"Jasper Tudor (1431–1495) who fought Bosworth ..." Topic

Hello everyone,
Who knows what was the standard, the color of the livery (Gueules & Azur?) and the main badge and other badges of Jasper Tudor (1431–1495) who fought at the Battle of Bosworth Field for Heny Tudor?
Thank you.

You really want to get the "Battle of Bosworth Nobles and Knights Profiles" by Bob Pritchard from Caliver Books. (Page 61)

Livery: Argent & Vert
Badges: A dragon gules, a greyhound argent.
(Freezywater's Standards, Badges & Livery Colours of the WoTR)

You may also want to bookmark Steve Kelly's blog for the livery colours et al?
link

So this is wrong ?

look at the livery banner at the bottom center …

Paskal thanks that a great resource.

Jasper was made Duke of Bedford after the Battle of Bosworth, prior to that he was the Earl of Pembroke. I'm guessing that these badges are good for Stoke and later, but I wouldn't quibble if they were used for before that? CitadelSix do good stuff for the WoTR.

So in Bosworth his standard and his main badge are identical to that of his nephew?

@all:
Can I point out that the 'Banner of St David' shown on the Jasper Tudor sheet is incorrect.
This banner of St David dates from the early 19th century and is not medieval.

link

It only became popular in the early 20th century.

Barry

@Huscarle:
I have a copy of the Pritchard Bosworth book and the second WOTR one that he co-authored with the late Dr Mike Ryan Jones. While the artworks are excellent there are several mistakes or matters which have raised my eyebrow in both volumes.

In the co-authored WOTR book there is an unfortunate error in captioning the Beauchamp Earl of Warwick as 'Warwick the Kingmaker' (p40) while on page 10 he gets the wrong colours on Richard Duke of York's banner but then corrects it again on page 12!

There are also other livery colours which seem to depart from established sources while the indexing of many of the lords is all over the place with people being listed by the title and separated from family listed by the family surname.

I have been meaning to write to Mr Pritchard with a list of the more egregious errors in case he ever reprints plus an offer to proof-read for him; I was a professional proof-reader for many years. I have not got around to this yet.

Regarding Jasper Tudor, I have checked the Pritchard book (page 61 as you note) and conclude that it is correct – white over green with a red dragon and some red roses. This is consistent. I have no idea where the red and blue banner came from or what that plant is but given that the 'St David's Cross' next to it is also wrong, I have no faith in either the colours or the design.

Finally the 'second son of Owen Tudor' personal arms banner bottom left is also quite wrong.
1) Owen Tudor and the first son Edmund Tudor were both dead so the blue crescent moon (a cadency mark for the second son DURING THEIR LIFETIME would be removed).
2) The personal arms banner at the top was granted to Jasper after Henry VI recognised him as his maternal half brother
See: link
(see paragraph 2)
and would REPLACE the Owen Tudor version as being much more prestigious. It now recognises Jasper as a member of the royal family, being a variation of the King's colours of quarterly France and England. He had no need of two personal arms banners and I can think of no examples of anyone carrying two. There's no need.

Given these points, all three of the flags in the bottom two rows of the illustration above are quite wrong, I don't know where they got them from.

EDIT: I just cross-checked with Volume 1 of Thomas Coveney's Heraldic Banners of the WOTR and he concurs. Jasper used the quartered France and England with the blue bordure and yellow birds shown.

Strangely I have been unable to find Henry Tudor's but then I remembered that he enraged Richard III by displaying the King's colours as his own… so in effect Henry uses Uncle Jasper's but without the bordure around it. He is claiming to be king.

Finally…
There is no documentary evidence that Jasper Tudor was even at the Battle of Bosworth. The chronicles are silent about him. But he was promoted to Duke of Bedford afterwards. The best speculation is that he was either forgotten about or was not present.

Given Henry Tudor's known caution and the precarious nature of the whole invasion my best guess is that Jasper was somewhere back on the coast, either at Pembroke or Milford Haven with a fast boat standing by for the escape if Richard won.
So Jasper's title of Duke of Bedford was for his lifelong support… and for guarding the boat in case Henry had to flee?

Barry

A final on this.
Logically Henry Tudor would have been entitled to his father Edmund's banner/shield which can been seen here:

link

It was then only a short step to cut off the bordure shown here to turn it into the Royal coat of arms and thus enrage Richard III.

Off to bed…

Barry

G'day, Barry.

I though Jasper Tudor used a greyhound argent, not a red rose, as a livery badge? Wasn't the rose one of Henry's?

Agree that there appear to be some errors in Pritchard and Jones' book. The ones I picked up were Dacre of Gilisland and de Ros' liveries, where green has been substituted for blue. A result of fading ink or paint, or a yellowing stained-glass window? Or was it a change of tincture between father to son?

Happy to be corrected. I'm painting up a contingent for Jasper (for NMTBH) at the moment- timed for Mortimers Cross so he has the crescent cadence mark- and want to get it right.

Dal.

