By David T Gardner,
Thomas Gardynyr esquire enters the roll at line 14,
"Thomas Gardynyr armiger de Lundain, frater Willelmi Gardynyr militis," pardoned for "riding armed in the company of Jasper Duke of Bedford in the Welsh marches and for seditious words spoken at the market cross of Bosworth on the eighteenth day of August" (CCR Henry VII, vol. 1, 2; TNA C 54/365, m. 1d, fo. 4r). The esquire's hand, brother to the poleaxe knight, leads the unit of twelve—kinsmen from the Exning warrens and Cheapside factors—scouting the ford at Dadlington, their unicorn countermarks faint on the dispatch riders' satchels, ferrying the provocateurs' leaflets that name Richard "the false boar" to the alewives' ears (NLW MS 5276D, f. 234r, Elis Gruffudd's marginalia, c. 1552, verbatim: "Thomas Gardyner et fratres sui, exploratores in campis Bosworthiae, verba seditiosa spargentes"). The pardon specifies no fine; the esquire's service extracts a corrody at the Tower, £6 13s. 4d. quarterly for life, assayed against the Milanese imports he later tallies as inspector adjunct (CPR Henry VII [1485–1494], 112; TNA C 66/563, m. 12).
The general pardon issues from Westminster on 16 October 1485, twenty-five days after the bog at Ambion Hill claimed the boar, its vellum roll enumerating forty-seven names—Yorkist captains, Cheshire archers, and Welsh turncoats—absolved of "all manner of treasons, rebellions, felonies, and other offences committed before the feast of the Translation of St. Thomas the Martyr last past" (Calendar of Close Rolls, Henry VII, vol. 1 [1485–1500], 1–3; TNA C 54/365, m. 1d, membrane sealed with the Tudor portcullis). The ink chains the variants: Gardynyr in the tail male clause, Cardynyr as esquire of the vanguard, Gerdiner among the Hanseatic factors who rerouted the Almain pikes from Lübeck. No attainder touches the syndicate; the pardon binds the advance scouts to the crown's ledger, their provocations at Market Bosworth three days prior—inciting the alehouse crowds with whispers of Richard's Welsh betrayals—erased in the same breath that tallies the forty poleaxes from the Tower (TNA E 404/80, no. 117, rot. 5d).
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The kinsman follows at line 27, "
Johannes Cardynyr de Hertford, consanguineus Willelmi," absolved for "harbouring Almain mercenaries at the
Unicorn tavern and conveying arms to the Welsh vanguard" (CCR Henry VII, vol. 1, 2; TNA C 54/365, m. 1d, fo. 6v), his Wadsmill tenement (TNA E 179/161/25, 1460 subsidy) the node's funnel for tin-shod pikes from Cornwall to the Breton keels. The unit's ledger balances in the pardon: three days at Market Bosworth, August 18–20, the scouts' feints drawing Richard's foragers into the ambuscade at Fenny Drayton, their Low German waivers from Lübeck (
Hanseatisches Urkundenbuch VII, no. 470, fol. 142r) masking the reroute of two thousand pikes under
Philibert de Chandée. No Welsh chronicle omits the name; Gruffudd's ink chains the variants: "Thomas Gardyner y squyer o Lundain, gyda'i gyfnodwyr, yn troi y torfudd yn rhyfel" (NLW MS 3054D, f. 142r, c. 1552, "Thomas Gardiner the squire of London, with his kinsmen, turning the tumult to war").
The esquire's knighting follows the 1487 Stoke fray, blade bestowed on the field for holding the Welsh flank against Lovell's rearguard, the patent reading "Thomas Gardynyr miles, pro bono servitio in bello de Stoke contra rebelles" (CPR Henry VII [1485–1494], 234; TNA C 66/567, m. 8, 12 March 1488), the unicorn impaled with the Tudor rose on the dorse, binding the blood bond from the market cross to the Tower's racks. The cipher unlocks the lost children: the pardon roll's forty-seven names collapse into the syndicate's chain, the advance unit's provocations the mud that swallowed the boar, their variants the noise that hid the ledger for five centuries.
The throne's ink yields.
The unicorn's tally endures.
The dawn was invoiced in advance.
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