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 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 {228} 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.
[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 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 {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 assertions 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 Yorkshire 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 assertion 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 principalis judex.'--Rous, p. 213.
[18] Sir George Buck ascertained the truth through having access to the
manuscript 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
'Titulus 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 Basset 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
anticipation 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
Essex, 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.
[31] On the authority of Sir George Buck. His words are as
follows:--'When February was past, the Lady Elizabeth, being more
impatient and jealous of the success than every one knew or conceived,
writes a letter to the Duke of Norfolk intimating first that he was the
man in whom she most affied, in respect of that love her Father had
ever borne him. Then she congratulates his many courtesies, in
continuance of which she desires him to be a mediator for her to the
King in the behalf of the marriage propounded between them, who, as she
wrote, was her only joy and maker in the world, and that she was his in
heart and thought, withal insinuating that the better part of February
was past, and that she feared the Queen would never die. All these be
her own words written with her own hand, and this is the sum of her
letter, which remaineth in the autograph or original draft under her
own hand, in the magnificent cabinet of Thomas Earl of Arundel and
Surrey.' (Buck, p. 128.)
Sir Harris Nicolas (_Privy Purse Expenses of Elizabeth of York_, p. 1),
as an admirer of Elizabeth of York, was much troubled by this letter.
He attacked Sir George Buck as 'one whose violent prejudices do not
sufficiently account for the mendacity for which his work is
remarkable.' But this is unjust. Buck no doubt was prejudiced, but
not more so than the Tudor chroniclers. He blunders and is uncritical,
yet there is no reason to impugn his good faith. Nor did Sir Harris
Nicolas himself think that the case was sufficiently disposed of by
abusing Sir George Buck. He made various attempts to explain away the
letter, but none satisfactory or even plausible. Dr. Lingard did not
doubt the authenticity of the letter (v. pp. 355-359, ed. 1823, iv. p.
252, ed. 1849). It is not now known to exist, but that proves nothing
if Buck wrote in good faith.
Mr. Gairdner approaches the subject more calmly. 'Positive testimony
like this,' he says, 'is not to be lightly set aside as incredible.
Yet Buck, if not altogether dishonest (and I see no reason to think him
so), was certainly by no means an impartial historian. At the same
time Buck's abstract of the letter is very minute, and such as would
seem to follow pretty closely the turns of expression in a genuine
original, and he expressly declares the manuscript to be an autograph
or original draft. If it be not a forgery palmed off upon Buck
himself, I am inclined to think it was written, not by Elizabeth, but
by her mother who bore the same Christian name. Every word might just
as well have come from her, except the mention of the father, which may
be a mistake; and there is nothing inconceivable in her anxiety that
Richard should marry her daughter.' He adds 'that Elizabeth could have
been eager to obtain the hand of her brother's murderer is really too
monstrous to be believed.' Why then is it not 'too monstrous to be
believed' that the mother should have been eager to obtain the hand of
her son's murderer for her daughter? It is clear that the grounds for
accepting the letter are too strong for Mr. Gairdner to be able to
reject them. Yet that Elizabeth should wish to marry her brother's
murderer appears incredible to him. The conclusion is inevitable.
Richard was not her brother's murderer, if the letter was authentic
(see Gairdner's _Life of Richard III._ pp. 256-257, and note p. 257).
{233}
CHAPTER IV
THE MAIN CHARGE AGAINST RICHARD III
15. Murder of the Princes in the Tower. Acquittal.
In attempting an impartial consideration of the question of the fate of
King Edward's sons, it must always be remembered that the main argument
against their uncle is made to rest upon the truth of his previous
alleged crimes. This argument is destroyed if Richard was not a
venomous hunchback born with teeth, if he was not a cold scheming and
calculating villain who had already committed two atrocious murders,
drowned his brother in a butt of malmsey, poisoned his wife, and waded
through the blood of innocent men to an usurped throne. A careful
study of the evidence establishes the fact that these accusations are
false, and that they were put forward by the writers under a new
dynasty in order to blacken the character of the last Plantagenet King,
and to make the accusation that he murdered his nephews more plausible.
For it was a matter of the most vital importance to Henry VII., not
only that the boys should have been murdered, but that it should be
believed that the crime was perpetrated before his accession.
We have to deal with a different man altogether. The real Richard, who
is accused of the murder of his {234} nephews, was not previously
steeped in crime. The accusation must now be considered as being
brought against an ordinary prince of the fifteenth century, if not
better certainly not worse than his contemporaries. This at once
destroys the chief points of the evidence against him. His accusers
rightly felt that it was necessary to blacken Richard's character, and
this they did coarsely enough, but very successfully. They knew that,
without this poisoning of the wells, the case against him lost all its
force. 'Nemo repente turpissimus.'
We must now approach the question relating to the fate of the two young
sons of Edward IV., without having constantly before our minds the
grotesque caricature portrayed by the Tudor writers. Although it is
not possible, especially at this distance of time, to account for the
workings of any man's mind, or for the motives which may control his
actions, it is yet necessary to consider this phase of the question,
with as much light as we can bring to bear upon it.
It is not disputed that Edward IV. always evinced unshaken love and
affection for his young brother, and showed the most absolute
confidence in him at the time of his death. Richard returned this
affection with devoted loyalty. He had no love for the Woodville
faction, but he must have felt some regard for his brother's children,
being such a man as we believe he has been proved to have been. This
feeling of regard would decrease the strength of any motive producing a
desire to destroy them for his own ends. But there was no such motive.
The boys had been declared to be illegitimate, after an examination of
evidence, by the unanimous voice of Parliament. When the Cardinal
Archbishop, surrounded by his suffragans, {235} placed the crown of St.
Edward on Richard's head, he proclaimed the belief of the Church, and
released from their oaths all who under a misapprehension had sworn
allegiance to Edward V. The boy, as a claimant to the throne, had
ceased to be dangerous.
[Sidenote: Unanimity at Richard's coronation]
It should be borne in mind that Parliament was unanimous in recognising
the title of Richard III. Excepting half a dozen Lancastrian exiles
who were equally opposed to any member of the house of York,[1] the
whole peerage was at Richard's coronation except those whose absence is
accounted for by extreme age or youth, or by the calls of duty.[2]
Even the Woodville faction had submitted, and was represented at the
coronation by Viscount Lisle and the Bishop of Salisbury. Henry
Tudor's mother bore the train of Richard's Queen, and his uncle Lord
Welles was also at the coronation. There was absolutely no party for
the illegitimate sons of Edward IV. at the time of their alleged
murders, and consequently no danger to be apprehended from them. If
the story had put the murders after Buckingham's rising it would have
been a little more plausible. But it placed them two months before the
rising, when the King had not the shadow of a suspicion that any
opposition was contemplated. Setting aside all natural or religious
feeling, and even assuming Richard to have been the impossible monster
depicted by Tudor writers, he certainly had no motive for the crime.
{236}
But it may be argued that the workings of men's minds are inexplicable,
and that Richard may have committed the crime from a motive which would
seem insufficient to any reasonable man. To decide upon this
proposition we can only turn to a consideration of his conduct as
regards other persons in the same relationship and position as the two
boys, and who were likely to cause Richard as much or as little
trouble. There were seven such persons, namely, the five daughters of
Edward IV. and the two children of the Duke of Clarence. The King
treated his nieces with kindness and consideration as near relations,
when they came under his protection. The young Earl of Warwick, son of
Richard's elder brother Clarence, was a far more formidable rival than
the sons of Edward. The former was incontestably legitimate; while the
latter had been declared to be illegitimate by both Houses of
Parliament. Richard knighted the son of Clarence, placed him at the
head of the nobility, and made him a member of council and of his own
household. We, therefore, know that Richard did not look upon the
children of his elder brothers as enemies to be destroyed, but as
relations to be cherished.
[Sidenote: The princes alive in Richard's time]
We find, then, that the two young sons of Edward IV. went to reside in
the royal lodgings of the Tower in June 1483. The statement put forth
by Henry VII. is that they were murdered there in the following August.
But there are two pieces of evidence, one of them positive evidence,
that they were alive throughout the reign of Richard III.
In the orders for King Richard's household dated after the death of his
own son, children are mentioned of such high rank that they were to be
served before all other Lords. The only children who could occupy
{237} such a position were the sons of Edward IV. and the son of
Clarence. The conclusion must be that all his nephews were members of
his household, and that they were only sent to Sheriff Hutton and to
the Tower when danger threatened the realm from the invasion of Henry
Tudor.
The other piece of evidence is found in a warrant in Rymer's 'Foedera,'
dated March 9, 1485, to the following effect: it directs Henry Davy 'to
deliver unto John Goddestande, footman unto the Lord Bastard, two
doblets of silk, one jacket of silk, one gown of cloth, two shirts, and
two bonets.'[3] There are other warrants to pay for provisions. Dr.
Lingard[4] tried to destroy the significance of these warrants by
suggesting that they referred to John of Gloucester, an illegitimate
son of the King. But this boy is mentioned in Rymer's 'Foedera,' and
is designated as a bastard son of the King[5] simply and not as a lord,
for no such title belonged to him. Edward, on the other hand, although
he was officially called a bastard, was also a lord. In his case the
designation of Lord was correct. In the 'Wardrobe Account' he was
called the Lord Edward; after the accession of his uncle.[6] The royal
titles of Wales and Cornwall were no longer consistent or proper, and
had indeed been transferred, in due course, to the King's son. But the
earldoms of March {238} and Pembroke, conferred on him by his father,
still belonged to Edward. He would properly be styled the Lord
Bastard, while John of Gloucester could not be and was not. There was
only one 'Lord' Bastard.[7] The warrants, therefore, show that Edward
was alive and well treated in March 1485, four months before the death
of Richard III.
These two pieces of evidence are in keeping with Morton's statement
that King Richard had declared his intention of maintaining his nephews
in honourable estate. But there is strong collateral evidence pointing
to the same conclusion. If there had been foul play, it is scarcely
credible that the mother could have been induced by any promises to
throw her remaining children on the protection of one who had already
violated the most sacred ties as regards her two sons. It is, however,
just possible that a very unfeeling and selfish woman (though Elizabeth
was neither), weary of confinement in sanctuary, might have been
induced to make terms with the murderer of her sons, in order to obtain
a comfortable provision for herself. But she did more than this. She
sent for her other son, who was safe in France, advising him to return
home and submit himself to the King. It is incredible that she could
have done this unless she knew that the two boys were alive and well
treated. She remained on friendly terms with Richard until his death,
and her daughters attended the festivities at his {239} Court. Still
stronger evidence in the same direction is afforded by the letter to
the Duke of Norfolk, whether it was written by the King's niece
Elizabeth or by her mother, as Mr. Gairdner suggests. The writer could
not have spoken of Richard as her 'joy and maker in the world,' or have
said that she was 'his in heart and thought,' if he had just murdered
the brothers of one and the sons of the other. The thing is quite
impossible.
The conduct of their mother and sister is a strong corroboration of the
positive evidence that the young princes were alive and well throughout
King Richard's reign.
[Sidenote: The alleged rumours]
On the other hand, there is no evidence whatever that they were dead;
beyond rumours of which we only hear long afterwards. We are told that
there were rumours that they had been murdered, and rumours that they
were alive, and had been taken abroad. Rumours but no evidence.
If they had been smothered the bodies would have been exposed to allay
suspicion, and would have received Christian burial. To hide them
would have been an act of incredible folly.
There remain then, for consideration, these rumours which are alleged
to have prevailed during the reign of King Richard to the effect that
his nephews had been murdered. It is maintained that if these rumours
were generally believed, Richard must have been guilty, because if he
had been innocent he would have taken some steps to disprove the
rumours, and he took no such steps, or rather--no such steps are
recorded by his enemies.
The points for investigation are whether such rumours actually existed,
and if so, whether they were {240} so general as to reach the King's
ears and make it advisable that anything should be done to refute them.
It is alleged that these rumours took shape during the King's progress
to York in the summer and autumn of 1483. There is no evidence that
they prevailed at this or any other time during Richard's reign.[8]
The authority for a rumour about the fate of the two boys in the summer
of 1483 is the Croyland Chronicle; and there can be no doubt that the
statement was made in good faith; although the writer may have been
deceived.
The passage in the Croyland Chronicle is to the effect that the princes
remaining in custody in the Tower, the people in the south and west of
England became anxious for their liberation, that meetings were held on
the subject, and that proposals were made to arrange the escape of the
daughters of Edward IV. so that, if anything happened to his sons,
there might still be heirs of his body. It was also reported that the
sons of Edward were dead, though it was unknown by what violent means
they met their end.[9] So far the Croyland monk.
No doubt there were partizans of the defeated factions of Hastings and
the Woodvilles who were ready to spread any rumours injurious to the
King. The question is whether the rumours which reached the ears of
the Croyland monk were ever generally {241} credited by the people, so
as to call for action from the Government. Is it true that they led to
loud murmurings from meetings and assemblages of the people in the
south and west of England, such as would attract general notice? The
only proof offered is that an officer named Nesfield was ordered to
watch the approaches of the Sanctuary at Westminster, and see that no
one left it secretly. But this was a precaution which would have been
taken under any circumstances. Polydore Virgil alleges that Richard
himself spread a report that his nephews were dead; and this is
magnified and embellished by Grafton and Hall, according to their wont.
The statement is grossly improbable in itself, is wholly unsupported,
and is entirely unworthy of credit.
There is, then, no evidence that these rumours existed, beyond the
passage in the Croyland Chronicle. But there is strong reason for
rejecting the monk's story. If the rumours had really existed, and if
in consequence there were mutinous assemblages of the people
preliminary to an insurrectionary movement, the vigilant and energetic
young King would have made all necessary preparations to meet the
danger. Nothing is more certain in his history than that he was taken
absolutely by surprise when he received tidings of an outbreak in Kent
on October 11, 1483. It was a concerted rising, secretly arranged by
Buckingham. This Duke had taken leave of the King at Gloucester on
August 2 before the alleged action of Richard at Warwick with a view to
the murders, which was on August 8. According to the story, Buckingham
can have known nothing of the murders when he arranged his plot.
Consequently it is not possible that the rising in Kent, arranged by
Buckingham, can {242} have had anything to do with the alleged murder
of the young princes.
Yet the Croyland monk had certainly been told that there was a rumour
that the boys were dead. If it had not reached him as general talk, it
must have come direct to him from some malignant enemy of the King.
Was there such a man lurking in the fen country round Croyland? We
know that Morton had taken refuge in the fen country (Isle of Ely) at
this very time. If that schemer was at the chronicler's elbow, the
rumour is fully accounted for. It probably originated with Morton
while he was lurking in the fens, and ceased to exist when he sailed
for Flanders. His own narrative, as we have received it, comes to an
abrupt termination while he is conversing with the Duke of Buckingham
at Brecknock. If it had been continued, we should doubtless have had a
highly coloured version of the rumour mentioned in the Croyland
Chronicle. Morton and his slanders went abroad together. The rumour
that the young princes had been put to death appeared no more in
England during Richard's life. But as soon as Morton went to France,
it appeared there. In the autumn of 1483 Morton left England. In
January 1484, the murder of the princes was alleged as a fact by the
Chancellor of France in a speech to the States-General at Tours.
'Regardez, je vous prie, les evenements qui apres la mort du Roi
Edouard sont arrives dans ce pays. Contemplez ses enfants, deja grands
et braves, massacree impunement, et la couronne transportee a
l'assassin par la faveur des peuples.'[10] The Chancellor may have
received this statement from another Lancastrian exile, but it is {243}
most likely that it came from Morton. Louis XI. had hated Richard
because he opposed the peace which the French King bought from Edward
IV., and because he refused the French bribes with contempt.[11] This
hatred was inherited by the Lady of Beaujeu who became Regent on the
death of Louis XI. in August 1483. Any calumny was seized upon as an
opportunity for reviling the King of England; and with Morton in France
there would be no dearth of such wares.
The insult to the King of England uttered by the French Chancellor may
not have reached Richard's government. If it did, it must have been
apologised for or explained away, for some months afterwards, in
September 1484, King Richard granted a safe-conduct for an embassy from
the French Regency to treat of peace.[12] The calumny was clearly
received by the French Chancellor from Morton, or some other
unscrupulous outlaw, and not from any general rumour. For it is stated
as a fact; the truth being that it was never known what became of the
two boys, or pretended to be known until after the alleged confession
of Tyrrel in 1502.
Fabyan, writing in the time of Henry VII., talks of a rumour, and of
its having been the common fame that King Richard put his nephews to
secret death. This was merely what Henry VII. wanted to be the 'common
fame'; and no one dared to gainsay it. In the year after his accession
the usurping Tudor ordered it to be given out that the boys were
murdered by their uncle, and his paid agents had to repeat the
statement. Andre said they were killed with a sword.[13] {244} Rous
stated that they were put to death by some means unknown.[14] Polydore
followed Rous. Comines, naturally enough, told the story officially
promulgated in England. But Henry never dared to make the accusation
publicly in his first so-called Parliament, and there can have been
only one reason for this silence. The boys were then alive.
Henry's chroniclers, however, testify that nothing was known, and thus
prove the falsehood of the French Chancellor's statement, while
furnishing additional proof that no general rumour existed during
Richard's reign that the boys were dead.
It is not to be supposed that Sir William Stanley would have
entertained for a moment the belief that Perkin Warbeck was a son of
Edward IV. unless he knew that the princes were alive throughout
Richard's reign. No one had better means of knowing. The story put
forward by Henry VII. tells us that it remained in doubt whether the
boys were destroyed or not in Richard's day. Polydore Virgil mentions
a rumour that they had escaped abroad. Perkin Warbeck's story was
believed by a great number of people, which could not have been the
case if the rumour of the death of the princes had been generally
credited.
[Sidenote: Baseless rumours]
No question arose before King Richard's death. Many persons must have
known that his nephews were alive and well treated. Their mother and
brother knew, and they were silenced by imprisonment. Sir William
Stanley and his fellow-sufferers knew, and they were beheaded. After
Henry's accession, there were dozens, if not hundreds, of people who
knew the truth. They had a choice between silence and ruin or {245}
death. The truth might have been, and probably was, mentioned in
private correspondence; but even that would be very perilous, and
scarcely any correspondence of that date has been preserved. In one
letter in the 'Plumpton Correspondence,' the dislike of Henry's illegal
attainders is referred to, but with bated breath. Among the mass of
the people there was no certain knowledge of what had happened to the
boys. Of course many baseless rumours then became current. The
statements accusing Richard, and the assertions that these rumours
received popular credit during his reign, merely indicate what his
successor wanted to be believed on the subject.
[1] Earls of Oxford, Devonshire, and Pembroke, Lords Rivers, Dynham,
and Beaumont. Lord Clifford was a minor, and in hiding in Yorkshire.
[2] Lord Dudley in extreme old age, Earls of Shrewsbury and Essex, and
Lord Hungerford minors, Lords Greystoke and Ogle in the Marches, Lord
Mountjoy at Calais, Lord de la Warre abroad. The Earl of Westmoreland
was dangerously ill.
[3] Bayley, _Antiquities of the Tower of London_. (8vo. ed 1830, p.
343 _n_.)
[4] iv. p. 580 (5th ed. 1849).
[5] Rymer, xii. p. 265. 'Pro filio bastardo regis.' 'Cum summa
dilecti filii nostri bastardi Johannis de Gloucestriae ingenii
vivacitas, membrorumque agilitas, et ad omnes bonos mores magnam et
indubiam nobis de futuro ejus servitio bono spem, gratia divina
promittant.' This warrant granted the wardship of Calais to John of
Gloucester, so soon as he should have reached the age of twenty-one.
[6] _Archaeologia_, i. p. 367.
[7] Sir Richard, K.G., the second son, was not then a lord. The title
of York was a royal one, like that of Wales, and he could not hold it
when proved to be illegitimate. Those of Norfolk and Nottingham came
from his intended wife, Anne Mowbray, and when she died, they went to
her heirs Howard and Berkeley, by creation of the King on June 8, 1483.
Young Richard, as well as Edward, was a Knight of the Garter, but
Edward was the only 'Lord Bastard.'
[8] A letter from the King to the Mayor of York, dated April 11, 1485,
is on the subject of the suppression of false reports and lies. But
this refers to the false report that Richard intended to marry his
niece. Davies, _York Records_. Drake incorrectly places this letter
in 1484. Drake's _Ebor._ p. 119.
[9] 'Vulgatum est dictos Regis Edwardi pueros, quo genere violenti
interitus ignoratur, decessisse in fata.'
[10] _Journal des Etats-Generaux de France tenus en_ 1483-84 (Documents
Inedits), quoted by Gairdner in his _Richard III._ p. 160.
[11] He accepted a present of horses from Louis as a matter of courtesy.
[12] Rymer's _Foedera_, xii. p. 234.
[13] 'Nepotes clam ferro feriri jussit.'--Andre.
[14] 'Ita quod ex post paucissimis notum fuit qua morte martirizati
sunt.'--Rous.
{246}
CHAPTER V
HENRY TUDOR IN THE DOCK
Murder of the Princes in the Tower. Conviction.
[Sidenote: Victims after Bosworth]
Henry Tydder, _alias_ Tudor, must now take his place in the dock. Let
us first see what manner of man this fortunate adventurer was. In 1485
he was twenty-eight years of age. He is described as a man of slender
build, about five feet nine inches high, with a saturnine expression,
grey restless eyes, yellow hair, and very little of it. Having passed
his life as a fugitive and conspirator, cunning and dissimulation had
become a second nature to him. The victory gained for him at Bosworth,
by the foulest treachery, placed despotic power in his hands. His
first acts were the illegal and unjust executions of William
Catesby,[1] Chancellor of the Exchequer, of John Buck, the Comptroller
of the late King's Household, of {247} William Bracher, Yeoman of the
Crown, and of his son. These executions were in violation of all law.
They were simply murders; for Henry Tudor himself had no legal status,
and was in fact an attainted outlaw. Catesby was the faithful and
loyal minister of a King who studied the welfare of his subjects, and
was the Speaker of the best Parliament that had sat since the time of
Edward I. He was an able and diligent public servant. This was his
only crime. Nothing tangible has ever been alleged against him, except
that he did his duty by reporting the meditated treason of Hastings.
If the fables of Morton and his colleagues are accepted, the executions
of Rivers, Grey and Vaughan were doubtful acts. But the executions of
Catesby, Buck, and the Brachers were heinous crimes. Richard was the
Chief of the State, though it may be held that his measures were
unjust. Henry was an outlaw without legal authority of any kind, and
his executions were ruthless murders. Thus did this adventurer wade
through the blood of innocent men to his usurped throne.[2] His next
proceeding was to {248} send Sir Robert Willoughby to Sheriff Hutton,
to get possession of young Edward Earl of Warwick, the heir to the
throne, and of the late King's niece Elizabeth.
Henry Tudor then marched to London and seized the government. He
became responsible for the surviving members of the royal family of
England, legitimate or otherwise. What did he do with them? There
were Edward and Richard, the illegitimate sons of Edward IV., there was
Edward the legitimate son of the Duke of Clarence, and now the rightful
King of England, and there was John, the illegitimate son of Richard
III. They all fell into his power, and he alone became answerable for
their lives. There is too much reason to suspect that they all met
with foul play at his hands.
Henry Tudor, on usurping the crown of England, necessarily found
himself in a very difficult position. His mother's claim, as heiress
to an illegitimate son of the third son of Edward III., was worthless
in itself, for even if the descent had been legitimate, she must come
after all the descendants of the second son of Edward III. Moreover
the claim, such as it was, had not yet descended to Henry Tudor and
never did, for his mother survived him. He wisely refrained from
stating such a claim as this, although he alleged a vague hereditary
right of some sort, which he did not try to explain. There remained
the right of conquest with the aid of French mercenaries, and he
ventured to put it forward. But he soon saw that he would have to find
some other prop to support his usurpation.
