The Wars of the Roses

CHAPTER XL

KING EDWARD'S DEATH

For some years after the treaty of Picquigny, Edward of York, trusting to the friendship and relying on the pension of King Louis, passed his time in inglorious ease; and Elizabeth Woodville, elate with the prospect of her daughter sharing the throne of a Valois, persisted in pestering the crafty monarch of France with inquiries when she was to send him her young dauphiness. Meanwhile, Louis, who had no intention whatever of maintaining faith with the King of England one day longer than prudence dictated, was looking about for a more advantageous alliance for the heir to his throne.

After appearing for some time utterly unsuspicious, Edward, in 1480, resolved on sending an embassador to Paris, and Sir John Howard was selected as the man to urge a speedy celebration of the marriage. The plans of Louis were not then quite ripe, but his statecraft did not desert him; and, at length, after Howard had for some time been silenced by bribes, and Edward deluded by flattering assurances, he set the treaty of Picquigny at defiance, and contracted a marriage between the dauphin and a daughter of the Emperor Maximilian.

Fortunately for Louis, Edward was a much less formidable personage than of yore. Since returning from his French expedition, the English king had given himself up to luxury and indolence. He had drunk deep, kept late hours, sat long over the wine-cup, and gratified his sensual inclinations with little regard either to his dignity as a king or his honor as a man. Dissipation and debauchery had ruined his health and obscured his intellect. Even his appearance was changed for the worse. His person had become corpulent, and his figure had lost its grace. He was no longer the Edward of Towton or of Tewkesbury.

On discovering, however, how completely he had been duped, Edward displayed some sparks of the savage valor which, in other days, had made him so terrible a foe. Rousing himself to projects of revenge, he vowed to carry such a war into France as that country had never before experienced, and commenced preparations for executing his threats. As his resentment appeared implacable, Louis deemed it prudent to find him work nearer home; and, with this object, excited the King of Scots to undertake a war against England.

Some successes achieved by Gloucester in Scotland emboldened Edward in his projects. It happened, however, that he did not live even to attempt the execution of his threats. The excess of his rage against Louis had been such as seriously to affect his health; and, about Easter, 1483, in his forty-second year, the warlike king was laid prostrate with a fever in the Palace of Westminster. Stretched on a bed of sickness, the king found his constitution rapidly giving way; and, losing faith in the skill of his physicians, he referred his quarrel with Louis to the judgment of God, and summoned the lords of his court to bid them farewell.

The king, indeed, could not fail to be anxious as to the fortunes of the family he was leaving. Ever since his ill-starred marriage the court had been distracted by the feuds of the queen's kindred and the old nobility of England. The death of Warwick and the judicial murder of Clarence had by no means restored harmony. At the head of one party figured the queen's brother, Earl Rivers, and her son, the Marquis of Dorset; at the head of the other was the Duke of Buckingham, with whom sided the Lords Stanley and Hastings. Difficult as the task might be, Edward hoped to reconcile the hostile factions ere going to his grave.

When the lords appeared in the king's chamber, and assembled around his bed, Edward addressed to them an impressive speech. Having indicated his brother Richard, Duke of Gloucester, as the fittest person to be Protector of the realm, he expressed much anxiety about the affairs of his kingdom and family, pointed out the perils of discord in a state, and lamented that it had been his lot "to win the courtesy of men's knees by the fall of so many heads." After thus smoothing the way, as it were, he put it to his lords, as a last request, that they should lay aside all variance, and love one another. At this solemn appeal the lords acted their parts with a decorum which imposed on the dying man. Two celebrated characters, indeed, were absent, whose talents for dissimulation could not have failed to distinguish them. Gloucester was on the borders of Scotland, and Rivers on the marches of Wales; so that Richard Plantagenet, with his dark guile, and Anthony Woodville, with his airy pretensions, were wanting to complete the scene. But Hastings, Dorset, and others, though their hearts were far asunder, shook hands and embraced with every semblance of friendship; and the king dismissed them with the idea that he had effected a reconciliation.

His affairs on earth thus settled, as he believed, Edward proceeded to make his peace with heaven. Having received such consolations as the Church administers to frail men when they are going to judgment, and committed his soul to the mercy of God, Edward awaited the coming of the Great Destroyer. On the 9th of April his hour arrived; and, complaining of drowsiness, he turned on his side. While in that position he fell into the sleep that knows no breaking; and his spirit, which had so often luxuriated in carnage and strife, departed in peace.

