Richard III

by Seward, Desmond

  Not only had the Lancastrian North perished, but, for the time being, so had the Lancastrian cause. Its surviving magnates hastened to transfer their allegiance to the triumphant House of York, if they were not dispossessed. Richard’s brother-in-law, the Duke of Exeter, one of the richest and haughtiest noblemen in England, was reduced to begging his bread in Flanders – barefoot, and from door to door. (Eventually he was recognized and given a small pension by the Duke of Burgundy.)

  On 28 June Edward IV was finally crowned King of England at Westminster Abbey, with the utmost splendour. That night his nine-year-old brother, together with twenty-seven other young men and boys including George, was created a Knight of the Bath. Having been ritually bathed, they made a vigil in the chapel of St John at the Tower of London which lasted until Matins and Mass at dawn, after which they received the accolade from the King.

  On All Saints Day (1 November) Richard was created Duke of Gloucester, Edward IV girding him with a sword of state and placing a cap of maintenance on his head. It was an ill-omened title – of the only two previous Dukes of Gloucester, the first had been murdered and the second had died in suspicious circumstances. Nevertheless, he had become a mighty prince, brother of an anointed King and second in succession to the throne – George, now Duke of Clarence, being heir presumptive. Was this the beginning of Richard’s ‘execrable desire of sovereignty’?

  1. The stall plate of Richard, Duke of Gloucester, as a Knight of the Garter, c. 1465. It shows his arms, which are France modern and England quarterly with a silver label of three points, each ermine in a canton gules – the crest is a crowned leopard gold on a cap of estate and with a label as in the arms around his neck. St George’s Chapel, Windsor.

  Chapter Two

  ‘OUR BROTHER OF GLOUCESTER’

  ‘This name of Gloucester is taken for an unhappy and unfortunate style, as the proverb speaks of Sejanus’s horse, whose rider was ever unhorsed and whose possessor was ever brought to misery.’

  Anon., sixteenth century

  ‘For Gloster’s Dukedom is too ominous.’

  Shakespeare, King Henry VI, Part III

  No doubt the young Duke was treated with the utmost respect, both at Fastolf Place and at his mother’s London house – it had been his father’s too – Baynard’s Castle, beside the Thames and not far from the Tower. Although he was only a small boy, his brother the King heaped honours on him. He was made Admiral of the Sea and Commissioner of Array for the North Parts (Northumberland, Yorkshire, Cumberland and Westmorland). With George and Margaret, he moved to more royal accommodation at Greenwich Palace. Little is known of him during these early, prosperous years of his brother’s reign.

  Richard Gloucester – as he signed himself, not ‘of Gloucester’ – in his capacity as a Commissioner of Array with power to recruit troops took a contingent to join Edward IV’s army at Leicester early in 1464. The reason was a potentially very serious Lancastrian rising in Northumberland under the Duke of Somerset, but it was speedily crushed before Richard was able to see any fighting. Despite his extreme youth, he was already a power in the land, if obviously something of a figurehead. His Commissions of Array in 1464 extended to nine counties. For some time King Edward had been bestowing important offices on him. In 1462 he had received the Honour and Lordship of Richmond and the Honour and Lordship of Pembroke, besides being made Admiral of England, Ireland and Aquitaine, and Constable of Corfe Castle. Every year he was given more confiscated Lancastrian estates, including the entire lands of the Duke of Somerset in 1463. The King’s purpose seems to have been to stop his brother Clarence from becoming over-mighty by providing a counterweight. Certainly George was undoubtedly jealous, protesting so much about the Honour of Richmond being given to Richard that Edward took it back and bestowed it on Clarence. In the light of future events, of George’s treachery and of Richard’s loyalty, one may well wonder if the King already distrusted the former brother and preferred the younger.

  Some time in 1465 Richard found himself a henchman in the household of his first cousin the Earl of Warwick, where he was to be brought up – just as his father had been a henchman of their mutual grandfather, Lord Westmorland.1 One surmises that the three years which Richard spent at Warwick’s castle of Middleham in Yorkshire were the most formative of his childhood. Here he acquired his abiding love of northern England, together with that understanding of its inhabitants which one day enabled him to make them his most formidable tools. He may even have learnt to speak with their own harsh accent which Southerners found so difficult.

