Richard The Chird (28 page)

tidings to relate. Vaughan, Grey and a few others surrounded Edward as he retired to his lodgings accompanied by the Dukes. After Richard had condoled with his nephew for the loss of his father, he announced his purpose in plain terms. Certain ministers about the dead King, he said, had ruined his health by encouraging him in his excesses. These men must be removed from power in order that they might not play the same game with the son as with the father

Lord Richard Grey started to protest, was imperiously silenced by Buckingham.

In fact, Richard pursued, these very men had not only openly conspired to deprive him of the protectorship, lawfully his, but they had laid a trap for his life. Lord Richard here and Earl Rivers and the Marquess were the leaders. For his own safety he had been forced, at Northampton, to arrest Rivers.

The young King stammered that the Marquess and Lord Richard and his uncle Rivers were his friends and he trusted them. As for the governing of the realm, he was certain that his nobles and the Queen

The ruling of the land, Buckingham interposed, was for men, not women. The Queen had no rightful authority. Edward had been deceived, the truth hidden from him.

Angry and frightened, the twelve-year-old monarch listened. Learned though he was, he was not much more than a child. In a single moment his world had collapsed. Perhaps he had not even been informed of the protectorship. Quietly Richard told the pale boy that for many years he had served his father in council and in battle. Because of his experience, his reputation, and his nearness of blood, he had been appointed by King Edward the Protector of the realm and of the heir. Would His Highness be content with his father's ordinance?

Edward realized that his only course was to acquiesce with what dignity he could muster. He would indeed be content, he said falteringly, with the government his father had arranged for him. Richard explained that for safety's sake they must return to Northampton until word came that all was well in London. The King nodded helplessly. When he had been escorted to his

chamber, Lord Richard Grey and Sir Thomas Vaughan were promptly arrested. Then Richard dealt with the royal escort. He proclaimed that since the King had now been safely received into his protectorship, the servants and soldiers who had accompanied him from Ludlow were immediately to quit Stony Stratford and disperse in orderly fashion to their homes. Though they outnumbered the Duke's followers, they were now leaderless; and they had no heart to oppose the stern command of the first general in the kingdom. In small groups they quickly melted away. 2 *

On the return to Northampton, Richard and Buckingham were at pains to pay Edward every mark of honor due a King, but they severed all his connections with his Woodville past. When the boy was lodged, he found his personal attendants replaced by men of the Dukes' choosing. Probably he shed a few tears. At dinner that night Richard doubtless sought to comfort the unhappy boy. To Edward's uncle Rivers he sent a dish from his own table, praying him to be of good cheer, that all should be well enough. The courtly Rivers returned his thanks to Richard but requested the servant to bear the dish to his nephew, Lord Richard, who unused to adversity, needed comfort the more. He himself was well acquainted with the fickleness of fortune.

Richard prepared to remain at Northampton until he heard from Hastings what effect his coup had produced upon affairs in London. He seems to have felt little anxiety. After all, he had done no more than to assume the office of Protector which his dead brother had willed him. Before he retired that night, he dispatched an explanation of his action to the lords and citizens.

Meanwhile, on the road which ran southward through St. Albans and Barnet, messengers of the Duke of Gloucester and friends of the Woodvilles were already galloping headlong for London with the momentous news.

It was nearly midnight of the same evening, April 30, when the tidings reached the Queen and the Marquess at Westminster. Enraged and terrified, they rushed frantically into action. Trusted advisers were tumbled from their beds. It was hastily decided that the King must be wrested from Gloucester and Buckingham by

force. Late night though it was, the Marquess dispatched appeals to the chief lords from whom he might expect support Their answers sent the facade of power crashing about the Woodvilles' ears. Some were evasive; some, openly hostile. Nobody, it appeared, wanted to fight for the Queen and the Marquess; few were disposed to identify the Woodville cause with that of the vounsr King. y *

Mother and son fell into a panic. Lacking either the innocence or the courage quietly to await the King's arrival, they could think only of flight. Ironically, Sir Edward Woodville and his fleet had sailed only the day before, Sir Edward taking his share of Edward IV's treasure with him. The Marquess now hurriedly sent an escort to fetch the remainder of the treasure from the Tower. Then he, the Queen, and the Queen's brother Lionel, Bishop of Salisbury, retired precipitately to the sanctuary of Westminster Abbey, taking with them the royal princesses, the little Duke of York, brother to the King, and the more nervous of their followers. The rest, surrounded by their armed retainers, remained uneasily in the shadow of the Abbey and the palace. 3 *

Meanwhile, Richard's messenger had roused the Lord Chamberlain. Jubilantly Hastings heard the news. Then, realizing that the city, crowded with nobles come up for the coronation, would soon be shaken by rumors, he sent off a message of reassurance to Thomas Rotherham, Archbishop of York, the Chancellor.

