Welsh Journals

RICHARD, DUKE OF YORK AND THE ROYAL HOUSEHOLD IN WALES, 1449-50. RICHARD, duke of York returned from Ireland in 1450 and landed at Beaumaris, the small fortified borough at the south-eastern tip of the island of Anglesey. Immediately on his arrival in Wales, attempts were made by King Henry VI's officers of the principality to prevent him disembarking and travelling unhindered to England. This was done ostensibly on instructions from the royal Household, for by that date the principality in north Wales had become a Household preserved Duke Richard therefore arrived in a part of the realm whose government was in the settled control of members of the king's Household. He can scarcely have been unaware of this, and for him to sail into its heart in 1450 was either foolhardy or worth the risk. In studying this confrontation in Wales, the historian is witnessing a provincial rehearsal of one of the acts in the drama which eventually led to the death of the duke of York and the deposition of the Lancastrian king in the 'Wars of the Roses'. The meticulous author of the contemporary Latin chronicle known today as 'John Benet's Chronicle' gives the date of York's landing as about 8 September and, for an event which occurred at a great distance from the regular haunts of most contemporary chroniclers, this is as precise a date as we have any right to expect. York had, in fact, landed a few days earlier than this, for he had reached his castle at Denbigh on the mainland by 7 September.2 The duke then made his way to his castle at Ludlow in Shropshire, presumably via those estates which, like Denbigh and Montgomery, he held in the Welsh Marches. He rode across midland England, and 1 R. A. Griffiths, 'Patronage, Politics and the Principality of Wales, 1413-61', in H. Hearder and H. R. Loyn (eds.), British Government and Administration: Studies Presented to S. B. Chrimes (Cardiff, 1974), pp. 82-86. In May and June 1450 the principality in south Wales, under the leadership of the domineering esquire, Gruffydd ap Nicholas, sent to the king messages of loyalty, offers of money and requests for authority to defend the ports and coasts of south-west Wales; offers of help were renewed in September, when it was known that York had landed in the north. Public Record Office, Special Collections, Ministers' Accounts, 1224/4 m.9; R. A. Griffiths, 'Gruffydd ap Nicholas and the Fall of the House of Lancaster', ante, II, no. 3 (1965), 215-16. G. L. and M. A. Harriss, 'John Benet's Chronicle for the years 1400-1462', Camden Miscellany, XXIV (Camden Soc., 1972), 162-69, 202; J. T. Rosenthal, The Estates and Finances of Richard, Duke of York (1411-1460)', in W. M. Bowsky (ed.), Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History, II (1965), 198.