{249}
[Sidenote: Character of Henry VII]
Henry must certainly have been a man of great ability, with an acute
but narrow mind, marvellous powers of dissimulation and of
self-deception, with considerable tact and skill in guiding and
influencing those around him. He was essentially un-English. He was a
near relation of Louis XI., and he made that mean tyrant his model. He
hated English freedom, and that intimate contact with the people which
made the Plantagenets popular. He loved mystery. He surrounded
himself with an armed guard which constantly went about with him, a
thing never done before by former kings.[3] He originated a tribunal
with despotic powers, consisting of a committee of his Council, the
infamous Star Chamber. He established 'a close and secret, a
tyrannical and often a most cruel government.'[4] He extorted money by
means of those illegal 'benevolences' which had been abolished by the
patriotic Parliament of Richard III. He was penurious, greedy, and
mean. He was the first English King who increased his revenue by
forfeitures enforced through legal chicanery. He began the practice of
setting agents to ferret out any claim which the Crown could make, and
a subservient judge would affirm. For he loved the forms of law, which
apparently soothed his conscience. He was very superstitious. When
his own interests were not concerned he was not devoid of natural
affection and he recoiled from crime. Yet he became capable of any
foul deed if he deemed it necessary for his own security. But he
meditated a crime for months and years, and stood trembling on the
brink for a long time before he summoned up {250} courage to act. Even
then he much preferred the forms of law, thinking that if he shared the
deed with others, the guilt became a limited liability.
Henry had the wisdom to see that, although his claim of conquest and
vague assertion of right by descent[5] might serve for a time, he must
establish some better title to secure any stability for his throne. He
had obtained his position by the favour of a treacherous faction, and
was confirmed in it by a pretended Parliament of his adherents, many of
them still under attainder. Unlike the grand ceremony of King
Richard's coronation, when the whole peerage was present, that of Henry
was very thinly attended. He felt that some step must promptly be
taken, with a view to strengthening his position, and reconciling the
nation to his usurpation.
There was Elizabeth, the late King's niece, whose person he had
secured. If she was made queen it might propitiate the powerful
Yorkist party. But she was illegitimate, and consequently young
Warwick was the rightful King. There was another more fatal
difficulty, a knowledge of which was shared with the girl's mother, if
not with the girl herself. All evidence of the illegitimacy might be
destroyed. Henry caused the Act of Parliament recording and legalising
King Richard's title to be expunged. He ordered the original Act to be
removed from the Rolls and burnt. Every person who possessed a copy or
remembrance of it, was commanded to deliver up the same, under a
penalty of fine and imprisonment at the tyrant's pleasure.[6] Henry
granted a general pardon to Bishop {251} Stillington in order to avoid
prosecuting him for the offence of having borne witness to the
illegitimacy. For he feared discussion. He then trumped up some other
charge, threw the Bishop into prison, and that unfortunate prelate
never came out alive.
But this was not enough. There was other work to be done from which
Henry long recoiled. Yet without its perpetration he could not safely
be married to Elizabeth, and there could be no security for his
usurpation. Indeed, his position would be rendered even more
precarious by the destruction of the evidence of illegitimacy. He had
usurped a throne to retain which he saw that the committal of more than
one crime was indispensable.
Meanwhile Henry had summoned the so-called Parliament of his outlawed
adherents. He got his own attainder reversed. He then caused an act
of attainder to be passed against the late King and many loyal noblemen
and knights, whose property he seized. He had the effrontery to accuse
them of treason to him, by dating the commencement of his reign from
the day previous to the battle of Bosworth. No more shameless act of
injustice is recorded in the annals of tyranny. The bit of legal
chicanery by which an attempt was made to excuse it, shows the
character of the man.
======================================================================
{252}
LOYAL MEN WITH THE KING AT BOSWORTH
ILLEGAL ATTAINDERS BY ORDER OF HENRY TUDOR PASSED IN THE SO-CALLED
PARLIAMENT OF 1485
Richard III., King of England, K.G. }
John Howard, Duke of Norfolk, K.G. } _Slain at Bosworth_.
Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey, K.G. _Prisoner at Bosworth_.
Francis Viscount Lovell, K.G. _Slain at Stoke_.
Walter Lord Ferrers, K.G. }
John Lord Zouch. } _Slain at Bosworth_.
Sir James Harington. (Clerk of the Council.) _At Bosworth_.
Sir Robert Harington. _At Bosworth_.
Sir Richard Charlton. _At Bosworth_.
Sir Richard Ratcliffe, K.G. _Slain at Bosworth_.
Sir William Berkeley, K.B. (Knight of the Bath at the Coronation.)
Sir Robert Brackenbury. (Constable of the Tower.) _Slain at Bosworth_.
Sir Thomas Pilkington. (Brother-in-law of the Haringtons.) _Slain at Stoke_.
Sir Robert Middleton.
Walter Hopton, Esq. (Treasurer of the Household.)
William Catesby, Esq. (Chancellor of the Exchequer.) _Murdered at Leicester_.
Roger Wake, Esq.
William Sapcote, Esq., of Huntingdonshire.
Humphrey Stafford, Esq. _Put to death by Henry VII_.
William Clarke, Esq., of Wenlock.
Walter St. Germain, Esq.
Walter Watkin, Esq. (Herald.)
Richard Revell, Esq., of Derbyshire.
Thomas Pulter, Esq., of Kent.
John Welch, Esq., _otherwise_ Hastings.
John Kendall, Esq. (Secretary of State.) _Slain at Bosworth_.
John Buck, Esq. (Comptroller of the Household.) _Murdered at Leicester_.
John Batte, Esq.
William Brampton, Esq., of Burford.
(From the _Plumpton Correspondence_, p. 48.)
======================================================================
This odious measure outraged the feelings of all parties in the
country. 'There was many gentlemen against it, but it would not be for
it was the king's pleasure,' wrote Sir Robert Plumpton's correspondent
from London.[7] The monk of Croyland wrote against the outrage,
exclaiming 'O God! what security are our kings to have henceforth that
in the day of battle they {253} may not be deserted by their subjects
who, acting on the awful summons of a king may, on the decline of that
king's party, as is frequently the case, be bereft of life and fortune
and all their inheritance.'[8] Nor was this insult to King Richard's
memory, and the lawless robbery of his loyal subjects, forgotten by the
people of England. They were resolved to secure themselves against a
repetition of such proceedings. Ten years afterwards the tyrant had
the mortification of being obliged to give his assent to an Act
formally condemning the attainder of King Richard's officers.[9]
It is very significant that, although in the Act of Attainder King
Richard is reviled for cruelty and tyranny, he is not accused of the
murder of his nephews. This is most remarkable. Henry got possession
of the Tower at once. He arrived in London on August 28. If the young
princes were missing, it is certain that in the Act of Attainder the
usurper would have promptly accused King Richard of having murdered
them. But he did not do so. There can only be one explanation of this
omission. The young princes were not missing.
[Sidenote: Henry's great difficulty]
Here then was Henry's great difficulty. This fully accounts for the
long delay in marrying Elizabeth. He was afraid. He was ready to
commit any crime with the forms of law. He did not hold with Lord
Russell, that 'killing by forms of law was the worst kind of murder.'
But a recourse to law was impossible {254} in this case. Whatever he
was to do, must be done in profound secrecy. Yet his timid and
superstitious nature shrank from a crime the responsibility of which he
could not share with others. Its perpetration had, he saw, become
absolutely necessary for his security. He hesitated for months. All
evidence of the illegitimacy had been hidden out of sight. No man
dared to mention it. He long stood on the brink. At length he plunged
into guilt. He married Elizabeth on January 18, 1486, nearly five
months after his accession. The die was then cast. It became a matter
of life and death to Henry VII. that the brothers of his wife should
cease to exist.
[Sidenote: Tudor victims]
We must now apply the same tests to Henry as we applied to Richard.
Had Henry sufficient motive for the crime? It is impossible that a man
in his position could have had a stronger motive. He had denied the
illegitimacy, and had thus made his wife's brothers his most formidable
rivals. He could not, he dared not let them live, unless he
relinquished all he had gained. The second test we applied to Richard
was his treatment of those persons who were in his power, and who were,
as regards relationship, in the same position as the sons of Edward IV.
Let us apply the same test to Henry. John of Gloucester, the
illegitimate son of Richard III., fell into the hands of Henry. At
first the boy received a maintenance allowance of 20_l._ a year.[10]
But he was soon thrown into prison, on suspicion of an invitation
having reached him to come to Ireland, and he never came {255} out
alive.[11] This 'active well-disposed boy,'[12] as he is described in
the warrant in Rymer's 'Foedera,' fell a victim to the usurper's fears.
His right to the crown was at least as good as that of Henry Tudor. He
was the illegitimate son of a king. Henry was only the great-grandson
of an illegitimate son of a younger son of a king. The Earl of
Warwick, who was the rightful heir to the crown, was also in Henry's
power. The tyrant hesitated for years before he made up his mind to
commit another foul crime. But he finally slaughtered the unhappy
youth under circumstances of exceptional baseness and infamy, to secure
his own ends. His next supposed danger was caused by the Earl of
Suffolk, another nephew of King Richard. The ill-fated prince was
delivered into Henry's hands under a promise that his life should be
spared. He evaded the promise by enjoining his son to kill the victim.
That son promptly complied, and followed up the death of Suffolk by
putting five other descendants of the Plantagenet royal family to
death. These Tudor kings cannot stand the tests we applied to Richard
III., which he passed unscathed. The conduct of Richard to the
relations who were under his protection was that of a Christian king.
The executions of which Henry VII. and his son were guilty were an
imitation of the policy of Turkish sultans.
If the young princes were in the Tower when Henry succeeded, his
conduct in analogous cases leaves no doubt of their fate. It was the
fate of John of Gloucester, Warwick, Suffolk, Exeter, {256} Montagu,
Surrey, Buckingham, and the Countess of Salisbury.[13] They may not
have been made away with before Henry's marriage, nor for some months
afterwards. The tyrant had the will but not the courage. He hesitated
long, as in the case of young Warwick. For reasons which will appear
presently it is likely that the boys were murdered, by order of Henry
VII., between June 16 and July 16, 1486, three years after the time
alleged by the official Tudor historians.
[Sidenote: Imprisonment of the Queen Dowager]
Then, for the first time, the 'common fame' was ordered to spread the
report that King Richard 'had put them under suer kepynge within the
tower, in such wise that they never came abrode after,' and that 'King
Richard put them unto secrete death.'[14] But Henry feared detection.
The mother knew that this was false. If the boys were murdered in July
1486, that mother must soon have begun to feel uneasy. She was at
Winchester with her daughter when her grandchild Arthur was born on
September 20, 1486, and was present at the baptism. But she was in
London in the autumn, and before many months her suspicions must have
been aroused. She must be silenced. Consequently, in February 1487
'it was resolved that the Lady Elizabeth, wife of King Edward IV.,
should lose and forfeit all her lands and possessions because she had
voluntarily submitted herself and her daughters {257} to the hands of
King Richard. Whereat there was much wondering.'[15] She was ordered
to reside in the nunnery of Bermondsey.[16] Once she was allowed to
appear at Court on a State occasion.[17] The pretext for her detention
was not the real motive, for Henry had made grants of manors and other
property to his mother-in-law soon after his accession,[18] when her
conduct with regard to King Richard was equally well known to him. The
real reason was kept secret, as well it might be. Mr. Gairdner calls
this proceeding 'a very mysterious decision taken about the Queen {258}
Dowager.'[19] Very mysterious, indeed, on the assumption of Henry's
innocence. But not so if the mother knew that her sons were alive when
Richard fell, and could now obtain no tidings of them. If the boys
ceased to live in July 1486, it was high time for Henry to silence the
awkward questions of their mother in the following February. He did so
by condemning her to life-long seclusion in a nunnery. Henry was
terrified that a lady who knew some of his secrets, and probably
suspected more, should be at large. In the end of the following year,
and not till then, Henry's wife Elizabeth was at length crowned on
November 25, 1487. The King and his mother beheld the ceremony from a
stage, but there is no mention of the poor Queen's mother.
