Richard III: His Life & Character Part 28

The long-sought pretext for getting rid of Tyrrel was found in 1502.

The usurper dreaded the Earl of Suffolk, King Richard's nephew, as a claimant to the throne. He heard that Tyrrel had favoured the escape of the ill-fated young prince to Germany. Henry would be terrified at the idea of Tyrrel taking the side of another claimant, and publicly denouncing his misdeeds. {273} He ordered the arrest of his accomplice, but Tyrrel refused to surrender the castle of Guisnes. He was besieged by the whole garrison of Calais. Henry then ordered Dr.

Fox, the Bishop of Winchester and Lord Privy Seal, one of his most intimate a.s.sociates, to send a promise under the privy seal, to the effect that Tyrrel should come and go in security if he would confer with Sir Thomas Lovell, Henry's Chancellor of the Exchequer, on board a s.h.i.+p at Calais. Tyrrel should have known his master by this time. But even he had not gauged the full depth of Tudor perfidy. He was deceived by the 'pulchris verbis' of Bishop Fox.[45] When he came on board he was told that he would be pitched overboard unless he sent a token to his son to deliver up the castle. The token was sent, and the King's promise under his privy seal was broken. Tyrrel was safely locked up in a dungeon of the Tower and beheaded without trial and in great haste on May 6, 1502.

At length Henry could breathe freely. Green and Tyrrel were dead.

Slater does not appear again, so it {274} may be a.s.sumed that he also had been got rid of. Only Dighton remained. He had to reside at Calais on the proceeds of his sinecure in Lincolns.h.i.+re, and to be useful as a false witness. We know from Rastell and Grafton that he did live and die at Calais. The ident.i.ty of names suggests the probability that he was a brother or son of the John Dighton who was Bailiff of Ayton Manor.

The story told in the publications of Grafton and Rastell was generally accepted as true; although, even after the lapse of so many years, there must have been many old people who knew it to be false. These people had the choice between silence and ruin. As they died off, the belief in the story became more and more universal. This fable, appearing first in Grafton, was the final touch to the hideous and grotesque caricature which was portrayed by the Tudor historians and dramatised by Shakespeare. The history of its reception in all its absurd and improbable details, of the ineradicable prejudice which could keep it alive for four centuries, and long after sound methods of criticism had begun to be applied to other historical questions, forms a curious chapter in the record of human credulity.

[Sidenote: Death of the Earl of Warwick]

Henry Tudor suffered for his crimes. The secret removal of his wife's brothers and of her uncle's illegitimate son failed to complete the catalogue of them. Young Edward Earl of Warwick was another stumbling block in his way. But again his superst.i.tious mind recoiled from guilt which his judgment recommended. If his wife had been legitimate, there would have been no danger to Henry from the Earl of Warwick; that young prince would have been far removed from the succession. His wife's illegitimacy {275} made her cousin the rightful heir, and hence another crime seemed necessary. Henry put off the perpetration of this crime for years. Ferdinand of Spain refused to allow a marriage between his daughter and Henry's son Arthur, until the rightful heir to the crown of England had been put out of the way. This refusal at length gave Henry a motive for the crime which outweighed his superst.i.tious fears.

He committed it in a way which was thoroughly characteristic. He caused Perkin Warbeck to be given access to the Earl of Warwick in the Tower, and some of the jailers were told to suggest an attempt at escape. An informer, named Robert Cleymound, was employed to listen to the conversations of the two lads, and to report that an escape was meditated by them. This was made a capital charge against the young prince. He was subjected to a mock trial, so that Henry might indulge in his hope of limited liability for murder, and was then slaughtered on November 28, 1499. A man who was capable of committing such a cowardly murder in such a way was certainly as capable of the crime of which he falsely accused King Richard.

