Book Spotlight: THE USURPER KING by Mercedes Rochelle - Book 4 of The Plantagenet Legacy

 

From Outlaw to Usurper, Henry Bolingbroke fought one rebellion after another.

First, he led his own uprising. Then he captured a forsaken king. Henry had no intention of taking the crown for himself; it was given to him by popular acclaim. Alas, it didn't take long to realize that that having the kingship was much less rewarding than striving for it. Only three months after his coronation, Henry IV had to face a rebellion led by Richard's disgruntled favorites. Repressive measures led to more discontent. His own supporters turned against him, demanding more than he could give. The haughty Percies precipitated the Battle of Shrewsbury which nearly cost him the throne—and his life.

To make matters worse, even after Richard II's funeral, the deposed monarch was rumored to be in Scotland, planning his return. The king just wouldn't stay down and malcontents wanted him back.

 

THE ACCURSED KING by Mercedes Rochelle

Book 5 of The Plantagenet Legacy

What happens when a king loses his prowess?

The day Henry IV could finally declare he had vanquished his enemies, he threw it all away with an infamous deed. No English king had executed an archbishop before. And divine judgment was quick to follow. Many thought he was struck with leprosy—God's greatest punishment for sinners. From that point on, Henry's health was cursed and he fought doggedly on as his body continued to betray him—reducing this once great warrior to an invalid.

Fortunately for England, his heir was ready and eager to take over. But Henry wasn't willing to relinquish what he had worked so hard to preserve. No one was going to take away his royal prerogative—not even Prince Hal. But Henry didn't count on Hal's dauntless nature, which threatened to tear the royal family apart.

 

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Mercedes Rochelle is an ardent lover of medieval history, and has channeled this interest into fiction writing. She believes that good Historical Fiction, or Faction as it's coming to be known, is an excellent way to introduce the subject to curious readers.

Her first four books cover eleventh-century Britain and events surrounding the Norman Conquest of England. Her new project is called “The Plantagenet Legacy” taking us through the reigns of the last true Plantagenet King, Richard II and his successors, Henry IV, Henry V and Henry VI. She also writes a blog: HistoricalBritainBlog.com to explore the history behind the story.

Born in St. Louis, MO, she received by BA in Literature at the University of Missouri St.Louis in 1979 then moved to New York in 1982 while in her mid-20s to "see the world". The search hasn't ended!

Today she lives in Sergeantsville, NJ with her husband in a log home they had built themselves.

Author Links:

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Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1696491.Mercedes_Rochelle

 

 

Why Did the Wars of the Roses Start?

A watercolour recreation of the Wars of the Roses.

 What Caused the War?
In the simplest terms, the war began because Richard, Duke of York, believed he had a better claim to the throne than the man sitting on it, Henry VI.

 Ever since Henry II, the first Plantagenet, took power, Kings had been holding onto their crown by the skin of their teeth and not all of them succeeded. Edward II, for example, was ousted by his wife and replaced by his son Edward III, but at least this kept things in the family.

 Problems occurred in 1399 when Richard II was deposed by his cousin, Henry Bolingbroke who would go on to be the Henry IV. This created two competing lines of the family, both of which thought they had the rightful claim. On the one hand were the descendants of Henry IV – known as the Lancastrians – and on the other the heirs of Richard II. In the 1450s, the leader of this family was Richard of York and his followers would come to be known as the Yorkists.

 A Dodgy King However, all this dynastic arguing was something of a smokescreen. What really mattered were more practical issues and in particular the disappointing reign of Henry VI.

A portrait of the ailing Henry VI whose inability to rule effectively due to his illness contributed to the outbreak of the Wars of the Roses

 When he became king Henry was in an incredible position. Thanks to the military successes of his father, Henry V, he held vast swathes of France and was the only King of England to be crowned King of France and England. However it was not a title he could hold onto for long and over the course of his reign he gradually lost almost all England’s possessions in France.

 Finally, in 1453, defeat at the Battle of Castillion called an end to the hundred years war and left England with only Calais from all their French possessions.

 The nobles were not happy, but this was as nothing to Henry’s reaction. He had always had a fragile mind and in 1453 it broke. Historians believe he suffered from a condition known as catatonic Schizophrenia which would see him lapse into catatonic states for long periods of time.

 Battle for Power
 Henry’s weakness created two factions at court. One, led by the Duke of Gloucester and Richard, Duke of York favoured a more aggressive policy in the war, while the other led by the Dukes of Suffolk and Somerset favoured peace. They were supported by the Queen Margaret of Anjou who was rumoured to be having an affair with Somerset.

 With Henry in no fit state to rule, Richard was named Regent. Although he relinquished when Henry recovered it had given him a taste for power and this alerted Margaret. She sensed a threat from Richard and did everything she could to force him out of power.

 The two sides met in the Battle of St Albans. It was only a small skirmish, but it saw the death of the Duke of Somerset and several other Lancastrian noblemen. This created sons who were out for revenge and turned a dynastic struggle into an even more poisonous blood feud.

 Even then there were chances to turn back. The Act of Accord in 1460 named Richard heir, but there was no turning back. Margaret – perhaps grieving for Somerset – was determined to get her revenge on Richard. She would have it when he himself was killed in battle, but that only left his son Edward who was even more determined to get his revenge. The Wars of York and Lancaster had begun.

 By Tom Cropper
Tom is a freelance journalist who studied history at Essex University. His work can be found in many different publications focusing on business and politics.

Parallel Worlds – Events in Game of Thrones Based on Real Historical Events

Ancient Origins

The television series, Game of Thrones, based on George R.R. Martin’s book series A Song of Ice and Fire, has been praised for its gritty realism and epic storyline. G.R.R. Martin has been referred to as the “American Tolkien.” Game of Thrones, however, was not made up from scratch and some events do have parallels in real world history, which makes sense, being that the author of the original books wanted it to be realistic and explore themes pertinent to the real world including politics, gender, religion, and identity. Most of the real world historical events and personalities which served or may have served as inspiration for events and characters in Game of Thrones and the book series A Song of Ice and Fire are events that took place during the Middle Ages, though a few of them took place in classical antiquity.

Game of Thrones Draws from The War of the Roses
For example, the entire Game of Thrones storyline itself is partly inspired by a real-world conflict, the War of the Roses (1455-1487). In the show, Game of Thrones, two rival houses compete for control of the Iron Throne. The two houses are the northern House of Stark known for being poor but, relatively, virtuous and the southern House of Lannister which is extremely rich and very devious.

 In the same way, the War of the Roses was a conflict between two branches of the royal house of England, the Plantagenets. The two rival branches were the northern House of York and the southern House of Lancaster. The Yorkists and Lancastrians had reputations parallel to the Starks and the Lannisters respectively.

War of the Roses - the Houses of Lancaster and York ( AGZYM)

One of the causes of the War of the Roses was when King Henry VI who was forced out in favor of Edward IV because King Henry VI was considered unfit to rule because of mental health issues. This is similar to how the War of the Usurper started with the overthrow of the insane, tyrannical King Aerys II Targaryen by Robert Baratheon.

 The Game of Thrones Weapon of Mass Destruction Existed in Greece
Another example, on a smaller scale, would be the naval Battle of Blackwater. In the battle, Tyrian Lannister orders the use of magical fire called “wildfire” to destroy the enemy fleet commanded by Stannis Baratheon. The magical green fire appears to light water on fire and destroys many of the enemy ships. This is very similar to the real world second Arab Siege of Constantinople (717-718 AD) where the Byzantine secret weapon, Greek fire, was used by the Byzantines against the Arab fleet.

