Spotting his grandmother on the platform, Ned waved enthusiastically and the countess waved back. “I do not doubt it, my dear Richard, but I have come to speak to you of my other grandchildren.” Countess Anne had chosen her moment carefully, not knowing if Richard harbored any ill-will to George’s orphaned children. “Would you consider allowing little Margaret and her brother to come north to join your household? I do not think his grace, the king, is unkind to them, but I am sure they are easily forgotten among the Grey Mare’s brood.”
Richard chuckled. “How Elizabeth would hate to hear herself called a brood mare. In truth, I do not think the orphans are ill-treated—my nieces Bess and Cecily are delightful girls—but let me consider your request, Mother. ’Twould do Ned good to have cousins his age about him, in truth, but I must consult…”
He broke off as a shout floated from the ramparts, “Riders approaching—fast.” Bowing to the countess, he hurried down the steps to the yard and disappeared into the inner courtyard. His mother-in-law stared after him; it was when he was in a rush and unheeding of his posture that his crooked back became more evident. When she had first mentioned it to Anne, her daughter had admonished her: “Never mention it to him, Mother. He only trusts a very few of us with the truth. It is a burden he bears with great humility and anxiety. Whenever Richard is angry—I mean really angry—I know it is because his back is troubling him.” She had then whispered, “He fears he has displeased God. I think it is why he sometimes seems obsessed with morals and piety. He also believes God’s displeasure has prevented our having more children.”
The countess now turned her gaze on Richard’s young bastard John, and she frowned. No wonder God was displeased with Richard, she thought. She had been insulted on Anne’s behalf to learn of his liaison with a common peasant that had produced this boy and the beautiful Katherine, now one of Anne’s own ladies. The countess saw them as a sad reminder to Anne that she had failed to give Richard more children. Sighing, she climbed up stiffly onto the ramparts, inhaling the sweet April scent of flowering thyme from the meadows below. How peaceful it all was here, she thought, and sent up a quick ave that tranquility would last.
But all was not peaceful in Richard’s office next to the great hall. The news the messenger had brought was devastating: the king was dead.
Richard paced up and down along the same tiles that Warwick had worn down, his mouth set in a grim line in his pinched face. Francis and Rob watched him anxiously, and Anne, attempting to stop his pacing and calm him, was brushed off. The messenger in the Hastings’ livery was still on his knees but had backed himself into a corner fearing the duke of Gloucester’s ire.
Richard turned suddenly and proceeded to loudly berate the poor man: “How is this possible? He was only forty! How did he die? ‘A cold,’ you say? You lie! No one dies from a cold. How long was he ill?”
“’Tis all in the m…missive, my lord,” the man stuttered and bowed himself away.
As though frozen, Richard stood holding the letter from Hastings, his mind reeling. “Perhaps he was poisoned,” he suddenly posited. “Who would want him dead? Louis of France!” he answered his own question, preposterous though it was. “This will mean war,” he shouted. At this point, his legs were visibly trembling and had Francis not pushed a stool behind him, he might have fallen to his knees. He reached out for Anne, and as she ran to hold him, Rob quietly indicated to Francis that they should leave the room.
Once the couple was alone, Richard indulged his grief. As is human at the loss of a loved one, he could remember only the magnificent, golden king of his youth, the valiant soldier, and the generous big brother, and he could not imagine his world without Edward. At that moment, he forgot all of his brothers faults, including the heinous deed Edward had demanded of him that lived on in his nightmares.
It was as well Anne could soothe him, because Richard was soon lamenting the dangerous position in which the king had left his crown and his kingdom. For Richard it meant more uncertainty, because, according to Will Hastings’ missive, on his deathbed Edward had relinquished the protectorate of the new king and the realm to his younger brother. For so many years, Edward had counted on Richard; now, Richard thought somberly and the enormous responsibility loomed, England would have to count on him.
PART FIVE
Richard, Protector and King
Sunday, 3 February 2013
A sample of Michael Ibsen’s DNA had been taken at the beginning of the dig and [Dr. Turi] King had sequenced it in her labs, identifying its particular code. If Richard’s DNA matched that of his alleged seventeenth-generation nephew [Ibsen], it would be the final piece of evidence that the Greyfriars remains were those of the king. The test would also check for the male Y-chromosome…
Michael Ibsen had asked for the result of the investigation to be revealed to him first privately. Turi King met him in an office in the university then brought him to meet Simon Farnaby, Richard Buckley and me.
As Michael entered he was in shock, his face ashen. King began with the news that a Y-chromosome had been found…She then revealed that the mitochondrial (female line) DNA was a complete match…
Was I surprised the DNA was a perfect match? Yes and no. The project had run so smoothly, from the finding of Richard’s remains on the first day, exactly where I thought they would be, to the carbon-14 date, the osteology, scoliosis, insult wound and facial reconstruction. Although I believed from the very beginning that the remains were those of Richard, I had been assailed by fears and doubts throughout the process…
At 11 a.m. on Monday, 4 February 2013, Richard Buckley made the historic announcement: “It is the academic conclusion of the University of Leicester that the individual exhumed at the Greyfriars in August 2012 is indeed King Richard III, the last Plantagenet King of England.”
