Bosworth: The Birth of the Tudors (22 page)

Since his narrow escape from capture seven years before, Henry had been taken by Duke Francis to the fortified walled town of Vannes, to
be guarded near to his own ducal palace of the Château de l’Hermine in order to prevent his possible capture. By October 1476 Henry had been placed under the guard of Vincent de la Landelle. Landelle had been born into a small gentry family from the Oust valley forty kilometres east of Largoet; he had gone on to serve as a soldier in the duke’s retinue since at least 1454, and was now in receipt of a pension from the duke of £60.

Henry’s uncle Jasper had also been returned to Vannes, to be guarded by Bertrand du Parc. Du Parc had begun his career as a ducal lance in the early 1460s, even being sent in 1462 to carry money to Margaret of Anjou, then residing at Rouen. His efficiency ensured that he quickly rose up the ranks, being given charge of 100 lances in 1468 and being granted a series of important captaincies; later, in 1477, Bertrand received a series of commissions to inspect and repair various fortifications across Brittany, while in 1478, he was appointed captain of the frontier castle of Fougères, the most powerful and highly fortified military site in the region. Further promotion came when Bertrand became master of the duke’s artillery in 1481, receiving a pension of £400 in addition to providing him with a company of 50 lances and 75 archers. It seems that throughout this time, Jasper Tudor remained with Bertrand, in his keeping between 1475 and 1483, with money still being allocated for the earl’s upkeep in Bertrand’s guard in 1483.

Meanwhile, separated from his uncle, Henry was placed in the custody of a series of guardians, minor Breton gentry whose conservative tastes and modest lifestyles perhaps had an impact on Henry’s own formative mind. After departing from La Landelle’s custody, by the early 1480s Henry had become attached to the household of Jean Guillemet, a member of the Guillemet family of La Lande-es-Glemet who had served with the marshal of Brittany since 1454, and was in receipt of an annual pension from Francis of £60. The family seem to have been both prosperous and well-connected at court, with Jean’s brother Guillaume having been sent to England previously as an envoy to negotiate at Edward’s court. In 1481 Henry was transferred to the custody of Louis de Kermene, a member of Francis’s ducal ordonnance who had been in his service as a man-at-arms as early as 1474 and whose estates, like Guillemet, lay in the diocese of St Brieuc. Together with his son Giles, de Kermene was part of the ducal bodyguard, suggesting that
the duke had taken the decision to keep the earl close to his own court. The following year, Henry was moved once again to the charge of Jean de Robichen, another member of the ducal ordonnance whose growing importance at court would see him being appointed as keeper of Nantes Castle by 1489.

At the time of Edward IV’s death, Henry was probably living among the duke’s personal bodyguard in Vannes, residing at the duke’s residence of the Château de l’Hermine. It was at Vannes that on 2 February 1483, Henry can be found making an offering of £6 7s 1d at the holy day of the Purification of Our Lady at the cathedral in the town. By now, Francis was increasingly recognising Henry’s value, with the budget for his upkeep being increased from £2,000 between 1481 and 1482 to £2,200 in 1483. In comparison, £607 10s was set aside for Jasper, including £40 for the earl’s personal expenses.

Upon Edward’s death, it seems that Francis no longer felt bound by his promise to the dead king to keep both earls under close guard, allowing both Henry and Jasper the freedom to travel across his dukedom. Two payments among the duke’s accounts record that in the summer of 1483, Guillemin du Boys, described as an ‘archer’, was paid £37 ‘for a horse which we took from him and gave to the lord of Pembroke’. One Germain Gentilhomme was also paid £27 10s ‘for buying two small horses as well as for conducting a stableboy and a palfreyman, sent by us, to serve the lords of Richmond and Pembroke’.

Richard was understandably concerned about this relaxation of these restraints upon a man who, no matter how distant in blood, might just be recognised as retaining a claim to the English crown. He was not going to allow Henry to become a magnet for political dissidents who might seek to flock to Tudor in the hope of dethroning his own fragile monarchy. Already Richard had witnessed Sir Edward Woodville’s escape across the Channel with two ships from the royal fleet and an enormous sum of money; now he was determined that ‘provision was made that the king’s enemies, desirous to disturb all things, might not be able to call home again into England Henry Earl of Richmond’.

