by Linda Simon
It is doubtful that Henry’s mother was allowed to live at Pembroke. Margaret Beaufort would have readily given up her own liberty to join her son, but it is more likely that she and Henry Stafford withdrew to one of their own estates, where they would be less visible and less vulnerable. Jasper Tudor had convinced her that as long as Edward IV believed he enjoyed widespread support, he had no need to consider the young Henry Tudor a threat.
The pain of separation from her child was partially assuaged for Margaret by Jasper’s total devotion to his nephew. He promised her that if there was any danger to Henry, he would not hesitate to remove him, forcibly if necessary, from Pembroke. In reality, safekeeping in the home of a prominent Yorkist was not a misfortune for the young Beaufort heir. The Herberts, Jasper assured Margaret, were growing closer to the king. There were even rumors, as time went on, that Herbert meant Henry to be the husband of his daughter Maud.
Though Henry was essentially a captive, his life under the Herberts was not harsh. Herbert’s wife, Anne, grew genuinely fond of her young charge and engaged able tutors for him. He had the companionship of the Herbert children and the security of the attendance of his own nurse.
Edward IV saw his Welsh ally as an important adviser — as trusted as his cousin, the powerful magnate Richard Neville, earl of Warwick, whose success at aiding the Yorkists earned him the nickname the King-Maker. “The said Earle of Warwicke might justly be called King Edward’s father,” wrote Comines, “as also for the great services he did him, for the which the King had also highly advaunced him.”[50] The friendship between the king and Herbert, a man Warwick saw as an upstart and opportunist, angered Warwick. It was not long before he and Herbert became rivals. One point of contention was the prospective marriage of the king.
The marriage was seen as a possible means for solidifying relations with potential allies. Warwick believed that a match must be made with a princess of France and began to negotiate for a marriage between Edward and Bona of Savoy, the sister of Louis XI, a monarch so distrusted that he was dubbed “the universal spider.” In his late thirties when he ascended the French throne, Louis had been an outspoken adversary of his father, Charles VII, repeatedly intriguing against him. He could be gregarious and voluble among his peers, but in matters of diplomacy and international relations he was secretive and deceitful. Warwick hoped for an alliance with France and her crafty king.
Herbert, on the other hand, believed that an alliance should be effected between England and the large, sprawling territory of Burgundy, encompassing two great blocs in eastern France and the Low Countries, including Flanders, Holland, and Brabant. The English economy was highly dependent on trade with Flemish ports and, Herbert reasoned, would do well to nurture good relations with the Burgundian leader, Duke Philip the Good.
Because France and Burgundy were the bitterest of enemies, it was not possible for England to claim alliance with both. And because Warwick and Herbert maintained such strong preferences in the selection of a royal bride, it was certain that they, too, would become enemies.
Edward, while he humored the recommendations of his cousin and his friend, continued to court some of the more attractive noblewomen who surrounded him, and earned a reputation for “fleshlie wantonnesse.” He was attractive to women not only because of his power and might, but his youth, manliness, and apparently handsome looks. For all his dalliance, however, neither Warwick nor Herbert would have guessed that he would marry for any reason other than the good of England.
*
In 1464, while Edward was hunting in the forest of Whittlebury, he saw an attractive young woman waiting beneath the spread of a magnificent oak. She had come, she told him, to plead with the king “that she might be restored unto such small lands as her late husband had given her in jointure.”[51] Her husband, Edward soon learned, had been Sir John Grey, a Lancastrian who had been killed at the second battle of St. Albans. She herself had been a lady in waiting to Queen Margaret. Now a dowager, Elizabeth Woodville had come to the king as a last resort to regain her legacy.
Edward was sympathetic to her cause and undeniably attracted to the young widow. She was stylishly dressed in a long, flowing, high-waisted gown. Her hairline had been painstakingly plucked to reveal a broad white brow beneath an ornate headdress. Five years older than the king, at twenty-seven Elizabeth had a gentle beauty and winning manner. “She was a woman more of formal countenaunce than of excellent beautie,” the chronicler Edward Hall recorded, “and yet of such beautie & favor, that, with her sober demeanure, lovely lokyng, and femynyne smylyng, (neither to wanton nor to humble) besyde her toungue so eloquent, and her wit so pregnant, she was able to ravishe the mynde of a meane person, when she allured and made subject to her, the hart of so great a king.” Edward “considered all the linyamentes of her body, and the wise and womanly demeanure that he saw in her”[52] and decided she would be his mistress.
