Part 8 (1/2)

Henry VII built a new brick range of royal apartments with bays and oriel windows on the west side of the Great Court-”a fair front over the moat”45-and rebuilt the chapel. From 1490 on, he and Elizabeth of York often resided at Eltham, and in their day the great hall was used as a dining hall for the court. Here they dined on the dais, while the officers of the court kept their tables at right angles to theirs.

The future Henry VIII and his siblings spent a large part of their childhood on Eltham's breezy heights,46 their mother being a frequent visitor-often from nearby Greenwich-rather than a constant presence in their lives.47 Margaret was weaned in 1491, probably around her second birthday, and her nurse, Alice Davy, dismissed. It is clear from Exchequer warrants that her household and Henry's were amalgamated before the end of that year, although each had their own attendants.48 In time other infants would join them. The Great Wardrobe Accounts contain many payments for beautiful clothing for the royal children, who were clad in velvet, satin, and damask right from infancy, outward display being considered more important than practicality.49 Since 1489 there had been fresh and persistent rumors that at least one of the Princes in the Tower had survived. It is not known where they originated, or if Elizabeth heard these rumors, or what she made of them. It is unlikely that she knew for certain what had happened to her brothers, so it is possible that hope sometimes sprang in her heart that one or both of them was alive. Conceivably she had long speculated as to their fate, and maybe this new crop of rumors gave her pause for thought.

But in the autumn of 1491 news came from Ireland that one of the princes might be very much alive. A merchant of Brittany, Pregent Meno, had sailed into Cork with a youth on board. When this fair, blond young man appeared magnificently garbed in silks, bearing himself with great dignity, the citizens of Cork are said to have concluded at once that he must be of royal blood, and the mayor, John At.w.a.ter, impressed by the youth's knowledge of the court, declared that he must be the Earl of Warwick, escaped from the Tower. It is likely that this plot had been hatched in advance.

What happened next is unclear, but soon afterward it was announced that the handsome stranger was actually Richard, Duke of York, the younger of the vanished princes. York would have reached sixteen in August 1491, and the stranger was about that age. In a drawing in the Receuil d'Arras he bears a strong resemblance to Edward IV, which was commented on by contemporaries, although he was ”not handsome,” as Edward was.50 Certainly the boy knew a lot about the Yorkist court. According to a thirdhand report, Maximilian of Austria was to a.s.sert that he was Margaret of Burgundy's b.a.s.t.a.r.d son by Henri de Berghes, Bishop of Cambrai,51 but there is no evidence to substantiate this.

By 1487 the boy had been taken into the service of Edward IV's G.o.dson, Sir Edward Brampton, a staunch Yorkist knighted by Richard III. Brampton had gone to Portugal to negotiate the marriage between Richard and the Infanta Joana, but he fled into exile in the Netherlands after Bosworth. It could have been in his household that his protege learned so much about the Yorkist court, knowledge that would serve him well in the future. He might have been Edward IV's b.a.s.t.a.r.d; Bacon hints that there was something scandalous behind the employment of the boy by Edward's G.o.dson. Yet this lad, who claimed he was brought up at the English court until he was ten, had clearly not yet mastered the English language.

Vergil believed that this was a new imposture, the brainchild of Margaret of Burgundy, who hated Henry VII and had probably been waiting for an opportunity to unseat him since the failure of the Simnel conspiracy. According to Vergil, Margaret had apparently come across the boy by chance, or he might have been pushed into her path by Brampton. Impressed by his looks and sharp wits, and possibly struck by his resemblance to her brother, Edward IV, she was only too happy to recognize him as her lost nephew, whom she had last seen when he was seven. Bacon claimed that she had been looking out for such a handsome, graceful youth ”to make Plantagenets and dukes of York.” Vergil states that she kept him secretly in her household and that it was she who taught him all he needed to know, ”so that afterward he should convince all by his performance that he sprang from the Yorkist line.” Vergil believed it was Margaret who had arranged for the lad to go to Ireland with a view to stirring up the Yorkist supporters there.

There is no evidence that Margaret ever met the pretender before 1492, when he fled to her court from France. Even so, it is likely that some conspiracy had been formed before he appeared in Ireland. Henry VII was convinced that it had its roots in Burgundy.52 Certainly Margaret of Burgundy would not have hesitated to do everything in her power to overthrow Henry and Elizabeth and replace them with any ”male remnant” of the House of York who was remotely suitable.53 The news of York's apparent survival ”came blazing and thundering into England,” arousing much excitement and speculation.54 One wonders what Elizabeth felt on hearing it. Her Victorian biographers suspected that ”her mental sufferings were acute”55 during the years and crises that followed, and that the emergence of this new pretender and his subsequent career filled her mind ”with gloomy forebodings.”56 It seems many wanted to believe that one of the princes had survived. ”The King began again to be haunted by sprites, by the magic and curious arts of the Lady Margaret [of Burgundy], who raised up the ghost of Richard, Duke of York, to walk and vex the King. This was a finer counterfeit stone than Lambert Simnel.” The youth who claimed to be York was so ”crafty and bewitching” that he could ”move pity and induce belief, as was like a kind of fascination and enchantment to those that saw or heard him.”57 Is it possible that he was the prince he claimed to be? His own account of how he was spared death after his brother had been killed lacks credibility, and there were inconsistencies in his confession, made much later when he was a captive, which cast doubt on its veracity. Further, against the weight of evidence that the princes were dead by October 1483, it would be hard to argue for the survival of one of them. But some were apparently convinced that he was York. He was to ”number kings among his friends,”58 convincing the monarchs of France, Denmark, and Scotland, the Duke of Saxony, Maximilian the Archduke of Austria and his son, Philip; all claimed to be satisfied with the evidence of birthmarks, although each at some stage may have been glad of an opportunity to discountenance Henry VII.

The pretender was also a magnet for the dissident Irish lords. ”My masters of Ireland, you will crown apes at length!” Henry VII was to observe scathingly.59 But it was no jesting matter: the King might dismiss him as ”this lad who calls himself Plantagenet,”60 but that lad was to be a constant thorn in Henry's side for the next eight years, and at first the King may have feared that he really was Richard of York. The pretender could not have plagued him thus if he had discovered what became of the Princes in the Tower. Had he been in possession of that information, he would surely have used it to counter the pretender's claims, as he had paraded Warwick in London to counteract Simnel's.

The question of the youth's true ident.i.ty must at this stage have tormented Elizabeth, whose heart no doubt leapt at the news that her brother might be alive. Yet her hopes must have been tempered with dread and cruelly torn loyalties, for Richard of York had a better claim to the throne than she or Henry. Even if this pretender was her brother, he must be her husband's enemy, and therefore hers, a deadly threat to Henry's security and the safety of her children; and she herself would be placed in a most unenviable position.

Despite the sensation he had created in Cork, the pretender had little success in winning over many of the Irish to his cause, so in 1492 he went to France. Charles VIII's relations with Henry VII were dismal at that time, so predictably he warmly received the pretender as ”Richard IV.” a.s.signed royal apartments and a guard of honor, the young man ”thought himself in Heaven.”61 His advent had already subverted the loyalty of some of Henry's subjects, ”in some upon discontent, in some upon ambition, in some upon levity and desire of change, and in some few upon conscience and belief, but in most upon simplicity, and in divers out of dependence upon some of the better sort, who did in secret favor and nourish these bruits. And it was not long ere these rumors of novelty had begotten others of scandal and murmur against the King and his government, taxing him for a great taxer of his people. Chiefly they fell upon the wrong that he did his Queen, and that he did not reign in her right, wherefore they said that G.o.d had now brought to light a masculine branch of the House of York that would not be at his courtesy, however he did depress his poor lady.”62 Unwittingly, Elizabeth had become a focus for discontent among her husband's subjects, and the existence of the pretender only fueled the fire.

On June 8, 1492, Elizabeth Wydeville died at Bermondsey Abbey. She must have been unwell since at least April 10, when she had made her will. Elizabeth could not be with her at the end, for ”at this same season,” in the ninth month of her pregnancy, she had already taken to her chamber at Sheen,63 knowing that her mother was very ill; but her sisters and her half brother, the Marquess of Dorset, were present, with Grace, a b.a.s.t.a.r.d daughter of Edward IV. ”The said Queen desired on her deathbed that, as soon as she should be deceased, she should in all goodly haste, without any worldly pomp, by water be conveyed to Windsor, and there to be buried in the same vault that her husband was buried in, according to the will of my said lord and mine.”64 In her will, witnessed by Abbot John of Bermondsey, and Benedict Cun, ”doctor of physic,” the Queen Dowager lamented: ”Where I have no worldly goods to do the Queen's Grace, my dearest daughter, a pleasure with, neither to reward any of my children, according to my heart and mind, I beseech Almighty G.o.d to bless Her Grace, with all her n.o.ble issue, and with as good heart and mind as is to me possible, I give Her Grace my blessing, and all the aforesaid my children ... And I beseech my said dearest daughter, the Queen's Grace, and my son, Thomas, Marquess Dorset, to put their good wills and help for the performance of this my testament,” and to ensure that her last requests were carried out. They were few.

