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From: John Carmi Parsons< >
Subject: Queen Philippa's Birth Year
Date: 6 Jan 1999 11:43:50 -0800
As I am at the moment recuperating from the indignity of having the world's
tiniest camera go places God in His mercy never intended it to go, I have
asked a friend to phone me the information from Hingeston-Randolph's edition
of Bishop Stapeldon's register concerning the premarital inspection of Queen
Philippa that Stapeldon recorded in 1319.
The point that this was to have settled (we hoped) was the time of year at
which this inspection was actually made. The countess of Hainaut stated that
the girl would be aged 9 years at the NEXT feast of St John Baptist. The
question was, then, whether Stapeldon's inspection took place before or after
24 June in 1319. If before, the year of the girl's birth would obviously be
1310; if after, the year would be 1311. It was hoped that the entries
surrounding this one in the register might suggest something about the
chronology of the inspection.
Alas for all fond hopes. Hingeston-Randolph turns out to have been one of
those asinine 19th- and early 20th-century editors who thought nothing of
printing documents out of their proper context in a register. The entry
concerning the inspection in fact (if you can believe this) appears only
in the index to the edition, in small print under Philippa's name! So there
is no way to tell from this particular source, as it was edited, when the
inspection might have taken place.
Hingeston-Randolph has, however, noted in a footnote a lacuna among all the
documents in the register, lasting from early July until 20 August 1319. Since
this lacuna is obviously AFTER 24 June 1319, then the girl would have turned 9
on or about 24 June 1320, making the year of her birth 1311.
Hingeston-Randolph may or may not have been right in his conjecture; when
I am again circulating, I will check the calendared rolls and *Foedera* for
any documents relevant to the diplomatic mission on which we know Stapeldon
was engaged at the time he inspected the count of Hainaut's daughter. There
may also be some more detailed information in Mark Buck, *Politics, Finance
and the Church in the Reign of Edward II: Walter Stapeldon, Treasurer of
England* (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1983).
John Parsons
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