Richard III

by Chris Skidmore

  What Richard and his elder brother Clarence may have thought of their brother’s marriage relies on a later account, which, if it is to be believed, stated how Richard and Clarence were ‘both sorely displeased’ at the marriage. Clarence supposedly ‘vented his wrath more conspicuously, by his bitter and public denunciation of Elizabeth’s obscure family; and by proclaiming that the king, who ought to have married a virgin wife, had married a widow in violation of the established custom’. Richard, however, ‘being better at concealing his thoughts and besides younger and less influential, neither did nor said anything that could be brought against him’.25 As he was only twelve years old, it seems likely that Richard’s personal views of his brother’s marriage would have been considered of little significance; as for Clarence, contemporary accounts suggest that he was prepared to ride alongside the new Queen Elizabeth during her official procession into the capital, as well as play a prominent role during her coronation several months later, acting as Steward for the occasion.

  If Edward’s marriage to the low-born Elizabeth Woodville was seen as a humiliation, no one could have felt this more strongly than Warwick. He himself was acutely aware of her family’s humble origins. Just four years previously, the earl and Edward had together openly berated the bride’s father, Lord Rivers, at Calais in 1460 after they had captured him. Then Warwick had told Rivers to his face that ‘his father was but a squire … and that it was not his part to have language of lords’.26 Now the earl had little choice but to accept the king’s choice of wife, though ultimately he could not forget, nor forgive his nephew for ignoring his advice.

  Warwick had been determined to ensure that Edward would be married to a suitably impressive foreign bride. In October 1461, a Burgundian marriage had been proposed; the following year, Warwick suggested that Edward should marry the Scottish regent, Mary of Guelders, while in 1464 the king of Castile offered up his sister and heiress, Isabella, to become Edward’s queen. Yet, in his early twenties, Edward seemed in no mood to settle down. Still, Warwick persisted; hopeful of an Anglo-French agreement with Louis XI of France, who had begun to flatter the earl, sending him presents and entertaining him as if he were a monarch himself when he visited the French court, in March 1464 the earl negotiated a truce with France, together with a planned conference in the autumn, that might finally seal a perpetual peace between the two nations. As part of the deal, Warwick intended for Edward to marry the French king’s daughter, Anne. Since the child was only three years old, Louis’s sister-in-law, Bona, the daughter of the duke of Savoy, was proposed instead.27 The conference was eventually set for 1 October, to take place at Saint-Omer, and Warwick was charged with leading the English delegation. Only two weeks beforehand, in front of a stunned audience, Edward had revealed that he was in fact already married.

  Edward’s marriage would later be recognised as the point at which relations between the king and Warwick began to sour. The chronicler Warkworth stated that ‘after that rose great dissention ever more and more between the King and him, for that, and other’, admitting that while the pair were ‘accorded divers times: but they never loved together after’ while the Great Chronicle reported how the marriage caused ‘much unkindness’ between the king and Warwick, and ‘kindled the sparkle of envy, which by continuance grew to so great a blaze’.28

  The queen’s Woodville kin were rapidly married off to leading members of the nobility through the king’s influence; in the two years between October 1464 and 1466, the queen’s five sisters were married to the earls of Arundel, Essex, Kent and Pembroke and the young duke of Buckingham, who would come to bitterly regret his bride being forced upon him by the king. The entire Woodville clan ‘were certainly detested by the nobles’, the Italian writer Dominic Mancini had been informed, ‘because they, who were ignoble and newly made men, were advanced beyond those who far excelled them in breeding and wisdom’.29 Hardly a month seemed to pass without another member of the queen’s family receiving yet another preferment or grant of patronage and office. The queen’s rapacity was seen by observers as the driving force behind the alienation of Warwick and the nobility. ‘Since her coronation she has always exerted herself to aggrandise her relations, to wit, her father, mother, brothers and sisters’, one Italian correspondent wrote. ‘She had five brothers and as many sisters, and had brought things to such a pass that they had the entire government of this realm.’30

