Ankarette Twynho

Ankarette Twynho (Twinnewe, Twyniho; –1477) was an English woman who was a member of the Somerset gentry and had been a lady's maid to Isabel Neville, Duchess of Clarence, until the duchess's death, probably from complications following childbirth, in December 1476. Twynho was accused of poisoning her with bad ale. George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence, had her seized from her house in April the following year and after a summary trial, she was found guilty and hanged outside Warwick. The case became a ''cause célèbre'', and historians consider her trial and death to have contributed, with other events, to the Duke of Clarence's eventual downfall and execution in 1478.

Life

Ankarette Twynho, , was probably born in Cheshire or Staffordshire around 1412. She married William Twynho of Keyford, near Frome, Somerset; he was dead by 1476. Although the Twynhos were minor gentry, they were not without influence, having achieved substantial wealth through sheep farming. Members of the family entered Clarence's service in the late 1460s. William had been a long-term Clarence retainer, while Twynho sons John and William had taken part in Clarence and Warwick's rebellion of 1470, subsequently joining the Duke's household. William and Ankarette also had a daughter Edith, who married Thomas Delalynde, while John and his wife gave Twynho a grandson, Roger. William the younger had been MP for Weymouth and Melcombe Regis between 1472 and 1475. Twynho had been in the duchess's service until her death, possibly as a lady's maid. She had a role caring for Isabel after Richard's birth but seems not to have been a midwife nor involved in the birth itself. It seems unlikely that Twynho accompanied her mistress to Warwick.

Arrest and execution

Isabel died on 22 December 1476, aged 25. Contemporaries believed her to be suffering a ''postpartum'' illness.

Twynho was seized at her house in Keyford, near Frome, at around 2pm on Saturday 12 April. Richard Hyde, and Roger Struggle of Beckham, a clothier—both servants of Clarence from Warwick Castle—led a force of 80 men to arrest her. At this stage, witchcraft was suspected. Twynho, either accompanied or followed by her daughter and son-in-law, was first taken to Bath. On Sunday, she was moved on to Cirencester, and the party arrived in Warwick on Monday night; she had been taken across three shires in three days. The historian Michael Hicks has called the method of Twynho's arrest "highly irregular" and it has been compared to an abduction.

Twynho was charged with '' veneficium'', a form of petty treason, by giving Isabel "a venomous drink of ale mixed with poison". Twynho pleaded not guilty, although to no avail. There was only one penalty. Sentenced to death, she was to be "led from the bar to the said lord King's gaol of Warwick aforesaid, and drawn from that gaol through the centre of that town of Warwick to the gallows at Myton, and be hanged there on that gallows until... dead". Before Twynho was taken from the castle for the last time, several jurors visited her in remorse and sought her forgiveness. They explained how being in fear of the Duke, they came to a judgment "contrary to their conscience". The Parliament Roll later recorded that

Historians have been critical of Clarence's role in the proceedings. To Michael Hicks, Twynho's execution was judicial murder, and as "one of the most flagrant abuses of noble power in late medieval England", it was a blatant example of how an overmighty subject could abuse his position. Charles Ross described it as a "scandalous demonstration" of the misuse of magnate authority, while Rosemary Horrox cites Clarence's over-awing of the jury as a "classic symptom of bastard feudalism".

Later events

The case became a cause célèbre. In late June 1477, Clarence was arrested and imprisoned in the Tower of London on charges of usurping royal authority, or "violating the laws of the realm by threatening the safety of judges and jurors", states Bellamy. He remained in custody until parliament met in January 1478, expressly to attaint him of high treason. Twynho's trial and execution did not form part of the prosecution case, although during the course of the parliament, Roger Twynho successfully petitioned that the proceedings and verdict against his grandmother should be overturned.

Clarence was also judged guilty himself of sorcery. Found guilty, he was sentenced to death; the sentence was carried out in a private execution within the Tower on 18 February 1478.

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Twynho, Ankarette
1412 births
1470s in England
1477 deaths
15th-century English people
15th-century English women
English courtiers
History of Warwickshire
Ladies maids
People from Cheshire (before 1974)
People from Staffordshire (before 1974)
People of the Wars of the Roses
British people wrongfully convicted of murder
Treason in the United Kingdom
George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence
People executed by the Kingdom of England by hanging
People executed under the Yorkists
Wrongful executions in the United Kingdom