Richard Plantagenet or Richard of Eastwell (? 1469 - December 22, 1550) was a reclusive bricklayer who claimed to be a son of Richard III

Richard III of England

Richard III was King of England for two years, from 1483 until his death in 1485 during the Battle of Bosworth Field. He was the last king of the House of York and the last of the Plantagenet dynasty...

, the last Plantagenet King of England.

Life

According to Francis Peck

Francis Peck

-Life:He was born in Stamford, Lincolnshire, England, and educated at Stamford School. Peck was educated at Charterhouse School, before continuing on to St John's College, Cambridge...

's Desiderata Curiosa, Richard boarded with a Latin schoolmaster until he was 15 or 16. He did not know who his real parents were, but was visited four times a year by a mysterious gentleman who paid for his upkeep. This person once took him to a "fine, great house" where Richard met a man in a "star and garter" who treated him kindly. At the age of 16, the gentleman took the boy to see King Richard III at his encampment just before the battle of Bosworth. The King informed the boy that he was his son, and told him to watch the battle from a safe vantage point. The king told the boy that, if he won, he would acknowledge him as his son. If he lost, he told the boy to forever conceal his identity. King Richard was killed in the battle, and the boy fled to London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

. He was apprenticed to a bricklayer

Bricklayer

A bricklayer or mason is a craftsman who lays bricks to construct brickwork. The term also refers to personnel who use blocks to construct blockwork walls and other forms of masonry. In British and Australian English, a bricklayer is colloquially known as a "brickie".The training of a trade in...

, but kept up the Latin he had learned by reading during his work.

Around 1546 the bricklayer, by then a very old man, was working on Eastwell Place for Sir Thomas Moyle

Thomas Moyle

Sir Thomas Moyle was a commissioner for Henry VIII in the dissolution of the monasteries, and speaker of the House of Commons in the Parliament of England from 1542 to 1544.-Life:...

. Moyle discovered Richard reading and, having been told his story, offered him stewardship of the house's kitchens. Richard was used to seclusion and declined the offer. Instead, he asked to build a one-room house on Moyle's estate and live there until he died. This request was granted. A building called "Plantagenet Cottage" still stands on the site of the original.

Re-discovery

The record of Richard's burial was re-discovered in the parish registers around Michaelmas

Michaelmas

Michaelmas, the feast of Saint Michael the Archangel is a day in the Western Christian calendar which occurs on 29 September...

 1720. Lord Heneage, Earl of Winchelsea came across it when researching his own family. He passed it on, along with family tradition of his story, to Thomas Brett, L. L. D.. Brett communicated it in a letter to William Warren, L. L. D., president of Trinity Hall

Trinity Hall, Cambridge

Trinity Hall is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. It is the fifth-oldest college of the university, having been founded in 1350 by William Bateman, Bishop of Norwich.- Foundation :...

, who in turn passed it on to Peck.

The burial record in the Eastwell Parish Register is a 1598 transcript of the original and is dated 22 December 1550. The handwriting is consistent and not considered a forgery. The register entry reads: "Rychard Plantagenet was buryed on the 22. daye of December, anno ut supra. Ex registro de Eastwell, sub anno 1550."

In 1861, John Heneage Jesse published his Memoirs of King Richard III He states:

Anciently, when any person of noble family was interred at Eastwell, it was the custom to affix a special mark against the name of the deceased in the register of burials. The fact is a significant one, that this aristocratic symbol is prefixed to the name of Richard Plantagenet. At Eastwell, his story still excites curiosity and interest ... A well in Eastwell Park still bears his name; tradition points to an uninscribed tomb in Eastwell churchyard as his last resting place; and, lastly, the very handwriting which, more than three centuries ago, recorded his interment, is still in existence.

A rubble-stone tomb with modern pointing, within the floor plan of the now ruined church of St Mary's, Eastwell

St Mary's Church, Eastwell

St Mary's Church, Eastwell, consists of the ruins of a former Anglican parish church in the hamlet of Eastwell, Kent, England. It has been designated by English Heritage as a Grade II listed building, and has been under the care of the charity, the Friends of Friendless Churches, since 1980. ...

 has a plaque with the following words:

Although his name is inscribed on one of the tombs, the grave is more likely to be that of Sir Walter Moyle, who died in 1480. The church, which has been a ruin since the 1950s is cared for by a national charity the Friends of Friendless Churches

Friends of Friendless Churches

Friends of Friendless Churches is a registered charity active in England and Wales. It campaigns for and rescues redundant historic churches threatened by demolition, decay, or inappropriate conversion. To that end, as of August 2010, it owns 43 former churches or chapels, 23 of which...

.

In Fiction

The Sprig and the Broom (1971), Book 2 of the "Mantlemass" series for children written by Barbara Willard, imagines the life of Richard of Eastwell during the years from the Battle of Bosworth to his death at Eastwell, and is told from the point of view of his fictional son.

Other sources

• The Parallel, or a Collection of Extraordinary Cases Relating to Concealed Births, and disputed successions. 1774.
• The History of King Richard III. Edited by A. N. Kincaid. 1974. (from George Buck's original text)
• The Hopper Ring. The icardian bulletin. December 1991. Robert Hamblin, with acknowledgement to Audrey Cartwright
• Notes on Royal Bastardy, Ricardian Bulletin numbers 5 and 6.
• The Royal Bastards of England. Givens-Wilson and Curteis
• The Illegitimate Children of Richard III. Peter Hammond.
• Richard III, the Road to Bosworth Field. 1985. Peter Hammond and Anne Sutton
• Eastwell Parish Registers
• Richard III Crown and People. 1985. Edited by J. Petre.

External links

• Richard III Society
• Richard III's Children, article by P W Hammond
• Richard of Eastwell novel