The House of Tudor

by Alison Plowden

  A week later the first Tudor Parliament met to deal, among other things, with certain anomalies arising out of recent events. Henry had won his kingdom by right of conquest; he had been crowned and anointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury; yet in law, by an Act of his predecessor, he was still attainted of treason - a proscribed person without rights or property. Henry knew that his hereditary title would not stand up to close examination, but he also knew that the country was not so much interested in his legal right to wear the crown as in his ability to hold on to it. He had not summoned Parliament to recognize him as King -he was King already and, in any case, only a true King could summon Parliament. It was a splendidly illogical situation and Henry sensibly resolved the whole tangle by ignoring it, taking his stand on accomplished fact - on his just title by inheritance’, on the judgement of God as delivered at Bosworth, and on the ruling of less exalted judges that his attainder had been automatically cancelled by his assumption of the throne. In order to regularize matters for the future and to satisfy the tidy-minded, a brief Act for the Confirmation of Henry VII was passed, declaring that ‘the inheritance of the crowns of the realms of England and France...be, rest, remain and abide in the most royal person of our now sovereign lord king Harry VII and in the heirs of his body lawfully come, perpetually with the grace of God so to endure, and in none other.’

  The King was not the only person whose affairs had to be sorted out by this Parliament. Elizabeth Woodville, Henry’s prospective mother-in-law, had been stripped of her rank and dignity as Queen by Richard in and her children bastardized. These shameful injustices now had to be erased from the statute book and consigned to ‘perpetual oblivion’. The King’s own mother got back her estates which had been confiscated by Richard in 1483, and the Parliament of 1485 granted to Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond and Derby, all the rights and privileges of a ‘sole person, not wife nor covert of any husband’. She was, in fact, to have full and independent control over her very considerable property ‘in as large a form as any woman now may do within this realm’. ‘My lady the King’s mother’ was, therefore, not only an exceedingly rich woman - she also became an exceedingly important and influential woman. Indeed, to all intents and purposes she became honorary Queen Dowager, thus receiving tacit recognition for the vital part, political as well as biological, which she had played in founding the new dynasty.

  The House of Commons now turned its attention to the future of the new dynasty and on 11 December the Speaker presented a petition to the King, earnestly requesting him to take to wife Elizabeth, daughter of Edward IV, a request which was solemnly seconded by the lords spiritual and temporal. Henry is generally accused of deliberately delaying his marriage so that no one would have any excuse for saying he owed his throne to his wife. There is no question that Elizabeth’s right to be Queen was a good deal stronger than Henry’s to be King, but no one had ever suggested they should reign jointly. Henry’s title, such as it was, could not be strengthened by his wife’s - it was their children who would benefit from the union of ‘the two bloodes of highe renowne’. So, while the marriage was obviously very desirable politically, it was even more important from the dynastic point of view and that made it all the more essential that it should be an indisputably valid marriage. It would have been unwise for Henry to claim his bride while she was still officially a bastard and, apart from this, the couple were closely enough related to need a papal dispensation. This had now been applied for but in the end Henry did not wait for Rome. He received an authority to proceed from the Bishop of Imola, papal legate in England, and on 16 January 1486, he redeemed the pledge given two years before at Rennes and married Elizabeth, King Edward’s daughter.

  Elizabeth of York was in her twenty-first year and generally agreed to be a pretty girl, with the silver-gilt fairness of the Plantagenets. Like her bridegroom, her childhood and adolescence had been disrupted by the civil war. She had twice been hurried into sanctuary with her mother and sisters, had suffered the grief of her brothers’ disappearance, faced at least the possibility of marriage with her uncle Richard as well as all the anxiety and insecurity attached to being her father’s heiress. Tradition, as embodied in the epic ballad The Most Pleasant Song of Lady Bessy, credits Elizabeth with much of the under-cover work leading up to Bosworth, and describes how she sent for Lord Stanley, ‘father Stanley’, telling him she would rather die - ‘with sharp swords I will me slay’ - than become her uncle’s leman, and begging his help for the exiled Henry.

  You may recover him of his care,

  If your heart and mind to him will gree:

  Let him come home and claim his right,

  And let us cry him King Henry!

