: Life, Death and Commemoration, ed. S.J. Gunn and L. Monckton (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2009), pp. 20–30 at pp. 22–3, 27–8. 40 Receyt of the Lady Kateryne, p. 80. 41 Gairdner, Life and Reign of Richard III, p. 341; E 315/486/23. 42 Proctors for Parliament: Clergy, Community and Politics Volume II: 1377–1539, ed. A.K. McHardy and P. Bradford, Canterbury and York Society CVIII (Woodbridge, 2018), p. xxii. 36 37

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(1449–1523) covered by this chapter, so which canons were used as proctors in this period is unknown.43 What is known is that canons such as John Gunthorpe served as clerks of the Parliament in the early 1480s.44 Under the Lancastrians, Thomas Haseley, a knight and MP, who was also a Chancery clerk and a clerk of the Commons, was both a colleague of the early fifteenth-century canons in royal administration and apparently by the time of his death, in 1443, a ‘confrater’ of the college, to which he left one hundred marks.45 While Haseley’s profitable career in administration was the stronger impetus for his gift to St Stephen’s, his parliamentary roles may have also helped to bring him into contact with the college and its staff. Finally, St Stephen’s may have been a venue for the religious dimensions of parliamentary proceedings. In the context of Parliament’s meeting in 1472, Lord Gruthuyse ‘went into a chamber by o[ur] lady of pu (pew)’ before a procession into the Parliament Chamber after which the bishop of Lincoln celebrated High Mass, either in the abbey or possibly in St Stephen’s Chapel itself.46 St Stephen’s Chapel was part of the public areas of the palace and a place where visitors were encouraged to come.47 St Stephen’s College intensified its appeal to visitors to Westminster after a period in which it had not been possible to visit the cult centre of St Mary le Pew. They did this by the provision of a particularly lavish and desirable indulgence, that of Scala Coeli, which granted to the chapel in 1476 at the instigation of Anthony, Lord Rivers.48 This indulgence marked the revival of the oratory after a difficult period caused by fire in 1452. It was the only indulgence specifically known to be attached to the chapel of the Pew. All the other known indulgences offered at St Stephen’s were offered to visitors to services in the chapels more generally, presumably meaning the upper chapel and its high altar.49 A 1452 fire started by a schoolboy had damaged St Mary le Pew to some unknown Ibid., p. xi. A.C. Reeves, ‘John Gunthorpe: Keeper of Richard III’s Privy Seal, Dean of Wells Cathedral’, Viator 39 (2008): 307–44 at 320; In the only Parliament of Richard III, the receivers of petitions included Thomas Barrow and William Morland, both canons and John Brown, probably the same man who was a canon in 1485, R. Horrox (ed.) ‘Richard III: Parliament of 1484, Text and Translation’, PROME. 45 Reg. Stafford and Kemp, ii, pp. 620–5; for Haseley more generally see L.S. Woolger, ‘Haseley, Thomas (d.1449), of Westminster’, in The History of Parliament: The House of Commons 1386–1421, ed. J.S. Roskell, L. Clark and C. Rawcliffe (Stroud: Alan Sutton, 1993). 46 Kingsford, Historical Literature, p. 383. 47 See above for the fourteenth-century indulgences aimed at encouraging visitors, pp. 46–7. 48 Cal. Pap. Letters 1471–84, p. 498; see also N. Morgan, ‘The Scala Coeli Indulgence and the Royal Chapels’, in The Reign of Henry VII, ed. B. Thompson (Donington: Shaun Tyas, 1995), pp. 82–103 at p. 89. 49 The other indulgences were fourteenth-century, Petitions to the Pope, pp. 188, 372; Cal. Pap. Letters 1342–62, p. 538. 43 44

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extent, and the repair work seems to have taken some time, although no building accounts have survived for the work.50 John Stow says that Anthony, Lord Rivers funded much of the work, which would presumably place his contributions to after 1461, when his sister Elizabeth Woodville married Edward IV and he first became an important political figure.51 The work was probably completed by 1471, when Thomas Powtrell was thanked for his generosity towards the rebuilding with an obit paid for by the college’s own revenues.52 Obtaining the Scala Coeli indulgence in the following year was an important moment for the college because it made the college an attractive location for investment in prayers, and marked a recommitment by the college to the idea of attracting pilgrims. The indulgence was a plenary one for the dead, coupled with remission of sins for the living who visited the oratory. If you had thirty Masses said for your soul at St Mary le Pew after your death you would receive the same benefits as if you had had the Masses said for you at the church of Santa Maria Scala Coeli in Rome.53 The Roman indulgence was based on a vision of St Bernard of Clairvaux, in which while celebrating Mass at Santa Maria he saw the souls of the dead in purgatory ascending up a ladder into heaven. Thus, Masses at that church were held to offer complete remission from having to spend time in purgatory after death. The Scala Coeli indulgence at Westminster seems to have been taken up widely but with some caution about its efficacy in the surviving wills that mention it. It certainly seems to have helped bring visitors to St Stephen’s College and to more firmly place St Stephen’s within the wider Westminster devotional world before the indulgence was also obtained for Westminster Abbey by Margaret Beaufort around 1508.54 The image of Our Lady of the Pew received lay donations and bequests as a pilgrimage site, particularly as the only English example of the Scala Coeli indulgence, which was attached to the chapel of St Mary le Pew in Westminster Palace.55 Gifts to obtain the benefits of Scala Coeli were common in the surviving wills of Westminster residents, and indeed elsewhere. Richard Hall in 1506 was clearly ensuring that all possibilities for salvation were explored when he asked for Masses at all of the major churches within the parish in addition to burial at St Margaret’s. Hall wanted Masses said for him in St Mary le Pew at Scala Coeli, Westminster Abbey and St Mary Rounceval.56 Robert Stowell, the Kingsford, English Historical Literature, pp. 369–73. J. Stow, ‘The Citie of Westminster’, in A Survey of London. Reprinted From the Text of 1603, ed. C.L. Kingsford, 2 vols (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1908), ii, p. 121. 52 Cotton Faustina B VIII, f. 39r. 53 Morgan, ‘Scala Coeli’, pp. 86–7. 54 Ibid., pp. 90–1. 55 Cal. Pap. Letters 1471–84, p. 498. 56 London, Westminster City Archives, PCW Wyks, p. 68. 50 51

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chief of the abbey masons, had asked for a trental at Scala Coeli the year before.57 Canons also took advantage of the Scala Coeli indulgence, including Richard Grene in 1480, making it perhaps the most popular service the college offered in these years.58 Beyond Westminster, in 1494 a London widow, Pernell Rogers, left money for Masses for her soul at Scala Coeli in Rome, or if it were to prove impossible, at St Mary le Pew.59 After c.1508, when the abbey obtained its own Scala Coeli indulgence thanks to Henry VII and his mother, laypeople seem to have largely abandoned St Stephen’s although at times the evidence is ambiguous.60 William More of London in 1520 described the Scala Coeli altar as being in the ‘Chapell of the Pewe before our Lady next St Edward chapel’, which shows confusion between St Mary le Pew in the palace and the Lady Chapel in Westminster Abbey.61 Consolidating prayers for one’s soul in Purgatory in a place of high spiritual benefit might make more sense than spreading them out across Westminster although some doubt about the effectiveness of such indulgences persisted. The wealthiest individuals continued to ask for trentals at the original S. Maria Scala Coeli, probably seeing it as a more certain help than those offered by the imitators in Westminster. Despite asking for burial in the walls of the abbey, in 1511 the well-to-do brewer William Baynard also asked for a trental to be said in Rome.62 While there are few indications of who took advantage of the indulgences beyond the incidental mentions in surviving wills, the concern for access to the chapel through Westminster Hall, rather than from the privy palace, suggests the chapel was supposed to be open to visitors as well as court residents from 1355 onwards.63 It is suggestive that Bishop Lyndwood, the author of the key canon law text for later medieval England, left his own copy of his work to be chained as a reference copy for lawyers in the college’s vestry in 1446.64 In the sixteenth century, the evidence for visitors taking advantage of the chapel’s openness is much richer. There are two particularly interesting sixteenth-century examples where public access to the chapels is implied and which suggest practical as well as religious use was made of the chapel. In 1520 a group of men not otherwise Rosser, Medieval Westminster, 1200–1541 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), p. 264; PCW Wyks p. 43. 58 Cotton Faustina B VIII ff. 43–4. 59 C.L. Kingsford, ‘Our Lady of the Pew: The King’s Oratory or Closet in the Palace of Westminster’, Archaeologia 68 (1917): 1–20 at 13. 60 Morgan, ‘Scala Coeli’, pp. 93–101. 61 PROB 11/20/118. 62 PCW Wyks, p. 68. 63 CChR 1341–1417, p. 133. 64 J. Prior et al., ‘Report of the Committee appointed by the Council of the Society of Antiquaries to investigate the circumstances attending the recent Discovery of a Body in St. Stephen’s Chapel, Westminster’, Archaeologia 34 (1852): 406–30 at 419. 57

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connected with the chapel said in an indenture relating to the manor of Horspath in Oxfordshire that the payment for lands would be made yearly on St Wulfstan’s day, 19 January, ‘upon the font in the church under St. Stephen’s chapel’, that is, St Mary Undercroft.65 St Mary Undercroft certainly had a font, because a canon asked for burial around the same time between the font and the west door of this chapel, which suggests that the font was towards the western end of the nave in the lower chapel and thus in the area accessible to the laity, as opposed to the ecclesiastical space of the choir beyond the screen.66 There is no other direct evidence that visitors could visit the lower chapel, where in 1548 only a set of old black vestments were kept alongside the hearse for burials rather than anything that would have been particularly suitable for a baptism.67 Equally, the lower chapel was never specified as a place used for services in any of the contemporary accounts, which may have made it a more attractive location for such a transaction. These men seem to have chosen the font as a place that was not likely to be altered in the future, where visitors could come in quietly from the west door, carry out a transaction and then leave. It may also have been a useful meeting place for a group of men whose homes were widely dispersed, but might reasonably come to Westminster on other business and carry out the payment at the same time. The press of business in Westminster also led to the second, but far less routine, incident in the chapel in which members of the public visiting the palace are known to have made use of the chapels. Probably in the mid-1510s, John Selake of Devon petitioned Cardinal Wolsey as chancellor for redress because Sir Giles Capel of Essex attacked him as he was coming out of the chapel into Westminster Hall.68 Selake said that he was at Westminster to pursue his own law cases, went into St Stephen’s to hear Mass, was dragged out and brought to the Court of the Poultry in London, and was then imprisoned unjustly. Although Selake only identifies the chapel as ‘St Stephen’s’, it is worth taking him at his word and seeing him as having been dragged out of Mass in the nave of the upper chapel by Capel and his men. The case provides a single glimpse of what must have been quite a common activity for participants in court cases at Westminster, to go to hear Mass in the chapel next door to the courts’ location in Westminster Hall while waiting for their case to be heard in the busy environment of the hall. Despite their differing social statuses and their different counties of origin, Selake and E 40/3184; none of the men, Richard Rokeby, Thomas Hennage, Michael Hethe of Oxford, and John Pulker appear in any other connection in the surviving St Stephen’s documentation. The location for payment was probably chosen for its proximity to the Exchequer, where a copy of the indenture was deposited. 66 PROB 11/ 7/276. 67 E 117/11/49 f. 5. 68 C 1/442/7 and C 1/442/8. 65

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Capel had past history that probably lay behind the otherwise mysterious attack. Selake is identified in a series of Common Pleas records as either a gentleman or a yeoman of Crediton or Tiverton in Devon while Capel was to be sheriff of Essex and Hertfordshire in 1529, but he had earlier taken part in the Field of the Cloth of Gold and was a military knight to Henry VIII.69 He clearly knew the palace and the king’s household well enough to be able to intercept Selake in the chapel. In Court of Common Pleas cases in 1510 and 1512 Selake and Capel appear as co-defendants relating to debt cases in London.70 In addition, Capel sued Selake in 1519 over a debt of £100.71 The outcome of Selake’s petition to Wolsey is not known, but he seems to have returned successfully to Devon and was taxed £4 in Tiverton parish in the 1545 lay subsidy.72 St Stephen’s as an institution also looked outwards towards other religious institutions. The stable corporate existence of religious institutions and city governance structures meant that founders often used them to supervise and correct their new ecclesiastical foundations. St Stephen’s College was no exception to this. For example, the chantry of John of Gaunt at St Paul’s Cathedral was overseen and the chantry priest appointed by the dean and chapter of St Stephen’s.73 Other chantries at St Paul’s had similar oversight from minor canons, the city companies, such as the Merchant Tailors, or from the mayor of the city.74 The most elaborate example in which the stability of the college was entrusted with a major obligation of this sort was in the maintenance of Henry VII’s new Lady Chapel at Westminster Abbey. In addition, Henry VII created a system of indentures to ensure that the work was carried out as he wished. As part of a series of obligations, other institutions, including St Stephen’s, were made responsible for monitoring the abbey’s performance of the chantry and the administration of the almshouses of the new foundation, in a seven-part indenture.75 If the City of London failed to ensure that the chantry was kept, St Stephen’s would receive the fine and be responsible for the performance of the chantry; if St Stephen’s failed, then St Paul’s, London was next on a list that moved gradually further away from London and Westminster to Winchester Cathedral and then Canterbury Cathedral. St Stephen’s was an obvious choice because Thomas Hobbes, the then-dean, was They are identified as such in CP 40/998 m. 66r and CP 40/990 m. 78r; L &P 1519–21, no. 704; L &P 1526–28, no. 4914. 70 CP 40/990 m. 78r; CP 40/998 m. 66r. 71 C 131/103/14. 72 Devon Lay Subsidy 1543–5, ed. T.H. Stoate (Bristol: T.L. Stoate, 1986), p. 58. 73 M.-H. Rousseau, Saving the Souls of Medieval London: Perpetual Chantries at St Paul’s Cathedral, c.1200–1548 (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011), p. 39. 74 Ibid., p. 40. 75 St Stephen’s copy of the indenture is BL Additional MS 2112. 69

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a royal councillor, and the college stood immediately next door. The dean and canons could easily attend, as they would have to do, the annual celebration of Elizabeth of York’s obit from 1504 and then Henry VII’s after his death in 1509. In addition, St Stephen’s was one of the twenty ecclesiastical institutions, including St George’s and other favoured royal institutions such as St Mary Graces and the two universities of Oxford and Cambridge, where so-called foreign obits were created for Henry VII and his family.76 Thus, St Stephen’s made sure that the monks of Westminster both upheld their obligations and contributed to those obligations through their own provision of prayer. Payments now went back and forth between the two houses as each made sure that the other was discharging their duties correctly.

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Using the King’s Chapels The heart of St Stephen’s College was its daily and yearly rounds of liturgy and services, conducted according to the Use of Salisbury as adapted for the college’s own particular spaces and institutional needs. As it happens, the period for which the college’s liturgical, and particularly musical, life is clearest is the same period in which its audiences are best, although still sparsely, documented. Those individuals who came to services at St Stephen’s would see and hear a commitment to the liturgy and to the provision of prayers for the dead that had been built up over generations, and which continued to be supported by the current king and by other donors. There were obituary services about once a week, in addition to the daily masses offered in the perpetual chantries for William Lyndwood and several former canons.77 Chief among those who had yearly services in the chapel were the deceased kings of England.78 The chapel served as an imagined mausoleum for the English kings since Edward III, in which they were all gathered together into a round of remembrance throughout the year regardless of the locations of their physical tombs across the country. The chapel and its associated oratory were also places of worship that maintained and echoed the splendour and royal piety M. Condon, ‘God Save the King! Piety, Propaganda, and the Perpetual Memorial’, in Westminster Abbey: The Lady Chapel of Henry VII, ed. T. Tatton-Brown and R. Mortimer (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2003), pp. 59–97 at p. 78. 77 In addition to an unknown number of temporary chantries of which five are known, the perpetual chantries by 1480 were William Lyndwood (1445), Reg. Stafford, f. 142; William Prestwick (1443), BL Cotton Faustina B VIII, f. 24r; John Crecy (1471), PROB 11/6/47; and Richard Grene (1480), Cotton Faustina B VIII, ff. 43v–44v; there were between two and six obits each month recorded in Cotton Faustina B VIII, ff. 2r–7v. 78 28 February, Richard II, 20 March Henry IV, 9 April Edward IV, 11 May Henry VII and Elizabeth of York, 21 May Henry VI, 8 June the Black Prince, 21 June Edward III, 31 August Henry V; BL Cotton Faustina B VIII, ff. 2v–5v. 76

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of the Chapel Royal in its musical abilities and expensive furnishings, even when the Chapel Royal was not at Westminster. Its own musical staff held their own in comparison to the Chapel Royal’s, particularly in the work of the last organist/ verger, Nicholas Ludford.79 Ludford’s polyphonic compositions for the college demanded deep musical resources. As well as being bound up with the projection of kingship and royal piety, St Stephen’s was also an institution separate from the king and, by this point, clearly financially and institutionally independent enough to survive any future change of dynasty, as discussed in the previous chapter. The musical abilities of St Stephen’s meant that it could be drawn upon beyond the palace, and St Stephen’s choir sung for both St Margaret’s and for the Westminster parish guilds on different occasions.80 The liturgy at St Stephen’s served as a proxy for the Chapel Royal when the king was not present because it provided a similarly lavish display of royally supported piety through the liturgical round that it maintained. At Westminster, the display of the king’s support for the church was amplified by the surrounding religious provisions at St Stephen’s College, regardless of the presence or absence of the Chapel Royal and the court more generally. The Chapel Royal has long been identified as a key part of royal presentation and as a potential locus for definitions of the court because it by necessity looked outward, beyond the king to those who were living within or visiting the king’s household as an image of kingship.81 The Chapel Royal was also a key part of the king’s visibility throughout the year, and for disseminating an image of impressive royal piety even when the king himself remained apart from his audiences. On feast days, also referred to as days of estate, the king would go to the palace chapel in procession and dressed according to the feast day.82 The Chapel Royal by definition ministered to the household and to visitors to the king’s homes rather than to the king personally, while the king’s personal chaplains looked after his own spiritual welfare. When the king was present at services it was in a public display of his piety and his commitment to the observance of the round of liturgy. On other days he might hear Mass privately and thus not be seen by those crowding the hallways, but the Chapel Royal would still sing Mass in the chapel and process to and from the service to be seen by the

D. Skinner and N. Caldwell, “‘At the Mynde of Nycholas Ludford”: New Light on Ludford From the Churchwarden’s Accounts of St Margaret’s, Westminster’, Early Music 22 (1994): 393–415 at 393. 80 Kisby, ‘Music and Musicians of Early Tudor Westminster’, Early Music 23 (1995): 223–40 at 226 and 231. 81 Kisby, ‘Courtiers in the Community: The Musicians of the Royal Household Chapel in Early Tudor Westminster’, in Reign of Henry VII, pp. 229–260 at p. 239. 82 Kisby, ‘King Goeth a Procession’: 53–6, 58–9. 79

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household, ambassadors and visitors.83 Chapel services seem to have been relatively easy to access, other than on days of estate when the king was present, when entrance to the chapel seems to have been more restricted.84 The eighty ladies who heard Mass in St Stephen’s on the morning after Elizabeth of York’s coronation would have crowded out casual visitors, for example.85 The Burgundian visitors commented on the splendour of the singing they heard in a Chapel Royal service at Westminster when the king was present in a service, which similarly was probably restricted to a few among the household.86 The presence of the royal household and the Chapel Royal at Westminster would have brought larger audiences and perhaps a more complicated liturgy to St Stephen’s as its staff worked alongside those of the Chapel Roayl to ensure that all necessary services were sung. For the Chapel Royal, however, it must have involved considerable deviation from what has been regarded their norm, in order to make their general movement through a chapel space fit with what was available to them in St Stephen’s. The details are unclear because the Liber Regie Capelle had to be non-specific about layouts to be useful in all circumstances the Chapel Royal might find themselves carrying out their duties.87 By the sixteenth century, almost if not all royal palaces had chapels with separate and distinct royal pews or holy-day closets such as the ones that survive at Hampton Court.88 The standard layout that musicologists have assumed for a royal household chapel is similar to the ones there, where the king and queen were separated from the opus dei, and above it at the back, but could come down via convenient stairs to join the service at specific moments, such as receiving communion.89 At St Stephen’s the royal pews seem to have been within the choir, but on the same level as everyone else, removing an opportunity for lavishly symbolic movement visible to the lay audience in the nave.90 The Liber also expected there to be visible processions through the galleries of the palace back to the monarchs’ quarters, which left from the western end of the chapel.91 At St Stephen’s and Westminster more generally, Liber Regie Capelle, pp. 59–60. Kisby, ‘King Goeth a Procession’: 57. 85 Leland, Collectanea, iv, p. 228. 86 Travels of Leo of Rozmital, pp. 48, 54. 87 Liber Regie Capelle, p. 55. 88 Thurley, Tudor Royal Palaces, p. 199. 89 Thurley also notes that Henry VIII was introducing those stairs into his palaces at Greenwich and Eltham when he rebuilt their chapels. Ibid., p. 196. 90 There is no evidence surviving from St Stephen’s to indicate where the royal pews were within the upper chapel, suggesting that they were probably integrated into the eastern end of the stalls. 91 On the role of the procession see Thurley, Tudor Royal Palaces, pp. 198–9; the plans (unpaginated) at the back of the book show galleries leading to the chapel at Greenwich 83 84

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this seems not to have been possible. The alura at St Stephen’s from the eastern end of the chapel through St Mary le Pew and then on to the Painted Chamber would have been a potential procession route, as would a route through the porch at the western end into the area between the Great and Lesser Halls and then perhaps through the Lesser Hall to the privy palace.92 The route would either pass through a fairly narrow, fairly private gallery straight into the more private areas of the palace, without the usual opportunities for petitions by spectators or for royal broadcasting of their visibility, or would have to move into an extremely public area, choked with individuals going to the law courts or to the Lords in the Queen’s Chamber, if Parliament was in session.93 St Stephen’s College was seen in this period as being strongly related to the Chapel Royal and to the life of the palace. In addition to the lack of known alternative venues at Westminster, St Stephen’s rarely appears separately from the Chapel Royal in the surviving fifteenth- and sixteenth-century accounts, unlike St George’s, Windsor.94 In the account of Henry VII’s celebration of St George’s Day in 1488, the royal chapel in the Upper Ward is the venue for the first set of services and St George’s Chapel for the second, and the two venues are distinguished by the herald.95 In accounts of events at Westminster, there is never such a distinction, and St Stephen’s is treated as the royal chapel, including in chronicle texts. Before this period, the Brut had called St Stephen’s the ‘king’s chief chapel’ while Froissart had described it as the ‘most noble’ palace chapel rather than as a college.96 Instead the college disappears in favour of the Chapel Royal in such accounts. While it is rare for household accounts to survive with enough detail to be able to pinpoint the king or queen’s presence in the chapel on any particular day, the privy purse expenses for Elizabeth of York provide a glimpse of her relationship with the college and chapel. Her privy purse accounts survive for (Plan 4), Hampton Court (Plans 7 and 8), Richmond (Plan 11), Whitehall (Plan 13) and Windsor Castle Upper Ward (Plan 14); these are a mix of palaces built or renovated by Henry VIII and those where the layout was inherited from either Edward IV or Henry VII. 92 The route through the alura was the processional route used when Prince Arthur was made Prince of Wales in 1489, Leland, Collectanea, iv, p. 252. 93 When the future Henry VIII was made a Knight of the Bath in 1494, from the privy palace ‘they toke thair waye secretly by our Ladie of Pew through St Stephen’s Chapel on to the steyr foote of the ster chambre’; BL Cotton MS Julius B XII, f. 90v. 94 See, for example, the instructions for the canons of St George’s on St George’s Day in the Ryalle Book printed in The Antiquarian Repertory, ed. F. Grose et al., 4 vols (London: E. Jeffery, 1807–09), i, pp. 331–3. 95 Leland, Collectanea, iv, p. 238. 96 The Brut or the Chronicle of England, ed. Frederick W.D. Brie, 2 vols, EETS Original Series 131 and 136 (London, 1906–08), i, p. 478; Froissart, Chronicles, iii, pp. 498–9.

