Horace Walpole - Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard the Third

H >> Horace Walpole >> Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard the Third

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Except the proclamation which, Sir Thomas says, appeared to
have been prepared before hand. The death of Hastings, I allow, is
the fact of which we are most sure, without knowing the immediate
motives: we must conclude it was determined on his opposing
Richard's claim: farther we do not know, nor whether that opposition
was made in a legal or hostile manner. It is impossible to believe
that, an hour before his death, he should have exulted in the deaths
of their common enemies, and vaunted, as Sir Thomas More asserts,
his connection with Richard, if he was then actually at variance
with him; nor that Richard should, without provocation, have
massacred so excellent an accomplice. This story, therefore, must be
left in the dark, as we find it.

(18) So far from it, that as Mr. Hume remarks, there is in Rymer's
Foedera a proclamation of Richard, in which he accuses, not the lord
Hastings, but the marquis Dorset, of connexion with Jane Shore. Mr.
Hume thinks so authentic a paper not sufficient to overbalance the
credit due to Sir Thomas More. What little credit was due to him
appears from the course of this work in various and indubitable
instances. The proclamation against the lord Dorset and Jane Shore
is not dated till the 23rd. of October following. Is it credible
that Richard would have made use of this woman's name again, if he
had employed it heretofore to blacken Hastings? It is not probable
that, immediately on the death of the king, she had been taken into
keeping by lord Hastings; but near seven months had elapsed between
that death and her connection with the marquis.

The very day on which Hastings was executed, were beheaded earl
Rivers, Lord Richard Grey, Vaughan, and Haute. These executions are
indubitable; were consonant to the manners and violence of the age;
and perhaps justifiable by that wicked code, state necessity. I have
never pretended to deny them, because I find them fully
authenticated. I have in another(19) place done justice to the
virtues and excellent qualities of earl Rivers: let therefore my
impartiality be believed, when I reject other facts, for which I can
discover no good authority. I can have no interest in Richard's
guilt or innocence; but as Henry the Seventh was so much interested
to represent him as guilty, I cannot help imputing to the greater
usurper, and to the worse tyrant of the two, all that appears to me
to have been calumny and misrepresentation.

(19) In the Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors, vol. 1.

All obstacles thus removed, and Richard being solemnly instated in
the throne by the concurrent voice of the three estates, "He
openly," says Sir Thomas More, "took upon him to be king the
ninth(20) day of June, and' the morrow after was proclaimed, riding
to Westminster with great state; and calling the judges before him,
straightly commanded them to execute the laws without favor or
delay, with many good exhortations, of the which he followed not
one." This is an invidious and false accusation. Richard, in his
regal capacity, was an excellent king, and for the short time of his
reign enacted many wise and wholesome laws. I doubt even whether one
of the best proofs of his usurpation was not the goodness of his
government, according to a common remark, that princes of doubtful
titles make the best masters, as it is more necessary for them to
conciliate the favour of the people: the natural corollary from
which observation need not be drawn. Certain it is that in many
parts of the kingdom not poisoned by faction, he was much beloved;
and even after his death the northern counties gave open testimony
of their affection to his memory.

(20) Though I have copied our historian, as the rest have copied
him, in this date I must desire the reader to take notice, that this
very date is another of Sir T. More's errors; for in the public acts
is a deed of Edward the Fifth, dated June 17th.

On the 6th of July Richard was crowned, and soon after set out on a
progress to York, on his way visiting Gloucester, the seat of his
former duchy. And now it is that I must call up the attention of the
reader, the capital and bloody scene of Richard's life being dated
from this progress. The narrative teems with improbabilities and
notorious falshoods, and is flatly contradicted by so many
unquestionable facts, that if we have no other reason to believe the
murder of Edward the Fifth and his brother, than the account
transmitted to us, we shall very much doubt whether they ever were
murdered at all. I will state the account, examine it, and produce
evidence to confute it, and then the reader will form his own
judgment on the matter of fact.

