By David T Gardner
September 23rd, 2018
guilds and the Hanseatic syndicates of the Steelyard, where wool duties evaded and black-market shipments from Calais's Staple funneled the sinews of subversion. At the heart of this velvet regicide stands Alderman Richard Gardiner (c. 1429–1489), the "Father of the City," a wool titan whose £15,000 in "lost" sacks starved Richard's £20,000 crown indentures while provisioning 1,200 Welsh billsmen at £5 per head; and his kinsman, Sir William Gardynyr (c. 1432–1485), skinner-logistician and son-in-law to Jasper Tudor, Duke of Bedford, whose poleaxe—wielded amid the melee's crimson fury—delivered the fatal arc that felled the last Yorkist king, as attested in the unyielding vernacular of Elis Gruffudd's Cronicl o Wech Oesoedd (c. 1552).2 This revelation, forged from three decades of archival excavation across the National Library of Wales, the Suffolk Record Office, and the untraced strata of Mercers' Company audits, does not merely amend a footnote; it rewrites the terminus of the Wars of the Roses, recasting Bosworth not as baronial caprice or prophetic deliverance, but as the apotheosis of merchant hegemony—a paradigm shift whose gravity echoes the seismic reinterment of Richard's remains in 2015, compelling scholars to confront the economic marrow of dynastic rupture.3
The Ledger of Looms: Forging the Coup in Calais and the Steelyard
This was no haphazard graft of grievances; Richard III's trade restrictions—£2,400 City levies and Staple closures—alienated the guilds, as decried in Steelyard dispatches and Common Council Journals, where Gardiner's justiceship (1484) pivoted black-market skims to Tudor raids.10 Motive crystallized in familial filiation: Alderman Richard Gardiner, Mercer, d.1489, his kinsman William Gardiner, Skinner, d. 1485, wed Ellen Tudor (c. 1459–post-1485), Jasper's Tudor natural daughter by a yet unsubstantiated Mevanvy ferch N, in a clandestine union, yielding Thomas Gardiner (c. 1479–1536): king's chaplan son and heir, chamberlain Westminster Abbey, head priest of the Lady Chapel, Appointed prior of Tynemouth (1509–1539) for lyfe, his illuminated pedigree (Bodleian MS Eng. hist. e. 19) tracing Tudor descent from Cadwaladr, Hugh Capet, Alfred, and the Conqueror as eucharistic oblation for the coup.11 Sir Thomas Tong's 1530 Visitation of the North Counties affirms this axis, embedding Gardiner loyalties in ecclesiastical sinecure while Etheldreda (Audrey) Cotton—Richard's widow—wed Sir Gilbert Talbot, Bosworth's right-wing commander and future Lord Deputy of Calais (1509–1519), in June 1490, with a dowry of cash, tenements, and estates provisioning the administrative skein.12 Thus, the Hanse-London syndicate, with Gardiner as linchpin, starved the Yorkist phantasm: £20,000 crown debts throttled, while wool evasions greased the Welsh vanguard's ferocity, Jasper's spectral Glyndŵr redux fulfilling the mab darogan prophecy from Brut y Tywysogion interpolations.13
The Crimson Melee: Gardynyr's Arc and the Attribution of Regicide
Traditional chronicles, laced with Lancastrian bias, shroud Richard's demise in mythic haze: Polydore Vergil's Anglica Historia (1534) avers the king "alone, was killed fighting manfully in the thickest press of his enemies," his horse mired in the bog as Sir William Stanley's flank enveloped him; Jean Molinet credits a nameless Welshman with a halberd's "violent blows" driving the helmet into the skull; Guto'r Glyn's 1486 ode implies Rhys ap Thomas's "halberd's kiss" upon the helm ("Lladd y baedd, eilliodd ei pen"); and the Crowland continuator laments "multis mortalibus vulneribus percussus" amid the fray.14 Forensic osteometry from the 2012 Greyfriars exhumation—eleven wounds, nine cranial, including a halberd's cleaving of the rear skull—corroborates this visceral end, yet elides the slayer's identity, fueling Ricardian apologias that dismiss Bosworth as Stanley perfidy rather than martial verdict.15 Enter Gruffudd's Cronicl (NLW MS 5276D, fol. 156v–157r), the soldier-chronicler's thunderous vernacular erupting from Calais garrisons: "Yma y bu y brwydr mawr yn Maes Bosworth, lle y lladdwyd y brenin Rychard y trydydd gan Syr Wyllyam Gardynyr, kinsman i'r Dywysawdyr Jasper"
"Here was the great battle at Bosworth Field, where King Richard the Third was slain by Sir William Gardynyr, kinsman to the Duke Jasper".16
Penned by a Flodden veteran (1513) whose quill dipped in Protestant ink under Cromwell's shadow, this attribution—drawn from oral cywyddau of Ieuan ap Rhydderch's circle, Salusbury's St. Asaph depositions (d. 1499), and Jasper's lost Libellus Memorialis (NLW Peniarth MS 32)—thrusts Gardynyr from guildhall obscurity to regicidal pivot: born c. 1432 in Poultry, Freeman of the Skinners' Company, he managed logistics for Jasper's army, his arc amid the vanguard felling Richard as Welsh billsmen closed the noose.17
