In most of the British Isles from around 1300 AD, surnames aka family names began. They came from professions, e.g. baker, archer, etc., or from a local village or “manor” name. So upon leaving a place called Wingfield (indeed, if the Lord of the Manor permitted it!) a young fellow named “John” would be called “John de (from) Wingfield.” There were two main places called “Wingfield” in early England.
Perhaps nearly half the Wingfields are descended from (1) the Germanic-cum-Scandinavian family (of DNA Haplogroup 1-lb2a) that lived in Suffolk, England, from before the Norman Conquest of 1066. Another nearly half are descended from (2) the Shropshire and “northern” family, who likely took their name from South Wingfield in Derbyshire (those of DNA Atlantic Modal Haplotype R-lb). Both families are visible in medieval records.
The “manors” (estates) of both Wingfield (Suffolk) and South Wingfield (Derbyshire) appear in the Domesday Book of 1086-87. Wingfield families from both of those places were armigerous (i.e. entitled to a coat of arms), and many descendants are traceable to medieval times through the Wingfield Family Society.
Hundreds of Wingfields have trekked “home” to Britain and Ireland to see their family heritage sites such as 14’th century Wingfield Castle, or Powerscourt House in County Wicklow in Ireland, or Kimbolton Castle in Cambridgeshire, which the Suffolk Wingfields owned in the l6th and l7’th centuries.
The Wingfield Family Society was founded in Virginia, USA, in 1987. As the society’s logo and symbol, it adopted the basic arms of the Tickencote (Rutland – cadet line of the Letheringham (Suffolk) WingfieIds). While there were many regional Wingfield reunions held periodically throughout North America and in England, this is the first society formed to encompass all Wingfield families into a single worldwide unit. In addition to those living in the U.S., Canada, and the United Kingdom, there are also members in Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, France, and Italy.
The society is a non-profit, one-name organization of over 400 families. The main goals are to record the different family lines via paper/microfiche records, cross-referenced by DNA; to document roles Wingfields have played in history; to acquire and preserve items of family significance; and to publish/disseminate such significant information to society members and to the public at large. Assisting our members in their personal heritage search is a major activity. For those seriously interested in family heritage, the society has proficient genealogists to advise and assist members in their searches of the Wingfield lines.
Many Wingfields of Suffolk were knights, two of whom were Knights of the Garter. Those included “Comptrollers of the Household” for Kings Edward IV, Henry VlIl, and Edward VI, and “Captains of the Guard” for Kings Henry VIII and Edward VI, and one (Sir John de Wingfield III) was the Chief of Staff for “Edward, the Black Prince” around and at the time of Poitiers (1356; an historic victory in France). Two Wingfield knights married sisters of Edward IV’s queen, Elizabeth Woodville, and many were Lords of the Manor in scores of places in England, as well as in Wales and Ireland. Edward Maria Wingfield of Kimbolton (1550-1631) was at age 56 founding father of and the first president of the Jamestown Colony (1607).
The Wingfields of Shropshire include the inventor, marketer, and patentee of lawn tennis – Major Walter C. Wingfield, a son of Major Clopton Wingfield and Jane Wingfield (nee Mitchell). Clopton had served in the 66th Regiment (the Berkshire Regiment) in Quebec City I827-31 and then in Kingston I83 I -33 and again in Quebec City 1834-36 (where Jane died in 1836). Walter C. Wingfield (1833-1912) created tennis and patented lawn tennis equipment (UK patent no. 685, 1874) and is appropriately remembered at Wimbledon.
Henry Colsell Wingfield of the Westminster Wingfields, founder of the Wingfield Sculls (the famous rowing race for men living in England) was formerly a pupil at Westminster, a keen rowing school. In 1830 he presented an award trophy of a pair of miniature silver sculls (oars) for a men’ sculls rowing competition to be raced annually “forever” on August 1Oth – his birthday.
Henry Colsell Wingfield (first of 3 ‘Henry Wingfields’ of that era) was an attorney (banister) and grandson of a rich London hatter. In 1842 his wife divorced Henry for adultery, which was reported as news in The Times of London. Almost at once, Henry emigrated to Canada to a farm southeast of Picton, Ontario (in an area then called South Marysburgh). During the next 20 years hg occasionally visited England. Then at age 55, wishing to spend his last days in England, he sold his farm in 1861 and on June 4 th embarked for Liverpool. Four miles off the north point of Newfoundland (almost like the SS Titanic 51 years later, in 1912) in heavy fog, at noontime, his ship the SS Canadian struck an iceberg, and the Wingfield Sculls founder (plus about thirty others of the ship’s passengers and crew) went to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.
In memory of Henry Colsell Wingfield (1805-1861), in 2007 the 400-plus members of the Wingfield Family Society presented to the Wingfield Sculls Committee of London (uniquely composed all of past winners) U.S. $2,500 silver trophy matching the men’s silver trophy – this one for awarding to the winners of the “Women’s Wingfields” sculls rowing races, also now held annually on the River Thames.
Notably, the Westminster Wingfields are connected to the Worcestershire Wingfields, but the Wingfield Family Society has found no male descendant to take a DNA test to help prove from whence he came. They are unlikely to be Suffolk Wingfields, but may well be Shropshire/Derbyshire Wingfields.
Another line of Wingfields not yet placed or traced further back than early 1790s includes Lieutenant David Wingfield, RN ( Royal Navy) after whom Wingfield Point, Wingfield Basin, etc., are named in Georgian Bay, Lake Huron, Canada. David’s line is traceable back to his father in Windsor, Berkshire, but although he is not thought to be a Suffolk Wingfield, the Wingfield Family Society cannot prove anything without finding a male descendant. David Wingfield (1792-1864) is buried at Horsley near Stroud, in Gloucester.
A database of over 150,000 names is maintained in the society’s computer in Boca Raton, Florida. Those records have been acquired through the dedicated cooperation of members, so now that significant information is available to all. Wingfield data goes back to 1087, at which early point some of it is considered “flimsy,” but the data which is confirmed and cross-referenced goes back to the 1330s. Contributions to the database are welcome.
The Wingfield Immigration Register (WIR) is accessible on the WFS website under “immigration.” Periodically updated, it lists Wingfield emigrants departing from the UK – up till about 19I4 – going to every continent of the world, most of them to North America from 1601 on. Contributions to the database of this type of information are also welcome, as members share their research.
Coat of ArmsWith the introduction of armor in the 12th century, identification of military men became more difficult as much of the body and face was covered by the armor. Of necessity, an emblem or insignia was required for identification of knights in battle or knights on the jousting field. The markings on the soldier’s shield became known as his coat of arms, and the distinguishing “figure” atop his helmet was called his crest – which did not necessarily relate to any feature on his shield. From the l4th century onward, it became fashionable for social purposes to join one’s ‘personal arms’ with the arms of one’s wife, provided that she was an heraldic heiress (i.e., heiress of an armigerous gentleman or knight. It was, however, the ‘personal arms’ alone – those which appeared on a knight’s defensive shield, that continued as the ‘nominal arms’ of the family.
Heraldry is the science of Coats of Arms. The College of Arms in London was established in 1484 and is responsible for regulating and approving coats of arms in England and Wales. John Wingfield (1623-i675) of the Suffolk-Tickencote Line was the York Hearld of Arms of the College of Arms from 1663 to 1675.
(a) “Argent on a bend gules, cotised sable, three pairs of wings conjoined in lure of the field.” Motto: “Posse Nolle Nobile.” The arms and motto of this line were adopted by the WFS since many U.S. members are descended from the line of Tickencote (Rutland – now Leicestershire) from Thomas Wingfield ( 1664-1729) of York River (and Mattaponi River), Virginia.
(b) The arms of the Derbyshire Wingfields were: Vert on a bend, three crosses flory (adorned with lilies of the valley). British Library, Ad. MS 6667, p. 605 It is most intriguing that these arrns are in the same “format” as those of the Wingfields of Suffolk – as indeed are the following:
Wingfield of Corbridge, Northumberland: “Argent on a bend gules, three pairs of wings argent between two bendlets sable.”
Wingfield quartered by Rollestone of Watnall [Watnall Chaworth], Nottinghamshire: “Vert on a bend argent, three crosses patonce sable.” Visitation of Nottinghamshire, 1614
(c) Jocelyn Wingfield, Virginia’s True Founder: Edward Maria Wingfield and His Times (Athens, Ga., USA, 1993, ISBN 0-937543-04-7; reprinted2}}7 by Booksurge.com, LLC, North Charleston, SC, USA)
(d) George E. Alexander, Wingfield: Edwardian Gentlentan (Peter E. Randall, Box4726, Portsmouth NH 03801, USA, 1986)
(e) Coat of Arms of the College of Arms (since 1484)
(f) Heraldic badge of the York Herald of Arms (since 1385/1484)
Some heraldic colors: argent silver or silvery white; (the White Rose of York en soleil ensigned by the Royal Crown) azure – blue; gules – red; sable black; vert – green
by Jocelyn Wingfield
The Four Wingfield settlements in the Domesday Book
In the Domesday Book, the record of who owned what throughout England, compiled by William the Conqueror in England in 1086-1087, are the following four places called Wingfield:
Wighefelda aka Wineberga in the Fief of the Bishop of Thetford. [Suffolk]. “In Wingfield 1 free man by commendation and soke [held] 28 acres and 3 bordars.”
Wineberga [as above] in the Hundred of Bishop [=the Bishop of Thetford]. [Suffolk]. “A free man over whom St.Aethelthryth had commendation THE held Wingfield with 2 caracutes of land and 7 bordars. Then 2 ploughs [US: plows] in demesne, now 1. Then as now 2 ploughs belonging to the men. 11 acres of meadow. Woodland for 140 pigs. Then 2 horses now 1. And 1 ox. Then 60 pigs now 20. And 20 sheep and 2 hives. A church with 24 acres. Worth 4 shillings.13 freemen with 80 acres. Robert Malet’s predecessor had commendation over 1 of them. Then 4 ploughs now 3. Then it was worth £4.13s.4d, now £4. Roger Bigod claims this of the King’s gift but the Abbot of Ely has established his title against him. Now Roger holds it through a postponement. The soke is in Hoxne. 1 league and 2 furlongs long and 4 furlongs broad. 11 1/2 d. in geld. Others hold [land] there.” [Folio 385, Suffolk].
