Richard III: His Life & Character, Reviewed in the Light of Recent Research

by Sir Clements R. Markham

CHAPTER II

EXAMINATION OF THE CHARGES AGAINST RICHARD III

1. The Deformity.
2. Murder of Edward of Lancaster.
3. Murder of Henry VI.
4. Marriage with Anne Nevill.
5. Treatment of the Countess of Warwick.
6. Death of Clarence.

An indictment, in many counts, was brought against Richard III. after his death, by the authors who wrote during the reign of his successor, and in the interests of that successor's dynasty. It will be seen, in the course of the discussion, with what object these accusations were made, and why a belief in them was considered to be so important to the success of the Tudor usurpation. The reckless profusion of abuse was due to the complete license of the traducers. No one could appear for the accused. The brave young King was dead, his body subjected to cowardly insults, his friends proscribed, his people silenced. Calumny was triumphant and unchecked. Yet there was method and system in the scheme of the Tudor writers. Their accusations were all intended to lead up to a belief in the dead King's guilt with regard to one central crime. If he was to be deformed, if he was to be an assassin at the age of eighteen, the murderer of his brother and his wife, a ruthless usurper and tyrant, it was because such a monster would be more likely to commit a crime of which he must be thought to be guilty in the interests of his wily successor. It will now be our business to examine these charges one by one. The first concerns Richard's personal appearance.

Deformity

It is stated that he was two years in his mother's womb,[[1]] that he was born feet foremost,[[2]] with a complete set of teeth,[[3]] and with hair down to the shoulders,[[4]] that he was hump-backed, that his right shoulder was higher than his left,[[5]] that his left shoulder was much higher than his right,[[6]] and that one of his arms was withered.[[7]]

Passing over the obvious fables with the remark that they throw just suspicion on other statements from the same sources, we come to the hump-back. We do not find this deformity mentioned by any contemporary except Morton. If it had existed it is certain that so conspicuous a blemish would have been dwelt upon by all contemporary detractors. Stow, the most honest of the later chroniclers, told Sir George Buck that he had talked to old men who had seen and known Richard, and who said that he was in bodily shape comely enough.[[8]] In the two portraits drawn by Rous no inequality is visible. Richard here has a handsome youthful face, slight build and good figure. The portrait at Windsor shows a face full of energy and decision, yet gentle and melancholy. The shoulders are quite even.

Rous, Polydore Virgil, and Morton are the authorities for the unequal shoulders. Rous says that the right shoulder was higher. Morton makes the left shoulder much higher. Their contradictory testimony shows the worthless character of both these authorities. Polydore Virgil merely mentions an inequality. Fabyan and the Croyland monk do not say a word against Richard's personal appearance. A curious piece of evidence was discovered by Mr. Davies of York, which bears on the question.[[9]] From the 'York Records' it appears that, six years after King Richard's death, a man named Burton was brought before the Lord Mayor accused of calling that prince, whose memory was so beloved in the north, 'a crouchback.' One John Poynter, who heard this remark, told Burton that he lied, and struck at him with a little rod he had in his hand. It would seem, therefore, that if there was any defect in Richard's figure, it was so slight that its very existence was matter of dispute among those who could well remember the King, while it was imperceptible to Stow's informants. On the whole, we may accept the conclusion of Miss Halsted that Richard was of slight and delicate build, and that the severe martial exercises in which his youth had been spent had caused the shoulder of his sword-arm to be very slightly higher than the other.

The story of the withered arm comes from Morton. That astute prelate always had an object in making his statements. This particular tale was invented to draw off attention from the real charge made by the Protector against the Woodvilles. It served its turn, and may be dismissed as false without any hesitation. For it is not mentioned by a single other authority. The victor of Barnet and Tewkesbury, the leader of the brilliant charge at Bosworth, who unhorsed Sir John Cheney[[10]] and William Brandon, must have had serviceable arms.

