Thomas Mowbray, 1st Duke of Norfolk

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Thomas Mowbray, 1st Duke of Norfolk, KG (22 March 1366Template:Snd22 September 1399) was an English landowner and peer. His family was a venerable one, and by the time Thomas reached adulthood, they were extremely influential in national politics. He claimed a direct bloodline from King Edward I. His father died when Thomas and his elder brother were young. John soon died, and Thomas inherited the Earldom of Nottingham. He had probably been friends with the king, Richard II, since he was young, and as a result, he was a royal favourite, a role he greatly profited from. He accompanied Richard on his travels around the kingdom and was elected to the Order of the Garter. Richard's lavish dispersal of his patronage made him unpopular with parliament and other members of the English nobility, and Mowbray fell out badly with the king's uncle, John of Gaunt.

Mowbray journeyed into Scotland with the king when he invaded in 1385, although it is possible that their friendship was waning at this point. Richard had a new favourite, Robert de Vere; Mowbray, meanwhile, became increasingly close to Richard Fitzalan, Earl of Arundel, whose daughter Elizabeth he married. 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 Earl of Suffolk, appealing him in parliament. Suffolk was impeached, and a council was appointed to oversee the king. Mowbray gradually became disillusioned with his comrades, perhaps because of the brutal revenges they took and by 1389, he was back in the king's favour. Mowbray entered into jousts, led embassies and joined Richard on his 1395 invasion of Ireland, negotiating successfully with the Irish Kings. By now, the king felt sufficiently restored to power to attack his enemies, which seems to have culminated in Mowbray's killing of Gloucester in Calais in 1397 on Richard's orders. Probably in a Template:Lang, Mowbray was made Duke of Norfolk soon after.

In the meantime, Mowbray had fallen out with John of Gaunt's eldest son, Henry Bolingbroke, and they arranged a trial by combat. No sooner had this begun than the king cancelled it in person. He exiled them both: Mowbray for life, Bolingbroke for ten years. Mowbray took a vow of pilgrimage, intending to travel to Jerusalem. He reached Venice, but in September 1399, he died before leaving it. By his wife Elizabeth, he left two sons and three daughters. The eldest son, Thomas, inherited his father's earldom of Norfolk, rebelled against the king in 1405 and was beheaded for treason. Mowbray's second son, also John, inherited the dukedom and served the crown faithfully.

Background and youth

The Mowbrays were an old baronial family, having been first ennobled in 1295. By the 14th century, advantageous marriages, service to the crown and its rewards gave them great political standing.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Thomas Mowbray was the son of John, Lord Mowbray and his wife Elizabeth Segrave, the daughter and heiress of John, Lord Segrave by his wife Margaret, Duchess of Norfolk. Margaret in turn was daughter and heiress of Thomas of Brotherton, Earl of Norfolk, the fifth son of King Edward I.Template:Sfn

Thomas Mowbray was born in 1366; the precise date is unknown.Template:Sfn Template:Refn He was probably named after the cult of St Thomas Becket, which his mother followed. Thomas's elder brother John was their father's heir. Lord Mowbray died in 1368. Four years later, the brothers became the ward of their great-aunt, Blanche of Lancaster. John—a "special friend" to the king, suggest Enoch Powell and Keith Wallis— was created Earl of Nottingham on the coronation of King Richard II in 1377 but died in early 1383.Template:Sfn Almost immediately—within a few days—the earldom was re-granted to Thomas, and even though he was still legally a minor, he was allowed seisin of his patrimony.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:Sfn

As a second son, little was recorded of Mowbray's youth, although his background and status ensured him a position at court.Template:Sfn The King and Mowbray had probably been childhood friends and he was a royal favourite from around 1382. That year he was granted hunting rights in certain royal forests and was knighted.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn It was around this time that John of Gaunt's son Henry Bolingbroke began falling out of favour with the King. Mowbray supplanted him in the king's favour.Template:Sfn In 1383, he married ten-year-old Lady Elizabeth Lestrange, heiress of John, Lord Blakemere, although she died not long after the wedding.Template:Sfn

Political background

Richard II was only ten when he succeeded his grandfather's, Edward III's, throne in 1377. Although the appearance was maintained that he personally reigned, a continual council was organised to manage government business for him.Template:Sfn This government, originally popular, faced increasing criticism following the suppression of the Peasants' Revolt in 1381.Template:Sfn King Richard was reproved for his patronage of a few select royal favourites, to an extent that has been described as "lavish to the point of foolishness" by a biographer, historian Anthony Tuck.Template:Sfn Parliament also believed that the King should rule as economically as possible, and they observed with displeasure the King's distribution of extravagant wealth to a limited circle. The greatest recipient was Michael de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk.Template:Sfn Abroad, the Hundred Years' War was going poorly for England. Several expeditions had left for France in the early years of the reign to defend English French territory, but they were almost all military and political failures.Template:Sfn Template:Refn