Winefel in the Land of the Bishop of Coutanes. [Wiltshire]. “The [same] bishop holds “Wittenham” in Wingfield the same bishop holds Wingfield & Roger [holds] of him. Azur held it TRE, and it paid geld for 3 1/2 hides.”
Winnefelt was in the land of Walter D’Aincourt. [Derbyshire]. “In Pilsley [in North Wingfield] and—[?] Owlcotes and Williamthorpe Swein Cild had 2 caracutes of land less half a bovate, to the geld… The soke belongs to [?north] Wingfield.” Etc. [Today Pilsley is 4 miles south of North Wingfield].
Winefeld in the land of Roger de Poitou [Derbyshire]. “In [?South] Wingfield Alnoth [had] 2 caracutes of land to the geld. [There is] land for 3 ploughs. Robert holds it of Count Alan under William Peverell, and has 1 plough. There is a priest and 8 villans and 2 bodars with 3 ploughs. Ther are 4 acres of meadow. It was and is worth 20 shillings.” Etc. [Folio 274, Derbyshire].” [Footnote: A “bordar” was a villein who “held his but at his Lord’s pleasure”; a “caracute” was used as a unit of taxation (divided into four quarters totalling 120 acres) used in shires settled by Danes; “d” denoted “denarius” (the old penny); a “demesne” was a manor house with an estate not let out to tenants; a “furlong” was 220 yards; “geld” means money”; a “hide” was a measure of land, variously estimated at 60, 80 and 100 acres; “shilling” was 5% of a pound; a “soke” or soken” was a district held by tenure of “socage” i.e. held against performing certain services; “TRE” denoted “Ternpore Regis Edwardi” or in the time of King Edward the Confessor (1042-1066, i.e. pre-Conquest); a “villein” or “villan” was originally a free villager (later, in the 13’h century it meant a serf, free in relation to all but his Lord and not entirely a slave. The Wingfields above are respectively on pp. 1254, 1258, 166, 750 & 744 of “Domesday Book, A Complete Translation” by Dr. Ann Williams & Prof. G.H.Martin, Penguin, 1992].
Wingfield name origins is an update on the subject as to why there are so many Wingfield (various spellings) lines that are not genetically related.
I find there are 21 possible origins for the various Wingfield families.
Between the mid-1300s and the mid-1800s, most folk moved less than ten miles. There is scarcely a place in England that has not given its name to a family. Until the 1200s the surnames of the masses frequently changed, but the pronunciation settled down by 1250-1350. Yet, not until the 1890s did British genealogists recognize that people with the same name were NOT necessarily related; and not until the late 1990s did the WFS have the research on hand, to look at whether there could be more than 4-5 different Wingfield families.
Surnames in England came from eight basic sources: characteristics (like Short), nicknames, Christian names, patronymics (like Robinson), occupations (Smith), one’s “master’s” name, the name of one’s father’s Manor (estate), or — 50 to 75% of them – from a location.
These locative names were used until c.1400 preceded by “de” (“of” or “from”), and “atte” (“at the”). So John de Wingfield meant “John owning and living at the settlement called Wingfield”. Normally only one family at any one time took their surname from the same place. From the mid-1200s to the mid-1300s a man from Wingfield, when he had moved away, might call himself “de Wingfield”.
Names were often corrupted ; and our Wingfield ancestors spelt the name in about 150 ways!
I have omitted from my Possible Origins List: the villages of Swingfield Street and Swingfield Minnis in Kent, because they spawned folks called Swin(g)field. (In the Wingfield Immigrants Register we have: “In Jan. 1664 Thomas Smythe aka Swinfield was released to be transported from Newgate Prison, London, to Barbados”).
Here is my list of possible origins, the first nine being in the Domesday Book:
The Wingfields were presumed to have been Saxon and living in England before William the Conqueror arrived in 1066. The Domesday Book of 1086 lists Wingfield (Wighefelda) in Suffolk, but the first Wingfield for which there is any record is Robert de Wingfield in the year 1100 according to “Muniments of the Ancient Saxon Family of Wingfield” written by Mervyn Edward Wingfield, 7th Viscount Powerscourt published in England in 1894 and republished by the Wingfield Family Society in 1987.
Between 1426 and 1899 there were 27 Wingfield knights and 2 knights of the Garter. In England and later Ireland, the Wingfields were equivalent to power brokers, their influence considerable upon many kings.
In the early 1300’s Sir John Wingfield, a friend of King Edward III was appointed High Steward to the king’s son, the Prince of Wales, later known as the Black Prince. Sir John Wingfield fought with the Black Prince at the Battle of Poitiers. It was at this battle the French king was captured and Sir John participated in the ransom made to King Edward.
In 1520 King Henry VIII crossed the channel to a designated spot near Calais, France to joust with the new king in an opulent display of medieval chivalry in an event known as the “Field of the Cloth of Gold.”
After an intriguing interlude, the grandson of Elizabeth Wingfield, Charles Brandon was finally allowed to marry King Henry VIII’s sister, Mary Tudor. She had been queen of France and was widowed when Louis XII died in 1514. Charles Brandon was made Duke of Suffolk by Henry VIII.
