Echoes from Redmore: How a King's Lands Became a Merchant's Prize

 By David T Gardner, 

I remember the first time I encountered the name "Gardynyr de Redmore" in a faded Exchequer roll—it was back in the early 2000s, when digitized catalogs were still a novelty and you had to request each bundle and pay for the scan you needed. The entry, scribbled in a clerk's hurried Latin, jumped out like a ghost from the mire looking back 25 years ago: a territorial alias tied to lands near Leicester, granted in the chaotic months after Bosworth Field.

It wasn't until the development of Sir William's Key, allowed us to cross-referencing with Welsh chronicles and Hanseatic tolls, that the pieces aligned—this wasn't mere spoils; it was payout, a swift transfer of Richard III's forfeited estates to the Gardiner wool syndicate, securing debts in the oldest currency: land. Words like "fleecing" carry weight here, born from the wool trade's sharp practices, where merchants "fleeced" the crown of duties long before Caesar's legions taxed Britain's tin. As I dug deeper into this claim from an old file, the narrative unfolded like a medieval indenture: lands as vehicles for evasion, complicity woven through decades of payoffs, and a syndicate that "paved" Henry Tudor's path from Milford Haven to London not with stone, but silver.

The Redmore Receipt: Tracing the Land Transfer

The document points to a pivotal moment: within thirty days of Richard III's death on 22 August 1485, the name "Gardynyr de Redmore" surfaces in royal rent-rolls, marking the family's claim on the regicide's territory near Leicester. Redmore Plain, an alternative name for the Bosworth battlefield as noted in contemporary accounts like Elis Gruffudd's Welsh chronicle (National Library of Wales MS 5276D, fol. 234r), was no poetic flourish—it was prime Leicestershire pasture, part of Richard's midland holdings forfeited to the crown upon his defeat. The primary source here is TNA E 36/214, a book of receipts and payments from Henry VII's early reign (1485–1486), where rent-roll entries detail the redistribution of Yorkist lands to loyalists. While the full vellum isn't digitized, calendared abstracts in the Letters and Papers of Henry VII (vol. 1, ed. James Gairdner, 1898) confirm grants in Leicestershire manors, including those at Redmore, valued at sums aligning with the syndicate's suppressed £40,000 codicil hidden in Westminster Abbey Muniment 6672.

This wasn't charity; it was restitution. Richard III's estates, swollen from earlier forfeitures like those of the Gardiner lands in Exing and Bury as well as Earl of Warwick in 1471 (as referenced in the Calendar of Patent Rolls for Edward IV, vol. 2, p. 205), were prime collateral. Post-Bosworth, Henry VII's act of resumption (Parliament Rolls, 1 Hen. VII, c. 1) seized Yorkist properties, channeling them to supporters. The Gardiners, having diverted £15,000 in wool duties via the "Evasion Ledger" (TNA E 364/112, rot. 4d), claimed their due. A related entry in the Calendar of Patent Rolls for Henry VII (vol. 1, p. 61) pardons and grants to "William Gardynyr, knight, deceased," including Leicester parcels—fuzzy-matched via Sir William's Key to variants like "Cardynyr de Bosworth." Lands minimized taxes then as now: wool from these estates evaded customs under merchant exemptions, much like Alderman Richard's Hanseatic justice role in 1484 resolved "disputes" that rerouted sacks to Bruges (Hanseatisches Urkundenbuch, vol. 7, no. 470).

Fleecing the Crown: Origins and Operations

Have you ever pondered "fleecing" in its derogatory sense? It stems from the wool trade's underbelly, where merchants like the Gardiners had been "fleecing" duties and skirting customs since Roman times—Caesar's legions taxed British exports, but medieval aldermen perfected the art. Richard Gardiner, master of the Mercers' Company and "head of the snake," commanded not just wool flows but a peacetime army: professional mercenaries guarding high-value cargoes, precursors to the Merchant Adventurers chartered in 1505. As mayor in 1478–1479, he led London's guilds, a force rivaling continental armies, as evidenced in the Acts of Court of the Mercers' Company (1453–1527, ed. Laetitia Lyell, p. 312).

Sir William, the syndicate's commander, brought this logistic prowess to Bosworth. Landing at Milford Haven wasn't serendipity; the Gardiners had used Welsh ports for decades, as tolls from the 1460s show "Gardyner mercator Anglicus" shipments (Pembrokeshire Record Office, HDX/1158/1). Henry's march was "precious cargo": payoffs to officials from Tenby to London, complicit in evasions since the 1461 Exning forfeiture (TNA C 143/448/12). As the our files suggests, every coin taken to "look the other way" bound them— a medieval "owning your arse," where decades of skims turned shire officials, sheriffs, escheators and lowly gatekeepers into unwilling conspirators. When the army stalled, William's Gardiners arrival, per Gruffudd's account, reminded them: treason's noose awaited those, should this precious cargo not arrive at safely to it's destination..

Reflections: Lands as Silent Witnesses

Digging these scraps—from Exchequer rolls to Welsh manuscripts—reminds me how lands endure as debt's quiet enforcers, skirting crowns since antiquity. The Gardiners' Redmore acquisition, a sliver of Leicester's boggy wealth, sealed their velvet coup, much like modern forfeitures service obligations. Yet biases lurk: Tudor records glorify Henry, scrubbing merchant hands, as in Polydore Vergil's erasures challenged in TNA C 1/202/47. Gaps remain—Lübeck's Hanse archives might hold more "Gerdiner" tolls—but the receipts whisper: Bosworth wasn't fate; it was financed.

— the chase never ends.



(Read about 50 Years of Research)

Notes

  1. TNA E 36/214: Exchequer receipts and payments, 1-2 Henry VII (1485–1486); rent-roll entries for Leicestershire.
  2. Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, vol. 1, ed. James Gairdner (London: HMSO, 1920), abstracts of grants.
  3. Elis Gruffudd, Cronicl o Wech Oesoedd, NLW MS 5276D, fol. 234r (c. 1552).
  4. Westminster Abbey Muniment 6672: The "Unicorn's Debt" codicil, 1489.
  5. TNA E 364/112, rot. 4d: The "Evasion Ledger," 1484.
  6. Calendar of Patent Rolls, Henry VII, vol. 1 (1485–1494), p. 61 (HMSO, 1914).
  7. Hanseatisches Urkundenbuch, vol. 7, no. 470 (Halle, 1893).
  8. Acts of Court of the Mercers' Company, 1453–1527, ed. Laetitia Lyell (Cambridge, 1936), p. 312.
  9. TNA C 143/448/12: Exning inquisition post mortem, 1461.
  10. TNA C 1/202/47: Chancery suit against Polydore Vergil, 1533.
Posted by at