Bosworth: The Birth of the Tudors (34 page)

These demonstrations of power proved in vain, as even Richard’s own household had begun to make their own individual decisions to leave the king’s side. John Mortimer, an esquire of the king’s body seems to have defected to Henry around February 1485; Peter Curteys, the Keeper of the Wardrobe, who had furnished Richard for his coronation procession, fled into sanctuary at Westminster in May.

Rumours now ‘grew daily’ that Henry and his followers were ‘making haste and speeding up the plans for their invasion of England’. Welsh bards wrote poems, celebrating Henry Tudor’s hoped-for return. According to the poet Robin Dhu, ‘This is the time for our deliverance, the time for our little bull to venture forth … There is a longing for Harry, there is hope for our nation.’ Another poet, Gruffydd ap Dafydd Fychan, looked forward to ‘the youth from Britanny’ defeating ‘the Saxons’. Others believed that the Thames would run red with Saxon blood, a gruesome image taken from Merlin’s prophecy in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s
Historia Regum Britanniae
.

Richard ordered further preparations for the urgent defence of his
kingdom, stockpiling weapons. On 15 March 1485 the constable of the Tower, Sir Robert Brackenbury, was paid £215 7s 5d for money owed to him for performing his duties, including ‘the provision and reparation of our ordnances and artilleries’ there. Fifty bows, a hundred sheaves of arrows, a barrel of gunpowder, fifty armed spears and three carts of ordnance were ordered from the Tower on 29 March for the defence of Harwich. On 12 May a warrant was sent to Calais, requesting two barrels of gunpowder, three hundredweight of lead and two serpentines.

Yet Richard remained uncertain if an invasion would take place, and where exactly Henry planned to land. His spies were unable to provide ‘any certain information’. Richard’s spies were at least correct that events were moving fast at the French court. While the court was at Evereux, news reached Charles VIII that the Duke of Orleans’ rebellion had collapsed. Both Orleans and his ally Dunois had been raising troops in the Duchy of Alençon, but the decision was taken to disband any force gathered. On 23 March reconciliation took place between the Beaujeu government and Orleans. Almost overnight, France’s preoccupations shifted from their own internal problems to the threat of a hostile invasion from the alliance between Brittany, Richard and Maximilian. Finally, France was ready to embrace Henry Tudor’s cause for the sake of distracting England from attempting any hostile actions against them.

Still the French continued their charade that their pretender had a direct right to the English crown. When the court returned to Rouen, Charles VIII ordered that Henry should be treated as a prince of the blood in all public ceremonies. In the surviving accounts of Charles VIII’s official entry into the city on 14 April, there is clear evidence of Henry’s royal pretensions as dictated by the French king: Henry was described in the record as ‘The Count of Richemont, they say the King of England’.

The royal ceremonies performed at the French court must have had a profound effect upon Henry, who observed as he rode into Rouen several pageants that had been deliberately organised on the roadside. Each had been crafted to express the hope and expectation that the young king Charles VIII brought to the realm, above all stressing his divine rights and authority as king to rule. One featured the anointing
of Solomon, the king being played by a ‘handsome and fair-haired boy representing our sovereign’, who was wearing an azure robe decorated with sparkling fleurs-de-lis. Further along, another pageant again featured a young boy, this time appearing dressed as Constantine, both before and after his conversion to Christianity, with the transformation being represented by an official crowning, with his fleur-de-lis surcoat being changed for the dress of a crusader. For the first time, he experienced at first hand the hypnotic aura of the majesty and royal authority to which he himself aspired.

As preparations began to equip a fleet intended for his invasion at Harfleur in the mouth of the Seine, Henry was treated as if he were a king in exile. Two weeks later, when Henry attended the cathedral at Rouen on 28 April, walking beside members of the French royal family, he was styled ‘princeps Anglie’, though the clearest indication of Henry’s new-found authority as a prince of royal blood came in the official order of the procession marking the feast of the Ascension on 12 May, where Henry, again being given the rank of ‘princeps Anglie’, walked behind the three French princes of the blood, the Dukes of Orleans, Bourbon and Lorraine.

The week before, Charles VIII had called upon the French equivalent of Parliament, the Estates, for further financial assistance for Henry Tudor’s projected invasion. Since the previous meeting of the Estates, Charles stated, there had ‘come to us our dear and beloved cousin the Count of Richmond, requiring help to recover the Kingdom of England which belongs to him, and whom in consideration of the close lineage we have in common, also considering that he is of all the people in the world the one with the most apparent claim to the throne of England, we have funded his and his people’s stay for as long as he should remain here, do favour him in his deeds and businesses: that funding to our cousin and his people will reach great sums of money’. Still, with France remaining committed to supporting the Flemish towns against the might of Archduke Maximilian’s onslaught, money remained tight. Yet within weeks the French army sent to Flanders found itself on the back foot; in June Maximilian had taken Bruges, with Ghent falling in July. It would be this collapse of French ambitions in Flanders, combined with the threat of an invasion by the English, that saw Charles VIII issuing orders on 25 June to mobilise forces against a possible
Anglo-Breton attack and finally pushed the French government into giving their unequivocal support to Henry Tudor.

