Margaret Beaufort: Mother of the Tudor Dynasty (17 page)
The said Rebels and Traitors have chosen to be their Captain one Henry Tydder, son of Owen Tydder, which of his ambitions and insatiable covetise encroacheth and usurpeth upon him, the name and title of Royal Estate of this realm of England; whereunto he hath no manner of interest, right, title, or colour, as every man well knoweth; for he is descended of bastard blood, both of father’s side, and of mother’s side; for the said Owen the Grandfather, was bastard born; and his mother was daughter unto John, Earl of Somerset, son unto Dame Katherine Swynford, and of their indouble avowtry gotten; whereby it evidently appeareth, that no title can nor may vest in him.
Richard had a point in demonstrating the dubious nature of Henry’s claim to the throne, and the incumbent king undoubtedly had a better hereditary claim to the throne than the pretender. The difficulty for Richard was, however, that most people in England considered that Elizabeth of York had the best claim of all. Richard was unable to neutralise her claim by marrying her himself, and he therefore did the next best thing, sending Elizabeth and her cousin, the Earl of Warwick, who was the son of Richard’s elder brother, the Duke of Clarence, to Sheriff Hutton Castle in Yorkshire under guard, in order to ensure that the pair did not fall into Henry Tudor’s hands.
Henry had continued to be treated with favour at the French court, and he secured Charles VIII’s agreement to granting him funds for 3,000 to 4,000 men and arms. As surety for his debts, he left the untrustworthy Marquess of Dorset behind at the French court before sailing from Harfleur in August 1485 and landing, after some days at sea, at Milford Haven. Margaret was soon aware of the landing, and Henry immediately wrote to her to ask for her support. He sent similar letters to Lord Stanley and his brother, Sir William Stanley, as well as other friends. It appears that, by the middle of 1485, Stanley had decided to commit himself to his stepson’s cause, and in July, he informed the King that he intended to visit his home and family in Lancashire. Richard was suspicious, and whilst he reluctantly gave his permission, he insisted that Stanley’s eldest son, George, Lord Strange, remain at court as a hostage to ensure his father’s loyalty. This was a major blow to Stanley and caused him to distance himself from Henry’s cause. According to the
Ballad of Bosworth Ffeild
, a contemporary ballad written by a follower of the Stanleys, when news of Henry’s landing reached the King, he ordered Lord Strange to be imprisoned, before sending a message to his father to declare that
You must raise those that vnder you bee,
& all the power that you may bringe,
Or else the Lord Strange you must neuer see,
Which is in danger of our king.
Richard also ordered Stanley to come to him at Nottingham ‘for the king was afraid lest that, as it really turned out, the mother of the said Earl of Richmond, whom the Lord Stanley had married, might induce her husband to go over to the party of her son’. Stanley refused to attend, feigning illness, but this was as far as he dared to go in his defiance of the King. Fear for his son’s safety stalled Stanley, and far from openly supporting Henry on his landing, he remained at a cautious distance, something that must have discomfited Margaret.
Although Lord Stanley was not prepared to openly show his support for Margaret’s son, his brother, Sir William Stanley, who had ignored a summons to court from Richard, declared his hand. After landing, Henry began the march through Wales to confront the King. Due to Jasper Tudor’s presence with his forces, the town of Pembroke immediately sent word that it would support him. He also managed to persuade a leading Welshman, Rhys ap Thomas, to support him, in return for a promise to make him governor of Wales. When Henry arrived at Shrewsbury, he was concerned to find that the city gates were closed against him. This was evidence of Henry’s relative obscurity in England, and it was only when the townsmen received a message from Sir William Stanley that they agreed to open the gates. In spite of this, they still refused to let him spend a single night in the town, and Margaret’s son was forced to move on, travelling to Stafford, where he met with Sir William Stanley for the first time. Sir William had two battalions of men at his command, and his support was essential to Henry. More importantly for the pretender, he knew that whatever was said between him and Lord Stanley’s brother would be related to his stepfather, and Henry was still anxious to secure Stanley’s aid, with the
Ballad of Bosworth Ffielde
claiming that, on landing, he declared,
Send me the loue of the lord Stanley!
He marryed my mother, a lady bright;
That is long sith I saw her with sight;
I trust in Iesu [Jesus] wee shall meete with winne,
& I shall maintaine her honor right
Ouer all England when I am Kinge.
