Richard III

by Chris Skidmore

  It was a strategy that was not without its risks: while Richard had been careful not to alienate supporters of the previous regime, the grant to Buckingham of all royal offices yet to fall vacant was bound to alienate existing office holders, who would undoubtedly feel threatened by such a powerful vested interest.34

  Surviving memoranda from the council meetings during the month of May indicate the royal council was getting on with the business of government, with the royal finances, defence of the realm and preparations for the coronation dominating discussions.35 It was rapidly becoming clear that with Edward IV having left the royal finances virtually empty, the new government was going to struggle to remain financially solvent. The council had managed to scrape together an additional £1,016 from ‘plate of silver coined within the Tower’, selling an ‘image of gold’ to the London goldsmith William Sayles for £1,800, and wool worth £1,316 to the merchants of the Staple, yet Edward IV’s funeral had cost £1,896 17s 2d.36

  On 7 May, Richard, together with the duke of Buckingham, William, earl of Arundel, William, Lord Hastings, and Thomas, Lord Stanley, along with the archbishops of Canterbury and York, and the bishops of Bath and Wells, Chichester, Lincoln and Ely met at Baynard’s Castle, the home of Richard’s mother, Cecily, duchess of York, where it was decided that the archbishop would retain the seals of the late king, since the executors of Edward’s will were hesitant to act while the Queen remained in sanctuary. Meanwhile, custody of the king’s jewels was given to William Daubeney, the clerk of the jewel house, and Richard Laurence and Rowland Forster, yeomen of the jewel house.37 On 23 May, the archbishop wrote to the executors, including Hastings, Stanley and the archbishop of York, and John Morton, the bishop of Ely, stating that since the king’s funeral expenses remained unpaid, he granted them power to sell certain of the king’s goods to pay for the costs, after a proper valuation had been made by the archbishop’s own valuers.38

  The royal finances needed addressing urgently. Already the spiralling costs that the new administration had accrued had reached £5,514 2s 11d, which the executors of the dead king were expecting to be repaid ‘in part of performing of his last will’.39 To help make up the shortfall of the costs of running the royal court, Richard had spent £800 of his own money on the king’s household ‘during the time of his attendance about the most honourable person of the king’.40 After Edward’s death, the council had also agreed to send an extra 300 men to Calais; as a result the garrison had grown to 825 men. Already there were concerns for how the finances would be met. William, Lord Hastings, himself the captain of the garrison, was growing nervous about how his men were going to be paid. Advising his brother, Ralph Hastings, the constable of Guisnes, to ‘hold content’ with those men he already had stationed there, Hastings explained to Ralph that ‘he cannot see well how the money can be gotten to content them’.41 The merchants of Calais had already loaned £1,220 for the payment of the soldiers that had been sent to the town; however, they would expect to be repaid.42

  Still, Richard was convinced that money needed to be spent urgently on the defence of the realm, particularly on the Scottish borders. On 10 May, Henry, earl of Northumberland, was appointed warden of the East and Middle Marches, a position with a salary of 2,000 marks, though the office was limited for a year’s term, ending on 9 April 1484.43 The appointment reflects Richard’s own priorities in government; as someone who had spent several years fighting the Scots on the northern borders, had witnessed victory in Scotland and had been rewarded for his capture of Berwick, Richard was not prepared for the issue to slip off the agenda. As warden, Northumberland was given command of Richard’s prized Berwick, together with a garrison of 600 men, costing £438 a month in pay alone. A building programme was hastily ordered, to strengthen the fortress and increase its population by over 500 men. ‘It was thought by the King’s grace that there should be at least 120 houses made at Berwick this year’, the council minutes recorded, costing £1,600, with an additional £1,000 to be spent repairing the walls and castle there.44