During the spring of 1485, either out of respect or in mourning for the late queen, Richard chose to remain a recluse, hiding away at his court and shunning official ceremonies such as the annual Garter feast at St George’s chapel on 23 April, preferring instead to send Lord Maltravers in his place. On 12 May, on the feast of the Ascension, Richard silently departed the capital for Windsor, before making his way to Kenilworth Castle in Warwickshire. On the evening of Wednesday 2 June, on the eve of the feast day of Corpus Christi, Richard chose to make a personal excursion, riding out together with his entourage to Coventry, where he had chosen to watch the Corpus Christi celebrations in the city.

The previous year Richard had attended the Corpus Christi celebrations at York. He must have mused upon what a difference a year had made. Then his wife and queen had been by his side. Now he was alone. Watching the celebrations, he would have seen the host being carried in its monstrance through Coventry’s streets, followed by burning torches and incense, the ringing of the sanctus bell, and the priest walking beneath a canopy of rich cloth, robed in a cope, his arms and shoulders veiled. Pausing at certain ‘stations’ along the route, so that the bearers of the host could rest, dramatic interludes were performed; Coventry would later become celebrated for its own pageants, comprising at least ten plays, including the Shearmen and Tailors’ pageant, and a nativity play that included a portrayal of the Massacre of the Innocents. Watching these, perhaps the king mused on the irony of the fates of his own ‘innocents’, the sons of Edward IV, about whose mysterious disappearance Richard remained tight-lipped, refusing to acknowledge their fates.

Richard had returned to Kenilworth by Monday 6 June, but three days later he had decided to ride northwards to his castle at Nottingham. The formidable fortress, built on an impregnable natural sandstone outcrop riddled with secret tunnels, dominated its surroundings with a view that stretched across to the distant horizon. It was a favourite residence of the Yorkists: between 1476 and 1480 Edward had spent over £3,000 on the castle, improving its living quarters with a new
tower. In 1474 Richard Patyn had been commissioned to arrange the carriage of artillery to the castle, for which he was paid 4d a day for its custody. Richard had made alterations to the great tower, adding a timber loft with bow windows to make it, in the Tudor antiquary John Leland’s words, ‘the most beautiful part and gallant building for lodging’. Richard had last been here the previous summer, with his wife, when they had received news of his son’s death. Tradition records that Richard referred to the castle as his ‘castle of care’, perhaps in reference to the solace he found there recovering from the traumatic news of the death of his heir. Now he returned to prepare for war.

Rumours had been ‘increasing daily that those who were in arms against the king were hastening to make a descent upon England’. Yet despite the best efforts of his network of spies on the Continent, Richard still did not know at which port Henry might attempt to land. Prophesies and rumours suggested that Henry would land at ‘Milford’, but since Richard could not be certain whether this meant in Wales or at the port on the south coast, Lord Lovell was sent to Southampton to refit the royal fleet ‘with all possible speed’ and keep a ‘strict watch upon all the harbours in those parts … if the enemy should attempt to effect a landing there, he might unite all the forces in the neighbourhood, and not lose the opportunity of attacking them’. Richard’s decision to withdraw to Nottingham, into the centre of his kingdom, must be seen in the context of the prevailing uncertainty of where Henry’s invasion might materialise. Like a spider in the middle of its web, Richard intended to be ready to subsume his rival, no matter in which corner of the realm he might attack.

Though Henry’s invasion plan remained far from certain, Richard was taking no chances. The entire country would need to be placed on a war footing. It was at Nottingham Castle that on 21 June Richard signed a warrant for a second proclamation against Henry, to be issued two days later. The text remained mostly unchanged from the proclamation he had issued in late 1484, with the exception that Thomas, Marquess of Dorset’s name had been removed, a clear sign that Richard remained committed to reconciliation with the Woodvilles. Still present were the charges that Henry was receiving French backing, and intended in return to give up the English claims to the French kingdom, but instead of briefly mentioning Henry as he had previously
done as being ‘late Earl of Richmond’, Richard launched a full attack on his rival’s parentage and legitimacy, claiming he was a man sprung from an illegitimate bed:

The theme of destruction also took on a greater sense of urgency than before, with Richard intent to emphasise that no one would escape the retribution that would take place if Henry’s invasion were successful. No man, he claimed, would be spared:

Richard ended the proclamation by commanding that ‘all his said subjects to be ready in their most defensible array to do his Highness’ service of war, when there be open proclamation, or otherwise shall be commanded so to do, for the resistance of the King’s said rebels, traitors and enemies’. That came the following day, 22 June, when Richard took the decision to reissue the Commissions of Array that he had sent out the previous December. This time, however, a sense of urgency ran through his letter to the commissioners sent out from his castle at Nottingham. ‘Forasmuch as certain information is made unto us,’ he wrote to the commissioners, ‘that our Rebels and traitors associated with our ancient enemies of France and other strangers intend hastily to invade this our Realm purposing the destruction of us, the subversion of this our Realm and disinheriting of all our true subjects.’ They were to muster their soldiers ‘in all haste possible’ after receiving the
letter, ‘according to our instructions which we send unto you at this time with these our letters. And that this be done with all diligence’: