The Princes in the Tower, page 24
However, it is perhaps most remarkable that Howard was made Admiral of England with the ‘certain specified powers’ related to that office on 25 July,109 at the very stage he and King Richard required control of the seas. Tight control of maritime activities at this time seems to be further supported by the surviving records of the Hanseatic League.110
It may also be important to note that Robert Langton was made Petty Customs Officer for the Port of London on 24 July 1483.111 Robert was the brother of Thomas Langton, Bishop of St David’s (Bishop of Salisbury in February 1485 and supporter of Richard III and Richard of England). It was Thomas who knew the ‘secrets’ of King Richard’s heart.112 Robert was also a long-standing associate of George Neville, who had close connections to John Howard,113 and also seems to have been associated with Howard himself.114
Moreover, on 25 July 1483 Sir Edward Brampton, another leading Yorkist seafarer knighted by King Richard, was awarded the quite staggering sum of £350 on the same day that Howard was made admiral (equivalent to over £320,000 today). This award was without explanation.115
In 1481, during the Scottish campaign, Howard and Brampton had served together in the English fleet.116 Here we see two men, both loyal Yorkists, who knew and trusted each other (and were trusted by the Yorkist kings), who were ship owners and knew the seas and ports. Was Howard relied upon to carry the younger boy to safety on one of his vessels, and Brampton, the elder boy on one of his? Current evidence suggests this may have been the case.
Further investigation has also revealed the potential involvement of a third individual. Christopher Colyns, a merchant and citizen of London, was a Gentleman Usher to Edward IV and a mourner at the king’s funeral along with John Howard. Colyns was also a ship owner and master, a business associate of Howard’s and a local agent in the Thames Estuary for both Edward IV and Richard III (Edward had been particularly involved in mercantile trade). He would also be tasked by King Richard to patrol the seas, outfit ships and men for war, ensure payments reached key English fortresses across the Channel in France, control a strategic fortress in Kent at Queenborough Castle (with the help of his brother), and command significant numbers of men.
Of particular interest is an annuity of £100 granted to Colyns by Richard on 20 August 1484, which was to last for twenty years (from Easter 1485). This was payment for services yet to be provided by Colyns according to indenture. It was a substantial sum, and for a prolonged period of time. However, the services in question were not specified. Remarkably, an identical indenture was granted to Brampton on the same day (20 August 1484).117
Cecil Roth makes a similar mention of this peculiar grant. He writes:
But the next grant was the most surprising of all. In consideration of ‘services to be rendered according to certain indentures’ he (i.e. Brampton) and another person named Christopher Colyns were each awarded an annuity of the then very considerable sum of £100 a year for twenty years. What those mysterious services were which Richard did not wish to make public, but for which he was willing to pay so dearly, must remain a matter of conjecture.118
It is highly probable that Colyns, like Brampton and Howard, had significant contacts in France and the Low Countries. Do these simultaneous indentures indicate the potential involvement of Colyns and Brampton in the transport of the princes, or at least some knowledge, given that their ships and captains were used? Like Howard and Brampton, the ports of London and the continent would have been well known to Colyns.
It also appears that Colyns, with Howard and Brampton, conducted an operation against pirates and rebels in mid-May 1483. This was ordered by the King’s Council (under the advice of Richard, Duke of Gloucester, as Protector and Admiral) to apprehend the English fleet after it had been taken to sea by Sir Edward Woodville. It seems that these three men – Howard, Colyns and Brampton – must have known (and trusted) each other, and were similarly relied upon by Richard, as duke and king.119
Further Thoughts: 2. Implications for Other Key Individuals
The Gelderland manuscript also seems to explain several hitherto inexplicable events, not least the actions of the princes’ mother, Elizabeth Woodville: first, in allowing her daughters to come out of sanctuary under King Richard’s protection in March 1484, and second, requesting her son, Dorset (in France with Henry Tudor), to return to England and make his peace with Richard. And finally, following King Richard’s death, Elizabeth apparently supported the uprising on behalf of Lambert Simnel, an impostor purporting to be the son of her former enemy, the Duke of Clarence (though Henry VII invented a different cover story). For this, her lands, possessions and jointures were removed, and she lived in poverty in Bermondsey Abbey (see Chapter 16).
It may also explain the imprisonment of two noblemen during the early reign of King Henry. First, the princes’ half-brother, Dorset, who was incarcerated for what may have been over two years in the Tower of London at the time of King Edward’s emergence. Second, the uniquely long captivity of John Howard’s son and heir, Thomas Howard, confined in the Tower (and Queenborough Castle in Kent) following King Richard’s death. Howard would remain a prisoner for over three years, released only upon an oath of loyalty to the new regime. Howard would be denied his inheritances, with the dukedom of Norfolk only restored to him twenty-eight years later by King Henry’s son (Henry VIII) following the Battle of Flodden in 1513. The bafflement of the Howard family over Tudor stories about King Richard would be relayed in the years that followed,120 leading to Sir George Buc’s seminal History of King Richard the Third (1619), written after the demise of the Tudor dynasty when it was safe to openly question their version of events.121
Furthermore, these extraordinary discoveries shed light on King Richard’s public declaration of innocence in the alleged murder of his nephews. The declaration was recorded at the time of Richard’s Parliament (23 January to 20 February 1484), the sincerity of which almost certainly explains Elizabeth Woodville’s decision on 1 March 1484 to place her daughters in his care. The declaration is recorded by Raphael Holinshed, who, despite his Tudor take on the event, informs us that the people accepted King Richard’s declaration. Holinshed records, ‘For what with purging and declaring his innocence concerning the murder of his nephews toward the world, and what with cost to obtain the love and favour of the communality (which outwardly glossed, and openly dissembled with him) …’122
This may also explain a unique surviving record from the King’s Signet Office at this time in a letter of recommendation for the king’s close confidant and counsellor, Thomas Langton, Bishop of St David’s. On 10 March 1484, King Richard wrote to Pope Sixtus IV (d. 12 August 1484):
We send in person to your holiness the venerable father in Christ the lord Thomas bishop of St Davids our very dear and faithful counsellor and spokesman who knows the secrets of our heart. We have committed to him certain matters to be explained to your holiness and we humbly ask and beg that with your customary goodwill to us and our kingdom you will listen with ready and willing ears.123
The following day, Richard wrote to Charles VIII of France in a similar letter of recommendation for Langton, ‘He will explain to your majesty in our name certain matters concerning us’.124
In view of this, Thomas Langton’s remarkable presence in Malines in 1486 (most likely accompanied by Margaret of York) is worth mentioning,125 particularly given his strong Yorkist sympathies and subsequent involvement in the second Yorkist conspiracy (1492–97) in favour of the second son of King Edward IV, Richard, Duke of York. During this period, Langton took an active part in the Yorkist ‘Kendal Cell’ in England.126
The project’s discoveries explain Henry Tudor’s post-Bosworth delay in the north of England, searching for news of King Edward’s children and taking those he could locate into his immediate care and custody (see Chapter 10). On arrival in London, Henry issued a notable proclamation, which was delivered ‘everywhere’ in the capital and surrounding areas, ‘that if there were a claimant to the crown by descent from the King Edward. He was to show himself; and he [Henry] would help him to get crowned; but no soul appeared.’127
It seems that Henry may have suspected that Francis Lovell was involved in the removal of the princes. Remarkably, within a year of Bosworth, King Henry ensured that one of his key enforcers, Simon Digby, was awarded the office of Steward of the Lordship of Bedale for life.128 It’s also possible that by 1494, Henry was in receipt of a copy of Richard of York’s detailed narrative.
