Anne Neville: Richard III's Tragic Queen

by Licence, Amy

  The ceremonies continued when the Duke of Norfolk entered the Great Hall at Westminster. In his office as High Marshall, he entered on horseback, draped to the ground with cloth of gold, and tapped his rod on the floor to empty the hall. About four in the afternoon, the king and queen entered for the feast. Richard took his place at the middle of the marble table with Anne seated to his left. A countess waited behind her on each side, holding up a cloth when she wished to drink and all the other ladies were seated together in the middle of the Hall. The dishes were carried up from the kitchens and handed over to the aristocratic servers who were taking over the role for the occasion. In order to underline differences in status and promote deference, those accustomed to be waited on were responsible for the smooth running of the feast. The Dukes of Norfolk and Surrey, Stanley, treasurer Sir William Hopton and King’s Controller Thomas Percy all served the king with dishes of gold and silver, and Anne with dishes of gilt. The Bishop of Durham was served on silver, with Lord Audley as carver and Lord Scrope as cupbearer.11

  It has been estimated that around 3,000 people were fed at the Coronation banquet, sharing 1,200 messes or portions. Various reports stated that it lasted for five and a half hours. In the kitchens extra cooks were hired, new brooms bought and special ‘hutches’ to lock away the spices.12 The menu was comparatively simple, including roast capons, royal custards, veal, pike, roast quail, egret, little chickens, fresh sturgeon with fennel, ‘crabbes of the sea’ and other plain dishes besides the usual dressed peacock.13 The 1465 enthronement feast of George Neville, Archbishop of York, had already set the standard for an age, which Edward IV had equalled with a lavish feast at the Garter ceremonies of 1472. In comparison, Richard’s cooks would have needed to produce luxurious and inventive dishes in order to supersede it in the memories of the king’s contemporaries but they did not appear to try and rival it. Perhaps this was due to the lack of time or the king’s personal taste. Another feast menu, served up in 1455 by the Count of Anjou, suggests the inventive extravagance of the era, by combining the business of eating with the theatricality of the medieval monarch. First, a huge centrepiece was set up in the middle of the table, comprising a hollow silver fortress which contained small birds with gilded feet and ‘tufts’, sitting on a lawn of grass surrounded with branches, sweet-scented flowers and peacock feathers. At the lawn’s corners sat huge pies topped with further smaller pies like crowns, their crusts silvered and gilded, filled with many different types of meats. Later delicacies included red and white jellies decorated with the heraldic crests of the diners and plums stewed in rosewater. After the first course of the Coronation banquet, Richard’s champion, Sir Richard Dimmocke, threw down the gauntlet to challenge any who disputed the king’s honour. No one spoke up. Perhaps, as Fabyan suggests, ‘the people [were] rather not repyning for feare than allowing therof’. After dinner, the Mayor of London, Edmund Shaa, served Richard and Anne with sweet wine; John Lamplew was paid £7 19s for 53 gallons of hippocras, and the royal kitchens £4 10s for red wine. By the time they had finished, ‘all was doone, it was darke night’.14 No doubt the drinking and entertainment continued but, after all the guests had gone, Richard and Anne remained at Westminster, as king and queen.

