We paid a visit to Aldermaston Church recently to look at the Tudor monument that, I'd read online, was inside, but sadly found it firmly locked. We even loaded up on a lovely lunch at the Hind's Head first for some church hunting in the afternoon. Anyway, luckily I found details of the inside of the church - and the tomb - in an old copy of the Berkshire Archaeological Journal of 1911. 

The tomb I had in my sights was that of Sir George and Elizabeth Forster, a prominent Aldermaston couple who lived during the sixteenth century. 

Aldermaston has a long history. It was owned by King Harold in Saxon times, and after his death at the Battle of Hastings in 1066, passed into the hands of the Norman kings. Henry I, William the Conqueror's son, granted it to Sir Robert Achard, and it passed from there into the Delamare and Forster families through centuries of marriage. As the church contains monuments in stone, brass and glass to these three families, and their names are knitted in with the history of Aldermaston, it suggests that they lived in the village, and it is believed that a manor house existed there from the 1400s. The Forsters also owned the advowson of St Mary's church, the authority to name the priest in service there, and so certainly had local control. Interestingly, the family that I was going to visit were represented at the pub we randomly popped in to have lunch. The Forster's emblem was the hind's head.

Tomb of George and Elizabeth Forster, Berkshire Archaeological Journal, 1911. Public Domain Mark, via archive.org

St Mary's in Aldermaston, George and Elizabeth's parish church, dates to the Norman period, although an earlier church existed in the village at the Domesday Survey of 1086. It was enlarged and maintained throughout the later centuries, and rescued in the nineteenth century with essential stabilising work. Some of the glass inside the church displays the Forster arms, along with the branches of related families. The Forster's would have seen representations inside the church, of the Annunciation and the Coronation of the Virgin, both dating to around the thirteenth century. There were also windows showing eight armorial shields with the arms of Forster, Achard, Delamare, Popham, Harpsden, St. Martin, Zouch, Milbourne and Roches families. The Sandys family are also represented, with George and Elizabeth's son, Humfrey having married a daughter of the Lord Sandys of The Vyne in Hampshire.

The Forsters would also have known the medieval painting of St Christopher in the church and the Tudor wooden triptych thought to have been made between 1480 and 1540. This depicts the story of the Nativity, created by the artist Adrian von Orlei, from the Low Countries. The church they knew was brightly-coloured, with decorations around the church painted in red and yellow. Another wall painting, believed to have been of St Nicholas, also brightened the walls. 

George and Elizabeth Forster are commemorated in an alabaster tomb inside the south chapel of the church. Elizabeth was the granddaughter of Sir Thomas Delamare, explaining the link between the shields and other emblems inside the church. The effigies are created just a little larger than life, at just over six feet long. George was a courtier during the reign of Henry VIII, and attended the celebrations at the Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1520, peace talks disguised as a show of strength between Henry and the French king, Francis I, in Calais. He was the son of Sir Humfrey Forster of Harpsden near Henley-on-Thames. Interestingly, Elizabeth is not discussed often with relation to the tomb other than to state that she was George's wife. In fact, according to Kenneth Hillier, she was the real local power behind the marriage. Hillier, in his article on Elizabeth's father, A Rebel of 1483: Sir Thomas de la Mare, points out that she inherited Aldermaston after the deaths of his other heirs. So it was Elizabeth that held the manor of Aldermaston, and was therefore George's through their marriage. He also discusses Sir Thomas' part in the 1483 Buckingham Rebellion against Richard III. He rose in Newbury that autumn, when Elizabeth was a teenager, and was pardoned in 1484. It doesn't seem that he was among those who fled to Brittany to the Earl of Richmond. Elizabeth had a sister named Frideswide, who she shared the Aldermaston estate with, but became sole inheritor when Frideswide died. Their father had supported Lancaster during the Wars of the Roses, switching to the allegiance of York under Edward IV, who knighted him. 

George and Elizabeth Forster, Aldermaston Church. Berkshire Archaeological Journal, 1911. Public Domain Mark, via archive.org

George Forster is depicted in armour, which is no surprise as he proved himself as a soldier and was made a Knight of the Bath. For this honour, George would have met with other knights to be inducted, taken a bath the evening before the ceremony and the king would have made the sign of the cross on his shoulder and kissed it. It was a very special honour to have and placed him in an elite force of knights rewarded specially by the king. George's armour on the effigy is well-preserved and shows the hind's head symbol. Especially detailed, it also shows the inside of the helmet being lined with material, providing comfort for the wearer. The author of the Archaeological Journal wrote that, in 1911, 'the effigy presents us with a most complete specimen of the armour of this Transitional period'. George's feet lie resting on a stag, and he wears a Lancastrian 'SS' collar and a portcullis and Tudor rose pendant. 

