Bosworth: The Birth of the Tudors (42 page)

Important clues are also to be found in Polydore Vergil’s manuscript history. It was, Vergil notes, on the same day that Henry arrived at the gates of Shrewsbury, that Christopher Urswick returned ‘laden with money’ from ‘the individuals to whom he had been sent’. Urswick was also to inform Henry that ‘all was safe with his friends’, and that they ‘were prepared to do their duty at the right time’.

It must have been Stanley’s influence that had caused the gates of Shrewsbury to be lifted to Henry. The ballad traditions, which must be treated with caution given their origin within the Stanley household and the subsequent degree of importance they place upon the Stanley involvement in Henry’s enterprise, provide a detailed insight into the nature of that influence. The ‘Ballad of Lady Bessie’ records that it was Sir William Stanley, rather than Thomas Stanley, who had sent his messenger Rowland Warburton to Shrewsbury, together with letters signed by his own hand, ordering that the citizens there admit Henry and his army. When Warburton arrived, he found the portcullis down and the citizens and bailiffs ‘in full great scorn’ refusing to allow anyone inside the city, especially Henry who they claimed ‘in England he should wear no crown’. Only when Warburton decided to tie Sir William Stanley’s instructions to a stone and threw it over the city walls, asking that the bailiffs read them, did the town open its gates and allow Henry’s troops to proceed through its streets, though the ballad states that Henry did not stay overnight there, hearing that Richard was preparing his forces. Another ballad, ‘The Rose of England’, indicated that through a garret on the city walls, Thomas Mitton had shouted out: ‘At these gates no man enter shall’, and kept Henry waiting outside the town for the night and the following day, until letters arrived from Sir William
Stanley, whereupon ‘the gates were opened presently’. The ballad adds the additional flourish that when the troops entered the town, the Earl of Oxford was so furious at Mitton’s initial refusal to open the gates that he threatened to cut his head off with his sword, being only prevented from doing so by Henry, who suggested that ‘if we begin to head so soon, in England we shall bear no degree’.

With the town’s gates finally opened, Henry and his troops were led through Shrewsbury escorted by the bailiffs, with Henry riding in the middle of the columns of his forces. The ‘Life of Rhys ap Thomas’ recorded that Henry was received with a hero’s welcome, ‘the streets being strewed with herbs and flowers, and their doors adorned with green boughs, in testimony of a true hearty reception’. Clearly the town’s citizens felt that they had much ground to make up after their initial frosty refusal to admit the earl: the bailiff accounts for the town, signed off by Thomas Mitton and Roger Knight, record that £4 4s 10d was ‘paid for divers costs incurred by the town at the time of the coming of King Henry VII against King Richard, and for wages of divers soldiers hired by the king himself’.

10

SECRET FRIENDS

S
ince his discovery of Henry’s landing in Wales, Richard had remained calm, confident that he would be able to deal with the invasion. When reports had reached him that Henry was ‘utterly unfurnished and feeble in all things’, the king believed that Henry had ‘proceeded rashly, considering his small company’ and would ‘surely have an evil end’. Lord Strange’s arrest, bringing with it news of a plot involving Sir William Stanley, had left him unsettled, but still Richard was prepared to wait at Nottingham. He decided to delay his departure from the city until Tuesday 16 August, since the Monday was the religious festival of the Assumption of the Virgin, a public holiday that had special significance in Nottingham, where the borough church had been dedicated to the Virgin Mary. When Tuesday arrived, however, Richard had still not made up his mind to leave, and instead returned to his hunting lodge at Bestwood where he stayed the night.

Richard remained at Bestwood for the rest of the next day. It was here that the king was greeted by two men, John Sponer, the sergeant of the mace of the city of York, and another messenger, John Nicholson. They had ridden through the night for an audience with him, having been sent by the mayor and citizens of York, who had met the previous morning in their council chamber, having heard the news that the king’s rebels, led by Henry Tudor, had landed. Yet, somewhat alarmingly, the citizens had still not received any instructions from the king to assemble an armed force. That summer the plague had raged though the city, and they were understandably anxious as to what demands needed to be placed upon them. ‘It was determined,’ the recorder of the minutes of the meeting wrote, ‘that John Sponer … should ride to Nottingham to the king’s grace to understand his pleasure as in sending up any of his subjects within this city to his said grace for the subduing
of his enemies late arrived in the parties of Wales.’ Meanwhile, the city had sent out proclamations of their own, ordering that every citizen should be ‘ready in their most defensible array to attend upon the mayor, for the welfare of this City, within an hour’s warning, upon pain of imprisonment’.

