CHAPTER 6

‘This Diabolicall Duches’

‘LYKE A DOGGE REVERTYNGE TO HER OLDE VOMYTE.’

‘Once more’, wrote Jean Molinet, ‘the house of York has been left wretched and deserted by Good Fortune’.¹ Molinet had inherited the mantle of Georges Chastellain as the chief historian and rhetorician of the Burgundian court. He wrote his chronicles between 1474 and 1506 and his views echoed those of his patrons. His sorrowful verdict on the battle of Bosworth may well have reflected Margaret’s sentiments when she heard of the defeat and death of her last surviving brother, Richard III.

In her thirty-nine years, Margaret had witnessed many dramatic revolutions of the great wheel of fortune, from the sudden deaths of her father and brother at Wakefield to the tragic early death of her stepdaughter in 1482, but here for the first time she had to face the total eclipse of the House of York. When the confused reports of the battle of Bosworth field first reached Malines, Margaret had little time to grieve for her dead brother. She was fully involved with the establishment of the new household for the young Duke Philip and the preparations for the Great Council which had been summoned to meet at Malines in mid-September.² Viewed within the context of Margaret’s own earlier experience and considering her many preoccupations in the late summer of 1485, the Dowager must have received the news of the accession of Henry Tudor as King Henry VII with resignation. Remembering the restoration of her brother Edward in 1471, she would also have considered that, given some slight military and financial assistance from Burgundy, this new Tudor usurper, with his weak and tenuous claim, would soon be successfully replaced.

On the other hand, there was no reason why Margaret should not simply accept the marriage of Henry to her niece Elizabeth of York as being in the best interests of her family. It was a marriage accepted by Margaret’s closest surviving relatives, by her mother Cecily, her sister Elizabeth and her sister-in-law the dowager Queen Elizabeth Woodville. Henry made several well considered gestures of conciliation towards these three matriarchs of the House of York. His marriage had been planned by his mother, the Lady Margaret Beaufort, with the support of Elizabeth Woodville, Edward IV’s widow. He immediately granted Elizabeth Woodville her full dower rights and she and her surviving relations were given an honourable welcome to the new court. Also early in 1486 he renewed trading licences which Edward IV had granted to the old Duchess Cecily.³ Margaret’s sister, the Duchess of Suffolk, was welcomed to the new Tudor court in spite of the fact that all her six sons were in direct line to the throne.

Although the King gave full recognition to the property and position of these Yorkists, he ignored the interests of the Burgundian Dowager. Margaret had benefited from all the various trading licences granted by her brother, and she had continued to enjoy these privileges during the brief reigns of Edward V and Richard III, but with the accession of Henry VII her trading privileges appear to have ceased.⁴ There can be little doubt that Margaret, who was extremely business-like as far as her economic interests were concerned, would have noted and resented these losses. Indeed her later support of both Lambert Simnel and Perkin Warbeck may have been partly motivated by a determination to recover her English income. This, apart from any family feeling, may even lie at the heart of the vendetta theory so favoured by Tudor historians.

Nearly ten years later in 1494, Margaret still had these losses very much in mind when a series of protocols were drawn up at Antwerp between herself and ‘Richard of York the legitimate son and heir of our very dear lord and father … Edward King of England’.⁵ This Richard, better known to English history as Perkin Warbeck, promised that when he became King he would restore her trading licences and repay the debt still owing on Margaret’s dowry, which she had also not forgotten. In addition the Dowager was to receive the manor of Hunsdon and the castle and town of Scarborough.⁶ The choice of these two properties is curious. Margaret may have been hoping to acquire a small English property as an insurance against more troubles in the Low Countries, though by the mid-1490s the worst of the conflicts between Flanders and its Dukes appeared to be over.

But why Hunsdon and Scarborough?⁷ Apart from the possibility that Margaret had a personal interest in Hunsdon as her birthplace, it may be relevant that from September 1485 Hunsdon had belonged to Sir William Stanley and the castle of Scarborough was in the hands of Sir Nicholas Knyfton, a man also connected with the Stanley interest and one who had benefited from the property confiscated from the loyal friend of King Richard, Francis, Viscount Lovel. Were Hunsdon and Scarborough part of some secret deal between the Dowager and Sir William Stanley? He was known to be in contact with the Pretender. One of the witnesses to the Antwerp protocols was Sir Robert Clifford, who had been sent over by Stanley.

Clifford, however, may well have been a double agent from the very beginning, for Henry VII was soon accusing Stanley of conspiracy against him. Henry was certainly kept well informed and the promise of Hunsdon and Scarborough to Margaret may have served to show the extent of Stanley’s involvement. It is interesting to find Hunsdon once more cropping up in Margaret’s story. It would be pleasant to think that she was thinking with nostalgia of her birthplace but, speculation apart, the fact remains that, in 1494, the Dowager had clearly not forgotten her lost licences or the unpaid dowry, and was still hoping to regain some income from England.

Yet however much the Dowager regretted her lost licences, these were trivial matters compared with her rich dower in Burgundy. Margaret was much too cautious to risk her great estates and the ‘great love and authority’⁸ which she had earned in the Low Countries in an unsupported attempt to restore a Yorkist prince to the English throne. If however she was to find that her interference in English affairs also suited the ducal government, then she would certainly assist the Pretenders with all her considerable energy and intelligence. Henry’s failure to do anything either to satisfy Burgundian interests or to placate Margaret may be regarded as one of his first diplomatic blunders.

There were substantial reasons why the new Tudor King should have shown some signs of friendship towards the Archduke Maximilian, who was by this time the virtual ruler of Burgundy. Henry had won his throne with military assistance from France, a fact which was bound to alarm the Archduke who had begun to build up good relations with Richard III and had been hopeful that Richard would support Burgundy against France. Maximilian was quite ready to establish good terms with Henry and he sent the Burgundian heralds to greet him on his accession.⁹ The Archduke proposed to renew the Anglo-Burgundian treaties of commerce and friendship but Henry made no movement towards an alliance and this, combined with Henry’s debt of gratitude to France, threatened the stability of Burgundy.

Henry’s failure to enter into any diplomatic talks in 1485 and 1486 was probably due chiefly to his own inexperience and to his preoccupation with affairs within England. But his disregard may also be due to the fact that he had spent most of his formative years in Brittany and France, where he may well have come to regard Maximilian through French eyes. After the treaty of Arras it was generally believed that the Archduke was so plagued by his own rebellious subjects that he was of little significance in European affairs. However, Maximilian was far from impotent. His armies might be unpaid and mutinous and he might be continually frustrated by his Flemish subjects, but the Low Countries were still a source of great wealth and the Archduke was moreover ‘a shrewd operator’.¹⁰ He would always explore every avenue open to him.

Rather than accept a francophile King of England, Maximilian intended to restore the old Anglo-Burgundian accord. If Henry would not cooperate then he would have to be replaced by a Yorkist king indebted to Burgundy. This policy would be conducted with guile and circumspection, since Maximilian had no wish to make an active enemy out of the new English King. He was determined to keep his policies towards England well concealed and it is chiefly due to his caution and prevarication that the origins of the Simnel and Warbeck risings have remained so obscure. The Archduke was able to pursue these policies through Margaret who would give him her wholehearted support in any attempt to overthrow Henry, and was also willing to shoulder both the financial burden and the responsibility.

The relationship between Maximilian and Margaret was one of close interdependence. Margaret needed Maximilian to safeguard her dower, but the Archduke also needed Margaret. During the minority of Philip, Maximilian relied heavily on her goodwill. She remained his most loyal subject and her support and advice were an invaluable asset in his government of the Low Countries, for she had long experience in dealing with the nobles and the Estates. The Dowager could sometimes secure the agreement of the Estates where other court officials failed. In March 1487, she presided over the Estates of Hainault and obtained a gift of 3,000 crowns to cover Maximilian’s debts to the Bishop of Cambrai.¹¹ Thus any suggestions from the Dowager that Maximilian should cooperate with her in launching a Yorkist invasion were likely to receive a sympathetic hearing.

There was yet another reason why both Maximilian and his son Philip would take an interest in the occupant of the English throne. After Bosworth, the main English rivals to Henry had been either captured or eliminated. The most eligible Plantagenet claimant was the eight-year-old Edward, Earl of Warwick, the son of the Duke of Clarence. He was transferred upon Henry’s orders from the castle of Sheriff Hutton in Yorkshire to the security of the Tower of London. The Duke and Duchess of Suffolk could be relied upon to restrain the pretensions of their son John, Earl of Lincoln, who was the next Yorkist candidate in line. There was thus no one in England able to mount a challenge to the King. Indeed it was this lack of a plausible English claimant which was to dog all the attempts to overthrow Henry and perhaps accounted for Margaret’s willingness to accept the two Pretenders, first Lambert Simnel posing as the Earl of Warwick and later Perkin Warbeck claiming to be Richard, Duke of York.

In the absence of any real challengers within England, the claims of the Burgundian rulers were worthy of consideration. Both Philip and Maximilian had more right to the English throne than had the new Tudor King. They were both independently and directly descended from John of Gaunt and his first wife, Blanche of Lancaster.¹² The Burgundian counsellors were very familiar with this inheritance. In 1471, after the death of King Henry VI, Duke Charles had registered his claim to the throne inherited through his mother. After Bosworth Maximilian himself contemplated a marriage to Elizabeth of York.¹³ The loss of the Yorkist heiress to Henry Tudor did not end his pretensions. In 1495, on the eve of his attempt to seize the throne, the Pretender Richard signed a protocol making Philip and Maximilian his heirs, in case of his death without issue. This was yet another statement of the Habsburg claim to the English throne, a claim which would lie dormant due to the many other problems which confronted Maximilian and later Philip.

Henry and all the Tudors were well versed in their genealogy and they were well aware of these Habsburg claims. It may even be the case that Margaret’s role in the Yorkist plots was overemphasised in order to divert attention from the Lancastrian inheritance of the Habsburgs and Burgundians. Tudor historians never refer to these claims but they write at length about Margaret’s involvement in the plots against Henry VII. They presented all attempts to overthrow Henry as part of her own malicious and obsessive vendetta against him. Polydore Vergil expressed the general view most succinctly when he stated that Margaret, ‘pursued Henry with insatiable hatred and with fiery wrath never desisted from employing every scheme which might harm him as a representative of the hostile faction.’¹⁴

Edward Hall, who followed Polydore Vergil very closely, elaborated on this and added several fearsome phrases for ‘this diabolicall duches.’ Margaret was ‘lyke a dogge revertynge to her olde vomyte’ and ‘lyke a spyder that dayly weaueth when hys calle is tarne’.¹⁵ Hall examined the dowager’s motives in a paragraph which has been echoed by many later historians:

This lady Margaret although she knewe the familye and stocke of the house of Yorke to be in maner distroyed & vtterly defaced by her brother kyng Richard, yet not being saciate nor content with the long hatred & continual malice of her parentes which subuerted and ouerthrew almost the progeny and lignage of kyng Henry the vi and the house of Lancaster, nor yet remembryng the newe affinitie & strong alliaunce that was lately concluded, by the whiche the heyres of bothe the houses and progenies were vnited & conioyned together in lawfull matrimony, lyke one forgetryng bothe God & charite, inflamed with malice diabolicall instinction, inuented & practiced all mischiefes, displeasures and damages that she could deuyse against the kyng of England. And farther in her fury and frantyke moode (accordyng to the saiyng of the wise man, there is no malice equiualent nor aboue the malice of a woman) she wrought all the wayes possible how to sucke his bloud and copasse his destruccion as the principal head of her aduerse parte & contrary faccion, as though he should be a dewe sacrifice or an host immolated for the mutuall murder & shamefull homicide comitted and perpetrated by her brother and progeny.

In this extract Hall elevated Henry by comparing him with the sacrificial Lamb of God, and relegated Margaret firmly to the role of the devil’s agent.

Another major analogy for the Dowager, which became entrenched in the history books, originated with Bernard André, the blind tutor of Prince Arthur, Henry VII’s eldest son. As befitted a classical scholar he portrayed Margaret as the goddess Juno, notorious for her implacable desire for revenge, ceaselessly attacking the noble Henry who was cast in the role of Hercules. In the ‘Twelve Triumphs of Henry VII’, an epic poem also ascribed to André, Margaret was also compared to Menalippe, the Queen of the Amazons, another of Hercules’ enemies, and also to one of the heads of the monster Geryon, the other two heads being those of Philip and Maximilian.¹⁶ Here at least there was a recognition of how closely Margaret worked with the rulers of Burgundy.

More than a century later Francis Bacon revived the classical simile and also repeated Polydore Virgil’s analysis of Margaret’s motives:

The princess [Margaret] having the spirit of a man and the malice of a woman, abounding in treasure by the greatness of her dower and her provident government, and being childless and without any near care, made it her design and enterprise to see the majesty royal of England once more replaced in her house and had set up King Henry as a mark, at whose overthrow all her actions should aim and shoot. She bore such a mortal hatred to the House of Lancaster and personally to the King as she was no ways mollified by the conjunction of the houses in her niece’s marriage but rather hated her niece as the means of the King’s ascent to the throne.¹⁷

In addition, he added the particular sentence which has caught the eye of almost every succeeding writer on the subject, that Margaret: ‘was for the King what Juno was for Aeneas, troubling Hell and Heaven to annoy him’. Here Henry had been transformed from Hercules to Aeneas, yet another of Juno’s victims.

This comparison was preserved by the Dowager’s most recent biographer Luc Hommel in the title of his book, Marguerite d’York ou la Duchesse Junon.¹⁸ The Tudor characterisation of Margaret as a malicious and vindictive woman became entrenched in English history, though it is singularly missing among most of the contemporary continental chroniclers and historians. Commynes, who often reported on Louis XI’s distrust of Margaret, never endorses the French King’s criticism with any personal attack on the Dowager. Of course he had actually known Margaret when she was Duchess of Burgundy.

More recent English historians have echoed the Tudor line with considerable regularity. Even the charitable Hume considered that the Dowager’s behaviour towards Henry showed ‘a spirit of faction who entrenched somewhat the probity which shone forth in other parts of her character’. For Professor Mackie, Margaret was ‘always ready to play the kindly aunt to Henry’s enemies’. Writers in other fields have picked up this general verdict. The art historian, Professor Wilenski, suggested that Dirk Bouts portrayed Margaret as the wicked queen in his great dyptich ‘The Judgment of Otho’ because she was ‘rancourous and given to political intrigue’.¹⁹

The source for all these opinions on the Dowager’s character was no less a person than Henry VII himself. He expressed his attitude towards Margaret with great conviction in a letter written to Sir Gilbert Talbot in 1493:

not forgetting the great malice that the Lady Margaret of Burgundy beareth continually against us, as she showed lately in sending hither a feigned boy surmising him to have been the son of the Duke of Clarence … And forseeing now the perseverance of the same her malice, by the untrue contriving eftsoon of another feigned lad called Perkin Warbeck … wherethrough she intendeth by promising unto the Flemings and other of the Archduke’s obeissance to whom she laboureth daily to take her way, and by her promise to certain aliens, captains of strange nations, to have duchies, counties, baronies, and other lands, within this our royaume to induce them thereby to land here.²⁰ (Author’s italics).

The King repeated his opinions in his instructions to his ambassador to France, who was told to inform the French King that the Dowager was misleading Maximilian and was wholly responsible for the past and for the threatened invasions of England. Although Henry had, by this date, very valid reasons for regarding Burgundy as a source of danger, his motives for accusing the Dowager rather than Maximilian were entirely diplomatic and totally ignored the fact that Margaret and Maximilian worked very closely together in their attempts to dethrone Henry.

Henry VII had an exaggerated notion of Margaret’s political influence, although he was not the first to respect and fear her authority. Louis XI of France had emphasised her role in diplomatic affairs and from the moment of her marriage to Duke Charles, the French King had regarded her as an active agent of the Anglo-Burgundian alliance. After 1477, Louis recognised the Dowager as one of the most vigorous opponents of France, and it is quite possible that Henry had learned to see Margaret through Louis’ eyes. He certainly imitated Louis’ methods of trying to discredit her with scandal. In the late 1490s, rumours were circulated that Margaret was Perkin Warbeck’s mother and that his father was none other than the Bishop of Cambrai. This fabrication echoed the story spread by Louis in 1468, that Margaret had had an illegitimate child. ²¹

There was of course some substance in Henry’s fear of Margaret. After Bosworth, Yorkist exiles were permitted to find shelter in Burgundy. This on its own was not a particular threat to Henry, since it was common practice for English exiles to reside in either the Low Countries or France as indeed he himself had done. Only rarely could they expect any major assistance from their hosts. However, after the Stafford rebellion in England in the spring of 1486, the exiles in Burgundy were augmented by the arrival of Francis Viscount Lovel, who had been one of Richard III’s closest advisers. He had been brought up with Richard in the household of the Earl of Warwick and they were friends for many years.²²

His views on English affairs would have had a considerable influence upon both Margaret and Maximilian and he may well have persuaded them that the Stafford rising, in itself of no great import, nevertheless showed that there was widespread English opposition to Henry. An opposition moreover which could count on the support of highly placed and influential men, like Sir Thomas Broughton who had sheltered him in Lancashire and John Sant, the Abbot of Abingdon, who had helped the Stafford brothers back into sanctuary at Culham. John Sant was already known at the Burgundian court and by Margaret in particular. She had written to the ducal chamberlain requesting safe conduct for the Abbot when, in October 1474, he was making his way through the Low Countries to Rome and Naples on a mission for Edward IV.

By the time of Lovel’s arrival, Maximilian had regained his authority within Burgundy and he had also secured his imperial succession, having been elected as co-ruler with his father the Emperor at the Diet of Frankfurt in 1486. He still faced considerable demands on his energies both within Burgundy and from Germany. Moreover, in spite of the treaty of Arras, the war with France had continued as Maximilian tried to recover the lost lands, and the regency government in France retaliated by attacks in Hainault and southern Flanders. Since Maximilian could not regard the new King of England as a friend, he feared an Anglo-French alliance against him. It was therefore in his best interests to ‘keep the bit in the mouth of the King of England’.²³ Margaret surely reminded him of the triumph of 1471 when Burgundy had assisted Edward IV back to his throne. The Archduke was willing to encourage a Yorkist conspiracy merely in the hope of preventing any English support for France. If the plot was successful and a new pro-Burgundian candidate became King of England, so much the better.

The origins of the Simnel affair are very elusive but in one matter at least the evidence is clear: Margaret was, by 1486, openly backing the restoration of a Yorkist king and her candidate claimed to be the Earl of Warwick. Since the death of Richard III, Edward, Earl of Warwick, had been kept at the Tower and there were few people able to recognise this boy who had lived in relative obscurity since the death of the Duke of Clarence, his father. One of the few who may have known him well was his cousin John, Earl of Lincoln, ‘a man of great wit and courage’ who was sixteen years older than Edward and had spent some time with him at the castle of Sheriff Hutton.²⁴ Immediately after the accession of Henry VII Lincoln was in favour at court. At the time of the Lovel and Stafford risings Lincoln was closely under the watchful eye of the King, although he was later accused of helping the rebels. It was then, in the early summer of 1486, that rumours began to circulate claiming that Edward, Earl of Warwick, had escaped from the Tower and was at liberty in the Channel Islands. In July of the same year however, Lincoln was still an honoured member of the Tudor court attending the baptism of the new heir Prince Arthur. The christening was a great celebration of the union between the Houses of Lancaster and York. The last Yorkist Queen, Elizabeth Woodville, was the chief godmother, and as she carried her grandson to the font it seemed that Henry had succeeded in reconciling the English Yorkists to his accession.²⁵ Yet within four months of this ceremony, suspicion and rebellion were surfacing even at court.

By November there were rumours that Warwick was in Ireland, where the King’s own representative, the Earl of Kildare, had given him his enthusiastic encouragement. There was widespread support for Warwick in Ireland where there was a long tradition of lieutenant generals from the House of York and Mortimer. Furthermore, Warwick’s father, the Duke of Clarence, had been born in Dublin during his father’s period of office. The news from Ireland worried Henry, who summoned a royal council to assemble early in 1487 and he had the young Earl of Warwick brought out of the Tower and paraded through the streets of London to a public service at St Paul’s.²⁶

At the Convocation of February 1487, a priest called William Simmonds admitted taking a boy called Lambert Simnel to Ireland and presenting him to the Irish as the Earl of Warwick. Concurrent with these revelations in Convocation came action at court, which suggested that Henry was becoming suspicious of a full-scale Yorkist plot. The Queen Dowager was deprived of her property while her son the Marquess of Dorset was imprisoned. Since both of them were subsequently restored to favour it may have been no more than an attack of nervousness on Henry’s part, and the temporary retirement of the Queen Dowager to Bermondsey Abbey may have been totally unrelated to the conspiracy. Elizabeth Woodville may well have complained too loudly at the failure of Henry to hold the long postponed coronation of her daughter the Queen. The lack of ceremonial recognition for the Yorkist Queen, through whom Henry had his best claim to the throne, had given rise to widespread complaints. It is significant that as soon as the Simnel rising was crushed Elizabeth was crowned, in November 1487.

Even if the troubles between Henry and the Woodvilles were of only temporary importance, events were taking place which indicated serious intrigue at court. The dramatic flight of John Earl of Lincoln, which took place shortly after the parading of Warwick in London, caused widespread alarm in Tudor circles. His arrival in the Low Countries gave added impetus to the Yorkist activity there. At a later trial it was claimed that John Sant had sent one of his servants abroad as early as January 1487 with funds to supply the Earl of Lincoln.²⁷ This would suggest that even before Lincoln left London, preparations and contacts between the Yorkists in England and in the Low Countries were well underway.

By the Easter of 1487 the Simnel rebellion was taking full shape with the recruitment of an army of between 1,500 and 2,000 men, which was to spearhead the invasion of England in support of the Yorkist Pretender. These troops were described as landknechts,a well-trained and professional infantry which were a particular feature of the imperial armies. Maximilian issued several ordinances concerning their discipline and employment and he used them to good effect in his wars against France and his Flemish rebels. As a fighting man, Maximilian was notably more competent and more cautious than the late Duke Charles. At the battle of Guinegatte he had not hesitated to dismount and fight on foot, protected by a solid phalanx of his landknechts.²⁸ A force of this type could not have been assembled without his full support, nor would Martin Schwartz, their captain, have ventured forth upon an invasion of England without the agreement of Maximilian, his former pay-master.