The object of the Tudor historians in commencing their grotesque caricature of an imaginary monster with these stories of his personal deformity is transparent. They intended to make him detestable from the outset. They calculated that improbable crimes would be more readily believed if the alleged perpetrator was a deformed hunchback born with teeth. They were right. Nothing has more conduced to an unreasoning prejudice against Richard, and to a firm belief in his alleged crimes, than the impression of his personal repulsiveness.

Modern writers have also understood this method of treatment. Lord Macaulay was careful to prepare the minds of his readers for the alleged judicial crimes of Sir Elijah by telling them that little Impey was in the habit of stealing cakes at school.[[11]] The great essayist, as well as the Tudor historians, knew their public. The one invented the pilfering story and the others the deformity with the same motive. If a judge had been a juvenile thief, or if a king had been a deformed little monster, the charges against them in after life would be more readily accepted as true. It is illogical, but it is human nature.

Richard was described as a venomous hunchback[[12]] and made to commit several atrocious crimes in order to prepare men's minds to receive, without incredulity, the story of the murder of his nephews. It was evidently anticipated that this final draft on their powers of belief would be dishonoured unless the alleged murderer had been steeped in crime from his infancy.

At the early age of eighteen Richard is accordingly accused of having committed a cowardly and inhuman murder in cold blood after the battle of Tewkesbury, on evidence which would be insufficient to hang a dog.[[13]]

Young Edward's death

The battle took place on May 4, 1471. The young Duke of Gloucester had displayed valour and generalship, and had won for himself a name in chivalry. On the other side, Prince Edward of Lancaster, who was exactly one year younger than Richard, led the main battle of his army, and bore himself manfully. Carried away in the rout and closely followed by his victorious enemies, he was slain on the field of battle. There was one eye-witness who wrote an account of the battle of Tewkesbury. He said that young Edward of Lancaster 'was taken fleeing to the townwards and slain in the field.'[[14]] A drawing accompanies this writer's report, in which we see a horse on its knees, the rider receiving his deathblow, the helmet struck off, and the bright golden locks sinking on the horse's mane.[[15]] This was the plain truth. He fell, fighting bravely, on the battle-field. All contemporaries, without an exception, corroborate this evidence. The next writer was Warkworth, but he was not present. He wrote 'There was slain on the field Prince Edward, which cried for succour to the Duke of Clarence.'[[16]] Bernard André, the paid historian of Henry VII., says the same, 'Is enim ante Bernardi campum Theoxberye proelio belligerens ceciderat.' The Croyland monk says that some of the Lancastrian leaders fell in the battle, others 'by the revengeful hands of certain persons afterwards,'[[17]] referring to the fact that some were executed after trial before the Earl Marshal and Constable. There is no hint here of the alleged assassination of Edward. Comines tells the same story, 'et fut le Prince de Galles tué sur le champ et plusieurs autres grans seigneurs.' Such is the unanimous testimony of contemporaries.

We now come to the other Tudor writers and their versions of young Edward's death. Fabyan, writing to please Henry VII., is the first who said that the Prince was captured and brought before Edward IV., and he added the following tale: 'The King strake him with his gauntlet in the face, on which the Prince was by the King's servants incontinently slain.'[[18]] Fabyan's baseless gossip came before Polydore Virgil, and the protégé of Pope Alexander VI. conceived the idea of giving it a lurid Borgian colouring, better suited to the latitude of Urbino than to that of Tewkesbury and calculated to make our flesh creep. It was thus that his ideas found words: 'King Edward gave no answer, only thrusting the young man from him with his hand, whom forthwith those that were present, who were George Duke of Clarence, Richard Duke of Gloucester, and William Lord Hastings, crewelly murderyd.'[[19]] This story was improved upon by Grafton, Hall, Holinshed and other Tudor chroniclers. Dorset was added to the list of alleged assassins by Habington, Grafton, and Hall. Gloucester is made to strike the first blow by Holinshed. Here we have a striking example of the gradual growth of a legend which has eventually become embedded in history.[[20]] Its original conception was due to an Italian, not to an English brain. It is thus that the fable has become a part of the history of England. Honest John Stow is alone in rejecting the Italian's embellishment. He discredits the version of Polydore Virgil as a palpable fraud, and merely repeats Fabyan's statement.

