The Fears of Henry IV: The Life of England's Self-Made King (42 page)

The leading scholars in late fourteenth-century studies are, at the time of writing, quietly at variance over the issue of Richard’s death, one writing that he died ‘almost certainly on Henry’s orders’, another stating that it was the council’s direction that ‘Richard was to be disposed of’, another that ‘it is possible that Richard died a natural death’.
⁷
The authors of his entry in the
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
state that ‘there is no evidence that he was murdered and his skeleton showed no sign of violence. He could have been starved to death or even starved himself.’ Notwithstanding this scholarly caution, there is hardly any subject more important in a study of Henry IV’s life than whether he murdered his cousin or not. Therefore the question must be dealt with in greater detail and with a sterner methodology than simply presenting a range of options.

To begin with, it is necessary to stress that no chronicler was familiar with the details of the death at first hand. What each man wrote depended on his own point of view and what he had heard, and these things depended
very much on what milieu he was part of. The pro-Ricardian French chroniclers, for example, were anxious to present Henry as a murderous usurper, and so they claimed that Richard had been killed on Henry’s orders. In the story circulated by the French author of
The Betrayal and Death of Richard II,
Henry sent one ‘Sir Piers Exton’ on 6 January to the castle in Kent where Richard was being kept, with instructions to kill him. When told that Richard was waiting for his dinner, Exton announced that the ex-king ‘should never eat again’. After a fight, in which the ex-king valiantly wrestled an axe from one of the seven men who now set about him, Sir Piers gave him repeated blows to the head, from which he died. This chronicle goes on to state that Richard was buried at Pontefract. In other French accounts, the killing took place not in Kent but at the Tower of London. But whatever the variations, the stories of violent death have long been recognised as propaganda.
⁸
There was no knight called Piers Exton. It is exceptionally unlikely that a Ricardian sympathiser was allowed to witness the murder. And a forensic examination of Richard’s skeleton and skull revealed no sign of violence.
⁹
The murder story was derived from a few circumstantial details and concocted for a French audience, in order to strengthen popular feeling against Henry.
¹⁰
Unfortunately for Henry’s reputation, the same story served as excellent propaganda against his dynasty in England seventy years later, and thus it eventually found its way into sixteenth-century English historical works, and Shakespeare’s
Richard II,
whence it passed into popular currency.

The information circulated in England in the immediate aftermath was that Richard voluntarily went without food and water, and died on 14 February 1400. Even the French chronicles which refer to the violent murder include some reference to starvation, such as that Richard ‘will never eat again’.
¹¹
Most chroniclers referred to his self-starvation, including those who did not believe it. The author of the
Historia Vitae et Regni Ricardi Secundi
stated that he ‘declined into such grief, langour and weakness that he took to his bed and refused any food, drink or other sustenance. Thus on 14 February … he died there [Pontefract] in prison. Others say, however, and with greater truth that he was miserably put to death by starvation there.’
¹²
The
Brut
notes that he was ‘enfammed unto the death by his keeper’, dying after four or five days.
¹³
Jean Creton wrote that, after the Epiphany Rising, Richard ‘was so vexed at heart by this evil news that from that time onwards he neither ate nor drank and thus, so they say, it came to pass that he died’.
¹⁴
Similarly, a contemporary Londoner wrote that ‘for sorrow and hunger he died in the castle of Pontefract’, and the Dieulacres chronicler said that he died on 14 February, after twelve days without food and drink.
¹⁵
Adam Usk also had him dying of hunger, partly
out of sorrow and partly due to the tormenting of his keeper.
¹⁶
Thomas Walsingham stated that he starved himself so that ‘the orifice leading to his stomach closed up … and he wasted away through natural debility, and finally died at the aforesaid castle [Pontefract] on 14 February’.
¹⁷

But did Richard really starve himself? Or was he killed on Henry’s orders? And how can the official version of his death on 14 February be squared with the French king’s statement that he had heard of the death by 29 January?

The council debated the death in early February. Astoundingly, Henry neither confirmed nor denied the French message that Richard was dead. Our evidence for this is the minutes of a council meeting, which was held on or after 3 February 1400.
¹⁸
It contains two relevant entries. The first reads ‘if Richard, former king, still be living as some suppose [or ‘as may be supposed’], then it is ordered that he be well and securely guarded for the safety of the estate of the king and of his realm’.
¹⁹
That such doubts about Richard’s survival were entertained by the councillors themselves (and not just by people outside the council) is shown by an even more illuminating passage on the other side of the folio, which states that: ‘it seems to the council necessary to speak to the king that, in case Richard [the] former king etcetera is still living, he should be kept in security agreeable to the lords of the realm and if he be gone from life then he should be shown openly to the people at the end so that they may recognise him’.
²⁰

This raises the question of why the council did not seek further information from Henry as to what had happened to Richard. The council’s order that ‘he should be kept in security’ shows that their doubt was not due to his escape (otherwise we would read of orders for his recapture). We might conclude that Richard had indeed taken the initiative and started to starve himself to death (and, of course, the council may have been told this, whether true or not). But the key phrase here is ‘it seems to the council necessary to speak to the king’. This shows that the council considered Richard’s fate separately, without Henry being present.
²¹
It demonstrates a possible difference between the information communicated to the council and that available to the king. It follows that either the whole council, including Henry, did not know for certain whether Richard was dead or not, because the matter was beyond Henry’s control and
could not
be clarified; or knowledge that Richard was already dead was known only to Henry and those members of the council who were privy to his secrets, who
would not
clarify the matter to the others.

