Bosworth: The Birth of the Tudors

by Skidmore, Chris

  Five days earlier, Warwick, together with his daughter Isabel, Clarence and his brother-in-law the Earl of Oxford, had crossed the seas to Calais, where on 11 July, Warwick’s daughter Isabel was married to Clarence in a hastily conducted ceremony. Warwick was now prepared to finally reveal his hand: issuing a declaration remarkably similar to the rebels’ own, he stated his intention to save Edward from ‘the deceiving covetous rule and guiding of certain seditious persons’, named as Rivers, the Earls of Pembroke and Devon, who had caused the ‘great poverty’ of the realm, ‘only intending to their own promotion and enriching’. Warwick landed at Canterbury on 16 July, receiving an enthusiastic welcome as he continued his march to London. Edward remained at Nottingham, still in the hope that Pembroke’s army would reach him in time. Meanwhile, Robin of Redesdale’s army continued to march southwards, intending to join with Warwick who had entered the capital.

  William Herbert had departed from Wales with a large number of cavalry and infantry drawn from his Welsh estates, assuming that the Earl of Devon would later join him with a force of archers. Devon never arrived. The separation of the two forces was to prove fatal at Edgecote field near Banbury, when confronted by the lethal combination of Robin of Redesdale’s rabble of an army and a reinforcement provided by Warwick’s troops and Herbert’s Welsh men-at-arms, both outnumbered and with no archers to protect them, were hacked down and overrun, suffering heavy casualties. Herbert and his brother were captured and taken to Northampton where they were beheaded the following day on Warwick’s orders, without any legal justification.

  Herbert had marched out of Raglan Castle with a formidable army of Welshmen. Joining him had been the twelve-year-old Henry Tudor, who would have witnessed the devastating outcome of the battle at Edgecote at first hand. In the panic of defeat, he was taken from the battlefield by Sir Richard Corbet, a gentleman who was married to a niece of Herbert’s wife Anne Devereux, the Countess of Pembroke. In a later petition written by Corbet to Henry, Corbet declared that he had first served him ‘after the death of the Lord Herbert after the field’, when he had been one of the men who had ‘brought your grace out of the danger of your enemies’.

  When news of the battle reached Margaret Beaufort, then residing at her husband Henry Stafford’s residence at Woking, in her anxiety she sent out messages to discover what had happened to her son. Although she had been separated from Henry since the fall of Pembroke Castle in 1461, Margaret had been allowed to remain in contact with her son, corresponding with him and visiting him on occasions, for instance in September 1467, when together with her husband she visited Henry, having paid ten shillings at Bristol to be taken across the Severn by boat to Chepstow where she travelled on to Raglan to be entertained for a week as Herbert’s guests.

  Hearing the news of the devastation of Herbert’s forces at Edgecote, Margaret assumed that Henry must still be at Raglan. She sent her servant William Aykerig to ride immediately to Worcester, passing on a message for John Bray to ride to Raglan ‘to my lord of Richmond’. Bray then travelled with his page from Worcester to Raglan, only to find he was not there.

  Henry had in fact been led from the battlefield to the home of Herbert’s brother-in-law Lord Ferrers, at Weobley in Herefordshire, where Bray arrived six days after beginning his panicked journey. There he found Herbert’s widow Anne Devereux sheltering under her brother Ferrers’ protection, where she had continued her duty of looking after her dead husband’s ward.

  Margaret’s immediate concern was for the welfare of her son. Her household books record how twenty shillings was ‘given in reward to Davy that waiteth upon my lord Richmond by my lady commandment at Weobley’ with a further 6s 8d ‘in reward to master Starky and to Richard Eton for my lord of Richmond’. If Henry was shaken from his experience, he recovered quickly enough to return to his archery practice, and was provided with twenty shillings by his mother ‘for his disports to buy him bow and shafts’.

  Warwick was not content with just William Herbert’s destruction. In the aftermath of his triumph, Earl Rivers and his son Sir John Woodville, the husband of the elderly Duchess of Norfolk, were executed without trial, while other Woodville supporters, rounded up in hiding, soon met their deaths. It was a pyrrhic act of revenge. Unless Warwick, who claimed to be acting in the king’s best interests, was prepared to depose Edward, replacing him with either Clarence or Henry VI, the earl could achieve little else. He had achieved his ambition of bringing the Woodvilles to heel, but what next? Without the support of the nobility, who had observed the summer’s events with horror, Warwick could do nothing. He was caught in a trap of his own making.

