LADY ANNE MOWBRAY: THE HIGH AND EXCELLENT PRINCESS
(The original short run was intended to accompany the author’s lectures, and the book is now in the process of being expanded and revised. Limited copies of the original are still available from info@queens-haven.co.uk
The revised book, still in preparation, while still concentrating on the story of Lady Anne’s short life, the discovery of her remains and the subsequent heated arguments over how and where they should be reburied, will also examine the background of the discovery of the remains of Sir Walter Mauny, founder of the London Charterhouse, the possible remains of the Princes in the Tower and those of Richard III in Leicester, all of whom, by strange coincidence, had family connections to Anne Mowbray.)
Marilyn Roberts is one of the foremost experts on the Mowbray family and her poignant rendering of the short life – and afterlife – of Anne Mowbray, last of her line and child bride of the younger of the Princes in the Tower, is as riveting as it is brilliantly researched. The author’s encyclopaedic knowledge of the geography of her story brings it all the more vividly to life. This is history at its best. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.
Alison Weir, author and historian
Lady Anne Mowbray, John Mowbray 4th Duke of Norfolk’s only child, was born approximately half way through that period of just over thirty years known today as The Wars of the Roses. However, there was a lull in the murderous proceedings throughout Lady Anne’s lifetime, and she was already in her shroud by the time the death of Edward IV reignited hostilities.
In December 1964 a workman on a demolition site not far from the Tower of London came across what appeared to be the burial of a medieval child in a small brick vault eleven feet below ground. The inscription on its lead wrappings revealed the remains to be those of 8-year-old Lady Anne Mowbray, who had died in 1481.
It was a mystery. As the child bride of one of the later ill-fated Princes in the Tower, himself even younger than she was, ‘the High and Excellent Princess’ had been laid to rest in Westminster Abbey, where it was believed she still remained. So what was she doing lying under what had been part of a Victorian railway goods yard? And why did the discovery become so bitterly controversial?
Details: 130 pages, family trees 5, photographs 16, maps and plans 5, bibliography
Lady Anne Mowbray: The High and Excellent Princess
Cover Story
The only images of Lady Anne are those of her remains exhumed in 1964, so it was decided to use an image of her dynasty’s heraldic shield, the Mowbray lion rampant depicted in white, or sometimes silver, on a red background. This lovely medieval example in stained glass, with its wonderful set of teeth, can be found in the Holy Trinity Church on Goodramgate, York.
Although only eight at the time of her death, Lady Anne Mowbray had for some time been married to the younger son of Edward IV and so was given an elaborate and expensive royal interment in Westminster Abbey. At a later date her remains were moved to the Convent of the Poor Clares near the Tower, which gradually fell into disrepair; the move was not intended to be permanent, but somehow she was forgotten. The Victorian era saw a massive development of the area and it was in the early 1960’s, while buildings damaged in the Second World War were being cleared prior to redevelopment, that her remains were found deep underground.
© Marilyn Roberts
The area beside Westminster Abbey known as the Sanctuary, where the celebratory joust for the wedding of 5-year-old Lady Anne Mowbray and 4-year-old Prince Richard of York was held in January 1478.
© Marilyn Roberts
Lady Anne Mowbray had been laid to rest in Westminster Abbey in 1481, yet her remains were found in 1964 deep down in a plain brick vault on a demolition site behind buildings on the left of this picture on a street near the Tower called Minories.
© Marilyn Roberts