On the day when the king breathed his last he lay exposed in the Palace of Westminster, that the lords, temporal and spiritual, and the municipal functionaries of London might have an opportunity of ascertaining that he had not been murdered. This ceremony over, the body was seared and removed to St. Stephen's Chapel, and there watched by nobles, while masses were sung.

Windsor had been selected as the place of interment. Ere being conveyed to its last resting-place, however, the corpse, covered with cloth of gold, was carried to the Abbey of Westminster under a rich canopy of cloth imperial, supported by four knights, Sir John Howard bearing the banner in front of the procession, and the officers of arms walking around. Mass having been again performed at Westminster, the mortal remains of the warrior-king were placed in a chariot drawn by six horses, and conveyed, by slow stages, along the banks of the Thames. Having been met at the gates of Windsor, and perfumed with odors by the Archbishop of York and the Bishop of Winchester the corpse was borne in solemn procession to the Chapel of St. George, where, placed in the choir, on a hearse blazing with lights and surrounded with banners, it was watched for the night by nobles and esquires. Another mass, more religious solemnities, a few more ceremonies befitting the rank of the deceased, and the last Plantagenet whose obsequies were performed with royal honors was committed to the tomb.

CHAPTER XLI

THE DUKE OF GLOUCESTER

Whether Richard the Third, with his hunch back, withered arm, splay feet, goggle eyes, and swarthy countenance, as portrayed by poets and chroniclers of the Tudor period, very closely resembles the Richard of Baynard's Castle and Bosworth Field, is a question which philosophical historians have answered in the negative. The evidence of the old Countess of Desmond, when brought to light by Horace Walpole in 1758, first began to set the world right on this subject. Born about the middle of the fifteenth century, she lived – when the Plantagenets had been displaced by the Tudors, and the Tudors succeeded by the Stuarts – to affirm, in the seventeenth century, that, in her youth, she had danced with Richard at his brother's court, and that he whom historians had, in deference to Tudor prejudices, represented as a monster of ugliness, was in reality the handsomest man in the room except his brother Edward, and that he was very well made.

It can not be denied that the Countess of Desmond's description of Richard appears extremely complimentary; and, indeed, it would have been something novel in human nature if this lady of the house of Fitzgerald, in old age and penury, had not been inclined to exaggerate the personal advantages of a Plantagenet prince who, in the days of her youth and hope, had distinguished her by his attention. Evidence, however, exists in abundance to prove that Richard was utterly unlike the deformed ruffian introduced into history by the scribes and sheriffs of London, who plied their pens with an eye to the favor of the Tudors.

Portraits and authentic descriptions of the last Plantagenet king which have come down to posterity convey the idea of a man rather under-sized and hard-featured, with dark brown hair, an intellectual forehead, a face slightly deficient in length, dark, thoughtful eyes, and a short neck, and shoulders somewhat unequal, giving an appearance of inelegance to a figure, spare indeed, and wanting in bulk, but wiry, robust, and sinewy; trained by exercise to endure fatigue, and capable on occasions of exercising almost superhuman strength. Such, clad in garments far more gorgeous than good taste would have approved, his head bent forward on his bosom, his hand playing with his dagger, as if in restlessness of mood, and his lips moving as if in soliloquy, appeared to his contemporaries the subtle politician who, at Baynard's Castle, schemed for the crown of St. Edward. Such, arrayed in Milan steel, bestriding a white steed, the emblem of sovereignty, with a surcoat of brilliant colors over his armor, a crown of ornament around his helmet, a trusty lance skillfully poised in his hand, and an intense craving for vengeance gnawing at his heart, appeared the fiery warrior whose desperate valor well-nigh saved St. Edward's crown from fortune and the foe on Bosworth Field.

CHAPTER XLII

THE PROTECTOR AND THE PROTECTORATE

Before "giving up his soul to God" in the Palace of Westminster, the fourth Edward nominated his brother Richard, Duke of Gloucester, as Protector of England during the minority of Edward the Fifth. The choice was one of which the nation could not but approve. Richard was in the thirty-first year of his life, and in the full vigor of his intellect; with faculties refined by education and sharpened by use; knowledge of mankind, acquired in civil strife and in the experience of startling vicissitudes of fortune; a courage in battle which had made his slight form and grisly cognizance terrible to foes on fields of fame; a genius for war which had given him an enviable reputation throughout Christendom; a temper hitherto so carefully kept under restraint that any man hinting at the excess of its ferocity would have been deemed insane; and an ambition hitherto so well masked by affected humility that no one could have imagined it capable of prompting political crimes, unjustifiable, save by those Italian maxims associated with the name of Machiavelli.

It was on the 2d of October, 1452, shortly after the Roses were plucked in the Temple Gardens, that Cicely, Duchess of York, gave birth to her youngest son, Richard, in the Castle of Fotheringay. He was, therefore, scarcely three years old when the Wars of the Roses commenced at St. Albans, and little more than eight when the Duke of York was slain by the Lancastrians on Wakefield Green. Alarmed, after that event, at the aspect of affairs, warned by the murder of her second son, the boy-Earl of Rutland, and eager to save George and Richard from the fate of their elder brother, the Duchess Cicely sent them to Holland, trusting that, even in case of the Lancastrians triumphing, the Duke of Burgundy would generously afford them protection and insure them safety.

After being sent to the Continent, Richard and his brother remained for some time in secret at Utrecht; but the Duke of Burgundy, hearing that the young Plantagenets were in that city, had them sought out and escorted to Bruges, where they were received with the honors due to their rank. When, however, his victory at Towton made Edward King of England, he requested Burgundy to send the princes; and, in the spring of 1461, "The Good Duke" had them honorably escorted to Calais on their way home. When, after their return to England, George was dignified with the dukedom of Clarence, Richard became Duke of Gloucester.

At an early age, Richard, who was energetic and highly educated, acquired great influence over the indolent and illiterate Edward; and in the summer of 1470, when scarcely eighteen, he was appointed Warden of the West Marches. The return of Warwick from France interrupting his tenure of office, he shared his brother's flight to the territories of the Duke of Burgundy; and when Edward landed at Ravenspur, to conquer or die, Richard was by his side, and proved an ally of no mean prowess. Being intrusted with high command at Barnet and Tewkesbury, his conduct won him high reputation; and, in spite of his foppery and fondness for dress and gay apparel, he showed himself, at both of these battles, a sage counselor in camp and a fiery warrior in conflict.

The Lancastrians having been put down and peace restored, Richard turned his thoughts to matrimony, and resolved to espouse Anne Neville, daughter of Warwick and widow of Edward of Lancaster. Clarence, wishing to keep the Warwick baronies to himself, as husband of Isabel Neville, attempted, by concealing her sister, to prevent this marriage. But Richard was not to be baffled. He discovered the fair Anne in London, disguised as a cook-maid, and carrying the youthful widow off, placed her for security in the sanctuary of St. Martin's. Nevertheless, Clarence continued unreasonable. "Richard may have my sister-in-law if he will," he said, "but we will part no livelihood." Edward, however, took the matter in hand, pacified his brothers, allotted Anne a handsome portion out of the Warwick estates, and had the marriage with Richard forthwith solemnized. One son, destined to figure for a brief period as Prince of Wales, was the result of this union.

Years rendered memorable by the inglorious expedition to France and the unfortunate execution of Clarence passed over; and in 1482, when Edward conspired with the exiled Duke of Albany to dethrone James, King of Scots, Richard, who, among his contemporaries, had acquired the reputation of being "a man of deep reach and policy," was intrusted with the conduct of the war. Having been nominated lieutenant general against the Scots, and joined by the Earl of Northumberland and Lord Stanley, he led twenty-five thousand men across the Tweed, regained Berwick, which had been surrendered by Queen Margaret, and marched to the gates of Edinburgh. By this expedition Richard acquired an increase of popularity; and he was still in the north when Edward the Fourth departed this life and his son was proclaimed as Edward the Fifth.

At that time the young king – a boy of thirteen – was residing in the Castle of Ludlow, on the marches of Wales, and receiving his education under the auspices of his maternal uncle, Anthony Woodville, Earl Rivers. Anthony was eminently qualified for the post of tutor, and every precaution appears to have been taken to render the boy worthy of the crown which he was destined never to wear.

While the news of his father's death was traveling to young Edward at Ludlow, the feud between the ancient nobility and the queen's kindred broke out afresh at Westminster, and London was agitated by the factious strife. Elizabeth, jealous of the designs of the adverse faction, wrote to Rivers to raise a large force in Wales, and conduct the king to the capital to be crowned; and she empowered her son, the Marquis of Dorset, who was Constable of the Tower, to take the royal treasure out of that fortress, and fit out a fleet. Hastings, alarmed at these indications of suspicion, threatened to retire to Calais, of which he was captain; and both parties appealed to Richard, who had hitherto so acted as to give offense to neither.