Henry Tudor was the hero of the age. His army swept confidently into England, vanquishing the usurper’s supporters and placing him triumphant and unrivalled upon the throne. This outcome was never in doubt. Henry’s arrival was the fulfilment of prophecy, and he defeated his rival through his personal qualities, astute strategy and clearsighted leadership. His victory at Bosworth brought the Wars of the Roses to an end and healed a divided nation.
This is the version built up by the new dynasty and celebrated in Shakespeare. Henry VII came to the throne through the judgement of God in battle. It is found in the private decoration of Tudor palaces and the public display of their kingship. Tapestries in the royal collection commemorated Henry’s arrival in 1485 as heralding the dawn of a new age. Soon after his accession, in pageants across the realm, the motif of a united white and red rose was employed to represent a country made whole again under his rule.
But on 22 August 1485 such an outcome would have seemed far-fetched. The harsh reality confronting Henry Tudor was that his desperate enterprise faced what seemed an inevitable nemesis. The allies he most relied on refused to openly join his cause. He was substantially outnumbered and may have been more concerned to safeguard an escape route after defeat than eager to fulfil a pre-ordained royal destiny.
The battle of Bosworth Field was very different in reality from its subsequent legend. Through fresh examination, the trial of strength between Richard III and Henry Tudor will take on a different hue. We will consider the fragility of Henry’s claim to the throne, and his reliance on a proposed marriage to the eldest daughter of Edward IV to buttress it. Far from appearing as a harbinger of national unity and instrument of God’s judgement for the murder of the princes, we will consider Henry as a peripheral Lancastrian claimant, opportunistically seeking to promote himself as a rival Yorkist heir. A dangerous hand-to-mouth policy, entirely ignored in Shakespeare’s account, would determine his chances of success or failure.
So who exactly was Henry Tudor? He was the son of Edmund Tudor, a Welsh nobleman, and grandson of Catherine of Valois, the widowed Queen of Henry V. His Welsh ancestry could be traced back to supporters of local princes of the region and his French blood gave him a connection to the ruling house of Valois. But another, and stronger, royal link was through his mother – Margaret Beaufort, a great-granddaughter of John of Gaunt, one of the younger sons of Edward III. The collective strength of this pedigree gave him a claim of sorts to the throne, but he had never been considered more than a peripheral contender.
‘Rose Noble’ coin struck by Henry VII’s mint to commemorate the union of the houses of York and Lancaster.
His father had died of the plague before his own birth, on 28 January 1457 at Pembroke Castle, when his mother was only thirteen years old. The birth was extremely traumatic and the lives of the young Margaret and her son were in danger for some time. Although she subsequently remarried on two occasions, she had no further children, quite possibly as a result of the physical harm she had suffered. Later in her life she would express strong disapproval of the practice, which was not unusual, of allowing girls of the age she had been to enter full marital relationships, with the risk of such early childbirth. She would ensure that her granddaughter Princess Margaret’s marriage to James IV of Scotland, originally envisaged at a similar age to her own, was delayed for several years to protect the girl. But Margaret’s affection for the baby, who arrived in such difficult circumstances, was pronounced and later movingly recorded in a letter she chose to write to him on the anniversary of the birth, in which she spoke of her son as her only joy and consolation in the world. Henry and Margaret were of course very close in age, and this must have shaped their later relationship of mutual support and counsel.
Mother and son were soon separated and Henry spent his childhood and early adolescence at Raglan Castle as ward of Edward IV’s Welsh favourite, William, Lord Herbert. He witnessed Herbert’s defeat, rushing to Edward’s aid in the crisis of July 1469. Herbert was captured at Edgecote and led away to execution, whilst the young Henry was escorted from the battlefield by a body of trusted servants, a terrible shock for him. This experience has been little remarked upon, but seems to have made a lasting impact. The twelve-year-old watched helplessly as Herbert’s army was overwhelmed. The man responsible for his rescue was Sir Richard Corbet. Sixteen years later the two were reunited as Corbet joined Henry’s small army on the road to Bosworth. It would have been a poignant moment. At this fateful time Tudor had not yet fought in a battle. His only experience of warfare remained as spectator to the débâcle from which Corbet had saved him.
