The sons of three kings

August 17th was a significant date in the lives of three kings and their sons. On August 17, 1153, Stephen’s eldest son and heir, Eustace, suddenly died under mysterious circumstances; the most widely accepted view is that he choked to death on a mouthful of eels, although poison has also been suggested. (Conspiracy theories were as popular in the MA as they are today, and Lord knows, Eustace had made legions of enemies, most of whom would have been delighted by his death.) For his contemporaries and probably even his grieving father—most likely the only one truly to mourn him—there was no question as to why he died. It was widely believed that he’d been struck down by God for his impious acts, in particular the sacking of an abbey not long before his unexpected death. It was a lucky death for England, as there is nothing in Eustace’s brutal and bloody record to indicate he’d have been a good king. On the very same day of his death, the future Henry II’s wife, Eleanor, was giving birth to the first of their five sons. And yes, people definitely took note of the timing, seeing it as proof that Henry’s star was in the ascendancy while Stephen’s was sinking. Henry and Eleanor’s new son was christened William, but he would never become king, sadly dying in early childhood at the age of three; not surprisingly, childhood mortality was high in the MA.

It can be argued that neither Eustace nor William were lucky in light of their respective fates. The same can be said of another king’s son born on August 17th, this time in 1473, the second son of the Yorkist king, Edward IV and his Woodville queen. He was named Richard, probably to honor Edward’s father, but quite likely also to honor his youngest brother, Richard, who’d supported Edward so loyally in his quest to regain his crown. As we all know, this Richard was no luckier than Eustace or William, going down in history as one of the “Little Princes in the Tower,” his fate unknown. As readers of Sunne know, I believe Richard died with his elder brother in the summer of 1483, when he was only ten. Others are convinced he survived and was actually Perkin Warbeck, who advanced a claim to the crown and paid for it with his life. All we can say for a certainty is that the bright promise his parents must have imagined for him on the day of his birth never came to pass.

Obviously the deaths of these kings’ sons changed the course of history. I think Eustace’s death was a blessing of sorts, for it led to the crowning of one of England’s greatest kings, Henry II, founder of the Plantagenet dynasty. (Without them, I might have been trapped practicing law!) It is interesting to speculate what might have happened had little William grown to manhood. Is it possible that his survival could have spared his family the internal turmoil, dissension, and jealousy that tore them apart? Or would he merely have been one more son to give Henry grey hairs and grief on his way to his sad death at Chinon? Impossible to say, but fun to speculate about.