Gravestones, Renedra Ltd

These pieces are taken from the Gravestone Set from Renedra, probably better know for producing the plastic figures for Perry's, Warlord Games Fireforge Games and others. The box comes with forty four various gravestones and two separate ravens, sculpted by Steve May from Immortal Miniatures (as it tells you on their website). 

Cross grave markers with additional slats.
28mm Crusader Miniature Man-at-Arms shown for scale

I've placed all the 18th and 19th century style gravestones together onto plastic bases but separated the simpler, older style stones onto singles so I can use these in medieval period games. After seeing at medieval illustrations (and a few modern ones still visible in northern Europe) I added two small lengths of coffee stick stirrers to form a roof for the cross.

A number of the stones are modelling at an angle, quite a common sight in old graveyards, well until Heath & Safety operatives started to push them over to ensure they were 'safe'. I've altered a few more to enhance the look.

28mm Crusader Miniature Man-at-Arms shown for scale (he gets around a lot, doesn't he?)

There are nicely sculptured details on the graves, vines, engraved text etc. and a very simply way of adding extra detail to your table top.

Richard Beauchamp, 13th Earl of Warwick

Richard Beauchamp, 13th Earl of Warwick

In the 'Wars of the Roses A Field Guide & Companion' author Peter Bramley states that the Beauchamp Chapel, Collegiate Church of Saint Mary in Warwick contains "probably the finest medieval non royal church monuments in England.." The chapel was built to house the remains of Richard Beauchamp, 13th Earl of Warwick, grandson of Thomas Beauchamp, 11th Earl of Warwick. As captain of Calais and Rouen, and the Custodian of Rouen Castle, he is perhaps best know for overseeing the trial and execution of Joan of Arc in 1431. As was the case with his grandfather, it was during the Hundred Years War that Richard Beauchamp (pronounced 'beach-um' not 'bow-champ' like I used to as a kid) made his fame and (further) fortune.

Beauchamp Chapel, Collegiate Church of Saint Mary, Warwick

Richard Beauchamp married into the Despencer family and fortune in 1422 becoming one of the richest men in the country.

Beauchamp had close personal connections with Henry V; in 1410 he was made a member of the royal council, and was Lord High Steward at the coronation of Henry V in 1413. He was present at the siege of Harfleur in 1415 and at Caen when it was sacked in 1417. When Henry V died in 1422, Beauchamp was appointed one of the councilors for the infant king Henry VI. He went on to capture Pontorson, Normandy in May 1426 where the garrison were massacred but he himself was later defeated at Montargis southeast of Paris by John, Bastard of Orleans. In 1428 Beauchamp was appointed and Guardian of Henry VI and was his tutor from 1428 - 1437.

 

Richard died in Rouen, Upper Normandy on 30th April 1439 probably worn out by the constant campaigning.

 

The combined tomb, effigy and hearse of the Earl is rightly the focal point of this impressive chantry chapel built according to directions left in his will. The shields on the tomb read like a who's who of medieval England. These include the family names of: Beauchamp, Newburgh, Clare, Despenser, Montagu, Monthermer, Neville, Bohun, Stafford, Talbot, Strange, Furnival and Latimer.

 

 

This is not however, as is often thought, the tomb of the famous 'Warwick the Kingmaker', Richard Neville was Beauchamp's son-in-law. Beauchamp's youngster daughter, Anne, married the War of the Roses powerbroker Neville in 1436 who at one stage held two Kings of England under his control, hence the nickname.

 

The small male and female figures seen around the base of the tomb, know as 'weepers', symbolise the real family, friends and dignities who would mourn the death of the person represented. One of them is of particular interest as it represents the only near contemporary image we have of the Kingmaker; whether it is a true likeness is impossible to say.

 

Ironically when Beauchamp's remains were finally laid to rest in 1475 most of the portrayed weepers were dead; only three, all female, were still alive. In a fitting commentary on the turbulent times when the tomb was installed all of the five male weepers shown on the south side of the monument had already suffered violent deaths.

 

From left to right the main (large) weepers represent:

• Richard Neville, Earl of Salisbury. Younger son of Ralph Neville Earl of Westmoorland. Killed - Battle of Wakefield 1460.
• Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset. Great Grandson of King Edward III (John of Gaunt). Killed - 1st Battle of St. Albans 1455.
• Humphrey Stafford, Duke of Buckingham. Killed - Battle of Northampton 1460.
• John Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury. Killed - Battle of Castillon 1453.
• Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick and Salisbury. The 'Kingmaker'. Killed - Battle of Barnet 1474.

Richard Neville, Earl of Salisbury

 

 Arms - Humphrey Stafford, Duke of Buckingham.