As soon as Richard III. was dead, Edward Earl of Warwick became _de jure_ King of England, not only as the acknowledged heir to the dead King but also as the nearest in succession, and as the last male Plantagenet. His existence was, at that time, a serious danger to the usurper, who did not lose a day in securing the poor lad's person. If, as Henry afterwards caused it to be proclaimed, the declaration of the illegitimacy of the children of Edward IV. was false, then the Earl of Warwick ceased to be dangerous; and there was no object in condemning him to perpetual imprisonment. It was a useless act of injustice {276} and cruelty. But if Henry knew that, in spite of his attempts to destroy all evidence of the illegitimacy, the awkward fact remained, his injustice and cruelty are explained. They afford one more proof of the truth of Dr. Stillington's evidence, which led to the accession of King Richard.

Warwick was now put out of the way, in obedience to the King of Spain.

But remorse gnawed the tyrant's heart. His father confessor, though doubtless an astute courtier, failed to soothe his conscience. He sought the help of wizards and quacks. But his superst.i.tions gave him little consolation. The Spanish Amba.s.sador noticed the change that had taken place in Henry's appearance since the murder of young Warwick.

Don Pedro de Ayala had been in Scotland during the interval. The King had come to look many years older in a single month. Dark thoughts were haunting his mind. His eldest son died, and an anonymous writer has recorded that he showed some feeling, and exchanged words of consolation with his wife.[46] This is quite in keeping with one side of his character. The other side is shown in his harsh treatment of Catharine of Aragon, in his monstrous proposal to marry her when his wife died, in his disgusting inquiries respecting the young Queen of Naples, and in his revolting offer for the hand of Juana (_la loca_).

But the necessities of his position gave him little time for the indulgence either of such grief as he was capable of feeling or of the other less creditable sentiments that are revealed in his correspondence. His son's death must have seemed to him the Nemesis of his crimes. Yet within a month he was beheading {277} Tyrrel, and fabricating a story to account for the disappearance of his wife's brothers.

We can never know how much that wife suffered. No doubt she was kept in ignorance of the fate of her brothers. But she knew they were not killed by her uncle. She saw her mother immured in a nunnery for life.

She saw her brother, the Marquis of Dorset, committed to the Tower.

She saw the sister, nearest to her in age, hurriedly married to old Lord Welles. She must have suspected much, even if she knew nothing.

She could not have been kept in ignorance of the cruel imprisonment of her young cousin Warwick. She must have shuddered at his murder. She would have been less than human if she did not loathe the perpetrator of these deeds, even though he was the father of her children. The unhappy wife was released from companions.h.i.+p with the murderer of her relations on February 11, 1503.

[Sidenote: Death of the Earl of Suffolk]

Another crime was contemplated by the miserable usurper, to make his position safe. But he could not get the Earl of Suffolk into his clutches without giving a solemn promise to spare his life. He evaded the promise by advising his son to commit the crime after his death.[47] Murderous designs thus occupied his mind, even on his death-bed.

Yet one of Henry's last acts was an act of rest.i.tution. He restored in blood, and to all his estates, the son of his accomplice, Sir James Tyrrel, on April 6, 1507, feeling no doubt that the greater criminal of the two remained unpunished, except by his own remorseful conscience.

{278}

Henry became haggard and restless. Prosperous and successful as the world deemed him, we may rely upon it that his crimes were not unpunished. His cowardly nature was peculiarly susceptible to the torturing pangs of remorse. He died, full of terrors, prematurely old and worn out, at the early age of fifty-two, on April 21, 1509. He was successful as the world counts success. He acc.u.mulated riches by plunder and extortion. He established a despotic government. He cleared his path of rivals. We are told that he inaugurated a new era--era of 'benevolences' and Star Chamber prosecutions. In all these things he succeeded. He, and the writers he employed, were pre-eminently successful as slanderers. They succeeded in blackening for all time the fame of a far better man than Henry Tudor.

