14

“Doubtful Drops of Royal Blood”

Infant mortality was high in Tudor times, and in an age long before antibiotics even royal children succumbed to minor illnesses. Elizabeth faced tragedy when, on October 7, 1495,¹ when she was nearly five months pregnant, her three-year-old daughter Elizabeth died at Eltham Palace. Her death came at a time when her father was negotiating a marriage for her with the future King Francis I of France, then a year-old child. As the King and Queen were at Sheen when their daughter died,² her death was probably unexpected.

On November 16, 1495, bravely setting aside their grief, they honored with their presence the traditional feast held by the newly appointed Serjeants-at-Law amid the splendors of Ely Place in Holborn,³ Elizabeth and her ladies dining in one room, and Henry and his retinue in another, as was customary. Ely Place would have held a special relevance for both Henry and Elizabeth, for their common ancestor, John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, had lived there with his third wife, Katherine Swynford, mother of his Beaufort children, in the late fourteenth century; but on this occasion it was more likely that Elizabeth’s thoughts were with the child she had lost.

The body of the infant princess was brought from Eltham in a black “chair,” or chariot, drawn by six horses to the gate of Westminster Abbey, where the prior was waiting to receive it. The King and Queen were nearby at Westminster Palace⁴ but did not attend the obsequies, for which Henry had outlaid £318 [£155,480] on October 26. The funeral was arranged by Cardinal Morton, Giles, Lord Daubeney, the Lord Chamberlain, and others. It took place a month later, on November 26, was conducted with great ceremony and attended by a hundred poor men who had been given black gowns for the occasion.⁵ Soon afterward the grieving parents raised to the memory of “our daughter Elizabeth, late passed out of this transitory life” a small tomb chest of gray Lydian marble with a black marble cover “on the right-hand side of the altar, just before St. Edward’s shrine, the foundation of which the foot of the grave almost touched.” It cost £371.0s.11d. [£181,400].⁶

Originally the tomb bore a copper-gilt effigy and inscription, but these have long disappeared, presumed stolen. Fortunately the inscription was copied and preserved by the Elizabethan antiquarian John Stow. It read: “Elizabeth, second daughter of Henry VII, the most illustrious King of England, France, and Ireland, and of the Lady Elizabeth, his most serene wife … On whose soul God have mercy. Here, after death, lies in this tomb a descendant of royalty, the young and noble Elizabeth, an illustrious princess. Atropos, most merciless messenger of death, snatched her away. May she inherit eternal life in Heaven!”⁷

It is this reference to the goddess Atropos, the oldest of the Fates, that has led historians to conclude that Princess Elizabeth died of “atrophy,” a wasting disease that can have many causes, although the Tudor age understood it to be the result of poor nourishment. It is hard to imagine that Henry, Elizabeth, or Margaret Beaufort would have allowed a child to perish through such neglect; in fact, the epitaph clearly referred not to a disease, but to the dread task of the severe and inflexible Atropos, which was to choose how a person would die and cut the thread of their life short with her shears. The princess had probably succumbed rapidly to a childhood infection that would be easily treated today. There is nothing in the historical record to suggest she was delicate or suffered a long illness.

Late that year Elizabeth, no doubt seeking spiritual comfort and wishing to pray for the blessing of a son, journeyed to the famous shrine dedicated to the Virgin Mary at Walsingham in Norfolk, where Christ’s mother had reputedly appeared in 1061 to Richeldis de Faverches, a devout widow, and asked her to build a replica of the “holy house of Nazareth” where she had received the Annunciation of the birth of Jesus. Angels were said to have assisted in the miraculous construction of what was to become one of the most important shrines in Christendom. In time, Augustinian and Franciscan monasteries were founded nearby to look after the needs of the hordes of pilgrims, and over the centuries the “holy house,” known as “Little Nazareth,” had been visited by numerous kings and queens, and made rich by the offerings of the devout.

Our Lady of Walsingham, the patron saint of mothers, and indeed of all humanity, was said to bestow the gift of calm and serenity to those beset by troubles. Elizabeth had to pass several small chapels along the road leading to the shrine, but at the last, the fourteenth-century Slipper Chapel, dedicated to St. Katherine, she would have removed her shoes and walked the remaining mile barefoot. Thus she reverently entered the holy sanctum of the incense-scented, candlelit Chapel of the Virgin to pray before the gilded and bejeweled image of St. Mary. Relics were displayed nearby, among them a phial of the Virgin’s milk and a statue of her said to be of miraculous origin. Elizabeth would also have seen a kneeling silver-gilt statue of her husband, given during a pilgrimage made by Henry VII in 1487.

Elizabeth was also a patron of the shrine of Our Lady of Grace of Ipswich, which was first recorded in 1152 and now ranked only second in popularity to Our Lady of Walsingham. A daughter of Edward I had been married in the chapel of Our Lady of Grace in 1297. The shrine was closed down in 1538, during the Dissolution of the Monasteries, and no trace of the chapel survives; a bronze plaque in Lady Lane marks the site where it once stood. Almost certainly a statue of the Madonna in the sanctuary of Our Lady of Grace at Nettuno, Italy, is the original image that adorned the shrine in Ipswich, having been rescued from the pyre that awaited it in Chelsea, where it was to be burned with the statue of Our Lady of Walsingham.⁸

In November 1495, Perkin Warbeck surfaced in Scotland and was received with royal honors by King James IV at Stirling Castle. James took an instant liking to him, decked him out in clothes befitting a king, settled on him a very generous pension, and took him on a triumphal progress through his kingdom. News of this alarmed Henry VII, for he had been working to seal a peace alliance with Scotland through the marriage of his daughter Margaret to the Scots king.⁹ James not only seemed determined to provoke his English neighbor, but clearly believed that Warbeck was indeed “Prince Richard of England.” He held tournaments in his honor and married him to his distant kinswoman, Katherine, “a young virgin of excellent beauty and virtue, daughter of George Gordon, Earl of Huntly.”¹⁰ If a love letter from Warbeck is genuine, he was deeply smitten. His bride’s eyes were “brilliant as the stars. Whoever sees her cannot choose but admire her; admiring, cannot choose but love her; loving, cannot choose but obey her.”¹¹

This was all bad news for King Henry, for Ferdinand and Isabella were now stalling at concluding the marriage alliance with England while the pretender was at large. But the King was working to neutralize that threat. Fractured relations between England and the Low Countries were healed in February 1496, when he sealed a peace treaty with Maximilian in which each agreed not to support the other’s rebels; the treaty, in both countries’ interests, effectively slammed the door to Flanders in Warbeck’s face, for Margaret of Burgundy had been warned that she would be deprived of her dower lands if she did not honor its terms. Henry had also made peace with the French, so Warbeck was now isolated in Scotland.

Elizabeth’s third daughter was born on March 18, 1496, at Sheen Palace.¹² The year is sometimes given as 1495, as Margaret Beaufort incorrectly recorded it in her book of hours. In true medieval fashion she dated the years from Lady Day, March 25, and by that reckoning March 18 would have belonged to the previous year, 1495. Later, Erasmus misleadingly stated that this child, Mary, was four in September 1499; however, he gave the ages of Prince Henry and Prince Margaret as a year older than they actually were, so it is likely that he gave Mary’s age incorrectly too. The earliest extant document that mentions Mary is a payment to Anne (or Alice) Skern (or Skeron), her nurse, for one quarter ending June 1496, such payments normally paid half yearly. The fact that she was paid only from March confirms that Mary was born in 1496.¹³

The King and Queen possibly named their new baby after the sister Elizabeth had loved and lost, or after the Virgin Mary. Mary grew up to be very beautiful, much resembling her mother in portraits; like her, she had red-gold hair. The infant princess was sent to Eltham to be brought up with Prince Henry and Princess Margaret.

By May, Henry and Elizabeth had moved to Sheen and thence to Greenwich, where he gave her a gift of £30 [£14,600] to buy jewels.¹⁴ That summer, their progress took them to the West Country. In June they left Sheen for Chertsey, then moved on to Guildford, Farnham, Alresford, Bishops Waltham, Porchester, and Southampton, arriving on July 14. They stayed at Beaulieu Abbey and crossed the Solent to the Isle of Wight during their visit, then traveled on to Christchurch, Poole, and Corfe Castle. On August 5 they were at Salisbury, and five days later visited Heytesbury, where Elizabeth probably lived after she left sanctuary in 1484. John Nesfield, her former gaoler and host, had died in 1488, and the manor was now owned by Edward Hastings, Lord Hungerford; he was married to the heiress of the Hungerfords, who had been restored in blood by Henry VII.¹⁵ During her visit Elizabeth may have reflected on how settled her life was now compared with the uncertainties of twelve years earlier, when she had resided at Heytesbury during Richard III’s reign.

