Blood Sisters: The Women Behind the Wars of the Roses Read online

  Henry Parker, a member of Margaret’s household toward the end of her life, wrote that “neither prosperity made her proud, nor adversity overthrew her constant mind, for albeit that in king Richard’s days, she was often in jeopardy of her life, yet she bare patiently all trouble in such wise, that it is wonder to think it.” That is later hagiography: at the time, even she must have been in a tumult of regret and fear. But while she must in the short term have been utterly cast down by the failure of her rebellion, the very fact of an uprising in her son’s name must have underlined the fact of how close he now was to the throne.

  In Brittany on Christmas Day, in Rennes Cathedral, Henry Tudor made a public declaration of his intention to marry Princess Elizabeth—aiming to catch the disaffected members of the now-divided Yorkist party—and his supporters swore homage to him as if he were already king. Elizabeth of York, however, was still with her mother, increasingly isolated in sanctuary (where Buckingham’s widow, Elizabeth Woodville’s sister, now joined the family of women). The Yorkist heiress was now nearing her eighteenth birthday.

  While Henry Tudor was moving ahead with his challenge, Richard III began—or, rather, renewed—an offensive of his own. On January 23, 1484, Richard’s Parliament put out the bill of Titulus Regius, declaring that “the said pretended marriage betwixt the above named King Edward and Elizabeth Grey, was made of great presumption, without the knowing and assent of the Lords of this Land.” More to the point, it declared also that at the time of Edward IV’s marriage to Elizabeth Woodville, “and before and long time after, the said King Edward was and stood troth plighted to one Dame Eleanor Butler,” and that thus Edward and Elizabeth “lived together sinfully and damnably in adultery.” It was the old line about Edward IV’s marriage to Elizabeth Woodville being invalid, an argument aimed at illegitimating all the descendants from the marriage—including, now, Elizabeth of York.

  But Richard took his standard attack against his brother’s family a step further. The bill declared also that the marriage had been made “by Sorcery and Witchcraft, committed by the said Elizabeth, and her Mother Jacquetta, Duchess of Bedford.” Jacquetta of course was dead, and her accusers too, so the sorcery allegation was credited “as the common opinion of the people and the publique voice and fame is through all this land.” Any allegations of the living Cecily’s adultery were not repeated—unless something is implied in Richard’s having himself described as “the undoubted son” of York.

  If Elizabeth Woodville’s young sons were truly dead by now, then the real point of Titulus Regius must have been the political disabling of her daughter Elizabeth of York. Richard had never reached the point of being able to feel secure in his rule. In February, says Crowland, “nearly all the lords of the realm, both spiritual and temporal, together with the higher knights and esquires of the king’s household . . . met together at the special command of the king, in certain lower rooms, near the passage which leads to the queen’s apartments; and here, each subscribed his name to a kind of new oath . . . of adherence to Edward, the king’s only son, as their supreme lord, in case anything should happen to his father.”

  Since the turn of the year, the pressure on Elizabeth Woodville had been mounting. Now she was officially no longer recognized as a former queen, she was no longer entitled to the dowager’s rights, and she would be without income if she and her daughters stayed in sanctuary. Horrible as it must have been for her to contemplate, she was eventually going to have to make some sort of deal with her brother-in-law.

  Richard now ratcheted up the pressure even more. On March 1, in the presence of lords spiritual and temporal and the mayor and aldermen of the City, Richard put his hand on holy relics of the Evangelists and swore that “if the daughters of dame Elizabeth Grey, late calling herself Queen of England, that is to wit Elizabeth, Cecily, Anne, Katherine and Bridget, will come unto me out of the Sanctuary of Westminster, and be guided, ruled and demeaned after, then I shall see that they be in surety of their lives, and also not suffer any manner hurt by any manner person.”

