South London. Walter Besant
of his parents. He did take the child, however; and here the little Owen remained, growing up in a monastery, and taking vows in due time. Here he lived and here he died, a Benedictine of Westminster.
It would seem as if Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, heard some whisper or rumour concerning this birth, or was told something about the true nature of the Queen's illness, for he issued a very singular proclamation, warning the world, generally, against marrying Queen dowagers, as if these ladies grew on every hedge. When, however, a year or so afterwards, the fourth child, Margaret, was born, Humphrey learned the whole truth: the degradation, as he thought it, of the Queen, who had stooped to such an alliance, and the humble rank and the audacity of the Welshman. He took steps promptly. He sent Katharine with some of her ladies to Bermondsey Abbey, there to remain in honourable confinement: he arrested Owen Tudor, a priest – probably the priest who had performed the marriage – and his servant, and sent all three to Newgate.
All three succeeded in breaking prison, and escaped. At this point the story gets mixed. The King himself, we are told, then a lad of fifteen, sent to Owen commanding his attendance before the Council. Why did they not arrest him again? Owen, however, refused to trust himself to the Council – was not Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, one of them? He asked for a safe-conduct. They promised him one by a verbal message. Where was he, then, that all these messages should be sent backwards and forwards? I think he must have been in Sanctuary. He refused a verbal message, and demanded a written safe-conduct. This was granted him, and he returned to London. But he mistrusted even the written promise; he would not face the Council: he took refuge in the Sanctuary of Westminster, where they were afraid to seize him. And here for a while he remained. It is said that they tried to draw him out by sending old friends who invited him to the taverns outside the Abbey Precinct. But Owen would not be so drawn. He knew that Duke Humphrey would make an end of him if he could. He therefore remained where he was. I think that he must have had some secret understanding with the King; for one day, learning that Henry himself was with the Council, he suddenly presented himself and pleaded his own cause. The mild young king, tender on account of his mother, would not allow the case to be pursued, but bade him go free.
He departed; he made all haste to get out of an unwholesome air: he made for Wales. Here the hostility of Duke Humphrey pursued him still: he was once more arrested, taken to Wallingford, and placed in the Castle there a prisoner. From Wallingford he was transferred again to Newgate, he and his priest and his servant. Once more they all three broke prison, 'foully' wounding a warder in the achievement of liberty, and got back to Wales, choosing for their residence the mountainous parts into which the English garrisons never penetrated.
When the King came of age Owen Tudor was allowed to return, and was presented with a pension of £40 a year. It is remarkable, however, that he received no promotion, or rank; that he was never knighted; and that the title of Esquire was the only one by which he was known. It certainly seems as if the claim of Owen Tudor to be called a gentleman was not recognised by the King or the heralds. Perhaps Welsh gentility was as little understood by these Normans as Irish royalty – yet, so far as length of pedigree goes, both Welsh and Irish were very superior to Normans.
The two sons, Edmund and Jasper, were placed under the charge of Katharine de la Pole, Abbess of Barking, and sister of the Earl of Suffolk. When the King came of age he remembered his half-brothers: Edmund was made Earl of Richmond, Jasper Earl of Pembroke; both ranked before all other English Earls. Edmund was afterwards married to Margaret Beaufort, who as Countess of Richmond was the foundress of Christ's and St. John's Colleges, Cambridge. Her son, as everybody knows, was Henry VII.
As for Owen Tudor, that gallant adventurer, who began so well on the field of battle, ended as well, fighting, as he should, for his step-son and King, under the badge of the Red Rose. When the Civil Wars began he joined the King's forces, though he was then nearer seventy than sixty. He fought at Wakefield; he pursued the Yorkists to Mortimer's Cross, where another fight took place. The Lancastrians were defeated. Owen was taken prisoner, and was cruelly beheaded on the field. It was right and just that he should so fight and should so die. He survived his Queen twenty-four years.
