Margaret Beaufort: Mother of the Tudor Dynasty (11 page)

Matters came to a head in 1469, when Warwick and Clarence came out in open rebellion against the King, issuing a proclamation jointly with Warwick’s brother, the Archbishop of York, on 12 July 1469:

The king our sovereign lord’s true subjects of divers parts of this his realm of England have delivered to us certain articles [remembering] the deceitful, covetous rule and guiding of certain seditious persons, that is to say, the Lord Rivers [Elizabeth’s father], the Duchess of Bedford his wife, William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, Humphrey Stafford, Earl of Devonshire, Lord Scales [Elizabeth’s eldest brother] and Audley, Sir John Woodville and his brothers, and others of this mischievous rule, opinion and assent, which have caused our sovereign lord and his realm to fall into great poverty and misery, disturbing the administration of the laws, only tending to their own promotion and enrichment.

Although, politically, Margaret Beaufort was very much opposed to William Herbert, as the guardian of her son, his mention in the proclamation would have been alarming for her.

William Herbert was one of Edward IV’s staunchest supporters, and this made him an immediate target in the rebellion against the King. As well as receiving Henry Tudor’s wardship, Herbert had also been rewarded with Jasper Tudor’s lands and the earldom of Pembroke itself in 1468. Following his flight from Pembroke in 1461, Jasper had spent time with his half-brother Henry VI in Scotland. He was one of Margaret of Anjou’s must trusted supporters and, in 1462, travelled with her to France to help negotiate an agreement with Louis XI for military aid in return for the surrender of Calais. Jasper was one of the signatories to the treaty agreed between Margaret and Louis on 28 June 1462, and he followed the Queen back to England towards the end of the year. Margaret’s invasion of 1462 proved to be ineffective, and for the next few years, Jasper spent time both in Scotland and in France whilst he worked towards Henry VI’s restoration. In 1465, Henry VI was finally captured at a religious house in the north of England and ‘carried to London on horseback, and his leg bound to the stirrup, and so brought, through London, to the Tower, where he was kept (a) long time by two squires, and two yeomen of the crown, and their men; and every man was suffered to come and speak with him, by licence of the keepers’. Whilst the capture of Henry VI was a symbolic blow to the Lancastrian cause, in reality, it had little effect on the efforts of Margaret of Anjou, Jasper Tudor or Henry VI’s other supporters, as the Lancastrian king had long ceased to have any role in the management of his cause. Jasper continued to work towards his half-brother’s restoration, and in 1468, after being provided with three ships by Louis XI, he sailed to Wales. As a Welshman, Jasper was popular there, and he gathered a force of 2,000 men and carried out a number of successful raids in the principality. With such a small force, he was never going to be able to mount a full-scale invasion however, and when Edward IV sent William Herbert against him, he was once again forced to flee to France.

William Herbert was called upon by Edward IV when the King received news of Warwick and Clarence’s rebellion in 1469. By the summer of that year, Henry Tudor was twelve years old and considered old enough by his guardian to receive his first taste of war. Herbert joined Edward IV at the Battle of Edgecote, near Banbury, on 26 July 1469, where the King’s forces were decisively defeated, with the King being captured soon afterwards. Disastrously for Henry Tudor, who appears to have found himself in the thick of the battle, William Herbert was captured and summarily executed. The defeat and death of his guardian placed Margaret’s son in a very dangerous position, and he was rescued only by the kindness of Sir Richard Corbet, a kinsman of Herbert’s wife. According to Corbet’s own later account to Henry, when he had become king,

Pleaseth your Grace to call to your remembraunce the first service, that after the death of the Lord Herbert after the field of Banbury, hee [Corbet] was one of them that brought your grace out of danger of your enemyes, and conveyed your grace unto your towne of Hereford, and there delivered you in safety to your greate Uncle now Duke of Bedford [Jasper].

The young Henry Tudor evidently made an excellent impression on Corbet, and he also recorded that, when he came to England in 1485 to claim the crown, he was one of the first to join him and pledge his support.

