Henry VII

by S B Chrimes

  1 See G.E.G., sub.-tit. Richmond.

  2 See D. H. Thomas, op. cit.

  3 C.P.R., 1461–7, 114.

  4 André, Vita, 12, states that Henry was born in Pembroke Castle, and that he spent his early youth in various places in Wales. A manuscript history of the Herbert family (Cardiff MS. 5. 7, Herbertorum prosapia, fo. 47) specifically states that the said Lord Henry (who was afterwards King Henry VII) remained with the said countess at Raglan and that his education was entrusted to her. Polydore Vergil, whose allusions to Henry’s early youth are very sparse, states that when Jasper returned to Wales after the Readeption he found Henry ‘not fully ten years old’ (actually he was nearly fourteen) ‘kept as a prisoner, but honourably brought up with the wife of William Herbert’ (loc. cit. 134). Bernard André also says of him, &lsquoEducationis locus illi pro aeris et corporis salubritate ut infantibus assolet esse principus, varius in Wallia ac multiplex fuit, usque adeo anni temporibus variis pro tuenda ita exigentibus. Et quia in tenella aetate saepe valetudinarius fuit, tenero a suis nutritoribus educabatur, viris alioquin probis atque prudentioribus’ (ibid. 12–13). Whether this passage obliges us to believe that Henry was ’troubled by ill health in his early years’, as R. B. Wernham, Before the Armada (1966), 27, infers, is perhaps open to some doubt.

  5 André also says that one of his tutors was Andreas Scotus, an Oxford teacher who told André, ‘numquam tantae celeritatis illa aetate capacem doctnnae puerum se audivisse’. The other tutor was Edward Haseley, later dean of Warwick (Leland, Itinerary, ed. Lucy Toulman Smith, II, 42, 151). Busch, loc. cit. 12, assumes that these tutors were provided by his uncle, but since Henry ceased to be in Jasper’s care at the age of about four and a half years, this could scarcely have been the case, and the tutors must have been provided by Lord Herbert. Haseley was in later years given an annuity of £10 for services in Henry’s ‘tender age’ (C.P.R., 1485–94, 332). See also A. B. Emden, Biographical register of the University of Oxford before 1500, sub.-tit. Scot and Haseley.

  1 C. Charter Rolls, VI, 225.

  2 The conferences between Margaret Beaufort and Jasper reported by André, op. cit. 15–17, in which they proposed to send Henry abroad, must be purely imaginary, since the political and military reasons for their eventual flight are not mentioned at all.

  3 André, op. cit. 17.

  4 Both André, ibid, and P.V., (ed. Ellis), 158, clearly imply that the arrival in Brittany was due to chance, and make no reference to the often alleged but little supported assertion that the cause was the treachery of a Breton master.

  1 P.V., ibid.

  2 Paston Letters, III, No. 676, p. 17. ‘Alsso it is seyde that the Erle of Pembroke is taken on to Brettayn; and men saye that the Kynge schall have delyvere off hym hastely, and som seye that the Kynge of France woll se hym saffe, and schall sett hym at lyberte ageyn.’

  1 P.V. (ed. Ellis), 158–9, 164–7, has the most detailed account of these matters. Cora L. Scofield, Edward IV, II, 19–29, 32, n. 3, 166, 172–3, adds some particulars, mainly by citations from MS. sources. She thus states that in the early part of 1475; Henry was a prisoner at Elven, and Jasper at Josselin, and that in October 1476 Henry was at Vannes in the custody of Vincent de la Landalle, and that Jasper was also there in November in charge of Bertrand du Parc (citing Compte de François Avignon, Legrand collection MS. français, 6982, fo. 326 (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale), cf. Roger S. Thomas, op. cit. 226–9).

  2 P.V. (ed. Ellis), 191–216. Vergil furnishes a detailed account of these events, but provides very few precise dates.

  3 L. & P., I, 22.

  1 L. & P., I, 37–41.

  2 The accounts given by Polydore Vergil and Sir Thomas More on this episode differ greatly. Vergil affirms that Buckingham told Morton of his intent regarding Henry (op. cit. 194), but More magnifies Morton’s part into that of instigator of the rebellion, apparently intended at first to be in Buckingham’s favour, but his text breaks off at this point (The history of Richard III, ed. R. S. Sylvester (Yale ed., 1963), 91–3). Vergil, however, concedes that the common report ran otherwise, and had it that Buckingham intended to substitute himself for Richard III.

  1 See below, p. 123.

  2 Busch, op. cit. 13, makes the assertion categorically, following the more guarded suggestion of Gairdner, L. & P., II, xxx, who had no positive grounds for it.