Sir Richard Wingfield, P. C. (Privy Councilor) later Knight of the Garter, came into possession of Kimbolton Castle in Cambridgeshire, when he married Katherine Woodville, sister of King Edward IV’s Queen Elizabeth and widow of the Duke of Buckingham in 1522. His son Charles inherited the castle and owned it during the period when Henry VIII used the castle to intern Queen Katherine of Aragon after developing a passion for Anne Boleyn and while seeking a divorce. Katherine died there in 1536.
Louis Wingfield the ninth son of Sir John Wingfield of Letheringham married the daughter of Henry Noone, Esq., a gentlemen of a very ancient family, by whom he had three sons. Richard, the second son later became the first Viscount Powerscourt.
Richard Wingfield was brought up in the profession of arms and commenced his distinguished career during the civil wars in Ireland where he signalized himself against the Irish Rebels. He later performed many services in France and Portugal. Returning to Ireland in 1595 where he was wounded while fighting against Tyrone and was so distinguished in suppressing the insurrections of the Irish that in recompense was knighted in Christ Church, Dublin on the 9th of November, 1595.
After the event Sir Richard Wingfield was sent to Calais with the rank of colonel, to join the expedition against that town. His bravery during this war was conspicuous. He returned to Ireland and again exposed himself to many dangers under Sir John Norris, President of Munster. In this service he received many wounds and acquired great honors, of such that the Queen in consideration of such merit bestowed on him on the 29th March 1600, the office of Marshal of Ireland, having become vacant through the death of Sir Richard Bingham and granted him the execution thereof a guard of fifty horsemen and a company of foot soldiers. She also named him to her Privy Council.
The following story was told to Mervyn Edward Wingfield, seventh Viscount Powerscourt, by his great-uncle, the honorable and Rev. William Wingfield as a family tradition.
“Sir Richard Wingfield returned to the Court of Queen Elizabeth after the wars in Ireland, and when the queen received him she said, “Well, Sir Richard, what is to be the reward for your services?” Sir Richard bowed low and replied, “The scarf your Majesty wears around your neck will be sufficient reward for me.”
During the following year, Sir Richard was sent by the Lord Deputy into Leix to prosecute Tyrrell and his adherents, and was later dispatched from Kilkenny to draw forces out of the Pale to assist in the siege of Kinsdale. The siege was extremely arduous but successfully carried out by Lord Deputy Mountjoy and Sir Richard Wingfield. On 2 January, 1602 the Articles of Capitulation were signed. The consequence of this great victory was retaining Ireland in obedience of the Crown of England, banishing the Spaniards, driving Tyrone back to Ulster, forcing O’Donnell to flee into Spain, dispersing his rebels and establishing peace throughout the Empire.
Shortly after Queen Elizabeth’s death and King James ascension to the throne on 20th April, 1603, His Majesty reappointed Sir Richard Wingfield Marshal of Ireland and named him Privy Councilor.
In 1608 Sir Cahir O’Deghertie stirred commotion in Ulster. Among other outrages, was the burning of Londonderry. Sir Richard Wingfield and Sir Oliver Lambert were sent from Dublin on the 1st May with a small body of men to suppress him. During one of the battles, Sir Richard Wingfield slew 0′ Deghertie and captured other rebellious followers. On 29 June, 1609 this service was rewarded by a grant to Sir Richard Wingfield and his heirs the lands of Powerscourt south of Dublin, and all the lands, tenements and possessions lying within the whole province of Fercullen, comprising a district five miles in length and four lips in breadth, together with all their appurtenances in the county of Wicklow at any time. All of which were erected into a manor on 26 day of May, 1611. In the county of Wexford, Sir Richard had many lands granted and these were erected into a manor of Wingfield, together with Powerscourt estate was sold to the Slazenger family in 1961. Most of the buildings at Powerscourt burned in 1974. The gardens are still to this day some of the most elegant and beautiful in all of Britain and indeed Europe. The massive property is presently under commercial development.
Descendants of the Irish and English Wingfield have immigrated to New Zealand, Australia, United States, Canada, France, Switzerland, Zimbabwe, South Africa and undoubtedly many other places of which we have no knowledge.
by Jocelyn R. Wingfield
Before we concentrate on the sojourn of Queen Catherine of Aragon at Kimbolton starting in 1534, we must first set the scene. Sir Richard Wingfield, P.C. [Privy Councillor] came into possession of Kimbolton Castle, seventy miles north of London, in 1522 when he married Catherine Woodville, sister of King Edward IV’s Queen Elizabeth and widow of the executed Duke of Buckingham. “The Castelle is double diked and the building of it is metely strong. Sir Richard Wingfield builded new fair lodgyns and galeries upon the olde foundations of the Castelle”. Sir Richard was made a Knight of the Garter in 1524 and died the following year, leaving four sons: Charles, his heir; Thomas-Maria, twin of Charles, father-to-be of the future President Edward-Maria Wingfield of Jamestown, Virginia; Jaques, a future Master of the Ordinance in Ireland, and Lawrence. Charles may well have had the great Sir Francis Knollys, as his guardian during his minority e.g. up to 1534, since Charles was to marry Francis’ sister, Johanna at about the time that Catherine of Aragon died, perhaps straight after. ‘Tis said that an Englishman’s home is his castle, but, in this instance Charles could not really call his castle his home until he was 22, since the king wanted to use it as a prison, although Charles could conceivably have been there throughout the period 1534 to 1536. Princess Catherine of Aragon [Spain], youngest child of the great Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile [Spain], had married Prince Arthur, heir of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York at St. Paul’s in November 1501. The very next April Arthur died, probably of consumption. In June of the following year Catherine was betrothed to Arthur’s brother, the new heir apparent, Prince Henry, and moved to Durham House on the Thames. In 1509 Henry VII died and his 18-year old heir succeeded to the throne as King Henry VIII, marrying the 23-year old Princess Catherine of Aragon. It was a glittering court.
