Anna Legat

Writer of crime & historical fiction.
@The_CWA and @HistoriaHWA
A Pact with the Devil out now.
A consummate reader.
Escapist taking a sharp left turn.

[Laura Karim @LauraAKarim]

#WarsoftheRoses

OTD in 1484 - #RichardIII wrote to his mother Cecily Neville, Dowager Duchess of York, requesting that she remove William Collingbourne as her estate manager in Wiltshire & replace him with Francis Lovell. Collingbourne is most famous for his ‘Cat,Rat & Lovell our dog’ lampoon, but was also guilty of more serious crimes, including inciting invasion from Henry Tudor & treasonable correspondence with the French.

In July 1484 Collingbourne hung his lampoon - ‘The Cat, The Rat & Lovell our dog; Rule all England under a Hog’ - from the doors of St Paul’s Cathedral. It was intended as an attack on Richard III, whose personal badge was a white boar, the hog in the rhyme, for over-reliance on this group of relatively lowborn councillors. The cat was Sir William Catesby, former lawyer to William Hastings & Commons speaker in the 1484 Parliament. The rat was Sir Richard Ratcliffe, a Cumbrian knight & longstanding retainer of Richard while he was Duke of Gloucester. ‘Lovell our dog’ was Richard’s best friend Viscount Francis Lovell.

The lampoon was a distortion & deliberately did not mention the prominent nobles & clerics, who played leading roles in Richard’s government. These included the Bishop of Lincoln, John Russell, who served as Lord Privy Seal & Lord Chancellor until the end of July 1485. Russell was likely either the author of the Croyland Chronicle or its principal source.

Also not mentioned was John Howard, Duke of Norfolk, a key lieutenant & loyalist, who dealt with the July 1483 plot against Richard, helped counter Buckingham’s rebellion & died leading the Ricardian vanguard at Bosworth. Thomas, Lord Stanley, who had been elevated to the Garter by Richard & played a prominent role in suppressing Buckingham’s rebellion, was another omission. Although with an added irony Norfolk & Stanley were among the judges who convicted Collingbourne of treason in December 1484.

The lampoon was likely motivated by Collingbourne’s anger at Richard having him replaced by Lovell in Wiltshire. This followed Collingbourne’s complicity in Buckingham’s Rebellion the previous autumn. Other men might have considered themselves fortunate to only lose their office holdings rather than their life, but not Collingbourne who responded within weeks with his lampoon ridiculing Richard & attacking the man who had replaced him in Wiltshire ‘Lovell our dog.’

Incendiary rhymes aside the main motivation for Collingbourne’s conviction for treason & execution in December 1484 was him having incited Henry Tudor to invade England. He was found guilty of having commissioned an intermediary Thomas Yate ‘to declare unto [Henry Tudor & the Marquess of Dorset] that they should do very well to return into England with all such power as they might get before the feast of St Luke the Evangelist [18 October.]’

Richard spent the summer of 1484 at Scarborough patrolling the English coast to deter an invasion which never materialised - likely the one Collingbourne had been attempting to incite. Collingbourne was also convicted of treasonous correspondence urging the new King of France not to engage in negotiations with Richard & warning him of Richard’s future intention to invade France.

I’m reposting @RichardIIIGhost’s content below, which features a fun graphical representation of Collingbourne’s lampoon.

[Deborah Swift @swiftstory]

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[Douglas Skelton @DouglasSkelton1]

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[Gill Thompson @wordkindling]

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[Alison Morton @alison_morton]

Follow the journey of Freyja Bremer, a 1930s Berlin museum assistant, as she discovers the rot beneath the Nazi Regime’s lies. An evocative, powerful tale of history, archaeology, and survival! @elisabethstorrs https://t.co/wOq2EWG511 #historicalfiction @histnovsoc

[Anna Legat @LegatWriter]

I'm beginning to sniff out AI as successfully as pigs sniff out truffles.

[Sen. Bernie Sanders @SenSanders]

Artificial Intelligence is built on the creative work of millions of writers, artists, musicians, journalists, teachers, scientists and ordinary people. That work has been stolen by Big Tech oligarchs.

Now's the time to reclaim it and ensure AI works for ALL, not just the few.

[Historia – the HWA @HistoriaHWA]

New in Historia:
Geraldine Roberts writes about the experience of researching her new book, The Rebel and the Peacemaker (out tomorrow) about Charles and Mary Bagot.
She reflects on the joys and challenges of writing historical non-fiction at https://t.co/8ZGhQUM9q2

[Anna Legat @LegatWriter]

News has arrived that Buried in the Past is on offer at #99p.
It's about a battle between instincts and principles, between killing to live and dying to save lives.
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[Paul Burke @Paulodaburka]

Event 5th June No. 8 Arts Centre Pershore - Murder at the Abbey
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@aspectsofcrime @bullingtonpress #nationalcrimereadingmonth
Just a few tickets left

[Polish Embassy UK 🇵🇱 @PolishEmbassyUK]

With a slight delay, here's our Book Club recommendation: Antonia Senior's "Stalin's Apostles". Drawing on newly declassified files, the book focuses on the impact of the Cambridge Five on post-war Europe. We even had the chance to hear Antonia discuss the book at the Embassy. 📚

[Rachel Elwiss Joyce @RachelElwJoyce]

She was expected to obey.
Instead, she held the line.

A real-life medieval woman.
Based on a true story.

Power, betrayal, loyalty, and survival in an age where mercy was a luxury most couldn’t afford.

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[Sharpe Books @SharpeBooks]

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[Annie Whitehead Author FRHistS @AnnieWHistory]

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[Tim Stretton/T. M. Stretton @timstretton]

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[Terry Tyler @TerryTyler4]

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[Annie Whitehead Author FRHistS @AnnieWHistory]

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[Sharpe Books @SharpeBooks]

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[World of Science @Science_TechTV]

Marie Curie’s Radioactive Notebooks:

Marie Curie's notebook from 1899-1902, containing notes from experiments, is still radioactive and will be for 1,500 years.