Richard III and the Murder in the Tower (17 page)

Although there is a possibility that Edward IV and Eleanor Butler had already met some time previously, the occasion which appears most likely to have first brought them together concerns the rights to the manors of Griff and Great Dorsett in Warwickshire. Lord Sudeley had conveyed the manors to Eleanor and her husband Sir Thomas, but without royal licence. Upon the death of her husband Eleanor was constrained to petition the king for their return, since he had confiscated them for the Crown. It is uncertain where and when this meeting occurred, with Warwickshire, Gloucestershire, Norfolk and London all being viable candidates, as known locations of Edward IV in the summer and early autumn of 1461. We do not, at present, know this precise location, but we do know that the three people involved must have met together and apparently in a place that permitted a certain degree of privacy, since the report is that only these three people involved were present at the pre-contract. Of all the possibilities, the royal lodge at Woodstock in Oxfordshire would seem to be perhaps the most likely location, partly because of its proximity to Eleanor’s lands.
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As far as we are able to ascertain, evidence points to Stillington being the only witness to the fateful pre-contract between Edward IV and Eleanor Butler.
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There are a number of informative works concerning the pre-contract
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and what is of central interest here is Stillington’s role in the event. Stillington himself was actually related to Eleanor Butler through his aunt Lady Lisle’s (Joan Cheddar) relations to the Talbots.
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Thus, given the reality of the precontract, Robert was marrying off one of his relatives to the king.
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That this could form part of his later motivations during the turbulent summer of 1483 has not previously been explored in any great detail.

As to the length of the subsequent relationship between Edward and Eleanor, we are not sure about the duration, and the rumour concerning a child from the union is repeated in a number of places.
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What is not in dispute is that, according to our current knowledge, the pre-contract did occur and Stillington was the priest involved.

One of the questions that historians have raised over the years is the degree to which Stillington used his knowledge of this formal liaison, and in particular the way this secret information was involved in the eventual demise of George, Duke of Clarence.
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The final stage of this disputation between the two brothers has been described by Campbell,
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who observed:

To what degree Stillington was involved in the accusations of treason against Clarence is not easy to discover. The primary issue with Clarence was his continuing aspirations to assume Edward’s throne,
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and the dangerous nature of his growing threat is typified by his high-handed treatment of one Ankarette Twynho, a servant woman he suspected of having poisoned the Duchess Isabel. Clarence had her brought all the way from Somerset to Warwick and, in a court cowed by Clarence’s power, she was found guilty and hanged on 15 April 1477. In this Clarence was seen to be assuming the rights of the king. It was part of a continuing sibling rivalry that had been simmering for almost a decade. For example, in relation to some earlier disputes between Edward, Clarence and Warwick the Kingmaker, the historian Habington,
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speculating on knowledge of the pre-contract, had reported that:

In this context, Habington was very explicit that he was talking about the bar to the validity of Elizabeth Woodville’s marriage to Edward on account of the pre-contract. As he noted, had the pre-contract been known at that time, there is little doubt that it would have been used in accusation, again suggesting that in the early 1470s it was still a secret pact.
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Following his high-handed treatment and pretensions to the throne, Clarence was himself arrested some two months later and imprisoned through the rest of the year of 1477, until he was required to answer the king’s charges which followed the January Parliament, assumedly summoned primarily to indict the duke. In the squabble between the elder and the younger brother, the elder won and George, Duke of Clarence was dispatched on 18 February 1478.
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From my perspective, Clarence had pressed the envelope one too many times and his execution was due predominantly to his never-ending ambition and was little contingent on knowing or relating anything about the pre-contract. Indeed, we can ask of what value would it have been to Clarence? Eleanor Butler had now been dead for almost a decade
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and any accusation could be easily remedied by a simple ceremony. The threat of revelation essentially represented little or no threat to Edward at that time. Rather, it was Clarence’s accusation of Edward’s own illegitimacy that must have rankled. Edward having been born in France and George in Ireland, the issue of legitimacy must have involved the king, not his issue from Elizabeth Woodville.

