Richard III: His Life & Character Part 24

{225}

a.s.sailed by the insidious flattery of Morton, he was prematurely hurried into a rash attempt which cost him his life. When Morton recorded the conversation with his victim many years afterwards, he was Archbishop of Canterbury, Henry VII. was King, and it was advisable, in order to gratify the new sovereign, that Richard should be accused of murdering his nephews, and that Buckingham should be made to give up the scheme for his own aggrandis.e.m.e.nt, in order to risk his life for the sake of an unknown adventurer in Brittany. It will be admitted that this is a grossly improbable story.

It is certainly astounding that the childish nonsense which Morton puts into Buckingham's mouth should have been gravely accepted as true by subsequent historians. We are first told that when Buckingham heard of the murder of the two innocents, to which he never agreed, he abhorred the sight of the King and could no longer abide with the Court. So he took his leave at Gloucester with a merry countenance but a despiteful heart. According to this, the murders took place in July, for Buckingham left Gloucester on August 1. The more detailed story directly contradicts Morton, and places the murders in the end of August. Both are false, but this is one out of many instances of the utter recklessness of these slanderers. Buckingham is then made to say that he stopped at Tewkesbury for two days to think. The result was that he came to the conclusion that he ought to be King, not on the ground of his descent from the fifth son of Edward III., but because his mother was a daughter of Edmund, Duke of Somerset. His mother was the fourth daughter of that Duke, who had not the remotest right to the throne, and never put forward a claim. {226} If there had been such a claim, Buckingham would not have first found it out, by thinking for two days at Tewkesbury. After this mental effort he continued his journey towards Shrewsbury, and met Margaret Lady Stanley, the mother of Henry Tudor, on the road. She told him that she was the daughter of John Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, Edmund's elder brother. This, we are asked to believe, was quite a new idea to Buckingham. We are to suppose that he knew nothing about his relations before his cogitations at Tewkesbury and his chat with Lady Stanley, and that the receipt of the information made him give up his own ambitious plans altogether.

He is made to propose to his fellow-traveller that her son should be king and that he should marry the eldest daughter of Edward IV.

Buckingham, after examining the evidence, had just concurred in a solemn declaration that this daughter was illegitimate. But he now evolved from his inner consciousness the discovery that the evidence was derived from suborned witnesses. The Duke then took his leave of Margaret, and proceeded with Morton to Brecknock Castle. Margaret's steward, Reginald Bray, conveyed messages between the conspirators, and an insurrection was arranged. Morton acknowledges that he originally advised Buckingham himself to claim the crown at Brecknock, on which the Duke related the above wonderful story. To complete the absurdity of this childish romance, it must be remembered that Morton was travelling with Buckingham, all the way from Gloucester to Brecknock.

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 {227} 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.

[Sidenote: 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 ama.s.sed, 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 {228} been drawn, was that his t.i.tle 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 Yorks.h.i.+re home. In all the important events of his life Richard had always had the companions.h.i.+p of his wife. They had been together in sorrow and in joy. Anne's illness was a lingering decline, during which she was a.s.siduously 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.

[Sidenote: Elizabeth of York]

The rumour that King Richard had an intention of marrying his illegitimate niece Elizabeth is {229} unsustained by any evidence,[30]

and is contrary to all probability. Such a project would have stultified the Act of Parliament on which his t.i.tle 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 {230} 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.

[Sidenote: 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. {231} 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, {232} 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 a.s.sertions of men who wrote long afterwards, and the value of whose testimony we are now pretty well able to estimate.

[1] Hook, v. p. 409.

[2] He was then Master of the Rolls.

[3] Alexander VI., 1492-1503.

[4] Tyndale, _The Practice of Prelates_, p. 305. Parker Society.

[5] Lord Bacon, _Henry VII._

[6] _Utopia_, p. 20.

[7] Morton was intimately acquainted with the real facts. He makes no mistakes. His mis-statements are all prepared designedly and with an object. He even knew the name of Buckingham's messenger, and that of Gloucester's servant to whom he applied for a secret interview with his master.--P. 134, ed. 1821.

[8] Ellis's _Original Letters_, second series, i. p. 147.

[9] _Wardrobe Accounts_.

[10] Stallworthe's letter of June 21 (_Exc. Hist._ pp. 14-10). The Croyland monk also gives the surrender of young Richard after the arrest of Hastings (p. 566).

[11] He misled Horace Walpole (p. 49), and Dr. Lingard (iv. p. 227) on this point. But Dr. Lingard was quite ready to continue in his error.

