Richard III and the Murder in the Tower

by Peter A. Hancock

  Sunday 22 June 1483

  To the Ricardian scholar, the events which followed on from this crucial interval are vital in order to understand the way in which Richard claimed the throne.68 However, for my present purposes, I shall only give a brief synopsis of these events,69 since I believe that Richard’s critical decision to assume the throne had been taken nine days earlier. What now plays out is the fulfillment of that fundamental decision. It was on this Sunday that the brother of the Mayor of London,70 Ralph Shaa (Shaw) preached a sermon at St Paul’s Cross on the theme that ‘bastard slips shall not take root.’71 It was clearly and explicitly directed at the sons of Edward IV, and would have certainly been appreciated by his audience as such. Mancini indicates that it was one of a number of such public announcements.72 This being so, it must have been part of a concerted effort to lay the groundwork for Richard’s taking of the throne. If Mancini is correct, then such a strategy would have required some form of planning and so fixes Richard’s actions and thus his decision as occurring some time before this Sunday. Parenthetically, Shaa died in the following year and his death was attributed by More to shame and remorse.73 Shame and remorse seem to have fallen out of favour as modern causes of death, and we can certainly see this as another attempt at post hoc condemnation on More’s behalf.

  From Conception to Completion

  In the days that followed, the path that Richard had created to the throne must have followed to a reasonable degree upon his expectations. One of his primary concerns since Stony Stratford had been the fate of those of the Woodville clan that he had secured there and now his strategy here was completed. On 23 June, Anthony Woodville, Lord Rivers made his will while at the Castle of Sheriff Hutton.74 Shortly after, he was moved from Sheriff Hutton to Pontefract (Pomfret) Castle. In his will, he named Russell and Catesby as executors. It is of more than passing interest that he named Catesby here, and it is a point to which I shall return. The campaign to push Richard’s legitimate candidature as king persisted in the capital and was met with some degree of doubt and reticence. However, since the power resided with Richard this was largely a public relations exercise rather than a potential plebiscite. On 24 June, in the north of England, Ratcliffe arrived at Pontefract with the execution orders for Rivers, who had come from Sheriff Hutton, as well as Grey, who was brought from Middleham Castle, and Vaughan, who was at Pontefract already.75 A day later they were executed, and, like Hastings, they received no trial.76 It is just conceivable and barely logistically possible that Ratcliffe could have returned to London after delivering Richard’s letter of 10 June to York and 11 June to Lord Neville. This would, presumably, have involved some very hard riding from the 16th onward to London in a four-day journey and then another four days to return to Pontefract. It appears much more likely that Ratcliffe had the orders of execution with him when he first left London on, presumably, 11 June. This being so, it is certainly possible that Hastings saw the execution warrants as More speculated. As such, Hastings would surely have had occasion to be even more grateful and loyal to Richard, who had now dispatched some of his principal enemies. Of course, we cannot rule out the possibility that the orders were carried to Ratcliffe by a subsequent messenger,77 but this seems an unlikely task to have entrusted to anyone but a very close and influential associate.

  In the days which followed, it appears to have been Buckingham’s role to act as the ‘front-man’ to convince a sufficient number of people to accept Richard’s claim. At a meeting in Westminster, Mancini noted that Buckingham was to present these respective grounds, which later appeared in the Titulus Regius of 1484. Among these claims, the issue of the pre-contract stands out. Although not the only objection, it must have been the one with the greatest probability of material provenance. The accusation of the use of witchcraft, especially in relation to Jacquetta, Duchess of Bedford, might well have been an expected and even required smear. The problem concerning the secrecy of Edward IV’s marriage to Elizabeth Woodville, the lack of approval by the lords and the absence of the publication of the banns are hardly crucial reasons, since the alleged marriage with Eleanor Butler was of exactly the same form. Thus we are left with Stillington’s confirmation of the pre-contract.

