Margaret Beaufort: Mother of the Tudor Dynasty (13 page)
My good king, I have now sent a servant of mine into Kendall, to receive such annuities as be yet hanging upon the account of Sir William Wall, my lord’s chaplain, whom I have clearly discharged; and if it will please your majesty’s own heart, at your leisure, to send me a letter, and command me that I suffer none of my tenants be retained with no man, but that they be kept for my lord of York, your fair sweet son, for whom they be most meet, it shall be a good excuse for me to my lord and husband; and then I may well, and without displeasure, cause them all to be sworn, the which shall not after be long undone.
By asking for Henry to give royal authority to what was, in fact, her personal wish, it is at least possible that Margaret acted to spare her husband’s feelings, as he would not have been aware that his wife was acting alone in defiance of him. The couple were happy to live largely separate lives in their last few years, and this suggests that there was no great passion in their relationship. However, there is no evidence of an estrangement, and the fact that they were often associated with each other suggests that they were fond of each other and that some affection developed in the marriage.
It is therefore likely that Margaret found some contentment with Stanley during the early years of their marriage. As Edward IV’s reign progressed, Stanley was shown greater trust and given more authority by the King, and both he and Margaret were frequently at court. In 1475, Stanley accompanied Edward IV on his invasion of France, and he was one of the lords selected to negotiate a peace treaty with Louis XI. In 1482, he was also chosen to assist the King’s youngest brother, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, in an invasion of Scotland. This proved to be a largely unsuccessful campaign, and it was Stanley who provided the only glimpse of success, capturing Berwick with a force of 4,000 men. It was later suggested by the Elizabethan poet Robert Glover that this success led to some jealousy between Stanley and the King’s brother, and he claimed that, when the pair quarrelled, Stanley responded by capturing the duke’s standard. Whether this actually occurred can no longer be verified, but it does provide a hint of earlier tension between Stanley and Gloucester, which may account for something of the conduct of the two men towards each other after Edward IV’s death.
Another motivation for Margaret in her choice of Stanley may have been her hope that, through becoming reconciled with Edward IV herself, she could secure Henry Tudor’s return to England. Jasper and Henry had intended to travel to France when they sailed from Tenby in 1471, where, due to their descent from Catherine of Valois, they could claim kinship with the French king, Louis XI. Unfortunately, the weather was against them, and they were forced to land in Brittany, an independent duchy ruled by Duke Francis II. Henry later told the chronicler Philip de Comines that ‘he had endured an imprisonment of fifteen years or thereabouts in Bretagne, by the command of the late Duke Francis, into whose hands he fell by extremity of weather’. According to Polydore Vergil, as soon as the pair had landed, Jasper went to Francis II and submitted both himself and Henry to the duke’s protection. They received a favourable response, and ‘the duke receavyd them willingly, and with suche honor, curtesy, and favor intertaynyd them as thowgh they had bene his broothers, promysing them uppon his honor that within his domynyon they showld be from thenceforth far from injury and passe and ther pleasure to and fro withowt danger’. This was encouraging for the pair, and Comines, who was at the Breton court at the time of their arrival, also confirmed that ‘the duke treated them very handsomely for prisoners’. Whilst Francis II attempted to keep his ‘guests’ content and entertained them well, it was soon apparent to both Jasper and Henry that they were, as Comines asserted, prisoners, and Francis had no intention of allowing the pair to leave Brittany.
In spite of the violent manner in which he had come to the throne, Edward IV was always a remarkably popular figure in England, and as the sixteenth-century historian Thomas More related,
At such time as he died, the displeasure of those that bore him grudges – for King Henry’s sake (the sixth), whom he deposed – was wel assuaged, and in effect quenched, in that mony of them were dead in more than twenty years of his reign, and a great part of a long life. And many of them in the mean season grown unto his favour, of which he was never strange.
With Henry VI and his son’s deaths, the Lancastrian cause in England seemed to be dead, and most prominent Lancastrians, including Margaret Beaufort, were prepared to accept the Yorkist king. The idea of a Lancastrian revival with Henry Tudor at its head in 1471 would have seemed laughable, and whilst, by strict heredity, Margaret and her son were the heirs to the House of Lancaster if the legitimation of the Beauforts was considered valid, in reality, they were so far from the main Lancastrian line and Henry such an obscure figure that it is doubtful that he could have mustered any Lancastrian support for an attempt on the crown. Henry and Jasper’s value as prisoners was therefore limited in 1471, but as prominent Lancastrians and rivals to Edward IV, even ignoring Henry’s potential claim to the throne, they were of some interest. Louis XI, who was always anxious for a means to attack Edward IV, demanded that Francis II hand the two Tudors over to him, declaring that Jasper, who he had taken into his household during the 1460s and was his cousin, should be returned to France. After strenuous efforts, all of which were ignored, Louis finally demanded that, at the very least, Francis keep the pair under guard to ensure that Edward IV did not kidnap them.
Edward was also anxious that the pair be kept under guard if he, like Louis, could not secure their extradition. According to Polydore Vergil, after 1471, Edward felt secure on his throne,
but yeat because he might have soomwhat to think uppon, and that he showld not lyve altogethers in perfyte securytie, he had intelligence at the same time that therles of Pembrowgh and Richemond were transportyd into Bryteyn, and of the duke ther curtesly receavyd and intertaynd; which matter indede he tooke very grevously, and thowgh hys mynd gave him that soome evell wold coome therby, which to prevent he sent in all hast secret messengers to the duke, promysing to geave great rewardes so that he wold make delyvey of both therles. The duke herd wilingly king Edwardes ambassage, and whan he understoode that therles were so riche a pray he determynyd not to let them go, but to kepe them more warely than befoor, making awnswer to thambassadors that he might not delyver them to the king, bye reason of his promyse and fydelyte geaven to the contrary; but he wold for his cause kepe them so sure as ther should be none occasion for him to suspect that they should ever procure his harme any maner of way.
Edward was forced to be content with the duke’s promise to keep the two men as prisoners, and in order to ensure that Francis complied, he sent him gifts of money and promises of aid against the aggression of France. Jasper and Henry do not appear to have been mistreated in Brittany, but they were certainly made aware that they were not permitted to leave. Francis kept the pair separately and removed their English servants from them, instead permitting them contact only with Bretons of his own choosing.
Whilst, in 1471, Edward had to settle for this promise, in 1475, when he finally made peace with France, he was once again able to put pressure on the duke, throwing up the possibility of an aggressive Anglo-French alliance against the duchy. Edward sent ambassadors to Francis with promises of great rewards if he would only hand over Henry, of whom, as Polydore Vergil claimed, the King ‘lyvyd, as yt wer, in perpetuall feare’. Francis appears to have been somewhat attached to Henry, and Edward, anxious to ensure that he would be returned, instructed his ambassadors to inform the duke that he only required Henry’s return so that he could arrange a marriage between him and his eldest daughter, Elizabeth of York. This was the same tactic employed by the King in 1470, when he attempted to stop Margaret of Anjou forming an alliance with Warwick by offering his daughter to her son in marriage. Such a match had its advantages, and whilst Edward had sons of his own to continue his dynasty on the throne, the marriage would have bound Henry Tudor to him and, in all likelihood, secured his loyalty. However, in 1475, it is certain that, for Edward, it was merely a ploy to obtain the return of his enemy and that, as Vergil claimed, when Francis agreed to deliver Henry to Edward, ‘he had commyttyd the sheepe to the woolffe’ rather than ‘the soone to the father’.
Once he had made his agreement with Edward, Francis handed Henry over to the English ambassadors. It appears that Margaret had, through her connections at court, learned something of the trick that was intended by the offer of marriage, and according to Bernard Andreas, she had already sent a message to Henry warning him to be wary of any promised match with Elizabeth of York. Henry had also received warnings from other sources, and when he and the ambassadors reached St Malo, he feigned illness in order to slip his guard and flee to the sanctuary of a church there. The English ambassadors immediately tried to remove Henry from the church forcibly, and Margaret’s son found himself defended by the townsmen furious at the violation of church law. This was just the delay that Henry needed, and when Jean de Quelenec, a leading member of Francis’s council who was also favourable to Henry, returned to court, he remonstrated with the duke for breaking his promise. It appears that Francis, whose decision to hand Henry over had been guided by his treasurer, Pierre Landais, was already having second thoughts, and he immediately sent to St Malo to secure Henry’s return to his custody. Henry was invited to the Breton court, and whilst still a prisoner in Brittany, he had cause to be thankful. As Vergil commented tartly, ‘thus derely dyd the king of England bye the custody of his enemy for three days’.
