Bosworth: The Birth of the Tudors (5 page)

Somerset was a controversial figure. In his early life his rumoured affair with Catherine of Valois caused political scandal; he had proved a successful military leader during the siege of Harfleur in 1439, but his conduct in the French wars came under persistent attack with allegations that he had been more interested in safeguarding his own position than securing national victory, hoarding weapons in his own castle.

York despised Somerset, whom he considered a coward. Not only had Somerset taken the duke’s place as Lieutenant of France, he had presided over the loss of Normandy, surrendering the town of Rouen to Charles VII in person. Unlike York, who paid heavily for the military expenses he incurred in office, having lent the crown £26,000, Somerset was reimbursed for his costs while York remained unpaid. After his failure in France, it seemed that Somerset was now on the point of seizing the rewards of power in England: having been created a duke to match York’s status in 1448, Somerset returned from France in August
1450 to be appointed to the prestigious office of Constable of England, something which York must have baulked at.

Somerset’s return must have been the trigger for York’s appearance on the shores of Anglesey; indeed, before leaving Ireland, York had written open letters to the king defending his conduct, promising that he meant Henry no harm, but instead he called for the removal of those ‘traitors’ who were working against the king’s best interest. Of these, York singled out Somerset for ‘encompassing the destruction of his two kingdoms’ since he had ‘been responsible for the shameful loss of all Normandy’.

York first travelled to Ludlow Castle where, having raised a force of around 4,000 men in the Welsh Marches, he began his march to London. Henry issued an order for the duke and his men to be intercepted and arrested, but York managed to give them the slip, and arriving in Westminster on 29 September, sought out Henry, who had taken refuge in his apartments. Forcing his way inside the king’s privy chamber, York swore his loyalty to the king, but insisted that his advisers must go. Henry was in no position to refuse to bargain, yet as a compromise he agreed that a new council would be formed, with York at its helm, with a new Parliament being summoned to pass legislation to address the national debt (which stood at £372,000 in 1449) and remove the king’s councillors who were considered to have lined their own pockets. For the public, York was a figure of fresh hope. The duke had great expectations to live up to, but he knew that he could do nothing without the king’s support. Yet Henry refused to remove Somerset from his position. Exasperated, the duke overplayed his hand when he allowed one of his supporters to present a bill calling for York to be recognised as the king’s heir. Outrage ensued, and Parliament was promptly dissolved.

York’s journey had ended in failure. Somerset remained in the ascendant, having by now amassed crown pensions and offices worth £3,000 a year. In 1451 he was further appointed captain of Calais, placing at his disposal the country’s largest military base. Yet military failure in France continued. As the French began to march on Calais, York held Somerset personally responsible. He began to plan a coup to replace him, writing to several towns in early 1452 seeking their support for his enterprise against ‘the envy, malice and untruth of the said Duke of
Somerset … who works continually for my undoing’. Few stirred, yet York marched his troops to the outskirts of the capital, where negotiations began in earnest to prevent armed conflict breaking out. Henry apparently agreed that Somerset should be put on trial for his conduct during the French wars in return for York pledging his loyalty to the crown; believing the king, York rode to meet with Henry at Blackheath. When the duke entered the king’s tent, he found Somerset standing at Henry’s side. It was a trap: accompanied by only forty of his men, York was forced into submission, riding back to London alongside the king as though he were his prisoner. Despite having committed treason, the duke was fortunate; it was decided not to put York on trial, probably for fear that the occasion might easily become a trial of Somerset’s conduct in the wars. Instead, before being released in March 1452, York was made to swear an oath of loyalty before a great assembly of nobles in St Paul’s, declaring that any future misconduct would be declared treason. Humiliated and completely defeated, York withdrew from the court to spend the next eighteen months in self-imposed exile.

Emboldened by his victory, Henry looked to strengthen his position even further, promoting key allies such as the Earl of Worcester to Treasurer, and the Earl of Wiltshire to Lieutenant of Ireland, where he replaced York. The king even decided that he would renew the war against France, taking an army across the Channel to defeat Charles VII’s forces. Surprisingly, the tide seemed to turn for the English under the ferocious and skilled military leader, John Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury.

