Part 3 (1/2)

Until the 1950s that opinion generally held, with only a few writers disputing Richard III's guilt; since then, in the wake of Josephine Tey's novel, The Daughter of Time (1951), and Paul Murray Kendall's sympathetic biography of Richard (1955),20 the mystery of the princes' fate has been endlessly debated, and is still controversial. Nevertheless, wishful theories evolved by revisionists lack credibility in the face of the weight of evidence, both written and circ.u.mstantial, against Richard, and the realities of fifteenth-century realpolitik. The facts remain: the princes disappeared from view shortly after his usurpation; he had a compelling motive for doing away with them, and the means; they were never seen again; public opinion at the time was that he had murdered them; there is no credible evidence for their survival, nor did Richard ever produce them alive to counteract the rumors of their murder, which were eroding his support. But as Michael Hicks has so perspicaciously said, the weight of evidence ”cannot convince those who do not wish to believe.”21 As far as Elizabeth of York is concerned, what matters is what she came to believe had become of her brothers-and later evidence strongly suggests she was convinced that they had been murdered.

Rumors of the murders irrevocably damaged the King's reputation. It was said in London that he had ”put to death the children of King Edward, for which cause he lost the hearts of the people. And thereupon many gentlemen intended his destruction.”22 Ruthlessness in war and politics was tolerated: child murder was a step too far. The Tudor royal historian, Bernard Andre, wrote that, in the wake of the rumors, ”the entire land was convulsed with sobbing and anguish. The n.o.bles of the kingdom, fearful of their lives, wondered what might be done against the danger. Faithful to the tyrant in word, they remained distant in heart.” We must allow for a degree of exaggeration from a partisan observer, but this was written less than twenty years later, when many people would have remembered the events of 1483. The rumors were believed as far away as Danzig, as Caspar Weinreich's contemporary chronicle recorded that year: ”Later this summer, Richard, the King's brother, had himself put in power and crowned King of England; and he had his brother's children killed.” Certainly Buckingham-who may have had good cause-and Morton took the rumors seriously.

Richard had written to Buckingham several times after the duke left the progress, but it is unlikely he revealed that the princes actually had been murdered, for Margaret Beaufort (who was soon to be involved in the conspiracy) would certainly have come to hear of it from Buckingham and pa.s.sed on the information to Henry Tudor. Yet the evidence strongly suggests that Henry Tudor did not know for certain that they had been killed-at least, probably, until 1502. So the likelihood is that Buckingham and his a.s.sociates just a.s.sumed they were dead, which was a reasonable conclusion, given the rumors and how ruthlessly Richard had eliminated everyone else who stood in the way of his ambitions.

The conspirators had now been joined by large numbers of alienated Yorkists. They realized that they must find a new candidate to replace the usurper. If the princes were indeed dead, Elizabeth of York was the next heir to Edward IV's throne, but there was no question of an eighteen-year-old girl ruling as sovereign, especially with the realm so unstable and troubled. No one even suggested it, and of course there was a prevalent belief that no woman could rule successfully.

Buckingham and Morton now began seriously to consider the claim of Henry Tudor, the only realistic choice. ”Seeing that if they could find no one to take the lead in their designs, the ruin of all would speedily ensue, all those who had set on foot this insurrection turned their thoughts to Henry, Earl of Richmond, who had been for many years living in exile in Brittany.”23 Buckingham's alliance with Henry Tudor's supporters in support of the Lancastrian pretender was perhaps Morton's doing. Morton may have reminded Buckingham that the latter's father and grandfather had died fighting for Henry VI and the Lancastrian cause,24 and that his true loyalty should lie with the only viable Lancastrian heir-although Buckingham may not have needed much convincing. Morton seems to have worked covertly to bring together the Lancastrian party, the Wydevilles, and Yorkist dissidents, with the objective of overthrowing Richard III. Possibly he was working on behalf of another interested party.