Elizabeth Wydeville's wishes in regard to her interment were respected. Her body was ”wrapped in [fifty yards of] wax canvas” and, on the evening of Whitsunday (June 10), conveyed by barge from London to Windsor, with only the executors-the late Queen's chaplain, the prior of the Charterhouse at Sheen, a Mr. Haute, a clerk, Dr. Brent, and ”Mistress Grace” in attendance. The coffin was borne ”privily through the little park and conveyed into the castle without ringing of any bells or receiving of the dean and canons, but only by the prior of the Charterhouse of Sheen and her chaplain. And so, privily, about eleven of the clock in the night, she was buried” in Edward IV's tomb in St. George's Chapel, Windsor, ”without any solemn dirge or Ma.s.s done for her.”65 On the Tuesday following, Elizabeth's younger sisters, Anne, Katherine, and Bridget, arrived by barge at Windsor for the Requiem Ma.s.s, Bridget having come from Dartford Priory. With them were several relatives, including Lord Dorset and John, Viscount Welles, husband of Cecily of York, who was not present, possibly because she was ill or pregnant, so Anne was chief mourner, deputizing for Queen Elizabeth. They attended the ceremonies in St. George's Chapel that evening and the next, and ”the officers of arms, there being present, went before the Lady Anne, which offered the Ma.s.s penny instead of the Queen, wherefore she had the carpet and the cus.h.i.+on laid, as would have happened had Elizabeth been present.” There were murmurs that the obsequies were conducted cheaply and shabbily, because only the Poor Knights of St. George, garter officers, and other servants were present, but they had been performed as Elizabeth Wydeville had directed.66 The death of her mother must have been a grievous blow to Elizabeth, coming as it did as she was about to give birth. An observer wrote that because the Queen was confined to her chamber, ”I cannot tell what dolent [sad apparel] she goeth in, but I suppose she went in blue likewise as Queen Margaret, the wife of King Henry VI, went in when her mother the Queen of Sicily died.”67 Henry VII's ordinances followed earlier precedents in laying down the colors to be used for royal mourning; blue was still to be worn,68 although Elizabeth was also to don the traditional black after the death of one of her children.69 On July 2 she bore a second daughter, who was baptized Elizabeth in honor of her late grandmother as well as her mother.70 According to the epitaph on her tomb, this child was exceptionally beautiful. She was brought up in the nursery household at Eltham Palace with her brother Henry and sister Margaret, in the care of her nurse, Cecilia Burbage, who was paid a salary of 100s. [2,500]. Her rockers each received 66s.8d. [1,630]. That the royal siblings were brought up together is attested by warrants dated September 1493 for payment to servants attending upon ”our right dearly well-beloved children, the Lord Henry and the Ladies Margaret and Elizabeth.”71 The Wardrobe Accounts of the Lord Treasurer for the period 149195 contain orders for robes for ”Margaret and Elizabeth,” the King's daughters.72 Henry VII's alliances with Ferdinand and Isabella and Maximilian had led to hostilities with Charles VIII. Early in October 1492 he departed for France, leaving Prince Arthur at Westminster to act as nominal regent in his absence. He arrived at Calais on October 6, then joined his allies in besieging Boulogne. Elizabeth, left behind at Eltham in charge of her younger children, felt her husband's absence keenly, and wrote him many letters with ”tender, frequent, and loving lines,” begging him so persuasively to return that they were among the ”potent reasons” why he raised the siege, concluded a peace treaty with Charles VIII on November 3 at etaples, and returned to England soon after November 17.73 This reveals how close the royal couple had become in nearly seven years of marriage-so close that they hated being apart.

