The Last White Rose (23 page)

They told Suffolk that every European sovereign was bound by treaty to repatriate English rebels, and that if he became a mercenary fighting for another country he would commit treason, and never see England again. Should he return, however, his escapade would be forgiven. He gave in and went home,
⁷
and was able to produce such a convincing excuse for his behaviour that the king pardoned him.
⁸

Even so, Edmund was fined
£
1,000. Still more damaging from his point of view, King Henry rehabilitated the Howard
family – out of favour since 1485 – and helped them to build up their power in East Anglia at the expense of the de la Poles. Distrusted by the king, growing poorer every day and losing local influence, he was being driven further and further down the social scale.

13. Autumn 1499: Edmund de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk

1
. Hall,
op. cit
., p. 495.

2
. Sir Thomas More, ‘A Rueful Lamentation on the Death of Queen Elizabeth’, in R.S.Sylvester (ed.),
The Complete Works of St Thomas
More
, Yale, Yale University Press, vol. 1, p. 9.

3
.
CSP Sp
,
op. cit
., vol. I, 249.

4
.
LP Hen VII
,
op. cit
., vol. I, pp. 397, 400–1.

5
. Vergil,
op. cit
., p. 127.

6
. Cunningham,
Henry VII
, pp. 187–8.

7
.
LP Hen VII
,
op. cit
., vol. I, pp. 131–4.

8
. Vergil,
op. cit
., p. 123.

14

Summer 1501: White Rose and White King

‘Solicited, allured and provoked by that old, venomous serpent the Duchess of Burgoyne, ever being the sower of sedition and beginner of rebellion against the King of England, or else stimulate [d] and pricked with envy … with his brother Richard [he] fled again.’

Edward Hall, The Union of the two Noble and Illustre Famelies of Lancaste and Yorke
¹

In 1501 an English courtier in the service of Emperor Maximilian told him England was tired of the ‘murders and tyrannies’ of Henry VII – a reference to Warbeck and Warwick – and argued Edmund’s claim to the throne. Maximilian replied that he would be only too willing to help ‘one of King Edward’s blood’ regain the crown of England and was ready to spend an entire year’s revenue on doing so. The courtier, a friend of Suffolk, immediately sent word to him.
²

The courtier was Sir Robert Curzon, a figure who could only have existed in the late Middle Ages, a professional soldier, jousting hero and self-proclaimed knight errant. When Captain of Hammes, one of the fortresses guarding Calais, despite his duties, Curzon had often been at court and with Suffolk had taken part in the tournament held to celebrate Prince Henry’s investiture as Duke of York. Vergil says he was of humble origin and owed his career to being knighted by the king, but in fact he was of impeccable gentry stock, a Curzon of Kedleston. After repeated requests, Henry had allowed him to resign his captaincy and go on crusade, which he performed by fighting for Maximilian against the Turks in the Balkans, so gallantly that he was created a
Reichsfreiherr
(Baron of the Empire) and in England was often referred to as ‘My Lord Curzon’.

Suffolk received Curzon’s message shortly before the marriage of Prince Arthur and Katherine of Aragon. No doubt he had learned that he was expected to play a major role in the customary tournaments, which would involve expenses and further financial troubles. By now he had grown to hate Henry. While Vergil says that a need to escape from heavy debts played a part in Edmund’s decision, he makes it clear that ‘party feeling’ was the key factor. This means the earl was in touch with diehard Yorkists – and that there were more than a few of them.
³
In July or August 1501, shortly before the royal wedding, Suffolk again took ship secretly, with his younger brother Richard de la Pole. This time, he made up his mind to claim the throne of England. Once more, the Yorkist cause had a leader with a better right to the throne than Henry Tudor and who possessed at least some experience of soldiering.

It was learned that a week earlier Edmund had ‘banqueted’ in London with the Marquess of Dorset, the Earl of Essex and Lord William Courtenay, who all fell under suspicion. (A banquet was not a dinner but a selection of exotic sweetmeats eaten in a luxurious setting – a celebration rather than a meal.) It was also learned that before he sailed Edmund had dined with
Courtenay – son and heir of the Earl of Devon, the saviour of Exeter from the ‘Duke of York’. Courtenay was even suspected of advising Edmund to land in the West Country when he launched his invasion.
⁴

Whatever the chronicler Hall may say, Margaret of Burgundy had nothing to do with Edmund’s defection. Although at the beginning King Henry was convinced she was behind it, because of her long record of support for the White Rose and hatred of the Tudors, there is not the slightest hint that Edmund ever tried to contact her. While she may have welcomed the news of his flight, she made no effort to help him. By now she was a disillusioned old woman, who had given up all hope of seeing any of her nephews on the English throne.

Instead of making for Malines, the earl – calling himself ‘The White Rose, Duke of Suffolk’ – made his way to Maximilian’s court at Imst in the Tyrol. The emperor, an impressive-looking man with an eagle’s nose and a lanthorn jaw, not only disliked Henry for more than once outwitting him in diplomatic matters, but also regarded the Tudor as an upstart: like many others in Europe, he had been shocked at the news of the execution of the Earl of Warwick and of Warbeck whom he was still inclined to see as the younger Prince in the Tower. Edmund’s adoption of the title ‘The White Rose’, once used by Warbeck, may have appealed to a man who, as King of the Romans, sometimes called himself ‘The White King’. Edmund denounced Henry VII as a murderer, adding that the king wanted to kill both him and his brother. He then declared he was the rightful King of England, asking Maximilian to help him overthrow the Tudor usurper. He was supported by Sir Robert Curzon, who either fled with him or met him at Imst.

Welcoming Suffolk as a ‘kinsman’ (which meant he recognized him as a fellow sovereign), the emperor explained that for the moment he was unable to help because of his son’s treaty with England. Even so, he gave him a safe conduct to travel anywhere in the empire, while promising to find a way of assisting him. He
invited the earl to stay at Imst and after six weeks wrote a letter to Edmund in which he offered to supply him with up to 5,000 troops under a German captain and to find ships for them.

The earl found himself a player on the international stage, recognized as a king in exile. Maximilian sent him to Aix-la-Chapelle with letters of introduction to the city fathers, promising that the ships he needed would be hired in Denmark. It seemed there was every chance of a full-scale Yorkist invasion, especially when Suffolk found another supporter in John, King of Denmark, Norway and Sweden.

His steward, Thomas Killingworth, went to Brunecken in the Tyrol to inform the emperor that Heinrich, Count of Ardek, had offered to find the troops, with his son as their commander, together with the necessary funds which would be made available on St George’s Day (23 April) 1502, when the force would go to Denmark to embark on ships provided by King John.
⁵
But then the emperor – one of the most inept soldiers in Europe – decided he must take a hand. His meddling was so infuriating that Ardek withdrew his offer, thus putting an end to the latest Yorkist invasion.

Ironically, Maximilian was the House of York’s obvious ally. Superficially, he seemed no less formidable than Margaret of Burgundy, although he had no family motive for hating Henry. But the earl had not got the measure of his new friend. Impulsive, fond of theatrical gestures, Maximilian could never accept that his resources were too small for his ambitions: ruling over no more than Austria, the Low Countries, Franche Comté and a few isolated fragments of Germany, he nonetheless dreamed of being a Holy Roman Emperor who governed all Christendom. Yet if the prospect of securing a Yorkist restoration appealed to his vanity, he was, however, known throughout Europe as ‘the man of few pence’ and simply did not have enough money to subsidize an invasion force.

Henry’s frenzied reaction to yet another Yorkist challenge shows that, like Suffolk, he failed to appreciate the emptiness
of Maximilian’s promises. ‘And the second Sunday of Lent [22 February 1502] was Sir Edmund de la Pole pronounced accursed at Paul’s Cross, at the sermon before noon,’ records the
Chronicle
of the Grey Friars
.
⁶
This ceremony of excommunication by the Church, which was repeated at Paul’s Cross every February for several years to come, reveals the extent of the king’s fury and fear.

Carefully briefed, a highly effective commission under the Earl of Oxford and Lord Willoughby de Broke had purged East Anglia of Yorkism, using more than just the usual machinery of arrests or surveillance and flooding the area with agents. Another commission had purged the adjoining counties of Berkshire and Oxfordshire. Suffolk’s retainers and tenants, his friends and neighbours – including a knight, 24 gentlemen, 15 esquires and scores of yeomen – were hauled before the local courts and placed under bonds to keep the peace, preventing them from taking any action in support of the earl. The fact that none of these people were attainted in the months that followed shows the bonds’ effectiveness – infringing them meant ruin.

In addition to small landowners, others of higher rank were rounded up in the eastern counties and the Thames Valley. ‘And soon after [the end of February 1502] was the Lord William of Devonshire, Sir James Tyrell and his eldest son, and one Wellesbourne, a servant of the said James Tyrell, taken and committed to safe keeping for favouring of the party of the Earl of Suffolk,’, a London chronicler tells us.
⁷
William de la Pole, Edmund’s youngest brother, was also sent to the Tower, where he remained a prisoner until his death in the late 1530s. At the same time, according to Vergil, many ‘of the common people’ [
de plebe hominibus
] were arrested throughout the country.
⁸

Having married a younger daughter of Edward IV, it was understandable that William Courtenay should support a Yorkist restoration. As for Sir James, in the old days one of Richard III’s most trusted henchmen, he had probably remained a staunch Yorkist (which explains why Edmund took refuge with
him during his first flight) although until now he had enjoyed the king’s complete confidence. His defection came as another shock for Henry. It needed a siege by the entire Calais garrison to prize the Tyrells out of Guisnes, and James only emerged in order to negotiate terms for a safe conduct – promptly broken by Henry’s officers, who arrested him.

A mass trial took place at the Guildhall during the first week of May 1502, conducted by a commission that included the mayor, the Duke of Buckingham and the Earl of Oxford and other peers, together with several judges and a number of distinguished knights. Sir James Tyrell and Sir John Wyndham were sentenced to death, as also were a former yeoman of the crown, a herald, a London barber, a sailor and various others. Tyrell and Wyndham were beheaded on Tower Hill, but the rest suffered all the ghastly penalties reserved for treason.
⁹
Another Yorkist supporter, Charles Ryppon, keeper of Portchester Castle, was beheaded at Winchester.