Elizabeth of York: A Tudor Queen and Her World (51 page)

The news of York’s apparent survival “came blazing and thundering into England,” arousing much excitement and speculation.
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One wonders what Elizabeth felt on hearing it. Her Victorian biographers suspected that “her mental sufferings were acute”
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during the years and crises that followed, and that the emergence of this new pretender and his subsequent career filled her mind “with gloomy forebodings.”
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It seems many wanted to believe that one of the princes had survived. “The King began again to be haunted by sprites, by the magic and curious arts of the Lady Margaret [of Burgundy], who raised up the ghost of Richard, Duke of York, to walk and vex the King. This was a finer counterfeit stone than Lambert Simnel.” The youth who claimed to be York was so “crafty and bewitching” that he could “move pity and induce belief, as was like a kind of fascination and enchantment to those that saw or heard him.”
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Is it possible that he was the prince he claimed to be? His own account of how he was spared death after his brother had been killed lacks credibility, and there were inconsistencies in his confession, made much later when he was a captive, which cast doubt on its veracity. Further, against the weight of evidence that the princes were dead by
October 1483, it would be hard to argue for the survival of one of them. But some were apparently convinced that he was York. He was to “number kings among his friends,”
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convincing the monarchs of France, Denmark, and Scotland, the Duke of Saxony, Maximilian the Archduke of Austria and his son, Philip; all claimed to be satisfied with the evidence of birthmarks, although each at some stage may have been glad of an opportunity to discountenance Henry VII.

The pretender was also a magnet for the dissident Irish lords. “My masters of Ireland, you will crown apes at length!” Henry VII was to observe scathingly.
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But it was no jesting matter: the King might dismiss him as “this lad who calls himself Plantagenet,”
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but that lad was to be a constant thorn in Henry’s side for the next eight years, and at first the King may have feared that he really was Richard of York. The pretender could not have plagued him thus if he had discovered what became of the Princes in the Tower. Had he been in possession of that information, he would surely have used it to counter the pretender’s claims, as he had paraded Warwick in London to counteract Simnel’s.

The question of the youth’s true identity must at this stage have tormented Elizabeth, whose heart no doubt leapt at the news that her brother might be alive. Yet her hopes must have been tempered with dread and cruelly torn loyalties, for Richard of York had a better claim to the throne than she or Henry. Even if this pretender was her brother, he must be her husband’s enemy, and therefore hers, a deadly threat to Henry’s security and the safety of her children; and she herself would be placed in a most unenviable position.

Despite the sensation he had created in Cork, the pretender had little success in winning over many of the Irish to his cause, so in 1492 he went to France. Charles VIII’s relations with Henry VII were dismal at that time, so predictably he warmly received the pretender as “Richard IV.” Assigned royal apartments and a guard of honor, the young man “thought himself in Heaven.”
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His advent had already subverted the loyalty of some of Henry’s subjects, “in some upon discontent, in some upon ambition, in some upon levity and desire of change, and in some few upon conscience and belief, but in most upon simplicity, and in divers out of dependence upon some of the better sort, who did in secret favor and nourish
these bruits. And it was not long ere these rumors of novelty had begotten others of scandal and murmur against the King and his government, taxing him for a great taxer of his people. Chiefly they fell upon the wrong that he did his Queen, and that he did not reign in her right, wherefore they said that God had now brought to light a masculine branch of the House of York that would not be at his courtesy, however he did depress his poor lady.”
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Unwittingly, Elizabeth had become a focus for discontent among her husband’s subjects, and the existence of the pretender only fueled the fire.

On June 8, 1492, Elizabeth Wydeville died at Bermondsey Abbey. She must have been unwell since at least April 10, when she had made her will. Elizabeth could not be with her at the end, for “at this same season,” in the ninth month of her pregnancy, she had already taken to her chamber at Sheen,
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knowing that her mother was very ill; but her sisters and her half brother, the Marquess of Dorset, were present, with Grace, a bastard daughter of Edward IV. “The said Queen desired on her deathbed that, as soon as she should be deceased, she should in all goodly haste, without any worldly pomp, by water be conveyed to Windsor, and there to be buried in the same vault that her husband was buried in, according to the will of my said lord and mine.”
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In her will, witnessed by Abbot John of Bermondsey, and Benedict Cun, “doctor of physic,” the Queen Dowager lamented: “Where I have no worldly goods to do the Queen’s Grace, my dearest daughter, a pleasure with, neither to reward any of my children, according to my heart and mind, I beseech Almighty God to bless Her Grace, with all her noble issue, and with as good heart and mind as is to me possible, I give Her Grace my blessing, and all the aforesaid my children … And I beseech my said dearest daughter, the Queen’s Grace, and my son, Thomas, Marquess Dorset, to put their good wills and help for the performance of this my testament,” and to ensure that her last requests were carried out. They were few.