Elizabeth is depicted on her effigy with her head resting on two pillows supported by angels - one on each side. She wears formal robes, including a cloak secured by a chain, with a pendant in the shape of a rose. A popular symbol, a small dog, bites the hem of her cloak, often used to portray loyalty. The visitor in 1911 saw traces of colour and gilt used to decorate Elizabeth's gable style headdress and George's SS collar.

Underneath the figures on the table tomb below are figures of knights in armour in various poses, and female figures in slightly different dress and position. Another lady was carved into the tomb on its south side, kneeling with her right hand raised. On the north side is a knight in armour and the visitor suggests that these might depict the couple's son Humfrey Forster and his wife. It is not known whether the many figures represent George and Elizabeth's children or 'weepers', depictions of people sometimes known to the deceased, mourning their loss. On the effigy of Richard Beauchamp Earl of Warwick his daughters, sons and their husbands and wives are depicted, their identity confirmed by the accompaniment of their individual coats of arms. 

George died in 1533, the year Anne Boleyn was crowned and gave birth to Princess Elizabeth. The couple had lived close to a court that saw enormous change. An anointed queen of almost twenty years, Katherine of Aragon, had been discarded and her marriage to Henry VIII annulled. They had seen Henry's accession to the throne in 1509, and the execution of Henry VII's tenacious advisors Empson and Dudley early in the young king's reign. The Tudor traveller and explorer of England and Wales, John Leland, believed that George and Elizabeth had twenty children, perhaps accounting for the figures depicted on the base of their tomb. It's also believed that the effigy at Aldermaston was erected while George was alive, and he may have had some control over how he and Elizabeth were represented. The visitor to the tomb in 1911 also saw a helmet and crest fixed onto a bracket, said to have been George's own. 

The couple are interesting not only because of their finely-detailed effigies, giving us so much detail about clothing and jewellery of Henry VIII's reign, but that, like a number of women, Elizabeth held the real local power in the relationship through her father, the previous owner of the manor of Aldermaston. However through their marriage, George maintained control, although there is no doubt that Elizabeth was known in the village and would have been forging relationships, gaining local allies and planning the futures of their children.

Liked this? You might also like Historic Pubs: The Hind's Head, Aldermaston, The Lost Apartments of Anne Boleyn at Windsor Castle, and A Tudor Assault at Padworth, 1534.

Interested in women's history? Check out my book, Forgotten Women of the Wars of the Roses published by Pen and Sword Books. It discusses many woman of the fifteenth century conflict that played parts we don't often hear about today. You can Order your copy here.

If you like Tudor history, check out my second book, Power Couples of the Tudor Era, also published by Pen and Sword Books, which explores the contributions couples made to their own times as well as how they influenced our own. Order your copy here. 

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Sources: 

Rev P.H. Ditchfield, Berkshire Archaeological Journal, Volume 17, Reading, 1911. 

Kenneth Hillier, Sir Thomas de la Mare, A Rebel of 1483, richardiii.net [accessed 6 February 2026]

Windsor Castle was a royal residence since it was first built by William the Conqueror shortly after his accession in 1066, and due to its age, has undergone many changes and renovations since it was first built. These were not only commissioned to maintain existing buildings, but various apartments, towers and precincts were built there from scratch from the early medieval period.

Take a walk around Windsor today and you'll notice that some of the Tudor rooms no longer survive as Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn would have known them. Work on the castle was undertaken by later Tudors, but more extensively by Charles II, who made adjustments to many of the older apartments to make a palatial Baroque-inspired home. Luckily though, some of the Tudor building accounts still survive, which can give us a glimpse into how Anne Boleyn would have lived as queen at Windsor in around 1533, at the height of her influence. 

Anne Boleyn was born in around 1500/1501, and was the daughter of Sir Thomas Boleyn of Hever Castle, Kent. She spent some time in the French court as a young girl, learning royal manners and protocol. When she returned to England in her twenties, as a lady in waiting to the then Queen Katherine of Aragon, she immediately attracted Henry VIII's eye. He saw in Anne a chance to remove himself from his almost twenty-year marriage which had produced many pregnancies but only one living child, a daughter named Mary. Desperately looking to produce a son, he turned towards the younger Anne. Katherine and Henry's marriage, despite the queen's bitter protests, was annulled and Henry broke with Rome, bringing the spiritual health of the realm und his control, instead of the Pope's. Anne and Henry were married and Anne was crowned queen in June 1533, already pregnant with Henry's child. 