Henry was taken first to the house of Herbert’s brother-in-law at Weobley in Herefordshire, where Herbert’s widow had also gone once she learned of the outcome of the battle. Margaret and Henry Stafford were apparently taken aback at the speed of events, and they were enjoying their favourite pastime of hunting in the area around Windsor when they heard the news. Margaret did not know what had become of her son, and she must have been distraught, immediately sending a trusted servant, William Bailey, and a party of men to try to locate him. It was with relief that she heard that he was at Weobley and still in the custody of the Herberts rather than taken by the King’s enemies. Henry himself does not appear to have been too troubled by all that was going on around him, and his stepfather’s accounts for the period record a payment ‘to my lord Richemonde at Weobley for his disportes to bie him bowes and shaftes’. Margaret and Henry Stafford moved quickly to Woking once they knew that the boy was safe, in order to consider what action to take in relation to him.

With William Herbert’s death, Margaret evidently hoped to recover custody of her son and to secure the return of his lands and title. In August 1469, she resolved to take action and travelled with Henry Stafford to London. Margaret hoped to negotiate with Clarence, who had received Henry Tudor’s lands from his brother and was then one of the men in authority in England, over her son’s wardship. The couple carried out research into the position of Henry’s wardship with Stafford’s receiver, Reginald Bray, purchasing a copy of the document granting Henry Tudor to William Herbert and taking legal advice on its content. Margaret, Stafford and their advisors met with Lady Herbert, her brother and their lawyers in October 1469. No details of the agreement reached survive, but Margaret and her husband were apparently happy with its terms. In any event, the political situation was moving quickly, and Margaret’s attempts to negotiate with Clarence proved to be a bad miscalculation. Whilst Edward IV was taken prisoner after the Battle of Edgecote, Warwick and Clarence soon found that they were unable to hold him, and the King returned to London. The three men were publicly reconciled at Christmas 1469, but Edward had no intention of forgiving his cousin and brother. In early 1470, violence again erupted, and he inflicted a defeat on Warwick and Clarence at Stamford. The two men gathered up their families and fled to France. It is likely that Henry Stafford’s presence with the King at Stamford can be explained by the need for him to make a conspicuous show of his loyalty to Edward IV at a time when the King was deeply suspicious of both him and his wife. He also assisted the King in April when he attempted to capture Clarence and Warwick before they fled to France.

Margaret’s ill-timed attempt to negotiate with Clarence was ineffective and served only to cause the King to once again look at her with suspicion. Margaret and Henry Stafford must have spent an uncomfortable few months in the autumn and winter of 1469 whilst they waited to see what steps the King would take, and Margaret was overjoyed when Fortune once again swung away from Edward towards her brother-in-law, Henry VI.

Margaret of Anjou had settled in France following the Lancastrian defeat at the Battle of Hexham in May 1464, and she was there with her son when Warwick and Clarence arrived at the French court. Edward IV had allied himself with the Duke of Burgundy, an enemy of Margaret of Anjou’s cousin, Louis XI of France. Louis immediately seized upon Warwick’s arrival and offered to reconcile the earl with the Lancastrian queen. Margaret of Anjou and Warwick had always been bitter enemies, and it took a considerable amount of persuasion for Margaret to agree to meet with Warwick and hear his terms. Warwick offered to restore Henry VI to the throne on the condition that Margaret of Anjou’s son, Edward of Lancaster, married his daughter, Anne. Margaret was at first reluctant to agree to this term, which she considered beneath her son, and according to a contemporary account,

Touching the second, that is of marriage, true it is that the queen would not in any wise consent thereunto for offer shewing; or any manner of request that the king of France might make her. Some times she said that she saw neither honour nor profit for her, nor for her son the Prince. At others she (al)ledged that and (if) she would, she should find a more profitable party and of a more advantage with the king of England. And indeed, she shewed unto the king of France a letter which she said was sent her out of England the last week, by the which was offered to her son my lady the Princess [i.e., Elizabeth of York, Edward’s eldest daughter]; and so the queen persevered fifteen days ere she would any thing intend to the said Treaty of Marriage, the which finally, by the means and conduct of the king of France and the councillors of the king of Sicily [Margaret of Anjou’s father] being at Angiers, the said marriage was agreed and promised.

Edward’s offer of his eldest daughter for Margaret’s son sounds plausible, as he had earlier promised her to Warwick’s nephew as a means of binding the earl to him. He later offered her to Henry Tudor in an attempt to secure his return to England, and the same tactics can be seen here. Whilst, on the face of it, the offer must have seemed tempting, in reality, Elizabeth Woodville was already pregnant with her eldest son by Edward. Edward’s offer was therefore no solution to the Wars of the Roses and may simply have been intended as a trap in order to bring Edward of Lancaster to England. Whilst tempted, Margaret of Anjou, ignored Edward’s offer, and on 22 July 1470, after she had kept Warwick on his knees for over a quarter of an hour, the pair were formally reconciled. Margaret agreed to the marriage of Edward of Lancaster and Anne Neville.

With French assistance, Warwick sailed for England with an invasion fleet of sixty ships on 9 September 1470 and landed in the West Country. Jasper Tudor, as one of the most senior Lancastrians, sailed with him, and in landing, the two men separated, with Jasper moving towards Wales to raise troops. Warwick, in accordance with his agreement with Margaret of Anjou, marched directly to London. Edward IV, who did not have a standing army, knew that he did not have the military strength to defeat Warwick, and he fled to Flanders, leaving his wife and family to take sanctuary at Westminster. For the oblivious Henry VI, who was, by 1470, merely a cipher, this meant another turn of Fortune’s Wheel and, according to
Warkworth’s Chronicle
,

Here is to know, that in the beginning of the month of October, the year of our Lord 1470, the Bishop of Winchester, by the assent of the Duke of Clarence, and the Earl of Warwick, went to the Tower of London, where King Harry was in prison, (by King Edward’s commandment,) and there took him from his keepers, which was not worshipfully arrayed as a prince, and not so cleanly kept, as should (be-)seem such a Prince. They had him out, and new arrayed him, and did to him great reverence, and brought him to the palace of Westminster, and so he was restored to the crown again.

Henry VI was lodged in the rooms prepared for Elizabeth Woodville’s lying in, and shortly after entering the sanctuary, she gave birth to her eldest son by Edward, who was named after his father. The following month, as a further statement of Henry VI’s reinstatement, he called a parliament. At the parliament, Jasper Tudor, Margaret’s cousin, Edmund, fourth Duke of Somerset, and a number of other Lancastrian lords who had returned from exile with Warwick had their lands and titles restored to them.

On hearing of Jasper Tudor’s return to Wales, Sir Richard Corbet, who was married to a niece of Lady Herbert and remained close to Weobley, where his wife’s aunt was staying with Henry Tudor, took the boy to Hereford and handed him over to his uncle. This was the first time that Jasper and Henry had met since 1461, and it was to be the beginning of a long association between the pair. Jasper immediately took care to safeguard his half-brother’s position in Wales and then, by the end of the October, moved to London with his nephew. It is clear that Margaret and Henry Stafford had been watching events anxiously, and on 28 October, Jasper and Henry Stafford dined together at Stafford’s house in London. The meeting was a success, and Jasper temporarily handed over custody of his nephew to Margaret. According to the historian Polydore Vergil, who was employed by Henry VII to write a history of the period, Margaret took him to meet his uncle, Henry VI, for the first time:

When the king saw the chylde, beholding within himself without speache a prety space the hautie disposition therof, he ys reportyd to have sayd to the noble men ther present, ‘This trewly, this is he unto whom both we and our adversaryes must yeald and geave of over the dominion’.

Thus the holy man shewyd yt woold coome to passe that Henry showld in time enjoy the kingdom.

Although Henry VI was aware of Henry’s position, after Margaret, as the senior Beaufort heir of John of Gaunt, it is very unlikely that, in 1470, with both himself and his son still alive, he would have predicted that Henry Tudor would one day wear the crown. Henry Tudor was always immensely proud of his status as the nephew of Henry VI, and whilst this was only through the Lancastrian King’s mother rather than also through his father, Henry V, he was determined to honour his uncle and later attempted to have him canonised. It is likely that Henry VI’s ‘prophecy’ is a later elaboration of the meeting. In spite of this, both Margaret and her son may well have recalled later to Vergil that the meeting itself was a success and that Henry VI showed a great deal of affection and honour to the son of his deceased half-brother. It is also possible that Henry VI, anxious to reward Jasper’s loyalty, may have made a tacit acknowledgement of Henry Tudor’s position in the succession after his own descendants.