by David Field
‘Nothing that has been reported to me, Your Majesty. But it seems that Charles of France sees him as a means of unsettling your grip upon the English throne.’
‘Unless I first loosen his grip upon his own,’ Henry growled. ‘What is Charles’s current weakness, would you say?’
‘It is known that he wishes to wage war on his southern neighbour, Italy,’ Foxe replied. ‘There are disputes regarding trade routes across the Alps, and the mountain people have been enlisted by certain Dukes in Italy’s northern kingdoms to harass Charles’s caravans. In order to make the mountain passes safe for his own traders, Charles seeks to occupy Italy’s northern border regions.’
‘So the last thing he will wish is for harassment in his own northern realms,’ Henry thought out loud, before enquiring, ‘What about the Burgundy witch?’
‘They say she is much taken up with negotiating a marriage between her grandson Philip, the heir apparent to the Duchy, with a young princess of Castile and Aragon, to further protect her nation against the ever-present threat of Charles of France. But since, as I have already said, the King’s attention is directed to the south of his lands, Duchess Margaret is free to meddle, and it is said that she has expressed an interest in receiving the young man believed to be her nephew.’
Most of the Council having drifted in while they were talking, Henry called them to order and announced his main reason for convening the meeting. There was a sharp intake of breath when he announced, ‘It is my wish to invade France with as large an army as I can muster.’
As the assembled nobles absorbed this startling piece of information, Henry turned to Lovell.
‘I shall of course require more taxation, in addition to the sums presumably lying to my credit, unspent, after the Breton venture that was paid for by Anne of Brittany. Since she seems resigned to marriage with Charles of France, there is some irony in the fact that we shall be using all the money we might have expended in her interest in order to lay siege to her new dwelling in Paris.’
‘You intend to lay siege to Paris, Your Majesty?’ Daubeney asked breathlessly.
‘I wish to wage war against the King of France,’ Henry reminded him sarcastically. ‘Would you counsel that I do so by occupying Lisbon?’
As the laughter subsided, Daubeney sought to recover his credibility.
‘My point was simply this, Your Majesty, that it will be late in the campaign season ere we can amass the necessary forces in Calais, and King Charles will hardly expect an invasion in, say, October. However, that will also be the time at which they are ingathering their harvest, and if we lay waste to Normandy, we can both ensure provisions for our own fighting men, and deprive France of its much-needed crops. By this means Charles might be brought to heel without the need to go deeper into France, which would be required if we were to advance on Paris.’
‘Wise counsel. How many men can you raise, assuming that they can be paid for?’
‘Perhaps, at most, twenty-five thousand, Your Majesty — although that would leave England poorly defended.’
‘And how soon might they be assembled?’
‘Not before October, to be on the side of caution. There would need to be several fleets, and given the inclement weather at that time of year, I would recommend that they be sent from Deptford, and thence down the Thames, to reduce our exposure to the westerlies.’
‘This is well,’ Henry nodded. ‘I wish to remain in England for the birth of the royal child, but then I wish to lose no time in leading my own force into France. I may tell you privily that I have no wish to conquer the nation, or win back those lands lost during the reign of the late King Henry VI. What I seek is to tweak Charles’s nose so severely that he signs a peace treaty that will include the handing over of this new scullion pretender who would have us believe that he is Richard of York. That will end the current mutterings around the nation, and will restore the prestige to my throne, which is put in doubt when others may scoff at my rightful occupation of it with such impunity.’
‘Touching the matter of mutterings around the nation,’ Bray chimed in, ‘the imposition of another tax will not sit well with the nobles.’
‘They can afford it, if they live in such pomp and finery,’ Morton observed sourly, ‘and if they live poorly, then they must surely have much coin stored under their beds for just such a purpose as we have in mind.’
‘Oh for a devious lawyer’s mind like yours, Morton,’ Henry chuckled. ‘Now I must depart to Eltham, where my wife and mother are even now supervising the installation of a new nursery to accommodate my growing brood of offspring. We meet again a week today.’
VIII
The fourth royal child — a daughter — was born on the second of July at Richmond Palace, and was named Elizabeth after her mother.
As Prince of Wales and heir apparent, Arthur was becoming a major bargaining counter in his father’s slowly awakening foreign policy, and he was already spoken for in marriage to Katherine, the infant daughter of Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella of Castile. This had been negotiated with characteristic guile by Richard Foxe, two years previously, in the Treaty of Medina del Campo, which also gave Henry a potential ally against France, and enhanced trading potential between the two nations that Henry had been anxious to preserve for his ships when Charles of France had been harassing Brittany.
While the nation celebrated the birth of a second royal princess, leading nobles were sending their finest warriors to the royal standard, with their home liveries tactfully hidden in their saddlebags, while shipwrights hammered away in a newly-created royal dockyard at Portsmouth, and merchants were haggling with the Exchequer over the charter fees for the larger of their vessels that might transport men and horses across the Channel. No doubt French spies were urgently reporting back to Charles VIII that he might be required to turn his eyes back north, but by the middle of October he could, had he been free to do so, have stood on the cliffs of Cap Gris Nez and watched for himself the first of many ships tacking against the westerlies as they heaved and creaked out of the Thames Estuary and steered carefully around the Goodwin Sands on their way to Calais. By the time that Henry himself arrived, the total number of fighting men he would be riding at the head of was no less than twenty-six thousand, financed by a grumbling populace.
Henry was wise enough to leave the actual military strategy to others, and at the urging of Daubeney he led his troops southward along the enemy coastline towards Boulogne, the most important sea port still left in French hands. The very sight of so many English knights in siege formation around the ancient walls was enough to bring emissaries from Paris suing for peace terms, and Foxe was sent in to negotiate the Treaty of Étaples. Henry had left him in no doubt that Perkin Warbeck was high on the agenda, and that if possible he was to be handed over. The negotiations almost faltered on that point, until Charles promised to banish Perkin from his court, and pay Henry five thousand pounds a year for the rest of his days on the throne. Henry took the money, and Perkin Warbeck was free to take up a generous invitation from the Dowager Duchess Margaret of Burgundy.
Henry had successfully blocked one line of support for the impudent youth who was claiming his throne, by negotiation with Charles of France. He also took comfort in the fact that Isabella of Spain, when approached by Margaret of Burgundy to recognise Warbeck, in what Margaret no doubt intended as a means of destabilising the treaty that Henry had with her for the marriage between her daughter and Prince Arthur, held firm to her opinion that the boy was simply an imposter who was the tool of others. But the support being given to Warbeck in Flanders could not be ignored, and it was beginning to cause trouble behind Henry’s back in England.
It was therefore an irritable, and deeply troubled, Henry who summoned his Lord Chamberlain, Sir William Stanley, to an urgent audience late one afternoon at Westminster Palace several months after his triumphant return from Boulogne. Henry owed a considerable debt to the man who had guided him, unchallenged, through those parts o
f the country that Stanley should, in 1485, have been guarding for Richard of Gloucester, but somehow they had never shared any natural warmth, and on occasions Henry had been critical of the manner in which Sir William performed his duties, notably in matters pertaining to the security of the royal residences.
‘What measures have you taken to guard against this invasion from Flanders which seems to be the talk of the Palace kitchens, not to speak of the city alleyways, the dockside ale-houses and the merchant houses?’ Henry demanded. Invasion fever seemed to have infected everyone, from the highest-born courtier down to the meanest street beggar, and those walking the narrow alleyways of the overcrowded city, or the country lanes of adjoining counties such as Middlesex, Surrey and Kent, were openly carrying arms which, when occasionally challenged, they claimed to require for their own protection should ‘King Richard’ emerge from the Channel mists with hordes of Flemish warriors in order to claim his usurped throne.