  Edward IV’s death had caused significant problems with the raising of taxation, which effectively could not be collected in the dead king’s name; instead a new parliament needed to be called. On 15 May, the Mercers’ Company expressed their concern that in spite of Edward IV’s death, when all taxes previously passed should have been declared void, the collection of a subsidy on customs continued, while collectors ‘in other ports busy them greatly to continue the execution of the office as they afore time used to do, and in no wise will suffer any goods to pass but if they have the subsidy’. It was evident to everyone that the only means by which financial stability could be restored would be through Parliament voting through the customs due to the new king. As a memorandum composed for the council revealed, ‘the profits of the ports will draw but a little sum for the king’s grace shall have no thing thereof but his custom only, for tonnage and poundage was granted no longer to the king but during his life natural’.45

  Parliament would need to be summoned as soon as possible. On 13 May, writs were sent out, summoning Parliament to meet on 25 June.46 Three days later, a writ was issued in the king’s name calling for a convocation to take place, in order to address ‘certain difficult and urgent matters closely concerning us and the state of our realm of England’, a suggestive statement though this phrase had also been used in Edward IV’s writ three months earlier.47 On 20 May, letters were sent to sheriffs in each county ordering them to present those eligible for knighthood in London by 18 June so that they might prepare to receive the dignity at the coronation.48

  Yet as the coronation date loomed ever closer, Richard began to grow increasingly nervous. He could not afford for his enemies to gain the upper hand once more. It was in Parliament’s authority that Richard hoped to find a solution to the vexing question of the young king’s authority and his own as Protector. If Parliament might confer the protectorship upon him until Edward had attained a reasonable majority, Richard would be able to continue in his current role.

  This seems to have been the intended solution hinted at in a draft sermon for the opening of Parliament by the Chancellor, John Russell, who urged the commons, ‘in the meantime, till ripeness of years and personal rule be … concurrent together’ in the young king, ‘the power and authority of my lord protector is so behoveful and of reason to be assented and established by the authority of this high court’. For Russell, Parliament’s approval of the continuation of the protectorship was ‘amongst all the causes of the assembling of the parliament in this time of the year, this is the greatest and most necessary first to be affirmed’.49

  It seemed that Parliament was being summoned principally for the purpose of enshrining Richard’s continued protectorship in law, ‘to be first moved for the weal of the king and the defence of this land’. Russell was convinced that Richard’s authority was vital to preserve stability in the realm. The ‘tutelage and oversight of the king’s most royal person during his years of tenderness my said lord protector will acquit himself like to Marcus Emilius Lepidus twice consul of Rome’. Richard was ‘next in perfect age of the blood royal’ to continue in his position as the young king’s tutor and Protector. Urging the assembled Parliament to grant Richard’s protectorship ‘as the ease of the people and the condition of the time requireth it’, Russell imagined, and hoped, that ‘the king our sovereign lord may have cause largely to rejoice himself and congruently sat with the prophet, to my said lord protector, his uncle here present … Uncle, I am glad to have you confirmed in this place you be my protector.’50

  It is clear from Russell’s words that there was also to be a renewed assault on the Woodvilles during the Parliament. Using none too subtle a pun on Earl Rivers’ name, Russell wrote that ‘if there be any surety or firmness here in this world, such as may be found out of heaven, it is rather in the Isles and lands environed with water than in the sea or any great Rivers’. In contrast with the uncertain ‘Rivers’, Russell concluded that the
security of the realm should be placed in the hands of ‘the noble persons of the world, which some for the merits of their ancestors, some for their own virtues, been endued with great favours, possessions and Richesses’ – another weak pun on Richard’s own name. It was the true-born nobility, Russell argued, that ‘may more conveniently be resembled unto the firm ground that men see in Islands than the lower people, which for lack of such inducement … be not without cause likened unto the unstable and wavering running water’.51 Rivers and by inference the Woodvilles were base-born, while, Russell insisted, ‘Nobelesse is virtue and ancient Richesse.’52

  For Russell, parliamentary consent to the continuance of the protectorship would not only allow for Richard to continue in the office after the king’s coronation, but his office and authority would be strengthened, since the ‘power and authority of my lord protector’ would have been ‘assented and established by the authority of this high court’. Russell’s speech gives some indication of the wide-ranging powers that Richard would be expected to wield as Protector. Richard’s planned role would extend far beyond that granted to Henry VI’s Protector, Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, who had been denied the tutelage of the king. It was far from clear whether Russell’s speech, and Richard’s intentions for the future of his protectorship, would be backed by the royal council.

