The Princes in the Tower, page 20
These documents offer good evidence to believe that the name of the Yorkist ‘rebel king’ was Edward. When we connect this name to the Lille Receipt, which refers to ‘the son of King Edward IV’ and to ‘her nephew’, it is patently clear that the eldest son of the late King Edward IV is intended – namely Edward V. That Edward V is the individual in question is further supported by the statement that he was ‘expelled from his dominion’.
One of the first acts of Henry VII’s Parliament on 23 January 148626 was to repeal Richard III’s Act of Succession in which the children of Edward IV were declared illegitimate. The repeal had the direct consequence that Edward IV’s children could resume their royal titles. If, as stated in the evidence from Lille, the former (bastard) King Edward V was indeed expelled from his dominion, then from 23 January 1486 he could be deemed king in exile.
That he was most probably exiled in Ireland we can now deduce from the letter patent, which was issued in Dublin on 13 August 1486. Other possible clues to his exile in Ireland are recorded in the Annals of Ulster for the 1480s. In the year 1485, the aftermath of Bosworth is described, ‘And there lived not of the race of the blood royal that time but one young man, who came, on being exiled the year after to Ireland’.27
This supports the hypothesis previously advanced by Gordon Smith and, more recently, Matthew Lewis, that the ‘Lambert Simnel Affair’ was not an uprising in favour of Edward, Earl of Warwick, but an uprising in support of Edward V, the elder of the Princes in the Tower.28
Furthermore, Smith draws attention to other accounts which also give the age of the pretender as around 15, which fits the deposed monarch Edward V, who was 16 at the time (while Warwick had only just reached the age of 12).29 These accounts correspond with the words from the Annals of Ulster, which describe the pretender as a young man.
In addition, because rumours circulated at an early stage that the Yorkist claimant who had surfaced in Ireland was a son of Edward IV, Henry VII had obvious reasons to create confusion regarding the claimant’s identity. As Lewis aptly describes, Henry would face a crisis of support if the pretender’s true identity became known:
If he claimed to be Edward V, it would be a far more problematical incident for Henry … whose rise to the throne had relied heavily on Yorkists who would abandon him for Edward V in a heartbeat.30
Smith also emphasises that Henry had a clear motive in alleging fraud because the justification of his kingship depended heavily on the belief that both sons of Edward IV were no longer alive.31
‘One of King Edward’s Sons’
Despite its removal from official records, it seems to have been known that the Yorkist claimant was ‘one of King Edward’s sons’. As Lewis reveals, Henry VII’s poet, Bernard André, in his Life of Henry VII, ‘appears to utterly ignore the official story’. André records that the pretender ‘was the son of Edward the Fourth’, adding that he was:
accepted as Edward’s son by many prudent men, and so strong was this belief that many did not even hesitate to die for him.32
André stated that the information had come from a herald sent to question the pretender in order to determine his identity. This conforms with contemporary records. On or around Michaelmas (29 September) 1486, Henry VII sent John Yonge, Falcon Pursuivant, to Ireland on ‘his secret business’.33
Following the death of Henry VII, Lewis spotlights a remarkable briefing involving Henry’s son, Henry VIII, which also ‘deviates from the official version of events’. The passage admits that Lambert Simnel was named as ‘one of King Edward’s sons’.34 In 1488, Pope Innocent VIII, while following the official account of Simnel as an impostor claiming to be the son of the Duke of Clarence, remarkably wrote that the pretender was of illegitimate birth.35
We may also be able to shed light on why Henry VII’s November 1487 Parliament stated, quite incorrectly, that the coronation of the Yorkist king in Ireland took place on a Thursday (24 May). In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, kings and queens were crowned on Sundays. The Yorkist king had actually been crowned on 27 May 1487, the Sunday after Ascension. Twenty-two years earlier, Edward V’s mother, Elizabeth Woodville, had been crowned on this same (holy) Sunday. It seems that the Yorkist claimant was sending a very clear message regarding his true identity,36 which had to be expunged in the English Parliament.
