Richard III (20 page)

The Croyland chronicler tells us that by autumn 1483 a rumour was circulating that Edward IV’s sons had died a violent death, but it was not known how. It is clear that by early September at latest their mother, with Buckingham, Morton and others, was certain the boys were dead, since by then they were putting forward Henry Tudor as Pretender and hoping to strengthen his cause by marrying him to the sister of the late Edward V.

Commynes may give the earliest dated reference to the Princes’ death. While he says confusingly in one passage that Buckingham ‘caused the death of the two children’,
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in others he states that Richard killed them.
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He also makes it clear that Louis XI thought Richard had had them murdered and that he considered him ‘extremely cruel and evil’. Louis died on 30 August 1483 after an illness which had struck him speechless for a week. Gairdner does not think that the news could have reached the French King in time, but this is arguable – communications were quicker than he supposed, especially with a spy master like Louis.
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The first definitely dated reference is also from a French source. In January 1484, when the Chancellor of France, Guillaume de Rochefort, was warning the Estates General at Tours of the dangers of a minority – Charles VIII was only fourteen – he asked them to remember what had happened in England after Edward IV’s death. ‘Think of his children, already well grown and promising, being murdered with impunity and of the Crown’s passing to their assassin being countenanced by the people.’
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It is known that in December 1483 Mancini was in the Chancellor’s neighbourhood and it has been suggested that the Italian had told Rochefort of his fears for the boys’ lives. Yet it none the less remains logical to assume that the Chancellor was not announcing the news of Richard III’s usurpation and murder of the Princes to the Estates, but simply reminding them of something already known to most reasonably well-informed Frenchmen.

The earliest documented English reference is the Act
Titulus Regius
passed after Bosworth by Henry VII’s Parliament in January 1486. It charges Richard with ‘unnatural, mischievous and great perjuries,
treasons, homicides, and murders,
in shedding of infants’ blood
[italics mine]’. The next date is April 1486, when the ‘Second Continuation’ of the
Croyland Chronicle
was written and specifically accused Richard of killing ‘his brother’s progeny’. Henry’s son, Prince Arthur, was born in September the same year and the court poet, Pietro Carmeliano (who had been Richard’s poet too), wrote some verses in celebration – in them he reviles the late King for having murdered both Henry VI and his own nephews.

It is curious that Commynes should think even for a moment that Buckingham might have killed the Princes, though admittedly Molinet says that the Duke was
mistakenly
suspected.
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Both Buckingham and Norfolk may, just conceivably, have been consulted by Richard about the murders. The two noblemen had a lot to lose if Edward V ever regained the throne – in particular Norfolk, who would have forfeited his new Dukedom at the very least. However, it is going too far to suggest that either of them rather than the King was responsible for killing the boys. Kendall investigates, and rejects, the theory that Buckingham contrived their murder in order to increase his own chances of succeeding to the throne. There is absolutely no evidence to support this theory – the Duke may perhaps have urged the need to get rid of the children, yet no contemporary English source accuses him of killing them. Nor does any contemporary source, either English or French, even mention Norfolk in connection with the crime. The theory that it was Norfolk who murdered the Princes was first heard in the nineteenth century and is based on a misinterpretation of his household accounts, together with a totally erroneous impression that he, and not Brackenbury, was Constable of the Tower.
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Indeed, it is hard to believe that anything could have happened to the boys without Richard’s personal command.

It was to be many years before anyone learnt what had actually been done with the Princes. This was certainly by deliberate design; Rous emphasizes that because they had been in prison ‘it was afterwards known to very few by what manner of death they had suffered’. Richard Arnold, a London merchant, wrote vaguely in his commonplace book for the year 1482–3, ‘The two sons of King Edward were put to silence.’ Polydore Vergil believed that Richard had deliberately put
about a rumour of their death within a few days of the murder, to make people resigned to his government. The ballad ‘Ladye Bessiye’ preserves another contemporary rumour in stating that, like their uncle Clarence, they were both drowned in a pipe of wine.

Nothing really substantial was heard until 1502, when Sir James Tyrell was awaiting execution for conspiring with the then Yorkist Pretender, the Earl of Suffolk. In fear of death and presumably concerned for their salvation, he and his servant John Dighton made confessions in which they described how the Princes had died. The confessions were not made public, possibly because of the sacramental seal (if they were made to a priest who then broke it), though also perhaps for another reason. Nevertheless, various versions seem to have circulated. More therefore attempted to make an approximate reconstruction of the events of 1483 and, it has to be admitted, may well have indulged his sense of the dramatic. Yet the account which he gives, although rejected by many historians, carries considerable conviction.

We know from other sources the details of the new King’s progress, which began on 20 July. He set out from Windsor accompanied by a train of magnates and courtiers, though without the Queen or the Duke of Buckingham. He spent a night at Reading Abbey, reaching Oxford on 24 July, where he lodged at Magdalen; next day he listened to two learned dissertations on theology and moral philosophy in the great hall of the college – one of the orators was the humanist Grocyn. Richard then stayed a night at the nearby royal palace of Woodstock, returning briefly to the university before going on to Gloucester. Here he presented to the town whose name he had borne for twenty years a charter which gave it a Mayor and Corporation and created it an independent county with special privileges. He gracefully declined a large donation proffered by its townsmen, as he did everywhere else, saying that he wanted their hearts rather than their money. At Gloucester Buckingham caught up with him,
en route
for his Brecon stronghold. It was the last time that the King and the Duke would ever meet, after a friendship of little more than three months; they parted on seemingly amiable terms. Richard went on to Tewkesbury, where Edward of Lancaster and George of Clarence lay buried, giving the
Abbot an enormous sum of money – £300 – after which he proceeded by way of Worcester to Warwick, which he reached on 8 August. Here he passed a week in his late father-in-law’s mighty palace-fortress on its bluff overlooking the River Avon, and here he was joined by Anne. Perhaps it was now that he began his programme of building at Warwick, on his usual grandiose scale; it is known that he planned a great bastion which would be able to withstand the surprisingly effective gunfire of the period – he is also reputed to have built the Bear and Clarence Towers and the Spy Tower and Lodgings, still to be seen today.

More tells us that it was during the stay at Warwick that the King gave orders to dispose of his nephews. Arguably this seems to be confirmed by what very scant evidence there is. A comparison of the few contemporary sources – the Croyland chronicler, Vergil, Rous, Molinet and Commynes – indicates that they were murdered at the end of July or in early August.

It is likely that Richard ordered their killing because he feared attempts would be made to rescue them. The catalyst was probably an abortive plot during July, organised by four men who included Edward’s former groom of the stirrup. Their plan was to light fires all over London and smuggle the boys out of the Tower during the confusion, but it failed and the leaders were caught and executed. There was also a scheme to help the ex-king’s sisters escape from sanctuary at Westminster and take them overseas. As soon as Richard heard of it, he ringed the Abbey with ‘men of the toughest sort’ under John Nesfield, so that no one could get in or out. This, too, may have decided him to liquidate his nephews.

The trusted household man whom he chose for the task was a Suffolk knight, James Tyrell of Gipping, who had been with him for at least a dozen years. Tyrell had received the accolade after Tewkesbury and with Ratcliff had been promoted to Knight Banneret in 1482 for services during the Scots war. As has been seen, he had already performed at least one secret and dangerous commission for the King; in 1473 he had lured the dowager Countess of Warwick out of her sanctuary in Hampshire and, eluding Clarence’s watchful spies, brought her north to life-long imprisonment at Middleham. He was an able administrator, well used to dealing with high officials. More thought him ‘a man of right goodly personage … and worthy to have served a much better Prince’. He explains that Tyrell ‘had a high heart and sore longed upward, not rising yet so fast as he had hoped, being hindered and kept under by means of Sir Richard Ratcliff and William Catesby’ – who clearly did not care for competition. However, he was recommended to the King as the right man for the unpleasant job in hand by ‘a secret page of his’.
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According to More, Richard had already sent a messenger from Gloucester, one John Green ‘whom he specially trusted’, to Brackenbury, Constable of the Tower of London, with a letter ordering him to put the children to death. Robert Brackenbury of Selaby in Co. Durham, near Barnard Castle, was one of the King’s northern protégés and had only just been appointed Constable on 17 July.
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But he was either too cautious or too squeamish to carry out such terrifying orders and refused, saying that he would ‘never put them to death therefore’ – he was not going to risk his neck. Richard was very angry indeed when he received his answer, sighing, ‘Ah, whom shall a man trust?’ It was then that he asked the ‘secret page’s’ advice. When approached, Tyrell was ready and willing. The King thereupon gave him a letter for Brackenbury, which ordered the Constable to hand over the keys of the Tower to Tyrell for one night.
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It is best to give More’s actual words as to what happened: