Shakespeare's Kings (111 page)

The
turn
of
events
at
Hammes
added
considerably
to
Richard's
now rapidly
increasing
alarm.
On
7
December
he
issued
his
first
proclamation against
'Henry
Tydder',
who
by
reason
of
his
'insatiable
covetousness' intended
to
perpetrate
'the
most
cruel
murders,
slaughters
and
robberies and
disinheritances
that
ever
were
seen
in
any
Christian
realm'.
The next
day
he
dispatched
commissions
of
array
to
most
of the
counties
of England,
and
on
the
18th
he
ordered
his
commissioners
to
report immediately
on
how
many
nobles,
gentry
and
men-at-arms
could
be raised
at
half
a
day's
notice.
He
kept
Christmas
at
Westminster
with characteristic
pomp
and
splendour,
but
the
festivities
must
have
had
a hollow
ring:
no
one
present
could
have
forgotten
the
imminent
danger of
invasion
and
a
renewal
of the
civil
war,
or
could
have
ceased
for
a moment
to
ponder
the
all-important
question
of
which
side
offered the
best
chances
of
survival.

There
was
further
concern
over
the
Queen,
who
was
obviously dying.
She
had
never
recovered
from
the
death
of
her
son
eight
months before;
but
her
pallor
and
skeletal
thinness
could
not
be
accounted
for by
bereavement
alone.
Inevitably,
there
were
rumours
that
she
was being
slowly
poisoned
by
her
husband,
who
-
although
he
now
treated her
with
studied
callousness
and
refused,
on
what
he
claimed
were doctors'
orders,
to
share
her
bed
—
had
been
freque
ntly
heard
to
complain
of
her
inability
to
give
him
another
child.
It
was
also
common knowledge
that
he
was
eager
to
marry
his
niece,
Elizabeth
of
York;
he

1. See Chapter 16, p. 316.

had
rece
ntly
introduced
her
into
his
court
where,
although
officially proclaimed
a
bastard,
she
had
played
a
leading
role
that
winter.
The most
charitable
explanation
of his
attentions
was
that
he
wished
simply to
frustrate
the
designs
of
the
Earl
of
Richmond;
¹
but
the
Croyland chronicler
refers
darkly
to
'many
other
matters
as
well,
which
are
not written
down
here
for
shame',
and
it
cannot
be
ruled
out
that
his relations
with
Elizabeth
—
who
was
by
now
an
unusually
attractive
girl of
nineteen
—
may
have
gone
somewhat
beyond
the
avuncular.

Queen
Anne
died,
aged
twenty-eight,
on
16
March
1485.
Despite her
husband's
barely
concealed
hostility
and
although
on
that
same
day, to
the
consternation
of
all
who
witnessed
it,
the
sun
went
into
eclipse, her
death
is
less
likely
to
have
been
due
to
poison
than
to
pulmonary tuberculosis.
Richard,
however,
did
not
marry
Elizabeth.
Once
again according
to
the
Croyland
chronicler,
he
gave
up
the
idea
on
the
advice
of his
two
closest
counsellors,
William
Catesby
and
Sir
Richard
Ratcliff, who
told
him
blu
ntly
that
his
subjects
would
never
stand
for
it.
If,
they warned
him,
he
did
not
make
a
public
denial
of
any
such
intention, even
the
people
of
the
north
would
rise
against
him,
accusing
him
of killing
the
Queen
—
the
daughter
of
their
hero
the
Earl
of
Warwick
-merely
in
order
to
satisfy
his
own
incestuous
lust.
And
so,
on
30
March 1485
-
barely
a
fortnight
after
his
wife's
death
-
Richard
made
a
public statement
at
the
Priory
of
the
Knights
of
St
John
at
Clerkenwell, declaring
that
'it
never
came
into
his
mind
to
marry
[his
niece],
nor
willing
or
glad
of
the
death
of
the
Queen,
but
as
sorry
and
in
heart
as heavy
as
man
might
be.'
Elizabeth
was
packed
off
to
his
castle
at
Sheriff Hutton,
where
she
remained
-
with
the
young
Earl
of
Warwick, Clarence's
son
-
until
after
the
Battle
of
Bosworth.

The
same
chronicler
also
tells
us
that
during
the
celebrations
of Twelfth
Night
in
Westminster
Hall
an
urgent
dispatch
was
brought
to the
King
by
'his
spies
from
beyond
sea',
informing
him
that
his
enemies would,
beyond
all
doubt,
invade
the
realm
in
the
course
of
the
summer following.
Richard
is
said
to
have
replied
that
'nothing
could
have
been more
pleasing
to
him
than
this
news'.
He
probably
meant
it.
His
nerves must
have
been
at
breaking
point,
but
in
a
few
months
the
agony
of waiting
would
be
over.

★

1. Polydore Vergil tells us that Henry was 'pinched to the very stomach' when he heard of Richard's rumoured intentions.

Henry
of
Richmond
spent
the
spring
and
early
summer
of
1485
bringing together
his
army
and
the
ships
that
were
to
carry
it
to
England.
It
was not
a
large
force:
between
two
and
three
thousand
at
the
most,
perhaps half
of
it
made
up
of
trained
professionals
-
mostly
Welshmen
-
and the
remainder
what
Commynes
describes
as
'the
most
unruly
men
that could
be
found
and
enlisted
in
Normandy'.
By
July
all
was
ready;
on 1
August
the
expedition
set
sail;
and
six
days
later,
shortly
before
sunset on
Sunday
the
7th,
the
little
fleet
dropped
anchor
at
Milford
Haven
in South
Wales.
Since
the
early
spring
Richard
had
had
two
flotillas patrolling
the
Channel;
but
somehow
Henry
had
managed
to
give
them both
the
slip,
and
his
landing
was
unopposed.
On
the
other
hand
there was
no
sign
of
the
immensely
influential
Welsh
nobleman
Rhys
ap Thomas,
nor
of
Sir
John
Savage,
a
kinsman
of
the
Stanleys,
nor
of
Sir Gilbert
Talbot,
uncle
of
the
young
Earl
of
Shrewsbury,
all
three
of whom
Henry
had
expected
to
find
awaiting
him;
and
rumours
of
the imminent
approach
of
Richard's
army
were
already
having
their
effect on
the
French
soldiers'
morale.
Clearly,
delay
would
be
dangerous: early
the
following
morning
Henry
led
his
army
north-east,
intending to
cross
the
Severn
at
Shrewsbury.