Shakespeare's Kings (109 page)

The
Duke
left
Brecon
on
the
18th
as
planned,
but
got
no
further than
the
Forest
of
Dean.
On
the
very
day
of
his
departure
the
heavens opened.
The
deluge
continued
uninterruptedly
for
over
a
week,
during which
both
the
Severn
and
the
Wye
burst
their
banks,
flooding
the countryside
for
miles
around.
After
ten
days
of
waiting
it
was
clear
that the
rebellion
was
doomed.
The
army
dispersed
and
Buckingham
himself fled
in
disguise
to
Shropshire,
where
he
sought
refuge
with
one
of
his old
retainers,
a
certain
Ralph
Bannister;
but
he
was
soon
discovered, and
the
£1,000
which
Richard
had
put
on
his
head
proved
too
strong a
temptation
for
Bannister,
who
surrendered
him
to
the
authorities. His
request
for
an
audience
with
the
King
was
refused,
and
on
All Souls'
Day,
Sunday
2
November,
he
was
beheaded
in
the
market
place at
Salisbury.
In
the
weeks
that
followed,
many
of
his
fellow
insurgents met
a
similar
fate,
their
lands
and
estates
being
confiscated
and
shared out
among
Richard's
northern
henchmen
—
making
the
King
more unpopular
in
the
south
than
ever.

Fiasco
as
it
turned
out
to
be,
Buckingham's
rebellion
had
one
vitally important
consequence:
it
turned
the
political
spotlight
firmly
on
Henry, Earl
of
Richmond.
Previously
almost
unknown,
Henry
was
now
the generally
accepted
Lancastrian
contender
for
the
crown,
with
a
wide and
enthusiastic
following.
Sailing
from
Paimpol
in
Brittany
towards the
end
of
October,
he
had
run
into
the
same
storm
that
had
shattered Buckingham's
hopes;
and
when
he
had
eventually
arrived
at
Poole
in Dorset
it
was
plain
to
him
from
the
number
of
armed
troops
around the
harbour
that
the
projected
rising
had
failed.
Without
hesitation
he had
ordered
his
captains
to
turn
about,
and
had
returned
to
Brittany
to find
his
suspicions
confirmed.
Some
of
the
rebels,
however
—
they included
Thomas
Grey,
Marquis
of
Dorset
-
had
managed
to
escape across
the
Channel,
and
these
he
summoned
to
Rennes
for
a
discussion of
future
plans.
It
was
there
in
the
cathedral,
early
in
the
morning
of Christmas
Day
1483,
that
they
knelt
before
him
and
did
him
homage, just
as
if
he
were
already
an
anointed
King;
he
in
return
swore
to
marry Elizabeth
of
York
and
to
lead
them
back
to
England
and
victory.

By
the
beginning
of
the
year
1484,
King
Pdchard
III
was
a
seriously worried
man.
True,
he
was
living
like
a
Renaissance
prince,
in
greater splendour
than
any
English
King
before
him;
but,
as
Sir
Thomas
More wrote,

he
never
had
quiet
in
his
mind,
he
never
thought
himself
sure.
Where
he
went abroad,
his
eyes
whirled
about,
his
body
secredy
armoured,
his
hand
ever
on
his dagger,
his
countenance
and
manner
like
one
always
ready
to
strike
back.
He took
ill
rest
a-nights;
lay
long
waking
and
musing,
sore
wearied
with
care
and watch;
rather
slumbered
than
slept,
troubled
with
fearful
dreams
-
suddenly sometimes
started
up,
leapt
out
of his
bed
and
ran
about
his
chamber.

Buckingham's
treachery
had
shaken
him
profoundly.
Whom
now could
he
trust?
Lord
Stanley,
to
whom
he
had
given
Buckingham's former
office
of
Constable
of
England,
was
for
the
moment
loyal
but, as
he
well
knew,
ready
to
turn
his
coat
at
any
moment;
the
Earl
of Northumberland,
now
Lord
Great
Chamberlain,
was
scarcely
more reliable.
Only
old
John
Howard,
whom
he
had
created
Duke
of
Norfolk a
few
months
before,
was
tried
and
true;
but
he
was
by
now
well
into his
fifties,
by
the
standards
of
the
day
an
old
man.

It
was
perhaps
in
a
vain
attempt
to
ease
his
conscience
that
Richard was
by
now
spending
vast
sums
of
money
on
chantries
and
chapels
in which
requiems
could
be
sung
for
the
dead.
The
Grey
Friars
of
Richmond
in
Yorkshire
were
paid
generously
to
say
i
,000
masses
for
the
soul of
Edward
IV;
similar
payments
were
made
to
the
abbeys
of
Tickhill
and Knaresborough,
and
the
King
even
had
plans
for
a
vast
chantry
with
six altars
and
a
hundred
priests
to
be
attached
to
York
Minster,
in
which masses
could
be
said
in
perpetuity
round
the
clock.
About
Henry
VI
— whom,
it
must
be
remembered,
he
had
almost
certainly
murdered
with his
own
hands
-
he
seems
to
have
been
particularly
uneasy.
Henry
was considered
by
most
Englishmen
to
be
a
saint,
and
a
considerable
pilgrim traffic
had
grown
up
around
his
grave
in
Chertsey
Abbey,
which
was already
said
to
have
been
the
scene
of
several
miracles.
Some
time during
the
summer
of
1484
Richard
decided
that
the
body
should
be transferred
from
the
abbey
to
some
more
appropriate
shrine,
and
in August
he
made
a
special
journey
down
from
the
north
to
attend
its reburial
in
St
George's
Chapel,
Windsor
Castle
,
just
to
the
south
of
the high
altar.