CHAPTER XXXIV
ESCAPE OF THE TUDORS
When the spirit of the Lancastrians had been broken on the fields of Barnet and Tewkesbury, and the violent deaths – if such they were – of the monk-monarch and his gallant son had left the adherents of the Red Rose without a prince to rally round, the house of York seemed to be established forever.
That branch of the Plantagenets which owed its origin to John of Gaunt was not, indeed, without an heir. The King of Portugal, the grandson of Philippa, eldest daughter of John and Blanche of Lancaster, was the personage with whom that honor rested; but Alphonso, albeit a knight-errant in manhood's prime, not being yet turned of forty, and rich in gold brought from Guinea, was not so utterly indiscreet as to waste his energy and croisadoes on an enterprise in which Warwick, the flower of English patricians and the favorite of the English people, had so signally failed. Moreover, about this time, Alphonso was all anxiety to wed Joan, the youthful daughter of the last King of Castile, and make a Quixotic attempt, as husband of that princess, to wrest the Spanish crown from Ferdinand and Isabella. Thus occupied with projects of love and war, the King of Portugal does not appear to have put forward any claims as heir of John of Gaunt, nor, perhaps, did the English nation ever seriously consider his claims.
The extinction of Henry of Bolingbroke's posterity left the Red Rose party without having at its head a king whose name might serve as a rallying cry. But the adherents of the Lancastrian cause, however dispirited, were not utterly subdued. They still cherished vague hopes, and pointed to chiefs of high name; for John de Vere, Earl of Oxford, Henry Holland, Duke of Exeter, and Jasper Tudor, Earl of Pembroke, still lived; and while these noblemen – the first so noble, the second so loyal, and the third so wary – were free, there was still a prospect of revenge on the usurper. The fact, however, was, that the Lancastrian lords were in a situation far from enviable, and might have been forgiven had they cherished no aspiration more lofty than that of getting safely away from the country, and beyond the reach of Edward's vengeance.
When intelligence reached Jasper Tudor that Margaret of Anjou and her captains had been totally routed, far from cherishing any such delusions as imposed upon the rude intellect of Falconbridge, he forthwith allowed his forces to disperse, and, making for the valley of the Wye, took refuge in the strong-hold of Chepstow.
Situated at the mouth of the most beautiful of English rivers, Chepstow is still an interesting ruin. At that time it was a magnificent castle, stretching along a precipitous cliff, consisting of four courts and a central building, and covering an area of three acres. To this fortress Jasper, in the day of perplexity, retired to reflect on the past and prepare for the future.
While at Chepstow Jasper had a narrow escape. Edward was naturally most anxious to destroy the Lancastrians as a party, and eager, therefore, to get so zealous an adherent of the Red Rose into his power. With a view of entrapping his old adversary, he employed Roger Vaughan, one of a clan who, like the Crofts, were ancient retainers of the house of Mortimer, to repair to Chepstow. The contest between the Celt and the Marchman was brief. Jasper was not to be outwitted. He penetrated the secret of Vaughan's mission, caused him to be seized, and, without formality, had his head struck off.
Having taken this strong measure, and thereby added to his danger in the event of capture, Jasper proceeded to Pembroke. At that town the outlawed earl was exposed to new dangers. Pursued to Pembroke by a Welsh warrior named Morgan ap Thomas, he was besieged in the town; but relief came from a quarter that could hardly have been expected. David ap Thomas, who was Morgan's brother, but attached to the Red Rose, rushing to Jasper's assistance, succeeded in raising the siege, and the Welsh earl was freed for the time from pressing peril. But, having lost all feeling of security, and every hope of holding out against Edward, he committed the defense of Pembroke to Sir John Scudamore, took his brother's son Henry, the young Earl of Richmond, under his wing, embarked with the boy at Tenby, and once more as an outlaw and fugitive sailed for the Continent.
The intention of Jasper and his nephew was to seek protection at the court of Louis, and they steered their course toward the coast of France. But fortune proved unfavorable to this design. Forever the elements fought against the Lancastrians. Encountering contrary winds, the Tudors were driven on the coast of Brittany, and, being compelled to put into a port belonging to the duke, they could not avoid paying their respects to that magnate. The duke received them with courtesy, and treated them with hospitality, and so far all went pleasantly. But when the Tudors prepared to pursue their way to France they were given to understand that they were not at liberty to proceed.