A Byzantine ship uses Greek fire against a ship of the rebel, Thomas the Slav, 821. 12th century illustration from the Madrid Skylitzes (Public Domain)

Greek fire was of unknown composition, but it was probably some sort of chemical that was flammable and lighter than water. Thus, a layer of the substance floating over a body of water could be lit on fire, giving the appearance that the water itself was burning, similar to the way that gasoline can be ignited while in water since it is lighter than the water and thus does not mix. The main difference between Greek fire and “wildfire” of course is that the former was (probably) made through science whereas the latter was made through magic.

Game of Thrones Assassinations
One particularly dramatic assassination scene in the Game of Thrones is when King Joffrey I Baratheon keels over and dies during his wedding after drinking wine that was poisoned. Although there were many kings and nobles who were poisoned in history, a particularly close parallel would be the Medieval prince Eustace of Boulogne who is said to have died mysteriously in a feast in 1153. He was apparently considered to be an evil man who caused a lot of suffering for many people. It is thus not unbelievable that he was poisoned just like Joffrey.

Another underhand murder plot unfolds at the ‘Red Wedding’ where Rob Stark, several of his family members, and many of his soldiers are slaughtered at a wedding feast by disgruntled allies of the House of Lannister. What may be either reassuring or disturbing depending on how you look at it is that the Red Wedding may have been inspired by real events.

The Black Dinner (Den of Geek)

One such event, called the Black Dinner, is where the king of Scotland invited a sworn enemy, the Earl of Douglas, to a feast. He promised that the Earl would not be harmed. Part way through the feast, however, the Earl was served a black boar’s head, an omen of death. Shortly afterwards, the unfortunate least favorite of the king was hauled to courtyard and put to death. In another account, known as the Glencoe Massacre, a clan called Campbell invited its rival clan, MacDonald, to spend the night. During the night, however, the Campbells killed all the MacDonald men in their sleep.

Replacement Limbs Happened
 Over the course of the series, Jaime Lannister has his hand cut off and replaced with a golden hand. This is comparable to the real-world Gottfried von Berlichingen, a German knight whose severed hand was replaced with an iron hand after his fleshly one was blown off with a cannon.

The prosthetic metal hand of Gottfried von Berlichingen (Public Domain)

An Ancient Game of Thrones Comparison
In addition to Medieval history, there may also be references to classical history. In the books, though not the Game of Thrones series, Lyanna Stark, the sister of Eddard Stark, is kidnapped by Rhaegar Targaryen. This is one of the events that triggers the War of the Usurper or Robert’s Rebellion. The story depicted is similar to the story of Lucretia. Lucretia was a Roman woman who was raped by the son of Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, or Tarquin the Proud, the last Etruscan king of Rome. This crime outraged the Romans who subsequently overthrew King Tarquin. This was quickly followed by the establishment of the Roman republic, at least so the story goes.

The Rape of Lucretia (by Felice Ficherelli, 17th century) (Public Domain)

Religious Conflicts
Another example of a parallel between Game of Thrones and real-world history might be the order of the Sparrows, a religious movement within the Faith of Seven, the major religion of Westeros. The Sparrows believe the religious establishment of Westeros to be corrupt and decadent, advocating humility and poverty. This mirrors the Protestant Reformation during which the former monk, Martin Luther, denounced the Medieval Catholic Church and accused it, among many other things of a more theological nature, of having become corrupt and more concerned about money and power than spiritual renewal.

The Wider Game of Thrones World
In addition to depicting European cultures and events from European history, there are also ethnic groups featured in the show which appear to be derived from non-European cultures. An example of this would be the Dothraki, a dangerous group of nomads who dwell on the continent of Essos. In the world of the Game of Thrones, the Dothraki pillaged the Kingdom of Sarnor and the Qaathi cities several centuries before the books or the television series start. This is comparable to the Mongol threat which came to bear on European and Asian civilizations in the 13th century. It can also be compared to the invasion of Attila the Hun in the 5th century AD which rocked the late Roman Empire.

Detail of Attila the Hun from ‘Attila and his Hordes Overrun Italy and the Arts’ (1847) by Eugène Delacroix. (Public Domain)

 Family Matters in Game of Thrones
Incest is something that, in the past, was more common in royalty than in the general population mainly for dynastic reasons. Ruling dynasties wanted to keep the throne in the family, so they would ensure that their children married into the family even if that meant marrying their siblings.

A Game of Thrones depiction of this tendency among royals towards incest in the series is Cersei Lannister who engages in an incestuous relationship with her brother Jaime. There is actually a close real-world parallel in the form of a rumor about Ann Boleyn, one of the wives of King Henry VIII. One of the reasons that she was executed by the king may have been related to an accusation that she had slept with her brother.

Another example of a real-world parallel of a frowned upon relationship can be drawn between Talisa Stark and Elizabeth Woodville. Rob Stark seriously angers certain parties when he marries Talisa even though she is not wealthy and has no significant family connections. This is very similar to what happened to Edward IV when he married Elizabeth Woodville more out of her beauty than her status. This gained Edward IV enemies including a former ally, the Earl of Warwick, who aided Henry VI in overthrowing him in 1470, as a result. The reason for such a reaction was that a marriage based on romance rather than social or political considerations compromised the political and social ambitions of the nobility.

Elizabeth Woodville (1437–92), Queen Consort of Edward IV of England (Public Domain)

The best stories are those that contain some realism. These stories, since they are based on real-world events, have an air of credibility since something like them actually happened. This is probably also true of the most enduring myths. They endure so long because there probably is some truth to them. The story of Game of Thrones is fictional, but many of the themes and situations it discusses are realistic situations that actually happened to someone once. It may be partly for this reason that it is so appealing.

Top image: View of the Castle of Zafra, Campillo de Dueñas, Guadalajara, Spain. The castle was built in the late 12th or early 13th centuries (CC BY SA 4.0)

 By Caleb Strom

Marrying for love: Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville

History Extra

Elizabeth’s first clear contact with Edward’s court came on 13 April 1464, only a few months before the suggested date of their marriage. (Photo by Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images)

Henry VIII tends to be the monarch who gets frequently cited for breaking the royal marital mould by choosing his own wives from among his subjects. In particular, the narrative arcs of his relations with cousins Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard continue to fascinate, five centuries after his passion turned to hatred and he sent both of them to their deaths. However, Henry was only following the example set by Edward IV, the Yorkist grandfather whom he resembled in both looks and appetite. Edward may not have had as many wives as Henry, but his liaisons with women were just as complex and, perhaps, equally destructive on a national scale. Instead of following the traditional kingly route and negotiating for an influential foreign bride, Edward followed his heart and chose his wife for her personal qualities. Despite the scandal this created, the marriage proved successful and lasted until his death.


 “An unlikely queen”
Five years older than her royal husband, Elizabeth Woodville was an unlikely queen. Her legendary blonde beauty entranced the young king to the extent that he married her in spite of tradition, in spite of advice, perhaps even in spite of himself. While none could fault her personal charms, Elizabeth was considered an unacceptable choice for an English queen by most of Edward’s advisors. She was a widow, a mother already, born and married into Lancastrian families, the daughter of a mere knight, a man whom Edward had formerly held in contempt. She brought no dowry or international connections, no territories or promise of diplomatic support. What she did bring was her fertility, bearing the king 10 children in addition to the two sons from her first husband, Sir John Grey. Elizabeth also brought in a model of queenship that differed vastly from that of the woman she replaced, the Lancastrian Margaret of Anjou. Elizabeth may have begun her reign as unsuitable and unpopular but in fact, she was the perfect embodiment of the beautiful, submissive, fertile queen – an archetype of medieval literature.

