Authors: Philippa Langley
Tags: #Nonfiction, #Plantagenets, #Royalty, #England/Great Britain, #Science, #15th Century
Successful kingship was in part a matter of keeping up appearances. Jewels and plate were an equally important part of display and an indicator of the taste of the king. One sign of Richard’s personal preferences was the bequest to him by Sir John Pilkington of his great emerald set in gold, for which the king had previously offered Pilkington as much as 100 marks (£66 13s 4d). Richard gave a good servant, William Mauleverer, a ring with a diamond, and George Cely a ruby with three pendant pearls. When he was short of cash, the royal jewels he pledged included a salt cellar and a helmet of Edward IV, both in gold and jewelled, and twelve images of the apostles in silver gilt. Richard arranged for his northern household to have for display a gold cup with a sapphire, and another of jasper decorated with gold, pearls and other stones.
A king or great lord needed to be surrounded with such magnificence to emphasize his place within the estate or social hierarchy of the realm. The records of the time give us further tantalizing glimpses of this: the jewels and silver vessels Richard bought in 1473 from the goldsmith Jacob Fasland and charged to the account of the receiver of Middleham; the furs and other costly clothes purchased for the duke and his ‘most dearly beloved consort’ on a Christmas shopping spree in London in December 1476, charged on this occasion to the account of his East Anglian receiver; and in the lavish celebrations of Christmas 1484, of which the
Croyland Chronicler
disapproved. Richard was also a builder, and this virtue won him the praise of John Rous, even in his otherwise hostile account composed in Henry VII’s reign. Richard III in fact built extensively, at Middleham, Barnard Castle, Warwick and Nottingham; at Barnard Castle the carved white boars that marked his new work can still be seen today in castle and in town.
When Richard wished to win the loyalty of the Irish peer John FitzGerald, Earl of Desmond he sent him fine clothing of cloth of gold and velvet, along with a gold collar weighing twenty ounces, adorned with the Yorkist badges of roses and suns and Richard’s own personal emblem, the white boar. A sense of finery was expected of medieval monarchs and was a vital part of how they communicated the majesty of their kingship. When the Lancastrian Henry VI was paraded before the people of London in April 1471, in a desperate bid to rally support around his regime, contemporaries were appalled by his shabby blue gown, which brought home to them how the ailing and unworldly king had lost all sense of the dignity of his office.
Richard’s religious foundations also won Rous’s praise. ‘He founded a noble chantry for a hundred priests in the Cathedral of York,’ Rous noted, ‘and another college at Middleham. He founded another in the church of St Mary of Barking by the Tower, and endowed Queens’ College, Cambridge with 500 marks of annual rent.’ This was outward show, but it was based on real religious practice, the practical piety expected of a king: knowledge of the liturgy, devotional practice and a wish to find solace in prayer.
Such outward qualities, vital for a late medieval ruler, are evident in Richard III if we look past Shakespeare and the Tudor chroniclers. As Dominic Mancini observed in 1483: ‘The good reputation of his private life and public activities powerfully attracted the esteem of strangers.’ And it was not just strangers. He inspired the devoted service of many men who came into contact with him, especially those such as Lovell, Ratcliffe and Brackenbury, who came early into his life and career. Men were prepared to fight for him, and if necessary to die for him. His tenant, Robert Morton of Bawdry in south Yorkshire, made his will on 20 August 1485, as he was ‘going to maintain our most excellent king Richard III against the rebellion raised against him in this land’.
Above all, Richard had the virtue of fortitude. This was bound up with the practice of chivalry, and at the heart of chivalry was the profession of arms: fighting, raw courage and the quest for renown. Richard’s chivalric credentials were impeccable, and it was the one virtue even his enemies were prepared to allow him. His physical courage cannot be doubted. He had fought in two battles under Edward IV when only eighteen, and it was his prowess in the first – Barnet – that won him the divisional command in the second – Tewkesbury. His campaign against the Scots in 1482 earned him high praise from his brother and plaudits throughout the realm. And in 1484 he told Nicolas von Poppelau: ‘I wish that my kingdom lay upon the confines of Turkey; with my own people alone, and without the help of any other princes I should like to drive away not only the Turks but all my foes.’
