Gairdner J. History of the Life and Reign of Richard the Third: To which is Added the Story of Perkin Warbeck from Original Documents

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50 LIFE OF RICHARD III. CH. II.

even since it was first rumoured, between him and Buckingham

or anyone else in a distant part of the kingdom. It is rather

more probable, if anything, that he was ignorant of what had

been going on in London, and that he received his first

information on the subject from the Duke of Buckingham

at their meeting.

The things that had been done in London, indeed, were

somewhat more than suspicious; for, besides the early day

fixed for the coronation, and the attempt to bring up the

king to London with a formidable body of the retainers of

his uncle Rivers, the queen's son, the Marquis of Dorset,

being constable of the Tower, so far abused his office as to

obtain from thence supplies of arms and money, with which

he had fitted out a small naval force. Everything looked as

if the Woodville party had determined to keep the government

in their hands by main force until their ascendency had been

secured on something like a constitutional basis by the coro-

nation. They were therefore bringing up the king, as More

expresses it, ' in great haste, not in good speed.' The fortune

of parties depended upon a race to London. But the 2,000

followers were no doubt a considerable encumbrance, and

Rivers must have begun to fear the failure of the party

scheme when he found Gloucester advancing so close upon

the king at Northampton.

The two dukes were up at daybreak, with all their

followers, some time before those of Lord Rivers were in

readiness, and, being resolved that none should approach the

king before themselves, they secured the keys of the inn, and

sent men forward to bring back anyone who might already

have left Northampton, on the road to Stony Stratford. All

this indicates a strong suspicion, in the minds of Gloucester

and Buckingham, that Rivers and his friends sought, by

hastening the king's progress to London, to keep him entirely

in the hands of the queen's party. The Earl of Rivers went

to the two dukes to demand the cause of these extraordinary

A.D.

1483. RIVERS ARRESTED. Si

precautions. They told him that he had acted treacherously,

and had attempted ' to set distance between the

.... iii • Arrest of

king and them, which was probably true in more Rivers,

1 _. , e r • April 30.

senses than one. The earl was a man of fair

words; but on men like Gloucester and Buckingham fair

words were thrown away. The interview ended in his finding

himself a prisoner, and the dukes immediately hastened off to

Stony Stratford, where they found the king and his suite just

on the eve of departure. The place, it was urged, was too

small to accommodate both the king's retinue and theirs.

Nevertheless they sought and obtained an audience, and in

the young monarch's presence they accused his uncle Rivers

and his two half-brothers, Lord Richard Grey and the Marquis

of Dorset, of a design to seize the government and oppress the

old nobility. They instanced particularly the conduct of the

marquis. The poor young king was much alarmed, and

answered innocently, 'What my brother the marquis may

have done, I cannot say; but in good faith I dare well

answer for my uncle Rivers and my brother here that they are

innocent of such matters.' ' Yea, my liege,' replied the Duke

of Buckingham; ' they have kept their dealing in these matters

far from the knowledge of your grace.' Unable to believe the

charge

himself,

but equally unable to restrain the violence of

the accusers, poor Edward burst into tears.

It was not a time to be too particular, in the opinion of

Gloucester and Buckingham at least. They caused ofLord

Lord Richard Grey, Sir Thomas Vaughan, and Sir Greyfatd

Richard Hawte, to be arrested, and all who had

others

hitherto attended the king to retire. Had Rivers been at

Stratford, and in freedom, the 2,000 horsemen would doubtless

have had something to do before they obeyed the commands

of the Duke of Gloucester; but, as their leader was absent,

they offered no resistance. The dukes then brought the king

back to Northampton. The prisoners, including the earl, were

sent to the North, and after nearly two months' confinement in

4—2

52 LIFE OF RICHARD III. CH. II.

different places, were ultimately, as we shall see, beheaded at

Pomfret.

The king resumed his journey in the company of his uncle

Gloucester; but the news of these doings preceded them and

threw the capital into great confusion. The king taken while

on his journey and forced to go back; his uncle, his brother,

his principal attendants arrested, 'to be sent, no man wist

whither, to be done with, God wot what

';—here was a

foundation for all sorts of sinister rumours

The crisis seemed

to call upon all men to show their loyalty. A general com-

motion took place. The queen's party rose in arms, and

many of the citizens joined it. Appearances were certainly

suspicious, and required explanation. But the lords of the

council met, and Hastings, who was informed how matters

really stood, gave an exact account of what had happened.

He explained that nothing had been done or meditated against

the royal person; that Rivers and the others had been arrested

on account of a conspiracy in which they were believed to

have been engaged against the Dukes of Gloucester and

Buckingham; that their arrest was ordered for the security

of those noblemen, not with any design against the king,

and that they were kept in confinement only till the matter

should be properly investigated. Finally, he said that the two

dukes were coming up to London for the coronation, so that

they might soon be expected to answer for themselves, and

that any disturbance would only tend to delay that event.

These representations, becoming public, soon allayed the

excitement and prevented any violent outbreak

But the queen dowager, who had been the first to take

The queen

alarm, refused to be reassured. The same night on

takel

ger

which she received intelligence of the arrests at

sanctuary. Stony Stratford, she at once quitted the palace and

went into the sanctuary at Westminster. Her apprehensions

More, 28.

More, 32.

A.D.

1483. ALARM OF THE QUEEN DOWAGER. 53

even for her personal safety were perhaps not unreasonable;

yet she was hardly less anxious about her property. For that

same night her servants were so busily engaged removing her

chests, coffers, and furniture, that they broke down the walls

which separated the palace from the sanctuary, in order to

make room for the heavier loads. More tells us that the

Archbishop of York, who was at that time Chancellor, came

to her while this removal was going on, and tried to reassure

her by a message he had received from Hastings. But the

queen was in no humour to be comforted; she expressed no

less mistrust of Hastings than of Gloucester; and the weak

and foolish archbishop, in his anxiety to pacify her apprehen-

sions,

took a step which afterwards exposed him to well-merited

censure. ' Madam,' said he, ' be ye of good cheer, for I assure

you if they crown any other king than your son, whom they now

have with them, we shall on the morrow crown his brother

whom you have here with you.' And as a further guarantee

that nothing should be done to which the queen dowager was

opposed, he placed the Great Seal of England in her hands.

But it was not long before he became conscious that he had

been guilty of a very serious violation of the trust imposed

upon him, and he secretly sent for the Seal again

Very soon, we are informed by Sir Thomas More (though

he does all he can to extenuate the conduct of the .

Arms

Woodvilles), the generality of people became con-

zedin

vinced that Rivers and Lord Richard Grey had

the

ting's

retinue.

entertained designs distinctly treasonable. Not

being allowed to take more than 2,000 followers in the king's

suite,

they nevertheless had evidently entertained a scheme of

arming a greater number; for when their baggage was seized, it

was found to contain large quantities of armour and implements

of war. Sir Thomas indeed speaks lightly of the discovery.

It was no marvel, he insinuates, that such articles were found,

More,

29-31.

54 LIFE OF RICHARD III. CH. II.

at the

breaking

up of the

household

Ludlow they must

have been either brought away

cast away.

But the

common

people,

admits, took

different view

of the

matter.

The

barrels

harness' seized were exhibited

by the two

dukes

all the

people

their

way to

London.

It was

said they

had been

privily conveyed'

in the

baggage

of '

those traitors'

from Ludlow,

and the

world expressed

its

opinion that

' it

were

alms

hang them.'

The interruption

of the

king's progress rendered

it im-

possible that

the

coronation should take place

on the day

originally appointed.

The

Woodvilles

had

taken care

allow

no more time than would

necessary

in the

event

their

schemes succeeding;

and

after their failure,

the

postponement

The young

of the

coronation

was a

matter

course.

The

Loif/on?"

4th of May,

which

had

been

set

apart

for the

May

solemnity, only witnessed

the

king's entry into

London.

He had

arrived

in the

company

of his

uncle

Gloucester

and the

Duke

Buckingham

Hornsea Park

(now called Harringay Park), where

he was met by the

mayor,

sheriffs,

and

aldermen,

and 500

citizens, mounted

and

dressed

in violet,

who

escorted

him

into

the

city.

arrival there,

took

up his

residence

at the

Bishop

London's palace

at St

Paul's, where

received

the

fealty

of all the

lords spiritual

and temporal then

London'.

A council

was

speedily summoned. There must have been

many matters demanding immediate consideration,

but the

question

whom

and

with what powers

the

government

was

to be

carried

on was the

most important. Whether

was

on his own

private responsibility

with some semblance

of authority that Gloucester ordered

the

arrest

of the

king's

relations,

he had

provisionally exercised

the

functions

of a

regent,

and his

conduct imperatively called either

for

censure

for

justification.

The act at

first

had

certainly produced

an unfavourable effect upon

the

public;

but

when

became

Cont. Croyl. p. 566.

A.D.

1483. RICHARD STYLED PROTECTOR. 55

better understood, the alarm which it created had subsided,

and on the king's arrival in the metropolis, there was no one

more popular than the Duke of Gloucester. So we are told

by More. He it is whose testimony, adverse as it generally

is to Richard, makes us acquainted with the people's verdict

on his conduct; and whatever judgment we ourselves may

form, we must attribute some weight to the view which then

presented

itself.

The council, in which the Woodville in-

fluence lately so much preponderated, was obliged to take

the same view; and Richard, so far from being censured,

was practically commended for what he had done, by being

formally recognised as Protector of the king and kingdom.

It is commonly supposed that this was the time that office

was first conferred upon him. But as it seems to

The

Duke

have been bestowed on him in accordance with «

?er

p'ro-

Edward the Fourth's

will,

we may not unreasonably

tector

suspect that Richard was named protector even before he came

to London. And that this was really the case is shown, I

think, by two documents upon the Patent Roll, dated re-

spectively 21st of April and 2nd of May, in which the Duke

of Gloucester is styled Protector of England. Unless we

regard both these dates as clerical errors

, it is clear that the

council in London recognised Richard as protector some time

before his arrival in the capital.

But even if both these dates are erroneous, it is certain

that Richard was protector very soon after he reached London.

On the 14th of May, we find him so styled in numerous com-

missions of the peace

; and the 22nd of June being the new

day fixed for the coronation, a parliament was summoned to

meet on the 25th

, in order that the protectorate might be

The late Mr Gough Nichols

was

this

opinion,

but I

see

no sufficient

grounds for agreeing with him.

Patent Roll, 1 Edward V. on the dorse.

Royal Wills, p. 347; and Report VII. of Deputy Keeper of Public

Records, app. ii. p. 212.

56 LIFE OF RICHARD III. CH. II.

confirmed and continued with the sanction of the Three

Estates of the Realm.

Some other acts of the council must be noticed. The

Great Seal was taken from the Archbishop of York, who

received a deserved rebuke for letting it go out of his custody.

Dr Russell, Bishop of Lincoln, was made chancellor in his

room, whom More describes to have been 'a wise man and

a good, and of much experience, and one of the best learned

men undoubtedly that England had in his time.' We know

little of Russell in history, but testimony like this places his

merit beyond question.

The executors of the late king now met at Baynard's Castle,

the house of his mother Cecily, Duchess of York, to consider

what steps should be taken in relation to his will. The

executors named in the will, were, first, the Archbishop of

York, Rotherham, who had just been deprived of the Great

Seal, Russell, Bishop of Lincoln, his successor, Edward Story,

Bishop of Chichester, of whom there is little to relate, and

John Morton, Bishop of Ely, of whom much will be related

presently; also Lord Hastings, Lord Stanley, and Sir Thomas

Montgomery. But in the present unsettled condition of

affairs it was felt by all that administration ought to be de-

layed, and they one and all declined the charge entrusted

to them. The goods were accordingly sequestrated by the

Archbishop of Canterbury, by whose order they were shortly

afterwards appraised and sold to pay the funeral expenses,

amounting to nearly fifteen hundred pounds

Besides the executors themselves, there were present at this

meeting the Dukes of Gloucester and Buckingham, the Bishops

of London, Winchester, Bath, Worcester, and Rochester, with

the Earl of Arundel, and other lay lords, who all, it may be

presumed, concurred in the expediency of deferring adminis-

tration, if they did not positively advise it.

Royal Wills, 341.

A.D.

1483. THE TOWER. 57

Soon after the king's arrival in London, it was considered

advisable to remove him from London House to some more

roomy and commodious residence. The council were divided

as to the place. Some, probably of the queen's party, recom-

mended Westminster Palace, others the Hospital of the

Knights of St John, at Clerkenwell; but the Duke

The young

of Buckingham proposed the Tower, and it was moved'to

felt that, though some would have had it other-

the Tower

wise,

no good objection could be alleged. At the Tower

royalty would be at home quite as much as at Westminster

Palace—not the guest of a bishop or of a great religious order.

The place had been often used as a royal abode, and had

convenient state apartments. Its gloomy history as a state

prison is mostly of a later date, and the name did not then

inspire the imagination with so much awe as it does now.

