pronounce the execution of capital punishment, although the apostolic see
was occupied during that time by popes of extreme rigor and severity in
all that relates to the civil administration. We find in all parts of
Europe scaffolds prepared to punish crimes against religion; scenes which
sadden the soul were everywhere witnessed. Rome is an exception to the
rule--Rome, which it has been attempted to represent as a monster of
intolerance and cruelty. It is true that the popes have not preached,
like Protestants, universal toleration; but facts show the difference
between popes and Protestants. The popes, armed with a tribunal
of intolerance, have not spilled a drop of blood; Protestants and
philosophers have shed torrents. What advantage is it to the victim to
hear his executioners proclaim toleration? It is adding the bitterness of
sarcasm to his punishment.
The conduct of Rome in the use which she made of the Inquisition is the
best apology of Catholicity against those who attempt to stigmatize her
as barbarous and sanguinary. In truth, what is there in common between
Catholicity and the excessive severity employed in this place or that, in
the extraordinary situation in which many rival races were placed, in the
presence of danger which menaced one of them, or in the interest which
the kings had in maintaining the tranquillity of their states and
securing their conquests from all danger?
I will not enter into a detailed examination of the conduct of the
Spanish Inquisition with respect to Judaizing Christians; and I am
far from thinking that the rigor which it employed against them was
preferable to the mildness recommended and displayed by the popes. What
I wish to show here is that rigor was the result of extraordinary
circumstances--the effect of the national spirit and of the severity of
customs in Europe at that time. Catholicity cannot be reproached with
excesses committed for these different reasons. Still more, if we pay
attention to the spirit which prevails in all the instructions of
the popes relating to the Inquisition, if we observe their manifest
inclination to range themselves on the side of mildness, and to suppress
the marks of ignominy with which the guilty, as well as their families,
were stigmatized, we have a right to suppose that, if the popes had not
feared to displease the kings too much, and to excite divisions which
might have been fatal, their measures would have been carried still
further. If we recollect the negotiations which took place with respect
to the noisy affair of the claims of the Cortes of Aragon, we shall see
to which side the court of Rome leaned.
As we are speaking of intolerance with regard to the Judaizers, let us
say a few words as to the disposition of Luther toward the Jews. Does
it not seem that the pretended reformer, the founder of independence of
thought, the furious declaimer against the oppression and tyranny of the
popes, should have been animated with the most humane sentiments toward
that people? No doubt the eulogists of this chieftain of Protestantism
ought to think thus also. I am sorry for them; but history will not allow
us to partake of this delusion. According to all appearances, if the
apostate monk had found himself in the place of Torquemada, the Judaizers
would not have been in a better position. What, then, was the system
advised by Luther, according to Seckendorff, one of his apologists?
"Their synagogues ought to be destroyed, their houses pulled down, their
prayer-books, the _Talmud_, and even the books of the Old Testament to
be taken from them; their rabbis ought to be forbidden to teach, and be
compelled to gain their livelihood by hard labor." The Inquisition, at
least, did not proceed against the Jews, but against the Judaizers; that
is, against those who, after being converted to Christianity, relapsed
into their errors, and added sacrilege to their apostasy by the external
profession of a creed which they detested in secret, and which they
profaned by the exercise of their old religion. But Luther extended his
severity to the Jews themselves; so that, according to his doctrines, no
reproach can be made against the sovereigns who expelled the Jews from
their dominions.
The Moors and the Moriscoes no less occupied the attention of the
Inquisition at that time; and all that has been said on the subject of
the Jews may be applied to them with some modifications. They were
also an abhorred race--a race which had been contended with for eight
centuries. When they retained their religion, the Moors inspired hatred;
when they abjured it, mistrust; the popes interested themselves in their
favor also in a peculiar manner. We ought to remark a bull issued in
1530, which is expressed in language quite evangelical: it is there said
that the ignorance of these nations is one of the principal causes of
their faults and errors; the first thing to be done to render their
conversion solid and sincere was, according to the recommendation
contained in this bull, to endeavor to enlighten their minds with sound
doctrine.