[Sidenote: Polydore Virgil's story]
Years passed on. Perkin Warbeck personated young Richard, and no one
had such good reason as Henry for knowing that he was an impostor. But
the tyrant dared not tell how he knew that Perkin was a 'feigned boy,'
as he called him. At length, in 1502 or thereabouts, the first
detailed story of the murder of the two princes was put forward, after
the execution of Sir James Tyrrel. It may be considered as Henry's
official statement, and was evidently communicated to his paid
historian Polydore Virgil, in whose hands it took the following form:
'Richard lived in continual fear, for the expelling thereof by any kind
of means, he determined by death to despatch his nephews, because so
long as they lived he could never be out of hazard. Wherefore he sent
warrant to Robert Brakenbury, Lieutenant of the Tower, to procure their
death with all diligence by some means convenient. Then he departed to
York. {259} But the Lieutenant of the Tower of London, after he had
received the King's horrible commission, was astonished with the
cruelty of the fact, and fearing lest, if he should obey, the same
might one time or other turn to his own harm, did therefore defer the
doing thereof in hope that the King would spare his own blood, or their
tender age, or alter that heavy determination. But any one of these
points were so far from taking place, seeing that the mind therein
remained immovable, as that when King Richard understood the Lieutenant
to make delay of that which he had commanded, he anon committed the
charge of hastening that slaughter unto another, that is to say James
Tyrrel, who, being forced to do the King's commandment, rode
sorrowfully to London, and to the worst example that hath been almost
ever heard of, murdered those babes of the issue royal. This end had
Prince Edward and Richard his brother, but with what kind of death
these silly children were executed is not certainly known.'
This was the story put forward by Henry after Tyrrel's death. He may
have added some other particulars afterwards.[20] It is indeed
probable that he did. A much more detailed fable appeared in the
history attributed to More, and in Grafton, both by the same hand. It
has been seen already that the statements of this writer are unworthy
of credit, and it is very difficult to distinguish what parts were
authorised by Henry,[20] and what parts were fabricated by the writer
himself. His story is as follows:
'At the time when Sir James Tyrrel and John {260} Dighton were in
prison for treason in 1502, they made the following confession. Taking
his way to Gloucester in August 1483, King Richard sent one John Green
with a letter to Sir Robert Brakenbury, Constable of the Tower,
ordering him to put the children to death. Sir Robert plainly answered
that he would not put them to death; with which answer John Green
returning, recounted the same to King Richard at Warwick.
'The same night the King said to a secret page of his, "Who shall I
trust to do my bidding?" "Sir," quoth the page, "there lieth one on
your pallet without who I dare well say will do your Grace's pleasure,
the things were right hard that he would refuse." This was Sir James
Tyrrel, who saw with envy that Ratcliffe and Catesby were rising above
him in his master's favour. Going out to Sir James, who was reposing
with his brother Thomas, the King said "what Sirs are you abed so
soon?" then, calling Sir James into his chamber, he brake to him
secretly his mind in this mischievous matter. Tyrrel assented, and was
despatched on the morrow with a letter to Brakenbury, to deliver to Sir
James all the keys of the Tower for one night. After which letter
delivered and the keys received, Sir James appointed the night next
ensuing to destroy them, devising before and preparing the means. The
princes were in charge of Will Slaughter (or Slater) called "Black
Will," who was set to serve them and see them sure. Sir James Tyrrel
devised that they should be murdered in their beds; to the execution
whereof he appointed Miles Forest, one of the four who kept them, a
fellow flesh-bred in murder before time. To him he joined his
horse-keeper, John Dighton, a big, broad, square, strong {261} knave.
They smothered the children, and Tyrrel ordered the murderers to bury
them at the stair foot, metely deep in the ground, under a great heap
of stones. Then rode Sir James in great haste to King Richard, and
shewed him all the manner of the murder, who gave him great thanks, and
as some say, then made him knight. But the King allowed not their
burial in so vile a corner, because they were King's sons. Whereupon a
priest of Sir Robert Brakenbury took them and secretly interred them in
such a place as, by the occasion of his death which only knew it the
very truth could never yet be very well known. Very truth is it and
well known that at such time as Sir James Tyrrel was in the Tower for
treason, committed against King Henry VII., both he and Dighton were
examined together of this point, and both they confessed the murder to
be done in the same manner as you have heard. God never gave a more
notable example of what wretched end ensueth such despiteous cruelty.
Miles Forest at St. Martin-le-Grand piecemeal miserably rotted away.
Sir James Tyrrel died on Tower Hill. Dighton, indeed, yet walketh
alive, in good possibility to be hanged ere he die.' Grafton says:
'John Dighton lived at Calais long after, no less disdained and hated
than pointed at, and there died in great misery.' The version in
Kennet[21] makes both 'Dighton and Forest die in a most horrible
manner, rotting away by degrees.' 'Thus, as I have learned of them
that much knewe and little cause had to lye were these two princes
murdered.' This last sentence is audacious. These informers, if they
ever existed outside the writer's imagination, had very strong cause to
lie. They thus complied with the wishes of {262} the reigning powers,
and furthered their own interests. The truth, if they knew it, would
have been their ruin.
[Sidenote: The story published by Rastell]
Such is the detailed accusation which was finally put forward. It
contradicts the story of Morton, in his alleged conversation with
Buckingham, who says that the princes were murdered long before the
King reached Warwick, and while Buckingham was still at Court. On the
face of it there is no confession in this long story. It is a
concocted tale, and, indeed, this is fully admitted. It is merely
represented to be the most probable among several others which were
based on various accounts of the alleged confession. If there ever was
a confession why should there be various accounts of it? The silence
of Fabyan, and of Polydore Virgil, who must have heard of the
confession if it had been made, seems conclusive against the truth of
the story of a confession.
Even this selected tale, as we have received it, is full of gross
improbabilities and inaccuracies. For instance, Tyrrel, who is said to
have been knighted for the murder, had been a knight for twelve years,
and was also a Knight Banneret of some standing.[22] The first thing
that strikes one is that, if the story had been true, Henry must have
heard the main facts when he came to London, after the battle of
Bosworth. For Sir Robert Brackenbury's supersession during one day,
with the delivery of all the keys to Sir James Tyrrel, must inevitably
have been known to his subordinates. All the officials of the Tower
must have known it, and must also have known that the boys disappeared
at the same time. Many persons must have been acquainted with what
happened. Some of them would certainly have been eager to gain favour
with {263} Henry by telling him, when he enquired about the missing
princes. Yet there is no accusation in the Act of Attainder against
Richard or Tyrrel, and it is pretended that nothing was known until
1502. This proves that the story was a subsequent fabrication.
There is another proof that the tale was false. It is alleged that
Tyrrel and Dighton both confessed. Yet Tyrrel was beheaded for another
offence in defiance of Henry's plighted word, and Dighton was rewarded
with a residence at Calais and, as will be seen presently, a sinecure
in Lincolnshire. These are proofs that there was no such confession as
was alleged and was embodied in the story which, as it now stands, must
be a fabrication. For if the confessions were ever made, Tyrrel and
Dighton must have been tried and convicted for these atrocious murders,
and duly punished. It has been suggested that Tyrrel could not be
proceeded against because his statement was under the seal of
confession. It is clear from the story that this was not so. The
story tells us that Tyrrel and Dighton were subjected to examination,
and that it was in that way that their confessions were obtained. In
point of fact Dighton does not appear to have been arrested at all.
The names of those who were concerned in Tyrrel's business are given by
the chroniclers, and Dighton is not one of them.[23]
It seems unnecessary to dwell on the absurdities and contradictions in
the story itself. They have often been exposed, and indeed they are
admitted by Mr. Gairdner, who merely contends that the story may be
{264} true in the main, although the details may not be correct. But
it is worth while to refer to the contention of Sharon Turner, Lingard
and others, that the story must be true, on the ground that the persons
mentioned in it were rewarded by King Richard.
[Sidenote: Alleged rewards to murderers]
They maintain that 'Brakenbury and Tyrrel received several grants,
Green was made receiver of the Isle of Wight and of the castle and
lordship of Porchester, Dighton was appointed Bailiff of the manor of
Ayton, Forest was keeper of the wardrobe at Barnard Castle.' But it is
not pretended that 'Black Will' was rewarded by Richard. We shall
presently see that he was by Henry. All this can easily be answered.
Brackenbury and Tyrrel were Yorkist officers of rank, and such grants
would have been made to them in any circumstances for their
distinguished services. As regards the others, either the grants were
made previous to the alleged date of the murders, or there is no
evidence to show whether they were made before or after, or in any way
to connect them with the crime. The statement that Green held the
receiverships of the Isle of Wight and Porchester is derived from an
entirely unsupported note by Strype.[24] There was a man named Green
who was Comptroller of Customs at Boston, and another who was appointed
to provide horse meat and litter for the King's stables. But the dates
of these appointments were July 24 and 30, 1483, before the alleged
date of the murders.
A man named Dighton was made Bailiff of the manor of Ayton[25]; but
there is nothing to show that {265} this appointment was after the
murder, or that he was Tyrrel's horse keeper, or that Tyrrel ever had a
groom of that name. It will presently be seen that the John Dighton of
the murder was probably a clergyman and not a groom.
It is alleged of Miles Forest that he was one of four jailers in the
Tower who had charge of the princes, that he was a professional
murderer, and that he rotted away miserably, in sanctuary at St.
Martin's-le-Grand. These assertions are certainly false. Miles Forest
was keeper of the wardrobe at Barnard Castle[26] in the valley of the
Tees in Durham, 244 miles from the Tower of London. There he lived
with his wife Joan and his son Edward. A footman serving at Middleham
Castle, named Henry Forest, was perhaps another son.[27] There is not
the slightest reason for believing that Forest entered upon his
appointment after the date of the alleged murders; but much to disprove
this assumption. He died in September 1484, and, as his wife and son
received a pension for their lives, he must have been an old and
faithful servant who had held the office for many years.
Dr. Lingard suggests that the pension was granted because Forest held
the post for such a _short_ time, assuming that he was one of the
murderers in the story. This is certainly a very odd reason for
granting a pension![28] Some authors have thought that it was
Baynard's Castle, the residence of the Duchess of York in London, where
Forest was keeper of the wardrobe. But the names in the manuscript are
quite clear.
Miles Forest was a responsible old official in a royal castle, living
with his wife and grown-up sons in the {266} far north of England;
where he died and his family received a pension for his long service.
We are asked to believe that he was, at the same time, a notorious
murderer who was also a jailer in the Tower of London, and that he died
in sanctuary at St. Martin's-le-Grand.
[Sidenote: Genesis of the story]
How Forest's name got into the story concocted from the pretended
confession it is not possible, at this distance of time, to surmise.
But the author of it was quite unscrupulous, and the above
considerations justify the conclusion that Forest's name was used
without any regard for truth. There was a desire to give names and
other details in order to throw an air of verisimilitude over the
fable. We see the same attempt in the use of the name of Dighton. He
was not Tyrrel's horse-keeper, nor probably the actual murderer, but a
different person, as will be seen presently. But there was a John
Dighton living at Calais when the story was made up, who was known to
be connected, in some mysterious way, with the disappearance of the
princes. So the author of the story hit upon his name to do duty as a
strong square knave who did the deed. The name of Forest was doubtless
adopted owing to some similar chance. The name of neither Deighton nor
Forest occurs in the authorised version as given by Polydore Virgil.
Henry at first only accused Tyrrel of the murders; but it seems likely
that he subsequently put forward some further details. There is an
indication of the Green episode in Polydore Virgil. It is therefore
probable that it was sanctioned by Henry's authority, as well as the
details respecting the interment of the bodies. All the rest about
Dighton and Forest, and the mode in which their crime was committed, is
an impudent fabrication, as regards Richard, based upon {267} the
authorised story which is given by Polydore Virgil. The Italian was
supplied with the statement sanctioned by Henry, and he distinctly
tells us that the mode of death was not divulged.
If the mode of death was not divulged, the alleged confession of Tyrrel
and Dighton cannot have taken place. For this is the very thing they
would have confessed.
There remains a circumstantial story which may really have been
connected with a secret tragedy. It has a very suspicious look of
having been parodied out of something which actually happened. It is
unlikely to have been pure invention. The fear of detection must have
been always haunting Henry's mind. He would be tortured with the
apprehension that the vague rumours he had set afloat against Richard
were not believed; and this would be an inducement to promulgate a more
detailed and circumstantial story. He could not and dared not accuse
Tyrrel while he was alive, for a reason which will appear directly, but
as soon as he was dead it would be safe to do so. At the time when he
got rid of Tyrrel his son Arthur had just died. The man's mind would
be filled with fear of retributive justice. Then the terror of
detection would increase upon him. He would long to throw off
suspicion from himself, by something more decisive than vague rumour.
