A PRISONER, HONOURABLY BROUGHT UP
A PAPER CROWN CLUNG, FLUTTERING, ON ONE OF A ROW OF HEADS impaled on the southern gate to the City of York. Until September 1460 the fighting had been about whom Henry VI should have as his councillors, but then the Duke of York had claimed the throne, arguing he had the senior descent in the female line from Edward III, making his ancestor, Roger Mortimer, Richard II’s rightful heir, and the House of Lancaster usurpers.1 It was an unpopular move, soon abandoned, and now God had given his judgement on it. The duke was dead, killed at the Battle of Wakefield on 30 December. ‘York could look upon York’ the Lancastrians jeered as they spiked his head high on the gate, the paper crown mocking his former ambitions. Next to it was the head of one of his younger sons, aged seventeen, and that of his brother-in-law. Soon there would be a fresh settling of scores.
Only weeks later, in the first days of February 1461, Jasper and Owen Tudor’s Lancastrian army confronted the late duke’s eldest son and heir, Edward of York, at Mortimer’s Cross, Herefordshire. Blond, handsome, and standing at six feet three, Edward of York was only nineteen and he lacked the experience of the Tudor commanders. But no one had ever seen anything like the strange dawn that greeted them on that icy morning. Blinking in the breaking light the rival armies saw three suns appear in the sky. The phenomenon, known as a parhelion, is caused by light shining through ice crystals in the atmosphere. Edward, a natural leader, seized the opportunity to tell his frightened troops that the triple stars represented God the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost which were shining a blessing on their enterprise. With his army’s morale renewed, ‘freshly and manly he took the field upon his enemy, and put them at flight, and slew three thousand’.2
Few other details of the battle survive, but we know that Jasper escaped and was on the road when he learned, to his horror, that his father, Owen Tudor, was captured. Owen lived not far from Jasper at Pembroke Castle, and he had also remained close to Henry VI, who had give him the plum post of Keeper of the Parks of north Wales, ‘in consideration of his good services’ the previous year.3 Even in his old age, Owen was prepared to fight in his stepson King Henry’s cause – but it would be for the last time. Edward had ordered that Owen be executed along with eight other Lancastrian commanders. In Hereford, where he was taken, Owen still assumed he would be ransomed when a Yorkist solider grabbed the collar of his red doublet and ripped it off to expose his neck. Facing the rough wooden log that served as the block, and now realising his fate, he recalled with mordant wit how ‘The head that shall lie on the stock was wont to lie on Queen Katherine’s lap.’ At the fall of the axe the extraordinary life that began with a stumble at a dance was ended.
Owen Tudor’s head was placed on the top step of the market cross where a woman ‘combed his hair and washed away the blood off his face’, before she placed candles around him.4 No one has yet suggested who she was. The watching crowd thought she was mad, as she carefully lit over a hundred small flames. She was surely, however, the grief-stricken mother of Owen’s illegitimate son, David, who was almost two. Even as an old man in his fifties, it seems Owen had had the power to attract a woman’s love.5
The four-year-old Henry Tudor would have understood his grandfather’s fate only as an absence. Owen had been a familiar face at Pembroke, yet he was nowhere to be seen when Henry was brought with his mother and stepfather to the castle in May. It was here Margaret Beaufort had come looking for protection from Jasper before Henry was born. But Jasper too was absent: he was on the run. In the three months since Mortimer’s Cross, Edward of York had reasserted his father’s claim to the throne, denounced Henry VI as a false king, and been proclaimed Edward IV in London on 4 March. For twenty-five days there were two kings in England, a situation ended on 29 March with a decisive battle at Towton in Yorkshire. It was one that left Henry’s family, and much of England, traumatised.
