A man who could be guilty of fabricating such a fable is wholly unworthy of credit in his reckless accusations against King Richard, though his minute knowledge of the real facts renders any inadvertent admissions most important. Such are the statements that witnesses and other evidence were produced to establish the illegitimacy of King Edward's children,[25] and that Richard intended to treat his nephews with kindness and consideration.[26] But it is incredible that Buckingham should have contemplated the idea of setting his own claim aside for the sake of an obscure adventurer in Brittany who had no claim at all; while the pretence that Buckingham was horrified at the murder of the young princes contradicts Henry's own clumsy fable. The whole pretended conversation must have been an afterthought to please the Tudor usurper.
The second coronation
The next accusation against Richard refers to his conduct at York, and is derived from the second Croyland monk, who too readily accepted the gossip that was current when he wrote, and which was pleasing to the Tudor Government. It is alleged that Richard appropriated to his own use the treasure which his brother had amassed, and had committed to the care of his executors after his death. This statement, as Mr. Gairdner has shown,[27] is contrary to the fact. The whole property had been placed under ecclesiastical sequestration by the Archbishop of Canterbury, because the executors had declined to act, and no further steps had been taken. It was also stated, on the authority of the same Croyland monk, that Richard went through the ceremony of a second coronation at York.[28] The deduction intended to be drawn, and which often has been drawn, was that his title was so doubtful that he hoped a double coronation might strengthen it. But there was no second coronation at York. Nothing of the kind ever took place.
One is loth to refer to the malignant slander involved in the insinuation that King Richard poisoned his wife. Polydore Virgil says: 'But the Queen, whether she was despatched with sorrowfulness or poison, died within a few days after.' The wretched wasp of Guy's Cliff adds his sting: 'Dominam Annam reginam suam intoxicavit.'[29]
Richard and Anne were cousins, and companions from childhood. Their union had been a happy one in their hospitable Yorkshire home. In all the important events of his life Richard had always had the companionship of his wife. They had been together in sorrow and in joy. Anne's illness was a lingering decline, during which she was assiduously watched and cared for by her physicians, and by her sorrowing husband, who deeply mourned her loss. She was buried, as a Queen, in Westminster Abbey. It is true that no writer has done more than insinuate this calumny. But most of the Tudor slanders take the form of insinuations. 'It is a charge,' wrote Sir Harris Nicolas, 'which is deserving of attention for no other reason than as it affords a remarkable example of the manner in which ignorance and prejudice sometimes render what is called history more contemptible than a romance.' The same may be said of most of the Tudor stories about Richard III.
Elizabeth of York
The rumour that King Richard had an intention of marrying his illegitimate niece Elizabeth is unsustained by any evidence,[30] and is contrary to all probability. Such a project would have stultified the Act of Parliament on which his title to the crown was based. The King was a politician and was not entirely deprived of his senses. He could not have entertained an idea so absurd. But there is evidence that the scheme was favoured by the girl herself and her mother, and this fully accounts for the existence of the rumour. Their ages were suitable, the King being thirty-two and his niece in her twenty-first year; and in a letter to the Duke of Norfolk Elizabeth expressed a strong wish to become the wife of her uncle.[31] The Church of Rome granted, and still grants, dispensations for such marriages. But, be this how it may, Richard himself can never have contemplated a marriage with his niece. 'The whole tale,' says Sir Harris Nicolas, 'was invented with the view of blackening Richard's character, to gratify the monarch in whose reign all the contemporary writers who relate it flourished.' As soon as the rumour came to Richard's ears he publicly and emphatically denied its truth.
