IN THE DAYS OF THE LATER PLANTAGENETS
_Coronation of Richard II—The Wat Tyler Rebellion—Murder of
Archbishop Simon of Canterbury—The Rebellion Quelled—Fresh
Troubles raised by the Duke of Gloucester and quieted by
Archbishop Courtenay—Still Troubles Continue—Execution
of some Prominent Members of Parliament, and of Sir Simon
Burley, the King’s Tutor—First Legal Execution on Tower
Hill—Richard’s Wilfulness and Treachery—His Dethronement,
August 19, 1399—Accession of Henry IV—Death and Burial
of Richard II—Conspiracies against Henry IV—Battle of
Shrewsbury—Prisoners shut up in the Tower—Among them
James of Scotland, “The King’s Quhair”—The Great War with
France—Charles, Duke of Orleans, a formidable rival; his
Imprisonment and Life in the Tower—His Return to France—The
Lollards—Sir John Oldcastle—His Plots and Death—Death
of Henry V—Fall of the English Power in France—Rival
Nobles in England: Dukes of Bedford and Gloucester, Cardinal
Beaufort, Earl of Warwick—Marriage of Henry with Margaret of
Anjou—Public Discontent—Cade’s Rebellion—Claim of Richard
Duke of York—Battle of Wakefield—The Wakefield Tower—Battle
of Towton—Accession of Edward IV—Henry VI a Prisoner in
the Tower—Warwick’s Tergiversation—Battles of Barnet and
Tewkesbury—King Henry slain in the Wakefield Tower—Continued
Tragedies, Duke of Clarence’s Disaffection and Plottings—His
Death in the Bowyer Tower—Death of Edward IV—Edward V and
his Brother brought to the Tower by their Uncle Gloucester,
who has Lord Hastings beheaded for loyalty to Edward—Edward
deposed—Richard Crowned King—Edward and his Brother secretly
Murdered—Discovery of their Bones and Burial at Westminster._
The reign of Richard II began with festivities and pageantries of
unprecedented magnificence, and the Tower was the scene of some of the
most prominent. On the day of the Coronation, according to Holinshed,
the King, clad in white robes, issued from its gate surrounded by a
vast assemblage of nobles and knights. The streets were hung with
drapery, and the conduits ran wine. In Cheapside was a castle with four
towers, from two sides of which “the wine ran forth abundantly, and at
the top stood a golden angel, holding a crown, so contrived that when
the King came near, he bowed and presented it to him. In each of the
towers was a beautiful virgin, of stature and age like unto the King,
apparelled in white vestures, who blew in the King’s face leaves of
gold and flowers of gold counterfeit. On the approach of the cavalcade,
the damsels took cups of gold, and filling them with wine at the spouts
of the castle, presented them to the King and his nobles.”
[Illustration: 13. BANQUET GIVEN BY RICHARD II. _From a MS. of
The Chronicles of England, Vol. III.
British Museum_, 14 _E. iv._]
[Illustration: 14. AN ACT OF ARMS BEFORE THE KING AND QUEEN.
_From a MS. of the Romance of the Sire Jehan de
Saintré. British Museum. Nero D. ix._]
[Illustration: 15. GATEWAY OF THE BLOODY TOWER.
_From an engraving by F. Nash_, 1821.]
[Illustration: 16. QUEEN IN A HORSE LITTER, ATTENDED BY HER LADIES
ON HORSEBACK. _From a MS. of Froissart’s Chronicles_.
_British Museum_, 18 _E ii._]
These revels were scarcely ended, when the Wat Tyler insurrection broke
out, and the King, with his mother, fled for refuge within the Tower
from which he had lately so proudly emerged. The insurgents assembled
on Blackheath and asked for a conference. Richard having heard mass in
the chapel, sailed down the Thames to meet them, but was so frightened
by their menacing looks that he precipitately fled back to the Tower.