Rotherham was not without ability, but he was aging and timorous and he was committed to the Queen's cause. 4 Jerked from sleep and confronted with this shocking news, he was in no mood to hear from Hastings' servant that all would be well. "Well!" he cried out, his hands trembling. "It may be well enough but it will never be as well as it has been!" Wildly bidding his attendants take weapon, he seized the Great Seal of England, and riding in the midst of his armed household, he hastened to the Queen. At Westminster he carne upon a scene of torchlit confusion. Crates and boxes, furniture, plate, and tapestries were being carried and dragged from the palace to the sanctuary. Men were ripping a great hole in the sanctuary wall so that the Queen's goods and the coffers containing the dead king's treasure might

more quickly be stowed within. Rotherham found the Queen sitting "alone, a-low on the rushes all desolate and dismayed." When he attempted to comfort her by using Hastings' assurances., she cut him short with the fierce cry that Hastings was "one of them that laboureth to destroy me and my blood.' 7 The Chancellor lost his head, spoke of crowning little York if any mischief happened to Edward, and finally, as an earnest of his zeal for her cause, deposited in her hands the Great Seal. 5 *

In the first light of dawn Rotherham betook himself back to his palace. Boats were already upon the river. The iron ring of harness could be heard in the streets. Men stirred abroad, armed, wary, harkening to the flying tales that raced through London like wildfire.

As it grew lighter, two movements could be discerned in the restless city. Some men made their way to Westminster and the Queen's party. Others were drawn to the powerful pole of the Lord Chamberlain. Many waited prudently in their inns and homes for some gleam of truth to shine through the fog of rumors. Those courtiers who were moved only by self-interest were caught in a painful dilemma; whichever party they chose, they were ready, at the first indication of the shape of the future, to change sides.

Hastings was up early this morning to greet the lords and gentlemen who flocked to his standard in order to offer support, seek counsel, or gain protection. The most popular nobleman in the realm and the late King's dearest friend, he was, in fact, the man of the hour. He doubtless felt himself to be, not so much the representative of the Protector as, in spirit, the very custodian of King Edward's intentions. The Woodvilles, whose success he identified with his own destruction, had been crushed with a single blow. True, he may have been a trifle chagrined by the sudden prominence which Buckingham had assumed in the Protector's affairs; but the two Dukes had accomplished precisely what he had begged them to do. Despite the momentary threat of disorder, the future looked secure.

Having assembled the lords in an informal gathering, Hastings warmly defended Richard's action. The case of Rivers, Grey, and

Vaughan, he promised, would be submitted to the decision of the King's council. His words satisfied almost all the magnates. They, and the city magistrates, were further reassured when the Protector's letter arrived.

He had not captured his nephew the King, Richard wrote, but had rescued him and the realm; both had fallen into the hands of those who, having tainted the honor and the health of the father, could not be expected to show more regard for the youth of the son. For his own safety and the safety of the kingdom he had arrested Rivers, Vaughan, and Grey. He would soon bring the King up to London to be crowned. 6 *

This message completed Hastings' work. By the end of the day, the Lord Chamberlain was able to send Richard word that the Woodville cause had collapsed, that the Protector's action was approved, and that the city eagerly awaited his entrance with the King. The Chancellor, he added, had on first hearing the news given the Great Seal to the Queen, but repenting of this flagrant illegality, had hurried to Westminster to take it back again- in consequence, the lords had removed the Seal from his possession. The only bad news Hastings had to report was that on April 29 the Woodville fleet had sailed and that the Marquess had apparently rifled the royal treasure.

