Richard’s determination to crush the rebellion was impressive. Even the Crowland Chronicler admitted that ‘he exerted himself in the promotion of all his views in no drowsy manner, but with the greatest activity and vigilance’. An army was summoned to assemble at Leicester ten days later on 21 October; before it set out from the city, Richard offered a pardon to all commoners and yeomen who laid down their arms. For the ringleaders of the rebellion, there would be no such forgiveness. Denouncing them as ‘traitors, adulterers and bawds’, Richard issued a remarkable proclamation in which he denounced Dorset as having dishonoured ‘sundry maids, widows and wives’ while the rest of the rebels were guilty of ‘the damnable maintenance of vices and sin as they had in times past, to the great displeasure of God and evil example of all Christian people’. A price was put on their heads, dead or alive: for the man who captured or killed Buckingham, he would be awarded £1,000 or lands worth £100 a year; 1,000 marks or lands worth 100 marks a year was placed on the Marquess of Dorset’s head and the capture of the Bishops of Salisbury and Exeter; for other knights associated with the rebellion, Richard would award 500 marks or lands worth £40 a year. The king remained careful however to ensure that men did not ‘rob, spoil or hurt any of the tenants, officers or other persons belonging to the said Duke … so that they raise not nor made commotions or assemblies’.
It seems that the rebellion had been co-ordinated to begin on 18 October, St Luke’s Day. The plan was for the Kentishmen and men from Surrey, Sussex and Essex to have launched an attack on the capital, thereby diverting Richard and his forces from the greater rebellion that was planned for Wales and the West Country. In Kent, however, revolts broke out early, so that on 10 October the Duke of Norfolk was able to report to John Paston that ‘the Kentishmen be up in the Weald and say that they will come to rob the city’. If rebellion in Kent had erupted prematurely, it would have led to the entire plan unravelling before other areas where revolt was planned, in Wilshire, Devonshire and Wales, were adequately prepared. Dispatching a force to Gravesend, Norfolk was able to prevent the Kentishmen from crossing the Thames to join with men from Essex. Meanwhile the rebels in Surrey were cowed into withdrawing to Guildford, where they hoped for the arrival of their main army from the west.
When 18 October arrived, just as planned, outbreaks spread across several key towns across the south. In the south-west, the Marquess of Dorset appeared from hiding to lead a rising in Exeter with Edward IV’s brother-in-law Sir Thomas St Leger, Sir Robert Willoughby and the Courtenays; at Guildford, Edward IV’s knights, Sir John Guildford and Sir George Browne and Edward Poynings rose up; other rebels met at Newbury, Berkshire, led by the queen’s brother Sir Richard Woodville, and two knights from Edward’s household, Sir William Noreys and Sir William Berkeley of Beverstone, and at Salisbury, including John Cheyney, Edward IV’s Master of the Horse, and his esquire Sir Giles Daubeney. Others who joined the rebellion were former MPs, Justices of the Peace, respectable members of the gentry and stalwarts of their local communities. These were not desperate men, with little possessions and nothing to lose; they were the very bedrock of society whose decision to turn against the new king was a devastating blow to Richard’s authority in the southern counties.
On the same day, Buckingham raised the standard of revolt at Brecon, yet already his efforts to raise rebellion were in trouble. It was soon apparent that the army that he had hoped would gather to his standard had failed to materialise, with only his closest household men, Morton and the academic Thomas Nandike, later described as a ‘necromancer of Cambridge’, providing his paltry army with any support. Even his own retainers that the duke had hoped would join him had, perhaps lured by the prospect of material reward, chosen to remain loyal to the king. The duke’s retainer Thomas Vaughan, the son of the late Sir Roger Vaughan who had been executed by Jasper Tudor, probably had his own reasons for refusing to join a rebellion designed to aid the Tudor claimants to the throne. Instead he chose to turn against the duke, and keep a diligent watch over the surrounding countryside. Other tenants of the duke, who by all accounts was a ‘sore and hard-dealing man’ and far from popular, preferred to simply stay at home.
