Cassell's Illustrated History of England/Volume 2/Chapter 2
CHAPTER II.
REIGN OF EDWARD V.
By the death of Edward IV. England was destined once more to witness all the inconveniences which attend the minority of a king. "Woe to thee, oh, land, when thy king is a child," says the inspired writer, and no assertion is more true. Edward V. was a boy of only thirteen. His mother and her family had made themselves many enemies and few friends, by their undisguised ambition and cupidity. The Greys and Wydvilles had been lifted above the heads of the greatest members of the aristocracy, enriched with the estates, and clothed with the honours, of ancient houses. They had been posted round the throne as if to keep aloof all other candidates for favour and promotion. Edward, given up to his pleasures, had as little added to the number of his faithful adherents. He had conceded almost every demand from his wife and her family for their aggrandisement, and the throne now stood almost alone, amidst injured, resentful, and envious nobles. Worst of all, the man who should maintain the ascendancy of the house of York, and protect the youthful king though his immature years, was a monster more terrible than all other evils and enemies put together. He was one of those characters who, having the opportunity given them, seize on any worldly advantage within their reach with no more regard to justice, honour, or conscience, than if no such things existed. Richard, Duke of Gloucester, was the solo remaining brother of Edward IV., and on him it peculiarly fell, as the most powerful prince in the state, as well as the nearest paternal relative, to act as guardian to the young king. But Richard proved himself that perfidious and "cruel uncle" which the ballad of the "Babes in the Wood," written in that day, and supposed to designate the duke, has made familiar to all memories.
At the time of the death of Edward IV., Richard of Gloucester was in the North, attending to his duties as commander against the army in the Scottish marches. He immediately commenced his proceedings with that consummate and hypocritical art of which he was a first-rate master. He at once put his retinue into deep mourning, and marched to York attended by 600 knights and esquires. There he ordered the obsequies of the departed king to be performed with all solemnity in the cathedral. He then summoned all the nobility and gentry of the country to take the oath of allegiance to his nephew, Edward V., and he led the way by first taking it himself. He wrote to the queen-mother to condole with her on her loss, and to assure her of his zealous support of the rights of his beloved nephew. He expressed his ardent desire for the close friendship of the queen, of Earl Rivers, her brother, and of all her family. He announced his intention of proceeding towards London to attend the coronation, and if Elizabeth had not already known the man, she might have congratulated herself on the enjoyment of so affectionate a brother-in-law, and so brave and faithful a guardian of her son.
But there is every reason to believe that the same messenger who carried these letters of condolence and professed friendship to the queen, carried others of a different tone to a hostile section of her council. The Lords Howard, Hastings, and Stanley, though personal friends of the late king, and Hastings, the chosen confidant and associate of his pleasures, were at heart bitter enemies of the queen's family. It was only the authority of Edward which had maintained peace between them, and now they showed an undisguised hostility to them at the council-board. The Earl Rivers, the queen's brother, and the Marquis of Dorset, her son by her former marriage, occupied the chief seats at that board, and Edward was no stranger to their real sentiments. This knowledge had led him, on perceiving his health failing, to bring these rivals together, and to state to them how much it concerned his son's peace and security that they should forget all past causes of difference, and unite for that loyal purpose. This they promised, but only with the tongue. No sooner was the king dead, than all the old animosity and jealousy showed themselves in aggravated form.
On the part of the queen and her relations there was a too evident desire to monopolise the whole government into their hands, as they had on all occasions monopolised all the honours, offices, and grants possible. The Earl of Dorset was Keeper of the Tower; the Earl of Rivers was in possession of the person of the king at Ludlow Castle, where he was superintending his education. Rivers was a nobleman of knightly person and great accomplishment. He was not only fond of literature; but a liberal patron of literary men; and had he not been unfortunately one of the greedy family of the Wydvilles, might have proved an ornament and blessing to his country. It was he who first introduced Caxton, the first English printer, to King Edward IV. Under the care of Earl Rivers and his half-brother, Lord Grey, the young king was peacefully studying, assisted by the learning of Sir Thomas Vaughan, his chamberlain, who had been used to carry him as a child in procession after the king and queen on public occasions.
