Margaret of York: The Diabolical Duchess

by Christine Weightman

  More than a century later Francis Bacon revived the classical simile and also repeated Polydore Virgil’s analysis of Margaret’s motives:

  The princess [Margaret] having the spirit of a man and the malice of a woman, abounding in treasure by the greatness of her dower and her provident government, and being childless and without any near care, made it her design and enterprise to see the majesty royal of England once more replaced in her house and had set up King Henry as a mark, at whose overthrow all her actions should aim and shoot. She bore such a mortal hatred to the House of Lancaster and personally to the King as she was no ways mollified by the conjunction of the houses in her niece’s marriage but rather hated her niece as the means of the King’s ascent to the throne.17

  In addition, he added the particular sentence which has caught the eye of almost every succeeding writer on the subject, that Margaret: ‘was for the King what Juno was for Aeneas, troubling Hell and Heaven to annoy him’. Here Henry had been transformed from Hercules to Aeneas, yet another of Juno’s victims.

  This comparison was preserved by the Dowager’s most recent biographer Luc Hommel in the title of his book, Marguerite d’York ou la Duchesse Junon.18 The Tudor characterisation of Margaret as a malicious and vindictive woman became entrenched in English history, though it is singularly missing among most of the contemporary continental chroniclers and historians. Commynes, who often reported on Louis XI’s distrust of Margaret, never endorses the French King’s criticism with any personal attack on the Dowager. Of course he had actually known Margaret when she was Duchess of Burgundy.

  More recent English historians have echoed the Tudor line with considerable regularity. Even the charitable Hume considered that the Dowager’s behaviour towards Henry showed ‘a spirit of faction who entrenched somewhat the probity which shone forth in other parts of her character’. For Professor Mackie, Margaret was ‘always ready to play the kindly aunt to Henry’s enemies’. Writers in other fields have picked up this general verdict. The art historian, Professor Wilenski, suggested that Dirk Bouts portrayed Margaret as the wicked queen in his great dyptich ‘The Judgment of Otho’ because she was ‘rancourous and given to political intrigue’.19

  The source for all these opinions on the Dowager’s character was no less a person than Henry VII himself. He expressed his attitude towards Margaret with great conviction in a letter written to Sir Gilbert Talbot in 1493:

  not forgetting the great malice that the Lady Margaret of Burgundy beareth continually against us, as she showed lately in sending hither a feigned boy surmising him to have been the son of the Duke of Clarence … And forseeing now the perseverance of the same her malice, by the untrue contriving eftsoon of another feigned lad called Perkin Warbeck … wherethrough she intendeth by promising unto the Flemings and other of the Archduke’s obeissance to whom she laboureth daily to take her way, and by her promise to certain aliens, captains of strange nations, to have duchies, counties, baronies, and other lands, within this our royaume to induce them thereby to land here.20 (Author’s italics).

  The King repeated his opinions in his instructions to his ambassador to France, who was told to inform the French King that the Dowager was misleading Maximilian and was wholly responsible for the past and for the threatened invasions of England. Although Henry had, by this date, very valid reasons for regarding Burgundy as a source of danger, his motives for accusing the Dowager rather than Maximilian were entirely diplomatic and totally ignored the fact that Margaret and Maximilian worked very closely together in their attempts to dethrone Henry.

  Henry VII had an exaggerated notion of Margaret’s political influence, although he was not the first to respect and fear her authority. Louis XI of France had emphasised her role in diplomatic affairs and from the moment of her marriage to Duke Charles, the French King had regarded her as an active agent of the Anglo-Burgundian alliance. After 1477, Louis recognised the Dowager as one of the most vigorous opponents of France, and it is quite possible that Henry had learned to see Margaret through Louis’ eyes. He certainly imitated Louis’ methods of trying to discredit her with scandal. In the late 1490s, rumours were circulated that Margaret was Perkin Warbeck’s mother and that his father was none other than the Bishop of Cambrai. This fabrication echoed the story spread by Louis in 1468, that Margaret had had an illegitimate child. 21