Therefore the angry mob advanced, quartered themselves in and near
St. Katharine’s Hospital and invested the fortress, “hooting,” says
Froissart, “as loud as if the devils were in them.” The Lord Mayor,
Walworth, recommended a sally upon them, as the majority were drunk,
but this was deemed too desperate, and the King declared he would
meet them and hear their grievances. He had no sooner quitted the
gates, than some of the insurgents, who had lain concealed, broke into
the fortress, and killed some of the King’s officers.[2] But their
main quarry was the Archbishop of Canterbury, the King’s Chancellor,
Simon of Sudbury, whom John Ball, the Socialist priest, had furiously
denounced. They made their way into the chapel where he was engaged in
prayer. “Where is the traitor to the kingdom, where is the spoiler of
the Commons?” they shouted, and Sudbury replied, “Here am I, my sons;
your Archbishop, neither traitor nor spoiler.” They dragged him out on
Tower Hill. He saw what was coming and warned them, but in vain. After
he had spoken further, and given as far as in him lay absolution to
John Starling of Essex, who was standing ready to behead him, he knelt
down. He was horribly mutilated, not being killed till the eighth blow
of the axe. Hales the treasurer and two others were slain with him, and
all the heads were stuck on poles, a cap on the Archbishop’s to
distinguish him, and were placed on London Bridge. Two days later
Sudbury’s head gave place to Wat Tyler’s, and he was buried with great
pomp in his Cathedral at Canterbury, to which he had been a great
benefactor. His fine monument is still to be seen there.
How this rebellion was quelled is no part of our subject, but the
troubles of King Richard were by no means ended. In 1387 he had again
to fly to the Tower for security against his uncle Gloucester and
the other disaffected barons. His weakness and imbecility, and the
corruptness of his ministers, had exasperated the nation against him,
and Gloucester seized the regal authority and placed it in the hands
of commissioners. The King summoned a Parliament at Nottingham which
supported him; the nobles retorted by marching on London with forty
thousand men. There was much anxiety and some fighting, but Archbishop
Courtenay mediated with great patience and wisdom. Richard had gone to
the Tower and was in fact besieged, and in the great Council Chamber
there Courtenay arranged a meeting between the nobles and the King,
with the result that the mutual differences were for the time adjusted.
But the King had not in the least regained the confidence either of
the nobles or of the commonalty. In fact the prominent members of the
Parliament which had declared in his favour were arrested. Some were
fined, others banished, others confined in the Tower. Of these latter
Sir Robert Tresylian, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas; Brembre, Mayor
of London; Sir John Salisbury, Sir John Beauchamp and Sir James Berners
were put to death at Tyburn. One of the victims calls for special
mention. Sir Simon Burley had distinguished himself under the Black
Prince in the French war. Edward had such a high opinion of him that he
bequeathed the education of his son Richard to him. He seems to have
justified the choice in the early days of the young King, and it was he
who arranged his marriage with Anne of Bohemia, thereby incurring the
enmity of the Lancastrian party. Although he had warned the King of his
folly in the early days of his reign, he supported him in Parliament in
his struggle against the barons, and in consequence he was sentenced on
May 5, 1388, to be hanged, drawn and quartered, but this was commuted
to beheading. We have seen that Archbishop Sudbury was executed on
Tower Hill, but that was by mob violence. Burley was now condemned by
law to die on the same spot. It was the first legal execution on the
place which was for many years to come the regular place of execution.
[Illustration: ASSAULT ON A FORTRESS.
_From a MS. of Boccaccio de Casibus Virorum
et Foeminarum Illustrium.
British Museum_, 35,321.]
Richard bitterly resented this execution. He never forgave it. Burley
had been a loyal and faithful friend both to his father and himself,
and he waited for his opportunity of revenge. It came at last. He was
accustomed to hold festivals from time to time with tournaments and
feastings, and there was special merrymaking on the occasion of his
second marriage. His first wife, “the good Anne” of Bohemia, died in
1396, and next year he married Isabel, daughter of Charles VI., the mad
King of France. She was lodged in the Tower, awaiting her coronation.
In the midst of the festivities the Duke of Gloucester, with the Earls
of Arundel and Warwick and some others, were treacherously seized, and
brought to the Tower. Gloucester was shipped off to Calais and murdered
by the King’s command; Arundel was beheaded on Tower Hill; Warwick was
confined in the Beauchamp Tower, named after him. But Richard dared not
kill a man who had more than any man living fought for his country in
the French wars, and he was sent away to the Isle of Man and kept close
prisoner for life.
