by Jean Stubbs
From the breast of his doublet he took the letter and the ring, and set them to his lips.
PART THREE: THE LONG YELLOW SUMMER
August, 1485
In what seas are thy anchors, and where art thou thyself?
When wilt thou, Black Bull, come to land;
how long shall we wait?
On the Feast of the Virgin, fair Gwynedd in her singing, watched the seas.
Lewis Glyn Cothi, fifteenth century
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
There will be fire in Manaw and a proud progress through Anglesey ... and Denbigh awaits us, and flames in Rhuddlan and Rhos.
Dafyyd Llwyd, fifteenth century
1 August 1485
Six ships with fretted prows and nets of rigging rode at anchor in the harbour of Harfleur. Pennants flew from their masts. Shields, bearing the arms of the nobles who sailed in them, ornamented their gunwales and fighting tops.
All morning they had been crammed with the accoutrements of war and the sustenance of their passengers: salt-fish, salt-meat, bread and beer, and wine and fruit for prouder stomachs; bows and arrows, halberds, hand-guns, knives, swords and battle-axes. Each squire saw his master’s armour stowed away: helmet, war-shield, jazerine and placard, arm and leg and knee and elbow-pieces, and the steel shoes with their long rowelled spurs. Chests of fine raiment followed: shirts of lawn and holland; sumptuous gowns embossed with gold and furred with vair or budge, miniver or pampilion; satin and velvet doublets lined in damask, with slashed and padded sleeves; caps bravely jewelled and spangle-feathered; stout leather buskins; boots soft as gloves; shoes covered with tissue cloth of gold; a rainbow of hose. Then those personal possessions, without which no gentleman — let alone one who might be king — could travel: jewelled collars and daggers, rich chains and rings, gold cups, illuminated prayer-books, embroidered cushions, carved chairs, branched velvet hangings, ivory chess-sets, fine wax candles and silver sconces, and a legion of small rare treasures. Then the baggage animals, who must bear all this, herded through side-doors into the hold; and the broad-chested war-horses that could gallop with an armoured knight upon their backs; and the lighter swifter steeds for messengers and scouts; and the squires’ sturdy little cobs. And last of all the eighteen hundred mercenaries, under their leader Philibert de Shaunde of Brittany.
‘A motley! A rabble!’ said the Earl of Oxford distastefully, watching them straggle aboard. ‘The French king gives with a closed fist!’
‘No matter!’ Henry replied, smiling.
For they would fight for him, and he had sixty thousand francs beside. His face was radiant as he stood in the leading ship. He sniffed the salt air, watched the sails belly out, and felt the timbers stir and give as the vessel got underway. The blunt prow breasted a steel sea, on which small white waves scudded and peaked and fell, spraying a fine rain of drops on those in the bows. The helmsman stared ahead of him, hands on the wheel, legs braced well apart, and took the first roll and plunge of the ship as though he were a barnacle on her deck. One by one the other vessels raised anchor and cast off, sails filling, followed by a chorus of cheers from the harbour. A flock of sea-birds called and wheeled above their masts. Before them glittered the broad waters of the Channel. And they were out of Harfleur and running before a prosperous wind for England.
For six days, while horses and soldiers grew cramped and weary, while water staled and bread hardened and salt-meat and fish burdened queasy stomachs, they pursued their goal. Warily, they hugged the coasts of Normandy and Brittany, while the English fleet patrolled Hampshire, and Richard’s squadrons waited in Dorset and Devon and Cornwall. Cunningly they skirted Land’s End and slipped well outside the Bristol Channel, with the wind following all the way. And on the morning of the seventh day the ship’s master sent word to the Earl of Richmond that land was sighted.
He left his bunk without reluctance, shivering in the early cold. And he saw the black mounds of the Prescelly Hills rising from the water, and stood smiling, until the sea took them over again.
‘We shall see naught else for close on twelve hours, my lord,’ said the master, ‘for the coast here lies low. Then must we use our cunning, for we shall be upon the islands seaward of Milford Haven. Do you know the saying, my lord, Dangers in Milford there is none, save the Crow, the Carre and the Cattlestone?’