Career to 1390

Mowbray remained high in royal favour following the death of his wife, and he was elected to the Order of the Garter in October 1383, despite his military inexperience.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:Sfn The King granted him grace and favour rooms at the royal palaces of Eltham and Kings Langley.Template:Sfn As an important courtier, Mowbray accompanied Richard on his tour of East Anglia in 1383.Template:Sfn His closeness to the King drew the opprobrium of his uncle, John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster—the most powerful man in the Kingdom after the King.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Gaunt accused Mowbray, along with Robert, Earl of Oxford and William, Earl of Salisbury of plotting against Richard.Template:Sfn Gaunt had fallen out of favour with his nephew and had withdrawn from the council. In retaliation for his accusations, says the chronicler Thomas Walsingham, Mowbray, de Vere and Montacute plotted to kill the duke in February 1385. The King held jousts between 13 and 14 February and Gaunt's murder was to be committed on the 14th; it is possible that Richard did not disapprove, such had relations between him and his uncle broken down over military policy.Template:Sfn Gaunt told Richard that he viewed the King's advisors as "unsavoury"; Mowbray and his colleagues lodged a series of further accusations against the duke.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Gaunt received a warning of the attack at the joust and fled on the night of 14 February.Template:Sfn

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On 30 June 1385—as the royal army was about to leave for Scotland—Mowbray received his great-grandfather's office of Marshal of England.Template:Sfn Template:Refn He led a force of 99 men-at-arms and 150 archers, serving with Gaunt in the vanguard.Template:Sfn Mowbray helped draw up the King's ordinances for the campaign at Durham,Template:Sfn Template:Refn although by now, suggests Given-Wilson, Mowbray's relations with Richard were cooling.Template:Sfn

Less than a year after his first wife's death, Mowbray married Elizabeth Fitzalan. Elizabeth was a daughter of Richard, Earl of Arundel, and, although the King attended their wedding and the week-long festivities accompanying it, it is unlikely that the marriage was popular with Richard.Template:Refn His second marriage must have been a turning point.Template:Sfn Richard doubtless saw Arundel as a negative influence on Mowbray and feared the strengthening of the earl's position against him. Mowbray and Elizabeth had also wed without his permission, so the King distrained Mowbray's estates until he had received the value of the license. Tuck argues that "nor was the king's concern unfounded"; Mowbray had been increasingly isolated at court by the King's latest favourites, such as Oxford, and had moved into the circle of those who opposed the new royal intimates, perhaps seeing them as the best way to dispose of his rival.Template:Sfn This circle also included not only Richard's father-in-law but his uncle, Thomas, Duke of Gloucester.Template:Sfn In a sign that Mowbray was not completely out of favour, Elizabeth received her robes as a Lady of the Garter in 1386.Template:Sfn

Both men had played an important role in parliament's attack on Richard's chancellor, Michael de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk at the Wonderful Parliament of 1386.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:Refn The Wonderful Parliament had taken place against a backdrop of genuine fear of a French invasionTemplate:Sfn—Walsingham described how Londoners, in his view, like "timid mice they scurried hither and thitherTemplate:Sfn—and Arundel had been appointed Admiral of England. In March the following year he, in turn, appointed Mowbray his deputy, and they took a fleet out of Margate and encountered a French-Flemish fleet almost immediately. The result was its crushing defeat. Between 50 and 100 French-Flemish ships were captured or destroyed.Template:Sfn Template:Refn The King was unimpressed. When Arundel and Mowbray returned to court, Richard claimed they had only defeated merchants, and Oxford turned his back on the earls.Template:Sfn It was, however, an extremely popular victory with the people.Template:Sfn

Appellant

Template:Main For most of the 1380s, Mowbray received what he doubtless considered his due from the King in lands, offices and grants.Template:Sfn But by 1387, he became increasingly estranged from Richard's court.Template:Sfn The main reason for this was probably jealousy of de Vere. While he was wealthy enough not to rely on royal favour, as de Vere did, he expected the honour and dignity that his birth and status demanded. This he saw increasingly syphoned off to his rival.Template:Sfn Although the Wonderful Parliament had set up a commission to effectively restrain the King,Template:Sfn it turned out to be ineffective. Richard emasculated the commission by leaving London immediately, ignoring its deliberations, and holding his own councils in the provinces.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn He also took legal advice from his judges who, unsurprisingly, found in his favour that those responsible for parliament's treatment of the King should be deemed traitors.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn In response, Mowbray joined Bolingbroke, Gloucester, Arundel and Warwick in appealing several of the King's friends, including Oxford, of treason, and raised an army at Hornsey, north of London. The Appellants' army engaged Oxford's at the Battle of Radcot Bridge, inflicting a crushing defeat on the royalists in December.Template:Sfn Mowbray did not take part, as he was guarding the road back to the West Midlands at Moreton in Marsh,Template:Sfn although he may have sent a portion of his retinue to the Appellant army.Template:Sfn

