Wars of The Roses - Buckingham's Revolt

Buckingham's Revolt

Opposition to Richard's rule had already begun in the south when, on 18 October, the Duke of Buckingham (who had been instrumental in placing Richard on the throne and who himself had a distant claim to the crown), led a revolt aimed at installing the Lancastrian Henry Tudor. It has been argued that by supporting Tudor rather than either Edward V or his younger brother, Buckingham was aware that both were already dead.

The Lancastrian claim to the throne had descended to Henry Tudor on the death of Henry VI and his son in 1471. Henry's father, Edmund Tudor, 1st Earl of Richmond, had been a half-brother of Henry VI, but Henry's claim to royalty was through his mother, Margaret Beaufort. She was descended from John Beaufort, who was a son of John of Gaunt and thus a grandson of Edward III. John Beaufort had been illegitimate at birth, though later legitimised by the marriage of his parents. It had supposedly been a condition of the legitimation that the Beaufort descendants forfeited their rights to the crown. Henry had spent much of his childhood under siege in Harlech Castle or in exile in Brittany. After 1471, Edward IV had preferred to belittle Henry's pretensions to the crown, and made only sporadic attempts to secure him. However his mother, Margaret Beaufort, had been twice remarried, first to Buckingham's uncle, and then to Thomas, Lord Stanley, one of Edward's principal officers, and continually promoted her son's rights.

Buckingham's rebellion failed. Some of his supporters in the south rose up prematurely, thus allowing Richard's Lieutenant in the South, the Duke of Norfolk, to prevent many rebels from joining forces. Buckingham himself raised a force at Brecon in mid-Wales. He was prevented from crossing the River Severn to join other rebels in the south of England by storms and floods, which also prevented Henry Tudor landing in the West Country. Buckingham's starving forces deserted and he was betrayed and executed.

The failure of Buckingham's revolt was clearly not the end of the plots against Richard, who could never again feel secure, and who also suffered the loss of his wife and eleven-year-old son, putting the future of the Yorkist dynasty in doubt.