  Knowing that Warwick was powerless to act without deposing him, Edward remained calm. He had left Nottingham to travel south on 29 July, unaware of what had taken place at Edgecote. When news of the outcome of the battle reached him, he had been deserted by his forces and taken into custody by Warwick’s brother, Archbishop George Neville at Olnet in Buckinghamshire. Placed in confinement at Warwick Castle before being moved to Middleham then Pontefract, he showed grace and affability, agreeing to every demand placed in front of him, biding his time. His captors could do nothing when, after sending out messages to his supporters to come to him, Edward declared that he wished to journey to London. He made a ceremonial return to the capital, where he was received with enthusiastic acclaim.

  At first Edward behaved as if nothing had happened. ‘The king himself’, wrote one observer, ‘hath good language of the lords of Clarence, of Warwick … saying they be his best friends’. Yet everyone, including Warwick and Clarence, knew that no matter how calm the king remained, the queen was unlikely to forgive the merciless execution of her father and brother.

  On his return, Edward was welcomed with open arms. Warwick’s uprising had left the country in a state of uproar, as an absence of authority allowed local feuds to erupt, with gentry families hoping to make the maximum political capital out of the uncertainty. For Margaret Beaufort, William Herbert’s death had thrown Henry Tudor’s future wide open. Having held Henry’s wardship since 1461, the earl’s death gave her the opportunity to provide a new settlement for her son. Just as she had acted quickly to secure her marriage after the death of Edmund Tudor, Margaret understood that she needed to move fast to ensure that Henry’s own wardship was resolved. On 24 August 1469, while Edward IV remained a prisoner at Pontefract, Margaret rode with her husband Stafford to Clarence’s residence in London, where she might best communicate with the duke who was currently based in Middleham. Clarence continued to hold her son’s lands in the honour of Richmond; now Margaret hoped that an agreement might be reached whereby her son’s lands would be eventually restored to him. It was a dangerous and risky strategy, especially given the current uncertainties; her husband Stafford was keen to appease Edward on his return to the capital, purchasing a new hat and spurs as he rode to meet the king on his arrival in London, but Margaret was determined to do best for her son, taking advantage of the situation to achieve the best possible bargain.

  On 21 October at the Bell Inn in Fleet Street, Margaret Beaufort and Stafford, along with their ‘learned counsel’, dined with Lord Ferrers and the Countess of Pembroke’s counsel to discuss Henry Tudor’s wardship, consuming a meal of bread, pears, apples and mutton washed down with ale and wine at a cost of 5s 7d. The meeting seems to have been a success as, three days later, Margaret paid 4s 4d for letters patent to be written ‘for my Lord of Richmond matter of the king’s grant’, while Sir Davy Thomas was paid 40s to ride to South Wales to find a copy of any previous documentation concerning Henry’s ‘reckoning’. When this proved inconclusive, Thomas Rogers was paid 2s 4d ‘for the search in the chancellery’ for ‘the copy of my lord Pembroke patent for the ward and marriage of my lord Richmond’. A further 6s 10d was paid for ‘searches in the Exchequer with Thomas Bayan clerk of the parliament and the writing of 2 copies of a act and a provision for my lord of Richmond matter’.

  If Margaret had intended for a swi
ft resolution to her son’s position, her rashness had been a mistake. Edward’s return to the capital was followed by the reward of his most loyal followers, including Stafford’s younger brother John, who was created Earl of Wiltshire. Henry Stafford remained a mere knight; his wife’s dealings with Clarence, of which Edward had grown suspicious, had possibly cost him a peerage. Even if she had wanted to, Margaret was unable to escape her own Lancastrian heritage. When Sir Robert Welles, the son of Margaret’s stepfather Lord Welles, launched a rebellion in Lincolnshire, Edward crushed it with such force that the confrontation was over in minutes, earning the ‘battle’ its nickname of Losecoat Field, named after the haste at which the rebels had cast off their clothing and fled. When it was proved that the rebellion, which had called for every man to rally in the name of Clarence and Warwick, had been stoked by the two men, Edward condemned them both as ‘rebels and traitors’. Warwick had anticipated that the fragile peace since their insurrection could not last for long; in encouraging rebellion, he had decided to make the first move. Now there was no other option but to flee the kingdom.

