Jasper (29 page)

‘We cannot do this without your support.’ Jasper looked at the men flanking Rhys ap Thomas and saw
he had
their full attention. ‘We are descended from the true princes of Wales. Henry marches under the red dragon of Cadwallader and they call him
Y Mab Darogan
, the son of prophecy. Your grandfather, Gruffydd ap Nicholas, fought and died at Mortimer’s Cross,’ he glanced at David Owen, ‘at the side of our father, Owen Tudor. How proud would they have been to know their deaths were not in vain, that one day Welshmen would defeat the English and claim the throne?’

Rhys ap Thomas looked back at him, unblinking and impossible to read. ‘A fine speech, Sir Jasper, but I must remind you the stakes could not be higher. King Richard is rallying a great army of thousands in the north. If I follow Henry Tudor he must win, for if he loses, I will surely lose my head.’

Jasper had one more ace up his sleeve but if it failed to win Rhys ap Thomas over all would be lost. He took a deep breath. ‘I bring you Henry Tudor’s offer of the position of Chamberlain of South Wales, with a pension for life and a knighthood, in return for your loyal support.’

The great hall fell silent again as Rhys ap Thomas considered Jasper’s offer. With a glance at the men on either side of him, he called for another jug of ale. They waited while a servant filled a pewter cup with ale in front of each of them, then Rhys ap Thomas raised his cup in the air.

‘We are with you,’ he drank then raised his cup a second time. ‘To victory, for Wales!’

Henry’s men cheered when they saw Rhys ap Thomas ride into their camp at Long Mountain, outside the town of Welshpool, flanked by Jasper and David Owen. The black raven standard flew at the front of an army of over nearly two thousand men, the bright sunshine glinting from their weapons and armour, the finest soldiers in Wales.

Henry rode forward to greet them. A fine silver helmet replaced his black hat and a new breastplate gleamed on his chest, a dark riding cape flowing in the breeze behind him.

‘Praise God, we have doubled our numbers on the march through Wales, and now have an army worthy of the name.’

Jasper felt a surge of pride at what he’d accomplished, despite suspecting Rhys ap Thomas intended to support them all along. ‘Where now, Henry? What news is there of our enemy?’

‘Richard’s army is on the move. We’ll take the old road and cross the River Severn at Shrewsbury. Now we can no longer keep our presence secret I’ve sent word to my stepfather,
Lord Thomas Stanley, and to my mother.
’

‘Do you think Lord Stanley will join us?’

‘In truth, I doubt it. He has five thousand men, but I believe he will not fight against us.’

Jasper made a calculation. Including the men who followed Rhys ap Thomas, Henry must have around four or five thousand soldiers. If Lord Stanley had five thousand, Richard would surely have double that, perhaps fifteen thousand or more. They would be outnumbered more than two or even three to one, even with the new men arriving every day. Henry was still talking but he wasn’t listening, his mind numbed by the scale of the challenge they faced.

He had allowed himself to believe they had a fighting chance. The truth hit him like a splash of cold water in the face. It would take a miracle. They had come too far to turn back. Their ships had sailed and the consequences of losing too dreadful to contemplate. They could not rely on Lord Thomas Stanley to stand by, he must join them for Henry to have any chance of victory.

Jasper leaned back in his saddle and muttered encouragement to steady his horse. Flanked by David Owen and Gabriel, he closed his eyes for a moment and said a prayer, not for himself but for Henry. He felt strangely calm for someone facing death. All his worries slipped away with the certainty that, one way or another, he would meet his destiny at last.

He opened his eyes again. He had never seen so many men so still, so silent, as on that morning, on a broad field south of the market town of Bosworth, in Leicestershire, bordered by the River Tweed.
Sir John de Vere, chosen as commander, had persuaded Henry to form his army in a wide line, archers to the front. Jasper glanced across at Henry, who decided to remain on foot with his guards.

