The Lost Kings by Amy Licence

Author:Amy Licence
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780750985000
Publisher: The History Press
Published: 2017-12-11T05:00:00+00:00

Catherine left her soul to God, to the Virgin Mary ‘and to all the company of heaven’, and her body to be buried in the Lady Chapel of her parish church at Ashby-de-la-Zouche, with a priest aid to pay for her soul and those of her parents and husband. St Helen’s already had strong family connections, having been rebuilt from 1474 by Sir William, at the time that he was converting the nearby manor house into a castle. He may have intended to lie there himself, creating a special Hastings family chapel but, after his unexpected death, his body had been interred in St George’s, Windsor. Catherine also asked that he pray for ‘all Christian souls’ and ‘in special for those souls which I am most bounden to cause to be prayed for, for the space of three years next ensuing after my departing’. To the church in Ashby and the College at Newarke in Leicester, she left various vestments and religious artefacts, as well as lands and estates, in order to pay for a ‘yearly obit’ to be kept in the College for her immediate relatives ‘for ever’. After that, she bequeathed her worldly goods. She died between January and March 1504.16

A similar approach was taken by another survivor of the turbulent wars of the previous century. Henry VII’s stepfather Thomas, Lord Stanley, Earl of Derby had fathered eleven children but only seen three grow to maturity. He outlived his heir, George, who was reputedly the victim of a poisoning at a banquet, at the age of 43, which may have also claimed the life of his eldest son, so the Derby titles passed down to George’s second son. Having been the lead mourner at the funeral of Queen Elizabeth the year before, Lord Stanley’s health was rapidly failing by the time he came to write his will on 28 July 1504. He asked to be buried in the middle of the chapel, in the north aisle, in Burscough Priory in Lancashire, exercising as much power as he could, during life, to ensure that his plans were honoured after he had departed:

… of my ancestors foundation, where the bodies of my father, mother and other of my ancestors lay buried, having provided a tomb to be there placed, with the personages of myself and both my wives, for a perpetual remembrance to be prayed for, also I will that the personages which I have caused to be made for my father and mother, my grandfather and great-grandfather, shall be set in the arches within the chancel within that priory in the places provided for the same; and whereas I have before given to the said priory and convent great gifts of money, jewels and ornaments, and also done great reparations in the said priory, I nevertheless bequeath £20 to the intent that the said Prior and convent shall be bound by their deed, sealed with their common seal, to me and my heirs, to cause one of the canons

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