“Spawn of the devil!” shouted another. “Look at his ’ump. By God, ’tis monstrous,” and many crossed themselves as the pale misshapen body jostled past.
“I’ll say this for him,” one stouthearted Englishman in Thomas Stanley’s turncoat force called out. “He may have been crookbacked and a usurper, but for a runt he fought with courage and died like a king.”
Two nights later, an auburn-haired woman knelt at the head of the crude bier on which Richard’s body had been lain by the monks of Greyfriars. Kate had kept vigil all night, praying that Richard’s tortured soul was now soothed in his wife’s eternal embrace. But as dawn filtered through the leaded panes, one of the brothers touched her arm and motioned for her to leave.
It was time to bury the fallen king, he told her kindly.
Sadly, Kate turned her gaze away for the final time and slipped out of the side chapel. She could hear the chipping of a pickaxe on tile and earth somewhere in the nave near the altar, and the sound made her shiver.
“He is being buried in this church?” she asked. “Forgive me, Brother, but he should be buried alongside his wife in Westminster. He was the Lord’s anointed, you remember? King Henry owes him decent burial.”
“The new king has washed his hands of him, mistress. We must bury him swiftly here. But in recognition of his noble status, he will be buried with our founder in the nave. We dare not disobey.”
Kate shook her head. “A king with no decency is no king of mine,” she muttered and hurried away. She knew now what she must do. Feeling for the écu beneath her bodice, she returned to the Wygston house, a plan already in place in her mind. She must go to Kent and tell her son, Dickon, who his real parents were. She would finally claim him, entrust him with the talisman, and tell him the real story of Richard of Gloucester. Already she could hear the falsehoods that would be passed from mouth to mouth and from year to year and down the centuries. At least Richard’s two sons would know the truth about their father.
At noon on the twenty-fifth day of August in the first year of King Henry the Seventh’s reign, the abbot of the Grey Friars monastery stood at the hastily dug gravesite in the nave, his eyes lifted to the altar crucifix and his hands in prayer. He had chastised the grave diggers for not measuring the corpse properly, causing Richard’s now-cleansed head to be unnaturally tilted over his left shoulder to fit his meagre grave. His arms were forcibly tied at the wrists, which fell to his right side, “to save room,” the gravedigger said. At least a piece of russet had been laid modestly over his loins, but the wounds and bruises were still livid against his pallid skin. The abbot had also been disturbed by how shallow the hole was, barely deep enough to cover his body.
“At least he is buried in hallowed ground,” the man had told his sacrist, before the short ceremony. “The poor man at least deserves that. But we cannot afford to delay or this new king may change his mind and throw him into the Soar. I did not dare commission a coffin or shroud for fear of reprisals. Henry wanted no expense and ordered me to simply dig a hole in some isolated spot within the grounds. I could not bring myself to obey that uncharitable command. King Richard gave a grant to this monastery on his progress, and he was a godly man, for all his faults.”
Looking about him for eavesdroppers, the sacrist whispered: “I did hear the new king is so afeared his claim is weak, he has named the twenty-first day of August as the first of his reign.” He looked sadly at the lifeless form being laid in the grave. “Had Richard lived but lost the battle, he would have been executed as a traitor. ’Tis as well the man died bravely in battle.”
The abbot nodded. “Thanks be to God he did not live to see his own crown set upon Henry’s head by the perfidious Lord Stanley. It had rolled under a bush, they say. Now, there was a traitor.” He moved to the head of the grave and nodded to the brothers carrying spades. “It is time.”
A soft chanting from the choir monks and the gentle sound of dirt falling rhythmically into the grave accompanied the abbot’s prayer, his dulcet baritone intoning:
Te, Domine, sancte Pater, omnipotens aeterne Deus…. hear our prayers for your servant Richard, whom you have summoned out of this world. Forgive him his sins and failings and grant him a place of refreshment, light and peace….
And thus, while King Henry rode through the fickle, cheering Leicester crowds to give thanks in nearby St. Martin’s Church, Richard Plantagenet’s body disappeared clod by dusty clod into the Greyfriars earth to lie undisturbed and unclaimed for five hundred years.
Epilogue
I am not ashamed to say that I cried happy tears when I heard the news that DNA taken from bones found under a car park in September 2012 proved to be Richard’s. It had taken ten years, a team of archeologists, a lot of money and a frisson of intuition from a determined Scotswoman to find Richard’s grave at last. Now, with DNA technology, the identity of the bones could be verified.
I shivered at the words coming from a news conference at the University of Leicester in early 2013: “Beyond reasonable doubt, the individual exhumed at Grey Friars is indeed Richard III, last Plantagenet king of England,” Richard Buckley, director of the University of Leicester Archeological Services, explained to a media-packed audience that DNA taken from the skeleton matched that of a 17th-generation descendant of Richard’s sister, providing a positive identification. After 528 years of his grave being lost, Richard was finally found and exhumed for study.
