Henry VII Read online

  There is no reason to suppose that Catherine’s removal to Bermondsey Abbey during 1436 was caused by any other circumstance than her illness, the nature of which is not disclosed, but which, according to her own will, was long and grievous. It is probable that the king visited her there, and certainly he gave her as a New Year’s gift a jewelled golden crucifix, and most likely it was at this time that he was informed of the facts about the marriage. Catherine’s will makes no reference to her second husband or to her children by him, but requests Henry VI to be her executor with power to depute, and, in vague terms only trusts him to see to ‘the tender and favourable fulfilling of my intent’.1 These words imply that she had previously spoken with him and can reasonably be taken to allude to her intent regarding either her husband or children, or both. But what the intent was we do not know.

  It seems to be impossible to reconstruct with any assurance what exactly happened to Owen during the years following the revelation of his relations with Catherine. But it is clear that the King’s Council committed the two elder sons of the marriage, Edmund ap Meredith ap Tydier and Jasper ap Meredith ap Tydier (as they were called at this stage), to the care of Catherine de la Pole, niece of the earl of Suffolk, abbess of Barking, from 27 July 1437, and eventually paid her for her services up until at least 31 October 1440.2 But the boys were not knighted until 15 December 1449 nor created earls until 23 November 1452.3 Suggestions as to the dates of birth of these boys are guesswork, but the comparatively late date of their knighthoods does suggest that the commonly proposed dates of 1430 and 1431, respectively, are too early, unless the honours were unusually delayed, and may tend to confirm the theory that the marriage did not occur before 1432.

  Information as to the fate of Owen Tudor at this period is scanty, and depends largely upon two papers printed by Sir Harris Nicolas in what he called The proceedings and ordinances of the Privy Council.4 Two facts stand out from these documents. One is that Owen is expressly stated to have been in ward, i.e. in prison, at the date of the documents, viz, 15 July 1437. The second is that no reason for his detention is given in the first of these documents, and only very vague allusions to it are made in the second. There is no reference to the marriage, but a passing allusion is made to the king’s mother ‘with whom Oweyn Tidir dwelt’ - the sole known mention of the matter in any official document of the time. These documents do not record any passage between Owen and the council on 15 July 1437, although reference is made to a passage which had previously occurred, but they do record consideration by the council of the question whether an arrest of Owen that had recently been made was lawful in view of a verbal safe-conduct that had previously been accorded to him. It is clear that the council was concerned to try to establish the legality of this arrest, without stating the reason for it. The arrest was made, it is stated, ‘at the suit of the party’, in prejudice of whose rights by common law and statute the king’s grant could not take effect unless the circumstances were covered by a statutory exception, which was not the case. Owen could not have the advantage of a safe-conduct twice, and the council therefore advised the king that the recent arrest had been lawful, and the duke of Gloucester asked for and was granted a declaration under the Great Seal to this effect.

  At some stage in the following months, Owen escaped from Newgate,1 for on 24 March 1438 the council ordered 20 marks to be paid to Lord Beaumont for his services in guarding Owen, who had recently escaped from Newgate, had been arrested and conveyed to him; and Beaumont by the king’s command had brought him to the council and delivered him to the earl of Suffolk, constable of Wallingford Castle, together with the priest and servant who had assisted his escape. Owen was then handed over to the sheriffs of London and recommitted to Newgate. The sum of £89 found on the priest was sent to the treasurer and chamberlains of the Treasury.1 Where this considerable sum of money came from and why it was so confiscated are unanswerable questions, but the surmise must be that the source had been Catherine’s privy purse. There is no indication here of the dates when Owen had escaped, or when he was recaptured, except that the escape was said to have been recent when Lord Beaumont was reimbursed. But there is no evidence at all that he escaped from Newgate twice.2