For crowned heads, at least, it had not yet been a fatal resi-

dence, but rather a secure retreat in troubled times, when

mobs were raging in the streets and committing wholesale

slaughter.

No apprehensions now disturbed the public mind. To

an observant eye, indeed, the prospect could not have been

altogether satisfactory; but to ordinary spectators there seemed

nothing wrong. The queen's party, it is true, had been

overpowered by a sudden revolution; but no blood had been

shed, and the vanquished met with little sympathy. A reign

of peace and prosperity was believed to have begun

. The

coronation was looked forward to with great interest, and

summonses were issued, as usual in such cases, for all who

owned land in any part of the kingdom to the yearly value

of forty pounds to come before the king and receive the

dignity of knighthood

. There is extant a very curious original

letter of this period, written by one Simon Stallworth

, a

Cont. Cray!. 566.

Rymer, vol. xii. p. 185.

Excerpta Historica, p. 16.

58 LIFE OF RICHARD III. CH. II.

prebendary of Lincoln Cathedral

, partly in obedience to his

Bishop (Bishop Russell, the Lord Chancellor), about matters

connected with the episcopal manor of Thame in Oxfordshire,

to Sir William Stonor, whom the writer urges to come up

to London for the coronation, when he would 'know all the

world.' This interesting document gives the news of the day.

The queen was still in sanctuary at Westminster. Her son,

the Duke of York, and her brother, Lionel Woodville, Bishop

of Salisbury, were there along with her. The Marquis of

Dorset's property was seized wherever it could be laid hold

of; but some of it was in the custody of the Abbot of West-

minster, who had incurred displeasure for receiving it. This

may have been among the goods and chattels which the

queen was so busy transferring to the sanctuary the night she

took refuge there. The other intelligence is that a council

had been held by the protector that day and had sat from

ten to two o'clock, but no communication had been had with

the queen; that the king was then residing in the Tower;

and that the Duchess of Gloucester, the protector's wife, had

arrived in London on the preceding Thursday.

The date of this letter is the 9th of June, and the state-

ment that on that day the protector held a council, which

sat four hours, without any communication with the queen,

is not a little significant. From what took place very shortly

afterwards we are quite prepared to note at this time indi-

cations of increasing jealousies. Notwithstanding their recent

defeat, the queen's party were still a source of anxiety. Their

fleets were even now upon the high seas, and they held con-

sultations by themselves at Westminster, at which

Divided . , , , , , ,.

state of the Richard seems cunningly to have connived for

mg om. purposes of his own

. On the 14th of May the

He filled successively five different stalls in Lincoln Cathedral, and

was at a later period subdean of Lincoln and precentor of Salisbury.

See Hardy's Le Neve.

Cont. Croyl. 566.

A.D.

1483. PARTY JEALOUSIES. 59

king gave a commission 'to Edward Brampton, John Wells,

and Thomas Grey, to go to the sea with ships to take Sir

Edward Woodville

.' It was impossible to feel secure while

the queen was in sanctuary and the squadron fitted out by

Dorset was at large.

How the protector watched the proceedings of the adver-

sary, pretending not to see for a time, and suddenly taking

alarm when it suited him, we may form some idea from the

contents of the York City Records. In April, as already

mentioned, the corporation of York commissioned one of

their officers to go up to London to secure the Duke of

Gloucester's interest for a remission of the feefarm of their

city to the extent of 50/. a year, in order that all persons

visiting York might be made toll-free

. To this request the

duke replied on the 5th of June

, courteously excusing himself

from paying immediate attention to their business for want

of leisure. That same day summonses were issued to fifty

gentlemen to receive knighthood, in anticipation of the king's

coronation

. If sinister apprehensions existed in any man's

mind, we do not find that anyone gave utterance to them so

early as the 5th of June. But only five days later we find

the protector writing another letter to the corporation of York,

which tells of a sudden disturbance in the political world and

urgently solicits the immediate assistance of an armed force

from the North. It is in these words :—

'The Duke of Gloucester, brother and uncle of kings,

Protector, Defender, Great Chamberlain, Constable, and Ad-

miral of England. Right trusty and well-beloved, we greet

you well. And as you love the weal of us and the weal and

surety of your own

self,

we heartily pray you to come unto

us to London in all the diligence ye can possible, after the

sight

hereof,

with as many as ye can make defensibly arrayed,

Nichols'

Grants

Edward

Davies' York Records, p. 143.

Ib. p. 146.

Ellis' Letters (second series), vol. i. p. 147.