under the care of Rivers and Grey, to whom his education had been
intrusted, and under whose charge he had lived at Ludlow, Richard
and Buckingham, with 900 men, appeared upon their line of march at
Northampton. Rivers and Grey, conscious of the advantage which the
appearance of the King in London would give them, were unwilling
to come to an open quarrel, and sent Edward forward to Stony
Stratford, while they went to pay their respects to Gloucester,
who had taken the oath of allegiance, and hitherto put on all
the appearance of loyalty. The two Lords were taken prisoners at
Northampton, and Richard and Buckingham suddenly advancing to
Stratford, by the rapidity of their movements dispersed 2000 men
who accompanied Edward, and took possession of him. The news spread
dismay in London. The Queen, her son Richard and her daughters,
with Lord Lisle and the other Grey, took sanctuary at Westminster;
while Hastings calmed men’s minds by assuring them of Richard’s
loyalty, that he had only withdrawn the King from the pernicious
influence of his relations, and that he would speedily appear with
him to crown him. Upon Richard’s appearance, therefore, everything
at first went on in the regular order.
[Sidenote: Is made Protector.]
According to precedent, Richard was appointed Protector or
President of the Council. With the exception of the removal of
Rotheram, and the appointment of Russell, Bishop of Lincoln, in
his place, no important changes were made, and the Parliament was
summoned, and the coronation appointed for midsummer.
[Sidenote: Quarrels with the new nobles.]
[Sidenote: Hastings’ death and fall of his party.]
Having thus vanquished one party, Richard determined to get rid
of his other rivals also, and to rest exclusively upon Buckingham
and the old nobles. The coronation was settled for the 22nd of
June, when suddenly Richard despatched a messenger, Sir Richard
Ratcliffe, to the North, where he was much beloved, bidding the
people hasten to his aid, as the Queen was aiming at the life of
himself and Buckingham. There is no proof of any such conspiracy.
But the quarrel between the two sections of the Council is marked
by the fact that they met apart, Hastings and his followers at St.
Paul’s, Richard, Buckingham, and their friends, at Crosby Place.
They were however all joined on the 13th of June in the Tower, when
Richard suddenly appeared with angry and suspicious countenance,
charged the Queen and Jane Shore, the King’s mistress, who now
lived with Hastings, with aiming at his life by sorcery, in proof
of which he exhibited one of his arms, which was smaller than the
other, and included Hastings in the charge. At a given signal armed
men entered the chamber, and Hastings, Stanley, and the Bishops of
York and Ely, were apprehended. Hastings was beheaded without trial
on the spot.
[Sidenote: Richard, with Buckingham’s help, secures the crown.]
This _coup d’état_ was immediately followed up. The people were
summoned to the Tower, where Buckingham and Richard appeared
in rusty armour, as though in their extreme necessity they had
taken it from the armoury. Jane Shore was compelled to do penance
through the streets of London. The Queen was persuaded by the
Archbishop of Canterbury to surrender the young Prince Richard.
And news arrived that, both in the North and in Wales, the people
had risen for Richard. At the same time Grey and Rivers, hitherto
kept prisoners in Northampton, were beheaded. It only remained for
Richard to find some pretext for assuming the crown. He felt the
necessity of forestalling the coronation, which would probably have
withdrawn from him the protectorate, and have brought a commission
of regency into power. On the very day that the coronation was to
have been held, Dr. Shaw, brother of the Mayor of London, was put
up to preach at Paul’s Cross. He took for his text, “The imperfect
branches shall be broken off, their fruit unprofitable,”[100] and
proceeded to expatiate upon the lax life of the late King; and
moreover, to renew the charge which Clarence had once made, that
that King was himself illegitimate. As for the present Princes,
he asserted that they too were bastards. According to him, before
Edward’s marriage with Elizabeth Woodville, he had been engaged
to Lady Eleanor Talbot; by the laws of the Church, therefore,
his subsequent marriage was void, and the King and his brothers
illegitimate. He drew attention to the want of resemblance between
Richard of York and Edward IV., and the close likeness which
existed, on the other hand, between Richard and the Protector. At
this moment the Protector made his appearance, expecting that the
crowd would cry, “Long live, King Richard!” But the charges were
too new and surprising; he was received in perfect silence. The
failure of this attempt induced him to repeat it; and two days
after, Buckingham came to Guildhall, and there addressed the people
in a similar strain. He was determined to take no refusal, and upon
a few cries of approbation, commanded the people to follow him
to Baynard’s Castle, where Richard then was. The Parliament was
just assembling, a number of Lords and representatives from the
Commons joined the crowd, and enabled him with some show of truth
to draw up a petition called “The choice and prayer of the Lords
spiritual and temporal and the Commons of England,” in which, after
recapitulating his story, he requested Richard to accept the crown.