The notion of imputing his own crime, in its real details, to his
predecessor, is quite in keeping with the workings of a subtle and
ingenious mind such as we know Henry's to have been. Hence, Tyrrel,
Green, Dighton, Black Will, may have been the accomplices of Henry
VII., not of Richard III. As soon as Tyrrel was disposed of, the
circumstantial story might be divulged as his confession, merely {268}
substituting the name of Richard for that of Henry, and the name of
Brackenbury for that of Daubeney.[29]
[Sidenote: Murder of the princes]
With this clue to guide us, let us see what light can still be thrown
on the dark question of the murders. Sir James Tyrrel of Gipping had
been a knight of some distinction. He had been on a commission for
exercising the office of Lord High Constable under Edward IV. He had
been Master of the Horse and was created a Knight Banneret at Berwick
siege. King Richard made him Master of the Henchmen and conferred many
favours on him. But he was not one of the good men and true who stood
by their sovereign to the end. His name drops out of history during
those last anxious months before Bosworth. He was no doubt a trimmer.
But he could not escape the consequences of his long service under the
Yorkist kings. Henry Tudor deprived him of his Chamberlainship of the
Exchequer, and of his Constableship of Newport, in order to bestow
those appointments on his own friends.[30] Tyrrel had to wait
patiently in the cold shade. But he was ambitious, unscrupulous, and
ready to do a great deal for the sake of the new King's favour. Here
was a ready instrument for such a man as Henry Tudor.
The die had been cast. The usurper had married Elizabeth of York and
entered upon the year 1486. There was a dark deed which must be done.
Henry set out on a progress to York, leaving London in the middle of
March. On the 11th of the same month, John Green received from the new
King a grant of {269} a third of the manor of Benyngton in
Hertfordshire.[31] For this favour Green had, no doubt, to perform
some secret service which, if satisfactorily executed, would be more
fully rewarded. This grant was a small retaining fee. We know from
the story what that service was. We also know from the story that
Green did not succeed. Henry VII. returned from his progress in June,
only to find that Green had failed him in his need. Then Henry (not
Richard) may well have exclaimed 'Who shall I trust to do my bidding?'
'"Sir," quoth a secret councillor'[32] (called a page in the story),
'"there waiteth without one who I dare well say will do your Grace's
pleasure." So Tyrrel was taken into favour, and undertook to perform
Henry's work with the understanding that he was to receive a sufficient
reward. He became a knight of the King's body.[33] On June 16, 1486,
Sir James Tyrrel late of Gipping received a general pardon.[34] There
is nothing extraordinary in this. It was an ordinary practice, in
those days, to grant general pardons on various occasions. But it
marks the date when Henry found 'one without' who was ready to do his
pleasure. Tyrrel, as the story tells us, was given a warrant to the
Lieutenant of the Tower, conferring on him the needful powers. The
murders were then committed, as the story informs us, by William
Slaughter or Slater, called 'Black Will,' with the aid of John Dighton.
Slater was, no doubt, the jailer. Master Dighton, however, was not
Tyrrel's groom. A John Dighton was a priest, and possibly a chaplain
in the Tower. He may have {270} been only an accessory after the fact,
in connexion with the interments. The bodies, as we are told in the
story, were buried at the stair foot, 'metely deep in the ground';
where they were discovered in July 1674,[35] 188 years afterwards. The
tale about their removal,[36] and the death of the priest, was no doubt
inserted by Henry, to prevent that discovery. On July 16, 1486, Sir
James Tyrrel received a second general pardon.[37] This would be very
singular under ordinary circumstances, the second pardon having been
granted within a month of the first. But it is not so singular when we
reflect on what probably took place in the interval. There was an
offence to be condoned which must be kept a profound secret. Thus we
are able to fix the time of the murder of the two young princes between
June 16 and July 16, 1486. One was fifteen and a half, the other
twelve years of age.
[Sidenote: 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
{271} 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 {272} 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.
[Sidenote: 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. {273} 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 {274} 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.
[Sidenote: 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 {275} 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 {276}
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.
Warwick was now put out of the way, in obedience to the King of Spain.
But remorse gnawed the tyrant's heart. His father confessor, though
doubtless an astute courtier, failed to soothe his conscience. He
sought the help of wizards and quacks. But his superstitions gave him
little consolation. The Spanish Ambassador noticed the change that had
taken place in Henry's appearance since the murder of young Warwick.
Don Pedro de Ayala had been in Scotland during the interval. The King
had come to look many years older in a single month. Dark thoughts
were haunting his mind. His eldest son died, and an anonymous writer
has recorded that he showed some feeling, and exchanged words of
consolation with his wife.[46] This is quite in keeping with one side
of his character. The other side is shown in his harsh treatment of
Catharine of Aragon, in his monstrous proposal to marry her when his
wife died, in his disgusting inquiries respecting the young Queen of
Naples, and in his revolting offer for the hand of Juana (_la loca_).
But the necessities of his position gave him little time for the
indulgence either of such grief as he was capable of feeling or of the
other less creditable sentiments that are revealed in his
correspondence. His son's death must have seemed to him the Nemesis of
his crimes. Yet within a month he was beheading {277} Tyrrel, and
fabricating a story to account for the disappearance of his wife's
brothers.
We can never know how much that wife suffered. No doubt she was kept
in ignorance of the fate of her brothers. But she knew they were not
killed by her uncle. She saw her mother immured in a nunnery for life.
She saw her brother, the Marquis of Dorset, committed to the Tower.
She saw the sister, nearest to her in age, hurriedly married to old
Lord Welles. She must have suspected much, even if she knew nothing.
She could not have been kept in ignorance of the cruel imprisonment of
her young cousin Warwick. She must have shuddered at his murder. She
would have been less than human if she did not loathe the perpetrator
of these deeds, even though he was the father of her children. The
unhappy wife was released from companionship with the murderer of her
relations on February 11, 1503.
[Sidenote: Death of the Earl of Suffolk]
Another crime was contemplated by the miserable usurper, to make his
position safe. But he could not get the Earl of Suffolk into his
clutches without giving a solemn promise to spare his life. He evaded
the promise by advising his son to commit the crime after his
death.[47] Murderous designs thus occupied his mind, even on his
death-bed.
Yet one of Henry's last acts was an act of restitution. He restored in
blood, and to all his estates, the son of his accomplice, Sir James
Tyrrel, on April 6, 1507, feeling no doubt that the greater criminal of
the two remained unpunished, except by his own remorseful conscience.
{278}
Henry became haggard and restless. Prosperous and successful as the
world deemed him, we may rely upon it that his crimes were not
unpunished. His cowardly nature was peculiarly susceptible to the
torturing pangs of remorse. He died, full of terrors, prematurely old
and worn out, at the early age of fifty-two, on April 21, 1509. He was
successful as the world counts success. He accumulated riches by
plunder and extortion. He established a despotic government. He
cleared his path of rivals. We are told that he inaugurated a new
era--era of 'benevolences' and Star Chamber prosecutions. In all these
things he succeeded. He, and the writers he employed, were
pre-eminently successful as slanderers. They succeeded in blackening
for all time the fame of a far better man than Henry Tudor.
[Sidenote: Things unexplained]
Hitherto we have been engaged in the investigation of positive
evidence. There is, however, another side to the question--a negative
side. We must now examine Henry's omissions. According to his story
he found the two boys missing when he arrived in London after the
battle of Bosworth. If Henry's story was true, it must have been well
known to every official in the Tower that Sir Robert Brackenbury gave
up charge to Sir James Tyrrel and that the boys had never been seen
since. If Henry made any enquiries he must have heard this, and the
whole story would have come out. Why were not Tyrrel, Dighton, Green,
and Black Will arrested, tried, and hanged? Why was not King Richard
accused of murdering his nephews in the Act of Attainder? It is very
improbable, though just possible, that Henry might have failed to
ascertain the details of the story, assuming it to have been true, when
he first arrived. Still, if the boys were missing, {279} it is certain
that he would have accused Richard of their murder in the Act of
Attainder. His omission to do so amounts to a strong presumption that
they were not missing. According to the story, Tyrrel and Dighton
confessed the murder in 1502. Why were they not tried and executed for
it? This must have been done if there ever was a confession. It was
clearly not made under the seal of confession, according to the story,
but under the pressure of official examination. Tyrrel was actually
beheaded, in great haste, on a frivolous charge, and his capture was a
breach of a royal promise given under the privy seal. Surely this
would have been avoided if there had been any other way, and there was
another way. There was every possible reason for trying him for these
horrible murders and executing him for them. Why was not this done?
There can be only one answer. There was no confession. Henry's
treatment of Dighton is still more extraordinary. It is alleged that
he also confessed the murder. Yet he was not only unpunished, but
allowed to live at large in Calais. When we find that Henry gave
rewards to Tyrrel, Dighton, Green, and Black Will, the conclusion is
inevitable that there was no confession to the King in 1502, because it
was quite unnecessary. The confession was due from Henry himself.
Another omission in Henry's conduct is equally incriminating. If the
children of Edward IV. were legitimate, why was not the Act of Richard
III. published, which alleged their illegitimacy, and its falsehood
fully exposed by evidence? Why was such extraordinary anxiety shown to
conceal its contents, and violence threatened against anyone who
preserved a record of them? Why were absurd, improbable, {280} and
contradictory tales invented, in substitution of the statements made in
Richard's Act? There can be only one answer. The statements in the
Act were true.
In no other way can Henry's cruel treatment of the young Earl of
Warwick be accounted for. If Elizabeth was the legitimate heiress of
York, then there could be no danger from Warwick, and no reason for
molesting him. He was simply a harmless young prince, far removed from
the succession. But if Elizabeth and her sisters were not legitimate,
the case was very different. Warwick was then _de jure_ Edward V.
There was every reason for a usurper to imprison and kill him. The
Lambert Simnel insurrection is explained in that case. It would have
been without motive if Warwick came after five others in the succession
to the crown. Here again Henry's conduct can only be explained in one
way. Warwick was imprisoned and killed for the same reason that
Richard's Act of Parliament, declaring his title, was destroyed.
The conduct of Henry adds weight to all the other evidence. It cannot
be reconciled with his innocence. It can only be explained by his
guilt.
[1] William Catesby was the son of Sir William Catesby of Ashby St.
Leger in Northamptonshire, by Philippa, heiress of Sir William
Bishopston. He was a learned man, well versed in the laws of his
country. On June 30, 1483, he become Chancellor of the Exchequer, and
was chosen Speaker of King Richard's Parliament. Lord Rivers had such
confidence in his integrity that he nominated him executor of his will.
His wife was Margaret, daughter of William Lord Zouch. He made his own
will on August 25, 1485, leaving his wife sole executrix and dividing
his property among his children. His unjust attainder was afterwards
reversed in favour of his son George.
[2] Yet Dr. Lingard tells us that 'Henry was careful not to stain his
triumph with blood.' This is a strange assertion, when it is directly
followed by the admission that he did stain his triumph with blood. Of
all his prisoners,' he continues, 'three only suffered death, the
notorious [why notorious?] Catesby and two persons of the name of
Brecher, who _probably_ had merited that distinction by their crimes'
(iv. p. 260). This is a pure assumption, unwarranted by any evidence
whatever. If the word 'loyalty' had been substituted for 'crimes,' Dr.
Lingard would have been nearer the truth. All that this historian's
praise amounts to is that Henry refrained from committing a massacre,
such as he caused to be perpetrated on a subsequent occasion, when
Warbeck's followers landed in Kent.
Mr. Gairdner says: 'Whether these executions were just is another
question, save that the ministers of a bad king must take the
responsibility even of his worst deeds' (p. 311). He evidently sees
that Henry's conduct is indefensible; and he has elsewhere admitted
that Richard was not a bad King.
The more impartial Hutton says: 'Thus the first regal act performed by
Henry was an act of tyranny' (_Bosworth_, p. 148).
[3] 'For men remember not any King of England before that tyme which
used such a furniture of daily soldiers.'--Hall, p. 425.
[4] Gairdner.
[5] 'De jure belli et de jure Lancastriae.'
[6] _Rot. Parl._ vi. 289_a_. The monk of Croyland had a copy, but
luckily for him, he was not found out.
[7] _Plumpton Correspondence_. Letter dated December 13, 1485 (p. 49).
[8] Translation by Mr. Gairdner in his _Henry VII._ (p. 38).
[9] 11 Henry VII. cap. 1 (1496). It was enacted that no person serving
the King and Sovereign Lord of the land for the time being shall be
convicted of high treason, nor suffer any forfeiture or imprisonment.
In the previous year the usurper, also no doubt from fear of public
opinion, had paid 10_l._ 1_s._ to James Keyley for King Richard's tomb
(_Excerp. Hist._ p. 105).
[10] Grant to John of Gloucester of an annual rent of 20_l._ during the
King's pleasure, from the revenues of the manor of Kingston Lacey,
parcel of the Duchy of Lancaster in the county of Dorset. March 1
1486.--_Materials for a History of the Reign of Henry VII._ i.
[11] 'About the same time there was a base-born son of King Richard
III. made away, having been kept long in prison.'--Buck, p. 105, from
_Chron. MS._ in 4to. apud _Dr. Rob. Cotton_.
[12] Rymer, xii. p. 265.
[13] A critic, after reading this work, objected that partiality was
shown by the fact that while the older writers are blamed for
blackening Richard's character in other ways, in order to make the
charge of murdering the princes more plausible, precisely the same
thing is done with Henry VII. But the other charges against Henry are
proved and acknowledged facts. Those against Richard have been
disproved. The older writers are justly blamed for inventing calumnies.
[14] Fabyan.
[15] Polydore Virgil. Lord Bacon observes, in his _Life of Henry
VII._, 'which proceeding, being even at that time taxed for rigorous
and undue makes it probable there was some greater matter against her,
which the King, upon reason of policy, would not publish.'
Undoubtedly, there was; she knew too much.
[16] Dr. Lingard (iv. 279 and 286_n_) and Nicolas (p. lxxviii) bring
forward a negotiation with the King of Scots, in November 1487, in
which Henry proposed that James III. should marry the Queen Dowager, as
a proof that he never deprived her of liberty. If he suspected her,
they argue, he would not have given her the opportunity of plotting
against him, which her situation as Queen of Scotland would have
afforded her. Although Henry may have momentarily entertained the idea
of getting rid of a woman who knew too much by this expatriation, he
soon changed his mind. She was safer in his power. The negotiations
were broken off, and James was killed in the following year.
[17] She was present when her daughter gave audience to the French
Ambassador in November 1489 (_Leland Coll._ iv. 249). Henry allowed
her a pension of 400_l._ a year from February 19, 1490. Her will,
dated April 10, 1492, is witnessed by the Abbot of Bermondsey. She
here confirms the fact of the seizure of her property by her
son-in-law. Her words are decisive on that point. 'Whereas I have no
worldly goods.' Sir H. Nicolas tried to account for this by suggesting
that she only had a life interest in her income. But this will not
explain so sweeping a statement as that she had no worldly goods at all
(p. lxxx).
Mr. Gairdner says: 'Henry VII. found it advisable to shut up his
mother-in-law in a monastery, and had not the slightest scruple in
taking her property away from her' (_Richard III._ p. 88).
[18] _Letters Patent_, March 4, 1486.
[19] Gairdner's _Henry VII._
[20] 'The King's manner of showing things by pieces and side lights
hath so muffled it that it hath left it almost a mystery to this
day.'--Lord Bacon.
[21] i. 501.
[22] He was made a Knight Banneret at the taking of Berwick, in 1482.
[23] They were Sir William Courtenay, one Welborne, and Tyrrel's son,
who were pardoned; Sir Walter Tyrrel and Sir John Wyndham beheaded; a
Ship-master hanged at Tyburn, a Poursuivant named Curson, and a Yeoman
named Matthew Jones executed at Guisnes; all on suspicion of having
aided the Earl of Suffolk to escape.
[24] In Rennet's _England_, i. p. 552. Mr. Gairdner, referring to this
note by Strype, says: 'I own I cannot find his authority.'--_Richard
III._ p. 164.
[25] _Harl. MS._ 433, fol. 55.
[26] _Harl. MS._ 433, fol. 78 and 187.
[27] _Ibid._ 433, fol. 118.
[28] v. 577.
[29] The Earl of Oxford was appointed Constable of the Tower for life,
on September 22, 1485. We may hope that Oxford, who did not reside,
had no guilty knowledge.
[30] _Memorials of Henry VII._ i. pp. 41, 95.
[31] _Memorials of Henry VII._ i. p. 384.
[32] Was this Morton? Buck had heard so.
[33] _Memorials of Henry VII._ ii. p. 251.
[34] _Ibid._ i. p. 460.
[35] Sandford, v. p. 404.
[36] 'The latter part of the tale, which declares their interment by
the priest and their removal by Richard's order, was evidently
fabricated by Henry, to prevent the hazard of a search.'--Hutton's
_Bosworth_, p. 169.
[37] _Memorials of Henry VII._ i. p. 486.
[38] Lord Welles was a half brother, on the mother's side, of Henry's
mother.
[39] Anne was eleven. In due time she was married to the son of the
Earl of Surrey. Katherine was only seven. When she was twenty she
became the wife of the Lancastrian Earl of Devonshire. Bridget, the
youngest, was five. She was immured in a nunnery at Dartford, as soon
as she was old enough.
[40] _Memorials of Henry VII._ i. p. 617.
[41] As late as 1488 there is a grant of five marks, at Easter, 'by way
of reward,' to William Slater. If this was the jailer, he received
hush money for two years after the perpetration of the murders. He is
not heard of again. _Memorials of Henry VII._ ('Writs under the Privy
Seal. Easter Term 3 Hen. VII.'), ii. p. 298.
[42] _Memorials of Henry VII._ ii. p. 148.
[43] This appears from general pardons having been granted to the
former Constable, to the Chaplain, and to twenty-four soldiers of the
garrison of Guisnes on the same date, July 16. No doubt these pardons
were on the occasion of the appointment of a new Constable, and the
return of part of the garrison to England.
[44] _Memorials of Henry VII._ ii. pp. 188, 251.
[45] This is an ugly story. Dr. Richard Fox was originally an agent of
Morton and other conspirators abroad. This discreditable work brought
him to Paris early in 1485, where he became known to Henry Tudor. A
man so employed could not have been a good priest. He came with Henry
to England as his Secretary, and was of course well rewarded. He
became Bishop of Winchester and Lord Privy Seal; and appears to have
been munificent and diligent as a prelate. By his 'pulchris verbis' he
treacherously drew Tyrrel into the clutches of Sir Thomas Lovell. This
appears from a letter of the Earl of Suffolk to the Emperor Maximilian
dated at Aix-la-Chapelle on May 12, 1502. So hurried were the
proceedings against Tyrrel that he was actually beheaded six days
before the date of Suffolk's letter announcing his treacherous capture.
Bishop Fox has been much eulogised. But no one could be for years in
the inner counsels of such a man as Henry VII. without being in
sympathy with his ways, which certainly do not deserve eulogy.
[46] _Leland's Coll._ v. p. 373. From an anonymous manuscript.
_Letters of Richard III. and Henry VII._, B. P. i. Pref. p. 29.
[47] Lord Herbert of Cherbury, _Life of Henry VIII._ p. 36. 'Our King
executing what his father at his departure out of the world commanded,
as Bellay hath it.'
{281}
CHAPTER VI
MR. GAIRDNER'S RICHARD III
It will be interesting, in conclusion, to examine the critical
treatment of these questions by the latest historian who has written on
the subject.[1] Mr. Gairdner argues in favour of the Tudor portrait of
the last Plantagenet King, but only to a limited extent.
The thick and thin believers in the Tudor caricature, such as Hume and
Lingard, aroused doubts in many minds. Mr. Gairdner is the most
formidable enemy to the memory of the gallant young King that has yet
appeared, because he is, beyond comparison, the best informed author
that has ever treated of this part of history, has conscientiously
striven to be fair and impartial, and has stated both sides of the
question, while retaining a belief in Richard's worst crimes. His
predecessors, who have taken his view, simply adopted all the
statements of Tudor writers as facts, and have depicted a cool,
calculating, scheming, cruel, and most revolting villain without a
redeeming feature. They thus portrayed at least a possible monster.
But Mr. Gairdner, while striving to be fair and just, still clings to
what he calls 'tradition,' {282} that is to the Tudor stories of
crimes, told many years after the time. The two things are
incompatible, so that he produces a monster which would be impossible
anywhere. His Richard III. is a prince, headlong and reckless as to
consequences, but of rare gifts and with many redeeming qualities. He
was wise and able, brave, generous, religious, fascinating, and yet had
committed two very cowardly assassinations before he was nineteen,
murdered his defenceless nephews, and gratuitously slandered his
mother. Such a monster is an impossibility in real life. Even Dr.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are nothing to it.
Let us see how Mr. Gairdner arrived at his two-sided monster. He
explains his method in his preface. He demurs to the view of the late
Mr. Buckle that commonly received opinions should be doubted until they
are found to stand the test of argument.[2] He lays it down that no
attempt to set aside traditional views can be successful until the
history of the particular epoch has been re-written, and the new
version exhibits a moral harmony with the facts of subsequent times and
of times preceding.[3]
'Tradition,' Mr. Gairdner tells us, is an interpreter and nothing more,
and seldom supplies anything material in the way of facts.[4] Yet he
adds that the attempt to discard it is like an attempt to learn a
language without a master, and he thinks that a sceptical spirit is a
most fatal one in history. It is difficult to follow him when he
announces that, in spite of this view of tradition, his plan is to
place the chief reliance on contemporary information, and that this
treatment of history should be adhered to.[5]
{283}
'Tradition,' in Richard's case, means the embellishments of later
chroniclers writing long after the events, in the interests of another
dynasty. Unfortunately Mr. Gairdner does not always adhere to
contemporary evidence, but prefers 'tradition.'
In the case of Richard III. Mr. Gairdner thinks that it is not clearly
shown that the story would be more intelligible without 'tradition,'
and that the said 'tradition' is not well accounted for.
Let us endeavour to test these two propositions by the light of Mr.
Gairdner's own admissions.
His Richard stood high in general estimation when Duke of
Gloucester.[6] As King the people showed him marks of loyalty.[7] In
the north undoubtedly, and perhaps with the common people generally, he
was highly popular, and there was every evidence of devoted loyalty and
personal popularity at the time of Buckingham's rising.[8] He was an
able ruler,[9] he had the confidence even of his enemies in his justice
and integrity,[10] he was generous not only to the widows and children
of fallen enemies, but even to the wives of rebels in open revolt,[11]
his generous acts were done graciously and in no grudging spirit,[12]
there was nothing mean or paltry in his character,[13] his manners were
ingratiating, and he had great influence over others.
A person so described is very unintelligible if the assassinations and
infamies of 'tradition' have to be added. Richard's character is far
more intelligible without them; and 'tradition' is perfectly accounted
for by the necessities of the new dynasty, whose well-paid writers
created it.
{284}
Mr. Gairdner acknowledges that 'tradition' seldom supplies anything
material in the way of facts. Yet he maintains that traditional views
cannot be set aside unless the history of the particular epoch is
re-written, and the new version exhibits a moral harmony with the facts
of subsequent times and times preceding.
Of course certain passages in history would have to be re-written when
they were found to be erroneous. But the truth or falsehood of a
particular accusation cannot be affected by facts of subsequent times
or times preceding. Its truth or falsehood is not established by moral
harmony with something else, but by contemporary evidence.
My detailed remarks on Mr. Gairdner's views respecting Richard's
alleged crimes are intended to show that his conclusions are mistaken
when they deviate from his own plan of placing the chief reliance on
contemporary evidence; and that a sceptical spirit, in the special case
of Richard, is absolutely necessary if the truth is to be reached.
Mr. Gairdner assumes that Richard murdered his nephews, and, on the
strength of his guilt in committing that crime, he argues that the
criminal was capable of anything during his former life, and on this
ground believes in some of the other alleged crimes. The earlier
accusers appear to argue in the reverse way. They accumulated every
accusation they could think of, with reference to Richard's former
life, in order to make the main crime more probable.
Though Mr. Gairdner's sense of justice obliges him to make so many
admissions that the revolting monster of earlier histories almost
disappears in his hands, yet in some respects he goes backwards. For
he still {285} clings to the assassinations of young Edward and of
Henry VI., two horrible stories invented by later chroniclers. Surely
the sound arguments of Sharon Turner and others ought to have been
allowed finally to expunge these revolting fables from our history.