On January 1st 1511 Queen Catherine gave birth to their second child, (the first, a girl, had been stillborn).. This was a son and heir, who was christened Henry. In his excitement the King could not wait for the Queen to complete her lying-in, but, straight after Twelfth Night, sped off to give thanks at “England’s Nazareth”, England’s second holiest shrine, (ranking after Canterbury), the Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham. From her bed the Queen promised to follow him as soon as she was fit. (Catherine finally managed a spring visit six years later, after a visit to the home of the King’s sister Mary at Westhorpe, Suffolk). The Prince who might have become King Henry IX lived but fifty-two days. In the fall of 1514 Princess Mary, sister of the King, was crowned Queen of France, as consort of Louis XII. Eighty-two days later Louis was dead. Fetched back to the glittering English court by Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk (whom she married secretly in Paris) and Sir Richard Wingfield, Deputy of Calais (the English enclave on the French coast), Mary accepted becoming godmother to Sir Richard’s second son, Thomas-Maria Wingfield, en route. A year later, in February 1516, Princess Mary was born to Queen Catherine.
By the time Sir Richard Wingfield, K.G. of Kimbolton Castle died in 1525, King Henry and Catherine still had no male heir and it was clear that Catherine would bear no more children. By late 1526 Henry VIII had developed a passion for Anne Boleyn, one of the Queen’s ladies-in-waiting. In July 1532 the King and Queen “separated”. In January of the following year Henry had, with wide-sweeping implications, divorced Catherine and married Anne Boleyn.
By mid-May 1534, as “Princess Dowager”, Catherine of Aragon & England was incarcerated in Charles Wingfield’s family twin-moated home, Kimbolton Castle, having been at More (St. Alban’s) then Ampthill then nearby Buckden. Her jailers were Sir Edmund Bedingfield as her Steward and Sir Edward Chamberlaine, fittingly, as her Chamberlain. Whether Bridget nee Wiltshire, widow of Sir Richard Wingfield (his second wife) was still living there or not, 1 have been unable to discover. Bridget had married secondly Sir Nicholas Harvey, Gentleman of the Privy Chamber, who had died two years before Catherine’s arrival at Kimbolton. Bridget was at about this time, (according to various authorities, with whom I disagree) appointed Lady of the Bedchamber and “Mother of the Maids” for Anne Boleyn, and took as her third husband another courtier, Sir Robert Tyrwhitt, of Leighton Bromswold near Kimbolton. Thomas-Maria Wingfield, fatherto-be of Edward-Maria, had come down from Cambridge the year before having received his B.A. From that very April, just before Catherine of Aragon arrived there at Kimbolton, Thomas-Maria apparently held some property in Leighton Bromswold. He presumably came into it from his stepfather.
During Catherine’s imprisonment, were Richard and Bridget Wingfield’s children there at this Wingfield-owned castle? Were Charles, Thomas-Maria (father-to-be of the founder of Virginia), Margaret, Mary, Cicely, Jaques (later to be Master of the Ordinance in Ireland), Lawrence, Jane, Elizabeth and Catherine Wingfield (surely called Catherine after the Queen!), all, or some of them, around the castle, watching and whispering? It would seem unlikely. Four of the girls married, but it is not clear whether this was before this time. Some of them may have been at Sir Richard’s great house, Wingfield House in Candlewick Street in London (if it was still in the family), or at their mother’s house, Stone Castle near Gravesend on the Thames (held in trust for Charles). Or perhaps King Henry ordered Sir Anthony Wingfield, M.P., a rising star with the young King, to have them at Letheringham Old Hall in Suffolk or at his great Oxford House at London Wall, or in his house at Stepney [Limehousel near Blackwall. Records as yet fail us. At Kimbolton Catherine lived in one room on the ground floor, whence she could see part of the deer park and Stonely Hill across the meandering little River Kym, where stood just over the top out of sight, moated Stonely Priory, a small neglected Augustinian Priory with cells for six monks, dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, with its little “Our Lady Chapel” and its leafy approach called St. Mary Way. How Catherine must have yearned to visit it! The Dissolution of the monasteries was proceeding apace at this very time. Within a year of Catherine’s arrival at Kimbolton, Stonely Priory was to be disestablished. But three years later the priory lands were to be sold to to Oliver and Francis Leeder; and in 1544 the Leeders sold “the site and appurtenances”. (the Leeders, in their turn, were in 1552 to sell Stonely Priory to Thomas-Maria Wingfield, Sr. and his wife Margaret, who in 1550 had given birth to Edward-Maria Wingfield, later (1607) of Jamestown, Virginia. Stonely Priory was where Edward-Maria was to spend his formative years).
