Richard III Page 15

  The Great Chronicle of London tells us that after Lord Hastings’s death ‘was the Prince and Duke of York holden more strait and there was privy talk that the Lord Protector should be King’. Now that he had disposed of the Lord Chamberlain and was in possession of both boys, Richard could complete his second coup. Edward V’s Coronation was again postponed. Buckingham, grown closer than ever, would play the leading part in trying to persuade the populace to accept the Protector in Edward’s place. As reward, the Duke’s daughter was to marry Richard’s son while he himself would receive the Bohun Earldom of Hereford together with large gifts from the Royal Treasury. The strategy on which they decided was to accuse both the late King and his children of being bastards, even if it meant publicly dishonouring the Protector’s own mother. More says that Richard was anxious for this last point to be touched on as little as possible – not so much to spare his mother’s feelings as to give an impression that he did not want the whole truth to come out. They enlisted the aid of the Mayor, Sir Edmund Sha, of his brother Dr Sha and of Friar Penketh, Provincial of the Augustinians – the two latter being well-known preachers, ‘of more learning than virtue’ – in winning over the Londoners.

  On Sunday 22 June – the day when Edward V should have been crowned – Dr Sha preached a sermon at Paul’s Cross, outside St Paul’s Cathedral, on the text ‘Bastard slips shall not take deep root’. He first explained that the late King’s marriage to Elizabeth Woodville had been invalid since he was already betrothed to Lady Eleanor Butler, the daughter of the Earl of Shrewsbury, upon whom he had fathered a child; in the then Canon Law the ‘troth-plight’ was considered no less binding than a marriage if not dissolved by mutual consent. Curiously enough, there may be some truth in Sha’s story; Eleanor Butler and the child were dead long ago, but the priest before whom the troth-plight had been sworn, Robert Stillington, now Bishop of Bath and Wells and a former Lord Chancellor, came forward to attest it shortly afterwards. Dr Sha had some sort of a case, though scarcely a popular one. He made it still more unpalatable when he went on to speak of the adultery of the Duchess of York, claiming that not only were Edward IV’s children bastards, but so had been the late King himself and Clarence, that the Duke of York’s only legitimate son was the Protector – ‘This is the father’s own figure, this is his own countenance, the very print of his visage, the sure undoubted image, the plain express likeness of that noble Duke!’

  Apparently it was intended – if More is to be believed – that at that moment Richard should appear, as though by accident, on a nearby balcony and it was hoped the crowd would shout ‘King Richard! King Richard!’ Unfortunately the preacher spoke so fast that the Protector arrived too late. (As Gairdner says, Richard had ‘a certain Machiavellian cunning which at times overshot the mark’.) When at last he appeared, Sha had gone on to talk of other matters – however, he abruptly broke off to repeat his high-flown comparison of the Protector to the late Duke of York. But instead of shouting ‘King Richard!’, his hearers ‘stood as if they had been turned into stones for wonder of this shameful sermon’. The preacher was so shaken that henceforward he would only go about after dark ‘like an owl’.

  Dr Hanham finds this scene particularly hard to accept. ‘Once again, the authenticity of More’s picture is at best unproved.’ She discerns a desire to write comedy, to turn the Protector and Buckingham into ‘sheer figures of farce’. But she does so in order to strengthen her curious hypothesis that Sir Thomas was writing satire instead of history. None of his contemporaries saw anything satirical or farcical about his account, nor have modern historians, however much irony there may be in it. The most plausible explanation is that More is simply telling the story as he has heard it, even if he tells it rather well.

  Elsewhere other preachers delivered similar sermons. They demanded the disinheritance of the children of Edward IV, echoing the allegations at Paul’s Cross of adultery and bastardy, and claiming that he had never been a legitimate King and nor could his sons be. But they had no more success with the public than Dr Sha.

  The Protector was undeterred. He exchanged his black clothes for the purple mourning worn by Kings of England and began to ride through the London streets with an escort of a thousand men. Every day he entertained vast numbers to dinner at his houses. Yet when he rode past no one cheered – ‘instead they cursed him with a fate worthy of his crimes, since nobody was in any doubt about his aims,’ Mancini tells us.8 Few rulers have forfeited their popularity so swiftly. The London crowd’s reaction was one of horror at ‘the madness of Richard the Duke’s wicked mind,’ says Vergil.