  They would be safe from “ravishment or defiling contrary their wills,” nor would any of them be incarcerated “within the Tower of London or other prison.” The mention of the Tower may imply that, as Richard was well aware, Elizabeth was still suspicious of him. Instead, Richard said, he would put the girls “in honest places of good name and fame” and make sure they were provided with “all things requisite and necessary for their exhibition and findings as my kinswomen.” He would, moreover, arrange for them marriages “to gentlemen born.” It was not much of a deal for the former princesses, but expectations had sunk, and a union with a simple gentleman was better than no marriage at all.

  The declaration was first about the daughters, not Elizabeth Woodville herself. But Richard’s promises went one step further. He would pay Elizabeth’s own maintenance for the term of her natural life, “at four terms of the year, that is to wit at Pasche [Easter], Midsummer, Michaelmas, and Christmas . . . the sum of seven hundred marks of lawful money of England.”

  Elizabeth relented. Vergil wrote of how Richard sent messengers to her in sanctuary, “promising mountains.” The messengers were tactless enough to “wound the queen’s mind” by “reducing to memory the slaughter of her sons”—by, presumably, suggesting that what was done was done and she should put the fate of her boys behind her. Horrified by this, Elizabeth’s grief “seemed scarce able to be comforted.” But the messengers persisted, trying so many different appeals, and making so many promises, that Elizabeth began to be mollified—for (as Vergil, with the misogyny of the age, could not resist glossing) “so mutable is that sex.” Finally, Elizabeth promised that she would “yield herself unto the king.”

  Sometime that month, Elizabeth’s daughters left sanctuary. No one knows for sure where they went, or in what company. The younger ones at least may have been placed elsewhere in the country for some time—may even have been among the royal children (unnamed) at Sheriff Hutton in Yorkshire about whose maintenance instructions were given in July. Emotionally speaking, it would be better, surely, if they did all go to the country for a while, rather than face those at court who had known them in their glory. But it is also possible that the girls went straight to court, and it is this possibility—the idea of their blithely enjoying the gaieties provided by the man who may have killed their brothers—that has done much to damage the reputation of the women of Edward IV’s family.

  If Elizabeth Woodville believed her sons dead at Richard’s hand, she may nonetheless have felt she had no other option but to come out of sanctuary and come to some sort of terms with him. Her duty to her daughters and their future demanded it. Elizabeth may have been afraid that Richard, willing to break so many other mores, would not respect the laws of sanctuary; she must also have known that she had no means of financial support there and that her clerical hosts must have been growing desperate for her to leave. She may have been enough of a pragmatist to accept that her boys were gone and her responsibility now was to make the best deal for her girls (though if she believed Richard had killed her sons, then surely she would have felt as if she were sending her daughters into the lion’s den). Or she may have been such a venal woman that she couldn’t resist the chance of better living conditions, even if the donor was her sons’ murderer.

  But there are several other very intriguing possible explanations for Elizabeth Woodville’s decision. It seems possible (given her earlier plots and her imminent conversion to Henry’s cause) that Elizabeth Woodville’s compliance was only superficial and that she was secretly working against Richard. There is yet another possibility, however: that when Elizabeth Woodville herself left sanctuary in 1484, possibly sometime after her daughters, she had reason to know that Richard was not guilty of her sons’ deaths.

  It is this latter interpretation that is perhaps the most provocative and is—in light of at least one theory in particular—perfectly compatible with the fact that Elizabeth Woodville simply disappea
rs from the historical record for the rest of Richard’s reign. It has been suggested that either or both “Princes” left the Tower alive and that when Elizabeth Woodville emerged from sanctuary, it was because she had been promised her sons, or at least the younger of them, would be quietly allowed to join her. The elder boy has been said to have been ill in the summer of 1483, and it is possible he had died from natural causes. (It is worth noting that none of the later pretenders to Henry VII’s throne—and there would be several—claimed to be the elder prince, suggesting he, unlike his brother, was known by then to be dead.) The boys were, in any case, no longer “Princes”; their uncle had seen to it that in official terms at least, they were merely royal bastards, of whom there were several around already. But any such theory, of course, still leaves the boys’ true fate a mystery.

