by Linda Simon
The young Edward was brought before Edward IV. How, asked the king, did he dare to return to England and defy the crown? Margaret’s son replied, as Henry IV had once retorted, that he had come only to claim his father’s inheritance — but his meaning was clear. The king was outraged; he struck the youth across the face with his gauntlet and condemned him to death. Margaret was found in the priory and taken with the triumphant troops to London.
By May 21, Edward IV, having assembled his entourage, rode in victory to the capital. The next evening Henry VI, at prayer in the Tower, was surprised by an armed henchman and fatally stabbed. The meek, mild man who should never have been king was finally dead. His heir was dead, and for many in England the Lancastrian claim to the throne was dead. Shakespeare allowed Henry to speak his own epitaph:
O piteous spectacle! O bloody times!
While lions war and battle for their dens,
Poor harmless lambs abide their enmity.
Weep, wretched man, I’ll aid thee tear for tear;
And let our hearts and eyes, like civil war,
Be blind with tears, and break o’ercharg’d with grief …
Sad-hearted men, much overgone with care,
Here sits a king more woeful than you are.[58]
VI - The Thorn
FOR HENRY TUDOR, the only Lancastrian rival to Yorkist Edward IV, even the often-ignored countryside of Wales was no longer safe enough. Jasper believed that his nephew must be removed, at whatever peril, to France. At first Margaret resisted; she had been separated from her son for too long. Never having been abroad, she feared for his safety outside England. But Jasper, wise to the machinations of the court, soon convinced his former sister-in-law that there was no alternative but flight.
The king, he told her, was becoming increasingly suspicious of dissension and quick to react to any threat of insurrection. He had been caught unaware by Warwick but had sworn not to repeat his mistake. Many expressed concern about the repressive atmosphere. In September 1471, John Paston warned his brother: “Ther is moche adoo in the Northe, as men seyn. I pray you be ware off your guydyng, and in chyff of yowre langage, so that from hense forthe by your langage noo men perceyve that ye favor any person contrary to the Kynges plesure.”[59]
In late May 1471, Jasper Tudor retreated to Pembroke and assembled local supporters, an unruly mob armed with pitchforks and billhooks, to defend himself and Henry during their short journey to the coast. Margaret accompanied them to the port of Tenby, where, on June 2, she said farewell to her cherished fifteen-year-old son, whom she feared she might never see again.
Since Edward had strongly allied himself with Burgundy, the Tudors believed they would be favorably received by France and made that country their destination. But an improvident storm prevented their landing at a French port and shifted their course toward Brittany. Here, they were less sure of their reception.
Duke Francis II of Brittany was an avowed enemy of France and therefore a friend of Burgundy and England. Louis XI made no secret of his desire to conquer Brittany, and the small duchy was in need of powerful allies. But Edward IV’s claim to the English crown was not convincing to the wary Bretons. They did not dare to alienate his rival, because that rival might soon wear Edward’s crown. When Jasper and Henry landed, they were treated hospitably, if not warmly, and had no fear that they would be turned over to their enemies.
Margaret, though assured of her son’s temporary safety, was continuously anxious about his welfare. Throughout the summer, she lived only for reports of him, which were brought by Lancastrian supporters from Brittany, France, or Flanders. In October 1471, her loneliness was increased by the death of her husband, Sir Henry Stafford. Now, without her son, her husband, her brother-in-law, she retired to her estates, far from the turbulence of Edward IV’s London. Her life revolved around only two interests: her son and religion.
Prayer, always central to Margaret Beaufort’s life, now took on new importance. She began rising earlier to pray longer and began to spend more time at her evening devotions. She kept fasts strictly, went to confession frequently, and sometimes committed herself to the penance of wearing hair shirts. For a while, she resided at Torrington, where her land adjoined that of the local church. The clergyman impressed her with his need to live near his people in order to minister to them most effectively. Margaret donated her manor to the church, then moved on.