Stanley adopted a dismissive tone that did not sit well with his troubled patron. ‘Since they are merely rumours, Your Majesty, I have not sought to embroider them with the vestige of truth by posting extra guards. At any event, should there be an invasion, our spies and fast messengers will bring the news to Westminster in abundant time for a fitting response.’
‘Might I remind you, Uncle,’ Henry snarled back, ‘that there was once a time when the late usurper of the throne, Richard of Gloucester, was also relying on you to warn him of the progress through his realm of another invader who was claiming his throne. As you are well aware, the man entrusted with this solemn duty was, instead, guiding that invader through the Welsh Marches and carrying messages between him and the second most powerful man in the realm, Earl Stanley.’
Stanley’s face flushed with anger. ‘You do me no kindness to cast my loyalty to you in my face, Your Majesty. I will ever work to maintain your grip upon the throne, as I hope I have demonstrated.’
Sir William bowed out of the presence, and an usher closed the chamber door behind him. As he stormed down the corridor, he let fly a stream of muted invective that contained words such as ‘ungrateful’ and ‘spoiled brat’.
The next to have cause to step cautiously around the royal paranoia was John Morton, summoned from his London townhouse, where he had been preparing a suitable peroration for the impending investiture of the young Prince Henry as Duke of York, the date for which was not yet fixed.
‘I wish to suspend all trade with Flanders,’ Henry advised him sternly. ‘It is intended as a punishment for Duke Philip, or rather his mad father Maximilian, who is acting as his Regent, and who is affording such honour to this peasant spawn who claims to be of the House of York. My question of you is this — should I do so, will it harm England more than it harms Burgundy?’
Morton took time to consider his answer. ‘In terms of the trade itself, it will fall heaviest on the cloth merchants of both nations, Your Majesty, although clearly it will be resented by a significant portion of your subjects here in London. But Your Majesty must also bear in mind the reduction in customs revenue that this will involve for the Household, and of course the possible reduction in income from our loan activities in towns such as Bruges and Antwerp.’
‘But it will bear equally hard on the Duchy?’ Henry persisted.
‘Indeed, Your Majesty,’ Morton reassured him. ‘If anything it will hit Flanders harder, since it is their leading source of revenue.’
‘Excellent!’ Henry grinned. ‘See to it without delay. There is, however, another matter, and one which requires your utmost discretion, and the employment of certain of Foxe’s ferrets. Draw closer.’
As Morton leaned in closer to Henry, the latter lowered his voice in a conspiratorial tone.
‘I wish Foxe to select suitable persons to work in various parts of my Household, to report back to him — and thence to me — regarding ought they may hear touching the subject of rebellion or conspiracy against the throne. If he can let me know what skills they already possess, I will arrange for suitable positions to be created in which they may employ a vigilant and ever-open ear. They will be remunerated as befits their notional duties, but I will also authorise additional reward in return for their services as speaking tubes for what is being talked about around the kitchens, the stables, the chambers and so on. May I entrust you with this matter?’
‘As ever, Your Majesty,’ Morton assured him.
On 29th October 1494, it was time to put Morton’s long-prepared sermon to good use, and to make a public point to the pretended Duke of York across the water. Three-year-old Henry Tudor astonished the lines of onlookers when he rode, unaided, on a small horse through the narrow streets, surrounded on all sides by royal bodyguards, to Westminster Palace. There, he was greeted by his father and shown, for the first time, the chamber he would occupy instead of the nursery to which he was more accustomed. He would be reunited with his older brother Arthur, who, in accordance with tradition, had also been transferred to live with his father two years previously, leaving the royal princesses to be educated in the nursery.
