Bosworth: The Birth of the Tudors (24 page)

In spite of the money that Thomas Hutton’s mission had recently gifted him, together with Hutton’s own pleadings that Henry should be placed ‘again into ward’, Francis agreed to aid Henry ‘and willingly gave it’. With his neighbour France in a weakened state as a result of the minority of the new king, Charles VII, Francis felt confident enough to lend his support to Tudor’s mission. He had also turned against Richard, who had so far refused to acknowledge his demands for 4,000 archers to be sent to his kingdom as a condition for peace; it is likely that Henry would have promised him this, and indeed anything else he demanded, in return for his support. Francis must have regarded any financial aid given now as an investment which, if Henry’s invasion proved a success, would be returned in spades. There were perhaps more personal reasons touching Francis’s own fragile dynasty within the duchy that had influenced his decision. In particular, he had been resentful of Richard’s decision to depose Edward V, who since 1481 had been pledged to marry his daughter and heiress apparent Anne. The removal and disappearance of the young king had in consequence destroyed Francis’s own careful plans for his dynasty.

While Henry began to prepare to launch a fleet across the Channel, Francis made a considerable financial commitment to the invasion, totalling some 13,000 crowns, in addition to providing a fleet of seven ships manned with around 515 men. His accounts reveal a detailed breakdown of the payments made to those who were to set sail with
Henry ‘
a devoir faire le passaige des sires de Richemont et de Penbroc en Englettere
’; he paid 513 livre tournois 6s 9d to Pierre Guillaume, ‘master of a pinace of St Malo’ weighing forty tons and with forty combatants, ‘to make the passage of the Lords of Richmond and Pembroke to England’ serving between 1 September to 30 November. Jean Le Barbu, master of the barque belonging to Alain de la Motte, sire de Fontaines and vice-admiral of Brittany, was paid 720 livre tournois for his vessel weighing 60 tons and with 60 combatants, serving from 1 September to 29 November. Derien le Du, captain of the ship
La Margarite
from Brest, weighing 160 tons and with 98 men on board was paid 1,227 livre tournois 12s, while Jean Pero, captain of the ship
La Michelle
from Auray, complete with 75 men and active from 13 September was paid 975 livre tournois. Another resident from Auray was Geoffrey Estrillart, the town’s receiver since 1474, who had equipped his ship, the
Marie
of Auray weighing 90 tons with 69 combatants, and sailed from 14 September to 30 November, was paid 852 livre tournois 10s 9d. Louis Berthelot, the captain of the ship
La Tresoriere
from St Malo, sailing with 50 combatants, was also reimbursed for 200 livre tournois. Finally, while Henry was gathering his fleet together on 30 October at the fishing town of Paimpol, on the north coast of Brittany, Duke Francis’s men arrived with a loan of 10,000 crowns.

It was a ‘prosperous wind’ that saw off the fifteen ships that accompanied Henry on his journey to England; mid-voyage, it had turned into a ‘cruel gale’ as a ‘sudden tempest’ scattered the fleet, each being separated ‘from one way from another’ so that some were blown back onto the Normandy coast, others into Brittany. Henry’s own ship was ‘tossed all the night long with the waves’. As dawn broke and the wind calmed, the chalk cliffs of the south coast and the haven of Poole harbour came into view. Shaken by the storms and their sleepless night, in the gloom of morning light the devastating impact of the storm was revealed: only Henry’s and one other vessel had made it through the night. As the ships drew closer to the shore, there was even worse news. The shoreline was ‘beset with soldiers’ from Richard’s army. Henry commanded that no man should land until the rest of the fleet had time to regroup. In the meantime, he sent across several men in a single skiff to the shore to find out the identity of the guards. Navigating the boat out to within hailing distance of the soldiers who, encouraging them to
land, called out that they had been ‘sent by the Duke of Buckingham to escort Henry to the camp, which he had nearby with his flourishing army, so that they could join forces and pursue the fleeing Richard’.

When the boat returned, passing on the message, Henry instantly suspected a trick. Despite waiting for the remainder of his fleet, after several hours it was clear that nothing was coming into view. Deciding to abandon the venture, the two ships hoisted sail on the back of a strong wind. It was only when, the following day, having been battered by storms that forced him to land, miles away from his intended destination, at St Vaast-la-Hougue on the Cotentin Peninsula in Normandy, that Henry learnt that the rebellion had been ruthlessly crushed and the Duke of Buckingham executed.