It is striking that, in the list of men attainted for their support of Buckingham, not a single Welsh name is mentioned; in contrast, twenty-two gentlemen from South Wales were later to be rewarded with annuities. In a marked contrast with the risings in the south, not one of Edward IV’s former household men in the region felt able to join forces with a man they considered had been complicit with Richard’s usurpation and the disappearance of the princes; some may have even felt that the duke himself was to blame for their deaths. Others, like John Mortimer who had been forced to give up his constableship of Monmouth, were still dejected from having lost their own offices to Buckingham when the duke had been awarded his vast empire in Wales and the Marches.
But it was the absence of any recognisable noble support that dealt a death blow to Buckingham’s chances of raising a successful rebellion. Despite being out of favour with Richard, Gilbert Talbot, the uncle of the young Earl of Shrewsbury who controlled his Shropshire estates during the earl’s minority, refused to mobilise. Most notably, it was the failure of the Stanley family to support Buckingham that ended the duke’s chances of success. Given Margaret Beaufort’s key role in the uprising, the duke would have hoped to win support from her husband Thomas Stanley, his brother Sir William Stanley and Thomas Stanley’s son by his first wife, George Lord Strange. Strange was in Lancashire in October 1483, perfectly placed to join the revolt. Buckingham clearly expected to win his support: as news of the rebellion gathered, Strange’s secretary wrote how ‘messengers cometh daily both from the king’s grace and the duke into this country’. The conflicting pleas for support had thrown the surrounding countryside into confusion: ‘people in this country be so troubled’. Even Strange’s secretary did not know which side his master would choose. ‘My Lord Strange goeth forth from Monday next [20 October] with 10,000 men’ he wrote, adding ‘whither we cannot say’. In the end, Strange chose to sit on his hands. Again, personal ambition dictated the choice of the family’s inaction. Buckingham’s new influence in Wales and the Marches had provided an unwelcome challenge to the Stanleys’ own power base in North Wales and Cheshire; since Buckingham had been granted a remarkable extension of his power in the Welsh Marches, including the constableships of all the royal castles in Wales, his new authority had been resented by the Stanleys, whose followers were reluctant to co-operate with the duke and hand over possession of several castles. They were hardly likely to lend their support to a rebellion whose success would only likely lead to further enrichment of the duke’s estates and influence in the region.
News of the premature uprising in Kent had allowed Richard to be forewarned of Buckingham’s intended moves. Armed men were sent into Wales, encircling the duke, ‘in readiness to pounce on all his domestic possessions as soon as the duke moved a foot away from his house’. Again, the encouragement of reward was dangled in front of the men, with Richard promising them ‘the prospect of the duke’s wealth for themselves’.
Humphrey Stafford was commanded to destroy the bridges and ferries that crossed into England. His efforts were aided by a deluge that lasted ten days, turning the river Severn and the Avon into raging torrents, sweeping away their banks and making both completely impassable. Unable to cross either river, Buckingham would be prevented from joining up with the rebels in the south. The duke had managed to make his way as far as the Forest of Dean when he realised that, cut off by the forces of nature, he was trapped. Returning to find that his castle at Brecon had been seized and plundered by Thomas Vaughan and his brothers, Buckingham fled to Weobley, leaving his young son and heir Edward with a nurse who dressed the young boy as a girl in order to escape capture by Richard’s men. Arriving back at Weobley, where he was joined by John Morton, the duke took the only option that was open to him: changing his clothes, he disguised himself as a labourer
and took refuge in a pauper’s cottage near Wem in Shropshire. He was soon discovered, possibly through the treachery of his servant Humphrey Bannister, who betrayed the duke ‘for fear or money’, although the Crowland Chronicler relates how Buckingham’s hiding place was given away by the fact that ‘the supply of provisions taken there was more abundant than usual’.
