Henry VII Read online

  But there were still other sprigs that had to be taken into account – numerous sons of Edward IV’s sister Elizabeth and John de la Pole, duke of Suffolk. There had been seven of them altogether, and as yet only two were accounted for. The eldest, John, earl of Lincoln had, as we have seen, lost his life at Stoke in 1487; the second son, Edward, died before 1485; the fourth, Humphrey, was a cleric and a country rector, who died c. 1513. Nothing significant is known of the sixth, Geoffrey. But the third son, Edmund, earl of Suffolk, the fifth, William, and Richard the seventh son,2 could still claim to be the representatives of York, and might at least embarrass the Tudors for years to come.

  Edmund, a month or two after the marriage of Arthur and Catherine had been celebrated by proxy in May 1499, resenting judicial process in respect of a private murder which he had committed, although promptly pardoned, took offence and fled to Flanders.3 He spent some time with Sir James Tyrell, the governor of Guisnes, near Calais. But he was persuaded to return and remained along with his brothers in Henry VII’s good grace until in July or August 1501, he fled, together with his brother Richard, to the court of Maximilian, whose aid he sought in starting a new conspiracy in his own favour. But Henry did not remain uninformed of the plot’s ramifications. Edmund’s brother William found himself in the Tower, where he stayed until he died thirty-eight years later. Other persons who were implicated were imprisoned, and in some cases executed. Among the latter was included Sir James Tyrell.

  Henry VII could no longer afford to take chances. His own dynastic prospects had recently become more precarious than he could contemplate with any equanimity. In June 1500 his third son Edmund had died. The marriage of Arthur and Catherine of Aragon, for which he had striven for many years, was solemnized on 14 November 1501, but Arthur died on 2 April 1502. His only male heir now was the ten-year-old and as yet not very robust second son, Henry. In these circumstances, it is far from surprising that within five weeks of Arthur’s death, Sir James Tyrell, before his execution, should be alleged to have made a confession which was calculated to lay the ghosts of the princes in the Tower for ever. Tyrell was the ideal candidate for such a confession, especially as he would shortly be dead, and it was most important to take the opportunity, such as it was, to make it very difficult for any further imposter to claim to be a son of Edward IV. But the manifest expediency of the allegation does not make it true.1

  Several years were to elapse before the live Yorkist male heir, Edmund, earl of Suffolk, could be brought into safe custody. Before then, Henry VII’s own queen and devoted consort, Elizabeth, the eldest of the heiresses of York, died (11 February 1503); his daughter Margaret had departed to be James IV’s queen (August 1503); his daughter Mary was as yet only seven years of age, and Henry VII’s efforts at getting Edmund de la Pole out of Flanders were unremitting, and unavailing, until chance and adverse winds brought the Archduke Philip and his wife Joanna of Castile to England in 1506, when Henry’s hospitality proved to be so flattering and so prolonged that before Philip was finally able to leave he not only agreed inter alia to surrender Edmund and to cause him to be brought home (with assurances as to his safety), but also to a commercial treaty which was markedly favourable to England.1 In the Tower of London Edmund was safe until 1513, when his brother Richard, still at large, got himself recognized for a time by Louis XII as another Richard IV,2 whereupon Henry VIII thought it best to terminate Edmund’s custody once and for all. Merely to be a De la Pole was fatal in the reign of Henry VII’s heir, as many of the family discovered when the only surviving male Tudor ruthlessly sought to extinguish the White Rose for ever.3

  Henry VII’s problem of security was thus not solved with the death of Warbeck and of Warwick in 1499. Not until 1506 could he feel that so far as Yorkist claimants were concerned he had little to fear. But by then his dynastic hopes had come to rest solely upon his surviving son Henry. His line of succession was very slender, and his continued fears for the future of his house induced his pertinacious efforts in his last years to find a second queen for himself. His endeavours were to be in vain, but the same fears and efforts were to be inherited and enormously magnified by his successor.

  1 P.V. (ed. Hay), 6.

  1 No English chronicler mentions the presence of Scots in Henry’s forces at Bosworth, but the evidence for it adduced by Agnes Conway, Henry VII’s relations with Scotland and Ireland, 1485–98 (1932), 5–9, cannot be lightly dismissed.

  2 See below, p. 279.

  3 C.P.R., I, 39–40.

  4 See references in Busch, op. cit. 30, fn. 3.

  5 See P. M, Kendall, op. cit. 385–9.

  1 The circumstances of the insurrection were fully discussed by C. H. Williams, ‘The rebellion of Humphrey Stafford in 1486’, E.H.R., XLIII (1928), 181–9.

