Act 10

Medieval Warfare

The story of our soldier ancestors, Archers and Men and Arms of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, who joined the armies of Richard II, Henry IV and Henry V

Medieval Warfare Podcast This is a new experiment. Using Google’s Notebook LM, listen to an AI powered podcast summarising this page. This should only be treated as an introduction, and the AI generation sometimes gets the nuance a bit wrong. However it does provide an introduction to the themes of this page, which are dealt with in more depth below.

Chimes at Midnight Orson Welles takes us to the heart of medieval warfare in one of the epic medieval battle scenes of cinema.

Return to the Contents Page

Scene 1 – The Wars under Richard II

Domestic tensions meet open hostility with France and Scotland

When Edward, the Black Prince, died at Westminster on 8 June 1376, after long illness, he left his widow, Joan the Fair Maid of Kent, descendant of House Stuteville, the Farndale overlords, to protect their young son Richard, second in line to the throne and still only nine years old. When Edward III died a year later on 21 June 1377, Joan was left to manoeuvre through complex interests, to ensure her son’s coronation as Richard II on 16 July 1377.

Edward III had left an inheritance of instability in three potentially rival houses amongst the proud Plantagenet descendants. The Crown passed to the senior royal house of Richard II, protected by Joan. The House of York was a dormant threat to the primary line, still to be awoken. The powerful House of Lancaster, whose patriarch was John of Gaunt, was not so dormant. An uneasy truce during Richard II’s minority ensued.

Plantagenet rivalry

The dynastic struggles of the Plantagenets, leading to the Wars of the Roses, the events of which our ancestors were direct witnesses

The Hundred Years War had become embedded in the national psyche as permanent struggle with France and their ally Scotland, since 1337, but after Crecy and Poitiers, the Treaty of Bretigny of 1360 had marked an end to the first phase of the struggle.

In 1369, on the pretext that Edward III had failed to observe the terms of the treaty, the king of France had declared war once again. By the time of the death of the Black Prince in 1376 and the death of Edward III in 1377, English forces had been pushed back into their territories in the southwest, around Bordeaux.

By 1383, tensions between Richard II and John of Gaunt had been increasing over the approach to the war in France. While the King and his court preferred negotiation, Gaunt and Buckingham urged a large scale campaign to protect English possessions. However Richard II chose to send what he called a crusade led by Henry le Despenser, Bishop of Norwich, which failed miserably. Faced with this setback on the continent, Richard turned his attention instead towards France's ally, the Kingdom of Scotland.

The last round of hostilities with Scotland had ended in 1357, with an agreement that the English would occupy significant portions of southern Scotland, known as the English pale. However by the time of Edward III's deteriorating health and English military reverses in France in the late 1370s, the Scots had begun to gradually recover much of this territory. The Scottish government's standard diplomatic line was that this was the work of over-mighty magnates who were not under control of the Scottish Crown. In reality the Scottish Crown were probably coordinating attacks on English-held territory. By the early 1380s the over-mighty magnates excuse was wearing a bit thin, and lost all credibility when in 1384 the Scots, whose confidence had been boosted by a decade and a half of small scale successes, turned to open war with England.

In February 1384, a Scottish force led by Archibald Douglas the Grim, Lord of Galloway, and supported by his cousin William, Earl of Douglas, and George Dunbar, Earl of March, captured Lochmaben Castle, the former Annandale stronghold of the House Brus. With Lochmaben, the English lost Annandale, the seat of the Scottish line of the Bruce family, their last remaining possession in the west of Scotland.

This Scottish military activity could no longer go unanswered and an expedition by John of Gaunt was organised in some haste.

Farndale soldiers in the Scottish Wars

On 3 April 1384, an English army entered into Scotland under the command of John of Gaunt, in direct response to the fall of Lochmaben Castle. On the retinue roll on 18 January and 1 February 1384 was John Farndale, of the line of Farndales who had settled in York. He served under John of Gaunt’s overall command, and under the captaincy of Henry Percy, Sir William Fulthorpe and Walter FitzWalter.

John of Gaunt (1340 to 1399) was the Lancastrian patriarch, whose son Henry Bolingbroke seized the throne from Richard II two decades later. In the 1380s, the Lancastrians were still loyal to the Crown. Gaunt was the King’s uncle, and he felt responsibility for success of his nephew after his brother, the Black Prince’s premature death. Yet he was growing increasingly frustrated at everything his nephew did and tensions were growing between John of Gaunt and the King.

Henry Percy (1364 to 1403), known as Harry Hostpur was an English knight who fought in several campaigns against the Scots on the northern border and against the French during the Hundred Years' War. The nickname Haatspore or Hotspur was given to him by the Scots as a tribute to his speed in advance and readiness to attack. The heir to the leading Percy family in northern England, rivals to the Nevilles of Sheriff Hutton, Hotspur was to be one of the earliest and primary movers behind the deposition of King Richard II in favour of Henry Bolingbroke in 1399. His nickname was later adopted by Tottenham Hotspur FC.

Walter FitzWalter (1368 to 1406) came from the noble FitzWalter family, with estates in Essex and elsewhere.

John Farndale was part of John of Gaunt's army as it marched up the east coast, burning Haddington and then Leith. The Scots had become adept at a scorched earth policy whenever the English invaded, and John of Gaunt's men seem to have struggled to find ways to overcome the Scots strategically. John of Gaunt himself showed reticence in causing damage. He is known to have spared the abbeys of Melrose and Holyrood from destruction. In 1381 John of Gaunt had briefly fled to Scotland to escape the Peasants' Revolt, and this might have given him some sympathies within Scotland. At that time, John of Gaunt seems to have resided mostly at Holyrood, hosted by John, Earl of Carrick, the future Robert III of Scotland. John of Gaunt had been considered as a possible successor to David II of Scotland back in the 1360s, and in 1384 he may still have harboured vain hopes of some day pressing his claim to be King of Scots. Nevertheless, John of Gaunt extracted a hefty sum of money from the citizens of Edinburgh to spare the town from harm, and this agreement may have included the condition for Holyrood’s safety.

In all, the English spent less than three weeks in Scotland, and by 23 April 1384 Gaunt was in Durham handing responsibility for the defence of the marches to Henry Percy (1341 to 1408), the First Earl of Northumberland, Harry Hotspur’s dad.

Later in 1384, the Scots resumed their aggressive policy towards England, this time with the Earl of Douglas bringing Teviotdale back under Scottish control.

In 1385, the King himself led a punitive expedition to the north. John Farndale was probably a soldier in this second expedition, probably directly under Harry Hotspur’s command. The English King had only recently come of age, and it was expected that he would play a martial role just as his father, Edward the Black Prince, and grandfather Edward III had done.

On 8 July 1385 a force of French knights had marched south from Edinburgh wearing black surcoats with white St Andrew's crosses sewn on, alongside 3,000 Scottish soldiers. However the Scots hosts were not so cooperative with the French and relations deteriorated between them. The threat was repulsed by a counterattack from Henry Hotspur. John might have been involved in that counter attack.

On 11 August 1385 the English army entered Edinburgh, which was deserted by then. Three days earlier Richard had received news from London that his mother, Joan, Countess of Kent, his principal mentor, had died the previous day. Most of Edinburgh was set alight, including St Giles' Kirk. According to the contemporary chronicler Andrew of Wyntoun in his Cronykil of Scotland, the English army was given free and uninterrupted play for slaughter, rapine and fire-raising all along a six-mile front. However there was indecision amongst the English military command whether to proceed or withdraw and the campaign came to nothing. The army had to return without ever engaging the Scots in battle.

From the Cronykill of Scotland

Meantime the French threatened an invasion of southern England.

John of Gaunt remained in the north to oversee a new truce with Scotland, after the King returned to England, but the relationship between the Lancastrian John of Gaunt and Richard II was worse than it had ever been. In 1386 John of Gaunt left for the Continent to pursue his claim to the throne of Castile, which efforts would come to nothing.

Two years later, in 1388, Richard II was aged 21 and starting to establish some authority when the north of England fell victim to another Scottish incursion. The Battle of Otterburn took place on 5 August 1388 as part of the continuing border skirmishes between the Scots and English. A Scottish attack on Carlisle Castle was timed to take advantage of divisions on the English side between Ralph Neville, 1st Earl of Westmorland and Henry Percy, 1st Earl of Northumberland who had just taken over defence of the border and partly in revenge for King Richard II's invasion of Scotland of 1385.

Henry Percy Senior, the First Earl, again sent his sons Harry Hotspur and Sir Ralph Percy to engage with the Scots, while he stayed at Alnwick to cut off the Scottish retreat. Despite Percy's force having an estimated three to one advantage over the Scots, Froissart records 1,040 English were captured and 1,860 killed whereas 200 Scots were captured and 100 were killed. The Westminster Chronicle estimates Scottish casualties at around 500. Hotspur's rashness and eagerness to engage the Scots might have added to the exhaustion of the English army after its long march north.

The Scottish ballad, the Battle of Otterburn mocked, It fell about the Lammas tide, When the muir-men win their hay, The doughty Earl of Douglas rode Into England, to catch a prey.

The Battle of Otterburn

The Scottish Ballad which mocked the English.

In retort, the English Ballad of Chevy Chase told of Percy’s hunting party or Chase in the Cheviot hills, as an allegory to his chevauchée into Scotland.

John of Gaunt returned to England in 1389 and settled his differences with the King, after which the old statesman acted as a moderating influence on English politics. Richard assumed full control of the government on 3 May 1389, claiming that the difficulties of the past years had been due solely to bad councillors. He promised to lessen the burden of taxation on the people significantly. Richard ruled peacefully for the next eight years, having reconciled with his former adversaries.

John Farndale with his two brothers, Henry Farndale and William Farndale had another venture into Scotland in June 1389 when they served under Thomas Mowbray. The Mowbrays were still nominally feudal overlords of the lands of Kirkbymoorside and Farndale, John’s ancestral home, though effective control of those lands had long passed to the House Stuteville, the family from which the Fair Maid of Kent, Richard II’s mum, descended.

Thomas Mowbray had been with Richard II during the Scottish invasion of 1385, but his friendship with the young King was waning. Richard had a new favourite, Robert de Vere, and Mowbray became increasingly close to Richard Fitzalan, Earl of Arundel. The King already distrusted Arundel, and Mowbray's new circle included the equally estranged Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester. Together they plotted against the King's chancellor, the Duke of Suffolk who was impeached, and a council was appointed to oversee the king’s increasingly distrusted administration. However Mowbray gradually became disillusioned with his comrades and by 1389, he was back in the king's favour. In early 1389 Mowbray’s estates were restored to him by the King and he was pardoned for having married without the King's licence.

In March 1389, Thomas Mowbray was appointed warden of the East March and castellan of Berwick Castle, receiving wages of £6,000 in peacetime and twice that in time of war. This was the context wherein John, Henry and William Farndale were part of the standing force in the East March of Scotland.

Johannes Fernedill

c1352 to c1425

John Farndale, and his brothers Henry and William, were archers and men at arms called to fight in Scotland in 1389

John was later a butcher made freeman of York in 1408

However Thomas Mowbray’s appointment was not a success and he fell out with the traditional lord of the north, Henry Percy. Mowbray held no lands in the north and had few contacts among the gentry, upon whom he needed to rely to raise his army. Mowbray's tenure in the East March was effectively doomed from the start.

His ineffectiveness became obvious in June 1389, when a Scottish incursion ravaged the north of England and, with little opposition, went as far south as Tynemouth. Mowbray, the Westminster Chronicle reports, refused the Scottish offer of a pitched battle and retreated to Berwick Castle.

Thomas Mowbray was later banished by Richard II after his rivalry with Henry Bolingbroke, in 1399, but died soon afterwards in Venice.

Richard Farndale and War with France during the reign of Richard II

Richard Farndale (c 1357 to 1435) was the son of William and Juliana Farendale and was probably born at Sheriff Hutton, the heart of the Neville lands, in about 1357, assuming that he was about 78 when he died and 40 when he was an executor and beneficiary of his father’s will.

When he died in 1435, he left his own will. His first bequest was that his impressive collection of military equipment was to be used as his mortuary payment. He left three daughters and no sons.

This military bequest included a grey horse with saddle and reins and his armour, comprising a bascinet, a breast plate, a pair of vembraces and a pair of rerebraces with leg harness.

Extract from Richard Farndale’s will of 1435

His grey Horse His bascinet His breastplate His vambraces His rerebraces

A bascinet was a medieval combat helmet Vembraces or vambraces were armoured forearm guards A rerebrace was a piece of armour designed to protect the upper arms (above the elbow)

Richard was impressively armed for military service when he died, so it seems certain that he pursued a military career. He was a veteran soldier.

The Hundred Years War with France lasted from 1337 to 1453. Before the Hundred Years War, warfare was rooted to the principles of chivalry, which focused the exploits of the nobility. By the 1320s experienced soldiers fought on foot alongside commoners. Ideas of feudal service were replaced by professional soldiers, who undertook operations contrary to the chivalric code including ambush, siege, raids, looting, burning, and rape. The archers were the prime example of new commoners’ forces, firing arrows which could easily penetrate knights’ armour, upsetting the ancient equilibrium. The commoners were given opportunities to accumulate significant wealth through war booty, and ransoms, as well as their pay.

