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

by Sir Clements R. Markham

CHAPTER III

FURTHER CHARGES AGAINST RICHARD III

7. Execution of Hastings.
8. Execution of Rivers, Vaughan, Grey, and Haute.
9. The 'Usurpation.'
10. Refusal of Buckingham's petition.
11. Second coronation at York.
12. Poisoning of his wife.
13. Intended marriage with Elizabeth of York.
14. Intended execution of Lord Strange.

The most elaborate and detailed part of the indictment against Richard III. refers to the so-called 'usurpation,' including the period from his arrival in London to his coronation. The events of the interregnum had to be represented in such a way as that it should appear that Henry Tudor was righteously superseding an unscrupulous usurper. This was a matter of vital importance to the intruding dynasty. Accordingly much art was devoted to the preparation of a plausible story, while careful but not always effectual efforts were made to destroy all documents that would contradict it.

Archbishop Morton

The portion of the history published by Grafton and Rastell was undoubtedly written or dictated by John Morton himself. It is on Morton's story that all subsequent historians have relied for their facts; and as it is on this period that the whole career of Richard as a sovereign hinges, it is necessary that we should bear in mind what manner of man this Morton really was. He was born at Beer Regis in Dorsetshire, but the year is very uncertain, and he received his first instruction at Cerne Abbey. Thence he proceeded to Oxford, and began life as a lawyer, practising in the Court of Arches. He became a Master in Chancery, increasing his income by taking orders, and was Parson of Bloxworth in Dorsetshire. He took the Lancastrian side, and was at York when the battle of Towton was fought. In 1462 he fled to the Continent with Queen Margaret. His fortunes were then at a low ebb, but they brightened when the Earl of Warwick came to France to betray the cause of Edward IV. Morton attached himself to Warwick at Angers, went with him to England in August 1470, escaped from Barnet to join Queen Margaret at Weymouth, and was with her at Tewkesbury. Nothing but ill luck had attended his fortunes since he had joined the Lancastrian party. So he changed sides, obtained a pardon from Edward IV. and wormed himself into that good-natured monarch's confidence. He became one of the greatest pluralists on record. 'He was avaricious and grasping.'[[1]] He received a bribe from Louis XI. for inducing his own sovereign to accept dishonourable terms of peace, and was further bribed with a pension of 2,000 crowns a year.[[2]] The contrast between the upright conduct of the Duke of Gloucester and his own corrupt practices on that occasion explains the wily priest's malignant hostility to Richard. Morton was made Bishop of Ely in 1479. On the death of Edward he saw a wide opening for his ambition in the chances of a long minority. The facts revealed to the Council by Bishop Stillington were, consequently, distasteful to him. He was the heart and soul of the conspiracy of Hastings and the Woodville faction against the Protector. He brought Hastings to his death, but escaped himself. The incorrigible plotter was entrusted to the custody of the Duke of Buckingham. By his cunning artifices he induced that weak nobleman to become a traitor, and claim the crown for himself. He led Buckingham to his death; but secured his own safety. He then joined Henry Tudor's conspiracy, and it was doubtless through Morton's advice that the Welsh adventurer put forward a claim to the crown. Success at length attended the intriguer's schemes. Henry VII. made him Chancellor in 1486, Archbishop of Canterbury in 1487, and, after much importunity, a cardinal's hat was obtained for him, from the Borgian Pope.[[3]] He became enormously rich. He revealed to Henry VII. 'the confessions of as many lords as his grace listed.'[[4]] He was one of the most odious instruments of Henry's extortions. The argument that those who spent little must have saved much, and that those who spent much must have much, was called 'Morton's fork.'[[5]] He died in 1500, hated and execrated by all ranks of the people.

This is the man from whom history derives the narrative of Richard's accession. We must remember the circumstances in which he wrote or dictated his version. He was then Archbishop of Canterbury under Henry VII. He had to traduce Richard in the interests of his master, and at the same time he had to conceal from Henry himself certain parts of his own proceedings, especially as regards his intrigue with Buckingham.

Morton's misrepresentations

Morton was most unscrupulous in fabricating his story, throwing out misleading insinuations, garbling and suppressing facts, making false statements, and altering dates. He was a leading actor in, and an eyewitness of what he described, he was an able and clever man, and he was intimately acquainted with the facts as they really happened. Moreover, we are informed by Sir Thomas More, who knew him, that he had an extraordinary memory.[[6]] Consequently every mistake that is detected in his narrative, every date that is altered, must have been inserted with a special object. It is fortunate for the cause of truth that he was more careless, and wrote in greater detail, than he certainly would have done, if there had been any chance of an answer being put forward by one equally conversant with the facts. But he knew that he was safe—power unscrupulously enforced was on his side.