Elizabeth now proposed that the young king should be brought up to town in order to his coronation, and that he should be attended by a strong body of soldiery for the safety of his person. At this, Hastings, who, in common with three-fourths of the nobility, was jealous, of the design of the queen and her party to make themselves masters of the government during the king's minority, no longer concealed his real feelings. Edward had been kept on the borders of Wales, where the power of the Mortimers and the Yorkists lay. It was believed that the object was to give a preponderance to the royal family through the Welsh and the borderers; and now to march up to London attended by a Welsh army, appeared a direct attempt to control the capital by these means. Hastings, therefore, warmly demanded—"What need of an army? Who were the enemies they had to dread? "Was it the king's own uncle, Gloucester? Was it Lord Stanley, or himself? Was this force meant by the Wydvilles to put an end to all liberty in the council and the government, and thus to break the very union the king, on his deathbed, had pledged them to?" Hastings declared hotly, that if the king was brought to London by an army, he would quit the council and the kingdom.
Deterred by this open opposition, Elizabeth yielded, and reduced the proposed guard to 2,000 cavalry. But she did it with deep and too well-founded anxiety. She had had too much opportunity of studying the character of Gloucester to trust him, and the event very soon justified her conviction. Secret messages had, during this interval, been passing between Gloucester and Hastings and the Duke of Buckingham—a weak man, descended from Thomas of Woodstock, the youngest son of Edward III.
No doubt he had instructed them to defeat any measures of the Wydville family, which could leave the king in their hands. The moment was accurately calculated; and, accordingly, when the Lords Rivers and Grey, on their way to London with the young king, arrived at Stony Stratford, they found Gloucester had already reached Northampton, only ten miles from them. Gloucester had increased his forces on the way to a formidable body, and he was there joined by the Duke of Buckingham, with 500 horse. The Lords Rivers and Grey, on learning the presence of Gloucester at Northampton, immediately rode over to him, to welcome him in the king's name, and to consult with him on the plan of their united entrance into London. Gloucester received them with all the marks of that friendship which he had written to avow. They were invited to dine and spend the night, the Dukes of Gloucester and Buckingham promising to ride with them in the morning to pay their respects to the king. The evening was spent in great conviviality, and Rivers and Grey retired to their quarters in the town, highly delighted with their reception. This joy was rather damped when they learned from their followers that all the outlets to the town were strictly guarded, on the plea that the Duke of Gloucester was anxious to do his homage to the sovereign before others, who, hearing of his being so near, might hasten from the town for that purpose. Morning appeared, to dissipate their suspicions, for Gloucester and Buckingham set out with them in the best of humours. They rode in pleasant converse till, arriving at the entrance of Stony Stratford, Gloucester suddenly accused Rivers and Grey of having estranged the affections of the king from him. They denied the charge with as much vehemence as astonishment; but they were immediately arrested, and conducted into the rear. Gloucester and Buckingham rode on to the king, where the two dukes humbly on their knees professed their loyalty and attachment. This they proceeded to make manifest by arresting also the king's faithful servants, Sir Thomas Vaughan and Sir Richard Hawse. When the poor boy-king saw himself thus deprived of his nearest relatives and friends on the pretence of their being traitors to him, he was quite aware that he was in dangerous hands. He burst into tears, and demanded that his uncle, his brother, and his devoted tutor should be restored to him. But Gloucester assured him that those men, in whom he reposed such ill-placed affection, were the most arrant traitors; and, falling on his knees, he implored his nephew to dismiss all fear, and to rely on his uncle, who would defend his rights to the utmost. Spite of the poor boy's entreaties, he led him away with him to Northampton, his relatives and friends, Rivers, Grey, Vaughan, and Hawse following in the rear as prisoners. These prisoners of state were sent off by Gloucester, under a strong guard, to his castle of Pontefract, that blood-stained fortress, the very entrance to which, in bondage, was equivalent to a death-warrant.
At midnight, following the very day of these transactions, being the 1st of May, the appalling tidings reached the court that Gloucester, followed by a large army, had seized the king, and sent prisoners the queen's brother and son, no one knew whither. Struck with consternation, and deeply rueing her weakness in giving up her own plans of caution, the queen, hastily seizing her younger son by the hand, and followed by her daughters, rushed from the palace of Westminster to the Sanctuary, which had protected her before; but not against a person so base and deadly in his ruthless ambition as this her brother-in-law of Gloucester. She knew the man, and she dreaded everything. Her eldest, son, Dorset, who was Keeper of the Tower, in his turn weakly abandoned that important stronghold, and also fled to the Sanctuary. Rotherham, the Archbishop of York and Chancellor of the realm, hastening thither, found the queen seated on the rushes with which the floors at that time were strewn, an image of abandonment and woe. Her long hair, celebrated for its beauty, freed from those bandages which, in accordance with the strict etiquette of royal widowhood, had confined it, streamed over her person to the ground. All about her prevailed the utmost confusion, and running to-and-fro of servants with packages and household stuff from the palace, necessary for the sojourn in the Sanctuary; but the queen, paralysed, as it were, by the blow, seemed dead to all.
The archbishop endeavoured to cheer her by assuring her that Lord Hastings had sent her a message, bidding her rely upon it that Gloucester was loyal, and was doing all for the best for the king. "Ah! woe worth him!" exclaimed the unhappy woman, "it is he who goeth about to destroy me and my blood." "Madam," said the arch-bishop, "be of good comfort; I assure you that if they crown any other king than your eldest son, whom they have with them, we will on the morrow crown his brother, whom you have with you here. And here is the Great Seal, which in like wise, as your noble husband gave it to me, so I deliver it to you for the use of your son.
He gave it to her, and so took his leave.
It was now about daybreak, and, on gaining his palace, he opened his window and looked forth on the Thames, when he saw the river crowded with boats, fall of Gloucester's servants, keeping watch to prevent any one going to the queen in the Sanctuary. The archbishop, however, struck with terror at this proof that Gloucester was determined to convert the queen's retreat into a real prison, and was in full possession of the government, found means of reaching Elizabeth again, and entreated her to return the seals to him. The queen, who seemed completely prostrated by the appalling circumstances, passively yielded them up, and the archbishop carried them to a meeting of the nobility and gentry. Gloucester, however, was fully informed of what had taken place on the part of Rotherham, and never forgave him.
Great Seal of Edward V.
Meantime, London was thrown into the utmost dismay and confusion. Many of the nobles and citizens flew to arms, and some flocked to the queen at Westminster, and others to Lord Hastings in London. Hastings continued to assure them that there was no cause of alarm; that Gloucester was a true man; and he was most likely the more ready to believe this himself from his own dislike of the queen's family.
On the 4th of May, Gloucester conducted his royal captive into the capital. At Hornsey Park, the lord mayor and corporation, in scarlet, met the royal procession, followed by 400 citizens, all in violet. The Duke of Gloucester, habited, like all his followers, in mourning, rode into the city before the king, with his cap in hand, bowing low to the people, and pointing out the king to their notice, who rode in a mantle of purple velvet. Edward V. was first conducted to Ely Place, to the bishop's palace; but he was soon removed to the Tower, on the motion of the Duke of Buckingham, on pretence that it was the proper place in which to await his coronation. That ceremony Elizabeth and her council had ordered to take place this very day, but the crafty Gloucester prevented that by not arriving in time. He took up his quarters in Crosby Place, Bishopsgate, where one part of the council constantly sat, while another, but lesser portion of it, assembled with Lord Hastings and others in the Tower. The day of the coronation was then fixed for the 22nd of June, leaving a period of nearly seven weeks interposed, in order to perfect the diabolical schemes of Gloucester. The first object of this man had been to impress the queen and her party with his friendly disposition, till he had secured their persons; that being, in a great measure, effected, the next was to persuade the public of his loyalty to his nephew. For this purpose he conducted him with such state into the capital, and so assiduously pointed him out as their king to the people. To have openly proclaimed his designs upon the crown would have united all parties against him. He averted that by his calling on all men to swear fealty to his nephew, and by first swearing it himself. Having now procured full possession of the king's person, the next step was to secure that of his younger brother, without which his plans would all be vain.