Margaret Beaufort was prominent at Richard III's court, and had even carried Queen Anne's train at the coronation, but she remained a Lancastrian at heart. She was a formidable woman of strong character and steely resolve, and all her ambitions were for her son, Henry Tudor. She had continued to correspond with him, and perhaps secretly cherished hopes that one day he would be able to pursue his claim to the throne. Should the time ever be opportune, her husband, the pragmatic Lord Stanley, could command a private army in Henry's support. In the meantime, Margaret is said to have pressed Richard III-as soon as he came to the throne-to restore her son to the earldom of Richmond and marry him to one of the daughters of Edward IV with his ”favor.”25 It may be that Margaret soon realized that Richard would do nothing for Henry; or Henry had made it clear to her that he would never return to England while Richard was on the throne. Whatever the reason, she was soon working against the King, and it has been suggested that she was even involved in a plot to rescue the Princes from the Tower;26 how that would have furthered her son's cause is hard to see, unless she thought that Edward V would be less of a threat to Henry than Richard, and that Henry might consequently be induced to return to England.

Vergil a.s.serted that, at the same time Morton and Buckingham were plotting at Brecknock, ”a new conspiracy was laid in London” between Margaret Beaufort and Elizabeth Wydeville. But possibly Margaret Beaufort was already in league with Buckingham, and in contact with him through the good offices of Morton, her chaplain, and her servant, Reginald Bray, who was ”the chief dealer in this conspiracy” and may have traveled to Brecon on her behalf.

Probably Margaret, perhaps briefed by Buckingham, believed that Richard had done away with the princes. And ”she, being a wise woman, after the slaughter of King Edward's children was known, began to hope well of her son's fortune.”27 According to Vergil, it was Margaret who first conceived the momentous idea of uniting the rival houses of Lancaster and York through a marriage between her son and Elizabeth of York, who was now-in the eyes of many-the Yorkist heiress to the throne. Margaret is said to have realized ”that that deed would without doubt prove for the profit of the commonwealth, if it might chance the blood of King Henry VI and King Edward to be mingled by affinity, and so two most pernicious factions should be at once, by conjoining of both houses, utterly taken away.”

It is possible that Vergil overstated the role of the mother of the King he served, but certainly Margaret was active in the conspiracy once its objectives embraced her son, and it was probably true that she had cherished for years the idea of marrying him to Elizabeth of York. In 1486, Lord Stanley would depose that during Edward IV's reign he had often heard his wife and others discussing the consanguinity that existed between Henry and Elizabeth,28 proof that the possibility of them marrying had long been under discussion. But now, in the eyes of legitimists, Elizabeth was an even greater prize, for marriage with her would immeasurably bolster Henry's dubious claim to the throne and win hearts to his cause; and it would unite the Houses of Lancaster and York and be a means of ending the b.l.o.o.d.y conflict between them.

The success of the plan depended, of course, on the princes being dead. There was no point in Henry Tudor marrying Elizabeth and claiming the crown through her if Edward V or York remained alive to challenge that claim. Clearly, Buckingham, Margaret Beaufort, and Henry Tudor all believed that they were no longer alive. There have been theories that any one of them might have arranged the murder of the boys, which would have been as advantageous to them as to Richard III. But while a handful of contemporaries suggested that Buckingham was involved, none of them-even Margaret of Burgundy, his mortal enemy-ever accused Henry Tudor of the deed, still less Margaret Beaufort.