Significantly, in the spring of that year, Henry paid for an ‘inquisition and investigation’ at Middleham and Sheriff Hutton.129 Certainly, by the time of Richard of England’s proclamation from Scotland and subsequent invasion of England in the autumn of 1496, Digby and the heirs of his body were, ‘for diverse considerations’, granted for life the 20 marks annual rent of the Lordship of Bedale.130 Digby, now Lieutenant of the Tower of London, was King Henry’s key man in the capture, imprisonment and execution of the followers of Richard, Duke of York.131 Richard himself, thanks to Digby’s efforts, would be entrapped, beaten and kept in shackles and chains within the Tower, eventually to suffer execution along with his young Yorkist cousin, Edward, Earl of Warwick.132
In December 1497, Bedale was awarded to Digby’s younger brother, Sir John Digby.133 The payment required by Henry VII amounted to a knight’s fee and a red rose. In 1542, following the death of both Digby brothers, Simon’s grandson was awarded Bedale in a family covenant.134 The covenant stated that Bedale had come into Henry VII’s hands ‘by forfeiture, treason of Sir Francis Lovell, Viscount Lovell’. The payment required by Henry was restated as a knight’s fee and a single red rose. It also stated that the red rose rent was to be paid annually at the feast of the Nativity of John the Baptist. Was this date a cryptic reference to the recent capture (and eventual torture and execution) of Richard of England? Or was it simply an appreciation of the Digby family’s allegiance to the Lancastrian cause; a cause in which the Battle of Towton had claimed the life of Simon Digby’s father and three of his uncles.135 Was Digby’s entrapment and execution of Richard of England a thirty-eight-year payback for Towton? Perhaps it was both. Unlike his younger brother, Simon Digby never received the honour of knighthood.136
That Simon Digby was awarded Bedale, the manor of Francis Lovell and home of the Peirse family, reveals Henry VII’s suspicions, and likely intelligence, of Lovell’s involvement in the removal of the princes. By the time of Thomas Peirse’s return to Bedale and the publication of Richard of England’s account as the son of Edward IV and rightful king, Henry VII needed the services of a man who not only had powerful scores to settle, but little or no compunction in carrying them out. The Tudor and Elizabethan eras would see the Digby family rise to great wealth and prominence, despite the execution in 1570 of Sir John Digby’s grandson, Simon Digby, Lord of Bedale, for his role in the Rising of the North against the last Tudor monarch, Elizabeth I.137
Conclusion
Tudor destruction of documents relating to the reign of Richard III, including the emptying of King Richard’s Baga de Secretis, means we have to search in those places now left to us in order to uncover the truth. Document destruction and Henry VII’s anti-Ricardian propaganda are perhaps the clearest indications of what Henry and his close adherents wished to conceal. By the time of the Lambert Simnel uprising, a great many at Henry’s court believed the king’s version of events. However, by the time Perkin Warbeck arrived, Henry’s Yorkist servants and nobles no longer believed the official account en masse, and many died for it.138
Fortunately, the Gelderland Archive in the Netherlands proved to be one of those repositories still containing new evidence with which to support an alternative narrative. The manuscript rediscovered there in 2020 is unique and without precedent.
This authentic document, dated c. 1493, gives new, previously unknown and detailed information about the disappearance from the Tower of London in 1483 of the Duke of York (and his brother Edward V), together with further information concerning the young duke’s wanderings on the continent in the years that followed.
A correlation of John Howard’s actions with the chronology of events and information given in the Gelderland manuscript reveals an extraordinary sequence of events. However, perhaps most striking is the fact that Richard, Duke of York, in allowing this report to be recorded, with (verifiable) names and whereabouts, took the most enormous risk. In 1493, he officially stepped forward as the second son of King Edward IV and heir to the English throne, supported and recognised by the powerful Habsburg-Burgundy dynasty. If, at that moment, the information provided by him turned out to be incorrect, he would have placed his entire credibility at immediate risk before the whole expedition concerning the attainment of his English kingship had begun. It is therefore the case that he dared disseminate this detailed information at the time because he knew it was true and verifiable. (For Margaret of York, see Chapter 17.)
Another important factor is the recent discovery of the Lille Receipt, revealing that Edward V, the eldest son of King Edward IV, was alive in 1487,139 significantly increasing the probability that his younger brother Richard had also survived and from 1493 onwards attempted to regain his right to the English throne.
It also strongly suggests the role of Francis Lovell in recommending Henry and Thomas Peirse as guardians to the young prince. Lovell’s involvement post-Bosworth in the rebellion inspired by the crowning of King Edward in Ireland further strengthens the case for the survival of the elder prince, for whom both Lovell and Lincoln fought; the latter, though heir presumptive to Richard III, preferring to die on the field of battle for the Yorkist king.
