Henry VII

by S B Chrimes

  Henry’s total force is put at scarcely five thousand, not counting ‘the Stanleyians’, of whom about three thousand were ‘at the battle’ under Sir William. As there is no valid evidence that Lord Stanley and his forces took any active part in the battle, it is not surprising that until it was all over there is no further mention of him. Richard III’s force we are told was twice as great as Henry’s, but as we are not told whether ‘the Stanleyians’ or any part of them are to be included in this figure, we cannot calculate what the significance of this was.

  Henry arrayed his forces so as to provide a slender vanguard, with a small number of archers in front, under the command of John de Vere, earl of Oxford, with a right wing under Gilbert Talbot and a left wing under John Savage. He himself followed, where exactly is not apparent, except that he ‘trusted to the aid of Lord Stanley, with one troop of horsemen and a few footmen’. The only positive identification of location given by Vergil is that a marsh existed between the two hosts, that Henry deliberately passed this on the right hand, so that it would form a defensive terrain for his men (which of them is not stated) and so that he had the sun behind him. It is rash to argue, as some have done, that this relative position was impossible, and that therefore Vergil must have wrongly reported what he was told, especially as we do not know for certain how Henry approached the marsh, nor the hour at which he advanced.

  When the rebels had passed the marsh, Richard III ordered an attack. The archers on both sides discharged their arrows, and also came to hand strokes. The earl of Oxford feared that too many of his men would be overwhelmed if they advanced too far and ordered that none of them should go ten feet further than the standards. This prudent order momentarily confused the king’s forces, who suspected some sort of trap, and a lull in the fighting ensued, all the more because many of them were, it seems, not anxious to be too hotly engaged. The conflict of the vanguards, however, was renewed.

  It was at this inconclusive stage that Richard III identified Henry of Richmond with his small personal force, and took his decision, fatal as it was to prove, immediately to spur forward with his choice band to attack Henry personally. What induced him to take such an impetuous and rash course can only be surmised, especially as action of this kind was scarcely in accord with his usual caution. It may, however, have been in accord with his other outstanding characteristic - calculation. He quickly calculated, we may suppose, that he was confronted with an opportunity to terminate the issue in his own favour before the equivocal inaction of the Stanleys and Northumberland turned into overt treason. He miscalculated only to the extent that he failed to reckon that any delay in achieving his purpose would provide at any rate Sir William Stanley with a decisive opportunity for doing precisely that.

  Richard III and his men were received by the small band surrounding Henry with great courage and met with stout resistance. Henry’s standard was overthrown, and the standard bearer, William Brandon, and others were killed by Richard III, who also achieved the feat of overthrowing John Cheyney, a warrior of more than average size and stature. Henry, we are told - and the words are very revealing - bore the brunt longer than his own soldiers would have thought possible and who had begun to abandon hope. Long enough, indeed, to enable Sir William Stanley to decide that the crucial moment had come, to gallop with his men across from where they were, to intervene before it was too late, to cut down Richard III fighting manfully to the very end, and so to rescue Henry from the brink of utter disaster. In the meantime – whatever these words may mean exactly – the earl of Oxford put Norfolk’s vanguard to flight; Norfolk himself had lost his life, and many were killed in the ensuing chase, and many fled the field. Whether as many as a thousand of Richard III’s forces and as few as a hundred of Henry’s were killed in the battle, as Vergil tells us, must remain problematical, but we would expect the former figure to be exaggerated and the latter underestimated.

  For Henry of Richmond, so narrowly rescued from destruction, the outcome was a scene such as had never before been seen on the soil of England. His acclamation by the soldiers still on the field, their shouts of ‘God save King Henry’, and the symbolic placing on his head by Lord Stanley - no longer hesitating to show his hand - of the ‘crown’ of Richard III that had been found by someone somewhere among the spoils on the field,1 brought his two years’ conspiracy to a triumphant climax. The reign of the first Tudor had begun.

  1 For a summary of this matter, see S. Anglo, ‘The British history in early Tudor propaganda’, Bull. J.R.L., 44 (1961), 17–48.

  1 S. Anglo, loc. cit. 24–5.

  2 For what follows, see D. Williams, ‘The family of Henry VII’, History Today, IV (1954), 77–84; Glyn Roberts, ‘Wyrion Eden’, Trans. Anglesey Antiquarian Society 34–72; E. Owen, ‘The decline of the Tudors of Penmynydd, Mon.’, ibid. (1934), 46–60; (1935)> 80–9.