Variously described as a German, a Fleming and a Dutchman, Schwartz was a renowned mercenary captain who had been particularly prominent in crushing the rebels in the Low Countries. In 1485 he had fought at the assaults on Alost and Nineveh where with his Swiss and German troops he had crushed the rebels, storming, looting and burning the cities and killing their inhabitants. He was with Maximilian when Ghent surrendered, and it was the fear that Schwartz and his men might be let loose to pillage the city that led to Margaret’s appeal for clemency.²⁹ Margaret’s recruitment of these men for a mission abroad was surely welcomed by the people of Flanders and Brabant, who were pleased to see the back of these rapacious mercenaries, well-known for their mutinous behaviour when their pay was overdue.

It is likely that the Dowager’s court at Malines was involved in a conspiracy long before the beginning of 1487 when the recruitment to Schwartz’ army began. The red-letter day in the Malines calendar was 1 July, the ommegang or feast day of their patron saint, St Rombout. St Rombout’s procession was one of the most important festivals in Brabant and visitors came from all over the Low Countries to join in the celebrations. If she was in the town on that day, the Dowager and the Archducal household always participated fully in the ommegang, and brought their guests with them to enjoy the festivities. Gifts of money and wine were offered to Margaret, to her guests and to her officials, such as Olivier de La Marche. Each year two pages of the city records were devoted to enumerating the gifts donated to important visitors and all the other expenses incurred by the festival.

In the records for St Rombout’s day of 1486 there is one donation which catches the eye: a gift of eight flagons of wine to the ‘sone van Claretie uit Ingelant’ (the son of Clarence from England).³⁰ The clerk seems to be referring to the Earl of Warwick, but whoever could this be? Was it possible that the real Warwick had indeed escaped from the Tower and had been brought through the Channel Islands to Malines, from whence he was later to make his way to Ireland?

This hardly seems plausible since, if the real Warwick had reached the Low Countries, there would be other references to his presence there, though chroniclers, like Molinet, may have found it diplomatically expedient to erase any mention of such an embarrassing guest after the failure at Stoke. The appearance of a ‘Warwick’ in London, in February 1487, may have been a reaction to rumours that a ‘Warwick’ had been seen in the Low Countries. If this son of Clarence was not the real Warwick, was it his counterfeit, Lambert Simnel, already in the Low Countries to be trained by the Dowager herself? Both Henry and André emphasised Margaret’s close involvement in the conspiracy from its very beginning.³¹

Maximilian’s cautious approach may explain both the lack of reports on the Pretender’s presence and the long delay between July 1486 and the start of the invasion nine months later. If it was indeed Simnel at Malines in 1486, then Margaret’s involvement in this conspiracy had begun very early indeed.

Or was the truth even more extraordinary? Among the English exiles who reached the Low Countries after Bosworth was Sir Edward Brampton. Brampton was a converted Jew from Portugal, a merchant who had worked for both Edward IV and Richard III.³²He would eventually prove himself a 1oyal servant to Henry VII as well. According to Warbeck’s confession of 1497, Brampton stayed in Flanders until 1487 when he returned to Portugal taking Warbeck with him as a young assistant. Warbeck also claimed that he had begun his career by masquerading as Edward, Earl of Warwick. Is it possible that there were two pretenders available in 1486, one in Malines and one in Ireland, both claiming to be the Earl of Warwick and that it was eventually decided to back the Irish pretender and to send the other away?

The reality may of course be rather less interesting. The clerk writing up the records may have simply made a mistake or perhaps some degree of fraudulent entry was going on, though ‘the son of Clarence’ would be a strange name to choose for a bogus entry. What it does indicate is that the cause of the ‘son of Clarence’ was known in Malines as early as July 1486 and that the city corporation, ever willing to keep in favour with their Dowager, made him a present of wine. If nothing else it dates Margaret’s interest in a Yorkist Pretender firmly to the summer of 1486.

Further evidence of her involvement lies in the same yearbook with the record that between early 1486 and early 1487 Malines gave the dowager 750 livres for her reyse to England.³³ A reyse may be translated as a journey or a venture. Was Margaret already collecting funds to pay for the mercenary army? The Dowager could easily raise money for an expedition, in addition to extra gifts like this from Malines, she had her dower income and the money from the sale of the Malines house. All that was needed to get the expedition underway was a sign from England that there would be enough support there and the assent of Maximilian. The sign from England came with the flight of the Earl of Lincoln and Maximilian must have given his assent early in 1487.

By April of 1487, the expeditionary force was ready to set sail from the Low Countries and Henry VII, whose military intelligence was always very good, was expecting an invasion along the east coast. He moved troops up to East Anglia to intercept a landing. After spending Easter at Norwich, he went on a pilgrimage to Walsingham taking with him the Earl of Lincoln’s father, the Duke of Suffolk. By 4 May he knew that the invading army had left Flanders and was making its way westwards to Ireland. As soon as Lincoln, Lovel and Schwartz arrived in Dublin, Lambert Simnel was crowned King Edward VI, in Christ Church Cathedral. No doubt the pious Margaret was delighted to hear that her protégé had been sanctified by ‘two archbishops and twelve bishops’.³⁴

Yet her true opinion of this first Pretender is far from clear. It was a curious conspiracy and nothing remains more strange than the motives and intentions of John Earl of Lincoln. It seems that he was supporting an impostor with the intention of putting either the real Warwick or himself on the throne. To what extent was Margaret a party to this subterfuge? After Simnel’s exposure, the Dowager made no known efforts on his behalf as she later did for Warbeck, but then Simnel’s life was never in danger. Moreover in the Antwerp protocols which she later agreed with Warbeck, there is no mention of either the Earl of Warwick or of King Edward VI. The 1487 expenditure is referred to merely as being in support of ‘the Count of Lincoln and lord Lovel’.³⁵ The Great Chronicle of London suggested that the Burgundians were deceived by Lincoln and quoted a letter reported to have been written to the Earl on the eve of the battle of Stoke by Martin Schwartz:

Sir now I see well that ye have dyssayvyd yoursylf & alsoo me, But that not wythstandynd, all such promyse as I made unto my lady the duchess I shall perfform. Exortyng therl to doo the same. And upon this spedd theym toward the ffeeld wt as good a corage as he hadd xx m men more than he had.³⁶

The rebels were certainly deceived over the amount of support they could expect in England. Very few rose to join ‘Edward VI’s’ army after it had landed near Furness on the Lancastrian coast and marched across the northern Pennines and down through the plain of York. The swift arrest of Dorset (the son of Elizabeth Woodville by her first marriage) had deterred many potential rebels and the rapidity with which the King moved north gave no time for waverers to flock to the Yorkist standard. Henry was at Coventry when he heard that the rebels had landed and were on the way south. He lost no time in cutting them off near the village of East Stoke on 16 June, only a dozen days after their landing in England.

At the hard-fought battle of Stoke, which lasted for more than three hours, Martin Schwartz and most of his landknechts were killed together with John Earl of Lincoln and Thomas Fitzgerald, the brother of Kildare, as well as hundreds of the ill-clad and ill-equipped Irish troops who made up the bulk of the army. Many were drowned as they tried to escape across the Trent. Lovel vanished from history if not from legend, and the ten-year-old Edward VI now known as King Lambert was arrested, exposed as a craftsman’s son from Oxford and contemptuously placed in the royal kitchens.³⁷

For the Yorkists, the battle of Stoke was almost worse than Bosworth. The ignominy of accepting a mere artisan as a Prince of the House of York ran against the whole spirit of the age and did nothing to help and everything to hamper future claimants. Henry would ensure that any new pretenders were immediately identified with this impostor, whom he kept alive as an excellent example of the gullibility of the conspirators.

The consequences for the members of the House of York in England were not very noticeable. The Suffolk family were hardly affected by the treason of their eldest son and his brother Edmund was allowed to inherit some of his titles and lands. The Duchess of Suffolk still took a prominent place at her niece’s coronation, though when the Duke of Suffolk died in 1491, it was said that he had never recovered from the death of his eldest son, John Earl of Lincoln. Edward, Earl of Warwick, simply remained in the Tower as a useful exhibit.

For Burgundy the outcome was interesting. Although a few Flemish merchants were attacked in London, Henry was careful not to point the finger of blame at either Margaret or Maximilian. It was not until several years later when the Warbeck conspiracy began to threaten his security that Henry named Margaret as responsible for the Simnel affair. In 1487, it seemed that he had learned the lesson that Maximilian had been anxious to teach him and in December negotiations began for renewing the commercial and friendship treaties between England and Burgundy. These were signed in January 1488. Four months later ambassadors from Burgundy were again at Windsor and Maximilian was hopeful of obtaining English help against his own rebellious subjects. As the Low Countries erupted once more into violence, Maximilian needed English cooperation.³⁸

The failure of Margaret to feature in any of the conspiracies against Henry VII, which took place between the spring of 1487 and the autumn of 1492, gives the lie to the Tudor theory that her whole life was focused on her vendetta with the English usurper. She was, once more, much too preoccupied with events in Burgundy to give much attention to England. And events in the Low Countries were certainly dramatic. Maximilian was again confronted by a major revolt in Flanders, while 1487 had been an extraordinary year for the ducal family. Following the coronation of Maximilian as the King of the Romans in February, the Emperor arranged his long awaited visit to the Low Countries. In July, Malines was en fête for his visit and, with his son Maximilian and his grandson Philip, the old Emperor Frederick made state visits to several of the cities of Brabant. Their arrival in Brussels had, according to Molinet, been likened to a visitation by the Holy Trinity: the Imperial Father, Maximilian the Son and the young Philip as the Holy Ghost.³⁹ The whole ceremony was considered a great triumph.

However the summer campaigns against France did not go well. Although Maximilian captured Therouanne and planned a march on Paris, he was halted by mutinies among his unpaid armies and forced back to Valenciennes. The French struck back, recovering Therouanne, seizing St Omer and defeating the Burgundians near Béthune. These disasters coupled with a dislike of foreign and imperial interference in the affairs of the Low Countries, provoked rebellion in Flanders. There may also have been some anger at the invasion of England which had threatened to jeopardise trade and shipping in the Channel. Once more the rebellion broke out at Ghent where the flames were fanned by Adrien van Liederkerke who had an old score to settle with both Margaret and Maximilian.⁴⁰

The misfortunes of the Humbercourt family had not ended with the execution of 1477. Shortly after the execution of her husband his widow, Antoinette, had arrived at Malines with her family. But within a few months she was abducted by Liederkerke and one of his allies while she was on her way to visit the shrine of Our Lady of Hanswijke. Her captors took her to the castle of Bornhem and she subsequently married Liederkerke, so whether it was an abduction or an elopement it is difficult to say. Both Margaret and Maximilian intervened, instructing the magistrates of Malines to take action, first to secure Antoinette’s release, which they failed to achieve, and secondly to take over the guardianship of her children and her property, which had been handed to the parents of Adrien van Liederkerke. This was rather more successful and the children and their lands were put under the guardianship of a group of eminent courtiers including the Count of Chimay.

Liederkerke considered himself robbed of his wife’s property and took his opportunity in 1487 to join with his cousin, the Lord of Rosseghem, who had led the revolt against Maximilian in 1485. They stirred up rebellion in Ghent and ducal officials were arrested and murdered. The rebels summoned the Flemish Estates to assemble but, while the delegates hesitated, Maximilian called the Estates to come to Bruges instead. Bringing his army with him, led by the old enemy of Flanders the Lord of Gaasbeek, Maximilian moved towards Bruges intending to use the Estates and his army to crush Ghent and its supporters. During October, Margaret took the young Philip on visits to her loyal cities of Mons and Binche before returning to the safety of Malines to spend Christmas. In December the Estates met at Bruges. The town and the countryside around were full of armed men and the rebels at Ghent feared a full scale attack by Maximilian, but the Archduke’s plan to divide Ghent and Bruges failed, and Bruges refused to allow Maximilian to bring his army into the city.