It is very remarkable that three authorities patronised by Henry VII. give no countenance to the fable of Polydore Virgil. Bernard André is in perfect agreement with the contemporaries, simply because Virgil's story had not been invented when he wrote. Rous is silent for the same reason. He was the originator of the birth with teeth and with hair to the shoulders. He heaped calumny on calumny, and would have eagerly repeated the Tewkesbury story if it had existed in his time. Morton's silence is still more singular except on the hypothesis that the slander was not then in existence.

Dr. Morton was actually present at Tewkesbury. If young Edward was murdered he must have known it. Yet in a work prepared for the express purpose of enumerating the alleged crimes of Richard he said nothing. He had no scruples. He repeats all he can think of, with the object of heaping opprobrium on Richard's memory. But there is not a hint about assassinating Edward of Lancaster. Morton's silence, under these circumstances, amounts to a proof that the story was a fabrication of later times. André, Rous, and Morton wrote before Polydore Virgil, and when the Italian's calumny had not yet been invented. It cannot be that Virgil found out what the less vigilant André, Rous, and Morton overlooked. If anyone knew all the details of the battle of Tewkesbury at first hand, it was Morton. He was there. His silence explodes the fable. It also convicts Polydore Virgil of having fabricated an exceptionally foul slander, with a rank scent of its Borgian origin:—

'Virgilii duo sunt: alter Maro: tu Polydore
Alter: Tu Mendax: ille Poeta fuit.'[[21]]

Unless the testimony of those who were absent, and for the most part unborn, is to be preferred to that of eye-witnesses, and that of future generations to contemporaries, the fable of young Edward's murder ought never again to find a place in serious history.

Death of Henry VI

The charge against the Duke of Gloucester that he murdered Henry VI. is an insinuation rather than an accusation. None of his traducers state it as a fact. One says 'as men constantly say,' another, 'it was the continual report,' another, 'as many believe.' We must, therefore, first treat this alleged 'continual report' as a rumour only, and judge of it from probabilities.

We are asked to believe that young Richard, a boy of eighteen, who had just won great military renown, arrived at the Tower in the evening of one day with orders to proceed on active service very early the next morning; that, although fully occupied with preparations for his departure, he found time to induce Lord Rivers, the Constable of the Tower, and his political enemy, to deliver up charge to him in order that he might assassinate a defenceless and feeble invalid with his own hand, a deed which might just as well have been perpetrated by any hired jailer; that it was done without his brother Edward's knowledge, and that, although the deed must have been done with the knowledge of Lord Rivers and his officials, of Henry's ten servants and three readers, yet there was never any certainty about the matter. Rivers, be it remembered, was not Richard's friend.

This grossly improbable rumour bears the evidence of its origin clearly marked. It was put forward in the reign and in the interests of Henry VII. It was a rumour manufactured by his paid writers and their followers. We can examine the process.

Morton says: 'He slew with his own hand King Henry VI. as men constantly say, and that without knowledge or commandment of the King.'

Polydore Virgil has the following version: 'King Edward, to the intent that there should be no new insurrections, travelled not long after through Kent, which business being despatched, to the intent that every man might conceive a perfect peace to be attained, Henry VI. being not long before deprived of his diadem, was put to death in the Tower of London. The continual report is that Richard Duke of Gloucester killed him with a sword, whereby his brother might be delivered from all hostility.'

