Read The Last White Rose Online
Authors: Desmond Seward
The Last White Rose (54 page)
In their staunch fidelity to a dispossessed royal family, and in their adherence to Common Law and disgust at the setting aside of the obvious heir to the throne, the last Yorkists foreshadowed the Jacobites. Supporters of the exiled House of Stuart may have been aware of this when they adopted the White Rose as their own emblem – James II had been Duke of York before he became king. However, there was no Sir Walter Scott to immor-talize their sixteenth-century predecessors.
Although Mary and Elizabeth were in turn threatened by rivals (the former by her sister, the latter by her Scottish cousin), neither of them appears to have been particularly frightened by the situation. By their time, their dynasty’s right to the throne was established beyond question, so that they had no sense of being parvenus. Indeed, Elizabeth’s triumphant reign made it seem that the Tudors had been predestined to rule England. In consequence, the cult of the Tudor age has largely obscured the Yorkist pretenders (except, perhaps, for Perkin Warbeck) and concealed the dread in which the White Rose was held by Henry VII and Henry VII.
Epilogue
1
. D.M. Loades,
Two Tudor Conspiracies
, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1965, pp. 21–3, 45–6.
2
.
Ibid.,
p. 225.
3
. A. Rowntree (ed.),
History of Scarborough
, London, Dent, 1931, p. 214.
4
.
Oxford DNB
: H. Pierce, ‘Arthur Pole’.
C
HRONOLOGY
| 1483 | Disappearance of Edward V and the Duke of York – the ‘Princes in the Tower’ |
| 1484 | Edward, Prince of Wales dies – the Earl of Warwick is briefly heir to the throne |
| 1484 | Richard III recognizes his nephew the Earl of Lincoln as his heir |
| 1485 | Battle of Bosworth and accession of Henry VII |
| 1486 | Rising for Warwick against Henry by Lord Lovell and the Stafford brothers |
| 1487 | Lincoln and Lambert Simnel (‘Edward VI’) defeated at Stoke – death of Lincoln |
| 1490 | The Abbot of Abingdon’s plot to rescue the Earl of Warwick from the Tower |
| 1491 | Perkin Warbeck comes to Ireland and is identified as ‘Richard, Duke of York’ |
| 1492 | Margaret of Burgundy recognizes Warbeck as her nephew |
| 1495 | James IV of Scotland recognizes Warbeck as King of England |
| 1496 | Warbeck invades northern England, unsuccessfully |
| 1497 | Warbeck lands in Cornwall but is captured |
| 1499 | Execution of Warbeck and the Earl of Warwick |
| 1501 | Flight of Edmund de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk, nephew of Richard III |
| 1502 | Attainder of Edmund, who proclaims himself ‘The White Rose’ |
| 1506 | Edmund is captured and imprisoned in the Tower |
| 1509 | Edmund excluded from Henry VIII’s ‘accession pardon’ |
| 1513 | Edmund is executed – his brother Richard de la Pole becomes ‘The White Rose’ |
| 1514 | Recognized as ‘Richard IV’ by France, the White Rose prepares to invade |
| 1515 | English spies try to murder Richard, ‘the king’s most dreaded enemy’ |
| 1521 | Execution of the Duke of Buckingham, for ‘dreaming of the throne |
| 1522 | Francis I of France asks ‘Richard IV’ to invade England |
| 1525 | Richard de la Pole, ‘The White Rose’, is killed at Pavia |
| 1531 | Lord Exeter, male heir presumptive, is sent to the Tower on suspicion of treason |
| 1533 | Bishop Fisher asks Emperor Charles V’s ambassador to depose Henry VIII |
| 1534 | Charles V considers replacing Henry VIII by Mary Tudor and Reginald Pole – but rejects the idea |
| 1536 | The Pilgrimage of Grace, the gravest threat to Henry VIII during his entire reign |
| 1537 | Reginald Pole prepares to land in England but the Pilgrimage is crushed |
