The Second Duke and Duchess of Buckingham

It's been quiet here, hasn't it? Here's a nice long post to make up for it. This is a draft of a piece I plan to put on my website (with footnotes). It's long (and will give you some idea of what I've been up to lately), so stay a spell!

In the fall of 1483, Henry Stafford, second Duke of Buckingham, rebelled against Richard III, breaking faith with a monarch whom he had helped to bring to power just months before. Much has been written about Henry’s conduct during 1483, but comparatively little has been written about the rest of life—and about his duchess, Katherine Woodville, sister to Queen Elizabeth Woodville.

Born on September 4, 1455, Henry Stafford was the oldest son of Humphrey Stafford, the Earl of Stafford, and Margaret Beaufort (who is not to be confused with her first cousin of the same name, mother to Henry Tudor). Henry had royal connections, being a descendant of Edward III through both Thomas of Woodstock and John of Gaunt (through John's children by Katherine Swynford)

Henry's father Humphrey died in 1458, predeceasing his own father, the first Duke of Buckingham, also known as Humphrey Stafford. Henry inherited his grandfather’s dukedom when the latter was killed at Northampton on July 10, 1460, while guarding Henry VI’s tent. As Henry, not quite five, was a minor, he and his estates passed into the custody of his grandmother the Duchess of Buckingham. Anne Neville, the duchess, was a sister of Cecily Neville, Duchess of York and mother of the future Edward IV, and had had Cecily and her younger sons in her keeping for a time following her capture by Lancastrian troops in 1459.

In February 1464, Edward IV purchased Henry’s wardship and marriage from the Duchess of Buckingham. He then placed Henry in the custody of Anne, Duchess of Exeter, Edward IV’s older sister.

Later that year, Edward IV secretly married Elizabeth Woodville, a widowed daughter of Richard Woodville and Jacquetta of Luxembourg, Duchess of Bedford. The duchess’s marriage to a mere squire years before had produced a large brood of children, of which Katherine Woodville was probably the youngest. A post-mortem inquisition for her brother Richard in 1492 identifies her as “aged 34 and more,” placing her birth year at around 1458.

Edward IV announced his marriage to his council in September 1464, and Elizabeth Woodville was formally presented to the council and other worthies at Michaelmas (September 29). She was crowned on May 26, 1465.

Somewhere in this period, young Henry Stafford and Katherine Woodville were married. In 1483, Dominic Mancini, an observer of English affairs during this time, declared that Henry “had his own reasons for detesting the queen’s kin; for, when he was younger, he had been forced to wed the queen’s sister, whom he scorned to wed on account of her humble origin.” Recently, historians have been less inclined to take this comment at face value, given the anti-Woodville propaganda that was being circulated by the Duke of Gloucester, the future Richard III, at the time.

In fact, at nine years of age, Henry was likely to have taken his cue from his relations, who appear to have been on cordial terms with the Woodvilles. The dowager Duchess of Buckingham and the Duchess of Bedford were old acquaintances, who had often been in the receipt of gifts from Henry VI’s queen, Margaret of Anjou. They and their husbands attended Corpus Christi pageants in her company in 1457. In 1460, they and Lady Scales were delegated by the citizens of London to negotiate with Margaret of Anjou. The dowager Duchess of Buckingham played a prominent role at Elizabeth Woodville’s coronation, bearing the queen’s train. Her second husband, Walter Blount, Lord Mountjoy, later specified in his will that masses be said for the souls of Richard Woodville and his son John, killed by troops of the Earl of Warwick in 1469. Blount and his stepsons, the uncles of the second Duke of Buckingham, fought for Edward IV in 1471. Thus, if the nine-year-old duke did resent his marriage at the time, his feelings do not seem to have been shared by his elders. The person who probably was most upset about the marriage was Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, known as the “Kingmaker,” who with the duke’s marriage to Katherine lost an eminently suitable husband for one of his own two daughters.

In May 1465, the young duke and duchess participated in Elizabeth Woodville’s coronation, where both were carried on the shoulders of squires. At the banquet afterward, both Duchesses of Buckingham sat at the same table, near the newly created Knights of the Bath, among whom were Henry and his younger brother, Humphrey.

Edward IV transferred custody of the Duke of Buckingham from the Duchess of Exeter to Elizabeth Woodville in August 1465, but as payments to Elizabeth for the duke’s maintenance were later made retroactive to Easter, he had probably been living in her household at least since then. Elizabeth’s household accounts for 1466-67 show that three people were paid for their services to Katherine, while a tutor, John Giles was engaged to teach grammar to Henry and his brother, Humphrey. (Giles was evidently good at his task, for he later became a tutor to the Prince of Wales and his younger brother.) Humphrey passes out of the records after this time, apparently having died young.

Katherine Woodville’s life took a terrifying turn in 1469, when the Kingmaker, acting in concert with Edward IV’s younger brother, George, the Duke of Clarence, took advantage of unrest in the country to mount his own rebellion and to rid himself of his political enemies. Naming the Woodvilles and others as favorites who were corrupting the king, and reminding those who read his manifesto of the fates of Edward II, Richard II, and Henry VI, Warwick gathered troops and met the king’s forces at Edgecote on July 26, 1469, defeating them. After the battle, William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke and one of Warwick’s enemies, was beheaded. As John Gillingham points out, this execution was illegal, as Warwick still recognized Edward IV as king and Pembroke had merely been coming to his aid. Three days later, Edward IV himself was captured by Warwick’s brother, George Neville, and taken to Warwick Castle, then to Middleham. Meanwhile, Warwick’s men captured Katherine Woodville’s father, Richard, and one of her older brothers, John, on August 12, 1469. Like Pembroke, they were executed entirely illegally. (Paul Murray Kendall, who wrote popular biographies of Warwick and of Richard III and for whom the only good Woodville was a dead Woodville, wasted no words on the propriety of the execution, devoting only a sentence in his Warwick the Kingmaker to the executions of the Woodvilles.) To add to the misery of the Woodville family, one of Warwick’s followers accused Jacquetta, Duchess of Bedford, of sorcery. (The Duchess, however, fought the charges and was acquitted in February 1470 by a committee that included Buckingham’s stepgrandfather.)

Where the Buckinghams were during this period is unknown, though Elizabeth Woodville and her little daughters were in Norwich when her father and brother were killed, and Katherine may have accompanied the queen there. Things, however, were not working out for the Earl of Warwick as he had planned. His capture of the king had ushered in a period of lawlessness that Warwick could not contain with Edward IV in captivity. He was therefore forced to release the king, who entered London in grand state in October 1469. John Paston reported that “the Lordes Harry and John of Bokyngham” as well as Walter Blount were among his entourage. John would have been John Stafford, a younger son of the first Duke of Buckingham. “Harry” may refer to the fourteen-year-old Duke of Buckingham, who signed himself “Harry,” though it could also refer to his uncle Henry Stafford, brother of John Stafford.

The freed Edward IV and Warwick patched things up, but only temporarily. In September 1470, Edward IV fled the country, and Henry VI was nominally on the throne, controlled by Warwick. With Elizabeth Woodville and her children in sanctuary, custody of the Duke of Buckingham was transferred to his grandmother and to his stepgrandfather, Walter Blount, Lord Mountjoy.

During Lent of 1471, Warwick took the precaution of arresting a number of suspected Yorkist sympathizers, including, apparently, the Duke of Buckingham, whose stepgrandfather and uncle were also arrested. Some of these men were kept in the Tower; when Edward IV arrived in London on April 11, they overpowered their captors and went out to join his forces. Three days later, Edward IV defeated Warwick’s army at the Battle of Barnet, where Warwick was killed.

Nothing indicates whether the Duke of Buckingham, not yet sixteen, fought at Barnet or at the battle at Tewkesbury that followed. He certainly must have been with the king’s army, however, for when the victorious Edward IV returned to London on May 21, 1471, the duke was among those who accompanied him. Not surprisingly, due to her age and gender, Katherine Woodville’s whereabouts during this time are unrecorded. She may have stayed with her sister the queen or with her husband’s grandmother during this time.

In January 1473, Henry, only seventeen, was allowed to come into his inheritance. Most of his land was in Wales, as his grandmother, who lived until 1480, held many of his English estates in dower; other lands had been set aside to pay the dower of his aunt, a debt owing from Henry’s grandfather’s day.

For the next ten years, the role Henry would play in Edward IV’s court would be almost entirely ceremonial. He and his wife were present at the grand events of Edward IV’s reign, such as the welcoming of Louis of Gruuthuyse to England in 1472 and the marriage of Edward IV’s younger son, the Duke of York, to little Anne Mowbray in 1478. He enjoyed no influence at court, however, and served on commissions of the peace only in Staffordshire. He accompanied Edward to France in 1475, when the anticlimactic Treaty of Picquigny was signed, but is recorded as having gone home prematurely, for unknown reasons. Michael Jones has speculated that he may have shared the Duke of Gloucester’s distaste for the treaty and that he remonstrated with Edward IV about it, thereby consigning himself to oblivion for the rest of that king’s reign.

