ENGLAND UNDER RICHARD THE THIRD
King Richard the Third was up betimes in the morning, and went to
Westminster Hall. In the Hall was a marble seat, upon which he sat
himself down between two great noblemen, and told the people that he
began the new reign in that place, because the first duty of a
sovereign was to administer the laws equally to all, and to maintain
justice. He then mounted his horse and rode back to the City, where he
was received by the clergy and the crowd as if he really had a right to
the throne, and really were a just man. The clergy and the crowd must
have been rather ashamed of themselves in secret, I think, for being
such poor-spirited knaves.
The new King and his Queen were soon crowned with a great deal of show
and noise, which the people liked very much; and then the King set
forth on a royal progress through his dominions. He was crowned a
second time at York, in order that the people might have show and noise
enough; and wherever he went was received with shouts of rejoicing—from
a good many people of strong lungs, who were paid to strain their
throats in crying, ‘God save King Richard!’ The plan was so successful
that I am told it has been imitated since, by other usurpers, in other
progresses through other dominions.
While he was on this journey, King Richard stayed a week at Warwick.
And from Warwick he sent instructions home for one of the wickedest
murders that ever was done—the murder of the two young princes, his
nephews, who were shut up in the Tower of London.
Sir Robert Brackenbury was at that time Governor of the Tower. To him,
by the hands of a messenger named John Green, did King Richard send a
letter, ordering him by some means to put the two young princes to
death. But Sir Robert—I hope because he had children of his own, and
loved them—sent John Green back again, riding and spurring along the
dusty roads, with the answer that he could not do so horrible a piece
of work. The King, having frowningly considered a little, called to him
Sir James Tyrrel, his master of the horse, and to him gave authority to
take command of the Tower, whenever he would, for twenty-four hours,
and to keep all the keys of the Tower during that space of time.
Tyrrel, well knowing what was wanted, looked about him for two hardened
ruffians, and chose John Dighton, one of his own grooms, and Miles
Forest, who was a murderer by trade. Having secured these two
assistants, he went, upon a day in August, to the Tower, showed his
authority from the King, took the command for four-and-twenty hours,
and obtained possession of the keys. And when the black night came he
went creeping, creeping, like a guilty villain as he was, up the dark,
stone winding stairs, and along the dark stone passages, until he came
to the door of the room where the two young princes, having said their
prayers, lay fast asleep, clasped in each other’s arms. And while he
watched and listened at the door, he sent in those evil demons, John
Dighton and Miles Forest, who smothered the two princes with the bed
and pillows, and carried their bodies down the stairs, and buried them
under a great heap of stones at the staircase foot. And when the day
came, he gave up the command of the Tower, and restored the keys, and
hurried away without once looking behind him; and Sir Robert
Brackenbury went with fear and sadness to the princes’ room, and found
the princes gone for ever.
You know, through all this history, how true it is that traitors are
never true, and you will not be surprised to learn that the Duke of
Buckingham soon turned against King Richard, and joined a great
conspiracy that was formed to dethrone him, and to place the crown upon
its rightful owner’s head. Richard had meant to keep the murder secret;
but when he heard through his spies that this conspiracy existed, and
that many lords and gentlemen drank in secret to the healths of the two
young princes in the Tower, he made it known that they were dead. The
conspirators, though thwarted for a moment, soon resolved to set up for
the crown against the murderous Richard, Henry Earl of Richmond,
grandson of Catherine: that widow of Henry the Fifth who married Owen
Tudor. And as Henry was of the house of Lancaster, they proposed that
he should marry the Princess Elizabeth, the eldest daughter of the late
King, now the heiress of the house of York, and thus by uniting the
rival families put an end to the fatal wars of the Red and White Roses.
All being settled, a time was appointed for Henry to come over from
Brittany, and for a great rising against Richard to take place in
several parts of England at the same hour. On a certain day, therefore,
in October, the revolt took place; but unsuccessfully. Richard was
prepared, Henry was driven back at sea by a storm, his followers in
England were dispersed, and the Duke of Buckingham was taken, and at
once beheaded in the market-place at Salisbury.
The time of his success was a good time, Richard thought, for summoning
a Parliament and getting some money. So, a Parliament was called, and
it flattered and fawned upon him as much as he could possibly desire,
and declared him to be the rightful King of England, and his only son
Edward, then eleven years of age, the next heir to the throne.
Richard knew full well that, let the Parliament say what it would, the
Princess Elizabeth was remembered by people as the heiress of the house
of York; and having accurate information besides, of its being designed
by the conspirators to marry her to Henry of Richmond, he felt that it
would much strengthen him and weaken them, to be beforehand with them,
and marry her to his son. With this view he went to the Sanctuary at
Westminster, where the late King’s widow and her daughter still were,
and besought them to come to Court: where (he swore by anything and
everything) they should be safely and honourably entertained. They
came, accordingly, but had scarcely been at Court a month when his son
died suddenly—or was poisoned—and his plan was crushed to pieces.
In this extremity, King Richard, always active, thought, ‘I must make
another plan.’ And he made the plan of marrying the Princess Elizabeth
himself, although she was his niece. There was one difficulty in the
way: his wife, the Queen Anne, was alive. But, he knew (remembering his
nephews) how to remove that obstacle, and he made love to the Princess
Elizabeth, telling her he felt perfectly confident that the Queen would
die in February. The Princess was not a very scrupulous young lady,
for, instead of rejecting the murderer of her brothers with scorn and
hatred, she openly declared she loved him dearly; and, when February
came and the Queen did not die, she expressed her impatient opinion
that she was too long about it. However, King Richard was not so far
out in his prediction, but, that she died in March—he took good care of
that—and then this precious pair hoped to be married. But they were
disappointed, for the idea of such a marriage was so unpopular in the
country, that the King’s chief counsellors, Ratcliffe and Catesby,
would by no means undertake to propose it, and the King was even
obliged to declare in public that he had never thought of such a thing.
He was, by this time, dreaded and hated by all classes of his subjects.
His nobles deserted every day to Henry’s side; he dared not call
another Parliament, lest his crimes should be denounced there; and for
want of money, he was obliged to get Benevolences from the citizens,
which exasperated them all against him. It was said too, that, being
stricken by his conscience, he dreamed frightful dreams, and started up
in the night-time, wild with terror and remorse. Active to the last,
through all this, he issued vigorous proclamations against Henry of
Richmond and all his followers, when he heard that they were coming
against him with a Fleet from France; and took the field as fierce and
savage as a wild boar—the animal represented on his shield.
Henry of Richmond landed with six thousand men at Milford Haven, and
came on against King Richard, then encamped at Leicester with an army
twice as great, through North Wales. On Bosworth Field the two armies
met; and Richard, looking along Henry’s ranks, and seeing them crowded
with the English nobles who had abandoned him, turned pale when he
beheld the powerful Lord Stanley and his son (whom he had tried hard to
retain) among them. But, he was as brave as he was wicked, and plunged
into the thickest of the fight. He was riding hither and thither,
laying about him in all directions, when he observed the Earl of
Northumberland—one of his few great allies—to stand inactive, and the
main body of his troops to hesitate. At the same moment, his desperate
glance caught Henry of Richmond among a little group of his knights.
Riding hard at him, and crying ‘Treason!’ he killed his
standard-bearer, fiercely unhorsed another gentleman, and aimed a
powerful stroke at Henry himself, to cut him down. But, Sir William
Stanley parried it as it fell, and before Richard could raise his arm
again, he was borne down in a press of numbers, unhorsed, and killed.
Lord Stanley picked up the crown, all bruised and trampled, and stained
with blood, and put it upon Richmond’s head, amid loud and rejoicing
cries of ‘Long live King Henry!’
That night, a horse was led up to the church of the Grey Friars at
Leicester; across whose back was tied, like some worthless sack, a
naked body brought there for burial. It was the body of the last of the
Plantagenet line, King Richard the Third, usurper and murderer, slain
at the battle of Bosworth Field in the thirty-second year of his age,
after a reign of two years.