Forlorn situation of the queen.
The queen, all this time, remained shut up in the sanctuary, in a state of extreme suspense and anxiety, clinging to the children whom she had with her, and especially to her youngest son, the little Duke of York, as the next heir tothe crown, and her only stay and hope, in case, through Richard's violence or treachery, any calamity should befall the king.
THE PEOPLE IN THE STREETS.THE PEOPLE IN THE STREETS.
A.D. 1483
What sort of protection Richard afforded to the young wards who were committed to his charge will appear by events narrated in this chapter.
It was now June, and the day, the twenty-second, which had been fixed upon for the coronation, was drawing nigh. By the ancient usages of the realm of England, the office of Protector, to which Richard had been appointed, would expire on the coronation of the king. Of course, Richard perceived at once that if he wished to prolong his power he must act promptly.
Richard forms plans for seizing the crown.
He began to revolve in his mind the possibility of assuming the crown himself, and displacing the children of his older brothers; for Clarence left children at his decease as well as Edward. Of course, these children of Clarence, as well as those of Edward, would take precedence of him in the line of succession, being descended from an older brother. Richard therefore, in order to establish any claim to the crown for himself,must find some pretext for setting aside both these branches of the family. The pretexts which he found were these.
CLARENCE'S CHILDREN HEARING OF THEIR FATHER'S DEATH.CLARENCE'S CHILDREN HEARING OF THEIR FATHER'S DEATH.
His plan for disposing of Edward's children.
In respect to the children of Edward, his plan was to pretend to have discovered proof of Edward's having been privately married to another lady before his marriage with ElizabethWoodville. This would, of course, render the marriage with Elizabeth Woodville null, and destroy the rights of the children to any inheritance from their father.
Clarence's children.
In respect to the children of Clarence, he was to maintain that they were cut off by the attainder which had been passed against their father. A bill of attainder, according to the laws and usages of those times, not only doomed the criminal himself to death, but cut off his children from all rights of inheritance. It was intended to destroy the family as well as the man.
Richard, however, did not at once reveal his plans, but proceeded cautiously to take the proper measures for putting them into execution.
Lady Cecily.Baynard's Castle.
In the first place, there was his mother to be conciliated, the Lady Cecily Neville, known, however, more generally by the title of the Duchess of York. She lived at this time in an old family residence called Baynard's Castle, which stood on the banks of the Thames.[L]As soon as Richard arrived in London he went to see his mother at this place, and afterward he often visited her there. How far he explained his plans to her, and how far she encouraged or disapproved of them, is not known. If she wasrequired to act at all in the case, it must have been very hard for her, in such a question of life and death, to decide between her youngest son alive and the children of her first-born in his grave. Mothers can best judge to which side, in such an alternative, her maternal sympathies would naturally incline her.
Situation of the queen's friends at Pomfret Castle.
As for the immediate members of the Woodville family, they were already pretty well taken care of. The queen herself, with her children, were shut up in the sanctuary. Her brothers, and the other influential men who were most prominent on her side, had been made prisoners, and sent to Pomfret Castle in the north. Here they were held under the custody of men devoted to Richard's interest. But to prevent the possibility of his having any farther trouble with them, Richard resolved to order them to be beheaded. This resolution was soon carried into effect, as we shall presently see.
Lord Hastings.Richard's councils.The Tower.
There remained the party of nobles and courtiers that were likely to be hostile to the permanent continuance of the power of Richard, and inclined to espouse the cause of the young king. The nobles had not yet distinctly taken ground on this question. There were, however, some who were friendly to Richard. Others seemed more inclined to form a partyagainst him. The prominent man among this last-named set was Lord Hastings. There were several others besides, and Richard knew very well who they were. In order to circumvent and defeat any plans which they might be disposed to form, and to keep the power fully in his own hands, he convened his councils of state at different places, sometimes at Westminster, sometimes at the Tower, where the king was kept, and sometimes at his own residence, which was in the heart of London. He transferred the public business more and more to his own residence, assembling the councilors there at all times, late and early, and thus withdrawing them from attendance at the Tower. Very soon Richard's residence in London became the acknowledged head-quarters of influence and power, and all who had petitions to present or favors to obtain gathered there, while the king in the Tower was neglected, and left comparatively alone.
