Now, the king’s only son and heir, the Prince of Wales, was dead. Richard and his wife, Anne, were devastated. The news came clearly unexpectedly, for they were still both residing at Nottingham Castle when it was broken to them: ‘On hearing news of this, at Nottingham … you might have seen his father and mother in a state almost bordering on madness, by reason of their sudden grief.’41 Settling the final payments for the prince’s household as it was eventually wound up, Richard continued months later to refer to Edward as ‘our dearest son the prince’.42
Edward’s death meant that Richard and Anne were childless; the king no longer had an heir. For the security of the dynasty, Richard would need to nominate his heir apparent. ‘Not long after the death of the prince’, John Rous wrote, ‘the young Earl of Warwick, Edward, eldest son of George, Duke of Clarence, was proclaimed heir apparent in the royal court, and in ceremonies at table and chamber he was served first after the king and queen’, yet possibly realising that the young earl, as Clarence’s son, might be considered to have a stronger claim to the throne than Richard himself, in spite of his father’s attainder, Richard changed his mind, with Warwick being ‘placed in custody and the Earl of Lincoln was preferred to him’.43 John de la Pole, the earl of Lincoln, was the son of John de la Pole, the duke of Suffolk, and Richard’s elder sister Elizabeth; technically, Lincoln could claim a line of descent through the female line that was stronger than Richard’s own claim to the throne, yet, obviously, running through the male line, Richard’s own dynastic claim remained supreme. Yet to acknowledge his heir through the female line must have raised concerns. Already Edward, earl of Warwick, had been first recognised as heir, having the strongest direct male descent of the Yorkist dynasty; such open acknowledgement had meant that once Warwick had reached his majority, he could justifiably claim that his male descent was stronger than Lincoln’s. At the same time, the female children of Edward IV, led by Elizabeth of York, might at some point in the future be able to argue that their own claims, and those of their children, would surpass that of the de la Pole line. The danger for Richard in meddling with the Yorkist line of succession, dependent itself on recognising the value of the female line of inheritance, was that it might open a possible minefield of claims in the future. Moreover, the appointment of Lincoln as his designated heir only highlighted how Richard’s own family dynasty hung by the thread of Richard’s own life; with no other children, men might consider who else to turn to if they believed Richard’s reign was under threat.
His son’s death seems to have left Richard reeling with grief. His plans to invade Scotland in less than a month’s time were put on hold while the king remained with his wife at Nottingham Castle for the rest of the month. The threat of an invasion by Henry Tudor meant that Richard could not risk a Scottish campaign when his army and northern followers were now needed to defend southern England. Richard was prepared to consider changing his policy of war on two fronts. On 13 April, he extended the first olive branch of peace by agreeing to pay £150 compensation to a Rouen merchant who had been affected by English piracy.44 The same day, he instructed a herald to wait at Berwick for Scottish ambassadors until 15 May.45 If the Scottish ambassadors arrived and were prepared to accept a truce, Richard would proclaim a truce throughout the borders until 31 October. Back in February, Richard had signalled his intention in a letter to arrive at Newcastle on 1 May, to lead an army northwards against the Scots. This muster was now cancelled, as both the king and queen recovered from their grief at Nottingham.
