Richard III and the Murder in the Tower Read online

  The vital question is whether Richard himself exhibited any evidence of premeditation in respect to what was to happen.47 The production of a written document outlining Hastings’ transgressions shortly after his execution does indeed argue for a degree of premeditation; especially if the document was as extensive and as carefully created as it has been represented to be. However, with respect to who might have possessed such knowledge, we shall need to explore further. The actual account of the meeting is relatively straightforward. Richard met with the assembled Council at around 9 o’clock in the morning. From More’s account, he appeared to be in good spirits and even asked Morton, then Bishop of Ely, for ‘a mess of strawberries’ from his garden in Holborn. Happy to comply with this innocuous request, the bishop must presumably have sent a servant off to Holborn, a round trip of just over three miles and conservatively 30–40 minutes on horseback for the whole journey, including the picking of the strawberries48.

  Sometime around 9.30 a.m. or a little later, Richard appears to have excused himself from the Council, and then we have a vital hour in which a significant change clearly took place. Again, one’s opinion of Richard is largely coloured by whether one chooses to believe that the whole of that morning’s actions followed some specific, premeditated plan, or whether one views Richard’s actions as a spontaneous response to vital information revealed to him during this critical hour. Irrespective of one’s persuasion on this issue, Richard returned to the meeting with a ‘wonderfully sour angry countenance, knitting the brows, frowning and fretting and gnawing on his lips …’49 He was clearly deeply disturbed and asked the assembled members of the Council what would persons deserve who plotted his destruction, as the Protector of the realm and the brother of and uncle to kings? Obviously, his disposition seriously affected those present, but it was Hastings who answered that such individuals should be punished as traitors. It is Hastings’ confidence in speaking out at this critical point that again confirms that Hastings himself has little to no inkling of what was to come. Richard then referred explicitly to the Woodville plot and the plan by the queen and her adherents to deprive him of his rightful place. More notes that some of the Council were ‘abashed’ at this observation, especially those who favoured the queen. However, Hastings, as an ardent opponent of the Woodville faction, was reportedly secretly pleased by this revelation, although a little disconcerted that he had not been taken into the Protector’s confidence before the resumption of the meeting. But then things changed considerably for Hastings.50

  It is Hastings himself who was immediately accused of betraying Richard and a melee occurred in the council chamber after the cry of ‘Treason.’ Some armed individuals, obviously prepared for a signal, entered the chamber. A scuffle ensued and a number of individuals were arrested, but it was Hastings who bore the brunt of Richard’s anger. He was summarily executed on Tower Green, ‘apone noon,’ on a log that happened to be there but was not designed for the purpose.51 The commentaries on Richard’s actions and the execution of Hastings are direct and uniformly uncomplimentary to say the least. The Great Chronicle reported that Hastings was dispatched ‘without any process of law or lawful examination,’ while the continuator of the Croyland Chronicle was somewhat more oriented to the political nature of events. This individual reported that:

  In the meanwhile, the lord Hastings, who seemed to wish in every way to serve the two dukes and to be desirous of earning their favour, was extremely elated at these changes to which the affairs of the world are so subject, and was in the habit of saying that hitherto nothing whatever had been done except the transferring of the government of the kingdom from two of the queen’s blood to two more powerful persons of the king’s; and this, too, effected without any slaughter, or indeed causing as much blood to be shed as would be produced by the cut of a finger. In the course, however, of a very few days after the utterance of these words, this extreme of joy of his supplanted with sorrow. For, the day previously, the Protector had, with singular adroitness, divided the council, so that one part met in the morning at Westminster, and the other at the Tower of London, where the king was. The lord Hastings, on the thirteenth day of the month of June, being the sixth day of the week, on coming to the Tower to join the council, was, by order of the Protector, beheaded. Two distinguished prelates, also, Thomas, archbishop of York, and John, bishop of Ely, being out of respect for their order, held exempt from capital punishment, were carried prisoners to different castles in Wales. The three strongest supporters of the new king being thus removed without judgment or justice, and all the rest of his faithful subjects fearing the like treatment, the two dukes did thenceforth just as they pleased.52

