At the opening of the year 1477, Charles the Rash, Duke of Burgundy, fell at Nanci, before the two-handed swords of the Swiss mountaineers, leaving, by his first wife, Isabel of Bourbon, a daughter, Mary, the heiress of his dominions. About the same time, George, Duke of Clarence, and Anthony Woodville, Earl Rivers, happened to become widowers. The duke and the earl, in other days rivals for the hand of the heiress of Lord Scales, immediately entered the arena as candidates for that of Mary of Burgundy, and their rivalry produced one of the darkest domestic tragedies recorded in the Plantagenet annals.
Clarence appears to have been the first to urge his claims. Almost ere the dust had time to gather on the coffin of his departed wife in the Abbey of Tewkesbury, the bereaved husband of Isabel Neville applied to his sister, the widow of Burgundy, to forward his suit with her step-daughter. The widowed duchess was the reverse of unfavorable to a matrimonial project so likely to advance the fortunes of her family, and the heart of Clarence for a moment glowed with anticipations of a great matrimonial success.
But the hopes which Clarence cherished of a marriage with the heiress of Burgundy were rudely dispelled. The duke, whose shallow brain was muddled with Malmsey, soon found that he was no match for veteran courtiers. Experienced intriguers, the Woodvilles were prompt in their measures to defeat any project that jarred with their interests; and Elizabeth instilled into her husband's mind such suspicions as to Clarence's intentions, that Edward not only refused to hear of an alliance that "might enable Clarence to employ the power of Burgundy to win the crown," but even let down his dignity so far as to propose a marriage between Anthony, Earl Rivers, and the daughter of Charles the Rash. The court of Burgundy, treating the proposal with the disdain it deserved, gave the heiress to the Emperor Maximilian; and the Woodvilles, finding their presumption checked, and resolved to console themselves by making Clarence a victim, bent all their energies to effect his ruin.
Circumstances were unfavorable to Clarence; for, since the duke's confederacy with Warwick, no love had existed between him and the king. Edward deemed that he owed his brother an injury; and that, at least, was a kind of debt which Edward of York was never sorry to have an opportunity of paying. The king's dislike was judiciously humored by the queen's kindred; and a prophecy, that the crown should be seized and the royal children murdered by one, the first letter of whose name was G, took possession of his imagination. A fair excuse only was wanting to get rid of Clarence, and a pretext was ere long found.
Among the Anglo-Norman families who during the fifteenth century maintained territorial state in that county which had come with an heiress of the Beauchamps to Richard Neville, and with the eldest daughter of the king-maker to the royal duke by whom he was betrayed, few were of higher consideration than the Burdets. One of the Burdets had accompanied the Conqueror to England; another had sat as member for Warwickshire in the Parliament of the second Edward; and a third, Sir Nicholas, had fought with high distinction in the wars carried on by the Duke of York in France. Falling at Pontoise on that day when King Charles of France stormed the town, Nicholas left a son, Thomas, who resided at Arrow, the seat of his family, and held an office in Clarence's household.
Burdet had figured as a Yorkist and fought for the White Rose. Being a follower of Clarence, however, he was regarded with some degree of suspicion; and, having domestic troubles, his temper was probably too much the worse for the wear to admit of his being suspected without manifesting impatience. An accident, according to chroniclers, occurred, which exasperated him to language so indiscreet as to cause his own death and that of his patron.
Burdet had, among the deer in his park at Arrow, a white buck, of which he was exceedingly proud. This buck was destined to be the cause of much mischief; for one day, when Burdet was from home, the king, making a progress through Warwickshire, went to Arrow, and entered the park to divert himself with hunting. Unfortunately, Edward killed the favorite buck of all others; and Burdet, being informed on his return of what had happened, was enraged beyond measure. Indeed, it was said that the worthy squire, regarding the whole affair as a premeditated insult, lost his patience so completely as to express a wish "that the buck's horns had been in the king's belly."
But, however that may have been, there lived at that time, under Clarence's protection, an ecclesiastic named John Stacey, famed for his learning and skill in astrology. Having been denounced as a necromancer, and accused of exercising his unlawful art for the destruction of Richard, Lord Beauchamp, Stacey was put to the rack and tortured into naming Thomas Burdet as his accomplice in some treasonable practices. Burdet was accordingly arrested on the charge of conspiring to kill the king and the Prince of Wales by casting their nativity, and of scattering among the people papers predicting their death.
Having been taken to Westminster Hall, Burdet and Stacey were tried before the Court of King's Bench. But that court was no longer presided over by a Fortescue or a Markham, and it was in vain that Burdet pleaded his innocence, declaring that, so far from having any design against the king's life, he was ready to fight for the king's crown, as he had done before. His fate was sealed: the jury returned a verdict of "Guilty;" the knight and ecclesiastic were sentenced to death; and, having been drawn from the Tower, they were executed as traitors at Tyburn.
The matter did not rest here. On learning the result of his adherents' trial, Clarence, who was in Ireland, naturally felt somewhat dismayed. Recollecting how the proceedings against Eleanor Cobham had served as a prelude to the destruction of Duke Humphrey, and apprehending in this case a similar result, he determined to stir in his own defense, and rushed into the snare which his enemies had set. Hurrying to England, and reaching Westminster in the king's absence, he entered the council chamber, showed the lords there assembled private confessions and declarations of innocence made by Burdet and Stacey, and protested vehemently against the execution that had taken place.
At Windsor the king received intelligence of the step Clarence had taken; and the affair being reported to him in the worst light, he appears to have been seized with something like temporary insanity, and to have regarded Clarence's destruction as essential to his own safety and that of his children. No sooner, in any case, was news conveyed to him that Clarence was "flying in the face of all justice," than he hastened to Westminster, summoned the duke to the palace, and ordered him to be committed to the Tower.
Having pushed matters to this crisis, the Woodvilles did not allow Edward's passion to cool. It was in vain that the lord chancellor attempted to reconcile the king and the captive. A Parliament was summoned to meet about the middle of January; and when, on the appointed day, the English senators assembled at Westminster, the judges were summoned to the House of Lords, and Clarence was brought to the bar to be tried by his peers—the young Duke of Buckingham, who had married the queen's sister, presiding as lord high steward, and Edward appearing personally as accuser. Absurd as some of the charges were, Clarence had no chance of escape. He was charged with having dealt with the devil through necromancers; represented Edward as illegitimate and without right to the throne; plotted to dethrone the king and disinherit the king's children; retained possession of an act of Parliament, whereby, in the reign of Henry, he had been declared heir to the crown after Edward of Lancaster; purchased the support of the Lancastrians by promising to restore their confiscated estates; and warned his own retainers to be ready to take up arms at an hour's notice. Clarence indignantly denied every charge; but his protestations of innocence were as vain as those of Burdet had been. Edward appeared bent on a conviction, and the peers had not the courage to resist such a pleader. The royal brothers, indeed, would seem to have had all the talk to themselves—"no one denying Clarence but the king, and no one answering the king but Clarence." Even the self-sufficient Buckingham contented himself with asking the judges "whether the matters proved against Clarence amounted in law to high treason." The opinion of the judges was altogether unfavorable to the duke. The legal functionaries answered the lord high steward's question in the affirmative, and the peers returned a unanimous verdict of "Guilty." On the 7th of February Buckingham pronounced sentence of death.
When matters reached this alarming stage, the Duchess of York interfered; and the king, in a somewhat relenting mood, delayed sending his brother to the block. The Woodvilles, however, were not to be baffled of their prey; and the House of Commons, acting under their influence, petitioned for the duke's immediate execution. But the son-in-law of Warwick, with all his failings, was still the idol of the populace; and the policy of having him beheaded on Tower Hill was more than doubtful.
Ere this, Clarence had been reconducted to the Tower, and lodged in that part of the metropolitan fortress where resided the Master Provider of the King's Bows. In a gloomy chamber of "The Bowyer Tower," the duke, sad and solitary, passed several weeks, while his enemies decided what should be his fate. At length, about the beginning of March, it was rumored that the captive had died of grief and despair. The populace immediately raised a shout of indignation on hearing of the death of their "Good Duke," and sternly refused to believe that he had not had foul play. Ere long the story which Shakspeare has made so familiar was whispered about.
The execution of Clarence having been determined on—such was the popular account—he was allowed the privilege of choosing what death he should die; and, having an objection to appear on the scaffold, he elected to be drowned in that liquor with which he had so often washed down care and remorse. A butt of Malmsey was accordingly introduced to the gloomy chamber in which he was lodged; and, one end of the cask having been knocked out, he was plunged into the wine, with his head down, and held in that position till life was extinct. His body was carried to Tewkesbury, and laid beside that of his duchess in the abbey church.
Having accomplished their revenge on the king's brother, the queen's kinsmen looked out for something wherewith to gratify their avarice. On this point the Woodvilles were, as usual, successful. To Earl Rivers was given part of the estates of Clarence; and to the Marquis of Dorset the wardship of the son of the murdered duke. The king, however, was the reverse of satisfied. He never recalled the name of Clarence without a feeling of penitence; and afterward, when sued for any man's pardon, he was in the habit of exclaiming mournfully, "Ah! I once had an unfortunate brother, and for his life not one man would open his mouth."
For some years after the treaty of Picquigny, Edward of York, trusting to the friendship and relying on the pension of King Louis, passed his time in inglorious ease; and Elizabeth Woodville, elate with the prospect of her daughter sharing the throne of a Valois, persisted in pestering the crafty monarch of France with inquiries when she was to send him her young dauphiness. Meanwhile, Louis, who had no intention whatever of maintaining faith with the King of England one day longer than prudence dictated, was looking about for a more advantageous alliance for the heir to his throne.
After appearing for some time utterly unsuspicious, Edward, in 1480, resolved on sending an embassador to Paris, and Sir John Howard was selected as the man to urge a speedy celebration of the marriage. The plans of Louis were not then quite ripe, but his statecraft did not desert him; and, at length, after Howard had for some time been silenced by bribes, and Edward deluded by flattering assurances, he set the treaty of Picquigny at defiance, and contracted a marriage between the dauphin and a daughter of the Emperor Maximilian.
Fortunately for Louis, Edward was a much less formidable personage than of yore. Since returning from his French expedition, the English king had given himself up to luxury and indolence. He had drunk deep, kept late hours, sat long over the wine-cup, and gratified his sensual inclinations with little regard either to his dignity as a king or his honor as a man. Dissipation and debauchery had ruined his health and obscured his intellect. Even his appearance was changed for the worse. His person had become corpulent, and his figure had lost its grace. He was no longer the Edward of Towton or of Tewkesbury.
On discovering, however, how completely he had been duped, Edward displayed some sparks of the savage valor which, in other days, had made him so terrible a foe. Rousing himself to projects of revenge, he vowed to carry such a war into France as that country had never before experienced, and commenced preparations for executing his threats. As his resentment appeared implacable, Louis deemed it prudent to find him work nearer home; and, with this object, excited the King of Scots to undertake a war against England.
Some successes achieved by Gloucester in Scotland emboldened Edward in his projects. It happened, however, that he did not live even to attempt the execution of his threats. The excess of his rage against Louis had been such as seriously to affect his health; and, about Easter, 1483, in his forty-second year, the warlike king was laid prostrate with a fever in the Palace of Westminster. Stretched on a bed of sickness, the king found his constitution rapidly giving way; and, losing faith in the skill of his physicians, he referred his quarrel with Louis to the judgment of God, and summoned the lords of his court to bid them farewell.
The king, indeed, could not fail to be anxious as to the fortunes of the family he was leaving. Ever since his ill-starred marriage the court had been distracted by the feuds of the queen's kindred and the old nobility of England. The death of Warwick and the judicial murder of Clarence had by no means restored harmony. At the head of one party figured the queen's brother, Earl Rivers, and her son, the Marquis of Dorset; at the head of the other was the Duke of Buckingham, with whom sided the Lords Stanley and Hastings. Difficult as the task might be, Edward hoped to reconcile the hostile factions ere going to his grave.
When the lords appeared in the king's chamber, and assembled around his bed, Edward addressed to them an impressive speech. Having indicated his brother Richard, Duke of Gloucester, as the fittest person to be Protector of the realm, he expressed much anxiety about the affairs of his kingdom and family, pointed out the perils of discord in a state, and lamented that it had been his lot "to win the courtesy of men's knees by the fall of so many heads." After thus smoothing the way, as it were, he put it to his lords, as a last request, that they should lay aside all variance, and love one another. At this solemn appeal the lords acted their parts with a decorum which imposed on the dying man. Two celebrated characters, indeed, were absent, whose talents for dissimulation could not have failed to distinguish them. Gloucester was on the borders of Scotland, and Rivers on the marches of Wales; so that Richard Plantagenet, with his dark guile, and Anthony Woodville, with his airy pretensions, were wanting to complete the scene. But Hastings, Dorset, and others, though their hearts were far asunder, shook hands and embraced with every semblance of friendship; and the king dismissed them with the idea that he had effected a reconciliation.
His affairs on earth thus settled, as he believed, Edward proceeded to make his peace with heaven. Having received such consolations as the Church administers to frail men when they are going to judgment, and committed his soul to the mercy of God, Edward awaited the coming of the Great Destroyer. On the 9th of April his hour arrived; and, complaining of drowsiness, he turned on his side. While in that position he fell into the sleep that knows no breaking; and his spirit, which had so often luxuriated in carnage and strife, departed in peace.
On the day when the king breathed his last he lay exposed in the Palace of Westminster, that the lords, temporal and spiritual, and the municipal functionaries of London might have an opportunity of ascertaining that he had not been murdered. This ceremony over, the body was seared and removed to St. Stephen's Chapel, and there watched by nobles, while masses were sung.
Windsor had been selected as the place of interment. Ere being conveyed to its last resting-place, however, the corpse, covered with cloth of gold, was carried to the Abbey of Westminster under a rich canopy of cloth imperial, supported by four knights, Sir John Howard bearing the banner in front of the procession, and the officers of arms walking around. Mass having been again performed at Westminster, the mortal remains of the warrior-king were placed in a chariot drawn by six horses, and conveyed, by slow stages, along the banks of the Thames. Having been met at the gates of Windsor, and perfumed with odors by the Archbishop of York and the Bishop of Winchester the corpse was borne in solemn procession to the Chapel of St. George, where, placed in the choir, on a hearse blazing with lights and surrounded with banners, it was watched for the night by nobles and esquires. Another mass, more religious solemnities, a few more ceremonies befitting the rank of the deceased, and the last Plantagenet whose obsequies were performed with royal honors was committed to the tomb.
Whether Richard the Third, with his hunch back, withered arm, splay feet, goggle eyes, and swarthy countenance, as portrayed by poets and chroniclers of the Tudor period, very closely resembles the Richard of Baynard's Castle and Bosworth Field, is a question which philosophical historians have answered in the negative. The evidence of the old Countess of Desmond, when brought to light by Horace Walpole in 1758, first began to set the world right on this subject. Born about the middle of the fifteenth century, she lived—when the Plantagenets had been displaced by the Tudors, and the Tudors succeeded by the Stuarts—to affirm, in the seventeenth century, that, in her youth, she had danced with Richard at his brother's court, and that he whom historians had, in deference to Tudor prejudices, represented as a monster of ugliness, was in reality the handsomest man in the room except his brother Edward, and that he was very well made.
It can not be denied that the Countess of Desmond's description of Richard appears extremely complimentary; and, indeed, it would have been something novel in human nature if this lady of the house of Fitzgerald, in old age and penury, had not been inclined to exaggerate the personal advantages of a Plantagenet prince who, in the days of her youth and hope, had distinguished her by his attention. Evidence, however, exists in abundance to prove that Richard was utterly unlike the deformed ruffian introduced into history by the scribes and sheriffs of London, who plied their pens with an eye to the favor of the Tudors.
Portraits and authentic descriptions of the last Plantagenet king which have come down to posterity convey the idea of a man rather under-sized and hard-featured, with dark brown hair, an intellectual forehead, a face slightly deficient in length, dark, thoughtful eyes, and a short neck, and shoulders somewhat unequal, giving an appearance of inelegance to a figure, spare indeed, and wanting in bulk, but wiry, robust, and sinewy; trained by exercise to endure fatigue, and capable on occasions of exercising almost superhuman strength. Such, clad in garments far more gorgeous than good taste would have approved, his head bent forward on his bosom, his hand playing with his dagger, as if in restlessness of mood, and his lips moving as if in soliloquy, appeared to his contemporaries the subtle politician who, at Baynard's Castle, schemed for the crown of St. Edward. Such, arrayed in Milan steel, bestriding a white steed, the emblem of sovereignty, with a surcoat of brilliant colors over his armor, a crown of ornament around his helmet, a trusty lance skillfully poised in his hand, and an intense craving for vengeance gnawing at his heart, appeared the fiery warrior whose desperate valor well-nigh saved St. Edward's crown from fortune and the foe on Bosworth Field.
Before "giving up his soul to God" in the Palace of Westminster, the fourth Edward nominated his brother Richard, Duke of Gloucester, as Protector of England during the minority of Edward the Fifth. The choice was one of which the nation could not but approve. Richard was in the thirty-first year of his life, and in the full vigor of his intellect; with faculties refined by education and sharpened by use; knowledge of mankind, acquired in civil strife and in the experience of startling vicissitudes of fortune; a courage in battle which had made his slight form and grisly cognizance terrible to foes on fields of fame; a genius for war which had given him an enviable reputation throughout Christendom; a temper hitherto so carefully kept under restraint that any man hinting at the excess of its ferocity would have been deemed insane; and an ambition hitherto so well masked by affected humility that no one could have imagined it capable of prompting political crimes, unjustifiable, save by those Italian maxims associated with the name of Machiavelli.
It was on the 2d of October, 1452, shortly after the Roses were plucked in the Temple Gardens, that Cicely, Duchess of York, gave birth to her youngest son, Richard, in the Castle of Fotheringay. He was, therefore, scarcely three years old when the Wars of the Roses commenced at St. Albans, and little more than eight when the Duke of York was slain by the Lancastrians on Wakefield Green. Alarmed, after that event, at the aspect of affairs, warned by the murder of her second son, the boy-Earl of Rutland, and eager to save George and Richard from the fate of their elder brother, the Duchess Cicely sent them to Holland, trusting that, even in case of the Lancastrians triumphing, the Duke of Burgundy would generously afford them protection and insure them safety.
After being sent to the Continent, Richard and his brother remained for some time in secret at Utrecht; but the Duke of Burgundy, hearing that the young Plantagenets were in that city, had them sought out and escorted to Bruges, where they were received with the honors due to their rank. When, however, his victory at Towton made Edward King of England, he requested Burgundy to send the princes; and, in the spring of 1461, "The Good Duke" had them honorably escorted to Calais on their way home. When, after their return to England, George was dignified with the dukedom of Clarence, Richard became Duke of Gloucester.
At an early age, Richard, who was energetic and highly educated, acquired great influence over the indolent and illiterate Edward; and in the summer of 1470, when scarcely eighteen, he was appointed Warden of the West Marches. The return of Warwick from France interrupting his tenure of office, he shared his brother's flight to the territories of the Duke of Burgundy; and when Edward landed at Ravenspur, to conquer or die, Richard was by his side, and proved an ally of no mean prowess. Being intrusted with high command at Barnet and Tewkesbury, his conduct won him high reputation; and, in spite of his foppery and fondness for dress and gay apparel, he showed himself, at both of these battles, a sage counselor in camp and a fiery warrior in conflict.
The Lancastrians having been put down and peace restored, Richard turned his thoughts to matrimony, and resolved to espouse Anne Neville, daughter of Warwick and widow of Edward of Lancaster. Clarence, wishing to keep the Warwick baronies to himself, as husband of Isabel Neville, attempted, by concealing her sister, to prevent this marriage. But Richard was not to be baffled. He discovered the fair Anne in London, disguised as a cook-maid, and carrying the youthful widow off, placed her for security in the sanctuary of St. Martin's. Nevertheless, Clarence continued unreasonable. "Richard may have my sister-in-law if he will," he said, "but we will part no livelihood." Edward, however, took the matter in hand, pacified his brothers, allotted Anne a handsome portion out of the Warwick estates, and had the marriage with Richard forthwith solemnized. One son, destined to figure for a brief period as Prince of Wales, was the result of this union.
Years rendered memorable by the inglorious expedition to France and the unfortunate execution of Clarence passed over; and in 1482, when Edward conspired with the exiled Duke of Albany to dethrone James, King of Scots, Richard, who, among his contemporaries, had acquired the reputation of being "a man of deep reach and policy," was intrusted with the conduct of the war. Having been nominated lieutenant general against the Scots, and joined by the Earl of Northumberland and Lord Stanley, he led twenty-five thousand men across the Tweed, regained Berwick, which had been surrendered by Queen Margaret, and marched to the gates of Edinburgh. By this expedition Richard acquired an increase of popularity; and he was still in the north when Edward the Fourth departed this life and his son was proclaimed as Edward the Fifth.
At that time the young king—a boy of thirteen—was residing in the Castle of Ludlow, on the marches of Wales, and receiving his education under the auspices of his maternal uncle, Anthony Woodville, Earl Rivers. Anthony was eminently qualified for the post of tutor, and every precaution appears to have been taken to render the boy worthy of the crown which he was destined never to wear.
While the news of his father's death was traveling to young Edward at Ludlow, the feud between the ancient nobility and the queen's kindred broke out afresh at Westminster, and London was agitated by the factious strife. Elizabeth, jealous of the designs of the adverse faction, wrote to Rivers to raise a large force in Wales, and conduct the king to the capital to be crowned; and she empowered her son, the Marquis of Dorset, who was Constable of the Tower, to take the royal treasure out of that fortress, and fit out a fleet. Hastings, alarmed at these indications of suspicion, threatened to retire to Calais, of which he was captain; and both parties appealed to Richard, who had hitherto so acted as to give offense to neither.
Richard, on learning the state of affairs, immediately wrote to the queen, recommending that the army gathering round her son should be dismissed; and the royal widow, who was totally devoid of the intellect and sagacity necessary for such a crisis, dispatched a messenger to her brother to disband his troops. The young king, however, set out from Ludlow, and, attended by Earl Rivers, Elizabeth's second son, Richard Grey, and Sir Thomas Vaughan, he approached Northampton on the 22d of April, and learned that Richard had already arrived at that town.
Richard, as we have said, was on the frontiers of Scotland when his brother expired at Westminster. On receiving intelligence of this sad event he rode southward to York, and entered that city with a retinue of six hundred knights and esquires, all dressed, like himself, in deep mourning. At York he ordered a grand funeral service to be performed in the Cathedral; and, having summoned the magnates of the neighborhood to swear fealty to Edward the Fifth, he set them the example by taking the oath first. After going through this ceremony, he wrote to Elizabeth Woodville and to Earl Rivers, expressing the utmost loyalty and affection for the young king; but, at the same time, a messenger was sent to the Duke of Buckingham appointing a meeting at Northampton.
Again taking the road southward, Richard reached Northampton on the 22d of April; and, learning that the king was every hour expected, he resolved to await the arrival of his nephew and escort him safely to London. Ere long Rivers and Richard Grey appeared to pay their respects, and announce that the king had gone forward to Stony Stratford. Richard, who had hitherto given the Woodvilles no cause for suspicion, was doubtless somewhat surprised at this intelligence. He, however, suppressed his emotions, listened patiently to Anthony's frivolous apology about fearing that Northampton would have been too small a place to accommodate so many people, and with the utmost courtesy invited the uncle and nephew to remain and sup.
Rivers and Grey accepted without hesitation an invitation given in so friendly a tone; and soon after, Buckingham arrived at the head of three hundred horsemen. Every thing went calmly. The two dukes passed the evening with Rivers and Grey; they all talked in the most friendly way; and next morning they rode together to Stony Stratford.
On reaching Stony Stratford, Richard found the king mounting to renew his journey; and this circumstance seems to have convinced him that he was intended by the Woodvilles first as a dupe and then as a victim. At all events, their evident anxiety to prevent an interview between him and his nephew afforded him a fair opportunity for taking strong measures, and he did not hesitate. Turning to Rivers and Grey, he immediately charged them with estranging the affections of his nephew, and caused them to be arrested along with Sir Thomas Vaughan.
Having ordered the prisoners to be conveyed to the castle of Sheriff Hutton, Richard and Buckingham bent their knees to their youthful sovereign, and explained to him that Rivers, Grey, and Dorset were traitors; but Edward, educated by his maternal relatives and much attached to them, could not conceal his displeasure at their arrest.
This scene over, Richard dismissed all domestics with whom Rivers had surrounded the young king, and conducted his nephew toward London, giving out as he went that the Woodvilles had been conspiring. On the 4th of May they approached the metropolis; and at Hornsey Wood they were met by Lord-mayor Shaw, with the sheriffs and aldermen, in their scarlet robes, and five hundred of the citizens, clad in violet and gallantly mounted. Attended as became a king, young Edward entered London. Richard rode bareheaded before his nephew; many knights and nobles followed; and, amid loud acclamations from the populace, Edward the Fifth was conducted to the Bishop's Palace. A grand council was then summoned, and Richard was declared Protector of England.
Meanwhile, Elizabeth Woodville had been seized with dread. Alarmed at the report that her brother and son were under arrest, and apprehensive of Richard's intentions, she fled to the sanctuary with her five daughters, her eldest son, the Marquis of Dorset, and her youngest son, Richard, a boy of ten, who had been created Duke of York, and contracted in marriage to an heiress of the Mowbrays who died in infancy. The king, on learning that his mother was alarmed, expressed his grief with tears in his eyes. At first Richard only protested his loyalty, and marveled that his nephew should be so melancholy; but ere long he resolved to turn the royal boy's unhappiness to account, and with this view sent the Archbishop of York to Elizabeth to say that, to the king's happiness, the company of his brother was essential.
The prelate carried the Protector's message to the sanctuary, and found the mournful mother earnestly opposed to delivering up the Duke of York. The archbishop, however, told her plainly that if she did not consent, he feared some sharper course would speedily be taken; and at this warning Elizabeth, who was at once timorous and imprudent, began to yield. At length she took the boy by the hand and led him to the archbishop. "My lord," she said, "here he is. For my own part, I never will deliver him freely; but if you must needs have, take him, and at your hands I will require him."
At that time Richard and other lords were in the Star Chamber, and thither the archbishop led the weeping boy. As they entered, Richard rose, embraced his nephew affectionately, and exclaimed with characteristic dissimulation, "Welcome, nephew, with all my heart. Next to my sovereign lord, your brother, nothing gives me so much contentment as your presence." A few days after this scene was enacted, Richard declared that it was necessary that the king and his brother should be sent to some place of security till the distempers of the commonwealth were healed; and a great council, summoned to discuss the question, resolved, on the motion of Buckingham, that the princes should be sent to the Tower. Accordingly, they were conducted to the metropolitan fortress; and it was intimated that they were to remain there till preparations had been made for the king's coronation.
The fate of Rivers, Grey, and Vaughan having been decided on, the 13th of June was appointed as the day of execution; and Sir Richard Ratcliffe, an unscrupulous agent of Richard, was intrusted with the ceremony. Anthony Woodville was prevented from addressing the people on the occasion, and posterity has been deprived of the satisfaction of reading the accomplished adventurer's vindication; but Vaughan was more lucky in his effort to be heard.
"I appeal," said Vaughan, solemnly, "to God's high tribunal against the Duke of Gloucester for this wrongful murder."
"You have made a goodly appeal," said Ratcliffe, with a sneer, "so lay down your head."
"I die in the right, Ratcliffe," answered Vaughan; and, preparing to submit to the blow, he added, "Take heed that you die not in the wrong."
Ere disposing of the Woodvilles, Richard persuaded himself that his dream of the crown might be realized, and by bribes and promises purchased Buckingham's aid in overthrowing the obstacles that stood in his way. Anxious, also, to gain over Hastings, he deputed the task of sounding him to William Catesby, an eminent lawyer, who descended from an ancient family at Lapworth, in Warwickshire, and who was destined to acquire an unenviable notoriety in Richard's service. The result was not satisfactory. In fact, Hastings, though he heartily concurred in Richard's measures against the Woodvilles, was determined to stand by Edward's sons to the death; and, ere long, matters arrived at such a pass that, while Richard sat at the head of a majority of the council at Crosby Hall, Hastings presided over a minority at the Tower. The party of Hastings appeared formidable. Lord Stanley, among others, took part in its proceedings; and Stanley's son, George, Lord Strange, was reported to be levying forces in Lancashire to give effect to its decisions. Richard was not blind to the fact that if he did not destroy the confederacy forthwith it would destroy him. At such a crisis he was neither so timid nor so scrupulous as to hesitate as to the means.
Some years before his death, Edward of York, while pursuing his amours in the city of London, was captivated by the charms of Jane Shore, a young city dame, whose name occupies an unfortunate place in the history of the period. This woman, after being for seven years the wife of a reputable goldsmith, allowed herself, in an evil hour, to be lured from the house of her husband, and figured for some time as the king's mistress. Notwithstanding her equivocal position, however, Mistress Shore exhibited many redeeming qualities. Her wit and beauty giving her great influence over Edward, she exercised it for worthy purposes, and was ever ready to relieve the needy, to shield the innocent, and protect the oppressed.
When Edward had been laid at rest in St. George's Chapel, and Elizabeth Woodville fled to the sanctuary, Mistress Shore manifested much sympathy for the distressed queen; and, having formed an intimacy with Lord Hastings, she framed something resembling a plot against the Protector. Elizabeth at once forgave Hastings the hostility he had displayed toward her kindred, and forgave Mistress Shore for having supplanted her in Edward's affections, and the three became allies. Richard's jealousy was aroused, and he resolved to make this extraordinary alliance the means of effecting the ruin of Hastings.
It was Friday, the 13th of June—the day on which Rivers, Grey, and Vaughan suffered at Pontefract—and Hastings, Stanley, the Bishop of Ely, the Archbishop of York, with other men of mark, had assembled at nine o'clock in the Tower, when the Protector suddenly entered the council chamber and took his seat at the table. Richard appeared in a lively mood, conversed for a while gayly with those present, and quite surprised them by the mirth which he exhibited.
Having set the lords somewhat at their ease and persuaded them to proceed with business, Richard begged them to spare him for a while, and, leaving the council chamber, he remained absent for an hour. Between ten and eleven he returned, but frowning and fretting, knitting his brow and biting his lips.
"What punishment," he asked, seating himself, "do they deserve who have imagined and compassed my destruction, who am so nearly related to the king, and intrusted with the government of the realm?"
"Whoever they be," answered Hastings, after a pause, "they deserve the death of traitors."
"These traitors," cried Richard, "are the sorceress my brother's wife, and her accomplice, Jane Shore, his mistress, with others, their associates, who have, by their witchcraft, wasted my body."
"Certainly, my lord," said Hastings, after exhibiting some confusion, "if they be guilty of these crimes, they deserve the severest punishment."
"What?" exclaimed Richard, furiously, "do you reply to me with ifs and with ands? I tell thee they have so done, and that I will make good on your body, traitor."
After threatening Hastings, Richard struck the council table, and immediately a cry of "Treason" arose, and armed men rushed into the chamber.
"I arrest thee, traitor," said Richard, turning to Hastings.
"Me, my lord?" asked Hastings, in surprise.
"Yes, thee, traitor," said Richard; "and, by St. Paul, I swear I will not to dinner till I have thy head off."
While this conversation was passing between the Protector and Hastings, one of the soldiers, as if by accident or mistake, struck a blow at Lord Stanley. But the noble baron, who had no ambition to share his ally's fate, and who, indeed, contrived to carry his wise head to the grave, saved himself on this occasion by jerking under the table, and escaped without any other bodily injury than a bruise.
While Lord Stanley, the Archbishop of York, and the Bishop of Ely were arrested, and shut up in various parts of the Tower, Hastings was hurried outside for immediate execution. Richard would not even allow the headsman time enough to erect a scaffold; but a log of wood answered the purpose. This, having been found in the court of the Tower, was carried to the green near the chapel; and the lord chamberlain, after being led thither, was without farther ceremony beheaded. At the same time the sheriffs of London proceeded to Mistress Shore's house, took possession of her goods, which were valued at three thousand marks, and conveyed her through the city to the Tower. On being brought before the council, however, on the charge of sorcery, no evidence worthy of credit was produced, and an acquittal was the consequence.
The sudden execution of the lord chamberlain naturally excited much interest in the city; and, as Hastings happened to be a great favorite with the inhabitants, Richard deemed it necessary to vouchsafe an explanation. Having therefore sent for some of the influential citizens, and frankly justified himself as having acted simply in self-defense, he, within two hours, caused a proclamation, under the great seal, fairly written on parchment, to be read by a herald-at-arms, with great solemnity, in various parts of London. Unfortunately, this vindication appeared so soon after the execution that people could not help suspecting that it had been drawn up before.
"Here's a gay goodly cast," remarked the schoolmaster of St. Paul's, as the document was read at the Cross, "soul cast away for haste."
"Ay," said a merchant standing by, "I think it has been written by the spirit of prophecy."
After mewing the princes in the Tower, beheading Hastings in London and the Woodvilles at Pontefract, placing such foes to his pretensions as Lord Stanley and the Bishop of Ely under lock and key, and arousing the people's moral indignation by the scandal of a king's widow taking counsel with her husband's mistress to embarrass the government carried on in the name of her son, Richard applied himself resolutely to secure the prize on which he had set his heart. Ere long, the citizens who discussed the proclamation about Hastings were destined to have fresh subjects for gossip.
Among the numerous ladies upon whom Edward, about the beginning of his reign, cast admiring eyes, was Eleanor Talbot, granddaughter of the great Earl of Shrewsbury. This patrician dame was the widow of Lord Butler of Sudeley, and had seen fifteen more summers than her royal lover. Edward, not on that account the less enamored, asked her to become his wife; and, won by the ardor of his attachment, Eleanor consented to a secret marriage. The ceremony was performed by Dr. Stillington, Bishop of Bath; but, as time passed on, the Yorkist king's amorous heart led him into another engagement, and the neglected Eleanor was astonished with news of his having married Elizabeth Woodville. On hearing of his faithlessness she fell into a profound melancholy, and afterward lived in sadness and retirement.
This silent repudiation of a daughter of their house shocked the propriety and hurt the pride of the Talbots, and they applied to Stillington to demand satisfaction. Not relishing the perilous duty, the bishop spoke to Richard on the subject, and Gloucester mentioned it to the king. This intercession proved of no avail; and Edward displayed such fury on learning that the secret was known, that nobody who valued a head would have cared to allude to it while he was on the throne. But Richard, who had not forgotten a circumstance so important, now saw that the time had come when the secret might be used to advance his own fortunes. It was necessary, however, that the facts should be published in such a way as to produce a strong impression, and a plan was devised for bringing together a multitude.
For this purpose, Richard caused Mistress Shore to be again dragged into public, and tried before the spiritual courts for her scandalous manner of life. The Protector was not this time disappointed. However unfounded the charge of sorcery, there was no lack of evidence as to her frailties, and she was condemned to do open penance. Sunday was appointed for this act of humiliation; and on that day, through streets crowded with spectators, the erring woman was under the necessity of walking to St. Paul's barefooted, wrapped in a white sheet, and holding a lighted taper of wax in her hand.
This exhibition was of itself deemed likely to advance the Protector's interests by impressing people with a high opinion of his worth as a reformer of morals; but Richard had arranged that, ere the crowd assembled as spectators had time to disperse, another and a far more important scene should be enacted. In this the chief actor was Dr. Shaw, an Augustine friar of high reputation and great popularity. Mounting the pulpit at St. Paul's Cross, Shaw, who was a brother of the lord-mayor and an adherent of the Protector, preached from the text, "The multiplying brood of the ungodly shall not thrive, nor take deep rooting from bastard slips;" and proceeded boldly to prove that the princes in the Tower were illegitimate.
Richard appears to have found this stratagem unsuccessful; but he did not dream of abandoning his ambitious project. Nor can he, with justice, be severely blamed for setting aside the sons of Elizabeth Woodville. However the matter may have been slurred over by men writing with the fear of the Tudors before their eyes, hardly any doubt can exist that Edward was guilty of bigamy, and that his marriage with Elizabeth was invalid; for Philip de Comines bears witness to having heard Bishop Stillington state that he had married the king to Lady Butler; and Eleanor undoubtedly survived that unfortunate ceremony performed on a May morning in the chapel at Grafton.
But the illegitimacy of Edward's offspring did not make Richard heir of the house of York. Between him and the crown stood the children of Clarence, Edward Plantagenet, Earl of Warwick, and his sister Margaret, afterward Countess of Salisbury and mother of Cardinal Pole. The claim of these children was such as could not decently be rejected; but, having gone too far to recede, Richard pretended that their father's attainder disqualified them from inheriting, and adopted measures for usurping the crown.
Richard again invoked the aid of Buckingham; and, on the Tuesday after Dr. Shaw's sermon, attended by nobles, knights, and citizens, Buckingham appeared on the hustings at Guildhall, and harangued the populace. The duke's oratory was successful. Some of the wealthy citizens, indeed, asked time for consideration; but the multitude tossed their bonnets in the air, and shouted, "Long live King Richard."
