Henry VI
by Bertram Wolffe, Eyre Methuen, 1981
The Wars of the Roses
by Desmond Seward, Constable, 1995
The Wars of the Roses: A Concise History
by Charles Ross, Thames and Hudson, 1976
Blood Sisters
by Sarah Gristwood, HarperPress, 2012
She-Wolves
by Helen Castor, Faber and Faber, 2010
The Medieval Household
by Geoff Egan, Boydell Press, 2010
Elizabeth Woodville
by David Baldwin, Sutton, 2002
Duke Richard of York 1411
–
1460
by P. A. Johnson, OUP, 1988
Richard III
by Charles Ross, Eyre Methuen, 1981
Edward IV
by Charles Ross, Eyre Methuen, 1974
Richard III
by Paul Murray Kendall, Allen and Unwin, 1955
Henry the Fifth
by A. J. Church, Macmillan, 1889
The Fifteenth Century 1399
–
1485
by E. F. Jacob, OUP, 1961
Cassell’s History of England
, Vols I and II, Waverley, n.d.
English Men of Action: Henry V/Warwick
, Macmillan, 1899
Edward III created only three dukes in his long reign. Earls were companions to the king, close supporters who provided armies of knights, archers and men-at-arms in exchange for vast tracts of land and the ‘third penny’ of the accompanying rents. The title of ‘Duke’ was new to Edward III and untested as to the limits of its power. Two of Edward’s sons died before him, so the only duke in his death-chamber was in fact John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster. The other two sons would still have been known by earlier titles. Edmund of Langley, Earl of Cambridge, would be made Duke of York later on by his nephew, King Richard II. Thomas of Woodstock was Earl of Buckingham at the time of his father’s death. He would also be made a duke by Richard II. Those five sons of Edward III would be the seeds for the conflict between houses that became known as the Wars of the Roses.
Edward III’s oldest son may have died before the king, but the Black Prince was still the royal heir and his son became King Richard II in 1377, at just ten years of age. Richard’s regent during his minority was his uncle John of Gaunt. When Gaunt died in 1399, King Richard was thirty-two and had been an unsuccessful and unpopular monarch. To ward off a threat to his throne from Gaunt’s line, Richard exiled and then disinherited one Henry of Bolingbroke – John of Gaunt’s son. Henry returned from exile with an army, invaded England and deposed Richard, making himself King Henry IV. His son would be perhaps the most famous of the battle kings of England.
Henry V would triumph against appalling odds at Agincourt, in France. Successful both at home and abroad, the Lancaster line from John of Gaunt would have been set in stone and history if he had lived just a little longer. Instead, Henry V died in 1422 from sickness, at the age of just thirty-five. He left a nine-month-old son to be King Henry VI, with regents to rule until the infant reached adulthood. Unfortunately for the Lancaster line, Henry VI was nothing like his martial father. He was the last English monarch who could properly be described as king of France, though the title was still used by English and then British kings and queens until 1801. As I have described here, Henry VI’s reign saw the loss of all French territory except for the fortress of Calais.
It was when I was looking through the details of the plan to give up Maine and Anjou in exchange for a twenty-year truce and a wife for Henry VI that I realized there had to be a guiding mind behind such an outrageous scheme. Though the name of the individual has not survived,
someone
had to have known the French aristocracy and the house of Anjou in tiny detail – as well as being close enough to King Henry VI to influence major events. Thus, Derry Brewer was born. A man something like him must have existed.
The French king, Charles VII, would not give up a daughter to an English king. He had seen two sisters sent over the Channel and the result was a strengthened English claim on his own realm. Yet the only other princesses on French soil were in Anjou – a family with no love of the English. René of Anjou was brought to the negotiating table by the only thing that mattered to him: the return of his ancestral lands.
As a point of interest, the French chronicler Bourdigné gives a harrowing account of the indictment and conviction
for blasphemy of an elderly Jew in the area controlled by René of Anjou. Though the Jewish community appealed to Duke René personally, the execution went ahead and the man was flayed alive.
Note on Margaret’s French ‘marriage’: It is true that Henry VI was not present for the first ceremony, which must presumably be called a ‘betrothal’ as he wasn’t in the building. William de la Pole, Lord Suffolk, said the vows on Henry’s behalf and placed the ring on the fourteen-year-old Margaret’s finger. William de la Pole was already married to Alice Chaucer – granddaughter of the writer Geoffrey Chaucer. The ceremony actually took place at the church of St Martin in Tours and not the cathedral. We do not know why Henry VI wasn’t present, though it seems reasonable to suspect his lords didn’t want him anywhere near the French king, French territory or French soldiers. For four years after the marriage, English courtiers and lords promised a meeting between the two kings – and detayed the actual event time after time after time.