Arrested and taken to Shrewsbury, on 31 October the duke was handed over to Sir James Tyrell and taken under armed guard to Salisbury, where Richard had journeyed with his army. The duke pleaded to be granted an audience with the king. This Richard refused; instead, he was executed in the market place in front of the king and his army on All Souls’ Day, 2 November, the method of his execution by the axe being the one concession to the duke’s royal ancestry. The following day, confident that the rebellion was all but over, Richard marched westwards, determined to crush the rising. News of Buckingham’s execution had left the rebels ‘so dismayed that they knew not which party to take’. A brave final stand was made at Bodmin on 3 November, when Peter Courtenay, Bishop of Exeter, and Edward Courtenay issued their own proclamation, declaring a call to arms to their ‘other king’ Henry VII. It was to be a hopeless last stand as the king’s forces marched into Exeter, and a general sense of panic erupted. The Courtenays, together with Thomas, Marquess of Dorset and other members of the nobility and gentry who had conspired in the rebellion and ‘as many of them as could find ships in readiness’ took to the seas, bound for Brittany. John Cheyney and Giles Daubeney made their escape together with another rebel from Exeter, John Halwell, on a boat belonging to Stephen Calmady from Devon.
A ruthless search for those hiding in the shelter of friends or the protection of sanctuary ensued. Richard’s own brother-in-law Thomas St Leger, the husband of his sister Anne, was unfortunate enough to be captured. In an attempt to save his life, ‘innumerable sums’ of money were offered, but Richard was in no mood to forgive such an act of betrayal from a member of his own family. St Leger was hung from the scaffold, drawn and quartered on 12 November.
Those more fortunate arrived across the Channel with tales of miraculous escape. The Cornish knight Sir Richard Edgecombe, who had previously sent money to Henry in exile, had been tracked down by Richard’s men and chased through woods near his house at Cothele on the Tamar gorge. He was only saved through his own quick thinking when, with Richard’s men closing in on him, ‘fast at his heels’ and his capture and likely death imminent, he found a large stone and placing his cap on top, rolled it into the water. Making a large splash, the rangers, ‘looking down after the noise and seeing his cap swimming, thereon supposed that he had desperately drowned himself, gave over their further hunting’.
Those who joined Edgecombe in flight from Exeter included the Marquess of Dorset and his young son Thomas Grey, the Courtenays, Sir Robert Willoughby, Sir Thomas Arundell, the head of one of the most important families in Cornwall with strong Lancastrian sympathies, and whose sister was married to another fleeing rebel, Sir Giles Daubeney. Elsewhere, in spite of the failure of their risings and being in the less advantageous position of being distant from the coast, other leading rebels were able to slip the king’s net, boarding boats destined for across the Channel. They included Bishop Lionel Woodville, Sir Edward Woodville, John Welles, Sir John Cheyney and his two brothers, together with Sir Giles Daubeney and Edmund Hampden who had taken part in the Salisbury rebellion; in Kent, the brothers Thomas and William Brandon, along with Richard Guildford and Edward Poynings had also managed to escape, as had the Newbury rebels Sir William Berkeley and John Harcourt. Bishop John Morton, faring better than the Duke of Buckingham, had fled Weobley into the marshy wastelands of the Fens in his diocese, before crossing unnoticed into Flanders where he was joined by Christopher Urswick. It proved to be nothing less than an exodus of some of the most influential members of court, and most valued members of the southern gentry.
In total, over 500 Englishmen had decided they had no other choice but to weigh anchor and set sail for an uncertain future with an equally unknown figure, whose remote claim to the throne remained their only hope. In desperation, each of their futures had become forged to a mysterious young Welshman whom most had never even met.
Richard returned to London triumphant, even though no battle had been fought. The cost of his expedition, however, had come ‘at no less expense than if the armies had fought hand to hand’. Still, even the king understood that, with the successful flight of so many rebels across the sea, joining Henry’s standard, his victory was a pyrrhic one. The rebellion had been defeated, yet its authors had lived to return to fight another day. As Richard pondered the consequences of the violence that had occurred that autumn, together with the fundamental breakdown in the natural order, he grew increasingly agitated, ‘vexed, wrested and tormented in mind with fear almost perpetually of the earl Henry and his confederates return; wherefore he had a miserable life’. He was determined more than ever ‘finally to pull up by the roots all matter of fear and tumult and other by guile or force to bring the same about’.
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Exhausted from their journey and the battering that they had received as their ships were tossed around in the stormy seas of the Channel that had left them washed ashore miles from their intended destination in Brittany, Henry and his party spent three days on the coast refreshing themselves from the ‘toil and travail’. Having sent his ships onward to Brittany, Henry was determined to return with part of his company on foot. In order to seek permission to pass through Normandy, he sent ambassadors to the new French king Charles VIII. A Breton chronicle written by Alain Bouchard suggests that when Charles VIII’s guardian, the twenty-two-year-old Anne of Beaujeu discovered Henry had landed in France, she sent him to Charles VIII ‘where he was welcomed with honours’, and after remaining for a few days at the French court returned to Brittany where he was finally able to inform Francis II and his treasurer Pierre Landais ‘of his misfortunes’ and return to Vannes.
