You Guys Ever Just

you guys ever just

so can we start hunting down white liberals now or what

Pls tell me other people get attached to their hair bands and get sand when they break, and it’s not just me-

hello!!! i was encouraged to send you an ask about henry v and his possible (?) boyfriend (?) richard courtenay! if im understanding correctly he died @ harfleur and henry said to bury them with each other so they stuck RC underground in westminster and he was just chillin there undiscovered for?? 550 years?? and hes still there in the same chantry as henry v?? and henry v was like 'catherine my Wife and the mother of my Future Kingly Children can just go wherever' ????? hello??? i MUST be misunderstanding something else im going insane

hi! I am always excited to get a chance to talk about Henry V and his possible boyfriend, Richard Courtenay, Bishop of Norwich and Flower of Devon. The short answer is that no, they are probably not sharing a single tomb and we can’t say for certain that they were boyfriends BUT they did really care about each other a whole lot and Courtenay’s place of burial is REALLY INTERESTING anyway.

So the story they’re actually sharing a single a tomb has been around for awhile, I don’t know where it started and I wish I did because Courtenay’s 2004 Oxford Dictionary of National Biography entry, while no-homoing them, says they were sharing a tomb and it’s been repeated in some works (e.g. Ian Mortimer says they’re actually sharing the same coffin in his non-recommended book about Henry V and the Agincourt campaign). A few years ago, Charles Courtenay, the Earl of Devon and descended from Richard Courtenay’s younger brother, gave an interview where he talked about going to Westminster Abbey and how he found out Richard Courtenay was buried in the chapel of Edward the Confessor, under the steps of the northern turret of Henry V’s chantry chapel. So he thinks that’s a bit weird because St Edward’s chapel is where a bunch of medieval kings, queens and their children were buried and space was at a premium. Later, the Earl has dinner with Jonathon Sumption, a historian of the Hundred Years War, and says that Sumption told him that Courtenay is actually not under the steps of the turret but in the tomb with Henry V and the Earl is like “...were they lovers then?”

Sadly, I don't think it is true.

There's no record of Henry V's tomb being ever opened but there are accounts of Courtenay's tomb being rediscovered in October 1953, including archaeological drawings of his tomb:

Apparently photographs and archaeological studies were made but these have never been published.

Although his tomb was only rediscovered in 1953, we did know he was buried in St Edward’s Chapel because medieval chroniclers, like the anonymous author of the Gesta Henrici Quinti, mentioned it, as did John Dart in his 1723 history of the Abbey. Courtenay’s tomb was also disturbed at one point during the construction of Henry V’s chantry chapel (1437-1450) These references were how Courtenay tomb was identified because there was no grave slab, plaque or memorial brass to mark it (there still isn’t). His ODNB entry was revised in 2020 to remove the reference to him sharing a tomb with Henry V and replace it with the reference to him being buried under the steps of the turret.

So, unless there’s some enormous cover up going on, it’s incredibly unlikely that Courtenay is actually in the same tomb as Henry V. Their tombs are just located in the same chapel.

It also means that Catherine de Valois’s burial place wasn’t displaced or supplanted by Courtenay (who, after all, died five years before Catherine and Henry married, seven years before Henry died and over 20 years before Catherine herself died). It is true that Henry V didn’t leave instructions for where Catherine was to be buried but considering she survived him for fifteen years, that’s pretty understandable and also fairly normal - a queen who outlived their husband had more control over her burial and her life going forward. IIRC, Catherine paid for at least some of the construction of Henry’s tomb so if she wanted burial with him, she could have easily arranged it. In short, Henry V left it up to Catherine to choose where she was buried and made no assumptions that she would want to be buried with him, that she wouldn’t remarry and that she would remain in England. She was only 21 when he died, after all.

So. Having said all that, Henry V ordering Courtenay’s burial in St Edward’s Chapel is still VERY interesting. Because space was at a premium, because it was used for the burials of kings, queens and their children and while Courtenay was descended from Edward I, he was from a fairly minor line. Nor was Westminster Abbey a natural choice for him. His family came from Devon and were buried primarily in Exeter Cathedral and he was Bishop of Norwich. So why was he buried in Westminster Abbey when Exeter Cathedral or Norwich Cathedral would be a more obvious choice? And why in St Edward’s Chapel when space was so tight that Henry V’s son Henry VI would struggle to find a space for his own tomb?

Harold, they were boyfriends.

It says, to me, that theirs was a deep, close relationship. That Henry, at least, loved Courtenay and wanted him to be close by. Wanted their bodies to lie close together, if not actually in the same tomb. That he felt this strongly is also evident by the fact that he was willing to risk upsetting the monks of Westminster by ordering Courtenay buried in St Edward’s Chapel (twenty years earlier, Richard II had aroused the “dismay” of the monks twenty years earlier by ordering the burial of John Waltham, Bishop of Salisbury in the same chapel - Courtenay was better born than Waltham but also just as unlikely a person to buried in this chapel where kings and queens were buried).

It’s not enough evidence to say that they were boyfriends in an objective, historical fact kind of way. The evidence just doesn’t exist for it to be a fact. Neither Henry nor Courtenay were never connected to any allegations of sodomy or “obscene familiarity" with each other or anyone else. It doesn’t mean that they weren’t boyfriends, just that the evidence they were hasn’t survived. I mean, there’s also no evidence they weren’t boyfriends, just an absence of evidence. They might have kept their true relationship hidden, they might have been allowed a certain measure of silent acceptance so long as Henry V’s rule proceeded well or they might have merely been close friends. We don’t know. 

But. The evidence suggests that they were very close:

Juliet Barker says Courtenay “had put his extraordinary abilities wholly at the service of his king rather than his God.“

Henry, as Prince of Wales, wrote a letter to the abbot and chapter of Bury St Edmunds requesting that John Lydgate be allowed to continue his studies at Oxford on Richard Courtenay’s advice

Courtenay was called “the king’s bishop”

Courtenay took part in the embassies to France in 1414/15 “perhaps because he knew the king’s mind better than his colleagues“ and definitely knew all about the tennis ball incident.

Richard Ullerston wrote De officio militari for Henry at Courtenay’s request

Courtenay got the Prior of the Celestines in Paris to give 1000 almonds as a gift to Henry

At the siege of Harfleur, Courtenay had a tent adjoining Henry’s and sometimes shared the royal tent

The stories that Henry V didn’t have sex with women after his coronation came from Courtenay. Which is indicative of their closeness, perhaps, but it’s also very tempting to read it as “I didn’t see any women in his bed when I was in there, railing him”.

Courtenay was described as “one of the most loving and dearest of [Henry V’s] friends”

After Courtenay received extreme unction, Henry “with his own hands wiped [Courtenay’s] feet and closed his eyes”

And one of my newest discovery from Henry V’s letters patent:

Courtenay arranged for a mass to be said daily at Ottery St Mary for himself and Henry!

And if you want to get your tinhat on. This is a ring found in Courtenay’s tomb:

This is a detail of Henry’s hands from the earliest known version of his portrait

Matching rings? 😈

I think it’s funny how in all media Wolsey is portrayed as hating the current queen like The Tudors? He hates Anne. The Spanish princess? He hates Catherine

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