The royal couple then traveled on to Bath, Bristol, Iron Acton, Malmesbury, Cirencester, and Woodstock. On September 10 they returned via Wycombe to Windsor.¹⁶

In September 1496, Prince Henry—or “my Lord Harry,” as he was known¹⁷—performed his first public duty when he witnessed a charter granted by the King to the abbot and convent of Glastonbury Abbey, a monastery he was to dissolve decades later.

Harry was now five, a boy of considerable intellect and talent, whom his grandmother called the King’s “fair sweet son.”¹⁸ It was the King who drew up the rules by which the royal nursery was governed, but the Queen also had a say in the upbringing of her children, as no doubt did Margaret Beaufort. In 1496, Elizabeth appointed Elizabeth Denton, who had served her as wardrobe keeper since her marriage, as a replacement for the long-serving Elizabeth Darcy as lady mistress of the nursery to Prince Henry and his sisters at Eltham Palace.¹⁹ Elizabeth Denton also continued to serve the Queen, and by February 1499 had become governess to the princesses and was replaced as mistress of the nursery by Anne Crowmer.²⁰ When Elizabeth Denton accompanied Princess Margaret to Scotland in 1503, Anne Crowmer took over as Mary’s governess. Mistress Denton later served as lady governess and mistress of the nursery to Henry VIII’s own children, Henry, Prince of Wales, and the future Mary I, respectively, and in 1515 was in receipt of an annuity of £50 [£19,000] for good service rendered to the late King and Queen.²¹

By 1499, Jane Vaux, Lady Guildford, who had long served in the household of the Queen, was also employed as governess to the princesses; in 1503 she was paid a salary of £13.6s.8d. [£6,500].²²

The nursery at Eltham was therefore dominated by women, and the young Prince Henry spent his childhood very much under female influence. The fact that Elizabeth Denton served both Prince Henry and his mother suggests that the Queen spent time with her younger son and his sisters,²³ taking a keen interest in their learning and accomplishments, as did the Lady Margaret. All the evidence suggests that Henry, Margaret, and Mary grew up closer to their mother than was often the lot of royal children. It is likely that Elizabeth herself taught her younger children some of their early lessons. A literate woman who loved books and music, she imparted her passion for these things to the future Henry VIII and his sisters. David Starkey noted the similarities between the few extant examples of her handwriting and theirs, which suggests that she herself taught them to read and write.²⁴

Prince Henry’s formal education had begun the year before under the guidance of the Cambridge-educated poet laureate, John Skelton, a protégé of Margaret Beaufort, who was probably responsible for his appointment. Skelton, who was also a great satirist, now took up residence with his charge at Eltham Palace, and would remain in that post until 1502. Erasmus told Prince Henry that Skelton was “that incomparable light and ornament of British letters, who cannot only kindle your studies but bring them to a happy conclusion.”²⁵ Twenty years later, when Henry was King, the poet recalled:

The honour of England I learned to spell

In dignity royal that doth excel.

I gave him drink of the sugared well.²⁶

It was ever-frowning, frost-faced Skelton who encouraged the prince’s musical talents, inherited from and encouraged by both parents, and taught him to play the lute, organ, and virginals, to read music, and to sing. Young Henry proved to be gifted musically, not only as a player but also as a composer: many pieces he was to compose as an adult survive and are still sung today. Skelton also fostered in his pupil a love of theology and taught him Latin. Like all the Tudors, Henry had an aptitude for languages. Above all, Skelton instilled in the boy a love of learning and scholarship that lasted all his life; and he took delight in his charge’s achievements, calling him “a delightful small, new rose, worthy of its stock.” It was for Henry that he wrote his Speculum Principis, a manual for a future ruler, which advised him not to rely too heavily on his ministers, and to “choose a wife for yourself, prize her always and uniquely”—advice that the adult Henry did not heed.

Much later—around the time of Elizabeth’s death, as he was given mourning cloth to wear in her funeral procession—Skelton was succeeded as tutor by a Scottish schoolmaster, John Holt,²⁷ who in turn was replaced on his death in 1504 by William Hone, a Cambridge scholar who also taught Princess Mary.²⁸ The young duke was also instructed by Bernard André, who wrote his Vita Henrici VII to teach him history, and probably schooled him in Latin. Arthur’s former tutor, Giles Dewes, taught him French, and perhaps grammar and alchemy. It is possible that Thomas More, a humanist scholar like André, instructed the boy in mathematics, geometry, and astronomy; it was probably More who had introduced the boy to the works of Erasmus. Later, Erasmus would assert that Henry’s style of writing was like his own because he had been encouraged to read his books when young.

Of Margaret’s education we know little, save that she could read and write, although not very competently; she was the first English princess whose signature survives. She loved music and dancing, and had minstrels among her personal servants. Elizabeth encouraged her to play the lute and clavichord, and the King purchased for her a lute costing 13s.4d. [£325].²⁹

Despite all the care taken over their upbringing, Elizabeth’s children grew up in a world overshadowed by insecurities, threats, intrigue, and paranoia. Unsurprisingly, that would take its toll—and now a new threat was brewing.

In September 1496, James IV invaded England with Warbeck, his support assured by Warbeck’s promise of the return of Berwick, a town that had been much fought over by the Scots and the English, and which the future Richard III had taken in 1482. Henry VII prepared to confront the pretender, saying that “he hoped now he should see the gentleman of whom he had heard so much.”³⁰ But James’s army was more interested in looting and settling old border feuds than in securing a victory for Warbeck, and four miles into England the Scots king was obliged to cease raiding and retreat at the appearance of the royal army. Henry was now determined to force James to surrender Warbeck. Early in 1497, Parliament readily voted punishing taxes to finance a war against the Scots.

Elizabeth suffered a brief illness at Greenwich in the spring of 1497. On April 25, Lady Margaret wrote to the Queen’s chamberlain, acknowledging gloves he had purchased for her: “Blessed be God, the King, the Queen, and all our sweet children be in good health. The Queen hath been a little crazed [broken down in health], but now she is well, God be thanked. Her sickness is not so good [amended] as I would, but I trust hastily it shall, with God’s grace.”³¹ It is clear from this letter that Margaret Beaufort took a proprietorial interest in her grandchildren—“our sweet children”—and that she was genuinely concerned for her daughter-in-law, the Queen. It does not read as if this was merely the concern of a dynast for the royal bride her son had married. But by June 12, Elizabeth had recovered, Andrea Trevisano, the new Venetian ambassador, congratulating the King on that date “on his own well-being, and that of the Queen and his children”; Trevisano also brought letters of credence to Elizabeth and Prince Arthur.³²

Crippled and provoked by the new taxes, the “brutish and rural” men of Cornwall rose against their sovereign and marched on London. Elizabeth was at Sheen with the King when news came that the rebels were on the march, and he paid her £10 [£4,860] “for garnishing of a salett”—the helmet he would wear into battle—with jewels.³³

Before departing on June 5 to deal with the threat, Henry furnished Elizabeth with a stout escort of lords and gentlemen, and she immediately hastened to Eltham Palace to collect Prince Henry and her daughters; although only Margaret is mentioned, the younger children lived together, so probably Elizabeth took Mary with her too. She entered London with them the next day, lodging at Margaret Beaufort’s house, Coldharbour, within the protection of the City walls. They stayed there six days, while the reports that filtered through from the west grew ever more alarming. The rebel army had been reinforced by malcontents from the shires, and on June 12 their forces numbered 18,000 and they were approaching Farnham in Surrey. On hearing this, the Queen hastened with her children into the Tower for safety, no doubt thanking God that Prince Arthur was far away in Ludlow and no longer living at Farnham.³⁴

On June 16 the rebels reached Blackheath, four miles east of the City where they drew up their battalions, ready to attack. Their plan was to force an entry into the City and assault the Tower, because they thought the King was there. But Henry had now joined his forces with those of his chamberlain, Lord Daubeney, and their 25,000 men were stationed at Lambeth, blocking access to London. The King was keeping his nerve, aware that the rebels were exhausted after their long march, and preparing to surround and overcome them. But he knew too that the situation was critical, for Elizabeth and his children were in the Tower.