  The Archbishop of York, Thomas Rotherham, was placed under the guardianship of James Tyrell and committed to the Tower. The Bishop of Ely, John Morton53 (later cardinal and Henry VII’s Lord Chancellor), was put in the custody of the Duke of Buckingham. Most Ricardians would, I think agree that Richard would have done rather better to have confined Hastings and executed Morton54 rather than the other way around. The suggestion of contemporary commentators is that the latter two were saved by their status as clergymen and this is an issue to which we shall return later. In addition to these individuals, Lord Stanley, along with Oliver King55 was also detained, and John Forster imprisoned. Again, these actions pertain to the central contention of the present work and will be discussed in further detail. Jane Shore, who presumably was not present at the events happening in the Tower that day, was rather harshly treated by Richard. Her possessions were confiscated, she was imprisoned and subsequently forced to do public penance two days later. The reason why Richard enforced this action is also a key question in any explanation of the events of that day. One key piece of information has been reported which appears to render support for the notion of the premeditation of the acts of this fateful morning. Apparently, some few hours after the execution of Hastings, a proclamation was sent out through heralds across the city to scotch rumours and gossip among the general public. It was said that this proclamation was so long and detailed and so readily available after the event that it must have been drawn up before. If true, this would show evidence of premeditation. But premeditation on behalf of whom? It has always naturally been assumed that Richard had this document drawn up earlier. However, I shall seek to challenge this interpretation, although not the notion of premeditation or the existence of the proclamation itself.

  Hastings was remembered fondly by several of the contemporary and near-contemporary commentators. For example, Polydore Vergil’s encomium says his ‘bountifulness and liberality, much beloved of the common people, bearing great sway among all sorts of men and persons of great reputation.’ More, never a lover of Richard and always wary with respect to Hastings himself, notes that he was ‘a good knight and a gentle … a loving man and passing well-loved. Very faithful and trusty enough, trusting too much.’ The Great Chronicle speculates on the reason for Hastings’ demise and perhaps represents the source of the most traditional interpretation that Hastings stood between Richard and the throne. The relevant text notes that, ‘And thus was this noble man murdered for his troth and fidelity which he bare until his master [Edward IV].’ Here, we must respect the opinion of Wood, whose conclusion was that the execution of Hastings, far from being part of a carefully thought-out plot on the calculated path to the throne, was rather a political mistake and evidence of completely the opposite circumstance; that this act was done virtually on the spur of the moment.

  Of course, Wood’s overall interpretation is coloured by his acceptance of Hanham’s re-dating of Hastings’ death. If the execution did occur on the 13th, and the vast preponderance of evidence confirms that it did (see Appendix II), then the act is one of even more tactical and momentary reaction, rather than a measured, strategic response. Mancini concluded that ‘the plot had been feigned by the duke so as to escape the odium of such a crime.’ However, the Mayor of London had apparently received sufficient reassurance that the
purported plot against the Protector was real and Hastings was in the center of it.56 What form those reassurances took, and what form the Mayor might expect them to be in, we are not told, but presumably there was some form of documentary evidence?

  Sunday 15 June 1483

  On the day prior to this Sunday, Saturday 14 June, John Brackenbury had arrived in York with Richard’s letter of 5 June. It expressed Richard’s affection for the city and had taken nine days to traverse the distance between the first and second cities of the land. A day later, on Sunday 15 June, Jane Shore, who had been arrested on the Friday, was forced to do public penance outside St Paul’s Cathedral, and, following her ordeal, which has become the stuff of legend, she was committed to prison. Thomas Lynom, Richard’s Solicitor-General, later visited her and looked for permission to marry her, evidence surely of Jane’s extraordinary power of attraction.57 Following immediately upon the delivery of Brackenbury’s earlier communication, Richard Ratcliffe arrived in York and gave Richard’s message to John Newton, mayor of the city. Unlike Brackenbury, it had taken Ratcliffe only four days between setting out and subsequently delivering his letters from Richard to the city of York and to Lord Neville. As we have seen, the urgency was communicated in what the ‘in haste’ letter had to say58.