  The Song of Lady Bessy, which was probably written by Humphrey Brereton, a squire in the Stanleys’ service, contains some unmistakably authentic touches as well as a good deal of poetic license. Elizabeth may have been in touch with Henry at some point during the months before Bosworth and may have sent him a message of encouragement by one of the secret couriers going over to France. Although she had never seen her future husband, she would no doubt have heard much about him from Lady Stanley and, quite apart from any romantic considerations, the Yorkist heiress would certainly have realized by this time that the position of Henry Tudor’s consort offered the best prospect of a secure and honourable future - the best, that is, which she could reasonably hope for.

  The wedding should normally have been followed by the Queen’s coronation, but this had to be put off for the best possible reason - the Queen was pregnant. The King spent the spring on a progress, going as far north as York to show himself to the people, but he was back in London by the beginning of June and not long afterwards set off with the Queen towards Winchester. It was there, at the ancient British capital, on 20 September 1486, that Elizabeth gave birth to a son - ‘the rosebush of England’ who would unite the warring factions. Winchester resounded to the pealing of bells and the singing of Te Deum Laudamus and as the ‘comfortable and good tidings’ spread round the country, bells were rung, bonfires lit in the streets and Te Deum sung in parish churches up and down the land as ‘every true Englishman’ rejoiced.

  The infant prince was christened Arthur, a shrewd and imaginative choice, in Winchester Cathedral amid much pomp and ceremony, with three bishops officiating. The Earls of Oxford and Derby were godfathers. Queen Elizabeth Woodville godmother, and the baby was carried to and from the church by his aunt Cecily of York, supported by the Marquis of Dorset and the Earl of Lincoln, eldest of the de la Pole brothers. All the important relations from both sides of the family were present - although Lancastrians were heavily outnumbered by Yorkists. Everyone was on their best behaviour and in spite of the cold, rainy weather, the ceremony went off very smoothly. To an outsider it might have looked as if the ancient blood feud was over at last.

  As soon as the Queen had been churched and had thrown off an attack of fever, the Court moved back to Greenwich to keep the solemn feast of All Hallows with more pomp and ceremony. Christmas was also spent at Greenwich. A quiet, family occasion this, at which, it is reasonable to assume, the new baby was the centre of attention. One way and another, the King could feel modestly pleased with his first sixteen months but, early in the New Year, the curious affair of Lambert Simnel provided an effective antidote to any incipient sense of false security.

  Simnel, the son of an organ-maker from Oxford, turned up in Ireland, where he was being passed off as the Earl of Warwick, conveniently ‘escaped’ from the Tower. Henry took the obvious counter-measure of producing the real Warwick at High Mass in St. Paul’s, making sure that as many important people as possible saw him and spoke to him. Unfortunately, though, Ireland was a long way from St. Paul’s and the Irish chieftains had their own reasons for preferring to believe in Simnel.

  A strong element of fantasy pervades the whole Simnel affair, but it soon became surprisingly dangerous - especially when it became clear that the unfortunate youth was
being used as a stalking horse by more substantial personages. The Earl of Lincoln, who had absconded from his place at King Henry’s council table, reappeared in Ireland early in May, accompanied by a business-like force of German mercenaries, paid for by his aunt Margaret, widowed Duchess of Burgundy and another of Edward IV’s sisters. Thus encouraged, the Irish, with more enthusiasm than common-sense, proceeded to crown Lambert Simnel as Edward VI in Christ Church, Dublin, using a diadem borrowed from a handy statue of the Virgin. A month later, John de la Pole, his mercenaries reinforced by a hopeful contingent of ‘wild Irishmen’, landed at the Pile of Fouldry on the Lancashire coast.

  Henry, meanwhile, had collected a sizeable army and set up his headquarters in the Midlands, just as Richard had done two years before. The confrontation came at Stoke on 16 June and the battle, which marked the real end of the Wars of the Roses, turned out to be an uncomfortably close-run thing. The Germans, conscientious professionals under their formidable commander Martin Schwartz, gave Margaret of Burgundy good value for her money. The half-naked Irish, too, ‘foughte hardely and stuck to it valyauntly’ - there would be much plunder for a victorious army in a rich country like England - but valour was no substitute for body-armour and they suffered heavy casualties.