Further danger was to follow, when in the company of his uncle, Jasper Tudor, he narrowly avoided the catastrophic Lancastrian defeat at Tewkesbury and was forced to flee the country by boat. France was the intended destination, but storms forced the two men to the semi-independent duchy of Brittany where Henry spent the next thirteen years of his life as a political exile. Henry’s foreign exile was not an easy experience for him, and he was to tell the chronicler Commynes that he had spent most of it as a captive or fugitive, confined in a series of Breton castles, sometimes remote and gloomy. It was a peripatetic existence, in which Tudor grew into young adulthood under close and watchful supervision. Henry VII remains unique amongst the kings of England for his upbringing: not as a royal prince or son and heir of a great noble, but as a ward and then a penniless courtier. His circumstances had changed abruptly and repeatedly, influenced by events he had been unable to control. He had stood around on the fringes of action and power, observing others rather than forming a natural centre of attention.1
One particularly terrifying incident bears this out. In 1476 the English attempted to extricate Henry from Brittany. King Edward IV sent out ambassadors who succeeded in persuading the Bretons to hand Tudor over. They promised no harm would come to him. Henry thought differently. A year earlier another Lancastrian had suffered a most unfortunate accident, apparently falling off a ship on his way back to England. He was unlikely to have jumped but may well have been pushed. Tudor justifiably feared for his life, believing the embassy’s real purpose was to dispose of him by another such ‘accident’ once they had left Breton territory. But he had to wait while his fate was decided, unable to intervene.
What followed must have marked him indelibly. He was placed in English hands and escorted to a port of embarkation at Saint-Malo. Fearing the worst, Henry dramatically fell ill. This may have been feigned, but is much more likely to have been genuine, induced by the sheer terror this nineteen-year-old felt. At this desperate moment a quite amazing sequence of events unfolded. The Bretons had a change of heart. Concerned that Tudor might be assassinated they sent a fast body of horsemen to try and overtake the English and recover him. But the English did not want to hand over their prize and an angry stand-off ensued. During this Henry managed to slip away. He did not stay a fugitive for long. His sickness probably stopped him travelling far, and in desperation he sought sanctuary in the church of Saint-Malo. The English then tried to force him out but the local townspeople, resenting the interference of the foreigners, turned on them. They were forced to depart empty-handed and Tudor was escorted back to safety. It was a most fortunate reprieve. Once again, rather than being in control of events, and able to exercise his influence, Henry had to look on helplessly.
Here there is an interesting connection between the two rivals. At around the same age, when each was in their late teens, their lives were both in grave jeopardy. Richard was wounded during his first battle, at Barnet, where the combat around him was so intense that a number of his followers were killed fighting under his banner. Henry was in danger of a probable assassination attempt. Both men narrowly escaped. To a medieval audience their brush with death at such a similar age would be a meaningful co-incidence, linking the two in a shared and unfolding destiny. A modern reader might be more struck by the shaping of their confrontation, in which both enacted the roles learned in such a frightening moment, Richard as a mover and shaker, accustomed to wresting the initiative and acting upon events; Henry as a watcher and waiter, holding fast while his fate is decided by others. We, and they, look for a pattern to decisive events, but look for it in different places. Instead of God and destiny we now consider formative experience in the development of a personality. However we view it, the two men were set upon a collision course. As Thomas Hardy wrote of another fateful encounter:
Alien they seemed to be:
No mortal eye could see
The intimate welding of their later history.
How their collision happened will be the surprising part of the story. Few could have anticipated it. For while Richard re-emerged as a royal duke within a restored dynasty, Henry returned to the careful supervision of his Breton captors.2
Tudor’s Breton experience shaped his outlook, encouraging him to take the stance of an onlooker, and giving him a uniquely different insight into the convolutions of court politics. An extraordinary self-control in adversity, along with a personal remoteness and the keeping of distance, are key to understanding this man. Taken together they imbued him with a deep-seated caution that can be seen in the way he handled all his affairs. One consequence of his long period abroad would have been that Henry Tudor was little known to the majority of the English aristocracy. At first glance it seems most surprising that this obscure figure takes centre stage at Bosworth. But a number of unforeseen circumstances were to push him dramatically into the limelight.
