England with splendid architectural decorations. But even in the
wealthier abbeys we find traces of thriftless administration,
idleness, self-indulgence and occasionally grave moral scandals.
The parochial clergy were probably in a healthier condition;
but the old abuses of pluralism and non-residence were as
rampant as ever, and though their work may have been in many
cases honourably carried out, it is certain that energy and
intelligence were at a low ebb.
The moral faults of the church only reflected those of the nation. It was a hard and selfish generation which witnessed the Wars of the Roses and the dictatorship of Edward IV. The iniquitous French war, thirty years of plunder and demoralization, had corrupted the Moral decay of the nation. minds of the governing classes before the civil strife began. Afterwards the constant and easy changes of allegiance, as one faction or the other was in the ascendant, the wholesale confiscations and attainders, the never-ending executions, the sudden prosperity of adventurers, the premium on time-serving and intrigue, sufficed to make the whole nation cynical and sordid. The claim of the Yorkists to represent constitutional opposition to misgovernment became a mere hypocrisy. The claim of the Lancastrians to represent loyalty soon grew almost as hollow. Edward IV. with his combination of vicious self-indulgence and spasmodic cruelty was no unfit representative The “Paston Letters.” of his age. The Paston Letters, that unique collection of the private correspondence of a typical family of nouveaux riches, thriftless, pushing, unscrupulous, give us the true picture of the time. All that can be said in favour of the Yorkists is that they restored a certain measure of national prosperity, and that their leaders had one redeeming virtue in their addiction to literature. The learning which had died out in monasteries began to flourish again in the corrupt soil of the court. Most of Edward’s favourites had literary tastes. His constable Tiptoft, the “butcher earl” of Worcester, was a figure who might have stepped out of the Italian Renaissance. Influence of the Italian Renaissance. A graduate of Pavia, a learned lawyer, who translated Caesar and Cicero, composed works both in Latin and English, and habitually impaled his victims, he was a man of a type hitherto unknown in England. Antony, Lord Rivers, the queen’s brother, was a mere adventurer, but a poet of some merit, and a great patron of Caxton. Hastings, the Bourchiers, and other of the king’s friends were minor patrons of literature. It is curious to find that Caxton, an honest man, and an enthusiast as to the future of the art of printing, which he had introduced into England, waxes enthusiastic as to the merits of the intelligent but unscrupulous peers who took an interest in his endeavours. Of the detestable Tiptoft he writes that “there flowered in virtue and cunning none like him among the lords of the temporalty in science and moral virtue”! And this is no time-serving praise of a patron, but disinterested tribute to a man who had perished long before on the scaffold.
The uneventful latter half of the reign of Edward IV. ended
with his death at the age of forty-one on the 9th of April 1483.
He had ruined a splendid constitution by the combination
of sloth and evil living, and during his last
years had been sinking slowly into his grave, unable
Death of Edward IV.
Richard, duke of Gloucester.
to take the field or to discharge the more laborious
duties of royalty. Since Clarence’s death he had been gradually
falling into the habit of transferring the conduct of great matters
of state to his active and hard-working youngest brother,
Richard, duke of Gloucester, who had served him well
and faithfully ever since he first took the field at Barnet.
Gloucester passed as a staid and religious prince, and
if there was blood on his hands, the same could be said
of every statesman of his time. His sudden plunge into crime
and usurpation after his brother’s death was wholly unexpected
by the nation. Indeed it was his previous reputation for loyalty
and moderation which made his scandalous coup d’état of 1483
possible. No prince with a sinister reputation would have had
the chance of executing the series of crimes which placed him
on the throne. But when Richard declared that he was the
victim of plots and intrigues, and was striking down his enemies
only to defend his own life and honour, he was for some time
believed.
At the moment of King Edward’s death his elder son by Elizabeth Woodville, Edward, prince of Wales, was twelve; his younger son Richard, duke of York, was nine. It was clear that there would be a long minority, and that the only possible claimants for the regency were Gloucester proclaims himself protector. the queen and Richard of Gloucester. Elizabeth was personally unpopular, and the rapacity and insolence of her family was well known. Hence when Richard of Gloucester seized on the person of the young king, and imprisoned Lord Rivers and Sir Richard Grey, the queen’s brother and son, on the pretence that they were conspiring against him, his action was regarded with equanimity by the people. Nor did the fact that the duke took the title of “protector and defender of the realm” cause any surprise. Suspicions only became rife after Richard had seized and beheaded without any trial, Lord Hastings, the late king’s most familiar friend, and had arrested at the same moment the archbishop of York, Morton, bishop of Ely, and Lord Stanley, all persons of unimpeachable loyalty to the house of Edward IV. It was not plausible to accuse such persons of plotting with the queen to overthrow the protector, and public opinion began to turn against Gloucester. Nevertheless he went on recklessly with his design, having already enlisted the support of a party of the greater peers, who were ready to follow him to any length of treason. These confidants, the duke of Buckingham, the lords Howard and Lovel, and a few more, must have known from an early date that he was aiming at the crown, though it is improbable that they suspected that his plan involved the murder of the rightful heirs as well as mere usurpation.
On the 16th of June, Richard, using the aged archbishop Bourchier as his tool, got the little duke of York out of his mother’s hands, and sent him to join his brother in the Tower. A few days later, having packed London with his own armed retainers and those of Buckingham and his other confidants, he openly put forward his pretensions to the throne. Edward IV., as he asserted, had been privately contracted to Lady Eleanor Talbot before he ever met Queen Elizabeth. His children therefore were bastards, the offspring of a bigamous union. As to the son and daughter of the duke of Clarence, their blood had been corrupted by their father’s attainder, and they could not be reckoned as heirs to the crown. He himself, therefore, was the legitimate successor of Edward IV. This preposterous theory was set forth by Buckingham, first to the mayor and corporation of London, and next day to an assembly of the estates of the realm held in St Paul’s. Cowed by the show of armed force, and remembering the fate of Hastings, the two assemblies received the claim with silence which gave consent. Richard, after a Richard III. crowned. hypocritical show of reluctance, allowed himself to be saluted as king, and was crowned on the 6th of July 1483. Before the coronation ceremony he had issued orders for the execution of the queen’s relatives, who had been in prison since the beginning of May. He paid his adherents lavishly for their support, making Lord Howard duke of Norfolk, and giving Buckingham enormous grants of estates and offices.
Having accomplished his coup d’état Richard started for a royal progress through the Midlands, and a few days after his departure sent back secret orders to London for the murder of his two nephews in the Tower. There is no reason to doubt that they were secretly smothered Murder of the princes. on or about the 15th of July by his agent Sir James Tyrrell, or that the bones found buried under a staircase in the fortress two hundred years after belonged to the two unhappy lads. But the business was kept dark at the time, and it was long before any one could assert with certainty that they were dead or alive. Richard never published any statement as to their end, though some easy tale of a fever, a conflagration, or an accident might have served him better than the mere silence that he employed. For while many persons believed