There was a Richard Farnham or Farneham, listed in records of medieval soldiers, who joined an expedition to France as an archer on 28 June 1380 under the captaincy of Sir William Windsor, and the command of Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester. It is not certain that this was him, because the spelling of the surname is different, but this was a time of fluidity in surname spellings. Given his military equipment listed in his will, 55 years later, it seems likely that Richard would have started a military career at about this time. He would have been about 23 at this time. Whilst we cannot be certain, it is possible, perhaps even quite likely, that this was Richard in his early military exploits in France.

1380 was in the midst of a crisis in the French Wars in the time of Richard II. The Peasant’s Revolt of 1381 arose due to high taxes required to fund the French Wars. Richard II was not a popular King, and the cost of these French wars were not welcomed at home.

Richard’s commander, Thomas of Woodstock had been in command of a campaign in northern France that followed the War of the Breton Succession of from 1343 to 1364. During this campaign John IV, Duke of Brittany had tried to secure control of the Duchy of Brittany against his rival Charles of Blois. John returned to Brittany in 1379, supported by Breton barons who opposed the risk of annexation of Brittany by France. An English army was sent under Thomas Woodstock to support the Duke of Brittany. Due to concerns about the safety of a longer shipping route to Brittany itself, the army was ferried instead to the English continental stronghold of Calais in July 1380.

As Thomas Woodstock marched his 5,200 men east of Paris, they were confronted by the army of Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, at Troyes. However the French had learned from the Battle of Crécy in 1346 and the Battle of Poitiers in 1356 not to offer a pitched battle to the English. Eventually, the two armies simply marched away. French defensive operations were then thrown into disarray by the death of King Charles V of France on 16 September 1380.

Woodstock's army engaged in a chevauchée, a practice common during the Hundred Years War, comprising an armed raid into enemy territory leading to destruction, pillage, and demoralisation, generally conducted against civilian populations. The English army chevauchéed westwards largely unopposed, and in November 1380 the army laid siege to Nantes and its vital bridge over the Loire towards Aquitaine. However, the army did not succeed in establishing an effective stranglehold, and urgent plans were put in place for Sir Thomas Felton to bring 2,000 reinforcements from England. By January, though, it had become apparent that the Duke of Brittany was reconciled to the new French King Charles VI, and with the alliance collapsing and dysentery ravaging his men, Woodstock abandoned the siege.

So in 1380 Richard Farndale engaged in a spot of chevauchée in France and may well have benefitted financially from doing so.

A possible Irish campaign

There was a Richard Farnworth or Farnysworth who served in a standing force in Ireland under Sir John Stanley and mustered on 21 October 1389, and it is very probable that this was the veteran soldier of the French Wars. Richard II had assumed full control of the government on 3 May 1389, and this was a period of fragile peace.

Sir John Stanley KG (c 1350 to 1414) of Lathom, near Ormskirk in Lancashire, was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. John Stanley had been appointed as deputy to Robert de Vere, Duke of Ireland in 1386 after an insurrection created by friction between Sir Philip Courtenay, the English Lieutenant of Ireland, and his appointed governor James Butler, 3rd Earl of Ormond. Stanley led an expedition to Ireland on behalf of de Vere and King Richard II to quell it. He was accompanied by Bishop Alexander de Balscot of Meath and Sir Robert Crull. Butler joined them upon their arrival in Ireland.

Because of the success of the expedition, Stanley was appointed to the position of Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Alexander was appointed to Chancellor, Crull to be Treasurer, and Butler to his old position as Governor. In 1389 Richard II appointed Stanley as Justiciar of Ireland, a post he held until 1391. Stanley was heavily involved in Richard's first expedition to Ireland in 1394 to 1395. It is possible that Richard Farndale was involved in these campaigns in Ireland in 1389.

First signs of the peril of Richard II’s dynasty

Seventeen years after the French campaign in which Richard Farndale likely took part, Ralph Neville, Lord of Sheriff Hutton, supported Richard II's proceedings against Richard’s former commander Thomas of Woodstock in an early sign that the King’s rule was unsafe. By way of reward Ralph Neville was created Earl of Westmorland on 29 September 1397. However Ralph had married the daughter of the Lancastrian John of Gaunt, and by the end of the century the Nevilles had switched to oppose Richard II and to support a new Lancastrian dynasty.

The soldier, Richard Farndale was also an inhabitant of Sheriff Hutton in the lands of Ralph Neville, and he and his family were front seat witnesses to the dynastic duels about to unfold.

Richard’s father, William Farndale died in 1398 and Richard was an executor with his mother, Juliana and beneficiary of his father’s will made on 23 February 1398. He received a legacy of £4 and, with his mother and sister Helen, the residue of his father’s estate. He was probably about 40 years old. It might have been with these inherited funds that he bolstered his military armoury.

Richard must have married at about this time, perhaps in about 1400. We don’t know the name of his wife, as she is not mentioned in his will and might have died before he did. Mysteriously Richard bequeathed a substantial sum of 40s and his bed to a lady called Joan Brantyng in his will in 1435. It might be possible that Joan was his wife and later remarried. Perhaps this was a more recent acquaintance after his wife had died. We can read whatever we like into Richard’s relationship with the mysterious Joan Branting.

Richard had three daughters, Margorie perhaps born in about 1409, Agnes born in about 1411 and Alice born in about 1413. They would each witness the Wars of the Roses from the heart of the Neville lands.

Scene 2 – Fighting under the Lancastrians

Regime Change

The relationship between Henry Bolingbroke and Richard II came to a crisis in 1398. A remark about Richard's rule by Thomas de Mowbray, 1st Duke of Norfolk, was interpreted as treason by John of Gaunt’s son, Henry Bolingbroke, who reported it to the king. The two dukes agreed to undergo a duel of honour at Gosford Green near Caludon Castle, Mowbray's home in Coventry. However before the duel could take place, Richard II decided to banish Henry from the kingdom to avoid further bloodshed. It was claimed that this was with the approval of Henry's father, John of Gaunt. It is not known where he spent his exile. Mowbray was also exiled for life, and died soon afterwards in Venice.

In William Shakespeare play of Richard II, Act 1, Scene 3, Henry Bolingbroke mourned his sentence of exile. How long a time lies in one little word! Four lagging winters and four wanton springs end in a word. Such is the breath of kings.

The breath of Kings would now rock the lands of England, and particularly the ancestral Neville lands, and the lives of the Farndale family, for generations.

Richard II’s rule was increasingly arbitrary and unpopular. In Shakespeare’s depiction, as the Lancastrian John of Gaunt lay dying in 1399, he mourned where Richard had taken his Kingdom.

John of Gaunt’s Lament

The Lancastrian Patriarch’s lament for this sceptred isle.

Methinks I am a prophet new inspired and thus expiring do foretell of him. His rash fierce blaze of riot cannot last, for violent fires soon burn out themselves. Small showers last long, but sudden storms are short. He tires betimes that spurs too fast betimes with eager feeding food doth choke the feeder. Light vanity, insatiate cormorant, consuming means, soon preys upon itself.

This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle, this earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, this other Eden, demi-paradise, this fortress built by Nature for herself against infection and the hand of war, this happy breed of men, this little world, this precious stone set in the silver sea, which serves it in the office of a wall or as a moat defensive to a house, against the envy of less happier lands, this blessèd plot, this earth, this realm, this England. This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings, feared by their breed and famous by their birth, renownèd for their deeds as far from home for Christian service and true chivalry as is the sepulcher in stubborn Jewry of the world’s ransom, blessèd Mary’s son. This land of such dear souls, this dear dear land, dear for her reputation through the world, Is now leased out, I die pronouncing it, like to a tenement or pelting farm.

England, bound in with the triumphant sea, whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege of wat’ry Neptune, is now bound in with shame, with inky blots and rotten parchment bonds. That England that was wont to conquer others hath made a shameful conquest of itself. Ah, would the scandal vanish with my life, how happy then were my ensuing death!

(Richard II, William Shakespeare, Act 2, Scene 1)

The tension came to a head when Richard II was campaigning in Ireland, perhaps with Richard Farndale in his army. His banished cousin, son of the recently dead John of Gaunt, Henry Bolingbroke, Duke of Lancaster, landed with a small force at the Spurn peninsula, then the since eroded Ravenspurn, at the mouth of the Humber in 1399. He marched to his Pickering Castle, rallying supporters including the Nevilles from Sheriff Hutton and Kirkbymoorside. He claimed that this was ostensibly to reclaim his lands and uphold the rules of succession. Richard II was soon captured and taken to Pontefract castle. This was within the geographical ambit of the Farndales of Doncaster, who had their home there at this time. He was crowned Henry IV, to start a new dynasty of the House of Lancaster.

Henry Bolingbroke’s return from exile and his seizure of the Crown in 1399 was a bold power grab, an invasion from France in a struggle for the Crown, unseen since the invasion of William the Conqueror in another succession struggle between Normans and Godwinsons.

As the events of 1066, the coup of 1399 was also played out across the same lands that had been associated with the Farndales for generations. In Shakespeare’s version of the story, Richard II was left to tell sad stories of the death of Kings.

The Hollow Crown

The son of the Fair Maid of Kent, proprietor of the Farndale lands, laments that the King after all is the same as his subjects.

Of comfort no man speak. Let’s talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs, make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes, write sorrow on the bosom of the earth. Let’s choose executors and talk of wills. And yet not so, for what can we bequeath save our deposèd bodies to the ground? Our lands, our lives, and all are Bolingbroke’s, and nothing can we call our own but death and that small model of the barren earth which serves as paste and cover to our bones.

For God’s sake, let us sit upon the ground and tell sad stories of the death of kings. How some have been deposed, some slain in war, some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed, some poisoned by their wives, some sleeping killed, all murdered.

For within the hollow crown that rounds the mortal temples of a king keeps Death his court, and there the antic sits, scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp, allowing him a breath, a little scene, to monarchize, be feared, and kill with looks, infusing him with self and vain conceit, as if this flesh which walls about our life were brass impregnable; and humored thus, comes at the last and with a little pin bores through his castle wall, and farewell, king!

Cover your heads, and mock not flesh and blood with solemn reverence. Throw away respect, tradition, form, and ceremonious duty. For you have but mistook me all this while. I live with bread like you, feel want, taste grief, need friends. Subjected thus, how can you say to me I am a king?

(Richard II, William Shakespeare, Act 3, Scene 2)

Shakespeare depicted the scene of Edmund Duke of York handing the Crown to Henry. Great Duke of Lancaster, I come to thee, from plume-plucked Richard, who with willing soul adopts thee heir, and his high sceptre yields to the possession of thy royal hand. Richard II had given up the Plantagenet Dynasty. With mine own tears I wash away my balm. With mine own hands I give away my crown.

This assault on the stability of the rules of succession which protected the nation from chaos, was a concern to the elite classes. Henry Bolingbroke’s seizure of the throne was precarious from the start. Uneasy lies the head that wears a Crown (Henry IV, Part II). However Richard had become too problematic as King, and by then was controlling the nation as a tyrant. The nobility therefore reluctantly supported Henry. The main support for Henry came from the great northern family, the Percys.

The Percys and the Nevilles, the elite families of the lands of our Farndale ancestors, were rivals and key players in the nation’s story of the fifteenth century.

The Epiphany Rising in late 1399 was an attempt to seize Henry IV during a tournament, kill him, and restore Richard II to the throne, but it failed. The rebellion convinced Henry IV of the threat posed by Richard while deposed and imprisoned but still alive. Richard would come to his death by means unknown in Pontefract Castle by 17 February 1400.

In order to cement support for his new dynasty, Henry IV was forced to make concessions, and hint at and end to the heavy taxation which was a strong element of Richard II’s unpopularity, and that he would uphold property rights and respect the peoples’ will. He delivered his claim to the throne in London in English, to be understood by all. His claim had to be rooted in public support because his claim under the traditional rules of succession was so tentative. That would prove a millstone for Henry IV, as a modern political party bound by its manifesto promises.

As Henry IV’s reign became increasingly threatened, particularly by the challenges of Owen Glyndwr and Gwilym ap Tudur in Wales and by the Earl of Douglas in Scotland, his rule was not easy, but his strength of character was sufficient to find a route to somehow keep things together and his iconic heroic son Henry V was then able to bind the nation together after his successes in France.

The depiction of the young Prince Hal enjoying the taverns of London with Falstaff, while Harry Hotspur of the Percy family gallantly protected the nation from their foes provided an amusing side plot for Shakespeare, who suggested he envied Percy’s Harry over his own Plantagenet Harry.

Yea, there thou makest me sad and makest me sin in envy that my Lord Northumberland should be the father to so blest a son, a son who is the theme of honour's tongue; amongst a grove, the very straightest plant who is sweet Fortune's minion and her pride, whilst I, by looking on the praise of him, see riot and dishonour stain the brow of my young Harry. O that it could be proved that some night-tripping fairy had exchanged in cradle-clothes our children where they lay, and call'd mine Percy, his Plantagenet! Then would I have his Harry, and he mine.

