The Last Days of Richard III and the Fate of His DNA Read online

  Later, this rather vague terminology proved fortunate for ‘Count Scales’, because at the time of his negotiations in 1486 Elizabeth of York was actually no longer available (having recently married Henry VII). However, Cecily of York was then on the marriage market. The annulment of Cecily’s previous marriage at about this juncture – and at the behest of Henry VII – may have been no accident, for she was more or less of an age with Dom Manuel. Failing her, her younger sister Anne could also have been considered. Indeed, evidence survives that Anne of York was put forward as a candidate for the hand of Dom Manuel. This evidence comprises a papal dispensation permitting such a marriage in spite of the fact that the proposed partners were related within the prohibited degrees.26

  Given all these points, it is not surprising that, in 1486, ‘Count Scales’ continued to refer vaguely to ‘the daughter of King Edward’ in his Portuguese marriage negotiations. Moreover, the existence of the dispensation of 1491 strongly suggests that Edward Woodville may have been acting on direct instructions from Henry VII who, in one way or another, was intent on picking up and carrying into effect at least some of the matrimonial projects of Richard III.27

  There were two reasons why Richard III should have included Elizabeth of York in his marriage plans in 1485. The first was the fact that, as we have already noted, no legitimate English princesses were available as marriage pawns. The second point is the fact that one of Richard III’s promises to the girl’s mother, Elizabeth Woodville – solemnly made towards the end of the eleven months (April 1483–March 1484), during which the latter had remained in sanctuary with her daughters at Westminster Abbey – had been that, if she would emerge from her self-imposed seclusion, she and her daughters would be well treated and that suitable marriages would be arranged for the girls:

  Memorandum that I Richard by the grace of God king of England and of Fraunce and lord of Irland in the presens of you my lords spirituelle & temporelle and you Maire and Aldermen of my Cite of London promitte & swere verbo Regio & upon these holy evangelies of god by me personally touched that if the doghters of dam Elizabeth Gray late calling her self Quene of England that is to wit Elizabeth Cecille Anne Kateryn and Briggitte wolle come unto me out of Saintwarie of Westminstre and be guyded Ruled & demeaned after me than I shalle see that they shalbe in suertie of their lyffes and also not suffer any maner hurt by any maner persone or persones to theim or any of theim in their bodies and persones to be done by wey of Ravisshement or defouling contrarie to their willes not theim or any of theim emprisone within the Toure of London or other prisone but that I shalle put theim in honest places of good name & fame and theim honestly & curtesly shalle see to be(e) foundene & entreated and to have alle thinges requisite & necessarye(te) for their exibicione and findings as my kynneswomen And that I shalle do marie sucche of theim as now bene mariable to gentilmen borne and everiche of theim geve in mariage lands & tenementes to the yerely valewe of CC marc for terme of their lyves and in like wise to the other doghters when they come to lawfulle Age of mariage if they lyff and suche gentilmen as shalle happe to marie with theim I shalle straitly charge from tyme to tyme loyngly to love & entreat theim as their wiffes & my kynneswomen As they wolle advoid and eschue my displeasure And over this that I shalle yerely fromhencefurthe content & pay or cause to be contented and paied for thexibicione & finding of the said dame Elizabeth Gray during her naturelle liff at iiij termes of the yere that is to wit at pasche Midsomer Michilmesse & Christenmesse to John Nesfelde one of the squires of my body (&) for his finding to attende upon her the summe of DCC marc of lawfulle money of England by even porcions And moreover I promitte to theim that if any surmyse or evylle report be made to me of theim or any of theim by any persone or persones that than I shalle not geve thereunto faithe ne credence not therefore put theim to any maner ponysshement before that they or any of theim so accused may be at their lawfulle defence and answere In witnesse wherof to this writing of my othe & promise aforsaid in your said presences made I have set my signemanuelle the first day of Marche the first yere of my Reigne.28