He remembered the words of Marcus Aurelius:
The twining strands of fate weave together our existence and the things that happen to us
. He’d had enough of running, and Henry was old enough to be his own man, make his own decisions. If it was his destiny to die in this summer meadow, then so be it. He fastened the thick leather strap under his helmet and pulled it tight, then pulled on the black leather gloves he’d chosen instead of steel gauntlets, in deference to the heat.

Across the field the deadly ranks of King Richard’s army shimmered with a dreamlike quality in the sunshine. Jasper shielded his eyes with his hand and made out Richard’s standard bearer, with the long pennant of the white boar. Richard could not be far away. He glanced across at Henry’s standard, the red dragon of Cadwallader, carried by William Brandon, surrounded by loyal Lancastrian mounted knights.

With a shout, Sir John de Vere committed them to battle. The air filled with arrows, spurring the enemy into action, as they returned an equally devastating volley and closed the ground between them with alarming speed. The clash of steel and cries of wounded and dying men brought deeply buried memories back for Jasper and he drew his sword. The blade flashed in the sun as he held it high, the signal for the next wave of men to attack.

His horse spooked at the sudden boom of their cannon and he stroked its withers to calm it as he watched the shot blast deep into the enemy ranks. Men fell dead without even knowing what hit them, the price of the deadly new warfare. For some reason the enemy cannons failed to reply and Henry’s men pressed forward to exploit their small advantage.

From his position at the rear of the battlefield Jasper could see they were outnumbered by more than two to one. He scanned the horizon in vain for Lord Stanley’s men, their only hope of salvation. The ground under him vibrated then his ears rang with the booming thunder of Richard’s guns. With a jolt he realised they had been holding their fire until Sir John de Vere’s vanguard was at close range.

Cannonballs cut swathes through the ranks of Henry’s mercenaries, killing and maiming in an instant. Men cried out and one gave a blood-curdling scream but the ranks closed and continued to press forward as if nothing had happened. The sun, which had been behind their enemy, moved overhead and the savage, hand-to-hand fighting ebbed and flowed like a tide as fighting men gained ground then lost it as others pressed forward.

Jasper felt a hand on his shoulder and tore his gaze from the carnage. Gabriel wore a sallet helmet with a guard that covered most of his face, causing him to shout over the noise of the battle.

‘They’re routed, sir!’

Jasper stared into the melee. Gabriel was right. The enemy vanguard parted, split in half to let them charge through. ‘Is it a trap?’

‘No, sir. Look!’ Gabriel pointed with his sword.

Jasper saw Richard’s men deserting, some being cut down by their own side, while others dropped their weapons or stood aside. Unlike Henry’s loyal Welshmen and mercenary soldiers, Richard’s army would be mostly working men, northerners, with little training, and now it seemed he would pay the price.

‘Praise God, Gabriel! There is hope for us yet!’

David Owen yelled a warning, pointing to a figure on a white horse fighting savagely through the knights around Henry’s standard, slashing with a broadsword onto the head of Henry’s standard bearer. The flowing banner fell as William Brandon died without letting go of it to defend himself.

The swordsman unhorsed one knight and thrust at another before looking directly at Jasper. The brave knight was close enough for him to see the gold circlet on his helmet. It must be King Richard, fearlessly taking the battle into his own hands, and he was heading towards Henry.

Jasper called out the order they had planned for such an emergency. ‘Pikemen, take position!’

The hand-picked Frenchmen formed a circle around Henry, their long sharpened pikes linked in an impenetrable forest. Henry drew his sword, and stood ready, his face pale and his lips moving in silent prayer as the rider on the white horse closed the ground between them.

Then with pounding hooves, and a fierce battle cry, came the men carrying the banner of the black raven. The mounted men-at-arms of Rhys ap Thomas surrounded the usurper king. Richard raised his sword defiantly, refusing to surrender, and charged the man nearest to him, hacking without mercy at the man’s head. On a shouted command from Rhys ap Thomas, the Welshmen cut him down with swords and axes, showing such savagery Jasper felt a sudden shock of pity.