Morton opens his case with the assumption that the Duke of Gloucester had always intended to supplant his nephew. He asserts that the Duke concerted plans with Buckingham and Hastings against the Queen and her relations; that he then, secretly, and by divers means, caused the Queen to be persuaded to advise her son not to come with a large force to London; and that he and other lords wrote to the Queen's friends so lovingly that they, nothing mistrusting, brought the young prince up in good speed with sober company. Gloucester and Buckingham then went to Northampton and met Rivers there. For all that appears in this part of the narrative, Gloucester was in London, and came thence with Buckingham to Northampton. Gloucester was really in the marches of Scotland, and he could not possibly have carried on all these intrigues at that distance, between April 9 when King Edward died and the 23rd when Rivers left Ludlow. He could not even have heard of the King's death for several days. It is true that, towards the end of his lampoon, when telling his story about an alleged quarrel between Gloucester and Buckingham, Morton does mention the Duke being at York, and Buckingham having sent a messenger to him who met him at Nottingham.[[7]] But this messenger could not have been the channel of all the intrigues he describes. There was no time.

The Duke may have received some hasty notice from a messenger, but the first real news of what had been going on in London came from Buckingham at Northampton.

Morton's story about Gloucester's intrigues at this time is therefore a fabrication. The truth is exactly the reverse of Morton's version. Richard's conduct was straightforward and loyal. After attending solemn obsequies of his brother in York Minster, he called on the nobility and gentry of Yorkshire to swear allegiance to his young nephew. When he arrived in London, he ordered preparations to be made for his nephew's coronation, and he sent summonses to forty esquires to receive knighthood of the Bath on the occasion.[[8]] He also caused the dresses to be worn by his nephew at his coronation to be got ready.[[9]] These acts were well known to Morton, who passed them over in silence, because they would tend to give a true impression, where he wanted to leave a false one.

Having thus raised a prejudice against the Protector, Morton's next object was to instil a belief that Hastings worked against the Woodvilles throughout in concert with Richard. In order to create this impression he gives two false dates. He makes young Richard leave sanctuary on June 9. The true date was the 16th.[[10]] He asserts that Lord Rivers was beheaded on June 13, the very day of the arrest of Hastings, and he makes a great point of it, observing as a striking coincidence that Hastings suffered death on the self-same day and about the self-same hour as Rivers whose execution he had approved.[[11]] He knew this to be false. Rivers made his will on the 23rd, and was not beheaded until the 25th.[[12]] Morton had a motive for falsifying the dates, and it is obvious. He wanted it to appear that Hastings was an enemy of the Woodville faction to the end, that he was a party to the removal of young Richard from sanctuary and to the execution of Rivers. But why? Clearly because Hastings was not an enemy of the Woodvilles to the end, because he had, with Morton and others, formed a coalition with them, and entered into a conspiracy with them against the Protector. It was important to conceal this, because it justified the Protector's action against Hastings; and Morton did so by resorting to a falsification of dates. He then proceeds to enter into minute details, in describing the scene when Hastings was arrested on Friday, June 13.

Morton makes the Protector ask him for a mess of strawberries from his garden at Holborn. He then alleges that Gloucester suddenly altered his tone, accused the Queen-Dowager of witchcraft, displayed a withered arm as having been injured by sorcery, upbraided Hastings for having Jane Shore as a mistress, and ordered Hastings to be beheaded on a log of wood before dinner. We are also informed that Master William Catesby made the mischief between the Protector and the Lord Chamberlain, and that a proclamation was issued setting forth the cause of the execution of Hastings.

These details enable us to obtain some glimmering of the truth. We have the reminiscences of an eyewitness, who was also a schemer so dealing with the facts as to leave false impressions clothed in the similitude of veracious recollections. The tale of the strawberries is doubtless true, and is a masterly touch designed to give an air of reality to the scene. The withered arm is a fabrication intended to conceal the real charge made by the Protector. That charge was contained in the proclamation which Morton mentions as having been well indited and written on parchment. He professes to give the substance of it. The seeker after truth would very much prefer the original text. But it was destroyed. Its destruction is a strong presumption in favour of the Protector, and justifies the conclusion that the real charge was a serious one. It is incredible that Catesby merely revealed the nonsense about Jane Shore's sorcery. Morton has inserted this rubbish in order to conceal the real charge made by the Protector. Morton further tells us that 'Shore's wife was of all women the one the Queen most hated,' and that she was the mistress of Hastings. She was really the mistress of Dorset,[[13]] the Queen's son, and the motive for bringing in the Queen's alleged hatred, in this place, is to conceal the real position of Jane Shore, which was that of a secret agent between the party of the Woodvilles and Hastings.

The fullness of Morton's details defeats his object. He draws attention to the truth which he elaborately endeavours to hide. We are thus enabled to deduce from the garrulity of the designing priest the facts that, probably through his prompting, Hastings had formed a coalition with the Queen-Dowager and her party against the Protector, and that the negotiation had been conducted through Jane Shore as intermediary. We learn that Catesby revealed the plot to the Protector, who promptly arrested Hastings, and brought a charge of treason against him.

Falsification of dates

Morton would have us believe that Hastings was beheaded on the spot without trial. This version of the story is also told by Fabyan, and adopted by Polydore Virgil. It was told to the second Croyland monk, who wrote that Hastings was beheaded on June 13.[[14]] It was a version industriously spread by Morton, as a charge of lawless cruelty and indecent haste against the Protector. It can be proved to be false.

Morton's story is that Hastings was hurried out of the council room and beheaded on a log of wood in the court of the Tower, that the Protector and Buckingham appeared to the citizens in rusty armour, pretending that they had been in mortal danger from Hastings, and that the Protector swore he would have the head of Hastings before he dined.

