Shakespeare's Kings (107 page)

If
we
are
to
believe
Dominic
Mancini
-
whose
account,
with
its wealth
of
circumstantial
detail,
certainly
suggests
a
remarkable
degree of
inside
knowledge
-
immediately
after
the
execution
of
Hastings
on 20
June
the
two
Princes
'were
taken
into
the
innermost
rooms
of
the Tower,
and
as
the
days
went
by
began
to
be
seen
more
and
more
rarely behind
the
bars
and
windows,
until
at
length
they
ceased
to
appear altogether'.
Mancini
adds
that
according
to
his
friend
Dr
J
ohn
Argentine, the
royal
physician
who
had
been
called
to
the
Tower
to
see
young Edward,
the
Prince
was
going
to
confession
daily
and
doing
penance 'because
he
believed
that
death
was
facing
him'.
We
shall
never
know
for certain precisely how the boys met their fate - but there is no doubt at all that they were killed and very little that the King was responsible. The first full reconstruction of the affair is that of Sir Thomas More. It is by no means universally accepted, but it is professedly based on the reports 'of them that much knew and little cause had to He', and despite repeated attempts by the highly articulate defenders of Richard to prove it false it still carries more conviction than any other.
¹
Rumours of the murders were already circulating at the time of the coronation, when the King must certainly have been turning the possibility over in his mind; the weight of the evidence, however, suggests with More that the fatal decision was taken only when he was at Warwick in mid-August, and that it was then prompted by reports of a plot to free the Princes and spirit them abroad, probably to Holland. The man first ordered to do the deed was the Constable of the Tower, Sir Robert Brackenbury; but Brackenbury, to his eternal honour, refused outright and it was only then that Richard turned to a knight from Suffolk named Sir James Tyrell, whom he knew to be ambitious, efficient and entirely loyal to himself. Tyrell, writes More,
devised that they should be murdered in their beds. To the execution whereof he appointed Miles Forest
...
a fellow flushed in murder beforetime. To him he joined one John Dighton, his own horsekeeper, a big broad strong square knave. Then all the others being removed from them, this Miles Forest and John Dighton about midnight (the innocent children lying in their beds) came into the chamber and suddenly lapped them up among the clothes - so bewrapped them and entangled them, keeping down by force the featherbed and pillows hard unto their mouths, that within a while, smothered and stifled, their breath failing, they gave up to God their innocent souls into the joys of heaven, leaving to the tormentors their bodies dead in the bed. After the wretches perceived them - first by the struggling with the pains of death and after, long lying still - to be thoroughly dead, they laid their bodies naked out upon the bed and fetched Sir James to see them, Who, upon the sight of them, caused those murderers to bury them at the stairfoot, meetly deep in the ground under a great heap of stones.

i.
This is not the place for a detailed discussion of the various arguments that have been put forward. Readers avid for more information are referred to
Richard III
by Desmond Seward, revised edition (1997), pp. 143—55.

Nearly two centuries later, in
1674,
workmen demolishing a staircase in the White Tower came upon a wooden chest. Inside it were the bones of two children, which Charles II ordered to be transferred to an urn in the Henry VII Chapel of Westminster Abbey. When this was opened in
1933
the bones were found to be of males, of four feet ten inches and four feet six and a half inches; their ages were given respectively as about twelve and ten.

k.rich
.

Remember whom you are to cope withal:

A sort of vagabonds, rascals, and runaways;

A scum of Bretons and base lackey peasants,

Whom their o'er-cloyed country vomits forth

To desperate adventures and assur'd destruction.

You sleeping safe, they bring to you unrest;

You having lands, and bless'd with beauteous wives,

They would restrain the one, distain the other.

And who doth lead them but a paltry fellow,

Long kept in Bretagne at our brother's cost? A milksop!

One that never in his life Felt so much cold as over-shoes in snow.

king
richard
iii

From
Warwick
the
King
travelled
by
way
of
Coventry,
Leicester
and Nottingham
to
York,
where
he
was
given
a
magnificent
reception.
He was
genuinely
popular
in
the
north,
of
which
he
had
been
the
effective governor
during
the
last
years
of his
brother
Edward's
reign
and
where he
had
ruled
with
firmness
and
justice.
Whether
or
not
the
quickly spreading
rumours
about
the
fate
of
the
little
Princes
had
reached Yorkshire
before
him
we
do
not
know;
but
they
were
unproven
and certainly
in
no
way
diminished
the
warmth
of his
welcome.
On
what appears
to
have
been
the
spur
of
the
moment,
he
decided
to
invest
his nine-year-old
son
Edward
of
Middleham
as
Prince
of
Wales
in
York Minster;
the
ensuing
ceremony
is
said
to
have
been
almost
as
impressive as
his
own
coronation
two
months
before.
All
too
soon,
however, messengers
arrived
with
news
as
serious
as
it
was
surprising:
his
oldest friend
and
the
most
powerful
of his
subjects,
Henry
Stafford
Duke
of Buckingham,
had
risen
in
open
revolt
against
him.

Why
Buckingham
should
have
acted
as
he
did
remains
a
mystery. According
to
Shakespeare,
he
was
furious
at
the
King's
refusal
to grant
him
the
earldom
of
Hereford
which
he
had
been
promised.
But Buckingham
already
possessed
titles
and
estates
in
plenty;
and
in
any case
there
was
no
reason
to
think
that
he
would
not
be
granted
the earldom
later,
when
Richard
might
be
in
a
more
generous
mood.
We should
remember,
on
the
other
hand,
that
the
atmosphere
in
the
south was
by
now
very
different
from
that
in
the
north.
As
the
truth
about the
Princes
had
gradually
dawned
upon
the
people,
London
in
the
late summer
of
1483
had
come
alive
with
plots
and
rumours
of
plots;
and it
may
well
be
that
Buckingham
had
become
seriously
alarmed
at
the strength
of
feeling
against
the
King.
If
Ri
chard
were
to
be
overthrown -
as
seemed
increasingly
likely
-
his
own
survival
would
obviously depend
on
breaking
with
him
as
soon
as
possible.
Sir
Thomas
More goes
so
far
as
to
suggest
that
ambition
too
played
its
part:
that
Buckingham might
have
considered
making
his
own
bid
for
the
crown.
He
was
after all
a
Beaufort,
a
grandson
on
his
mother's
side
of
that
Edmund,
second Duke
of
Somerset,
who
had
been
killed
at
St
Albans
in
1455,
and consequently
a
great-great-grandson
of
John
of
Gaunt;
his
claim
was arguably
every
bit
as
good
as
that
of
Richard
III
himself.
¹