Blood Sisters: The Women Behind the Wars of the Roses

by Sarah Gristwood

  Chapter 17: “Look to Your Wife”

  Sometime that month, Elizabeth’s daughters left sanctuary: Vergil says, “When the queen as thus qualified, king Richard received all his brothers’ daughters out of sanctuary into the court,” which might seem to show that they went to court immediately. But a precise timescale was not necessarily the priority of the contemporary chroniclers. Vergil also implies that all of this happened after the queen’s writing to bring her son Dorset home, which other evidence shows to have happened a year later. Crowland writes that Elizabeth Woodville (“after frequent entreaties as well as threats”) “sent all her daughters out of the sanctuary at Westminster before mentioned to King Richard”—that is, into his charge—implying, however, that this happened rather earlier than other evidence suggests.

  quietly allowed to join her: Even a location for the family’s secret residence has been suggested by one of Richard’s modern supporters, Audrey Williamson: Gipping Hall in Suffolk, seat of the Tyrell family, whose own tradition suggests that royal children lived “by permission of the Uncle.” Williamson, The Mystery of the Princes: An Investigation into a Supposed Murder, 122–124. We will, of course, be hearing of Sir James Tyrell later: this would not only cast a new light on his relations to the Princes, but also explain why Henry Tudor might later feel the need to put a very different spin on them.

  died from natural causes: This may be another case of arguing from effect to cause: Professor Wright, who in the 1930s examined two children’s skeletons found within the Tower, noted that the skeleton of the older child bore the symptoms of what has been tentatively diagnosed as the progressive bone disease osteomyelitis. But we do not know these skeletons were those of the Princes, and though the older boy was known to have been visited by his doctor that summer, any royal person might have a physician in precautionary attendance anyway.

  true fate a mystery: We cannot wholly rule out the possibility that the younger boy at least may—with or without Richard’s connivance—eventually have been sent abroad (just as Cecily sent her sons abroad in time of danger), given a new identity, or both. Francis Bacon, writing a century later, has Perkin Warbeck, the pretender who claimed to be Elizabeth Woodville’s younger son, saying that he would not reveal details of his escape from the Tower, but “Let it suffice to think I had a mother living, a Queen, and one that expected daily such a commandment from the tyrant for the murdering of her children.” The clear implication is that Elizabeth Woodville smuggled her younger son away, and though the words of a pretender may lack credibility, it shows the idea was in currency.

  If this were done with Richard’s connivance, the intention might have been to get the boy out of the way of Henry, to whom he might have figured as either a tool or a threat. If so, it would not only explain Elizabeth Woodville’s sudden accord with Richard, but at least help to clear up one minor mystery: why Elizabeth was lying so low during all these months that her very whereabouts are uncertain, from the time she left Westminster Abbey right through to the time she starts appearing in documents as one of the new King Henry’s beneficiaries.

  granting away some of her family lands: Some of them, however, were to the “Queens’” College that honors her as a patron. The Great Chronicle some thirty years later would call her “a woman of gracious fame,” but of that too there is very little evidence.

  Chapter 18: “Anne My Wife”

  “of similar colour and shape”: For consistency I have used the older translation of the complete Crowland chronicle, Ingulph’s Chronicle of the Abbey of Croyland with the Continuations by Peter of Blois and Anonymous Writers. Here, however, the more recent translation of the work of the “second continuator,” The Crowland Chronicle Continuations, 1459–1486, differs in significance as well as wording. Their translation from the Latin (eisdem colore et forma) is “who were alike in complexion and figure,” which clearly indicates the women rather than the garments. (Dress was an important signifier of rank.) Interpretation had hitherto varied—but the real point is that nothing in the original necessarily compels the popular assumption that Richard had given the garments; Buck indeed says that Anne herself instituted the swap.

  damning in several different ways: Shakespeare’s wooing (The Tragedy of Richard III, 1.2) by Richard of a Lady Anne still lamenting the first husband Richard killed in a sense represents a dramatization of our reaction to this different, but equally, shocking marriage. It might have been unwise for him to comment more directly on the behavior of one who was grandmother to Elizabeth I.

  invented the letter in its entirety: Against that theory is the fact that Buck gave a specific source for the letter—in the collection of Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, in a “rich and magnificent cabinet, among precious jewels and more monuments”—and he would have been taking a huge risk that other scholars might have called his bluff. But Buck, a determined apologist for Richard, was not above “suppressing evidence and altering record,” so one modern historian, Alison Hanham, declared. N. Harris Nicolas in the nineteenth century put it even more directly: “The character of Buck as a faithless writer is well known.” The great Victorian James Gairdner, on the other hand, was disgustedly inclined to accept the letter, writing that “the horrible perversion and degradation of domestic life which it implies in only too characteristic of the age”—so different, one can’t but add, from the home life of his own dear queen.

  Buck himself may be the victim of an inadvertent injustice here. What we think of as “Buck” is the version of his manuscript printed several decades after he wrote it under the auspices of his great-nephew (confusingly, another George Buck), and the extensive work done by Buck’s modern editor, Arthur Kincaid, reveals among other things that this branch of the Buck family had a track record for forgery.

  The surviving manuscript versions of Buck’s original show revisions not only by Buck himself but also by his great-nephew; even more important, the earliest of them has been very considerably damaged by fire. In an article for the Ricardian, Kincaid transcribed precisely what was (and was not) left:

  < st she thanked him for his many Curtesies and friendly>

  as before in the cause of<

  >d then she prayed him ^ to bee a mediator for her to the K<

  >ge

  whoe (as she wrote) was her onely ioye and her maker in<

  in

  Worlde, and that she was [in] his, harte, in thoughts in<

  and in / all, and then she intimated that the better halfe of

  Ffe<

  was paste, and that she feared the Queene would neu<

  In other words, the choice of the word body and the fear the queen would never die were inserted by the younger George Buck: guided, admittedly, by the space that must have been left on the paper, but writing with the goal more of producing a sensational and salable text than of historical accuracy. The gaps leave it unclear in quite what cause the recipient was to intercede—as mediator for the writer’s marriage to the king or as mediator to the king for her marriage to someone else? These circumstances were explored in an article in the Ricardian: Arthur Kincaid, “Buck and the Elizabeth of York Letter.” See also Livia Visser-Fuchs, “Where Did Elizabeth of York Find Consolation?,” and of course Kincaid’s introduction to his edition of Buck’s work: George Buck, History of King Richard the Third. The conclusion presented in Kincaid’s own edition of the text was that “Elizabeth in her letter was referring to a hoped-for marriage—though not necessarily with the king,” and it is hard to disagree.

  a double marriage: Details of the Portuguese proposal, and Elizabeth of York’s role in it, are from John Ashdown-Hill’s book The Last Days of Richard III, 32, who suggests that rumors about a foreign match for her and for Richard were (by contemporaries as well as later historians) misunderstood as a match between her and Richard.

  the Great Chronicle recorded: It is often said—supported by some internal evidence—that this entry refers to the spring of 1484, but that is surely impossible to rec
oncile with the mention of Anne’s death.

  Chapter 19: “In Bosworth Field”

  Ballad of Lady Bessy: The Ballad of Lady Bessy (or, The Most Pleasant Song of Ladye Bessiye) is believed probably to have been written by Stanley’s officer Humphrey Brereton—chiefly because it is hard otherwise to account for the large part Brereton himself plays in the narrative.

  Francis Bacon: Bacon (1561–1626), best known as Elizabeth I’s counselor and James I’s attorney general and lord chancellor, turned wholly to writing after being indicted by Parliament on charges of corruption. His History of Henry VII was published in 1622.

  at the home of his mother, Cecily Neville: John Ashdown-Hill (The Last Days of Richard III, 53) cites R. Edwards, The Itinerary of King Richard III (Richard III Society, 1983).

  PART V: 1485–1509

  Chapter 20: “True Succeeders”

  the starting place of the early modern age: “Historians have claimed that a ‘new’ monarchy arose with the coming of Henry VII, that a new age was inaugurated. . . . But wise readers should be wary of the ‘new.’ . . . Most change, deep change, occurs more slowly, experimentally, cautiously, and through deliberation. It thus often goes unnoticed by those who live it and make it happen.” Miri Rubin, The Hollow Crown: A History of Britain in the Late Middle Ages, 322.

  said Francis Bacon: See his History of Henry VII. The question of whether a woman’s rights of inheritance to the throne should automatically skip over her to her sons was of course still an issue in the mid-sixteenth century when Edward VI attempted to will his crown to “Lady Jane’s heirs male,” before being forced by the imminence of his own death to alter it to Jane Grey and her heirs male. See also Helen Castor, She-Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth, 28–29.

  silent uncertainty was . . . everybody’s friend: According to David Baldwin, “It is impossible to believe” that those women closest to them—women in positions of power—remained in complete ignorance as to the boys’ fate. He concludes not only that “the implication is that they did know but chose to remain silent, something that would not have been necessary if both boys were dead and threatened no one,” but also that “the most likely scenario” is that the younger son at least may have been sent to a secure place. Philippa Gregory, David Baldwin, and Michael Jones, The Women of the Cousins’ Wars: The Duchess, the Queen, and the King’s Mother, 210.

  Lincoln’s own attempt: According to Francis Bacon, “As for the daughters of King Edward the Fourth, they thought King Richard had said enough for them [that is, the people thought that Richard’s example showed they were not the inevitable heirs], and took them to be but as of the King’s party, because they were in his power and at his disposing.”

  “discontent with the King”: Elizabeth Woodville’s biographer David Baldwin suggests as one possibility that she envisaged a papal dispensation allowing Elizabeth of York, with Henry out of the way, to marry her cousin Warwick while she herself became the power behind a monarch believed to be of feeble personality. There is, as he says, no evidence. Another possibility is that Elizabeth knew that one of her sons was alive and intended, should the rebellion succeed, then to assert his prior claim in place of Warwick’s, though this might suggest that she had not been sure of her sons’ fate earlier, when she allowed her daughter to marry herself and her valuable royal rights into the opposing dynasty.

  fundamental role in the Lambert Simnel drama: Christine Weightman, Margaret of York: The Diabolical Duchess, 153.

  Chapter 21: “Golden Sovereignty”

  John Leland: Best known for his Itinerary, describing his findings on journeys through England and Wales, John Leland (1503?– 1552) was also the antiquarian whose De Rebus Brittannicis Collecteanea includes a number of the most important descriptions of key ceremonies of Henry VII’s reign. Narratives quoted from this source include Margaret Beaufort’s ordinances for the confinement of a queen and the christening of her child (4:179–184), the christening of Prince Arthur (204–215), Elizabeth of York’s coronation (216–233), the Twelfth Night celebrations of 1487 (234–237), Elizabeth’s taking her chamber (249), and the proxy marriage of Princess Margaret and her journey into Scotland (258–300).

  evidence that she was in some degree of disgrace: Theories that Elizabeth Woodville’s health had gone into some sort of major decline, necessitating her retirement, are contradicted by the fact that the negotiations for her to marry the king of Scots went on for years. See Baldwin in Philippa Gregory, David Baldwin, and Michael Jones, The Women of the Cousins’ Wars: The Duchess, the Queen, and the King’s Mother, 215. But then again, if Elizabeth was seriously suspected of treason, it seems unlikely Henry would really have contemplated giving her access to a foreign army.

  a purely domestic role: Nicholas Harris Nicolas, editing her Privy Purse expenses in 1830: “The energy and talents of Henry the Seventh left no opportunity for his Queen to display any other qualities than those which peculiarly, and it may be said exclusively, belong to her sex. From the time of her marriage she is only to be heard of as a daughter, a wife, a mother, a sister, and an aunt; and in each of these relations, so far as materials exist by which it can be judged, her conduct reflects honour upon her memory.” Nicolas, Privy Purse Expenses of Elizabeth of York: Wardrobe Accounts of Edward the Fourth, with a Memoir of Elizabeth of York, xxxi.

  letters to Spain: There was also a considerable mention in De Puebla’s correspondence of Elizabeth’s determination to arrange a marriage with an Englishwoman for De Puebla himself and his efforts to avoid the same. Perhaps one of the lessons Elizabeth had learned early is that marriage as a means of bringing a party onside may be the most useful tool of diplomacy.

  similarities in their handwriting: David Starkey, Henry: Virtuous Prince, 118–120.