Still the form of holding a council from time to time at the Tower was continued, and, of course, the nobles who assembled there were those most inclined to stand by and defend the cause of the king.
Such was the state of things on the 13th of June, nine days before the time appointed forthe coronation. Richard then, having carefully laid his plans, was prepared to take decisive measures to break up the party who were disposed to gather around the king at the Tower and espouse his cause.
Nobles in council at the Tower.
On that day, while these nobles were holding a council in the Tower, suddenly, and greatly to their surprise, Richard walked in among them. He assumed a very good-natured and even merry air as he entered and took his seat, and began to talk with those present in a very friendly and familiar tone. This was for the purpose of lulling any suspicions which they might have felt on seeing him appear among them, and prevent them from divining the dreadful intentions with which he had come.
"My lord," said he, turning to a bishop who sat near him, and who was one of those that he was about to arrest, "you have some excellent strawberries in your garden, I understand. I wish you would let me have a plateful of them."
It was about the middle of June, you will recollect, which was the time for strawberries to be ripe.
The bishop was very much pleased to find the great Protector taking such an interest in his strawberries, and he immediately called aservant and sent him away at once to bring some of the fruit.
After having greeted the other nobles at the board in a somewhat similar style to this, with jocose and playful remarks, which had the effect of entirely diverting from their minds every thing like suspicion, he said that he must go away for a short time, but that he would presently return. In the mean time, they might proceed, he said, with their deliberations on the public business.
Richard's proceedings at the council.
So he went out. He proceeded at once to make the preparations necessary for the accomplishment of the desperate measures which he had determined to adopt. He stationed armed men at the doors and the passages of the part of the Tower where the council was assembled, and gave them instructions as to what they were to do, and agreed with them in respect to the signals which he was to give.
In about an hour he returned, but his whole air and manner were now totally changed. He came in with a frowning and angry countenance, knitting his brows and setting his teeth, as if something had occurred to put him in a great rage. He advanced to the council table, and there accosting Lord Hastings in a very excited and angry manner, he demanded,
"What punishment do you think men deserve who form plots and schemes for my destruction?"
Lord Hastings was amazed at this sudden appearance of displeasure, and he replied to the Protector that such men, if there were any such, most certainly deserved death, whoever they might be.
"It is that sorceress, my brother's wife," said Richard, "and that other vile sorceress, worse than she, Jane Shore. See!"
This allusion to Jane Shore was somewhat ominous for Hastings, as it was generally understood that since the king's death Lord Hastings had taken Jane Shore under his protection, and had lived in great intimacy with her.
As Richard said this, he pulled up the sleeve of his doublet to the elbow, to let the company look at his arm. This arm had always been weak, and smaller than the other.
"See," said he, "what they are doing to me."
He meant that by the power of necromancy they had made an image of wax as an effigy of him, according to the mode explained in a previous chapter, and were now melting it away by slow degrees in order to destroy his life, and that his arm was beginning to pine and wither away in consequence.
THE COUNCIL IN THE TOWER.THE COUNCIL IN THE TOWER.
Scene in the council chamber at the Tower.
The lords knew very well that the state in which they saw Richard's arm was its natural condition, and that, consequently, his charge against the queen and Jane Shore was only a pretense, which was to be the prelude and excuse for some violent measures that he was about to take. They scarcely knew what to say. At last Lord Hastings replied,
"Certainly, my lord, if they have committed so heinous an offense as this, they deserve a very heinous punishment."
"If!" repeated the Protector, in a voice ofthunder. "And thou servest me, then, it seems, withifsandands. I tell thee that theyhaveso done—and I will make what I say good upon thy body, traitor!"
He emphasized and confirmed this threat by bringing down his fist with a furious blow upon the table.
He makes signals for the armed men to come in.
This was one of the signals which he had agreed upon with the people that he had stationed without at the door of the council hall. A voice was immediately heard in the ante-chamber calling out Treason. This was again another signal. It was a call to a band of armed men whom Richard had stationed in a convenient place near by, and who were to rush in at this call. Accordingly, a sudden noise was heard of the rushing of men and the clanking of iron, and before the councilors could recover from their consternation the table was surrounded with soldiery, all "in harness," that is, completely armed, and as fast as the foremost came in and gathered around the table, others pressed in after them, until the room was completely full.
