RICHARD'S MARRIAGE.
1471-1474
Characters of Clarence and Richard.--Embarrassing situation in which
Clarence was placed.--Richard made Lord High Admiral of England.--His
real character.--Requisites of a good soldier.--Young Edward formally
acknowledged heir to the crown.--Forlorn condition of Lady Anne.--Her
sister Isabella.--Clarence's views in respect to the
property.--Richard's plan.--His early acquaintance with Anne.--The
banquet at the archbishop's.--Clarence conceals Lady Anne.--Richard
finds her at last.--His marriage.--Measures for securing the
property.--Difficulty about the division of the property.--The quarrel
becomes serious.--It is at last settled by the king.--Richard's child
is born.--Anne becomes more contented.
When the affairs of the kingdom were settled, after the return of King
Edward to the throne, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, the subject of the
present volume, was found occupying a very exalted and brilliant
position. It is true, he was yet very young, being only about nineteen
years of age, and by birth he was second to Clarence, Clarence being
his older brother. But Clarence had been so wavering and vacillating,
having changed sides so often in the great quarrels, that no
confidence was placed in him now on either side. Richard, on the other
hand, had steadily adhered to his brother Edward's cause. He had
shared all his brother's reverses, and he had rendered him most
valuable and efficient aid in all the battles which he had fought, and
had contributed essentially to his success in all the victories which
he had gained. Of course, now, Edward and his friends had great
confidence in Richard, while Clarence was looked upon with suspicion
and distrust.
Clarence, it is true, had one excuse for his instability, which
Richard had not; for Clarence, having married the Earl of Warwick's
daughter, was, of course, brought into very close connection with the
earl, and was subjected greatly to his influence. Accordingly,
whatever course Warwick decided to take, it was extremely difficult
for Clarence to avoid joining him in it; and when at length Warwick
arranged the marriage of his daughter Anne with the Prince of Wales,
King Henry's son, and so joined himself to the Lancaster party,
Clarence was placed between two strong and contrary attractions--his
attachment to his brother, and his natural interest in the advancement
of his own family being on one side, and his love for his wife, and
the great influence and ascendency exerted over his mind by his
father-in-law being on the other.
Richard was in no such strait. There was nothing to entice him away
from his fidelity to his brother, so he remained true.
He had been so brave and efficient, too, in the military operations
connected with Edward's recovery of the throne, that he had acquired
great renown as a soldier throughout the kingdom. The fame of his
exploits was the more brilliant on account of his youth. It was
considered remarkable that a young man not yet out of his teens
should show so much skill, and act with so much resolution and energy
in times so trying, and the country resounded with his praises.
As soon as Edward was established on the throne, he raised Richard to
what was in those days, perhaps, the highest office under the crown,
that of Lord High Admiral of England. This was the office which the
Earl of Warwick had held, and to which a great portion of the power
and influence which he exercised was owing. The Lord High Admiral had
command of the navy, and of the principal ports on both sides of the
English Channel, so long as any ports on the French side remained in
English hands. The reader will recollect, perhaps, that while Richard
was quite a small boy, his mother was compelled to fly with him and
his little brother George to France, to escape from the enemies of the
family, at the time of his father's death, and that it was through the
Earl of Warwick's co-operation that she was enabled to accomplish this
flight. Now it was in consequence of Warwick's being at that time Lord
High Admiral of England, and his having command of Calais, and the
waters between Calais and England, that he could make arrangements to
assist Lady Cecily so effectually on that occasion.
Still, Richard, though universally applauded for his military courage
and energy, was known to all who had opportunities of becoming
personally acquainted with him to be a bad man. He was unprincipled,
hard-hearted, and reckless. This, however, did not detract from his
military fame. Indeed, depravity of private character seldom
diminishes much the applause which a nation bestows upon those who
acquire military renown in their service. It is not to be expected
that it should. Military exploits have been, in fact, generally, in
the history of the world, gigantic crimes, committed by reckless and
remorseless men for the benefit of others, who, though they would be
deterred by their scruples of conscience or their moral sensibilities
from perpetrating such deeds themselves, are ready to repay, with the
most extravagant honors and rewards, those who are ferocious and
unscrupulous enough to perpetrate them in their stead. Were it not for
some very few and rare exceptions to the general rule, which have from
time to time appeared, the history of mankind would show that, to be a
_good soldier_, it is almost absolutely essential to be a _bad man_.
The child, Prince Edward, the son of Edward the Fourth, who was born,
as is related in a preceding chapter, in the sanctuary at Westminster,
whither his mother had fled at the time when Edward was expelled from
the kingdom, was, of course, King Edward's heir. He was now less than
a year old, and, in order to place his title to the crown beyond
dispute, a solemn oath was required from all the leading nobles and
officers of Edward's government, that in case he survived his father
they would acknowledge him as king. The following is the form of the
oath which was taken:
I acknowledge, take, and repute you, Edward, Prince of
Wales, Duke of Cornwayll, and Erl of Chestre, furste begoten
son of oure sovereigne lord, as to the corones and reames of
England and of France, and lordship of Ireland; and promette
and swere that in case hereafter it happen you by Goddis
disposition do outlive our sovereigne lord, I shall then
take and accept you for true, veray and righteous King of
England, and of France, and of Ireland; and feith and trouth
to you shall here, and yn all thyngs truely and feithfully
behave me towardes you and youre heyres, as a true and
feithful subject oweth to behave him to his sovereigne lord
and righteous King of England, France, and Ireland; so help
me God, and Holidome, and this holy Evangelist.
Richard took this oath with the rest. How he kept it will hereafter
appear.
The Lady Anne, the second daughter of the Earl of Warwick, who had
been betrothed to the Prince of Wales, King Henry's son, was left, by
the fall of the house of Lancaster and the re-establishment of King
Edward the Fourth upon the throne, in a most forlorn and pitiable
condition. Her father, the earl, was dead, having been killed in
battle. Her betrothed husband, too, the Prince of Wales, with whom she
had fondly hoped one day to sit on the throne of England, had been
cruelly assassinated. Queen Margaret, the mother of the prince, who
might have been expected to take an interest in her fate, was a
helpless prisoner in the Tower. And if the fallen queen had been at
liberty, it is very probable that all her interest in Anne would prove
to have been extinguished by the death of her son; for Queen Margaret
had never felt any personal preference for Anne, and had only
consented to the marriage very reluctantly, and from political
considerations alone. The friends and connections of her father's
family, a short time since so exalted in station and so powerful, were
now scattered and destroyed. Some had been killed in battle, others
beheaded by executioners, others banished from the realm. The rest
were roaming about England in terror and distress, houseless,
homeless, friendless, and only intent to find some hiding-place where
they might screen themselves from Edward's power and vengeance.
There was one exception, indeed, the Lady Isabella, Clarence's wife,
who, as the reader will recollect, was Warwick's oldest daughter, and,
of course, the sister of Lady Anne. She and Clarence, her husband, it
might be supposed, would take an interest in Lady Anne's fate. Indeed,
Clarence did take an interest in it, but, unfortunately, the interest
was of the wrong kind.
The Earl of Warwick had been immensely wealthy. Besides the ancient
stronghold of the family, Warwick Castle, one of the most renowned old
feudal fortresses in England, he owned many other castles, and many
large estates, and rights of property of various kinds all over the
kingdom. Now Clarence, after Warwick's death, had taken most of this
property into his own hands as the husband of the earl's oldest
daughter, and he wished to keep it. This he could easily do while Anne
remained in her present friendless and helpless condition. But he knew
very well that if she were to be married to any person of rank and
influence on the York side, her husband would insist on a division of
the property. Now he suspected that his brother Richard had conceived
the design of marrying her. He accordingly set himself at work
earnestly to thwart this design.
It was true that Richard had conceived the idea of making Anne his
wife, from the motive, however, solely, as it would seem, to obtain
her share of her father's property.
Richard had been acquainted with Anne from her childhood. Indeed, he
was related to the family of the Earl of Warwick on his mother's side.
His mother, Lady Cecily Neville, belonged to the same great family of
Neville from which the Warwicks sprung. Warwick had been a great
friend of Lady Cecily in former years, and it is even supposed that
when Richard and his brother George were brought back from the
Continent, at the time when Edward first obtained possession of the
kingdom, they lived for a time in Warwick's family at Middleham
Castle.[H] This is not quite certainly known, but it is at any rate
known that Richard and Anne knew each other well when they were
children, and were often together.
[Footnote H: For a view of this castle, and the grounds pertaining to
it, see page 180.]
There is an account of a grand entertainment which was given by the
Warwick family at York, some years before, on the occasion of the
enthroning of the earl's brother George as Archbishop of York, at
which Richard was present. Richard, being a prince of the blood royal,
was, of course, a very highly honored guest, notwithstanding that he
was but a child. So they prepared for him and some few other great
personages a raised platform, called a dais, at one end of the
banquet-hall, with a royal canopy over it. The table for the
distinguished personages was upon this dais, while those for the other
guests extended up and down the hall below. Richard was seated at the
centre of the table of honor, with a countess on one side of him and a
duchess on the other. Opposite to him, at the same table, were seated
Isabella and Anne. Anne was at this time about twelve years old.
Now it is supposed that Isabella and Anne were placed at this table to
please Richard, for their mother, who was, of course, entitled to take
precedence of them, had her seat at one of the large tables below.
From this and some other similar indications, it is supposed that
Richard took a fancy to Anne while they were quite young, as Clarence
did to Isabella. Indeed, one of the ancient writers says that Richard
wished, at this early period, to choose her for his wife, but that she
did not like him.
At any rate, now, after the re-establishment of his brother upon the
throne, and his own exaltation to such high office under him, he
determined that he would marry Anne. Clarence, on the other hand,
determined that he should not marry her. So Clarence, with the
pretense of taking her under his protection, seized her, and carried
her away to a place of concealment, where he kept her closely shut up.
Anne consented to this, for she wished to keep out of Richard's way.
Richard's person was disagreeable to her, and his character was
hateful. She seems to have considered him, as he is generally
represented by the writers of those times, as a rude, hard-hearted,
and unscrupulous man; and she had also a special reason for shrinking
from him with horror, as the mortal enemy of her father, and the
reputed murderer of the husband to whom she had been betrothed.
Clarence kept her for some time in obscure places of concealment,
changing the place from time to time to elude the vigilance of
Richard, who was continually making search for her. The poor princess
had recourse to all manner of contrivances, and assumed the most
humble disguises to keep herself concealed, and was at last reduced to
a very forlorn and destitute condition, through the desperate shifts
that she resorted to, in her endeavors to escape Richard's
persecutions. All was, however, in vain. Richard discovered her at
last in a mean house in London, where she was living in the disguise
of a servant. He immediately seized her, and conveyed her to a place
of security which was under his control.
Soon after this she was taken away from this place and conveyed to
York, and placed, for the time, under the protection of the
archbishop--the same archbishop at whose enthronement, eight or ten
years before, she had sat at the same table with Richard, under the
royal canopy. But she was not left at peace here. Richard insisted on
her marrying him. She insisted on her refusal. Her friends--the few
that she had left--turned against her, and urged her to consent to the
union; but she could not endure the thought of it.
[Illustration: RICHARD III.]
Richard, however, persisted in his determination, and Anne was finally
overcome. It is said she resisted to the last, and that the ceremony
was performed by compulsion, Anne continuing to refuse her consent to
the end. It was foreseen that, as soon as any change of circumstances
should enable her to resume active resistance to the union, she would
repudiate the marriage altogether, as void for want of her consent, or
else obtain a divorce. To guard against this danger, Richard procured
the passage of an act of Parliament, by which he was empowered to
continue in the full possession and enjoyment of Anne's property, even
if _she were to divorce him_, provided that he did his best to be
reconciled to her, and was willing to be re-married to her, with her
consent, whenever she was willing to grant it.
[Illustration: QUEEN ANNE.]
As for Richard himself, his object was fully attained by the
accomplishment of a marriage so far acknowledged as to entitle him to
the possession of the property of his wife. There was still some
difficulty, however, arising from a disagreement between Richard and
Clarence in respect to the division. Clarence, when he found that
Richard would marry Anne, in spite of all that he could do to prevent
it, declared, with an oath, that, even if Richard did marry her, he,
Clarence, would never "part the livelihood," that is, divide the
property with him.
So fixed was Clarence in this resolution to retain all the property
himself, and so resolute was Richard, on the other hand, in his
determination to have his share, that the quarrel very soon assumed a
very serious character. The lords and nobles of the court took part in
the controversy on one side and on the other, until, at length, there
was imminent danger of open war. Finally Edward himself interposed,
and summoned the brothers to appear before him in open council, when,
after a full hearing of the dispute, he said that he himself would
decide the question. Accordingly, the two brothers appeared before the
king, and each strenuously argued his own cause. The king, after
hearing them, decided how the property should be divided. He gave to
Richard and Anne a large share, but not all that Richard claimed.
Richard was, however, compelled to submit.
[Illustration: MIDDLEHAM CASTLE.]
When the marriage was thus consummated, and Richard had been put
in possession of his portion of the property, Anne seems to have
submitted to her fate, and she went with Richard to Middleham
Castle, in the north of England. This castle was one which had
belonged to the Warwick family, and it now came into Richard's
possession. Richard did not, however, remain long here with his wife.
He went away on various military expeditions, leaving Anne most of the
time alone. She was well contented to be thus left, for nothing could
be so welcome to her now as to be relieved as much as possible from
the presence of her hateful husband.
This state of things continued, without much change, until the end of
about a year after her marriage, when Anne gave birth to a son. The
boy was named Edward. The possession of this treasure awakened in the
breast of Anne a new interest in life, and repaid her, in some
measure, for the sorrows and sufferings which she had so long endured.
Her love for her babe, in fact, awakened in her heart something like a
tie to bind her to her husband. It is hard for a mother to continue
long to hate the father of her child.