by David Field
VIII
While Henry had been demonstrating his morbid fear of the ocean, and the fact that his system did not react well to sudden stress, his mother had been busily engaged in holding open the back door to communication with the court of Edward IV. Her new husband, Thomas Stanley, was related to Edward by birth, in the line commenced by Edward I. He had also been a brother-in-law of the late Earl of Warwick, and probably owned more estates than any man in England other than the monarch himself.
Ever mindful of the need to keep powerful men close about him, Edward had appointed him Steward of the King’s Household, a position that glued him to the Court on an almost perpetual basis, and Margaret was not one to miss any opportunity to attend Court with him and continue her friendship with Queen Elizabeth. Elizabeth, for her part, needed all the friends she could get as the hostility towards the Woodville faction was fed further by the ominously shadowy presence of Edward’s youngest brother, Richard of Gloucester. The middle brother, Clarence, had been officially attainted after his support for Warwick, and his immediate future hung in the balance, leaving Thomas Stanley, Earl of Derby, and Richard, Duke of Gloucester, as the voices most influential in the royal ear.
As a result Elizabeth’s natural friendship with Margaret flourished. Margaret, keen to have her son returned to court, and with a match in mind between him and her goddaughter, Elizabeth’s eldest, the Princess Elizabeth, despatched her priest, Christopher Urswick to guide Henry on the path back to England.
Urswick found Henry seated in the ornamental garden to the rear of the Chateau L’Hermine in Vannes, closely studying a book on heraldic design that he had found in the collection of Duke Francis, who was still so remorseful for almost yielding his noble guest over to his enemies that he had rehoused him in the second grandest building in the dukedom’s traditional capital, where Henry had been reunited with his uncle. Security was loose to non-existent, and Henry was making up for his somewhat austere childhood by indulging himself in art of all descriptions, most notably paintings and statuary.
Henry looked up as the priest stopped before him.
‘Good afternoon, my lord. I am your mother’s confessor.’
Henry laughed pleasantly. ‘That must be the easiest office in the entire Church. Are you so deprived of hearing of mortal sins that my mother has sent you here to keep you more gainfully occupied?’
The priest smiled back gently. ‘I will indeed hear any confession that you may wish to make before God, but I come also with your mother’s urging that you return to England. She misses you, and would see you safely back where you truly belong.’
‘Where I truly belong, or so my Uncle Pembroke assures me, is on the throne of England. Has it recently become vacant?’
‘No, nor does it seem that it will become soon. King Edward enjoys rude health — rather too rude, I would imagine. Were I his confessor, I doubt I would have been so free to travel so far, even with such a simple request.’
At that moment Jasper Tudor appeared at the top of the garden, eating an apple. He waved cheerily at the two men, then stood uncertainly at the side of an ornamental yew hedge. Henry waved him over.
‘Uncle Jasper,’ he said as his uncle joined them, ‘here is a priest sent by my mother to hear your confession. Unfortunately, he is only here for a week, so he may need to leave you only partly shriven.’
The priest explained his true business, and Jasper’s face clouded.
‘Does Gloucester now prey upon my brother’s widow? Or has he poured his poison into his brother’s ear, that he may secure your return to your death through the gentle urging of your mother?’
‘Why Gloucester?’ Henry asked.
‘I too have my sources of information,’ Jasper replied guardedly. ‘They say he covets the crown, and is seeking ways of persuading the Council that Edward is illegitimate. He also means no good towards the middle brother Clarence.’
‘Yet all the advice I have is that the King would have me return on honourable terms,’ Henry argued. ‘He even offers his daughter in marriage, mark you. Would a man wish his eldest child to be wed to one whose head was shortly to be removed?’
Jasper sighed. ‘It is not Edward you must fear, but those who plot against his throne. I have no doubt that the King’s intentions toward you are honourable, and that your mother may bring sufficient influence to bear upon him through her husband Stanley that no ill will befall you unless the throne becomes vacant. But when — and if, for whatever cause — it becomes so, then what price the head of the remaining Lancastrian claimant?’
Urswick had been standing politely to the side, listening to this exchange. He bowed his head and looked back up at the two men.
‘I have delivered my message, and must now return with your answer.’
‘Tell my dear mother,’ Henry advised him, ‘that I send my deepest love, and the heartfelt respect that will always be due to her. Tell her that I am well, and that my dearest wish is to be back in England with her. But tell her also that Tudor blood flows through my veins, and that I may not easily be bought by the promises of others which they may be in no position to honour. Either I return to England as its assured monarch, or I remain here in Brittany.’
‘I will so inform her, my lord,’ the priest replied with a sad bow of the head. ‘Should either of you need confession, I shall be in the chapel until nightfall, ere I leave for England in the morning.’
‘If you would care to stay for the remainder of the week,’ Jasper advised him with a smirk, ‘I could promise you such confession from me as would cause the string around your simple robe to dance in sheer excitement.’
‘Excitement is for mortal sinners. Good day to you, my lords.’
As they watched the priest make his humble way back up the path, Henry turned to Jasper. ‘Must I remain here for ever?’
‘No,’ Jasper replied, ‘you may, should you so choose, return to England and place your head upon the block.’
‘May I not raise an army over here and invade?’
Jasper stared thoughtfully into the distance.
‘Best let an army come to you.’
IX
Three years later, that army began to assemble. In April of 1483, King Edward IV died suddenly, officially of a fever, but rumours spread that it was poison.
Realising that he was about to die while his heir was still in infancy, the late King Edward had appointed his brother Richard as Lord Protector until Edward V should come of age. Orders were issued for the two royal princes to be brought to London, and Richard of Gloucester then had the young Edward’s family retinue arrested, and took responsibility himself for the safe removal of Edward to the Tower of London, the traditional residence of monarchs awaiting their coronation.
Then Richard broke sanctuary in order to remove the young Duke Richard to the Tower, allegedly as company for his older brother who was pining for him. At the end of June, Richard intimidated a clergyman to preach in St. Paul’s Cathedral that the late King Edward IV had been the illegitimate offspring of an archer in his father’s army who had bedded Edward’s mother.
The people of London, fearing that anarchy had returned, were appeased by Richard’s assurance that he was only seizing power in order to ensure that there was no uprising by the Woodvilles, who had long cast covetous eyes on the English throne, and had set their comely prospect Elizabeth, the now Queen Dowager, to ensnare Edward by witchcraft that she had had been taught by her mother, but rumours began to circulate in June of 1483 that the young princes had been murdered on Richard’s orders.
The proposal to marry the Princess Elizabeth to Henry Tudor was renewed and strengthened by the promise that this would coincide with the Woodvilles, and the remaining Yorkists loyal to the memory of Edward, rising up to place Henry on the throne. A conspiracy slowly began to form, as Margaret used her most valuable and trustworthy contacts, while her husband Stanley, the Earl of Derby, continued in the loyal service of Richard as the ongoing Steward of the Househol
d.
He was also among those who urged Richard to assume the crown, after Edward’s heirs were declared by Parliament to have been illegitimate, given that the late King, prior to being seduced into marriage by Elizabeth Woodville, had been pre-contracted in marriage with Lady Eleanor Butler. On 6th July 1483, less than two months after his older brother’s death, Richard of Gloucester became King Richard III of England.
While King Richard embarked on a ceremonial progress of the nation, pausing at York Minster to have his young son Edward created Prince of Wales, Margaret was busily fuelling the fires of unease that followed the disappearance of the royal princes. Margaret had no shortage of recruits for an organised rebellion against Richard, but it was a dangerous game, and few could doubt that anyone caught plotting against the newly self-appointed King would not retain their head for long. It required careful and discreet intrigue among people who could be trusted, and Margaret was fortunate to have spent her life collecting trusted allies.