  There was of course some substance in Henry’s fear of Margaret. After Bosworth, Yorkist exiles were permitted to find shelter in Burgundy. This on its own was not a particular threat to Henry, since it was common practice for English exiles to reside in either the Low Countries or France as indeed he himself had done. Only rarely could they expect any major assistance from their hosts. However, after the Stafford rebellion in England in the spring of 1486, the exiles in Burgundy were augmented by the arrival of Francis Viscount Lovel, who had been one of Richard III’s closest advisers. He had been brought up with Richard in the household of the Earl of Warwick and they were friends for many years.22

  His views on English affairs would have had a considerable influence upon both Margaret and Maximilian and he may well have persuaded them that the Stafford rising, in itself of no great import, nevertheless showed that there was widespread English opposition to Henry. An opposition moreover which could count on the support of highly placed and influential men, like Sir Thomas Broughton who had sheltered him in Lancashire and John Sant, the Abbot of Abingdon, who had helped the Stafford brothers back into sanctuary at Culham. John Sant was already known at the Burgundian court and by Margaret in particular. She had written to the ducal chamberlain requesting safe conduct for the Abbot when, in October 1474, he was making his way through the Low Countries to Rome and Naples on a mission for Edward IV.

  By the time of Lovel’s arrival, Maximilian had regained his authority within Burgundy and he had also secured his imperial succession, having been elected as co-ruler with his father the Emperor at the Diet of Frankfurt in 1486. He still faced considerable demands on his energies both within Burgundy and from Germany. Moreover, in spite of the treaty of Arras, the war with France had continued as Maximilian tried to recover the lost lands, and the regency government in France retaliated by attacks in Hainault and southern Flanders. Since Maximilian could not regard the new King of England as a friend, he feared an Anglo-French alliance against him. It was therefore in his best interests to ‘keep the bit in the mouth of the King of England’.23 Margaret surely reminded him of the triumph of 1471 when Burgundy had assisted Edward IV back to his throne. The Archduke was willing to encourage a Yorkist conspiracy merely in the hope of preventing any English support for France. If the plot was successful and a new pro-Burgundian candidate became King of England, so much the better.

  The origins of the Simnel affair are very elusive but in one matter at least the evidence is clear: Margaret was, by 1486, openly backing the restoration of a Yorkist king and her candidate claimed to be the Earl of Warwick. Since the death of Richard III, Edward, Earl of Warwick, had been kept at the Tower and there were few people able to recognise this boy who had lived in relative obscurity since the death of the Duke of Clarence, his father. One of the few who may have known him well was his cousin John, Earl of Lincoln, ‘a man of great wit and courage’ who was sixteen years older than Edward and had spent some time with him at the castle of Sheriff Hutton.24 Immediately after the accession of Henry VII Lincoln was in favour at court. At the time of the Lovel and Stafford risings Lincoln was closely under the watchful eye of the King, although he was later accused of helping the rebels. It was then, in the early summer of 1486, that rumours began to circulate claiming that Edward, Earl of Warwick, had escaped from the Tower and was at liberty in the Channel Islands. In July of the same year however, Lincoln was still an honoured member of the Tudor court attending the baptism of the new heir Prince Arthur. The christening was a great celebration of the union between the Houses of Lancaster and York. The last Yorkist Queen, Elizabeth Woodville, was the chief godmother, and as she
carried her grandson to the font it seemed that Henry had succeeded in reconciling the English Yorkists to his accession.25 Yet within four months of this ceremony, suspicion and rebellion were surfacing even at court.

  By November there were rumours that Warwick was in Ireland, where the King’s own representative, the Earl of Kildare, had given him his enthusiastic encouragement. There was widespread support for Warwick in Ireland where there was a long tradition of lieutenant generals from the House of York and Mortimer. Furthermore, Warwick’s father, the Duke of Clarence, had been born in Dublin during his father’s period of office. The news from Ireland worried Henry, who summoned a royal council to assemble early in 1487 and he had the young Earl of Warwick brought out of the Tower and paraded through the streets of London to a public service at St Paul’s.26

