Horace Walpole - Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard the Third
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Horace Walpole >> Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard the Third
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III. The murder of his brother Clarence.
In the examination of this article, I shall set aside our
historians (whose gossipping narratives, as we have seen, deserve
little regard) because we have better authority to direct our
inquiries: and this is, the attainder of the duke of Clarence, as it
is set forth in the Parliamentary History (copied indeed from
Habington's Life of Edward the Fourth) and by the editors of that
history justly supposed to be taken from Stowe, who had seen the
original bill of attainder. The crimes and conspiracy of Clarence
are there particularly enumerated, and even his dealing with
conjurers and necromancers, a charge however absurd, yet often made
use of in that age. Eleanor Cobham, wife of Humphrey duke of
Gloucester, had been condemned on a parallel accusation. In France
it was a common charge; and I think so late as in the reign of Henry
the Eighth Edward duke of Buckingham was said to have consulted
astrologers and such like cattle, on the succession of the crown.
Whether Clarence was guilty we cannot easily tell; for in those
times neither the public nor the prisoner were often favoured with
knowing the evidence on which sentence was passed. Nor was much
information of that sort given to or asked by parliament itself,
previous to bills of attainder. The duke of Clarence appears to have
been at once a weak, volatile, injudicious, and ambitious man. He
had abandoned his brother Edward, had espoused the daughter of
Warwick, the great enemy of their house, and had even been declared
successor to Henry the Sixth and his son prince Edward. Conduct so
absurd must have left lasting impressions on Edward's mind, not to
be effaced by Clarence's subsequent treachery to Henry and Warwick.
The Chronicle of Croyland mentions the ill-humour and discontents of
Clarence; and all our authors agree, that he kept no terms with the
queen and her relations.(1) Habington adds, that these discontents
were secretly fomented by the duke of Gloucester. Perhaps they were:
Gloucester certainly kept fair with the queen, and profited largely
by the forfeiture of his brother. But where jealousies are secretly
fomented in a court, they seldom come to the knowledge of an
historian; and though he may have guessed right from collateral
circumstances, these insinuations are mere gratis dicta and can only
be treated as surmises.(2) Hall, Hollingshed, and Stowe say not a
word of Richard being the person who put the sentence in execution;
but, on the contrary, they all say he openly resisted the murder of
Clarence: all too record another circumstance, which is perfectly
ridiculous that Clarence was drowned in a barrel or butt of malmsey.
Whoever can believe that a butt of wine was the engine of his death,
may believe that Richard helped him into it, and kept him down till
he was suffocated. But the strong evidence on which Richard must be
acquitted, and indeed even of having contributed to his death, was
the testimony of Edward himself. Being some time afterward solicited
to pardon a notorious criminal, the king's conscience broke forth;
"Unhappy brother!" cried he, "for whom no man would intercede--yet
ye all can be intercessors for a villain!" If Richard had been
instigator or executioner, it is not likely that the king would
have assumed the whole merciless criminality to himself, without
bestowing a due share on his brother Gloucester. Is it possible to
renew the charge, and not recollect this acquittal?
(1) That chronicle, which now and then, though seldom, is
circumstantial, gives a curious account of the marriage of Richard
duke of Gloucester and Anne Nevil, which I have found in no other
author; and which seems to tax the envy and rapaciousness of
Clarence as the causes of the dissention between the brothers. This
account, and from a cotemporary, is the more remarkable, as the Lady
Anne is positively said to have been only betrothed to Edward prince
of Wales, son of Henry the Sixth, and not his widow, as she is
carelessly called by all our historians, and represented in
Shakespeare's masterly scene. "Postquam filius regis Henrici, cui
Domina Anna, minor filia comitis Warwici, desponsata fuit, in
prefato bello de Tewkysbury occubuit," Richard, duke of Gloucester
desired her for his wife. Clarence, who had married the elder
sister, was unwilling to share so rich an inheritance with his
brother, and concealed the young lady. Gloucester was too alert for
him, and discovered the Lady Anne in the dress of a cookmaid in
London, and removed her to the sanctuary of St. Martin. The brothers
pleaded each his cause in person before their elder brother in
counsel; and every man, says the author, admired the strength of
their respective arguments. The king composed their differences,
bestowed the maiden on Gloucester, and parted the estate between him
and Clarence; the countess of Warwick, mother of the heiresses, and
who had brought that vast wealth to the house of Nevil, remaining
the only sufferer, being reduced to a state of absolute necessity,
as appears from Dugdale. In such times, under such despotic
dispensations, the greatest crimes were only consequences of the
economy of government.--Note, that Sir Richard Baker is so absurd as
to make Richard espouse the Lady Anne after his accession, though he
had a son by her ten years old at that time.