In Brittany, Henry and Jasper received visits from several envoys travelling in secret from the rebel ranks. They were carrying letters from his mother, urging Henry to take this golden opportunity to seize his destiny, and from Buckingham, promising to support Henry if he invaded. Margaret also sent a considerable sum of money that she had raised by way of loan in London without, it would later be claimed, the knowledge of her husband Stanley, and this was intended to pay for an armed force raised in Brittany.
Henry, Jasper and Duke Francis sat discussing the proposal in mid-October 1483, around the upper dining table in the Chateau L’Hermine, at which the servers had laid out wine, cheeses, fruit and wafers.
‘I know,’ the Duke assured them, ‘that many men would go with you, for the gold and for the love they have for you. For myself, although you have become like a son to me, I would not stop in the way of your becoming King of England, and ask only that, if successful, you will come to the aid of Brittany against the King of France, should we call upon you.’
‘You may rest assured of that,’ Henry replied without consulting Jasper, as had become his usual practice in the past year or so. ‘If you had not shown me such hospitality when I first landed all those years ago, I would now be dead, or hiding my true identity while working as a page in some noble Breton house.’
‘How many men can you spare?’ Jasper enquired.
‘As many as you can pay,’ the Duke replied. ‘My land is currently quiet, and there is no threat from France, since the old King Louis grows frail.’
‘We will also need ships,’ Jasper reminded him, ‘and the more men and horses we take over, the more ships we will need.’
‘Of course,’ the Duke replied. ‘Our only threat comes across our eastern border inland, and we need ships only for fishing.’
There was an uncomfortable silence, then Henry asked, ‘If you were in my place, would you answer this call?’
The Duke smiled. ‘I have seen you grow from a rather frightened young boy to a strong man who no longer requires either my advice or my protection. Bon chance, and may God go with you.’
‘We may need Him at least to cross the Channel,’ Henry shuddered, as his mind returned to the aspect of the entire enterprise that he most dreaded.
Henry was right. Ten days of remorseless rain led to him clutching the side of the vessel transporting him to England, trying not to faint in sheer terror as his ship, and one other, became all that was left of the fleet of some thirty or so ships that had left St. Malo a few days previously.
They finally limped into Plymouth Harbour, a week late, and unaware that Buckingham had already been publicly beheaded on a specially constructed block in Salisbury Market Place on All Saints’ Day. There were soldiers lining the quayside, waving and inviting Henry to come ashore. He might well have done, had Jasper’s eagle eye not spotted a baggage wagon left carelessly at the side of an inn door. He squinted through the still pouring rain, and yelled down the side of the ship to Henry, who was waving back to the soldiers on the quayside.
‘Before you get too friendly, make timely use of your love of heraldry. Whose heraldic device is a white boar?’
‘Richard of Gloucester,’ Henry replied, his eyebrows raised in question.
‘Yet again Uncle Jasper has been your salvation,’ came the response. ‘Order the captain to turn this vessel back to Brittany — those are the King’s men, waiting to place your head firmly on English soil at the same time as your feet.’
Richard’s rage upon discovering that his quarry had evaded him was terrible to behold, and there was much work for royal headsmen to perform in the ensuing weeks. Within a year, there was not a noble house — or indeed a tradesman’s house — that was not playing host to a guest of Duke Francis, who had turned against the English King.
Jasper reckoned their number to be in excess of five hundred, and among them were notables such as John Morton, the Marquess of Dorset, and Sir Richard Willoughby. Whether they were inspired in Henry’s cause, or anxious to escape the block back in England, it made no difference. They were in Henry’s camp, and could only return to England wielding a sword. During this period, Henry and Jasper were obliged to rely, yet again, on the generosity of the elderly Duke, who seemed to regard Henry as the son he had never had.
Back in England, Margaret was under increasing threat. Richard passed an Act of Parliament that divested her of all her lands, which he then gave to Stanley, with a stern demand that he keep his troublemaking wife at home, where he could maintain a close watch on her. He also had a further statute passed, entitled ‘Titulus Regius’ that confirmed both the bastardisation of all the children of his late brother and Richard’s valid claim to the throne.