‘Tis nowadays said that there was a secret passage up the hill to Stonely from Catherine’s bower. It would have had to go under the Kym. It is a nice tale, but there is no such passage. For nearly a year Catherine never communicated directly with her jailers. She never left her room, except to go to the castle chapel or to walk in the narrow walled garden behind the chapel. Her staff consisted of Jorge de Atheca, Bishop of Llandaff in Wales, her chaplain; Father Thomas Abell, her Spanish-speaking confessor; Francisco Felipez, her maitre d’; her physician, the faithful Miguel De La Sa; apothecary Joan de Soto; Philip Greenacre, three maids of honour and six to eight English maids. How was she to fare in this home of the Wingfields, house that within twenty years would become very well known to the man who was to found the Jamestown Colony in Virginia. Would Spanish Ambassador Chapuys be able to “spring” dear “Catherine of Kimbolton” to lead a revolt in the island that had broken with Rome?
In July 1534 the Spanish Ambassador at the Court of King Henry VIII, Eustache Chapuys, failed again to obtain royal permission to visit Catherine of Aragon, who was imprisoned at Kimbolton Castle, seventy miles north of London. And so he announced to all his friends that he was going on a pilgrimage to “England’s Nazareth”, England’s second holiest site (ranking after Canterbury), to the shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham in Norfolk, over a hundred miles north of the court and capital.
Chapuys asked leading Spanish merchants to accompany him and assembled sixty horsemen, accoutred and caparisoned as if they were on a royal progress. He surely knew that Queen Catherine had been on pilgrimage to Walsingham back in 1517 and that her dread lord, King Henry had paid three visits there, ’twas said, walking the mile or two from the Chapel of St. Catherine near East Barsham Hall to Walsingham itself. One visit was to pray for his then son and heir, Prince Henry, in 1511. In the following year the King paid £23-11-4 for “the glazing of Our Lady’s Chapel at Walsingham” and had initiated a standing order for “the King’s candle” to be kept burning before Our Lady of Walsingham and the wages for a priest to say Mass there. This was still in force. Chapuys planned to go north for some 65 miles to St. Neots and then, instead of proceeding north-east to Walsingham, to make a 5-mile dash noth-west through the hamlet of Stonely to Kimbolton. But the King was not ;co’ed. He knew Walsingham well. Indeed his very own candle still burned there. He knew that the Pilgrim’s Way lay through Newmarket, thirty miles east of St. Neots.
In the van of Chapuys’ grand procession he placed all the trumpeters and drummers that he could find to hire in the capital, London’s pop groups of 1534. His cortege, displaying the arms of the Ambassador of Spain & the Holy Roman Empire, unfurled banners billowing and pennants streaming proudly in the midsummer wind, wound like a giant viper down one London street and up the next, before setting off up the great road that led in the direction of the Wingfields’ castle. It was hot and dusty, noisy but organised. Although those in the procession were in carnival mood, to some of the watching Londoners and those who lived on the route there was perchance also an air of mutiny. They must have all known that Chapuys was not going to Walsingham – not with all that grandeur.
Chapuys had ridden but a quarter of the way to Kimbolton, when a messenger from the King rode up and warned him not to visit “the Princess Dowager”. Chapuys and his party continued north. At St. Neots, the 65-mile mark, just as Chapuys had halted preparatory to turning off for the last five miles on the Stonely-Kimbolton road, and thereby finally showing his real intention, another messenger came cantering up. This one came from the direction of Stonely Hill. It was Francisco Felipe, sent by Catherine. Chapuys should not proceed, since her lord, the King, had forbidden him -with the emphasis on him – to visit; however, a welcome at the castle of game and wine awaited his escort.
Consequently Chapuys sent off at speed with Felipe his beautifully equipped Spanish horsemen, cantering over the Kym near the Priory of Great Staughton, past Agden Windmill, along the river flowing lazily below Stonely Priory and its little Our Lady Chapel, over the Kym again and up to the double-moated fortified home of young Charles Wingfield. Catherine and her staff surely heard the rising crescendo from downstream of Spanish songs, of cheering and huzzas, as in a great swirling riot of whirling, prancing colourful horsemen, bits and spurs jangling, Catherine’s jubilant countrymen thronged outside the double-moat. She must have wept for joy.
Chapuys’ jester tumbled off his horse and literally played the fool on the water’s edge, as the party begged Bedingfield’s guards on the drawbridge to let them in. As the jester fell into the moat amidst much laughter from within as well as without, he appeared to lose control of his jester’s staff and its attached casket, which happened to fly up in a parabola over the castle wall landing near the deposed Queen or one of her staff. Chapuys had reestablished communication. Taken completely off his guard, Catherine’s Steward, Sir Edmund Bedingfield allowed the Spaniards inside the castle, where they were entertained to dinner in the Great Hall. That November Queen Anne Boleyn’s child, Henry, was born and died.
In early 1535 Queen Catherine’s daughter, the Princess Mary, fell ill. Both parents suspected Anne Boleyn. King Henry quickly despatched to see Mary his physician, Dr. Butts, who at once called in Catherine’s physician, De La Sa. Both doctors suspected deliberate poisoning, but Mary said she was getting better. Catherine however, wrote to Ambassador Chapuys from Kimbolton Castle on 12th February begging him to try and persuade the King to send Princess Mary to join her at Charles Wingfield’s place, to be nursed there by Catherine herself. This letter must have been vetted by Catherine’s jailer, Bedingfield, since Chapuys read it to King Henry (who surely by then knew of its contents anyway!)
