[132c] Edward Prince of Wales was the only child of King Henry VI. and Queen Margaret (usually called Margaret of Anjou). He was born in the King’s Palace at Westminster, on the 13th of October, 1453, in the thirty-first year of Henry VI., and was created Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester on the 15th of March, in the thirty-second year of his father’s reign. At the age of seventeen, he was affianced in France to Anne Neville, the second daughter of Richard Earl of Warwick, called the King-Maker. The murder of Prince Edward, immediately after the battle of Tewkesbury, will be noticed further on in this chapter. After his death, Anne his widow was married to Richard Duke of Gloucester, afterwards King Richard III.—See Pedigree No. 1, Chap. IX.
[132d] The Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, otherwise called Knights of Rhodes, also called Knights Hospitallers, constituted an order of military ecclesiastics, of great renown, power, and wealth, before the Reformation. Their prior was esteemed the first baron in the kingdom. It may easily be imagined, that the support of the head of these powerful religious knights, was of no small moment to Margaret. Their chief establishment was at Clerkenwell, and it has given the name to St. John’s Square, St. John’s Street, and to the church of St. John, Clerkenwell. [132f] Of the magnificent priory which they possessed there, the only remains above ground are the ancient and curious gateway, called St. John’s Gate, and a single buttress of the old building in Jerusalem Court, leading into St. John’s Street. This religious body ceased to exist in England and in Ireland, in 1540; the act 32nd Henry VIII. c. 24, having been passed, by which their order was dissolved, and their lands and property vested in the King. Sir William Weston, Knight, was the last prior of that body in England. They are said to have been the last religious fraternity who surrendered their possessions to the grasp of Henry VIII.
[132e] See Holinshed’s Chronicles and Speed’s History. Hall, Dugdale, and Grafton, however, state, that Queen Margaret proceeded to the Cistercian Abbey of Beaulieu, and took sanctuary there. In Baker’s Chronicles, it is stated that she first went to the Abbey of Cerne, and then to “Bewley” [Beaulieu] in Hampshire.
[132f] The ancient crypt still exists under the church, and it is said to be curious and interesting.
[133a] Anne Countess of Warwick arrived at Portsmouth, and went from thence to Southampton, intending to have joined the Queen at Weymouth; but having received intelligence of the total defeat of the Lancastrians, the deaths of her husband the King-Making Earl of Warwick, and of his brother the Marquis Montague, at the fatal battle of Barnet, she crossed the water into the New Forest, and took sanctuary in the Abbey of Beaulieu, in Hampshire.
[133b] Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, the second son of Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, who was slain at the first battle of St. Alban’s, in 1455, was the brother and heir of Henry Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, beheaded after the battle of Hexham in 1463.—See Chaps. III. and IV.
[133c] Lord John Beaufort was the third son of Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, who was slain at the first battle of St. Alban’s, in 1455.—See Chaps. III. and IV.
[133d] Thomas Courtenay, Earl of Devonshire.—See Chap. IV.
[133e] John Lord Wenlock. He fought on the Lancastrian side, at the first battle of St. Alban’s, in 1455, in which he was severely wounded; for the Yorkists, at the battle of Towton, in 1461; and appeared again in arms for the Lancastrians, at the battle of Tewkesbury, in 1471.—See Chap. VI.
[133f] Jasper Earl of Pembroke, often called Jasper of Hatfield, was second son of Sir Owen Tudor, and Katherine, widow of King Henry V., and half-brother to King Henry VI. Full particulars are given of him in Chap. V. page 69, note 2.