Elizabeth Woodville, the wife of King Edward IV. The young king was entranced by her legendary blonde beauty. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

 Exactly when Elizabeth and Edward first met is unclear. They may well have been thrown together in the small, elite world of the English aristocracy, at court or some important event in the 1450s. The pair may even have known each other as children, as Elizabeth’s parents appear to have served in Rouen while Edward’s father was resident there as Lieutenant of Normandy. However, for much of Edward’s youth, Elizabeth was married and unavailable, a situation which only changed shortly before he became king. It is possible that he admired her before this point but, even if they had never previously seen one another, their attraction was quickly and decisively established. Edward’s victory at Towton in 1461 put the Woodvilles in a difficult position – the family had fought on the ‘wrong’ side and survived. Yet in June 1461, Edward stayed at their home at Groby, Leicestershire, and granted a pardon to Elizabeth’s father, heralding a new relationship between the family and the Yorkists. The newly-widowed Elizabeth is almost certain to have sought shelter under her parents’ roof, so this may well have been a critical moment in their relationship.

 Elizabeth’s first clear contact with Edward’s court came on 13 April 1464, only a few months before the suggested date of their marriage. She appealed to William, Lord Hastings, probably in his role as overseer of the Yorkist Midlands, for his assistance in a dispute arising with her mother-in-law. Legend has Elizabeth waiting for Edward under an oak in Whittlebury Forest, a helpless widow, hoping to plead for the inheritances of her sons. Perhaps he did come riding by, hear her problems and fall in love. When she became aware of his intentions and agreed to become his wife, knowing his position, she cannot have known what lay ahead, but she must have agreed to collude in his veil of secrecy. Her decision to marry the king cannot have been one she would have taken lightly. 

Elizabeth married Edward in secret, some time before September 1464. The exact date and circumstances of this event are still hotly debated among historians, especially because the choices Edward made were later used to undermine his dynastic line. The ceremony appears to have taken place in the chapel at Groby, with the collusion of Elizabeth’s mother, Jacquetta, Countess Rivers, although it was kept secret from her father at that point. This choice was hardly surprising, given the reaction Edward could anticipate to the match, but there is also the possibility that the ritual was intended as a means of seduction rather than a lasting commitment.

 Some historians have suggested that the king was, in fact, already married at this point. Almost 20 years later, after Edward’s death, the question of his children’s legitimacy turned upon a statement made by Robert Stillington, Bishop of Bath and Wells, who asserted that a prior arrangement between Edward and Eleanor Butler, née Talbot, invalidated his marriage to Elizabeth. This argument was used to depose Edward’s eldest son Edward V and replace him with Edward’s brother, Richard III. Eleanor was already conveniently long-dead by this time, as were any other witnesses, so the plausibility of the claim rested upon what was known of Edward’s character. His contemporary reputation as a womaniser did little to allay this possibility, and the secret marriage to Elizabeth only added to the doubts. At the time, there was no way that Edward could have predicted his early death, or his brother’s actions, although by rejecting the usual practice of conducting a royal marriage in public, he called his motives into question.

King Edward IV by an unknown artist, late 16th century. There is no question that Edward was a great catch for a knight’s widow. (Photo by VCG Wilson/Corbis via Getty Images)

 A desire to be together
Edward and Elizabeth were married for 19 years. Their relationship spanned a turbulent period, during which Edward lost and regained the throne, faced rebellion and was forced into exile. This meant that there were periods when the couple were separated, unsure whether or not they would see each other again. Edward also had mistresses, especially towards the end of his life, when he famously loved the company of Jane Shore. However, this was by no means unusual at the time, so would not necessarily have been a cause for conflict in the way that modern, post-Romantic sensibilities might anticipate. It was almost expected, for reasons of health and safety, that men would abstain from sleeping with their pregnant wives, but required sexual outlets elsewhere. While Edward might share another woman’s bed, he had made Elizabeth his queen and, unlike his grandson Henry VIII, he never intended to dislodge her from that position. Sex with other women would have been a diversion and a physical outlet, rather than an attempt to replace Elizabeth; it was advised by physicians as essential to health and might even have been welcomed by the queen later in life, or while she was indisposed. In spite of these issues, the marriage never appears to have foundered or weakened. Despite these difficulties and the opposition to their union, both were united in their desire to be together.

 Today, it is difficult to recover the intimate details of a private life that was not committed to letters or a diary. Yet, it is possible to look at the indications that suggest the marriage did work, on a personal level, and Edward’s ability to maintain the union in the wake of the contemporary dislike of Elizabeth’s family. In defying expectations that he had a duty to use marriage as a diplomatic tool, Edward prioritised love, perhaps lust, in a way that exposed his own feelings. There was no question that he desired Elizabeth and was prepared to take considerable risks to make her his queen.

 Yet amid all the controversy, Elizabeth’s own feelings are less transparent. A few of the chroniclers mention her initial resistance to Edward’s advances on moral grounds, refusing to become his mistress in a way that made him determined to make her his wife. However, this does not appear to have been as conscious a policy as that which Anne Boleyn would use six decades later. There is no question that Edward was a great catch for a knight’s widow. Apart from his considerable personal charms, to bag a king was the ultimate achievement as a career marriage, and brought unprecedented advantages to the Woodville family, something which Elizabeth must have been acutely aware of. But this may have been a realistic move, not a cynical one. It was the happy union of attraction and advantage that would have made the match so unique.

 Elizabeth bore Edward 10 children, with their youngest arriving just three years before the king’s death. Of their seven girls and three boys, only five daughters reached adulthood, the others falling victim to illness, or disappearing inside the Tower of London, as was the case with the two elder boys, Edward V and his brother Richard. The provision for the young Prince Edward’s education and establishment at Ludlow Castle in the 1470s show that his parents cared deeply about the way his learning was imparted, his leisure hours and the influences upon him. He was to be allowed time to play, to enjoy his dogs and horses, and to be well fed, well slept and preserved from the influence of those who might be uncouth, ill, or of evil intent. The royal family appears to have been a close, warm unit, which retained a sense of loyalty and mutual support throughout Edward’s reign and afterwards. Their household accounts and the glimpses offered by eyewitnesses capture their mutual investment in the life they had created together and fought to protect. The eldest daughter, Elizabeth of York, continued to help her sisters and their offspring after she had married Henry VII and become queen.

'The Young Princes in the Tower', 1831. Of the 10 children of Elizabeth Woodville and Edward IV, only five reached adulthood, the others falling victim to illness, or disappearing inside the Tower of London, as was the case with the two elder boys, Edward V and his brother Richard. (Photo by The Print Collector/Print Collector/Getty Images)

 A productive partnership
As 1483 dawned, Edward and Elizabeth might still have anticipated many years together. They had been married almost 19 years, the country was at peace and Edward himself was approaching his 41st birthday. He was middle-aged by contemporary standards, and although not as active and fit as his earlier years, had contemplated personally leading an army against the Scots just one year previously. The marriage had been placed under considerable pressure by Edward’s conflicts with his nobility, as rivalry was created by jealousy at the new-found wealth of the Woodvilles. Yet there are no surviving anecdotes that relate to conflict between the couple, or any lessening of affection. None of the gossipy stories that relate to the wives of Henry VIII, or those of Henry VI, Richard III and Henry VII, emerge about Edward and Elizabeth. Their partnership appeared complementary, harmonious and enduring, with Edward adopting a martial style of leadership, ruling by merit of his larger-than-life personality and Elizabeth taking the typically feminine role of the supportive and fertile but essentially apolitical queen.

 Edward’s premature death in April 1483 ended a productive partnership before it had fully come to fruition, before their eldest son was of age. Having been the ‘glue’ that bound the disparate elements of his court together, Edward’s absence proved to be the catalyst that precipitated civil chaos. Losing control of power, and of her sons, Elizabeth witnessed the deaths of her friends and relatives before peace was restored under her son-in-law, Henry VII. She retired to Bermondsey Abbey, spending her final days in seclusion before being laid to rest in a humble grave, at her own request, alongside Edward in St George’s Chapel at Windsor. They lie there today, permanently united in death, their marriage standing as a symbol of the strong rule they embodied in life.