Henry VII subsequently destroyed all records in Ireland pertaining to the Yorkist king’s coronation and Parliament. Anyone ‘concealing or receiving them [would be] deemed traitors attainted’.37
Truth is the Daughter of Time
As established above, given the nature of the document and the context in which it was drawn up at the time, the recently discovered Lille Receipt can be qualified as truthful and credible. The document provides good evidence to seriously challenge the traditional story that the 1487 Yorkist claimant to the English throne was an impostor who claimed to be Edward, Earl of Warwick. With this in hand, there is every reason to reinterpret those Irish records along with other surviving documentation which the Henrician government was unable to expunge.
Perhaps the most important consequence of the Lille document is that it shows that at least one of the Princes in the Tower was alive four years after his disappearance. This, in turn, lends plausibility to the observation that the second Yorkist uprising, seven years later, took place under the leadership of the second prince who disappeared from the Tower in 1483, namely the younger son of Edward IV: Prince Richard, Duke of York.38 In this case too, Henry quickly declared that the young man was an impostor; this time, ‘the son of a boatman from Tournay’.39
The evidence from Lille stands on its own, but one thing is certain: this important discovery has revealed that the traditional account of the murder of the Princes in the Tower no longer stands up to scrutiny.
In Summary
• In May 1487, a Yorkist armada sailed from Middelburg in the Low Countries to Ireland where a young ‘King Edward’ was crowned King of England. (See notes 2 and 4.)
• These forces (including large numbers from Burgundy and the Low Countries) formed an army to be led by this newly crowned king. They proceeded to England to challenge Henry VII for the throne he had seized from Richard III in 1485 at Bosworth.
• This ‘King Edward’ has now been positively identified as Edward V, the elder of the Princes in the Tower, sons of Edward IV (died 1483).
• The evidence for this identification is a receipt for weaponry delivered in June 1487 to King Maximilian (ruler of Burgundy) to equip the men of the Yorkist army. The weapons were required by Margaret of York, sister of Edward IV, Dowager Duchess of Burgundy ‘to serve her nephew, son of King Edward, late her brother’. (See notes 18–22 and Appendix 2.)
• Notes on the identity of ‘King Edward’ – previously conflicting stories:
i. In sources not expunged by Henry VII’s government, reports state that he was named ‘King Edward’ by his supporters. (See notes 23–25, 27–29 and 32–34.)
ii. The official story spread by Henry VII, and believed by tradition, was that he was posing as Edward, Earl of Warwick (aged 12 in 1487), son of the late Duke of Clarence. Since little Warwick had long been Henry’s prisoner in the Tower, it was easy to allege this imposture and ‘prove’ it by publicly exhibiting the boy. (See notes 8–10 and 15.)
iii. In continental sources, where the armada was assembled, he was generally referred to as the ‘son of Clarence’ and was not given the name ‘Edward’. (See notes 6, 11–13 and 35.)
iv. In the aftermath of his defeat at the Battle of Stoke, there are conflicting reports as to whether he was killed or survived. (See notes 6, 23 and Appendix 3.)
For more on Edward V and what kind of a king he may have been, see Chapter 19.
13
The Yorkist Invasion of 1487
Edward V and the Second Fleet by Zoë Maula, Dutch Research Group1
During the fifteenth century, the city of Bergen op Zoom was known as one of the leading trade cities of the Low Countries, rivalled only by Antwerp, Bruges and Middelburg. As a result of the wealth it accumulated, its rulers, the Van Glymes family, acquired both economic and political status at the Burgundian court during the late fifteenth century. For their unwavering support during the Flemish uprising of 1483–85, the Van Glymes earned a position in the inner circle of King Maximilian and the Dowager Duchess, Margaret of York. Both depended on each other to maintain and advance their influence nationally and internationally.2
The Van Glymes’ proximity to Maximilian during the Flemish uprising, the favourable geographical location of Bergen op Zoom, and their military movements strongly suggest that the Van Glymes took part in the formulation of battle plans, and that Bergen op Zoom actively operated as a naval base for Maximilian’s campaigns.3 For this reason, it shouldn’t be wholly unexpected that the Van Glymes were involved in Margaret’s plans in 1486–87 to restore a Yorkist to the throne of England. The rulers of Bergen op Zoom were John II of Glymes (1417–94) and his heir, John III of Walhain (1452– 1531). In early May 1484, John II had attended the court of King Richard III at York.4
On 1 January 1486, Henry VII, with suspicions aroused about the involvement of Burgundy in a Yorkist plot, renewed the commercial treaty with the country for only a year. Then, when Henry became aware of the plan to oust him, which was spearheaded by Margaret, who gave sanctuary to many of the English rebels in 1486, his suspicions against Burgundy and the Low Countries were confirmed. From this point, the situation quickly escalated.