Henry was Margaret Beaufort’s only offspring. Although he had spent little of his childhood with her, she, now married to the steward of Edward IV’s household, the powerful regional magnate Lord Stanley, emerged as an astute negotiator and protectress of his fortunes. By the end of Edward’s reign she was seeking to engineer his return, with a planned marriage to a daughter of the Yorkist King that would ensure Henry lands, title and status. As Richard III prepared for his coronation she and her husband met with him at the palace of Westminster, still in pursuit of this end. However, the attempt to rescue the princes in the Tower seems to have alerted her to the possibility that Richard might not survive as King, and she now plotted with his Woodville opponents, introducing for the first time the proposal that he might marry the eldest daughter of Edward IV, Elizabeth of York. This intended marriage, to a woman regarded by many as rightful heir of the house of York after the death of her brothers in the Tower, was to transform Tudor’s prospects.
In the autumn of 1483 Henry Tudor participated in a rising to overthrow Richard III. Tudor commentators later enhanced his role in this rebellion, claiming its purpose was to put him on the throne, when in reality his part in it was unclear and Richard’s former supporter the Duke of Buckingham may have intended to seize the crown himself. The rising flopped and Tudor’s part in it was hardly heroic: sailing to join it, his supporters became dispersed in a storm and on discovering the state of affairs he declined to land at all but shipped off again, eventually returning to Brittany.
This first clash between the two rivals was hardly auspicious for Tudor’s hopes. However, in the aftermath of the rising, Yorkists who had supported it joined him in Brittany, forming a court-in-exile. Their influence led to the formal betrothal of Henry to Elizabeth of York on Christmas Day 1483 at Rennes Cathedral. Tudor was now seen for the first time as a credible alternative candidate for the throne, by right of this hoped-for marriage. From a beginning as a minor Lancastrian contender he had emerged as a significant candidate and potential focus for Yorkists in opposition to Richard III. His chances of success rested on his ability to maintain his position as a credible Yorkist claimant.
However, he was by no means secure in his new position, which had come about more through the courageous action of his mother, Margaret Beaufort, than any skill of his own. It was a result of her pragmatism and of the volatile, shifting politics of the time. Fortunately enough Yorkists managed to escape the failed rebellion and join Tudor in Brittany to make its announcement viable. But the situation could easily unravel.
Having a claim to the throne was by no means unusual in late fifteenth-century England. Disentangling the thickets of family lineage from which these arose is complicated for us and would have been just as baffling for many contemporaries. Some claims might be soundly based, others far less so. The survival of the Tudor dynasty for over a century has given it a dignity and permanence by no means apparent at its founding. To successfully promote one’s claim required a combination of a suitable blood-link on which to base it, backed up by one’s own strategy and expediency. Henry Tudor was stronger in the latter than the former; his claim was real enough but he followed through with vigour, making a crucial dynastic alliance, invading the country and killing his opponent. It was hard to argue with the last of these. But later in Tudor’s reign, as yet another contender popped out of the genealogical woodwork, one puzzled observer was heard to opine: ‘it is hard to know who is rightwise king’, words possibly more indicative of confusion than treasonable intent.
On 25 December 1483, with the contract of marriage to Elizabeth of York, Henry Tudor stepped forward as a fully-fledged candidate, presiding over his court-in-exile. How strong was his position now? The traditional view offers an intriguing paradox. Although we are told little of Henry Tudor in Shakespeare, the lack of information about him makes his threat seem all the greater. The enormity of Richard’s crimes creates a deadly opposite, that of an avenger, an exterminating angel gathering itself to strike at Bosworth. The absence of the challenger cloaks him in mystery and power. We see this in the Tudor portraits of Richard III. He peers anxiously from the frame, his features drawn, playing nervously with the ring on his finger. One imagines Tudor’s invasion is imminent, and Richard is reduced to fearful passivity as his fate is about to be decided.
The true state of things was rather different. The morality tale of an avenger righting wrongs appears overly neat and simplistic. The shock at Richard’s seizure of the throne would dissipate faster than one might think for many people as the new King established his rule, becoming a fact of everyday life. Richard’s energy and determination in doing this, as he met the people on his progress and brought in much-needed reforms of the government, would have served to increase his acceptance. The major challenge to the legitimacy of his kingship, the rebellion of October 1483, had been roundly defeated. It can be surprising how quickly we get used to the way things are, whether or not we originally wanted them to be so. The passage of time was now working against the Tudor challenger.
To sustain his hopes it was essential for Henry to continue as a viable Yorkist candidate, a difficult juggling act with his uncle Jasper Tudor remaining a principal member of the court. For Jasper Tudor had stayed a committed Lancastrian and was now surrounded by many of his erstwhile opponents. Even if he could successfully establish it, the Yorkist dimension itself brought problems, drawing Henry into a larger game in which he must compete with other members of that house. While his hoped-for marriage improved his prospects, he was unable to bring it about from a place of exile, since Elizabeth of York was confined to sanctuary in London. Until it took place he remained one contender amongst a number and by no means the foremost of them.