The peace treaty put an end to Charles VIII's support of the pretender, but rather than surrender him to Henry VII, Charles merely banished him from France. Late that year the youth sought refuge at the court of Margaret of Burgundy. At first she showed herself dubious about his claims, but then said she had been persuaded, after questioning him, that he was indeed her nephew, ”raised from the dead,” and publicly congratulated him on his preservation.74 He was taken under the protection of the Archduke Philip, and was again treated like a king. Given a palatial house in Antwerp, he held court there seated under the royal arms of England, which enraged some English visitors. When he went abroad in the streets, he was escorted by a guard of thirty archers wearing his white rose badge. Philip's father, Maximilian, received him in Vienna as the rightful King of England.

Naturally, everyone wanted to know how ”York” had escaped from the Tower as a child. He told them he had narrowly avoided murder by a ruse, ”for that those who were employed in that barbarous fact, having destroyed the elder brother, were stricken with remorse and compa.s.sion toward the younger.” He had been delivered to ”a gentleman who had received orders to destroy him, but who, taking pity on his innocence, had preserved his life and made him swear on the sacraments not to disclose for a certain number of years his birth and lineage.”75 It was an unlikely tale, since the a.s.sa.s.sins would surely have known that their remit was to do away with the Yorkist heirs who posed a threat to the King; it did not make sense-and indeed was perilous-for them to kill one and spare the other, however plaintively he pleaded for his life, for with his older brother dead, York would have been, in the eyes of many, the true King of England.

The pretender would never be drawn on the details of Edward V's murder or his own supposed escape from the Tower, saying only ”it is fit it should pa.s.s in silence, or at least in a more secret relation, for that it may concern some alive and the memory of some that are dead.”76 That way he forestalled all discussion of the anomalies in his story. But the d.u.c.h.ess Margaret ”took pleasure in hearing him repeat the tale,” and following her example, the Flemings ”professed they believed the youth had escaped the hand of King Richard by divine intervention, and had been brought safely to his aunt.”77 ”The rumor of so miraculous an occurrence rapidly spread into England, where the story was not merely believed by the common people, but where there were many important men who considered the matter as genuine.”78 By now, one imagines, Elizabeth must have been desperate to get a look at or at least obtain more knowledge of this youth who insisted he was her brother. Frustratingly, we don't know what she made of the story of his escape.

Queens had little control over the lives of their eldest sons. Arthur was growing into a promising boy, ”blessed with such great charm, grace, and goodness that he served as an example of unprecedented happiness to people oftimes,” as Andre glowingly recorded. But when Arthur was six, Elizabeth had to bid him farewell, for by February 1493 he had been sent to live at Ludlow Castle on the Welsh Marches so that he could learn how to govern his princ.i.p.ality of Wales. It was to be a practical apprentices.h.i.+p for kings.h.i.+p. The precedent had been established by Edward IV, who had sent the future Edward V to be educated at Ludlow. Following in his uncle's footsteps, Arthur was nominally to preside over the Council of the Marches and Wales, which administered the princ.i.p.ality. Thereafter Elizabeth would see him only intermittently.

His council was headed by his great-uncle, Jasper Tudor, Earl of Pembroke, and included his uncle, Dorset, Sir William Stanley, Thomas FitzAlan, now Earl of Arundel, Gerald FitzGerald, Earl of Kildare, who had been forgiven for helping to crown Lambert Simnel, and John Alc.o.c.k, Bishop of Worcester, who served as President of the Council of the Marches, as he had for the future Edward V; his appointment may have been made at the Queen's behest.

Early in 1493, Sir Richard Pole was appointed chamberlain of the prince's household.79 The other members of the Council of the Marches included Anthony Willoughby; Robert Ratcliffe, later Earl of Suss.e.x; Maurice St. John of Bletsoe, a favored nephew of Margaret Beaufort who had entered royal service as a member of Henry VII's elite bodyguard; and Gruffydd ap Rhys, who was the son of an influential Welsh lord and became close friends with Arthur. An interesting appointment, probably also made by the Queen, was that of Dr. John Argentine, former physician to Edward V, who was now to serve as Prince Arthur's doctor. Dr. Argentine had been one of the last people to see the Princes in the Tower alive.80 After Richard III was crowned, he had fled abroad. Probably he had been able to tell Elizabeth much about her vanished brothers, and possibly this appointment and the many other benefices and marks of royal favor he received under Henry VII were rewards for his loyalty to and care for them both.

