RICHARD BEAUCHAMP, FIRST HUSBAND OF ISABELLE DESPENSER, AND HIS ARMORIAL CONNECTIONS.
From the Registrum Theokusburiæ.[ToList]
(H.J.L.J.M.)
With the death of his son Richard in 1414, the lordship of the Despensers in the male line, after ninety-three years, became extinct.
Once again the Manor of Tewkesbury passed by the female line, and into the distinguished family of the Beauchamps, with whom Richard le Despenser's sister Isabelle was connected by her marriage with Richard Beauchamp, or Ricardus de Bello Campo as the Register calls him when it does not give his name as Becham. He was killed at the siege of Breaux in France in 1421, and his young widow erected the sumptuous chantry chapel known as the Warwick Chapel over his remains. She then, by special papal dispensation, married her cousin, also a Richard Beauchamp, and from henceforth was generally known by her new title, the Countess of Warwick. On her husband's death at Rouen in 1439, she brought his body to England and had it conveyed to the Beauchamp Chapel at Warwick. The widowed countess died in December of the same year, but elected to be buried at Tewkesbury.
Her young son Henry was a favourite of Henry VI., who bestowed most unusual favours upon him, creating him Duke of Warwick and King of the Isle of Wight, and later King of Jersey and Guernsey. The young Duke, who was married to Cicely Neville, died at the age of twenty-one, and was buried in the choir of the Abbey. As he left no children, the manor passed in 1449 to his sister Anne, the wife of Richard Neville the "King-maker." All the "King-maker's" estates were confiscated to the Crown after he fell at Barnet in 1471, but were eventually shared between his two daughters Isabelle and Anne. Isabelle married George, Duke of Clarence, Earl of Warwick and Salisbury, who in 1477, a few days after Isabelle's supposed death by poison at Warwick, was put to death in the Tower. Both were buried at Tewkesbury (vide [p. 62]).
The young Edward, son of the Duke of Clarence, was imprisoned in the Tower till his execution in 1499.
The Manor of Tewkesbury, as a possession of the Warwicks, passed into the hands of Lord Seymour of Sudeley, the husband of Catharine Parr, until his attainder, when they once more came into the hands of the Crown. James I. sold the manor to the Corporation in 1609. During the present century the lordship of the manor again passed by sale into private hands.
In the chronicles of the Abbey the following facts are recorded:—
In 1218 the dormitory roof fell down upon the monks when they returned from an early service, and Gilbert, a monk, had a thigh broken and his head injured, while the Prior Gunfrey escaped unhurt.