His account is as follows:--'On the same day that Hastings suffered (and the time should be noticed) Ratcliffe entered Pomfret Castle at the head of a numerous body of armed men, seized Rivers, Grey and Vaughan, observed no judicial forms, and struck off the heads of the victims.' He calls the Yorks.h.i.+re troops that came to London 'the ruffians who had murdered the prisoners at Pontefract.' This is not very temperate language. Dr. Lingard afterwards found that this was all wrong. But he would not alter his erroneous text. He merely added a note in a later edition, showing that he knew Rivers to have been still alive on the 23rd, and that Rous named the Earl of Northumberland as presiding at the trial. Yet he retains the a.s.sertion in the text that there were no judicial forms!

[12] _Croyland_, p. 567. Polydore Virgil gives the correct date; and the Croyland monk also places the execution of Rivers after the arrest of Hastings.

[13] Rymer, xii. p. 204.

[14] 13 die mensis Junii veniens in Turrim ad consilium, jussu Protectoris capite truncatus est.--_Croyland Chron_. Gale, i. 566.

[15] The Croyland Chronicler is quite free from suspicion of intentional falsification. He was informed that Hastings had been beheaded on the 13th, the day of his arrest, and he stated what he believed to be the fact. He, therefore, made no attempt to make this fit in with other events by falsifying dates, as was the course taken by Morton and Fabyan. The monk places the delivery of young Richard and the execution of Rivers in proper order of time, and gives the correct date for Richard's accession.

[16] _Excerpt. Hist._ p. 16.

[17] 'Eorum princ.i.p.alis judex.'--Rous, p. 213.

[18] Sir George Buck ascertained the truth through having access to the ma.n.u.script of the _Croyland Chronicle_. The writer simply mentions the pre-contract with Lady Eleanor Butler; but the Chronicle was not printed until 1084. Speed was the first to print the full text of the 't.i.tulus Regius' in his _History of Great Britain_, 1611.

[19] The first Earl of Shrewsbury had a large family by two wives, but the names of all his daughters have not been recorded. Dugdale mentions none. Collins gives Jane married to James Lord Berkeley.

There were also Elizabeth wife of John Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk, and others, including Eleanor. Buck is mistaken in supposing that Eleanor's first husband was Sir Ralph Butler, Lord Sudeley. His wife was Alice Deincourt, and he was too old. Eleanor's husband may have been an unrecorded son of Ralph Butler, Lord Sudeley, who died when a young man before his father. She must have married Edward IV., when a widow, in or before 1464. She died at Norwich, and was buried in the church of the White Friars Carmelites.--Weever's _Funeral Monuments_, p. 805.

[20] Morton says that 'within few days after he withered and consumed away' (p. 103).

[21] I. Arthur was married to a daughter and heiress of Edward Grey, Viscount Lisle, the brother-in-law of Lady Grey. She was the widow of Edmund Dudley. In 1533 Arthur was created Viscount Lisle. He had three daughters, and from the second, Frances wife of John Ba.s.set of Umberleigh, co. Devon, General Monk was descended. Arthur Viscount Lisle died, without male heirs, in 1541.

II. Elizabeth wife of Thomas, eldest son of George Lord Lumley, who died before his father. From her descends the present Earl of Scarborough.

[22] Letter from King Richard to Lord Mountjoy.

[23] The text of the grant is given by Dugdale, with the King's signet and sign manual, given at his manor at Greenwich on July 13, 1483. A list of the manors follows.--Dugdale's _Baronage_, i. 168.

Mr. Gairdner argues that, in spite of this grant, the Duke had reason to doubt the fulfilment of the promise when Parliament met. I am unable to follow him. The King had done all that he possibly could do until Parliament met, and he had put his good faith and sincerity beyond doubt by giving Buckingham the profits beforehand, in antic.i.p.ation of the approval of Parliament. What could he possibly do more? There was no shadow of a pretext for any such doubt on the part of Buckingham.--Gairdner's _Richard III._, p. 136.

[24] He also had to ignore the children of Henry Bourchier, Earl of Ess.e.x, by the Princess Isabel, a sister of Richard Duke of York.

[25] Morton, in Grafton, p. 126.

[26] _Ibid._ p. 127.

[27] _Richard III._ p. 146, quoting from _Royal Wills_, pp. 345-347.

[28] Rous, p. 217. Drake's _Eborac._ p. 117. The fable is fully exposed by Mr. Davies in his _York Records_.

[29] Rous.

[30] This rumour never reached Fabyan or Rous. It is mentioned by the Croyland monk.