Richard III

by Chris Skidmore

  Just a year earlier, in October 1483, he had avoided the use of the royal style, instead using his traditional signature, ‘Henry de Richemont’.33 Now, for the first time, Henry was setting out his own right to rule, and his claim to the throne. To claim the crown formally even before he had set foot in England was a bold and unheard-of step. Neither Henry Bolingbroke in 1399 nor Edward IV in 1471 had made their intentions known, asserting that they simply wished to be restored to their dukedoms instead. It seems that the price for French support had been for Henry to declare his intention to usurp the throne, causing maximum possible disruption to English affairs; in his letter of 3 November to Toulon, Charles VIII had boasted of the English divisions that he was now determined to exploit. Henry, he wrote, had arrived in France, ‘in order to recover the realm of England from the enemies of France’; Henry’s own claim to the throne rested, the letter continued, on him being the younger son of Henry VI.34 This was patently false, but Charles VIII and his guardian, Anne of Beaujeu, needed a propaganda coup to bolster their flagging regime against the criticisms of Louis, duke of Orléans. With growing fears that Richard III would join forces with Brittany and Burgundy against France, the arrival of Henry Tudor offered an opportunity to not only hold England to account, but to turn the tables on the Orléanist faction. Few of the general French population would have known of Henry Tudor’s true origins, but the news that the government had secured possession of a Lancastrian heir to the throne would certainly have resonated.

  With news that Tudor and the French were sending letters calling for Richard’s deposition into the country, military preparations would be stepped up, beginning with the issuing of a commission of array on 8 December for all counties. Detailed instructions to commissioners for gathering and inspecting every man and their weapons were issued, with commissioners instructed first to ‘thank the people for their true and loving dispositions showed to his highness the last year for the surety and defence of his most royal person … exhorting them so to continue’, before ensuring ‘they be able men and well horsed and harnessed and no rascal, and to endeavour them to increase the number by their wisdoms and policies if they can’.35 The commissions of array coincided with the publication of a proclamation, condemning Henry Tudor and the rebels as if they were an extension of the rebellions that had taken place the previous autumn.36 The rebels had taken as ‘their captain … one Henry late calling himself Earl of Richmond’, who through his own ambition and ‘insatiable covetousness’ and being ‘stirred and excited’ by the rebels, ‘encroacheth upon him the name and title of Royal estate of this Realm of England, whereunto he hath no manner, interest, right or colour as every man well knoweth’. The news that Henry was currently in French hands would be used to full effect, castigating the earl for taking financial support from England’s oldest enemies. Richard warned that Henry had struck a deal with France, who had ‘bargained with him’ to give up all claims that the kings of England had ‘and ought to have’ to the French crown, as well as forfeiting the English possessions of Calais, Guines and Hammes.

  Beside this ‘greatest … shame and rebuke that ever might fall to this land’, Richard warned that Henry and the rebels ‘intended at their coming to do the most cruel murders, slaughters, robberies and disinheritances that ever were seen in any Christian Realm’. In order to prevent these ‘inestimable dangers’ and to ensure the king’s rebels ‘may either be utterly put from their said malicious purposes or soon discomfited if they enforce to land’, Richard commanded that every one of his subjects:

  like good and true English men to endeavour themselves and all their powers for the defence of themselves, their wives, children, goods and inheritances against the said malicious purposes and conspiracies which the ancient enemies of this land have made with the king’s said rebels for the final destruction of the same land as is aforesaid. And our said sovereign lord as a well willed diligent and courageous prince will put his most royal person to all labour and pain necessary in this behalf for the resistance and subduing of his said enemies, rebels, and traitors to the most comfort, weal and surety of all and singular his true and faithful liegemen and subjects.37

  At the same time, a separate proclamation declared how ‘the king’s grace willeth that for the love that he hath for the ministration and execution of Justice for the common wealth of this realm … if any person findeth grieved of murder, manslaughter, extortion, oppression or any other injury or wrong contrary to justice, done by any officer or any other person’ they were to ‘show it to the king’s grace and according to Justice and his laws they shall have remedy’.38 The timing of the proclamation, coinciding with the king’s attack against Tudor, was hardly subtle. Regardless of its noble statements and professions of justice, it more than suggests that, above all, Richard viewed such statements and their intent principally as a means by which to secure popular support.39

  Meanwhile, Richard continued his negotiations with Brittany. By 20 December, Duke Francis II agreed to send an embassy to England to discuss the extension of the truce. On 2 March, this was finally agreed, with an announcement that the arrangement would last until 1492. To the French, England’s renewal of the Breton truce appeared a direct threat to France’s own security, while many believed that an English attack was now a real possibility. It seemed that France was also on the brink of civil war: in January 1485, Louis of Orléans formally announced his intention to liberate Charles VIII from his sister, Anne of Beaujeu. At the same time the worsening situation in the Netherlands was proving an increasing distraction for the French government: since the death of Mary of Burgundy in 1482, the Flemish towns of Ghent, Bruges and Ypres had been running the country in the name of the infant archduke, Philip, refusing to accept the regency of Philip’s father, Maximilian of Austria. With the Flemish towns adopting a Francophile policy, there were potential major gains to be had. In November and December 1484, armies were raised on both sides, with war breaking out in January 1485. It was hardly surprising that Henry Tudor’s mission would no longer be viewed as an immediate priority by the French. According to Vergil, Richard ‘understood from making investigations that Henry was wearying of begging the French for aid to be gone, was gaining nothing and making no progress’. The news came as a comfort, yet Richard was taking nothing for granted. ‘So as not to be unprepared for attack’, Vergil wrote, ‘he commanded the nobles living around the sea coast, and chiefly the Welsh to keep watch so that the approach to the kingdom would not lie open to his adversaries.’40

  It was during the Christmas celebrations of 1484 that Edward IV’s daughters, Elizabeth, now aged eighteen, and Cecily, fifteen, were allowed to take part in the court festivities. Elizabeth made an instant impression. According to the Crowland chronicler, Elizabeth’s conduct was among the ‘things unbefitting’ and ‘evil examples’ which should not sully ‘the minds of the faithless’: ‘There are many other things besides, which are not written in this book and of which it is grievous to speak’, yet the chronicler admitted that ‘nevertheless it should not be left unsaid that during this Christmas feast too much attention was paid to singing and dancing and to vain exchanges of clothing between Queen Anne and Lady Elizabeth, who were alike in complexion and figure. The people spoke against this and the magnates and prelates were greatly astonished.’41 The chronicler’s censorious comments may reflect his own ecclesiastical background, writing for a monastic audience, yet they also point not only to the lavish nature of Richard’s court, but also to the striking observation that Elizabeth of York and the queen should have been seen as close. Only the previous year, Richard had effectively disinherited Elizabeth when he had declared her brothers illegitimate; if this was the case, why should Elizabeth be allowed to share the rich silks of gold and purple traditionally associated with royalty? To observers, comparing the queen and Elizabeth together, they seemed so alike as to be disconcerting; what else was being reported upon, those ‘evil examples’ that the chronicler spoke of, it is impossible to k
now. Yet it was from this moment that rumours surrounding Elizabeth’s own position at Richard’s court had begun to swirl.

  The welcoming of his nieces to court was just one part of Richard’s strategy of reconciliation with the Woodvilles and their supporters. Elizabeth Woodville and other English exiles had supported Henry Tudor’s attempt to seize the throne on the condition that he marry Elizabeth of York, a concession that they had been so insistent upon that Henry had been forced to swear an oath the previous year. Now Henry’s declaration of his claim in writing, basing it on lineal descent, suggested that Tudor was prepared to base his claim to the throne not on marriage to Edward IV’s daughter, crowning her rightful queen, but on his own Beaufort descent, meaning nothing less than a Lancastrian restoration to the throne. The arrival at Henry’s exiled court of the Lancastrian earl of Oxford, who had never recognised the Yorkist dynasty, must have been equally concerning. Richard was quick to recognise the Woodville discomfort at Tudor’s new positioning. In an effort to destabilise the English exile community, who were principally from the Yorkist establishment and entirely unwilling to countenance a wholesale Lancastrian restoration, Richard was prepared to extend the offer of pardon to former rebels now willing to come back into the fold. On 12 January 1485, the queen’s brother, Richard Woodville, and Sir John Fogge bound themselves to the king in a recognisance for the sum of 1,000 marks to ‘bear themselves well and faithfully’. Their pardons followed in February and March, along with a pardon for the Woodville kinsman and rebel Richard Haute.42 During the first five months of 1485, several other former rebels were persuaded to accept Richard’s authority, and accepted pardon, including Reginald Pympe, Roger Tocotes, Amyas Paulet and William Ovedale.43 Robert Radcliffe, who had been an early supporter of Edward Woodville and had previously been declared a traitor by Richard as Protector, was also welcomed back and rewarded by Richard in April.44

