By which time he might in his chamber window see all the Thames full of boats of the Duke of Gloucester’s servants, watching that no man should go to Sanctuary, nor none could pass unsearched. Then was there great commotion and murmur as well in other places about, as specially in the city, the people diversely devining upon this dealing. And some Lords, Knights, and Gentlemen either for favour of the Queen, or for fear of themselves, assembled in sundry companies, and went flockmele in harness [armour], and many also, for that they reckoned this demeanour attempted, not so specially against the other Lords as against the King himself in the disturbance of his Coronation.22
With the light of day, the Archbishop regretted his hasty deliverance of the Great Seal to the Queen, who, indeed, had no authority to use it, and he sent secretly to her to have it returned. Meanwhile, Hastings assured the London nobles that Gloucester ‘was sure and fastly faithful to his Prince’ and that Rivers and Grey had been arrested for actions they had taken against Gloucester and Buckingham. He cautioned all against further opposition, which would disturb the King’s coronation. Since the King, with his escort of Gloucester and Buckingham, was nearing London for that very coronation, peace was maintained.
As Edward V approached the city on 4 May, the Mayor and citizens of London rode out to meet his party. The Mayor and aldermen, dressed in scarlet, were accompanied by 500 citizens on horses clothed in violet. The King, in blue, and his lords and servants, in black, made a splendid procession that impressed all who witnessed it. Gloucester obsequiously and deferentially tended to the prince ‘in open sight so reverently… with all semblance of lowliness’, a public display of obeisance that won back any trust he had jeopardised by arresting Rivers and Grey and seizing the prince. But the King’s party arrived in London too late for the coronation initially scheduled for 4 May, and the event was postponed until 22 June.
Initially lodged in the Bishop’s Palace at St Paul’s, Edward V was moved to the Tower of London by 19 May. Residence in the Tower, a royal palace with quarters luxuriously furnished for the King and Queen, was appropriate. Coronation processions always began at the Tower before moving through the City to Westminster Abbey, and both Edward IV and Elizabeth had spent the night there before their coronations.
On 7 May 1483, an extraordinary meeting took place at Cecily Neville’s Baynard Castle. In attendance were the King’s leading prelates, including the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, the Bishop of Bath and Wells, and the Bishop of Ely. Also present were the powerful nobles who had seized control of Edward V: Gloucester, Buckingham, Arundel, Hastings and Stanley. At that meeting, those present, ‘acting on behalf of the deceased King Edward IV and because they were named Executors in his Will’, seized control of the goods, jewels and seals of the late King.23 The jewels were placed in the custody of William Dawbeney, Richard Laurence and Rouland Forster. The Archbishop of Canterbury, by virtue of the prerogative of his ecclesiastical position, took physical possession of all seals that belonged to the King, including the Great Seal and the Privy Seal.
The importance of this meeting cannot be overstated. Not only did this action invalidate the stipulations of Edward IV’s 1475 will, but it also stripped all power from the Queen. While the men claimed they were acting as executors of Edward IV, there is no evidence that they were the only executors or that Edward IV had removed Elizabeth – ‘our said dearest Wife in whom we most singularly put our trust in this party’ – from his carefully designated list of executors in 1475.24 Both Croyland and Mancini report that Edward IV added deathbed codicils to his will which, among other things, appointed Gloucester as Protector of his son during his minority:
At his death Edward left two sons: he bequeathed the kingdom to Edward the eldest, who had already some time before been proclaimed prince of Wales at a council meeting of the magnates of the entire realm. The king wished that his second son called the duke of York should be content with his apanage [land and revenue] within his brother’s realm. He also left behind daughters, but they do not concern us. Men say that in the same Will he appointed a protector of his children and realm his brother Richard duke of Gloucester, who shortly after destroyed Edward’s children and, then claimed for himself the throne.25
Mancini’s dismissive attitude towards the daughters reflects the general attitude of the men who assumed power after Edward IV’s death, the men who excluded the Queen from their deliberations. No evidence, however, indicates that Edward himself ever wavered in the principal trust he placed in Elizabeth, or that he removed the Wydevilles from all positions of power, as some insist his appointment of Richard as Protector proves.
Indeed, Croyland implies that Edward’s will of 1475 remained in force, with codicils added to update it, a logical addition since many of the earlier executors had died:
Long before his illness he had made his Will, at very considerable length, having abundant means to satisfy it; and had, after mature deliberation, appointed therein many persons to act as his executors, and carry out his wishes. On his deathbed he added some codicils thereto; but what a sad and unhappy result befell all these wise dispositions of his, the ensuing tragedy will more fully disclose.26
Alison Weir believes that ‘Rivers, it seems, was to be removed from his office of Governor, and the Queen was apparently given no power at all.’27 But the reissue of Anthony’s patent as governor on 27 February 1483 argues against the first claim, and the participation of the Queen in the King’s Council immediately following Edward’s death contradicts the second. If Edward had added codicils to his will withdrawing the Queen’s authority, their content would have been known by the time the council met to discuss arrangements for bringing the prince to London. The Queen’s participation in council discussions indicates that she remained an active and respected advisor. After she entered sanctuary on 1 May, Elizabeth could not, of course, attend any further deliberations.
The meeting at Cecily Neville’s home on 7 May would not have been necessary if the King in his deathbed codicils had removed Elizabeth from her precedency as executor. During this meeting, the powerful men who opposed Elizabeth and her family seized control of Edward’s personal goods and treasury, goods that Edward in 1475 had specifically willed that ‘our said wife the Queen have the disposition thereof without let or interruption of the other our Executors’.28 In repudiating this provision, the careful, legalistic phrasing of the 7 May sequestration justifies its action as being ‘interposed for the beloved children’. It never mentions the Queen. To establish its legal authority, the sequestration cites the prerogative of the Archbishop, protesting a little too much, as if those seizing control were hiding behind the prelate’s ecclesiastical robes.
The codicils to Edward IV’s will have never been discovered, a curious absence if they established Gloucester’s authority, since Gloucester could have cited them to his great advantage when he encountered resistance. Only reports of their existence and speculation about their content survive – Mancini’s ‘Men say that in the same Will he appointed a protector of his children and realm his brother Richard duke of Gloucester, who shortly after destroyed Edward’s children and, then claimed for himself the throne.’ In any case, both Edward’s will of 1475 and any deathbed codicils were rendered moot by the 7 May meeting. Gloucester had launched a coup d’état that now began moving inexorably toward its horrifying end. The Duke was preparing for the meeting of the King’s Council on 27 May, where he was chosen as ‘the only man… thought most meet to be Protector of the King and his realm’.29 That same council chastised the Archbishop of York, Lord Chancellor, for delivering the Great Seal to the Queen and removed his authority to use it.
Immediately after the 7 May meeting, Gloucester began acting more aggressively. He reinforced Buckingham’s loyalty by promising to marry his own son to Buckingham’s daughter and to grant Buckingham his inheritance in the Earldom of Hertford, which Edward IV had never delivered. Then Gloucester began to eliminate his enemies. To regain control of the fleet t
hat Sir Edward Wydeville had taken to sea to guard against French opportunists, the council declared Sir Edward to be an enemy of the state and ordered the soldiers aboard his ships to disband or desert.30 Gloucester issued orders to Sir Thomas Fulford and John Halwell on 10 May and to Edward Brampton and others on 14 May ‘to go to the sea with ships to take Sir Edward Wydeville’.31 As a consequence, all ships left the fleet except two that fled to Brittany under Sir Edward’s direct command.
A letter written by Simon Stallworthe to Sir William Stoner on 9 June reveals the desperate situation of the Wydevilles:
The Queen keeps still Westminster my Lord of York [Prince Richard], my Lord of Salisbury [Lionel Wydeville], with other more which will not depart as yet. When so ever can be found any goods of my Lord Marquess [Thomas Grey] it is taken. The Prior of Westminster was and yet is in a great trouble for certain goods delivered to him by my Lord Marquess.
My Lord Protector [Gloucester], My Lord of Buckingham with all other lords as well temporal as spiritual were at Westminster in the Council Chamber from 10 to 2, but there was none that spoke with the Queen. There is great busyness against the coronation which shall be this day fortnight as we say. When I trust you will be at London and then shall you know all the world.
The King is at the Tower. My Lady of Gloucester came to London on Thursday last.32
Gloucester next accused Queen Elizabeth of plotting to murder him and his supporters. A letter from Gloucester to the city of York on 10 June, and another to Lord Neville of Raby on 11 June, asked that they send troops from the north:
We heartedly pray you to come up unto us in London in all the diligence you can possible, after the sight hereof, with as many men as you can make defensibly arrayed – there to aid and assist us against the Queen, her bloody adherents and affinity; which have intended and daily doth intend to murder and utterly destroy us and our cousin the Duke of Buckingham and the old royal blood of this realm.33
While waiting for those reinforcements, Gloucester targeted Lord Hastings, who was loyal to the children of Edward IV even though he opposed the Wydevilles. The destruction of Hastings required both subterfuge and surprise. On Friday 13 June, Gloucester called part of his council to the Tower to discuss the King’s coronation. Gloucester arrived in a congenial mood around 9 a.m., apologising for his late arrival, complimenting the Bishop of Ely on the good strawberries in his garden at Holborn, and asking if he could ‘have a mess of them’. The Bishop sent his servant for the berries, and Gloucester departed from the meeting. Between 10 and 11 a.m., Gloucester returned to the council ‘all changed with a wonderful sour angry countenance, knitting the brows, frowning and froting, and gnawing his lips’.34 He asked the council what should those persons deserve who planned ‘the destruction of me, being so near of blood unto the King, and Protector of his royal person and his realm’. After a stunned silence, Hastings, who believed his closeness to Gloucester privileged him to speak, replied that any such persons should be punished as ‘heinous traitors’.
Gloucester then named ‘sorcerers’ – including Queen Elizabeth – who were attempting to destroy him. The accusation stunned everyone. Hastings may not have been terribly distressed at the naming of the Queen, but when Gloucester went on to name the ‘witch’ Mistress Shore, with whom Elizabeth had collaborated, Hastings must finally have comprehended Gloucester’s game. Elizabeth Shore, the favourite mistress of Edward IV, was now Hastings’s paramour.35 The charge of witchcraft was preposterous, as Thomas More so eloquently explains:
The Queen was too wise to go about any such folly. And also if she would, yet would she of all folk least make Shore’s wife of counsel, whom of all women she most hated, as that concubine whom the King her husband had most loved.36
Gloucester’s accusation of Mistress Shore was clearly a means of entrapping Hastings. When Hastings attempted a diplomatic response, Gloucester exploded with anger and arrested Hastings, Lord Stanley, Archbishop Rotherham, Bishop Morton and John Forster (receiver-general to Queen Elizabeth) as traitors. Hastings was permitted a quick confession and beheaded before dinnertime on 13 June 1483.
Other sources corroborate much of More’s story:
Incontinently without process of any law or lawful examination, led the said Lord Hastings out unto the Green beside the Chapel, and there upon an end of a squared piece of timber without any long confession or other space of Remembrance struck off his head. And thus was this noble man murdered for his troth and fidelity which he firmly bare unto his master, upon whose soul and all Christians Jesus have mercy. Amen.37
Mancini offers a more concise, slightly different, version of the day. When the council had entered the Tower’s innermost quarters:
The Protector, as prearranged, cried out that an ambush had been prepared for him, and they had come with hidden arms, that they might be first to open the attack. Thereupon the soldiers, who had been stationed there by their lord, rushed in with the duke of Buckingham, and cut down Hastings on the false pretext of treason: they arrested the others, whose life, it was presumed was spared out of respect for religion and holy orders. Thus fell Hastings, killed not by those enemies he had always feared, but by a friend whom he had never doubted. But whom will insane lust for power spare, if it dares violate the ties of kin and friendship?38
After dinner, Gloucester sent a herald throughout the city proclaiming the traitorous actions and evil intents of Hastings. The proclamation, issued within two hours of the beheading, was so elaborately detailed and ‘so fair written in parchment in so well a set hand’ that suspicions immediately grew that judgement had preceded the accusation.
Mistress Elizabeth Shore was arrested and sent to prison, with all her goods seized by the sheriffs of London. Declared a common harlot, she was made to walk barefoot before the cross in a Sunday procession with a taper in her hand, ‘out of all array save her kirtle [gown] only’. Mistress Shore comported herself so demurely that More tells us she evoked pity, rather than hatred, from the people.
The stage was set for a battle of wills between Richard, Duke of Gloucester and Queen Elizabeth.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The Mother v. The Protector
During her second sequestration in Westminster Sanctuary, Elizabeth lived in the Abbot’s quarters, the manor of Cheyneygates. Located within Westminster Close, Cheyneygates contained the Abbot’s private rooms and a small courtyard. Elizabeth presumably dined in the Great Hall, sitting on the dais at the north end looking over the lower tables to the screen at the far end, with the minstrel’s gallery above. Four windows in each side wall and a lantern in the middle of the roof lighted the 52ft by 27ft room. If not as luxurious as her quarters at Westminster Palace, the rooms at Cheyneygates offered much comfort, and Abbot John Esteney provided consoling and loving care.
The Queen may have met with her advisors in the Jerusalem Chamber, named after the tapestry on the walls. That large, commodious room had been the resting place for Henry IV when he became ill while praying at the shrine of St Edward the Confessor. Henry IV died in front of the great fireplace in the Jerusalem Chamber on 20 March 1413, a memory that would have reminded Elizabeth that the Abbot’s home offered a place of refuge and ultimate solace.
At Cheyneygates, Elizabeth once more became head of her family, negotiating with the men of the realm for the safety of her sons and daughters. Given subsequent history, the question that burns in the minds of everyone is: ‘Why?’Why did Queen Elizabeth deliver her nine-year-old son, Richard, Duke of York, into the hands of his uncle Richard, Duke of Gloucester? As long as the prince remained in sanctuary at Westminster Abbey, the boy was safe. And as long as the second heir to the throne survived, his older brother, Edward V, would be protected from usurpers, who would gain nothing by his death.
After Hastings’s execution on 13 June 1483, Gloucester made his next move. At the next meeting of the King’s Council, Gloucester in his role as Protector argued eloquently and persuasively that the council should demand custody
of Prince Richard. The council had been attempting to persuade Elizabeth to depart from sanctuary since her entry, and now Gloucester insisted that Prince Richard must be present at his brother’s coronation. Thomas More summarises their arguments in favour of removing the boy from sanctuary:
1The Queen’s sequestration of her son Richard reflected badly on the council and implied that its members were not to be trusted with the King’s brother. Indeed, she was deliberately provoking a bitter hatred among the people against the nobles of the King’s Council.
2The young brother’s companionship was essential to the wellbeing of King Edward V, who needed ‘recreation and moderate pleasure’ beyond that provided by ‘ancient persons’.
3Dishonour within the realm and in foreign lands would redound to the King and the council if his brother remained in sanctuary.
4If released, the boy would be cherished and honourably entreated. The Queen’s resistance derived from obstinacy, malice, frowardness (perversity), or folly. It was ‘the mother’s dread and womanish fear’ that made her oppose the boy’s release. ‘Womanish fear, nay womanish frowardness’, responded the Duke of Buckingham.
5In depriving her son of liberty, the Queen was like Medea in avenging her enemies at the expense of her own children.
6If she feared to deliver her son, the council should fear to leave him in her hands, since she must suspect that he would be captured and might send him out of the country.
7The boy’s presence in sanctuary threw him in with ‘a rabble of thieves, murderers, and malicious heinous traitors’. Even worse, sanctuary harboured ‘men’s wives [who] run thither with their husbands’ plate, and say they dare not abide with their husbands for beating’. No young boy should consort with such company.
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