 Amy Licence is the author of Edward IV & Elizabeth Woodville: A True Romance (Amberley Publishing 2016)

Bosworth: the dawn of the Tudors

History Extra

The battle depicted in a 16th-century frieze. (Stowe House)

Wales, 7 August 1485. As the sun lowered beneath the horizon across the Milford estuary, a flotilla of ships drifted across the mouth of the Haven. It had been a week since the fleet had sailed from the shelter of the Seine at Honfleur, but the ships had made fast progress in the balmy August weather. Onboard, the soldiers waited. They included a rabble of 2,000 Breton and French soldiers (many only recently released from prison and, according to the chronicler Commynes, “the worst sort… raised out of the refuse of the people”). There were also a thousand Scottish troops and 400 Englishmen, whose last sight of the country had been two years previously, when they had fled in fear of their lives.

 

The ships entered the mouth of the estuary where, looking leftwards, the dark red sandstone cliffs, several hundred feet in height and impossible to scale, gave way to a small cove hiddenrom sight from the cliffs above. High tide had passed an hour previously, enabling the ships to creep silently to the edge of the narrow shoreline, allowing the troops to disembark. Their arrival stirred no one. The waters soon clouded with sand as the men began to heave cannon, guns and ordnance from the boats, leading horses from the ships and onto land.

 

From one of the boats stepped a 28-year-old man. Pale and slender, above average height with shoulder-length brown hair, he had a long face with a red wart just above his chin. Yet his most noticeable feature to those who met him was his small blue eyes, which gave out the impression of energy and liveliness whenever he spoke. 

 

Stepping from his boat, the man took a few steps forward on land upon which he had last set foot 14 years before. Kneeling down in the sand, he took his finger and drew a sign of the cross, which he then kissed. Then, holding up his hands to the skies, he uttered words from the first line from the 43rd Psalm: “Judge and revenge my cause O Lord,” which the soldiers now began to sing. As the words of the psalm echoed around Mill Bay in the darkening evening, one line in particular must have stood out above all others: “O deliver me from the deceitful and unjust man.”

 

^{Henry VII pictured at the the Tower London, in a contemporary illustration. (Topfoto)}

 

Moment of reckoning

The journey across Wales to win a kingdom had only just begun. For Henry Tudor, his arrival to claim the crown of England was the end of a journey that had lasted his whole life. The moment of reckoning had arrived.

 

The remarkable rise of the Tudors to prominence is shrouded in fable. Long before Henry Tudor’s landing in 1485, the family had nearly driven itself into annihilation due to their support of Owain Glyndwr’s disastrous rebellion in 1400. It would take a scandalous affair to trigger a remarkable turnaround in the Tudors’ fortunes. 

 

Owen Tudor was a household servant in Henry V’s court. After the king’s premature death, his widowed queen, Katherine of Valois, took a shine to the handsome Welsh page, supposedly after he had drunkenly fallen into her lap dancing at a ball. Their illicit union, later formalised by a secret marriage, produced several children, including Edmund and Jasper Tudor, recognised by Henry VI as his half-brothers when he created them the earls of Richmond and Pembroke.

 

Edmund had his own ambitions for self-enrichment: his means would be marriage, namely to the wealthiest heiress in the land, Margaret Beaufort, the sole inheritor of the Beaufort family fortune, who had her own claim to the throne. Margaret was just a child, but when it came to marriage, land took precedence over love for Edmund. Aged just 12, Margaret found herself pregnant. Edmund, however, would not live to see the birth of his heir.

 

Although Edmund Tudor is reported to have died of the plague, this obscures the fact that he had been recently arrested by adherents of the king’s rival, Richard, Duke of York; his treatment in prison, many suspected, hastened his death. Already divisions between the houses of Lancaster and York had been exposed to full glare at the first battle of St Albans in 1455, where Jasper Tudor himself witnessed the Lancastrian king Henry VI being injured in the fight. Civil war would soon erupt as the Duke of York claimed the throne for himself.

 

With Edmund’s death, Jasper Tudor would assume the mantle of the head of the family. He had Margaret swiftly married to Henry Stafford, the second son of the wealthy Duke of Buckingham. But any newfound stability was to be short-lived. Despite an attempt at reconciliation, factionalism between the Lancastrian court and York’s supporters erupted into open warfare in the late 1450s and into 1460, when the Yorkists secured a crushing victory at Northampton, capturing Henry VI. York was declared Henry’s successor, only for a dramatic reversal in fortune when the duke was executed after the battle of Wakefield in December 1460. York’s son and heir, Edward, Earl of March, wreaked his revenge two months later when, at the battle of Mortimer’s Cross in early 1461, he routed the Lancastrian forces, killing 3,000 Welshmen. One of the victims was an elderly Owen Tudor, who was executed at the market cross in Hereford, his last words reportedly being “That head shall lie on the stock that was wont to lie on Queen Katherine’s lap”. Jasper was forced to flee, promising to avenge his father’s death “with the might of the Lord.”

 

Vengeance would be a long time coming. Edward’s crushing victory at the battle of Towton a month later heralded a decade of Yorkist rule, as Edward acceded to the throne as Edward IV. In exile first in Wales and later France, Jasper was stripped of his earldom, while his young nephew Henry was placed in the charge of the new Earl of Pembroke, William Herbert, where he was brought up at Raglan Castle, under the care of Herbert’s wife, Anne. His mother, Margaret, paid occasional visits to her son. However, mother and son weren’t reunited until 1470, when the defection of Warwick ‘the Kingmaker’ forced Edward IV from power and returned Henry VI to the throne. Margaret could now pay for a bow and sheaves of arrows to keep Henry amused. She even arranged for an audience with Henry VI, who is reported to have foretold that Henry Tudor would one day inherit the kingdom.

 

Jasper was restored to his earldom and given extensive powers under the restored Lancastrian regime, but it was not to last. In March 1471, Edward IV launched a remarkable comeback, returning from exile in Holland. Within the space of a month, two critical battles at Barnet and Tewkesbury resulted in the deaths of Warwick, Margaret Beaufort’s husband Stafford and Henry VI’s son Prince Edward, shortly followed by Henry VI’s own suspicious end in the Tower. The Lancastrian dynasty had run into the sand. Through the brutal consequences of war, Henry Tudor was rapidly becoming one of the last remaining members of the royal family, although his claim to the throne was hardly taken seriously at the time.

 

Blown off course

After the crushing defeat of the Lancastrian forces at Tewkesbury, Jasper had no choice but to flee into exile again. This time, sailing in a small boat from Tenby bound for French shores where he hoped to enlist the support of Louis XI, he took his 14-year-old nephew Henry with him. Yet when a storm blew them off course, they found themselves washed up on the shores of Le Conquet in neighbouring Brittany. At the time, Brittany was an independent duchy separate to France and relations between the two were openly hostile, perfectly understandable given French ambitions to unite the two countries. 

 

The Breton ruler, Duke Francis II, recognising the value of the Tudors as diplomatic pawns, welcomed Jasper and Henry to his court. Francis understood that these new arrivals could be used to bargain with Edward IV, who was desperate to have both returned to England. He remained determined to keep both under close supervision, separating uncle and nephew, with Henry sent to the isolated Tour d’Elven, where he was imprisoned on the sixth floor of its keep. Henry’s exile in Brittany over the next 14 years would be spent as a prisoner, albeit with household expenses totalling £2,000, along with £620 for his own personal use. 