“There was great fear throughout the City, and cries were made: ‘Every man to arms, to arms!’ Some ran to the gates, others mounted the walls, so that no part was undefended; and the magistrates kept continual watch lest the rebels should descend from their camp and invade the City.”³⁵ For Elizabeth, this ordeal must have resurrected dim but frightening memories of Fauconberg’s attack on the Tower in 1471, when she was four years old. Once again she was trapped in the fortress while turmoil raged outside, this time with her own children at risk. Well-educated as she was, she was probably uncomfortably aware that during the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381, the mob had breached the Tower’s defenses, insulted the mother of Richard II, and dragged forth and beheaded the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Lord Treasurer. The Tower was no more heavily fortified now than it had been then.

But on June 17 the King “delivered and purged” everyone’s hearts of fear as he sent forces under the command of his nobles to surround the rebels. Then, “with manly stomach and desire to fight,” he himself led an army out of the City, sending Lord Daubeney ahead “with a great company.”³⁶ Staunch Londoners hastened to the King’s aid, and that day the Cornish insurgents were routed in a sharp skirmish at Blackheath, in which two thousand of their number were slain. A victorious Henry returned to London to be welcomed by the mayor and to give thanks in St. Paul’s Cathedral. Afterward, he hastened to the Tower to be reunited with Elizabeth and their children. They were back at Sheen by July 1.³⁷

The following month Henry sent envoys to James IV to demand the surrender of Warbeck and to offer peace terms. But James had preempted him, having already dispatched the pretender south—in a ship appropriately called The Cuckoo—to launch an offensive on the southwest. Simultaneously, despite having agreed a seven-year truce with Henry, James was planning another offensive across the border. England stood in deep peril.

Warbeck, however, scuppered the fine timing of this strategy by making a detour to Cork to visit Sir James Ormond, his chief Irish supporter, in the hope of rallying more men to his banner. Learning that Ormond had been killed in a brawl, he had no choice but to flee across the sea to Cornwall, with four Irish ships in pursuit.

In July 1497 a new treaty was agreed to with Spain, which provided for the Infanta to come to England when she was fourteen, an age she would reach in December 1499. That August, Prince Arthur was formally betrothed to Katherine of Aragon at Woodstock Palace, Henry and Elizabeth having traveled up to Oxfordshire to be present.³⁸ Arthur was now nearly eleven, “but taller than his years would warrant, of remarkable beauty and grace, and very ready in speaking Latin.” The King and Queen “celebrated with great triumph and festivities the marriage between Prince Arthur and Katherine, and in this good time they hope she will be brought to England with great splendor.”³⁹ But their hopes were destined to be frustrated.

On September 3, 1497, after the new Venetian ambassador, Andrea Trevisano, and his Milanese counterpart, Raimondo de Soncino, had an audience with the King at Woodstock, they were presented to Queen Elizabeth, whom they “found at the end of a hall, dressed in cloth of gold. On one side of her was the King’s mother, on the other her son the prince.” This was Henry, not Arthur, even though Arthur was present at Woodstock.⁴⁰ As David Starkey points out, by now Arthur, the heir, was generally associated with the King, while Henry, the second son, was usually associated with the Queen⁴¹—a deliberate policy that may have reflected personal affiliations within the royal family.

“The Queen is a handsome woman,” observed Trevisano. Being presented to her was a privilege only permitted to ambassadors if the diplomatic business in question concerned a woman, in which case she would naturally take an interest. Trevisano and Soncino brought her letters from the Signory of Venice and from a lady whom Soncino called “our queen”; this was probably the charming Beatrice d’Este, wife of Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan. Elizabeth’s French was not fluent like her husband’s, so the ambassadors addressed her in Italian, with Thomas Savage, Bishop of London, acting as interpreter.⁴²

On September 7, 1497, Perkin Warbeck landed at Whitesand Bay near Land’s End in Cornwall, which was still simmering with resentment against the King. But Henry had received reliable intelligence from Ireland of the pretender’s aims, and was now making haste to assemble an army at Woodstock.

Having taken St. Michael’s Mount, and left his wife in the monastery there, Warbeck marched to Bodmin, recruiting three thousand “part-naked men” of the “rude people”⁴³ on the way. At Bodmin he had himself proclaimed Richard IV. On September 17, having rallied at least three thousand more supporters to his banner, “this little cockatrice of a king”⁴⁴ and his army appeared before Exeter, to which they laid siege. Despite having few weapons, no armor, and no artillery, they managed to breach one of the gates, but were firmly repelled by the King’s brother-in-law, Lord William Courtenay, and the citizens, and cut to pieces.

Henry took the threat posed by Warbeck very seriously. In October, Trevisano reported that the King had sent the Queen and the prince (Henry) to a very strong castle on the coast, and commanded that vessels be made ready nearby to convey them away, if necessary; they had left London after September 22, when Elizabeth was still in the capital.⁴⁵ In fact she had gone with her son and Lady Margaret on a progress through East Anglia, well out of the way of the coming conflict. The presence of the true Duke of York in that region was intended to overturn the loyalty of Warbeck’s supporters, who were influential there. Meanwhile the King had raised a large army to deal with the rebels.⁴⁶

Warbeck had of necessity given up on Exeter. He pressed desperately on to Taunton, his remaining Cornishmen demoralized and deserting in droves. In the small hours of September 22, warned that the King was twenty miles away at the head of his forces, Warbeck fled south to find a ship at Southampton, accompanied only by three of “the chief officials of his court.” He had abandoned most of his remaining adherents, whom he left to flee or beg the King for mercy. Finding the south coast heavily guarded, Warbeck took sanctuary in Beaulieu Abbey. In no time the abbey was surrounded by Henry’s soldiers, who promised the pretender a pardon if he surrendered to the King and threw himself on his “grace and pity.”⁴⁷ At this he capitulated.

Having dressed himself (somewhat inappropriately) in cloth of gold, he was brought to the royal headquarters at Taunton, where, on October 5, Henry was finally brought face-to-face with the young man who had plagued him for six years. Confronted by nobles who had known the real Richard, Duke of York, Warbeck admitted he did not recognize anyone; kneeling, he confessed that he was not York, and pleaded for forgiveness. Henry made him write out his confession, which was to be printed and nailed to church doors throughout the land.

With Warbeck in his train, Henry rode to Exeter to celebrate his victory. He ordered only “a few desperate persons” to be hanged, “the better to set off his mercy to the rest.” “He was never cruel when he was secure.”⁴⁸ From Exeter, Warbeck wrote to his real mother in Tournai.

Henry also took into custody Warbeck’s wife, Lady Katherine Gordon. She had remained at St. Michael’s Mount, in mourning—possibly, it has credibly been conjectured, after losing a child.⁴⁹ There was some question of her being fit to travel, but when she was able, the King sent her a full outfit of black weeds. When she came before him she burst into tears, but Henry was gentle with her and relieved her fears, telling her she was more worthy to be among the captives of a general than a common foot soldier. He had been struck by her “modest and graceful look” and the fact that this “singularly beautiful” lady seemed as “untouched” as a virgin.⁵⁰ According to Vergil, the King was much taken with her, while Hall goes as far as to say that he “began a little to fantasize her person.” Bacon states “it was commonly said” that he “received her not only with compassion but with affection, pity giving more impression to her excellent beauty”; and when he comforted her, “it was to serve his eye as well as his fame.” But that, probably, was as far as it went, for there survives no hint that Henry was ever actually unfaithful to Elizabeth, and events that were to unfold in less than six years show that his love for her was deep-seated.

Henry escorted Lady Katherine to Exeter, and when she arrived he permitted her to see Warbeck and made the pretender repeat his story in front of her, at which she wept and raged at her husband, “soaked through with a fountain of tears.” But Henry had no quarrel with her. Doubtless relieved that she was not pregnant with a child who might live to challenge his title, he comforted her and dealt with her honorably, telling her that her “whole body, beauty, and dignity were crying out for a man of far greater superiority” than Warbeck. He assured her that her future would hold “many possibilities” and that he desired to treat her as his sister. Then, “because she was but a young woman,” he sent her, under the protection of Windsor Herald and “with a goodly sort of sad matrons and gentlewomen,” to reside at the court of the Queen,⁵¹ a most fitting arrangement given Katherine’s rank. On October 16, Henry charged his “trusty and well beloved servant, Thomas Stokes,” with responsibility for “the diet of Katherine, daughter to the Earl of Huntly, from Bodmin to our dearest wife the Queen, wheresoever she be.”⁵² Henry also arranged for a pension to be paid to Katherine.