But Nemesis presently came. Arundel’s memory was revered by the people,
who knew him as one of their great heroes, and his grave in the Church
of the Austin Friars was visited by crowds day by day. Meanwhile the
wretched King lost all self-control. Probably his mind had become
unhinged. He dissolved the Parliament, announced that he intended to
rule without one, and seized the lands of his uncle, John of Gaunt, who
had lately died. On August 19, 1399, Gaunt’s son, Henry of Lancaster,
landed in England, made him prisoner in Wales and brought him to
London. On September 2 he was lodged in the Tower with the universal
approval of the nation. On the 29th he formally resigned the crown
“with a cheerful mien,” and next day Henry IV. seated himself on the
throne. The fallen man remained in the fortress for a while, but as
it became known that conspiracies were being formed to replace him on
the throne, it was decided to remove him secretly and confine him in
some secure place. First he was taken to Leeds Castle in Kent, then to
Yorkshire. There is no reasonable doubt that he died at Pontefract on
February 14, 1400, probably of starvation. His body was brought to
London, and exposed to the public in St. Paul’s, was then buried at
King’s Langley, and afterwards removed to Westminster Abbey by Henry V,
whom as a boy he had treated with kindness.
There was a grand ceremonial in the Tower on the eve of Henry IV’s
Coronation, and forty-six new Knights of the Bath watched their arms
all night in St. John’s Chapel. But the fortress under the Lancastrian
kings became less of a royal residence and more of a prison.
Henry IV, after the Battle of Shrewsbury, shut up in the Tower some
of the adherents of Owen Glendower, and also a number of preaching
Friars, who had circulated taunting rhymes against him to excite an
insurrection, and who in due course died as traitors at Tyburn. But
King Henry’s most illustrious prisoner here was James, the son and heir
of Robert III, King of Scotland. That unfortunate monarch, amiable
and just, but infirm in body as in will, was heavily troubled by the
plottings of his brother the Duke of Albany, and also by the divisions
arising out of the English troubles. The Earl of Northumberland and his
son Hotspur were joined by Earl Douglas, and they were all defeated
at Shrewsbury. Poor old King Robert, worried by this, and having good
reason to distrust Albany, determined to send his remaining son James,
a boy of eleven (his eldest son, the Duke of Rothsay, had been got rid
of by foul play), for safety to France, for the expressed reason that
he could receive a good education there. The vessel conveying him was
intercepted off Flamborough Head by an English ship, and the boy was
conveyed to London; Henry IV gave orders that he should be confined in
the Tower. This was in February, 1406. His poor old father sank under
this fresh trouble and died that year, and thus James became King. But
King Henry still, contrary to all law, kept him prisoner, and the Duke
of Albany was appointed regent.
For nineteen years the young King remained in exile. From the recent
publication of English and Scottish records we learn that his expenses
in the Tower were reckoned at 6_s._ 8_d._ a day for himself and 3_s._
4_d._ for his suite. Though his capture was a flagrant breach of law,
he was well treated and received an excellent education. He was moved
about from time to time: part of the while he was in Nottingham Castle,
then at Evesham, then at the palace of the Archbishop of Canterbury
at Croydon. The poem which he wrote in his captivity, “The King’s
Quhair” (Little Book), was the expression of his love for Lady Jane
Beaufort, whom he met at Windsor. His marriage with her attached him
to the royal family of England, and at length in 1424 he obtained his
release, returned, and took possession of his throne, ruled with vigour
and justice, until his earnest endeavours to assure the rights and just
treatment of his people led to his assassination in 1436.
Another royal prisoner, partly contemporaneous with King James,
and not less illustrious in history, was Charles, Duke of Orleans.
Richard II, as we have seen, married for his second wife Isabel of
Valois, daughter of King Charles VI. of France. After his death she
married Charles, Duke of Orleans, whose clever, reprobate father
Louis, brother of Charles VI, had been assassinated by order of the
Duke of Burgundy. The two young people were therefore first cousins.
When Louis had laid claim to the French throne, our Henry IV made a
counterclaim, and thus there was fierce rivalry between the two men,
and Louis took every opportunity of sending insulting messages to “the
usurping Duke of Lancaster,” and married his son Charles to the young
widowed Queen, when Hal, the madcap Prince of Wales, was eagerly wooing
her. The hapless young wife died in childbirth in 1409, her husband
being only nineteen years old. He bewailed his loss in some very
beautiful verses. The little child lived to become Duchess of Alençon.
Reasons of State induced Charles to marry again, his wife being Bona,
daughter of the Count of Armagnac, who bore him no offspring. In 1415
came the memorable invasion of France and the great English victory
at Agincourt. Charles, with his brothers and other members of the
French royal family, had done their best in defence of their rights.
Shakespeare depicts his zeal and his hatred of the invader in his
flying utterances. The brave fellow fell among the wounded, and was
found by the victor bleeding and speechless on the field. He made much
of him, brought him to England, and sent him to the White Tower, fixing
a ransom of 300,000 crowns on his head. He was now twenty-four years
old, and Henry was anxious that the ransom should not be forthcoming.
For he now married Isabel’s youngest sister, Catherine of Valois, and it
was most important in his estimate that Charles should have no children
to dispute the rights of those of his wife. It was part of the treaty
into which he entered that he should succeed to the French throne,
and a son of Charles of Orleans would be a most formidable rival. The
result was that the latter remained a prisoner in England for five and
twenty years.
And here he continued faithful to his old troubadour instincts, and was
constantly occupied in writing lyrics, chiefly on his lost love and
his absent wife, some in French, some in English, in which he became
proficient. There is in the British Museum a manuscript volume of his
poems, beautifully illuminated, with the arms of Henry VII and Prince
Arthur introduced into the borders. It contains our frontispiece, the
oldest picture of the Tower of London which is known to exist. In the
background is London Bridge with the City behind it, in front Traitors’
Gate, though the name had not yet been given. There is the Prince
seated in the now demolished banqueting hall, writing his verses. He
is seen again looking out of window, evidently hoping for freedom, and
again we see him below embracing the messenger who brings his ransom.
Next we behold him riding away, a freed man; and in the distance he is
seen finally seated in the boat, which is being pulled off to the ship
which shall carry him back to France.
That deliverance did not come until 1440. Henry V had been dead
eighteen years, his widow Catherine, had married Owun Tudor and his
conquests in France were now nearly all lost, thanks to the Maid of
Orleans and to Charles’s natural brother, John of Dunois. Every year
Charles’s life had become more precious to France, as the children of
Charles VI dropped one by one into the grave. The Duke of Burgundy paid
the enormous ransom, and Charles returned to find his wife Bona dead,
and his daughter a woman of thirty. Reasons of State caused him to
marry again, his third consort being Mary of Cleves. By her he had a
son, who afterwards became King Louis XII.
A large body of prisoners of a widely different character, namely the
Lollards, occupied the Tower at the same period; the most remarkable
of them was Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham. There is undoubtedly much
mystery about his life and doings. He was a gentleman of Herefordshire,
and makes his first appearance in history as a trusted servant of
Henry IV, who committed to him the charge of putting down insurrection
in Wales at the time of the battle of Shrewsbury. It was then that
he made the acquaintance of the Prince of Wales, which ripened into
close friendship. In 1409, when a second time a widower, he married
Joan, Lady Cobham, who on her side was in her third widowhood. She
brought him two Kentish estates, Cobham Manor and Cowling Castle, and
in this latter he took up his residence, and still remained high in
favour of Henry IV and his son. Wyclif died on the last day of 1384.
His opinions had become largely popular, in Kent as much as anywhere.
A severe law was passed against them in 1401. How Oldcastle had come
to adopt these there is no evidence to show, but in 1410 a great
outcry was made against him because his chaplain was preaching Lollard
doctrines, and he was accused of trying to bring the Prince of Wales
over to them. Convocation which met at St. Paul’s in March, 1413, just
before the death of Henry IV, denounced him unsparingly, and produced
manuscripts emanating from Paternoster Row of which he was alleged
to be the author. It is said that Henry V was so mindful of his old
friendship that he wanted to prevent action against him, though he
viewed his opinions with horror, and tried in vain to wean him from
them. The sequel was that he withdrew from Court and shut himself
up in Cowling Castle. When at length he was arrested he was brought
before Archbishop Arundel and Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester, who were
both anxious to save him, perhaps knowing the regard of the King for
him; but he refused to recant and was handed over to the secular arm,
and meanwhile was committed to the Tower. From it in some mysterious
manner he escaped, and there is strong evidence that he engaged in a
widespread Lollard conspiracy. The official indictment charged the
conspirators with “plotting the death of the King and his brothers,
with the prelates and other magnates of the realm, the transference of
religious to secular employments, the spoliation and destruction of all
cathedrals, churches and monasteries, and the elevation of Oldcastle
to the position of regent of the kingdom.” The plot was discovered
and defeated. The body of conspirators found out in time that it was
so, and escaped home; Oldcastle left London and fled into Wales.