  Meanwhile, Jasper Tudor had remained in exile in France. The records reveal that from October 1469 until September 1470 he had entered the service of Louis XI at the royal court, with the French king granting him a pension of 100 livre tournois a month. It was here that in May 1470 he welcomed some unexpected visitors that were set to transform both his and the Lancastrian fortunes.

  Never before had England witnessed ‘so many goodly men, and so well arrayed’, wrote one observer, as Edward rode with his forces in hot pursuit of Warwick and Clarence. Having reached Manchester before the northern rising had been repressed, they turned and fled for Devon; Edward followed, determined to confront or capture these ‘great rebels’, covering a distance of 290 miles in eighteen days. When he arrived at Exeter, however, Edward discovered that he was already too late: his enemies had fled.

  They had boarded a ship at Dartmouth, destined for Calais, currently held by Warwick’s supporter, Lord Wenlock. They had managed to assemble their families to depart with them, including Clarence’s nine-month pregnant wife Isabel. Arriving at Calais they found the garrison’s guns turned against them, forcing the small fleet to hover a distance out at sea. The sound of the pounding guns prompted Isabel to go into labour, a desperate situation that endangered the lives of both mother and child, Clarence’s heir, but still Wenlock refused to admit Warwick’s ships, claiming that to do so would leave his friend in a ‘mousetrap’. With nowhere else to sail, tossed in the storms of the Channel, Isabel miscarried, and her stillborn baby, a son, was buried at sea.

  When the Duke of Burgundy refused Warwick permission to land at any port in Flanders, there was no other choice but to sail for France, where the party landed at Honfleur in the first week of May, exhausted and starving after nearly three weeks at sea. Hearing news of Warwick and Clarence’s arrival, Louis XI realised that his opportunity had come. In return for his military support, the restoration of Henry VI to the English throne might fulfil his dream of establishing an Anglo-French military alliance against his rival Burgundy. That would mean a radical departure from the previous loyalties of English politics, necessitating an alliance between Warwick and the Lancastrians. Warwick could hardly be pleased with the thought of returning the Lancastrians to the throne, but he had come to realise Clarence’s limitations and was desperate to cling to a scheme which might preserve his grip upon power. The greatest hurdle to Louis’s plan would come in winning over a more than hostile Margaret of Anjou, who could hardly be expected to trust a man who had devoted a decade to destroying her husband and family. Yet, as Louis stressed, this was her last, and possibly only, chance. For a month, even Louis’s mastery of the arts of diplomacy were tested to the limit as he negotiated with both parties for agreement. But, slowly, ambition proved too much a healer as both Margaret and Warwick were drawn into the French king’s web.

  At Angers on 22 July, Warwick knelt in front of Margaret of Anjou, begging her forgiveness. It was over a quarter of an hour before she would let him rise, so bitter was the queen for the wrongs the earl had done to her family. Three days later, her son Prince Edward was betrothed to Warwick’s daughter Anne Neville in Angers cathedral. Plans were now drawn up for an invasion of England, with the aim of deposing Edward IV and placing Henry VI back on the throne. But Margaret, her distrust of Warwick so ingrained, refused to cross the Channel or allow her sixteen-year-old son to accompany him. Instead they would return to England only when the earl had successfully completed his mission and destroyed the man he had worked tirelessly to create as king. Warwick would leave his daughter Anne in France, almost as a hostage to bind the earl’s loyalty. Instead Jasper Tudor would join the earl, along with the Earl of Oxford, who had made his own way to the French court.

  For his part, Louis had agreed to provide the expedition with money, ships and men. Sixty French ships departed from La Hogue in Normandy on 9 September; four days later, after a calm journey unbroken by storm, the fleet reached Dartmouth and Plymouth, where the Lancastrian army disembarked after nightfall. Jasper set off for Wales, while Warwick turned eastwards, towards London.

  Edward had known for months that Warwick had entered into an agreement with Margaret to re-establish Henry VI on the throne, and that he planned to invade the kingdom. So why, when the moment came, was Edward ultimately caught unaware and unprepared? He had spent the winter strengthening naval defences on the south coast, arming a fleet and in signalling his determination to defeat the earl, had gone to the extremes of ordering the execution of twenty of Warwick’s men at Southampton, having their bodies then cut into pieces and impaled on wooden spikes facing the sea so that they might be seen by passing ships. Confident that he had done enough to secure the south, Edward turned his attention northwards, where a spate of rebellions had broken out. Aware of the potential dangers of ignoring such risings, Edward swiftly moved to crush the opposition. It was to prove a costly miscalculation.

