George Plantagenet, 1st Duke of Clarence, 1st Earl of Salisbury, 1st
Earl of Warwick KG was the third son of Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York,
and Cecily Neville, and the brother of English Kings Edward IV and Richard III.
He played an important role in the dynastic struggle between rival factions
of the Plantagenets known as the Wars of the Roses.
Though a member of the House of York, he switched sides to support the
Lancastrians, before reverting to the Yorkists. He was later convicted of
treason against his brother, Edward IV, and was executed. He appears as a
character in William Shakespeare's plays Henry VI, part 3 and Richard III, in
which his death is attributed to the machinations of Richard.
Life Clarence was born on 21 October 1449 in
Dublin at a time when his father, the Duke of York, had begun to challenge
Henry VI for the crown. His godfather was James FitzGerald, 6th Earl of
Desmond. He was the third of the four sons of Richard and Cecily who survived
to adulthood. His father died in 1460. In 1461 his elder brother, Edward,
became King of England as Edward IV; he created his brother George Duke of
Clarence in 1461 and invested him as a Knight of the Garter.
On 11 July 1469, Clarence married Isabel Neville, elder daughter of Richard
Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick. Clarence had actively supported his
elder brother's claim to the throne, but when his father-in-law the Earl of
Warwick deserted Edward IV to ally with Margaret of Anjou, consort of the
deposed King Henry, Clarence joined him in France, taking his pregnant wife. She
gave birth to their first child, a girl, on 16 April 1470, in a ship off Calais.
The child died shortly afterwards. Henry VI rewarded Clarence by making him next
in line to the throne after Edward of Westminster, justifying the exclusion of
Edward IV either by attainder for his treason against Henry VI or on the
grounds of his alleged illegitimacy. After a short time, Clarence realized
that his loyalty to his father-in-law was misplaced: Warwick had his younger
daughter, Anne, marry Edward of Westminster, King Henry VI's heir in
December 1470. Since it now seemed unlikely that Warwick would replace
Edward IV with Clarence, Clarence changed sides.
Warwick's efforts to return Henry VI to the throne ultimately failed and Warwick
was killed in battle. The re-instated King Edward IV restored his brother
Clarence to royal favour. As his father-in-law had died, Clarence became
jure uxoris Earl of Warwick, but did not inherit the entire Warwick estate as his
younger brother, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, married Anne Neville, the
widowed younger sister of Clarence's wife. Clarence was created 1st Earl of
Warwick [England] on 25 March 1472. In 1475 Clarence's wife Isabel gave
birth to a son, Edward, later Earl of Warwick.
Like the first lords of Richmond, Peter II of Savoy and Ralph de Neville, 1st
Earl of Westmorland before him, Clarence received in 1462 the Honour of Richmond,
a lifetime grant, but without the peerage title of Earl of Richmond.
Death Clarence's wife Isabel died on 22
December 1476, two months after giving birth to a short-lived son named
Richard, and they are buried together at Tewkesbury Abbey in Gloucestershire.
Their surviving children, Margaret and Edward, were cared for by their aunt,
Anne Neville, until she died in 1485, when Edward was 10 years old. Though
most historians now believe Isabel's death was a result of either consumption
or childbed fever, Clarence was convinced she had been poisoned by one
of her ladies-in-waiting, Ankarette Twynyho, whom, as a consequence, he had
judicially murdered in April of 1477, by summarily arresting her and bullying a
jury at Warwick into convicting her of murder by poisoning. She was hanged
immediately after trial with John Thursby, a fellow defendant. Clarence's
mental state, never stable, deteriorated from that point and led to his
involvement in yet another rebellion against his brother Edward.