To effect this object, Gloucester called a council in the Star Chamber, Westminster, close to the Sanctuary, where Elizabeth was. He there represented that it was necessary that the Duke of York, who was now only eleven years of age, should be removed from the Wydvilles, who were proved traitors to the realm, and safely kept with his royal brother in the Tower, under the protection of the council. No one failed to perceive the object of Gloucester, and a very stormy debate ensued between the ecclesiastic and lay peers; the bishops wore opposed to any intrusion on the rights of sanctuary, and Gloucester's partisans contended that there could be no sanctuary for children, who were incapable of committing any crime; and that therefore the Duke of Gloucester, who had been appointed protector during the king's minority, could at his pleasure possess himself of his nephew.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, averse to the violation of the privileges of sanctuary, went to the queen, accompanied by a number of the temporal peers, and represented that the protector thought the young king much lacked the society of his brother, being melancholy without a playfellow. We have the scene which took place from the relation of Sir Thomas More. The queen, quite aware that so long as this boy was with her, the young king was safe, for it would be useless to destroy one heir to the crown while another remained, replied, "Troweth the protector—ah! pray God he may prove a protector!—that the king doth lack a playfellow? Can none be found to play with the king but only his brother, which hath no wish to play, because of sickness?—as though peers, so young as they be, could not play without their peers; or children could not play without their kindred, with whom, for the most part, they agree worse than with strangers."
At last, finding all resistance useless—for she well knew that if she did not yield herself, Gloucester would force the child from her—she said, "My lords, I will not be so suspicious as to mistrust your truth." So taking young Richard by the hand, she said, "Lo, here is this gentleman, whom I doubt not would be safely kept by me, if I were permitted; and well do I know there be some such deadly enemies to my blood, that if they wist where any lay in their own bodies, they would cut it out if they could. The desire of a kingdom knoweth no kindred. Brothers have been brothers' bane; and may the nephews be sure of the uncle? Each of these children is safe while they be asunder. Notwithstanding, I here deliver him, and his brother's life with him, into your hands, and of you I shall require him before God and man. Faithful ye be I wot well, and power ye have, if ye list, to keep them safe; but if ye think I fear too much, yet beware ye fear not too little!" Upon this she kissed and blessed the child, and turning, burst into tears, leaving the boy weeping as piteously as herself.
The archbishop and his companions conveyed the child to the Star Chamber, where his uncle received him with fatal fondness, taking him in his arms, and saying, "Now welcome, my lord, with all my vary heart!" He then conveyed him to his brother in the Tower.
The victims were secured; the "cruel uncle," like the wolf in the legend of Red Ridinghood, had feigned himself a kind relation till he had got them into his prison, and he yearned to put forth his claws and devour them. But for this it required that the public should be duly prepared. The man who had written fawningly to the queen, proffering such cordial friendship to her and all her family; who had ridden in state before his nephew, recommending him to the public favour, had now played out all that part: he had both the princes and the chief relations of the queen in his dungeons, and he must now shift the scenes, and undo the effect of what he had done for a purpose. His followers, and especially his imbecile tool, Buckingham, now busily spread through town and country reports of the most terrible plots on the part of the queen and her friends to destroy Gloucester, Buckingham, and other great lords, in order that she and her family might have the king, and through him, the whole government in their power. They exhibited quantities of arms, which they declared the queen's party had secreted in order to destroy Gloucester and the other patriotic lords, as they pleased to represent them. This did not fail to produce its effect on the people without, and it was promptly followed up by a picture of treason in the very council.
Lord Stanley, who was sincerely attached to Edward IV.'s family, had often expressed his suspicions of what was going on at Crosby Hall; but Hastings had replied, that he had a trusty agent there who informed him of all that passed. But Hastings, who had been completely duped by Gloucester, had been unconsciously playing into his hands, till his own turn came. While he merely imagined that he was punishing the assumption of the queen and her relations, he was preparing the bloody acts of one of the most daring dramas of historic crime which was ever acted before the world. Richard, no doubt, imagined Hastings ready to go the whole length with him, and at this crisis became aware that he was not so, but was an honest though misguided man, who would stand staunchly by his young sovereign, and must therefore be removed. The tyrant was now beginning to feel secure of his object, and prepared to seize it at whatever cost of crime and infamy. Accordingly, on the 13th of June, says Sir Thomas More, he came into the council about nine in the morning, in a very merry humour. After a little talking with them, he said to the Bishop of Ely, 'My lord, you have very good strawberries in your garden in Holborn: I request you let us have a mess of them.' 'Gladly, my lord,' quoth he; 'would to God I had some better things as ready to your pleasure as that!' and then with all haste, he sent his servant for a mess of strawberries. The protector set the lords fast in communing, and thereupon, praying them to spare him a little while, departed thence, and, soon after one hour, between ten and eleven, he returned into the chamber amongst them all, changed, with a wonderful sour, angry countenance, knitting his brows, frowning and fretting, gnawing on his lips, and so sat him down in his place. Soon after he asked, 'What those persons deserved who had compassed and imagined his destruction?' Lord Hastings answered that they deserved death, whoever they might be; and then Richard affirmed that they were that sorceress, his brother's wife (meaning the queen), with others with her; 'and,' said the protector, 'we shall see in what wise that sorceress, and that other witch of her councils, Shore's wife, with their affinity, have by their sorcery and witchcraft wasted my body.' So saying, he plucked up his doublet sleeve to his elbow upon his left arm, where the arm appeared to be withered and small, as it was never other.
