Prayers for Prince Arthur: Queen Elizabeth of York, March 1502

Over at the Mutual Enrichment blog of Father John Hunwicke, he posted a list of churches/shrines and benefices that Queen Elizabeth of York requested and made for the recovery of her son Prince Arthur of Wales in March, 1502. Arthur and his wife Catherine of Aragon had set up their household at Ludlow Castle in the Welsh Marches. They became ill of some unknown malady--perhaps the "sweating sickness" that Henry VIII would flee so often during his reign--and Arthur died on April 2, 1502,15-1/2 years old. Catherine of Aragon, the Princess of Wales, survived:

Here is an itinerary for a priest called Barton who was sent from the Court of Elizabeth of York in March 1502 to make offerings at shrines all over Middle England for the life of Prince Arthur her son, who, had he lived, would probably have been the first of a whole list of imperially-minded English Kings of that name. I give, in Old Money, the sums (some of them fractions of the Mark) he was to donate at each shrine (OL=Our Lady of):

OLWindsor, and S George at Windsor, and the Holy Cross there (2/6);
King Henry (2/6);
OLEton (1/8);
The Child of Grace at Reading (2/6);
OLCaversham (2/6);
OLCockthorpe (1/8);
Holy Blood of Hailes (1/8);
Prince Edward (5/-);
OLWorcester (5-);
Holy Rood at Northampton (5/-) and OLGrace there (2/6);
OLWalsingham (6/8);
OLSudbury (2/6);
OLWoolpit (1/8);
OLIpswich 3/4);

So Father Barton started in Windsor and ended in Ispwich, praying for Prince Arthur. Father Hunwicke notes two of the shrines Father Barton visited were (in bold italics above) for King Henry VI and his son Edward, Prince of Wales. So Father Hunwicke notes in another post:

On May 4, 1471, a battle decisive in English dynastic history: at Tewkesbury. It sticks in the memory because the conflict eventually burst into the Abbey Church, where the slaughter was only eventually ended when the Abbot took a Procession the the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar down to where the killing was happening.

Among those who died in those bloodied hours was the last heir of the the Lancastrian family, the seventeen year-old Prince Edward. He was buried, and still is, in that Abbey [now a Church of England place of prayer/worship]; the place of his burial is now marked by a Victorian brass tablet.

According to the Wikipedia article on Prince Edward, the plaque reads:

Hic jacet
Edwardus
princeps Wallie, crude
liter interfectus dum adhuc juvenis
anno dñi 1471 mense maie die quarto
eheu hominum furore Matris
tu sola lux es ⁊ gregis
ultima
spes

This can be translated into English as follows:[6]

"Here lies Edward, Prince of Wales, cruelly slain whilst but a youth. Anno Domini 1471, May fourth. Alas, the savagery of men. Thou art the sole light of thy Mother, and the last hope of thy race."

Of course, Prince Edward's mother was Queen Margaret of Anjou. Prince Edward is a character in Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part Three, the next history play we'll read aloud in our semi-quarterly Shakespeare reading group. The Folger Library describes him thus as depicted in the play:

Prince Edward, of the Lancastrian party, is the son of Henry VI and his Queen, Margaret. He is very much his mother’s son, haughty, stubborn, and quick to insult.

He pays little attention to his father, regarding him as a weakling, and rejecting his injunctions to restraint. Eager to fight for his rights, he is recklessly unwilling to bow to superior force, and even when captured by his enemies refuses to speak the slightest word that might imply a surrender, making his death at Yorkist hands even more certain than it ever was. He is slaughtered in front of his mother’s eyes. His ghost returns in Richard III.

James Northcote (1746-1831) painted the scene (Public Domain) from Shakespeare (Act Five, Scene 5) as Edward IV, George, the Duke of Clarence, and Richard, the Duke of Gloucester (the future Richard III), stab the young prince to death as his mother protests in horror. Other more contemporary sources indicate that Edward was slain in battle by Clarence. (Note that Northcote also depicted the murder of the Princes in the Tower from Richard III (Act Four, Scene 3.)

I know that Henry VII promoted the Cause of Henry VI, as noted here and here, but I did not know about any cult for Prince Edward of Wales. If you look at the comments for both of Father Hunwicke's posts, you'll notice some remarks by the Once I Was a Clever Boy blogger!

Of course, we know that Prince Arthur's death and Catherine of Aragon's subsequent marriage to his younger brother Henry, the future Henry VIII, are events tremendously important to the religious and dynastic history of England--to put it lightly!

 And, he posted another itinerary of prayers and alms for Prince Arthur!

I have read that Father Hunwicke is ill so please keep him in your prayers.

Image credit (Public Domain): Depicted person: Arthur Tudor (1486-1502), Prince of Wales was the first son of King Henry VII of England and Elizabeth of York. This portrait is regarded as the only surviving contemporary portrait of the sitter.