ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD THE FIFTH
The late King’s eldest son, the Prince of Wales, called Edward after
him, was only thirteen years of age at his father’s death. He was at
Ludlow Castle with his uncle, the Earl of Rivers. The prince’s brother,
the Duke of York, only eleven years of age, was in London with his
mother. The boldest, most crafty, and most dreaded nobleman in England
at that time was their uncle Richard, Duke of Gloucester, and everybody
wondered how the two poor boys would fare with such an uncle for a
friend or a foe.
The Queen, their mother, being exceedingly uneasy about this, was
anxious that instructions should be sent to Lord Rivers to raise an
army to escort the young King safely to London. But, Lord Hastings, who
was of the Court party opposed to the Woodvilles, and who disliked the
thought of giving them that power, argued against the proposal, and
obliged the Queen to be satisfied with an escort of two thousand horse.
The Duke of Gloucester did nothing, at first, to justify suspicion. He
came from Scotland (where he was commanding an army) to York, and was
there the first to swear allegiance to his nephew. He then wrote a
condoling letter to the Queen-Mother, and set off to be present at the
coronation in London.
Now, the young King, journeying towards London too, with Lord Rivers
and Lord Gray, came to Stony Stratford, as his uncle came to
Northampton, about ten miles distant; and when those two lords heard
that the Duke of Gloucester was so near, they proposed to the young
King that they should go back and greet him in his name. The boy being
very willing that they should do so, they rode off and were received
with great friendliness, and asked by the Duke of Gloucester to stay
and dine with him. In the evening, while they were merry together, up
came the Duke of Buckingham with three hundred horsemen; and next
morning the two lords and the two dukes, and the three hundred
horsemen, rode away together to rejoin the King. Just as they were
entering Stony Stratford, the Duke of Gloucester, checking his horse,
turned suddenly on the two lords, charged them with alienating from him
the affections of his sweet nephew, and caused them to be arrested by
the three hundred horsemen and taken back. Then, he and the Duke of
Buckingham went straight to the King (whom they had now in their
power), to whom they made a show of kneeling down, and offering great
love and submission; and then they ordered his attendants to disperse,
and took him, alone with them, to Northampton.
A few days afterwards they conducted him to London, and lodged him in
the Bishop’s Palace. But, he did not remain there long; for, the Duke
of Buckingham with a tender face made a speech expressing how anxious
he was for the Royal boy’s safety, and how much safer he would be in
the Tower until his coronation, than he could be anywhere else. So, to
the Tower he was taken, very carefully, and the Duke of Gloucester was
named Protector of the State.
Although Gloucester had proceeded thus far with a very smooth
countenance—and although he was a clever man, fair of speech, and not
ill-looking, in spite of one of his shoulders being something higher
than the other—and although he had come into the City riding
bare-headed at the King’s side, and looking very fond of him—he had
made the King’s mother more uneasy yet; and when the Royal boy was
taken to the Tower, she became so alarmed that she took sanctuary in
Westminster with her five daughters.
Nor did she do this without reason, for, the Duke of Gloucester,
finding that the lords who were opposed to the Woodville family were
faithful to the young King nevertheless, quickly resolved to strike a
blow for himself. Accordingly, while those lords met in council at the
Tower, he and those who were in his interest met in separate council at
his own residence, Crosby Palace, in Bishopsgate Street. Being at last
quite prepared, he one day appeared unexpectedly at the council in the
Tower, and appeared to be very jocular and merry. He was particularly
gay with the Bishop of Ely: praising the strawberries that grew in his
garden on Holborn Hill, and asking him to have some gathered that he
might eat them at dinner. The Bishop, quite proud of the honour, sent
one of his men to fetch some; and the Duke, still very jocular and gay,
went out; and the council all said what a very agreeable duke he was!
In a little time, however, he came back quite altered—not at all
jocular—frowning and fierce—and suddenly said,—
‘What do those persons deserve who have compassed my destruction; I
being the King’s lawful, as well as natural, protector?’
To this strange question, Lord Hastings replied, that they deserved
death, whosoever they were.
‘Then,’ said the Duke, ‘I tell you that they are that sorceress my
brother’s wife;’ meaning the Queen: ‘and that other sorceress, Jane
Shore. Who, by witchcraft, have withered my body, and caused my arm to
shrink as I now show you.’