But Richard had seriously underestimated the deviousness of which Margaret was capable, and the fervour with which she pursued her ambition to place her son on the throne of England. Messengers went backwards and forwards between her place of home detention in the north and Henry’s place of exile in Brittany, and barely a fortnight would pass without the young Earl of Richmond being brought up to date with events at the English Court. Many of those bearing messages declined to make the return journey to a nation that was now being ruled largely by fear. Richard was also mistaken to rely on his memory of the nervous looking boy at whom he had scowled in the antechamber of Henry VI fourteen years previously. The boy had become a man, and a man who was above average height, pleasing to the eye and affable to the ear. He offered hope to those who rallied to his cause across the Channel, and all he needed was the manpower, the finance, and the support of those back in England who cowered under Richard’s yoke.
Jasper had finally persuaded Henry that he had only one way forward, and that way lay to the north of the Breton coastline. He could either spend the rest of his days as the honoured, if somewhat embarrassed, prisoner guest of the Duke of Brittany, or he could do what everyone else seemed to think him capable of, namely claim the throne of England. At Vannes Cathedral, a few months after his hurried return from the failed first invasion, Henry was persuaded by Jasper to put his support to the test. He stood before his loyal English and Breton supporters and swore an oath to each and every man present that he would lead them back across the Channel and claim his rightful throne in England, where they could all live their lives under his benevolent rule, and reap the rich rewards that flow from loyalty to their monarch. The rousing cheers with which this oath was greeted not only threatened to dislodge some of the loose coping from the roof of the ancient cathedral, but it committed Henry to a course of action from which he could not retreat.
It was soon rumoured that King Richard sought to unite all the remaining York factions under one roof by marrying Princess Elizabeth once his own Queen died, which she conveniently did in March of the following year. Horrified when she learned of these rumours, Princess Elizabeth herself arranged for a letter to be smuggled to Henry, assuring him that she was still available for marriage, and enclosing a ring as a sign of her continuing fidelity to th
e pledge that their respective mothers had made some years previously.
Richard sent Elizabeth north, to his stronghold at Sheriff Hutton, where she might be safe from any Lancastrian intrigue, but the damage was already done. The exiled Richmond supporters were finally convinced that the best hope for England lay in the uniting of York and Lancaster in a marriage between Henry of Richmond and the young Princess Elizabeth, and on Christmas Day 1483, at St. Pierre’s Cathedral in Rennes, during a Mass conducted by the personal priest of the young heiress Anne of Brittany, Henry had risen to his feet and sworn a solemn vow to sail to England and claim both his crown and his bride. He was now committed beyond recall, and the cheers that raised the roof in Rennes were echoed more quietly in secret corners of England that were being prepared for such a return.
The first step required Henry and Jasper to slip out of Brittany unnoticed, which they did in September of 1484, separately. Both, however, employed the same ploy of travelling out of Vannes on a pretended short visit to a friend; in Henry’s case, once he was a few miles down the road he slipped into nearby woodland, where he changed into a page’s clothing and continued, in disguise, the journey across the French border to be reunited with Jasper.
By February 1485, they were being welcomed to the court of Charles VIII, which was in reality under the financial control of his older sister, who found Henry attractive, and his plan to overthrow the ever-threatening English monarch who had sided with her opponents even more so. Any apprehension Henry might have felt regarding Duke Francis regarding him as an ungrateful surrogate son who had sneakily transferred his allegiance to Brittany’s traditional enemies was dispelled when the ailing Duke allowed Henry’s supporters free exit from his territories, and by the spring of 1485 the French capital was awash with English nobles and their retinues eager to return home behind a new king. Not only did Charles and his sister give Henry and his followers sanctuary and hospitality, they also financed a further contingent of hardened French soldiers to swell the numbers.