Princes in the Tower (5 page)

When Edward IV returned to London that May there was just one unpleasant task remaining to be done -- one that could not wait.

3. Richard of Gloucester

In May, 1471, Henry VI was still a prisoner in the Tower of London, and it was here, according to the reliable contemporary chronicler John Warkworth, that he was 'put to death, the xxi day of May, being a Tuesday night, between eleven and twelve of the clock, being then at the Tower the Duke of Gloucester, brother to King Edward, and many other. And on the morrow he was chested and brought to [St] Paul's, and his face was open that every man might see him, and in his lying he bled on the pavement there. And afterwards at the Black Friars was brought, and there he bled new and fresh. And from thence he was carried to Chertsey Abbey in a boat, and buried there in Our Lady's chapel.'

The murder of Henry VI was committed in strict secrecy, and it was given out officially by the Government that, upon learning of the death of his son and the capture of his wife, he had taken 'to so great despite, ire and indignation that, of pure displeasure and melancholy he died'. This fooled no one. A corpse that bled profusely on the pavement had not died of displeasure, as anyone could see. And that Henry VI died violently was borne out by the examination of his remains in 1910: the medical report in
Archaeologia
states that his skull was 'much broken', as if it had been crushed by a blow, and still had attached to it some hair, 'apparently matted with blood'. There was, both in 1910 and in 1471, little doubt in anyone's mind that Henry VI had been murdered. The Milanese ambassador in England informed the King of France almost at once that Edward IV had 'caused King Henry to be secretly assassinated at the Tower. He has, in short, chosen to crush the seed.'

Croyland, writing in 1486, says, with his usual reticence: 'I shall say nothing about the discovery of King Henry's lifeless body in the Tower of London. May God have mercy upon, and give time for repentance to, him, whoever he may be, who dared to lay sacrilegious hands on the Lord's Anointed! Let the doer merit the name of tyrant.' Croyland's use of the word 'tyrant' must mean that he is referring to a ruler, namely Edward IV, who had without doubt given the order for Henry VI's murder. But, as the Great Chronicle states, 'the common fame went that the Duke of Gloucester was not altogether guiltless', and Warkworth's significant mention of Gloucester's presence in the Tower on the night of the murder seems to infer that the Duke was somehow implicated -- otherwise, why mention him at all? Commines says that Gloucester 'killed this good man with his own hands, or at least had him killed in his presence in some hidden, obscure place'; Carmeliano, in 1486, made a similar accusation, and John Rous, writing before 1490, stated that Gloucester 'caused others to kill the holy man, or, as many think, did so by his own hand'. Fabyan has Gloucester stabbing Henry with a dagger, while Vergil says he 'killed him with a sword, whereby his brother might be delivered from all fear of hostility'. And More says that Richard slew Henry VI 'without commandment or knowledge of the King'. All these writers found it credible that Gloucester had been guilty of committing the murder.

Bernard Andre alone stated what was probably nearest the truth -that Gloucester arranged the murder of Henry VI at Edward IV's command. Only the King himself could have given the order for the killing in cold blood of a crowned and anointed monarch, whose death would give him such a political advantage. Gloucester, as Constable of England, would have had the duty of conveying those orders to the Tower and ensuring that they were carried out. Thus far he was almost certainly involved in the murder.

We should pause now to consider why people believed that this young duke was capable of regicide, and to trace his early life and the development of his character. Richard Plantagenet, youngest son of the Duke of York, was born on 2nd October, 1452, at Fotheringhay Castle. John Rous's hostile account of his life describes him as coming into the world, after two years in his mother's womb, with teeth, long hair to his shoulders, a humped back, and his right shoulder higher than his left. More repeats these details, adding cautiously that 'either men of hatred report the truth, or else nature changed her course in his beginning'. It is of course quite possible that Richard was born with teeth and long hair and deformities, and that there was some truth in what Rous and More wrote, but it seems likelier that over the years some embroidery had been added to the tale for dramatic effect.