Richard before he left London, had taken no measures to accomplish
the assassination; but on the road "his mind misgave him,(21) that
while his nephews lived, he should not possess the crown with
security. Upon this reflection he dispatched one Richard Greene to
Sir Robert Brakenbury, lieutenant of the Tower, with a letter and
credence also, that the same Sir Robert in any wise should put the
two children to death. This John Greene did his errand to
Brakenbury, kneeling before our Lady in the Tower, who plainly
answered 'that he never would put them to death, to dye therefore.'
Green returned with this answer to the king who was then at Warwick,
wherewith he took such displeasure and thought, that the same night
he said unto a secret page of his, 'Ah! whom shall a man trust? They
that I have brought up myself, they that I thought would have most
surely served me, even those faile me, and at my commandment will do
nothing for me.' 'Sir,' quoth the page 'there lieth one in the palet
chamber without, that I dare say will doe your grace pleasure; the
thing were right hard that he would refuse;' meaning this by James
Tirrel, whom," says Sir Thomas a few pages afterwards, "as men say,
he there made a knight. The man" continues More, "had an high
heart, and sore longed upwards, not rising yet so fast as he had
hoped, being hindered and kept under by Sir Richard Ratcliffe and
Sir William Catesby, who by secret drifts kept him out of all secret
trust." To be short, Tirrel voluntarily accepted the commission,
received warrant to authorise Brakenbury to deliver to him the keys
of the Tower for one night; and having selected two other villains
called Miles Forest and John Dighton, the two latter smothered the
innocent princes in their beds, and then called Tirrel to be witness
of the execution.

(21) Sir T. More.

It is difficult to croud more improbabilities and lies together than
are comprehended in this short narrative. Who can believe if Richard
meditated the murder, that he took no care to sift Brakenbury before
he left London? Who can believe that he would trust so atrocious a
commission to a letter? And who can imagine, that on Brakenbury's(22)
non-compliance Richard would have ordered him to cede the government
of the Tower to Tirrel for one night only, the purpose of which had
been so plainly pointed out by the preceding message? And had such
weak step been taken, could the murder itself have remained a
problem? And yet Sir Thomas More himself is forced to confess at the
outset of this very narration, "that the deaths and final fortunes
of the two young princes have nevertheless so far come in question,
that some remained long in doubt, whether they were in his days
destroyed(23) or no." Very memorable words, and sufficient to
balance More's own testimony with the most sanguine believers. He
adds, "these doubts not only arose from the uncertainty men were in,
whether Perkin Warbeck was the true duke of York, but for that also
all things were so covertly demeaned, that there was nothing so
plain and openly proved, but that yet men had it ever inwardly
suspect." Sir Thomas goes on to affirm, "that he does not relate
the story after every way that he had heard, but after that way that
he had heard it by such men and such meanes as he thought it hard
but it should be true." This affirmation rests on the credibility of
certain reporters, we do not know whom, but who we shall find were
no credible reporters at all: for to proceed to the confutation.
James Tirrel, a man in no secret trust with the king, and kept down
by Catesby and Ratcliffe, is recommended as a proper person by a
nameless page. In the first place Richard was crowned at York (after
this transaction) September 8th. Edward the Fourth had not been
dead four months, and Richard in possession of any power not above
two months, and those very bustling and active: Tirrel must have
been impatient indeed, if the page had had time to observe his
discontent at the superior confidence of Ratcliffe and Catesby. It
happens unluckily too, that great part of the time Ratcliffe was
absent, Sir Thomas More himself telling us that Sir Richard
Ratcliffe had the custody of the prisoners at Pontefract, and
presided at their execution there. But a much more unlucky
circumstance is, that James Tirrel, said to be knighted for this
horrid service, was not only a knight before, but a great or very
considerable officer of the crown; and in that situation had walked
at Richard's preceding coronation. Should I be told that Sir Thomas
Moore did not mean to confine the ill offices done to Tirrel by
Ratcliffe and Catesby solely to the time of Richard's protectorate
and regal power, but being all three attached to him when duke of
Gloucester, the other two might have lessened Tirrel's credit with
the duke even in the preceding reign; then I answer, that Richard's
appointing him master of the horse on his accession had removed
those disgusts, and left the page no room to represent him as ready
through ambition and despondency to lend his ministry to
assassination. Nor indeed was the master, of the horse likely to be
sent to supercede the constable of the Tower for one night only.
That very act was sufficient to point out what Richard desired to,
and did, it seems, transact so covertly.