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only 1502 to 1503, as Elizabeth of York’s death in March 1503 meant that they were needed to wind up her finances. She never directly referred to the college, although she did note payments for Mass at St George’s College, Windsor. Rather, when she was in Westminster, payments were made for five-shilling Mass offerings on feast days, and since the abbey is not directly mentioned, it is almost certain that the accounts refer to the principal chapel of the palace itself, St Stephen’s.97 This assumption that the chapel was a royal space, and that the payments were often made to the dean or sub-dean of the Chapel Royal, suggests that the strong link in personnel seen between St Stephen’s and the Chapel Royal also manifested itself in a blurring of the boundaries between separate college and royal chapel in the minds of the queen and her financial officers. Also interesting is that the offerings are generally only on feast days, suggesting that Elizabeth of York did not attend Mass in St Stephen’s daily when at Westminster, and that her presence in the chapel was not one of private devotion, but rather of visible and public display of royal piety in front of the court, on a par with that of her husband. Musically and liturgically, St Stephen’s kept pace with the Chapel Royal in this period, particularly in the elaboration and development of polyphonic liturgical music. The level of musical staff provided for the foundation by Edward III had been lavish for its day – four specialist singers, called clerks in the fourteenth century and singing-men in the sixteenth century, as well as six choristers. In the early fifteenth century, this level of provision for music became more usual, such as at Manchester College (1421) and Higham Ferrers College (1422), which both had four clerks and six choristers.98 This level of staff was clearly still seen as sufficient at St Stephen’s into the sixteenth century because the statutes were never amended to make provision for further musical staff, although it has been speculated that in the fifteenth century the numbers of musical staff might have been increased before contracting again before the Reformation.99 Certainly the choir at St George’s was expanded by Edward IV.100 Either way, at the dissolution in the sixteenth century, St Stephen’s had the same musical profile as in its beginning. One of the ways that it made its fourteenth-century structure work for the developing demands of polyphonic liturgy was through stretching Elizabeth of York gave an offering to the dean of the king’s chapel, and five shillings at Mass at St George’s in July 1502, and at Westminster for St Simon’s and St Jude’s feast days, and the feast of All Saints, in October and November 1502, Privy Purse Expenses of Elizabeth of York etc. ed. N.H. Nicholas (London: William Pickering, 1830), pp. 31, 53–4. 98 R. Bowers, ‘Choral Institutions Within the English Church: Their Constitution and Development 1340 – 1500’, PhD thesis (University of East Anglia, 1975), pp. 4019–20. 99 Skinner, ‘“At the Mynde of Nycholas Ludford”’: 395–6. 100 Bowers, ‘The Music and Musical Establishment of St George’s Chapel in the Fifteenth Century’, in St George’s in the Late Middle Ages, pp. 171–214 at pp. 199–200. 97

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the post of verger to include that of organist by the mid-fifteenth century when the composer John Bedyngham is listed as the organist-verger of the college.101 Bedyngham was an innovative composer of Masses, drawing on secular musical styles to create new Mass settings, perhaps also for St Stephen’s. Bedyngham had come from Westminster Abbey, but also had connections to the London musical world through his membership of the London fraternity of St Nicholas.102 In 1527, the composer Nicholas Ludford became the organist-verger at St Stephen’s.103 His work survives in three important collections, all connected to the king’s household or to royal administration, the Lambeth, and Gonville and Caius Choirbooks, as well as a set of part books for daily Lady Masses that were in the king’s library at Whitehall by 1542.104 Among the items listed in the final inventory of the college in 1548, perhaps the most frustrating are the three ‘gret pryke song bokes’.105 These large-scale volumes of polyphonic music from which the college’s polyphonic repertory could be sung imply that there was at least one choir lectern, and their contents would provide an invaluable guide to the musical possibilities at St Stephen’s. While there is good reason to assume that what is now known as the Gonville and Caius Choirbook was one of these three books, where the others went and what they contained have been lost. The Caius Choirbook has an ex dono inscription from Edward Higgons, ‘canon of this church’, and contains a set of polyphonic Masses and Magnificats by St Stephen’s own organist-verger as well as composers employed by the Chapel Royal.106 Higgons was a canon of St Stephen’s in his retirement after an administrative career, and a lovely miniature of the college’s sexton, John Coke, appears in one of the illuminated initials that decorate the volume.107 In this, it seems to be both a beautiful and a practical book, containing a well-ordered selection of useful liturgical music. Particularly noteworthy in the volume is an elaborate Mass for the feast of St Stephen, one of the principal feast days of the college and probably the dedication day as well.108 The material in the Caius choirbook is not B. Trowell, ‘Bedyngham, John (d.1459/60)’, ODNB. Ibid.. 103 Skinner, ‘“At the Mynde of Nycholas Ludford”’: 395. 104 London, Lambeth Palace Library MS 1; Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College, MS 667/760; BL Royal MS Royal MS Appendix 45–8; for discussion of the creation of the Caius and Lambeth choirbooks at the direction of Edward Higgons, see Skinner, ‘Discovering the Provenance of the Caius and Lambeth Choirbooks’, Early Music 25 (1997): 245–66 at 249, 251, 254. 105 E 117/ 11/49, f. 5.; pricksong was the general term for polyphony as opposed to plainchant. 106 Skinner, ‘Caius and Lambeth Choirbooks’: 246. 107 Gonville and Caius MS 667/760, p. 44. 108 Skinner, ‘Nicholas Ludford (c.1490–1557): A Biography and Critical Edition of the Antiphons, with a Study of the Collegiate Chapel of the Holy Trinity, Arundel, under the 101 102

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the only surviving music that was almost certainly written for the college. A set of 1520s part books survive in the British Library royal collection that have daily polyphonic Lady Masses by Nicholas Ludford and may once have belonged to the college, although they were in the king’s library at Whitehall in 1542, suggesting that these copies were given to the Chapel Royal before being taken out of use.109 They show the polyphonic Lady Mass as something that was part of the college’s usual round, as well as the skill needed to improvise the missing part of the organ in the Masses. Ludford himself as organist would have been responsible for the improvisation required, giving a sense of his regular and sustained participation in the daily round of liturgy at the college and the standards to which he and his fellow musicians worked. The importance of St Stephen’s musically to the king as well as its musical abilities can be seen in the orders protecting its musicians from impressment by other notable musical institutions and the payment of wages. Henry VII paid John Bracy £2 a quarter for his singing in St Mary le Pew in 1494.110 In 1528 St Stephen’s was included in a list of institutions from which the chapel of King’s College Cambridge was not allowed to poach singing men and choristers. King’s College was allowed to protect its own singing men from all other institutions, but could not take singers from the musical institutions surrounding the court: the Chapel Royal, St George’s Windsor, Eton College, St Stephen’s or Cardinal Wolsey’s personal chapel.111 All of these institutions were closely connected institutionally and musically. Institutionally, they were all closely related to the court and had shared ecclesiastical personnel. Thomas Hobbes, Richard Rawson, John Chambre and John Veysey were among those who were canons at both St Stephen’s and St George’s.112 William Atwater, who had also been a fellow at Eton, and Richard Sampson were deans of the Chapel Royal in turn as well as canons at St Stephen’s.113 There was also overlap in musical personnel between all these institutions, although the evidence is extremely sketchy as the surviving names of singing men at St Stephen’s are either incidental or from the last years of the college. John Fuller in the 1520s moved from being a singingman in the Mastership of Edward Higgons, and a History of the Caius and Lambeth Choirbooks’, DPhil. thesis (University of Oxford, 1996), p. 45. 109 BL Royal MS Appendix, pp. 45–8. 110 ‘Privy Purse Expenses of Henry VII’, printed in Excerpta Historica or Illustrations of English History, ed. S. Bentley (London: for S. Bentley, 1831), p. 99. 111 L & P 1526–28, no. 5083 (12). 112 S.L. Ollard, Fasti Wyndsorienses: The Deans and Canons of Windsor (Windsor: for the dean and canons, 1950), p. 164. 113 BRUO, p. 73; A.A. Chibi, ‘Sampson, Richard (d.1554), bishop of Coventry and Lichfield’, ODNB.

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Chapel Royal to St Stephen’s, and at some point before 1535 Henry Meddows went from being a clerk at St Stephen’s to being a chantry priest at St Margaret’s, probably seeking better pay.114 The Eton Choirbook, made for Eton College in the early sixteenth century, contains music by the court composers Fairfax and Cornish, who worked in London, Westminster, and at court, alongside music written within Eton itself.115 The ambition of Wolsey’s household chapel was commented upon by contemporaries.116 The singing men who were able to sing the lavish liturgical music contained in these volumes would have been highly sought after, and as such protection from recruitment would have been helpful for maintaining the ambitious musical round that the king evidently wanted to maintain at the royal colleges. St Stephen’s College also seems to have been drawing upon the substantial musical resources of the Chapel Royal. St Stephen’s College was certainly not lacking in musical ability and expertise in its daily round of services, as discussed above. Neither was the Chapel Royal; prominent composers known to have been employed by the sixteenth-century Chapel Royal included Robert Fairfax, Gilbert Banaster and William Cornish.117 Fairfax’s and Cornish’s work appears in the Caius Choirbook, suggesting that repertoire was shared between the two institutions at this point, even as day-to-day collaboration would have lessened after the abandonment of Westminster as a habitual royal residence.118 In the late fifteenth and early sixteenth century, two settings of O Maria et Elizabeth, a motet based on a votive antiphon to the Virgin and to her cousin, were produced for the royal chapel. The new feast of the Visitation of the Virgin would have had resonance for St Stephen’s, as the feast emphasised the unexpected pregnancies of the Virgin and St Elizabeth, and the cult of Our Lady of the Pew seems to have in part been a maternal cult.119 One of the settings, by Banaster, has been studied for its potential Kisby, ‘Music and Musicians of Tudor Westminster’: 226, 236. M. Williamson, ‘The Eton Choirbook: Its Institutional and Historical Background’, DPhil. thesis (University of Oxford, 1997), pp. 72, 76. 116 ‘Than ware there dyuers Reteynours of connyng syngyng men … but to speke of the ffurnyture of his Chapell passithe my Capasitie to declare’: The Life and Death of Cardinal Wolsey by George Cavendish, ed. R.S. Sylvester, EETS Original Series 243 (Oxford, 1959), p. 19. 117 Kisby, ‘Office and Office-Holding at the English Court: A Study of the Chapel Royal 1485–1547’, Royal Musical Association Research Chronicle 32 (1999): 1–61 at 43, 44, 51–3. 118 Skinner, ‘“At the Mynde of Nycholas Ludford”’: 97. 119 Payments were made to a number of Marian shrines at the same time, including those at Walsingham and Willesden in addition to St Mary le Pew, Privy Purse Expenses of Elizabeth of York, pp. 3–4; for the feast see Williamson, ‘Royal Image-Making and Textual Interplay in Gilbert Banaster’s “O Maria et Elizabeth”’, Early Music History 19 (2000): 237–78 at 238. 114 115

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as a ‘piece of royal image-making’ of the late fifteenth century as it survives in the Eton Choirbook.120 The text set by Banaster is a prayer for dynastic stability in the face of dynastic change under either Edward IV or, more probably, Henry VII.121 If it was produced for performance at Westminster, it is tempting to speculate about the interplay between the music’s plea for stability in a changing world and the imagery of Edward III’s dynastic successes on the walls of the chapel. The music would have contrasted strongly with the image and example of Edward III at a time when the dynastic future of England seemed much less certain than it had in 1360, as neither of Henry VII’s sons had yet reached adulthood. A later setting by Fairfax of a text with the same title is recorded only through a payment made by Elizabeth of York in 1502, suggesting royal intervention in the music of the Chapel Royal, and by extension, since the payment was made when the queen was at Westminster, St Stephen’s, as well, as a potential recipient of such a piece.122 Her daughter-in-law Katherine of Aragon may also have shaped the music of the college to meet her own interests. David Skinner has offered the intriguing suggestion that the motet Salve Regina, pudica mater in the Caius Choirbook may reflect Katherine’s desire for a male child, and its inclusion in this choirbook suggests that it was known and sung at St Stephen’s.123 The surviving material culture of St Stephen’s also helps to shed light on how the chapels were used in practice in this period. The inventory of 1548, after the first depredations of the Reformation, still lists an extraordinary array of liturgical objects available to the college and hints at the various uses of the chapels. In the lower chapel, which had four sets of older vestments and a hearse as well as a pair of organs and copper candlesticks, the furnishings seem to have been much less lavish, which suggests it would generally have only one priest celebrating services there.124 In the upper chapel, by contrast, was where the valuable objects were found, including multiple crosses set with jewels, patronal statues of St Stephen and St Barbara made of silver gilt set with jewels, and expensive sets of vestments for the entire community down to the choristers’ green satin albs.125 The specification of the vestments in sets, usually containing copes and albs for the celebrating priest, his deacon and sub-deacon shows that St Stephen’s, as one would expect, carried out the full supporting ritual of the priest supported by two

The text is given in Williamson, ‘O Maria et Elizabeth’: 244–5. Ibid.: 267. 122 Privy Purse Expenses of Elizabeth of York, p. 2. 123 Skinner, ‘Nicholas Ludford (c.1490–1557)’, p. 46. 124 E 117/11/49, f. 5. 125 Ibid. f. 6 for the jewels and plate, and ff. 1–3 for the vestments, the choristers’ albs are on f. 3. 120 121

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others that Sarum ordained and that most churches were unable to carry out.126 The glittering richness of the upper chapel’s furnishings also points to a tentative conclusion that the upper chapel was the college’s primary chapel, containing at that point its richly decorated mass-books and wealth. If this marked a shift from earlier practices, then the evidence for that shift simply does not survive. In addition to the main demands of the Sarum rite on the college’s staff, there was also the needs of the semi-separate oratory of St Mary le Pew, which had its own keeper and seems to have been viewed as liturgically distinct.127 In 1548, after the 1545 removal of the image of the Virgin as idolatrous, there were still fifteen sets of vestments for the use of the Pew Chapel, including four sets of cloth of gold vestments with matching altar hangings.128 It is worth noting that these were only for one priest, as there are no vestments for deacons or for children. In addition, St Mary le Pew had its own sets of mass-books and altar vessels, suggesting that the liturgical life there was semi-distinct.129

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The College and the Household In the second half of the fifteenth century and into the sixteenth century, St Stephen’s College was more strongly associated with the king’s household than with his administration. In 1521, the duke of Buckingham had drinks with the college’s vicars, for example.130 Household service was often a route into highlevel administrative service if a canon so chose. The reverse does not seem to have happened, suggesting that closeness to the king or to an influential member of his household or family in household service was particularly valued and rewarded with benefices, including at St Stephen’s. The use of groups of royal councillors to appoint new canons increased the tendency for the college to look to the household for its shape, while the existing and continuing connections to royal administration and its possibilities for advancement might make the college an attractive home for ambitious clerics who wanted to advance to the episcopate or to the major offices of state. The household was not always at Westminster, but it was usually close enough that both duties in the household For example, the inventory lists ‘It[e]m iij Garmentes w[i]t[h] albes / vestiment deacon and subdeacon of cloth of gold w[i]t[h] whit velvit fygury. It[e]m ij Copis of Clothe of gold Raysid w[i]t[h] whit velvit fygury’ as a set, ibid., f. 2. 127 Most of the evidence for St Mary le Pew is gathered in Kingsford, ‘Our Lady of the Pew’: 1–20. 128 All the items identified as for use in the Pew chapel are listed in E 117/11/49 f. 9. 129 ‘iiij Masse bokes and iij deskes’ valued at 4s 4d as well as ‘iij chalesis w[i]t[h] patens gylt’ although this last entry has been struck through for reasons that are unclear, ibid. 130 L & P 1519–21, no. 1285. 126

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and at St Stephen’s could be carried out reasonably easily while obtaining the full benefits of being a canon, particularly the residence payments and the use of a valuable house. Business might be conducted by messenger or through strategic division of the day to accommodate the demands of both a household position and the college’s own liturgy. For the king and for others in his circles, the college offered a point of contact with administration that could be exploited, as well as an institution that reflected well on royal piety and support. From the reigns of Edward IV, Henry VII and Henry VIII come overlapping sets of incidental descriptions of the chapel, ordinances and descriptions of court ceremonial, which give glimpses of the place of St Stephen’s within the wider world of the king’s household when he was present at Westminster and when they were with the household elsewhere. The ordinances and the expectations they outlined shaped the college’s role and the experiences of its staff. The areas of household life in addition to their long-standing association with the Chapel Royal that the college contributed to were largely about highly educated and intellectual displays of the resources of the English Crown, as well as expert advice to the king, rather than bureaucratic service at this time. Counsel in a variety of forms lay at the heart of the intersections that made governance possible, joining together the king, his bureaucracy and wider political society.131 While the king had a responsibility to take counsel widely, the most formalised system of advice was through the royal council, which by the later fifteenth century met in the Star Chamber at Westminster or elsewhere at need.132 As a body whose membership was determined officially by the king, in theory it reflected his personal choices about who was giving him valuable advice. In practice, however, the council developed its own norms of membership by the end of the fifteenth century, drawing on both lay and ecclesiastical representatives, often including canons. The Ellesmere extracts from the now-lost council registers suggests that this pattern decreased markedly under Henry VIII, who tended to prefer lay councillors.133 The great officers of state were usually included as were some of the major nobles and bishops, whose support was key to the success and Watts, ‘Counsel and the King’s Council, c.1340–1540’, in The Politics of Counsel in England and Scotland, 1286–1707, ed. J. Rose (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), pp. 63–85 at p. 76. 132 Watts, ‘Counsel and the King’s Council’, pp. 66–7; J. Rose, ‘The Problem of Political Counsel’, in Politics of Counsel, pp. 1–44 at pp. 3–5; the formal council was examined as an institution in J.F. Baldwin, The King’s Council in England During the Middle Ages (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1913); for an example of the council’s description of itself as meeting in the Star Chamber, San Marino CA, Huntington Library, Ellesmere MS EL 2655, f. 9r. 133 Huntington Library, EL 2653–5; discussed by W.H. Dunham, ‘The Members of Henry VIII’s Whole Council, 1509–1527’, EHR 59 (1944): 187–210 at 188. 131

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dissemination of royal policy.134 Also included usually, because of their role in the dissemination of the royal image, were the deans of the Chapel Royal and the royal almoner, who oversaw the charitable provision of the household.135 Some canons of St Stephen’s would be included in the council’s work through holding these offices or through these household roles that were included in the council’s ordinary membership, such as John Gunthorpe, the almoner and then the keeper of the Privy Seal under Richard III, and presumably his successor as almoner, Christopher Urswick under Henry VII.136 The dean of St Stephen’s seems also to have been regarded as an ex-officio member of the council, and is occasionally identified by title in the Ellesmere extracts from Henry VII’s reign.137 Canons who can be identified in the fifteenth century as king’s councillors included Robert Stillington and Richard Martin.138 Henry Sever and William Aiscough also served in this capacity while at St Stephen’s.139 Men were not appointed to the council because they were canons at St Stephen’s, but the same types of royal service and experience that brought them to the council were rewarded with housing and employment at St Stephen’s. In addition to the formal council, counsel in this period was such a diffuse and important concept that it became the justification for the existence of the household. The principles and rhetoric of counsel were being developed in precisely this period.140 The resident canons would have operated under these assumptions as they went about their lives within the context of the king’s household at Westminster, even if they were not formally sworn councillors. As the architecture of the king’s daily life was increasingly private and thus the king himself was ordinarily less accessible, the household thus came to assume more importance as the conduit between the king and political society more generally. Thus, the Dunham, ‘Members of Henry VIII’s Council’: 188–90; see also Elizabethan description of the Henry VII council as a court in Huntington Library, EL 2768, f. 1v. 135 R.A. Houston, ‘What Did the Royal Almoner Do In Britain and Ireland c.1450–1750?’ EHR 125 (2010): 279–313 at 281. 136 John Gunthorpe appears as a councillor in 1476, CPR 1467–77, p. 586; for his career see A.C. Reeves, ‘John Gunthorpe’: 307–44. 137 For example, in 1495 the dean was present for questions about Parliament, on 6 November 1502, the dean of St Stephen’s was present along with the dean of the Chapel Royal and the dean of St George’s Windsor, and two years later his successor, Thomas Hobbys was present, Huntington Library, EL 2768, f. 5r; EL 2655, ff. 1r, 5r. 138 For Stillington see BRUO, pp. 1777–9; and for Martyn, see BRUO, pp. 1236–7. 139 M.L. Kekewich, ‘Aiscough [Ayscough], William (c.1395–1450)’, ODNB; BRUO, p. 1673. 140 Watts, ‘“New Men”, “New Learning”, and “New Monarchy”: Personnel and Policy in Royal Government, 1461–1529’, in Political Society in Later Medieval England: A Festschrift for Christine Carpenter, ed. B. Thompson and J. Watts (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2015), pp. 199–228 at pp. 220–2. 134

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Black Book of the Household stressed the household’s role in providing the king with the information he needed to make good decisions. The pages and the esquires were explicitly to be drawn widely from the counties to represent their home communities to the king, while they were also to be learning about how to govern effectively, both practically and from historical accounts of past governance.141 The household’s expenses were thus to be justified both in its representation of the localities to the king, but also in its education of their sons to play a role in local government and in positions of royal service away from the household. This was then projected backwards to add authority to the regulations. The description of the reign of Edward III suggests the key purposes of the gathering together of the king’s household, his nobility and his administration when it describes the domus, or household, as ‘the house of very polycye’ where council was given and from where his servants were rewarded with ‘offices outward’ in various ports and towns.142 Good counsel was to be desired, but the question of who would and should have the access to the king to give counsel and to have their requests met was a fraught one. Bad counsel could be devastating both to individuals who were harmed by it and to the political community at large, and so the household, which was in itself a political entity, was added to those who were expected to be a channel for counsel. Other elements of the college also played a role in the royal household in ways that contributed to royal self-presentation. In addition to their primary duties as writing correspondence to foreign powers and gathering intelligence from overseas, royal secretaries can also be identified as key to the household’s interest in humanist learning and participation in wider European intellectual culture. The Black Book lists a secretary as one of the important officers of the king’s household and to control the office of the signet.143 Secretaries such as Bernard André, who was not a canon, wrote scripts for disguises and other court entertainments that were widely seen in London. Having a prominent intellectual teaching the king’s sons and acting as his French or Italian secretary, responsible for highlevel correspondence with other royal courts, was very much part of the royal display of patronage and learning.144 For St Stephen’s as an institution, it meant access to a community of university learning and strong international humanist links. Henry VI’s son Edward, prince of Wales, was taught by two canons of St Stephen’s, Richard Martin and John Alcock. Both men also held administrative Black Book, pp. 127–9. Ibid., pp. 84–5. 143 Ibid., pp. 110–11. 144 J.T. Rosenthal, ‘Kings, Continuity and Ecclesiastical Benefaction’, in People, Politics and Community in the Later Middle Ages, ed. J.T. Rosenthal and C. Richmond (Gloucester: Alan Sutton, 1987), pp. 161–75 at p. 167. 141 142

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posts in Chancery, which underscores the flexibility of royal service in this period.145 Humanism continued to play a role when in 1517 Thomas Linacre was rewarded with a prebend for his work as tutor to Prince Arthur and then briefly Princess Mary.146 The final royal tutor to be a canon was Richard Cox, Edward VI’s tutor from 1541.147 In addition, during Edward IV’s and Henry VII’s reigns we find men such as John Gunthorpe, Christopher Urswick, Oliver King, Pietro Carmeliano and Andreas Ammonias as canons of St Stephen’s who were also important intellectual figures while working as secretaries in the household.148 Ammonias’ letters to Wolsey from his house at St Stephen’s suggest that he was writing important letters regularly, often those that would be sent with diplomatic missions, as well as using his networks to gather information.149 They contributed to the display of humanist ideals, the international diplomacy of Latin Christendom and to the sense of England as an important part of wider humanist thought. Erasmus never stayed at St Stephen’s, but he was friends with Ammonias and Urswick and corresponded with Linacre and Thomas Larke as well, showing canons’ engagement with Europe-wide intellectual culture.150 All these men combined royal service with papal patronage and with their own intellectual networks both within and without the court. The king’s physicians occupied an honoured place at court because of their specialist skills, which the Black Book identifies as both preventative medicine and as treating the sick.151 The king’s doctors were to help create the menus to keep the king in good health, as well as to create medicines for him as needed. Although the Black Book identifies the doctors’ only role in treating the wider household to be determining when people should be sent home from the king’s presence to avoid spreading illness, there is some evidence that they might also look after the John Alcock, BRUC, pp. 5–6; and Richard Martin, BRUC, p. 394. L & P 1517–18, no. 3624; Vivian Nutton, ‘Linacre, Thomas (c.1460–1524)’, ODNB. 147 L & P 1540–41, no. 305 (49). 148 Compton Reeves, ‘John Gunthorpe’: 307–44; J.B. Trapp, ‘Urswick, Christopher (1448?– 1522)’, ODNB; S.J. Gunn, ‘King, Oliver (d.1503)’, ODNB; J.B. Trapp, ‘Carmeliano, Pietro (c.1451–1527)’, ODNB, and idem, ‘Ammonius, Andreas [Andrea della Rena] (bap.1476; d.1517)’, ODNB. 149 For example, on 11 April 1515 he wrote to Wolsey concerning intelligence in cipher relating to Papal diplomacy, L & P 1515–16, no. 312; on 19 August 1515, Ammonias wrote to Wolsey concerning the briefs sent with Richard Sampson to Flanders, ibid., no. 823. 150 Carmeliano was appointed in 1493 in CPR 1485–94, p. 412; Urswick had been appointed in 1485 in CPR 1485–94, p. 24 and Ammonias was appointed in 1512 in L & P 1509–13, no. 1083 (1). 151 C. Rawcliffe, ‘More than a Bedside Manner: The Political Status of the Late Medieval Court Physician’, in St George’s Chapel, Windsor in the Late Middle Ages, ed. C. Richmond and E. Scarff (Windsor: for the dean and canons, 2001), pp. 71–92 at pp. 75–6, 82. 145 146

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health of members of the household and visitors if needed.152 The role of creating medicines ‘geuen to the syke and ill’ was the province of the surgeon, at least in the minds of the Black Book’s compilers, a reminder of the differing statuses of university-trained doctors and the apprenticeship-qualified surgeons.153 In 1528 Sir George Hastings wrote to his wife from the king’s palace at Bridewell, where he was recovering from a tournament accident. He notes that he is still at Bridewell, as are several other known courtiers including the duke of Norfolk, although the king has gone on to Greenwich to the queen, Katherine of Aragon, and says that John Chambre and William Butts, the king’s doctors, are looking after him well.154 Chambre had kindly created lozenges for Lady Hastings to ease her worry about her husband, and he had included them with the letter. John Chambre was also from 1514 to 1548 the dean of St Stephen’s College, and his career says much about the quiet possibilities open to a well-respected doctor in the king’s favour.155 He gathered ecclesiastical benefices, such as the wardenship of Merton College, Oxford, but eschewed the visibility and political influence that Dr William Butts seems to have enjoyed, and took no visible part in the politicking of Henry VIII’s reign.156 Although he could have exploited his access to the king for greater personal and political gain, he did not. Chambre’s predecessor as dean, Thomas Wolsey, is a marked contrast in how a priest could use his place within the household to create his own role and enhance his influence within the world of the college and of governance, while also being deeply committed to the college as an institution.157 Wolsey’s control of the household and its relationship with the council culminated in the failed reforms of the Eltham ordinances in 1526.158 They marked the end point of nearly sixteen years of Wolsey’s strong influence on the composition of the household other than the king’s personal attendants. Wolsey had become the king’s almoner as well as his chief minister before he joined St Stephen’s in 1512 as dean, and was already Black Book, pp. 123–4. Ibid., p. 124. 154 Huntington Library, Hastings MS 5274, 28 November 1528, Sir George Hastings to Lady Hastings. 155 L & P 1513–14, no. 3499 (54); for his career more generally see N. Moore, ‘Chambre, John (1470–1549)’, rev. S. Bakewell, ODNB. 156 C.T. Martin, ‘Butts, Sir William (c.1485–1545)’, rev. S. Davies, ODNB. 157 This was expressed in a variety of forms, from financial concerns for the college’s revenues, his desire to remain dean in 1514 when he became bishop of Lincoln, and in his possible patronage of the cloister rebuilding project, L & P 1513–14, no. 3433; L & P 1513–14, no. 2629 (8) and no. 3499 (40); and below, p. 177. 158 J. Guy, ‘Wolsey and the Tudor Polity’, in Cardinal Wolsey: Church, State and Art, ed. S.J. Gunn and P.G. Lindley (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 54–75 at pp. 62–4. 152 153

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exercising strong influence on appointments to St Stephen’s. The prebends at St Stephen’s and the college’s long tradition of royal service offered Wolsey an opportunity to reward priests he knew while also helping him to place his own followers in royal administration. In 1511, Wolsey’s unofficial brother-in-law Thomas Larke was made a canon, doubtless due to Wolsey’s influence.159 Larke’s sister Joan was Wolsey’s mistress and the mother of his son, Thomas Winter, who also appears as a canon in 1529, when he was pushed out after his father’s downfall.160 The men Wolsey brought to St Stephen’s from around 1510 were all in the process of moving from the almoner’s service to the king’s service, and thus would have found a prebend to be valuable to them. William Benet, if he is the Dr Benet referred to in a 1528 will, had been Wolsey’s servant, and his main royal service was a long series of embassies until his death in 1534.161 Similarly, Thomas Thirlby, John Veysey and Richard Sampson owed their appointments to the deanery of the Chapel Royal to Wolsey.162 The king’s sister, Mary, complained in 1515 that Wolsey had obtained for Sampson the prebend at St Stephen’s that she wanted for her own chaplain.163 Other canons who came from the cardinal’s service into royal service, often as royal chaplains or ambassadors, included the humanist scholar Hugh Ashton, the diplomat William Knight, the future bishop Richard Rawlins, and the chaplains Richard Wade and Richard Wolman.164 St Stephen’s also contributed institutionally to the household’s routine. Processions allowed the king to be greeted by his subjects, reaffirm his right to rule and get some sense of the public mood. In 1471 one of the most telling indicators of the collapse of Henry VI’s return to the throne was that when his supporters desperately organised a procession on the most symbolic of routes, part of the coronation route from the Tower of London to Westminster, Henry VI was not greeted as the king.165 He did not look like a king, he did not receive the Londoners’ support, and so it was clear that his regime was not going to last in the face of Edward IV’s return from exile. Processions were not always quite that symbolic, but they were a routine part of the king’s ritual life. As already L & P 1509–1512, no. 969 (50); another canon described Larke as ‘omnipotent’ with Wolsey in a letter to Erasmus, L & P 1515–16, no. 629. 160 L & P 1529–30, no. 6803 (19). 161 PROB 11/27/113; F.D. Logan, ‘Benet, William (d.1533)’, ODNB. 162 Kisby, ‘Office and Office-Holding at the English Court: A Study of the Chapel Royal 1485–1547’. Royal Musical Association Research Chronicle 32 (1999): 1–61 at 15. 163 L & P 1515–16, no. 172. 164 N. Lewycky, ‘Serving God and King: Cardinal Thomas Wolsey’s Patronage Networks and Early Tudor Government, 1514–1529, With Special Reference to the Archdiocese of York’, PhD thesis (University of York, 2008), appendix 5, pp. 313–57. 165 Historie of the Arrivall of Edward IV in England, ed. J. Bruce. Camden Society Old Series I (London, 1838), pp. 15–16. 159

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mentioned, the Chapel Royal mounted a daily procession from the king’s chambers to the chapel for Mass and then back again, which included the king on feast days, but even in his absence the procession called the king to mind, especially if the queen was herself present, as Margaret of Anjou frequently was. William Say’s comment in the Liber Regie Capelle was that Queen Margaret was ‘rarely absent’.166 The Chapel Royal’s processions were particularly significant because they often served as an opportunity for petitioning the king in person. St Stephen’s College had its own round of processions according to the Use of Sarum, in which the college moved through the chapels and the cloister precinct as part of the ritual year. But the college’s processions could also be a wider spectacle within the palace and the parish of St Margaret’s in Westminster. In 1486, the college in procession met the returning Henry VII at the Water Gate in the palace and along with the abbey’s monks escorted him through New Palace Yard to the door of the abbey for a service of thanksgiving and welcome after his first progress around the country.167 Other events might also require the college’s presence, or their absence might be remarked upon. The contemporary herald’s account of the funeral cortege of Elizabeth of York in 1503 commented that it was a marvel that the queen’s procession, coming from the Tower of London, was not met by the canons of St Stephen’s nor by any procession from St Margaret’s Westminster.168 No explanation was given; perhaps the college’s staff were already with the Chapel Royal in the procession from the Tower, and thus did not meet the king separately. St Stephen’s College as an institution played a role in household rituals that surrounded the king and his family at moments of familial significance. It is likely that the college took some part in coronations, although this is nowhere explicit, not least because the coronation ceremony was written to be as general as possible to allow flexibility and the college’s staff were likely already to have been drafted into the Chapel Royal’s staff for the purposes of the coronation.169 In 1483 Edward IV’s younger son, Richard, duke of York, married Anne Mowbray in the chapel.170 It was an odd choice for a marriage venue, although perhaps quieter than the abbey would be and thus more suitable for the scale of the wedding, given that Richard was just four years old. In the same year, Edward IV died at Westminster unexpectedly. As he had asked to be buried at Windsor, among the Arthurian Liber Regie Capelle, p. 59. Leland, Collectanea, iv, p. 202. 168 Antiquarian Repertory, iv, p. 660. 169 Liber Regalis, seu, Ordo consecrandi regem solum. Ordo consecrandi reginam cum rege. Ordo consecrandi reginam solam. Rubrica de regis exequiis. E codice Westmonasteriensi editus, ed. W.H. Bliss (London: Roxburghe Club, 1870). 170 R. Horrox, ‘Richard, duke of York and duke of Norfolk (1473–1483)’, ODNB. 166 167

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associations of St George’s, his body lay in state in Westminster for several days as his funeral procession was prepared.171 During that time, he lay in front of the high altar of St Stephen’s, awaiting the journey between his namesake’s two foundations. Queenship was also played out there, particularly in the ceremonies surrounding childbirth, and then the celebrations for a healthy child. The instructions for the churching of the queen after childbirth involved a procession in which anthems, but not a route, were specified to allow use of these instructions at any royal palace chapel, which at Westminster would probably be St Stephen’s.172 One of the slightly better documented instances of the services surrounding childbirth, from the withdrawal from court life before the birth to the churching of the queen and the child’s christening, comes from ordinances drawn up by Margaret Beaufort. They probably relate to the birth and christening of Margaret, later queen of Scotland, at Westminster in 1489, rather than to Prince Arthur’s birth two years earlier at Winchester. While the orders, based on the proscriptions of the Liber Regie Capelle, refer to Westminster, it is not clear whether they relate to St Stephen’s or to St Margaret’s, Westminster, and both have been claimed.173 Yet, the reference to the Parliament Chamber, probably the Queen’s Chamber in the palace, as the location for the feast after the christening suggests that St Stephen’s was intended.174 The chapel was to be carpeted and hung with arras, including the porch, which might be difficult but not impossible. Earlier queens may have experienced similar occasions at St Stephen’s, but in the late fifteenth century the details emerge in this type of ordinance, and these ceremonies brought the life of the royal household into the heart of the religious life of St Stephen’s.

