The Last Knight Errant: Sir Edward Woodville & the Age of Chivalry (22 page)

Meanwhile in London, King Richard was alert to the dangers of a Tudor and Woodville alliance. His new Lord Chancellor, John Russell, drafted a sermon to parliament: he would cover the issues facing the nation and in particular he spoke of ‘fluctuacion’ with ‘gret waters and tempestous Rivers’. But the sermon was not given. This was the same Bishop John Russell who had been with Edward in Scotland four years before. Now the Bishop must negotiate with Brittany, as his master wanted Edward Woodville.

Thomas Hutton, who had been given the task under cover of a trade mission to agree such matters as action against piracy, should particularly ‘feel and understand the mind and disposition of the Duke about Sir Edward Woodville and his retinue’. From this it is clear that Sir Edward and his retinue were considered a threat, one that was capable of undertaking an enterprise against England. This is confirmation that they were professional soldiers. As important or perhaps more so, Hutton was to persuade Duke Francis to deliver Henry of Richmond into King Richard’s tender care.

Duke Francis mulled the matter over. It was tricky; while King Richard was unknown to him, Edward Woodville was a friend. The Duke remembered how important Anthony’s military help had been 11 years before and now – according to French records – the Bretons called Edward ‘Lord Scales, in memory of his brother’.14 (It seems more likely they called him Scales because his badge was the silver scallop which they knew from his brother’s 1472 expedition.15) However, the Duke could not afford to alienate England so he dispatched an envoy to King Richard offering the ‘Lord of Richmond’.

However, he pointed out that the consequence of the gift would be a French invasion, so the price had to be high – 4,000 archers at England’s expense. He ignored the request for Edward and was probably not surprised when his offer was turned down.

As the diplomatic manoeuvring progressed, Henry ‘the Lord of Richmond’ and Edward presumably reached agreement. They were joined in opposition to King Richard. The only difference might be over the crown, but in that June and early July there was no reason to think the young princes were dead, only that their wicked uncle had locked them up and was a usurper.

Edward’s aim was to put his nephew back on the throne, and while Henry may have been the Lancastrian pretender, he might happily agree to something less than the crown. Better to be a great earl in England than a penniless pretender in exile. That would be the logical conclusion to the talks his mother had pursued with the late King Edward, which had been witnessed by Bishop Morton.

In the château at Vannes and the halls of the newly built ducal palace at Nantes they discussed insurrection and invasion. How would the arrangement be structured? What resources were available? How were they to keep Duke Francis supportive and what would be required to defeat Richard the usurper?

Men, money and munitions have always been the essential ingredients of any such project. They and their contemporaries were well aware of that. In the near contemporary novel we have the hero Tirant Lo Blanc advising, ‘In war three things are necessary and those who lack any one of these will fail...[these are] troops, money, and provisions.’

Henry’s formidable mother was providing information and intelligence, so Earl Henry could feel confident of Lancastrian support, some help from the Stanleys and financial backing. Edward had his soldiers’ and his family’s support; he also had his war chest and two capital ships. Meanwhile ‘The people of the southern and western parts of the Kingdom began to murmur greatly and to form meetings and confederacies in order to deliver the two princes from the Tower.’

The Dowager Queen Elizabeth was urged to smuggle her daughters out of sanctuary and abroad, but this plan was discovered and a heavier guard put on the door. Many of the dead King’s officers and friends decided Richard had gone too far by seizing the crown. They were prepared to rebel. There was a groundswell of dissent amongst the southern notables in which the remaining Woodvilles, their relations and dependants were deeply involved.

It was at this point that the Duke of Buckingham, previously Richard’s most fervent supporter, had a startling change of heart – he joined the conspiracy.
The Crowland Chronicle
reported, ‘He was repentant of what had happened and was to lead the enterprise.’

What triggered his change of heart, this Damascene conversion? What drove Buckingham to risk all on a wildcard like Henry Tudor? The general view is that the wily John Morton, Bishop of Ely, was responsible. He was comfortably imprisoned in Buckingham’s castle at Brecon where he had been sent after his arrest at the Tower and would have had ample time for discussion. Interestingly, it was Buckingham who had asked to take responsibility for Bishop John.

In their conversations the Bishop could have pointed out that Buckingham was second only to the King in power and also had a blood claim to the throne. Was it a coincidence that Rivers and Hastings had been two of the most powerful men in the land but had lost their heads? Could it be that King Richard did not like powerful magnates? Would it be Buckingham’s head next on the block?

These would be persuasive arguments for a nervous man, perhaps followed by a question about the little princes?16 The Duke’s young wife was Edward’s sister, Catherine Woodville, and she could have joined the discussion. Perhaps the contrast between King Richard’s courtiers17 and the pragmatic Bishop made Buckingham aware of the breadth and depth of feeling against the usurper king. Did raw fear drive him to rebel? Either that or something else persuaded Buckingham to join the conspiracy, perhaps the confirmation that the little princes were dead.

In human terms this was a tragedy, but in political terms it was a disaster, as it removed the focal point of the rebellion. What next for the plotters? Buckingham may have considered himself for the role of successor, being a direct and legitimate descendant of Edward III.18 However, Bishop John seems to have persuaded him that Henry Tudor had a better chance. The Bishop had been present at the meeting between King Edward and the Stanleys where the possibility of Henry marrying Princess Elizabeth was discussed. He may have told Buckingham that there was some form of existing betrothal and, if that is correct, then it would explain why Henry’s claim was accepted so easily. The Bishop was clearly a formidable operator.

Again on the Bishop’s advice, Margaret Beaufort was told of Buckingham’s commitment to the cause. It was certainly helpful, for she had a plan that was coming together. There was encouraging news from Brittany and so she sent her doctor, ‘one Lewis a Welshman’, to talk to Queen Elizabeth (Woodville) in sanctuary.

The Dowager Queen was deeply depressed; her world had collapsed, her husband was dead and her sons probably murdered. She looked as if she needed a doctor so Lewis the physician was allowed past the guards. Once alone, he delivered the proposal for Elizabeth, her eldest daughter, to marry Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond. The Queen undertook to ‘do her endeavour to procure all her husband King Edward’s friends to take part with Henry so that he might be sworn to take in marrying Elizabeth her daughter after he shall have gotten the realm, or else Ciciley the younger if the other should die before he enjoyed the same’.19 This was a crucial endorsement, for it meant there could be a popular focus for rebellion against King Richard. It was now a matter of organization and timing.

Duke Francis was supportive but, mindful of his antipathy to France and the consequent importance of good relations with England, proposed only covert help. He offered the use of his naval squadron that was being assembled to combat piracy. It was due to patrol the Channel from 1 September to 30 November 1483 and within this time the ships could be used for one month for ‘the passage of the Lords Richmond and Pembroke’.20

Additionally Duke Francis would contribute hard cash for wages and provisions. But he also wrote on 26 August to his envoy in England with instructions to start negotiating with King Richard for joint action against the French, as soon as he should hear of King Louis’s death. He died on 30 August,21 so the Duke was running two policies that were potentially in conflict. Margaret Beaufort had no problems of conflicting interest. She borrowed money in the City and sent it to Brittany with her chaplain, Christopher Urswick. He was also to discuss the plans and bring back news.

On 22 September Bishop Lionel Woodville, Edward’s brother, was staying at Buckingham’s grand manor at Thornbury, eight miles north-east of Bristol, where they plotted. Two days later Buckingham wrote to Henry in Brittany asking him ‘to hasten over to England as soon as possible for the purpose of marrying Elizabeth, eldest daughter of the late King, and at the same time, together with her, taking possession of the throne’.22

Bishop John having masterminded the Welsh end of the plot slipped away, telling Buckingham he would raise men in Ely. The coup was set for 18 October but an over-enthusiastic group in Kent started a week early, which alerted King Richard to the plot. Moving ‘in no drowsy manner’, he gathered his forces, priced the traitors’ heads and issued a proclamation devoted to blackening the characters of the rebels. At the top of the list was Dorset, ‘[who] not fearing God...hath many and sundry maids, widows and wives damnably and without shame devoured, deflowered and defiled, holding the unshameful and mischievous woman called Shore in adultery’.23

The Duke of Buckingham stuck to his plan, raised his standard and recruited his tenants, then set off in a rainstorm towards England, taking his wife and their two sons with him. The local Welsh gentry could hardly believe their luck; the Duke’s castle was undefended so they sacked it and took his daughters as a bonus. Meanwhile the rain did not stop. The Duke and his men reached the river Severn where they were stopped by floods and there the army waited for a week in continuous, torrential rain with the flood water rising. Provisions ran out, everyone was soaked and the men deserted.

