Soldier, Rebel, Traitor

John, Lord Wenlock and the Wars of the Roses

Alexander R Brondarbit

• Publisher: Pen and Sword Military
• Year: 2022
• eBook ISBN: 9781399003483
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military Biographies
• Index: History

John Wenlock, first Lord Wenlock, was a leading diplomat, courtier and soldier during the Wars of the Roses whose remarkable career offers us a fascinating insight into one of the most turbulent periods in English medieval history. And yet he has hitherto been overshadowed by his more illustrious contemporaries. Alexander Brondarbit’s meticulously researched and perceptive biography is overdue. It establishes Wenlock as a major figure in his own right and records in vivid detail how this shrewd nobleman found his way through the brutal conflicts of his times. Wenlock served in Henry V’s military campaigns in France in the 1420s before moving on to a career in the royal households of Henry VI, Margaret of Anjou and Edward IV. As a diplomat, he led multiple embassies to Burgundy and France and, in addition to the kings he served, he was closely connected with other notable figures of the age such as Richard Neville, earl of Warwick. But Wenlock’s speciality was on the battlefield – he took part in many raids, skirmishes and sieges and in three major battles including the Battle of Tewkesbury in 1471 where he lost his life. Using primary sources as well as contemporary assessments in chronicles and letters, Alexander Brondarbit gives a nuanced description of the main episodes in Wenlock’s long career and throws new light on the motivation of a man who has been labelled a ‘Prince of Turncoats’ because of his frequent changes of allegiance.

Chapter 1

Family and Formative Years

‘And, son, I warn you also not to desire to bear office, for then can it be no other than that you must either displease and hurt your neighbours, or else forswear yourself and not do as your office demands …’

How the Wise Man Taught His Son1

Like so many of his contemporaries, the precise details of John Wenlock’s birth and subsequent upbringing continue to be largely impregnable to modern inquiry. Although few specifics are known of his childhood, his immediate family did leave behind some sufficient information to allow a brief sketch of their history. What is known of their personal connections, public service, ambitions, and achievements shows a family advancing steadily across two generations. The principal resource that transformed their position was land. This valuable resource was acquired and consolidated with sufficient skill to establish a foundation from which to achieve new heights of status and influence in the early fifteenth century. The environment of aristocratic privilege in which our subject grew up owed much to the efforts of his father, William Wenlock, who in turn benefitted greatly under the auspices of his uncle, William de Wenlock.

The Two Williams

What is known of the Wenlock family’s roots trace to the mid-fourteenth century and largely pertains to the subject of this biography’s father, William, who was neither a Wenlock at birth nor a native of Bedfordshire. Although his career does not suggest a man of lofty aspirations, it was nevertheless a life of determined advancement that launched his sons’ future entry into high society within his adopted county. William Wyvell was born in Shropshire sometime in the early 1360s. He was the son and heir of Nicholas Wyvell of Sheinton and Joan de Wenlock, whose family was based in the neighbouring village of Much Wenlock from where they drew their name.2 Other than a sister, Isabel, he is not known to have any other siblings. Joan was the daughter and heiress of Richard de Wenlock, the earliest identifiable Wenlock, although it cannot be dismissed that the late thirteenth-century abbot of Westminster, Walter de Wenlock, was of the same family. Based on his nearly identical coat of arms, a much more likely ancestor is Sir Roger de Wenlock, who was killed in 1347 at the siege of Calais.3 Due to the paucity of records, nothing is known of Richard except that he was a man of some property, which he passed on to his daughter after his death. Although the Wyvells were not without some influence in Shropshire, it was Joan’s family that did much to advance her son’s career. Her brother, William de Wenlock, was one of the many clerics staffing the institutions of central government. He acted as a mentor and patron for his nephew. The status of his mother’s family and the affection he felt towards their efforts on his behalf may have been the factors that stirred Wyvell’s decision to abandon his father’s surname in favour of his mother’s quite early in his life.

William de Wenlock, or the elder William, was well placed to aid the social mobility of his kinsman. As a member of the clergy, he did not have his own children and was therefore free to focus his efforts on furthering the interests of his sister’s heir. Like many of his fellow clerics, he managed to secure offices both spiritual and secular throughout his lifetime. The clergy were educated and literate, ideal servants for the Crown to employ in the robust bureaucracy it relied upon to rule effectively. These traits made William a strong candidate for royal service, but he owed his office in Edward III’s regime to a relative (yet another William) who worked as an usher of the Exchequer and Clerk of the Privy Seal until his death in 1361.4 Securing desirable offices in medieval government were commonly owed to nepotism, friendship, or the good lordship of patrons with influence. De Wenlock was hardly unique in relying upon his personal connections to aid his advancement and using his position to assist his relatives in turn.

