CHAPTER III.
EDWARD V. AND RICHARD III.
Edward V. Proclaimed—The Two Parties of the Queen and of Gloucester—Struggle in the Council—Gloucester's Plans—The Earl Rivers and his Friends imprisoned—Gloucester secures the King and conducts him to London—Indignities to the young King—Execution of Lord Hastings—A Base Sermon at St. Paul's Cross—Gloucester pronounces the two young Princes illegitimate—The Farce at the Guildhall—Gloucester seizes the Crown—Richard crowned in London and again at York—Buckingham revolts against him—Murder of the Two Princes—Henry of Richmond—Failure of Buckingham's Rising—Buckingham beheaded—Richard's Title confirmed by Parliament—Queen Dowager and her Daughters quit the Sanctuary—Death of Richard's Son and Heir—Proposes to marry his Niece, Elizabeth of York—Richmond lands at Milford Haven—His Progress—The Troubles of Richard—The Battle of Bosworth—The Fallen Tyrant—End of the Wars of the Roses.
By the death of Edward IV. England was destined once more to witness all the inconveniences which attend the minority of a king. Edward V. was a boy of only thirteen. His mother and her family had made themselves many enemies and few friends by their undisguised ambition and cupidity. The Greys and Woodvilles had been lifted above the heads of the greatest members of the aristocracy, enriched with the estates, and clothed with the honours of ancient houses. They had been posted round the throne as if to keep aloof all other candidates for favour and promotion. At the time of the death of Edward IV., Richard of Gloucester was in the North, attending to his duties as commander against the army in the Scottish marches. He immediately commenced his proceedings with that consummate and hypocritical art of which he was a first-rate master. He at once put his retinue into deep mourning, and marched to York attended by 600 knights and esquires. There he ordered the obsequies of the departed king to be performed with all solemnity in the cathedral. He then summoned the nobility and gentry of the country to take the oath of allegiance to his nephew, Edward V., and he led the way by first taking it himself. He wrote to the queen-mother to condole with her on her loss, and to assure her of his zealous support of the rights of his beloved nephew. He expressed his ardent desire for the close friendship of the queen, of Earl Rivers, her brother, and of all her family. He announced his intention of proceeding towards London to attend the coronation, and if Elizabeth had not already known the man, she might have congratulated herself on the enjoyment of so affectionate a brother-in-law, and so brave and faithful a guardian of her son.
But there is every reason to believe that the same messenger who carried these letters of condolence and professed friendship to the queen, carried others of a different tone to a hostile section of her council. The Lords Howard, Hastings, and Stanley, though personal friends of the late king, and Hastings, the chosen confidant and associate of his pleasures, were at heart bitter enemies of the queen's family. It was only the authority of Edward which had maintained peace between them, and now they showed an undisguised hostility to them at the council-board. The Earl Rivers, the queen's brother, and the Marquis of Dorset, her son by her former marriage, occupied the chief seats at that board, and Edward was no stranger to their real sentiments. This knowledge had led him, on perceiving his health failing, to bring these rivals together, and to state to them how much it concerned his son's peace and security that they should forget all past causes of difference, and unite for that loyal purpose. This they promised, but only with the tongue. No sooner was the king dead, than all the old animosity and jealousy showed themselves in aggravated form.
Elizabeth now proposed that the young king should be brought up to town in order to be crowned, and that he should be attended by a strong body of soldiery for the safety of his person. At this, Hastings, who, in common with three-fourths of the nobility, was jealous of the design of the queen and her party to make themselves masters of the government during the king's minority, no longer concealed his real feelings. Edward had been kept on the borders of Wales, where the power of the Mortimers and the Yorkists lay. It was believed that the object was to give a preponderance to the royal family through the Welsh and the borderers; and now to march up to London, attended by a Welsh army, appeared a direct attempt to control the capital by these means. Hastings, therefore, warmly demanded—"What need of an army? Who were the enemies they had to dread? Was it the king's own uncle, Gloucester? Was it Lord Stanley, or himself? Was this force meant by the Woodvilles to put an end to all liberty in the council and the government, and thus to break the very union the king, on his death-bed, had pledged them to?" Hastings concluded his speech by hotly declaring that if the king was brought to London by an army, he would quit the council and the kingdom.
Deterred by this open opposition, Elizabeth yielded, and reduced the proposed guard to 2,000 cavalry. But she did it with deep and too well-founded anxiety. She had had too much opportunity of studying the character of Gloucester to trust him, and the event very soon justified her conviction. Secret messages had, during this interval, been passing between Gloucester and Hastings and the Duke of Buckingham, a weak man, descended from Thomas of Woodstock, the youngest son of Edward III. No doubt he had instructed them to defeat any measures of the Woodville family, which could leave the king in their hands. The moment was accurately calculated; and, accordingly, when the Lords Rivers and Grey, on their way to London with the young king, arrived at Stony Stratford, they found Gloucester had already reached Northampton, only ten miles from them. Gloucester had increased his forces on the way to a formidable body, and he was there joined by the Duke of Buckingham with 500 horse. The Lords Rivers and Grey, on learning the presence of Gloucester at Northampton, immediately rode over to him to welcome him in the king's name, and to consult with him on the plan of their united entrance into London. Gloucester received them with all the marks of that friendship which he had written to avow. They were invited to dine and spend the night, the Dukes of Gloucester and Buckingham promising to ride with them in the morning to pay their respects to the king. Morning appeared, and Gloucester and Buckingham set out with them in the best of humours. They rode in pleasant converse till, arriving at the entrance of Stony Stratford, Gloucester suddenly accused Rivers and Grey of having estranged the affections of the king from him. They denied the charge with as much vehemence as astonishment; but they were immediately arrested and conducted to the rear. Gloucester and Buckingham rode on to the king, where the two dukes humbly on their knees professed their loyalty and attachment. This they proceeded to make manifest by arresting also the king's faithful servants, Sir Thomas Vaughan and Sir Richard Hawse. In spite of the poor young king's entreaties, he led him away with him to Northampton, his relatives and friends, Rivers, Grey, Vaughan, and Hawse, following in the rear as prisoners. These prisoners of State were sent off by Gloucester, under a strong guard, to his castle of Pontefract—that blood-stained fortress, the very entrance to which, in bondage, was equivalent to a death-warrant.
At midnight following the very day of these transactions, being the 1st of May, the appalling tidings reached the court that Gloucester, followed by a large army, had seized the king, and sent prisoners the queen's brother and son no one knew whither. Struck with consternation, and deeply rueing her weakness in giving up her own plans of caution, the queen, hastily seizing her younger son by the hand, and followed by her daughters, rushed from the palace of Westminster to the Sanctuary, which had protected her before; but not against a person so base and deadly in his ruthless ambition as this her brother-in-law of Gloucester. She knew the man, and she dreaded everything. Her eldest son, Dorset, who was Keeper of the Tower, in his turn weakly abandoned that important stronghold, and also fled to the Sanctuary. Rotherham, the Archbishop of York and Chancellor of the realm, hastening thither, found the queen seated on the rushes with which the floors at that time were strewn, an image of abandonment and woe.