Mary Rose (2 page)

At the beginning of 1484, Richard was riding high. The parliament which met on 23 January dutifully attainted not only Henry and his uncle Jasper, but also those numerous Yorkists who had joined his cause, including the bishops of Ely, Salisbury and Exeter.
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Margaret’s estates were transferred to her husband, Lord Stanley, for life, in what was probably a conciliatory gesture. Before the parliament was over, the King secured the oaths of all the Lords spiritual and temporal for the recognition of his son, Prince Edward, as his heir, and came to terms with the Queen Dowager, as we have seen. He must have seemed secure. However in early April his son died, leaving him in a dynastic wilderness, and Henry of Richmond began to assume a more serious role in his calculations. Duke Francis was a sick man, and with only his daughter Anne as his heir, a French takeover of Brittany seemed likely. This the Duke’s council was determined to prevent, and Richard seized the opportunity to offer military support in return for the surrender of his attainted fugitive. A deal was done on 8 June, but Henry got wind of the plot and, by a subterfuge which involved disguising himself as a servant, managed to slip over the border into Anjou.
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When the Duke discovered what had happened, his indignation was reserved mainly for his own council, which had sold Henry so unworthily, and he generously allowed the rest of the English exiles to join Henry in France. They were afforded an honourable welcome, but the Regency Council put the question of supporting any bid against Richard on hold for the time being. The minority government was not attracted by the idea of war with England.
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Nevertheless, in the latter part of 1484 Henry’s stock began to rise. He was joined by the Earl of Oxford, a Lancastrian stalwart who had been imprisoned in the castle of Hammes, near Calais, but who now broke out and brought most of the garrison with him. This was seen as an indication of increasing support, and the Council began to take his royal pretensions seriously. Then on 16 March 1485 Richard suffered another blow with the death of his queen, Ann. Whereas the death of his son had been seen by his enemies as a divine judgement, the death of the Queen was laid at Richard’s own door, because it was thought that he had poisoned her in order to marry his niece, Elizabeth, a rumour fuelled by her mother’s improved relations with the King. There was much talk of this marriage, but no serious evidence that it was ever entertained.
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What did happen was that Richard felt compelled to issue a formal denial that he had been responsible for his wife’s death. As Henry’s credit was rising in France, so Richard’s was declining in England, and at about the time of Ann’s death, the Regency Council, headed by the King’s sister Anne of Beaujeu, decided to back the former’s bid for the Crown of England.