Less than two months after the commercial treaty was renewed on 20 February 1487, Henry VII cancelled the agreement and reduced the term of the treaty to six months.5 This action was probably instigated by the arrival in Burgundy of Margaret’s nephew, John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln, at this time.
Maximilian, who by then understood that an alliance with England against France wasn’t possible with Henry VII as king, gave his assent to Margaret, leaving no obstacle for the Van Glymes to give the Yorkist invasion their full support. In this context, it is therefore likely that the Van Glymes were involved in the 1487 invasion from the beginning.
Equipment, Loans and Distributions
From the moment Henry VII became aware that Lincoln had fled to Flanders, his suspicion against Burgundy and the Low Countries crystallised. On 4 March 1487 Henry gave a commission to Thomas Brandon, ordering him to take command of an armed force, mustered to proceed to sea against the king’s enemies.6 It’s likely that Henry VII wanted to prevent others from following Lincoln and joining forces against him. Either that or the increased activity across the Channel aroused suspicion of an impending invasion from Flanders or Zeeland. This suspicion was well founded. From March 1487, the city of Bergen op Zoom and the Van Glymes appear to have been busy on behalf of Margaret of York.
An entry from the accounts of Margaret’s dower lands records interesting movements, which supports the view that Bergen op Zoom operated as a naval base for the Yorkist invasion. On 27 March 1487, the Domain Accounts of Voorne (one of Margaret’s dower lands) record a payment to messengers travelling from the city of Den Briel to Malines with 3,375 livres. Here they were to pay the full 6,375 livres, which the steward owed on behalf of Margaret, to the city of Bergen op Zoom. The same entry also records an order from Margaret to the Steward of Goedereede to deliver money from Malines to Bergen op Zoom.7 In addition, another entry records a payment from March 1487 to a messenger sent from Den Briel bearing a letter from Margaret to the Bailiff of Goedereede containing her instructions to have an abandoned pirate ship without mast and crew sent to Bergen op Zoom.8 Considering the circumstances, it is likely that Margaret wanted the ship to be brought to Bergen op Zoom for compensation: this, and the money she sent there, may have been to supply funds for the Yorkist expeditionary force, though, of course, we cannot be sure.
The fact that these movements correspond to Christine Weightman’s time-line of the Yorkist invasion, however, does strengthen this view. According to Weightman, the expeditionary force was ready to set sail from the Low Countries by April 1487, of which Henry VII was informed, thanks to his extensive intelligence network.9
Nathen Amin further strengthens this view by stating that the increased activity in Zeeland at the end of March might be what spurred Henry VII to order an extensive commission of array to the Duke of Suffolk to raise men to defend the eastern coastal counties of England on 7 April.10 It might also have been Henry VII’s quick response to these hostile movements in the Low Countries that hastened the invasion’s preparations.
