Richard The Chird (23 page)

It was the unchecked greed and arrogance of the Woodvilles; it was the habitual debauchery into which Edward had sunk in the company of the genial, brave, and corrupt Lord Hastings; it was the enervating tension of intrigue in the royal Household— it was these, Richard felt, that had robbed him of his brother and his brother of his greatness. 20 *

It was the court.

The court was like a tropical garden not altogether reclaimed from jungle: overheated, luxuriant in blooms of pageantry and the varicolored plumage of tilting knights, rustling with the endless whisperings of faction, dense with suspicions and half-hidden hatreds.

Though the Queen and her kindred gave the court its dominant tone, Edward had long since ceased to be faithful to his wife. He took delight in jesting that he had three concubines "which in three diverse properties diversely excelled, one the merriest, another the wiliest, the third the holiest harlot in the r£alm." The last two moved from the King's bed into oblivion. The first was the woman who captured not only the King's fancy but the King's heart: Mistress Jane Shore, wife of a prosperous London mercer. "For many he had, but her he loved." She gladdened the last years of his life and it may even be that to her he remained faithful. Their liaison began, apparently, about a year after Edward's return from France—if any significance can be attached to an entry on the Patent Rolls for December 4, 1476, which bestowed the King's protection upon William Shore, citizen of London, and his servants, with all his lands, goods, and possessions in England and elsewhere. It was by her charm as much as by her body that Jane Shore held him. She was intelligent, witty, merry of temper, and very warmhearted. "Where the King took displeasure she would mitigate and appease his mind; where men w r ere out of favour, she would bring them in his grace . . . either for none or very small rewards, and those rather gay than rich." It appears that Lord Hastings and the Marquess of Dorset loved her too; but out of loyalty, or discretion, they for the time being kept their passion secret. To the lighthearted Jane, Richard must have appeared a stern and doubtless fearful figure; as, to him, she was a bawd and thus a part of what had diminished his brother's glory. At Westminster, the man of the moors was an Israelite in Babylon. 21 *

That which made rank the smoldering Italianate atmosphere of court was the bitter, covert feud between the Woodvilles and the old nobility, who hated their insolence and scorned their pretensions. Young Henry Stafford, second Duke of Buckingham, loathed the Queen because as a stripling under her guardianship, he had been forced to marry her sister Katherine and to continue living for some years in her household. It was Lord Hastings, however, who led the opposition to the Queen and her kindred, mostly because he found himself menaced by their

enmity. On one occasion, by means of an accusation Earl Rivers brought against him, he was, according to More, "for a while (but it lasted not long) far fallen into the King's indignation and stood in great fear of himself." Rivers hated Hastings because in 1471 the King had taken the captaincy of Calais from him and given it to the Lord Chamberlain; Marquess Dorset hated Hastings because they were strenuous competitors to be the King's chief boon companion and quarreled and deceived each other over their mistresses; the Queen hated Hastings because he was "secretly familiar with the King in wanton company," and because he wielded great influence as Edward's dearest friend. Round these un-Homeric combatants whirled a cloud of timeservers and talebearers, haughty retainers and spying servants. It was in the deadly tangles of this silken web that the King was being parted from his greatness and Clarence had been parted from his life. 22

As Edward's health worsened, the severity of his rule and the deterioration of his will increased; his inability to take decisive action in the conduct of the Scots war was matched by the irresolution of his diplomacy. Louis XI had caught him on the horns of a dilemma from which he longed to extricate himself, but instead he remained fretfully passive while time inexorably slipped away. The heiress of Burgundy, Mary, had married Maximilian, son of the German Emperor. Young and vigorous, Maximilian was a general of talent, but he had no money of his own and his father could spare him no soldiers. Already King Louis had swallowed up the Duchy of Burgundy, overrun much of the county of Artois; he continued to press remorselessly upon the crumbling frontiers of Flanders, even threatening Calais. Racked by misgivings, Edward watched the unequal contest, anxious to help Burgundy, his greatest ally and the bulwark of English trade, but unwilling to lose the fifty thousand crowns a year which Louis paid him. While Maximilian pleaded with growing desperation for aid, Louis used honeyed words and extended his truce with Edward to last one year beyond the demise of whichever of them died first. Edward did nothing, feebly-hoping that Louis, who had had two attacks of apoplexy, would

soon die or that he could be persuaded to accept reasonable terms from Maximilian.

While Edward was entertaining Richard during the Christmas season of 1482, tidings from across the sea confirmed his worst fears. Beaten to his knees, Maximilian of Burgundy made peace with Louis XI on December 23. By this Treaty of Arras, Maximilian ^ agreed that his daughter Margaret should marry the Dauphin of France and bring Louis as her marriage portion the counties of Artois and Burgundy. Not only was England's surest friend enfeebled, its Prince committed to give no more aid to English pretensions to France, but before the world Louis had flouted the Princess Elizabeth, who, he had promised and sworn again, was to have become the Dauphin's bride. Edward knew that he would never again see the color of Louis' money, and he would soon learn that French corsairs were boldly thrusting into the Channel. His diplomacy had collapsed.