The new baby seems to have been a weakling: 'Richard liveth yet,' recorded the anonymous annalist in the
Chronicle of William of Worcester,
with apparent surprise. However, Richard survived the perils of early childhood and seems to have spent his younger years in the company of his elder brother George, in the care of their mother at Fotheringhay. After Edward IV's accession in 1461, Richard was created Duke of Gloucester and sent to receive a knightly education in the household of the Earl of Warwick, which was based mainly at Middleham Castle in Yorkshire. Here, Richard's companions included Warwick's daughters, Isabella and Anne, and the Earl's ward, Francis Lovell, who would remain a lifelong friend. Here, too, Richard learned the arts of warfare and the skills required by a nobleman, as well as receiving some rudimentary training in law.

During the 1460s Edward IV did little for his youngest brother, heaping honours instead upon George, whom he had created Duke of Clarence and brought to court. But it was Richard who stayed loyal to the King when Warwick and Clarence turned traitor in 1469. Richard was then appointed Lord High Admiral of England, Chief Justice of the Welsh Marches, and Chief Constable of England, a post he had held briefly in childhood. He was also given other honours and offices in Wales and the duchy of Lancaster. The following year he replaced the disgraced Warwick as Chief Steward and Chamberlain of South Wales, thus becoming the King's chief representative in the principality. Later that year Richard accompanied Edward IV into exile, and after Edward's restoration in 1471 was rewarded for his loyalty with yet more offices, replacing Warwick as Great Chamberlain of England and becoming Chief Steward of the duchy of Lancaster.

Richard was essentially the child of a violent age, born to a legacy of civil war. His childhood and formative years were overshadowed by battles, treachery and violent death. When he was eight his father and his brother Edmund were killed in battle. He grew to maturity in an uncertain and insecure world, and twice suffered the agony of exile. He saw his brother the King betrayed by their brother Clarence and by Warwick, who had been as a father to Richard. It is therefore fair to say that by the age of eighteen he had become hardened to violence and treachery, and had developed a ruthless streak in his character.

Gloucester first saw battle himself at Barnet in 1471, where he acquitted himself well leading the vanguard of the royal forces, showing considerable ability in warfare whilst in the thick of the fighting. He also fought brilliantly at Tewkesbury, for which he received yet more lands by way of reward. It was after Tewkesbury that Gloucester's ruthlessness first became apparent, when, as Constable of England, he exercised his right to sentence to summary execution, without trial or witnesses, the last Beaufort Duke of Somerset and other Lancastrians, including one in holy orders who was entitled to immunity from the death penalty. These unfortunate men had been forcibly dragged from sanctuary in Tewkesbury Abbey on Gloucester's orders. Some writers have also implicated Gloucester in the death of Prince Edward of Lancaster, as we have seen. Within a month of this, the Duke had assisted in the murder of Henry VI. Whether he struck the fatal blow or not, Gloucester, at the impressionable age of eighteen, must have learned from this a useful lesson about the advantages of political murder, and would have been shown a clear precedent for the elimination of a king by violence.

Richard of Gloucester was typical of the magnates of the period: acquisitive, hungry for wealth, land and power, brave in battle, tough, ruthless, energetic, and keenly interested in warfare, heraldry, and the manly pursuits such as hunting and hawking. He was staunchly loyal to the King and to his own supporters and followers, but did not scruple to ride rough-shod over the rights of other people. Ambition drove him. Mancini, writing in 1483, says that from the first 'there were those who were not unaware of his ambition and cunning, and who had misgivings about where they would lead'.

Gloucester also courted popularity, and worked hard all his adult life to win it. He was an able man, and had some good qualities: he was hard-working and conscientious in his duties. He also had that in him that inspired the loyalty of others, and his fair share of the charisma of the Plantagenets. Croyland states he had a quick, alert and 'overweening' mind, that he was courageous and daring, and that he had 'a sharp wit [and] courage high and fierce'.

In his youth he was amorous; he acknowledged two bastards, who were probably born before 1472. One was John of Pontefract, or of Gloucester, knighted in 1483, who was still under age in 1485 when his father appointed him Captain of Calais, calling him 'our dear son, whose quickness of mind and agility of body, and inclination to all good customs give us great hope of his good service for the future'. The other was Katherine, who was generously dowered by Richard when she married William Herbert, Earl of Huntingdon, in 1484. A mysterious Richard Plantagenet of Eastwell in Kent, of whom more will be heard later, is also thought to have been a bastard son of Richard's, and there may have been four others, including one Stephen Hawes, but the evidence for these is unreliable.