The King of France, Charles VIII, intervened confirming all Ghent’s privileges, including the restoration of the city mint which had been transferred to Bruges. He claimed to be acting in the name of his vassal, Duke Philip, whose powers had been usurped by his father. A month later, Maximilian found himself facing an even more serious situation, trapped in Bruges with his army held outside the walls. On 31 January, in the year that Commynes began to write his Memoires, the best schemes of the late King Louis XI finally came to fruition and the ruler of Burgundy found himself a helpless prisoner in the Cranenberg house on the market square of Bruges.⁴¹

It was not a particularly uncomfortable imprisonment even though it was to last for more than three months. Maximilian was accompanied by his Chancellor, the Abbot of St Bertin and during most of his captivity he was attended by his own personal servants. The city magistrates even hired Gerard David to paint the shutters in his room and the artist’s later works depicting the arrest and torture of the unjust judge were inspired by the scenes he witnessed in the market square below the windows of the Cranenberg. It was very distressing for Maximilian to have to listen impotently for two days as his chief agents in the city, Pierre Lanchals and Mathis Payert, were tortured before being executed. Many old scores were settled and Lanchals had the misfortune to be tried and punished by one of his old enemies and rivals, Coppenole. Maximilian, in fear for his own life, wrote anxiously to his father the Emperor Frederick that his servants were being taken away from him.⁴²

Both the Emperor and the Pope protested against the imprisonment of the King of the Romans, the imperial heir.⁴³ The Emperor sent an embassy to deal directly with the rebels and threatened to follow this up with an army if his son was not released. Margaret acted calmly and firmly, protecting the young Duke Philip and Malines was put into a strong defensive position in case the Flemish tried to seize him as well. In Philip’s name, the Estates General was summoned to assemble in Malines and in February all the provinces and cities, apart from the three rebel members of Flanders, Ypres, Bruges and Ghent, and their few allies among the nobility, sent representatives there. The Estates appointed a committee headed by Lord Ravenstein to negotiate with the rebels for Maximilian’s release.

By May it was known that an imperial army was on its way, and that its advance guard had reached Oudenaarde. The Pope threatened the citizens of Bruges with excommunication if they did not release their ruler and serious negotiations were underway between the Flemish rebels and the committee of the Estates General. The Flemish agreed to release Maximilian in return for promises from the Archduke to withdraw the German army, to uphold the Great Privilege, to consult the Great Council and the Estates on all matters of war and peace and to take no action to punish the rebellious cites. Maximilian had to furnish hostages as sureties that he would keep the promises. Among those who offered to take Maximilian’s place at Bruges was Lord Ravenstein’s son, Philip of Cleves. A peace treaty was signed and the King of the Romans was released on 16 May. As soon as he was safe, he abjured all the promises he had been forced to make under duress and began to assemble an army at Louvain with which he intended to crush the rebels. This of course put his hostages in a very difficult position. For Philip of Cleves this was the breaking point, he abandoned Maximilian and took up arms with the rebels.

The old guard, which had supported Margaret and Mary in their crisis of 1477, was breaking up. Apart from Philip of Cleves and his father Lord Ravenstein, the Lord of Gruuthuyse had also fallen out with Maximilian over his approach to the problems in Flanders.⁴⁴ In 1485 he had supported the idea of a regency council excluding Maximilian, and in February 1488 he had been arrested and held at Malines together with his two sons. He was later removed to Dendermonde and might have been executed at Vilvoorde if the Order of the Golden Fleece had not intervened on his behalf. During the imprisonment of Maximilian at Bruges, the rebels insisted on Gruuthuyse’s freedom, but he was imprisoned again when Maximilian was released. His detention was short-lived and he spent his last years at Bruges, enjoying the considerable consolations of his fine house and library which had so impressed Edward IV in 1472. Lord Ravenstein died in 1493, Philip of Cleves inherited his father’s title and was finally reconciled to Maximilian. Margaret must have regretted the loss of all her old advisers but nothing seemed to shake her determination to stand by Maximilian.

Throughout the summer of 1488 the civil war continued, as Maximilian strove to recover cities lost to the rebels and to avenge the indignities he had endured. He turned to England to help him in his struggle and the alliance between Henry and Maximilian was cemented by the events in France. Due to the Anglo-Burgundian entente, which lasted with minor interruptions from 1488 to 1492, there was no support from Burgundy for Yorkist pretenders. The cessation of the conspiracies throughout these four years suggests that it was Maximilian who really controlled the Yorkist activity. When it was no longer in his interests to plague Henry, the plots ceased.

In 1488 Maximilian certainly needed English support and not only against his own rebels. In the duchy of Brittany the death of Duke Francis II in September resulted in a major international crisis over the succession. Like Duke Charles, Francis left an heiress Anne, and the King of France claimed the right to take over the duchy in default of a male heir. The Bretons appealed both to Henry VII and Maximilian in their efforts to preserve their independence. A major European alliance against France gradually came into being, including Brittany, Burgundy, England and Spain.

It was, however, the English who took the most active role in Brittany. In April 1489, Henry sent over a well-equipped force of about 5,000 men to assist the young Duchess. He also supplied troops to fight beside Maximilian, against his Flemish rebels because they were aided by their allies, the French. Two thousand English archers and 1,000 pikemen marched from Calais and proved themselves very useful at the battle of Dixmude in June.⁴⁵ After the battle, when they heard that Lord Morley, their commander, had been killed in the assault, the English army disgraced itself by slaughtering all their prisoners. Molinet was very shocked by this and considered that it was only the strong discipline of the German troops which had saved the town of Dixmude from total destruction. In spite of some obvious ill feeling between the English and their Burgundian allies, this was one of the few periods during Maximilian’s regency when the old Anglo-Burgundian alliance really operated.

The success at Dixmude marked the end of rebel strength and in October 1489 another peace treaty was signed between Flanders and Maximilian, although pockets of rebels still resisted pacification. Reparations were made to Maximilian and Margaret for all their losses in the wars, with Margaret receiving 21,000 livres for the damage done to her property.⁴⁶ Even after this the rebellions in the Low Countries did not cease, and although Maximilian was able to negotiate treaties with France at Frankfurt and at Montils-lez-Tours in the summer of 1489, these did not settle all the problems. However there was a lull in the fighting and some of the damage caused by the wars could be repaired. Margaret’s dower properties in French hands were once more restored to her. In 1490 therefore, Margaret was able to send money to Brielle in order to help that city to rebuild its defences which had been destroyed by a rebel attack led by Frank van Borselem and Jan van Naaltwyck.

By October 1489, Maximilian was once more fully accepted as Regent and he turned again to the English alliance which he hoped would help him to reverse the treaty of Arras and keep France out of Brittany. Henry and Maximilian renewed their treaties and during Christmas of 1490, as a sign of their new friendship, Maximilian was invested with the Order of the Garter at Neustadt.⁴⁷ In an effort to promote his interests in Brittany he decided to marry the young Duchess Anne and sent his friend Wolfgang, Lord von Pelhain, to act as his proxy. But few of the troops which he had promised for the defence of his bride arrived in the duchy, and when the French King Charles VIII began a systematic invasion of Brittany there was little that either Maximilian or his English ally could do. Charles VIII conquered the residue of the Breton army and arrived before Anne with a papal dispensation to permit his own marriage to the Duchess. With no other choice left to her, Anne ignored her own previous proxy marriage to Maximilian and also Charles’ long betrothal to Margaret of Austria. Maximilian thus lost both a wife and a son-in-law, but he at least had the satisfaction of seeing destruction of the treaty of Arras, which had been based on the marriage of his daughter to King Charles.

Henry VII proved himself more determined than Maximilian and even after the marriage of Charles to Anne was known, he prepared for an invasion of France. He crossed the Channel at the head of his army and laid siege to Boulogne in October 1492. Like Edward IV before him, he was soon opening negotiations with France, and Charles VIII was only too willing to renew the payments due under the old treaty of Picquigny, promising to cover all the arrears and Henry’s expenses for having to come in person to collect his danegeld. The peace of Étaples was signed on 3 November 1492 and Maximilian, like Duke Charles before him, was said to be furious at the perfidy of Albion. But in fact Maximilian had gained much from the English intervention. The English fleet had helped in the conquest of the last rebel strong point at Sluis, held by Lord Ravenstein. The rebels finally gave up the struggle and Maximilian was able to achieve peace and the final submission of Ghent at the Treaty of Cadsand in July 1492. Moreover, his son Philip was now almost old enough to rule in his own right. In 1491, when he was thirteen, he had become a Knight of the Golden Fleece and he was beginning to play a larger part in the government of the duchy.

The treaty of Senlis, negotiated between Charles VIII and Maximilian in May 1493, resulted in the return of Margaret of Austria together with her dowry of Artois and Franche Comté.⁴⁸ Thus although the Duchy of Burgundy and Picardy were now lost for ever, Maximilian had at least salvaged a large part of his son’s inheritance. Margaret also benefited from the settlement. All her dower properties were restored to her, with reparation payments for her loss of income during the many years of war. But perhaps her chief delight was in the return of Margaret of Austria to the Low Countries. Margaret was now thirteen years old and had been well educated under the wise guidance of Anne de Beaujeu. She joined the court at Malines and was in close contact with the Dowager during the next few years. Margaret once more had the pleasure of the companionship of a young girl, just as she had had with the child’s mother a quarter of a century earlier.

In March 1494, when Philip came of age, Margaret must have felt that her promises to Mary had been fulfilled. The young Duke of Burgundy had inherited most of his mother’s possessions. The new ducal council reflected Margaret’s influence, manned as it was by families who had long years of service to the ducal family, such as the Chancellor Carondelet who had worked with Hugonet and the president of the council who was Engelbert, Count of Nassau.⁴⁹ As Philip toured the Low Countries attending his inaugural celebrations, Margaret had a special pleasure for beside the young Duke rode her latest protégé, Richard of York, the new Yorkist Pretender. He claimed to be none other than the second son of Edward IV, born in August 1473, and miraculously rescued from death in the Tower.⁵⁰

Even during the years of accord with Burgundy, English opposition to Henry Tudor continued. After the northern rebellion of spring 1489, Sir John Egremont fled to the Low Countries. There was a continual undercurrent of conspiracy which gave rise to the suspicion that, in spite of the Anglo-Burgundian amity, Margaret was still at the centre of a great web of treachery. The Dowager was known to be well skilled at keeping in touch with those who might be useful to her. She had proven her ability in 1470-71 when she had regularly sent messages to her rebellious brother Clarence when he was in both France and England. She had renewed her various contacts in England at the time of her visit in 1480, and during the reigns of Edward V and Richard III her agent and chaplain visited the country.⁵¹ Even after the accession of Henry VII, there was no reason why her messengers should have ceased to move between England and Flanders. She still had close family there, notably her mother the old Duchess Cecily, who was regarded with favour by King Henry. Cecily was not only the Queen’s grandmother, she was also related to Margaret Beaufort, Henry’s mother, hence Edward Hall’s description of Cecily as ‘a woman of small stature but of moche honour and high parentage’.⁵²In spite of her ‘moche honour’ Henry’s agents seem to have kept a close eye on the activities of her servants and officials.