It will be said that the Pope granted to Charles V the bull which
released him from the oath taken in the Cortes of Saragossa in the year
1519, an oath by which he had engaged not to make any change with respect
to the Moors; whereby, it is said, the Emperor was enabled to complete
their expulsion. But we must observe that the Pope for a long time
resisted that concession; and that if he at length complied with the
wishes of the Emperor, it was only because he thought that the expulsion
of the Moors was indispensable to secure the tranquillity of the kingdom.
Whether this was true or not, the Emperor, and not the Pope, was the
better judge; the latter, placed at a great distance, could not know the
real state of things in detail. Moreover, it was not the Spanish monarch
alone who thought so; it is related that Francis I, when a prisoner at
Madrid, one day conversing with Charles V, told him that tranquillity
would never be established in Spain if the Moors and Moriscoes were not
expelled.
MURDER OF THE PRINCES IN THE TOWER
A.D. 1483
JAMES GAIRDNER
The brief reign of Richard III, 1483-1485, left for historians one
subject of dispute which even to our own day has not been finally
determined--his alleged murder of his nephews, King Edward V and Richard,
Duke of York, sons of Edward IV. These princes at the supposed time of
their death were about thirteen and nine years of age respectively.
Before his usurpation Richard III, last of the Plantagenet line, was
known as the Duke of Gloucester. He served in the Wars of the Roses, and
on the death of Edward IV, April, 1483, he seized the young Edward V and
caused himself to be proclaimed protector. He then caused his parliament
to set the two princes aside as illegitimate, and they were imprisoned
in the Tower of London. On June 26, 1483, Richard assumed the crown, and
soon after the death of the princes was publicly announced.
In Gairdner's discussion we have the results of the best historical
inquiries concerning this most important question of Richard's career.
A great amount of public anxiety prevailed touching the two young princes
in the Tower. They were virtually prisoners, and their confinement
created great dissatisfaction. A movement in their behalf was gotten up
in the South of England while Richard was away. In Kent, Sussex,
and Essex, in Hampshire, Wiltshire, and Dorset, even as far west as
Devonshire, cabals were formed for their liberation, which all appear to
have been parts of one great conspiracy organized in secret by the Duke
of Buckingham. By the beginning of October some disturbances had actually
taken place, and the following letter was written in consequence by the
Duke of Norfolk to one of his dependents in Norfolk:
"_To my right well-beloved friend, John Paston, be this delivered in
haste_.
"Right well-beloved friend, I commend me to you. It is so that the
Kentish men be up in the Weald and say that they will come and rob the
city, which I shall let [_i. e.,_ prevent] if I may.
"Therefore I pray you, that with all diligence you make you ready and come
hither, and bring with you six tall fellows in harness; and ye shall not
lose your labor, that knoweth God; who have you in his keeping.
"Written at London the 10th day of October.
"Your friend,
"J. NORFOLK."
The rumor of the projected movement in behalf of the princes was speedily
followed by the report that they were no more. Of course they had been
removed by violence. Regarding the time and manner of the deed no news
could then be obtained, but the news that the deposed King and his
brother had been assassinated was spread with horror and amazement
through the land. Among all the inhumanities of the late civil war there
had been nothing so unnatural as this. To many the tale seemed too cruel
to be true. They believed that the princes must have been sent abroad
to defeat the intrigues of their friends. But time passed away and they
never appeared again. After many years, indeed, an impostor counterfeited
the younger; but even he, to give credit to his pretensions, expressly
admitted the murder of his elder brother.
Nevertheless, there have been writers in modern days who have shown
plausible grounds for doubting that the murder really took place. Two
contemporary writers, they say, mention the fact only as a report; a
third certainly states it, incorrectly, at least, in point of time; and
Sir Thomas More, who is the only one remaining, relates it with certain
details which it does seem difficult to accept as credible. More's
account, however, must bear some resemblance to the truth. It is mainly
founded upon the confession of two of the murderers, and is given by the
writer as the most trustworthy report he had met with. If, therefore, the
murder be not itself a fiction, and the confession, as has been surmised,
a forgery, we should expect the account given by Sir Thomas More to be in
the main true, clear, and consistent, though Horace Walpole and others
have maintained that it is not so. The substance of the story is as
follows: Richard, some time after he had set out on his progress, sent
a special messenger and confidant, by name John Green, to Sir Robert
Brackenbury, the constable of the Tower, commanding him to put the two
princes to death. Brackenbury refused to obey the order, and Green
returned to his master at Warwick. The King was bitterly disappointed.