The two earls were somewhat disconcerted on comprehending their actual position. They made the best of circumstances, however; and, indeed, all things considered, had not much reason to complain. The town of Vannes was assigned them as a residence, and they were treated with the respect deemed due to their rank. Except being narrowly watched, their position was not uncomfortable.
Intelligence of the Tudors being at Vannes was not long confined to Brittany. The news soon reached both Paris and London; and while the French king claimed them as friends, the English king demanded them as rebels and traitors. The duke, however, firmly adhered to the resolution to keep them to himself; and Edward was fain to appear content, and pay a yearly sum for their support. The duke, on his part, gave assurances that they should have no opportunity of causing disturbance to the English government.
When a few years passed over, circumstances had rendered young Henry Tudor a more important personage, and Edward made a great effort to obtain their extradition. To accomplish this object, he sent an embassy to Brittany to invite Henry to England, promising him the hand of the Princess Elizabeth. The Duke of Brittany was induced to consent, and Henry repaired to St. Malo to embark. But Peter de Landois, the duke's chief minister, who at that time pretended a high regard for the Tudors, declared that Edward's offer was a snare, and pointed out the impolicy of crediting Edward's profession of friendship. The duke was convinced; and Richmond's embarkation having been delayed by a fever, the result of anxiety, he returned to Vannes.
And at Vannes, as guest or captive of Brittany – he hardly knew which – Henry Tudor was destined to remain, till one day the Bishop of Ely and the Duke of Buckingham, conspiring in Brecknock Castle, nominated him – a man described by Comines as "without power, without money, without hereditary right, and without any reputation" – as a candidate for the proudest of European thrones.
CHAPTER XXXV
ADVENTURES OF JOHN DE VERE
One autumn day, about six months after the fall of Warwick and Montagu, a little fleet approached the coast of Cornwall, and anchored in the green waters of Mount's Bay. The monks and fighting men who tenanted the fortified monastery that crowned the summit of St. Michael's Mount might have deemed the appearance of the ships slightly suspicious; but the aspect and attire of those who landed from their decks forbade uncharitable surmises. Indeed, they were in the garb of pilgrims, and represented themselves as men of rank, who, at the suggestion of their confessors, had come from remote parts of the kingdom to perform vows, make orisons, and offer oblations at the shrine of St. Michael.
It was the last day of September – the festival of St. Keyne, a virgin princess of rare sanctity, who had, in the fifth century, for pious purposes, visited the Mount; and, on such an occasion, the monks were not likely to be in any very skeptical mood. Proud, in all probability, of their saint's reputation, and not doubting his power to inspire zeal, they opened their gates and admitted the pilgrims. No sooner were they admitted, however, than the scene changed. Each man, throwing aside his pilgrim's habit, stood before the astonished monks a warrior in mail, with a dagger in his girdle, a sword by his side, and in his eye the determination to use those weapons in the event of resistance. At the head of this band was a man of thirty or thereabouts, who announced that he was John De Vere, Earl of Oxford, and that he had come to take possession of St. Michael's Mount in the name of Lancaster.
Between his escape from Barnet and his arrival at St. Michael's Mount the chief of the De Veres had passed through some remarkable adventures. When Oxford, bewildered by the consequences of his silver star being mistaken for Edward's sun, and thrown off his guard by the shouts of "Treason!" rode through the mist and fled from the field, he directed his course northward with the intention of seeking refuge in Scotland; but, after riding some distance, and taking time to reflect, the earl came to the conclusion that the journey was too long to be accomplished with safety, and, turning aside, he rode, in the company of Lord Beaumont, toward the Welsh Marches, with the hope of joining Jasper Tudor. Whether or not he reached Wales is not quite clear; but it appears from a letter written in April to his countess, Warwick's sister, that, after Queen Margaret had landed and her friends had resolved on another campaign, Oxford recovered the spirit he had displayed at Coventry, and indulged in the hope of a Lancastrian triumph.
"Right reverend and worshipful lady," writes the earl to his countess, "I recommend me to you, letting you weet that I am in great heaviness at the making of this letter; but, thanked be God, I am escaped myself, and suddenly departed from my men; for I understand my chaplain would have betrayed me…
"Ye shall give credence to the bringer of this letter, and I beseech you to reward him to his costs; for I am not in power at the making of this letter to give him but as I was put in trust by favor of strange people. Also, ye shall send me, in all haste, all the ready money ye can make, and as many of my men as can come well horsed, and that they come in divers parcels. Also, that my best horses be sent with my steel saddles, and bid the yeoman of the horse cover them with leather.