On 10 April, for example, Margaret writes a letter to the Receiver of Artillery, ordering him to immediately deliver 60 pavois, shields used for ships.11 The urgent tone of the letter reflects a need for action, and could also be the reason why Margaret made a last-minute request for a loan from the city of Bergen op Zoom. An entry from the Register of Letters and Recognitions of 1487–88 records on 12 April 1487:
On the desire of my dear lord of Bergen and my lord of Walhain, when selling the rents for 5000 crowns of 6 schellings, the city will loan the obtained sum to our lady of Burgundy dowager, which she hastily needed for certain difficult business.12
According to Korneel Slootmans, city archivist of Bergen op Zoom, the sum of 5,000 crowns amounted to 2,500 livres, which is a significant sum, equating to approximately £2.1 million in today’s money.13 The City Accounts of 1487–88 similarly record an entry, in which the City Council is gathered to meet on the request of Lord John II of Glymes and his son, John III of Walhain, to issue a loan of ‘1,500 livres to my lady the dowager’.14
Similar to the order for pavois, there appears to be an urgent undertone to Margaret’s requests. This urgency can be illustrated by the fact that the money was handed over to Margaret personally, when she visited Bergen op Zoom on 14 April,15 only two days after the City Council gave their agreement for the loan.
Knowing that the expeditionary force was ready to set sail by April, one can only conclude that the money Margaret requested from John II and John III was required for last-minute purchases for the invasion. A move most likely made in reaction to Henry VII’s latest countermeasure. As such, the information detailed above can therefore be taken as evidence of the Van Glymes and their city’s financial support of the Yorkist invasion, making them Margaret’s close collaborators. This is proved by a receipt of weapons discovered in the Archives Départementales du Nord in Lille that clearly points to such involvement, as discussed in Chapter 12.16
The receipt from the archive states the following:
For the quantity of 400 long pikes … bought from me in the said place in the month of June, the year one thousand four hundred and eighty-seven and delivered to the Lord of Walhain, to be distributed among the German-Swiss pikemen, who were then, to take and lead across the sea by ship, under the command of my lord Martin de Zwarte, a knight from Germany, whom Madam the Dowager sent at the time, together with several captains of war from England, to serve her nephew – son of King Edward, late her brother.17
Fig. 1. Receipt of weapons dated 16 December 1487, with ‘Monsieur de Walhain’ and ‘Seigneur de Walhain’ underlined. (In Archives Départementales du Nord, Lille)
In this receipt, John III of Walhain is clearly assigned to personally distribute the weapons that were purchased for the Yorkist invasion. As such, the receipt therefore provides conclusive evidence of the Van Glymes’ involvement in the invasion and active support of Margaret’s endorsement of the Yorkist King Edward. Yet, one aspect of the receipt remains vague. That is, the purchase is dated from ‘the month of June’, well after the expeditionary force departed the Low Countries. According to the Chronicle of Zeeland, the expeditionary force departed from Arnemuiden on 15 May 1487.18 Furthermore, it is also known that the Yorkist king was crowned in Dublin on 27 May. This raises the question whether there was another force for which these weapons were purchased?
The City Accounts from 1487–88 of Bergen op Zoom might provide an answer to this question. Specifically, an entry from May 1487, which records the arrival of certain captains and riders before the city gates, as well as the expenses for their ships and provisions.19
At first glance, these men were clearly set to travel to Brittany, which was being invaded by France at the time. Though Burgundy was still trying to push back the French armies from its own southern borders, Maximilian was allied with Brittany and would have sent troops to aid Brittany. However, a closer look at the entry (see Fig. 2) suggests a link to the Yorkist invasion. That is, the word ‘Brittany’ is written above the word ‘Ingelant (England)’, which has been crossed out. The entry reads:
In May, when certain captains and riders came to the gates to travel to England Brittany … Paid for bread, cheese and for the captain on behalf of the burgomasters and aldermen because they were not allowed to enter the city.
One might suppose this was the clerk’s correction of a mistake. Yet, considering the context already described, a much more likely explanation would be that the French invasion of Brittany was unexpected and the troops before the city gates were hastily reassigned to travel to Brittany.
As shown by the deletion, these men were initially intended to be sent to England to join the main expeditionary force from Ireland to meet Henry VII’s army at Stoke on 16 June 1487. This would certainly explain why the long pikes were bought and distributed in June. Sending the main expeditionary force to their Irish allies, followed by another force to attack Henry VII’s army from two fronts, seems like something Margaret would do. It would also explain why John III of Walhain was assigned as distributor of weapons and why these men arrived before the gates of the city of Bergen op Zoom in May 1487.
