The Last Plantagenet

by Thomas B. Costain

  Margaret remained several years at Reculée, where she found it necessary to provide for the wants of a number of exiled Lancastrians. Her health was permanently impaired, and one French historian draws a most dire picture of her appearance—“eyes hollow, dim and perpetually inflamed, her skin disfigured with a dry, scaly leprosy.” This was an exaggeration, but there could be no doubt that she showed signs of the approaching end.

  Finally she left Reculée and took up her residence in the castle of Dampierre, which was close to the city of Saumur. This ancient town on the Loire River was famous for its churches and for the Maison de la Reine Cécile which her father had built. It is doubtful if she ever visited the town or saw the house her father had fashioned with such genuine care. Her life was spent in poverty, as the parsimonious king was apt to delay the payments due her and even, on occasions, to overlook them entirely.

  Some believe she had a hand in the intrigues and preparations which led to the victory of Henry of Richmond at Bosworth and his elevation to the throne as Henry VII. This is highly improbable. She had lost her position of influence and her will lacked the iron inflexibility of her earlier years. She was not concerned over the throne of England since it could not be her son who would sit there under the Leopard banner. All interest in worldly affairs seems to have deserted her. Did she ever think of the needless prolongation of the war because of her fierce determination, of the terrible battles which were nothing less than mass murder, of the tens of thousands of widows who had been left to mourn their dead as she herself was now doing?

  The household at Dampierre was a sorry one. A few exiles still remained with her, but she kept so strictly to her own rooms that they never saw her. Hopeless, dispirited, they sat about in glum groups and talked of the losses they had sustained in the Lancastrian cause. If they walked in the meager gardens, they had no eyes for the red roses growing there. These had become symbols of the blank future stretching ahead of them.

  On August 2, 1482, Margaret made her will, a pitiable document in which she left what little she had to those about her and to provide for the payment of her debts. This done, she was content to take leave of life. On August 25, Margaret, “formerly in England married” and now in France a widow, with only one painting (not of her father’s work) on the wall above her bed to represent the arms of England, the queen of sorrows and enmities who had shown so much of the heroic in her will to fight, passed quickly away.

  CHAPTER IX

  The Butt of Malmsey

  1

  THE reign of Edward IV was a short and not in any sense a glorious one. He seemed to have expended all his great energies in the struggle to obtain the crown and then to have settled down into indolence. He led one expedition into France, which came to nothing, largely through the apathy of his ally, the Duke of Burgundy. He then changed sides and allied himself with Louis XI of France, which proved to be a great mistake. Louis kept none of his promises except the payment of a yearly pension to Edward. The English king enlarged the chapel at Windsor by erecting an altar to the memory of a holy man from the north, one Father John Shorne, whose most spectacular exploit was immortalized by three lines printed on the wall:

  Sir John Shorne,

  A gentleman born,

  Conjured the devil into a boot.

  The king raised funds by a system of benevolences, each person of property being asked to contribute voluntarily to the royal purse. He was so popular, particularly with the ladies, that most of the payments were made willingly enough. One rich widow, who had been asked for twenty pounds (she must have been very rich indeed), doubled the amount on being kissed by the king. This popularity involved him in a sharp exchange of views with Isabella of Castile. It had been thought he might marry the fair Isabella, and negotiations had been under way before Mistress Woodville fluttered her eyelashes to such good effect. The Spanish queen, quite obviously, was both disappointed and mortified. She wrote a tart letter to the Spanish ambassador about Edward’s preference for “a widow-woman of England.”

  The wives of London, to say nothing of the unattached generally, could not resist his gift for conveying a hint of a secret liking by a mere glint in his eye, by the casual touch of an arm or shoulder in passing, by the intimacy with which he addressed them. Jane Shore, the wife of a goldsmith, became his mistress quite openly, but even this evidence of royal preference does not seem to have diminished the infatuation of the others.

  Queen Elizabeth bore the king ten children, only three of whom appear permanently in history—a daughter Anne and two handsome sons. The royal couple seemed to be happy enough, in spite of the king’s flagrant philandering. The queen was content to live in high state and to be more demanding of outward respect than any daughter of a hundred kings. She dined alone in a stately chamber, with a lady of highest rank sitting under the table at her knee, and her own mother, the duchess Jaquetta, standing behind her to hand the fine lace serviettes. Elizabeth’s chief concern still seemed to be the advancement of her sisters and brothers. The Woodvilles became the most cordially hated family in the kingdom. She even strove to marry her favorite brother to the daughter of Charles the Bold of Burgundy, who succeeded her father. But Mary of Burgundy would not consider a match which she considered demeaning.

  The one incident of Edward’s short reign which stays in the memories of men was the execution of his brother, George of Clarence, and the manner thereof.

