Bosworth: The Birth of the Tudors Read online

  Towton would earn its name as the bloodiest battle in English history. Twenty-eight thousand soldiers were killed during the ten hours of fighting, many drowning in the nearby river as they fled the battle. ‘So many dead bodies were seen,’ Warwick’s brother George Neville wrote, ‘as to cover an area six miles long by three broad.’ Equally devastating for the Lancastrians were the six members of the nobility and forty-two knights who were either killed or captured and later executed. Towton was a complete and utter victory for the Yorkists. As Henry VI, Margaret of Anjou, their son Prince Edward and the remaining Lancastrian forces fled northwards across the border into Scotland, it is hard to contemplate a more crushing defeat. For Edward, it was a true vindication of not only his cause, but a sign of God’s undeniable favour and support for his kingship.

  Edward entered York in triumph on Easter Monday, where he was met by cheering crowds. One of his first actions was to order the removal of his father and brother’s rotting heads from spikes on Micklegate Bar. In their place were skewered the heads of his defeated enemies who had been executed in the aftermath of the battle, including the Earl of Wiltshire and the Earl of Devon. As Edward and his army basked in victory, some could not help thinking that he had been denied what would have been the greatest prize of all – possession of the deposed Henry VI, Queen Margaret and their son Prince Edward. The failure to capture them would prove an expensive mistake. Having arrived in Edinburgh, they were now sheltered at the Scottish court. Edward demanded that the royal couple be returned ‘without delay’, yet he knew his orders had little chance of being obeyed. Instead, Margaret was free to continue to plot to regain her position, leaving the political situation far from certain. ‘If the King and Queen of England with the other fugitives … are not taken’, an Italian visitor wrote, ‘it seems certain that in time fresh disturbances will arise’.

  The presence of a rival king north of the border was not the only problem Edward had to face. Support for the Lancastrians in the country at large remained strong, especially in many parts of the north and west, including Wales and the Marches where Jasper Tudor and other Lancastrians remained in control of the key fortresses at Pembroke, Harlech, Carreg Cennen and Denbigh. In order to address the lack of authority that he possessed in Wales, on 8 May 1461 Edward appointed his loyal supporter Sir William Herbert as life chamberlain of South Wales and steward of Carmarthenshire and Cardiganshire. The appointment signalled Edward’s intention that Herbert was to replace Jasper Tudor as the premier nobleman in Wales, a fact confirmed by Herbert’s advancement to the peerage, being created Lord Herbert on 26 July.

  Herbert was ordered to seize the county and lordship of Pembroke from Jasper. By the end of August, Herbert was back in Wales, ready ‘to cleanse the country’. In the end there was little opposition, and the expedition proved more of a triumphal progress, with the well-fortified and provisioned Pembroke Castle capitulating on 30 September. Herbert secured not only the castle, but in doing so captured its most important inmate, the five-year-old Earl of Richmond, Henry Tudor.

  Jasper seems to have been absent during Pembroke’s capitulation. He may have believed that this great castle, in the heart of his own estates, would be able to withstand attack, or at least put up resistance in the form of a siege. Instead, he shifted his focus of opposition to North Wales where, assisted by the Duke of Exeter, on 16 October just outside Caernarfon they ‘reared war’. It was a desperate effort, destined not to succeed. Jasper soon fled, probably to Scotland.

  When Parliament met on 4 November, its immediate priority was the attainder and forfeiture of the estates of Henry VI’s supporters. Jasper was near the top of the list. According to the Act of Attainder, they had ‘divers times since the fourth day of March last past, stirred, laboured and provoked the enemies of our said Sovereign Lord King Edward the fourth, of outward lands, to enter into his said realm with great battle, to rear war against his estate within the said Realm’. Jasper was stripped of his lands and title as Earl of Pembroke. Not that this mattered to Jasper, who, believing that Edward was a usurper at the head of an illegal government whose decisions were not binding, continued to use the title, just as he continued to believe that Henry VI was the only true King of England. In exile, Jasper aimed for nothing less than the restoration of the Lancastrian monarchy.

