Bosworth: The Birth of the Tudors (30 page)

Landais had been finalising plans to send a number of specially chosen men under ‘trusty captains’ to seize Henry, under the pretence that they were ‘to accompany him on his return to his homeland’, when he heard the first news of Henry’s escape. Immediately he sent out men on horseback in pursuit, with orders that if they could overtake Henry they were to arrest him and return him to Brittany. It was to be in vain: arriving at the French border after a breakneck chase, they discovered that Henry had passed into France ‘scarcely an hour’ before.

When the 400 English exiles left behind at Vannes, having no knowledge of Henry’s flight, discovered what had happened, ‘they were overcome with such fear that now they despaired for their safety’. Fortunately it seems that when Duke Francis, recovering from his most recent episode of incapacity during which he had been ‘ignorant of all
the practice’ of his treasurer, discovered what had taken place, he was furious with Landais, ‘taking it in evil part’ that Henry had been forced to flee. Whether through compassion or guilt, he was determined to make amends, sending for Edward Poynings and Sir Edward Woodville, where he announced that he would provide them with the necessary money ‘to bear the charges of their journey’ and commanded them to follow Henry to France. His accounts detail the costs of the duke’s remarkable act of generosity: Sir Edward Woodville, Sir John Cheyney and Edward Poynings were rewarded with a gift of 100 livre tournois each, as well as 20s for each of the 408 exiles still stationed at Vannes, totalling 708 livre tournois.

When Henry was rejoined with his exiled companions, he was ‘wonderous glad’, sending back a message to the duke thanking him ‘for the safety of himself and all his company’, which he promised ‘in time he would not fail to requite’. For those exiles Henry had left behind and who had been saved by the duke’s intervention, the reunion came as a relief; still the fact that Henry had abandoned them to their fate must have been galling, perhaps raising questions in their own minds about the sheer ruthlessness of the young man who had been prepared to sacrifice their lives for his own.

Charles VIII and the royal court were at Montargis when he was informed on 11 October that Henry had arrived in his kingdom. The French royal council immediately issued an order for the governor of Limousin, Gilbert de Chabannes, Lord of Curton, to meet with Henry ‘who has left Brittany in order to come over here, to entertain him, have him welcomed and housed in towns wherein he shall pass’. Through which towns Henry made his journey is not known, although the same day the French council issued a similar order to the bailiffs of Touraine to join with Chabannes and accompany him ‘as long as the said Richmond be in Chartres, which is the place it was ordered he should be taken to’. Chartres was not the most direct route from Vannes to Montargis, but it may have been Henry’s chosen place of rest after his flight across the border. A Monsieur de Sees and Guy de Laval were also sent to meet with Henry, along with a clerk carrying 2,000 francs, which were be distributed to Henry’s men ‘as he shall order’. By 4 November Henry had moved to Sens, sixty miles east of Montargis,
and the French council further issued a commission for Monseigneur de La Heuze, ‘to house Richmond’s people in the town of Sens, up to the number of around 400, and have them given what utensils, supplies, as should be required, at a reasonable price’.

The previous day the French king had sent out a letter to towns across France describing how Henry and Jasper had come to him, ‘accompanied by five or six hundred English, able to rally more as he should wish’, intending to give their support ‘and recover the Kingdom of England from the enemies of the French crown’. Acknowledging their service graciously, Charles had ordered for ‘good and great provisions’ to be made to them. When Henry finally arrived at Montargis, he was granted an audience with Charles VIII who ‘promised him aid, and bade him to be of good cheer, for he would willingly show his goodwill’. According to the chronicler Jean Molinet, Henry was received at the French court with ‘great joy’; ‘he was very pleasant, an elegant character, and a fine ornament in the court of France, where he called himself King of England’. Henry was ‘well loved and looked after’ at the French court, Molinet remarked, though he added that Henry’s welcome reception had been ‘more so to irritate King Richard than by deference’ to Henry himself.