  Warwick was powerless as he watched the Woodville family sweep up every marriage prospect at court. Even the queen’s younger brother, the twenty-year-old John Woodville, was found a bride – no less than Warwick’s own rich and elderly aunt, Katherine Neville, the dowager duchess of Norfolk, who at sixty-five was, as one chronicler commented, a mere ‘slip of a girl’.31

  With no male heir himself, Warwick knew that the survival of his own dynasty depended on finding suitable husbands for his two daughters, Isabel and Anne. Privately, Warwick had his heart set on a far grander scheme. One story recalled how the earl had taken both the king’s younger brothers, George, duke of Clarence, and Richard, duke of Gloucester, off to Cambridge, where he had promised to marry them to Isabel and Anne.

  When Edward discovered what had happened, he was furious, berating his brothers. But once the seed of the idea had been planted, it seemed that Clarence, proud and ambitious, and still technically the king’s heir in the absence of any male children born to the king and queen, could not be dissuaded from the prospect of marriage to the eldest daughter of one of the largest landowners in the country. Secretly Warwick began to seek out a papal dispensation for Clarence’s marriage to Isabel.

  Meanwhile, rifts over foreign policy and England’s relations with France and Burgundy saw the faction fighting between Edward and the Woodvilles and Warwick intensify. No one could have predicted the king’s next move, however, when, on 8 June 1467, he rode in person to the residence of his Chancellor and Warwick’s brother, George Neville, the archbishop of York, at Charing Cross, accompanied by his brother Clarence and several of his nobility. Ordering Neville to hand over the Great Seal, Edward took the seal from the archbishop with his ‘own hands’. Neville’s downfall could scarcely have been more of a public humiliation, especially for Warwick, who returned from France just over two weeks later; the news of his brother’s dismissal, one chronicler reported, was ‘to the great secret displeasure of the earl of Warwick’.32 As if to add further insult to injury, on his return the earl brought with him a French embassy, whose members were lodged in unimpressive residences and made to wait for six weeks for an audience with the king. If Warwick still believed that he could maintain his former influence over the young king, the events of June 1467 proved a sudden awakening to the new reality of Edward’s independence.

  When Earl Rivers’ house in Maidstone was pillaged in 1468, Warwick was considered to be behind the sacking. A standoff ensued between the king and the earl, who had refused to depart from his northern residence at Middleham to attend court, even when promised a safe conduct. ‘Many murmurous tales ran in the city between the earl of Warwick and the Queen’s blood’, wrote one London chronicler.33 While it would remain the view of many, particularly on the continent, that Edward’s marriage would become the cause of ‘mortal war betwixt him and the earl of Warwick’, the Crowland chronicler noted that there was another reason for the widening split between the earl and the young king.34 In July 1467, Edward agreed that his sister, Margaret of York, should be betrothed to Charles, the eldest son of Philip, duke of Burgundy. The agreement marked a wider alliance between England and Burgundy, something which Warwick, who favoured an alliance with France, opposed, since he ‘bore a bitter hatred’ for Charles himself. According to the chronicler, Warwick was ‘deeply offended’ by Margaret’s marriage, adding, ‘it is my belief that this was the real cause of dissention between the king and the earl’. Warwick had ‘grumbled a bit’ at Edward’s Woodville marriage, yet had become reconciled to the match and had ‘continued to show favour to all the queen�
��s relatives until her kindred and affinity, in accordance with the king’s will, arranged the marriage of Charles and Margaret and many other affairs likewise, against the earl’s will’.35

  Still, Warwick was present at Margaret’s official departure the following year, in June 1468, when she processed from London via Canterbury to Margate, accompanied by the king himself and his two brothers, Clarence and Richard. The final scene of England that Margaret would have witnessed before embarking on her voyage to Sluys was of the Yorkist court apparently united. Yet behind the pageantry, rumours swirled of dissent within the realm. It was at this time that Richard’s stay in Warwick’s household finally came to an end. Aged sixteen in 1468, he had reached his majority; immediately he was to be thrust into the responsibilities of adulthood, and the duties that came with his position as one of the most senior noblemen in the realm. On 25 October 1468, just weeks after his sixteenth birthday, Richard was granted lands formerly belonging to Lord Hungerford, who had been executed as a traitor four years earlier. The grant may have been linked to Richard’s first official political duties, for in December he was appointed as the leading member of a commission of ‘oyer et terminer’, to deal with events such as rebellion. Before him, Hungerford’s son, Thomas, and Henry Courtenay, the brother of the earl of Devon, were charged with treason, accused of conspiring with Margaret of Anjou on 21 May 1468 to bring about ‘the final … destruction’ of Edward IV.36 Both men were found guilty. In the presence of the king, Richard passed the sentence, stating that they were to be hanged, drawn and quartered. It was an early lesson for the duke in the brutal reality of high politics, in an age when disloyalty paid a heavy price. Hungerford’s treason placed Richard in an enviable position to benefit from the remainder of the Hungerford lands, yet he chose to spare the ruin of Thomas’s mother, Margaret; while she surrendered the ‘prize’ castle and manor of Farleigh Hungerford to Richard immediately, Richard still allowed her to retain a life interest in nineteen manors, and to receive profits on other lands held in trust. The income from six other manors was to be used to found a chantry in Salisbury Cathedral and an almshouse for twelve poor men in Haytesbury.37

  Discontent with Edward’s reign erupted finally into open opposition in the spring and summer of 1469, with a growing rebellion led by one ‘Robin of Redesdale’. Soon after, Warwick and Clarence escaped to Calais, where Clarence was married to the earl’s eldest daughter, Isabel, in defiance of Edward’s wishes. Clarence had little reason on the surface to be discontented with his lot. Yet the corrosive effect of Edward’s promotion of the Woodvilles had affected Clarence too. The duke was no longer heir presumptive, though the birth of only daughters to Edward and Elizabeth – Elizabeth of York in February 1466, followed by Mary in August 1467 and Cecily in March 1469 – ensured that the king’s eldest brother retained a pre-eminence at court, and with it the possibility that, while the king remained without a male heir, he might become inheritor of the Yorkist dynasty himself. At the very least, Clarence expected that the king should not only provide for him materially, but with the best possible marriage he could find.

  Edward had different ideas. In 1466, as part of the marriage negotiations for Margaret of York with Charles of Burgundy, a double marriage had been proposed: as well as the king’s sister Margaret’s marriage to Duke Charles, Clarence would wed the infant heir of the duke by his first marriage, Mary of Burgundy. Meanwhile, Warwick’s secretive French negotiations with Louis XI intended for Clarence to be married off, his becoming lord of Holland if an Anglo-French attack on Burgundy was successful. In the end, neither proposal materialised. Clarence’s ambitions, for so long fostered by his favourable treatment from the king, seem to have remained unfulfilled. His alliance with Warwick provided the duke with the possibility not only of a marriage that would secure his future by inheritance, but also that he would be able to become his own man, securing for himself an independence and freedom from his brother’s patronage and influence that Clarence longed for.

  It seems that Clarence had had Isabel in his sights for some time. In one of his household books, it had been noted that Isabel was ‘one of the daughters and heirs of the said Richard earl of Warwick’.38 Clarence’s name had already been linked with Isabel back in April 1467, but by February 1468 the Milanese ambassador related news that ‘in England the country is in arms. The Earl of Warwick has drawn a brother of the king against the king himself. They have not yet come to open hostilities, but are treating for an accommodation. The Earl has sent word here.’39 Aside from the king’s opposition to his brother marrying Warwick’s heiress, the other significant obstacle to any marriage was of consanguinity: George and Isabel were first cousins once removed, and were also related in several other degrees, meaning that the couple would need to obtain a dispensation from Pope Paul II in order to marry. Edward was determined to use all his authority and influence to prevent any such application. He managed to stop Warwick’s agent from securing an audience with the pope; however, the earl refused to give up and managed to secure the necessary dispensation on 14 March 1469.40