"Also, ye shall send to my mother and let her weet of this letter, and pray her of her blessing, and bid her send me my casket, by this token, that she hath the key thereof, but it is broken. And ye shall send to the Prior of Thetford, and bid him send me the sum of gold that he said I should have; also say to him, by this token, that I showed him the first Privy Seal…
"Also, ye shall be of good cheer, and take no thought; for I shall bring my purpose about now, by the grace of God, who have you in His keeping."
Oxford soon learned the truth of the homely proverb that there is much between the cup and the lip; and when Tewkesbury extinguished his hopes of victory, the earl, attended by Lord Beaumont, betook himself to France. His reception in that country not being such as to tempt a prolonged residence, he fitted out a fleet, and for a while made the ocean his home. Indeed, it would seem that, when exiled from his kindred and his castles, the heir of the De Veres reverted to the habits of his Scandinavian ancestors, and that, during the summer of 1471, the thirteenth of the proud earls of Oxford roved the narrow seas as a pirate. About the close of September, however, Oxford, having, in the words of Speede, "gotten stores of provisions by the strong hand at sea," landed in Cornwall; and with a body of men, whom some chroniclers represent as well-nigh four hundred, and others as less than a sixth of that number, appeared suddenly at St. Michael's Mount.
The monks of St. Michael and the soldiers who garrisoned the Mount were in no condition to resist a body of men so determined. They therefore yielded without a struggle; and Oxford set himself to the task of repairing the fortifications, getting men and ammunition to defend the Mount in the event of a siege, and procuring provisions to subsist them in case of the operations being prolonged. Men and supplies were both forthcoming, for the earl happened to be grandson of an heiress of Sir Richard Sergeaux of Colquite, and their regard for the memory of that lady made the Cornishmen most eager to prove their devotion to his service. When, therefore, Oxford or his men descended into the villages adjacent to the Mount, they were received with enthusiasm, and, in the words of the chronicler, "had good cheer of the inhabitants."
Oxford's enterprise seemed to have prospered; but the period was the reverse of favorable for a Lancastrian lord being left in undisturbed possession of a strong-hold. No sooner did Edward hear of the exploit, than he issued a proclamation branding De Vere and his adherents as traitors; and, at the same time, he ordered Sir John Arundel, Sheriff of Cornwall, to retake St. Michael's Mount without delay. Arundel raised an army in the locality, advanced to the Mount, and sent a trumpeter to summon Oxford to surrender to the king's mercy, and thus save the effusion of Christian blood. The earl was uninfluenced by the ceremony. He resolutely refused to listen to the conditions. "Rather than yield on such terms," said he, "I and those with me will lose our lives."
The sheriff, seeing no hope of a capitulation, proceeded to storm the Mount. Oxford, however, far from being daunted, defended the strong-hold with such energy that, after a struggle, the besiegers were beaten at all points and repulsed with loss. Nor was this the worst; for the garrison, sallying from the outer gate, pursued the assailants down to the sands. There Arundel was slain with many of his soldiers; and the survivors – most of whom were newly levied – fled in dismay.14
Arundel was buried in the Church of the Mount; and Edward, on hearing of the sheriff's death, appointed a gentleman named Fortescue as successor in the office. Having been ordered to prosecute the siege, Fortescue commenced operations. But the new sheriff was little more successful than his predecessor. Moreover, the Mount, which was connected with the main land by an isthmus, dry at low water, but at other times overflowed, gained the reputation of being impregnable; and the king, who ascribed the want of success to the want of loyal zeal, and described Cornwall as "the back door of rebellion," instructed Fortescue to hold a parley with Oxford in order to ascertain the earl's desires and expectations.
Fortescue acted according to his instructions, and demanded on what conditions the garrison would surrender.
"If," said the earl, "the king will grant myself and my adherents our lives, our liberties, and our estates, then we will yield."
"And otherwise?" said the sheriff.
"Why, in that event," exclaimed Oxford, with calm desperation, "we will fight it out to the last man."