It was against this backdrop of recovery and success that Henry decided to make one of his boldest political gestures: on 23 November 1452, he raised his half-brothers Edmund and Jasper Tudor to the rank of earls. Henry had already recognised both brothers as his kinsmen by providing for their education and upbringing; now he was prepared to go further, recognising their importance as members of the house of Lancaster. Henry’s intentions can be guessed at from the choice of titles he was to bestow upon Edmund and Jasper. Edmund was to become the Earl of Richmond, Jasper the Earl of Pembroke. Both titles retained especial significance to the king: the earldoms of Richmond and Pembroke had previously been held by Henry’s uncles, John, Duke of Bedford and Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester. Since the two Tudor
brothers, despite having French royal blood in their veins, had no claim to the English throne, raising them to the higher ranks of the nobility could hardly endanger Henry’s own standing. Their formal recognition as the king’s half-brothers would help Henry to reinforce his own family interest, creating new standard bearers for the Lancastrian dynasty. It also helped to remove both men from any focus of political discontent, binding them close to the king to whom they owed so much.

The official investiture took place after the Christmas holidays, when on Friday 5 January 1453, the two brothers, having been provided with a new wardrobe of velvet clothing, furs and cloth of gold, appeared in front of the king attired in their ermine robes to be formally created earls. Two weeks later, they were summoned to Parliament. When Parliament opened in March, the House of Commons presented a petition to the king requesting that Jasper and Edmund be recognised formally as his legitimate brothers, born of the same mother as ‘uterine’ brothers. They also requested that Henry release both brothers from any legal penalties arising from their father’s Welsh origins. The very fact that the request was made is remarkable in itself: Edmund and Jasper were the first Welshmen to enter the ranks of the English peerage.

As earls, both Jasper and Edmund would need a substantial income to sustain their positions at court. Between November 1452 and July 1453, both brothers were given substantial grants of landed estates that gave them each an annual income of £925. Edmund’s lands were concentrated in the honour of Richmond, containing the fertile and prosperous lands on the eastern side of the country, between Norfolk and Yorkshire. Jasper received the honour of Pembroke, based around Pembroke itself, together with the lordships of Cilgerran and Llanstephan in south-west Wales; many of his estates were grouped around the great estuary of Milford Haven. Since their political activities were largely to be focused at court, both brothers would also need a townhouse or ‘inn’ within the capital. Edmund was granted Baynard’s Castle, a large fortified house on the banks of the Thames, while Jasper was given a house in Brook Street, Stepney.

Titles and lands were not the only prizes that Henry had decided to bestow upon his half-brothers. On 24 March 1453, Edmund and Jasper were given joint custody, the ‘wardship’, of the nine-year-old Margaret
Beaufort, the daughter of the late John Beaufort, the elder brother of Henry’s despised adviser Edmund Beaufort. Henry’s expectation was not merely that the brothers would look after the girl. With the rights of wardship came the right to marry her. It was time, Henry believed, that one of the Tudor brothers at least should take a bride.

In particular, in granting Margaret Beaufort’s wardship to the Tudors, Henry had Edmund Tudor’s marriage in mind. As one writer later recorded, he intended to ‘make means for Edmund his brother’. Margaret was not only one of England’s richest heiresses in the 1450s: she was descended from the royal blood of Edward III, albeit through the illegitimate line borne from the relationship between Edward’s son, John of Gaunt and his mistress Katherine Swynford, who had given birth to Margaret’s grandfather, John Beaufort. In many ways, the Beauforts held a similar position to that of the Tudors. Both families were descended from royal blood, though both were tainted by accusations of illegitimacy. It was made clear that neither family, despite their nearness of blood, would ever be considered legitimate heirs to the throne.

