Authors: Paul Murray Kendall
In 1495 the Milanese ambassador wrote his master, "The King is rather feared than loved, and this was due to his avarice. . . . The King is very powerful in money, but if fortune allowed some lord of the blood royal to rise and he had to take the field, he would fare badly owing to his avarice; his people would abandon him." In 1497 a mob of Cornishmen, driven to desperation by Henry's taxes, were able to march all the way to the gates of London without encountering any commons, gentry, or lords willing to stand against them for the King's sake. The following year, the Spaniard Ayala, an ambassador of a very friendly power, wrote that the customs revenues were diminishing because of the decay of commerce caused by the King's heavy impositions; "another reason for the decrease of trade ... is ... the impoverishment of the people by the great taxes laid on them. The King himself said to me, that it is his intention to keep his subjects low, because riches would only make them haughty. ... He is disliked, but the Queen is beloved, because she is powerless. They love the Prince [Arthur] as much as themselves, because he is the grandchild of his grandfather [King Edward]. . . . [Henry] would like to govern England in the French fashion, but he cannot. . . . Those who have received the greatest favours from him are the most discontented. ... He likes to be much spoken of, and to be highly appreci-
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ated by the whole world. He fails in this, because he is not a great man."
There must have been numbers of men in England to whom the succeeding years had brought new reasons to regret the issue of Bosworth Field. 5
What of those great lords whose treachery had given Henry this victory?
Thomas Stanley fared best. He was rewarded with the earldom of Derby. But Henry did not entrust him with the power he had enjoyed under Richard. He faded into the background of the reign, becoming, in effect, the King's mother's husband —but the King's mother forsook his bed under a vow of religious dedication. On one occasion Henry found reason to squeeze from him a fine of six thousand pounds.
Sir William Stanley, Henry's very rescuer, lived to regret that timely intervention at Bosworth. The King is said to have felt that though Sir William saved his life, he delayed long enough to endanger it. Henry bestowed lands upon his savior, made him Lord Chamberlain, but gave him no title. Sir William, for his part, discovered that the change of kings had not, after all, wrought a world more to his liking, even though he is reported to have become the richest commoner in England.
There appeared in Ireland in the autumn of 1491 a new Pretender to the throne, Perkin Warbeck, who was to trouble Henry for the next six years with the claim that he was Richard of York, the younger son of King Edward. In January of 1495 the kingdom was stunned to learn that Sir William Stanley had been arrested on a charge of treasonably conspiring with the Pretender. He was promptly sentenced to death, and beheaded on February 5.
Without question, Sir William had become sufficiently embittered by his sense of Henry's ingratitude and disillusioned with Henry's rule to entertain the idea of overthrowing him; but whether he had engaged in the overt treason of which he was accused is uncertain. It was charged that in 1495 Sir Robert Clifford had joined Perkin in the Low Countries in order to concert the treason schemed by Stanley. It is possible, however,
that Clifford was all along an agent provocateur of the King's and that Stanley's disloyalty of thought had been deliberately magnified into a traitor's plotting. In any case, when Clifford returned voluntarily to England, Henry doled out to him the fat sum of five hundred pounds from the Privy Purse and Clifford then accused Sir William. Henry's Lord Chamberlain was said, among other things, to have declared that if Perkin were indeed the son of King Edward, he would never fight against him. Henry betrayed no interest in extending clemency to the man who had given him life and crown. "Qualms he felt," says The Earlier Tudors, "for he paid the expenses of the 'traitor's' burial."
Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, fared worst of all; he was of the North, and the North could not forget that he had stood idly by while his lord King Richard had ridden to his death. For a time he thrived. Not only did he enjoy his old offices of Lieutenant General of the Marches, Captain of Berwick, and Sheriff of Northumberland, but the King permitted Richard's regional council to lapse so that Northumberland might consider that at last he possessed his ancestors' sway and was Lord of the North.
