S1 E2: The Pretender

Night has fallen and it's freezing cold inside the little village church at Column in Oxfordshire, but the two brothers huddled inside it, have no intention of leaving. Even as they draw their cloaks around themselves and shiver beside the altar, they know their lives depend on staying inside this small house of God. Outside the posse is assembling. There are 60 men out there led by a real hard nut. So John Savage is, as his name suggests, no stranger to the business end of a sword. Nine months ago he fought at the battle of Bosworth on the side of the man who rules the realm, Henry Tudor, Henry VII of England. The brothers, Humphrey and Thomas Stafford, were also at Bosworth fighting for the rich of the third. Since then they've been on the run. For a while they were holed up in another church in Essex, but last month they and their well-connected pal Francis Lorde Lovell made a break for it and tried to raise a rebellion against the Tudor King. They nearly pulled it off too. In April they stirred up Yorkshire and the Midlands against King Henry. The Stafford's started riots in Warwick, Birmingham and Worcester. Lovell went one better. In York on St George's day he sent a hit squad to try and cut Henry down while he was celebrating high mass in York's cathedral the Minster. The assassins came within slashing distance of the King. Accounts are confused about what happened next, but it seems like one of the King's noble friends clocked what was happening, thought the killers off, captured some of them and hanged them on the spot. Since then the King has rallied and the plotters have scattered. Everyone involved is either fleeing the realm or doing what the Staffords are doing, taking cover in holy sanctuary. Protocol says if they're in a church the royal law can't touch them and nor can goons like savage. So right now the Staffords just need to hold out the night and wait for Savage to go away. Oh that's what they're thinking when the first blow of the battering ram hits the locked church door. There's a massive collision of iron on wood, then another. There's no time to react before Savage's men have smashed the church door off its hinges and storm in. This is a humve violation of church law. Savage doesn't care and nor does his paymaster King Henry the Seventh. The armed posse grab the Stafford brothers and sweep them away to face trial for treason. A local abbot tries to intervene to insist their arrest is illegal, he's overruled. Less than six weeks later guilty sentences are passed against both brothers. Thomas Stafford, the younger one, has most of his lands taken away from him. He's financially ruined. Humphrey Stafford, the elder, dies a traitor's death. He's hanged, disemboweled, castrated and beheaded. His head is stuck on a spike on London bridge. Lumps of his flesh are sent to be displayed at towns around the Midlands. Royal judges cover the King's arse by saying sanctuary no longer applies in cases of high treason. Deal with it. Since the Battle of Bosworth, Henry the Seventh has tried to be restrained in dealing with England's Tudor Haters. Now his patients are snapped. Anyone who tries to take him down will have to kill him or suffer the consequences of failure. So the question is, just how inventive eyes enemies prepared to be. I'm Dan Jones and from Sony Music Entertainment, this is History. Season one of the Tudors, Episode two, The Pretender. Now friends, before I hand you over to the Motley crew who've turned Henry the Seventh into a raging monster, I thought I'd remind you of a much calmer court. And it's yours. This is History's Royal Court. It's found on Patreon and it's a wonderful collection of happy historical campers from around the world who nerd out about all things medieval, travel tips, books and the history behind each ad-free episode. That's all for you to discover at patreon.com/thisishistory. Now let's find England's true king. You never know who's going to show up on For the Love with Jin Hatmaker. From Mel Robbins to Tignitaro, Kate Bollard is Stanley Tucci. I'm Jin Hatmaker and every week my dear friend Amy and I dive deep with incredible guests who make us laugh, and cry, and think a little bigger about life in the middle years. For The Love, we're great stories, meet unforgettable people. Follow and listen wherever you get your podcasts. Have you ever impersonated someone? I'm not talking about doing a funny impression of your boss's laugh or dressing up as, you know, your favourite historian for World Book Day. No, I mean, actually tried to pass yourself off as another person for a sustained period of time. Well, I've tried it once or twice, not counting the times I've answered to the name Dan Snow. For reasons not totally clear to me in retrospect. When I was a child, I dressed