  Other Lancastrians demonstrated less commitment to their cause, and after the devastating losses at Towton, many came to terms with the new regime. Margaret Beaufort’s husband Sir Henry Stafford had fought on the Lancastrian side at Towton, but upon Edward’s victory he submitted himself to the Yorkist regime, obtaining a pardon for himself and Margaret. Margaret’s estates were protected from confiscation, but she was to pay perhaps a heavier price: her separation from her young son Henry, who was placed in the custody of William, Lord Herbert.

  Herbert was an intensely ambitious man. Victories against the Lancastrians in Wales had left him with a reputation as being, in the words of one Welsh poet, Edward’s ‘master-lock’. Determined to enhance his own power and arrange prestigious marriages for his daughters, in March 1462 he paid £1,000 for Henry Tudor’s wardship. Herbert knew that Henry was a valuable commodity: unlike his uncle Jasper, the young boy had not lost his title in the recent attainders, remaining the Earl of Richmond. Realising Henry’s future potential, especially if the king were to restore the earl to his estates, Herbert planned to marry him to his eldest daughter Maud. Henry’s wardship was not the only one Herbert sought: the young Henry Percy, having recently inherited the title of Earl of Northumberland after his father’s death in battle at Towton, joined Henry at Herbert’s semi-regal court at Raglan Castle, where Herbert had begun an extensive rebuilding programme. It was there that Henry was to spend his childhood, remaining under the supervision of Herbert’s wife Anne Devereux. At Raglan, perhaps realising that the young boy might one day marry her daughter, Anne ensured that Henry was well cared for. Even though, as the Tudor court historian Polydore Vergil admitted, Henry was ‘kept as prisoner’, he had been ‘honourably brought up’. Henry’s nurse was the wife of Philip ap Howel of Carmarthen, who may have taught him to speak and understand Welsh. When one Welsh poet raised his concerns that Henry might be brought up an Englishman, not understanding the Welsh language, he wrote expressing his concerns that ‘if he is a Sais’ (an English-speaker) ‘there is great malice’. In response another bard responded, reassuring him: ‘you need not worry that he will become a Sais’.

  Little is known about Henry’s early childhood. His earliest biographer Bernard André wrote that Henry ‘often suffered from ailments in his childhood’; as a result ‘he was given a gentle rearing by his guardians’. He was educated by ‘excellent and very upright tutors’ and had been ‘endowed with such keenness of wit, lively intellect, and capacity to learn’. André recorded how as a ‘little boy he learned everything pertaining to divine worship quickly, and beyond the expectation of them all’. According to André, Henry showed a keen interest in listening and reading ‘divine offices’, while once he had been introduced to literature, ‘surpassed all his contemporaries in the quickness of his understanding, no less than he had in learning his alphabet’. Henry’s tutors included Edward Haseley, later Dean of Warwick, whom a grateful Henry later granted an annuity of £10 for services during his ‘tender age’, while he may have been given military training by Sir Hugh Johns, a local landowner and one of Herbert’s men in Gower, who was also rewarded by Henry for services to him during his childhood. Another tutor was Andrew Scot, with whom Bernard André had managed to speak personally. Scot, by then a professor of Theology at Oxford, told him that he ‘had never heard of a boy of that age so marked by quickness and capacity to learn’.

  The special treatment offered Henry was entirely understandable. Already the boy’s importance for the future of Wales was recognised by Welsh poets, who urged Herbert to take special protection to guard the five-year-old boy. ‘Keep in your court,’ one pleaded with Herbert, ‘the young swallo
w, a man from Gwynedd. Your daughter wedded to him, give him sustenance and gold. Let no one exchange the man, let no one else have your fledgling.’