The arrest and committal to the Tower of one of Clarence's retainers, an Oxford
astronomer named Dr John Stacey, led to his confession under torture that he had
'imagined and compassed' the death of the King, and used the black arts to
accomplish this. He implicated one Thomas Burdett, and one Thomas Blake, a
chaplain at Stacey's college. All three were tried for treason, convicted, and
condemned to be drawn to Tyburn and hanged. Blake was saved at the eleventh
hour by a plea for his life from James Goldwell, Bishop of Norwich, but the
other two were put to death as ordered. This was a clear warning to Clarence,
which he chose to ignore. He appointed Dr John Goddard to burst into Parliament
and regale the House with Burdett and Stacey's declarations of innocence that
they had made before their deaths. Goddard was a very unwise choice, as he
was an ex-Lancastrian who had expounded Henry VI's claim to the throne.
Edward summoned Clarence to Windsor, severely upbraided him, accused him of
treason, and ordered his immediate arrest and confinement.
Clarence was imprisoned in the Tower of London and put on trial for treason
against his brother Edward IV. Clarence was not present – Edward IV himself
prosecuted his brother, and demanded that Parliament pass a Bill of Attainder
against his brother, declaring that he was guilty of "unnatural, loathly
treasons" which were aggravated by the fact that Clarence was his brother, who,
if anyone did, owed him loyalty and love. Following his conviction, he was
"privately executed" at the Tower on 18 February 1478, by tradition in the
Bowyer Tower, and soon after the event, the rumour gained ground that he had
been drowned in a butt of Malmsey wine. Titles, styles, honours and arms
= Arms= In Shakespeare
Clarence is a principal character in two of William Shakespeare's history plays:
Henry VI, Part 3 and The Tragedy of Richard III. Shakespeare portrays
Clarence as weak-willed and changeable, his initial defection from Edward IV to
Warwick is prompted by outrage at Edward IV's unwise marriage to Elizabeth
Woodville. Despite several flowery speeches proclaiming loyalty to Warwick
and to Henry VI, Clarence defects back to Edward IV's side almost as soon as he
sees his brothers again; it takes only a few lines for his brothers to shame him
into rejoining the Yorkist party. He later participates in the murder of
Edward, Prince of Wales. Several lines reference his penchant for wine.
In Richard III, the play opens with Gloucester having framed Clarence for
treason, using a soothsayer to sow doubt in the King's mind about his brother,
and in the first scene Clarence is arrested and taken to the Tower.
Gloucester nimbly stage-manages Clarence's death, fast-tracking the
order of execution and then intercepting Edward IV's pardon when he changes his
mind. In Act One Scene Four, Clarence recounts a terrifying nightmare, in
which he has been pushed into the ocean by Gloucester and drowns, then finds
himself in hell, accused of perjury by the ghosts of Warwick and Prince Edward.
When he is attacked by assassins sent by Gloucester, he pleads eloquently and
nobly but is stabbed and drowned in a butt of wine. It is Clarence's death
that sends Edward IV into a fatal attack of guilt. He is the first character to
die in the play and his ghost later appears to Gloucester, then already
Richard III, and Henry VII of England before the Battle of Bosworth Field,
cursing his brother and encouraging Henry VII.
Children Clarence married his wife Isabel Neville
in Calais, at that time controlled by England, on 11 July 1469. Together they
had four children: Anne of York, born and died in a ship
off Calais. Margaret Pole, 8th Countess of
Salisbury; married Sir Richard Pole; executed by Henry VIII.
Edward Plantagenet, 17th Earl of Warwick; the last legitimate Plantagenet
male at the time of his death; executed by Henry VII on grounds of attempting to
escape from the Tower of London. Richard of York; born at Tewkesbury
Abbey, Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire; died at Warwick Castle, Warwick,
Warwickshire, where he was buried. Ancestors
References Sources
Hicks, Michael. False, Fleeting, Perjur'd Clarence: George, Duke of
Clarence 1449–78. Bangor: Headstart History. ISBN 1-873041-08-X.
Weir, Alison. Britain's Royal Family: A Complete Genealogy. Bodley Head. pp.
136–7. ISBN 0-7126-4286-2. Pollard, A.J.. Richard III and the
Princes in the Tower. Bramley Books. p. 65. ISBN 978-1-85833-772-2.
External links Lundy, Darryl. "p. 10164 § 101637". The
Peerage.