Arthur's governor and comptroller was Sir Henry Vernon. In 1501 the prince stayed at Vernon's house, Haddon Hall in Derbys.h.i.+re, where a room adorned with his coat of arms was once called ”the Prince's Chamber.”

Arthur had commenced his formal education around 149091. His first tutor was his chaplain, John Rede, headmaster of Winchester College, who gave him a ”deep acquaintance with knowledge, without great labor on either side.”81 When he was ten, Arthur twice stayed in the President's Lodgings at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he was served pike, tench, red wine, claret, and sack (sweet fortified wine), presented with gloves (as were all distinguished guests), and amused by a marmoset; he came across as ”rather in the grave than in the gay aspect of youth.”82 Henry VII was the first English king to encourage at his court the Renaissance culture of humanism, the study of ancient cla.s.sical learning, and he was at the forefront of ideas in appointing humanist scholars to teach his sons. Around 1499, Rede was succeeded by the blind friar, Bernard Andre, who had been a.s.sisting Rede since 1496. Under Andre, Arthur studied cla.s.sical and Renaissance literature, history, and philosophy, reading numerous works by authors such as Homer, Virgil, Ovid, Thucydides, Livy, Tacitus, and Erasmus. By 1501, according to Andre, Arthur ”had either committed to memory, or read with his own eyes and leafed with his own fingers” the best Latin and Greek authors. Andre was joined after 1499 by Dr. Thomas Linacre, another humanist scholar, who had been in Italy and was a pioneer of the New Learning of the Renaissance as well as the King's physician. To him was entrusted ”the task of making the mind and body of Prince Arthur grow in wholesome vigor,” and he dedicated his translation of a Greek text, The Sphere, to the prince. Arthur was also instructed in music, horsemans.h.i.+p, and the arts of warfare. Giles Dewes, who served Henry VII and Henry VIII as clerk of their libraries, was ”schoolmaster for the French tongue to Prince Arthur.”83 Dewes also specialized in grammar and alchemy and was an accomplished lute player.

Thanks to his careful education, Arthur turned out to be studious, reserved, and thoughtful, ”learned beyond his years, and beyond the custom of princes.”84 Of the royal children, only he, the heir to the throne, was brought up so far away from his family. The younger ones were reared in households nearer the court, and consequently enjoyed a closer relations.h.i.+p with their parents, especially their mother, who customarily spent more time with them. Elizabeth's influence over her oldest son's upbringing would be far less than she exerted over the lives of her other children.

By July 1493, Henry VII's intelligence had informed him that the young man whom he called ”the feigned lad” was Peter, commonly known as Perkin, Warbeck, the son of a boatman of Tournai, and not of royal blood at all,85 whereupon he made a formal protest to Philip and Maximilian against harboring such a dangerous rebel. When this failed, relations between England and Flanders, usually harmonious, quickly deteriorated, resulting in a temporary trade embargo by England.

Did Henry really believe this intelligence, or did it surface all too conveniently? His later conduct, as will be seen, suggests there remained at least a grain of doubt. And if the King was uncertain, then Elizabeth must have been too. Maybe she and her sisters were entertaining a faint hope that their brother was indeed still alive.

But Warbeck's story had already spread, which was bad news for Henry VII. ”Conspiracies began to multiply. Desperadoes seeking refuge in sanctuaries broke forth to flock to Peter in Flanders. Many among the n.o.bility turned to conspiracy. Some were actuated by mere foolhardiness; others, believing Peter to be Edward's son Richard, supported the claim of the Yorkist party. Others were moved partly by resentment and greed.”86 One Edwards, the Queen's own yeoman, defected to the pretender. Elizabeth was unenviably in the middle. The very silence of the chroniclers on her role in all this strongly suggests that she did what was expected of her.