  Richard had already taken positive steps to demonstrate that this had been no empty promise on his part. In 1484 he had arranged the marriage of his own illegitimate daughter, Catherine, to one of his supporters, the Earl of Pembroke, and although the precise date is not on record it was probably at about the same time that he also arranged the marriage of his niece, Cecily (the second surviving daughter of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville), to Ralph Scrope, a younger brother of Thomas, 6th Baron Scrope, who was another of Richard’s supporters.29

  Cecily’s Scrope marriage was a perfectly respectable one for the bastard daughter of a deceased monarch. But the Portuguese royal marriage that was now in prospect for her elder sister went far beyond Richard’s promise to marry the girls to gentlemen born, and must have delighted their mother, Elizabeth Woodville. This marriage would heal the split in the Yorkist ranks by offering the Woodvilles a dynastic alliance, which would pose no threat to Richard. Had the marriage taken place, it would instantly have restored Elizabeth of York to legitimate royal rank. Indeed, it would one day have made her Queen of Portugal – though no one could possibly have foreseen that in March 1485. The young girl herself was very excited by the proposal, and apparently wrote to her uncle’s right-hand man, John Howard, Duke of Norfolk, imploring him to urge the king, on her behalf, to press on with the project.30 The fact that Elizabeth of York’s letter to Norfolk was written as early as mid-February 1484/85 shows that key members of the royal council were already aware of the possibility of a double royal marriage pact with Portugal at least four weeks before Queen Anne Neville breathed her last. But naturally no such plans could proceed until Richard’s first consort died, and the fact that Anne was lingering in mortal illness seems to have led the young Elizabeth of York to remark, in a rather thoughtless and unkind way – excusable perhaps on the grounds of her youth and her eagerness to be a princess once again – that ‘she feared the queen would never die’.31

  It may also have been some ill-considered, indiscreet remark on the part of Elizabeth of York or some member of her mother’s family that led to the leaking out of rumours of marriage plans for both the girl and the king. These rumours were promptly misunderstood. Instead of a dual marriage pact with the house of Avis, what began to be spoken of in England was a single marriage, between Richard III and his niece. Such rumours gave cause for concern, and their circulation was discussed by the royal council. As a result, ‘Sir Richard Ratcliffe and William Catesby … told the king to his face that if he did not deny any such purpose’ there could be serious consequences.32 Convinced of the need for some official statement, the king then acted very quickly to scotch this unfortunate misunderstanding. On the Wednesday of Holy Week (30 March), at the Priory of St John in Clerkenwell, in the presence of the mayor and citizens of London, he publicly and very firmly denied any plans for a marriage between himself and Elizabeth of York, commanding the mayor to arrest and punish anyone found spreading this tale.33 A couple of weeks after Easter, on 19 April, he wrote in similar terms to the city of York. Given that his own legitimacy as king depended absolutely upon the bastardy of his late brother’s Woodville children, it must have seemed vital to Richard to set the record straight in respect of this unfortunate rumour.34

  In addition to his own illegitimate children, and the prospect of future children as a result of his projected second marriage, Richard III also had other potential Yorkist heirs to hand. It is often stated that when his own son died he named one of his nephews, either Edward, Earl of Warwick (son of the Duke of Clarence) or John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln (son of the Duchess of Suffolk), as heir to the throne.35 In fact there is no evidence that either nephew was ever formally designated as Richard’s heir, and the fact that various authors have given conflicting accounts of their supposed elevation merely serves to underline the lack of proof. Indeed, as affairs stood in April 1485 there was no conceivable reason for precipitate action on the par
t of the king. As we have seen, in this first full month of the medieval English year of 1485, Richard III was undoubtedly planning to remarry. He thus had every prospect of a legitimate son of his own as heir to the throne. Hence there was no necessity to designate an alternative heir. So far as Richard was aware, many years of his reign still lay before him, offering him ample time and opportunity to train his as yet unborn son for future kingship.36

  However, likely looking Yorkist princes such as his nephews were still an investment for the future. Hopefully both Lincoln and Warwick would become bulwarks supporting and maintaining the royal house of York well into the sixteenth century. Thus there was every reason to train and promote them – not as future monarchs, but as key supporters for the throne. The elder of the two, the Earl of Lincoln, was certainly given some preferment, and this must be seen as part of that same policy which led Richard to give John of Gloucester the Calais post. The king was firming the foundations of his dynasty by promoting its future senior members to important posts, in which they could learn the business of government, while at the same time themselves becoming known to the aristocracy and to the country as a whole.