"Whom shall a man trust," he said, "when those who I thought would most
surely serve me, at my command will do nothing for me?" The words were
spoken to a private attendant or page, who told him, in reply, that there
was one man lying on a pallet in the outer chamber who would hardly
scruple to undertake anything whatever to please him. This was Sir James
Tyrell, who is described by More as an ambitious, aspiring man, jealous
of the ascendency of Sir Richard Ratcliffe and Sir William Catesby.
Richard at once acted upon the hint, and calling Tyrell before him
communicated his mind to him and gave him a commission for the execution
of his murderous purpose. Tyrell went to London with a warrant
authorizing Brackenbury to deliver up to him for one night all the keys
of the Tower. Armed with this document he took possession of the place,
and proceeded to the work of death by the instrumentality of Miles
Forest, one of the four jailers in whose custody the princes were, and
John Dighton, his own groom. When the young princes were asleep, these
men entered their chamber, and, taking up the pillows, pressed them hard
down upon their mouths till they died by suffocation. Then, having caused
Sir James to see the bodies, they buried them at the foot of a staircase.
But "it was rumored," says More, "that the King disapproved of their
being buried in so vile a corner; whereupon they say that a priest of Sir
Robert Brackenbury's took up the bodies again, and secretly interred
them in such place as, by the occasion of his death, could never come to
light." Sir James, having fulfilled his mission, returned to the King,
from whom he received great thanks, and who, Sir Thomas informs us, "as
some say, there made him a knight."
It has been maintained that this story will not bear criticism. What
could have induced Richard to time his cruel policy so ill and to arrange
it so badly? The order for the destruction of the children could have
been much more easily, safely, and secretly executed when he was in
London than when he was at Gloucester or Warwick. Fewer messages
would have sufficed, and neither warrants nor letters would have been
necessary. Was it a sudden idea which occurred to him upon his progress?
If so, he might surely have waited for a better opportunity. If not, he
might at least have taken care to sift Brackenbury before leaving London,
so as to be sure of the two he intended to employ. Is it likely that
Richard would have given orders for the commission of a crime, without
having good reason to rely upon his intended agent's boldness and
depravity?
But, having tried Sir Robert's scruples, and found them somewhat stronger
than he anticipated, what follows? It might have been expected that
Sir Robert's respect for his master, if he had any, would have been
diminished; that the favor of his sovereign would have been withdrawn
from him; and perhaps that the tyrant, having seen an instance of the
untrustworthiness of men in matters criminal and dangerous, would have
learned to become a little more circumspect. But the facts are quite
otherwise. Sir Robert continued long after in the good graces of his
sovereign, always remained faithful to him, even when many others
deserted him, and finally fell in battle bravely fighting in his cause.
Richard did not become more cautious, but, on the contrary, more
imprudent than ever. He complained loudly of his disappointment, even in
the presence of a page. This page is nameless in the story, but he serves
to introduce to the King not less a person than Sir James Tyrell, who is
represented as willing to do anything to obtain favor, and envious of the
influence possessed by others. He undertakes and executes the task
which Brackenbury had refused, and for this service we are told he
was knighted. All this greatly misrepresents Sir James' position and
influence, if not his character. He not only was a knight long before
this, but had been in the preceding year created by Richard himself
a knight banneret for his distinguished services during the Scotch
campaign. He had been, during Edward IV's reign, a commissioner for
executing the office of lord high constable. He was then master of the
King's henchmen, or pages. He was also master of the horse. If his mere
position in the world did not make him disdain to be a hired assassin,
he at least did not require to be recommended through the medium of that
nameless page.