 

Edward IV made repeated failed attempts to entice Francis to hand over the Tudors. In 1476, he persuaded the duke that he intended for Henry to marry his daughter Elizabeth and requested his return. Francis fell for the trap and Henry was taken to St Malo, ready to be boarded onto a ship to transport him back to England. But Henry feigned illness and, in the ensuing delay, managed to escape into sanctuary in the town. 

 

Edward IV’s death in April 1483 marked a turning point in Henry’s fortunes. Following the mysterious disappearance of Edward V and his brother in the summer of 1483, together with Richard III’s seizing of the crown, a massive rebellion led by the Duke of Buckingham broke out in October 1483. Spurred on by his mother, Margaret Beaufort, who appears to have been strongly involved with the organisation of the rebellion, Henry decided to sail to the English coast with a fleet of Breton ships in the hope of invading. But the rebellion collapsed and, with Buckingham’s execution, Henry had no option but to return to Brittany. 

 

^{Henry VII's seal, depicting the monarch riding into battle. (Mary Evans)}

 

Silver linings

Henry’s aborted attempt to claim the crown may have ended in disaster, but its consequences were to prove highly advantageous. Hundreds of exiles fleeing from England soon arrived at Henry’s ‘court’, many of whom were former household men of Edward IV, distraught at Richard’s usurpation. They had now switched sides, backing the Lancastrian Henry Tudor. Henry also pledged an oath on Christmas Day 1483 to marry Elizabeth of York, Edward IV’s eldest daughter, thereby uniting the houses of Lancaster and York. 

 

But Henry’s time in Brittany was soon to be cut short. When Richard offered to provide a force of several thousand archers to aid Brittany in their conflict with France, in return Henry and Jasper were to be arrested. Henry was tipped off about the plan with just hours to spare and managed to flee to France where he was received by the French court of Charles VIII. As a pawn in the diplomatic chessboard played out between France, Brittany and England, Henry’s arrival was a gift for the French regime, who agreed to equip Henry with money, ships and mercenaries “of the worst sort” to launch an attack on Richard. At the last moment, though, they held back on their promises of funding, forcing Henry to borrow from brokers in Paris. He set sail with his army on 1 August 1485. 

 

Richard III was reportedly “overjoyed” at news of Henry’s landing. Yet, as Henry’s march along the coastline of Wales went unhindered, Richard grew nervous, becoming suspicious of the involvement of Henry’s step-father, Thomas Stanley (who had become Margaret Beaufort’s third husband), and his brother Sir William Stanley in the lack of resistance to Henry’s growing band of men as he travelled through north Wales and to the gates of Shrewsbury. The key defections of Welsh landowner Sir Rhys ap Thomas and Sir Gilbert Talbot provided Henry with the momentum he needed to push forward towards London, planning to march down Watling Street, the current-day A5. 

 

Richard had spent the summer at Nottingham, waiting to see where Henry might land, but now he hurried down to Leicester where he amassed a force of some 15,000 men – at the time, one of the largest armies ever assembled on one side. On 21 August, both armies drew closer, camping the night overlooking the marshy terrain known as ‘Redemore’ near the villages of Dadlington, Stoke Golding and Upton. 

 

Still, Henry could not be sure of the Stanleys’ final support at Bosworth. Suspecting treachery, Richard had kept Thomas Stanley’s son, George Lord Strange, imprisoned as a hostage to ensure his father’s good behaviour. Henry held a clandestine meeting with both brothers the night before, and when morning came, Stanley refused to march his forces into line, preferring to remain upon the brow of the surrounding hills, between both armies.

 

Richard, meanwhile, had slept badly, supposedly haunted by nightmares. He woke to find that his camp was unprepared to hear mass or eat breakfast. As both sides lined up for battle in the early hours of 22 August, it was clear that Richard’s army was vastly superior, with his “countless multitude” of men. In contrast, Henry had at best 5,000 men, of which his French mercenaries had to be kept apart from his native soldiers, for fear of them falling out.

 

Henry’s vanguard was led by the Earl of Oxford, the Lancastrian commander who had managed to escape imprisonment to join Henry in France. Oxford’s expertise saw Richard’s vanguard routed and the death of its commander, the elderly Duke of Norfolk. By now, Richard had begun to realise that many on his own side, particularly those led by the Earl of Northumberland in his rearguard, were standing still, refusing to fight. He was offered the chance to flee yet refused, preferring to fight to the death. 

 

Spotting Henry at the back of the battlefield, surrounded only by a small band of soldiers, Richard charged on horseback towards its ranks. After unhorsing Sir John Cheney, at 6ft 8ins one of the tallest soldiers of the day, Richard’s men managed to kill Henry’s standard-bearer, Sir William Brandon, while Richard’s own standard-bearer, Sir Percival Thirlwall, had both his legs hacked away beneath him. 

 

With Henry fearing imminent death, the sudden charge of Sir William Stanley’s 3,000 men saw Richard swept into a nearby marsh, where he was killed as the blows of the halberds of Henry’s Welsh troops rained down on him. Thanks to Richard’s remains having recently – and finally – been discovered under a Leicester car park, we know that the king suffered massive trauma to the head, including one wound which cut clean through the skull and into his brain. With the king dead, after two bloody hours the battle was over: on the nearby ‘Crown Hill’, Henry was proclaimed king by Thomas Stanley. 

 

Two months later, Henry was officially crowned Henry VII at Westminster Abbey. The following January, he married Elizabeth of York, thereby fulfilling his promise to unite the houses of Lancaster and York. After decades of uncertainty and exile, the Tudor dynasty was finally born.   

 

 

Three notable figures in Henry VII’s life  

Jasper Tudor 

 

The loyal uncle of Henry Tudor – it was through Jasper’s care and devotion that the Tudor dynasty was born. The second son of Owen Tudor, Jasper found himself embroiled in the civil wars as he defended his half-brother Henry VI. When Henry lost the throne, Jasper went into exile, taking his nephew with him. He remained a constant presence in Henry Tudor’s life, his loyalty rewarded after Bosworth with the dukedom of Bedford. 

 

John de Vere, Earl of Oxford 

 

A stalwart Lancastrian, whose father and brother had been executed by the Yorkists, the Earl of Oxford came to prominence at the battle of Barnet in 1471 when, on the cusp of victory, his troops were defeated by Edward IV after they became confused in the mist and began attacking their own side. Oxford fled, only to reappear three years later when he seized St Michael’s Mount. In 1484, he joined Henry in exile in France. Making the journey to Bosworth, Oxford was placed in command of Henry’s vanguard. His military knowledge – in particular manoeuvring his troops to ensure that the sun and the wind were against Richard’s forces – may have proved critical in winning the battle. 

 

Margaret Beaufort

 

Henry Tudor’s “dearest and most entirely beloved mother”, Margaret was barely a teenager when she gave birth to her only son. Suspected to be one of the driving forces behind Buckingham’s rebellion, she encouraged her son to invade, sending money and support. After Henry’s assumption of power, Margaret became one of the most important figures at court. She died two months after her son. 

 

Chris Skidmore is an author, historian, MP for Kingswood and vice-chairman of the All-Party Group on History and Archives.