The Christmas season of 149394 saw lavish and unprecedented celebrations at Westminster. Henry and Elizabeth presided ”with great solemnity,” and at 11:00 P.M. on Twelfth Night, after divine service and accompanied by the Queen's ladies and the Spanish amba.s.sadors, they went in procession ”through both the halls” to Westminster Hall, which had been hung with tapestries for the occasion. Here they and their guests, including the Lord Mayor and aldermen of London, were entertained by an interlude (a short play) performed by the King's players; ”but ere they had finished came in riding one of the King's Chapel,” the court composer and dramatist William Cornish, ”appareled after the figure of St. George; and after followed a fair virgin attired like unto a king's daughter and leading by a silken lace a terrible and huge red dragon, the which, in sundry places of the hall as he pa.s.sed, spit fire at his mouth. And when Cornish was come before the King, he uttered a certain speech made in ballade royal,87 after finis.h.i.+ng thereof he began this anthem of St. George, 'O Georgi deo Care' ['O George, beloved of G.o.d'], whereunto the King's Chapel, which stood fast by, answered 'salvatorem deprecare, ut gubernet Angliam' ['Intercede with the Savior, that He may govern England'], and so sang out the whole anthem with l.u.s.ty courage. In pastime whereof the said Cornish avoided with the dragon, and the virgin was led unto the Queen's standing,” to be taken under Elizabeth's protection.

Then there appeared ”twelve gentlemen leading by kerchiefs of pleasance twelve ladies, all goodly disguised, having before them a small tabret [tabor] and a subtle fiddle, the which gentlemen leaped and danced all the length of the hall as they came, and the ladies slid after them,” looking as if ”they stood upon a frame running.” When they came before the King, they danced for an hour, and ”it was wonderful to behold the exceeding leaps.”

The King and Queen then entertained their guests at a private banquet, seating themselves at the King's direction at ”a table of stone garnished with napery, lights, and other necessaries.” Then the disguised gentlemen came in ”bearing every each of them a dish, and after them as many knights and esquires as made the full number of sixty, the which sixty dishes were all served to the King's mess, and as many served unto the Queen.” All the dishes were ”confections of sundry fruits and conserves, and so soon as the King and the Queen and the other estates were served, then was brought unto the mayor's stage twenty-four dishes of the same manner service, with sundry wines and ale in most plenteous wise. And finally, as all worldly pleasure hath an end, the board was reverently withdrawn, and the King and Queen with the other estates, with a great sort of lights [were] conveyed into the palace.” The Lord Mayor and aldermen of London did not get home until daybreak.88 In April 1492, Henry VII had appointed ten-month-old Prince Henry Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, not only to honor him, but also to provide an income for his maintenance. The following year, to boost that income, Henry had been made Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and Warden of the Scottish Marches. Now, in October 1494, in order to discountenance the pretender and proclaim him a fraud, the King created his three-year-old son Duke of York. Edward IV had given his second son that t.i.tle; and henceforth, until the eighteenth century (and again today), the second sons of monarchs would customarily bear it. It is tempting to imagine that Henry created this precedent at Elizabeth's request, in memory of her father's house and perhaps of her brother Richard, Duke of York, but it is more likely that he did so to demonstrate that young Duke Richard was dead and the t.i.tle was now firmly vested in the Tudor dynasty.

On October 27, the eve of the feast day of Saints Simon and Jude, ”the King, the Queen, and my lady the King's mother came from Sheen to Westminster to dinner.” That same day, ”about three in the afternoon, Lord Henry came through the City. He sat on a courser and rode to Westminster to the King with a goodly company,”89 escorted by the Lord Mayor, the aldermen, ”and all the crafts in their liveries.”90 The King welcomed his son and ”kissed him, and from thence went into the Queen's closet.” There is a sketch of the child Henry at the age of two or three in the Bibliotheque de Mejanes, which shows him as a solid, placid infant with chubby cheeks and alert eyes.91 Three days later the little prince waited upon his father with a towel while the King dined, then, having been signed with a cross by Henry and given Elizabeth's blessing, he and twenty-two other candidates received the customary ceremonial bath before keeping vigil in St. Stephen's Chapel throughout the night-a long ordeal for so young a child. The next day he was dubbed a Knight of the Bath. The ceremony of enn.o.blement took place the following day, when he was formally created Duke of York in the presence of the whole court, both houses of Parliament, and the Lord Mayor and aldermen of London. ”My lord Shrewsbury bare my Lord Harry, Duke of York, in his arms, and ten bishops with miters on their heads going before the King that day about Westminster Hall, with many others of great estate.” In the prince's honor, the King created new Knights of the Bath. Elizabeth was not present at the enn.o.bling, but afterward she and Henry, crowned and robed in ermine, went with their son, who was wearing a miniature suit of armor, in procession to Westminster Abbey to attend a Ma.s.s celebrated by the Archbishop of Canterbury.92 The following day was All Souls' Day, when, by tradition, the King kept a ”day of estate” at court and he and Elizabeth again wore their royal robes and crowns.