Windsor Castle (Jo Romero)

Interestingly, many of the castle's building accounts date to this year, which marked Anne's marriage to Henry, her anointing as queen, and her successful delivery of a daughter, Elizabeth. The previous year she had been at Windsor Castle to receive the title of Marquess of Pembroke, a move that brought Anne into the aristocracy in her own right and paved the way, in the rise in her social status, for marriage to the king.

When Anne was at Windsor she would have resided in  the old medieval lodgings built for the queen which were, up until recently, those of the now-divorced Katherine of Aragon. The queen's 'watching chamber', a reception room for Anne's guests on the first floor, had two chimneys, both of them repaired in June 1533. A 'great wyndow' was also repaired there in the same year, with another three windows referenced in the accounts books. There is another reference to decorators who daubed yellow and white paint on the 'stayers and galary ffrome the Kynges Chapell unto the Quenes Watchyng Chambre' in July 1533. There is also an entry for 'scouring' of a looking-glass 'in the roof of the Queen's Privy Chamber' that June, possibly reference to a skylight. The historian Sir William Henry St John Hope does mention that skylights appear elsewhere in these accounts and so did exist in the Tudor complex at Windsor.

rediAnne Boleyn, head and shoulders, in a roundel; below, a putto holding a torch downwards, Anne Boleyn's head and an axe. Engraving by J. Houbraken, 1738, after H. Holbein the younger. Wellcome Collection.  Source: Wellcome Collection.

Just north of her Privy Chamber, Anne had her own Great Chamber. She would have paused to look out of the grounds of the castle through the same bay window Elizabeth Woodville had gazed out of, built in 1479. Hope, in the early twentieth century, researched the location of Anne's chamber of estate and privy chamber at Windsor and believed they 'probably occupied the range towards the bailey between the watching chamber and the little turret on the west called La Rose'. I have looked at various maps of the castle and visited it often, but still can't place exactly where this would have been. If you do know, leave a comment below and I'll update the post.

Anne had more apartments in the castle, thought by Hope to have been 'contained in the first floor of King Henry VII’s building, and were approached from her dining chamber, through a narrow passage which formed her closet.' She also had access to her own stairs, today the Queen's Privy Stair', which led to the park. This is where she would have walked if she needed access to the Jewel house, which Hope stated was on the upper floor. 

Anne was newly crowned when glaziers set to work on new glass set in lead frames 'by the Closset', and commissioned a religious work too, the 'new settyng in lead the Image off saynt Peter'. In the same room, another 15 panes of glass were cleaned and repaired, all 'of imagery glass'. Anne's own bedchamber had a bay window which looked out towards the castle's bailey, and another bay window which was larger, facing north. From this room, Hope says that a doorway opened out into the armory, not full of swords and helmets but cupboards. More work on these windows was commissioned in June and July 1533. 

But even when Henry was dealing with state business, Anne wasn't alone at Windsor. There is evidence through these surviving accounts that her staff had lodgings on the ground floor, with family members also having chambers of their own near Anne. Her mother Elizabeth is mentioned, along with her sister Mary and sister-in-law Lady Rochford, married to Anne's brother George. Her uncle, James Boleyn and his wife also had their own chamber. The Lady Worcester is also mentioned as having a chamber near the queen's apartments. This was Elizabeth Somerset, Countess of Worcester, who would turn against Anne less than three years later and provide information to the king about her alleged treasonous activity. The accounts mention doorways, staircases and connecting rooms around Anne's own lodgings in the castle and it is likely that these saw many of the conspiracies and whispers that eventually brought the power of the queen crashing down in mid-1536. 

Anne's private apartments at Windsor then, according to the accounts of 1533 interpreted and built upon by Sir William Hope in 1913, offer a new look at how Anne might have lived when in residence at Windsor castle early in her reign. She would have reached her chambers via a stone staircase, the walls painted yellow and white. Her rooms were light and airy, with many windows, including large bay windows through which she could look out at the castle precincts. Other windows contained stained glass showing images of saints, including St Peter. There were chimneys and fireplaces to help keep her warm in the colder months, and she would have enjoyed the additions to the castle carried out by her father-in-law Henry VII in the 1490s and early 1500s. 

Tudor wills show that rooms were decorated in bright colours, often gilded and contained a wide range of textures. Anne's rooms would have been decorated in accordance of her rank as queen, with richly-worked tapestries, silk cushions and hangings around her bed for warmth and privacy. 