  There are unconfirmed reports that part of Henry’s army - like Richard’s at Bosworth - hung back and that rumours that ‘the kyng was fled and the feeld lost’ were deliberately circulated in the ranks by certain ‘false Englisshemen’. Whatever the truth of these reports, the King could rely on two utterly loyal and experienced lieutenants in his uncle Jasper and John de Vere, Earl of Oxford, and after three anxious hours a vigorous charge by the first line of the royal troops finally settled the matter. John de la Pole was killed, but the capture of Lambert Simnel provided Henry with an opportunity to make a nicely calculated propaganda gesture by giving ‘Edward VI’ a job in the royal kitchens.

  The House of Tudor had survived its first serious crisis, but the Simnel affair had demonstrated just how frighteningly thin was the crust it stood on -just how close to the surface lay the seething volcano of its rivals’ vengeful ambition. But no hint of these anxieties was allowed to appear in public - especially not at the King’s state entry into London on 3 November.

  The city had made the appropriate preparations for this auspicious occasion. The streets through which the procession would pass were carefully swept and sanded, and representatives of the various craft guilds were lined up, ‘in due order’ and in their best liveries, along the route from Bishopsgate to St. Paul’s. Meanwhile, the Mayor with his sheriffs and aldermen, ‘all on horseback full well and honourably be seen’, had ridden out to meet the royal party. ‘And so at afternoon the King, as a comely and royal prince, apparelled accordingly, entered into his City well and honourably accompanied, as was fitting to his estate.’ The citizens had turned out in strength to see the show and give the King a hero’s welcome. ‘All the houses, windows and streets as he passed by were hugely replenished with people in passing great number, that made great joy and exaltation to behold his most royal person so prosperously and princely coming into his city after his late triumph and victory against his enemies.’

  Among the spectators were the Queen and the King’s mother, who watched the procession from the window of a house beside St. Mary Spital at Bishopsgate. The King went on to attend an official thanksgiving service at St. Paul’s, but the ladies went quietly back to Greenwich, ‘to their beds’. Certainly Elizabeth of York had a heavy programme before her, since the date appointed for her much-postponed coronation was now less than three weeks away. This was to be another splendid state occasion, with no expense spared, no detail of pomp and ceremony omitted.

  On 23 November the Queen left Greenwich by water for the Tower, accompanied, as usual, by her mother-in-law and by many other lords and ladies, all richly clad. The city fathers, too, were once more out in force in a flotilla of barges decorated with banners and streamers and the arms and badges of their crafts. One barge came in for special notice, as it contained ‘a great red Dragon spowting Flamys of Fyer into the Temmys’, and there were a number of other such gentlemanly pageants ‘well and curiously devysed to do her Highness sport and pleasure with’. On arrival at the Tower, Elizabeth was greeted by her husband in a manner which the onlookers found ‘right joyous and comfortable to behold’ and that night eleven new Knights of the Bath were created in honour of the coronation.

  Next day, after dinner, came the procession to Westminster. The Queen wore a kirtle of white cloth of gold under a matching mantle furred with ermines and fastened with ‘a great lace curiously wrought of gold and silk’ - an outfit which must have suited her pale prettiness perfectly. Her fair hair hung down her back and was topped by a golden circlet studded with precious stones. The royal litter, covered with cloth of gold and provided with large pillows of down, also covered with cloth of gold, was drawn through streets hung with tapestry and, in Cheapside, with gold velvet and silk. The craft guilds were out again in their liveries to line the route from the Tower to St. Paul’s, and children, ‘some arrayed like angels and others like virgins’, had been placed at strategic intervals ready ‘to sing sweet songs as her Grace passed by’. The City always did this sort of thing very well.