Nobly born she was, but the fact that Henry was prepared to allow the wife of the Yorkist pretender to associate with his Yorkist queen is proof that he knew he had no need to suspect Elizabeth’s loyalty, and strong evidence that he now had no doubts as to Warbeck’s true identity. Had he entertained any lingering suspicion that Warbeck really was Richard of York, or that Katherine still believed he was, it is unlikely he would have allowed the two women the freedom to exchange confidences, or Katherine the opportunity to use the Queen for her own ends. Even so, in setting six ladies to wait upon Katherine, he was probably placing her under surveillance.⁵³

Elizabeth was then on pilgrimage, having taken the opportunity during her progress through Norfolk to visit the shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham, doubtless to pray for a happy outcome to the conflict, and perhaps for another child. It was at Walsingham that Elizabeth learned of Henry’s triumph over Warbeck. Immediately she and her party hastened south, “and upon St. Luke’s Even, the seventeenth day of October, came the Queen toward London from Walsingham, whereof the mayor having knowledge met with Her Grace at Bishopsgate. He with the aldermen being on horseback conveyed Her Grace from that place unto the King’s Wardrobe, the streets being garnished with the crafts [guilds] of the City standing in their best liveries as she passed by.” Elizabeth stayed the night at the Royal Wardrobe at Blackfriars, and the next day, “being St. Luke’s Day, Her Grace, after certain presents received from the mayor, departed that afternoon to Sheen, where upon the Saturday [October 21] was presented to Her Grace the wife of Perkin, which was a fair and goodly lady.”⁵⁴

Elizabeth appointed Katherine Gordon a lady-in-waiting. Thanks to her noble birth, she ranked fifth of all women at court after the Queen, the Lady Margaret, and the princesses.⁵⁵ Katherine won many hearts at court, not least the Queen’s, and she was treated with much deference. Officially referred to as Lady Katherine Huntly, she became better known by her husband’s former nickname, “the White Rose,” on account of her “true beauty.” The King settled upon her “a very honorable allowance for the support of her estate, which she enjoyed many years after.”⁵⁶ He also saw that she was dressed as splendidly as her rank merited, himself itemizing each detail of the clothing ordered for her, even the hose of kersey lined with cypress lawn. In 1498 she received a black velvet, mink-edged gown and other items of clothing worth the princely sum of £160 [£78,000] from the Great Wardrobe; in 1501–02 she was given several items of sumptuous apparel, and in 1502–03, Joan Wilcock, the silkwoman, supplied materials to the Great Wardrobe for Lady Katherine Gordon and Queen Elizabeth.⁵⁷

In decking out Katherine so lavishly, Henry no doubt wished to impress her kinsman James IV, who had then just become betrothed to Margaret Tudor—and maybe it pleased him to adorn her beauty too, or even to fantasize about the body he was so bountifully decking out. If Elizabeth had any cause for disquiet over her husband’s interest in Lady Katherine, there is no record of it, and later evidence suggests that husband and wife remained close. That Henry showed warm personal friendship toward Katherine is corroborated by speculation after Elizabeth’s death that they would marry (see Chapter 19).

Warbeck had been sent under guard to London, paraded through streets crammed with people who had flocked to see him, and imprisoned in the Tower. The Milanese ambassador was moved to report that the Tudor throne was now “most stable, even for the King’s descendants, since there is no one who aspires to the crown.”

By the end of November, Henry VII was back at Windsor⁵⁸ and Warbeck had made a long and detailed written confession, admitting he was not Richard of York. Some said this had been obtained by torture, and persisted in their belief that he was York, but there was no sign that he was tortured. The confession, which contained several inconsistencies, was printed; copies were nailed to church doors across the length and breadth of the realm, and Warbeck was made to read it aloud before the lords of England. He was, it stated, the son of John Osbeck, customs controller of Tournai, and Katherine de Faro, his wife, both converted Jews, and thus a foreigner, which meant he could not technically be guilty of high treason against the King of England. He protested that he had been lured into his imposture against his will.⁵⁹

Henry was astonishingly lenient with Warbeck, the rival who had posed such a serious threat to his kingdom for six years. He released him from the Tower and allowed him to live at court, shadowed by two guards and confined to the precincts of the palace. In November 1497 the Venetian ambassador reported that he had seen Warbeck “in a chamber of the King’s palace. He is a well-favored young man, twenty-three years old, and his wife a very handsome woman. The King treats them well, but does not allow them to sleep together.”⁶⁰

Henry VII had paraded Warwick before the Londoners and the court to give the lie to Lambert Simnel’s claims, yet it has been asserted that he failed to confront Elizabeth with the man who had claimed to be her brother.⁶¹ But Elizabeth must have met or seen Warbeck after he came to court, and presumably she had a view on his true identity. The likelihood is that seeing this young man put an end to years of secret hoping and fretting on her part. Henry’s extraordinary magnanimity toward Warbeck was probably due to the fact that he was a foreigner and outside English jurisdiction; also his wife was the King of Scots’ kinswoman and had aroused Henry’s chivalry, if nothing else.

Edwards, the Queen’s former yeoman, had been one of those taken with Warbeck. He was not so lucky. On December 2 he was tried at Westminster and found guilty. Three days later he was conveyed from the Tower to Tyburn and there hanged.

On December 3, Elizabeth wrote a letter to Queen Isabella, which exemplifies the high formality and elaborate courtesy of communications between royalty:

To the most serene and potent Princess, the Lady Elizabeth [sic], by God’s grace Queen of Castile, Leon, Aragon, Sicily, Granada, etc., our cousin and dearest relation, Elizabeth, by the same grace Queen of England and France, and Lady of Ireland, wishes health and the most prosperous increase of her desires.

Although we have before entertained singular love and regard to your Highness above all other queens in the world, as well for the consanguinity and necessary intercourse which mutually take place between us, as also for the eminent dignity and virtue by which your Majesty so shines and excels that your most celebrated name is noised abroad and diffused everywhere; yet much more has this our love increased and accumulated by the accession of the most noble affinity which has recently been celebrated between the most illustrious Lord Arthur, Prince of Wales, our eldest son, and the most illustrious Princess, the Lady Katherine, the Infanta, your daughter. Hence it is that, amongst our other cares and cogitations, first and foremost we wish and desire from our heart that we may often and speedily hear of the health and safety of your Serenity, and of the health and safety of the aforesaid most illustrious Lady Katherine, whom we think of and esteem as our own daughter, than which nothing could be more grateful and acceptable to us. Therefore we request your Serenity to certify of your estate, and of that of the aforesaid most illustrious Lady Katherine, our common daughter. And if there be anything in our power which would be grateful or pleasant to your Majesty, use us and ours as freely as you would your own, for with most willing mind we offer all that we have to you, and wish to have all in common with you.

We should have written you the news of our state, and of that of this kingdom, but the most serene lord the King, our husband, will have written at length of these things to your Majesties. For the rest, may your Majesty fare most happily, according to your wishes.

From our Palace of Westminster, 3rd day of December, 1497.

Elizabeth R.

To the most serene and potent Princess, the Lady Elizabeth [sic], by God’s grace Queen of Castile, Leon, Aragon, Sicily, Granada, our cousin and dearest kinswoman.⁶²

This is one of several letters written by Elizabeth to survive, although there must have been many more. A similar letter, to King Ferdinand of Aragon, was written in 1498.

Another of Elizabeth’s letters to Ferdinand and Isabella is dated August 1, 1499, and recommends one Henry Stile, “who wishes to go and fight against the infidels.” The Queen urged the Spanish sovereigns to agree to this, for “though he is a very short man, he has the reputation of being a valiant soldier.”⁶³

Another letter was written by Elizabeth to a member of the Arundel family of Trerice in Cornwall, who had once loyally supported her father. It bears her signature, and in it she announces the birth of one of her sons.

A further surviving letter was written on June 6, 1499, to Thomas Goldstone, prior of Christ Church, Canterbury, and must be a typical example of many of the Queen’s routine missives that have not survived. It concerns her desire to present one of her chaplains to the next vacancy in the living of All Saints, Lombard Street, London. She had to apply to the prior because Christ Church held the advowson—the right of a patron to appoint a nominee to a benefice—of that church. In this letter, Elizabeth demonstrated that she had a talent for claiming her right with charm and tact:

To our right trusty and well-beloved in God, the Prior of the monastery of Christ’s Church at Canterbury.

