Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 45.djvu/407

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
Plantagenet
399
Plantagenet

the style of 'Richard Plantaginet, commonly called Duke of York.' He is described in the 'Concordia,' which recognised him as heir-apparent, as 'the right high and myghty Prynce Richard Plantaginet, duke of York' (Rot. Parl. v. 375, 378). A passage in Gregory the chronicler (p. 189) implies that York assumed the name as early as 1448, when he did not venture to emphasise his dynastic claims more openly (Ramsay, Lancaster and York, ii. 83). The pedigrees given by the Yorkist chroniclers, and evidently those which York laid before parliament, are all carried back to Geoffrey 'Plantagenet' and the counts of Anjou. None of them applies the name Plantagenet to any member of the family between Geoffrey and Richard (Hardyng, pp. 16, 258, 260; Worcester, ed. Hearne, p. 527; Chron. ed. Davies, p. 101; Three Fifteenth-Century Chronicles, p. 170). The distinction is preserved by the Tudor historians and in the dramatis personæ of Shakespeare's historical plays. But Shakespeare in 'King John,' and one passage of the first part of 'Henry VI' (act iii. sc. 1,1. 172), uses the word as a family name of the whole dynasty (cf. Ramsay). The last legitimate male bearer of the name was Edward Plantagenet, earl of Warwick, grandson of York, executed in 1499. The last illegitimate bearer of the name is usually supposed to have been Arthur Plantagenet, viscount Lisle [q. v.], a natural son of Edward IV (Complete Peerage, v. 117; Fœdera, xiv. 452). But an entry (not original) in the parish register of Eastwell, Kent, states that a 'Richard Plantagenet died here on 22 Dec. 1550,' and according to a circumstantial story related by Peck in his 'Desiderata Curiosa' (1732), on the authority of Heneage Finch, earl of Nottingham, this Richard was an illegitimate son of Richard III, who was born in 1469, and, after the accession of Henry VII, worked as a bricklayer at Eastwell until about 1547. The story cannot be regarded as established (Gent. Mag. 1767, xxxvii. 408; Notes and Queries, 6th ser. viii. 103, 192, ix. 12; Walford, Tales of Great Families, 2nd ser. vol. i.; William Heseltine, Last of the Plantagenets).

J. T-t.

The sovereigns of the Angevin dynasty appear in this dictionary under their Christian names. Other members of the family are noticed under the following headings:—Arthur, Viscount Lisle (1480?–1542), see Plantagenet, Arthur; Edmund, surnamed Crouchback, Earl of Lancaster (1245–1296), see Lancaster; Edmund, Earl of Cornwall (d. 1300), see under Richard, Earl of Cornwall (1209–1272); Edmund of Woodstock, Earl of Kent (1301–1329), see Edmund; Edmund de Langley, first duke of York (1341–1402), see Langley; Edward, 'The Black Prince' (1330–1376), see Edward; Edward, second duke of York (1373?–1415), see 'Plantagenet,' Edward; Edward, Earl of Warwick (1475–1499), see Edward; Geoffrey, Archbishop of York (d. 1212), see Geoffrey; George, Duke of Clarence (1449–1478), see Plantagenet, George; Henry of Cornwall (1235–1271), see Henry; Henry, Earl of Lancaster (1281?–1345), see Henry; Henry, first Duke of Lancaster (1299?–1361), see Henry; Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester (1391–1447), see Humphrey; John of Eltham, Earl of Cornwall (1316–1336), see John; John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster (1340–1399), see John; John of Lancaster, Duke of Bedford (1389–1435), see John; Lionel of Antwerp, Duke of Clarence (1338–1368), see Lionel; Margaret, Countess of Salisbury (1473–1541), see Pole; Richard, Earl of Cornwall (1209–1272), see Richard; Richard, Earl of Cambridge (d. 1415), see Richard; Richard, Duke of York (1412–1460), see Richard; Richard, Duke of York (1472–1483), see Richard; Thomas, Earl of Lancaster (1278–1322), see Thomas; Thomas of Brotherton, Earl of Norfolk (1300–1348), see Thomas; Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester (1356–1397), see Thomas; Thomas, Duke of Clarence (1387–1421), see Thomas.


PLANTAGENET, ARTHUR, Viscount (1480?–1542), born about 1480, was a natural son of Edward IV by one Elizabeth Lucie. As an esquire of Henry VIII's bodyguard he received a quarterly salary of 6l. 13s. 4d. from June 1509 (cf. King's Book of Payments). He married, in 1511, Elizabeth, widow of Edmund Dudley [q. v.], and daughter of Edward Grey, viscount Lisle, and obtained a grant, on 13 Nov. of that year, of lands in Dorset, Sussex, and Lancashire, which had come to the crown by the attainder of Empson and Dudley in 1510. On 8 Feb. 1513 he obtained a protection (from his creditors) on going to sea with the expedition to Brittany. The ship in which he sailed struck upon a rock, and he and his companions were saved from death almost by miracle. ‘When he was in the extreme danger [and all hope gone] from him,’ wrote Admiral Howard to the king on 17 April, ‘he called upon Our Lady of Walsingham for help, and of[fered unto her] a vow that, an it pleased God and her to deliver him out of that peril, he would never eat flesh nor fish till he had seen her.’ Accordingly, although Howard was reluc-