Richard The Chird (77 page)

7 York Records, pp. 148-50.

8 Ibid., pp. 144-52; Ratcliffe's halt at Leconfield is conjecture; it is possible that Richard had sent Northumberland an earlier message.

9 Past on Letters, III, p. 306. 1° Croy. Chron., p. 488.

11 More's famous account of the scene, the information for which was doubtless supplied to him by Morton himself, evaporates when compared with contemporary sources. Since Richard had no withered arm (see text, p. 177), he could scarcely accuse the Queen and Mistress Shore of having withered it. In Vergil, only the Queen is accused of sorcery. To substitute the charge of sorcery for the real accusation was easy; Morton would certainly not be likely to confess to young More that he and Hastings had been hi the thick of a conspiracy. No doubt, with the passage of years the octogenarian Morton came to believe his own story.

Neither the Great Chronicle, nor Fabyan, nor the Croy land Chronicle, nor Mancini makes any mention of sorcery. All they know is that some charge of treason was brought by Richard against Hastings and his friends, before the armed crew rushed in to arrest Hastings.

12 More's account of the herald's proclamation is supported, in general, by Mancini.

13 The political situation at Hastings' death is commented upon in an

anonymous communication, so cautiously veiled that it remains a riddle. See Cely Papers, p. 132.

14 1 have inferred the citizens' attitude toward Edward's amours from the fact that though they were well known, the King remained very popular; and I find no evidence that his popularity was achieved in spite of his licentiousness. r

15 For Richard's indenture with Katherine Hastings, see Harleian MS. 433 rl. 1080-109. For Richard's treatment of Ralph Hastings, see Cal Pat Rolls, 1476-85, P- 3<53, P- 3^5, and p. 462; Harleian MS. 433, f. 55 (granting him an annuity of forty pounds), f. 159, and f. 239 (in Original Letters, series 2, I, p. 150), and f. 243 (in Letters and Papers, I, ed. by Gairdner p. 46 et seq.). J

** Grafton's statement, followed by Gairdner (Richard III, p. roo) that Richard released Stanley on July 4 is incorrect. Stanley was one of the councilors who witnessed, on June 27, the delivery of the Great Seal to Bishop Russell (Foedera, XII, p. 189). Since Stallworthe's letter of June 21 (see text, p. 255) does not mention Stanley, it is likely that he was freed before that date. So soon, it seems, was he restored to favor that Mancini does not even note that he was arrested.

17 Mancini says that Richard ordered these executions "of his own authority as protector" and I have followed him. He says, however, that the Protector came to this decision "when by means of the council [he] could not compass the execution." It may be that he is confused by the council's earlier decision not to put Rivers et al. to death and is unaware of a later decision. I doubt if it was necessary or likely for Richard to proceed against the wishes of the council at so ticklish a moment, when he needed their support. See Mancini, p. 113.

18 Excerpta Historic a, pp. 246-48.

19 There seems to be no reason to doubt Rous 5 ascription of this ballad to Rivers, particularly since Caxton mentions that Rivers composed ballads (see text, p. 204). Rous gives only two stanzas (Historia Regum Angliae, pp. 213-14); the others have been recovered and printed in Ritson, Ancient Songs, II, p. 3, and by Percy in some editions of his Reliques; compare Gairdner, Richard 111, pp. 00-95.

20 Rous, Historia Regu?n Angliae, p. 213; Excerpta Historical, pp. 240-48; Grants, pp. xviii-xix; Cotton Faustina B VIII, f. 4b; compare Gairdner, Richard HI, pp. 90-95. Since Rons is a very unreliable source, the story of the hair shirt, which he alone gives, is doubtful, but it is in character, Rous says that Northumberland, who was then at Pontefract, served as president of the court which formally sentenced Rivers.

Fabyan reports that Sir Richard Haute, cousin to the Woodvilles and treasurer of Prince Edward's household, was arrested and executed along with Rivers, Grey, and Vaughan. No other contemporary source mentions Haute, however, and the subject is doubtful and confused. According to J. G. Nichols (Grants, p. xvi, note a), there were two Richard Hautes, both from Kent, Sir Richard and a Richard Haute, Esq M of Ightam. Rivers in his will proposed Richard Haute as one of his executors. Richard Haute was attainted in Richard's Parliament for taking part in Buckingham's

rebellion, and his attainder was reversed in the first Parliament of Henry VII. Meanwhile, however, Richard, circa /March of 1485, issued a pardon to "Sir Richard Haute" (Harleian MS. 433, f. opb).

