While in this situation, she wrote to her son Dorset,[R] at Paris, commanding him to put an end to the proposed marriage of her daughter Elizabeth to Henry of Richmond, "as she had given up," she said, "the plan of that alliance, and had formed other designs for the princess." Henry and his friends and partisans in Paris were indignant at receiving this letter, and the queen has been by many persons much blamed for having thus broken the engagement which she had so solemnly made. Others say that this letter to Paris was not her free act, but that it was extorted from her by Richard, who had her now completely in his power, and could, of course, easily find means to procure from her any writing that he might desire.
Whether the queen acted freely or not in this case can not certainly be known. At all events, Henry, and those who were acting with him at Paris, determined to regard the letter as written under constraint, and to go on with the maturing of their plans just as if it had never been written.
Richard's plan for the princess.
Elizabeth's views on the subject.
Richard's plan was, so it was said, to marry the Princess Elizabeth to his own son; for the death of his child, though it has been already once or twice alluded to, had not yet taken place. Richard's son was very young, being at that time about eleven years old; but the princess might be affianced to him, and the marriage consummated when he grew up. Elizabeth herself seems to have fallen in with this proposed arrangement very readily. The prospect that Henry of Richmond would ever succeed in making himself king, and claiming her for his bride, was very remote and uncertain, while Richard was already in full possession of power; and she, by taking his side, and becoming the affianced wife of his son, became at once the first lady in the kingdom, next to Queen Anne, with an apparently certain prospect of becoming queen herself in due time.
Death of Richard's son.
But all these fine plans were abruptly brought to an end by the death of the young prince, which occurred about this time, at Middleham Castle, as has been stated before. The death of the poor boy took place in a very sudden and mysterious manner. Some persons supposed that he died by a judgment from heaven, in answer to the awful curses which Queen Elizabeth Woodville imprecated upon the head of the murderer of her children; others thought he was destroyed by poison.
Sickness of Queen Anne.
Sufferings of the queen.
Not very long after the death of the prince, his mother fell very seriously sick. She was broken-hearted at the death of her son, and pining away, she fell into a slow decline. Her sufferings were greatly aggravated by Richard's harsh and cruel treatment of her. He was continually uttering expressions of impatience against her on account of her sickness and uselessness, and making fretful complaints of her various disagreeable qualities. Some of these sayings were reported to Anne, and also a rumor came to her ears one day, while she was at her toilet, that Richard was intending to put her to death. She was dreadfully alarmed at hearing this, and she immediately ran, half dressed as she was, and with her hair disheveled, into the presence of her husband, and, with piteous sobs and bitter tears, asked him what she had done to deserve death. Richard tried to quiet and calm her, assuring her that she had no cause to fear.
Suspicions.
She, however, continued to decline; and not long afterward her distress and anguish of mind were greatly increased by hearing that Richard was impatient for her death, in order that he might himself marry the Princess Elizabeth, to whom every one said he was now, since the death of his son, devoting himself personally with great attention. In this state of suffering the poor queen lingered on through the months of the winter, very evidently, though slowly, approaching her end. The universal belief was that Richard had formed the plan of making the Princess Elizabeth his wife, and that the decline and subsequent death of Anne were owing to a slow poison which he caused to be administered to her. There is no proof that this charge was true, but the general belief in the truth of it shows what was the estimate placed, in those times, on Richard's character.