In Cecily’s will, which was proved in August 1495, her executor was Master Richard Lessey, the Dean of her chapel.⁵³ The old Dowager Duchess of York left Lessey money to help him to ‘bere the charges which he has to pay to the Kinges grace,’ probably for his involvement in a Yorkist conspiracy. With the legacy went an appeal to the King to forgive the debt. Other beneficiaries from the will were Richard’s wife, Jane Lessey, Richard Boyvile and his wife Gresild. Each of these three received very generous bequests of clothing, jewelry and plate as well as a carriage, horses and harness. The Boyviles had been in the service of the Duchess of York for many years and also had close contacts with Margaret. In 1468 Richard Boyvile had accompanied her to Bruges, bringing over hackneys suitable for her use. Later he and his wife were in attendance on the Dowager when she visited England in 1480. They were rewarded by Edward IV for their service to her.⁵⁴ It is not too far fetched to guess that both Lessey and Boyvile may have acted as agents, organising messengers which passed between the old Duchess of York and her youngest surviving daughter, Margaret.

There were other points of contact through whom Margaret was able to keep in touch with opinion in England. In the various treason trials of Henry VII’s reign, many persons were accused of making contact with the pretenders and exiles in the Low Countries.⁵⁵ Among those suspected of Yorkist sympathies were many clerics, including John Sant, Abbot of Abingdon, William Richeford, English Provincial of the Dominicans, William Worsley, Dean of St Paul’s and Dr Heusse, Archdeacon of London. According to the testimony of Bernard de Vignôlles, Warbeck had been helped in Kent and in Ireland by the Irish Provincial of the Order of St John and Guillemin de Noion and Daniel Beauvuire were named as messengers between English clerics and the Yorkists in Malines. It was, of course, customary for clerics to travel frequently across the Channel and it is perhaps for this reason alone that so many of them attracted the attention of Henry’s investigators, but the role of the clergy in the plots against Henry VII merits an investigation. Was the famous piety of Cecily and her daughter Margaret more than a mere ‘merchandising with God’?⁵⁶ Is it possible that there was a real sympathy for the Yorkist cause among some of the clergy? Certainly Cecily, Richard III and Margaret were notably generous and dutiful towards the Church.

There were also many laymen accused of being a part of this Anglo- Burgundian web. They included a number from Ireland who had been involved in the Simnel conspiracy and, like John Waters, were also responsible for introducing Warbeck into that country.⁵⁷ Within England there were known Yorkist sympathisers such as Edward Franks, the ex-sheriff of Oxfordshire and Berkshire, who had been arrested for his part in the Simnel rebellion though he was not executed until 1490, when he was accused of trying to arrange the escape of the Earl of Warwick. The most dangerous group of these sympathisers were highly placed men at court who, probably only as a sort of insurance policy, were resolved to keep in touch with the ‘princes over the water’. Prominent among these was Sir William Stanley, executed in 1495 for his contacts with Warbeck and the rebels in Burgundy.⁵⁸ For these great men, the support of Maximilian for the Yorkist pretenders was more important than the support of Margaret. This was made clear in the Milanese ambassador’s reports of the conversations between Maximilian and Lord Clifford, who had been sent to the Low Countries by Stanley. Clifford was clearly trying to gauge the extent of Maximilian’s commitment to the Yorkist cause.⁵⁹

There was also a host of lesser men in England, like Edward Cryer, a hat-maker from Northampton and Henry Mountford, an armourer from Warwick, who had all sorts of lost reasons for putting their trust and hopes on a Yorkist restoration. Some like William Asham, who was tried for his involvement with Warbeck in 1496, had been in attendance on Margaret in 1480. Dichefield, the Governor of Guernsey at the time Warbeck was supposed to have been there in 1486, was commissioned by Margaret to take archers across to Maximilian in 1480. Many men would be stirred by old loyalties and they would be encouraged in their hopes by their knowledge that the rich and powerful Dowager of Burgundy supported their cause.

Although there is no known evidence that the Dowager or her servants had direct contact with these Yorkists in England, Margaret was involved in diplomatic contacts with both Ireland and Scotland during the five years of Anglo-Burgundian harmony. In January 1490, the King of Scotland paid for a herald who travelled between Ireland and Malines and Margaret’s envoys were at the Scottish court in November 1488.⁶⁰ Was this the beginning of the Warbeck plot? Warbeck later claimed in his confession that he had begun his service with Pregent Meno in 1487 and it was he who had taken him to Ireland. Was Margaret aware of her protégé’s movements as early as this, and was she already preparing the way for him?

Both André and Polydore Vergil suggested that Margaret had originally found and trained the young man herself and André’s source for his assertion may well have been King Henry.⁶¹ Brampton’s presence in the Low Countries and the reference to the son of Clarence in the St Rombout’s day accounts may be some evidence in their favour, but the matter still largely depends on the veracity of Warbeck’s confession. While there are some signs that Margaret was informed of the Pretender’s existence when he was in Ireland, there is nothing to substantiate claims that she had created him.

If she did have such early knowledge of the Pretender, her abstinence from any overt efforts on his behalf, between 1487 and 1492, merely reinforces the argument that her policies were never independent from those of Maximilian. While Maximilian and Henry were in such a close alliance, Margaret did not advertise her Yorkist sympathies, and thus it was at the court of France, the enemy of both Burgundy and England, that the career of Richard of York had begun. The new Pretender who had, like Simnel, surfaced in Ireland, was invited to the French court by Charles VIII where he was given all the honours due to a Prince of England. His bodyguard was under the command of the Lord of Concressault and Yorkist sympathisers hastened to join him, one of whom was Sir George.⁶² Richard was soon in use as a tool of French diplomacy, writing to the King of Scotland to ask him to invade England in alliance with France.⁶³ This was the start of a long diplomatic career for the Pretender, who was to pen his appeals to many of the crowned heads of Europe.

However his stay at the French court was cut short. Before the year was out Henry and Charles had settled their differences at the treaty of Étaples in which Charles promised not to assist Henry’s enemies. In spite of this treaty, Charles did not surrender the young man to Henry and in December the Pretender Richard was allowed to leave Paris and make his way to the Low Countries, where he could count on a warm welcome. Maximilian was displeased by the new Anglo-French accord and by the failure of his own and his daughter’s marriages. Margaret was therefore permitted to give her full recognition to her nephew, and he was received as a prince of the royal blood at the ducal court where he became a close companion of the young Duke Philip.

Margaret had last seen her nephew during her visit to England in 1480, when he was seven years old. Now, twelve years later, she claimed in her letter to Queen Isabella of Spain that she had been able to recognise this Richard as her lost nephew miraculously saved from death.⁶⁴ She went on to explain that she had been told of his existence when he was in Ireland, but had not been able to believe that it was true. She heard of him in France, where he had been recognised by persons who would have known him as well as his own mother. This may be a reference to Sir George Neville who was at the court of King Edward IV. ‘His own mother’, Elizabeth Woodville, died in June 1492 when her Richard was at the French court. The only known picture of this Richard which has survived is a drawing in the museum at Arras,⁶⁵ which shows a gentle and aristocratic young man with a slight irregularity about the eyes. This impression of him is supported by the description from the Venetian ambassador, who wrote in 1497 that he ‘was not handsome, indeed his left eye rather lacks lustre but he is intelligent and well spoken’.

If Richard was to have any credibility he must have the full support of Margaret, the only member of the House of York beyond Henry’s influence. Margaret’s support seems to have been very sincere, surviving even his capture and confession. It is difficult to understand why she continued to make such an effort on his behalf if she knew all along that he was a fraud. Even Edward Hall and Polydore Vergil allowed that Margaret was convinced that her nephew had been found. Virgil wrote that Margaret received ‘Peter [i.e. Peter Warbeck] … as though he had been revived from the dead … so great was her happiness that the pleasure seemed to have disturbed the balance of her mind’.⁶⁶ Hall in his usual vigorous way added that Margaret thought ‘to have gotten God by the foote when she had the Devill by the tail’.⁶⁷

Once more it is Molinet who offers the best insight into the prevailing views of the Burgundian court when he refers to ‘Richard whom it was hoped was the Duke of York’.⁶⁸ After his capture and the confession, however, Molinet named the young man as‘Pierreqin Wezebecque’. It would not have been lost on any of his readers with knowledge of Dutch, that the word ‘weze’ means ‘orphan’.

In 1492 the voyage of Christopher Columbus was one of a series of astonishing ventures, some of which were to bring dramatic changes for the whole of Europe. Yet to most of the people living at the time, the quest of Richard of York must have seemed much more likely to succeed than a westerly voyage to the Indies. The Warbeck conspiracy was a very different matter from the earlier rebellions against Henry VII. It was to menace Henry for almost six years and this Pretender obtained wide recognition from the Kings of Denmark and Scotland and from the Princes of the Empire.

Margaret wrote many letters seeking support for her nephew, but only those to Isabella and the Pope have survived.⁶⁹ Her letter to the Pope was written in 1495 as the preparations for the invasion of England were underway. Her appeal to Isabella dated from two years earlier shortly after the Pretender arrived at Malines, it was also accompanied by a letter from Richard himself.⁷⁰ They both appealed to Isabella as a cousin (i.e. a descendant of John of Gaunt). They begged her to succour ‘this last sprig of her family’ since Margaret, being ‘a lone widow’, could not furnish him with enough aid to enable him to destroy ‘the usurper’, who had committed such an injury on their family.

In his letter to Isabella, Richard gave an account of his early life which was remarkable for its vagueness. He claimed that when he was ‘nearly nine years old’ he had escaped death. His survival was due only to the mercy of the lord who had been sent to kill him and his older brother. He was smuggled abroad with two men to care for him, one of whom had died and eventually the other returned to England leaving him to fend for himself. After wandering in Portugal he eventually arrived in Ireland, where he had been recognised. This was followed by a period in France, before he finally reached Malines where ‘his dearest aunt’ had ‘because of her virtue and humanity’ received and recognised him.

Throughout this letter there are no names of either people or places. This lack may have been due to the need to protect people who were still within England. There is also a strange error with regard to Richard’s age. The real Richard was born in August 1473, and he would therefore have been nearly ten and not nearly nine in 1483 when the little Princes disappeared into the Tower. It is possible that this was merely a clerical error made by the clerk who translated the letter into Latin, as the Latin of both these letters is rather defective. Neither the Dowager nor Richard would have had much competence in that language. The intention may have been to write that he was still ‘only nine years old’ when he had escaped death but it was translated as ‘barely nine’.

These letters from Dendermonde were given little credence at the Spanish court. Isabella did not reply to the Pretender though she wrote to Margaret assuring her that the whole affair was an imposture.⁷¹ The letter from the Pretender was filed in the Spanish offices with the endorsement ‘from Richard who says he is King of England’. The Spanish monarchs reported the whole correspondence to Henry, clearly regarding it as a joke, though Henry Tudor certainly did not.