The Old and the New Palaces of Westminster The most important change within the chapel’s environment came after 1529, when Henry VIII moved his Westminster residence to his new Palace of Whitehall and ended almost five hundred years of royal residence at the old Palace of Westminster. It was not, however, a sudden break after the 1512–1513 fire referenced by John Stow in his Survey of London.175 The gradual shift away from royal habitual residence at Westminster, which had implications for the visibility of the king to his subjects, had begun under Henry VII, who made Richmond a more Letters and Papers Illustrative of the Reigns of Richard III and Henry VII, ed. J. Gairdner, 2 vols (London: Longman, 1861–3), i, p. 4, drawing on a Herald’s account, College of Arms, MS I.7 f. 7. 172 Liber Regie Capelle, pp. 72–3. 173 Leland, Collectanea, iv, pp. 179–84. 174 Ibid., pp. 182–3. 175 Stow, ‘Citie of Westminster’, p. 117. 171

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frequent residence than Westminster after 1501, when he completed the palace there.176 Henry VIII followed his father’s lead and used Westminster as a place for particularly visible royal ceremonial, but did not himself ever spend extended time there. In the late 1510s and early 1520s he was as infrequently present as he had been in the earliest years of his reign, but he was clearly aware of the continuing importance of the palace as the home of administration and the law courts as well as of Parliament when it was in session. After 1529 he abandoned many of the new palaces of the early sixteenth century as having unsatisfactory lodging ranges, but could not fully ignore Westminster, even as he started work on his new Palace of Whitehall.177 Whitehall was annexed to the old palace in 1536, when both the old and the new palaces of Westminster were declared to be one site for the purposes of management, particularly repairs and general maintenance.178 After this point, references to the Palace of Westminster are usually to Whitehall rather than the older palace. In this context of changing royal preferences as to residence and the building of an entirely new palace in the area after 1529, it is something of a surprise to realise that St Stephen’s College acquired a new cloister, which was completed in the period 1515 to 1527. This cloister, which looks like a royal building project, testifies to the continuing importance of the institution and of the wider palace to royal display of piety and patronage in a period when Henry VIII has been thought to have been focused elsewhere. The effects of the 1512–1513 fire on the site of the palace are not particularly clear because large areas of the palace continued in use. John Stow was the first, but certainly not the last, to discuss the fire of 1512–1513 as destroying the king’s lodgings and causing Henry VIII to leave the Palace of Westminster for other London-area houses and his new building project of St James’s Palace to the north of Westminster.179 The fire must have had some effect on the usability of the palace as a residence, but the known areas of the medieval palace all survived. Certainly, in the 1530s workmen were being paid to build ‘engines’ to take down the walls of some areas of the old palace so that the materials could be reused at Whitehall.180 While the accounts do not specify which areas of the palace were being taken down, it is likely to have been the buildings towards the south of the site, which had been the privy lodgings. By this point, Henry VIII seems to have had no intention of ever using the old medieval palace as a personal residence L.L. Ford, ‘Conciliar Politics and Administration in the Reign of Henry VII’, PhD thesis (University of St Andrews, 2001), pp. 205–83. 177 Thurley, Tudor Royal Palaces, p. 53 178 28 Henry VIII, c. 12. 179 N. Samman, ‘The Progresses of Henry VIII’, in The Reign of Henry VIII: Politics, Policy and Piety, ed. D. MacCulloch (New York: Longman, 1995), pp. 59–74 at p. 70. 180 HKW, iv, pp. 287–8. 176

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again.181 All the later accounts for events there, particularly for banquets and other ceremonial occasions, feature only the area directly surrounding Westminster Hall. Kitchens and other service areas were reconstructed for each event rather than forming a permanent part of the palace.182 Even before the fire, the primary consistent usage of the palace had been in administration, the law courts and offices of state. Those functions remained at Westminster after the fire and were added to under Henry VIII in the 1530s, with the new courts of First Fruits and Tenths and Augmentations.183 These courts jostled for space with the existing courts clustered around the traditional areas of administration, the Great Hall, the Exchequer and New Palace Yard, where there is no indication of fire damage. The medieval buildings of the Painted Chamber and the White or Lesser Hall to the south of the palace also survived the fire as they too continued in use and were brought into wholly administrative and political use. The fire must then have been very localised in the under-documented southern areas of the privy palace. In addition, the usability of the palace can be seen in the continued presence of Parliament. The 1514–1515 Parliament was begun at Blackfriars, but after four days moved to Westminster.184 Despite the dissolution of Westminster Abbey in 1540, the Commons continued to meet in the Refectory until it was pulled down, and then seem to have been given alternative spaces within the new collegiate church.185 The palace continued to be of vital importance as the heart of royal government, and the palace that individual subjects were most likely to see when they sought governance. Henry VIII had spent very little sustained time in Westminster in the early years of his reign and was to continue to be present for important moments after 1513 until his works at Whitehall after 1529 provided him with a separate but nearby house with easy access to the offices of state if required. Starkey has argued that the fire gave Wolsey the space to take over managing the government.186 Note that the Eltham Ordinances of 1526 do not include Westminster as a standing house, Collection of Ordinances and Regulations for the Government of the Royal Household Made in Divers Reigns from King Edward III to King William and Queen Mary (London: John Nichols, 1790), p. 160. 182 Nottingham, University of Nottingham Special Collections, Ne O 1, July and August f. 2r, August and September f. 5r, September and October ff. 2r and 4r. 183 W.C. Richardson, History of the Court of Augmentations 1536–1554 (Baton Rouge: University of Louisiana Press, 1961), pp. 46–7. 184 L & P 1513–14, no. 2590. 185 A. Hawkyard, ‘From Painted Chamber to St Stephen’s Chapel: The Meeting Places of the House of Commons at Westminster until 1603’, in Parliamentary History 21 (2003): 62–84 at 76–7. 186 Starkey, ‘Court, Council and Nobility in Tudor England’, in Princes, Patronage and the Nobility, pp. 175–204 at pp. 180–1. 181

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The fire, however, could not radically change the importance of the old palace as largely a venue for coronations, government and council, and thus of routine and usually delegated kingship. Henry VII had relocated to Richmond, his favourite palace, after 1501 and had rarely come to Westminster unless for particularly important events or for council meetings.187 Similarly, Henry VIII preferred to spend most of his time elsewhere. While there is as yet no full itinerary for his reign, his book of payments gives some clues for the 1510s. In the first six years of Henry VIII’s reign, he twice stayed at Westminster for a month, first from January to February 1510 and then from February to March 1512.188 Otherwise there were a few Mass offerings and payments that suggest the king had resided at most for a couple of days at the palace, in July 1509, May 1510, February 1511, June 1514 and February 1515.189 Despite the lack of frequent royal presence, Westminster was the venue for particularly spectacular events. In May 1510, Henry and Katherine of Aragon were present at Westminster with an expensive masque and revel.190 The following February saw further jousting to mark the birth of their short-lived son Prince Henry with correspondingly high expenditure.191 On 30 March 1512, the king knighted Sir Henry Guilford and Sir Charles Brandon at Westminster, in a repeat of their earlier dubbing the previous year by the king of Aragon at Calais.192 The palace was deliberately chosen for these big set-piece events where the king and queen wanted to be particularly visible and impressive. In June 1513 after the fire, John Taylor when writing about Henry VIII’s entrance to Lille could still reference Westminster, saying that the king entered the city ‘with as much pomp as ever he did at Westminster, with his crown on’.193 In December 1515, William Warham, archbishop of Canterbury, returned the great seal to Henry VIII in a small room at Westminster, near the Lesser Hall.194 These events suggest that Henry VIII wanted routine distance from the public visibility at Westminster but also was willing to be on display there at particularly significant moments. Ford, ‘Conciliar Politics and Administration in the Reign of Henry VII’, pp. 205–83. Kisby groups Westminster and Whitehall in her summary tables of where Henry VII and Henry VIII spent time, Kisby, ‘Kingship and the Royal Itinerary’, The Court Historian 4 (1999): 29–39 at 34, 38; L & P 1517–18, no. (1.10) at p. 1444 and no. (3.9) at p. 1454. 189 L & P 1517–18, no. (1.3) at p. 1442, no. (2) at p. 1446, no. (2.8–2.9) at p. 1449, no. (6.1) at p. 1464, no. (6.9) at p. 1466. 190 Hall’s Chronicle, Containing the History of England During the Reign of Henry IV and the Succeeding Monarchs to the End of the Reign of Henry VIII, ed. H. Ellis (London: J. Johnson et al., 1809), pp. 513–14. 191 L & P 1517–18, no. (2.8–2.9) at p. 1449. 192 L & P 1513–14, no. 26. 193 L & P 1513–14, no. 2391. 194 L & P 1515–16, no. 1335; note that the Parliament of 1515 was then meeting at Westminster. 187 188

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Amidst this changing environment, at some point in the early sixteenth century St Stephen’s College acquired a new two-storey cloister on the site of its earlier single-storey Ricardian cloister. There are no surviving building accounts for the cloisters and so the evidence for their patronage and construction sequence comes from John Stow and the physical fabric of the surviving cloister.195 The cloister as it survives today within the modern palace is clearly a sixteenth-century building with its fan vaulting, comparable to the nave of King’s College Chapel in Cambridge, St George’s in Windsor, and to the Henry VII and Islip Chapels within Westminster Abbey. All four of those other works are known to be the work of William Vertue and Henry Redman and to have been under way in the 1510s and early 1520s.196 On stylistic grounds, therefore, St Stephen’s cloister has been identified as the work of the same masons and their craftsmen. On a series of misidentifications and elliptic statements, the cloister has been identified as the work of 1526–1529, but I would suggest that it is earlier in date.197 The first serious problem comes from the mistaken confluence of two separate statements. First, that John Chambre was only dean from 1526, when in fact the letter patent appointing him dean in 1514 survives.198 This is a failure by Emden and those who followed him, thanks to a persistent myth that the ‘dean of the king’s chapel’ meant the dean of St Stephen’s rather than that of the Chapel Royal and thus that from 1514 to 1526 the dean at St Stephen’s was Richard Sampson.199 While there had been considerable overlap in the two roles, this was not the case from 1514 onwards as Chambre was not associated with the Chapel Royal. Because of Stow’s statement that John Chambre built the cloister at St Stephen’s ‘to the charges of 11,000 marks’, 1526 has then been held as the starting point for works.200 On entirely other grounds, the completion date has been set as no later than 1529, in that the heraldry of the roof bosses includes the arms of Castile and the pomegranate of Katherine of Aragon. After 1529, the assumption is that Katherine’s arms would be so out of favour that they would not have been included.201 Stow, ‘Citie of Westminster’, p. 121. J. Goodall, ‘The Jesus Chapel or Islip’s Chantry at Westminster Abbey’, Journal of the British Archaeological Association 164 (2011): 260–76 at 272; all the other examples given were also the work of William Vertue and/or Henry Redman, for their careers see J. Harvey, English Medieval Architects: A Biographical Dictionary Down to 1550, rev. ed. (Stroud: Alan Sutton, 1987), pp. 307–9, 246–8. 197 Royal Commission on Historical Monuments: An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in London (London: HMSO, 1925), p. 123. 198 John Chambre was appointed to the deanery on 22 November 1514, L & P 1513–14, no. 3499 (54). 199 RCHM London, p. 123. 200 Stow, ‘Citie of Westminster’, p. 121. 201 RCHM London, p. 123. 195 196

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2. The west walk of the cloisters looking south, showing the surviving vaulting. Cloisters – West Walk Vaulting © James Hillson, 2014.

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3. The arms of Castile as used by Katherine of Aragon, in the north walk of the cloister. Cloisters – Katherine of Aragon’s arms © UK Parliament/ A. Watrobski, 2019.

Copyright © 2020. Boydell & Brewer, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Biggs, Elizabeth. St Stephen's College, Westminster : A Royal Chapel and English Kingship, 1348-1548, Boydell & Brewer, Incorporated, 2020. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nyulibrary-ebooks/detail.action?docID=6229011. Created from nyulibrary-ebooks on 2021-02-03 07:13:50.

Biggs, Elizabeth. St Stephen's College, Westminster : A Royal Chapel and English Kingship, 1348-1548, Boydell & Brewer, Incorporated, 2020. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nyulibrary-ebooks/detail.action?docID=6229011. Created from nyulibrary-ebooks on 2021-02-03 07:13:50.

4. The arms of Thomas Wolsey as cardinal-archbishop of York after 1515, in the east walk of the cloister. Cloisters – Wolsey’s arms © James Hillson, 2014

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5. The arms of the college’s founder, Edward III, in the south walk of the cloister. Cloisters – Edward III’s arms © James Hillson, 2014.

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6. The badge of the fourteenth-century Lord Hungerford surrounded by the Garter, in the west walk of the cloister. Cloisters – Hungerford badge © James Hillson, 2014.

Stow needs to be taken seriously as a near-contemporary with access to good information, but in this case seeing the cloister as solely the very generous gift of one dean neither fits with St Stephen’s larger place within the palace, nor with the uses made of it by Henry VIII later. The college could not tear down and rebuild its Ricardian cloister without negotiation with the king and those responsible for the wider palace. The old cloister was structurally integrated into Westminster Hall and its site was at the heart of the palace. In addition, the college needed royal approval in 1521 to rebuild the Wool Staple houses it owned in the palace precinct, and again in 1547 to create new almsrooms.202 Such approval does not survive for the cloisters, suggesting that it was in part a royal project, where no approval through enrolled letters patent was needed. At a bare minimum, the cloister was a collaborative project between the king and the dean. Visually, the surviving roof bosses from the lower cloister have three main themes: royal heraldry, the college’s patron saints and history, and the Order of the Garter. The strong royal presence in the bosses of both Henry himself, and of Katherine of Licences were granted in 1521 for the wool staple houses, L & P 1519–21, no. 1163; the almshouses were licenced in SP 46/128 f. 208.

202

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Aragon, in part highlights St Stephen’s as a royally favoured college, while also pointing to potential patronage of the project. The one non-royal personal boss, which we would expect to deal with the patron of the project, is of Thomas Wolsey as cardinal-archbishop of York. In addition to his own lavish building, Wolsey oversaw the early Henrician building programme elsewhere, including the completion of King’s College, Cambridge and St George’s, Windsor, working with the same masons, William Vertue and Henry Redman, as are thought to have worked on St Stephen’s.203 Wolsey’s own project of Cardinal College, later Christ Church Oxford, was built by the same group of masons, and similarly was intended to have a free-standing cloister, although not double-storey as at Westminster.204 Wolsey was dean of St Stephen’s from 1512 to 1514, and attempted to remain dean in 1514 when bishop of Lincoln, but had to give it up when made archbishop of York later that year.205 The cloister boss means that the possible earliest date for the completion of that walk is 1515, when Wolsey was made cardinal. Given the presence of Thomas Larke as a canon from 1511, who worked with Wolsey at Cambridge and Windsor as well as the royal palace at Bridewell, it seems like a project of the 1510s, perhaps begun by the college with royal support and enthusiasm before Wolsey’s elevation as bishop, and finished under the supervision of his successor, Chambre.206 The iconographic programme highlights the interplay between the college and its long royal history. First, there were bosses relating to the religious dedications of the college, with bosses displaying Christ, the IHS monogram, St Stephen, and the Virgin, as well as, interestingly, given the secondary dedication mentioned in 1396 to Edward the Confessor, elements of the Confessor’s arms. These clustered in the western corridor of the cloister, centred on the entrance to the lower of two chantry chapels, one of which was possibly used by the chantry established in the 1440s by William Lyndwood.207 Second, there are potential reminders of the historic links with St George’s and the Order of the Garter, as several bosses include coats of arms inside the Garter, including one of three sickles, related to Thurley, ‘The Domestic Building Works of Cardinal Wolsey’, in Cardinal Wolsey, pp. 76–102 at p. 80. 204 Newman, ‘Cardinal Wolsey’s Collegiate Foundations’, in Cardinal Wolsey, pp. 103–15 at p. 111. 205 L & P 1513–14, no. 2629 (8) and no. 3499 (40). 206 Larke’s work is discussed in HKW, iii, p. 189; for Bridewell see ibid., p. 15; L &P 1509–13, no. 960 (50); in 1528 one of Wolsey’s servants asked another to request that Chambre send ‘his mason named [John] Molton to Oxford with speed’, Nicholas Townley to Thomas Alford, 29 July 1528, L &P Addenda Vol 1 Part 1, no. 599. 207 There is a reference to Lyndwood’s chapel in 1548, ‘Inventory of St Stephen’s Chapel, Westminster’, ed. J.R.D. Tyssen and M.E.C. Walcott, Transactions of the London and Middlesex Archaeological Society IV (1871): 365–76 at 373. 203

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the Hungerford family, and one, probably referring to Edward III as founder, with the ancient arms of England inside the Garter.208 Beyond this one example, there are many other examples of royal heraldry, from examples of the arms of England – ancient, to the version used by Henry VII and then Henry VIII until the middle of his reign. The switch from the older version with a field of fleur de lys to the modern version, with only three, happened early in the fifteenth century, so the older versions might well be harking back to the iconography and heraldry of the Ricardian cloister it was replacing.209 The multiple variants on the royal arms may be a reference to the many English kings who had supported and endowed the college since the fourteenth century. The omnipresent Tudor rose, however, was a firm reminder of the current generation and the royal context of the cloister. Also included in this royal heraldry were the arms of Castile, in allusion to Katherine of Aragon, as her pomegranate was included in a supporting boss in addition to roses and pomegranates on the field of the boss itself. The use of Katherine of Aragon’s heraldry suggests that the heraldry was completed before 1527, and the start of the divorce case.210 The roof bosses of St Stephen’s would be harder to replace than the living queen, however, and Katherine of Aragon’s symbols remained. The cloister thus reflected the college’s own place within the visual expression of kingship and within a set of projects carried out for the king at significant ecclesiastical buildings. The cloisters were not just for the use of the institution. Henry VIII made use of the cloisters in 1533 when he had a gallery cut through from the upper cloister into the southern end of Westminster Hall overlooking the dais, so that he could watch the coronation feast of Anne Boleyn.211 He could not be formally present at the feast because it was not his coronation, but the gallery allowed him to see it and to be seen giving his second wife his support. As part of the preparations for that feast, the last coronation of an English queen consort until the seventeenth century, the

The badge in the Garter surround was identified in an 1836 heraldic list as belonging to Walter, lord Hungerford (d.1541) based on the cloister itself and this has then been repeated since, Collectanea Topographica et Genealogica (Westminster: John Nichol, 1836), p. 71; unfortunately, the Tudor Lord Hungerford was never a Garter knight and so it must refer to the Lord Hungerford of Hungerford active in the 1420s. It then raises questions about why his badge is present when he was long dead in the 1510s and the earlier cloister had been largely completed before his gift of houses to the college in 1428, Cotton Faustina B VIII ff. 11–12r. 209 Boutell’s Heraldry, rev. J.P. Brooke-Little (London: Warne, 1983), p. 208. 210 G. de C. Parmiter, The King’s Great Matter: A Study of Anglo-Papal Relations 1527–1534 (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1967), p. 11. 211 Hall’s Chronicle, pp. 804–5; payments for the work are in Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Rawlinson D 775, f. 175r. 208

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clerk of the works paid for the cloisters to be decorated.212 In the accounts for the preparatory work towards the planned coronation of Jane Seymour three years later, St Stephen’s cloister does not appear.213 If the king intended to use it again at this coronation feast, payment for any work would likely have been among the last stages of preparation as many of the payments are for the early stages of setting up scaffolding and getting the kitchens in usable order after a lapse in use. Jane Seymour’s death cancelled plans for her already-delayed coronation, and Needham was paid to restore the law courts in Westminster Hall.214 Although the cloisters had been built for St Stephen’s College and their primary use would have been by the canons and vicars both in liturgical processions and in moving from their own houses to the main chapel and the two chantry chapels in the west walk of the cloisters for services, it is possible that the cloisters also served as a route through the palace for those working within the palace as well as the royal family. Cutting through the cloisters would have allowed those moving from the Lesser Hall and the Painted Chamber to avoid the crowds in Westminster Hall if they needed to reach the Exchequer buildings, the Council, Duchy of Lancaster, and Star Chambers and the Water Gate. If so, they would have been following in the footsteps of the future Henry VIII who in 1494 had moved secretly from the privy palace through St Stephen’s and the cloisters when he was made a knight of the Bath.215 The cloisters sat at the heart of the bustle of the business of government and displayed ongoing royal commitment to the college to those who passed through them and to the institution itself. The creation of Whitehall allowed Henry VIII the freedom to create a palace that fully suited his interests and needs, while also reshaping the college’s working environment. It allowed him to withdraw himself and the court conveniently from the old Palace of Westminster while also allowing easy access to the medieval palace when he needed it or was required to offer his personal authority to the business of governance, which continued to dominate the areas around Westminster Hall. Unlike any other palace, when the king tired of Westminster and found it old and inconvenient he could not simply stop visiting and let the palace decay. Instead, at Westminster Henry VIII had to find a way to accommodate his personal requirements for private space, controlled access to the king’s person through a series of rooms and guarded doors, and space enough for his household. Rather than remodelling the old palace, he created a new palace at Whitehall that better suited his needs. The cloisters at St Stephen’s, Rawlinson D 775, ff. 190r and 192v. Ne O 1. 214 Ne O 1, September and October 1536 f. 2r. 215 BL Cotton MS Julius B XII, f. 90v. 212 213

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the continuing use of the old palace for ceremonial and administration and the ongoing presence of the law courts and writing offices continued to give the college a role in the presentation of kingship, even as the personal presence of the king was removed from the routine business of the palace and of administration more generally. The loss of the routine working relationship with the Chapel Royal when the king stopped staying at the old palace was compensated for when in 1537 all the then-canons of St Stephen’s and their successors were granted the title of ‘king’s chaplain’, usually used for the priests of the Chapel Royal.216 These titles acknowledged the change in their working lives away from close personal association with Henry VIII, but also continued the long association between the college and the king, which could also be seen in the iconography of the cloister built for them in the previous twenty years. The college was already, and would continue to be, involved with royal piety and the Church even as these came to be radically reshaped in the English Reformation.

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A Visible Court There were two trends at work during the sixty years between 1471 and the arrival of Whitehall as the king’s official residence in Westminster. First, Westminster in the second reign of Edward IV and under his successors was a place where kingship was always on display, whether or not the king himself was personally present. Indeed, as kings sought more control of their surroundings and increasingly divided their time between palaces that had more private lodgings, the importance of the proxy that St Stephen’s offered to the life of the court increased. Those visitors who made it to Mass or to another service at St Stephen’s in this period were seeing a very similar liturgy with similar splendour to those that were performed by the Chapel Royal for the court, wherever the king was choosing to spend his time. These visitors were seeing and hearing the same types of royally sponsored piety and probably the same compositions, in a context surrounded by the routine presence of royal governance and justice. The college’s new cloister at the end of the period reaffirmed the college’s long association with the royal family and with the current generation. The second trend was that the kings of England were increasingly aware of the potential of spectacle and procession, when they so chose, as a means of projecting and creating their personal authority. The justification of the royal household’s, and by extension, the court’s existence had become that it was the place where the king received counsel and where the common weal could be expressed. When they did come to Westminster, the kings used it as an opportunity to show off, and to make the life of the court L & P 1537 Part 2, no. 1150 (35).

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particularly lavish and impressive. The norms of governance meant that the king could not avoid Westminster, but he could choose how he wanted to engage with the palace, and how he might use its visibility to make his own statements, such as when Henry VII celebrated the Spanish marriage alliance there in 1501. Henry VIII’s move to Whitehall marked a decisive answer to the question of how to combine the need for routine and accessible administration with the desire for a palace that would allow audiences to view the king’s personal authority on his own terms and with a suitable stage. Like any stage, the distance between king and subject was key to this conception of the audiences of kingship, developed over the previous generations.

