Nicholas Colfox
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Sir Nicholas Colfox (flourished 1400) is the target of the slanderous accusation in Chaucer's Nun's Priest's Tale:
'A colfox, ful of sly iniquitee...
'As gladly doon thise homicydes alle,
'That in awayt liggen to mordre men.
'O false mordrer, lurking in thy den!'
In 1397, at Calais, Nicholas Colfox murdered the King's uncle, Thomas of Woodstock (1st Duke of Gloucester). He was instructed personally by Thomas Mowbray, Earl of Nottingham, Governor of Calais in whose charge Gloucester was held after his recent arrest on the King's order.
Colfoxes were well connected, educated Lollard Knights, deriving their wealth from the luxury trades of salt and wool and obtaining their name from the trade in black fox fur which underwrote the re-circulation of trade cash from the Far East during the Dark Ages.
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[edit] Chaucer's Riddle
[edit] Chaucer Decoded
Shakespearean scholar,Guggenheim Fellow and Fellow of King's College, Cambridge, the late Harvard Professor J Leslie Hotson, (1897-1992) published Nicholas Colfox's story in PMLA XXXIX 1924, explaining Chaucer's use of his unusual name, not appearing elsewhere in English literature. He traced Nicholas's Parliamentary denouncement, the petition by the then knighted Sir Nicholas Colfox and his subsequent pardon in 1404 (available online from the British Library).
[edit] Collective family denial
After Nicholas Colfox was prominently denounced in Parliament in 1398, slanderously attacked by Chaucer and later obliquely scandalised by Shakespeare and all his co-murderers horribly executed, not surprisingly the family Colfox family forgot this event for half a millennium.
Hotson's source was probably (ERJ Keels) paid ten shillings in 1923 to research the antecedents of Sir (William) Philip Colfox. Sir Philip (then a Member of Parliament) did not take up the offer to receive an eye witness account of the murder, but, regardless, J Leslie Hotson published his comprehensive research in America a year later. The rest of the family did not discover this surprise, known since 1924 to Chaucerian scholars, until 2006.
[edit] Contemporary and Shakespearean Sources
Jean Froissart in his contemporary, 14th Century Chronicle described the event and the four murderers were shown strangling the Duke with towels in an illustration now in the Louvre, but he failed to name them.
Shakespeare's main source was Holinshed see John Julius Norwich's Shakespeare's Kings. In Richard II Shakespeare described the backlash resulting from the murder.
[edit] Consequences of the Murder
The rewards for the murder of Thomas of Woodstock were substantial. Six months after the overthrow of the other Lords Appellant with the murder of Thomas of Woodstock and execution of the Earl of Arundel, Thomas Mowbray was made first Duke of Norfolk and the first Hereditary Earl Marshall. Mowbray's grandmother, the Countess of Norfolk was made Duchess. John of Gaunt's son Henry Bolingbroke, Earl of Derby was made Duke of Hereford.
[edit] Backlash to the Murder - According to Shakespeare
The blood feud between Thomas Mowbray and Henry Bolingbroke that followed the murder is the subject of much of Shakespeare's Richard II. The King stopped the duel to prevent national unrest and exiled both Mowbray and Bolingbroke. John of Gaunt died of grief. Richard II confiscated his estates and Gaunt's heir, Bolingbroke, invaded successfully and became Henry IV.
[edit] Colfox vs. Chauntecleer
Hotson's thesis, entitled Colfox vs Chauntecleer, is that Chaucer's Nun's Priest's Tale is an allegory for the murder of Thomas of Woodstock by Nicholas Colfox and a coded accusation against both Colfox's employer, Thomas Mowbray and the latter's haughty conspirator, Bolingbroke. Chauntecleer - the cockerel in the allegory - is described in colours unknown to any breed of cockerel but which coincide with those of Bolingbroke. Scholars have criticised Hotson's theory by suggesting that Chauntecleer's colours are in fact similar to those of the Golden Spangled Hamburg cockerel. But this observation is incorrect. Hamburgs do not have the black beak, blue legs or pure golden plumage of Chauntecleer.
Modern critics do not refute Hotson's allegory, but believe that Chaucer's long version of the fable is written on many different levels of meaning.