In fact, nothing could have been further from the truth. For the French government, plagued with its own internal problems since the death of Louis XI several months before, no effort was made to take advantage of Henry’s desperate situation. The French regency government might have been expected to intercept him and take possession of a man whom Louis himself had sought to obtain for his own political purposes, but instead it chose only to take pity on the failed pretender, sending François, lord of Lau to meet him. Henry was given an escort by Henri Charbonnel to the monastery of Saint-Sauveur de Redon, at a cost of 1,051 livre tournois 12s 6d, where he was then freed to make his journey back to Francis II’s court in Brittany. The decision of the French to let Henry slip through their hands might be seen as a missed opportunity, yet it also reveals how low Henry’s stock had fallen on the international stage; after his ignominious return, with his fleet scattered and rebellion at home having been mercilessly crushed, Henry could be considered little more than an impoverished exile, whose defeat had called into question his usefulness as a diplomatic counter, let alone any chance of recovering the throne, his claim to which was at best remote. The dire reality of Henry’s fortunes was summed up by the chronicler Commynes who, reflecting on what had taken place, noted that although ‘God had suddenly raised up against King Richard an enemy’, it was judged that Henry ‘had neither money nor rights to the crown of England’.
When he finally reached Brittany, Henry was informed that Buckingham was dead. Matters could hardly be worse, Henry must have considered, as he ‘much lamented’ the devastating news. But there was to be a glimmer of hope. For Henry had not arrived in Brittany alone. Henry was told how that, since the failure of the rebellion, those who had managed to flee England had sought protection in exile at Duke Francis’s court. Most prominent among them was Queen Elizabeth’s brother, Thomas, Marquess of Dorset, who had arrived together with a ‘great number’ of English gentlemen at Vannes shortly before. They now looked ‘to seek’ Henry and make contact with him.
If the number of English exiles who sought out Henry were at first few, as men made their individual journeys towards Francis’s court, the numbers soon swelled into a colony of several hundred. Their rebellion may have ended in failure, but the effect of that failure had been for each man in his desperation to throw in his lot with Henry Tudor. Many of course had been loyal to Henry’s cause from the beginning, coming as they had from the households of his mother Margaret Beaufort and Thomas Stanley; Richard Pigot and John Browne had both been involved in the arrangements made by Margaret and Stanley for the inheritance of her estates in 1482; other exiles such as Sir John Risley, Seth Worsley and John Edward had strong connections with Thomas Stanley’s own affinity.
For others, however, coming face to face with Henry, an unknown Welshman who many probably had never even heard of before Richard’s usurpation, let alone ever considered a serious challenger to the throne, the experience of meeting the exiled Lancastrian must have been muted. For those once loyal Yorkists, men who had fought against Henry’s own relatives in the civil wars, the very act of paying him homage must have seemed nothing less than bizarre. Edward IV’s household men such as Sir Giles Daubeney, or Edward’s standard bearer John Cheyney, the Master of the King’s Horse, must have reflected in a state of disbelief the course of events that had witnessed their lives transformed, to the extent that they now came to find solace in the company of a man their dead master had spent years in vain attempting to capture. Other men came to Henry with their own personal grievances still agonisingly fresh in their minds. John Harcourt had been a prominent member of William Lord Hastings’ retinue before his master’s execution. Then there was the Woodville affinity, represented by Sir Edward Woodville, Thomas, Marquess of Dorset and Lionel Woodville, Bishop of Salisbury, whose authority as the king’s relatives had evaporated upon Richard’s accession; still in mourning for the disappearance of Edward V and his brother and still uncertain as to the eventual fate of Queen Elizabeth and her daughters imprisoned in sanctuary at Westminster, a burning sense of revenge must have crowded out any reservation they might have of turning to their former Lancastrian foes for support.
Bosworth: The Birth of the Tudors Page 19