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Ankarette Twynho (c. 1412–1477) was a member of the Somerset gentry and had been a lady's maid to Isabel Neville, Duchess of Clarence until the duchess' death, probably from complications following childbirth, in December 1476. Twynho was accused of poisoning her with bad ale. The duke had her seized from her house in April the following year and after a summary trial, she was found guilty and hanged outside Warwick. The case became a cause célèbre, and historians consider her trial and death to have directly contributed, with other events, to Duke of Clarence's eventual downfall and execution in 1478.

Life

Ankarette Twynho, née Hawkeston, was probably born in Cheshire or Staffordshire around 1412. She married William Twynho of Keyford, near Frome, Somerset; he was dead by 1476. Although the Twynhos were minor gentry, they were not without influence, having achieved substantial wealth through sheep farming. Members of the family entered Clarence's service in the late 1460s. William had been a long-term Clarence retainer, while Twynho sons John and William had taken part in Clarence and Warwick's rebellion of 1470, subsequently joining the Duke's household. William and Ankarette also had a daughter Edith, who married Thomas Delalynde, while John and his wife gave Twynho a grandson, Roger. William the younger had been MP for Weymouth between 1472 and 1475. Twynho had been in the duchess's service until her death, possibly as a lady's maid. She had a role caring for Isabel after Richard's birth but seems not to have been a midwife nor involved in the birth itself. It seems unlikely that Twynho accompanied her mistress to Warwick.

Arrest and execution

Isabel died on 22 December 1476, aged 25. Contemporaries believed Isabel to be suffering a postpartum illness.

Twynho was seized at her house in Keyford, near Frome, at around 2 pm on Saturday 12 April. Richard Hyde, and Roger Struggle of Beckham, a clothier both servants of Clarence from Warwick Castle, led a force of 80 men to arrest her. At this stage, witchcraft was suspected. Twynho, either accompanied or followed by her daughter and son-in-law, was first taken to Bath. On Sunday, she was moved on to Cirencester, and the party arrived in Warwick on Monday night. The historian Michael Hicks has called the method of Twynho's arrest "highly irregular" and it has been compared to an abduction.

Twynho was charged with veneficium, a form of petty treason, by giving Isabel "a venomous drink of ale mixed with poison". Twynho pleaded not guilty, although to no avail. There was only one penalty. Sentenced to death, she were to be "led from the bar to the said lord King's gaol of Warwick aforesaid, and drawn from that gaol through the centre of that town of Warwick to the gallows at Myton, and be hanged there on that gallows until ... dead". Before Twynho was taken from the castle for the last time, several jurors visited her in remorse and sought her forgiveness. They explained how being in fear of the Duke, they came to a judgment "contrary to their conscience". The Parliament Roll later recorded that

Diverse of the same Jurre, after the said Judgment goven, came to the seid Ankarette, havyng grete remorce in their consciens, knowyng they hadde goven an untrue Verdyt in that behalf, humbly and pituously asked forgefnes thereof of the seid Ankarette...

Later events

The case became a cause célèbre. In late June 1477, Clarence was arrested and imprisoned in the Tower of London on charges of usurping royal authority, or "violating the laws of the realm by threatening the safety of judges and jurors", states Bellamy. He remained in custody until parliament met in January 1478, expressly to attaint him of high treason. Twynho's trial and execution did not form part of the prosecution case, although during the course of the parliament, Roger Twynho successfully petitioned that the proceedings and verdict against his grandmother should be overturned.

Clarence was also judged guilty himself of sorcery. Found guilty, he was sentenced to death; the sentence was carried out in a private execution within the Tower on 18 February 1478.

Notes

1. Also Twynmowe or Twynyho.
2. Although Ankarette's immediate family were only minor gentry, a relative, John Twynho was recorder of Bristol and the recipient of a silver goblet from the duke—with whom he had had close links—and a man of some importance.
3. Hyde, originally from Swindon, had been in Clarence's service since at least 1471.
4. The 1351 Statute of Treason codified the killing of a master or mistress by a servant as petty treason since it was seen as a form of rebellion. The legal scholar Graham Platts argues that "the killing of a master by a servant was a rare occurrence, it struck at the root of a fundamental relationship within feudal society and as such ... not just treason but an act of anarchy".
5. The medical historian Jonathan Hughes argues that the events of 1477 indicate how "infiltration of black magic into the affairs of state" was unprecedented.