  2 See Sir Hugh Conway’s reminiscences disclosed at a later date, L. & P., I, 234. Conway was told of Lovel’s escape and plan by a friend, and decided to pass the news to Sir Reginald Bray, who informed the king.

  3 After the fiasco in 1486, he fled to Sir Thomas Broughton’s house in N. Lancashire and thence to Flanders. From there he was sent by Margaret, the dowager duchess, to Ireland to aid Lambert Simnel. See below; cf. G.E.C., and D.N.B. On Humphrey Stafford, see R.P., V, 276; and J. C. Wedgwood (ed.), History of parliament, biographies, 1439–1509 (1936), For land forfeited by Stafford, see numerous references in C.P.R., and Materials.

  4 Reported in Y.B. 1 Henry VII, Trin., pl. 1, and Pas., pl. 15. An extract from the latter is in S. B. Chrimes, op. cit. 381 (79). The significance of this case is discussed by Isobel D. Thornley, ‘The destruction of sanctuary’, Tudor Studies, ed. R. W. Seton-Watson (1924), 199 ff. The eagerness of Henry VII to obtain the judicial ruling ultimately given is revealed by the fact that Hussey, chief justice of the King’s Bench, was obliged to visit him and ask him not to press for a judicial opinion on the point as the case was to come before the justices in King’s Bench. Henry VII agreed to refrain but urged that no time should be lost when the case came on. Later, he ordered the justices to issue writs to proceed with all similar cases which had been surceased by writs of Privy Seal of Edward IV and Richard III. See below, p. 161.

  1 R. B. Wernham, Before the Armada (1966), 30–1.

  2 C. Jenkins, ‘Cardinal Morton’s register’, Tudor Studies, 37.

  1 For much of what follows on Irish affairs, see E. Curtis, A history of mediaeval Ireland (1923) Agnes Conway, op. cit.; Art Cosgrove, ‘The Gaelic resurgence and the Geraldine supremacy’, The course of Irish history, ed. T. W. Moody and F. X. Marten (Cork, 1967), 158–73; cf. H. G. Richardson and G. O. Sayles, The Irish parliament in the Middle Ages (1952), 244–68.

  2 op. cit. 44–5.

  1 Curtis, op. cit. 380–1.

  1 The odd remark made by Thomas Betanson in a letter to Sir Robert Plumpton, dated 29 November 1486, to the effect that ‘also here is litle spech of the erle of Warwyk now, but after Christenmas, they say ther wylbe more spech of’, is too vague to build any theories upon. (Plumpton correspondence, ed. T. Stapleton, Cam. Soc. 4 (1839), 54.)

  1 C.P.R., I, 179.

  2 Leland, Coll., IV, 208.

  3 Materials, II, 148, etc. It is by no means certain that the reason for her deprivation had any connection with the plot. The records make no such suggestion. The arrangement may have been voluntary, as R. Pauli, Geschichte von England (1858), V, 536, suggested, or may have been induced by family or health reasons. Vergil’s explanation (loc. cit. 18), that the reason was her conduct before Bosworth, seems to be rather far-fetched. It is difficult to reconcile with this allegation the words of a writ to the Exchequer dated 10 March 1488, ordering the payment of 200 marks to the ‘right dere and right well beloved Quene Elizabeth, late wif unto the noble prince of famous memory King Edward the IVth, and moder unto oure derrest wif the quene’ (Materials, 273). The king made gifts to her on a number of occasions (ibid. 225, 296, 322, 392, 455, 500). He would hardly have done this if he had felt vindictive towards her.

  4 Num
erous commissions of array were issued on 7 April, C.P.R., I, 179.

  1 P.V., 12–26, esp. 24. Some antiquarian information and an attempt to reconstruct the battle are given in R. Brooke, Visits to fields of battle in England in the fifteenth century (1857).

  2 P.V., 24.

  3 Wernham, op. cit.

  1 Wernham op. cit.

  2 R.P., VI, 385–402.

  3 ibid. 397–402. Twenty-seven persons were attainted in addition to the earl of Lincoln. According to an act of attainder of 1495 (ibid. 502–7), Francis, Viscount Lovel was ignorantly left out and omitted from the act of 1487, and the error was then rectified. But Lovel had been attainted in 1485 (ibid. 276), and apart from pinning down his activities in 1487, the omission was more formal than substantial. Some curious information regarding the more obscure features of the plot is provided by a further act of attainder passed in 1489 (ibid. 436), by which five more persons were convicted.