  1 The validity of the marriage of Catherine and Owen, and the legitimacy of their children, were not questioned at the time. See T. Artemus Jones, ‘Owen Tudor’s marriage’, Bull. Bd. of Celtic Studies, XI (1943), 142–9; there are numerous mistakes in this article, but its main conclusion, that in fact there was no statute of 1428 or 1430 or any other year forbidding marriage with the Queen Dowager, is firmly established. The erroneous assertions frequently made to the contrary spring from unsupported statements by Sir Edward Coke, Institutes. See also p. 6, fn. 4 below.

  2 T. Artemus Jones, loc. cit. 106.

  3 H. T. Evans, Wales and the Wars of the Roses (1915), 47, cited A. D. Carr, ‘Welshmen and the Hundred Years War’, W.H.R., 4 (1960), 1 and 37.

  4 See generally, references in Agnes Strickland, Lives of the queens of England, 2nd ed. (1841), III. The assertion by K. Vickers, Humphrey, duke of Gloucester (1907), 256, that Gloucester had induced the council to forbid the marriage Catherine wished to make with Edmund Beaufort, earl (1441) and marquis (1442) of Dorset, duke of Somerset (1447), killed at St Albans (1455), rests upon the story given under the year 1438 in the anonymous chronicle known as Giles’s chronicle. The story is interesting but in the absence of any corroboration can hardly be taken as authentic. If the story is true, the question must arise as to the date at which it occurred. Edmund Beaufort (b. c. 1406) was made count of Mortain before 25 February 1427. He later married Eleanor Beauchamp, widow of Thomas, Lord Roos (d. 18 August 1430) without the king’s licence, for which he received a pardon (7 March 1438), and a papal dispensation (27 January 1445) (see G.E.G. and DMB)

  1 Walter Hungerford, 1378–1449, several times a member of parliament in the early Lancastrian period, fought at Agincourt, commanded the naval expedition at Harfleur in 1416, and became a distinguished soldier, diplomat, and administrator. In addition he was treasurer, 1426–32, and was summoned to parliament by writ as a baron from January 1426 onwards.

  2 Sir James Ramsay’s reference to the marriage, ‘if such the connexion really was’ (Lancaster and York, I (1892), 496), has no validity.

  3 R.P., IV, 415. Owen himself petitioned the commons for this grant, but without any specific reference to matrimonial rights. C.P.R., 1429–36, 212.

  4 The allegation made originally by Sir Edward Coke, First Institute (1629), 133b, that an act of 8 Henry VI, and Second Institute, 18, an act of 6 Henry VI, was made prohibiting marriage with the Queen Dowager without the king’s licence, followed in Cotton’s Abridgement of parliamentary records (1657), 589, was accepted by Nicolas, op. cit. xvii, fn. 2, who, however, explained the fact that no such act had ever been found in the rolls of parliament or the statute rolls by asserting that the original membrane on the rolls had been torn off and the other membranes renumbered. T. Artemus Jones, with the assistance of a Public Record Office official, demonstrated (loc. cit.) that this story of fraudulent alterations in the rolls is wholly imaginary.

  1 The allegation that a general prohibition on intermarriage between Welsh and English was a statutory prohibition has been examined and shown to be false by J. Gwynfor Jones, ‘The supposed prohibition of intermarriage in 140
1’ (forthcoming).

  1 For what follows, see generally, Agnes Strickland, op. cit. III, 159. Agnes Strickland provides the fullest account of Catherine’s life, though where not documented it has to be read with caution. She was probably right in saying that for thirteen years after Henry V’s death, no public document tells of Catherine’s activities, but she went beyond her evidence in describing Owen Tudor as ‘a hardy predatory soldier’. Extracts from Catherine’s will are printed, ibid. 166–7, from B.M. MS. Cott. Tiberius E. viii, fo. 221. It is notable that Cardinal Beaufort and Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, were also to be executors. The relevant passage in the will reads, ‘And I trust fully and am right sure that, among all creatures earthly, ye best may and will best tender and favour my will in ordaining for my soul and body, in seeing that my debts be paid and my servants guerdoned, and in tender and favourable fulfilling of mine intent.’ Catherine’s body was conveyed to St Katherine’s by the Tower, then on to St Paul’s, and eventually to the Lady chapel in Westminster Abbey, where Henry VI later built her tomb.

  2 Foedera, X, 828.

  3 G.E.C., sub-tit. Richmond.

  4 These papers are somewhat obscure in themselves, and their meaning was misunderstood by Nicolas, whose garbled account as set out in his Preface has been too closely followed by later writers. See below, Appendix A, ‘Owen Tudor and the Privy Council’.