(2) The chronicle above quoted asserts, that the speaker of the
house of commons demanded the execution of Clarence. Is it credible
that, on a proceeding so public, and so solemn for that age, the
brother of the offended monarch and of the royal criminal should
have been deputed, or would have stooped to so vile an office? On
such occasions do arbitrary princes want tools? Was Edward's court
so virtuous or so humane, that it could furnish no assassin but the
first prince of the blood? When the house of commons undertook to
colour the king's resentment, was every member of it too scrupulous
to lend his hand to the deed?
The three preceding accusations are evidently uncertain and
improbable. What follows is more obscure; and it is on the ensuing
transactions that I venture to pronounce, that we have little or no
authority on which to form positive conclusions. I speak more
particularly of the deaths of Edward the Fifth and his brother. It
will, I think, appear very problematic whether they were murdered or
not: and even if they were murdered, it is impossible to believe the
account as fabricated and divulged by Henry the Seventh, on whose
testimony the murder must rest at last; for they, who speak most
positively, revert to the story which he was pleased to publish
eleven years after their supposed deaths, and which is so absurd, so
incoherent, and so repugnant to dates and other facts, that as it is
no longer necessary to pay court to his majesty, it is no longer
necessary not to treat his assertions as an impudent fiction. I come
directly to this point, because the intervening articles of the
executions of Rivers, Gray, Vaughan, and Hastings will naturally
find their place in that disquisition.
And here it will be important to examine those historians on whose
relation the story first depends. Previous to this, I must ascertain
one or two dates, for they are stubborn evidence and cannot be
rejected: they exist every where, and cannot be proscribed even from
a Court Calendar.
Edward the Fourth died April 9th, 1483. Edward, his eldest son, was
then thirteen years of age. Richard Duke of York, his second son,
was about nine.
We have but two cotemporary historians, the author of the Chronicle
of Croyland, and John Fabian. The first, who wrote in his convent,
and only mentioned incidentally affairs of state, is very barren and
concise: he appears indeed not to have been ill informed, and
sometimes even in a situation of personally knowing the transactions
of the times; for in one place we are told in a marginal note, that
the doctor of the canon law, and one of the king's councellors, who
was sent to Calais, was the author of the Continuation. Whenever
therefore his assertions are positive, and not merely flying
reports, he ought to be admitted as fair evidence, since we have no
better. And yet a monk who busies himself in recording the
insignificant events of his own order or monastery, and who was at
most occasionally made use of, was not likely to know the most
important and most mysterious secrets of state; I mean, as he was
not employed in those iniquitous transactions--if he had been, we
should learn or might expect still less truth from him.
John Fabian was a merchant, and had been sheriff of London, and died
in 1512: he consequently lived on the spot at that very interesting
period. Yet no sheriff was ever less qualified to write a history of
England. His narrative is dry, uncircumstantial, and unimportant: he
mentions the deaths of princes and revolutions of government, with
the same phlegm and brevity as he would speak of the appointment of
churchwardens. I say not this from any partiality, or to decry the
simple man as crossing my opinion; for Fabian's testimony is far
from bearing hard against Richard, even though he wrote under Henry
the Seventh, who would have suffered no apology for his rival, and
whose reign was employed not only in extirpating the house of York,
but in forging the most atrocious calumnies to blacken their
memories, and invalidate their just claim.