—Philippa Langley, The King’s Grave
Chapter Twenty-Three
April–May 1483
In the bat of an eye, Richard’s ordered life was at an end.
He knelt at his prie dieu and opened the little book of hours King Henry had given him—still a favorite and which forced him to pray for the murdered king nightly—and found a prayer for the dead. As he recited its comforting words, images from his childhood with Edward were conjured, and it suddenly struck him that only three York siblings remained, and he was the only male. Edmund, George, and now Ned had all deserted him, overwhelming him with melancholy.
Protector. The word at once thrilled and terrified Richard. It was not lost on him that his father, too, had been the protector of the realm in the ’50s, when King Henry had lost his mind for almost a year.
Richard’s charge was only twelve years of age, and, although Prince Edward was said to be “ripe beyond his years,” he was a minor. Having spent the best part of the last six years at Ludlow, under the governance of another uncle—Anthony Woodville, Lord Rivers—young Edward had not much been in Richard’s company. Richard knew the younger boy, another Richard, better and appreciated the mischievous lad’s merry temperament. “My mother says he reminds her of Ned at that age,” Richard had told Elizabeth once, in a rare intimate moment.
When the shock of his brother’s untimely death had abated, Richard found himself irked that the king’s council had not formally sent him a message about the king’s passing and his appointment as protector. At this point in time, however, he had no reason to suspect it was a calculated omission and, knowing the funeral would be long over before he could arrive for it, he tarried in the north long enough to hold obsequies for his brother in York Minster.
The consequences of this delay changed everything for Richard.
For now, Richard took Hastings at his word—after all Will had been Edward’s closest friend and advisor—and so he had accepted that he, Richard, was the logical choice for protector. As such, he immediately wrote to Rivers at Ludlow, pledging his allegiance to young Edward and requesting their itinerary and route for London. The king and I should meet at Northampt
on and enter London together on the thirtieth day of the month, Richard instructed Rivers. He had then written a sympathetic note to Elizabeth on her loss and again pledged to protect the crown for her son.
“Should you not go immediately to London and make sure your position is recognized,” Rob asked him. “Why have you not had a formal appointment from the council?”
Richard shrugged. “Perhaps they have been preoccupied with laying Edward to rest with appropriate respect and ceremony. As soon as I have honored my brother at York and required all the northern barons to swear an oath of fealty to my nephew, I will make my way to London.”
“Rob is right,” Francis chimed in. The two friends were used to speaking their minds to Richard. “You should not delay. I fear the Woodvilles will take control of the government—they and their adherents are in the majority in London. You don’t know what they are planning.”
“Planning?” Richard asked, irritated now and anxiety rising. “What would they be planning, pray? A coronation no doubt, but they would not dare organize that without me. Away with your fear-mongering, my friends,” he countered, but, seeing their chagrin, he relented. “As you will. I shall write to the council that I know of Edward’s last wishes and will dutifully take up my appointment when I reach London. Does that reassure you?”
His two friends exchanged worried glances but murmured their acceptance.
Reminding the council of his lifelong loyalty to his brother, and in accordance with Edward’s decree that he be protector, Richard sent a firm letter to Westminster in which he asserted his continued loyalty to the young king, his nephew, and requested that, any new government be conducted according to the laws of the land. His inference was clear. Legally, once a king died, his councilors were no longer a valid body. The new king would then appoint his own advisors. But it seemed this council had conveniently forgotten the custom and were acting as though Edward still lived—the queen merely taking her husband’s place. Richard must make sure he was the one to advise the young king on his appointments to the council, not Elizabeth Woodville.
Richard went about his usual business of leaving his own affairs in his administrators’ capable hands during his absence. “Not knowing how long I shall be gone, I beg you consult with her grace, the duchess, who will remain here.”
Then he went to the small private chapel tucked in the castle wall and prayed for guidance. He thanked God—and his brother—for the existence of a suitable heir. Young Edward was an upright lad, he had heard, and Richard had only to hold his leading strings for two or three years until the young king could take his proper place at the head of the government as an adult. “Give me the patience, the steadfastness, and the justice to discharge my duty to my nephew with integrity,” he pleaded, “and let me choose my council wisely.” Jack Howard would be at the top of the list, followed by Rob Percy, Lovell and Ratcliffe. He would add Northumberland and a couple of churchmen, like Canterbury and Lincoln, and Stanley would back him, Richard was sure of it.
Then Hastings’ face floated into his mind and he hesitated. Aye, the man was as loyal a friend to Edward as could be found; he was intelligent and understood the workings of government; and hadn’t he been the first to send for Richard and keep him abreast of the queen’s deeds? But the baron had also led Edward into gluttony, drunkenness, and debauchery. Not surprisingly, the first item on Richard’s list as protector would be to clean up his brother’s court. It was no place for a twelve-year-old boy, he had decided. His hardest task was how to deal with Elizabeth and her family, but he would wait until he reached London and could see the look of things for himself.
By the time he rode out of the castle and onto the road to York a few days later, he was satisfied he was prepared for the new role his brother had bequeathed him.
