Dominic Mancini ( it, Domenico Mancini) was an Italian monk who visited England in 1482–3. He witnessed the events leading up to

Richard III Richard III (2 October 145222 August 1485) was King of England and Lord of Ireland from 26 June 1483 until his death in 1485. He was the last king of the House of York and the last of the Plantagenet dynasty. His defeat and death at the Battl ...

being offered the English crown. He left in 1483 and wrote a report of what he had witnessed. He called it: ''De Occupatione Regni Anglie per Riccardum Tercium'' ('The Occupation of the Throne of England by Richard III').Weir, ''Princes in the Tower'', at 2–3. The account is a major source of information about the period, but it sat unread in a French library 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 Regions of France, region, the Pref ...

until rediscovered in 1934. Mancini's report was written for Angelo Cato,

Archbishop of Vienne The Archbishopric of Vienne, named after its episcopal seat in Vienne in the Isère département of southern France, was a metropolitan Roman Catholic archdiocese. It is now part of the Archdiocese of Lyon. History The legend according to whi ...

, one of the counsellors of King

Louis XI of France Louis XI (3 July 1423 – 30 August 1483), called "Louis the Prudent" (french: le Prudent), was King of France from 1461 to 1483. He succeeded his father, Charles VII. Louis entered into open rebellion against his father in a short-lived revo ...

and also his doctor and

astrologer Astrology is a range of divinatory practices, recognized as pseudoscientific since the 18th century, that claim to discern information about human affairs and terrestrial events by studying the apparent positions of celestial objects. Dif ...

. Although some historians think Mancini arrived in England at the end of 1482, others believe he got there just before Edward IV died (9 April 1483). He returned to

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

sometime between the

coronation A coronation is the act of placement or bestowal of a coronation crown, crown upon a monarch's head. The term also generally refers not only to the physical crowning but to the whole ceremony wherein the act of crowning occurs, along with the ...

on 6 July 1483 – before the

princes A prince is a male ruler (ranked below a king, grand prince, and grand duke) or a male member of a monarch's or former monarch's family. ''Prince'' is also a title of nobility (often highest), often hereditary, in some European states. The ...

disappeared – and the delivery of his report in December the same year. It is not clear how much English Mancini understood, and much of what was happening in England while he was there had to be translated for him. A possible source was Dr John Argentine, an opponent of Richard who became a member of Henry VII's court and who spoke Italian. Argentine was the doctor who was treating the elder prince, Edward V, while he was in the Tower and is one of the last persons known to have seen the two princes alive. Mancini's report was lost for centuries but was discovered in the Municipal Library in

, France, in 1934. As far as is known, Mancini never met King Richard, but he repeated the

gossip Gossip is idle talk or rumour, especially about the personal or private affairs of others; the act is also known as dishing or tattling. Gossip is a topic of research in evolutionary psychology, which has found gossip to be an important means ...

and rumours that were current about the activities of the royal family; these included the "suspicion" that Richard's nephews had been done away with. Guillaume de Rochefort,

Lord Chancellor of France In France, under the ''Ancien Régime'', the officer of state responsible for the judiciary was the Chancellor of Francesometimes called Grand Chancellor or Lord Chancellor (french: Chancelier de France). The Chancellor was responsible for seei ...

, repeated the rumour in the '' Estates-General'' in

Tours Tours ( , ) is one of the largest cities in the region of Centre-Val de Loire, France. It is the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Departments of France, department of Indre-et-Loire. The Communes of France, commune of Tours had 136,463 ...

in January 1484, adding that Richard III had "massacred" the princes and then been given the crown "by the will of the people"; he may have obtained his information from Mancini's report. The French used this intelligence as an excuse for assisting Henry's invasion.

Works

* Mancini, Dominic, ''The Usurpation of Richard the Third'', ( C.A.J. Armstrong, translator), Sutton Publishing (1984) * Mancini, Dominic. ''Domenico Mancini de occupatione regni Anglie'', (Introduction, historical notes and translated by

Annette Carson Annette Josephine Carson is a British non-fiction author specialising in history, biography and aviation, with a particular interest in King Richard III. Since 2002 she has also been an advocate for UK state pension parity for UK expatriates. ...

), Imprimis Imprimatur (2021) ISBN 978-0-9576840-6-5

Notes

References

* Charles Ross, ''Richard III'', University of California Press, Berkeley, CA (1981) *

Alison Weir Alison Weir ( Matthews; born 1951) is a British author and public historian. She primarily writes about the history of English royal women and families, in the form of biographies that explore their historical setting. She has also written nu ...

, ''The Princes in the Tower'', Ballantine (1993) {{DEFAULTSORT:Mancini, Dominic 15th-century Italian Christian monks 15th century in England Year of birth unknown Year of death unknown Richard III of England Italian expatriates in England Italian memoirists