  Two weeks after the Coronation, Richard and Anne left the capital to go on progress, initially heading west through the Thames Valley. Elaborate pageantry marked each stage of their journey. The route was carefully planned to impress and engage the affection of his subjects, whose financial gifts he declined along the way, stating he would prefer to have their love instead. Richard’s subjects turned out in great numbers to see him and, according to Vergil, ‘the day of generall procession was at hand, wherin ther was great confluence of people, for desire of beholding the new king’. Anne travelled with him from Greenwich to Windsor, where the newly interred body of Edward IV was lying among the incomplete renovations he had been making to St George’s chapel. The pair probably visited his tomb and offered prayers there, although they may have been less likely to do so at the chapel of St Stephen, where Hastings had recently been interred. Anne then stayed at Windsor Castle while Richard continued on through Oxford, Tewkesbury, Gloucester, Worcester and Warwick. The reasons for this are unclear; perhaps she needed to recuperate after the last few weeks, although the couple’s separation need not imply any weakness on her part. It was usual for a king to go about official business independently of his queen. It was a century since Edward III’s renovations had transformed Windsor using the proceeds of the Hundred Years’ War. A number of luxurious rooms were at her disposal, from the Rose Tower to the Upper Ward. In 1472, the chamber used by Elizabeth, Edward IV’s queen, was the largest in the castle, while the beds in the guest rooms had coverlets of cloth of gold furred with ermine and curtains of white sarcanet. There were also extensive hunting grounds, a little park, a garden and ‘vineyard of pleasour’. A herald’s account of 1506 describes one room as being hung with rich cloth of gold bordered with crimson velvet, another as the king’s dining or ‘secret chamber’ and an ‘inner chamber’ opening from it, which was used by the ladies. The private closets, where mass could be heard, may have appealed to Anne more than the indoor tennis court, although she may have watched games from its gallery. Here Anne may have enjoyed a brief retreat, being treated – literally – as a queen, before travelling north to join her husband at Warwick.

  Richard arrived at Warwick on 8 August; Anne probably joined him soon after, along with her ladies. They stayed for a week at the castle, Anne’s birthplace, where they were joined by her nephew, Isabel’s son, Edward, who currently held the Warwick title. While there, they visited the family chronicler, the septuagenarian John Rous, at Guy’s Cliff about a mile out of town, where he presented Anne with the first version of his Roll of the Earls of Warwick, with its sixty-four illustrations and descriptions of her ancestors. The images of Anne and Richard shed little light on them as individuals, being generic enough, along with their coats of arms and the heraldic bear and boar. Anne holds the sceptre and orb, while descending hands from the heavens offer her the two crowns that represent her marriages. Facing her, Richard wears full armour, with orb and sword in either hand, his crown lined with ermine. The illustration of their son, Edward, is identical to that of his father, only smaller. Faced with his portrait, Anne was aware that she would see him again soon. It was while his parents were in Warwick that the Spanish Ambassador proposed a marriage between Edward and one of the daughters of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile. This may have been the thirteen-year-old Isabella or the four-year-old Joanna; the couple’s final and most famous daughter, Catherine of Aragon, would not be born until the end of 1485, after Richard, Anne and Edward were all dead.

  They left Warwick on 15 August, travelling through Coventry, Leicester and Nottingham before staying in Pontefract Castle, which is possibly where Richard’s illegitimate son, John of Pontefract, or Pomfret, joined them, along with Edward of Middleham. From there they proceeded to York, arriving on 29 August. To mark the occasion, 13,000 badges of Richard’s white boar badge were commissioned. The family were met outside the city and watched a series of pageants on their approach, which Hicks has implied may have featured the story of John the Baptist, whose feast day it was. Then they attended a service and retired to the Archbishop’s Palace. This had been the see of Anne’s uncle, George Neville, whose enthronement the couple had attended as teenagers; he had died in 1476 and the present incumbent was Thomas Rotherham, Edward IV’s Lord Chancellor and Keeper of the Great Seal, who celebrated the king’s funeral mass at Windsor. His loyalties, though, had remained with Edward’s offspring and the Wydevilles. After he surrendered the seal to Queen Elizabeth, he had been deprived of his office and had been arrested on the same day that Hastings met his death. Rotherham, though, had been more fortunate, being released after a short spell in the Tower. Weeks later, he was playing host to Richard’s family in his capacity, of five years’ standing, as Archbishop of York. In past visi
ts, Richard was accustomed to stay in the Augustinian Priory but, on this occasion, the guests may have been housed in Bishopthorpe Palace, or even Cawood Castle, which would have been familiar to Richard and Anne from her uncle’s inauguration of 1465. It was during these days in late summer 1484, in the epicentre of support for the new king, that Richard and Anne would experience the pinnacle of their popularity and power.

