The Murders of Richard III (2 page)

“These people all have the same names,” Jacqueline grumbled. “Edward, Elizabeth, Henry. Can't you call them Ethelbert or Francisco or something?”

“I could,” said Thomas coldly. “But those weren't their names. Stop griping and concentrate.”

Jacqueline reached for a cucumber sandwich. They were having the genuine English tea she had demanded, in the lounge of one of London's dignified old hotels. The chink of silverware
and the subdued rattle of china were no louder than the genteel murmuring voices of the other patrons.

“Edward the Fourth,” Thomas went on. “The Yorkist king—Richard's brother. Got that? Okay. Edward died at the early age of forty, worn out by riotous living. He left two sons. The eldest, on his father's death, became Edward the Fifth…” He ignored Jacqueline's grimace and went on relentlessly. “Yes, another Edward. He was only a kid—twelve years old, too young to rule alone. A protectorate was necessary; and the obvious candidate for the role of Protector was the kid's only paternal uncle, Edward the Fourth's younger brother—a brilliant soldier, a first-rate administrator, devoted to his wife and little son, loyal, honest, popular—Richard, Duke of Gloucester.”

“Three cheers and a roll of drums,” said Jacqueline. “Gee whiz, Thomas, to think that all these years I've had the wrong idea about Richard the Third. He was a swell guy. I'm surprised they haven't canonized him. Beloved husband, fond father, admirable brother…. Loving uncle?”

“You have a tongue like a viper.”

“Thanks. Look here, Thomas, what is the one thing people do know about Richard the Third—if they know anything? He was the wicked uncle
par excellence. He murdered his nephews—the two little princes in the tower—and usurped the throne that was rightfully theirs.”

“He did not!” Thomas shouted.

Heads turned. A waiter dropped a fork.

Thomas subsided, flushing.

“Damn it, Jacqueline, that is the most fascinating, frustrating unsolved murder in history. There is no evidence. Do you know that? Absolutely no proof whatsoever that Richard had those kids killed. Only rumor and slander on one side—”

“And on the other?”

“Richard's character. The otherwise inexplicable behavior of other people who were involved. Simple common sense.”

“I wouldn't say his character was exactly—”

“I mean his real character, not the one the Tudor historians invented. Everything that is known about Richard's actions supports the picture of a man of rare integrity, kindness, and courage. At the age of eighteen he commanded armies, and led them well. He administered the northern provinces for his brother the king, and won lasting loyalty for the house of York by his scrupulous fairness and concern for the rights of the ordinary citizen against rapacious nobles. He supported the arts. He was deeply religious. As for his personal life—oh, he sired a few bastards,
everybody did in those days, but after he was married, to a girl he had known since they were children together, he remained faithful to her while she lived and mourned her sincerely when she died. The death of his little son threw him into a frenzy of grief. In a time of turn-coating and treachery, he never once failed in his loyalty to his brother, Edward the Fourth. There was a third brother, the Duke of Clarence, who tried to push his own claim to the throne and even took up arms against Edward. Richard persuaded Clarence to come back into the fold, and when Edward finally got exasperated with Clarence's plotting and ordered his execution, Richard was the only one who spoke up for Clarence.”

“That ain't the way I heard it,” said Jacqueline, eating the last sandwich.

“No, you heard the Tudor legend—the myth of the monster. By the time Sir Thomas More wrote his biography of Richard, in the reign of Henry the Eighth, Richard was being accused of everything but barratry and arson. According to More, Richard murdered Henry the Sixth and Henry's son; his own wife; and his brother, the Duke of Clarence. He had his nephews smothered, usurped the throne, and decapitated a group of noblemen who objected to his activities.

“Modern historians admit that Richard was innocent of most of these charges. He did execute a few nobles, including some of the queen's Woodville relatives. He said they had plotted against his life, and there is no reason to doubt that they had. When Richard killed people he did it in broad daylight, with plenty of witnesses, and made no bones about it. But the little princes just…disappeared.”