  In contrast to his wayward elder brother, Richard remained loyal to the king. He himself must have faced a choice: between his former guardian, Warwick, and Edward, yet Richard was in no doubt as to where his duty lay. By Saturday, 24 June, Richard had arrived at Castle Rising, where he dictated the first letter that survives of the duke’s correspondence. Written to Sir John Say, the chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster and a close associate of the king’s, who had previously lent money to the crown, the letter read:

  Right trusty and wellbeloved We greet you well. And forasmuch as the King’s good Grace hath appointed me to attend upon His Highness into the North parts of his land, which will be to me great cost and charge, whereunto I am so suddenly called that I am not so well purveyed of money therefore as behoves me to be, and therefore pray you as my special trust is in you, to lend me an hundred pound of money unto Easter next coming, at which time I promise you ye shall be truly thereof content and paid again, as the bearer hereof shall inform you: to whom I pray you to give credence therin, and show me such friendliness in the same as I may do for you hereafter, wherein ye shall find me ready. Written at Rising the xxiiiith day of June.

  R. GLOUCESTER

  A postscript, written in Richard’s own hand, reads: ‘Sir J[ohn] say I pray you that ye fail me not at this time in my great need, as ye wule that I show you my good lordship in that matter that ye labour to me for.’41 Despite Richard being just sixteen years old, his own words reveal that Sir John had already sought out the duke’s ‘good lordship’ and influence, while perhaps more importantly Richard himself understood his own position in the bargain. In recognising the bonds of loyalty and service that tied a master to his faithful following, and the need for reciprocal support, in this case a financial loan in return for the duke’s own influence and assistance in Sir John Say’s personal ‘matter’ over which he had already been approached, Richard demonstrated that he recognised the nature of medieval aristocratic life and the importance of his own ‘lordship’ to those beneath him, if he was to succeed in establishing his own authority and client network. As the younger brother to the king, Richard knew that he was in a unique position to be able to bend the king’s ear or gain preferment for men at court. It was a powerful bargaining tool, one which the duke was prepared to wield to his advantage. The letter also demonstrates that, in Richard’s early years at least, he remained desperately short of money: although he might have been the king’s brother, away from the royal court, for now he had scant resources of his own to draw upon, relying on temporary loans to bridge any shortfalls in his finances, which might be later paid off by his brother. Nevertheless, Richard remained a loyal stalwart to the king, and, as his actions reveal, was determined to do all he could in his own power to draw men into the king’s service at a time of need.

  Events rapidly spiralled back into civil war, as Warwick and Clarence returned, raising troops and demanding an
end to Woodville dominance. During the battle of Edgecote and its aftermath, over 4,000 Welsh troops were killed, along with two of Edward’s detested favourites, William Herbert, earl of Pembroke, and Humphrey Stafford, earl of Devon. Soon the queen’s own father, Earl Rivers, and her brother, Sir John Woodville, were arrested and executed. Edward himself was arrested as Warwick sought to govern alone. Unable to do so without royal authority, he had little choice but to release the king.

  Warwick had clearly overstepped his position, yet Edward had no alternative but to reconcile himself to Warwick and Clarence. A general pardon was granted, forgiving all offences that they had committed, while a Great Council was held in the great chamber of Parliament, where Clarence, Warwick and their supporters swore peace, ‘and it was agreed that all disagreements should be abandoned’.42 Warwick had been fortunate to retain his lands and inheritance, in spite of his actions during the summer. Still, he must have known that, after he had ordered the execution of the queen’s father, Earl Rivers, and her brother, along with the king’s own close associates, one day revenge would be sought by the queen. As the Crowland chronicler remarked, ‘there remained a sense of outraged majesty, deep in the heart, on the one side and on the other a guilty mind conscious of an over-daring deed’.43