By the end of April, Richard’s attention turned once more to his intended northern progress. On Tuesday, 27 April, Richard departed from Nottingham, heading first to Doncaster overnight, before arriving at Pontefract on Thursday, 29 April. By May Day, Richard was in York; the royal progress then moved northwards, to Middleham on Wednesday, 5 May, staying for three days before departing for Barnard Castle on Sunday, 9 May, and on to Newcastle on Thursday, 13 May. By Friday, 14 May, Richard had reached Durham. On 16 May, St Brendan’s Day, Richard gave offerings of 11s 11½d to the cathedral at Durham. It was a token offering; however; the king supplemented the donation with the gift of the robe he had worn during the recent sitting of Parliament, described as being ‘of blue velvet wrought with great lions of pure gold – a marvellous rich cope’.46 Richard stayed in the city for several days before beginning to make his way back down southwards, visiting Rievaulx Abbey on 20 May, Scarborough Castle on 22 May, and Sheriff Hutton on 24 May, where Richard may have paid a visit to the grave of his son.47 On 27 May, while at York, Richard ordered the receiver at Middleham to pay the friars of Richmond 12 marks 6 shillings and 8 pence for the saying of 1,000 masses for Edward IV.48
After a brief stay at York, Richard spent the next two weeks until Saturday, 12 June, at Pontefract. It would mark a prolonged stay in Yorkshire for the king, who remained in the area, residing at castles in Pontefract, York and Scarborough, until 23 July.49 Richard took the opportunity to reward his northern homeland with several grants, bestowing unprecedented privileges upon its corporations: Hull, Beverley, York and Newcastle received significant financial concessions, while Scarborough was established as a county and Pontefract a borough.50 Already earlier in the year Richard had granted Kingston upon Hull the freedom to ship goods and merchandise, wool excepted, free from payment of any customs for the next twenty years, ‘in consideration of the poverty of the town and the expenses which they have sustained in journeying to Scotland and in other places at the king’s pleasure and for the relief of the port of the town’.51 Similar measures would be granted to York, remitting the city from payment of its tax, with Richard ‘remembering and calling unto our mind the great zeal and tender affection that we bear in our heart unto our faithful and true subjects the mayor, sheriffs and citizens of our city of York of long time past’, now ‘for many causes and also understanding that notwithstanding our great liberality and graces late shown unto them by us for the profit and welfare of the said city’.52
To the disappointment of northern noblemen such as Henry, earl of Northumberland, or Ralph, earl of Westmorland, who may have hoped to fill the vacuum of power left by Richard’s absence from the north, Richard’s accession as king had if anything strengthened his hold over the region. For Northumberland, the agreement he had reached with Richard as duke in 1474 no longer applied: Richard was free to recruit the earl’s men into royal service if he so wished. He willingly chose to do so: five Percy retainers who had been knighted by Northumberland during the Scottish campaign received grants from the king, including his brother-in-law Sir William Gascoigne, Christopher Ward, who became Master of the Hart Hounds and sheriff of Surrey and Sussex; and Sir Marmaduke Constable, who was appointed steward of Tonbridge in Kent. These appointments had the effect of removing Northumberland’s men from the north altogether, hollowing out his retinue, and eroding the very principle of loyalty that the earl’s noble status depended upon.
As king, Richard also commanded the duchy of Lancaster lordships, a rich source of patronage which Richard now used to bolster the retinue and ducal power structure he had built up during the 1470s. It was in the Honour of Knaresborough, a duchy of Lancaster lordship where Northumberland was steward, that the earl would find his influence most curtailed; now Richard himself was the duke of Lancaster, he was free to act as he wished. Northumberland and his men retained their offices, yet Richard soon granted new annuities from the lordship to his own men.
If Northumberland had hoped that Richard’s accession might enable him to become the king’s deputy in the region, he was to be disappointed. Richard’s ducal council had been formally headed by his son, the association of the council with the prince giving it a status that helped keep law and order in the region. With Edward’s death, however, Richard needed to re-establish the council’s authority by placing the next in line to the throne, the king’s designated heir, at its head. As the king’s eldest nephew and heir, John de la Pole, earl of Lincoln, would be expected to lead the c
ouncil, though he would do so explicitly on behalf of the king. Lincoln was an outsider, whose family’s estates lay mostly in East Anglia and the Thames Valley. For Richard this was a positive advantage, for it meant that Lincoln, having no independent interests or conflicts of loyalty in the region, would be able to act for the king alone.
