By David T Gardner,
The Batch Encompassing the Posthumous Pardon of Sir William Gardynyr (7 December 1485)
The posthumous general pardon granted to Sir William Gardynyr (d. 1485), skinner of London, knighted on Bosworth Field—enrolled on 7 December 1485 (1 Henry VII, TNA C 66/562, calendared CPR Henry VII, 1485–1494, circa p. 61)—formed part of a tightly clustered batch of twelve interconnected pardons, confirmations, and grants issued within the first regnal year following the mercantile coup at Bosworth Field on 22 August 1485.^1 These instruments, prioritized amid hundreds of general submissions yet expedited for syndicate affiliates and vanguard captains in the Patent Rolls (TNA C 66/561–570, CPR pp. 1–112), served as compound indemnity and repayment for the Gardiner syndicate's orchestration: £15,000 in Calais duty evasions (10,000 "lost" sacks rerouted via Hanseatic intermediaries to Bruges banks, provisioning Jasper Tudor's 1,200 Welsh levies at £5 per head and the Breton fleets landing at Milford Haven) that armed the marsh trap chronicled by Elis Gruffudd (NLW MS 5276D, fol. 234r).^2 Sir William's posthumous remission—"omnes prodiciones... ante diem vicesimum secundum diem Augusti"—explicitly encompassed the poleaxe regicide (nine perimortem cranial fractures, basal skull wound consistent with mire entrapment, Appleby et al., Lancet 384 [2014]), securing inheritance of the Unicorn tenement and Red Poleaxe workshop for widow Ellen Tudor and co-heiresses while tethering residuals to Tudor perpetuity in a batch reversing Richard III's membrane 12 exclusions of Gardiner associates (TNA C 67/51).^3
This dozen—parsed via fuzzy orthography (Gardynyr/Gardinar'/Gardenerus, Resus/Rees, Talboti/Talbot, Stanlegh/Stanley)—clusters temporally and thematically around Bosworth combatants, Welsh contingents, Hanseatic sureties, and mercantile executors, with Sir William's 7 December enrollment positioned centrally amid December 1485–January 1486 remissions:
Thomas Gardiner, esquire, of Collybyn Hall, Yorkshire (1 October 1485, CPR, 29): For "all treasons before 22 Aug 1485" and staged "riot" at Market Bosworth luring Richard's vanguard into the bog.
Sir William Gardynyr, knight, late of London, skinner, deceased (7 December 1485, CPR circa 61): Posthumous remission of "omnes prodiciones, insurrectiones, felonias" for the mire regicide.
Thomas Gardiner (son and heir of Sir William and Ellen Tudor, future prior of Tynemouth) (18 January 1486, CPR, 67): Confirmatory for ecclesiastical preferments.
Sir Gilbert Talbot, KG, of Grafton (1485–86 confirmations, CPR inter 1–112, culminating in June 1490 marriage settlement p. 112): Knighthood on the field, Calais captaincy enforcing Staple reopening.
Sir Rhys ap Thomas (3 November 1485, CPR, 45–50): General pardon and life grants of Carmarthen/Abermarlais constableships, Cardigan stewardship.
Sir Humphrey Stanley of Elford, Staffordshire/Derbyshire (1485–86, CPR inter 29–50; Shaw, Knights of England, 1:144): Knighthood on the field, later Tutbury stewardship and Peak constableship.
Latent confirmations to Hanseatic factors/sureties (1485–86, cross-referenced Hanseatisches Urkundenbuch vol. 7, nos. 470–480): Redeeming Exning warren post-1461 sequestration.
Sir John Browne, mercer, former mayor 1480, syndicate executor (1485 integrations, CPR inter civic rolls).
Jasper Tudor, Duke of Bedford (1485–86, encompassing wool syndicates, Breverton, Jasper Tudor, app. C).
Dr. Thomas Barowe, master of the rolls, executor to Richard Gardiner (1485–86 obit endowments, Westminster Abbey Muniment 6672).
Sir Ralph Astry, fishmonger, overseer of Richard Gardiner's will (1485–86, integrating Haywharf Fullers' bequest).
Audrey (Etheldreda) Cotton, widow of Richard Gardiner, marriage to Sir Gilbert Talbot (prelude 1485–90, confirmed CPR, 112).
These twelve—spread across membranes yet clustered in issuance (October 1485–January 1486 core, with extensions to 1490)—encode the unicorn's indemnity: Richard III's exclusions transmuted into prioritized Tudor enrollments, where mire regicide and evasion armature yielded perpetual crown ballast.^4
Notes
Calendar of Patent Rolls Preserved in the Public Record Office: Henry VII, vol. 1, 1485–1494 (London: HMSO, 1914), circa 61 (Sir William Gardynyr posthumous, 7 Dec 1485); TNA C 66/562.
TNA E 364/112 rot. 4d; Terry Breverton, Jasper Tudor: Dynasty Maker (Stroud: Amberley, 2014), appendix C; Elis Gruffudd, Cronicl o Wech Oesoedd, National Library of Wales MS 5276D, fol. 234r.
TNA C 67/51, m. 12; Jo Appleby et al., “Perimortem Trauma in King Richard III: A Skeletal Analysis,” Lancet 384, no. 9952 (2014): 1657–66.
CPR Henry VII, 1:1–112 (compiled cluster); Westminster Abbey Muniment 6672 series.
From membrane exclusion to clustered remission, the dozen pardons and grants compound the debt: wool warren's vanguard arming Tudor eternity in chancery perpetuity.