The Last Plantagenets (58 page)

It seems clear that Dr. Shaw did preach a sermon on the subject. The careless pens which concocted the
History
knew this but did not know the name of the light-of-love whose complaisance led to this problem. They must, therefore, have invented a name for the lady, which raises a question as to how much else they inserted with equal carelessness. This, as one historian says, “should put us on our guard against credulously following them in graver matters.”

A much graver matter is that Dr. Shaw then proceeded, according to the
History
, to claim that Edward IV had been illegitimate himself. To back this assertion it was necessary to charge the Duchess of York, the often-mentioned and lovely Proud Cis, with adultery. Richard was asserted to be the only member of the family lawfully begotten. “Neither king Edward himself,” continues the narrative, “nor the duke of Clarence, among those that were secret in the household, were reckoned very surely for the children of the noble duke [Richard of York] as those that by their favor more resembled other known men than him.”

Dr. Shaw’s sermon was a carefully worked out piece of stage direction, according to the
History
. When he reached the assertion that Richard was the only member of the family who resembled his father, the latter was to appear casually and pause in full sight of the audience in the expectation that the people assembled there would be struck by the truth of it and raise their voices for him as king. In other words, Richard was aware of the statements which would be made, including the infamous assertion of his own mother’s infidelity.

Can such a charge be believed? At this time the dowager duchess was in London and Richard, the last remaining son of the four she had brought into the world, was living with her at Baynard’s Castle until such time as his ailing wife could join him. It is said she was advising him as to the steps he should take in the difficult situation he faced. This can be believed, because Proud Cis had been a managing type of woman all her life. When her husband, Richard of York, was engaged in his cautious bid for the throne, and more inclined to spar and feint than to go right in with intent to knock his opponent out, the duchess had gone many steps ahead of him by setting up a regal household, over which she had presided with all the graces of a queen. When her eldest son, Edward, came to her to say he was going to marry Elizabeth Grey, she strove hard to make him change his mind, pointing out the unfitness of such a match. She was always against the mate her gorgeous son had chosen, partly because of the favors Elizabeth distributed among her ambitious brothers and sisters. And now, with only one son left, she was striving to set his feet securely in the direction of the throne.

It was about this time that men first began to write in the English tongue instead of in French or Latin. Unfortunately few letters of the period have been preserved. In all that come from Richard’s pen, he seems normal and kind, with a pleasant if somewhat dry wit showing through, and underneath everything a hint of sadness as though he sensed what lay ahead. A year after Dr. Shaw’s alleged bit of electioneering, the duchess received a letter from her son. He had become king in the meantime and was in the north in connection with disturbances there. It read:

I recommend me to you as heartily as is possible; beseeching you in my most humble and
effectuous
wise of your daily blessing to my singular comfort and hopes in my need. And, Madame, I heartily beseech you that I may hear from you to my comfort.… And I pray God send you the accomplishment of your noble desires.

Written at Pontefract the 11th day of Juyn, with the hand of your most humble son,

RICARDUS REX
.    

Not the kind of letter, certainly, that a man could write after allowing such a charge to be publicly proclaimed against his own mother; an affectionate and humble letter, rather, making it clear that the best of relations prevailed between them.

Before leaving this point, an absurd discrepancy in the
History
should be pointed out. Richard had been described on an earlier page in this wise: “In body and prowess far beneath them both [Edward and Clarence], little of stature, ill-featured of limbs, crookbacked, his left shoulder much higher than his right, hardfavored of visage.”

And now let us return to the crafty stage management that was supposed to gain Richard the approval of the people of London. Richard was to stroll nonchalantly on the scene after the preacher had spoken of Richard of York as true to the Plantagenet type. “But the lord protector,” the eloquent Dr. Shaw was to declaim at this point, “that very noble prince, that special pattern of knightly prowess, as well as in all princely behavior as in the lineaments and favor of his visage, representing the very face of the noble duke his father.” He was then to point to Richard and declaim loudly, “This is the father’s own figure, this is his own countenance, the very print of his visage, the same undoubted image, the plain express likeness of that noble duke!”

