Richard The Chird (45 page)

Plymouth only long enough to learn of Buckingham's death and the collapse of the rebellion and had then sailed off eastward. 12

Though Henry Tudor's venture had fared no better than the others, it had begun promisingly if somewhat tardily. Provided by Duke Francis with no less than fifteen ships and some five thousand Breton soldiers, Henry had sailed from Paimpol, it seems, on October 31. On the first night of the voyage his fleet had been scattered by a tempest; most of the vessels were driven back to Normandy or Brittany, and the next morning Henry found himself off the Dorset coast with only two ships. Perceiving that the shores around Poole were lined with troops, he sent a small boat to make inquiries. The soldiers shouted that the rebellion had prospered and that they themselves had been dispatched by the Duke of Buckingham to conduct the Earl of Richmond to the Duke's camp. This rude stratagem did not entice Henry, however, whose uncertain life of exile had engendered in him the suspicious wariness of an animal. When he had sailed on to Plymouth and learned that the King had already reached Exeter in unopposed triumph, he at once abandoned his enterprise and returned to Brittany. By November 22 he was at Nantes, receiving a loan of ten thousand crowns from his friend Duke Francis, by means of which he might for a while maintain himself and his flock of exiles while he tried to weave the web of a new conspiracy. 13 *

Within two weeks of his setting forth from Leicester, King Richard had disposed of the great rebellion. He remained in Exeter about a week, appointing commissions to take into the King's hands the estates of the chief rebels and to restore order in the western and southern counties and the Marches of Wales. The last knots of insurrection in Surrey and Sussex fell apart; there was a show of resistance at Bodiam Castle, but it was quickly extinguished by John Howard's son, the Earl of Surrey. According to the London chroniclers, Sir George Brown, a man named Roger or Robert or William Clifford, and four yeomen of the Crown who had betrayed their master were captured and

arraigned at Westminster. All were condemned to death for treason. 14 *

King Richard's return from Exeter was not so much a military* expedition as a progress. He was in Salisbury by November 18 and so made his way through Winchester and Farnham to the Kentist coast towns. Lord Cobham, one of John Howard's lieutenants, headed a delegation of citizens to welcome him to Canterbury. He was back in London on November 25, four months after he had departed from the city. 15

The rebellion had collapsed partly because of its internal weaknesses, partly because of Richard's generalship, partly because of the loyalty, or apathy, of the English people. Except for Richard Beauchamp, Lord Seintmount, not a single baron or earl had deserted his allegiance to join the rebels. No town of any consequence had been won over. Not a great many of the commons had been attracted to the cause, and those who had sprung to arms were quick to desert. The rebellion had found almost no partisans north of the Thames and east of the Severn. Except for Buckingham, the Marquess, and the two Bishops, its leaders had been country gentry of Lancastrian persuasion or Woodville sympathies.

The principle upon which King Richard dealt out punishment resembles the precept that his brother Edward had ordained on the field of battle: seek out the leaders; spare the commons. Apparently, only ten men were executed for treason, all of them fomenters as well as captains of the rising. The King did not harass ordinary folk, impose heavy fines on them, or permit them to be plundered; they were encouraged to sink back peaceably into their daily occupations. In the Parliament which was soon to meet, ninety-six men were attainted of treason and their goods confiscated, but at least a third of these were eventually pardoned. Even such prime movers of the rebellion as the Bishop of Ely, the Marquess Dorset, and Sir Richard Woodville were offered the royal clemency. Men like Walter Hungerford and Sir John Fogge, who had shown his gratitude for Richard's kindness by promptly joining the conspiracy, were not only par-

doned but promised a partial restoration of their estates. Reynold Bray, who had worked so diligently for the Countess of Richmond, was not even included in the act of attainder but received a pardon two weeks before Parliament met, doubtless through the good offices of Lord Stanley. As for the Countess herself, who had been the Athena of the rebellion, she was stripped of her titles, but her lands were given to her husband to enjoy for his lifetime and the punishment of attainder was "remitted." This generosity was gracefully ascribed by Richard to the good service of Lord Stanley. 16