Margaret Beaufort’s husband, Sir Henry Stafford, and her stepfather, Lord Welles, had been arrayed with the Lancastrian forces while Henry VI spent the day in prayer nearby. It was Palm Sunday, a spring day. But the wild flowers in the fields and hedgerows were bitten by unseasonable cold and the sky was low and dark. The two armies, the largest England had ever seen – amounting to perhaps more than 30,000 out of a population of three million – faced a fight to the death.6 When the banners of two kings were unfurled it invoked ‘guerre mortelle’, the most ruthless form of armed combat in the Middle Ages, with no quarter given for the supporters of a false king.
As the men began to put on their armour there were flurries of snow. By 10 a.m a snowstorm was blowing straight into the faces of the Lancastrian forces. The Yorkists advanced on foot into the whiteout. Blind, and with the wind against them, the arrows fired by the Lancastrian archers fell short. The Yorkists collected them and returned them: thousands of arrows a minute poured into the Lancastrian ranks, leaving them with no choice but to engage their enemy. As the armies hammered at each other the sheer weight of numbers on the Lancastrian side forced the Yorkists back, but with Edward IV and his cousin germane, ‘that noble knight and flower of manhood’, Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, leading from the front the Yorkists gave ground only slowly.
For hour upon hour the Lancastrians and Yorkists battled on. When the heaps of dead made it impossible for the men to engage, short truces were arranged so the corpses could be heaved out of the way to allow the fighting to continue. In late afternoon the Duke of Norfolk had brought reinforcement for the Yorkists and as daylight faded the Lancastrian ranks at last gave way. Bridges over the nearby rivers had broken under the weight of fleeing men. Some fell into the freezing water, drowning in their heavy armour. Others who had cast off their helmets to help them breathe as they ran became easy targets for the Yorkists who smashed their skulls in a frenzy of bloodlust.7 A last stand was made to the north at the little town of Tadcaster. Then it was over, save for the executions of those survivors who had not managed to escape. The bodies, scattered over an area of at least six miles by four, included that of Margaret’s stepfather Lord Welles, the only father she had ever known.
Relieved that Stafford had survived, Margaret spent time with her mother in the first terrible weeks of grieving for Lord Welles. Meanwhile, Henry VI had fled into exile in Scotland with his queen and their son. Most surviving supporters of the House of Lancaster now judged it prudent to acknowledge the authority of King Edward. Jasper was an exception, but he would soon follow his half-brother into exile. Pembroke Castle was left garrisoned with sufficient food, men and arms to withstand a long siege, however, and there Margaret Beaufort now awaited King Edward’s next move, anxious to see what he intended for her son, the ‘false’ King Henry’s nephew.
Over the summer Margaret ensured that something of Henry’s normal life continued.8 Henry would later honour Owen Tudor’s son David with wealth and knighthoods, and since the boy lived nearby and was close in age, he was, perhaps, a playmate.9 Henry was also old enough to learn to read and it was a mother’s task to teach their young children. One of the favourite images of the Middle Ages was that of St Anne, the mother of the Virgin, teaching her daughter to read. Margaret had a variation on this image in the Book of Hours she inherited from her own mother, with St Anne and the Virgin teaching Christ to read. The most popular books of the period, they were divided into eight sections, imitating a monk’s ‘Office’ or cycle of daily devotions. Those of aristocrats were illuminated with pictures that had a special significance for them, and people added whatever religious stories or prayers they fancied.10 Margaret would note major events in her life, including, later, the outcome of battles.
The aftershocks of Towton were already being felt in Wales. King Edward had given one of his principal supporters, William, Lord Herbert, the task of seizing Jasper Tudor’s estates, and on 30 September Herbert arrived at the twin-towered gates of Pembroke Castle with a large force.11 The governor Jasper had placed in charge succumbed to the promise of a pardon and the castle was surrendered without a fight.12 Margaret was then simply informed of Edward’s intentions for her son Henry: she was to hand him over to Herbert as his ward. King Edward hoped that, in due course, he could co-opt Henry Tudor to the Yorkist cause, and had intimated to Herbert that if Henry proved loyal, he could in time inherit his father Edmund Tudor’s lands and his title, as Earl of Richmond. With this in mind Herbert had invested over £1,000 in securing the wardship and planned to marry Henry to his daughter, Maud. Margaret had to accept this willingly if she was ever to see her son again, and there was no struggle, therefore, when the unhappy mother said her goodbyes to her child in February 1462, just after his fifth birthday.
Henry had travelled often between the family properties in the Midlands and Pembroke Castle.13 He was used to being on the road, sitting on a horse with a servant holding him securely, a train of men and carts stretching far behind. This time he was without his familiar servants or family and taken to a new destination: Raglan Castle in the south-east of Wales. The adventure of leaving home had begun all too soon, and it would be many years before he saw his mother again.
When Raglan Castle was approached from the village, a hexagonal sandstone tower came into view before the rest of the fortress loomed over the slight rise on the hill. The castle was entered through a new gatehouse, leading to a large cobbled courtyard framed by a ‘hundred rooms filled with festive fare’.14 It was here, Henry later recalled, that he was to spend his childhood, ‘kept as prisoner, but honourably brought up’. The vast hall where he ate his meals was thirteen metres high, with beams of Irish oak and a gallery where music was played. The family chapel, where he prayed, was equally impressive, twelve metres long, with brilliant yellow decorative tiles. Outside, orchards, fishponds and deer parks gave way on the horizon to the dramatic Welsh wilderness and the harsh peaks of the mountains.
At first Henry spent time under the care of Herbert’s wife, along with her own small children, but by the age of seven he was living in the main household. This amounted to as many as 200 people. Of these, Herbert’s wife might have a few female companions to wait on her, but since the menial servants lived and slept communally, most were single men. There were many high-born servants too, as it was common for the sons of the elite to spend part of their youth in the noble household of family friends or patrons. They were expected to serve meals, help their master dress, hone their manners and learn that good service earned the ear of the one served. Even young children were expected to press for family advantage while in a household such as this.15
Unusually, Henry’s entire education was to take place at Raglan, but he was given the best that Herbert could supply. Henry was taught grammar by graduates of Oxford University, and guidance in the practical skills of a knight, learning horsemanship, archery and how to fight with a wooden sword. He would have to wait until his teens before he began training with a real weapon. The long sword, which weighed about four pounds and was up to forty-three inches long, was a two-handed weapon that required considerable strength as well as skill to wield, as did the popular battleaxe. Amongst his playmates was another of Herbert’s wards, an older boy called Henry Percy, whose father, the Earl of Northumberland, had been killed at Towton in the Lancastrian cause. He too would have to earn his earldom back by proving his loyalty to Edward IV.
Although Henry did not see his mother, she was permitted to write to him. It was her duty and wish to seek for him to be restored to his rights as Earl of Richmond. To this end she encouraged him to offer good service to Herbert, while at court she did her best to curry favour with the new king. Here Margaret had to adapt to a very changed culture. Where Henry VI had enjoyed, above all, decorous religious display, Edward IV promoted a chivalric aesthetic. Margaret remembered seeing her first Garter ceremony aged nine, when the Lancastrian queen, Margaret of Anjou, had appeared in new blood-red robes. The Order, founded by Edward III, had as its inspiration the knights of the legendary King Arthur’s Round Table. For Henry VI the emphasis had been on the religious ritual of the ceremonial; for Edward IV it was on courtly military display. There were other differences too: Henry VI’s quiet scholarship and austerity was replaced with the energy of a young warrior who revelled in the pursuit of pleasure. A foreign visitor judged Edward ‘a very young and handsome prince, amongst the handsomest people in the world’, and thought that ‘Never had a man taken as much pleasure from women, feasts, banquets and hunting.’ Edward IV appeared affable, and ‘so genial in his greeting that if he saw a newcomer bewildered by his appearance and royal magnificence, he would give him courage to speak by laying a hand upon his shoulder’.16 Beneath this bonhomie there lay a brutal nature, but allies had to be won to keep the peace and Edward IV was not only charming, when he wished, he was also a talented propagandist.
Yorkist claims to be the senior royal house were being promoted in handwritten and painted pedigrees that were circulated at court. Each was richly decorated with Edward’s badges, symbols that were also seen widely on liveries, banners, and carved in stone on royal palaces. In an age used to visual messages even the illiterate could read their meanings.17 The famous badge of the Sun in Splendour recalled the three suns at Mortimer’s Cross, while adapting the sun badge of Richard II. It reminded those who saw it that God had blessed Edward in battle, with the implicit suggestion that this was because they were the true heirs to Richard II. Sometimes the Sun in Splendour was combined with another badge – that of the famous white rose. This was believed to have been the badge of Edward’s ancestor, Roger Mortimer – the man who was supposedly Richard II’s ‘true’ heir, before his right was ‘usurped’ by Henry IV.18
As the years passed and Henry Tudor grew up, Lancastrian fortunes went from bad to worse. Henry VI left Scotland and was hiding out in the north of England when he was captured in 1465. A German merchant described him being led ‘through Cheapside to the Tower, on a small horse, a straw hat on his head, and a rope tied round his body, and each side so that he might be held’.19 A king was expected to look like a king, and the humiliation of Henry VI was a deliberate attempt to undermine his sacred status as an anointed monarch. ‘No one, either young or old’, the merchant recorded, ‘dared . . do him honour, either kneeling or otherwise, for fear of his life’.20 But as Shakespeare’s Richard II boasts, ‘Not all the water in the rough rude sea/Can wash the balm off from an anointed king.’ Henry VI remained a potential focus of opposition while he lived. When Henry IV had faced unrest in January 1400, he announced that Richard II had ‘died’ in prison, and it was suggested he had starved himself. A mysterious and sudden death, similarly from grief or shame, was the likely fate of Henry VI. He remained alive only because there was little point in killing him while his son, Prince Edward of Lancaster, was safe with his mother, Margaret of Anjou, in eastern France. If anything happened to the boy, however, the deposed king would not survive for very long.
Against this background of Lancastrian despair, Margaret Beaufort was fortunate that her efforts to ingratiate herself were given an unexpected boost by King Edward’s choice of bride. Edward had made the extraordinary decision to marry the widow of a Lancastrian knight.21 According to the chronicles, he had come across the beautiful Elizabeth Woodville by chance at a forest roadside, and immediately fell in love with her. While it is sometimes difficult to see from a picture of this period why a particular woman was judged beautiful, this is not the case with Elizabeth Woodville, with her high cheekbones and cupid-bow mouth. But the reality of the king’s love affair with her was in some contrast to the romantic fiction. Edward knew her from court, where he had hoped to claim her as a mistress. When that failed (it was said she had held him off with a dagger) he married her, becoming the first English king to marry a commoner. Elizabeth Woodville’s relatives all now expected to marry into noble families. Amongst them, her sister Katherine was married to Margaret’s nephew by marriage, the eleven-year-old Henry, Duke of Buckingham. This had a transformative effect on Margaret’s ability to attract the king’s favour, and in 1567, having not seen her son for six years, she enjoyed a full week with Henry at Raglan.22
Margaret found Henry Tudor had grown into a lean, intelligent ten-year-old, above average height for his age, with a slight cast to his blue eyes. Margaret was grateful to see that peace – even a Yorkist peace – was keeping her son safe. The following year Margaret entertained King Edward at her husband’s hunting lodge near Guildford. She bought a pewter dinner service in London for the occasion, and served a vast array of delicacies: half a great conger eel, thirteen lampreys and several hundred oysters were washed down with five barrels of ale. As Edward’s minstrels played for the company, Margaret could feel well satisfied. Dressed in a new gown of velvet and fine wool, she was sitting on one side of the king under a purple cloth of estate, a symbol of authority, while her husband sat on the other side. For Margaret and her son, the future seemed hopeful.