‘Get out of my way,’ Richard snapped to Sir John Cheyney. As the massive warrior began to reply, he hacked down at Cheyney’s sword arm, aiming for the hand or wrist to break small bones and perhaps disarm him. The blow struck well enough to make the big man curse and grumble, but Sir John kept a grip on his blade and stabbed back with it, aiming to break the plates at Richard’s hip and groin. Their horses lay alongside each other and Richard’s point of view was filled with the larger man. He batted the blow away and struck out with his gauntlet, jamming outstretched fingers into the open visor. Three of his ironclad fingers scrabbled within and Sir John Cheyney roared in pain. When Richard pulled his hand back the man’s face was running with blood. The giant knight flailed in panic as he tried to blink some sight back. His sword struck Richard’s horse on the head and left a terrible wound so that the animal staggered, dazed.
Richard ducked under a blade and struck his sword against the knight’s helmet, a blow with all his strength behind it. It knocked Cheyney senseless and tumbled him from his saddle, sending him to the ground.
The battle was whirling all around him as Richard felt his horse fail. He dismounted quickly and the animal went to its knees, snorting blood. On foot, Richard roared for his knights, praying they would see him before the men-at-arms of Henry Tudor. Down in the chaos of the fighting line, he lost his sense of how the battle was going and he was alone, with men fighting and snarling on every side.
In the distance, Richard caught a glimpse of Lord Stanley’s banners, swaying over the heads of those on foot or still ahorse. He took hope from that. Yet on the hill above him, the Percy ranks still stood unmoving. Richard prayed then only to survive, so that he could bring a fine vengeance on to them.
‘The king!’ Richard heard. ‘There! There he stands!’ He turned to face the sound and was attacked by two knights in Lancaster coats. In anger, he batted away their swords. He needed a horse, anything to take him away from jabbing punch-blades and the mud that sucked at his feet. He spun and ducked, using his armour as a weapon, crashing any part of him that was encased in iron against the enemies he faced. None of them were so large as the giant knight had been, but they were many and their armour meant it was hard to land a killing blow, so that they kept coming against him. He could feel no pain from his shoulder, which was a relief, though he knew he was growing weary. One of the knights attacking him slipped and screeched at a broken leg. Richard kicked at the man’s helmet and smashed it free, knocking him on to his back.
He was breathing so loudly he could not hear the steps of those around him. He could see only a little through the visor’s slot and he turned in place, sword cutting the air, surrounded by enemies. Richard could not see the Tudor position any longer and it seemed his armoured knights had moved on, leaving him to stand alone in the chaos. He only prayed then that Lord Stanley would crash in from the wing and save him. It was his last spark of hope. He did not hear the man who swung a pollaxe hammer in a great looping blow against the base of his skull, shattering the bone. His eyes turned up but there was no life in them as he fell. A dozen men darted in then, hacking and stabbing at the dead king.
Henry Tudor was breathing hard, muddy and battered as he rode the last hundred yards to Lord Stanley’s forces. He was pleased to be out of the blood and death he had witnessed. Six thousand fresh men watched the maelstrom he had left behind, staring in grim fascination and knowing they could be asked to march right into it at any moment.
Lord Stanley came out from the ranks on a glossy brown mare. He wore armour but no helmet, preferring to breathe freely unless he was actually under attack. His beard hung down the front of his surcoat, almost to his navel. At his side, his banners were held by a knight and two more held warhorses on tight reins just behind him, ready with weapons in case of treachery. Jasper and Henry looked at each other.
‘Welcome home,’ Lord Stanley said. ‘Your mother sends her love, Henry.’
‘Thank you, my lord. Will you accept my command?’
Lord Stanley inclined his head.
‘As I have given my oath, yes, Henry. You know my son is in King Richard’s custody in London?’
Jasper saw his nephew grow still and his heart sank. There was a moment of silence from Henry as he considered.
‘Is your loyalty conditional then, Lord Stanley?’ Henry called to his stepfather. ‘Are you mine only if I save your son?’ Lord Stanley stared for a moment, then shook his head.