Intrigues of Lady Stanley
The Tudor writers tell various stories about Henry, while in Brittany, having promised to marry Elizabeth; and this is used as an argument that he must have believed her brothers to be dead, for if they were alive, there would be less object in the marriage. Looking at the source whence these stories come, there is no reason whatever for accepting them as true. They are derived from the apocryphal conversation between the Duke of Buckingham and the Bishop of Ely at Brecknock. In order to conceal the real object of Buckingham and his own duplicity, Morton, as has been seen, fabricated a story about his dupe having conspired with Henry Tudor's mother to set him up as a claimant to the crown, and a suitor for the hand of Elizabeth of York. It is likely enough that the intriguing wife of Stanley did conspire with Buckingham in the hope of advancing her son's interests, and that she opened negotiations with the Queen Dowager. Her design in the latter intrigue would be to secure the Woodville interest for supporting the contemplated rising. She despatched her steward Reginald Bray to Brecknock, her confessor Urswick to Brittany, and her doctor Lewis to Westminster Sanctuary. Her treacherous husband was feigning loyalty all the time, and was in zealous attendance on the King. She was found out and contemptuously forgiven by Richard. But the story of a contemplated marriage at that time between Henry Tudor and Elizabeth was an afterthought of Morton, at a time when Henry and Elizabeth were actually married. The story was repeated by Polydore Virgil, and retailed, with the customary embellishments, by Hall and Grafton.
It is scarcely necessary to notice the imputed intention of King Richard to avenge the treachery of Lord Stanley on his son Lord Strange, who was in the royal camp at the time of the battle of Bosworth. He remained unharmed. This is the fact. We are asked to believe that the King intended to behead him, but could not spare the time before the battle began. There was plenty of time, but no intention of using it for such a purpose. The proof of this is that Lord Strange was not injured. The evidence for the alleged intention to behead him rests solely on the assertions of men who wrote long afterwards, and the value of whose testimony we are now pretty well able to estimate.
[1] Hook, v. p. 409.
[2] He was then Master of the Rolls.
[3] Alexander VI., 1492-1503.
[4] Tyndale, The Practice of Prelates, p. 305. Parker Society.
[5] Lord Bacon, Henry VII.
[6] Utopia, p. 20.
[7] Morton was intimately acquainted with the real facts. He makes no mistakes. His mis-statements are all prepared designedly and with an object. He even knew the name of Buckingham's messenger, and that of Gloucester's servant to whom he applied for a secret interview with his master.—P. 134, ed. 1821.
[8] Ellis's Original Letters, second series, i. p. 147.
[9] Wardrobe Accounts.
[10] Stallworthe's letter of June 21 (Exc. Hist. pp. 14-10). The Croyland monk also gives the surrender of young Richard after the arrest of Hastings (p. 566).
[11] He misled Horace Walpole (p. 49), and Dr. Lingard (iv. p. 227) on this point. But Dr. Lingard was quite ready to continue in his error. His account is as follows:—'On the same day that Hastings suffered (and the time should be noticed) Ratcliffe entered Pomfret Castle at the head of a numerous body of armed men, seized Rivers, Grey and Vaughan, observed no judicial forms, and struck off the heads of the victims.' He calls the Yorkshire troops that came to London 'the ruffians who had murdered the prisoners at Pontefract.' This is not very temperate language. Dr. Lingard afterwards found that this was all wrong. But he would not alter his erroneous text. He merely added a note in a later edition, showing that he knew Rivers to have been still alive on the 23rd, and that Rous named the Earl of Northumberland as presiding at the trial. Yet he retains the assertion in the text that there were no judicial forms!
[12] Croyland, p. 567. Polydore Virgil gives the correct date; and the Croyland monk also places the execution of Rivers after the arrest of Hastings.
[13] Rymer, xii. p. 204.
[14] 13 die mensis Junii veniens in Turrim ad consilium, jussu Protectoris capite truncatus est.—Croyland Chron. Gale, i. 566.
[15] The Croyland Chronicler is quite free from suspicion of intentional falsification. He was informed that Hastings had been beheaded on the 13th, the day of his arrest, and he stated what he believed to be the fact. He, therefore, made no attempt to make this fit in with other events by falsifying dates, as was the course taken by Morton and Fabyan. The monk places the delivery of young Richard and the execution of Rivers in proper order of time, and gives the correct date for Richard's accession.