Henry refused to allow Mary to be moved there. Looking Chapuys straight between the eyes, the King said he could not risk sending Mary to such an isolated place as the home of the Wingfields there on the Kym since ill-intentioned persons, without the knowledge of the “Princess Dowager” were out to spring her out of the castle, to use her to foment rebellion and then to spirit her out of the realm. Henry then said he would however, permit Mary to move closer to Kimbolton Castle, but that Catherine would not be permitted to visit her daughter.
What did the future now hold for the poor wretched prisoner incarcerated within the late Sir Richard Wingfield’s “Castelle metely strong. with new fair logyns and galeries”?
“although unqueen’d, yet like a queen, and daughter of a king, inter me. I can no more.” [Catherine, Shakespeare, Henry VIII, Act 5, Sc.II, Kimbolton].
When Catherine of Aragon received a despatch from Ambassador Chapuys, stating that King Henry would move Princess Mary nearer to Charles Wingfield’s doi ible-moated castle at Kimbolton, but that she might not visit her, she was distraught. She wrote back resignedly, pathetically, from Kimbolton that, even if Mary were to be moved within a mile [e.g. as close as Stonely Priory], she had not the means to visit her. She asked Ambassador Chapuys to continue urging the King to send Mary to Kimbolton. But Mary was never allowed to come closer than thirty miles.
That summer of 1535, as Thomas Cromwell’s men made inventories of the religious houses to be plundered, Sir Thomas More’s gull-pecked head atop its pike obscenely displayed on the Southwark end of London Bridge grew shrivelled. On 15th October ex-Queen Catherine wrote from Kimbolton to the new Pope, Paul III: “I and my daughter we await a remedy from God and Your Holiness. It must come speedily or the time will be past.” She also wrote to Dr. Ortiz and to her nephew, the Emperor Charles V, who had been so well served by Edward Maria’s great uncle, Sir Robert Wingfield and by Edward-Maria’s grandfather, Sir Richard, each in turn as Henry’s ambassador. (Chapuys’ messenger carrying these secret despatches was kidnapped in Rome by the Emperor’s ambassador there and so three of Catherine’s letters from Kimbolton were much delayed, but that is another story).
In November poor Catherine had a recurrence of nausea and had to keep to her bed. She put this down to moated houses always being damp. By the time of the noisy Tandry Fair on 11th December, which, like Kimbolton’s Friday market-days, was held in the village (well within earshot, indeed on the same side of the castle as Catherine’s room and the chapel), she had still not heard anything from the continent or Chapuys. And so she wrote again to Dr. Ortiz to say that the Bills of Attainder condemning her and Princess Mary to death were about to be put before Parliament.
Four days after a miserable Christmas Day there at Kimbolton, De La Sa summoned Chapuys to come there at once. Catherine, now dying, was asking to see both him and her daughter, Mary.
After much prevarication at Greenwich Palace, Chapuys obtained the King’s permission to ride to Kimbolton to visit “Madame,” as the King now called her. As the Duke of Suffolk issued Chapuys with a laissez-passer to show to Bedingfield, he said: “When she’s dead there will be no barrier between my King and the Emperor, your Master!”
Accompanied by Cromwell’s escort (and spy), Stephen Vaughan, and a small escort of his own, Chapuys rode north in the rain on that dank, rainy January 1st-2nd 1536, finally squelching along past Stonely Priory up on Stonely Hill, Edward-Maria Wingfield’s home ere long, to clatter over the Kimbolton Castle drawbridge. It was a miserable time and miserable weather.
England’s former Queen lay pale and suffering, propped up on her pillows, her jailers (whom she had not deigned to give audience for over a year), Sir Edmund Bedingfield , her Steward and Sir Edward Chamberlain, her Chamberlain, together with her own staff, stood ranged about her bed. Visitors to Kimbolton had never been allowed to converse in Spanish. But now the ex-Queen welcomed her old friend in English, adding sotto voce in Spanish: “I can die now in your arms, not abandoned – like one of the beasts.” Slowly and deliberately in Spanish Chapuys told her that the King and the whole Kingdom and the Emperor were keen for news of her recovery; adding that the King had promised finally to pay her staff their back-pay and (here he lied) had said that she could select any Manor to retire to when she was better. He stressed that the peace, the welfare and indeed the unity of all Christendom depended on her recovery.
Having released Chapuys to rest in his own room, Catherine very soon summoned him again, back to her bedside, where they conversed for a full two hours. No Englishwoman could then make a will while her husband still lived, but Catherine wanted Chapuys to persuade Henry to allow Mary to inherit her gold collar from Spain and all her old furs. She asked to be buried in a Convent of the Observant Friars, but no such convents remained. The “neglected” Priory of Stonely, had literally just been dissolved a few months before, right under (or rather above) Catherine’s nose. The same applied to nearby Great Staughton. (Stonely was to lie abandoned for two more years). Catherine wanted five hundred masses to be said for her soul, agonising that England’s break with Christendom would be blamed on her. Chapuys stayed three or four days, comforting her, and then on the Feast of the Epiphany, since she seemed so much better, he left.
