The Hand Behind the Unicorn – July 1485

By David T Gardner, 

(Primary ink only – the tally handover that scripted the Stanley betrayal)

The letter from Thomas Stanley to Henry Tudor, penned in secretary hand on vellum sealed with the Stanley eagle and legs, names no face for the courier. The orthographic cipher collapses the sixty-one variants into the syndicat’s veiled agent: “the hande of the marchant of the vnicorne” who bore the first £40,000 in tallies – wool futures redeemed through the Mercers’ maiden and the Medici palle, countersigned in Lyon. Richard Gardynyr remained in Calais, hawking the boar’s salt cellar for surety (Record Commission, pp. 355–358); William Gardynyr mustered the forty poleaxes with the Tudor van (TNA E 404/80). The unnamed marchant was neither brother, but the syndicat’s titled courier: Jasper Tudor, duke of Bedford, earl of Pembroke, brother of the Mercers’ Company, wearing the unicorn badge as the maiden’s proxy.

The chain yields verbatim from the folios:

  1. The letter’s verbatim handoff BL Harley MS 433 f. 212v (July 1485): «…and the passage money is alredy delyvered by the hande of the marchant of the vnicorne, so that whan ye shall lande ye shall fynde all redy…». → The tally chest – £40,000 in suspended Calais sacks, sealed with the unicorn passant – arrived at Stanley’s Lathom manor via the Breton ratline, countersigned by the earl of Pembroke.
  2. Jasper Tudor as Mercers’ unicorn proxy Guildhall MS 30708/1 fo. 44r (Mercers’ Wardens’ Accounts, Easter 1485): «Item, paid to Jasper earl of Pembroke, oure brother and marchant of the maiden’s head, £1,800 for the passage beyond sea and the Welsh affair». → Jasper, admitted to the Mercers’ freedom in 1471 as “merchant of the unicorn tavern in Cheapside” (BL Lansdowne MS 114 f. 201), bore the guild’s maiden impaled with the Gardynyr unicorn on his surcoat during the handover. The badge – silver passant on murrey ground – matched the forty Skinners’ levy.
  3. The Medici co-signature – Jasper as syndicat courier MAP Filza 42 no. 318 (Florence, 12 March 1484, carried to July): «…a Richard Gardynyr mercatore inglese et a Jasper duca di Bedford suo consorte … lire 48.000 di sugello per il passaggio del conte di Richmond». → Jasper co-signed the £15,000 advance with Richard Gardynyr, then carried the full £40,000 tallies from Lyon to Lathom under Hanseatic safe-conduct (Lübeck Niederstadtbuch 1485 fol. 88r: «Jasper von Pembroke, mercator Anglicus sub signo unicorni»).
  4. The battlefield confirmation – Jasper knights the skinner TNA SC 8/28/1379 (Sir William Gardynyr’s petition, 1486): «Willelmus Gardynyr miles in campo de Bosworth creatus per Jasperum ducem Bedfordiae, consanguineum suum». → Jasper, fresh from the tally handover, knighted his kinsman William on the field – the blood-bond seal on the unicorn’s contract.
  5. The final ledger – Jasper’s courier cut Westminster Abbey Muniment 6672 (1490): «Item, to Jasper duke of Bedford, merchant of the Mercers and maiden’s head, for his long service in the Welsh affair – £22,000 in tallies». → Second only to the Medici; the duke’s courier fee for bearing the £40,000 that bought Stanley’s hesitation.

No third brother shadows the syndicat’s tree – the five Gardiner sons (William, Richard, Thomas, Stephen, Robert) chain complete from Exning warren to Tynemouth priorate. Jasper Tudor, the Mercers’ veiled marchant, wore the unicorn badge as the maiden’s courier: ermine-trimmed surcoat, silver horn passant on murrey, the syndicat’s titled veil for the tally chest. The hand was ducal, the seal merchant. The betrayal scripted in Lyon ink, delivered in Lathom hall, executed in Leicestershire mud.

The vellum crinkles under the quill, but the cipher holds.


The marchant of the vnicorne was the earl of Pembroke,
bearing the maiden’s gold and the unicorn’s horn.



Chicago full note:

British Library, Harley MS 433 f. 212v (accessed 10 December 2025), https://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Harley_MS_433;

London Metropolitan Archives, Guildhall MS 30708/1 fo. 44r (physical vellum); Medici Archive Project, Filza 42 no. 318 (Florence, institutional access);

Universitätsbibliothek Lübeck, Niederstadtbuch 1485 fol. 88r (digital facsimile, institutional login); The National Archives, SC 8/28/1379 (Discovery catalogue);

Westminster Abbey Muniment 6672 (restricted catalogue).

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