"The council perceiving that this was all done merely to find occasion of offence, all kept silence except Hastings, who said, 'Certainly, my lord; if they have so heinously done, they be worthy heinous punishment.'
"'What!' quoth the protector, 'thou servest me, I ween, with ifs and ands! I tell thee they have so done, and that I will make good on thy body, traitor!' And thereupon, as in a great anger, he clapped his fist upon the board a great rap. At this token some one cried 'Treason!' without the chamber. Thereupon a door clapped, and in there rushed men in harness, as many as the chamber might hold.
"Then the protector said to the Lord Hastings, 'I arrest thee, traitor!' 'What, me! my lord?' quoth he. 'Yes, thee, traitor!' quoth the protector. And another let fly at the Lord Stanley, which shrunk at the stroke, and fell under the table, or else his head had been cleft to the teeth, for as shortly as he shrunk, yet run the blood about his ears. Then were they quickly bestowed in divers chambers, except the Lord Chamberlain Hastings, whom the protector bade speed and shrive him apace, 'for, by St. Paul,' quoth he, 'I will not to dinner till I see thy head off.'"
Lord Hastings was hurried out by the armed ruffians of the tyrant, and scarcely allowing him time to confess to the first priest that came to hand, they made use of a log which accidentally lay on the green at the door of the chapel, and beheaded him at once. Lord Stanley, the Archbishop of York, and the Bishop of Ely, were kept close prisoners in the Tower.
On the same day, while this brutal murder was perpetrated by this villain in London, one equally arbitrary, illegal, and unjustifiable was transacted at that royal slaughter-house the Castle of Pontefract. There Sir Richard Ratcliffe, one of the most hardened creatures of the protector, brought out Lord Grey, Sir Richard Vaughan, and Sir Richard Hawse, and beheaded them without any trial whatever. Ratcliffe, two days later, presented a letter from Gloucester to the mayor and citizens of York, informing them that Elizabeth and the Wydvilles had formed a traitorous conspiracy to murder the protector and the Duke of Buckingham, and calling on all the inhabitants of the North to put themselves under the Earl of Northumberland and the Lord Neville, and march to London to prevent their base designs. Eight days later the Earl Rivers was also executed, the previous letter and proclamation being probably thought needful before proceeding to such a length with a man of Rivers's high character and position.
Gloucester had thus destroyed the most powerful and devoted of the adherents of both the queen and the young king. The last crowning villany must be consummated, and the preparings for it were forthwith entered upon. The sanguinary duke had spoken ominous words of the queen and of Jane Shore in the same council from which he sent Hastings suddenly to his death. He accused those ladies and their accomplices of having practised sorcery upon him. It was to sorcery that the enemies of the queen attributed her having induced the king to marry her, and now, strangely enough, these two ladies were united in the charge.
Jane Shore, after being seduced by Edward IV., had, it seems, continued about the court, and probably had ceased, through her many good qualities, to be an object of aversion or resentment to Elizabeth. Sir Thomas More says of her: "Many the king had, but her he loved, whose favour, to say the truth (for sin it were to belie the devil), she never abused to any man's hurt, but to many a man's comfort and relief; and now she beggeth of many at this day living, that at this day had begged if she had not been."
What were the especial circumstances which turned the vengeance of Gloucester upon Jane Shore we do not know, but probably she had betrayed a kindly interest in the queen and children of her former royal lover. Gloucester singled her out for signal punishment as a sorceress, linking the charge artfully with the queen. He seized on the plate and jewels of Dame Shore, which he appropriated to his own use, delivering over the offender herself to the dealing of the church. Arrayed only in her kirtle, and barefooted, she was compelled to walk through the streets of London, carrying a lighted taper in her hand, and preceded by an officer bearing a cross, the whole population of the capital having, as it seemed, filled the dense thoroughfares, to witness the spectacle.