“Very interesting. But what does all this have to do with the mysterious house party? You've been very cryptic about it, and I don't see—”

“I'll get to that. Stop looking wistfully at the waiter; I'm not going to order any more food, you've had enough for two people already. Pay attention. I'm not just trying to improve your knowledge of English history; all this has bearing on a very contemporary problem.

“We return, then, to the time right after Edward the Fourth died. Richard was in the north when it happened, at his favorite castle of Middleham. The new young king had his own household in Wales. At the news of his father's death he started for London, with his Woodville uncles—the queen had made sure her brothers had control of the heir to the throne—and an escort of two thousand men. Richard, on his way south for the funeral,
had only six hundred. He obviously didn't anticipate trouble.

“But somewhere along the way, he got word that the Woodvilles were planning to seize power and cut him out of the job of Protector. They may have planned to kill him. They virtually had to; he had the popular support and the legal rights they lacked, and he was not the sort of man to turn the other cheek.

“Two men warned Richard of what was happening. One was Lord Hastings, his brother's old friend and drinking companion. The other was the Duke of Buckingham, of royal descent himself, who had been forced to marry one of the queen's upstart sisters.

“Richard moved like lightning. He caught up with the young king's entourage, arrested the boy's Woodville relatives, and escorted young Edward to London. The queen rushed into church sanctuary, taking the other children with her. Later she was persuaded to let the younger boy join his royal brother. The two kids were lodged in the royal apartments in the Tower, which was the conventional place for kings to reside in before their coronations. Up to this time, Richard's behavior had been perfectly reasonable and forthright.”

“Richard the Forthright,” murmured Jacqueline.

Thomas pretended he had not heard.

“Then, around the middle of June 1483, all hell broke loose. England was astounded to learn that Edward the Fourth had never been married to Elizabeth Woodville. He had entered into a precontract with another lady, and in those days a precontract was as binding as a marriage ceremony. That meant that all Edward the Fourth's children were bastards, and that young Edward the Fifth had no right to the throne.

“The Tudor historians claim Richard invented this story, but all the evidence indicates that it was true. The man who broke the news was no fly-by-night flunky of Richard's; he was one of the great prelates of England, the Bishop of Bath and Wells. The story was accepted by Parliament and embodied in a formal decree,
Titulus Regius,
that proclaimed Richard's right to the throne. Both his brothers were dead; Clarence's children were barred from the succession because their father had been executed as a traitor; and if Edward's children were illegitimate, the rightful heir was Richard himself.”

“Oh, that's all right, then,” said Jacqueline. “If the boys were bastards, Richard had every right to smother them.”

“Damn it, he didn't smother them!” Thomas felt his face reddening. He got control of himself with an effort. “The boys were seen, playing in the Tower, in the summer of 1483. Except for a few doubtful references in the official royal account books, that is the last anyone ever heard of them.

“In 1485, two years later, Henry Tudor landed in England. Thanks to the treachery of the Stanleys, Richard was killed at Bosworth and Henry became King Henry the Seventh.

“Now, what would you have done if you had been Henry? Here you are, occupying a shaky throne in a country seething with potential rebellion. Your claim to the throne comes via your mother, who is descended from an illegitimate child of a king's younger son. There are a dozen people still alive who have stronger claims than that. The man you succeeded is dead, but he is by no means forgotten, especially in the north of England. You propose to strengthen your claim by marrying young Elizabeth, Richard's niece, but a lot of people think she is illegitimate; and if she is not, then her brothers, if they are still alive, are the real heirs to the throne. There have been rumors that the boys were killed, but nobody knows for sure what happened to them.

“If you had been Henry, surely one of your first
moves would have been to find out the truth about the princes. The Tower of London is in your hands. You would look for those pathetic little bodies, and question the attendants who were on duty when they were killed. The Tower is a huge fortress, full of people—servants and warders and scrubwomen and cooks and officials. There are dozens of people still alive who must know what happened. You can't eliminate two state prisoners without someone noticing that they have vanished between sunset and sunrise.