It has always been a problem for historical fiction that true events often took place over a much longer timescale than I would like. For example, the retaking of English Normandy by the French took an entire year. The wedding between Margaret and King Henry was in April 1445. Though all Henry’s claims on Anjou and Maine were given up as part of the marriage settlement, Maine was finally taken back after a
five
-year truce, in 1450. I have occasionally compressed or altered the timeline in such a way because years of tortuous negotiation or ‘not very much happening’ do not make for interesting chapters. During the truce, William de la Pole was the chief negotiator, travelling back and forth to France. The Duke of York’s term as King’s Lieutenant in France ended in 1445.
Edmund Beaufort, Lord Somerset, was appointed to succeed him in 1447, though he didn’t actually arrive until February 1448. In the intervening years, I gave the role to Suffolk.
In the same way, I felt it necessary to reduce the time between Cade’s rebellion and York becoming Defender of the Realm. The reality was that something like three dull years passed, with King Henry’s health worsening and York’s supporters growing stronger and more bold.
I could find no record of the actual vows used between Henry VI and Margaret of Anjou, so I used well-attested details of noble weddings from the fifteenth century. We do know Henry wore cloth-of-gold and that the ruby ring he put on her finger was the one he’d worn at his coronation. The vows are reproduced from a form used at the time, with slight modernization of spelling. Draping the bride and groom with a shawl tied with a cord is an accurate detail. It is also true that there would have been no chairs in the main church and that the altar would have been hidden from the congregation by a screen. How close one came to the altar depended on status. Henry and Margaret were indeed married in the abbey of Titchfield, which was destroyed in the sixteenth century and rebuilt as a Tudor mansion. Part of the old abbey survives as a gatehouse. Margaret went from there to Blackheath in London, entering the city in a procession that passed over London Bridge and halted there to witness pageants in her honour. She was finally crowned in Westminster Abbey. There is no record of Henry being at her side for that ceremony.
I could not resist using the name of Baron Strange. The rest of that French storyline is fictional – though based around true events. English settlers in Maine resisted the French occupation and began a disastrous conflict that ended with
the loss of all Normandy up to Calais. The title of Baron Strange did exist at this time, though was later in abeyance for three centuries. There is in fact a current Baron Strange and it has been one of the odd things about setting a novel in England that all the main characters have descendants who are still alive today. Nonetheless, the name was just too good to omit. Lord Scales was also involved in the defence of London.
Note that sugar was available in England from the twelfth-century crusades. By the fourteenth century, it was imported into Europe and England from the Middle East, specifically the Lebanon. It would have been an expensive treat compared to honey. The reference to blood and sugar being given to children is an old continental treat, unfashionable today, but still popular just a few generations ago.
Note on codpieces: Although usually associated with the later Elizabethan era, the first codpieces came into fashion in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. There is one tale of Edward III that he had an enormous one made during the Hundred Years War and then commanded his knights to do the same. The legend goes that the French were terrified by such ‘well-equipped’ knights.
It’s also worth noting that the modern-day Palace of Westminster would have looked very different in the fifteenth century. At the time of Henry VI, it was still an important residence of monarchs. The Commons and Lords both existed as political entities, though in the main to control the collection of taxes and advise the king. The Commons consisted of 280 members in 1450, made up of Knights of the Shires (two from each of thirty-seven counties) and 190
‘burgess’ members (two from each city or borough and four from London). With no permanent place to call their own, they met most often in the octagonal Chapter House attached to Westminster Abbey, across the road from the Palace of Westminster. The Painted Chamber in the palace was also used and I have represented it here as the hub of administrative activity it was slowly becoming. I have taken some liberty with the Christian prayers described at the beginning of a parliamentary meeting. The formal prayer was introduced later and I have mingled the modern wording from both Commons and Lords. It is certainly true that a prayer would have been said in the fifteenth century, but I believe the exact wording is unknown.
The House of Lords was a much smaller gathering, consisting of fifty-five Lords Temporal: dukes, viscounts, earls and barons, and the Lords Spiritual: the bishops. They met in the White Chamber in the Palace of Westminster in meetings overseen by the lord chancellor. Westminster was also the site of law courts such as the King’s Bench and the Court of Common Pleas in the fifteenth century and would have been a bustling place of judges, lawyers and a multitude of shops.
