[MR] (no subject)

Garth Groff and Sally Sanford mallardlodge1000 at gmail.com
Fri Mar 22 02:46:49 PDT 2019


Noble Friends,

Thomas de Mowbray, 1st Duke of Norfolk and Earl Marshal of England, was
born on this day in 1366. Why is this English noble so important? Well, for
one thing, he's a character in Shakespeare's *Richard II*. The second
reason, both why he is important to English history, is that he was an
major figure in the late 14th century power struggles, and played a
unwitting part in Henry of Bolingbroke's seizure of the crown in 1399.

Mowbray was among the Lords Appellant, a group of powerful nobles who
staged a successful semi-coup against Richard II in 1388. The cause was a
group of the King's favorites, who were accused of mismanaging the
government. The Lords Appellant decided not to depose the King himself, but
their "Merciless Parliament" of 1388 ordered the arrest and execution of
the King's favorites. King Richard was effectively now in the Appellants'
control.

That control ended by 1397, and the king turned against the Lords
Appellant. Mowbray had been among moderate members of the coup, and had
argued against offing the king. He managed to suck up to King Richard, and
got back in his good graces. As such, he was titled Duke of Norfolk, and
sent to France as Captain of Calais.

At this time the King's uncle and another Appellant, Thomas of Woodstock,
1st Earl of Gloucester, was arrested and imprisoned at Calais to await
trial for treason. Mowbray had Woodstock murdered, maybe on the King's
orders, or maybe by Mowbray himself to keep him from spilling the beans at
trial and taking Mowbray down with him. And now to Shakespeare. Whether
Bolingbroke (also an Appellant) had a hand the murder is unclear, but he
and Mowbray fell out over it. Before King Richard, they pleaded to settle
the matter by a duel to the death. Richard's response was his usual weak
and foolish solution: exile them both. Exile, or even "honorable"
assignment abroad, was almost always a bad move with troublesome nobles. It
gave the exiles both cause and opportunity to craft more plots. The exile
is depicted in the opening scene of *Richard II*.

While Bolingbroke used exile to lay plans and raise forces to depose the
king (he succeeded, and became Henry IV in 1399), Mowbray fled to Venice.
Here he caught the plague, and died, also in 1399.

More about Mowbray can be found at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_de_Mowbray,_1st_Duke_of_Norfolk .

And the unfortunate and weak King Richard II? He's at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_II_of_England .

Yours Aye,

Mungo Napier, Laird of Mallard Lodge  🦆


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