  Elizabeth of York and Margaret Beaufort only as rivals: Joanna Laynesmith argues that between the two—both of whose royal blood had caused their past fortunes to seesaw—“there probably existed more than cordial relations,” equivalent to those between Eleanor of Provence and Eleanor of Castile some 250 years before. Elizabeth’s biographer Arlene Okerlund suggests that Margaret Beaufort may have substituted for the absent Elizabeth Woodville—if we really think that Margaret had that sort of warm personality.

  A letter from Henry VIII’s day: These are original letters illustrative of English history, including numerous royal letters, from autographs in the British Museum, the State Paper Office, and one or two other collections edited by Sir Henry Ellis (1846), ser. 1, vol. 2.

  Minories: It was the same convent of Minoresses with which Thomas More was known to have been in touch.

  “we have, moreover, opened the moneybox”: Calendar of State Papers: Venetian, vol. 1, 1202–1509, edited by Rawdon Brown, 181, May 9, 1489.

  Chapter 22: “The Edge of Traitors”

  Henry offered his daughter Margaret: The elder Margaret, Margaret Beaufort, had always promoted her half-blood family, and the autumn of 1494 was also when she arranged for Richard Pole—the son of her half sister Edith St. John—to marry Clarence’s daughter Margaret. This would prove to be setting up trouble: for the Tudor dynasty, but also for Margaret Pole, who, as the increasingly paranoid eyes of an aging Henry VIII focused on her family, would be beheaded in one of the Tower’s nastiest execution stories. At the time, however—since it may have seemed unrealistic to keep Margaret Pole forever unmarried—it may have looked like the safe thing to do, another way of using the marriage tie to secure her within the family.

  servants of Cecily Neville’s: Ann Wroe, Perkin: A Story of Deception, 178–179.

  as her will declared: Wills from Doctors Commons: A Selection for the Wills of Eminent Persons, Etc.

  Chapter 23: “Civil Wounds”

  another daughter, Mary, was born: Her date of birth is often given as 1495, which is how it is described in the Beaufort Hours—but Margaret Beaufort followed the then-current practice of beginning a new year on March 23.

  Perkin declared him
self king: Among his otherwise rather vague charges proclaimed against Henry was that he had married “by compulsion certain of our sisters”—Elizabeth’s younger sisters—to his own friends and kinsmen of unsuitably low degree.

  Katherine Gordon: Ann Wroe, Perkin: A Story of Deception, 374–378.

  Margaret of Burgundy’s actual, illegitimate, son: There is a possible alternative identification, as suggested by Ann Wroe (ibid., 516–518). The childless Margaret took several children under her wing (and indeed even the fertile Elizabeth of York’s Privy Purse expenses show upkeep for children who had been “given” to her), but one appeared to have attracted her special interest: Jehan le Sage, a boy of about five when she adopted him in 1478, which makes him around the same age as Richard, Duke of York. Carefully educated and luxuriously clad, he was reared in some seclusion until—at the end of 1485, just when Margaret must have been swallowing the bitter knowledge of the destruction of the house of York—he vanished from the records. It may be pure coincidence that the room in the country palace of Binche in which he lived was later known as “Richard’s room.” Wroe notes also (ibid., 467– 471) that the delegation sent to inquire into Perkin’s fate was headed by the Bishop of Cambrai; among those who believed Perkin Margaret’s own son, it was said (ibid., 209) he had been fathered by the incumbent of the Cambrai see, whether this man or his predecessor.