Richard III Read online

  Lord Howard asked why she thought they were in danger. She reported that she did not know – nor did she know why they were in prison. Bourchier made a sign to the tactless nobleman ‘that he should harp no more on that string’.

  After further wrangling, during which the Queen began to express openly her fear of the Protector, the Cardinal threatened not just to leave but to refuse to have anything more to do with the matter. Since he was the arbiter in all questions of sanctuary, she realized that her son might be taken away by force. Bourchier, quite unaware of what was at stake, was perfectly sincere in promising that he would be returned as soon as the Coronation was over. At last Elizabeth gave in, weeping. ‘Farewell, mine own sweet son,’ she said to little York. ‘God send you good keeping. Let me kiss you once yet ere you go, for God knows when we shall kiss together again!’ The Cardinal led the tearful boy to the Star Chamber, where Richard picked him up and kissed him, crying, ‘Now welcome, my Lord, even with all my heart.’ More comments sardonically that Gloucester was undoubtedly speaking the truth on this occasion. The boy was taken to the Tower by boat to join his brother.

  1. Middleham Castle, where Richard spent part of his youth. It later became one of his favourite residences.

  2. King Henry VI, whose murder was committed or at least supervised personally by Richard. From a stained-glass window at King’s College, Cambridge.

  3. Edward IV. A sixteenth-century copy of a lost portrait. Society of Antiquaries, London.

  4. Flemish fifteenth-century portrait of Richard’s sister, Margaret of York, Duchess of Burgundy. Her noticeably sharp features may well have resembled her brother’s. Musée du Louvre, Paris.

  5. Richard’s sister-in-law and enemy, Queen Elizabeth Woodville. Queens’ College, Cambridge.

  6. James III, King of Scots, with the future James IV, by Hugo van der Goes. (The boy was formerly believed to be James III’s brother Alexander, Duke of Albany.) On loan to the National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh.

  7. Ely Place, the London palace of Bishop Morton, where Richard (according to Thomas More) ‘saw good strawberries’ just before his second coup in June 1483. From a model by Jo Pradera.

  8. Edward V. From a sixteenth-century panel in St George’s Chapel, Windsor.

  9. Richard’s badge of the White Boar. Carved detail from a pulpit presented by Edward IV to the collegiate church of Fotheringay, the burial place of their parents.

  10. Brass of the sinister William Catesby, one of Richard’s principal adviser who was executed after Bosworth. Church of St Leodegorius, Ashby St Ledgers.

  11. One of Richard’s most formidable opponents, Margaret Beaufort, Henry Tudor’s mother. From a portrait by Maynard Waynwyk of before 1523. Hatfield House, Hertfordshire.

  12. Richard’s prayer book. Illuminated c. 1440 for a member of his wife’s family, it eventually passed into the hands of his enemy Margaret Beaufort. Lambeth Palace Library, London.

  13. Ralph Fitzherbert (d. 1483). Around his neck he wears the Yorkist livery collar of suns and roses with Richard’s bour budge as a pendant – the only such example to survive. Norbury, Derbyshire.

  14. The supposed tomb of Edward, Prince of Wales, Richard’s only legitimate son. Sheriff Hutton, North Yorkshire.

  15. Richard’s niece, Elizabeth of York. In 1485 he was forced to deny publicly that he intended to marry her. National Portrait Gallery, London.

  16. Henry VII. A copy of a lost portrait painted about 1500. Society of Antiquaries, London.

  17. Battleaxe – or ‘battle hammer’ – probably of the type used so effectively by Richard at Bosworth. The figure at the top was used as a belt hook. Glasgow Museum and Art Gallery.

  18. The gigantic Wiltshireman Sir John Cheyney, knocked out of his saddle by Richard during the last charge at Bosworth. Tomb in Salisbury Cathedral.

  19. The battle of Bosworth from an early-sixteenth-century relief carving. In the centre are the figures of Henry Tudor mounted and Richard overthrown and lying on the ground, clutching his crown. Stowe School.

