Bosworth: The Birth of the Tudors (6 page)

One possibility is that the queen’s pregnancy may have placed strain upon a man uncomfortable with physical intimacy. More likely to have damaged Henry’s mental state had been the events of the previous few weeks, when on 17 July the Earl of Shrewsbury’s army in France had been overwhelmed at Castillon, and the earl himself killed in the cannon fire. Defeat at Castillon in effect brought with it the end of the Hundred Years War.

For two months news of Henry’s collapse was kept secret in the hope that the king might recover. Yet not even the joyous news of the birth of his son and heir, Prince Edward, on 13 October 1453 could wake Henry from his catatonic state. When Queen Margaret presented their son to the king, he reacted ‘without any answer or countenance, saving only that he looked on the Prince and cast his eyes down again without any more’. It was a situation which everyone realised could not continue.

For Richard, Duke of York, it was a second chance: as the most senior nobleman in the realm, while the king remained incapacitated, he had a strong claim to be recognised as Protector. Recognising the threat to his own position at court, Somerset was understandably reluctant to include York in any council negotiations about what should be done, though this did not prevent York from returning to London by November 1453, accompanied by a large retinue of armed men. The stage was set for an inevitable confrontation.

Throughout the winter, both factions sought to fill the vacuum of power. Margaret of Anjou demanded that she be declared regent of England and have ‘the whole rule of this land’. It was to prove a step too far. Many noblemen who previously had refused to take York’s side, Jasper and Edmund Tudor among them, understood the idea of a French Queen, the niece of their French enemy Charles VII, would be politically impossible. By January 1454 the Tudor brothers had formed an alliance with York, it being reported that ‘the Earls of Warwick, Richmond and Pembroke come with the Duke of York, as it is said, each of them with a goodly fellowship’. Margaret’s intervention ensured that the council’s sympathies shifted towards York, agreeing to nominate him as the King’s Lieutenant in February 1454. As armed retinues of various noblemen swarmed through London, tensions began to mount.

Matters came to a head when the appointment of a new chancellor became a political necessity following the death of the previous holder of the office Cardinal Kemp in March 1454. A crisis of authority opened up since only the king could signal who should take his place. The council rode to Windsor to discuss the matter with Henry. In vain, they tried three times to speak with the king, ‘to the which matters they could get no answer nor sign, not for any prayer or desire, lamentable cheer or exhortation, nor for anything that any of them could do or say,
to their great sorrow and discomfort’. Recognising that Henry would be incapable of taking any decision, it was decided that York should be appointed Protector, the chief councillor with responsibility for the defence of the realm.

York’s success lay not merely in Henry’s incapacity; the duke had managed to win more noblemen to his cause as a series of local conflicts between magnates had broken out, contesting lordships that had been parcelled out unwisely and often to separate parties by the crown. National politics and local authority had become polarised, as members of the gentry and minor nobility sought protection from great lords such as York. The most significant feud was the longstanding rivalry between the Nevilles and the Percys in Yorkshire, which had degenerated into an armed brawl between both sides in August 1453. When the king did nothing to prevent the violent behaviour of the Percys, who held the royal office of the Warden of the East March, against the Nevilles, it was clear that the Nevilles would have to look elsewhere for help. York was closely associated with the Nevilles, having married the youngest daughter of Ralph Neville, the Earl of Westmorland. Matters were made worse for the family in June 1453 when Somerset was granted estates in Glamorgan, previously held by the twenty-five-year-old Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick. It was to prove the final straw for the earl, who now sided with York in order to oust Somerset.

As Protector, York moved quickly to establish his position. Somerset had been sent to the Tower in November 1453, shortly after York’s arrival in the city, having had charges of misconduct in France once again brought against him. York had every intention of keeping him there. In the meantime, York replaced key positions in the council with his allies: his brother-in-law, the Earl of Salisbury, was made Chancellor, Thomas Bourgchier was made Archbishop of Canterbury while York himself took over the captaincy of Calais. Margaret of Anjou was ordered to be removed to Windsor, where she was effectively placed under house arrest.