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Chapter 5

Responding to the Reformation, 1527–1548

‘My lorde if in ye courte you do keep such holly dayes & fastynge dayes as be abrogated, when shal we p[er]suade ye people to ceasse fro[m] kepynge they[m]? For the kynges own house shal be an example unto al ye realme to break his own ordinance.’1

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T

his letter from the archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, to Thomas Cromwell in August 1537 expressed his exasperation with the Chapel Royal and its lack of conformity to the religious changes and abolition of saints’ days of the Henrician Reformation. Here he pointed to the possibilities of the Chapel Royal, and the royal chapels more generally in showing correct practice at a time when royal ordinances were in theory radically reshaping the country’s experience of worship. By this point the Chapel Royal was firmly established elsewhere, at the great standing houses and when at Westminster at Whitehall rather than the old palace. But the same complaint could have been levelled at St Stephen’s College, still visibly one of the king’s chapels, and one that the needs of the Reformation had reinvigorated. The college’s responses to the liturgical demands of the Reformation were equivocal and often surprisingly reluctant given its status within what continued to be the royal palace devoted to administration. Ten years before the letter, when the divorce case that would become the impetus for Henry VIII’s break from Rome began, St Stephen’s had not been at the forefront of the English Church’s theology; Stephen Gardiner canvassed the universities rather than the secular colleges. But as the king came to need to reward the priests who were creating the structures of his new Church, St Stephen’s became a throughroad to the episcopacy for such as wished promotion. In this final phase in the existence of St Stephen’s College, routine personal kingship began to be disassociated from the institution because the king was no longer habitually resident at the palace, however much time he spent at Whitehall. It was that disassociation that allowed the college to become redundant and to be dissolved in 1548. By contrast, the connection with the Order of the Garter at St George’s, Windsor, and L & P 1537 Part 2, no. 592; BL Cotton MS Cleopatra E V f. 300r, Thomas Cranmer to Thomas Cromwell, 28 August 1537.

1

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Westminster Abbey’s role in the coronation, allowed both of those institutions to be adapted to meet the new demands of Edward VI’s Reformation. The relationship between Henry VIII as king, the Reformation in England, and the institutional Church is a tangle of competing theologies, diplomacy and practice.2 Certainly the Reformation only came about because Henry sought a divorce from Katherine of Aragon. Equally certainly, the Reformation depended on those who were much more in favour of reform than Henry himself ever was, the evangelicals identified by Alec Ryrie, to drive the doctrinal and liturgical changes that would result in a distinctive Church of England by the end of the sixteenth century.3 St Stephen’s, Westminster forms a significant vantage point for the confused and often contradictory course of the English Reformation in its first two decades before the college was itself dissolved under the second Chantries Act in 1548. It was not a parish church in the localities; it was a privileged royal chapel at the heart of Henrician administration and close to the royal household.4 As such, it was a particularly visible location in which the king’s new religious policies could be displayed to visitors. As discussed in the previous chapter, the chapel’s palatial context was significantly different after 1529 and the creation of Whitehall, but the old Palace of Westminster remained an important governmental location, and a site of royal image-creation. The college was given a re-established purpose by the king’s renewed interest in theology and canon law from around 1527 onwards. The divorce from Katherine of Aragon, and then the establishment of the new Church of England, required priests with relevant expertise, who were then rewarded with prebends at St Stephen’s for their work for the king on religious policy. Their diversity of opinions and contributions to the process of creating the new theology of the Church of England highlight the messy process of argument and compromise that created the doctrinal statements and theological change of the early English Reformation as the king, his theologians and his bishops worked E.H. Shagan, Popular Politics and the English Reformation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003); on the vibrancy of the late medieval church, Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, c.1400–c.1580 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992); Duffy was responding to a narrative of the English Church in 1530 as ready to collapse, such as G. Elton, Reform and Reformation: England 1509– 1558 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1977), p. 9; on the material changes and decisions of parishes, R. Whiting, The Reformation of the English Parish Church (Cambridge: Cambridge, University Press, 2010); there have also been local studies such as S. Brigden, London and the Reformation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989). 3 A. Ryrie, The Gospel and Henry VIII: Evangelicals in the Early English Reformation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003). 4 The college’s staff were given the privilege of maintaining their pluralism and all granted the title of ‘king’s chaplains’, thus associating them directly with the king, L & P 1537 Part 2, no. 1150 (35). 2

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through their opinions. In addition to St Stephen’s role as a home for religious debate, the college remained associated with the king’s image of piety throughout this period as a place where a long tradition of royal religion was on display to visitors. The canons were able to display their own theological stances by their choices to found new alms rooms to replace some of the charity lost at the dissolution of Westminster Abbey, and to retain the cult image of St Mary le Pew even after all such cults were supposed to have been suppressed. As such, St Stephen’s stood at the intersection between the creation and enforcement of the Henrican Reformation before it was suppressed under the Edwardian Reformation.

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Personnel of Reform St Stephen’s had two major benefits for Henry VIII and for his theologians. First, most pragmatically, St Stephen’s offered wages and housing near the court, wherever it happened to be, whether the London-area palaces, particularly Whitehall, or along the river at Greenwich, Richmond and later Hampton Court. Canons could attend services at St Stephen’s and still easily be with the court when required.5 Second, Henry VIII may also have found the college’s jurisdictional independence helpful; the dean could act without the approbation of the bishop of London, Cuthbert Tunstall and his successor John Stokesley, until 1539.6 From 1540 through to 1550 the archdeaconry of Westminster, which included St Stephen’s, was made into a bishopric in its own right, that of Westminster with Thomas Thirlby as bishop.7 On account of the college’s jurisdictional independence, in 1533 Thomas Cranmer could be consecrated as archbishop of Canterbury at St Stephen’s in a show of royal support before he abjured his oath to the pope.8 Nicholas Shaxton and possibly Hugh Latimer were also consecrated at St Stephen’s in April 1535.9 While we have ambiguous evidence of how services at St Stephen’s changed during the Reformation, we do know that St Stephen’s, along with the Chapel Royal, with which it was closely associated, could have served

Thomas Cranmer also benefited from the convenience of Canon Row housing in 1533, before he took possession of Lambeth Palace, see D. MacCulloch, Thomas Cranmer: A Life (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996), p. 84. 6 The privilege of St Stephen’s as exempt from London was confirmed by Edward IV, and recopied in the sixteenth century in BL Lansdowne MS 410, ff. 1–26v. 7 J.F. Merritt, The Social World of Early Modern Westminster: Abbey, Court, and Community 1525–1640 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2005), p. 27. 8 He took his oath to the papacy in St Stephen’s Chapter House and then was consecrated by John Longland in the chapel, Reg. Cranmer, ff. 1–3. 9 J. Strype, Memorials of the Most Reverend Father in God Thomas Cranmer¸ new edn, 3 vols (Oxford: at the University Press, 1840), i, p. 53. 5

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as a testing ground for religious and liturgical innovations.10 As a royal palatine chapel accessible to the general public thronging the law courts or Parliament, St Stephen’s services would have sent strong signals about religious policy, second only to those of the Chapel Royal, and thus repay careful scrutiny. As an institution that survived the first rounds of dissolutions under Henry VIII to be dissolved under Edward VI, it also allows for comparisons between the reforming policies of both monarchs, and the developing changes in the purposes of colleges, charities and the Church more widely. St Stephen’s College had a longer history of interest in reform within the Catholic Church, in ways that look very familiar to scholars of humanist thought.11 The humanism of the canons of St Stephen’s before the Reformation came from their university educations, time spent abroad, and their interest in the Classics, and was not yet anything other than an orthodox intellectual interest. The circles of humanist scholars drew from the universities and from circles around influential, and often royal, patrons.12 In Henry VII’s reign and the early years of Henry VIII, canons included prominent humanists such as John Gunthorpe, Christopher Urswick, Pietro Carmeliano and Andreas Ammonias.13 These men were both royal servants, serving as secretaries and almoners to Henry VII and then Henry VIII, and men of letters, involved with the scholarly efforts of the day. This trend of appointing distinguished scholars and courtiers to St Stephen’s, which kept them close to the court and, as a royal college, gave them a mark of royal favour, seems to have been continued under Henry VIII, although on a smaller scale, with the appointments of Thomas Linacre in 1517, and later that year, John Longland.14 Linacre has often been discussed as a doctor and cleric, but he was appointed to St Stephen’s for his royal educational service, and possibly

Marsh notes that although the Chapel Royal has been seen as setting the ritual trends for the kingdom as a whole, this is now felt to be incorrect, see D.T. Marsh, ‘Sacred Polyphony “not Understandid”: Medieval Exegesis, Ritual Tradition and Henry VIII’s Reformation’, Early Music History 29 (2010): 33–77 at 39–40. 11 L.C.E. Wooding, Rethinking Catholicism in the Reformation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 37–8. 12 J.K. McConica, English Humanists and Reformation Politics under Henry VIII and Edward VI (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963), pp. 6, 53; see also A.J. Slavin, ‘Profitable Studies: Humanists and Government in Early Tudor England’, Viator 1 (1970): 307–25 at 311. 13 Gunthorpe had been appointed by Edward IV, while Urswick arrived in 1485; for Carmeliano and Ammonias see CPR 1485–94, p. 412; L & P 1509–12, no. 1083 (1). 14 Linacre was appointed to replace Ammonias, L & P 1517–18, no. 3624; John Longland, later bishop of Lincoln was appointed in in L & P 1517–18, no. 3809; for his career see M. Bowker, ‘Longland, John (1473–1547)’, ODNB. 10

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for his connection with Wolsey.15 During his ascendancy, Thomas Wolsey was a strong influence on the college, appointing men such as Richard Wolman, Thomas Larke and Hugh Ashton, who had also been part of Margaret Beaufort’s household, showing a continuity of interests from the fifteenth to the sixteenth centuries.16 What is interesting though, in light of historiographical interest in Henry VIII’s Erasmian sympathy for reformed Catholic learning in the 1510s and 1520s, is that it was rarely played out at St Stephen’s, perhaps because his humanist patronage tended to go to members of the laity rather than those who were priests.17 He rarely appointed to the canonries himself, preferring to grant out the right to present to members of the college or of his court.18 Those known to have been appointed directly by the king are men such as John Taylor, an administrator in Chancery rather than a scholar, as a traditional reward for royal service.19 The king’s appointment of Robert Toney, who worked in Chancery but was a friend of Erasmus, bridged the divide.20 The known canons on the eve of the Reformation were administrators, or those appointed by others, often educated in the humanist colleges at Oxford and Cambridge, and who were to prove cautiously sympathetic to Henry VIII’s efforts at reform in the Church. Given the lack of Henrician patronage of humanism at the college in the early part of his reign, it is perhaps not surprising that St Stephen’s and the other royal free colleges were rather removed from the efforts to gather support and evidence for the king’s divorce case in the 1520s. The men sought for their opinions on V. Nutton, ‘Linacre, Thomas (c.1460–1524)’, ODNB. Wolsey’s influence at St Stephen’s can be seen in the letter from Mary, queen of France, complaining to Henry VIII that Wolsey has appointed Richard Sampson to a canonry, L & P 1515–16, no. 172; Lewycky lists seven men who would go on to canonries at St Stephen’s – Hugh Ashton, William Knight, Thomas Linacre, Richard Rawlins, Richard Sampson, Richard Wade and Richard Wolman: see N. Lewycky, ‘Serving God and King: Cardinal Thomas Wolsey’s Patronage Networks and Early Tudor Government, 1514–1529, With Special Reference to the Archdiocese of York’, PhD thesis (University of York, 2008), appendix 5, pp. 313–57; to this number should be added Edward Finch, who was Wolsey’s physician in 1528, BRUO, p. 685. 17 On the lack of direct Henrician patronage, see McConica, English Humanists, p. 58; G.W. Bernard, The King’s Reformation: Henry VIII and the Remaking of the English Church (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005), pp. 236–7. 18 Examples include the grants for Thomas, marquis of Dorset and John Branche, L & P 1515–16, no. 4, for the archbishop of Canterbury and Cuthbert Tunstall, ibid., no 310; and for the archbishop of York, the abbot of Westminster, Sir William Compton and John Chambre, ibid., no. 315. 19 John Taylor, the master of the Rolls, was appointed to St Stephen’s on 16 March 1518, L & P 1517–18, no. 4012; see also P.R.N. Carter, ‘Taylor, John (d.1534)’, ODNB. 20 Toney was appointed canon in 1523 as clerk of the Hanaper of Chancery, L & P 1521–23, no. 2987; he was a papal prothonotary and a friend of Erasmus, L & P 1519–21, no. 968.

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15 16

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the theological case for Henry VIII’s divorce from Katherine of Aragon were the theologians at the universities, not the humanist priests of a slightly older generation at places such as St Stephen’s or St George’s, Windsor.21 As most of the theologian canons at St Stephen’s were of a slightly older generation, such as Andreas Ammonias and Pietro Carmeliano, who had been appointed for their work in the 1490s and 1510s, they were probably felt to be unlikely to support the king. They were not to support openly Katherine of Aragon in the divorce case with the exception of William Benet, if he is the Dr Benet referred to in 1528.22 The slightly younger generation, men such as Thomas Cowley, John Fox and John Taylor, were scholars in the sense that they had been educated in the universities, but their post-graduate education was in civil and canon law, not in the interpretation of theology.23 Henry and his supporters were trying to show that Leviticus rather than Deuteronomy held true for his situation, that he was cursed by lack of heirs on account of his marriage to his brother’s widow. He needed theologians, rather than lawyers, even canon lawyers, for that effort. Instead, then-canons such as Richard Sampson were better used as diplomats, seeking to turn the theologians’ efforts into diplomatic reality, through their contacts with France and the Holy Roman Empire.24 Others, such as William Knight who were also to be canons in the 1530s, were also used in this effort; Knight spent most of the late 1520s in Rome trying to win papal support for the divorce.25 Instead, the events of the 1520s reinvigorated the pool of candidates for canonries at these types of royal foundations, by bringing to royal attention young scholarly priests whose efforts could be rewarded with prebends in the new regime after 1529, and then particularly after 1533. For the rest of Henry’s reign, St Stephen’s was a place in which royal chaplains and theologians were given prebends and the use of grants of collation dropped away, showing that once again, St Stephen’s prebends were an important royal For example, Gardiner’s list of possible supporters does not contain any names of then-current canons of St Stephen’s, L & P 1531–32, no. 6 (18). 22 A Dr Bennet is listed as a canon in 1528 in PROB 11/27/113; William Benet’s will of 1541 lists two canons as executors, PROB 11/25/161; none of the canons other than William Benet are listed in M. Dowling, ‘Humanist Support for Katherine of Aragon’, Bulletin of the Institute for Historical Research 57 (1984): 46–55; for William Benet’s support for Catherine, see D.F. Logan, ‘Benet, William (d.1533)’, ODNB; and for Catherine’s humanist circle before 1527, see McConica, English Humanists, p. 54. 23 BRUO, p. 506; BRUO 1540, p. 212; J. Venn and J.A. Venn, Alumni Cantabrigienses: Part I to 1750, 4 vols (London: Cambridge University Press, 1922), iv, p. 12. 24 A.A. Chibi, ‘Sampson, Richard (d.1554)’, ODNB. 25 William Knight’s career is summarised in R. Clark, ‘Knight, William (1475/6–1547)’, ODNB; vast numbers of his often-frustrated letters to Wolsey and Henry VIII survive in the State Papers. 21

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resource that the king and his ministers wanted to control directly.26 I suspect that the older generation of administrator-canons such as Edward Higgons or Robert Toney had little sympathy with the new, younger men, as theologians and canon lawyers were needed to create and defend the king’s religious policy. On Gardiner’s list of 1531 concerning those who should be asked to offer opinions on the king’s divorce, two men who would later be canons are listed, Thomas Canner and Richard Coren.27 Both men used their work on the divorce to become royal chaplains. The first sign of a shift in royal priorities towards prebends at St Stephen’s came in 1530, when John Stokesley resigned his prebend as he had been given the bishopric of London. He was replaced by one of Henry VIII’s more important theologians, Edward Lee, later archbishop of York.28 Although Lee was later to be seen very much as a conservative, in 1530 he was an active reformer within the boundaries of the Church. Lee was followed in the next four years by John Brereton, again one of the theologians who had worked on the divorce in 1531, and in 1534 by Nicholas Shaxton, at the time a leading evangelical although he was to become very conservative from 1546.29 At some point around that time, possibly in 1532, Thomas Goodrich was made a canon, again an evangelical at the time who later became a bishop.30 For the rest of the 1530s and the 1540s, St Stephen’s had a mix of canons; some who were only briefly at the college on their career progression to the episcopate, such as George Day, or John Skip, and some who were to stay to their deaths.31 Men such as Alan Cook, Thomas Robertson, Richard Coren and John Donne were royal chaplains but like the tutor to Henry’s children, Roger Ascham, seem to have wanted to stay away from the political complexities of a bishopric, while still being involved in the creation and maintenance of theology.32

For example in 1535, Thomas Cromwell was directly involved in the resignation of Edward Finch, who had been Wolsey’s physican in 1528, and his replacement by the Chancery master John Heryng, L & P 1535, nos. 1032 and 1158 (29). 27 L & P 1531–32, no. 6 (18). 28 L & P 1529–30, no. 6506. 29 For Brereton see BRUO 1540, pp. 67–8; and for Shaxton see Susan Wabuda, ‘Shaxton, Nicholas (c.1485–1556)’, ODNB. 30 Goodrich is only known when he left St Stephen’s for the bishopric of Ely and was replaced by Shaxton, L & P 1534, no. 589 (8). 31 Bishops who had held prebends included John Stokesley, Edward Lee, Thomas Goodrich, Nicholas Shaxton, Richard Sampson, John Bell, John Skip, William Knight and Richard Cox. 32 For Ascham’s reluctance to take a position at court, see McConica, English Humanists, pp. 208–9. 26

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Localising the Debates St Stephen’s role in the creation of official theology before 1547 requires looking at the level of theologians beneath the bishops, or at bishops before they became part of the episcopate. The role of Henrician bishops in creating religious policy has been contentious among historians, but equally it has been studied by Baldwin Smith and Chibi and disputed by Bernard.33 More broadly, the divisions between evangelical and conservative have been drawn too strongly for the complexities of their collective thought and the multiple possibilities for disagreement and compromise.34 Ryrie’s evangelicals are the outspoken, influential men and women who are outside the mainstream. Yet, after 1533, all the bishops had accepted royal supremacy, anti-papal sentiment and the need for reform. What that reform should look like was another matter, as was how it played into other practical or political concerns both at the episcopal and at the lower level. The canons at St Stephen’s were rarely evangelical, and thus firmly within the mainstream, but they were committed to some form of reform and experimentation within the Church, so Catholic or conservative does not describe them either. For example, in 1536, three canons were implicated in a plot to favour Princess Mary at a time when Henry VIII had no obvious heir because he had repudiated both his first and second marriages and his third marriage had not yet produced the future Edward VI.35 The canons were supposed to have discussed the matter in their houses in Canon Row. Richard Wolman had been one of Wolsey’s men, involved in the king’s divorce, but not an ardent reformer by any means.36 He and William Knight, Henry’s secretary in the 1520s, were old friends, probably through their shared experiences as diplomats.37 The third canon, John Bell, L.B. Smith, Tudor Prelates and Politics 1536–1563 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1953); Chibi, Henry VIII’s Bishops: Diplomats, Administrators, Scholars and Shepherds (Cambridge: James Clarke, 2003); for Bernard’s views on the bishops, see King’s Reformation, pp. 477–9. 34 The boundary between Catholic and Protestant was more fluid than often thought, see Ryrie, Gospel and Henry VIII, p. 3; evangelicals were a small, but important minority, ibid., pp. 6–7. 35 L & P 1536, no. 1134 (4); this triggered Wriothesley’s request to Cromwell that ‘fat priests’ like Bell, Knight and Wolman should have to pay money towards the levies, SP 1/109 f. 26, calendared as L & P 1536, no. 834. 36 Wolman was Wolsey’s proctor, see F.D. Logan, ‘Doctors’ Commons in the Early Sixteenth Century: A Society of Many Talents’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research 61 (1988): 151–65 at 161; he was the prolocutor for Convocation in 1529, L & P 1529–30, no. 6047; he consistently was identified as king’s chaplain and for a summary of his career, see B. Usher, ‘Wolman, Richard (d.1537)’, ODNB. 37 Knight paid for an obit for Wolman, and served as his executor, PROB 11/27/113. 33

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was also of that group of those who accepted the king’s will but were cautious reformers; he had worked for Wolsey in the 1520s, and had canvassed Oxford concerning the king’s divorce.38 Bell and Wolman had both taken part in the May 1527 divorce court organised by Wolsey, hardly a sign that they would later be partial to Mary’s cause.39 Nothing came of the supposed plot of 1536, and indeed Bell and Knight were both later made bishops. Their religious sympathies are not easy to discern. In addition to work on the divorce, Bell was involved with the Bishop’s Book of 1537 in some capacity, as his name appears on the commission list.40 Wolman also signed the letter from Convocation in 1537 asking for the Bishop’s Book to be accepted by the king, shortly before his death.41 They were very well educated men, whose theological knowledge and opinions were at the service of the king and of Cranmer. Where the theology and the personalities become particularly interesting is in the careers of the men who never were bishops, because they were often the ones doing the behind-the-scenes work and whose opinions and arguments fed into the complexities of theology at the higher level. They were the ones arguing in Convocation, preaching at court, and otherwise doing the intellectual work that would be refined into religious policy. Teams of priests worked on every theological statement of Henry’s reign, and part of the authority of those statements was that they supposedly came from the English Church as a whole and were given validity by royal assent. The king’s chaplains included a range of opinions, united only by the not particularly contentious belief in the Church of England and the royal supremacy. Beyond that, a commitment to creating a better Church was all that the king seems to have required. How that was to be achieved was open to debate. Thus at the dissolution of the college in 1548, Richard Cox, Thomas Robertson, John Donne and Thomas Slater were all among the canons, and provide a sampling of the range of variation within Henrician religious policy, particularly at the end of Henry’s reign.42 Cox was Edward VI’s tutor, chosen for his erudition and his commitment to reform, and was close to the evangelical grouping at court, including Anthony Denny.43 S. Wabuda, ‘Bell, John (d.1556)’, ODNB. G. de C. Parmiter, The King’s Great Matter: A Study of Anglo-Papal Relations 1527–1534 (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1967), pp. 12–13. 40 Both Bell and Wolman answered the questions concerning confirmation that went into the Bishops’ Book, BL Cotton MS Cleopatra E V f. 75; for the commission see Wabuda, ‘John Bell’. 41 L & P 1537 Part 2, no. 402. 42 They are all listed in London and Middlesex Chantry Certificate 1548, ed. C.J. Kitching, London Record Society 16 (London, 1980), p. 80. 43 F. Heal, ‘Cox, Richard (c.1500–1581)’, ODNB. 38 39

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Dean of Westminster under Edward VI, he fled under Mary and returned under Elizabeth to a bishopric. Thomas Robertson was much further to the conservative side as he both worked on the Bishop’s Book and later was a highly trusted dean of Durham under Mary.44 John Donne and Thomas Slater provide a particularly interesting pairing, because twenty years earlier, in 1528, they had been on opposing sides at Corpus Christi College, Oxford. Donne, later sub-dean of the Chapel Royal and recipient of various preferments, was among those at Corpus calling for radical reform whereas Slater was of the Catholic party there and only ever held a prebend at St Stephen’s.45 Yet both men contributed to the creation of religious policy and both were king’s chaplains. Definitional ambiguity was the defining characteristic of the canons and reflected their diversity of opinions and Henry VIII’s apparent personal commitment to debate within the Church – or at the least, as Peter Marshall has recently argued, that his policy was inconsistent and uncertain.46 It is impossible to tie canons’ opinions and their appointments to political factions at court in the 1540s. Instead, canons of St Stephen’s worked on all of the major religious policy statements of the reign, from the early efforts in the late 1520s and early 1530s to define the theological basis of the divorce case, through to the late statements on faith. They also took part in the diplomacy and commissions, which bolstered and supported the theological work of Cranmer and the rest of the episcopate as well as those scholars who were asked for their opinions. For the earlier part of Henry’s reformation, Richard Coren’s career shows the range of work, the ambivalent personal beliefs and the sheer level of theological demands that these king’s chaplains faced. In 1532, he preached a sermon at the king’s command in reaction to the anti-divorce sermon of William Peto at Greenwich.47 Four years later, he denied papal authority in 1536 as the break from Rome became permanent.48 In 1537, he was among the commission sent north with the duke of Norfolk to deal with the Pilgrimage of Grace, and wrote back to Cromwell about the difficulties they encountered.49 Coren answered the questions put to the bishops in 1539, and his responses thus contributed to the King’s Book of 1540.50 Three years later in H.L. Parish, ‘Robertson, Thomas (fl. c.1520–61)’, ODNB. For Donne and Slater see BRUO 1540, pp. 172, 519. 46 P. Marshall, Heretics and Believers: A History of the English Reformation (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017), p. 295. 47 For a discussion of Peto’s sermon see, ibid., p. 193; for Coren’s sermon see Chapuys’ comments as summarised in L & P 1531–32, no. 941. 48 L & P 1536, nos. 120 (10) and 124 (5). 49 L & P 1537 Part 1, no. 615; L & P 1537 Part 2, no. 219, which is Coren’s letter to Cromwell concerning Robert Aske’s execution. 50 L & P 1539 Part 1, no. 1063 (4). 44

45

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1542, he was among those who were working on a new Bible in English as part of Convocation.51 Yet when he died in the summer of 1542, his will looked extraordinarily traditional with its requests to the saints to intercede for him. He wanted to be buried at St Stephen’s with the full funeral Mass and with a temporary chantry.52 While those were not yet banned, they were not the choices of a strongly evangelical reformer. Coren was not alone in his dedicated and varied service to the English Church. John Crayford, a canon from 1541 to 1547, also had a range of roles. He first occurs identified as the king’s confessor in 1527, when he was given a benefice in Calais by Wolsey.53 From 1534 to 1537 he appeared at Cambridge as the Master of Clare Hall and the Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge, where Nicholas Latimer was only slightly sceptical of his reforming credentials, which probably means he was more to the reformed side than Coren or Robertson.54 In 1537 he was probably among the preachers at Paul’s Cross.55 He then left Cambridge to help survey the monasteries and wrote to Wriothesley about Titchfield Abbey and Hyde Abbey.56 After this, his active work other than meeting Anne of Cleves at Dover in 1540 seems to disappear from the records, but he gathered up various prebends, including at Winchester as well as maintaining residence at St Paul’s.57 As a final example of the ways in which St Stephen’s contributed to the Reformation, and the variety of approaches to it that can be found in its canons’ careers, John Rudd had a turbulent and sporadic professional life before coming to St Stephen’s late, by 1546. He first appears in the State Papers as a ‘professor artium’ at King’s College, Cambridge in 1522.58 He next appears for preaching sedition in 1534. At Paul’s Cross he defended those ‘imposters’ who had been condemned, saying that the trial had been a farce and the evidence false.59 For this, he had been imprisoned and wrote to Roland Lee, then bishop-elect of Coventry and Lichfield, asking for his help in being released. As a gift to persuade Lee that he was the sort of person Lee should help, he included a map he had drawn of the Holy Land based on Strabo and the church fathers, and claiming that he had

53 54 55 51 52



56 57



58 59

L & P 1542, no. 176. PROB 11/27/113. L & P 1526–28, no. 3304. L & P 1537 Part 2, no. 258. Cranmer told Thirlby that he had lost Crayford’s bill for preaching at Paul’s Cross, L & P 1534, no. 703. L & P 1539 Part 1, no. 862. For Dover, L & P 1539 Part 2, no. 573 (3); Cromwell notes in 1534 and 1540 that he should ensure Crayford has preferment, L & P 1534, no. 257, and L & P 1540, no 322; in 1544 he is listed as a residentiary at St Paul’s, L & P 1544 Part 2, no. 328 (9). L & P Addenda Vol. I Part I, no. 357. L & P 1534, no. 303.