  Middleham was in Wensleydale, a twenty-mile stretch in the upper valley of the fast-running River Ure, in the heart of the North Riding moors but only a short distance from the Pennines. Leland, speaking of it in 1538, says it is ‘a pretty market town and standeth on a rocky hill, on the top whereof is the castle … The town itself is small.’ The inhabitants spoke the dalesmen’s dialect, full of Norse words inherited from Viking settlers, though on the moors some shepherds still counted their sheep in a Celtic jargon. Yorkshire has a curiously hard quality and has always been famous for producing hard men. The winters can be surprisingly severe – no doubt Richard had the experience of being snowed up.

  As Scottish raids were a constant danger, the castle was strongly fortified, with a vast Norman keep whose walls were ten foot thick and fifty-five high (from the top of which there was a wonderful view of the surrounding countryside). It was separated by a great guard tower and drawbridge from a wide outer court to the east and ringed by a deep moat and massive curtain walls. It nevertheless seems to have been surprisingly comfortable, possessing more lavatories than almost any other English medieval house which has survived, and having three large parks next to it.2 Leland thought it ‘the fairest castle of Richmondshire next Bolton’.

  Neighbouring magnates included Lord Scrope of Bolton, whose castle was even more impressive than Middleham, and Metcalfe of Nappa Hall, who was the head of an innumerable clan of warlike Borderers.3 Then there was the Cistercian Abbot of Jervaulx two miles away, whose monks were as famous for their horses as for their sheep. There was also the Abbot of the White Canons of Coverham, again only two miles away but on the other side of the river – Premonstratensian Abbots were splendidly decorative figures who wore white fur capes. (The canons took their name from their mother house of Prémontré in France.) However, the neighbours who probably loomed largest were the Mayor and Corporation of York, who frequently entertained Warwick and his family.

  The Earl himself was undoubtedly the most imposing personality whom Richard encountered in his early years, commanding almost as enormous an authority as King Edward. Sadly we know nothing about Warwick’s relations with the boy, though he must have met him often during his visits to Middleham and afterwards at court. Born in 1428, Richard Nevill had, as has been seen, acquired two of the richest Earldoms in the realm and possessed vast estates all over England, amounting to more than a hundred manors, and also the Lordship of the Channel Islands. Commynes, a Burgundian contemporary, estimated that in addition he drew an income from his offices which was worth at least 80,000 Flemish gold crowns. No other English magnate commanded so huge an army of retainers and dependants, all of whom were proud to wear his livery of a red jacket with a white bear and ragged staff, while no other was head of such a powerful clan as the Nevills – a large proportion of members of the House of Lords were his kinsmen.

  Warwick was immensely popular, not just in the North Country but in London as well. At his house, The Harbour – it was on the site of today’s Cannon Street Station – in Warwick Lane on Dowgate Hill, which overlooked the Pool of London, six oxen were roasted and boiled for breakfast every day; the surrounding taverns were full of people eating his meat because any friend of his servants might take away as much as they could carry on a dagger – there must have been a whole host of them since he never travelled without a retinue of 600 men. He was deeply admired for his dashing exploits at sea in his capacity as Captain o
f Calais; he had destroyed an entire Spanish fleet besides terrorizing Flemish and Italian merchantmen, and he had swept the English coastal waters free of privateers – he was literally worshipped in the south coast ports. And everyone knew that to a very large extent the King owed his throne to him (though the title of ‘King-maker’ was not bestowed on him until the next century). Commynes thought that ‘he might also be called the King’s father as a result of the services and education he had given him’. Indeed, it is not too much to suggest that he was something of a father-figure to all three brothers.