Standing on Richard’s grave in July 2017, the thick glass all that lay between me and the 500-year-old crude hole into which his mutilated body had been shoved, I was profoundly moved. Not a week before, I had finished describing Richard’s leaving Leicester on his fateful march to Bosworth. Looking down on the eerie light projection of the skeleton in its original position, it was as though I, too, had dug through those layers of earth and medieval tiled floor to reveal the bones I have spent four years adding flesh to. Only then could I return to my manuscript and write Richard’s ignominious end.
How well I understood Philippa Langley’s emotions as she watched the painstaking uncovering of Richard’s remains. It is a testimony to the world-wide interest the dig generated that the trench, in its humble car-park locale, has been respectfully preserved in a quiet room of its own, only the faint sound of monks chanting to accompany the experience. I was so lucky to be in the space alone on that mid-week rainy morning. Not one to believe much in psychic phenomena, I had goosebumps as I meditated on his shabby treatment at the hands of Henry VII, and I could almost feel Richard’s restless spirit in that place.
Besides, after five decades of an obsession with this maligned man from history, and five books inspired by his fascinating life and family, why shouldn’t I have rejoiced? Perhaps this astonishing archeological discovery might bring him peace and spark reparation of the black reputation that has shadowed his name since his death in 1485.
Who do we have to blame for Richard III’s villainous notoriety? Mostly William Shakespeare, who wrote a damn fine play based on Tudor distortions of history, but he had so many facts wrong it is a wonder Richard didn’t rise up from his paltry grave and sue the Bard for libel—or at least haunt his dreams! The real culprit wasn’t Will, however. After all, he had simply resorted to standard sources of his day, such as the chronicles written by Raphael Holinshed, the court historian Polydore Vergil, and The Historie of King Richard III, a shameful piece of Tudor propaganda written by a pandering Sir Thomas More, councilor and Lord High Chancellor to King Henry VIII.
Two years passed after the discovery of the grave before a ceremony worthy of a king was envisioned. Even after being rescued from his paltry plot, Richard could not rest in peace. As it has had since Richard’s death, controversy swirled about him as Leicester and York fought for the privilege of entombing him nobly. Months of media hype, letters to the editor, petitions from various groups, and even a lawsuit postponed the reburial of the last Plantagenet.
Most Ricardians favored York, a place where, as you have seen i
n the pages of this book, Richard felt most at home. The Minster and its governing body was ready to receive its “good king Richard.” But so was Leicester’s St. Martin’s governance. It was often expedient to bury a nobleman in the abbey or church closest to his place of death, and who could blame Leicester City Council for protesting they had already kept Richard safe for 500 years (albeit, in ignorance).
As anyone who was able to be at or watch on TV the beautiful and respectful week of ceremonies that culminated in Richard’s reburial in his own chapel inside St. Martin’s, Leicester put on quite a show. The city was unprepared for how many interested or curious people lined up for hours to file past his bier: more than twenty-thousand of them from all over the world. How fitting it was that his simple, but beautifully wrought coffin was made by Michael Ibsen, the very descendant whose DNA had revealed the bones as Richard’s. A comforting cocoon for Richard to lie in for eternity beneath the massive slab of Swalestone, with a deeply carved cross its only decoration.
I watched the funeral in my living room in U.S. at an ungodly early hour and marveled at the respect that Richard was finally accorded. His modern-day namesake, the duke of Gloucester—another Richard—read a prayer from Richard’s own book of hours, on loan from the British Library. Then, at the evocative words of England’s poet laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, spoken by Benedict Cumberbatch, I wept all over again. I knew then, this was the book I was meant to write.
My bones, scripted in light, upon cold soil,
a human braille. My skull, scarred by a crown,
emptied of history. Describe my soul
as incense, votive, vanishing; your own
the same. Grant me the carving of my name.
These relics, bless. Imagine you re-tie
a broken string and on it thread a cross,
the symbol severed from me when I died.
The end of time—an unknown, unfelt loss—
unless the Resurrection of the Dead…
or I once dreamed of this, your future breath
in prayer for me, lost long, forever found;
or sensed you from the backstage of my death,
as kings glimpse shadows on a battleground.
Author’s Note
If I have created a living, breathing protagonist out of the thousands of pages about Richard I have read during fifty years of trying to understand why this man, who only reigned for two years, has been one of the most divisive historical figures in English history, then I can perhaps now put this obsession to rest!
But first, I must acknowledge the liberties I took with my story before those readers who may be far better versed in the period than I jump up and down and point them out. As with all my books, I am painstaking in my research and only set a scene between characters in a certain time and place that might have been plausible. If there is nothing in the historical record to say it didn’t take place, then I can take the plunge.
For example, one of the most fascinating mysteries of our history is what happened to the princes in the Tower. I have been consistent in my take throughout my six books, and I lay the blame on Buckingham because of a chronicled event in the summer of 1483. Buckingham did not go with Richard on his progress in July, despite being the king’s BFF at the time. However, when Richard got to Gloucester, it is recorded that Buckingham arrived and a very short time later was seen riding fast out of town and onto the road to Wales, where his chief residence of Brecknock was located. He never reunited with Richard for the rest of the progress, and the next time we learn of him from the records is that he joined with the Lancastrians and rebelled against Richard. I, of course, invented the conversation/argument Richard and Buckingham had during the “very short time” in Gloucester, but I think it is very plausible that Harry eagerly gave Richard news of the princes’ demise and was met with fury by their uncle. Richard did indeed write of him: “…the most untrue creature living.”
So much more is known about Richard from his bones—mostly physical—and I have incorporated those findings in creating my character. It goes without saying the most crucial was the debilitating scoliosis. I am indebted to Dominic Smee for allowing me a glimpse into the psychological side of his own life given that the young man is living with the same degree of scoliosis as Richard’s. Dominic is convinced that, like him, Richard tried to hide his affliction and thus trusted only a very few good friends after the onset in his late teens. The bones also revealed that Richard had consumed wine rather heavily in the last two years of his life. What a fascinating tidbit! And I take full advantage of the fact by allowing it to support my theory all along that Richard was a reluctant king and was in a spiral of depression from the Fall of 1483 when Buckingham turned traitor until he died at Bosworth. He drank to drown his dark, depressive thoughts.
The most fully realized fictional character in the book is my Kate Haute. Richard did have two, and possibly three illegitimate children. Katherine did marry Pembroke, and John of Gloucester was captain of Calais, and both were integrated into Richard’s household during his marriage to Anne. Dickon, also known as Richard of Eastwell, is very much more conjecture than fact, but until someone proves otherwise, I think he was Richard’s son (of a mistress, who could have been Kate!). No one knows who the mother of Richard’s bastards was, but when I discovered from Rosemary Horrox’s Study in Service that one Katherine Haute had received an annuity from Richard while he was still duke of Gloucester, I conjectured, as did Horrox, that she might have been his mistress.
April to July 1483 is one of the most complicated few months in English history, and as well as the fate of the darling little princes, no one quite knows why Richard turned on Will Hastings and so hastily executed him. Passionate about the law, Richard’s denying poor Will a trial will always be fodder for Richard detractors. I have spent many an hour pondering what could have made Richard so angry, and my explanation is, I hope, plausible.
We do not know how Katherine Plantagenet died, but the records show the earl of Pembroke was a widower not long after Bosworth, and so I invented the manner of her death to coincide with the new “sweating sickness” that appeared in the summer of 1485. Losing his brother, his heir, his wife, and then Katherine in the space of two years seems to me to be more than one man could bear, given the enormous burden of kingship also thrust upon him unexpectedly. And no, I do not think Richard usurped the crown. That was Henry Tudor’s road to the throne, not Richard’s!
Some may question my depiction of the animosity between Richard and George, but from all I have read, the two brothers could not have been more different, and the angry in-fighting over the Warwick inheritance is well documented. George’s denial of permission to wed Anne is fact, and George did hide her from Richard. It was the climax of Richard’s antagonism towards George from childhood and served as the main source of conflict in this book. However, George’s many treasonous actions toward Edward would certainly have turned the loyal Richard against his brother even without the Anne debacle. George was simply a bad lot.
Many of the scripted documents I include during Richard’s time as protector and king are written verbatim, including his words after the royal oath—if a little 15th-century stilted.
Shakespeare, in his play Richard III, depicted Richard as culpable of several deaths, only one of which can in fact solely be attributed to him: Will Hastings’. The others are Tudor historians’ and Shakespeare’s conjectures. In my first draft, I had Richard present at the “execution” of Henry VI—at Edward’s command. As I was rereading the scene, something made me decide to have Richard actually commit the murder, leading to the resulting darker side in this book. Richard was not a saint, as many Ricardians would have him be, and I believe he was a man of his violent time and cognizant of the dangers he faced being noble. The killing of the saintly Henry made Richard, for my purposes, a far more complex character, even though we still do not know exactly how Henry died.
I am choosing not to include a bibliography, because those re
aders who know me know that I am dedicated to as much truth as fiction allows. I love the details, like the fact the city of Gloucester did refuse the grateful gift Richard offered the citizens. New readers will find many of my resources cited in my other five books: A Rose for the Crown, Daughter of York, The King’s Grace, Queen by Right, and Royal Mistress.
—Anne Easter Smith, Newburyport MA
Acknowledgments
Over the twenty years that I have been writing my series of six novels, I have had incredible support from dozens of historians, archivists, curators, librarians, Ricardians, and a host of family and friends offering beds, chauffeuring and willing ears. Thank you all—you know who you are! And thank you to my beta readers: Margaret George, Rita Wright, Fontaine Dollas Dubus, Laura Stacey, Reniera Lupton, Christine Forsa, Maryann Long, Nancy Bilyeau, C.C. Humphreys, and my husband Scott Smith. This book would not have been ready to read by any of those kind people without the help and rigorous analysis of my first reader/editor Catherine Thibedeau.
To my daughters, who have encouraged me in this authoring endeavor, and especially to my husband and champion, Scott, my love and gratitude.
Heartfelt thanks to Dom Smee, who gave me hours of his time both on Skype and in person, and wasn’t shy about sharing his experiences as a severe scoliosis sufferer. He happens to live in Leicester, happens to be a Wars of the Roses re-enactor, and just happened to be “on duty” in costume on the day they found Richard’s skeleton. Such a coincidence. But then, truth has always been stranger than fiction, hasn’t it?
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