Mowbray appears responsible for dissuading Gloucester, Arundel and Warwick from marching to London and deposing the King. Indeed, he and Bolingbroke may have been a moderating influence on the others.Template:Sfn Conversely, due to his position as Earl Marshal—one of the two heads of the Court of Chivalry—his presence with the Appellants enabled them to frame their offensive juridically rather than as a traditional noble rebellion.Template:Sfn Mowbray was amongst the Appellants that attended Richard in the Tower of London—with arms linkedTemplate:Sfn— on 30 December 1387 and accused the King of treachery towards them. They also demanded Richard order the arrest of the appellees; Walsingham reports that he only agreed to do so on being threatened, once again, with deposition.Template:Sfn The King attempted to divide Mowbray from his colleagues, asking him to stay behind when the others were ready to leave.Template:Sfn With the King now under their control,Template:Sfn Mowbray and the Appellants called parliament for early 1388. This session became known as the Merciless Parliament on account of the vengeance it laid on the King's closest supporters, Template:Sfn Template:Refn with Mowbray overseeing the executions with "the aid and authority of the mayor, sheriffs, and aldermen of London".Template:Sfn Mowbray was to take the condemned to the Tower and "'from there drag him through the city of London as far as the gallows at Tyburn, and there hang him by the neck".Template:Sfn

Rapprochment with the King

For his part, there are signs that Mowbray was becoming dissatisfied with his comrades through the course of the parliament, which Tuck suggests was because Mowbray was "never as committed to the destruction of the court faction as Gloucester, Arundel, and Warwick".Template:Sfn Given-Wilson suggests that the inclusion of Mowbray by the Appellants broadened their base among the nobility (from his having had less acrimonious relations with the King), but also weakened them as a body by diluting their grievances. As indicated by Mowbray's dispute with Warwick over the Gower lordship, they were already "shot through with personal and political differences" as it was.Template:Sfn Tuck suggests that, while Mowbray seems able to have stomached the convictions of the others, "the real rift occurred over the question of Sir Simon Burley's fate".Template:Sfn Gloucester and Warwick accused him of exercising undue influence over Richard;Template:Sfn Burley, the under-chamberlain, had been tutor to the King, who wanted to save him. Mowbray and Bolingbroke agreed, but to no avail, and in May 1388Template:Sfn Burley was hanged at Tyburn.Template:Sfn

Mowbray was loyal to the King and court.Template:Sfn Early indications of Mowbray's return to favour came in early 1389 when he had his estates restored to him and was pardoned for having married without the King's licence.Template:Sfn In March, he 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.Template:Sfn His appointment was not a success; he alienated the traditional lord of the north, Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, who retired to court. 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 disabled from the start;Template:Sfn Mowbray's ineffectiveness to highlighted in June that year, when a Scottish incursion ravaged the north of England and, facing 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.Template:Sfn

The King regained sole control of government around in May 1389, and Mowbray attended a royal council meeting in Clarendon Palace that September, demonstrating the gulf that existed by then between him and his ex-comrades.Template:Sfn At another meeting the following month, the King attempted to increase Mowbray's remuneration in March. The council, headed by William of Wykeham as chancellor, refused—"in the name and by the will of all the other lords of the council"Template:Sfn—and Richard was forced to acquiesce, albeit Template:Lang, or "with an angry expression".Template:Sfn Henry Percy had been recompensed for the loss of the wardenship with the captaincy of Calais; in 1391, he and Mowbray exchanged offices, returning Percy to the March and sending Mowbray to France.Template:Sfn

Martial service

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As a result of Mowbray's return to the court party, his undertaking of royal service for the King increased. He jousted before Richard's chamberlain at St Inglevert, near Boulogne, in April 1390, where he proved himself a champion against the French, who the well-regarded knight led, Jean de Boucicaut.Template:Sfn Template:Refn Mowbray led a group of up to 60 English knights and esquires.Template:Sfn The following month another joust was held at Smithfield, outside London. Mowbray's presence in the King's party was a part of Richard's policy of reconciling the appellants to his personal rule and, by extension, furthering his own power.Template:Sfn Here, before the King, Mowbray defeated John Dunbar, Earl of Moray—who later died, says one chronicler, of his woundsTemplate:Sfn—after six jousts with an unrebated lance.Template:Refn Froissart wrote how, at Smithfield "everyone exerted himself to the utmost to excel: many were unhorsed and more lost their helmets".Template:Sfn

Mowbray joined the King on his campaign to Ireland in 1394. Richard's strategy was to plant his nobility across the country in direct confrontation with Gaelic kings to force them into submission. Mowbray occupied Carlow,Template:Sfn of which he was granted the lordship.Template:Sfn Template:Refn Mowbray led several raids against the King of Leinster, Art Macmurrough, and a royal letter to the council reported how he "had several fine encounters with the Irish".Template:Sfn Mowbray burned nine villages, killing many, and captured around 8,000 head of cattle. On one occasion, he nearly captured MacMurrough "and his wife in their beds".Template:Sfn Template:Refn MacMurrough's escape left Mowbray "sorely vexed", and in revenge he had the house razed, as well as 14 surrounding villages. He then marched through the Blackstairs Mountains "which was all bog...Template:Nbspno Englishman has commonly entered before".Template:Sfn A number of enemies were captured. Their leader was executed, and his head sent to Richard.Template:Sfn