  Encouraged by the treatment of her daughters, Queen Elizabeth also seems to have been in contact with her exiled sons, Edward and Thomas, urging them to defect from Henry’s camp. Thomas, marquess of Dorset, had found himself sidelined after Oxford’s arrival, and increasingly despondent at the lack of enthusiasm of the French government to support their cause. ‘Not expecting any good to come from Henry’s approaches’, and having been in contact with his mother, he became ‘enticed by rewards and many promises from Richard’.45 Dorset chose to desert Henry’s camp in Paris, and fled in secret, his destination Flanders, where he intended to board a boat to return to England. When Henry learnt of Dorset’s flight, he became ‘greatly disturbed in mind’, in particular since the marquess had been a close confidant, and ‘privy to all their deliberations’. Henry had to act fast to prevent Dorset from betraying his plans to Richard. Men were sent out ‘in all directions’ to pursue the marquess: eventually he was captured by Humphrey Cheyney and Matthew Baker, ‘taking a short cut through a field’, who placed Dorset temporarily in custody in Lyon Castle.46

  Still a slow drip of rebels continued to cross the seas to join Henry’s exiled community. The rebel William Berkeley of Beverstone had been pardoned in March 1484, after his uncle, Edward, and brother-in-law, John, Lord Stourton, had put up a bond of 1,000 marks for his good behaviour. By the end of the year, however, Berkeley had chosen to flee to Henry, leaving his own family to foot the bill.47 Others included John Mortimer, an esquire of the king’s body, while Piers Curteys, the Keeper of the King’s Great Wardrobe, who had worked assiduously to prepare for the king’s coronation, forfeited both his land and office to take refuge in sanctuary.48 Tudor was also being supplied with money and goods from several London merchants, with the draper William Bret purchasing six ‘curas called harneys’, twelve pairs of brigandines and twenty-four sallets for £37.49

  Richard would celebrate Christmas at court in confident anticipation that he would be able to crush any future rebellion by Henry Tudor in the forthcoming year. At the feast of Epiphany, 6 January, Richard appeared wearing the royal crown, and took such a prominent role in the festivities taking place in Westminster Hall, it seemed as if he was re-creating ‘his original coronation’.50 The same day, Richard was taken aside to hear the latest report from his spies, who had sent back new information from the continent. They brought back news that Henry Tudor and the English exiles abroad were planning an invasion, which would now take place that summer. ‘Without any doubt, his enemies would invade the kingdom or make an attempt, as soon as the summer came.’51 Richard’s initial reaction was not what had perhaps been expected. ‘He wanted nothing better than this’, the Crowland chronicler reported, ‘since it might well be thought that it would put an end to all his doubts and misfortunes’.52

  19

  ‘GRIEF AND DISPLEASURE’

  Shortly after the Christmas festivities, the Crowland chronicler wrote how Queen Anne ‘fell extremely sick’. As her illness ‘increased more and more’, Richard chose to sleep in separate apartments to the queen.1 According to Vergil, Richard ‘desired the death of his wife Anne, which in any way he decided to accelerate’; however, the king feared that, in doing so, he might ‘offend opinion … when he believed he had engendered goodwill in the people’.2 Instead, the Italian believed, Richard chose to alienate his wife slowly and subtly: ‘First he abstained from their conjugal bed and at the same time now and again complained to everyone, and especially to Thomas Rotherham, archbishop of York, whom a little before he had released from custody, that she had not given birth.’ Rotherham believed that it was a sign that ‘the queen would not live long’, feeling confident enough to tell his own friends.3 Rotherham seems an unusual confidant for Richard to divulge such personal information, especially given that he had been removed from office for handing over the Great Seal to Elizabeth Woodville, but perhaps it had been Richard’s intent to ensure that news of his wife’s demise should deliberately reach Woodville circles as part of a planned attempt at public disinformation about the queen’s health.

