Henry Tudor was born in Pembroke Castle in 1457, to his thirteen-year-old mother, Margaret Beaufort. His father, Edmund Tudor, Earl of Richmond, had died of plague after being captured by Yorkist enemies. His uncle, Jasper Tudor, helped Margaret to find a new husband in Sir Henry Stafford, though she survived him as well and went on to marry Lord Thomas Stanley, later made Earl of Derby. It is interesting to note that Henry’s mother was as English as eggs – and his father was half Welsh, half French and born in Hertfordshire. Still, Henry Tudor had a good claim to being the
Mab Darogan
, the long-predicted ‘Man of Destiny’ who would come from Wales and rule England.
It is true that when Henry was fourteen Jasper Tudor returned to take his nephew away to France with him. It is not known if they used the huge cave under Pembroke Castle, but that would have been perfect. It is also true that there are tunnels under the town of Tenby, a dozen miles east of Pembroke – and local legend has it that those tunnels sheltered Henry and his uncle as soldiers searched for them, before the two Tudors dashed out to a boat and got away.
Warwick and George, Duke of Clarence, made a great landing from France in September 1470. They moved swiftly to London, there to free King Henry VI from the Tower and to restore him as figurehead for the house of Lancaster. For this sort of action did Warwick become known as the Kingmaker.
They were extraordinarily fortunate that Edward of York made it so easy for them. It is true that he was away in the north as his wife, Elizabeth, was about to give birth. It is well attested that Edward was a man of huge appetites for food, wine and hunting. Yet there is a certain amount of mystery about this period. The king who acted so decisively before and during Towton was caught with too few men and quickly surrounded – by an army in the north and Warwick coming up rapidly from the south.
Warwick had gathered between twenty and thirty thousand men in his campaign to restore the house of Lancaster. Edward settled around Nottingham and sent out the call – and barely three thousand came. The charismatic leader of Towton had been written out of the story. In an age of no mass communication, such a thing would have required shoe leather and volunteers by the hundred to spread the word. Lancaster was coming back. The old crown was to be returned. The house of York would fall.
Outnumbered to such a degree, Edward ran for the coast with just a few men, his brother Richard among them. Even then, the move had been expected and his boat was almost captured at sea. Edward had no money with him and it is true that the king of England had to give the boat captain his coat to pay for passage. He did so with a smile, though it must have been a moment of extraordinary bitterness. Like Warwick before him, he was heading into an uncertain exile.
Yet King Edward IV was an unusually determined man. He came back, fitter and restored. He had faced impossible odds before – and won, in the snow at Towton. He was, simply, one of the greatest battle kings in English history.
For all those who have imbibed a romantic view of King Richard III, I think they have cause to be grateful to Shakespeare, for all the bard’s delight in making him a hunchbacked
villain. Without Shakespeare, Richard Plantagenet was only king for two years and would have been just a minor footnote to his brother’s reign. There is not one contemporary mention of physical deformity, though we know now that his spine was twisted. He would have lived in constant pain, but then so did many active fighting men. There is certainly no record of Richard ever needing a special set of armour for a raised shoulder. Medieval swordsmen, like Roman soldiers before them, would have been noticeably larger on their right sides. A school friend of mine turned down a career as a professional fencer because of the way his right shoulder was developing into a hump from constant swordplay – and that was with a light, fencing blade. Compare his experience to that of a medieval swordsman using a broader blade, three feet long or even longer, where strength and stamina meant the difference between victory and a humiliating death. Richard fought in 1485. He went out even though he knew his wife and son were dead and that he had no heir. I could not resist an echo of
Macbeth
, Act 5 Scene 3, when the king calls for his armour. King Richard knew that if he lost, the male line of his house was finished – and yet he went anyway. He was brave at the end. May we all be so.
The Duke of Burgundy, Charles the Bold (or the wonderful-sounding Charles le Téméraire), was initially reluctant to commit himself to the cause of the exiled brothers York. Duke Charles was only too aware of the power of King Louis of France. Yet Louis and Earl Warwick were openly arranging a massive attack from Calais into Burgundy lands over the first months of 1471 – forcing Duke Charles to support their key enemy with thirty-six ships and around twelve hundred men, some English among them. The flagship that held Edward and his brother Richard was merely the
Antony
.