However, in Mr. Gairdner's book the venomous hunchback, born with
teeth, entirely disappears. He gives us, in his place, a prince 'whose
bodily deformity, though perceptible, was probably not conspicuous.'
In his latest version, he abandons the assassination in the King's tent
by his chief nobles. He thinks that Richard is unduly blamed about the
murder of Henry VI. because it was probably sanctioned by others. He
pronounces Richard to be guiltless of the death of Clarence. He admits
that Anne was not married to young Edward, and that there is some
reason to believe that she regarded Richard with favour. He gives no
countenance to the insinuation that Anne was poisoned by her husband.
He is inclined to credit the pre-contract of Edward IV. with Lady
Eleanor Butler, and admits the strength of the evidence for its truth.
He considers it remarkable that a man (Lord Rivers) who suffered by the
Protector's order could appeal to him to be supervisor of his will.
This would certainly be very remarkable if Gloucester and Rivers had
been accomplices in two cowardly murders. Such monsters do not usually
place confidence in each other. But the simple truth is not
remarkable. Rivers felt that he had failed and must pay the penalty,
but he placed full and deserved confidence in Richard's honour and
integrity, as well as in his generosity.
{286}
Mr. Gairdner has thus removed much of the Tudor garbage from the
picture of King Richard, but he will not sweep off the rest. His
researches show him that the accusations of the Tudor writers are
irreconcilable with the results of modern investigations. But his
preconceived convictions, although much shaken, are not yet swept away.
The inevitable result is that the life and character of Richard become
a puzzle to him. Generous, kind, and patriotic acts continue to be
recorded of the young King throughout his life, which are certainly not
the acts of an habitual assassin. Those who are forced to acknowledge
the facts, and yet cling to a belief in the fictions, find themselves
in a tight place. This is Mr. Gairdner's position. He will not give
up all the Tudor fables, and clings to such shreds of them as it seems
to him possible to retain. Yet his own researches force him to abandon
much and to apologize for the rest. The man's acts cannot be made to
harmonize with the Tudor calumnies. The consequent contradictions
necessitate the explanation that 'Richard was not yet even a hardened
criminal' (p. 46); while some of the events which cannot be disputed
are 'certainly remarkable' (p. 91), and others 'almost inconceivable'
(p. 214).
Mr. Gairdner cannot quite give up the fable of the murder of young
Edward at Tewkesbury. He admits that it was not countenanced by any
contemporary writer, that it was first told by Fabyan many years after
the event, and that the final embellishment, according to which young
Gloucester was a participator in the crime, was a tradition of later
times. Yet in his history, he preferred the tradition of later times
to the story of Fabyan, although he thought the latter had every
appearance of probability, and he preferred both to the {287} unanimous
testimony of contemporaries.[14] There is no reason for this
topsy-turvy criticism, except that what Mr. Gairdner calls a
'tradition' accuses Richard, while Fabyan and the contemporaries do not.
His arguments in favour of the murder given in his 'Life of Richard
III.' were that Richard may very probably have been a murderer at
nineteen, if any one of his other alleged murders be admitted; and that
he was capable of a cowardly assassination because he condemned
prisoners to death in his judicial capacity. On these grounds alone he
urged that the accusation is not to be rejected. He did not maintain
that it is true, but that it cannot safely be pronounced apocryphal.
He also admitted that Richard ought not to bear the whole
responsibility, as he was only an accessory. This is very different
from the downright condemnation of Hume and Lingard.[15] The fable is
evidently doomed. But there can be no sharing of responsibility. If
Richard stabbed his young cousin he was a cowardly ruffian, whether
other ruffians did the same or not. If he did not, no words can be
strong enough to express the infamy of his Italian slanderer.
Mr. Gairdner has since shifted his ground,[16] and, adopting
Warkworth's version, has admitted that {288} young Edward was slain in
the field, calling for succour to the Duke of Clarence; but he cannot
bring himself to acquit Richard altogether, and suggests that he was
the slayer, because no meaner person would have taken the
responsibility of slaying so valuable a prisoner. As if these
fine-drawn distinctions were made in the heat of a desperate _melee_.
But even so, the two boys being about the same age and weight, it was a
fair fight. There was no crime. Yet Mr. Gairdner still calls it a
'murder'! Of course there is no authority or ground whatever for
bringing Richard in at all, if Warkworth's version is adopted. Verily
the fiction is dying hard!
There is no reason for considering the Duke of Gloucester to have been
capable of assassinating his cousin because it was his duty to sit in
judgment on prisoners as Lord Constable. The trial of rebels before a
court consisting of the Earl Marshal and the Lord Constable was
perfectly legal and constitutional. Speaking of trial by jury, Chief
Justice Fortescue laid it down that in England 'some cases might be
proved before two only, such as facts occurring on the high seas, and
proceedings before the Earl Marshal and the Lord Constable.' It was a
constitutional tribunal, and, although very young, his office of
Constable made it incumbent on Gloucester to sit in judgment. The Earl
Marshal, being an older man, would probably take the leading part. Mr.
Gairdner says that it was a summary tribunal and that all who were
brought before it were beheaded. It was a constitutional tribunal, and
only thirteen prisoners were condemned to death. As many as twelve of
the leaders were pardoned, if not more, and all the subordinate
officers and soldiers. In comparison with Lancaster {289} and Tudor
proceedings under similar circumstances,[17] the tribunal at Tewkesbury
was lenient.[18]
Although it does not affect Richard, a serious accusation against
Edward IV. should here receive attention, namely, that his enemies who
had taken refuge in Tewkesbury Abbey might, in Mr. Gairdner's words,
'have saved themselves by flight if Edward had not sworn in church upon
the sacraments to pardon them. As to the executions being vindictive,
I should very much like to know what other character they can possibly
bear except that they were perfidious also.' They may be called
vindictive if all executions for treason in a civil war are to be so
called, but not, as Mr. Gairdner evidently intends, in any special
sense. The sting of the accusation, however, is in the alleged perfidy.
Here is Habington's version of the accusation referred to by Mr.
Gairdner. 'King Edward with his sword drawn would have entered the
church and forced the fugitives thence. But a priest with the
eucharist in his hand would not let him until he had granted to all a
free pardon. But this pardon betrayed {290} them, for on the Monday
after they were taken out of the church and all beheaded.'
There are some assertions so contrary to all reasonable probability
that they cannot be accepted, after having been examined with any care.
This is one. The fugitives had taken refuge in the abbey because they
were too closely pursued, and escape was not possible. How could they
have saved themselves by flight when Tewkesbury was occupied, and the
abbey surrounded by Edward's army? We are asked to believe that the
King swore on the sacrament to pardon all, and next day beheaded all.
Why should he commit this wholly useless act of perjury? There was no
object, nothing to gain by it. Even if he refrained from taking the
fugitives out of the church, which the story has it that he did do next
day, he could soon have starved them out. It is untrue that all were
beheaded. The story that he took such an unnecessary oath, intending
to break it next day, is too absurd for acceptance. As the result
proved, the King intended to have the prisoners tried before the Earl
Marshal's Court, to cause some of the condemned to undergo their
sentence, and to pardon others. He may possibly have told a priest
that some would be pardoned. This would soon be turned, by partisans,
into all being pardoned. In point of fact many were pardoned.
In discussing the alleged murder of Henry VI., Mr. Gairdner admits that
'an after age has been a little unjust to Richard in throwing upon him
the whole responsibility of acts in which others perhaps participated.'
But this amounts to a surrender of the whole point at issue. Richard
either stabbed Henry VI. without his brother's knowledge, as the story
attributed to Sir Thomas More tells us, or he did {291} nothing. The
boy of eighteen either obtained the custody of the Tower from his
political enemy Lord Rivers, without the King's knowledge and consent,
went to Henry's room, and stabbed the unarmed feeble invalid with a
dagger, or he did not. Assuming the murder, Mr. Gairdner appears to
mean by saying that others participated in it, that it was committed by
Edward IV. and his Council, with the complicity of Rivers the Constable
of the Tower. It is difficult to see what else he can mean. In that
case the statement of the historian whom Mr. Gairdner believes to be
Sir Thomas More, that Gloucester committed the murder without his
brother's knowledge, is false.
Mr. Gairdner is mistaken about the household accounts. He thinks they
only refer to the expenses and diet of Henry's servants. But the
statement is clear and distinct that the expenses and diet for fourteen
days after May 11, that is until May 24, are for Henry himself as well
as his attendants. The only contemporary writer gives the same date,
and Polydore Virgil, the official writer employed by Henry VII., tells
us that his death was long after May 21, the day when Richard was in
the Tower. Fabyan and Warkworth's informant give this date of May 21,
in contradiction to the above conclusive evidence for the 24th or night
of the 23rd. First they assumed the murder, and then they fixed the
date of it on the only day when Gloucester was there to commit it. The
household accounts expose this fabrication of dates.
Mr. Gairdner settles the difference between these authorities in a very
summary fashion. 'Considering the source from which this statement
comes' (for the 23rd) 'and its total disagreement with the accounts of
almost all other writers in or near the time, it is {292} impossible to
attach any weight to it whatever.' The answer to the last part of this
sentence is that the writer in question was the only one who wrote at
the time; and that Warkworth and Fabyan, who wrote afterwards, are the
only authorities for the 21st. Moreover Polydore Virgil, who had
access to all official records, directly contradicts Warkworth and
Fabyan, giving a much later date for the death of Henry VI.
Mr. Gairdner's other reason for rejecting the evidence of the writer in
Fleetwood is that his report was official, and that consequently 'it is
impossible to attach any weight to his statement whatever.' But on
this principle Mr. Gairdner ought to sweep away all the accusations
against Richard made by Tudor writers; for they are almost all the work
of official partisans engaged, some of them paid to vilify the
predecessor of their employer. Official chroniclers should be held in
suspicion, and their narratives call for strict scrutiny. But there
ought to be discrimination. If a document is official, it is not _ipso
facto_ false. There must be some evidence against it besides its
official character. The writer who sent a narrative of the restoration
of Edward IV. to the citizens of Bruges has not been detected in any
misrepresentations. He gave a plain statement of the course of events,
with no other object than to convey to the generous Flemings a
knowledge of what had befallen the gallant young King whom they had
befriended. He gave the 23rd as the date of the death of Henry VI.
because the fact was within his own personal knowledge. This was not
the case with any writer who has given a different date. According to
the story the murder was committed in profound secrecy. The most
virulent {293} Tudor chroniclers only mention it as a suspicion. There
was no ground whatever for the accusation, or they would have stated
it. This suspicion, as regards Gloucester, was never whispered until
the Tudor King was in power. It is, therefore, to the last degree
improbable that, assuming there was a crime, it should have been
needlessly divulged to the author of the letter to Bruges with orders
that he should falsify the date. If the murder was a secret, as the
Tudor chroniclers affirm, and if, as two of them assert, the date of
Henry's death was known, it would have been useless to falsify a date
which was known, to conceal an unknown deed. The inevitable conclusion
is that the date was not falsified in the letter to Bruges; and that
the 23rd was the day of Henry's death. The suggested falsification
would be such an act of folly as no writer, even if he wrote
officially, would be at all likely to commit; for it would be uselessly
raising a suspicion where none existed. If anything of the kind had
been attempted, the date of Richard's presence, not of Henry's death,
would have been altered. But there is really nothing to raise a
suspicion of the author's good faith.
Very different are the authorities who contradict him. Warkworth's
story contains a statement that the Duke of Gloucester was present in
the Tower at the time of Henry's death, and then the date is given with
that excessive minuteness of day and hour which is characteristic of
the lie circumstantial. The whole story is dished up with a miracle or
two. It is not necessary to suppose that Dr. Warkworth was himself
guilty of misrepresentation. He was evidently very credulous, and he
was deceived by his informer. As for Fabyan, he wrote in the days of
Henry VII. and {294} was desirous of suiting his tales to the wishes of
that jealous tyrant. Apart from the undesigned evidence of the
household accounts, the letter to the citizens of Bruges must, on every
principle of historical criticism, be accepted as a more reliable
authority, on this point, than the miracle-monger Warkworth or the
unscrupulous time-server Fabyan. The whole story about Henry VI.
having been murdered by Gloucester is palpably a Tudor calumny invented
long afterwards, and told so clumsily that it certainly did not deserve
the success which has attended it.[19]
Mr. Gairdner acquits Richard of responsibility for the death of
Clarence, as was inevitable. For he would not be supported even by the
most unscrupulous enemy of Richard's memory if he refused to acquit
him. Clearly there was no belief among his contemporaries that Richard
was in any way to blame. Yet Mr. Gairdner cannot let the matter rest.
