Yet the grants of office, wealth and land could not hide the fact that the earl felt his traditional Percy authority in the north constantly undermined by the king. Whatever Richard might have promised him, Northumberland had known for a long time that his influence in the north would always be curtailed by a king whose own northern interests threatened to undermine his ability to raise an affinity and attract men to his side. After the fall of the Earl of Warwick, Richard had been granted a large share of the Neville patrimony around which he quickly sought to construct his own powerbase. He soon fell into conflict with local noblemen such as Northumberland, who felt that Richard was drawing his own men away from him, with retainers who had previously pledged their loyalty to the earl taking offices and fees from Richard instead. This conflict of loyalties eventually had to be resolved by Edward IV, who summoned both men to his council at Nottingham in 1474, to hammer out an agreement between the two men. As a result, Northumberland had promised to be Richard’s ‘faithful servant’ and to do him service ‘at all times lawful and convenient’, while Richard pledged in turn to be the earl’s ‘good and faithful lord at all times, and to sustain him in his right afore all other persons’. He would ‘not ask, challenge, nor claim any office or offices or fee that the said earl hath of the king’s grant, or of any other person or persons … nor interrupt the said earl nor any of his servants in executing or doing of any of the said office or offices by him or any of his servants in time to come’. Richard was not to accept or retain any servant that had previously been ‘retained of fee, clothing or promise’ by the earl. Nevertheless, the agreement could only have been viewed by Northumberland as nothing other than a compromise by the Yorkist brothers, whose regime threatened to freeze out his influence in the north.
Northumberland had been wrestling with these tensions when in exile Henry had attempted to contact the earl. According to Vergil’s manuscript, Henry sent Christopher Urswick to discuss a possible alliance with Northumberland ‘as quickly as possible’. When Urswick arrived in the north, however, he could find ‘nobody to whom he dare pass on the commission to the earl’ and was forced to return to Paris ‘without accomplishing anything’. Later, when he came to write up his printed work, Vergil glossed over the fact that there seems to have been no appetite for the match or for Northumberland’s support, claiming instead that ‘the roads were so blocked that not one of them could get through to him’. Nevertheless it is possible that Henry had not given up on his belief that his old friend might eventually provide support to his cause.
Still the slow drip of defections to his camp gave Henry some hope. During the spring, he was joined at the French court by ‘very many Englishmen, who either did flock continually out of England’, including William Berkeley of Beverstone, who had already been pardoned once by Richard in March 1484 after his uncle and his brother-in-law had provided 1,000 marks in the promise of his good behaviour; they lost their money. Other converts to his cause included those Englishmen ‘studious of learning’ in the French city, studying at the university there. Among them was Richard Fox, described by Vergil as ‘a man distinguished for both his good moral qualities and his good brain’. Henry was soon impressed by ‘outstanding loyalty’; coming to quickly trust the young man, he took Fox into his service, making him ‘a sharer of his plans and kept him always in his secrets’, including his plans for ‘the other marriage tie’.
As Richard struggled to contain the damaging rumours surrounding the queen’s death and the accusations that he had hoped to marry his own niece, his authority seemed to be ebbing away. With no other men than his northern supporters to turn to, he was becoming a victim of his own decision to focus too much power in too few hands. It seemed as if the king’s men, alien to the southern heartlands they had been rewarded with, were regarded, and often acted, as invading foreigners. An enquiry in the New Forest would later find that 500 deer had been killed in Richard’s reign by ‘the northern men’. Soon, as resistance to their enforced rule increased, some had begun to take the law unto their own hands, with Sir Ralph Ashton’s sons being forced to seize land in Kent. Ashton himself, a Lancashire man, had acquired a reputation for brutality that had earned him the nickname of the ‘Black Knight’ not only on account of his black armour, but for his ruthless punishments meted out after Buckingham’s rebellion, when Richard had given him the power to try treason cases ‘without formalities or appeal’. Tradition records that he sentenced his victims to being rolled downhill in barrels filled with spikes. Yet he remained an indispensable upholder of Richard’s kingship: on 29 April 1485 Ashton was appointed a vice-constable to proceed against and try crimes of lèse-majesté ‘summarily and plainly without noise and show of judgement on simple fault’. As instances of rebellion began to increase, Richard was determined to make an example of those who crossed his authority. This time there were to be no further pardons. Sir Roger Clifford, captured near Southampton, was tried and condemned to death at Westminster, to be executed on Tower Hill. Passing the sanctuary of St Martin’s le Grand on his journey to meet his death, he nearly succeeded in escaping when his confessor and crowds nearby almost dragged him to safety, but the king’s officers shouted for help; brought under restraint he was taken to the block. To those watching, it merely confirmed the growing suspicions that Richard was a tyrant, leading a merciless regime.
