Gone Medieval - The Rise & Fall of the de la Pole Family

Episode Date: May 12, 2023

The de la Pole dynasty played a central role in the Wars of the Roses. Theirs is a fascinating story of the rises and falls that plagued families - and the disputes within them - as they tried to chart the stormy waters of a civil war. In this edition of Gone Medieval, Matt Lewis meets Michèle Schindler, whose new book De La Pole Father and Son: The Duke, The Earl and the Struggle for Power, provides a new perspective on the tumultuous events of 15th-century England and the birth of the modern nation-state.This episode was edited by Joseph Knight and produced by Rob Weinberg. If you’re enjoying this podcast and are looking for more fascinating Medieval content then subscribe to our Medieval Monday newsletter here.If you'd like to learn even more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today! To download, go to Android or Apple store Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From long-loss Viking ships and kings buried in unexpected places to tales of murder, power, faith, and the lives of ordinary people across medieval Europe and beyond. Join me, Matt Lewis, Dr. Eleanor Jarniger, and some of the world's leading historians as we bring history's most fascinating stories to life, only on history hit. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries

with a brand-new release every week exploring everything from the ancient world, to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. Welcome to this episode of Gone Medieval. I'm Matt Lewis. It's no secret that the Wars of the Roses is my history home. I never need much of an excuse to visit, but I found a really good one today. Michelle Schindler is joining us to talk about her new book, which is on the Dullopole family, who were central to the story of the Wars of the Roses. Their tale provides examples of the rises and falls that plagued families as they tried to chart the stormy waters of a civil war.

Thank you very much for joining us today, Michelle. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure. So can you paint us a picture to begin with of who the Dullapole family were? How do they emerge and how do they rise to national importance? Well, the Della Pau family did not actually start as a very important family. The founder of the family, so to speak, the first one we really have in the records, he was a wool merchant and a very successful one.

was very rich and that's how he first came to royal attention because Edward III needed money. And this is how they came into the circle of kings. And then his son, he was called Michael and he was in the retinue of John of Gwain, for example. And eventually this connection was enough to make him an earl. But he was by the merciless parliament declared a traitor and then he died in exile, which was bad for his son, another Michael, because he had this shadow of a traitor looming over him and also the shadow of his granddad was a merchant. But eventually, with a lot of faults and rises on the way,

they became an established family. But the first one who was really important was William Delapole, the first Duke. And William plays a role in the very early stages of what will become the Wars of the Roses. He doesn't sort of make it to see exactly what happened. So how significant was his death in 1450? Well, it was quite significant, both for the political situation in itself and also for Henry 6 and his mental health, it's often thought that William was some sort of a father figure to Henry, and then his death, and the fact that Henry hadn't been able to prevent it, was one step towards him losing his mind.

That's often what's assumed, at least. What William did is by modern standards, totally understandable, even praiseworthy, just he wanted peace. The man had lost his father and four brothers in the war in France, and he was like, enough now. This isn't getting anywhere, which is losing people, the French are losing. people. This is pointless. And there's a lot of people in England who didn't think like that. So he was fairly unpopular. And towards the end of the 1440s, there was the fact that he was considered a bit of an upstart, bit of an upstart family, that sort of thing. And he became a duke. That was usually reserved for royals, like the uncles, the brothers of kings. And then there

was this man with very unpopular opinions who became a duke. So that didn't help. And there's also the theory that some of his rivals are most important. notably your leading man, Richard Duke Fjok, did a bit of a campaign against him. So eventually he was accused of treason, but he was cleared of treason, and then he was declared guilty of a lesser charge and sentenced to exile. And it was probably to get him out of the country, get him away from the angry mob, and in five years they'll have forgotten and found a new victim. Well, he was intercepted on the way to exile, and he was submitted to a mock trial, and then he was beheaded. This, well, it didn't help people. It

didn't help the political situation at all. Shortly afterwards, the jacade rebellion started. It even wanted to have his wife, that Alice Chaucer, executed for treason as well, just mostly purely before her association with William. And there was the point that sometimes said to be the first conflict of the Wars of the Roses. There was the point where there were two big camps. And, well, it was diffused, but it didn't really end anything. Henry, the Six, managed to diffuse the situation,

but maybe he was in a way the first victim. You mentioned Alice Chaucer there, William's wife. That's quite a famous name. How is she related to the famous Jeffrey Chaucer? She's his granddaughter. I think the only known grandchild of Geoffrey, actually. There may be more, but she's the only one that really is recorded now. That's another interesting link for the Dillipal family, I think.

