Richard III

by Chris Skidmore

  At the same council meeting, he also discovered that his tenure as Protector would be limited to just weeks, rather than the years he might have envisaged by occupying the office until the king turned sixteen. The king’s official coronation date was set for 22 June, with Parliament to be summoned for three days later, on 25 June. The arranging of the dates indicates that Parliament was to be opened by a king of full age, who had obtained his majority. There was no question that Edward V would not succeed to the full powers of his kingship. Evidence of the king’s own sign manual, his signature represented by his initials, survives on seven warrants of the Great Seal: the fact that the king’s signature was required indicates that not only was Edward V being inducted into government and taking an active role in the council’s proceedings, or at least being made aware of council business, but it was also clear that the king was not considered a puppet ruler; his signature commanded an authority that seems to have been needed during Richard’s protectorate.

  Still, Richard was keen to stamp what authority he could on the royal council. New officers were quickly appointed. After his attempt to send the Great Seal to Queen Elizabeth, it was obvious that Archbishop Rotherham would have to be removed from his office as Chancellor. On 10 May, the archbishop was stripped of his office, reportedly after Richard had learnt that he had been the main ‘champion’ of the young king in previous council meetings, and, ‘he supposed, would be faithful to Edward’s heirs come what might’.7 Rotherham was replaced by John Russell, the bishop of Lincoln, described by Mancini as ‘a man of equally great learning and piety’, who seems to have had initial reservations about taking on the role, being ‘much against his will’. In spite of the king’s royal sign manual being attached to a series of early instructions, Richard’s dominance of proceedings is clearly evident, with the king acting as a cipher to the new Protector. A letter written on 15 May, ‘at our city of London’, had been signed by Edward, though it had been issued with ‘the advice of our dearest Uncle the Duke of Gloucester protector and defensor of this our realm of England’; only as an afterthought were added the words above the line that had been written, ‘and other lords of our council’.8 On 19 May, Edward wrote to the keeper of the gaol at Nottingham Castle, Edward Holt, ordering him to relinquish his duties, ‘upon pain of your allegiance’, to be taken over by Robert Legh, ‘for certain causes and considerations to us moving and by the advice of our most right entirely beloved uncle the duke of Gloucester protector and defender of this our realm of England during our young age’. This time there was no mention of the council, while the letter had been countersigned at the bottom by Richard himself.9

  Richard began to exert more control over the young king’s household. On 27 May, Richard’s northern follower John Gunthorpe was appointed Keeper of the Privy Seal.10 After briefly lodging the royal court at the bishop’s palace at St Paul’s, it was decided that the king would need to be transferred to more appropriate lodgings; according to the Crowland chronicler, discussions had being ongoing for several days in the council ‘about the removal of the king to some other, more spacious place’. Some members of the council suggested the Hospital of St John in Clerkenwell, others Westminster; however, the proximity of the queen and her daughters in sanctuary there would have made this location seem somewhat inappropriate. Buckingham suggested the Tower: it was secure and was traditionally the location where kings resided before their coronation procession to Westminster; certainly its rooms were viewed as a place of security, rather than holding any of the sinister connotations that the building would later come to represent. The duke’s opinion, the Crowland chronicler wrote, ‘was accepted by all, even by those who did not wish it’.11

  Richard’s immediate priority was to limit the authority of the Woodvilles, removing them from any chance of a return to power entirely. To Richard’s astonishment, not only had Queen Elizabeth fled into sanctuary, but other members of the Woodville family were still missing. He arrived in the capital to discover that the queen’s brother Edward Woodville had fled to the south coast, preparing to sail a fleet into the Channel to combat French piracy. Staggeringly, in a display of the Woodville dominance of the council before Richard’s arrival, Edward Woodville had been granted £2,065 13s 4d for the wages for 2,000 men for two months, with an additional £856 13s 4d as a reward for the captains of two carracks that had not previously been used, £226 7s 7d was also spent on ordnance to be brought out of the Tower. Four hundred marks were also paid to the marquess of Dorset for taking a thousand men to sea until Michaelmas.12 In total, these measures cost £3,670, absorbing all of Edward IV’s cash reserves. But Woodville had gone even further than this in amassing a fortune to set sail with. Arriving at the south coast, Sir Edward Woodville also made an indenture with the patron of ‘the great carrack then lying at Hampton Water’ that Woodville would take a staggering £10,250 in English gold coin from the boat, on the condition that Woodville and ‘his friends in England’ should repay the money within three months.13

