"The most remarkable circumstance connected with this locality is
the recent discovery of a skeleton, found just under the pavement
in making some alterations in a kind of kitchen or out-house,
belonging to the Saracen's Head, which is close to the site of
the Blue Boar. It was that of a person apparently above the
middle size and had been deprived of the head and right arm. The
workman by whom it was found, omitted to notice whether the bones
of the neck had been separated by a sharp instrument, but could
remember that the bone of the arm appeared to have been cut off,
just below the shoulder, as if by a saw. These remains were
destroyed without proper examination.
"Of itself the discovery would prove nothing, but if the fact of
Buckingham's execution at Salisbury be indisputably established,
we shall not be guilty of too great a stretch of imagination, in
supposing these were his mutilated remains, interred
clandestinely, or, at least, without ceremony, near the spot
where he suffered."
The name of Blue Boar Row is still perpetuated on the south side of
the Market Place at Salisbury.
The tomb set up to his memory in Britford church, is in the place of
honour, on the north side of the chancel. It is a high-tomb with
Purbeck marble cover-stone, but exhibiting no brass indent, or
inscription. Below are six canopied niches containing figures:--1.
Figure gone.--2. Crowned female saint, with remains of cross (?),
probably St. Margaret.--3. A bishop with pastoral staff, and hand
raised in benediction.--4. A female saint crowned, St. Katharine with
wheel and sword.--5. St. George, with sword, shield, and dragon under
his feet.--6. A female saint bearing a pix or shrine, St. Mary
Magdalene (?). At the west end are two niches having within them
angels holding shields with the bearings sculptured thereon:--1. _A
chevron_, evidently for STAFFORD, and 2. _A fess_ (apparently _cotised
engrailed_, but perhaps only an ornament introduced by the sculptor),
for WIDVILLE, EARL RIVERS. Over the tomb is a detached ogee arched
crocketted canopy, with large finial, springing from embattled and
pinnacled side buttresses. The canopy is ornamented with vine foliage
and fruit; the workmanship of the whole composition is of coarse
character. On a modern brass plate affixed above the tomb is this
inscription,--
HENRICUS.STAFFORD.DUX.BUCKINGHAM
DECAPITATUS APUD SALISBURI.I.RIC.III.A.D./1483.
It is probable this memento at Britford was erected by the Duke's
brother-in-law, Lionel Widville, who was Bishop of Salisbury at the
time of Buckingham's execution. Its position outside the city was
doubtless adopted to deprecate prominence and discussion at this
dangerous era.
The Bishop was the third son of Sir Richard Widville, the first Earl
Rivers (so created by Edward IV., in 1466, and who was subsequently
beheaded at Northampton, 1467), by his wife Jacqueline of Luxemburg,
widow of John Plantagenet, Duke of Bedford. He was brother to
Elizabeth, Queen of Edward IV., and so uncle to the unfortunate
Princes so relentlessly destroyed by Gloucester, brother also to
Katharine, wife of Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, and Anthony,
Earl Rivers, executed at Pontefract by Richard III. He held the See
two years only, 1482-4, and his death is said to have been accelerated
by the fate of his brother-in-law at Salisbury, and the other
misfortunes that befell his family during the reign of Richard III.
The tomb assigned to Bishop Widville stands under the first arch of
the north aisle of the choir of the Cathedral, leading into the
transept.
It is a high altar-tomb, the cover-stone perfectly plain, with indent
for inscription on its edge, but the brass has disappeared. Below are
traceried panels, with shields in their centres, on which were
originally brass escutcheons. Over the tomb is a large and heavy
canopy, extending the whole width of the arch of the aisle. The arch
of the canopy is depressed, and cusped, with roses on the bosses of
the points. The vaulting within is panelled, as are also the side
buttresses. The spandrels are traceried with shields in the centres,
on which, as on the tomb below, were brasses. The whole composition
is of Purbeck marble, and of plain character.
Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, married Katharine, daughter of
Richard Widville,--created Earl Rivers by Edward IV., 24 May, 1466,
and constituted by that monarch Constable of England,--by his wife
Jacqueline of Luxemburg, widow of John Plantagenet, Duke of Bedford,
third son of King Henry IV. She was thus sister to Elizabeth, Queen of
Edward IV., and so aunt to the unfortunate Princes murdered in the
Tower.
By her the Duke had two sons and two daughters. Edward, eldest son,
who was restored to all the honours of his father, by Henry VII., and
made Constable of England and K.G. He appears to have offended, and,
according to Burke, "also excited the enmity of Wolsey," and that
ambitious prelate finally succeeded in accomplishing his ruin. Like
his father he was doomed to fall by domestic treason, for having
discharged one Knevet, a steward, for oppressing his tenantry; that
individual became a fit instrument in the hands of Wolsey to effect
the object he had at heart. Knevet declared "that the duke had
contemplated the assassination of the King, Henry VIII., in order that
he might ascend the throne himself as next heir, if his majesty died
without issue," and it was further alleged "hee had consulted a monke
or wizard, about succession of the crowne."
The Duke made a passionate and indignant denial to this frivolous, yet
withal foul charge, but nevertheless he was found guilty and beheaded
on Tower Hill, 17 May, 1521. Old Weever says, "he was a noble
gentleman, exceedingly much lamented of good men. Of whose death, when
the Emperour Charles the fift heard, he said, '_that a Butchers
dogge_, (meaning the Cardinall, a butchers sonne) _had deuoured the
fairest Buck_ (alluding to the name of Buckingham) _in all England_.'
He sometime lay sumptuously entombed in the church of the Augustine
Fryers, in London, and the bodies of a hundred more of exemplarie note
and degree, but now their bodies are not only despoiled of all outward
funerall ornaments, but digged up out of their requietories, and
dwelling houses raised in the place, which was appointed for their
eternal rest."
Henry, the second son, was created Earl of Wiltshire, 1 Henry VIII.,
1509, married first, Margaret, Countess of Wilts, and secondly, Cicely
Bonville, Marchioness of Dorset. More of him will be found under the
notice of Bonville. He died 6 March, 1523.
Elizabeth, eldest daughter married Robert Ratcliffe, created Lord
Fitzwalter, and afterward 28 Dec., 1529, Earl of Suffolk, K.G., and
Lord High Chamberlain. He died in 1542.
Anne, married first Sir Walter Herbert, second son of William Herbert,
first Earl of Pembroke and K.G. By a singular coincidence this Earl
met with his death through the desertion of a Stafford, Humphrey, Earl
of Devon, of the Suthwyck in Wiltshire and Hooke in Dorsetshire branch
of the family; who withdrew his support at Banbury, and Pembroke was
defeated at Danesmore in 1469, and afterward taken to Northampton and
beheaded. Secondly, she married George Hastings, first Earl of
Huntingdon, of the second creation, who died in 1544, and was buried
at Stoke-Pogis. She survived the Earl, and at her death was interred
beside him.
The motives that influenced the conduct and actions of Buckingham have
been a subject of much speculation among historians, and it is
doubtful if any fixed determination or aim lay at the bottom of any of
them, beyond the chances or necessities of the passing hour. The
social aspect of the age in which he lived exhibited merely a
succession of plots for the mastery of ruling for the time being, and
almost everyone having station above the ordinary citizen, was by
turns embroiled or mixed up in them; while those holding distinguished
positions by birth or influence, were almost forced to take active
part, with all their consequent perils. Ambition, cruelty, and callous
hardness, trampled under foot all the finer feelings of the heart and
mind,--hypocrisy and treachery invaded the most sacred ties of home
and blood-relationship, the desire of worldly power, and holding their
neighbours in the yoke of bondage, was the prevalent feeling, to which
all others were sacrificed, and the opposing factions met each other
on the field of battle, and fought for the governing power at the
sword's point, with the sacrifice of myriads of human lives. At this
distance of time it may be asked, what result after all, was effected
by this bloodshed that surged through the country for half-a-century?
It may be answered, none, beyond letting loose the worst vices that
infest humanity, and the consequent retardation of all that tends to
civilize the individual.
Amid such a storm of wickedness, strong minds alone had chance to
pilot themselves safely through it, and then with much uncertainty,
but what would be the fate of weak ones,--vacillating, uncertain,
capricious, such as Buckingham was said to possess? Only one in the
end, at that era, was reserved for such, and with unsparing revengeful
steps it overtook him.
That he was the main instrument of placing the Crown on Gloucester's
head, seems to admit of little doubt,--
"The first was I that help'd thee to the crown;
The last was I that felt thy tyranny."
It is equally uncertain what motive influenced his defection from
Richard. This has been said to have been Richard's withholding from
him the large estates which Buckingham claimed should have descended
to him as coheir of Bohun, as a reward for helping him to the Throne,
and so did not fulfil the implied promise of the compact. But was this
so? Richard may be readily believed to have been bad enough for
anything, but was he thus ungrateful to the man, to whom he was
indebted more than to any other for attaining his present position?
Upon this point there appears to be considerable doubt. Dugdale, under
his notice of Stafford in the _Baronage_, includes the following:--
"Having thus been the principal agent in advancing Richard to the
throne, and thereupon pressing his performance of what had been
privately promised, this new King signed a Bill for Livery of all
those lands unto him whereunto he pretended a right by descent
from Humphrey de Bohun; sometime Earl of Hereford, and Constable
of England. An abstract whereof I have here inserted, together
with a schedule of the Castles and Manors affixed thereto.
"R.R.
"Richard, by the grace of God, King of England, &c. &c. To all,
&c. Know ye, that We, not only considering, that our right
trusty, and right entyrely beloved Cosyn, Henry, Duke of
Buckingham, is Cosyn and Heir of blood to Humphrey Bohun, Earl of
Hereford; and rightful inheritor of such inheritances, as were of
the same late Earl, but also the true, feythful, and laudable
service, the which our seid Cosyn hath in many sundry wises done
unto us, to our right singular wele and plesure. Considering also
and understanding, that the Mannors, Lordships and Lands,
specified in the schedule, hereunto annexed, the which were
parcel of the inheritance of the said Earl, and were chosen and
accepted in purpartie by Harry the fifth, late King of England;
son of Mary one of the daughters and heirs of the said late
Earle; of a partition betwene the same late King, and Anne
daughter of Alianore, another of the daughters and heires of the
sayd late Earle; made by authority of Parliament in the second
year of his reigne; in allowance of other Mannours, Lordships,
Lands, &c., of the like value, allotted and assured in purpartie
to the same Anne, come unto the hands of Edward the fourth, late
King of England, our brother, by virtue of certain act or acts of
Parliament, made against Harry the sixth, deceased without issue;
so that our said Cosyn as true inheritor to the sayd inheritance
in forme abovesayd, should by his death have had and inherited
the said Mannours, Lordships, &c., specifyed in the said
schedule, if the sayd act or acts of Parliament, had never been
made. And also for certain other considerations Us especially
moving, wille and grant unto our sayd Cosyn, that in our next
Parliament to be holden, he shall be surely and lawfully, by act
of Parliament restored, fro' the Feste of Easter last past, to
all the foresaid Mannours, &c., specifyed in the sayd schedule;
and the same have, hold, and enjoy, to him and to his heires,
according to such states and titles, as he should or might have
done, if none act of Parliament had been made against the sayd
King Harry the sixth, touching the sayd Mannours, &c., at any
time since the death of the sayd late Earle. And, that our sayd
Cosyn now forthwith enter into all the same Mannours, and thereof
take the issues, &c., to his own use, fro' the sayd Feast of
Easter, unto the time he be thereto restored by authority of
Parliament, in fourme above remembered; without any account or
other thing yielding unto Us or our heires for the same. And,
that he have the making of all Officers, Gifts, and Benefices,
Wards, and other Profits, &c. In testimony whereof We have set
our Signet, and Sign-Manuell.
"Yoven at our Mannour of Greenwich, 13th of July, of our Reign
the First."
These Manors as enumerated in the schedule were fifty-three in number,
lying in nineteen counties, of which "_total sum valoris_, L1084 1_s._
9_d._" And he further adds,--
"Nay, an author of that time reports (_Chron. MS. Joh. Rous in bibl.
Cotton. p. 269._) that he (Richard) gave him all his riches, so that
he then made his boast that "he had as many liveries of _Stafford
Knots_, as Richard Nevill the late great Earle of Warwick had of
_Ragged Staves_."
As we before observed, to attempt to explain or speculate upon the
motives that actuated Buckingham in his extraordinary career, would be
alike both useless and fruitless. His eagerness and zeal displayed to
place Richard on the throne, his consent to, and consequent complicity
in the cold-blooded executions of his wife's brothers and their
associate at Pontefract, and also of Hastings, together with other
heinous transactions, to the prejudice and discomfiture of the nearer
tie of his wife's defenceless nephews, appear to have had no very
definite purpose as regarded himself, but only exhibited the actions
of an unscrupulous partisan and tool for others, the attributes of a
weak, contemptible mind. Was he aware of, and did he also assent to,
the last and most atrocious of Richard's crimes, the murder of the
Princes in the Tower, toward both of whom, the poor boys stood nearly
in the same relationship? If so, he was even more vile than Richard,
for _he_ had an excuse, ambition, albeit of the most loathsome kind,
to offer,--which Buckingham had not, nor indeed any that can be
imagined.
This question has, we believe, never been definitely answered, and so
we prefer to give Buckingham the benefit of the doubt, and to hope
that he did not do so. Although he appears to have excessively
disliked the Queen-Mother and her family, and was the chief promoter
of the movement to rob her sons of their royal heritage, still there
does not appear to be any direct evidence to incriminate him as
consenting to their deaths, after circumstances point to the contrary,
and he is said to have made use of their inhuman fate, as one of the
principal reasons for his desire to dethrone Richard.
The complete confirmation, however, of his weak, unsettled,
poorly-ambitious mind, which led to his final defection and action
against Richard, was doubtless due to the persuasive powers of his
prisoner-guest, the wary, far-seeing, intellectual Morton, in whose
hands, with plans carefully prepared, and subtle knowledge of the
world and human life, Buckingham would be little more than a child.
There is not however much to admire in this ecclesiastic's furtive
flight from the custody of his host,--for his enforced sojourn at
Brecknock Castle could be called in its conditions but little
otherwise than that of a visitor. Then speedily placing himself in a
position of safety, he left the seeds of disaffection he found sown in
the mind of Buckingham, and which he had carefully nurtured, to ripen
into foolish, hasty, miscalculated action, which revealed to Richard
truly enough the character of the movement, that was destined in the
end to deprive him of his kingdom and his life, but enabled him, as it
turned out, easily to send this its first pioneer to the scaffold.
Sufficient stress does not appear to have been laid on this incident,
and the influence it probably exercised, connected with the fate of
Buckingham. His wretched downfall and unenviable character have
consigned him to unpitying oblivion--the fate of many a better, but
unsuccessful man,--while the brilliantly fortunate career of his
quondam prisoner, has caused this circumstance to be forgotten, or
passed over in silence. It is not inferred that Morton originally
unsettled Buckingham's mind,--_that_ had taken place before,--but the
fact remains he confirmed that unsettledness, pointed out the way in
which he could be useful by hostile movement in the western counties,
and then took speedy flight beyond seas to Richmond, where he remained
in safety from the wrath of Richard, until after the battle of
Bosworth.
Buckingham naturally did not want to part with his genial
strong-minded prisoner and adviser,--but some excuse must nevertheless
be allowed Morton for his hasty exit. He well knew the suspicion
Richard had of him, and that king's jealousy of the strength of his
ability and influence, which he believed was not loyal toward him, and
the Bishop consequently being remitted to the custody of Buckingham.
After Morton had tampered with Buckingham, completed his other
traitorous negociations against Richard, and when circumstances were
rapidly shaping themselves, if not with very defined and concentrated
purpose, yet sufficiently large and apparent, as to render a hostile
movement against Richard's authority an event of the shortest notice;
and having also made full estimate of Buckingham's unreliable
character and incapacity, and that no mercy would be meted out to him
in such company, should an unsuccessful storm break forth and he fall
into the hands of his victor,--which was just what did happen in
Buckingham's case,--the first law of nature persuaded him, and he made
for a place of safety under the shadow of his idol, there to wait
further opportunity to aid, when the course of events afforded it.
John Morton was a west-country man, having been born about 1420, at
Bere-Regis, a small market town in central Dorset, where his family
had for some time been settled, and were of good standing. He was
educated in the Abbey of Cerne, and then entered Balliol College,
Oxford, where his proficiency attracted the notice of Cardinal
Bourchier. He was successively Rector of St. Dunstan's, London,
Prebendary of Wells, Bishop of Ely 1478, Archbishop of Canterbury
1486, Lord-Chancellor 1487, Cardinal of St. Anastasia 1493, and
Chancellor of Oxford. But he was much more than this, he was the
friend, counsellor, and financier--the last no easy position--to Henry
VII., the chief personage both in Church and State, at once Primate
and Premier, and the cementer of the union of the rival houses of the
Red and White Rose.
The merest glance at Morton's life would involve reference to the
principal events of the age in which he lived, and he has been perhaps
correctly designated as the foremost Englishman of his time. In their
way both Morton and Buckingham were the setters up of kings. Probably
the real prompting motive that lay at the bottom of both their minds,
and gave force to their action, was much the same,--the consequent
advancement, if their efforts succeeded, of their own station and
interests. Buckingham accomplished his object, but was disappointed at
the result. Then his thoughts turned to substitute another ruler, and
by strange circumstance he was thrown into counsel with an individual
bent on the same errand, but an infinitely abler and far-seeing man.
In this his second design, Buckingham led the forlorn hope and
perished; Morton entered the breach with the reserve, after the
fortress had been stormed and had capitulated. The motives that
actuated these henchmen of kings, as we have said, were doubtless
alike, whether fortune led the one to the scaffold, and gave the other
the delegated authority of the throne. The White Rose was good enough
for Morton until the White Boar became its representative. Then his
mind and energies turned to the Red Rose,--the triumph came,--with
consummate wisdom he wedded their rival pretensions and extinguished
the internecine strife. All now bade for peace, the path of the
highest distinction lay before him, he traversed it with the greatest
ability and success, and when he died had reached its most exalted
eminence, and the dream of his life had been fulfilled.