A MOCK KING-MAKER.
Among the many men of high estate who aided Richard to usurp the
English throne, none played a more conspicuous part than his rival in
foppery, Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham. No sooner, however, had
the Protector been converted into a king than his confederate became
malcontent and restlessly eager for change. The death of Warwick,
the captivity of John de Vere, the extinction of the Mowbrays and
Beauforts, had left the duke one of the most influential among English
magnates then alive and at liberty; and, albeit destitute of prowess
and intellect, he appears to have vainly imagined that he could
exercise that kind of influence which had rendered Richard Neville so
formidable. But, capable as Buckingham might have deemed himself of
rivaling "The Stout Earl," who slept with his Montagu ancestors in the
Abbey of Bisham, he had none of "the superb and more than regal pride"
which rendered the descendant of Cospatrick averse to the gewgaws of
royalty. The object of the duke's ambition, when he resolved to break
with the usurper, appears to have been the crown which he had helped to
place on Richard's head.
With his shallow brain full of ambitious ideas, and hardly deigning to
conceal his discontent, Buckingham took leave of Richard. On leaving
the court of Westminster, he turned his face toward his castle of
Brecknock, and by the way regaled his fancy with splendid visions of
crowns and sceptres.
It happened that, on the day before the coronation, when Richard
released the confederates of Hastings from the Tower, he found John
Morton, Bishop of Ely, decidedly hostile to his pretensions. Unable to
gain the support of the prelate, but unwilling, on such an occasion,
to appear harsh, Richard delivered him to Buckingham, to be sent to
Brecknock and gently guarded in that castle. At Brecknock, musing
over his experiences as parson of Blokesworth, his expedition to
Towton Field, his exile to Verdun, and his promotion to the see of
Ely by a Yorkist king, Buckingham met the bishop when he went thither
awakened from his dream of royalty, but panting for enterprise, however
quixotic. After so many exciting scenes--suppers at Northampton,
orations at the Guildhall, deputations to Baynard's Castle, progresses
through London, and coronation banquets at Westminster--the duke
doubtless found Brecknock intolerably dull. Feeling the want of
company, he threw himself in the bishop's way, and gradually
surrendered himself to the fascination of the wily churchman's
conversation. The bishop, perceiving that envy was devouring the
duke's heart, worked craftily upon his humor; and Buckingham, exposed
to the influence of one of the most adroit politicians of the age, by
degrees approached the subject which the bishop was anxious to discuss.
"I fantasied," such were the duke's words, "that if I list to take upon
me the crown, now was the time, when this tyrant was detested of all
men, and knowing not of any one that could pretend before me. In this
imagination I rested two days at Tewkesbury. But, as I rode between
Worcester and Bridgenorth, I met with the Lady Margaret, Countess of
Richmond, now wife to the Lord Stanley, who is the daughter and sole
heir of John, Duke of Somerset, my grandfather's elder brother (who
was as clean out of my mind as if I had never seen her); so that she
and her son, the Earl of Richmond, have, both of them, titles before
mine; and then I clearly saw how I was deceived, whereupon I determined
utterly to relinquish all such fantastical notions concerning the
obtaining the crown myself."
The bishop listened eagerly, and doubtless felt much relieved at this
announcement. He had soon more cause for gratification when Buckingham
added, "I find there can be no better way to settle the crown than that
the Earl of Richmond, very heir to the house of Lancaster, should take
to wife Lady Elizabeth, eldest daughter to King Edward, the very heir
of the house of York, so that the two Roses may be united in one."
"Since by your grace's incomparable wisdom this noble conjunction is
now moved," exclaimed the bishop, almost overcome with joy at the
duke's hitting "the mark he had himself aimed at" in forming his
projects, "it is in the next place necessary to consider what friends
we shall first make privy to our intention."
"By my troth," said the duke, "we will begin with the Countess of
Richmond--the earl's mother--who knows where he is in Brittany, and
whether a captive or at large."
The conspiracy originated at Brecknock rapidly became formidable.
Reginald Bray, a retainer of the Countess of Richmond, was employed to
open the business to his mistress; and the countess, approving of the
project, commissioned her physician, Dr. Lewis, to treat with Elizabeth
Woodville in the sanctuary.
Elizabeth interposed no obstacle to a project which promised her
daughter a throne; and Bray, on finding that the negotiation had
proved successful, was enabled to draw many men of high rank into the
conspiracy. John, Lord Welles, true like his ancestors to the Red Rose,
prepared to draw his sword for Lancaster. Peter Courtenay, Bishop of
Exeter, and his brother Sir Edward, a man remarkable for his elegance
and destined to wed King Edward's daughter Katherine, undertook to
raise the inhabitants of the western counties. Dorset, escaping from
the sanctuary, repaired to Yorkshire, trusting to rouse the men of the
north against the usurper.
Buckingham meanwhile remained at Brecknock, gathering the Welsh to his
standard, and dreaming, perhaps, of entering London as Warwick had
entered London thirteen years earlier. The duke, indeed, seems to have
had no conception of the hazard to which he was exposing himself. He
had been so flattered that he believed himself hedged by the nobility
of his name. He had not the elevation of soul to dream of a Barnet, and
he had too much vanity to entertain a prophetic vision of the crowded
market-place, the scaffold, and the block, which, with the headsmen,
awaited unsuccessful rebellion.