Mowbray eventually secured MacMurrough's indenture of submission to Richard. During these negotiations, Mowbray possessed full Template:Lang powers,Template:Sfn and persuaded Macmurrough to evacuate Leinster for the English.Template:Sfn His sub-chieftains followed.Template:Sfn In the event neither macMurrough nor his armies left Leinster, and Mowbray was in no position to force them. His attempts to install English lordship in the province came to nothing; he returned to England in May 1395.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:Refn

Royal service to 1398

On his return, Mowbray almost immediately became involved, with his comrades-in-arms from the Irish campaign Lord Scrope and the Earl of Rutland, in the negotiations over Richard's proposed marriage to Isabella,Template:Sfn daughter of the French King, Charles VI.Template:Sfn Mowbray made many trips to France, finally concluding negotiations in March 1396. The betrothal was made official in September, and Mowbray escorted the French King to Calais. Richard also deputised Mowbray to conduct secret negotiations with Philip, Duke of Burgundy and John, Duke of Berry. Given-Wilson suggests that the King "had considerable faith in Mowbray's diplomatic ability" since in May the next year, Mowbray represented England at the Imperial Diet in Frankfurt.Template:Sfn This had been called to end the latest Papal Schism by forcing the resignation of the two partisan popes.Template:Sfn Richard's faith in Mowbray is reflected in the numerous grants the earl received in this period. Tuck suggests that Mowbray could afford to spend an estimated 40% of his total income just on wages to retainers, suggesting his affinity was substantial enough to match that of most earls.Template:Sfn

In 1397, at Warwick's expense, Mowbray received the lordship of Gower, which their two families had been quarrelling for possession of for most of the preceding century. Saul suggests that Mowbray relied on his friendship with the King to retrieve the grant, which had been in Beauchamp's hands since 1354.Template:Sfn This was "doubly disastrous" for Warwick, comments Saul; not only was it the richest lordship he possessed—thus having a major impact on his incomeTemplate:Sfn—but he was ordered to repay Mowbray the profits he had earned since 1361,Template:Sfn amounting to around £5333 per annum.Template:Sfn The atmosphere at court was tense. Richard may have felt threatened, suspecting that the Appellants would launch another attack; this may have persuaded him to get in first.Template:Sfn In early July, the King settled all family accounts with the Appellants. He invited Arundel, Gloucester and Warwick to a feast—of Herodian infamy, reported Walsingham—at which they would be arrested. Only Warwick attended. Arundel and Gloucester were apprehended later. They were tried individually and convicted of treason in September.Template:Sfn Warwick forfeit his titles and estates and was sentenced to life imprisonment. Arundel was beheaded;Template:Sfn Mowbray, as Earl marshal, oversaw the sentence of his erstwhile comrade.Template:Sfn Gloucester was exiled to Calais.Template:Sfn It was probably Mowbray's attempts to save Simon Burley's life years before that saved Mowbray's in 1397.Template:Sfn

Murder of Gloucester and elevation

Template:Quotebox Gloucester had been covertly arrested on the night of 10–11 July 1397,Template:Sfn and "bundled out of England to Calais".Template:Sfn It was popularly speculated that the King personally ordered Gloucester's assassination, and it was later alleged—in the 1399 parliament—that Mowbray was likely instrumental, in his role of Captain of Calais.Template:Sfn Rumours of Gloucester's death had been circulating since August, and Given-Wilson speculates that this may be a sign that Richard had ordered Mowbray to kill the duke then, but that the latter hesitated several weeks.Template:Sfn Richard ordered William Rickhill, Justice of the King's Bench,Template:Sfn to Calais, "in the company of our dearest kinsman Thomas, earl marshal and earl of NottinghamTemplate:Nbsp... and there that you do and perform each and everything which is enjoined on you by the aforesaid earl on our behalf".Template:Sfn In the event they travelled separately.Template:Sfn Rickhill left England on 7 September and was to receive Mowbray's instructions when they arrived.Template:Sfn The writs he had, notes McVitty, "were deliberately left undated or were post-dated to fit a falsified timeline".Template:Sfn When they met, Mowbray's instructions were that Rickhill was to have a "colloqiumTemplate:Nbsp... clearly and openly certified under his seal".Template:Sfn Gloucester made his confession, in the presence of witnesses, on 8 September.Template:Sfn The following day, when Rickhill requested another meeting with the Duke, Mowbray refused him.Template:Sfn A few days later, parliament requested Mowbray to bring Gloucester back to England to have him stand trial before it. Mowbray returned the writ of summons Template:Sfn with the bald reply that he was unable to do so because the duke was dead:Template:Sfn "I held this duke in my custody in the lord king's prison in the town of Calais, and there, in that same prison, he died".Template:Sfn Template:Refn The historian Amanda McVitty suggests that "historians generally agree that by this point, Richard must have known that Gloucester was already dead".Template:Sfn