[Sidenote: Things unexplained]

Hitherto we have been engaged in the investigation of positive evidence. There is, however, another side to the question--a negative side. We must now examine Henry's omissions. According to his story he found the two boys missing when he arrived in London after the battle of Bosworth. If Henry's story was true, it must have been well known to every official in the Tower that Sir Robert Brackenbury gave up charge to Sir James Tyrrel and that the boys had never been seen since. If Henry made any enquiries he must have heard this, and the whole story would have come out. Why were not Tyrrel, Dighton, Green, and Black Will arrested, tried, and hanged? Why was not King Richard accused of murdering his nephews in the Act of Attainder? It is very improbable, though just possible, that Henry might have failed to ascertain the details of the story, a.s.suming it to have been true, when he first arrived. Still, if the boys were missing, {279} it is certain that he would have accused Richard of their murder in the Act of Attainder. His omission to do so amounts to a strong presumption that they were not missing. According to the story, Tyrrel and Dighton confessed the murder in 1502. Why were they not tried and executed for it? This must have been done if there ever was a confession. It was clearly not made under the seal of confession, according to the story, but under the pressure of official examination. Tyrrel was actually beheaded, in great haste, on a frivolous charge, and his capture was a breach of a royal promise given under the privy seal. Surely this would have been avoided if there had been any other way, and there was another way. There was every possible reason for trying him for these horrible murders and executing him for them. Why was not this done?

There can be only one answer. There was no confession. Henry's treatment of Dighton is still more extraordinary. It is alleged that he also confessed the murder. Yet he was not only unpunished, but allowed to live at large in Calais. When we find that Henry gave rewards to Tyrrel, Dighton, Green, and Black Will, the conclusion is inevitable that there was no confession to the King in 1502, because it was quite unnecessary. The confession was due from Henry himself.

Another omission in Henry's conduct is equally incriminating. If the children of Edward IV. were legitimate, why was not the Act of Richard III. published, which alleged their illegitimacy, and its falsehood fully exposed by evidence? Why was such extraordinary anxiety shown to conceal its contents, and violence threatened against anyone who preserved a record of them? Why were absurd, improbable, {280} and contradictory tales invented, in subst.i.tution of the statements made in Richard's Act? There can be only one answer. The statements in the Act were true.

In no other way can Henry's cruel treatment of the young Earl of Warwick be accounted for. If Elizabeth was the legitimate heiress of York, then there could be no danger from Warwick, and no reason for molesting him. He was simply a harmless young prince, far removed from the succession. But if Elizabeth and her sisters were not legitimate, the case was very different. Warwick was then _de jure_ Edward V.

There was every reason for a usurper to imprison and kill him. The Lambert Simnel insurrection is explained in that case. It would have been without motive if Warwick came after five others in the succession to the crown. Here again Henry's conduct can only be explained in one way. Warwick was imprisoned and killed for the same reason that Richard's Act of Parliament, declaring his t.i.tle, was destroyed.

The conduct of Henry adds weight to all the other evidence. It cannot be reconciled with his innocence. It can only be explained by his guilt.

[1] William Catesby was the son of Sir William Catesby of Ashby St.

Leger in Northamptons.h.i.+re, by Philippa, heiress of Sir William Bishopston. He was a learned man, well versed in the laws of his country. On June 30, 1483, he become Chancellor of the Exchequer, and was chosen Speaker of King Richard's Parliament. Lord Rivers had such confidence in his integrity that he nominated him executor of his will.

His wife was Margaret, daughter of William Lord Zouch. He made his own will on August 25, 1485, leaving his wife sole executrix and dividing his property among his children. His unjust attainder was afterwards reversed in favour of his son George.

[2] Yet Dr. Lingard tells us that 'Henry was careful not to stain his triumph with blood.' This is a strange a.s.sertion, when it is directly followed by the admission that he did stain his triumph with blood. Of all his prisoners,' he continues, 'three only suffered death, the notorious [why notorious?] Catesby and two persons of the name of Brecher, who _probably_ had merited that distinction by their crimes'

(iv. p. 260). This is a pure a.s.sumption, unwarranted by any evidence whatever. If the word 'loyalty' had been subst.i.tuted for 'crimes,' Dr.

Lingard would have been nearer the truth. All that this historian's praise amounts to is that Henry refrained from committing a ma.s.sacre, such as he caused to be perpetrated on a subsequent occasion, when Warbeck's followers landed in Kent.

Mr. Gairdner says: 'Whether these executions were just is another question, save that the ministers of a bad king must take the responsibility even of his worst deeds' (p. 311). He evidently sees that Henry's conduct is indefensible; and he has elsewhere admitted that Richard was not a bad King.

The more impartial Hutton says: 'Thus the first regal act performed by Henry was an act of tyranny' (_Bosworth_, p. 148).

[3] 'For men remember not any King of England before that tyme which used such a furniture of daily soldiers.'--Hall, p. 425.

[4] Gairdner.

[5] 'De jure belli et de jure Lancastriae.'

[6] _Rot. Parl._ vi. 289_a_. The monk of Croyland had a copy, but luckily for him, he was not found out.

[7] _Plumpton Correspondence_. Letter dated December 13, 1485 (p. 49).

[8] Translation by Mr. Gairdner in his _Henry VII._ (p. 38).

[9] 11 Henry VII. cap. 1 (1496). It was enacted that no person serving the King and Sovereign Lord of the land for the time being shall be convicted of high treason, nor suffer any forfeiture or imprisonment.

In the previous year the usurper, also no doubt from fear of public opinion, had paid 10_l._ 1_s._ to James Keyley for King Richard's tomb (_Excerp. Hist._ p. 105).

[10] Grant to John of Gloucester of an annual rent of 20_l._ during the King's pleasure, from the revenues of the manor of Kingston Lacey, parcel of the Duchy of Lancaster in the county of Dorset. March 1 1486.--_Materials for a History of the Reign of Henry VII._ i.

[11] 'About the same time there was a base-born son of King Richard III. made away, having been kept long in prison.'--Buck, p. 105, from _Chron. MS._ in 4to. apud _Dr. Rob. Cotton_.

[12] Rymer, xii. p. 265.

[13] A critic, after reading this work, objected that partiality was shown by the fact that while the older writers are blamed for blackening Richard's character in other ways, in order to make the charge of murdering the princes more plausible, precisely the same thing is done with Henry VII. But the other charges against Henry are proved and acknowledged facts. Those against Richard have been disproved. The older writers are justly blamed for inventing calumnies.

[14] Fabyan.

[15] Polydore Virgil. Lord Bacon observes, in his _Life of Henry VII._, 'which proceeding, being even at that time taxed for rigorous and undue makes it probable there was some greater matter against her, which the King, upon reason of policy, would not publish.'

Undoubtedly, there was; she knew too much.

[16] Dr. Lingard (iv. 279 and 286_n_) and Nicolas (p. lxxviii) bring forward a negotiation with the King of Scots, in November 1487, in which Henry proposed that James III. should marry the Queen Dowager, as a proof that he never deprived her of liberty. If he suspected her, they argue, he would not have given her the opportunity of plotting against him, which her situation as Queen of Scotland would have afforded her. Although Henry may have momentarily entertained the idea of getting rid of a woman who knew too much by this expatriation, he soon changed his mind. She was safer in his power. The negotiations were broken off, and James was killed in the following year.

[17] She was present when her daughter gave audience to the French Amba.s.sador in November 1489 (_Leland Coll._ iv. 249). Henry allowed her a pension of 400_l._ a year from February 19, 1490. Her will, dated April 10, 1492, is witnessed by the Abbot of Bermondsey. She here confirms the fact of the seizure of her property by her son-in-law. Her words are decisive on that point. 'Whereas I have no worldly goods.' Sir H. Nicolas tried to account for this by suggesting that she only had a life interest in her income. But this will not explain so sweeping a statement as that she had no worldly goods at all (p. lx.x.x).

Mr. Gairdner says: 'Henry VII. found it advisable to shut up his mother-in-law in a monastery, and had not the slightest scruple in taking her property away from her' (_Richard III._ p. 88).

[18] _Letters Patent_, March 4, 1486.

[19] Gairdner's _Henry VII._