This is a grossly improbable story on the face of it; but Bishop Morton, on the accession of Henry VII., was evidently very anxious that it should be accepted, for he must have given it publicity at a very early date. It was supplied to the credulous old Croyland monk, and was accepted by Fabyan, who must have known it to be false, with such zeal that he added a few extra touches to the story. Fabyan was a citizen of London and knew the truth. Yet he clearly implies that the delivery of young Richard and the execution of Rivers took place before the arrest of Hastings, adopting the falsifications of Morton. He also falsified dates in order to reconcile the alleged date of the execution of Hastings with other events, following Morton in this also. This justifies the conclusion that Fabyan and Morton were in collusion; for they both were aware of the truth from personal knowledge, and they both perverted it in the same way.[[15]]

There is other testimony on this point which is quite above suspicion. Simon Stallworthe, a prebendary of Lincoln, wrote a letter from London to Sir William Stonor, a gentleman of Oxfordshire, on Saturday June 21, 1483,[[16]] in which he said that 'on Friday last was the Lord Chambleyn [Hastings] hedded sone after noon.' As Saturday was the 21st, Friday last was the 20th. We here have evidence that Lord Hastings was not beheaded until a week after his arrest and, as there was no indecent haste, we may assume that there was a trial and sentence by a proper tribunal. The story of Morton about the hurried execution on the 13th, and the log of wood, is therefore false. It has been suggested that when Stallworthe wrote 'Friday last,' he did not mean Friday last, but the Friday before Friday last. This theory is exploded by the very next line in Stallworthe's letter. He there says that 'on Monday last' young Richard came out of sanctuary. This is certainly the correct date. But it contradicts both Morton and Fabyan, though it is corroborated by the Croyland Chronicle. If 'Monday last' meant 'Monday last,' 'Friday last' must be taken to mean 'Friday last' in Stallworthe's letter, and not any other date that the exigencies of calumniators may require.

The evidence that the story of the hasty execution of Hastings is false does not rest solely on Stallworthe's letter. Morton and Fabyan are convicted out of their own mouths.

This is a point which should be clearly understood. It must be borne in mind that we have certain fixed dates. Hastings was certainly arrested on June 13. It is also certain that Thursday, June 26, was the date of Richard's accession: it is fixed by the year book. Dr. Shaw's sermon was preached on the previous Sunday, that is June 22. Fabyan, as well as Stallworthe, tells us that the execution of Hastings took place on the previous Friday. These are fixed beacons, and will lead us to the truth. They will also enable us to detect the false lights thrown out by Morton and Fabyan. They both knew the truth well, but they had to manipulate the dates so as to make it appear that Hastings was executed on the 13th. It must be borne in mind that, on Fabyan's own showing, the execution took place on the Friday before Shaw's sermon was preached.

In order to give a plausible appearance to the assertion that Hastings was beheaded on the 13th, Fabyan tried to get rid of the week between the 13th and the 20th. He thought he was bound to recognise the fact that the execution was on the Friday before Shaw's sermon, so he brought the sermon back a week too. But Shaw's sermon was well known to have been preached on the Sunday before the accession. So he had to move back the accession also, and he placed it on June 20. Here Fabyan's dishonesty is detected, for the 20th was not a Thursday, and that the 26th was the date of the accession is beyond dispute.

Morton was, of course, in the same difficulty as regards his dates. But he was far better practised in the manipulation of evidence. Such an old hand would commit himself to dates as little as possible. He would fear them as a thief fears a detective. He gives only one, and he selects the right day of the week, which Fabyan did not. But this is quite enough to convict him. He chose the 19th for the day of Richard's accession with the very same object as Fabyan, to get rid of the gap between the 13th and the 20th; well knowing that the right date for the accession was the 26th.

We can now perceive the truth, both through the direct testimony of Stallworthe and through the detection of the dishonesty of Morton and Fabyan. Lord Hastings was arrested on June 13 on a charge of treason, tried and sentenced. He was executed, after a decent interval, on Friday, June 20. The admission of Morton that a proclamation was issued, announcing the details of the Hastings-Woodville conspiracy, is important. This document, and all others relating to the business, were destroyed in the same way as the Act of Parliament recording Richard's title was destroyed. The object of making away with the Act was to conceal the truth. The disappearance of all documents relating to the execution of Hastings can only be explained in the same way.

But what must we think of Morton and Fabyan, who are thus proved to have been guilty of such a fraud? Their evidence against Richard, on all other points, must be held to be utterly worthless.

Trial of Rivers

The trial of Lord Rivers, with Grey, Vaughan and Haute, followed on that of Hastings. They had been charged with treasonable designs, immediately after the death of King Edward, on the very clearest evidence. But the long delay in bringing them to trial justifies the belief that their capital punishment was not intended, if fresh charges had not been brought against them, arising out of the Hastings conspiracy. Morton brings forward the same accusation in their case, and he gives a false date for their execution. He would have us believe that Rivers and his companions were also put to death 'without so much as the formality of a trial.' So he appears to have told the second Croyland monk. But his untruthfulness is exposed by the evidence of another Tudor witness. Rous inadvertently let out the truth, not knowing there was any reason for concealing it. He certainly did not do so out of any good will for King Richard. There was a trial and the Earl of Northumberland presided at it. He was not the sole judge, but the President acting with other judges.[[17]] He probably sat as a Commissioner to execute the office of Lord Steward, with a jury of northern Peers, to try Rivers. Morton falsified the date of the executions, making them earlier by twelve days. One object of this falsification has already been pointed out. It also served to indicate such haste in the executions as would make the absence of any trial appear probable.

