THE ROYAL FAMILIES OF ENGLAND
Edward the Fifth
EDWARD V succeeded to the throne, but not to the good fortune, of his father, and we shall again see a crown that had been won by the strong hand lost in the weakness of a minority. The unfortunate marriage of the late monarch with one of the Wydeviles had divided his own friends into two parties, so that there were now actually three factions in the state. He had elevated the friends and relations of his wife from the humble ranks of knighthood to the highest dignities, and, whether it had been done to gratify his pride or her own, the result was equally injurious. The old nobility viewed this intrusion into their class with jealous hatred, and thus it was that dissension had crept even into the king’s council, where the earl Rivers and the marquess of Dorset, the queen’s son by a former marriage, possessed the first seats. On nearly all occasions were they opposed at the board by the lords Hastings, Howard, and Stanley, who yet were the king’s most intimate friends. While in health and vigour, Edward, as we have just observed, contrived to keep both parties from breaking out. On his death-bed he did all that he could, by exhorting them to mutual forgiveness.
At his command they embraced each other, but the lapse of a few days only was sufficient to show how little their hearts had to do with the profession of their lips. No sooner had the king expired, than the council met and unanimously agreed to proclaim his son by the style of Edward V. But here their concord ended. It was suspected that the queen, like Isabella, the mother of Edward III., might aspire to rule during her son’s minority, a Suspicion that gained strength when the young prince was sent to Ludlow, in Shropshire, accompanied by his uncle, earl Rivers. Blinded by these fears, the queen’s opponents anxiously expected the arrival of Gloucester and Buckingham, allies infinitely more dangerous than the rivals they so much dreaded. Both these nobles were princes of the blood, Gloucester being the king’s uncle, while Buckingham was the lineal descendant of Thomas of Woodstock, the youngest son of Edward III. But Hastings and his friends could see no peril save what might threaten from the Wydeviles. When Elizabeth proposed that Rivers and Gray should conduct the young prince to London, under the protection of an army, they immediately took the alarm; Hastings declared that, if the plan were persisted in, he would at once retire to his command at Calais. Not one amongst them seems to have suspected the real character of the duke of Gloucester. That prince having the command of the army against the Scots, was employed in the marches at the time of his brother’s death; but the moment he received intelligence of it, he repaired to York, summoned the gentlemen of the county to take the oath of allegiance to Edward V., despatched letters of loyalty and affection to his nephew, and while he condoled with Elizabeth on the loss of her consort, did not fail to offer his friendship to the leading members of her family. In the meanwhile a secret intercourse was maintained between himself, Buckingham, and Hastings.
On the same day that Gloucester reached Northampton, his nephew had got to Stony Stratford, on his way to London. Rivers and Gray immediately turned back to welcome the duke in the king’s name, when nothing could exceed the apparent cordiality with which they were received by Gloucester. In the evening Buckingham arrived with a retinue of three hundred horsemen, and after supper the deluded guests retired, well satisfied with their host. In the morning, however, it was found that every outlet from the town had been well guarded during the night, for the purpose, they were told, of preventing any one from visiting the king before the arrival of his uncle. Doubtful as all this seemed, the four lords rode in company to the entrance of Stony Stratford, when Gloucester suddenly turned upon Rivers and Gray, accusing them of having alienated from him his nephew’s affection. This they denied, but were not the less arrested. The two dukes then proceeded to the temporary residence of the king, to whom on bended knee they paid the usual ceremonial, and the next moment apprehended two of his most confidential servants, sir Thomas Vaughan, and sir Richard Hawse, dismissing the rest of his retinue, and forbidding them under pain of death to return into the royal presence. To the young king, who took the alarm at these proceedings, be pretended that they were necessary to guard against the treachery of the Wydeviles, and conducted him back to Northampton; the four prisoners he ordered to be conveyed under a strong guard to Pontefract. Elizabeth, upon hearing of it, immediately fled with her second son, Richard, her five daughters, and the marquess of Dorset, into the sanctuary at Westminster. All London was in confusion at these events, some of the citizens hastening to Elizabeth, others to Hastings, the common danger not having as yet united them against the common enemy. Hastings believed, or affected to believe, that the two dukes intended no evil against the monarch, and his assurance quieted those who leaned to his division of the loyalists. The friends of the queen without any leader to guide them, waited in dull apprehension for what was to come next, and certain of nothing but of misfortune.