[16] Excerpt. Hist. p. 16.
[17] 'Eorum principalis judex.'—Rous, p. 213.
[18] Sir George Buck ascertained the truth through having access to the manuscript of the Croyland Chronicle. The writer simply mentions the pre-contract with Lady Eleanor Butler; but the Chronicle was not printed until 1084. Speed was the first to print the full text of the 'Titulus Regius' in his History of Great Britain, 1611.
[19] The first Earl of Shrewsbury had a large family by two wives, but the names of all his daughters have not been recorded. Dugdale mentions none. Collins gives Jane married to James Lord Berkeley. There were also Elizabeth wife of John Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk, and others, including Eleanor. Buck is mistaken in supposing that Eleanor's first husband was Sir Ralph Butler, Lord Sudeley. His wife was Alice Deincourt, and he was too old. Eleanor's husband may have been an unrecorded son of Ralph Butler, Lord Sudeley, who died when a young man before his father. She must have married Edward IV., when a widow, in or before 1464. She died at Norwich, and was buried in the church of the White Friars Carmelites.—Weever's Funeral Monuments, p. 805.
[20] Morton says that 'within few days after he withered and consumed away' (p. 103).
[21] I. Arthur was married to a daughter and heiress of Edward Grey, Viscount Lisle, the brother-in-law of Lady Grey. She was the widow of Edmund Dudley. In 1533 Arthur was created Viscount Lisle. He had three daughters, and from the second, Frances wife of John Basset of Umberleigh, co. Devon, General Monk was descended. Arthur Viscount Lisle died, without male heirs, in 1541.
II. Elizabeth wife of Thomas, eldest son of George Lord Lumley, who died before his father. From her descends the present Earl of Scarborough.
[22] Letter from King Richard to Lord Mountjoy.
[23] The text of the grant is given by Dugdale, with the King's signet and sign manual, given at his manor at Greenwich on July 13, 1483. A list of the manors follows.—Dugdale's Baronage, i. 168.
Mr. Gairdner argues that, in spite of this grant, the Duke had reason to doubt the fulfilment of the promise when Parliament met. I am unable to follow him. The King had done all that he possibly could do until Parliament met, and he had put his good faith and sincerity beyond doubt by giving Buckingham the profits beforehand, in anticipation of the approval of Parliament. What could he possibly do more? There was no shadow of a pretext for any such doubt on the part of Buckingham.—Gairdner's Richard III., p. 136.
[24] He also had to ignore the children of Henry Bourchier, Earl of Essex, by the Princess Isabel, a sister of Richard Duke of York.
[25] Morton, in Grafton, p. 126.
[26] Ibid. p. 127.
[27] Richard III. p. 146, quoting from Royal Wills, pp. 345-347.
[28] Rous, p. 217. Drake's Eborac. p. 117. The fable is fully exposed by Mr. Davies in his York Records.
[29] Rous.
[30] This rumour never reached Fabyan or Rous. It is mentioned by the Croyland monk.
[31] On the authority of Sir George Buck. His words are as follows:—'When February was past, the Lady Elizabeth, being more impatient and jealous of the success than every one knew or conceived, writes a letter to the Duke of Norfolk intimating first that he was the man in whom she most affied, in respect of that love her Father had ever borne him. Then she congratulates his many courtesies, in continuance of which she desires him to be a mediator for her to the King in the behalf of the marriage propounded between them, who, as she wrote, was her only joy and maker in the world, and that she was his in heart and thought, withal insinuating that the better part of February was past, and that she feared the Queen would never die. All these be her own words written with her own hand, and this is the sum of her letter, which remaineth in the autograph or original draft under her own hand, in the magnificent cabinet of Thomas Earl of Arundel and Surrey.' (Buck, p. 128.)
