Lewis was anxious not only to gain the king’s friendship but also that of the nation, and of all the considerable persons in the English court. He bestowed pensions, to the amount of sixteen thousand crowns a year, on several of the kings, favorites; on Lord Hastings two thousand crowns; on Lora Howard and others in proportion; and these great ministers were not ashamed thus to receive wages from a foreign prince. As the two armies, after the conclusion of the truce remained some time in the neighborhood of each other, the English were not only admitted freely into Amiens, where Lewis resided, but had also their charges defrayed, and had wine and victuals furnished them in every inn, without any payment being demanded. They flocked thither in such multitude that once above nine thousand of them were in the town, and they might have made themselves masters of the king’s person; but Lewis, concluding from their jovial and dissolute manner of living, that they had no bad intentions, was careful not to betray the least sign of fear or jealousy. And when Edward, informed of this disorder, desired him to shut the gates against them, he replied, that he would never agree to exclude the English from the place where he resided; but that Edward, if he pleased, might recall them, and place his own officers at the gates of Amiens to prevent their returning.[*]
Lewis’s desire of confirming a mutual amity with England, engaged him even to make imprudent advances, which it cost him afterwards some pains to evade. In the conference at Pecquigni he had said to Edward, that he wished to have a visit from him at Paris; that he would there endeavor to amuse him with the ladies; and that, in case any offences were then committed, he would assign him the cardinal of Bourbon for confessor, who, from fellow-feeling, would not be over and above severe in the penances which he would enjoin. This hint made deeper impression than Lewis intended. Lord Howard, who accompanied him back to Amiens, told him in confidence that, if he were so disposed it would not be impossible to persuade Edward to take a journey with him to Paris, where they might make merry together. Lewis pretended at first not to hear the offer; but on Howard’s repeating it, he expressed his concern that his wars with the duke of Burgundy would not permit him to attend his royal guest, and do him the honors he intended “Edward,” said he privately to Comines, “is a very handsome and a very amorous prince: some lady at Paris may like him as well as he shall do her; and may invite him to return in another manner. It is better that the sea be between us.”[**]
This treaty did very little honor to either of these monarchs: it discovered the imprudence of Edward, who had taken his measures so ill with his allies, as to be obliged, after such an expensive armament, to return without making any acquisitions adequate to it: it showed the want of dignity in Lewis who, rather than run the hazard of a battle, agreed to subject his kingdom to a tribute, and thus acknowledge the superiority of a neighboring prince possessed of less power and territory than himself. But as Lewis made interest the sole test of honor, he thought that all the advantages of the treaty were on his side, and that he had overreached Edward, by sending him out of France on such easy terms. For this reason he was very solicitous to conceal his triumph; and he strictly enjoined his courtiers never to show the English the least sign of mockery or derision. But he did not himself very carefully observe so prudent a rule: he could not forbear, one day, in the joy of his heart, throwing out some raillery on the easy simplicity of Edward and his council; when he perceived that he was overheard by a Gascon, who had settled in England. He was immediately sensible of his indiscretion; sent a message to the gentleman; and offered him some advantages in his own country, as engaged him to remain in France. “It is but just,” said he, “that I pay the penalty of my talkativeness.”[*]
The most honorable part of Lewis’s treaty with Edward was the stipulation for the liberty of Queen Margaret, who, though after the death of her husband and son she could no longer be formidable to government, was still detained in custody by Edward. Lewis paid fifty thousand crowns for her ransom; and that princess, who had been so active on the stage of the world, and who had experienced such a variety of fortune, passed the remainder of her days in tranquility and privacy, till the year 1482, when she died; an admirable princess, but more illustrious by her undaunted spirit in adversity, than by her moderation in prosperity. She seems neither to have enjoyed the virtues, nor been subject to the weaknesses, of her sex; and was as much tainted with the ferocity as endowed with the courage of that barbarous age in which she lived.