  On 14 July 1438 an order was sent by the council to the constable of Windsor Castle to receive Owen ap Meredith ap Tider, who would be delivered to him on the king’s behalf, and to keep him in custody.3 Removal from Newgate to Windsor Castle was no doubt an improvement in fortunes and a step towards rehabilitation. On 29 July 1438 the sheriffs of London were pardoned for having ‘allowed’ the escape.4 On 15 July 1439 Sir Thomas Stanley was issued by the king with an order to allow Owen Meredith esquire to go freely, although he had ‘for particular causes’ lately been committed by the king to custody until further order.1 The reason for his release was that he had found security in Chancery to appear in person before the King and Council on the morrow of St Martin’s day (12 November) or earlier to answer ‘what should be laid before him, and for his good behaviour towards the king and his people’, but until he had done so, he was not to be allowed to go to Wales, the Marches, or parts adjacent to Wales. On 16 July Owen ap Meredith esquire gave a general release of all personal actions to John de Stanley, John Piker, and eight other persons.2 A memorandum of mainprise under penalty of £200 was made in Chancery on 17 July by William Wolf of Coton in Suffolk and nine others that Owen would appear in person before the King and Council by the due date, and this memorandum was vacated by writ of Privy Seal to the chancellor on 1 January 1440, as Owen had fulfilled the requirement.3 On 10 November 1439 a general pardon was granted to Owen for all offences committed before 10 October, but the nature of these offences is not stated.4

  Whatever offences the government regarded Owen as having committed or likely to commit - his temporary exclusion from Wales suggests that political repercussions springing from his family’s former involvement in the Glyndŵr rebellion were feared - from now on he became respectable. In 1441 he appears as a witness to a charter by which one Robert Banastre made a grant of land to no less a person than Humphrey, duke of Gloucester.5 In 1442 he shared with four others in a grant of a holding in Lambeth made by Robert Ashwell, alias Lancaster, son of John, late king of Arms.6 In 1459 he was commissioned, along with his own son Jasper, to arrest certain malefactors.7 On 19 December 1459 he was granted by the king an annuity of £100 from the estates confiscated from John, Lord Clinton.8 On 5 February 1460 he was granted the office of parker of the King’s Parks in parts of Denbighshire, to hold by himself or his deputies, with the usual wages, fees, and profits.9 At long last Owen ap Meredith ap Tider had become unequivocably Owen Tudor esquire.10 But the battle of Mortimer’s Cross - a severe Lancastrian defeat - was but a twelve-month ahead, and fighting then as a soldier for Lancaster, Owen was captured and beheaded during the first days of February 1461.1

  Of the four children (if that was the number) of Catherine and Owen, only two, Edmund and Jasper survived to make any impact on subsequent events.2 The ultimate destinies of these two sons differed greatly. Both were taken into favour by Henry VI, and were created earls of Richmond and of Pembroke, respectively, in 1452, but Edmund lived barely four years after that, whereas Jasper lived on until 1495, the strenuous and enterprising protagonist of the Lancastrian cause, and the stalwart champion and protector of his nephew - Edmund’s son Henry.3

  Edmund’s comparatively short life, terminated by natural causes in his early twenties, showed no particular distinction, and is notable mainly because of his marriage to Margaret Beaufort. He was created earl of Richmond and given the honour, county, and lordship of Richmond in 1452, as well as other lands and minor offices. He and Jasper were also given in 1452 the marriage and custody of Margaret Beaufort and of her deceased father’s lands.1 The grant of such rights in respect of so important an heiress as Margaret was a matter of great moment, and Henry VI can scarcely have made it without some expectation that the collateral lines would become entwined, although there
were difficulties to be overcome. For the fact was that Margaret had already been married, even though only nominally, to John de la Pole, heir of the first duke of Suffolk. Moreover, as recently as 18 August 1450, a papal dispensation had been obtained to allow the couple to remain in marriage although it had been contracted in ignorance of the fact that they were within the prohibited degrees of relationship. The couple, however, were but infants, and at some stage the marriage was dissolved. John de la Pole eventually married Elizabeth, second sister of the future Edward IV, and the way had been cleared for Edmund to marry his ward, which he did in 1455. Edmund is known to have been fighting in Wales in early 1456, but whether his death from illness on 3 November 1456, probably at Carmarthen Castle, was caused by this activity, is not known. He was buried at the Greyfriars, Carmarthen, and in 1536 his body was removed to St David’s Cathedral. Some three months after his death, his widow Margaret, still not quite fourteen years of age, gave birth, in Pembroke Castle, to their son Henry, on 28 January 1457.2