  Woodville’s intentions were patently clear. The money would help provide for the wages of any troops or mercenaries that he might need for the future overthrow of Richard’s protectorate, placing the Woodvilles back in charge. For Richard, it presented an opportunity to claim that the Woodvilles had stolen the dead king’s treasure from the Tower to pay for these enterprises. It was a convenient rumour that reached the ears of both the Crowland chronicler and Mancini, who wrote how ‘it was commonly believed that the late king’s treasure, which had taken years and such pains to gather, was divided between the queen, the marquess [Thomas, marquess of Dorset] and Edward’.14 It was also untrue. If Richard had expected the Royal Exchequer to contain any such ‘treasure’, upon arriving at the capital to discuss the royal finances with the council, he was to be disappointed. The financial records show that Edward IV had left just £490 in reserve in his Exchequer, and £710 in his chamber coffers. This would not be enough even to pay for the dead king’s funeral.

  Nevertheless, any convenient fiction was welcome if it might help to discredit the queen’s family. Richard was now desperate to hasten their fall even further. Richard still hoped to move against Rivers and Richard Grey. Having forcibly removed them to be imprisoned at his castle at Sheriff Hutton, the duke knew that they were hardly likely to forgive their arrest, and would seek revenge if released. Yet the coronation date approaching would mark the end of his own protectorship, when the new king, divinely appointed to rule, could order their release. If Richard was to avoid the recriminations that he feared could take place within just a few weeks, he would need to act fast. It was clear that Rivers and Grey would need to be removed altogether. Richard was willing to work through the traditional and accepted authority of the council to achieve this. He had hoped to convince the council that they should be convicted ‘of preparing ambushes and of being guilty of treason itself’. Convinced his authority as Protector would force the council to act, he was soon to be disappointed. The council refused to condemn Rivers and those of the king’s household who had been arrested by Richard and Buckingham, since ‘there appeared no certain case’, arguing further that ‘even had the crime been manifest, it would not have been treason, for at the time of the alleged ambushes he was neither regent nor did he hold any other public office’.15 The council’s decision represented a significant blow, not only to Richard’s authority as Protector, but also to his hopes of removing the Woodvilles altogether before the king was crowned. Without their removal, upon Edward V’s formal accession, Rivers and his Woodville associates would most likely be freed, able to seek their revenge against the duke.

  Most pressing, however, was the need to prevent Edward Woodville sailing with his fleet across the Channel. With the council’s permission, Richard was able to denounce Edward Woodville if he refused to disband his fleet, appointing ‘a period of grace to allow for the return or desertion of officers of the soldiers and masters of the ships, who were under Edward’s command’. If they refuse
d, they would ‘be proclaimed as outlaws, and he proclaimed that their goods were to be confiscated’. Meanwhile ‘considerable rewards’ were offered ‘for anyone taking Edward alive or dead’.16 Richard moved quickly to increase defences around the Solent. On 9 May William Berkeley was placed in charge of the Isle of Wight, while officials at Porchester Castle, where Woodville was constable, were sent orders to deliver the fortress to William Ovedale.17 On 10 May, orders were given to Sir Thomas Fulford and John Halwell ‘to rig them in all haste and to go to the Downs among Sir Edward and his company’, no doubt in an attempt to try and entice the fleet away from Woodville. Four days later, on 14 May, further orders were issued to Edward Brampton, John Welles and Thomas Grayson ‘to go to the sea with ships to take Sir Edward Woodville’, carrying with them ‘a clause to receive all that will come except the Marquess, Sir Edward Woodville and Robert Ratcliffe’.18 The city of Canterbury even gave wine to Lord Cobham and other gentlemen sent by the king to arrest Woodville.19