  Having fled to join Margaret and Henry in exile at the Scottish court, Jasper Tudor had much to reflect upon. He had lost both his brother and father to the Yorkists; now he had to confront the painful news that his young nephew Henry had fallen into the hands of his enemy William Herbert. Despite what seemed a hopeless situation, Jasper was undeterred. He had already begun to plan how to win back the kingdom for the Lancastrians. The capture of a Lancastrian spy exposed a possible plot of international and implausible proportions to overthrow the new regime. Jasper Tudor and Exeter were to land at Beaumaris in Anglesey, while the Duke of Somerset, Lord Hungerford and the Duke of Calabria, Margaret of Anjou’s brother, would land in Norfolk and Suffolk with an army of 60,000 Spaniards, with a third army of Frenchmen descending upon Kent. The initial invasion would supposedly be followed by another of nearly a quarter of a million men, commanded by the kings of Aragon, Portugal, France and Demark, as well as Margaret’s father, René of Anjou. The mastermind behind the campaign was apparently John de Vere, the Earl of Oxford. Fantastical as the plans seem, there must have been a grain of truth behind them, for in February 1462 Oxford, together with his eldest son Aubrey, were arrested, tried and executed for high treason.

  The failure of the coup left Margaret with little choice but to seek the aid of Louis XI of France, who had inherited the throne following the sudden death of Charles VII. Edward IV had hoped that Louis would be prepared to show him greater favour than his father, yet the new king, who was to become one of the most skilled and cunning statesmen of the time, recognised the diplomatic advantages that were to be won, and was more than prepared to countenance giving shelter to his cousin Margaret, at least for as long as it suited his purpose.

  Having left her husband behind in Scotland, in April 1462 Margaret arrived in France, finally meeting with Louis XI on 5 June, where at the French king’s magnificent chateau at Chinon in Touraine, secret negotiations began aimed at securing French support for the Lancastrian cause and a new invasion of England. By the time Jasper Tudor arrived at Chinon, the talks had been concluded and agreement reached, resulting in the Treaty of Tours being signed on 28 June, with Jasper Tudor’s signature among those on the document. Its terms seemed generous: a hundred-year truce was agreed between Louis XI and Henry VI, with both sides pledging not to aid each other’s enemies. Much to Edward’s chagrin, the Lancastrians appeared to have pulled off the remarkable feat of achieving the full diplomatic support and financial backing of England’s most powerful neighbour and adversary, paving the way for a fresh attempt to overthrow the isolated Yorkist regime.

  Remarkable it was, but what Edward could not know was that the Treaty of Tours was only half the story. Four days before the treaty had been signed, Margaret and Louis XI had also come to a secret agreement in which Louis had agreed to lend Margaret 20,000 livre tournois, with a further promise of 40,000 crowns. This came at a heavy price: the loan was granted only on the condition that were Henry VI to be restored to the throne, then either Jasper or another Lancastrian supporter was to be made captain of the military base at Calais. The new captain would then have to swear an oath to hand over Calais to the French within one year, or otherwise repay the loan immediately. If Calais were handed over, then the 40,000 crowns would be further granted. It was an audacious bid from Louis, who can scarcely have expected that any English negotiator would have accepted his suggestion that Calais, England’s last foothold on the French mainland that had been won by Edward III in 1347, might be sacrificed. The fact that the Lancastrians were prepared to countenance such a universally unpopular decision reveals just how desperate they were to secure both diplomatic and military support against the Yorkists. It is little wonder that they wanted to keep this hidden agreement as secret as possible.

  Louis soon discovered a snag in his otherwise faultless scheme. In order to reach Calais, Louis’s troops would need to cross Burgundian territory, something which Duke Philip of Burgundy refused outright. Having been denied access to Calais, Louis realised that the treaty was almost meaningless, and in the face of diplomatic pressure and threats from Edward IV, lost interest in equipping Margaret’s expedition.

  When Margaret set sail in October, she was accompanied by only 800 men. The voyage took her first to Scotland, where Henry VI boarded the fleet, which then sailed down to Bamburgh Castle, a fortress that had been left in the hands of Sir William Tunstall, a brother of one of Henry’s chamberlains, who was prepared to surrender the castle to the Lancastrians. Jasper had sailed separately from France in time to take charge of the fortress, together with the Duke of Somerset. Meanwhile Margaret continued to Alnwick, successfully laying siege to the castle. However, the threat of a large Yorkist force travelling northwards led by the Earl of Warwick broke her troops’ resolve, and the decision was taken to turn back to Scotland. As they sailed away in flight, their fleet was struck by a storm, with four ships wrecked on the coastline by fierce winter winds. Margaret somehow managed to reach Scotland in a rowing boat, yet many soldiers and sailors were left to fend for themselves, stranded on Holy Island.