The overt acts of Rivers and his associates show that their condemnation was just; and their punishment was necessary for the safety and tranquillity of the country. It was a righteous retribution for the death of Clarence, by whose fall the Woodvilles had so largely profited.

Morton next proceeds to falsify the title of King Richard III. to the crown. This point is of great importance and merits close attention. The statement of Richard's title to the crown was drawn up, and adopted by the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons, after considering all the evidence between June 8 and 25. The document was afterwards embodied in an Act of Parliament entitled the 'Titulus Regius,' with which the writers employed by Henry VII. must have been well acquainted. When Henry came to the throne, he ordered this Act to be repealed without quoting the preamble, with a view to its purport being concealed. He caused it to be destroyed, and threatened any one who kept a copy with fine and imprisonment during his pleasure. The reason he gave for this was that 'all things in the said Act may be forgot.' In spite of this threat the truth was told by the Croyland monk, but his chronicle remained in manuscript, and he was not found out. Henry's conduct affords a strong presumption that the title was valid. But he did more. He granted an illusory pardon to Bishop Stillington, who was the principal witness to the truth of the main statement in the 'Titulus Regius.' This was done with the object of keeping silence on the subject of his real offence, which was telling the truth. Henry then arrested him on another trumped up charge, and kept him in close and solitary imprisonment in Windsor Castle until his death in June 1491.

These proceedings show the immense importance attached by Henry VII. to a suppression of the truth relating to Richard's title to the crown. It is certain that if the alleged previous contract with Lady Eleanor Butler was false, the falsehood would have been eagerly exposed, and there would have been no occasion to invent any other story. On the other hand, if the alleged previous contract was true, the evidence would have been suppressed and another story would have been invented and promulgated. The evidence was suppressed, and a different tale was put forward. The conclusion is inevitable that the previous contract of Edward IV. with Lady Eleanor Butler was a fact.

The true claim to the Crown

By a mere accident the original draft of the 'Titulus Regius' was not destroyed. It was discovered long afterwards among the Tower records. Its tenor was given in the continuation of the Croyland Chronicle.[[18]] Richard's title rested on the statement that Edward IV. was already married to Lady Eleanor Butler, a daughter of the first Earl of Shrewsbury,[[19]] when he went through the ceremony with Lady Grey. It is certain, therefore, that this and this only was the statement made in inspired sermons and speeches at the time; for it was the official case of those who advocated Richard's accession. It is impossible that one ground for the claim should have been put forward officially, and another which was not only different but contradictory, in the sermons and speeches directed to be made at the same time.

Now all this was well known to Morton, and to Polydore Virgil, when they concocted their stories. They had free access to all official sources of information. But they clearly believed that the evidence had been so effectually placed out of reach, that it was safe for them to adopt what tale they chose. They, therefore, stated that Dr. Shaw preached a sermon at Paul's Cross on June 22, in which he calumniated the Duchess of York by maintaining that Edward IV. and Clarence were her children by some other man, and that Gloucester was the only legitimate son of the Duke her husband. The object was to throw the reader off the scent respecting Edward's own connubial proceedings, by bringing an infamous and very absurd charge against his mother. This is clearly the line that Polydore Virgil was instructed to take, for he alludes to the common report that Edward's children were called bastards, and declares it to be 'void of all truth,' that there was such a report. He goes further, alleging that the Duchess of York complained of the injury done her, and that Dr. Shaw died of sorrow for having uttered the slander.[[20]] With the 'Titulus Regius' before us, it will be allowed that this witness did not stick at trifles.

Morton's fabrications

But Morton was not to be outdone by the Italian. He puts the slander about the Duchess of York into Dr. Shaw's mouth, and he also makes the preacher tell another tale which would make bastards of Edward's children. According to Polydore Virgil the report that the preacher made bastards of Edward's children was 'voyd of all truthe.' According to Morton the preacher said that Edward was previously married to a woman named Lucy. It will be seen that these authorities contradict each other. Morton proceeds to knock down his own ninepin, by telling us that Lucy confessed she was never married to the King. No one but Morton ever said she was.

Morton farther alleged that when Edward IV. proposed to marry the widow of Sir J. Grey he was opposed by his mother, who represented that he was already contracted before God to Elizabeth Lucy. Morton knew perfectly well that this never happened, and that Edward went through a marriage ceremony with Lady Grey without the knowledge of his mother or any one else. He has only introduced the name of Elizabeth Lucy as a herring drawn across the scent. His great object was to conceal the name of Lady Eleanor Butler.