  At the Convocation of February 1487, a priest called William Simmonds admitted taking a boy called Lambert Simnel to Ireland and presenting him to the Irish as the Earl of Warwick. Concurrent with these revelations in Convocation came action at court, which suggested that Henry was becoming suspicious of a full-scale Yorkist plot. The Queen Dowager was deprived of her property while her son the Marquess of Dorset was imprisoned. Since both of them were subsequently restored to favour it may have been no more than an attack of nervousness on Henry’s part, and the temporary retirement of the Queen Dowager to Bermondsey Abbey may have been totally unrelated to the conspiracy. Elizabeth Woodville may well have complained too loudly at the failure of Henry to hold the long postponed coronation of her daughter the Queen. The lack of ceremonial recognition for the Yorkist Queen, through whom Henry had his best claim to the throne, had given rise to widespread complaints. It is significant that as soon as the Simnel rising was crushed Elizabeth was crowned, in November 1487.

  Even if the troubles between Henry and the Woodvilles were of only temporary importance, events were taking place which indicated serious intrigue at court. The dramatic flight of John Earl of Lincoln, which took place shortly after the parading of Warwick in London, caused widespread alarm in Tudor circles. His arrival in the Low Countries gave added impetus to the Yorkist activity there. At a later trial it was claimed that John Sant had sent one of his servants abroad as early as January 1487 with funds to supply the Earl of Lincoln.27 This would suggest that even before Lincoln left London, preparations and contacts between the Yorkists in England and in the Low Countries were well underway.

  By the Easter of 1487 the Simnel rebellion was taking full shape with the recruitment of an army of between 1,500 and 2,000 men, which was to spearhead the invasion of England in support of the Yorkist Pretender. These troops were described as landknechts, a well-trained and professional infantry which were a particular feature of the imperial armies. Maximilian issued several ordinances concerning their discipline and employment and he used them to good effect in his wars against France and his Flemish rebels. As a fighting man, Maximilian was notably more competent and more cautious than the late Duke Charles. At the battle of Guinegatte he had not hesitated to dismount and fight on foot, protected by a solid phalanx of his landknechts.28 A force of this type could not have been assembled without his full support, nor would Martin Schwartz, their captain, have ventured forth upon an invasion of England without the agreement of Maximilian, his former pay-master.

  Variously described as a German, a Fleming and a Dutchman, Schwartz was a renowned mercenary captain who had been particularly prominent in crushing the rebels in the Low Countries. In 1485 he had fought at the assaults on Alost and Nineveh where with his Swiss and German troops he had crushed the rebels, storming, looting and burning the cities and killing their inhabitants. He was with Maximilian when Ghent surrendered, and it was the fear that Schwartz and his men might be let loose to pillage the city that led to Margaret’s appeal for clemency.29 Margaret’s recruitment of these men for a mission abroad was surely welcomed by the people of Flanders and Brabant, who were pleased to see the back of these rapacious mercenaries, well-known for their mutinous behaviour when their pay was overdue.

  It is likely that the Dowager’s court at Malines was involved in a conspiracy long before the beginning of 1487 when the recruitment to Schwartz’ army began. The red-letter day in the Malines calendar was 1 July, the ommegang or feast day of their patron saint, St Rombout. St Rombout’s procession was one of the most important festivals in Brabant and visitors came from all over the Low Countries to join in the celebrations. If she was in the town on that day, the Dowager and the Archducal household always participated fully in the ommegang, and brought their guests with them to enjoy the festivities. Gifts of money and wine were offered to Margaret, to her guests and to her officials, such as Olivier de La Marche. Each year two pages of the city records were devoted to enumerating the gifts donated to important visitors and all the other expenses incurred by the festival.

  In the records for St Rombout’s day of 1486 there is one donation which catches the eye: a gift of eight flagons of wine to the ‘sone van Claretie uit Ingelant’ (the son of Clarence from England).30 The clerk seems to be referring to the Earl of Warwick, but whoever could this be? Was it possible that the real Warwick had indeed escaped from the Tower and had been brought through the Channel Islands to Malines, from whence he was later to make his way to Ireland?

  This hardly seems plausible since, if the real Warwick had reached the Low Countries, there would be other references to his presence there, though chroniclers, like Molinet, may have found it diplomatically expedient to erase any mention of such an embarrassing guest after the failure at Stoke. The appearance of a ‘Warwick’ in London, in February 1487, may have been a reaction to rumours that a ‘Warwick’ had been seen in the Low Countries. If this son of Clarence was not the real Warwick, was it his counterfeit, Lambert Simnel, already in the Low Countries to be trained by the Dowager herself? Both Henry and André emphasised Margaret’s close involvement in the conspiracy from its very beginning.31

  Maximilian’s cautious approach may explain both the lack of reports on the Pretender’s presence and the long delay between July 1486 and the start of the invasion nine months later. If it was indeed Simnel at Malines in 1486, then Margaret’s involvement in this conspiracy had begun very early indeed.

  Or was the truth even more extraordinary? Among the English exiles who reached the Low Countries after Bosworth was Sir Edward Brampton. Brampton was a converted Jew from Portugal, a merchant who had worked for both Edward IV and Richard III.32 He would eventually prove himself a 1oyal servant to Henry VII as well. According to Warbeck’s confession of 1497, Brampton stayed in Flanders until 1487 when he returned to Portugal taking Warbeck with him as a young assistant. Warbeck also claimed that he had begun his career by masquerading as Edward, Earl of Warwick. Is it possible that there were two pretenders available in 1486, one in Malines and one in Ireland, both claiming to be the Earl of Warwick and that it was eventually decided to back the Irish pretender and to send the other away?

  The reality may of course be rather less interesting. The clerk writing up the records may have simply made a mistake or perhaps some degree of fraudulent entry was going on, though ‘the son of Clarence’ would be a strange name to choose for a bogus entry. What it does indicate is that the cause of the ‘son of Clarence’ was known in Malines as early as July 1486 and that the city corporation, ever willing to keep in favour with their Dowager, made him a present of wine. If nothing else it dates Margaret’s interest in a Yorkist Pretender firmly to the summer of 1486.

  Further evidence of her involvement lies in the same yearbook with the record that between early 1486 and early 1487 Malines gave the dowager 750 livres for her reyse to England.33 A reyse may be translated as a journey or a venture. Was Margaret already collecting funds to pay for the mercenary army? The Dowager could easily raise money for an expedition, in addition to extra gifts like this from Malines, she had her dower income and the money from the sale of the Malines house. All that was needed to get the expedition underwa
y was a sign from England that there would be enough support there and the assent of Maximilian. The sign from England came with the flight of the Earl of Lincoln and Maximilian must have given his assent early in 1487.

  By April of 1487, the expeditionary force was ready to set sail from the Low Countries and Henry VII, whose military intelligence was always very good, was expecting an invasion along the east coast. He moved troops up to East Anglia to intercept a landing. After spending Easter at Norwich, he went on a pilgrimage to Walsingham taking with him the Earl of Lincoln’s father, the Duke of Suffolk. By 4 May he knew that the invading army had left Flanders and was making its way westwards to Ireland. As soon as Lincoln, Lovel and Schwartz arrived in Dublin, Lambert Simnel was crowned King Edward VI, in Christ Church Cathedral. No doubt the pious Margaret was delighted to hear that her protégé had been sanctified by ‘two archbishops and twelve bishops’.34

  Yet her true opinion of this first Pretender is far from clear. It was a curious conspiracy and nothing remains more strange than the motives and intentions of John Earl of Lincoln. It seems that he was supporting an impostor with the intention of putting either the real Warwick or himself on the throne. To what extent was Margaret a party to this subterfuge? After Simnel’s exposure, the Dowager made no known efforts on his behalf as she later did for Warbeck, but then Simnel’s life was never in danger. Moreover in the Antwerp protocols which she later agreed with Warbeck, there is no mention of either the Earl of Warwick or of King Edward VI. The 1487 expenditure is referred to merely as being in support of ‘the Count of Lincoln and lord Lovel’.35 The Great Chronicle of London suggested that the Burgundians were deceived by Lincoln and quoted a letter reported to have been written to the Earl on the eve of the battle of Stoke by Martin Schwartz: