The Last Days of Richard III and the Fate of His DNA (10 page)

Henry VI's new tomb, towards the east end of the south aisle, was sited – apparently quite deliberately – in a part of St George's Chapel, which was already strongly associated with two other pilgrimage cults: those of the popularly canonised John Schorne (a Buckinghamshire parish priest whose supposedly miraculous remains were translated to St George's Chapel in 1481) and of the Cross Gneth (the captured Welsh reliquary containing a fragment of the True Cross, which had been presented to the chapel by Edward III). Richard III had Henry VI's new tomb created in the second bay of the south aisle of the choir, ‘and the whole of it was formerly decorated in his honour with colour and gilding, traces of which may still be seen'.
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The space beneath the archway was arranged as a chantry chapel, with the king's tomb and a small altar, as described in the will of King Henry VIII.
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It was therefore clearly a tomb, and not yet a saint's shrine, to which Richard III transferred Henry VI's remains. Nevertheless, there seems to be little reason to doubt that Richard III's intention was to encourage the growth of Henry VI's cult, and thereby attract additional funds to St George's Chapel in the form of pilgrim offerings. The fifteenth-century offering box marked with a large ‘H' which stands by the tomb was made by John Tresilian in the 1480s, and is quite possibly contemporary with the 1484 reburial.
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Richard III's reburial of Henry VI – curiously presaging the ultimate fate of Richard's own remains – can be tentatively reconstructed by means of the evidence found when the Windsor tomb vault of 1484 was opened in 1910. Clearly, when the remains of Henry VI were exhumed from their tomb at Chertsey Abbey the body had already partly decayed.
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The decomposed remains were therefore reverently collected. They were then wrapped in fabric as a small parcel, which was placed in a box made of a dark wood, 3 feet 3½ inches in length, 10 inches wide, and 9 inches deep. This wooden box was closed by a sliding top panel. The box was then sealed into a neat but plain lead casket, 3 feet 5 inches in length, 15 inches wide and 12 inches deep, the top of which was soldered into place so that it could not be opened without cutting the lead. The lead casket was in turn enclosed in a full-sized wooden coffin, surrounded by bands of iron.
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The full-sized coffin was clearly a cosmetic feature. The intention was obviously that at the formal reburial it would appear to those present that an intact body reposed within.
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The account roll for the treasurer of the College of Windsor for 1483–84 records expenses of £5 10
s
. 2
d
. incurred for the translation of the remains, and the fifteenth-century antiquary John Rous recorded that the exhumation from Chertsey Abbey took place in August 1484, and that the body was then transported to Windsor, where ‘it was honourably received and with very great solemnity buried again on the south part of the high altar'.
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It is not impossible that Richard III had personally been present at the reburial, for he was certainly at Windsor Castle on Thursday 19 August 1484.
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Subsequently, in May 1485 Richard may have wished to mark the coming anniversary of Henry's death – the first since the previous year's ‘translation' of his remains to Windsor – by offering his own prayers at the new graveside in St George's Chapel as the ‘feast day' of this saint-by-acclamation approached.

The king was not, however, at St George's Chapel for the actual anniversary of his predecessor's putative martyrdom (whether that fell on 21 May or later). As we have already seen, on Tuesday 17 May he left Windsor and rode on to Berkhamsted Castle, where he visited his now semi-reclusive mother, Cecily Neville, Duchess of York. Two weeks earlier (Tuesday 3 May) Cecily had celebrated her seventieth birthday. Probably her son wanted to talk to her about his future remarriage with a Portuguese princess. Perhaps he also took the opportunity to discuss suitable arrangements for the future housing of his niece, Elizabeth, and her preparation for her forthcoming role as a Portuguese royal duchess. At all events, two or three weeks after seeing his mother Richard would make arrangements for Elizabeth, and possibly also her unmarried younger sisters, to join the Earls of Lincoln and Warwick at Sheriff Hutton Castle in Yorkshire.
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Following the visit to Berkhamsted, Richard was not to meet his mother again. He took his leave of her on or about 20 May, when he rode north to the castle of Kenilworth.
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It was probably at about the end of May, or perhaps very early in June, either at Kenilworth Castle or in Coventry, that Richard III received a formal letter of condolence upon the death of Queen Anne Neville from the Doge and the Senate of the Most Serene Republic of Venice.
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The usual diplomatic wheels were turning at the somewhat slow rate enforced by the length of time it took, in the fifteenth century, for news to travel backwards and forwards between England and Italy.

In his letter on behalf of
La Serenissima
, penned on Monday 2 May, the Doge wrote in Latin:

a few days ago we received the sad news that Queen Anne, your beloved consort, had deceased. We, together with our Senate, mourn greatly, for we bear Your Majesty such love and good will that, as we rejoice at any prosperous event that befalls you, so we are partakers of your sorrows. We exhort Your Majesty, endowed with consummate equanimity and marvellous virtues, of your wisdom and grandeur of mind to bear the disaster calmly and resign yourself to the divine will; and be it Your Majesty's consolation that your consort led so religious and catholic a life, and was so adorned with goodness, prudence and excellent morality as to leave a name immortal.
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By this time it is probable that Queen Anne Neville's funerary monument had been completed at Westminster Abbey. It comprised a slab of dark marble (perhaps Purbeck ‘marble') let into the pavement on the south side of the nave altar, directly above the burial site. This slab was a matrix for a funeral brass which, had it survived, would have been unique: the only English brass monument to a queen. Unfortunately, ‘today all that remains of her tomb is a bluish-grey marble slab in the pavement … brass nails can still be found, showing that a “brass” marked [her] last resting place'.
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5
‘Þe Castel of Care'
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Thursday 2 June 1485 – the Thursday after Trinity Sunday – was the Feast of
Corpus Christi
.
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This was a relatively recent feast day of the western Church, which had been officially approved by Rome only in the fourteenth century. It was very popular, and was universally celebrated with great enthusiasm. The feast celebrates the sacramental ‘Real Presence' of Christ in the elements of Holy Communion. Thus the principal liturgical focus of the celebration was and is the ‘Host', or wafer of bread consecrated by the priest at mass. On the Feast of Corpus Christi a large consecrated Host is traditionally displayed in a monstrance.
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This is then borne aloft by a priest richly robed in a cope. In modern celebrations the priest also wears a humeral veil over his shoulders and arms, so that his hands are not in direct contact with the sacred vessel, but medieval depictions of Corpus Christi celebrations do not show this veil, the wearing of which may not have been the practice in the fifteenth century. In other respects, however, fifteenth-century Corpus Christi processions were clearly very similar to those that may still be seen today. Preceded by thurifers with incense-burners and an acolyte ringing a
sanctus
bell, accompanied by burning torches, and walking beneath a canopy of rich fabric, the priest would process out of the church into the village streets. In country districts the procession then made its way to the local fields, where, holding the monstrance aloft, the priest would trace the sign of the cross with the consecrated wafer in blessing. Towns and cities likewise had their Corpus Christi processions, often accompanied in the Middle Ages by dramatic interludes, enacted at various pausing places or ‘stations' where the Host and its bearers could rest on their way.

In 1485, on the vigil or eve of this feast day, the king and his attendants rode out from Kenilworth Castle heading for the city of Coventry, a few miles to the north-east. This short royal visit was obviously undertaken to allow Richard the opportunity of celebrating the coming feast day in Coventry. There, every year, as the king and his court knew well, one of the greatest medieval drama cycles in all England was mounted in honour of this holy day. ‘In its fullest form the cycle comprised at least ten plays, though only two have survived to the present day. Of these two, the Shearmen and Tailors' Pageant was a nativity play portraying events from the Annunciation to the Massacre of the Innocents, and the Weavers' Pageant dealt with the Purification and the Doctors in the Temple.'
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By the sixteenth century the Shearmen and Tailors' play included the famous ‘Coventry Carol' for the scene of the massacre of the Innocents, and although the earliest known text of this carol dates only from 1534, it is very probable that Richard III heard it sung at the Corpus Christi celebrations in Coventry just two months before his death.
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If so, the words of this song (which laments the fate of innocent children murdered by a wicked king) apparently carried no special significance to Richard's ears, nor to those of the citizens of Coventry who watched the pageant with him that summer.

