Richard III

by Chris Skidmore

  Francis apparently remained resentful of Richard’s decision to depose Edward V, who since 1481 had been pledged to marry his daughter Anne. The removal and disappearance of the young king had destroyed the careful plans for his own dynasty. He arranged for Tudor to be equipped with ships, money and men, in preparation for his invasion. At the same time, Tudor apparently received further letters from Buckingham, according to a later Act of Attainder, dated 24 September, urging him to invade. ‘Meanwhile in England’, Vergil wrote, ‘the leaders of the conspiracy set in motion many things at the same time. Others held suitable fortified places with armed men, others prepared secretly for rebellion; others elsewhere were tensed and prepared to make war as soon as they knew Henry had arrived.’ At the same time, John Morton sent secret messages to ‘all who were raised in the hall of King Edward’.42

  Richard continued to make his preparations to advance against Buckingham. He arranged for armed men to surround the duke’s territory, ‘held in readiness to pounce on all his domestic possessions as soon as the duke moved a foot away from his house’.43 On 13 October, John Oter, a yeoman of the crown, arrived at York with a letter from the king, dated 11 October, to the mayor, aldermen and sheriffs of the city, describing how ‘the duke of Buckingham traitorously is turned upon us contrary to the duty of his legiance, and entendeth the utter destruction of us, you all, and all other our true subjects that have taken our part, whose traitorous intent we with gods grace intend briefly to resist and subdue’. Requesting that ‘ye will send unto us as many men defensibly arrayed on horseback’ to Leicester, where Richard intended to muster his army by 21 October.44 Similar letters were sent to Southampton on 13 October, requesting that the town send horsemen to meet him at Coventry on 22 October.45 News of the outbreak of the rebellion in Kent could not have reached Richard by the time he had sent his letters; the king must therefore have committed himself to taking action against Buckingham beforehand.

  Elsewhere, the king’s closest supporters wrote letters, requesting immediate military support from members of the king’s household. On 17 October, Francis, Viscount Lovell wrote to Sir William Stonor, a knight of the king’s body who had loyally attended Richard’s coronation several months previously, and would have been expected to rally instantly to the king’s standard:

  Cousin Stoner, I command me to you as heartily as I can: for as much as it pleaseth the king’s grace to have warned you and all other to attend upon his grace, and your company that ye would come in my cognisance and my company to come with you: and I am sure that shall please his grace best, and I trust shall be to your surety.

  Your heartily loving cousin Francis Lovell.

  Also cousin, the king hath commanded me to send you word to make you ready, and all your company, in all haste to be with his grace at Leicester the Monday xx day of October: for I have sent for all my men to meet me at Banbury, the Saturday the xviii day of October.46

  Stonor did not reply. Instead he had chosen to join the rebels, who included Stonor’s stepfather, Sir William Norreys, a close supporter of Edward IV. Sir George Browne was another knight of the body who had been close enough to the former king to be noted as one of those ‘which wait most upon the king and lie nightly in his chamber’.47 Now Browne wrote to his nephew by marriage, John Paston, with the cryptic message, ‘Loyawlte Ayme’, meaning ‘loyalty I love’, but which has been suggested as a conscious reference to Richard’s own motto, ‘Loyaulte Me Lye’, with Browne signing off with the postscript, ‘It shall never come out for me’, suggesting that his own loyalty to Edward IV and his disinherited heirs would not be extinguished, at the same time as making a sardonic riposte to the new king’s motto.48

  A picture of an organised, concerted opposition was emerging. A riot had taken taken place at Gravesend Fair on 13 October, where it was described how one ‘Bonting slew Master Mowbray with diverse others’, possibly the same John Bountayn, the yeoman of the crown who had been sent by the duke of Norfolk to suppress the rebels but who instead joined their ranks at Maidstone. Another yeoman of the crown, William Clifford of Iwade, had been arrested by 15 October. Under the leadership of Sir John Fogge, Sir George Browne, Sir Thomas Lewkenor, Richard Haute and Sir John Guildford, the rebels assembled at Maidstone but were forced to disperse before regrouping on Penenden Heath, before marching through Rochester, reaching Gravesend on 22 October. The rebels then chose to move in a south-west direction for forty miles until they reached Guildford by 25 October. Meanwhile rebellion was spreading out across the country. There had certainly been an outbreak of trouble in Wiltshire by 17 October, when a servant of the sheriff of Cornwall carrying a file of returned writs had been confronted by Walter Hungerford and other rebels at Warminster and had his documents stolen.49

