The History of England - Vols. 1 to 6 (171 page)

“Express your meaning, my friends, one way or other: When we apply to you on this occasion, it is merely from the regard which we bear to you. The lords and commons have sufficient authority, without your consent, to appoint a king: But I require you here to declare in plain terms, whether or not you will have the duke of Glocester for your sovereign.” After all these efforts, some of the meanest apprentices, incited by the protector’s and Buckingham’s servants, raised a feeble cry,
God save King
Richard:
l
The sentiments of the nation were now sufficiently declared: The voice of the people was the voice of God: And Buckingham, with the mayor, hastened to Baynard’s castle,

PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

324

http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/789

Online Library of Liberty: The History of England, vol. 2

where the protector then resided, that they might make him a 25th June.

tender of the crown.

When Richard was told, that a great multitude was in the court, he refused to appear to them, and pretended to be apprehensive for his personal safety: A circumstance taken notice of by Buckingham, who observed to the citizens, that the prince was ignorant of the whole design. At last, he was persuaded to step forth, but he still kept at some distance; and he asked the meaning of their intrusion and importunity.

Buckingham told him, that the nation was resolved to have him for king: The protector declared his purpose of maintaining his loyalty to the present sovereign, and exhorted them to adhere to the same resolution. He was told, that the people had determined to have another prince; and if he rejected their unanimous voice, they must look out for one, who would be more compliant.

This argument was too powerful to be resisted: He was prevailed The protector assumes on to accept of the crown: And he thenceforth acted as legitimate the throne.

and rightful sovereign.

This ridiculous farce was soon after followed by a scene truly Murder of Edward V.

tragical: The murder of the two young princes. Richard gave and of the duke of

orders to Sir Robert Brakenbury, constable of the Tower, to put York.

his nephews to death; but this gentleman, who had sentiments of honour, refused to have any hand in the infamous office. The tyrant then sent for Sir James Tyrrel, who promised obedience; and he ordered Brakenbury to resign to this gentleman the keys and government of the Tower for one night. Tyrrel, chusing three associates, Slater, Dighton, and Forest, came in the night-time to the door of the chamber where the princes were lodged; and sending in the assassins, he bade them execute their commission, while he himself staid without. They found the young princes in bed, and fallen into a profound sleep. After suffocating them with the bolster and pillows, they showed their naked bodies to Tyrrel, who ordered them to be buried at the foot of the stairs, deep in the ground, under a heap of stones.
m
These circumstances were all confessed by the actors, in the following reign; and they were never punished for the crime: Probably, because Henry, whose maxims of government were extremely arbitrary, desired to establish it as a principle, that the commands of the reigning sovereign ought to justify every enormity in those who paid obedience to them. But there is one circumstance not so easy to be accounted for: It is pretended, that Richard, displeased with the indecent manner of burying his nephews, whom he had murdered, gave his chaplain orders to dig up the bodies, and to inter them in consecrated ground; and as the man died soon after, the place of their burial remained unknown, and the bodies could never be found by any search, which Henry could make for them. Yet in the reign of Charles II. when there was occasion to remove some stones and to dig in the very spot, which was mentioned as the place of their first interment, the bones of two persons were there found, which by their size exactly corresponded to the age of Edward and his brother: They were concluded with certainty to be the remains of those princes, and were interred under a marble monument by orders of king Charles.
n
Perhaps, Richard’s chaplain had died before he found an opportunity of executing his master’s commands; and the bodies being supposed to be already removed, a diligent search was not made for them by Henry, in the place where they had been buried.

PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

325

http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/789

Online Library of Liberty: The History of England, vol. 2

RICHARD III

The first acts of Richard’s administration were to bestow rewards 1483.

on those who had assisted him in usurping the crown, and to gain by favours those, who, he thought, were best able to support his future government.

Thomas, lord Howard, was created duke of Norfolk; Sir Thomas Howard, his son, earl of Surry; lord Lovel, a viscount, by the same name; even lord Stanley was set at liberty and made steward of the houshold. This nobleman had become obnoxious by his first opposition to Richard’s views, and also by his marrying the countess dowager of Richmond, heir of the Somerset family; but sensible of the necessity of submitting to the present government, he feigned such zeal for Richard’s service, that he was received into favour, and even found means to be entrusted with the most important commands by that politic and jealous tyrant.