  Edward gave the Earl unparalleled powers, which made him a sort of mayor of the palace. He was allowed to manage most of the highest affairs of state, including defence and foreign diplomacy – for a long time the French and the Scots believed that he was omnipotent. As Captain of Calais he had an unrivalled power base across the Channel, yet he was even stronger in the North of England. The once supreme Percys were deprived of their lands, as Lancastrians, and these were given to Warwick’s brother, Lord Montagu, who was also made Earl of Northumberland and Chamberlain of the Royal Household. His youngest brother, George Nevill, was promoted to Archbishop of York and appointed Lord Chancellor.

  In person the Earl of Warwick must have appeared quite as splendid as his rank and possessions. He was noted not only for a magnificent bearing, but also for his charm, his condescension and his generosity. Unfortunately he was also a man of diabolical pride and vanity, overwhelmingly ambitious, though these traits were carefully concealed. If he had had any sort of plausible claim to the throne, he would certainly have seized it for himself. Moreover, he seems to have been blind to any of his shortcomings – in particular to his ultimately ruinous incapacity as a soldier. Merciless as he was in victory, he had a streak of timidity and a tendency to panic when in battle which verged on cowardice. In the early years of the new reign, however, his flaws and inadequacies went unrecognized, and he was the natural and greatest friend of his first cousins, the young princes of the House of York.4

  The sort of education which Richard received would have been like that known to have been given to his brother Edward. He was taught how to write the crabbed ‘bastard secretary’ hand of the age, which he did with a neat elegance, and enough mathematics for simple accounts. He learnt to speak and read French, notably chivalric romances and moralizing chronicles, though if he could understand some Latin, it was not enough to enable him to read the scriptures. No doubt he acquired a smattering of law, and also some knowledge of heraldry in which he later showed a distinct interest.

  One may guess that his mother insisted on strict religious instruction by the chaplains. She was noted for piety, something of a mystic who read the works of Walter Hilton, St Catherine of Siena and St Bridget of Sweden.5 Directly or indirectly, Richard must have derived much of his own brand of religion from her.

  His tutors would have attached immense importance to physical disciplines. Every great lord had to be a soldier and had to learn combat skills as early as possible. As Machiavelli observes, ‘A prince should have no other object or interest, nor study anything, but war and its science and conduct, because it is the one skill above all which is necessary to a ruler.’ For boys in any noble household there was constant daily practice, wearing specially heavy armour, with all types of weapon from swords and poleaxes to maces and battle-hammers. There was also training for the tournament, both on foot and on horseback. Sinews and endurance were toughened by hunting, which was regarded as a semi-military exercise. There were still forests in Yorkshire harbouring stag and boar – according to Leland one stretched all the way from Middleham to Ripon – while deer parks next to the castle contained fallow buck. Yorkshiremen often made do with martens or otters (in summer) or even the big, sandy moorland hares, all of which gave excellent sport before hounds. Falconry – peregrines and merlins were obtainable locally – took the place of modern shooting.

  Such activities must have been a terrible challenge to a boy with so weak and frail a body as the young Richard. He conquered, but presumably at a cost. Shakespeare may not be so very far from the mark in making Duchess Cecily say that her youngest son’s school-days were ‘frightful, desperate, wild and furious’. If the Duke’s desperate efforts gave him self-control, they were no doubt also responsible for his nervousness and anxious nature, even his secretiveness. Furthermore (though this is only surmise), excessive use of one arm, since the other was inadequate, produced a muscular development which exaggerated the slight unevenness of his shoulders and the curvature of his spine and gave him an imperceptible crookback. As it was, he grew up to be noticeably small and thin.

  It has been suggested that during his time at Middleham the young Duke acquired friends of his own age. Among these may have been some of the younger Metcalfes from Nappa, and it is very likely that a certain Francis Lovell from Oxfordshire was a fellow henchman in the castle – later Lovell would be one of Richard’s right-hand men.6 Another companion at Middleham seems to have been Robert Percy, a kinsman of the Earl of Northumberland, who would also become one of his most faithful and committed supporters.

  It is probable that some time during his stay there, he also first met his future wife, Warwick’s daughter Anne Nevill. Her mother – the great Beauchamp heiress, who had brought Warwick his Earldom and the best part of his wealth – is known to have been at Middleham often, since the castle was a favourite residence of her husband, and no doubt she brought her daughters with her. Anne’s sister Isabel, who would one day marry Clarence, was Richard’s contemporary, but Anne was at least four years younger. No doubt, like most boys, he would have taken little notice of anyone quite so insignificant.