  3 R.P., VI, 245. Gairdner, Richard III, 130; followed by Busch, op. cit. 13, is in error in saying that Buckingham wrote to Henry on 24 September informing him that a general rising would occur on 18 October and inviting him to invade at the same time. The Rolls merely say that Buckingham wrote to Henry at various times, and that Henry set out from Brittany on 19 October (probably a mistake for 18 October, as no previous reference is made to 19 October).

  1 Cont. Croyland (ed. Fulmer), 567–8.

  1 The main centres of the rising are clearly revealed by the acts of attainder of 1484. They were Brecon, and Maidstone, Rochester, and Gravesend in Kent, Guildford in Surrey, Newbury in Berks., Salisbury, and Exeter. See below, Appendix C.

  2 R.P., VI, 245–50. The adoption of the same date for the treasonable acts in the several regions may be formal and conventional only and fixed as a uniform date for the forfeiture of all the attainted, but this evidence is difficult to ignore, especially as we have to rely largely upon the information contained in the act for any details as to what happened. See below, Appendix C.

  1 Printed in H. Ellis, Original Letters (1827), 2nd ser., I, 159–60.

  2 C.C.R., 1476–85, No. 1170; Foedera, XII, 189.

  3 But the words of Vergil in this context must not be overlooked. King Richard he describes as ‘a man much to be feared for circumspection and celerity’ (op. cit. 200).

  4 C.P.R., 1476–85, 370. On the next day Ralph Assheton, vice-chamberlain of England, was likewise ordered to proceed against certain persons guilty of lèse majesté (ibid. 368).

  5 The command was sent to the sheriffs of Devon, Cornwall, Shropshire, Wiltshire, Somerset and Dorset, Staffordshire, Oxford and Berkshire, Surrey and Sussex, Kent, Middlesex, Herefordshire, Gloucestershire, and Southamptonshire; and to the officials of London, Bristol, Coventry, Bath, Southampton, Devizes, New Sarum and Bridgwater; and the warden of the Cinque ports (ibid. 371). The contents of part of the proclamation, made in English, is very curious (printed in Foedera, XII, 204–5). It is not easy to see why Richard III should have prefaced such a proclamation with a rambling moral homily, and have alleged that the marquis of Dorset was living in adultery with Jane Shore. The persons denounced as assisting ‘his great rebel and traitor the duke of Buckingham’, and the bishops of Ely and Salisbury, were Dorset, Sir William Norris, Sir William Knevet, Sir Thomas Bourchier of Barnes, Sir George Brown, knights; John Cheyney, John Norris, Walter Hungerford, John Russle, and John Harecourt of Stainton. The rewards for the capture of any of these were fixed on a sliding scale: £1,000 or £100 in land for the duke; 1,000 marks or 100 marks in land for the marquis or bishops; 50 marks or £40 in land for any of the rest.

  1 e.g. C.P.R., ibid. 370–1.

  2 Cont. Croyland chron., 568–70; P.V. (ed. Ellis), 198–201.

  3 T. B. Pugh, The marcher lordships of South Wales, 1415–1536 (1963), 240–1. Mr Pugh points out that Sir Thomas Vaughan’s father had been executed by Jasper Tudor at Chepstow in 1471, and that no Welshman was listed among the ninety-seven supporters of Buckingham in the act of attainder in 1484, whereas twenty-two men of South Wales were rewarded with annuities by Richard III. He is of the opinion that the plot to make Henry Tudor king attracted no support among the gentry of South Wales in 1483.

  4 P.V. (ed. Ellis), 200.

  5 His capture may not have been caused by his betrayal by Bannister, ‘for fear or money’, as Vergil, op. cit. 201, suggests. The Croyland chronicler says that the discovery was caused by noticing a greater quantity of provisions than usual being carried to a poor man’s house (op. cit. 492).

  1 P.V., op. cit. 200, states that the flight o
f Buckingham dismayed his associates, and all fled, some without hope of safety, others to sanctuary or ‘the wilderness’, or tried to sail overseas, of whom a large part reached Brittany. See below, Appendix B, ‘Henry’s companions in exile’. Vergil also says that about the same time John Morton, Christopher Urswick, John Harwell, Edward Peningham (described as chief captain of the army), and many others escaped into Flanders.

  2 The exact date of Henry’s sailing cannot be determined. Vergil clearly says 6 ides of October, i.e. 10 October; and the act of attainder, 19 October. Both of these dates appear to be far too early, but there is no means at present of ascertaining the date. The Croyland chronicler says that Henry anchored off Plymouth, at a time when Richard III was still at Exeter (8 November and on for about a week, and where he heard of the death of Henry, duke of Buckingham, i.e. on or after 2 November). Some useful details are supplied in B. A. Pocquet du Haut-Jussé, François II duc de Bretagne et l’Angleterre, 1458–1488 (Paris, 1929), 176. It was not, according to Vergil, until after he had returned to Brittany that he learnt of Buckingham’s death on 2 November. The number of ships and men that Vergil says formed the expedition is probably exaggerated. G.E.C., sub.-tit. Richmond, may well be right in suggesting that Henry had intended to land at Plymouth but was diverted by conditions to Poole.

  3 Henry acknowledged a loan of 10,000 crowns from the duke, on 31 October (B.M. Add. MSS 19, 398, fo. 33). On 22 November, at Nantes, the duke instructed his auditors to allow to Giles Thomas, the treasurer of his exchequer, if he should require it, the sum of 10,000 crowns of gold which he had delivered by command to the lord of Richmond (L. & P., I, 54). It does not follow, as P. M. Kendall, Richard III, 482–3, assumes, that these were two different transactions.

  1 P.V., op. cit. 201–4.

  2 See below, Appendix C, ‘The attainders of January to February 1484’.

  1 See below, Appendix B.

  2 In addition to Buckingham, Vergil (op. cit.) states that Richard III executed Sir George Brown, Sir Roger Clifford, Sir Thomas Seintlegh, Thomas Romney, Robert Clifford, and ‘divers others, even of his own household’.

  3 According to Vergil (op. cit. 204), Stanley was himself in danger, and was interrogated by the council, who found him guiltless of the conspiracy, but ordered him to remove his wife’s servants, and to keep her so straitly that she could not pass any messages to her son or her friends nor practise against the king; all of which was done.

  4 See Kendall, op. cit. 278–9.

  5 Croyland chronicle, 572.

  1 The text of the letter is printed in Gairdner, Richard III, 165–6, from Ellis, Original letters, 2nd ser., I, 149.

  2 See below, p. 38.

  3 Foedera, XII, 226 and 229; and C.P.R., 517, 547. Polydore Vergil, who seldom mentions any precise dates, cannot be relied upon for the chronology of this phase. He appears, for example, to suppose that Richard III’s agreement with Queen Elizabeth occurred in 1485, after Henry had escaped to France, but this is untenable.

  4 For this and the immediately following episodes, P.V., op. cit., is the only detailed source of information.

  1 See Procès-verbaux des séances du Conseil de Régence du roi Charles VIII, August 1484 to January 1485, ed. A. Bernier (Paris, 1836); Coll. de Docs. Inédits, 128, 129, 164, 168.

  2 e.g. A. Dupuy, Histoire de la réunion de la Bretagne à la France (1880), II, 46, ‘Henri Tudorétait pour le gouvernement français un précieux auxiliaire contre Richard III’. M. Dupuy appears to give an inaccurate paraphrase (ibid. 46) of the council minutes cited above.

  1 For the regency of Anne of Beaujeu generally, see the valuable detailed account in J. S. C. Bridge, A history of France from the death of Louis XI, I, Reign of Charles VIII: regency of Anne of Beaujeu (1921), esp. pp. 28, 112–31, and refs. therein; see also P. Pelicier, Essai sur le gouvernement de la dame de Beaujeu, 1483–91 (Chartres, 1882); and Dupuy, op. cit.

  2 L. & P., I, 22–3.

  3 ibid. I, 37–43, 54.

  1 ibid. II, 3–51.

  2 See Bridge, op. cit. 54–102. It was at the opening of this assembly that the chancellor, Guillaume de Rochefort, was able to contrast loyalty to the Crown in France with the different state of affairs recently displayed in England, and to give point to his homily by referring to what had happened in England after Edward IV’s death, how his children had been murdered, how the crown was transferred to the assassin by the goodwill of the nation. This appears to be the earliest overt accusation of Richard III as the murderer of the princes. The source of this allegation was Dominic Mancini, who had just completed his De occupatione regni Anglie per Ricardum tercium, at Beaugency in early December 1483. See C. A. J. Armstrong’s edition, 15; and for discussion, P. M. Kendall, Richard III (1958), 395–6.

  1 It does not seem possible at present to ascertain the exact date on which the French government decided to enable Henry to start active preparations. Possibly further investigation into the French archives may give a clue.

  2 John de Vere, thirteenth earl of Oxford (1442-1513), had been allowed to succeed to his father the twelfth earl, who was beheaded by Edward IV in 1462 for treason. He eventually fled to the continent and took part in the Readeption of Henry VI, and was appointed constable of England. He commanded the Lancastrian left wing at Barnet, escaped and fled to Scotland, and later France. He engaged in privateering and seized St Michael’s Mount, September 1473. He was there beseiged for some months but was obliged to surrender. He was imprisoned in Hammes Castle, and attainted in 1475.