He then pulled up his sleeve and showed them his arm, which was
shrunken, it is true, but which had been so, as they all very well
knew, from the hour of his birth.
Jane Shore, being then the lover of Lord Hastings, as she had formerly
been of the late King, that lord knew that he himself was attacked. So,
he said, in some confusion, ‘Certainly, my Lord, if they have done
this, they be worthy of punishment.’
‘If?’ said the Duke of Gloucester; ‘do you talk to me of ifs? I tell
you that they _have_ so done, and I will make it good upon thy body,
thou traitor!’
With that, he struck the table a great blow with his fist. This was a
signal to some of his people outside to cry ‘Treason!’ They immediately
did so, and there was a rush into the chamber of so many armed men that
it was filled in a moment.
‘First,’ said the Duke of Gloucester to Lord Hastings, ‘I arrest thee,
traitor! And let him,’ he added to the armed men who took him, ‘have a
priest at once, for by St. Paul I will not dine until I have seen his
head of!’
Lord Hastings was hurried to the green by the Tower chapel, and there
beheaded on a log of wood that happened to be lying on the ground.
Then, the Duke dined with a good appetite, and after dinner summoning
the principal citizens to attend him, told them that Lord Hastings and
the rest had designed to murder both himself and the Duke if
Buckingham, who stood by his side, if he had not providentially
discovered their design. He requested them to be so obliging as to
inform their fellow-citizens of the truth of what he said, and issued a
proclamation (prepared and neatly copied out beforehand) to the same
effect.
On the same day that the Duke did these things in the Tower, Sir
Richard Ratcliffe, the boldest and most undaunted of his men, went down
to Pontefract; arrested Lord Rivers, Lord Gray, and two other
gentlemen; and publicly executed them on the scaffold, without any
trial, for having intended the Duke’s death. Three days afterwards the
Duke, not to lose time, went down the river to Westminster in his
barge, attended by divers bishops, lords, and soldiers, and demanded
that the Queen should deliver her second son, the Duke of York, into
his safe keeping. The Queen, being obliged to comply, resigned the
child after she had wept over him; and Richard of Gloucester placed him
with his brother in the Tower. Then, he seized Jane Shore, and, because
she had been the lover of the late King, confiscated her property, and
got her sentenced to do public penance in the streets by walking in a
scanty dress, with bare feet, and carrying a lighted candle, to St.
Paul’s Cathedral, through the most crowded part of the City.
Having now all things ready for his own advancement, he caused a friar
to preach a sermon at the cross which stood in front of St. Paul’s
Cathedral, in which he dwelt upon the profligate manners of the late
King, and upon the late shame of Jane Shore, and hinted that the
princes were not his children. ‘Whereas, good people,’ said the friar,
whose name was Shaw, ‘my Lord the Protector, the noble Duke of
Gloucester, that sweet prince, the pattern of all the noblest virtues,
is the perfect image and express likeness of his father.’ There had
been a little plot between the Duke and the friar, that the Duke should
appear in the crowd at this moment, when it was expected that the
people would cry ‘Long live King Richard!’ But, either through the
friar saying the words too soon, or through the Duke’s coming too late,
the Duke and the words did not come together, and the people only
laughed, and the friar sneaked off ashamed.
The Duke of Buckingham was a better hand at such business than the
friar, so he went to the Guildhall the next day, and addressed the
citizens in the Lord Protector’s behalf. A few dirty men, who had been
hired and stationed there for the purpose, crying when he had done,
‘God save King Richard!’ he made them a great bow, and thanked them
with all his heart. Next day, to make an end of it, he went with the
mayor and some lords and citizens to Bayard Castle, by the river, where
Richard then was, and read an address, humbly entreating him to accept
the Crown of England. Richard, who looked down upon them out of a
window and pretended to be in great uneasiness and alarm, assured them
there was nothing he desired less, and that his deep affection for his
nephews forbade him to think of it. To this the Duke of Buckingham
replied, with pretended warmth, that the free people of England would
never submit to his nephew’s rule, and that if Richard, who was the
lawful heir, refused the Crown, why then they must find some one else
to wear it. The Duke of Gloucester returned, that since he used that
strong language, it became his painful duty to think no more of
himself, and to accept the Crown.
Upon that, the people cheered and dispersed; and the Duke of Gloucester
and the Duke of Buckingham passed a pleasant evening, talking over the
play they had just acted with so much success, and every word of which
they had prepared together.