But the person, who, both from the greatness of his services, and the power and splendor of his family, was best intitled to favours under the new government, was the duke of Buckingham; and Richard seemed determined to spare no pains or bounty in securing him to his interests. Buckingham was descended from a daughter of Thomas of Woodstock, duke of Glocester, uncle to Richard II. and by this pedigree, he not only was allied to the royal family, but had claims for dignities as well as estates, of a very extensive nature. The duke of Glocester, and Henry earl of Derby, afterwards Henry IV. had married the two daughters and co-heirs of Bohun, earl of Hereford, one of the greatest of the ancient barons, whose immense property came thus to be divided into two shares. One was inherited by the family of Buckingham; the other was united to the crown by the house of Lancaster, and after the attainder of that royal line, was seized as legally devolved to them, by the sovereigns of the house of York. The duke of Buckingham laid hold of the present opportunity, and claimed the restitution of that portion of the Hereford estate, which had escheated to the crown, as well as of the great office of constable, which had long continued by inheritance in his ancestors of that family. Richard readily complied with these demands, which were probably the price stipulated to Buckingham for his assistance in promoting the usurpation. That nobleman was invested with the office of constable; he received a grant of the estate

of Hereford;o
many other dignities and honours were conferred upon him; and the king thought himself sure of preserving the fidelity of a man, whose interests seemed so closely connected with those of the present government.

But it was impossible, that friendship could long remain inviolate Duke of Buckingham between two men of such corrupt minds as Richard and the duke discontented.

of Buckingham. Historians ascribe their first rupture to the king’s refusal of making restitution of the Hereford estate; but it is certain from records, that he passed a grant for that purpose, and that the full demands of Buckingham were satisfied in this particular. Perhaps, Richard was soon sensible of the danger which might ensue from conferring such an immense property on a man of so turbulent a disposition, and afterwards raised difficulties about the execution of his own grant: Perhaps, he refused some other demands of Buckingham, whom he found it impossible to gratify for his past services: Perhaps, he resolved, according to the usual maxim of politicians, to seize the first opportunity of ruining this powerful subject, who had been the principal instrument of his own elevation; and the discovery of this PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

326

http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/789

Online Library of Liberty: The History of England, vol. 2

intention begat the first discontent in the duke of Buckingham. However this may be, it is certain, that the duke, soon after Richard’s accession, began to form a conspiracy against the government, and attempted to overthrow that usurpation, which he himself had so zealously contributed to establish.

Never was there in any country an usurpation more flagrant than that of Richard, or more repugnant to every principle of justice and public interest. His claim was entirely founded on impudent allegations, never attempted to be proved, some of them incapable of proof, and all of them implying scandalous reflections on his own family, and on the persons with whom he was the most nearly connected. His title was never acknowledged by any national assembly, scarcely even by the lowest populace to whom he appealed; and it had become prevalent merely for want of some person of distinction, who might stand forth against him, and give a voice to those sentiments of general detestation, which arose in every bosom. Were men disposed to pardon these violations of public right, the sense of private and domestic duty, which is not to be effaced in the most barbarous times, must have begotten an abhorrence against him; and have represented the murder of the young and innocent princes, his nephews, with whose protection he had been entrusted, in the most odious colours imaginable. To endure such a bloody usurper seemed to draw disgrace upon the nation, and to be attended with immediate danger to every individual, who was distinguished by birth, merit, or services. Such was become the general voice of the people; all parties were united in the same sentiments; and the Lancastrians, so long oppressed, and, of late, so much discredited, felt their blasted hopes again revived, and anxiously expected the consequences of these extraordinary events. The duke of Buckingham, whose family had been devoted to that interest, and who, by his mother, a daughter of Edmund, duke of Somerset, was allied to the house of Lancaster, was easily induced to espouse the cause of this party, and to endeavour the restoring of it to its ancient superiority.

Morton, bishop of Ely, a zealous Lancastrian, whom the king had imprisoned, and had afterwards committed to the custody of Buckingham, encouraged these sentiments; and by his exhortations the duke cast his eye towards the young earl of Richmond, as the only person who could free the nation from the tyranny of the present usurper.
p

Henry, earl of Richmond, was at this time detained in a kind of The earl of

honourable custody by the duke of Britanny; and his descent, Richmond.

which seemed to give him some pretensions to the crown, had been a great object of jealousy both in the late and in the present reign. John, the first duke of Somerset, who was grandson of John of Gaunt, by a spurious branch, but legitimated by act of parliament, had left only one daughter, Margaret; and his younger brother, Edmund, had succeeded him in his titles, and in a considerable part of his fortune. Margaret had espoused Edmund, earl of Richmond, half brother of Henry VI. and son of Sir Owen Tudor and Catharine of France, relict of Henry V. and she bore him only one son, who received the name of Henry, and who, after his father’s death, inherited the honours and fortune of Richmond. His mother, being a widow, had espoused in second marriage Sir Henry Stafford, uncle to Buckingham, and after the death of that gentleman, had married lord Stanley; but had no children by either of these husbands; and her son, Henry, was thus, in the event of her death, the sole heir of all her fortunes. But this was not the most considerable advantage, which he had reason to expect from her succession: He would represent the elder branch of PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

327

http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/789

Online Library of Liberty: The History of England, vol. 2

the house of Somerset; he would inherit all the title of that family to the crown; and though its claim, while any legitimate branch subsisted of the house of Lancaster, had always been much disregarded, the zeal of faction, after the death of Henry VI. and the murder of prince Edward, immediately conferred a weight and consideration upon it.

Edward IV. finding, that all the Lancastrians had turned their attention towards the young earl of Richmond, as the object of their hopes, thought him also worthy of his attention; and pursued him into his retreat in Britanny, whither his uncle, the earl of Pembroke, had carried him, after the battle of Teukesbury, so fatal to his party. He applied to Francis II. duke of Britanny, who was his ally, a weak but a good prince; and urged him to deliver up this fugitive, who might be the source of future disturbances in England: But the duke, averse to so dishonourable a proposal, would only consent, that, for the security of Edward, the young nobleman should be detained in custody; and he received an annual pension from England for the safe keeping or the subsistance of his prisoner. But towards the end of Edward’s reign, when the kingdom was menaced with a war both from France and Scotland, the anxieties of the English court with regard to Henry were much encreased; and Edward made a new proposal to the duke, which covered, under the fairest appearances, the most bloody and treacherous intentions. He pretended, that he was desirous of gaining his enemy, and of uniting him to his own family by a marriage with his daughter, Elizabeth; and he solicited to have him sent over to England, in order to execute a scheme, which would redound so much to his advantage. These pretences, seconded, as is supposed, by bribes to Peter Landais, a corrupt minister, by whom the duke was entirely governed, gained credit with the court of Britanny: Henry was delivered into the hands of the English agents: He was ready to embark: When a suspicion of Edward’s real design was suggested to the duke, who recalled his orders, and thus saved the unhappy youth from the imminent danger which hung over him.

These symptoms of continued jealousy in the reigning family of England both seemed to give some authority to Henry’s pretensions, and made him the object of general favour and compassion, on account of the dangers and persecutions to which he was exposed. The universal detestation of Richard’s conduct turned still more the attention of the nation towards Henry; and as all the descendants of the house of York were either women or minors, he seemed to be the only person, from whom the nation could expect the expulsion of the odious and bloody tyrant. But notwithstanding these circumstances, which were so favourable to him, Buckingham and the bishop of Ely well knew, that there would still lie many obstacles in his way to the throne; and that though the nation had been much divided between Henry VI. and the duke of York, while present possession and hereditary right stood in opposition to each other; yet, as soon as these titles were united in Edward IV. the bulk of the people had come over to the reigning family; and the Lancastrians had extremely decayed, both in numbers and in authority. It was therefore suggested by Morton, and readily assented to by the duke, that the only means of overturning the present usurpation, was to unite the opposite factions, by contracting a marriage between the earl of Richmond and the princess Elizabeth, eldest daughter of king Edward, and thereby blending together the opposite pretensions of their families, which had so long been the source of public disorders and convulsions. They were sensible, that the people were extremely PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)