Richard III: His Life & Character Part 27

This odious measure outraged the feelings of all parties in the country. 'There was many gentlemen against it, but it would not be for it was the king's pleasure,' wrote Sir Robert Plumpton's correspondent from London.[7] The monk of Croyland wrote against the outrage, exclaiming 'O G.o.d! what security are our kings to have henceforth that in the day of battle they {253} may not be deserted by their subjects who, acting on the awful summons of a king may, on the decline of that king's party, as is frequently the case, be bereft of life and fortune and all their inheritance.'[8] Nor was this insult to King Richard's memory, and the lawless robbery of his loyal subjects, forgotten by the people of England. They were resolved to secure themselves against a repet.i.tion of such proceedings. Ten years afterwards the tyrant had the mortification of being obliged to give his a.s.sent to an Act formally condemning the attainder of King Richard's officers.[9]

It is very significant that, although in the Act of Attainder King Richard is reviled for cruelty and tyranny, he is not accused of the murder of his nephews. This is most remarkable. Henry got possession of the Tower at once. He arrived in London on August 28. If the young princes were missing, it is certain that in the Act of Attainder the usurper would have promptly accused King Richard of having murdered them. But he did not do so. There can only be one explanation of this omission. The young princes were not missing.

[Sidenote: Henry's great difficulty]

Here then was Henry's great difficulty. This fully accounts for the long delay in marrying Elizabeth. He was afraid. He was ready to commit any crime with the forms of law. He did not hold with Lord Russell, that 'killing by forms of law was the worst kind of murder.'

But a recourse to law was impossible {254} in this case. Whatever he was to do, must be done in profound secrecy. Yet his timid and superst.i.tious nature shrank from a crime the responsibility of which he could not share with others. Its perpetration had, he saw, become absolutely necessary for his security. He hesitated for months. All evidence of the illegitimacy had been hidden out of sight. No man dared to mention it. He long stood on the brink. At length he plunged into guilt. He married Elizabeth on January 18, 1486, nearly five months after his accession. The die was then cast. It became a matter of life and death to Henry VII. that the brothers of his wife should cease to exist.

[Sidenote: Tudor victims]

We must now apply the same tests to Henry as we applied to Richard.

Had Henry sufficient motive for the crime? It is impossible that a man in his position could have had a stronger motive. He had denied the illegitimacy, and had thus made his wife's brothers his most formidable rivals. He could not, he dared not let them live, unless he relinquished all he had gained. The second test we applied to Richard was his treatment of those persons who were in his power, and who were, as regards relations.h.i.+p, in the same position as the sons of Edward IV.

Let us apply the same test to Henry. John of Gloucester, the illegitimate son of Richard III., fell into the hands of Henry. At first the boy received a maintenance allowance of 20_l._ a year.[10]

But he was soon thrown into prison, on suspicion of an invitation having reached him to come to Ireland, and he never came {255} out alive.[11] This 'active well-disposed boy,'[12] as he is described in the warrant in Rymer's 'Foedera,' fell a victim to the usurper's fears.

His right to the crown was at least as good as that of Henry Tudor. He was the illegitimate son of a king. Henry was only the great-grandson of an illegitimate son of a younger son of a king. The Earl of Warwick, who was the rightful heir to the crown, was also in Henry's power. The tyrant hesitated for years before he made up his mind to commit another foul crime. But he finally slaughtered the unhappy youth under circ.u.mstances of exceptional baseness and infamy, to secure his own ends. His next supposed danger was caused by the Earl of Suffolk, another nephew of King Richard. The ill-fated prince was delivered into Henry's hands under a promise that his life should be spared. He evaded the promise by enjoining his son to kill the victim.

That son promptly complied, and followed up the death of Suffolk by putting five other descendants of the Plantagenet royal family to death. These Tudor kings cannot stand the tests we applied to Richard III., which he pa.s.sed unscathed. The conduct of Richard to the relations who were under his protection was that of a Christian king.

The executions of which Henry VII. and his son were guilty were an imitation of the policy of Turkish sultans.

If the young princes were in the Tower when Henry succeeded, his conduct in a.n.a.logous cases leaves no doubt of their fate. It was the fate of John of Gloucester, Warwick, Suffolk, Exeter, {256} Montagu, Surrey, Buckingham, and the Countess of Salisbury.[13] They may not have been made away with before Henry's marriage, nor for some months afterwards. The tyrant had the will but not the courage. He hesitated long, as in the case of young Warwick. For reasons which will appear presently it is likely that the boys were murdered, by order of Henry VII., between June 16 and July 16, 1486, three years after the time alleged by the official Tudor historians.

[Sidenote: Imprisonment of the Queen Dowager]

Then, for the first time, the 'common fame' was ordered to spread the report that King Richard 'had put them under suer kepynge within the tower, in such wise that they never came abrode after,' and that 'King Richard put them unto secrete death.'[14] But Henry feared detection.

The mother knew that this was false. If the boys were murdered in July 1486, that mother must soon have begun to feel uneasy. She was at Winchester with her daughter when her grandchild Arthur was born on September 20, 1486, and was present at the baptism. But she was in London in the autumn, and before many months her suspicions must have been aroused. She must be silenced. Consequently, in February 1487 'it was resolved that the Lady Elizabeth, wife of King Edward IV., should lose and forfeit all her lands and possessions because she had voluntarily submitted herself and her daughters {257} to the hands of King Richard. Whereat there was much wondering.'[15] She was ordered to reside in the nunnery of Bermondsey.[16] Once she was allowed to appear at Court on a State occasion.[17] The pretext for her detention was not the real motive, for Henry had made grants of manors and other property to his mother-in-law soon after his accession,[18] when her conduct with regard to King Richard was equally well known to him. The real reason was kept secret, as well it might be. Mr. Gairdner calls this proceeding 'a very mysterious decision taken about the Queen {258} Dowager.'[19] Very mysterious, indeed, on the a.s.sumption of Henry's innocence. But not so if the mother knew that her sons were alive when Richard fell, and could now obtain no tidings of them. If the boys ceased to live in July 1486, it was high time for Henry to silence the awkward questions of their mother in the following February. He did so by condemning her to life-long seclusion in a nunnery. Henry was terrified that a lady who knew some of his secrets, and probably suspected more, should be at large. In the end of the following year, and not till then, Henry's wife Elizabeth was at length crowned on November 25, 1487. The King and his mother beheld the ceremony from a stage, but there is no mention of the poor Queen's mother.

[Sidenote: Polydore Virgil's story]

Years pa.s.sed on. Perkin Warbeck personated young Richard, and no one had such good reason as Henry for knowing that he was an impostor. But the tyrant dared not tell how he knew that Perkin was a 'feigned boy,'

as he called him. At length, in 1502 or thereabouts, the first detailed story of the murder of the two princes was put forward, after the execution of Sir James Tyrrel. It may be considered as Henry's official statement, and was evidently communicated to his paid historian Polydore Virgil, in whose hands it took the following form:

'Richard lived in continual fear, for the expelling thereof by any kind of means, he determined by death to despatch his nephews, because so long as they lived he could never be out of hazard. Wherefore he sent warrant to Robert Brakenbury, Lieutenant of the Tower, to procure their death with all diligence by some means convenient. Then he departed to York. {259} But the Lieutenant of the Tower of London, after he had received the King's horrible commission, was astonished with the cruelty of the fact, and fearing lest, if he should obey, the same might one time or other turn to his own harm, did therefore defer the doing thereof in hope that the King would spare his own blood, or their tender age, or alter that heavy determination. But any one of these points were so far from taking place, seeing that the mind therein remained immovable, as that when King Richard understood the Lieutenant to make delay of that which he had commanded, he anon committed the charge of hastening that slaughter unto another, that is to say James Tyrrel, who, being forced to do the King's commandment, rode sorrowfully to London, and to the worst example that hath been almost ever heard of, murdered those babes of the issue royal. This end had Prince Edward and Richard his brother, but with what kind of death these silly children were executed is not certainly known.'

This was the story put forward by Henry after Tyrrel's death. He may have added some other particulars afterwards.[20] It is indeed probable that he did. A much more detailed fable appeared in the history attributed to More, and in Grafton, both by the same hand. It has been seen already that the statements of this writer are unworthy of credit, and it is very difficult to distinguish what parts were authorised by Henry,[20] and what parts were fabricated by the writer himself. His story is as follows:

'At the time when Sir James Tyrrel and John {260} Dighton were in prison for treason in 1502, they made the following confession. Taking his way to Gloucester in August 1483, King Richard sent one John Green with a letter to Sir Robert Brakenbury, Constable of the Tower, ordering him to put the children to death. Sir Robert plainly answered that he would not put them to death; with which answer John Green returning, recounted the same to King Richard at Warwick.

'The same night the King said to a secret page of his, "Who shall I trust to do my bidding?" "Sir," quoth the page, "there lieth one on your pallet without who I dare well say will do your Grace's pleasure, the things were right hard that he would refuse." This was Sir James Tyrrel, who saw with envy that Ratcliffe and Catesby were rising above him in his master's favour. Going out to Sir James, who was reposing with his brother Thomas, the King said "what Sirs are you abed so soon?" then, calling Sir James into his chamber, he brake to him secretly his mind in this mischievous matter. Tyrrel a.s.sented, and was despatched on the morrow with a letter to Brakenbury, to deliver to Sir James all the keys of the Tower for one night. After which letter delivered and the keys received, Sir James appointed the night next ensuing to destroy them, devising before and preparing the means. The princes were in charge of Will Slaughter (or Slater) called "Black Will," who was set to serve them and see them sure. Sir James Tyrrel devised that they should be murdered in their beds; to the execution whereof he appointed Miles Forest, one of the four who kept them, a fellow flesh-bred in murder before time. To him he joined his horse-keeper, John Dighton, a big, broad, square, strong {261} knave.

They smothered the children, and Tyrrel ordered the murderers to bury them at the stair foot, metely deep in the ground, under a great heap of stones. Then rode Sir James in great haste to King Richard, and shewed him all the manner of the murder, who gave him great thanks, and as some say, then made him knight. But the King allowed not their burial in so vile a corner, because they were King's sons. Whereupon a priest of Sir Robert Brakenbury took them and secretly interred them in such a place as, by the occasion of his death which only knew it the very truth could never yet be very well known. Very truth is it and well known that at such time as Sir James Tyrrel was in the Tower for treason, committed against King Henry VII., both he and Dighton were examined together of this point, and both they confessed the murder to be done in the same manner as you have heard. G.o.d never gave a more notable example of what wretched end ensueth such despiteous cruelty.

Miles Forest at St. Martin-le-Grand piecemeal miserably rotted away.

Sir James Tyrrel died on Tower Hill. Dighton, indeed, yet walketh alive, in good possibility to be hanged ere he die.' Grafton says: 'John Dighton lived at Calais long after, no less disdained and hated than pointed at, and there died in great misery.' The version in Kennet[21] makes both 'Dighton and Forest die in a most horrible manner, rotting away by degrees.' 'Thus, as I have learned of them that much knewe and little cause had to lye were these two princes murdered.' This last sentence is audacious. These informers, if they ever existed outside the writer's imagination, had very strong cause to lie. They thus complied with the wishes of {262} the reigning powers, and furthered their own interests. The truth, if they knew it, would have been their ruin.

[Sidenote: The story published by Rastell]

Such is the detailed accusation which was finally put forward. It contradicts the story of Morton, in his alleged conversation with Buckingham, who says that the princes were murdered long before the King reached Warwick, and while Buckingham was still at Court. On the face of it there is no confession in this long story. It is a concocted tale, and, indeed, this is fully admitted. It is merely represented to be the most probable among several others which were based on various accounts of the alleged confession. If there ever was a confession why should there be various accounts of it? The silence of Fabyan, and of Polydore Virgil, who must have heard of the confession if it had been made, seems conclusive against the truth of the story of a confession.

Even this selected tale, as we have received it, is full of gross improbabilities and inaccuracies. For instance, Tyrrel, who is said to have been knighted for the murder, had been a knight for twelve years, and was also a Knight Banneret of some standing.[22] The first thing that strikes one is that, if the story had been true, Henry must have heard the main facts when he came to London, after the battle of Bosworth. For Sir Robert Brackenbury's supersession during one day, with the delivery of all the keys to Sir James Tyrrel, must inevitably have been known to his subordinates. All the officials of the Tower must have known it, and must also have known that the boys disappeared at the same time. Many persons must have been acquainted with what happened. Some of them would certainly have been eager to gain favour with {263} Henry by telling him, when he enquired about the missing princes. Yet there is no accusation in the Act of Attainder against Richard or Tyrrel, and it is pretended that nothing was known until 1502. This proves that the story was a subsequent fabrication.