Hearing this news related to him in his chamber at Bestwood by the two messengers, Richard must have been puzzled. Commissions of array had already been ordered to muster in preparation. Letters had been sent out to commissioners ordering them to prepare their forces: for York, the Earl of Northumberland, as commissioner for the East Riding, should have given them warning. If Richard mused on the reasons why the earl had not yet sent out summonses to York, he kept his thoughts to himself. He thanked Sponer and Nicholson for the city’s loyalty, asking them to inform the mayor that he would require 400 men to be sent to him as soon as possible. John Nicholson immediately set off to return to York with the king’s message, while John Sponer chose to remain in Richard’s household, accompanying him back to Nottingham.

When Richard returned to the city, the king was greeted by further bad news. Henry Tudor had managed to enter Shrewsbury and cross the Severn. Richard was overwhelmed with anger. ‘Suffering no inconvenience’, his confident mask began to peel. ‘He began to burn with chagrin’, one chronicler wrote, railing at those he had trusted, no doubt men such as Rhys ap Thomas, whom he believed had broken their oaths. How had Henry’s march been able to progress through Wales and into Shrewsbury unchallenged? Threatening retribution, according to one ballad he promised to kill any Lancashire knight or squire ‘from the town of Lancaster to Shrewsbury’, leaving ‘none alive’. He was equally furious that Wales had succumbed to Tudor’s march, pledging to lay waste ‘from the holy-head to St David’s Land / where now be towers & castles high’, reducing them to ‘parks & plain fields’. In singling out men from Lancashire in his outburst, Richard must have suspected that Henry’s success in entering Shrewsbury had been aided by Stanley support. He had already condemned Sir William Stanley as a traitor, but Thomas Stanley’s suspected treachery was more difficult to prove: while Lord Strange remained in his custody, Richard calculated, Stanley could hardly gamble with own his son’s life.

For now, it was clear to Richard that he would have to confront Henry as soon as he possibly could. In order to ‘espy what route’ Henry’s forces were taking, he sent out his own men, known commonly as ‘scurriers’, to track the oncoming march of his enemy. In the records of the borough of Nottingham, there is reference to Thomas Hall being paid 6s 8d ‘by the Mayor’s commandment’ on Thursday 18 August, ‘riding forth to aspye for the town before the field’. Slowly, the city was filling with thousands of armed men as the commissions of array creaked into action, the Crowland chronicler remarking that ‘there was a greater number of fighting men than there had ever been seen before, on one side, in England’. As soon as Richard could discover what his enemy’s next moves were, he would be ready to face him in battle.

Once news of Henry’s progress through Wales and his intended destination through Shrewsbury had reached Thomas Stanley at his castle at Lathom, he decided to mobilise his own forces. Leaving Lathom Castle with his retinue, Thomas Stanley intended to keep a separate course from his brother William: if his brother had been condemned as a traitor by Richard at Coventry, Stanley’s caution was understandable. He could hardly have been prepared to jeopardise his son’s life by openly joining forces with his brother.

According to the ‘Ballad of Lady Bessie’, Thomas Stanley set out from Lathom on Monday 15 August, travelling through Warrington where he was joined by other retainers, both knights and squires who had assembled with ‘their banners in the sun glittering’, before heading for Newcastle under Lyme. There exists an undated letter from Stanley, requesting James Scarisbrick to meet him with twenty-four horsemen at Warrington to ride with him to London.