This dilemma was accentuated following the death of Richard III’s only legitimate son in April 1484. For Richard now vested the Yorkist succession within the broader family. His first intended candidate seems to have been Edward Plantagenet, the son of his brother Clarence. It is worth saying at this point that a purely legitimist approach by the house of York would have made the boy king in 1483. Although his succession was blocked by the attainder of his father for treason, the measure could easily have been reversed if this was regarded as a terrible injustice. The case against him is likely to have been pragmatic – it was too risky to put another child on the throne in an unstable political situation.
The ruthless usurper portrayed by Shakespeare would almost certainly have eliminated another potentially dangerous nephew and some contemporaries did indeed fear that he would do precisely this. It is most significant that he did not. Richard protected his young kinsman carefully and he was treated with respect within the royal household. Clearly Edward Plantagenet, unlike the princes in the Tower, was regarded as part of the rightful family. After the death of Richard’s own son, due consideration was given to naming him as heir, indicating that in terms of the dynastic strategy of the house of York he was felt to be part of the solution, not part of the problem. In the event, Richard chose to designate an adult male successor, John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln, son of his sister Elizabeth.
Edward Plantagenet, son of the Duke of Clarence, whose treatment by Richard III demonstrates that the King could be a kind and supportive uncle. Henry Tudor would treat the young man rather differently.
This care and attention contrasts markedly with the nervous precautions of the new Tudor King. One of Henry’s first actions after the battle of Bosworth was to seize Edward Plantagenet and hold him in custody. After a brief spell locked up in the London house of Tudor’s mother, Margaret Beaufort, Edward was transferred to the Tower. The illegality of this imprisonment caused real concern, voiced in the first parliament of the new reign, but Henry obviously felt that this Yorkist rival was too dangerous to be let out. Edward remained in the Tower until he came of age and was then abruptly executed on what were probably trumped-up treason charges. This sombre example showed that Tudor could be as ruthless as Richard, as well as being considerably less comfortable with a rightful Yorkist successor than his defeated opponent.
Henry Tudor’s preparations for the invasion of summer 1485 had been underway for some time. They began in a somewhat unregal manner, with Henry’s hasty flight from the duchy of Brittany to France, the previous October. A danger had arisen, that Tudor might be handed over to Richard’s agents by his Breton hosts, and Henry decamped at speed, disguised as a serving man. His body of exiles reassembled in France and appealed for the protection and support of the government of the young King Charles VIII. This was to serve as the launch-pad for his expedition to take the throne of England.
The traditional view of this last period of exile, supported by the consensus of historians, is that French backing was the crucial ingredient in Tudor’s enhanced viability as a claimant. For the French regime apparently endorsed his claim with enthusiasm and underwrote it with men and money. They allowed Henry to assume the title of rightful king, giving an international credibility to his efforts that could only encourage his adherents. He was able to draw on their expertise in the equipping of his army. But this supposed idyll was far from what it seemed.
The France in which Henry Tudor had found sanctuary was riven with discord. Far from taking an unambiguous role as a champion behind whom the entire regime could rally, Henry became merely a pawn in a bitter factional struggle. Instead of receiving the honour due to him as a potential unifier of the realm of England through his contracted marriage to Elizabeth of York, Henry was now forced to pay a high price for his patron’s support.
In November 1484 the minority government of Charles VIII formally approved Henry’s claim as king and promised its backing. Yet astonishingly his right to that position was deemed to be that he was a younger son of the murdered Lancastrian King Henry VI. What on earth was going on here? The French were well aware who Henry Tudor was, for his uncle Jasper had been a pensioner at the court of Charles’s father, Louis XI. They were also fully aware that Henry VI had no son other than his sole heir, cut down in the aftermath of the battle of Tewkesbury. Tudor was therefore being asked to play the part of a pretender. What could have been the rationale for such a Machiavellian ploy?
Although the French government knew Henry’s real identity, the majority of their populace had no idea who he was. He had been an undistinguished contender in the abortive uprising of autumn 1483 and his planned marriage would cut little ice with domestic French opinion. The regime was being criticised internally for lacking a dynamic foreign policy. The arrival of Tudor and his band of exiles was fortuitous if they could be made to appear an obvious threat to Richard III and hence a powerful resource for French strategy. The vagaries of Henry’s Lancastrian lineage, and a marriage that might or might not take place, were insufficiently impressive. He would have to be dressed in a different royal outfit to be the French candidate of choice.