Once he established his foothold in the government, de Wenlock found himself employed in a variety of services, largely related to financial matters. In January 1356, he was empowered to act as Controller of Calais, one of the group of officers that assisted the captain of the town, for a one-year term.5 In 1360, he oversaw the finances needed for the renovation of Berkhamsted Castle in Hertfordshire, one of the many residences Jean II of France used in England following his capture at Poitiers four years earlier.6 By 1364, he was a clerk of the lower Exchequer, that part which handled the cash whereas the upper Exchequer handled the accounting of the royal revenues, determining who was to pay in to and receive from the lower Exchequer. A year later, de Wenlock became a prebendary in the Royal Chapel of St Stephen’s in the Palace of Westminster.7 This service was acquired in addition to a respectable ecclesiastical career as he had been a canon of St Paul’s Cathedral since 1363. Although his royal service was conducted in minor offices, he was not wholly divorced from the hub of power that was the court. Royal service led to valuable associations with prominent figures. De Wenlock was frequently given power of attorney by Sir John Beauchamp during his missions abroad to Gascony. Beauchamp served in Edward’s royal household and was favoured by Richard II. So close was his association to that monarch that it led to his impeachment and execution by the Lords Appellant in the Merciless Parliament of 1388.8 The two men appear to have been close as de Wenlock’s will provided money for the poor, and gifted £2 to the Minories of London for prayers for Beauchamp’s soul.9

The elder William had a small and comfortable role in the government, yet even he did not escape the rivalries and backbiting that was part of court politics. At Edward’s command, he was conveyed to the Tower of London ‘for particular causes’ on 7 December 1364.10 There he resided until 22 February so that he could face the judgement of the royal council. De Wenlock was accused of being an accessory in a larger case against a fellow clerk in the Exchequer, Richard de Chesterfield, a deputy of the Lord Treasurer. Two fellow Exchequer officials, Ralph Brantingham and Richard Piriton, had made twenty-four charges of financial mismanagement against Chesterfield including falsifying records, embezzlement, and manipulating tallies for his own benefit.11 De Wenlock was reproached for bribing Chesterfield with a jewel worth two marks (£1 3s. 3d.) in exchange for unspecified favours. In his examination, de Wenlock swore to the council that the gift he gave him was in fact a girdle worth less than £3, which was simply a token ‘for divers other friendly acts which the said Richard had done him diverse times before’.12 Two hearings were needed before Chesterfield was exonerated.13 The charge against William was determined to be ‘frivolous, fictitious, and of malice set forth’ and therefore it was ‘granted by the king and council that he shall go thereof quit’.14 The plot backfired against Brantingham and Piriton, who were briefly imprisoned before they were relieved of their offices, along with the clerks who served under them. The entire episode was a testament to the competition within the ranks of royal officials and the vulnerability of any servant’s position to slander and jealousy.

With the unpleasant affair behind him, de Wenlock was free to carry on his royal and ecclesiastical duties unmolested. In 1376, he reached the pinnacle of his career following his appointment as archdeacon of Rochester. With his interests clearly in the capital and surrounding counties, he naturally decided to leave his native Shropshire and settle in Bedfordshire at the manor of Luton some 30 miles north of London. This was to be the home for the Wenlocks for the next century. Luton was a large estate that had been divided into sixths in the thirteenth century. De Wenlock purchased a sixth of the estate, valued at £8 yearly. Although the principal estate was held by Sir Hugh Mortimer, the sixth was purchased from Edmund Fitzherbert ahead of de Wenlock’s selection as master of the nearby hospital of Farley the following year.15 The mastership of the hospital brought with it the lordships over the manors of Farley and Whipperley in Luton. De Wenlock soon expanded his share of Luton. A royal grant gave him custody of another sixth of the manor with a share of the Flitt Hundred owing to the mental incapacity (referred to as ‘idiocy’ by contemporaries) of William de Mortimer, the older brother of Sir Hugh Mortimer.16 Now that de Wenlock was established with a third of the property, William the younger followed his uncle, leaving his home near Much Wenlock in February 1379 and purchasing his own plot of land consisting of a quarter of a sixth part of Luton.

