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‘INTENDING OUR UTTER DESTRUCTION’
The same day that Richard received the Great Seal at Nottingham, across the Channel at Le Havre port, nestled in the mouth of the Seine, Henry Tudor sensed that, with a favourable breeze blowing westwards, the time had come to set sail. For weeks, together with his band of exiles, he had busied himself preparing a fleet of thirty ships, to be commanded by the French naval captain Philippe de Crèvecoeur. Crèvecoeur, a noted pirate of the seas who had launched a campaign against English ships in the Channel shortly after Edward IV’s death, was not the only suspect character whom Tudor had come to rely upon for his final invasion. Henry had long understood that he would be unable to invade England with the small band of Englishmen who had clustered around him, their loyalty forged only through the desperation of their circumstances. His uncle Jasper and the earl of Oxford aside, many of his followers who had joined him in exile had been devout Yorkists who had fought against Henry’s Lancastrian relatives in previous battles. To shore up his invasion force, Henry would have to pay men to fight his cause, and recruited 2,000 mercenaries from the remnants of a standing army based at the nearby Pont d’Arche, men described as no less than ‘beggarly Bretons’, and ‘of the worst sort, raised from the refuse of the people’, with other reports that some French soldiers had been gathered from Norman gaols.1
Henry also knew that his ultimate success would lie not in the strength of his invading party, but in the strength of support that he would be able to gather upon landing. His bitter memories of the abortive landing at Poole Harbour in November 1483, when Richard’s armed soldiers had lined the coast, while wild storms had beaten his ships back to Normandy, had caused him to think twice about launching a second invasion on the south coast, where Richard had strengthened his military defences. It seems that Henry had taken the decision to land in Wales in early 1485, after receiving news that the Welshmen John Morgan, Rhys ap Thomas and John Savage would be prepared to defect to his cause. Henry’s uncle Jasper, as earl of Pembroke, remained a popular figure in the region, while Welsh bards such as Robin Dhu had already begun to pen their verse, welcoming Henry as their saviour, stating, ‘we look forward to the coming of Henry; our nation puts its trust in him’.2
Henry made landfall a week after his flotilla had sailed out of the mouth of the Seine, not at Milford on the south coast, as Richard had been told to expect by his informers, but instead at the small hidden cove of Mill Bay, near the village of Dale on the northern shore of the Milford estuary. ‘Judge me, O Lord, and determine my cause’, Henry is supposed to have cried while kneeling down in the sands. His army quickly advanced northwards, making its way through Haverfordwest and Cardigan to Machynlleth within a week.
On 11 August, Richard was at his hunting lodge at Beskwood, near Nottingham, when he was informed that Henry Tudor had landed. According to the Crowland chronicler, ‘on hearing of their arrival, the king rejoiced, or at least seemed to rejoice, writing to his adherents in every quarter that now the long-wished-for day had arrived, for him to triumph with ease over so contemptible a faction, and thenceforth benefit his subjects with the blessings of uninterrupted tranquillity’.3 Vergil wrote that Richard soon learnt from his spies that Tudor’s army ‘did not exceed two thousand men’, and remained confident that Walter Herbert and Rhys ap Thomas, whom he had tasked with defending Wales and the Marches, ‘in whose valour he had great confidence, would easily put an end’ to Tudor’s march.
Richard did not waste any time in mobilising his forces in all areas of the realm. With the commissions of array having been issued in June, the country had remained on a war footing, with men prepared to mobilise their weapons and march towards the king with a day’s notice. Messages were sent to Henry, earl of Northumberland, ‘in whom he had great confidence’ to muster a force in the north and ‘to come with speed to him at Nottingham’, while, ‘with many messages and letters’, Sir Robert Brackenbury was summoned to the king’s presence, and instructed to arrange transport of the weapons and ordnance in the Tower of London, with further orders to ‘bring with him as fellows in war Thomas Bourchier, Walter Hungerford and many others, men of the equestrian order, whom he had suspicion of’. Meanwhile, ‘manifold letters’ were sent throughout the realm, containing ‘orders of the greatest severity, commanding that no men … should shun taking part in the approaching warfare’, with Richard threatening that ‘whoever should be found in any part of the kingdom after the victory should have been gained, to have omitted appearing in his presence on the field, was to expect no other fate than the loss of all his goods and possessions, as well as his life’.4
Evidence of Richard’s determination to raise men at all costs can be found in a surviving letter given under Richard’s sign manual, ‘given under our signet at our lodge of Beskwood the xi day of August’, addressed to Henry Vernon, a squire of the king’s body, and his brother Richard Vernon. ‘Trusty and welbeloved we greet you well’, the letter begins:
And forasmuch as our rebels and traitors accompanied with our ancient enemies of France and other strange nations departed out of the water of the Seine the first day of this present month making their course westwards been landed at Nangle [Angle] besides Milford Haven in Wales on Sunday last passed, as we be credibly informed, intending our utter destruction, the extreme subversion of this our realm and disinheriting of our true subjects of the same, towards whose re-countering, God being our guide, we be utterly determined in our own person to remove in all haste goodly that we can or may. Wherefore we will and straightly charge you that ye in your person with such number as ye have promised unto us sufficiently horsed and harnessed be with us in all haste to you possible, to give unto us your attendance without failing, all manner [of] excuses set apart, upon pain of forfeiture unto us of all that ye may forfeit and lose.5
Roger Wake later wrote how he had journeyed to Richard’s forces at Nottingham ‘against his will and mind’ since the king’s letters commanded him ‘upon pain of forfeiture of his life, land, and as much as he might forfeit’.6
During his ascent to the throne and Buckingham’s rebellion two years previously, Richard’s greatest supporters had been the members of the nobility in whom he once again placed his trust. John Howard, the duke of Norfolk, had pledged to deliver a force of over 1,000 men to Richard if it were needed: receiving orders from the king that he was to march ‘in all haste’ to join the royal army at Nottingham, the duke now desperately attempted to live up to his promise. Writing to his ‘welbeloved friend’ John Paston on Sunday, 14 August, ‘by this bill delivered in haste … letting you to understand that the King’s enemies be a land’, Norflok explained that a servant of his had brought him news that the king had intended to ‘set forth’ on Monday, 15 August, ‘but only for Our Lady Day; but for certain he goeth forward upon Tuesday’. Norfolk now requested that Paston ‘meet with me at Bury, for, be the grace of God, I purpose to lie at Bury upon Tuesday night’. Norfolk ordered Paston to bring with him ‘such company of tall men as ye may goodly make at my cost and charge, be said that ye have promised the King; and I pray you ordain them jackets of my livery, and I shall content you at your meeting with me’.
It must have been just before he departed for Norfolk’s camp at Bury that Thomas Longe of Ashwelthorpe in Norfolk, a manor with close associations with the Howards, chose to draw up his will by a ‘nuncupative’ or oral testament. Stating that he was ‘whole of his body and of a good mind, willing to die as a child of the church the said day and time going forth unto the king’s host at Nottingham to battle’, Longe commended his soul to God, requesting only that if he met his death in battle, his body was ‘to be buried amongst Christian people in such place as god would dispose for him’. Longe was not alone in drawing up his final testament before the march towards battle from East Anglia: William Allington, the Commissioner of Array for Cambridgeshire, made his final will too, on 15 August.7
Richard’s confidence that he would be able to d
efeat Tudor’s army seems to have stemmed from the early information he had received that Henry’s army was ‘utterly unfurnished and feeble in all things’, in comparison to his own well-organised plans for raising an army established by the commissions of array. The king still believed that Tudor’s small army would be intercepted and destroyed by the forces of Walter Herbert or Rhys ap Thomas. Jean Molinet wrote how Richard had given £700 ‘to a rich man named Thomas to raise an army’ to gather troops to muster with ‘Lord Herbert’ and others in order to resist Henry’s march.8 ‘He flattered himself that Walter Herbert with Richard Thomas and the rest of the nobles of his region’, Vergil later wrote, ‘in whose valour he had great confidence, would easily put an end to the adversaries, at the first approach of them.’9 Richard may even have been counselled that Tudor’s invasion posed no concern. According to Molinet, when Richard signalled his desire to join with his nobility to meet Henry’s march, he was dissuaded by those who replied, ‘Do not move, we shall do well.’10
As men poured into Nottingham to join the king’s army, still Richard waited to hear back from Thomas, Lord Stanley, and Henry, earl of Northumberland. Despite both men having mustered ‘great companies’, according to the Great Chronicle, they ‘made slow speed’ towards the king.11 Northumberland was probably on his estate at Wressle in East Yorkshire when he received the king’s messengers: even if he received the news of Tudor’s landing on the same day as Norfolk, 14 August, with many of his retainers spread across the north-east, it would have taken days to assemble his men, and been impossible to accomplish before 19 August. Yet the earl seems to have delayed even informing the city of York of his intentions: the same day that Norfolk was preparing to march from Bury, on Tuesday, 16 August, the council at York assembled to discuss the news that they had received of Tudor’s landing. Since they had received no official message of whether to muster their troops, the council recorded how ‘It was determined that John Sponer, Sergeant to the Mace, should ride to Nottingham to the King’s grace to understand his pleasure as in sending up any of his subjects within this city to his said grace for the subduing of his enemies late arrived in the parts of Wales, or otherwise it be disposed at his most high pleasure.’12 With the plague raging, the council agreed that any aldermen and members of the council ‘sojourning’ outside the city should be sent for ‘to give their best advices in such things as concerned the weal and safeguard of this said city’. In the meantime, each warden was to search the inhabitants of his ward, making sure ‘that they have sufficient weapons, and array for their defence and the weal of this city’. Proclamations were also to be made throughout York, ‘that every man … within this City be ready in their most defensible array to attend upon the Mayor, for the welfare of this City, within an hour warning, upon pain of imprisonment’.13
John Nicholson’s arrival at Richard’s lodge at Beskwood must have raised Richard’s suspicions. It was Northumberland’s responsibility to muster the city and send orders to the council: the earl had clearly failed to do so. Richard requested that York send 400 men as soon as possible.14 Thomas, Lord Stanley’s absence from the king’s court was even more concerning. Richard had requested that Stanley join him earlier in the summer; Stanley had refused, claiming that he was ill and unable to travel. Instead he sent his son, George, Lord Strange, to join Richard at court. Strange was certainly present in Nottingham by 1 August, where he is recorded as attending the ceremony of the handing over of the Great Seal.15 Richard hoped that his father would arrive soon from his residence at Lathom; Stanley had departed with his troops on 15 August, and had headed for Newcastle under Lyme. Meanwhile, his brother, Sir William Stanley, had journeyed from his castle at Holt to Nantwich. Keeping their two armies separate, Thomas Stanley took a more easterly route, arriving at Lichfield by 17 August. What Stanley’s exact intentions were, Richard could not be certain: perhaps Stanley intended to act as an advance guard, protecting against Tudor’s advance. Stanley had a history of doubtful loyalty; over twenty-five years earlier, he had refused to obey orders to bring his troops to the battle of Blore Heath, countering the instructions by refusing to move unless he be given command of the vanguard. There could be no doubt that, in refusing to join the king, Stanley was undermining Richard’s authority. The king had long suspected that Thomas, married to Henry Tudor’s mother, Margaret Beaufort, would fall under his wife’s influence, and that she ‘might induce her husband to support her son’s party’.16 Then suddenly news reached him confirming his fears.
Lord Strange had attempted to make an escape from Nottingham, but instead had been ‘discovered by a snare and seized’. On his arrest and imprisonment, Strange confessed that there was a conspiracy between himself, his uncle Sir William Stanley and Sir John Savage ‘to support the party of the earl of Richmond’. Strange begged for forgiveness, promising that if his life was spared, ‘his father would come to the king’s aid, as fast as possible, with all his power’.17 Strange wrote to Lord Stanley making clear his own precarious situation, together with a plea for urgent support.
Strange does not seem to have been the only person arrested in the hunt for clues about the plot. A Welsh poem by Lewis Mon dedicated to William Gruffudd, significantly a nephew by marriage to Lord Stanley, suggests that Gruffudd was also arrested and taken to Nottingham at the same time as Strange, describing how ‘manifestly by deceit he was put unwillingly somewhere out of his own country … the arrest and the taking away of Lord Strange … was a double misfortune’. Another poem described how Gruffudd was ‘under God’s care while at the mercy of King Richard, a man who is cruel to a prisoner’.18
Lord Strange’s confession provided Richard with the news that he had possibly expected, though Strange had been cautious not to name his father in the conspiracy to place Tudor on the throne. For Richard, it meant that Stanley’s loyalty could still be bought by the threat to his son’s life. Yet he needed to send out a clear message that any treason would not go unpunished: orders were issued for both Sir William Stanley and Sir John Savage to be ‘publicly denounced … as traitors to the king’ at Coventry, no doubt to ensure that the message reached Lord Thomas as soon as possible, while at the same time possibly intending to prevent Sir William Stanley’s further advance.