(Henry IV Part 1, Act 1, Scene 1)

It was not historic reality however, not least because the future Henry V was still a young teenager and would soon be active in the Wars in Wales, whilst Henry Percy (1364 to 1403) was in his thirties, a contemporary of Henry IV, not his son, and would soon turn against the Lancastrian dynasty.

Nevertheless, at this point Harry Hotspur was the heroic knight. In their Rest is History Podcast, Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook jest that He’d love rugby. He’d love going to rugby, and cheering on England at Murrayfield. He’s a brilliant fighter against the Scots, and it’s actually the Scots who were the first to call him hotspur.

The Lancastrian dynasty had thus begun and the Percys and Nevilles had supported its rise. The Farndales were soon dragged in to the fortunes of the new dynasty. The winds from the breath of Kings were felt by our ancestors as they tried to find their own paths.

Henry IV’s military focus was in his struggles against the freedom fighters of Wales led by Owen Glyndwr, and the flurries into England from Scotland, particularly as the English armies came under threat from both Wales and Scotland. Wales had been subject to an apartheid of the native Welsh since draconian laws by Edward I, and this was a point when that cauldron bubbled over. Owen Glyndwyr claimed to be the Prince of Wales in direct challenge to Prince Hal’s title.

Another flurry into Scotland under the new dynasty of Henry IV

There was a Richard Farendon who was archer and man at arms in a Scottish Expeditionary Force who appeared in Retinue Lists on 24 June 1400. This was almost certainly a record of Richard Farndale’s next military exploit, perhaps freshly armed with funds from his father’s will. By this time he would have been in his early forties. It seems likely that he became an experienced soldier who may have joined a series of campaigns. The Nevilles were key players in national affairs, so it seems likely that he would have been encouraged from his Sheriff Hutton home to join national armies when called to do so.

The English invasion of Scotland of August 1400 was the first military campaign undertaken by Henry IV of England after deposing his cousin Richard II. Henry IV urgently wanted to defend the Anglo-Scottish border, and to overcome his predecessor's legacy of failed military campaigns.

Although Henry had announced his plans as soon as the November 1399 parliament, he did not attempt a winter campaign, but continued with negotiations though became increasingly frustrated by the Scottish response. Parliament was not keen on the forthcoming war, and, since extravagance had been a major complaint against Henry's predecessor, Henry was probably constrained in requesting a tax subsidy. The general feeling was that a French invasion might be a more imminent threat.

In June 1400, the King summoned his Duchy of Lancaster retainers to muster at York, and they in turn brought their personal feudal retinues. At this point, with the invasion being obvious to all, the Scots attempted to re-open negotiations. Although Scottish ambassadors arrived at York to meet the king around 26 June, they returned to Scotland within two weeks.

Although the army was summoned to assemble at York on 24 June 1400, it did not approach Scotland until mid August. This was due to the gradual arrival of army supplies. There were supply delays. The King's own tents, for example, were not dispatched from Westminster until mid July. Henry must have realised how these logistical delays would impact on his campaign. At some point before the army left for Scotland, the muster was met by the Constable of England, Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, and the Earl Marshal, Ralph Neville, Earl of Westmorland. Individual leaders of each retinue present were then paid a lump sum to later distribute in wages to their troops. Men-at-arms received one shilling a day, archers half that, but captains and leaders do not appear to have been paid at a higher rate.

Richard Farendale of Shyrefhoton came from Sheriff Hutton in the lands of Ralph Neville, so there is strong evidence that this was the same person as Richard Farendon who joined these Scottish Wars.

The army left York on 25 July 1400 and reached Newcastle-upon-Tyne four days later. It continued to suffer shortages of supplies, particularly food, of which more had had to be requested before even leaving York. As the campaign progressed, bad weather exacerbated the problem of food shortages.

It has been estimated that Henry's army was around 13,000 men, of which 800 men-at-arms and 2,000 archers came directly from the Royal Household. This was one of the largest raised in late medieval England. Whilst it was smaller than the massive army assembled in 1345 at the Battle of Crécy, it was larger than most that were mustered for service in France. The English fleet also patrolled the east coast of Scotland in order to besiege Scottish trade and to resupply the army when required. At least three convoys were sent from London and the Humber, the first of which delivered 100 tonnes of flour and ten tonnes of sea salt to Henry's army in Scotland.

Henry crossed the border in mid August. He took care to prevent his army from ravaging the countryside on their march through Berwickshire and Lothian in contrast to previous campaigns when for instance Richard II had devastation wreacked in the campaign of 1385. This may well have been because the lands they marched through belonged to the Earl of Dunbar, who had joined the army.

Even so, the King probably envisaged some confrontation or such a chevauchée that the Scots would be eager to negotiate. In the event, they offered no resistance as the English army marched through Haddington.

However, Henry's army never progressed further than Leith. Not only was no pitched battle attempted, but the king did not try and besiege Scotland's capital, Edinburgh nor its castle where the Duke of Rothsay was ensconced. Henry's army left at the end of the summer after only a brief stay, mostly camped near Leith, near Edinburgh, where it could maintain contact with its supply fleet. Henry took a personal interest in his convoys, at one point even verbally instructing that two Scottish fishermen fishing in the Firth of Forth were to be paid £2 for their unspecified assistance.

The campaign ultimately accomplished little except to deplete the king's coffers, and is historically notable only for being the last one led by an English king on Scottish soil.

By 29 August 1400, the English army had returned south of the border.

Although the 1400 campaign ended the Wars directly into Scotland, the Scottish Wars continued with encounters south of the Border. Shakespeare’s play Henry IV Part 1 opens with word brought to the King in about 1402, a few years into the new Lancastrian dynasty of the Wars with Wales and Scotland.

The Battle of Homildon Hill was a battle between English and Scottish armies on 14 September 1402 in Northumberland. A picture of that battle was painted by Shakespeare. Here is a dear, a true-industrious friend, Sir Walter Blunt, new lighted from his horse, stained with the variation of each soil Betwixt that Holmedon and this seat of ours, and he hath brought us smooth and welcome news. The Earl of Douglas is discomfited; ten thousand bold Scots, two-and-twenty knights, balked in their own blood, did Sir Walter see on Holmedon’s plains. Of prisoners Hotspur took Mordake, Earl of Fife and eldest son to beaten Douglas, and the Earl of Atholl, Of Murray, Angus, and Menteith. And is not this an honorable spoil? A gallant prize? Ha, cousin, is it not?

We don’t know whether Richard Farndale was still part of the army at this stage, but it seems likely that that he continued to fight in these campaigns and we get a Shakespearean flavour of these campaigns.

