Richard III and the Murder in the Tower (20 page)

Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne.
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Any comprehensive and compelling account of Richard III and his assumption of the throne of England must explain where and when he made the fateful decision to depose his young nephew, Edward V, and to become king himself.
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As I have indicated in the opening chapter, one’s opinion on this matter very much dictates how one views Richard in general, with an adverse assessment directly corresponding with earlier estimates.
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In my preceding arguments, I have proposed that the window which brackets this decision is actually a fairly small one. I believe the evidence we have supports the contention that the change in Richard’s mind from de facto Protector to aspiring monarch came on that momentous day of Friday 13 June 1483 at the Tower of London. I do not wish to assert necessarily that the whole of his decision process was played out in just one single, critical moment. However, I do think that the pivotal revelation of the precontract and the consequent understanding by Richard that his nephews were therefore ineligible to inherit, stemmed from information presented to him on the morning of that day.
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The subsequent securing of the young Richard, Duke of York from sanctuary sprang from this understanding and therefore Richard’s actions of Monday 16 June immediately following the execution of William, Lord Hastings three days earlier are eminently understandable in light of this timeline of events. The following then, is my version of the happenings of that day in the Tower of London and my associated observations upon how the present explanation of this course of events serves to address a number of issues whose previous explanations have been in my view, at best, less than satisfactory.

While it will clearly always be possible to read different interpretations into the actions of Richard, Duke of Gloucester as Protector, I believe it is fair to say that there is no substantive documentary evidence that he overtly sought to secure the throne before the fateful meeting on 13 June. In this I think we have to agree with Wood
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that the citation of the York letter of 10 June and the Neville letter of 11 June actually represent evidence for, rather than against, this interpretation. If Richard was planning some form of coup to occur on the 13th, he clearly must have known that an appeal for troops, issued on the 10th and dispatched at the earliest possible moment on 11 June cannot have got to the north much earlier than 14 June. Further, such troops could not have reasonably been expected to have reached the capital until about the 19th, even at their best rate of progress. Again, Wood’s interpretation that the summons was most probably meant to bring aid and leverage to Richard in order to influence the decisions of the form of Parliament which was proposed to take place on the 25th is certainly a reasonable one. Such force may well have been to back his claim to retain his status as Protector.
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This is a far more plausible interpretation of these letters than seeing them as a direct part of a plot for the throne and especially as preparatory to Hastings’ demise only two days later on the 13th. This being so, it suggests that by the time Ratcliffe left for York and other parts north, Richard had no more malevolent intention than that of sustaining the status quo in terms of his own safety and security. In terms of what Richard must have known had happened to Humphrey, a previous Protector and Duke of Gloucester, this course of action would seem to be a wise precaution. The letter, in my view, provides at best marginal evidence that Richard aspired to the throne at this precise juncture and reasonably tangible evidence that he did not.

One of the major considerations of any actions taken at this time must have thus centred around the number of troops that Richard can realistically have commanded, called upon and relied upon in and around the capital. De Blieck’s point is very well made here.
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Any pre-meditated move radically to alter the on-going course of events must have been founded upon the belief that such a decision could be backed up by force if necessary. Presumably there were Woodville forces as well as those of Lord Hastings, the Duke of Buckingham and those supporters Richard had brought south with him, all in and around the capital at this time. However many London-based troops Richard actually did command at that time, he clearly thought that he needed more support and thus the 10 June summons to those of his affinity in the north. The latter appeal argues for his recognition that, at this point he did not have enough strength present. Stallworth’s fear was expressed in his letter of the 21st, where he noted: ‘Yt is thought ther schalbe xx thousand of my lord protectour and my lord of Bukyngham men in London this weeke.’ This observation was clearly rumour, but Stallworth’s general tenor suggests at least some, if not many, forces were in and around the capital already. His ruminations were confirmed, when following Hastings’ execution, ‘All be lord chamberleyne mene be come my lordys of Bokynghame menne.’ While Richard and Buckingham had men present, it was unlikely these were enough for a carefully considered, planned, pre-emptive strike. And even if this were so, would such a strike have taken the form of the actions that we know occurred on the 13th? A fully thought-out plan would, most probably, not have been primarily directed at Hastings. This being so, it furthers the idea that the events of 13 June were reactive and not pre-meditated in nature. Thus, although I do not think with the present information that we have that we can fix, with absolute certainty, the point where Richard decided to take the crown itself, we can say with some confidence that the expected course of events in respect of Edward V’s ascension to the throne very much changed that Friday morning in the Tower.

Our account of the fateful morning meeting that day comes primarily from Thomas More, and when we say More, I think it is fair to reinforce the probability that this version of events is fairly heavily influenced by Morton.
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Since we have then to distill our explanation through the filter of one of Richard’s most virulent enemies, I think I have to declare my bias here. In my view, Morton was a very astute and clever individual.
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In using More in part as his de facto mouthpiece, he did not seek to provide a totally false account.
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Such an effort at deception would have been too obvious to too many individuals, some of whom would still have been alive and able to comment on any evident fabrications. Providing specific detail could, such as the case of the citation of Elizabeth Lucy, be liable to lose vital credibility. Rather, I think he sought to present a fairly accurate account, but one salted with misdirection at crucial points in order to sway subsequent opinion. I think, therefore, the basic account of the Council meeting is fairly accurate, but cleverly manipulated.
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Croyland, in his
post hoc
interpretation of the day’s events, adjudges Richard to have been ‘shrewd’ in splitting the Council that day. However, this may well have been a simple matter of expediency. There was a country to run and a king to be crowned and, as again Stallworth noted, much business to be accomplished, especially in relation to the coronation. If Richard did plan this division with a mind to what subsequently occurred, he must have known something by the 12th and yet, apparently, not on the 11th, since he had held over Ratcliffe’s departure from the day before, as evidenced by the Neville letter. I cannot dismiss this degree of perhaps one day’s foreknowledge as at least a potential possibility. However, as I shall argue, it is the emotion which is expressed and precipitate action taken on the 13th that implies that what changed Richard’s mind happened that very morning.