There is another proof that the tale was false. It is alleged that Tyrrel and Dighton both confessed. Yet Tyrrel was beheaded for another offence in defiance of Henry's plighted word, and Dighton was rewarded with a residence at Calais and, as will be seen presently, a sinecure in Lincolns.h.i.+re. These are proofs that there was no such confession as was alleged and was embodied in the story which, as it now stands, must be a fabrication. For if the confessions were ever made, Tyrrel and Dighton must have been tried and convicted for these atrocious murders, and duly punished. It has been suggested that Tyrrel could not be proceeded against because his statement was under the seal of confession. It is clear from the story that this was not so. The story tells us that Tyrrel and Dighton were subjected to examination, and that it was in that way that their confessions were obtained. In point of fact Dighton does not appear to have been arrested at all.

The names of those who were concerned in Tyrrel's business are given by the chroniclers, and Dighton is not one of them.[23]

It seems unnecessary to dwell on the absurdities and contradictions in the story itself. They have often been exposed, and indeed they are admitted by Mr. Gairdner, who merely contends that the story may be {264} true in the main, although the details may not be correct. But it is worth while to refer to the contention of Sharon Turner, Lingard and others, that the story must be true, on the ground that the persons mentioned in it were rewarded by King Richard.

[Sidenote: Alleged rewards to murderers]

They maintain that 'Brakenbury and Tyrrel received several grants, Green was made receiver of the Isle of Wight and of the castle and lords.h.i.+p of Porchester, Dighton was appointed Bailiff of the manor of Ayton, Forest was keeper of the wardrobe at Barnard Castle.' But it is not pretended that 'Black Will' was rewarded by Richard. We shall presently see that he was by Henry. All this can easily be answered.

Brackenbury and Tyrrel were Yorkist officers of rank, and such grants would have been made to them in any circ.u.mstances for their distinguished services. As regards the others, either the grants were made previous to the alleged date of the murders, or there is no evidence to show whether they were made before or after, or in any way to connect them with the crime. The statement that Green held the receivers.h.i.+ps of the Isle of Wight and Porchester is derived from an entirely unsupported note by Strype.[24] There was a man named Green who was Comptroller of Customs at Boston, and another who was appointed to provide horse meat and litter for the King's stables. But the dates of these appointments were July 24 and 30, 1483, before the alleged date of the murders.

A man named Dighton was made Bailiff of the manor of Ayton[25]; but there is nothing to show that {265} this appointment was after the murder, or that he was Tyrrel's horse keeper, or that Tyrrel ever had a groom of that name. It will presently be seen that the John Dighton of the murder was probably a clergyman and not a groom.

It is alleged of Miles Forest that he was one of four jailers in the Tower who had charge of the princes, that he was a professional murderer, and that he rotted away miserably, in sanctuary at St.

Martin's-le-Grand. These a.s.sertions are certainly false. Miles Forest was keeper of the wardrobe at Barnard Castle[26] in the valley of the Tees in Durham, 244 miles from the Tower of London. There he lived with his wife Joan and his son Edward. A footman serving at Middleham Castle, named Henry Forest, was perhaps another son.[27] There is not the slightest reason for believing that Forest entered upon his appointment after the date of the alleged murders; but much to disprove this a.s.sumption. He died in September 1484, and, as his wife and son received a pension for their lives, he must have been an old and faithful servant who had held the office for many years.

Dr. Lingard suggests that the pension was granted because Forest held the post for such a _short_ time, a.s.suming that he was one of the murderers in the story. This is certainly a very odd reason for granting a pension![28] Some authors have thought that it was Baynard's Castle, the residence of the d.u.c.h.ess of York in London, where Forest was keeper of the wardrobe. But the names in the ma.n.u.script are quite clear.

Miles Forest was a responsible old official in a royal castle, living with his wife and grown-up sons in the {266} far north of England; where he died and his family received a pension for his long service.

We are asked to believe that he was, at the same time, a notorious murderer who was also a jailer in the Tower of London, and that he died in sanctuary at St. Martin's-le-Grand.