Though Edward had so little reason to be satisfied with the conduct of the duke of Burgundy, he reserved to that prince a power of acceding to the treaty of Pecquigni: but Charles, when the offer was made him, haughtily replied, that he was able to support himself without the assistance of England, and that he would make no peace with Lewis till three months after Edward’s return into his own country. This prince possessed all the ambition and courage of a conqueror; but being defective in policy and prudence, qualities no less essential, he was unfortunate in all his enterprises; and perished at last in battle against the Swiss;[*] a people whom he despised, and who, though brave and free, had hitherto been in a manner overlooked in the general system of Europe. This event, which happened in the year 1477, produced a great alteration in the views of all the princes, and was attended with consequences which were felt for many generations. Charles left only one daughter, Mary, by his first wife; and this princess, being heir of his opulent and extensive dominions, was courted by all the potentates of Christendom, who contended for the possession of so rich a prize. Lewis, the head of her family, might, by a proper application, have obtained this match for the dauphin, and have thereby united to the crown of France all the provinces of the Low Countries, together with Burgundy, Artois, and Picardy; which would at once have rendered his kingdom an overmate for all its neighbors. But a man wholly interested is as rare as one entirely endowed with the opposite quality; and Lewis, though impregnable to all the sentiments of generosity and friendship, was, on this occasion, carried from the road of true policy by the passions of animosity and revenge. He had imbibed so deep a hatred to the house of Burgundy, that he rather chose to subdue the princess by arms, than unite her to his family by marriage: he conquered the duchy of Burgundy and that part of Picardy which had been ceded to Philip the Good by the treaty of Arras: but he thereby forced the states of the Netherlands to bestow their sovereign in marriage on Maximilian of Austria, son of the emperor Frederick, from whom they looked for protection in their present distresses: and by these means, France lost the opportunity, which she never could recall, of making that important acquisition of power and territory.
During this interesting crisis, Edward was no less defective in policy, and was no less actuated by private passions, unworthy of a sovereign and a statesman. Jealousy of his brother Clarence had caused him to neglect the advances which were made of marrying that prince, now a widower, to the heiress of Burgundy;[**] and he sent her proposals of espousing Anthony, earl of Rivers, brother to his queen, who still retained an entire ascendant over him.
But the match was rejected with disdain;[*] and Edward, resenting this treatment of his brother-in-law, permitted France to proceed without interruption in her conquests over his defenceless ally. Any pretence sufficed him for abandoning himself entirely to indolence and pleasure, which were now become his ruling passions. The only object which divided his attention was the improving of the public revenue, which had been dilapidated by the necessities or negligence of his predecessors; and some of his expedients for that purpose, though unknown to us, were deemed, during the time, oppressive to the people.[**] The detail of private wrongs naturally escapes the notice of history; but an act of tyranny of which Edward was guilty in his own family, has been taken notice of by all writers, and has met with general and deserved censure.
The duke of Clarence, by all his services in deserting Warwick, had never been able to regain the king’s friendship, which he had forfeited by his former confederacy with that nobleman. He was still regarded at court as a man of a dangerous and a fickle character; and the imprudent openness and violence of his temper, though it rendered him much less dangerous, tended extremely to multiply his enemies, and to incense them against him. Among others, he had had the misfortune to give displeasure to the queen herself, as well as to his brother, the duke of Glocester, a prince of the deepest policy, of the most unrelenting ambition, and the least scrupulous in the means which he employed for the attainment or his ends. A combination between these potent adversaries being secretly formed against Clarence, it was determined to begin by attacking his friends; in hopes that, if he patiently endured this injury, his pusillanimity would dishonor him in the eyes of the public; if he made resistance, and expressed resentment, his passion would betray him into measures which might give them advantages against him. The king, hunting one day in the park of Thomas Burdet, of Arrow, in Warwickshire, had killed a white buck, which was a great favorite of the owner; and Burdet, vexed at the loss, broke into a passion, and wished the horns of the deer in the belly of the person who had advised the king to commit that insult upon him. This natural expression of resentment, which would have been overlooked or forgotten had it fallen from any other person, was rendered criminal and capital in that gentleman, by the friendship in which he had the misfortune to live with the duke of Clarence; he was tried for his life; the judges and jury were found servile enough to condemn him and he was publicly beheaded at Tyburn for this pretended offence.[*] About the same time, one John Stacey, an ecclesiastic, much connected with the duke as well as with Burdet, was exposed to a like iniquitous and barbarous prosecution. This clergyman, being more learned in mathematics and astronomy than was usual in that age, lay under the imputation of necromancy with the ignorant vulgar; and the court laid hold of this popular rumor to effect his destruction. He was brought to his trial for that imaginary crime; many of the greatest peers countenanced the prosecution by their presence; he was condemned, put to the torture, and executed.[**]
The duke of Clarence was alarmed when he found these acts of tyranny exercised on all around him: he reflected on the fate of the good duke of Glocester, in the last reign, who, after seeing the most infamous pretences employed for the destruction of his nearest connections, at last fell himself a victim to the vengeance of his enemies. But Clarence, instead of securing his own life against the present danger by silence and reserve, was open and loud in justifying the innocence of his friends, and in exclaiming against the iniquity of their prosecutors.