The earl's answer was conveyed to the king; and on Edward's assuring the garrison of a free pardon, under the great seal of England, Oxford surrendered St. Michael's Mount. Indeed, he had been extremely perplexed; for Fortescue, it appears, had already opened communications with the garrison, and conveyed them such promises on the king's part that Oxford was under the necessity of surrendering himself to avoid the humiliation of being delivered by his own men into the hands of the besiegers. This was all the more provoking that he had sufficient provisions to last till midsummer; but there was no resisting fate, and, about the middle of February, Fortescue entered the Mount.
Oxford, having been carried to London with two of his brothers and Lord Beaumont, was tried and attainted; and, notwithstanding the promise of pardon, the fate of the chief of the De Veres now appeared to be sealed. Fortunately for the Lancastrian earl, Edward's conscience was at that time troubled with some qualms, and his heart daunted by some signs which he regarded as ominous of evil. Not being in a savage humor, he shrunk from having more De Vere blood on his hands, and the earl escaped execution. However, he was sent captive to Picardy.
When Oxford was sent to a foreign prison, his youthful countess was left in poverty. As the sister of Warwick and the wife of Oxford, the noble lady was regarded by Edward with peculiar aversion; and, both as sister and wife, she returned the king's antipathy with interest. Thus it happened that, notwithstanding the near relationship in which she stood to the house of York, no provision out of her husband's revenues was made for her maintenance during his incarceration. The countess had all the Neville pride and determination. Cast down from patrician grandeur, and expelled from Castle Hedlingham and other feudal seats, where she had maintained state as the wife of England's proudest Norman earl, she made a noble effort to earn daily bread, and contrived to make a living by the exercise of her skill in needle-work. The struggle to keep the wolf from the door was doubtless hard to the daughter of Salisbury and the spouse of Oxford; but, from being compelled to rely on her industry, Margaret Neville escaped the irksome necessity of suppressing the indignation she felt against her husband's foes, and she retained the privilege of denouncing the king, whom her imagination painted as the falsest of tyrants.
Meanwhile, Oxford was, in defiance of the king's promise, conveyed to Hammes, and committed as a prisoner to the Castle. The earl was not a man to relish the idea of incarceration, and he resolved on taking an unceremonious leave of his jailers. With this view, he leaped from the walls into the ditch, and endeavored to escape. The vigilance of his warders, however, rendered this attempt futile, and John de Vere was conveyed back to the Castle, a prisoner without prospect of release.
CHAPTER XXXVI
A DUKE IN RAGS
Among the Lancastrian chiefs who survived the two fields on which the Red Rose was trodden under the hoofs of King Edward's charger, none was destined to a more wretched fate than the conqueror's own brother-in-law, Henry, Duke of Exeter. The career of this chief of the family of Holland, from his cradle to his grave, forms a most melancholy chapter in the annals of the period.
The Hollands were somewhat inferior in origin to most of the great barons who fought in the Wars of the Roses. The founder of the house was a poor knight, who, from being secretary to an Earl of Lancaster, rose to some post of importance. His grandson, happening to hold the office of steward of the household to an Earl of Salisbury, contrived to espouse Joan Plantagenet, daughter of the Earl of Kent; and when that lady, known as "The Fair Maid of Kent," after figuring as a widow, became wife of "The Black Prince," the fortunes of the Hollands rose rapidly. One flourished as Earl of Kent; another was created Duke of Surrey; and a third, having been gifted with the earldom of Huntingdon, became Duke of Exeter and husband of Elizabeth of Lancaster, John of Gaunt's second daughter.
Notwithstanding his Lancastrian alliance, the first Duke of Exeter remained faithful to Richard in 1399, and, consequently, lost his head soon after that sovereign's deposition. The son of the decapitated nobleman, however, being nephew of the new king, was soon received into favor by Henry of Lancaster, and appointed Constable of the Tower and Lord High Admiral of England. At an early age he married a daughter of Edmund, Earl Stafford; and on the 27th of June, 1430, their only son was born in the Tower of London. On the same day he was carried to Cold Harbor in the arms of the Countess Marshal, who conveyed him in a barge to Westminster, where, in St. Stephen's Chapel, he was baptized by the name of Henry.
Fortune seemed to smile on the heir of the Hollands. Could the future have been foreseen, however, no young peasant, laboring in the fields and struggling out of serfdom, would have envied the infant destined to a career so miserable and a catastrophe so melancholy. The life of Henry Holland opened brightly enough. At the age of seventeen he succeeded his father as third Duke of Exeter and Lord High Admiral of England, and espoused Anne Plantagenet, eldest daughter of the Duke of York; and, at the time when the Roses were plucked, he appears to have favored the Yorkist cause. A change, however, came over his fortunes and his political sentiments.
