Tudor (63 page)

I very much appreciate the guidance of my friends Henrietta Joy and Dominic Pierce, and I hope Henrietta notices I begin
Chapter 1
as she instructed. Thank you also to Zia Soothill for patiently listening to my weekly rants and massaging my aching hands. I would like to thank my new editor at Chatto, Becky Hardie, whose razor-sharp efficiency I much appreciate, and also the contributions of Juliet Brooke. Finally I have the best agent in the world in Georgina Capel: it is worth becoming a writer just so you can have someone like Georgina in your life.

NOTES

Abbreviations

Introduction

  
1
.
  
P. S. Lewis, ‘Two Pieces of Fifteenth-Century Political Iconography' in
Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes
27 (1964), pp. 317–20.

  
2
.
  
Edward Hall,
Chronicle
(1809), p. 231.

  
3
.
  
In several inspiring essays by Cliff Davies.

  
4
.
  
As, indeed, Cliff Davies acknowledges – at least after Henry VIII!

  
5
.
  
For the latest research on this, see Jason Scott-Warren, ‘Was
Elizabeth I Richard II?: The Authenticity of Lambarde's “Conversation”' in
Review of English Studies
(first published online 14 July 2012).

Part One

THE COMING OF THE TUDORS: A MOTHER'S LOVE

1
     
An Ordinary Man

  
1
.
  
Cloth of gold consists of gold either beaten or worked into long strips and wound around a core (such as silk). This thread is used in weaving a very rich fabric, which is relatively stiff, heavy, and expensive. The gold thread would be woven with a different colour in order to give it a red or gold tinge (in much the same way that one can blend pure gold, e.g. with copper to give it a red sheen). Thanks to Richard Walker from Watts and Co., London, for his advice.

  
2
.
  
Westminster Abbey Muniments MS 19678; Philip Lindley, ‘The Funeral and Tomb Effigies of Queen Catherine of Valois and Henry V' in
Journal of the British Archaeological Association
160 (2007), pp. 165–77.

  
3
.
  
Henry V's tomb had a wooden effigy with a head and regalia all of silver, and plates of silver covering the trunk. Little care, however, seems to have been taken of it by the later Yorkist king Edward IV. By 1479 the angels at his head, lions at his feet, a silver gilt antelope and two sceptres had vanished. The rest of the silver was stolen in January 1546 when thieves broke into the abbey during the night. Since Henry VIII's agents were stripping churches up and down the country of their goods, the thieves seemed to have joined in the free-for-all. Henry V was left headless, prompting questions from tourists in centuries to come. In 1971 a new head, hands and a crown for the effigy were modelled in polyester resin by Louisa Bolt, the features following
a contemporary description of the king and the earliest portrait of him.

  
4
.
  
The earliest known reference to Owen as a servant in Queen Katherine's chamber is in John Rylands Library, Latin MS 113 (a chronicle roll of
c
.1484).

  
5
.
  
The statute is printed in R. A. Griffiths, ‘Queen Katherine of Valois and a Missing Statute of the Realm' in
Law Quarterly Review
93 (1977), pp. 248–58; Elis Gruffudd and the Giles Chronicle,
Incerti Scriptoris Chronicon Angliae, etc
. (ed J. A. Giles) (1848), Pt IV, p. 17; Hall,
Chronicle
, p. 185).

  
6
.
  
Incerti Scriptoris Chronicon Angliae
, Pt IV, p. 17.

  
7
.
  
Polydore Vergil,
Three Books of Polydore Vergil's English History
(ed. H. Ellis), Camden Society Old Series, Vol. 29 (1844), p. 62.

  
8
.
  
A story favoured by the Welshman Elis Gruffudd.

  
9
.
  
The story seems to be recalled in Owen Tudor's last words. See Chapter 3, p. 25.

10
.
  
Michael Drayton, ‘England's Heroicall Epistles' (1597).

11
.
  
His name suggests his godfather may have been the king's cousin, Edmund Beaufort, who had been close to Catherine before she married Owen. Children were then named by their godparents, and often given the name of the godparent. There is no evidence that Edmund was Beaufort's child, as is sometimes claimed.

12
.
  
The early seventeenth-century historian referred to here was Giovanni Francesco Biondi. R. S. Thomas, ‘The political career, estates and “connection” of Jasper Tudor, earl of Pembroke and duke of Bedford (d.1495)', PhD diss., Swansea (1971), p. 22.

13
.
  
The theory, inherited from the ancient Greeks, was that wombs were cold and needed to be filled constantly with hot sperm if women were to be happy and healthy. The Greek word ‘
hyster
' refers to the womb, and the term ‘hysteria' is born from the assumption that women's wombs cause them to have uncontrollable emotions.

14
.
  
Croyland Chronicle, Cliff Davies, ‘Information, disinformation and political knowledge under Henry VII and early Henry VIII' in
Historical Research
85, issue 228 (May 2012), pp. 228–53.

15
.
  
Sir John Wynn of Gwydir,
The History of the Gwydir Family
(ed John Ballinger) (1927), p. 26.

16
.
  
