Cassell's History of England, Vol. 2 (of 8) / From the Wars of the Roses to the Great Rebellion

by Anonymous

GREAT SEAL OF EDWARD V.

Meanwhile, London was thrown into the utmost dismay and confusion. Many of the nobles and citizens flew to arms, and some flocked to the queen at Westminster, and others to Lord Hastings in London. Hastings continued to assure them that there was no cause of alarm; that Gloucester was a true man; and he was most likely the more ready to believe this himself from his own dislike of the queen's family.

On the 4th of May Gloucester conducted his royal captive into the capital. At Hornsey Park, the lord mayor and corporation, in scarlet, met the royal procession, followed by 400 citizens, all in violet. The Duke of Gloucester, habited, like his followers, in mourning, rode into the city before the king, with his cap in hand, bowing low to the people, and pointing out to their notice the king, who rode in a mantle of purple velvet. Edward V. was first conducted to Ely Place, to the bishop's palace; but he was soon removed to the Tower, on the motion of the Duke of Buckingham, on pretence that it was the proper place in which to await his coronation. That ceremony Elizabeth and her council had ordered to take place this very day, but the crafty Gloucester prevented that by not arriving in time. He took up his quarters in Crosby Place, Bishopsgate, where one part of the council constantly sat, while another, but lesser portion of it, assembled with Lord Hastings and others in the Tower. The day of the coronation was then fixed for the 22nd of June, leaving an interval of nearly seven weeks in which the schemes of Gloucester might be perfected. The first object of this man had been to impress the queen and her party with his friendly disposition, till he had secured their persons; this being, in a great measure, effected, the next was to persuade the public of his loyalty to his nephew. For this purpose he conducted him with such state into the capital, and so assiduously pointed him out as their king to the people. To have openly proclaimed his designs upon the crown would have united all parties against him. He averted that by his calling on all men to swear fealty to his nephew, and by first swearing it himself. Having now procured full possession of the king's person, the next step was to secure that of his younger brother, without which his plans would all be vain. He was surrendered by the queen, and also placed in the Tower.

EDWARD V.

The victims were secured. Gloucester had feigned himself a kind relation till he had got them into prison; now he yearned to put forth his claws and devour them. But for this it required that the public should be duly prepared. His followers, and especially his imbecile tool, Buckingham, busily spread through town and country reports of the most terrible plots on the part of the queen and her friends to destroy Gloucester, Buckingham, and other great lords, in order that she and her family might have the king, and through him, the whole government, in their power. They exhibited quantities of arms, which they declared the queen's party had secreted in order to destroy Gloucester and the other patriotic lords, as they pleased to represent them. This did not fail to produce its effect on the people without, and it was promptly followed up by a picture of treason in the very council.

Lord Stanley, who was sincerely attached to Edward IV.'s family, had often expressed his suspicions of what was going on at Crosby Hall; but Hastings had replied, that he had a trusty agent there who informed him of all that passed. But Hastings, who had been completely duped by Gloucester, had been unconsciously playing into his hands, till his own turn came. While he imagined that Richard was punishing the assumption of the queen and her relations, the latter was preparing the bloody acts of one of the most daring dramas of historic crime ever acted before the world. Richard, no doubt, had thought Hastings ready to go the whole way with him. At this crisis, however, he became aware that he was an honest though misguided man, who would stand staunchly by his young sovereign, and must therefore be removed. The tyrant was now beginning to feel secure of his object, and prepared to seize it at whatever cost of crime and infamy. Accordingly, on the 13th of June, says Sir Thomas More, he came into the council about nine in the morning, "in a very merry humour. After a little talking with them, he said to the Bishop of Ely, 'My lord, you have very good strawberries in your garden in Holborn: I request you let us have a mess of them.' 'Gladly, my lord,' quoth he; 'would to God I had some better things as ready to your pleasure as that!' and then, with all haste, he sent his servant for a mess of strawberries. The protector set the lords fast in communing, and thereupon praying them to spare him a little while, departed thence, and, soon after one hour, between ten and eleven, he returned into the chamber amongst them all, changed, with a wonderful sour, angry countenance, knitting his brows, frowning and fretting, gnawing on his lips, and so sat him down in his place. Soon after he asked, 'What those persons deserved who had compassed and imagined his destruction.' Lord Hastings answered that they deserved death, whoever they might be; and then Richard affirmed that they were that sorceress, his brother's wife (meaning the queen), with others with her; 'and,' said the protector, 'we shall see in what wise that sorceress, and that other witch of her councils, Shore's wife, with their affinity, have by their sorcery and witchcraft wasted my body.' So saying, he plucked up his doublet sleeve to his elbow upon his left arm, where the arm appeared to be withered and small, as it was never other." He then included Hastings in the charge. The unfortunate man was hurried out by the armed ruffians of the tyrant, and scarcely allowing him time to confess to the first priest that came to hand, they made use of a log which accidentally lay on the green at the door of the chapel, and beheaded him at once. Lord Stanley, the Archbishop of York, and the Bishop of Ely, were kept close prisoners in the Tower. Shortly afterwards the queen's brother and son, Earl Rivers and Lord Grey, were executed at Pontefract.

The united troops of Gloucester and Buckingham, to the amount of 20,000, now held the metropolis in subjection; the terror of the protector's deeds enchained it still more. On the following Sunday, June 22nd, the day which had been fixed for the coronation, instead of that ceremony taking place, a priest was found base enough—tyrants never fail of such tools—to ascend St. Paul's Cross, and preach from this text, from the Book of Wisdom, "Bastard slips shall not strike deep root."

This despicable man was one Dr. Shaw, brother of the Lord Mayor. He drew a broad picture of the licentious life of Edward IV., and asserted that his mode of destroying such ladies as he found unwilling to incur dishonour was to promise them marriage, and occasionally to go through a mock or real ceremony with them. He declared that Edward had thus, in the commencement of his reign, really contracted a marriage with the Lady Eleanor Butler, the widow of Lord Butler, of Sudeley, and daughter of the Earl of Shrewsbury; that he afterwards contracted a private and illegal marriage with Elizabeth Woodville, which, however it might be real and legal in other respects, was altogether invalid and impossible, from the fact that Edward was already married to Lady Butler. Hence he contended that Elizabeth Woodville, though acknowledged by Parliament, was, in reality, nothing more than a concubine; that she and the king had been living in open and scandalous adultery; and that, of consequence, the whole of their children were illegitimate, and the sons incapable of wearing the crown.