Crowland's world: A Westminster view of the Yorkist age

The Second Anonymous Crowland Continuation is the premier chronicle of the Yorkist age. It also provides unique access to the mental world of its author, a senior cleric in the royal secretariat, and through him to that of his milieu, the civil service at Westminster. He was a 'fly on the wall', who witnessed everything but apparently influenced nothing. He may not have understood all he saw, but he remembered almost all of it, including, most pricelessly, the successive changes of mind so often retrospectively rationalized out. Crowland emerges as a mixture of high principle and sometimes naively, blatant prejudices and worldly cynicism. This article also shows that he was capable of silent criticism and even condemnation of the actions that he observed and executed. He offers important insights to his world.