He remained hid, but apparently still plotting, until he was again
captured, was brought back to the Tower, and on December 14, 1417, was
condemned to death, was drawn on a hurdle to St. Giles’s Fields, and
there hanged and burnt to ashes. This is the man whom Shakespeare,
following an older play, represents as the original of Falstaff. But
though young Oldcastle was, as we have seen, a friend of Prince Hal in
his youth, he was never a _roué_.
It would almost seem as if fuller knowledge had convinced Shakespeare
of this, and that it was in this way of retractation that he put these
words in the Epilogue:—“For Oldcastle died a martyr and this is not
the man.”
The death of Henry V, August 31, 1422, was a heavy calamity for
England. He was a wise and pious king, and his claim to the French
crown, however ill-advised, was in his view just. His son was an infant
of nine months old, and the mismanagement of the Government, and the
victories of Jeanne d’Arc, the Maid of Orleans, make up a great chapter
of English disaster. The heroine was burnt at Rouen, May 31, 1431, but
it was speedily seen that her work had been successful. Henry VI was
indeed crowned King of France at Paris that year, but what popularity
remained to the English party was dissipated by the arrogance of
the King’s rulers. He returned to England, and the cause still went
down. His two royal guardians and uncles, the Dukes of Bedford and
Gloucester, were at bitter feud. Two other nobles were now grown active
and strong. The first was Henry Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester, the
illegitimate son of John of Gaunt and Catherine Swynford, a man of
great ability as well as of patriotism. Henry V had reposed strong
confidence in him, and had willed that he should be the guardian of his
son during his minority. This had been set aside, but although Bedford
and Gloucester had been substituted, their absence abroad and their
quarrels gave Beaufort real power, which had steadily grown. The other
was Richard, Earl of Warwick. He too had been highly esteemed by Henry
V, and he and Beaufort were now exerting themselves to guide the King
wisely, when he on attaining his majority was foolishly interfering in
matters which he did not understand. Bedford died, the English cause in
France grew more and more hopeless, and through Beaufort’s influence
Henry married Margaret of Anjou, niece of King Charles VII. A few years
followed during which Henry gave himself to useful work, the
foundations of Eton and King’s College, Cambridge, among them.
Gloucester died in 1447; murder was suspected, but probably without
ground. Beaufort died the same year; William de la Pole, Duke of
Suffolk, was murdered in 1450. That nobleman was one of the most
distinguished in England. His father and three brothers had died on
battlefields in the French wars. He had been a Knight of the Garter for
thirty years when the Cade rebellion broke out, and his enemies got up
against him a charge of supporting it. He took ship at Dover to fly
to Calais, but was captured in the Strait by the captain of a vessel
called _Nicholas of the Tower_. When he heard the name he lost all
hope, for he had been told by a soothsayer that if he could escape the
danger of the Tower he would be safe. His head was hacked off, and his
body thrown upon Dover beach.
The Tower was ever receiving new occupants, and the kingdom was
becoming more and more disturbed. Cade’s rebellion broke out in June,
1450, and was a very formidable danger for a short time. The King, to
propitiate the rebels, sent Lord Say to the Tower; they dragged him
forth and beheaded him in Cheapside. The rebellion was put down in
consequence of the worthlessness of Cade himself, but the discontent
grew, being increased by the high-handed dealing of Queen Margaret,
and that same year Richard, Duke of York, proclaimed himself, with the
sanction of Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, as the deliverer of the
kingdom from anarchy. The difficulties were increased by the mental
illness of the King, from which after a while he recovered, but his
popularity had still further decreased. The Queen bore him a son, but
this strengthened York’s ambition. He claimed the crown and civil war
began. The partisans of York made an attack on the Tower, and here
comes a decided novelty in its history. It is said that cannon were
first used at the battle of Crecy. They were used now to batter the
Tower walls, but unsuccessfully apparently. When the moat was cleared
out in 1843 a great number of stone cannon balls were found, which were
probably a relic of that bombardment. They are now under a glass case
in the Beauchamp Tower. Similar balls are shown in our illustration.
On December 29, 1460, York was defeated by Queen Margaret and slain at
the battle of Wakefield, while King Henry was keeping Christmas in
London. She was fighting for her son’s rights; the King was under the
care of the Earl of Warwick, who was actually supporting the claims of
the Yorkists. In the following February Margaret was defeated three
times, and Edward, Duke of York, was proclaimed King in London without
waiting for Parliament. On Palm Sunday, 1461, the battle of Towton,
the most terrible ever fought on English ground, placed the kingdom in
Edward IV’s hands. The number of prisoners sent up to the Tower after
the battle of Wakefield caused what had been hitherto the Hall Tower
to be called “the Wakefield Tower,” a name which it has borne ever
since. Queen Margaret still kept an army in the north, and Henry moved
about from place to place. In 1464 he was captured and lodged in the
Tower. Statements differ as to his treatment. One account says that
Warwick, acting for the Yorkists, carried him through Cheapside and
Cornhill with his legs bound under a horse with leathern thongs and a
peasant’s hat on his head. Yorkist writers assert that he was treated
“with all humanity and reverence.” He remained five years in this
imprisonment; then came a revolution. Warwick joined Margaret and King
Edward’s brother, the Duke of Clarence, and with such apparent vigour
that Edward fled to Flanders. Henry was brought forth and marched
through the London streets with great pomp to Westminster. But the
chronicler Hall contemptuously remarks, with an epigram worthy of Sam
Weller, “This moved the citizens of London as much as the fire painted
on the wall warmed the old woman.” The citizens were flourishing under
Yorkist encouragement of commerce, and were by no means disposed to
Lancastrian restoration. Edward came back, and on Easter Day, April 14,
1471, Warwick was slain at the battle of Barnet, and Queen Margaret was
defeated at Tewkesbury on May 4 following, and her son was slain. On
May 21 King Henry was murdered in the Wakefield Tower by Richard, Duke
of Gloucester, on the very day of the return of his brother King Edward
to London.
[Illustration: ARTILLERY OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.
_From a MS. of “The Chronicles of England,” Vol. III.
British Museum_, 14 _E. IV._]
In the octagonal chamber of the Wakefield Tower in which the regalia
are now placed are two deep recesses opened into the walls. That to the
south-east was formerly an oratory, and is so described in the Tower
records in 1238. Tradition states that in this oratory Duke Richard,
entering through the passage from the palace, stabbed Henry to death
with many wounds as he was praying. His body was next day carried to
St. Paul’s, “and his face was open that every man might see him, and in
his lying he bled.” He was buried at Chertsey and the word went about
that he was a saint and martyr. Henry VII afterwards requested Pope
Julius II to canonize him, but gave up the idea on learning how much
it would cost. He had the body removed from Chertsey, but to this day
it is uncertain whether it was buried at St. George’s, Windsor, or in
Westminster Abbey.
The reigns of the Kings of the House of York are full of Tower
tragedies. Edward IV lived a good deal in the Tower, increased its
fortifications, and deepened the moat. He had two brothers, the Dukes
of Clarence and Gloucester. The former had long been disaffected,
had joined Margaret of Anjou and the Earl of Warwick, whose daughter
he had married, in the conspiracy which caused Edward’s temporary
flight, and after the latter had recovered himself and was again
firmly seated on the throne, Clarence was certainly plotting against
him. Clarence’s wife was dead and he aspired to the hand of Mary of
Burgundy, to Edward’s indignation, who saw that he still hoped for
the crown. He first sent him to the Tower, then accused him before
Parliament, and he was sentenced to death. Edward was loth to carry
the sentence out, but the House of Commons urged him, and to avoid
the disgrace of a public execution he gave orders that it should be
done in secret, and according to tradition he was drowned in a butt of
malmsey in the Bowyer Tower. And perhaps it is owing to his brother
Gloucester’s general bad character that he is accused of superintending
the execution. The memory of this tragedy is said to have embittered
the whole of Edward’s subsequent life. He was now secure on his
throne, but his self-indulgent life was destroying his health, and his
recklessness, joined with the perfidy of Louis XI, continually produced
fresh troubles. He died at the age of forty-one, on April 19, 1483. His
wife had borne him ten children, of whom seven survived him, two sons
and five daughters.
The short reign of Edward V was merely a struggle for power between his
uncle Gloucester and his mother’s relations, the Woodvilles. He was in
Wales when his father died. His uncle, Lord Rivers, and half-brother,
Lord Richard Grey, were bringing him up for his Coronation, when the
Dukes of Gloucester and Buckingham intercepted them at Northampton,
sent them prisoners to Pomfret, and brought the young King up to the
Tower with every demonstration of loyalty, even declaring that the
coronation should take place on June 22. Queen Elizabeth, anticipating
what was coming, threw herself into Sanctuary with the Abbot of
Westminster with her other son. A Parliament was summoned ostensibly
to declare Gloucester protector, but he had already laid his train.