  Monday 16 June 1483

  It has been indicated that it was on this day, after the critical interval of the weekend and following the fateful Friday 13th, that the coronation of Edward V was postponed from 22 June until the 9 November.59 Although this interpretation treats the idea of a weekend rather anachronistically, the evidence seems to suggest that the decision by Richard about the course of future events had changed significantly between the previous Friday and this, the following Monday.

  It was understandable that the following meeting of the Council on this Monday, 16 June, saw most individuals as ‘wary and nervous.’ Following upon the events of the previous meeting it would hardly be natural if they were anything else. The Cely letter (memorandum) of the period reflects the general uncertainty. Although there is no date, the internal evidence of this document suggests the relevant parts were written after the 13th but before the 26 June (see Figure 4).

  Furthermore, although the fate of Hastings was known, it remained uncertain how the others arrested that day would be finally dealt with. The primary matter of interest was the young Duke of York, still in sanctuary in Westminster Abbey with his mother and sisters. It has been reported that the Duke of Norfolk, John Howard, had eight boats of soldiers escort Richard, the Duke of Buckingham, Thomas Bourchier (the Archbishop of Canterbury) and John Russell (Bishop of Lincoln), among others, to Westminster. They surrounded the Abbey. Mancini reports that:

  When the Queen saw herself besieged and preparation for violence, she surrendered her son, trusting in the word of the Archbishop of Canterbury that the boy should be restored after the coronation.

  It is also of interest to understand how news of Hastings’ execution must have played into this decision to surrender her son, a scene which has preoccupied historic artists ever since.60 Why Elizabeth should worry now at this specific juncture about the violation of sanctuary after spending so many weeks in the Abbey is left largely unaddressed. However, it is clear that control of the young Duke of York was absolutely vital to Richard if he had now already made the decision to take the throne. The traditional accounts of this event suggest that Elizabeth Woodville, Edward IV’s Dowager Queen, was persuaded by the prelates who went to her on that day.

  Richard, Duke of York was taken to join his older brother Edward at the Tower. Largely because of the Tudor era, the Tower now possesses a rather dreadful reputation and people often read dark implications into this act. However, it would be a natural course of action to reunite the brothers as the Tower was a major London residence for royalty.61 Mancini is largely responsible for our impression of the imprisonment of the boys. He noted that:

  after Hastings was removed, all the attendants who had waited upon the king were debarred access to him. He and his brother were withdrawn into the inner apartments of the Tower proper, and day by day began to be seen more rarely behind the bars the windows, till at length they ceased to appear altogether.

  However, Mancini left England during July and never had any certain knowledge of their fate. He did note that they were seen shooting and playing in the Tower after this date and before the second week of July. Any subsequent pronouncements become pure speculation. As we shall see, the Stonor letter, written five days after the young Duke of York left the Abbey on the 21st, shows that the immediate reaction of some individuals in London at that time was not so bleak.

  Tuesday 17 June 1483

  It was around this time that various writs were issued, which served to cancel the proposed meeting of Parliament which had been due to take place on 25 June. It is apparent that some of these cancellations failed to reach some of the recipients before they had begun their trip to the capital. What is clear is that progress on the preparations for the immediate coronation was now largely abandoned. This does not signify that Richard had determined to take the throne, but it is very persuasive evidence that some major rethinking was now in process. A prime example of this comes from the letter to York, the relevant portion of which reads:

  … And or thys, notwythstandyng bt at thys day [21 June] that a sups [supersedes] was direct to the Sheryffe for the plement, so bt it shallnot need to ony Citizin to go upp for the Cite to the plement …62

  We are fortunate in that we have a fairly good idea as to how long messages seem to have taken to travel between the two major cities of London and York. We know that with a more leisurely pace, Brackenbury63 had taken nine days on this trip, while the more urgent journey of Ratcliffe was completed in about four days. This being so, and given the urgency of the present communication to halt the summons to what appears to have been a parliament of Edward V, it is reasonable to suggest that the present supersedes was sent out some time either late on Monday 16th or a little later on perhaps the morning of Tuesday 17th. If either of these eventualities is correct, and there is every reason to believe that they are,64 then Richard appears to have altered his course of action by the start of the week, following on the events of Friday 13 June.