  Caught up in the stand-off were two Genoese ships that had been lent to Edward Woodville by Genoese merchants, innocently under the impression that the ships had been requested by the government. The Genoese, hearing of the proclamation, realised that their own goods and ships were at risk. Yet if they refused to go to sea with Woodville, they also risked being plundered by his own troops. On each of their two ships Woodville had managed to place his own men, ‘ones that by every kind of tie were most devoted to the commander’. It was only after the Genoese managed to get their English crew drunk enough and ‘sodden’ with wine, so that ‘they now lay down upon the decks’ or else ‘wandered about overcome with drowsiness’ that they were able to eventually trick them into going below decks, ‘where they might rest agreeably’, before calling up each soldier individually, to be ‘trussed up with ropes and chains’. After the other Genoese ship had managed to overcome their English soldiers in a similar fashion as part of the ‘joint plot’, ‘the Genoese began to sound trumpets and horns and hoisting the king’s banners they announced that they would obey the protector and the council’.20

  The success of the proclamation resulted in nearly the entire fleet returning to port. The Genoese merchant Johannes Ambrosius de Nigrono was rewarded with £384 7s 6d for unspecified services on 4 June, suggesting that the desertion of the ships had proved pivotal in destroying Woodville’s fleet, with Mancini writing that ‘the rest of the fleet followed the lead of the Genoese’. Woodville, however, managed to escape with two ships, most likely the Falcon and the Trinity, sailing for the Breton coast. On board, the treasure that he had amassed was never seen again.21

  Edward Woodville’s flight emboldened Richard to take further action against the Woodvilles. Confiscation of Woodville lands and property began in earnest, despite there being no legal grounds for their forfeiture. Richard may have faced resistance in council over the decision, which perhaps explains why he decided to issue orders for the confiscation under his own signet rather than in the king’s name.22

  It seems that, behind the scenes, Richard was beginning to come to the conclusion that he would need to take matters into his own hands if he was to limit the Woodvilles’ power and prevent their full rehabilitation. Whether Richard had fully thought through the consequences of his actions is uncertain, but further confiscations were extended to cover the wider Woodville family, to be placed in the hands of Richard’s loyal supporters. On 14 May, Ightham Mote in Kent, the property of the queen’s cousin Richard Haute, who had been arrested at Stony Stratford, was seized by one of Richard’s northern associates, Sir Thomas Wortley. Five days later, on 19 May, Robert Pemberton was ordered to seize the lordship of Wemington and to make an inventory of all goods and cattle to ‘be put in surety to our behove’. The letter was given under Richard’s own signet, while Pemberton was urged not to fail in his task, ‘as ye will have our good lordship’. Two days later, Richard wrote to the tenants and inhabitants of the lordship of Thorpwaterfield, explaining that for ‘certain considerations’ the lands had been ‘committed and granted to our entirely beloved cousin Francis Lord Lovell … we therefore on the king our sovereign lord’s behalf’, Richard’s letter continued, ‘command and on our own charge you and every of you that incontinent upon the sight hereof you do avoid yourself from the possession and occupation of any office there, and accept and take him as ruler, keeper and receiver of the same, and suffer such his servants as he will depute to have rule under him there’. The reward, Richard hinted, was that ‘ye will have our good lordship’, although, if the tenants refused, they would ‘answer at your perils’.23 By 28 May, rents from Rivers’s lands were being paid directly into the Exchequer, while the next day a steward was appointed for the earl’s lands in Norfolk.24

  Former servants of both Edward IV and the queen were also involved in the confiscations of Woodville lands. Robert Pemberton, an usher of Edward IV’s chamber and who had been appointed to one of his first offices, as a park keeper in Northamptonshire, by the queen in 1468, was now prepared to help seize Woodville land.25 One of Edward IV’s esquires of the body, Walter Hungerford, petitioned the crown for the annuity of twenty marks formerly in the possession of Edmund Haute.26 John Cotington petitioned for the parkership of Whitemead Park within the forest of Dean, ‘which office one William Slatter now gone to sea with Sir Edward Woodville late had’. In doing so, Cotington highlighted his future service to the king ‘and unto the right high and mighty prince Richard Duke of Gloucester your uncle protector and defensor of this your realm’.27

  These measures, no matter how illegal, were met with little resistance. There was every sign that the former household servants of Edward IV were more than prepared to tolerate the fall of the Woodvilles. Where land, money and power were involved, ties of loyalty grew thin. Just as they had accepted Richard’s seizure of the reins of power as Protector, so were they prepared to accept the consequences of the duke’s attack upon the king’s maternal family.

  In spite of the recent upheavals, Richard had felt no need to alter the new royal administration, with any changes confined to filling gaps left by the removal of the Woodvilles. In Edward V’s royal household, Richard did not surround the young king with his own men: many of the king’s servants, such as esquires of the body John Norreys and Walter Hungerford, and the usher of the chamber, Edward Hardgill, who had attended Edward IV’s funeral, continued to serve the king. In his appointments, Richard seems to have been content to continue to reward men from Edward IV’s own household, who were equally content to maintain their support of the Yorkist establishment. Edward V was placed in the care of former servants of his father’s household, in a clear indication that Richard intended to preserve the status quo.28 Aside from the confiscations of Woodville land, this meant that for Richard’s own supporters there was little patronage for the duke to bestow upon them: in any case, the duke seems to have given most available grants to his dead brother’s servants, rather than his own. Yet if Richard was content to maintain the royal household of Edward IV, this desire was outweighed by the massive grants that the duke was prepared to make to his leading supporter, Henry, duke of Buckingham.

  Beginning with Buckingham’s appointment as justiciar and chamberlain of both north and south Wales on 15 May, together with the constableship and stewardship of all royal land in Shropshire, Herefordshire, Somerset, Dorset and Wiltshire, and the power to array troops in the same counties, the duke was to be given the right during the royal minority to exercise all royal patronage throughout all areas. In effect, Buckingham was to be given quasi-regal status: even the chancellor of the earldom of March, now under Buckingham’s control, was ordered to take his commands from the duke. The following day, on 16 May, a separate grant gave Buckingham the constableship, stewardship and receivership of the duchy of Lancaster’s Honour of Monmouth, along with the duchy of York’s lordship of Ludlow. In addition, the duke was appointed as constable and steward of Usk and Conway castles, and was to take possession of all the castles i
n north and south Wales, ‘and as large fees, wages and rewards as William late earl of Pembroke deceased’.29 The grant was accompanied with 1,000 marks, ‘to have of us as our gift’.

  At the same time, the duke was to be granted the ‘power and authority by his discretion in our name for our defence and the defence of this our realm’ with powers to ‘assemble our said subjects defensibly arrayed’ and to convey them ‘unto such place or places and from time to time as shall be thought unto the same duke expedient’; the duke’s ‘great costs and expenses’ were also to be paid.30 The patent granting Buckingham the offices of chief justice and chamberlain in south and north Wales was specific that the power to appoint sheriffs in the region was conditional ‘so long as the king’s uncle Richard, duke of Gloucester, or anyone else shall be protector of the realm during the king’s minority’.31 Aside from his vice-regal powers in Wales, Buckingham was given ‘the supervision and power of array of the king’s subjects’ in Shropshire, Hereford, Somerset, Dorset and Wiltshire.32

  Importantly, all the grants ensured that Buckingham was able to take over every office of constable and steward of royal lands in Wales once they fell vacant. Richard’s decision to establish Buckingham as a Welsh super-magnate can be partially explained by his need to immediately replace the vacuum of authority created by the Woodville-run council of the Prince of Wales, which had gone into abeyance with the accession of Edward V. But the timing of the grants, made over a succession of days in mid-May, suggests that a deal had been struck between Richard and Buckingham: the price of the duke’s support for Richard’s protectorate had been the establishment of his own quasi-regal fiefdom in Wales. The massive scale of the awards was recognised by contemporaries as highly unusual; John Rous observed that Richard ‘gave all his treasure to Henry Duke of Buckingham’.33