Richard, designating Hastings with a gesture, said suddenly, "I arrest thee, traitor."
"What!me, my lord?" exclaimed Hastings, in terror.
"Yes, thee, traitor."
Two or three of the soldiers immediately seized Hastings and prepared to lead him away. Other soldiers laid hands upon several of the other nobles, such as Richard had designated to them beforehand. These, of course, were the leading and prominent men of the party opposed to Richard's permanent ascendency. Most of these men were taken away and secured as prisoners in various parts of the Tower. As for Hastings, Richard, in a stern and angry manner, advised him to lose no time in saying his prayers, "for, by the Lord," said he, "I will not to dinner to-day till I see thy head off."
Hastings is executed.
Then, after a brief delay, to allow the wretched man a few minutes to say his prayers, Richard nodded to the soldiers to signify to them that they were to proceed to their work. They immediately took their victim out to a green by the side of the Tower, and, laying him down with his neck across a log which they found there, they cut off his head with a broad-axe.
POMFRET CASTLE.POMFRET CASTLE.
Orders sent to the north.
The same day Richard sent off a dispatch to the north, directed to the men who had in charge the Earl Rivers, and the other friends of the king who had been made prisoners when the king was seized at Stony Stratford, orderingthem all to be beheaded. The order was immediately obeyed.
Execution of the prisoners at Pomfret Castle.
The person who had charge of the execution of this order was a stern and ruffian-like officer named Sir Richard Ratcliffe. This man is quite noted in the history of the times as one of the most unscrupulous of Richard's adherents. He was a merciless man, short and rude in speech, and reckless in action, destitute alike of all pity for man and of all fear of God.
The place where the prisoners had been confined was Pomfret Castle.[M]On receiving the orders from Richard, Ratcliffe led them out to an open place without the castle wall to be beheaded. The executioners brought a log and an axe, and the victims were slaughtered one after another, without any ceremony, and without being allowed to say a word in self-defense.
The whole country was shocked at hearing of these sudden and terrible executions; but the power was in Richard's hands, and there was no one capable of resisting him. The death of the leaders of what would have been the young king's party struck terror into the rest, and Richard now had every thing in his own hands, or, rather,almostevery thing; for the queen and her family, being still in the sanctuary,were beyond his reach. He, however, had nothing to fear from her personally, and there were none of the children that gave him any concern except the Duke of York, the king's younger brother. He, you will recollect, was with his mother at Westminster when the king was seized, and she had taken him with the other children to the Abbey. Richard was now extremely desirous of getting possession of this boy.
Richard's plans in respect to the Duke of York.He determines to seize him.
The reason why he deemed it so essential to get possession of him was this. The child was, it is true, of little consequence while his brother the king lived; but if the king were put out of the way, then the thoughts and the hearts of all the loyal people of England, Richard knew very well, would be turned toward York as the rightful successor. But if they could both be put out of the way, and if the people of England could be induced to consider Clarence's children as set aside by the attainder of their father, then he himself would come forward as the true and rightful heir to the crown. It is true that it was a part of his plan, as has already been said, to declare the marriage of Elizabeth Woodville with the king null, and thus cut off both these children of Edward from their right of inheritance; but he knew verywell that even if a majority of the people of England were to assent to this, there would certainly be a minority that would refuse their assent, and would adhere to the cause of the children, and they, if the children should fall into their hands, might, at some future time, make themselves very formidable to him, and threaten very seriously the permanence of his dominion. It was quite necessary, therefore, he thought, that he should get both children into his own power.
"I must," said he to himself, therefore, "I must, in some way or other, and at all hazards, get possession of little Richard."
The case of the little Richard argued.
It is always the policy of usurpers, and of all ambitious and aspiring men who wish to seize and hold power which does not properly belong to them, to carry the various measures necessary to the attainment of their ends, especially those likely to be unpopular, not by their own personal action, but by the agency of others, whom they put forward to act for them. Richard proceeded in this way in the present instance. He called a grand council of the peers of the realm and great officers of state, and caused the question to be brought up there of removing the young Duke of York from the custody of his mother to that of the Protector,in order that he might be with his brother. The peers who were in Richard's interest advocated this plan; but all the bishops and archbishops, who, of course, as ecclesiastics, had very high ideas of the sacredness and inviolability of a sanctuary, opposed the plan of taking the duke away except by the consent of his mother.