On 13 July 1483, eight days after his meeting with Margaret Beaufort and Thomas Stanley, Richard sent his confidential agent, the cleric Thomas Hutton, described as a man of ‘pregnant wit’, to Duke Francis’s
court, where he was ordered ‘by all force of fair words and money’ to secure guarantees from the duke that he would continue to ‘detain the earl in perpetual prison at least’.

Richard’s immediate priority was to ensure that Sir Edward Woodville would not be able to find shelter at the duke’s court. In addition to attempting to resolve the issue of piracy between the two nations, Hutton was instructed to discover ‘the mind and disposition of the duke against Sir Edward Woodville and his retinue, practising by all means to him possible to ensearch and know if there be any intended enterprise out of land upon any part of this realm’. Henry’s name was not specifically mentioned, but Francis’s response, which came around Hutton’s return to England on 26 August, when the duke’s own envoy was given his instructions for negotiation with Richard, made clear that Francis understood who exactly was Richard’s intended target.

Francis knew that he had in his hands an important bargaining tool – he was not prepared to give him up easily. His demands to Richard were little short of blackmail. Despite protesting his friendship in the conventional manner, the duke declared that since Edward IV’s death, the French king Louis XI ‘has several times sent to the duke to pray and request him to deliver to him the lord of Richmond his cousin’. Adding that Louis had already made ‘great offers’, Francis assured Richard that he had ‘given him no inducement, fearing that the said King Louis would thereby create annoyance and injury to some of the friends and well-willers of the duke. In consequence of which the said King Louis gives great menace to the duke of making war upon him, and the appearances are great’. This was to be a prologue to Francis’s demands, and what specifically he wanted from Richard. The new king was about to be given an important lesson in the intransigence of diplomatic negotiations.

Given France’s ‘great power of men of war, artillery and finances’, the duke argued, Brittany would be unable to hold out without England’s support. The consequences of this, Francis suggested, would mean that he would be helpless but to give over Henry to the French king: ‘Whereby of necessity the duke might be compelled to deliver to the said King Louis the said lord of Richmond, and to do other things which he would be very loath for the injury which he knows the
said King Louis would or might inflict upon the king and kingdom of England’.

Of course, Francis indicated, there was an alternative course of action. If Richard was determined to avoid Henry Tudor being sent to France, the duke’s loyalty to his new regime could be bought; but it would come at a significant price. Before his death, Edward IV had sent envoys to Brittany in early 1482, in a final attempt to try and win over possession of Henry; taking with them £3,000 in silver bullion, Edward also made the significant promise of sending 4,000 archers at a month’s notice from Plymouth to serve in Brittany for three months at his own expense. The promise to send archers remained unfulfilled since Francis had chosen to delay requesting the force, but now the duke sought the same promise to be delivered by Richard, this time with even greater demands placed upon the English forces and the king’s finances. ‘In maintaining the amities and treaties heretofore made between the said late King Edward and the duke’, Richard would need to ‘succour the duke against the said King Louis if he commence war against the duke, and send him for part of his succours the number of 4,000 English archers, furnished with good captains and a good chief, and paid for six months at the expense of the said King of England’. This would need to be done within a month of any request being made, and if Francis needed extra support, another two or three thousand archers ‘furnished with good captains’ were to be sent the following month. ‘And so doing the duke will await the fortune of war, such as it shall please God to send him, rather than deliver into the hand of the said King Louis the said lord of Richmond’.

Francis’ demands were hopelessly unrealistic and out of any sensible proportion. Military aid to Brittany on this scale had been agreed before, in 1468, 1472 and 1475, yet only against the backdrop of a triple offensive between Brittany, Burgundy and England against France, with a commitment of a full English invasion of France. Six thousand archers alone would stand little chance of taking on the might of France. To Richard, it must have seemed little more than blackmail, yet at least Francis had shown himself ready to do business. To keep Henry Tudor where he wanted him would come at an enormous cost, but it was a cost worth considering. In the event, the death of Louis XI on 30 August, plunging France into its own internal
troubles with the accession of the eight-year-old Charles VII, for the moment removed any threat of imminent war between France and Brittany. Henry, however, remained a free man. If Richard had hoped to secure his capture or close imprisonment, his failure to do so would prove a costly mistake.