Sir Harris Nicolas (Privy Purse Expenses of Elizabeth of York, p. 1), as an admirer of Elizabeth of York, was much troubled by this letter. He attacked Sir George Buck as 'one whose violent prejudices do not sufficiently account for the mendacity for which his work is remarkable.' But this is unjust. Buck no doubt was prejudiced, but not more so than the Tudor chroniclers. He blunders and is uncritical, yet there is no reason to impugn his good faith. Nor did Sir Harris Nicolas himself think that the case was sufficiently disposed of by abusing Sir George Buck. He made various attempts to explain away the letter, but none satisfactory or even plausible. Dr. Lingard did not doubt the authenticity of the letter (v. pp. 355-359, ed. 1823, iv. p. 252, ed. 1849). It is not now known to exist, but that proves nothing if Buck wrote in good faith.
Mr. Gairdner approaches the subject more calmly. 'Positive testimony like this,' he says, 'is not to be lightly set aside as incredible. Yet Buck, if not altogether dishonest (and I see no reason to think him so), was certainly by no means an impartial historian. At the same time Buck's abstract of the letter is very minute, and such as would seem to follow pretty closely the turns of expression in a genuine original, and he expressly declares the manuscript to be an autograph or original draft. If it be not a forgery palmed off upon Buck himself, I am inclined to think it was written, not by Elizabeth, but by her mother who bore the same Christian name. Every word might just as well have come from her, except the mention of the father, which may be a mistake; and there is nothing inconceivable in her anxiety that Richard should marry her daughter.' He adds 'that Elizabeth could have been eager to obtain the hand of her brother's murderer is really too monstrous to be believed.' Why then is it not 'too monstrous to be believed' that the mother should have been eager to obtain the hand of her son's murderer for her daughter? It is clear that the grounds for accepting the letter are too strong for Mr. Gairdner to be able to reject them. Yet that Elizabeth should wish to marry her brother's murderer appears incredible to him. The conclusion is inevitable. Richard was not her brother's murderer, if the letter was authentic (see Gairdner's Life of Richard III. pp. 256-257, and note p. 257).
15. Murder of the Princes in the Tower. Acquittal.
In attempting an impartial consideration of the question of the fate of King Edward's sons, it must always be remembered that the main argument against their uncle is made to rest upon the truth of his previous alleged crimes. This argument is destroyed if Richard was not a venomous hunchback born with teeth, if he was not a cold scheming and calculating villain who had already committed two atrocious murders, drowned his brother in a butt of malmsey, poisoned his wife, and waded through the blood of innocent men to an usurped throne. A careful study of the evidence establishes the fact that these accusations are false, and that they were put forward by the writers under a new dynasty in order to blacken the character of the last Plantagenet King, and to make the accusation that he murdered his nephews more plausible. For it was a matter of the most vital importance to Henry VII., not only that the boys should have been murdered, but that it should be believed that the crime was perpetrated before his accession.
We have to deal with a different man altogether. The real Richard, who is accused of the murder of his nephews, was not previously steeped in crime. The accusation must now be considered as being brought against an ordinary prince of the fifteenth century, if not better certainly not worse than his contemporaries. This at once destroys the chief points of the evidence against him. His accusers rightly felt that it was necessary to blacken Richard's character, and this they did coarsely enough, but very successfully. They knew that, without this poisoning of the wells, the case against him lost all its force. 'Nemo repente turpissimus.'
We must now approach the question relating to the fate of the two young sons of Edward IV., without having constantly before our minds the grotesque caricature portrayed by the Tudor writers. Although it is not possible, especially at this distance of time, to account for the workings of any man's mind, or for the motives which may control his actions, it is yet necessary to consider this phase of the question, with as much light as we can bring to bear upon it.
