William Collingbourne

William Collingborn (c. 1435–1484) was an English landowner and administrator. He was an opponent of King Richard III – corresponding with his enemies and penning a famous lampoon – and was eventually executed for treason.

Family background and marriage

Collingbourne's family originated from the villages bearing their name – Collingbourn Abbas and Collingbourne Ducis in Wiltshire. His first known ancestor was a Thomas Colynborn of Marleberg (Marlborough), who lived before 1377. Thomas' grandson Richard Collingbourne, of Bedewynde (Great Bedwyn), was Clerk of the Peace in Wiltshire in 1390, Member of Parliament for Marlborough in 1402 and Collector of Taxes in 1413 and 1417. He married Jean Russel and had three sons called Robert, John and William. This William attended college 1422–1427 and received several offices from 1441 to 1462. However, he was probably not the William Collingbourne of historical fame but rather his uncle, as a namesake is mentioned as the son of Robert Collingbourne.

Sometime before 1474, he married Margaret, daughter and heiress of John Norwood and widow to a Sir James Pykeryng. From her first marriage, Margaret had at least two children – Edward and Elen. Her second marriage produced two daughters: Margaret, who later married a George Chaderton, and Jane, who married a James Louder or Lowther, MP for Marlborough in 1491–92. Accordingly, Gairdner's interpretation has been contradicted by other historians, most notably Paul Murray Kendall, who dated the treasonous correspondence in July 1484 and thus in context of his lampoon. Kendall argued both the Marquess of Dorset's joining of Henry Tudor and negotiations with French ambassadors occurred only in 1484, whereas the mentioning of Brittany and Poole was not conclusive evidence.

Collingbourne was indicted not only for his correspondence with Henry Tudor, but also for "writing various bills and writings in rhyme", without specifying the rhymes. Robert Fabyan's chronicle, published in 1516, first relate that in July 1484, Collingbourne pinned the following lampoon to the door of St. Paul's Cathedral: The Catte, the Ratte and Lovell our dogge rulyth all Englande under a hogge.

The reasons for Collingbourne's enmity are not entirely clear. In 1892, James H. Ramsay suggested that the lampoon was written "in revenge for the loss of offices in Wiltshire". Collingbourne's name does not appear among the commissions of peace in December 1483. Furthermore, in a letter of 3 June 1484, by King Richard asked his mother Cecily Neville, Duchess of York that "my lord Chamberlain ... be your officer in Wiltshire in such as Colyngbourne had". This suggests that Collingbourne had been steward of the Duchess' Wiltshire lands and that both his correspondence and his lampoon were written in response to having lost this position. This loss may have been linked to his involvement in Buckingham's rebellion, either because he was dismissed

Tudor author Edward Hall relates that he was executed merely "for making a small rhyme", a claim taken up by later authors, but historian Charles Ross pointed out that Hall "carefully suppresses the fact that the real indictment against him was that he had been encouraging Henry Tudor to land at Poole".