A Game of Thrones at Royal Château Amboise
Royal Château Amboise, France
On 18 February 1478, George, duke of Clarence, accused of treason, was executed in the Tower of London on the orders of his brother King Edward IV of England.
The accusation was based on flimsy evidence but in 1470 at the Royal Château in Amboise, George most definitely committed treason. He, his father-in-law Richard Neville (the mighty warrior, Earl of Warwick) and the king of France himself, Louis XI met to hatch a plot to bring Edward IV down.
This was not the first time George (known as Clarence) and Richard (known as Warwick) had tried. George, who said Edward IV was illegitimate, considered himself the rightful king of England. Warwick, wanting his daughter Isabel to be Queen of England, married her off to the nineteen year old Clarence. All Warwick had to do now was get Clarence crowned. Shouldn’t be too difficult. He had done it before. He could do it again. He had deposed Henry VI and got Edward IV on the throne. However, once the ungrateful Edward was safely ensconced, Warwick was surplus to requirements so was ignored.
In March 1470 a furious, humiliated Warwick manufactured uprisings against the king. His plan was to lure Edward there, where he would be murdered.
Edward, however, discovered the plot. Fearing for their lives Warwick and Clarence hotfooted it to France. Louis XI invited them to stay as his honoured guests in the Royal Château of Amboise where his wife Queen Charlotte lived with their daughter Anne (of Beaujeu).
Why? Louis seldom entertained.
Louis, who was, by anyone’s standards an amazing king, a brilliant king, longed for a lasting peace with England. France had not known peace for almost a hundred years.
The best way to achieve this was to get his exiled cousin Queen Margaret of Anjou back on England’s throne. Edward had deprived her son of his rightful inheritance, his throne. Louis would have had sympathy with him because Henry V of England had deprived his own father the Dauphin Charles VII of his.
Louis never stood on ceremony. He never pulled rank. He walked down the hill from the Château to meet his guests personally. He embraced them giving them a warm royal welcome to France. When they reached the entrance to the Château, the heavily pregnant Queen Charlotte was there to greet them.
Louis personally showed him to their rooms. For the next three days he closeted himself with his guests for long discussions. He always went to them. He never summoned them to him.
Acting completely out of character, with no taste for ceremony himself he arranged lavish receptions, feasts and a tournament for his guests.
By the time Warwick and Clarence rode from Château Amboise Louis agreed he would finance Warwick’s invasion of England.
Warwick, like Louis, never did anything for nothing. He was about to risk his life. What was in it for him?
He had failed to get Isabel his elder daughter on the throne. He now saw a chance to get Anne his younger daughter crowned.
He told Louis that his agreement to invade England was on the proviso Queen Margaret allowed her teenage son, Edward, Prince of Wales, heir to the throne, to marry Anne. After all, Warwick very wealthy and Margaret was living on charity. His daughter Anne had grow up in his Castle which was eqaul to that of Château Amboise.
Warwick Castle, England.
Here history gets a bit murky. Some sources say that Margaret was with Louis, George and Richard in the Château plotting with them. Others sources insist she would never stay under the same roof as Warwick her bitterest arch enemy who had deposed her husband. Louis, to persuade Margaret this was the only way she could restore the throne for her beloved son, invited her and Prince Edward to stay with him and Charlotte in Château Amboise. From the moment of her arrival, Louis tried to sweet talk her into burying the hatchet with Warwick but ‘...touch the base and bloody hand of Warwick—she never would’.
Day after day in long discussions, Louis, again acting entirely out of character, cajoled, soothed, flattered and tried to convince her that this was a political necessity. Louis was willing to do anything to get peace for France even kowtow to a woman.
She was adamant she would not allow the marriage of her royal son to anyone not from a royal house.
In the middle of all this drama came another one, a momentous event for Louis now forty-seven and for the whole of France. Charlotte gave birth to a healthy son. A Dauphin for France.
That same day he was baptized and, bizarrely, given that Louis hated his father, named Charles. Prince Edward, future king of England, was chosen to be godfather to Charles the future king of France.
The honour seems to have done the trick. Margaret, finally, worn out with the pleadings of her Never Give up cousin, at last agreed to the marriage if and when Warwick restored her husband to his throne.
Louis agreed to entertain her, Warwick's wife, Clarence's wife, Prince Edward and the Lady Anne in style at the Château until Warwick had England in his grip.
When news reached the Château that Henry was re-instated as the rightful king of England, the marriage went ahead in the Château on 13 December 1470. Louis was in such a good mood he invited his brother Charles to the wedding. Nothing unusual in that except for the fact that Charles had plotted to dethrone him just as Clarence plotted to bring his brother down.
The wedding party headed out for a triumphant entry to England.
It didn’t work out that way.
Tower of London
By the time they arrived, Warwick was dead and Henry VI was once more a prisoner in the Tower of London. Prince Edward died in the ensuing battle and Queen Margaret was taken prisoner.
Clarence never did give up trying to take the Crown from Edward. Hence his execution.
Louis never did give up trying to broker a peace with England. He achieved it four years later in 1475 when he paid Edward IV a fortune to leave France and never return.
Post by Pamela (BA History of Art), Photography by Mark.
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