  Lincoln had been born in about 1460. He was the eldest son of Richard’s sister, Elizabeth of York, and her husband, John de la Pole, Duke of Suffolk. Edward IV had created him Earl of Lincoln on 13 March 1467, and he had subsequently received knighthood, together with Edward’s own sons, on 18 April 1475. He had attended Lady Anne Mowbray on the occasion of her marriage to Edward IV’s second son, Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York, in January 1478; had borne the salt at the baptism of Edward’s daughter Bridget in November 1480, and (in the absence of the future Richard III himself) had acted as the chief mourner at the funeral of King Edward IV in 1483. He then went on to carry the orb at Richard III’s own coronation.37 By 1485 he was already a young adult.

  Lincoln supported Richard against the rebels of October 1483 and was rewarded the following April with land worth £157, and the reversion of Beaufort estates worth a further £178 after the death of Thomas, Lord Stanley, who had been granted a life interest in the land which his wife, Margaret Beaufort, had forfeited for her part in the rising. In the following month Lincoln was granted an annuity of £177 13s. 4d. from the duchy of Cornwall until the reversion materialized.38

  Prior to his early demise, Richard III’s own son, Edward of Middleham, Prince of Wales, had briefly held the important post of Lieutenant of Ireland.39 This post was normally exercised through a deputy, so that the boy’s youth would not have been of much significance. It is noteworthy that, following Edward of Middleham’s death, Richard appointed his nephew, the Earl of Lincoln, to this post. Given that the Plantagenet dynasty as a whole (and the house of York in particular) had always acknowledged that the right to the Crown could be transmitted through the female line, Lincoln must certainly have been regarded as a potential heir to the throne. Indeed, it is arguable that he automatically became the heir presumptive following Edward of Middleham’s death – given that the sons of Edward IV were all illegitimate, and, therefore, excluded, while the Earl of Warwick, son of Richard III’s brother, the Duke of Clarence, was ruled out by reason of Edward IV’s act of attainder against his father. The king’s eldest sister, Anne of York, Duchess of Exeter, had given birth to two children, one by each of her two successive husbands. However, both of these had been girls, and while the capacity of female heirs to transmit rights to the throne was recognised, the possibility of a female heir actually succeeding to the English throne in person had not yet been conceded. It is, therefore, entirely plausible that after the death of the Prince of Wales, Richard III regarded Lincoln as his interim heir. Nevertheless, no specific statement to that effect was issued – and indeed, none would have been strictly necessary.

  In addition to being appointed to the lieutenantship of Ireland (21 August 1484), Lincoln was given further prominence by being granted also the presidency of the council in the north. This was a body established in the summer of 1484 ‘as the successor to the prince’s council, which had itself replaced Gloucester’s ducal council as a way of maintaining Richard’s authority in the north’.40

  The other Yorkist princeling in whom Richard III clearly took an interest is Edward, Earl of Warwick (1475–99), the only surviving son of the Duke and Duchess of Clarence, and thus the nephew both of Richard III and of Queen Anne Neville. But for Edward IV’s act of attainder against his father, the young Earl of Warwick would actually have ranked higher in terms of the succession to the throne than Richard III himself. However, as things stood in 1485, Edward IV’s act of attainder against Clarence ruled Warwick out of the succession entirely. Even so, acts of attainder were not irreversible – though given Warwick’s seniority in the royal bloodline, Richard III would have needed to handle with some care any reversal of the attainder which excluded this particular nephew from the throne.

  Warwick had been born in February 1475 at Warwick Castle, and was named for his godfather and uncle, Edward IV, who had given him the title ‘Earl of Warwick’ at his baptism. In a sometimes puzzling and misleading note on him for the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Christine Carpenter states that ‘on his father’s attainder in February 1478, Edward’s lands, consisting essentially of the Warwick earldom as it stood at Clarence’s death, were taken into royal custody. This was officially for his minority only, and he was indeed subsequently on occasion referred to as Earl of Warwick. In practice, however, the attainder was never reversed.’41 Carpenter’s last sentence is nonsensical. Edward’s tenure of the earldom of Warwick was incontrovertible, since it was an inheritance derived from his mother, not his father. Moreover, he had explicitly and personally been granted this title by Edward IV in 1475. His tenure of it was, therefore, unaffected by his father’s attainder. Following his father’s execution, in 1481 Warwick was made the ward of Thomas Grey, Marquess of Dorset. He had attended his uncle Richard III’s coronation in July 1483, and been knighted on the occasion of the investiture of his cousin Edward of Middleham, as Prince of Wales, in September the same year. Like his other cousin Lincoln, Warwick was a member of the council in the north.42 In Warwick’s case (given his youth) this membership was probably largely nominal in 1485, but it certainly indicates Richard III’s intention that this nephew, too, should be trained to play some role in the politics of the future.

  3

  ‘Tapettes of Verdoures with Crownes and Rooses’1

  In terms of rising, going to bed and eating meals, Richard III presumably lived out the last five months of his life on a day-to-day basis not dissimilar to that of most of his wealthier subjects. Certain aspects of this fifteenth-century routine would have differed from modern norms. It might, therefore, be helpful at this point to explore the kind of timetable which would have governed Richard’s daily existence. At the same time we may also examine such evidence as we possess regarding the physical setting against which those last weeks and months of Richard’s life were lived; the attire he wore, and the kind of activities which engaged him.

  The obvious essentials of the daily human round of activities have not changed. However, in the fifteenth century Christian religious observance certainly played a greater part in day-to-day life than it appears to do for the majority of English households today. At dawn, when the bells of monastic, conventual, collegiate and cathedral churches rang for the early morning office, it was not necessary for lay people to be up and about, nor were they expected to take any formal part in the worship. Nevertheless, it was expected that if the sound of the bells happened to awaken them, they would utter some of the better-known set prayers, either in Latin or in the vernacular, before pulling up their blankets and going back to sleep.2 By the 1480s the simple and easily memorised thrice-daily devotion of the Angelus had reached England, where its spread had been encouraged by Richard III’s erstwhile supposed sister-in-law, Elizabeth Woodville.3

  Attendance at mass certainly was expected, and a late fourteenth-century descri
ption of how mass was celebrated indicates that this differed very little from the modern rite. It comprised introit, Kyrie, Gloria, prayers, epistle, Alleluia, sequence, gospel-reading, offertory, Sanctus, prayers of consecration, Pater noster, Agnus Dei, post-communion chant, and final prayers.4 However, the main objects of attendance at mass at this period were seen as being ‘to hear His blessed mass and to behold His blessed sacrament’.5 Actually receiving Holy Communion was much rarer than it is today, but we may suppose that Richard III probably attended mass on a daily basis. As we shall see shortly, there is evidence that his nephew, Edward V, did so as Prince of Wales.

  The fact that Richard is known to have possessed a Book of Hours,6 clearly designed for use rather than show, and containing some annotations in his own hand, strongly suggests that one regular feature of the king’s waking life was the private recitation in his oratory of the cycle of prayer comprising the ‘Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary’. This simplified version of the full Divine Office (as celebrated by all the regular and secular clergy) had originated in the ninth or tenth century for the use of those members of the educated laity who wished to participate on a regular basis in the Opus Dei – the formal prayer of the Church. The daily recitation of the entire Little Office was certainly not compulsory. Nevertheless, it seems probable that Richard III’s day would have been punctuated by regular short sessions of prayer.