Right trusty and well-beloved in God, we greet you well, and as we recently in other letters desired you to grant unto us the living of the parish church of All Saints in Lombard Street in my lord’s city of London, whenever it should fall vacant through the death of Sir Marques Husy [Mark Hussy],⁶⁴ the late incumbent; whereupon it pleased you, out of your loving and kindly heart, to grant us freedom of the said benefice in writing, to nominate it for whichever of our chaplains we should choose at its next vacancy, for which we heartily thank you. We have been informed that it is now the case, the said Sir Marques being recently departed out of this transitory life into the mercy of God, so that the said benefice is now vacant.

We therefore request and require you that, in honouring the said promise, you shall send us under your usual seal the giving of the said benefice, with a blank space on it, with the intention that we shall enter the name of whichever of our chaplains we shall think able and suitable to have charge of the curacy there. We sincerely trust that you will effect this desire of ours, whereby you will greatly deserve our special thanks, to be recalled in connection with any reasonable desires of your own concerning your well-being or that of your office in time to come.

Given under our signet at my lord’s city of London, the sixth day of June.

Elysabeth⁶⁵

Henry VII had intended to spend the Christmas of 1497 at Sheen, where he was staying “with the Queen and the court,”⁶⁶ but on the evening of December 21 or 23,⁶⁷ an alarm was cried because the palace was on fire. The blaze had broken out “suddenly,” either in the Queen’s chamber⁶⁸ or the King’s,⁶⁹ around nine o’clock. Raimondo de Soncino stated that it started “by accident, and not by malice, catching a beam,”⁷⁰ but Trevisano hinted that “a fire was set,” and that the culprit had been Perkin Warbeck, who was “with the King.”⁷¹ There is no evidence, however, that Perkin was held responsible by Henry.

The conflagration quickly spread and raged for three hours, resisting frantic attempts to put it out; and “by violence whereof, much and great part of the old building was burnt,” while hangings, beds, plate, apparel, and many jewels were spoiled or destroyed.⁷²The fire “did a great deal of harm, and burned the chapel, excepting two large towers recently erected by His Majesty.”⁷³ Henry V’s donjon tower—where it probably started—was certainly spared, although it is not known in what condition, or what other buildings survived.

King Henry, Queen Elizabeth, Margaret Beaufort, Princess Margaret, Prince Henry, and other “notable estates” were in residence at the time, but “to the King’s good comfort, the royal family escaped unhurt, and no man or Christian creature perished.” Even so, the King had been lucky, for a gallery collapsed immediately after he sped along it to safety.

The damage, according to Soncino, was “estimated at 60,000 ducats [£7.3 million]. The King does not attach much importance to the loss. He purposes to rebuild the chapel all in stone, and much finer than before.”⁷⁴ Yet he was concerned about some of the crown jewels being lost in the fire, and offered a reward of £20 [£9,700] to anyone finding them in the smoking rubble.⁷⁵ Surveying the devastation, Henry decided to rebuild not only the chapel, but the palace itself, bigger and better than before.

Fortunately, the old royal manor complex of Byfleet, moved to Sheen by Henry V, stood nearby, beyond the moat and gardens, and Henry and Elizabeth probably took up residence there for Christmas, as they were still at Sheen with the court on January 30, 1498, “in good health and merry, thank God”;⁷⁶ and they were at Sheen again the following July.⁷⁷

Elizabeth’s privy purse accounts record that on June 6, 1502, she paid out £3 [£1,450] to Nicholas Grey, clerk of works, “toward such losses as he sustained at the burning of his house at Richmond,” presumably in the same fire that wrecked the palace. On February 7, 1503, she paid £20 [£9,700] in partial compensation to Henry Coote, a London goldsmith, “for certain plate delivered to the Queen’s Grace at Richmond, and there lost and burnt at the burning of the palace there.”⁷⁸

In April 1498 the King gave Elizabeth a gift of £6.13s.4d. [£3,250].⁷⁹ That year, Prince Henry rode in great state into London, where the streets had been swept in his honor, and was presented with a gift by the City fathers, for which he made his first recorded speech, thanking them. On May 23, not quite seven years old, he beat his father at cards, winning 3s.4d. [£80].⁸⁰ Four days later Henry VII paid out £3.6s.8d. [£1,620] to Robert Taylor, the Queen’s surgeon,⁸¹ possibly for drawing one of her teeth or letting blood. The generous payment reflects the King’s concern for his wife’s health.

There was alarm when, on June 9, 1498, Perkin Warbeck escaped from the Palace of Westminster. Evading his two warders, he climbed through a window in the wardrobe and set out for the coast, but the King sent men after him and gave orders for the roads to be closed, and Warbeck only made it as far as Sheen, where he took sanctuary at the Charterhouse.

On June 12 the prior of the Charterhouse arrived at Westminster and informed the King of Warbeck’s whereabouts. Henry immediately had the news conveyed to Puebla, who communicated it to Ferdinand and Isabella, to reassure them that the pretender had been speedily found. The prior begged the King to spare Warbeck’s life. Henry VII was not a bloodthirsty man, but he was no longer prepared to be lenient with Perkin. He had him put in the stocks in Cheapside and at Westminster, where he was again made to read aloud his confession, then he was marched under strong guard to the Tower and imprisoned in a cell where “he sees neither sun nor moon.”⁸² Bacon asserts that even now Warbeck was still insisting he was Richard of York, and declaring that when he was delivered from the Tower, he would wait for the King’s death, “then put myself into my sister’s hands, who was next heir to the crown.” But Bacon was writing much later, and—as we have seen—tended to see intrigue where none probably existed, especially in regard to pretenders. It is highly unlikely that Elizabeth was harboring sympathy for this young man, or that she still took his claim seriously.

Certainly Pedro de Ayala did not, and he assured Ferdinand and Isabella that Henry VII’s crown was now “undisputed, and his government is strong in all respects.” But the years of uncertainty had taken their toll. Ayala added that Henry “looks old for his years, but young for the sorrowful life he has led.”⁸³ Vergil too observed how Henry had aged: “his teeth [were] few, poor and blackish; his hair was thin and gray; his complexion pale.” Worry and anxiety may have taken their toll on Elizabeth too: a portrait of her painted in the 1490s, now in the Royal Collection (see Appendix 1), shows her looking older than her years—she was thirty in 1496—with pinched lips and a double chin.

But now, with Warbeck securely imprisoned, the outlook for the future appeared brighter, and the way seemed clear for preparations for Prince Arthur’s wedding to the Infanta to proceed smoothly. It was what the King earnestly desired, and he “swore by his royal faith that he and the Queen were more satisfied with this marriage than with any other.”⁸⁴

On July 7, 1498, two Spanish diplomats, Commander Sancho de Londoño and Juan de Matienzo, sub-prior of Santa Cruz, “passed four hours with [King Henry] in conversation, at which the Queen and the mother of the King were present.” They reported to their sovereigns: “To hear what they spoke of Your Highnesses and of the Princess of Wales was like hearing the praise of God.” The envoys gave Elizabeth two letters from Ferdinand and Isabella and two letters from the Princess of Wales. “The King had a dispute with the Queen because he wanted to have one of the said letters to carry continually about him, but the Queen did not like to part with hers, having sent the other to the Prince of Wales.”⁸⁵ It is hard to imagine Elizabeth defying Henry openly like this. More likely, the dispute was staged to demonstrate to the Spanish envoys the enthusiasm of the royal pair for the marriage of their son to Princess Katherine.⁸⁶

When, on August 25, 1498, Rodrigo de Puebla brought Elizabeth letters from the Spanish sovereigns and Katherine of Aragon, “and explained them, she was overjoyed.” She sent at once for her Latin secretary “and ordered him to write, in her presence, two letters, one of them to the Queen of Spain and the other to the Princess of Wales.” The secretary told Puebla afterward “that he was obliged to write the said letters three or four times, because the Queen had always found some defects in them,” saying, “They are not things of great importance themselves, but they show great and cordial love,” which had to be expressed in the proper fashion.⁸⁷ This testifies to Elizabeth’s keen desire for a successful outcome to the marriage negotiations, as do her efforts to cement good relations with Puebla by finding him an English bishopric or an English bride.