Richard III was already familiar with the lavish Corpus Christi celebrations held annually in the city of York, which he had attended on various occasions prior to his accession, and again with Queen Anne Neville in 1484.
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It seems the king was now eager to see how the feast was celebrated in Coventry. Richard had visited Coventry on previous occasions – but not, so far as is known, on the Feast of Corpus Christi. Nor was he the first fifteenth-century monarch to stay in Coventry. Henry VI and his queen, Margaret of Anjou, had been earlier royal visitors. The Lancastrian sovereigns had based their Coventry court on St Mary's Guildhall, a building which, though damaged during the Second World War, nevertheless survives (see figures 13 and 14). It was probably also at this guildhall, and beneath its carved, painted and gilded wooden ceiling of angel musicians, that Richard III was entertained during his 1485 visit to Coventry.

The royal visit lasted a few days. By Monday 6 June at the latest, the king had returned to Kenilworth Castle. Later that week, probably on or about Thursday 9 June, Richard III and his suite set off again in a northerly direction, riding to Nottingham Castle, which they would have entered by means of the surviving gateway on the eastern side of the castle bailey (see figure 18). This castle was centrally located in Richard's kingdom and was strongly defended, and these may have been among the reasons why he now decided to make Nottingham his base. Indeed, most previous writers have assumed that the king's choice of Nottingham as his residence at this juncture was motivated by military considerations. However, we should not necessarily take too grim a view of the factors underlying Richard's decision. One must also remember that Nottingham Castle had consistently been a favourite residence of the Yorkist kings.
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Nor need this visit be seen as a sign of gloomy prognostications on the part of the king – though many historians have chosen to so interpret it. The king had last been at Nottingham Castle the previous summer, and this in itself may indicate that it would have become a habitual port of call for him at about this time of year had his reign continued. In 1484 he had been accompanied by his consort, and it had been at Nottingham Castle that the royal couple had received news of the death of their young son. Large parts of the medieval castle that Richard knew were demolished and rebuilt in the seventeenth century, and ‘we have no authentic drawing of the Castle as it existed when in its complete state [but] … we can get a good general idea of its appearance from the plan made by an architect named John Smithson in 1617'.
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Nottingham Castle had been a favourite with the late King Edward IV, who enlarged it:

carrying almost to completion the work of his predecessors, and made it his chief residence and military stronghold. In addition to the Norman fortress on the highest part of the plateau (the site of the present Art Museum), the whole of the space now known as the Castle Green formed at this time the inner ballium, surrounded by beautiful buildings, protected by a dry moat, with portcullis and drawbridge, with fantastically sculptured ‘beasts' and ‘giants' on the parapet, and all the recognized means of defence; in fact, it was now looked upon as one of the largest and most magnificent castles in the land, and a secure retreat in time of danger. Edward's love for the place was perhaps only exceeded by that of his brother Richard, who completed with loving care what little remained to be done at the time of Edward's death. The great tower at the N.W. angle – ‘the most beautiful part and gallant building for lodging,' as Leland termed it – had been carried up for three storeys in stone, and Richard completed it by erecting ‘a loft of tymbre with round windows (
i.e.
bow windows) also of tymbre, to the proportion of the aforesaid windows of stone, which were a good foundation for the new tymbre windows.' … Thereafter the great tower which he had completed was known as ‘Richard's Tower'.
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From Nottingham Castle, on Tuesday 21 June, Richard sent instructions to Bishop John Russell, the Chancellor, to reissue a royal proclamation against Henry ‘Tudor' and his allies, which had first been published the previous December. Two alterations were now made to the text. The name of Elizabeth Woodville's son, the Marquess of Dorset, was removed from the list of ‘ rebels and traitors'. At the same time, details were supplied carefully chronicling Henry ‘Tudor''s bastard royal descent.
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The omission of Thomas Grey's name was no mere oversight. First, it was part of Richard's ongoing attempt at a rapprochement with the Woodville family – and particularly with Elizabeth Woodville and her children – of which we have already noted signs in connection with his Portuguese marriage plans. Second, it was a clear indication of the fact that Richard III was well aware that the marquess (who had fled into self-imposed exile after his involvement in the so-called ‘Buckingham Rebellion', and taken refuge with Henry ‘Tudor') had subsequently been strongly encouraged by his mother, the erstwhile queen, to put his trust in Richard and return to England. Indeed, Dorset had actually sought to escape from the ‘Tudor' ‘court' in Paris by night, making for the French coast and for England beyond. However, he had been overtaken by Henry ‘Tudor''s men at Compiègne and ‘persuaded' to return to Paris. Thus in June 1485 Richard III knew that Dorset was an unwilling ‘Tudor' supporter.
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