Alice herself was not really that high-born. Her mother was of a family of nobles, but her father again, her grandfather was a commoner. His father was a winter son, so both sides, not that high-born, especially not for the heights in politics they reached. And I think it's fascinating that link you make to Henry the 6th deteriorating mental health and the loss of William de la Pohl. He, as you say, had become something of a father figure to Henry as he'd grown up without his father, Henry V, being around. So what part did William's death then play in the life of the senior of your Dullopoles, John, who was William's son.

How did William's death affect him? How old was he when he died, for example? He was seven years old. Of course, we don't know how much it affected him, but it's often assumed that this made John very uninterested in big politics of the time. He wasn't all that interested in going to court, trying to work his way up, but just was mostly happy in his own belongings. And it's often assumed that this was because he saw what happened to his father.

Of course, we can't prove or disprove this. but it might be, especially since not just his father's death, which as terrible as it sounds as a lot of young boys, young girls had to live with their father being executed or killed during that time. But he would have also seen that there were people crying for his mother's blood. It's recorded that Alice had to travel at night to bury William because there were fears that entourage would be attacked. We don't know if John was with her then. He may not have been, but still is something that would have preyed on a small boy's mind and surely influenced him growing up.

And I think John Sr., who then becomes Duke of Suffolk after his father, he's generally thought of as staying out of the Wars of the Roses, not really playing much of a part in the political back and forth of the Wars of the Roses. Is that a fair assessment of him as he grows up? Not really. No, he didn't seem to care all that much, but it's not that he really stayed out of it.

There was a rumor that Richard Giofiyog was involved in his father's murder, and I think there's evidence that he believed that too. So it makes sense that he wouldn't have wanted to get involved when it started again in like 1458. By that time he was married to Elizabeth, the second daughter of Richard Jig of York, so he may not have wanted to go against her father, but he may have also not wanted to fight for her father if he believed he had killed his own dad. and it's interesting and certainly notable that he only got involved when Richard Duke of York was dead. Yeah, that is interesting. It must have been awkward for him. If he believed that Richard Duke of York was involved in his father's murder, it must have been awkward for him to marry York's daughter and suddenly find himself in the fold of that family. And maybe that's a good reason to stay politically relatively inactive. It may have been, yes. But it certainly didn't seem to affect his marriage at all. Of course, Elizabeth was only five when that happened.

So no reason to blame her at all. John fought for the first time in February 1461. It's actually interesting. He didn't fight at the beginning of February, and it may be because he was still gathering his men. If he only decided to get involved after Richard Duke of York was dead, then of course he still needed time to gather men to prepare himself for it. But it's interesting that he didn't fight at Mortimer's Cross on the second of February.

He fought for the first time on the 17th of February. That was maybe the second battle of St. Albans, I'm not sure. And after that he fought in prima genie battle then. He fought at Taunton. And he fought even at Hex him. And then he was critically injured. So badly injured, he was believed to die even three weeks later. And after that he never fought again.

And it seems that he had some sort of injury that prevented him from that. So people have made comments on him not fighting at Busworth, not fighting at Cuxbury. That's just because he literally could not. That's fascinating. So he maybe didn't want to get involved while the man he blamed for his father's death was around. but he did get really heavily involved fighting on the side of the House of York in the immediate aftermath of that. And then it would most likely have been an injury that stopped him playing an active role in the battles that followed on from there. So perhaps being

slightly unfair in characterising him as staying out of things. The second figure that your book focuses on is John's son, who is called John. So we're back to the fun of the Wars of the Roses of everybody sharing a name, nobody having a baby book to get some different names for anybody. So what do we know about John Jr.? When is he born? What do we know, if anything, about his character and his personality? Well, he was born in late 1462. And what there is of his character is he must have been massively charming,

like really charming. Nobody disliked him. Even Henry the 7th immediately took to him. He seems to have a bit of a streak of mischief, but that's pretty much all we know of his character. Later on, under Richard III's government, He was made the president of the Council of the North after Richard Sundy. There's a lot of rules for that.

And you can basically hear John just skipping through all the loopholes that Richard left. As Richard scrambled to close them all, for example, the council pays for his breakfast, but not for his second breakfast. And if he's going hunting, he has to pay for his drink himself, all that sort of stuff. You can just see like any university student, John just trying to see what he can get away with. I know I would have had 20 years old, wouldn't you? Absolutely, why not? It's always worth a try. Is he politically more active than his father? Does he take a more active role in the later phases of the Wars of the Roses? So he's particularly, as you say, involved more in Richard III's government. Is he at the Battle of Bosworth? What happens to him after that?