Other explanations for Edward IV’s behavior toward Buckingham abound. Some argue that he was squeezed out by the Woodvilles, while others suggest that Edward IV disliked him personally, regarded him as unstable, or feared that he might have designs on the crown. For his own part, Buckingham must have bitterly resented Edward IV’s refusal to hand over his share of the Bohun inheritance, to which Buckingham had a claim after the deaths of Henry VI and Edward of Lancaster in 1471. As Carole Rawcliffe points out, doing so would have not only cost Edward IV over a thousand pounds per year in lost income but would have emphasized Buckingham’s claim to the throne through the house of Lancaster. It probably did not help that Buckingham in 1474 had received permission to use the arms of Thomas of Woodstock.

In 1478, Buckingham’s relations with the crown took a brief upswing. Buckingham was made high steward of England for the purpose of pronouncing a death sentence upon Edward IV’s troublesome brother, George, Duke of Clarence. That same year, Edward IV granted him the manor of Ebbw and the lordship of Cantref Mawr.

Both the duke and the duchess had taken part in the wedding of Richard, Duke of York, to Anne Mowbray in January 1478. Katherine was heavily pregnant at the time, for on February 3, 1478, she gave birth to the couple’s first son, Edward—just a few days before the Duke of Buckingham sentenced Clarence to death. Edward IV served as godfather to Edward and gave a gold cup for the occasion. The couple had two daughters, Elizabeth and Anne, and two other sons, Henry and Humphrey. Edward, the third Duke of Buckingham, would eventually be executed by Henry VIII, while Humphrey apparently died in early childhood. Henry died of natural causes in 1523, having survived a couple of close calls with Henry VIII.

In August 1478, William Paston reported that the Duke of Buckingham was making a pilgrimage to Walsingham and would be visiting his “sister” Lady Knyvet at Bokenham (actually his aunt, who had married William Knyvet after her first marriage was dissolved). Walsingham had strong associations with childbearing; perhaps Buckingham was giving thanks for the birth of his son.

Buckingham dropped back into obscurity after that, not to emerge until 1483 and the death of Edward IV, when he and Richard, Duke of Gloucester banded together at Northampton to seize Anthony Rivers, Earl Rivers, to whose care Edward IV had entrusted the Prince of Wales. Buckingham’s motives for joining together with Richard are unknown. As noted earlier, Buckingham was said by Mancini to have detested the Woodvilles because of his “forced” marriage to one, but Mancini is demonstrably wrong on other points (for instance, his claim that Richard shunned the court after the death of George) and may well be wrong on this one, perhaps influenced by the anti-Woodville propaganda being circulated at the time. D. E. Lowe has noted that Buckingham served as a feoffee of Anthony Woodville, and Buckingham conveyed estates in 1481 to feoffees with strong ties to Anthony. Certainly Anthony, not known to be credulous or reckless, did not take any precautions when he met with his two brothers-in-law, as he surely would have had he regarded either man as being hostile toward him. It seems more likely that Buckingham, seeing at last the chance to gain power and the Bohun inheritance, sprang at the opportunity offered him by Richard. Whether Richard’s subsequent actions were at the urging of Buckingham, or whether Buckingham followed Richard’s lead, is unknown.

The succeeding events are too well known to require recounting in detail. Anthony Woodville, Richard Grey, the queen’s second son by her first husband, and Thomas Vaughn, Edward V’s chamberlain since his infancy, were seized and arrested. Edward V was taken to London by his uncles Gloucester and Buckingham, who lodged him in suitably royal quarters in the Tower at Buckingham’s suggestion. On June 13, 1483, William Hastings, Edward IV’s closest friend, was seized at a council meeting and executed without trial on the pretext that he had been plotting against Richard. The Archbishop of York, the Bishop of Ely, and Oliver King, among others, were imprisoned. Elizabeth Woodville, who had fled to Westminster sanctuary upon hearing of the arrest of her brother and son, was persuaded on June 16 to hand over her youngest boy, Richard, Duke of York, to Gloucester. The arguments put to her were no doubt aided by the band of soldiers surrounding the sanctuary. Buckingham met the boy at Westminster Hall, after which he was greeted by Gloucester and escorted to join his brother in the Tower. The next day, it was announced that the coronation had been postponed until November.

Beginning June 22, sermons were preached to the effect that Edward IV’s marriage to Elizabeth Woodville was invalid and their children therefore illegitimate based on a supposed precontract between Edward IV and one Eleanor Butler—both parties being conveniently dead. Buckingham and Richard were present at one such sermon, preached by Dr. Ralph Shaw.

Buckingham appeared at the Guildhall on June 24, where he made a speech, attended by the mayor and numerous other prominent citizens, urging that Richard be crowned king. Though the speech was “so well and eloquently uttered and with so angelic a countenance, and every pause and time was well ordered, that such as heard him marveled and said that never before that day had they heard any man, learned or unlearned, make such oration,” the response was not enthusiastic.

The next day, Rivers, Grey, and Vaughn were executed at Pontefract, an event Rivers had been expecting since June 23, when he made his will. Back in London, on June 26, a petition formally setting out Richard’s title to the throne was presented to Richard at Baynards Castle. Richard agreed to take the throne.

Buckingham had the main part in organizing the coronation, held on July 6. He bore Richard’s train in the procession to and from Westminster Abbey, gave the king a pall and a pound of gold at the altar, and helped him remove his ceremonial robes and replace them with purple robes. His stepfather, Richard Darell, his cousin Edward Stafford, Earl of Wiltshire, and his uncle by marriage, William Knyvet, also attended. One family member, however, was significantly absent: Katherine Woodville, whose brother and nephew had been executed at Richard’s orders and whose sister the queen was still in sanctuary. Whether Katherine was purposely excluded from the coronation, or chose herself to avoid it, is unknown.

Buckingham was richly rewarded by Richard III for his kingmaking services. Having held no position of importance during Edward IV’s reign, he now was created chief justice and chamberlain of north and south Wales for life. He was also made constable, a hereditary Bohun office, and chamberlain—and he was given the coveted Bohun estates, with a promise that the grant would be confirmed at the next Parliament.

Meanwhile, Richard III’s nephews had disappeared from public view, never to be seen again. Rumors quickly spread that they had been murdered, with both Richard III and Buckingham being named as the killers. Buckingham has become the favorite suspect of those who wish to exonerate Richard from any guilt in the matter, but the case against him can be proven no more than that against Richard.

Just weeks after Richard’s coronation, plans were made to rescue the Princes from the Tower by starting fires in the city of London. The plan failed, and four men were executed, but the country was at last emerging from the stupor into which it had been plunged by the events of June. Another scheme arose, this time to take Elizabeth Woodville’s daughters out of sanctuary and send them abroad. Richard thwarted it by posting an armed guard around Westminster Abbey. By August, however, the conspiracy—involving mostly gentry who had been loyal to Edward IV—was spreading through the south. As rumors began that the princes in the Tower were dead, Elizabeth Woodville, her sons Lionel and Richard, Margaret Beaufort, Buckingham’s prisoner Bishop Morton, and Buckingham himself became involved. Margaret’s son, Henry Tudor, living in exile abroad, was invited by Buckingham in October 1483 to come to England—to assume the throne, according to the Croyland Chronicler. (Richard’s act of attainder states only that the rebels planned to depose and kill Richard; it does not indicate that Tudor was the intended replacement—presumably a notion Richard did not wish to implant in his subjects’ heads.)

Buckingham’s motives for joining the rebellion remain a mystery. Some have suggested that he aimed at the crown himself (and killed the princes as a step toward that ultimate goal), others that he believed that Richard’s reign was doomed and wanted to shield himself from reprisals by the rebels by joining them. The notion that he was revulsed by Richard’s killing of the princes has been discounted by historians as of late, but it should not be rejected out of hand (assuming, of course, that Richard did indeed kill them). Buckingham may not have had difficulty condoning the death of grown men, but infanticide may have been an entirely different thing to him. Horror and the fear that he had imperiled his immortal soul by his complicity with the king could explain his willingness to risk all of his long-coveted gains for an uncertain future with an obscure and untried exile. The Croyland Chronicler’s statement that Buckingham “had repented of his former conduct” may well be an accurate statement.

Whatever Buckingham’s motives, his own part in the rebellion failed miserably, due to Richard’s swift response, Buckingham’s inability to inspire loyalty in his Welsh tenants, and horrendous rains and flooding that hampered his forces’ passage. Leaving his daughters at Brecon, he went with his wife and sons to Weobley, where Sir Walter Devereux, Lord Ferrers had a manor. Lord Ferrers’ role in this is a mystery. He was not named as being a rebel, and later fought and died for Richard III at Bosworth, but he had sheltered the young Henry Tudor in 1470 when the boy was in the care of Anne, Countess of Pembroke, Walter’s sister. Ferrers had also controlled Buckingham’s lordships of Brecon, Hay, and Huntington while Buckingham was a minor. It was presumably these connections that led Buckingham to him. Perhaps Ferrers was an unwilling or absent host; perhaps the presence of the duchess and the couple’s small sons allowed him to tell Richard that he had acted merely out of consideration for their plight.

After spending a week speaking to the local men, presumably in a fruitless attempt to gain support, Buckingham—now with a reward of a thousand pounds on his head-- disguised himself in workman’s clothes and fled, leaving what was left of his army behind. Before this, however, he entrusted his heir, five-year-old Edward Stafford, to Richard Delabeare to keep until he sent for the boy. With them to Kynardsley went William Knyvet, who was married to Buckingham’s aunt and who had also served as one of Buckingham’s councilors. Buckingham had taken the precaution of having a frieze coat—a coat of a coarse cloth that would not ordinarily have been suitable for a duke’s son—made for his son. While the duke and duchess and their remaining son, Henry, were still at Weobley, members of the Vaughan family (not to be confused with the Vaughan who had died at Pontefract) seized Brecon Castle, looting its contents and doing historians a great disservice by destroying many of the Stafford records. The Buckingham girls and their ladies were taken to Tretower, the Vaughans’ home.

The fleeing duke sought shelter at the home of a retainer, Ralph Bannister, in Wem. Either out of fear or out of greed for the reward, Bannister betrayed Buckingham and was rewarded by Richard III with a manor. A dramatic later account says that Buckingham, working in an orchard at the time of his apprehension, sank to his knees and cursed Ralph and his lineage.

Buckingham was taken to Shrewsbury, where on October 31 he was handed over to the ubiquitous James Tyrrell and to Christopher Wellesbourne, who took him to Salisbury. In Salisbury, his pleas for an audience with Richard III were refused. Buckingham’s son Edward would later claim that his father carried a dagger up his sleeve with which he would have stabbed Richard while kneeling down before him. Edward, of course, was nowhere near his father at the time, and his own sources for this information are unknown. Perhaps someone who was with Buckingham in his last hours told him the story.

On November 2, 1483, All Saints’ Day, Buckingham was beheaded in Salisbury marketplace. Several places have been suggested for his burial, but the most likely is that indicated by the Chronicle of the Grey Friars of London, Greyfriars in Salisbury. He apparently was allowed by his captors to make a will, as both a 1485 Act of Parliament and William Catesby’s will refer to a will by Buckingham.

A search then began for Buckingham’s wife and sons. Search parties failed to find Edward, whose caretakers moved him from place to place and dressed him as a little gentlewoman (complete with shaved forehead) to avoid detection. Katherine and her other son, Henry, were found at Weobley by Wellesbourne, who with the brother of John Huddleston, probably Richard Huddleston (married to Queen Anne’s half-sister, an out of wedlock child of the Earl of Warwick), took the duchess to the king in London.

Katherine’s status after she was brought to Richard III is unclear. Some historians have claimed that she was allowed to join her sister Elizabeth in sanctuary, but the records do not show this; as Richard III was trying to get Elizabeth out of sanctuary, it seems unlikely that he would have let yet another Woodville in. On December 19, 1483, however, Richard III did issue a letter allowing the duchess to convey her children and servants from Wales to “these parts,” meaning London, from where the order was issued. Whether Katherine was living on her own in London at the time or was living as a royal prisoner or under close supervision is unknown. Presumably the missing Edward Stafford was included in this order and was brought out of hiding to join his mother.

By April 1484, Richard III had granted Katherine an annuity of 200 marks to be paid to her out of the issues of Tonbridge. This has been often cited as an instance of Richard’s selfless generosity, but it should also be noted that a widow of an attainted traitor was legally entitled to receive any jointure that had been set for her. In an act passed during Henry VII’s first Parliament, it is indicated that Buckingham set Katherine’s jointure at 1,000 pounds. If this was the case, Richard III ignored Katherine’s rights to jointure, and his grant to her should be viewed in that light instead of an instance of benevolence.

Katherine now faced the problem of raising four children on her small annuity—small, at least, for the widow of one of the richest landholders in England who had hitherto wanted for nothing. She may have appealed to William Catesby, Richard III’s royal councilor and a man who had served Buckingham as well. Richard III had granted Catesby and others a number of manors out of which to pay the duke’s debts. Catesby seems to have been derelict in discharging his responsibility, however, for in his will, made as he was facing execution after Bosworth, he left Katherine 100 pounds “to help her children, and that she will see my Lords detts paied and his will executed, and in speciall for such land as shall be amortised to the house of Plashy.” Pleshey College had received gifts from Buckingham’s forbears; presumably Buckingham had remembered the institution in his will.

After Henry VII took the throne, he reversed Buckingham’s attainder and assigned Katherine jointure and dower. Probably the generous treatment accorded Katherine—she was given lands that exceeded the value of her jointure and dower—was due to Henry’s desire to benefit his uncle, Jasper Tudor. The latter, newly created Duke of Bedford, married Katherine before November 7, 1485. Before Henry VII’s coronation, seven-year-old Edward Stafford, now the third Duke of Buckingham, was made a Knight of the Bath. With Edward restored to his family’s estates, his wardship had become a very desirable one. It was given to Henry VII’s mother, Margaret Beaufort, and he and his brother grew up in her household.

Katherine was prominent in the ceremonies surrounding the coronation of her niece, Elizabeth of York, in 1487. She and several other ladies, carried in two chairs, followed the queen as she processed to Westminster the day before her coronation, and at breakfast the day after, Katherine sat on the left of the queen, with Margaret Beaufort on the right. At the christening of Henry and Elizabeth’s first daughter, Margaret, Katherine carried the train of the baby’s mantle, assisted by Lord Strange. She is not mentioned by name as attending her sister Elizabeth Woodville’s funeral, though one of Katherine’s daughters is mentioned as being present.

On December 21, 1495, Jasper Tudor died, aged about sixty-four. Katherine, still only about thirty-seven, very hastily married Richard Wingfield, without a royal license. Part of a prosperous but very large Suffolk gentry family, Richard, the eleventh of twelve sons, would go on to have a distinguished diplomatic career in Henry VIII’s service, but at the time he must have had few material resources. (Perhaps persuading the rich duchess to the marriage, which took place before February 24, 1496, was an early example of Richard’s diplomatic skills—or sex appeal.) Henry VII fined the couple two thousand pounds for their presumption, although it was ultimately Katherine’s son Edward who bore the burden of paying the fine. Katherine would have probably known Richard for some time, as there were already ties between the Wingfields and the Woodvilles: Katherine’s widowed sister Anne had married Edward Wingfield, a brother of Richard, while Richard’s mother was from the Fitzlewis family and thus was connected to Mary Fitzlewis, Anthony Woodville’s second wife. Two of Richard’s brothers, and perhaps Richard himself, had served in Katherine’s household, and the Wingfields had rebelled against Richard in 1483 and fought for Henry VII at Bosworth.

Katherine died on May 18, 1497, barely a year after her third marriage, having had no children by Wingfield. Richard Wingfield remarried, but in his will in 1525 requested that prayers be said for Katherine’s soul as well as for those of other deceased family members and friends.

Of the many children born to Richard Woodville and Jacquetta of Luxembourg, Katherine was the last surviving. Fortunately, she did not live long enough to witness the destruction of her eldest son by Henry VIII in 1521.

That Doggone Richard III

Here's Shakespeare's Richard III as performed by cartoon dachshunds. (It'd be even better, my buddy Boswell thinks, if it were performed by cartoon cairn terriers, but beggars can't be choosers.) I suppose there should be a revisionist version of this too--perhaps Sharon Penman's The Sunne in Splendour performed by Jack Russell terriers?

Where's Buckingham Buried? And Does He Carry Visa?

Though the unfortunate Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, found himself short of friends when the rebellion that bears his name collapsed, at least three different places have laid claim to his body.

Buckingham was executed in Salisbury on November 2, 1483, after his repeated requests to see Richard III failed. He may well have made a will before his execution, for both Thomas Catesby in his pre-execution will and an act of Henry VII's Parliament restoring his widow her jointure make reference to a will by Buckingham. Probably, like Catesby and Anthony Woodville, he requested a final resting place. Unfortunately, Buckingham's will, if he had one, does not appear to have survived.