 

Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset

 

Arms - Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset.

 

John Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury

 

Richard Neville 'the Kingmaker'

 

The tomb was built between 1448 and 1453. Surviving contracts reveal some of the (surprising modern sounding) names:

• William Austen of London - cast the brass effigy
• John Bourde - supplier of the Purbeck marble
• John Massingham - carver,
• Barthilimew Lambespring - goldsmith
• John Essex - marbler
• Thomas Stevyns - coppersmith.

Richard Beauchamp, 13th Earl of Warwick

 

Richard Beauchamp - note the contemporary fashionable haircut

& the vein detail on the brow of the head 

Order of the Garter detail

& Poleyne with fan plate detail

  

 

 

Roundel quartered with the arms of Beauchamp & Newburgh (note also the Clare arms in the forth quarter).

The chapel also houses the tombs of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, his brother Ambrose Dudley, Earl of Warwick, and Robert's son, the “Noble Impe” but I'll detail these characters when I eventually finish making the WoTR retinue of John Sutton, Lord Dudley.

The nave and tower of the main church were destroyed in the great fire of Warwick in 1694. The flames only stopped short of the chapel's entrance and the walls and ceilings still reveal damage from the fire.

St. Mary's also contain numerous other points of interest including the chapel of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment (Royal Regiment of Fusiliers), an ancient ducking stool and the grave of Sir Fulke Greville, 1st Baron Brooke who was murdered at the nearby castle but I'll let you discover all these for yourself.

Thomas Beauchamp, 11th Earl of Warwick

The Collegiate Church of Saint Mary in Warwick is a short walk from the famous castle that the town is probably best know for. As opposed to the wool churches of East Anglia this is very much a war church, built on the profits of ransoms taken during the Hundred Years Year, most notably by Thomas Beauchamp (1313 - 1369), 11th Earl of Warwick.

 

The church dates back to 1123 and was built by Robert de Newburgh, Earl of Warwick. The most notable remnants of this part of the church can still be still seen in the crypt.

Beauchamp was one of the most powerful English military commanders in the 14thC, he was Marshall of England for over twenty five years until 1369. Knighted aged eleven along with his brother Guy in 1345 Thomas Beauchamp went on to fight in all the French wars of King Edward III. He fought in the Black Prince's division, acting as his literal guardian, at the battle of Crécy in 1346 and ten years later commanded the vanguard and Guyennois contingent at Poitiers in 1356. At the battle of Poitiers, along with Lord Cobham, Warwick escorted the captured French King John II and the king's son Philip to safety. He was able to ransom Archbishop of Sens and the bishop of Le Mans for well over £8000, an astronomical sum at the time, using the money to rebuild the Collegiate Church of Saint Mary.

He became one of the founders, and was invested as the third Knight, of the Order of the Garter in 1348.

He married Katherine Mortimer, daughter of Roger Mortimer, 1st Earl of March producing five sons and ten daughters. The fact that the effigy show the couple holding hands is probably not the romantic gesture we would like to imagine today but more symbolic of two very powerful family dynasties uniting through marriage.

Thomas Beauchamp, 11th Earl of Warwick arms were: gules, a fess between six cross crosslets Or.

Beauchamp died in Calais on 13th November 1369 aged 56.

The next post will illustrate another famous occupant of this church.

Charles I and the Isle of Wight

My brother and myself recently returned from the sunny Isle of Wight. One of the main historical attractions there is Carisbrooke Castle. The most famous resident of the castle was, of course Charles I. The onsite museum contains Civil War armour and more interestingly several personal possessions of King Charles I.The majority of the notes below are taken verbatim from the information panels at the castle

“Defeated in the English Civil War which had raged since 1642, King Charles I was under house arrest at Carisbrooke for 10 months in 1647-1648.

At first he had the freedom of the island but early in 1648 John Burley of Newport tried to free him, failed and was hanged. Afterwards Charles was confined to the castle. Still he could walk and play bowels on a green made for him."

View of Carisbrooke Castle from the gatehouse looking towards the motte. Charles’s bedroom was located in the central building behind the ten paneled window in the middle of the picture. The large glazed window replaced a much smaller one. The second attempt was from ruined buildings to the left

Aided by his page, Henry Firebrace, the king tried to escape twice more. In the first attempt he climbed through a window in his bedchamber but he got stuck in the bars."

King Charles slept here (although not in this bed)

Medieval fireplace, King Charles I's bedroom

“This room was the king’s bedroom during his first five months at the castle, from November 1647 to April 1648.

At first he was treated as a quest, but in January he became a prisoner, and guards were place on his bedroom doors. Charles attempted to escape from a small window in this room on the night of 20th March1648, assisted by his loyal servant Henry Firebrace.

