ABSTRACT
In late September 1484 Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, made a dramatic flight from the duchy of Brittany. This chapter offer a critical re-evaluation of the belief, long-held in France but adopted by English historians, that Charles VIII's minority government played an important part in putting Henry on the throne. Henry Tudor had a claim to the throne before he appeared at the French court. It had emerged during the plotting of Buckingham's rebellion in the autumn of 1483. According to a number of sources he was seen as an acceptable alternative candidate by a broad body of conspirators, Lancastrian and Yorkist, who wished to remove Richard III from the throne. According to Rosemary Horrox, in her study of Richard III's reign, the claim to the throne sent out in November 1484 'demonstrated the enhanced credibility of Henry Tudor, who from being a last-minute expedient in 1483 had become a persuasive alternative candidate'.