It is not disputed that Edward IV. always evinced unshaken love and affection for his young brother, and showed the most absolute confidence in him at the time of his death. Richard returned this affection with devoted loyalty. He had no love for the Woodville faction, but he must have felt some regard for his brother's children, being such a man as we believe he has been proved to have been. This feeling of regard would decrease the strength of any motive producing a desire to destroy them for his own ends. But there was no such motive. The boys had been declared to be illegitimate, after an examination of evidence, by the unanimous voice of Parliament. When the Cardinal Archbishop, surrounded by his suffragans, placed the crown of St. Edward on Richard's head, he proclaimed the belief of the Church, and released from their oaths all who under a misapprehension had sworn allegiance to Edward V. The boy, as a claimant to the throne, had ceased to be dangerous.
Unanimity at Richard's coronation
It should be borne in mind that Parliament was unanimous in recognising the title of Richard III. Excepting half a dozen Lancastrian exiles who were equally opposed to any member of the house of York,[1] the whole peerage was at Richard's coronation except those whose absence is accounted for by extreme age or youth, or by the calls of duty.[2] Even the Woodville faction had submitted, and was represented at the coronation by Viscount Lisle and the Bishop of Salisbury. Henry Tudor's mother bore the train of Richard's Queen, and his uncle Lord Welles was also at the coronation. There was absolutely no party for the illegitimate sons of Edward IV. at the time of their alleged murders, and consequently no danger to be apprehended from them. If the story had put the murders after Buckingham's rising it would have been a little more plausible. But it placed them two months before the rising, when the King had not the shadow of a suspicion that any opposition was contemplated. Setting aside all natural or religious feeling, and even assuming Richard to have been the impossible monster depicted by Tudor writers, he certainly had no motive for the crime.
But it may be argued that the workings of men's minds are inexplicable, and that Richard may have committed the crime from a motive which would seem insufficient to any reasonable man. To decide upon this proposition we can only turn to a consideration of his conduct as regards other persons in the same relationship and position as the two boys, and who were likely to cause Richard as much or as little trouble. There were seven such persons, namely, the five daughters of Edward IV. and the two children of the Duke of Clarence. The King treated his nieces with kindness and consideration as near relations, when they came under his protection. The young Earl of Warwick, son of Richard's elder brother Clarence, was a far more formidable rival than the sons of Edward. The former was incontestably legitimate; while the latter had been declared to be illegitimate by both Houses of Parliament. Richard knighted the son of Clarence, placed him at the head of the nobility, and made him a member of council and of his own household. We, therefore, know that Richard did not look upon the children of his elder brothers as enemies to be destroyed, but as relations to be cherished.
The princes alive in Richard's time
We find, then, that the two young sons of Edward IV. went to reside in the royal lodgings of the Tower in June 1483. The statement put forth by Henry VII. is that they were murdered there in the following August. But there are two pieces of evidence, one of them positive evidence, that they were alive throughout the reign of Richard III.
In the orders for King Richard's household dated after the death of his own son, children are mentioned of such high rank that they were to be served before all other Lords. The only children who could occupy such a position were the sons of Edward IV. and the son of Clarence. The conclusion must be that all his nephews were members of his household, and that they were only sent to Sheriff Hutton and to the Tower when danger threatened the realm from the invasion of Henry Tudor.
The other piece of evidence is found in a warrant in Rymer's 'Foedera,' dated March 9, 1485, to the following effect: it directs Henry Davy 'to deliver unto John Goddestande, footman unto the Lord Bastard, two doblets of silk, one jacket of silk, one gown of cloth, two shirts, and two bonets.'[3] There are other warrants to pay for provisions. Dr. Lingard[4] tried to destroy the significance of these warrants by suggesting that they referred to John of Gloucester, an illegitimate son of the King. But this boy is mentioned in Rymer's 'Foedera,' and is designated as a bastard son of the King[5] simply and not as a lord, for no such title belonged to him. Edward, on the other hand, although he was officially called a bastard, was also a lord. In his case the designation of Lord was correct. In the 'Wardrobe Account' he was called the Lord Edward; after the accession of his uncle.[6] The royal titles of Wales and Cornwall were no longer consistent or proper, and had indeed been transferred, in due course, to the King's son. But the earldoms of March and Pembroke, conferred on him by his father, still belonged to Edward. He would properly be styled the Lord Bastard, while John of Gloucester could not be and was not. There was only one 'Lord' Bastard.[7] The warrants, therefore, show that Edward was alive and well treated in March 1485, four months before the death of Richard III.