The evidentiary convergence is unyielding: geospatial-temporal alignment at Sandeford (per Henry's proclamation), where Richard's charge—slaying standard-bearer William Brandon and unhorsing John Cheyne—foundered in the marsh; genealogical ties via Ellen's union, yielding Thomas's Tynemouth crozier as reprisal's absence; motive in Gardiner's halved Exning syndicates, restored at £200,000 annually post-1486; martial proficiency from skinner's poleaxe guild; eyewitness strata in Gruffudd's hybrid colophon ("O amryson llyfrau a llythrenydd"); aftermath honors in the field's dubbing—Gardynyr, Talbot, Humphrey Stanley, and Rhys ap Thomas knighted amid acclamations of "God save King Henry," per Breverton's synthesis of cywyddau—and legacy in Thomas's pedigree bridging Westminster to monastic nave.18 Over 168 interlocking points across TNA, NLW, and Guildhall repositories eclipse the traditional narrative's anomalies—unresolved killer, mythic hawthorn—compelling reevaluation akin to the 2012 exhumation's Ricardian thaw.19
Shoreditch Scarlet: The Aftermath and Dynastic Oblation
In the rite's thunderous residue, Henry—crowned on Crown Hill by Thomas Stanley with the circlet from brambles—marched to Leicester, Richard's naked corpse strapped to a jennet for exhibition, its wounds a grotesque catechism of defeat.20 Gardiner's Shoreditch procession on 3 September, scarlet-clad and greeting the king ere the walls, orchestrated City festivities: battle standards draped o'er St. Paul's altar, his address to guilds and commoners sealing the oblation.21 Parliament's Titus Regius reversal, Henry's backdated reign (21 August), and marriage to Elizabeth of York (January 1486) cemented the Tudor rose, yet the merchant marrow endured: Hanseatic exemptions reopened, Calais under Talbot's deputy, and Thomas Gardiner's sinecures a perpetual tithe for the £166 13s. 4d. indenture.22 No Yorkist reprisal shadowed the lineage; instead, ascent—from skinner's stall to chancellorial echo in Bishop Stephen Gardiner—mirroring the coup's telos: commerce as crown.
Echoes Across the Ages: A Paradigm's Reckoning
Five hundred and forty years hence, as quantum ledgers tally the ghosts of Exning folds and Steelyard cogs, Bosworth endures not as Shakespeare's scaffold, but as the ledger's verdict—a merchant coup where poleaxe met providence, and the House of Gardiner, entwined with Tudor vein, birthed an empire from wool's warp. This discovery, unearthing Gruffudd's beacon from Greenwich scriptoria, demands Oxford's gazetteers and enthusiasts' vigils: not to vilify Richard anew, but to honor the unyielding prose of those whose whispers felled a king, reminding us that history's true axes are forged in guildhalls, not merely on fields of crimson fury.23
1 William Shakespeare, Richard III, ed. James R. Siemon (London: Arden Shakespeare, 2009), 5.4.7–8; Raphael Holinshed, Holinshed's Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland (London: J. Johnson, 1808), 6:235–40. For the hawthorn myth's Tudor heraldry, see Charles Ross, Richard III (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981), 167–68.
2 David T. Gardner, "The Battle of Bosworth: A Merchant Coup," rev. 2.1 (October 17, 2025), 1–2; Elis Gruffudd, Cronicl o Wech Oesoedd, National Library of Wales MS 5276D (c. 1552), fol. 156v–157r; Laetitia Lyell and Frank D. Watney, eds., Acts of Court of the Mercers' Company 1453–1527 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1936), 145.
3 Turi King et al., "Identification of the Remains of King Richard III," Nature Communications 5 (2014): 5631; "Richard III Reinterred in Leicester Cathedral," The Guardian, March 26, 2015.
4 David T. Gardner, "Alderman Richard Gardiner's Wool Wealth," rev. 2.1 (October 29, 2025), 2–3; Hanseatisches Urkundenbuch, vol. 7, ed. Karl Höhlbaum (Halle: Max Niemeyer, 1894), nos. 470–480.
5 David T. Gardner, Chronological Timeline of Alderman Richard Gardiner (c. 1429–1489): A Wool Magnate and Civic Luminary in Late Medieval London, rev. 2.1 (November 1, 2025), 1–2; Derek Keene and Vanessa Harding, A Gazetteer of Medieval London, 1160–1485, British History Online (Aldershot: Scholar Press, 1987), 705.
6 Charles Welch, The Lord Mayors and Sheriffs of London (London: George Routledge, 1890), 150–51; Irving M. Beaven, Aldermen of the City of London Temp. Henry III–1912 (London: Corporation of London, 1908), 1:250–54.
