Articles by Simon Payling
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A Lancastrian City? Coventry and the Wars of the Roses, 1451-1471
This piece is in memory of Professor Peter W. Fleming, who died in April 2025. His publishing career spanned 40 years, from an article on the religious faith of the gentry of Kent in 1984 to a defining monograph on…
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Parliament and Politics in the Later Middle Ages
Dr Simon Payling, of our 1461-1504 section, tracks the development of Parliament and Politics in the Later Middle Ages, from its Anglo-Saxon roots to the more formal split between the House of Commons and House of Lords that we recognise…
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Did they believe in portents? Severe weather and other extreme natural phenomena in Walsingham’s Chronica Maiora and other late-medieval monastic chronicles
Dr Simon Payling, of our Commons 1461-1504 section, explores the theme of extreme weather in medieval chronicles. It is a familiar theme in medieval chronicles, whether monkish or secular, that extreme weather, natural disaster or even just unusual events were, or,…
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From Lancaster to York and back again: the political evolution of the Derbyshire Blounts
Dr Simon Payling, of our Commons 1461-1504 section, explores the fortunes and shifting loyalties of one gentry family in Derbyshire during the Wars of the Roses. The troubled politics of the mid-fifteenth century are illuminated by the histories of leading gentry…
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A Yorkist Family during the Wars of the Roses: the Devereuxs of Weobley in Herefordshire
Dr Simon Payling, of our Commons 1461-1504 section, explores the fortunes of one particularly loyal Yorkist family during the Wars of the Roses. For leading landowning families ready to commit themselves to one side or the other, the Wars of the…
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The story of a manor in memorials: the early tombs in the Shropshire church of Kinlet
The Shropshire church of Kinlet stands isolated in parkland, the village it once served re-sited in the early-eighteenth century on the building of the still-extant Kinlet Hall. It contains a fine series of memorials, the two earliest of which mark…
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The Making of a Marcher Town: Ludlow and the Wars of the Roses
Dr Simon Payling, of our Commons 1461-1504 section, explores the crucial role of the Shropshire town of Ludlow during the Wars of the Roses. Political geography ensured that the town of Ludlow would, for good or ill, play some part in…
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The town of Shrewsbury and the Wars of the Roses: The campaigns of 1459-61
Dr Simon Payling, of our Commons 1461-1504 section, explores the political allegiance of the Shropshire town of Shrewsbury during the Wars of the Roses. While, during the Wars of the Roses, the political allegiances of individual noblemen are relatively easy…
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Hugh Oldham, bishop of Exeter, ‘hath more poison in that grete fowle bely of hys then all the Bysshoppes in Englond’: scandalum magnatum in early-sixteenth century England
For the first article of 2025, Dr Simon Payling of our Commons 1461-1504 Section, explores the use of a unique form of medieval defamation law in the early 16th century. Hugh Oldham (c.1450-1519), bishop of Exeter from 1505, has had…
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A disputed election in the wake of the battle of Bosworth: the Shropshire election of 1485
Following the battle of Bosworth and Henry Tudor’s accession to the English throne, the country’s gentry who had sided with Henry seemed destined to be elected to Parliament uncontested. However, as Dr Simon Payling of our Commons 1461-1504 project explores,…
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John, Lord Clifford, ‘the butcher’ and the killing of Edmund, earl of Rutland, at the battle of Wakefield, 30 December 1460
In the 15th Century, the killing of rival faction leaders were commonplace, especially throughout the Wars of the Roses. However, as Dr Simon Payling from our Commons 1461-1504 project investigates, one Lancastrian commander in particular garnered a reputation for brutality,…
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A Medieval Monk’s View of Parliament: Thomas Walsingham’s Chronica Maiora and the Parliaments of 1376 to 1410
Thomas Walsingham is best known for his role as a chronicler of his own religious life, but he was also privy to many of the events that took place in Parliament in the late 14th century. Simon Payling, from our…