(22) It appears from the Foedera that Brakenbury was appointed
Constable of the Tower July 7th; that he surrendered his patent
March 9th of the following year, and had one more ample granted to
him. If it is supposed that Richard renewed this patent to Sir
Robert Brakenbury, to prevent his disclosing what he knew of a
murder, in which he had refused to be concerned, I then ask if it is
probable that a man too virtuous or too cautious to embark in an
assassination, and of whom the supposed tyrant stood in awe, would
have laid down his life in that usurper's cause, as Sir Robert did,
being killed on Richard's side at Bosworth, when many other of his
adherents betrayed him?

(23) This is confirmed by Lord Bacon: "Neither wanted there even at
that time secret rumours and whisperings (which afterwards
gathered strength, and turned to great trouble) that the two young
sons of king Edward the Fourth, or one of them (which were said to
be destroyed in the Tower) were not indeed murthered, but conveyed
secretly away, and were yet living." Reign of Henry the Seventh, p. 4.
again, p. 19. "And all this time it was still whispered every where
that at least one of the children of Edward the Fourth was living."

That Sir James Tirrel was and did walk as master of the horse at
Richard's coronation cannot be contested. A most curious,
invaluable, and authentic monument has lately been discovered, the
coronation-roll of Richard the Third. Two several deliveries of
parcels of stuff are there expressly entered, as made to "Sir James
Tirrel, knyght, maister of the hors of our sayd soverayn lorde the
kynge." What now becomes of Sir Thomas More's informers, and of
their narrative, which he thought hard but must be true?

I will go a step farther, and consider the evidence of this murder,
as produced by Henry the Seventh some years afterwards, when,
instead of lamenting it, it was necessary for his majesty to hope it
had been true; at least to hope the people would think so. On the
appearance of Perkin Warbeck, who gave himself out for the second of
the brothers, who was believed so by most people, and at least
feared by the king to be so, he bestirred himself to prove that both
the princes had been murdered by his predecessor. There had been but
three actors, besides Richard who had commanded the execution, and
was dead. These were Sir James Tirrel, Dighton, and Forrest; and
these were all the persons whose depositions Henry pretended to
produce; at least of two of them, for Forrest it seems had rotted
piece-meal away; a kind of death unknown at present to the college.
But there were some others, of whom no notice was taken; as the
nameless page, Greene, one Black Will or Will Slaughter who guarded
the princes, the friar who buried them, and Sir Robert Brakenbury,
who could not be quite ignorant of what had happened: the latter was
killed at Bosworth, and the friar was dead too. But why was no
enquiry made after Greene and the page? Still this silence was not
so impudent as the pretended confession of Dighton and Sir James
Tyrrel. The former certainly did avow the fact, and was suffered to
go unpunished wherever he pleased--undoubtedly that he might spread
the tale. And observe these remarkable words of lord Bacon, "John
Dighton, who it seemeth spake best the king, was forewith set at
liberty." In truth, every step of this pretended discovery, as it
stands in lord Bacon, warns us to give no heed to it. Dighton and
Tirrel agreed both in a tale, as the king gave out. Their confession
therefore was not publickly made, and as Sir James Tirrel was
suffered to live;(24) but was shut up in the Tower, and put to death
afterwards for we know not what reason. What can we believe, but
that Dighton was some low mercenary wretch hired to assume the guilt
of a crime he had not committed, and that Sir James Tirrel never
did, never would confess what he had not done; and was therefore put
out of the way on a fictitious imputation? It must be observed too,
that no inquiry was made into the murder on the accession of Henry
the Seventh, the natural time for it, when the passions of men were
heated, and when the duke of Norfolk, lord Lovel, Catesby,
Ratcliffe, and the real abettors or accomplices of Richard, were
attainted and executed. No mention of such a murder (25)was made in
the very act of parliament that attainted Richard himself, and which
would have been the most heinous aggravation of his crimes. And no
prosecution of the supposed assassins was even thought of till
eleven years afterwards, on the appearance of Perkin Warbeck. Tirrel
is not named in the act of attainder to which I have had recourse;
and such omissions cannot but induce us to surmise that Henry had
never been certain of the deaths of the princes, nor ever interested
himself to prove that both were dead, till he had great reason to
believe that one of them was alive. Let me add, that if the
confessions of Dighton and Tirrel were true, Sir Thomas More had no
occasion to recur to the information of his unknown credible
informers. If those confessions were not true, his informers were
not credible.