Treachery at Bosworth: what really brought down Richard III

History Extra

Richard III (1452–85) © Bridgeman Art Library/Topfoto

On 22 August 1485, in marshy fields near the village of Sutton Cheney in Leicestershire, Richard III led the last charge of knights in English history. A circlet of gold around his helmet, his banners flying, he threw his destiny into the hands of the god of battles.
Among the astonished observers of this glittering panoply of horses and steel galloping towards them were Sir William Stanley and his brother Thomas, whose forces had hitherto taken no part in the action. Both watched intently as Richard swept across their front and headed towards Henry Tudor, bent only on eliminating his rival.
As the king battled his way through Henry’s bodyguard, killing his standard bearer with his own hand and coming within feet of Tudor himself, William Stanley made his move. Throwing his forces at the King’s back he betrayed him and had him hacked him down. Richard, fighting manfully and crying, “Treason! Treason!”, was butchered in the bloodstained mud of Bosworth Field by a man who was, ostensibly at least, there to support him.
Historians have been tempted to see Stanley’s treachery as merely the last act in the short and brutal drama that encompassed the reign of the most controversial king in English history. Most agree that Richard had murdered his two nephews in the Tower of London and that this heinous crime so shocked the realm, even in those medieval days, that his demise was all but assured. The reason he lost the battle of Bosworth, they say, was because he had sacrificed support through this illegal coup.
But hidden among the manuscripts in the duchy of Lancaster records in the National Archives, lies a story that provides an insight into the real reason why Thomas, Lord Stanley, and his brother William betrayed Richard at Bosworth during the Wars of the Roses. The records reveal that for more than 20 years before the battle, a struggle for power in the hills of Lancashire had lit a fuse which exploded at Bosworth.
Land grab
The Stanleys had spent most of the 15th century building up a powerful concentration of estates in west Lancashire, Cheshire and north Wales. As their power grew they came into conflict with gentry families in east Lancashire who resented their acquisitive and relentless encroachments into their lands.
One such family were the Harringtons of Hornby. Unlike their Stanley rivals the Harringtons sided with the Yorkists in the Wars of the Roses and remained staunchly loyal. Unfortunately, at the battle of Wakefield in 1460, disaster struck. The Duke of York was killed and with him Thomas Harrington and his son John.
The Stanleys managed, as ever, to miss the battle. They were very keen, however, to pick up the pieces of the Harrington inheritance and take their seat at Hornby, a magnificent castle that dominated the valley of the River Lune in Stanley country.
When John Harrington had been killed at Wakefield the only heirs he left behind were two small girls. They had the legal right to inherit the castle at Hornby, but this would pass to whomever they married. Stanley immediately sought to take them as his wards and to marry them as soon as possible to his only son and a nephew.
John Harrington’s brother James was equally determined to stop him. James argued that his brother had died before their father at Wakefield and so he himself, as the oldest surviving son, had become the heir, not John’s daughters. To make good his claim he took possession of the girls, and fortified Hornby against the Stanleys.
Unfortunately for Harrington, King Edward IV – striving to bring order to a country devastated by civil strife – simply could not afford to lose the support of a powerful regional magnate, and awarded the castle to Stanley.
However, this was by no means the end of the matter. James Harrington refused to budge and held on to Hornby, and his nieces, regardless. What’s more, the records show that friction between the two families escalated to alarming proportions during the 1460s.
In the archive of the letters patent and warrants, issued under the duchy of Lancaster seal, we can see the King struggling – and failing – to maintain order in the region. While James Harrington fortified his castle and dug his heels in, Stanley refused to allow his brother, Robert Harrington, to exercise the hereditary offices of bailiff in Blackburn and Amounderness, which he had acquired by marriage. Stanley falsely indicted the Harringtons, packed the juries and attempted to imprison them.
Revolt and rebellion
This virtual state of war became a real conflict in 1469, when, in a monumental fit of pique, the Earl of Warwick – the most powerful magnate in the land, with massive estates in Yorkshire, Wales and the Midlands – rebelled against his cousin Edward IV.
The revolt saw the former king, the hapless Henry VI, being dragged out of the Tower and put back on the throne. Stanley, who had married Warwick’s sister, Eleanor Neville, stood to gain by joining the rebellion.
There were now two kings in England – and Edward was facing a bitter battle to regain control. In an attempt to secure the northwest, he placed his hopes on his younger brother, Richard Duke of Gloucester, the future Richard III.
This had immediate consequences for Stanley and Harrington, for Richard displaced the former as forester of Amounderness, Blackburn and Bowland, and appointed the latter as his deputy steward in the forest of Bowland, an extensive region to the south of Hornby. Even worse, from Stanley’s point of view, the castle of Hornby was in Amounderness, where Richard now had important legal rights.
During the rebellion Stanley tried to dislodge James once and for all by bringing a massive cannon called ‘Mile Ende’ from Bristol to blast the fortifications. The only clue we have as to why this failed is a warrant issued by Richard, dated 26 March 1470, and signed “at Hornby”.
It would appear that the 17-year-old Richard had taken sides and was helping James Harrington in his struggle against Stanley. This is hardly surprising as James’s father and brother had died with Richard’s father at Wakefield and the Harringtons were actively helping Edward get his throne back. In short, it seems that the Harringtons had a royal ally in Richard, who could challenge the hegemony of the Stanleys and help them resist his ambitions.
The Harringtons’ support for Edward was to prove of little immediate benefit when the King finally won his throne back after defeating and killing Warwick at the battle of Barnet and executing Henry VI.
Grateful he may have been, but the harsh realities of the situation forced Edward to appease the Stanleys because they could command more men than the Harringtons and, in a settlement of 1473, James Harrington was forced to surrender Hornby.
Richard ensured that he received the compensation of the nearby property of Farleton, and also land in west Yorkshire, but by the time Edward died in 1483 Stanley had still not handed over the lucrative and extensive rights that Robert Harrington claimed in Blackburn and Amounderness.
A family affair
One thing, however, had changed. The leading gentry families in the region had found a ‘good lord’ in Richard. He had been made chief steward of the duchy in the north in place of Warwick and used his power of appointment to foster members of the gentry and to check the power of Stanley.
Only royal power could do this and Richard, as trusted brother of the King, used it freely. The Dacres, Huddlestons, Pilkingtons, Ratcliffes and Parrs, all related by marriage to the Harringtons, had received offices in the region and saw Richard, not Stanley, as their lord.
When Richard took the throne he finally had the power to do something for James Harrington. The evidence shows that he planned to reopen the question of the Hornby inheritance.
This alone would have been anathema to Stanley but it was accompanied by an alarming series of appointments in the duchy of Lancaster. John Huddleston, a kinsman of the Harringtons, was made sheriff of Cumberland, steward of Penrith and warden of the west march. John Pilkington, brother-in-law of Robert Harrington, was steward of Rochdale and became Richard III’s chamberlain; Richard Ratcliffe, Robert Harrington’s wife’s uncle, was the King’s deputy in the west march and became sheriff of Westmorland. Stanley felt squeezed, his power threatened and his influence diminished.
With Richard at Bosworth were a close-knit group of gentry who served in the royal household: men like John Huddleston, Thomas Pilkington and Richard Ratcliffe. They were men whom Richard could trust, but they were also the very men who were instrumental in reducing Stanley’s power in the northwest.
By Richard’s side, possibly carrying his standard, was James Harrington. When Richard III sped past the Stanleys at Bosworth Field he presented them with an opportunity too tempting to refuse.
During the 1470s Richard had become the dominant power in the north as Edward’s lieutenant. He served his brother faithfully and built up a strong and stable following. The leading gentry families could serve royal authority without an intermediary. The losers in this new dispensation were the two northern magnates, Henry Percy and Thomas Stanley.
Richard challenged their power and at Bosworth they got their revenge. When Richard rode into battle, with Harrington by his side, loyalty, fidelity and trust rode with him. Like the golden crown on Richard’s head they came crashing down to earth.