Elizabeth Wydeville’s wishes in regard to her interment were respected. Her body was “wrapped in [fifty yards of] wax canvas” and, on the evening of Whitsunday (June 10), conveyed by barge from London to Windsor, with only the executors—the late Queen’s chaplain,
the prior of the Charterhouse at Sheen, a Mr. Haute, a clerk, Dr. Brent, and “Mistress Grace” in attendance. The coffin was borne “privily through the little park and conveyed into the castle without ringing of any bells or receiving of the dean and canons, but only by the prior of the Charterhouse of Sheen and her chaplain. And so, privily, about eleven of the clock in the night, she was buried” in Edward IV’s tomb in St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, “without any solemn dirge or Mass done for her.”
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On the Tuesday following, Elizabeth’s younger sisters, Anne, Katherine, and Bridget, arrived by barge at Windsor for the Requiem Mass, Bridget having come from Dartford Priory. With them were several relatives, including Lord Dorset and John, Viscount Welles, husband of Cecily of York, who was not present, possibly because she was ill or pregnant, so Anne was chief mourner, deputizing for Queen Elizabeth. They attended the ceremonies in St. George’s Chapel that evening and the next, and “the officers of arms, there being present, went before the Lady Anne, which offered the Mass penny instead of the Queen, wherefore she had the carpet and the cushion laid, as would have happened had Elizabeth been present.” There were murmurs that the obsequies were conducted cheaply and shabbily, because only the Poor Knights of St. George, garter officers, and other servants were present, but they had been performed as Elizabeth Wydeville had directed.
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The death of her mother must have been a grievous blow to Elizabeth, coming as it did as she was about to give birth. An observer wrote that because the Queen was confined to her chamber, “I cannot tell what dolent [sad apparel] she goeth in, but I suppose she went in blue likewise as Queen Margaret, the wife of King Henry VI, went in when her mother the Queen of Sicily died.”
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Henry VII’s ordinances followed earlier precedents in laying down the colors to be used for royal mourning; blue was still to be worn,
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although Elizabeth was also to don the traditional black after the death of one of her children.
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On July 2 she bore a second daughter, who was baptized Elizabeth in honor of her late grandmother as well as her mother.
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According to the epitaph on her tomb, this child was exceptionally beautiful. She was brought up in the nursery household at Eltham Palace with her brother Henry and sister Margaret, in the care of her nurse, Cecilia
Burbage, who was paid a salary of 100s. [£2,500]. Her rockers each received 66s.8d. [£1,630]. That the royal siblings were brought up together is attested by warrants dated September 1493 for payment to servants attending upon “our right dearly well-beloved children, the Lord Henry and the Ladies Margaret and Elizabeth.”
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The Wardrobe Accounts of the Lord Treasurer for the period 1491–95 contain orders for robes for “Margaret and Elizabeth,” the King’s daughters.
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Henry VII’s alliances with Ferdinand and Isabella and Maximilian had led to hostilities with Charles VIII. Early in October 1492 he departed for France, leaving Prince Arthur at Westminster to act as nominal regent in his absence. He arrived at Calais on October 6, then joined his allies in besieging Boulogne. Elizabeth, left behind at Eltham in charge of her younger children, felt her husband’s absence keenly, and wrote him many letters with “tender, frequent, and loving lines,” begging him so persuasively to return that they were among the “potent reasons” why he raised the siege, concluded a peace treaty with Charles VIII on November 3 at Étaples, and returned to England soon after November 17.
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This reveals how close the royal couple had become in nearly seven years of marriage—so close that they hated being apart.