Nor was the Pretender regarded as a joke in the Low Countries. He received the fullest public support from both Maximilian and Philip, who provided him with an escort of thirty halberdiers dressed in the York livery of mulberry and blue and decorated with white roses. The guard was commanded by Hugh de Melun, a reliable ducal courtier who had fought bravely for Maximilian against Ghent in 1492. Melun was the Governor of Dendermonde and a Knight of the Golden Fleece.⁷² Richard rode beside Philip on his inaugural visits to Louvain and Antwerp. The visit to Antwerp took place in October 1494 and was made an occasion for Yorkist propaganda in the full view of all the English merchants who were present in the city.⁷³ The two young men doubtless enjoyed the pageants and tableaux which had been organised to entertain them, including the three naked women who posed as the three graces for the ‘pleasure of the people’ as Molinet neatly put it. The Duke of York was attended by his own bodyguard and his arms, proclaiming him as the Prince of Wales, were mounted on the house of the English Merchant Adventurers. This brought protests from the English merchants and led to fighting in the streets between the merchants’ men and the Pretender’s bodyguard.

It was certainly not only ‘for the duchess’ sake’ that ‘all the Flemings exalted Richard’.⁷⁴ Both Maximilian and Philip gave him every encouragement and there were even rumours that he would be allowed to marry Margaret of Austria. A medal was struck in his honour, on the reverse of which appeared God’s warning to the tyrant Balthazar, a threat to the Tudor King. Nor was this exaltation restricted to the Low Countries. In November 1493 the Pretender was given great prominence at the funeral of Emperor Frederick III in Vienna. There he was recognised as a Prince of the House of York by all the Princes and Bishops of the Empire. Here was a young man who could ride beside the Emperor-Elect Maximilian and dine with princes and who was apparently accepted by them all as the rightful heir to the English crown. This was a very serious threat to the new Tudor dynasty.

All this exaltation of the Pretender should, however, be viewed within its European context. The years 1492 to 1496 were a period of diplomatic turmoil in western Europe. Freed from the menace of an Anglo-Burgundian alliance and secure in Brittany, the French King Charles VIII was now free to strike out in a new direction. In 1494 he embarked on an invasion of Italy. This dramatic development sent the heralds of all the Italian duchies, the Papacy, the Spanish monarchies, Germany and Burgundy rushing to and fro seeking new alliances against France. These diplomatic overtures resulted in the creation of the Holy League. The support of England was important to both sides, and while Spain tried to draw England in through marriage alliances, Maximilian resorted to his old method, so successful in 1487. Either Henry should be forced into an alliance or he would be replaced by a new Yorkist king bound in friendship to the Emperor. It is significant that the Antwerp protocols between Margaret and Richard, the deposition of Richard’s inheritance to Philip and Maximilian and Margaret’s letter to the Pope, all date from late 1494 to early 1495, at the height of this diplomatic activity.⁷⁵

Henry Tudor had a more myopic view of the European scene. He was not going to commit himself to any alliance against France while he was being threatened by a Pretender and he urged the rulers of Spain and the Italian duchies to put pressure on Maximilian to abandon his protégé. He also took his own measures to deal with the problem and so did other men in England. Less than six months after the Pretender had arrived in Malines, Sir Robert Clifford and Sir William Barley left England, apparently sent by Sir William Stanley, who wanted to make contact with the Pretender.⁷⁶ Both these men were witnesses to the Antwerp protocols. They later returned to England and were pardoned and even rewarded by the King. It would seem that they were not merely agents for Stanley, but royal agents as well.

Molinet reported that Henry’s spies were sneaking in and out of the Low Countries through Calais and Béthune. They were soon able to name all the English conspirators in Flanders and most of their contacts in England.⁷⁷ As a result of their reports, a series of treason trials took place in 1494 and 1495 ensuring that most of Richard’s supporters had been rounded up long before he attempted a landing.

Henry’s agents were also instructed to discover the origins of the new Pretender and remarkably they were successful. As early as July 1493, Henry had apparently found out who this Richard really was. In a letter to Talbot he named him as Perkin Warbeck, a native of Tournai in Picardy. A year later he had added the information that he was the son of a boatman. Henry also took active measures to forestall a second invasion of England from Ireland. Sir Edward Poynings was despatched to pacify the Irish and he soon had the whole country under control.

Henry also made direct diplomatic approaches to the Archduke Philip (he became Archduke when his father became Emperor). In the summer of 1493 a high powered English embassy arrived in Burgundy with instructions to inform Philip that he was harbouring an impostor.⁷⁸ Poynings and William Warham, who headed the embassy, were very careful not to cast any blame on Philip himself, but they confronted and accused the Dowager. Warham, later to become the Archbishop of Canterbury, told Margaret that she had produced ‘two great babes not as normal but fully grown and long in the womb’, an especially unpleasant remark to be addressed to a barren woman. Not surprisingly ‘these tauntes and jestes did anger and trouble the lady Margaret’.

Molinet records that the English heralds so overstepped the bounds of polite diplomacy that the Archduke threatened them with prison. But, discreet as ever, Molinet limited his description of the encounter to a spirited dialogue between the heralds and the Dowager who objected to the ambassadors’ failure to bow to her nephew. According to the chronicler, one of the English ambassadors offered to take any representative that the Dowager cared to name and to show him the chapel where the real Richard of York was buried. At this point the Pretender intervened to express his amazement at the report of his burial and promised not to forget the herald’s words when he became king.

The prominence of the Dowager at the reception of the English embassy illustrates the ducal advisors’ concern to minimise the official Burgundian responsibility for the activity against Henry. The Archduke even assured the envoys that he was powerless to intervene since the Dowager had full authority within her own lands. This was patently untrue since in all the dower settlements the full sovereignty of the duchy of Burgundy was preserved.⁷⁹ Henry recognised the naivety of the Archduke’s excuse and responded with vigour. He unleashed an economic war against Burgundy. From 1493 to 1496 there were mutual trade boycotts, English merchants were encouraged to leave Antwerp for Calais and in consequence, the pressure on Philip to abandon the Pretender grew rapidly among both the merchant community and the ducal councillors. There were no attacks on the Dowager but rather complaints against Maximilian, who was still suspected of influencing his son’s policies.

In spite of the growing economic distress, the Archduke continued to support schemes for a Yorkist invasion of England. A mercenary army of about 1,500 men was collected under the leadership of Roderigue de Lalaing, the bastard son of a famous Hainault family well-known to Margaret ever since Simon de Lalaing had welcomed Margaret to Sluis in 1468. Like Martin Schwartz, Roderigue de Lalaing was one of Maximilian’s trusted captains. He had distinguish himself at the battle of Utrecht⁸⁰ but, unlike Schwartz, he came from the ranks of the Burgundian aristocracy. He had taken part in the tournament which celebrated Philip’s entry into the Order of the Golden Fleece. Also unlike Schwartz, he would survive his Yorkist adventure, later fighting for another of Maximilian’s allies, the Sforza Duke of Milan and he would have dealings with Maximilian’s later Yorkist protégés. Once more it is evident that Maximilian was backing the venture.

If Maximilian and Philip provided the facilities for collecting together the necessary men and ships, the Dowager again acted as banker. Margaret at this time had received the full restoration, with reparations, of all her lands which had been seized during the ‘Great Rebellion’. Her French dower had been returned to her and in addition, Maximilian made over some of the revenues and lordships confiscated from those who had supported Bruges and Ghent.⁸¹ In these circumstances she would have had little problem in raising the funds for the modest expeditionary force.

A series of contracts were drawn up at Antwerp by the lawyer Adrien van der Blickt and witnessed by Clifford and Barley. These record the arrangements for a loan between Margaret and her nephew.⁸² There were six protocols in all, signed between 10 and 23 December 1494. They settled all the matters still outstanding between the Dowager and the crown of England. When Richard became King he would pay over to his ‘very dear and very beloved aunt Margarete of England’ the 81,666 crowns still owing on her dowry. He would repay all the expenses Margaret had incurred on behalf of Lovel and Lincoln, as well as the 8,000 crowns she had lent him for his own venture. In addition he would restore her English licences and give her the manor of Hunsdon and the town and castle of Scarborough.

Even while these articles were being signed and sealed at Antwerp, the Archduke Philip was coming under increasing pressure to abandon the policies which were so injurious to Burgundian trade. There was a crescendo of protest from the mercantile community especially in Flanders, Brabant and Holland. As early as February 1495 the ducal council was urging Philip to withdraw his support from the English Pretender and to make a new economic treaty with Henry.

Henry was using his negotiations with the Holy League to exert diplomatic pressure on Maximilian. Both Venice and Spain advised Maximilian to abandon the Pretender in order to bring Henry into the alliance against France. But the Emperor, as Maximilian now was, boasted to the Venetian ambassador that he had ‘his kinsman Richard of York in his pocket’ and that when Richard was made the King of England he could be counted on to invade France in support of the League.⁸³ The Emperor was quite open in his support of his Richard. He even delayed an imperial diet because he was too busy organising the invasion of England and after the expedition had left Vlissingen, he remained in close contact with the venture. It was surely Margaret who kept him well informed. News was sent on from Malines to Worms in July 1495 to assure the Emperor that all was going well. Maximilian appeared to be supremely confident of Richard’s success.

Henry Tudor avoided confronting either Maximilian or Philip. He allocated the blame firmly to Margaret who was, he claimed, leading both Maximilian and Philip astray in the support of yet another ‘feigned lad’.⁸⁴ Those within England who had been tempted to believe in the Pretender were arrested, and the trial and execution of Sir William Stanley in February 1495 served as a frightening example to the waverers.⁸⁵ If one so close to the throne could fall for making contact with the rebels then lesser men would draw back. The English agents had done their work well and depositions such as that given by Bernard de Vignôlles from Rouen show how far reaching and comprehensive the royal investigation was. The success of Henry’s preventative measures both in Ireland and England was shown in the total failure of the attempts by the Pretender and his army to make a landing either in Kent or Ireland during the summer of 1495.

By the spring of 1495 a fleet of about fourteen ships stood ready at Vlissingen to embark on the great enterprise. It left Zeeland in late June and attempted a landing at Sandwich in July.⁸⁶ Driven away from there they went on to Deal, where they succeeded in putting some of their force ashore. Henry was away in the north, so the invaders had at least chosen the right place at the right time, but there was no local support and indeed they met vigorous opposition to their landing. According to Molinet, the Yorkist standard was raised in three villages, a very modest claim. Those who had landed were rounded up and taken for trial. About 160 men were taken prisoner, including Dutchmen, Germans and Burgundians. The Spanish ambassador reported that two Spaniards were among them. Margaret had evidently recruited from the international market of mercenaries who thronged the Low Countries. The rest of the expedition took to their ships and sailed off for Ireland. Here again they were disappointed by the lack of support. They besieged Waterford for eleven days, but were finally forced to withdraw with the loss of one of their ships.

Driven from England and Ireland, Richard took refuge in Scotland where he was welcomed at the court of the young King James IV. Correspondence between Malines and Scotland had eased the way for this friendly reception.⁸⁷ King James was almost the same age as the Pretender and like Philip before him he seems to have enjoyed the company of Richard of York, who remained at the Scots court for more than two years. Special taxes were raised to keep him and to provide him with an allowance of £1,200 a year. He was offered a bride of the royal house, the Lady Catherine Gordon, a cousin of the King, and they were married at Stirling Castle. King James was not merely being self-indulgent in his treatment of the Pretender. Intent on recovering Berwick he saw him as a useful weapon in his diplomatic war with England. However he was neither willing nor able to commit a large force to invade England on behalf of his client.