  2

  Three sons of Richard of York had survived the wars: Edward IV, George, Duke of Clarence, and Richard, Duke of Gloucester. The role of George had been an inglorious one, a combination of treachery and self-seeking. In physique and appearance he was a reduced reflection of his massive and debonair brother, the king, not as tall, not as strong, not as handsome. The resemblance went no further. Clarence had none of Edward’s ability. He was envious and conceited, and full of the belief that so many younger sons in royal families have held, a firm conviction, in fact, that he was capable of making as good a king as his older brother. A born intriguer, he was also a man of furious temper. Finally he was capable of the basest treachery as he had shown in several crises of the war.

  Although they continued to feel some affection for this weak and unstable brother, it is certain that neither Edward nor Richard could dismiss from their minds his joining with Warwick to oust the former from his hard-earned throne. The second turning of his coat, to line up on the Yorkist side for the final stages of the war, had served as additional proof of his lack of honor and conscience. Before the last battle at Tewkesbury, there had been rumors afloat that he was ready to make a third shift and appear again with a Red Rose in his helmet. Everything he did in the last days of the fighting was under the close scrutiny of his brothers.

  Even with peace established and the Lancastrian leaders dead or out of the way, Clarence continued in his favorite role of troublemaker. He was bitterly against the queen and the Woodville family. In this he was on the right side of the fence, but his feeling against them could be attributed largely to personal interests. It irked his proud spirit to see the brothers of the queen holding national posts which he believed should belong to him. His acquisitiveness led him to quarrel bitterly with his younger brother, Richard, over the division of the Warwick lands, and this was doubly unwise, for he needed friends to stand by him and Richard had always been the stoutest in his defense.

  The death of his wife Isabel, the daughter of the Kingmaker, was a blow which caused him seemingly to lose his head. He had loved her very much and was certain that she had been poisoned, an explanation continually accepted in those days when the nature of disease was so little understood. One of his wife’s attendants was the widow of Roger Twynyho, whose name was Ankarette. This unfortunate woman was accused of serving her mistress a drink of ale mixed with a “venymous” poison. Clarence did not wait for any adequate investigation to be made but had her arrested without a warrant. The prisoner was taken to her native county of Warwick and put on trial. Word of the
headlong course taken by the king’s brother reached Westminster and a writ of certiorari was issued to stay proceedings. It did not reach Warwick in time. The woman had been convicted at one hasty sitting, with Clarence in court, and executed immediately.

  One victim was not enough to satisfy the rage of the bereaved Clarence. One John Thursby was charged with poisoning the infant son of the duke. After a trial as hasty and unconstitutional as the first, he was convicted and hanged.

  A wave of indignation swept over the country, for a fair trial was the one right to which Englishmen clung above all others. The duke’s enemies at court were not content to let the matter rest without action. They adopted much the same method by extracting a confession by torture from a man named Stacy, who was supposed to be a dealer in black magic, that a friend of Clarence, Thomas Burdet, had been using incantations and other devices to cause the king’s death. Stacy and Burdet were hanged together at Tyburn, protesting their innocence to the end.

  The victims in this unsavory chapter seem to have been innocent bystanders of low degree who were unfortunate enough to stand within reach, but Edward may have believed that Clarence had set Stacy and Burdet to the task of encompassing his death. Certainly he was now convinced that his brother should no longer be allowed to display his lack of scruples and discipline. Clarence was summoned to appear before the king in London.

  It has already been explained that Clarence had advanced himself as a candidate for the hand of Mary of Burgundy, although so newly a widower himself. This was going directly contrary to royal policy. Edward was now determined to maintain a firm alliance with France and he was furious when Clarence blundered into things, to afford Louis of France an excuse to delay in carrying out the obligations he was committed to by his treaty with England. It no longer needed the whispering of the Woodvilles in the royal ear to convince Edward that George of Clarence would be a troublemaker as long as he lived.

  3

  Clarence was brought to trial before the Parliament which met in January 1478, the king himself appearing in the role of accuser. A long list of offenses was produced, including a charge that he had spread a story that Edward was illegitimate and had no right, therefore, to be king. Edward summed up the evidence against his brother by declaring that he, as king, could not answer for the peace of the realm if Clarence’s “loathly offences” were pardoned.

  Clarence had no one to support him, to say a word in his defense. His undisciplined conduct apparently had set the whole nation against him. The members of the House listened to the witnesses in complete silence, without any effort to probe into the facts. When Clarence protested his innocence and cried out his willingness to meet anyone in mortal combat to prove it, the silence remained unbroken. Never before, perhaps, had there been more readiness in passing a bill of attainder. The punishment was left to a court of chivalry which met promptly. Inevitably he was sentenced to death.

  Edward now became the victim of doubts. Having been driven to action by his brother’s treacheries, he still did not want to be responsible for his death. Their mother, the once Proud Cis of Raby, now broken by the impending tragedy, begged that clemency be shown her erring son. Richard, putting aside all his reasons for resentment, pleaded in the same cause. A week passed and the king was still unable to make up his mind.

  Finally the House took the initiative by petitioning him to carry out the sentence. This display of constitutional pressure was what Edward needed. He decided that Clarence should die but declared there must not be a public execution. As a sop to his own doubts and feelings, and because of a belief that spectators must not witness the punishment of a prince, he ordered that the execution be carried out within the Tower.

  By thus drawing a screen over the event, he created one of the strangest mysteries in English history. How did Clarence die?

  With public curiosity at boiling point, it was impossible to conceal the fact that the sentence had been carried out on the seventeenth or eighteenth of February. But then a curious story began to circulate, to pass from mouth to mouth, to fill the minds of all people with fascinated horror, to set the customers in taverns into goggle-eyed speculation over their ale. Clarence, at his own request, had been drowned in a butt of the rare wine called malmsey; such was the story.

  No other explanation has been forthcoming. Neither the officers of the Tower, nor the close-lipped custodians of policy in the halls of state, not the king himself nor his household took steps to deny the story. Either there was truth in it or they were reluctant to contradict it by telling what actually had happened. It may very well have been felt that, if no explanation were made, the rumor would be dropped in course of time by reason of its own fantastic weight.

  But the story did not die. Three of the writers who were setting down the chronicles of the day, two English and one French, accepted the butt of malmsey without any qualms. And so the pens of later-day historians, which pass confidently and easily over many stories which seem to fall somewhat into the realm of fairy tales, came to a hesitation at this point. What was to be believed? And what could be written in explanation?

  Some deny it as absurd. Some suggest, rather weakly, that there might have been an element of accident about it. One earnest seeker after truth went to the extent of measuring the quarters where Clarence had been kept to see where the butt could have been located. One version, in a play, suggests that the executioner, proceeding along other lines, used the butt as an easy means of completing his task.

  And yet a study of the circumstances makes it possible to put some reliance in the story of the butt of malmsey.

  Malmsey was a strong but sweet wine which came from the Morea in Greece. It was perhaps the most favored beverage of the day, the wine of kings and princes and people of wealth. The common man never partook of it. The cost was too high.

  Clarence undoubtedly was a malmsey addict. It is clear that he had a sybaritic strain in him and so he would prefer this fine wine to any other.

  A study of the character of this man makes it clear he had an acute dread of death. He was not a fatalist in any sense of the word and could not be expected to meet death with resignation. He was flighty, treacherous, impetuous, proud to a point of unreason, selfish in every thought and instinct, and he was young to die—only twenty-eight and in sound health. It goes without saying that the hours which passed after he was told he must die were filled with panic and a suffocating fear of what that meant. Although not actually a coward, every moment would pass in fear of the sharp edge of the headsman’s ax. He would see it suspended over his head as he knelt at the block. He would live in dread of the moment when it would cut through his neck. Other ways of ending the privileged existence of a prince of the blood royal would seem almost as dreadful, particularly the horrible agonies of death from poisoning.

  But there had always been a partial belief, or a myth, that drowning is an easy death. Perhaps Clarence thought of that and believed also that a taste of a favorite wine on his palate would lessen still further the pangs of death.

  One point seems reasonably certain: if Clarence did make such a suggestion, Edward would have accepted it as an easy solution of a harrowing problem. George must die. Let him die, then, the way he desired.

  A wine butt is a large container. In the fifteenth century it was constructed to hold 120 gallons and sometimes a little more. It might not be practical to carry one through the narrow and sharply angled passages of the prison. Certainly it would be impossible to get one through the door of a cell. The conscientious investigator who sought to ascertain where the butt stood in Clarence’s cell might have saved himself his pains. The butt would not have been taken to Clarence, he would have been taken to it.

  This would have been the method employed. He would have been securely trussed and then led, or carried, down into the dark, dank cellars of the Tower where the wine butts stood. And there, his knees bound close beneath his chin, the troublesome prince would have been lowered into the wine he had imbibed so appr
eciatively in life, and the cover closed down securely.

  This is no more than a theory. The mystery which Edward IV created by his desire to get rid of Clarence as secretly as possible will always remain a mystery.

  CHAPTER X

  William Caxton

  1

  THE dynastic struggles called the Wars of the Roses were the cause of widespread suffering in England. An equally serious charge may be laid on the doorsteps of the titled contestants who split the nation apart in the latter half of the fifteenth century. While Englishmen rode or marched to battle under either one of the two symbolic roses, the Renaissance was sweeping Europe. Men were awakening to new intellectual interests, to the study of new philosophies, to the enjoyment of great advances in the arts. These significant changes, which reached a high point in the years when the English civil war attained its peak of savagery, were reflected rather dimly in the island kingdom. Chaucer had died before the fighting began, but a few other pens were still devoted to writing in the English tongue. On the whole the period was undistinguished and dreary.

  It would be unfair, however, to pass by these years, after detailing the trials, the cruelties, the loves, the hates, the intrigues of an England resounding to the clash of arms and the fearsome booming of new weapons called cannon, without turning to one event which opened up great new vistas. During the reign of Edward IV a man named William Caxton set up a curious shop in London for the printing of books.