I made it the
Mark Antony
, after the noble Roman who gave Caesar’s oratory speech. It must have been a horrible gamble for Duke Charles to give up such a vital force at the exact moment he needed them most, yet it paid off.
Note: ‘
Placebo Domino in regione vivorum
’ – ‘I will please the Lord in the land of the living’ – was the first response line from fifteenth-century congregations at a funeral. Some mourners came only for the food and ‘Placebo singers’ was already an insult by 1470, used in Chaucer’s
Tales
a generation before as a description of false mourners who gained a benefit without being truthful. I find that word origin fascinating, so include it here.
Edward landed first at Cromer in Norfolk, but learned only that the Duke of Norfolk was a prisoner and that the Earl of Oxford was against him. A Cromer landing was impossible at that time, so he and his brother Richard decided on Ravenspur on the mouth of the River Humber, close by Hull and not far from the city of York – the exact landing spot where Henry of Bolingbroke had come ashore seventy-two years before, to usurp Richard II.
This particular campaign began badly, with Hull refusing to open its gates. Edward was only allowed into York with a few men and progress was slow and grudging as he passed Sandal Castle. No one today can be certain why John Neville, Lord Montagu, decided not to sally out against him from Pontefract Castle, but he didn’t – and a chance was missed to nip the Yorkist return in the bud.
Instead, Edward and Richard continued to gather men to them until they had around six to eight thousand, still hugely outnumbered by Warwick’s forces. Lord Hastings was actually one of those who accompanied Edward to Flanders.
I wrote him joining Edward at Leicester as I wanted to show names coming in, one by one, an avalanche that began slowly but could not be stopped once it had begun.
Warwick remains a fascinating character, five hundred years later. I doubt I have done him justice, for he was a truly complex individual. His skills in diplomacy are undeniable. To survive and thrive at the forefront of the Wars of the Roses, he had to have been a man of fine judgement in personal matters. He clearly relied upon his family for loyalty and expected it in others. He turned against Edward only when that younger man made it impossible for Warwick to support him, with attack after attack on the Neville clan. Warwick was essentially loyal to two generations of York. He was driven away and the results were extraordinarily tragic. Elizabeth Woodville must bear some of the blame, though Edward IV must also take a share.
In battle, Warwick was nowhere near as talented as he needed to be. He lost the second Battle of St Albans when Margaret’s forces went around his entrenched position and attacked from the rear. Warwick then made the monumental error of capturing Edward and holding him prisoner without a real plan, eventually having to release a spiteful and vengeful king. When that blew up spectacularly, Warwick could not prevent Edward’s escape with Richard of Gloucester.
It is true Warwick refused to engage the Yorkist army at Coventry, though he had vastly superior numbers and position. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, of course, but something odd happened at Coventry. It is my suspicion that Warwick saw Edward IV and Richard of Gloucester on the field – and regretted his choices, at least for long enough to stay his hand. He had them boxed in: Montagu behind, Earl Oxford
to the east, twenty thousand or more in and around Coventry. If Warwick had attacked, he could have written his own ending.
Yet Richard of Gloucester had been his ward. Warwick had known Edward from boyhood and stood at his side at Towton, an event of such savagery I am sure it marked all those who survived it. Perhaps it is just a coincidence that Warwick, Edward IV, Gloucester, Clarence and Montagu were all members of the Order of the Garter, yet it is a strange thought.
We will never know for sure what went through Warwick’s mind in early April 1471. He died at the Battle of Barnet just days later. Warwick may not have been a great battle tactician, but at Coventry he didn’t need to be. He had them cold – and he let them pass. The man who fought at Edward’s side at Towton was not a coward and that is the only other explanation that fits the events.
Note: George of Clarence did indeed change sides again, betraying his father-in-law. Edward, Richard and George met on the Banbury road and there was ‘right kind and loving language betwixt them’ – at least for a while.
For a long time in English schools, Clarence being drowned in a ‘vat of Malmsey wine’ was one of the famous deaths everyone knew, along with Henry I dying after consuming a ‘surfeit of lampreys’ (eels), or Nelson struck down at the Battle of Trafalgar. I am not certain that is true today, though I hope it is. Stories make culture and may be more important than we know.
Note on the Battle of Barnet: Over Easter 1471, London became the gathering point for the house of York. Estimates of numbers are always tricky, but sources agree that Edward’s
army was still fairly small, with between seven and twelve thousand men. Warwick is generally accepted to have outnumbered them at least three to one. Edward cannot have expected his run of luck at Barnet, so was it madness for him to leave a defensible city and attack? He was with his brothers and they were all young men. It is possible they pushed each other on – and that could easily have led to disaster. Yet Edward was also the victor of Towton and a near-mythical figure in battle. At twenty-eight and restored to fitness, he would have been terrifying to face, his presence worth thousands in terms of morale. As Henry V had fought at Agincourt, so Edward continued a tradition of martial kings and the highest stakes.
Today, Barnet is a part of London. In 1471, it was a spot on the London road about eight miles from the Tower, a town with open countryside all around. Neither Warwick nor Edward IV would have chosen it as a battlefield. It was just where they clashed on the road and where, at last, Warwick was killed, a great and turbulent career brought to a violent close. He had chosen between kings more than once – and had both Edward and Henry in his personal custody on one occasion. Warwick had made disastrous decisions as well as great ones – and yet he truly forgave Margaret of Anjou and worked to restore Lancaster to the throne and undo all he had brought about. It is my suspicion that, for all his faults, he was actually a great man.
I hope I have covered Barnet with some accuracy, based on my reading of the events. It is true that Edward approached under cover of darkness and that his army was too close to be troubled by Warwick’s intermittent cannon fire all night. It is also true that when Edward attacked at between four and five on Easter morning, the thick mist meant he did not see the armies had overlapped. His right wing plunged
forward, his left fell back – and tens of thousands of fighting men turned with Edward at the hub of the wheel. On Warwick’s side, Oxford routed the York left wing and drove them back to the town of Barnet. His return would prove utterly chaotic, including the fact that his estoile symbol was similar-looking to Edward’s Sun in Flames. Cries of treachery went up on Lancaster’s side and men simply panicked. Edward took advantage and Warwick’s brother Montagu was killed, causing a collapse at the centre that dragged Warwick in as well. It was an inglorious end to Warwick’s extraordinary life. It is true that the bodies were displayed in London and also true that Edward did not have them cut into pieces as was common, but instead had them returned to the family for burial at Bisham Abbey.
Queen Margaret of Anjou and her son Edward of Lancaster, Prince of Wales, did indeed set foot in England for the first time in ten years on the same day that Warwick was killed in battle. They’d set out almost a week before but been driven back by storms.
It is not difficult to imagine Margaret’s initial despair when she heard Warwick had fallen. Yet she allowed herself to be reassured by Edmund Beaufort, Lord Somerset. He knew the south of England and was vital in raising a great army there in what would truly be Margaret’s last throw of the dice.
King Edward sent out his own commissions of array for fresh soldiers, having lost some decent part of his army at Barnet. The only difficulty lay in that he didn’t know where Margaret would strike and had to pursue her over vast stretches of land. He knew she had gone to Wales once before and suspected she might head north to the River Severn and cross into Wales somewhere around Gloucester or Tewkesbury.
Margaret reached Bristol and found great support there,
gaining men and funds and equipment, including cannon. Edward chose a good spot to array for war and was then informed that Margaret had not stopped to face him but gone on. Once more, he had to march in pursuit.
In the race to reach Wales, Edward had sent messengers ahead and Gloucester and its bridge across the Severn remained closed to Margaret, just as Hull had been closed to him a few weeks before. Margaret’s lords and forces pushed on to the next great crossing, the ford at Tewkesbury. They arrived after a march of twenty-six miles. Edward’s army force-marched thirty-six miles to intercept them before they crossed. Both were exhausted, but Edward was determined to repay the humiliations he had suffered.