After some show of resistance, Richard accepted the petition, and
took solemn possession of the throne at Westminster Abbey on the
26th. That this choice was by no means unanimous is plain from the
order issued, commanding the inhabitants of London to keep within
their houses after ten o’clock, and forbidding the wearing of arms.
[Sidenote: Richard’s policy of conciliation.]
[Sidenote: His strong position.]
Having once secured the throne, the object of Richard seems to have
been to heal, as far as possible, the wounds that the war had made.
John Lord Howard was the one of his followers whose reward was
the most striking. His mother having been a Mowbray, he was made
Duke of Norfolk and hereditary Marshal of England. The prisoners
the King had taken, in company with Hastings, were released, and
with strange and rash magnanimity, Stanley was given the office
of Constable of England, while Morton of Ely, an old Lancastrian,
whose influence he seems to have underrated, was sent to reside in
a castle in the West of England. He even caused the body of Henry
VI. to be removed from Chertsey Abbey to Windsor, as though the
breach between the families was healed. The King was crowned in
London, and then proceeded to make a progress through England. He
had every reason to think his position was a good one. The people
everywhere received him with a fair show of good-will. In York,
where he was a second time crowned, his reception was enthusiastic.
His foreign relations were also promising. It is true that the
recognition of France was somewhat brief and grudging; but with
the young Philip of Burgundy there was an amicable correspondence;
while Queen Isabella of Castile congratulated him heartily on
having removed the stain of his brother’s degrading marriage, and
desired a close alliance with him against France, the chief reason
perhaps of her show of affection.
[Sidenote: Weak points in it.]
[Sidenote: Disaffection in the South.]
But, though all at first seemed so promising, Richard soon learnt
that it was not for him to pass unopposed into the position of a
peaceful governor of a united England. The injury he had done the
memory of his late brother, the cold-heartedness with which he had
pushed aside the nephew of whom he was the guardian, and who with
his brother was kept in secret confinement in the Tower, revived
the old affection with which the South of England had regarded
Edward IV. Moreover, the Queen’s party was not destroyed, while
Richard’s own generosity had left at liberty supporters of the old
state of affairs. Consequently the whole South of England, from
Kent to Devonshire, showed signs of an intended insurrection.
[Sidenote: Death of the Princes.]
It was just at this moment, and perhaps in the hope of removing
those around whom disaffection might centre, that the King caused
the report to be spread that the young Princes had disappeared from
the Tower. It is needless to enter into a discussion as to their
fate. The picturesque story which represents them as smothered
beneath their bedclothes is the creation of the next age. Indeed,
the popular view of the events of this reign and of the character
of Richard is derived almost wholly from Sir Thomas More’s life
of him. All that contemporary writers mention is that the Princes
disappeared, and were probably killed. Comines, the French
historian, an excellent observer, says simply that Richard had the
Princes killed in the Tower. And the fact that all those who had
the charge of them, even down to Forest, the warden, were rewarded,
makes it almost impossible that this should not have been the case.
[Sidenote: Projected marriage of Elizabeth and Richmond.]
[Sidenote: Defection of Buckingham.]
The effect was not what Richard expected. The friends of his late
brother and of the Queen became still more anxious to preserve the
old stock, and, probably at the suggestion of Morton, a Lancastrian
who had found favour in Richard’s sight, the project of a marriage
between Edward’s daughter Elizabeth and the young Richmond began
to be discussed. The conspiracy soon proved to be very widespread,
and it must have been a terrible surprise to Richard to hear that
his chief friend and accomplice, Buckingham, had declared for the
house of Lancaster. That nobleman’s motives are not clear, but he
probably found that the party of the old nobility, of which he was
the leader, was no better off under Richard than it had been under
Edward. Like other men of a tyrannical turn of mind, Richard had
found his chief support in obsequious followers, and Ratcliffe,
Catesby, and Lovel were his real advisers and friends. The Duke,
therefore, an unprincipled and very ambitious man, thought he saw
his advantage in becoming a principal agent in the restoration of
the exiled house. It is probable, also, that the influence and
skill of Morton, with whom he had been in communication, may have
had something to do with it.
[Sidenote: Richmond’s first invasion.]
[Sidenote: Death of Buckingham and failure of the conspiracy.]
News was also brought to Richard that the young Richmond, who
after Tewkesbury had fled with his uncle to Brittany, and had
there become the centre of the Lancastrian party, was meditating
a descent on England. Richard displayed his usual energy. He
called on the men of York, on whom he could rely, to meet him at
Leicester; hastily wrote to the Archbishop of York to send him the
Great Seal, an unconstitutional act which Russell did not resist;
put a price on the head of Buckingham; and appointed, as though
sure of victory, a vice-constable to superintend any summary
executions that might be necessary. Meanwhile, Kent, Surrey,
Berkshire, Wiltshire, and Devon had risen, and Grey, Lord Dorset,
had declared for Henry Tudor in Exeter. It was the intention of
Buckingham, who was in Wales, to form a junction with the Southern
leaders. For this purpose it was necessary to cross the Severn.
But Sir Humphrey Stafford had broken the bridges, the floods were
out, and the river impassable. His Welsh followers deserted, and
Buckingham was obliged to fly. He sought a refuge with a dependant
of his own in Shropshire, of the name of Banister, by whom he
was betrayed. After vain entreaties for a personal interview
with Richard, and for a legal trial, he was summarily executed.
Richmond’s part of the conspiracy had been an equal failure. His
fleet had been scattered by a storm. He himself reached Plymouth,
but the news of the failure of Buckingham, and the appearance of
the King in the South, before whose approach all the gatherings of
the rebels dissolved, induced him to return to Brittany.
[Sidenote: Parliament and great confiscation. 1484.]
Again undisputed master of England, Richard summoned a
Parliament to meet him in January. As was usual when one party
was predominant, it proved to be devoted to the Government.
Richard’s special favourite, Catesby, was chosen for speaker,
and all Richard’s claims to the throne were declared to be just.
Nor was this all: the oath of allegiance was demanded from all
the adult population of England; and a huge bill of attainder
and confiscation, mentioning more than 500 names, was passed. As
the King was allowed to regrant the confiscated property, he was
enabled to fill the southern counties with northern proprietors
devoted to his cause; while with questionable wisdom, as it
afterwards appeared, he sought to purchase the fidelity of the
Stanleys, by giving to Lord Stanley, her present husband, the
property of the Countess Margaret of Richmond, who was included in
the bill of attainder.
[Sidenote: Continued schemes of Richmond.]
[Sidenote: Richard’s efforts to oppose him.]
[Sidenote: Attempts to win the Queen.]
[Sidenote: Death of the Prince of Wales. Lincoln declared heir.]
But though defeated in his first efforts, her son, Henry Tudor,
continued his preparations abroad. It was in vain that Richard, by
promising Francis of Brittany his assistance against France, and
by bribing the all-powerful minister Pierre Landais, succeeded in
procuring Henry’s dismissal from Brittany. He fled to the Court of
Charles VIII. of France, where he was well received, and where the
Lancastrian exiles gathered round him. Richard felt that all his
efforts were necessary to oppose this Prince. He collected troops,
demanded ships from the Cinque Ports, attempted a reconciliation
with the Queen Dowager, by allowing her with her daughters to leave
the sanctuary at Westminster, and contemplated a marriage between
his own son Edward and her eldest daughter Elizabeth, a marriage
which would have been the death blow to the Lancastrian party. He
succeeded moreover in procuring a three years’ truce with Scotland,
and the promise of a marriage between the Duke of Rothesay, the
heir to the Scotch crown, and his niece.[101] The most important
part of his plan was frustrated by the untimely death of his son,
which plunged him in the deepest grief. But he strove to supply
his place by nominating his nephew John de la Pole, the Earl of
Lincoln, his heir.
