Friday 1 September 2017

Francis`s early childhood

The very early life of Francis has barely ever been discussed in any work concerned with his life. Presumably because so little is known, non-fiction and fiction alike tends to ignore the time Francis spent in his father`s household, and begin with his arrival at Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick`s household, at an age that is variously given - wrongly - as eleven or nine. What his early childhood may have been like and how it may have influenced him is a subject that is not usually given any space. Of course, as with so many periods in Francis`s life, not a lot of what was happening can be said for certain and a lot is speculative. However, the few facts we have do already reveal something about the circumstances of his early childhood and how he spent it, making it worth examining.

Francis was, probably, born on 17th September 1456. Though his parents, John Lovell and Joan Beaumont, had been married for ten years at that point, it seems that he was their first child; at least, there is no indication in any of of the scant surviving paperwork for his grandfathers William Lovell and John Beaumont, and for his father John of an earlier-born child. While there can be no complete certainty about this, William`s will, written in 1455, makes it clear that at this time, John did not have an heir.

It is likely, therefore, that Francis`s birth a year after William Lovell`s death was a relief to his parents, but this is an assumption. There is no evidence how his family reacted to his birth. The only thing we know for certain is that his parents chose to go against the tradition the Lovell family had established for three centuries and named their newborn heir not after his father John, nor William after his grandfather, both names also traditional in his maternal family, nor any other familial name. Instead, little Francis was almost certainly called after the saint on whose feast day he was born. There is no indication why John and Joan chose to do so; possibilities range from the infant being small and/or sickly and thought to need special heavenly help, to a gesture of gratitude, or one of reverence to one or both of his parents` favoured saint. It is very probable that whatever their reasons were, they saw to it that he was christened a few days after his birth at the latest. If he seemed sickly or small, it is even possible he was christened immediately after his birth.

If the Lovells followed conventions for people of their standing, then the baby was handed into the care of a nurse soon after birth, and his mother Joan did not breastfeed him. Again, this is only speculation, based on the conventions of the day. Even without evidence about Francis`s very early days, however, it is virtually certain that the day to day care for the baby was not done by his parents. Nicholas Orme, in his book "Medieval Children", describes the way children of his standing were typically cared for: in a nursery under the supervision of a nurse and two rockers, whose task was to rock the baby`s cradle and do other menial work like changing the baby.

Since Francis`s paternal grandmother, Alice Deincourt, was nursemaid to the Prince of Wales, some three years older than Francis, it is possible that she had connections and saw to the appointment of a respected nurse for her grandchild, but once more, this is conjecture. We do not know who was employed to take care of Francis.

What is known is that when he was around a year old, his younger sister was born, named Joan after their mother. J.M.Williams points out that her birthyear was assumed to have been 1457 which, if true, means she was fifteen months younger than Francis at the most. Her conventional name suggests that it was not a whim of his parents` or a simple wish to honour favoured saints why they chose to go against family traditions naming him, but as stated above, this still leaves several different explanations of why they decided to do so, and no indication which is correct.

Though in households of high-ranking nobles, sons and daughters were sometimes raised apart from each other, Orme points out that this was not the norm while all children were still in their parents` household and happened less the lesser the family`s standing was. As a baron`s children, Francis and Joan most likely would have spent their early years together, being looked after by the same people.

The children were born into a tumultuous era, and the fickle changes of fate would not long leave them untouched. Their father, John, was a staunch Lancastrian - as was their maternal grandfather John Beaumont - and by 1459, was known to support their struggle against the Yorkists. Since, as Monika Simon shows in her work "The Lovells of Titchmarsh: An English Baronial Family, 1297 -148?", he was at that point involved in the government - he was on a trier of petitions in Parliament that year, as well as on some commissions of array and oyer and terminer, and even given a reward for his "good services against the Yorkists (Simon, 67) - it is probable that his three-year-old son and two-year-old daughter did not see much of him at that time, less than they might have seen him in the years before. This was not at all unusual at the time and is unlikely to have much upset the toddlers, but by 1460, the tide of events began to turn against the family and may have already affected the children.