  The rebellion has commonly become known as the Duke of Buckingham’s Rebellion, yet this is misleading. In fact, few of the rebels had any connection or communication with the duke, who seems to have joined the rebellion when it had already gathered enough momentum to be viewed as a serious threat to the political order and Richard’s kingship. From the start, however, a brief examination of some of those involved in the uprising indicates the serious challenge that Richard faced.

  Evidence for who exactly participated in the rebellion and its precise timings has been skewed by the acceptance of a later Act of Attainder against the rebels, that not only ascribed the date of the risings to St Luke’s Day, 18 October, as though the rebellion was co-ordinated to have been launched on a single day (incidentally the same date on which Henry Tudor was supposed to have set sail from Brittany to England), but also organised it into several geographic sectors, areas that in fact represented the regional commissions established by Richard on 13 November to enquire into the details of the rebellion. Outside of these artificial regional zones, there were other areas of dissent. Southampton seems to have taken up arms against the king, with its mayor later attainted for his part in the uprising. William Berkeley of Bisterne, the constable of the city, who was also indicted for rebellion, was present in the city on 8 and 21 October. Later the city decided to send a tun of wine to the king to appease him; nevertheless, Richard imposed an oath of fealty on the townsmen, and may have suspended the city’s liberties.50

  While the rebellion stretched out across most southern counties from Kent to Cornwall, there were three major centres of disturbances, taking place in the south-east, principally around Kent, but also Surrey and Sussex. The ringleaders were in fact former servants of Edward IV, his household men, many of whom had attended the dead king’s funeral in April, and had initially been willing to serve under Edward V and Richard’s protectorship. In Kent the rebel leaders included Sir George Browne, who had carried the banner of St George at Edward IV’s funeral. Browne had entered the Yorkists’ service under the influence of his stepfather, Sir Thomas Vaughan, who had recently been executed with Anthony, Earl Rivers, at Pontefract. Alongside Browne, Sir John Fogge of Ashford had been treasurer of Edward IV’s household for seven years, and in addition to being a royal councillor had also been a councillor of the young Edward, Prince of Wales, since 1473. At Richard’s accession, he had been singled out for pardon as part of Richard’s conciliation strategy towards the Woodvilles – a strategy that had clearly failed. Another rebel ringleader was Sir William Haute, a first cousin of Queen Elizabeth Woodville, whose brother, Sir Richard Haute, had been one of Edward V’s household men who had been seized at Stony Stratford and later executed at Pontefract in June. Sir Richard’s son, also named Richard Haute, who had been a prominent jouster at the wedding celebrations of Prince Richard of York, joined his uncle in rebellion. In Surrey, the rebel leaders included Sir Thomas Bourchier of Barnes, a younger son of Lord Berners, who was a knight of the king’s body and constable of Windsor Castle, and Thomas Fiennes, the second son of Richard Fiennes, Lord Dacre of the South, the chamberlain of Queen Elizabeth Woodville.

  The second centre of rebellion focused on southern central England, where assemblies w
ere planned at Salisbury and Newbury. Among the leading rebels were Sir William Berkeley of Beverstone, who had been an esquire of the body, constable of Southampton and Winchester; Sir William Norreys, a knight of the body since 1474; and Sir William Stonor, another knight of the body and former MP whom Queen Elizabeth had presented with a present of a doe to ‘our trusty and well-beloved William’ in 1481.51 Sir Giles Daubeney was a former esquire and knight of the body who had served as sheriff in Somerset, Dorset and Devon, and Sir John Cheyne had been Edward IV’s Master of the Horse. Other rebels had strong links to the Yorkist establishment, having served in the duke of Clarence’s household: Sir Roger Tocotes had been steward of Clarence’s Hampshire lands, while John Harcourt had been Clarence’s receiver in the south-west. The Woodville influence in this region was also strongly represented by the young bishop of Salisbury, Lionel Woodville, and most likely also included Sir Richard Woodville.

  The third focus of the rebellion was in the south-west, where rebels were to gather at Exeter, led by Thomas Grey, marquess of Dorset, and Sir Thomas St Leger. St Leger had been a loyal servant to Edward IV, a knight of the body and Master of the King’s Hounds since 1478. Around 1472, St Leger had married the king’s sister, Anne, duchess of Exeter: he soon tied his fortunes to the Woodvilles, betrothing his daughter by the duchess to Dorset, so that they might inherit the Exeter estates.

  Combined together, the group of men that chose to rebel against Richard in the autumn of 1483 could hardly be considered a rabble of malcontents. Fear of losing their influence and position under the new regime might seem an obvious motive to rebel; however, Richard had been determined to ensure that those former servants of Edward IV willing to serve would not be made redundant: Sir Thomas Burgh, Sir Thomas Montgomery and Sir John Scott, trusted officials under Edward, all continued their seamless service under Richard. Richard had even gone out of his way to win the support of Woodville associates such as Sir John Fogge. Some of the rebel leaders had already benefited from Richard’s largesse: Sir Thomas Lewkenor, Sir William Berkeley and Sir Thomas Arundel had all been made knights of the Bath at Richard’s coronation. Sir William Knyvet was made constable of Castle Rising on 18 July, while Berkeley was confirmed as governor of the Isle of Wight as late as 27 July.52

  While Richard paused at Leicester, he found time to consent to other grants, though perhaps with an eye on his own salvation during these uncertain times. On 22 October 1483, Richard granted the nunnery of Wilberfoss in York Meadows, worth ten marks yearly, to provide for a chaplain ‘and for prayer for the good estate of the king and his consort Anne, queen of England, and his firstborn son Edward, prince of Wales, duke of Cornwall and earl of Chester, and for their souls after their death’.53 The next day, on 23 October, just before he marched out of Leicester, Richard issued a proclamation against the rebels. The document began by suggesting that the king, ‘remembering his solemn profession which he made at the time of his coronation to mercy and justice’ had followed ‘the same in deed’ with his initial reaction on discovering news of the uprising. The king, the proclamation noted, ‘first began at mercy in giving unto all manner persons his full and general pardon, trusting thereby to have caused all his subjects to have been surely determined unto him according to the duty of their liegance’. In particular, Richard was keen to underline the fact that as king ‘in his own person, as is well known, hath dressed himself to divers parts of this his realm for the indifferent administration of justice to every person, having full confidence and trust that all oppressors and extortioners of his subjects, horrible adulterers and bawds, provoking the high indignation and displeasure of God, should have been reconciled and reduced to the way of truth and virtue, with the abiding in good disposition’.54

  The moral and didactic tone of the proclamation may have at first seemed strange, especially the mention of adulterers, until its purpose was then revealed in the next paragraph, for there was one particular person for whom Richard had that reference in mind: ‘This yet notwithstanding Thomas Dorset, late marquess of Dorset, which not fearing God, nor the peril of his soul, hath many and sundry maids, widows and wives damnably and without shame devoured, deflowered and defouled, holding the unshameful and mischievous woman called Shore’s wife in adultery’. The other rebels, named as Sir William Norreys, Sir William Knyvet, Sir Thomas Bourchier of Barnes, Sir George Browne, John Cheyne, John Norreys, Walter Hungerford, John Rushe and John Harecourt of Staunton, ‘without the king’s authority have assembled and gathered his people by the comfort of his great rebel and traitor the late Duke of Buckingham, and Bishops of Ely and Salisbury, intending not only the destruction of the royal person of our said Sovereign Lord and other his true subjects, the breach of his peace, tranquillity, and common weal of this his realm, but also in letting of virtue and the damnable maintenance of vices and sin as they have done in times passed to the great displeasure of God and evil example of all Christian people’.

