Bosworth: The Birth of the Tudors (54 page)

From the rewards, glimpses of individual episodes and dramas in battle can almost be formed. The Savage family must have played an important role in the action. Henry rewarded John Savage the younger with land forfeited by the attainders of Lord Zouche and Lord Lovell, in addition to all castles, lordships and manors in the High Peak,‘in consideration of his having largely exposed himself, with a crowd of his kinsmen, servants and friends, as volunteers in the king’s service in the battle’. Henry also rewarded John’s sons Christopher and James for their service, ‘as well as for the repressing of our rebels and traitors’. John Savage senior was also rewarded for his ‘good and faithful services in the king’s last victorious battle’. Thomas Bevercotes, in being awarded the office of the king’s sergeant-at-arms, mentioned his true and humble service, but marked out his conduct ‘in especial in our victorious field, for the subduing of our enemies’. Roger Acton petitioned Henry shortly after the battle, ‘in consideration of the true and faithful service that your humble subject Roger Acton hath done unto your highness, now in your victorious field and under your standard and there sore hurt’. Others were to receive reward and honour in what was almost a roll call of those worthy to be mentioned in dispatches. Hugh Browne was granted the office of forester of Lothewode, Salop, for his service ‘in our late victorious journey, to the jeopardy of his life’. John Browne was rewarded with the office of bailiff of Greteham, Rutland
for his service ‘to his great costs and jeopardies’. Ralph Vernon was given the bailiwick of Hoton Paynell in York in consideration of his service ‘at our victorious journey to his great cost and charge’. Thomas Morton was granted an annuity of 40 marks, ‘in compensation for goods and friends lost in the king’s just cause’. John Farrington fought ‘to his great hurts and costs’ while Henry remembered William Sommaster ‘late deceased’ who had ‘died in our homage’.

The warrants also provide us with a hint of the additional help that Henry had received during the conflict. The Scots commander Alexander Bruce who had accompanied Henry from France was rewarded with an annuity of £20, for his ‘good, faithful and approved services heretofore done by him with great trouble and recent personal service … he sustaining therein great losses’. He was granted safe conduct and special protection for himself and a retinue of twenty persons, with a licence to make ‘whatever stay he pleases in England, and to go to and fro as often as he likes during this protection’.

The Earl of Oxford was to play a crucial role in the early days of Henry’s new administration. As the Great Chronicle observed, the earl was recognised as almost an agent to the new king, ‘to whom was then made great suit and labour as well for matters concerning himself as for causes touching soliciting of causes unto the king, for then such persons as had occupied his lands by gift of King Edward or by purchase were fain to restore it, with all such profits’. Desperate in the hope of securing the support of the new regime, the University of Oxford wrote to the earl, flattering him with warm words: ‘during your long exile, in the many changes of this life and the cruelty of fortune, your unswerving loyalty and noble character have caused you to be regretted by the people as few have been; so that we may venture to say that, though none dared to praise, yet none ceased to love you. So marvellous have been your escapes from snares and perils that we must attribute them to a special interference of providence, which has brought you back to your country not only in safety but in honour; to be the chief buttress of the throne and defender of the realm.’