On 29 September 1397, Mowbray received a royal pardon for his role as an Appellant.Template:Sfn This was part of Richard's re-establishment of his aristocracy known as the Duketti: "dukelings"Template:Sfn Template:Sfn or "little dukes".Template:Sfn Template:Refn Given-Wilson has suggested that Mowbray's new title "cheapened the great titles at the crown's disposal",Template:Sfn while Rowena Archer has argued that, although he may not have been related to the King by blood, "he had lineage and wealth to merit so high an honour".Template:Sfn He also suggests that this does not necessarily indicate the true relationship between the two men. As an (albeit ex) appellant, Richard must have found it difficult to forget Mowbray's earlier treason, irrespective of his subsequent loyalty. For Mowbray's part, he was too experienced a political operator at the court not to realise this.Template:Sfn To celebrate their return to the King's grace, Bolingbroke and Mowbray held a ceremonial requiem mass and feast,Template:Sfn last which the King and Queen attended.Template:Sfn Ostensibly this was to commemorate the return from the Holy Land of Mowbray's father's bones for reinterment;Template:Sfn John Mowbray had built up a posthumous reputation as Template:Lang and something of a cult surrounded him.Template:Sfn John Mowbray's bones were reliquaried at a Carmelite church, a display that was clearly intended to reflect personally on Mowbray also, increasing his political stature just as he had been elevated to the highest title in the land.Template:Sfn

Quarrel with Bolingbroke

By late 1397, Richard was planning another expedition to Ireland, while in another repercussion from the Revenge Parliament, around the same time Mowbray quarrelled with Bolingbroke, now Duke of Hereford. Not only did this seriously disrupt the King's plans, butTemplate:Sfn says Saul, it was also the event that "brought the royal house of cards come tumbling down".Template:Sfn The historian Caroline Barron argues that "a certain amount of inter-aristocratic rivalry could work to the king's advantage, but it was a dangerous game to play", and this one was to be fatal to Richard.Template:Sfn The causes behind their dispute are no longer obvious, but Saul suggests that although a "tangled story", Given-Wilson's explanation is probably as accurate as can now be discerned. He suggests that the issue was less with the personalities involved and more with broader disagreements regarding royal policy, which the King could not contain.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn The narrative of events only survives through Bolinbroke's later retelling.Template:Refn They had both been pardoned in December 1397 in the final session of the previous parliament.Template:Sfn

According to Bolingbroke, he met Mowbray on the London–Brentford roadTemplate:Sfn while on their way to the Shrewsbury parliament,Template:Sfn Mowbray telling him that the king was planning on having them both arrested and that the royal pardons they had received were valueless;Template:Sfn Richard intended to "annul that record".Template:Sfn Bolingbroke said he protested that the King would not commit such a breach of faith,Template:Sfn to which Mowbray supposedly reminded him that Warwick, Arundel and Gloucester had also had pardons.Template:Sfn The King, in turn, was backing their enemies at court, especially Roger Mortimer, Earl of March, the Duke of Surrey and the Earls of Wiltshire, Salisbury and Gloucester.Template:Sfn Mowbray apparently urged Bolingbroke to turn against Surrey, Wiltshire and Gloucester, arguing that "even if they are unable to achieve their purpose at present, they will be intent on destroying us in our homes ten years hence".Template:Sfn Mowbray was probably more concerned for his safety than Bolingbroke, as the latter had the support of John of Gaunt behind him, and Mowbray did not.Template:Sfn

The King heard of their encounter and made Bolingbroke repeat Mowbray's "many dishonest and slanderous words"Template:Sfn at the Shrewsbury sitting of parliament.Template:Sfn On 3 January 1398, Bolingbroke presented the King with a deed—"to the best of his memory"—of accusation.Template:Sfn Mowbray was furiousTemplate:Sfn and denied everything.Template:Sfn Parliament could not establish the rights or wrongs of the affair, and Richard set up a committee to resolve it.Template:Sfn Believing that Bolingbroke was doing his father's bidding, Mowbray laid an ambush for Gaunt in early 1398, although the Duke escaped to Shrewsbury. Mowbray now panicked, says Given-Wilson, and fled. Thus, only Bolingbroke's narrative of events survives, as Mowbray did not hang around long enough to provide his own. The King reacted immediately. Mowbray forfeited his office of Earl Marshal, and an order went out for his arrest.Template:Sfn Mowbray appeared before Richard at Oswestry in January 1398, having either surrendered or been arrested. Pending a full council hearing in April, he and Bolingbroke were imprisoned in Windsor Castle. Bolingbroke was promptly bailed by his father; Mowbray remained in prison.Template:Sfn However, the lack of either supporting or disputing evidence for either party's claims made it a "he said, he said" situation, and as a result, Richard decided that it could only be settled with trial by combat,Template:Sfn since both men refused to be reconciled.Template:Sfn The day was set for 16 September 1398 in Coventry,Template:Sfn with the delay being intended to allow cooler heads to prevail if possible. They did not, and the tourney took place as agreed. Both men were experienced and skilled jousters,Template:Sfn and according to Adam of Usk,Template:Sfn