The celebrations in honor of the young duke went on for at least two weeks. There were three days of ”jousts royal in the King's Palace of Westminster,” where a special stand had been built for the royal party; ”it was the most triumphant place that ever I saw,” wrote an observer. The people had flocked ”to see the King's Grace and the Queen so richly appareled, his house and stage covered with cloth of Arras blue, enramplished with fleurs-de-lis of gold, and within hanged with rich cloth of Arras and two cloths of estate, one for the King, another for the Queen, and rich cus.h.i.+ons of cloth of gold, accompanied with the great estates of this realm, as the Duke of York, the Duke of Bedford, the Duke of Buckingham, and many other,” and with them ”the fairest young princess,” ”the Lady Margaret, the King's oldest daughter.” On the first day the challengers wore the King's livery of green and white, the Tudor colors, but all sported a badge with the Queen's livery of blue and mulberry on their helmets. Other jousts were fought by lesser combatants, but were ”honorable and comfortable to the King and Queen and many other great people there to watch, and a great pleasure to the common people.” On the second day the contestants wore Margaret Beaufort's blue-and-white livery, and ”by the advice of the King [and] the Queen, my lady the King's mother gave the prize.”93 On November 11, Henry and Elizabeth, sitting under their canopies of estate, presided over another tournament, which was followed by a comic display between mock knights. Two days later there were more jousts before ”the King's Highness, for whose pleasure, the Queen's, and all the ladies,” the contestants took part, ”especially for the pleasure of their redoubted lady and fairest young princess,” five-year-old Princess Margaret, who, prompted by her parents, presented the prizes. These were handed to her by three of her mother's ladies: Elizabeth Stafford, Anne Percy, and Anne Neville, who, clad in white damask gowns with crimson velvet sleeves and gold circlets on their heads, had led three knights into the ring. By popular demand, more jousts were held on November 12, and on the following day ”the King [and] the Queen entered the field to their house.”94 In 1619, Paolo Sarpi, a Venetian scholar and church reformer, stated that Prince Henry, ”not being born the King's eldest son, had been destined by his father to be Archbishop of Canterbury, and therefore in his youth was made to study”; this a.s.sertion was repeated by Lord Herbert of Cherbury, Henry VIII's seventeenth-century biographer, who opined that a career in the Church was a ”cheap and glorious way” of advancing a younger son, and that the information came from a ”credible author”; yet there is no contemporary evidence to support it, and the fact that Henry was given a secular dukedom contradicts it.

That year the King held ”his royal feast of Christmas” at Greenwich, where he entertained the Lord Mayor of London; ”which disports being ended in the morning, the King, the Queen, the amba.s.sadors ... being sat at a table of stone, sixty knights and esquires served sixty dishes to the King's mess, and as many to the Queen's ... And finally, the King and Queen were conveyed with great lights into the palace.”95 On January 7, 1495, the court moved to the Tower, where Elizabeth was a silent witness to the grim events that followed. Two years earlier a knight, Robert Clifford, had been secretly communicating with Sir William Stanley; then Clifford had gone to the court of Burgundy and espoused the cause of Perkin Warbeck. Mysteriously, in December 1494, he was granted a free pardon, upon which he returned to England. On January 6, ”forewarned of his coming,” the King went ahead to the Tower and had Clifford brought there so he could question him himself. During that interview Clifford-who was probably a royal spy or a double agent-incriminated Sir William Stanley and others who enjoyed his confidence, apparently a.s.serting that Stanley had said he would not fight against Warbeck if he was the true son of Edward IV.96 Bacon a.s.serts that resentment of Henry's rule, his taxes, and his treatment of Elizabeth were at the root of Stanley's disaffection.

At first, according to Vergil, the King could not be persuaded to believe Clifford; he owed his crown to Stanley's intervention at Bosworth, and since then Stanley had held a position of great trust as chamberlain of the royal household, an office that brought him in daily contact with the King; and he had grown very rich in Henry's service. Elizabeth knew him well. He was also Margaret Beaufort's brother-in-law, so these allegations came close to home. In the end Clifford convinced Henry that Stanley was plotting treason, and left the Tower with a gift of 500 [243,000].