Richard III

by Chris Skidmore

  The longest piece of legislation on the surviving Parliament roll was the Act of Attainder, stripping the duke of Buckingham and the rebels of their lands and estates. Richard’s sense of betrayal is still evident in the Act’s preamble, declaring how the ‘great and singular movers, stirrers and doers of the said offences and heinous treasons’ included ‘Henry, late Duke of Buckingham now late days standing and being in as great favour, tender trust, and affection with the king our sovereign lord, as ever subject was with his prince and liege lord’.12

  The Act of Attainder followed the traditional pattern of complete forfeiture of the lands of those attainted and the disinheriting of their heirs, with protection for their wives’ lands. Yet there were significant differences between Richard’s treatment of the rebels, compared to the actions his brother had previously taken. The total number of people attainted, 103, was greater than in any single Act of Attainder in Edward IV’s reign and for the first time included the ecclesiastical estates of three bishops: ‘So many great lords, nobles, magnates and commoners’, the Crowland chronicler wrote, ‘were attainted that we nowhere read of the like even under the triumvirate of Octavian, Anthony and Lepidus.’13 In addition, Richard had already taken possession and confiscated many of the estates even without parliamentary approval. Perhaps because of this, there was no use of a suspended attainder which would come into effect if an individual failed to make their submission to the king: for Richard, many of the rebels’ treasons would be permanent. Of course, negotiations had already been going on over who should be included in the Act: several men who had been listed among the rebels in the commissions of arrest issued in November 1483 now escaped attainder through having secured a pardon. Throughout the course of the Parliament, negotiations continued over the fate of certain rebels, leading to some confusion in the Act itself, with men on the initial list of rebels not being attainted later on in the legislation, as men or their families bought their pardons.14 Fourteen rebels took active steps themselves to secure a pardon from the king in the following five months. Several weeks later, Richard drew up a list of eight rebels still in sanctuary at Beaulieu Abbey, whom he was prepared to give one final chance, marking their names out in his own hand in a ‘book of exception’ that was given to Edmund Chaterton.15

  In order to convince Richard of their changed ways, many attempting to seek a pardon agreed to live under imposed restrictions as proof of their good behaviour. Edward IV had begun to adopt a system of bonds and recognisances, in which groups of men were made to stand surety for the good behaviour of offenders, often their family relatives, friends or associates. In return for significant sums of money paid upfront, former rebels or offenders of the crown would be allowed to go free, but only if their bail money had been paid first. Richard adopted this system of suspended penalties with zeal. The friends standing surety for the former rebel Thomas Leukenor were made to pay 1,000 marks with a pledge that Leukenor would be of good and true bearing towards the king and his heirs, and serve him both in peace and war when required; for Sir Richard Woodville and Sir William Berkeley, the price was 2,000 marks each. Often Richard was determined to add specific conditions to the bonds, tightening his control over his subjects. Leukenor was forced to reside with the king’s treasurer, Sir John Wood, ‘until the king’s pleasure was known on his behalf’; Nicholas Gaynesford was not allowed to enter Kent16 while William Berkeley agreed to live in a place appointed specially by the king.17 Knyvet later claimed he had only managed to secure his freedom by paying 700 marks to the king and 100 marks to the queen, at the same time as agreeing to hand over four manors to the king, including the castle of New Buckenham in Norfolk. Richard was not the only beneficiary of the deal, for Sir James Tyrell was also to be given a manor and land. Knyvet later claimed that Richard had pledged to pay £300 for the land, but had failed to do so.18 While a pardon could not lift the Act of Attainder passed against them, or restore them to their forfeited lands, it would at least bring a reprieve from the death penalty and allow their families ‘to receive or cherish’ them with food, which ‘shall not by occasion thereof’ result in the king’s ‘displeasure or indignation’.19 Yet the restoration of estates was a different matter: only six out of the twenty-eight pardoned rebels would receive a royal grant. One of the few rebels to regain some of his land was Walter Hungerford.20