  Saturday 21 June 1483

  Our understanding of events of this day and those immediately preceding it are enlightened by another of the letters from Simon Stallworth to Sir William Stonor. Like the previous missive of 9 June, this critical communication is reproduced in full in the Appendix I of this work. Stallworth indicated that he was unwell, which may account for the brevity of his letter, especially so in relation to the many critical events which had occurred since what we assume was his last letter. Stallworth then had much to report. First, he recorded the execution of Hastings. The hiatus in completing his letter (perhaps because of his illness) has helped cause the confusion over the date of the latter’s execution (see Appendix II). What we do not know is the exact date on which Stallworth wrote (or had caused to be written) the first section of this present letter which was formally dated 21 June. However, we can infer that the first section was written almost certainly before Friday 20th, since it is his reference to Hastings’ execution ‘As on Fryday last was the lord Chamberleyn hedded sone upone noon’ that caused much of the trouble about dates.

  Stallworth further reported that the Duke of York had emerged from sanctuary, so we may also assume that the first part of the letter was written either late on or after Monday 16th. Of this event he reports that a ‘gret plenty of harnest men’ accompanied the cardinal, the Lord Chancellor and the Duke of Buckingham, who received the young prince and accompanied him to Westminster Hall, where Richard received him ‘at the Starre Chamber Dore with many lovynge wordys.’ Following the greetings, the young prince was accompanied by the Cardinal to the Tower of London, where Stallworth reported that he was ‘blesid be Jhesus, mery.’ It appeared to Stallworth that Lord Lisle, the queen’s brother-inlaw, ‘is come to my
lord protectour, and awaits upon him,’ suggesting some degree of rapprochement on behalf of the former.65 Stallworth then went on to speculate about the rumour that 20,000 of Gloucester’s and Buckingham’s men would soon be in the capital, presuming their role would be to keep peace and order. He noted that the allegiance of those formerly under the lordship of Hastings had now transferred to Buckingham. Stallworth reported on the fate of the Archbishop of York, the Bishop of Ely, Oliver King, John Forster and Jane Shore, speculating on their eventual fate and current circumstances. He excused himself at the end of the letter, noting that his illness was such that ‘I may not wel holde my penne.’

  This and other sources66 suggest that from 16 June onward, after securing the young Richard, Duke of York, the behaviour of the Protector began to change. For example, Kendall suggested that Richard ceased to wear mourning clothes and started to wear purple, which is an evident sign of royalty. Also, he was seen riding through the city with a train of lords and attendants and dividing his time between Baynard’s Castle and Crosby Place. Further, Kendall asserted that Richard now started to talk openly about Stillington’s ‘revelation’ concerning Edward IV’s alleged marriage pre-contract with Eleanor Butler before he married Elizabeth Woodville.67 This change in behaviour is helpful in narrowing the window in which the actions of Richard, Duke of Gloucester seem to deviate from an expected course of events leading to Edward V’s coronation and to his own eventual ascension as king. As we work toward a conclusion of the present sequence, it appears that the critical weekend period is from Friday 13 to Monday 16 June, and Stallworth’s letter is a key piece of evidence for this proposition. As such, it is reproduced in full in the Appendix I. As Kendall concludes, ‘When Stallworthe wrote his agitated letter on Saturday [21 June], Richard had come to his fateful decision.’ In respect of Kendall’s conclusion here, I thoroughly concur.