One of the most difficult choices that any 15th
century English nobleman had to make was where his loyalties lay. In theory it should be a simple matter of
pledging his loyalty to the King, but in the troubled times of the War of the
Roses the political terrain was a great deal more complicated, and there were
tangled family ties and loyalties to consider as well as a duty to crown and
country. In this conflict some men would
lose their lives for their loyalty, some would be executed for their
disloyalty, but there was one nobleman who managed with great dexterity to play
on both sides at once and keep his head very firmly on his shoulders. This politically adroit baron was Thomas
Stanley, 1st Earl of Derby, who throughout his long career would
seamlessly slip between support for the Lancastrian cause and the Yorkist
cause, and then found that he could just as happily embrace the new Tudor
monarchy, just so long as he was well rewarded and retained his titles, estates
and fortune.
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| Thomas Stanley, 1st Earl of Derby |
He was born in 1435 and was the eldest son and heir of Thomas
Stanley, 1st Baron Stanley and his wife Joan Goushill. Through his mother he was related to the
royal family, as she was a descendant of the great warrior King Edward I. The Stanley family wielded great influence in
the North West of England and during his life Lord Stanley would own great
estates, such as Lathom House and Tatton Park, in Cheshire and Lancashire. He was introduced to public life at the royal
court early and in his youth he acted as one of King Henry VI’s squires. He seemed at this stage of his career to be a
loyal and staunch follower of the King, but the political scene in England was
just about to get a whole lot more complicated and Stanley was to produce a master
class in how to navigate your way successfully through tricky, dangerous situations
with your skin in one piece and adding to your power and possessions along the
way. In 1457 he married Eleanor Neville who was the daughter of the powerful
baron Richard Neville, Earl of Salisbury.
Her brother was Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick and at this time the
Neville family were strongly promoting the cause of the Duke of York.
In 1459 Stanley’s father died and he inherited his titles
and great estates, including the title of King of Mann. He was now a very important and influential
baron, and one that England’s monarch needed to keep on side if at all
possible. King Henry had been in Yorkist hands since the first Battle of St
Albans in 1455, but the discontent between the two factions rumbled on and came
to a head in 1459, when Richard of Salisbury put his forces into the field of
battle against the King’s men at the Battle of Blore Heath. Henry VI’s French wife, Queen Margaret of
Anjou, was the real power behind the throne, as her royal husband was a feeble
and ineffectual monarch, and had at one time slipped into a catatonic state
that lasted many months. In the male dominated, warrior climate of the late Middle
Ages, the barons respected power, leadership and skills in battle, and as far
as many of them were concerned a simpleton like Henry, whose only interest
seemed to be religion, just did not cut the mustard, and his closest supporter
were thought by the Yorkist faction to be corrupt and avaricious.
Margaret of Anjou wanted her husband back as he was an
important part of her power base, and gave orders that Stanley was to raise an
army to stop Salisbury, who was marching through the Midlands, from linking up
with the main Yorkist forces in Ludlow. But although he had 2,000 men-at-arms
at his disposal, he chose to sit the battle out. His brother, Sir William Stanley, threw his
hat into the ring and fought on the side of the Yorkists and got attainted for
his troubles. That Lord Stanley was
secretly supporting the Duke of York and his faction, is borne out by
allegations that he had managed to prevent a number of Cheshire levies from
fighting on the Lancastrian side and had also managed to covertly help the
Yorkists. Blore Heath was a savagely
fought and bloody battle that was won by Salisbury and cost the life of the
Lancastrian battler commander Lord Audley.
However, just to make sure that he was covered on both sides, after the
battle Lord Stanley sent his congratulations on the victory to the Earl of
Salisbury and wrote to the Queen to offer his apologies and excuses for why he
had not seen fit to commit his men to the battle. Margaret of Anjou cannot have
been too convinced or impressed by his explanations, but nevertheless when
Parliament petitioned for his attainder later that year they were not
successful; in the fluctuations of the Wars of the Roses she needed all the
friends and support that she could get, even those as unreliable as the
slippery Lord Stanley.
Lord Stanley joined the Yorkist Council soon after the
Battle of Blore Heath, when Richard, Duke of York dropped his bomb shell that
he wanted to claim the crown of England himself, rather than just be the most
influential baron guiding Henry VI’s royal career. This naturally did not go
down well with Margaret of Anjou, who wanted the English throne for her young
son Edward of Lancaster. She managed to eliminate her nemesis the Duke of York
and his key supporter the Earl of Salisbury at the Battle of Wakefield in
December 1460, and had their heads put on public show on the Micklegate Bar in
York, along with those of York’s son Edmund, Earl of Rutland and Richard Hanson.
