Richard The Chird (7 page)

George of Clarence, three years Richard's senior, was not appointed commissioner for a single county.

King Edward had been discovering notable differences in character between his two brothers. He had begun by attempting to balance his favors: George obtained his dukedom four months before Richard; they were made knights of the Garter at the same time. In February of 1462 George received the lieutenaut^-ship of Ireland for seven years—the office to be administered by a deputy—and on August 10 enjoyed his first grant of lands, several manors which had belonged to the attainted Earl of Northumberland. Two days later, however, Richard reaped a richer harvest. He was not only granted manors in several counties .which had been forfeited by the Earl of Oxford, but he was given the county, honor, and lordship of Richmond and the county, honor, and lordship of Pembroke as well. This marked show of favor to Richard must have thrown George into a fury of jealousy, which blazed the higher when, on September 9, the King bestowed on Richard all the lands and manors of another attainted

RICHARD THE THIRD

Lancastrian, Lord Hungerford. Such a fuss did the Duke of Clarence raise that Edward, who loved his ease, felt compelled to transfer the county, honor, and lordship of Richmond from Richard to George, and a few weeks later he canceled the grant of Hungerford's estates. He soon compensated his younger brother, however. On October 12 of this same year (1462), the quiet, undersized lad practicing with weapons in the courtyard of Mid-dleham Castle became Admiral of England, Ireland, and Aqui-taine.

Henceforth King Edward made no attempt to disguise the fact that he reposed greater trust in Richard than in George. In December of 1463, while he was keeping his Christmas at York, Edward granted te Richard "during pleasure" all the estates of Henry Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, who had just turned traitor despite Edward's generous attempt to make him a friend. The Duke's lands were located mainly in the southern and western counties, where, by the grant of August, 1462, Richard was already established in authority as the Constable of Corfe Castle, County Dorset. 12 *

Apparently in February or March of 1464 Richard rode from Middleham into the southwest. His commissions of array arrived early in May. The King had left London on April 28, ordering a rendezvous of his forces at Leicester on May 10. By that date a small figure in full armor had led his county levies northward through Worcester and Coventry to join the royal army, skirting a few miles to his left as he drew near Leicester a village called Market Bosworth.

By the time Edward and Richard reached Pontefract, the Lancastrian hold on Northumberland had already been shattered. On April 25 a small army commanded by Lord Montagu had collided at Hedgeley Moor with .a strong force under the Duke of Somerset, the Lords Hungerford and Roos, and Sir Ralph Percy. The Lancastrians were quickly routed; Percy was slain, crying as he fell— so tradition says— "I have saved the bird in my ? bosom!" A skittish bird it was indeed, his allegiance to King Henry. Less than eighteen months before, he had been not only

pardoned by King Edward but given command of the castles of Bamburgh and Dunstanburgh, the former of which he had held for Queen Margaret. Three months later, despite Edward's generosity and his own solemn oath, he had delivered the castles to the Lancastrians. The bird in his bosom was bred in that sorry nest of broken loyalties, the reign of Henry the Sixth.

Three weeks after Hedgeley Moor, on May 15, Montagu had completed his work: issuing suddenly from Newcastle, he assaulted the remains of the Lancastrian forces at Hexham and speedily crushed them. Somerset, Hungerford, Roos, and two dozen of their principal adherents were captured and either beheaded on the field or condemned and executed by sentence of the Constable, the Earl of Worcester. Poor King Henry, hiding nearby at Bywell Castle, was forced to flee so precipitously that he left behind him his "bycocket," or cap of estate.

Save for Harlech Castle in Wales and Berwick on Tweed, Edward was now truly King of all England. What seemed the'final blow to Lancaster occurred a year later. In July of 1465 the feeble-witted son of Harry the Fifth was run to earth in Lancashire, where he had been wandering for some time with not half a dozen attendants. Warwick led the heir of Agincourt on horseback through the streets of London, his feet bound to the stirrups by leather thongs, to a prison chamber in the Tower. He was provided with attendants, treated with kindness, and permitted to see whoever wished to visit him.

Meanwhile, after the battle of Hexharn, Montagu rode into Pontefract to report his victory and deliver Henry's bycocket to King Edward. Warwick's brother was promptly rewarded for his great services. On May 27 Richard watched Edward bestow on John Neville the princely earldom of Northumberland. Not long after, the boy probably returned to Middleham and the "schools of urbanity and nurture."

That day in Leicester when Richard came riding in at the head of his county levies, Edward must have smiled at the sight of his small brother, very serious in his martial harness. But it was a smile of more than amusement. Without George's inches, ma-

turity, health, or charm, Richard had already won first place in the affections and confidence of King Edward. He was not yet twelve years old.

