In crowning the young king, effectively declaring him ‘of age’, the Woodvilles would be able to dominate Edward from behind the scenes. It seems that there was growing disquiet that this was not what Edward IV had intended on his deathbed, when he added some final codicils to his will. Rumours had begun to circulate that the king had instead expressed his desire for his brother Richard, duke of Gloucester, to become Protector during his son’s minority. Mancini had heard that Richard had been appointed Protector by the king in his will, or at least that ‘men say that in the same will he appointed as protector of his children and realm his brother Richard’.25 John Rous also believed that Edward’s ‘ordinance’ had made Richard ‘protector of England’.26 If this was the case, the Woodvilles were determined to remove any possibility of Richard sharing power. Dominic Mancini believed that at the council meeting a discussion around the possibility of Richard becoming the king’s Protector had also taken place:
Two opinions were propounded. One was that the duke of Gloucester should govern, because Edward in his will had so directed, and because by law the government ought to devolve on him. But this was the losing resolution; the winning was that the government should be carried on by many persons among whom the duke, far from being excluded, should be accounted the chief. By this means the duke would be given due honour, and the royal authority greater security; because it had been found that no regent ever laid down his office, save reluctantly, and from armed compulsion, whence civil wars had often arisen. Moreover, if the entire government were committed to one man he might easily usurp the sovereignty. All who favoured the queen’s family voted for this proposal, as they were afraid that, if Richard took unto himself the crown or even governed alone, they, who bore the blame of Clarence’s death, would suffer death or at least be ejected from their High estate.27
Mancini had heard from ‘common report’ that shortly after the council meeting had ended, William, Lord Hastings, immediately sent letters and messengers to Richard, reporting the council’s decision. Advising the duke to ‘hasten to the capital with a strong force’, Hastings urged the duke to seize the king before reaching London. For his part, he warned Richard that ‘he was alone in the capital and not without great danger, for he could scarcely escape the snares of his enemies’, the Woodvilles, especially since ‘their old hatred’ had been aggravated by his friendship with the duke.28
Richard had remained at York, where he had organised a requiem for his dead brother, ‘with an appropriate company, all dressed in mourning’. During the ceremony, ‘full of tears’, Richard took it upon himself to bind ‘by oath, all the nobility of those parts in fealty to the king’s son; he himself swore first of all’.29 Receiving Hastings’s message, Richard decided to act. The duke wrote the ‘most pleasant’ letters to Queen Elizabeth, consoling her and at the same time promising ‘to come and offer submission, fealty and all that was due from him to his lord and king, Edward V, the first-born son of his brother the dead king’.30 According to Mancini, who seems to have been able to read a copy of the letter, Richard also wrote to the council, declaring how ‘He had been loyal to his brother Edward, at home and abroad, in peace and war, and would be, if only permitted, equally loyal to his brother’s son, and to all his brother’s issue, even female, if perchance, which God forbid, the youth should die. He would expose his life to every danger that the children might endure in their father’s realm.’ Richard also asked the council to take his own ‘deserts into consideration, when disposing of the government, to which he was entitled by law, and his brother’s ordinance’. In particular, ‘he reminded them that nothing contrary to law and his brother’s desire could be decreed without harm’.31
Richard seems to have been seeking what he believed was his right, as dictated by the late king’s will. He had little reason to personally despise the Woodvilles. He himself had benefited from the queen’s support in his dispute with his brother Clarence over the Neville patrimony ten years earlier, and they had mutually benefited from Clarence’s demise, while he had established a good relationship with Rivers, who Mancini admitted was ‘always considered a kind, serious and just man’ who had ‘injured nobody, though benefitting many’. Just a few weeks earlier, Rivers had sought to settle a local land dispute near his estates in Norfolk with his neighbour Roger Townshed, agreeing that the matter should be settled by the arbitration of the duke of Gloucester himself: it remains highly unlikely that Rivers would have agreed to appoint Richard to make an impartial judgement over his lands if he regarded the duke as his enemy.32
When the contents of Richard’s letter were published, Mancini saw how it ‘had a great effect on the minds of the people’. Already he had seen how the duke’s popularity had stemmed from ‘a belief in his probity’; now voices ‘began to support him openly and aloud; so that it was commonly said by all that the duke deserved the government’.33 Some in the council reportedly argued that the council should wait until Richard was present before any decision was taken, and that the decision should not be ‘hurried through’. Without Richard’s assent, they argued, ‘the duke could only accede reluctantly, and perhaps might upset everything’. According to Mancini, to this the queen’s son, Thomas, marquess of Dorset, replied, ‘We are so important, that even without the king’s uncle we can make and enforce these decisions.’34
Letters were sent by the council to the new king, Edward V, at Ludlow, which were received on 14 April. Two days later, the young king wrote to the borough of King’s Lynn, ominously a Woodville stronghold, summoning their immediate presence in the capital for the king’s coronation. The letter may have been issued in the new king’s name, but had been clearly drafted for him, no doubt by Rivers, seeking the support of townships to assemble men to reach the capital as soon as possible.
With the Woodvilles still dominant, preparations for the new king’s coronation continued. The city planned for his entrance into the capital, ordering that 410 citizens from fifty-two companies dressed in murrey gowns be ready on horseback, prepared to welcome Edward’s arrival.35 Three days later, with news of the king’s arrival still forthcoming, the Mercers’ Company ordered that thirty members be ready on horseback to receive the king, ‘at such time as by the Mayor shall be commanded’, in Hornsey Park, though a fine of forty shillings would be accepted if members were absent when they were finally called.36 On 18 April a prayer was prepared for a convocation ‘but it was not spoken at this time’, remembering ‘the new prince of excellent character and sweetest hope, our dread king Edward V, lady Elizabeth the queen mother, all the royal progeny’, but with no specific reference to Richard himself as the king’s Protector.37 Meanwhile the queen, together with the court and council, proceeded to Windsor on 16 April to prepare for the late king’s funeral, which took place four days later.
Edward IV’s body had been laid upon a board at Westminster Palace, naked except for a loincloth, so that the lords, mayor and aldermen could gaze upon it, content that no foul play had been involved in his death. The body was then embalmed, wrapped in waxed linen and clothed, with a cap of estate on its head, and its feet shod in red leather, before lying in state for eight days at St Stephen’s Chapel in Westminster, watched over by members of the household as requiem masses were constantly heard. On 17 April, Edward’s body was placed on a bier and covered with a cloth of gold, to be carried into Westminster Abbey by fifteen knights and esquires of the king’s body, his most trusted household men. The procession was led by the Chancellor, Archbishop Thomas Rotherham, nine bishops and two abbots, while before the bier walked Thomas, Lord Howard, carrying Edward’s own banner. A parade of noblemen and the king’s closest followers walked behind the procession, including Hastings and Thomas, Lord Stanley. A life-sized wooden image of the king, known as a ‘similitude’, had been constructed; this was now placed beside the bier, dressed in royal clothes and crowned, carrying an orb and sceptre, as the entire procession made their offerings in the abbey. The following morning, 18 April, the funeral p
rocession left the abbey, leaving the capital via Charing Cross, before coming to rest overnight at Syon Abbey. On 19 April the procession carried on through Eton, where the bishops of Lincoln and Ely censed the corpse again, before arriving at Windsor and the dead king’s new chapel dedicated to St George. That night the body was guarded by a company of nine lords and many from the king’s household. On 20 April, final masses were celebrated by Archbishop Rotherham and the bishops of Lincoln and Durham, before offerings were made that would come to rest upon the tomb, including Edward’s shield, sword and helmet. The controller of the household, Sir William Parr, clad in full armour and bearing a battle-axe head downwards as ‘the man of arms’ led the offerings of cloths of gold, before the coffin was lowered into the tomb. As custom dictated, the great officers of the household cast their broken staves of office into the grave, a sign that their service to their ruler had finally ended; the heralds did likewise with their coats of arms. Yet their service would continue afresh, and they were immediately presented with new coats, crying out, ‘Le roy est vif! Le roy est vif!’ The king is dead, long live the king: even Queen Elizabeth attended the funeral, not in her capacity as Edward’s widow, but as the mother of Edward V.
With the old regime now buried, men eagerly anticipated the next. After Edward’s funeral, the Crowland chronicler wrote: ‘everyone looked forward to the eagerly-desired coronation day of the new king’.38
It was during his visit to York that Richard seems to have received a message from Henry Stafford, the duke of Buckingham, who had sent Sir Humphrey Percival to meet Richard.39 If there was one member of the nobility whose support Richard believed he could count on, it was Buckingham. Dominic Mancini had learnt that the duke of Buckingham, ‘since he was of the highest nobility, was disposed to sympathise with another noble: more especially because he had his own reasons for detesting the queen’s kin’. ‘When he was younger’, Mancini explained, ‘he had been forced to marry the queen’s sister, whom he scorned to wed on account of her humble origin.’40 Buckingham may have been dissatisfied with his marriage to a Woodville, though this had not prevented him from producing an heir. It seems more likely that Buckingham’s greatest grievance lay in the king’s treatment of his own inheritance, and in particular the landed estates of Humphrey de Bohun, the earl of Hertford, who had died in 1373, yet whose lands were inherited jointly by his daughters Mary, who had married Henry IV, and Eleanor, who had married the youngest son of Edward III, Thomas of Woodstock. The heiress of that marriage was Anne, the wife of Edmund Stafford, the duke of Buckingham – the mother of the present duke. On the death of Henry VI and his son, Edward, in 1471, the Lancastrian share of the inheritance should have been passed to the Staffords as sole remaining heirs. Edward IV, however, was determined to claim the lands as his own, passing an Act of Attainder against Henry VI, leading to the forfeiture of his lands to the crown. Unsurprisingly, with the lands providing an important source of patronage, Edward remained stubbornly unwilling to overturn the attainder on the lands or to allow Buckingham to enjoy what he must have considered his rightful inheritance.41
It is unclear whether Richard or Buckingham made the first move to contact the other, though Thomas More believed that soon after receiving Hastings’s messages warning him about the Woodville dominance in the capital, Richard had contacted those ‘whomsoever he perceived wither at variance’ with the Woodvilles, ‘some by mouth, some by writing and secret messengers’, that ‘it neither was reason nor in any wise to be suffered that the young king, their master and kinsman, should be in the hands of custody of his mother’s kindred, sequestered in manner from their company and attendance’.42
Richard is not known to have had a close relationship with Buckingham previously; Buckingham accompanied Edward IV on his ‘great enterprise’ thirsting for military glory in France in 1475, yet like Richard had been disappointed at the king’s willingness to sign a peace agreement, returning to England early. The two dukes had also been acquainted with each other during Clarence’s trial, for which Buckingham had acted as the lead member of the jury, pronouncing sentence upon the duke. Yet, for Richard, Buckingham represented a branch of the nobility who viewed themselves and their ancient lineage as distinct from the Woodville parvenus. It was a distinction that Richard intended to exploit to the full if he was to secure the protectorship of the king, an office he considered to be his right.
The two dukes, having ‘exchanged views’, decided to both write to the young king as he prepared to depart from Ludlow, in order to discover what date he intended to arrive at the capital, and in particular what route his party would take, ‘so coming from the country they could alter their course and join him, that in their company his entry to the city might be more magnificent’.43
Richard must have departed southwards for the capital soon after holding his vigil at York, and had left the city by 23 April.44 The young king and his household meanwhile had yet to leave Ludlow by 23 April, where they celebrated St George’s Day, ‘concluding with a splendid banquet’.45 Intending to set out towards London the following day, after receiving the dukes’ messages Edward and Rivers apparently agreed to their request. The route of the royal train seems to have been deliberately altered to accommodate a rendezvous with Richard marching from the north. While the shortest journey to Westminster from Ludlow should have been to the south-west, through Worcester, Gloucester and Oxford, the royal party took a more northerly route. Crossing the Severn at Bridgnorth, the royal party may have stayed at Upton Cresset, before travelling via Stratford-upon-Avon, Banbury and Buckingham to Grafton Regis, Rivers’ family seat in Northamptonshire.
