You're Dead to Me, Roger Bolingbroke.
18th November, 1441.
Anyone who has followed me over the past few months would be aware by now that for many months, I provided you all with a jolly and informal daily article about bastards: flash bastards, nasty bastards, cool bastards and sexy bastards, with the particular defining factor being that the day in question was their birthday.
You may then be pleased to learn that I have updated the format somewhat and that while this article may not be presented to you fresh as the morning milk each day, it will still be as regular as the lark. But, in a twist worthy of Hitchcock or Kurosawa, the subjects of the new articles will all be celebrating, if one can use that word, the day on which they died, particularly if said death was interestingly gruesome. The anti-birthday, if one will.
So, it is with great pleasure that I introduce you to today’s unfortunate fellow, priest, astronomer, astrologer, magister, witch and necromancer, Roger Bolingbroke.
Roger was the personal astrologer to Eleanor Cobham, the wife of the 1st Duke of Gloucester, Humphrey of Lancaster, a job which makes him sound like an amiable and bright fellow, and so he was. In October of 1440, he, perhaps rather innocently, produced a horoscope for his mistress that rather unwisely predicted the death of King Henry VI. Alone, this might seem like rather an unwise thing to predict, even if the curious fates of whatever it is that makes astrologer magic work had so predicted. A more tactful man would perhaps have told his mistress that she was going to come into some money soon or that a great change was on the horizon.
And Eleanor Cobham would certainly have come into some money soon had Henry VI died, as predicted, because her husband, the Duke, was next in line to the throne, and that would have made him King of England and her Queen.
This was all well and good until Henry found out about and nobody needed to be clairvoyant in the slightest to predict that he was absolutely furious about it. Henry promptly charged Roger Bolingbroke and some accomplices with plotting to murder the King and, because it was the 15th Century, suggested that he was going to use necromancy in order to do so.
Because witchcraft was suspected, they naturally needed a woman or two to blame, so firstly, a woman named Margery "The Witch of Eye" Jourdemayne was also accused, with it being charged that she supplied potions and spells.
Dragged before the courts and also accused of treason, Bolingbroke confessed and threw himself at the mercy of the King, swearing blind he didn’t mean it, was very sorry and that it was all Eleanor Cobham’s fault because, well, she was a woman, too.
On the 18th of November 1441, Bolingbroke was brought from the Tower to London Guildhall, where the King’s Commissioners found him guilty of being a necromancer and of treason. He was then tied to a hurdle and dragged to Tyburn, where he was hung, drawn and quartered. His head was displayed on a spike on London Bridge, and the rest of him was distributed around the country as a warning.
Margery Jourdemayne was burned at the stake in Smithfield on October 27th, 1441. Eleanor Cobham had her marriage dissolved and was forced to march through the streets of London in penance before being imprisoned for the rest of her life.
Thanks for reading! If you’re stuck for a Christmas gift for a loved one, or for someone you hate, or if you have a table with a wonky leg that would benefit from the support of 341 pages of Roman History, my new book “The Compendium of Roman History” is available on Amazon right now! Please check it out by clicking the link below!