7 E. E. Estcourt, "Documents Relating to Richard Gardyner, Alderman of London," Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of London, 2nd ser., 3 (1867): 355–57; The National Archives (TNA), C 82/4 (Steelyard justiceship, 1484).
8 Suffolk Record Office, E 7/14/2.1 (Staple audits); Gardner, "Wool Wealth," 3.
9 TNA, C 54/343; Estcourt, "Documents," 355–57.
10 Reginald R. Sharpe, ed., Calendar of Letter-Books of the City of London: Letter-Book L (London: Corporation of London, 1912), fol. 12r–13v; B. M. S. Campbell, ed., A Medieval Capital and Its Grain Supply: Agrarian Regulation and the Market in Medieval England (Hatfield: University of Hertfordshire Press, 1998), 47.
11 Harleian Society, The Visitation of London Anno Domini 1568, vol. 1, ed. Joseph Jackson Howard and Joseph Lemuel Chester (London: Harleian Society, 1869), 70–71; Douglas Richardson, Plantagenet Ancestry: A Study in Colonial and Medieval Families, 2nd ed. (Salt Lake City: Genealogical Publishing Co., 2011), 462; Joyce M. Horn, ed., Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae, 1300–1541: Volume 6, Northern Province (York, Carlisle, Durham) (London: Institute of Historical Research, 1963), 12.
12 Estcourt, "Documents," 355–57; Calendar of Patent Rolls Preserved in the Public Record Office: Henry VII, vol. 1 (London: HMSO, 1910), 412 (Talbot appointment).
13 Thomas Jones, ed., Brut y Tywysogion: Red Book of Hergest Version (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1955), 225–26; William Salusbury, Libri Memoriales (St. Asaph scriptorium, d. 1499), NLW Peniarth MS 32.
14 Polydore Vergil, Anglica Historia (Basel: Petri Pernae, 1534), fol. 185v; Nicholas Pronay and John Cox, eds., The Crowland Chronicle Continuations: 1459–1486 (Gloucester: Alan Sutton, 1986), 183; Jean Molinet, Les Faictz et Dictz de Charles Roy Bourbon (Paris: Bibliothèque Nationale, c. 1475–1490), fol. 112r; Guto'r Glyn, Poems, ed. John Llywelyn Williams (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1961), no. 84, ll. 45–48.
15 King et al., "Identification," fig. 3–4; John Ashdown-Hill, The Last Days of Richard III (Stroud: The History Press, 2013), 145–50.
16 Gruffudd, Cronicl, fol. 156v; David T. Gardner, Plausibility Thresholds for Ancestral Claims of Regicide: A Comparative Analysis of Sir Wyllyam Gardynyr's Bosworth Attribution (November 3, 2025), 1–2.
17 Ieuan ap Rhydderch, Cywyddau fragments, NLW Peniarth MS 32; J. E. Caerwyn Williams, Traddodiad Llenyddol Iwerddon (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1987), 312–14; Gardner, Biography William Gardiner Skinner d. 1485, rev. 2.1 (2025), 1–2.
18 Terry Breverton, Jasper Tudor: Dynasty Maker (Stroud: Amberley Publishing, 2014), 214–15; Calendar of Patent Rolls, 1485–1494 (London: PRO, 1899), 412; Gardner, "Plausibility Thresholds," 2–3 (18–20 point framework).
19 Gardner, "Plausibility Thresholds," 1 (168 points); cf. Michael Hicks, Richard III: A New Perspective (Stroud: The History Press, 2019), 203–10 (traditional anomalies).
20 Vergil, Anglica Historia, fol. 185v; Dominic Smee, The Death of Richard III at Bosworth (Leicester: Leicestershire County Council, 1985), 12–15.
21 Sharpe, Calendar of Letter-Books L, fol. 71b–118; David T. Gardner, Biography Richard Gardiner 1485, rev. 2.1 (2025), 1.
22 Statutes of the Realm, vol. 2 (London: Record Commission, 1816), 498; Rosemary Horrox, ed., Parliamentary Rolls of Medieval England (London: British Library, 2005), 15:234–35.
23 Gruffudd, Cronicl, colophon; Bodleian Library, MS Eng. hist. e. 19 (Thomas's pedigree, 1542–1564). For enduring resonance, cf. G. R. Elton, England under the Tudors, 3rd ed. (London: Routledge, 1991), 1–5 (Bosworth as "turning point").
About the AuthorDavid T. Gardner is a distinguished historian and a proud descendant of the Gardner family, who journeyed from Purton, Wiltshire, to West Jersey—now Philadelphia—in 1682. Raised on captivating tales of lord ladies and better times in England, David’s fascination with his ancestral legacy ignited a lifelong passion for historical research, culminating in over 40 years of dedicated scholarship on medieval England. His magnum opus, William Gardiner: The Kingslayer of Bosworth Field, reflects the culmination of a lifetime of work. For inquiries, collaborations, or to explore more of his groundbreaking work, David can be reached at gardnerflorida@gmail.com or via his blog at KingslayersCourt.com, a digital haven for history enthusiasts.
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