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Wednesday, February 24, 2010

The Cat, The Rat and Lovell Our Dog

As William Colyngbourne’s rhyme, “The Cat, the Rat and Lovel our Dog / Doe rule all England under a Hog,” suggests, Catesby and Ratcliffe are historically identified as two of Richard’s primary evil-henchmen.[1] Both figures historically had very successful political careers despite Shakespeare’s depictions.

Catesby (1450-1485), who came from Northamptonshire, studied law and became a legal advisor, steward, or councilor to various nobles, including Hastings, Buckingham, Edward IV, and Richard III. In fact, Catesby eventually took over some of Hastings offices after his death, sparking the rumor, like in Sir Thomas More’s chronicle of Richard III, that Catesby had somehow conspired against Hastings.[2] It was under Richard that he received many grants and was even knighted. In his life time he became chancellor of the Exchequer, chancellor of the Earldom of March, a squire of the body, and a Speaker of the Commons during the Parliament of 1484. His lands were worth about £300 a year, which made him both very rich and very unpopular. He was executed after the Battle of Bosworth on August 25th, 1485 along with other supporters of the House of York.

Catesby and his wife.

Sir Richard Ratcliffe (d. 1485) was also from a minor noble family in Lancashire of Yorkist allegiance and rose to distinction after he fought at Tewkesbury, becoming Constable of Barnard Castle and a member of Richard’s council at Middleham and receiving many grants and official posts from the king. He also accompanied Richard on his Scottish campaign in 1482. It was Ratcliffe who stopped at Pontefract Castle in 1483 on his way south with an army to murder Anthony Woodville, Earl Rivers, and Sir Richard Grey, the brother and son respectively of Queen Elizabeth Woodville. Ratcliffe was made a Knight of the Garter, a knight of the body, and the sheriff of Westmorland and acquired properties worth £650 a year . Like the Cat, he was also executed at Bosworth, after which his lands were seized by Henry VII. He was married to Agnes, the daughter of Lord Scrope, but there is virtually no information about his personal life because his will was never discovered.

“The Dog,” was Viscount Francis Lovell (c.1456-c.1487), who was the son of a Yorkshire nobleman who had recently switched his formerly-Lancastrian allegiance and left his son to the Neville’s after his death.[3] His relationship with Richard III began early in his youth while they lived together in Warwick's household at Middleham Castle. In 1480, he was knighted by the duke of Gloucester during his Scottish campaign. Much of Lovell’s fortunes had come from the lands of executed Woodville supporters, and he took Hastings’ place as Lord Chamberlain in 1483. His landholdings were ultimately a point of tension for Lovell, who was granted much land in the Thames Valley surrounding London despite his northern routes. Unlike Catesby and Ratcliffe, Lovell escaped Bosworth Field to Yorkshire until 1486, when he tried to capture Henry VII on a visit. He was attainted by Henry Tudor, but fled this time to Burgundy to join Richard’s sister Margaret, Duchess of York, who was also one of the new king’s prime enemies. He participated in the Lambert Simnel plot to overthrow Henry VII in 1487, when he was most likely killed at the battle of Stoke during the Yorkist defeat.

References:

Richard III Society, “Finding out about people in the 15th century: ‘The Cat and the Rat’.” 2007. [2-15-2010]. <http://www.r3.org/basics/basic3.html#catrat>.

Wagner, John A. Encyclopedia of the Wars of the Roses. CA: ABC-CLIO, Inc. 2001.



[1] Richard III Society, “Finding out about people in the 15th century: ‘The Cat and the Rat’.”

[2] Wagner, John A. Encyclopedia of the Wars of the Roses. CA: ABC-CLIO, Inc. 2001. Pp 49, 220.

[3] Wagner, 152-3.

10 comments:

  1. Despite the bad things he did, there was something about Richard that kept some people so loyal to him they were willing to die for him. Lovell was loyal to Richard even after his death and risked his life to oppose Richard's conqueror. What was it that inspired such devotion? If only there were some source of information about what he was like and what he thought about the goings-on of his times.

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  2. Hello Mary
    I have found a very good site here : http://www.r3.org
    It is very informative and I think that if you look into the life of R III you will change your mind about him being the monster that the Tudors wanted everyone to believe that he was
    Best wishes
    Sheila

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  3. If Richard III was Lord Protector, why didn't he keep his nephews safe?

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  4. What we know of Richard III is what Shakespeare wrote to please the Tudors. It was in the Tudors interest that the Princes disappeared as Henry Tudor married their sister and had declared she was legitimate so therefore were her brothers and Henry VII had no claim to the throne.

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    1. Thing is Henry VII's claim is one by right of conquest, not lineage, but he also had the the claim of lineage through his mother's line - weak though it was ... I think he was a great, Great grandchild of Edward III.

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  5. I always thought that rhyme was in Shakespeare's R III.

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  6. Josephine Tey, in her book "The daughter of time", effectively demolishes Shakespeare's version of Richard 111.Shakespeare was writing for the Tudors, i.e. Lancastrians, and he got the story from Sir Thomas More, who got it from John Morton, a bad enemy of Richard's. The boys were still alive in the tower when Henry Vii came into power. He removed the charge of illegitimacy on Edward's 3 children so he could marry Elizabeth, so had to get rid of the two boys who were now heirs to the throne!

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  7. The Trump-Richard III similarity was ironically strengthened by his appointment of Ratcliffe as DNI.

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  8. Uncle Ike - as I was reading the comment about why people dtuck with Richard, the Agent Orange occurred to me. People are always so confident that they have read the definitive proof. The truth, historians agree that definitive truth is missing. A case can be made against Richard, a case can be made against Henry. We don't know either way. Just found this site as I was reciting the rhyme in my head and thought I should like a dog called Lovell.

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  9. I'm interested in the devotion of lovell as well ..wish their was more on this story

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