  Vergil believed that the king himself ‘took care to start a rumour, from an unknown source, among the people concerning the death of his wife the queen, so namely either the woman being affected with anguish by the rumour had fallen into sickness, and perished, or he could judge how the people would perceive it’. When Anne discovered that the rumour of her imminent death was ‘spreading among the people’, determined to discover the cause, ‘she approached her husband, sad and weeping lamentably, and asked him why he wished to be free of her’. Richard replied ‘consolingly’ and ‘bade her be of good cheer’.4

  Vergil’s highly partisan account cannot be corroborated; however, the Crowland chronicler observed that after ‘the queen began to be seriously ill’, her sickness ‘was then believed to have got worse and worse’; as a result, Richard ‘was completely spurning his consort’s bed’ having ‘judged it right to consult with doctors’.5 This seems a more likely account of the real situation: Anne had fallen seriously ill, possibly with an infectious disease such as tuberculosis, on account of which the king was forced to sleep in separate chambers, only driving further rumours that Richard intended to leave the queen and marry another.

  By now, rumours had begun to spread that the king had expressed an unlikely interest in marrying his own niece, Elizabeth of York. ‘It was said by many that the king was applying his mind in every way to contracting a marriage with Elizabeth either after the death of the queen, or by means of a divorce for which he believed he had sufficient grounds. He saw no other way of confirming his crown and dispelling the hopes of his rival’, the Crowland chronicler later observed.6

  An inscription found in the copy of the French prose Tristan, which had once belonged to Richard, is that of Elizabeth’s own signature and motto, ‘sans removyr, Elyzabeth’: previously Elizabeth had signed herself ‘Elizabeth the Queen’s daughter’, which suggests that at the time of signing the book, she was unable to call herself princess. Did Elizabeth borrow the book from her uncle, or did Richard give her the book himself? Another in
scription among the books of the royal library is more intriguing still. At the end of the book, a French verse translation of Boethius’s De consolation philosophiae, Elizabeth has signed the book not with her own motto, but with Richard’s own, ‘Loyaulte Me Lye’, although in spite of her careful handwriting, Elizabeth made an error in writing ‘loyaulte’ and was later to insert the letter ‘y’ over the word. Scribbles throughout the work, in a fifteenth-century hand, show a particular interest in the changing nature of fortune. Perhaps in making use of her uncle’s motto, Elizabeth had resigned herself to her own change in fortune, accepting Richard as king.7

  Another piece of evidence is a transcript of a letter, apparently written by Elizabeth of York to John, duke of Norfolk, in February 1485, which was shown to the antiquary George Buck by the earl of Arundel in the seventeenth century. According to the letter, the contents of which were summarised by Buck, Elizabeth ‘being very desirous to be married’, had written to Howard that she knew how much ‘the king her father much loved him, and that he was a very faithful servant unto him and to the king his brother then reigning, and very loving and serviceable to King Edward’s children’:

  First she thanked him for his many courtesies and friendly offices and then she prayed him as before to be a mediator for her in the cause of the marriage with the king, who, as she wrote, was her only joy and maker in this world, and that she was his in heart and thoughts, in body and in all. And then she intimated that the better half of February was past and that she feared the queen would never die.8

  On first impression, the letter, if taken at face value, seems to corroborate the rumours circulating around the court, that Richard and Elizabeth were close before his wife had died; yet closer inspection of Buck’s work reveals that Sir George made significant additions to the first draft of his original notes, including, crucially, the words ‘in the cause of the marriage’. Written without the later additions, it can be read that Elizabeth ‘prayed him to be a mediator for her to the king’, which hardly implies that marriage was on the cards.9 Even if Buck made his revisions in good faith, the words ‘the cause of the marriage with the king’ need not specifically have to refer to a marriage to her uncle, but instead could plausibly refer to Richard’s negotiations on her behalf to marry her to another eligible bridegroom. Already Richard had married her younger sister Cecily off to Ralph Scrope of Upsall, a younger brother of Thomas Scrope, Lord Scrope of Masham; Elizabeth expected that, according to Richard’s declaration the previous year, he would soon arrange her marriage. It is perhaps this sense of anticipation that can be read into the letter, if the original did indeed exist.