A History of England, Period I. Mediæval Monarchy

by J. Franck Bright

His strong position.

Having once secured the throne, the object of Richard seems to have been to heal, as far as possible, the wounds that the war had made. John Lord Howard was the one of his followers whose reward was the most striking. His mother having been a Mowbray, he was made Duke of Norfolk and hereditary Marshal of England. The prisoners the King had taken, in company with Hastings, were released, and with strange and rash magnanimity, Stanley was given the office of Constable of England, while Morton of Ely, an old Lancastrian, whose influence he seems to have underrated, was sent to reside in a castle in the West of England. He even caused the body of Henry VI. to be removed from Chertsey Abbey to Windsor, as though the breach between the families was healed. The King was crowned in London, and then proceeded to make a progress through England. He had every reason to think his position was a good one. The people everywhere received him with a fair show of good-will. In York, where he was a second time crowned, his reception was enthusiastic. His foreign relations were also promising. It is true that the recognition of France was somewhat brief and grudging; but with the young Philip of Burgundy there was an amicable correspondence; while Queen Isabella of Castile congratulated him heartily on having removed the stain of his brother’s degrading marriage, and desired a close alliance with him against France, the chief reason perhaps of her show of affection.

Weak points in it.

Disaffection in the South.

But, though all at first seemed so promising, Richard soon learnt that it was not for him to pass unopposed into the position of a peaceful governor of a united England. The injury he had done the memory of his late brother, the cold-heartedness with which he had pushed aside the nephew of whom he was the guardian, and who with his brother was kept in secret confinement in the Tower, revived the old affection with which the South of England had regarded Edward IV. Moreover, the Queen’s party was not destroyed, while Richard’s own generosity had left at liberty supporters of the old state of affairs. Consequently the whole South of England, from Kent to Devonshire, showed signs of an intended insurrection.

Death of the Princes.

It was just at this moment, and perhaps in the hope of removing those around whom disaffection might centre, that the King caused the report to be spread that the young Princes had disappeared from the Tower. It is needless to enter into a discussion as to their fate. The picturesque story which represents them as smothered beneath their bedclothes is the creation of the next age. Indeed, the popular view of the events of this reign and of the character of Richard is derived almost wholly from Sir Thomas More’s life of him. All that contemporary writers mention is that the Princes disappeared, and were probably killed. Comines, the French historian, an excellent observer, says simply that Richard had the Princes killed in the Tower. And the fact that all those who had the charge of them, even down to Forest, the warden, were rewarded, makes it almost impossible that this should not have been the case.

Projected marriage of Elizabeth and Richmond.

Defection of Buckingham.

The effect was not what Richard expected. The friends of his late brother and of the Queen became still more anxious to preserve the old stock, and, probably at the suggestion of Morton, a Lancastrian who had found favour in Richard’s sight, the project of a marriage between Edward’s daughter Elizabeth and the young Richmond began to be discussed. The conspiracy soon proved to be very widespread, and it must have been a terrible surprise to Richard to hear that his chief friend and accomplice, Buckingham, had declared for the house of Lancaster. That nobleman’s motives are not clear, but he probably found that the party of the old nobility, of which he was the leader, was no better off under Richard than it had been under Edward. Like other men of a tyrannical turn of mind, Richard had found his chief support in obsequious followers, and Ratcliffe, Catesby, and Lovel were his real advisers and friends. The Duke, therefore, an unprincipled and very ambitious man, thought he saw his advantage in becoming a principal agent in the restoration of the exiled house. It is probable, also, that the influence and skill of Morton, with whom he had been in communication, may have had something to do with it.