  At York, though, Edward was to take centre stage. On 19 July, he had been appointed as Lieutenant of Ireland for three years but, on 24 August, the boy was invested as Prince of Wales. Fabyan states that Richard repeated his Coronation and elevated his son to this status ‘with a wreath upon his head and the insignia of the gold wand as after shall appear’. Vergil’s account is more detailed, having Richard ‘adornyd with a notable riche dyademe and accompanyd with a great number of noble men’. Anne followed ‘also with a crowne upon hir head’, leading her son by the hand ‘crownyd also with so great honour, joy and congratulation of thinhabytants’ and Edward is described as being about nine. Lisa Hilton states, though, that Edward was already so ill at this time that he had to be carried into the cathedral on a litter. The ceremony in the chapter house was followed by the ‘most gorgeous and sumptuous feasts and banquets, for the purpose of gaining the affections of the people’,15 who responded by rejoicing. Edward’s cousin and namesake, the young Earl of Warwick, was also knighted at the occasion. After mass at the cathedral, Richard made a gift to the city of twelve gilt figures of the apostles, before the family attended a banquet in their honour. Richard, Anne and Edward sat in state, possibly on some of the 13,000 cushions embroidered with boars, wearing their crowns for four hours, which led Croyland to call the occasion another Coronation. While the rites of anointment were not performed again, the performance of such ritual outside the capital was unprecedented and speaks volumes about the loyalty felt for the new king on his home ground. Around mid-September, Anne travelled back to Middleham with Edward, while Richard continued his progress through Pontefract and Lincoln.

  Richard’s choice to process north was an interesting one. After years spent living at Middleham, along with his other local connections and the Scottish campaign, he was already known and well respected there. Even the initial leg of the journey, through the Thames Valley, played to his existing strengths, as it was an area associated with his friend since childhood, Francis Lovell. The West Midlands, where he would venture next, had long been loyal to Warwick and his family. If Richard needed to secure his popularity, it was in the South and the capital, where rumours of dissent indicated that rebellion was already brewing. It may appear that the new king was prioritising his existing power base, to display his new status and reward his loyal subjects. In that sense, the purpose of the visit would have been to consolidate an existing stronghold, but there was more to his decision. Richard was undoubtedly an intelligent and talented leader, having proved himself in battle and service to the throne. It was not his people in the North he needed to impress; rather, he needed their loyalty to demonstrate the extent of his power before the southern lords and bishops in his company. Royal secretary John Kendall wrote ahead to the City of York that ‘there come many southern lords and men of worship … which will mark greatly your receiving their graces’. It was in this city that Richard’s popularity was at its height. Vergil recorded how the people showed the new king ‘great honor, joy, and congratulation’ and that ‘in shew of rejoysing they extollyd king Richard above the skyes’.16 This progress was designed to display the full extent of his support outside the capital, as a deterrent for any potentially rebellious Southern lords. When the threat did come, it was from closer to home.

  In Lincoln, unexpected news reached the king. Less than three months into the new regime, rebellion had broken out across the South of England. Behind it lay none other than Lady Margaret Beaufort, who had recently carried Anne’s train in Westminster Abbey, and the Lancastrian Bishop of Ely, John Morton, with whom Anne and Margaret of Anjou had sheltered with before the Battle of Tewkesbury. In another remarkable alliance spawned by civil conflict, Margaret Beaufort, like her royal namesake, had realised an opportunity to promote the interests of her son by getting into bed with the enemy. Now she sent her physician to Edward’s queen, Elizabeth Wydeville, in sanctuary at Westminster, to discuss a marriage between her son, Henry Tudor, and Edward IV’s eldest child, Elizabeth of York. Dissatisfied individuals also began to murmur in favour of Henry and a plan was soon afoot to replace Richard with the exile, now aged twenty-six. Croyland expresses the extent of the threat, involving ‘people in the vicinity of the City of London, throughout the counties of Kent, Essex, Sussex, Hampshire, Dorsetshire, Devonshire, Somersetshire, Wiltshire, and Berkshire’ who were determined ‘to avenge their grievances’ and spoke widely of the young Tudor. Two embryonic plots had been discovered and thwarted back in June, to release the Princes in the Tower and send the Yorkist princesses abroad for their safety. There were still a few voices raised in favour of the princes as late as September, but the fact that the main emphasis had shifted away from the restoration of Edward V in favour of Tudor was an indication that the general public believed the princes were no longer alive. Several chroniclers claim this was what prompted the involvement of Richard’s close ally, the Duke of Buckingham.