A sign of his influence in the new regime, Oxford was appointed to the hereditary office of great chamberlain, an honour which his ancestors had held from 1133 to 1388. He was further granted the office of Admiral of England, ‘in consideration of the sincere and inward affection which
the king bears him’, and appointed constable of the Tower of London on a salary of £50, his prisoners including the Earls of Northumberland and Surrey as well as accommodation for seven Frenchmen and two Scotsmen who may have been participants in the battle. Oxford’s appointment as constable highlights Henry’s own preoccupation with immediately securing the defence of the capital, with other offices in the Tower going to loyal men such as Henry’s ‘faithful servant’ Robert Jay, who was made keeper of the ‘New Bulwark’ at the Tower for his ‘true service … as well beyond the sea as within this our realm, at our victorious field’. Almost immediately, Henry ordered for the Tower to be restocked with supplies, with Sir Richard Guildford confirmed in his post as master of the ordnance and master of the armoury with a salary of 2s a day, with ‘divers allowances for persons employed under him’, and sergeant of the master of armour in the Tower with a salary of 12d a day. The appointment was dated from 8 August 1485, ‘when he was appointed by the king to this office’. Mindful of the value of having skilled craftsmen working there, and perhaps even impressed at the sight of the dead king’s own armour and weaponry in battle, Henry also reappointed Richard III’s armourer Vincencio Tutolez as his official armourer with a salary of £20 a year. He was soon busy re-equipping the royal supplies, ordering 1,000 bowstaves at a cost of £42 10s. William Nele, ‘gunfounder’, was paid £10 for making weights, while William Meryk, a merchant from Bristol, was paid £16 13 4d for gunpowder. William Lovell was appointed master and keeper of arrows as ‘bowyer’ in the Tower, Thomas Walsh the sergeant of ‘the king’s tents and pavillions’. Others who no doubt helped to play a critical role in the campaign and battle were further rewarded: John Rygby, an ‘archer of the king’s guard’, was granted the bailiwick of Rye while John Harpere, the ‘yeoman harbinger’ for Henry’s household, was appointed the sergeant of the Mace in Parliament, with a daily salary of 12d, for his service ‘in Brittany and France during two years and in this our noble realm at our victorious field in subduing our enemies’.

Other key strategic defence posts throughout the country would be rapidly filled with trustworthy captains who could secure the coast and Marches against invasion. Nearly all the new officeholders had both accompanied Henry from exile through his ‘victorious journey’ and fought at Bosworth; for their services they would now be amply
rewarded. Sir Edward Woodville was rewarded with the captaincies of Carisbrooke Castle on the Isle of Wight and Porchester Castle, as well as the ‘government of the town of Portsmouth’, while Giles Daubeney was made constable of Bristol Castle. Sir James Blount was regranted the possession of Hammes Castle. Thomas Idem was rewarded for his ‘good and gratuitous service’ abroad ‘as on this side of the sea, now lately in the conflict which has lately taken place between the king and his mortal enemies, sustaining thereby for a long time excessive losses in his goods and possessions’ the keepership of Rochester Castle. In granting him the keepership of Sandwich Castle in Kent, Henry acknowledged that William Frost sustained ‘for a long time excessive losses in his goods and possessions’ as a result of his ‘good and continuous service which he performed, as well beyond the sea in those parts where the king was before he returned, with the help of God, to this kingdom, as on this side of the sea, now lately in the conflict which has lately taken place between the king and his deadly enemies’. John Turbevill ‘for good and faithful service done at his great costs and charges’ was made constable and keeper of Corfe Castle. John Spicer was appointed porter of Hertford Castle for his ‘service beyond the sea and within this realm’. Jevan Lloyd Vaughan was made constable of Neath Castle in Glamorgan for his ‘true and faithful service to us late done in our late triumph and victory’. Thomas Gaywode was rewarded with the office of porter of Stafford Castle for his service ‘in our most victorious journey’.

Many of Henry’s companions in exile were appointed as yeomen to the king’s guard, a personal bodyguard that would be employed to defend the king, similar to what Henry had witnessed at the French court. According to Polydore Vergil, ‘they should never leave his side, in this he imitated the French kings so that he might thereafter be better protected from treachery’. The guard, numbering 200 men who were each paid 6d a day and under the command of the captain of the guard, Sir Charles Somerset, the illegitimate son of Henry, Duke of Somerset, and arguably one of Henry’s closest male relatives after his uncle Jasper, were composed of men who had followed Henry into exile and had fought at Bosworth, proving their military capabilities to the full. They included John Edwards, Henry’s ‘wellbeloved servant’ who had performed ‘true and faithful service … in Brittany and
France’, Robert Bagger, John Rothercomme, Owen ap Griffith, Thomas Leche, William Brown for his good service ‘beyond the sea as at our victorious journey’, Richard Nanfan, Richard Selman, Richard Pigot, Henry Carre ‘in consideration of good and true service, as well beyond the sea as within the realm of England’, William Cheeseman, Stephen John, Thomas Kingman, Robert Jay, Thomas Westby and Thomas Gaywode, among others. Many of these yeomen were also granted local offices to keep law and order, for instance Thomas Kingman and Stephen John being made bailiffs of Somerton and gaolers of Ilchester in Somerset.