  Buckingham now took a hand. Indeed, he became the instrument of the coup’s success. On Tuesday 24 June he went to the Guildhall, escorted by a large group of peers and knights. The Mayor, Aldermen and all the leading citizens of London were gathered in the hall to hear what he had to say. Perhaps More has polished the speech for dramatic effect, but as in other speeches he reports, it is full of references which suggest that it is substantially accurate. Moreover, it reveals a detestation of Edward IV which is very much what one might expect from Buckingham.

  The Duke, ‘marvellously well spoken’, addressed his audience in a loud, clear voice. ‘Friends, for the zeal and hearty favour that we bear you, we come to break unto you a matter right great and weighty,’ he began. He told them how in recent years they had suffered the most miserable afflictions under the late King’s misgovernment. There had been cruel taxation and legalized theft – he cited Edward IV’s ‘benevolences’ and the despoiling of Sir Thomas Cook. He blamed the King for shedding so much blood in the recent wars, and for killing Clarence – ‘Whom spared he that killed his own brother?’ He dwelt at length on Edward’s wenching, claiming that no woman in the City had been safe. And yet the late King of all people should have been grateful for the Londoners’ loyalty to the House of York.

  It is truly extraordinary that such a vicious diatribe against Edward should have been countenanced by the brother whose motto was ‘loyalty binds me’, who had recently shed ‘plenteous tears’ at his Requiem.

  Then Buckingham went on to refer to the sermon at Paul’s Cross on Sunday, repeating all Sha’s arguments. ‘Woe is that realm that has a child to their King,’ declaimed the Duke. ‘Wherefore so much the more cause have we to thank God that this noble personage, who is so rightfully entitled thereunto, is of so mature age and thereto of so great wisdom joined with so great experience.’ Buckingham continued that though ‘this noble personage’ – the Protector – was extremely reluctant to assume the Crown, he might accept if the citizens of London would join with the peers of the realm in petitioning him to do so. He ended by asking his ‘dear friends’ to speak up and ask for Richard to become their King.

  The Great Chronicle of London bears out More’s report of the speech. It tells us that it lasted a good half hour and was ‘so well and eloquently uttered and with so angelic a countenance … that such as heard him marvelled’. But it agrees with More that the speech hardly received an enthusiastic reception.

  For ‘all was hushed and mute’. The citizens remained dumb. Plainly shaken, Buckingham consulted the Mayor who, much embarrassed, suggested they might not have understood. Then the Recorder of London tried, very unwillingly. The assembly remained obstinately silent, ‘as if they had been men amazed’. Buckingham made a third attempt, saying that he was offering them a chance to share in the honour of deciding, if ‘you be minded, as all the nobles of this realm be, to have this noble Prince, now Protector, to be your King or not?’ All that happened was a buzz of whispering – ‘as it were the sound of a swarm of bees’.

  Finally John Nesfield from Yorkshire – one of Richard’s future Esquires of the Body, and a noted thug, according to the Croyland chronicler – together with some of the two Dukes’ servants and a few apprentices who suddenly appeared at the back of the hall, threw their caps into the air and began to shout ‘King Richard! King Richard!’ This was enough for Buckingham, who hastily ann
ounced that it was quite plain they wanted ‘this noble man’ for their King. More describes how everybody then left the Guildhall sadly, how even some of the Duke’s escort turned their faces away to hide their tears. But they had not dared to protest.

  The day after, Buckingham and various peers and gentlemen, together with the Mayor and Corporation, called on the Protector at Baynard’s Castle. All were prominent, men of large property, not only anxious to curry favour with an irresistibly rising star but aware that their necks and goods were at stake. All knew that a northern army was expected at any moment. Richard came out on to a balcony, declaring coolly that he did not know why they were there. Buckingham then made an elaborate speech on behalf of the deputation, begging the Protector to take the Crown. After a fine show of reluctance – in which he mentioned the ‘entire love he bore unto King Edward and his children’ – Richard graciously accepted. ‘We be content and agree favourably to incline to your petition and request.’ More comments that everyone present was astonished by such a theatrical performance – he says they compared it to ‘stage plays’ – and realized very well that it had all been arranged beforehand.

  6. Baynard’s Castle, London, the town-house of Richard’s mother Cecily, Duchess of York. Here on 26 June 1483 the Protector was presented by the Duke of Buckingham with a petition which asked him to take the Crown. From a drawing of about 1649.

  Later that day the Lords, Knights and Burgesses who had come to London for the Parliament which could not now meet, drew up a petition, to be recorded by the next Parliament. The Croyland chronicler says it was rumoured that it ‘had been conceived in the North, whence such a large force was expected in London. But nobody was ignorant of the sole originator of the great sedition and infamy going on in London.’

  The petition echoes Buckingham’s speech at the Guildhall. It too dwells on Edward IV’s bad government and morals, when ‘such as had the rule and governance of this land, delighting in adulation and flattery, and led by sensuality and concupiscence, followed by the counsel of persons insolent, vicious and of inordinate avarice’ (i.e. the Woodvilles). In consequence, ‘the prosperity of this land daily decreased, so that felicity was turned into misery, and … ruled by self-will and pleasure, fear and dread’. There had been ‘murders, extortions and oppressions, namely of poor and impotent people, so that no man was sure of his life, land nor livelihood, ne of his wife, daughter ne servant, every good maiden and woman standing in dread to be ravished and defouled’.

  This is not an extract from some much decried ‘Tudor propagandist’, but a document which was later approved by Richard himself. As Gairdner comments, he ‘had resolved to make use of every available prejudice, calumny and scandal, to advance his own pretensions’.

  The petition states that the late sovereign’s marriage had not only been made out of ‘great presumption’ but also through witchcraft and sorcery by Elizabeth Woodville and her mother. It was invalid because of Edward’s previous troth-plight to Eleanor Butler, so that

  the said King Edward during his life and the said Elizabeth lived together sinfully and damnably in adultery against the law of God and of his Church … it appeareth evidently and followeth that all the issue and children of the said King Edward been bastards and unable to inherit or to claim anything by inheritance by the law and custom of England.

  The invalidity of the marriage is ‘the common opinion of the people’ and can be proved ‘if and as the case shall require … in time and place convenient’.

  The petition asserts Richard’s claim to the throne in terms which are fulsome even by medieval standards. After stating that it was his by right of inheritance,

  We consider also the great wit, prudence, justice, princely courage, and the memorable and laudable acts in divers battles which (as we by experience know) ye heretofore have done for the salvation and defence of the same realm, and also the great noblesse and excellence of your birth and blood.

  On the same day the petition was drawn up, Wednesday 25 June, Earl Rivers, Lord Richard Grey, Sir Thomas Vaughan and Sir Richard Haute were beheaded at Pontefract, after which their naked corpses were thrown into a common grave. They had been brought there from the various castles in which they had been imprisoned – Rivers from Sheriff Hutton, Grey from Middleham. The Earl of Northumberland and some northern peers apparently set themselves up as a sort of court, but the ‘trial’ had no legality whatsoever. The man in charge of the executions was the brutal Ratcliff. On being taken out to his death, Vaughan spoke of a prophecy current a few years before, how ‘G’ – popularly believed to be Clarence – would destroy Edward IV’s children. Plainly ‘G’ signified Gloucester, whom ‘now I see … will accomplish the prophecy and destroy King Edward’s children,’ said the old Welshman, who then declared his innocence, appealing to ‘the high tribunal of God’. ‘You have appealed well, lay down your head,’ replied Ratcliff brusquely. ‘I die in right,’ answered Sir Thomas. ‘Beware you die not in wrong.’

  It is clear that before leaving London on 12 June Ratcliff had received orders from the Protector to see to the killing of all four prisoners. It was not even judicial murder, but just murder plain and simple. Moreover, we know that the Council in London had refused to agree to their execution. One remembers Richard’s amiable message to Rivers, after taking him prisoner at Northampton, ‘to be of good cheer and all should be well’.

  7. Sir Thomas Vaughan (1425–83), an Esquire of the Body to Edward IV and sometime Master of the Ordnance. Chamberlain to the Prince of Wales since 1471, he was arrested by Richard at Stony Stratford on 30 April 1483 and beheaded without trial two months later. From a brass at Westminster Abbey.