When Richard discovered that Henry had fled to France, his first thought was to secure the English fortifications in the Calais pale, including the garrisons at Guisnes and Hammes Castle. For the past eleven years, Hammes had also acted as a prison for the Lancastrian magnate John de Vere, the Earl of Oxford, who finally had been arrested after his ill-fated attempt to seize St Michael’s Mount in 1473. Despite the fact that the earl seems to have attempted suicide after Clarence’s fall in 1478, jumping from the castle walls into the moat below, Richard knew that he could not risk the earl joining Henry Tudor now that Henry had managed to seek sanctuary in France. Throughout the 1460s, as a diehard Lancastrian, Oxford had fought to frustrate Edward IV’s kingship. The earl’s military reputation could hardly be in doubt; in spite of his defeat at Barnet, Oxford was one of the foremost soldiers of his generation, with the Crowland Chronicler referring to him as ‘
miles valentissimus
’ or ‘a most doughty knight’. Richard would have also understood the earl’s personal animosity towards him; aside from his imprisonment, in December 1471, all of Oxford’s lands had
been granted to Richard. After Richard became king, he had granted Oxford’s manors to his supporters, including twenty manors to the Duke of Norfolk. Richard had also forced his mother, the Countess of Oxford, to hand over her estates to him, reducing her to beggary and desperation, ‘by heinous menace of loss of life and imprisonment’. If there was one man Richard would have hoped to keep under lock and key, it was Oxford.

On 28 October Richard sent a Calais guard, William Boulton, to transfer the earl back to England. By the time Boulton arrived at the garrison in Hammes, it was too late. Oxford had escaped; his ‘escape’ had involved taking with him both Sir James Blount, the captain of Hammes Castle who had been Oxford’s guardian since 1476, and John Fortescue, ‘the gentleman porter of Calais, suborned by the earl’.

The military implications of the defections could not have been more serious. Hammes was now held nominally in Henry’s name by Blount’s wife. Whereas Oxford’s hatred of Richard’s regime was understandable, much less comprehensible was the decision of Blount and Fortescue to defect to Tudor. It seems that James Blount’s defection may have had its reasons in the current uncertainties of the times: Blount had been a servant of William, Lord Hastings, who had been captain of Calais from 1471 to his death in 1483. After his fall, Hastings had been replaced by Lord Dinham, while Hastings’ brother Ralph was replaced by Blount’s brother, John, Lord Mountjoy. However, Mountjoy fell seriously ill, and in March 1484 Ralph Hastings, returning to favour, was granted the reversion of Guisnes after Mountjoy’s death. Perhaps Blount expected the office to be his: in any case, the fact that Richard was willing to overlook former Hastings men like Fortescue and Blount, suggested that as Richard’s position grew stronger, they were both in danger of being replaced.

The Burgundian chronicler Jean Molinet alleged that another influence had been behind Sir James Blount’s decision to free his captive and join Oxford in flight, with Thomas Stanley persuading Blount to release Oxford, sending messengers to the captain ‘asking of him that he should free the Lord of Oxford with immediate effect, so that he could come to France’ and join Henry.

Further bad news came closer to home when, on 2 November, it was reported that treasonous words had been spoken at Colchester by
several gentlemen, including Sir John Risley, his servant William Coke, Sir William Brandon, the esquires William and Thomas Brandon, Sir William Stonor and a weaver, John Sterling, who were later all alleged to be conspiring with Henry Tudor and the Earl of Oxford. It was alleged that the conspirators had plotted the king’s destruction, before taking a boat from Essex, making their way to Henry Tudor. Had they been in contact with the earl? Oxford certainly seems to have maintained contact with his friends in England. He later wrote of one such friend, William Page, that ‘before the king’s coming into this realm demeaned himself as well to his grace as unto his friends and was right loving to me and mine’. The links between the accused and Oxford were unmistakable: William Coke had been a servant of the earl’s in 1471 and had even suffered in the service of his lord at the hands of one Gilbert Debenham. Sir John Risley had held office in Oxford’s former lordship of Lavenham, while John Sterling was from Castle Hedingham, Oxford’s ancestral home. Tellingly, Risley was a friend of John Fortescue, who joined Oxford in his flight from Hammes. The fact that the two men had now chosen to turn against Richard would have been a devastating blow for the king; Sir John Risley was a former esquire to the body of Edward IV, who had supported Richard in 1483. Equally, Fortescue’s previous loyalty to the Yorkist regime had been impeccable; as sheriff of Devon and Cornwall, he had personally taken Oxford prisoner at St Michael’s Mount.