  On 26 June, just one day after the Pontefract executions, the lords gathered at Baynard’s Castle in order to petition Richard to take the throne.78 As the front-man for this enterprise, Buckingham’s activities were nearing fruition. After an evident show of humility, Richard accepted the throne and began to put his own administration in place.79 Of particular interest for the present work, William Catesby was made Chancellor of the Exchequer. Later he would be Speaker of the House in the only Parliament held during Richard’s reign. The final outcome of this train of events was that on the 6 July 1483, Richard, Duke of Gloucester was crowned Richard III in Westminster Abbey.80 It was but two years and two months to the Battle of Bosworth Field.

  I started this chapter with the central question which acts to bias any assessment of Richard III and his ambitions. If one sees Richard looking for the crown on or before his brother Edward’s death then one is likely to adopt a position reflective of Richard as a long-term, scheming usurper.81 The later one places Richard’s decision to assume the throne, the more lenient one is liable to be in one’s viewpoint. In what I have tried to set forth here, I have suggested that the interval around the critical Council meeting on Friday 13 June was the juncture at which Richard made this fateful decision. In fact, although not indispensable to my present argument, I would like to suggest that it was the events of that very morning that proved the pivotal turning point which changed Richard from fairly assiduous Protector to aspiring monarch. Thus, to understand the story of Richard III, we have to understand the events of that critical day: Friday 13th June 1483. It is to the examination of this fateful day that I now turn.

  2

  Eleanor Talbot, Lady Butler

  The holiest harlot in his realm.

  The Uncrowned Queen?

  Any explanation of the events which took place on 13 June 1483 at the Tower of London has to begin some decades earlier and some distance away from London. John Ashdown-Hill, whose recent work has been most informative and influential,1 has asserted that the events of that summer have to be viewed in light of the question of the so-called ‘pre-contract,’ since, as he points out, ‘Richard III’s claim to the throne was based chiefly on the presumption that Lady Eleanor Talbot was the legitimate wife of Edward IV.’2 It is this relationship between Edward IV and his nominal ‘uncrowned queen’3 which proves to be crucial in respect of the explanation of events that I propose.

  Eleanor’s Early Life

  Since this issue of the pre-contract is so important, it is fundamental to begin with some of the facts of Eleanor Talbot’s life (c. 1436–1468) and her actions and activities before and after the so-called ‘pre-contract’ occurred. Eleanor was the tenth of the eleven children of John Talbot (c. 1387–1453), the 1st Earl of Shrewsbury, whose spectacular demise is recorded to have occurred in battle with the French at Castillon on 17 July 1453. The earl himself was the first child of Richard Talbot (4th Baron Talbot of Goodrich) and his wife, Ankaret (Le)Strange. This couple was also blessed with a large family and had nine children, the last of whom, Alice, we shall hear more of presently. John Talbot married twice. The first time was around 1405 to Maud Neville (c. 1390–1424), with whom he had five children, two of whom died in early childhood. Talbot’s second marriage occurred sometime around 14244 to Margaret Beauchamp (1404–1467), by whom he had a further five children, the penultimate child of that marriage being Eleanor herself. We can see painted representations of John Talbot and his second wife in Figures 5 and 6.5

  To the best of our knowledge, Eleanor was born probably in either February or March 1436, possibly at the manor house of Blakemere, near Whitchurch in Shropshire.6 Ashdown-Hill argued for this location, as it was a house that her father John had inherited from his mother and was apparently a favourite residence. Ho
wever, as he also notes, it could equally well have been Goodrich Castle in Herefordshire.7 As will become evident, the latter location is one of potentially great importance and can perhaps serve to render some insight into Eleanor’s subsequent relationships and actions. It is probable that Eleanor would have been brought up in one main location but would almost certainly have visited a number of the family residences, including the likes of Sheffield Castle. Although John Talbot’s favouritism toward Blakemere is suggested by his eventual nearby burial under the porch of St Alkmund’s church in Whitchurch, Shropshire,8 Eleanor may have been bought up in Goodrich Castle, since on the monument which commemorated his first burial at Rouen in Normandy, her father is titled ‘Lord of Goodrich and Orchenfield’.9