Margaret’s intervention was the first of many in support of her son, and although she did not see Henry at all between 1471 and 1485, she kept in contact with him through messengers. She also worked tirelessly to secure his rehabilitation in England. Margaret gradually came into favour at court, and in 1476, she was prominent in her attendance on Elizabeth Woodville and her daughters at the ceremonial reburial of Edward’s father, Richard, Duke of York. At the christening of Edward’s youngest child, Bridget, in 1482, she was given the honour of holding the infant. She gradually set about persuading Edward of the advantages of her son returning to England, and this appears to have had some effect. In June 1482, Edward agreed that Henry could receive a share of Margaret’s lands worth £400 a year, on the condition that he return to England. Edward also discussed with Margaret, Stanley, John Morton, Bishop of Ely, and the Bishop of Worcester, the possibility of Henry marrying Elizabeth of York, and it appears that, on this occasion, the King was genuine in his desire to make Henry his son-in-law. Negotiations advanced well, and Edward, who was as tired as everyone in England of the years of civil war, was finally persuaded by Margaret and her supporters of the value of bringing her son into the Yorkist camp. A draft pardon from Edward for Henry exists, and this demonstrates that matters were considerably far advanced and that both Margaret and Henry would have been confident that they would soon be reunited in England. Margaret must therefore have been devastated when, on 9 April 1483, Edward died suddenly, leaving the pardon incomplete and his twelve-year-old son, Edward V, as his heir.
MOTHER TO THE KING’S GREAT REBEL & TRAITOR: APRIL 1483-DECEMBER 1483
Edward IV’s death ushered in a new period of uncertainty in England. With an underage king, it was clear that some kind of regency would have to be declared. Edward IV had brought a stability to the English crown that it had not known since the 1440s, but his dynasty survived him by a period of only just over two years. As one historian has commented, Margaret played a major role in presenting her son, for the first time, as a credible candidate for the throne. She can be considered the second great kingmaker of the Wars of the Roses, after the famous ‘Warwick the Kingmaker’.
Edward IV’s death was unexpected and his heir, the twelveyear- old Edward V was staying at Ludlow. The new king’s mother, Elizabeth Woodville, met with the royal council shortly after his accession, and it was agreed that he would make his way to London as soon as possible. Given the unpopularity of Edward V’s Woodville kin, who had played a prominent part in his upbringing, Elizabeth also agreed that her son would travel with a retinue of no more than 2,000 men, a concession that she would later come to regret bitterly.
Edward V set out accompanied by his maternal uncle, Earl Rivers, and half-brother, Sir Richard Grey. At a similar time, Edward IV’s youngest and last surviving brother, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, and his friend, Margaret’s nephew, the Duke of Buckingham, set out to meet him, arriving at Northampton as the King reached Stony Stratford. In order to pay their respects to the two dukes, the King’s uncle and half-brother, who were, in any event, related to Buckingham through his marriage to Catherine Woodville, Rivers’s sister and Grey’s aunt, went to Northampton to greet them. The four men spent a convivial evening together, feasting and drinking, and due to the late hour, Rivers and Grey agreed to spend the night at Northampton. They noticed nothing amiss and were stunned to find, on waking in the morning, that they had been placed under guard. The two dukes rode to Stony Stratford, where they took custody of the protesting King, riding with him to London.
News of Gloucester and Buckingham’s coup reached Elizabeth Woodville the following day, and she and her eldest son by her first marriage, the Marquess of Dorset, attempted to raise an army in order to wrest back custody of the King. Unfortunately for them, ‘when they exhorted certain nobles who had come to the city, and others, to take up arms, they perceived that men’s minds were not only irresolute, but altogether hostile to themselves’. Without Edward IV to protect them, the nobility and people of London were free to give vent to their dislike of the Woodvilles, and there was nothing that the Queen could do but gather up her youngest son, Richard, Duke of York, and her daughters and hurry with Dorset to the sanctuary at Westminster. Many of Elizabeth’s contemporaries thought that she was overreacting, and the Archbishop of York, who was Chancellor of England, made a great show of bringing the great seal of England to her in the sanctuary. He was soon, however, forced to ask for its return. Shortly after he arrived in London with the young king, Gloucester demanded that the Queen hand over her youngest son, and when the sanctuary was surrounded by soldiers, she was forced to comply. Margaret played no role in the political events immediately after Edward IV’s death, but she would have been aware of all that was happening. Her husband, Lord Stanley, was dangerously exposed.