  Edward was at York when he was informed on the eve of 13 September that Warwick, together with Clarence, the Earls of Oxford and Shrewsbury had landed in Devon and were advancing to London, their forces gathering such support as they went that their numbers had reached 30,000 men. Edward realised that he had misjudged the situation; stranded in the north, he now immediately began to march south, where he had badly overestimated the strength of his natural support base. He had only reached Doncaster, however, when, in the middle of the night, his minstrels burst into his bed-chamber to inform him that Marquess Montagu, Warwick’s brother whom Edward had stripped of the Earldom of Northumberland, was only a mile away and advancing in haste towards them with an armed force of 6,000 men to capture him.

  Edward took the only decision open to him: together with his brother Richard, Duke of Gloucester, Lord Hastings, and his brother-in-law Anthony, the new Earl Rivers, alongside a few hundred household men, he galloped through the night to King’s Lynn in Norfolk. Seizing two flat-bottomed boats from some Dutch merchants, he gave the ship’s master the only payment he could find, ‘a robe lined with fine marten’s fur, promising to reward him better in the future’. Still wearing his armour, he set sail for the Low Countries. ‘They did not have a penny between them and scarcely knew where they were going’, wrote the Burgundian chronicler Commynes.

  Edward’s flight left Warwick to enter London unopposed, where he swiftly arranged for Henry VI to be led from his confinement in the Tower, ‘not so cleanly kept as should seem such a prince’, and moved to the adjoining palace where the earl knelt in front of him, professing his loyalty. Henry appeared ‘amazed’ as the man who had unmade him, made him king once more. Henry was swiftly paraded through the streets to St Paul’s, where Warwick carried his train. As the crown was placed on his head, could Henry have understood what had happened, or what was happening to him? Five years of captivity had taken its toll on Henry’s fragile mental state; described by one chronicler as ‘a shadow on a wall’,
he was certainly not a full participant in the events which were now centring upon him as he sat in the coronation chair, ‘submissive and mute, like a crowned calf’. Everyone knew it was Warwick who held the reins, as the earl issued a proclamation that, with Edward deposed, Henry had been restored as king, or as the document officially put it, had achieved ‘his readeption to royal power’.

  Warwick’s invasion had been achieved with remarkable ease, but this could not mask the immediate problems facing the new regime. Law and order was breaking down as local feuds and rivalries across the country took advantage of the prevailing uncertainties to turn to open disputes and violence. The new government, hamstrung by its inability to reward its supporters, was therefore unable to confiscate or revoke any lands and offices for fear of triggering further unrest. Jasper Tudor might have hoped that, after the sacrifices his family had made, the years of exile and forfeiture of his lands, he would be rewarded for his pains. Instead he found that only his Earldom of Pembroke was returned to him. Even then he discovered that this could not be granted in its entirety; since William Herbert had been also been given the same title in September 1468, his son William had inherited the title. Technically two Earls of Pembroke now existed.

  Jasper decided to turn his attention to ensuring that at least his young nephew Henry was well provided by the new regime. During the negotiations over his wardship during the previous year, Henry Tudor had remained at Weobley with the Countess of Pembroke. Immediately after Henry VI had been restored to the throne on 7 October, Jasper Tudor travelled to Hereford where Sir Richard Corbet handed over the thirteen-year-old boy to his uncle. Jasper now rode with Henry to London, ready for the opening session of Parliament which had been summoned for 26 November. Henry was reunited with his mother Margaret, who was equally determined that, with the Lancastrians finally in the ascendancy, her son would be restored to his rightful inheritance of the honour of Richmond. To achieve this, nothing less than the king’s own authority would be needed. It was decided that the young boy should meet with Henry, in the hope of impressing upon the king the need to restore his young nephew to his entitled lands. On 27 October, on a barge for which Reginald Bray paid 3d, Henry was rowed from London to Westminster for an audience with Henry VI. After the meeting, Henry, his mother Margaret, Stafford and Jasper dined with the royal chamberlain Sir Richard Tunstall.