King Richard lay dead, his body twisted and bleeding, while the Welshmen cheered at their easy victory. Jasper heard a distant roar and looked away across the battlefield in time to see Lord Stanley’s men swarming from the hills, driving Richard’s routed army back the way they came. Incredibly, the tide of the battle had turned.

‘We’ve done it.’ He spoke to himself, his voice low and choked with emotion. My God, we’ve done it!’

The fighting stopped as suddenly as it started, the yells and clashing steel replaced by an unexpected, unnerving silence as they surveyed the field of dead and dying men. Jasper loosened the strap on his helmet and pulled it from his head, letting it fall to the ground with a hollow thud.

One of the men near to Henry called out. ‘God save the King! God save King Henry!’

Jasper joined in with a thousand others, tears of relief streaming down his face, raising his sword high in the air and shouting at the top of his voice.

‘God save King Henry! God save King Henry!’

The skyline of the picturesque seaside town of Tenby in Pembrokeshire, Wales, close to where I live, is dominated by the towering spire of St Mary’s church. Inside, close to the altar, lie the effigy tombs of Thomas White and his son John, both Mayors of Tenby, who helped Jasper Tudor fund the raising of the town walls ‘to the height of a man’. Thomas White later hid his friend Jasper and the young Henry Tudor in his cellar and enabled their escape to Brittany through secret tunnels under his house.

As part of the research for this book I was shown the cellars and tunnels by the manager of Boots the Chemist in Tenby, which now occupies the site. Reassured to learn there are no rats living down there, we started in the extensive basement cellars, now used as store-rooms by Boots, and it’s easy to see how Jasper and Henry could have remained out of sight for as long as they needed to.

As we entered the tunnels, deep under the street, we were plunged into darkness and had to rely on torches. I saw the roof of the tunnel closest to the entrance had been rebuilt with bricks, and the remains of a fireplace, complete with chimney. This seemed an odd luxury to have in a tunnel and could be further evidence for its use to hide people who might need a fire for warmth.

Further down the tunnel the roof was roughly hewn through bedrock, with several other exits bricked up. This looked to have been done centuries ago, as there was calcification of the surface, which takes a long time to form. After emerging back into the winter sun of Tenby I went to pay my respects to Thomas White. Visiting the church and looking into his sculpted face reminds me he was a real person, who left his mark on the town and helped change the history of Britain.

Jasper Tudor doesn’t seem more than five centuries away as I walk in his footsteps from the church in the high street, down the same narrow lane with uneven stone steps. I pass the timber-framed Tudor merchant’s house, now a Tudor museum, and see men preparing their boats in the sheltered harbour. It was from here that Jasper and Henry sailed into their long exile, to return to claim the English throne.

Two years of research led into this book, so the names, dates and locations are based on the best sources I could find. Only the characters of Gabriel and Máiréad are fictitious. Gabriel represents the loyal servants, whose names are lost to history, who shared Jasper’s life, risking their own by riding with him into battle. Duke Francis of Brittany knew what he was doing when he sent Jasper’s servants away and replaced them with his own.

Máiréad is intended to represent the possible relationship Jasper might have had before the siege of Bamburgh Castle. Some writers suggest he was infatuated with his brother’s widow, Lady Margaret Beaufort, although the only evidence I found is of their shared concern for Henry’s welfare during such dangerous and troubled times. It’s also suggested that Jasper had an illegitimate daughter, named Ellen or Joan with a woman named Mevanvy ferch Daffydd from Gwynedd in Wales, although I’ve yet to see convincing evidence.

Thank you for reading this book, which I hope you enjoyed as much as I did writing it. Please consider writing a short review on the site where you purchased my novel and sharing it with your social networks. It would mean a lot to me. To find out about my other books and new releases please visit my blog at
www.tonyriches.co.uk

Tony Riches

Pembrokeshire 2016