[Sidenote: General uneasiness in England. 1485.]
[Sidenote: His recourse to benevolences.]
Meanwhile the feeling of uneasiness increased. Lancastrian
emissaries moved to and fro through the country. Clifford and some
others of them were apprehended and put to death. But the evil was
too great to admit of a speedy remedy. Libels were freely scattered
through the country; among others the well-known couplet, “The rat,
the cat, and Lovel the dog, rule all England under the Hog,” a
plain allusion to his chief friends, Ratcliffe, Catesby and Lovel.
William Collingbourne, its author, was captured and put to death.
But libels increased in number, especially when there seemed to be
grounds for asserting that, though his wife was still living, he
was himself thinking of a subsequent marriage with the Princess
Elizabeth of York. The opportune illness and death of his wife,
and, it may be, the love[102] felt for him by the Princess, added
such an air of truth to the story, that, at the instigation of
his best friends, he was induced to make a public contradiction
of it before the Common Council in London. His finances, too,
were in disorder. Free-handed and ostentatious, he had speedily
spent the wealth which his brother’s avarice had accumulated; and
though he had himself caused a bill to be passed to put an end
to benevolences, he was reduced to have recourse to that illegal
method of taxation which the people in bitter jest termed the
raising of malevolences.
[Sidenote: Richmond lands at Milford.]
[Sidenote: Conduct of the Stanleys.]
[Sidenote: Battle of Bosworth. Aug. 22.]
He was however prepared, when Richmond, supported by the French,
made his second attempt upon England. But unfortunately for
Richard, treason was at work among his own followers, and the
Stanleys, without principle, without gratitude, and with a constant
eye to their own aggrandizement, were in secret alliance with
their young kinsman the Lancastrian Prince. At length the invasion
came. The place of landing, which had been kept a profound secret,
was Milford Haven: for the Tudor thought it prudent to enlist the
national prejudices of the Welsh in his favour. The Leopard of
England and the Dragon of Wales floated side by the side on his
standards. He advanced in safety to Shropshire; and the Welsh
leaders joined him, as well as the Talbots of Shrewsbury. Richard
had assembled his forces in the centre of England. Northumberland
brought him troops from the North, Howard from the South,
Brackenbury from London, Norfolk from the East. But it was very
doubtful what part the Stanleys would take; and it was through the
county where they were powerful, both as proprietors and as the
King’s governors, that Richmond had to pass. Lord Stanley demanded
leave to go to his county; but the King, whose suspicions had been
raised, insisted on his leaving his son Lord Strange as a hostage.
Pleading illness, Lord Stanley had refused to join Richard, and
with 5000 men retired before the invader, whom his brother Sir
William had now openly joined. In August the armies approached one
another in the neighbourhood of Atherstone. Richard then threw
aside all doubts. He ordered Lord Strange to be beheaded, and felt
that the struggle must be a final one. Lord Strange’s keepers,
however, thought it well to await the issue of the battle before
carrying out the command: and in the middle of the struggle, Lord
Stanley, who, afraid for his son’s life, had kept aloof with his
troops, suddenly joined Richmond. This turned the fortunes of the
day; and in spite of the greatest personal bravery, Richard’s army
was completely beaten, and himself killed.
[Sidenote: Richard’s character and laws.]
His character has been the subject of much discussion, nor is this
strange. Had he lived in times of greater security, he would have
been an able and admirable governor. Several of the enactments of
his reign attest his wisdom and his love of justice. He recognized
the evil of benevolences, and forbad them, although necessity drove
him to have recourse to them. His efforts were much directed to
the re-establishment of justice, to support which he had caused
a bill to be passed, to secure the respectability of jurymen, by
forbidding any but freeholders to the amount of 40s. from serving
in that capacity. He restrained the lawlessness of the barons by
the suppression of liveries; and while promising to uphold the
liberties of the Church, had shown that he would not allow any
interference with the civil power. He had also fostered the trade
of England by opening fresh markets for English wool both in Spain
and in Iceland. His personal character, too, was attractive. With
beautiful though peculiar features, he was liberal and at times
forgiving to the verge of folly. He had pardoned and extended
constant favour to the wives and families of his political victims.