In February, Henry VII had informed Ferdinand and Isabella that “since Puebla could not be induced to accept a Church preferment, he was asked whether he would also refuse an honorable marriage offered to him. After many excuses, he has at last been persuaded, principally by the Queen, to accept the marriage, but under the express condition that his king and queen must first give him their consent. Wishing to marry Puebla well in England, he and his queen beg them [the Spanish sovereigns] to grant their prayers, and to give their consent. The marriage will be of great advantage to the Princess Katherine when she comes to live in England.” Puebla dutifully but reluctantly relayed the proposal to his sovereigns, and it seems that Henry and Elizabeth continued to press him to accept the hand of an Englishwoman of their choosing.⁸⁸

On the morning of Sunday, July 18, Commander Londoño and the sub-prior of Santa Cruz went to Sheen, accompanied by the Bishop of London and other great dignitaries of state, and there saw the King and Queen walking in procession after hearing Mass in the chapel. “The ladies of the Queen went in good order and were much adorned.” Later that day the envoys “took leave, and went to kiss the hand of the Queen.”⁸⁹

During their visit, Commander Londoño and the sub-prior of Santa Cruz made their separate observations about Elizabeth resenting Margaret Beaufort’s influence on the King. As discussed earlier, the envoys’ conclusions were probably overstated, for Elizabeth and her mother-in-law continued to present a united and friendly front to the world, and until now there had been no hint of discord between them. Several times during 1498 alone we find them amicably working and playing together. They displayed a joint concern to prepare Katherine of Aragon for her marriage. On July 17, Puebla reported: “The Queen and the mother of the King wish that the Princess of Wales should always speak French with the Princess Margaret [of Austria, wife of Katherine’s brother, the Infante Juan, Prince of Asturias], who is now in Spain, in order to learn the language and to be able to converse in it when she comes to England. This is necessary, because these ladies do not understand Latin, and much less, Spanish. They also wish that the Princess of Wales should accustom herself to drink wine. The water of England is not drinkable, and even if it were, the climate would not allow the drinking of it.”⁹⁰

That summer, Margaret Beaufort accompanied the King and Queen on a progress into East Anglia, visiting Havering, Bury St. Edmunds, and Thetford on the way to Norwich, where they were received by the mayor, who made an oration in their honor.⁹¹ They again visited the shrine at Walsingham, and at Bishop’s Lynn (later King’s Lynn) they lodged in the Augustinian priory⁹² before journeying westward to Margaret’s house at Collyweston.⁹³ Two years later Elizabeth collaborated with Margaret and Prince Arthur to secure the appointment of Thomas Pantry, a native of Calais, as Supreme Beadle of the Arts at the University of Oxford, although in 1501 they all supported rival claimants for the same post in Divinity, which shows that Elizabeth was not always swayed by her mother-in-law’s opinions.⁹⁴

In July 1498, Londoño and the sub-prior of Santa Cruz reported an instance of the King, Queen, and Margaret Beaufort sharing a similar sense of humor. They had heard of it from “a Spaniard, brought up and married in England,” who was “porter to the Queen of England. He said that some time ago the King was living at a palace about a quarter of a league distant from the town in which Puebla was staying. Puebla went every day, with all his servants, to dine at the palace, and continued his unasked-for visits during the space of four or five months. The Queen and the mother of the Queen sometimes asked him whether his masters in Castile did not provide him with food. On another occasion, when the King was staying at another palace, there was a report that Dr. de Puebla was coming. The King asked his courtiers, ‘For what purpose is he coming?’ They answered, ‘To eat!’ The King laughed at the answer.”⁹⁵ This is a revealing insight into a private joke shared by Elizabeth, her mother-in-law, and her husband, which suggests that “subjection” was quite the wrong word to describe her relations with Lady Margaret.

There was a good reason to account for Elizabeth being out of sorts or looking strained or irritable during the ambassadors’ visit: she was two months pregnant, and possibly suffering with it. The King paid out money to her physician, Lewis Caerleon, probably for consultations and treatment connected with her condition.⁹⁶

In the summer of 1498, during a visit to London, the Bishop of Cambrai (once alleged to be Warbeck’s real father) visited Henry VII and asked to see Perkin, who was duly produced for his inspection. Puebla observed that he was “so much changed that I, and all other persons here, believe his life will be very short. He must pay for what he has done.” Puebla, doubtless acting on the orders of King Ferdinand, did not cease urging King Henry to rid himself of this embarrassment, hinting that Ferdinand was having second thoughts about marrying his daughter to a prince whose future throne might not be secure.⁹⁷

On September 11, Bishop Fox was empowered to negotiate the marriage of Margaret Tudor and James IV. Henry was resolved upon cementing the peace between England and Scotland, and liked the prospect of his grandson sitting on the Scots throne. James too was eager for the marriage, and there was talk of an early wedding, but Henry revealed to Pedro de Ayala that his wife and his mother had worked in concert again, this time to protect Margaret from the perils of marrying too young. “I have already told you more than once that a marriage between him and my daughter has many inconveniences,” he said. “She has not yet completed the ninth year of her age, and is so delicate and female [i.e., weak] that she must be married much later than other young ladies. Thus it would be necessary to wait at least another nine years. Beside my own doubts, the Queen and my mother are very much against this marriage. They say if [it] were concluded, we should be obliged to send the princess directly to Scotland, in which case they fear the King of Scots would not wait, but injure her and endanger her health.”⁹⁸

Margaret Beaufort probably spoke from bitter experience, for her husband had not waited, and the likelihood is that giving birth at thirteen scarred her so badly, mentally as well as physically, that she had never borne another child. She and Elizabeth may also have heard reports of the Scots King’s womanizing and been concerned for Margaret. Bowing to this pressure from his womenfolk, Henry compromised and made James agree not to demand his bride before September 1503, when she would be nearly fourteen.⁹⁹

Early in 1499 a young Cambridge student, Ralph Wilford, the son of a London cordwainer, suddenly declared that he was the real Warwick. Like Lambert Simnel, he had been encouraged in his deception by an errant cleric, in this case a friar. He was speedily apprehended and “confessed that he was sundry times stirred in his sleep that he should name himself to be the Duke of Clarence’s son, and he should in process obtain such power that he should be King.” By now Henry VII’s patience was exhausted, and after personally interrogating the imposter, he did not hesitate to deal swiftly with him: on February 12, Wilford was hanged.¹⁰⁰ Even so, the damage had been done, for the King was much disturbed by the appearance of yet another pretender, and—as he had probably feared—the Spanish sovereigns were dismayed when they heard of it.

Elizabeth was then in the last stages of pregnancy. The Great Wardrobe Accounts for January 1499 record payments for linen cloth for bearing sheets, “headkerchiefs, biggins [bonnets for the baby], and breast kerchiefs,” kersey for twelve couches (beds), and fustian “for a bed for the nursery,” all purchased for the Queen. On January 20 the King sent for the silver font from Canterbury Cathedral, paying the prior £2 [£970] for the favor.

Around the time she took to her chamber, Elizabeth had to deal with more bad news. On February 9, 1499, her brother-in-law, John, Viscount Welles, the husband of her sister Cecily, died of pleurisy at his London home. In his will he had passed over his other heirs and directed that all his property should go to Cecily for the term of her life, and that his body should be interred wherever she—with the consent of the King and Queen and the King’s mother—should deem appropriate. After his death Cecily sent to the King at Greenwich to discover his pleasure in the matter. He commanded that Welles be buried with great solemnity in the old Lady Chapel in Westminster Abbey. Cecily apparently returned to the Queen’s household, where, given Elizabeth’s love and care for her sisters, she was assured of a sympathetic welcome.¹⁰¹

By February 19, Anne Crown, mistress of the nursery (probably identified with Anne Crowmer), was installed and awaiting the arrival of her charge. Under her was Anne Skern, who had nursed Princess Mary, and “five gentlewomen of the nursery.”¹⁰²

Elizabeth bore her third son, her sixth child, on Thursday, February 21, 1499, at Greenwich.¹⁰³ He was baptized there in the church of the Observant Friars on February 24. The Great Wardrobe provided linen for the silver font from Canterbury, cords for hanging the canopy that would be borne over the infant, red worsted, gilt nails, and other items¹⁰⁴ against the christening, which was “very splendid, and the festivities such as though an heir to the crown had been born.”¹⁰⁵ The baby was named Edmund, after Henry’s father, Edmund Tudor, Earl of Richmond.

Margaret Beaufort was Edmund’s godmother at the font, and gave him the generous gift of £100 [£48,600], as well as handsomely rewarding the midwife and the nurses.¹⁰⁶ Clearly she was relieved to see both mother and child safely delivered, for “there had been much fear that the life of the Queen would be in danger, but the delivery, contrary to expectations, had been easy.”¹⁰⁷ A payment of 6s.8d. [£160] made by the King on the day after the birth to “Wulf the Physician at two times”¹⁰⁸ may reflect the precautions put in place should something go wrong. We do not know why there were fears for the Queen’s life, unless the shock of her brother-in-law’s death and her sister’s bereavement had affected her badly, but the ministrations of her doctors the previous year suggest she had had a difficult pregnancy.