But the great source from whence all later historians have taken
their materials for the reign of Richard the Third, is Sir Thomas
More. Grafton, the next in order, has copied him verbatim: so does
Hollingshed--and we are told by the former in a marginal note, that
Sir Thomas was under-sheriff of London when he composed his work. It
is in truth a composition, and a very beautiful one. He was then in
the vigour of his fancy, and fresh from the study of the Greek and
Roman historians, whose manner he has imitated in divers imaginary
orations. They serve to lengthen an unknown history of little more
than two months into a pretty sizeable volume; but are no more to be
received as genuine, than the facts they adduced to countenance. An
under-sheriff of London, aged but twenty-eight, and recently marked
with the displeasure of the crown, was not likely to be furnished
with materials from any high authority, and could not receive them
from the best authority, I mean the adverse party, who were
proscribed, and all their chiefs banished or put to death. Let us
again recur to dates.(3) Sir Thomas More was born in 1480: he was
appointed under-sheriff in 1508, and three years before had offended
Henry the Seventh in the tender point of opposing a subsidy. Buck,
the apologist of Richard the Third, ascribes the authorities of Sir
Thomas to the information of archbishop Morton; and it is true that
he had been brought up under that prelate; but Morton died in 1500,
when Sir Thomas was but twenty years old, and when he had scarce
thought of writing history. What materials he had gathered from his
master were probably nothing more than a general narrative of the
preceding times in discourse at dinner or in a winter's evening, if
so raw a youth can be supposed to have been admitted to familiarity
with a prelate of that rank and prime minister. But granting that
such pregnant parts as More's had leaped the barrier of dignity, and
insinuated himself into the archbishop's favour; could he have drawn
from a more corrupted source? Morton had not only violated his
allegiance to Richard; but had been the chief engine to dethrone
him, and to plant a bastard scyon in the throne. Of all men living
there could not be more suspicious testimony than the prelate's,
except the king's: and had the archbishop selected More for the
historian of those dark scenes, who had so much, interest to blacken
Richard, as the man who had risen to be prime minister to his rival?
Take it therefore either way; that the archbishop did or did not
pitch on a young man of twenty to write that history, his authority
was as suspicious as could be.
(3) Vide Biog. Britannica, p. 3159.
It may be said, on the other hand, that Sir Thomas, who had smarted
for his boldness (for his father, a judge of the king's bench, had
been imprisoned and fined for his son's offence) had had little
inducement to flatter the Lancastrian cause. It is very true; nor am
I inclined to impute adulation to one of the honestest statesmen and
brightest names in our annals. He who scorned to save his life by
bending to the will of the son, was not likely to canvas the favour
of the father, by prostituting his pen to the humour of the court. I
take the truth to be, that Sir Thomas wrote his reign of Edward the
Fifth as he wrote his Utopia; to amuse his leisure and exercise his
fancy. He took up a paltry canvas and embroidered it with a flowing
design as his imagination suggested the colours. I should deal more
severely with his respected memory on any other hypothesis. He has
been guilty of such palpable and material falshoods, as, while they
destroy his credit as an historian, would reproach his veracity as a
man, if we could impute them to premeditated perversion of truth,
and not to youthful levity and inaccuracy. Standing as they do, the
sole groundwork of that reign's history, I am authorized to
pronounce the work, invention and romance.
Polidore Virgil, a foreigner, and author of a light Latin history,
was here during the reigns of Henry the Seventh and Eighth. I may
quote him now-and-then, and the Chronicle of Croyland; but neither
furnish us with much light.
There was another writer in that age of far greater authority, whose
negligent simplicity and' veracity are unquestionable; who had great
opportunities of knowing our story, and whose testimony is
corroborated by our records: I mean Philip de Comines. He and Buck
agree with one another, and with the rolls of parliament; Sir Thomas
More with none of them.
