Richard The Chird (26 page)

What was happening in London might have been predicted by measuring the known character of the Queen and her kindred against the dangers and opportunities which, in their view, the death of Edward opened to them. They were at the nadir of their unpopularity—detested by the commons for their extortions and for the profligacy of the Marquess of Dorset, Lord Richard Grey, and Sir Edward Woodville; hated by the nobles as arrogant upstarts who had monopolized the royal favor; and held by all to have encompassed the death of the Duke of Clarence. Sustained only by the power of the King, they considered that his death must imperil their fortunes and their lives, if anyone besides themselves assumed control of Edward V. Driven by their avidity for power, they reached for the first available means of circumventing the protectorship of Richard of Gloucester, in order to bring the new King, and thus the realm, under their sway. Their motives were a mesh of self-defense and ambition. 10

The Queen was the impelling spirit of the Woodville clan. She was the greediest and the most willful; neither her triumphs nor the humiliations of the past two decades had taught her anything. Her brother Sir Edward, soldier and court gallant, and her brother Lionel, the haughty Bishop of Salisbury, would follow her lead. Her eldest son by her first marriage, the Marquess of Dorset, now in his early thirties, was her lieutenant and colleague in conspiracy. The grain of his character cannot now be discerned. The actions of his life spell out a man of little solidity or acumen. His ignorance of politics would make him the more ready to plunge into his mother's schemes. Because he was a favorite of the dead king's idle hours and because as a marquess he outranked all but the few dukes of the kingdom, he could pretend to considerable authority in the uncertainties of an interregnum.

As soon as it was clear that King Edward was dying, the Queen and the Marquess began developing their hopes. Their first object must be to win to their cause a majority of the royal councilors then at Westminster. With the Marquess himself and the Queen's two brothers they already had a nucleus of three, Hastings would

bitterly oppose them, and he would doubtless have other barons, like Lord Howard, on his side. And perhaps Lord Stanley, though this pliant and cautious opportunist might be touched on the sensitive nerve of his self-interest. Most of the men of common birth, elevated to the council through ability and prudence, could be counted on, however; Dominic Mancini, who for well-nigh a year had been observing affairs at court with his sharp Italian eyes, reports that the Queen "attracted to her party many strangers and introduced them to court, so that they alone should manage the public and private business of the crown . . . give or sell offices, and finally rule the very King himself." It was the high eccleskstics—the Archbishop of Canterbury; Rotherham, Archbishop of York and Chancellor; Russell, Bishop of Lincoln and Keeper of the Privy Seal; Morton, Bishop of Ely; Story, Bishop of Chichester and an executor of the King's will; and a few others—who would form the decisive group in the council and must therefore be made sure. 11 *

The rising tide of anticlericalism provided the Woodvilles with a potent means of persuasion. Edward IV had confirmed the privileges of the clergy; the first care of Holy Church must be that Edward V follow in his father's footsteps. How alarmed the prelates at this very moment were, is cried aloud in an oration written to be delivered at the Convocation on April 18 which the death of Edward indefinitely postponed.

Let the clergy reform their morals, the author urgently demands. But above all, let them cease to quarrel among themselves and to criticize the Church in the hearing of laymen. "These things provoke the laity of our time, to attempt such unbridled enormities against the church. Fearing no censure, they even indict clergymen for fictitious crimes . . . throw them into squalid prisons to make them empty their barns. . . . There are scarcely ten in any diocese who do not yearly suffer either in their person or their purse!" 12

Richard of Gloucester's views of the church establishment had probably never been canvassed- Many of the barons were doubtless hostile. In its need, the clergy must cling to the royal power.

That power seemed now to be represented by the Woodvilles. The new King, as well as the sinews of government, was theirs. As soon as Edward was crowned, the protectorship would mean nothing.