  7

  ‘THEIR SUBTLE AND DAMNABLE WAYS’

  If the date of the coronation had been decided, there was still one significant obstacle to overcome before it might take place. Elizabeth Woodville remained in sanctuary with the king’s younger brother, Richard, duke of York. It would be unthinkable for a coronation to take place while the royal family itself remained physically divided: as heir to the throne, the young Prince Richard would be expected to play a central role in the ceremony. Already Elizabeth Woodville’s decision to take flight was causing the new government problems. On 7 May, when the executors of Edward IV’s will had met at Baynard’s Castle, they had been unable to carry out his bequests while so many of its legatees remained in sanctuary.1 Richard tried his best to coax the former queen out of Westminster, going so far as to prepare a public oath on 23 May promising her safety that he was prepared to swear, along with the rest of the council and the archbishops of Canterbury and York, ‘if the same lady wished to relinquish the privilege’ of sanctuary.2

  Mancini had heard that ‘as the day [of the coronation] drew near’, Richard had confronted the council, insisting ‘how improper it seemed that the king should be crowned in the absence of his brother’. The young duke of York, Richard submitted, ‘on account of his nearness of kin and his station ought to play an important part in the ceremony’. Mancini suggested that Richard had gone so far as to state that ‘this boy was held by his mother against his will’, and that the young duke should ‘be liberated, because the sanctuary had been founded by their ancestors as a place of refuge, not of detention, and this boy wanted to be with his brother’. Mancini believed that the council had actually agreed to Richard’s request, and that ‘with the consent of the council he surrounded the sanctuary with troops’. The Crowland chronicler too observed that not only was ‘the detention in prison of the king’s relatives and servants … a great cause of anxiety, which was growing’, but that others were beginning to voice their own concerns ‘that the protector did not show sufficient consideration for the dignity and peace of mind of the queen’.3

  Still, preparations for the coronation continued. On 5 June, letters were sent out in the king’s name to fifty candidates whose incomes qualified them for knighthoods, ordering that ‘we write unto you at this time, willing and nonetheless charging you to appear, prepare and furnish yourself to receive the noble order of knighthood at our coronation, which by God’s grace we intend shall be solemnised the xxii day of this present Month, at our palace of Westminster’. Those receiving the letter were commanded ‘to be here at our Tower of London iiii days afore our said Coronation’ in order to have ‘communication with our commissioners concerning that matter’.4 On 6 June, a letter was read out at the council meeting at York, ordering for four citizens to be present for the opening of Parliament on 25 June.5

  In London, Richard was joined at court by his wife, Duchess Anne, who had made the journey from the north to the capital in preparation for the king’s coronation. He also sent a box of wafers to John, Lord Howard’s house, for which his servant was rewarded with 20d.6 Howard had long been an associate of Richard’s. Despite an age gap between the two men of thirty-two years, they had worked together for over a decade. As early as 1469, Howard and Richard had met at Colchester, raising men together before joining the king’s train to deal with the rebellion of Robin of Redesdale. In 1480, Howard purchased the manor of Wivenhoe in Essex from Richard, while in the years that follow several entries in Howard’s household accounts reveal rewards to Richard’s minstrels, trumpeters and players; in 1482, Howard even made a gift of seven crossbows of wood and one of steel to Richard. With Richard now Protector, Howard was a crucial ally and supporter of the new regime, and had already been rewarded with office for his efforts. The previous month, in a signal of his gratitude for being promoted to chief steward of the duchy of Lancaster south of the Trent, on 15 May, Howard’s household accounts record how ‘my lord gave unto my lord protector a cup of gold, and a cuer’ weighing sixty-five ounces of solid gold.7