Yet, though the speedy suppression of the rebellion had impressively demonstrated the King's strength, it was to have less happy consequences. As a result of the disappearance of Buckingham, Richard improvised a piecemeal supervision of the Welsh Marches, a problem in government for which, as will be seen, he never sought a broad and permanent solution. Richard Hud-dleston, a Knight of the Body, was made Constable of the castle of Beaumaris, Captain of the towns of Beaumaris and Anglesey, Sheriff of Anglesey "during pleasure," and Master Forester of Snowdon; Thomas Tunstall, an Esquire of the Body, became Constable and Captain of the castle and town of Conway; and a parcel of similar offices was bestowed upon the Master of the King's Henchmen, Sir James Tyrell. A more serious consequence of Buckingham's extinction was that Richard felt compelled to reward and cherish the Stanleys, who—from what motives it is uncertain—had remained at least outwardly faithful to him. On the day that Buckingham was executed Lord Stanley was granted his castle and lordship of Kymbellton; on November 18 he was made Constable of England with an annuity of a hundred pounds; and broad grants of land were to follow. His brother, Sir William, was appointed Chief Justice of North Wales and, soon after, Constable of the castle and Captain of the town of Caernarvon, with a retinue of twenty-four soldiers. Of Buckingham's other principal offices, the chief justiceship of South Wales went to William Herbert, Earl of Huntingdon, and on the last day of November the office of Great Chamberlain of England was bestowed upon the Earl of Northumberland, who had accompanied

Richard on the campaign. Next day Percy received a large grant of estates, and a few weeks later, the lordship of Holderness in the East Riding, which had belonged to Buckingham. King Richard scattered a number of lesser rewards for good service: some twenty-five small annuities, half of them to Welshmen, and an annuity of forty marks to the native chieftain Rhys ap Thomas. 17 On November 25, the Mayor and Aldermen of London in scarlet and five hundred of the chief citizens in violet met their victorious King at Kennington and escorted him through South-wark and across London Bridge to the Wardrobe beside Black-friars, where he temporarily lodged. Next day in the Star Chamber at Westminster, Richard redelivered to Chancellor Russell the Great Seal in its white leather bag. The ceremony was witnessed by the men who enacted the chief roles in his reign: Thomas, Archbishop of York, forgiven and restored to royal favor as a councilor: three eminent scholars of the New Learning: John Sherwood, Bishop of Durham, Thomas Langton, Bishop of St. David's, and John Gunthorpe, Keeper of the Privy Seal; the Bishops of Bath and Wells and of St. Asaph's; Thomas Barowe, Master of the Rolls; John Howard, Duke of Norfolk; William FitzAlan, Earl of Arundel and Warden of the Cinque Ports; Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland; Thomas, Lord Stanley; Sir Richard Ratcliife, Knight of the Body; and William Catesby, Esquire of the Body. Of the secular men, all but one would be present at the supreme crisis of Richard's life; but two of them would not be at his side. 18 *

Sprii

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Hath not thy rose a thorn, Plantagenet?

THE King and Queen kept a ceremonious Christmas. Anne had not brought with her from Middleham, however, the little boy who gave meaning to it all; his health remained too precarious for him to travel.

The King was running short of ready money, but it does not appear that his financial position was serious. Although he possessed, as yet, no revenues beyond the yield of the Crown lands and the usual royal perquisites, he had apparently been able to defray the heavy costs of putting an army in the field by at last making use of the treasure his brother had accumulated. To meet current expenses and the demands of the Christmas season, he turned to the London merchants. Sir Edmund Shaa, goldsmith and late Mayor, purchased 275 pounds of silver plate for ^550. A number of royal treasures were used as pledges for loans. Stephen Gardiner advanced £66 for a saltcellar of gold crusted with precious stones; other merchants offered from 40 marks to g£ ICQ for such valuables as a helmet of King Edward's embellished with gold, gems, and pearls, gold cups garnished with gems, "and the twelve apostles of silver and overgilt." The King was so pleased with the ready response of the London merchants that he presented to the city a flat cup with a cover of gold, encrusted with rubies, diamonds, and pearls. To brighten their own wardrobes and provide gifts for the court, the King and Queen ran up a bill of ;£ 1,200 with a mercer; and Richard probably presented Anne with the latest fashion in jewels, for on December 9 he had licensed a merchant of Genoa to bring precious gems into the kingdom provided that he himself was given the first opportunity to bny. The speedy extinction of the rebellion gave obvious cause for celebration; and if Richard sensed that he was

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straining too hard to reknit the bonds of allegiance to the Crown, there would be the more reason to conceal his cares under the sort of elaborate ceremonial to which his brother had accustomed the kingdom. 1 *

Across the Channel in Brittany there was performed another kind of ceremony. In the cathedral of Rennes on Christmas morning, Henry Tudor swore an oath to marry Elizabeth, daughter of Edward IV, and thus unite the red rose and the white.* His followers knelt and did him homage as if he had been crowned.

For the men on the dark waters between Rennes and London there was little Christmas cheer. Defying the winter storms, the hard-bitten mariners of Brittany and England prowled the seas in battle array and fought each other on plunging, icy decks. The moment Richard had returned to London, he had bent his energies on forcing Duke Francis to realize his mistake in supporting Henry Tudor and to sue for peace. The Channel had become so dangerous for English shipping that a wool fieet bound for Calais had been compelled to return to London in order to avoid capture. 2

Though Richard had never fought at sea, he had been Admiral for twenty years, and his present Admiral, the Duke of Norfolk, was a master of naval warfare. In a matter of days English men-of-war were setting forth to engage the Bretons. The port towns were stirred to action. Vessels were refitted, victualed, and manned. Writs were dispatched empowering captains and shipmasters to secure supplies and armor at reasonable prices. As Breton prizes were brought into the harbors, agents of the Crown readied them to take to the sea with English crews, and supervised the disposal of their cargo for the benefit of those merchants who had suffered losses in the naval war. By the middle of December an English fleet, commanded by Thomas Wentworth, was scouring the Channel, seeking to bring the fleet of Brittany to battle. As soon as Richard got word that Duke Francis' flotilla had been located, he quickly dispatched commissions to the magis-

* Actually, the red rose was a Tudor device, not a Lancastrian one. The term u Wars of the Roses" is a sixteenth-century invention. Before the advent of Henry VII, the only emblematic rose was the white rose of York.

trates of the port towns "to man out their small boats and help the English fleet in case they shall see them engaged with the fleet of the Bretons, now lying in Flanders." No record survives of a full-scale engagement, but a few days before Christmas the King was issuing letters "for certain Bretons taken prisoner to go into Brittany to fetch money for ransome of themselves and their fellows/' Still, he did not relax his efforts. The magistrates of London were ordered to seize all Breton goods within the city and deliver them to the Exchequer. When he could, Richard purchased foreign ships to swell his navy; and he took pains to see that merchant vessels were given protection. Learning that a number of East Anglian fishing craft and trading ships \vere about to make the dangerous voyage to Iceland, he sent them strict warning to follow the convoy system he had established:

For as much as we understand that certain of you intend hastily to depart towards Iceland, not purveyed of wafters [not supplied with convoying vessels] for your surety . . . we . . . straidy charge . . . that . . . none of you severally [separately] depart out of any of our havens . . . without our license first had so to do; and thereupon, that ye gather and assemble yourselves in such one of our havens or ports ... as ye shall think most convenient, well harnessed and apparelled for your own surety, and so for to depart all together toward Humber, to attend there upon our ships of Hull as your wafters, for the surety of you all; and that ye dissever not without tempest of weather compel you. . . .

The convoy reached Iceland safely and in July was ordered to use the same system on the return voyage. Long before then, however, King Richard's vigorous campaign at sea had accomplished its object and Duke Francis was happy to make a treaty with England. 3

King Richard's deepest concern during this Christmas season was the state of his own realm. As King Edward had done before him, he wrestled with the evil of livery and maintenance, which had enabled the rebel leaders to raise a following against him. The Chamberlain of North Wales and the Sheriff of Staffordshire were ordered to administer the oath of allegiance to all the inhabitants within their jurisdictions and to warn them against

giving or taking "any liveries, clothings, badges, or cognizances." The same admonition was dispatched to the citizens of Gloucester, Bristol, Canterbury, and perhaps to other towns and counties as well.*

Richard was particularly troubled by the rising in Kent, a shire which owned a long record of unrest, which contained some of the most important ports of the kingdom, and which lay at the very door of London. Early in January he went on a progress through the county, seeking means to secure the loyalty of its inhabitants. On the tenth he was at Canterbury; from Sandwich on the sixteenth he issued commissions to several lords, knights, and gentlemen to administer the oath of allegiance throughout the hundreds of Kent He established one of his Household knights, Sir Marmaduke Constable, as his lieutenant or deputy in the honor and town of Tunbridge and in the lordship of Pens-hurst and commanded the inhabitants to attend upon Sir Marmaduke, "whom the King has deputed to make his abode amongst them; and that they in no wise presume to take clothing or to be retained by anybody." 5