[edit] Connection to the Marlowe Riddle
J Leslie Hotson, while hot on Colfox's 500 year old trail, coincidentally solved the 300 year old mystery of the true identity of the murderer of Christopher Marlowe - Ingram Frizer -see Atlantic Monthly June 1925, Tracking Down a Murderer. His The Death of Christopher Marlowe published one year later in 1925 by the Nonesuch and Harvard University Presses is still in print.
[edit] Colfox Family
[edit] Nicholas Colfox
Nicholas Colfox appears to have come from Nantwich in Cheshire where he owned several salt furnaces and accompanying shares in the salt springs. He also held property at Barton Seagrave from Thomas Mowbray, part of the latter's grandmother's Earldom of Norfolk. During Mowbray's exile, Barton Seagrave Castle was held by Richard Colfox, possibly Nicholas's son.
[edit] Colfox connection to Chaucer and Dorset
Colfoxes appear to have come to prominence after the Black Death with the growth of the wool trade and profilgate spending on luxury goods by Richard II.
The earliest national reference to a Colfox was the commissioning in 1357 by Edward III of Peter Colfox to rebuild the manor house at Marshwood, Dorset for his son, Lionel of Antwerp. On this site only 4 miles from the current Colfox estate at Symondsbury is a medieval castle now known as Marshwood Castle. Also in 1357 Chaucer appears as a page in the records of the household of Lionel's new wife, the Countess of Ulster. Later he accompanied Lionel on a military expedition to France and perhaps on his trip to marry his second wife, Violante, daughter of Galeazzo II Visconti, in Milan where two other literary stars also in attendance were Jean Froissart and Petrarch.
[edit] The meaning of "colfox"
It is not clear how the Colfoxes came to eminence in the reign of Richard II, however the Colfox name appears to derive from the Dutch/Friesian: koolvos, and German: kohlfuchs, referring to darkest shade of fox fur colour i.e. the black fox - a colour which exists only at certain times of the year in the Arctic. This word is almost non-existent in all languages and the only mention in English of colfox as anything other than a proper noun is in the Nun's Priest's tale. Colfoxes probably, therefore, obtained their substantial wealth and/or derived their name from outside England, more than likely from the ancient and lucrative black fox fur trade.
[edit] The black fox fur trade
The black fox fur trade in the Dark and Middle Ages was of global importance. Until the discovery of large silver deposits in the Harz mountains of Austria in 968 the flow of silver from the Middle East into Western Europe briefly balanced the drain of silver back to the Far East to pay for silk and spices. The increasing circulation of money consequent upon the luxury fur trade, especially black fox, hastened the decline of the feudal and barter economy of the Dark Ages.
Before the opening up of Northern trade routes by the Vikings as a result of global warming and the ensuing Viking expansion centred on Birka in Sweden, the trade route terminated in Northern Europe at the Frisian city of Dorestad until that city's final decline by 863. The earliest mention of Colfox in both Dorset (1280) and Cheshire (1270) is Colvox - a typical transliteration of the Dutch/Frisian vos for fox. Old Frisian is a major source of the Dorset Dialect studied by William Barnes and Symonds Udall which mirrors the source of early migration. A clan name of the early Kings of Wessex was "Ceol" (meaning prow or keel) e.g. Ceolwulf. But as a source of the Colfox name, the Dutch/Frisian "koolvos" sounds more probable.
[edit] Trade routes and monotheism
The six hundred year tradition of Colfox dissent might also be traceable to their involvement in the black fox fur trade.
During the Abbassid dynasty in Bagdad black fox fur was worth more than sable - up to 100 gold coins a pelt - and imports from the Vikings, Varangians or Rus eventually drained the dynasty of cash, leading to its insolvency. After its insolvency the silver mines of Central Asia likewise were drained. The trade route went via Bolghar at the junction of the Kama and Volga rivers. Initially the cash flowed through the hands of the Khazars who were newly converted to monotheistic Judaism and onwards to the Rus city of Novgorod. Later it came down the Kama river from the Urals, Central Asia, India and China beyond.