Place to visit

Bosworth Battlefield Heritage Centre, Sutton Cheney, Leicestershire
Walks, exhibitions and information on the latest research.
Tel: 01455 290429
www.bosworthbattlefield.com
Dr David Hipshon teaches at St James Independent School in Twickenham. His new book Richard III and the Death of Chivalry is published by The History Press

12 things you (probably) didn’t know about the Wars of the Roses

History Extra

Battle of Towton, 1461. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

But, argues historian Matthew Lewis in his new book, the roots of these dynastic civil wars went deeper and the branches reached further than this timeframe suggests. Here, writing for History Extra, Lewis shares 12 lesser-known facts about the conflicts…

1) Jack Cade’s rebellion rocked the Lancastrians

In July 1450, a mysterious man known as Jack Cade led a huge force of common men from Kent into London to protest against the ailing government of the Lancastrian king Henry VI. This episode is generally regarded as being outside the bounds of the Wars of the Roses, but those edges are blurred and elastic.
When Jack Cade entered the capital he struck the London Stone, which can still be seen on Cannon Street, and, according to Shakespeare, proclaimed: “Now is Mortimer lord of this city!” After this, Cade openly adopted the provocative name John Mortimer. The Mortimer line was considered by many to be senior to the Lancastrian line, since the Mortimers were heirs apparent to Richard II – so adding weight to the later Yorkist claim to the throne.
In 1460 Richard, Duke of York would trace his lineage from Edward III’s second surviving son, Lionel, Duke of Clarence, whose only daughter had married Edmund Mortimer. The House of Lancaster was descended from John of Gaunt, Edward III’s third son. The Mortimer Earls of March had been considered the lawful heirs of the childless Richard II before he was deposed, and the Lancastrian kings eyed them with suspicion. Was Jack Cade a son of this deposed line seeking restitution?
Many would later claim that Richard, Duke of York had arranged for Cade to use the name ‘Mortimer’ to measure the response to it. Stow’s Chronicle, a Tudor source, claimed that the object of the uprising was to place York upon the throne, and Baker’s later A Chronicle of the Kings of England called Cade “an instrument of the Duke of York”.
Cade – who was captured and fatally wounded following the failure of his rebellion – is a fascinating, elusive figure. Was he a genuine claimant to the throne, a social campaigner, or a puppet?

2) Wiltshire took to his heels to protect his face

James Butler, 1st Earl of Wiltshire and 5th Earl of Ormond, was a good-looking man. So good-looking, in fact, that it hampered his performance on the battlefield.
Loyal to the Lancastrian cause, Butler rose to prominence under Henry VI and fought for the king at the first battle of St Albans on 22 May 1455. The Lancastrian forces lost to those led by the Duke of York, the Earl of Salisbury and the infamous ‘kingmaker’, the Earl of Warwick. Several Lancastrian leaders were killed and Henry VI was injured and captured, but Butler escaped.
Gregory, a resident of London who kept a detailed chronicle covering the early Wars of the Roses, quipped that Butler, then in his early thirties, “fought mainly with his heels for he was frightened of losing his beauty”. Butler wrote to the Duke of York from Petersfield to ask if he could return to the king’s side and, if not, to be allowed to retire to his estates in Ireland.
Butler was on the losing side once more at the battle of Mortimer’s Cross (February 1461) and again at Towton (March 1461), after which he was captured and executed – his looks finally lost for the Lancastrian cause.

3) The friar’s cannon fooled Queen Margaret’s army

The first battle of St Albans was followed by a period of peace, but it wasn’t to last long. By the autumn of 1459, Yorkist forces were massing at Ludlow in Shropshire, from where they planned to take the fight to King Henry VI’s Lancastrians again. Among those marching south to join them was an army under the Yorkist Earl of Salisbury. Yet Salisbury wasn’t to reach his destination unimpeded. Henry VI’s wife, Queen Margaret, got wind of the movements and sent a force twice the size of Salisbury’s to intercept him at Blore Heath in Staffordshire.

_{Henry VI, son of Henry V, king of England from 1422 to 1461 and again from 1470 to 1471, c1450. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)}
Against the odds, Salisbury won the day but his tired, battered column still needed to reach Ludlow. Thomas, Lord Stanley had a large force in the field within a few miles of Blore Heath, and the Lancastrian army might still have regrouped and pursued their Yorkist foes. Salisbury’s answer, according to Gregory, was to leave one of his cannons behind and pay an Augustinian friar to fire it “all that night in a park that was at the back side of the field”.
In the dark the Lancastrian army and Stanley’s force were disorientated and kept looking for a battle that had ended hours earlier. The clever ploy ensured that Salisbury reached Ludlow safely.

 

4) Lord Stanley had a lucky escape

When parliament met at Coventry in November 1459 to deliver punishment for those rebels involved in the recent Yorkist uprising, a small piece of business was recorded among the rolls of the session that might have radically altered the course of the Wars of the Roses.
Following the battle of Blore Heath (September 1459) and the subsequent clash at Ludford Bridge at Ludlow (October 1459), Richard, Duke of York and his allies had been forced to flee and were all attainted, stripped of lands and titles for their treason. At the end of the parliament rolls is a call from the commons for Thomas, Lord Stanley to also be attainted for treason. According to the charge, Henry VI had summoned Stanley to Nottingham, but “Lord Stanley, notwithstanding the said command, did not come to you; but William Stanley his brother, with many of the said lord’s servants and tenants, a great number of people, went to the Earl of Salisbury, and they were with the same earl at the attack upon your liege people at Blore Heath”.
Further accusations are levelled, but Henry deferred consideration of them. Given the Stanleys’ later prominence and their part in the battle of Bosworth (1485) – playing a critical role in Henrv Tudor’s victory over the Yorkist Richard III – the landscape of the second half of the 15th century might have been very different had Henry taken umbrage in 1459.

5) An Italian bishop helped the Yorkist cause

Bishop Francesco Coppini of Terni played a crucial but often overlooked role in the Yorkist seizure of power in 1461. Pope Pius II had sent Coppini to England as a papal legate in 1459 to seek Henry VI’s assistance in a crusade against the Turks. His secondary mission, given him by his patron Francesco Sforza, Duke of Milan, was to encourage Henry to invade France.
Henry’s French queen sent the legate away with a flea in his ear and Coppini retreated to Burgundy nursing his bruised pride. On the continent, he came into contact with the exiled Yorkists at Calais. The Earl of Warwick’s silver tongue flattered the bishop’s wounded ego, promising that a Yorkist government would see his master’s aims met.

_{Pope Pius II, who sent Bishop Francesco Coppini of Terni to England as a papal legate in 1459, pictured in c1459. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)}
Thus Coppini enthusiastically took up their cause, landing at Sandwich in 1460 when Warwick invaded. When they arrived in London, he preached to the English bishops in York’s support and wrote to Henry VI advising that he grant the Yorkists an audience.
Coppini was present at the battle of Northampton (July 1460) when Henry VI was captured again, but when the tide turned against the Yorkists in late 1460 he was forced to flee to the continent. After defeating an army fighting in the name of, though not led by, Henry VI at the battle of Towton (March 1461) and replacing him as king, the Yorkist Edward IV sought Coppini’s return – only for Coppini to be replaced as legate.
Although Coppini accompanied the new legate, the French and Lancastrians protested against his presence and he was sent back to Rome. He had, however, played a vital role in the establishment of Yorkist government.