1478.
The king, highly offended with his freedom, or using that pretence against him, committed him to the Tower,[***] summoned a parliament, and tried him for his life before the house of peers, the supreme tribunal of the nation.
The duke was accused of arraigning public justice, by maintaining the innocence of men who had been condemned in courts of judicature, and or inveighing against the iniquity of the king, who had given orders for their prosecution.[****]
Many rash expressions were imputed to him, and some, too, reflecting on Edward’s legitimacy; but he was not accused of any overt act of treason; and even the truth of these speeches may be doubted of, since the liberty of judgment was taken from the court, by the king’s appearing personally as his brother’s accuser,[*] and pleading the cause against him. But a sentence of condemnation, even when this extraordinary circumstance had not place, was a necessary consequence, in those times, of any prosecution by the court or the prevailing party; and the duke of Clarence was pronounced guilty by the peers. The house of commons were no less slavish and unjust: they both petitioned for the execution of the duke, and afterwards passed a bill of attainder against him.[**] The measures of the parliament, during that age, furnish us with examples of a strange contrast of freedom and servility: they scruple to grant, and sometimes refuse, to the king the smallest supplies, the most necessary for the support of government, even the most necessary for the maintenance of wars, for which the nation, as well as the parliament itself, expressed great fondness: but they never scruple to concur in the most flagrant act of injustice or tyranny which falls on any individual, however distinguished by birth or merit. These maxims, so ungenerous, so opposite to all principles of good government, so contrary to the practice of present parliaments, are very remarkable in all the transactions of the English history for more than a century after the period in which we are now engaged.
The only favor which the king granted his brother after his condemnation, was to leave him the choice of his death; and he was privately drowned in a butt of malmsey in the Tower; a whimsical choice, which implies that he had an extraordinary passion for that liquor. The duke left two children by the elder daughter of the earl of Warwick; a son, created an earl by his grandfather’s title, and a daughter, afterwards countess of Salisbury. Both this prince and princess were also unfortunate in their end, and died a violent death; a fate which, for many years, attended almost all the descendants of the royal blood in England. There prevails a report, that a chief source of the violent prosecution of the duke of Clarence, whose name was George, was a current prophecy, that the king’s son should be murdered by one, the initial letter of whose name was G.[***] It is not impossible but, in those ignorant times, such a silly reason might have some influence; but it is more probable that the whole story is the invention of a subsequent period, and founded on the murder of these children by the duke of Glocester. Comines remarks, that at that time the English never were without some superstitious prophecy or other, by which they accounted for every event.
All the glories of Edward’s reign terminated with the civil wars, where his laurels, too, were extremely sullied with blood, violence, and cruelty. His spirit seems afterwards to have been sunk in indolence and pleasure, or his measures were frustrated by imprudence and the want of foresight. There was no object on which he was more intent than to have all his daughters settled by splendid marriages, though most of these princesses were yet in their infancy, and though the completion of his views, it was obvious, must depend on numberless accidents, which were impossible to be foreseen or prevented. His eldest daughter, Elizabeth, was contracted to the dauphin; his second, Cicely, to the eldest son of James III., king of Scotland; his third, Anne, to Philip, only son of Maximilian and the duchess of Burgundy; his fourth, Catharine, to John, son and heir to Ferdinand, king of Arragon, and Isabella, queen of Castile.[*] None of these projected marriages took place; and the king himself saw in his lifetime the rupture of the first, that with the dauphin, for which he had always discovered a peculiar fondness. Lewis, who paid no regard to treaties or engagements, found his advantage in contracting the dauphin to the princess Margaret, daughter of Maximilian, and the king, notwithstanding his indolence, prepared to revenge the indignity.