(24) It appears by Hall, that Sir James Tirrel had even enjoyed the
favor of Henry; for Tirrel is named as captain of Guards in a list
of valiant officers that were sent by Henry, in his fifth year, on
an expedition into Flanders. Does this look as if Tirrel was so much
as suspected of the murder. And who can believe his pretended
confession afterwards? Sir James was not executed till Henry's
seventeenth year, on suspicion of treason, which suspicion arose on
the flight of the earl of Suffolk. Vide Hall's Chronicle, fol. 18 &
55.

(25) There is a heap of general accusations alledged to have been
committed by Richard against Henry, in particular of his having shed
infant's blood. Was this sufficient specification of the murder of a
king? Is it not rather a base way of insinuating a slander, of which
no proof could be given? Was not it consonant to all Henry's policy
of involving every thing in obscure and general terms?

Having thus disproved the account of the murder, let us now examine
whether we can be sure that the murder was committed.

Of all men it was most incumbent on cardinal Bourchier, archbishop
of Canterbury, to ascertain the fact. To him had the queen entrusted
her younger son, and the prelate had pledged himself for his
security--unless every step of this history is involved in
falshood. Yet what was the behaviour of the archbishop? He appears
not to have made the least inquiry into the reports of the murder of
both children; nay, not even after Richard's death: on the contrary,
Bourchier was the very man who placed the crown on the head of the
latter;(26) and yet not one historian censures this conduct. Threats
and fear could not have dictated this shameless negligence. Every
body knows what was the authority of priests in that age; an
archbishop was sacred, a cardinal inviolable. As Bourchier survived
Richard, was it not incumbant on him to show, that the duke of York
had been assassinated in spite of all his endeavours to save him?
What can be argued from this inactivity of Bourchier,(27) but that
he did not believe the children were murdered.

(26) As cardinal Bourchier set the crown on Richard's head at
Westminster, so did archbishop Rotheram at York. These prelates
either did not believe Richard had murdered his nephews, or were
shamefully complaisant themselves. Yet their characters stand
unimpeached in history. Could Richard be guilty, and the archbishops
be blameless? Could both be ignorant what was become of the young
princes, when both had negotiated with the queen dowager? As neither
is accused of being the creature of Richard, it is probable that
neither of them believed he had taken off his nephews. In the
Foedera there is a pardon passed to the archbishop, which at first
made me suspect that he had taken some part in behalf of the royal
children, as he is pardoned for all murders, treasons, concealments,
misprisons, riots, routs, &c. but this pardon is not only dated
Dec. 13, some months after he had crowned Richard; but, on looking
farther, I find such pardons frequently granted to the most eminent
of the clergy. In the next reign Walter, archbishop of Dublin, is
pardoned all murders, rapes, treasons, felonies, misprisons, riots,
routs, extortions, &c.

(27) Lord Bacon tells us, that "on Simon's and Jude's even, the
king (Henry the Seventh) dined with Thomas Bourchier, archbishop of
Canterburie, and cardinal: and from Lambeth went by land over the
bridge to the Tower." Has not this the appearance of some curiosity
in the king on the subject of the princes, of whose fate he was
uncertain?

Richard's conduct in a parallel case is a strong presumption that
this barbarity was falsely laid to his charge. Edward earl of
Warwick, his nephew, and son of the duke of Clarence, was in his
power too, and no indifferent rival, if king Edward's children were
bastards. Clarence had been attainted; but so had almost every
prince who had aspired to the crown after Richard the Second.
Richard duke of York, the father of Edward the Fourth and Richard
the Third, was son of Richard earl of Cambridge, beheaded for
treason; yet that duke of York held his father's attainder no bar to
his succession. Yet how did Richard the Third treat his nephew and
competitor, the young Warwick? John Rous, a zealous Lancastrian and
contemporary shall inform us: and will at the same time tell us an
important anecdote, maliciously suppressed or ignorantly omitted by
all our historians. Richard actually proclaimed him heir to the
crown after the death of his own son, and ordered him to be served
next to himself and the queen, though he afterwards set him aside,
and confined him to the castle of Sheriff-Hutton.(28) The very day
after the battle of Bosworth, the usurper Richmond was so far from
being led aside from attention to his interest by the glare of his
new-acquired crown, that he sent for the earl of Warwick from
Sheriff-Hutton and committed him to the Tower, from whence he never
stirred more, falling a sacrifice to the inhuman jealousy of Henry,
as his sister, the venerable countess of Salisbury, did afterwards
to that of Henri the Eight. Richard, on the contrary, was very
affectionate to his family: instances appear in his treatment of the
earls of Warwick and Lincoln. The lady Ann Poole, sister of the
latter, Richard had agreed to marry to the prince of Scotland.

(28) P. 218. Rous is the more to be credited for this fact, as he
saw the earl of Warwick in company with Richard at Warwick the year
before on the progress to York, which shows that the king treated
his nephew with kindness, and did not confine him till the plots of
his enemies thickening, Richard found it necessary to secure such as
had any pretensions to the crown. This will account for his
preferring the earl of Lincoln, who, being his sister's son, could
have no prior claim before himself.

The more generous behaviour of Richard to the same young prince
(Warwick) ought to be applied to the case of Edward the Fifth, if no
proof exists of the murder. But what suspicious words are those of
Sir Thomas More, quoted above, and unobserved by all our historians.
"Some remained long in doubt," says he, "whether they (the children)
were in his (Richard's) days destroyed or no." If they were not
destroyed in his days, in whose days were they murdered? Who will
tell me that Henry the Seventh did not find, the eldest at least,
prisoner in the Tower; and if he did, what was there in Henry's
nature or character to prevent our surmizes going farther.

And here let me lament that two of the greatest men in our annals
have prostituted their admirable pens, the one to blacken a great
prince, the other to varnish a pitiful tyrant. I mean the two (29)
chancellors, Sir Thomas More and lord Bacon. The most senseless
stories of the mob are converted to history by the former; the
latter is still more culpable; he has held up to the admiration of
posterity, and what is worse, to the imitation of succeeding
princes, a man whose nearest approach to wisdom was mean cunning;
and has raised into a legislator, a sanguinary, sordid, and
trembling usurper. Henry was a tyrannic husband, and ungrateful
master; he cheated as well as oppressed his subjects,(30) bartered
the honour of the nation for foreign gold, and cut off every branch
of the royal family, to ensure possession to his no title. Had he
had any title, he could claim it but from his mother, and her he set
aside. But of all titles he preferred that of conquest, which, if
allowable in a foreign prince, can never be valid in a native, but
ought to make him the execration of his countrymen.

(29) It is unfortunate, that another great chancellor should have
written a history with the same propensity to misrepresentation, I
mean lord Clarendon. It is hoped no more chancellors will write our
story, till they can divest themselves of that habit of their
profession, apologizing for a bad cause.

(30) "He had no purpose to go through with any warre upon France;
but the truth was, that he did but traffique with that warre to make
his returne in money." Lord Bacon's reign of Henry the Seventh,
p. 99.

There is nothing strained in the supposition of Richard's sparing
his nephew. At least it is certain now, that though he dispossessed,
he undoubtedly treated him at first with indulgence, attention, and
respect; and though the proof I am going to give must have mortified
the friends of the dethroned young prince, yet it shewed great
aversion to cruelty, and was an indication that Richard rather
assumed the crown for a season, than as meaning to detain it always
from his brother's posterity. It is well known that in the Saxon
times nothingwas more common in cases of minority than, for the
uncle to be preferred to the nephew; and though bastardizing his
brother's children was, on this supposition, double dealing; yet I
have no doubt but Richard went so far as to insinuate an intention
of restoring the crown when young Edward should be of full age. I
have three strong proofs of this hypothesis. In the first place Sir
Thomas More reports that the duke of Buckingham in his conversations
with Morton, after his defection from Richard, told the bishop that
the protector's first proposal had been to take the crown, till
Edward his nephew should attain the age of twenty four years. Morton
was certainly competent evidences of these discourses, and therefore
a credible one; and the idea is confirmed by the two other proofs I
alluded to; the second of which was, that Richard's son did not walk
at his father's coronation. Sir Thomas More indeed says that Richard
created him prince of Wales on assuming the crown; but this is one
of Sir Thomas's misrepresentations, and is contradicted by fact, for
Richard did not create his son prince of Wales till he arrived at
York; a circumstance that might lead the people to believe that in
the interval of the two coronations, the latter of which was
celebrated at York, September 8th, the princes were murdered.

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