The other side argued in reply to them that a sanctuary was a place where persons could seek refuge to escape punishment in case of crime, and that where no crime could have been committed, and no charges of crime were made, the principle did not apply. In other words, that the sanctuary was for men and women who had been guilty, or were supposed to have been guilty, of violations of law; but as children could commit no crime for which an asylum was necessary, the privileges of sanctuary did not extend to them.
This view of the subject prevailed. The bishops and archbishops were outvoted, and an order in council was passed authorizing the Lord Protector to possess himself of his nephew, the Duke of York, and for this purpose to take him, if necessary, out of sanctuary by force.
Still, the bishops and archbishops were very unwilling that force should be used, if it could possibly be avoided; and finally the Archbishopof Canterbury, who was the highest prelate in the realm, proposed that a deputation from the council should be sent to the Abbey, and that he should go with them, in order to see the queen, and make the attempt to persuade her to give up her son of her own accord.
Delegation sent to the Tower.
After giving notice to the abbot of their intended visit, and making an arrangement with him and with the queen in respect to the time when they could be received, the delegation proceeded in state to the Abbey on the appointed day, and were received by the abbot and by Elizabeth with due ceremony in the Jerusalem chamber, the great audience hall of the Abbey, which has already been described.
Interview with the mother of the princes.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, who was at the head of the delegation, explained the case to the queen. They wished her, he said, to allow her son, the Duke of York, to leave the sanctuary, and to join his brother the king at his royal residence in the Tower. He would be perfectly safe there, he said, under the care of his uncle, the Lord Protector.
"The Protector thinks it very necessary that the duke should go," added the archbishop, "to be company for his brother. The king is very melancholy, he says, for want of a playfellow."
"And so the Protector," replied the queen—"God grant that he may really prove a protector—thinks that the king needs a playfellow! And can no playfellow be found for him except his brother?
"Besides," she added, "he is not in a mood to play. He is not well. They must find some other playmate for his brother. Just as if princes, while they are so young, could not as well have some one to play with them not of their own rank, or as if a boy must have his brother, and nobody else for his mate, when every body knows that boys are more likely to disagree with their brothers than they are with other children."
The archbishop, in reply, proceeded to argue the case with the queen, and to represent the necessity, arising from reasons of state, why the young duke should be committed to the charge of his uncle. He explained to her, too, that the Lord Protector had been fully authorized, by a decree of the council, to come and take his nephew from the Abbey, and to employ force, if necessary, to effect the purpose, but that it would be much better, both for the queen herself and the young duke, as well as for all concerned, that the affair should be settled in a peaceable and amicable manner.
The queen is forced to give up the child.
The unhappy queen saw at last that there was no alternative but for her to submit to her fate and give up her boy. Slowly and reluctantly she came to this conclusion, and finally gave her consent. Richard was brought in. His mother took him by the hand, and again addressed the archbishop and the delegation, speaking substantially as follows:
"My lord," said she, "and all my lords now present, I will not be so suspicious as to mistrust the promises you make me, or to believe that you are dealing otherwise than fairly and honorably by me. Here is my son. I give him up to your charge. I have no doubt that he would be safe here under my protection, if I could be allowed to keep him with me, although I have enemies that so hate me and all my blood, that I believe, if they thought they had any of it in their own veins, they would open them to let it flow out.
The parting scene.
"I give him up, at your demand, to the protection of his brother and his uncle. And yet I know well that the desire of a kingdom knows no kindred. Brothers have been their brothers' bane, and can these nephews be sure of their uncle? The boys would be safe if kept asunder; together—I do not know. Nevertheless, I here deliver my son, and with him his brother'slife, into your hands, and of you shall I require them both, before God and man. I know that you are faithful and true in what you intend, and you have power, moreover, to keep the children safe, if you will. If you think that I am over-anxious and fear too much, take care that you yourselves do not fear too little."
Then drawing Richard to her, she kissed him very lovingly, the tears coming to her eyes as she did so.
"Farewell," she said, "farewell, mine own sweet son. God send you good keeping. I must kiss you before you go, for God knows when we shall kiss together again."
She kissed him again and blessed him, and then turned to go away, weeping bitterly.
The prince is taken away.
The child began to weep too, from sympathy with his mother's distress. The archbishop, however, took him by the hand and led him away, followed by the rest of the delegation.
They conveyed the young duke first to the hall of the council, which was very near, and thence to the Lord Protector's residence in the city. Here he was received with every mark of consideration and honor, and a handsome escort was provided to conduct him in state to the Tower, where he joined his brother.
Both princes entirely in Richard's power.
Richard had now every thing under his owncontrol. The delivery of the Duke of York into his hands took place on the sixteenth of June. The time which had been set for the coronation was the twenty-second.
A.D. 1483
The Duke of Buckingham.Historical doubts.
Richard, having thus obtained control of every thing essential to the success of his plans, began to prepare for action. His chief friend and confederate, the one on whom he relied most for the execution of the several measures which he proposed to take, was a powerful nobleman named the Duke of Buckingham. I shall proceed in this chapter to describe the successive steps of the course which Richard and the Duke of Buckingham pursued in raising Richard to the throne, as recorded by the different historians of those days, and as generally believed since, though, in fact, there have been great disputes in respect to these occurrences, and it is now quite difficult to ascertain with certainty what the precise truth of the case really is. This, however, is, after all, of no great practical importance, for, in respect to remote transactions of this nature, the thing which is most necessary for the purposes of general education is to understand what the story is, in detail, which has been generally received amongmankind, and to which the allusions of orators and poets, and the discussions of statesmen and moralists in subsequent ages refer, for it is with this story alone that for all the purposes of general reading we have any thing to do.
Richard at Baynard's Castle.
Richard was residing at this time chiefly at Baynard's Castle with his mother.[N]The young king and his brother, the Duke of York, were in the Tower. They were not nominally prisoners, but yet Richard kept close watch and ward over them, and took most effectual precautions to prevent their making their escape. The queen, Elizabeth Woodville, with her daughters, was in the sanctuary. Richard's wife, with the young child, was still at Middleham Castle.
The expense-book.Items from the expense-book.
It is a very curious circumstance, showing how sometimes records of the most trivial and insignificant things come down to us from ancient times in a clear and certain form, while all that is really important to know is involved in doubt and obscurity—that the household expense-book of Anne at Middleham is still extant, showing all the little items of expense incurred for Richard's son, while all is dispute and uncertainty in respect to the great politicalschemes and measures of his father. In this book there is a charge of 22s.9d.for a piece of green cloth, and another of 1s.8d.for making it into gowns for "my lord prince." There is also a charge of 5s.for a feather for him, and 13s.1d.paid to a shoemaker, named Dirick, for a pair of shoes. This expense-book was continued after Anne left Middleham Castle to go to London, as will be presently related. There are several charges on the journey for offerings and gifts made by the child at churches on the way. Two men were paid 6s.8d.for running on foot by the side of his carriage. These men's names were Medcalf and Pacock. There is also a charge of 2d.for mending a whip!
Richard's plans.
But to return to our narrative. The time for the coronation of Edward the Fifth was drawing near, but Richard intended to prevent the performance of this ceremony, and to take the crown for himself instead. The first thing was to put in circulation the story that his two nephews were not the legitimate children of his brother, Edward the Fourth, and to prepare the way for this, he wished first, by every means, to cast odium on Edward's character. This was easily done, for Edward's character was bad enough to merit any degree of odium which his brother might wish it to bear.
Richard's determination in respect to Jane Shore.
Accordingly, Richard employed his friends and partisans in talking as much as possible in all quarters about the dissoluteness and the vices of the late king. False stories would probably have been invented, if it had not been that there were enough that were true. These stories were all revived and put in circulation, and every thing was made to appear as unfavorable for Edward as possible. Richard himself, on the other hand, feigned a very strict and scrupulous regard for virtue and morality, and deemed it his duty, he said, to do all in his power to atone for and wipe away the reproach which his brother's loose and wicked life had left upon the court and the kingdom. Among other things, the cause of public morals demanded, he said, that an example should be made of Jane Shore, who had been the associate and partner of the king in his immoralities.
Jane's character.