It has often been suggested that Stillington revealed the pre-contract to Clarence. However, this assumption is based upon spatial and temporal contiguity and not on any hard evidence. For example, the proximity of some of Clarence’s lands and Stillington’s bishopric have suggested some degree of personal familiarity and this is supported by Stillington’s efforts at reconciliation between the king and his brother. Similarly, the fact that March 1478 found Stillington in the Tower,
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and had to pay ‘a round sum for his ransom’,
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seems to suggest some degree of involvement.
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The accusation that he was in prison for ‘uttering words prejudicial to the King and his State’ has most often been interpreted as his revelation to Clarence. However, whether his arrest dates from before or after Clarence’s execution (18 February 1478)
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or was simply contemporary with it is not known for certain. It may well have been possible that Stillington was implicated without ever having discussed the pre-contract. After all, as noted, it was not a major weapon in Clarence’s armoury. This is potentially confirmed by the fact that by 20 June Stillington had secured a pardon, although he did not return to favour and held few appointments immediately after this time.
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It is speculated that Stillington’s pardon was contingent upon his silence or even active denial of the pre-contract, and some authors have suggested that the antipathy of the Woodvilles toward him was because of this critical knowledge that he held. However, we have no certain evidence of this and I believe this inference, although apparently a logical one, is, in actuality, flawed.

However, if for a moment we do assume that Stillington was in trouble for having revealed the pre-contract to George for his subsequent use in his arguments with his brother the king, why was his younger brother Richard apparently unaware of these accusations? For surely, George, in his attempt to bring his younger brother to his side of the argument, would have brought to light all he could of these circumstances in early 1478. This being so, Richard would have needed no reminding in early 1483, when he could have brought this issue to the fore himself as soon as he had entered London, and not continued with the normal processes which were to precede the coronation of his nephew, Edward V. Indeed, had Richard known, it would almost certainly have been recorded as such by the various contemporaries who commented on the events of the summer; particularly, we should expect to see evidence of Richard’s insight in the
Croyland Chronicle
and perhaps Mancini’s monograph also. The fact that we do not see this would seem to be important evidence that Richard knew nothing of the pre-contract until June 1483, when it became a pivotal issue in the succession.

Until and unless we have further evidence of Stillington’s collusion in Clarence’s treachery, we must consider the proposition unproven. Although the revelation of the pre-contract would seem to account for the general pattern of events in the spring of 1478, the threat of public revelation would seem to be essentially an empty one. It might well be that Stillington was ‘swept up’ in a general effort to quell the Duke of Clarence and his subsequent silence would be eminently understandable. After all, having dispatched his own brother, who could feel in any way safe broaching the king’s anger?
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In respect of the present hypothesis concerning Catesby and the revelation of the pre-contract, we have to examine a number of important propositions with respect to the more traditional notion that it was Stillington who revealed this startling information to the Duke of Gloucester. These respective issues can be stated separately and sequentially. First, was Stillington the source of Richard’s information? Alternatively, did Stillington only act to confirm what had already been revealed to the Protector by someone else? In respect of these first two propositions, what contemporary sources do we have which speak to the issue? Further, if Stillington was the source, when was he purported to have revealed this, and what provenance do we have for such a dating? And finally, what was Stillington’s reward for this crucial information which justified Richard, Duke of Gloucester’s altering of the course of history and assuming the throne of England? Answers to these questions are vital in relation to the central hypothesis I have put forward here, since they go to the very heart of the matter.

Let us begin this sequence of evaluations by quoting an important note made by Hammond.
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In this he states:

It is very important here to follow Hammond’s observations closely, and so let us begin with the initial observation.

It is true that, among others, Levine has written that ‘the only contemporary to say that Stillington told Richard about the pre-contract and claimed to have participated in its making is Commines …’
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Thus Hammond is most informative here, and we must first evaluate this traditional case of de Commines as the sole source before we pass on to the other evidence Hammond cites. It is worth stating in detail what de Commines
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specifically had to say. In his first references to this issue, he reported: