I want to look in some depth at a letter written by Anne Beauchamp, countess of Warwick, to the Commons after the Battle of Barnet. She wrote other letters, to several of the ‘ladies noble of this realm’. I haven’t been able to find any of them, but they probably don’t say much that isn’t said in the one I do have. What would be interesting to see would be any difference in tone. This is a formal letter, written to a formal government body. Anne had, by this stage, reached the end of the list of people (or bodies) she could appeal to. I get a strong sense of the woman herself from this letter. Anne knows her rights and knows they’re being violated. The decision taken by parliament to disinherit (impoverish) her, must have been extremely hard for her to take, especially as it was her daughters and sons-in-law who benefitted from it. I can’t help but think she felt betrayed by them.