  Richard promised that through the ‘tender and loving disposition that he hath and beareth unto the common weal of this his realm, and putting down and rebuking of vices’, any yeoman or commoner who was ‘abused and blinded’ by the traitors and had already taken up arms, should ‘not be hurt in their bodies nor goods’ if they withdrew from the ‘false company’ of the rebels immediately ‘and meddle no further with them’. Meanwhile a price was to be offered upon the head of every rebel brought to the king alive. Starting with the duke of Buckingham himself, Richard offered £1,000 in money or £100 in land to ‘whosoever … taketh the said Duke and bringeth him unto his highness’. For the marquess of Dorset or the two bishops of Ely and Salisbury, 1,000 marks or 100 marks in land, for each of the knights 500 marks or £40 in land.55

  The machinery of government worked fast to distribute the king’s messages demanding that men come to his aid. The Keeper of the Exchequer sealed 1,862 writs between 30 September and 5 December.56 Men across the country mobilised fast.57 ‘People in this country be so troubled’, Edward Plumpton wrote to Sir Robert Plumpton on 18 October; men had received commandments both ‘in the king’s name & otherwise’, so, in the confusion, ‘marvellously, that they know not what to do’. Lord Strange, he wrote, ‘goeth forth from Lathom upon Monday next with 10,000 men, whether, we cannot say’. As for the duke of Buckingham, he ‘has so many men, as it is said here, that he is able to go where he will, but I trust he shall be right withstanded & all his malice, & else were a great pity’. Messengers, Plumpton observed, ‘commeth daily both from the king’s grace & the duke into this country’.58

  Buckingham seems to have left Brecon, heading north-east as far as Weobley. Attempting to call the local gentry to him, the duke soon realised, however, that he had no support: even his own tenants refused to back him, with some even sacking his residence at Brecon after his departure. Buckingham appears to have won the limited support of only a few men: the Act of Attainder names only John Morton, William Knyvet, John Rushe and Thomas Nandyke, described as a ‘necromancer’, but a Cambridge master of arts and an astrologer and physician.59 Both Knyvet and Rushe had been indicted in Richard’s proclamation of 23 October as acting alongside Dorset, John Cheyne, Walter Hungerford, George Browne and others. John Rushe was a London merchant who had links with the Woodvilles; as a deputy of customs at Yarmouth for the late Earl Rivers, Rushe was also a client of Margaret Beaufort, Lord Stanley and William Stonor. It is possible that he was the same John Rushe whose son Robert Rushe had been executed for his part in the plot to free Edward V and his brother from their confinement in the Tower.

  If Buckingham was unable to attract many men to his standard, it seems that from an early stage the duke was attempting to win support from the Stanleys. He must have hoped that Thomas, Lord Stanley, would at least have given his support as Margaret Beaufort’s husband. The duke may have also sought the support of the Talbots: during the minority of the earl of Shrewsbury, the head of the family was Gilbert Talbot, who seems to have fallen out of favour with Richard, having
been dropped from the Shropshire commissions of the peace from the beginning of the king’s accession. This could have been due to the family’s links to William, Lord Hastings; Gilbert remained out of favour for the rest of Richard’s reign. If Buckingham had managed to convince the two families to join the rebellion, he would have succeeded in surrounding the king as he marched west.

  As for the Talbots and the Stanleys, both families refused to move. Their interests in the region had both been challenged by Buckingham’s sudden arrival on the local political scene. Richard’s grants to the duke had seen Buckingham establish himself as a major threat to the Stanleys’ power base in north Wales and Cheshire, and the Talbots’ traditional influence along the Welsh Marches and the north Midlands. Neither were prepared to allow the duke to extend his authority over them. Unlike in other areas, no former servants of Edward IV would join the duke in his rebellion; tainted by his association with Richard, Buckingham’s own rising against the king seems to have been a late addition to the carefully planned sequence of risings elsewhere. His decision to rebel in fact did more to save Richard than if he had remained loyal to the king: with so few prepared to back him, even those hostile to the king, any organised opposition that might lead to a successful rebellion, attracting Stanley and Talbot support, was split. Buckingham’s betrayal was the greatest blessing in disguise that Richard could have hoped for.