The peace treaty put an end to Charles VIII’s support of the pretender, but rather than surrender him to Henry VII, Charles merely banished him from France. Late that year the youth sought refuge at the court of Margaret of Burgundy. At first she showed herself dubious about his claims, but then said she had been persuaded, after questioning him, that he was indeed her nephew, “raised from the dead,” and publicly congratulated him on his preservation.
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He was taken under the protection of the Archduke Philip, and was again treated like a king. Given a palatial house in Antwerp, he held court there seated under the royal arms of England, which enraged some English visitors. When he went abroad in the streets, he was escorted by a guard of thirty archers wearing his white rose badge. Philip’s father, Maximilian, received him in Vienna as the rightful King of England.

Naturally, everyone wanted to know how “York” had escaped from the Tower as a child. He told them he had narrowly avoided murder by a ruse, “for that those who were employed in that barbarous fact, having
destroyed the elder brother, were stricken with remorse and compassion toward the younger.” He had been delivered to “a gentleman who had received orders to destroy him, but who, taking pity on his innocence, had preserved his life and made him swear on the sacraments not to disclose for a certain number of years his birth and lineage.”
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It was an unlikely tale, since the assassins would surely have known that their remit was to do away with the Yorkist heirs who posed a threat to the King; it did not make sense—and indeed was perilous—for them to kill one and spare the other, however plaintively he pleaded for his life, for with his older brother dead, York would have been, in the eyes of many, the true King of England.

The pretender would never be drawn on the details of Edward V’s murder or his own supposed escape from the Tower, saying only “it is fit it should pass in silence, or at least in a more secret relation, for that it may concern some alive and the memory of some that are dead.”
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That way he forestalled all discussion of the anomalies in his story. But the Duchess Margaret “took pleasure in hearing him repeat the tale,” and following her example, the Flemings “professed they believed the youth had escaped the hand of King Richard by divine intervention, and had been brought safely to his aunt.”
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“The rumor of so miraculous an occurrence rapidly spread into England, where the story was not merely believed by the common people, but where there were many important men who considered the matter as genuine.”
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By now, one imagines, Elizabeth must have been desperate to get a look at or at least obtain more knowledge of this youth who insisted he was her brother. Frustratingly, we don’t know what she made of the story of his escape.

Queens had little control over the lives of their eldest sons. Arthur was growing into a promising boy, “blessed with such great charm, grace, and goodness that he served as an example of unprecedented happiness to people oftimes,” as André glowingly recorded. But when Arthur was six, Elizabeth had to bid him farewell, for by February 1493 he had been sent to live at Ludlow Castle on the Welsh Marches so that he could learn how to govern his principality of Wales. It was to be a practical apprenticeship for kingship. The precedent had been established
by Edward IV, who had sent the future Edward V to be educated at Ludlow. Following in his uncle’s footsteps, Arthur was nominally to preside over the Council of the Marches and Wales, which administered the principality. Thereafter Elizabeth would see him only intermittently.

His council was headed by his great-uncle, Jasper Tudor, Earl of Pembroke, and included his uncle, Dorset, Sir William Stanley, Thomas FitzAlan, now Earl of Arundel, Gerald FitzGerald, Earl of Kildare, who had been forgiven for helping to crown Lambert Simnel, and John Alcock, Bishop of Worcester, who served as President of the Council of the Marches, as he had for the future Edward V; his appointment may have been made at the Queen’s behest.

Early in 1493, Sir Richard Pole was appointed chamberlain of the prince’s household.
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The other members of the Council of the Marches included Anthony Willoughby; Robert Ratcliffe, later Earl of Sussex; Maurice St. John of Bletsoe, a favored nephew of Margaret Beaufort who had entered royal service as a member of Henry VII’s elite bodyguard; and Gruffydd ap Rhys, who was the son of an influential Welsh lord and became close friends with Arthur. An interesting appointment, probably also made by the Queen, was that of Dr. John Argentine, former physician to Edward V, who was now to serve as Prince Arthur’s doctor. Dr. Argentine had been one of the last people to see the Princes in the Tower alive.
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After Richard III was crowned, he had fled abroad. Probably he had been able to tell Elizabeth much about her vanished brothers, and possibly this appointment and the many other benefices and marks of royal favor he received under Henry VII were rewards for his loyalty to and care for them both.