  Deserted by their king and queen, Jasper Tudor and Somerset were left isolated and exposed at Bamburgh, and with supplies fast running out, their men had been reduced to eating their own horses. Their only vain hope lay in reinforcements being sent from Scotland. This did not materialise, and on Christmas Eve they were forced to surrender. Somerset accepted a pardon and swore loyalty to Edward IV, enticed by the reinstatement of all his lands and titles. This Jasper refused to countenance; instead he managed to negotiate a safe conduct to Scotland. Alnwick fell to Warwick’s siege in early January. Only Harlech Castle, in the north-western tip of Wales, held out for the Lancastrians.

  Margaret’s mission had ended in failure, yet she remained convinced that the success of her cause lay in persuading Louis XI to grant further assistance, or at least in preventing the French king coming to terms with the Yorkist regime. For this reason, between mid-April and early May 1463, Jasper Tudor, together with the Duke of Exeter and other Lancastrian leaders, made another voyage from Scotland to Sluys in Flanders, where they journeyed to France to seek an audience with Louis. Margaret followed with her son Prince Edward in July, hoping that her heir’s presence would convince the French king that hope remained in the Lancastrian cause. These hopes were dashed in October when Louis XI signed a joint truce with Edward IV and the Dukes of Brittany and Burgundy: each side promised to cease all hostilities for one year, and at the same time pledged not to assist each other’s enemies. Edward had succeeded in neutralising the Lancastrians’ greatest asset; disconsolate and frustrated, Margaret decided to travel to the sanctuary of her father, René of Anjou’s residence, where she remained for the next seven years. Jasper remained in France until December, when he was granted 500 livre tournois to return to Scotland, the only source of refuge now open to the Lancastrian dissidents.

  The Scottish government recognised that the Lancastrians were being frozen out diplomatically; they were unwilling to be left isolated alongside them. With Louis XI indicating as part of the new treaty with England that he was ready to abandon traditional French protection for Scotland, its government felt it had little choice but to open negotiations with England. On 9 December 1463 a truce was agreed with Edward at York, to last until the following October while discussions continued for a more permanent treaty. With the truce, Edward had obtained the crucial promise that he must have longed for: that the Scots would no longer aid the Lancastrians. Henry VI was asked to leave the country, departing St Andrews for Bamburgh. With nowhere else to turn and separated from his wife and son, it seemed as if his chances of being restored to the throne were all but over.

  Edward could have been forgiven for thinking that he was now master of his own destiny. Through a combination of effective diplomacy and military strategy, he had driven the re
maining Lancastrian resistance from almost every corner of the realm.

  The pinnacle of this success had been the defection of one of the Lancastrians’ most powerful supporters, Henry Beaufort, the Duke of Somerset. In light of the enmity that existed between Edward’s father, the Duke of York, and Henry Beaufort’s father, Edmund Beaufort, the first Duke of Somerset, the fact that reconciliation was possible must have seemed remarkable to many. Yet Edward had genuinely believed Somerset, or at least had wanted to believe him, so much so that, according to one chronicler, ‘he lodged with the king in his own bed many nights, and sometimes rode a-hunting behind the king, when the king had no more than six men in his party, of whom three were the Duke of Somerset’s men’.

  For Edward’s supporters, the king’s willingness to pursue a policy of reconciliation seemed naive at best, with frustrating consequences: already the decision to place Sir Ralph Percy, who had defected alongside Somerset, in charge of Bamburgh had backfired when he handed the castle back to the Lancastrians in March 1463, once again giving them a vital foothold. The king’s judgement was once again called into question when at Christmas 1463, without obtaining the king’s leave, Somerset fled northwards to rejoin the side of his old master, Henry VI. It was a bitter blow and unforgivable in Edward’s eyes, and he soon launched a fresh campaign to crush the Lancastrians in the north.