  The coronation ceremony in Westminster Abbey was performed by John Morton, the new Archbishop of Canterbury, and was watched by the King and his mother from a special platform erected between the pulpit and the high altar. The three days’ festivity ended with the usual banquet and good old Jasper Tudor, ‘the right high and mighty prince the Duke of Bedford’, who had been appointed Great Steward of England for the duration of the feast was much in evidence, wearing a furred gown of cloth of gold and a rich chain of office about his neck. Under his supervision, trumpets blew, minstrels played and the newly crowned Queen and her guests were served with such delicacies as Shields of Brawn in Armour, Pike in Laytmer Sauce, Carp in Foile, Mutton Royal richly garnished, pheasant, partridge, peacock and swan, capons, quails, larks and venison pasties, baked quince, March Payne Royal and ‘Castles of Jelly in Templewise made’. The torches had been lit by the time the Queen had washed and the Lord Mayor of London, Sir William Home, had served her with hippocras and spices and received a covered cup of gold as his fee. And then, says the chronicler, ‘the Queen departed with God’s blessing and to the rejoicing of many a true Englishman’s heart’.

  Apart from her mother-in-law, Elizabeth of York had been supported by her sister Cecily, her aunt Elizabeth (mother of the de la Poles) and her cousin Margaret (sister of the imprisoned Warwick), but her own mother had been allowed no part in the proceedings. Elizabeth Woodville, in fact, was in disgrace. An incorrigible intriguante, she had somehow become mixed up in the plotting of the Lambert Simnel affair - or at any rate so the King believed - and as early as the previous February he had taken the precaution of transferring all her landed property to his wife and had installed the Queen Dowager as a boarder in the convent at Bermondsey, where she would have little opportunity of getting into mischief.

  Christmas that year was again spent at Greenwich and was kept ‘full honourably’, the King going to Mass on Christmas Eve in a gown of purple velvet furred with sables, impressively escorted by his nobility. There was merrymaking as well as churchgoing, several plays were performed and on New Year’s Day there was ‘a goodly disguising’. Finally, on Twelfth Day, there was a state banquet with the King and Queen wearing their crowns, my lady the King’s mother with a rich coronet on her head, and everybody who was anybody present in full panoply.

  St. George’s Day was observed at Windsor with more displays of goldsmiths’ work, of silk and velvet gowns, of cloth of gold and elaborate horse trappings.

  Here this day St. George, patron of this place.

  Honored with the gartere cheefe of chevalrye;

  Chaplenes synging procession, keeping the same.

  With archbushopes and bushopes beseene nobly;

/>   Much people presente to see the King Henrye:

  Wherefore now, St. George, all we pray to thee

  To keepe our soveraine in his dignetye.

  It is noticeable how quickly the political significance of the Tudors’ Welshness had receded. St. George, the English champion, had taken over from such heroes of Celtic mythology as Cadwaladr of the beautiful spear, and by the end of the 1480s Henry Tudor, prince of the Welsh royal line, had become submerged in Henry Tudor the English King.

  Henry VII’s Court moved through the calendar of feasts and saints’ days in a ritual dance of pageantry. It was all part of the great illusion - the illusion of stability and security skilfully concealing the extreme fragility of the structure which lay beneath it. From what we know of Henry’s private character, he seems to have been a man of simple tastes who would probably have preferred to spend his free time quietly with his family. But this was a luxury he could not yet afford. He must continue to dress up in expensive, uncomfortable clothes and wear his crown in public, taking every opportunity of promoting an image of kingly splendour, of impressing the outside world with a sense of the power and confidence of the new dynasty, while behind the scenes he worked unremittingly at the task of turning illusion into reality.

  It was just as well that he did, for at the beginning of the 1490s history began to repeat itself and Henry, as Francis Bacon put it, ‘began again to be haunted with spirits’. Once again the apparition took the form of a good-looking youth, Perkin (or Peter) Warbeck (or Osbeck), a native of the city of Tournai in Flanders. Once again the first manifestation occurred in Ireland, and once again the origins of the affair are obscure. According to Perkin himself, in a confession made six years later, he landed in Cork with his master, a Breton silk merchant, in the autumn of 1491 and was immediately mobbed by the inhabitants, who insisted that this well-dressed young man (Perkin was advertising his master’s wares on his person) was the same Earl of Warwick ‘that was before time at Dublin’ and would not accept his embarrassed denials.