He is not at the Battle of Bothworth. He was probably staying with Elizabeth of York and her sisters. That makes sense because he was the heir presumptive at that point and wouldn't have made sense to risk the heir and the king. the same time. Anyway, he wasn't much of a fighter like his father, really. Somehow he was old enough to fight at the Scottish campaigns, for example, but he just didn't. Nobody was surprised he didn't either. He just managed to somehow skip this. Maybe that's his charm showing through again. You know, good old John, he's a nice bloke. We don't have to worry about him fighting anyone. Pretty much, yeah. He must have a really charmingness. The one thing that really comes through when you read about him, he must have been so charming. Fascinating. So how does he react to Richard the third's loss of the throne. As you said, he was viewed as Richard's heir presumptive after

Richard's own son died, so he's presumed to be next in line to the throne. Richard is killed at Bosworth, Henry the 7th is on the throne. He's almost immediately lost that position, but to some extent must have been viewed as a threat by Henry Tudor. How does he manage to reconcile with the new king? We actually don't know what happened. Then he probably would have been brought to Henry after the Battle of Wothworth. We don't know what happened next, but something must have happened next because Henry, for one, did not make him swear felt he until three months later. He let him keep almost all that Richard had given him. But whatever it was at the end of him, John had Henry wrapped around his little finger. It's quite interesting, really.

It's fascinating. Yeah. I mean, when we think of Henry the 7th being quite nervous of Yorkist heirs and kind of the relatives of his wife who might pose a threat. And John was probably, to most people, top of the list of potential threats to Henry. And yet he seems to have settled in really well at Henry's side. I mean, is there any other explanation other than just that charm that you talk about? He seems to be able to make friends with anyone. Well, I guess, for example, that he didn't have to swear faulty until Henry was crowned and his parliament had said it would have said a bit of an uncomfortable precedent because by law until that point, John was king. And he wasn't making any fuss about it. So just don't get somebody who's king by law swear faulty to somebody who's just king by conquest

because people might be getting ideas. But other than that, I think he probably wanted John Close because he couldn't imprison him because John had five brothers alive at that point. One of them was a literal infant. If he imprisoned John, he would just have the next four of him at his hands. It made sense for him to have John close to him, I guess. It didn't make sense to give him all these honors and to trust him. And there's no other explanation but that he really trusted John. And what role does John Senior play?

He's still on the scene at this point as well. Does he also fall into step with the new Tudor government? Well, yeah, he does. He was never at court much, slightly more at Richard the 3rd than at Edward IV. Again, he's often either presumed to have hated Richard and not wanted anything. But while we don't know his feelings about Richard, that's his son who was heir presumptive and his daughter, Anne, who was engaged to the Scottish king. So whatever he thought of Richard, he probably wouldn't have done anything to deny his kids these high positions. And on the other hand, it's often thought that he accepted him. so he must have been for him. And he had a huge family. He had a child born shortly after Henry came to the throne. So really, they had no other choice but except him. But an interesting note is this last boy born just after Richard was killed and Henry was proclaimed king, he was called Richard.

So that may have been making his own opinion clear while staying under the radar as much as possible. Yeah, fascinating. And I guess he must have been worried given what had happened to. his own father when his dad became close to the king, maybe not close to the throne, but there were lots of stories that John Sr. planned to marry Margaret Beaufort in an effort to get him onto the throne. So he must have been nervous about seeing his son kind of head in the same direction that John Jr. was becoming next in line to the throne and did that pose a threat to the wider family as it seemed to have done for his father. There was not a danger to

the family. Had Richard remarried or had another son and John still wanted to be. He was a danger to to be king, then it could have been in danger. But until that time, John was just literally next in line. A lot is being made that Richard probably chose him, but he just didn't anymore than your current King Charles chose William as his heir. He just is. Yeah, there's lots of debate I see all the time still about whether Warwick was Richard's heir or John was Richard's heir and who Richard appointed, but Richard didn't appoint anybody, did he? He remained silent. The facts of their genetics and their that family tree meant that John would have been viewed by most people as next in line to the throne. Childless kings never ever talk about who their heir is going to be. It's just not something that