Although still undecided about what action to take, Lord Stanley left Lathom on 15 August, where it is likely that he took his leave of Margaret. Margaret had seen her third husband leave for battle and return seriously wounded, and she must have been apprehensive about the safety of her fourth husband. She would have recognised how torn Stanley was by the danger that his son was in, although, for Margaret, her focus was always on her own son, and it is likely that she took the opportunity to once again try to persuade Stanley to go to Henry’s aid. On 20 August, Henry reached Lichfield, where he heard that, only three days earlier, Lord Stanley had arrived with a force of 5,000 men. Sir William Stanley arrived the same day and once again had a conference with Henry. The following day, Henry, who commanded a force considerably smaller than the King’s and was anxious to make use of his stepfather’s men, went in person to meet with the two Stanleys. It appears that the meeting was largely satisfactory, and whilst Stanley refused to commit himself, he undertook not to support the King. Further evidence of his sympathy for his stepson was shown when he sent four knights and their men to reinforce Henry’s vanguard. This was the best that Henry could hope for, and he returned to his troops to prepare for battle.
Richard had been at Nottingham when he heard of Henry’s landing, and gathering his forces, he moved to cut off the pretender’s route to the capital. He soon arrived at Leicester and, on 21 August, moved to a field near Atherstone that had been chosen as the site of the battle, which would later be called the Battle of Bosworth Field. Richard had a larger army than Henry, but his camp was disorganised, and when he woke from a night of bad dreams on the morning of 22 August, he found that no breakfast had been prepared for him and there was no priest available for him to hear Mass.
Henry’s army included Margaret’s half-brother, John, Lord Welles, as well as Jasper Tudor, the Earl of Oxford, Sir Edward Woodville and the Bishop of Exeter, and the group must have been apprehensive as they prepared to face Richard in battle on the morning of 22 August. Henry himself apparently showed no fear, and according to
Hall’s Chronicle
, he rode up and down his line, encouraging his troops and urging them forward. As Richard watched the display, he commanded that Lord Strange, who was imprisoned in his camp, be brought to him. He then ordered the young man’s execution as a warning to his father, and it was only through luck that, at that moment, the battle commenced, and Lord Strange was granted a temporary reprieve, being ordered back to the camp under guard.
The battle itself is very poorly documented, but it appears that it was Henry’s force that moved first, after coming under fire from Richard’s archers. The centre of the army, which was commanded by Henry himself, made straight for Richard, whilst the Earl of Oxford moved to attack the wing of the King’s army commanded by the Duke of Norfolk. To Henry’s dismay, neither of the Stanleys moved to join him, and both stood by with their forces, perhaps intending to claim loyalty to whoever emerged the victor. Richard himself showed great personal courage, and when the battle began to turn against him, he refused the offer of a horse to allow him to flee. Instead, the King went straight towards Henry and killed his standard bearer, Sir William Brandon. Richard’s actions were heroic, and he deliberately placed himself in danger in an attempt to finally bring to an end the danger represented by Henry to his throne. Unfortunately for Richard, it was at that moment that Sir William Stanley finally intervened, and he came to Henry’s aid with his men, driving the King backwards. Overwhelmed, Richard fell in battle, along with many of his supporters.
According to tradition, the crown that Richard had worn in battle was found lying under a hawthorn bush. It was brought to Lord Stanley, and Henry’s stepfather, who had maintained his record of failing to serve in any of the battles of the Wars of the Roses, ceremonially placed it on Henry’s head, declaring him to be King Henry VII. For Henry, who had defeated a rival with a considerably better claim to the throne than his own, it was his moment of greatest glory. For Margaret, in Lancashire, it was also a triumph, and Henry’s success owed a great deal to her belief in him and her promotion of his interests. As the King headed south, Margaret, liberated from her imprisonment with one stroke of the sword, moved to London to take up her new position as ‘the King’s Mother’ and to be finally reunited with her son.
THE KING’S MOTHER: AUGUST 1485-JANUARY 1486
When news reached Margaret of her son’s victory at Bosworth and his proclamation as King Henry VII, she was immediately struck by the turn of Fortune’s Wheel, and as her friend John Fisher observed, she wept at Henry’s coronation for fear of the reversal of fortune that had always, in the past, followed triumph. Margaret made her way south to share in her son’s victory, and 1485 marks the beginning of the second phase of her life as the most powerful woman in England: My Lady, the King’s Mother. It also marks a watershed in Margaret’s life, and from 1485 onwards, her life became one of the most well documented of any woman of her time.