1482.
The French monarch, eminent for prudence as well as perfidy, endeavored to guard against the blow; and by a proper distribution of presents in the court of Scotland, he incited James to make war upon England. This prince, who lived on bad terms with his own nobility, and whose force was very unequal to the enterprise, levied an army; but when he was ready to enter England, the barons, conspiring against his favorites, put them to death without trial; and the army presently disbanded. The duke of Glocester, attended by the duke of Albany, James’s brother, who had been banished his country, entered Scotland at the head of an army, took Berwick, and obliged the Scots to accept of a peace, by which they resigned that fortress to Edward. This success imboldened the king to think more seriously of a French war; but while he was making preparations for that enterprise, he was seized with a distemper, of which he expired in the forty-second year of his age, and the twenty-third of his reign; a prince more splendid and showy than either prudent or virtuous; brave, though cruel; addicted to pleasure, though capable of activity in great emergencies; and less fitted to prevent ills by wise precautions, than to remedy them, after they took place, by his vigor and enterprise. Besides five daughters, this king left two sons; Edward, prince of Wales, his successor, then in his thirteenth year and Richard, duke of York, in his ninth.
1483.
During the latter years of Edward IV., the nation having in a great measure forgotten the bloody feuds between the two roses, and peaceably acquiescing in the established government, was agitated only by some court intrigues, which, being restrained by the authority of the king, seemed nowise to endanger the public tranquillity. These intrigues arose from the perpetual rivalship between two parties; one consisting of the queen and her relations, particularly the earl of Rivers, her brother, and the marquis of Dorset, her son; the other composed of the ancient nobility, who envied the sudden growth and unlimited credit of that aspiring family.[*]
At the head of this latter party was the duke of Buckingham, a man of very noble birth, of ample possessions, of great alliances, of shining parts; who, though he had married the queen’s sister, was too haughty to act in subserviency to her inclinations, and aimed rather at maintaining an independent influence and authority. Lord Hastings, the chamberlain, was another leader of the same party; and as this nobleman had, by his bravery and activity, as well as by his approved fidelity, acquired the confidence and favor of his master, he had been able, though with some difficulty, to support himself against the credit of the queen. The lords Howard and Stanley maintained a connection with these two noblemen, and brought a considerable accession of influence and reputation to their party. All the other barons, who had no particular dependence on the queen, adhered to the same interest; and the people in general, from their natural envy against the prevailing power, bore great favor to the cause of these noblemen.
But Edward knew that, though he himself had been able to overawe those rival factions, many disorders might arise from their contests during the minority of his son; and he therefore took care, in his last illness, to summon together several of the leaders on both sides, and by composing their ancient quarrels, to provide, as far as possible, for the future tranquillity of the government. After expressing his intentions, that his brother, the duke of Glocester, then absent in the north, should be intrusted with the regency, he recommended to them peace and unanimity during the tender years of his son; represented to them the dangers which must attend the continuance of their animosities; and engaged them to embrace each other with all the appearance of the most cordial reconciliation. But this temporary or feigned agreement lasted no longer than the king’s life; he had no sooner expired, than the jealousies of the parties broke out afresh; and each of them applied, by separate messages, to the duke of Glocester, and endeavored to acquire his favor and friendship.
This prince, during his brother’s reign, had endeavored to live on good terms with both parties; and his high birth, his extensive abilities, and his great services, had enabled him to support himself without falling into a dependence on either. But the new situation of affairs, when the supreme power was devolved upon him, immediately changed his measures; and he secretly determined to preserve no longer that neutrality which he had hitherto maintained. His exorbitant ambition, unrestrained by any principle either of justice or humanity; made him carry his views to the possession of the crown itself; and as this object could not be attained without the ruin of the queen and her family, he fell, without hesitation, into concert with the opposite party. But being sensible that the most profound dissimulation was requisite for effecting his criminal purposes, he redoubled his professions of zeal and attachment to that princess; and he gained such credit with her as to influence her conduct in a point which, as it was of the utmost importance, was violently disputed between the opposite factions.
The young king, at the time of his father’s death, resided in the Castle of Ludlow, on the borders of Wales; whither he had been sent, that the influence of his presence might overawe the Welsh, and restore the tranquillity of that country, which had been disturbed by some late commotions. His person was committed to the care of his uncle, the earl of Rivers, the most accomplished nobleman in England, who, having united an uncommon taste for literature[*] to great abilities in business and valor in the field was entitled by his talents, still more than by nearness of blood, to direct the education of the young monarch. The queen, anxious to preserve that ascendant over her son which she had long maintained over her husband, wrote to the earl of Rivers, that he should levy a body of forces, in order to escort the king to London, to protect him during his coronation, and to keep him from falling into the hands of their enemies.[**] The opposite faction, sensible that Edward was now of an age when great advantages could be made of his name and countenance, and was approaching to the age when he would be legally entitled to exert in person his authority, foresaw that the tendency of this measure was to perpetuate their subjection under their rivals; and they vehemently opposed a resolution which they represented as the signal for renewing a civil war in the kingdom. Lord Hastings threatened to depart instantly to his government of Calais:[**] the other nobles seemed resolute to oppose force by force: and as the duke of Glocester, on pretence of pacifying the quarrel, had declared against all appearance of an armed power, which might be dangerous, and was nowise necessary; the queen, trusting to the sincerity of his friendship, and overawed by so violent an opposition, recalled her orders to her brother, and desired him to bring up no greater retinue than should be necessary to support the state and dignity of the young sovereign.[***]
The duke of Glocester, meanwhile, set out from York, attended by a numerous train of the northern gentry. When he reached Northampton, he was joined by the duke of Buckingham, who was also attended by a splendid retinue; and as he heard that the king was hourly expected on that road, he resolved to await his arrival, under color of conducting him thence in person to London. The earl of Rivers, apprehensive that the place would be too narrow to contain so many attendants, sent his pupil forward by another road to Stony Stratford; and came himself to Northampton, in order to apologize for this measure, and to pay his respects to the duke of Glocester. He was received with the greatest appearance of cordiality: he passed the evening an an amicable manner with Glocester and Buckingham: he proceeded on the road with them next day to join the king: but as he was entering Stony Stratford, he was arrested by orders from the duke of Glocester:[*] Sir Richard Gray, one of the queen’s sons, was at the same time put under a guard, together with Sir Thomas Vaughan, who possessed a considerable office in the king’s household; and all the prisoners were instantly conducted to Pomfret. Glocester approached the young prince with the greatest demonstrations of respect; and endeavored to satisfy him with regard to the violence committed on his uncle and brother: but Edward, much attached to these near relations, by whom he had been tenderly educated, was not such a master of dissimulation as to conceal his displeasure.[**]
The people, however, were extremely rejoiced at this revolution; and the duke was received in London with the loudest acclamations: but the queen no sooner received intelligence of her brother’s imprisonment, than she foresaw that Glocester’s violence would not stop there, and that her own ruin, if not that of all her children, was finally determined. She therefore fled into the sanctuary of Westminster, attended by the marquis of Dorset; and she carried thither the five princesses, together with the duke of York.[***]
She trusted that the ecclesiastical privileges, which had formerly, during the total ruin of her husband and family, given her protection against the fury of the Lancastrian faction, would not now be violated by her brother-in-law, while her son was on the throne; and she resolved to await there the return of better fortune. But Glocester, anxious to have the duke of York in his power, proposed to take him by force from the sanctuary; and he represented to the privy council both the indignity put upon the government by the queen’s ill-grounded apprehensions, and the necessity of the young prince’s appearance at the ensuing coronation of his brother. It was further urged, that ecclesiastical privileges were originally intended only to give protection to unhappy men persecuted for their debts or crimes; and were entirely useless to a person who, by reason of his tender age, could lie under the burden of neither, and who, for the same reason, was utterly incapable of claiming security from any sanctuary. But the two archbishops, Cardinal Bourchier, the primate, and