‘No. My loyalty is promised, however it comes out. I have other sons.’
Henry smiled tightly.
‘That is the right answer, Lord Stanley. However, if it is in my power, I will see your son returned safely to you.’
‘Thank you, my lord,’ Lord Stanley said, blinking.
‘Now. Lead us in,’ Henry said.
Jasper and Henry turned their mounts and rode back in a line of marching men, readying axes and swords as they went. A great roar went up in challenge and King Richard’s knights looked up in dismay from the fighting.
The armoured knights who had come down that hill had been battered and overwhelmed by too many men. Without the right wing of Lord Percy, they had been hard-pressed from the beginning, a last desperate gamble by King Richard to reach the Tudor heart. At the sight of Stanley’s vast force of six thousand coming in against them, many of them turned and raced away or threw down their weapons. Some were allowed to surrender.
They found Richard’s body, broken and battered in its armour with a dozen wounds. The helmet had borne a circlet of gold and one of the welds had come loose so that it hung askew. A knight tugged it free and it went rolling under a stunted bush. Sir William Stanley stabbed it through with his lance, lifting it so that it spun around and down to his hand.
They brought it over to Henry Tudor and Lord Stanley. The younger Stanley handed the twisted ring to his brother. Lord Thomas Stanley took the simple crown and pressed it over Henry’s long hair. His uncle Jasper was the first to kneel, with tears bright in his eyes. The men began to cheer the name of Tudor and Lancaster, together, in a great sea of sound.
Epilogue
Jasper Tudor swallowed uncomfortably as he looked across Westminster Abbey. The open space was lit by huge numbers of candles and so crowded that even that vast and vaulted room had become warm. He felt a line of perspiration trickle down his neck and wondered if he could possibly hand the crown of England to one of the servants while he dabbed at it.
He turned his head when he smelled violets and, at the same moment, felt cool fingers against his throat. His collar was so tight and high he could hardly look down, but he smiled even so at the sight of Margaret Beaufort reaching up to dry his gleaming skin.
‘Thank you,’ he whispered. He still remembered the girl she had been, so many years before, with no friend in the world and all the world in flames. He had thought then that he had saved that green slip of a thing, when he found her another house and a husband. Margaret had outlived his brother Edmund and her second husband to find a third. That man, Thomas Stanley, had been made an earl. He stood not forty yards away at that very moment, resting the sword of state on his wide shoulder. Jasper could only wonder at how well Margaret had managed.
‘Thank you for looking after my son, Your Grace,’ Margaret said softly. Jasper smiled, still delighted by his new title. A king’s uncle could be Duke of Bedford, it seemed. He would never want or go hungry again. He had been to Pembroke Castle and found it abandoned, with all the fine tapestries taken away. He had not yet decided if he would restore it.
‘You gave him hope over the years,’ he said, turning to her. ‘With your letters.’ At the heart of the crowded hall, a psalter of bishops laid hands on Henry Tudor, blessing him. The Bishop of Bath and Wells was there, with Morton, Bishop of Ely, back from disgrace to help the elderly Archbishop Bourchier fulfil his duties.
‘And it is my hope to know him now, Jasper. Now that I have the time. England is at peace, after all, long may she remain so.’
> Jasper looked across the hall, waiting for the moment when he would be summoned. The crown was very different from the rough circlet his nephew had worn at Bosworth Field. The men had cheered the sight, but that battered ring had not been a crown for a coronation. The one Jasper bore glittered with pearls and rubies studded on crosses of gold. It rested on a velvet cushion and was the work of master goldsmiths and enamellers.
It was very heavy, seeming to weigh more than the mere metal. Jasper looked along a lane laid with carpet, between rows of seated lords and ladies. He knew if he tripped and fell, it would probably be the only thing they remembered.
‘There can be peace from exhaustion, my lady, of a sort. I do believe these people are wearied by thirty years of war.’
‘As they should be, Jasper. Either way, we shall give them a fine royal marriage to join my son with Elizabeth of York. Her mother is a … practical woman, I believe. And she has lost more than anyone. It is my hope that seeing her daughter safely wed to Henry will bring her peace as well. There is no one else left, after all. My son is the last of Lancaster and Elizabeth is the heir of York.’