[Sidenote: Genesis of the story]

How Forest's name got into the story concocted from the pretended confession it is not possible, at this distance of time, to surmise.

But the author of it was quite unscrupulous, and the above considerations justify the conclusion that Forest's name was used without any regard for truth. There was a desire to give names and other details in order to throw an air of verisimilitude over the fable. We see the same attempt in the use of the name of Dighton. He was not Tyrrel's horse-keeper, nor probably the actual murderer, but a different person, as will be seen presently. But there was a John Dighton living at Calais when the story was made up, who was known to be connected, in some mysterious way, with the disappearance of the princes. So the author of the story hit upon his name to do duty as a strong square knave who did the deed. The name of Forest was doubtless adopted owing to some similar chance. The name of neither Deighton nor Forest occurs in the authorised version as given by Polydore Virgil.

Henry at first only accused Tyrrel of the murders; but it seems likely that he subsequently put forward some further details. There is an indication of the Green episode in Polydore Virgil. It is therefore probable that it was sanctioned by Henry's authority, as well as the details respecting the interment of the bodies. All the rest about Dighton and Forest, and the mode in which their crime was committed, is an impudent fabrication, as regards Richard, based upon {267} the authorised story which is given by Polydore Virgil. The Italian was supplied with the statement sanctioned by Henry, and he distinctly tells us that the mode of death was not divulged.

If the mode of death was not divulged, the alleged confession of Tyrrel and Dighton cannot have taken place. For this is the very thing they would have confessed.

There remains a circ.u.mstantial story which may really have been connected with a secret tragedy. It has a very suspicious look of having been parodied out of something which actually happened. It is unlikely to have been pure invention. The fear of detection must have been always haunting Henry's mind. He would be tortured with the apprehension that the vague rumours he had set afloat against Richard were not believed; and this would be an inducement to promulgate a more detailed and circ.u.mstantial story. He could not and dared not accuse Tyrrel while he was alive, for a reason which will appear directly, but as soon as he was dead it would be safe to do so. At the time when he got rid of Tyrrel his son Arthur had just died. The man's mind would be filled with fear of retributive justice. Then the terror of detection would increase upon him. He would long to throw off suspicion from himself, by something more decisive than vague rumour.

The notion of imputing his own crime, in its real details, to his predecessor, is quite in keeping with the workings of a subtle and ingenious mind such as we know Henry's to have been. Hence, Tyrrel, Green, Dighton, Black Will, may have been the accomplices of Henry VII., not of Richard III. As soon as Tyrrel was disposed of, the circ.u.mstantial story might be divulged as his confession, merely {268} subst.i.tuting the name of Richard for that of Henry, and the name of Brackenbury for that of Daubeney.[29]

[Sidenote: Murder of the princes]

With this clue to guide us, let us see what light can still be thrown on the dark question of the murders. Sir James Tyrrel of Gipping had been a knight of some distinction. He had been on a commission for exercising the office of Lord High Constable under Edward IV. He had been Master of the Horse and was created a Knight Banneret at Berwick siege. King Richard made him Master of the Henchmen and conferred many favours on him. But he was not one of the good men and true who stood by their sovereign to the end. His name drops out of history during those last anxious months before Bosworth. He was no doubt a trimmer.

But he could not escape the consequences of his long service under the Yorkist kings. Henry Tudor deprived him of his Chamberlains.h.i.+p of the Exchequer, and of his Constables.h.i.+p of Newport, in order to bestow those appointments on his own friends.[30] Tyrrel had to wait patiently in the cold shade. But he was ambitious, unscrupulous, and ready to do a great deal for the sake of the new King's favour. Here was a ready instrument for such a man as Henry Tudor.

The die had been cast. The usurper had married Elizabeth of York and entered upon the year 1486. There was a dark deed which must be done.

Henry set out on a progress to York, leaving London in the middle of March. On the 11th of the same month, John Green received from the new King a grant of {269} a third of the manor of Benyngton in Hertfords.h.i.+re.[31] For this favour Green had, no doubt, to perform some secret service which, if satisfactorily executed, would be more fully rewarded. This grant was a small retaining fee. We know from the story what that service was. We also know from the story that Green did not succeed. Henry VII. returned from his progress in June, only to find that Green had failed him in his need. Then Henry (not Richard) may well have exclaimed 'Who shall I trust to do my bidding?'