The absurdity of Morton's fabrications respecting the woman Lucy will be appreciated when we remember that she actually had two children by Edward IV.[[21]] We are asked to believe that Dr. Shaw, in preaching a sermon in support of Richard's right to the throne, put forward a statement which, if true, would make two children legitimate, whose legitimacy would at once bar any claim on the part of Richard.

These misrepresentations discredit the authority of Polydore Virgil and Morton. Of course there can be no doubt that Dr. Shaw in his sermon, if indeed he ever preached it, and the Duke of Buckingham if he ever made a speech at the Guildhall, simply explained to the people the contents of the petition stating Richard's title, which was about to be presented to him: namely that Edward IV. was previously contracted to the Lady Eleanor Butler, and that the children by Lady Grey were consequently illegitimate. The invention of the infamous slander against the Duchess of York by Morton and Polydore Virgil, the careful exclusion of Lady Eleanor's name and of any allusion to her, and the elaborate efforts of Henry VII. to destroy all traces of the evidence are very significant. They amount to a proof that the Butler contract was a reality, and that (if the children of Clarence were incapacitated by their father's attainder) King Richard's title was sound and just.

The Croyland monk and Rous do not mention Dr. Shaw's sermon. Fabyan tells us that the preacher stated that King Edward's children were not legitimate, thus contradicting Polydore Virgil, who declares that the preacher never made any such allegation. But Fabyan does not mention the slander against the Duchess of York. This is a further proof that it was invented by Morton. Virgil, in adopting it, had, however, been instructed to avoid all allusion to Edward's own matrimonial affairs.

Having misrepresented Dr. Shaw's sermon on Sunday the 22nd, Morton goes on to say that on the following Tuesday the Duke of Buckingham went to the Guildhall and made a speech to the people. On Wednesday, according to Morton, the Lord Mayor and aldermen came to Baynard's Castle, with Buckingham and divers noblemen, besides many knights and gentlemen.

This is another falsification of dates made as usual with a purpose. Nothing really happened on Wednesday. On Thursday the 26th, Morton says that Richard III. went to Westminster Hall in royal state. What Morton has done is to transfer the events of Thursday to Wednesday, and to make as little as possible of them, in order to draw off attention from a very momentous event. No one would gather from Morton's narrative that on Thursday, June 26, the Convention Parliament, as it would have been called in later days, consisting of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and the Commons, which had been summoned for the 25th and actually met, proceeded to Crosby Place with the petition embodying Richard's title, and urged him to accept the crown.[[22]] Morton ignores all this, in order that his readers may be kept in ignorance of the solemn and deliberate proceedings which accompanied Richard's acceptance of the crown. Polydore Virgil does the same.

Buckingham's treason

We next come to the treason of the Duke of Buckingham. Its motive was misrepresented by Morton, with the object of creating a belief that the Duke advocated the cause of Henry Tudor. A long conversation between Buckingham and Morton at Brecknock is recorded by Grafton. It is very characteristic, and is no doubt authentic, so far as that it was written or communicated by Morton. But whether it ever took place as narrated is quite another matter. This conversation sets forth the arguments by which the mischievous old intriguer alleged that he induced Buckingham to rebel, and the pretended object of the insurrection.

It is asserted by Morton and Polydore Virgil that the cause of Buckingham's discontent was the refusal of Richard III. to grant him the moiety of the Bohun lands. It is added that Buckingham's suit was rejected by the King, with many spiteful words, and that there was ever afterwards hatred and distrust between them. This can be proved to be false. Richard granted Buckingham's petition, and made him a grant[[23]] of the lands under the royal sign manual, giving him the profits from the date of signature, until the formality was completed by authority of Parliament.

Buckingham and Morton

This story must have been fabricated to conceal the true motive of Buckingham's treason. He probably aspired to the throne as the next heir of the Plantagenets after Richard and his son, in accordance with the 'Titulus Regius.' He had himself concurred in declaring the children of Edward IV. to be illegitimate, and those of Clarence to be incapacitated. Next came Richard III. and his delicate son, of whom he would dispose if the rebellion was successful. He ignored the sisters of the King and their children.[[24]] This completed the descendants of the second son of Edward III. The legitimate descendants of the third son came to an end with Henry VI. Buckingham himself represented the fifth son of Edward III.

Assailed by the insidious flattery of Morton, he was prematurely hurried into a rash attempt which cost him his life. When Morton recorded the conversation with his victim many years afterwards, he was Archbishop of Canterbury, Henry VII. was King, and it was advisable, in order to gratify the new sovereign, that Richard should be accused of murdering his nephews, and that Buckingham should be made to give up the scheme for his own aggrandisement, in order to risk his life for the sake of an unknown adventurer in Brittany. It will be admitted that this is a grossly improbable story.

