Elizabeth and her mother had begun the day as queen and princess of England; they ended it as refugees. But as York sank, Lancaster rose. On 3 October, Henry VI was released from his prison, where he had not been ‘so cleanly kept as should seem such a prince’, and was ceremoniously conducted to ‘the king’s lodgings where the queen before lay’.5
No doubt he slept in her very bed.
Meanwhile, in the sanctuary, Elizabeth and her mother found themselves dependent on the charity of friends and foes alike. A London butcher, William Gould, gave them out of ‘great kindness and true heart’ the carcasses of half a cow and two sheep to feed their household each week; Thomas Millyng, the abbot of Westminster, went out of his way to befriend them; even Henry VI’s government provided (and paid for) the services of Elizabeth, Lady Scrope of Bolton, as the queen’s lady-in-waiting.6
A month later, on 2 November, Elizabeth Woodville was safely delivered of a son. Her own doctor and midwife were in attendance. But, since she was a mere ex-queen, there was no ceremony. There was ‘little pomp’ either when the child was christened in the Abbey, with Millyng and the prior as godfathers and Lady Scrope as godmother.7
Nevertheless, he was named ‘Edward’ after his father – and in the hope of better times.
And the good times soon returned. Only two years earlier, in July 1468, Edward IV’s sister Margaret had married Charles the Bold, the most magnificent and ostentatious ruler of the day. As duke of Burgundy, Charles was a prince of the blood royal of France. But his real power came from his control of the Netherlands, a patchwork of cities and territories which included not only the modern Netherlands, but also present-day Belgium and much of north-eastern France. It was the richest area of Europe outside Italy, and was England’s principal trading partner.
Here Edward IV found refuge in his exile. Nevertheless, despite their close relationship, Charles’s initial welcome was cool. It became much warmer in December 1470 when Louis XI of France, the ally and patron of the new Lancastrian regime, declared war on Charles. Duke Charles riposted by agreeing to support Edward IV in a bid to recover England.
Things were going Edward IV’s way in England as well. Henry VI ‘readepted’ was no more effectual than he had been the first time round. And the unholy alliance of Yorkists and Lancastrians that had restored him was coming apart. The result was that when Edward IV landed in Yorkshire in March 1471 his invasion soon turned into a promenade. As he marched south, troops flocked to join his little army of 1,500 men and he entered London unopposed.
Once again, it was all change, as Henry’s grandfather confronted his great-uncle. Edward IV took the surrender of Henry VI, unkinged him for a second time and sent him back to his prison in the Tower. Then he went to Westminster to liberate his queen and children from the sanctuary. Elizabeth Woodville’s first gesture was to present him with his first-born son Edward – the son he had never seen – ‘to the king’s greatest joy … [and] his heart’s singular comfort and gladness’.8
Elizabeth, for her part, probably never forgot that moment either.
It was the eve of Easter, and Edward IV’s enemies expected him to pause for the court’s customary elaborate devotions. Instead, he took them off-guard and defeated both groups in turn: the ex-Yorkists at Barnet and the Lancastrians at Tewkesbury.
This time, he decided, there would be no survivors. The Lancastrian prince of Wales and the last Beaufort duke of Somerset were killed in the battle, and Henry VI himself was done to death in the Tower with a heavy blow to the back of the head. No one, a Yorkist chronicler exulted, of ‘the stock of Lancaster remained among the living’ who could claim the throne.
No one, that is, apart from Henry’s father, Henry Tudor.
He and his uncle Jasper, earl of Pembroke, were in south Wales at the time of Tewkesbury. In the wake of the disaster, they retreated first to Pembroke Castle and then, in late September 1471, took ship from Tenby. It would be fourteen years before Henry Tudor saw either England or his mother, Lady Margaret Beaufort, again.
Jasper and Henry Tudor had intended to seek refuge in France. Instead, autumn storms drove them ashore in Brittany. Brittany was the last of the great French duchies to retain its virtual independence from the kingdom of France. King Louis XI, ‘the Spider’, was determined to end its autonomy; Duke Francis II was equally resolved to keep it. To do so involved a careful balancing act between the three great powers bordering the Channel: England, France and Burgundy.
Henry Tudor was a useful counter in the game – too useful for the duke ever to give him up entirely.
There were narrow scrapes, however, as in 1476 when Duke Francis was bullied into agreeing to surrender him to Edward IV. But once again his luck held, and illness – real or feigned – provided sufficient breathing space for Henry Tudor to escape into sanctuary and Duke Francis to countermand his decision. The crisis over, Jasper and his nephew returned to live at the ducal court, as part-prisoners, part-honoured guests, and wholly dependent on the whim of their host and the shifting balance of power among his nobles and councillors.
Though it might not have seemed so at the time, this too was valuable training. Here Henry Tudor grew up, polished his French and, above all, learned the ways of courts and men. He became reserved, self-reliant, watchful, suspicious of the motives of others, and trusting – if he fully trusted anybody – only the handful of those who had shared the risks and sacrifices of exile with him.
These were admirable qualities for winning a throne. It was less clear how useful they would be in keeping one.
With the virtual destruction of the house of Lancaster, Edward IV’s second reign was much smoother than his first. His family continued to grow, with the birth of a second son, Richard, duke of York, and three more daughters. He became steadily richer. And the execution in 1478 of his restless and insatiably ambitious brother, George, duke of Clarence, seemed to remove the last remaining threat to the dynasty.
But then disaster struck. At Easter 1483 Edward IV went on an angling trip on the Thames and caught a chill. Ten days later he was dead. He was succeeded by his son and heir, Edward V. Edward V was a bright and promising boy. But at thirteen he was at least three years short of his majority.
* * *
The impending royal minority tore apart the smooth façade of Yorkist England. For who should have the regency: the queen mother, Elizabeth Woodville? Or Edward IV’s youngest and only surviving brother, Richard, duke of Gloucester? Both feared and mistrusted each other. Gloucester struck first. He intercepted the boy-king on his journey to London, arrested his Woodville guardians, who were despatched for eventual execution, and lodged Edward V in the Tower.
Possession of the king was nine-tenths of power in late medieval England, and on the back of it Richard had himself proclaimed lord protector or regent. But he could not go further without control as well of Edward V’s younger brother and his own namesake, Richard, duke of York.
Once again, as in 1470, Elizabeth Woodville sought sanctuary at Westminster with her remaining children. Then Elizabeth of York had been a little girl of four; now she was a young woman of seventeen. Then, too, the rights of sanctuary had been respected even by Edward IV’s worst enemies of the house of Lancaster. Not so in 1483 by his brother Richard, duke of Gloucester. Instead, Gloucester used moral blackmail and the threat of real force to compel the queen mother to surrender her second son. Prince Richard was immediately sent to join his elder brother, Edward V, in the Tower. With both boys in his clutches, Gloucester’s way to the throne was clear.