  1 The earliest known contemporary chronicle reference to the marriage and to the escape from Newgate is contained in A chronicle of London, ed. Tyrrell and Nicolas (1827), 123, which was discovered in 1823 among the archives of the City of London. The reference is cryptic, and is inserted in the annal for the sixteenth year of the reign, i.e. 1 September 1437 to 31 August 1438. ‘This same yere on Oweyn, no man of birthe nother of lyflode, brak out of Newgate ayens nyght at serchynge tyme, thorough helpe of his prest, and wente his way hurtynge foule his kepere; but at the laste, blessyd be God, he was taken ayeyn; the whiche Oweyn hadde prevyley wedded the quene Katerine, and had ijj or iiij chyldren be here, unwetyng the comoun peple tyl that sche were ded and beryed.’ It is noticeable that no causal connection between the wedding and the imprisonment is hinted at here.

  1 Foedera, X, 685–6. Lord Beaumont (born c. 1417), sixth baron, was created the first English viscount in 1440, had a distinguished career in the French wars, and at court, became constable of England in 1450, and was killed at the battle of Northampton, 1460. The councillors ordering the payment met in ‘the secret room of our lord cardinal’, and were Cardinal Beaufort, John Stafford, bishop of Bath and Wells, chancellor; William de la Pole, earl of Suffolk, Ralph, Lord Cromwell, treasurer; Lord Hungerford, and John Stourton.

  2 The error appears to spring from Nicolas, loc. cit. xix and fn. 3, although he realized that there is extant only one relevant pardon to the sheriffs of London, and he was naturally unable to say whether this related to the ‘first or second* escape. Nicolas followed the story in the versions by Stow and Hall, who derived their information from Polydore Vergil, whose account of Owen Tudor is astonishingly terse. After the death of Catherine, he tells us, ‘Owen was twice committed to ward [Newgate is not mentioned] by the duke of Gloucester because he had been so presumptuous as by marriage with the young queen to intermix his blood with the noble race of kings, and in the end was beheaded.’ This version clearly skates over very thin ice. Neither commitment was by the duke of Gloucester personally; the reason given for the committal is unconvincing, since even Gloucester could hardly imprison a man for mere presumption, and the beheading was, of course, in quite other circumstances and nearly twenty-five years later. Polydore Vergil’s glossing over of the story of Owen Tudor, written years after Owen’s grandson had come to the throne, is rather surprising, even though he naturally had to write very cautiously. He could not resist a criticism of Catherine, but eulogized Owen. ‘This woman,’ he said, ‘after the death of her husband … being but young in years and thereby of less discretion to judge what was decent for her estate, married one Owen Tyder, a gentleman of Wales, adorned with wonderful gifts of body and minde, who derived his pedigree from Cadwalleder, the last king of the Britons.’ The references to Vergil are cited from the English version, ed. Ellis, Camden Soc., XXIX (1844), 62, which is in agreement on this passage with the Basle edition (1534), 481, but ill accords with the contemporary London chronicler’s dismissal of Owen as a ‘no man of birthe nother of lyflod’, cited above, p. 9, fn. 1.

  3 C.C.R., Henry VI, III, 155.

  4 Foedera, X, 709–10; and C.P.R., Henry VI, III, 182.

  1 C.C.R., III, 225.

  2 ibid. 283.

  3 ibid. 285.

  4 ibid. 344.

  5 ibid. 474.

  6 ibid. IV, 78.

  7 C.P.R., VI, 494.

  8 ibid. 532 ; and C.C.R., VI, 405.

  9 C.P.R., VI, 547.

  10 The allegation often made that Owen at some time adopted as his patronymic not his father’s name but his grandfather’s appears to be a delusion. It seems that it was the Crown that made the choice for him. The references given above indicate that for many years he was variously designated in letters patent or close as Owen ap Meredith ap Tudur, Owen Meredith, Owen ap Meredith, Owen ap Tuder (1438, Foedera, X, 709; C.P.R., III, 182). He called himself Owen ap Meredith in his petition to the commons in 1432; his sons were at first called Edmund or Jasper ap Meredith ap Tydier, and in the creating of their earldoms in 1452 no patronymic at all was used. His general pardon in 1439 was made out to Owen Meredith, but from 1459 his designation became Owen Tuder esquire. It was thus that in time we acquired a Tudor instead of a Meredith dynasty.