Rotherhand, archbishop of York, protesting against the sacrilege of this measure, it was agreed that they should first endeavor to bring the queen to compliance by persuasion, before any violence should be employed against her. These prelates were persons of known integrity and honor; and being themselves entirely persuaded of the duke’s good intentions, they employed every argument, accompanied with earnest entreaties, exhortations, and assurances, to bring her over to the same opinion. She long continued obstinate, and insisted that the duke of York, by living in the sanctuary, was not only secure himself, but gave security to the king, whose life no one would dare to attempt while his successor and avenger remained in safety. But finding that none supported her in these sentiments, and that force, in case of refusal, was threatened by the council, she at last complied, and produced her son to the two prelates. She was here on a sudden struck with a kind of presage of his future fate: she tenderly embraced him; she bedewed him with her tears; and bidding him an eternal adieu, delivered him, with many expressions of regret and reluctance, into their custody.[*]
The duke of Glocester, being the nearest male of the royal family capable of exercising the government, seemed entitled, by the customs of the realm, to the office of protector; and the council, not waiting for the consent of parliament, made no scruple of investing him with that high dignity.[**]
The general prejudice entertained by the nobility against the queen and her kindred, occasioned this precipitation and irregularity; and no one foresaw any danger to the succession, much less to the lives of the young princes, from a measure so obvious and so natural. Besides that the duke had hitherto been able to cover, by the most profound dissimulation, his fierce and savage nature, the numerous issue of Edward, together with the two children of Clarence, seemed to be an eternal obstacle to his ambition; and it appeared equally impracticable for him to destroy so many persons possessed of a preferable title, and imprudent to exclude them. But a man who had abandoned all principles of honor and humanity, was soon carried by his predominant passion beyond the reach of fear or precaution; and Glocester, having so far succeeded in his views, no longer hesitated in removing the other obstructions which lay between him and the throne. The death of the earl of Rivers, and of the other prisoners detained in Pomfret, was first determined; and he easily obtained the consent of the duke of Buckingham, as well as of Lord Hastings, to this violent and sanguinary measure. However easy it was, in those times, to procure a sentence against the most innocent person, it appeared still more easy to despatch an enemy without any trial or form of process; and orders were accordingly issued to Sir Richard Ratcliffe, a proper instrument in the hands of this tyrant, to cut off the heads of the prisoners. The protector then assailed the fidelity of Buckingham by all the arguments capable of swaying a vicious mind, which knew no motive of action but interest and ambition. He represented that the execution of persons so nearly related to the king, whom that prince so openly professed to love, and whose fate he so much resented, would never pass unpunished; and all the actors in that scene were bound in prudence to prevent the effects of his future vengeance: that it would be impossible to keep the queen forever at a distance from her son, and equally impossible to prevent her from instilling into his tender mind the thoughts of retaliating, by like executions, the sanguinary insults committed on her family: that the only method of obviating these mischiefs was to put the sceptre in the hands of a man of whose friendship the duke might be assured, and whose years and experience taught him to pay respect to merit and to the rights of ancient nobility: and that the same necessity which had carried them so far in resisting the usurpation of these intruders, must justify them in attempting further innovations, and in making, by national consent, a new settlement of the succession. To these reasons he added the offers of great private advantages to the duke of Buckingham; and he easily obtained from him a promise of supporting him in all his enterprises.
The duke of Glocester, knowing the importance of gaining Lord Hastings, sounded at a distance his sentiments, by means of Catesby, a lawyer, who lived in great intimacy with that nobleman; but found him impregnable in his allegiance and fidelity to the children of Edward, who had ever honored him with his friendship.[*] He saw, therefore, that there were no longer any measures to be kept with him; and he determined to ruin utterly the man whom he despaired of engaging to concur in his usurpation. On the very day when Rivers, Gray, and Vaughan were executed, or rather murdered, at Poinfret by the advice of Hastings, the protector summoned a council in the Tower; whither that nobleman, suspecting no design against him, repaired without hesitation.