Then on Christmas Day 1454, Henry suddenly recovered from his illness, waking as if from a coma, not knowing ‘where he had been whilst he hath been sick till now’. Henry’s recovery of his faculties turned a tragedy into a national disaster. York was dismissed as Protector; in
his place returned Henry’s old friends and former advisers, including Somerset, who was released from prison in February 1455. York and his associates left London in disgust, without taking formal leave from the king. Somerset now began to plot their destruction, summoning Parliament to meet in May 1455 ‘to provide for the king’s safety’. It was soon clear that York was to be placed on trial. The duke knew that if he were to fight for his survival he would have to act first. Military force seemed to be his only option.

On 1 May 1455 Henry departed London, riding with a large company of noblemen, including Jasper Tudor, intending to journey to Leicester. Spending the first night at Watford, they continued on to St Albans. There York was waiting with an armed force. Negotiations began in earnest, as heralds passed messages from one camp to another. York’s demands, however, were uncompromising: Somerset was to be handed over, to be imprisoned. This Henry refused. As the talks continued, York’s patience was wearing thin. After the herald had returned from his third mission, the duke had waited long enough. ‘Now,’ he is said to have replied, ‘we must do what we can.’ The Rubicon had just been crossed.

Street fighting broke out between the king’s men and York’s. It was soon clear that York was winning the ‘battle’; many of Henry’s household, who had been set upon even before they had the chance to arm themselves, fled into the surrounding countryside. Some raced for the abbey doors, in the hope of finding sanctuary. Others simply had to make do with the nearest building for shelter as the Yorkist troops streamed through lanes and back gardens into the town. The king sought shelter in a tanner’s cottage as his standard was abandoned in the street, but not before he had been injured, wounded in the neck. When York discovered what had happened to the king, he ordered that he be removed to the abbey for his safety. His real target, Somerset, had barricaded himself into a local inn. There was to be no escape. As York’s men surrounded the building and broke down the doors, Somerset resolved to die fighting and was said to have killed four men by his own hand in his final charge before he was hit first by an axe then set upon and hacked to death.

What part Jasper Tudor played in the fighting must have been limited. He had little military training or experience to take an active
role in the fighting. The scenes of death, of the hail of arrows that had descended upon them, leaving many of Henry’s household with face, neck and arm wounds, would have left a lasting impression upon him. The abbot of St Albans recalled the horrific scenes of violence that Jasper must also have witnessed: ‘here you saw a man with his brains dashed out, here one with a broken arm, another with his throat cut, a fourth with a pierced chest’. It also left Jasper with a resolve that there might still be another solution to violence. With Somerset dead, perhaps reconciliation might be possible. Jasper would now play a critical role in attempting to bridge the two factions together.

Henry was taken back to London, riding alongside York. He had become effectively a prisoner of the Yorkists, even if they still claimed that they were the loyal servants of the king. When Parliament was summoned several weeks later in May, both Tudor brothers were ordered to attend. One of the most pressing issues was to stabilise the nation’s finances, which had been placed under severe strain by the king’s lavish grants of land and office. Now, in a grand Act of Resumption, all grants which Henry had made since the beginning of his reign were cancelled. There were however to be a small number of exemptions: as members of the royal family, Edmund and Jasper were to keep all their estates and offices. York could hardly have been pleased, but he recognised that he needed to build a broad coalition of support, and that the Tudor brothers had the potential to be his allies.

Shortly after the battle, Henry suffered a second breakdown. Both brothers knew that Henry’s government could not continue in its present form with the king at the helm. In November 1454 they had both attended a council meeting which drew up ordinances to reform and, more importantly, reduce the size of the king’s burgeoning household which was costing £24,000 a year to run despite its income being only £5,000. They sympathised with York’s demands that more economical government was needed. Yet it was becoming increasingly difficult to retain a foothold in both camps. While their loyalty to their half-brother the king was beyond question, Edmund and Jasper were not convinced that Margaret of Anjou should lead the Lancastrian party. As the rift between York and Henry’s court grew deeper, the more difficult it would become for the Tudor brothers to balance their loyalties to both the king and the security of the realm.

