Sir John Tiptoft
Sir John Tiptoft
The Earl of Worcester 14271470
The Butcher of England
Peter Spring
First published in Great Britain in 2018 by
Pen & Sword Military
an imprint of
Pen & Sword Books Ltd
47 Church Street
Barnsley
South Yorkshire
S70 2AS
Copyright Peter Spring 2018
ISBN 978 1 78346 382 4
eISBN 978 1 47389 011 4
Mobi ISBN 978 1 47389 010 7
The right of Peter Spring to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is
available from the British Library.
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List of illustrations
Figure 1: The effigy of Sir John Tiptoft, Lord Tiptoft and Powys, the father of the future Earl of Worcester, in Ely cathedral. He wears a collar of SS, the emblem of the House of Lancaster.
Figure 2: The tomb brass of Joyce Tiptoft, ne Cherlton, mother of the Earl of Worcester, in St Andrews, Enfield.
Figure 3: Cecily Beauchamp, ne Neville, the young Earl of Worcesters first wife, from the tomb of Sir Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick. Also, the Earls seal, quartering Tiptoft and Powys, with his wifes shield superimposed.
Figure 4: Executions were close up and personalas in this detail, from a later fifteenth century manuscript, showing the hanging of traitors. Witnesses stood near and priests accompanied the condemned men to safeguard their spiritual welfare. Their souls could be redeemed by accepting death in an appropriate state of contrition.
Figure 5: The Middleham Jewel associated with the Neville family. Was this, or something similar, the jewel that the Earl of Worcester, whose late wife was Cecily ne Neville, lent to his correspondent the monk Henry Cranebroke?
Figure 6: Court of the Exchequer from a law treatise of the mid-1450s. The court is presided over by the Lord High Treasurerat this time the Earl of Worcesterand the Barons of the Exchequer.
Figure 7: The fifteenth century Venetian pilgrim galley. The second image shows trumpeters behind the mast.
Figure 8: A detail from Guillaume Caoursins late fifteenth Gestorum Rhodie obsidionis commentarii which illustrates episodes from the conflict between the Knights and the Turks on Rhodes. The image shows an engagement between the Knights of St John and the Turks, and in the background the execution of captive Turks. Such events almost certainly provided the model for the degradation by Worcester of the bodies of Warwicks men executed at Southampton in 1470.
Figure 9: The Earl of Worcesters beautiful but debased coinage the double groat.
Figure 10: Archbishop Scrope in 1405 requested he be executed with five blows for the Five Wounds of Christtwo more than the Earl of Worcester in 1470, who asked for three for the Holy Trinity.
Figure 11: A parhelion, or triple star, as was seen before the Battle of Mortimers Cross; and Edwards Sun in Splendour on the Earl of Worcesters Irish coinage (note the smaller suns on either side).
Figure 12: Mid-fifteenth century misericord which predates the 1460s rebuilding of Great Eversden church showing the Beauchamp arms the Earl of Worcesters stepdaughter by his first marriage was Anne Beauchamp. All illustrations are by Emma Spring.
List of plates
EARLY LIFE AND TREASURER 14271455
Plate 1: St Marys Oxford. (Author)
Plate 2: Cardinal Beauforts tomb in Winchester Cathedral. (Author)
Plate 3: Westminster Hall. (Author)
PILGRIMAGE 1458
Plate 4: Palace of the Grand Master of the Knights of Rhodes. (C.C.4, Jorge Lscar)
Plate 5: Signatures on a 1454 warrant of Protector York, Chancellor Salisbury and Treasurer Worcester. (PRO, Author)
Plate 6: Jaffa (c.1900) still landing by lighter boat. (Photographer unknown)
Plate 7: Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem. (C.C.4, Jorge Lscar)
Plate 8: Holy Nativity (pre-1900), Bethlehem. (Photographer unknown)
ITALY 14581461
Plate 9: Venice the Doges Palace. (Author)
Plate 10: Padua where the Earl of Worcester studied between 1458 and 1461. (Author)
Plate 11: Ferrara, where the Earl of Worcester studied under Guarino da Verona. (Author)
Plate 12: Florence where the Earl of Worcester bought books and almost certainly stayed with the de Medici. (Author)
DEATH AND BURIAL 1470
Plate 13: The Tower of London, from Tower Hill. (Author)
Plate 14: Plaque on Tower Hill at the site of the scaffold. (Author)
Plate 15: All Hallows Barking, from Tower Hill. (Author)
Plate 16: Blackfriars. (Author)
HOUSES
Plate 17: Bassingbourn, Cambridgeshire. (Cambridge University Aerial Photographs)
Plate 18: Worcester House. (Agas map detail)
Plate 19: Modern reconstruction of Elsyng Palace in the sixteenth century. (Enfield Council, Forty Hall)
MANUSCRIPT
Plate 20: White vine initial G(rammatica) and wreath enclosing the arms and helm of John Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester. (British Library)
List of maps
Plan 1: Westminster Palace where the Earl of Worcester worked as Treasurer, Councillor and Lord Steward of the Household and where he was condemned to death in 1470.
Map 2: 1458 Pilgrimage voyage from Venice to Jaffa.
Map 3: 1458 Travels in the Holy Land.
Plan 4: 1458 Jerusalem Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
