The Wars of the Roses - Alison Weir [232]
At three o’clock that afternoon, the sheriffs of London received their prisoner at Temple Bar, intending to have him executed that evening. But the crowds were enormous; some had just come to ‘gawp and gaze’ at Tiptoft, while others were baying for his blood and would have lynched him had he not been protected by a heavily armed band of guards. It was nearly night by the time that the procession had forced its way as far as the Fleet Bridge, so the sheriffs asked the warden of the Fleet if they could borrow his prison and locked Tiptoft up there until morning. The next day they managed to escort him to Tower Hill. He showed no emotion on the scaffold and ignored the taunts and curses of the watching crowd, only unbending to speak to an Italian friar, who reproached him for his cruelty, to which he replied loftily that he had governed his deeds for the good of the state. He then requested the executioner to sever his head in three strokes in honour of the Holy Trinity. Thus died the only member of the Yorkist nobility to be executed by the readeption government. On 20 October, John Langstrother, Prior of the Hospital of the Knights of St John, was appointed Treasurer of England in his place.
In October, Jasper Tudor arrived in Hereford, where his nephew Henry Tudor was living with Lady Herbert’s niece and her husband, Sir Richard Corbet. Corbet handed over the boy, now thirteen, to his uncle, who took him to London to be presented to Henry VI. Polydore Vergil asserts that at their meeting the King, indicating young Henry Tudor, said to Jasper, ‘This truly is he unto whom both we and our adversaries must yield and give over the dominion.’ Yet it is highly unlikely that Henry VI would have said such a thing, for at that time the hopes of the Lancastrian dynasty were centred on the Prince of Wales. If he died, the throne would pass to Clarence, and even then there were others who might contest his claim, such as the descendants of the Dukes of Somerset and Exeter. No one then would have envisaged that Henry Tudor would one day become King Henry VII and found one of the most successful dynasties to rule in England. Vergil was the official historian to Henry VII, and this tale was no doubt invented to flatter his master, who claimed to be the heir to Lancaster.
Jasper was now styling himself Earl of Pembroke, even though the attainder against him had not been reversed. He also tried to have the earldom of Richmond restored to Henry Tudor, but was unsuccessful because it was still held by Clarence.
After his presentation at court, young Henry visited his mother and her husband Henry Stafford at Woking, before rejoining Jasper on 12 November and returning to Wales. This would be the last time he saw Margaret Beaufort for over fourteen years, and their next meeting would take place in very different circumstances, for he would then be king.
By November 1470, says Rous, Warwick ‘had all England at his leading and was feared and respected through many lands’. Not only was he the King’s Lieutenant but he had also resumed his offices of Great Chamberlain of England and Captain of Calais. Clarence had been appointed Lieutenant of Ireland, and the composition of the Council was still much as it had been under Edward IV, being largely made up of men of ability rather than of rank. Clarence, who had been excluded from the Council by Edward IV, now had a place on it, although Montague did not, having been sent north to carry out his duties as Warden of the East Marches. Nor were Shrewsbury, Oxford, Stanley, Devon or Pembroke given seats; Warwick preferred them to exert their influence in their own territories. The self-styled Dukes of Exeter and Somerset were still in Burgundy, supported by pensions from Duke Charles, but their presence was an embarrassment to him since Edward IV had become a guest in his duchy, and he was fervently hoping that the exiles would soon go home