The following day — the Feast of All Hallows — Henry was invested with the regalia of the Duke of York, following which Archbishop Morton, surrounded by no less than eight English bishops, all in full mitred splendour, preached a Mass to the echoing of a benedicat vos from the Chapel Royal choir. The splendour of the procession that followed, with much purple and red in glittering evidence under the flickering light of the torches that had been specially lit, and were burning incense, was in no way diminished by the fact that the tired little prince had to be carried by his great uncle the Duke of Bedford, who was himself beginning to show signs of the diminished mobility that was to increase shortly before his death just over a year later. However, nothing could mute the loud message that was being broadcast to all the crowned heads of Europe — that whoever the young man at the Burgundian Court really was, he was no longer recognised in England as the Duke of York. That title had been passed to a young, and somewhat overawed, prince who would grow up to become one of the most powerful monarchs that England would ever know.
In the second week of January 1495, the news broke that Earl William Stanley had been arrested and was languishing in the Tower.
‘By what right am I brought here?’ Stanley demanded as he stood, shackled at the wrists, before a row of inquisitors who sat on a raised bench, and included the King, beside whom sat Chancellor Morton.
‘By the prerogative right that I possess to suppress treason in my own realm,’ Henry advised him from a mouth that seemed to have thinned since Stanley last saw it. ‘This, as you well know, since you oversaw its equipage, is the Court of Star Chamber. The two other gentlemen with whom you may not be acquainted are Justices Coleridge and Denby, of the King’s Bench. We are here to try you for treason.’
‘On what evidence?’ Stanley demanded indignantly.
‘The best evidence there could be,’ Morton replied. ‘That from your own words and actions, as disclosed to us by various persons working in and around both your personal household, and the very royal Household in which you sought to influence others.’
‘Produce these persons!’ Stanley demanded. There was a hasty consultation between Morton and the two King’s Bench Justices, the latter nodding to a question put to them by Morton, who looked back triumphantly at Stanley.
‘We are not required, in this court, to produce the witnesses, since their testimonies have already been secured by sworn affidavit. We may begin with that of your head groom, one William Featherstone.’
‘He was dismissed for the theft of horse brasses some two months since,’ Stanley objected.
‘Which is why he was no doubt so eager to give certain intelligence regarding your frequent trips by horse to a certain house in Sandwich, close to the Kent coast.’
‘It is my own house,’ Stanley replied with a confident smile.
‘Within which,’ Henry added, ‘resides a lady named Katherine Broadley, of whose ex
istence, I have no doubt, your wife is completely unaware.’
‘She is my mistress, certainly,’ Stanley replied, ‘and what of it?’
‘She was also lately the mistress of Sir Edward Brampton, a treasonous Yorkist who is rumoured to have been the one who carried the pretender Perkin Warbeck to safety in Flanders,’ Henry replied. ‘You do not choose your fucks wisely it would seem, Uncle.’
‘This is pure chance,’ Stanley objected.
Morton decided to move the matter on. ‘We have also an affidavit from one Gervais Montsorrel, a member of the King’s own Yeoman Guard, who swears that on diverse dates around the time of the investiture of Prince Henry of York, you ordered the Yeomen to step down from their duties in connection with the King’s own personal safety, and replaced them with men of your own, one of whom, whilst supposedly on duty, was found in the Palace cellars, insensible after consuming wine breached from a stored barrel. It would seem that this matter was not reported.’
‘The man was dismissed,’ Stanley explained. ‘As for my not reporting the matter, His Majesty had already expressed his displeasure regarding what he perceived to be my slackness in matters of Palace security, and I was not anxious to repeat my experience of the rough edge of the royal tongue.’
‘This I can well understand,’ Henry replied with a self-satisfied sneer, ‘but what is less easy to understand is that the man in question was allocated duties immediately outside the royal chambers, but was so easily seduced into the cellars by a person in the employment of Sir Richard Foxe, posing as a Groom of the Chamber, who told him where he might find the open cask.’
‘Slackness I will confess to, Your Majesty — but treason?’
‘Would you agree,’ Morton asked him in measured tones, ‘that it would be treason to state openly that you would not raise a hand to resist were the Duke of York to invade?’