These two pieces of evidence are in keeping with Morton's statement that King Richard had declared his intention of maintaining his nephews in honourable estate. But there is strong collateral evidence pointing to the same conclusion. If there had been foul play, it is scarcely credible that the mother could have been induced by any promises to throw her remaining children on the protection of one who had already violated the most sacred ties as regards her two sons. It is, however, just possible that a very unfeeling and selfish woman (though Elizabeth was neither), weary of confinement in sanctuary, might have been induced to make terms with the murderer of her sons, in order to obtain a comfortable provision for herself. But she did more than this. She sent for her other son, who was safe in France, advising him to return home and submit himself to the King. It is incredible that she could have done this unless she knew that the two boys were alive and well treated. She remained on friendly terms with Richard until his death, and her daughters attended the festivities at his Court. Still stronger evidence in the same direction is afforded by the letter to the Duke of Norfolk, whether it was written by the King's niece Elizabeth or by her mother, as Mr. Gairdner suggests. The writer could not have spoken of Richard as her 'joy and maker in the world,' or have said that she was 'his in heart and thought,' if he had just murdered the brothers of one and the sons of the other. The thing is quite impossible.
The conduct of their mother and sister is a strong corroboration of the positive evidence that the young princes were alive and well throughout King Richard's reign.
The alleged rumours
On the other hand, there is no evidence whatever that they were dead; beyond rumours of which we only hear long afterwards. We are told that there were rumours that they had been murdered, and rumours that they were alive, and had been taken abroad. Rumours but no evidence.
If they had been smothered the bodies would have been exposed to allay suspicion, and would have received Christian burial. To hide them would have been an act of incredible folly.
There remain then, for consideration, these rumours which are alleged to have prevailed during the reign of King Richard to the effect that his nephews had been murdered. It is maintained that if these rumours were generally believed, Richard must have been guilty, because if he had been innocent he would have taken some steps to disprove the rumours, and he took no such steps, or rather—no such steps are recorded by his enemies.
The points for investigation are whether such rumours actually existed, and if so, whether they were so general as to reach the King's ears and make it advisable that anything should be done to refute them.
It is alleged that these rumours took shape during the King's progress to York in the summer and autumn of 1483. There is no evidence that they prevailed at this or any other time during Richard's reign.[8] The authority for a rumour about the fate of the two boys in the summer of 1483 is the Croyland Chronicle; and there can be no doubt that the statement was made in good faith; although the writer may have been deceived.
The passage in the Croyland Chronicle is to the effect that the princes remaining in custody in the Tower, the people in the south and west of England became anxious for their liberation, that meetings were held on the subject, and that proposals were made to arrange the escape of the daughters of Edward IV. so that, if anything happened to his sons, there might still be heirs of his body. It was also reported that the sons of Edward were dead, though it was unknown by what violent means they met their end.[9] So far the Croyland monk.
No doubt there were partizans of the defeated factions of Hastings and the Woodvilles who were ready to spread any rumours injurious to the King. The question is whether the rumours which reached the ears of the Croyland monk were ever generally credited by the people, so as to call for action from the Government. Is it true that they led to loud murmurings from meetings and assemblages of the people in the south and west of England, such as would attract general notice? The only proof offered is that an officer named Nesfield was ordered to watch the approaches of the Sanctuary at Westminster, and see that no one left it secretly. But this was a precaution which would have been taken under any circumstances. Polydore Virgil alleges that Richard himself spread a report that his nephews were dead; and this is magnified and embellished by Grafton and Hall, according to their wont. The statement is grossly improbable in itself, is wholly unsupported, and is entirely unworthy of credit.