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At this point, the King intervened and stopped the combat. Usk avers this was because he saw that Mowbray was on the verge of losing, whereas the official chronicle says Richard was averse to two of his subjects injuring themselves or worse in the name of his justice. Another contemporary chronicler, the author of the Template:Lang suggests that the fighting had hardly begun when the King stopped it.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn The scholar Amanda McVitty suggests that he saw the chance to rid himself of two ex-Appellants while appearing to be acting with chivalric magnanimity.Template:Sfn Allington-Smith suggests that, perhaps, "it was not in his interest that either of them should win".Template:Sfn Anne Curry has argued that, in his office of Earl Marshal, Mowbray would usually have organised such a duel himself. Historians, she proposes, have not made enough of the fact that this was not enough for Bolingbroke to restrain his attack.Template:Sfn

Exile and death

Instead of fighting, the two men were exiled: Mowbray for life, Bolingbroke for 10 years.Template:Sfn Usk suggests that Mowbray would at some point be welcomed back, when "being minded he might restore him".Template:Sfn Given-Wilson suggests that even at this stage, Richard had foreseen the possibility of confiscating the two men's estates.Template:Sfn The longer sentence on Mowbray was supposedly because, while the charge of treason had not been proven, he had failed to renounce the appellants severely enough, had misgoverned Calais to the endangerment of the country and had plotted against John of Gaunt.Template:Sfn Mowbray was given a choice by Richard. He could go on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, Germany, Bohemia or Hungary.Template:Sfn This allowed Mowbray to save his honour.Template:Sfn Anywhere else was prohibited upon pain of death. He was banned from communicating with Bolingbroke during the latter's exile.Template:Sfn This sentence could not be appealed, nor could they request to return early,Template:Sfn although he would receive £1000 per annum from his estates while abroad.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn His office of Earl Marshal was granted to Westmorland,Template:Sfn while his heir was placed in the household of Richard's Queen as a page.Template:Sfn Mowbray also set up a council to advise the young Thomas in his father's absence, which included some of his own experienced councillors such as Sir John St. John.Template:Sfn

Mowbray sailed from Lowestoft to Dordrecht on 19 September 1398;Template:Sfn over a thousand well-wishers saw him off from the quay.Template:Sfn It was 2PM, and Mowbray was accompanied by around 30 people, including servants and retainers. A historian of the town has commented that, "If the authorities had chosen Lowestoft as the embarkation point in preference to Yarmouth because it was smaller and less well known, their hopes of keeping the event low-key seem not to have worked".Template:Sfn Observers included eighty members of the Suffolk gentry, and they testified that, with a strong wind behind him—"Template:Lang" was recordedTemplate:Sfn—he could easily make six league before sunset.Template:Sfn

Margaret, Duchess of Norfolk, did not die until March 1399. Mowbray would not, though, inherit the great Brotherton estates.Template:Sfn Even though he had been granted letters of protection after the Coventry judgement allowing him to sue for the right to enter any new inheritance, these were cancelled the same day Richard announced he would confiscate Bolingbroke's Lancastrian inheritance.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn This has been described by the scholar Douglas Biggs as an act of either "malice or great folly".Template:Sfn

In Venice, he arranged to purchase a ship from the Signoria, during which negotiations he is recorded in the senate records as "Magnificent Lord the Duke of Gilforth", or Guildford. The antiquarian Mary Margaret Newett commented that "it is not clear why he took this title or how long he bore it", although there are a number of Venetian documents extant from a few years later that refer to him again as Duke of Norfolk.Template:Sfn

Mowbray died of the plague in Venice on 22 September 1399.Template:Sfn He was buried in St Mark's Cathedral with an unusual funerary slab. The imagery includes the royal arms of England (per his office of Earl Marshal), the lion crest of his family, the White Hart of Richard II and the White Swan of Henry IV—although the latter, comments the historian David Marcombe had "its head curiously concealed beneath Mowbray's helm".Template:Sfn Had he died closer to home, he probably would have been buried in the family mausoleum at Axholme.Template:Sfn

Legacy and aftermath

Chris Given-Wilson has argued that Mowbray's feud with Bolingbroke led directly to the latter's usurpation of Richard's throne.Template:Sfn Bolingbroke returned to England in early July 1399. He claimed that he had only returned to claim his Lancastrian inheritance, but with Richard in Ireland and facing no resistance as he marched south, and claimed the throne on 30 September.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Shortly afterwards, on 6 October 1399, the creation of Mowbray as Duke of Norfolk was annulled by Parliament, although his heir retained his other titles.Template:Sfn

Mowbray's executors were granted £1000 for the fulfilment of his will, payment of debts and burial in Venice.Template:Sfn In 1532 Mowbray's descendant, Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk requested the return of Mowbray's bones from Venice, intending them to be reinterred with his ducal descendants.Template:Sfn

Personality and assessment

Mowbray founded the Axholme Charterhouse in 1395 or 1396; he had been petitioning the papacy since at least 1389 for authority.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:Refn He bequeathed Axholme "a tun or two pipes Gascon wine" a year, along with other smaller donations to other houses.Template:Sfn Also in 1396 he founded a Carthusian monastery at Epworth.Template:Sfn