“Henry did nothing of the sort. I don't think he could—because the boys were still alive when Henry entered London in 1485. But they wouldn't stay alive, not for long.”

Jacqueline nibbled a piece of bread and butter.

“Someone confessed to the murder, didn't he?” she asked tentatively.

“Yes—a man named Sir James Tyrrell.
Twenty years later,
after the supposed murderer had been arrested on another charge. The confession was never published. It was not made public until after Tyrrell's execution on another charge. The version given in Sir Thomas More's biography of Richard bristles with contradictions, misstatements, and downright lies. It is such a palpable tissue of—”

He broke off, eyeing Jacqueline with a sudden
wild surmise. She stared owlishly back at him over the rims of her glasses; and Thomas, who seldom did so, swore imaginatively.

“You know all this! You, who claim to have read every detective story ever printed…Of course you know it. You've read
The Daughter of Time.
”

“Sure.”

“Then why didn't you say so?”

“I lo-o-ove to hear you talk,” said Jacqueline silkily.

“There are times when I could kill you.”

“I read all Josephine Tey's mysteries,” Jacqueline said. “
The Daughter of Time
is absolutely brilliant. But it's a novel, not a work of serious history. It is far from unbiased.”

“What else have you read?” Thomas asked with resignation.

Jacqueline reached for the last bun.

“Once a librarian, always a librarian,” she said, nibbling. “When I read historical fiction I always check to see what's real and what's made up. Tey got her material from one of Richard's apologists, and she is just as biased as the Tudor historians, only on the other side—Saint Richard the Third, full of love and peace and flowers. I read some historical novels about Richard,” she added, finishing the bun with a snap of her white teeth.
“Most of them portrayed him as a sensitive martyr, wringing his slender hands and sobbing. I doubt that he cried much.”

“You are really—”

“So now we come to the house party,” said Jacqueline. She eyed the crumbs on the empty plate regretfully, and went on, “I assume the party has to do with your hero. What is it, a meeting of some organization? There is a group that is concerned with Richard's rehabilitation. They call themselves Ricardians, and are not to be confused with the followers of the economist, David Ricardo. They put
In Memoriam
notices in the
Times
on the anniversary of the Battle of Bosworth.”

Jacqueline's tone gave this otherwise innocuous statement implications that made Thomas's eyes narrow with exasperation. His sense of humor triumphed, however, and he smiled sheepishly.

“There are several groups interested in Richard the Third. I suspect ours is the freakiest of them all.”

“That's nice.”

“You needn't be sarcastic.”

“I'm not being sarcastic. There is no happier outlet for our inherent aggressive instincts than the belligerent support of an unorthodox cause. I myself,” said Jacqueline proudly, “am a member of the friends of Jerome.” She watched Thomas sort through his capacious memory for potential
historic Jeromes, and added, “Jerome is a place, not a person. It's an absolutely marvelous ghost town in Arizona. It sits on top of an abandoned mine, and if we don't get busy, it is going to slide right down the hill into—”

“That's even crazier than our organization.”

“One attribute of eccentric groups is their lack of sympathy for other eccentrics. Tell me about Richard's friends.”

“Don't call us that. It's one of the names of the older organization from which we reneged when they denied Sir Richard's illegitimacy.”

Jacqueline had again produced her tatting. She studied it fixedly for several seconds before she looked at Thomas.

“Just say that again, Thomas. Slowly.”

“Our founder and president is Sir Richard Weldon,” Thomas explained. “He claims to be descended from one of Richard the Third's illegitimate children. The Richard the Third Society wouldn't accept his claim, in spite of well-documented—”

“Thomas!”

“Well, it could be true. Richard had several bastards; everybody did in those days.”

“That resolves all my doubts. You tempt me, Thomas,” Jacqueline said pensively. “I'd like to meet Sir Richard…Weldon. That isn't the department store?”