‘I had not heard. These waters are strange to me.’
‘The Crow is far seaward,’ the master said, delighted to instruct a nobleman, ‘in the common tideway, and one of the chiefest dangers. It lies south-east of the mouth near Linney Point. The Carre be a ridge of rocks on the Pembroke side against Paterchurch, overflowed at half-flood, so that unwary mariners might think themselves well enough — until their vessel is holed. And the Cattlestone be a great rock in the harbour near Burton, that shall not trouble us so far up in the haven.’
‘I had thought it a calm and gentle harbour, sir.’
‘Aye, calm and gentle and hospitable, sixteen fathoms or more at the entrance, even at low ebb. And offering good landing points in bays and creeks, like a great tree that forks its branches, and it takes ships of two and three hundred tonnage. At Pembroke Ferry eight to ten fathoms, and good riding up the channel.
‘Sixteen miles long, or more, my lord,’ the master continued, seeing that the earl showed no inclination to go below, and had nothing to say for himself either. ‘At full sea the spring tide rises four fathoms high, and at neap tide two fathoms. And yet the harbour has teeth, my lord, and no man desires to find himself a morsel between them! The Smale and the Skutwell be two such, four leagues west by north of St Anne’s Head: the one above the sea always, the other covered at half-flood. The three Oyster Stones be others, at the mouth of Nangle Bay. And no place in the mouth may a ship ride easy or weigh anchor — for jagged rock — until it comes to Ratte Island (a musket shot from the mainland!) or Dale Rode or St Mary Well.’
‘You are master of the seas as well as of your ship,’ said Henry courteously, ‘And so twelve hours must pass? They might be twelve days, for all the patience that I lack!’
‘Nay, my lord, we shall not hold you so long in check! I’ll send you word when we sight the seaward islands, and show how we cheat the rocks of their prey and fetch us safe to port.’
The sturdy way he ruled the vessel, and watched the tricks and turns of current, keeping the dangers ahead of him and yet undeterred by their prospect, fascinated Henry.
‘What land lies there?’ he asked, pointing due west.
‘Nay, my lord, I know not and care not. For I have heard that if a man sail too far west he shall reach the end of the earth and fall down, ship and company and all!’
‘So no man ventures?’
‘No, my lord, unless he has an addled pate!’
‘And yet cargo ships sail from the east for many weeks, and reach England and France, and do not fall down. And at some time a mariner of stout heart, such as your own, must have found his way uncharted in strange seas.’
‘Aye, my lord, some hare-brained wild fellow! But my good wife has eight children, and I must find bread and meat for all.’ He added in mild reproach, ‘And you know well, good my lord, that the earth be flat. We must not try God’s patience!’
He consulted his sea-chart, which was minutely drawn on vellum. Lines radiated from a centre to all parts of the compass, enabling him to lay his course from harbour to harbour. Here was the coast of France, and there the coast of England and Wales: neatly punched with bays and inlets. Dots and crosses indicated reefs and hazards, and the estuaries were marked with a double line. The name of each port, written very small and black, stood at right angles to the coast, so that he had to turn it this and that way to read it.
Henry thought of the tales he had heard from his tutor and at court, of travels and pilgrimages and crusades and expeditions, of trading routes opened and new markets discovered. Pepper from Malabar and ginger from Surat. Saffron from Balsara and Persia, cloves from Maluco and nutmegs from Ban
da. He was not a man to hazard good money on foolish schemes, and yet these voyagers had his admiration. And he knew that he was not made of the mettle that steered a little ship due west and sailed until it reached — what? Yet, if such a one should come to him when he was king he would give him gold, and watch for his return.
So he mused, his pleasant face intent upon the sea that washed and rolled without ceasing against the timbers of the ship. But the master kept his eyes upon his compass-box and quadrant. He must check the time of full tide at Milford Haven, to know when they best could enter, and this took all of a man’s mind; being the age of the moon multiplied by forty-eight, and divided by the number of minutes in one hour, which add six and then deduct twelve.
They sighted the seaward islands late that afternoon, and changed course.