Exeter had, in fact, chosen his party without due consideration, and ere long he saw reason to change sides. Indeed, his place in Parliaments and councils must have reminded the young duke that, through his grandmother, he was of the blood of Lancaster; and to a man of his rank flatterers would hardly be wanting to suggest the probability of the course of events bringing the regal sceptre to his hand. On arriving at years of discretion, Exeter changed the pale for the purple rose, and, after the first battle of St. Albans, he was under the necessity of flying to the sanctuary of Westminster. From that place of security he was taken on some pretext, and sent as a prisoner to Pontefract Castle.
When the political wind changed, Exeter recovered his liberty; and, as time passed over, he fought for Margaret of Anjou in the battles of Wakefield and Towton. After the rout of the Red Rose army on Palm Sunday, 1461, he fled with Henry into Scotland; but in the autumn of that year he was tempting fortune in Wales, and, in company with Jasper Tudor, stood embattled at Tutehill, near Carnarvon, against King Edward's forces. The Yorkists proving victorious, Exeter and his comrade in arms were fain to make for the mountains, leaving the Welsh Lancastrians no resource but to submit.
Exeter's biography now becomes obscure. The unfortunate duke can be traced, however, lurking on the Scottish frontier, fighting at Hexham, flying to a Northumbrian village, finding Margaret of Anjou in the outlaw's cave, accompanying the Lancastrian queen into exile, and wandering as a broken man on the Continent, while his duchess, in no degree inclined to share such fortunes, enjoyed the estate of her banished lord, lived at her brother's court, kept well with Elizabeth Woodville, and ministered to that lady's maternal ambition by pledging the hand of Exeter's heiress to the young Marquis of Dorset. When, however, Warwick chased Edward of York from the kingdom, Exeter appeared once more in England, and figured as one of the Lancastrian leaders at Barnet.
The disgrace of abandoning "The Stout Earl" on the field where he was laid low, Exeter did not share. As early as seven in the morning of that Easter Sunday he was struck by an arrow, and left for dead on the field. After remaining for nine hours, he was discovered still alive, and carried to the house of one of his servants named Ruthland. A surgeon having been found to dress the duke's wound, he was in such a degree restored as to be conveyed to the sanctuary of Westminster.
At this point mystery again settles over Exeter's history. It appears, however, that the ill-fated duke escaped to the Continent, and that the duchess seized the opportunity to break the last link that bound her to a husband so unfortunate. In November, 1472, nearly two years after the battle of Barnet, the Plantagenet lady, at her own suit, procured a divorce, and soon after married Sir Thomas St. Leger, Knight of the Body to King Edward. The duchess survived this event for three years. According to Sandford, she breathed her last in 1475; and "St. Leger surviving her," says Dugdale, "in 21 Edward IV. founded a perpetual chantry of two priests to celebrate divine service daily within the Chapel of St. George in Windsor Castle." Exeter's only daughter, who had been betrothed to the Marquis of Dorset, died before her mother, and Elizabeth Woodville secured the heiress of Bonville as bride for her son.
Meanwhile the plight of Exeter became deplorable, and in Flanders he was reduced to absolute beggary. Comines relates that, on one occasion, he saw the impoverished magnate running after the Duke of Burgundy, and begging bread for God's sake. In the hapless mendicant, in rags and misery, Burgundy did not recognize the once proud chief of the house of Holland – his cousin by blood and his brother-in-law by marriage. On being afterward informed, however, that the ragged mendicant was the banished Duke of Exeter, great-grandson of John of Gaunt, the king of Portugal's kinsman and his own, and formerly Lord High Admiral of England, owner of broad baronies, and husband of Anne Plantagenet, Charles the Rash was touched, and induced to bestow on Exeter a pension to save him from farther degradation.
Dugdale presumes that this scene occurred "after Barnet Field;" and, if so, Burgundy's bounty was not long enjoyed by the unfortunate recipient. Sometime in 1474 Exeter's earthly troubles ended. His body was found floating in the sea between Dover and Calais, but how he came by his death was never ascertained.
"In this year," says Fabyan, "was the Duke of Exeter found dead in the sea, between Dover and Calais, but how he was drowned the certainty is not known."