The first candidate put forth as a resting place for Buckingham was the Church of St. Peter in Britford, just outside of Salisbury. In 1836 in The Gentleman's Magazine, R. Colt Hoare wrote that the tomb bore the shield of Stafford and Rivers. He added,

I am inclined to suppose that the figures on the base of the tomb allude to a melancholy event which took place at Salisbury. There are six niches, five of which contain male and female figures; the first is vacant, which I think was designed for the unfortunate Duke. I consider the female figure in the second niche, having a crown on her head, as representing the Duchess, his wife. The next figure is evidently an ecclesiastic or bishop deploring the unfortunate fate of the Duke; and at this period Widvile, brother of the Duchess, was bishop of the see. The fourth figure represents a female crowned like the second, holding a sword in one hand, and in the other a cap or bonnet, probably that of the Duke.

The fifth figure represents the executioner with the sword in his hand.

The last figure represent [sic] a female holding up her hand in apparent grief, and with a child in her arms, as alluding to one of the unfortunate Duke's offspring.

One D.H., however, also writing in The Gentleman's Magazine, would have none of this. Dissenting in a gentlemanly manner (as one might expect), he wrote that the figures probably represented saints, not family members of Buckingham, and he doubted that the shields represented the House of Stafford. Later writers have suggested that the Britford tomb might have been erected in Buckingham's memory, but does not contain his remains.

The picture grew murkier in 1838, when according to a report in the Salopian Journal, during renovations at Salisbury's Saracen's Head Inn, a skeleton was found beneath the flooring, missing its head and right arm. The skeleton underwent an extremely unscientific examination by the locals, with the landlord measuring a rib against his own and a maidservant "laying irreverent hands upon the neck-bones." Under the assumption that the skeleton belonged to a long-ago murder victim, the workers knocked the fragile bones about so that they merged into the surrounding clay. A few 19th-century antiquarians suggested that this was Buckingham's skeleton; they noted that the Saracen's Head Inn stood on the site of the Blue Boar Inn, the yard of which is given by some sources as the site for Buckingham's execution. It's possible that Richard III, furious at Buckingham's betrayal, might have ordered that his erstwhile ally be buried ignominiously instead of in consecrated ground, but how to explain the missing right arm?

Finally, the Chronicle of the Grey Friars of London states, "Thys yere the duke of Buckyngham was be-heddyd at Salsbery, and is burryd at the Gray freres [in Salisbury]." As noted in a footnote by J.G. Nichols, this is probably the most logical resting place for Buckingham. It was nearby, and as Richard III had afforded other executed opponents of his, notably William Hastings, honorable burial, he probably did so with Buckingham as well.

Wherever the duke lies, he does not seem to be doing it quietly. Buckingham's ghost is said to haunt Debenhams department store in Salisbury, where he has been known to enter the women's dressing room and hiss, "It makes you look fat, darling." (OK, I made up the last line. But not the haunting Debenhams part.) The site of his execution is marked by a plaque on the store.

So if you're shopping at Debenhams and encounter the ghostly Duke, why not gently ask him to clarify the matter of his burial? Oh, and ask him about the Princes too while you're at it.

Elizabeth Woodville, Non-Bearer of Bad Tidings?

If you've read any Ricardian novel worthy of its genre, you've come across the following scene: in April 1483, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, and Anne, his childhood sweetheart, blissfully married, are enjoying a carefree moment in their beloved Yorkshire when a messenger rides up, bringing ill tidings: Edward IV is dead. As Richard absorbs this devastating news, the narrator, if he's at all reliable, will inform us sternly that the messenger was from William Hastings and not from Elizabeth Woodville. The latter, we'll be told, failed to tell Richard herself either (a) because of her mean-spirited character and/or (b) because of a Nasty Woodville plot to keep Richard in the dark about his brother's death for as long as possible. The latter gives rise to visions of the following scenario:

August 1483. Richard is frolicking in the moors with Anne when a messenger shuffles up.

Richard: Have you news, man?

Messenger: Oh, I suppose so. Your brother the king is dead.

Richard: No! NO! Anne, we must get to London as soon as possible to save the country from the evil Woodvilles!

Messenger: Don't bother. He died back in April. His son is already crowned and there's not a thing you can do about it. Us Woodvilles are in charge. (Cackles gleefully for a few minutes, then abruptly stops) Oh, but there is one thing you can do.

Richard (miserably): What?

Messenger: The Queen Mum will let you keep all of your castles, but she wants you to rename them. Got that? So from now, this will be known as Middlewood. Sheriff Hutton will be known as Sheriff Bessie.

Richard: NOOOOOO! (Runs off into moors and disappears forever, thereby depriving future generations of perfectly good subjects to blog about).

But seriously, is there truth to this story that Elizabeth Woodville and her family deliberately failed to let Richard know of his brother's death? I haven't found a contemporary source for it. The Croyland Chronicler, who most historians agree was a person highly placed at court, reports the controversy over the size of the escort the new king and his relations were to have, notes that Richard wrote cordial, reassuring letters to the queen after he learned of Edward's death, and states that Richard traveled to York to publicly mourn his brother. In all of this, he doesn't indicate who told Richard of his brother's death, but he doesn't suggest that anyone had been derelict in giving Gloucester the news or that it had come from an unexpected quarter. Mancini, whose account is by no means favorable to the Woodvilles, reports that there were conflicting opinions among the king's councilors as to what role Gloucester was to play in the minority government, and he writes that Hastings reported these deliberations to Richard and urged him to come to London quickly. As with Croyland, however, nothing in Mancini's account gives the impression that there had been any delay in notifying Richard of his brother's death or any impropriety in the way he was notified.

Based on these sources, the logical conclusion is that whether or not Elizabeth Woodville personally sent Richard the news (and it's not at all clear to me why she, as opposed to someone from the king's household like William Hastings, the king's chamberlain, would have been expected to do so), Richard learned of his brother's death via conventional means and within a reasonable time. Indeed, in their chronology of events in The Coronation of Richard III: The Extant Documents, Anne F. Sutton and P. W. Hammond--both associated with the Richard III Society--indicate, based on Mancinci, Croyland, and other contemporary sources, that Richard in Yorkshire probably received the news of Edward IV's death at about the same time--April 14--that the future Edward V and his household, which of course included Elizabeth's brother Anthony Woodville, received the news in Wales.

None of this would be of much importance in the grand scheme of things, perhaps, except that the unfounded notion that Elizabeth & Co. tried to conceal the king's death from Richard has made it into nonfiction as well as fiction, giving it a certain respectability and staying power. Elizabeth Jenkins in The Princes in the Tower twice states that no one told Richard of the king's death until Hastings broke the news, and Paul Murray Kendall, in whose eyes Elizabeth Woodville combines all of the worst qualifies of Imelda Marcos, Cruella de Vil, and Britney Spears, also writes that no official word ever came from Westminster to Richard. Bertram Fields in his book Royal Blood likewise accuses the queen and her kin of delay, and a quick surf on the Internet produces several Ricardian sites that make similar allegations. Especially with regard to the latter, it's disheartening to note how some--by no means all or even most--of those dedicated to reassessing Richard's reputation should be so cavalier about besmirching those of his contemporaries.

Anne Beauchamp's Gold Tablet

Recently I picked up a collection of essays titled Much Heaving and Shoving: Late-Medieval Gentry and Their Concerns, Essays for Colin Richmond, edited by Margaret Aston and Rosemary Horrox. It contains a good deal of interest in relation to Richard III, and I found one article, "The Smethon Letter, St Penket and the Tablet of Gold" by Tony Pollard, to be of particular interest.

In the article, Pollard quotes a letter by William Smethon, a chaplain in the service of Richard Clervaux, a landowner near Middleham. The letter, which Pollard dates between February and the summer of 1478, was found behind a grant of free warren from Edward IV on February 26, 1478, that had been framed and kept at Croft Hall. Smethon not only mentions the death of George, the Duke of Clarence ("dead in a vat for hys bathying") but also refers to Anne Beauchamp, Countess of Warwick, Richard III's mother-in-law. Having informed Clervaux that the lord of Gloucester (i.e., Richard III) had told him that the free warren matter was making "good spede," Smethon adds that the countess has made a great table of gold of St. Pen, Our Lady, and the Holy Trinity, "with which it is seid my lord is not plesed withahll." He adds, "And yit my lady shall be at rob' ho' this seson."

This letter is fascinating for several reasons. For one, as Pollard points out, it seems to confirm that Anne Beauchamp was indeed residing at Middleham in Richard III's household at the time, as opposed to some other residence. For another, it suggests that Anne enjoyed a certain freedom of movement and action while at Middleham, contradicting Rous's claim that Richard III shut her up for life. It also indicates that Anne, though she had been stripped of her lands by her sons-in-law, had enough spending money to commission this gold tablet.