Early in 1489, King Henry extracted from Parliament the staggering tax of ;£ 100,000 in order, he said, to levy war against the French—though, in fact, he did not go to war for many months after and when he did wage a very short campaign he spent far less than he had wrung from his subjects. The attempt to gather the tax provoked trouble in Yorkshire. The King promptly sent Henry Percy, and others, a commission to put it down. When Northumberland nervously urged his sovereign not to insist on the collection of the subsidy, Henry fired back a hard, curt demand that the tax be exacted to the uttermost farthing, whether the people could pay it or not, especially from those who "whined most at it, lest it might appear that the decrees, acts and statutes made and confirmed by him and his high court of parliament should by his rude and rustical people be infringed, despised, and vilipended."
Northumberland did not dare to disobey his master, though
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he was tensely aware of "the continual grudge that the Northern men bare against him sith the death of King Richard whom they entirely loved and highly favored. . . ." Anxiously he sent word for his most trusted retainers to meet him at Thirsk, a village near which he had halted with a small retinue of servants and followers. The very next day a force of the commons came upon him at Cocklodge, not far from Thirsk. There was an exchange of angry words which led to a scuffle; then the commons fell upon the man they hated. In the moment of his greatest need Henry Percy's men deserted him. He was pulled from his horse and murdered. Thus did the North violently avenge its shame. King Henry evinced no sorrow for Northumberland's fate. He promptly reinstituted the council inaugurated by King Richard. He looted Henry Percy's son of ten thousand pounds, and Henry VIII swallowed down the whole earldom of his son.
But there was played a comedy, as well as a drama of revenge, in the North. It was staged with danger ever in the wings by actors unaccustomed to being venturesome. The solid burghers of York, despite their townsman tradition of not meddling in the hazards of national politics, were so staunch in their loyalty to King Richard that they dared, though it would cost them dear, to sit spiritedly upon their independence and mock Henry Tudor.
For weeks after Bosworth, York seethed; bitter language was used against the new King and men openly showed their discontents. The authorities worked to preserve order, for the safety of the city, at the same time that they were beginning their duel with Henry. Only five days after the fatal field, Robert Stilling. ton, Bishop of Bath and Wells, was haled a captive into the city by Windsor Herald and one Robert Borow, who were on their way to London with him. The Bishop was afflicted in body and spirit, "sore crazed, by reason of his trouble. . . ." The council of York could not save the Bishop, but they showed their feeling by flatly informing his captors that he must be permitted to "continue still within the same city for four or five days for his ease and rest."
The action of the comedy proper sprang from the circumstance that York imperturbably went on enjoying the services of Miles Metcalfe, an ardent follower of King Richard, as its Recorder. On October 2 King Henry wrote the city that "Miles Metcalfe . . . hath done much against us which disables him to exercise things of authority. . . ." One Richard Grene was the man the King wanted in the post. The council duly informed Henry of their decision that Grene should occupy the office of Recorder—"unto such time as it shall please the King's highness to call Miles Metcalfe . . . unto his grace and favour"! Six days later, the city received the King's proclamation of pardon to men of the North Parts, which excepted eight of Richard's chief adherents, one of whom w r as Miles Metcalfe.
On November 12, Henry tried again. He thanked the men of York for what they had done for Grene but underlined the point that he wanted his man made permanent Recorder "in ample manner and form as ... of time passed." The Earl of Northumberland wrote from London four days later echoing the King's demand and referring to Grene as his servant. The city council parried these thrusts by deciding to postpone action on the Recorder question until their representatives had come home from Parliament. On December 12 they received yet another missive from King Henry, this time peremptorily ordering them to heed no persuasions in Metcalfe's behalf and willing them to give Grene permanent possession of the office. Grene himself was present at the meeting in which this communication was read. When he had heard the council solemnly decide to continue the postponement of the issue until their colleagues returned from Westminster, Grene became so angry that he snatched the papers from the clerk and rushed from the chamber. The council had just the man to handle this situation. Three days later, Thomas Wrangwysh, King Richard's friend and the first soldier of the city, returned the papers to the clerk.