  In 1466 the young Duke of Gloucester attended the Nevills’ lavishly ostentatious celebrations at Cawood Castle after the enthronement of his cousin George Nevill as Archbishop of York and Primate of England. Incredible quantities of food were served. Over a hundred oxen, 500 stags and more than 4,000 sheep were eaten, together with 13,000 puddings, while a hundred casks of wine, 300 casks of ale and 105 gallons of hypocras (spiced wine cup) were drunk. All this profusion, intended to display the Nevill wealth and magnificence, was presided over by Warwick, the new Archbishop’s brother, as ‘steward of the feast’. Interestingly Gloucester was the only male member of the Royal Family present. He sat at the same table as his cousin, Warwick’s small daughter Anne.7 In 1467 he and the Earl sat together on a commission to investigate some disturbances at York. In 1468 he and Warwick, this time accompanied by Clarence, rode to escort their sister Margaret of York on her way to Margate, where she took ship for Burgundy and her ducal husband. Even before she arrived in the Low Countries, the Burgundians were singing songs about her whoring – she seems to have shared her brother the King’s promiscuity.

  Richard finally ceased to be his cousin Warwick’s henchman some time during 1468, the Earl being granted, in the autumn of that year, £1,000 for expenses incurred by his maintenance. There was good reason for the young Duke to say goodbye to Warwick and to go to court. Although no one realized it at the time, something had happened four years before which would lead to a mortal quarrel between the Earl and the House of York, and which would eventually contribute to the total destruction of the dynasty. By 1468 the crisis was already on the horizon.

  In September 1464 the great Council of the realm had met at Reading Abbey. It was expected that matters of some importance would be discussed, and, indeed, the King announced the introduction of an entirely new gold coinage (including the famous angel of six shillings and eightpence, the most beautiful of all English coins). It was expected that the topic of Edward’s marriage would be raised; Warwick was already negotiating for the hand of Louis XI’s sister-in-law, Bona of Savoy, immortalized as ‘Lady Bone’ by English chroniclers. To the assembly’s amazement, the King suddenly announced that he was already married, to ‘Dame Elizabeth Grey’, the young widow of a Lancastrian knight.

  In fact, Edward had married her five months earlier
, on May Day, in secret at her mother’s manor house of Grafton in Northamptonshire. A compulsive womanizer, the King had been pursuing her for some months, but, according to Mancini, she had held out for marriage even when he held a dagger at her throat.8 Another popular tale says that she had lain in wait for him when he was hunting in the forest near Grafton, to solicit the return of her husband’s confiscated estates. She was twenty-seven, five years older than Edward, and clearly most attractive.

  We have a better idea of what she looked like than of any other medieval English Queen – from a portrait at Queens’ College, Cambridge, and from a picture of her with her husband and children in a stained-glass window at Canterbury Cathedral. The portrait shows a face of delicacy and elegance, while the window depicts long, flowing golden hair and heavy, hooded eyes. The Tudor chronicler Hall probably reports an accurate tradition when he speaks of ‘her lovely looking and feminine smiling (neither too wanton nor too humble)’.

  Unfortunately her social and political background were not so enamouring. Admittedly her mother, Jacquetta of Luxembourg, was sister to the Burgundian Count of Saint-Pol and the widow of the Duke of Bedford, Henry V’s brother. But Jacquetta had married a second husband beneath her. Elizabeth’s father, Richard Woodville – one of the handsomest men of his day – had been made Lord Rivers in 1448, but was always despised as an upstart by his peers. Salisbury once called him ‘a knave’s son’ while Warwick told him his ‘father was but a little squire’ and that he had ‘made himself by marriage’. Old Rivers and his sons were Lancastrians. So was Elizabeth’s late spouse, Lord Ferrers of Groby, who had been killed at the second battle of St Albans. She herself had been woman of the bedchamber to Margaret of Anjou – ‘in service with Queen Margaret’, as More puts it.