Jane Shore, it will be recollected, was the wife of a rich citizen of London, whom Edward had enticed away from her husband and brought to court. She was naturally a very amiable and kind-hearted woman, and all accounts concur in saying that she exercised the power that she acquired over the mind of the king in a very humane and praiseworthy manner. She was always ready to interpose, when the kingcontemplated any act of harshness or severity, to avert his anger and save his intended victim, and, in general, she did a great deal to soften the brutality of his character, and to protect the innocent and helpless from the wrongs which he would otherwise have often done them. These amiable and gentle traits of character do not, indeed, atone at all for the grievous sin which she committed in abandoning her husband and living voluntarily with the king, but they did much toward modifying the feeling of scorn and contempt with which she would have otherwise been regarded by the people of England.
Her jewelry confiscated.The punishment of Jane Shore.
Richard caused Jane to be arrested and sent to prison. He also seized all her plate and jewels, and confiscated them. She had a very rich and valuable collection of these things.[O]Richard then caused an ecclesiastical court to be organized, and sent her before it to be tried. The court, undoubtedly in accordance with instructions that Richard himself gave them, sentenced her, by way of penance for her sins, to walk in midday through the streets of London, from one end of the city to the other, almost entirelyundressed. The intention of this severe exposure was to designate her to those who should assemble to witness the punishment as a wanton, and thus to put her to shame, and draw upon her the scorn and derision of the populace. They found some old and obsolete law which authorized such a punishment. The sentence was carried into effect on a Sunday. The unhappy criminal was conducted through the principal streets of the city, wearing a night-dress, and carrying a lighted taper in her hand, between rows of spectators that assembled by thousands along the way to witness the scene. But, instead of being disposed to receive her with taunts and reproaches, the populace were moved to compassion by her saddened look and her extreme beauty. Their hearts were softened by the remembrance of the many stories they had heard of the kindness of her heart, and the amiableness and gentleness of her demeanor, in the time of her prosperity and power. They thought it hard, too, that the law should be enforced so rigidly against her alone, while so many multitudes in all ranks of society, high as well as low, were allowed to go unpunished.
Still, Richard's object in this exhibition was accomplished. The transaction had the effectof calling the attention of the public universally and strongly to the fact that Edward the Fourth had been a loose and dissolute man, and prepared people's minds for the charge which was about to be brought against him.
Alleged marriage of Edward IV. to Elinor Talbot.
This charge was that he had been secretly married to another lady before his union with Elizabeth Woodville, and that consequently by this latter marriage he was guilty of bigamy. Of course, if this were true, the second marriage would be null and void, and the children springing from it would have no rights as heirs.
Particulars of the story.
Whether there was any truth in this story or not can not now ever be certainly known. All that is certain is that Richard circulated the report, and he found several witnesses to testify to the truth of it. The maiden name of the lady to whom they said the king had been married was Elinor Talbot. She had married in early life a certain Lord Boteler, whose widow she was at the time that Edward was alleged to have married her. The marriage was performed in a very private manner by a certain bishop, nobody being present besides the parties except the bishop himself, and he was strictly charged by the king to keep the affair a profound secret. This he promised to do. Notwithstanding his promise, however, the bishopsome time subsequently, after the king had been married to Elizabeth Woodville, revealed the secret of the previous marriage to Gloucester, at which the king, when he heard of it, was extremely angry. He accused the bishop of having betrayed the trust which he had reposed in him, and, dismissing him at once from office, shut him up in prison.
Richard having, as he said, kept these facts secret during his brother's lifetime, out of regard for the peace of the family, now felt it his duty to make them known, in order to prevent the wrong which would be done by allowing the crown to descend to a son who, not being born in lawful wedlock, could have no rights as heir.
After disseminating this story among the influential persons connected with the court, and through all the circles of high life, during the week, it was arranged that on the following Sunday the facts should be made known publicly to the people.
Plan for publishing it.
There was a large open space near St. Paul's Cathedral, in the very heart of London, where it was the custom to hold public assemblies of all kinds, both religious and political. There was a pulpit built on one side of this space, from which sermons were preached, orationsand harangues pronounced, and proclamations made. Oaths were administered here too, in cases where it was required to administer oaths to large numbers of people.
Sermon preached by Dr. Shaw near St. Paul's.
From this pulpit, on the next Sunday after the penance of Jane Shore, a certain Dr. Shaw, who was a brother of the Lord-mayor of London, preached a sermon to a large concourse of citizens, in which he openly attempted to set aside the claims of the two boys, and to prove that Richard was the true heir to the crown.
He took for his text a passage from the Wisdom of Solomon, "The multiplying brood of the ungodly shall not thrive." In this discourse he explained to his audience that Edward, when he was married to Elizabeth Woodville, was already the husband of Elinor Boteler, and consequently that the second marriage was illegal and void, and the children of it entirely destitute of all claims to the crown. He also, it is said, advanced the idea that neither Edward nor Clarence were the children of their reputed father, the old Duke of York, but that Richard was the oldest legitimate son of the marriage, in proof of which he offered the fact that Richard strongly resembled the duke in person, while neither Edward nor Clarence had borne any resemblance to him at all.
Ingenious contrivance.Coolness of the people.
It was arranged, moreover—so it was said—that, when the preacher came to the passage where he was to speak of the resemblance which Richard bore to his father, the great Duke of York, Richard himself was to enter the assembly as if by accident, and thus give the preacher the opportunity to illustrate and confirm what he had said by directing his audience to observe for themselves the resemblance which he had pointed out, and also to excite them to a burst of enthusiasm in Richard's favor by the eloquent appeal which the incident of Richard's entrance was to awaken. But this intended piece of stage effect, if it was really planned, failed in the execution. Richard did not come in at the right time, and when he did come in, either the preacher managed the case badly, or else the people were very little disposed to espouse Richard's cause; for when the orator, at the close of his appeal, expected applause and acclamations, the people uttered no response, but looked at each other in silence, and remained wholly unmoved.
Meeting at the Guildhall.
In the course of the following two or three days, other attempts were made to excite the populace to some demonstration in Richard's favor, but they did not succeed. The Duke of Buckingham met a large concourse of Londonersat the Guildhall, which is in the centre of the business portion of the city. He was supported by a number of nobles, knights, and distinguished citizens, and he made a long and able speech to the assembly, in which he argued strenuously in favor of calling Richard to the throne. He denounced the character of the former king, and enlarged at length on the dissipated and vicious life which he had led. He also related to the people the story of Edward's having been the husband of Lady Elinor Boteler at the time when his marriage with Queen Elizabeth took place, which fact, as Buckingham showed, made the marriage with Elizabeth void, and cut off the children from the inheritance. The children of Clarence had been cut off, too, by the attainder, and so Richard was the only remaining heir.
The people do not respond.
The duke concluded his harangue by asking the assembly if, under those circumstances, they would not call upon Richard to ascend the throne. A few of the poorer sort, very likely some that had been previously hired to do it, threw up their caps into the air in response to this appeal, and cried out, "Long live King Richard!" But the major part, comprising all the more respectable portion of the assembly, looked grave and were silent. Some who werepressed to give their opinion said they must take time to consider.
The appeals to the people fail.
Thus these appeals to the people failed, so far as the object of them was to call forth a popular demonstration in Richard's favor. But in one respect they accomplished the object in view: they had the effect of making it known throughout London and the vicinity that a revolution was impending, and thus preparing men's minds to acquiesce in the change more readily than they might perhaps have done if it had come upon them suddenly and with a shock.
Grand council convened.Arrangements made by Buckingham.
On the following day after the address at the Guildhall, a grand assembly of all the lords, bishops, councilors, and officers of state was convened in Westminster. It was substantially a Parliament, though not a Parliament in form. The reason why it was not called as a Parliament in form was because Richard, having doubts, as he said, about the right of Edward to the throne, could not conscientiously advise that any public act should be performed in his name, and a Parliament could only be legally convened by summons from a king. Accordingly, this assembly was only an informal meeting of the peers of England and other great dignitaries of Church and State, with a view of consultingtogether to determine what should be done. Of course, it was all fully arranged and settled beforehand, among those who were in Richard's confidence, what the result of these deliberations was to be. The Duke of Buckingham, Richard's principal friend and supporter, managed the business at the meeting. The assembly consisted, of course, chiefly of the party of Richard's friends. The principal leaders of the parties opposed to him had been beheaded or shut up in prison; of the rest, some had fled, some had concealed themselves, and of the few who dared to show themselves at the meeting, there were none who had the courage, or perhaps I ought rather to say the imprudence and folly, to oppose any thing which Buckingham should undertake to do.