In September of 1464, England was stunned by a piece of news, which, in effect, brought Richard's boyhood to an end.

Before a meeting of the council at Reading, about September 15, when the Earl of Warwick pressed Edward to approve his scheme of a French marriage, the King announced debonairly that he was already married. He had defied tradition—and'the will of the mighty Earl—by secretly wedding Dame Elizabeth Woodville. She was the widow of Lord Ferrers, who had died fighting for King Henry at the second battle of St. Albans, and the daughter of that very Richard Woodville, Lord Rivers, whom Edward and Warwick had rated so insultingly one January night in 1460 at Calais. She was five years older than Edward; she was the mother of two sons almost as old as Richard. It was believed by some that the King had been bewitched; it was thought by many that Edward had wantonly affronted Warwick only to gratify his lust for the beautiful widow. 13 * On Michaelmas Day Warwick and George of Clarence—prophetic coupling—escorted Elizabeth into the chapel of Reading Abbey and joined the court in honoring her as queen. Nevertheless, it was soon widely known that the Earl had quarreled with the King who had dared to challenge the authority of the Nevilles. 14

The rift was in due course patched over and for many months to come the House of Neville appeared to be as portly and as powerful as ever. Warwick's brother George, Bishop of Exeter and Chancellor, was soon elevated to the archbishopric of York. Yet, whereas Warwick had learned almost nothing from the disasters of King Henry's reign, or the career of Harry Hotspur, Edward had learned a great deal. In marrying his Elizabeth, he had mated his inclination to his policy. "Warwick," wrote the Milanese ambassador in 1461, "seems to me to be everything in this kingdom." 15 Edward intended to be the ruler as well as the King of England; and the announcement of the marriage was the first article in his declaration of independence.

For Richard, it marked the end of his formal tutelage. The

brother of the King could scarcely remain, now, the pupil of the Earl. Besides, he had shown himself ready to take a place in the world, and King Edward knew well that he might soon need all the support he could muster. Abruptly, another stage in Richard's growth ceased. The hard but tranquil regimen of knightly training upon the moors—interspersed by sallies into the turbulent world of the early 1460'$—was now permanently broken off. Ahead stretches a five-year period of mounting tension in the realm, of almost impenetrable obscurity in Richard's history. Only the briefest glimpses of him can be caught and these not of significant moments. Yet in this time of first adolescence he experienced one of the greatest crises of his life, and nothing is known of it save the outward result.

Warwick

No more my king, for he dishonours me . . Did 1 forget that by the house of York My father came untimely to his death? . . . Did I impale him with the regal crown? . . And am I guerdon'd at the last with shame? Shame on himself! for my desert is honour .

Y THE spring of 1465 Richard, a boy not yet thirteen, had left Middleham for his brother's court. 1 * He found it alive with Woodvilles. The new Queen's family was numerous, thriving, and eager to grasp the good things of this world. Richard Woodville, Lord Rivers, had begun his career as a squire. By his marriage to the Dowager Duchess of Bedford (daughter of the Count of St. Pol and descendant of Charlemagne) and by his indefatigable practice of the arts of climbing, he had raised himself to high office and a baronage while the Duchess was presenting him with seven daughters and five sons who became, most of them, as handsome and pushing as their father.

After the battle of Towton in the spring of 1461, King Edward had paused on his journey south at Graf ton Regis, the manor of his old enemy Lord Rivers, whose son Anthony had fought on Henry's side at Towton. There Edward had laid eyes on Elizabeth Woodville for the first time. She possessed great beauty and she had been well schooled by her parents. Not many days later, both Rivers and his son received pardons. In such intervals as he could find, Edward pursued the lovely widow hotly. She was adamant: her virtue could be satisfied only by a crown. When the King was on his way to meet his army at Leicester in the spring of 1464, he halted a night at Stony Stratford. The next morning, May Day, he rode casually over to Grafton Regis. Returning three hours later, he told his men that he had gone hunt-do

ing. He had, in fact, wedded Elizabeth, with only her mother and two gentlewomen present as witnesses.

By May of 1464, when Richard was with the court at Greenwich, a golden bounty was already showering down upon the Woodvilles. Edward bestowed on his bride lands worth 4,000 marks a year (about £2,600), his "manor of pleasaunce" at Greenwich, and his manor at Shene (Richmond) as well. She was assigned an establishment in Smithfield as her town house, where she promptly set up a menage to outshine the household of Queen Margaret, in which she had once been one of the humbler ladies in waiting. Her family abundantly shared the golden shower. Within two years of her marriage, Elizabeth's sisters had been betrothed to the greatest "estates" of the realm—Margaret to the heir of the Earl of Arundel; Katherine to the youthful Duke of Buckingham, a ward in the Queen's household; Anne to William Bourchier, son of the Earl of Essex; Elinor to the Earl of Kent's heir; and Mary to Lord Dunster, son and heir of Edward's great friend William, Lord Herbert.

