"'Without arraignment or judgment, he was, in the open
Market-place on a new scaffold, beheaded and put to death. His
death he received at the hands of king Richard, whom he had
before, in his affairs, purposes, enterprises, holden, sustained,
and set forward, above all God's forbode."
And this account is corroborated by documents in the _Stafford MSS._,
quoted by the historian of Shrewsbury. The passage on the subject is
as follows:--
"And so all the gentlemen of Harrefordshire weare send for by
Privy Seale to King Richard to _Salisburie_, and by that time
Duke Henry of Buckingham, was brought by Sir James Tyler, the
third daye, wheare he was pittifullie murdered by the said Kinge,
for raisinge power to bring in King Henrie the Seventh."
The Duke having been thus summarily disposed of, what became of the
wretch that betrayed him? One account narrates,--
"Banister and his whole family were destroyed by the surprizing
judgments of the Almighty. The Usurper refused to pay him the
thousand pounds promised in the Proclamation, saying, 'He that
would betray so good a Master, would be false to any other.'"
But according to another, and truer version, the informer received his
reward, and,--
"with the king's commendation of his service in his letters
patent; for he gave him the Manour and Lordship of Ealding in
Kent, late belonging to the Duke of Buckingham. So the letters
ran,--'RICHARD &c.,--_to al and singular the Officers, &c.,--Wit
ye, that in consideration of the true and faithful service which
our well beloved servant Rauf Banistre Esq, now late hath done
unto us, for and about the taking and bringing of our said great
Rebel into our hands, we have given unto the said Rauf, and to
his heirs male, the said Manour for ever._'"
Both giver and receiver a congenial pair, and the gift that passed a
characteristic one, being a portion of the spoil of their victim. Of
such men it may be said,--
"Shame and Desolation sit
By their graves ever."
But where was Buckingham buried, after he had been thus "condemned and
executed in such summary way, on a new scaffold erected in the
Market-place of Salisbury." A tomb to his memory is erected in
Britford church, about a mile and a half distant from that city,
but it is a cenotaph only, his body was not interred there; where then
was its final resting-place, after his troublous life had found such
disastrous extinction? Still further ignominy appears to have remained
to be meted out to the inanimate form, after man had wreaked his last
vengeance on the life.
[Illustration: DISCOVERY MADE IN THE KITCHEN OF THE SARACEN'S
HEAD INN, SALISBURY.
_From the Saturday Magazine, 6 April, 1839._]
From an article in the _Saturday Magazine_, 6 April, 1839, we gather
the following,--
"Tradition assigns the court-yard of the Blue Boar Inn, as the
scene of this bloody tragedy; but great uncertainty seems always
to have prevailed as to the spot where the mutilated remains of
this unfortunate nobleman were finally deposited. The
frontispiece which is presented to our readers, gives a view of
the kitchen of an inn (the Saracen's Head) in Salisbury, in
which, while some repairs and alterations were being made, a
skeleton, in the condition shewn in the picture, was discovered
beneath the floor of the apartment, which is on a level with the
ground. A view of the appearance of the figure, together with the
apartment, was made and published by Mr. J. M. Cullam--of which
view, with his permission we have taken a copy. These human
remains, are with good reason, supposed to have belonged to that
Duke of Buckingham.
"It is supposed that the head and right arm, after having been
submitted to the personal inspection of the King, then resident
in "the King's house," in the Close, were sent to London to be
affixed to Temple Bar, or exposed on Tower Hill, as was commonly
used to be done in those times. A tomb in the north chantry of
St. Thomas's church, Salisbury, was once supposed to contain the
remains of Buckingham, and another in Britford church, near
Salisbury, obtained a similar reputation; but sufficient evidence
has been found to shew these were only _monuments_ to his memory,
and no indications, leading to probability, have ever appeared,
to point out the place of the sepulture of the Duke of
Buckingham, till the discovery took place represented in our
frontispiece.
"The Saracen's Head Inn (owing to the peculiar contiguity of the
two places) is supposed to have once formed part of the premises
attached to those of the Blue Boar. The grave, therefore, of the
Duke, was probably made only a few yards, possibly feet, from the
spot where he suffered decapitation. The skeleton was found about
eight inches below the surface of the soil; the spinal column
appeared imbedded in the clay, and on taking up some of the
detached vertebrae, they crumbled to dust in the hands. All the
remains were in a like friable condition."