Linda Clark 
The Fifteenth Century XVII 
Finding Individuality

This series [pushes] the boundaries of knowledge and [develops] new trends in approach and understanding. ENGLISH HISTORICAL REVIEW


The essays collected here cast light on the factors that made or defined an individual, and the ways in which the men and women concerned gave expression to their individuality. Facets of the characters of English kings emerge from the varying contents of their wills, and the use of propaganda in their personal letters. By contrast, Margaret of Anjou’s early years are explored for the roots of her conduct as queen consort, and how she matched up to contemporary expectations following Henry VI’s mental collapse. The law courts and the legal profession provide the stage and cast for several papers: individual lawyers, of dubious integrity and adept at manipulating legal processes intheir own interests, provoked the violence that led to their own deaths, while a member of the same profession is shown to have orchestrated civic riots in which he and his neighbours sought to give expression to their own statusas they perceived it. Finally, in their frustrated search for justice, strong-minded women asserted their individual rights by taking their grievances to Henry VII’s star chamber.


Contributors: Chris Given-Wilson, Anthony Gross, David Grummitt, Samuel Lane, Simon Payling, Alice Raw, Anne F. Sutton, Deborah Youngs.

Table of Content

Preface – Linda Clark

Royal Wills, 1376-1475 – Christopher Given-Wilson

Propaganda, Piety and Politics in the Fifteenth Century: Henry V’s Vernacular War Letters to the City of London, 1417-21 – Samuel Lane

‘To Be of Oon Demeanyng and Unite for the Wele of Your Self and of the Contre There’: Yorkist Plans for the Lordship of Ireland, the Last Phase – Anne F. Sutton

A Mirror for a Princess: Antoine de la Sale and the Political Psyche of Margaret of Anjou – Anthony Gross

Margaret of Anjou and the Language of Praise and Censure – Alice Raw

On ‘Peyne of their Lyfes … they Shuld no Verdit gif, but if they Wold Endite the Seid William Tresham of his Owen Deth’: the Murder of Lawyers in Fifteenth-Century England – S.J. Payling

‘Stond Horeson and Yelde thy Knyff’: Urban Politics, Language and Litigation in Late Medieval Canterbury – David Grummitt

‘In to the Sterre Chambre’: Female Plaintiffs Before the King’s Council in the Reign of Henry VII – Deborah Youngs

About the author

LINDA CLARK is Editor Emeritus at the History of Parliament.