There is, then, no evidence that these rumours existed, beyond the passage in the Croyland Chronicle. But there is strong reason for rejecting the monk's story. If the rumours had really existed, and if in consequence there were mutinous assemblages of the people preliminary to an insurrectionary movement, the vigilant and energetic young King would have made all necessary preparations to meet the danger. Nothing is more certain in his history than that he was taken absolutely by surprise when he received tidings of an outbreak in Kent on October 11, 1483. It was a concerted rising, secretly arranged by Buckingham. This Duke had taken leave of the King at Gloucester on August 2 before the alleged action of Richard at Warwick with a view to the murders, which was on August 8. According to the story, Buckingham can have known nothing of the murders when he arranged his plot. Consequently it is not possible that the rising in Kent, arranged by Buckingham, can have had anything to do with the alleged murder of the young princes.
Yet the Croyland monk had certainly been told that there was a rumour that the boys were dead. If it had not reached him as general talk, it must have come direct to him from some malignant enemy of the King. Was there such a man lurking in the fen country round Croyland? We know that Morton had taken refuge in the fen country (Isle of Ely) at this very time. If that schemer was at the chronicler's elbow, the rumour is fully accounted for. It probably originated with Morton while he was lurking in the fens, and ceased to exist when he sailed for Flanders. His own narrative, as we have received it, comes to an abrupt termination while he is conversing with the Duke of Buckingham at Brecknock. If it had been continued, we should doubtless have had a highly coloured version of the rumour mentioned in the Croyland Chronicle. Morton and his slanders went abroad together. The rumour that the young princes had been put to death appeared no more in England during Richard's life. But as soon as Morton went to France, it appeared there. In the autumn of 1483 Morton left England. In January 1484, the murder of the princes was alleged as a fact by the Chancellor of France in a speech to the States-General at Tours. 'Regardez, je vous prie, les événements qui après la mort du Roi Édouard sont arrivés dans ce pays. Contemplez ses enfants, déjà grands et braves, massacreé impunément, et la couronne transportée a l'assassin par la faveur des peuples.'[10] The Chancellor may have received this statement from another Lancastrian exile, but it is most likely that it came from Morton. Louis XI. had hated Richard because he opposed the peace which the French King bought from Edward IV., and because he refused the French bribes with contempt.[11] This hatred was inherited by the Lady of Beaujeu who became Regent on the death of Louis XI. in August 1483. Any calumny was seized upon as an opportunity for reviling the King of England; and with Morton in France there would be no dearth of such wares.
The insult to the King of England uttered by the French Chancellor may not have reached Richard's government. If it did, it must have been apologised for or explained away, for some months afterwards, in September 1484, King Richard granted a safe-conduct for an embassy from the French Regency to treat of peace.[12] The calumny was clearly received by the French Chancellor from Morton, or some other unscrupulous outlaw, and not from any general rumour. For it is stated as a fact; the truth being that it was never known what became of the two boys, or pretended to be known until after the alleged confession of Tyrrel in 1502.
Fabyan, writing in the time of Henry VII., talks of a rumour, and of its having been the common fame that King Richard put his nephews to secret death. This was merely what Henry VII. wanted to be the 'common fame'; and no one dared to gainsay it. In the year after his accession the usurping Tudor ordered it to be given out that the boys were murdered by their uncle, and his paid agents had to repeat the statement. André said they were killed with a sword.[13] Rous stated that they were put to death by some means unknown.[14] Polydore followed Rous. Comines, naturally enough, told the story officially promulgated in England. But Henry never dared to make the accusation publicly in his first so-called Parliament, and there can have been only one reason for this silence. The boys were then alive.