  The Butler Marriage

  If we have the date of her birth correct, and we can be reasonably certain of the general period, then Eleanor’s subsequent marriage to Sir Thomas Butler (the son of Ralph Butler, Lord Sudeley), which occurred around late 1449 or early 1450,10 would have seen Eleanor as a bride at the age of just thirteen or fourteen years of age. It has been speculated that Eleanor would have then lived in the house of her in-laws until the age of sixteen, when the marriage would have been consummated sometime in 1452, or possibly early 1453.11 Indeed, in early May of 1453, Eleanor is mentioned in a document in which Ralph, Lord Sudeley presented a deed of gift to his son (Thomas) and his wife (referred to as Eleanor, daughter of the Earl of Shrewsbury) and their legitimate heirs with the manors of Griff, Fenny Compton and Burton Dassett (sometimes noted as Great Dorsett or Chipping Dorsett after the market held there). All of these were in the county of Warwickshire, although Eleanor apparently held some other lands in Wiltshire also.12 As we shall see, geographical issues play almost as crucial a role in the present proposition as those of history itself and so it is important to confirm here that the manors of Fenny Compton and Burton Dassett (or Great Dorsett) adjoin each other in south-west Warwickshire. While it has been a somewhat difficult search, the latter manor of Griff (or Grieve), lies approximately twenty miles north of Great Dorset in the vicinity of the suburbs of modern day Coventry, just south of Nuneaton. The map of the two adjacent properties of Fenny Compton and Burton Dassett is shown in Figure 8.

  Perhaps this gift followed on the consummation of the marriage? Although we do not know this for certain, it may very well have been around this time in 1453 that Eleanor and Thomas13 set up their own household, most probably on the manor lands which they had been granted. At this time, Great Dorsett was a much more substantive gift than it might appear today. Earlier, Henry III had granted permission to hold a market there every Friday and an annual fair of three days from the eve of St James. Such was the prosperity of the town that in 1332 Great Dorsett had paid taxes to the king’s treasury of almost one-quarter of those paid by the whole of the city of Coventry.14 We do not know what the equivalent revenues were at the time of Eleanor’s possession. However, it would appear that this was still a major centre and the manor of Great Dorsett most probably included all of the present-day settlements of Burton Dassett, Avon Dassett, Little Dassett, Temple Herdewyke and Northend. This being so, the gift of Lord Sudelely to his son and daughter-in-law certainly appears to have been an appropriately generous one. Parenthetically, this property was later broken up by the actions of Sir Edward Belknap who, at the very end of the fifteenth century, evicted sixty people in his conversion to pasture. Sir Edward’s actions, although purportedly logical at the time, seem to have spelled the end of Great Dorsett’s fame. The actual village of Burton Dassett is now only a few farms and farm buildings around All Saints’ church, and the most evident landmark of the settlement is the tower on the Dassett Hills (now a country park), which can be seen from the nearby motorway, the M40 (see Figure 31).

  Around the time that Eleanor and her husband were gifted the property, she would have been approximately seventeen years of age. Thomas Butler, her husband, as best we know was in his early thirties. Let us accept then, as a reasonable possibility, that Eleanor Butler (née Talbot) was now the young and inexperienced lady of the manor. It seems reasonable to assume that they would have taken up their respective roles as the lord and lady of this demesne, which would certainly appear to have been their largest and most profitable property (see Appendix III notes on the Manor of Great Dorsett). Indeed, there is an intriguing possibility that one of the major charities of the area could have been associated with Eleanor.15 It is important here to consider for a moment what Eleanor’s social life would have been like at this time. To help understand a critical social connection with an extended part of her family, I again have to delve further back in time and explore her relations within the Talbot family and especially the youngest sister of Eleanor’s father, Alice Talbot.