Moreover, it appears that the fact of the princes having been murdered
was held in great doubt for a long time afterward. Even More himself,
writing about thirty years later, is obliged to acknowledge that the
thing had "so far come in question that some remained long in doubt
whether they were in Richard's days destroyed or no." This is certainly
remarkable, when it is considered that it was of the utmost importance
for Henry VII to terminate all controversy upon the question. Yet Sir
Thomas tells us that these doubts arose not only from the uncertainty men
were in whether Perkin Warbeck was the true duke of York, "but for that
also that all things were so covertly demeaned, one thing pretended and
another meant, that there was nothing so plain and openly proved but that
yet, for the common custom of close and covert dealing, men had it ever
inwardly suspect." All this, it is urged, may very well suggest that
the doubts were reasonable, and that the princes in reality were not
destroyed in the days of Richard III. And, indeed, when we consider how
many persons, according to More's account, took part in the murder or
had some knowledge of it, it does appear not a little strange that there
should have been any difficulty in establishing it on the clearest
evidence. For besides Tyrell, Dighton, and Forest, the chief actors,
there were Brackenbury, Green the page, one Black Will, or Will
Slaughter, who guarded the princes, and the priest who buried them, all
fully aware of the circumstances of the crime.
In Henry VII's time Brackenbury was dead, and so it is said was the
priest; Forest, too, had ended his days miserably in a sanctuary. But it
does not appear what had become of either Green or the page. Tyrell and
Dighton were the only persons said to have been examined; and though we
are told that they both confessed, yet there is a circumstance that
makes the confession look exceedingly suspicious. Tyrell was detained in
prison, and afterward executed, for a totally different offence; while,
as Bacon tells us, "John Dighton, _who it seemeth spake best for the
King,_ was forthwith set at liberty." Taking Bacon's view of the
circumstances of the disclosure as if it were infallible, the sceptics
here find matter of very grave suspicion. "In truth," says Walpole,
"every step of this pretended discovery, as it stands in Lord Bacon,
warns us to give no heed to it. Dighton and Tyrell agreed both in a tale,
_as the King gave out_. Their confession, therefore, was not publicly
made; and as Sir James Tyrell, too, was suffered to live, but was shut
up in the Tower and put to death afterward for we know not what treason,
what can we believe but that Dighton was some low mercenary wretch, hired
to assume the guilt of a crime he had not committed, and that Sir James
Tyrell never did, never would, confess what he had not done, and was
therefore put out of the way on a fictitious imputation? It must be
observed, too, that no inquiry was made into the murder on the accession
of Henry VII--the natural time for it, when the passions of men were
heated, and when the Duke of Norfolk, Lord Lovel, Catesby, Ratcliffe, and
the real abettors or accomplices of Richard were attainted and executed.
No mention of such a murder was made in the very act of parliament that
attainted Richard himself and which would have been the most heinous
aggravation of his crimes. And no prosecution of the supposed assassins
was ever thought of till eleven years afterward, on the appearance of
Perkin Warbeck." Such are the striking arguments by which it has been
sought to cast a doubt upon the murder, and particularly More's account
of it.
To all which it may be replied, in the first place, that it is by no
means necessary to suppose More's narrative, though it appeared to him
the most credible account he had heard, absolutely correct in all its
details, especially in those which he mentions as mere reports. His
authority was evidently the alleged confession of Tyrell and Dighton,
obtained second-hand. This, though true in the main, may not have been
absolutely correct, even as it was first delivered, and may have been
somewhat less accurate as it was reported to Sir Thomas, who perhaps
added from hearsay a few errors of his own, like that about Sir James
Tyrell's knighthood.
Secondly, the argument with regard to Richard's imprudence, in pursuing
the course ascribed to him, goes but little way to discredit the facts,
unless it can be shown that caution and foresight were part of his
ordinary character. The prevailing notion of Richard III, indeed, is of a
cold, deeply politic, scheming, and calculating villain. But I confess I
am not satisfied of the justice of such a view. Not only Richard, but
all his family, appear to me to have been headstrong and reckless as
to consequences. His father lost his life by a chivalrous and quixotic
impetuosity; his brother Edward lost his kingdom once by pure
carelessness; his brother Clarence fell, no less by lack of wisdom than
by lack of honesty; and he himself, at Bosworth, threw away his life by
his eagerness to terminate the contest in a personal engagement. Had
Richard fully intended to murder his nephews at the time he determined
upon dethroning the elder, I have very little doubt that he would have
kept his northern forces in London to preserve order in the city till
after the deed was done. I for my part do not believe that such was his
intention from the first. How much more probable, indeed, that after he
had left London the contemplated rising in favor of the princes suggested
to him an action which cost him his peace of mind during the whole of his
after-life!
Thirdly, the doubts of contemporaries do not appear to have been very
general. The expression of Sir Thomas More is only "that some remained in
doubt"; and More is not a writer who would have glossed over a fact to
please the court. As to Perkin Warbeck, who pretended to be the younger
of the princes, Henry VII's neglect to confute his pretensions may have
arisen from other causes than a suspicion that he was the true duke of
York. There is no reason to suppose that his followers in England were
numerous. The belief in the murder appears to have been general. It
was mentioned as a fact by the Chancellor of France, in addressing the
estates-general which met at Tours in the following January. It was
acknowledged to be true in part by Warbeck himself, who, it has been
shown since Walpole's time, in personating the Duke of York, admitted
that his brother Edward had been murdered, though he asserted that he
himself had providentially escaped. It is evident that no one dreamed in
those days that the story of the murder was altogether a fiction. The
utmost that any well-informed person could doubt was whether it had been
successfully accomplished as to both the victims.
With regard to the confessions of Tyrell and Dighton, Bacon has certainly
spoken without warrant in stating that they were examined at the time of
Warbeck's appearance. The time when they were examined is stated by
Sir Thomas More to have been when Tyrell was confined in the Tower for
treason against Henry VII, which was in 1502, three years after Warbeck's
execution. Before that date there is no ground for believing that
Tyrell's guilt in regard to the murder was generally known. Before that
date, indeed, the world seems to have had no conception in what manner
the crime was committed, and the common story seems to have been that
Richard had put his nephews to the sword; but the confession of Tyrell at
once put an end to this surmise, and we hear of it no longer. Henry VII
assuredly did not for a long time treat him as a criminal; for not only
did he hold under Henry the office of captain of Guisnes, but he was
employed by the King in an expedition against Flanders. Nay, even after
Warbeck had been taken and confessed his imposture, Tyrell was employed
on an important embassy to Maximilian, King of the Romans. It is quite
clear, therefore, that he was never questioned about the murder in
consequence of Warbeck's pretensions. But being afterward condemned to
death on a charge of treason--not an unknown charge, as Walpole imagines,
but a charge of having treasonably aided the escape of the Earl of
Suffolk--he was then, as More says, examined about it in the Tower,
having probably made a voluntary confession of guilt to ease his
conscience before his execution.
No doubt, after all, the murder rests upon the testimony of only a very
few original authorities, but this is simply owing to the scantiness of
contemporary historians. It is true, also, that of these there are two
who only mention it as a report; but it must be observed that neither of
them expresses the smallest doubt of its truth, and one of them more than
hints that he believes it as a fact. How, indeed, could there possibly
be two opinions about a rumor of this kind, seeing that it was never
contradicted by the King himself? Assuredly from this time the conduct
both of Richard and his enemies was distinctly governed by the belief
that his nephews were no longer alive.
Moreover, the truth of the story seems to be corroborated by a discovery
which took place in the reign of Charles II. In the process of altering
the staircase leading to the chapel in the White Tower, the skeletons of
two young lads, whose apparent ages agreed with those of the unfortunate
princes, were found buried under a heap of stones. Their place of
sepulture corresponded with the situation mentioned in the confession of
the murderers, so that the report alluded to by More of the removal of
the bodies seems to have been a mistake. The antiquaries of the day had
no doubt they were the remains of young Edward V and his brother, and
King Charles caused them to be fittingly interred in Henry VII's chapel
at Westminster. A Latin inscription marks the spot and tells of the
discovery.