By the time Richard had reached Nottingham on 26 April, it had been agreed that the two parties should meet at Northampton before marching into the city, a significant detour for the king and his entourage. The king’s entourage reached Northampton early; instead of entering the city, Edward ordered that his retinue should be broken up and occupy the surrounding villages so that the city itself would be ‘more convenient to receive his uncle’, with the king himself moving to nearby Stony Stratford. Having had little previous contact with his uncle, Edward seemed determined to please Richard with ‘extreme reverence’. While he remained at Stony Stratford with just a few household men, the king sent Anthony, Earl Rivers, to meet Richard at Northampton and ‘to submit everything that had to be done to the judgement of his paternal uncle’.46
By the time Rivers travelled back to Northampton, both Richard and Buckingham had arrived in the city and had lodged at ‘a very strong place belonging to the duke’. Rivers was met by Richard, according to the Crowland chronicler, with ‘a particularly cheerful and merry face’; sitting down to dinner at the duke’s own table, Richard and Rivers spent the meal ‘in very pleasant conversation’, afterwards ‘passing a great part of the night in conviviality’.47 Buckingham arrived mid-way through the evening, and as the night wore on the three men retired to their separate lodgings for bed.
Nothing could have prepared Rivers for what would happen next. At dawn, as the party prepared to travel to Stony Stratford for Richard and Buckingham to present themselves to the new king, Richard gave the sudden order that Rivers and his men were to be arrested. The Crowland chronicler believed the plan had been hatched between Richard and Buckingham late the previous night, after Rivers had gone to bed, yet the ambush must have been more premeditated than this: Mancini had heard how the two dukes had already arranged for the surrounding roads to be watched, preventing ‘any one informing the young king of these happenings before their arrival’. Rivers was immediately taken north, to be imprisoned at Sheriff Hutton, Richard’s castle in Yorkshire.
Richard and Buckingham rode at full gallop to reach King Edward before the news reached the king’s household of Rivers’ arrest. When they arrived, they immediately seized the king’s chamberlain, the aged Thomas Vaughan, while orders were issued that the king’s household was to withdraw from Stony Stratford and ‘should not come near any place
s where the king might go, on pain of death’.48 With the king now isolated, and his Woodville adherents removed from his presence, he came face to face with his uncle for the first time since he had been a young child. Going down on bended knee and baring his head, Richard explained to his nephew that he had been forced to take action ‘to safeguard his own person because he knew for certain that there were men close to the king who had sworn to destroy his honour and his life’.49 According to Mancini, who may have been able to gather his information from one of the king’s own household staff, having saluted Edward as their sovereign, Richard and Buckingham ‘exhibited a mournful countenance’. They explained to Edward how his father’s death had been caused by his ministers, who had ‘but little regard for his honour, since they were accounted the companions and servants of his vices, and had ruined his health’. They intended to remove the same ministers from the king, since ‘a child would be incapable of governing so great a realm by means of puny men’.50 Richard himself accused them of conspiring
towards his own death and of preparing ambushes both in the capital and on the road, which had been revealed to him by their accomplices. Indeed, he said it was common knowledge that they had attempted to deprive him of the office of regent conferred on him by his brother. Finally, he decided that these ministers should be utterly removed for the sake of his own security, lest he fall into the hands of desperate men, who from their previous licence would be ready to dare anything. He said that he himself, whom the king’s father had approved, could better discharge all the duties of government, not only because of his experience of affairs, but also on account of his popularity. He would neglect nothing pertaining to the duty of a loyal subject and diligent Protector.
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