Mackie On The Young Henry Tudor: What A King Might Need

Having marked out his borders, J.D. Mackie begins to plow anew with a single row. The Battle of Bosworth saw the death of Richard III and for Henry on the field of battle, "... by virtue of the crown which was found under a hawthorn and placed upon his head, and by the acclamations of the soldiery" Henry in fact became King. This could be so because it was violent, and on the battlefield and by proclamation of the assembled men who wanted it thus. This was at all made possible, Mackie agrees with Bacon here, because Henry proved or could prove three traditional titles of the monarchy. He had a dynastic claim. Muted, but it was there. He also had support from the rival house. In light of the long-term civil war, this could remain tenuous but was necessary. He also needed enough force - of sword or conquest -  to make it happen, as at Bosworth, and to maintain such rule. [p.46]

Henry could do all three and with a personality. There were problems with his heritage. Through it all again and again his mother played a decisive role. He had a very uncertain childhood, born two months after the death of his father, Edmund duke of Richmond. The boy was raised by his uncle Jasper Tudor in Wales and then in Brittany. His very young mother, Margaret of Beaufort, after a difficult childbirth was married off again three months after baby Henry and just before she was whisked off with her new husband.

Henry was captured as a baby with the fall of Harlech castle in 1468, but was smuggled to Brittany, by his uncle Jasper in 1470. The year after that Edward IV beat the last remaining of the Lancastrian line. Margaret's husband died fighting for the Yorkist cause. When Edward entered London again, Henry VI died and Edward was crowned king for the second time. In the following years, Margaret grew closer and closer to the King's wife, the very powerful and influential Elizabeth Woodville. When Edward suddenly died, Elizabeth began, among other things, casting about for suitors for her many daughters.

On Christmas Day, 1483, the year that Edward died and Richard then presumed to lead, Henry and a group of English men went into Rennes Cathedral and pledged loyalty to each other. On that occasion Henry himself agreed to marry Elizabeth of York, the eldest daughter of the late King Edward. This was the product, Mackie tells us, of a collapsed conspiracy amongst some Lancastrian friends and even Yorkist allies and Elizabeth Woodville, enjoined to wrest control from Richard.

Richard demanded Henry's surrender. Henry escaped to Anjou in the next year. One of Henry's allies was Lord Stanley the husband of his mother, Margaret of Beaufort. She had helped carry the train of Queen Anne Neville's dress, during the coronation, as a lady in waiting to Richard's Queen. Lord Stanley his mother assured him would be loyal, but he knew he needed more men.

By 1485, the forces were lining up, more and more old Yorkist names went to the young Tudor. On the day of Bosworth it was the younger brother of  Lord Stanley, William Stanley's men who were crucial in the fight, repulsing the attack by Richard's forces, and the same William Stanley who placed the crown on Henry's head. From this moment we are told, Henry began acting like a king. He began returning slowly to London calling on his friends and his perceived enemies, inviting them all to his coronation when he should arrive. There were certain men that gathered around him quickly in these late summer months. In time, many would become central figures in his new administration.

Henry was the representative of Lancaster, he wore the red rose. But he knew he would have to marry Elizabeth of York of the white rose, the nineteen year old daughter of Edward and Elizabeth. Still, it took not six months to secure the bond with the rival house of York of the white rose. After a petition from the commons on December 10, 1485, delivered to parliament, Henry agreed to marry Elizabeth, the daughter of former King Edward IV, and niece to the Yorkist King that Henry had just met on the battlefield and dethroned. Not a mere formality, this marriage would require a dispensation from the pope in Rome. This assent from the far away see of Rome would further cement Henry's claims as rightful sovereign.

The marriage with Elizabeth in January of 1486 united the York and Lancaster lines. Along with his dynastic claim, he now only had to maintain enough force to keep the three titles of the monarchy together. There was a conspiracy led by John de la Pole, the earl of Lincoln against Henry that began that year. But Henry and his men met them on the field the next summer at the Battle of Stokes and beat them. There would be ten more years of minor uprisings and attempted usurpers. Henry would manage to put them all down and thus maintained his rule.

Jasper Tudor died 26 December, 1495.

Elizabeth of York died after childbirth in 1503. She was the mother of Henry VIII.

Lord Stanley died in 1504 and was buried with his family at Burscough Priory in Lancashire. All that is left of that are a few ruins.

Margaret of Beaufort, taking a vow of chastity would retire in 1499 to the Palace rebuilt for her in Collyweston, Northamptonshire, on the road from Stamford to Ketterring, west of Peterborough. She died in 1509, just two months after Henry VII.

Architectural Survey of Parish Church of St Andrews and  what little remains of the  'Palace' in Collyweston, Northamptonshire which was torn down in 1640.
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notes from pp. 46-76 in J.D. Mackie: The Earlier Tudors 1485-1558 Oxford, UK 1957