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some fame in the drawing of maps.60 It was an odd gift to send to Lee, who is not known to have otherwise been interested in that sort of humanist reconciliation of classical and patristic sources.61 After this rocky start to his career, Rudd signed the letter from Convocation in 1540 concerning the annulment of Henry’s marriage to Anne of Cleves, along with most of his future colleagues at St Stephen’s.62 Perhaps his work in that Convocation brought him to favourable royal attention. In 1545 to 1546 he appears as clerk of the king’s closet, the chaplain who oversaw all the practical needs of Henry’s personal chapel.63 There is no real doctrinal clarity in his career, just like in the careers of many of his fellow royal chaplains. At Cambridge Rudd appears possibly evangelical, if the reference to ‘imposters’ is about those imprisoned for heresy in 1534, yet by 1546 he was paying for the repairs of Mass books and the laundering of altar linens. In many ways, doctrinal clarity and clearly defined confessional positions were not what the most influential churchmen in England were looking for; rather they wanted a variety of beliefs within a set of boundaries that were themselves flexible, neither too evangelical nor too Popish at any given moment, according to the situation and the debates within the Church. Perhaps the best definition of what was required is the balancing act described by William Paget writing to Stephen Gardiner in 1547: ‘I will not allow private concerns to hinder the public cause and have always dealt in public affairs according to my conscience.’64

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Adapted Purposes and Life St Stephen’s College needs to be set against the backdrop of the working out of theology in the period, especially the tensions between efforts to reform in line with scripture and the desire to maintain an authoritative structure for the Church of England. In particular, modern scholars have struggled with Henry VIII’s attitude towards colleges during the Reformation.65 In part this comes from Ibid. For Roland Lee’s career and beliefs see M.A. Jones, ‘Lee, Rowland (c.1487–1543)’, ODNB. 62 John Chambre, John Crayford, Richard Rawson, Richard Coren, William Knight, Thomas Robertson, Thomas Thirlby, Richard Wade and Richard Cox were among the signatories, L & P 1540, no. 861. 63 L & P 1545 Part 1, no. 418. 64 Cal. State Papers Edward VI, no. 24. 65 For contrasting views see Rex and Armstrong, who regard Henry as an active benefactor to abbeys and particularly colleges that were fundamentally Catholic, as opposed to Kreider’s scepticism; R. Rex and C.D.C. Armstrong, ‘Henry VIII’s Ecclesiastical and Collegiate Foundations’, Historical Research 75 (2002): 390–407; A. Kreider, English Chantries: The Road to Dissolution (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979), p. 37; J.J. Scarisbrick takes the view that collegiate dissolutions were profit-seeking attacks 60 61

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definitional over-precision, as Henry was associated with three new chantry colleges, Brecon, Burton on Trent and Thornton, in the 1540s and founded the new cathedrals of 1540–1541, which were collegiate in form, but these have not been seen as equivalent.66 He also completed the university college begun by Wolsey, turning Cardinal College at Oxford into Christ Church in the 1530s.67 All three types of foundation were colleges to contemporaries. Colleges were useful in the thinking of many strands of reforming thought. For those interested in maintaining the episcopal structures of the Church, they could run cathedrals, and indeed colleges took over the old monastic cathedrals and staffed the new diocesan ones of 1540.68 They provided a potential means of organising education, so the reformers interested in ideas of sola scriptura and godly learning could support their expansion, particularly in Oxford and Cambridge, and as schools elsewhere.69 Finally, they often added to the pastoral and social care available, which continued to be a concern.70 It was only from the mid to late 1530s that distinctions between cathedrals, chantries and educational colleges began to be drawn, as reformers sought to destroy the doctrine of Purgatory and any suggestion that prayers for the dead were efficacious.71 At the same time, educational colleges at the universities were the places where theology was taught, and since most of those involved in the debate had doctorates from one of the universities they were understandably reluctant to see those colleges disappear. Thus the 1545 Chantries Act was a problematic piece of legislation, which allowed the surrender into the king’s hands of chantries and colleges, but did not require it.72 Only a few of the major colleges succumbed at this point; mostly the 1545 surrenders were of decayed chantries that had lands that could be expropriated without a fuss and without threatening education or social provision.73 on the possessions of the Church, see J.J. Scarisbrick, ‘Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Secular Colleges’, in Law and Government Under the Tudors: Essays Presented to Sir Geoffrey Elton on his Retirement, ed. C. Cross et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp. 51–66 at p. 51. 66 Rex and Armstrong, ‘Henry VIII’s Foundations’: 400. 67 Bernard, King’s Reformation, p. 235. 68 Henry ordered four more cathedral and collegiate churches, Bernard, King’s Reformation, pp. 457–8. 69 Ryrie, Gospel and Henry VIII, p. 159; on Richard Cox’s vigorous protests against dissolving colleges, see McConica, English Humanists, p. 216. 70 Duffy, Stripping the Altars, pp. 454–5. 71 Marshall, Beliefs and the Dead in Reformation England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), pp. 52, 76–7. 72 The Act is 37 Hen. VIII, c.4; for the campaigns to save the universities from it see Ryrie, Gospel and Henry VIII, pp. 164–5. 73 Kreider, Chantries, p. 154.

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The one known institutional response to the Reformation at St Stephen’s comes from this changing but not yet changed context for colleges within the English Church. Before 1547, and probably starting as early as 1542 when a licence to acquire lands in mortmain was granted, John Chambre as dean set about creating a set of almsrooms within the college.74 He, and probably the college as an institution, bought up lands in Middlesex and Surrey to endow and support the almsrooms and their keeper, keeping the lands close to the institution and thus easier to manage than the college’s own much more dispersed estates.75 He may have had two overlapping motives for this new development. First that the dissolution of Westminster Abbey in 1539 had thrown the social provisions for the parish of St Margaret’s into disarray.76 The abbey’s alms provision and its role as the landlord for much of the manor meant confusion as it was reconstituted as a diocesan cathedral, which in turn caused hardship and lack of charitable provision in Westminster. While the new almsrooms with their eight inhabitants in St Stephen’s Alley, to the north of Canon Row, could not match the earlier provision provided by St James’s and the guilds, it was at least an attempt to alleviate the problem, when Westminster Abbey’s provision was reduced.77 The other side of the new almsrooms may have been to try to put St Stephen’s on the right side of the growing definitional gap between colleges as chantries, with doctrinally dubious prayers for the dead, and colleges as providing a home for godly, educated priests and doing good works in their vicinity. However motivated, the almsrooms seem to have survived the college for another two hundred years and gradually faded away. The buildings were in decay by 1651 when a commission noted that since the execution of Charles I there had been no maintenance.78 Until the reign of Anne, there are occasional grants by monarchs by letters patent to their elderly servants of a room at St Stephen’s for long service.79 Historians have ignored how the Reformation affected the religious life of the royal household, in terms of how services were conducted, and what observers saw. There is, however, an older scholarship in musicology that saw the Chapel Royal as the proxy for the liturgical music of the English Reformation and a L & P 1542, no. 71 (35); and SP 46/128 f. 208 from 1547. The lands bought for the almshouses and the names of the almsmen are listed in Chantry Certificate, p. 79. 76 G. Rosser, Medieval Westminster 1200–1540 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), pp. 298–300, 309–10, 310–21. 77 C.S. Knighton, ‘King’s College’, in Westminster Abbey Reformed, 1540–1640, ed. C.S. Knighton and R. Mortimer (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003), pp. 16–37 at p. 21. 78 E 367/2042. 79 The last reference I have found is a 1708 petition concerning their allowances in PC 1/2/79. 74 75

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scholarship on individuals’ religious choices.80 Fiona Kisby has argued for the importance of the Chapel Royal in displaying and disseminating the images of monarchy in this period, and this can be extended into looking at the liturgy itself, rather than the musical personnel alone.81 The Reformation at Westminster in particular deserves careful attention because it allows us to see the interplay of the royal will, the religious beliefs of his servants and the politics of the day. On a daily basis, the services offered by the Chapel Royal and by the two royal colleges would have sent strong signals about what a reformed Church as sanctioned by the king might look like. How the Chapel Royal conducted its services during this period, however, has not yet been studied, so St Stephen’s is in part a proxy here for the larger chapel. Studies of Henry’s personal religious practices naturally focus on his closet, where his preferences were supreme, whereas the Chapel Royal was a much more public venue.82 Despite Bernard’s insistence that Henry VIII’s religious policy was consistent throughout the 1530s and 1540s, it cannot have felt that way to contemporaries, who saw the rise and fall of ministers, and the changing orders for how to conduct services and what godly education should look like. They would have looked to various sources to understand what was required at that time, their diocesan bishops, the orders of visitations, and perhaps reports of the sermons preached at court and the details of royal services if they happened to be able to witness the spectacle. For general audiences who were not the court, St Stephen’s services would be a particularly important venue for displaying policy in action, as the chapel at Westminster that was accessible to those visiting the king’s administration and the law courts, as opposed to the itinerant Chapel Royal, or the royal chapel at Whitehall. St Stephen’s had a potentially quite fraught relationship with the changing directives of the Church of England, given the hints that have survived of their adaptation to the Reformation. This pattern also seems to have been played out at St Stephen’s sister institutions; the little evidence that survives suggests that St George’s and the Chapel Royal were also conservative in their liturgical changes.83 Unlike many parish churches, St Stephen’s existed under intermittent royal Marsh, ‘Sacred Polyphony’: 38; F. Kisby, ‘“When the King Goeth a Procession”: Chapel Ceremonies and Services, the Ritual Year, and Religious Reforms at the Early Tudor Court, 1485–1547’, Journal of British Studies 40 (2001): 44–75 at 45. 81 Ibid. 82 Bernard focuses on his theology rather than on the settings he chose for religious services, see Bernard, King’s Reformation, pp. 228–40; on the importance of Richard Sampson, see Marsh, ‘Sacred Polyphony’: 33–77. 83 For the Chapel Royal, see Kisby, ‘Where the King Goeth’: 66–7; and for St George’s, Windsor, I am grateful to Euan Roger for discussing his ongoing work on this topic with me. 80

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scrutiny. From 1537, its canons and vicars were explicitly identified as ‘king’s chaplains’ and allowed to remain pluralists and resident at the college rather than their rectories or vicarages.84 Its canons were consistently among those canvassed for their opinions on the theological questions of the 1530s and early 1540s, which would suggest that the college should have been a model example of correct Henrician practice. Yet it took until 1545 and a direct order from the king’s council for the cult image of our Lady of Pity to be removed from St Mary le Pew despite the earlier orders to remove images that received veneration from churches.85 Indeed, the Ten Articles of 1536 should have ended most of the cult at Westminster given the presence of the Scala Coeli indulgence, specifically mentioned in the articles as an abuse.86 The delay may have reflected the influence of the dean, John Chambre, who seems to have been firmly Catholic in his tastes, given his 1549 will referencing the saints and the intercession of Heaven.87 For four years after 1536 St Stephen’s maintained a Marian cult in the heart of Westminster, apparently without comment from the diocesan, Thomas Thirlby, or from the king. Thirlby was known as more conservative than some and was a former canon himself, but it is surprising that he would tolerate such disobedience.88 Whether the college disposed of its other relics in 1541 or maintained them until 1545 or later is unknown, because they are absent from the 1547 and 1548 valuations.89 If the missal now in the New York Public Library that has been identified as belonging to the college was indeed used at St Stephen’s, its entry for St Thomas of Canterbury’s Mass also shows ambivalence towards the destruction of the old religion. It is carefully scored through neatly with either a single line or wide cross-hatching, thus obeying the order to remove such Masses with the abolition of Becket’s cult, but allowing it to remain legible and thus usable if ever required.90 While it is uncertain that the missal was used at the college, as it certainly belonged to John Chambre at some point, it is nonetheless suggestive. The lavish setting for the daily offices and Mass at St Stephen’s seems to have been largely unchanged. Much of the college’s furnishings other than relics would have been unscathed by the Henrician reformation, including the impressive and expensive vestment and plate collection given by canons and kings over L & P 1537 Part 2, no. 1150 (35). L & P 1545 Part 2, no. 645; the orders to remove all cult images were part of the Injunctions of 1536. 86 Duffy, Stripping the Altars, p. 393. 87 PROB 11/32/503. 88 C.S. Knighton, ‘Thirlby, Thomas (c.1500–70)’, ODNB. 89 SC 12/6/62 and Chantry Certificate, pp. 79–81. 90 ‘ex dono Chamber, decani Sancti Stephani’, New York Public Library MS MA 63, ff. 7v, 23r–v. 84 85

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the centuries, which were still in use because they had not yet been abolished.91 Interestingly, there was no attempt, either earlier or in 1547, to cover over the images on the walls of St Stephen’s. Iconoclasm in London in 1547 did not reach within the palace.92 The surviving painted fragments in the British Museum show no signs of having been whitewashed.93 Thus the visual surroundings of the mass until 1548 would have been the Catholic royal imagery known by Edward III, with its saints and Old Testament stories. This situation of course was not yet exceptional. Rather than the physical surroundings, Henry VIII’s reformation focused on the service books and the surrounding educational material such as the Primer, the King’s Book, the Bible in English and the use of sermons. The aural experience rather than the visual setting was the main target for reformers before 1547. While it may simply reflect the value of the older books as gilded and precious objects, it is notable that in the listing of books belonging to St Stephen’s in the 1548 inventory of items taken by the Court of Augmentations there is no Bible, either in English or in Latin, and no sign of the theological statements of the 1540s.94 The 1547 injunctions to shorten the service in order to accommodate more Bible readings may well have been followed at St Stephen’s but the books required are not included in the inventory.95 Instead, the antiphonals, missals, graduals and choirbooks were still in use, given that they are listed as being in the choir itself, which may suggest the maintenance of a more Catholic service even here at the heart of the royal palace. The need to educate parishioners in English of course had no effect on St Stephen’s as it lacked a formal parish, so the elements of reform in pastoral care were less important. It is striking, however, that at a very visible and still very public chapel there were almost no signs of the liturgical effects of the past fifteen years. Where the changes of the 1538 and then 1547 injunctions would have cut deep would not have been in the normal Masses, but in the college’s ability to maintain their chantry provisions as they had promised generations of donors. Here again, the evidence is equivocal, and points neither to an aggressively reforming dean and chapter nor to one that was unyieldingly wedded to the old forms of religion. Work on the parish churches has seen a variety of responses to the chipping away at the visible expressions of belief in Purgatory, but, at St Stephen’s and other similar colleges, the round of obits and lights and chantry provision were even E 117/11/49; it is also printed in ‘Inventory of St Stephen’s Chapel, Westminster’, ed. J.R.D. Tyssen and M.E.C. Walcott, The Transactions of the London and Middlesex Archaeological Society (London, 1852), iv, pp. 366–72. 92 Duffy, Stripping the Altars, pp. 453–4. 93 London, British Museum 1814,0312.2, 1883,0310.1. 94 E 117/11/49. 95 On the 1547 changes, see Duffy, Stripping the Altars, p. 450; E 117/11/49. 91

Biggs, Elizabeth. St Stephen's College, Westminster : A Royal Chapel and English Kingship, 1348-1548, Boydell & Brewer, Incorporated, 2020. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nyulibrary-ebooks/detail.action?docID=6229011. Created from nyulibrary-ebooks on 2021-02-03 07:13:50.

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more central to their purpose.96 The lay gifts of altar lights, found in wills right up to 1538, would have added candles to the high altar in memory of the dead to aid them in Purgatory. Those would have had to be moved in 1538, probably to the rood loft, and finally were fully abolished in 1547’s injunctions.97 They certainly are not in the inventory, suggesting that they had been taken away. Removing the lights on the altar would have been one visible sign of changing authorised beliefs. Yet despite the Henrician regime’s scepticism over Purgatory, the inventory of 1548 at St Stephen’s shows that the college continued to celebrate obits and chantry Masses right up until its destruction. Canons were paid for their presence at obits, and the four chantry priests whose jobs had been created by the three major chantries of the fifteenth century were still employed in 1548.98 At the same time the same concern over religious change seen in the parishes can also be seen at St Stephen’s. The last obit listed in the college’s obit book was entered in 1510, for Archbishop Warham, who died in 1533.99 John Chambre’s 1538 request for an obit at St George’s, Windsor, where he was also a canon, is the last known for a canon, although he ultimately outlived obits and chantries.100 Henry VIII’s own obit, paid for by the Court of Augmentations, would only have received his month’s mind and the first yearly service, before it too was gone.101

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A White Elephant? In January 1547 when Henry VIII died at Whitehall and the nine-year-old Edward VI was proclaimed king, it would have been hard for observers to believe that the wealthy, well-connected St Stephen’s College would be gone within approximately one year. It is easy to divide the first phase of the English Reformation into two unequal halves, seeing Henry VIII’s Reformation as conservative and fundamentally Catholic in its approaches to religion, followed by a dramatic shift under Edward VI and his evangelical inner circle towards a more aggressively Protestant religion. Certainly, the most dramatic reforms came in Edward’s reign as Archbishop Cranmer rewrote the daily offices into the three-fold structure of Morning Prayer, Communion and Evening Prayer in the 1549 Book of Common Prayer; altars were abolished; and images fully removed. Yet the evangelical For Marshall, treatment of the dead was the divisive issue of the Reformation, see Marshall, Beliefs and the Dead, p. 47. 97 Discussed in Duffy, Stripping the Altars, p. 407. 98 List of wage obligations in SC 12/6/62. 99 BL Cotton MS Faustina B VIII, ff. 50v–51v and f. 53r. 100 The indenture was made in February 1538, Windsor, St George’s College Archives XV 58 C 28; Chambre died in 1549. 101 SC 12/6/62. 96

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grouping had already been present and influential at court under Henry VIII, as Ryrie has shown.102 Equally, religious reform under Edward VI was not immediate, nor was it always fully evangelical in its aims. As discussed above, Henry VIII’s Reformation mixed politics, the desire for lands and revenues, as well as a concern for theology into a complex mix of religious and political influences that contemporaries, let alone historians, struggled to make sense of. Despite being chantry colleges, predicated on the assumption of Purgatory abolished under Henry VIII, St Stephen’s and St George’s were not immediately white elephants under Edward VI. St George’s, indeed, was to survive nearly unscathed. St Stephen’s continued to play an important function in the Reformation at Westminster throughout 1547 and perhaps into the early months of 1548. When it did fall, before March 1548, it was the victim of two intertwined changes, first in the definition of what a college’s purpose should be, and second, of changing usages of the Palace of Westminster itself such that a chapel at the heart of the palace was no longer necessary. Its dissolution was aided by the rich rewards it offered to those closely connected courtiers and administrators who already had and were developing interests in the manor of Westminster. The conciliar politics of Edward VI’s reign helped to doom St Stephen’s, but also point towards the continuing importance of the area to governance and kingship. From January 1547 through to March 1548 very little evidence for St Stephen’s survives, but what does survive points towards its continuing importance within its diocese. There is nothing to suggest that it was being considered for suppression: no petitions from the dean and college asking for mercy, no petitions such as those organised to save the Oxford and Cambridge colleges, no discussion minuted in the Privy Council act books. Rather, St Stephen’s was still valued as an agent of the Reformation and as the house of some of the king’s chaplains. Its landed privileges were confirmed.103 In September 1547 the royal visitation of all dioceses sent instructions to Bishop Thirlby of Westminster both personally and for his diocese, to ensure that he was complying with the religious policy of the day. The commissioners ordered that all priests of his diocese were to attend the weekly sermon and any divinity lectures at St Stephen’s if they were not otherwise preaching.104 This order reflected an increasing emphasis on scripture and correct belief rather than good deeds or practice in the English Church, but also shows Ryrie, Gospel and Henry VIII, p. 194. The 10 August 1547 patent confirmed the liberties of the college, CPR 1547–48, p. 231. 104 Visitation Articles and Injunctions of the Period of the Reformation: Vol. 2 1536–1558, ed. W.H. Frere and W. McClure Kennedy (London: Longmans, 1910), pp. 131–4; the general injunctions would also have applied to St Stephen’s, including the provisions about the need to have Bibles in the choir and to found a grammar school, although St Stephen’s seems to have done neither, ibid., pp. 135–9. 102 103

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trust that the college would lead by example and deliver good orthodox teaching to their fellow clergy of Westminster. St Stephen’s was an obvious place for a divinity lecture, given that its canons were trained theologians close to the heart of policy making of the previous reign. It may be that the weekly lecture and sermon go back before September 1547 and reflect Henrician concerns to disseminate the theology created by the various processes of Cranmer and Convocation to a wider audience. If so, it shows that despite the ambiguity of the college’s liturgical response to the Reformation, St Stephen’s was an active tool in disseminating policy, because, as discussed above, it was in many ways a quasi-public space. Alternatively, it may be an innovation in response to the visitation of 1547 showing up problems in theological learning in the diocese.105 Thirlby’s conduct does not seem to have pleased Somerset’s commissioners because he was seen as too conservative, and the injunction may be an attempt to speed the pace of reform by disseminating the newest theology to the diocesan clergy without going through their reluctant bishop. Richard Cox, the king’s tutor and a canon, would be an obvious candidate as preacher at that time. Unfortunately, there is no evidence indicating that the canons of St Stephen’s knew in advance of the second Chantries Act of Christmas Eve 1547 that they were to be one of its targets, but they would have known soon after that they were not to be exempted and indeed were to function as a test case for the commissioners of the Act. The second Chantries Act was perhaps the single most important piece of legislation in the English Reformation because of its impact on the entirety of religious practice in England and Wales. It swept away all the elements of pre-Reformation religion that laymen and laywomen had been most attached to, and laid the groundwork for the later Edwardian reforms, by abolishing not only chantries, which laypeople had maintained for their ancestors, but also the smaller remembrances of lights and lamps on altars and the guilds and fraternities, those social organisations that bound together the parish and the church.106 The dissolution of the monasteries had been traumatic and important, but did not strike directly at every single parish church in the country as this Act did. A sense of the Chantries Acts’ unpopularity can be gleaned from the numerous petitions for exemption that survive, the sheer range of lands and goods that were concealed from the commissioners, and the numbers of chantries and guilds that attempted to continue in defiance of the law.107 The first Chantries Act had only allowed surrender, the second compelled surrender of all lands, goods and rents that pertained to any MacCulloch, Tudor Church Militant: Edward VI and the Protestant Reformation (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001), pp. 83–4. 106 Duffy, Stripping the Altars, pp. 454–5. 107 Shagan, Popular Politics, p. 254. 105

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chantry. Gathering all the wealth and making sense of it would take time, so one of the provisions of the second Chantries Act was that the commissioners appointed by the Court of Augmentations were to survey the lands and goods in teams, usually by county, from January to Easter 1548, and then all such goods were to be surrendered at Easter. In the London and Middlesex Chantry certificate of what was surrendered, St Stephen’s is called ‘the late college’, probably because it had been used as a test case on account of the complexity and wealth of its holdings, with an income of c.£1,085 annually and valuable plate, jewels and vestments.108 What then had changed between the approving messages towards St Stephen’s of 1547 and the early surrender of 1548? In part, Edward VI’s government was continuing and developing the political theology begun under Henry VIII in which the old doctrines of salvation by good works no longer applied in a straightforward way. The colleges that survived the second Chantries Act were those that offered more than the power of their prayers to the common weal and to the king. The university colleges at Oxford and Cambridge defended themselves on the basis of their learning, the education they offered their students and the theology that they could offer the king. Elsewhere, the medieval educational colleges such as Eton and Winchester again survived because they could point to their ability to offer godly education in their communities. They were to lose their chantry functions, and their collegiate priests, but their educational missions were enhanced. Similarly, the stated aim of the Act – that the money raised by the suppression of the chantries would go to improve education – led to the foundation of some grammar schools and some chantry priests were retained where they were needed to ensure that their parish had suitable provision for the cure of souls. The cathedrals lost the chantries founded there over the centuries, but retained their canons to support the diocesan bishops. Even those chantry colleges that survived, such as Manchester and St George’s, saw their purposes changed from their founders’ intentions in their statutes. Manchester entered a twilight existence primarily as a school rather than as a chantry, while St George’s survived because it was the home of the Order of the Garter and the associated poor knights.109 Retaining St George’s College to look after the Garter allowed the order to paradoxically maintain its medieval role as a religious fraternity. Edward VI’s changes to the statutes of the order emphasised the importance of the Garter as an elite body devoted

Chantry Certificate, p. 79. ‘Colleges: Manchester’, in The Victoria County History of the County of Lancaster: Volume Two, ed. W. Farrer and J. Brownbill (London: Constable and Company, 1908), p. 167; St George’s received new injunctions to supersede the statutes in 1550 with concern for preaching, Visitation Articles and Injunctions, pp. 254–61, particularly pp. 260–1.

108 109

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to correct religious practices and godly rule. That it was supported by the single chantry organisation still officially in existence was not mentioned. The other side of St Stephen’s dissolution was local to the circumstances of Westminster in the mid-sixteenth century. St Stephen’s might equally have been given an educational or charitable role in Westminster in 1548 if Protector Somerset had so been inclined, rather than plundered for its wealth and valuable property. It already had some provision for almshouses as founded by John Chambre, perhaps for exactly this purpose, as discussed above.110 The almshouses in St Stephen’s Alley were to survive in some form until the early eighteenth century; the college could have been left in place alongside them and further educational provision added, beyond any quasi-official school for the choristers that might already have existed.111 There were, however, two reasons why that might not have been acceptable. First, Westminster Abbey, then the cathedral for the diocese of Westminster, was soon to become simply a collegiate church when in 1550 the diocese was merged back into the diocese of London, in part to sideline Thirlby in favour of Nicholas Ridley of London. The abbey already had almshouses and a school, which was officially to be re-founded by Elizabeth I in 1560, and, as the coronation church, had to be maintained as a cathedral, or as near to one as possible. While there were to be serious issues with social provision in Westminster over the remainder of the century, the apparent need in 1548 was not so great that the commissioners would have recommended the survival of St Stephen’s in addition to the cathedral and its provisions. Elsewhere in the country, chapels of ease were being demolished even when they were essential to parochial provision. In Westminster, with three parishes in close proximity, there was no need for further churches at that time. Thus, there was no argument for keeping St Stephen’s in preference to Westminster Abbey, especially with the changes of the previous forty years at the Palace of Westminster. The second reason for the dissolution was the changing status of the palace around the college, and what Edward VI’s administration made of the old palace. Edward VI was the first king to never know the old Palace of Westminster as a residence, but purely as a place of administrative and ceremonial usage. He came there for his coronation banquet in Westminster Hall in 1548, but otherwise the palace was not part of his usual itinerary. Henry VIII, by contrast, had known Westminster as a residence in his childhood, such as when in 1494 he was made

See above, p. 195. A school is known in 1452, when a careless schoolboy started a fire but that may have been an ad hoc arrangement rather than a permanent school, see C.L. Kingsford, English Historical Literature of the Fifteenth Century (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1913), pp. 372–3.