Often religions followed trade routes e.g. the early Apostolic Church of Britain at Glastonbury claims its ancient foundation "immediately after the Passion of Christ" by Joseph of Arimathea resulted from his following the ancient tin trade route across the rivers of France from Marseilles. (The Councils of Pisa, Constance, Sienna and Basle accorded precedence to English Bishops on these grounds). (See St. Joseph of Arimathea at Glastonbury by the Rev. Lionel Smithett Lewis M.A., 7th Edition, James Clark and Co Ltd, 1955).
[edit] Lollards and Black Fox Fur
In 1413, Richard Colfox, together with Sir John Oldcastle - a leading religious moderniser or Lollard in close contact with Jan Hus, a prominent religious reformer in Bohemia by then due to the Harz silver mines at the centre of the trade route - sold to the King a brooch for a "certain great sum of money" and of which 400 Marks remained unpaid, in an era when the crown jewels had been pawned for only 2,000 Marks . (The patent rolls are not clear if this "fornaculum" or "primaculum" is a brooch, a buckle or a furnace - perhaps a salt furnace at Nantwich).
Richard Colfox was a trusted and prominent Lollard. He was executor in 1404 to Sir Lewis Clifford a leading Lollard; and was himself in 1413 as a leading Lollard with Sir John Oldcastle and Sir Thomas Talbot made an outlaw.
[edit] Colfoxes and other luxury goods
Clearly the Colfoxes could have been longstanding dealers in luxury goods. It would account for their prominence and skill at avoiding execution (see Falstaff-Oldcastle-Talbot below). Chester was the centre outside London for luxury furs, Droitwich was the centre of the quality salt trade and West Dorset was one of the centres of the fine wool trade from which and in which Colfoxes excelled in later centuries.
From the time of King John the luxury fur trade had been reserved for the use of the King, the salt and wool trades were controlled by the King and provided him with much revenue. Coupled with Richard II's profligate spending on romantic luxuries it is not surprising that the Colfoxes came prominence at that time.
[edit] Falstaff - Oldcastle - Talbot
Oldcastle was, unfairly, the model for Shakespeare's Falstaff and despite many entreaties by his old friend Prince Hal (Henry V) refused to recant his Lollard beliefs. Having escaped, with help, from the Tower of London and led a rebellion with Richard Colfox and Sir Thomas Talbot he was eventually captured and like Nicholas's earlier co-murderers was horribly and scandalously executed, in his case by being hung and roasted over a slow fire. The Talbot knights survived and continued to earn great renown during the rest of the Hundred Years War and Wars of the Roses.
[edit] Colfoxes and Court life
In 1401 Richard Colfox was executor to Agnes de Arundel, a Lady of the Garter. Although he was not pardoned for his role in the Lollard uprising until 1415, he fought at Agincourt in 1415 and later received many manors and a living from the King and Lord Strange - a relative of Norfolk and Talbot.
Jenet Colfox appears to have been involved with Joan Talbot in 1412 in the gift of Thomas Hocchleve's illuminated De Regimine Principum to Henry V when Prince of Wales - now in the British Library.
[edit] Further Lollard Connections
Hoccleve's book contains the names of almost all the people mentioned in the story above. Joan Talbot and Jenet Colfox (perhaps wives of Sir Thomas Talbot and Richard Colfox, Lollard outlaws) appear to have been involved in the gift. It contains an illustration of Chaucer. Hocchleve also addressed a remonstrance to Sir John Oldcastle (chief Lollard outlaw) and dedicated some of his work to Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester in whose retynue Richard Colfox fought at Agincourt. It is thought that Chaucer had been married into John of Gaunt's family, to whose grandson the gift was made, and John of Gaunt had long protected Wycliffe - the founder of the Lollard movement.
[edit] Later Colfoxes
Colfoxes have retained their dissenting/Lollard/monotheistic tradition to the 20th Century as monotheistic Unitarians.
They also stayed in the luxury goods business until the present day.
Later generations of the Colfox family produced Schuyler Colfax, Vice President of America 1869-73, who, together with all American Colfaxes, traces his descent back to William Colfox who left Bridport Dorset in 1630.
The only Colfoxes who survive are those based around Symondsbury, near Marshwood in Dorset. Apart from one relative currently residing in Cheshire.
