Cicely Duchess of York

 

In 1469 Edward IV granted Berkhamsted to his mother Cicely, Duchess of York, a colourful figure who lived here for the last 26 years of her life.

 

In her later years she sufferedgreat tragedy with the deaths of her son Edward IV in 1483 and then two of her grandsons in the Tower of London. Two years later in 1485 Richard III, her fourth son, was killed at the battle of Bosworth.

Cicely held the advowson of St. Peter’s church from 1469 until her death. The arms of her husband, Duke Richard, are in the Lady Chapel while her own coat of arms can be seen in the west window of the north aisle. She was a deeply religious woman especially in her later years.

 

She requested in her will ‘that all my plate thereof be putte to the use of my burying, that is to say in discharging of suche costes and expensis as shall be for carrying of my body from the castell of Barkehampstede unto the coleg of Fodringhey.’

 

Although she was buried alongside her husband in Fotheringhay, Northamptonshire, she did not forget St. Peter’s Church. ‘I geve to the parishe church of Much Barkhampstede a coope of blewe bawdekyn the orffreys embrawdered.’