Apart from the lack of evidence there are insurmountable obstacles to these revisionist views: the princes disappeared while they were being securely held in the Tower as the King's chief prisoners of state. If someone-Buckingham, for example, who, even as Constable of England, would have needed the King's permission to breach security at the Tower-had murdered them, Richard would quickly have heard about it, and it would have been in his interests to make political capital against his enemies, thus giving the lie to the rumors about his own involvement; indeed, he was adept at using the tool of character a.s.sa.s.sination most effectively. More pertinently, even though the rumors about him murdering the princes continued to d.a.m.n Richard's reputation and undermine his security as King, he took no measures at all to counteract them, when it was crucially in his interests to do so. Had someone else murdered his nephews, especially one of his enemies, it would have served him well, and retrieved his reputation, to be able to accuse them-and he was soon to have an ideal opportunity to do that, of which he did not take advantage. It would also have been in his interests to make it known if the princes had died natural deaths. Claims that one or both of them survived are fascinating but unconvincing, and cannot be substantiated by good evidence.

Enlisting Buckingham to her son's cause was a great coup for Margaret Beaufort. All that was needed now was to win over Elizabeth Wydeville. But first she had to be told about the tragic fate of her sons.

Dr. Lewis Caerleon, ”a Welshman born,” was Margaret Beaufort's physician, and because he was ”a grave man and of no small experience, she was wont oftentimes to confer freely with him to lament her adversity.” It was during one of their talks that she prayed him to lay the conspirators' plan before the Queen Dowager, who also consulted him, ”for he was a very learned physician.” Margaret told him that ”the time was now come when King Edward's eldest daughter might be given in marriage to her son, Henry, and therefore prayed him to deal secretly with the Queen of such affair.” In September, ”after the slaughter of King Edward's children was known,”29 Dr. Caerleon braved Nesfield's soldiers and visited Elizabeth Wydeville in sanctuary in his official capacity, his real purpose being to break the dread news that her sons were believed to have been murdered on the King's orders.

The impact on the Queen Dowager-and on her daughters-must have been dreadful. The likelihood that the princes had been killed was devastating enough, but not knowing exactly what had happened to them, or being able to lay them decently to rest, would surely have caused more anguish than learning for certain how they had died. There would always have been room for imagining so many dreadful scenarios-and for doubt, even hope.

Vergil gives an account of Elizabeth Wydeville's reaction to the news, which he may have embroidered to underline the dreadful import of the moment, yet it is easy to imagine her responding dramatically to news that any mother would dread to hear, and highly likely that there was a scene of this sort. She ”fell in a swoon and lay lifeless a good while. After coming to herself, she wept, she cried aloud, and with lamentable shrieks made all the house ring. She struck her breast, tore and pulled out her hair and, overcome with dolor, prayed also for her own death, calling by name now and then among her most dear children, and condemning herself for a mad woman for that, being deceived by false promises, she had delivered her younger son out of sanctuary, to be murdered by his enemy.” After long lamentation, says More, ”she kneeled down and cried to G.o.d to take vengeance, who, she said, she nothing doubted would remember it.”

Elizabeth and her sisters were probably shocked witnesses to their mother's grief. Given Elizabeth's love for her siblings, the news would have hit her hard too. And soon would come the startling realization that she was now-or should have been-the rightful Queen of England.

To mitigate the dreadful tidings, and bring the Queen over to the side of Margaret Beaufort and Buckingham, Dr. Caerleon came to the real point of his visit, reminding her that her daughter Elizabeth was now the rightful inheritor of the crown. ”If you could now agree and invent the means to couple your eldest daughter with the young Earl of Richmond in matrimony, no doubt the usurper of the realm should be shortly deposed, and your heir again to her right restored.”

Very likely Caerleon, primed by Margaret Beaufort, gave a flattering account of the putative bridegroom, but at this point Henry Tudor was not much of a catch for a young woman whom many regarded as the Yorkist heiress. He was not even de facto Earl of Richmond, having been deprived of that t.i.tle; he was a mere landless exile. But Elizabeth Wydeville saw in him her only hope of revenge on the man whom she was convinced had killed her sons and brought her to her present sorry condition, and readily gave her consent. ”The Queen was so well pleased with this device that she commanded Caerleon to repair to the countess, who remained in her husband's house in London, and to promise that she would do her endeavor to procure all her husband King Edward's friends to take part with Henry, her son, so that he might be sworn to take in marriage Elizabeth, her daughter, after he should have gotten the realm; or else Cecily the younger if the other should die before he enjoyed the same.”30 Her agreement to the plan-which was not without considerable risk-is proof she truly believed that her sons had been murdered.

While the two aspiring mothers-in-law covertly planned for the future, with Dr. Caerleon acting ”as a messenger between them, without any suspicion,”31 Buckingham sent word to Henry, ”by advice of the lord Bishop of Ely, inviting him to hasten into the kingdom of England as fast as he could reach the sh.o.r.e, to marry Elizabeth, the eldest daughter of the late King; and with her, at the same time, take possession of the whole kingdom,” implying that they should reign jointly. He informed Henry that his supporters would rise on St. Luke's Day, October 18, and that he himself would raise the men of Wales. A proclamation was then made to the confederacies that Buckingham ”had repented of his former conduct and would be the chief mover” in the planned risings.32 Henry Tudor entered enthusiastically into the conspiracy. Francis II, Duke of Brittany, had offered him his daughter and heiress Anne, who could have brought him a duchy, but now Henry ”decided to yield to Edward IV's wishes to marry Elizabeth,”33 who might just bring him a kingdom.

Margaret Beaufort dispatched Reginald Bray ”to draw unto her party such n.o.ble and wors.h.i.+pful men” as were prepared to risk joining them. She also sent Hugh Conway to Henry with ”a good great sum of money” and instructions to join Buckingham in Wales. Word of the proposed marriage between Henry and Elizabeth rapidly won the conspirators the loyalty of Yorkists who had been outraged at Richard's disinheriting of Edward IV's children.

Elizabeth's own views on marrying this exiled pretender whom she had never met are unrecorded, but she probably felt that Henry Tudor represented her best chance of ridding herself of the stain of b.a.s.t.a.r.dy and attaining what was rightfully hers: the crown of England. She too seems to have accepted that her brothers were dead, and may have believed-in the words of the chronicler Holinshed-that her ”fortune and grace was to be queen.”

In 1489, Margaret Beaufort was to ask William Caxton to translate and print the text of a thirteenth-century French romance ent.i.tled ”Blanchardin and Eglantine,” which she had acquired in 1483. It was a highly appropriate romance, for Eglantine's story resonated with Elizabeth's own situation at the time of Buckingham's rebellion. Blanchardin, son of the King of Phrygia, falls in love with Princess Eglantine of Tormadei. While he fights the infidel, she makes the stations of the Cross, garrisons the city, and plans for their marriage, which is her heart's desire. Eventually Blanchardin pa.s.ses unscathed through a series of adventures, disasters, and escapes, and claims her as his wife. No doubt Elizabeth, and those in sanctuary with her in 1483, would have appreciated the parallels between the story and the alliance between herself and Henry Tudor. It is not beyond the bounds of probability that Margaret Beaufort sent her the book by the hands of Dr. Caerleon, to raise her morale and help while away the tedious hours in sanctuary.34 Bishop Morton, meanwhile, had pressed Buckingham to allow him to leave Brecknock for Ely, to raise men in his diocese. The duke showed himself doubtful about releasing the man who was supposed to be his prisoner, but Morton escaped one night and fled to Ely,35 a move that may have been planned by both men.

The rebels were supposed to rise on October 18, but their various groups were poorly coordinated, and on October 10 the Hautes orchestrated premature risings at Maidstone and Ightham Mote, only to be repelled by John Howard, now Duke of Norfolk. Dorset emerged from hiding to rouse the men of Exeter, and Lionel Wydeville stirred the men of Salisbury, his See. The Queen's younger brothers, Sir Edward and Sir Richard Wydeville, were involved, and there were planned risings in Guildford and Newbury, while Buckingham was to raise Brecon and south Wales. In the wake of the rumors about the murder of the princes, many former members of Edward IV's household had joined the rebels.

Already, though, ”the whole design of this plot had, by means of spies, become perfectly well known to King Richard, who, as ever, did not act sleepily, but swiftly, and with the greatest vigilance.”36 On October 15, Richard had Buckingham proclaimed a rebel and offered free pardons to any who surrendered. He ”contrived that, throughout Wales, armed men should be set in readiness around the said duke as soon as ever he had set a foot from his home.”37 Unsuspecting, Buckingham left Brecon on October 18, as planned, and advanced through the Wye Valley, making for Hereford. But storms and flooding wrecked his plans, his army deserted him, and he was forced to flee to Shrops.h.i.+re, where he sought shelter in the cottage of a poor retainer, who betrayed him for a handsome reward. On arrest, he was led to the city of Salisbury, ”to which place the King had come with a very large army, on the day of the commemoration of All Souls; and [on November 2], notwithstanding the fact that it was the Lord's day, the duke suffered capital punishment in the public marketplace of that city.”38 If, as has been suggested, Buckingham had murdered the princes, with Richard's approval and therefore on his behalf,39 Richard now had the perfect opportunity to lay the blame at his door and so give the lie to rumor. He did not seize it.

On October 31, unaware that the rebellion had collapsed, Henry Tudor set sail from Brittany with the intention of invading England, but was blown off course by the foul weather. He was stationed off Plymouth harbor when ”news of the current situation reached him, both of the death of the Duke of Buckingham and the flight of his own faction,” and realizing that his cause was hopeless, ”hoisted his sails and put out to sea again,”40 fleeing back to Brittany.

Richard III was remarkably lenient with Margaret Beaufort, despite her having treasonably conspired against him; she was lucky to escape being attainted by Parliament. He contented himself with giving her estates to her husband (who had rallied to his king), depriving her of the t.i.tle Countess of Richmond, and ordering Stanley-who claimed he had known nothing of her subversive activities-to keep his wife a virtual prisoner ”in some secret place” apart from her household. He also extended clemency, and the offer of a pardon, to Dorset and Morton, but they, Lionel Wydeville, and other rebels had already fled the kingdom to join Henry Tudor.41 What of Elizabeth? Andre, in a pa.s.sage that may relate to this time, later wrote that, before the summer of 1485, after Henry Tudor had decided to yield to Edward IV's wishes and marry her, a ”grievous situation nearly brought her n.o.ble life to an untimely end. And indeed, as the outcome of the matter later showed, by the pleasure of Edward, his n.o.ble and wise daughter was preserved in all her virtue for Henry.”

The context of this pa.s.sage is unclear, as is Andre's meaning. It reads as if it was due to her father's pleasure that Elizabeth survived this crisis, but it is more likely that the pa.s.sage refers to Edward's willing the marriage to take place, rather than to his being responsible for Elizabeth's survival. The ”grievous situation” to which Andre refers is probably the collapse of Buckingham's rebellion. He may be implying that Elizabeth too could have been penalized for treason, although Richard's leniency with Margaret Beaufort, who had been far more deeply involved, precluded Elizabeth from suffering the death penalty. Or Andre could have meant that she was so distressed at the das.h.i.+ng of her hopes of freedom and a crown that it severely affected her health.

”The Hours of Our Lady,” which bears the signature ”Elizabeth Plantagenet” on the flyleaf, has traces of an inscription containing the name ”Henry” at the top of that page, which someone has evidently tried to erase. Maybe it was Elizabeth herself, realizing that her hopes of marrying Henry Tudor were now in the dust, and that it was wiser to delete this evidence of them.42 The rebellion had collapsed, but it demonstrated that Henry Tudor was now a serious contender for the crown. In his native Wales the bards were claiming that he should rule as the rightful descendant of the near legendary Cadwaladr, the seventh-century King of Gwynned, and Brutus of Troy, to whom legend attributed the founding of the kingdom of Britain. The support of a growing body of Yorkist dissidents in Brittany-about four hundred fled to his base at the Chateau of l'Hermine after the rebellion failed-had strengthened Henry's cause to the extent that he was now ready to throw down the gauntlet to King Richard. At dawn on Christmas Day 1483, Henry went to Rennes Cathedral and, in the presence of about five hundred of his supporters, publicly, ”upon his oath, promised that, as soon as he should be King, he would marry Elizabeth, King Edward's daughter,”43 thus uniting the rival Houses of Lancaster and York.