  The real mystery about the Princes in the Tower, ultimately, concerns the behavior of the women in the case. That the Princes’ mother and sisters might have, within months of the boys’ deaths, made friends with their murderer has been put down to fear, in a brutal age, and to pragmatism, in a harsh one. But one wonders if human nature has really changed that much. Of course, it can be assumed that if Richard gave assurances of his innocence, the women were eager to be convinced; they had, after all, few other options than compliance. But if Elizabeth Woodville believed her boys were not murdered—or not murdered by Richard—it would explain everything even more simply.

  As the dead king’s wife and daughters quietly left sanctuary, the kingdom seemed for a brief moment—a few weeks—to settle down. Richard in many ways was proving himself an admirable ruler; his Parliament had passed a notable amount of socially beneficial legislation, making, for example, the legal system more accessible to the poor. But once again, as so often, unforeseen events were to change the situation completely, and again it was the fate of a son that determined that of a dynasty.

  On April 9, the new Prince of Wales, young Edward of Middleham, the only child of Richard and Anne, died after what Crowland calls “an illness of but short duration.” It took some days for the news to travel from Middleham to the court, then at Nottingham, but then, says Crowland, “you might have seen his father and mother in a state almost bordering on madness, by reason of their sudden grief.” Anne’s state must have been truly pitiable. Looking at the extremely limited records as to Anne’s short life as queen, it is striking just how isolated she seems. The various shenanigans over her parents’ estates had left her alienated from the interests of those powerful relations who survived, while those northerners who might once have been regarded as her family’s supporters now gave their allegiance to her husband, who was indeed granting away some of her family lands to bolster his network of support.

  The death of Richard and Anne’s son may also have struck a fatal blow to their relationship, isolating the queen even further. Vergil seems to suggest it was now that Richard began to complain of Anne. Any other problems apart, the couple must both have been aware—as must their subjects—that although Anne had given him an heir, that heir was gone and there was no spare.

  Richard, as the Crowland chronicler points out, had at least the concerns of the kingdom to distract him. Personal grief apart, the death of Richard’s only heir had made the political situation more dangerous for the relatively new king. The succession was again in doubt. There was of course Warwick, Clarence’s son, who had been brought to London and, for a time at least, placed in Anne’s charge. Clarence’s attainder theoretically removed all rights of inheritance from his son; attainders, however, could be reversed or ignored. But if that was done, then as the son of Richard’s elder brother, Warwick’s claim to the throne would be stronger than Richard’s own.

  Warwick, however, passed into manhood, apparently placidly, in a kind of genteel captivity; Vergil later spoke of his simplicity, and there is a received impression, so widespread it may suggest a grain of truth, that there was something wrong with Clarence’s son. It cannot have been a flamboyant, a readily visible, disability—but while his name served for pretenders, no one ever seems to have considered placing Warwick himself on the throne. It has even been suggested that Richard, after the death of his own son, planned eventually to rehabilitate the Princes as his heirs. Warwick apart, another good candidate for heir apparent was his sister’s son John, the Earl of Lincoln, a grown man able enough for Richard to entrust him with the task of controlling the North. But Henry Tudor was of course another notable figure in the royal lineup, and he certainly gained in importance by Anne’s son’s death. And so, naturally, did Elizabeth of York.

  In the summer of 1484, Richard was in the North, once Anne’s own family turf; in addition to the usual business of kingship, there was other trouble there. A letter Richard wrote to his mother, Cecily, in the summer sounds almost as though he felt the need of family support. “Madam I recommend me to you as heartily as is to me possible, Beseeching you in my most humble and effectuous wise of your daily blessing to my Singular comfort & defence in my need. And madam I heartily beseech you that I may often hear from you to my Comfort.”