It follows, therefore, that the rediscovery of the Gelderland manuscript is of unique historical importance. It supports the alternative story that both sons of King Edward IV were taken from the Tower and sent abroad into safety and hiding. It also provides many exciting new leads in the continuing search for further supporting evidence, particularly on the continent.
15
The Journey of the White Rose
To the Island of Texel, April–July 14951 by Nathalie Nijman-Bliekendaal and Jean Roefstra
Introduction
On 3 July 1495, soldiers and captains of the Yorkist claimant to the throne, Richard, Duke of York, who had proclaimed himself ‘King Richard (IV) of England’ earlier that year,2 set foot in England. The men were part of a fleet which York, with the support and assistance of the Habsburg-Burgundian princes, had amassed in the Low Countries in the preceding months. The ‘new young king’ had only one goal in mind: to reclaim the English throne which rightfully belonged to him as the son and heir of Edward IV.
Various sources describe this failed Yorkist invasion, which took place near the coastal town of Deal in Kent.3 However, the exact place from which Richard’s fleet left the continent was unknown, or at least uncertain.
In the extant chronicles and literature, the place of departure has always been unspecified, but some modern authors suggest the fleet departed from the county of Zeeland.4 A logical conjecture, since some contemporary sources pointed towards Zeeland, which was close to the Habsburg-Burgundian centre of power at Malines.5 Moreover, the crossing to the east coast of England from the ports in Zeeland was a relatively short one. There was also a precedent: on two previous occasions Yorkist military expeditions had set sail from Zeeland with the aim of conquering England – Edward IV in 1471 and Edward V in 1487.6
Despite this, our analysis reveals that the Duke of York, or ‘The White Rose’, as he was known (referring to his descent from the royal House of York), did not depart from Zeeland or Flanders but from the remote Dutch island of Texel. This followed a stay of two months or more in the far north of the County of Holland.
The Divisie Chronicle of Cornelius Aurelius (1460–1531)
Both English and Dutch historiographers7 seem to have overlooked an important near-contemporary source illuminating the Yorkist expedition of 1495: the Divisie Chronicle of the Dutch chronicler Cornelius Aurelius.8 Published in 1517, but probably written around 1500, it is considered the most important and reliable late medieval chronicle of the Low Countries. Aurelius describes in detail York’s journey through the County of Holland during the months of April, May and June 1495, on his way to its northernmost point, the island of Texel.9
The relevant text reads:
In the year 1495 on Monday after the octave of Easter late in the evening, has arrived in the Town of Haarlem Richard [sic Ritzaert], the son of King Edward, who is called ‘The White Rose’ [die Witte Rose]. There he stayed for a while with the Knights of the Order of St John to wait for his people and other military equipment, because he wanted to go to England to claim the Throne and his inheritance … From here [i.e. Haarlem] after the 8th of June in the early morning, this Richard, the White Rose, went – with all his people – to the village and cloister of Egmont. And from there to the island of Texel. But most of his men/ships were passing from the outside along the sea [coast] to Texel and were already there waiting for him and preparing all necessary things they needed for their journey. And on the first day of July with a lucky wind they sailed to Ireland, because he could not or dare not come to England.
The Zeeland chronicler, Jan van Reijgersbergh, also records in his Dije Cronijcke van Zeelandt that Richard, ‘who was called The White Rose’, travelled via Holland to England in the year 1495.10
What Preceded Richard’s Journey Through Holland?
In mid-January 1495, the Duke of York must have been informed of the apparent treachery of a key supporter and confidant, Sir Robert Clifford.11 At that time, York was in the Brabant town of Bergen op Zoom (with Duke Albert of Saxony).12 It seems likely that the first rumours of the betrayal arrived here, since Bergen op Zoom had close trade contacts and rapid communication lines with England. Clifford appeared to have given Henry VII the names of York’s supporters among the English nobility. These alarming reports from England must have come as a great shock and provided a considerable setback to the Yorkists’ invasion plans.