‘Do you see, my lord, that finger of stone pointing to heaven? That be St Anne’s Chapel, having a tower like a pigeon-house full twenty feet high. Without it we should not find the entrance to the harbour. Watch how the helmsman keeps it within his sight, and so comes to the headland.’
And now the ships were alive with men, swarming to the gunwales to cheer the rocky coast. Gravely the small vessels swung round St Anne’s Head and into Milford Haven: blue sails blown by a soft south wind, the fleur-de-lis shimmering in the evening sun. A nook of ground stretched out into a gentle bay, and they let down anchor at Dale Point, where the intricate and lengthy process of getting everybody and everything on to dry land would begin.
But Henry was first ashore, and drawing apart from the rest, knelt for the first time in fourteen long years on Welsh soil, and kissed it and crossed himself.
‘Judica me, Deus, et decerne causam meam,’ he began. ‘Judge me, O Lord and plead my cause against an ungodly nation... For thou art the God of my strength... O send out thy thought and thy truth; let them lead me; let them bring me unto thy holy hill... Hope thou in God, for I shall yet praise Him, Who is the health of my countenance...’ For the adventure had been none of his seeking and he did not know what would become of him.
Sir Rhys ap Thomas, Lord of West Wales, was he of whom the people said All the kingdom is the king’s, save where Rhys doth spread his wings. Reared in the court of Burgundy, that jewel of renaissance France, he combined elegance with military prowess and a passionate Welsh nationalism. So that his fortress, Carew Castle, massive and ponderous without, became a palace within. And here he held jousts and tournaments, and hung his stone walls with tapestries from Arras, and filled his cellars with the wines of Gascony and Rochelle and Bordeaux, and set a princely table, and kept a string of harpists, and a gaggle of tumblers and fools. He also housed and fed the family prophet, Robert of the Dale — a shrewd soothsayer with a weakness for strong drink. After he had made all preparations for Henry’s coming, and sent his scouts to the Dale to watch for ships, he called for Robert and demanded what the future held.
‘Ah, noble lord,’ said Robert, who did not mind being a Delphic oracle but declined to be a specific one, ‘the ways of princes are too perilous for prophecy!’ Then correctly divining Sir Rhys’ expression, he added, ‘Yet shall I dream on this matter for a day and a night, and speak with you again.’ The result was not as precise as his lord could have wished. ‘Full well I wend, that in the end, Richmond sprung from British race, from out this land the boar shall chase!’
Sir Rhys turned over the vagaries of this doggerel and decided that it lacked detail.
‘Will my lord permit me to return to my tankard of ale?’ Robert asked hopefully — for the malt liquor was freshly brewed, and did not keep well.
‘Nay!’ said his patron. ‘I must know more than this, good Robert. In the end, you say? When shall that be? In twenty years, perchance, when I shall be too old and you too drink-sodden to care?’
Robert had been at the ale already, but he was not too fuddled to miss the reprimand.
Stretching one arm before him, and striking an heroic attitude, he cried, ‘Hie thee to the Dale, my lord! And have a care of us all, I pray thee.’
It was fortunate that a messenger should have returned at that moment, to announce that six French ships had been sighted from St Anne’s Head. In the noise and flurry of trumpets and drums and horses and men Robert slipped away unnoticed. He was the kind of prophet who discovers his best visions in the bottom of an empty cup.
So Henry saw them approaching by the light of ten score torches: a vast train of two thousand horsemen and retainers, with the great Rhys at their head on his courser, Grey Fetterlocks.
‘Fetch that rabble from the fires!’ Oxford ordered his captains, ‘and see that they stand upright, and come not with gnawed bones in their hands! For Sir Rhys knows a soldier when he sees one — and these look like whores!’
‘My dear cousin,’ Henry cried, coming forward to greet his first supporter in Wales. ‘I thank you for this goodly welcome.’
Then, with Rhys at his side, he mounted a hillock and looked round upon the host.
‘Beloved countrymen!’ he cried. ‘Fellow-soldiers! It is upward of fourteen years since I was escaped out of these parts with my uncle, the Earl of Pembroke, and at length are we returned again.’
He paused, seeing that men craned and twisted to define him in the dusk.