‘Ah, your son is many things,’ Jasper said. ‘A leader of men, to my surprise. A gentleman and a scholar-king. But he is a Tudor, my lady, and he will make his own house now. It is only right. He is the Ddraig Goch, after all, the Red Dragon – and perhaps, just perhaps, the Mab Darogan as well.’
‘The Man of Destiny?’ Margaret replied, reminding him that she had spent years amongst the Welsh. ‘Why of course he is, Jasper. He won. That is all that matters in the end.’
Jasper was turning to whisper a reply when she pushed him and he realized hundreds of faces were turned his way. He swallowed and stepped out into the hall, bearing the crown for the young king.
Historical Note
Henry Tudor was born in Pembroke Castle in 1457, to his thirteen-year-old mother, Margaret Beaufort. His father, Edmund Tudor, Earl of Richmond, had died of plague after being captured by Yorkist enemies. His uncle, Jasper Tudor, helped Margaret to find a new husband in Sir Henry Stafford, though she survived him as well and went on to marry Lord Thomas Stanley, later made Earl of Derby. It is interesting to note that Henry’s mother was as English as eggs – and his father was half Welsh, half French and born in Hertfordshire. Still, Henry Tudor had a good claim to being the Mab Darogan, the long-predicted ‘Man of Destiny’ who would come from Wales and rule England.
It is true that when Henry was fourteen Jasper Tudor returned to take his nephew away to France with him. It is not known if they used the huge cave under Pembroke Castle, but that would have been perfect. It is also true that there are tunnels under the town of Tenby, a dozen miles east of Pembroke – and local legend has it that those tunnels sheltered Henry and his uncle as soldiers searched for them, before the two Tudors dashed out to a boat and got away.
Warwick and George, Duke of Clarence, made a great landing from France in September 1470. They moved swiftly to London, there to free King Henry VI from the Tower and to restore him as figurehead for the house of Lancaster. For this sort of action did Warwick become known as the Kingmaker.
They were extraordinarily fortunate that Edward of York made it so easy for them. It is true that he was away in the north as his wife, Elizabeth, was about to give birth. It is well attested that Edward was a man of huge appetites for food, wine and hunting. Yet there is a certain amount of mystery about this period. The king who acted so decisively before and during Towton was caught with too few men and quickly surrounded – by an army in the north and Warwick coming up rapidly from the south.
Warwick had gathered between twenty and thirty thousand men in his campaign to restore the house of Lancaster. Edward settled around Nottingham and sent out the call – and barely three thousand came. The charismatic leader of Towton had been written out of the story. In an age of no mass communication, such a thing would have required shoe leather and volunteers by the hundred to spread the word. Lancaster was coming back. The old crown was to be returned. The house of York would fall.
Outnumbered to such a degree, Edward ran for the coast with just a few men, his brother Richard among them. Even then, the move had been expected and his boat was almost captured at sea. Edward had no money with him and it is true that the king of England had to give the boat captain his coat to pay for passage. He did so with a smile, though it must have been a moment of extraordinary bitterness. Like Warwick before him, he was heading into an uncertain exile.
Yet King Edward IV was an unusually determined man. He came back, fitter and restored. He had faced impossible odds before – and won, in the snow at Towton. He was, simply, one of the greatest battle kings in English history.
For all those who have imbibed a romantic view of King Richard III, I think they have cause to be grateful to Shakespeare, for all the bard’s delight in making him a hunchbacked villain. Without Shakespeare, Richard Plantagenet was only king for two years and would have been just a minor footnote to his brother’s reign. There is not one contemporary mention of physical deformity, though we know now that his spine was twisted. He would have lived in constant pain, but then so did many active fighting men. There is certainly no record of Richard ever needing a special set of armour for a raised shoulder. Medieval swordsmen, like Roman soldiers before them, would have been noticeably larger on their right sides. A school friend of mine turned down a career as a professional fencer because of the way his right shoulder was developing into a hump from constant swordplay – and that was with a light, fencing blade. Compare his experience to that of a medieval swordsman using a broader blade, three feet long or even longer, where strength and stamina meant the difference between victory and a humiliating death. Richard fought in 1485. He went out even though he knew his wife and son were dead and that he had no heir. I could not resist an echo of Macbeth, Act 5 Scene 3, when the king calls for his armour. King Richard knew that if he lost, the male line of his house was finished – and yet he went anyway. He was brave at the end. May we all be so.