Contemporary chroniclers are near-universal in their condemnation of Mowbray, although those that have survived were all writing after Bolingbroke seized the throne.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn The historian Nigel Saul has described Mowbray as being "driven by ambition and lust for power" and fickle in character.Template:Sfn Barron suggests he was "an erratic and insecure man",Template:Sfn while Given-Wilson says that "impetuous and mercurial Mowbray may have been", but he was not without principles.Template:Sfn

Marriages and issue

Mowbray married first, after 20 February 1383, Elizabeth le StrangeTemplate:Sfn (c. 6 December 1373Template:Snd23 August 1383), suo jure Lady Strange of Blackmere, daughter and heiress of John le Strange, 5th Baron Strange of Blackmere and Lady Isabel de Beauchamp, daughter of Thomas de Beauchamp, 11th Earl of Warwick. Lady Elizabeth was 9 years old at the time of her marriage and died within around 6 months of being married; as such the couple had no issue.Template:Sfn Mowbray's second wife was Lady Elizabeth FitzAlan (c. 1372Template:Snd8 July 1425), widow of Sir William Montagu, and daughter of Richard FitzAlan, 11th Earl of Arundel and Lady Elizabeth de Bohun, daughter of William de Bohun, 1st Earl of Northampton,Template:Sfn by whom he had two sons and three daughters.

Mowbray's eldest son and his namesake, inherited the earldom of Nottingham but rebelled against Henry IV in 1405 and was beheaded at 19. The younger Thomas had married Constance, daughter of John Holland, Duke of Exeter around 1400.Template:Sfn Mowbray's second son, John, thus inherited his father's earldoms. John married Katherine Neville, daughter of the northern magnate Ralph, Earl of Westmorland in 1412, and for loyal service under Henry V, John was restored to the dukedom of Norfolk in 1425.Template:Sfn

Mowbray's oldest daughter Elizabeth married Michael de la Pole, 3rd Earl of Suffolk by 1403. Michael was described by a contemporary chronicler as being "as strong, as active and as daring as any member of the court" of Henry V, and, dying at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, was one of the few notable English deaths.Template:Sfn Margaret, the second daughter, married twice, first to Sir Robert Howard, by whom she was the mother of John Howard, 1st Duke of Norfolk.Template:Sfn She was married by 1420;Template:Sfn Robert Howard may have been a retainer of the 2nd Duke of Norfolk and certainly fought with him in France.Template:Sfn Her second marriage was to Sir John Grey of Ruthin, Denbighshire, an old friend of the Mowbrays.Template:Sfn She died in 1459.Template:Sfn The youngest daughter Isabel also married twice. Her first husband was Sir Henry Ferrers, son of William, Baron Ferrers of Groby; Henry died in 1425. She married secondly James Berkeley, 1st Baron Berkeley.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn

Estates

The patrimony that Mowbray inherited was substantial, predominantly based around East Anglia, and focused on the family's holdings in Leicestershire, Lincolnshire and Yorkshire. These included the important manors of Melton Mowbray and their Template:Lang of Axholme.Template:Sfn His mother's Segrave inheritance augmented these estates, bringing him manors in Huntingdonshire, Norfolk, Sussex, Warwickshire and Wiltshire. His second wife—whose father, the Earl of Arundel, was one of the wealthiest men in the country—brought him further estates in Norfolk, as well as more in Buckinghamshire and Essex.Template:Sfn His landed income was in the region of £1,475 per annum.Template:Sfn Given-Wilson calls this "a sizeable patrimony, but not one which would have put Mowbray in the first rank of English earls".Template:Sfn However, this figure does not include the various gifts of valuables or grants of office and land he received from the King.Template:Sfn Further, on the death of his grandmother, Countess Margaret, he would have expected to gain another major power base in East Anglia, particularly centred on Framlingham Castle.Template:Sfn There was also a swathe of land across Yorkshire, stretching through Hovingham, Thirsk and Nidderdale.Template:Sfn Combined with her estates on the Welsh Marches,Template:Sfn around Chepstow,Template:Sfn and other English counties, these have been adjudged to be worth approximately another £3000 annually.Template:Sfn Saul has estimated his annual income at around £2,000 per annum.Template:Sfn

Cultural representations

Tudor

As Thomas Mowbray, his quarrel with Bolingbroke and subsequent banishment are depicted in the opening scene of Shakespeare's Richard II.Template:Sfn Mowbray is charged not only with Gloucester's murder but also with embezzling money intended to pay for the Calais garrison.Template:Sfn The King promises that "frowning brow to brow, ourselves will hear / The accuser and the accused freely speak", although Mowbray professes himself unable to speak as freely as he wished due to the King's blood links with Bolingbroke.Template:Sfn Mowbray's fears are unfounded: Richard describes Bolingbroke's charges as based on "ancient malice", and Mowbray is goaded into making his challenge for trial by combat, presumably so the King cannot find in his favour.Template:Sfn Mowbray, understanding he is a pawn in the King's plans, prophetically replies to Richard's "Lions make leopards tame" with the retort, "Yea, but not change his spots".Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Bolingbroke's accusations, argues Dr. Imke Lichterfeld, "are grave indeed", and range from the embezzlement of 8,000 nobles,Template:Refn to the death of Gloucester and treason: three crimes each worse than the last.Template:Sfn