When Henry discovered that Oxford had arrived at the French court, ‘he was ravished with joy incredible’. Henry knew that he could trust Oxford ‘more safely than in any other’. Previously, he had felt isolated among a growing community of Yorkists, whose dedication to his cause had stemmed from his opposition to Richard and ‘by reason of the evil state of time’, Henry had been their last hope. Oxford, by contrast, had always fought for the Lancastrian cause. Henry now had ‘one of his own faction to whom he might safely commit all things’. There can be no doubt that Oxford’s arrival marked a change in Henry’s fortunes: for Vergil, it was a sign of ‘God’s assistance’ and ‘heavenly help’. For the first time, Henry could believe that his cause stood a chance, and he began ‘to hope better of his affairs’. Nevertheless, Oxford’s arrival would have surely proved difficult for some of Henry’s new backers: Yorkists such as Thomas Grey, Marquess of Dorset, Sir
Edward Woodville and Giles Daubeney now had to come to terms with a man who had fought bitterly against the Yorkist regime and had steadfastly refused to accept Edward IV’s kingship.

Henry had never met Oxford before, but he would have known that the earl brought not only military expertise. His previous stays in France in 1471 and 1473 would have left him acquainted with the French court. His diplomatic experience may have proved useful to Henry, especially in the regency administration of Charles VIII. Oxford’s arrival with military reinforcements also proved to the French government that Henry was a credible candidate whom it would be worth supporting. Still an English invasion was expected to be imminent; backing for Henry Tudor might, they considered, help distract Richard from a campaign in France. Following Oxford’s arrival and the defection of men from the Hammes garrison, on 17 November the French royal council authorised for 3,000 livre tournois to be granted to Henry ‘to help him dress his people’, adding cautiously, ‘for this time only’. There was to be no repeat of the generous pensions offered by Duke Francis, as it would soon became clear to Henry that his presence at court was of entirely secondary concern to the Beaujeu government.

Oxford’s first task was to return with some ‘choice followers’ to Hammes, which having been left in the command of Blount’s wife had come under siege from the loyalist garrison of Calais headed by Lord Dinham, who spent £500 of his own money besieging its fortifications. On his arrival, Oxford pitched camp not far from the castle; after distracting Dinham’s forces, Thomas Brandon and ‘thirty stout men’ managed to make their way into the castle through a secret passage which took them across a nearby marsh. Once inside the castle, renewing the fortifications and munitions, they ‘pressed the enemy harder than usual from the walls, while Oxford attacked them no less vigorously from the rear’. Soon Dinham agreed to call a truce, allowing the entire garrison to depart with Oxford ‘with all their goods’. After these gaining terms, Brandon and Oxford marched off with seventy-three men to rejoin Henry ‘safe and sound’.

The Earl of Oxford’s arrival at the French court not only transformed Henry’s fortunes, encouraging the French government to place their support, however limited, in his cause, it was also to transform Henry’s
own ambitions. The earl quickly became one of Tudor’s principal advisers, pressing his strong Lancastrian sympathies upon Henry to claim the crown as his right through his Lancastrian descent through his Beaufort inheritance. The Woodvilles and other Yorkist exiles, facing the prospect of a return to the old divisions and recriminations that a full Lancastrian revival might bring, must have looked on in horror.

The French government needed Henry to go further – in order to legitimise their own decision to grant their support, in their own eyes, Henry’s claim had to be made far stronger. He would have to be considered the legitimate heir to the Lancastrian dynasty. Thrusting aside the realities of the complex web that was the English royal family tree, the French came up with their own solution. In his letter of 4 November setting out his reasons for giving Henry Tudor aid, Charles VIII simply declared that he did so for Henry was the ‘
fils de feu roy Henry d’Anglettere
’: in other words, that he was the younger son of the dead Lancastrian king, Henry VI. The statement was as extraordinary as it was disingenuous. The French government clearly knew that Henry was nothing of the kind, understanding entirely the Tudors’ origin; his uncle Jasper had been present at Louis XI’s court between October 1469 and September 1470, while Louis himself had displayed a clear knowledge of both Henry and Jasper’s trials in exile in his letter to Duke Francis II demanding their return. The French had previously recognised that Henry VI’s only son was Prince Edward, who had stood as godfather to Charles VIII himself when he was younger at Amboise on 30 June 1470. A month later, France had agreed that in the event of the failure of Prince Edward to produce an heir, the English succession should fall on the Duke of Clarence and his heirs, with a treaty, the Act of Accord, signed in front of the entire French council.