Aged thirty, she had seen enough to believe that no one could be trusted, that no reign was stable, that even brothers could turn against one another, that joy could quickly become despair. Her father, her first husband, her uncle, two fathers-in-law were victims of political violence, and she vowed to herself that she would not see her son fall victim to the same.
She sought solace in religion, sharing the sentiments of many poets of the age who sought to transcend the cruelty of the contemporary world through devotion to the higher values imparted in Christian teachings.
Truste ye rather to letters writen in th’is
Than to this wretched world, that full of sinne is.
It is fals in his beheste and right desceivable;
It hath begiled manye men, it is so unstable.
It is rather to beleve the waveringe wind
Than the chaungeable world, that maketh men so blind.[60]
For her son, however, Margaret wanted to provide the safety and security that could come only with political stability, the end of the Wars and control, finally, of his own destiny. She would not allow him to be deceived by wealth, illusory power, or false friends. Loneliness and ignominy had threatened him throughout his short life, just as they had threatened her.
Wholsom in smelling be the soote floures,
Full delitable, outward, to the sight;
The thorn is sharp, curyd with fresh coloures;
All is nat gold that outward sheweth bright;
A stokfish boon in dirknesse yeveth a light,
Twen fair and foul, as God list dispoose,
A difference atwix day and night —
All stant on chaung like a midsomer roose.[61]
She wanted Henry to live in a world different from the one into which he had been born. In the very act of naming him, she had attempted to affect his destiny. In the years since then, she had seen another mother, with an obsession as strong as her own, try to hold on to a kingdom for her child. Margaret of Anjou had failed. Her supporters were not friends; her friends had not been loyal. Too many had been involved in the Lancastrian queen’s grandiose schemes to rule England. Her violence had been broad and undirected, turning away those who should have been sought for aid.
In Margaret of Anjou’s failure, Margaret Beaufort learned a valuable lesson in political strategy. She would act for her son in the same way she conducted every other part of her own life: intelligently, meticulously, cautiously. For two years she quietly worked out her plans. Then, in 1473, she took a third husband.
Sir Thomas Stanley was a widower with a large family. Because he was a third cousin to Margaret — as Henry Stafford had been — a papal dispensation was necessary before the couple could marry. Such dispensations were common in a society where nobility married nobility almost exclusively and where, for generation upon generation, all were related. Permission from the pope came fairly promptly and was, as usual, reciprocated by a generous donation to the Church.
Stanley was a clever statesman and a trusted ally of Edward IV. His incisive mind earned him the nickname “the wily fox.” Margaret did not want alliance with a Lancastrian who shied away from political involvement. She knew that if her son was to be protected, if he was ever to be allowed to return to England, he must have the support of a family in high esteem with the king. Though her own political loyalty never wavered from the Lancastrians, she allied herself with a prominent Yorkist to benefit only one person: her son. As Stanley’s wife, Margaret would also be thrust into court life, where she could learn of political events firsthand.
Edward IV had suffic
iently embroiled himself in international problems to distract his attention from Henry Tudor. The king was renewing efforts for a treaty with Burgundy to ensure that country’s alliance in his planned invasion of France. He managed to effect the invasion in 1474, but Louis XI quashed what might have been a renewal of the old war by offering a lucrative bribe. By the Treaty of Picquigny, signed in August 1475, Edward was awarded a grand sum and an annual lifelong pension in exchange for dropping his claims to the French throne. In January 1476, he returned to the French their defeated princess, Margaret of Anjou, who was ransomed for fifty thousand crowns and who, in exchange for a small pension from the French king, was forced to relinquish all rights to her family’s lands. Gradually, the widowed queen sank into poverty and died, a broken woman, in 1482.
Along with his political machinations, Edward’s personal life was sufficiently tumultuous to turn his attentions from Margaret Beaufort’s son, sole heir to Lancaster claims to his crown. By 1475, Elizabeth had borne five children, three daughters and two sons, the eldest of whom, Edward, was named prince of Wales and raised as heir apparent. In 1479 another daughter was born; the following year, the last child, Bridget, was carried to the christening font by Margaret Beaufort. One foreign visitor was struck by the apparent domestic felicity of the royal household, but the bliss was superficial. Despite the proliferation of children, Edward’s devotion to Elizabeth had long since waned, and he began once again to take a succession of companions. “He was licentious in the extreme,” reported the Italian historian Mancini; “moreover it was said that he had been most insolent to numerous women after he had seduced them, for, as soon as he grew weary of dalliance, he gave up the ladies much against their will to the other courtiers.”[62] His last liaison was with Jane Shore, the wife of a London goldsmith.
Edward often boasted “that he had three concubines: one the merriest, another the wiliest, the third the holiest harlot in the realm, as one whom no man could get out of church lightly to any place, but it were to his bed.”[63] Elizabeth Lucy, by whom he had a child, and Eleanor Butler were holy and wily; but Jane was by all accounts the merriest and his favorite. She had dark blond hair, a full oval face, piercing gray eyes. Even St. Thomas More could not but admit that there was “nothing in her body that you would have changed.”[64] She was a perfect mistress: “her Body inclining to fat, her Skin smooth and white, her Countenance always enliven’d with an Air of Mirth and Cheerfulness, and agreeable to the Condition of a Woman who wanted nothing, and had it in her Power to Command every thing.”[65]
Jane was witty, could read and write and keep up a sprightly conversation. Often she helped to reconcile Edward with some men who were out of his favor, obtained pardons, sued for redress. She clearly enjoyed her station. Centuries later an admiring poet revived her spirit:
In Heart and Mind I did rejoyce,
That I had made so sweet a Choice;
And therefore did my stage resign,
To be King Edward’s Concubine …
From City then to Court I went,
To reap the Pleasures of Content;
And had the Joys that Love could bring,
And knew the Secretes of a king …[66]
But even Jane Shore could not mitigate the growing enmity between the king and his wayward brother George, duke of Clarence. Clarence had returned to the family fold after his defection to Warwick, but Edward IV knew that he could not be fully trusted. After his wife, Isabel, died, Clarence became more and more erratic and went so far as to execute one of his servants for allegedly poisoning his duchess. His paranoia became more general when he was rebuked in his efforts to arrange a second marriage with the daughter of the duke of Burgundy, whom Edward wanted to save for a Woodville. Clarence’s hatred of the queen and her clan became increasingly annoying. Moreover, Edward was convinced that Clarence had aided some local rebellions against the throne. By 1478, Edward could no longer bear his brother’s interference in his government; he attainted him, accused him of treason, and condemned him to death.
Much gossip surrounded the circumstances of Clarence’s execution. A notorious drunkard, Clarence was said to have requested a butt of sweet wine, malmsey, into which he fell and drowned. (Historians now speculate that he may indeed have been drowned, but in his bath in prison.)
When it seemed that Edward’s reign was at last secure, prospering, and relatively tranquil, the king’s health began to decline markedly. Even his respected personal physician — one of three in attendance to the royal family at any time — could not help him. This “doctoure of physyque stondith muche in the presence of the kinges meles, by the councelying or answering to the kinges grace wich dyet is best according, and to the nature and operacion of all the metes. And comynly he shulk talke with the steward, chambrelayn, assewer, and the master cooke to devyse by counsayle what metes or drinkes is best according with the kinges dyet.”[67] But a lifetime of dissolute living — Edward habitually used an emetic “for the delight of gorging his stomach once more”[68] — had taken its toll. Edward, greatly overweight and dissipated, succumbed to a sudden illness of debatable cause. Mancini claimed that Edward, already depressed by years of conflict with the French and Flemings, did not take proper care of himself when he went fishing one day on the river at Westminster. He “allowed the damp cold to strike his vitals … [and] there contracted the illness from which he never recovered, though it did not long afflict him.”[69] Other observers thought he died from overindulgence of wine or even of vegetables. One sixteenth-century historian suspected poison.
The king had long realized the importance of providing for a stable rule if he should die during the minority of his eldest son, and in 1475 had composed a will that gave the greatest authority to his wife. But in later years he thought better of leaving the government in the hands of a woman so widely disliked. Codicils to his original testament place his trust in the brother who had stood beside him in peace and in war, a man he knew only as valiant, honest, and loyal: Richard, duke of Gloucester.
*
Edward’s death on April 9, 1483, shocked the populace. Poets mourned the loss of their still-young king, who, though he had grown “corpulent and boorelie,” nevertheless inspired their admiration.
O noble Edward, wher art thowe be-come,
Which full worthy I have seen goyng in estate?
Edward the iiiith I mene, with the sonne,
The rose, the sonne-beme, which was full fortunate.
Noon erthly prince durst make with hym debate.
Art thowe agoo, and was here yestirday?
All men of Englond ar bound for the to pray.
The well of knyghthode, withouten any pere,
Of all erthely prynces thowe were the lode-sterre!
Be-holde and rede, herkyn well and hyre!
In gestis, in romansis, in cronicles nygh and ferre,
Well knowen it is, there can no man it deferre,
Perelees he was, and was here yestirday.
All men of Englond ar bounde for hym to pray.
ffy on this worlde! What may we wrecches say,
Thate nave have lost the lanterne and the light?
Oure kyng oure lorde — alas, and wele-a-wey!
In every felde full redy for oure right;
It was no nede to pray hym for to fight;
Redy he was, that was here yestirday.
All men of Englond ar bounde for hym to pray.[70]
If the commoners mourned sincerely for their loss, the feelings of the nobility were mixed with concerns about their own state and station under a new realm. Elizabeth Woodville, well aware of the hatred she inspired among the old aristocracy, worried about her personal fate during the minority of her son. She had little faith in the man her husband had chosen as protector. Unlike Edward, she doubted Richard’s real loyalty to the king’s family. Nor was Elizabeth alone in her feelings toward Richard of Gloucester. Hardly any figure from the fifteenth century emerges shrouded in such mystery as the enigmatic br
other of the dead king.
Though portraits of Richard show a well-formed, reasonably attractive young man, Richard, thirty-one when he assumed his protectorate, was described later as “little of stature, ill-featured of limbs, crook-backed, his left shoulder much higher than his right, hard favored of visage, and such as in states called warly … He was malicious, wrathful, envious, and from afore his birth ever proward.”[71] He was said to have been born feet first, with teeth, to the great and unnatural pain of his mother. He was accused, later, of having actually committed the murder of his brother Clarence. But at the time he became guardian of the young prince of Wales, he was known only for his military competence and his courageous defense of the king’s will.
If he stood loyally beside his brother until Edward’s death, Richard’s sentiments were completely reversed in April 1483. He did not want the protectorship of England; he wanted the crown. And he immediately summoned aid to effect his plans. He had to seek his aid from sources other than those powerful men who gathered around his nephew, fully believing the young boy to be the next king. Chief among those counselors were William Hastings, Bishop John Morton, and Sir Thomas Stanley, Margaret Beaufort’s third husband.
Instead, Richard formed a close alliance with Henry Stafford, second duke of Buckingham, the nephew of Margaret Beaufort by her marriage to Sir Henry Stafford. For her part, Margaret’s strongest ties were with supporters of the future Edward V. But she felt she understood her ambitious nephew better, perhaps, than he understood himself. She knew that his support of a Yorkist was not feigned, as was her own; but she doubted the depth of Buckingham’s loyalty to the protector of England, believing his fealty to be based more on hatred for the Woodvilles than on love for England.
Buckingham, like Richard, detested the Woodvilles (although at the age of eleven he had been married to the queen’s sister Katherine) because of Edward’s patronage of the family. Of the thirty-five peerage titles created or revived during his short reign, Edward had bestowed most on his wife’s family. Moreover, Edward had denied Buckingham accession to a grand inheritance, half of the de Bohun estates, to which he had been entitled since 1471, when Henry VI and his son were both slain. Apparently, Richard promised that those lands and revenues would be immediately turned over to the duke if he were king.