21 That is, "tragedie" in the medieval sense of describing a pattern of life in which the protagonist ascends to great place and pride only to be whirled upon fortune's wheel and cast into the depths.

VI

Of all the narrative sources, only the Croylcmd Chronicle correctly reports the story of Edward's precontract with Lady Eleanor Butler, which is officially set forth in an enactment of Richard's Parliament of January, 1484, rehearsing and confirming the bill drawn up by the "informal" Parliament of June 25, 1483. If the inaccuracies of More and Vergil are ever due to deliberate falsification on their part, rather than to faulty sources or exuberant imagination—a debatable thesis—they certainly falsified the claim which Richard made to the throne. The precontract with Lady Eleanor, which More, writing about 1513, perverts and which Vergil, writing a few years earlier, expressly attempts to deny by branding it a false rumor, was well known to the ambassador of a foreign power in the year 1533 (see note 14, below). It is here that Mancini commits his second major lapse (see headnote to the previous chapter); he is, in fact, as inaccurate as More or Vergil. True, he mentions a precontract, but he says that when Edward married Elizabeth "he was contracted to another wife, whom the duke [sic] of Warwick had given him. At Edward's command the duke had previously crossed the seas and betrothed the other lady by word of proxy. . . ." Yet, though he is somehow led to substitute for the truth this stale rumor, which had probably been current eighteen years before, he mentions with only a slight confusion in chronology the events leading up to Richard's assumption of the throne, and even alludes to certain statements in the bill which the assembly or Parliament of June 25 enacted (p. 119). Similarly, he makes the inaccurate observation that at this time (June 25) Richard's and Buckingham's power was supported by a "multitude of troops" (p. 119); yet, later (p. 121) he reveals his own error by stating that Richard summoned troops "as the day appointed for the coronation approached," and Fabyan confirms the fact that Richard's military force from the North did not appear in London until "a little before his coronation" (p. 669). How can these bewildering inconsistencies and errors be accounted for? I suggest that, as in the case of his major mistake in chronology, the root of the trouble was the dominant assumption which shaped Mancini's memories —the assumption that Richard, from the beginning of his protectorship, sought to force his way to the throne.

Sources are Mancini, p. 109 and pp. 117-21; Croy. Chron., pp. 488-89; Fabyan, pp. 669-70; Great Chronicle, pp. 131-32; Vergil, pp. 182-87; More, pp. 87-90 and pp. 99-126. Fortunately, the uncertain evidence of the chroniclers is supplemented by Commynes' Memoires, the Rolls of Parliament, and a few documents of great value.

1 1 have omitted from my paraphrase the sentence which follows this one because it cannot be clearly read. Bentley, the editor of Excerpta Historica, transcribes it, "As soe feste he is in hold and mene for hys lyffe." That is,

Richard will not yet release Rotherham and Morton because he is taking no chance of an attack upon his life and so holds all his prisoners fast. However, C L. Kingsford, the editor of the Stonor Letters and Papers, renders the sentence, "As for Foster he is in hold and meue fer hys lyfTe." That is, Foster is in prison and pleads for his life. Kingsford's reading must be given preference . . . but who is Foster?

2 Stonor Letters and Papers, II, p. 161; Excerpta Historica, pp. 16-17.

3 Mancmi, p. 115; Great Chronicle, p. 234.

*York Records, p. 154, reveal that on June 21 a writ of superseded*— postponement of Parliament—was received. This entry has led to considerable speculation, by Gairdner and others, about the possibility that, since York was friendly to the Protector, Richard's enemies must have issued the superseded*. The town of New Romney, however, likewise received a supersedeas and a writ postponing the coronation (HMC, V, p. 54). The comments of the chroniclers in general and the bill enacted by the Parliament of January, 1484, setting forth Richard's title (Rot. Parl, VI, p. 240) indicate that the Parliament or quasi-Parliament of June 25, 1483, was well attended (see also Armstrong, Mancini, p. 154, note 91). Apparently only a few writs of supersedeas were dispatched before Richard discontinued them, having decided that Parliament should assemble, after all.

5 The question of the cognizances seems only to indicate the uncertainty of the men of York as to whether Richard would wish them to emphasize, by Bearing hi's badge, their personal loyalty to him. The time-table of preparations at York shows that the northern troops could have arrived in London several days before they actually appeared about July 1-3. Probably Richard's order to Northumberland to sentence and execute Rivers, Grey, and Vaughan also contained a request to delay the march south (York Records, pp. 152-56). It seems likely that the rumor Stallworthe had heard about the imminent arrival of the troops (as of June 21) was not very widely known. No mention is elsewhere made of it; Mancini, indeed, was under the impression that the men were not even summoned until after June 26 (p. 121).