It is certainly astounding that the childish nonsense which Morton puts into Buckingham's mouth should have been gravely accepted as true by subsequent historians. We are first told that when Buckingham heard of the murder of the two innocents, to which he never agreed, he abhorred the sight of the King and could no longer abide with the Court. So he took his leave at Gloucester with a merry countenance but a despiteful heart. According to this, the murders took place in July, for Buckingham left Gloucester on August 1. The more detailed story directly contradicts Morton, and places the murders in the end of August. Both are false, but this is one out of many instances of the utter recklessness of these slanderers. Buckingham is then made to say that he stopped at Tewkesbury for two days to think. The result was that he came to the conclusion that he ought to be King, not on the ground of his descent from the fifth son of Edward III., but because his mother was a daughter of Edmund, Duke of Somerset. His mother was the fourth daughter of that Duke, who had not the remotest right to the throne, and never put forward a claim. If there had been such a claim, Buckingham would not have first found it out, by thinking for two days at Tewkesbury. After this mental effort he continued his journey towards Shrewsbury, and met Margaret Lady Stanley, the mother of Henry Tudor, on the road. She told him that she was the daughter of John Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, Edmund's elder brother. This, we are asked to believe, was quite a new idea to Buckingham. We are to suppose that he knew nothing about his relations before his cogitations at Tewkesbury and his chat with Lady Stanley, and that the receipt of the information made him give up his own ambitious plans altogether. He is made to propose to his fellow-traveller that her son should be king and that he should marry the eldest daughter of Edward IV. Buckingham, after examining the evidence, had just concurred in a solemn declaration that this daughter was illegitimate. But he now evolved from his inner consciousness the discovery that the evidence was derived from suborned witnesses. The Duke then took his leave of Margaret, and proceeded with Morton to Brecknock Castle. Margaret's steward, Reginald Bray, conveyed messages between the conspirators, and an insurrection was arranged. Morton acknowledges that he originally advised Buckingham himself to claim the crown at Brecknock, on which the Duke related the above wonderful story. To complete the absurdity of this childish romance, it must be remembered that Morton was travelling with Buckingham, all the way from Gloucester to Brecknock.

A man who could be guilty of fabricating such a fable is wholly unworthy of credit in his reckless accusations against King Richard, though his minute knowledge of the real facts renders any inadvertent admissions most important. Such are the statements that witnesses and other evidence were produced to establish the illegitimacy of King Edward's children,[[25]] and that Richard intended to treat his nephews with kindness and consideration.[[26]] But it is incredible that Buckingham should have contemplated the idea of setting his own claim aside for the sake of an obscure adventurer in Brittany who had no claim at all; while the pretence that Buckingham was horrified at the murder of the young princes contradicts Henry's own clumsy fable. The whole pretended conversation must have been an afterthought to please the Tudor usurper.

The second coronation

The next accusation against Richard refers to his conduct at York, and is derived from the second Croyland monk, who too readily accepted the gossip that was current when he wrote, and which was pleasing to the Tudor Government. It is alleged that Richard appropriated to his own use the treasure which his brother had amassed, and had committed to the care of his executors after his death. This statement, as Mr. Gairdner has shown,[[27]] is contrary to the fact. The whole property had been placed under ecclesiastical sequestration by the Archbishop of Canterbury, because the executors had declined to act, and no further steps had been taken. It was also stated, on the authority of the same Croyland monk, that Richard went through the ceremony of a second coronation at York.[[28]] The deduction intended to be drawn, and which often has been drawn, was that his title was so doubtful that he hoped a double coronation might strengthen it. But there was no second coronation at York. Nothing of the kind ever took place.

One is loth to refer to the malignant slander involved in the insinuation that King Richard poisoned his wife. Polydore Virgil says: 'But the Queen, whether she was despatched with sorrowfulness or poison, died within a few days after.' The wretched wasp of Guy's Cliff adds his sting: 'Dominam Annam reginam suam intoxicavit.'[[29]]

Richard and Anne were cousins, and companions from childhood. Their union had been a happy one in their hospitable Yorkshire home. In all the important events of his life Richard had always had the companionship of his wife. They had been together in sorrow and in joy. Anne's illness was a lingering decline, during which she was assiduously watched and cared for by her physicians, and by her sorrowing husband, who deeply mourned her loss. She was buried, as a Queen, in Westminster Abbey. It is true that no writer has done more than insinuate this calumny. But most of the Tudor slanders take the form of insinuations. 'It is a charge,' wrote Sir Harris Nicolas, 'which is deserving of attention for no other reason than as it affords a remarkable example of the manner in which ignorance and prejudice sometimes render what is called history more contemptible than a romance.' The same may be said of most of the Tudor stories about Richard III.

Elizabeth of York

The rumour that King Richard had an intention of marrying his illegitimate niece Elizabeth is unsustained by any evidence,[[30]] and is contrary to all probability. Such a project would have stultified the Act of Parliament on which his title to the crown was based. The King was a politician and was not entirely deprived of his senses. He could not have entertained an idea so absurd. But there is evidence that the scheme was favoured by the girl herself and her mother, and this fully accounts for the existence of the rumour. Their ages were suitable, the King being thirty-two and his niece in her twenty-first year; and in a letter to the Duke of Norfolk Elizabeth expressed a strong wish to become the wife of her uncle.[[31]] The Church of Rome granted, and still grants, dispensations for such marriages. But, be this how it may, Richard himself can never have contemplated a marriage with his niece. 'The whole tale,' says Sir Harris Nicolas, 'was invented with the view of blackening Richard's character, to gratify the monarch in whose reign all the contemporary writers who relate it flourished.' As soon as the rumour came to Richard's ears he publicly and emphatically denied its truth.