In spite of his strange charge of adultery against her, he had been
always a dutiful and affectionate son to his mother. The gentle
side of his disposition is perhaps shown by his passionate love of
music. But the troublous times in which he lived called out all his
worst characteristics; and for political ends he had shown himself
scheming, cold, and cruel; while the tyrannical temperament, which
could brook no opposition, hurried him into deeds of violence which
were the proximate cause of his downfall.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Political condition of the nation.]
It is necessary, as the border-land is thus reached between modern
civilization and that of the middle ages, to say a few words
on the political condition of the nation, which allowed of the
establishment of the personal monarchy of the Tudors, and of the
social state of the people from which modern forms of civilization
were to spring.
During the earlier part of the Lancastrian rule, Parliament, and
especially the House of Commons, had apparently continued to rise
in power. The Constitutional growth of the fourteenth century had
been continued. The Commons had secured the unquestioned right of
originating money bills, not to be altered by the House of Lords,
nor discussed in the presence of the King. They had secured the
right not only of recommending in petitions, but also of joining
as an equal estate of the realm in the passing of laws. They had
succeeded during the reign of Henry VI. in preventing any changes
in the form of their petitions (which had not unfrequently been
introduced when, after the session, the petition was enrolled),
by bringing in complete Statutes, called Bills, to be rejected or
accepted as a whole, instead of their old petitions. They had, in
several instances, practised unquestioned the right of impeachment,
and claimed, with some degree of success, the freedom of their
members from arrest, even during the recess of Parliament. But in
spite of this apparent advance, the real power of the Parliament
before the close of the Wars of the Roses had almost disappeared.
A statute in the eighth year of Henry VI. limited the franchise,
with regard to the election of knights of the shire, to freeholders
of lands or tenements to the value of forty shillings. This at
once gave an aristocratic tone to the House. In addition to this
it had become the fashion both of the nobility and of the Crown to
tamper with the elections. With the new restricted franchise, the
power of local magnates in the county elections was predominant,
while, as regards the boroughs, the sheriffs exercised a power
of summoning burgesses from such towns only as they pleased, and
it was not difficult for the Crown or ruling party to bring the
sheriffs under their influence. While the House of Commons thus
lost its independence, the old Upper House had been virtually
destroyed, and the new nobility was by its very nature dependent on
the Crown. Another most important element of freedom had likewise
disappeared. The great Churchmen, to whom the liberties of England
owe so much, had been victorious over their enemies the Lollards.
In the struggle they had lost their sympathy with the people. Their
desire for the spiritual welfare of the country had shrivelled to a
selfish eagerness for the preservation of orthodoxy. They had been
drawn into closer communication with Rome, and had begun to share
its interests. Cardinal Beaufort, in spite of all opposition, had
succeeded in retaining his Roman rank, and it had become habitual
that the Archbishop of Canterbury at least should bear the title
of Cardinal. Wealthy, worldly and self-seeking, the leaders of the
clergy were inclined to devote themselves to political life; and,
conscious of the alienation of the lower orders, and fearing for
their property, which had already excited the envy of the laity,
and which, while confiscation was reducing the nobles to beggary,
had remained almost untouched, they sought employment and safety in
becoming the devoted servants of the King.
At the same time that the practical efficiency of the Parliament
had been decreasing, the power of the King’s Council had been on
the increase. The limits of its rights, springing as it did from
the Concilium Ordinarium of the Plantagenet kings, had always been
questionable, and its encroachments, in meddling with the petitions
of the Lower House, and in issuing ordinances without the consent
of Parliament, which had yet the authority of temporary laws, had
been constantly objected to by the Commons. The long minority of
Henry VI., during which the chief direction of the Government had
been almost unavoidably in the hands of the Council, had tended
greatly to increase its power.
[Sidenote: Effects of the Wars of the Roses.]