The duke of Glocester was capable of committing the most bloody and treacherous murders with the utmost coolness and indifference. On taking his place at the council-table, he appeared in the easiest and most jovial humor imaginable. He seemed to indulge himself in familiar conversation with the counsellors, before they should enter on business, and having paid some compliments to Morton, bishop of Ely, on the good and early strawberries which he raised in his garden at Holborn, he begged the favor of having a dish of them, which that prelate immediately despatched a servant to bring to him. The protector then left the council, as if called away by some other business; but soon after returning with an angry and inflamed countenance, he asked them, what punishment those deserved that had plotted against his life, who was so nearly related to the king, and was intrusted with the administration of government. Hastings replied, that they merited the punishment of traitors. “These traitors,” cried the protector, “are the sorceress, my brother’s wife, and Jane Shore, his mistress, with others their associates: see to what a condition they have reduced me by their incantations and witchcraft:” upon which he laid bare his arm, all shrivelled and decayed. But the counsellors, who knew that this infirmity had attended him from his birth, looked on each other with amazement; and, above all, Lord Hastings, who, as he had since Edward’s death engaged in an intrigue with Jane Shore,[*] 20 was naturally anxious concerning the issue of these extraordinary proceedings.
“Certainly, my lord,” said he, “if they be guilty of these crimes, they deserve the severest punishment.” “And do you reply to me,” exclaimed the protector, “with your ifs and your ands? You are the chief abettor of that witch, Shore: you are yourself a traitor; and I swear by St. Paul, that I will not dine before your head be brought me,” He struck the table with his hand: armed men rushed in at the signal: the counsellors were thrown into the utmost consternation: and one of the guards, as if by accident or mistake, aimed a blow with a pole-axe at Lord Stanley, who, aware of the danger, slunk under the table; and though he saved his life, he received a severe wound in the head, in the protector’s presence. Hastings was seized, was hurried away, and instantly beheaded on a timber-log, which lay in the court of the Tower.[*] Two hours after, a proclamation, well penned, and fairly written, was read to the citizens of London, enumerating his offenses, and apologizing to them, from the suddenness of the discovery, for the sudden execution of that nobleman, who was very popular among them; but the saying of a merchant was much talked of on the occasion, who remarked, that the proclamation was certainly drawn by the spirit of prophecy.[**]
Lord Stanley, the archbishop of York, the bishop of Ely, and other counsellors, were committed prisoners in different chambers of the Tower; and the protector, in order to carry on the farce of his accusations, ordered the goods of Jane Shore to be seized; and he summoned her to answer before the council for sorcery and witchcraft. But as no proofs, which could be received even in that ignorant age, were produced against her, he directed her to be tried in the spiritual court for her adulteries and lewdness; and she did penance in a white sheet in St. Paul’s, before the whole people. This lady was born of reputable parents in London, was well educated, and married to a substantial citizen; but unhappily views of interest, more than the maid’s inclinations, had been consulted in the match, and her mind, though framed for virtue, had proved unable to resist the allurements of Edward, who solicited her favors. But while seduced from her duty by this gay and amorous monarch, she still made herself respectable by her other virtues; and the ascendant which her charms and vivacity long maintained over him, was all employed in acts of beneficence and humanity. She was still forward to oppose calumny, to protect the oppressed, to relieve the indigent; and her good offices, the genuine dictates of her heart, never waited the solicitation of presents, or the hopes of reciprocal services. But she lived not only to feel the bitterness of shame imposed on her by this tyrant, but to experience, in old age and poverty, the ingratitude of those courtiers who had long solicited her friendship, and been protected by her credit. No one, among the great multitudes whom she had obliged, had the humanity to bring her consolation or relief; she languished out her life in solitude and indigence; and amidst a court inured to the most atrocious crimes, the frail ties of this woman justified all violations of friendship towards her, and all neglect of former obligations.