you ever, ever do. Richard II causes all sorts of problems with it. Henry the 6th, before he has a son, has a similar problem with Richard Duke of York. It's just not something that kings ever make a proclamation on, because they're normally planning to have a son at some point. Especially at the time, it would have been drawing attention to a weakness and maybe encouraging some sort of infighting about. the next year. No, I'm the next air. You don't want that. From biblical fame to its fabled great walls, Babylon was home to kings, conquerors and wonders of the ancient world. But what do we actually know about this legendary city? And how much is still shrouded in mystery? Join me, Tristan Hughes,

every Sunday throughout May on the ancients as we delve into the story of Babylon. We'll be covering topics varying from the King Nebuchadnezzar the Second and how he forged a massive Babylonian empire, will be exploring the mystery of the hanging gardens of Babylon, looking at world-renowned objects such as the Cyrus Cylinder, and also looking at Babylon in the aftermath of one of the most well-known conquerors in the whole of history. Babylon after Alexander the Great. That's all to come. This may on the ancients, every scientist. John Jr. then becomes, despite the fact that he seems to have got on well initially with Henry the 7th, they became quite close. John was really well rewarded. He gets wrapped up in the Lambert

Simul affair in 1487. What do we know about his involvement in the plot? And what does the fact that he became involved tell us about the plot? Well, actually, there's quite some evidence that John was already involved in the 1486 rebellion, you know, the level in Stafford Rebellion. There's a quite famous statement by a man who gave Henry the seventh the dates about when Francis Lovell wanted to leave confinement and start a rebellion. And he got rather annoyed by Henry because Henry just wouldn't believe him. And then after he finally did believe him, he just cursed at him and didn't give him a reward. It shows us that somebody must have known that Henry had been told of the plants, must have reported it back to Wycott Lovell and seen to it that the plants were changed. And it's almost definite that this was John Belapo.

junior. There's also evidence after he was declared a traitor in 1487, somebody in York said, well, he had already heard him plotting treason in 1486, helping Wycan Lovel and the Staffords. And it's not a sort of thing you would have just said to sort of jump on the bandwagon of, oh, he's a traitor, because, well, the king wasn't going to take it happily that you had States Island about somebody plotting treason against him for a whole year. So he was probably already involved quite early in all sort of plots against Henry the 7th. And that too tells us a lot about us. He was able to pain this friendship to Henry the 7th and charm him and at the same time

plotting his stuff. He could be quite cold, really, then the more important rebellion, the Lambert Sinil affair. Well, we don't really know when exactly there was started to be planned in detail, but we know that he left court in around November, 1886, after Henry's. first son was born and he borrowed some money from Abington Abbey, I think it was, that he then later took with him to Burgundy. So it would have been around that time that it was definitely being planned in more detail. And do we know anything about what his father made of his son charging off into open revolt, given that the family seemed to have settled in quite well to the Tudor regime?

Is there any sense of what John Senior made of this? It's very hard to say, but we do know that both father and son went together to court when the rebellion first became known in in 1987 and Henry had a council there. They both went to court together and then after a few days, John Jr. left. And it's very hard to conceive how Joan Sr. could have been ignorant of the fact that his son had been borrowing money and that he wanted to leave court, which wouldn't really have been doable like sneaking away in the night. So he must have known.

But whether he tried to discourage him or whether he was encouraging, we just do not know. I guess it left John Senior in a slightly tricky position as well, being left behind when court gets up one day and John Jr's shot over to Burgundy to join him with a rebellion and John Senior's standing there. You know what, Henry the 7th, first of all, didn't really believe apparently.

He only declared John Jr. a traitor a month after that. Then, of course, he stripped him of all the posts he had and gave them to his father. It's fascinating. And so John Jr. would make his way, as you said, to Burgundy. He ends up in Ireland, where the Lambert Simul Affair kind of ramps up. What happens to him after that?

The Lambert Simul Affair involves an invasion of England. Do we know what happened to him in the end? They went back to England after they crowned the pretender, whoever their pretender may have been. And then they landed in England and had a couple of skirmishes that went quite in their favour. John Jr., interestingly, being the one who was sent to charm people

and try and convince them of joining them while Wyckham Lovill was the one who was with the Swiss and Irish mercenaries. But eventually it came to battle, a battle that was meant to have lasted longer than the Battle of Bothworth. Around three hours it hung in the balance, but eventually, of course, the Tudor forces won and John Lundle of Lincoln died. It was his first battle, interestingly. It's not certainly known how he died. Some just say he died in battle. And there's a legend that he was found still living, but more.

