Read Cold Case Reopened: The Princes in the Tower Online
Authors: Mark Garber
Rotherham and Stanley released. Stanley created steward of the king's household.
5
th
July 1483
The king and queen parade through London and stay the night at Westminster.
6
th
July 1483
The king and queen are crowned in Westminster Abbey by the Archbishop of Canterbury.
The Archbishop fails to attend the celebrations afterwards.
After the 6
th
July there were no confirmed sightings of the princes. Regretfully an exact date for the last sighting is indeterminate, but it is probably closer to Richard III's accession to the throne on the 26
th
June than his coronation on the 6
th
July.
Presented with a timeline of events such as the one above, I would have no hesitation in arresting Richard III on suspicion of abduction and false imprisonment of the princes. However, there are no grounds to consider murder has occurred at this stage.
With a cold case such as this we don't have the luxury of being able to question witnesses or suspects for hours on end. It is in these interviews that the police really manage to get a feel for the suspects. The way they handle the questioning is always key. Being able to read body language gives you a considerable advantage. The way a suspect shifts in their seat, or coughs, or the look in their eyes can tell you so much. An hour alone with a suspect within the four walls of an interview room can convince an investigating officer that the person is guilty. Equally, it can convince the officer of the suspect's innocence. There may not be evidence to support the officer's inclination at this stage, but it is still a powerful tool that the police use every day. All of that advantage is going to be missing from this case.
What is clear is that the princes were simply pawns in a massive power struggle between Richard III and the Woodvilles. It is a terrible thing when children are used in this way. However, this is no modern divorce case with the parents being at war and using the children to hurt the other party. This is a political situation where the victor will win everything and the loser gets nothing and could possibly lose their life. The feelings, emotions or thoughts of the two boys would have had no impact or consequence to any of the principal players.
Another thing that tends to grab me from the timeline is that none of the three principal players, Gloucester, Buckingham or Elizabeth Woodville, seem to be likeable characters. I know that this a matter that is very hard to judge without an actual meeting with them or reading further evidence about them, but at first glance all three seem to be cold, calculating and without scruples.
Elizabeth Woodville made no attempt to inform Richard about the death of his brother. Richard had been unfalteringly loyal to her husband in life, and there was little to suggest that he wouldn't be so in death. Surely this would have been a simple act of courtesy to her brother-in-law, a courtesy that she personally would not have even had to handle, as it would simply have been delegated to another party to deal with.
However, understanding that Edward had granted Richard the
“Protectorship”,
she was determined that she wouldn't lose any of her power. The easiest way to stop Richard from taking the position that had been granted to him was to fail to inform him of his brothers death. Her aim was simply to get her son to London as quickly as possible and for the coronation to occur. Legally, the position of protector only existed until the coronation. Getting the coronation over and done with as soon as possible would mean that Richard would never actually become Protector. Elizabeth believed she would then be able to control the council as she wished.
When matters didn't go her way, rather than staying and fighting for her son, she chose self-preservation by fleeing to sanctuary. It could be said that she could immediately see that the young king was under Gloucester's control, but she could protect her other children in sanctuary. This flight does seem strange to me. It would surely have been hard for Gloucester to take any steps to harm a dowager queen and the mother of the present king. By isolating herself and her family away from court she immediately eroded her own influence and allowed Gloucester to proceed the way he desired without significant opposition. If she had remained at court she could have made demands that the young king stay with her or at the very least that she be allowed to visit him. It would have been hard for the council (even with Gloucester at its head) to deny a boy access to his mother after recently losing his father.
We must look at Elizabeth Woodville's character and what her driving forces were. The dowager queen was a woman that simply loved power. She was very influential at her husband's court and she often guided Edward's policy decisions. On becoming queen she quickly moved to ensure her family benefited by arranging marriages for her siblings with the leading and richest figures in English nobility. Remember, the Woodvilles were not considered to be from the elite in society so these marriages would have been significantly better than they would have expected. However, this action helped alienate the Woodvilles amongst the nobility, who saw them as nothing more than common chancers. Buckingham in particular resented the fact he had been made a ward of the queen and was then forced to marry her sister, Catherine.
Power can do strange things to people. We know from history that when people have a taste of the power that Elizabeth Woodville had previously enjoyed, they find it hard to give up. We can look at numerous dictators from the present and recent past to illustrate this. A number of British Prime Ministers have said that they would give up anything to be back in office. Power can be a drug like no other; it can be just as strong a motivational factor as wealth or love. We should never underestimate what people might do for power.
At the time of his brother's death Gloucester was already an enormously powerful man. He was the second largest landowner in the country and the man who effectively ruled the north of England. In many ways he was king of his own domain. Simply put, Richard was no stranger to power. Some writers have suggested that Edward IV named his brother as protector on his deathbed. However, as the whole court, and Richard himself in Yorkshire, already seemed to know, if Edward died, his brother would become Protector, and it would seem the decision had been made at some point previously. Richard was the obvious choice for the role. He was the king's brother, he would be uncle to the new king, he was of the royal bloodline, he had proved himself loyal time after time and he was a highly experienced and capable ruler. If you look around the court, there was no-one, the queen included, who could match Richard's impeccable credentials for leadership.