  Aside from the Act of Attainder, other bills sought to punish offenders. Revoking an Act passed in the January 1483 Parliament that had allowed the duchy of Exeter lands to be granted to Thomas Grey, the preamble of a new bill went out of its way to present Thomas St Leger, who had been executed at Exeter, as a villain who had persuaded Edward IV ‘by great labour’ to accept an Act passed in 1467 that settled the Exeter lands on the heirs of Anne, duchess of Exeter’s body rather than the daughter she had by Exeter, adding that the duchess’s daughter by Exeter ‘lived by short time after’ the passing of the Act. The tone of the Act was to smear St Leger with deliberately passing an Act to benefit his own daughter with the duchess, yet that daughter was not born until 1476, nine years later.

  In addition to St Leger and the duke of Buckingham, Henry Tudor’s mother, Margaret Beaufort, was singled out for her role in the rebellion. Margaret herself was accused of ‘assenting, knowing and assisting Henry late duke of Buckingham and his adherents in compassing and doing treason’. The Act also set out how Margaret had provided financial assistance to her son, Henry Tudor: ‘Forasmuch as Margaret, countess of Richmond, mother to the king’s great rebel and traitor, Henry earl of Richmond, hath of late conspired, confederated and committed high treason against our sovereign lord the King Richard the third, in divers and sundry ways, and in especial in sending messages, writings and tokens to the said Henry, desiring, procuring and stirring him by the same to come into this realm and make war against our sovereign lord … Also the said countess supplied great sums of money, as well within the city of London as in other places of this realm, to be employed to the execution of the said treason and malicious purpose.’ Yet Richard, ‘of his grace especial, remembering the good and faithful service that Thomas Lord Stanley hath done and intendeth to do to our said sovereign lord, and for the good love and trust that the king hath in him, and for his sake, remitteth and will forbear the great punishment of attainder of the said countess, that she or any other so doing hath deserved’.21

  Richard’s decision to exempt Margaret from a full Act of Attainder, confiscating her estates, was hardly an act of charity. Even if Richard had wished to pass an attainder against Margaret, the fact that her marriage settlement in 1472 guaranteed the earl a substantial income from her estates made it too dangerous for Richard to go down a route that could threaten his fragile relationship with Stanley. Yet the king’s commensurate punishment was equally harsh.22 Margaret was to forfeit her right to all titles and estates, with all her properties being re-granted to her husband. The material change may have been small, but for Margaret the significance could hardly have been greater. For a woman who fiercely guarded her independence, not to mention the protection of her only son’s rights and inheritance, she was being reduced to the status of a humble wife, dependent entirely upon her husband and his survival. Her estates were now granted to Stanley for life in tail male, preventing them from ever being inherited by her son. By allowing the lands to be re-granted after Stanley’s death, Richard had in effect cast Margaret into a positon of being already dead to the king. Her rights to her mother’s Beaufort inheritance were also cancelled, while lands that Margaret might have hoped to be given to Henry were granted away to others.23 The king’s council also decreed that Stanley was to ‘remove from his wife all her servants, and to keep her so straight with himself that she should not be able from henceforth to send any messenger neither to her son, nor friends, nor practice any thing at all against the king’.24 Later her confessor, John Fisher, recalled how: ‘Albeit in King Richard’s days she was oft in jeopardy of her life, yet she bore patiently all trouble in such wise that
it is wonder to think it.’25 Still, many were surprised that Thomas, Lord Stanley, had not only evaded punishment but had received a reward; ‘it went very hard’, Vergil observed, ‘that Thomas Stanley was not accounted amongst the number of the king’s enemies, by reason of the practices of Margaret his wife’.26