In his agony of mind, Edward turned, as he had so often turned before, to the faithful brother, whose recent victory had providentially given him the means of palliating his subjects' discontent and his own frustration. With Burgundy helpless, it was, for the time being, impossible to attempt retaliation against Louis! Richard counseled his brother to press the war in Scotland to a triumphant conclusion. A firm peace would not only secure the border and end a serious drain on the resources of the kingdom, but it might even lead to enlisting the Scots as allies against France. 23 *

Shaken in health, humiliated, leaning upon his brother for assurance and support, Edward was happy to accept Richard's counsel. When Parliament met on January 20, it immediately showed itself ready to follow Richard's counsel too. He seemed, in fact, to bear the weight of the kingdom upon his shoulders. The Commons chose for their Speaker John Wode, undersecretary of the Treasury and a friend of Richard's. On February 18, after praising the martial exploits of the Duke of Gloucester, Northumberland, Stanley, and other captains, they approved a tax on aliens for the defense of the realm. Three days before, they had granted the King a tax for the prosecution of the war,

excepting from it, at Richard's request, the counties of Westmorland, Cumberland, Northumberland, and York because these had borne so heavy a share of the late campaign. The most remarkable enactment of the Parliament, however, was the guerdon it bestowed upon Richard of Gloucester. 24

He, and his heirs after him, were granted permanent possession of the wardens-hip of the West Marches. To support this great hereditary authority, Richard received the castle, constable-ship, and fee farm of the city of Carlisle and all the King's lands and manors, the King's customary fines, fees, forfeits, profits, wreck of sea, and the like, and the right to appoint the sheriff and escheator, in Cumberland County. Furthermore, since Richard, "by his manifold and diligent labours and devoirs" had subdued more than thirty miles of Scots border lands, much of which he had brought under Edward's control, and since more of such lands "he intendeth, and with God's grace is like, to get and subdue hereafter," he was to enjoy possession of these lands and all others he could win from the Scots above the West Marches, and he was given the power to make Scots "denizens" of England "by writing under his seal."

It was nothing less than a great county palatine Richard was given, created out of Cumberland County and the Scots Marches, a hereditary appanage, which, though it owed obedience to the English Crown, was well-nigh an autonomous principality.

Such a grant must undoubtedly prove, in the long run, detrimental to the interest of the kingdom. For Richard, however, it represented the crown of his long labors in the North and solved the problem of how a king's brother can create a life of his own that offers scope for his talents and occupation for his energies. The hard experience of his whole lifetime had shaped his desire for this gift. It was impossible to be safe without being strong. He wanted to make himself and his little son independent of the fierce jealousies of court and secure against the power of the Woodvilles, who already controlled the Prince of Wales and might someday, therefore, attempt to control the realm. This imposing grant clearly reflected Richard's ambition; it also clearly defined the limit of his ambition.

Not long after Parliament concluded its business on February 20, Richard bade his brother farewell and set out for the North. It was the last time he ever saw King Edward. On March 6 he reached York, to be welcomed by the Aldermen in violet and the Council of the Twenty-four in blue, and heaped with the usual gifts of wine and food. 25 He was a prince of the blood and they were but commoners, these merchants and artisans, and yet perhaps they were his best friends—sober like himself and hard-working; responsible governors of men.

He left them soon and rode northward toward the swelling moors of Wensleydale. Despite his great offices and his triumphs, he appears a lonely figure as he travels across the sweep of Yorkshire land and sky. During his thirty years he had endured a lifetime of violence and known but little rest Much that was dear to him had been lost: the invincible young warrior named Edward . . . Warwick . . . faithful Montagu . . . Clarence. . . . Gazing into the faces of the Woodvilles during the recent Christmas mummings, how could he help remembering his wild, rash brother, moldering now behind the altar of Tewkesbury Abbey?

Upward into the hills Richard rode, a figure slight of build and a little less than normal height; his face more memorable than handsome, a rather thin face of strongly marked but harmonious features: eyes direct and earnest, shadowed by care; a forthright nose; a chin remarkable for the contrast of its bold structure with its delicate molding. The face suggests the whole man, a frail body compelled to the service of a powerful will. 26 * There is a veil of darkness upon him. With half his deeds a man of vivid personality like Clarence or Warwick would have created twice the blaze of fame. Though the kingdom resounds with his praise, he remains, to most of it, unknown. He has no brilliant smile to make hearts beat high. What he gets, he earns. The men he has won are the men of the North, who have served with him in battle and known his justice in times of peace.

Only, perhaps, when he has ridden into the courtyard of Mid-dleham Castle and mounted the steps of the great keep will his face light up, as he catches his first glimpse of Anne and his delicate little Prince.

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Deathbed of a King*

KING EDWARD: O God, I fear thy justice 'will take hold On me, and you, and mine . . .

ON Wednesday, April 9, 1483, news came coursing from Westminster to Ludgate and then raced through the narrow ways of London: Edward the King had breathed his last. Soon the bells of the great Abbey began to toll. Their funeral clangor was caught up by the hundred churches within and without the city ... by St. Dunstan-in-the-West and St. Martin-in-the-Fields and the Priory of St. John at Clerkenwell ... by St. Olave's from across the river in Southwark ... by the parish churches within the walls, St. Andrew Undershaft and St. Peter in Cheap and St. Vedast and St. Mary Woolchurch . . . and by the brazen strokes outtonguing them all of St. Paul's on Ludgate Hill. Citizens had clustered along the streets to talk, the low-voiced talk of grave and anxious men. Aldermen in fur-trimmed gowns of scarlet made their way solemnly to the Guildhall. On the river, splendid barges moved upstream: the magnates and

the princes of the Church then in the city were being rowed to Westminster.

The King had been ill only about a week. A day or two after Easter (March 30) he had accompanied a party of courtiers going a-fishing. Overexerting himself in the damps of the fickle spring weather, he had apparently collapsed, perhaps from a stroke of apoplexy or an attack of acute indigestion. Though a false report of his death had reached York as early as April 6, the King had rallied from his seizure, and those about him found no reason to think that he was mortally stricken. Yet his illness lingered; daily he grew weaker; he quietly told his intimates that he was dying. Somehow, his once magnificent constitution had at last failed him. 1 *