Another passage in the oration, written not many hours after Edward's death, points the direction affairs were taking. The author—perhaps one of the bishops—offers a bidding prayer for "our new prince ... our dread king Edward V; the lady queen Elizabeth, his mother; all the royal offspring; the princes of the King; his nobles and people." The Protector is not even mentioned. The very position of Elizabeth's name suggests "Queen Regent." This is scarcely a slip of the pen, for such a dignity was clean contrary to custom. Joan of Kent, mother of Richard II, found herself—popular though she was—completely excluded from power when her son succeeded to the rule. Katherine, Henry V's queen, was ignored by the council which governed for the infant Henry VI. 13

While, in St. Stephen's chapel, a mist of incense drifted above gorgeous vestments as the soul of Edward was wafted on its way, in secret conferences within the palace Queen Elizabeth and the Marquess had gained the majority voice among the dead King's officers and advisers. The Marquess, as Constable of the Tower, likewise controlled the greatest armaments depot of the realm and the mighty treasure which Edward had amassed. Earl Rivers held the young King himself.

Not until they believed they had grasped the threads of power did the Queen and the Marquess dispatch the first news to Rivers: his nephew y now King, must be brought to London for his crowning in all speed and with a strong escort; Gloucester had been nominated Protector but the Queen was safely in charge of the realm. 14

Soon afterward, the Queen and the Marquess summoned a meeting of the dead King's councilors, doubtless in the name of Edward V and under the color of transacting necessary business. The first proposal was innocuous—that in order to keep the wheels of justice turning, the judges of the King's Bench and

Common Pleas be reappointed to their offices. This having been readily accepted, the Marquess next urged the immediate need of providing for the defense of the realm. 15

French freebooters had been harrying the Channel for many weeks. More recently, Lord Cordes—the most aggressive and able of Louis XFs commanders—had been vigorously prosecuting this undeclared war at sea. The news of Edward's death would likely stir him to greater efforts. Therefore, proposed the Marquess, a fleet must be equipped at once to protect the coast towns as well as merchant shipping. This measure, too, was quickly approved.

Dorset was then able to attain his real objective: he succeeded in appointing as Commander of this fleet his uncle Sir Edward Woodville, who immediately set about gathering ships and filling them with his own followers. The Marquess, apparently without consulting the council, provided his uncle with a portion of the treasure in the Tower; the rest of it he promptly divided with his mother. The need of protecting the coasts was genuine enough, but the Woodvilles had turned it into a means of securing themselves by force. Sir Edward was assembling a Woodville fleet. Ostensibly directed against the French at sea, it could easily be directed against the Queen's enemies in England. Neither Hastings nor anybody else had forgotten how in May of 1471 the Bastard of Fauconberg had led his sailors to assault London itself. Nor could Hastings and his friends be unaware that the Woodville fleet might attempt to win Calais, the keystone of England's overseas trade and her only permanent garrison. Hastings himself, its governor, would then be cut off from his stronghold. 16 *

Had the Woodvilles gone no further, they might have defended their actions on the grounds of necessity and the good of the state. But they had only begun. The council they had called into being was, in fact, as unlawful as their own pretentions. In the fifteenth century, a king's council was simply whatever men he summoned to give him advice and help him govern. It had no independent existence; with the death of the King it ceased to be. When the new King chose his advisers, there was again a royal council. From the moment Edward died, there could be no

official council until, by virtue of his authority, the Protector gathered a group of advisers in the name of Edward V. Everybody knew this. Everybody also knew that if the Woodvilles got the King crowned at once, the lawlessness of their methods would not matter a straw. 17

The Queen and the Marquess now felt themselves so secure that they proceeded not only to appoint county commissions to collect the tax on aliens voted by the late Parliament but boldly to proclaim, by their choice of commissioners, in whose hands the government lay. Hastings, it is true, headed seven of the commissions—doubtless, an attempt momentarily to placate him. The names of the Marquess and his uncle Rivers were liberally scattered through the patents under the style of "uterine brother" and "uterine uncle" to the King. In the styling lay the claim to power. No mention was made of a Protector; the name of Richard, Duke of Gloucester, did not appear. 18 *

The moment had come for the decisive move. Having bidden the councilors to assemble in the presence of the Queen, as if she were Regent, the Marquess blandly exposed his hand. In order to avoid all ambiguities that might disorder men's minds, he asserted, the King should be crowned as soon as possible. He suggested Sunday, May 4, as the date for the coronation, a date less than three weeks away.

