Richard promptly attainted the fugitives, and, says Rapin,—
"issued a Proclamation against Buckingham, and the Marquis of Dorset, with others of his adherents, whom he supposed to be in league with him. But as the Marquis had not appeared in arms, and so could not be styled a rebel, he made use of another pretence to involve him in the sentence. He said that having taken oath at his coronation to punish vice and wickedness, he was obliged to punish the Marquis of Dorset, notorious for his debaucheries, who had seduced and ravished several virgins, being guilty of sundry adulteries, &c. A reward of a thousand marks, or one hundred marks a year (in land), was promised to anyone who would bring the Marquis to justice, and sums in proportion for the rest that were named in the Proclamation."
They got safely across however, and so foiled the tender intentions of this amiable potentate. Richmond appeared soon after, returning from his fruitless voyage across the channel, and,
"when he arrived he heard of the Duke of Buckingham's death, and found the Marquis of Dorset, and other English gentlemen who had made their escape. They all swore allegiance to him, and he took his corporal oath on the same day, the 25th of December, that he would marry the Princess Elizabeth, when he had suppressed the usurper Richard, and was in the possession of the Crown."
Richard, however, who was kept well informed of all that went on abroad, had determined if possible to check-mate this scheme of Richmond, by marrying the lady himself,—
"and to that end did his utmost to ingratiate himself with her mother the Queen Elizabeth. He sent flattering messages to her in Sanctuary, promised to advance the Marquis of Dorset and all her relations, and won upon her so much by his fair speeches, that forgetting the many affronts he had cast upon the memory of her husband, on her own honour and the legitimacy of her children, and even the murder of her dear sons, she complyed with him, and promised to bring over her son, and all the late king's friends from the party of Richmond, and went so far as to deliver up her five daughters into his hand. She also wrote to her son the Marquis of Dorset, to leave Richmond and hasten to England where she had procured him a pardon, and provided all sorts of honours for him."
Then, of course, followed the "illness" of Richard's poor Queen, now completely in the way of these delicate arrangements, who hearing
"what was reported against her, believed it came from her husband, and thence concluding that her hour was drawing nigh, ran to him in a most sorrowful and deplorable condition, and demanded of him, 'what she had done to deserve death.' Richard answered her with fair words and false smiles bidding her 'be of good cheer for to his knowledge she had no other cause.' But whether her grief, as he designed it should, struck so to her heart, that it broke with the mortal wound, or he hastened her end, as was generally suspected, by poison, she died in a few days afterward."
Thus another victim was removed from this ghastly panorama of treachery and guilt. She was the daughter of the Earl of Warwick, the 'king-maker,' and, when Richard married her, widow of Prince Edward (heir to Henry VI.), so foully murdered after the battle of Tewkesbury. The Lady Katharine Bonville was her aunt, and Cicely Bonville, her daughter, was the poor Queen's cousin.
Richard's new matrimonial project did not go on so smoothly as he expected, his former Queen "was scarcely cold in her grave, before he made his addresses to the Princess Elizabeth, who held his pretended love in abhorrence, and the whole kingdom averse to so unnatural a marriage,"—she was his own niece. He therefore put off for a time further prosecuting his suit, and "deferred his courtship until he was better settled on the throne."