  Joan Barre, Eleanor’s First Cousin

  Earlier, I noted that Richard Talbot (4th Baron Talbot of Goodrich) had a total of nine children with his wife Ankaret (Le)Strange. The first of these was Eleanor’s father, John Talbot (1st Earl of Shrewsbury). However, the last of the nine, and thus Talbot’s youngest sister, was Alice Talbot, who married Sir Thomas Barre. Their only child, a daughter, was Joan (or Jane) Barre. In terms of familial relationship, Joan was Eleanor’s first cousin with the common grandfather and grandmother in Richard Talbot and Ankaret Strange. However, in terms of age, the two women were separated by a number of years. To the best of present knowledge, Joan was born about 1422, with her first marriage, to Sir Kynard de la Bere, taking place some time around late 1430s, since their son Richard was recorded as being born in 1440 (see Figure 9), by which time Joan would have been perhaps eighteen. However, following the death of her first husband, Joan re-married, this time to Sir William Catesby of Ashby St Ledgers (see Figure 7), to the best of our knowledge sometime around 10 June 1453.16 It was a second marriage for both of them, she being approximately thirty years of age and he somewhat older at approximately thirty-three years old. Sir William had been previously married to Phillippa Bishopston, the daughter of William Bishopston and Phillippa Willcott, and by her he had already three children, two girls and one boy. Phillippa was recorded as dying on 7 December 1446,17 when the young boy, also William, was only six or seven years old. He would have been born around 1440, and was the oldest of Phillippa’s children. He was, of course, ‘the Cat’ of Colyngbourne doggerel, and represents the key figure in the present work. Following his 1453 marriage to Joan Barre, William’s father, Sir William, had three more children, two boys and a girl, the latter of whom died as a child.18

  Given the dates involved, it appears that the young William Catesby was still a child and just about into his teen years when he gained his new stepmother. In contrast, Eleanor was about seventeen years old and, by the standards of the day, almost a full adult when her first cousin married Sir William Catesby. As we shall surmise, the link between Eleanor and Joan now becomes critical to the question of the legitimacy of Edward IV’s subsequent marriage to Elizabeth Woodville, in light of the revealed precontract with Eleanor (Talbot) Butler.

  Now we must step from the realms of reasonably well-documented information and proceed rather carefully into the world of speculation. The first such speculation is one that might not be too difficult to sustain. Joan was born into the extensive Talbot family around 1422. As noted, she was the niece of the famous John Talbot, who was by now the head of the whole family. John Talbot himself married twice, and his second marriage occurred on 26 September 1425 to Margaret Beauchamp. He was then forty-one and she twenty-one years old. I think it must be a supportable proposition that Joan Barre, the niece of the bridegroom, was at the wedding. Indeed, I suspect Joan’s mother, Alice, and the new bride, Margaret, were friends. We know that some years later Joan married Sir Kynard de la Bere and was known by the appellation ‘Joan of Clehonger.’ Clehonger itself is a small village right outside Hereford, and is just under thirteen miles from Goodrich Castle. Both Goodrich and Clehonger are directly adjacent to the River Wye and, in fact, Goodrich Cas
tle itself dominates its banks. It might be objected, however, that Joan was married to Sir Kynard de la Bere, who was the lord of Kinnersley Castle. However, Kinnersley is itself only nine miles further on from Clehonger, and is again very near to the Wye. I think, therefore, there is some justification for believing that Margaret acted as a form of older advisor or older sister to Joan, especially perhaps in the first years of Joan’s marriage. This, I must especially note, is pure speculation; I cannot substantiate this relationship at the present time. However, as we shall see, this early association, while strengthening my argument, was not absolutely essential to the overall proposition that I set forth here.

  Given these family connections and the close proximity of where Joan was presumably living (at either Clehonger or Kinnersely) to one of the major residences of the senior Talbot family (at Goodrich), it is perhaps no great stretch from this premise to speculate that Joan Barre knew Margret Beauchamp’s daughter Eleanor from the moment of her birth. If, as is possible, Eleanor was actually born at Goodrich, and I suspect she was, Joan may well have attended the confinement, being a young lady of approximately fourteen years of age at the time. By that juncture, some time early in 1436, Margaret had already given John Talbot three children. I have no date for the death of Sir Kynard de la Bere, but it is probable that Joan saw Eleanor grow up, at least to her late childhood and early teen years, and strong attachments are made during such formative years. It was in 1449–1450 that Eleanor, at the age of thirteen or fourteen, was married to Sir Thomas Butler, and must have moved from her familiar surroundings to her new domicile, perhaps in the home of the father of her husband-to-be in Gloucestershire. It was only three or four years later, in 1453, that Joan herself married her second husband, Sir William Catesby.