  Pembroke Castle had become the stronghold of her brother-in-law Jasper, who from this time on began his life-long task of protecting and furthering the fortunes of his nephew. Jasper had already fought at the battle of St Albans in 1455, and been appointed constable of several Welsh castles, but his own fortunes and power to safeguard Margaret and her infant son were soon to suffer severely as the political and military circumstances changed. He took part in the Lancastrian triumph at Ludlow in 1459, and captured Denbigh Castle in early 1460, only to be among the defeated at Mortimer’s Cross in early February 1461. Unlike his father Owen, he evaded capture, but after the accession of Edward IV on 4 March could not prevent the surrender of Pembroke Castle, along with Margaret and her son, to the Yorkist forces under William Lord Herbert of Raglan, on 30 September, nor avoid his own attainder and the forfeiture of his honours and lands on 4 November.1

  For Jasper there followed many years as a landless fugitive, seeking in desperation a restoration of the Lancastrian fortunes. In October 1462 he made a landing in Northumberland with Margaret of Anjou, and he was besieged in Bamborough Castle, which he was obliged to surrender on 21 December. Edward IV apparently would not promise to restore him to his estates, but allowed him to retire to Scotland under safe-conduct. Thereafter Jasper withdrew to Brittany and France.

  The king of France, Louis XI, recognized him as a cousin germane (i.e. first cousin once removed) and made him a member of his Household.2 He conferred with Sir John Fortescue, the exiled chief justice, at Rouen, probably on 13 June 1464.3 In 1468 he sailed from Honfleur on 24 June with three ships and about fifty men, made an incursion into Wales near Harlech, and captured Denbigh Castle again, but only to be routed by Lord Herbert, and forced to retire again to France. His great opportunity seemed to have come with the apparently successful revanche resulting from the extraordinary alliance between Louis XI and Margaret of Anjou and the earl of Warwick, aimed at and procuring the restoration of Henry VI in 1470. Jasper was appointed by Queen Margaret and Prince Edward, along with George, duke of Clarence, and the earls of Warwick and Oxford, to release Henry VI and to carry on the government in his name. The enterprise was temporarily successful and the Readeption of Henry VI in fact occurred (3 October 1470 to 11 April 1471). Jasper shared in the restoration of Lancaster, and soon travelled down to Pembroke, sought out Henry of Richmond and, we are told, took him to London and presented him to Henry VI.4 He returned to Wales at an early date and presumably took Henry back with him. On 30 January 1471 he was commissioned with others to array Welsh forces.1 But the Lancastrian triumph was shortlived. The battle of Barnet was fought and lost on 14 April, and that of Tewkesbury on 4 May. Jasper had not succeeded in joining up his Welsh forces in time to support Queen Margaret and the other Lancastrian lords on that fatal field, and on hearing the news of the disaster he returned at once to Chepstow with his nephew and thence to Pembroke, where they found themselves briefly besieged,2 but were not prevented from fleeing to Tenby. There they received help3 and were able to escape by sea. The intention was to go to France, but, probably because of a storm, in fact they landed at Le Conquet in Brittany, where they were promptly apprehended by officers of Duke Francis II, who took them into his protection.