By May 2, Richard at Northampton was plunged into the thick of decisions. Satisfied though he was by Hastings' declaration that he could enter the capital at once, he hastened to dictate, in the King's name, two requests to the Archbishop of Canterbury:

Most reverend father in God and right entirely beloved cousin. We greet you heartily well, and desire and pray you to see for the safeguard and sure keeping of the Great Seal of this our realm unto our coming to our city of London. Where by your good advice and others of our council the same further may be demeaned for the weal of us and our said realm; and that it will like you to call unto you the lords there and provide for the surety and safeguard of our Tower of London, and the treasure being in the same, in all diligence, and our faithful trust is in you: given under our signet at our town of Northampton, the second day of May. 7

Richard wrote to Hastings and to the Mayor and Aldermen of the city that the King and he would enter London two days hence, on Sunday, May 4. Rivers, Grey, and Vaughan he had no wish to see brought as prisoners in his train, and the times were too unsettled for any judgment yet to be passed upon them. He decided to transfer them to the safest place he knew, Yorkshire. Rivers was sent under guard to Sheriff Hutton; Grey, to Middleham; and Vaughan, to Pontefract. Next day Richard and Buckingham and their train of gentlemen rode southward with the King, halting for the night at St. Albans. 8

Of Richard's attempt, in these first hours of their relationship, to comfort and gain the confidence of his royal nephew only two hints survive. One of these is a piece of parchment, the record of an idle moment. At the top appears in a regally large, though rather stiff, hand the signature EDWARDUS QUINTUS. Next is inscribed in clear Italic script, neater than his usual writing, "Loyaulte me lie," and directly beneath, "Richard Gloucestre." Sprawled broad and careless at the bottom appears "Souvente me souvene," and below, "Harre Bokingham." This playful scribbling doubtless represents an occasion when Richard and Buckingham were attempting to establish an easy relationship with their far from friendly young sovereign. The signatures, as well as the mottoes, are not without symbolic value. 9

The second hint is plainer. It is the first grant made under the new King's signet, and it was given on Saturday evening at St. Albans. Apparently Richard discovered in conversation with Edward that the boy had had a favorite chaplain at Ludlow, whom it would give him pleasure to reward. Richard summoned his secretary, John Kendall. A royal command was dispatched to the custodian of the seal of the earldom of March that he should send a writ to the Bishop of Hereford asking that one John Geffrey be appointed to the rectorship of the parish church of Pembrigge. The new monarch probably enjoyed his first exercise in power; whether he was grateful to his uncle who was so quick to do him pleasure is another matter. 10 *

Very early on the morning of Sunday, May 4, the royal cavalcade departed from St. Albans. The sun was not yet high in the

sky as they rode across the rolling land north of Barnet. Perhaps Richard described to the King that desperate battle he himself had cause to remember so well, in which Edward's father had conquered the mighty Warwick. Not long after they had wound down the great hill south of Barnet, the King was greeted by the Mayor and Aldermen of London and a train of leading citizens. Men were thick upon the city walls as Edward passed through the gates into his capital. Cheering crowds packed the narrow streets. Church bells clanged and pealed.

The twelve-year-old sovereign appeared in blue velvet. On his right rode the Protector and on his left, Buckingham, both in coarse black cloth. The city fathers were gay in scarlet trimmed with fur. Behind, the five hundred gentlemen of Wales and Yorkshire, in black, made a somber Contrast to the bright violet gowns of five hundred of the most eminent burgesses. Of military force there was no sign, save for four wagons heaped with barrels of harness. These rolled at the head of the procession, escorted by criers who, at thronged street corners, paused to bellow that

this armor—some of it labeled with the Woodville arms had

been gathered by Earl Rivers for use against the Duke of Gloucester. Most of the crowd were indignant, cried that it were alms to hang the rascals! But some were moved to doubt or distrust by this display.

On through the narrow streets toward Ludgate Hill and St. Paul's the procession wound its way, cheered by lords and commons alike. Perhaps the noise of welcome could be heard even in the sanctuary at Westminster. Around the mighty pile of the cathedral the procession moved to the palace of the Bishop of London, where the sovereign dismounted to enter his temporary lodgings. The lords of his realm followed him in to pay him homage. Richard went on to Crosby's Place, his town house in Bishopsgate Street. Thus, on the morning on which he was to have been crowned by the Woodvilles, was King Edward the Fifth brought to his capital city by the Lord Protector. The coronation had, of course, been postponed. 11 *