The Chapel of St George, where St George's Day celebrations and inductions into the Order of the Knight of the Garter were made, was a few minutes' walk from where she resided, and she would have visited the chapel and seen the suns and roses chiselled by stonemasons in Edward IV's reign. She may even have paused at the grave of Elizabeth Woodville, who had served as queen in similarly dangerous years. We also know that she was able to lodge members of her household and family near her, so they could provide advice, comfort and companionship in those early years as Henry's queen. 

Liked this? You might also like What Was Anne Boleyn Really Like?, Who Was Henry VIII's Favourite Wife? and Anne Boleyn's Tudor Apple Pie.

Did you know that Anne Boleyn had an influential female relative who was active during the Wars of the Roses? You can find out all about her and other forgotten women of the period in my book Forgotten Women of the Wars of the Roses published by Pen and Sword Books. It discusses many woman of the fifteenth century conflict that played parts we don't often hear about to day. You can Order your copy here.

Interested in Tudor history? You might also like my second book, Power Couples of the Tudor Era, published by Pen and Sword Books, which explores the contributions couples made to their own times as well as how they influenced our own. Order your copy here. 

Never want to miss a post? Subscribe to my newsletter here: 

Source: Sir William Henry St John Hope, Windsor Castle: An Architectural History. Volume 1. 1913. via Getty Research Institute, archive.org.

We don't tend to think too much about the city of Kingston-Upon-Hull in East Yorkshire in discussions of the Wars of the Roses. But it was in a strategic place on the east coast of the north of England, and was certainly affected by some of its events. Before the official outbreak of the conflict, there are signs that Henry VI's government attempted to improve local organisation and order. On 24 August 1441 the nineteen-year old king sent a letter instructing the mayor and aldermen of Hull to collect taxation for his war in France. There were also restrictions on their personal lives. In the same year it was stated that during his term of office the mayor was not permitted to sell ale or wine in his house, presumably to promote a public image of modesty, and when he appeared in public had to have the city's sword carried before him. In addition, no aldermen were to keep alehouses or taverns and the mayor was to attend all church services and council meetings wearing his gown of state. 

The medieval church of St Mary's Lowgate, Photo by Robert Stirling on Unsplash

The timing of these changes is interesting, as from the 1440s there was already dissatisfaction among Henry's subjects over his pious and gentle rule. The case of Thomas Kerver in 1444 is one example, when he was heard to complain loudly about the king being a 'boy' in the precincts of Reading Abbey. Soon afterwards he faced an executioner who placed a rope around his neck, surviving only when a rider approached at the last minute with the king's pardon.

The Wars of the Roses had not yet begun - the first official battle accepted as the First Battle of St Albans in 1455. But dissatisfaction and dissension relating to Henry's rule had already begun. Perhaps these commands were made to attempt to preserve order in a realm that the council could see was beginning to fracture into civil war. 

Henry also divided Hull into six wards. Each was to be governed by two aldermen, all of them overseen by the mayor. Aldermen were given significant responsibilities, including trying and punishing crimes, and were commanded to live in the ward they watched over. Medieval Hull had bars and gates which separated each ward, which were named Humber Ward, Austin Ward, Trinity Ward, White Friar Ward, St Mary's Ward and North Ward. Importantly, the town looked out into the Humber Estuary, and Henry made sure to provide a charter allowing them to spend £100 each year to defend it, important both for lingering enemies but also from the strong winds and erosion of the coast. Unsurprisingly, Hull showed gratitude to their king during a visit there in September 1448. He stayed for around three days, and members of the public came out to see the young 26-year-old son of the famous Henry V pass through their streets. 

Hull would have witnessed the effect of the Wars of the Roses for itself in the summer of 1450, as a wagon with a coffin set upon it slowly bumbled towards the Charterhouse. It contained the mutilated body of the murdered William de la Pole Duke of Suffolk, who had lived in Hull when young. His ancestral home was Suffolk Place, which now no longer survives but was a palatial home in the centre of the town, built in the fourteenth century. William had made enemies as a key advisor to Henry VI, with him and his wife Alice Chaucer often accused of influencing the king to achieve their own ends. To try and pacify his angry nobles and his favourite minister Henry sent William overseas to exile, probably hoping to recall him when the heat around him had died down. Instead, William boarded a ship which was intercepted by his enemies, who subjected him to a mock trial and beheaded him on the sea. His body was left on the shore. Hull's townspeople would have seen for themselves how quickly in this period fame and fortune could turn to disaster and downfall. William requested in his will, written early that year, to be buried in the Charterhouse at Hull, with a monument to his memory.