Buck, so long exploded as a lover of paradoxes, and as an advocate
for a monster, gains new credit the deeper this dark scene is
fathomed. Undoubtedly Buck has gone too far; nor are his style or
method to be admired. With every intention of vindicating Richard,
he does but authenticate his crimes, by searching in other story for
parallel instances of what he calls policy.
No doubt politicians will acquit Richard, if confession of his
crimes be pleaded in defence of them. Policy will justify his taking
off opponents. Policy will maintain him in removing those who would
have barred his obtaining the crown, whether he thought he had a
right to it, or was determined to obtain it. Morality, especially in
the latter case, cannot take his part. I shall speak more to this
immediately. Kapin conceived doubts; but instead of pursuing them,
wandered after judgments; and they will lead a man where-ever he has
a mind to be led. Carte, with more manly shrewdness, has sifted many
parts of Richard's story, and guessed happily. My part has less
penetration; but the parliamentary history, the comparison of dates,
and the authentic monument lately come to light, and from which I
shall give extracts, have convinced me, that, if Buck is too
favourable, all our other historians are blind guides, and have not
made out a twentieth part of their assertions.
The story of Edward the Fifth is thus related by Sir Thomas More,
and copied from him by all our historians.
When the king his father died, the prince kept his court at Ludlow,
under the tuition of his maternal uncle Anthony earl Rivers. Richard
duke of Gloucester was in the north, returning from his successful
expedition against the Scots. The queen wrote instantly to her
brother to bring up the young king to London, with a train of two
thousand horse: a fact allowed by historians, and which, whether a
prudent caution or not, was the first overt-act of the new reign;
and likely to strike, as it did strike, the duke of Gloucester and
the antient nobility with a jealousy, that the queen intended to
exclude them from the administration, and to govern in concert with
her own family. It is not improper to observe that no precedent
authorized her to assume such power. Joan, princess dowager of
Wales, and widow of the Black Prince, had no share in the government
during the minority of her son Richard the Second. Catherine of
Valois, widow of Henry the Fifth Was alike excluded from the
regency, though her son was but a year old. And if Isabella governed
on the deposition of Edward the Second, it Was by an usurped power,
by the same power that had contributed to dethrone her husband; a
power sanctified by no title, and confirmed by no act of
parliament.(4) The first step to a female regency(5) enacted,
though it never took place, was many years afterwards, in the reign
of Henry the Eighth.
(4) Twelve guardians were appointed by parliament, and the earl of
Lancaster was entrusted with the care of the king's person. The
latter, being excluded from exercising his charge by the queen and
Mortimer, gave that as a reason for not obeying a summons to
parliament. Vide Parliam. Hist. vol. i. p. 208. 215.
(5) Vide the act of succession in Parliam. Hist. vol. III. p. 127.
Edward, on his death-bed, had patched up a reconciliation between
his wife's kindred and the great lords of the court; particularly
between the Marquis Dorset, the Queen's son, and the lord
chamberlain Hastings. Yet whether the disgusted lords had only
seemed to yield, to satisfy the dying king, or whether the steps
taken by the queen gave them new cause of umbrage it appears that
the duke of Buckingham, was the first to communicate his suspicions
to Gloucester, and to dedicate himself to his service. Lord Hastings
was scarce less forward to join in like measures, and all three, it
is pretended, were so alert, that they contrived to have it
insinuated to the queen, that it would give much offence if the
young king should be brought to London with so great a force as she
had ordered; on which suggestions she wrote to Lord Rivers to
countermand her first directions.
It is difficult not to suspect, that our historians have imagined
more plotting in this transaction than could easily be compassed in
so short a period, and in an age when no communication could be
carried on but by special messengers, in bad roads, and with no
relays of post-horses.
Edward the Fourth died April 9th, and his son made his entrance into
London May 4th.(6) It is not probable, that the queen communicated her
directions for bringing up her son with an armed force to the lords
of the council, and her newly reconciled enemies. But she might be
betrayed. Still it required some time for Buckingham to send his
servant Percival (though Sir Thomas More vaunts his expedition) to
York, where the Duke of Gloucester then lay;(7) for Percival's
return (it must be observed too that the Duke of Buckingham was in
Wales, consequently did not learn the queen's orders on the spot,
but either received the account from London, or learnt it from
Ludlow); for the two dukes to send instructions to their
confederates in London; for the impression to be made on the queen,
and for her dispatching her counter-orders; for Percival to post
back and meet Gloucester at Nottingham, and for returning thence and
bringing his master Buckingham to meet Richard at Northampton, at
the very time of the king's arrival there. All this might happen,
undoubtedly; and yet who will believe, that such mysterious and
rapid negociations came to the knowledge of Sir Thomas More
twenty-five years afterwards, when, as it will appear, he knew
nothing of very material and public facts that happened at the same
period?
(6) Fabian.
(7) It should be remarked too, that the duke of Gloucester is
positively said to be celebrating his brother's obsequies there. It
not only strikes off part of the term by allowing the necessary time
for the news of king Edward's death to reach York, and for the
preparation to be made there to solemnize a funeral for him; but
this very circumstance takes off from the probability of Richard
having as yett laid any plan for dispossessing his nephew. Would he
have loitered at York at such a crisis, if he had intended to step
into the throne?
But whether the circumstances are true, or whether artfully
imagined, it is certain that the king, with a small force, arrived
at Northampton, and thence proceeded to Stony Stratford. Earl Rivers
remained at Northampton, where he was cajoled by the two dukes till
the time of rest, when the gates of the inn were suddenly locked,
and the earl made prisoner. Early in the morning the two dukes
hastened to Stony Stratford, where, in the king's presence, they
picked a quarrel with his other half-brother, the lord Richard Grey,
accusing him, the marquis Dorset, and their uncle Rivers, of
ambitious and hostile designs, to which ends the marquis had entered
the Tower, taken treasure thence, and sent a force to sea.
"These things," says Sir Thomas, "the dukes knew, were done for good
and necessary purposes, and by appointment of the council; but
somewhat they must say," &c. As Sir Thomas has not been pleased to
specify those purposes, and as in those times at least privy
counsellors were exceedingly complaisant to the ruling powers, he
must allow us to doubt whether the purposes of the queen's relations
were quite so innocent as he would make us believe; and whether the
princes of the blood and the antient nobility had not some reasons
to be jealous that the queen was usurping more power than the laws
had given her. The catastrophe of her whole family so truly deserves
commiseration, that we are apt to shut our eyes to all her weakness
and ill-judged policy; and yet at every step we find how much she
contributed to draw ruin on their heads and her own, by the
confession even of her apologists. The Duke of Gloucester was the
first prince of the blood, the constitution pointed him out as
regent; no will, no disposition of the late king was even alleged to
bar his pretensions; he had served the state with bravery, success,
and fidelity; and the queen herself, who had been insulted by
Clarence, had had no cause to complain of Gloucester. Yet all her
conduct intimated designs of governing by force in the name of her
son.(8) If these facts are impartially stated, and grounded on the
confession of those who inveigh most bitterly against Richard's
memory, let us allow that at least thus far he acted as most princes
would have done in his situation, in a lawless and barbarous age,
and rather instigated by others, than from any before-conceived
ambition and system. If the journeys of Percival are true,
Buckingham was the devil that tempted Richard; and if Richard still
wanted instigation, then it must follow, that he had not murdered
Henry the Sixth, his son, and Clarence, to pave his own way to the
crown. If this fine story of Buckingham and Percival is not true,
what becomes of Sir Thomas More's credit, on which the whole fabric
leans?
Lord Richard, Sir Thomas Vaughan, and Sir Richard Hawte, were
arrested, and with Lord Rivers sent prisoners to Pomfret, while the
dukes conducted the king by easy stages to London.
The queen, hearing what had happened took sanctuary at Westminster,
with her other son the duke of York, and the princesses her
daughters. Rotheram, archbishop of York and Lord Chancellor,
repaired to her with the great seal, and endeavoured to comfort her
dismay with the friendly message he had received from Hastings, who
was with the confederate lords on the road. "A woe worth him!" quoth
the queen, "for it is he that goeth about to destroy me and my
blood!" Not a word is said of her suspecting the duke of Gloucester.
The archbishop seems to have been the first who entertained any
suspicion; and yet, if all that our historian says of him is true,
Rotheram was far from being a shrewd man: witness the indiscreet
answer which he is said to have made on this occasion. "Madam,"
quoth he, "be of good comfort, and assure you, if they crown any
other king than your son whom they now have we shall on the morrow
crown his brother, whom you have here with you." Did the silly
prelate think that it would be much consolation to a mother, whose
eldest son might be murthered, that her younger son would be crowned
in prison, or was she to be satisfied with seeing one son entitled
to the crown, and the other enjoying it nominally?
He then delivered the seal to the queen, and as lightly sent for it
back immediately after.
The dukes continued their march, declaring they were bringing the
king to his coronation, Hastings, who seems to have preceded them,
endeavoured to pacify the apprehensions which had been raised in the
people, acquainting them that the arrested lords had been imprisoned
for plotting against the dukes of Gloucester and Buckingham. As both
those princes were of the blood royal,(9) this accusation was not
ill founded, it having evidently been the intention, as I have
shewn, to bar them from any share in the administration, to which,
by the custom of the realm, they were intitled. So much depends on
this foundation, that I shall be excused from enforcing it. The
queen's party were the aggressors; and though that alone would not
justify all the following excesses, yet we must not judge of those
times by the present. Neither the crown nor the great men were
restrained by sober established forms and proceedings as they are at
present; and from the death of Edward the Third, force alone had
dictated. Henry the Fourth had stepped into the throne contrary to
all justice. A title so defective had opened a door to attempts as
violent; and the various innovations introduced in the latter years
of Henry the Sixth had annihilated all ideas of order. Richard duke
of York had been declared successor to the crown during the life of
Henry and of his son prince Edward, and, as appears by the
Parliamentary History, though not noticed by our careless historians
was even appointed prince of Wales. The duke of Clarence had
received much such another declaration in his favour during the
short restoration of Henry. What temptations were these precedents
to an affronted prince! We shall see soon what encouragement they
gave him to examine closely into his nephew's pretensions; and how
imprudent it was in the queen to provoke Gloucester, when her very
existence as queen was liable to strong objections. Nor ought the
subsequent executions of Lord Rivers, Lord Richard Grey, and of Lord
Hastings himself, to be considered in so very strong a light, as
they would appear in, if acted in modern times. During the wars of
York and Lancaster, no forms of trial had been observed. Not only
peers taken in battle had been put to death without process; but
whoever, though not in arms, was made prisoner by the victorious
party, underwent the same fate; as was the case of Tiptoft earl of
Worcester, who had fled and was taken in disguise. Trials had never
been used with any degree of strictness, as at present; and though
Richard was pursued and killed as an usurper, the Solomon that
succeeded him, was not a jot-less a tyrant. Henry the Eighth was
still less of a temper to give greater latitude to the laws. In
fact, little ceremony or judicial proceeding was observed on trials,
till the reign of Elizabeth, who, though decried of late for her
despotism, in order to give some shadow of countenance to the
tyranny of the Stuarts, was the first of our princes, under whom any
gravity or equity was allowed in cases of treason. To judge
impartially therefore, we ought to recall the temper and manners of
the times we read of. It is shocking to eat our enemies: but it is
not so shocking in an Iroquois, as it would be in the king of
Prussia. And this is all I contend for, that the crimes of Richard,
which he really committed, at least which we have reason to believe
he committed, were more the crimes of the age than of the man; and
except these executions of Rivers, Grey, and Hastings, I defy any
body to prove one other of those charged to his account, from any
good authority.
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