« Paston Letters, II, pp. 347753* PP- 3^3-66, p. 389.

7 See, for example, Mancini, pp. 81-83.

8 Memoires, II, p. 64.

9 The main surviving facts about the Lady Eleanor Butler can be found in the Inquisitions Post Mortem and the Calendar of the Patent Rolls.

From the Inquisitions Post Mortem (8 Edward IV, no. 39; see also CaL Inq. Post Mort&n, p. 344, and G.E.C., XII, p. 422) we learn that Eleanor, wife of the deceased Thomas Butler, knight, and sister of Sir John Talbot, died on June 30,1468, possessed of the manors of Grove (or Greve) and Great Dorset in Warwickshire.

John Talbot, first Earl of Shrewsbury, had a son John by his first wife and one of the same name by his second. The former, inheriting his father's earldom, fell at Northampton in 1460, The latter was created, in 1444, Baron and Viscount Lisle and died at Chatillon with his father in 1453. It seems likely that the "Sir John Talbot" named in the Inquisitions Post Mortem is the son of the second marriage and that, in 1468, he was referred to as "Sir John" to distinguish him from the deceased second earl, his half-brother. Thus, Eleanor would be identified as a daughter of old Talbot's second marriage.

In the Col. Pat. Rolls, 1467-77, p. 133 (February 6, 1469) we read, "Whereas by an inquisition taken before William Moton, esquire, late escheator in the county of Warwick, on the death of Eleanor, late the wife of Thomas But-teler, knt., it was found that Ralph Butteler, knt., lord of Sudeley, was seised of the manors of Greve and Great Dorset, county Warwick, in his demesne as of fee and in the year 28 Henry VI granted them to the said Thomas his son and the said Eleanor and the heirs of the body of Thomas [which probably indicates the time of Eleanor's marriage], and the said Thomas died without issue and Eleanor was seised of the manors for her life and in the year 39 Henry VI surrendered her estate in the said manor of Greve to the said Ralph, and said manors were taken into the King's hands because the grant and acquisition of them and the entries thereon were without license; the King pardons these trespasses and grants to the said Ralph that he may enter into and hold the said manors . . . from the time of the death of Eleanor "

10 Stonor Letters and Papers, II, p. 42; Foedera, XII, p. 66.

11 Croy. Chron., p. 470. Alcock was President of the council of the Prince of Wales, which was dominated by Woodvilles. For Henry VI on Stillington, see Scofield, I, p. 94.

MRot.ParL, VI, p. 256.

^Ibid., pp. 240-41. ,

14 Srillington was of so much importance to Henry that on the very day of Bosworth Henry issued a warrant for his arrest, and five days later he had been hunted down and captured (York Civic Records, I, p. 122). Deprived of the deanery of St. Martin's, he was pardoned by act of Henry's first Parliament, for of what offense could he have been accused, save one which Henry apparently had no wish to be publicly examined? The pardon declared him guilty, however, of nothing less than "horrible and heinous offences imagined and done" against the King—the offenses being unspecified. When Lincoln and Lovell invaded England in 1487 under the banner of Lambert Simnel, Stillington rushed to espouse their cause. After the defeat at Stoke, he took refuge at the University of Oxford, which surrendered him to the King with great reluctance. He was immured in a cell at Windsor Castle and there died four years later. It seems clear that Henry thought him a dangerous man.

Henry saw to it that his first Parliament passed an act ordering all copies of the enactment of Richard's Parliament of 1484 to be seized and burned.

Neither More nor Vergil says a word of Lady Eleanor or the Bishop of Bath and Wells. More (pp. 99-101) declares that Shaa's sermon of June 22 (see text, p. 263) accused Edward of entering into a precontract with Elizabeth Lucy—thus making the accusation absurd by substituting the name of a wanton at court for that of a noble lady. Vergil goes even further (pp. 182-85). That Shaa declared Edward's children to be bastards he dismisses as "common report," which he declares emphatically to be "void of all truth." Yet twenty years later, Chapuys, the ambassador of Charles V, knows about the precontract revealed by the Bishop of Bath and Wells (Letters and Papers of the Reign of Henry VIH, VI, p. 618). Not until Sir George Buc in the seventeenth century reported the accurate version given in the Croy land