It is hard to see where the animosity between Richard and Elizabeth Woodville comes from. Why did Elizabeth want to prevent Richard from becoming protector? Was it simply because she didn't want to give up power? Remember the position of
“protector”
only legally existed until the coronation. Even if the queen had not tried to rush the coronation through on May 4
th
it would have only been a matter of months at most before the event would have occurred. Why would Elizabeth object to a capable ruler in charge of her son's kingdom for such a short period of time? It is clear that she believed Richard would not want to give up the role once he had tasted it.
Elizabeth could not fault her brother-in-law for his loyalty to Edward IV. Why did she believe that Richard would be anything less than loyal to his son? Historians have suggested that Richard blamed Elizabeth for Edward's insistence that he had to execute their other brother, George Duke of Clarence. However, Richard was an intelligent man, he was fully aware of George's character and his history of rebelling against the king. It was clear that if Edward did not act, Clarence would have repeated his actions from the past. Elizabeth could not really have been blamed for George's execution. This could not be the reason for the animosity. Although we have no evidence of the fact, it could be the case that Elizabeth objected to Edward IV about his wish for Richard to become protector. In turn Edward is likely to have discussed this with his brother. Richard must have known that it was going to be a battle between himself and Elizabeth for ultimate power in England.
From the very moment of Edward IV's death Elizabeth did everything in her power to prevent Richard ever becoming Protector. She clearly had a suspicion that once Richard tasted the power of the protectorate then he would not easily give it up. She knew that once Richard was installed, then her own influence would fall and she knew there were plenty of people within the nobility that resented the influences of the Woodville clan on the government of the kingdom. She must stop Richard becoming Protector at all costs.
Richard's actions on the road show me a man that would stop at nothing to achieve his aims. He knows that his brother entrusted both the government of the country and the care of the new king to him. This is a key point: the protectorate wasn't just about governing the kingdom, it was also about the care of the young king. But Richard knew from Hastings' secret communications that the Woodvilles were doing everything in their power to prevent him taking up this role.
The steps he took to take the young king into his personal care were brutal. Rivers had been the boy's long-term guardian. In many ways he would have been closer to Edward V than his father. The young king's mind must have been in turmoil at Stony Stratford. The death of a father is obviously an emotional time, but when you couple that with the fact that the crown has just been thrust on your head, at a time when being king actually made you a target, the young man would already have had a huge sense of unease. In addition, you have been forced to leave your home to head to London and uncertainty. Then, the uncle that you hardly know appears from nowhere and arrests your other uncle that you are particularly close to. Finally, your half brother and loyal servants are arrested as well. Here you are, the King of England, but you are unable to do a thing about the events that are unfolding around you. You would be left feeling powerless, weak and afraid.
Richard must have known the effect his actions would have had on the king. Yet he did them anyway. At this stage it simply isn't clear that he planned to take the throne himself. It could be said that he was simply exercising what he believed to be his rights and the wishes of his dead brother. However, it is probably true that once he took the king into his “care” that there was no other course he could have taken. The events would have been remembered by Edward V and at some point he would probably have had revenge on his mind.
Richard's treatment of Hastings is another demonstration of how he bulldozed through anyone that stood in his way. Without Hastings writing to Richard in the first place and then keeping him up to date with communications from court, it is highly likely that the Woodvilles' plans for a quick coronation would have succeeded. Yet when Hastings refused to support Richard's claim for the throne, he was dealt with in a manner that must rank as one of the most ruthless executions in English history. Hastings, a friend of the Protector, a loyal councillor and a peer of the realm was denied the right to be tried by his peers. Instead, his head was thrust onto a block of wood on Tower Green and removed with an axe. There are conflicting reports as to whether or not he was granted access to a priest prior to his death. Richard's message to others on the council was clear, if you stand in my way then you will be dealt with harshly.
It is unclear at which point Richard decided that he would take the crown and what made him do so. If Edward V had been crowned then he probably feared the eventual rise of the Woodville clan once more. It was possible that Edward V could have come into his majority at just 14. Even if the official role of protector had been extended after the coronation this could have meant Richard would have less than two years in power and then he may have had to have suffer at the hands of the Woodvilles.
We can see from the timeline that Richard stayed a while at Baynard's Castle. This was the home of Richard's mother Lady Cecily Neville. Some fictional works depict Lady Cecily as resenting Edward IV and even more so his choice of queen. They even have her publicly confirming that Edward was a bastard. There is no evidence that this ever occurred. However, Lady Cecily was known as
“Proud Cis”,
and she probably felt the same about the Woodvilles as the other established families. Very few people liked the idea of a minority rule; England was at war and needed a strong and proven ruler. It could have been that Lady Cecily spoke with Richard about him taking the crown while he stayed at her home.
Another demonstration of the bulldozer attitude occurred on the 16
th
June when Richard surrounded the abbey with troops. Inside, Elizabeth Woodville must have known that if she did not voluntarily give up her son the troops would enter and her son (and perhaps her daughters and herself) would be taken by force. Richard did have previous form in this area, when he and Edward broke sanctuary after the battle of Tewkesbury to remove and execute the Lancastrian nobles sheltering inside.
Richard also shows a great deal of cunning and careful calculation in the months after his brother's death. After ensuring that he gained the Protectorship that he believed was his right in the first place, he then moved on to actually claiming the crown himself. It could well have been that he did truly believe that a pre-contract did exist between Edward IV and Eleanor Butler. With Edward's reputation with women, this was something that could be easily believed. The young Edward could have promised marriage simply to get a woman into bed. If this were the case, then Richard would have believed he was acting legally and correctly to take the crown.