The Queen’s forces defeated the Earl of Warwick at the second Battle of St Albans
early in 1461 and regained possession of the King, but were then decisively
defeated in March of the same year by an army led by Edward Earl of March, the
Duke of York’s eldest son. Edward had
himself crowned as King Edward IV and Margaret, having once more lost possession
of her husband, fled to France via Wales and Scotland. Lord Stanley had
demonstrated his usual survival skills and had not fought at either Wakefield
or Towton, though he had aided the Earl of Warwick in besieging some northern
castles that held for Lancaster. The
Earl of Warwick was now one of the most powerful men in England, as well as
being Stanley’s brother-in-law and it seemed that at this time the two powerful
barons enjoyed cordial relations.
However, as history was to show, family loyalty would not be enough to
ensure Stanley’s support, as this was a man who always liked to come out on the
winning side.
The honeymoon period for the new Yorkist monarch was not
destined to last for very long, as fractures in the relationship between Edward
IV and Warwick soon began to show.
Warwick was known as the ‘Kingmaker’ and expected to be well rewarded by
the new monarch as well as to be the key influence on royal policy. But
although he was young, and grateful for Warwick’s aid in putting him on the
throne, Edward IV had a mind of his own and liked to make his own choices. While Warwick was trying to secure a
diplomatically useful match for him with a French princess, Edward was dallying
with a Lancastrian widow behind his back. He married this widow, Elizabeth Woodville, in
secret and when Warwick found out he was furious. Further salt was rubbed in his wounds when
Edward IV started arranging very favourable matches for her very large family,
some of which were detrimental to Warwick’s own family. Lord Stanley was
married to Warwick’s sister Eleanor Neville, but when Warwick, aided and
abetted by Edward IV’s own brother the Duke of Clarence, rebelled in March
1470, Lord Stanley did not step in to help him. Stanley then did an about turn
when Warwick, having fled to France and allied himself with Margaret of Anjou,
returned in 1471 to England to place the hapless Henry VI once more on the
throne. To all outward appearances it seemed as though Lord Stanley had thrown
his lot in with the Lancastrian cause, but as usual looks were deceiving. His brother William hastened to Edward IV’s
side when he landed at Ravenspur to reclaim his throne, but as usual big
brother Thomas hung back and took no part in the Battle of Tewkesbury which saw
Margaret’s forces decisively defeated and the young Edward of Lancaster killed.
The newly restored King Edward IV decided to give the
powerful magnate the benefit of the doubt, and rewarded Stanley’s
non-participation in the conflict by appointing him steward of the king’s
household and inviting him to sit on the royal council. Very conveniently for him, his ties to the
dead and discredited Earl of Warwick were severed when his Neville wife Eleanor
died in 1472. He promptly married Margaret
Beaufort, the dowager Countess of Richmond.
This was not an obvious match for a supposedly fervent supporter of the
Yorkist monarchy, as her son Henry Tudor was the last surviving Lancastrian
claimant to the throne and was living in exile in Brittany. However, throughout
Edward IV’s reign he played the part of a loyal subject, accompanying his King
to France on campaign in 1475 and being awarded a pension by the French king
Louis XI at the treaty of Picquiny, and he also fought in Scotland with the
king’s brother, Richard, Duke of Gloucester in 1482, and helped him capture the
key town of Berwick-upon-Tweed.
It was the unexpected death of Edward IV in 1483 that once
more upset the political apple cart. The King’s heir was his eldest son, who
became Edward V. His uncle, Richard of
Gloucester, had been appointed Lord Protector and arranged to meet the
delegation, including several of the new king’s Woodville relatives, who were
accompanying Edward V to London at Stony Stratford. A fracas broke out, and the
Duke of Gloucester secured possession of the new monarch and took him to reside
in the Tower of London. This was not the
odd choice that it may seem, as the old Norman fortress was where monarchs
traditionally lived in the days before their coronation. Elizabeth Woodville had fled into sanctuary
at Westminster with the rest of her family, and there were repeated rumours of
plots and conspiracies. One of these
erupted in June 1483 when Richard stormed a royal council meeting being held at
the Tower and arrested several of the noblemen in attendance. Lord Stanley was injured in the ensuing
scuffle and briefly imprisoned, but Lord Hastings was condemned on the spot and
summarily beheaded.
Richard seized the throne for himself and was crowned King
Richard III. Lord Stanley had obviously been fully forgiven, although maybe not
entirely trusted as his eldest son Lord Strange was married to a niece of
Elizabeth Woodville, as he was allowed to carry the mace at Richard’s
coronation and his wife, Margaret Beaufort, carried Queen Anne’s train. He was also allowed to carry on in his role
as the steward of the king’s household and joined the Order of the Garter,
taking over the executed Lord Hasting’s vacant stall. This was an age which did not allow for
sentiment, and Lord Stanley was not a nobleman who would have worried overly
much about sitting in a dead friend’s chair.
His survival skills were once more called upon late in 1483, when King
Richard’s closest advisor, the Duke of Buckingham rebelled. Despite the fact that his own wife, Margaret Beaufort,
and her crony Morton were deeply implicated in the plot as they were brokering
a marriage between Elizabeth of York and Henry Tudor, Stanley and his brother
William helped the King suppress the rebellion.
The Duke of Buckingham lost his head, Margaret Beaufort was formally
placed in her husband’s custody to keep her out of trouble, Morton had to make
himself scarce and once more Lord Stanley was lavishly rewarded with estates
forfeited by the rebels and Buckingham’s position of High Constable of
England. It was perhaps the biggest
mistake that Richard III ever made that he did not execute Margaret Beaufort
and put an end to her intrigues and plotting on behalf of her son Henry Tudor,
but although retribution for men was often swift and savage during the Wars of the
Roses, executing nobly born women would not become the rage until Tudor times.
Richard III endured the death of his only son and heir and
then his wife Anne Neville during his short reign, and then in 1485 he had to
face an invasion by the forces of Henry Tudor. Lord Stanley asked permission to
leave court at this time, but Richard evidently did not trust him as he made
him leave his oldest son Lord Strange in custody as a pledge for his continued
good behaviour. Both he and his brother
William were, however, in contact with Henry Tudor when he landed in Wales and
without Sir William’s lack of intervention his forces would never have been
able to progress into England as they did.
Both the Stanley brothers were ordered by King Richard to raise an army
to support him, and when the King discovered that Sir William had effectively
cleared the path for Henry Tudor, he ordered his older brother to join him immediately. Lord Stanley suddenly discovered that he was
too unwell to answer his King’s summons and when his son, Lord Strange, was caught trying to escape from Richard’s
clutches, he admitted that both he and Sir William had been plotting with Henry
Tudor. It has been said that Richard III gave orders that Lord Strange be
executed during the Battle of Bosworth, to which Stanley’s response was reputedly
‘Sire, I have other sons’. Fortunately
for Lord Strange, the orders were never carried out.
So there were four armies headed towards Bosworth on that
fateful day in August 1485, Richard III’s, Henry Tudor’s, Sir William Stanley’s
and Lord Stanley’s. Take a guess as to whose army once again didn’t take an active
part in the battle? As had happened several times before, Lord Stanley kept his
fighting men out of the proceedings, although it is thought that he may have
met with Henry Tudor on the eve of the battle. Sir William was once again a
little bolder and intervened in the fighting and helped win the day for Henry
Tudor. King Richard III was slain in the fighting, and Lord Stanley, despite
his earlier absence, was conveniently on hand to pick up Richard’s fallen crown
and place it on the head of the new king, Henry VII. In a move that perhaps signalled the future ruthless
nature of the new Tudor dynasty, Henry VII conveniently dated the start of his
new reign to the day before the Battle of Bosworth, declaring all those who had
fought against him traitors. So Lord Stanley’s stepson was the new King of
England and as usual he reaped the rewards, becoming Earl of Derby in October
1485 and in the following year he was confirmed as the High Constable of England
and appointed High Steward of the Duchy of Lancaster. When Henry VII’s first son was born in 1486,
he was chosen as godfather for the infant Prince Arthur, and it looked as
though from that point on life would be relatively plain sailing for the all powerful
baron.
However, the Yorkists had not quite yet run out of steam and
in 1487 a rebellion was raised in support of a pretender called Lambert Simnel,
who was supposedly Richard, Duke of York, one of the Princes in the Tower. Henry Tudor must have been quite relieved
when Lord Stanley did actively participate in putting this rebellion down, and
did not stand aside hedging his bets as usual.
After the Battle of Stoke, he once again reaped great rewards for his
assistance and was given lands forfeited by the rebels, which included the
estates of Francis Viscount Lovell, Sir Thomas Broughton and Sir Thomas
Pilkington. He once again in 1489 helped the Tudor monarch to suppress a
rebellion in Yorkshire, but his brother Sir William Stanley eventually slipped
up by backing the wrong side when he fought for the pretender Perkin Warbeck
and was executed for his treason.
Lord Stanley died at his estate of Lathom House in Lancashire
on 20th July 1504, and was buried among his ancestors in the family
chapel of Burscough Priory. His eldest
son Lord Strange had already died, so he was succeeded by his grandson Thomas,
who became the 2nd Earl of Derby.
For a nobleman who had played such a prominent political role throughout
the Wars of the Roses, he was very fortunate to have died naturally at home,
instead of on a battlefield or on the scaffold.
It had taken great skill to not only have stayed alive, but to have
enriched himself and his family in the process, even though no monarch, however
powerful, could ever completely rely on his loyalty or support. Expediency was his watchword and Lord Stanley’s
allegiances would shift in the winds of change, always ready to altered and
adjusted if the situation demanded it.
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