A man who could be guilty of fabricating such a fable is wholly unworthy of credit in his reckless accusations against King Richard, though his minute knowledge of the real facts renders any inadvertent admissions most important. Such are the statements that witnesses and other evidence were produced to establish the illegitimacy of King Edward's children,[[25]] and that Richard intended to treat his nephews with kindness and consideration.[[26]] But it is incredible that Buckingham should have contemplated the idea of setting his own claim aside for the sake of an obscure adventurer in Brittany who had no claim at all; while the pretence that Buckingham was horrified at the murder of the young princes contradicts Henry's own clumsy fable. The whole pretended conversation must have been an afterthought to please the Tudor usurper.
The second coronation
The next accusation against Richard refers to his conduct at York, and is derived from the second Croyland monk, who too readily accepted the gossip that was current when he wrote, and which was pleasing to the Tudor Government. It is alleged that Richard appropriated to his own use the treasure which his brother had amassed, and had committed to the care of his executors after his death. This statement, as Mr. Gairdner has shown,[[27]] is contrary to the fact. The whole property had been placed under ecclesiastical sequestration by the Archbishop of Canterbury, because the executors had declined to act, and no further steps had been taken. It was also stated, on the authority of the same Croyland monk, that Richard went through the ceremony of a second coronation at York.[[28]] The deduction intended to be drawn, and which often has been drawn, was that his title was so doubtful that he hoped a double coronation might strengthen it. But there was no second coronation at York. Nothing of the kind ever took place.
One is loth to refer to the malignant slander involved in the insinuation that King Richard poisoned his wife. Polydore Virgil says: 'But the Queen, whether she was despatched with sorrowfulness or poison, died within a few days after.' The wretched wasp of Guy's Cliff adds his sting: 'Dominam Annam reginam suam intoxicavit.'[[29]]
Richard and Anne were cousins, and companions from childhood. Their union had been a happy one in their hospitable Yorkshire home. In all the important events of his life Richard had always had the companionship of his wife. They had been together in sorrow and in joy. Anne's illness was a lingering decline, during which she was assiduously watched and cared for by her physicians, and by her sorrowing husband, who deeply mourned her loss. She was buried, as a Queen, in Westminster Abbey. It is true that no writer has done more than insinuate this calumny. But most of the Tudor slanders take the form of insinuations. 'It is a charge,' wrote Sir Harris Nicolas, 'which is deserving of attention for no other reason than as it affords a remarkable example of the manner in which ignorance and prejudice sometimes render what is called history more contemptible than a romance.' The same may be said of most of the Tudor stories about Richard III.
Elizabeth of York
The rumour that King Richard had an intention of marrying his illegitimate niece Elizabeth is unsustained by any evidence,[[30]] and is contrary to all probability. Such a project would have stultified the Act of Parliament on which his title to the crown was based. The King was a politician and was not entirely deprived of his senses. He could not have entertained an idea so absurd. But there is evidence that the scheme was favoured by the girl herself and her mother, and this fully accounts for the existence of the rumour. Their ages were suitable, the King being thirty-two and his niece in her twenty-first year; and in a letter to the Duke of Norfolk Elizabeth expressed a strong wish to become the wife of her uncle.[[31]] The Church of Rome granted, and still grants, dispensations for such marriages. But, be this how it may, Richard himself can never have contemplated a marriage with his niece. 'The whole tale,' says Sir Harris Nicolas, 'was invented with the view of blackening Richard's character, to gratify the monarch in whose reign all the contemporary writers who relate it flourished.' As soon as the rumour came to Richard's ears he publicly and emphatically denied its truth.
Intrigues of Lady Stanley
The Tudor writers tell various stories about Henry, while in Brittany, having promised to marry Elizabeth; and this is used as an argument that he must have believed her brothers to be dead, for if they were alive, there would be less object in the marriage. Looking at the source whence these stories come, there is no reason whatever for accepting them as true. They are derived from the apocryphal conversation between the Duke of Buckingham and the Bishop of Ely at Brecknock. In order to conceal the real object of Buckingham and his own duplicity, Morton, as has been seen, fabricated a story about his dupe having conspired with Henry Tudor's mother to set him up as a claimant to the crown, and a suitor for the hand of Elizabeth of York. It is likely enough that the intriguing wife of Stanley did conspire with Buckingham in the hope of advancing her son's interests, and that she opened negotiations with the Queen Dowager. Her design in the latter intrigue would be to secure the Woodville interest for supporting the contemplated rising. She despatched her steward Reginald Bray to Brecknock, her confessor Urswick to Brittany, and her doctor Lewis to Westminster Sanctuary. Her treacherous husband was feigning loyalty all the time, and was in zealous attendance on the King. She was found out and contemptuously forgiven by Richard. But the story of a contemplated marriage at that time between Henry Tudor and Elizabeth was an afterthought of Morton, at a time when Henry and Elizabeth were actually married. The story was repeated by Polydore Virgil, and retailed, with the customary embellishments, by Hall and Grafton.
It is scarcely necessary to notice the imputed intention of King Richard to avenge the treachery of Lord Stanley on his son Lord Strange, who was in the royal camp at the time of the battle of Bosworth. He remained unharmed. This is the fact. We are asked to believe that the King intended to behead him, but could not spare the time before the battle began. There was plenty of time, but no intention of using it for such a purpose. The proof of this is that Lord Strange was not injured. The evidence for the alleged intention to behead him rests solely on the assertions of men who wrote long afterwards, and the value of whose testimony we are now pretty well able to estimate.