While the new regime had quickly made peace with France, the flight of Richard’s supporters, including the Harringtons, the Huddlestons, the Middletons and the Frankes, together with Lord Lovell remaining in sanctuary, posed a significant challenge for the fledgling authority of Henry’s kingship, breeding uncertainty. As the fellows of Oxford University wrote to Thomas Stanley, ‘everything is new to us, and though we hope the present order may prove firmly established, it is but in its infancy’. Order struggled to be established, as Robert Throckmorton, the new sheriff of Warwickshire and Leicestershire, had noted in his petition to the king that there was ‘within your realm such rebellion and trouble, and your laws not established’. Henry’s greatest challenge lay in the north, Richard III’s home territory, which remained fiercely loyal to the dead king and the Yorkist memory. Henry himself was fully aware of the contribution that northerners had played in the battle, issuing a proclamation on 24 September which stated how ‘many and diverse persons of the north parts of this our land, knights, esquires, gentlemen and other have done us now of late great displeasure being against us in the field with the adversary of us’. While some had sought pardon to be reconciled to their new king, others flatly refused to obey Henry’s authority. When Henry issued a separate proclamation on 8 October excluding certain of Richard’s Yorkshire supporters from pardon, including the city of York’s recorder Miles Metcalfe, a prominent supporter of the dead king who it was claimed ‘hath done much against us which disables him to exercise things of authority … which his seditious means might … and fall to divers inconvenients’. But still York refused to replace Metcalfe, though any possibility of a stand-off with the new king was resolved when Metcalfe died early in 1486; even
then, the authorities replaced him not with Henry’s own nominee, but one of Richard’s supporters, John Vavasour. In this febrile atmosphere, there was every possibility that the country might once again become divided upon regional loyalties as Richard’s memory burned bright; worse still, if the northern rebels were able to join up with the Scots leading to an invasion across the border, Henry’s kingship threatened to become the shortest in living memory.

On 25 September Henry issued commissions of array in case of a possible Scottish invasion; in a telling display of either trust or of his own vulnerability, he deputed Thomas Stanley to raise the whole of Lancashire on his behalf. On 17 October Henry wrote to Henry Vernon, explaining ‘that certain our rebels and traitors being of little honour or substance’ had made contact ‘with our ancient enemies the Scots’ and had ‘made insurrection and assemblies in the north portions of our realm, taking Robin of Reddesdale, Jack St Thomalyn at Lath, and Master Mendall for their captains, intending if they be of power the final and abversion … of our realm’. It was a fragile time filled with uncertainty, but before Henry could deal with suppressing rebellion within his realm, he needed to be officially crowned and recognised as King of England.

*
See Postscript, p.390

13

REWARD, RETRIBUTION AND RECONCILIATION

A
fter Parliament was summoned on 15 September to meet at Westminster on 7 November, preparations began in earnest for the coronation that had been arranged for Sunday 30 October. On 19 October a commission to prepare for the coronation met, headed by Sir Edward Courtenay and the Earl of Oxford, with the new steward of the royal household, Robert Willoughby, being placed in charge of ordering supplies for the spectacle. Immediately work started on crafting the extravagant display, with twenty-one tailors and fourteen skinners specially employed to fashion the robes of the new king, his nobles, including a robe for the Earl of Oxford cut from forty-one yards of crimson velvet at a cost of £61 10s. Throughout the symbols of St George – with a banner of the saint’s cross being made from six yards of crimson velvet costing £4 11s – the red rose of Lancaster and the Welsh dragon were ever visible. Two cartloads of clothing and hangings were taken from Richard’s royal castle at Nottingham. In total, £1,506 18s 10d would be spent on the ceremony, preparing garments and attire from the finest silks that could be found from whatever tailor or silk woman that was prepared to sell them.