The French had a predilection for pretenders. A few years after Henry’s accession, they were apologising for the great wrong they had done in helping to place him on the throne and extolling the superior merits of Edward Plantagenet. Clarence’s son was then dropped in favour of a new contender, Perkin Warbeck, whom they had been secretly coaching for the role of the younger of the princes in the Tower. Once again the news was circulated for propaganda purposes. Warbeck was then ditched when it became expedient to negotiate a treaty with Henry VII. Such extraordinary chopping and changing made it unwise to invest a promise of French support with deep or lasting meaning. And if the first Tudor monarch became preoccupied with the threat posed by Warbeck, he had good grounds – he had earlier been in that man’s shoes.
Towards the end of their stay in Brittany, Henry and his supporters had been in the receipt of a monthly stipend in recognition of their rank and status. The French were not moved to continue this and in its place made a one-off payment, with conditions. Tudor was in no position to decline. He would play his part as a pretended son and heir of the Lancastrian Henry VI. Unfortunately for him, this would undercut his hard-won Yorkist credentials and seriously harm his status as claimant.
The cost of French support quickly became apparent. Tudor’s next action was to circulate a letter for potential allies in England. In it, the normally cautious claimant took an unusual step, laying claim to the throne directly and asking for support for a planned invasion. As with any circular letter, the chances of alienating those who received it were fairly high.
It was not enough for the French regime to announce the arrival of a son of Henry VI. They wanted to show Henry Tudor, their adopted pretender, now acting the part. A confident assertion of kingship was required. So Henry wrote as if he were already king of England, about to return to what was rightfully his and used a regal signature, a large stylised capital ‘H’, to push his point home. A justification of the royal flourish was provided. Henry claimed the throne by right of his lineal inheritance, that is, through his own bloodline or lineage.
For the ruling French faction, cynically using Henry for its own pragmatic purposes, this played to the gallery. It was a formidable riposte to critics of their foreign policy. They now had a king-in-waiting, a major card in the power-play of international politics. And at this stage, this seems to have been all they really wanted. But Henry’s action would unsettle possible recruits in England, as well as his own supporters in France, and he can only have agreed to it with the utmost reluctance.
The prudent course was for Tudor not to dwell on any detail of his personal right to be king, but rather to focus on Richard III instead; in particular on the series of brutal murders committed by him as he took the throne. Drawing attention to his rival’s moral unsuitability for leadership would imply that a replacement needed to be found, and that Tudor was the man for the job. But to ensure a smooth transition of power, Henry needed to be seen as a Yorkist replacement, and through the machinations of his French sponsors, this was now being jeopardised.
Few in England would have been aware of the entanglements of French court politics, or the attempt to pass Tudor off as a supposed son of Henry VI. Such a ploy would in any case command little credence there. But for Henry to suddenly act the part of king, in advance of any landing in England, was most irregular and would have set alarm bells ringing. The case that would serve in France was distinctly shaky in England. Rather than enhancing his position, it would draw people’s attention from the composite strength of his candidacy to its individual weaknesses. At home, it was crucial for Tudor to remain a viable Yorkist contender.
A medieval audience was highly sensitive to any phrase denoting right of title, and the letter’s recipients would quickly be reaching for their parchment genealogies. Scrutiny of Tudor’s pedigree would uncover his blood-link to earlier kings through direct descent – the vertical line boldly marked on a family tree. These would strongly suggest that Henry was resting his claim on the Lancastrian line of his mother, Margaret Beaufort. Here was a worrying change of direction that would appear to many partisan and divisive, raising the spectre of the restoration of the discredited Lancastrian dynasty. This was not the approach one would expect from a unity candidate and the Yorkist support Tudor had won over through his promise to marry Edward IV’s eldest daughter could only be disaffected by it. It appeared to breach the agreement made in Brittany on Christmas Day 1483 that Henry’s right to the throne would derive not from his own lineage but from that of Elizabeth of York, his intended bride.