Let us now consider the instructions issued by Charles VI to his ambassador Pierre Blanchet on 29 January, particularly ‘that he had been advised of the death of King Richard’. How did Charles know this? Firstly, and
most probably, there may have been a French spy in contact with someone connected with Richard’s killing. There are very few alternatives. It is possible that Henry secretly informed the French king, in order to restart peace negotiations. But why then did his messenger not inform his own ambassadors on the way, especially as Charles was on the verge of invading England? He would have been undermining his own diplomatic position by giving this information to the French. Thus this explanation is hardly credible. Even more difficult to accept is that the French acted on an unsubstantiated rumour.
²²
Although Charles was periodically mad, the rest of the French royal family – who ruled in his name when he was unwell – would not have accepted a mere rumour unquestioningly. There is no sign of any doubt on the part of the French government of the veracity of the information. They certainly would not have reversed their entire policy to England, confirmed the truce and initiated negotiations unless they were confident that their information about Richard’s death was shared by Henry.

Scholars have traditionally referred to the French information as a mere rumour, and presumed that we cannot connect it with the actual death. But though the French information may have prompted a rumour, in itself it was more reliable than hearsay, for the originator triggered an entire reversal of French royal policy. It is important to remember this when considering the alternative narratives of Richard’s death. Let us suppose for the sake of argument that Richard
did
starve himself in Pontefract on hearing of the news of the failure of the Epiphany Rising. This would tally with Richard’s reaction on his arrest – he refused to eat – and so would be believable. It would explain the council’s doubt about whether he was alive or not in February 1400, because no one at that council meeting – at least three days’ ride from Pontefract – knew whether he would go through with his self-starvation. However, the theory that Richard starved himself cannot be reconciled with the French king confidently circulating news of his death on 29 January. It would imply that it was a complete coincidence that, within a few days of Richard choosing to starve himself to death at Pontefract, someone close to the French royal family invented a spurious story that he had died and persuaded the French king to circulate the news without first checking it. This is simply not credible, especially in the light of their reversal of policy in the wake of the report. The French must have had some intelligence which they considered trustworthy, and that cannot have originated with Richard or his guards in the dungeons of Pontefract.

With this in mind, we can return to the question of why the English council was uncertain whether Richard was alive or dead at the time of
their early February meeting. It is very difficult to accept that the reason was because the matter
could not
be clarified, for the French already had information which they considered reliable. Henry’s closest friends on the council must have claimed that they had no certain knowledge of it, or simply said nothing. Why? If Richard was already dead, and the French were circulating the information, why did Henry not confirm or deny his death to the council? The could not/would not question above would appear thus to be answered. The matter was left in doubt because those in the know
would not
clarify it. For this reason, the minutes of the council meeting, coupled with the French evidence, are very suspicious, if not damning.

Now let us tighten the final screws in this investigation. In searching for a source for the French information about Richard’s death, we have no option but to return to the contemporary French chronicles mentioned above, for they alone give an early January date for Henry ordering Richard’s death. According to the original of all of these French texts – preserved in
The Betrayal and Death of Richard II –
the name of the man whom Henry ordered to do the killing was Sir Piers (or Peter) Exton. As mentioned above, no man of this name is known, but it bears resemblance to that of Sir Peter Bucton (or Buxton), Henry’s old friend, fellow crusader and erstwhile steward. This is important for Bucton was one of the very few men who knew where Richard was secretly being held.
²³
The specific entry reads ‘on the day of Kings (6 January), when Henry had taken the field, outside London, with all his people who were about to fight the lords who had risen to support King Richard, he commanded a knight called Sir Piers Exton to go and deliver [Richard] straightaway from this world’.
²⁴
The man who recorded that command was a Frenchman who was in London at the time, and whose source was with Henry in person on that day.
²⁵
Furthermore, the Frenchman in question had excellent connections with the highest-ranking members of the English court. If he or one of his French contacts sent word of Henry’s order to France, this could have been the source of Charles VI’s knowledge that Richard was dead. In other words, it might not have been news of the death itself which persuaded the French king, it might have been trustworthy intelligence that Henry had issued an order for Richard to be killed. Certainly in
The Betrayal and Death of Richard II
we have evidence that the French had intelligence of such an order being issued in early January. Furthermore, if the French king knew that Henry had given this order, then presumably some members of the English court – and some members of Henry’s council – knew too. Hence the doubt in early February about whether Richard was dead. The royal council needed clarification as to whether Henry’s order had been
carried out. The French presumed that the order had already resulted in Richard’s murder.

We cannot be certain that this is the true basis for the French information, but it would explain a great deal, including the otherwise intractable problem of the timing of the French announcement. It also allows us to reconstruct in outline the circumstances leading to Richard’s death. On or about 6 January, while riding against the rebels during the Epiphany Rising, Henry ordered Bucton to go to Pontefract and kill Richard, or at least to be prepared to kill him if the rebellion got out of hand. The essence of this order was overheard by the French agent in London, and the news was sent to Paris that Henry had secretly ordered Richard’s death. The French king, having no regard for the sensitivity of the matter in England, used the information to try to persuade Henry to return his daughter, Isabella, on the grounds that she was now a widow. He sent his messages to Henry’s ambassadors via his own representatives on 29 January. The French king’s letter would have been received by the English delegation at Calais on or about 1 February, and they lost no time in sending a copy to Westminster with William Faryngton. Henry, seeing the French king’s statement that Richard was dead, allowed the question to be discussed by the council at the early February meeting, to determine what they believed should be done with the king in the event of his death. Having no clarification of the matter, the council responded as best they could, providing for each eventuality.