Intrigues of Lady Stanley

The Tudor writers tell various stories about Henry, while in Brittany, having promised to marry Elizabeth; and this is used as an argument that he must have believed her brothers to be dead, for if they were alive, there would be less object in the marriage. Looking at the source whence these stories come, there is no reason whatever for accepting them as true. They are derived from the apocryphal conversation between the Duke of Buckingham and the Bishop of Ely at Brecknock. In order to conceal the real object of Buckingham and his own duplicity, Morton, as has been seen, fabricated a story about his dupe having conspired with Henry Tudor's mother to set him up as a claimant to the crown, and a suitor for the hand of Elizabeth of York. It is likely enough that the intriguing wife of Stanley did conspire with Buckingham in the hope of advancing her son's interests, and that she opened negotiations with the Queen Dowager. Her design in the latter intrigue would be to secure the Woodville interest for supporting the contemplated rising. She despatched her steward Reginald Bray to Brecknock, her confessor Urswick to Brittany, and her doctor Lewis to Westminster Sanctuary. Her treacherous husband was feigning loyalty all the time, and was in zealous attendance on the King. She was found out and contemptuously forgiven by Richard. But the story of a contemplated marriage at that time between Henry Tudor and Elizabeth was an afterthought of Morton, at a time when Henry and Elizabeth were actually married. The story was repeated by Polydore Virgil, and retailed, with the customary embellishments, by Hall and Grafton.

It is scarcely necessary to notice the imputed intention of King Richard to avenge the treachery of Lord Stanley on his son Lord Strange, who was in the royal camp at the time of the battle of Bosworth. He remained unharmed. This is the fact. We are asked to believe that the King intended to behead him, but could not spare the time before the battle began. There was plenty of time, but no intention of using it for such a purpose. The proof of this is that Lord Strange was not injured. The evidence for the alleged intention to behead him rests solely on the assertions of men who wrote long afterwards, and the value of whose testimony we are now pretty well able to estimate.

[[1]] Hook, v. p. 409.

[[2]] He was then Master of the Rolls.

[[3]] Alexander VI., 1492-1503.

[[4]] Tyndale, The Practice of Prelates, p. 305. Parker Society.

[[5]] Lord Bacon, Henry VII.

[[6]] Utopia, p. 20.

[[7]] Morton was intimately acquainted with the real facts. He makes no mistakes. His mis-statements are all prepared designedly and with an object. He even knew the name of Buckingham's messenger, and that of Gloucester's servant to whom he applied for a secret interview with his master.—P. 134, ed. 1821.

[[8]] Ellis's Original Letters, second series, i. p. 147.

[[9]] Wardrobe Accounts.

[[10]] Stallworthe's letter of June 21 (Exc. Hist. pp. 14-10). The Croyland monk also gives the surrender of young Richard after the arrest of Hastings (p. 566).

[[11]] He misled Horace Walpole (p. 49), and Dr. Lingard (iv. p. 227) on this point. But Dr. Lingard was quite ready to continue in his error. His account is as follows:—'On the same day that Hastings suffered (and the time should be noticed) Ratcliffe entered Pomfret Castle at the head of a numerous body of armed men, seized Rivers, Grey and Vaughan, observed no judicial forms, and struck off the heads of the victims.' He calls the Yorkshire troops that came to London 'the ruffians who had murdered the prisoners at Pontefract.' This is not very temperate language. Dr. Lingard afterwards found that this was all wrong. But he would not alter his erroneous text. He merely added a note in a later edition, showing that he knew Rivers to have been still alive on the 23rd, and that Rous named the Earl of Northumberland as presiding at the trial. Yet he retains the assertion in the text that there were no judicial forms!

[[12]] Croyland, p. 567. Polydore Virgil gives the correct date; and the Croyland monk also places the execution of Rivers after the arrest of Hastings.

[[13]] Rymer, xii. p. 204.

[[14]] 13 die mensis Junii veniens in Turrim ad consilium, jussu Protectoris capite truncatus est.—Croyland Chron. Gale, i. 566.

[[15]] The Croyland Chronicler is quite free from suspicion of intentional falsification. He was informed that Hastings had been beheaded on the 13th, the day of his arrest, and he stated what he believed to be the fact. He, therefore, made no attempt to make this fit in with other events by falsifying dates, as was the course taken by Morton and Fabyan. The monk places the delivery of young Richard and the execution of Rivers in proper order of time, and gives the correct date for Richard's accession.

[[16]] Excerpt. Hist. p. 16.

[[17]] 'Eorum principalis judex.'—Rous, p. 213.

[[18]] Sir George Buck ascertained the truth through having access to the manuscript of the Croyland Chronicle. The writer simply mentions the pre-contract with Lady Eleanor Butler; but the Chronicle was not printed until 1084. Speed was the first to print the full text of the 'Titulus Regius' in his History of Great Britain, 1611.