Prince Edmund was styled Duke of Somerset,¹⁰⁹ a title proudly borne by his Beaufort ancestors, although he was probably never formally ennobled since no enrollment of any patent can be traced.

Polydore Vergil recorded that “by his wife Elizabeth, [Henry VII] was the father of eight children, four boys and as many girls”; and John Foxe, writing in the reign of Elizabeth I, stated that “Henry VII had by Elizabeth four men children and of women children as many, of whom only three survived.” John Stow, the Elizabethan antiquarian, states that there was a fourth and youngest son called Edward. In the eighteenth century, Thomas Carte also asserted, in his history of England, that there was a fourth son who died in infancy, while in the nineteenth century, Arthur Stanley, Dean of Westminster, recorded a fourth son, Edward, who died very young and was buried in Westminster Abbey. However, the royal genealogist Francis Sandford, writing in the seventeenth century, says that Edmund was the third and youngest son.

Modern biographers¹¹⁰ have put forward all kinds of theories about a fourth son. One names him George,¹¹¹ but most call him Edward. His birth date has variously been given as 1487–88¹¹² and 1495–96,¹¹³ suggesting some confusion with Princess Mary, 1497¹¹⁴ or 1500–01.

There is no contemporary evidence to support any of these theories. Nor is there any record of Elizabeth having more than seven pregnancies. All are documented in one way or another, so it is unlikely that a prince called Edward ever existed. The most telling evidence in favor of the Queen having borne only three sons is to be found in two works of art. The St. George altarpiece at Windsor, which depicts Henry and Elizabeth and their children adoring St. George, and dates from 1505–09, shows four daughters and only three sons. An illumination in the “Ordinances of the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception,” dating from 1503, also shows three sons and four daughters. Given that all the known children who died young are included in each of these groups, which were painted after Elizabeth’s death, we might expect to see a fourth son—if there had been one—in both pictures.

There also exists in the British Library the “Genealogical Chronicle of the Kings of England,” dating from 1511, which has tiny circular images of Henry and Elizabeth with seven children, labeled Arthur, Edmund, Henry, Katherine, Margaret, Mary, and Elizabeth. Margaret and Katherine are shown as boys—the other girls wear gable hoods.¹¹⁵ The likelihood is that Vergil got it wrong and there were only three sons of the marriage. Claims by modern historians¹¹⁶ that there were other children who died unnamed in infancy are not substantiated by any contemporary evidence.

In May 1499, with the portly Puebla standing in for the Infanta, Prince Arthur was married by proxy in a ceremony in the chapel at Tickenhill Palace, his house near Bewdley, Worcestershire. This was “a fair manor place west of the town, standing in a goodly park well wooded” on a hill in the Severn Valley. Originally built in the fourteenth century, it had been enlarged by Edward IV for his son, the Prince of Wales, when the Council of the Marches was established, and Henry VII converted it into a palace for Prince Arthur.¹¹⁷

It was intimated by the King and Queen to the Spanish ambassador that the ladies Katherine brought with her to England should be “of gentle birth”—for “the English attach great importance to good connections”—and “beautiful, or, at the least, by no means ugly.”¹¹⁸

From 1499 to 1501, Arthur and Katherine were encouraged to write frequently to each other. They corresponded in Latin in a formal style, no doubt supervised by their elders. Although the young couple had not yet met, they expressed the proper sentiments required by convention. One letter sent by Arthur on October 5, 1499, from Ludlow Castle is typical of how a royal courtship was conducted:

Most illustrious and most excellent lady, my dearest spouse, I wish you very much health, with my hearty commendations.

I have read the most sweet letters of your Highness lately given to me, from which I have easily perceived your most entire love to me. Truly, these your letters, traced by your own hand, have so delighted me, and have rendered me so cheerful and jocund, that I fancied I beheld your Highness, and conversed with and embraced my dearest wife. I cannot tell you what an earnest desire I feel to see your Highness, and how vexatious to me is this procrastination about your coming. I owe eternal thanks to your excellence that you so lovingly correspond to this, my so ardent love. Let it continue, I entreat, as it has begun; and, like as I cherish your sweet remembrance night and day, so do you preserve my name ever fresh in your breast. And let your coming to me be hastened, that instead of being absent we may be present with each other, and the love conceived between us and the wished-for joys may reap their proper fruit.

I have done as your illustrious Highness enjoined me in commending you to the most serene lord and lady, the King and Queen, my parents, and in declaring your filial regard toward them, which to them was most pleasing to hear.¹¹⁹

The expressions in the letter are those of an adult, and it seems unlikely that a thirteen-year-old boy would have written them; probably his words were dictated by his tutors.

In September, while the King and Queen were away on a progress in Hampshire,¹²⁰ the celebrated scholar Erasmus, then a guest of fellow humanist William Blount, Lord Mountjoy, was taken to meet their younger children at Eltham. Years later he recalled: “Thomas More paid me a visit, and took me for recreation on a walk to a neighboring country palace, where the royal infants were abiding, Prince Arthur excepted, who had completed his education. The princely children were assembled in the hall and were surrounded by their household, to whom Mountjoy’s servants added themselves. In the middle of the circle stood Prince Henry, then only nine [sic] years old, and already having something of royalty in his demeanor, in which there was a certain dignity combined with a singular courtesy.” A painted terracotta bust by Guido Mazzoni in the Royal Collection, of a chubby-cheeked, mischievous-looking, laughing boy is thought to portray young Henry around this time (ca.1498–1500), and may have been commissioned by Henry VII himself.

On Prince Henry’s right hand “stood the Princess Margaret, a child of eleven [sic] years, afterward Queen of Scotland. On the other side was the Princess Mary, a little one of four [sic] years of age, engaged in her sports, whilst Edmund, an infant, was held in his nurse’s arms.”¹²¹

Thomas More presented Prince Henry with some Latin verses he had composed especially for him, and that same evening, after they had returned to More’s house, Erasmus received a request from the prince for some verses of his own. “I was angry with More for not having warned me,” he wrote, “especially as the boy sent me a little note, while we were at dinner, to challenge something from my pen.” In fact the great scholar was so overcome with trepidation that it took him three days to come up with something he considered suitable, the Prosopopoeia Britanniae;¹²² in this, he described the royal children in allegorical terms: the boys were red roses, for vigor, the girls white, for innocence.

Already, it seems, the future Henry VIII had a commanding and awe-inspiring demeanor, and to have read the verses dedicated to him he would have had to be highly proficient in Latin. Erasmus thought he was. His inscription read: “We have dedicated these verses, like the gift of playthings, to your childhood, and shall be ready with more abundant offerings when your virtues, growing with your age, shall supply more abundant material for poetry.” Erasmus later recalled that Henry “had a vivid and active mind, above measure to execute whatever tasks he undertook. You would say that he was a universal genius.”¹²³

Erasmus was also much impressed by Lady Guildford, the princesses’ governess, with whom he engaged in two conversations. By November 1501, however, Lady Guildford had returned to the Queen’s service.

With their daughter due to come to England when she reached fourteen in December, Ferdinand and Isabella had expressed concern at the emergence of yet another pretender, and even though Ralph Wilford had been speedily dealt with, their faith in the security of the English throne was shaken. They had seen over the years how it could be destabilized by imposters and the existence of Yorkist heirs who might yet challenge Henry VII’s title. Now that Warbeck had been discredited, they regarded Warwick as the greatest threat to England’s stability, as he had the strongest claim to the crown and was clearly a focus for malcontents. In the years to come, Katherine of Aragon would say that her marriage to Prince Arthur had been made in blood,¹²⁴ which implies that it was conditional upon the removal of the hapless Warwick. Fifty years later Warwick’s nephew, Cardinal Reginald Pole (the son of Margaret of Clarence), revealed that King Ferdinand was averse to giving his daughter to one who would not be secure in his own kingdom. The likelihood is that Ferdinand warned Henry VII that while Warwick lived, the Infanta would not be coming to England.