  On Thursday 26 June the Protector went to Westminster Hall with a great retinue and ‘obtruded himself’ – the phrase is the Croyland writer’s – into the monarch’s marble throne in the Court of King’s Bench.9 The petition was presented. As a lawyer himself, More, from whom this account is partly taken, must surely have met elderly barristers who had been present. He tells us that Richard announced to the audience that this was the place for him to assume the Crown because he believed that a King’s chief duty was to administer the laws, and that he then made an ingratiating speech which was principally addressed to lawyers. In conclusion he dramatically pardoned a kinsman of the Woodvilles, Sir John Fogge – whom he was known to dislike – having him brought out specially from the sanctuary at Westminster and shaking his hand.10 (Fogge was no ‘low intriguer’, as Markham calls him, but a very considerable Kentish landowner, a former Member of Parliament for his county, and a former Treasurer of the Royal Household; he was connected with the Woodvilles through having married a relative of that Sir Richard Haute who had just been beheaded at Pontefract.) The more intelligent spectators watched the pardoning of Fogge with some cynicism – ‘wise men took it for a vanity’. As he rode home, the new King bowed effusively to everyone whom he met on the way.

  Once again More is partly confirmed by an official document. Shortly after 26 June Lord Dynham, Captain of Calais, received instructions dated two days later from royal messengers, which informed him of Richard’s accession. They refer to the petition being presented on 26 June and describe how

  the King’s said Highness notably assisted by well near all the Lords Spiritual and Temporal of the Realm, went the same day unto his palace of Westminster, and there in such royalty honourably apparelled within the great hall there, took possession and declared his mind that the same day he would begin to reign upon his people.

  The document also claims that when he rode to St Paul’s Cathedral to give thanks, he was loudly cheered and greeted ‘with great congratulation and acclamation of all the people in every place’.

  The reign of Richard III had indeed begun after ‘this mock election’ on 26 June. A date was fixed for his Coronation. As More observes, ‘Now fell there mischiefs thick.’

  Chapter Nine

  ‘KING RICHARD THE THIRD’

  ‘In seizing a state the
usurper should carefully examine what injuries he must do, and then do them all at one blow so that he does not have to repeat them day after day; and by taking care not to unsettle men he can reassure them and win them over with gifts. Anyone who fails to do this, either from cowardice or bad advice, has to keep a knife in his hand all the time.’

  Machiavelli, Il Principe

  ‘Where he went abroad, his eyes whirled about, his body secretly armoured, his hand ever on his dagger.’

  Sir Thomas More, The History

  of King Richard the Third

  The reign which now opened was to be the unhappiest in English history. The black legend had begun before the King even ascended the throne. For the rest of his short life he was to be a byword, inspiring more dread and terror than any monarch before or since, not excepting Henry VIII. More is not exaggerating when he says that Richard III ruled in an atmosphere of nightmarish insecurity.

  [He] never had quiet in his mind, he never thought himself sure. Where he went abroad, his eyes whirled about, his body secretly armoured, his hand ever on his dagger, his countenance and manner like one always ready to strike back. He took ill rest a-nights; lay long waking and musing, sore wearied with care and watch; rather slumbered than slept, troubled with fearful dreams – suddenly sometimes start up, leapt out of his bed and ran about his chamber.

  Sir Thomas tells us he heard this ‘by credible report of such as were secret with his chambermen’.

  Even before Richard’s subjects had reason to suspect that the Princes had been killed, it is likely that the majority disliked and mistrusted their new King. He was a scandal, by the lights of his own violent age. Dr Hanham emphasizes that his nephews were dispossessed ‘on grounds which were evidently not thought adequate by the country at large’; in More’s words, ‘upon how slippery a ground the Protector builded his pretext, by which he pretended King Edward’s children to be bastards’. There had not been the slightest pretence at legality in taking away the younger Prince’s peerages – the Petition contains no mention of depriving him of these. Above all, neither could be bastardized, even by Act of Parliament, unless a full canonical investigation by the Church had proved beyond doubt that their parents’ marriage had been invalid.1 Few crimes were considered more heinous than swindling heirs out of their birthright; as that venerable lawyer, Bracton, had written 200 years before, ‘God alone can make an heir.’