up as an old peasant woman and tried to sell wooden pegs to my own mother at my own front door. This was definitely odd. I want to restate, I don't know why I did it, but my mum did pay me to go away. And I'll have to keep details hazy here to avoid landing myself in further trouble. I impersonated my spouse to an official agency to cut through some annoying bureaucratic process. Both of these were short-term successes, especially the peg scam, but I think in the grand scheme of things, I'm not psychologically cut out to be a Tom Ripley character. But maybe you're different. Feel free to chime in on our Patreon page if you want to get anything off your chest. It's patreon.com/thisishistory for all your confessions. Anyway, the reason I'm asking this is because this episode of our podcast is all about pretence and impersonation at a very high level. We're going to be following the campaign to place a pretender on the English throne, to replace Henry Tudor. A plot with so many astonishing twists and turns that blows my mind every time I think about it. The tale begins in the aftermath of the rest of the Stafford Brothers in 1486. It involves Lord Lovell, who we met last episode, and this one, trying to assassinate Henry Tudor York. But it's masterminded by one of the most enthusiastic schemers of the whole 15th century, a Yorkist princess called Margaret of Burgundy. So let's begin with her. In early 1487, with Lord Lovell's attempt on Henry's life in Tatters, Lovell himself manages to jump on a ship out of England and escape the wrath of the Tudor King. He heads for the low countries to the court of Margaret of Burgundy at Mechalen, now in Belgium. He knows this is the one place he's likely to come across other renegade supporters of the old House of York, schemers who share his ambition to destroy the House of Tudor. The court he finds there is a spectacular one. For generations, the dukes of Burgundy have been renowned as the grandest and most splendid rulers north of the Alps. They have the best taste in art, in building in courtly manners. Right now, the Duke of Burgundy is an eight-year-old boy named Philip, and 40-year-old Margaret is ruling the Duchy in his name. She's keeping their traditions of the Burgundian court alive. She's a grand-looking woman with a fashionably high forehead, small, pinched mouth, and strikingly wide set eyes. She's a sharp-eyed, hard-nosed businesswoman, and above all, she's magnificent. The crown she wore when she was Duchess still survives today. It's in the treasury of Ahing Cathedral, and it's a beautiful bit of kit. It's covered in pearls, precious stones, and coloured letters spelling out her name. It's signature design motif is white enameled roses. These are the signs of the House of York, Margaret's English royal family. Her dad was the OG Yorkist patriarch Richard Duke of York, so her brothers were a kinghead with the fourth George Duke of Clarence and Richard III. She's fiercely loyal to the family's dignity, and, sure, while you couldn't say her siblings would dignified, Margaret's still seeing red. This Tudor nobody can't be on the throne. As one pro-Tudor writer puts it, Margaret knows perfectly well the House of York had been destroyed by her brother, Richard III, but hating Henry with a truly insatiable hatred, burning with unquenchable rage, she could never resist any scheme that might somehow do harm to the man who was the head of the rival family. In other words, this is a good old-fashioned blood feud, and when Lord Lovell turns up fresh from trying to whack the rival, he's welcomed by Margaret with open arms. Then the plotting begins. And Lovell isn't the only one Margaret has to stay. In March 1887, another major player shows up, also on the run from the Tudor court. This one is Margaret's nephew, John De La Pole, Earl of Lincoln. He's in his late 20s, and he was just as tight with Richard III as Lord Lovell once was. In fact, before Bosworth, Richard had named Lincoln as his heir. Lincoln fought for Richard at Bosworth, afterwards made his peace with Henry, but has always been harboring a grudge against the Tudors. Henry has become increasingly suspicious that Lincoln is involved in plotting against him, and it seems like he's right, because now Lincoln has bolted from England. So whether or not he was plotting beforehand, Lincoln definitely is now, and by running away, he has as good as painted the word "trater" on his back. When he gets to Margaret's court in Burgundy, he joins in the scheming that's underway, and it's at this point that the scheming takes a highly dramatic turn. The question for the plotters at Margaret's court is how they can strike against the Tudors. Not only has Henry got Bosworth on his scorecard, he's tied up the legal side of becoming King in Parliament, and he has his propagandists doorbing Tudor roses of red and white, on everything that doesn't move. Worse for the plotters, anyway, the Tudor dynasty is expanding. In September, 1486, Queen Elizabeth gives birth to their first child, a son granted the legendary and stirring name of Arthur. It won't be long before she has another bun in the oven, and once royal families start expanding the nursery, it gets very hard to come up with convincing alternatives for the crown. What's more, none of the potential Yorkist claimants out there are perfect candidates to rally a conspiracy around. Lincoln himself is a possibility, but there are others who have a better shout. The most plausible, assuming that the princes in the tower are dead, is the son of George Duke of Clarence. He's called Edward Earl of Warwick, and he's now 12 years old. But there are problems with Warwick as a figurehead for the plotters in Burgundy. One is that he's already been touted as a rival to Henry Tudor. Lord Lovell tried to raise the country in his name last year. The second is that he's currently being held in the Tower of London, so not at all at liberty to be attached to a conspiracy. In fact, in February 1487, just before Lincoln bailed from England, Henry paraded Edward Earl of Warwick through the streets of London to prove that he was in royal custody and not at large. That puts the Yorkist plotters in a quandary. They reckon there's enough anti-Tudor feeling in England to make a rebellion worthwhile, but without a hero, it's going to be mighty difficult. But there is one left-field possibility. The real Edward Earl of Warwick is in the Tower of London, but for months there have been whispers going around Yorkist circles that someone is grooming an "identicate" Earl, an imposter who's being tutored in how to impersonate the claimant to the crown. Now details are murky, as they have to be with a plot like this. But if someone really is prepping a phony Earl of Warwick, then that would surely be the person to put at the front of a rebellion to knock Henry Tudor off his perch. In April 1487, sensational word arrives in Bergenby confirming that just such an imposter does exist. He's been tutored in Oxford, and now he's been ghosted out of England to a place where Yorkist sentiment is just as strong as in Bergenby. That's the pale of Dublin, the area of Ireland where Richard Duke of York was once a popular royal governor. If the plotters set sail for the Emerald Isle, they'll find an oven ready pretend Earl of Warwick waiting for them. His name, apparently, is Lambert Simnall. No one knows exactly who he is, or how good he's going to be at the old impersonation game, but let's be real. With the Tudor family expanding, the Yorkist plotters might never get a better opportunity than this. In late April 1487, Lincoln, Lord Lovell and a band of horrible German mercenaries set out from Bergenby, setting sail for Dublin. Operation take down the Tudors is on. The medieval aristocracy had many virtues, but dressing subtly wasn't one of them. Some outfits looked less like Lord of the Manor and more escaped upholstery, which is one reason I like Quince. They make the opposite, timeless pieces in premium materials like 100% Mongolian Kashmir and Marino Wool. I've been wearing one of their soft Kashmir sweaters lately, and these 100% Mongolian Kashmir sweaters start at just $60. Everything at Quince is priced 50% to 80% less than similar brands, because they work directly with ethical factories and cut out the middlemen. Find your next four favourites at Quince. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns, now available in Canada and the UK too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know. It was this is history. It's the best way to support the show. Dublin Cathedral is packed with a mixed crowd of troublemakers and rubber-neckers. It's the 24th of May 1487, Ascension Day. And so long as your name isn't Henry Tudor, you've got to admit that this is Great Crack. They're waiting for the arrival of Lambert Simnal, or, as he'll be, when they're done here, King Edward VI of England. And though there are plenty here, possibly everyone, who know this whole thing is a pantomime, you'd have to have a heart of stone not to laugh. All eyes are on the empty throne, in front of the high altar. And from the other end of the cathedral, a huge man called Great Darcy of Platon arrives, carrying on his shoulders a boy of about ten years old. It's Lambert Simnal. Darcy proceeds to bring the kid all the way up to the altar, and there presents him to the Archbishop of Dublin, who's flanked by several of the other most senior bishops in Ireland. Other dignitaries, who've turned out in their finest, include the English Plotter Lords, Lincoln and Lovell, and the captain of the German mercenaries, a Swiss dude called Martin Schwartz. There's also an Italian visiting bishop called Ottaviano, who later claims he's been threatened with physical violence by Lincoln, if he doesn't show up. But the star of the show, today at least, is Lambert Simnal, slash Edward VI. You only wonder what this kid is thinking. A year ago he was the son of an organ-maker from somewhere around Oxford. Since then, with the connivance of various shady characters from Yorkist circles, he's been trained to answer to the name of the Earl of Warwick. And now the King of England and Lord of Ireland too. According to one description of the coronation, the crown that's placed on Lambert's head is an ornament taken from a statue of the Virgin Mary. Once that's been done, the Mary of Dublin hoakes him into his arms and they set off marching around Dublin with everyone bowing and scraping, as if he really were the King. The ringleader on the Irish side is the Earl of Kildare, a fantastically energetic troublemaker who's loving every second of this caper. Once the drinking and partying to celebrate the coronation is over, the Earl of Kildare writes to various neighbouring lords who didn't show up to the coronation, ordering them to come and submit to their new monarch. He gets various replies, inviting him to, as the Irish idiom has it, "stick it up as feckin hall," but Kildare is used to the rough and tumble of Irish politics. He hangs messengers who bring in rude responses and goes ahead and calls a Parliament in the new King's name. He even strikes official coins with Edward King of England and France stamped on one side and King of Ireland stamped on the other. Kildare and his new allies, Lincoln, Lovell and the German mercenaries, turn their attention to the real business ahead of them. They have their pretend Edward Earl of Warwick. He's been groomed and crowned and repurposed as Edward VI of England. Now, they actually have to do something with him. Coins and parliaments in Dublin will only go so far. It's time to swap Henry for Edward. That means a showdown. There are two possibilities. It will be nice to go to Henry VII and to crossing the Irish Sea and fighting them on home turf. But in the last few centuries, only one English King has been dumb enough to do anything remotely like that. That was Richard II in 1399 and the payoff for him was being deposed and murdered. Henry Tudor isn't stupid enough to try that. The plotters are going to have to go to him and they're going to have to do it pretty quickly. Fun as the coronation of the imposter Lambert's symbol has been, they're now burning through money every day they stay in Ireland. The German mercenaries they've hired are on a day-rate and they can't keep them hanging around doing nothing. What's more, the money they're burning is cash that's been lent to them by Margaret of Burgundy and that famously sharp business woman is going to want it all repaid in full whether they succeed or fail in their enterprise. The TLDR of it all is this, now that Lincoln and Lovel have their pretender, they'd better get him over to England, stat. So in the days that follow the coronation, the plotters ready a fleet of ships in Dublin Bay and they begin to load up with everything they'll need for their assault on Tudor England. They have their 2,000 mercenaries and another 4 or 5,000 wild-looking Irish troops loyal to the Earl of Kildaire who fight half naked with spears and knives. It is a peculiar looking army all right but it's better than nothing. In fact, it's not so very different from the army Henry Tudor brought over from the continent to Wales in the summer of 1485, and look where that took him. In the last days of May, the pretender army, Waysanker, sets out across the Irish sea. Where they'll make landfall, well that's anyone's guess. They know that Henry Tudor is expecting them, but they reckon they've got more than a punctious chance of taking him out, so yet another political crisis is coming for England. This time, it's the knock-off king, Switcheroo. Henry Tudor is in Kenelworth Castle in the Midlands as the pretender fleet sails eastward. While the invaders are feeling the salty, bracing spray of the Irish sea whip their faces, the German mercenaries keep everyone chipper as they sing lusty war songs. Back in England, Henry's anything but chipper. He's pacing his chamber, waiting for intelligence reports to come in from the coasts bearing news of a possible landing spot. Henry's clerks, meanwhile, are pressed into service as the fun police. They scribble out orders to the towns and cities of England banning gossip and ordering everyone to be on their best behaviour. It seems like Henry doesn't trust anyone, let alone his own people, but maybe there's some basis for his mistrust. Henry still doesn't have