The unfortunate Katharine, whose mésalliance gave us the strongest sovereigns we have ever had over us, did not long survive the disgrace of discovery. As to public knowledge of the fact, one cannot learn how widely it was extended. Probably it grew by degrees: chroniclers speak of it without reserve, and when the sons grew up and were acknowledged by the King there was no pretence at concealment. To be the son of a French Princess and a Welsh gentleman was not, after all, a matter for shame or concealment. Katharine carried down to the Abbey a disorder which she calls of long standing and grievous. It killed her in less than a year after her imprisonment among the orchards and meadows of the Precinct. It is said that her remorse during her last days was very deep; not for her second marriage, but for having allowed her accouchement of the King to take place at Windsor, a place against which she was warned by the astrologer. 'Henry of Windsor shall lose all that Henry of Monmouth shall win.' Alas! had Henry of Windsor been Henry of Monmouth himself, he would have lost all there was to lose. Could there be a worse prospect, had Katharine understood the dangers, of hereditary disease? On the one side the grandson of a leper and the son of a consumptive; on the other side, the grandson of a madman and a Messalina.
Katharine dictated her will a few days before her death. She asks for masses for her soul: for rewards for her servants: for her debts to be paid. And she says not one word about her children by Owen Tudor. She confesses by this silence that she is ashamed. She confesses by this silence that, being a Queen, and of a Royal House, she ought not in her widowhood to have been mated with any less than a King.
'I trustfully,' she says in the preamble, addressing her son the King, 'and am right sure, that among all creatures earthly ye best may and will best tender and favour my will, in ordaining for my soul and body, in seeing that my debts be paid and my servants guerdoned, and in tender and favourable fulfilment of mine intent.' The words are full of queenly dignity; but – where is the mention of her children? Perhaps, however, she knew that the King would provide for them.
Another Queen died here: the Queen 'to whom all griefs were known' – Elizabeth Woodville. It is not easy to feel much sympathy with this unfortunate woman, yet there are few scenes of history more full of pathos and of mournfulness than that in which her boy was torn from her arms; and she knew – all knew – even the Archbishops, when they gave their consent, knew – that the boy was to be done to death. When one talks of Queens and their misfortunes, it may be remembered that few Queens have suffered more than Elizabeth Woodville. In misfortune she sits apart from other Queens, her only companions being Mary Queen of Scots and Marie Antoinette. Her record is full of woe. But in that long war it seems impossible to find one single character, man or woman – unless it is King Henry – who is true and loyal. All – all – are perjured, treacherous, cruel, self-seeking. All are as proud as Lucifer. Murder is the friend and companion of the noblest lord; perjury walks on the other side of him; treachery stalks behind him: all are his henchmen. Elizabeth met perjury and treachery with intrigue and plot and counter-plot: she was the daughter of her time. She was accused of being privy to the plots of Lambert Simnel and Perkin Warbeck: she was more Yorkist than her husband; she hated the Red Rose long after the Red and the White were united by her daughter and Henry the Seventh. That she was suspected of these intrigues shows the character she bore. We must make allowance: she was always in a false position; Edward ought not to have married her; she was hated by her own party; she was compelled in the interests of her children to be always on the defensive; and in her conduct of defence she was the daughter of her age. These things, however, deprive her, somewhat, of the pity which we ought to feel for so many misfortunes.
She, too, had to retire to the seclusion of Bermondsey, where she could sit and watch the ships go up and down, and so feel that the world, with which she had no more concern, still continued. It has been suggested that she retired voluntarily to the Abbey. Such a retreat was not in the character of Elizabeth Woodville, so long as there was a daughter or a kinsman left to fight for. Like Katharine of Valois, she made an end not without dignity. Witness the following clause in her will: —
Item. Whereas I have no worldly goods with which to do the Queen's Grace, my dearest daughter, a pleasure, neither to reward any of my children, according to my heart and mind, I beseech God Almighty