These demonstrations of power proved in vain, as even Richard’s own household had begun to make their own individual decisions to leave the king’s side. John Mortimer, an esquire of the king’s body seems to have defected to Henry around February 1485; Peter Curteys, the Keeper of the Wardrobe, who had furnished Richard for his coronation procession, fled into sanctuary at Westminster in May.
Rumours now ‘grew daily’ that Henry and his followers were ‘making haste and speeding up the plans for their invasion of England’. Welsh bards wrote poems, celebrating Henry Tudor’s hoped-for return. According to the poet Robin Dhu, ‘This is the time for our deliverance, the time for our little bull to venture forth … There is a longing for Harry, there is hope for our nation.’ Another poet, Gruffydd ap Dafydd Fychan, looked forward to ‘the youth from Britanny’ defeating ‘the Saxons’. Others believed that the Thames would run red with Saxon blood, a gruesome image taken from Merlin’s prophecy in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae.
Richard ordered further preparations for the urgent defence of his kingdom, stockpiling weapons. On 15 March 1485 the constable of the Tower, Sir Robert Brackenbury, was paid £215 7s 5d for money owed to him for performing his duties, including ‘the provision and reparation of our ordnances and artilleries’ there. Fifty bows, a hundred sheaves of arrows, a barrel of gunpowder, fifty armed spears and three carts of ordnance were ordered from the Tower on 29 March for the defence of Harwich. On 12 May a warrant was sent to Calais, requesting two barrels of gunpowder, three hundredweight of lead and two serpentines.
Yet Richard remained uncertain if an invasion would take place, and where exactly Henry planned to land. His spies were unable to provide ‘any certain information’. Richard’s spies were at least correct that events were moving fast at the French court. While the court was at Evereux, news reached Charles VIII that the Duke of Orleans’ rebellion had collapsed. Both Orleans and his ally Dunois had been raising troops in the Duchy of Alençon, but the decision was taken to disband any force gathered. On 23 March reconciliation took place between the Beaujeu government and Orleans. Almost overnight, France’s preoccupations shifted from their own internal problems to the threat of a hostile invasion from the alliance between Brittany, Richard and Maximilian. Finally, France was ready to embrace Henry Tudor’s cause for the sake of distracting England from attempting any hostile actions against them.
Still the French continued their charade that their pretender had a direct right to the English crown. When the court returned to Rouen, Charles VIII ordered that Henry should be treated as a prince of the blood in all public ceremonies. In the surviving ac
counts of Charles VIII’s official entry into the city on 14 April, there is clear evidence of Henry’s royal pretensions as dictated by the French king: Henry was described in the record as ‘The Count of Richemont, they say the King of England’.
The royal ceremonies performed at the French court must have had a profound effect upon Henry, who observed as he rode into Rouen several pageants that had been deliberately organised on the roadside. Each had been crafted to express the hope and expectation that the young king Charles VIII brought to the realm, above all stressing his divine rights and authority as king to rule. One featured the anointing of Solomon, the king being played by a ‘handsome and fair-haired boy representing our sovereign’, who was wearing an azure robe decorated with sparkling fleurs-de-lis. Further along, another pageant again featured a young boy, this time appearing dressed as Constantine, both before and after his conversion to Christianity, with the transformation being represented by an official crowning, with his fleur-de-lis surcoat being changed for the dress of a crusader. For the first time, he experienced at first hand the hypnotic aura of the majesty and royal authority to which he himself aspired.
As preparations began to equip a fleet intended for his invasion at Harfleur in the mouth of the Seine, Henry was treated as if he were a king in exile. Two weeks later, when Henry attended the cathedral at Rouen on 28 April, walking beside members of the French royal family, he was styled ‘princeps Anglie’, though the clearest indication of Henry’s new-found authority as a prince of royal blood came in the official order of the procession marking the feast of the Ascension on 12 May, where Henry, again being given the rank of ‘princeps Anglie’, walked behind the three French princes of the blood, the Dukes of Orleans, Bourbon and Lorraine.
The week before, Charles VIII had called upon the French equivalent of Parliament, the Estates, for further financial assistance for Henry Tudor’s projected invasion. Since the previous meeting of the Estates, Charles stated, there had ‘come to us our dear and beloved cousin the Count of Richmond, requiring help to recover the Kingdom of England which belongs to him, and whom in consideration of the close lineage we have in common, also considering that he is of all the people in the world the one with the most apparent claim to the throne of England, we have funded his and his people’s stay for as long as he should remain here, do favour him in his deeds and businesses: that funding to our cousin and his people will reach great sums of money’. Still, with France remaining committed to supporting the Flemish towns against the might of Archduke Maximilian’s onslaught, money remained tight. Yet within weeks the French army sent to Flanders found itself on the back foot; in June Maximilian had taken Bruges, with Ghent falling in July. It would be this collapse of French ambitions in Flanders, combined with the threat of an invasion by the English, that saw Charles VIII issuing orders on 25 June to mobilise forces against a possible Anglo-Breton attack and finally pushed the French government into giving their unequivocal support to Henry Tudor.
During the spring of 1485, either out of respect or in mourning for the late queen, Richard chose to remain a recluse, hiding away at his court and shunning official ceremonies such as the annual Garter feast at St George’s chapel on 23 April, preferring instead to send Lord Maltravers in his place. On 12 May, on the feast of the Ascension, Richard silently departed the capital for Windsor, before making his way to Kenilworth Castle in Warwickshire. On the evening of Wednesday 2 June, on the eve of the feast day of Corpus Christi, Richard chose to make a personal excursion, riding out together with his entourage to Coventry, where he had chosen to watch the Corpus Christi celebrations in the city.
The previous year Richard had attended the Corpus Christi celebrations at York. He must have mused upon what a difference a year had made. Then his wife and queen had been by his side. Now he was alone. Watching the celebrations, he would have seen the host being carried in its monstrance through Coventry’s streets, followed by burning torches and incense, the ringing of the sanctus bell, and the priest walking beneath a canopy of rich cloth, robed in a cope, his arms and shoulders veiled. Pausing at certain ‘stations’ along the route, so that the bearers of the host could rest, dramatic interludes were performed; Coventry would later become celebrated for its own pageants, comprising at least ten plays, including the Shearmen and Tailors’ pageant, and a nativity play that included a portrayal of the Massacre of the Innocents. Watching these, perhaps the king mused on the irony of the fates of his own ‘innocents’, the sons of Edward IV, about whose mysterious disappearance Richard remained tight-lipped, refusing to acknowledge their fates.
Richard had returned to Kenilworth by Monday 6 June, but three days later he had decided to ride northwards to his castle at Nottingham. The formidable fortress, built on an impregnable natural sandstone outcrop riddled with secret tunnels, dominated its surroundings with a view that stretched across to the distant horizon. It was a favourite residence of the Yorkists: between 1476 and 1480 Edward had spent over £3,000 on the castle, improving its living quarters with a new tower. In 1474 Richard Patyn had been commissioned to arrange the carriage of artillery to the castle, for which he was paid 4d a day for its custody. Richard had made alterations to the great tower, adding a timber loft with bow windows to make it, in the Tudor antiquary John Leland’s words, ‘the most beautiful part and gallant building for lodging’. Richard had last been here the previous summer, with his wife, when they had received news of his son’s death. Tradition records that Richard referred to the castle as his ‘castle of care’, perhaps in reference to the solace he found there recovering from the traumatic news of the death of his heir. Now he returned to prepare for war.