What was this tablet? Pollard suggests that it might be none other than the Middleham Jewel, a gold tablet that does indeed depict Our Lady and the Trinity. As for "St. Pen," Pollard notes that the Middleham Jewel frames the Nativity scene on its back with 15 saints, one of whom he suggests may be St. Penket, "an obscure whirling, or ecstatic dancing, saint."

So what was Gloucester not pleased about? Had the Countess of Warwick been overspending her allowance in having this tablet made? Or, as Pollard suggests, had she become a devotee of the cult of St. Penket, thereby incurring the disapproval of her more religiously orthodox son-in-law?

What was this mysterious "rob' ho'"? Sadly, its meaning is obscure, but Pollard suggests that it might refer to a building on the Middleham High Moor known as the Rubbing House, in which St. Penket followers might have held dances.

As is often the case with Richard III, this letter raises many more questions than it answers. But they're interesting questions, and I'll be searching out Colin Richmond's The Penket Papers to read more for myself about this obscure saint.

The Ten Rules for Writing Ricardian Historical Fiction

Some time ago (I never was accused of being au courant), rules for writing various sorts of historical fiction were circulated in blogdom. Astonishingly, as far as I know, no one provided any for the aspiring Ricardian novelist. So here's my attempt to fill this gaping void:


1. Anne Beauchamp, Richard's mother-in-law, must be tearfully grateful when Richard III takes her to live with him and Anne, and must not under any circumstances allude to the fact that Richard and Clarence together have stripped her of all of her lands. The means by which Richard acquired the lands of George Neville and the Countess of Oxford should also be disregarded; if the matter of land must be mentioned at all, the reader should be allowed to assume that it came to Richard via the Land Fairy.

2. Anne Neville must be frail, in order to make Richard's love for her all the more noble and to get maximum pathos from her stay at the cookshop. The emotional power of a Ricardian novel can be measured roughly by the number of times Anne faints.

3. Anything bad that happens in England during the Wars of the Roses is the fault of either (a) Margaret of Anjou, (b) anyone named Woodville, (c) Margaret Beaufort, (d) the Stanleys, (e) Buckingham (except when he's allied with Richard III), or (f) Henry Tudor. Special points go to any Ricardian novelist who can make the Woodvilles responsible for global warming.

4. Anything good that happens in England during the Wars of the Roses is due to Richard, Duke of York, Edward IV (except when it's something Richard doesn't like), or Richard III.

5. Anne and Richard must have been childhood sweethearts whose lifelong wish to marry is thwarted by Warwick. The phrase "sold into marriage" should be used at least once when Anne marries Edward of Lancaster. Under no circumstances should Anne and Edward have even slightly positive feelings for each other.

6. Richard III's extramarital liaisons are the product of either his merry bachelor high jinks, a passionate premarital love affair with a woman of lower rank, or (preferably) his desperate need to find comfort in the absence of his childhood sweetheart Anne. Anyone else's extramarital liaisons are the product of lechery and depravity. Yes, that means you, William Hastings.

7. In the afterword, the conscientious Ricardian novelist will take a swipe at all accounts unfavorable to Richard, dismissing them as Tudor propaganda. The very same accounts, however, must be followed slavishly when they are unfavorable to Richard's enemies.

8. William Collingbourne's hanging, drawing, and quartering on Richard III's orders must not be depicted, as it would be a violation of the Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which Richard would have followed to the letter if only it'd been written at the time.

9. Richard must not kill the Princes. Nor can he make a loaded remark such as, "Will no one rid me of those pesky Princes?" or "Sure would be a lot more to go around if we didn't have those two extra mouths in the Tower to feed." (But c'mon—you knew that rule.)

10. When in doubt, blame Elizabeth Woodville.

So What Did Buckingham Want to Say?

We know that before his execution, Henry Stafford, Richard III's ally suddenly turned rebel, asked for an audience with Richard, but was denied. Sadly, we now have no idea of what Buckingham meant to say. So what was it? Here are a few possibilities:

Sorry sorry sorry!

You know, don't you think we should just chalk this one up to experience?

I know this looks bad, but I can explain everything.

I just wanted to express my high sense of esteem for you. I don't think I've ever had the chance to do so.

I've still got lots of great ideas in my head. Let's do supper, shall we?

Just kidding!

Shouldn't you sleep on this?

I know I shouldn't speak ill of a lady, but it's really that Margaret Beaufort dame whose head you should be going after.

Remember how much fun we had stealing the crown? Doesn't that count for anything?

If you spare my life, I'll dish some real dirt about my wife's sister Elizabeth Woodville.

Remember, if you kill me, someday some guy will write me a speech in which I get to talk about it being All Souls' Day and act very repentant and noble, and you'll just be yelling for a horse.

A Tale From Bosworth: John de Vere, Earl of Oxford

The Battle of Bosworth, which occurred on August 22, 1485, can certainly be considered to have had a tragic result. Even if one's not a fan of Richard III, it was an inglorious end to the Plantagenet dynasty, albeit (if one believes, as Unromantic Blogger does, that the story about the pre-contract was a fabrication) one brought about by Richard III himself.

But Richard III's story is not the only one at Bosworth. At the battle where one king lost his throne and an obscure exile gained it, another man, long loyal to what at times must have seemed a hopeless cause, finally triumphed. The man? John de Vere, Thirteenth Earl of Oxford.

John de Vere gained his earldom through a family disaster: the executions of his father, John de Vere, and his eldest brother, Aubrey, in February 1462, supposedly for conspiring with Margaret of Anjou. The Earl of Worcester, John Tiptoft, a cultivated sort who nonetheless later gained the sobriquet "the butcher of England" because of some of his more inventive execution methods, seems to have restrained himself on this occasion, merely beheading father and son a few days apart.

The new head of the family was about twenty when his father and brother were executed. Edward IV treated him kindly, allowing him to enter upon his father's estates in 1464 and to succeed to his earldom. In 1465, he officiated as Elizabeth Woodville's chamberlain at her coronation and was made a Knight of the Bath at the same occasion. In officiating as chamberlain, Oxford poured water into a bowl held by the Duke of Clarence--not the first time the pair was to work together. About this time, Oxford made another fateful connection as well, marrying Margaret Neville, whose brother was the Richard Neville known as Warwick the Kingmaker.

For several years, Oxford went about his business on his estates, occasionally hunting and dining with his mother's cousin, John Howard, who would later become the Duke of Norfolk. In November 1468, however, Oxford was arrested and imprisoned in the Tower for treason. Perhaps he had always secretly harbored Lancastrian sentiments on behalf of his father and brother, or perhaps his new brother-in-law had used his charisma to convert him to the cause. Supposedly he made a confession, saving his own head but resulting in the executions of two other men. If Oxford did betray his co-conspirators, it was the last time he would do so, for after this he was unshakably loyal to the Lancastrian cause.

Oxford was released from the Tower, where he is said to have been kept in irons, by January 1469, and received a royal pardon that April. But Edward could have spared himself the ink. In June, Oxford joined the Earl of Warwick and the Duke of Clarence, and he was present in Calais where the earl's daughter Isabel married Clarence. After a brief spell where Edward IV was Warwick's prisoner, there was a surface reconciliation, which ended abruptly with the flight of Warwick and Clarence to France in April 1470. Oxford soon joined them there. That July, he was present when the Earl of Warwick spent fifteen minutes on his knees begging for Margaret of Anjou's forgiveness. Oxford himself received a gracious welcome from the queen, who said that he had "suffered much thing for King Henry."

By October 1470, Henry VI was nominally, and briefly, back on the throne. Oxford was made steward of the household and Constable of England, and he carried the sword of state when Henry was recrowned. Just two days later he ordered the execution of the Earl of Worcester, the man who had ordered the execution of his own father and brother. John Tiptoft's execution methods of some of Warwick's supporters--he had their bodies impaled after hanging them--had repulsed even his contemporaries, so his own execution was well attended and well applauded.

Soon, however, Oxford was busy raising troops against Edward IV. The forces of Oxford's younger brother Thomas discouraged the ex-king from landing on the Norfolk coast, but Edward managed to disembark at Ravenspur. The end result on April 14, 1471, was the Battle of Barnet, where Oxford commanded the right division. His troops were initially successful, chasing their opponents as far as London and causing rumors of a Lancastrian victory to spread. They were soon caught up in the satisfaction of pillaging, but Oxford managed to round them up and return to the field. There, disaster ensued as John Neville's troops, mistaking Oxford's men in the fog for troops of Edward IV, began to fire on them. Oxford's troops, raising a cry of treason, fled the field, and shortly thereafter the Earl of Warwick lay dead.

Oxford fled to Scotland, finding time on the way to write a letter to his wife, whom he would not see again until 1485. He asked her to send him money, men, and horses and, rather optimistically, advised her to "be of good cheer and take no thought."

For the next couple of years, Oxford managed to make trouble for the restored Edward IV. He carried out raids on Calais and may have been plotting with his surviving brother-in-law, George Neville, Archbishop of York, and perhaps the perpetually discontent Duke of Clarence as well. In May 1473, he attempted to land in Essex but was repelled. Thereafter he took to piracy, the time-honored resort of those down on their luck.

Oxford's buccaneering summer came to an end on September 30, 1473, when he and about eighty other men, including his three brothers, seized St. Michael's Mount in Cornwall. Perhaps he still had plans involving the Duke of Clarence. Such plans never materialized, however, and Edward IV's troops were ultimately able to lure the earl's supporters away with promises of royal pardons. With his situation becoming a hopeless one, Oxford finally accepted a pardon of his life in February 1474 and was sent as a prisoner to Hammes Castle near Calais.

The nadir of Oxford's existence came in the spring or summer of 1478, when he leapt the walls of the castle into chin-deep water. As John Paston wrote, "Some say to steal away, and some think he would have drowned himself." Cora Scofield, best known for her biography of Edward IV, suggests that Oxford may have been in despair brought about by the execution of the Earl of Clarence, probably then his last hope.

Oxford's wife Margaret, meanwhile, had been reduced to penury. One source even states that she was forced to make her living from her needle. John Howard, her neighbor, seems to have assisted her, however, and perhaps her sisters and nieces helped her as well. In 1482 Edward IV granted her an annuity of 100 pounds, which Richard III renewed.

It was the reign of Richard III that spelled salvation for the Earl of Oxford. After what must have been hopeless years following his abortive jump, Oxford succeeded in making a friend of his jailer, James Blount. Perhaps Blount, a former retainer of William Hastings, harbored a grudge regarding the summary execution of his master, whose widow and Oxford's wife were sisters, or perhaps he, like many others, was horrified at the disappearance and probable deaths of the princes who had been placed into Richard's care. In any event, in October 1484, Oxford walked out of prison, accompanied by Blount and the gentleman porter of Calais, James Fortescue. The trio made their way to Montargis, where Henry Tudor and a growing band of English exiles had congregated. Henry was well pleased to welcome the militarily experienced Oxford into his somewhat motley crew.

In August 1485, Henry Tudor and his followers landed near Milford Haven and made their way toward their fateful encounter with Richard III. There is a dispute about exactly where the Battle of Bosworth took place, but wherever it occurred, Oxford led the vanguard of Richard III's troops. His former friend John Howard, now the Duke of Norfolk, led Richard III's vanguard. As reported by Polydor Vergil:

In the meane tyme therle of Oxfoord, fearing lest hys men in fyghting might be envyronyd of the multitude, commandyd in every rang that no soldiers should go above tenfoote from the standerds; which charge being knowen, whan all men had throng thik togethers, and stayd a whyle from fighting, thadversaryes wer therwith aferd, supposing soome fraude, and so they all forbore the fight a certane space, and that veryly dyd many with right goodwill, who rather covetyd the king dead than alyve, and therfor fowght fayntly. Than therle of Oxforth in one part, and others in an other part, with the bandes of men closse one to an other, gave freshe charge uppon thenemy, and in array tryangle vehemently renewyd the conflict. Whyle the battayll contynewyd thus hote on both sydes betwixt the vanwardes, king Richard understood, first by espyalls wher erle Henry was a farre of with smaule force of soldiers abowt him; than after drawing nerer he knew yt perfytely by evydent signes and tokens that yt was Henry; wherfor, all inflamyd with ire, he strick his horse with the spurres, and runneth owt of thone syde withowt the vanwardes agaynst him. Henry perceavyd king Richerd coome uppon him, and because all his hope was than in valyancy of armes, he receavyd him with great corage. King Richerd at the first brunt killyd certane, overthrew Henryes standerd, toygther with William Brandon the standerd bearer, and matchyd also with John Cheney a man of muche fortytude, far exceeding the common sort, who encountered with him as he cam, but the king with great force drove him to the ground, making way with weapon on every syde. But yeat Henry abode the brunt longer than ever his owne soldiers wold have wenyd, who wer now almost owt of hope of victory, whan as loe William Stanley with thre thowsand men came to the reskew: than trewly in a very moment the resydew all fled, and king Richerd alone was killyd fyghting manfully in the thickkest presse of his enemyes. In the mean time also the erle of Oxfoord after a lyttle bickering put to flight them that fowght in the forward, wherof a great company wer killed in the chase.

One legend has it that the 60-year-old Duke of Norfolk died by Oxford's own hand, after which Oxford supposedly made the comment, "A better knight could not die, but he might die in a better cause."

With Henry Tudor the new king, Oxford reaped rewards, becoming the Lord High Admiral of England, Constable of the Tower, and a Knight of the Garter. He was recognized as the hereditary Great Chamberlain of England, a role that took him to three coronations: those of Henry VI, Elizabeth of York, and Henry VIII. He again commanded the king's vanguard at the Battle of Stoke. As Lord High Steward, he presided over the trial of the unfortunate young Earl of Warwick, accused and executed on what were probably manufactured charges of plotting with Perkin Warbeck. On a happier note, the Countess of Surrey, wife of the imprisoned Earl of Surrey and daughter-in-law of the late Duke of Norfolk, wrote a letter to John Paston in which she praised Oxford's kindness to her. Oxford also was faithful to an old friend and comrade, William Beaumont, who went mad in 1487. The earl took Beaumont and his wife to live in his household, where Beaumont died in 1507. Oxford's own wife having died in 1506, he married Beaumont's widow, Elizabeth Scrope.

Oxford died in 1513, childless, at the ripe old age of seventy-one, in his own castle at Hedingham. Had Richard III not taken his nephew's throne, but served as his protector and counselor until he came of age, Oxford might well have died a prisoner at Hammes Castle. It was Richard's own disloyalty to his brother's son that had allowed this diehard Lancastrian to at last emerge triumphant.

The Reign of Richard III as Told by the King

(King Elvis)

"Any Day Now"

"Without Him"

"You'll Be Gone"

"Gods Gonna Cut 'Em Down"

"What She's Really Like"

"Witchcraft"

"Who's Sorry Now"

"Let It Be Me"

"I Think I'm Gonna Like It Here"

"King Of The Whole Wide World"

"Out Of Sight Out Of Mind"

"He'll Have To Go"

"Patch It Up"

"Stay Away"

"T-R-O-U-B-L-E"

"Stand By Me"

"It's Over"

"Roses Are Red"

Richard the Guardian

When Richard III's defenders sing the king's praises, lauding him as a brave knight, a devoted brother, and an all-around great guy, they never fail to point to his kindly treatment of young George Neville, the dispossessed Duke of Bedford. As Paul Murray Kendall puts it, "When [Neville] was stripped of his dukedom . . ., Richard secured his wardship and brought the boy into his household" (130). Following Kendall's lead, Ricardian novelists have happily painted a picture of Richard III as sort of a medieval John Jarndyce, taking this boy and other poor relations under his benevolent wing.

But is this the whole story? Is this blog named "The Romantic Richard III"?

George Neville's rather sad story begins with that of his father, John Neville, younger brother to Richard Neville, the Earl of Warwick known as "Warwick the Kingmaker." As a reward for his loyalty, Edward IV had made John Neville Earl of Northumberland, a heady prize for a younger son. The Northumberland earldom, however, was a Percy holding, and in 1470, Edward IV, evidently seeing a need for a continued Percy presence in the North to counterbalance that of the Earl of Warwick, restored the Percy heir to the family earldom, thus taking the Northumberland title and lands from John Neville. John Neville in recompense was granted some lands formerly held by the late Earl of Devon and was created the Marquis of Montagu. His son, George, was made the Duke of Bedford and betrothed to Edward IV's eldest daughter, Elizabeth.

One Ricardian novel paints a pitiful scene of John Neville being reduced to penury by the loss of his earldom. This was hardly the case; he had some lands of his own and the Devon lands he had been granted, and he was married to a heiress, Isobel Ingoldsthorpe. But the lands associated with the Northumberland earldom had been far more desirable. As Charles Ross suggests, Edward IV may have planned to augment John's landholdings later, but if he did, he failed to communicate his intentions to John, who eventually showed his resentment over being fobbed off with what he termed a "pie's nest" by joining forces with his brother to push Edward IV off his throne.