'"Sir," quoth a secret councillor'[32] (called a page in the story), '"there waiteth without one who I dare well say will do your Grace's pleasure." So Tyrrel was taken into favour, and undertook to perform Henry's work with the understanding that he was to receive a sufficient reward. He became a knight of the King's body.[33] On June 16, 1486, Sir James Tyrrel late of Gipping received a general pardon.[34] There is nothing extraordinary in this. It was an ordinary practice, in those days, to grant general pardons on various occasions. But it marks the date when Henry found 'one without' who was ready to do his pleasure. Tyrrel, as the story tells us, was given a warrant to the Lieutenant of the Tower, conferring on him the needful powers. The murders were then committed, as the story informs us, by William Slaughter or Slater, called 'Black Will,' with the aid of John Dighton.

Slater was, no doubt, the jailer. Master Dighton, however, was not Tyrrel's groom. A John Dighton was a priest, and possibly a chaplain in the Tower. He may have {270} been only an accessory after the fact, in connexion with the interments. The bodies, as we are told in the story, were buried at the stair foot, 'metely deep in the ground'; where they were discovered in July 1674,[35] 188 years afterwards. The tale about their removal,[36] and the death of the priest, was no doubt inserted by Henry, to prevent that discovery. On July 16, 1486, Sir James Tyrrel received a second general pardon.[37] This would be very singular under ordinary circ.u.mstances, the second pardon having been granted within a month of the first. But it is not so singular when we reflect on what probably took place in the interval. There was an offence to be condoned which must be kept a profound secret. Thus we are able to fix the time of the murder of the two young princes between June 16 and July 16, 1486. One was fifteen and a half, the other twelve years of age.

[Sidenote: Relations silenced]

Henry had at length found courage to commit the crime. He may have excused it to himself from the absolute necessity of his position. It had been perpetrated in profound secrecy. If the mother, brother, or sisters suspected anything, they could be silenced. They were absolutely at his mercy. Henry caused the mother to be stripped of her property, immured in Bermondsey nunnery, and left dependent on him for subsistence. She was thus effectually silenced. The Marquis of Dorset, half brother of the murdered boys, was committed to the Tower during 1487; but he succeeded in convincing the tyrant that there was {271} nothing to fear from him, and was eventually released. The eldest sister was Henry's wife and at his mercy--the wife of a man who, as his admirers mildly put it, 'was not uxorious.' She was within two months of her confinement. Doubtless for that reason her mother kept all misgivings to herself. Henry married the next sister, Cicely, to his old uncle Lord Welles,[38] who would ensure her silence. She was married in that very year, and sent off to Lincolns.h.i.+re. The three youngest were children, and in due time could be married to his adherents, or shut up in a nunnery.[39] Others who knew much, and must have suspected more, were silent in public, for their fortunes, perhaps their lives, depended on their silence.

Yet the guilty tyrant could have known no peace. He must have been haunted by the fear of detection, however industriously he might cause reports to be spread and histories to be written, in which his predecessor was charged with his crimes. Then there was the horror of having to deal with his accomplices. Here fortune favoured him. Green died in the end of 1486[40]; though hush money seems to have been paid to 'Black Will' for some time longer.[41] John Dighton {272} was presented by Henry VII. with the living of Fulbeck near Grantham, in Lincolns.h.i.+re, on May 2, 1487.[42] But he was expected to live on the other side of the Channel. Sir James Tyrrel received ample recompense.

He seems to have been appointed to the office of Constable of Guisnes immediately after the date of his second general pardon.[43] He was next sent as amba.s.sador to Maximilian, King of the Romans, to conclude a perpetual league and treaty. In 1493 Tyrrel was one of the Commissioners for negotiating the Treaty of Etaples with France. In August 1487 he received a grant for life of the Stewards.h.i.+p of the King's Lords.h.i.+p of Ogmore in Wales. But Henry, although he was obliged to reward his accomplices, was anxious to keep them on the other side of the Channel as much as possible. Dighton had to reside at Calais.

Tyrrel was required to make an exchange, giving up his estates in Wales to the King, and receiving revenues from the county of Guisnes of equal value.[44] In 1498 Henry still addressed him as his well-beloved and faithful councillor.

[Sidenote: Arrest of Tyrrel]