Butt of malmsey

On 18 February 1478, George, Duke of Clarence was privately executed with within the Tower of London. Tradition has it, immortalised by Shakespeare in Richard III, that the Duke was drowned in a butt of malmsey.

Relations between King Edward IV and his brother George, Duke of Clarence, had been fraught ever since the late 1460s.^[1] Edward had tried to prevent the Duke's first marriage, to Isabel, daughter of Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick.^[2][3] Although Clarence had returned to Edward's side in 1471, he was no longer fully trusted.^[4][5] Clarence felt that he had multiple legitimate reasons for unrest.^[6] Following his wife's death, he proposed that he should marry again, this time to Duchess Mary of Burgundy. Edward again refused to allow it, and prohibited the match;^[7] the two brothers were, by now, on "thoroughly hostile terms".^[8]

In 1476, Clarence was arrested on charges of spreading slander and usurping royal authority; the following year he was put on trial and attainted.^[9] Found guilty, he was sentenced to death. Legend has it that he was drowned in a butt of malmsey, but the veracity of the story has never been proven or disproven, and it is unknown whether, if it happened, it was deliberate or accidental.^[10][11]

The butt (from the medieval French botte)^{[12][note 1]} as a unit of volume, was legally standardised in the 15th century at 126 imperial gallons (570 litres).^[13] The name stems from the elongated, pipe-like coopered casks used for large volume wine storage.^[12]

The word malmsey is a corruption of Malvasia, and was often used as a generic term for any sweet, richly-bodied Greek wine, particularly from Crete. Being so much sweeter than north European wines made them concomitantly higher in alcohol content and as such they were favoured all the more in those countries. The increase in trade between England and Venice in the 15th century^[14] led to a growth in malmsey's popularity among the wealthy,^{[15][note 2]} and it was considered an extravagant gift.^[17]

This was such an unusual mode of execution in Medieval England that it is not known to have been used on any other occasion. Yet it is reported by the earliest commentators, such as Dominic Mancini who stated that it was adjudged "that [Clarence] should die by being plunged in a jar of sweet wine",^[18] and the contemporary Croyland Chronicle, although more noncommittal, like other contemporary writers never suggested any other death. No official statement has ever been uncovered.^[4]

Hicks concludes that the method was "extraordinary", and questions whether it may have been Clarence's own choice.^[19] The 19th-century historical writer Agnes Strickland suggested that it could have been accidental—that he fell into the barrel—on the grounds that Clarence was known to be particularly fond of malmsey, and that he was in the habit of drinking it to excess.^[20] Likewise, George Edwin Roberts considered that the Duke may well have chosen "drowning his cares in wine as well as his body"^[14]

In a near-contemporary French manuscript is contained a poem, regarding Clarence's death. Titled La Légende de Maitre Pierre Faiferi, it also reflects the malmsey hypothesis in the 15th century consciousness.

In Shakespeare's Richard III, the First Murderer refers to it twice in front of the Duke: "throw him into the malmsey butt in the next room", and "I'll drown you in the malmsey butt within".^[21]

The affair is also referred to in the late-Elizabethan play, Edward IV, attributed to Thomas Heywood.^{[22][note 3]} Dr Shaw, hurrying to the Tower to shrive Clarence, meets Francis, Lord Lovell coming from the same place; Lovell, a close associate of Clarence and Edward's brother Richard III, Duke of Gloucester, informs Shaw that he saw Clarence dead, "of a fly's death, drowned in a butt of malmsey". Shaw queries whether it could have been suicide; Lovell disabuses him saying "he had some helpers ... with the Duke of Gloucester's".^[22]

Charles Dickens, in his A Child's History of England, wrote that Clarence's death was at the hands of Edward, Richards, or both, and that "he was told to choose the manner of his death, and that he chose to be drowned in a butt of malmsey". Dickens believed this to be a fitting end "for such a miserable creature".^[26][27]

• Ashley, L. R. N. (1968). Authorship and Evidence : A Study of Attribution and the Renaissance Drama : Illustrated by the case of George Peele (1556-1596). Études de Philologie et d'Histoire. Geneva: Librairie Droz. ISBN 978-2-600-03882-9. OCLC 43881.
• Boulton, C. (2013). Encyclopaedia of Brewing. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 978-1-11859-813-9.
• Chambers, E. K. (1923). The Elizabethan Stage. Vol. II. London: Oxford University Press. OCLC 318670575.
• Cook, D. R. (2014). Lancastrians and Yorkists: The Wars of the Roses (repr. ed.). Abingdon: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-31788-097-4.
• Dickens, C. (1852). A Child's History of England. Vol. II. Bradbury & Evans. ISBN 978-93-86423-67-2. OCLC 558191647.
• Gambles, R. (2013). Great Tales from British History: Was Queen Victoria Ever Amused?. Stroud: Amberley. ISBN 978-1-44561-349-9.
• Hicks, M. A. (1980). False, Fleeting, Perjur'd Clarence: George, Duke of Clarence 1449–1478. Gloucester: Alan Sutton. ISBN 978-1-87304-113-0.
• Hicks, M. A. (2004). "George, Duke of Clarence (1449–1478)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 11 January 2025.
• Heywood, T. (2005). Rowland, R. (ed.). The First and Second Parts of King Edward IV: By Thomas Heywood. The Revels Plays. Manchester: Manchester University Press. ISBN 978-0-7190-1566-3.
• Kettle, A. (2005). "Parvenues and Politics: The Woodvilles, Edward IV and the Baronage 1464-1469". The Ricardian. 15: 94–113. OCLC 11995669.
• Mancini, D. (1969). Armstrong, C. A. J. (ed.). De Occupatione Regni Anglie per Riccardum Tercium libellus" [The Usurpation of Richard the Third] (in Latin and English). Oxford: Clarendon Press.
• Pollard, A. J. (2004). "Neville, Richard, 16th Earl of Warwick and 6th Earl of Salisbury [Called the Kingmaker]". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 11 January 2025.
• Roberts, G. E. (1869). Cups and their Customs. London: J. Van Voorst. OCLC 1746348.
• Robinson, J.; Harding, J. (2015). The Oxford Companion to Wine (2nd ed.). Frome: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19870-538-3.
• Ross, C. D. (1974). Edward IV. Berkeley: University of California Press. OCLC 1259845.
• Rowland, Richard (2005). ""Speaking some words, but of no importance"? Stage Directions, Thomas Heywood, and "Edward IV"". Medieval & Renaissance Drama in England. 18: 104–122. ISSN 0731-3403. JSTOR 24322606.
• Shakespeare, W. (2009). Siemon, J. R. (ed.). The Tragedy of King Richard the Third. 3rd. London: Arden Shakespeare. ISBN 978-1-90343-689-9.
• Strickland, A. (1894). Kaufman (ed.). Lives of the Queens of England: From the Norman Conquest. Vol. I (R. ed.). Boston: Estes & Lauriat. OCLC 41802441.
• Unwin, T. (1996). Wine and the Vine: An Historical Geography of Viticulture and the Wine Trade. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-13476-191-3.