In romantic tales of the period a nobleman raised as a peasant would reveal his hidden ancestry by his prowess at the joust, and a fake prince expose his humble origins by seducing a princess and making love to her on the floor.

17
.
  
Sir John Wynn of Gwydir,
The History of the Gwydir Family
, p. 26.

18
.
  
As she said in her will.

19
.
  
Sir Francis Palgrave,
The Ancient Kalendars and Inventories of His Majesty's Exchequer
, Vol. 2 (1836), pp. 172–5.

20
.
  
Maurice Keen,
English Society in the Later Middle Ages
(1990), pp. 109, 110.

21
.
  
Proceedings and Ordinances of the Privy Council of England
(ed Sir Harris Nicolas) (7 vols, 1834–7), Vol. 5, p. 48; Thomas, PhD diss., op. cit., p. 25.

22
.
  
No comparable wooden female saint effigy survived the Reformation. Anthony Harvey and Richard Mortimer,
The Funeral Effigies of Westminster Abbey
(1994), p. 42; Westminster Abbey Muniments MS 19678.

23
.
  
Rotuli Parliamentorum
, Vol. 3 (1783), p. 423.

24
.
  
Proceedings and Ordinances of the Privy Council
, Vol. 5, p. 48; Chancery Warrants for the Great Seal, 708/3839 (15 July 1437).

25
.
  
In 1436 Thomas Knolles, a grocer, charitably provided the cost of laying leaden pipes to the prison from the cistern which served St Bartholomew's Hospital.

26
.
  
Margery Bassett, ‘Newgate Prison in the Middle Ages' in
Speculum
18, No. 2 (April 1943), pp. 239, 240.

27
.
  
The monk Owen Tudor is said to have died between 1498 and 1501. Catherine died earlier, when ‘young': Hall,
Chronicle
, p. 185. At Barking the Tudors were placed in the care of Katherine
de la Pole, the sister of the Duke of Suffolk and Abbess of Barking. It is possible that another daughter existed called Tacina (d. 1469), who was married to Reginald de Grey, 7th Baron Grey of Wilton, but Tacina, or Thomasine, is also sometimes described as an illegitimate daughter of John Beaufort, Duke of Somerset.

28
.
  
His skeleton measured five feet ten inches. R. A. Griffiths,
The Reign of Henry VI
(1981), p. 241.

29
.
  
John Blakman,
Henry the Sixth
(ed M. R. James) (1919), pp. 8, 9.

30
.
  
Thomas, PhD diss., op. cit., p. 34. The final ceremony took place at the Tower of London on the feast of the Epiphany, 6 January. Edmund Tudor was resident at the magnificent Baynard's Castle on the Thames in March 1453. Griffiths,
The Reign of Henry VI
, p. 299.

31
.
  
Margaret was the niece of Catherine of Valois' old friend Edmund Beaufort, who had since inherited his brother's title, Duke of Somerset.

2
     
A Child Bride

  
1
.
  
Margaret Beaufort was born on 31 May 1443, and her father died in May 1444, a probable suicide. He had been unlucky since youth. Captured on campaign in France aged sixteen, he was held captive for seventeen years – longer than any other nobleman during the Hundred Years War. When he was eventually released he had a huge ransom to pay and no chance of making a lucrative marriage. Instead of a prized virgin from a noble family he had made do with the daughter of a gentleman, Margaret Beauchamp of Bletsoe, who was also the widow of one Oliver St John. Somerset had hoped to restore his tarnished honour by returning to France, but the money he made there was outweighed in the eyes of Henry VI by the costs incurred to the English crown. It led to him being banished from court. The chronicler of Crowland Abbey recorded the rumour that he killed himself shortly afterwards. His daughter later joined the confraternity of the abbey
with her mother, and so she knew the place well. Her mother's third marriage was to Lionel, Lord Welles.

  
2
.
  
She was living at this time at Maxey Castle in Northamptonshire.

  
3
.
  
Anthony Emery,
Greater Medieval Houses of England and Wales, 1300–1500: Volume 3, Southern England
(2006) p. 242.

  
4
.
  
Richard, Duke of York, was descended from Edward III's fifth son, Edmund of Langley.

  
5
.
  
They had later been legitimised in royal letters patent (1397 and this was confirmed in 1407). Crucially, however, the letters specific ally excluded the Beauforts from any claim to the throne.

  
6
.
  
HMC Third Report, Appendix p. 280. Thomas, PhD diss., op. cit., p. 36.

  
7
.
  
John de la Pole, son of William, Duke of Suffolk. Suffolk, who was Steward of the King's Household, and was assassinated in 1450, was blamed for the government's failures at home and abroad. Suffolk's sister had raised Edmund and Jasper Tudor from 1437–42.

  
8
.
  
Michael K. Jones and Malcolm G. Underwood,
The King's Mother: Lady Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond and Derby
(1992), p. 38. There is a small mistake here. Margaret's arrival at court during Shrovetide must have been before 14 February, as this was Ash Wednesday that year. Thanks to Eric Ives for this detail.

  
9
.
  
Bishop Russell in 1483.

10
.
  
Prayer at coronation of James I; Leanda de Lisle,
After Elizabeth
(2005), p. 311 and note.