  1 The chronicler’s dates for this event vary from 1 February to 3 February. The battle was fought between Edward, earl of March, and Jasper Tudor, earl of Pembroke, James Butler, earl of Wiltshire, and other Lancastrian supporters, at Mortimer’s Cross near Wigmore. Pembroke and Wiltshire escaped the rout, but Owen was among those who were pursued to Hereford, and he and others were captured and beheaded in the market place there. The chronicle attributed to William Gregory, mayor of London, 1451–2, which was contemporary at this time, gives a vivid account of the final scene in Owen’s career.

  ‘And in that jornay was Owyn Tetyr i-take and brought unto Herforde este, an he was be heddyde at the market place, and hys hedde sette a-pone the hygh-eyste gryce of the market crosse, and a madde woman kembyd hys here and wysche a way the blode of hys face, and she gate candellys and sette a-boote hym brennynge, moo then a C. Thys Owyne Tytyr was fadyr unto the Erle of Pembroke, and hadde weddyd Quene Kateryn, Kyng Harry the VI ys modyr, wenyng and trustyng all eway that he shulde not be hedyd tylle he sawe the axe and the blocke, and wherin that he was in hys dobelet he trustyd on pardon and grace tylle the coler of hys redde vellvet dobbelet was rypped of. Then he sayde, “That hede shalle ly on the stocke that was wonte to ly on Quene Kateryn’s lappe,” and put hys herte and mynde holy unto God, and fulle mekely toke hys dethe.’ (Chronicle of William Gregory, skinner, ed. J. Gairdner, The historical collections of a citizen of London in the fifteenth century, Camden Soc., new ser. XVII (1876), 211.

  2 Accounts differ somewhat as to particulars of the children, but probably Polydore Vergil’s statement (op. cit. 62) is reliable. He states definitely that a third son be came a Benedictine monk and died young, and that there was a daughter who became a nun.

  3 On the careers of Edmund and Jasper generally, see G.E.C., sub.-tits, Richmond and Pembroke, and references therein. Polydore Vergil, op. cit., supplies many details. For valuable detailed information on the lives of Owen Tudor, his two sons Edmund and Jasper, and of Henry Tudor before Bosworth, see Roger S. Thomas, ‘The political career, estates, and connection of Jasper Tudor, earl of Pembroke and duke of Bedford, d. 1495’, unpublished Ph.D. thesis (University of Wales, Swansea, 1971), passim.

  1 Margaret was the only daughter and heiress of John Beaufort II, duke of Somerset (who had died in 1444), and his wife Margaret Beauchamp of Bletso. She was thus a great-great-grand
-daughter of Edward III.

  2 Busch, England under the Tudors, I, King Henry VII, (London, 1895), 12; and 319, n. 2, rightly prefers 28 January as the date to the confused assertions of Bernard André, Vita, cf. J. Gairdner, Henry VII, 3.

  1 For valuable detail, see D. H. Thomas, ‘The Herberts of Raglan as supporters of the House of York in the second half of the fifteenth century’, unpublished M.A. thesis (University of Wales, Cardiff, 1968).

  2 Morice, Preuves, III, col. 87, pp. 266–7.

  3 Fortescue, De laudibus legum Anglie, ed. S. B. Chrimes (1942), lxvi, lxxiii.

  4 P.V., op. cit. 135. The visit to London may well have occurred, but we may doubt whether Henry VI was moved to prophecy when he gazed upon the boy Henry, although this story also appears in André, Vita, 14.

  1 Foedera, XI, 680.

  2 The siege was laid by Morgan Thomas, sent by Edward IV for the purpose, but on the eighth day Morgan’s brother David, a friend of Jasper’s, raised the siege and made the escape possible. P.V., op. cit. 115.

  3 Help is said to have been provided by Thomas White, merchant and mayor of Tenby, who is alleged to have owned the ship. For particulars and illustrations of the interesting tomb effigies of Thomas White and his son John, see E. Laws and E. H. Edwards, Church book of St Mary the Virgin, Tenby (1907), 14, 71–4, 193. Information, without very much evidence but with a good deal of imaginary reconstruction, is supplied by W. Dane Russell, ’The Lady Margaret Beaufort and King Henry VII’, Arch. Camb., XVL (6th ser., 1916), 189–221, 301–40.

  4 C.P.R., 1461–7, 114.

  5 ibid. 197. The honour was transferred briefly to Richard, duke of Gloucester, and then in September to George, duke of Clarence, and on his death in 1478 to Gloucester again (see G.E.C.).