  Having been instrumental in placing Richard on the throne, Buckingham now quickly shifted his allegiance. He had been in communication with Henry and Jasper Tudor, as well as Margaret and Bishop Morton, but his motives remain unclear. It was too early in the reign for him to feel aggrieved at any sense of being unrewarded by Richard, whom he had proclaimed in public at St Paul’s Cross at the end of June. It has long been speculated by historians that Buckingham was privy to some information that prompted his change of heart. Croyland says it was in reaction to news that the Princes in the Tower had been killed, which Richard may have confided in him during his progress. Others have laid the charge for their deaths at Buckingham’s feet, who now saw himself as something like a latter-day Kingmaker. Perhaps, with Edward’s heirs out of the way, he wanted to assert his own claim to the throne, with Tudor’s help. Buckingham had not been present at York; he had left the progress at Gloucester to go to his Welsh estates, where he had made the decision to join the rebels and was raising an army in Brecon. Now, news reached Richard that his former friend’s treachery was no longer in doubt.

  Just how far did this come as a surprise to Richard and Anne? They must have been anticipating some sort of response to the sudden events of the summer, especially after the plots uncovered that June. Croyland claims the plot was ‘perfectly well known’ to Richard by a network of spies, who, with the ‘greatest activity and vigilance’, contrived that ‘armed men should be set in readiness around the said duke, as soon as ever he had set a foot from his home, to pounce upon all his property’ and ‘in every way to obstruct his progress’. If this was true, Richard’s spy network was extensive and had been very quickly established. It also meant he was taking a risk by remaining in the North while his enemies, including a potential Tudor invasion force, could seize control of the South. As late as 15 July, Buckingham had been granted the positions of constable and steward in Salop and Hereford, which suggests that Richard was not suspicious of his loyalty. It seems more likely that the news came as a surprise, judging by the severity and swiftness of the king’s response.

  Richard turned to his pen before his sword. Immediately he called for the royal seal to be brought to him in Lincoln. A letter composed there on 13 October, warning the Mayor and Aldermen of Southampton of the threat and desiring them to raise troops in his support, must have been typical of a number of appeals issued on or about that date. The king informed his ‘trewe subgiettes’ that ‘the Duc of Buckingham is traterously turned upon us contrary to the deutie of his liegeaunce and entendith thutter distruccion of us … whose traiterus entent we with goddes grace entend briefly to resist and subdue’. The loyal armies he requested were to converge on Covent
ry on 22 October ‘withouten faile in any wise as ye tendre our honnour and your owne wele’.17 As the disorganised Kentish rebels were dispersed by John Howard, Duke of Norfolk, Richard sent Francis Lovell to the South Coast to repel Tudor and marched to Salisbury to confront Buckingham. Circumstances had already conspired against the duke, though, to make his attempted coup a failure even before Richard arrived. He had met with little success in raising troops and a spate of bad weather prevented him from crossing the River Severn and joining with other rebels, who were now heading west. Those men who had joined him, unpaid and hungry, were already beginning to desert. When he heard of Richard’s approach, he deserted and fled into hiding with Morton at Weobley, the home of Lord Ferrers. The king then put a price on his former friend’s head. Fabyan describes the proclamation he issued, ‘that who so euer that might take the said duke, should haue for a reward, a thousande pounde of money, and the value of an hundred pounde in lande by yere, to hym and to his heires for euermore’. In response, Buckingham ‘changed his dress, and then secretly left his people; but was at last discovered in the cottage of a poor man’. He was taken before Richard at Salisbury and beheaded in the marketplace. Meanwhile, Henry Tudor had set sail with an invasion force, unaware of Buckingham’s fate. Richard marched west, arriving at Exeter on 8 November and, according to Fabyan, arrived in Plymouth ‘in order to ascertain the real state of affairs’. When he had done so, ‘he at once hoisted sail, and again put to sea’. By the time Anne arrived back in London, the threat had been effectively destroyed.