There are many later additions here, but the king would have been familiar with the large medieval fireplace, and the medieval chapel window and squint (to the right of the bed).

The bed and chests are reproductions in the style of the 17th century. They have been installed to suggest the style of furniture brought here from Hampton Court in 1647.”

Ruined kitchen and bedroom block

Brother acting as money grabbing guard under the escape window

"The second attempt was made in this area, where kitchens and bedrooms had been built by George Carey 60years before. Charles tried to climb out of the window above... but he was betrayed by two guards. They had taken money to let him escape but then cruelly turned him in.”

On 29th November 1648 Charles was transferred across the Solent to Hurst Castle and then on to London for his trial and eventual execution 30th January 1649.

The isle wasn’t a happy place for the Stuart family.

Parliament was anxious that the children of King Charles could not be used any Royalist plot to restore the Monarchy. Princess Elizabeth and Henry Duke of Gloucester were moved to the Isle of Wight when their brother Charles II arrived in Scotland. It was determined that the Royal children should be imprisoned in Carisbrooke Castle. They arrived at Cowes on 13th August 1650.

Never blessed with strong health Elizabeth died, aged 14, on 8th September 1650 probably from pneumonia and was later buried in St. Thomas Church, Newport.

The church fell into disrepair and the princess’s grave was forgotten until 1793 when it was rediscovered by accident. When Queen Victoria and Prince Albert made the Isle of Wight their family home they felt the final resting place of one of the forebears needed a decent memorial hence the sculptured monument that marks Princess Elizabeth’s final resting place.

18th Century nameplate

Sculpture by Carlo Marochetti
St. Thomas's Church in Newport, Isle of Wight

.

Henry Duke of Gloucester was allowed to move to the Continent where he fought against the Spanish. Shortly after the Restoration he died from smallpox, 18th September 1660, aged 20.

Anthony Clarke Booth VC, St Michael's Church, Brierley Hill.

On Sunday, in what turned out to be another lazy bank holiday afternoon (waiting for our mom to cook Sunday lunch) my brother suggested that we go and look for the grave of a VC recipient, that of Anthony Clarke Booth. He won his Victoria Cross in extraordinary circumstances at the Battle of Intombe.

We knew that Booth was buried somewhere within the grounds of St Michael's Church, Brierley Hill. Anyone who has been privileged to see a  grave of a WWI or WWII recipient of a VC in Belgium or France will know that they are easily recognisable as the iconic symbolic cross is engraved into the headstone. However we thought, correctly as it turned out, that the gravestone wouldn't follow this pattern introduced by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. After 15 minutes of carefully (with hindsight obviously not that carefully) searching we eventually managed to locate his final resting place.

Edit:

After a comment left on this post I released that I had shown the wrong grave! I had in fact detailed the grave of Booth's sons. Typically a grave will hold three people and the rest of his family are buried in a nearby plot. As we were in the area and the weather was fine we went for another look for the grave. The plot was actually pointed out to us by a passing police officer.

Booth VC grave detail

St Michael's Churchyard, Brierley Hill

Booth's grave is in the foreground

Aged 32 this sergeant from Carrington, Nottingham in the 80th Regiment of Foot  (later the South Staffordshire Regiment) staged a remarkable fighting retreat that saved the lives of dozens of his comrades but also saw the social disgrace of his, so-called superior, officer.

The citation is as follows:
On the 12th March 1879 on the Intombe River, South Africa (Zulu War), during an attack by a very large number of the enemy, Colour Sergeant Booth rallied a few men on the south bank of the river and covered the retreat of 50 soldiers and others for a distance of three miles. Had it not been for the coolness displayed by Colour Sergeant Booth, not one man would have escaped.

A more detailed account of the incident Intombi can be found here

The London Gazette has him as a Colour Sergeant, but on the day of the Battle of Ntombe he was actually a Sergeant. His promotion came the following day to replace a Colour Sergeant killed in the action. The gazetting of his VC was delayed due to the fact the surviving officer from the action, Lt. Henry Hollingworth Harward, was court-martialled for cowardice. The trial commenced on 20 February 1880, and concluded on 27 February 1880. During the course of the trial, Booth's award appeared in the London Gazette on 24 February 1880. Harward was actually found not guilty but his career was over and he resigned his commission in May 1880.

Booth's Victoria Cross is displayed at the Museum of the Staffordshire Regiment in Whittingham, Staffordshire at the old regiment's barracks.

Below are photos of the grave of Booth's sons.

Grave of sons

Booth VC sons grave detail

St Michael's Churchyard, Brierley Hill

The grave of Booth's sons is in the foreground

Note that Booth's son, Harry Charles also served with the 80th regiment.