The Widow's Tale

A day that never progressed beyond twilight, with neither sun nor wind to take the drips off the branches. The church tower has seen worse - sometimes much worse - it was built 600 years ago, just before the start of the Wars of The Roses that tore England apart for a while, when rebel lords, led by Richard, Duke of York, rose against the ineffectual rule, and overmighty advisors of Lancastrian king Henry VI

The tower was possibly/probably funded by Alice Chaucer, one of the Middle Age's most formidable women, who inherited the manor of Hook Norton on her father's death. Margaret was the grand-daughter of the poet Geoffrey, but that counted for little at the time, and her origins were relatively modest. She rose to prominence, and vast wealth, through the manoeuvrings of her family in securing her good marriages, her good luck in outliving three husbands and her own fierce intelligence and ruthlessness

She first married at age 11, to John Phelip, a friend of Henry V, who followed him 'once more unto the breach' at Horfleur, before dying - like so many of Henry's army - of dysentry, before the unlikely English victory at Agincourt

A widow - and inheritor in her own right of his estates - within a year of marriage, Alice bided her time until she was 17, for she was now an attractive match. Again, she married up - this time to Thomas Montagu, Earl of Salisbury. Thomas was English commander at the Siege of Orleans - the decisive battle in the Hundred Years War. If England had won, the dream of Henry V (by now deceased) to capture France would have been realised. Instead, the French, inspired by the arrival of the visionary Joan of Arc, repelled the seige. The tide turned, and England was eventually expelled back to Dover. Thomas was wounded in the battle, died of his wounds, and Alice, aged 24, was an even wealthier widow

Two years later, she married again, this time to William de la Pole. William was one of the most powerful men in the land, and became a lead advisor to the mentally unstable and ineffective Henry VI. William's policies were those that sparked the rebellion that became the Wars of The Roses. In the swirling tides of fortune in those turbulent years, he was impeached by parliament and condemned to death, but spared and banished by the king. He was then intercepted while crossing the channel into exile, condemned by a kangaroo court and beheaded on the spot - his remains washing up on Dover beach. Alice was a three-time widow before she was fifty, and never married again

Alice herself was subjected to a similar 'mock' trial a year later, but the revolutionaries who would have brought her down were themselves overcome by the king's forces. Alice 'lent' the king 3500 marks (I think that is about £1.5 million in today's money) to ensure that her husband's disgrace did not interfere with her inheritance or their son's succession to his titles. Astutely, when the Wars of the Roses got going properly, she switched alleigance to the Yorkists, and even married her son to the sister of future kings Edward IV and Richard III. She lived well into her seventies; at her death, she had landholdings in 22 English counties. There is no record that she ever visited Hook Norton