6) A double-crossing fighter was knighted for his pains

Andrew Trollope was knighted in the aftermath of the Lancastrian victory at the second battle of St Albans (February 1461). Trollope had been the leader of the Calais garrison, the only standing army in the pay of the crown and therefore the closest thing to a professional force in the kingdom. The Earl of Warwick had brought Trollope and his men to Ludlow to bolster the Yorkist force there, but it was Trollope’s midnight flit to the king that destroyed the Yorkists’ hopes at Ludford Bridge (October 1459).
Chronicles record Trollope visiting the Duke of York at Wakefield and tricking him into believing that he was returning to the fold. York’s subsequent foray out of Sandal Castle cost him his life and increased Trollope’s standing at the Lancastrian court.
At the second battle of St Albans, Trollope was prominent once more in the Lancastrian assault on the Yorkists within the town. The newly freed Henry VI had his son, Prince Edward, knight Trollope on the field, even though, Gregory reports, Trollope had trodden on a caltrop (a weapon made of two or more sharp nails or spines, placed in the ground to slow the advance of horses and human troops) during the battle and been unable to move, protesting “I have not deserved it for I slew but 15 men, for I stood still in one place and they came unto me”.
Trollope’s star was soaring, but it would fall at the apocalyptic battle of Towton (March 1461), where he was killed leading the Lancastrian attack.

7) The siege of Bamburgh cost Sir Ralph Grey his head

By 1464, Edward IV had been king for three years and was establishing himself, but he had not quite eradicated Lancastrian resistance. The battles of Hedgeley Moor (April 1464) and Hexham (May 1464) had seen Lancastrian rebels from over the Scottish border attack Neville envoys from Edward IV heading north. During the incursion, the Lancastrians seized Alnwick, Dunstanburgh and Bamburgh Castles. Two were swiftly surrendered after Lancastrian defeats, but Sir Ralph Grey remained at Bamburgh Castle.
After refusing to leave, Grey was issued with a grisly threat: King Edward did not want to have to damage a vital castle near to the Scottish border, and so promised Grey that the first cannon ball fired at the walls would cost his head. Each subsequent shot that damaged a wall would cost another head, working down the line of command until every man was executed.

_{Bamburgh Castle in Bamburgh, Northumberland, c1965. (Photo by Lambert/Archive Photos/Getty Images)}
Two guns named Newcastle and London pounded the walls. A smaller cannon named Dijon found its range and consistently fired shot directly through Grey’s apartment window. The siege was brief, and in spite of the threat the men within were spared. Sir Ralph, though, was stripped of the honour of being a Knight of the Bath and sentenced to be beheaded.

8) A Latin scholar became butcher of England

John Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester was constable of England, responsible for the administration of the king’s justice. Tiptoft was a widely respected academic, a talented lawyer and a Latin scholar. His early career had been brimming with promise, and his star had continued to rise under the new Yorkist regime.
In 1470, while Edward IV was threatened by his brother George, Duke of Clarence and his cousin the mighty Earl of Warwick, a clutch of Warwick’s men were captured on the south coast trying to escape. Tiptoft oversaw the trials of 20 of what Warkworth’s Chronicle described as “gentlemen and yeomen”, probably representing the highest-status prisoners taken. After what was little more than a show trial, all 20 were sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered.
To drive home the fate of those opposing Edward, all 20 bodies were subjected to further humiliation: Tiptoft ordered each of the dismembered corpses to be hung upside down. Twenty wooden stakes, sharpened at both ends, were then driven through the buttocks of the 20 corpses and the heads stuck on the end protruding from the bodies. Tiptoft was reviled, named the butcher of England, and when the Lancastrians retook the country, he found himself unable to escape their retribution. He was executed on Tower Hill on 18 October 1470.

9) Nibley Green was the scene of the last private battle in England

On 20 March 1470, two private armies took to the field on Nibley Green at North Nibley in Gloucestershire. One army was led by Thomas Talbot, Viscount Lisle, and the other by William, Lord Berkeley. They had been involved in a long-running dispute over an inheritance that had been stalled in the courts without a resolution for either side.
As King Edward IV’s grip on power slipped in the face of rebellion by his cousin, the Earl of Warwick, men of power began to exploit the vacuum of royal authority created by the trouble at the top. Lord Berkeley won the small battle. Lord Lisle was killed and his adversary paid for building work to the church where many of the casualties were buried.
The battle of Nibley Green was the last battle between private armies in English history, but was a symptom of the coming storm. Sieges at Caister Castle and Hornby Castle were further evidence of the breakdown of law and order.

10) A loyal duke rose from the ‘dead’

Henry Holland, Duke of Exeter was a perfect example of the problems created by the Wars of the Roses. The Holland family had close ties to the Lancastrian royal line. Henry was a great-grandson of John of Gaunt but had married Anne, the eldest surviving child of Richard, Duke of York and his wife, Cecily.
Henry remained loyal to the Lancastrian cause, fighting against his father-in-law and brothers-in-law. At the battle of Barnet on 14 April 1471, Easter Sunday, Holland supported the Earl of Warwick’s attempts to prevent the return of King Edward IV – who Warwick had helped to overthrow the previous year – and to preserve the throne of the newly reinstalled Lancastrian Henry VI.

_{Battle of Barnet, 1471 - the death of Richard Neville, 16th earl of Warwick. (Photo by Culture Club/Getty Images)}
Early in the fighting, at around 7am, Henry Holland was cut down. At the end of the battle he was stripped of anything of value, as the victorious forces looted the bodies littering the field. At around 4pm, as the battlefield was being cleared, Henry Holland was discovered clinging on to life. His wounds were treated and once he was well enough he took sanctuary in Westminster Abbey.
In 1475 Henry volunteered to serve during Edward IV’s invasion of France. On the return journey he drowned in the Channel amid a storm of rumours that Edward had ordered him to be pushed overboard to rid himself of another with Lancastrian blood.

 

11) The archbishop of York was tricked out of his treasure

George Neville, Archbishop of York was a brother of Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick (the ‘kingmaker’).
After Edward IV’s triumph at the battle of Barnet (April 1471) – when he won back the throne, killing the ‘kingmaker’ in the process – George hid his vast wealth. He was, after all, uncertain of his future – even though he personally handed London and King Henry VI to the returning king.
In spite of his brother’s role in the expulsion of the Yorkist king, George seemed to continue in favour on Edward’s return. In 1472, George was with the king at Windsor enjoying the hunting when Edward announced that he would honour the archbishop with a visit to his manor at Moore. The excited George hurried to Moore and began recalling all of his hidden plate and finery to prepare to welcome the king, even borrowing large sums of money.
The day before Edward’s visit, a messenger delivered a summons to George to attend the king at Windsor. As soon as he arrived, George was arrested for treason. His property was seized by the king, his mitre broken and the jewels from it used to make Edward a new crown. Men were sent to Moore to recover all of the archbishop’s conveniently gathered goods.
Imprisoned at Hammes near Calais, George was later released but died in 1476 in poverty and disgrace.

 

12) A pirate earl created a king

In September 1473, John de Vere, Earl of Oxford captured St Michael’s Mount off the south coast of Cornwall. King Edward IV sent Sir Henry Bodrugan to lay siege to the tidal island fortress. Eventually, word reached Edward that each day at low tide Bodrugan was allowing the earl to leave the fortress and then return unmolested. When Oxford complained that his provisions were running low, Bodrugan had fresh supplies brought to the earl.
The king was furious and sent a squire of the body (a close personal servant of the king), John Fortescu, to replace Bodrugan. Finally, on 15 February 1474, after several engagements and after promises of pardons had lured some of Oxford’s men away, St Michael’s Mount was relinquished. Upon entering the castle, Fortescu found enough supplies to last for many more months.
Oxford was imprisoned at Hammes Castle until his escape during the reign of Richard III, when he joined the exiled Henry Tudor. He would go on to lead Tudor’s army at the battles of Bosworth in 1485 and Stoke Field in 1487 to create and defend the Tudor monarchy.

A soldier, an earl, a pirate, a prisoner, a general and a favourite of the early Tudor regime, John de Vere’s career was a perfect example of the changing fortunes of the Wars of the Roses.

Matthew Lewis is the author of The Wars of The Roses: The Key Players in the Struggle for Supremacy (Amberley Publishing, 2015). To find out more, click here.