  Things were going sour for Richard. This was a waiting time. The rebellion of the past autumn and its suppression had in some ways lanced a boil, forcing those who secretly disapproved of Richard’s rule to reveal their true colors, but it had also made it clear Henry Tudor was a significant threat (especially if he could be coupled with Elizabeth of York) and revealed Margaret Beaufort to be a continuing source of danger. Richard, so Vergil says, “yet more doubting than trusting in his own cause,” was so “vexed, wrested, and tormented in mind” with fear of Henry’s threat that he had “a miserable life.” That is why he decided to “pull up by the roots” the source of his trouble and sent messages to the court of Brittany, where Henry Tudor was still living, something between a guest and a prisoner.

  At first, Richard’s tactic seemed successful. Duke Francis was sick with what seems to have been some kind of mental trouble. This left negotiations in the hands of his treasurer, who was less honorable and more amenable. By June Richard had been able to announce a treaty of cooperation with Brittany. Margaret must have feared that Henry’s being handed back to England would be a side effect of the deal. In September her fears were realized: Henry would be handed over in return for England’s backing in Brittany’s quarrels.

  But that same month, the deal was also thwarted. Vergil describes how John Morton in his Flanders exile, whose friends in England had passed him the news, sent word to Henry “by Christopher Urswycke, who was come to him out of England about the same time.” Not only was Morton a longtime associate of Margaret Beaufort, but Christopher too had been one of her household: the same young priest and protégé of Caerleon whom Margaret had recently taken into her home. Henry and his friends sent an urgent message to France to confirm they would be welcome there, and Vergil tells a dramatic tale of a dashing escape and a chivalrous finale when Duke Francis, recovering his health and sanity, paid the expenses for Henry’s fellow exiles, under Edward Woodville, to join the Tudor pretender in France.

  The move to France gave fresh impetus to any attempt to promote Henry’s claim. France was bound to seize on him as a pawn both in their ongoing negotiations with Richard and in their own power struggles—the struggles that had followed the death of King Louis at the end of summer 1483 and the accession of the thirteen-year-old Charles VIII to the throne. The tussle for control of the young king resulted in victory for Charles’s elder sister Anne of Beaujeu. Ironically, yet another woman (and a Frenchwoman at that) would play a significant part in English political affairs. From the time Charles was informed, on October 11, that Henry had crossed his border, the Tudor claimant was treated with a sympathy that gave him every hope the French would fund another invasion attempt.

  It was probably November 1484 when Henry began sending letters to England, trying to garner support, in a style that suggested he was already king. “Being given to understand your good devoir and entreaty to advance m
e to the furtherance of my rightful claim, due and lineal inheritance of that crown, and for the just depriving of that homicide and unnatural tyrant, which now unjustly bears dominion over you.” The letters were signed “H. R.”—Henry Rex—in a gesture that must have maddened Richard when he heard of it. He would have been even more concerned to hear Henry had instructed Morton to seek the papal dispensation necessary for him to marry Elizabeth of York.

  In retaliation, on December 7 Richard’s proclamation against Henry Tudor poured scorn on Henry’s pretensions to a royal estate “whereunto he hath no manner interest, right, or colour” and warned of “the most cruel murders, slaughters, robberies and disinheritances that were ever seen in any Christian Realm.” It must have felt like an insult also to Margaret Beaufort in isolation. Richard was trying to chip away at her alliances and accessories. Her useful tool Reginald Bray had been given a pardon at the beginning of the year; now pardons were extended also to Morton and, next spring, to Elizabeth Woodville’s brother Richard.

  But Richard’s enemy was also strengthening his position in England. Henry’s band in exile had for some time now included a number of Stanley affiliates. And when, toward the end of 1484, Henry’s party was joined by the dedicated Lancastrian Earl of Oxford, who for some years had been a high-profile (and, as he would soon demonstrate, militarily experienced) prisoner of the Yorkist regime, the French chronicler Molinet claimed that it was Lord Stanley’s advice that had persuaded his custodian to let the earl escape. Henry Tudor’s stepfather, it seems, was beginning to abandon—however secretively—his long-standing policy of neutrality.

  There must have been a perverse, edgy, reassurance for the Lancastrians in the very importance Richard had come to give the Tudor threat. The kingdom still held quiet under Richard’s rule, but it would have been increasingly clear that something had to break, some way.