These were difficulties Henry could have done without. He needed to hold together a fragile coalition of former opponents who had no reason to trust one another. The upheavals of the Wars of the Roses had previously thrown together members of the rival houses of York and Lancaster in transient alliances shaped by expediency. But mistrust and fear of betrayal were rife and alliances had never lasted long. Now Tudor risked appearing to renege on his role as unifier and to rely on his Lancastrian blood alone. Not only would he antagonise Yorkists, but the claim itself was weak.
One vital lesson of fifteenth-century political experience was that an aspirant to the throne should not declare his hand in advance. It was best to arrive with more modest objectives, the restoration of family estates, for example, that would alienate as few people as possible, and then wait upon events. Advancing the claim directly should be kept to the last possible moment, and preferably not until one’s rival had been killed or captured. This had been the successful policy of Henry IV in 1399, and Edward IV at his restoration to power in 1471.The one exception to the rule was not propitious – Richard III’s own father, the Duke of York, in 1460. York had strode across Westminster Hall and laid his hand meaningfully upon the throne. The silence was deafening. Yet at least he was in the country and able to translate his ambition into action. A hand on the throne is worth any number of circular letters.
Even after Henry had invaded the country, killed Richard III in battle and held his first parliament, contemporary advice was still to hold back from a claim in writing. Better to wait for the marriage with Elizabeth of York, when any deficiencies in the King’s title would be more than rectified through her own. If a written claim was unwise even in these circumstances, how much more so when Tudor’s dash for the throne was barely off the starting blocks.
This course of action ran so contrary to Tudor’s interests that it could only have been forced on him by the French. For such a careful strategist, the sense of really jeopardising his goal must have been oppressive. His fear that Yorkist allies might be lost before he even set sail was heightened by the arrival of the die-hard Lancastrian Earl of Oxford, pledging enthusiastic support for his cause. With no certain date for when the French regime might provide him with an army and forced to wait anxiously in the meantime, Tudor strove to keep his precarious coalition together. He sent a senior ecclesiastical supporter, Bishop Morton, to the Vatican to secure a dispensation of marriage between himself and Elizabeth of York. This was intended as a sign of his good faith and commitment to the alliance. But its fragility was now to be brilliantly exploited by Richard III.
A copy of Tudor’s unfortunate letter fell into Richard III’s hands in early December 1484. The King was able to make full use of the opportunity it presented to damage his rival and deflate his hopes. Richard retaliated in truly regal fashion with a proclamation despatched throughout the realm. He poured scorn on Henry’s vaunted Lancastrian descent. He jumped at the chance to play on the fear of those who suspected that under a renewed Lancastrian regime their lands and rights would be at risk and to hint at double-dealing, with the inference that Tudor had only gained French support by pledging away English possessions.
Far from the paranoid, rambling and impotent utterances of a fearful tyrant, the proclamation was cogent and considered. Its effect was marked. The most conspicuous outcome was the beginning of an astonishing reconciliation between the King and his Woodville opponents. To win back Tudor’s principal Yorkist allies was to deal a severe blow to his aspirations. How could such an extraordinary volte face be brought about?
It seems that Tudor’s sudden emphasis on his Lancastrian line shook the confidence the Woodvilles had placed in their alliance with him, formally announced on Christmas Day 1483. If Henry could proclaim himself king in advance of the promised marriage with Elizabeth of York, what assurance did they have that it would actually take place? Their trust in a man they knew little of was reduced to a point where the family was prepared to consider rapprochement with its former adversary, Richard III. Given the probable fate of the princes in the Tower, this seems to us scarcely believable. But once again, it suggests that the survival strategy of a family in the Middle Ages might allow for acts of exceptional ruthlessness. Their understanding of the brutal necessity of this would be very different from ours. They may not have liked it, but they were able to reach an accommodation. And this is what Richard now proposed.
On the King’s side, the removal of the princes meant that the Woodvilles no longer presented a direct dynastic threat, and the only remaining risk lay in the marriage of one of their sisters, whose husband might then bring a claim through her. By spring 1485, as a result of improved relations, Elizabeth Woodville’s daughters were able to emerge from sanctuary and Richard was now looking to arrange appropriate marriages for them. Their intended husbands would be his close allies, thereby removing any danger from this quarter.