  4 S.R., II, 509–10; see below, p. 154 ff.

  5 See below (ibid. 520).

  6 L. & P., I, 94–6. In this letter Henry VII refers to rumours that had been spread in England to the effect that he had been routed at Stoke.

  1 Printed in Ryland, History of Waterford (Dublin, 1824), 26.

  2 C.P.R., I, 225, 227; the wording of the oaths to be taken was very specific and precise, and it is not surprising that the Irish lords were reluctant to take them. See below p. 260.

  1 The total amount voted was £100,000 (R.P., VI, 420–4), but of this only some £27,000 appears to have been raised (F. G. Dietz, English government finance (Illinois, 1920), 55).

  2 Busch, op. cit. 47.

  3 Bridge, op. cit., I, 180.

  4 For Henry VII’s foreign policies at this time, see below, Pt III. On Anglo-Breton relations, see B. A. Pocquet du Haut-Juissé, op. cit. 271–99.

  5 Cal. S.P. Spanish, I, 21–4.

  1 Apart from a few points of substance noted below which have been revealed subsequently, there is little on Warbeck’s career to be added to the very full and judicious account published by J. Gairdner in the Appendix to his Richard III (new ed., 1893). The most important additional point concerns the implication of Sir William Stanley, which was revealed a few months after the publication of Gairdner’s work and which has largely escaped notice. See below, p. 85, fn. 2. A portrait from a drawing in the town library of Arras is given in Gairdner, op. cit. 282, see pl. 11c.

  2 It has been shown that Perkin Warbeck could have learnt a good deal about the court and family of Edward IV from his employer Sir Edward Brampton, a converted Portuguese Jew who had risen high in Yorkist favour, was appointed governor of Guernsey in 1482 and knighted by Richard III, but had fled to the Low Countries after Bosworth. Warbeck accompanied the Bramptons on a voyage from Middelburg to Lisbon in 1487. There is not, however, any evidence that a plot was contemplated by Brampton at this stage. Mr Roth, however, in his valuable article, ‘Perkin Warbeck and his Jewish master’, Trans. Jewish Hist. Soc. of England, IX (1922), 143–62, shows clearly that Warbeck may well have learnt much from Brampton that he put to effective use later on. It remains conjectural why it was that Henry VII granted a general pardon and restitution to Brampton on 21 August 1489. At a later date, however, Brampton may well have been able to tell Henry VII what he knew about Warbeck, and may indeed have been the source of the information which the king disclosed as early as July 1493. See below, p. 83, fn. 2.

  3 Although the contrary has been alleged, it seems there is no evidence, and no probability that Margaret of York could have had any personal acquaintance with Warbeck as a possible Yorkist pretender until he left France in late 1492 or early 1493.

  1 The letter from John Taylor dated 15 September 1491 from Rouen to John Hayes, received 26 November, referred to Charles VIII’s and his council’s resolve to aid ‘Clarence’s son’. John Hayes had been in Clarence’s service, and John Taylor was an exiled Yorkist active in plot-making. The French King and Council said that they would take nothing in recompense for their aid, but undertook to act because of the ‘wrong they had done in making Henry king of England’. Hayes was convicted and attainted of misprision of treason (R.P., VI, 454–5).

  2 L. &. P., II, 55, 9 February 1493.

  3 ibid. 326–7.

  4 Gairdner, op. cit. 274.

  1 Foedera, XII, 710–12; R.P., VI, 507.

  2 This is clearly revealed in a letter from Henry VII at Kenilworth, 20 July, to Sir Gilbert Talbot, printed by Gairdner, op. cit. 275–6, who shows that the year must be 1493; and Ellis, Letters, 1st ser., I, 19.

  3 These were two formidable persons, Sir Edward Poynings and William Warham, later archbishop of Canterbury. Foedera, XII, 544.

  4 Busch, op. cit. 88 and 339 (refs); and see below.

  5 Printed by F. Madden, ‘Documents relating to Perkin Warbeck’, Archaeologia, XXVII (1838), 199.

  6 Gairdner, op. cit. 280–1.

  1 Archaeologia, loc. cit. 200.

  2 Conway, op. cit. 49.

  3 See below, Pt III.

  1 R.P., VI, 503. In addition to Sir William Stanley, three others now attainted had been convicted of high treason by oyer et terminer, and sixteen others were now convicted and attainted.