  The first fourteen years of Henry of Richmond’s life remain largely obscure, even though enough is known to show that it was somewhat chequered. We can presume that as a baby he lived peacefully enough with his mother Margaret at Pembroke Castle, under at least the nominal protection of Jasper, who was not in residence there himself, as we have seen, for much of this period. When the castle surrendered to Lord Herbert on 30 September 1461, Henry’s circumstances and prospects took on an entirely different colour. By early February 1462 his custody and marriage had been sold for £1,000 to Lord Herbert,4 and in August he was deprived of the honour of Richmond.5 There can be little doubt that he was soon parted from his mother, who early in 1458 had married her kinsman Henry Stafford, second son of Humphrey, first duke of Buckingham. But Stafford died on 4 October 1471, and Margaret married Thomas Lord Stanley before October 1473.1 She can hardly have seen very much of her son during these years except perhaps briefly during the Readeption of Henry VI. The young Henry passed into the household of Lord Herbert. William Herbert had become prominent as a Yorkist supporter in Wales, and had been appointed a king’s councillor and chief justice in South Wales in 1461. His summons as a baron to parliament in July 1461 made him the first of the Welsh gentry to enter the peerage of England. He was created a knight of the Garter in 1462.2 The town, castle, and lordship of Pembroke, along with a number of other lordships, with profits thereof from the previous 4 March, had been granted to Herbert on 3 February 1462,3 and we can assume that Henry continued to live there for a time at least, under the care of Herbert’s wife Anne, but at some time he was certainly living at the Herbert stronghold of Raglan.4 There is no evidence that he went outside Wales at all at this period, or at any period until the flight to Brittany in 1471, except perhaps for the visit to London with Jasper during the Readeption. In the Herbert household, therefore, Henry was nurtured and given, we may assume, the training appropriate to his birth and descent, and as befitted a boy whom Lord Herbert intended to make in time his own son-in-law by marrying him to his daughter Maud. Good tutors were said to have been provided for him, and it seems as though his quick capacity for learning and his intelligence made a distinct impression on his mentors.5 It seemed, therefore, that Henry would grow up with and eventually marry into this prominent Yorkist family, and follow a career under the favour of Edward IV. The further advancement of Lord Herbert, signalized by the grant to him in September 1468 of Jasper’s forfeited earldom of Pembroke,1 was terminated by his death after Edgecote in July 1469. Henry, so far as we know, continued as before, at Raglan, but the Herbert prospects could never again be the same, and in any event the resurgence of the Lancastrians at the Readeption of Henry VI put an entirely different complexion upon Henry’s position. The Yorkist associations he had were quickly severed; once more his uncle Jasper took possession of him, and he doubtless for a time regained his mother’s attention.2 But the collapse of the Lancastrian restoration brought him to Tenby harbour, to flight and exile for the second fourteen years of his life.

  Jasper and his nephew, with the help of Thomas White, the mayor, set sail in a barque from Tenby, on 2 June,3 intending to go to France, to seek refuge presumably at the court of Louis XI, who, having been largely responsible for the restoration of Henry VI, might be expected to receive the refugees, if not with enthusiasm, at least with consideration and calculation. If this had occurred, there can be little doubt that they would have been sacrificed to Edward IV at the time of the Treaty of Picquigny in 1475. Fortunately for them, adverse winds landed them in Brittany,4 and they were duly received into the protection of Duke Francis II. There they were destined to stay for thirteen years. For the most part these years were placid enough for the refugees, apart from some episodes springing from the effort
s of Edward IV or Richard III to extract them from their refuge; we are left to our imaginations to reconstruct how Henry and his uncle employed their prolonged leisure, and we do not know who their companions were, until late in the period.

  Edward IV apparently ‘took very grievously‘1 the news of their courteous reception by Duke Francis. The problem confronting Edward IV was sufficiently common knowledge to be mentioned by 28 September in a letter sent by Sir John Paston in London to his brother in Norwich.2 Edward IV’s first efforts at persuading the duke to surrender up his guests, which cannot be exactly dated, were unavailing. This offer of large rewards for the delivery of Henry and Jasper did not shake the duke from his promises to them, but he did undertake to guard them so that they could do no harm to Edward IV. A renewal of the offer seems merely to have increased the duke’s sense of the value of his guests and to determine him to make sure that they would not escape. He thereupon deprived them of their English servants and put Bretons to wait upon them and guard them, and separated the two. This deprivation of English company and separation of uncle and nephew was doubtless disagreeable enough, but worse was to follow. The relative strengths of Edward IV and Duke Francis underwent a change detrimental to Brittany after the invasion of France by Edward IV and his coming to favourable terms with Louis XI in the Treaty of Picquigny in August 1475. Edward IV renewed his efforts to get hold of Henry, ‘the only imp now left of Henry VI’s brood’, and apparently succeeded in persuading Duke Francis that all he intended was to marry him off, presumably to one of his own daughters, so as to settle the dynastic question. Henry, therefore, was packed off with the English emissaries to St Malo en route to England. Henry, we are told, realized only too well that he was being conveyed to his death, and through ‘agony of mind’ fell by the way into a fever (or pretended he had). Only the timely intervention of John Chenlet, a favourite counsellor of the duke’s, who induced Francis II to understand that Henry’s fate was likely to be something quite different from that suggested by Edward IV’s ambassadors, saved Henry. The duke’s treasurer, Peter Landois, was sent post-haste to St Malo, where he distracted the ambassadors whilst causing Henry to be removed to a safe sanctuary in the town, and they were forced to return to England empty handed except for assurances that Henry would be safely guarded. These assurances were kept, and no further attempts to obtain his surrender appear to have been made during Edward IV’s lifetime.1