The presence of the Pretender at James’ court made Scotland a target for European diplomacy. Both France and the Holy League wooed the young King, who appeared to relish the attention. The French sent the Lord of Concressault, a French noble of Scottish extraction, who had served the Pretender in France⁸⁸ and Sir George Neville was bribed by both sides to use his influence. King Charles VIII offered to mediate between Henry and James and he tried to purchase the Pretender for a sum of 100,000 crowns. France was not the only country trying to get hold of the young man. The Earl of Buchan and Lord Ramsay also wanted to kidnap him with the intention of selling him to Henry. On Henry’s instructions, Lord Ramsay showed Concressault a paper, supposedly from the French King, claiming that the Pretender was the son of a barber and his parents would soon be sent over to England. Apparently Concressault remained unimpressed.

By 1496 Henry had plenty of identities for the Pretender. Apart from the French barber’s son and the Tournai Warbeck, he had been offered an Iberian identification. Ferdinand of Aragon promised to send:

declarations of many persons who knew him [the Pretender] amongst whom is a Portuguese knight in the name of Ruy De Sosa … he is well acquainted with the whole matter … having been the Portuguese ambassador in England he knew the duke of York very well and had seen him there; two years later he saw this other person in Portugal … and his parents are in Portugal and are our subjects.⁸⁹

The ease with which aliases could be provided must cast some doubts on the complicated alias which Henry eventually provided for the young man.

While Richard remained at the Scottish court, Lalaing returned to Burgundy and came back with a very small reinforcement of ‘twa little ships and 60 alemans’.⁹⁰ This reinforcement may have been Margaret’s last military effort on her nephew’s behalf, although troops described as ‘alemans’ could equally well have come from Germany and thus from Maximilian. The young man was embarrassed by Margaret’s rejection. One of Henry’s spies, James Ramsay, reported Lalaing’s arrival at the Scottish court and the conversation which took place between Lalaing and the Pretender:

then cam Perkin to him and he salut him and askit how his Ant did and he said ‘well’ and he inquirit gyf he had ony letters fra hir ti him and he sad he durst bring nan, bot he had to ye king.

There is also a ring of truth in the speech written by Hall for Warbeck, when he was trying to account to King James for the Dowager’s failure to back him any further:

mine awne aunte the Lady Margaret … which as joyfully receaved and welcommed me as yf I had come out of hell into heaven, the only type and garland of her noble stirpe and linage … but for as muche as she being only dowager … and having nothing but her dowre propre unto herself was not of powre to keep me with men and munimentes of warre.⁹¹

Margaret was indeed no longer able to help her nephew in any way, because as soon as the Yorkist expedition left Zeeland, Philip withdrew his support from the whole venture. The ducal council had succeeded in making the Archduke understand that his security from another Flemish rebellion was dependant upon the rapid termination of the trade war with England. Negotiations began after the failure of Warbeck in Kent and by February 1496 the commercial treaty known as the Intercursus Magnus had been agreed.⁹² This was a comprehensive treaty and restored harmonious trading relations between the two countries. The Burgundians had decided on the abandonment of Warbeck. Margaret was specifically named in the treaty and she was forbidden to help any of Henry’s enemies. Publicly at least, Margaret observed all the terms of the treaty.

The Pretender was forced to seek help elsewhere and it was at this time that he wrote to Spain requesting Bernard de la Forsse, a knight who had served both Edward IV and Richard III, to come to his aid.⁹³ Sir Bernard’s son Anthony, seems to have been in the Pretender’s army and it was hoped that more mercenaries and knights might be brought in from Spain. Signing his letters from ‘yr frend Rychard off England’ in a bold fluent hand very similar to that of his aunt, the Pretender also wrote to the Earl of Desmond and his friends in Ireland. Little came of these efforts and the Pretender’s only real hope was to receive direct military assistance from Scotland.

Shortly after Lalaing’s return from Flanders, a contract was drawn up between the Pretender, with Sir George Neville acting as the chief adviser, and King James.⁹⁴ Richard promised to restore Berwick to Scotland and to repay all the money and aid he had received from Scotland by a subsidy of 50,000 marks payable over two years. With this contract in his coffers, the Scottish King brought his forces to Ellam Bridge to be met by the ‘Duke of York’s men’ assembled under a banner of murray and blue embroidered with a large white rose. An army of 1,400 men from many nations crossed the border on 17 September, but for the Scots this was more of a raid than an invasion. After looting and pillaging along the borders, they withdrew and were back in Scotland within four days. The Pretender no doubt realised that raids from Scotland would do his cause no good in England, and he protested to James at the misery and cruelty inflicted on ‘his people’. This drew the sharp retort from James that he was showing a great deal of consideration for people who would have nothing to do with him and ‘this ridiculous mercy and foolish compassion’ was misplaced.⁹⁵

By the end of 1496 King James was tiring of his attachment to the Pretender. Henry was offering James a good marriage and the Holy League was urging him to abandon Warbeck. However, the young King of Scotland had a strong sense of honour and would not merely reject the Pretender as Charles VIII had done earlier. Moreover there was no longer a haven for Richard at Malines. An opportunity for Scotland to rid itself of Warbeck came in the summer of 1497. There had been a rebellion in Cornwall against Henry’s government and, although it had been put down, the south-west was still seething with discontent. In July the Pretender prepared to try once more to invade England. He still hoped to win support in Ireland so his strategy was unchanged. He would land first in Ireland and after collecting an army, sail on to England to make a landing in the south west. Before he left Scotland, he issued a proclamation declaring his rights and naming Henry as a usurper whose government through ‘caitiffs and villains’ was causing ‘misrule and mischief’ in England. He called on all his subjects to rise to his cause and promised rewards to all those who came out to fight for him. This weak gesture was compounded by the list he issued of all those who had died on his behalf, a list hardly likely to encourage others. Among those named were Sir William Stanley, Humphrey Stafford, Sir Robert Chamberlain and Lord Fitzwalter who had been executed at Calais in 1496.⁹⁶

Early in July the Pretender and his wife left Ayr with a small fleet. King James promised to support him by diversionary raids in the north, but Catherine’s presence on board with her husband suggests that the Scottish King was saying a final farewell to his protégé. Although James did attack at Norham in late August, by the time the Pretender landed in Cornwall negotiations between James and Henry had begun in earnest.

At least one of the ships in the Pretender’s small fleet appears to have come from Burgundy since it had the Dutch name of the Kekeuit (the Kijkuit or Lookout).⁹⁷ Was this a secret gift from Margaret or from Maximilian? If so Margaret was being very discreet. Throughout this final attempt there were no other signs that she was still backing the enterprise. Lalaing does not seem to have been present during Warbeck’s final efforts in Ireland and Cornwall.⁹⁸ He had probably left long before the departure from Scotland, but his contacts with the Yorkist cause did not end in 1497. He was still carrying messages between the Emperor and his Yorkist pretenders as late as 1505, when he was in contact with Edmund, Earl of Suffolk. Although Philip and Margaret had withdrawn their support, Maximilian continued to back this Richard. As late as October 1497, the Emperor assured the Venetian ambassador that Richard could count on an army of 35,000 men and that he would succeed in seizing the throne of England as he marched up from the west.⁹⁹

On 20 July the Pretender’s small fleet arrived at Cork where, through the influence of his old friend and supporter John Waters, he could be sure of a welcome. He was joined there by two more ships, probably from France or Brittany, perhaps a contribution from Charles VIII who was hoping to delay Henry’s participation in the Holy League. After a month spent recruiting a large number of Irish soldiery, the expedition sailed for Cornwall, where they landed on 7 September at Whitsand Bay. Three days later Henry heard that the long expected invasion had begun.¹⁰⁰

About 3,000 men from the south-west came out under the Duke of York’s banners which carried a graphic account of the Pretender’s cause. One depicted a small boy being rescued from a tomb, a second showed the same child escaping from the jaws of a wolf (or was it a wild boar?) and the third displayed the red lion of England. Encouraged by the support he received among the Cornish, the Pretender sent his wife and her ladies to shelter at St Michael’s Mount, declared himself King Richard IV at Bodmin and marched on to take Exeter. But Exeter, led by the Earl of Devonshire, who was within the city with a large army, shut its gates and prepared for a long siege.

After losing about 400 men in the siege, and more still through desertions, and hearing that Henry was heading into Cornwall at the head of a large army, the Pretender lost his nerve and fled. On the night of 20 September he left ‘the pore comons levyng theym amazed and disconsolat’.¹⁰¹ With a small party of close friends such as John Waters he made his way towards the coast, but with Henry’s men in close pursuit they were forced to take sanctuary at Beaulieu Abbey. With promises that their lives would be spared, they were persuaded to surrender and were taken as prisoners to Taunton, where Warbeck made his famous confession. He was then taken on to Exeter where Henry arrived on 7 October. The Lady Catherine was brought from St Michael’s Mount to hear her husband’s confession, and the tearful young woman was taken into the Queen’s household, complaining that she had been seduced by lies. Catherine Gordon was to live on to make three more marriages and is commemorated on the monument of her second husband, Sir Matthew Craddock, at Swansea.¹⁰²

Within five days of the Pretender’s flight from the siege of Exeter, the Milanese ambassador in England had sent on the news of Warbeck’s failure to the Genoese merchants at Bruges, so Margaret was informed of the capture of her nephew within a week of the event. The reaction of Margaret to the failure of ‘perkyn her dere darlyng’ is best left to Edward Hall’s imagination, who claimed that she ‘wept and lamented hys unlucky spede and cursed her infortunate cause’.¹⁰³ It may also be significant that during the summer of that year she was taken ill at Binche.

Warbeck’s confession was widely circulated in London and abroad, and he was paraded before the English people, interviewed by foreign ambassadors and made to repeat his confession on several occasions.¹⁰⁴ He also sent a letter in support of this confession to his mother, one Katherine Warbeque living at ‘Saint Jehan supz L’Eschauld’. In this he described how he had left home to go to Antwerp with ‘Berlo’. He referred to the last letter which he had received from his mother when he was at Middelburg. In this she had told him of the deaths of his brother and sister from the plague. He begged her to reply to his new letter and to send money to help him. Unlike the letter written to Queen Isabella, this one was crammed full of names of people and places. Although the original no longer exists, there are copies at Tournai and Courtrai, which suggests that, like the confession, the letter was widely circulated.

The vast amount of detail in the letter and confession suggests that even if it was not true, then King Henry’s agents were remarkably thorough and had extremely detailed imaginations. The Pretender confessed that he was the son of John Osbeck, or Wezebeque and Katherine de Faro, or Nichase, and had been born at Tournai. He had learned English with an English merchant (who was not named) at Middelburg and Flemish at Antwerp. By 1486 he had become proficient in three languages and was taken into the service of Sir Edward Brampton, who had taken him to Portugal. Brampton was contacted by Henry’s agents in Portugal in 1489. A year later, all Brampton’s English possessions were returned to him and he appears to have entered King Henry’s service.¹⁰⁵Warbeck had been transferred into the service of Pregent Meno (made constable of Carrick Fergus by Henry in 1496) who took him to Ireland, where he was mistaken first for Edward, Earl of Warwick, and later for Richard, Duke of York.

The confession made no suggestion that Margaret had begun the conspiracy, nor was there any mention of the Emperor, the Archduke Philip or of King James of Scotland. While detailing all his early life it was silent about who had provided his ships and armies. In spite of all the plausible detail, there were many who could not believe that the son of a tradesman could have fooled so many and played the role of a prince with such conviction for as long as he did. All sorts of rumours sprang up claiming that he was indeed a Plantagenet, perhaps a bastard who had been secretly reared abroad. But there was no reason why either of the Yorkist kings would have bothered to conceal their bastards in this way. Edward IV was always quite open about his illegitimate children, one of whom, Lord Lisle, proved to be a loyal servant of the Tudors.

There were certainly many who doubted the veracity of the confession. Parron, King Henry’s astrologer, dismissed all these sceptics by comparing them with the Flemish who expected Duke Charles to return and with the Cornish who were still waiting for King Arthur to awake.¹⁰⁶ Nevertheless, there were signs that even Henry regarded this Pretender more seriously than others. He was not, like Simnel, relegated to some menial place but was, for the first six months, kept close to the court. After an attempted escape in the summer of 1498, his treatment became much harsher. He was twice exposed in the stocks, at Westminster and in Cheapside, and finally imprisoned in the Tower.¹⁰⁷

Margaret did not entirely abandon her nephew. In 1498 Henri de Berghes, Bishop of Cambrai, headed a delegation to England, dealing with commercial matters and bringing a formal apology to Henry from the Dowager.¹⁰⁸ The Bishop requested and was granted an interview with Warbeck, which took place in front of the Spanish ambassador. Archduke Philip had already married Joanna, the eldest daughter of the Spanish monarchs, and Henry was negotiating for a marriage between the younger daughter, Catherine of Aragon, and his eldest son Arthur.

The interview appears to have originated as a Burgundian attempt to save the life of the young man, but it was used by Henry for his own purposes. It was designed for Burgundian and Spanish consumption. De Puebla the Spanish ambassador commented that Warbeck was much changed and could not be expected to live much longer since he was being kept in a dungeon, ‘where he sees neither sun nor moon’. Henry asked Warbeck why he had deceived ‘the archduke and the whole country’. In reply the Pretender ‘swore to God that Duchess Madame Margaret knew as well as himself that he was not the son of King Edward’ but all the rulers, the Archduke and the King of Scotland, had been deceived. Thus the Pretender had exonerated all Henry’s new allies, the King of Scotland, the Emperor and particularly the Archduke, who was soon to be united more closely to the English crown through the marriage of Prince Arthur to his sister-in-law. All blame was placed firmly on Margaret. From the Dowager’s point of view the bishop’s interview was a total failure, for Warbeck was executed a year later.

There were several reasons in 1499 why Henry had decided that it was time to rid himself of ‘doubtful royal blood’.¹⁰⁹ In February of that year another young man, Ralf Wulford, came forward claiming to be the Earl of Warwick. He was taken prisoner and hanged on Shrove Tuesday. At the same time Henry was warned by his astrologer that his life was in danger and he took this warning very seriously. In May the proxy marriage of Arthur and Catherine took place, but the Spanish monarchs were still reluctant to send their daughter over to England. To purge their fears, Henry resolved to do away with both Warwick and Warbeck. They were accused of conspiring to escape to Flanders and condemned to death. It is interesting that Henry felt it necessary to remove one whom he had proved to be an impostor along with the one he claimed was the rightful Earl of Warwick.

On 23 November, Warbeck and his old friend John Waters were taken to Tyburn. Once more Warbeck made a public confession, he was then hanged and beheaded, dying ‘meekly’ but without the more appalling elements of a traitor’s death, perhaps the payment for that final affirmation of imposture. Five days later Warwick was beheaded ‘without any processe of the lawe’.¹¹⁰ He was the Queen’s nearest male relative and Henry seems to have had some qualms of conscience since he paid for the young man’s burial, not at the Tower as was usual for traitors, but at the family burial place near Windsor.

Henry’s attempt to discredit and humiliate Margaret was entirely unsuccessful in the Low Countries, where her prestige remained as great as ever. With her step-granddaughter, Margaret of Austria, she headed the reception party which greeted the new Archduchess Joanna on her arrival from Spain and although she moved out of the palace at Malines to make room for the new Archduchess, she remained a valued member of the court. The respect that the court and people showed towards their Dowager was reciprocated and Margaret was careful to comply with ducal policy and keep her promise to King Henry.

In the summer of 1499, Edmund, the Earl of Suffolk (the younger brother of the Earl of Lincoln), fled to Calais and thence to St Omer. However, upon receiving assurances as to his safety, he was soon persuaded to return to England.¹¹¹ Two years later he fled again, taking with him his younger brother Richard. This time there was no returning to England but they did not remain long on Burgundian territory before seeking the protection of the Emperor. There is no evidence at all as Hall claimed that the ‘old venemous serpent the duches of Burgogne’ was ‘solicting and alluring’ the young sons of the House of Suffolk to come to her court.¹¹² Henry responded to the flight of the two young men by arresting their young brother, William de la Pole, and he, like William Courtenay, who also had Plantagenet blood in his veins, was to spend the rest of his life in prison. Sir James Tyrell and Sir John Wyndham were accused of aiding the escape of the de la Poles. They were arrested and executed in 1502 but not before Tyrell had been used to dispose of two troublesome ghosts by confessing that he had assisted in the murder of the two princes at the command of Richard III.¹¹³

Maximilian, however, continued to meddle in English affairs.¹¹⁴ In 1501 he declared himself ready to help anyone of King Edward IV’s blood to regain the throne. A year later the death of Prince Arthur left the Tudor dynasty dependant on the survival of a single male heir, the future Henry VIII. The Emperor saw his control of the two de la Pole brothers as a useful diplomatic asset and the elder, Edmund, known as ‘the white rose’ became the standard bearer for the Yorkist hopes. However Maximilian never fulfilled the vague promises he made to furnish Edmund with the ‘300, 400 or 500 men of war’ for ‘one, two or three months’. Without the support of Burgundy, the Yorkist pretenders were denied access to the ports of the Low Countries and an invasion of England was no longer a feasible proposition.

After 1496 there is no evidence of a vendetta by Margaret. Indeed it was Henry, greatly troubled by the deaths of his youngest son Edmund in 1500 and his eldest Arthur in 1502, who seems to have been conducting a vendetta against the House of York. He did not cease to make every effort to have the two sons of Suffolk returned to England¹¹⁵ and his agents kept a very close eye on the young men and their associates.

In 1506, three years after Margaret’s death, Archduke Philip and his wife were forced to take shelter from a storm in the English ports. Henry took full advantage of this accident and made their departure conditional on the return of Edmund Earl of Suffolk. Maximilian was reluctant to hand over the young man because he had promised to protect ‘the white rose’ for ‘Lady Margaret’s sake and at her instance’. The corporation of Malines also voiced their concern for the safety of the nephew of their revered Dowager. The King was obliged to guarantee the safety of Edmund and on his return Suffolk was kept in the Tower until after the death of Henry VII. He was then executed by Henry VIII, as was his unfortunate brother William de la Pole.

Margaret’s role in the conspiracies against Henry was both limited and cautious. She had certainly maintained Yorkist exiles at her court and she had paid for the Simnel and Warbeck invasions. At most this amounted to furnishing about 5,000 men and two small fleets. Both these armies were recruited with the help of Maximilian, who provided the captains and the bulk of the men. Nor could these invasions have been launched without the full consent of the archducal government which permitted the use of Burgundian ships and ports. When this government changed its policy and decided to withdraw its support from the Yorkist pretenders, Margaret abided by their decision, even though she seems to have been personally concerned about the fate of the young man she had recognised as her nephew Richard. But in all actions concerning England she did nothing that would damage her reputation in the Low Countries. The Dowager was well aware of her responsibilities in this quarter. In a letter of 1499 written from Valenciennes, she expressed her deep care for all the people of the Burgundian lands and her wish to spare them ‘devastation and damage’ (grans foules et ‘dommaiges’).¹⁶

There is also no evidence that Margaret spent the bulk of her rich dower on these projects. She continued to maintain a luxurious household, travelled throughout the Low Countries, carried out various building works at her many properties, gave generously to charities, collected magnificent books and presented costly gifts on appropriate occasions. At the baptism of Philip de Croy her present to her godson was a gold and cut-crystal cross about eighteen inches high and encrusted with precious
stones.¹¹⁷

If her financial and military help was limited then perhaps her chief role was as a standard bearer for the House of York. Her importance in the conspiracies was her own sympathy for the Yorkist cause and the extent of her influence through the respect shown for her opinions by Philip and Maximilian. In the first years of Henry VII’s reign Margaret must have hoped for a Yorkist restoration, and this hope was revived with the appearance of the supposed Duke of York. Yet even in her role as the leader of the Yorkist cause there are ambiguities. The Dowager rarely signed herself as ‘Margaret of York’ but more usually as ‘Margarete of Engeland’.¹¹⁸ Olivier de La Marche put the position with his usual attention to procedural niceties when he explained that:

Though I have surnamed her of York she really ought to be surnamed of England for she came from the royal line. But since her grandfather, [he clearly didn’t know about the Earl of Cambridge] and her father were Dukes of York the children were named from the duchy in the same way as were the princes who were descended from the kings of France.

Margaret’s first commitment was always to Burgundy. During the crises of 1477, 1482 and 1487, she gave her full support to its rulers. When she visited England in 1480 she showed no wish to remain at her brother’s court, but hastened back as soon as her mission was completed. Moreover, although she was a widow for twenty-six years, she never showed the least sign of wishing to remarry and leave the Low Countries. Throughout her widowhood she was dependant upon either Maximilian or Philip and her conduct makes that dependence clear.

The portrayal of Margaret as the mainspring of the plots against Henry probably owes more to the Tudor viewpoint than it does to the realities of Burgundian history. There were many reasons why it was useful for Henry to blame Margaret for his troubles. Henry VII lacked the charisma of Edward IV, he faced considerable opposition both in England and Ireland, and he was disliked by a section of the nobility for ‘the wrong he did his Queen … that he did not rule in her right’. He was ‘a great taxer of his people’ and ‘feared due to avarice that his people would abandon him’.¹¹⁹ It was convenient for Henry to present the Dowager as a vengeful and meddling woman causing foreign interference in English affairs. It was also convenient for Maximilian and Philip to use her as a shield, and throughout the entire period Margaret never embarked upon any project against Henry without the encouragement of Maximilian and the agreement of the ducal government.

Nevertheless her sympathies were certainly with the Pretenders and this was well-known by her contemporaries, and evidence of this sympathy still exists in the painting of the ‘Deposition’, now in the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles.¹²⁰ This painting is clearly derived from the famous ‘Deposition’ by Rogier van der Weyden which is in the Prado Museum in Madrid. In both paintings there is a group of holy women at the right of the cross and among them stands Mary Magdalen. In her grief-stricken posture, in the clasped hands and in the headcloth, the figures in both the paintings are alike, but there are some major differences. In the Getty painting, the Magdalen wears a strikingly rich brocade dress and at her belt, which is decorated with two or three marguerites, there is a large white rose. It is difficult to think of anyone apart from Margaret who would be depicted wearing these symbols in a Flemish painting of the late fifteenth century. With the white rose so prominently displayed there is a clear reference to the Yorkist cause.

Many questions spring to mind. Why would the pious and reserved Dowager have permitted herself to be represented in the form of the Magdalen, the most sinful and penitent among the holy women? Is there some significance in the fact that the traditional pot of balm is held by a nun in the habit of the Black Sisters? Could this be a reference to the Augustinian Sisters in whom Margaret was especially interested and to the foundation of a home for fallen women at Mons?¹²¹ And is the grief and tragedy of this holy picture also a reference to Margaret’s sorrow for the failure of the House of York?