He suggests that Richard's foundation of colleges at Middleham and
Barnard Castle, with provision for masses for the souls of his father,
brothers, and sisters, betokens remorse for the death of Clarence,
because the licences to found these colleges were granted soon after
his brother's death. Clarence is not specially mentioned, only
brothers and sisters. This pious act might betoken regret, but it
cannot be supposed to betoken remorse. The man's conscience must
indeed have been morbidly sensitive if it caused remorse for that which
the King and the Parliament had done, but which he had opposed. It was
quite natural that {295} Richard should have provided for these masses
from ordinary feelings of regret and affection for all the deceased
members of his family. The idea of remorse is gratuitous and very
far-fetched; for Richard had arranged for the foundation of these
colleges before the death of Clarence. Mr. Gairdner further remarks
that Richard gained by his brother's death, his son being created Earl
of Salisbury and he himself receiving the whole of a lordship of which
he previously owned half. Richard certainly would not have compassed
his brother's death, even assuming him to have been the monster of
'tradition,' for the sake of an earldom for his son, seeing that the
father had two earldoms already, scarcely for the other half of the
Barnard Castle estate. Mr. Gairdner cannot surely think that Richard
had some hand in his brother's death for the sake of such very small
gains. For he has told us that there was nothing mean or paltry in
Richard's character, and he acquits him of the death of Clarence. King
Edward, naturally enough, gave the vacant earldoms of Warwick and
Salisbury to the infant sons of his two brothers.
Mr. Gairdner has nothing to say against the young prince with regard to
his marriage. We, therefore, come to our historian's treatment of the
events which led to Richard's accession. Mr. Gairdner dismisses the
accusations against the Duke of Gloucester, that he was carrying on
intrigues with Buckingham and other members of the Council, between the
date of his brother's death and that of his arrival in London.[20] He
also considers the arrest and execution {296} of Lord Rivers and his
companions to have been justifiable. He believes that the Woodville
party intended to keep the government in their own hands by main
force,[21] that the generality of the people were convinced that Rivers
and Grey had entertained designs distinctly treasonable,[22] and he
mentions the fact that their baggage contained large quantities of
armour and implements of war. This is a proof that they contemplated
the raising and arming of a large force. Mr. Gairdner even goes so far
as to admit that the retribution dealt out to Rivers and his companions
was 'not more severe than perhaps law itself might have authorised.'
As we know from Rous that the law was invoked, these admissions amount
to an exculpation of King Richard, as regards his treatment of Rivers,
Vaughan, and Grey.
Mr. Gairdner's position with regard to Richard's title to the crown is
curious. That title was based on the fact that Edward IV. had entered
into a marriage contract with Lady Eleanor Butler before he went
through the ceremony with the widow of Sir J. Grey. The Tudor King
attempted to destroy all record of this event, and his official writers
then put forward two other statements, which they alleged to have been
made as justifications of Richard's claim to the crown. One of these
was that Richard's elder brothers were illegitimate, the other that the
previous marriage was with a woman named Lucy. The name of Lady
Eleanor is carefully suppressed. Long afterwards the official document
was discovered in which the title is based solely on the previous
contract with Lady Eleanor Butler.
{297}
Such is the case very briefly stated. Mr. Gairdner believes that the
story of the pre-contract with Lady Eleanor may be true. He considers
that the care taken by the Tudor writers to suppress and pervert it is
evidence of its truth. He even suggests that the death of Clarence was
due to the fact that he had got possession of the secret. But he fails
to see that the truth of this pre-contract not only invalidates the
other stories invented by the Tudor writers to conceal it, but entirely
destroys their credibility. Morton's statement that it was alleged by
Richard's supporters that the pre-contract was with Lucy must be false,
as well as the assertion that a calumny was promulgated against the
Duchess of York; if the pre-contract with Lady Eleanor is true. Surely
Mr. Gairdner must see that the statement of a title made in an
officially inspired sermon or speech must have been made to agree with
that in the document which Henry VII. attempted to destroy. Having
made away with the document, so that they could mis-state its contents,
Henry's chroniclers put what inventions they pleased into the mouths of
preachers and orators. But the document has since been found. Its
real contents are known. Men who would deliberately make this
elaborate series of false statements are utterly unworthy of credit.
Yet Mr. Gairdner still clings to the belief that the odious slander
about the Duchess of York was promulgated, and continues to quote
Morton's story as if it were authentic and reliable history.
The sole ground put forward for still believing that the slander was
uttered against the Duchess of York is that one of these authorities
alleges that the people were scandalised at the sermon, and another
that {298} the Duchess complained of the dishonour done her. These
additions to the fable, from the same suspicious sources, can in no
conceivable way strengthen its credibility.[23]
We now come to the main stronghold of Tudor calumny--the story of the
smothering of the little princes in the Tower. Mr. Gairdner makes a
hesitating defence. He cannot doubt that the dreadful deed was done.
But he admits that the story, as told in the narrative attributed to
Sir Thomas More, is full of inaccuracies and improbabilities. He
contends, however, that it is not necessary for it to be true in all
its details, in order to give credence to the main allegation. He also
admits that the crime imputed to Richard rests upon the assertions of
only a few, and that two of these mention it merely as a report. He
denies that Richard was the cold scheming calculating villain of
previous histories; and apparently thinks that, if this had been his
character, he would not have acted in the way alleged in the story.
Consequently the story could not be true. For a cold calculating
villain would not have been so foolish as to leave London, and then
send his orders to the Tower, without having previously ascertained
that they would be obeyed. Mr. Gairdner's theory is that Richard was
headstrong and reckless as to consequences, a man of violent and
impatient temper. Such a man, Mr. Gairdner thinks, might act in the
way described in the story; {299} if a strong motive was suddenly
supplied to him. Mr. Gairdner looks round for such a motive, and
thinks he has found it in the alleged contemplated rising in favour of
the two young princes. But no such motive existed. The date given for
the alleged murders was August 1483. The rising, even if it had been
in favour of the boys and not of Buckingham, was in October. Mr.
Davies has shown that the first tidings reached the king at Lincoln on
October 11,[24] and Mr. Gairdner fully admits that Richard was taken
completely by surprise. This proves that no motive for the crime was
supplied in August, calculated to make a violent and reckless man take
sudden action. If there was no motive there was no murder. Thus Mr.
Gairdner's explanation fails, while the improbabilities remain as
strong as ever. The difficulties disappear as soon as Richard is
acquitted, and his astute successor is placed in the dock.
With reference to this horrible accusation against King Richard, Mr.
Gairdner had opened his work with the dictum that 'it is vain to deny
that Richard had long lost the hearts of his subjects.' But Mr.
Gairdner himself has supplied some of the proofs that the King never
lost the hearts of his subjects. Mr. Gairdner acknowledges that up to
September 1483, 'in the north undoubtedly, and perhaps with the common
people generally, Richard was highly popular' (p. 147). In November
1484, when, on the young King's return to London he was received with
demonstrations of loyalty, Mr. Gairdner says that 'perhaps he had to
some extent recovered the good will of the people' (p. 243). But, in
the meanwhile, we are not supplied with a shadow of a {300} proof that
he had ever lost it. He was the victim of the perfidy of a few
traitors. There was no national movement against him in favour of
Henry Tudor. Sharon Turner truly remarked that 'the nation had no
share in the conflict. It was an ambush of a few perfidious and
disaffected noblemen against the crown. Richard was overwhelmed by the
explosion of a new mine, which he had not suspected to be forming
beneath him, because it was prepared and fired by those whom gratitude,
honour and conscience ought to have made faithful.' The city of York
recorded the grief of the people at King Richard's death. He was
popular to the end.
Mr. Gairdner fully explains the causes of Richard's popularity (p.
313). 'His taste in building was magnificent and princely. There was
nothing mean or paltry in his character (p. 318). Many of his acts
were dictated by charitable feelings or a sense of justice. He had in
him a great deal of native religious sentiment (p. 47). He made it his
endeavour, so far as it lay in his power, to prevent tyranny for the
future (p. 205), and as king he really studied his country's welfare
(p. 313). No wonder that such a King, who was also renowned for his
valour in the field and his wisdom in council, should have been popular
among his subjects! But it is wonderful that thoughtful and
accomplished men, who admit all this, should cling to the vile and
wretched calumnies, the discredited tatters of which still partly
obscure the truth.
The work of Mr. Gairdner is of great value owing to its conscientious
attempt to be judicially impartial, to the learning and research that
are apparent in every page, and to the considerable number of errors it
exposes, and of mistakes that are finally cleared up {301} by it. The
good points in the character of King Richard III. are prominently
brought forward. The excellence of his government and the generosity
of his character are made so apparent, that one is surprised, in the
midst of this goodly record, to come suddenly on such epithets as
'usurper,' 'tyrant,' 'inhuman King.' Mr. Gairdner's learning and
critical insight have so weakened the traditional fables, a half belief
in which he cannot quite shake off, that they are not likely to retain
a place much longer in serious history.
[1] _History of the Life and Reign of Richard III._, by James Gairdner
(1878), 1st ed. _History of the Life and Reign of Richard III._, by
James Gairdner (1898), 2nd ed. _Henry the Seventh_, by James Gairdner
(1889). Article in the _English Historical Review_, 1891.
[2] Preface to Gairdner's _Life of Richard III._ p. x.
[3] _Ibid._ p. x.
[4] _Ibid._ p. xii.
[5] _Ibid._ p. xii.
[6] Gairdner's _Richard III._ p. 38.
[7] _Ibid._ p. 112.
[8] _Ibid._ pp. 115, 131.
[9] _Ibid._ p. 247.
[10] _Ibid._ p. 73.
[11] _Ibid._ p. 250.
[12] _Ibid._ p. 251.
[13] _Ibid._ p. 251.
[14] Stow set a better example. He adopted the 'probable story' of
Fabyan, and rejected the 'tradition of later times,' as Mr. Gairdner
calls the unsupported calumny of Polydore Virgil.
[15] Dr. Lingard says that 'Clarence and Gloucester, perhaps the
Knights in their retinue, despatched young Edward with their swords'
(iv. p. 189). In a foot-note he sees no good reason to doubt Stow.
But Stow says nothing of the kind. He merely adopts Fabyan's tale that
King Edward's servants despatched the prince. He does not even mention
either Clarence or Gloucester. The accusation against the knights in
the retinue of those princes is Lingard's own, unsupported by any
evidence whatever.
[16] _English Historical Review_, 1891 (July), p. 448.
[17] The Lancastrians gave no quarter at Wakefield, slaughtering all
prisoners high and low. At the second battle ol St. Albans their
cruelty was deepened by bad faith. After Bosworth, Henry Tudor ordered
four executions which, in his outlawed condition, were lawless murders.
The atrocious conduct of his son, in suppressing the Pilgrimage of
Grace, was still more horrible. Executions went on, long after all
resistance had ceased, with unrelenting cruelty.
The tribunal at Tewkesbury is unjustly arraigned by modern historians,
while the barbarities of Lancastrians and Tudors are slurred over or
ignored.
[18] 'I am struck with the singular leniency of Edward IV. towards his
political enemies. The rolls of Parliament are full of petitions for
the reversal of attainders. I do not recollect a single instance in
which the petition was refused.'--Thorold Rogers, _Agriculture and
Prices_, iv. p. 180.
[19] Dr. Lingard's chief reason for believing that Gloucester murdered
Henry VI. is that 'writers who lived under the next dynasty attributed
the black deed to Richard' (iv. p. 192). Of course they did. They
were well paid to do so.
[20] P. 61. He considers it more probable that Gloucester was ignorant
of what had been going on in London.
[21] P. 62.
[22] P. 66.
[23] Dr. Lingard's argument in favour of the calumny against the
Duchess of York is that a man who would shed the blood of his nephews
would not refuse to allow his mother to be slandered. Doubtless the
Doctor would have been equally ready with the reversed argument. A man
who would slander his mother would not refuse to allow his nephews to
be murdered (iv. p. 232 _n_).
[24] _York Records_, p. 181 _n._