Meanwhile Sir William Stanley rode from Holt, just thirty miles to the north of Shrewsbury, to Nantwich, where he met ‘all the North Wales for the most part, the flower of Cheshire, with him he did bring’. Richard had issued a commission to all the knights and gentlemen of Chester on 13 January 1485 signalling that he had granted Lord Stanley, Lord Strange and Sir William Stanley ‘to have the rule and leading of all persons appointed to do the king service when they be warned against the king’s rebels … and if any rebels arrive in those parts that then all the power that they can make be ready to assist the said lords
and knight’. Sir William had been given the power to muster their entire county, ordering that its men obey his every command; now Stanley took the opportunity to raise the forces against Richard. Henry himself would later acknowledge the ‘good and faithful service’ that the sheriffs at Chester, John Norys and Hugh Hurleton, together with ‘other of the said city’, had committed to his cause. According to the ballad, on Tuesday morning 16 August, Sir William continued his journey from Nantwich to Stone.

Henry’s hopes had been ‘raised’ by the news that the Stanleys intended to come to his aid. Just as welcome was the additional funds he had been given, with Christopher Urswick returning to his camp ‘laden with money which he had received from the individuals to whom he had been sent’. Departing Shrewsbury, Henry and his army crossed over the Severn at the town’s Welsh bridge, making the journey to Newport, where he pitched camp on the nearest hill for the night.

Already his army had benefited from some significant recruits over the past few days. In addition to the 1,500 men brought by Sir Rhys ap Thomas, a large number of gentry from nearby surrounding counties had begun to join Henry’s standard. Sir Richard Corbet, whose stepfather was Sir William Stanley, had led a force of 800 men from Shropshire. Thomas Croft, a former Yorkist who had been brought up with Edward IV, arrived from Herefordshire; from Worcestershire, John Hanley, a former servant of the Duke of Clarence, while in Gloucestershire, Robert Pointz had set out to join the army. There was further good news when that same evening after they had passed through Shrewsbury, as Henry’s camp settled down for the night outside Newport, Gilbert Talbot came to him in the evening ‘with 500 and more armed men’.

An uncle of the young Earl of Shrewsbury, Talbot also commanded significant influence among the Shropshire gentry. Talbot’s defection had not come as a surprise; he had been in contact with Henry in exile since 1484, but it is likely that he brought with him news of the Stanleys’ initial movements. It is perhaps for this reason that the following morning, Friday 19 August, Henry advanced his army northwards to Stafford, where it had been arranged for him to meet Sir William Stanley, who had ridden from Stone for the meeting. Polydore Vergil is tantalisingly brief about the nature of the discussions between Sir William
and Henry, observing only that ‘while he stayed in that district, William Stanley came to him with a few companions, had a brief discussion with him, and returned to his soldiers whom he had collected.’

What exact words were spoken between Henry and Sir William, or what agreement may have been reached, is unknown. Without Thomas, Lord Stanley’s tacit approval, William must have remained circumspect as to the precise support the Stanley family could promise Henry, although William himself, free from any restraint, could easily have committed himself to his cause. According to the ballads originating from the Stanley household, when Sir William arrived in Henry’s presence he knelt in front of him, and taking Henry by the hand, said: ‘I am full glad of thee. Through the help of my Lord thy brother & thee, I trust in England to continue King’. The poem places the following words in the mouth of Sir William:

After the meeting, Stanley returned to Stone ‘by light of the day’. Stanley was not prepared to compromise his brother by joining forces with Henry quite yet; nevertheless it is significant that, after his meeting with Sir William Stanley at Stafford, Henry changed the direction of his march, deciding to move in a south-easterly direction to Lichfield and on towards Watling Street. Once he joined the Roman road, he would be able to make swift progress into the capital, where he might proclaim himself as king, leaving Richard stranded at Nottingham. Henry arrived at Lichfield that evening, deciding to remain outside the city overnight. His entry into Lichfield early the following morning of Saturday 20 August must have given him confidence that his plan to aim for London would be possible: the ‘Ballad of Bosworth Field’ paints a picture of joyous crowds, ‘both old and young’ crowding together to watch Henry’s army pass into the city over Woosley bridge,
so that they might ‘had they a sight of our King’. Meanwhile, guns ‘cracken on high’ in what was ‘a goodly sight to see’. Polydore Vergil wrote in his history that Henry had been ‘received honourably’ by the city’s inhabitants, though in his original manuscript he was clearer as to what had taken place, describing how Henry, upon entering the town, had been ‘received by the clergy as King, with entreaties’. If some kind of unofficial ceremony had taken place, recognising Henry as king, it was a significant moment.