Richard may have been small in stature, but physically he was remarkably strong, a point repeatedly made by Scottish ambassador Archibald Whitelaw in an address to the king on 12 September 1484: ‘Never before,’ Whitelaw stressed, ‘has nature dared to encase in a smaller body such spirit and such strength.’
Outward display was thus all-important, but it is far harder to gauge Richard’s inner motivation. The newly crowned Richard III shortly began a progress of his realm, where his qualities could be revealed to his people. The king’s intention was to show himself in person around the country, to overcome any lingering doubts about the nature of his accession and thus promote his claim to the throne.
On his tour, Richard showed particular marks of favour to certain towns: at Oxford he attended learned disputations; Gloucester was given a charter. At Warwick he was joined by his queen, and he may also have met John Rous. At Nottingham, where Richard agreed on a new building programme for the castle, his secretary John Kendall happily wrote ahead to the city of York on 23 August 1483: ‘The king’s grace is in good health, and likewise the queen’s grace, and in all their progress they have worshipfully been received with pageants, and his lords and judges sitting in every place, determining the complaints of the poor folk with due punishment of offenders against his laws.’
At the beginning of September Thomas Langton, Bishop of St David’s, who was in Richard’s entourage during this tour, wrote to the prior of Christ Church:
I trust to God soon, by Michaelmas, the king shall be in London. He contents the people wherever he goes, better than ever did any prince; for many a poor man that has suffered wrong for many days has been relieved and helped by his commands in his progress. And in many great cities and towns were great sums of money given to him, which he has refused. On my faith I never liked the qualities of any prince as well as his; God has sent him to us for the welfare of us all.
This was largesse, a quality determined by greatness of heart, as both Nicolas von Poppelau and Archibald Whitelaw were to praise the king in 1484.
York was honoured as the place where Richard chose to invest his son as Prince of Wales. York’s leading citizens and clergy were fully involved in the ceremony, and 13,000 white boars cut out of cloth, the king’s personal badge, were distributed to spectators. The city responded by putting on a magnificent reception for him, and later staging a special performance of its Creed play.
The
Croyland Chronicler
was sceptical about Richard’s real motives:
Wishing to display his superior royal rank as diligently as possible in the north, where he [Richard] had spent most of his time previously, he left the city of London, and passing through Windsor, Oxford and Coventry, came at length to York. There, on a day appointed for the repetition of his crowning in the metropolitan church, he presented his only son, Edward, whom that same day he had created Prince of Wales, and arranged splendid and highly expensive feasts and entertainments to attract to himself the affection of many people.
Richard clearly was greeted joyfully in the north, and the Tudors were uncomfortable about this. Polydore Vergil began with a descriptive account, almost certainly drawn from eyewitness testimony. It was remarkably positive – until Vergil started twisting the knife:
At York, Richard III was joyfully received of the citizens, who for his coming made for several days public and open triumph … When the day of procession was at hand, there was a great confluence of people for desire of beholding the new king. In which procession, very solemnly set forth and celebrated by the clergy, the king was present in person, adorned with a notably rich diadem, and accompanied with a great number of noblemen; the queen followed, also with a crown upon her head, who led by her hand her son Edward, crowned also with so great honour, joy and congratulations of the inhabitants, as in show of rejoicing they extolled King Richard above the skies.
And then the tone changed: ‘The king began afterwards to take on hand a certain new form of life, and to give the show and countenance of a good man, whereby he might be accounted more righteous, more mild, better affected to the commonality, and more liberal, especially to the poor…’
While in Yorkshire, Richard personally intervened in a long-running dispute involving the Plumpton family. The preamble to the king’s award, made on 16 September 1483, was not intended for public consumption – and rather than being mere show, clearly demonstrated Richard’s concern for justice and his considerable understanding of the law: ‘We, intending rest, peace and quiet amongst our liege people and subjects,’ Richard began, ‘have taken upon us the business and labour in this behalf, and reply by good deliberation, having heard and examined the interest of the said parties … and by the advice of the lords of our council and our judges thereunto called.’
These were noble sentiments, but Richard’s progress was cut short by a threatening rebellion against his rule that broke out in October 1483. It involved loyalists to Edward V, die-hard Lancastrians and, most remarkably, the Duke of Buckingham. Buckingham’s motives in rebelling after having gained so much through Richard’s accession will probably never be known to us. Margaret Beaufort, having promised her support to Richard, instead decided to throw in her lot with the Woodvilles. Her motives were purely those of ambition and self-aggrandizement; a consummate plotter – whom Polydore Vergil called ‘the head of that conspiracy’ – she now saw a chance, through a marriage alliance between her son and Elizabeth of York, of advancing Henry Tudor to the English throne.
But Richard dealt with the risings with conviction and self-belief. Unrest in Kent was quashed by his loyal lieutenant John Howard, Duke of Norfolk, Buckingham’s revolt in Wales ran out of momentum, and Richard bore down on the main area of opposition – in the West Country – in person. By the time the king had reached Exeter proceedings against him had all but collapsed. Henry Tudor, sailing from Brittany to support the revolt, saw what was afoot and promptly sailed back again. Buckingham was captured and executed at Salisbury on 2 November and the rebellion was all over.
In the aftermath of the revolt, which had been largely drawn from the southern counties, Richard stiffened his control there with trusted men of the north. The north-south divide was very real in late medieval society, and the king was taking a risk in introducing so many northerners to southern government. He showed leniency to Margaret Beaufort, confiscating her lands but allowing her to be held in the custody of her husband Thomas, Lord Stanley, whom Richard still trusted. But the king also sought to win support through a better provision of justice. Once again, his sentiments seemed sincere rather than contrived.
Richard’s royal proclamation began: ‘The king’s highness is determined to see due administration of justice throughout his realm, and to reform, punish and subdue all extortions of the same.’ It then stated his determination, on a tour of Kent in December 1483, to see ‘every person that find himself grieved, oppressed or unlawfully wronged do make a bill of complaint and put it to his highness, and he shall be heard and without delay have such convenient remedy as shall accord with his laws. For his grace is utterly determined all his true subjects shall live in rest and quiet, and peaceably enjoy their lands, livelihoods and goods according to the laws of this land, which they be naturally born to inherit.’
On 23 January 1484 parliament was summoned and Richard’s title to the throne – the
Titulus Regius –
approved. During the session Richard required the lords and bishops to swear an oath of loyalty to his son. Soon after parliament ended, the king again showed the evidence of his true title to the London livery companies. Through these meetings, Richard was hoping to secure the dynastic future of his son and heir.
But Richard’s parliament did far more than that. Its overriding theme was the provision of justice, reflected in the opening address of the Lord Chancellor, Bishop John Russell, which emphasized that the first duty of the prince was ‘to give equal justice with pity and mercy’. Laws were passed ensuring the selection of honest jurors, forbidding the seizing of property of those held on suspicion of committing a felony prior to their conviction, and most importantly, authorizing justices of the peace to grant bail to those held under ‘light suspicion’ – the forerunner of our modern bail system. Legitimate property rights also received greater protection.
Richard now had the chance to develop his vision of kingship. He wanted to bring an end to the climate of sexual immorality prevalent at court and within the realm, writing to his bishops that ‘amongst our other secular business and cares, our principal intent and fervent desire is to see virtue and cleanness of living to be advanced, increased and multiplied, and all other things repugnant to virtue, provoking the high indignation and fearful displeasure of God, to be repressed and annulled.’
Dominic Mancini related that Richard had won respect within the realm for his probity, whereas the Woodvilles were disliked for their lax morals. Mancini added that the feud between the queen’s son by her previous marriage, Thomas, Marquis of Dorset, and William, Lord Hastings which had marred the last years of Edward IV, was not merely over public office but ‘because of the mistresses they had abducted, or tried to entice from one another’.
Richard had at least two bastard children, but it is likely that both were born before his marriage to Anne Neville. His marriage itself appeared a happy one, and the records of the bishopric of Durham and Queens’ College, Cambridge, both showed the couple co-operating over spiritual matters and sharing a very similar religious outlook. His condemnation of Woodville immorality was genuine enough and when he attacked the Marquis of Dorset in his proclamation against rebels for having ‘many and sundry maids, widows and wives damnably and without shame devoured, deflowered and defouled’, we hear not only Richard’s adult piety, but also an echo of the violence against his mother that he had witnessed as a child.