  Four days later, on 9 June, Simon Stallworth, a member of the household of the new Lord Chancellor, John Russell, wrote to William Stonor in Oxfordshire, explaining how ‘as for tidings since I wrote to you we hear none new’. The letter reveals that the coronation was being discussed; however, no communication with Queen Elizabeth in sanctuary at Westminster was now taking place. Her son, the marquess of Dorset, still a fugitive, seems to have managed to pass a message to the queen, for which the prior at Westminster had been reprimanded:

  The Queen keeps still [at] Westminster, my lord of York, my lord of Salisbury with other more which will not depart as yet. Where so ever can be found any goods of my Lord Marquess it is tayne [taken]. The Prior of Westminster was and is in a great trouble for certain goods delivered to him by my Lord Marquess. My Lord Protector, my Lord of Buckingham, with all other lords as well temporal as spiritual were at Westminster in the council chamber from 10 to 2 but there was not that spake with the Queen. There is great business against the Coronation which shall be this day fortnight as we say. When I trust ye will be at London and then ye know all the world. The king is at the Tower. My lady of Gloucester come to London on Thursday last.

  There is no sense in Stallworth’s letter of any change in the current situation; the coronation was still planned for a fortnight’s time, while the remainder of the letter is concerned with the more mundane business of the payment of taxes and the issue of a dispute at Thame that Stallworth had managed to discuss with the Protector, indicating the level of minute detail with which Richard was now conducting government business.8

  The surviving minutes of the council meeting on 9 June reveal that there was a discussion on the ‘grounds for the coronation’, including the expenses of the coronation that had been paid by the city, amounting to 1,000 marks, sent to the Guildhall on 2 May, covering half of the total 2,000 marks that had been set aside for the great wardrobe. It was clear that the council was struggling with the financial costs of making the books balance, especially with the new charges of ‘the payment of the wages of Berwick … which will amount to a great sum’. Then there was the payment of the wages of 800 extra men at Calais. The situation was hardly sustainable.9

  The final memorandum noted how ‘also it is to be remembered the building of Berwick’, one of Richard’s pet schemes that he had been determined to push through, and which was already proving costly.

  Few if any would have believed that the young king was the driving force behind such expenditure. Richard was determined that the work not only be commenced, but completed as soon as possible, even sending a letter as Protector to Alexa
nder Lee to ‘put him in devoir to make up the castle in haste most possible and lodging within the same’.10 It seems that Richard, having recently been granted his palatinate across the border, was keen to resume the campaigning season in Scotland. The expenses of the soldiers’ wages for just the months of June and July were set to amount to £915, and Richard was no doubt keen that their duties would extend beyond a defensive capability.

  To commit to another Scottish assault, however, would prove difficult at the same time as maintaining a large presence at Calais: surviving financial memoranda drawn up that month estimated that there were currently a total of 880 archers being paid six pence a day, which totalled £1,255 16s for two months’ pay.11 Three hundred extra men had been sent to Calais for eighteen days from 28 April to 12 May, though a decision had been taken to continue to keep the men at the garrison until 7 July. An important clue as to the significance of the Calais garrison can be found in the record of a payment of £50 ‘paid for the costs of 300 men from Derbyshire to Calais’.12 For these were William, Lord Hastings’s men, procured most likely from the Honour of Tutbury in the county. It seems likely that beneath these dry financial accounts lay a growing tension over the nation’s foreign policy: between Richard, on the one hand, who wished to pursue further military action in Scotland, and Hastings, who may have wished for the Calais garrison to be preserved at its extended size in order to protect against the hostilities of the French.