Richard had remained on his royal progress, passing through Pontefract and Gainsborough, reaching Lincoln on 11 October. It was here that he received the astounding news ‘by means of spies’ that not only was a chain of revolts about to break out across the country, but also that his most powerful nobleman the Duke of Buckingham was about to join the rebellion. Stunned by the revelation, Richard wrote to Chancellor Russell, calling for the immediate delivery of the Great Seal. Russell had been unwell, and had informed the king that due to ‘such infirmities and diseases’ he would be unable to travel on the progress himself. Yet Russell had retained the Great Seal, the official stamp of royal authority, in his possession. If Richard were to raise a large army of men, he would need to send out a summons whose validity could only be confirmed by the wax stamp of the Great Seal appended to any document. He needed the seal urgently. Writing to Russell, demanding that the stamp of the seal be sent to him as soon as possible, a postscript at the bottom of the letter, written in Richard’s own hand, could barely disguise the king’s disbelief and disgust at his former friend Buckingham’s treason:

Richard’s determination to crush the rebellion was impressive. Even the Crowland Chronicler admitted that ‘he exerted himself in the promotion of all his views in no drowsy manner, but with the greatest activity and vigilance’. An army was summoned to assemble at Leicester ten days later on 21 October; before it set out from the city, Richard offered a pardon to all commoners and yeomen who laid down their arms. For the ringleaders of the rebellion, there would be no such forgiveness. Denouncing them as ‘traitors, adulterers and bawds’, Richard issued a remarkable proclamation in which he denounced Dorset as having dishonoured ‘sundry maids, widows and wives’ while the rest of the rebels were guilty of ‘the damnable maintenance of vices and sin as they had in times past, to the great displeasure of God and evil example of all Christian people’. A price was put on their heads, dead or alive: for the man who captured or killed Buckingham, he would be awarded £1,000 or lands worth £100 a year; 1,000 marks or lands worth 100 marks a year was placed on the Marquess of Dorset’s head and the capture of the Bishops of Salisbury and Exeter; for other knights associated with the rebellion, Richard would award 500 marks or lands worth £40 a year. The king remained careful however to ensure that men did not ‘rob, spoil or hurt any of the tenants, officers or other persons belonging to the said Duke … so that they raise not nor made commotions or assemblies’.

It seems that the rebellion had been co-ordinated to begin on 18 October, St Luke’s Day. The plan was for the Kentishmen and men from Surrey, Sussex and Essex to have launched an attack on the capital, thereby diverting Richard and his forces from the greater rebellion that was planned for Wales and the West Country. In Kent, however, revolts broke out early, so that on 10 October the Duke of Norfolk was able to report to John Paston that ‘the Kentishmen be up in the Weald and say that they will come to rob the city’. If rebellion in Kent had erupted prematurely, it would have led to the entire plan unravelling before other areas where revolt was planned, in Wilshire, Devonshire
and Wales, were adequately prepared. Dispatching a force to Gravesend, Norfolk was able to prevent the Kentishmen from crossing the Thames to join with men from Essex. Meanwhile the rebels in Surrey were cowed into withdrawing to Guildford, where they hoped for the arrival of their main army from the west.

When 18 October arrived, just as planned, outbreaks spread across several key towns across the south. In the south-west, the Marquess of Dorset appeared from hiding to lead a rising in Exeter with Edward IV’s brother-in-law Sir Thomas St Leger, Sir Robert Willoughby and the Courtenays; at Guildford, Edward IV’s knights, Sir John Guildford and Sir George Browne and Edward Poynings rose up; other rebels met at Newbury, Berkshire, led by the queen’s brother Sir Richard Woodville, and two knights from Edward’s household, Sir William Noreys and Sir William Berkeley of Beverstone, and at Salisbury, including John Cheyney, Edward IV’s Master of the Horse, and his esquire Sir Giles Daubeney. Others who joined the rebellion were former MPs, Justices of the Peace, respectable members of the gentry and stalwarts of their local communities. These were not desperate men, with little possessions and nothing to lose; they were the very bedrock of society whose decision to turn against the new king was a devastating blow to Richard’s authority in the southern counties.

On the same day, Buckingham raised the standard of revolt at Brecon, yet already his efforts to raise rebellion were in trouble. It was soon apparent that the army that he had hoped would gather to his standard had failed to materialise, with only his closest household men, Morton and the academic Thomas Nandike, later described as a ‘necromancer of Cambridge’, providing his paltry army with any support. Even his own retainers that the duke had hoped would join him had, perhaps lured by the prospect of material reward, chosen to remain loyal to the king. The duke’s retainer Thomas Vaughan, the son of the late Sir Roger Vaughan who had been executed by Jasper Tudor, probably had his own reasons for refusing to join a rebellion designed to aid the Tudor claimants to the throne. Instead he chose to turn against the duke, and keep a diligent watch over the surrounding countryside. Other tenants of the duke, who by all accounts was a ‘sore and hard-dealing man’ and far from popular, preferred to simply stay at home.

It is striking that, in the list of men attainted for their support of
Buckingham, not a single Welsh name is mentioned; in contrast, twenty-two gentlemen from South Wales were later to be rewarded with annuities. In a marked contrast with the risings in the south, not one of Edward IV’s former household men in the region felt able to join forces with a man they considered had been complicit with Richard’s usurpation and the disappearance of the princes; some may have even felt that the duke himself was to blame for their deaths. Others, like John Mortimer who had been forced to give up his constableship of Monmouth, were still dejected from having lost their own offices to Buckingham when the duke had been awarded his vast empire in Wales and the Marches.

But it was the absence of any recognisable noble support that dealt a death blow to Buckingham’s chances of raising a successful rebellion. Despite being out of favour with Richard, Gilbert Talbot, the uncle of the young Earl of Shrewsbury who controlled his Shropshire estates during the earl’s minority, refused to mobilise. Most notably, it was the failure of the Stanley family to support Buckingham that ended the duke’s chances of success. Given Margaret Beaufort’s key role in the uprising, the duke would have hoped to win support from her husband Thomas Stanley, his brother Sir William Stanley and Thomas Stanley’s son by his first wife, George Lord Strange. Strange was in Lancashire in October 1483, perfectly placed to join the revolt. Buckingham clearly expected to win his support: as news of the rebellion gathered, Strange’s secretary wrote how ‘messengers cometh daily both from the king’s grace and the duke into this country’. The conflicting pleas for support had thrown the surrounding countryside into confusion: ‘people in this country be so troubled’. Even Strange’s secretary did not know which side his master would choose. ‘My Lord Strange goeth forth from Monday next [20 October] with 10,000 men’ he wrote, adding ‘whither we cannot say’. In the end, Strange chose to sit on his hands. Again, personal ambition dictated the choice of the family’s inaction. Buckingham’s new influence in Wales and the Marches had provided an unwelcome challenge to the Stanleys’ own power base in North Wales and Cheshire; since Buckingham had been granted a remarkable extension of his power in the Welsh Marches, including the constableships of all the royal castles in Wales, his new authority had been resented by the Stanleys, whose followers were reluctant to co-operate
with the duke and hand over possession of several castles. They were hardly likely to lend their support to a rebellion whose success would only likely lead to further enrichment of the duke’s estates and influence in the region.

News of the premature uprising in Kent had allowed Richard to be forewarned of Buckingham’s intended moves. Armed men were sent into Wales, encircling the duke, ‘in readiness to pounce on all his domestic possessions as soon as the duke moved a foot away from his house’. Again, the encouragement of reward was dangled in front of the men, with Richard promising them ‘the prospect of the duke’s wealth for themselves’.

Humphrey Stafford was commanded to destroy the bridges and ferries that crossed into England. His efforts were aided by a deluge that lasted ten days, turning the river Severn and the Avon into raging torrents, sweeping away their banks and making both completely impassable. Unable to cross either river, Buckingham would be prevented from joining up with the rebels in the south. The duke had managed to make his way as far as the Forest of Dean when he realised that, cut off by the forces of nature, he was trapped. Returning to find that his castle at Brecon had been seized and plundered by Thomas Vaughan and his brothers, Buckingham fled to Weobley, leaving his young son and heir Edward with a nurse who dressed the young boy as a girl in order to escape capture by Richard’s men. Arriving back at Weobley, where he was joined by John Morton, the duke took the only option that was open to him: changing his clothes, he disguised himself as a labourer and took refuge in a pauper’s cottage near Wem in Shropshire. He was soon discovered, possibly through the treachery of his servant Humphrey Bannister, who betrayed the duke ‘for fear or money’, although the Crowland Chronicler relates how Buckingham’s hiding place was given away by the fact that ‘the supply of provisions taken there was more abundant than usual’.