  1 Richard Fox became keeper of the Privy Seal, 24 February 1487, and remained in that office until 1516, becoming also bishop of Exeter, 1487–92, of Bath and Wells, 1492–4, of Durham, 1494–1501, of Winchester, 1501–28.

  2 None of Edward IV’s seven daughters was married by August 1485. (1) The eldest, Elizabeth (b. 11 February 1466, d. 11 February 1503), was to marry Henry VII on 18 January 1486; (2) Mary (b. 1467, d. 23 May 1482); (3) Cecily (b. 1469, d. 24 August 1507) married, first, John, first Viscount Welles, between 25 November 1487 and 1 June 1488; second, Thomas Kyme in 1503; (4) Margaret (b. 10 April 1472, d. 11 December); (5) Anne (b. 2 November 1475) married, 4 February 1495, Thomas Howard II, later earl of Surrey and third duke of Norfolk, and died 23 November 1511; (6) Katherine (b. 1479) married, October 1495, Sir William Courtenay, later earl of Devon, and died 15 November 1527; (7) Bridget, a nun at Dartford (b. 1480, d. 1517). The marriage of Henry VII’s eldest sister-in-law to Viscount Welles is explained by the fact that John Welles was Henry’s uncle of the half-blood. John’s father, Lionel, sixth baron Welles, had married, c. 1447, as his second wife, Margaret, baroness Beauchamp of Bletso, the widow of John Beaufort, first duke of Somerset and mother of Margaret Beaufort, Henry’s mother. Lionel Welles was killed at Towton, 1461, and his son and heir Richard, the seventh baron, was beheaded in 1470; likewise Richard’s son and heir Robert, the eighth baron. The attainder of these two prevented John, Lionel’s second son, from succeeding to the barony; a pardon in 1478 did not prevent him from participating in Buckingham’s rebellion in 1483, after which he avoided the penalties of attainder by escaping to Brittany, where he joined Henry of Richmond. Henry knighted him on 7 August 1485; he was recognized as Baron Welles on the reversal of his attainder in 1485, and was created viscount before 1 September 1487, and given substantial grants. He died s.m.p. 9 February 1498. Anne his only daughter and heiress died soon after her father, when the title became extinct. See G.E.C., fn. 103. Presumably Henry VII in agreeing to this not very distinguished marriage for his eldest sister-in-law sought both to reward his half-uncle for his loyalty and to play for safety.

  1 The proclamation which Richard III issued on 7 December 1484 exists in a copy contained in B.M. MS. Harl. 433, fo. 273b, and was reissued in almost identical terms on 23 June 1485. The latter issue was printed by Fenn in his edition of the Paston letters, apparently from the copy addressed to the sheriff of Kent, and also is imperfectly contained in MS. Harl. 437, fo. 230b, printed by Ellis, Orig
inal letters, 2nd ser., I, 162. J. Gairdner, Paston letters, III, No. 883, gives the 23 June version collated with the texts of the two Harl. MSS, and the Fenn edition. It is notable that the proclamation of 7 December 1484 included the name of Thomas, marquis of Dorset, dropped from that of 23 June 1485.

  1 For the course of events in Brittany, see Bridge, op. cit., esp. 120–31. Further in formation is obtainable in A. Dupuy, Histoire de la réunion de la Bretagne â la France (Paris, 1880), II, 41–6. Dupuy went so far as to say (ibid. 79) that the fall of Landois was fatal to Richard III and the duke of Orléans (who was forced to submit after the Treaty of Bourges). But Henry’s preparations must have been far advanced well before Landois fell on 19 July.

  2 For what follows, Vergil, op. cit. 209–16, is the only detailed source.

  1 Walter Herbert was the second son of Henry of Richmond’s former guardian, William Herbert, earl of Pembroke, and brother of William, the second earl, and subsequently earl of Huntingdon. Their sister Maud (designed for Henry himself originally) married, c. 1476, Henry Percy, eighth earl of Northumberland. Maud died after 27 July 1485.

  1 See Caroline A. Halstead, Richard III (1844), II, 566, from Harl. MS. 787, fo. 2; also Halliwell-Phillips, Letters, I, 161.

  2 John Morgan of Tredegar (d. 1504), after the accession of Henry VII became his first clerk of the parliament, dean of Windsor and a master in Chancery, received a number of church preferments, and in 1496 was appointed bishop of St David’s. For Rhys ap Thomas, see p. 42, fn. 4. Sir John Savage, who had extensive influence in Cheshire and elsewhere, received large grants after Bosworth, was promoted K.G. in 1488, and was killed at the siege of Boulogne in 1492.