‘Fetch me a ring of torches,’ he ordered, ‘so they may know for whom they fight.’ Then, ‘I fled for my life,’ he shouted, radiant in the torchlight. ‘I now return for my crown.’
A murmur ran through the ranks. They had heard him.
‘My life and my crown are inseparable. I must either enjoy both or lose both. But I am come, fellow-soldiers and my countrymen, more in your right than in mine own.’
He hesitated; the gold collar of Lancaster glittered upon his breast.
‘Here I stand before you,’ he said more quietly, but every word carried in the stillness, and between his pauses he heard the night wind in the coarse grass. ‘But what name to give myself I am altogether to seek. A private man I will not be called, since I am of the noblest in this kingdom. And yet a prince you cannot well call me while another professes my right. Yet let us show all men that the Lord of Hosts is with us. Let us by living procure this realm, or by dying conclude our miseries.’
There was a moment’s hush as he finished speaking, and then such a beating of drums and a blaring of trumpets that he started. And above the clamour rang the name he would not give himself. ‘King Henry! King Henry!’
It seemed that they would never stop, and Rhys waited a long time to speak in his turn. He spoke for them, to Henry, taking care that every word was loud and clear for the benefit of all.
‘My lord and master, take us to your protection. Our hearts are as well-furnished as our bodies. God gives you command of both.’ And on a great shout, ‘God prosper our proceedings!’
‘King Henry!’ they roared, above the blare of trumpets, the thunder of drums. ‘King Henry!’
Then the Bishop of St David’s held out his hands, and they called for silence so that he could set the seal of the Church upon their venture. For each man knew what this would cost, and that the full price might be exacted from him and his. So they stood patiently while the bishop wished Henry the strength of Jacob and Israel. And they stiffened to attention as he called aloud upon the Lord of Hosts to show His vengeance upon the enemy and His blessing upon the deliverers. And again they cried ‘King Henry! King Henry!’ until their throats were hoarse.
‘And now, your grace,’ said Rhys privately, ‘let us offer your French army ease and refreshment. We have provisions with us, and a voyage makes the hardiest weary.’
‘He has noted them!’ said Oxford to Jasper, in disgust. ‘I commend his courtesy.’
Indeed, Rhys was as disappointed in Henry’s mercenaries as Oxford himself. Smiling, he walked along their slovenly lines; speaking to one or two in their own tongue and finding them ignorant; inspecting their arms and finding them inadequate; allowing no criticism to escape him and wishing them back at home.
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‘I think, my lord,’ said Oxford drily, as he walked with him, ‘that King Charles emptied his prisons to furnish us with this motley!’
‘My lord,’ Rhys replied urbanely, ‘I have found that the sorriest rascal will fight fiercely for his own skin. Give them food and arms and they will serve us well enough!’
Both armies, the French under Henry’s command, the Welsh with Rhys, were up by daybreak; breakfasting on bread and ale, stamping out the fires, forming into columns. They were to travel by different routes to Shrewsbury. Scouts and messengers rode out first: the ones to spy out the land, the others carrying letters to Lady Margaret, the Stanleys and English supporters, and to the chieftains along the Welsh coast.
To these trusty and well-beloved high men of the tribes Henry sent a command in the name of the king. He desired and prayed them that in all haste they should array themselves for war against that odious tyrant Richard. He abjured them to fail not as they should answer to their peril. And beneath the signet he wrote Henricus Rex.
His tone was royal, but the campaign was in the balance and he dared not fail for lack of them. Rumour had already hinted that Sir Walter Herbert, that pillar of Yorkist loyalty, would declare for Richard; even that Rhys himself planned treachery. But as they reached Haverford West the first news came in. Pembroke town was prepared to support Jasper as its rightful earl, and Henry as its natural and immediate lord. And Herbert would join Rhys to march through Carmarthenshire. The people ran from their doors and lined the streets to cheer the soldiers as they tramped in.
‘Now must this be our slowest journey!’ Jasper warned Henry that evening. ‘Ten miles in one day is no distance, my lord nephew.’
‘It is those scurvy Frenchmen,’ said Oxford predictably. ‘They fear blisters on their sorry feet.’