These acts of violence, exercised against all the nearest connections of the late king, prognosticated the severest fate to his defenceless children; and after the murder of Hastings, the protector no longer made a secret of his intentions to usurp the crown. The licentious life of Edward, who was not restrained in his pleasures either by honor or prudence, afforded a pretence for declaring his marriage with the queen invalid, and all his posterity illegitimate. It was asserted that, before espousing the lady Elizabeth Gray, he had paid court to the lady Eleanor Talbot, daughter of the earl of Shrewsbury; and being repulsed by the virtue of that lady, he was obliged, ere he could gratify his desires, to consent to a private marriage, without any witnesses, by Stillington, bishop of Bath, who afterwards divulged the secret.[*]
It was also maintained that the act of attainder passed against the duke of Clarence, had virtually incapacitated his children from succeeding to the crown; and these two families being set aside, the protector remained the only true and legitimate heir of the house of York. But as it would be difficult, if not impossible, to prove the preceding marriage of the late king, and as the rule which excludes the heirs of an attainted blood from private successions was never extended to the crown, the protector resolved to make use of another plea, still more shameful and scandalous. His partisans were taught to maintain, that both Edward IV. and the duke of Clarence were illegitimate; that the duchess of York had received different lovers into her bed, who were the fathers of these children, that, their resemblance to those gallants was a sufficient proof of their spurious birth; and that the duke of Glocester alone, of all her sons, appeared by his features and countenance to be the true offspring of the duke of York. Nothing can be imagined more impudent than this assertion, which threw so foul an imputation on his own mother, a princess of irreproachable virtue, and then alive; yet the place chosen for first promulgating it was the pulpit, before a large congregation, and in the protector’s presence. Dr. Shaw was appointed to preach in St. Paul’s; and having chosen this passage for his text “Bastards lips shall not thrive,” he enlarged on all the topics which could discredit the birth of Edward IV., the duke of Clarence, and of all their children. He then broke out in a panegyric on the duke of Glocester; and exclaimed, “Behold this excellent prince, the express image of his noble father, the genuine descendant of the house of York; bearing no less in the virtues of his mind than in the features of his countenance the character of the gallant Richard, once your hero and favorite: he alone is entitled to your allegiance: he must deliver you from the dominion of all intruders: he alone can restore the lost glory and honor of the nation.” It was previously concerted, that as the doctor should pronounce these words, the duke of Glocester should enter the church; and it was expected that the audience would cry out, “God save King Richard;” which would immediately have been laid hold of as a popular consent, and interpreted to be the voice of the nation; but by a ridiculous mistake, worthy of the whole scene, the duke did not appear till after this exclamation was already recited by the preacher. The doctor was therefore obliged to repeat his rhetorical figure out of its proper place: the audience, less from the absurd conduct of the discourse than from their detestation of these proceedings, kept a profound silence: and the protector and his preacher were equally abashed at the ill success of their stratagem.
But the duke was too far advanced to recede from his criminal and ambitious purpose. A new expedient was tried to work on the people. The mayor, who was brother to Dr. Shaw, and entirely in the protector’s interests, called an assembly of the citizens; where the duke of Buckingham, who possessed some talents for eloquence, harangued them on the protector’s title to the crown, and displayed those numerous virtues of which he pretended that prince was possessed. He next asked them whether they would have the duke for king; and then stopped, in expectation of hearing the cry, “God save King Richard.” He was surprised to observe them silent; and turning about to the mayor, asked him the reason. The mayor replied, that perhaps they did not understand him. Buckingham then repeated his discourse with some variation. enforced the same topics, asked the same question, and was received with the same silence. “I now see the cause,” said the mayor; “the citizens are not accustomed to be harangued by any but their recorder; and know not how to answer a person of your grace’s quality.” The recorder, Fitz-Williams, was then commanded to repeat the substance of the duke’s speech; but the man, who was averse to the office, took care, throughout his whole discourse, to have it understood that he spoke nothing of himself, and that he only conveyed to them the sense of the duke of Buckingham. Still the audience kept a profound silence. “This is wonderful obstinacy,” cried the duke: “express your meaning, my friends, one way or other: when we apply to you on this occasion, it is merely from the regard which we bear to you. The lords and commons have sufficient authority, without your consent, to appoint a king: but I require you here to declare, in plain terms, whether or not you will have the duke of Glocester for your sovereign.” After all these efforts, some of the meanest apprentices, incited by the protector’s and Buckingham’s servants, raised a feeble cry, “God save King Richard:”[*] the sentiments of the nation were now sufficiently declared: the voice of the people was the voice of God: and Buckingham, with the mayor, hastened to Baynard’s Castle, where the protector then resided, that they might make him a tender of the crown.