  A final Act on the roll, placed among the common petitions though it was nothing of the kind, ordered the forfeiture of all royal grants of lands or revenues to Edward IV’s widow, Queen Elizabeth, or, as she was now known, ‘late wife of Sir John Grey’, which ‘for certain great causes and considerations touching as well the surety of the most royal person of the king’, the grants of land ‘whatsoever made at any time to Elizabeth, late the wife of Sir John Grey, knight, and late calling herself queen of England’ should be declared null and void from 1 May 1483, the date when Richard had first ordered the queen’s and the Woodville assets to be seized.27 The lands included a large part of the duchy of Lancaster in southern England, which Richard had initially promised to the duke of Buckingham on 13 July, but now the king would retain for himself: Edward IV’s will had enfeoffed some of the land, though Richard simply ignored the terms of the will, making no attempt to revoke it.

  Over the past few months, Queen Elizabeth had been urged ‘by frequent intercessions and dire threats’ to allow her five daughters to leave sanctuary. She finally relented, but not without forcing Richard to swear an oath, promising her daughters’ security and a number of specific conditions. Richard agreed. On 1 March, Richard made a public statement, declaring:

  that if the daughters of Dame Elizabeth Gray late calling herself Queen of England, that is to wit Elizabeth, Cecille, Anne, Kateryn and Brigitte will come unto me out of the Sanctuary of Westminster and be guided, ruled and demeaned after me, then I shall see that they shall be in surety of their lives and also not suffer any manner hurt by any manner person or persons to them or any of them in their bodies and persons to be done by way of ravishment or defouling contrary to their wills, nor them or any of them imprisoned within the Tower of London or other prison, but that I shall put them in honest places of good name and fame, and them honestly and courteously shall see to be found and entreated and to have all things requisite and necessary for their exhibition and findings as my kinswomen.

  And that I shall do marry such of them as now be marriable to gentlemen born and each of them give in marriage lands and tenements to the yearly value of 200 marks for term of their lives and in likewise to the other daughters when they come to lawful age of marriage if they live and such gentlemen as shall hap to marry with them I shall straightly charge from time to time lovingly to love and entreat them as their wives and my kinswomen, as they will avoid and eschew my displeasure.28

  The declaration also promised a yearly sum of money to the former queen. The entire agreement is shrouded in the suspicion on Elizabeth’s part that Richard had the potential to undertake all the deeds that she now hoped to prevent on oath. For her part, the agreement was an act of cynical realism in a situation to which she could see no end. For the time being at least, Richard was king of England, with no immediate change likely. Having been stripped of her lands and available assets, she was running out of money in sanctuary. In striking a deal with Richard, at least she could ensure that her daughters would be provided for, while she would have a sizeable income of 700 marks, equating to £466 13s 4d a year, an annual income that would allow her to maintain her noble lifestyle.

  Soon after Elizabeth Woodville had agreed to deliver her daughters from sanctuary, the Crowland chronicler described how ‘by special command of the king there were gathered together in a certain downstairs room near the corridor which leads to the queen’s quarters, almost all of the lords spiritual and temporal and the leading knights and gentlemen of the king’s household, the chief amongst whom seemed to be John Howard, whom the king had recently created duke of Norfolk. Each person subscribed his name to a certain new oath, drawn up by persons unknown to me, undertaking to adhere to the king’s only son, Edward, as their supreme lord, should anything happen to his father’.29

  The Crowland chronicler deliberately assimilates events to make the oath-swearing, taking place not in one of the state rooms but in a back room down a corridor, appear shady. In reality, Parliament had ended on 20 February, while Queen Elizabeth had left sanctuary with her daughters on 28 February, leaving no opportunity for the oath to be sworn in public. The oath-swearing was likely to have been modelled on the oath that Richard had taken back in July 1471, when he swore loyalty to Edward IV’s son, an oath that had also been taken outside of Parliament. Yet Edward IV, and Henry VI before him, had both used Parliament to confirm the prince’s possession of his estates: while Edward of Middleham had been created Prince of Wales and earl of Chester at York the previous autumn, it seems unusual that there was no formal acknowledgement of his creation; nor was he granted any associated estates with his creation as Prince of Wales: Richard as king would continue to hold the entire royal patrimony.30

