Charles Arthur John Armstrong (born 1909), known as John Armstrong, was a leading post-war English

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the st ...

, known for his studies of the

First Battle of St Albans The First Battle of St Albans, fought on 22 May 1455 at St Albans, 22 miles (35 km) north of London, traditionally marks the beginning of the Wars of the Roses in England. Richard, Duke of York, and his allies, the Neville earls of Salisb ...

and the medieval

Duchy of Burgundy The Duchy of Burgundy (; la, Ducatus Burgundiae; french: Duché de Bourgogne, ) emerged in the 9th century as one of the successors of the ancient Kingdom of the Burgundians, which after its conquest in 532 had formed a constituent part of the ...

Early life and discovery of the Mancini MS

Educated at Harrow School, he became one of a district group of English historians from

Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to th ...

, along with K. B. McFarlane and E.F. Jacob.Allmand, C., 'C. A. J. Armstrong (1909–1994),' ''Renaissance Studies'' 9. (1995), 123–126 On leaving Oxford, he worked briefly for the

Diplomatic Service Diplomatic service is the body of diplomats and foreign policy officers maintained by the government of a country to communicate with the governments of other countries. Diplomatic personnel obtains diplomatic immunity when they are accredited to o ...

and it was whilst working in this capacity in

Lille Lille ( , ; nl, Rijsel ; pcd, Lile; vls, Rysel) is a city in the northern part of France, in French Flanders. On the river Deûle, near France's border with Belgium, it is the capital of the Hauts-de-France region, the prefecture of the N ...

Municipal Library in 1934 that he discovered the until-then lost manuscript of

Dominic Mancini Dominic Mancini ( it, Domenico Mancini) was an Italian monk who visited England in 1482–3. He witnessed the events leading up to Richard III being offered the English crown. He left in 1483 and wrote a report of what he had witnessed. He calle ...

's account of the reign of

Edward V of England Edward V (2 November 1470 – mid-1483)R. F. Walker, "Princes in the Tower", in S. H. Steinberg et al, ''A New Dictionary of British History'', St. Martin's Press, New York, 1963, p. 286. was ''de jure'' King of England and Lord of Ireland fro ...

and the accession of his uncle, Richard III in the summer of 1483. He presented a description of this in ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' (f ...

'' the same year, and then proceeded to translate and transcribe the manuscript. Since described as 'a model of precise scholarship,' it was published by the

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...

as ''The Usurpation of Richard III'' in July 1936.

Career

He joined Hertford College as a Tutor in Modern History the following year, and taught there for the next thirty years, eventually being elected a

Fellow A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context. In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements. Within the context of higher education ...

of the college. Many of his postgraduate students went on to have notable careers as historians themselves. His career was not without incident: 'intolerant of cant or hypocrisy,' wrote Saul, he would prefer to leave the college's

High Table The high table is a table for the use of fellows (members of the Senior Common Room) and their guests in large university dining halls in anglo-saxon countries, where the students eat in the main space of the hall at the same time. They remain ...

and dine with the

undergraduates Undergraduate education is education conducted after secondary education and before postgraduate education. It typically includes all postsecondary programs up to the level of a bachelor's degree. For example, in the United States, an entry-le ...

if he disapproved of the dinner company forced upon him. He published articles widely; the article being the vehicle of choice in the period, he was, in

Nigel Saul Nigel Saul (born 1952) is a British academic who was formerly the Head of the Department of History at Royal Holloway, University of London (RHUL). He retired in 2015 and is now Emeritus Professor. He is recognised as one of the leading experts i ...

's words, 'by nature a

miniaturist A portrait miniature is a miniature portrait painting, usually executed in gouache, watercolor, or enamel. Portrait miniatures developed out of the techniques of the miniatures in illuminated manuscripts, and were popular among 16th-century eli ...

.' His interests ranged from the piety of Cecily Neville, Duchess of York, to the coronation ceremonies of

Yorkist The House of York was a cadet branch of the English royal House of Plantagenet. Three of its members became kings of England in the late 15th century. The House of York descended in the male line from Edmund of Langley, 1st Duke of York, t ...

kings, to the

; his detailed analysis of the latter, according to Michael Hicks, can be considered 'the last word' on the subject.Hicks, M.A., 'Propaganda and the First Battle of St Albans', ''Nottingham Medieval Studies'' 44 (2000), 168

Personal life

He was married to another

scholar A scholar is a person who pursues academic and intellectual activities, particularly academics who apply their intellectualism into expertise in an area of study. A scholar can also be an academic, who works as a professor, teacher, or researc ...

, Elizabeth Tyler, Emerita Fellow of

Somerville College Somerville College, a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England, was founded in 1879 as Somerville Hall, one of its first two women's colleges. Among its alumnae have been Margaret Thatcher, Indira Gandhi, Dorothy Hodgkin, ...

, Oxford, who herself wrote upon sixteenth-century France. He died 9 August 1994 at the age of eighty-five.

Selected bibliography

*''The Usurpation of Richard the Third: Dominicus Mancinus ad Angelum Catonem de Occupatione Regni Anglie per Riccardum Tercium Libellus'',

, 1936. *'Some examples of the distribution and the speed of news in England at the time of Wars of the Roses,' in Hunt, R.W., Pantin, W.A., Southern, R.W. (eds.), ''Studies in medieval history presented to Frederick Maurice Powicke'', Oxford, 1948. *‘Politics and the Battle of St. Albans, 1455’, '' Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research,'' 1960. *''England, France and Burgundy in the fifteenth century,'' London, 1983. *'Some examples of the distribution and speed of news in England at the time of the Wars of the Roses,' ''Medieval History'', 1991. *'Les ducs de Bourgogne, interprètes de la pensée politique du XVe siècle,' ''Annales de Bourgogne'', 1995.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Armstrong, C. A. J. 1909 births 1994 deaths People educated at Harrow School Alumni of Hertford College, Oxford