His death in exile is announced later in the play by the Bishop of Carlisle.Template:Sfn Mowbray is also mentioned in Henry IV, Part II, as having once employed the now-dissolute Falstaff as a page. The implication in that scene, set around 1405, is that Mowbray represents an extinct generation of great warriors, particularly as he is the last Englishman to have died on a crusade in the Shakespearean canon.Template:Sfn When Shakespeare was writing, deposition was a politically sensitive subject, as, like Richard, Elizabeth I was also childless and increasingly paranoid of dynastic threats from her nobility. Shakespeare uses the exiling of Mowbray and Bolingbroke to represent the exiling of Catholic recusants during her later reign;Template:Sfn and, suggests scholar Alfred Thomas, "would thus have resonated with those Elizabethans who had been forced to repudiate their native English tongue as they assumed a life of exile in Catholic Europe".Template:Sfn Further forcing comparison with Elizabeth, Mowbray outright rejects his sovereign's "women's war" of words.Template:Sfn Template:Refn

Mowbray appears in William Baldwin's and George Ferrers's A Mirror for Magistrates, from the mid-16th century. He is described as "the chief worker in the duke [of Gloucester]'s destruction", this is because Baldwin and Ferrers follow Robert Fabyan's view that by revealing Gloucester's plot against the King, Mowbray thereby sealed the Duke's fate, rather than because he was in Calais himself.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn They also suggest that Mowbray was perhaps the least committed of the Appellants in 1386. Mowbray is also the subject of a ballad by the late Tudor poet Thomas Deloney, "A Song of the Banishment of Two Dukes, Hereford and Norfolke". Deloney is faithful to the chronicles he follows, vilifying Mowbray—who is called "most untrue" to the KingTemplate:Sfn—and emphasising Bolingbroke's wisdom and righteousness and his God-given claim to the throne.Template:Sfn Mowbray is blamed for the King's troubles:Template:Sfn

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Modern

Mowbray has been a major role in most adaptions of Shakespeare's Richard II, and only a few can be mentioned here. As Duke of Norfolk, he was portrayed by Noel Johnson in the BBC's fifteen-part serial adaptation of Shakespeare's history plays, An Age of Kings in 1960.Template:Sfn Ian McKellen, in an early role, took the play on a provincial tour with the Prospect Theatre Company, with Stephen Greif as Mowbray, in 1960; he is last seen visiting Gloucester, with guards, carrying a mattress, reflecting the contemporary rumour of his suffocation.Template:Sfn 1973 saw John Barton's Stratford-upon-Avon production, with Denis Holmes to Richard Pasco's King, in which Mowbray and Bolingbroke fought each other on massive hobby horses. Barton's production transferred to the Aldwych Theatre the following year.Template:Sfn Five years later, David Giles production saw Richard Owens as Mowbray in the BBC's BBC Television Shakespeare, the entire canon transmitted over a period of seven years. Derek Jacobi led, and Gilles focussed on the ambiguity of the King's relationship with Mowbray, who had been his friend and loyal servant but could not yet trust again.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn

One of the first plays put on by the newly formed English Shakespeare Company,Template:Sfn Mowbray was played by Michael Cronin between 1987 and 1988 to Michael Pennington's Richard.Template:Sfn Indeed, it had been the RSC's failure to cast Pennington as Richard the previous year—taken by Jeremy Irons with Richard Moore as the Duke—that led to the formation of the breakaway group.Template:Sfn Moore played Mowbray as an artisan-type, rather than a military man, with bright green clothes and a clumsy gait.Template:Sfn David Lyon played to David Threlfall's Bolingbroke in Deborah Warner's 1995 production at the National Theatre's Cottesloe. This production was notable for the casting of Fiona Shaw as King Richard.Template:Sfn Lyon reprised his role when Warner adapted her production for television two years later. Critic Michael Hattaway noted that, by then, "the uninformed resentment at the take-over of one of Shakespeare's greatest roles by a woman had been quelled by the excellence and intelligence of Shaw's performance".Template:Sfn

In 2000, Steven Pimlott directed David Troughton as Bolingbroke to Samuel West's Richard, with Paul Greenwood playing what critic Rhoda Koenig described as a "quietly intense, harshly whispering" Mowbray.Template:Sfn Norfolk. He was played by James Purefoy in the BBC2 series The Hollow Crown, a 2012 television film adaptation of Shakespeare's Henriad,Template:Sfn Template:Sfn while the following year David Tennant took the leading role in Gregory Doran's RSC production, against Antony Byrne's Mowbray.Template:Sfn

While Mowbray's purported murder of Gloucester takes place before Shakespeare's narrative begins, Mowbray does not appear in the play named after his victim, Thomas of Woodstock.Template:Sfn

Notes

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Citations

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Works

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Thomas Mowbray, 1st Duke of Norfolk

Contents

Background and youth

Political background