Richard Neville and John Neville were to meet their deaths fighting at the Battle of Barnet. A staple of numerous Ricardian novels is the episode where John, having been slain, is found to have been wearing Yorkist colors under his armor--a proof of his painfully conflicting loyalties and of his undying devotion to the brothers of York (especially Richard). In fact, the episode, as described by Warkworth, puts John in a less flattering light: "The Lorde Markes Montagu was agreyde and apoyntede [agreed and appointed] with Kynge Edwarde, and put uppone hym Kynge Edwardes lyvery; and a manne of the Erles of Warwyke sawe that, and felle uppone hyme, and kyllede hym."

Other reports, however, simply have John dying in battle, with no mention of betrayal. The latter seem more likely, for certainly Edward IV was not inclined to treat John's surviving son indulgently, as he might have if John had died trying to fight for the Yorkist cause.

George Neville, born in 1465, was a small boy at the death of his father in 1471. He had been sent for safe keeping to Calais, from which he was fetched after the Battle of Barnet. In 1472, he was put into the custody of his mother. (Needless to say, his engagement to little Elizabeth of York was broken along the way.)

The estates of George's dead uncle, Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, had been entailed in the male line, meaning that in the normal course of affairs, the Warwick lands, including Middleham and Sheriff Hutton, would have gone to George rather than to Richard Neville's daughters. Just as the Earl of Warwick's widow, Anne Beauchamp, would be deprived of her own estates, however, George would be deprived of his Warwick lands. These were given by Edward IV to his brother Richard and would be the basis for the great influence that Richard was to enjoy in the North.

There was the small problem that neither Neville brother had ever been actually attainted, so the lands should have passed to George. This was solved in 1475 by having Parliament bypass the laws of inheritance. It declared that the Warwick lands would be vested in Richard, Duke of Gloucester, as long as there was any male heir of John Neville alive:

The king our sovereign lord, considering the great and heinous treasons and other offences committed against his highness by John Neville, late Marquis Montagu, intended by authority of this present parliament to have attainted and disabled the said late marquis and his heirs forever, as he deserved, but our sovereign lord, at the humble request and prayer of his most dear brother Richard, duke of Gloucester, and other lords of his blood, as well as of his other lords, now refrains from so doing and intends to proceed no further in that matter: nevertheless our same sovereign lord, recalling the great and laudable service that his said most dear brother Richard, duke of Gloucester, has done on various occasions to his highness, by the advice and assent of the lords spiritual and temporal and the commons assembled in this present parliament, and by authority of the same, ordains, decrees and enacts on this present 23 February that his said brother shall have, hold, possess and enjoy to him and his heirs lawfully begotten of his body, as long as there is any male heir begotten of the body of the said marquis, the honours, castles, lordships and manors of Middleham and Sheriff Hutton, with all their members and appurtenances, the lordships and manors of East Lilling, Elvington, Skirpenbeck, Easthorpe, Raskelf, Hook, Scoreby, Wilberfoss, Stamford Bridge, Humburton, Knapton, Rise in Holderness, Sutton upon Derwent, Sherburn in Hertfordlythe, Appleton in Ryedale, Sutton on the Forest and Tholthorpe, Carleton with Coverdale in Coverdale, West Witton, Woodhall, Kettlewell in Craven, Newbegin, Thoralby with Bishopdale, [West] Burton, Bainbridge with the vale of Wensleydale, Braithwaite, Aysgarth, Crakehall, Busby, Faceby, Carleton in Cleveland, Little Crakehall, Bowes, New Forest, Arkengarthdale, Hope otherwise called Easthope, Westhope, Moulton, Forcett, Gilling, Salkeld, Sowerby, Langwathby, Scotby and Carleton, with all the appurtenances; the barony of Worton, free chase in Wensleydale, £10 of rent issuing each year from the castle and manor of Wilton, the toll of Bowes, Leeming, Dishforth and Smeaton; the wapentakes or bailiwicks of Langbargh, Hang, Halikeld and Gilling; the advowsons of the churches of Moor Monkton, Walkington and Elvington, and of a chantry in Appleton church, a mill in Richmond, and the issues and profits of a farm called Litfarm, half of the land and wood of Snape, called the West Wood, all homages, rents called castleward, knights' fees, the rents and services of the free tenants belonging, pertaining or which ought to pertain to the castle, honour and lordship of Richmond, or to any part of it; which honours, castles, lordships, manors, lands, tenements and all the other things stated were formerly of Richard Neville, late earl of Warwick, or of any other persons or person to the use of the same earl. [Parliament Rolls of Medieval England, ed. by C. Given-Wilson, P. Brand, A. Curry, R. E. Horrox, G. Martin, W. M. Omrod, and J. R. S. Phillips]

But Edward IV (and his brother Richard, the chief beneficiary of George's fleecing) were not finished. In 1478, George was stripped of his ducal title as well:

Where previously the king our sovereign lord, for the great zeal and love he bore to John Neville, the late Marquis Montague, and for other considerations influencing him, elevated and made George Neville, the eldest son of the said marquis, duke of Bedford; and at that time, for the great love his said highness bore to the said John Neville, planned and intended to have given the said George adequate livelihood to support the same dignity: but for the great offences, wickedness and misbehaviour that the said John Neville did and committed against his said highness, as is commonly known, he had no reason to grant any livelihood to the said George. And because it is public knowledge that the same George does not have and may not have by inheritance any livelihood to support the said name, estate and dignity, or any name of estate; and it is frequently seen that when a lord is called to high estate and does not have adequate livelihood to support the same dignity it leads to great poverty and indigence, and often causes resort to great extortion, corruption and maintenance, to the great trouble of all the areas where such a figure happens to live. Wherefore the king, by the advice and assent of his lords spiritual and temporal and the commons assembled in this present parliament, and by authority of the same, ordains, decrees and enacts that the same elevation and making of duke, and all the dignities given to the said George or to the said John Neville, his father, shall henceforth be void and of no effect: and that henceforth the same George and his heirs shall not be dukes or marquesses, earls or barons, or be held or taken for dukes or marquesses, earls or barons because of any previous elevation or creation; but that name of duke and marquess, earl and baron shall cease in him and his heirs and be void and of no effect; notwithstanding the said elevation or creation. [Parliament Rolls]

In fact, as Michael Hicks points out in "What Might Have Been: George Neville, Duke of Bedford 1465-83--His Identity and Significance" (Ricardian, December 1986), George was not entirely without means. His mother had died in 1476, and he was entitled to both her inheritance and his parents' jointure, giving him a income estimated by Hicks as being about 400 pounds a year.

Just as Richard had been the beneficiary of the 1475 act vesting George's inheritance in him, Richard was also the beneficiary of the 1478 act degrading George. Had George remained a peer, as an adult he could have used his standing to persuade Parliament to reverse the 1475 act--especially since George was far too young to have been involved in his father's treason.

In 1480, in the act so dear to Ricardian hearts, Richard obtained George's wardship and marriage. It is important to remember, however, that wardships were hot commodities in medieval times: a person who obtained one could profit handsomely from the revenues of the ward's estate. George, even without his Warwick lands, still had a handsome income, enough to make him a desirable ward.

Even more important, obtaining George's marriage gave Richard the right to choose a bride for George. Here Richard was in a delicate situation. For Richard and his heirs to keep George's Warwick land, George needed to have a male heir of his body, which meant that George needed a fertile wife of good son-producing stock. She couldn't be too well connected, however, as her family might therefore be able to press for George's restoration to his Warwick lands.

This was a problem Richard never solved, for George died in May 1483, unmarried and childless, and was buried at what should have been his own castle at Sheriff Hutton. Richard's interest in the Warwick lands was thus reduced to a life estate. Why Richard never married George off is unknown. Perhaps George was sickly and could not attract a likely wife, or perhaps the teenage George may have balked at marrying and breeding male heirs for the benefit of Richard. Perhaps--probably the most likely scenario--Richard had been hoping to have Parliament pass an act more advantageous to Richard himself and had his plans frustrated by Edward IV's sudden death in April 1483.

What several historians have pointed out is that with the death of George Neville, Richard's hold on his northern estates was loosened. With Edward IV no longer alive to shower land upon his youngest brother, Richard needed to find a solution, and he did. As A. J. Pollard puts it in Richard III and the Princes in the Tower, "By going all the way and making himself king, even if he did not initially set out with this goal in mind, Richard resolved the question of his title to his northern estates once and for all."

Love and Marriage

Enshrined in the pages of historical fiction is a familiar story: young Richard, Duke of Gloucester, comes to Middleham Castle in Yorkshire to be reared in the home of the Earl of Warwick, where he and the earl's youngest daughter, Anne, become childhood sweethearts before entering into a grander passion for each other. Then the earl turns against Edward IV, Gloucester's brother, and Gloucester nobly chooses to side with his brother in the ensuing conflict. When Warwick forms an unholy alliance with the exiled Margaret of Anjou, Anne, herself in love with Richard, is forced to marry nasty Prince Edward, Margaret of Anjou's son, despite her protests. Their marriage is consummated with the utmost reluctance on Anne's part and the utmost brutality on Edward's, but soon justice, truth, and the Yorkist Way prevail. Anne, husbandless, fatherless, frail, and forlorn, is forced into a cookshop by her greedy brother-in-law George, Duke of Clarence. There she is worked to the point of collapse until gallant Richard rides up on a white horse, rescues her, restores her to health, marries her, and sweeps her off to the moors of Yorkshire, where they live a blissful existence until Those Nasty Woodvilles ruin everything by forcing Richard to take the crown to save England.

Yes, I'm a little teary-eyed too. And did I mention that Richard is an expert lover (his skills honed by the fathering of two bastard children, who were sired only because he missed Anne so much he sought comfort in another's bed) who through his sensitivity and savoir-faire helps poor Anne forget those wretched nights with Edward of Lancaster?

Now for the unromantic version. Anne and Richard did spend time together as children, but there's no evidence that they were "childhood sweethearts." They could have been, but childhood proximity hardly guarantees affection. They could have detested each other; they could have been quite indifferent to each other; they could have liked each other well enough, they could have had eyes for no one else. No one knows. They might well have thought of themselves as being future spouses. As Anne had no brothers, she could expect to inherit half of her parents' vast estates; she therefore was a most suitable match for a king's brother.

Whatever plans Richard and Anne had, if any, were thwarted when Warwick rebelled against Edward IV and arranged for Anne to marry Margaret of Anjou's son, Edward. Not much is known about Edward's personality. One observer did state that he was always talking about cutting off people's heads, but this was perhaps understandable in light of the fact that he had been dispossessed of his claim to the throne. Aside from this, there's nothing that indicates that he treated Anne badly--or that he treated her well, for that matter. It's not even known whether their marriage was consummated. Anne's feelings about it are also unknown. She might have disliked the idea; then again, she might have hoped that her father and Margaret would prevail and that she would end up as Edward's queen. Anne may well have shared the ambitions of her father; though nothing is known of her personality, there's nothing to support Paul Murray Kendall's picture of her as a retiring girl who longed for nothing but a quiet life in Yorkshire with Richard. Who knows? Maybe she was a Lady Macbeth type who egged Richard on to claim the crown. (Now that would make an interesting novel.)

Clarence may well have disguised Anne "in the habit of a cookmaid" (it's reported by the usually reliable Croyland Chronicler) but further details are, sadly, unknown.

And Anne's marriage to Richard? Ricardian novelists tend to overlook a minor detail here: Anne had land. Lots of land. Or, to be more precise, her parents had lots of land, and when the Earl of Warwick died, Clarence, his son-in-law, decided that he should have all of it. This didn't sit well with Richard, who unlike Clarence had never swerved from his loyalty to Edward IV and believed he should be suitably rewarded. The most effective way Richard could get his hands on the Warwick lands was to marry Anne, and that's precisely what he did. Far from sitting passively by and hoping that Edward tossed him a stray manor or two, he argued vigorously for his fair share. As the Croyland chronicler wrote:

In consequence of this, such violent discussion arose between the brothers, and so many arguments were, with the greatest acuteness, put forth on either side, in the king's presence, who sat in judgment in the council-chamber, that all present, and the lawyers even, were quite surprised that these princes should find arguments in such abundance by means of which to support their respective causes. In fact, these three brothers, the king and the two dukes, were possessed of such surpassing talents that, if they had been able to live without dissensions, such a threefold cord could never have been broken without the utmost difficulty. At last, their most loving brother, king Edward, agreed to act as mediator between them; and in order that the discord between princes of such high rank might not cause any hindrance to the carrying out of his royal intentions in relation to the affairs of France, the whole misunderstanding was at last set at rest, upon the following terms: the marriage of the duke of Gloucester with Anne before-named was to take place, and he was to have such and so much of the earl's lands as should be agreed upon between them through the mediation of arbitrators; while all the rest were to remain in the possession of the duke of Clarence.

The brothers were to fight for several years over the inheritance (much of which rightfully belonged to Anne's mother, the Countess of Warwick, whose rights were entirely ignored by the king and his brothers and were eventually extinguished by an obliging Parliament), but Richard came out of the dispute well in the long run. He also took care to secure his rights by having Parliament declare that if he and Anne were divorced (i.e., if their marriage was annulled), he would retain Anne's lands as long as he remained unmarried. That provision is simply not the product of a lovesick boy heedless of everything but his beloved. (Indeed, far from being lost in a romantic fog at the time he was wrangling with Clarence, Richard was further augmenting his landholdings by forcing the elderly Countess of Oxford to hand over her estates to him.)

Anne for her part was probably quite happy with her marriage to Richard. Marriage to Clarence's brother was the best chance she had of protecting her share of her inheritance. Had she not married Richard, she might well have found herself dumped into a convent or forced to marry someone of Clarence's choosing. She would likely have been stripped of her inheritance rights, as her mother was. Marriage to Richard gave her a powerful protector and allowed her to preserve her birthright.

Mind you, this is not to condemn Anne and Richard for making what was probably first and foremost a marriage of convenience. Most members of the nobility at the time made the same type of marriage, and they would have been trained from childhood to expect to make such a match. Anne and Richard would have been very unconventional people indeed, not to mention naive ones, if they had grown up expecting to marry for love.

Reay Tannahill, to her credit, is one of the few historical novelists who depicts the marriage of Richard and Anne as being motivated by practical considerations, with the couple growing to love each other as the marriage progresses. (To her added credit, Tannahill also resists the temptation of making the cookshop incident into the usual three-hanky melodrama; in her novel The Seventh Son, it's almost farcical.)

Of course, one very well known royal marriage was very likely based on love, or at least on lust: that of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville. That match had all the ingredients of star-crossed romance: rich boy and poor girl, king and commoner, Yorkist family versus Lancastrian family, opposition from the elders (at least Edward IV's elders), a secret marriage--the works. All you need is a balcony, and you've got Romeo and Juliet. But mention the match of Edward and Elizabeth, and the same people who can't abide the notion of Richard and Anne marrying for material considerations will suddenly grow flinty-hearted and dry-eyed. They start muttering about witchcraft and trickery and all sorts of unpleasantness.

I guess love is a many-splendored thing. Unless you're the king and your wife is a Woodville.

For Openers

I'm fascinated by Richard III and by the Wars of the Roses and have done a fair amount of reading on the subject, though I can't name all of the battles that occurred before Barnet in their proper order. As a novelist heading toward the end of her current project (yay! land!), I've been thinking of the next book, and it's likely that I'll set it during the Wars of the Roses. More than that I haven't decided; one of the reasons for this blog, in fact, is to sort out my own ideas.

But the main reason for this blog is that I'm an avid reader of historical fiction who chooses books mainly based on whether they're about people and places I'm particularly interested in (though lately I've been branching out a bit). Naturally, a lot of the novels I gravitate to concern the Wars of the Roses.

Lately, though, I've been noticing a distressing sameness to most of these novels: they all feature a Richard III who's little short of sainthood. He marries his wife solely for love, not paying the least bit of attention of all that family land. ("What? You mean you're an heiress too? Gollee!") He takes the throne only after days of agonized soul-searching. He's universally beloved by his subjects, except by a few churls who are motivated only by self-interest. All who oppose him, especially Those Nasty Woodvilles, are portrayed as having few if any redeeming qualities.

I have come across one recent exception, Reay Tannahill's The Seventh Son. Her Richard III is a sympathetic character, but not a saintly one. He's very much a man of his time, who's prepared to act ruthlessly when it suits his purpose.

The Internet isn't all that much better. The Richard III Society (incidentally, I'm a member; one of the many commendable things about the Society is that it doesn't impose a litmus test for membership) does have excellent websites with much objective information. Venture off those websites, however, and one either gets the saintly Richard or the monster of Shakespeare's play, with very little in between.

Fortunately, recent nonfiction, such as A. J. Pollard's Richard III and the Princes in the Tower, offers a much more balanced view of Richard. Unfortunately, this view isn't much reflected in recent fiction or the Internet. (Perhaps scholars need to blog a bit more.)

Hence this blog. It's a modest attempt to disseminate my own unromantic perspective on Richard III: that he was neither saintly nor satanic, but somewhere in between.

One more thing: in setting up this blog, I've probably been influenced a great deal by Alianore's excellent blog on Edward II, a troubled king who until her blog came along was getting almost universally bad (and often entirely inaccurate) press on the Internet.

So here's to objectivity!

Oh, and one more thing. We have some occasional fun on my main blog, so don't think for a minute we won't have some fun on this one too.