Richard The Chird (65 page)

Bacon makes clear his incredulity. More himself handles this supposedly direct and circumstantial "confession" in a curiously tortuous and uncertain manner. Though at the conclusion of his

account he says that TyrelPs confession to the murder "in manner above written" is "well known," yet in his very next sentence he declares that this story "I have learned of them that much knew. . . ." And at the beginning of his account he says, "I shall rehearse you the dolorous end of those babes, not after every way that I have heard, but after that way that I have so heard by such men and by such means, as me thinketh it were hard but it should be true." But why are there so many stories if the Bang's report of TyrelTs confession so neatly explains everything? These remarks of More are a succession of clods dropped into an already dim pool to muddy it still further. It appears that either (a) what Henry gave out was so meager or vague that several different versions developed of what the King said, from which More picked and chose to assemble the tale that best pleased him; or (b) what Henry gave out was so meager and vague that More felt he had to eke it out by making use of other tales and rumors as well.

But the thickest of the fog is yet to blow in upon this already obscure landscape. If TyreU made a detailed confession of the murders, including, as More mentions, a revelation of the very staircase beneath which the Princes were buried, it is to be expected that Henry would at once have the bodies disinterred in order to secure incontrovertible proof of what he so much wanted the world to believe. Apparently no such operation was attempted. To explain this failure away, it seems, More tacks on the story that a priest, now conveniently dead, removed the bodies to another spot. In 1674, however, workmen removing a staircase attached to the White Tower and "digging down" the foundations came upon the skeletons of two children buried in a wooden chest; as we shall see, there appears to be very good reason for believing that these indeed are the remains of the Princes. Gairdner thinks that this find somehow corroborates More's story. This seems to be a conclusion based on wishful thinking.

The discovery of the bones certainly throws no light upon why King Henry failed to exhume them, if Tyrell revealed the precise staircase beneath which they were buried, or why it was

APPENDIX I

felt necessary to invent the tale of a priest's removing them, or why no writer of the time sees fit to retail this story except More. Further, the account of the burial of the Prince does not correspond very well with the circumstances of the actual burial as revealed by the discovery of 1674^*

A comparison of Vergil's narrative with More's is instructive, Both men were seeking information at about the same time. More wrote his account in 1513; Vergil was completing his story of Richard's reign about 1517-18. As Henry's official historian, Vergil presumably enjoyed readier access to important people, as he certainly did to documents of state. Whatever there was to be known of Tyrell's confession, Vergil would know it. If More, despite his muddling statements, had in fact reproduced what King Henry said that Tyrell said, Vergil can be expected to recount the same story.

He does nothing of the kind. He does not even regard Tyrell's "confession" as worthy of mention. Of whatever King Henry said he reports only that Tyrell was the murderer, and like More, he is at pains to indicate Brackenbury's integrity. Though he pictures Richard as dispatching his first mandate from Gloucester, he seems to indicate that the King made his second attempt after he had reached York. Tyrell he portrays as no ready accomplice but as one compelled to act against his will. "James Tyrell . being forced to do the King's commandment, rode sorrowfully to London. . . ." Interestingly enough, the Wardrobe accounts indicate that, in fact, Tyrell did ride from York to London and back, or at least from London to York, about the time that Richard entered that city on his summer's progress of 1483; Richard had ordered a great array of raiment to be sent from the Wardrobe at Westminster to York for the ceremonial on September 8 of his son's investiture as Prince of Wales, and Tyrell is recorded in the Wardrobe accounts as having received cloth for himself and the King's Henchmen, of whom he was Master. It is possible that Vergil, coming across this record, decided to change the scene of Tyrell's agreement with Richard from Warwick to York— there apparently being little evidence, in his judgment, to locate the incident at Warwick. But what has happened

to the anonymous page? to John Grene? to the jealous Tyrell ready for any desperate mission? Where is the murderous Forest and where is Dighton, so available for questioning? And where, indeed, is the vivid, circumstantial account of precisely how the children were murdered and how they were buried? "With what kind of death these sely [innocent] children were executed it is not certainly known," says Vergil. It is a curious commentary upon the dogmatism which this long controversy over the murder of the Princes has engendered that Polydore Vergil, who was King Henry's personal historian and was therefore eager to fasten the blackest crimes upon his defeated rival King Richard, rejected (or never heard of) these embellishments of hearsay put forward by More, whereas certain historians even of our present day have continued to accept them! 4 *

Vergil, it appears, establishes the essence of what King Henry "gave out"—simply that Tyrell had confessed to the murder of the Princes. He contributes dubious coloring of his own, however. That Tyrell rode "sorrowfully" to London would seem to be his or an informant's conjecture. In a similar vein he adds that "King Richard . . . kept the slaughter not long secret, who, within few days after, permitted the rumour of their deaths to go abroad" in the hope that when the people knew that King Edward's sons were gone beyond recall "they might with better mind and good will sustain his government." No other source makes such a statement and it has no show of probability to support it. For Richard to produce proof or the appearance of proof that the Princes were dead would at least put an end to restless speculation and attempts to rescue them; for Richard to spread such a rumor would only cause him to incur the odium without the advantages of their deaths. The Croyland Chronicle, it will be recalled, makes clear that the rumor emanated not from Richard, who knew nothing of it, but from his enemies who were plotting Buckingham's rebellion.

The later Tudor historians—Grafton, Hall, Holinshed—need not be examined; they merely echo or elaborate upon More and Vergil.

Since More's story is manifestly discredited by the circum-

stances of its origin, by its inaccuracies and incongruities, and by Vergil's rejection of it, the only "evidence" for Richard's guilt which, it appears, had come to light by the time the Tudor tradition was established was (a) that during and after Richard's lifetime there were rumors, apparently based on no more than suspicion, that he had murdered the Princes; and (b) that King Henry VII, after TyrelFs execution, "gave out" that Tyrell had confessed to dispatching the Princes.

Then, in 1933, new evidence was put forward pointing toward Richard's guilt. In 1674, as we have seen, workmen demolishing a stone staircase outside the White Tower which led up to a doorway, still visible, in its south face, discovered when they had excavated beneath the foundations of the stairs to a depth of ten feet a wooden chest containing the skeletons of two children. It being concluded that these were the very remains of the little Princes, the bones—somewhat damaged by the workmen's tools and by casual handling—were placed in an urn which was enshrined in Westminster Abbey, where it has ever since been displayed.

In July of 1933 the urn was opened and the bones were examined by an eminent physician and an eminent dentist. 5 The sum of their findings was that the elder skeleton was that of a child between the ages of twelve and thirteen; the younger, that of a child about ten years old. Since Edward V was born in November of 1470 and his brother in August of 1473, ^ese findings —if the bones are indeed those of the Princes—are consistent with the rumor that they were done away with in July-September of 1483. The anatomical evidence for the ages of the children and for death by smothering as indicated by a stain on one skull has been held, by subsequent authorities, to be unsound; but the dental evidence, according to authoritative opinion, is, in certain respects, beyond dispute. 6 * Yet the White Tower has stood for almost nine hundred years, in the course of which many a secret bloody deed has been enacted there. It seems a pity that no anthropologist saw the bones; still, an estimate of their age even today eludes us, dating by the carbon test being apparently impossible with material of so comparatively recent origin. If it

could be established that the skeletons are between 450 and 500 years old, then it could be said with great positiveness that they are indeed the bones of the Princes and that the Princes died in the summer of 1483. As the matter stands, it can be asserted that (a) if these are the skeletons of the Princes, then the boys were killed in the summer of 1483; and (b) it is very probable that these are indeed the skeletons of the Princes.

Like the rumors already discussed, this very real evidence points toward the killing of the sons of Bang Edward during Richard's reign, but in itself it does not in any way illuminate the question of his guilt. It is now time to ask, Are there any indications that Richard did not commit the deed?

There are, in fact, a number of such indications, of uncertain value.

Two documents in Harleian MS. 433 are of curious interest. One is a warrant to Henry Davy, dated March 9, 1485, "to deliver unto John Goddesland footman unto the lord Bastard two doublets of silk, one jacket of silk, one gown . . . two shirts and two bonnets." In the Wardrobe accounts the deposed Edward V is referred to as "the lord Edward"; in a warrant to pay wages to his attendants he is called "Edward bastard." Richard, of course, had a bastard son, John, who in March of 1485 was appointed Captain of Calais. Since John, however, was not a lord, he could not accurately be termed the "lord Bastard." But it is possible, as Professor A. R. Myers has kindly pointed out to me, that John was called "lord Bastard" because he was a King's son.

