Shakespeare's Kings (108 page)

But
if
the
young
man
-
we
do
not
know
exactly
when
Buckingham was
born,
but
he
was
probably
still
under
thirty
-
ever
had
any
delusions about
his
own
succession,
these
were
quickly
cast
aside.
The
rightful heir
to
Edward
IV
was
now
unquestionably
the
eldest
of
his
seven daughters,
Elizabeth
of
York;
though
in
these
troubled
times
the
choice of
an
eighteen-year-old
girl
—
who
was,
incidentally,
still
in
sanctuary with
her
mother
—
would
have
been
disastrous.
If
an
able,
energetic man
was
required,
capable
of
leading
armies
in
war,
there
remained only
the
Beauforts.
Buckingham
was
admittedly
of
Beaufort
stock through
his
mother,
but
she
traced
her
descent
only
from
the
youngest of
John
of
Gaunt's
grandsons.
Henry
Tudor,
Earl
of
Richmond,
being descended
from
the
latter's
elder
brother,
had
indubitably
the
better

1.
It is true that Henry IV had done his best to bar the Beauforts from the s
uccession by adding to Richard II
's patent of legitimation the words
excepta dignitate regali
(see Chapter 13, p. 261); but he had failed to make these words law by means of a subsequent act of parliament. The exclusion was therefore by now generally considered to have no legal validity.

claim;
and
if
he
were
to
marry
Elizabeth
this
claim
would
be
stronger still.
The
additional
fact
that
his
grandmother,
Katherine
of
Valois,
had been
the
widow
of
the
ever-glorious
Henry
V
may
have
had
no
legal relevance;
but
it
certainly
took
nothing
from
his
reputation.

What
seems
virtually
certain
-
and
is
confirmed
by
More
-
is
that Buckingham
was
greatl
y
encouraged
by
Dr
John
Morton,
Bishop
of Ely.
Morton
had
been
arrested
at
the
same
time
as
Hastings;
but
after a
brief
period
in
the
Tower
he
had
been
transferred
at
Buckingham's request
to
the
latter's
castle
at
Brecon
in
Wales.
Already
in
his
early
sixties, he
had
a
firmly
Lancastrian
background:
taken
prisoner
at
Towton,
he had
escaped
from
the
Tower
to
join
Queen
Margaret
in
France
and had
accompanied
her
to
Tewkesbury.
Only
after
the
Battle
was
lost
and the
young
Prince
of
Wales
killed
did
he
transfer
his
allegiance
to Edward
IV,
whom
he
then
served
with
similar
devotion.
¹
He
could not,
however,
show
the
same
to
Richard.
Perhaps
he
already
knew,
or suspected,
the
truth
about
the
Princes;
perhaps
his
long
experience
told him
that
the
new
King
was
simply
too
unpopular
to
maintain
himself on
the
throne.
At
any
event
he
seems
to
have
become
something
of
a father
figure
to
Buckingham
and
to
have
directed
him,
during
their long
discussions
at
Brecon,
towards
the
course
of
action
which
he subseque
ntly
took.

Morton's
first
action
after
winning
Buckingham's
support
for
his plan
was
to
contact
Henry's
mother
Margaret
Beaufort.
Though
still only
forty
and
deeply
devout
-
she
is
said
to
have
heard
six
masses
every day
—
the
daughter
of
John
Duke
of
Somerset
and
great-granddaughter of
John
of
Gaunt
was
a
powerful,
even
formidable
woman.
She
had given
birth
to
Henry
in
January
1457
after
the
death
of
his
father, Edmund
Tudor,
Earl
of
Richmond,
and
shortly
before
her
fourteenth birthday;
she
had
then
married
first
Lord
Stafford,
Buckingham's
uncle, and
then
Lord
Stanley,
later
to
be
Earl
of
Derby.
True,
she
had
not seen
her
son
-
who
had
been
brought
up
in
Wales
by
his
uncle
Jasper Tudor,
Earl
of
Pembroke
-
since
he
was
two
years
old,
a
quarter
of
a century
before;
but
she,
like
Morton,
had
no
doubt
in
her
mind
that

1.
It is unfortunate for Morton, and more than a little unfair, that he should be best known for the eponymous 'Morton's Fork' - a form of taxation devised under Henry VII, whose Chancellor he later became. This in fact was not his invention at all; on the contrary, he always did his best in the Council to restrain the King's avarice.

he
was
best
qualified
for
the
throne.
Already
she
had
been
in
secret contact
with
the
former
Queen
in
her
Westminster
sanctuary,
proposing the
marriage
between
her
son
and
the
Princess
Elizabeth;
on
hearing from
Morton
of
Buckingham's
support
for
the
conspiracy,
she
sent
at once
to
Henry
in
Brittany
to
tell
him
the
news,
urging
him
to
leave
as quickly
as
possible
to
join
the
Duke
in
Wales.

The
rebel
forces
gathered
fast.
Among
them
were
virtually
all
the Woodvilles,
who
could
have
asked
nothing
better;
then
there
were
the many
Lancastrians
in
Wales,
the
west
country
and
the
south-east;
and finally
a
vast
number
of
honest
men
who
had
simply
been
disgusted
by Richard's
murder
of
his
nephews
and
his
usurpation
of
the
throne
and were
determined
that
he
should
be
somehow
brought
to
justice.
With so
many
different
and
disparate
groups,
co-ordination
was
difficult;
but there
was
a
general
plan
that
they
should
all
rise
simultaneously
on
18 October.
Had
they
been
able
to
do
so
they
might,
with
a
modicum
of good
luck,
have
succeeded.
Unfortunately
those
in
the
south-east
were unable
to
wait
and
acted
prematurely;
the
Duke
of
Norfolk,
who
was in
London
and
like
the
majority
of
Londoners
had
remained
-
however reluctantly
-
loyal
to
Richard,
managed
to
prevent
the
men
of
Kent from
crossing
the
Thames
and
joining
their
fellows;
and
the
rebels withdrew
to
Guildford,
there
to
await
the
main
spearhead
which
was marching
from
Wales
under
Buckingham
himself.