References

1. ^ Kittredge 1929, p. 138.
2. ^ Ashdown-Hill 2019, p. 124.
3. Fleming 2024, p. 268.
4. ^ Hicks 1980, p. 139.
5. Crawford 2007, p. 101.
6. Lee 2003, p. 170.
7. Ashdown-Hill 2018, pp. 144–145.
8. ^ Bellamy 1973, p. 24.
9. Ashdown-Hill 2019, pp. 123–124.
10. Ashdown-Hill 2014, p. 132.
11. ^ Hicks 1980, p. 138.
12. Pierce 2013, p. 4.
13. ^ Bellamy 1973, p. 57.
14. Ashdown-Hill 2014, p. 133.
15. Scofield 1967, p. 186.
16. Hughes 2002, p. 289.
17. Hickey 2023, p. 131.
18. Carpenter 1986, p. 39.
19. Lander 1967, p. 6.
20. Young 2022, p. 132.
21. Sillem 1936, p. lxxi.
22. Platts 1985, p. 253.
23. Scofield 1967, p. 187.
24. Ashdown-Hill 2019, p. 128.
25. Lander 1967, p. 6 n.27.
26. Bellamy 1965, p. 146.
27. Ross 1974, p. 241.
28. Ashdown-Hill 2019, p. 129.
29. Hicks 1980, p. 165.
30. Given-Wilson et al. 2005.
31. ^ Hughes 2002, p. 290.
32. ^ Ross 1974, p. 243.

Bibliography

• Ashdown-Hill, J. (2014). The Third Plantagenet: George, Duke of Clarence, Richard III's Brother. Stroud: The History Press. ISBN 978-0-75095-539-3.
• Ashdown-Hill, J. (2018). Cecily Neville: Mother of Richard III. Barnsley: Pen and Sword. ISBN 978-1-52670-634-8.
• Ashdown-Hill, J. (2019). Elizabeth Widville, Lady Grey: Edward IV's Chief Mistress and the 'Pink Queen'. Barnsley: Pen and Sword History. ISBN 978-1-52674-504-0.
• Bellamy, J. G. (1965). "Justice under the Yorkist Kings". The American Journal of Legal History. 9 (2): 135–155. ISSN 0002-9319. OCLC 66567944.
• Bellamy, J. G. (1973). Crime and Public Order in England in the Later Middle Ages. London: Routledge. OCLC 224783573.
• Carpenter, C. (1986). "The Duke of Clarence and the Midlands: A Study in the Interplay of Local and National Politics". Midland History. 11 (1): 23–48. doi:10.1179/mdh.1986.11.1.23.
• Crawford, A. (2007). The Yorkists: The History of a Dynasty. London: Hambledon. ISBN 978-1-84725-197-8.
• Fleming, P. (2024). Late Medieval Bristol: Time, Space and Power. Donington: Yorkist History Trust & Shaun Tyas. ISBN 978-1-91577-418-7.
• Given-Wilson, C.; Brand, P.; Phillips, S.; Ormrod, M.; Martin, G.; Curry, A.; Horrox, R., eds. (2005). "Introduction: Edward IV: January 1478". British History Online. Parliament Rolls of Medieval England. Woodbridge. Archived from the original on 11 January 2025. Retrieved 11 January 2025.
• Hickey, J. A. (2023). The Kingmaker's Women: Anne Beauchamp and Her Daughters, Isabel and Anne Neville. Barnsley: Pen and Sword. ISBN 978-1-39906-489-7.
• Hicks, M. A. (1980). False, Fleeting, Perjur'd Clarence: George, Duke of Clarence 1449–1478. Gloucester: Alan Sutton. ISBN 978-1-87304-113-0.
• Hughes, J. (2002). Arthurian Myths and Alchemy: The Kingship of Edward IV. Stroud: Sutton. ISBN 978-0-75091-994-4.
• Kittredge, G. L. (1929). Witchcraft in Old and New England. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. OCLC 1544433.
• Lander, J. R. (1967). "The Treason and Death of the Duke of Clarence: A Re-Interpretation". Canadian Journal of History. 2 (2): 1–28. doi:10.3138/cjh.2.
• Lee, J. (2003). "Urban Recorders and the Crown in Late Medieval England". In Clark, L. (ed.). Authority and Subversion. The Fifteenth Century. Vol. III. Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer. pp. 163–178. ISBN 978-1-84383-025-2.
• Pierce, H. (2013). Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury 1473–1541: Loyalty, Lineage and Leadership. Cardiff: University of Wales Press. ISBN 978-1-78316-303-8.
• Platts, G. (1985). Land and people in Medieval Lincolnshire. Lincoln: History of Lincolnshire Committee for the Society for Lincolnshire History and Archaeology. ISBN 978-0-90266-803-4.
• Ross, C. D. (1974). Edward IV. Berkeley: University of California Press. OCLC 1259845.
• Scofield, C. L. (1967). The Life and Reign of Edward the Fourth, King of England and of France and Lord of Ireland. Vol. II (New impr. ed.). London: Cass. OCLC 310646653.
• Sillem, R., ed. (1936). Records of Some Sessions of the Peace in Lincolnshire: 1360–1375. Publications of the Lincoln Record Society. Vol. XXX. Lincoln: Lincoln Record Society. OCLC 29331375.
• Young, F. (2022). Magic in Merlin's Realm: A History of Occult Politics in Britain. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-31651-240-1.

• 1470s in England
• History of Warwickshire
• People wrongfully convicted of murder
• Wrongful executions
• Treason in the United Kingdom