Elizabeth claimed to be overwhelmed by the king’s attentions but, unlike so many other women, would not give herself to him illicitly. She said that she thought herself “too simple to be his wife [but] too good to be his concubine.”[53] She allowed him to continue seeing her, often meeting under the tree that became the legendary “queen’s oak,” and kept the flirtation chaste. For Edward, a virtuous woman was even more attractive than the accessible gentlewomen of the court, and he was overcome with love. In May 1464 he married her. On September 28, he announced the secret marriage to a shocked council.
Even Edward’s mother, Cecily, duchess of York, was incensed at her son’s foolish infatuation. She wanted him to make a politically astute match and, moreover, wanted him to marry a virgin. Since Elizabeth already had two children, and since Edward had already fathered two illegitimate children, Edward knew this union would not be barren — far more important to a monarch than his wife’s purity.
Most angered of all the king’s subjects was Warwick, at that moment in France, where his marriage proposition between Edward and Bona was “well liked … so that the matrimonie on that side was cleerlie assented to …” The news that Edward already had a wife arrived in a letter from trusted friends. Warwick now felt himself a fool. Relations with the French had been so shaky that they would no doubt believe there was some other motive for his being sent: “… it might be judged he came rather … to moove a thing never minded, and to treat a marriage determined before not to take effect.” No one would believe that he, kinsman and counselor to the king, did not know of the king’s intentions to wed a commoner. “He thought himselfe evill used, that when he had brought the matter to his purposed intent and wished conclusion, then to have it quaile on his part; so as all men might thinke at the least wise, that his prince made small account of him, to send him on such a sleevelesse errand.”[54]
Warwick returned to England angry and distrustful, but still willing to claim himself a Yorkist. Edward IV’s reign was precarious, and Warwick’s presence among his allies was critical. His defection would have been a severe blow to the Yorkists, who had barely managed to crush rebellion after rebellion incited by Lancastrians throughout the countryside. Warwick was a natural leader. Though he was extremely wealthy, his generosity and fairness exempted him from the hatred and envy that had been accorded such men as the ill-fated Suffolk. The common people thought Warwick could never fail, “and that without hym, nothing to be well done. For which causes his aucthoritie shortly so fast increased that whiche waie he bowed, that waye ranne the streame, and what part he avaunced, that side got the superiorities.”[55]
Despite his awareness of Warwick’s value to him, Edward allowed others to benefit more from his attentions. Repeatedly Warwick felt that he was being overlooked in favor of the ubiquitous Woodvilles. Elizabeth’s sisters, brothers, uncles were all elevated beyond their original rank, provoking much jealousy among the old nobility. Even more disturbing to Warwick was Edward’s arrangement of a marriage between his sister Margaret and Charles, earl of Charolais, the son of the duke of Burgundy, and t
he intended match between Charolais’s daughter and Edward’s youngest brother, George, duke of Clarence. Warwick had planned that Clarence would marry his own Anne, and feared that his daughter would have a poor chance of making a good match, with all the high-ranking young men being given to Woodville women.
While Edward delayed in marrying his brother to the Burgundian heiress, Warwick closed in and bound Clarence to Anne. Once she and Clarence were married, the young man was persuaded to join Warwick in his calculations against the king.
Louis XI had made attractive offers to Warwick, promising extensive aid if he would lead an insurrection against the king and replace on the throne the pro-French and more malleable Henry VI. Warwick’s reward would be two huge principalities and the solid alliance with France. On July 20, 1469, with the hope of glory and grandeur, Warwick marched in defiance to London.
Rumors of Warwick’s defection alarmed Margaret Beaufort. Although she prayed for the restoration of Henry VI, she feared for her son if Edward felt himself threatened. William Herbert himself would be fighting in the king’s name. Unless Warwick defeated the Yorkist in a bold, first strike, Henry VI’s cause — and Margaret’s own — would be lost. No one knew how strong Warwick was, though speculations abounded.
Herbert, reinforced by the earl of Devon, awaited his encounter with Warwick at Banbury. Unfortunately Devon had quarreled with Herbert the evening before battle over a barmaid at the local inn; Devon had left, taking his reinforcements with him. Herbert, severely hampered, was easily defeated by Warwick’s troops. With Herbert’s beheading, Warwick succeeded in ridding England of his strongest enemy — save Edward IV himself.
Having believed that Herbert’s defense could not fail, Edward did not surround himself with troops and arms. When Warwick confronted him, he did not resist, knowing that armed combat would do no good; what he needed, more than anything, was time. He was brought to Warwick Castle, then to Middleham, a virtual fortress, where he was to have been kept prisoner while Warwick ruled.
But popular sentiment, always unstable, had turned against the King-Maker. Local uprisings threatened to undermine Warwick’s rebellion, and only the presence of the king could calm the people. Edward was allowed more freedom and was transferred to Pontefract Castle. There, he managed to gather a great many noblemen still loyal to his party. Though he made no overt move to quash the rebels, he ensured that they could go no further in their plans.
By the spring of 1470, Warwick realized that Edward had gained enough strength to doom his rebellion and began to consider more drastic measures to make certain his success. He fled to France, where Louis XI was more than willing to aid him — but only on the condition that he reconcile himself with a woman he hated: Margaret of Anjou.
Warwick was gone for some four months, during which Margaret Beaufort suffered great anxiety over the fate of her son. She did not know whether the arrogant Margaret of Anjou, used to wielding power in her own name, would agree to a partnership with Warwick. The queen might well believe that she alone could restore her husband to the throne and safeguard that throne for her son. But Margaret Beaufort was also the mother of a potential heir to the crown of England, and she too shared a mother’s ambitions for her son. She believed, though, that those ambitions could not be realized through ruthless killings and wanton violence. Warwick might temper the queen’s wrath with political strategy. Together, they might save the Lancastrian throne. Alone, Margaret of Anjou would doubtless fail.
Louis XI prepared the exiled English queen for the meeting with her great enemy. With ambition before pride, Warwick agreed to do anything necessary to defeat Edward IV, even to kneel before the haughty Margaret of Anjou and beg forgiveness. His submission swayed the queen. In a cautious and cool encounter, Margaret and Warwick swore allegiance to one another and to England, praying before an alleged relic of the true cross that God might give them the strength and good fortune to bring Henry VI again to the throne.
In September, Warwick sailed for England, finding Edward IV unprepared for this invasion. He had little trouble entering London, marching northward, and defeating the few troops that were surprised to encounter him. Edward could do nothing but flee. He left for exile in France with two ships and some seven hundred supporters, taking nothing but what they had worn in battle. They had little money and only one hope: a welcome at their destination, the court of Edward’s sister Margaret in Burgundy.
Edward’s most faithful supporter at that moment was his brother Richard of Gloucester, who stood beside him as he stepped off the ship and onto Burgundian soil. Neither could pay the captain, but the king gave him a gown trimmed with martin and the promise of one day aiding him in turn. The refugees were warmly received. Charles the Bold, the powerful duke of Burgundy, eager to stop Warwick and Henry VI in their alliance with France, promised to supply his English daughter-in-law’s brother with men and arms.
With Edward out of the country, Warwick gained new power. He marched to the Tower of London and freed the former king. Henry, more bewildered than angry, was persuaded to dress in a long gown of blue velvet, take to his horse, and ride through the streets of London to St. Paul’s. He drew an exuberant, if incredulous, crowd, who immediately took up the cry “God save King Harry!”
Now that Henry VI was restored to the throne, Warwick was given high responsibility in government. The ousted Lancastrians once more came into their titles and property and could once again live in freedom. Jasper Tudor and Henry Tudor were re-created earls, and Pembroke Castle was returned to them. A joyful Margaret Beaufort was reunited with her fourteen-year-old son after nearly nine years’ separation.