Cardinal Henry Beaufort was de facto prime minister during the last part of his life, though no such formal post existed at the time. By that I mean that he was the most senior man in the Commons, with a link to the church in Rome as well as high secular status. Beaufort was not only the second son of John of Gaunt, but he had been lord chancellor to Henry IV and Henry V, presiding over both the courts and the assembly of lords. It is true that Beaufort ruled on the fate of Joan of Arc and it’s an odd coincidence that he was actually born in Anjou, France. I could not omit a character with such a fascinating history from the story,
though I took a liberty with the history by keeping him alive past 1447. The real man could not have been involved with the accusation of treason against William, Lord Suffolk, in 1450.
Sir William Tresham was the Speaker of the House of Commons and, by 1450, had served in twelve parliaments. The Jewel Tower where I wrote his meeting with Derry Brewer still stands today. It was built originally to house the valuables of King Edward III, complete with moat, high walls and guards. It is true that William, Lord Suffolk, was held there during his trial for treason. The text of a letter he wrote to his son John survives and is fascinating as an example of advice from a man who thought he was going to be executed.
Historical fiction sometimes involves filling in the gaps and unexplained parts of history. How is it that England could field fifty thousand men for the battle of Towton in 1461, but was able to send only four thousand to prevent the loss of Normandy a dozen years earlier? My assumption is that the unrest and riots in England put such a fear into the authorities that the main armies were kept at home. Jack Cade’s rebellion was only one of the most serious uprisings, after all. Rage at the loss of France, coupled with high taxes and a sense that the king was weak, brought England close to complete disaster at this time. Given that Cade breached the Tower of London, perhaps the court and Parliament were right to keep soldiers at home who could have been used to good effect in France.
King Henry VI’s illness is difficult to pin down at the distance of five and a half centuries. Given his eventual collapse, it is reasonable to assume there were some warnings and
symptoms before that disastrous event. Descriptions of him from the period suggest that he was weak-willed, ‘simple’ and biddable. Any man can be weak-willed, of course, but his long near-catatonic state suggests some sort of physical damage. No matter the cause, he was not the son his father Henry V should have had. While the Wars of the Roses had many fathers, one of them was Henry’s utter weakness as a king.
It is true that Henry was present in Westminster when William de la Pole was accused of treason for his part in the loss of France. As was typical of the time, a long list of crimes was prepared and read. Lord Suffolk denied them all. It is interesting to note that King Henry did not speak his judgment. It was not a formal trial, though forty-five lords (that is to say practically all the noblemen in England) were present in his personal chambers at Westminster. The judgment was read by the king’s chancellor and Suffolk was banished for five years. One reading of the events is that William de la Pole was a perfect scapegoat to conceal the involvement of the king in the failed truce. The fact that he received such a light sentence suggests Henry was on his side to the end.
It was not enough for William de la Pole’s accusers. Parliament wanted Lord Suffolk to be the one held responsible. In the next formal session, a bill to formally declare him a traitor was suggested but defeated in a close vote. Lord Suffolk was allowed to flee by night, barely avoiding an angry mob.
I have no doubt at all that the ‘pirate’ ship that overtook him as Suffolk left England was in the pay of another faction, if not the most likely culprit, York himself. Suffolk was beheaded on deck, where true pirates could have held him for ransom, as was common practice. It was a tragic end for a decent man who had given his all for king and country.
The rebellion led by Jack Cade was one of many that began around 1450. In part it was an outpouring of anger and sorrow over the loss of French territories, resulting in brutal French raids along the Kent coast. Cade’s list of grievances also included being blamed for the murder at sea of William de la Pole, as well as injustices and corruption. It is astonishing that Cade managed to gather so many thousands of angry men to march on London, forcing the king to flee the capital to Kenilworth. Some sources put his followers as high as 20,000.
Very little is known for certainty about Cade. He may have been Irish or English, and John or Jack Cade was almost certainly not his real name. At that time, ‘Jack’ was commonly used when a son’s name was the same as his father. When Cade struck a sword on the London Stone in Cannon Street, he gave his name as Mortimer and used either that or John Amendall. His men did indeed storm the Tower of London, getting through the outer defences and failing only to breach the central White Tower. In a semi-formal trial at the Guildhall, Cade and his men executed the king’s treasurer, Lord Say, as well as his son-in-law, William Crowmer. It is true that Cade put the head of the sheriff of Kent on a pole. Yet it was more than just another peasant rebellion. Cade’s most famous demand was that the king dismiss his favourites because ‘his lords are lost, his merchandise is lost, his commons destroyed, the sea is lost and France is lost’.