a standing army to rely on. His yeoman of the guard, bodyguard, is still his primary military safety blanket. There are a few hundred of them that will be at least a few thousand of the enemy. That leaves Henry reliant on his nobles to raise troops and come to defend him as their king. It's June 1487. He's only been on the throne for 22 months. Can he expect the whole country to turn out and defend him in his time of need? In June 4th, the hypothesis is tested. The rebel fleet lands in Cumbria, the far northwest of England. It's a remote spot, part of the borderlands between England and Scotland, but the fact is the pretender king and his noble backers Lincoln and Lovell are now on English soil. The fight for survival has begun. Henry hears that the rebels are heading for York, which seems to be the magnet for all trouble these days. As they go, Northerners join their ranks, but that ends up working against the rebel army. Although the pretender army swells to 8 to 10,000 men, it also becomes far too unruly for any sane mayor to invite into his city. York refuses to open the city gates to the rebels. Lincoln and Lovell tell their pretender king, and themselves, that if they win one battle, the northern lords and citizens are bound to flock to their side. But they're still way off that tipping point when all of England throws its lot in with them, rather than Henry Tudor. That said, they all know that it is early days in this invasion, and Henry is certainly not comfortable. It takes a day or two for the news of the rebel army's landing to get to him in Kennellworth. When it does, he takes his own small core of bodyguards and the troops of the nobles who've been summoned to join him and sets out to meet the rebel army in battle. They're bound to head south from the direction of York. Henry is in the Midlands, so he goes north. As he passes the major towns of the Midlands, all loyal to the crown, he picks up troops. But within a few days, his troops are starting to wonder, does this guy actually know what he's doing? On the night of June 12th, Henry manages to march his troops into a wood and becomes completely lost. For nearly a day he's marching them around with no clue where he is or what's going on. His inexperience is showing, and some of his troops can smell it. A few start asking themselves if Bosworth was a lucky one off, and those who dare start sneaking away and heading off home. Those who do scarper spread rumors that the king is already defeated. Confused? So's the realm. All the while, Lincoln's army is heading south, and by June the 14th, the two are in scouting distance of one another. Henry is camped outside Nottingham with around 12,000 troops now under his banner. The insurgents have more like 8,000. On June the 15th, a battle site is picked. Henry orders his men to march out from Nottingham in the direction of Stoke. That night, both sides camp and get ready for the showdown that's going to decide whether England gets a knock-off king. But when the sun comes up on June the 16th, the actual king Henry is nowhere to be seen. Lying up against him is a formidable site. There's a band of half-laked Irishmen, and a couple of thousand German cell swords led by two traitors and an organ grinders kid with a crown they pulled out of a Christmas cracker. Yet it seems that Henry has taken fright. Faced with the possibility that he could be killed, he's decided to sit the battle out and trust commands to his noble allies. Is discretion the better part of valor, who has Henry just bottled his chance to save his throne and show himself the fearless leader England needs? At Stoke Field, on June the 16th, 1487, everything is on the line. Henry is going to have to hope that someone bales him out, otherwise it's good night Vienna for the tutors. That's for next time. On this is history, the tutors. Hey, it's not a great start to your reign running off scared from men who've pledged their allegiance to a king wearing a crown nick from the Virgin Mary, is it? But listen, you got to hand it to that motley crew. They certainly were inventive. And that makes me want to ask my royal favorite something. Who have you impersonated before? And please send us your best pictures on the group chat. We'd love to see. Hit patreon.com/thisishistory to get amongst it. Looking to strengthen your health and well-being, tune in to the Dr. Tina Show, one of Apple podcast top alternative health shows. I'm Dr. Tina Moore, naturopathic physician and chiropractor and I cover topics like metabolic health, chronic diseases, pain management and more with expert interviews and solo episodes. I keep it no nonsense with a science-backed approach to empower you to improve your health and resilience. New episodes every Thursday produced by Drake Peterson and Wellness Loud.