by Jean Stubbs
The tents glimmered fitfully in the half-light, and brighter still shone the fires, so that hill and plain seemed to harbour an army of glow-worms.
‘He has a good number,’ said Oxford quietly, ‘and good men, and the hill. Yet one cannot have all things, your grace, for the sun will be in their eyes.’
‘If you were the Lord of Hosts, good Oxford, what outcome would you prophesy?’
Oxford brooded, smoothing his cheeks and chin. For they were outnumbered two to one in any case, and Richard could count every man as a master of his craft. Moreover, Richard was a warrior, while Henry must lean upon the counsel of his commanders. Oxford had not seen a happier set of circumstances for the enemy in many years.
‘Your grace,’ he said, ‘I think not on prophecies but on a bright sword. And if every man wield his well on the morrow we need fear nothing.’
For a long time Henry stood in silence, knowing what Oxford meant beneath the bold words and steadfast face.
CHAPTER TWENTY
God that shope both sea and land,
& ffor all creatures dyed ont tree,
saue & keep the realme of England
to live in peace & tranquillitye.
Bosworth Feilde, Bishop Percy’s Folio MS.
King Richard sat in his pavilion on Harper’s Hill, having no more appetite for company than for the food they set before him. Presently he ordered both away, and sat in silence in his sombre finery, with the gold chain of York upon his breast heavy in alternate suns and white roses, and the white boar pendant gleaming as he shifted.
Throughout the year of 1484 he had been ready for invasion, setting men he could trust in important strongholds, piling arms in the Tower of London, prohibiting village games that they might practise archery instead. And none of his professional soldiers lacked a helmet, and those who could not afford armour had tunics stuffed with tow, and stout leather jackets, and every man was well-armed and used to battle.
He had ordered a trial mobilization of forces in Middlesex and Surrey and Hertfordshire, called upon all Sheriffs in England and Wales to resist the insatiable covetousness of the usurper, commanded the Commissioners of Array throughout the country to muster men, and sent Richard Williams to act as castellan of Pembroke, Tenby, Haverford West, Ciegarran and Tenby. What had become of Williams? The coasts were watched, beacons stacked with wood in readiness to be lit, a system of signalling lights set up on the hills. How had it come about that they heralded Henry Tudor and were not used against him? He guessed that Rhys ap Thomas had played him false, and Walter Herbert turned an old Yorkist coat, and many, many others besides. Except Madoc of Coetmor.
‘Here’s to you, Madoc!’ said Richard drily, raising his cup of wine. ‘The only true Welshman we have found!’
But one Welshman against such a multitude was no great comfort. Nor were those damned Welsh bards, that had said the Tudor would land at Milford. And since Milford-on-sea in Hampshire faced the French coast he had sent the royal fleet to guard it, and flung a wide embrace of squadrons round the south. And it was Milford Haven, after all. Still, had the invasion remained a motley force of eighteen hundred scurvy Frenchmen, and a matter of ragged Welsh with home-made spears, pottering and pillaging their way along the coast until their courage and supplies ran out, he would have feared nothing. But there was treachery at home. He had thought the Stanleys understood him, and needed him as much as he needed them, but Stanley’s Beaufort wife, and those captains who had already deserted to the other side, had weighed the scale sadly. And though he knew that Norfolk was for him he was not so sure of Northumberland, a surly fellow, jealous and dissatisfied. For the house of Percy had wielded supreme power in Yorkshire before Richard ruled it, and blamed him that the county gave its love and service elsewhere.
But still the royal summons to arms read like a very book of heraldry: sonorous, noble, ancient.
The Earls Norfolk, Surrey, Kent, Shrewsbury, Lincoln, Northumberland, Westmoreland. The Lords Zouch, Maltravers, Arundel, Wells, Grey of Condor, Bowes, Audley, Berkeley, Ferrers of Chartley, Ferrers of Groby, Fitzhugh, Scrope of Upsal, Scrope of Bolton, Dacres, Lumley, Greystocke. The Knights Spencer, Harbottle, Ward, Ridley, Moberly, Clutton, Horsley, Percy, Manners, Conway, Akerston, Gray, Sanfort, Thomas Brackenbury, Bowdrye, Robbye, Constable, Conyers, Wardley, Rosse, Sturley, Clyfton, North Stafford, Ryder, Utridge, Huntingdon, Willmarley, Swayley, Bryan, Stapleton, Ratcliffe, Mallinere, Dacres, Thoresby, Musgrave, Murkenfield, Broughton, Owen, Tempest, Ashton, Macklefield, Ward, Middleton, Goleburn, Neville, Hurlstean, Herne, and the Harringtons — James, Robert and Thomas.