Dr. Warkworth tells us that 'the same night that King Edward came to London, King Harry being in ward in prison in the Tower of London, was put to death on the 21st of May on a Tuesday night between eleven and twelve of the clock, being then at the Tower the Duke of Gloucester, brother to King Edward, and many others. On the morrow he was chested, and brought to Paul's and his face was open that every man might see him. And in his lying he bled on the pavement there, and afterwards at the Blackfriars was brought, and there bled afresh.' This Dr. Warkworth was Master of St. Peter's College, Cambridge, from 1473 to 1500. He kept a private diary, receiving his facts from informants he saw at Cambridge. His account of Henry's death shows that he was superstitious and credulous. His second-hand report of the time and manner of the death cannot be received as of any authority. His mention of Gloucester's presence has been assumed to be intended, by the writer, to imply that the Duke was concerned in the crime. This does not follow and, in a mere private diary, such innuendo would be out of place and improbable. The date of the 21st, given by Warkworth and Fabyan, would be approved by Henry VII. as throwing suspicion on his predecessor, and would be fixed as the obit of Henry VI. Any subsequent repetition of that date gives it no additional authority. Such repetition has as much or as little authority as is given to it by the assertions of Warkworth and Fabyan.[[22]]

Fabyan gives the same date as Warkworth, and adds, 'of the death of Henry divers tales were told, but the most common fame went that he was stikked with a dagger, by the hands of Richard of Gloucester.'[[23]]

Rous says, 'He killed by others or, as many believe, with his own hand, that most sacred man Henry VI.'[[24]]

The continuator of the Croyland Chronicle insinuates nothing against Richard. His words are: 'The body of King Henry was found lifeless in the Tower; may God pardon and give time for repentance to that man, whoever he was, that dared to lay his sacrilegious hand upon the Lord's anointed. The doer may obtain the name of a tyrant, the sufferer of a glorious martyr.'[[25]] The antithesis of tyrant and martyr shows that the monk alluded to King Edward and King Henry. The prayer that 'the doer' may have time for repentance is a proof that the passage was written during Edward's lifetime, and that there was then a rumour that Henry had met with foul play. But it also furnishes a proof that rumour had not then imputed the supposed act to Richard.

Of these authorities, Warkworth's informant and the City Chronicler are the only two who perceived that in order to give any plausibility to the alleged 'continual report,' Henry's death must be made to tally with young Richard's presence in the Tower. They, therefore, fixed upon May 21, the single day when Richard was there. Their fabrication is exposed by the evidence of the accounts for Henry's maintenance, as will be seen directly; and also by the contradiction of Polydore Virgil. That author, who had access to all official sources of information, places Henry's death in the end of May, after King Edward's progress through Kent. Thus these authorities do not agree, and are quite unworthy of credit.

True date of Henry's death

We are not altogether without the means of ascertaining the truth. Henry VI. was not an old man. His age was 47. But he was feeble and half-witted. His health was very precarious, his constitution having been weakened by long illnesses. He inherited the mental and physical imbecility of his grandfather Charles VI. of France. Shortly before his liberation by the Earl of Warwick in 1470, some ruffian had stabbed him[[26]] and then fled. Henry was said to have been convalescent, but, with his feeble hold on life, it is not likely that his recovery was permanent. He gradually sank, and died on May 24, or perhaps in the night of the 23rd. Queen Margaret of Anjou arrived at the Tower as a prisoner on the 21st, just in time to soothe her husband's last moments, and to be with him when he died. The Lancastrian leanings of the family of Lord Rivers, who was Constable of the Tower, make it likely that the unhappy queen was granted access to her dying husband. We know that Margaret was treated with consideration, and allowed to reside with her most intimate English friend, the old Duchess of Suffolk, at Wallingford, until her ransom was paid.

The date of Henry's death is fixed by the evidence of his household accounts, which are given by Rymer.

'Accounts of the costs and expenses for the custody of King Henry, The Wednesday after the feast of Holy Trinity, June 12.'

'To the same William Sayer for money to his own hand delivered for the expenses and diet of the said Henry and of ten persons his attendants within the tower, for the custody of the said Henry, namely, for fourteen days the first beginning on the 11th of May last, as per account delivered 14l. 5s.'