Hull's residents are known to have fought in battle for the king once the Wars began. Its mayor, Richard Hanson, was killed in the Battle of Wakefield in West Yorkshire. This was also the battle responsible for the death of Hanson's key opponent in the fight, Richard Plantagenet Duke of York, who had challenged Henry to the throne. York's son, Edmund Earl of Rutland was also killed. Later, York's head would be set up on a spike on York's Mickelgate Bar.

In an effort to raise money for the Lancastrian war effort, it was said that Hull's residents took down the market cross which had been put up in around 1452. It was dismantled and sold for materials, but as it had been erected by funds provided by former (and now deceased) mayor Robert Holme, the worried residents made sure to observe his anniversary instead by praying in his memory, ringing the church bells and burning candles around his grave. 

In 1461 Henry lost the throne to the eldest son of the Duke of York, Edward IV, who continued his father's fight for the crown. On his accession he removed his father's head from York's city walls. The mid-nineteenth century historian of Yorkshire, James Joseph Sheahan, believed that although Hull showed allegiance to their new Yorkist king, they still retained real faith in Henry VI, who was now in hiding. In 1470 Edward was captured and Henry was once again proclaimed king. This was due to the efforts of Richard Neville Earl of Warwick, often called 'The Kingmaker', as whichever side he was on during the conflict, it tended to successfully seize royal power. Sheahan saw significance in Edward arriving on the coast of Ravenspurn in 1471 to secretly claim back his kingdom, not marching into Hull but from Beverley to York. It is likely, as he argued, that Edward knew he would be resisted in the Lancastrian-allied town.

Although Edward arrived back in England (with troops) initially claiming interest only in restoring his property and not the crown, he was encouraged to gain back his kingship. His soldiers met Lancastrian forces at the Battle of Barnet in April 1471, to a resounding victory, with Richard Neville earl of Warwick killed. With the Kingmaker out of the way, Edward marched to Tewkesbury to meet the forces of Queen Margaret of Anjou, defeating them and capturing Margaret and her ladies who were nearby. Finding prominent Lancastrian knights hiding and claiming sanctuary in Tewkesbury Abbey it was said he ordered them dragged out of the religious building and executed. Henry VI was quietly murdered in imprisonment, so it is said, while he was praying in the Tower of London soon afterwards.

But it was not just a war that could carry off residents of a late fifteenth-century town. Plague raged in Hull during the 1470s, with prominent townspeople such as the magistrate John Whitfield and the mayors John Richardson and Thomas Alcock among its victims. Thousands died, which would have added further heartbreak and adversity to the town's residents. The people of Hull seem to have lived fairly quietly during the rest of Edward's reign, until his death in April 1483.

On the accession of Richard III, the north of England took centre stage. Richard's base had been traditionally in the north, and among his properties was Middleham Castle in North Yorkshire. Many Yorkshiremen gained an advantage under Richard, who rewarded their previous loyalty by giving them grants and positions of power in the south. On 17 October 1483 a proclamation was read out in the town, declaring the Duke of Buckingham and his adherents traitors to the crown. Buckingham had devised an uprising in the south in an attempt to undermine or unseat Richard. Many of his supporters, after the failure of the plot and Buckingham's execution, fled overseas to join Henry Tudor in Brittany. Taking the properties and lands of traitors into the hands of the crown, Richard redistributed many of them to his northern lords, which caused some to grumble, according to the Croyland Chronicler. The writer reported that bitter complaints were made against the new power of Richard's northern supporters, 'whom he planted in every spot throughout his dominions, to the disgrace and lasting and loudly expressed sorrow of all the people in the south, who daily longed more and more for the hoped-for return of their ancient rulers'.

Despite Hull not seeing battle in its streets, like in St Albans, or fighting on its borders, it had a strong presence during the Wars of the Roses. Allied to Lancaster, it switched outwardly to York on Edward's succession, but celebrated on Henry's return in 1470. Its residents saw the aftermath of rebellion, and citizens taking the law into their own hands, during Henry VI's weak rule as William de la Pole's coffin was led solemnly along its streets. Soldiers, wives, daughters and others waited for the return of soldiers who did not come home, and tried to lead a community beset with plague and adversity. 

You might also enjoy The Kings of the Wars of the Roses, The Queens of the Wars of the Roses and the Warrior Women of the Wars of the Roses.

Liked this? You might also like my book Forgotten Women of the Wars of the Roses, which discusses forgotten stories of women's roles in the conflict, from those who took up arms to innkeepers, midwives and negotiators working in the undercurrent of national events.  Order your copy here. 

Source: 

Sheahan, James Joseph. History and Topography of the City of York, the East Riding of Yorkshire, and a portion of the West Riding. Beverley, 1857