Execution of a Prince

On the 19th March 1330, Edmund, Duke of Kent (b.1301), the youngest son of King Edward I of England was executed for treason.

The crime which Edmund accused of was that he believed his brother King Edward II, who had died in 1327, was in fact still alive. He was described as being part of a plot to rescue Edward II from Corfe Castle in Dorset. It would appear that Edmund had been convinced by someone that his brother was alive and well, and his wife wrote letters to Edward which were intercepted and used as evidence against Edmund. By writing to his brother, Edmund had performed a treasonous act against the current king, his nephew Edward III, through his disloyalty to him in his offer to help his brother to regain his throne.

Edmund and Margaret

On the 14th March the arrest warrant for Edmund's wife Margaret Wake and their children was issued. Margaret and their three children - Edmund (1326-31), Margaret (1327-52) and Joan (1328-85) - were imprisoned at Salisbury Castle with only two maids to attend on them. It was there that Margaret gave birth to the couple's fourth child, John (d.1352), on the 7th April.

On 16th March, Edmund's confession was read out in Parliament. Edmund offered to walk barefoot from Winchester to London with a rope around his neck as punishment for his actions, however this request was denied.

"The will of this court is that you shall lose both life and limb, and that your heirs shall be disinherited for evermore, save the grace of our lord the king".

On the morning of the 19th of March, Edmund was taken to the scaffold wearing only his shirt. The executioner who had been employed for that day had fled and could not be found. The search to find a replacement executioner took several hours as it was proving impossible to find someone willing to execute a royal prince, especially considering the charges brought against him were viewed by many as nothing more than trumped up charges to rid Queen Isabella and Roger Mortimer of a political enemy. The offer was made to all prisoners who had been sentenced to death themselves, that if they were to step forward and perform the execution, they would be granted a royal pardon. A latrine cleaner who was awaiting execution stepped forward and offered to execute the prince in exchange for his own life.

It was this execution which led to King Edward III seizing power from his mother Queen Isabella and her lover Roger Mortimer, a few weeks shy of his coming of age in October 1330. In the Parliament of November 1330 King Edward passed a Bill posthumously pardoning Prince Edmund of all charges. Which indicates that the truth was that the charges had been fabricated and exaggerated to suit Isabella and Roger's aims. King Edward took on the responsibility of the family that Edmund had left behind; the children were raised at the royal court and Edmund's daughter Joan became a favourite of Edward's queen, Philippa of Hainault.

Through his daughter Joan, Edmund was the grandfather to King Richard II, as well as the ancestor to King Henry VII and all subsequent monarchs of England.

Dacre marriages

Humphrey Dacre (1424-85) and his wife Mabel Parr (1441-1508) had nine children together;
+ Thomas Dacre (1467-1525) m. Elizabeth Greystoke (1471-1516)
+ Elizabeth Dacre (b.1464) m. Richard Huddleston
+ Hugh Dacre
+ Christopher Dacre (b.1470)
+ Philip Dacre m. Anne Grey
+ Ralph Dacre
+ Humphrey Dacre
+ Anne Dacre m. Thomas Strangeways (1491-1525)
+ Katherine Dacre (1484-1527) m1. George FitzHugh (d.1513) m2. Thomas Neville (1484-1542)

Humphrey Dacre died in 1485, leaving his widow to arrange advantageous marriages for their children. The Dacre family were at this time out of favour with the new king, Henry VII, due to their turn-coat behaviour during the Wars of the Roses in that they continued to change sides and therefore their loyalty could not be depended upon by the new Tudor king. Therefore it was important that the Dacre children married into families who had been loyal to the Tudor cause throughout the wars.

In 1488, Mabel's eldest son Thomas Dacre abducted the wealthy heiress Elizabeth Greystoke (1471-1516), a descendant of John of Gaunt with familial ties to the Woodville family, and married her. Elizabeth was the sole heir to her grandfather Ralph Greystoke, due to her father Robert Greystoke having predeceased his father in 1483, and inherited his vast estates in Northumberland when he died in 1487.
Thomas and Elizabeth had eight children together;
+ Mabel Dacre m. Henry Scrope
+ William Dacre m. Elizabeth Talbot
+ Anne Dacre m. Christopher Conyers
+ Mary Dacre m. Francis Talbot
+ Jane Dacre m. Lord Tailboys
+ Humphrey Dacre
+ Elizabeth Dacre m. Thomas Musgrave
+ Philippa Dacre

Mabel's daughter Elizabeth went down a similar route for her marriage. In 1494 Elizabeth had fallen in love with the sixteen year old Richard Huddleston of Millom (1481-1502), at this time she was about seventeen years his senior. Mabel kidnapped Richard and forced him to marry her daughter Elizabeth. As Richard was not of legal age when his father died, he had become a ward of the Crown, and therefore Mabel had committed a crime as his marriage was to be dependent upon the king's permission. Mabel and Elizabeth were arrested and imprisoned at Lancaster Castle. The prison conditions were harsh and it was there that Elizabeth died "overcome with melancholy and remorse", Elizabeth's brother Thomas claimed that she died due to the distress of her mother's imprisonment. Mabel was released after nine months imprisonment, on the condition that a fine be paid of 1000 marks. Richard Huddleston did not remarry, and he died in October 1503 at the age of just 27 years. There is a tomb in Millom church which commemorates Richard Huddleston and his wife Elizabeth Dacre.

Richard and Elizabeth Huddleston tomb, Millom Church