  One reason for the success of the second coup d’état which Richard was about to launch was that very few people understood him, let alone realized his ultimate objective. His secrecy was his greatest asset. We do not know when he told the few men he trusted that he was going to make himself King, though it was almost certainly before he obtained possession of the Duke of York. The strictness of the guard on Westminster – ostensibly to catch Dorset, but above all to stop York getting out or Edward V getting in – may well mean that Gloucester had told both Buckingham and Howard before he reached London. The former had been committed to him from the very beginning, and Vergil states specifically that Richard revealed his plans to the Duke at Northampton. Lord Howard, noticeably active in prising York out of sanctuary, may also have been let into the secret; More says that he ‘was one of the priviest of the Lord Protector’s counsel and doing’. It was time for Richard to take all his friends into his confidence. He had cunningly divided the Council. Those members who supported him absented themselves from its ordinary meetings at Baynard’s Castle and instead met privately with the Protector at Crosby Place. The remainder, loyal to Edward V, went on arranging the Coronation and dealing with routine matters.

  Nevertheless, there was some sort of opposition, though no details survive. Polydore Vergil states that a counter-coup was being planned but does not give names. Gairdner and more recent historians believe that Lord Hastings may have been intriguing with, of all people, the Woodvilles. The alleged motive is jealousy of Buckingham, who had taken the place he no doubt expected to occupy in Richard’s favour – Howard too was more in favour with the Protector. Hastings, it is suggested, discussed the counter-coup with Rotherham, Morton and Lord Stanley during their meetings, their contact with the Woodvilles being his mistress Elizabeth (commonly called Jane) Shore, who was secretly visiting her former lover Dorset in the sanctuary at Westminster. Yet More, the Croyland chronicler and Mancini make no mention of such a plot, even if the latter reports that Hastings, Stanley and the two prelates sometimes met in each other’s houses and were known to be faithful to Edward IV’s offspring. In addition, More implies that as late as 11 or 12 June Richard still hoped that Hastings would join in helping him seize the throne.

  If a counter-coup was plotted, it is likely that it was by the Woodvilles alone. Their party was far more broadly based than is generally realized. With its kinsmen by marriage, its clients and retainers, and its friends, it constituted a surprisingly widespread network, which had formidable teeth – to be displayed later that year. The Protector certainly received information during the second week in June which seriously alarmed him. About 12 June Sir Richard Ratcliff, one of Richard’s most trusted agents, left London. He was on his way to York with a letter written on 10 June for its Mayor and Corporation, requiring them to send as many armed men as possible to the capital ‘to aid and assist us against the Queen, her bloody adherents and affinity, which have intended and daily doth intend to murder and utterly destroy us and our cousin the Duke of Buckingham and the old royal blood of this realm’. In his letter Richard also claimed that the plotters were bent on destroying and disinheriting all men of property in the North. When Ratcliff reached York on 15 June he told the Corporation that this force should proceed to Pontefract and link up with the Earl of Northumberland (who may have been acting on instructions which Gloucester had given him before going south). Ratcliff had another letter for the Protector’s kinsman Lord Nevill; written on 11 June, it made a similar plea for troops. ‘And, my Lord, do me now good service, as ye have always before done, and I trust now so to remember you as shall be the making of you and yours.’ Richard’s motive in summoning more troops may indeed have been fear of a Woodville rising, though it could also have been a precaution in case his own projected coup went wrong.

  5. Jane Shore (d. 1527?), whose original name was Elizabeth Lambert. In turn mistress of Edward IV, Lord Hastings and the Marquess of Dorset, she was im
prisoned by Richard but then married his solicitor Thomas Lynom. Detail from her parents’ brass of 1487 at Hinxworth, Herts.