And then Richard was to step forward, bowing humbly no doubt in acknowledgment, limping, his crooked back bent, his withered arm dangling in its sleeve, his evil face contorted into some semblance of a smile. Imagine the effect of this on the people of London, who were sharp of wit and free of all subservience! This unfitting apostrophe of the learned doctor would have evoked roars of laughter and not the cries which had been expected of, “King Richard! King Richard!”

But the
History
continues by saying that Richard did not appear at the right moment. The stage directions had not been explicit enough. The good doctor had finished his panegyric and a silence had fallen on the crowded square. The preacher looked about him in alarm and appeared at a loss as to what he should do. Then he glimpsed Richard approaching in the company of his friend, the Duke of Buckingham, so
he repeated it all over again, word for word, as though, says the
History
, “the holy ghost had put them in the preacher’s mouth.”

Which are we to believe, the picture of Richard as an ugly monster which the
History
has given to posterity or this incident where he is depicted as the image of his impressive father? We cannot believe both. If one is not to be accepted, can any reliance be placed in the other?

The failure of this piece of folly (if it ever occurred as set down) did not convey any lesson apparently to the adherents of Richard. On the Tuesday following, says the
History
, the Duke of Buckingham came unto the Guildhall which was filled with people. He proceeded to make a long speech in favor of the protector, again in anticipation of a popular demonstration. Again the audience was “hushed and muted,” so the duke gave his talk a second time, speaking in a louder voice. At the finish the hoped-for clamor began, but it was no more than a sorry imitation of what had been expected. At the nether end of the hall, “a bushment of the duke’s servants with some prentices and lads that thrust into the hall” began to cry “King Richard! King Richard!” and to throw up their caps in token of joy. The duke seems to have accepted this perfunctory applause as the voice of the people and to have proceeded to act upon it.

One lesson that history teaches is that thrones are not overturned by half-measures or the clamor of paid claques. The ways of successful conspiracy are swift. Certainly such weak and foolish gestures as these imputed to Richard would have no effect in the city of London where the habit of the people was to turn out in turbulent mobs. The voice of London was never hushed or muted.

Not only had Richard always been a man of action and decision, he had seen his father fail to reach the throne by compromise measures, by consultations, by listening to the protests of those who opposed him. Moreover he had seen his brother Edward step boldly in and declare himself king without waiting for action of Parliament or for the approval of the people of London.

Richard already had behind him the kind of support which counted. England was thoroughly tired of boy kings. There had been three of them—Henry III, Richard II, and Henry VI—all of them unfitted for the stern business of kingship. Trouble had developed during the term of minority in each case, which had led to strife throughout the balance of each reign. If Henry V had left a son of mature years and with some of his own magnificent competence, the Wars of the Roses would never have been fought. And now here was a fourth one to be endured, with the circumstances in the case pointing to even more serious trouble. England did not want a boy king with the hated and feared Woodvilles grouped solidly about the throne. The older aristocracy still clung to the belief
that a king was no more than the representative of their class and that he must be strong enough to rule well. They wanted a man at the head of the state, a strong man. It is no idle supposition that, as he rode south to assume the post of protector, Richard had heard these feelings expressed on every hand, “Must we suffer another boy king?” and “We must get rid of these upstarts.” Being an honorable man, and still fiercely loyal to his brother’s memory, he would not be hasty to act in the matter of the succession. But he knew when he reached London that a large part of the people would prefer a man on the throne, and that he was the logical choice. A trying decision lay ahead of him.

The trumpery playacting which the inventor of the Fork has inserted in the
History
is doubly absurd because Richard had begun to take decisive steps to face the situation two weeks before. On June 9 he had called a meeting of the council, to which the queen was not invited. They sat in conference for four hours and emerged with grave faces. The next day he wrote to the city of York, requesting that as many armed men as could be organized be sent to London to protect him from the conspiring forces back of the queen.

It was at this meeting undoubtedly that the council had first been informed of information brought forward by Bishop Stillington of Bath and Wells. His story was that he had married Edward IV to Lady Eleanor Talbot, a daughter of the Earl of Shrewsbury, and that it had been kept secret by royal command. This had happened, of course, before Elizabeth Woodville captivated the susceptible king under the Queen’s Oak. If the bishop’s word were accepted (he does not seem to have produced any form of documentary proof), then the king’s marriage later with Elizabeth was bigamous and her children were illegitimate. The explanation generally accepted is that there had been no more than a “troth-plight” between the lady and Edward, for otherwise the bishop would have been impelled to speak out against the marriage with Elizabeth. In theory a troth-plight was binding on both parties but in practice it seems to have been regarded as breakable. Certainly this was done frequently in the case of the matches arranged for the sons and daughters of kings.

Whether marriage or troth-plight, the story which Stillington revealed was later laid before Parliament and there accepted as proof of the illegitimacy of Edward’s children.

I
T BECOMES necessary to quote again from the
History
at this point to make clear what happened on June 13. Many lords had assembled in the Tower and the protector joined them in a mood of great amiability. First he said to the Bishop of Ely (Morton himself), “My lord, you have very good strawberries at your garden in Holborn. I request you let me have a mess of them.”

“Gladly, my lord.” And in all haste the bishop sent his servant for a mess of the strawberries.

The protector in the meantime had retired from the meeting, not to return for more than an hour. When seen again, he had “a wonderful sour, angry countenance, knitting the brows, frowning and frotting, and gnawing at his lips.” Finally he broke into words, accusing two women, “that sorceress” the queen and “that other witch of her counsel, Shore’s wife” of wasting his body by witchcraft. As Richard talked, he plucked up the sleeve of his doublet on the left arm and showed them “a weerish, withered arm, and small, as it was never other.” All in attendance knew, declares the
History
, that his arm had been withered from his birth, but they agreed that the two women were worthy of “heinous punishment.” At this, Richard rapped loudly on the board and immediately men in harness came rushing in, crying, “Treason!”, so many of them that the chamber was filled. There was scuffling and brandishing of arms. Lord Stanley, who was among those present, received a wound on the head. Richard said to the chamberlain, Hastings, to the astonishment of all, “I arrest thee, traitor!” Several of the others, including Morton himself, were also named as guilty and were quickly bestowed in divers chambers. Hastings was taken from the chamber without trial and beheaded on a long log of timber. Richard then proclaimed that the lord
chamberlain had been in a plot to do away with him. His next step was to send Jane Shore to prison and later have her walk across London in bare feet with a taper in her hand, as a sign of penitence. It is stated that he pursued this alleged sorceress with great malignancy.

There are two points of truth only in all of this. A meeting
was
held that morning in the Tower and Lord Stanley did acquire a broken head in the fracas. Or, perhaps, the strawberries should be exempt. All historians have used this bit with glee, as a shining example of reality in historical narrative. Shakespeare has used it: so let it be.

Everything else can be thrown aside as glaring mistakes, inventions, embroideries, or plain downright falsehoods, whichever one desires to call them. Let us take them up in order.

Richard did not have a withered arm, and perhaps this is a good place to deal once and for all with the question of his physical make-up and appearance. He was not a hunchback, but one shoulder was higher than the other. If a poll could be taken of all the tailors of all time, summoning them from the shades with their cushions in hand and pins in their lapels, it would be found that a man with shoulders of perfect evenness is rather rare indeed. The difference in Richard’s shoulders was noticeable and, being sensitive, as the youngest and least attractive in a family of eleven, he sought to cover up by having his clothes padded and by draping cloaks over the lower shoulder.