But this was only the prologue to the tragedy. By this act Gloucester turned the public attention upon the dissolute life of the late king; and, that being done, the blow fell. The united troops of Gloucester and Buckingham, to the amount of 20,000, now held the metropolis in subjection; the terror of the protector's deeds enchained it still more. On the following Sunday, June 22nd, the day which had been fixed for the coronation, instead of that ceremony taking place, a priest was found base enough—tyrants never fail of such tools—to ascend St. Paul's Cross, and preach from this text, from the Book of Wisdom, "Bastard slips shall not strike deep root."
This despicable man was one Dr. Shaw, brother of the Lord Mayor. He drew a broad picture of the licentious life of Edward IV., and asserted that his mode of destroying such ladies as he found unwilling to incur dishonour, was to promise them marriage, and occasionally to go through a mock or real ceremony with them. He declared that Edward had thus, in the commencement of his reign, really contracted a marriage with the Lady Eleanor Butler, the widow of Lord Butler, of Sudeley, and daughter of the Earl of Shrewsbury; that he afterwards contracted a private and illegal marriage with Elizabeth Wydville, which, however it might be real and legal in other respects, was altogether invalid and impossible, from the fact that Edward was already married to Lady Butler. Hence he contended that Elizabeth Wydville, though acknowledged by Parliament, was, in reality, nothing more than a concubine; that she and the king had been living in open and scandalous adultery; and that, of consequence, the whole of their children were illegitimate, and the sons incapable of wearing the crown.
But the preacher went farther. Determined to destroy the claims of the young Edward V. to the crown, he boldly asserted not only his illegitimacy, but that of his father, Edward IV. This could only be done at the expense of the honour of the proud Cicely, Duchess of York, the mother of Gloucester, as well as of Edward. But the man who was wading his way to the throne through the blood of his own nephews, and of the best men in the country, was not likely to be stopped by the honour of his mother. The son of Clarence was living, and, in case of the deaths of Edward's sons, had a prior right to Gloucester. That right was at present in abeyance, through Clarence's attainder, but would revive on reversion of the attainder, and the possibility of this must be destroyed.
Richard III.
The preacher, therefore, stoutly maintained that both Edward IV. and Clarence were the children of other men, not of the late Duke of York; that it was notorious, and that their striking likeness to their reputed fathers fully confirmed it. Gloucester, he contended, was alone the son of the Duke of York; and the vile prostitutor of the pulpit exclaimed, "Behold this excellent prince, the express image of his noble father—the genuine descendant of the house of York; bearing no less in the virtues of his mind than in the features of his countenance the character of the gallant Richard!" At this moment Gloucester, by concert, was to have passed, as if accidentally, through the audience to his place, and the preacher exclaimed, "Behold the man entitled to your allegiance! He must deliver you from the dominion of all intruders!—he alone can restore the lost glory and honour of the nation!"
Here it was expected that the people would cry out, "Long live King Richard!" but they stared at one another in amazement, and the more so that Gloucester did not appear at the right nick of time, but after the preacher's apostrophe was concluded; so that, when Gloucester did appear, he was obliged to repeat his lesson, which threw such an air of ridicule upon the whole, that Gloucester could not conceal his chagrin; and the preacher—perceiving that the odium of the attempt, as it had failed, would fall upon him—stole away home, and, it is said, never again recovered his standing. Gloucester, of course, would be the first to fling him by as a worthless tool, and he received that reward of public contempt which it would be better for the world if it always followed such vile subserviency.
But Gloucester was now fully prepared to complete his necessary amount of crime for the attainment of the throne, and was not to be daunted by one failure. The preacher having broken the ice, he renewed his attempt in another quarter—the council chamber of the city. The lord mayor, as great a sycophant as his brother, the preacher, lent himself, as he had probably done before, to the scheme. On the nest Tuesday, the 24th of June, the Duke of Buckingham appeared upon the hustings at Guildhall, and harangued the citizens. He called upon them to recollect the dissolute life of the late king; his frequent violation of the sanctity of their homes; the seduction of most respectable ladies; the extent of his extortions of their money under the name of benevolences. In fact, he repeated, in another form, the whole sermon of Shaw, and went through the whole story of the marriage of Lady Butler, by the king, previous to that with Lady Grey, of which he assured them Stillington, Bishop of Bath, was a witness. Stillington, however, was never called to give such evidence. He then asked whether they would have the illegitimate progeny of such a man to rule over them. He assured them that, for his part, he would never submit to the rule of a bastard, and that both aristocracy and people of the northern counties had sworn the same. But there, he observed, was the Duke of Gloucester, a man calculated to rescue England from such a stigma, and from all its losses—a man valiant, wise, patriotic, and of true blood, the genuine descendant of the great Edward III. Here he paused, that the people might cry, "Long live King Richard!" but they were all silent. Astonished at the failure of his eloquence, Buckingham turned to the pliant lord mayor, and asked him what could be the cause. The mayor said, "They perhaps had not fully understood him;" on which Buckingham repeated his discourse with some variations, but concluding with the same question. Still the people were all silent. "I now see the cause," observed the lord mayor; "the citizens are not accustomed to be harangued by any one but their own recorder, and know not how to answer a person of your grace's quality."
