The Last Days of Richard III and the Fate of His DNA (8 page)

Elizabethan plans also depict the once extensive royal palace at the Tower of London, which in the late medieval period filled much of the area between the old Norman keep (the White Tower) and the outer walls flanking the River Thames on the southern side of the enclosure. Most of this late medieval royal residence at the Tower is also now destroyed. The old Palace of Westminster occupied more or less the same site as the present Victorian gothic confection, but was a much less grandiose and more higgledy piggledy collection of buildings. In Richard III's lifetime there was no bridge across the Thames at Westminster. But one could descend via Westminster Stairs to the water on the Westminster side and pick up a boat for the short river crossing, ascending at the other (Lambeth) side, where a second set of steps led up from the Thames just to the north of the Archbishop of Canterbury's London palace, giving access to the marshland, farmland and open countryside beyond.

Like the houses of the gentry and aristocracy, the royal palaces will have been adorned with tapestries. It is known, for example, that in 1480 Edward IV had acquired ‘two peces of arras of the story of Paris and Elyn' as a gift from his sister, the Duchess of Burgundy.
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He also acquired ‘a curtyne of paled verdour rede and blue with riban of grene threde and rynges of latone'.
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Verder(s) was tapestry decorated with foliage and flowers, but without human figures. This particular royal curtain was evidently composed of two strips of verders, one basically red, and the other basically blue, sewn together side by side to make up a hanging in the royal livery colours of the house of York. It was hemmed with green ribbon, and hung from brass curtain rings. It is perhaps worth observing at this point that notions of matching colour schemes seem to have had little or no place in the taste of the fifteenth century, either in matters of furnishing or in matters of dress. In both clothing and in interior decoration the whole gamut of varied and bright colours seems to have been combined.

At about the same time as acquiring the Paris and Helen tapestries, Edward IV had also obtained two new
spervers
(sets of bed hangings). These were apparently for members of the royal family, and either or both sets may well have still been in use in Richard III's household in 1485. One of Edward's canopies was made of red, green and white striped velvet, while the second was of white and blue velvet,
per pale,
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and lined with black buckram. Both sets of hangings comprised a tester, seler and valances. White and blue were the livery colours of the house of Burgundy, so it is possible that the set of blue and white bed hangings had been ordered for the king's sister, Margaret, Duchess of Burgundy, to use on the occasion of her visit to England in 1480. The seler was the bed canopy itself. The tester was the matching curtain, which hung down from the canopy at the head of the bed, and the valance was the matching fringe of cloth hanging down around the sides of the bed. There were also side and foot curtains, which could be drawn at night to enclose the royal bed. These curtains were made of sarcenet, which was a much lighter-weight fabric. The curtains, the seler and the valance were all decorated with multicoloured silk fringes.
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Edward IV's own bed at this period (1480) comprised a mattress stuffed with feathers, which would have been supported on a wooden framework with a woven webbing of taut ropes. The royal bed had bolsters stuffed with feathers, upon which rested pillows of fustian stuffed with down. The bed was made up with sheets of Holland cloth. Other contemporary beds prepared for the Burgundian ambassadors at the Erber
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were supplied with counterpanes of red worsted, while the bed provided for the dowager Duchess of Burgundy herself rejoiced also in a pair of blankets.
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However, the design of the covers (
tapettes
) for the king's own bed was far more regal and heraldic. These covers were made
per pale
of red and blue verders adorned with crowns and roses. Thus Edward IV in 1480 – and very probably also Richard III five years later – slept under a bedspread in the colours of the Yorkist royal livery, adorned with royal emblems.
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A great deal of information is available about clothing owned by Edward IV in or about 1480, and this helps us to form an impression of how his younger brother may have been dressed five years later. Edward IV had possessed a great variety of items of attire – and the surviving list is probably far from exhaustive. His garments had included long gowns, demi-gowns, doublets, hose and cloaks. Richard III's wardrobe must have been composed of a similar range of garments.
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Specifically, Edward IV had possessed at least twenty-four shirts of Holland cloth.
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He also owned a long gown of blue cloth of gold upon satin, lined with green satin; another of black velvet lined with tawny damask; one of purple velvet lined with black satin; and two more of green velvet and of white velvet respectively, each upon velvet tissue cloth of gold and lined with black satin; another of velvet upon black cloth of gold, furred with ermine; one of crimson cloth of gold; and one of green damask. The king possessed a number of doublets, mostly of black satin, at least one of which was lined with Holland cloth, also another doublet of purple satin, and one of crimson velvet. He had a demi-gown of tawny velvet lined with black damask; another of green velvet lined with black damask; another of black velvet lined with purple satin; another of purple velvet lined with green sarcenet; and another of green velvet lined with black sarcenet. He had a number of tippets (hoods for cloaks) made of black velvet and an assortment of leather shoes and leather patens. Many of his shoes were of Spanish or Spanish-style leather (‘cordwain'),
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some being lined and others not. He also owned shoes and patens of black leather, black leather knee boots, and five pairs of boots of tan (‘tawny') Spanish leather, together with a pair of long spurs, parcel-gilt. Edward IV also owned handkerchiefs and ostrich feathers, at least one cloak of black camlet, two pairs of green hose, and two pairs of black hose.
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Richard III seems to have been fond of hunting, and we shall have more to say on this point in a subsequent chapter. He also possessed a library, and was therefore presumably interested in reading.
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Other distractions which may have been available to him included games of various kinds. Playing cards and dice were certainly in existence. John Howard, Duke of Norfolk, apparently possessed at least one chess set (possibly two). There is also evidence that tennis was being played in England at this period.
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One of the things which Richard III seems to have done in about April 1485 was to have his portrait painted. The earliest representation of Richard surviving today (with the exception of manuscript illustrations) is a small panel portrait in the possession of the Society of Antiquaries of London, and a copy of this is reproduced here (figure 8). The Society of Antiquaries portrait dates from the first decade of the sixteenth century, but was presumably copied from an earlier version, painted during Richard's lifetime. The portrait shows the king gazing to the viewer's left, and wearing a black velvet hat with a jewelled brooch, a crimson doublet, recalling the doublet of crimson velvet owned by Edward IV, and a gown or demi-gown of cloth of gold which again recalls items from the wardrobe of his elder brother. Richard has a thin face with a sad look about it.
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His long hair is dark brown, like that of Edward IV.
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There is no indication in the painting that the sitter suffered from any kind of physical deformity, but the curvature of Richard's spine was reported to produce only a slight variation in the height of his shoulders (see below). Such a small portrait could have been produced – and reproduced – quite quickly.
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Richard's sad expression in this portrait would certainly have been appropriate in April 1485, following his recent bereavements. However, there is another reason for assigning the painting of this portrait to about this period. The king's right hand holds a ring, which he is in the process of either placing upon, or removing from, the fourth finger of his left hand. Although the wedding ring finger was probably not fixed at this period, his gesture may imply thoughts of marriage.
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Thus the original portrait may have been painted after the death of Queen Anne Neville, when new marriage plans were in prospect between 16 March and 22 August 1485. The painting was possibly intended to be sent to Portugal, with perhaps a second copy sent to Spain, to be shown to the infantas who were being wooed as prospective consorts. The comparatively small size of the portrait would appear to be consistent with this explanation, since it would have made the original easy to transport.

It was certainly not unusual for portraits of prospective royal
brides
to be dispatched to their prospective husbands in this way and at about this period. There is less evidence for the sending of such portraits on the part of the proposed husbands. However, the Infanta Joana of Portugal was known to be a hard matrimonial nut to crack. She had already turned down several potential spouses, including Charles the Bold of Burgundy and the King of France. Richard may therefore have felt that a special effort was called for. There is also a possible parallel example in the somewhat similar, oval-topped panel portrait of Henry VII that was painted by Michael Sittow in 1505, and which depicts Henry wearing the collar of the Order of the Golden Fleece. A copy of this representation may have been intended for the widowed Joanna the Mad, Queen of Castile and dowager Duchess of Burgundy, whom Henry was then hoping to marry as his second wife. It is thus feasible that several copies of Richard's portrait were produced: one for immediate dispatch to Portugal, another for use in Spain, with perhaps a third to be held in reserve in case both the Portuguese and Spanish negotiations foundered and it subsequently proved necessary to look further afield. It would then presumably have been from one of the reserve portraits retained in England that the extant example was reproduced, some twenty years later.
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In addition to extraordinary activities such as sitting for a marriage portrait, during the period from March to August 1485 the king continued to occupy himself with the day-to-day business of government and running the royal household. A selection of the sort of business with which he occupied himself during these months includes:

Wednesday 9 March 1484/85, Westminster: warrant to Henry Davy to deliver to John Goddeslande ‘foteman unto the lord Bastard two silk doublets, one silk jacket a gown, two shirts and a bonnet'.
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Friday 11 March 1484/85, Westminster: ‘letter of passage' for Friar John Forde of the Dominican (Black) friars to go to Rome with one servant and his luggage.
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Tuesday 29 March 1485, London: ‘warrant to the maister of thordenance to delyver unto [William Combresale] … fyfty bowes a hundred Shef of Arowes oon Barelle of gonnepowder fyfty Speres armed and thre cartes of rennyng ordenance for the defense of Harwiche'.
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Tuesday 12 April 1485, London: passport for Henry Delphaut (servant of Captain Salasar), together with his servants and horses, who are on their way to the (arch?)duke of Austria.
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Wednesday 13 April 1485, London: licence to John Rede to attend the General Chapter of the Premonstratensian Order in France.
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Friday 22 April 1485: Lord Maltravers commissioned to keep the Feast of St George at Windsor Castle in the king's absence.
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Sunday 24 April 1485, London: approval of the election of Dom William Senons, OSB as the new abbot of St Mary's Abbey, York.
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Friday 29 April 1485, Westminster: commission ‘to take Carpenters & Sawyers … for the hasty spede of the kings werkes in the towre of London & Westminstre and also to take marke felle hewe and cary almoner tymber aswele okes Elmes as other tymbre needful for the said werkes'.
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Saturday 7 May 1485, Westminster: reprimand to the bailiff of Ware (Herts.) for allowing able-bodied male inhabitants of the town to waste time in playing cards, bowls and tennis instead of practising archery, and for allowing them to poach the royal pheasants, partridges, rabbits and hares.
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Friday 27 May 1485, Kenilworth: licence to Thomas Wright of Banbury to transport to Calais 200 sheep and 100 mares.
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Monday 6 June 1485, Kenilworth: payment of £15 19
s
. 10
d
. for repairs carried out at Sudeley Castle; also payment of £115 18s. for twenty tuns and one hogshead of wine delivered to the Castle of Kenilworth.
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