  15

  ‘THEIR SUDDEN GRIEF’

  Richard continued to bestow his generosity upon those who were willing to legitimate the new royal family. On 2 March, Richard agreed to grant the royal heralds a residence at Coldharbour with a licence worth £20 a year to find a chaplain to celebrate a daily divine service ‘for the good estate of the king, his consort Anne and his first born son Edward, prince of Wales’.1 On 5 March the prior and canons of the cathedral church of St Mary, Carlisle, were granted two tuns of red wine ‘for use in their church, that they may pray for the good estate of the king and his consort, Anne, queen of England, and for their souls after their death and the souls of the king’s progenitors’.2 Two days earlier, William Husse, the chief justice of the King’s Bench, was also given a licence to found a chantry ‘for the good estate of the king and his wife Anne’ worth £20 a year.3

  Richard also continued to look favourably upon those he considered in need. He was shown the plight of Edmund Philpot, a bricklayer from Twickenham whose house and all his goods were ‘suddenly burnt to his utter undoing’. Richard, ‘having respect with compassion to the piteous case and infortune’ of his situation, issued a licence on 7 February 1484 urging ‘such well disposed people as of their devotion and charity’ to give alms to help Philpot build a new house.4

  On 7 March, Richard granted to Katherine Mountferaunt ‘on account of her poverty’ £20.5 Similarly, on 10 March, he granted to Margaret, the wife of John, earl of Oxford, and the daughter of Richard’s uncle, the late earl of Salisbury, the sum of £100 a year.6 Thomas Sadland of Shrewsbury, who on account of ‘his good service to the king’s father in England and Ireland and to the king’ was given an annuity of £8 on 2 April.7

  While the royal court was still residing in the capital, Richard sat on his throne in the Star Chamber at the palace of Westminster. In front of him, he had ordered that his justices be gathered together in one room. Assemblies of the justices and serjeants-at-law were not uncommon, particularly when difficult chancery or common law cases needed further exemplification or advice. Yet those present in the room would have understood that this was no usual gathering: for a king to summon them was almost unprecedented. Unlike his audience at Oxford University, when the king sat for hours listening to the disputations between students at Magdalen College concerning moral philosophy, rewarding each side for their rhetorical efforts, this time Richard had arranged for his justices to meet him to discuss certain points of law. He had several questions that he wished to ask them, or, rather, to understand their expert opinions on the law. In establishing his dedication to justice, Richard was following closely in his brother’s footsteps. In October 1462, Edward himself had even sat in person as judge in the marble seat of the King’s Bench, trying cases of rape. In doing so he was demonstrating his royal duty as dispenser of justice; in April 1463, Bishop Neville opened Parliament with a sermon, taking as its theme, ‘Let those who judge the land prize justice’.

  For
Richard, the administration of justice, something he had placed so much weight upon in previous proclamations, was in itself the essence of kingship. He took a strong interest in ensuring justice was performed, no less than his brother had done before him. Examples of Richard’s interference, or rather insistence that the due process of law be followed, are rife. On 22 February, Richard wrote to the justices of the peace in Warwickshire how ‘grievous complaint hath been made unto us on the behalf of our poor subject’, one Robert Dalby, who had complained to the king that his manor of Bockhampton had been seized by Robert Worsley. Richard sent Dalby’s petition to the justices, ordering: ‘wherefore we willing the administration of justice in that behalf and also trusting in your wisdoms, learning and indifferency will and desire you if it be as surmised that ye see our said subject put in the peacible possession of the said manor’. Essentially, the king had merely passed the complaint to the local justices to investigate the matter.8 As Richard stated openly in front of the audience assembled before the justices at Star Chamber, it ‘is the King’s will to wit, to say “by his justices” and “by his law” is to say one and the same thing’.