Richard The Chird (27 page)

He dispatched a letter to Rivers, telling him that the King must

reach London no later than May i, three days before the coronation. There was possibly a touch of asperity in the message. It may be that Rivers had not displayed much enthusiasm for the proceedings of the Queen.

Yet, upon the governor of the Prince now rested the fate of the glittering edifice erected with such bravado at Westminster. Perhaps the Marquess had some cause to be peremptory. Anthony, Earl Rivers was, in fact, the changeling of the Woodville clan. London was not farther from Ludlow than he from the world of his kin. 23

Pilgrim and knight, worldling and ascetic, Anthony Woodville was moved by the vision of both the Grail and the Good Life. He was the most famous j ouster of the age. Patron of Caxton, he translated three devotional works which Caxton printed, and he was given to penning ballads against the Seven Deadly Sins. In a mist of quasi-contradictions, he eludes us. Though he counted himself a staunch son of Holy Church, he seems to have developed an intimate and special piety, half mystical, yet learned. The blows that fell upon his family, the perils he himself suffered, and the violent reversals of fortune in the course of Warwick's attempt to reseat Henry VI upon the throne, produced in him a profound religious experience. Thenceforth, he told Caxton, he had resolved to dedicate himself to the cause of God. He perused the philosophers and devotional works like those of Christine of Pisa; he went on pilgrimage to the shrine of St. James of Compostella and talked of fighting the Infidel; he was appointed by Pope Sixtus IV defender and director of papal causes in England; and as he uneasily prepared to set forth from Ludlow with his nephew, he was wearing, beneath the rich robes of an earl, a hair shirt.

The contrast of garments is representative, for Rivers was also very much a man of the world. He paid heed to the surfaces of living—gorgeous clothes, an impressive retinue, splendid ceremony. Striving to maintain his reputation in jousting, he dazzled all beholders by his skill in arms, the opulence and originality of his costume, and his gracious deportment, In the workaday world, he had commanded military expeditions and gone on

diplomatic missions in the service of King Edward at the same time that he held the governorship of Edward's heir and first place in the council of Wales. If he could not claim the erudition of a John Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester, he was nonetheless a genuine lover of books and a scholar. When he journeyed beyond the Alps, he seems to have sought inspiration equally from the holiness of famous shrines and from the golden reawakening of the cities of Italy. None could say whether he was more moved by the culture or the sacred authority of the papal court. Among the people he was famed for his ceremonious feats of arms; among the elite, for his accomplishments of mind.

Yet, though he blazed bright upon his times, he exerted curiously little force upon them. Perhaps he was too versatile, or too sensitive, to achieve a notable success. His ambition seems to have been flawed by doubts, by a certain slackness of will or unsureness of purpose. Despite his prowess with weapons, he was undistinguished in battle. On the eve of Morat he prudently withdrew from the camp of the Duke of Burgundy. He was apparently not indifferent to the prize of office, but neither the hurly-burly of politics nor the hard responsibility of authority much appealed to him. King Edward held him, for a time at least, in some contempt: suddenly angered when Rivers, after the defeat of Warwick and Queen Margaret, asked leave to go off on pilgrimage, Edward roared that he was a coward thus to think of leaving the realm when it was not yet fully restored to order.

Still, if Rivers shrank from laborious tasks of governing, he showed no wish to remain quietly on his estates or at Ludlow and be a petty king of country acres. A court was his milieu, but a Renaissance court; thus, he was a man half out of touch with his times. It is when he is viewed as a prototype of the Earl of Essex that he comes to life. Yet Essex was not his equal as a man of letters or even of affairs, nor so serious about either tilting or praying. If Elizabeth's favorite had worn a hair shirt, it would have represented rather a flamboyant gesture of melancholy than a pledge of faith.