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When Parliament reassembled in November 1455, York was reappointed as the king’s Protector. Neither Edmund nor Jasper Tudor were present for the opening ceremony. Instead Edmund had been sent to Wales as the king’s official representative, tasked with upholding royal authority there. It was a formidable challenge. Parts of the country had remained a lawless land ever since the end of Owen Glyndwr’s rebellion forty years previously, with local rivalries between landowners often breaking out into violent quarrels, exacerbated by the fact that most offices were held by absentee noblemen who handed power and authority to their agents to act as deputies on their behalf. Exploiting their position for their own financial and political gain, effective government in many regions of south and east Wales had broken down. York himself had placed William Herbert of Raglan to deputise for him in his lordship of Usk, while the Duke of Buckingham had handed control of his lordship in Brecon to the Vaughans of Tretower. Both families, the Herberts and the Vaughans, now wielded significant authority on behalf of their masters.

The most influential force in the region, however, was Gruffydd ap Nicholas, whose unchallenged power in south-west Wales Edmund was now expected to curb. York was concerned about Gruffydd ap Nicholas’s control, especially since the duke had recently replaced Somerset as constable of Carmarthen and Aberystwyth castles. Having moved to Lamphey in Pembrokeshire by September 1455, two miles east of his brother’s castle at Pembroke, Edmund embarked on restoring royal authority to the region.

Gruffyd ap Nicholas resented the arrival of the young and inexperienced Edmund who himself had no lands in Wales. By June 1456 the two were ‘at war greatly’, with Gruffyd having occupied castles at Aberystwyth, Carmarthen and the fortresses of Carreg Cennen and Kidwelly on the Carmarthenshire coastline. Edmund fought hard to win back lost territory, with some limited success, managing to retake Carmarthen Castle. Yet as he continued to pursue his royal duties in the king’s name, the political tide had begun to turn. Edmund soon found that he was facing the very same man who had sent him to Wales in the first place.

The Duke of York’s second protectorship had lasted until February
1456, when Henry once again recovered and dismissed him, though being ‘in charity with all the world’ had decided to keep York as ‘his chief and principal councillor’. It was not Henry whom York had to fear: Queen Margaret, now a prominent figure in her late twenties, determined to protect her son’s royal inheritance, was described as ‘a great and intensely active woman, for she spares no pains to pursue her business towards an end and conclusion favourable to her power’. Margaret was desperate to rid her husband and his household from York’s influence: she had twice witnessed the duke seize power, and with it the expenditure of her royal household and its available patronage significantly reduced. She was determined to avoid York gaining the upper hand once more. Touring the country looking for support, Margaret sought out allies, strengthening her party against the duke. With neither side prepared to show their hand, the atmosphere was one of mutual suspicion: ‘My lord York … watches the queen and she watches him,’ wrote one London correspondent. Slowly, England was drifting towards civil war.

In seeking to defend the king’s royal authority, Edmund Tudor was now inadvertently drawn into conflict with York himself. Edmund’s recapturing of Carmarthen Castle from Gruffyd ap Nicholas, though a task he had been commanded to achieve, was now taken as an act of hostility against York, who held the constableship of the castle. Having been stripped once again of his authority at court, York sought to reestablish his power in Wales, sending his retainers to take control of Carmarthen from Edmund. On 10 August 2,000 men from Herefordshire led by York’s agents Sir William Herbert, Sir Walter Devereux, Herbert’s brother-in-law, and the Vaughan family crossed the border into West Wales, seizing Carmarthen Castle and imprisoning Edmund Tudor. It was the first time that the Tudors had faced the personal consequences of having been caught in the crossfire of the civil troubles brewing between the Yorkist party and the court party of the king and the Lancastrian dynasty, with which they were now inextricably linked through both blood and title. Edmund was released from captivity shortly afterwards, but the conditions of his imprisonment may have hastened his contracting of some kind of epidemic disease, probably the plague. He never left the castle, and on 1 November 1456 finally succumbed to his illness. He was buried nearby at Greyfriars
Church, though his tomb, finished with a brass image of the earl, was later transferred to St David’s Cathedral during the Dissolution of the Monasteries.