By the summer of 1485 the second daughter was already married to a member of Richard’s household and contemporaries openly doubted whether the eldest would ever make the proposed alliance with Henry Tudor. Tudor’s Woodville supporters in France sensed the way the wind was blowing. Their foremost member, the Marquis of Dorset, actually quit Tudor’s court-in-exile and although he was overtaken and persuaded to return, this defection shows that Henry’s position as Yorkist claimant was fracturing dangerously.3
Richard was not twisting his fingers in helpless anxiety but working energetically and effectively to thwart Tudor’s ambitions. He had spent large amounts of money to build up an espionage system overseas. This yielded a rich dividend. His spies kept him well-informed of all the court-in-exile’s troubles.4 The duel between the two men, which climaxed at Bosworth, had already begun as each sought to outmanoeuvre the other and it was Richard who held the upper hand.
The two men have traditionally been depicted in stark contrast, the hero against the villain, the rightful candidate against the usurping tyrant. But what now strikes us are some of the fascinating similarities. Henry was twenty-eight, Richard thirty-two. Both were intelligent strategists, looking to outwit, as much as to overwhelm an opponent. Their field of contest was succession within the house of York and both believed in their right to be its representative. Richard had lost his father in childhood, Tudor’s was unknown to him having died before he was born. Both were now only sons, Richard as the last surviving male offspring of Cecily Neville, Henry as the only child Margaret Beaufort was ever able to have. The relationships both enjoyed with their mothers were exceptionally close and the two women were formidable in pursuit of their sons’ cause. Both men sought their mothers’ comfort and counsel at times of crisis, Richard staying with Cecily at Berkhamsted before his journey to Bosworth and Henry spending several weeks with Margaret Beaufort at her residence in Woking after the battle had taken place. Just as Cecily’s disclosure of Edward IV’s bastardy gave Richard the sense of legitimacy that inspired his accession, Margaret’s negotiation to bring about a Woodville marriage for her son provided the justification for his challenge to it. A personal rivalry was building between them and their common ambition made coexistence impossible. Only one could survive the coming trial of strength.
The initiative appeared to be slipping from Tudor’s grasp. Then, in the summer of 1485, his French backers did seem to rouse themselves with a firm pledge of men and money for the invasion. Their reasons for this, however, owed more to their own political concerns than to any surge of enthusiasm for Tudor’s chances. On the strength of this, Henry began preparations in earnest. But at the last minute, the promised funding was withdrawn as his hosts’ political focus shifted and Tudor was no longer a significant part of their strategy. In May they had extolled Tudor’s claim as being the most just and apparent of anyone living. By July he was pawning his household possessions to survive. A month is a long time in politics.
Drawing of the destroyed tomb effigy of John de Vere, 13th Earl of Oxford (d.1513). This Lancastrian die-hard commanded Henry Tudor’s vanguard at Bosworth.
It was then announced that money for the much-vaunted expedition was to be made available only as a loan, a somewhat less than rousing endorsement of Tudor and his cause. Not only that, but also the terms were exceptionally stringent. Henry had to leave behind as surety the only two Yorkist lords in his camp, the Marquis of Dorset and Lord FitzWarin.5 This scarcely suggests confidence in the outcome of the invasion. If Tudor were to be wiped out who would pay to release the hostages? Holding on to Yorkists represented the best chance for the French to get the money back, whatever the result. And this seemed considerably more important than the result itself. Further damage was thus inflicted on Henry’s Yorkist credentials, for there would now be no Yorkist peers in his invading army at all. Instead Henry was left to scrape together what manpower he could on the strength of his hard-won loan.
The invasion was a last ditch enterprise. French support was clearly not to be counted on and there was a risk it might evaporate completely. The forces available to Tudor were pitifully small. He was able to recruit trained pikemen from a recently disbanded war camp in Normandy, and these soldiers, drilled in the Swiss fashion, were to play a vital role at Bosworth. Henry had no real military experience and here the counsel of his two chief Lancastrian supporters, his uncle Jasper Tudor and John de Vere, Earl of Oxford would have been all-important. Both men had led earlier expeditions from France against the Yorkist regime of Edward IV. It may have been Jasper who suggested a captain for the hired troops, the Savoyard, Philibert de Chandée. But even with this mercenary contingent, the army that set sail on 1 August 1485 can have numbered scarcely more than 1,000 men.
The chipping away of Tudor’s image as a unifying figure, who could call on widespread support, made it unlikely that simultaneous uprisings would occur in his favour. His chances of recruiting along the way were therefore diminished. In every respect the endeavour appeared highly doubtful – far weaker than the rebellion of 1483, which had been quickly despatched. Richard’s hard work and shrewd tactics had paid off. He now had an exceptional opportunity to finish his challenger for good.