At Baynard's Castle, with the Duchess of York, Richard was then residing; and thither, to wait upon him, the citizens sent a deputation, headed by the lord-mayor and accompanied by Buckingham. On being informed that a number of people were in the castle court, Richard affected alarm and declined to receive them; but, at length, they were admitted, and Buckingham presented an address, praying Richard to take the crown as his by right of birth and the election of the estates of the realm.
"I little thought, cousin," said Richard, angrily, "that you, of all men, would have moved me to a matter which, of all things, I most decline."
"The free people of England will never be ruled by a bastard," said Buckingham; "and if you, the true heir, refuse the crown, they know where to find another who will gladly accept it."
"Well," said Richard, with the air of a man making a great sacrifice, "since I perceive that the whole realm is resolved not to permit my nephew to reign, and that the right of succession belongs to me, I am content to submit to the will of the people."
On hearing this speech the citizens raised a cry of "Long live King Richard, our sovereign lord;" and the brief reign of Edward the Fifth was at an end.
When Richard had expressed his intention to usurp the English crown, he fixed the 6th day of July, 1483, for his coronation, and caused preparations to be made for performing the ceremony with such magnificence as was likely to render the occasion memorable. Never had arrangements been made on so splendid a scale for investing a king of England with the symbols of power.
At the same time Richard took precautions against any opposition that might be offered by the friends of Elizabeth Woodville. From the north were brought five thousand fighting men, "evil appareled, and worse harnessed, in rusty armor, neither defensible for proof nor scoured for show," but with fearless hearts and strong hands. Their leader was one whose name a Woodville could hardly hear without growing pale. For it was Robin of Redesdale, who, in other days, had led the half mob, half army that seized and beheaded old Earl Rivers, and that son of Earl Rivers who, while in his teens, had wedded a dowager duchess in her eighty-second year. On the 4th of July these northern soldiers encamped in Finsbury Fields, and inspired the citizens of London with emotions of doubt and apprehension.
On the day when Robin of Redesdale and his men startled London, Richard and his ill-starred queen—the Anne Neville of earlier and happier times—took their barge at Baynard's Castle, and went by water to the Tower. After releasing Lord Stanley and the Archbishop of York, that they might take part in the coronation, the king created his son Edward Prince of Wales, nominated Lord Lovel to the office of lord chamberlain, vacant by the execution of Hastings, and appointed Sir Robert Brackenbury, the younger son of an ancient family long settled at Sallaby, in the Bishopric of Durham, to the lieutenancy of the Tower. At the same time he bestowed on Sir John Howard the dukedom of Norfolk, and to Thomas, eldest son of that pretentious personage, he gave the earldom of Surrey. Gratified as the vanity of the Howards might be, Sir John must have blushed, if, indeed, capable of so much decorum, as he thought of the disconsolate woman in the sanctuary, and remembered the letter which, twenty years earlier, at the time of her marriage, he had written to her father, Sir Richard Woodville.
At length the day appointed for the ceremony arrived, and Richard prepared to place the crown of St. Edward on his head. "The king, with Queen Anne, his wife," says the chronicler, "came down out of the Whitehall into the great hall at Westminster, and went directly to the King's Bench, and from thence, going upon Ray-cloth, barefooted, went to St. Edward's Shrine; all his nobility going with him, every lord in his degree."
A magnificent banquet in Westminster Hall brought the coronation ceremony to a conclusion; and, in the midst of the banquet, Sir Robert Dymoke, as king's champion, rode into the hall and challenged any man to say that Richard was not King of England. No one, of course, ventured to gainsay his title; but from every side rose shouts of "King Richard, King Richard;" and, his inauguration as sovereign of England having been thus formally completed, the usurper retired to consider how he could best secure himself on that throne which he had gained by means so unscrupulous.
When the sons of the fourth Edward and Elizabeth Woodville had been escorted through London, conducted to the Tower, and given into the keeping of Sir Robert Brackenbury, the populace saw their faces no more.
According to the chroniclers who wrote in the age of the Tudors, the young king had, from the time of the arrest of his maternal kinsman at Stony Stratford, been possessed with vague presentiments; and he no sooner heard of the usurpation than he revealed the alarm he felt for his personal safety. "Alas!" exclaimed the boy, on being informed that Richard was to be crowned, "I would mine uncle would let me enjoy my life, though I lose my kingdom and my crown."
The lives of the princes might have been spared; but it happened that, after causing his coronation to be celebrated with so much splendor at Westminster, Richard undertook a progress to York, to have the ceremony repeated in the capital of the north. While on his way, Richard learned that the friends of Elizabeth Woodville were conspiring to deliver the princes from the Tower, and to place young Edward on the throne. The usurper, it is said, then resolved on having his nephews put to death ere they could be used by his enemies to disturb his reign. With this view, while at Gloucester, Richard dispatched a messenger, named John Green, to Brackenbury, with instructions to make away with the princes; but Brackenbury, though elevated to office by Richard, declared that he must decline the commission.
Richard was at Warwick when this answer reached him; and, on hearing that Brackenbury was a man who entertained scruples, he exclaimed, with astonishment, "By St. Paul, whom then may we trust?" He was determined, however, that the deed should be done, and, while musing over the matter, bethought him of his Master of the Horse, Sir James Tyrrel, who was in the next room. This man, a brother, it appears, of the knight of that name who fell with Warwick at Barnet, was turbulent in spirit, and so eager for preferment that, in order to make his fortune, he would shrink from no crime. When, therefore, summoned to the king's presence, he showed himself even readier to execute the murderous deed than Richard was to intrust him with the commission.
"Would you venture to kill one of my friends?" asked Richard.
"Yes, my lord," answered Tyrrel; "but I would rather kill two of your enemies."
"By St. Paul!" exclaimed Richard, "that is the very thing. I want to be free from dread of two mortal foes in the Tower."
"Open the gates to me," said Tyrrel, "and you will not need to fear them longer."
Richard, glad to have found a man capable of executing his commission, gave Tyrrel letters to Brackenbury, commanding that he should be intrusted with the custody of the Tower and of the princes for twenty-four hours. Armed with these letters, Tyrrel hied him to London; and, having freed Brackenbury for a while from the exercise of his official functions, he enlisted in his service a man named Miles Forrest, and a sturdy groom named James Dighton. With the aid of these ruffians, and the sole attendant of the princes, William Slaughter, whom chroniclers call "Black Will," and emphatically describe as a "bloody knave," Tyrrel prepared for the murderous deed.
