Bosworth: The Birth of the Tudors (17 page)

Since, Louis warned, ‘there is no war between the King [Louis] and the Lord of Brittany, and that no harm has been made by Pembroke and Richmond to the Lord of Brittany and his land, it is very strange to the King that the Lord of Brittany would have been advised to seize and arrest Pembroke and Richmond, even though some have advised him to’. There had been rumours at the French court, he stated, that Francis has already freed Jasper and Henry, but ‘doubting this to be true’, he wished Compaing to ‘very fondly pray’ that they be released immediately, ‘and the King would find great pleasure in this and be indebted to him’.

Louis had considered carefully in advance every argument that the duke might employ to justify his keeping both men. In order to counter each one, in case of any doubt, the king had already written the response for Compaing. If Francis were to reply that Jasper and Henry had landed without any arranged safe passage, or that since ‘they or their people waged war against the subjects of the Lord of Brittany and similarly against the people of King Edward who is his ally’, Compaing was to respond that neither Jasper nor Henry had ‘ever landed in Brittany for warfare, and therefore upon their landing in Brittany they owe to be as safe there as in Paris’. If Francis could give ‘particular cases of Pembroke and Richmond’s subjects waging war against him’ then Louis would offer sufficient reparation, but ‘on this occasion the two cannot be gaoled, nor reasonably taken, arrested, nor held back’. As for the fact that Jasper had fought against Edward IV, Francis’s ‘friend and ally’, Louis responded that this was not a ‘sufficient cause’ for arresting Jasper and Henry, since the whole of France was an enemy of Edward and the English; ‘if it was desired in Brittany to take and keep all the enemies of King Edward’, the French king concluded sardonically, ‘one should conclude that all the French that come to Brittany should be taken and kept, which would be a very strange thing to allow to stand on such little grounds’.

In addition, Compaing was to give the uncompromising reply that
‘the King understands not that Pembroke and Richmond be in any way the enemies of the Lord of Brittany, for the King holds them in his esteem as the servants of his household. And that if his servants and the people of the King’s household were to be taken, it would seem therefore that the Lord of Brittany would want to lead a war against him, which the King does not think is what the Lord of Brittany wants, neither does the King have any intention of waging war for his part.’ The menacing tone of Louis’s intentions could hardly have been spelt out any clearer.

Louis concluded by demanding that Pembroke and Richmond should be ‘freed frankly and swiftly’ and sent to the French court and the king’s person, ‘to whom this shall come at a great pleasure, and which he will be indebted to him for’. Nevertheless, for all his threats and demands, Louis was a realist; Francis was hardly likely to cave in to his wishes immediately, but that did not preclude achieving part of his intentions. For now, Louis was willing to compromise. ‘If the Lord of Brittany refuses to free Pembroke and Richmond with their people and goods,’ he ordered, ‘it shall be asked of him that he should neither take nor move them from his hands’, with Louis requesting that a written promise or certification be made ‘so that good faith be on paper, and so that the King can think about what can be done’.

It was around this time that Francis decided to separate Henry and Jasper. Facing demands from both Edward IV and Louis XI to hand over both Tudors, in doing so the duke made it difficult for both to be captured, their separation ensuring that he would at least hold on to one of his valuable captives. At the same time, Jasper’s separation from Henry came as a relief to Edward, who could be assured that if the earl escaped, he would be unable to take his nephew with him, taking up his cause as a challenger to the throne.

The decision came as a sudden surprise to Henry, who was understandably anxious to learn that he was to be removed from his uncle Jasper’s company, the man who had acted as his guardian and protector for much of his childhood and adolescence. Henry was reassured by Quelennec, who had been appointed by the duke to inform the earl of the intended separation, who explained that it was being done in his own interest and with no risk to himself, promising that once Henry’s fortunes had changed, he would be ‘as free as he could
be in any place in the world where he would choose to retire’.

Jasper was placed in the fortress of Josselin, twenty-five miles from Vannes. Facing the river Oust, the castle had been rebuilt in the 1370s, with a great keep and prison tower being constructed. It was in this tower that Jasper may have been placed, at least until 1475. Meanwhile Henry was sent to the chateau of Largoët, a 144-foot, seven-storey-high octagonal tower, known as the Tour d’Elven, that had been rebuilt in the 1460s and remained unfinished, hidden deep within a forest. In January 1475 financial accounts record Henry being named as a ‘prisoner’ at Largoët; it seems likely that he would have been placed in rooms either on the sixth or seventh floors of the tower, which had been designated as secure rooms. Nevertheless, Henry’s stay in this secluded and secure location would hardly have been one of hardship and harsh conditions. Largoët was in the possession of Jean de Rieux, the marshal of Brittany, who having made the offer to Francis II to take the young earl, treated Henry with both honour and care. Rieux also had two young sons, around Henry’s age, with whom he may have shared his upbringing. It was certainly at Largoët that Henry continued his studies, becoming fluent in both French and Latin, while acquiring a taste for French courtly works and poetry heavy with classical allusion and allegory.

Only fragments of information concerning Henry’s exile during the 1470s remain. Nevertheless they provide fleeting insights into Henry’s formative years, secluded as they are from view. Preserved in the surviving financial records of the wardrobe accounts of Duke Francis for instance, is the following entry for May or June 1472: ‘To my lord of Richmond for a long robe by gift of my said lord [the duke], seven ells of fine black velour, costing 4 royals a ell: £35; for lining the upper arms, half a third of black, cost 23d. And for the lining, four ells of changeable taffeta at 2 royals an ell, costing £10; and the making of each, sum £45 13s. To him for a short robe, an ell and a half of black Damask at £4 an ell, and padding, 1 ecu, total £7 2s 10d.’

From the description, one can almost envisage the young Henry, wearing his robe of black damask, padded with taffeta. In the city library at Arras, there survives a series of drawings by Jacques le Boucq, Hainault Herald. Though drawn in the sixteenth century, some were based on earlier portraits, now no longer extant. One includes Henry
as a young man, a robe draped over his shoulders, thickly crumpled around his arms and wrists as he holds what appears to be an apple in his right hand. A cap with a badge on its right side covers his head and hair, which falls on either side of his face at chin height. Yet it is Henry’s eyes, large and weary with dark lines forming beneath them that stand out, just as they would later do so for those who met him. It is tempting to imagine the image as Henry while still in exile, his simple dress a far cry from the world of majesty at the royal court.

The other glimpse we have of the young Henry is from the chronicler Philippe de Commynes, who managed to speak with him at the Breton court. Appearing relaxed, Henry told Commynes that ‘since the age of five he had been guarded like a fugitive or kept in prison’. It is perhaps this sense of weariness, of a young man who, despite being only in his teenage years, had spent his entire life on the run, in danger of his life, that Henry’s tired and determined eyes reflected.

With his own kingdom finally pacified and with the exception of Jasper and Henry Tudor’s exile in Brittany, the Lancastrian cause firmly crushed, Edward felt able to turn his attention to the traditional preoccupation of English kings: their natural enemy of France. In spite of the massive erosion of territory that the English had occupied since the halcyon days of the 1420s, Edward had continued to style himself King of France, quartering his arms with French lilies. He had his own personal reasons to reclaim glory there, since having been born in Rouen when it was still under English occupation, he may have felt that it was his duty to reclaim some of the lost territories in Aquitaine and Normandy that his father had achieved military glory fighting for. The French king Louis XI had also demonstrated his own hostility to Edward’s kingship, giving succour to the Lancastrian regime, and until recently had managed to remain a persistent nuisance, giving aid to the Earl of Oxford’s missions across the Channel and into East Anglia.

Edward would have also had in mind the unifying effect that war could have on the realm. The past sixteen years of civil war had witnessed the death, through execution or on the battlefield, of thirty-nine peers. Military glory in France would help to repair the damage of the
previous decade; success would prove God’s judgement that Edward was rightfully England’s king. In 1472 Edward’s spokesman in Parliament argued that war might even prevent civil discord for the future. But war was costly, and that meant persuading Parliament to grant the king the power to raise additional taxation; in November 1472 a tax of one-tenth of all income from land was eventually granted. But Edward was still left with a significant shortfall, which he was forced to make up through borrowing from wealthier subjects, though few felt able to refuse to lend to the king in spite of the cost: Margaret Paston lamented to her son John that ‘the king goes so near us in this country, both to poor and rich, that I know not how we shall live if the world amend’.

Careful alliances with France’s neighbours Brittany and Burgundy would also need to be sought. Brittany’s support was secured through a combination of sending 2,000 archers in April 1472 to counter French attacks upon Duke Francis’s realm, together with an embassy, led by Earl Rivers, that led to the signing of the Treaty of Chateaugiron in September, which allowed the English to use Brittany as a territorial base from which to launch an invasion of France. Burgundy proved a harder bargain, but Duke Charles the Bold finally agreed to support Edward’s claim to the French throne if he might be rewarded with territory in the Somme region. Hesitations and further diplomatic complications, however, meant that neither agreement lasted long enough for Edward to prepare for war. It would be another two years before he felt secure enough to finally launch his long awaited invasion.

By December 1474 detailed preparations were being made to ship over 11,500 men, the largest single army assembled for a military campaign in France, together with thirteen large siege guns and over 700 stone cannonballs, though Commynes admitted that the ‘men seemed very inexperienced and unused to active service’. Nevertheless Edward crossed the Channel with his aristocracy, hungry for military glory, fully committed to what the king termed his ‘great enterprise’, with five dukes, three earls and at least a dozen barons boarding the boats for France that sailed on 20 June 1475. Upon his arrival, Edward had hoped to count upon Burgundy’s support, bringing with them a large army to bolster his own troops. When Duke Charles arrived with only
a small personal retinue, Edward knew that he was left with a huge problem. Without full Burgundian support, he did not have a chance of defeating the might of France. Already he had gone too far to turn back without suffering a humiliating defeat; the excitement in the air was palpable, with his men eager to engage with their long-standing enemy. ‘If the Frenchmen will do us the day,’ Thomas Stonor wrote from Guines on 19 July, ‘it shall not be long before we meet.’ A solution was provided by the French king who, unwilling to wage a ruinously expensive war, offered to negotiate a peace at Picquigny, near Amiens. Both armies marched in full battle array to the town, where Louis put on lavish entertainments for the English soldiers, including an enormous amount of food and wine, ‘of which there was great plenty, and of the richest that France could produce’. The English took advantage with ‘very great satisfaction’, Commynes adding that ‘not a drop of water was drunk’. Another account suggests that women were made freely available, but that ‘many a man was lost that fell to the lust of women’ having been ‘burnt’ by them, a euphemistic term for venereal disease, so that ‘their members rotted away and they died’. While the soldiers revelled in an abundance of wine and women, behind the scenes a deal was swiftly hammered out, Louis agreeing to pay Edward 75,000 French crowns together with an annual pension of 50,000 crowns. In return, several trade agreements were concluded, as well as a private understanding that the Dauphin would eventually be betrothed to Edward’s daughter Elizabeth of York.