@Dal Gavan:
G'day back!
Either of us could be right on this. The greyhound was certainly in the family as it was used by Henry VIII in the next century and was also used as the badge of Henry VIII's couriers or personal postmen. Way stations displayed the greyhound sign and would allow them to change horses while carrying his messages.
Some of these stop-offs later developed into modern pubs and a few are still called The Greyhound.

I must admit I was a little dubious when I saw the red rose as it is a supposed reference to their Lancastrian ancestry and should – properly – belong to Henry Tudor.
I should make the point that the so-called 'Lancastrians' made no use of the red rose during the WOTR and it actually pops up on a few Yorkist banners including one of Edward IV dated to about 1475 (see Osprey Men at Arms on the Wars of the Roses).
First confirmed use of the red rose (by the Tudor claimants rather than the Lancastrians) is at the very end of the WOTR, the Bosworth campaign, and it may have been carried purely so that it could be later wedded to the Yorkist white rose to create the red and white 'Tudor' rose. Think of this as the merging of two corporate logos!

Barry

@Warspite1

Agreed about the red rose, Barry- Bill Shakespeare has a lot to answer for as regards that, as well.

I'm not sure whether the joining with the white rose was premeditated, though it is an interesting idea. But it may merely have been a way to add another red, very visible on white and green, badge to his livery- without venturing into the realms of another heraldic animal.

But who knows, mate? Perhaps the red rose appeared because Henry was a frustrated florist at heart?

Cheers.

@Dal Gavan:
Most historians agree that a Tudor/Yorkist deal was done long before Henry Tudor ever landed. It was probably brokered by his mother Margaret Beaufort. In return for support from disaffected Yorkists still in England, Tudor pledged to marry Elizabeth of York, seal the family divide and so end the dynastic wars.

The deal brought former supporters of the executed William, Lord Hastings and possibly even Edward IV's widow Queen Elizabeth (Woodville) into the Tudor fold. After all, Queen Elizabeth's approval was technically necessary for the wedding to go ahead. Clearly she gave it the green light. [BTW: her willingness to be involved in this is also cited as proof positive that both Princes in the Tower were dead by this time. She would never have agreed to marrying her daughter to future King Henry if there was the remotest chance that either of the boys was still alive].

An end to the dynastic wars was good for business and that put the Stanley brothers (Lord Thomas and Sir William) in a good place to play a pivotal role in winning the battle the battle and then profit from the peace later. As to which side won the battle would depend on the shifting allegiances of the Stanleys. They were the guys who would play roulette by throwing down their chips just as the ball bounced into the winning hole. They would only bet on a sure thing which may explain their positioning on the day of the battle.

Sadly Sir William later overplayed his hand and got involved in one intrigue too many, costing him his head in the 1490s. Lord Thomas, as Earl of Derby, kept his head and – as ever – played safe.

Barry

Regarding Jasper Tudor, it may not be: argent over sinople with a border argent and sinople, red dragon and some red roses.
This is for Henry Tudor his nephew ….
Red roses for Jasper Tudor ???
According to Pete flags, it's, argent over sinople with a border or and sinople with a red dragon and some badges that I don't know how to designate …

Barry -"I have no idea … what that plant is"(25 April above). It is described in McGill and Jones' Standards, Badges and Livery Colours of the Wars of the Roses page 44 as the Broom Cod, the Latin for which is Planta Genista. It is understood to be a heraldic pun on "plantagenet" and may reflect the recognition by Henry VI as maternal half-brother which you mention above. As you rightly state, this is more prestigious than the Tudor status.

Intriguing. As an interested observer only, I am fairly sure that the relation between planta genista and Plantagenet is in the other direction, the broom being an emblem of Geoffrey of Anjou, father of Henry II, and his soubriquet 'Plantagenet' being the frenchified version of the plant's Latin name.

See 'Observations on the Heraldic devices of Richard II and his Queen…including some remarks on the Surname Plantagenet [etc]' John Gough Nichols: link

This interesting, if antique, source, states that, contrary to common belief, 'plantagenet' was not adopted as a surname by Henry and his descendants and was only revived in 1460 by Richard Duke of York when asserting his claim to the crown of England. It was therefore primarily associated with the Yorkist side in the subsequent dynastic wars.

There also seems to be a distinction to be made between the broom plant and the broom cod- the distinctly unglamorous seed pod of the broom. Both were popular emblems in French royal heraldry, with the broom cod, remarkably being the emblem of the French Ordre de la Coste de Genest founded in 1264 (it says here: link As such, examples of the emblem found on jewels in inventories of HV and HVI were components of gifts from the king of France to the king of England, and were not elements of 'Plantagenet' or 'Lancastrian' livery.

It it is also possible that the broom cods would more likely have been green or white than black- the colour of the unlovely broom cod as it decays…

At least, that's what the reference cited above seems to be saying. See what you think.

Thanks for a fascinating and enlightening discussion

Anyway – in the details – at the battle of Bosworth, the standards of Jasper Tudor and that of his nephew Henry Tudor were different and apart from me, nobody noticed it ???

Guess not.