The Last White Rose (26 page)

Clearly, the ‘great personages’ who were cited by the treasurer remembered all too well how Edward V had been turned off the throne and murdered when he was twelve. (After twenty years the late Richard of Gloucester’s coup still cast a very long shadow.) In 1504, the new heir to the throne, the Duke of York – the future Henry VIII – at thirteen was only a little younger. His younger brother Edmund had died only recently so that, apart from his widowed father, he was the sole surviving member of a dynasty which might easily be supposed to be on the edge of extinction.

When Sir Sampson asked him if he had told the king, Conway asked to be allowed to finish. Since his arrival at Calais, he continued, he had repeated what he had just said to Sir Nicholas Vaux, lieutenant of Guisnes and to Sir Anthony Browne, lieutenant of the castle at Calais. Both had given him the same answer: they felt safe enough in their fortresses ‘and should be sure to
make their peace how so ever the world turn’. The entire meeting then vehemently insisted that Conway should tell the king.

‘If you knew King Harry, our master, as I do, you would beware how … you broke to him … any such matters, for he would take it to be said but of envy, ill will and malice,’ replied Sir Hugh. He then explained how this sort of thing had got him into trouble before. In 1486, hearing in confidence from a friend that Richard III’s former henchman Lord Lovell, in sanctuary at Colchester, was plotting mischief, he had immediately told Sir Reginald Bray, who had brought him to the king. When Henry asked him to name his source, Conway had refused because he had been sworn to secrecy by his informant, so that his warning only served to irritate the king.

Sir Richard Nanfan reluctantly agreed that Henry was a little too prone to question warnings. He recalled that when he and Sir Sampson reported their suspicions about Sir James Tyrell – the murderer of the Princes in the Tower, who had recently been executed as a de la Pole supporter – the council refused to believe them, saying they were motivated by malice. When Nanfan had written to the king that Sir Robert Clifford was going round Calais insisting that Perkin Warbeck was Edward IV’s son – ‘Never words went colder to my heart than they did’ – Henry had demanded proof from Sir Richard, who made Clifford repeat it in front of the town marshal, ‘Else I had like to be put to a great plunge’ – by which he means he would probably have been hanged. The meeting was forced to admit that Conway would need much firmer evidence for his allegations.

Sir Hugh told the meeting that each and every one of them was in very grave danger. They did not have strongholds where they could take refuge (like Vaux or Browne), while they had too many enemies in Calais ‘that will be glad to destroy and murder us all’. Moreover, it had been written that Henry’s reign would last no longer than Edward IV’s – which had been little more than twenty-two years – but did not specify his source.

Terrified the conversation might be reported to the king, Conway’s hearers angrily refused to believe the prophecy, protesting their loyalty to Henry VII and the Tudors. Norton told him to burn the book in which the prophesy was written, adding that he hoped its writer would come to a bad end. ‘I pray you, leave off this prophesying about the king,’ said Sir Richard, who added that Conway was talking about things he himself had never heard of before. ‘My prayer is that I live day neither hour longer than the king’s grace, and [that] his children shall have and enjoy the realm of England.’

In response, Conway insisted that he was only mentioning such matters for the good of the king and his children, as well as for the safety of Calais. Nothing would ever be achieved without open and honest discussion. There could be no security so long as ‘The Lady Luse’ was in the castle: ‘for the castle is the key of this town: he that is therin being of a contrary mind may let men enough in one night to destroy us all while we shall be in our beds sleeping’. Elizabeth Lucy – ‘The Lady Luse’ – was the wife of Sir Anthony Browne, lieutenant of the castle or citadel of Calais. A niece of the late Warwick the Kingmaker (her father, the Marquess Montagu, had been killed at the battle of Barnet in 1471), she had her own ideas about the succession. Once King Henry was dead, continued Conway, ‘she being in the castle here and Edmund de la Pole her cousin at his liberty … she would help him in his cause with all her power and … let him come into this town by the postern [gate] of the castle, to the destruction of us all’.

Sir Hugh was saying that even now – nearly twenty years after Bosworth – Calais remained full of irreconcilable Yorkists who had never accepted the Tudor regime. He and his colleagues must never relax their guard in case King Henry should die unexpectedly. He also added that Calais was on the opposite side of the Channel to Kent, where he knew Suffolk had powerful supporters, such as Sir Richard Guildford.

Sir Richard Nanfan declared unctuously – for the third time and no doubt for the record – that he prayed to God he would
not live to see the king’s death, but whatever happened they must ensure that Calais stayed in the hands of ‘my lord prince’. With luck they could ‘destroy all the captains and ringleaders that be of ill and contrary mind’. It should be easy enough to manage the others.

Flamank then summarizes everything he has so far reported, while insisting that the Nanfans and Norton could all give the king a much better account of the discussion. He undermines his credibility, however, by adding that he has heard both Norton and William Nanfan mention that Sir Hugh Conway had said several times that there would be no more popes in Rome after the present one, and no more kings in Ireland after Henry VII. He finishes by describing a conversation in which the treasurer confided to him how he had suggested to both Sir Richard and Norton that, since it was so difficult to find out what was happening in England, it would be a good idea to employ a reliable man ‘to lie about the court … he may all times send us [news] how the world goeth’. Conway was ready to pay half the cost, ‘for God knoweth how suddenly a change may [be]fall’.

Without doubt, the report was deliberately biased against Sir Hugh Conway, perhaps an attempt by Flamank and Norton to secure his dismissal. He is portrayed as hopelessly unballanced, to the point of hysteria, while references to his dislike of Lord Daubeney may have been invented to cause bad blood. Conceivably, Sir Richard Nanfan, who made all those carefully noted professions of loyalty, was the document’s real author, even if he did not write it himself.

What made the report convincing was that during the previous year Sir Richard Guildford had been denounced by another spy as ready to welcome Suffolk. A former controller of the household, Guildford had been with Henry in Brittany and fought for him at Bosworth. Although probably unfounded, the accusation was given just a little substance by his being heavily in debt and facing ruin. The king gave him the benefit of the doubt, however, although in 1505 he had him arrested and sent
to Fleet prison for not keeping proper accounts when Master of the Ordnance. Guildford’s career was over. Next year he went on pilgrimage to Jerusalem where he died. Reservations about his loyalty may well have had something to do with his downfall.

When the reliability of key supporters such as Guildford was in doubt, it is no wonder Henry VII went in fear of Suffolk.

15. September 1504: A Conversation about the Future

1
.
LP Hen VII
,
op. cit
., vol. I, pp. 231–40.

2
. G. Cavendish,
Thomas Wolsey, late Cardinal, his Life and Death
written by George Cavendish
,
his Gentleman Usher
, London, Folio Society, 1999, p. 33.

16

Winter 1505–6: An Ill Wind

‘And then it was agreed between the King and the Duke of Burgoyne that Edmund de la Pole should be sent home again, and so he was.’

Chronicle of the Grey Friars of London
¹

Even before the deterioration in Henry VII’s physical health, a lack of mental equilibrium could be discerned. As already suggested, one symptom was a feverish obsession with Edmund de la Pole. It appears that his secret agents, carefully briefed, had been in touch with the White Rose, doing their best to persuade him to come home. No doubt they used every inducement, promising that all would be forgiven. In his wretchedness, Edmund convinced himself that this was possible. After all, the Emperor Maximilian had suggested it, assuring him he would work for such an outcome. Towards the end of January 1506 he made up his mind to negotiate with the king. A stream of pompously phrased letters shows that he thought he was negotiating from a position of strength and could dictate terms.

On 28 January ‘the right excellent prince, My Lord Edmund, Duke of Suffolk’, as he styled himself, solemnly commissioned his trusty and well-beloved servants, his steward Thomas Killingworth and John Griffiths, to go to King Henry and inform him of their master’s wishes. His father’s duchy was to be restored to him, together with all his father’s estates, and also the town of Leighton Buzzard which Edward IV had forced the family to lease to the canons of Windsor. His wife, his daughter and his brother Richard were to recover all their legal rights. His brother William de la Pole was to be set at liberty, as well as every gentleman who had been imprisoned on his account. Sir George Neville’s lands were to be restored to him. Edmund also asked Henry to help him recover his liberty should Philip try and keep him a prisoner by force. However, at the time he wrote his letters, Edmund was unaware of what had happened to his gaoler, the archduke.
²

At the beginning of the month, Archduke Philip had set off by sea for Spain. Heir to the Habsburg domains and the Holy Roman Empire, and – as Duke of Burgundy – ruler of the Low Countries, he had married Princess Juanna – Katherine of Aragon’s elder sister – who was the heiress to the Spanish throne. Since the death of his mother-in-law Queen Isabella, he had called himself King of Castile, much to the fury of his father-in-law, Ferdinand of Aragon. The archduke was determined to visit the country, however, and take possession of his wife’s inheritance. His fleet sailed from Zealand with great pomp: when they passed Calais at night, the ships were lit by flaming torches, their guns firing salutes and their trumpeters sounding. But while still in the Channel a fierce storm blew up, steadily mounting in intensity until Philip’s fleet was driven off course. Each vessel had to run for safety before the wind.

In England, the worst tempest within living memory began at noon on 15 January 1506, ‘the hideous wind which endured upon an xi days following, more or less in continual blowing’.
³
In London it ripped tiles off roofs, demolished entire houses and toppled the weathercock off the steeple of old St Paul’s cathedral. It was far worse at sea. Although her cannon were thrown overboard, for a moment Philip’s ship went gunwale under, while he was knocked off his feet by a huge wave and had to cling to the rigging. Eventually she struggled into Melcombe Regis in Dorset, opposite Weymouth. The archduke was lucky to escape with his life. A novice sailor, he had suffered miserably and insisted on going ashore to recuperate, despite his courtiers’ warnings.

According to Polydore Vergil, on learning of Philip’s arrival Henry VII was delighted, ‘scarcely able to believe his luck when he realized that divine providence had given him the means of getting his hands on Edmund de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk, who had been the leader of the conspiracy against him a few years previously’.
⁴

He immediately sent the Earl of Arundel to bring Philip to London, with an escort of 300 men-at-arms bearing torches, as it was a hard winter and the roads were covered in snow. The archduke was the king’s prisoner, however sumptuously he might be entertained and despite being made a Knight of the Garter. Henry had a well-deserved name for being the toughest bargainer in Europe, and eventually Philip signed a treaty of alliance, which ended the latest commercial dispute between England and Flanders with an agreement so favourable to England that it became known in the Low Countries as the Evil Treaty – the
Intercursus Malus.
Above all, the archduke reluctantly agreed to hand over Edmund de la Pole.