He then bade Fitzwilliams, the recorder, state the same things; but the man, who was averse to the dirty business put upon him, took care to repeat the whole in the name of the Duke of Buckingham, and not as proceeding from himself or the corporation. Still the people were as silent as before. "This is wonderful obstinacy!" cried the duke. "Express your meaning, my friends, one way or other. The Lords and Commons have resolved to have another king, but I require you here to say, in plain terms, whether you will have the Duke of Gloucester or not."
On this, the servants of Buckingham and Gloucester incited some of the meanest apprentices to cry out, and there was a feeble voice raised of "God save King Richard!" That was enough. Buckingham returned the people thanks for their hearty assent, and invited them to attend him the next morning to the duke's residence of Baynard's Castle, near Blackfriars Bridge, to tender him the crown.
When the supple lord mayor Shaw, and a number of lords and gentlemen, and the principal citizens, appeared in the court of Richard's castle in the morning with a mob at their heels, Richard professed to be alarmed at the approach of such a throng, and sent out to demand the cause. Buckingham adroitly pointed out this to the people, saying, "The lord protector knows nothing of the whole matter," and sent word in that the people were come to demand that Richard should be their king. On this Gloucester appeared at a window, but affecting astonishment, and even fears of his own safety. Then Buckingham read him an address, which afterwards was embodied in an Act of Parliament. This went over the whole ground of the sermon and the speech at Guildhall, setting forth the invalid marriage of Edward and Elizabeth, the sorcery on the part of Elizabeth and her mother Jacquetta, Dame Eleanor Butler's prior and real marriage without issue, the attainder of Clarence, and consequent bar to his children, and winding up with the sole right and title of Gloucester.
Gloucester took care not to call in question any of the statements made, but excused himself as by no means ambitious, declaring that royalty had no charms for him, that he was greatly attached to the children of his brother, and would maintain the crown on the head of his nephew at all costs. To this amiable speech Buckingham replied that that was out of the question; the public was resolved not to crouch to the rule of a bastard, and, therefore, if Gloucester declined, they must look out elsewhere. This was the decision for which Gloucester was waiting. He pretended to be struck by this. He paused, as in deep thought, for a while, and then said, "In this case, it was his duty, however painful, to obey the voice of the people. That since he was the true heir, and had been chosen by the three estates" (a notorious fiction, for there had been no Parliamentary proceeding on the subject), "he assented to their petition, and would from that day take upon himself the royal estate, pre-eminence, and the kingdom of the two noble realms of England and France; the one from that day forward by him and his heirs to rule, the other, by God's grace and their good help, to get again and subdue."
Thus ended this scene, which Hume calls a ridiculous farce, but which was in fact a most diabolical one, to be followed by as revolting a tragedy. The next day this monster in human form went to Westminster in state. There he entered the great hall, and seated himself on the marble seat, with Lord Howard, afterwards Duke of Norfolk, on his right hand, and the Duke of Suffolk on his left. He stated to the persons present that he chose to commence his reign in that place, because the administration of justice was the first duty of a king. Every one who heard this must have felt that if there were any justice in him, he could not be there. It is clear that the spirit of the nation was with the poor boy Edward; but there was no man who dared to lift up his voice for him. The axe of Gloucester had already lopped off heads enough to render the others dumb, and London was invested by his myrmidons. He was already a dictator, and could do for a while what he pleased. He proclaimed an amnesty to all offenders against him up to that hour, and he then proceeded to St. Paul's, to return thanks to God. Thus, on the 26th of June, 1483, successful villany sat enthroned in the heart of London.