Since John of Gaunt and Katherine Swynford later married, their son John was declared legitimate by both the parliaments of Richard II and Henry IV, though any claim to the throne that his heirs might have was specifically ruled out. Beaufort had been created the Earl of Somerset and Marquis of Dorset by Richard II in 1397, with his lands granted to him around the West Country, focused on his residence at Corfe Castle on the Dorset coast. The story of the family then turned to tragedy. Margaret’s father John had succeeded to the earldom in 1418, yet his life had been wasted as a prisoner of war, having been captured at the battle of Bauge in 1421. Imprisoned in France for seventeen years, he was unable to marry until 1442, aged thirty-eight. His release had cost him £24,000, half the value of his inheritance, leaving him ‘impoverished’ and bitter at the hand life had dealt him. Desperate to win back his ransom, Beaufort persuaded the king to allow him to lead a major expedition through France. Elevated to the rank of Duke of Somerset for the campaign, Beaufort’s expedition was a disaster, achieving no military success and leaving the crown with a bill of over £26,000. The fiasco caused Beaufort to be banished from court; retiring to the
West Country in disgrace, he died shortly afterwards, possibly taking his own life.

Aged just forty, John Beaufort left behind a pregnant wife and his sole surviving heir, his daughter Margaret, a few days short of her first birthday. The duchess of Somerset’s second child did not survive, leaving her daughter as sole heiress. Margaret’s wardship was a valuable commodity, one which Henry VI decided to grant to the Earl of Suffolk, in reward for his ‘notable services’ rendered to the country. Six years later, shortly before his exile and death off the coast of Dover, Suffolk decided that his only son, the seven-year-old John de la Pole, should marry Margaret, then aged six. He had originally intended that John should marry Anne Beauchamp, the daughter and sole heir of the Earl of Warwick, but she had died at the age of five in 1449. The hasty decision was taken between 28 January and 7 February 1450, while Suffolk remained in the Tower. It was obvious Suffolk considered it an urgent necessity to provide for his son’s future, though the decision sparked further suspicion that he was attempting to control the succession to the crown, using his son’s marriage to Margaret to obtain a claim to the throne. Suffolk’s death brought an end to the prospect of Margaret and John de la Pole remaining in permanent union. Their betrothal was easily enough annulled: despite the fact that a papal dispensation had been sought and a marriage contract agreed, since Margaret had entered into her marriage contract with Suffolk before she was twelve, under canon law she was not bound to fulfil it. This allowed Henry the freedom to once again grant Margaret’s marriage, this time to Edmund Tudor.

At so young an age, it is unlikely that Margaret would have known much about her marriage to John de la Pole. But three years later, making her first visit to court in February 1453 accompanied by her mother, the experience would leave a lasting impression upon her. She was treated with kindness by the king, who provided ‘his right dear and wellbeloved cousin Margaret’ with new clothes worth 100 marks. But it would have been the display of ceremony and the lavish clothing such as the blood-red dresses worn by Margaret of Anjou and her ladies in waiting at the St George’s Day celebrations that April that gave the young Margaret her first introduction to the dramatic reality of power and its political stage.

Many years later, her memory faded and her childhood recollections hazy, Margaret told her chaplain John Fisher how she believed in her own mind she had faced a choice between John de la Pole and Edmund Tudor. Unable to decide, she was urged to pray to St Nicholas, ‘the patron and helper of all true maidens, and to beseech him to put in her mind what she were best to do’. She had been given the night to decide and ‘the morrow after make answer of her mind determinately’. In her dream, she remembered how a man dressed in white had visited her, ‘arrayed like a bishop’, who told her to choose Edmund Tudor as her husband.

Margaret’s marriage to John de la Pole was annulled the same month she arrived at court, with her wardship formally being granted to the Tudor brothers on 24 March 1453. Her marriage to Edmund seems to have taken place formally in 1455, when they travelled to Lamphey in Pembrokeshire. Edmund and Margaret’s marriage had taken place during a period of relative good news for the Lancastrian dynasty, for in March 1453 it was announced that Queen Margaret was pregnant. Within months, however, the country would once again be thrown into turmoil.

No one could be sure what exactly had caused Henry VI to collapse at his hunting lodge at Clarendon near Salisbury one day in August 1453. Unable to move or speak, he was ‘so lacking in understanding and memory and so incapable that he was neither able to walk upon his feet nor to lift up his head, nor well to move himself from the place where he was seated’. It was believed that the king had suffered ‘disease and disorder of such a sort’. No one understood then the medical realities of psychiatric illness, perhaps a form of hereditary schizophrenia inherited from his Valois ancestors. What everyone did know was that the king’s mental collapse was very serious indeed, threatening the very foundation of the Lancastrian dynasty.