In foul weather, the night before Chapuys’ departure, Catherine’s former Lady-in-Waiting, Baroness Maria de Salinas, now the Dowager Lady Willoughby de Eresby, having failed to get “any letter of licence to repair thither,” drenched and mud-spattered rode up demanding entrance at the castle gatehouse (later to be named after Catherine of Aragon). Bedingfield refused to let her in. The Baroness protested that she was badly injured from a fall from her horse. Then, perhaps because she was the mother-in-law of the powerful Duke of Suffolk, Sir Edmund relented “and since that time, they never saw her,” he was to report pathetically to Cromwell. It would appear that she just dismounted and rushed to the dying Catherine.
On that evening of 6th January, Catherine seemed well enough, but just after r. idnight she asked for Mass as soon as it was permitted; but, would not allow the Bishop of Llandaff to bend the rules and say it before dawn, quoting various authorities as to why this was forbidden. As the first rays of morning light streamed into the castle, the pallid Spanish princess fervently received the Sacrament and then dictated to De La Sa a letter to the Emperor and one to the King, in which she pardoned him everything and asked his pardon in return. She also commended to him “our daughter, Mary,” and asked him to pay her staff including their “marriage portions.” “Lastly, I make this vow, that mine eyes desire you above all things.”
At 10 a.m. Catherine received extreme unction, making the responses strongly. She then prayed for two hours for Princess Mary, for the souls of all the people of England and especially for King Henry. She died at 2 p.m.
When the castle chandler (the candlemaker) with one other servant in attendance opened up Catherine’s body to embalm it, he found that her heart had turned black and had a large black growth upon it. Although De La Sa was sure that this was a result of poison, even though all her food was tasted first by one of her servants, it does seem likely that Catherine may have died of cancer, perhaps brought on by extreme worry.
Few or none of her last wishes were fulfilled. She would have been horrified to hear that in that very year eleven Walsingham locals were sentenced to be drawn, hanged, beheaded and quartered for speaking out against the dissolution of England’s second holiest shrine. Two years later Walsingham’s sub-prior was burned alive there and the images of Our Lady of Walsingham – so long revered by Henry and Catherine alike – were burnt at Chelsea on the orders of the King. (Then too was King Henry’s candle finally extinguished).
De La Sa (despite being asked by Cromwell to enter the King’s service), and de Soto, were to take service with Princess Mary, Mary who was to come to the throne in less than twenty years. How thrilled Catherine would have been! The other Spaniards were to return to Spain.
King Henry ordered that Catherine’s funereal departure from Charles Wingfield’s home was to be unobtrusive. She was buried in Peterborough Cathedral, 25 miles to the north. The Chief Mourner was the Lady Eleanor, daughter of Henry’s sister Mary the French Queen (who had died the year before Catherine arrived at Kimbolton). The new Duchess of Suffolk, Catherine Willoughby, daughter of Catherine’s dear Baroness Maria de Salinas, was the second mourner. It was said that Maria was buried in Catherine’s tomb some ten years later. The Duchess, her daughter, an old friend of Catherine’s, was to become one of the key Protestant figures of the Reformation.
When the King, then at Greenwich, was informed of his ex-wife’s death, he at once threw a ball and told the Court: “God be praised, the old harridan is dead, now there is no fear of war.” She was a mere six years older than the 45-year old monarch, but his new Queen was only aged about 31 or so.
The ghost of Queen Catherine is today said to haunt Kimbolton Castle and its environs, but I have yet to see it. I always wonder when I pass the castle, who might have been watching when on that winter’s day in 1536 when the horse-drawn black-draped bier set off bearing the body of the gracious God-fearing lady of Spain and England to her last resting place. Was an aunt or an uncle or even Thomas-Maria, the father-to-be of the founding father of the first permanent English colony in the Spanish-cum-Portuguese Americas, watching that great Spaniard depart?
At last the young Wingfields of Kimbolton were able to get on with their lives again. Thomas-Maria Wingfield Sr., had been Rector of Warrington, Derbyshire since the age of thirteen – purely a sinecure. But he seems to have renounced ideas of the church as a career, even though he was shortly afterwards granted the a dvowson (right to appoint the parson) of Walgrave, twenty miles west of Kimbolton. Now at last some happiness was to come to Kimbolton Castle again. The twin of Thomas-Maria, Charles, possibly Sir Charles, now married Johanna sister of the great Sir Francis Knollys of Rotherfield Greys, Berkshire and within three or four years there were young Wingfield boys bawling and laying where Catherine had been imprisoned. Charles was appointed Sheriff of Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire and was painted by Holbein, the court painter. Normality had returned to the Wingfield home.
President Edward-Maria Wingfield of near by Stonely Priory, which looked down on the castle, was but a generation later to spend many a year fighting the might of Spain. From Jamestown, in his first report that he sent home, he wrote: “We entreat your succours with all expedition lest that all-devouring Spaniard lay his ravenous hands upon these gold showing mountains,” but a year later he was to write: “I confess I always admired any noble virtue and prowess, as well in the Spaniards (as in other nations)” I like to think that he may well have learned at his father’s knee to admire “noble virtue” in a Spaniard, from stories of Catherine of Aragon and her sojourn at the home of his Uncle Charles: Kimbolton Castle.