'To William Sayer for money delivered at times, namely at one time, 7s. for the hire of three hired readers for the said William and other attendants within the tower in charge of the King for xiv days and for the board of the same for the same time, and on another time 3s. 10d. for the board of said Henry within the said tower as per account delivered 10s. 10d.'[[27]]

It is clear from these entries that Henry's accounts were made up on May 11, and that they were again made up when he died, fourteen days after May 11, that is, on May 24.[[28]] We also gather that he was maintained in becoming state, at a cost of 400l. a year, equivalent to upwards of 2,000l. of our money, and that he had ten servants, and three readers to read aloud to him. Mr. Thorold Rogers says: 'I make no doubt that Henry was used well during the nine years of his residence in the Tower: nor do I believe that he was done to death after Tewkesbury. The story of his assassination in the Tower is, I am persuaded, a Tudor calumny.'[[29]] 'I conclude that nature which had hid his misfortunes from him more than once by a lethargy which seemed almost like death, at last released him in the same merciful fashion from the recurrent sorrows of his life.'[[30]]

The only contemporary writer was the author of a letter to the citizens of Bruges, giving an account of the events which led to the restoration of Edward IV. Speaking from personal knowledge he reported that Henry VI. died on May 23, and his accuracy is established by the evidence of the accounts.

These are the plain facts connected with Henry's death. They are fatal to the story of the murder. Warkworth and Fabyan give the 21st for the date of Henry's death, because Gloucester was in the Tower on that day only. Their assertions are disproved by Polydore Virgil, by the writer of the letter at Bruges, and by the accounts which show the date of Henry's death to have been May 23 or 24. On those days Gloucester was at Sandwich, upwards of seventy miles from the Tower. The tale of Henry's assassination by the Duke of Gloucester is a Tudor calumny, and was invented many years afterwards to please Henry VII. It is possible that a false rumour of foul play may have been spread by the enemies of Edward IV., and this seems likely from the words of the Croyland Chronicle. But the absurd accusation against the King's young brother was concocted after Richard III. had fallen at Bosworth, and when any calumny against the dead was welcomed and rewarded by a successor, who believed that his security depended upon a belief in his predecessor's infamy. Habington, in his life of Edward IV., has pointed out the absurdity of charging Richard with the alleged murder.[[31]]

The next charge against the Duke of Gloucester is that he forced the Lady Anne Nevill to marry him, immediately after he had murdered young Edward of Lancaster, who was her husband.[[32]] The answers to this are that Edward was not her husband,[[33]] that Richard did not murder him, and that Richard did not force Anne's inclinations. No marriage between Edward and Anne ever took place. The Croyland monk always speaks of Anne, at this time, as the 'maiden' and the 'damsel.'

Anne Nevill and her mother

But there is more to be said. The two young cousins, Richard and Anne, were brought up together, and their union was most natural. Miss Halsted has well remarked that Richard showed peculiar delicacy towards Anne, in placing her in sanctuary at St. Martin's before the marriage, where her inclinations could in no way be forced. Anne was her husband's constant companion at every important crisis of his life, and there is good reason to believe that the marriage was a happy one.

A very bitter enemy of Richard's memory, in later times, has attempted to draw conclusions to his disadvantage from the marriage settlements. There had been no time to obtain the usual dispensations, and it therefore became advisable that the trustees, for the sake of the offspring, should guard against any possible informality in the marriage. A protecting clause was inserted, in case the property could not be held without a renewal of the marriage ceremony; arising from any alleged informality in the nuptials. This clause, framed by the lawyers, was to the effect that if the Duke of Gloucester and the Lady Anne Nevill should be divorced, and afterwards marry again, the Act for the partition of property should nevertheless be valid, and that in case of a divorce, and if the Duke shall do his continual diligence and effectual devoir by all lawful means to be lawfully married to the said Anne, he shall have as much of the premises as pertained to her during her lifetime. It was merely a formal clause inserted by the lawyers, and probably never even read by Richard or Anne.

Miss Strickland calls this 'an ominous clause relating to a wedlock of a few months; proving Anne meditated availing herself of some informality in her abhorred marriage; but if she had done so her husband would have remained in possession of her property. The absence of the dispensation is a negative proof that Anne never consented to her second marriage, and that it was never legalised may be guessed by the rumours of a subsequent period when the venomous hunchback meditated in his turn divorcing her.'

This is a good example of the sort of stuff which rooted and unreasoning prejudice allows to pass for argument.

The next charge is made by only one of the Tudor writers. Rous alleged that 'Richard imprisoned for life the Countess of Warwick who had fled to him for refuge.'[[34]] This is untrue. The Countess of Warwick heard of the defeat and death of her husband at Barnet, when she landed in England. She took sanctuary at Beaulieu in Hampshire, was attainted, and all her property passed to her daughters Isabella and Anne, who married the Dukes of Clarence and Gloucester. The Countess remained at Beaulieu for two years, from 1471 to 1473. We next hear of her in a letter from Sir John Paston dated June 3, 1473. 'The Countess of Warwick is now out of Beaulieu, and Sir James Tyrrel conveyeth her northward, men say by the King's assent, whereto some men say that the Duke of Clarence is not agreed.'[[35]] Evidently the King had given his assent to a request of Gloucester that his wife's mother might be allowed to come and live with her daughter at Middleham. There was no prison but a home with her child. Tyrrel, who was then an officer of Edward's Court, was sent to escort her from Beaulieu to Middleham.[[36]]

There is evidence of Richard's kindly feeling towards his wife's family. He interceded for the heirs of the Marquis Montagu, Warwick's brother, and it was at the request of Gloucester that the King allowed them to inherit part of their father's property.[[37]] Another indication of the Duke's friendliness, as regards his mother-in-law and her relations, is afforded by their confidence in him. Lady Latimer, a sister of the Countess of Warwick, appointed Richard the supervisor of her will, which was a position of great trust in those days. Such kindly offices performed for those who were near and dear to the Countess of Warwick are cogent, though indirect, proofs that the statement of Rous is a calumny.

Death of Clarence

Shakespeare and others have further accused Richard of having abetted and aided in the death of his brother George Duke of Clarence. No serious historian, except Sandford, has ventured to bring forward the charge directly. The Croyland monk, Polydore Virgil, André, Rous, Fabyan are all silent on the subject.[[38]] But Morton is equal to the occasion. The passage in which he insinuates suspicion is a good specimen of the style of this unscrupulous slanderer:

'Some wise men also ween that his drift, covertly conveyed, lacked not in helping forth his brother of Clarence to his death; which he resisted openly, howbeit somewhat, as men deemed, more faintly than he that were heartily minded to his wealth. And they who thus deem think that he, long time in King Edward's life, forethought to be King in case that the King his brother (whose life he looked that evil diet should shorten) should happen to decease (as indeed he did) while his children were young. And they deem that for this intent he was glad of his brother's death, the Duke of Clarence, whose life must needs have hindered him so intending whether the same Clarence had kept him true to his nephew the young King, or enterprised to be King himself. But of all this point there is no certainty, and whoso divineth upon conjectures may as well shoot too far as too short.'

The object of this involved passage is to leave a sort of general impression that Richard had something or other to do with the death of Clarence.[[39]] By throwing up a dust cloud of verbiage the central fact that Richard intervened in his brother's favour is obscured and thrown into the background.

The guilt of the death of Clarence rests with Rivers and the Woodville faction. He was a great danger to them, as will be seen in the next chapter, while they benefited by his attainder and got the wardship of his son. All Richard did was to protest against the execution of his brother.

[[1]] Rous, 214. 'Biennio matris utero tentus, exiens cum dentibus et capillis ad humeros.' This is false, for Richard was born three years after his brother George, and there was another child, named Thomas, between them.

[[2]] Morton.

[[3]] Rous.

[[4]] Rous.

[[5]] Rous.

[[6]] Morton.

[[7]] Morton.

[[8]] Buck, p. 79.

[[9]] Davies, York Records, May 14, 1190, p. 220.

[[10]] 'A man of much fortitude, and exceeding the common sort.'—Polydore Virgil, p. 224.

[[11]] In Macaulay's review of Gleig's Life of Warren Hastings.

[[12]] Miss Strickland.

[[13]] Mr. Gairdner gives the evidence. 'Each crime rests on slender testimony enough, though any one of them being admitted, lends greater credit to the others. From this point of view it is not at all improbable that Richard was a murderer at nineteen' (p. 13). Richard killed his nephews, consequently he assassinated a prisoner when he was nineteen. It thus having been shown that he was a murderer when he was nineteen, what more probable than that he killed his nephews? This method of arguing has been perfectly satisfactory to generations of historical students, and appears to be so still.

[[14]] Fleetwood Chron. p. 30. This is the narrative of the recovery of his kingdom by Edward IV., in Harl. MS. no. 543, printed by the Camden Society.

[[15]] The drawing is in the abridgment sent to Bruges, reproduced in the Archæologia, xxi. p. ii.

[[16]] Warkworth Chronicle, Camden Society, p. 18.

[[17]] The Croyland monk wrote: 'As well in the field as afterwards by the revengeful hands of certain persons, Prince Edward, Devon, Somerset,' &c.: that is Prince Edward and Devon on the field, Somerset by 'the revengeful hands': by which phrase he is pleased to refer to the Earl Marshal's Court which was a constitutional tribunal (Chron. Croyland, p. 555). 'Tum in campo tum postea ultricibus quorundam manibus, ipso Principe Edwardo unigenito Regis Henrici, victo Duce Somersetiæ, Comiteque Devoniæ ac aliis dominis omnibus et singulis memoratis' (p. 555).

[[18]] Fabyan, p. 662.

[[19]] Polydore Virgil, p. 336.

[[20]] Hall is notorious for the embellishment of fables that were passed on to him by Polydore Virgil, by adding names and incidents of his own invention. In the case of the death of the young Earl of Rutland, he first took several years off his age and made a little child of him, then gave him a tutor and supplied the tutor's name. With these properties he got up a very effective scene on Wakefield Bridge. When Rutland's real age is known, Hall's story becomes absurd, and he is convicted of intentional inaccuracy. Again when he described the burial of Henry VI., he said that the corpse was conveyed to Chertsey 'without priest or clerk, torch or taper, singing or saying.' This is something worse than embellishment, it is absolutely false. The payments are recorded (and the records are still preserved), for obsequies and masses said by four orders of brethren, for linen cloth, spices, and for wages of men carrying torches. The statements of Hall are certainly unreliable. In retailing Polydore Virgil's calumny about the assassination of Prince Edward at Tewkesbury, Hall cannot refrain from similar inventions and embellishments. He adds that Edward was taken prisoner by Sir Richard Croft and delivered up to the King in consequence of a proclamation offering a reward of 100l. a year to whosoever should yield up the Prince dead or alive: accompanied by an assurance that his life should be spared (Hall, p. 301). Habington repeats this and adds, as his own contribution, that 'the good knight repented what he had done, and openly professed his service abused and his faith deluded' (Life of Edward IV. p. 96). This statement is confuted by the fact that it was on the battle-field of Tewkesbury that Richard Croft received his knighthood from King Edward. This would not have been so if he had 'openly declared his service abused.' He afterwards received benefits from King Richard (Paston Letters). The fable of Fabyan was embellished and added to by various hands, until it became a very elaborate and highly finished lie circumstantial.

[[21]] The name of Virgil borne by two,
One Maro and one Polydore.
The first a Poet wise and true,
The last a lying slanderer.

[[22]] Mr. Gairdner mentions that there is a MS. City Chronicle among the Cottonian MSS. (Vitell. A. xvi. f. 133), which states that Henry's body was brought to St. Paul's on Ascension Eve (May 22), 'who was slain, as it was said, by the Duke of Gloucester.' In MS. Arundel, 28, in the British Museum, there is an old Chronicle, on a fly-leaf of which, at the end, there are some jottings relating to Edward IV.'s time in a contemporary hand, and among others—'eodem die decessit Henricus sextus,' meaning the day of Edward's arrival in London. A MS. in Heralds' College (printed by Mr. Gairdner) dates the death 'in vigilia Ascencionis Dominicæ'; a MS. at Oxford (Laud, 674) gives the same date; a MS. in the Royal Library at the British Museum says: 'Obitus Regis Henriei Sexti, gui obiit inter vicesimum primum diem Maii et xxiim diem Maii.' Henry's obit is set down May 22. None of these documents have any date. Their statements about May 21 are the same as those of Warkworth or Fabyan, from whom they must have been derived. But Warkworth and Fabyan are proved to be wrong by the evidence of the accounts for Henry's maintenance: and by the evidence of Polydore Virgil, as well as by the letter at Bruges.

[[23]] Fabyan, p. 662.

[[24]] Rous, p. 215. 'Ipsum sanctissimum virum Henricum Sextum per alios vel multis credentibus manu pocius propria interfecit.'

[[25]] Croyland Chron. p. 557.

[[26]] 'Collectarum et mansuetudinum et bonorum morum regis Henrici VI., et ex collectione magistri Joannis Blakman bacchalaurii theologiæ et post Cartusiæ monachi Londini.'—Hearne, p. 202.

[[27]] Rymer's Foedera, xi. pp. 712, 713.

[[28]] Laing, in his continuation of Henry's History of Great Britain, in referring to the accounts for the maintenance of Henry VI. in Rymer's Foedera, mistook the day on which they were audited and passed, namely June 12, for the day on which the expenses were incurred; and concluded that Henry was alive on June 12. This is triumphantly pointed out by Dr. Lingard. But the triumph is imaginary. Dr. Lingard ought to have seen that the date of auditing does not affect the question. The fact remains that Henry's board was paid, and that he was consequently alive, for fourteen days after May 11, that is until May 24, which is fatal to the story of the murder.

This is shown by Bayley, who quotes the accounts in his History of the Tower of London, and points out that they furnish satisfactory evidence of Henry having been alive at least until May 24 (second ed. p. 323). Mr. Gairdner has suggested that the payments up to the 24th were to Henry's servants who were not discharged until then, and do not prove that Henry was alive. But this is untenable, for they are for Henry's keep as well.

[[29]] Work and Wages, ii. 312.

[[30]] Ibid. ii. 313.

[[31]] 'I cannot believe a man so cunning in declining envy and winning honour to his name, would have undertaken such a business and executed it with his own hand. Nor did this concern the Duke of Gloucester so particularly as to engage him alone in the cruelty.'—Habington, in Kennet, p. 455.

[[32]] Gairdner, p. 22.

[[33]] Sharon Turner, iii. p. 323. Anne had been contracted to Edward of Lancaster in July 1470, she being only fourteen, and he sixteen; but she was never married to him. The marriage was not to take place unless certain conditions were complied with by Anne's father, the Earl of Warwick. The conditions were not fulfilled, and the contract, ipso facto, was null and void.

[[34]] Rous, p. 215. 'Durante vita sua incarceravit.' The Countess out-lived Richard III.

[[35]] Paston Letters, iii. p. 92.

[[36]] Mr. Gairdner quotes a letter from William Dengayn to William Calthorp (Third Report of Hist. MSS. Commission, p. 272), from which it appears that the Countess of Warwick was actually with the Duke of Gloucester in June 1473.—Gairdner's Richard III. p. 27 (n).

[[37]] Rot. Parl. vi. 124.

[[38]] Gloucester was in London at the opening of Parliament on January 16, 1478; but there is no evidence where he was in February, the month of Clarence's death. He was certainly at Middleham in March. Mr. Gairdner pronounces Gloucester 'guiltless of his brother's death' (p. 40).

[[39]] Morton did this so successfully that his imitators soon began to make a direct accusation. The slander grew and prospered until at last we find the following passage in Sandford: 'He was drowned in a butt of malmsey, his brother the Duke of Gloucester assisting thereat with his own proper hands!' He refers to Hall, p. 246.—Genealogical History (London, 1707), p. 438.