Henry Tudor was very much his mother’s child: quiet, introspective, with an inner strength nurtured by years of emotional solitude. He was well aware of the political maelstrom of which he might easily become the center, but he lacked the swagger and arrogance that many said characterized the Lancastrian prince Edward, also more his mother’s child than his father’s. Henry had a calm yet competent presence, an integrity about which his mother was relieved and proud.
She knew, however, that although Henry VI reigned, his rival was still alive and gathering strength in Burgundy. Henry Tudor’s position was no more secure now than it had been throughout the reign of Edward IV. Should battle begin again, his position would be considerably more dangerous. She did not reveal her fears to her son but was quick to divulge them to her brother-in-law.
Jasper, of course, was aware of his nephew’s precarious situation. Even Henry VI, though he knew that his crown should pass to his own son, doubted that Prince Edward would survive to become king. When, for the first time, Jasper Tudor brought his nephew to court to meet the reinstated monarch, the king is said to have placed his hands on the youth’s head, softly prophesying:
Make much of him, my lords; for this is he
Must help you more than you are hurt by me.[56]
Henry’s second reign was destined to be brief. For months he had urged his exiled queen, still in France, to sail with their son to England. Finally, with much apprehension, Margaret of Anjou agreed, but a storm turned her back, delaying her arrival until April 13, 1471. Even as she sailed, another fleet of ships was bringing her husband’s enemies, some twelve hundred strong, to the same shores. Edward, aided by the Burgundians and his allies at home, was prepared to meet Warwick with force. On Easter Sunday, April 14, the two armies clashed at Barnet.
In dense morning fog, Warwick assembled his men and urged that “they fight not onely for the libertie of the countreye agaynste a tiraunte, which wrongfullye and againste all right had invaded and subdued thys realme, but they fyght in the querel of a true and undubitate king against a cruell man and a torcious usurper; in the cause of a Godly and a pitiful Prince against an abominable man-queller and a bloudy boutcher …”[57] In ten years, Warwick had come full circle in his allegiance, but as he spoke, his men did not doubt that his loyalty was as deeply ingrained as if he had been born a Lancastrian and had neve
r strayed.
The battle began early and lasted well into the afternoon. Estimates of the number slain vary from one thousand to ten times that. Among the dead lay Richard Neville, the King-Maker himself.
The Lancastrians still would not concede defeat. Their young prince, the eighteen-year-old son of Henry VI and Margaret of Anjou, prevailed on his mother to call forth more troops and continue fighting. From Barnet, some twenty miles north of London, the Lancastrians were faced with a decision in strategy. They knew they could not proceed south, where the Yorkists had gained their greatest popularity in the capital, but must attempt, instead, to join the Welsh Lancastrians — Jasper Tudor and his followers — near the border. To go north, however, meant crossing the Severn, no easy matter since many of the crossing towns were strongly Yorkist. Nevertheless, the troops headed north, and Edward IV, guessing correctly their move, followed them. By May 3, the two sides were advancing in parallel lines, the Yorkists high on a Cotswold slope, the Lancastrians in the Severn vale. The spring day was unseasonably hot, and both armies were exhausted as they made their way upstream along the Severn. They could not drink the waters, which their own horses had fouled. They could not rest.
By evening, the Lancastrians had arrived at Tewkesbury but were too spent to attempt a crossing. The Yorkists had overtaken them. There was no choice but to prepare for battle. Early the next day Edward began to advance on his enemy. The Lancastrians were assembled on a low ridge with the town at their backs. Edward assigned some two hundred cavalry to remain hidden in Tewkesbury Park. His other troops opened with a round of cannon fire and arrows.
From her perch on the roof of a nearby house, the Lancastrian queen watched as her men were slain in vicious hand-to-hand combat. Margaret of Anjou saw her only son taken prisoner and then, in despair, fled to a nearby nunnery, Little Malvern Priory, for refuge. She knew then that her cause was irreversibly defeated.