And when he had ridden from Nottingham his army had stretched out for three miles along the road, with the royal banner of England fluttering in the hands of Triball the standard-bearer: three gold lions on crimson, three gold fleur-de-lis on azure, quartered. A singular of boars shining silver on the badges of his retainers; a pride of lions on Norfolk’s jackets; a forest of pennons flying swallow-tailed in the breeze. And they had marched and ridden in excellent order, being in no haste, knowing their strength and quality.
‘There are too many overmighty subjects!’ he said to himself.
Buckingham, clad in a blue velvet gown blazing with gold cartwheels at the coronation, turning his treacherous head aside as the crown was placed. Buckingham, boasting that he would have as many Stafford knots as ever did Warwick have ragged staves. Well, Buckingham had died like a traitor, and others would follow him.
‘But have we not sought to heal old wounds?’ he cried, bitter that they could turn against him.
The royal progress through the Midlands and the North, in the July and August of 1483, had been rich in benefices. He had excused the town of Oxford from its crown fee, and Worcester from its benevolences. He had restored the forests of Woodstock to their people, and bestowed money on Tewkesbury Abbey. Had made Gloucester a county in its own right, had rewarded his friends and been merciful enough with his enemies. And he had striven to attain a new standard of morality, urging England to be pure in mind and body, ordering his judges to be impartial as well as firm. He had always stood apart from the joyful fornication regarded as a nobleman’s right. He had beheaded the adulterous Hastings, and set his strumpet Jane Shore to open penance in the streets.
‘And benefices to Queen’s College,’ he murmured, ‘and seven hundred pounds to King’s College, and the bones of King Henry removed from Chertsey and buried right honourably. And Dame Elizabeth and her daughters brought out of sanctuary, and granted pensions.’
Which reminded him of the rumours concerning his marriage to Elizabeth of York, and that shameful public denial in the hall of the Knights of St John at Clerkenwell.
‘They slandered us,’ he said. ‘It was Rotherham that rumoured it!’
And the Chancellor of France at the opening of the States-General in Tours, crying that King Edward’s sons, already full-grown and noble, were put to death with impunity — and the royal crown transferred by the favour of the people to their murderer.
‘They slandered us!’ he cried, and the soldier on guard outside his tent started.
Enemies had noted, too, that his son had died a year almost to the day of King Edward’s death. They said that it was the will of God.
He saw again the sickly boy in his splendid clothes, too weak to ride a horse, borne through the loyal city of York in loud rejoicing. And out of gratitude Richard had remitted a large portion of their yearly taxes, though the Treasury could ill afford it. And when the boy died, and his two sturdy bastards flourished like two reproaches, he had grieved: signing the funeral expenses, and writing by the lad’s name in his own hand, whom God pardon — though the child needed none. And his wife died also, on a day when there was a great eclipse of the sun, and they had whispered about that too, and said he poisoned her.
‘They slandered us!’
But what of Rivers and Grey and Vaughan? What of Hastings? What of his own brother-in-law, Sir Thomas St Leger?
&n
bsp; ‘They were traitors.’
The tide that he and Buckingham had turned was running wilfully now in its own strength, carrying him and all before it.
And those he had called open murderers, adventurers, adulterers and extortioners; those who had daily sown seed of noise and slander against his person; led by a bastard captain, an unknown Welshman; now camped in White Moors and setting their greedy hands and eyes upon his crown.
He reached for the gold circlet and smoothed it, as he thought. He had considered every move. He had entrenched himself at Nottingham, whose town held the approach over the Trent, and commanded the main road to north and south, and a waterway of connections, whose castle on its sandstone cliff stood like a host of cares, in the middle of his realm.