The fourth of May had been appointed for the coronation, and on that day the duke conducted his nephew to the metropolis. Nothing that belonged to the most perfect ceremonial was omitted. He was lodged in the bishop’s palace with the honours of royalty, and all that were present, lords, prelates, and commons, did him the customary homage. For several days a great council continued to sit and make the arrangements. On a motion of the duke of Buckingham, the king was removed to the Tower, the 23rd of June being fixed for his coronation, preparatory to which fifty lords and gentlemen were summoned to receive the order of knighthood; the seals were taken from the archbishop of York, and given to the bishop of Lincoln; several officers of the crown were dismissed, and their places filled by the adherents of the predominant party; and Gloucester was named protector. With consummate craft he divided the council, despatching the more particular friends of the young king, to hold their sittings in the Tower, while those who were in the secret of his ambitious projects, held their meetings at his own house of Crosby hall. On the following day, he took his place at the council in the Tower. Suddenly he struck a violent blow upon the table, when a voice without cried, Treason ! and a party of armed men rushed into the room. At his order, Hastings, Stanley, and the prelates of York and Ely, were arrested, all of whom were too much attached to Edward for him to have any hope of shaking their fidelity. The three last were separately imprisoned; Hastings was bid to prepare himself for immediate death. To all his astonished enquiries as to the cause of this unexpected doom, he could get no other explanation than that such was the will of the protector. His confession was received by the first priest who presented himself, and a piece of rough timber left by chance in the yard by the chapel door, served the executioner for a block. In the afternoon a proclamation was sent forth, in which the people were told that Hastings and his party had been conspiring against the lives of Gloucester and Buckingham, who had narrowly escaped the snare which had been laid for them. On the same day, Ratcliffe, one of the duke’s most devoted partizans, entered Pontefract castle with a numerous body of armed men, seized Rivers, lord Gray, sir Thomas Vaughan, and sir Richard Hawse, and beheaded them at once. No judicial forms had been observed, but the multitude that had assembled to witness the execution, were assured they had been guilty of treason. Two days afterwards, Ratcliffe delivered to the mayor and citizens of York, a letter from Gloucester himself, informing them of the designs imputed to the queen and her family; in another four days the northern counties were called upon by proclamation to rise in arms and come to London, under Northumberland and lord Nevil, to the assistance of the protector and Buckingham; their lives, it was said, were in danger from the Wydeviles.
The young king was now safe in Gloucester’s grasp, and he determined to possess himself of the prince also. First he had recourse to the gentler means of persuasion, despatching a deputation of lords, with the cardinal of Canterbury at their head, to request Elizabeth to give up her son. The queen, aware that force would be used in the event of her refusing, reluctantly complied.
To prepare the nation for the final step, strange reports were spread abroad by the protector’s adherents. The tale first circulated by Clarence for his ends, was now revived; it was noised that the late king was not the son of his reputed father, the duke of York, but was born of an adulterous intercourse between his mother Cecily, and a knight in her husband’s service. In contrast with the weak points in the late king’s character, Gloucester affected to be the champion of the public morals, in virtue of which assumption he singled out Jane Shore, a favourite mistress of Edward’s. Her plate and jewels he appropriated to himself; the person of the culprit he turned over to the ecclesiastical court.
It was evident that physical force also would be requisite; and that had not been forgotten; a body of Welshmen collected by Buckingham arrived in London, and the banditti that enacted the murders at Pontefract were close at hand, while the army commanded by Northumberland, was held to be fully sufficient to keep the north in order. Now then the time had come for the more open disclosure of the protector’s real object. He appointed Dr. Shaw to preach the following Sunday at St. Paul’s cross, and this man made his sermon the vehicle of a long tirade against the late king’s vices, affirming that he had, in the early part of his reign, contracted a private marriage with Eleanor, the widow of lord Boteler, of Sudely, wherefore his subsequent union with Elizabeth Gray was illegal, and her children in consequence illegitimate. At this instant, as if by accident, the duke passing through the crowd, appeared in a balcony near the pulpit, when Shaw exclaimed, “But here, in the duke of Gloucester, we have the very picture of his father.” Men gazed on each other in mute surprize, and the protector assumed an air of high displeasure.
That this scene had originated with Gloucester himself there can be no doubt, for on the next Tuesday the attempt was renewed in another form by his creature, the duke of Buckingham, who, attended by several lords and gentlemen, harangued the citizens from the hustings at Guildhall. He went over again the grounds adopted by the preacher, and when the multitude made no answer to his appeal, he demanded in plain terms, whether they were in favour of the duke or not. Upon this, a few persons in his pay shouted for king Richard. Buckingham feigned to hear in these hired voices the assent of the general people, and having returned his thanks, invited them to go with him the next day to Baynard castle, where Gloucester was residing. Accordingly the duke, accompanied by several lords and gentlemen, and the principal citizens, requested an audience of the protector, who affected much surprize and even alarm, at their visit. With his permission, the duke presented to him an address, to this effect: that the marriage of the late king with Elizabeth was made without the necessary assent of the lords, and by the aid of sorcery and witchcraft on the part of the queen and her mother; that the ceremony was performed, without edition of banns, in a private room, and not in open church; that at the time of this pretended union the king was already married to Eleanor Butteler, daughter to the old earl of Shrews-bury; for all of which considerations they, the three estates, prayed Richard to assume the crown as being his, both by inheritance and election.
Gloucester did not challenge the truth of these assertions; but declared that he would much rather preserve the crown for his nephew, to whom he professed himself greatly attached. Buckingham replied for the people, that they would never submit to the rule of a bastard, and that if he refused the sceptre, they knew where to find one who would be less scrupulous. Such a hint was irresistible.
The next day, the 23rd of June, Richard proceeded in state to Westminster, and took possession of his royal heritage, by placing himself on the marble seat in the great hall, lord Howard, afterwards duke of Norfolk, standing at his right hand, and the duke of Suffolk at his left. There was much show of judgement in this ceremonial, as he explained it to the assembled multitude. He had chosen, he said, to commence his reign there, because the first duty of a king was the administration of justice and at the same time he ordered it to be proclaimed that he forgave all men the offences they might have committed against him before that hour. He then proceeded to St. Paul’s, where the clergy waited to receive him in procession, and was welcomed by a large concourse of people with acclamations.