Relations silenced
Henry had at length found courage to commit the crime. He may have excused it to himself from the absolute necessity of his position. It had been perpetrated in profound secrecy. If the mother, brother, or sisters suspected anything, they could be silenced. They were absolutely at his mercy. Henry caused the mother to be stripped of her property, immured in Bermondsey nunnery, and left dependent on him for subsistence. She was thus effectually silenced. The Marquis of Dorset, half brother of the murdered boys, was committed to the Tower during 1487; but he succeeded in convincing the tyrant that there was nothing to fear from him, and was eventually released. The eldest sister was Henry's wife and at his mercy—the wife of a man who, as his admirers mildly put it, 'was not uxorious.' She was within two months of her confinement. Doubtless for that reason her mother kept all misgivings to herself. Henry married the next sister, Cicely, to his old uncle Lord Welles,[[38]] who would ensure her silence. She was married in that very year, and sent off to Lincolnshire. The three youngest were children, and in due time could be married to his adherents, or shut up in a nunnery.[[39]] Others who knew much, and must have suspected more, were silent in public, for their fortunes, perhaps their lives, depended on their silence.
Yet the guilty tyrant could have known no peace. He must have been haunted by the fear of detection, however industriously he might cause reports to be spread and histories to be written, in which his predecessor was charged with his crimes. Then there was the horror of having to deal with his accomplices. Here fortune favoured him. Green died in the end of 1486[[40]]; though hush money seems to have been paid to 'Black Will' for some time longer.[[41]] John Dighton was presented by Henry VII. with the living of Fulbeck near Grantham, in Lincolnshire, on May 2, 1487.[[42]] But he was expected to live on the other side of the Channel. Sir James Tyrrel received ample recompense. He seems to have been appointed to the office of Constable of Guisnes immediately after the date of his second general pardon.[[43]] He was next sent as ambassador to Maximilian, King of the Romans, to conclude a perpetual league and treaty. In 1493 Tyrrel was one of the Commissioners for negotiating the Treaty of Etaples with France. In August 1487 he received a grant for life of the Stewardship of the King's Lordship of Ogmore in Wales. But Henry, although he was obliged to reward his accomplices, was anxious to keep them on the other side of the Channel as much as possible. Dighton had to reside at Calais. Tyrrel was required to make an exchange, giving up his estates in Wales to the King, and receiving revenues from the county of Guisnes of equal value.[[44]] In 1498 Henry still addressed him as his well-beloved and faithful councillor.
Arrest of Tyrrel
The long-sought pretext for getting rid of Tyrrel was found in 1502. The usurper dreaded the Earl of Suffolk, King Richard's nephew, as a claimant to the throne. He heard that Tyrrel had favoured the escape of the ill-fated young prince to Germany. Henry would be terrified at the idea of Tyrrel taking the side of another claimant, and publicly denouncing his misdeeds. He ordered the arrest of his accomplice, but Tyrrel refused to surrender the castle of Guisnes. He was besieged by the whole garrison of Calais. Henry then ordered Dr. Fox, the Bishop of Winchester and Lord Privy Seal, one of his most intimate associates, to send a promise under the privy seal, to the effect that Tyrrel should come and go in security if he would confer with Sir Thomas Lovell, Henry's Chancellor of the Exchequer, on board a ship at Calais. Tyrrel should have known his master by this time. But even he had not gauged the full depth of Tudor perfidy. He was deceived by the 'pulchris verbis' of Bishop Fox.[[45]] When he came on board he was told that he would be pitched overboard unless he sent a token to his son to deliver up the castle. The token was sent, and the King's promise under his privy seal was broken. Tyrrel was safely locked up in a dungeon of the Tower and beheaded without trial and in great haste on May 6, 1502.
At length Henry could breathe freely. Green and Tyrrel were dead. Slater does not appear again, so it may be assumed that he also had been got rid of. Only Dighton remained. He had to reside at Calais on the proceeds of his sinecure in Lincolnshire, and to be useful as a false witness. We know from Rastell and Grafton that he did live and die at Calais. The identity of names suggests the probability that he was a brother or son of the John Dighton who was Bailiff of Ayton Manor.
The story told in the publications of Grafton and Rastell was generally accepted as true; although, even after the lapse of so many years, there must have been many old people who knew it to be false. These people had the choice between silence and ruin. As they died off, the belief in the story became more and more universal. This fable, appearing first in Grafton, was the final touch to the hideous and grotesque caricature which was portrayed by the Tudor historians and dramatised by Shakespeare. The history of its reception in all its absurd and improbable details, of the ineradicable prejudice which could keep it alive for four centuries, and long after sound methods of criticism had begun to be applied to other historical questions, forms a curious chapter in the record of human credulity.
Death of the Earl of Warwick
Henry Tudor suffered for his crimes. The secret removal of his wife's brothers and of her uncle's illegitimate son failed to complete the catalogue of them. Young Edward Earl of Warwick was another stumbling block in his way. But again his superstitious mind recoiled from guilt which his judgment recommended. If his wife had been legitimate, there would have been no danger to Henry from the Earl of Warwick; that young prince would have been far removed from the succession. His wife's illegitimacy made her cousin the rightful heir, and hence another crime seemed necessary. Henry put off the perpetration of this crime for years. Ferdinand of Spain refused to allow a marriage between his daughter and Henry's son Arthur, until the rightful heir to the crown of England had been put out of the way. This refusal at length gave Henry a motive for the crime which outweighed his superstitious fears. He committed it in a way which was thoroughly characteristic. He caused Perkin Warbeck to be given access to the Earl of Warwick in the Tower, and some of the jailers were told to suggest an attempt at escape. An informer, named Robert Cleymound, was employed to listen to the conversations of the two lads, and to report that an escape was meditated by them. This was made a capital charge against the young prince. He was subjected to a mock trial, so that Henry might indulge in his hope of limited liability for murder, and was then slaughtered on November 28, 1499. A man who was capable of committing such a cowardly murder in such a way was certainly as capable of the crime of which he falsely accused King Richard.
As soon as Richard III. was dead, Edward Earl of Warwick became de jure King of England, not only as the acknowledged heir to the dead King but also as the nearest in succession, and as the last male Plantagenet. His existence was, at that time, a serious danger to the usurper, who did not lose a day in securing the poor lad's person. If, as Henry afterwards caused it to be proclaimed, the declaration of the illegitimacy of the children of Edward IV. was false, then the Earl of Warwick ceased to be dangerous; and there was no object in condemning him to perpetual imprisonment. It was a useless act of injustice and cruelty. But if Henry knew that, in spite of his attempts to destroy all evidence of the illegitimacy, the awkward fact remained, his injustice and cruelty are explained. They afford one more proof of the truth of Dr. Stillington's evidence, which led to the accession of King Richard.