mortally wounded and killed by having a stake thrilled through his heart. But I guess this is more sort of metaphor about him being a traitor than it is anything else. I was wonder with John Earl of Lincoln, because there's also sources that talk about Henry the 7th wanting him taken alive so that he could be questioned. And we see quite a few of those rumoured orders throughout the Wars of the Roses being ignored. Edward VIII supposedly ordered that Warwick shouldn't be killed. And there's a concern that these people would charm their way out of trouble. Also, there's maybe the sense that John Jr., if he was such a charming guy, he may have

wheedled his way back into Henry's good books and that Henry's men thought, no, we're not having any of that, we're just going to deal with this here and now and kill him. Yes, that's definitely suggested by the source written around a century later saying that Henry's men feared that by not killing him, Henry would pardon him and give him enough of a position to again start more bloodshed and just did not want this. And even Bernard Andrew, who was at Henry's court, said that Henry was very sad about hearing he died. It's strange when they're sad that a rebel dies. Well, yeah, I'd liked him.

There's another thing, of course, that's often assumed behind the reason that Henry wanted him alive, to ask him just who the pretender was because there is no certainty on that. It's usually claimed to have been a lowborn boy said to impersonate Edward Earl of Forick, but why on earth John, who himself had a very good and flawless claim, would support that is never explained in this? So John Jr., Earl of Lincoln, is killed at the Battle of Stokefield in 1487. His father is still alive. Do we know what happened to his dad after this?

How did he react? How did the rest of the family get on over the years that followed John's rebellion? John Sr. He had a bit of mischief. One time he had left court, and Henry the 7th asked him, He wanted to come to a celebration he had, and he had just said his parties are not crowned enough for me. And he wasn't punished for this. I don't know what he was thinking, saying that I would have been a bit more wary after my son had been killed in battle. But mostly he and Henry seemed to get on well enough.

And he died five years later, still having the king's goodwill. The Dilipol's part in the story wasn't quite over, was it? Because others of John Senior's sons, John Jr.'s brothers would go on to cause a bit of trouble in the years that followed too. And John Jr.'s wife, she was at the age of 50 at that point. She was being watched by the Earl of Oxford, one of Henry the 7th closest associates. She was being watched for suspected treason. Well, you can get why, because after her husband died, in 1492, she went to visit her sister Margaret in Burgundy.

And Margaret of York was, of course, she had aided the Lambert Simler affair and was at that point priming the so-called Perkin Warbeck. So her going to visit her at that time that made a statement. And then of course, there's sons, Edmund and Richard mostly, who were really to make trouble for the tutors. Edmund was eventually caught, brought back to England and then executed by Henry VIII. Richard was never caught and he died at the Battle of Pavia in 1525 or something. He called himself King of England. He also called himself Duke of Suffolk. after John Sr. died, Henry the 7th had stripped the dukedom of the Delapole family,

but they just kept continuing calling themselves Duke. And everybody else in Europe did too. That must have been a bit of a pain for Henry. Yeah, I think he had a sense full with all those Delapoles. Sure stopped after two sons. Richard, again, apparently one of those really charming Delapultz. When he died at the Battle of Pavia, the man he had fought against, gave him a huge grave, and saying one of the bravest man he had ever known,

fallen in that fight. Fascinating. And I guess it's quite striking how different the father and son subjects of your book, John Senior and John Jr. were in their outlook and their temperament through the Wars of the Roses. Do you have a favourite? Do you think one of them got it right and one of them got it wrong? Oh, I like them both. I don't think they were all that different. There's certainly both seem to have formed to only do what they wanted to do. But I think John Sr. was probably more clever in doing what he did and trying to save his family while I get something of John. John Jr. wanting to be more proactive is probably more appealing to me. I really love them both.

Good answer. Fair answer. Well, thank you so much for joining us, Michelle. It's been fascinating to talk about this family who are kind of there throughout the Wars of the Roses, but maybe don't get the attention they deserve. Yeah, thank you for letting me talk about them. It's a pleasure. Michelle's book, De La Pohl, Father and Son, The Duke, the Earl, and the Struggle for Power, is out now from Amberley Books and offers a really different perspective on the Wars of the Roses. don't forget to also subscribe or follow us wherever you get your podcasts from and to tell all your friends and family that you've gone medieval. If you get a moment, please do drop us a review or rate us wherever you get your podcasts.

It really does help new listeners to find us. If you're enjoying this and you're looking for a bit more medieval goodness in your life, you can subscribe to our Medieval Monday's newsletter. Just follow the links in the show notes below. Anyway, I'd better let you go. I've been Matt Lewis and we've just gone medieval with history hit.