Rumours had been ‘increasing daily that those who were in arms against the king were hastening to make a descent upon England’. Yet despite the best efforts of his network of spies on the Continent, Richard still did not know at which port Henry might attempt to land. Prophesies and rumours suggested that Henry would land at ‘Milford’, but since Richard could not be certain whether this meant in Wales or at the port on the south coast, Lord Lovell was sent to Southampton to refit the royal fleet ‘with all possible speed’ and keep a ‘strict watch upon all the harbours in those parts … if the enemy should attempt to effect a landing there, he might unite all the forces in the neighbourhood, and not lose the opportunity of attacking them’. Richard’s decision to withdraw to Nottingham, into the centre of his kingdom, must be seen in the context of the prevailing uncertainty of where Henry’s invasion might materialise. Like a spider in the middle of its web, Richard intended to be ready to subsume his rival, no matter in which corner of the realm he might attack.
Though Henry’s invasion plan remained far from certain, Richard was taking no chances. The entire country would need to be placed on a war footing. It was at Nottingham Castle that on 21 June Richard signed a warrant for a second proclamation against Henry, to be issued two days later. The text remained mostly unchanged from the proclamation he had issued in late 1484, with the exception that Thomas, Marquess of Dorset’s name had been removed, a clear sign that Richard remained committed to reconciliation with the Woodvilles. Still present were the charges that Henry was receiving French backing, and intended in return to give up the English claims to the French kingdom, but instead of briefly mentioning Henry as he had previously done as being ‘late Earl of Richmond’, Richard launched a full attack on his rival’s parentage and legitimacy, claiming he was a man sprung from an illegitimate bed:
Henry Tydder, son of Edmund Tydder, son of Owen Tydder, which of his ambitiousness and insatiable covetousness encroacheth and usurped upon him the name and title of royal estate of this Realm of England, where unto he hath no maner interest, right, title, or colour, as every man well knoweth; for he is descended of bastard blood both of father side and of mother side, for the said Owen the grandfather was bastard born, and his mother was daughter unto John, Duke of Somerset, son unto John, Earl of Somerset, son unto Dame Kateryn Swynford, and of her in
double avourty [adultery] gotten, whereby it evidently appeareth that no title can nor may be in him, which fully intendeth to enter this Realm, purposing a conquest. And if he should achieve his false intent and purpose, every man his life, livelihood, and goods should be in his hands, liberty and disposition, whereby should ensue the disinheriting and destruction of all the noble and worshipful blood of this Realm forever, and to the resistance and withstanding whereof every true and natural Englishman born must lay to his hands for his own surety and weal.
The theme of destruction also took on a greater sense of urgency than before, with Richard intent to emphasise that no one would escape the retribution that would take place if Henry’s invasion were successful. No man, he claimed, would be spared:
And in more prove and showing of his said purpose of conquest, the said Henry Tidder hath given as well to divers of the said King’s enemies as to his said rebels and traitors, archbishoprics, bishoprics, and other dignities spiritual, and also the duchies, earldoms, baronies, and other possessions and inheritances of knights, squires, and gentlemen, and other the King’s true subjects within the Realm, and intendeth also to change and subvert the laws of the same, and to enduce and establish new laws and ordinances amongst the King’s said subjects. And over this, and beside the alienations of all the premises into the possession of the King’s said ancient enemies to the greatest aneantisement [reducing to nothing], shame, and rebuke that ever might fall to this said land, the said Henry Tydder and others, the King’s rebels and traitors aforesaid, have extended [intended] at their coming if they may be of power, to do the most cruel murders, slaughters, and robberies, and disherisons that ever were seen in any Christian realm.
For the which, and other inestimable dangers to be eschewed, and to the intent that the King’s said rebels, traitors, and enemies may be utterly put from their said malicious and false purpose and soon discomforted, if they enforce to land, the King our sovereign Lord willeth, chargeth, and commandeth all and everyche of the natural and true subjects of this his Realm to call the premises to their minds, and like good and true Englishmen to endeavour themselves with all their powers for the defence of them, their wives, children, and goods, and heriditaments against the said malicious purposes and conspiracies which the said ancient enemies have made with the King’s said rebels and traitors for the final destruction of this land as is aforesaid. And our said sovereign Lord, as a well willed, diligent, and courageous Prince, will put his most royal person to all labour and pain necessary in this behalf for the resistance and subduing of his said enemies, rebels and traitors to the most comfort, weal, and surety of all his true and faithful liegemen and subjects.
Bosworth: The Birth of the Tudors Page 26