On a summer night—such is the story so often told—the two princes were sleeping in an upper chamber of the Tower, in that part of the gloomy strong-hold still pointed out as "the Bloody Tower." Their only attendant was "Black Will;" but, as clasped in each other's arms they slept the sleep of boyhood, their very innocence seemed a protection. While Tyrrel remained outside the door, Forrest and Dighton suddenly stole into the room, prepared to set about the work of murder. The spectacle presented would have melted any other than the hardest hearts; but Forrest and Dighton were so hardened as to be impervious to emotions of pity, and they proceeded to their task with a shocking brutality. Wrapping the boys tightly in the coverlet, they placed the pillows and feather bed over their mouths till they were stifled; and then, seeing that their innocent souls had departed, laid the bodies on the bed, and intimated to their employer that all was over.
Tyrrel, on hearing this, entered the room to see with his own eyes that the horrid commission had been faithfully executed. After satisfying himself on this point, the unworthy knight ordered the bodies of the murdered princes to be buried beneath the stair, and hastened back to inform the king that his nephews slept in Paradise.
Among the many men of high estate who aided Richard to usurp the English throne, none played a more conspicuous part than his rival in foppery, Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham. No sooner, however, had the Protector been converted into a king than his confederate became malcontent and restlessly eager for change. The death of Warwick, the captivity of John de Vere, the extinction of the Mowbrays and Beauforts, had left the duke one of the most influential among English magnates then alive and at liberty; and, albeit destitute of prowess and intellect, he appears to have vainly imagined that he could exercise that kind of influence which had rendered Richard Neville so formidable. But, capable as Buckingham might have deemed himself of rivaling "The Stout Earl," who slept with his Montagu ancestors in the Abbey of Bisham, he had none of "the superb and more than regal pride" which rendered the descendant of Cospatrick averse to the gewgaws of royalty. The object of the duke's ambition, when he resolved to break with the usurper, appears to have been the crown which he had helped to place on Richard's head.
With his shallow brain full of ambitious ideas, and hardly deigning to conceal his discontent, Buckingham took leave of Richard. On leaving the court of Westminster, he turned his face toward his castle of Brecknock, and by the way regaled his fancy with splendid visions of crowns and sceptres.
It happened that, on the day before the coronation, when Richard released the confederates of Hastings from the Tower, he found John Morton, Bishop of Ely, decidedly hostile to his pretensions. Unable to gain the support of the prelate, but unwilling, on such an occasion, to appear harsh, Richard delivered him to Buckingham, to be sent to Brecknock and gently guarded in that castle. At Brecknock, musing over his experiences as parson of Blokesworth, his expedition to Towton Field, his exile to Verdun, and his promotion to the see of Ely by a Yorkist king, Buckingham met the bishop when he went thither awakened from his dream of royalty, but panting for enterprise, however quixotic. After so many exciting scenes—suppers at Northampton, orations at the Guildhall, deputations to Baynard's Castle, progresses through London, and coronation banquets at Westminster—the duke doubtless found Brecknock intolerably dull. Feeling the want of company, he threw himself in the bishop's way, and gradually surrendered himself to the fascination of the wily churchman's conversation. The bishop, perceiving that envy was devouring the duke's heart, worked craftily upon his humor; and Buckingham, exposed to the influence of one of the most adroit politicians of the age, by degrees approached the subject which the bishop was anxious to discuss.
"I fantasied," such were the duke's words, "that if I list to take upon me the crown, now was the time, when this tyrant was detested of all men, and knowing not of any one that could pretend before me. In this imagination I rested two days at Tewkesbury. But, as I rode between Worcester and Bridgenorth, I met with the Lady Margaret, Countess of Richmond, now wife to the Lord Stanley, who is the daughter and sole heir of John, Duke of Somerset, my grandfather's elder brother (who was as clean out of my mind as if I had never seen her); so that she and her son, the Earl of Richmond, have, both of them, titles before mine; and then I clearly saw how I was deceived, whereupon I determined utterly to relinquish all such fantastical notions concerning the obtaining the crown myself."
The bishop listened eagerly, and doubtless felt much relieved at this announcement. He had soon more cause for gratification when Buckingham added, "I find there can be no better way to settle the crown than that the Earl of Richmond, very heir to the house of Lancaster, should take to wife Lady Elizabeth, eldest daughter to King Edward, the very heir of the house of York, so that the two Roses may be united in one."
"Since by your grace's incomparable wisdom this noble conjunction is now moved," exclaimed the bishop, almost overcome with joy at the duke's hitting "the mark he had himself aimed at" in forming his projects, "it is in the next place necessary to consider what friends we shall first make privy to our intention."
"By my troth," said the duke, "we will begin with the Countess of Richmond—the earl's mother—who knows where he is in Brittany, and whether a captive or at large."
The conspiracy originated at Brecknock rapidly became formidable. Reginald Bray, a retainer of the Countess of Richmond, was employed to open the business to his mistress; and the countess, approving of the project, commissioned her physician, Dr. Lewis, to treat with Elizabeth Woodville in the sanctuary.
Elizabeth interposed no obstacle to a project which promised her daughter a throne; and Bray, on finding that the negotiation had proved successful, was enabled to draw many men of high rank into the conspiracy. John, Lord Welles, true like his ancestors to the Red Rose, prepared to draw his sword for Lancaster. Peter Courtenay, Bishop of Exeter, and his brother Sir Edward, a man remarkable for his elegance and destined to wed King Edward's daughter Katherine, undertook to raise the inhabitants of the western counties. Dorset, escaping from the sanctuary, repaired to Yorkshire, trusting to rouse the men of the north against the usurper.
Buckingham meanwhile remained at Brecknock, gathering the Welsh to his standard, and dreaming, perhaps, of entering London as Warwick had entered London thirteen years earlier. The duke, indeed, seems to have had no conception of the hazard to which he was exposing himself. He had been so flattered that he believed himself hedged by the nobility of his name. He had not the elevation of soul to dream of a Barnet, and he had too much vanity to entertain a prophetic vision of the crowded market-place, the scaffold, and the block, which, with the headsmen, awaited unsuccessful rebellion.