Welsh Journals

REVIEWS THE ESTATES AND FINANCES OF RICHARD, DUKE OF YORK. If high birth and proximity to the throne of the long-barren Henry VI had not ensured to Richard, third duke of York, a prominent place in the politics and society of his age, his possession of immense estates would inevitably have done so. This duke was the wealthiest English magnate of the time, with estates extending into eighteen English shires. He was also incomparably the greatest private landowner in Wales. Ten lordships, from Denbigh in the north through Montgomery and Radnor to Usk and Caerleon in the south-east, overshadowed the Welsh holdings of other English marcher lords. The private finances of this greatest of over-mighty subjects were a matter of more than local importance, especially if his financial difficulties can be shown to have a bearing on his stormy political career as leader of the opposition to Henry VFs government and eventual claimant to the throne. For these reasons, a recent substantial study by Professor J. T. Rosenthal on Duke Richard's estates and finances must be welcomed, and no special excuse is needed for a full review of his findings.1 Professor Rosenthal's most important (and perhaps most surprising) conclusion is his repeated assertion (pp. 151, 158, 159) that York's income from land remained essentially stable, even during the troubled years of the 1440s and 1450s. 'The lands were not diminishing in value to any significant degree during the fifteenth century' (p. 191). If acceptable, this may have significant implications for Duke Richard's political career: 'there is little evidence of the sort of serious decline in land values that would drive a nobleman to "political gangsterism" 'Poverty' (Rosenthal concludes) 'was not the spur which drove Richard of York into opposition and rebellion.'2 The idea that Duke Richard's landed income was stable deserves to be considered in the context of the continuing discussion about agrarian depression in late-medieval England. Since Professor M. M. Postan first expounded his now familiar theory of economic decline, in which the real sufferers were the landlords,3 further research has not served either to confirm or to deny conclusively the validity of his general 1 J. T. Rosenthal, 'The Estates and Finances of Richard, duke of York, 1411-1460', W. M. Bowsky (ed.). Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History (Lincoln, Nebraska, 1965), II, 115-204; and see also his 'Fifteenth-century baronial incomes and Richard, duke of York', Bull. Inst. Hist. Research, XXXVII (1964). 233-40. The page-references given below are to the longer article in the Studies. A similar view has since been expressed by K. B. McFarlane, 'The Wars of the Roses' (Raleigh Lecture for 1964), Proc. British Academy, L (1965). 97, but was based on the argument that inheritance and marriage made Duke Richard and his fellow-protagonists in the civil war 'without exception richer than their fathers'. 'The Fifteenth Century'. Econ. Hist. Rev., IX (1938), 166.