Nor were Elizabeth's five brothers neglected. Anthony, Lord Scales, shortly to be made a Knight of the Garter and Governor of the Isle of Wight, had already become a shining figure at court; Lionel, seeking to rise in the church, would be made Bishop of Salisbury; Edward received military commands; Richard and John were created Knights of the Bath at their sister's coronation; and Sir John Woodville was given a marriage that even in that opportunistic age created a scandal: still in his teens, he wedded the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk, a lady venerable enough to be his grandmother, but very rich. And by paying 4,000 marks to the Duchess of Exeter, the Queen secured for her elder son, Sir Thomas Grey, the heiress of the exiled Duke of Exeter, who had been promised to Warwick's nephew. Elizabeth's father was likewise cared for. After bestowing 1,000 marks on his faithful adherent, Lord Mountjoy, King Edward asked him to resign the treasurership to the royal father-in-law. A few weeks later, on Whitsunday of 1465, Lord Rivers became Earl Rivers, and within two years he was given the high office of Constable of England.

If the greed of the Queen's family had antagonized not only

the Nevilles but the older nobility and commons as well, Elizabeth was at least prompt to begin fulfilling her duty to the realm. On February 11, 1466, she gave birth to her first child, Elizabeth; and the little princess was baptized with as much pomp as if she had been the hoped-for male heir. The "churching" of the Queen offered another opportunity for brilliant ceremonial. A procession of ecclesiastics, peers and peeresses, minstrels, heralds, conveyed the Queen to the service in the Abbey and from the Abbey to the banquet at Westminster Palace. Four large halls were filled with guests. In a separate chamber bedecked with arras the Queen sat alone at table upon a golden chair, served by her mother and Edward's sister Margaret. Not until the first course had been offered were they permitted to sit down, but the ladies in waiting remained kneeling for the full three hours which the banquet lasted, the Queen not deigning to utter a word to anyone. When the tables had been cleared for merrymaking, the Queen's mother resumed her kneeling posture before the Queen, and Princess Margaret, even while dancing, was careful to make many curtsies to Her Highness. 2

This vain queen and the luxury-loving Edward were beginning to create a court not only more lavish but more cultivated than its predecessors. It was elaborate in ceremony, gorgeous in velvet and satin costume, with ladies in linen-covered headdresses and men wearing shoes with "pikes," points so long that they were caught up at the knee by a golden chain. Disturbed by this riot of worldliness, the Pope sent a bull into England threatening with excommunication any cordwainer who made pikes more than two inches long; but the chronicler Gregory reports laconically, "Some men said that they would wear long pikes whether Pope will or nill, for they said the Pope's curse would not kill a fly. God amend this. And within a short time after some of the cord-wainers got privy seals and protections to make long pikes. . . ." 3

Through the royal chambers, bright with arras, fresh with strewn flowers and rushes, music was always sounding—trumpeters and clarionists blazoned forth the occasions of state, minstrels sang to shawms and lutes, bandsmen played viols and rebecs and sackbuts, and a great chorus of sixty voices sang motets and Masses in the royal chapel.

WARWICK

There was some show of learning as well as luxury. Anthony Woodville, Lord Scales, was not only the most accomplished jouster of the day but a gifted amateur of letters, and Warwick's brother George, the Chancellor, found time to be a bibliophile and patron, employing a Greek scribe to copy the works of Plato for him and presenting valuable books to the universities. By far the most notable aristocratic scholar of the age was John Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester and Constable of England. He had traveled to Jerusalem; he knew Venice, Florence, and Rome; for almost two years he had studied at Padua; and he had returned to England with a precious cargo of manuscripts — Lucretius, Suetonius, Tacitus, Sallust, and others. He had himself translated a number of Latin works, of which Caxton was later to print two. Bold-featured, with protruding eyes, he was, for all his learning, a man of rigor. As Constable he was earning the epithet of "Butcher of England." On his way to execution in the fall of 1470 he maintained that he had acted for the good of the state, and while the mob clamored for his blood, he calmly requested the headsman to perform his office with three strokes "in honour of the Trinity." Cold, enigmatic, tinged with cruelty, and responsive to the new statecraft of Italy, he was more likely to weep at a torn manuscript than at a severed head. 4