Tea at Trianon: Lord Mayor Richard Whittington Dispensing His Charities

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Saturday, December 23, 2023

Lord Mayor Richard Whittington Dispensing His Charities

From A Medieval Potpourri:

It is said Richard’s father was experiencing some financial difficulty but, in any case, being the third and youngest son and thus highly unlikely to stand much chance of coming into a useful inheritance, he was apprenticed at an unknown date to a London mercer. The mercers of those times dealt with the wonderful luxurious fabrics worn by the nobility and well to do: silk, linen, fustian, worsted, and luxury small goods, and the wealthiest of the trade expected to participate in the export of English wool, woollen cloth, and worsted, and to import the other merceries (2). While some young men may have ended up bitter, twisted and truculent by being sent away from their families to take up a trade instead of effortlessly inheriting the family jewels, young Richard seems to have taken to it like a duck to water becoming very proficient in his trade but perhaps it is more a modern trait to endlessly whinge about how unfair life can be and how hard done by you are. He supplied his luxury goods to members of the royal court and in doing so he became a favourite of King Richard II. These members of the nobility included John of Gaunt, Thomas of Woodstock, Henry Bolinbroke (the future Henry IV), the Staffords and ‘royal favourite Robert de Vere to whom he supplied nearly £2,000 worth of mercery’. The king himself now turned to Richard to supply his wants and needs. Initially it was quite modest buys including in 1389 £11 for two cloths of gold which the king gifted to two knights who had come down from Scotland as messengers. However in 1392-4 Richard’s career as a mercer was on a roll when he sold goods worth £3,474 16s 8 and a half pence to the Royal Wardrobe. These goods included velvets, cloths of gold, damasks taffetas and gold embroidered velvets. Richard Whittington had arrived as they say. Anne Sutton wrote that Richard II and his uncle Thomas of Woodstock were perhaps Richard’s most profit spinning customers. Clearly the goods Richard supplied – some of which were from Italy – must have been exquisite and he has been described by Caroline Barron as a ‘connoisseur of works of craftsmanship’. When Bolingbroke took the throne as Henry IV, Richard would continue to supply Henry’s court with luxury wares. These would include some of the sumptuous fabrics required for the marriages of the king’s daughters Philippa and Blanche such as ten cloths of gold for Blanche’s marriage at a total cost of £215 13s 4d and pearls and cloths of gold costing £248 10s 6d for Philippa’s nuptials.

Besides providing wonderful things he also made many loans to Richard II as well as Henry IV and his son, Henry V. At the time Richard II was evicted from the throne he still owed £1,000 to our Richard. The newly crowned Henry IV agreed that Richard should be repaid this amount. Richard’s career, now a very wealthy man, had evolved into that of a successful money lender particularly to kings and those of the nobility including Sir Simon Burley and John Beaufort, earl of Somerset. From 23 August 1388 to 23 July 1422, he made least 59 separate loans to the Crown of sums ranging from £4 to £2,833 (3).

About 1402 Richard made an advantageous marriage to Alice, daughter of Sir Ivo Fitzwaryn, a wealthy landowner who had no male heirs. This marriage thus brought with it the prospect of a generous inheritance. In 1402 Fitzwaryn actually settled properties in Somerset and Wiltshire upon his daughter and new son-in-law but Richard, ever preferring liquid capital to property, offered the titles to his brother-in-law, John Chideok, for the sum of £340 (4). However as things came to pass Alice predeceased both her father and husband. Sadly there would be no children from the marriage which seems to have been happy and when Alice fell mortally ill in 1409/10 Richard obtained a special license from the king to bring a renowned Jewish doctor – Master Thomas Sampson from Mierbeawe – over from the continent to treat her. After Alice’s death Richard would remain a widower for the rest of his life. (Read more.)

More HERE.

More about the children's story about Dick Whittington and his cat that many of us grew up with, HERE.

Poor Whittington was severely beaten at home by his tyrannical mistress the cook, who used him so cruelly, and made such game of him for sending his cat to sea, that at last the poor boy determined to run away from his place.... He traveled as far as Holloway, and there sat down on a stone to consider what course he should take; but while he was thus ruminating, Bow bells, of which there were only six, began to ring; and he thought their sounds addressed him in this manner:"Turn again, Whittington, Thrice Lord Mayor of London."

"Lord Mayor of London!" said he to himself, "what would not one endure to be Lord Mayor of London..!" So home he went....
~from "Dick Whittington and His Cat"