[[19]] The first Earl of Shrewsbury had a large family by two wives, but the names of all his daughters have not been recorded. Dugdale mentions none. Collins gives Jane married to James Lord Berkeley. There were also Elizabeth wife of John Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk, and others, including Eleanor. Buck is mistaken in supposing that Eleanor's first husband was Sir Ralph Butler, Lord Sudeley. His wife was Alice Deincourt, and he was too old. Eleanor's husband may have been an unrecorded son of Ralph Butler, Lord Sudeley, who died when a young man before his father. She must have married Edward IV., when a widow, in or before 1464. She died at Norwich, and was buried in the church of the White Friars Carmelites.—Weever's Funeral Monuments, p. 805.

[[20]] Morton says that 'within few days after he withered and consumed away' (p. 103).

[[21]] I. Arthur was married to a daughter and heiress of Edward Grey, Viscount Lisle, the brother-in-law of Lady Grey. She was the widow of Edmund Dudley. In 1533 Arthur was created Viscount Lisle. He had three daughters, and from the second, Frances wife of John Basset of Umberleigh, co. Devon, General Monk was descended. Arthur Viscount Lisle died, without male heirs, in 1541.

II. Elizabeth wife of Thomas, eldest son of George Lord Lumley, who died before his father. From her descends the present Earl of Scarborough.

[[22]] Letter from King Richard to Lord Mountjoy.

[[23]] The text of the grant is given by Dugdale, with the King's signet and sign manual, given at his manor at Greenwich on July 13, 1483. A list of the manors follows.—Dugdale's Baronage, i. 168.

Mr. Gairdner argues that, in spite of this grant, the Duke had reason to doubt the fulfilment of the promise when Parliament met. I am unable to follow him. The King had done all that he possibly could do until Parliament met, and he had put his good faith and sincerity beyond doubt by giving Buckingham the profits beforehand, in anticipation of the approval of Parliament. What could he possibly do more? There was no shadow of a pretext for any such doubt on the part of Buckingham.—Gairdner's Richard III., p. 136.

[[24]] He also had to ignore the children of Henry Bourchier, Earl of Essex, by the Princess Isabel, a sister of Richard Duke of York.

[[25]] Morton, in Grafton, p. 126.

[[26]] Ibid. p. 127.

[[27]] Richard III. p. 146, quoting from Royal Wills, pp. 345-347.

[[28]] Rous, p. 217. Drake's Eborac. p. 117. The fable is fully exposed by Mr. Davies in his York Records.

[[29]] Rous.

[[30]] This rumour never reached Fabyan or Rous. It is mentioned by the Croyland monk.

[[31]] On the authority of Sir George Buck. His words are as follows:—'When February was past, the Lady Elizabeth, being more impatient and jealous of the success than every one knew or conceived, writes a letter to the Duke of Norfolk intimating first that he was the man in whom she most affied, in respect of that love her Father had ever borne him. Then she congratulates his many courtesies, in continuance of which she desires him to be a mediator for her to the King in the behalf of the marriage propounded between them, who, as she wrote, was her only joy and maker in the world, and that she was his in heart and thought, withal insinuating that the better part of February was past, and that she feared the Queen would never die. All these be her own words written with her own hand, and this is the sum of her letter, which remaineth in the autograph or original draft under her own hand, in the magnificent cabinet of Thomas Earl of Arundel and Surrey.' (Buck, p. 128.)

Sir Harris Nicolas (Privy Purse Expenses of Elizabeth of York, p. 1), as an admirer of Elizabeth of York, was much troubled by this letter. He attacked Sir George Buck as 'one whose violent prejudices do not sufficiently account for the mendacity for which his work is remarkable.' But this is unjust. Buck no doubt was prejudiced, but not more so than the Tudor chroniclers. He blunders and is uncritical, yet there is no reason to impugn his good faith. Nor did Sir Harris Nicolas himself think that the case was sufficiently disposed of by abusing Sir George Buck. He made various attempts to explain away the letter, but none satisfactory or even plausible. Dr. Lingard did not doubt the authenticity of the letter (v. pp. 355-359, ed. 1823, iv. p. 252, ed. 1849). It is not now known to exist, but that proves nothing if Buck wrote in good faith.

Mr. Gairdner approaches the subject more calmly. 'Positive testimony like this,' he says, 'is not to be lightly set aside as incredible. Yet Buck, if not altogether dishonest (and I see no reason to think him so), was certainly by no means an impartial historian. At the same time Buck's abstract of the letter is very minute, and such as would seem to follow pretty closely the turns of expression in a genuine original, and he expressly declares the manuscript to be an autograph or original draft. If it be not a forgery palmed off upon Buck himself, I am inclined to think it was written, not by Elizabeth, but by her mother who bore the same Christian name. Every word might just as well have come from her, except the mention of the father, which may be a mistake; and there is nothing inconceivable in her anxiety that Richard should marry her daughter.' He adds 'that Elizabeth could have been eager to obtain the hand of her brother's murderer is really too monstrous to be believed.' Why then is it not 'too monstrous to be believed' that the mother should have been eager to obtain the hand of her son's murderer for her daughter? It is clear that the grounds for accepting the letter are too strong for Mr. Gairdner to be able to reject them. Yet that Elizabeth should wish to marry her brother's murderer appears incredible to him. The conclusion is inevitable. Richard was not her brother's murderer, if the letter was authentic (see Gairdner's Life of Richard III. pp. 256-257, and note p. 257).