We have been loyal to England, he thought. She should have shown like loyalty to us. We have been ever active on her behalf. More than two thousand documents we signed, to heal and to protect her.
The documents and the protection resolved itself into one document. And in his mind he saw three signatures. The hand of his nephew, Edward V, royally large and stiff — to show them that he knew his duty and his station; then his own neat italic script, with the motto, Loyaulte me lie — Loyalty bindeth me; and lastly Buckingham’s careless sprawl with his motto, Souvente me souvene — Remember me often.
‘Sire,’ said a timid voice, breaking into his thoughts, ‘the Bishop of Dunkeld would speak with your grace.’
He rose to greet him courteously, glancing at the ugly fellow who shambled behind.
‘We see you have a bodyguard, my lord bishop! Do you fear treachery against your cloth?’
The Bishop of Dunkeld, an ambassador of Scotland, had but come to pay his respects, and intended to be well out of the way of battle. He smiled and shook his head.
‘Nay, your grace, this is an ignorant fellow of poor parentage that I have raised up in my household. He follows me like a dog and has a good heart. He knows his place, sire, none better. His ears and mouth are stopped.’
‘But not his eyes,’ Richard observed, seeing that the man was captivated by the beauty of the gold crown. ‘What is he called?’
‘His name is of no import, sire, but since you are gracious enough to ask it is McGregor.’
‘This is the crown of England, McGregor,’ said Richard loudly, to the fellow’s evident rapture. ‘And we purpose to wear it in battle, that live or die we shall be king of England.’
McGregor stared from the royal circlet to the royal face and back again, fascinated. This was the nearest he would ever get to glory, and his lips moved as he mentally re-told the tale and magnified it.
‘I had not thought to stay, sire,’ said the bishop hesitating, ‘but I am told you have no chaplains with you. Your grace is welcome to my poor services of intercession for the morrow.’
‘My lord bishop,’ said Richard impatiently, ‘if we have no chaplains that is our intention, not our fault. Should our quarrel be godly we need no supplication. And if it is not then prayers were a dire blasphemy.’
The bishop bowed, exchanged a few courtesies, and called McGregor to heel. The fellow was refining and shaping his imaginary story to the point where it became a personal confidence between himself and the monarch, and he jumped at the command.
‘Make your bow to the king, you stupid dog,’ whispered the bishop, irritated by the man’s gaping.
‘Why he bows to the crown,’ cried Richard, grimly amused, setting it on the table at his side, and then his hand moved to his sword.
Shouts and scuffles outside the tent brought both king and bishop out to ascertain the cause, pushing the rough fellow aside in their haste. And yet the tumult was nothing: a matter of two soldiers finding they shared the same sweetheart, and over-ready with their knives.
The crown gleamed from the shadows of the tent, where Richard had set it down, and McGregor put forward a coarse finger to stroke it. Its radiance bemused his small eyes. Its touch was magnetic, persuading him to lift it in both hands and place it momentarily upon his shaggy head. Bewitched, he thrust it in his shirt and ran. Ran like a madman and felt like a king, with the treasure cool and heavy against his dirty flesh. He possessed it for almost three minutes before they flung him down, and dragged him unrepentant before Richard.
‘My father was hangit,’ said McGregor stoutly, in explanation, ‘and his father before him. The one for stealing sheep, the other for stealing cattle. And so shall I be hangit in my turn — not for a mangy sheep or a wee bit cattle, but for a thing of great price. Aye, sire — and my lord bishop — I stole the Crown of England. And I’m proud on it!’
He had condemned himself out of his own mouth and pronounced his own sentence, so they took him away to see that justice was roughly done.
And the crown shone in the dark tent, while the king groaned in his dreams, and started up, teeth clenched; and sought rest that would not come, and cried down phantoms that rose again; on the eye of Bosworth Field.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
... after the conflict the blood of stallions
and a bewildering fear among the folk:
And the sweat upon the shirts and blows on the body,
and the water in the jerkins, and Deira in pain,
and joy upon joy with the innocent.
