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 If
the crown was under threat during medieval times, if the King was suffering
disloyalty from his nobles, then you could bet that more often than not there
was a Staffordshire baron involved somewhere in the skulduggery. They
were an acquisitive and quarrelsome lot and quite prepared to die for their
chosen cause. It is a fact that Staffordshire lost more of its nobility during
the Wars of the Roses than any other county. In this book, I have chosen
six barons with castles and connections in Staffordshire, three lost their
heads, two died in their beds and one became King of England - by exceedingly
dubious means.
These are the characters you'll read about
Thomas Plantagenet Earl of Lancaster - the most
wealthy and powerful baron of his day, he chose from amongst his 28 castles to
live at Tutbury. He couldn't stand his cousin, gay King Edward II and
spent fifteen years trying to force the inept ruler to chose his advisers more
carefully and stop his profligate squandering of the country's wealth. It
all end in tears...... well, worse than that - the chopping block.
John of Gaunt Duke of Lancaster - was he too much of a
gentleman to snatch the crown? He was certainly well placed to have
grabbed the throne after his brother the Black Prince died leaving a frail
emotional boy as heir apparent and a senile old man as King
Henry Plantagenet who became King Henry IV - he spent
happy times as a boy growing up at Tutbury Castle with his step mother and his
father's lover Katherine Swynford before being whisked off as playmate to his
boy cousin, King Richard II...... so how come he ended up King?
Henry Stafford Duke of Buckingham - descended from the
family who built Stafford Castle shortly after the Conquest. A Lancastrian
by birth and not the brightest chip off the block. He inherited his
dukedom and fabulous wealth when he wasn't much more than a toddler and grew up
at the Yorkist court of King Edward IV and his Queen, Katherine Woodville.
When King Edward died suddenly aged only 40 he left a boy to rule the kingdom
and Henry Stafford teamed up with the late King's younger brother Richard Duke
of Gloucester and became his kingmaker. Between them, these two Dukes
appear to have disposed of the young King Edward V and his 9 year old brother
who have popularly become known as The Princes in the Tower. Which one of
the Dukes actually saw fit to murder the two boys is open to debate.......
though I rather think it was Henry Stafford.
John Dudley the Duke of Northumberland - the son
of King Henry Tudor's tax collector who had to live down the fact that his
father was executed for treason, history hasn't been kind to John Dudley and
he's suffered a dreadful press over the last 500 years. But I don't think
he was the grasping careerist that we've been lead to believe. I don't think he
had any aspirations to found the Royal House of Dudley and put his scoin on the
throne of England, well, not until the young King Edward VI - the boy that he
had nurtured morally, physically, mentally and spiritually became terminally
ill. It was then that John Dudley, with his enemies snapping at his heels
made the ill fated marriage between one of his sons, Guildford and the Lady Jane
Grey and within a couple of months, declared her Queen of England. This
was a panic move, not a well thought out ploy...... but read about him for
yourself, you'll be surprised just how much history this man was involved in, he
built the splendid Tudor castle at Dudley, and was at sea commanding the fleet
when the Mary Rose went down, and he had more to do with turning the country
protestant that did King Henry VIII.
Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester - one of John
Dudley's sons, poor Robert had much to live down when he tried to wangle his way
into the Tudor court with nothing much to recommend him but his gypsy good
looks and his beguiling charms. He was neither liked nor trusted at the
beginning of his career. His grandfather had been beheaded by Henry VIII, his
father and his brother by Queen Bloody Mary - all as traitors to the House of
Tudor. So how did he manage to endear himself to Queen Elizabeth I and
cause the scandal of the generation when his wife Amy Robsart was found dead at
the bottom of a flight of stairs, leaving the field open for him to marry his
Queen. Well, I'm not quite sure how keen he actually was to marry
his Queen, but what was an aspiring Tudor courtier supposed to do when the Queen
of England had taken such a fancy to him? Robert spent his life ducking and
diving managing not to marry Elizabeth or Mary Queen of Scots and keeping his
head on his shoulders to boot - though Elizabeth did throw him into the Tower
when she found out he'd married one of her ladies in waiting without mentioning
it to her. |