110 111

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a Knight of the Bath there.112 For almost all its existence St Stephen’s sat at the heart of the Palace of Westminster as kings and their servants, the court and the royal administration came and went. As discussed in the previous chapter, by 1529 Westminster had become almost completely the home of the expanding administrative offices, while Henry VIII himself moved around the London area palaces before settling in that year at Whitehall. In the following eighteen years, Henry added new offices to those already based around Westminster Hall, most notably the Court of Augmentations and the Court of First Fruits and Tenths. These new courts took on the management of the property confiscated from the Church, from 1536 onwards, the wealth of the monasteries and, after 1545, the wealth of those institutions that had prayed for the dead, and that were dissolved after the first Chantries Act. Helpfully, men who worked in Augmentations were usually also working in parts of the royal administration.113 As a result, these institutions took over and adapted space from the already cramped institutions based in the palace, particularly around the Exchequer buildings, but otherwise did not disturb the emerging divides between the king’s administration, based in in the old palace, and his living quarters, which were in Whitehall, also known as the new Palace of Westminster. As the departments established themselves as long-lasting, work was done in the 1560s to make new working space for them, which then fully cemented the divide between Whitehall and the old palace.114 In addition, the additional pressure on space would have created temptation to reclaim St Stephen’s valuable waterfront property within the palace, either for offices or for crown favourites, as indeed was to happen in the 1550s and beyond.115 When Westminster became the home of administration and justice alone, St Stephen’s Chapel lost much of its usefulness to the king, leaving only its role in praying for the dead, which was a particular target of the Edwardian reformers. Its secondary function as the palace chapel was superseded by the chapels of the royal houses regularly in use, particularly Whitehall just to the north. Whitehall seems to have become the ‘king’s chapel at Westminster’, the centre of religious and political intrigue.116 Whitehall became the chapel used by the Chapel Royal, and frequented by the royal household and visitors to the court. Similarly, St Stephen’s BL Cotton MS Julius B XII, f. 90v. W.C. Richardson, History of the Court of Augmentations 1536–1554 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1961), pp. 42–3, 64–6, 67 n. 19, 90, 223–5. 114 Work was done on the Court of Wards, the Exchequer, the House of Commons, Star Chamber and the King’s Bridge, HKW, iv, pp. 293–5. 115 Richardson, Court of Augmentations, pp. 10–11. 116 When in 1533 a correspondent wrote to Lord Lisle that a marriage had taken place in the king’s chapel at Westminster, it probably meant Whitehall but could still have been St Stephen’s at this point before the 1536 Act joining the two palaces, L & P 1533, no. 728. 112 113

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was not the parish church for the area, that was St Margaret’s across Old Palace Yard, and thus it was not essential to parochial provision. It was not one of the palace chapels that Edward VI would have known particularly well, if at all, as it was probably no longer in regular royal use in his lifetime. Its lavish decoration, wealth and visibility, which had helped it in the Henrician reformation, may now have been liabilities in the more subdued, biblical reformation of Somerset and the rest of the council. As they were concerned to display their new and unfamiliar version of religious services, with an emphasis on iconoclasm and the power of scripture, St Stephen’s would have been an uneasy venue for such services, if certainly a possible one, given its usage in 1547. The college could no longer be defended as the king’s chapel and institution. Instead, it was just one of the many chantries founded to pray for the dead of past generations, which were no longer acceptable under the new theology and could be plundered for lands and wealth to fund the regime’s wars. The House of Commons, the longest occupants of the upper chapel, came to St Stephen’s with a whimper rather than a bang, as it moved from Westminster Abbey at some point before 1550. The first reference is from 1550, when the letter patent granting the rest of the precinct to Ralph Fane says that Edward VI ‘took and assigned for the house of Parliament and for holding our Parliaments there’ the upper chapel.117 The grant referenced does not survive, so we do not know when precisely Edward VI and his council chose to install the House of Commons in the chapel, nor do we know what work was done for the arrival of MPs. Even which sessions of Parliament were held in St Stephen’s in the Parliament of 1549 is unknown. The only evidence for money spent on adapting the chapel comes from a summary account by the clerk of the works, Laurence Bradshaw, in 1559, looking back on work done during 1552–1553.118 He described the purchase of materials, the wages of carpenters, bricklayers, glaziers and other labourers, and the costs of building and repairing record storage areas in the Parliament House at a total cost of £34 19s 6d. Despite this lack of detail, the circumstances of MPs’ arrival are clear. Westminster Abbey had always found the Commons to be difficult house guests, and numerous petitions survive asking for restitution after MPs had destroyed furniture or rooms.119 The bishop of Westminster, Thomas Thirlby, or his successor, the dean of the abbey, would have been pleased to regain their Chapter House. In addition, the House of Lords by this point was consistently ‘p[ro] domo parliamenti [et] ac p[ro] domo parliamenti n[ost]ris ibidem tened[is]’, C 66/834 m. 22; CPR 1550–53, pp. 12–13; my thanks to Simon Neal. 118 E 351/3326 mm. 7–8; my thanks to Simon Neal. 119 A. Hawkyard, ‘From Painted Chamber to St Stephen’s Chapel: The Meeting Places of the House of Commons at Westminster until 1603’, Parliamentary History 21 (2003): 62–84 at 65–6, 71. 117

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meeting in the Queen’s Chamber and formal joint meetings were possibly in the Painted Chamber, again just across another courtyard.120 Thus when the chapel was made vacant and thus functionally deconsecrated, it was a geographically convenient venue for the Commons if also very cramped. It gave them for the very first time their own space and their own permanent headquarters. The Lords had already unofficially gained that privilege in the period after 1529 when the residential functions of the palace ceased and the other demands on the palace decreased. Thus, after about 1550, both houses of Parliament were permanently placed in proximity, and acknowledged as an important part of royal government, through their proximity to the rest of the offices of state. After the college’s dissolution, the college’s Westminster precinct was quickly associated with royal attitudes to administration rather than the Church. The Canon Row properties were swiftly disposed of, while the core site in the palace itself was granted out to courtiers under Edward VI and Mary I, despite the urgent need for more space for the various administrative offices. Henry VIII’s new courts were adding to a complex situation, in which the main law courts and Chancery continued to occupy Westminster Hall, the Court of Requests used the Lesser Hall, and the various branches of the Exchequer were spread among a series of buildings around Westminster Hall. The college’s precinct could usefully have been given over to administrative offices at this point, as it was to be after 1572. The Edwardian administration of Protector Somerset was not particularly concerned with their needs, however. Instead the precinct was treated as the monasteries had been treated in the 1530s: as a source of patronage to courtiers. It was granted in its entirety to a series of well-connected courtiers with strong Westminster ties to form an urban version of the country mansions that had been formed out of former monastic properties, such as at Titchfield or Ashridge. The first man to hold the site, Sir Ralph Fane, held it for only two years before he was executed for his support of Somerset. He was swiftly followed by Sir John Gates, executed in 1553 for his support of Lady Jane Grey. Both Fane and Gates were MPs, who would have found the houses and vicars’ hall in the precinct easily adaptable into grand lodgings that were very convenient for Parliament, and for their other interests in the administrative offices at Westminster. However, the lavish rewards also went with considerable political peril. Sir Ralph Fane was granted the college precinct save only the upper chapel in 1550, but lost it in 1552 when he was executed for conspiring against Northumberland.121 Mary followed For example, the 1552 grant to Sir John Gates, which references the Lords’ Parliament House, DL 10/404; my thanks to Simon Neal for letting me use his transcription of this grant. 121 CPR 1550–53, pp. 12–13; for Fane’s career and connections see J.A. Löwe, ‘Fane, Sir Ralph 120

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her brother’s lead and granted the site to Edward Hastings, Lord Loughborough, who was lucky enough to keep it until his death in 1572.122 Like Fane and Gates, he was an MP and also associated with the court, in his case as her master of horse and then Lord Chamberlain.123 In 1572, the need for administrative space was urgent enough that the site was handed over to the Exchequer by the Elizabethan regime, probably at the instigation of William Cecil, and became office space and housing for the tellers of the Exchequer.124 Courtiers and administrators were eager to obtain housing in the vicinity of both Whitehall and Westminster and quickly acquired the canons’ Westminster properties. Use of St Stephen’s as a base was not new. The canons had acted similarly when they served as parliamentary proctors or in the offices of state, as had those who rented houses from them in Canon Row, such as the Lord Treasurer in 1534 (glossed by St Clair Byrne as William Fitzwilliam, the treasurer of the household, rather than Thomas Howard, the Lord High Treasurer).125 The dissolution of St Stephen’s fed into the political circumstances of Edwardian government, and concentrated rewards in the hands of those favoured by first Somerset and then Northumberland after 1551. Protector Somerset himself plundered the best vestments and plate for Somerset House, but did not acquire the lands.126 Sir Anthony Denny as keeper of the old palace seems to have served as broker for sales and leases to the interconnected group that snapped up the Canon Row and other Westminster properties. Some were granted to minor officials, such as Richard Audley, who had a small connection with the Court of Augmentations.127 Sir Michael Stanhope, Protector Somerset’s brother in law, received multiple houses in Canon Row in 1548.128 William Cecil, then secretary to Protector Somerset, was offered the chance to buy two properties for £400.129 The house in Canon Row was the Cecils’ Westminster home and a (b.before 1510, d.1552)’, ODNB. BL Lansdowne MS 171, no. 169, f. 359. 123 D. Loades, ‘Hastings, Edward, Baron Hastings of Loughborough (1512x15?–1572)’, ODNB. 124 Hatfield, Hatfield House, Cecil Papers 24/ 61 (112) and 24/62 (113). 125 The Lisle Letters, ed. M. St. Clare Byrne, 6 vols (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), ii, p. 54. 126 For the costly valuables that Somerset had acquired from St Stephen’s, when in 1549 they were reclaimed by Augmentations, Cal. State Papers Edward VI, no. 424. 127 CPR 1548–49, 77; Richardson, Augmentations, p. 136 n. 72. 128 C 66/811 mm. 34–7; CPR 1547–48, pp. 391–2 (note that the calendar only references one of the houses in Canon Row, that of Richard Cox, and omits those of Edward Rogers and John Chambre); for Stanhope more generally see K. Dockray, ‘Stanhope, Sir Michael (b.before 1508, d.1552)’, ODNB. 129 Cal. State Papers Edward VI, no. 471. 122

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major site of his political involvement until 1561, when he bought Cecil House on the Strand.130 It was the start of a long and profitable association between the Cecils and Westminster.131 Sir Walter Mildmay, an auditor of the Court of Augmentations, was already a close associate of Denny at this time. Mildmay would have housing in St Stephen’s in the 1570s.132 Mildmay’s wife was Denny’s niece and Denny had himself risen through the Court of Augmentations to the Privy Council. Sir John Gates, who was the second man to hold the college precinct from the Crown, was also connected through family ties to this group as Denny’s brother-in-law and thus had access to the spoils.133 St Stephen’s properties show the landed rather than the spiritual priorities of the Edwardian gentry and nobility. The valuable London and Westminster lands were quickly snapped up either to create Westminster residences or to rent out. The other lands and benefices owned by the college across England were not as attractive to Denny and his circle as they were scattered and, in most cases, individually quite small. The bulk of the lands were in the Home Counties, but they were not easily grouped together. St Stephen’s had spent about seventy-three shillings yearly defending and maintaining its title in the year before its dissolution.134 There was no prospect of creating a power base out of St Stephen’s estates, so they were not granted out as an entirety, as had happened to some of the monastic lands. Rather, what happened to the rest of the estates shows the range of possibilities open to the Augmentations office and the wide range of individuals who profited from the dissolution of the chantries. From August 1548, lands formerly of St Stephen’s were granted out in small chunks to a wide range of individuals, from Lord Clinton and Say who gathered up in the early 1550s the college’s lands in Dorset, including the manor of Winterbourne Cane, and Elham in Kent, to John Cheke, the king’s tutor, and then to many more minor individuals such as John Hulson or Thomas Babington.135 Other lands were sold through the Court of Augmentations, and others still were leased out, either for twenty-one years S. Alford, Burghley: William Cecil at the Court of Elizabeth I (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008), pp. 43, 45, 74, 113. 131 Merritt, ‘The Cecils and Westminster 1558–1612’, in Patronage, Culture and Power: The Early Cecils, ed. P. Croft (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), pp. 231–48 at 232. 132 E 407/71, ff. 112v, 216v–217; for Walter Mildmay’s career see L.L. Ford, ‘Mildmay, Sir Walter (1520/21–1589)’, ODNB; for his marriage to Denny’s niece see S.E. Lehmberg, Sir Walter Mildmay and Tudor Government (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1964), p. 17. 133 The grant of the college precinct was CPR 1540–53, 325; for Gates’s career and connections see N.P. Sil, ‘Gates, Sir John (1504–53)’, ODNB. 134 Under costs for lawyers, SC 12/6/62. 135 Lord Clinton and Say’s grants are in CPR 1550–53, pp. 190, 206; those to John Cheke, CPR 1547–48, pp. 284–5; and to John Hulson and Thomas Babington, CPR 1549–51, pp. 128–9. 130

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responding to the reformation, 1527–1548 209 or the owner’s lifetime. The larger manors such as Welhall or Colbridge as well as the London commercial property were the first to be disposed of, as clearly extremely profitable.136 There is no evidence that any of the lands of St Stephen’s were turned to charitable purposes as had been promised in the second Chantries Act and no schools were founded using the endowment. The tangle of grants led to later problems and uncertainties under Elizabeth and then James I. There are cancelled grants, when lands were found to have been double-granted, and inquiries, including efforts at the end of the sixteenth century by Sir Julius Caesar.137 The break with the past was perhaps nowhere clearer than in the Marian restoration of 1553 to 1558. While Mary was interested in restoring the monasteries, or at least some of them, as a visible sign of the restoration of the old religion, the chantries and the colleges were too contested, too ambiguous for her to attempt a wholesale restoration. The surviving colleges were returned to Catholic doctrine, even if their chantries were not restored. Only the twilight existence of Manchester College could be brought back officially, if not in quite the same form, because it still had lands and support.138 In addition, the financial costs of attempting to turn back the clock for the monasteries was already too high for more than a few, symbolic refoundations, such as Westminster Abbey and the shrine at Walsingham. The wealth of the chantries had in part gone to pay for French and Scottish wars; the monasteries’ wealth was already gone by 1547, let alone 1553. The Marian Catholic England could not replicate the Catholic England of 1530 in the rich variety of institutions in the Church, the shared religious landscape and the lay devotion that had sustained colleges and monasteries.139 Instead, Mary and Cardinal Pole faced a divided country, where ambivalence went alongside religious fervour both towards restored Catholicism and to the evangelical cause.140 The precinct and the lower chapel of St Stephen’s were confiscated from Sir John Gates on his attainder for supporting Lady Jane Grey, and granted out again to Sir Edward Hastings, who had been one of those who were swift to support Mary’s accession.141 Just as her brother had, Mary used the college’s valuable Westminster Welhall was granted out in August 1548 CPR 1547–48, pp. 397–8; the grant of the George Inn in Lombard Street was in September 1548, CPR 1548–49, pp. 62–3. 137 For example, Lord Chancellor Ellesmere ended up with the documentation for the grant of the rectory of Sandal Magna in the 1580s, probably because it was contested: San Marino, Huntington Library, Ellesmere MS EL 1994; also see Sir Julius Caesar’s attempt to catalogue some of the St Stephen’s lands: BL Lansdowne MS 171, no. 169, f. 359. 138 ‘Colleges: Manchester’, p. 167. 139 For the narrower devotional range of Marian Catholicism as a reflection of the economic situation in the parish, see Duffy, Stripping the Altars, p. 563. 140 Duffy, Fires of Faith: Catholic England Under Mary Tudor (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009), pp. 11–12. 141 The grant is copied in BL Lansdowne MS 447, f. 359v. 136

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property to bolster her political support, with grants to Sir Robert Rochester, her comptroller of the household, in 1555 and Sir John Perrott in 1556.142 Sir Edward Hastings, her master of horse and then Lord Chamberlain, who Reginald Pole called ‘my good cousin’, was given the college precinct, and held it until his death in 1572.143 Of the then-surviving canons of St Stephen’s, Thomas Robertson and Richard Cox have been mentioned above, the others, William Ibrie, John Vaughan, Robert Brock and Thomas Day also had to choose how to reconcile their theology and their monarch, and their answers have not survived.144

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Conclusions St Stephen’s during the Reformation and after shows the complexities of reform, both for its canons as royal servants and for policy. At no time during the early Reformation in England, other than perhaps under Edward VI, was state policy clear and unambiguous with regard to religion. Instead, it was created out of a mix of circumstances, trends and debate directed by the king, but not always fully responsive to his personal wishes. Rather than seeing a reformation that was solely the work of Henry VIII or of factions at court during this period and imposed on the English Church and people by a minority, we should rather see a broader base of reform, drawing on earlier calls for change, and on debates within the elite of the Church. The elite of the Church were not just the well-studied bishops but those men such as the canons of St Stephen’s who were involved in Convocation, in discussions at court and above all were called king’s chaplains. We should also emphasise the levels of confusion, even for those such as the canons, privileged and centrally placed, given that they too seem to have been uncertain about the new parameters of the faith, even as they were involved in the debates and manoeuvring that led to the theological statements of Henry’s reign. While late medieval Catholicism was a vibrant and living religion, it was also changing and developing in ways that might well have paralleled what Henry VIII’s church did independently. We also need to bring the material about the experience of the Mass and how it changed into dialogue with changing theology, because while theology was important, far more people experienced religious services There were six grants of the lands and rights of St Stephen’s in the Patent Rolls during Mary’s reign, including grants to Sir Richard Rochester in 1555 in CPR 1554–55, p. 220; for his career see, J. Hughes, ‘Rochester, Sir Robert (c.1500–57)’, ODNB; and in 1556 to Sir John Perrott in CPR 1555–57, p. 274; see R. Turvey, ‘Perrot, Sir John (1528–92)’, ODNB. 143 As attested in BL Lansdowne 171, ff. 359–359v; this copied the 1572 reversal of the property back to the Crown and its re-grant to the Exchequer. 144 The pension list from 1554, BL Additional MS 8102. 142

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than necessarily understood them. St Stephen’s disappeared just as the confused, open to interpretation and thus hard to fight against Reformation became a fully iconoclastic and much clearer Reformation under Cranmer in Edward VI’s reign. What happened to St Stephen’s in 1548 and then to its lands in the 1550s through to 1600 shows the intersection of genuinely held religious belief, deep practicality and avarice among the Edwardian government, the limitations of the Marian restoration, and the ways in which the Elizabethan administration dealt with the landed complexities they inherited in 1558. The Edwardian dissolution of the chantries and St Stephen’s was in part a reaction to the Scottish and French Wars emptying the treasury, but it was also a reflection of their repudiation of the benefits those chantries offered and of the doctrine of Purgatory. St Stephen’s, active right up until January 1548, was now irrelevant and thus reasonably could be plundered to create the new Westminster of courtiers and administrators in Canon Row, in the palace and in the parish of St Margaret’s.

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Conclusions

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W

hat then does St Stephen’s College say about the practices of kingship and the ways in which it was displayed at Westminster over the two centuries of the college’s existence? First, that the college’s work played out through liturgy and the politics of commemoration. St Stephen’s offered legitimation to the kings of England at their principal palace through institutional identity and the maintenance of the liturgy. The kings of England could use the chapel as a place for liturgical ceremony and royal spectacle, as seen in the services for which there are surviving written descriptions. These events functioned as a way for the kings to associate themselves with their ancestors and with Edward III’s vision of kingship. The college also offered them support after their deaths. St Stephen’s was first and foremost an institution that offered prayers for the dead, and particularly prayers for the royal dynasty, as set by Edward III. It so happened that inclusion in the royal dynasty in this period was itself contested, and thus the college’s remembrances were given added significance. Its round of liturgy, as added to financially or structurally by every king after Edward III, with the two obvious exceptions of Richard III and Edward V, served as another imagined mausoleum to parallel the mausoleum of Westminster Abbey as it developed over the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries as the habitual resting place of the kings of England. The music of St Stephen’s, elaborated alongside the Chapel Royal in this period, emphasised the support given to the maintenance of the liturgy offered through gifts and through his presence by the king of England as a pious son of the Church. As a secular college, St Stephen’s offered a continuous round of prayers and Masses, which could be augmented not just by the king, but also by others who wished to associate themselves with this royal chapel. The range of those who took up that offer was large, from William Lyndwood, bishop of St David’s, through to those individuals from Westminster and beyond who left money in the sixteenth century for prayers at the altar of Scala Coeli, as well as the canons and vicars themselves. The prayers offered would aid the individuals’ souls in Purgatory, but they would also associate the individuals with a royal chapel and with prayers that were also offered for the king and his family. Even Henry VIII asked for remembrances at St Stephen’s, not knowing that his son’s government was soon to end all such services.

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conclusions

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On the broadest level, St Stephen’s provides a case study in the relationship of the English Church to the king that challenges assumptions about the Reformation. The first aspect of this reappraisal is the sheer variety of the careers and choices of the canons, from individuals who worked for the king and the Church to co-ordinated, concerted action by both officially. At St Stephen’s we see the close interrelationship of royal and ecclesiastical service and the ways in which both could be blurred for particular purposes long before the Henrician Reformation made the Church subordinate to the Crown and to Parliament rather than the papacy. Even in the fourteenth century, when Westminster Abbey and St Stephen’s were litigating the limits of their jurisdictions, the lines between what came under royal jurisdiction and what was solely the church’s responsibility was unclear and contested. Royal favour and patronage could be a stronger influence within the English Church than anything coming from the papacy. Equally, St Stephen’s provided a venue where the Church’s hierarchy and the king could visibly collaborate, without being solely in the territory of one or the other, such as during consecrations or state events. At St Stephen’s, priests in royal service easily moved between tasks for the ecclesiastical hierarchy as well as the king, and could be found representing other religious houses in Parliament as well as acting as royal ambassadors abroad. Thus, rather than seeing the Church on the eve of the Reformation as largely separate from royal administration, day-today politics and the king, we should see the two as intertwined. Building from that observation, we see that the Reformation’s intense politicisation of religion intensified, but did not create, the strong links below the rank of bishop between elite clergy and royal administration. Both the Church hierarchy and the king benefitted from this arrangement and tolerated its use. St Stephen’s also offers a way of examining kingship in relation to personal royal choices in relation to their self-presentation to audiences, both their own subjects and visiting dignitaries. Because the Palace of Westminster was so visible and so public, at Westminster the kings of England came to develop a particularly strong sense of spectacle, even as they withdrew into more private quarters at other palaces and houses. There have been questions raised about who saw royal display and who the king’s magnificence was directed at, if court ceremonial was to matter to his ability to maintain his authority. At Westminster, the wider press of business and the near-constant presence of the law courts in term and the administrative offices combined with the complexity of the palace’s architecture to make the king unable to withdraw as easily. It thus matters that Henry VII chose to celebrate Prince Arthur’s marriage at Westminster as a symbol of the peace and success that he had achieved through the alliance with Spain. Similarly, Henry VIII used Westminster to celebrate his own short-lived son Henry’s birth in 1511. These were dynastic messages that drew on the older associations of the

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palace and the chapel; the same associations that Richard II had drawn on at the time of the Merciless Parliament of 1388. St Stephen’s was a venue that could be used for such imagery and drew its own strength as an institution from those associations, which the canons also cultivated, even if not always as obviously as in Dean William Sleaford’s petition to Richard II. It is at Westminster that we find the audiences of English kingship most clearly present. The audiences at Westminster were drawn from across the social scale and present because they needed something from the king’s delegated administration or his justice. If they also happened to catch a glimpse of royal lavish display, so much the better. Medieval English kingship was more strongly tied to Westminster than to any of the many other palaces that monarchs might choose to use, embellish and adapt. This matters for two divergent reasons. First, using Westminster as both the place of coronation and the place of governance tied together two key elements of royal legitimation. Second, the consistent presence of royal administration and the law courts meant that the palace combined personal kingship with the routine interactions that made up governance. The palace housed not just the council, but all the rest of the apparatus that disseminated kingship under the overall direction of the king, but not necessarily on his direct orders. The medieval kings found Westminster to demand their attention, as much as they might personally prefer more private and more modern houses in the fifteenth century. St Stephen’s was founded when Westminster’s role within the English polity had been firmly established in contrast to Winchester or York, which had earlier housed government departments in the fourteenth century. The college was thus shaped in a context where William Edington and Edward III wanted to strengthen the emerging connections within government, particularly the Exchequer. How governance and law interacted at Westminster is not yet fully clear across these two centuries, and they have tended to be examined as different phenomena. Looking further across the range of administrative activity in the palace would allow us to see quite how they interacted and how the various offices were dispersed into the manor and into buildings in London as well as their footholds in the palace itself. St Stephen’s suggests that government continued to need to be seen as visible and legitimate, but it does not provide conclusive answers. Understanding those relationships more fully in the fifteenth century would help to address questions about the effectiveness and cohesion of government in times of crisis and in times of the breakdown of effective leadership from the king himself. In addition to expressing relationships with governance, Westminster also reflected ideas about royal relationships with the political community. The decision by Henry VIII to shift his residence in Westminster from the old palace to Whitehall marks a turning point between 1529 and the 1536 Act joining the two palaces. There was then a spatial and visual distinction within the same geographic

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conclusions

215

area between the king’s routine administration and his personal rule and display of power through the court. While Henry VII had withdrawn from Westminster as a habitual residence in favour of his new residences at Richmond and Greenwich, Westminster continued to be a place of royal display and ceremonial alongside routine governance and the services offered to the community of the realm in terms of documentation, justice and finance, through Exchequer payments. After 1536, those two roles were separated, even as the palaces were nominally united. When Henry VIII was at Westminster, he was staying at Whitehall, which became the focus of the court. Increasingly, the old palace was left to the administrators and to Parliament. After 1548, it made complete sense for the Commons to take over St Stephen’s. Governance, administration and the elements of political life that involved the representatives of the political community were gathered together in the palace, away from the king’s court and the life of his household. Even though the two palaces were close geographically, there was a real divide in access to the king as well as to his visibility and thus his apparent responsiveness to the community as a whole. The dissolution of St Stephen’s was both practical and a response to this emerging divide between the personnel of magnificence in the king’s household and the personnel of governance in the administrative offices. Increasingly, the divide brought political influence back to the monarch’s household and sidelined the administrative offices, because the household had access that the clerks in the offices did not. Palaces were often, if not always, associated with religious foundations. It would be worth looking further at how and why they were used when the monarch and the household were present at any given palace, and what their role was felt to be when the king was absent. At Westminster, St Stephen’s was unusual in that it seems to have combined the two elements of being a venue for the Chapel Royal and separate religious institution. Certainly elsewhere, religious foundations were visibly distinct from the palace or other house, while still associated with it. For example, the friars in the town of King’s Langley founded by Edward II and Edward III look rather similar in terms of their function within the king’s house there to the Observant Franciscans founded within the walls of the palace at Greenwich by Henry VII nearly two hundred years later. These royal foundations were not usually used as mausoleums, so there is further work to be done on why new royal foundations driven by royal priorities were so consistently placed alongside palaces or other royal houses. Eton, just across the river from Windsor, and the Carthusian Syon Abbey close to the former palace of Sheen, later Richmond, were close to palaces, but more distinctly separated from their palatial contexts. How those more delegated relationships between nearby royal foundations and royal homes would well repay further work. In the case of St Stephen’s, it was clearly in part about obtaining

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a steady liturgy associated with the king regardless of any other activity in the palace. It may also have been an expectation, because it would show off royal piety in a conventional manner that guaranteed the king’s support of a consistent and lavish liturgy. Foundations could be called upon to remember the royal dead, to showcase the king’s support for and from the Church in general, and to support particular orders of monks or mendicants. When the House of Commons came to St Stephen’s c.1550, they were not inheriting a Catholic Chapel, deconsecrated by their own Act of 1547. Rather, they were inheriting a chapel with a long tradition of royal piety and royal support for the Church in England. As the Commons settled into their new home in the generations that followed, they were able to adapt the spaces used by the college to their own needs, to make themselves an institutional presence within the royal palace, and to assert their own authority as part of the apparatus that governed England, and then Britain, from Westminster, alongside the monarch’s administration and their justice.1 As constitutional monarchy came to replace delegated monarchy, gradually the various elements of administration moved out of the old Palace of Westminster to inhabit the former site of Whitehall and other buildings in and around the city of Westminster. The association, however, between legitimate governing authority and the palace site remained so strong that, after the fire of 1834, MPs would ultimately refuse to move elsewhere.2 The same association has helped to produce the long delays to the renovations programme of Restoration and Renewal, as some MPs and peers resist plans to leave Barry’s palace for temporary quarters in order to allow repair work to be carried out.

J.P.D. Cooper and R.A. Gaunt, ‘Architecture and Politics in the Palace of Westminster, 1399 to the Present’, Parliamentary History 38 (2019): 1–16 at 5. 2 C. Shenton, Mr Barry’s War: Rebuilding the Houses of Parliament After the Great Fire of 1834 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), p. 13. 1

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Cecil Papers 24/ 61 (112) Cecil Papers 24/62 (113) C 1 C 66 C 146 CP 40 CP 25 DL 10 E 40 E 101 E 117 E 159 E 179 E 315 E 351 E 361 E 367 E 372 E 403 KB 9 PC 1

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London, British Library

Additional Ch 27018 1395–1396 Works accounts for a porch. Additional MS 2112 St Stephen’s copy of the seven-part indenture setting up the Henry VII Chantry at Westminster Abbey. Additional MS 8102 1553–1554 Duchy of Lancaster Pensions List. Additional MS 28530 1516 Customary of Ashford, Kent. Cotton MS Cleopatra E V Sixteenth-century papers relating to the Reformation. Cotton MS Faustina A III Fourteenth-century Westminster Abbey Cartulary. Cotton MS Faustina B VIII St Stephen’s College Obit Book. Cotton MS Julius B XII Sixteenth-century historical miscellany. Harley Ch 43 F 18 Confirmation of the college’s privileges by Henry VII. Harley Ch 46 E 26 1373 grant to St Stephen’s College of an inn in Westminster called ‘Le Holewetauerne’. Harley Ch 80 H 55 1409 Canon John Ware’s Will. Harley 284 Letters and Papers of State, chiefly addressed to Lord Cobham, deputy of Calais. Harley MS 45 A 38–45 1485 St Stephen’s College Registers. Lansdowne 171 Sir Julius Caesar’s seventeenth-century collection of useful information. Lansdowne 410 Sixteenth-century collection of ecclesiastical information, including privileges belonging to St Stephen’s Chapel. Lansdowne 447 Seventeenth-century collection of ecclesiastical foundation charters, including 1348 foundation letter patent of St Stephen’s. Royal MS Appendix 45–8 Sixteenth-century Partbooks for Ludford’s Lady Masses. Royal MS 14 B XXXIX 1501 Accounts for Prince Arthur’s marriage to Katherine of Aragon.

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Red Portfolio 236/E Nineteenth-century drawings of St Stephen’s wall paintings.

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London, Westminster Abbey Muniments

9256 A–E 1377–1379 Westminster Abbey’s expenses in jurisdiction dispute. 18431 Fourteenth-century fragment of St Stephen’s College statutes. 18435 Collection of documents relating to the jurisdiction dispute, including drafts of the failed agreement of 1383. 18436 Letter from Richard II to Westminster Abbey ordering them to keep the peace in relation to the dispute with St Stephen’s College. 18437 c.1383 letter from Westminster Abbey to Richard II relating to the jurisdiction dispute. 18438 Petition to Richard II from Westminster Abbey concerning the abbey’s privileges. 18439 1376 notarial instrument instructing St Stephen’s College to appear in front of papal judges-delegate. 18444–7 Responses of both Westminster Abbey and St Stephen’s College in 1383 hearings concerning jurisdiction. 18449 1384 writ of prohibitio under the Great Seal that St Stephen’s College is not to be sued in any other court than Chancery. 18450 1387 appointment of proxies for the abbey in dispute against St Stephen’s College. 18453 Listing of defects in the abbey’s case against St Stephen’s. 18457 1382 papal excommunication of St Stephen’s College. 18461 Draft agreement in dispute, probably c.1383. 18462 Statement of case against St Stephen’s College. 18464 Charter of Simon Langham, archbishop of Canterbury in relation to the dispute. 18465 Letter from the dean of St Stephen’s College to the king in relation to the dispute. 18468 Copy of 1394 composition between St Stephen’s and Westminster Abbey. 18469 Working drafts for 1394 composition. 18473 Petition from Westminster Abbey to an unnamed bishop relating to the jurisdiction dispute. 18475 Petition from Westminster Abbey relating to the prohibition on suing St Stephen’s College.

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18477 Extract from a royal charter to St Stephen’s College concerning their privileges. 18478 A–B 1375–1386 documents relating to the jurisdiction dispute between Westminster Abbey and St Stephen’s College. 18480 1394 oath that composition will be observed. 18481 1394 proceedings in relation to composition. 18482 1396 notarised notification of agreement to composition. 18486–18511 Letters from the dean of St Stephen’s to the abbot of Westminster relating to appointment of canons and vicars. 18513 Sixteenth-century letter to the dean and chapter of Westminster relating to sums owed them after St Stephen’s dissolution. 18599 Early sixteenth-century rental covering the manor of Westminster. 19428 1450–1451 Infirmarers’ Roll. 33269–79 1519–1530 Receivers’ Accounts. 33308 Early sixteenth-century rental covering the manor of Westminster. 59837 1908 Memorandum in relation to St Stephen’s Chapel and jurisdiction. 65035 A–Q 1939–61 collection of notes relating to the Scala Coeli indulgence in both the abbey and St Stephen’s Chapel. Book 12 Fourteenth-century Cartulary, contains copies of most of the documents relating to the jurisdiction dispute. Book 17 Fourteenth-century Cartulary. Domesday Fourteenth-century Cartulary. Liber Niger Cartulary.

London, Westminster City Archives

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PCW Wyks Will Register, 1504–1558 [Microfilm]. MA 63

Ne O 1

New York, New York Public Library

Fifteenth-century missal with ex dono of John Chambre, possibly used at St Stephen’s Chapel [Microfilm].

Nottingham, University of Nottingham Special Collections

Particulars of Account for works done at Henry VIII’s palaces, 1536.

Rawlinson D 775–85

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Biggs, Elizabeth. St Stephen's College, Westminster : A Royal Chapel and English Kingship, 1348-1548, Boydell & Brewer, Incorporated, 2020. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nyulibrary-ebooks/detail.action?docID=6229011. Created from nyulibrary-ebooks on 2021-02-03 07:13:50.

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Windsor, St George’s College Archives

V B 1 1385–1386 Attendance registers for St George’s College. V B 2 1468–1479 Attendance registers for St George’s College. XI D 20 Fifteenth-century copy of St George’s College Statutes. XV 58 C 28 1538 Indenture for an obit made between John Chambre and St George’s College. ‘The Statutes and Injunctions of St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle’, ed. Maurice Bond. Unpublished edition of galley proofs by J.N. Dalton, 1962. [An edition of XI D 20].

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Published Primary Sources The Anonimalle Chronicle 1333 to 1381, ed. V.H. Galbraith. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1927. The Antiquarian Repertory, ed. F. Grose, T. Astle and E. Jeffery. 4 vols. London: E. Jeffery, 1807–1809. Boutell’s Heraldry. Revised by J.P. Brooke-Little. London: Warne, 1983. The Brut or the Chronicle of England, ed. Frederick W.D. Brie. 2 vols. Early English Text Society, Original Series 131 and 136. London: Early English Text Society, 1906–1908. Calendar of the Charter Rolls preserved in the Public Record Office, Vol. 5: 15 Edward III – 5 Henry V, A.D. 1341–1417. London: His Majesty’s Stationary Office, 1916. Calendar of the Close Rolls Preserved in the Public Record Office. 47 vols. London: His/Her Majesty’s Stationary Office, 1893–1949. Calendar of Papal Registers Relating to Britain and Ireland 1198–1494, ed. W.H. Bliss, H.C. Johnson and J.A. Tremlow. 14 vols. London: Her Majesty’s Stationary Office, 1893–1960. Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, of the Reign of Edward VI, 1547–1553, ed. C.S. Knighton. London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1992. Calendar of the Patent Rolls preserved in the Public Record Office. 53 vols. London: His/Her Majesty’s Stationary Office, 1891–1916. The Cartulary of St. Mary’s Collegiate Church, Warwick, ed. C. Fonge. Woodbridge: Boydell, 2004.

Biggs, Elizabeth. St Stephen's College, Westminster : A Royal Chapel and English Kingship, 1348-1548, Boydell & Brewer, Incorporated, 2020. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nyulibrary-ebooks/detail.action?docID=6229011. Created from nyulibrary-ebooks on 2021-02-03 07:13:50.

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Biggs, Elizabeth. St Stephen's College, Westminster : A Royal Chapel and English Kingship, 1348-1548, Boydell & Brewer, Incorporated, 2020. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nyulibrary-ebooks/detail.action?docID=6229011. Created from nyulibrary-ebooks on 2021-02-03 07:13:50.

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Published Secondary Literature Alford, S. Burghley: William Cecil at the Court of Elizabeth I. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008. Arthurson, I. ‘The King of Spain’s Daughter Came To Visit Me: Marriage, Princes and Politics’. In Arthur Tudor, Prince of Wales: Life, Death and Commemoration, ed. S.J. Gunn and L. Monckton, pp. 20–30. Woodbridge: Boydell, 2009. Aston, T.H. ‘Oxford’s Medieval Alumni’. Past and Present 74 (1977): 3–35. Attreed, L.C. ‘The King’s Interest: York’s Fee Farm and the Central Government’. Northern History 17 (1981): 24–43. Bailey, T. The Processions of Sarum and the Western Church. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1971. Baldwin, J.F. The King’s Council in England During the Middle Ages. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1913. Beech, R. ‘The Hammer-beam Roof of Westminster Hall and the Structural Rationale of Hugh Herland’. Architectural History 59 (2016): 25–61. Beer, M.L. Queenship at the Renaissance Courts of Britain: Catherine of Aragon and Margaret Tudor. Woodbridge: Boydell, 2018. Bennet, E.K. ‘Notes on the Original Statutes of the College of St John the Evangelist of Rushworth, Norfolk, Founded by Edmund Gonville, AD 1342’. Norfolk Archaeology 10 (1888): 50–64. Bennett, M. ‘Careerism in Late Medieval England’. In People, Politics and Community in the Later Middle Ages, ed. Joel T. Rosenthal and Colin Richmond, pp. 19–39. Gloucester: Alan Sutton, 1987. Bent, I. ‘The English Chapel Royal Before 1300’. Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association 90 (1963–1964): 77–95. Bernard, G. The King’s Reformation: Henry VIII and the Remaking of the English Church. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005.

Biggs, Elizabeth. St Stephen's College, Westminster : A Royal Chapel and English Kingship, 1348-1548, Boydell & Brewer, Incorporated, 2020. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nyulibrary-ebooks/detail.action?docID=6229011. Created from nyulibrary-ebooks on 2021-02-03 07:13:50.

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Biggs, D. ‘Henry IV and his Sheriffs: The Lancastrianisation of County Government and the Problem of Good and Abundant Governance’. Medieval Prosopography 25 (2004): 161–77. ———. ‘A Plantagenet Revolution in Government? The Officers of Central Government and the Lancastrian Usurpation of 1399’. Medieval Prosopography 20 (1999): 191–211. Billot, C. ‘L’insertion d’un quartier canonical dans un palais royal: problèmes de cohabitation. L’exemple de la Sainte-Chapelle de Paris’. In Palais Royaux et Princiers au Moyen Age, ed. A. Renoux, pp. 111–16. Le Mans: Université du Maine, 1996. ———. ‘Le Fondation de Saint Louis: le collège des chanoines de la SainteChapelle 1248–1555’. In Le Trésor de la Sainte-Chapelle, ed. J. Durand and M.-P. Laffitte, pp. 98–106. Paris: Réunion des musées nationaux, 2001. Binski, P. Westminster and the Plantagenets: Kingship and the Representation of Power 1200–1400. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005. Bowers, R. ‘The music and musical establishment of St George’s Chapel in the fifteenth century’. In St George’s Chapel, Windsor, in the late Middle Ages, ed. C. Richmond and E. Scarff, pp. 171–214. Windsor: for the dean and canons, 2001. Bowker, M. ‘Longland, John (1473–1547)’. ODNB. Branner, R. ‘The Sainte-Chapelle and the Capella Regis in the Thirteenth Century’. Gesta, 10:1 (1971): 19–22. Brayley, E. and J. Britton. The History of the Ancient Palace and Late Houses of Parliament at Westminster. London: John Weale, 1835. Brigden, S. London and the Reformation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989. Brown, A.L. ‘The Privy Seal Clerks in the Early Fifteenth Century’. In The Study of Medieval Records: Essays in Honour of Kathleen Major, ed. D.A. Bullough and R.L. Storey, pp. 260–81. Oxford: Clarendon, 1971. Burgess, C. ‘Fotheringhay Church: Conceiving a College and its Community’. In The Yorkist Age, ed. H. Kleineke and C. Steer, pp. 347–66. Donington: Shaun Tyas, 2013. ———. ‘An Institution for All Seasons: The Late Medieval English College’. In The Late Medieval English College and its Context, ed. Clive Burgess and Martin Heale, pp. 3–27. York: York Medieval Press, 2008. Caddick, J. ‘The Painted Chamber at Westminster and the Openings of Parliament, 1399–1484’. Parliamentary History 38 (2019): 17–33. Carey, H.M. Courting Disaster: Astrology at the English Court and University in the Later Middle Ages. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1992. Carpenter, C. ‘Henry VI and the Deskilling of the Royal Bureaucracy’. In The Fifteenth Century IX: English and Continental Perspectives, ed. Linda Clark, pp. 1–37. Woodbridge: Boydell, 2010. ———. The Wars of the Roses: Politics and the Constitution in England, c.1437– 1509. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Carter, P.R.N. ‘Taylor, John (d.1534)’. ODNB. Castor, H. The King, the Crown and the Duchy of Lancaster: Public Authority and Private Power, 1399–1461. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.

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———. ‘Urswick, Christopher (1448?–1522)’. ODNB. Trowell, B. ‘A Fourteenth-Century Motet and its Composer’. Acta Musicologica 29 (1957): 65–75. Tuck, A. ‘Thomas [Thomas of Woodstock]’. ODNB. ———. ‘Pole, Michael de la, first earl of Suffolk (c.1330–1389)’. ODNB. ———. ‘Vere, Robert de, ninth earl of Oxford, marquess of Dublin and duke of Ireland’. ODNB. Turvey, R. ‘Perrot, Sir John (1528–1592)’. ODNB. Usher, B. ‘Wolman, Richard (d.1537)’. ODNB. Vale, J. Edward III and Chivalry: Chivalric Society and Its Context, 1270–1350. Woodbridge: Boydell, 1982. The Victoria County History of the County of Buckingham: Volume Two, ed. W. Page. London: Constable and Company, 1908. The Victoria County History of the County of Durham: Volume 2, ed. W. Page. London: Longmans, 1907. The Victoria County History of the Counties of England: London, ed. W. Page. London: Constable and Company, 1909. The Victoria County History of the County of Hertford: Volume Four, ed. W. Page. London: Constable and Company, 1914. The Victoria County History of the County of Lancaster: Volume Two, ed. W. Farrer and J. Brownbill. London: Constable and Company, 1908. The Victoria County History of the County of Lincoln, ed. W. Page. London: James Street, 1906. The Victoria County History of the County of Middlesex: Volume Thirteen, ed. P. Croot. London: Institute of Historical Research, 2009. The Victoria County History of the County of Northampton: Volume Two, ed. R.M. Serjeantson, W. Ryland and D. Adkins. London: James Street, 1906. The Victoria County History of the County of Oxford: Volume 2, ed. W. Page. London: Constable and Company, 1907. The Victoria County History of the County of Wiltshire: Volume 3, ed. R.B. Pugh and E. Crittall. London: Institute of Historical Research, 1956. Wabuda, S. ‘Bell, John (d.1556)’. ODNB. ———. ‘Shaxton, Nicholas (c.1485–1556)’. ODNB. Waddell, G. ‘The Design of the Westminster Hall Roof’. Architectural History 42 (1999): 47–67. Walker, S. ‘Between Church and Crown: Master Richard Andrew, King’s Clerk’. Speculum 74 (1999): 956–91. ———. ‘Remembering Richard: History and Memory in Lancastrian England’, in S. Walker, Political Culture in Later Medieval England: Essays by Simon Walker, ed. M.J. Braddock, pp. 183–97. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2006. Wathey, A. ‘The English Chapel Royal: Models and Perspectives’. In The Royal Chapel in the Time of the Habsburgs: Music and Ceremonial in the Early Modern European Court, ed. T. Knighton, J.J. Carreras and B. García García; trans. Y. Acker, pp. 23–8. Woodbridge: Boydell, 2005.

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Unpublished Theses Bowers, R. ‘Choral Institutions Within the English Church: Their Constitution and Development 1340–1500’. PhD thesis, University of East Anglia, 1975. Ford, L.L. ‘Conciliar Politics and Administration in the Reign of Henry VII’. PhD thesis, University of St Andrews, 2001. Foss, D.B. ‘The Canterbury Episcopates of John Stafford (1443–52) and John Kemp (1452–54) With Editions of their Registers’. PhD thesis, King’s College London, 1986. Hillson, J. ‘St Stephen’s Chapel, Westminster: Architecture, Decoration and Politics in the Reigns of Henry III and the three Edwards (1227–1363)’. PhD thesis, University of York, 2015. Kisby, F. ‘The Royal Household Chapel in early Tudor London, 1485–1547’. PhD thesis, University of London, 1996. Lewycky, N. ‘Serving God and King: Cardinal Thomas Wolsey’s Patronage Networks and Early Tudor Government, 1514–1529, with Special Reference to the Archdiocese of York’. PhD thesis, University of York, 2008. Roger, E.C. ‘St George’s College, Windsor Castle, in the Late-Fifteenth and Early-Sixteenth Centuries’. PhD thesis, Royal Holloway, University of London, 2015. Selway, K. ‘The Role of Eton College and King’s College, Cambridge in the Polity of the Lancastrian Monarchy’. DPhil thesis, University of Oxford, 1993. Skinner, D. ‘Nicholas Ludford (c.1490–1557): A Biography and Critical Edition of the Antiphons, with a Study of the Collegiate Chapel of the Holy Trinity, Arundel, under the Mastership of Edward Higgons, and a History of the Caius and Lambeth Choirbooks’. DPhil Thesis, University of Oxford. 1996. Williamson, M. ‘The Eton Choirbook: Its Institutional and Historical Background’. DPhil thesis, University of Oxford, 1997.

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Index

Aachen, Marienkirche  25, 41–2 Aiscough, William, canon of St Stephen’s  111, 162 Alcock, John, dean of St Stephen’s  111, 163–4 All Souls College, Oxford   110 Alien priories   51–3, 102, 109, 115–16, 131 Ambassadors  62, 66, 68, 70, 78, 110, 187, 189 Ammonias, Andreas, canon of St Stephen’s  164, 185, 187 Anne of Bohemia  15 n. 48, 72, 83, 85 Chantry of  83–4, 86 Anne of Cleves  192, 193 Arthur, son of Henry VII  103, 154 n. 92, 164 Wedding to Katherine of Aragon  144– 5 Arundel, John, canon of St Stephen’s  120 n. 119 Arundel, Thomas  67 Ascham, Roger  188 Ashton, Hugh, canon of St Stephen’s  102 n. 26, 115, 166, 186 Atherton, Edward, canon of St Stephen’s 111 Atwater, William, canon of St Stephen’s 157 Aynesworth, Henry, canon of St Stephen’s 130 Barrow, Thomas, canon of St Stephen’s  105–6, 108, 113 n. 89, 127, 146 n. 44 Beauchamp, Roger  74 n. 15, 75 Beaufort, Margaret  102, 114–15, 134, 147, 168, 186 Bedyngham, John, verger of St Stephen’s 156 Bell, John, canon of St Stephen’s  189–90 Benefactors of St Stephen’s College  15, 21, 147–8, 178 n. 208, 212 Powtrell, Thomas  147 Rogers, Pernell  148 Swift, Margaret  15

Benet, [William], canon of St Stephen’s  129 n. 162, 166, 187 Beverley, William, canon of St Stephen’s  105, 108, 113 n. 89, 128 Bishops  16, 38–9, 74, 123–6, 184, 188, 189 Black Death (1348)  33–4, 46 Black Prince, the [Edward of Woodstock]  28, 42, 73, 77 Bledlow, Buckinghamshire  51, 132 Boleyn, Anne  178–9 Bolingbroke, Roger  125 Bolton, [William], canon of St Stephen’s 113–14 Boniface IX, pope  63–4 Bontemps, William, canon of St Stephen’s 124 Bonyfaunt, Thomas, canon of St Stephen’s  113, 120 Brantingham, Ralph, canon of St Stephen’s  35 n. 44 Braybrooke, Robert  64 Breche, John, canon of St Stephen’s  90 n. 93, 101 n. 20 Brereton, John, canon of St Stephen’s  188 Bridewell, palace of  165, 177 Brocas, Bernard, canon of St Stephen’s  36 Brock, Robert, canon of St Stephen’s  210 Brown, John, canon of St Stephen’s  113 n. 89, 130, 146 n. 44 Buckingham, John, canon of St Stephen’s  34, 36, 74 Burley, Sir John  68 Burley, Sir Simon  73, 77 Cambridge, university and colleges of  2, 25, 186, 192, 200 also see King’s College. Canner, Thomas, canon of St Stephen’s 188 Capel, John, canon of St Stephen’s  90 n. 93 Carmeliano, Pietro, canon of St Stephen’s  164, 185, 187 Cathedrals  2, 25, 39, 49–50, 83, 122, 128, 134–5, 194, 202

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index Durham 135 Hereford  50, 125, 135 n. 196 Lincoln  38, 50, 68, 83, 134–5 St Paul’s, London  103, 113–14, 144, 150, 192 Salisbury  2, 42, 49, 83 York 38 Wells  94, 113–14 Cecil, Sir William, Lord Burghley  207–8 Chaderton, Edmund, canon of St Stephen’s  113, 128 Chambre, John, dean of St Stephen’s  102 n. 26, 157, 165, 172, 193 n. 62, 197, 199 Connection to cloister  172, 176, 177 Almsrooms  176, 195 Chantries  40, 47, 42, 47–8, 83–4, 86, 117, 121, 123, 128, 133, 142, 150, 151, 158, 177, 179, 192, 194, 195, 198, 199, 202–3, 204 Chantries Acts  19, 183, 194, 201–2, 204, 209 Chapel Royal   14, 30, 94, 113, 118–22, 123, 157–9, 161–2, 166–7, 191 Chapels used  16, 17, 91, 120–1, 204 Liturgy of  16, 91, 121, 138–9 Music of  44–5, 91, 152–6, 158 Relationship with St Stephen’s College  17, 45, 88, 90–2, 98, 111, 119–22, 152–5, 180, 212, 215 Reformation in  182, 184–5, 195–6 Role within royal household  91, 120, 138–9 Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor  41–2 Chaundeler, Thomas, canon of St Stephen’s 111 Chauntre, William, canon of St Stephen’s  129 n. 163 Chesterfield, Adam, canon of St Stephen’s  36, 37 Chesterfield, John, canon of St Stephen’s  34, 36 Chesterfield, Roger, canon of St Stephen’s 36 Chichele, Henry  109, 123 Clifford, Richard, canon of St Stephen’s  80–1, 90 n. 93, 94 Clifford, Richard the younger, canon of St Stephen’s  90 n. 93 Cobham, Eleanor, duchess of Gloucester  15–16, 99, 124–6 Coke, John, sexton of St Stephen’s  156 Cold Norton, priory of, Oxfordshire  102 n. 26, 116 Colleges  18, 24–5, 38–40, 104, 117–18, 128, 132, 135, 185, 193 Foundations  2-3, 109–10 Reformation in  193–4, 195 see

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also Aachen, All Souls, Eton, Fotheringhay, Higham Ferrers, King’s College, Manchester, New College, Norton, royal free chapels, Sainte Chapelle, St Mary’s in the Newarke, St Mary’s Warwick, Tattershall Commemoration of the dead  1, 8, 15, 18, 23, 27, 35, 82–4, 85, 98, 103, 104, 115, 121, 127–8, 130, 133–4, 146–8, 150–1, 198–9, 204 Convocation  190, 192, 193 Cooden, manor of, Sussex  132 Cook, Alan, canon of St Stephen’s  188 Corby, John, canon of St Stephen’s  44–5 Coren, Richard, canon of St Stephen’s  188, 191–3 Coronations  14, 68, 103, 167, 203 Courtenay, William  75, 93 Couton, Thomas, canon of St Stephen’s  108, 113–14 Cowley, Thomas, canon of St Stephen’s 187 Cox, Richard, canon of St Stephen’s  164, 190–1, 193 n. 62, 201, 210 Cranmer, Thomas  182, 190, 199 Consecration at St Stephen’s  184 Crayford, John, canon of St Stephen’s  192, 193 n. 62 Crecy, John, canon of St Stephen’s  151 n. 77 Cromwell, Thomas  182, 191 Crosse, Thomas, dean of St Stephen’s  34, 36 Croweton, John, canon of St Stephen’s  90 n. 93 Cusance, William, canon of St Stephen’s 36 Danet, Thomas, canon of St Stephen’s  113 Dartford, Dominican nuns at  34, 56 Daune, George, canon of St Stephen’s  114 Day, George, canon of St Stephen’s  188 Day, Thomas, canon of St Stephen’s  210 De la Pole family  54 De la Pole, Michael  68, 78, 93 Delegated Grants to Appoint Canons at St Stephen’s  102 n. 26, 107–8, 109, 112–14, 117, 186, 187 Denny, Sir Anthony  190, 207–8 Denton, James, canon of St Stephen’s  102 n. 26 Dereham, Richard, canon of St Stephen’s 107 Dewsbury, Yorkshire  33 Dionys, William, canon of St Stephen’s  89, 107

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Dixon, Nicholas, canon of St Stephen’s  99 n. 9, 111 Donne, John, canon of St Stephen’s  188, 190–1 Doune, William, canon of St Stephen’s 106 Eastling, manor of, Kent  77, 78 Edington, William  27, 32, 35–6, 54, 70 Edward III  1, 14, 18, 28, 38, 42, 62, 93, 95–6, 100, 102 Founder of St Stephen’s   1, 29, 31–2, 40–1, 43, 72, 97, 103, 104–5 Grants to St Stephen’s College  32, 37, 46, 49, 76 Ideas of kingship  29, 45, 70, 90, 104 Personal religion of  30, 33, 37, 39, 42, 45, 48, 70, 87 Will of  56, 67, 71, 72, 73–4 Edward IV  14, 102, 103, 107, 108, 110–12, 115, 116–17, 139, 155 Death of  167–8 Edward V  97 Edward VI  189, 190, 199, 203, 206 Edward the Confessor  7, 8, 29, 68, 82–3, 85, 86, 104–5, 177 Edward of Westminster, son of Henry VI  145, 163 Edward of Woodstock see Black Prince Elham, manor of, Kent  77, 78 Elizabeth I  203, 207, 211 Elizabeth of York  15, 102, 114, 154–5 Coronation of  103, 153 Musical patronage  159 Funeral of  167 Elmham, Robert, canon of St Stephen’s  44, 55 Endowment of St Stephen’s Church Advowsons  49, 50, 51, 52, 54, 132 Exchequer revenues  49, 55–6, 76, 78 Fee–Farms of Essex, London and York  33, 50, 53, 54, 132 Income of  48–51, 53–4, 76, 77 n. 35 Land management of  20, 55, 72, 75, 78, 98 Property of  23, 76–7, 208–9 see also Cooden, St Albans, Westminster, London, Queen Court, Juliana Leybourne, Mere, Eastling, Fenstaunton Eton College, Berkshire  2, 24, 39, 109–10, 117, 123, 157, 158, 202 Everdon, John, canon of St Stephen’s  99 n. 9 Excestre, William, canon of St Stephen’s  90 n. 93

Fane, Sir Ralph  205, 206, 207 Felton, Robert, canon of St Stephen’s  124 Fenstaunton, Huntingdonshire  129, 132 Fotheringhay College, Northamptonshire  24, 25, 110, 117 Foulmer, Robert, canon of St Stephen’s  90 n. 93, 94 n. 113 Fox, John, canon of St Stephen’s  187 Frampton, priory of, Dorset  102, 115, 131 Fulmer, Robert, canon of St Stephen’s  130 n. 168 Gainsborough, William, canon of St Stephen’s  90 n. 93 Galandre, William, canon of St Stephen’s  90 n. 93, 101 n. 20 Gardiner, Stephen  182, 188, 193 Gates, Sir John  206, 207, 208, 209 Gloucester, Robert, canon of St Stephen’s  90 n. 93 Godmanston, John, canon of St Stephen’s  89, 90 n. 93 Goodrich, Thomas, canon of St Stephen’s  188 Gourll, John, canon of St Stephen’s  113 n. 89 Great Schism  57, 62 Greenwich Palace  143, 144, 165, 184, 215 Gregory XI, pope  61 Grene, Richard, canon of St Stephen’s  151 n. 78 Grestein, abbey of, Normandy  52 Gunthorpe, John, canon of St Stephen’s  108, 112, 113–14, 129 n. 162, 146, 162, 164, 185 Hannay, William, canon of St Stephen’s  89, 90 n. 93 Haseley, Sir Thomas  146 Hastings, Edward, lord Loughborough  207, 209, 210 Hastings, Sir George  165 Hastings, William, lord Hastings  114 n. 94, 108, 117 Hatton, Richard, canon of St Stephen’s  122 n. 133, 129 n. 162 Hauley-Shakell affair (1378)  69 Henley, John, canon of St Stephen’s  79 n. 42 Henry III  92 Henry IV  72, 74, 79, 96, 104 n. 34, 106, 107 Henry V  14, 104 n. 34, 115, 116, 121, 122 Henry VI  13, 14, 101–2, 104 n. 34, 108, 109–10, 111, 117, 122–3, 124–5, 138–9, 166 Henry VII  102, 103, 105, 115, 116, 122 n. 133, 134, 138, 145, 149, 157, 159, 167, 168–9, 171, 181, 185, 215