The weather defeated the Welsh side of the rebellion before it had even started. Buckingham was picked up hiding in a servant’s cottage. He snivelled and told all he knew of the plot before he was executed on 2 November. King Richard now understood his enemy’s plans, in particular that Henry Tudor was due to land at Poole. News of Buckingham’s failure reached the other conspirators in England, who packed up and went home, but Henry and his little invasion force were unaware and under sail for England. King Richard set a trap.

Henry’s fleet had been held up by the same storms that had disrupted Buckingham’s plans but they probably sailed on 1 November.24 In October Duke Francis had provided Henry with 13,000 livres for wages and provisions and later an additional loan of 10,000 crowns at Paimpol, a port in north-west Brittany. The expedition sailed but almost immediately ran into a westerly gale which blew them on to the Normandy coast. The Breton ships decided to return home, leaving Henry with two ships (perhaps
The Trinity
and
The Falcon
?) to sail on to Poole harbour where they found the quayside lined with soldiers.

The soldiers shouted that the rebellion had prospered and they had come from the Duke of Buckingham to take Henry to his camp. For some reason Henry and his advisors smelled a rat. They sailed out of the harbour and on to Plymouth where they discovered the rebellion had been nipped in the bud. King Richard and his army marched to Exeter hoping to catch them, but he was too late.25 There is no hard evidence that shows Edward was there but, on the balance of probabilities, he was. Where else would he be?

Although the rebellion had failed, the adventure established Henry as undisputed leader of the opposition to King Richard. Some of the conspirators now fled to Brittany, among whom were the Bishop of Exeter, Lord Dorset, a dozen of King Edward’s important adherents, knights such as his Master of Horse, Sir John Cheyne, some Lancastrian sympathizers and some gentry from across the south of England, including three sheriffs and 33 justices of the peace. Bishop Lionel Woodville took sanctuary at Beaulieu,26 as did Robert Poyntz, Anthony Woodville’s son-in-law (who sued for a pardon the following year but then fled to Brittany). Polydore Vergil lists the main men in Brittany at the time, and ‘Edward Woodville, a valiant man of war, brother to Queen Elizabeth’, was ‘amongst that company’.

Meanwhile Catherine (Woodville), Duchess of Buckingham, was taking no risks with her eldest son; she dressed him as a girl and hid him with a gentleman’s family. Her youngest she took to London where her late husband was being denounced as a ‘rotten member of the body politic’ and one of ‘the great and principal movers, stirrers and doers of the said offences and heinous treasons’ who were then attainted by parliament.

At Rennes in Brittany, Earl Henry chaired a council of war. It lasted several days and then, on Christmas morning 1483, in the huge Gothic cathedral, there was a service where he swore an oath to marry the Princess Elizabeth. To do this he would have needed a papal dispensation, because they were related within the fourth degree, and also her consent; presumably he had the latter. There were 423 exiles who knelt and paid him homage as if he had been crowned.

Promises to God to complete tasks if events went the right way were standard. If Edward made a vow – an agreement with God that he would do something in return for God granting his prayers – then this could have been the time. The agreement might have been that once Richard, the usurper and murderer, was dead, then he, Edward, would fight for God, undertake a crusade or some such, just as his brother had.

Throughout that winter England and Brittany skirmished at sea. Perhaps
The Trinity
and
The Falcon
engaged in some light piracy. A ‘John Porter of Calais with other evil-doers’ are recorded boarding a ship of Hamburg and carrying off most of her cargo on 20 January.27 Unsurprisingly the 423 exiled Englishmen were straining the Breton exchequer.28 The composition of the group is unclear. Henry’s immediate entourage was perhaps a dozen or so. The Marquis of Dorset probably had some people with him but there were few other nobles. There were about 20 named knights, around 40 county figures together with a bishop and a few clerics, other adherents and Edward’s 200–300 soldiers. It must have been difficult maintaining morale and cohesion and there are always problems with any group of soldiers with time on their hands. On one occasion Duke Francis paid out 200 livres in damages to poor Georgette le Cutt because her husband had been killed in a brawl with some Englishmen.