  In the event there was no counter-coup. The only man left who might stand in the Protector’s way was Lord Hastings, still just capable of rallying magnates to the cause of the young King. His friend Lord Stanley seems to have begun to suspect Richard and warned Hastings to be careful. More’s story of Stanley’s dream of a boar (Richard) slashing them with his tusks is of course to be discounted as medieval superstition, yet may none the less preserve some memory of Lord Stanley’s uneasiness. A practised intriguer himself, he plainly had a sensitive nose for a plot. He was particularly worried by the division of the Council and the separate meetings. But Hastings was unconcerned, since he thought he knew what was being discussed at Crosby Place; his retainer Catesby was attending the meetings there, and he told Stanley that this man would tell him of anything said against him, practically before it was out of the speaker’s mouth. In reality Catesby was a double agent.5

  The Protector had to discover whether or not Hastings was still unshakeably loyal to the memory of Edward IV, the friend who had asked that he should be buried near his tomb. Mancini tells us that Buckingham sounded him out, but More says that it was Catesby and goes into very convincing detail. William Catesby is one of the most sinister figures in the usurpation. A young lawyer, he was a protégé of Hastings, who had given him important administrative posts in Leicestershire and Northamptonshire. Hastings trusted him more than anyone, ‘reckoning himself to be beloved of no man more than he’. The trusty Catesby was ‘one of the special contrivers of all this horrible treason’, his original motive being to obtain some of Hastings’s offices in his own counties. Commissioned by Richard to find out discreetly if it was possible to win over his patron, Catesby reported that he spoke ‘so terrible words’ that his interrogator dared not press him, and also said that some people were beginning to mistrust the Protector. More thinks that Catesby may have exaggerated in order to make sure that Richard would get rid of Hastings.

  It seems that Gloucester was genuinely sorry to be forced to destroy Hastings. ‘And undoubtedly the Protector loved him well, and loath was he to have lost him.’ But Richard was never a man to be deflected by sentiment, even if, as will be seen, he may have been uneasy about his prospective victim’s soul – after he had murdered him. He struck with the same carefully calculated timing he had employed at Northampton.

  More’s account of the Council meeting at the Tower on Friday 13 June is almost certainly based on information obtained from Cardinal Morton, who was actually there. He could also have heard something from Rotherham, who did not die until 1500. (The traditional date of Friday 13 June has been shown to be correct and is not a mistake for the following Friday, as was recently argued by Dr Hanham.) The Council had met to discuss the final details of Edward V’s Coronation, and among those present besides Morton and Rotherham were Hastings and Stanley, together with Buckingham and Howard and other supporters of the Protector. Howard’s son, Sir Thomas (whom More may also have spoken to, since he was the father of a friend), had accompanied Hastings to the Tower – perhaps to ensure that he arrived. The Lord Chancellor, Russell, presided over a meeting of the remainder of the Council at Westminster.

  Richard himself entered the Council chamber at the Tower at about 9.00 a.m., apparently in a most amiable mood. He apologized for being so late, explaining that he had overslept, and then made his famous request to Morton: ‘My Lord, you have very good strawberries in your garden at Holborn. I require you, let us have a mess of them.’ After setting the discussion in motion again, the Protector left the room. He returned an hour later, at about 10.30 a.m., in a very different temper – ‘frowning and fretting and gnawing on his lips’. Everyone present was taken aback. For a while he sat in silence. He then asked quietly what did men deserve for having plotted ‘the destruction of me, being so near of blood unto the King, and Protector of his royal person and his realm’.

  Hastings answered boldly that, whoever they were, they ought to be punished as traitors. At this Richard told him they were ‘yonder sorceress, my brother’s wife, and others with her’. (Clearly he had not forgotten Clarence’s allegations about the Queen.) The Lord Chamberlain, was not particularly disturbed. But then the Protector added, ‘You shall all see in what wise that sorceress and that other witch of her counsel, Shore’s wife, with their affinity have by their sorcery and witchcraft wasted my body.’ He pulled up the left sleeve of his doublet to show what appeared to be a withered arm (although his skelton shows no sign of this). Hastings, who was Elizabeth Shore’s lover and had spent the previous night with her, began to lose his nerve. He replied that, if it really were true, those who had done it certainly deserved severe punishment.