Such was the man who was now making hasty preparations to bring his nephew up to London that he might be crowned in

the interest of his mother's family. The time the Queen had prescribed was short. Rivers had to make temporary arrangements for maintaining the Council of the Welsh Marches; the gentry and soldiers who were to compose the King's escort had to be mustered; and there were the thousand tasks of breaking up a great household and procuring provisions and armament for the journey. These matters, however, did not lie at the heart of Rivers' thoughts. Two days after he had received the Queen's first message, on April 16, he caused the new King to write to the burgesses of Lynn a letter which was buoyant enough. After reporting the death of his father, young Edward gave notice that he intended "to be at our city of London in all convenient haste by God's grace to be crowned at Westminster." He concluded by commanding the magistrates to show their zeal by keeping peace and good order. Why should Earl Rivers be at pains to inform the insignificant town of Lynn of the great change which fortune had suddenly wrought? His favorite manor lay but eight miles from the town; in the first glow of the news he had remembered to communicate his happy prospects to his old friends and retainers. 24

Since then, however, he had received further messages from Westminster; he had read, and courteously answered, an inquiry from Richard of Gloucester. The communications from the capital and the communication from Yorkshire did not rest comfortably together in his mind. On April 23 Rivers, a Knight of the Garter, superintended a splendid ceremony in which the new King honored St. George. The next morning, at the head of two thousand men and a long train of carts stuffed with household goods, supplies, and barrels of armor, the King and his uterine uncle left the lovely heights above the river Teme and rode eastward through the green and shapely hills of Shropshire. Rivers probably paid small heed to the scenery; he was still wondering, uneasily, what course he should follow when he reached Northampton. 25 *

The King's Uncle*

When clouds are seen, wise men put on their cloaks.

ON THE afternoon of Tuesday, April 29, Richard of Gloucester rode into Northampton with his cavalcade of northern gentry. There was no sign of the King and Rivers. From his harbingers Richard learned that they had already passed through the town with their little army and continued southward toward Stony Stratford. He also learned from outriders of Buckingham that the Duke would shortly reach Northampton. Ordering the harbingers to assign the quarters they had arranged for, Richard prepared to spend the night at the inn which had been bespoken for himself and Buckingham. 1 *

Shortly after, the beat of horses' hooves in the street outside sounded the arrival, not of Buckingham but of Anthony, Earl Rivers, accompanied by a train of attendants. Readily he hailed Richard with the name of Protector. He had come, he said, at the behest of their new sovereign lord to convey young Edward's greetings to his uncle. Saluting him with equal courtesy, Richard took him into mine host's best parlor. Servants were commanded to arrange lodging for the Earl at a nearby inn and billets for the Earl's men.

Rivers quickly came to the heart of his errand. The King had pushed on to Stony Stratford for the night, he informed Richard with all the nonchalance he could muster, because it was feared that Northampton and the surrounding villages lacked sufficient accommodations for both the royal train and that of his uncle.

Richard acknowledged the explanation without asking questions; the Earl and he drank together and fell into genial conversation. While he listened to Anthony Woodville, however, Richard must have been turning over in his mind the possible significance of this cordial embassy. The Earl's greeting chimed

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oddly with Hastings' reports of what was happening in London. The excuse for the King's failure to await him w r as scarcely convincing. Necessary though it might have been for the greater part of Edward's train to move on southward, why had the King himself—if he was so eager to greet his uncle—not remained at Northampton? Did the answer lie in the fact that Stony Stratford was fourteen miles closer to London?

In the midst of supper the Duke of Buckingham arrived. Perceiving that the evening was merry, he matched his spirits to the occasion. When the meal was cleared away, the three noblemen lingered over wine in animated talk. Henry Stafford was ready of tongue; Anthony Woodville was a man of imagination who had seen much of the world; it was undoubtedly Richard of Gloucester who said least. So ironically convivial were these idle hours, precariously perched upon the edge of sudden action and great events, that this age, usually careless of recording itself, remembered the moment well. The cultivated Italian Mancini, and the grave ecclesiastic who wrote the "Second Continuation" of the Croyland Chronicle, sometimes omit affairs of prime importance; but this bubble of life they were both at pains to report.

It was late evening by the time the three men rose from the table. Casually they had agreed to ride together in the morning to Stony Stratford. After genial farewells, Rivers with a few of his intimates left the inn to seek his bed. Within the chamber where Richard and Buckingham had resumed their seats, the atmosphere of gaiety instantly disappeared. Rushlights flickered upon the serious faces of their advisers drawn close about them. Before the Dukes decided upon a course of action, they had to explore each other's minds. It was Buckingham who, by a single message, had suddenly thrust himself into Richard's affairs, and it was undoubtedly Buckingham who now did most of the talking. As a result of what he said this late night in a Northampton inn, he leaped from obscurity into the light of high events. Seldom has a man so little known become so important so quickly.

By his blood he was endowed with great place. He was descended from Thomas of Woodstock, youngest son of Edward

III. Twenty-three years before this meeting with Richard, his grandfather had been killed, on the outskirts of this very town, fighting for King Henry against Richard's brother and Warwick. His father had been mortally wounded at St. Albans in 1455, fighting against Richard's father. His mother was the daughter of Edmund, Duke of Somerset, who likewise perished at St. Albans holding the house of York in deadly hatred. At the age of twelve he had become the ward, and very valuable property, of Queen Elizabeth. She reared him in her household, and while he was still not much more than a boy she wedded him to her sister Katherine. For a number of years thereafter the couple had lived in the Queen's shadow, while Buckingham nursed his hatred of the family he had been forced to marry into. He took no part in the tumultuous events of 1470-71; in the last decade of Edward's life he made no mark at court or in government. He was appointed High Steward of England to pronounce sentence of death upon the Duke of Clarence probably because he was, after Richard, the premier duke of the realm. He occasionally appears as a name in the record of court ceremonies. Upon the screen of history he had in his first thirty years cast but a faint image.

Now, suddenly, out of nowhere, propelled by the moment and by whatever dreams he had been dreaming in remote Brecon, he had appeared at Richard of Gloucester's side to make fervent offers of his service and swear his love for the Protector's cause. He talked on, flushed and animated; sober and musing, Richard listened. Untested though Richard knew him to be, Buckingham made a remarkable impact. He was everything that Richard was not—eloquent, volatile, buoyant. What better ally could the Protector wish than the man who, after himself, was the first peer of England?

Still, impressed though he was, Richard himself shaped the course of action on which they finally agreed: his character is stamped upon its simplicity and decisiveness. He had spent his life dealing with conspiracy and disorder. His experience had taught him that a single violent stroke may prevent widespread violence, that a potential enemy should be immobilized first and

his intentions examined later. He made his decision out of what he had learned from being the hardy prop of his brother's throne. Before the Dukes retired to a very brief rest, they had drawn up a set of orders for their lieutenants,

As the dawn of April 30 broke over Northampton, Earl Rivers' inn was quietly surrounded by armed men, and his people were forbidden to issue forth. The Earl's escort was similarly confined to its quarters. Guards posted on the Stony Stratford road allowed none to pass. Abruptly awakened to this unpleasant situation by his frightened servants, Earl Rivers decided to put a good face upon the matter. He was permitted to leave his inn in order to confront the Dukes, whom he greeted with his wonted courtesy. When, affecting bewilderment, he inquired the reason for this incomprehensible proceeding, he was at once committed to custody. Then, in the first light, Richard and Buckingham rode hard for Stony Stratford.

They found the town crowded with mounted men in the act of departing. One detachment was already moving southward. The young King, surrounded by the officers of his household, had just mounted his horse. Ceremoniously, the gentlemen of Wales and Yorkshire alighted and did reverence to their boy sovereign. Between the kneeling ranks, Richard and Buckingham advanced to the King's presence, paid him the homage of their knees, and rose to greet him with grave respect. There was no doubt a quaver in young Edward's voice as, searching in vain for the sight of Rivers and beholding instead the sober features of an uncle he knew little of and had not been taught to love, he returned the greeting.

Close by Edward were his aged chamberlain Sir Thomas Vaughan and his half brother Lord Richard Grey. The latter had joined the King the day before, having ridden out from London with a number of Woodville followers. Possibly, he had carried orders from the Queen and the Marquess that Rivers must, at all costs, get his nephew to London before Richard of Gloucester overtook them. Behind the royal party stretched ranks of armed men. Behind the Dukes stood their company of attendants. With calm authority Richard informed the King that he had serious