“It is unfortunate that Ned saw fit to place his heir in Woodville hands,” Richard said to Anne, as she tweaked his black doublet and brushed some lint from it before they set off to observe the obsequies for Edward at the Minster. “Poor boy will not know which uncle to listen to once we get to London. And Elizabeth is bound to want control, too.”
“You have two boys of your own, my dear, and John is almost the same age as young Edward. Just talk to him the way you do John.”
Richard gave a reluctant smile—he found it hard to smile these days—and agreed. “As well, I know what it is like to lose a father as a boy, so I shall be easy with him.”
He wished his work could be as simple as being kind and mentor to the lad—he would enjoy that, but he was well aware that the Woodvilles must be worrying about their position at court now Edward was gone. As they should, he thought, but that makes them dangerous. He felt his own anxiety mount at the thought. Of one thing he was certain: he would not sanction any interference in his governance of the young king from Elizabeth or her family. But with what consequences? Richard knew he was one point of a triangle of power: himself in the north; the new king under a Woodville in Wales; and the council in London under the Woodville queen determined to be regent. He needed to find the right balance between respecting maternal instincts and removing the boy from the overly possessive, power-hungry woman that Elizabeth was. And he had to gain young Edward’s trust to carry out the task fairly. He tried to assess who on the old king’s council would support him, but other than Hastings and Jack Howard, he had no real idea how the others viewed him. Yet more doubts to unsettle him.
“Stop fiddling with your ring,” Anne said, slapping his hand playfully. “You are such a worrier.” When he did not smile, she looked at him anxiously. “What are you fretting about now, my love? Until Edward is old enough to take the reins, you will have all the power.”
Richard pushed his fears aside and gave his wife a kiss. He would not speak of his concerns to Anne, but he wished he had at least one prominent nobleman he could fully count on to back him up in council.
“Harry?” Richard murmured when he saw the golden knot of Stafford emblazoned on the messenger’s tunic. “What does he want?”
He soon knew. The letter Richard read from his cousin—his only royal cousin—was, in essence, an answer to his prayer for help. Henry Stafford, third duke of Buckingham, had been shunned by Edward for most of the previous decade, which must have peeved the arrogant young duke greatly. He had never forgiven Edward for pandering to Elizabeth and bestowing her younger sister, Catherine, on him as a bride at the tender age of eleven. He had whined to Richard that he should have married far above a Woodville and held a high office in Edward’s court. He greatly resented Elizabeth’s influence on the king, and Richard was sure Harry hated the Woodvilles even more than Hastings did.
Edward had dismissed Harry as a “vain and officious buffoon,” but in February 1478 the king had given the buffoon the temporary title of Lord High Steward. Thus it was from Harry’s mouth and not Edward’s that the pronouncement of death for George of Clarence had been made. “He griped about that, too, saying it would be the only thing history would remember him for,” Edward had said. “Ungrateful ass. Elizabeth warned me not to treat with him—said he was cruel to Catherine, and in truth, I think I would have wrung his neck if he hadn’t disappeared back to Wales for long spells.”
Richard thought of that conversation now as he re-read Harry’s friendly letter.
Richard, duke of Gloucester and cousin, I greet you well. First, my sincere condolences on the death of your brother and my cousin, the king. It has been a shock for us all, but we must not allow our grief to cloud our judgement on how to proceed from here. I was glad to know that you are named protector, cousin, for you possess an exemplary character to counsel a king. I hereby give you my promise of support. I have no doubt you will be in need of friends with those wily Woodvilles ever ready to seize power, and, if I may be so bold, I am offering my help. It is time for my royal blood to be recognized and to take my rightful place by your side. I can muster a small force to meet with you along your route if you tell me where to make our rendezvous. Let us k
eep this discourse between ourselves. We do not need to give our enemies any cause to evade us, for I believe their thirst for power is a dangerous threat to you, and they will want to hold young Edward close.
Written this seventeenth day of April at Brecknock by your humble and loyal cousin, Henry Buckingham.
Richard let out a low whistle and handed the missive to John Kendall. “Write to my cousin Buckingham and ask him to meet me with his men at Northampton in ten days’ time. Tell him no more than three hundred men will be necessary, and I will bring the same. Oh, and thank him graciously for his advice.”
Enemies? He had always hated the word. Of course Richard had had to deal with enemies since he was a boy. He had grown up learning that King Henry was an enemy, but Richard could never bring himself to call the saintly, gentle man a foe. Whenever Richard went into battle, and even though he had been on the other side of the field from Warwick and George, he had never believed they were fighting to kill him personally but rather fighting for a cause, as was he. But now Cousin Harry was intimating that Richard himself could be at risk from the Woodville faction. He had felt trepidation then, and an even greater foreboding overtook him when yet another missive from Hastings warned him to come quickly. The queen and her adherents were ignoring Richard’s role as protector and arranging the coronation for the young king on the fourth of May with or without Richard’s presence.
He needed to move quickly now and cursed his previous tarrying.
Buckingham had grown stouter since Richard had seen him last at George’s trial. But Richard greeted his cousin gratefully when he arrived at the largest inn at Northampton on the twenty-ninth of April with his three hundred men.
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