The new council was in effect a continuation of the ducal council that Richard had operated in the area for years as duke of Gloucester. It was to act as the final arbiter in local disputes, at the same time as providing a means of redress and access to justice for local communities. Before handing over its leadership to the earl of Lincoln, Richard set out careful regulations to ensure that the council remained impartial in its function. ‘First the king will that no lord nor other person appointed to be of his council for favour, affection, hate, malice’ should speak in the council, while any lord sitting on the council with any conflict of interest was to leave his seat ‘during the time of the examination and ordering of the said matter unless he be called, and that he obey and be ordered therein by the remnant of the said council’. No matter ‘of great weight or substance’ was to be discussed or ordered unless the earl of Lincoln was present, together with two commissioners of the peace. All letters were to be signed by Lincoln’s own hand, with the words ‘per consilium Regis’ beneath, in the presence of the council. The council was to spend a quarter of the year at York, ‘and oftener if the case require’, where it would ‘examine and order all bills of complaints’. If the council became aware of ‘any assemblies or gatherings made contrary to our laws’, they would have the power ‘to resist, withstand and punish the same’ without recourse to the king, while those arrested should be committed to the nearest gaol or castle.53
Richard was determined that, as a royal council, Lincoln’s household would be tightly managed, with the king dictating every last detail of its operation. Lincoln himself was ordered to reside permanently at Sandal Castle, a residence of the duchy of York rather than one of Richard’s Neville properties, in an attempt to make the establishment of the council appear as neutral as possible. Richard ordered the building of a new tower at the castle on his visit there in June, and later a new bakehouse and brewhouse were built. A series of ordinances drawn up by the king for the household in the north ordered how ‘the hours of God’s service, diet, going to bed and rising and also the shutting of the gates’ were to be performed ‘at reasonable time and hours convenient’. Arrangements for breakfast were to be strictly controlled in particular, with Lincoln and Lord Morley appointed to attend one breakfast table, members of the Council of the North at another table, while ‘the children’ were to dine ‘together at one breakfast’. Security was kept tight, with the Treasurer ordered to have possession of the keys of the gates while the household was at dinner and supper. No servant was to depart without the Treasurer’s permission, while no boys were to be admitted to the household. Liveries of bread, wine and ale were strictly controlled, being ‘measurable and convenient and that no pot of livery exceed measure of a potelle’, ‘my lord and the Children’ being the only ones excluded from the arrangement.54 While residing at Sandal, the earl was to behave more like the king’s servant than his appointed heir.
16
‘DEFEND ME FROM ALL EVIL’
It was during Richard’s journey to Yorkshire that the king was visited by the Silesian knight Niclas von Popplau, who later recorded his travels to England, providing us with the only detailed contemporary description of life at Richard’s royal court.
In spite of his recent troubles – the death of his son, and the persistent memory of rebellion and betrayal – Richard presented a court that was lavish, cultured and generous. Popplau had been impressed at the quality of the singing in the king’s chapel, something which Richard carefully cultivated. On 28 March, Richard agreed to pay Sir John Perty an annuity of ten marks, ‘and so from thenceforth yearly during the king’s pleasure’ Sir John was to ‘sing for the king in a chapel before the holy rood at Northampton’.1 Later in the year, 26 September, while at Nottingham, Richard gave authority for John Meloynek, one of the gentlemen in his chapel, ‘knowing also his expert ability and cunning in the science of music’, to ‘take and sieze for us and in our name all such singing men and children being expert in the said science of music as he can find and think sufficient and able to do us service’.2 Lighter entertainment was provided by minstrels, of which Richard had his own travelling troop since his days as duke of Gloucester, though as king he was able to attract performances from abroad, with passports being granted to Conret Suyster and Peter Skeydell, minstrels from the duke of Bavaria.3 Other forms of entertainment included hunting, with Richard owning thirty-six running dogs and nine harriers. Richard wrote to ‘our dear and welbeloved’, the widow Elizabeth Russell, about the condition of Streynsham Park in Worcester, having been informed that ‘by means of excessive hunting the game within the said park is greatly diminished and wasted’. ‘We desiring to have the same replenished and kept for our disports against our resorting to those parts’, Richard ordered that no man regardless of his status was to be allowed to shoot or course in the park.4 Other animals were kept for amusement, with John Brown being appointed ‘master guider and ruler of all our bears and apes to us appertaining’.5