Sir Thomas More reports that at the start of the Council meeting there was an affable tenor to proceedings and the Protector himself was in good spirits. But now something must have happened. It is not clear whether Richard was called away from the meeting (which is what I suspect happened) or whether he himself initiated a short break. I am inclined to the former interpretation, although I am a firm believer in strawberries. This small point about strawberries, so insignificant in itself, seems to me to have the ring of truth about it.
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It may well be that Richard used this as a ‘time-filler’ to cover what he might have anticipated would be only a short interruption. Since I believe he had not yet received the crucial revelation, I read no malevolence into the request, but one that roughly equates to the modern idea of a morning coffee break.

I think the interruption was made at the behest of Catesby. It is my thesis that on that morning, Catesby provided Richard with evidence, and perhaps indeed written evidence,
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of the existence of the pre-contract. I think this evidence came from Catesby’s direct association with Eleanor Butler through his father and step-mother,
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and his own personal relationship. I suspect the written evidence was something that he had retained since the time of the pre-contract itself, now some decades earlier; after all, he was a lawyer. Further, I think Catesby told Richard that he had not revealed this to him earlier either on the tacit or explicit orders of Lord Hastings, who at some juncture in the past had told Catesby to remain silent on the issue. I believe that this was the knowledge which Hastings had shared with his friend and former king, Edward IV. It left Richard in a terrible quandary. If the information was true, he was rightful King of England and one of his oldest allies and comrades in arms, William, Lord Hastings had kept the fact from him. It was, I believe, this betrayal by the absence of an action which left Richard in a white heat of anger. It was this anger that spilled over when he re-entered the council chamber. In the interim interval of about an hour, I think Richard had been very busy. He must have assembled a body of armed men who waited outside the chamber for the crucial signal (
see
Figure 24). The signal was to be a banging on the council table, at which the armed men were to take up the cry of ‘Treason.’ It was also clear that some thought had been given as to who would be arrested and detained from those present in the council chamber. Overwhelmingly angry as he was with Hastings, there were others in that room who had no love for the Protector and from whom Richard understood that he himself needed subsequent protection.

Although we read of the dark dreams and forebodings on behalf of some of those members of the Council,
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I see this as
post ho
c rhetoric by commentators seeking some sort of coherent account of events. I think the overwhelming impression that we get of Hastings’ reaction to the sudden happenings of that morning is one of almost complete surprise. For example, only a short time before, Croyland talks of ‘Hastings bursting with joy.’
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The empirical question which derives from this observation, and other allied commentaries, is why Hastings should be surprised? If Hastings had indeed been plotting in a conspiracy against Richard, and further if Catesby had earlier approached him about his acquiescence to Richard’s ascent of the throne and Hastings had replied in the fierce negative, why would Hastings have been so surprised by these events? The fact that he was is surely attested to by the fact that he had little or no support present within or close to the Tower, at least sufficient to provide him any personal protection. Most certainly Richard was able, fairly easily, to detain and execute him in short order, and one wonders whether this would have been possible had there been a large contingent of Hastings’ men around?

When the Protector first returned to the council chamber, it was only Hastings who had the courage to reply to Richard’s angry inquisition. This act by Hastings does not argue for a guilty conscience about nefarious and conspiratorial actions planned with others or the reticence of having denied Catesby’s overtures. Rather, I think it reflects the fact that Hastings suspected little or nothing of the coming storm. Indeed, from Hastings’ perspective, he had done nothing wrong. On the contrary, with respect to the Protector, he had helped him on several recent occasions, most notably in circumventing a Woodville dominance following Edward IV’s death. He did not then realise that his sin was fundamentally one of omission in not telling Richard of the pre-contract.
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It was, I believe, not with respect to other plotting as has always been inferred in traditional accounts of the motivation involved, but critically a betrayal by omission. Richard saw treason in his silence. I also tend to think Richard was so incandescently angry because he saw Hastings’ betrayal as that of a friend. This could well be the reason why Hastings paid the ultimate price that day while others who could certainly not have been counted as Richard’s friends were, in contrast, spared.

Of course, it could well be that Catesby orchestrated the whole situation. He could have informed Richard that Hastings was opposed to his ascendancy to the throne but this does not accord with what I have noted earlier about the suddenness of the Protector’s transformation on that morning. It does, however, argue that Catesby must have actively considered his strategy in relation to Hastings’ downfall.
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Had Richard spared Hastings, he might well have risen again to prominence and Catesby’s position as his betrayer would have been precarious indeed. If this move was part of a larger Catesby strategy to remove one of his old mentors and barriers to the greater expansion of his lands in the Midlands, it was a hazardous enterprise indeed. As we shall see, Richard would later most certainly have been very glad of the military experience of his former comrade-in-arms at Bosworth,
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and thus More’s observation that the Protector was ‘loath to lose him’
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does indeed ring true here. As I have observed, we often understand, and can sometimes even respect, an enemy whose actions seek to damage or destroy us. However, in regard to betrayal, as I have noted earlier, we rarely forgive a friend.