Richard’s alleged misdeeds

Wasn't Richard unpopular from the beginning of his reign?

Any succession by a king displacing the anticipated heir is followed by unrest as was the case with Henry IV, Edward IV and Henry VII as well as King Richard. However, on his royal progress, following the coronation, Richard was warmly received with pomp and pageantry, and a letter from Thomas Langton noted that Richard was popular with the common people.

Wasn't there an uprising a few months after he became king?

Yes, the loyalty felt by some towards the late king and his son led to an uprising in the south which took place in the autumn of 1483 and which was quickly and successfully suppressed.

Did Richard kill Edward of Lancaster (the Prince of Wales), Henry VI and the Duke of Clarence?

No. There is no contemporary evidence to support any claim that Richard killed these people. Sources suggest that he had left London before Henry died and it is generally accepted today that the responsibility for the demise of the late King rested solely with King Edward. Edward of Lancaster (Henry’s son) was killed in battle at Tewkesbury. The Duke of Clarence was tried by Parliament and executed on the orders of Edward IV.

Didn't Richard seize the young King Edward V and execute his supporters?

Richard was responding to a volatile situation and the circumstances surrounding this have been widely debated. There were many conflicting interests at play in the summer of 1483. In particular, Edward IV’s close friend, William, Lord Hastings, resented the power and influence of the Woodvilles (the family of Edward V’s mother), as did the Duke of Buckingham (a kinsman of the royal family who had had very little influence in Edward IV’s reign). Those who had formed Edward IV’s council (including Hastings and some of the Woodvilles) met after his death. After some argument they agreed to follow the precedent of earlier English royal minorities: they would establish a council led by the king’s uncle Richard, Duke of Gloucester, as Protector to govern for Edward V. The council summoned Edward V to travel from Ludlow with his guardian, Anthony Woodville, Earl Rivers, and they fixed a date for the coronation as soon as possible. According to Domenico Mancini (a foreigner visiting England who wrote his account in France later in 1483), Hastings wrote to Richard and presented the council’s decision as an insult to Richard who could have been chosen as Regent (a more powerful role based on French practice) and who had no input into deciding when the coronation should occur. In council, Hastings suggested that the young king’s escort be restricted in number to prevent the Woodvilles from assuming control of Edward V. Queen Elizabeth agreed to this restriction in an attempt to reduce the friction. Prior to 1483, there is no evidence of animosity between Richard himself and the Woodvilles.

Consequently, Richard’s arrest of Earl Rivers, Rivers’ nephew Richard Grey, and Thomas Vaughan took everyone by surprise. Our only sources were composed in hindsight, after Richard III’s accession, so it is impossible to be sure of his motives. Richard recorded that they were planning an ambush. Many historians argue that in reality Richard was motivated by concerns that the Woodvilles would be able to influence the young king more than he himself would. Buckingham’s role in these events is intriguing, especially since his animosity towards the Woodvilles seems to have originated prior to 1483.

As Protector designate, it was entirely appropriate for Richard to be the one who escorted Edward V into London. Hastings publicly expressed his delight at the arrest of Rivers, Grey and Vaughan. However, at a council meeting on 13th June it was announced that Hastings himself had been plotting with the Archbishop of York and the Bishop of Ely. The clerics were imprisoned while Hastings was executed on the spot. Rivers, Grey and Vaughan were probably tried by the Earl of Northumberland and were executed on 25th June.

The account written closest to these events was by Domenico Mancini, a foreigner visiting England, who completed his account at the French court on 1st December 1483. According to Mancini, this sequence of events began with the unexpected death of King Edward IV when his heir was 12 and resident at Ludlow. Mancini describes how the Queen’s Woodville family made themselves all-powerful, dominating the subsequent council meetings and making immediate council decisions without consulting Duke Richard. Three matters of great importance were decided in this forum. First was to crown Edward V within a couple of weeks; second was to send a fleet to sea to engage French ships threatening the coast; and third was to appoint the boy-king’s governing councillors during his minority. The coronation was planned for 4th May but no Parliament was scheduled to ratify these precipitate decisions.

In brief, all three matters usurped Gloucester’s national offices as Great Chamberlain of England, High Admiral of England, and (by precedent) Protector and Defender of the Realm as previously established by Parliament and as designated in the late King’s will. Mancini reported that the mood in London favoured the Protector to head the young king’s government, and Richard wrote letters claiming his rightful position, to no avail. This unwelcome news reached Richard soon after that of his brother’s death, while he was preparing to travel south from York; he was to rendezvous with the new King’s retinue travelling to London from Ludlow. Meanwhile some voices in council expressed serious reservations about the boy-king remaining under the control of the Woodvilles who had been his guardians at Ludlow, and it was agreed to keep Woodville control in check by restricting his escorting army to 2,000. Richard was travelling with a company of about 300 retainers. He was undoubtedly incensed to learn that his natural office of Protector of the Realm was denied him, a role that should have perpetuated his long-established position in charge of the nation’s defence and security: especially at a time when Edward IV’s death had left England in hostilities with Scotland and France, while bereft of its former international allies.

As Richard reached the agreed rendezvous at Northampton he was told by Anthony Woodville, Lord Rivers, that Edward V would not be joining them, but had detoured 15 miles farther south. If Richard was to accompany the King on his entry into London as planned, he would have to catch him up by rising before dawn and making a 3 hour ride. And he would be travelling a by-road that ran through the Woodvilles’ estate lands. By this time it appears that Richard suspected a trap. Leaving Rivers under arrest in Northampton, he hastened to where the King was staying; and, as he approached, he encountered another company of men who had come from London led by Sir Richard Grey, the Queen’s son by her former husband. This would have raised even more suspicions as it flouted the national offices, that of High Constable of England for life, with ultimate responsibility for military arrays and discipline. He arrested Grey and his associate Sir Thomas Vaughan, sent the Ludlow men-at-arms home ‘with scarcely so much as a cut finger’, and took over the appropriate role of escort to Edward V.

These events, as recounted by Mancini, are so detailed as to have the ring of authenticity that comes from someone who was present. He very probably heard them from Dr John Argentine, Edward V’s physician, who also gave Mancini several important personal descriptions of the young King. Though historians disagree about Richard’s motivations, the fact that he was appointed Protector upon joining the council in London demonstrates that by then there were enough councillors present to override the Woodvilles’ plans and restore England’s security to Richard’s hands. The Woodvilles by now had scattered, having tried and failed to raise an armed force against him. The fate of Rivers, Grey and Vaughan hung in the balance before they were tried and executed, and it is possible that their lives might not have been forfeit had the government been able to reach an accommodation with the Queen’s recalcitrant family.

What is the truth about the execution of Lord Hastings?

This remains one of the enduring mysteries of the summer of 1483. What we do know is that on 10th June Richard wrote to the city of York asking for help against the Queen and her adherents. Hastings was not mentioned, and he could not really be described as one of Elizabeth’s adherents. Presumably it was shortly afterwards that something happened which brought Hastings under suspicion. According to Mancini, Buckingham reported to Richard that Hastings was meeting secretly with the Archbishop of York and the Bishop of Ely; on 13th June Buckingham then led his soldiers to the Tower to seize and execute Hastings. This was reported to be on Richard’s orders. The Crowland Continuator (writing c, 1486) gives very little detail on this but later Tudor chroniclers asserted that it was Richard (Constable of England) who entered the council chamber to accuse Hastings of plotting treason and whose men seized and executed him. It might be that these later chroniclers were better informed than Mancini if their source was the Bishop of Ely. However on 21st June 1483 a letter writer mentioned that all of Hastings’ men had joined Buckingham’s affinity. This may support Mancini’s impression that Buckingham was central to Hastings’ downfall. Unfortunately, it is impossible to know exactly what happened, or what people’s motivations were.

For a discussion that Hastings was legally tried by Richard as Lord Constable see here, and for a more in-depth analysis see here.

How did Richard III come to be king?

On 26th June 1483 a delegation of lords presented a petition to Richard at Baynard’s Castle asking him to accept the throne: the petition stated that Edward V’s parents’ marriage had been invalid (so Edward V was illegitimate), and Richard was the next in line, untainted by illegitimacy or attainder. The lords then swore oaths of allegiance to Richard. Over the next two days representatives of the city of London and the higher clergy did likewise. This petition was subsequently confirmed by the Titulus Regius, an act of settlement in which Parliament assented to Richard’s accession ‘by right, by inheritance as well as by lawful election’.¹ The principal reason given in Titulus Regius for dismissing Edward IV’s marriage to Elizabeth Woodville was that he had previously made a secret marriage (precontract) with Eleanor Talbot, daughter of the Earl of Shrewsbury. The petition to Richard was almost certainly drawn up by Robert Stillington, Bishop of Bath and Wells. It was reported by one continental source that it was Stillington who had performed the secret marriage ceremony.² Richard’s enemies refused to believe this secret marriage had taken place.

When Henry VII became king, he ordered that all copies of the Titulus Regius should be destroyed³ and the act was repealed unread. Henry VII did not allow the lords and justices to interrogate Stillington about it, saying that the Bishop had been pardoned.⁴

Historians continue to debate the plausibility of Edward’s marriage to Eleanor Talbot. For more details click here.

(1) Parliament Rolls of Medieval England (CD-ROM) VI: 240-2

(2) Philippe de Commynes, Memoirs, ed. P. Contamine (1994), 368-9, 414-15

(3) PROME VI: 289

(4) Year Book, 1 Hen VII, Hil. Plea 1

Did Richard kill his wife?

No, she died from an illness lasting at least two months (this may have been tuberculosis). As there was an eclipse of the sun on the day she died this was taken as an ill omen.

Why is Shakespeare's play so popular?

It’s superbly written with wonderful speeches. It’s a very good yarn. The characterisation of Richard is so compelling. He is the archetypal ‘trickster’, an anti-hero whom we should hate but we can’t. Baddies are always so much more interesting than goodies. He invites the audience to join with him in his career to the throne and confides in them, inviting them to be complicit in his villainy. He is such an out-and-out villain that audiences find themselves fascinated by him, despite his crimes. But his ‘determination to prove a villain’ belongs to the realms of psychology rather than history.

We should bear in mind that the play is the culmination of a hundred years of propaganda against the last Plantagenet king and the playwright used the malevolent fictional character created by Sir Thomas More whose work was one of the earliest and most influential instances of the ‘Tudor myth’ about the life and character of Richard.