Jamie Farndale, descendant of the medieval soldiers of the English armies of Henry IV and Henry V, fighting for the Scots six hundred years later

A later Shakespearean legend painted the death of Harry Hotspur in 1403, at the hands of the young Prince Hal, future Henry V after the Percy rebellion against Henry IV. He was wrongly portrayed as the same age as his rival, Prince Hal, by whom he was slain in single combat. O Harry, thou hast robb’d me of my youth! I better broke the loss of brittle life than these proud titles thou hast won of me. They wound my thoughts worse than sword my flesh.

Scene 3 – Fighting with Henry V

Richard the veteran soldier in the armies of Henry V, the soldier King

Henry V was crowned in 1413.

Richard Farndale appears in the military records again in 1417, after the Agincourt campaign, but it is possible that, as a veteran soldier, Richard might also have fought in Henry V’s Agincourt campaign of 1415. By this time he was in his late fifties.

I haven’t yet found him in the list of known soldiers at Agincourt. In a Roll of the men at arms at Agincourt, there is no Richard Farndale listed. But to these lists of named individuals were unnamed lists of lancers and archers, so he could have been amongst these ordinary unlisted soldiers. Living firmly within the Neville lands, it seems likely that he would have fought in the King’s battles with France. The family also originated from the lands of Joan of Kent, wife of the Black Prince and the lands of the Stutevilles and the Mowbrays.

It is possible that he participated in the main Agincourt campaign, as archer or man at arms. It is also possible though that, as an old veteran, he was recruited after the Agincourt campaign, when reinforcements were required from the older ranks.

After the Norman Conquest, the Dukes of Normandy, subjects of the King of France were also King of England. That was tricky. The Dukes of Normandy were frequently in dispute with their neighbours, including the Dukes of Brittany. By the thirteenth century, the French noble lines were eager to drive out the English from their Norman lands. During King John’s reign, the English lost their Norman lands, and from the reign of Henry III, there was a desire to win back the Norman lands. Edward III died in 1377 having failed to do so, his son the Black Prince having died in 1376, leaving Richard II as King, to be overthrown by Henry IV of the Lancastrian line, whose reign was marred by campaigns in Wales and Scotland.

When Henry V became King in 1413, his ambitions were to restore English interests in France, which would in turn unite the warring factions at home.

In 1415, the 29 year old Henry V launched his invasion of Normandy. He landed in Normandy, reinforcing his ambitions to restore the lands which the English believed to be theirs. He landed with an army of 12,000 men.

A quarter of those were men at arms, who wore heavy armour and had a horse. Men at arms were paid 1s to 2s a day, depending on their status.

Three quarters of the force were archers, paid only 6d a day. They were cheaper and acted as a force multiplier. They were armed with the longbow. They could fire at rapid rates, from 12 to even 20 arrows a minute, accurately over long distances.

Richard Farndale might have been an archer or a man at arms within that army, but we can’t be sure. He was certainly at Harfleur two years after its siege.

Henry’s army initially besieged the town of Harfleur, which is modern day Le Havre, at the mouth of the Seine, the launch site of previous Viking raids on Paris. There was a long siege at Harfleur, and Henry V directed the siege himself, using artillery effectively against the walls. The inhabitants of Harfleur eventually surrendered.

It was at the Gates of Harfleur that Shakespeare depicted Henry V’s rally.

The Rally at Harfleur

Henry V inspires his army.

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more, or close the wall up with our English dead! In peace there’s nothing so becomes a man as modest stillness and humility, but when the blast of war blows in our ears, then imitate the action of the tiger, stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, disguise fair nature with hard-favored rage, then lend the eye a terrible aspect, let it pry through the portage of the head, like the brass cannon, let the brow o’erwhelm it as fearfully as doth a gallèd rock o’erhang and jutty his confounded base, swilled with the wild and wasteful ocean.

Now set the teeth, and stretch the nostril wide, hold hard the breath, and bend up every spirit to his full height. On, on, you noblest English, whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof, fathers that, like so many Alexanders, have in these parts from morn till even fought, and sheathed their swords for lack of argument. Dishonor not your mothers. Now attest that those whom you called fathers did beget you. Be copy now to men of grosser blood and teach them how to war.

And you, good yeomen, whose limbs were made in England, show us here the mettle of your pasture. Let us swear that you are worth your breeding, which I doubt not, for there is none of you so mean and base that hath not noble luster in your eyes.

I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips, straining upon the start. The game’s afoot. Follow your spirit, and upon this charge cry “God for Harry, England, and Saint George!”

(Henry V, Shakespeare, Act 3, Scene 1)

Might Richard Farndale have been witness to such a speech?

The siege of Harfleur ended in September as the campaigning season was coming to an end. However Henry V decided to march home through Normandy via Calais, perhaps to demonstrate his new hold on Normandy. He challenged the rather pacific Dauphin to single combat, which was declined. Henry left perhaps 1,200 men to garrison Harfleur and had lost perhaps 2,000, so he had perhaps 8,000 left.

The French army blocked the English advance on the Somme, but the English crossed. Having already portended the D Day invasion of 1944, the Agincourt campaign next found itself in the battlefields of 1916.

The armies eventually met around 45 miles south of Calais, at Agincourt on 25 October 1415. Henry placed his bowmen in a V shape on either flank. The longbowmen were a known threat to the French. A tradition evolved after the battle that the French threatened to cut off the middle two fingers of any bowmen captured to stop them firing again, and the archers responded to the French with the defiant V sign.

Did Richard Farndale flick the V sign to the French that day?

Shakespeare imagined Henry V’s next stirring speech before Agincourt.

The Band of Brothers

Henry V’s rally at Agincourt.

We would not die in that man’s company that fears his fellowship to die with us. This day is called the feast of Crispian. He that outlives this day and comes safe home will stand o’ tiptoe when this day is named and rouse him at the name of Crispian. He that shall see this day, and live old age, will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbors and say “Tomorrow is Saint Crispian.” Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars. Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot, but he’ll remember with advantages what feats he did that day. Then shall our names, familiar in his mouth as household words, Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter, Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester, be in their flowing cups freshly remembered. This story shall the good man teach his son, and Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by, from this day to the ending of the world, but we in it shall be remembered.

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers, for he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile, this day shall gentle his condition; and gentlemen in England now abed shall think themselves accursed they were not here, and hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks that fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.

Could Richard Farndale have been amongst the happy few, the band of brothers? If he was not, he must have known those who were, and later joined them on the fields of France.

The French planned to overcome the archers with their cavalry, but Henry ordered his archers to take the initiative and to advance until they were in range and then fire into the French horses and soldiers, depriving them of the opportunity.