  ‘What!’ exclaimed Richard, ‘thou servest me, I ween, with ifs and ans! I tell thee, they have so done! And that, will I make good upon thy body, traitor!’ He banged the table with his fist. At once there was a cry outside of ‘Treason!’ The door burst open and men in armour – including Sir Thomas Howard – rushed into the chamber, filling it almost entirely and brandishing their weapons. One aimed a blow at Lord Stanley, who dived under the tables, though not before receiving a wound which sent the blood running down over his ears; had he not ducked, ‘his head would have been cleft to the teeth’. Amid the confusion the Protector shouted at Hastings, ‘I arrest thee, traitor.’ ‘What, me, my Lord?’ gasped the astonished nobleman. ‘Yea, thee, traitor!’ replied Richard. Rotherham and Morton were hauled off to imprisonment in the Tower cells, while Stanley was taken under guard to confinement in his own house. As for Hastings, the Protector told him to find a priest and confess himself at once. ‘For by St Paul I will not to dinner till I see thy head off.’ (Dr Hanham questions ‘this nasty addition to the story’ since ‘the councillors must have dined about 9.00 a.m. in accordance with the custom at the time’, but this was not invariable; the Duchess of York dined at 11.00 a.m. or at noon on fast days, while Richard’s own household at Sheriff Hutton had to ‘go to dinner at the furthest by eleven of the clock on the flesh days’ – perhaps later on fast or fish days, and both 13 June and 20 June were Fridays.) Within a very few minutes Hastings was brought to the green outside the Tower chapel and beheaded, a log serving for a block.

  More says,

  Thus ended this honourable man, a good Knight and a gentle, of great authority with his Prince, of living somewhat dissolute, plain and open to his enemy and secret to his friend, easy to beguile as he that of good heart and courage forestudied no perils. A loving man and passing well beloved. Very faithful, and trusty enough, trusting too much.6

  His body, reunited to his head, was buried in St George’s Chapel at Windsor, close to Edward IV as the latter had asked. It is unlikely that this was due to feelings of remorse on Richard’s part – more probably it was from certain fears for the repose of Hastings’s soul.

  The public disgrace of Mistress Shore which followed was to substantiate the Protector’s accusations of sorcery. Charges of witchcraft were a recognized method of discrediting political enemies. Sir Thomas Howard arrested her and, after robbing the lady of £1,000 – everything she had – dragged her off to prison. Embarrassingly, no evidence of witchcraft could be found, so instead she was forced to do penance for being a harlot. The Bishop of London sentenced her to walk barefoot through the City streets, clad only in her kirtle and carrying a taper. She blushed so much and looked so pretty that more spectators – ‘more amorous of her body than concerned for her soul’ – were full of admiration.7 Indeed, ‘every man laughed’ at the idea of her harlotry being suddenly taken so seriously and thought that Richard had arranged her humiliation ‘more of a corrupt intent than any virtuous feeling’. In any case, she was very popular for having persuaded Edward IV to pardon a number of people and for other kindnesses. She was still living, a beggar – ‘old, lean, withered, and dried up, nothing left but shrivelled skin and hard bone’ – when More
was writing his history.

  Immediately after his triumphant dinner the Protector sent for the leading citizens of London. He and Buckingham met them in ostentatiously rusty armour, as though they had been taken by surprise and had had to put on whatever was available. They told them that Hastings had been planning to murder them at the Council meeting, that they had only acted in the nick of time. By now there were wild rumours all over the City, so to restore calm a herald rode through London reading a proclamation which described Hastings’s ‘treason’ – only two hours had elapsed since his death, but the document was so well phrased and neatly drawn up that it had obviously been prepared long beforehand (no doubt by Catesby).

  A reign of terror ensued. There were many arrests. Simon Stallworth wrote to his friend Sir William Stonor on the following day, 21 June. He speaks of ‘much trouble’ in London, of Hastings’s death and of the imprisonment of Rotherham and Morton and also Elizabeth Shore, of how 20,000 men belonging to the Protector and the Duke of Buckingham were expected to arrive within the week, though why he couldn’t see, that all Hastings’s men were switching their allegiance to Buckingham, and that ‘every man doubts the other’. It was the unmistakable atmosphere of a coup d’état.

  About the same time, it was discovered that the Marquess of Dorset had somehow escaped from sanctuary at Westminster. Richard had the surrounding countryside cordoned off by troops, who searched the standing corn and woodlands with dogs ‘after the manner of huntsmen’ but without success. Surviving many dangers, the Marquess eventually reached France.