The queen was called upon to allow her second boy to be placed with
his brother in the Tower, and though she could see from the windows
carpenters, vintners, cooks all making preparations for her son’s
coronation, she knew in her heart that it would never be. Gloucester
proceeded to make out a case for the illegitimacy of the children, on
the ground that their father had made a previous marriage. That he
had been a gross libertine was already notorious; Gloucester produced
a witness who declared that he had married the King to one of his
mistresses, Elinor Talbot. It is incredible, but there may have been
some miserable frolic. Gloucester called a Council in the Council
Chamber of the White Tower, and there caused his claim to be put forth
in a tentative fashion. Lord Hastings thereupon declared his loyalty
to Edward, and Gloucester, who had been listening outside, strode into
the room. Turning up his sleeve, he showed an arm which he declared had
been withered by the sorceries of Hastings, and called on the terrified
councillors to condemn him. Words were useless. “I will not dine until
your head is off,” he cried, and Hastings was carried down to Tower
Green. The block was out of place, but a beam of wood was near; he was
thrown on it and the deed was consummated.
Gloucester then got a creature, a brother of the Lord Mayor, to preach
at Paul’s Cross from the text (Wisdom iv. 3), “Bastard slips shall not
take deep root,” a sermon impugning the validity of Edward’s marriage,
but the immediate result was to fill the listeners with shame and
indignation. The Duke of Buckingham made a speech of the like character
at the Guildhall, and it became known that Gloucester was getting an
army together. So a packed assembly went to the schemer and offered him
the crown, which he with feigned reluctance accepted. This was on June
28, 1483, and on July 6 he was crowned at Westminster. Immediately
afterwards he started on a progress through the country with the
intention of strengthening his position by granting privileges and
making promises, but the conscience of the Londoners and of the
country was roused, and almost immediately a fresh shock was given by
the news that the boy King and his brother had been murdered in the
Tower. There can be no doubt of the main fact, but the precise date is
uncertain. Richard had placed the two boys under the care of Sir Robert
Brackenbury, and after he had left London sent a message ordering him
to kill them. When Brackenbury refused he sent Sir James Tyrrell with a
warrant to receive possession of the Tower keys. Tyrrell’s groom, John
Dighton, with one of the gaolers, Miles Forrest, entered the chamber
of the two boys in the Bloody Tower, killed them, called on Tyrrell to
recognize the bodies, then buried them at the foot of a staircase. This
was some time in the latter part of August, and was not divulged until
it was known that a plot was hatching to place the young Edward upon
the throne.
The life of Richard III, which bears the name of Sir Thomas More as its
author, but which appears to have been written by Cardinal Morton and
edited by More, gives information which may be implicitly trusted as to
the circumstances of this cruel murder. The new king, superstitious as
wicked men so frequently are, was uneasy in his mind, and ordered the
Tower priest to remove the bodies, and he did so, but dying soon after,
no one could ascertain where he had laid them. More does not know, and
says so frankly. Shakespeare expresses the uncertainty:—
The Chaplain of the Tower hath buried them,
But where, to say the truth, I do not know.
Henry VII would have been glad to learn at the time when Perkin Warbeck
was declaring that he was one of the alleged murdered boys. It was
not until the reign of Charles II that two skeletons were found under
the old stone steps of the royal chapel in the great keep. They were
covered with earth and had been carefully bestowed. As they answered
in every way to the bones which had been vainly sought after it was
concluded, and certainly with probability, that they were the bones of
the murdered children, and they were laid, by King Charles’s command,
in a royal sepulchre in Westminster Abbey.
FOOTNOTE:
[2] Stow says that though there was a garrison of 1,200 well-armed
men in the Tower, they were so panic-stricken that they offered no
resistance to the rebels, many of whom rushed into the King’s chamber
and wantonly rolled about upon his bed, and insisted on kissing his
mother. Mr. Trevelyan, in his _England in the Age of Wycliffe_,
evidently thinks that Richard betrayed this fortress to the rebels as
Louis XVI did the Tuileries in 1792, and sent orders that the mob were
to be admitted.