5

REBELLION

I
t was noted at Richard’s coronation that neither the former king Edward nor his younger brother Richard had been present. Instead, both had remained imprisoned in the Tower. The Great Chronicle recorded how they had been spotted ‘shooting and playing in the garden of the Tower by sundry times’. Mancini believed it was after Hastings’ execution that the young king’s attendants had been removed from him. Only his physician John Argentine was allowed to visit Edward, who apparently ‘reported that the young king, like a victim prepared for the sacrifice, sought remission of his sins by daily confession and penance, because he believed that death was facing him’. Both Edward and his brother were then moved into the ‘inner apartments’ of the Tower where they ‘began to be seen more rarely behind the bars and windows’. Soon they ‘ceased to appear altogether’.

According to the Crowland Chronicler, the princes remained in the Tower ‘with a specially appointed guard’. In the south and south-west, he recorded, people began ‘to murmur greatly’, planning how to ‘release them from such captivity’. Secret assemblies were held, though others held conversations openly, ‘especially those people who, because of fear, were scattered throughout franchises and sanctuaries’. No one seemed to know what fate had exactly befallen Edward and his brother, though some began to fear the worst. ‘After his removal from men’s sight’, Mancini had seen ‘many men burst forth into tears and lamentations’ when Edward’s name was mentioned; ‘already there was a suspicion that he had been done away with’. ‘Whether, however, he has been done away with, and by what manner of death, so far I have not at all discovered.’

Meanwhile, shortly after his coronation, Richard felt confident enough to leave the capital to make a progress outside of London, in an attempt not only to increase public recognition of his kingship, but
his own popularity. Through each town he passed he made grants that were designed to please. Gloucester had its liberties confirmed with a new city charter, while at Tewkesbury, the scene of the bloody massacre at the monastery after the battle in 1471, Richard promised to repay a large debt owed by his dead brother Clarence. Dr Thomas Langton, Bishop of St David’s, accompanied Richard, writing in a letter to the prior of Canterbury how the new king ‘contents the people where he goes best that ever did Prince for many a poor man that hath suffered wrong many days have been relieved and helped by him and his commands now in his progress. And in many great cities and towns were great sums of money give to him, which all he hath refused. On my troth, I never liked the conditions of any Prince so well as his. God hath sent him to us for the weal of us all.’ There then follows a faint Latin sentence, which reads: ‘I do not take exception to the fact that his sensuality [
voluptas
] seems to be increasing.’ Langton was later himself a recipient of Richard’s continued generosity; several months later, at Canterbury, he was given a purse filled with £33 6s 8d in gold, six capons and a gold bead.

Still the rumours surrounding the princes’ fate would not go away. The Great Chronicle reported that ‘men feared not openly to say that they were rid out of this world’; nonetheless as to the manner of their deaths, there were ‘many opinions, for some said they were murdered between ii feather beds, some said they were drowned in malmsey and some said that they were stykkid with a venomous poison, but how so ever they were put to death, certain it was that before that day they were departed from this world’. As men grew increasingly nervous that the two young children’s safety was at risk, it seems that an attempt was made to free both the princes from their confinement in the Tower. Evidence for the episode itself is scant, but on 29 July Richard wrote a cryptic letter to his chancellor, declaring how ‘certain persons of such as of late had taken upon them the fact of an enterprise, as we doubt not ye have heard’. What this ‘enterprise’ exactly involved is possibly related by the Elizabethan antiquary John Stow, who claimed to have read indictments that no longer survive, that ‘there were taken for rebels against the king, Robert Russe sergeant of London, William Davy pardoner of Hounslow, John Smith groom of King Edward’s stirrup, and Stephen Ireland, wardrobe of the Tower, with many others’. The accused were
said to have planned ‘to have set fire to divers parts of London, which fire whilst men had been staunching, they would have stolen out of the Tower the Prince Edward and his brother the Duke of York’. Having been tried at Westminster, the men involved were condemned to death, drawn behind horses to Tower Hill and beheaded, with their heads displayed upon spikes at London Bridge. Stow’s account is further given credence by a contemporary French chronicler Basin who believed that in total fifty Londoners had been involved in the attempt and the group had hoped for more, though the city had failed to support the rising.