#OTD in 1473 John de Vere, 13th Earl of Oxford, descended on St Michael’s Mount in Cornwall. He was accompanied by his three brothers, Viscount Beaumont, and a force of some eighty men.
After his escape from the Lancastrian defeat at Barnet, Oxford had fled to Scotland, and then to France. After receiving promises of support from King Louis, he took to piracy off the Isle of Thanet in Kent, and made several futile attempts to land in Essex, where he and his mother Elizabeth Howard were the greater landowners.
Oxford’s decision to seize the Mount was more intelligent than it may appear. He held land in Cornwall, and was of a Cornish line through his grandmother, Alice Sergeaux. The earl had hopes of stirring up a revolt against Edward IV. Warkworth’s Chronicle noted that Oxford ‘and his men came down into cuntre of Cornwale and hade riyhte good chere of the comons’.
However, the occupation of a remote stronghold in Cornwall was of little use unless Oxford could attract major support in England. That is precisely what he hoped to do: his ally, George Duke of Clarence, was a regional power in the southwest. He also needed foreign aid, and his capture of the Mount may have been an attempt to persuade Louis that an invasion could be successful.
Oxford’s plan was undone by poor timing and bad weather. His envoys (including his youngest brother, Richard) did not reach Paris until the following February, by which time the Mount was under siege. One French ship was sent to resupply the castle, but had to turn back in a storm.
Edward IV was alive to the danger in the south-west. As early as 5 June 1473, he wrote to the Sheriff of Devon warning him of rumours that Oxford intended to land in that county. When he heard of Oxford’s capture of the Mount, Edward quickly appointed a number of Cornish knights and esquires to besiege the castle. The most senior were Sir John Arundell of Tenrice and Henry Bodrugan, a notoriously corrupt landowner.
At first the siege went badly for the Yorkists. Arundell was killed in a skirmish on the sands, and was replaced by Bodrugan, who did very little. It was reported that he held friendly talks with Oxford, and levied extortionate taxes on the Cornish for the siege, which vanished into his very deep pockets.
At last Edward took action. In December 1473 he issued a fresh commission, in which Bodrugan was joined by John Fortescue, an esquire of the body, and the Sheriff of Cornwall. The Mount was now blockaded, land and sea, by a force of four ships, three hundred soldiers and some artillery. There was bitter fighting, in which both sides suffered heavily, and Oxford himself wounded in the face by an arrow.
The siege was ended by the public offer of a pardon to any man who would submit and swear fealty to King Edward. This excluded Oxford, his brothers George and Thomas, and Viscount Beaumont, who were only offered life and limb. They were promptly deserted by their men, who scrambled to take the pardon, and forced to surrender.
The four were brought before Edward IV, who imprisoned Oxford at Hammes Castle in the Pale of Calais. The earl’s brothers appear to have been held in custody at the Yorkist court, although the youngest, Richard, remained at liberty in France. In late 1484 Oxford staged a dramatic escape, and joined Henry Tudor in time to lead the vanguard at Bosworth.
John de Vere was as tough and ruthless as any other nobleman of the time, but had some attractive traits. He was remembered as a ‘good lord’ in Essex and East Anglia, and cared for his old friend, Beaumont, when the latter fell prey to mental illness. After Beaumont’s death, Oxford married his widow, Elizabeth Scrope.
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