This time, the council balked. Opposition had begun to develop in other quarters than the Hastings faction. Several councilors—the more prudent members, says the Croyland chronicler, who was himself probably present—had become alarmed by the naked ambition of the Woodvilles and their reckless attempt to ignore the ordinance of the dead king's will. They had come to the opinion "that the guardianship of so youthful a person [the King], until he should reach the years of maturity, ought to be utterly forbidden to his uncles and brothers by the mother's side." The chronicler adds dryly that the possibility of effecting such a separation would not be increased if young Edward were brought to London by a large force of Woodville troops. This issue was now raised. What manner of escort, somebody asked, could be deemed sufficient for the Prince?

The intimate supporters of the Woodvilles attempted to glide over the question, either by keeping their answers vague or by declaring that the size of the escort must be left to the King himself—which would mean, to the decision of Earl Rivers.

This was too much for Hastings, who, whatever his anger and his fears, had hitherto kept himself under control. Passionately he declared that if a moderate escort were not agreed upon, he himself would instantly retire to Calais. A heated debate ensued. At last the Queen proposed, with a show of graciousness, that she request her son to limit his escort to two thousand men. To this figure Hastings agreed, believing that as a result of his pressing messages, the Duke of Gloucester would not come south with fewer men than that. By means of this concession the Woodvilles were able to secure a majority in the council for the all-important proposal that the coronation should take place on Sunday, May 4. According to custom, a Protector's authority ceased as soon as the King was crowned, however young he was. The government devolved upon the King's councilors; in effect, upon a council of regency whose composition would be dictated by whoever managed the mind of the King. It might even be that Edward could be anointed in the Abbey before the Duke of Gloucester reached London. Then, the Queen and her kindred would hold the Tower, the treasure, the sea, and the consecrated King. 19

It is one thing to win a majority; it is another to satisfy men's minds. The councilors were growing progressively more nervous. At the next meeting Hastings, or another, felt that the time had come to expose the real issue. The council was reminded that Richard of Gloucester was the lawful Protector of England. What, came the pointed question, was the extent of the Protector's powers?

Ignoring the actual terms of Edward's will, Dorset and his chief adherents sought to play the same game upon the absent Richard which magnates with no less ambition but with at least some color of justification had played, to his face, upon Harry the Fifth's unstable brother Humphrey. Gloucester was indeed Protector, declared the Marquess, but that office should be con-

sidered to confer on him no more than first place in the council which would carry on the government till the King was crowned.

The speciousness and unreality of this contention alarmed those prudent councilors mentioned by the Croyland chronicler, and they were well-nigh as vigorous in their opposition as Hastings. They declared flatly that the present council lacked any right to discuss, much less to settle, so high a matter. Since the Protector was lawfully entitled to annul any such decision taken in his absence, and since he was not likely to be pleased by a proceeding so inimical to him, the Marquess' proposal was illegal, futile, and dangerous. 20 *

At this moment of conflict, the council received Richard's letter. It swept through the chamber like a gust of air from the moors. Hastings and his party were cheered. The councilors who had begun to move away from the Woodvilles took heart. It was probably Hastings who saw to it that Richard's declaration was published abroad. Mancini was struck by the impact it made: "This letter had a great effect on the minds of the people, who, as they had previously favored the duke in their hearts from a belief in his probity, now began to support him openly and aloud, so that it was commonly said by all that the duke deserved the government." 21

It was the voice of the council which, however, counted at the moment. The Marquess played upon the timorousness of his wavering followers. He talked of the dangers of committing the government to one man; he hinted that if Richard held supreme authority, none who had ever supported the Woodvilles would be safe. Forcing a vote on the resolution that Richard's protectorship should be shorn of real power, he still managed to command a majority. Doubtless a number of councilors felt that if the King was to be crowned on May 4, the rights of the Protector in the brief interval that remained were of small moment. Others, however, could not help murmuring their fears to the Marquess, He laughed them away. "We are so important," he was heard to boast, "that even without the King's uncle we can make and enforce these decisions." 22 *