Shakespeare's Kings (102 page)

The
quarrel
rumbled
on
for
three
years
until,
in
February
1475,
a settl
ement
was
finally
agreed.
Even
then,
however,
Clarence
continued to
sulk,
believing
-
with
some
justification
-
that
the
King
trusted
him less
than
he
did
his
brother;
and
towards
the
end
of the
following
year he
was
given
still
greater
cause
for
resentment.
On
21
December
his wife
died
of
complications
after
childbirth,
and
the
death
of
Charles the
Bold
of
Burgundy
a
fortnight
later
led
his
widow
to
propose
a marriage
between
Clarence
and
her
daughter
Mary,
now
mistress
of
all her
father's
dominions.
The
Duke
was
naturally
enthusiastic,
but
King Edward
would
not
hear
of
it.
Such
a
marriage
would
not
only
have made
his
brother
at
least
as
rich
and
powerful
as
he
was
himself;
it would
also
have
caused
serious
difficulties
in
his
relations
with
France. He
absolutely
forbade
any
further
discussion
of
the
matter
—
thereby antagonizing
the
Duke
still
further.

Clarence
had
always
been
unstable;
henceforth
his
behaviour
became distinctly
paranoid.
He
began
suggesting
that
Edward
was
illegitimate; in
East
Anglia,
he
deliberately
incited
riots
against
him.
Next
he
put
it about
that
his
late
wife
had
been
bewitched
by
Queen
Elizabeth
and then
poisoned,
and
actually
had
one
of
her
former
waiting-women
-who
was
by
then
in
the
Queen's
service
-
arrested,
beaten,
robbed
of her
jewellery
and
put
on
trial
at
Warwick,
where
he
personally
bullied the
jury
into
finding
her
guilty
and
had
her
hanged
within
twenty-four hours.
Clearly
such
conduct
could
not
be
allowed
to
continue,
and Edward
struck
back
hard.
His
first
step
was
to
arrest
a
celebrated astrologer
and
friend
of
Clarence's,
a
certain
Dr
John
Stacey
of
Merton College,
Oxford.
Under
torture,
Stacey
confessed
that
he
had
cast horoscopes
of the
King
and
the
Prince
of
Wales
to
discover
when
they would
die,
and
further
implicated
one
Thomas
Burdett,
a
member
of the
Duke's
household.
Both
men
were
put
on
trial,
and
despite
their pleas
of
not
guilty
were
hanged
at
Tyburn
on
20
May
1477-
There could
hardly
have
been
a
clearer
warning,
but
Clarence
ignored
it.
On the
following
day
he
forced
his
way
into
a
meeting
of the
Privy
Council accompanied
by
a
Franciscan
friar,
whom
he
obliged
there
and
then
to testify
to
the
two
men's
dying
protestations
of
innocence.
Edward
had had
enough.
By
the
end
of
June
his
impossible
brother
was
in
the Tower.

The
trial
was
held
in
January
1478
at
Westminster.
The
Duke
of Clarence
was
found
guilty
of
what
the
King
described
as
a
'more malicious,
more
unnatural
and
loathly
treason
than
was
ever
before committed',
and
was
condemned
to
death.
His
mother
having
begged that
he
be
spared
the
horrors
of
a
public
execution,
on
18
February
he was
put
to
death
in
the
Tower
-
almost
certainly
by
being
drowned
in a
butt
of
malmsey
wine.
¹
He
was
buried
next
to
his
wife
-
ironically enough,
in
Tewkesbury
Abbey.
He
was
twenty-eight.
Edward,
we
are told,
ever
afterwards
regretted
his
brother's
death
and
bitterly
reproached himself
for
having
allowed
it;
but
Clarence
had
tried
him
sorely
and had
pushed
his
patience
just
a
little
too
far.

Richard
of
Gloucester's
feelings
on
the
execution
of
his
brother
are uncertain.
He
certainly
made
a
fine
show
of
grief,
but
Sir
Thomas
More is
not
the
only
writer
to
suggest
that
his
brother's
death
was
not
altogether unwelcome
to
him;
and
if
indeed
he
ever
personally
interceded
with the
King
on
Clarence's
behalf,
his
pleas
have
not
been
recorded.
In
his position
he
could
hardly
remain
aloof;
but
as
with
the
Picquigny agreement
of
1475
-
of
which
he
had
strongly
disapproved
-
he
tried to
dissociate
himself
as
much
as
possible.
This
was
made
easier
by
the fact
that
he
was
now
spending
nearly
all
his
time
in
the
north,
which was
still
overwhelmingly
Lancastrian—with
concurrent
and
occasionally conflicting
loyalties
towards
the
Percys
and
the
Nevills
-
and
where Edward
was
determined
to
make
him
the
effective
successor
to
Warwick. It
was
to
this
end
that
Richard
had
been
granted
Warwick's
castles
of
Middleham
and
Sheriff
Hutton
in
Yorkshire
and
of
Penrith
in Cumberland,
together
with
all
their
lands.
He
also
owned
the
castles of
Pontefract,
Barnard
Castle
and
Skipton-in-Craven,
to
say
nothing of
Sudeley
Castle
in
Gloucestershire
and
his
vast
estates
across
the
south.