  2 The reports of the trials of Stanley and others are missing from the Baga de secretis (see below, p. 92, fn. 1), but a sixteenth-century copy was found in Camb. MS. Ee. 3.1, and published by W.A.J. Archbold, E.H.R., XIV (July, 1899), 529–34; too late to be used by Gairdner in the revised edition of his Richard III, who, however, added comments to Archbold’s note, loc. cit. 529–30. As Gairdner observed, the facts revealed are valuable.

  3 The terms of these fantastic agreements are set out in Gairdner, Richard III, 289–91. The documents are still in the archives of Antwerp. See M. Gérard, Bull. de la commission royal d’histoire (Brussels), 4th ser., II, 9–22.

  4 Memorials, ed. Gairdner, App. A, 393–9.

  5 Gairdner, op. cit. 294–5.

  6 R.P., VI, 503&ndash7. Fourteen persons were included.

  1 Curtis, op. cit. 404; Conway, op. cit. 78–9, 84–6, 175, 233–4.

  2 See Conway, op. cit. 1–41.

  3 Foedera, XV, 160.

  1 L. & P., I, 59–67; Foedera, XII, 235–47.

  2 See above, p. 70.

  3 ibid.

  4 Henry Wyatt, later the father of Sir Thomas Wyatt the poet, rose from obscure origins high in the service and favour of Henry VII by performing notable services as an agent in Scotland. Conway, op. cit., John Ramsay, Lord Bothwell, and later James Stewart, first earl of Buchan, were the outstanding Scots magnates who were in Henry VII’s pay for many years and supplied him with much information, ibid. 7, 17, 22, 25, 37, 102–3.

  5 Rot. Scot., II, 473–7; Miss Conway, op. cit. 10, 22–3, shows conclusively that these negotiations belonged to 1486, not 1488, as Rymer, Foedera, XII, 334, mistakenly supposed. This error was repeated by many historians who consequently attributed the negotiations and treaty to early in the reign of James IV.

  6 Rot. Scot., II, 480–1.

  7 ibid. 488–90.

  1 Great Seal register, 1424–1513, No. 1798; Conway, op. cit. 31.

  2 Treasurer’s Accounts, I, 99, 120. These transactions may have been connected with the conspiracy for the release of the earl of Warwick for which the abbot of Abingdon and John Maine were convicted and hanged in December 1489. R.P., VI, 436–7.

  3 Treasurers’ Accounts, I, 130.

  4 Rot. Scot., II, 499; Milanese calendar, Nos 440, 443, 444.

  5 ibid. 503–5.

  6 See above, p. 82.

  7 Foedera, XII, 494–7.

  8 Rot. Scot., II, 508.

  9 See generally, Conway, op. cit. 99–117.

  1 Rot. Scot., II, 520.

  2 Conway, op. cit. 103.

  3 ibid. 104 and Apps XXXVIII, XXXIX.

  4 ibid. 105.

  5 ibid.

  6 ibid. 107–8.

  1 Busch, op. cit. 110–12, and refs. therein. For the attainders of Lord Audley and four
teen others, ten of whom were yeomen, see R.P., VI, 544. Twelve more, all except three being yeomen, were attainted in connection with Warbeck’s incursion into Cornwall, ibid.

  2 L. & P., I, 104–9.

  3 Gairdner, op. cit. 318.

  1 Rot. Scot., II, 526; Foedera, XII, 680; Conway, op. cit. 116; Wernham, op. cit. 46–7.

  2 Gairdner, op. cit. 317–33. The confession, which was printed, is analysed, ibid. 265–8; and Warbeck’s letter to his mother is printed, ibid. 329–30. There is no reason to doubt the authenticity of either the confession or the letter. Warbeck’s wife, Katherine Gordon, was courteously treated by Henry VII, pensioned, and put into the queen’s care. She subsequently, in the time of Henry VIII, married three times, (1) James Strangways, a gentleman usher of the chamber; (2) Mathew, later Sir Mathew Cradock, a gentleman of Glamorgan; and (3) Christopher Ashton, another gentleman usher of the chamber. She died in 1537, and was buried in Fyfield Church, Berkshire. See Gairdner’s note to Busch, op. cit. 440–1.

  1 That a minor conspiracy, in which the prime movers were a few citizens of London, existed, intended to procure the release of Warwick and Warbeck, seems clear from the indictments in the Baga de secretis, 53rd annual report of the deputy keeper of the Public Records (1892), App. II, 30–6. The suspicious circumstance is that most of the commoners who were found guilty of treason were subsequently pardoned. Busch, op. cit. 118–21, and n. 14, 349.

  2 G.E.C., XII, 2 (1953), App. 1.