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index Henry VIII  137, 138, 154 n. 93, 161, 168–9, 176–7, 185, 212 Divorce  182, 186–7, 190 Building of Whitehall  168–9, 181 Building works at Westminster  170, 176 Presence at Westminster Palace  169– 71, 178, 179, 203–4, 215 Reformation theology of  183, 187, 191, 198, 199 Wives, see Jane Seymour, Anne Boleyn, Katherine of Aragon, Anne of Cleves Hesyll, Gerard, canon of St Stephen’s  129 n. 163 Higgons, Edward, canon of St Stephen’s  156, 188 Higham Ferrers College, Northamptonshire 155 Hobbes, Thomas, dean of St Stephen’s  150–1, 157 Home, John  125 Houghton, Adam  43–4, 55 Humphrey, duke of Gloucester  125 Hungerford family  177–8

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Ibrie, William, canon of St Stephen’s  210 Indulgences at St Stephen’s Chapel  46–7, 102 Scala Coeli  146–8, 212 Isabella of France  15, 28, 45 Chantry of  47–8, 84 Ixnyng, Martin, canon of St Stephen’s  36 Joan of the Tower, daughter of Edward III  32, 46 John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster  69, 74, 106, 107, 150 Jourdemayne, Margery  125 Katherine of Aragon  144–5, 159, 171 Heraldry of  172, 177, 178 Katherine of Valois  15 n. 48 Keynes, Thomas, dean of St Stephen’s  37, 44 Kesteven, Ralph, canon of St Stephen’s  63 Kilbourne, John, canon of St Stephen’s 111 King, Oliver, canon of St Stephen’s  164 King’s College, Cambridge  24, 109–10, 117, 157, 172, 177 King’s Council, see Royal Council King’s Langley, friars at, Hertfordshire  33, 50, 73, 76, 79, 215 Kings of England, see Edward III, Edward IV, Edward V, Edward VI, Henry

243

III, Henry IV, Henry V, Henry VI, Henry VII, Henry VIII, Richard II, Richard III Kingship  4, 8–10, 11– 15, 28–9, 84–5, 89–90, 97–100, 112, 138, 179, 200 Access to  57, 137, 140, 143, 152, 154, 162–3, 179, 213–4, 215 Corporate kingship  12–13, 29, 98, 103, 108–118, 122, 141, 182 Counsel to  11, 161–3 Dynastic ambitions  14–15, 28, 38, 45, 47, 71, 103, 104, 110, 159, 212 Expectations of  10–11 Legitimacy  17, 19, 97, 99, 101, 103–4, 212 Magnificence  14, 17, 46, 71– 2, 104, 138, 140, 143, 163, 178, 213–14 Patronage  12, 106 Religious kingship  28, 42, 65, 80, 84–5, 92–3, 98, 101, 115–17, 124, 152, 155, 213, 215 Kirkburton, Yorkshire  52 Knight, William, canon of St Stephen’s  129 n. 162, 166, 187, 189, 193 n. 62 Lancaster, duchy of  106–7 Lane, William, canon of St Stephen’s  90 n. 93 Langham, Simon  61, 65, 124 Larke, Thomas, canon of St Stephen’s  164, 166, 177, 186 Latimer, William, lord Latimer  74 n 15, 75 Law–courts  7, 29, 70, 103, 118, 124–6, 133, 140, 143, 149–50, 206 Chancery  7, 57, 58–9, 61, 63, 70 King’s Bench  7, 126 Common Pleas  7, 150 Church Courts  126 Papal Curia  57, 58, 59, 63, 66 Papal Judges–Delegate  57, 58, 59, 61, 62, 66 Lee, Alexander, canon of St Stephen’s  113 Lee, Edward, canon of St Stephen’s  188 Legbourne, John, canon of St Stephen’s 107 Lewes, Cluniac priory of, Sussex  51–2, 115 Leybourne, Juliana  77 lands of  56, 72, 73, 76, 77, 78 Linacre, Thomas, canon of St Stephen’s  164, 185–6 Liturgy and Music at St Stephen’s   1, 3-4, 16, 19, 23, 28–9, 42–4, 45, 88, 90, 93, 104, 118, 121–3, 151–60, 197–8, 212 Composers, see Nicholas Ludford, Nicholas Sturgeon, John Bedyngham, William Tideswell and John Corby

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Innovations in  184–5 Lady Mass  42, 44, 121, 156 Morrow Mass  44, 46 Office of the Dead  42, 44, 121 Processions  80n, 88, 103, 146, 153–4, 166–7, 179 Polyphonic music  4, 42–3, 44, 156–7 Services at St Stephen’s  15, 46, 65, 69, 92, 93, 103, 118, 121, 123, 146, 152, 155, 184 Vestments  43, 149, 159–60, 197–8, 207 London, City of and environs  150 Blackfriars 170 Lombard Street  50, 53–4 Lambeth 133 La Réole (Queen’s Wardrobe)  54, 84 Property of St Stephen’s in  8, 78, 79, 130–1, 133, 208 Serne’s Tower  51, 54 Smithfield 73 Tower of  85 Longland, John, canon of St Stephen’s  184 n. 8, 185 Louis de Bruges, lord Gruthuyse  144, 146 Ludford, Nicholas  152, 155–7 Lyndwood, William  123, 132, 133–4, 148, 151, 177, 212 Maidenstan, John, canon of St Stephen’s  33, 34, 36 Makerell, Ralph, canon of St Stephen’s  105, 108 Manchester College, Lancashire  155, 202, 209 Manfield, Robert, canon of St Stephen’s  90 n. 93, 94 n. 113 Margaret of Anjou  15, 108, 167 donor window in St Mary le Pew  104 Martin, Richard, canon of St Stephen’s  108, 162, 163–4 Mary I  164, 189, 206, 209 Mary, queen of France and duchess of Suffolk 166 Master masons  85, 172, 176 Maudeleyn, Richard, canon of St Stephen’s  90 n. 93, 94–5, 101 Medford, Richard, canon of St Stephen’s  90 n. 93, 94–5 Mere, manor of, Kent  76 Merston, Henry, canon of St Stephen’s 107 Mildmay, Sir Walter  208 Morland, William, canon of St Stephen’s  113 n. 89, 146 n. 44 Mortmain Legislation  55, 77, 132–3 Mouter, Robert, canon of St Stephen’s 110–11

Mulsho, William, canon of St Stephen’s 40 New College, Oxford  52–3, 107, 110, 111, 116 Northburgh, Michael, dean of St Stephen’s  30, 34, Norton, William, canon of St Stephen’s  90 n. 93 Norton College, co. Durham  38 Offices of State, see royal administration Oldham, Hugh, canon of St Stephen’s  102 n. 26, 115 Order of the Garter  29, 44, 68, 104, 176, 177, 202–3 Orgrave, Thomas, canon of St Stephen’s  90 n. 93, 94 n. 113 Our Lady of the Pew, see St Mary le Pew Oxford, university and colleges of  2, 25, 52, 186, 191, 194, 200 see also All Souls, New College Papacy  63, 66, 70 Move from Avignon to Rome   61 Grant of rights to St Stephen’s  40, 59, 61 Papal Bulls  59 Papal Curia see law- courts see also Boniface IX, Gregory XI, Urban VI Parliament  4, 8, 18, 58, 93, 100, 102–3, 140–1, 143, 144, 145–6, 154, 207 1385 Parliament  93 1435 Parliament  99 n. 9 1479 Parliament  146 1489 Parliament  116–17 1514 Parliament  170 Clerks of  8, 145 Good Parliament  75 Gloucester Parliament  75 House of Commons  5, 22, 75, 170, 205, 206, 216 House of Lords  154, 205–6 Merciless Parliament  73, 93–4 Proctors for  8, 99, 145–6, 207 Wonderful Parliament  68, 93 Paston family  140 Peasants’ Revolt (1381)  92 Penistone, Yorkshire  51 Philippa of Hainault  15, 28, 42, 45, 47, 84 Praemunire, statute of  58, 68, 69–70 Prentys, John, dean of St Stephen’s  81, 129 n. 163 Prentys, Richard, canon of St Stephen’s  90 n. 93 Prestwick, William, canon of St

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index Stephen’s  99 n. 9, 151 n. 77 Prohibitio, writs of  58, 62, 63, 66, 69–70

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Queen Court, manor of, Kent  116 Queenship  15–16, 168 Queens Consort see Isabella of France, Philippa of Hainault, Anne of Bohemia, Katherine of Aragon, Elizabeth of York, Elizabeth Woodville, Margaret of Anjou, Katherine of Valois, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves. Queens Regnant see Elizabeth I, Mary I Radcot Bridge, battle of  93 Ravenser, Richard, canon of St Stephen’s 36 Rawlins, Richard, canon of St Stephen’s 166 Rawson, Richard, canon of St Stephen’s  157, 193 n. 62 Reformation At court  182, 195–6, 213 Edward VI and  199–200, 202 Theology of  183, 189–93 Regime change  97, 100–8, Lancastrian Usurpation 1399  101 Yorkist Usurpation 1461  101 Readeption 1470–1  102, 105, 108 Ricardian Usurpation 1483  97, 101, 105, 108 Tudor Usurpation 1485  102, 108 Reynes, Thomas, canon of St Stephen’s 129 Richard II  19, 53, 57, 62, 63, 68, 74, 82, 93, 94, 95 Building programme  5, 71–2, 79, 82–3, 84, 85–8 Favourites  72, 77–8, 90, 94 Financial concerns of  73, 77–8 Iconography  85, 87, 94 Personal chaplains  90 n. 93, 91 Personal piety  86–7, 89–90 St Stephen’s, relationship with  19, 69, 71, 73–4, 79, 82, 87, 89–90, 94–6, 105, 132–3 Westminster Abbey, relationship with  67–8, 69, 86–7 Richard III  97, 102, 105–6, 108 Richard, duke of York (father of Edward IV) 103 Richard, duke of York (son of Edward IV)  145, 167 Richmond, palace of (formerly Sheen)  105, 143, 144, 168–9, 171, Robertson, Thomas, canon of St Stephen’s  188, 190–1, 193 n. 62, 210

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Royal Administration   1, 3, 29, 34, 49, 70, 74, 86, 90, 94, 98–9, 100–1, 105, 107–10, 113, 118, 133, 137, 140–1, 161 Augmentations, court of  23, 170, 198, 199, 204, 207, 208 Chancery  7, 11, 21, 36, 53, 94, 98, 101, 105, 106, 107, 109, 111, 112, 114, 124, 140, 146, 164, 186 Exchequer  7, 11, 31, 35–6, 37, 49, 53–4, 55, 75–6, 94, 95, 98, 101, 107, 109, 111, 140 First Fruits and Tenths, court of  170, 204 Hanaper 79 Privy Seal  7, 11, 95, 106, 107, 123, 162 Wardrobe  36, 40, 53–4, 95, 107 Works, office and clerks of  20, 36, 37, 85, 89, 106, 179, 205 Royal Court  10, 37, 74–5, 79, 100, 106, 137–40, 148, 152, 155, 182 Audiences at  85, 141, 152, 180 Royal Council  58–9, 74–5, 77, 93, 107, 123, 124–6, 161–2, 200 Relationship with royal household  19, 138 Royal Free Chapels  25, 38, 39–40, 101, 109, 119 Rights of, 27, 40, 57, 60–1, 65, 70, 126 Royal Household  10, 65, 68, 72, 74– 5, 100, 109, 119, 152–3, 162, 166–7 Canons working in  90 n. 93, 94–5, 98–9, 102, 107, 110, 113, 119–20, 127, 160–8, 185, 192 Ordinances of  119, 138–9, 141, 162, 164–5 Officers of  74 n. 15, 75, 77, 107, 207, 210 Reformation at  195 Use of St Stephen’s Chapel  45, 47, 65, 67, 91–2, 97, 125–6, 167–8 Rudd, John, canon of St Stephen’s  192–3 Rushook, Thomas  91 Rushworth College, co. Norfolk  39 Russell, John, canon of St Stephen’s  107, 110 n. 74 Ryby, Thomas, canon of St Stephen’s Sainte Chapelle, Paris  8, 16, 25, 33, 37 n. 52, 41, 43, 46, 119 Salisbury, Nicholas, canon of St Stephen’s  80, 101 n. 20 Sampson, Richard, canon of St Stephen’s  157, 166, 172, 187 Sandal Magna, Yorkshire  51, 209 n. 137 Say, William, canon of St Stephen’s  120 Scrope, William  59 n. 174 Sever, Henry, canon of St Stephen’s  110 n. 71, 123, 162

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index

Seymour, Edward, duke of Somerset  201, 203, 205, 206, 207 Seymour, Jane  179 Sharp, Henry, dean of St Stephen’s  113–14 Shaw, Richard, canon of St Stephen’s Shaxton, Nicholas, canon of St Stephen’s  184, 188 Skip, John, canon of St Stephen’s  188 Skipton, Richard, canon of St Stephen’s 114 Slake, Nicholas, dean of St Stephen’s  90 n. 93, 93, 94–5, 105 Slater, Thomas, canon of St Stephen’s 190–1 Sleaford, William, dean of St Stephen’s, 58, 60, 66, 72, 89 Southwell, Thomas, canon of St Stephen’s 125 Stafford, Thomas  112 Stokesley, John, canon of St Stephen’s  188 St Albans, lands in  50, 54, 76 St Eustace  45–6 St Frideswide’s Abbey, Oxford  58, 61, 62 St George  28, 32, 45, 104, 105 St George’s College, Windsor  23–4, 35, 42, 59–60, 80 122, 125, 154–5, 157, 167–8, 177 Building works at  82, 115–16, 172, 176 Edward III’s foundation of  29, 32, 42, 70 Endowment  49, 115 Financial Troubles of  72, 82, 98, 104, 132 Liturgy and commemoration at  42–3, 199 Poor Knights at  39, 202 Reformation at  182–3, 196, 200, 202–3 Relationship with rest of Windsor Castle  24, 29, 120 St Margaret’s Westminster, parish of  7, 21, 30, 58, 59–60, 64–5, 152, 158, 167, 168, 195, 205 St Martin le Grand, royal free chapel of, London  40, 49 dean of see William Mulsho St Mary  8, 28, 29, 42, 45, 47, 90, 92–3, 104, 158 Foundations dedicated to  15, 116, 147, 158 also see St Mary Graces, St Mary le Pew, St Mary Undercroft Iconography of  177 Image of  8, 15, 47, 92, 122, 197 Feast day of  31 St Mary Graces, Cistercian abbey of, London  33–4, 50, 56, 73, 76, 79, 151 St Mary le Pew  1, 17, 43, 48, 65, 80, 88, 93, 104, 120, 133, 146, 154, 160

Chantries at  47, 83–4, 177 Confusion with Westminster Abbey  47 n. 107, 92, 148 Keeper of  1, 48 Image in  8, 15, 47, 92, 122, 197 Maternal cult  8, 15, 47, 158–9, 197 Removal of image 1545  160, 197 Scala Coeli indulgence at  146–8, 197, 212 School at  146, 203 Singing men at  157 St Mary Undercroft  1, 5, 16, 22 Burials in  133–4, 149 Usage of  43, 121, 149, 159 St Mary in the Newarke College, Leicester  24, 25, 49, 110, 116–17 St Mary’s College, Warwick  24, 39 St Peter’s, Westminster see Westminster Abbey St Pol, Marie de   92 St Stephen’s Chapel  1, 16, 29, 59, 120, 123, 133, 140, 168 Audiences at  45–7, 65, 69, 73, 80, 91–2, 118, 126, 142, 146, 148, 149–50, 180, 185, 200–1 Before 1348  16, 30–1 Bishops consecrated at   118, 123, 184 Building works on  16, 30–1, 37, 80, 86 Burials at  129, 191 Iconography of  29, 45–6, 87–8, 198 Inventory of  156, 159–60, 197, 198–9 House of Commons at  5, 22, 26, 205–6 St Stephen’s College  1-2, 71–2, 89, 101, 103, 124, 139, 151 Almsrooms at  176, 184, 195 Canons  1, 19, 37, 55, 58, 64, 65, 68, 79, 80–1, 90, 94, 98, 101, 110–11, 127–33, 162, 183, 197 Appointments of, see Delegated Grants to Appoint Chapter House of  16, 37 Choristers  1, 2, 49, 155 Clerks   1, 2, 18–19, 43, 48, 49, 82, 155, 157–8 Cloisters  4, 5, 37, 79–81, 82, 84, 86–7, 95, 129–30, 138, 169, 172–9 Deans  19, 61, 91, 122, 123, 127, 162 see also John Alcock, John Chambre, Thomas Crosse, Michael Northburgh, Thomas Keynes, Henry Sharp, William Sleaford, John Prentys Dispute with Westminster Abbey  3, 27, 56–70, 73, 78, 79, 89 Dissolution  1, 82, 182, 204–5 Endowment of see Endowment Excommunication 1378  58, 68, 69

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index Reformation, role in  183, 184, 193, 196, 200, 210–11 Foundation Date  31–3 Housing  4, 30, 36, 79–82, 84, 95, 111 Jurisdiction  7–8, 27, 39, 40, 57–8, 59, 62, 64–5, 67–8, 79 Music at, see Liturgy and Music Sacrist 43 Statutes of  35, 37, 42, 90, 91 Verger  1, 2, 155–6, see also John Bedyngham, Nicholas Ludford Vicars  1-2, 18–19, 37, 43, 44, 48, 49, 65, 69, 82, 197 Vicars’ College  82–3, 85, 95, 130–1 Vicars’ Hall  30, 82, 84, 95 Visitations of, 43–4, 55, 200–1 Sheen, Palace of, see Richmond Shepey, John  68 Stallworth, Simon, canon of St Stephen’s  97, 101 Stapelford, Thomas, canon of St Stephen’s  35 n. 44, Stillington, Robert, canon of St Stephen’s  101, 162 Stonor, John  97, 101 Stopyndon, John, canon of St Stephen’s  111, 129 Story, Edward  123–4 Sturgeon, Nicholas, canon of St Stephen’s  120, 129 Sudbury, Simon  59, 74 n.15 Swaby, Thomas, canon of St Stephen’s  106 n. 46 Syon Abbey, Berkshire  116, 215 Tattershall College, Lincolnshire  24–5 Taylor, John, canon of St Stephen’s  137, 171, 186 Thames, river,  4, 37, 80–1, 82 Thirlby, Thomas, canon of St Stephen’s  166, 184, 193 n. 62, 197, 200, 203, 205 Thomas of Woodstock, duke of Gloucester  28, 45, 67, 93 Thorpe, John, canon of St Stephen’s  90 n. 93 Tideswell, William, canon of St Stephen’s 44–5 Tobit, book of  45–6 Toney, Robert, canon of St Stephen’s  186, 188 Tyler, Wat  73 Underhill, William, canon of St Stephen’s 129 Urban VI, pope  62 Urswick, Christopher, canon of St

247

Stephen’s  102, 108, 114–15, 162, 164, 185 Vaughan, John, canon of St Stephen’s  210 Virgin Mary see St Mary Vere, John de, earl of Oxford  142 Vere, Robert de, earl of Oxford  93 Veysey, John, canon of St Stephen’s  157, 166 Wade, Richard, canon of St Stephen’s  166, 193 n. 62 Wakefield, Yorkshire  51, 78 Battle of  103 Waltham, John  64 Warham, William  171, 199 Welles, priory of, Norfolk   102, 115–16 Wendlyngburgh, John the Younger, canon of St Stephen’s  101 n. 20 Wenlock, Giles, canon of St Stephen’s  90 n. 93 Westminster Abbey   7, 102, 103, 122, 131, 134, 148, 167 Abbots of  61, 62 Dispute with St Stephen’s College, (1370–1394)  3, 7–8, 27, 29, 56–70, 73, 77, 79, 89 Jurisdiction over manor  40–1, 57–8, 59–60, 63, 64, 67–8, 79 Islip Chapel  172 Lady Chapel (Henry VII’s Chapel)  148, 149–50, 172 Monks of  60 (Peter Combe), 64 (John Burghwell and William Sudbury), 65, 66, 67 Our Lady of the Pew Chapel  47, 92, 147–8 Proctors of   61, 65–6 Reformation at  170, 184, 195, 202, 209 Richard II at  68, 69, 71, 82–3, 86 Sequestration of lands, 1381–2  58, 67, 69 Westminster, manor of   7, 20, 56–7, 203 Canon Row  5, 56, 81–2, 84, 97, 130, 144, 145, 189, 206, 207 Chequer Alley  131 Holy Way Tavern  55 Inn of the earl of Kent  4, 37, 50, 53, 56, 80–1 King Street  131 La Newe Rent  131 Property of St Stephen’s in  8, 55–6, 130–1, 133, 207–8 St Margaret’s see St Margaret’s, Westminster St Stephen’s Alley  131, 195 Wool Staple  53, 81, 131, 176

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248

index Weston, Walter, canon of St Stephen’s  36 Whitehall Palace  138, 143, 168, 169, 196, 204, 215 Whitstons, James, canon of St Stephen’s  102 n. 26, 115 William of Windsor, son of Edward III  32, 46 Winchester College, Hampshire  2, 39 Winchfield, manor of, Hampshire  77, 78 Windsor Castle, Berkshire  29 Edward II’s foundation at  48 Winter, Thomas, canon of St Stephen’s 166 Wolman, Richard, canon of St Stephen’s  129 n. 162, 166, 186, 189–90 Wolsey, Thomas, dean of St Stephen’s  122 n. 133, 157–8, 164, 165–6, 170–1, 177, 186, 192 Building works  177 Chancellor of England, as  149–50 Divorce court organised by  190 Family of  177 Wykeham, William, canon of St Stephen’s 52–3 Woodville, Anthony, lord Rivers  134, 144–5,146–7 Woodville, Elizabeth  102, 103, 114, 124, 146

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Westminster, Palace of  4–7, 19–20, 30, 37, 39, 40, 61, 63, 64, 68, 79, 85–6, 88–9, 104, 120, 121, 138, 140, 142–5, 153–4, 169, 183, 200, 203–4, 214–15 Building works at  5, 36, 81–4, 85–6, 95, 143, 169 Exchequer buildings  5-6, 7, 37, 48, 80, 82, 86, 170, 179, 204, 207 Fire in (1512/3)  168, 169, 170–1, Lesser Hall  7, 31, 89, 143, 154, 170, 206 New Palace Yard  4, 31, 81, 123, 140, 167, 170 Offices of state at, see Royal Administration, Law–courts Painted Chamber  4, 7, 31, 82, 143, 154, 170, 206 Privy Palace  7, 16, 86, 143–4, 169, 170 Queen’s Chamber  7, 154, 168, 206 Queen’s Chapel  16, 91 Redechamber  59 n. 174 St John the Evangelist’s Chapel  16, 91 St Laurence’s Chapel  16, 91 St Stephen’s by the Receipt Chapel  31, 33, 35, 47, 50, 59 Star Chamber  161, 179 Water Gate  81, 140, 179 Westminster Hall   4, 5, 7, 31, 47, 79, 80, 82, 85, 86–7, 88, 95, 140, 143, 170, 178, 179, 203

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Other volumes in Studies in the History of Medieval Religion Details of volumes I–XXIX can be found on our website. XXX: The Culture of Medieval English Monasticism Edited by James G. Clark XXXI: A History of the Abbey of Bury St Edmunds, 1182–1256: Samson of Tottington to Edmund of Walpole Antonia Gransden XXXII: Monastic Hospitality: The Benedictines in England, c.1070–c.1250 Julie Kerr XXXIII: Religious Life in Normandy, 1050–1300: Space, Gender and Social Pressure Leonie V. Hicks

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XXXIV: The Medieval Chantry Chapel: An Archaeology Simon Roffey XXXV: Monasteries and Society in the British Isles in the Later Middle Ages Edited by Janet Burton and Karen Stöber XXXVI: Jocelin of Wells: Bishop, Builder, Courtier Edited by Robert Dunning XXXVII: War and the Making of Medieval Monastic Culture Katherine Allen Smith XXXVIII: Cathedrals, Communities and Conflict in the Anglo-Norman World Edited by Paul Dalton, Charles Insley and Louise J. Wilkinson XXXIX: English Nuns and the Law in the Middle Ages: Cloistered Nuns and Their Lawyers, 1293–1540 Elizabeth Makowski

Biggs, Elizabeth. St Stephen's College, Westminster : A Royal Chapel and English Kingship, 1348-1548, Boydell & Brewer, Incorporated, 2020. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nyulibrary-ebooks/detail.action?docID=6229011. Created from nyulibrary-ebooks on 2021-02-03 07:13:50.

XL: The Nobility and Ecclesiastical Patronage in Thirteenth-Century England Elizabeth Gemmill XLI: Pope Gregory X and the Crusades Philip B. Baldwin XLII: A History of the Abbey of Bury St Edmunds, 1257–1301: Simon of Luton and John of Northwold Antonia Gransden XLIII: King John and Religion Paul Webster XLIV: The Church and Vale of Evesham, 700–1215: Lordship, Landscape and Prayer David Cox XLV: Medieval Anchorites in their Communities Edited by Cate Gunn and Liz Herbert McAvoy

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XLVI: The Friaries of Medieval London: From Foundation to Dissolution Nick Holder XLVII: ‘The Right Ordering of Souls’: The Parish of All Saints’ Bristol on the Eve of the Reformation Clive Burgess XLVIII: The Lateran Church in Rome and the Ark of the Covenant: Housing the Holy Relics of Jerusalem, with an edition and translation of the Descriptio Lateranensis Ecclesiae (BAV Reg. Lat. 712) Eivor Andersen Oftestad XLIX: Apostate Nuns in the Later Middle Ages Elizabeth Makowski

Biggs, Elizabeth. St Stephen's College, Westminster : A Royal Chapel and English Kingship, 1348-1548, Boydell & Brewer, Incorporated, 2020. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nyulibrary-ebooks/detail.action?docID=6229011. Created from nyulibrary-ebooks on 2021-02-03 07:13:50.

This monograph recreates a lost institution, whose spectacular cloister still survives deep within the modern Houses of Parliament. It examines its relationship with every English king from Edward III to Edward VI, how it defined itself as the ‘king’s chief chapel’ through turbulent dynastic politics, and its contributions to the early years of the English Reformation. It offers a new perspective on the workings of political, administrative and court life in medieval and early modern Westminster.

St St e p h e n ’ s C o l l e g e , W e st m i n st e r

n St Stephen’s College, the royally-favoured religious institution at the heart of the busy administrative world of the Palace of Westminster, church and state met and collaborated for two centuries, from its foundation to pray for the royal dead by Edward III in 1348, until it was swept away by the second wave of the Reformation in 1548. Monarchs and visitors worshipped in the distinctive chapel on the Thames riverfront. Even when the king and his household were absent, the college’s architecture, liturgy and musical strength proclaimed royal piety and royal support for the Church to all who passed by.

A Royal Chapel and English Kingship, 1348-1548

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LIZABETH BIGGS started work on St Stephen’s College as part of the large research project ‘St Stephen’s Chapel: Visual and Political Culture, 1292-1941’ at the University of York. She has taught at York and the University of the West of England.

Studies in the History of Medieval Religion

Cover image: Panorama of the Ruins of the Old Palace of Westminster, 1834, Oil painting by Mr George Scharf, © Parliamentary Art Collection, WOA 3793. www.parliament.uk/art Design: Toni Michelle

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Elizabeth Biggs

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Elizabeth Biggs