Conflicting descriptions of Richard left by his contemporaries have given rise to yet another controversy surrounding him -- what did he look like? The consensus of opinion was that, unlike Edward IV and Clarence, he resembled his father, being dark-haired and short of stature. This lack of height is attested to by most writers, as is the slightness of his body. The Scots envoy, Archibald Whitelaw, who saw Richard in 1484, noted he had 'such a small body', while the Silesian knight, Nicholas von Poppelau, who also met Richard that year, commented on how lean he was. Later, John Rous would sneer at his 'little body and feeble strength', while Vergil, whose description was said to be based on the testimony of those who had known Richard, said he was 'deformed'.

It is this question of deformity that has long puzzled historians. In Richard's lifetime no writer made reference to any: Croyland, Commines and the
Great Chronicle
make no mention of deformity, neither do the two earlier eyewitnesses, Whitelaw and von Poppelau. The Elizabethan antiquarian John Stow told Sir George Buck 'he had spoken with old and grave men who had often seen Richard, and they had affirmed he was not deformed but of person and bodily shape comely enough', which is slightly at variance with the eyewitness reports. In 1491, moreover, York Civic Records record that in the course of a fight a schoolmaster called John Payntour called Richard a 'Crouchback', the first instance of him being referred to by what later became a popular nickname. Richard had often been in York and was well-known there. Perhaps Master Payntour was merely being provocative, but it is quite possible that he had seen Richard and knew there was no longer any need for tact.

As the Tudor period drew on, so the legend of the deformed king was elaborated upon. Rous, writing before 1490, stated that he had 'unequal' shoulders, 'the right higher and the left lower', and a humped back. In Vergil's account it is the left shoulder that is 'higher than the right'. More, who also claimed one shoulder was higher than the other, echoed Vergil. The eyewitness von Poppelau wrote of Richard's 'delicate arms and limbs'; by More's time it was believed that he had been 'ill featured of limbs' and 'crook-backed', with a 'shrivelled withered arm'.

To contemporary eyes, physical deformity was the outward manifestation of evil character. Thus portraits of Richard, held to have been painted with the aim of flattering him, were altered in Tudor times to reflect what people believed he had really looked like. The earliest representation of him is the line drawing by John Rous in the first
York Roll,
which shows no deformity. Then there are three portrait types, of which several versions exist. The earliest is in the collection of the Society of Antiquaries of London, a masterful and evidently faithful copy of an original believed to have been from life, which has been tree-ring dated to c. 1516-22. In this, Richard has no apparent deformity.

The second portrait type is that in the Royal Collection, which has been tree-ring dated to c. 1518-23. This is the most important of the three as it was the one on display in the royal palaces, which is probably why it was radically altered. X-rays taken in the 1950s and 1973 show that the right shoulder has been overpainted above the still-visible original shoulder line by a later hand, and that the eyes have been narrowed. About thirty copies of this portrait are in existence, including that in the National Portrait Gallery, and all show the added deformities.

The third likeness is also in the collection of the Society of Antiquaries, and is entitled the 'Broken Sword' portrait; this has been tree-ring dated to c. 1533-43. Again, X-rays show drastic alterations. The portrait originally had a much-raised left shoulder and deformed left arm, but in the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries, it was altered to show Richard with a more normal appearance. A copy of this portrait, unaltered and showing the left arm ending in a stump, was sold in 1921 in Brussels to a private collector.

Richard's face in his portraits matches the descriptions given by Rous and Vergil, the latter writing that he had 'a short and sour countenance', and also More, who said he was 'hard-featured of visage'. It is a stern face, with cold eyes and a thin-lipped, tightly pursed mouth, a portrait of a man looking older than his years.

So what was the truth about Richard's appearance? It would appear that he did have some slight deformity which eyewitnesses either did not notice or were too tactful to refer to overtly. It is possible that he suffered a mild form of Sprengel's deformity, or under-development of the right or left scapula leading to inefficient flexing of the shoulder muscles. There must, after all, have been some grain of truth in what the early Tudor chroniclers wrote, for there were many people still alive who could have pointed out any gross anomalies in their works, people who remembered Richard well. Nevertheless, as memories faded and the years passed, the truth became more distorted, until by 1534 it was generally accepted that he had been a villainous hunchback with a withered arm. And there were then few of his contemporaries still alive to pour scorn on such nonsense.