The French lost perhaps 10,000 whilst the English were said to have lost only 100 to 200. Amongst the dead was Richard Duke of York, father of Richard of York who would become to nemesis of the Lancastrians, but at this stage the Yorkists were loyal to the King.

After the victory, Henry marched to Calais and besieged the city until it fell soon afterwards, and the king returned in triumph to England in November and received a hero's welcome.

Henry V paraded like a Roman Emperor. The brewing nationalistic sentiment among the English people was so great that contemporary writers described first hand how Henry was welcomed with triumphal pageantry into London upon his return. These accounts also describe how Henry was greeted by elaborate displays and with choirs following his passage to St Paul's Cathedral.

Support for the King mean that Parliament eagerly voted new taxes to fund further campaigns against the French. Agincourt also fomented support for the new Lancastrian dynasty.

The victorious conclusion of Agincourt, from the English viewpoint, was only the first step in the campaign to recover the French possessions that Henry felt belonged to the English crown. Agincourt also presented an opportunity that Henry's pretensions to the French throne might be realised. Henry V returned to France in 1417 to establish his reconquest of Normandy. In this second campaign, Richard Farndale was firmly back in the records.

It is tempting to think that Richard might have participated in the wider campaign from 1415 to 1421. If he was indeed a semi professional soldier, this seems likely. On the other hand, he may have joined the post Agincourt campaign in 1417. It might be that after the losses sustained during the 1415 campaign, older veteran soldiers were called upon to fill gaps in the ranks, which might make sense of Richard forming part of the post Agincourt garrison at Harfleur.

What we do know is that Richard Farndale was part of Henry V’s army by 1417.

Richard Farndale was descended from the poachers of Pickering Forest only a hundred years previously. It was such men who certainly inspired the stories of Robin Hood and whose archery skills would foresee the bowmen of ordinary folk who would one day fight at Agincourt. Richard’s own father had partaken in a poaching expedition to take fish, deer, hares, partridges and pheasants from Pickering Forest in 1367, for which Thomas Mowbray’s father, John Mowbray had brought him to justice.

Outlawry and military heroism were not so far apart.

Richard Farndale

c 1357 to 20 December 1435

A veteran soldier of the armies of Richard II, Henry IV and Henry V who fought in the French and Scottish Wars

Richard might have been about 58 years old by this stage, so if he was part of a medieval army, he would have been an old soldier. However if it was he who had fought in France in 1380 and in Scotland in 1400, it is likely that this old soldier had become a campaign warrior. His impressive armoury which he left at his death in 1435 suggests an old campaigner who had risen to possess the armoury of a man at arms. He seems to have alternated between or perhaps progressed from being an archer to a man at arms.

The principal consolidated source for participation in the Agincourt campaign is the University of Southampton databases on the English Army in 1415 in their data on the Soldier in Medieval England. Amongst the candidates for Farndale ancestors amongst medieval armies, there was a Richard Farndon who was an archer mustered in the Garrison at Harfleur under Thomas Beaufort, Earl of Dorset and Duke of Exeter in 1417. After the Siege of Harfleur from 17 August to 22 September 1415, the town would have been garrisoned in the following years. It was at the gates of Harfleur that Henry V had delivered his inspiring speech in 1415.

The 1417 record of Richard Farndon at Harfleur suggests that Richard Farndale was an old veteran fighting in those campaigns, either part of the 1415 Agincourt campaign and continuing in the wars that followed, or joining the English force after Agincourt in their subsequent campaign up to 1421.

The victory at Agincourt inspired and boosted English morale, while it caused a heavy blow to the French as it further aided the English in their conquest of Normandy and much of northern France by 1419. The French, especially the nobility, who by this stage were weakened and exhausted by the disaster, began quarrelling and fighting among themselves. This quarrelling also led to a division in the French aristocracy and caused a rift in the French royal family.

By 1420, a treaty was signed between Henry V and Charles VI of France, known as the Treaty of Troyes, which acknowledged Henry as regent and heir to the French throne and also married Henry to Charles's daughter Catherine de Valois.

In 1421, Richard Farendon or Farndon appeared again in the list of medieval soldiers, as part of a Standing Force in France as a foot soldier or Man at arms and as an archer, under Richard Woodville the elder (1385 to 1441) and Richard Baurchamp, Earl of Warwick.

1421 was the year of the Battle of Bauge, the defeat of the Duke of Clarence and his English army by the Scots and French army of the Dauphin of France. The battle took place on 22 March 1421. The Duke of Clarence, King Henry V’s younger brother commanded the English army. The Earl of Buchan commanded the Franco-Scottish army. The English army numbered around 4,000 men, of whom only around 2,500 men took part in the battle. The Franco-Scottish army comprised 5,000 to 6,000 men.

Richard Woodville or Wydeville, later the First Lord Rivers and father of Elizabeth Woodville later wife of the Yorkist Edward IV, under whom Richard Farendon served, was granted various domains, lordships and bailiwicks in Normandy in 1419 and 1420, culminating in 1421 with appointment as Seneschal of the province of Normandy.

Richard Beauchamp, 13th Earl of Warwick held high command at sieges of French towns between 1420 and 1422, at the sieges of Melun in 1420, and of Mantes, to the west of Paris, in 1421-22. The more significant siege was of Meux to the east of Paris.

In 1420 the town of Melun in France surrendered to King Henry V. The siege had rumbled on since June and had been fairly dramatic at times, with close combat taking place literally beneath the walls as the besiegers and the garrison dug mines and countermines in an attempt to bring the siege to an end. James I of Scotland (1397 to 1437, crowned 1424) was present at the siege, brought to France in 1420 as Henry's trump card against the Scots serving on the Continent.

Siege of Melun from a late 14th century manuscript

The siege of Meaux was fought from October 1421 to May 1422. Paris was threatened by French forces, based at Dreux, Meaux, and Joigny. The king besieged and captured Dreux quite easily, and then went south, capturing Vendôme and Beaugency before marching on Orléans. Henry then marched on Meaux with an army of more than 20,000 men. The town's defence was led by the Bastard of Vaurus, by all accounts cruel and evil, but a brave commander. The siege began on 6 October 1421. Mining and bombardment soon brought down the walls.

The English also began to fall sick rather early into the siege, and it is estimated that one sixteenth of the besiegers died from dysentery and smallpox while thousands died thanks to the courageous defence of the men at arms inside the city. As the siege continued, Henry himself grew sick, although he refused to leave until the siege was finished.

News reached Henry from England that on 6 December 1421, Queen Catherine had borne him a son and heir at Windsor.

On 9 May 1422, the town of Meaux surrendered, although the garrison held out. Under continued bombardment, the garrison also surrendered on 10 May 1411, following a siege of seven months. The Bastard of Vaurus was decapitated, as was a trumpeter named Orace, who had once mocked Henry. John Fortescue was then installed as English captain of Meaux Castle.

It seems likely that Richard Farndale took part in some or all of these siege campaigns around Paris in 1421.

Richard Farndale of Sheriff Hutton appears to have been an old soldier who campaigned with Henry V, and perhaps built up his small wealth on campaign.

Henry V died in 1422 and left a nine month old baby son, Henry VI. The inter noble rivalry would soon pick up again.

Scene IV – The Wars of the Roses

The Wars of the Roses loom

Henry VI had no father to guide him to Kingship and he relied on his advisors. He became timid and passive. At this point in history, the nobility needed strong leadership to control their ambitions. After the expensive battles in France, financial resources were depleted. The young king was easily controlled by the rival noble families.

This unpopularity would ferment displeasure with the Lancastrian dynasty, which under Henry V had been so popular, and would stir up a Yorkist uprising.

In time the Yorkist cause came to be supported by the Nevilles of Sheriff Hutton. Cecily Neville married Richard, Duke of York, the main protagonist of the Yorkist cause. Their son, Edward IV would found the Yorkist royal dynasty in 1461. Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, the Kingmaker, was the main political strategist to the Yorkist cause, in the early stages of the Wars of the Roses.

The History of Sheriff Hutton to 1500 A history of Sheriff Hutton which will take you to the lands of the Nevilles and Richard III during the Wars of the Roses

Sheriff Hutton Church The Church of St Helen and the Holy Cross and the Chapel of St Nicholas, the heart of the Neville lands, and place of the alabaster effigy of the young son of Richard III

House Neville This history of the family who influenced the Wars of the Roses in whose seat our ancestors lived

Richard Farndale was about 65 by this time, too old perhaps to take an active role himself. However he lived in Sheriff Hutton, at the heart of the cauldron that started to bubble amongst the Yorkists. As a proud old soldier of Henry V he was likely to have been appalled at the failures of Henry VI, stirred on no doubt by his landlords, the Nevilles. In the last dozen years of his life, we can imagine Richard over dinner with his daughters spitting with rage at where things had got to under Henry VI, and yearning for the new glamour of the Yorkist cause. In an old chest in his bedroom perhaps, his armour of bascinet, breastplate and arm and leg fittings must have lain. His grey horse rested in the stables. He probably would have put them on and rode out with the Nevilles if he had been asked to do so.

However at this stage Henry VI was just a young King, not yet a hopeless adult one and the Wars of the Roses did not kick off until 1455, twenty years after Richard Farndale’s death. He would leave his three daughters to live through the years of Yorkist and Lancastrian rivalry. We only know their names. Perhaps they were passive witnesses to the events which would follow. Perhaps their husbands and their sons engaged in those Wars. We don’t know.

Richard’s armour was bequeathed to the church, to pay for his funeral. Perhaps when the civil war kicked off, they were taken by some other man at arms who likely fought with the Yorkists, under the Neville banner.

Richard Farndale died in 1435, exhausted from his life of adventure and chevauchée. His will was proved at Sherifhoton on 21 December 1435.

In the name of God Amen, 8th December 1435. I Richard Farndell being of sound mind make my will in this manner. Firstly, I bequeath and Commend my soul to God Almighty, My Creator, and my body to be buried in my said Parish Church.

Item. I bequeath a grey horse with saddle and reins and my armour, viz: a bascinet, a breast plate, a pair of vembraces and a pair of rerebraces with leg harness as my mortuary payment. And I bequeath 3 lbs of wax to be burned around my body on the day of my burial.

Item. I bequeath to the Vicar of my Parish Church 6s 8d and to every chaplain taking part in my burial service Mass, 4d.

And I bequeath 26s 8d for mending a service book for the use of the parish church.

And to the fabric of the Cathedral Church of St Peter York, 12d.

And I bequeath to my daughter Margorie at her marriage 10 marks, if she live to be marriageable age. And if she die before she arrives at her years of discretion, I wish the said 10 marks to be divided equally between my daughters Agnes and Alice.

And I bequeath to Joan Brantyng 40s and a bed.

And to the four orders of friars mendicant of York 20s and two quarters of corn to be divided in equal portions.

And to John Pyper 2s.

And as regards the rest of my funeral expenses, I wish them to be paid at the discretion of my executors.

The rest of my goods, not bequeathed above, my debts having been paid, I bequeath to the said Margorie, my daughter, to be divided among them in equal parts.

And I make the said Thomas Robynson and John Couper and Margorie my daughter, my executors, faithfully to implement the terms of my will.

Witnesses; Robert, Vicar of the Church of Hoton, William Huby of the same, John Burdley of the same and many others.’

Administration granted to Thomas and John on 21st December 1435 with rights reserved for similar administration to be granted to Margorie.

(Translated from Latin text of Will held at York).

Richard Farndale therefore died between 8 and 21 December 1435.

The History of Sheriff Hutton picks up the story of the Wars of the Roses, seen through the prism of the town of the Sheriff Hutton line of the Farndale family

When Duke of Gloucester, Richard later Richard III, alleged murderer of his nephew princes in the tower of London, married Lady Anne Neville of Middleham and Sheriff Hutton, they had a son, Edward Prince of Wales who died aged only 11 in 1484 in Middleham and his tomb effigy lies in the church of Sheriff Hutton. Richard’s Council of the North held court in Sheriff Hutton. Richard Farndale’s daughters lived within the events of the Wars of the Roses in the lands of the Nevilles and Richard III.

How do the medieval warrior Farndales relate to the modern family?

It is not possible to be accurate about the early family tree, before the recording of births, marriages and deaths in parish records, but we do have a lot of medieval material including important clues on relationships between individuals. The matrix of the family before about 1550 is the most probable structure based on the available evidence.

If it is accurate, Richard Farndale was related to the thirteenth century ancestors of the modern Farndale family, and was part of the Sheriff Hutton Line. He was related to the original family who lived in the dale and then left for new lands. He was possibly a second cousin of the Doncastrian Farndales, from whom the modern family probably descends.

John, Henry and William Farndale were part of the York Line of Farndales. Their father, Johannis de Farndell, was probably the brother of William and Nicholas Farndale of Doncaster, from whom the modern family probably descend.

All these soldiers were kin of the modern family.

Return to the Contents Page

or

Go Straight to Act 11 – The Vicar of Doncaster

Or

Read the History of Sheriff Hutton

Get to know the medieval soldiers John, Henry and William Farndale and Richard Farndale

Explore the genealogy behind the Wars of the Roses

Meet House Neville

Explore Sheriff Hutton and its church