Warm relations between uncle and nephew appear to have persisted over the following decade. In 1387, de Wenlock named his kinsman the heir to the lands he had purchased the decade prior, the most tangible sign of the friendship the two men must have shared. He earmarked significantly less for his niece, a payment of five marks (£3 3s. 3d.). To secure the younger William’s place in society and see to his more immediate financial needs, de Wenlock was likely the driving force behind his marriage to a local heiress, Margaret Briton. The exact date of their union is unclear, but it certainly occurred by 1 April 1384, when William the younger was granted custody of the manors of Britons in Houghton Conquest and Upper Stondon, which had been in his wife’s family since the early thirteenth century.17 They were acquired from Margaret’s childless brother, John, by reason of his insanity (non compos mentis).18 When he died in 1390, she inherited his properties smoothly. The manors were later valued by the tax assessors at £24 per annum, more than double the minimum annual income for gentry status (£10). These estates were the primary source of revenue for William’s maintenance until he inherited his mother’s property in Much Wenlock consisting of sixteen messuages and 80 acres of land.19

On 1 April 1391, William de Wenlock, the primary benefactor for his nephew to this point, died and was buried in the church where he was beneficed, St Mary’s and All Saints, Luton. His tomb is a model of conventional piety, transmitting his desire for eternal salvation to all who might gaze upon it. Dressed in a priest’s cassock and mantle, de Wenlock is depicted in a praying posture, holding a rosary. Two strips bearing prayers in Latin emerge from his mouth calling for mercy from Jesus and Mary.20 On one side of the tomb, the occupant is referred to as unworthy (hic iacet indignus) and asks God to show kindness to his soul (anime Deus esto benignus). Further engravings alongside the tomb speak to de Wenlock’s successful career, reading:

In Wenlock sprout I: in this town lordships had I: here am I now lady: Christ’s mother help me, lady: under these stones; for a time shall I rest my bones: die must I needs must forever: mightful God grant me thy retreat. amen.21

This simple prayer tells of his journey and achievements while simultaneously reminding the reader of the temporary nature of worldly affairs. To further ease his passage through purgatory, de Wenlock left money for a hundred masses to be said for his soul on the day of his death and another hundred on the day of his burial.22 He provided clothes for twenty-four poor men and women, five quarters of wheat for the ‘needy poor’, and £5 to be distributed so ‘that there is 1d. for each’. De Wenlock’s will provides clear evidence of his wealth at the time of his death as he left a sizeable number of bequests to his family, the clergy, and the poor. It is difficult to arrive at an exact total of money disbursed as some bequests are for an unspecified number of priests or canons and others do not articulate the costs of the goods being provided, but a conservative sum of the specific gifts run in excess of £50. What is clear is that by the time of his death de Wenlock was a man of status in his community, a fact he wished to impress upon others by his largesse. It was a tactic John was to employ himself much later in his life as he paid for substantial renovations to the church so as to cement his own legacy. De Wenlock’s burial thus proved a noteworthy point in the family’s history. Rather than be buried in his native Shropshire, he chose Luton as his final resting place, establishing a permanent connection with St Mary’s, which would later serve as the intended mausoleum for future generations of Wenlocks.

As specified in his will, de Wenlock’s properties at Luton Manor went to William, yet the deceased did not forget his native land and he settled some of his Shropshire properties on the Cluniac monastery at Much Wenlock.23 Showing little regard for his late uncle’s wishes or the state of his soul, William appears to have used his position as executor to try to negate the terms of the will. The tone of this act is lost, but even if it was impersonal it would appear to suggest William allowed his greed to overrule any sense of loyalty to his former patron or concern for his uncle’s soul. Land was simply too valuable and so highly coveted that he could not bear to see it permanently alienated to the Church. William showed his willingness to engage in a hard and determined quarrel for what he believed was his by right. The dispute shows a relentless determination to acquire that which he believed to be his by right. It was not until 1409 that he was finally forced to relent (on pain of a hefty 600 mark fine) and allow the priory and convent to keep the property as intended.24 The issue appeared to be resolved but matters of property were never truly settled when one party felt aggrieved. The question of ownership would be raised again by the next generation. Despite the setback, from 1391 William was now a man of property in his own right in both Shropshire and Bedfordshire, receiving an income well above the minimum required for gentry status. With these resources he was now positioned to make his own way in public service, expanding and cementing his position in local society. Yet such a leap never occurred in a meaningful manner.

William Wenlock’s career proved to be a demonstration that potential did not guarantee results as his emergence into a higher stratum of status and power never materialized. Aside from the right to farm the revenue of certain properties in Bedfordshire in the king’s gif...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Illustrations & Maps
• Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations
• Glossary
• The Hundred Years’ War: Timeline of Principal Events (Lancastrian Phase)
• The Wars of the Roses: Timeline of Principal Events
• A Note on the Text
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 Family and Formative Years
• Chapter 2 Soldier and Servant
• Chapter 3 Lancastrian Courtier
• Chapter 4 Yorkist Rebel
• Chapter 5 ‘My Lord Wenlock’
• Chapter 6 The Kingmaker’s Client
• Chapter 7 Tewkesbury
• Chapter 8 The Prince of Turncoats?
• Chapter Notes
• Bibliography
• Plates