Francis was not quite four years old when his maternal grandfather John Beaumont died at the Battle of Northampton. It is not known whether he had ever seen the man, and it is perhaps not likely he already understood what his death meant, but it seems that with it, and perhaps his support as a highranking noble of the Lancastrian government, the fortunes of the Lovell family began to plummet. It is known that John Lovell tried to seize some of his estates in the aftermath of his death, but was eventually unsuccessful. If this was simply greed or an attempt to gain rightful possession of what had been settled on him and his wife, we do not know, but later events suggest John tried to hold onto some money as he was rapidly losing it. If so, it may well be that Francis and Joan jr would have had to abstain from some familiar comforts of luxury at this point. Nor is it unlikely that while they were too young to understand what was young on and what was at stake, they would have noticed some stress when they saw their parents, or realised something important and frightening was happening.

Despite a claim to the contrary found in Nigel Jones`s "Tower: An Epic History of the Tower of London", this does not mean the two children were present during any physically frightening events, such as when their father was involved in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to hold London, and especially the Tower, against the Yorkist powers in 1460. There is no evidence to support the claim that all the lords involved in this, John Lovell included, brought "their ladies and households into the Tower" and that they remained there during the siege the Earl of Salisbury laid on the defenders. However, their father`s support for the Lancastrian side was to affect and cost them less than a year later, when the Yorkists proved victorious for the time being and Edward of March became Edward IV, the first Yorkist king. Unsurpringly, John Lovell was punished for having supported Henry VI to the end, and his lands were forfeited to the crown. Doubtlessly, this would have caused a huge change in the lives of the entire family. For four-year-old Francis and his three-year-old sister, this may have been particularly jarring, but it is also possible that they took it well, their young age protecting them from fears for the future.

Though John Lovell made his peace with Edward IV fairly soon and was given back his lands before 27th December 1461, the family had to get used to living in straitened circumstances. We can only guess how this affected the children and if they noticed much of it, but by 1462, John Lovell was deeply in debt. In 1462, he is recorded to have owed 1000 marks to two men named Richard Quartermayns and Richard Foweler, and another 1000 marks to John and William Crofton. We do not know if he paid these debts soon afterwards or at all, but by the next year, he was clearly struggling to maintain a certain life style while making ends meet, and saw himself forced to sell two manors to a merchant named William Luster, and another one to a merchant named Thomas Stoke. Whether this was to get some money or to settle debts he had to them we do not know, but it does suggest a degree of desperation.


It could well be that little Francis and Joan suffered under their father`s financial difficulties, but it is by no means certain. Perhaps their way of living had been more lavish during their very first years, or perhaps their circumstances remained the same while their parents had to make changes. There`s no way of saying. However, even with their father in financial difficulties, they would have had a certain standard of living and would have been unlikely to want for necessities.

Whatever their lives were like after Edward IV`s accession, it stands to reason they would have seen more of their father then than they did before his accession. While involved in Henry VI`s government, John Lovell is only recorded to have been given a single task in Edward`s, being in a commission of oyer and terminer in April 1464. Presumably in the same year, Francis and Joan`s younger sister Frideswide was born. Named after the patron saint of Oxford, she was John and Joan`s last child. We do not know if there were other short-lived children between Joan`s and Frideswide`s birth; if so, by the time of John`s death a year later, only Francis, Joan and Frideswide seem to have survived.

By the time Frideswide was born, Francis was already seven years old and may have left the nursery and been taught by a male tutor. This was often done at seven, but not always; so it remains guesswork. The fact that Francis`s handwriting is extremely similar to Richard`s would argue that they were taught to write by the same person, but that does not necessarily have to mean he was not taught anything in his father`s household. Perhaps his father chose to have him focus more on marital than academical achievements, or perhaps Francis only knew the basics of reading and writing when he came to Middleham and was taught everything else there.

Francis was eight years and four months old when his father died, apparently unexpectedly and suddenly, and it seems within weeks, he was taken from his sisters and mother to join the Earl of Warwick`s household at Middleham. This was quite normal for heirs who were still minors after their father`s death, and would most probably not have been surprising to Francis, though it may still have been a stressful and sad change for a little boy.

Again, it is not possible to say. We know almost nothing about what Francis thought and felt about his family, though we have some alarming evidence that he at the very least didn`t like his father, and that his sister Joan may have shared that dislike. We do not know why, but it is likely that this made the later years in his father`s household, when he was likely around much more, quite difficult to them.


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