Henry's chroniclers, however, testify that nothing was known, and thus prove the falsehood of the French Chancellor's statement, while furnishing additional proof that no general rumour existed during Richard's reign that the boys were dead.
It is not to be supposed that Sir William Stanley would have entertained for a moment the belief that Perkin Warbeck was a son of Edward IV. unless he knew that the princes were alive throughout Richard's reign. No one had better means of knowing. The story put forward by Henry VII. tells us that it remained in doubt whether the boys were destroyed or not in Richard's day. Polydore Virgil mentions a rumour that they had escaped abroad. Perkin Warbeck's story was believed by a great number of people, which could not have been the case if the rumour of the death of the princes had been generally credited.
Baseless rumours
No question arose before King Richard's death. Many persons must have known that his nephews were alive and well treated. Their mother and brother knew, and they were silenced by imprisonment. Sir William Stanley and his fellow-sufferers knew, and they were beheaded. After Henry's accession, there were dozens, if not hundreds, of people who knew the truth. They had a choice between silence and ruin or death. The truth might have been, and probably was, mentioned in private correspondence; but even that would be very perilous, and scarcely any correspondence of that date has been preserved. In one letter in the 'Plumpton Correspondence,' the dislike of Henry's illegal attainders is referred to, but with bated breath. Among the mass of the people there was no certain knowledge of what had happened to the boys. Of course many baseless rumours then became current. The statements accusing Richard, and the assertions that these rumours received popular credit during his reign, merely indicate what his successor wanted to be believed on the subject.
[1] Earls of Oxford, Devonshire, and Pembroke, Lords Rivers, Dynham, and Beaumont. Lord Clifford was a minor, and in hiding in Yorkshire.
[2] Lord Dudley in extreme old age, Earls of Shrewsbury and Essex, and Lord Hungerford minors, Lords Greystoke and Ogle in the Marches, Lord Mountjoy at Calais, Lord de la Warre abroad. The Earl of Westmoreland was dangerously ill.
[3] Bayley, Antiquities of the Tower of London. (8vo. ed 1830, p. 343 n.)
[4] iv. p. 580 (5th ed. 1849).
[5] Rymer, xii. p. 265. 'Pro filio bastardo regis.' 'Cum summa dilecti filii nostri bastardi Johannis de Gloucestriæ ingenii vivacitas, membrorumque agilitas, et ad omnes bonos mores magnam et indubiam nobis de futuro ejus servitio bono spem, gratiâ divinâ promittant.' This warrant granted the wardship of Calais to John of Gloucester, so soon as he should have reached the age of twenty-one.
[6] Archæologia, i. p. 367.
[7] Sir Richard, K.G., the second son, was not then a lord. The title of York was a royal one, like that of Wales, and he could not hold it when proved to be illegitimate. Those of Norfolk and Nottingham came from his intended wife, Anne Mowbray, and when she died, they went to her heirs Howard and Berkeley, by creation of the King on June 8, 1483. Young Richard, as well as Edward, was a Knight of the Garter, but Edward was the only 'Lord Bastard.'
[8] A letter from the King to the Mayor of York, dated April 11, 1485, is on the subject of the suppression of false reports and lies. But this refers to the false report that Richard intended to marry his niece. Davies, York Records. Drake incorrectly places this letter in 1484. Drake's Ebor. p. 119.
[9] 'Vulgatum est dictos Regis Edwardi pueros, quo genere violenti interitus ignoratur, decessisse in fata.'
[10] Journal des Etats-Généraux de France tenus en 1483-84 (Documents Inédits), quoted by Gairdner in his Richard III. p. 160.
[11] He accepted a present of horses from Louis as a matter of courtesy.
[12] Rymer's Foedera, xii. p. 234.
[13] 'Nepotes clam ferro feriri jussit.'—André.
[14] 'Ita quod ex post paucissimis notum fuit qua morte martirizati sunt.'—Rous.