Ode to St David on the eve of Bosworth, Dafydd Llwyd, fifteenth century
Others had slept no better, and the herald from Henry Tudor, at dawn on St Bartholomew’s Eve, 22 August, found an unshaven and ill-tempered Lord Stanley growling in his tent. He hovered over the courteous request that he should join forces and array for battle, looking like some ancient bloodhound, with his long jowls and drooping lids.
‘Commend me unto King Henry,’ said Stanley drily, ‘and inform him to set his own folks in order. I shall come to him in good time.’
Slowly he accepted the armour from his bearer, and slowly donned it piece by plated piece: sabatons and greaves, cuisses and poleyns, breast-plate and fauld, gorget and pauldrons, vambraces and couters; lined and padded for comfort, hinged with steel, dimpled on the inner side from the blows of the hammer that wrought it.
And his thoughts moved distractedly from York to Lancaster and back again. On Harper’s Hill his son lay in perilous custody. Outside, his cavalry put on their proud scarlet and looked to their horses, and a quarter of a mile away his brother’s bowmen gathered under the banner of the White Hart. Between them they had close on six thousand troops, all symbols of their power. But more than these, though involving all of them, the future of the Stanleys lay in the balance.
‘Now how should I choose aright?’ he asked himself, and shook his head.
The herald from Richard was less gracious than the Tudor courier. Blanch Sanglier bowed as curtly as a man could, almost on the verge of ill manners, and delivered a royal ultimatum. The king commanded the Lord Stanley to join with him against the enemy forthwith, and his disobedience should cost him his son’s head.
The command did not make up Stanley’s mind for him, but it did arouse his pride. He was not, after all, hesitating from cowardice but from caution. Holding his noble helm in both his hands, the old eagle stared at the herald doughtily.
‘Tell the king I have other sons,’ he said.
And now he completed the ritual of dressing with greater satisfaction, though his heart was heavy. He tested the gleaming curve-edged blade of his pole-axe and ran his fingers lovingly over its flukes, twirling the shaft as a preliminary warming-up. In the left side of his waist-belt he thrust the long dagger. On the right side hung his great sword in its leather straps, and the bearer fastened the scabbard to his thigh. Lastly he set the helm upon his head and drew on his steel gauntlets, and accepted the round shield whose centre bore a golden eagle.
‘Well, Tom,’ he said to his armourer, who stood by to see that all was in good order, ‘you have done your alterations fairly. I am somewhat easier since these rivets were loosened, for though I am thin enough in the face my belly increases with
the years!’
‘The Lord Stanley’s girth is not yet as great as his might,’ the armourer murmured. ‘Your lordship looks very well — though I regret that you may not wear your crested helm in battle, for that is noblest of all.’
‘You make a coxcomb of me, Tom,’ said Stanley good-humouredly. ‘But though an eagle on a chapeau in fine gold, that hovers over an infant in its nest swaddled in azure, be princely for a tournament — it would serve me ill for less courtly purposes. Why, some rough fellow might shoot it off.’
Then he strode out to meet his brother.
‘How goes the field, Will?’
‘The king is on Ambien Hill with close on ten thousand men, and he looks to be adopting the Swiss formation. First a long screen of archers, spread out to seem more than they truly are, in the shape of a bent bow — with Surrey and Brackenbury on the left of them, and Norfolk on the right. Their flanks protected by two squadrons of two hundred cavalry each, and they in their turn protected by a thousand bowmen and artillerymen — and some with hand-guns, and they in turn backed by two thousand pikemen with spears nigh on three times their own height. Then the main ward, where the king himself commands, of some two thousand foot and fifteen hundred cavalry.’
‘Now Christ have mercy on us all,’ muttered Stanley, veering towards the Yorkists in his mind. ‘And what of my son, what of Henry Tudor?’
‘Oxford leads the van and has taken the major part of their forces with him. They look to be four thousand, with a skirmisher line of French and Welsh and English bowmen. Behind them, the Shropshire levies at the right under Talbot, Savage and his men on the left, with Sanford and Digby as his captains. Then Henry Tudor, Pembroke and Rhys ap Thomas lead the main ward of Welshmen, backed by their field pieces, which are not many.’