The second reference occurs in the ordinances drawn up by King Richard for the regulation of the King's Household in the North (July, 1484): "Item: my lord of Lincoln and my lord Morley be at one breakfast; the children together at one breakfast; such as be present of the council at one breakfast. . . Item, that no liveries of bread, wine, nor ale be had, but such as be measurable and convenient, and that no pot of livery exceed measure of a pottle, but only to my lord [i.e., the Earl of Lincoln] and the children/'

One of these children was undoubtedly Clarence's son Edward, Earl of Warwick. I am indebted once more to Professor Myers

for the suggestion that the others may have been Edward's sister Margaret and the younger daughters of King Edward. The following year Elizabeth, the eldest daughter, certainly became a member of this household. The children mentioned in the instructions are clearly of importance. Not only is a special breakfast arranged for them but only the Earl of Lincoln is to have a u pot of livery" as grand as theirs. Apparently neither Lincoln nor Morley had offspring. It does not seem likely that these companions of Warwick were henchmen, because these children seern to be of greater importance than henchmen and because it is customary to find in household ordinances of the time specific regulations for henchmen. These two references can scarcely be said to weaken the strong probability that the sons of King Edward were killed in the summer of 1483, but the first, at any rate, Is mysterious.

A statement in the Croyland Chronicle, which nowhere makes any reference to Richard's having murdered the Princes, can be instanced in support of his innocence. Catesby and Ratcliffe, says the Chronicle, were frantically opposed to Richard's marrying his niece Elizabeth out of fear that she might be able to revenge herself on them for urging Richard to take harsh measures against her kindred. Yet the measures the Chronicle specifies are the executions of Earl Rivers and Lord Richard Grey. If the chronicler believed Richard guilty of the Princes' death, could he have failed to mention the most obvious and poignant cause which Elizabeth would have had to seek vengeance on the agents of the King's will?

Written sources yield nothing more. What else remains to be said in Richard's favor consists of inferences from actions and events.

What of the behavior of the Queen Dowager, Elizabeth Wood-ville? In August or September of 1483 she secretly agreed to give her daughter Elizabeth to Henry Tudor, and on Christmas Day of 1483 Henry swore openly to make Elizabeth his bride. The Queen must have believed, at that time, that her sons were dead, or she would never have relinquished their rights to her daughter and a Lancastrian adventurer; and this belief seems to have been

engendered by what the chieftains of Buckingham's rebellion told her. Yet six months later she accepted Richard's promise that he would treat her and her daughters well, and surrendered them into his hands. That she came to terms with the man who had bastardized and deposed the Princes, driven her son the Marquess into exile, and executed her other son Grey and her brother Rivers is difficult enough to understand; but that she came to terms with Richard knowing also that he had murdered the Princes well-nigh passes belief, or is at least incomprehensible. For in yielding her daughters not only had she shown herself amenable to Richard's request but she had delivered a blow to Henry Tudor's hopes and thus to her own hopes of some day seeing a descendant of hers upon the throne. She did more: of her own volition she wrote to the Marquess, urging him to abandon Henry Tudor and put himself into Richard's hands. The Marquess was not a much-tried, emotionally overwrought woman; there was no pressure upon him to return; indeed, it was dangerous to make the attempt. Yet that is just what the Marquess did, only to be apprehended by Henry Tudor's agents in the act of flight and "persuaded" to go back to Paris. This sequence of actions certainly suggests that Richard was able to offer the Queen—and the Queen to report to the Marquess—some proof or apparent proof or assurance that he was not guilty of the death of the Princes. If this inference provides only doubtful support for Richard's innocence, the facts on which it is based unquestionably deepen the mystery surrounding the fate of King Edward's sons. An analysis of Henry Tudor's conduct likewise yields some reasons for acquitting Richard of the crime. In promising to marry the Princess Elizabeth, Henry emphatically rejected the position that King Edward's children were bastards; indeed, he commanded all copies of the Parliament roll setting forth their bastardy to be burned. As soon as Henry had won at Bosworth, he acted as a King in his own right. He had himself crowned on October 30; he summoned a Parliament which in November confirmed his tide. Thus he minimized the danger that in making reference to the death of the Princes he would be giving too much emphasis to Elizabeth's position as the next heir to Edward