| 1538 | Execution of Exeter and Lord Montague, key members of the White Rose party |
| 1539 | Reginald Pole tries and fails to organize an invasion of England |
| 1539 | Attainder of the Countess of Salisbury, the only surviving Plantagenet |
| 1541 | Abortive plot to revive the Pilgrimage of Grace |
| 1541 | Execution of the Countess of Salisbury – ‘last of the White Rose faction’ |
| 1547 | Execution of the Earl of Surrey on suspicion of planning to claim the throne |
A
BBREVIATIONS
| Bacon | Bacon, Sir F., The History of the Reign of King Henry VII and Selected Works , ed. B. Vickers, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1998 |
| CPR | Calendar of Patent Rolls (1235–1509) , 52 vols, London, 1891–1916 |
| CSP Milan | Calendar of State Papers and Manuscripts… at Milan ( 1385–1618 ), ed. A. B. Hinds, London, H.M.S.O. 1912 |
| CSP Sp | Calendar of State Papers, (Spain), 20 vols, ed. C. Bergenroth, P. de Gayangos and M.A. S. Hume, London, Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts, 1862–1954 |
| CSP Ven | Calendar of State Papers, (Venice), 1202–1603 , 11 vols, ed. R. Brown, G. C. Bentinck and H. F. Brown, London, Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts & Green, 1864–97 |
| Gairdner RIII | Gairdner, J., The History of the Life and Reign of King Richard the Third to which is added the Story of Perkin Warbeck , rev. edn, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1898 |
| GEC | Cockayne, G. E. (ed.), Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, etc. Extant, Extinct or Dormant , 13 vols, rev. edn, ed. V. Gibbs and H. Doubleday, London, 1910–49 |
| Great Chronicle | The Great Chronicle of London , ed. A. H Thomas and I. D. Thornley, London, G. W. Jones, 1938 |
| Hall | Hall, E., The Union of the Two Noble and Illustre Famelies of Lancastre and York , London, [1548]1809 |
| Leland | Leland, J., The Itinerary of John Leland in or about the Years 1535–1543 , 5 vols, ed. L. Toulmin-Smith, London, 1907–10 |
| LP Hen VII | Letters and Papers Illustrative of the Reigns of Richard III and Henry VII , 2 vols, ed. J. Gairdner, J., Rolls Series, 1861–3 |
| LP HVIII | Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII, 1509–47 , 21 vols and addenda, ed. J. S. Brewer, J. Gairdner, J. and R. H. Brodie, London, 1862–1932 |
| Materials | Materials for a History of the Reign of Henry VII , 2 vols, ed. W. Campbell, Rolls Series, 1873–7 |
| Memorials | Memorials of King Henry the Seventh , ed. J. Gairdner, Rolls Series, London, 1858 |
| Oxford DNB | Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , 60 vols, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2004 |
| Paston Letters | The Paston Letters , ed. J. Gairdner, Gloucester, Alan Sutton, 1986 |
| Plumpton Corr | The Plumpton Correspondence , ed. T. Stapleton, CS old series (21), London, 1839 |
| Rot. Parl. | Rotuli Parliamentorum (1278–1504), 6 vols, ed. J. Strachey and others, London, 1767–77 |
| Vergil | The Anglica Historia of Polydore Vergil AD 1485–1537 , ed. and trans. D. Hay, Camden Society, Third Series 74, 1950 |
B
IBLIOGRAPHY
Printed Primary Sources
André, B.
, De vita atque gestis Henrici Septimi
, in J. Gairdner (ed.),
Memorials
of King Henry the Seventh
, Rolls Series, 1873–7.
Arnold, Richard,
Customs of London
, Antwerp, 1504.
Ballads from Manuscripts
, ed. F.J. Furnivall, London, Ballad Society, 1868.
The Book of Howth
,
in
Calendar of the Carew Manuscripts
, 6 vols, ed. J.S. Brewer, Public Record Office, London, Longman, Green, Reader & Dyer, 1867–73.
Calendar of the Close Rolls
,
Henry VII (1485–1500)
, vol. 1, Public Record Office, London, Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1955.
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