Margaret’s house arrest ended the moment that news arrived of Henry’s victory, and it is likely that she moved south at once, intending to meet up with both her husband and son, who had travelled to Leicester together. Henry entered the city in great style, carrying Richard III’s body trussed to the side of a horse as a trophy of victory. The new king spent only two days in the city but took the time to order that all Richard’s badges be removed. He also sent Sir Robert Willoughby to Sheriff Hutton to secure control of both Elizabeth of York and her cousin, the Earl of Warwick. Elizabeth, who was Henry’s betrothed bride, was placed in the custody of her mother in London. Warwick, who, as the only surviving male member of the House of York, was a danger to the King, was placed in Margaret’s custody soon after the arrival of her son in London: a clear sign of the trust that the new king had in her. Margaret’s custody of the boy proved to be brief, and he was soon lodged in the Tower, remaining there as the most high-profile state prisoner for the remainder of his short life. It is unlikely that Margaret would have reached Leicester in time to join her son and Stanley there, but she may have met them on the road to London. If not, her first meeting with Henry in over fourteen years was in the capital of his new kingdom: for mother and son, it must have been emotional.
Although fourteen years had passed since they had last met, the bond between mother and son remained as strong as ever. Almost as soon as he became king, Henry set about rewarding those who had supported him and punishing those who had not. On 16 September 1485, for example, Sir Edward Woodville, the brother of the Queen Dowager, who had spent over two years in exile with Henry, received a grant of the castle and lordship of Carisbrook Castle on the Isle of Wight, as well as being appointed the keeper of the castle and town of Portchester in Hampshire. Sir William Stanley, whose intervention at Bosworth had proved so useful, received on the same day a grant of a manor in Hertfordshire. Margaret’s brother-in-law was also appointed one of the chamberlains of the exchequer a few days later, and her stepson, James Stanley, who had taken holy orders, received an appointment as a dean of the King’s royal chapel of St Martin the Great in London. Christopher Urswick and Reginald Bray, Margaret’s two most trusted servants, received generous grants. The greatest rewards were given to Jasper Tudor, who was created Duke of Bedford by his grateful nephew, and Margaret’s own husband, who was referred to in one grant as the King’s ‘righte entierly beloved fader’ and was made Earl of Derby. Stanley also received substantial grants of property ‘in consideration of the good and praiseworthy services performed by him before now with great personal exertions and costs, in many ways and on divers occasions, and now lately in the king’s conflict within the realm of England, and which services he ceases not to continue’. The Stanley family received an immediate boon when they were permitted to take away the rich hangings found in Richard III’s tent at Bosworth.
Margaret became Countess of Richmond and Derby when her husband was granted his earldom. On her son’s accession, she also became entitled to a much more prestigious title, and throughout the reign, she was commonly referred to as ‘the king’s mother’. The only recent precedent for such a role had been Cecily Neville, Duchess of York, the mother of Edward IV and Richard III. Cecily, who was still living in 1485, had taken on a semi-regal status during her sons’ reigns, and it is likely that Margaret based her own conduct on this. She was certainly personally rewarded by her son. On 11 October, the King’s ‘most derrest moder, Margaret, countesse of Richmond’ received the power to appoint the officers of the lordship of Ware in Hertfordshire, something that could be lucrative. Margaret’s confiscated estates were returned and the attainder against her was reversed. In order to ensure that she was provided for, she had her marriage contract with Stanley confirmed by parliament. In August 1486, Henry granted Margaret the wardships of the two sons of her nephew, the executed Duke of Buckingham, a grant that gave her access to the boys’ vast revenues. Margaret was able to use this to benefit her own kin, and even before the grant was finalised, Henry made her half-brother, John Welles, a grant out of the Buckingham estates, something that was likely to have been done at Margaret’s request. She also appears to have been fond of the young duke, being recorded to have received at least one visit from him to her household at Collyweston after he was an adult, when she gave him a gift of a jewel worth one hundred pounds, a generous gesture. Shortly after the accession, she was able to arrange royal marriages for two of her kinsmen, persuading her son to allow John Welles to marry Cecily, the second surviving daughter of Edward IV, and for her nephew, Richard Pole, who was a son of her half-sister, Edith St John, to marry Margaret of Clarence, the sister of the Earl of Warwick.