Henry, meanwhile, had begun to assume the name and style of King, and further recruits joined him, notably Richard Fox, who had been studying in Paris. Communications with his supporters in England, which had continued intermittently throughout his period of exile, now began to assume a more purposeful air. Messengers went surreptitiously to and fro, with his mother, with Lord Stanley, with John Morgan with Walter Herbert and several others, soliciting their support. In return word came out of Wales that Rhys ap Thomas and Sir John Savage were wholly committed to him, and that Reginald Bray was collecting funds on his behalf. Margaret urged him to come to Wales as soon as possible in order to capitalise on this fund of goodwill.
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Throughout May and June 1485 Henry struggled to raise enough ships and men to make his attempt viable, knowing that a powerful appearance would encourage others to declare themselves. Eventually, with the somewhat grudging support of the French Council, and by borrowing money on the credit of his prospects, he managed to assemble about 2,000 mercenaries, and accompanied by some 300 or 400 English exiles, set out from the Seine on 1 August. He landed at Milford Haven on the 7th, encountering no resistance, and set off via Haverfordwest to march through what is now Ceredigion and Powys into England. His march was beset with anxieties because, in spite of the lack of opposition, he had so far recruited very few new followers, and it was only on the 12th that his worst fears were allayed when he was joined by Rhys ap Thomas with a force which just about doubled his numbers. The powerful Welshman had been as good as his word.
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Messages of support came in from his mother, Lord Stanley, Lord Stanley’s brother Sir William, and from Gilbert Talbot. The latter actually joined him with 500 men. However, the Stanleys had not moved, and without them his army looked very small to encounter the host which Richard had by them assembled against him. In the event, when the two forces encountered near Market Bosworth in Leicestershire on the 21 August, it transpired that Richard’s much larger army was riddled with disaffection, and a large part of it did not engage. That, and the fact that the Stanleys turned up in the nick of time, turned the fortunes of battle Henry’s way and he won a decisive victory.
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Richard was killed in the fighting, and Henry was proclaimed as king on the field. It is even alleged that the crown from Richard’s helmet was used in an impromptu coronation ceremony. The fact that the King had died childless, leaving only a nephew as his heir, meant that Henry’s victory was generally accepted as the will of God, and his reign began forthwith. Within a few days he had issued letters announcing his accession, secured the person of Edward, Earl of Warwick, the fifteen-year-old son of the Duke of Clarence (and a potential rival for the throne), and set off for London. Edward was incarcerated in the Tower, and Elizabeth restored to her mother with the warmest commendations for her safekeeping. Lord Stanley and his wife accompanied the new king to his capital, where he immediately issued writs for the convening of a parliament, and fixed his coronation for 30 October.
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In spite of his inexperience in such matters, it was essential that Henry should appear to know what he was about, and he quickly assembled a council consisting very largely of those who had served Edward IV in the same capacity. He swiftly rewarded with titles, grants and offices those who had served him in exile, or had smoothed his path to the throne, particularly his uncle Jasper, who became Duke of Bedford, and his stepfather Lord Thomas Stanley, who became Earl of Derby, but most of his councillors were drawn from those Yorkist loyalists who had rejected Richard, many of whom, like John Morton, had joined him in Brittany after 1483.
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Henry, meanwhile, was crowned in style. No expense was spared to make the occasion as glittering as might be, and the traditional ceremonies and rituals were strictly observed. The Great Wardrobe spent a fortune (over £1,500) on trappings for the occasion. On 27 October the King dined with the Archbishop at Lambeth, and followed this with a procession through London to the Tower, where he spent the next two nights before the ceremony itself. Archbishop Bourchier anointed him, and was assisted by the bishops of Durham and Bath and Wells. The new Duke of Bedford acted as Steward for the occasion, and places of honour were reserved for the King’s mother the Lady Margaret, and for his intended bride, Elizabeth of York. Henry had made no move in the direction of marriage, partly because he did not want to make it appear that his title to the throne depended in any way upon her, and more importantly, because a dispensation would be needed because of the degree of affinity which existed between them.
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Such a dispensation could only be obtained from Rome, and the Pope had not yet recognised him as king, so that situation needed careful and thoughtful handling. The parliament which convened on 7 November, perhaps deliberately, gave him his cue by petitioning him to remember his promise to the Lady Elizabeth, and thus reinforced his intention by the will of the estates, representing the realm of England. Henry might be newly crowned and only twenty-eight years old, but the succession was never far from his subjects’ minds, and such a marriage would be an ideal way to heal the long breach between the houses of York and Lancaster. It may be significant that the petition was only offered after the parliament had declared the King’s title, ‘To the pleasure of All mighty God, the wealth, prosperity and surety of this realm of England’, reversed the attainders of his followers, and made financial provision for the new reign. In other words it took its place in a calculated order of priorities.
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This gave the King some breathing space, and an opportunity to get to know the young lady, whom he had probably never set eyes on, and to accustom her to the idea of wedding a man she did not know. Moreover, at the time that the parliament met, Elizabeth was still stigmatised as a bastard by an unrepealed Act of Richard III, and that had to be reversed before any question of marriage could be entered into. So there were good reasons for the delay, quite apart from the susceptibilities involved.

The dispensation was probably applied for in early December, perhaps even before the petition was received, but these things took time and in this case the testimony of eight witnesses. Realising the urgency of the matter, Pope Innocent VIII allowed the Apostolic Delegate to England and Scotland, James Bishop of Imola, to issue an interim dispensation on 16 January, just two days before the ceremony took place. Henry must have known in advance that the decision would be a favourable one, because more than two days would have been needed for the preparations.
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Indeed the prompt arrival of Prince Arthur in September suggests that the couple were sleeping together before they were married, although no one commented upon that fact at the time. Not very much is known about the wedding itself; even the participation of Archbishop Bourchier is little more than speculation. Despite the fact that it was celebrated by chroniclers and commentators as marking the triumphant end of the feud of York and Lancaster, no proper account of it survives, and it must have been celebrated in some haste. The papal bull of confirmation was dated 2 March 1486, describing the circumstances of the Bishop of Imola’s action, giving the degrees of kindred dispensed, and stating that it had been in response to the petition of the magnates and people of the realm. Finally on 23 July a decree was issued, setting out a notarial copy of the process before the Apostolic Delegate, and threatening the sentence of excommunication against anyone denying the validity of Henry’s claim to the throne.
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The full decree had taken time, but it had been worth waiting for. Not only was it retrospective in its effect, but it carried the full weight of papal recognition for his title, which was essential for the negotiations which were by then under way with other European rulers. Queen Elizabeth fell pregnant at once, and bore a son on 19 September, confirming in the eyes of all but the most recalcitrant that Henry’s triumph was the will of God.

One of those recalcitrants was John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln. John had been Richard’s designated heir, but had at first made no show. Early in 1487 he fled to Flanders and countenanced (if he did not inspire) the imposture of Lambert Simnel, who claimed to be the true Earl of Warwick. Recognised and supported by his ‘aunt’ Margaret of Burgundy, Simnel secured a coronation in Ireland and, with a mixed band of Irish kerns and German mercenaries, invaded England in pursuit of his claim. He was defeated and captured at the Battle of Stoke on 16 June, and the Earl of Lincoln died in the battle.
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This was the end of any immediate challenge to the King’s position, and he now felt it safe to crown his queen. On 10 November he issued a commission to Jasper, Duke of Bedford, to discharge the office of Steward of England at this coronation, and the ceremony was held at Westminster on the 25th. Elizabeth was a loving and dutiful wife, and was later described as being beloved of the people ‘because she is powerless’. Henry certainly trusted her, and early in 1487 transferred to her her mother’s jointure. This was probably voluntary on the Queen Dowager’s part, and may well have been connected with her declining health. She retired to the convent at Bermondsey with an annual pension of 200 marks, which Henry paid with every sign of filial affection until her death in 1492.
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Elizabeth may well have been pregnant again by the end of 1487, but if so she had a miscarriage because there is no official record of her condition, and it was November 1489 before she produced a second child – a daughter who was named Margaret. Margaret’s christening was overshadowed by the creation of her brother Arthur as Prince of Wales, which occurred on the 29th, and not very much is known about her upbringing. She later married James IV of Scotland and died in 1541.
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She would have been taught to read and write, and subsequently had a reasonable command of French. These skills were imparted by tutors, but she seems not to have shared lessons with her brothers, and was spared the strict regiment of classical reading which was imposed upon them. Instead her education would have been that thought suitable to a royal or aristocratic girl, and consisted largely of piety, needlework and household management. There are some indications that she read widely, but her reading matter seems to have consisted of Chaucer, Froissart and Malory rather than anything more substantial.
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In other words, she was trained to be a wife or consort, and her intellectual ambitions, if she had any such, would have been largely frustrated.

By the beginning of 1491 Elizabeth was pregnant again and on 28 June gave birth to her second son, who was named Henry. Whereas Arthur had been recognised as Duke of Cornwall from his birth, Henry had no title until he was created Duke of York in 1494 at the age of three. Unlike Arthur, Henry was robust child, and grew into a youth of great stature and athleticism, eventually succeeding his father as King Henry VIII in 1509.
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At some time in 1492 a second daughter was born to the Queen, and named Elizabeth; however, she did not survive infancy, dying in 1495, shortly after the birth of a third girl, who was called Mary, and is the subject of this study.