Henry, like many of his contemporaries, was a superstitious man. In March, still perturbed by the Wilford affair, he heard of a priest who had accurately foretold the deaths of Edward IV and Richard III and summoned him for a consultation. The soothsayer warned him that his life would be in danger all that year, for there were two parties with very different political creeds in the land—those who were loyal to the Tudor dynasty, and those who wanted to see the House of York restored—and that conspiracies against the throne would ensue. A fortnight later Pedro de Ayala reported that the King had aged twenty years in two weeks.¹²⁵

Unnerved by the Wilford affair, and aware that Warwick would always remain a threat, Henry probably foresaw no end to the intrigues that had long undermined his security. Fearful as a result of the soothsayer’s warning, he consulted his astrologer, Dr. William Parron, several times. Later that year, Parron observed, “It is expedient that one man should die for the people, and the whole nation perish not, for an insurrection cannot occur in any state without the deaths of a great part of the people and the destruction of many great families with their property.” This pragmatic view was shared by the King, and it was probably at this time that he came to the decision that Warwick must be eliminated.

Yet Warwick had never actually done anything to justify any legal process against him. Having him secretly murdered in the Tower, like the princes, was clearly not Henry’s way of doing things. The King had experienced what could ensue when an heir to the throne simply disappeared. Moral issues aside, it had to be known that Warwick had died, and the only sure way to remove him and eliminate any future claims of his survival was by the process of law.

What happened afterward is still surrounded in mystery. We do not know the extent of official involvement—although the evidence suggests it was considerable—or how far the government drove or manipulated events. What was paramount, though, was that Henry secure his crown and safeguard the valuable Spanish alliance. Small wonder that he probably seized the chance to kill two birds with one shot.

One might have thought that high-security prisoners like Warwick and Warbeck would be kept isolated from each other lest they bred a further conspiracy together, but this was clearly not the case. On August 2, according to Warwick’s indictment, two gaolers—Thomas Astwood, one of Warbeck’s former supporters who had been pardoned four years earlier, and Robert Cleymound—met with Warwick in his chamber in the Tower and hatched a plot to fire and seize the Tower, thus facilitating his escape to Flanders, whence he would make war upon Henry VII, “assume the royal dignity and make himself King.”¹²⁶

Warwick may have been inveigled into colluding in what was nothing less than high treason; or he might, understandably, have leapt at the chance of being revenged upon the King who had so unjustly incarcerated him for fourteen years. Yet he may not fully have understood the enormity of what he thought he was about to do, or had the capacity to see it through. Vergil says that Warwick had been brought up in prison from his cradle, and although that was not strictly true of his earlier years, he had been a captive since 1485, “out of sight of man or beast,” and he was clearly not very bright. It is hard to imagine him seriously contemplating leading an armed rebellion.

Two days later the conspirators made contact with Warbeck, whose cell—somewhat conveniently—was below Warwick’s, and drew him into the plot. Warwick, he was told, would set him at large and make him King of England—which was glaringly at variance with what Warwick had been promised, but probably no more than an inducement to draw Warbeck into the plot. Given Warbeck’s sorry state the previous year, it could have been predicted that he was now desperate to escape and would seize any chance. Four other gaolers and two other prisoners, Yorkist dissidents, also became involved, as well as two citizens of London. Then suddenly, Cleymound complained that Warbeck had betrayed the conspirators to the King and his council and fled into sanctuary.

This all suggests that the two prisoners had been enticed into the conspiracy, and that Cleymound was an agent provocateur placed in the Tower. No action was ever taken against him, and it seems suspicious that one of Warbeck’s gaolers was his former adherent, and that Warwick and Warbeck were held close enough to communicate. Warwick is said to have knocked on the floor of his chamber, and even made a hole in it so that the two could speak, and to have sent Warbeck documents and tokens by Cleymound. This is even more suspicious, considering that the whereabouts of Warwick’s chamber in the Tower had until now been a well-kept state secret for fear of rescue attempts. It is unlikely too that Warbeck would have revealed the conspiracy to the council. Probably, the two prisoners were set up, and it is likely that the Earl of Oxford, the Constable of the Tower, and his deputy, John Digby, its lieutenant, were parties to the deception; it is hard to imagine this conspiracy escaping their notice.

It seems implausible that Elizabeth knew anything of this. There is no official record of Spain’s intervention, and if there was a policy to remove Warwick and Warbeck, it was kept highly secret. Henry and his advisers probably allowed the conspiracy to mature, and awaited their moment.

On November 12 the doomed plot came to light when John Fineux, Chief Justice of the King’s Bench, reported to the council “certain treasons conspired of Edward, naming himself of Warwick, and Perkin, and others within the Tower; which intendeth, as it appeareth by [their] confessions, to have deposed and destroyed the King’s person and his blood. And over that the said Edward intended to have been King, and first to have holpen Perkin to the crown if he had been King Edward’s son, and else to have had it himself.” Already the accused had been examined and it was determined by the judges that they had committed treason “and deserved death,” while the King was demanding what was to be done with them.

Did Elizabeth tremble at the thought of what might have befallen her husband and her children, or did she grieve for her guileless cousin? Did she suspect, from the sheer improbability of the charges, that Warwick had been led unwittingly into treason? More pertinently, was she startled by the revelation that Warwick had been willing to make Perkin king if he proved to be her brother? If this was true—and it may not have been—then Warwick had remained uncertain that Warbeck really was Richard of York. He had been brought up with the royal children from 1478 to 1483, and so had known York, who was two years older, between the ages of four and nine. If York had survived, he would now be twenty-six. Even if Warwick had seen Perkin in the Tower, he might have found it difficult recognizing the boy in the man—and may not have had the wits to do so. But on the face of it he had not ruled out the possibility that Warbeck was York. If Elizabeth did not know that the whole conspiracy was a fabrication—and it is hard to imagine her colluding in it—then she had cause to wonder.

The exposure of the conspiracy sealed the fate of both young men. Warbeck was arraigned at Westminster on November 16 and condemned to be hanged, drawn, and quartered, the punishment meted out to traitors. Two days later, at London’s Guildhall, eight people including Thomas Astwood were found guilty of conspiring to murder the Marshal of the Tower and free Warwick and Warbeck.

Warwick himself was tried the next day, November 19, in Westminster Hall. “Because of his innocency,”¹²⁷ the simple young man pleaded guilty, and was also sentenced to a traitor’s death. Later, Parliament attainted him for treason. We have no way of knowing if Elizabeth believed he had been justly condemned.

It was customary, in the case of peers of the realm, for the dread sentence handed down to traitors to be commuted by the King to beheading, so it is surprising to learn that Perkin Warbeck, a commoner, suffered only hanging on the public gallows at Tyburn. He certainly was drawn facedown on a hurdle to his execution, “as being not worthy anymore to tread upon the face of the Earth,” but he was spared the full horrors of a traitor’s death. Was there still, in the King’s mind, and perhaps Elizabeth’s too, some question that he might really be of royal blood? Or was Henry merely being merciful because Warbeck had unwittingly helped to send Warwick to a better world? Either way, on the scaffold Warbeck swore on his death that he was not the son of Edward IV, and asked forgiveness of God and the King for his deception. Expecting to face divine judgment within minutes, it is unlikely he was lying.

On November 29, Warwick, who was only twenty-four, was beheaded on Tower Hill. “It was ordained that the winding ivy of a Plantagenet should kill the true tree itself,” observed Bacon. The King paid for the earl’s remains to be buried in Bisham Priory, Berkshire, near the tomb of his grandfather, Warwick the Kingmaker.¹²⁸ During the days that followed, Astwood and the other men involved in the plot were put to death. If they were all seduced unwittingly into the conspiracy, then the government had made a ruthless and thorough job of it; but by willingly involving themselves, they nevertheless committed treason.

Elizabeth and her ladies were left to comfort the popular Katherine Gordon for the loss of her husband. Universally applauded for her loyalty to Warbeck, she stayed on at court in Elizabeth’s service and in 1510 married the first of three more husbands, all gentlemen of Henry VIII’s bedchamber.¹²⁹

Henry VII fell ill after the executions, while staying at Wanstead, Essex, and was so poorly that his life was despaired of. But he recovered by the middle of December, and in January 1500, Pedro de Ayala was able to assure Ferdinand and Isabella that “this kingdom is at present so situated as has not been seen for the last five hundred years until now, because there were always brambles and thorns of such a kind that the English had occasion not to remain peacefully in obedience to their king, there being divers heirs of the kingdom. Now it has pleased God that all should be thoroughly and duly purged and cleansed, so that not a doubtful drop of royal blood remains in this kingdom, except the true blood of the King and Queen and, above all, that of the lord Prince Arthur.”¹³⁰