Richard The Chird (66 page)

IV. In fact, to prove that Richard had murdered Edward's sons was of the greatest importance to Henry in order to blacken his rival, discourage Pretenders, focus Yorkist feeling upon his bride, Elizabeth, and establish his position in the hearts of the nation as the Heaven-sent avenger of those boys whom, if alive, he would have to dispose of to hold the throne. He had the strongest motives for actively, openly, and pressingly investigating the death of the Princes and publishing his proofs of Richard's evil dealing to the world.

This is precisely what he did not do.

The parliamentary bill of attainder accused Richard of "unnatural, mischievous, and great perjuries, treasons, homicides and murders, in shedding of infants blood [my italics], with many other wrongs, odious offences and abominations against God and man and in especial our said sovereign lord. . . ." Clearly, by employing this insinuation Henry wished to suggest that Richard had murdered the Princes; it seems likely, however, either that he knew Richard was innocent or that he was unable to find proof of his guilt. Else why make use of mere innuendo? If Richard was guilty, that Henry, with all the resources of inquiry at his command, could elicit no damaging testimony from attendants at the Tower is scarcely credible. If Henry had secured strong evidence of Richard's guilt, that he would only hint at it in the bill of attainder instead of blazoning it to the world is almost as incredible. The actions and motives of Henry Tudor remain swathed in mystery—but we must remember that it is mystery of his own making.

The passage of time only intensified Henry's motive for proving the Princes dead, as "feigned boy" after "feigned boy" arose to trouble his realm. Yet he said nothing about the death of Edward's sons until 1502; then he merely "gave out," after TyrelFs execution, that Tyrell had confessed the murders.

The circumstances under which Sir William Stanley was executed ten years after Bosworth tend to deepen the mystery. Sir William is said by Bacon to have been condemned for declaring that if Perkin Warbeck was indeed the son of Edward IV, he, Stanley, would never fight against him. If Sir William did make

this remark, then, though he and his brother were most intimately connected with Richard's court, he must not have been certain that Richard killed the Princes. Royal children are rescued from death by kindly keepers and given into the hands of good shepherds only, it seems, in fairy tales. Stanley's remark would appear to have sprung not from his hope that, though Richard had doomed the Princes, one had managed to escape, but from his ignorance concerning their fate. This line of thought, however, is tenuous and tedious, and at best only casts still another veil about the enigma.

Considering the nature of the evidence for Richard's guilt, how strong a case does the sum of these inferences make for Richard's innocence? Strong enough, it would seem, to illuminate one rather obvious consideration which has largely been lost sight of in the quarrels over the worth of these "evidences." The most powerful indictment of Richard is the plain and massive fact that the Princes disappeared from view after he assumed the throne and were never again reported to have been seen alive. This fact is far more telling than any indications of his guilt that have been assembled and it weighs heavily against the indications of his innocence which have just been surveyed.

Indeed, it is reasonable to assert that only positive evidence that someone else murdered the Princes will tell against this indictment. It has been urged by Sir Clements Markham and Philip Lindsay, two of Richard's most recent defenders, that the Princes survived Richard's reign to be murdered by Henry VII. In the light of the very strong evidence, derived from the dental examination of 1933, that the boys were dispatched in the summer of 1483, this contention can hardly be any longer maintained, particularly since the case against Henry is itself weak. It rests upon a series of assumptions: (a) that two pardons issued to Tyrell in the summer of 1486 reveal the interval in which, persuaded by Henry, he murdered the Princes; (b) that the Queen Dowager and the Marquess then sought to conspire with Lambert Simnel because they had discovered Henry's guilt; and (c) that after Henry managed to get rid of Tyrell in 1502, he noised abroad a true account of the murder but foisted responsibility for it upon Richard.

There is of course the possibility that the Princes died a natural death. Since Edward, the elder, was suffering from a chronic bone disease, he might well have succumbed; but that his brother, Richard, conveniently followed suit is unlikely.

Is there any evidence that the Princes perished in Richard's reign but not by Richard's hand? Though hitherto largely ignored, a case can, in fact, be made out for the guilt of Henry Stafford, second Duke of Buckingham. It has been several times suggested that Buckingham was in collusion with Richard in the crime, or persuaded Richard to commit the crime, or was aware of the crime; Gairdner, in Letters and Papers, reveals his belief in Buckingham's "guilty knowledge"—"the circumstances of the revolt itself hardly admit of any other explanation." They admit of one other explanation: that Buckingham himself contrived the murder of the Princes for his own ends.

There are indications among the chronicles of the time that in some men's minds Buckingham had at least a hand in the deed. A fragment of narrative (MS. Ashmole 1448.60) says that Richard killed the Princes "at the prompting of the Duke of Buckingham, as it is said" ("initio concilio cam Duce de Bokyngham ut pre-fertur"). The French chronicler Molinet, admittedly a very untrustworthy source for information about English affairs, puts forward the curious statement that "on the day that Edward's sons were assassinated, there came to the Tower of London the Duke of Buckingham, who was believed, mistakenly, to have murdered the children in order to forward his pretensions to the crown." Commynes, however, though in one passage he refers to Richard's having killed the Princes, declares in another passage that it was the Duke of Buckingham "who had put the two children to death" ("qui avoit faict mourir les deux enffans").

As Constable of England, Buckingham would find no doors shut to him. He had means of access to the Tower and to the Princes. It appears that he did not set forth with Richard on the royal progress, but, on the contrary, lingered a few days in London and then overtook Richard at Gloucester. And after he bade the King farewell, he rode away into Wales to begin plotting his overthrow. He had motives for murdering the Princes which were both stronger and more urgent than his sovereign's. Richard

had assumed the crown without killing them and might maintain it without killing them, or might at least wait to do so until much time had passed and they had begun to be forgotten. Buckingham, on fire to claim the throne, or to help Henry Tudor claim it, would have to dispose of them at once because they were deadly rivals to his pretensions. By murdering the Princes, Richard risked stirring up a wave of hatred against himself. By murdering the Princes, Buckingham could further strengthen his cause, by foisting the crime upon King Richard and by winning over the Wood-ville conspiracy to his own ends. Buckingham had scarcely less opportunity than Richard and he harbored stronger motives to perpetrate the crime.

Such motives explain why it was probably Buckingham who, before Richard assumed the throne, ordered preachers to insinuate the bastardy of Edward IV as well as of Edward's children: such odium cast upon the House of York he later hoped to profit by. Vergil makes a reference to these same motives: "the multitude said that the duke did the less dissuade King Richard from usurping the kingdom, by mean of so many mischievous deeds, upon that intent that he afterward, being hated both of God and man, might be expelled from the same, and so himself [Buckingham] called by the commons to that dignity, whereunto he aspired by all means possible. . . ." It was undoubtedly Buckingham who supplied news of the Princes' death to the Woodville conspirators and, through the Countess of Richmond, to the Queen Dowager in sanctuary. Yet, according to all the hearsay, rumor, and allegation scraped together by More and Vergil, Richard did not give the order for the crime until several days after Buckingham had left him. Only if Richard had dared to send word to Brecknock could Buckingham have learned, from the King, of the murders; and had he done so, Morton, Bishop of Ely, who was with Buckingham, would have known about the message too and reported it to More, if not previously to the world.

There is then a possibility well worth investigating that Buckingham, having murdered the Princes, dumped upon Richard— or left him to discover— a fait accompli.

It is quite possible, of course, that Henry Tudor sought to invade England in October of 1483 without enjoying any certainly that the Princes were dead. He might reasonably have concluded that this consideration was immaterial: Richard would not dare produce Edward's sons in any case, and if his invasion prospered, he would know how to deal with the boys when he found them. On the other hand, it seems somewhat more probable that he was furnished with some assurance of their demise; his boldness in proclaiming his promise to marry the Princess Elizabeth certainly reinforces this supposition. But it appears to be well-nigh a certainty that only Buckingham could have furnished him with such assurances; yet Buckingham's fellow conspirator Morton, Bishop of Ely, a bitter enemy of Richard's, gives no indication, in what he told More, that Buckingham possessed any evidence of Richard's guilt.