Richard’s fondness for jewels was such that orders were sent that all imports of precious stones were to be first reserved for the king’s purchase before being offered to the open market, with a licence issued to Louis de Grymaldes to bring ‘a diamond and other gems or precious stones’ into any port in the country, ‘to the intent that if they be for our pleasure we may have the sale thereof before all other’.6 The merchant George Cely would later bequest to his brother Richard ‘the jewel which I had of King Richard’, a red spinel ruby described as ‘a jewel with a balas and fine pearls hanging thereby’ which was worth £100.7 Richard sent to John Dawn, ‘treasurer of our household in the north parts’, several parcels of plate, including a cup of gold with a sapphire in the top, a ‘goblet of jasper garnished with gold pearls and stones’, three pots of silver emblazoned with coats of arms on the lids and six silver bowls. Hugh Brice, the mayor of the city of London, was given ‘a cup of gold garnished with pearls and precious stones’ as a gift ‘to the use of the commonality of the said city’.8
The king’s tastes in clothing could be equally expensive, as the wardrobe accounts testify: Richard Gowle alone supplied Richard and Anne with silks worth nearly £200 in 1483, while John Pickering sold Richard clothes with a value of more than £1,000 during the same period.9 Payments were made in October 1484 to the comptroller of the port at London for nineteen ‘pieces of fine Holland cloth’ worth £61 4s 9d, and other ‘certain clothes of velvet and silks’ worth £16 18s 4d ‘for us and to our use’.10 The following January, an additional £50 5s 4d was spent on ‘certain clothes of velvet satin and chamlet’ as well as marten furs and bog shanks for ‘our right trusty and right entirely beloved brother’ John, duke of Suffolk.11
A sense of Richard’s understanding of the importance of dress can be gathered from his instructions in September 1484 to the bishop of Enachden, which were to be related to the Irish earl of Desmond. Richard was determined that, in becoming the king’s liegeman, Desmond should not only swear an oath of loyalty ‘and be ready to live and die against all earthly creatures and utterly endeavour me to the resistance and suppressing of his enemies, rebels and traitors’, but also gave particular instructions that Desmond was to abandon ‘the wearing and usage of the Irish array and from henceforth to give and apply himself to use the manner of the apparel for his person after the English guise, and after the fashion that the king’s grace sendeth unto him, as well of gowns, doublets, hose and bonets’. Richard even sent Desmond two long gowns, one cloth of gold and the other velvet, two doublets, one velvet and the other fashioned from crimson satin, three shirts, three pairs of hose in the different colours of scarlet, violet and black, and two bonnets. A collar of gold ‘o
f his devise’ weighing twenty ounces and worth £30 was also sent to the earl, which the bishop was to deliver ‘in most convenient place and honourable presence’.12
Richard’s instructions to Desmond also reveal a personal side to the king, in which he sent his condolences for the death of the earl’s father, who had been murdered, it was alleged, in February 1468 by the earl of Worcester acting on behalf of the Woodville family, merely for facing up to Edward IV and declaring that his marriage was an unsuitable one. Richard recalled in his message ‘the manifold notable service and kindness’ that Desmond’s father had given to ‘the famous prince the duke of York the king’s father at diverse seasons of great necessity in those parts to his great jeopardies and charges done’. Richard expressed his sympathy and ‘inward compassion’ that, although he was only ‘then being of young age’ when Desmond’s father had been ‘slain and murdered by colour of the laws within Ireland by certain persons then having the governance and rule there, against all manhood, reason, and good conscience’, he understood how the earl must feel at the loss of his father, for ‘the semblable [similar] chance was and happened since within this realm of England, as well of his brother the duke of Clarence as other his nigh kinsmen and great friends’.13 It was obvious that, in spite of his intention to keep his true feelings ‘inward’, Richard was inviting a comparison between the deaths of Clarence and the earl of Desmond’s father, with the inference that the Woodvilles lay behind both men’s deaths.
Other letters written during the year hint at a compassion that extended even to his sworn enemies. In an undated letter, Richard wrote to his Chancellor, John Russell, revealing that it had been ‘showed unto us’ that the solicitor-general, Thomas Lynom, having been sent to interview Elizabeth Shore, still imprisoned at Ludgate on Richard’s orders, had been ‘marvelously blinded and abused with the late [wife] of William Shore’ and now was in a relationship with the prisoner.14 Earlier in the year, on 29 January, Richard had rewarded Lynom with the manor of Colmouth in Bedfordshire, noting how ‘we trusting in your truth, diligence and discretion’.15 Now, Richard wrote, Lynom had seemingly taken the opposite course, and remarkably had become betrothed to Elizabeth Shore, and ‘hath made contract of matrimony with her as it is said, and entendeth to our full great marvel to proceed to the effect of the same … We for many causes would be sorry that he so should be disposed’, Richard informed Russell:
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