The Wars of the Roses; or, Stories of the Struggle of York and Lancaster

by John G. Edgar

Circumstances were unfavorable to Clarence; for, since the duke's confederacy with Warwick, no love had existed between him and the king. Edward deemed that he owed his brother an injury; and that, at least, was a kind of debt which Edward of York was never sorry to have an opportunity of paying. The king's dislike was judiciously humored by the queen's kindred; and a prophecy, that the crown should be seized and the royal children murdered by one, the first letter of whose name was G, took possession of his imagination. A fair excuse only was wanting to get rid of Clarence, and a pretext was ere long found.

Among the Anglo-Norman families who during the fifteenth century maintained territorial state in that county which had come with an heiress of the Beauchamps to Richard Neville, and with the eldest daughter of the king-maker to the royal duke by whom he was betrayed, few were of higher consideration than the Burdets. One of the Burdets had accompanied the Conqueror to England; another had sat as member for Warwickshire in the Parliament of the second Edward; and a third, Sir Nicholas, had fought with high distinction in the wars carried on by the Duke of York in France. Falling at Pontoise on that day when King Charles of France stormed the town, Nicholas left a son, Thomas, who resided at Arrow, the seat of his family, and held an office in Clarence's household.

Burdet had figured as a Yorkist and fought for the White Rose. Being a follower of Clarence, however, he was regarded with some degree of suspicion; and, having domestic troubles, his temper was probably too much the worse for the wear to admit of his being suspected without manifesting impatience. An accident, according to chroniclers, occurred, which exasperated him to language so indiscreet as to cause his own death and that of his patron.

Burdet had, among the deer in his park at Arrow, a white buck, of which he was exceedingly proud. This buck was destined to be the cause of much mischief; for one day, when Burdet was from home, the king, making a progress through Warwickshire, went to Arrow, and entered the park to divert himself with hunting. Unfortunately, Edward killed the favorite buck of all others; and Burdet, being informed on his return of what had happened, was enraged beyond measure. Indeed, it was said that the worthy squire, regarding the whole affair as a premeditated insult, lost his patience so completely as to express a wish "that the buck's horns had been in the king's belly."

But, however that may have been, there lived at that time, under Clarence's protection, an ecclesiastic named John Stacey, famed for his learning and skill in astrology. Having been denounced as a necromancer, and accused of exercising his unlawful art for the destruction of Richard, Lord Beauchamp, Stacey was put to the rack and tortured into naming Thomas Burdet as his accomplice in some treasonable practices. Burdet was accordingly arrested on the charge of conspiring to kill the king and the Prince of Wales by casting their nativity, and of scattering among the people papers predicting their death.

Having been taken to Westminster Hall, Burdet and Stacey were tried before the Court of King's Bench. But that court was no longer presided over by a Fortescue or a Markham, and it was in vain that Burdet pleaded his innocence, declaring that, so far from having any design against the king's life, he was ready to fight for the king's crown, as he had done before. His fate was sealed: the jury returned a verdict of "Guilty;" the knight and ecclesiastic were sentenced to death; and, having been drawn from the Tower, they were executed as traitors at Tyburn.

The matter did not rest here. On learning the result of his adherents' trial, Clarence, who was in Ireland, naturally felt somewhat dismayed. Recollecting how the proceedings against Eleanor Cobham had served as a prelude to the destruction of Duke Humphrey, and apprehending in this case a similar result, he determined to stir in his own defense, and rushed into the snare which his enemies had set. Hurrying to England, and reaching Westminster in the king's absence, he entered the council chamber, showed the lords there assembled private confessions and declarations of innocence made by Burdet and Stacey, and protested vehemently against the execution that had taken place.

At Windsor the king received intelligence of the step Clarence had taken; and the affair being reported to him in the worst light, he appears to have been seized with something like temporary insanity, and to have regarded Clarence's destruction as essential to his own safety and that of his children. No sooner, in any case, was news conveyed to him that Clarence was "flying in the face of all justice," than he hastened to Westminster, summoned the duke to the palace, and ordered him to be committed to the Tower.

Having pushed matters to this crisis, the Woodvilles did not allow Edward's passion to cool. It was in vain that the lord chancellor attempted to reconcile the king and the captive. A Parliament was summoned to meet about the middle of January; and when, on the appointed day, the English senators assembled at Westminster, the judges were summoned to the House of Lords, and Clarence was brought to the bar to be tried by his peers—the young Duke of Buckingham, who had married the queen's sister, presiding as lord high steward, and Edward appearing personally as accuser. Absurd as some of the charges were, Clarence had no chance of escape. He was charged with having dealt with the devil through necromancers; represented Edward as illegitimate and without right to the throne; plotted to dethrone the king and disinherit the king's children; retained possession of an act of Parliament, whereby, in the reign of Henry, he had been declared heir to the crown after Edward of Lancaster; purchased the support of the Lancastrians by promising to restore their confiscated estates; and warned his own retainers to be ready to take up arms at an hour's notice. Clarence indignantly denied every charge; but his protestations of innocence were as vain as those of Burdet had been. Edward appeared bent on a conviction, and the peers had not the courage to resist such a pleader. The royal brothers, indeed, would seem to have had all the talk to themselves—"no one denying Clarence but the king, and no one answering the king but Clarence." Even the self-sufficient Buckingham contented himself with asking the judges "whether the matters proved against Clarence amounted in law to high treason." The opinion of the judges was altogether unfavorable to the duke. The legal functionaries answered the lord high steward's question in the affirmative, and the peers returned a unanimous verdict of "Guilty." On the 7th of February Buckingham pronounced sentence of death.

When matters reached this alarming stage, the Duchess of York interfered; and the king, in a somewhat relenting mood, delayed sending his brother to the block. The Woodvilles, however, were not to be baffled of their prey; and the House of Commons, acting under their influence, petitioned for the duke's immediate execution. But the son-in-law of Warwick, with all his failings, was still the idol of the populace; and the policy of having him beheaded on Tower Hill was more than doubtful.