The Duke of Burgundy, Charles the Bold (or the wonderful-sounding Charles le Téméraire), was initially reluctant to commit himself to the cause of the exiled brothers York. Duke Charles was only too aware of the power of King Louis of France. Yet Louis and Earl Warwick were openly arranging a massive attack from Calais into Burgundy lands over the first months of 1471 – forcing Duke Charles to support their key enemy with thirty-six ships and around twelve hundred men, some English among them. The flagship that held Edward and his brother Richard was merely the Antony. I made it the Mark Antony, after the noble Roman who gave Caesar’s oratory speech. It must have been a horrible gamble for Duke Charles to give up such a vital force at the exact moment he needed them most, yet it paid off.
Note: ‘Placebo Domino in regione vivorum’ – ‘I will please the Lord in the land of the living’ – was the first response line from fifteenth-century congregations at a funeral. Some mourners came only for the food and ‘Placebo singers’ was already an insult by 1470, used in Chaucer’s Tales a generation before as a description of false mourners who gained a benefit without being truthful. I find that word origin fascinating, so include it here.
Edward landed first at Cromer in Norfolk, but learned only that the Duke of Norfolk was a prisoner and that the Earl of Oxford was against him. A Cromer landing was impossible at that time, so he and his brother Richard decided on Ravenspur on the mouth of the River Humber, close by Hull and not far from the city of York – the exact landing spot where Henry of Bolingbroke had come ashore seventy-two years before, to usurp Richard II.
This particular campaign began badly, with Hull refusing to open its gates. Edward was only allowed into York with a few men and progress was slow and grudging as he passed Sandal Castle. No one today can be certain why John Neville, Lord Montagu, decided not to sally out against him from Pontefract Castle, but he didn’t – and a chance was missed to nip the Yorkist return in the bud.
Instead, Edward and R
ichard continued to gather men to them until they had around six to eight thousand, still hugely outnumbered by Warwick’s forces. Lord Hastings was actually one of those who accompanied Edward to Flanders. I wrote him joining Edward at Leicester as I wanted to show names coming in, one by one, an avalanche that began slowly but could not be stopped once it had begun.
Warwick remains a fascinating character, five hundred years later. I doubt I have done him justice, for he was a truly complex individual. His skills in diplomacy are undeniable. To survive and thrive at the forefront of the Wars of the Roses, he had to have been a man of fine judgement in personal matters. He clearly relied upon his family for loyalty and expected it in others. He turned against Edward only when that younger man made it impossible for Warwick to support him, with attack after attack on the Neville clan. Warwick was essentially loyal to two generations of York. He was driven away and the results were extraordinarily tragic. Elizabeth Woodville must bear some of the blame, though Edward IV must also take a share.
In battle, Warwick was nowhere near as talented as he needed to be. He lost the second Battle of St Albans when Margaret’s forces went around his entrenched position and attacked from the rear. Warwick then made the monumental error of capturing Edward and holding him prisoner without a real plan, eventually having to release a spiteful and vengeful king. When that blew up spectacularly, Warwick could not prevent Edward’s escape with Richard of Gloucester.
It is true Warwick refused to engage the Yorkist army at Coventry, though he had vastly superior numbers and position. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, of course, but something odd happened at Coventry. It is my suspicion that Warwick saw Edward IV and Richard of Gloucester on the field – and regretted his choices, at least for long enough to stay his hand. He had them boxed in: Montagu behind, Earl Oxford to the east, twenty thousand or more in and around Coventry. If Warwick had attacked, he could have written his own ending.
Ravenspur: Rise of the Tudors Page 41