It was too late. News reached Richard that Henry Tudor had managed to pass through Shrewsbury. The town’s gates had been opened to him, allowing his army to pass over the River Severn and into England. Henry’s arrival at Shrewsbury transformed everything. According to Polydore Vergil, Richard became ‘sickened with fear’ and ‘immediately sent scouts ahead, who were to observe which road the enemy took’. When they returned, Richard was informed that Tudor was encamped at Lichfield. Arriving at the city, Henry had been ‘received as a king with thanksgiving’.
The speed of Tudor’s advance, ‘making haste and moving by day and night towards a direct confrontation’, had taken Richard entirely by surprise.19 It was time to move as quickly as possible, to cut Henry off before he reached Watling Street, an easy route straight down into the capital. Already within the city walls of Nottingham, Richard ‘had collected a vast number of armed men’, although the Crowland chronicler noted that ‘it was not yet fully assembled’.20 Sir Robert Brackenbury, carrying with him crucial ordnance from the Tower and travelling on the road from the capital, was still to arrive, though it was agreed that he would rendezvous with the royal forces at Leicester.
Richard ordered his forces, described by Polydore Vergil as ‘a vast number of armed men’, to prepare to depart from Nottingham, marching in a defensive formation in case they faced any attack en route. ‘Leading the soldiers forth in an orderly manner from safety, he ordered the front line of armed men to march in a square, towards the direction they expected the enemy to come, and all impediments gathered together in the middle.’ Richard himself followed, ‘surrounded by his men, and with the other horsemen riding up and down on both sides’.21
Richard’s forces reached Leicester by sunset. The foll
owing morning, having journeyed through the night, Northumberland appeared, leading a force that included several northern lords, including Lords Scrope of Bolton, Fitzhugh, Scrope of Masham, Ogle and Greystoke. Other peers who were later recorded as being present in Richard’s army included the earls of Kent and Westmorland, Surrey, Lincoln and Shrewsbury, and Lords Dudley, Maltravers, Grey of Codnor, and Welles, along with ‘a countless multitude of the common people’, according to the Crowland chronicler, who barely concealed his amazement that ‘here was found ready to fight for the king a greater number of soldiers than had ever been seen before in England assembled on one side’.22
Still, chroniclers noted that many of the king’s levies were missing. As soon as Tudor’s landing had become widely known, the Great Chronicle observed, ‘many knights and squires of this land … gathered much people in the king’s name and straight sped them unto that other party, by means whereof his power hugely increased’.23 Since his arrival in Wales, Tudor’s campaign had gathered pace, as Henry sent letters to Welsh gentlemen on his march, stating his intent ‘in all haste possible to descend into our realm of England, not only for the adeption of the crown unto us of right appertaining, but also for the oppression of that odious tyrant Richard late duke of Gloucester, usurper of our said right’, and commanding them to ‘make defensibly arrayed for the war’ without any delay, warning them to ‘fail not hereof as ye will avoid our grievous displeasure and answer unto at your peril’.24 Another letter, written from Machynlleth on 14 August, was addressed ‘By the king’, requesting that Sir Roger Kynaston, the constable of Harlech Castle, should assemble his men, ‘and defensibly arrayed for the war’ he was to ‘come to us for our aid and assistance in this our enterprise for the recovery of the crown of our realm of England to us of right appertaining’. Intriguingly, Tudor’s letter stated how he had been promised by his ‘trusty and well beloved cousin’ Lord Powis that ‘at this our coming in to these parts he had fully concluded and determined to have do us service’.25 Powis had travelled to Brittany in 1484 to agree a peace treaty with Duke Francis of Brittany, negotiating the delivery of English archers to help with the Breton campaign against France. If Henry’s letter is correct, then it seems that Powis had secretly offered his support to Henry, and that Henry had planned in painstaking detail his invasion of Wales, taking a northern route towards the Shropshire Marches, passing near to Powis’s castle en route.
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