By that time the council was able to show the King's own writ of protection for Miles Metcalfe, which they immediately interpreted as giving them the right to reinstall him as their Recorder. When, however, the Earl of Northumberland returned
to Yorkshire in January of 1486, he brought such pressure to bear on behalf of Grene that the city officers consented to make him a member of the council at twenty shillings a year, blandly promising that since Northumberland and King Henry had wished Grene to be Recorder, they would bear these requests in mind if Grene proved himself a satisfactory councilor. The city, in the meanwhile, had petitioned the King for a reduction in its fee farm, boldly citing the relief which King Richard had given.
The second act of the comedy opened on the last day of February, 1486, when it was learned that Miles Metcalfe was dying. Richard Grene immediately demanded the recordership. The council, though they had promptly moved to reinstate Metcalfe in the absence of their parliamentary representatives, now declared that they could not act while these representatives were out of the city. On March 7 the Mayor received a request from the Earl of Northumberland that he be granted the privilege of nominating the new Recorder. Without waiting for a reply, the Earl then sent a second letter, which the council received next day, asking them to elect his "servant and councillor" Richard Grene. The council dispatched the polite answer that they would have to postpone decision until their colleagues returned. When, at last, these men came home from Westminster on March u, with the report that they had "laboured to the King" for the reduction of the fee farm, the election of a Recorder was put off till the next Assizes. In a few days a new character appeared momently upon the stage, apparently as a friend of the city. This was no less than the Countess of Northumberland, who, the Mayor reported without comment on Tuesday, March 16, had called him and his Aldermen before her the previous Sunday at the house of the Augustinian friars and "willed them nothing should be further attempted in the matter concerning the election of a new Recorder unto the next time of her return unto the same city, notwithstanding any writing to be made unto them in the meantime, shewing that she should be their warrant and defence in that partie." Eleven days kter arrived a letter from Kong Henry: having learned that
Miles Metcalfe was dead, he wished the city to elect Thomas Middleton to the recordership. By this time the city fathers were aware that a rising against the King was being stirred in Wensleydale and elsewhere, and they were beginning their preparations for the impending visit to the city of Henry himself. Not many days before he arrived, they unanimously elected to the recordership John Vavasour, an officer of King Richard's who had probably been a member of his ducal council!
It was John Vavasour who delivered the oration of welcome to Henry when he arrived, and it was John Vavasour who delivered the city's reply to a Lancastrian baron arrogantly presuming to exercise some authority within its w r alls. Shortly before the King reached York, Lord Clifford, who had been restored to his title and estates by the recent Parliament, wrote that in anticipation of the royal entry he intended to come to the city "and there to minister as mine ancestors hath done heretofore in all things that accordeth to my duty. . . ." He requested the magistrates to provide a worthy welcome for the King "and the rather at mine instance and desire to prepare all things there according to your old custom. . . ." Vavasour would not even dignify Clifford's demand with a written reply. He merely told the messenger of the baron that the Mayor possessed full authority to rule the city, that the citizens were fully aware of how a King should be received, and that though Clifford seemed to be laboring under the supposition that "his ancestors hath had some manner of administration and rule in the said city in [respect to] the coming of the King unto the same," the magistrates found no record that his ancestors "had any such administration or rule within the said city. 17 Vavasour ended by pleasantly commending the officers of York to Lord Clifford and desiring him "to give his attendance of the King's grace according to his duty"!
The brief denouement of the comedy occurred the following June. It was provoked by yet another letter from King Henry in behalf of an office seeker. Having heard that the Sword-Bearer of York was about to retire because of age and illness, the Bong desired the city to appoint Robert Langston
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when the post feU vacant. The council had no trouble reaching a decision. Recalling that the King had promised them their ancient liberties, which included their right to elect whom they pleased, and recollecting that "it had been of old time ordained" that whoever sought the King's favor for an appointment at the disposition of the magistrates should henceforth hold no office, they promptly determined that Robert Langston should not enjoy the position of Sword-Bearer, or any other post.