"issued a Proclamation against Buckingham, and the Marquis of
Dorset, with others of his adherents, whom he supposed to be in
league with him. But as the Marquis had not appeared in arms, and
so could not be styled a rebel, he made use of another pretence
to involve him in the sentence. He said that having taken oath at
his coronation to punish vice and wickedness, he was obliged to
punish the Marquis of Dorset, notorious for his debaucheries, who
had seduced and ravished several virgins, being guilty of sundry
adulteries, &c. A reward of a thousand marks, or one hundred
marks a year (in land), was promised to anyone who would bring
the Marquis to justice, and sums in proportion for the rest that
were named in the Proclamation."
They got safely across however, and so foiled the tender intentions of
this amiable potentate. Richmond appeared soon after, returning from
his fruitless voyage across the channel, and,
"when he arrived he heard of the Duke of Buckingham's death, and
found the Marquis of Dorset, and other English gentlemen who had
made their escape. They all swore allegiance to him, and he took
his corporal oath on the same day, the 25th of December, that he
would marry the Princess Elizabeth, when he had suppressed the
usurper Richard, and was in the possession of the Crown."
Richard, however, who was kept well informed of all that went on
abroad, had determined if possible to check-mate this scheme of
Richmond, by marrying the lady himself,--
"and to that end did his utmost to ingratiate himself with her
mother the Queen Elizabeth. He sent flattering messages to her in
Sanctuary, promised to advance the Marquis of Dorset and all her
relations, and won upon her so much by his fair speeches, that
forgetting the many affronts he had cast upon the memory of her
husband, on her own honour and the legitimacy of her children,
and even the murder of her dear sons, she complyed with him, and
promised to bring over her son, and all the late king's friends
from the party of Richmond, and went so far as to deliver up her
five daughters into his hand. She also wrote to her son the
Marquis of Dorset, to leave Richmond and hasten to England where
she had procured him a pardon, and provided all sorts of honours
for him."
Then, of course, followed the "illness" of Richard's poor Queen, now
completely in the way of these delicate arrangements, who hearing
"what was reported against her, believed it came from her
husband, and thence concluding that her hour was drawing nigh,
ran to him in a most sorrowful and deplorable condition, and
demanded of him, '_what she had done to deserve death_.' Richard
answered her with fair words and false smiles bidding her '_be of
good cheer for to his knowledge she had no other cause_.' But
whether her grief, as he designed it should, struck so to her
heart, that it broke with the mortal wound, or he hastened her
end, as was generally suspected, by poison, she died in a few
days afterward."
Thus another victim was removed from this ghastly panorama of
treachery and guilt. She was the daughter of the Earl of Warwick, the
'king-maker,' and, when Richard married her, widow of Prince Edward
(heir to Henry VI.), so foully murdered after the battle of
Tewkesbury. The Lady Katharine Bonville was her aunt, and Cicely
Bonville, her daughter, was the poor Queen's cousin.
Richard's new matrimonial project did not go on so smoothly as he
expected, his former Queen "was scarcely cold in her grave, before he
made his addresses to the Princess Elizabeth, who held his pretended
love in abhorrence, and the whole kingdom averse to so unnatural a
marriage,"--she was his own niece. He therefore put off for a time
further prosecuting his suit, and "deferred his courtship until he was
better settled on the throne."
Richmond, who in his turn had full knowledge of all Richard's
proceedings, was quite equal to the occasion, and determined to foil
his rival both of wife and kingdom, which he successfully
accomplished.