The agonized postscript which Richard appended to the letter he dispatched to Chancellor Russell on suddenly learning of Buckingham's rebellion sorts well with the supposition that Buckingham had saddled Richard and his government with the crime— "Here, loved be God, is all well and truly determined, and for to resist the Malice of him that had best Cause to be true, the Duke of Buckingham, the most untrue Creature living. . . . We assure you there was never false traitor better purveyed for, as this bearer Gloucester shall show you." When Buckingham was brought a prisoner to Salisbury, he immediately confessed all in order desperately to plead for one boon, an interview with Richard; both Vergil and Fabyan emphasize his feverish and "importunate labour to have come to the king's presence" (Fabyan}. To beg Richard to forgive him because he had imperiled his soul for Richard's cause in dispatching the Princes— for he would certainly have put it this way—may well have been the motive behind his wild desire to speak with the man he had betrayed; It is very possible, of course, that he had no other hope than to move Richard by his charm, as he had so often done in the past. Both these instances are but suggestive and may easily be otherwise interpreted^ they do fit, however, this developing pattern.

The conduct of the Queen Dowager in yielding her daughters to Richard in March of 1484 and writing to the Marquess to abandon Henry Tudor ceases to be baffling if it is supposed that Buckingham killed her sons. In their conferences with her, Richard's intimate counselors would doubtless be able to provide evidence of the Duke's guilt—perhaps a statement from Bracken-bury or from attendants at the Tower who had been menaced or duped into complying with his orders. Since Buckingham was clearing the way for Henry Tudor, it is small wonder that despite her feelings against Richard, the passionate Queen should embrace the double purpose of securing her daughters' futures and dealing a heavy blow against the Pretender, Buckingham's partner and accomplice. This same supposition would resolve too what otherwise remains the contradiction of Brackenbury's established integrity, set against his continued zealous support of the King from whose bidding he had recoiled in horror.

But we are not yet done with the Queen and the Marquess. On the assumption of Buckingham's guilt, an even more baffling example of their conduct likewise becomes understandable.

In the new reign of Henry VII the sun of fortune began to shine again upon the Woodvilles and they became once more figures of high consequence at court. Sir Edward Woodville was made Governor of the Isle of Wight; the Marquess Dorset, having served as a hostage for the money Henry owed the French, returned to England and high station; and the Queen, too, fared very well. The act of Richard's Parliament depriving her of her dignities and lands was repealed; and though Henry thriftily refrained from restoring her property, except for the meager estate he allowed her as her widow's jointure, she enjoyed all the privileges, rights, and pomp both of a Queen Dowager and of a reigning Queen's mother. Her sons were no more, but her daughter was mantled in the purple, and on September 20, 1486, she became the grandmother of England's heir, Prince Arthur. If fate and her own greedy machinations had cost her much suffering, she was now handsomely provided for, she was the progenitress of an incipient dynasty, and she might look forward to a proud and tranquil future.

Suddenly, the Queen's happy prospects were smashed, and it appears that it was she herself who wrought the ruin. Toward the end of 1486 Henry got word of Lambert Simnel's appearance in Ireland. After a council meeting held at Shene early in February of 1487, the King abruptly stripped Elizabeth Woodville of her modest possessions, her dearly beloved dignity, and even her liberty. Her property was given to her daughter and she was shut away in a nunnery.

Henry gave out as the reason for this shocking action the fact that the Queen Dowager had broken her promise to him and imperiled his cause when she surrendered her daughters to Richard in 1484. He offered no explanation of why, although he knew all this when he took the crown, he had waited a year and a half before deciding that he must take revenge. "This," as The Earlier Tudors points out, "was an old story, and that the council was really concerned with the new conspiracy [i.e., Lambert Simnel's] appears from the other measures which it took." Bacon reports that it was considered dangerous, after the Queen Dowager was immured in the nunnery, to attempt to see or talk with her. It is generally accepted that she was detected in the act of aiding Simnel's cause—Bacon even suggests that she coached the "feigned boy"!—and this view is confirmed by the fact that, shortly after, the Marquess was clapped into custody, where he remained until the battle of Stoke was fought.