In so doing he acknowledged Elizabeth as the rightful heiress to the crown-but she could only be that if her brothers were dead; again Henry and all his adherents must have had good reason to believe that they were before announcing his intention of marrying her. In fact Henry described Richard as a homicide in letters he sent to potential allies in England.44 Effectively, Henry's oath was also a public acknowledgment that the sons of Edward IV were dead. Had they been living, Richard III surely would have produced them to scupper the Tudor's ambitions, but-incomprehensibly, if he had not had them killed-he did not.

The oath, optimistic though it was, turned out to be a brilliant masterstroke because it united Lancastrian and Yorkist supporters and again made Henry a rallying point for disaffected Yorkists, many of whom swore homage to him in Rennes Cathedral on that Christmas morning ”as though he had been already created King.”45 No doubt there were those who did so in the hope that, if he won the crown, he would restore their property. Until now, few had taken Henry's claim to be the Lancastrian claimant seriously, but his vow to wed Elizabeth was a deciding factor for many. It also turned the powerless Elizabeth into one of the most important political figures in England, because marriage would from now on be seen by an increasing number as the key to holding legitimate sovereign power in the realm.

After what must have been a mournful Christmas, compared with the splendid celebrations of the previous year, when her father was alive, and before so many close to her had died or disappeared, Elizabeth and her mother and sisters now suffered another blow. In January 1484, in Richard III's first Parliament, the act ent.i.tled ”t.i.tulus Regius” was pa.s.sed, confirming the King's t.i.tle to the throne and setting forth the grounds of his claim. It declared how, thanks to ”the ungracious pretended marriage” of Edward IV, ”the order of all politic rule was perverted,” and went on to state: We consider how the pretended marriage between King Edward and Elizabeth Grey was made of great presumption, without the knowledge and a.s.sent of the lords of this land, and also by sorcery and witchcraft committed by the said Elizabeth and her mother, Jacquetta, d.u.c.h.ess of Bedford; and also we consider how that the said pretended marriage was made privily and secretly, without edition of banns, in a private chamber [which was untrue], a profane place, and not openly in the face of the Church after the law of G.o.d's Church; and how also, that at the time of the contract of the said pretended marriage, and before and long after, King Edward was and stood troth-plight to one Dame Eleanor Butler, daughter of the old Earl of Shrewsbury, with whom King Edward had made a precontract of matrimony long time before he made the said pretensed marriage with Elizabeth Grey. Which premises being true, as in very truth they had been true, it appeareth and followeth evidently that King Edward and Elizabeth lived together sinfully and d.a.m.nably in adultery, against the law of G.o.d and His Church, [and] also it followeth that all th'issue and children of the said King Edward had been b.a.s.t.a.r.ds and unable to inherit or to claim any thing by inheritance.46 Croyland fulminated, correctly, that Parliament, being a lay court, had no jurisdiction to p.r.o.nounce on the validity of a marriage, but ”it presumed to do so, and did do so, because of the great fear [of Richard] that had struck the hearts of even the most resolute.” Elizabeth and her siblings were now legally b.a.s.t.a.r.ds; the act had stripped them of their t.i.tles and property and barred them from inheriting anything from their parents.

In February, Elizabeth turned eighteen, the average age for marriage for upper-cla.s.s girls at that period.47 She must have felt that time was pa.s.sing her by while she was immured in sanctuary, and wondered what the future held for her. Her brothers were dead, her Wydeville relatives murdered or in exile, her mother powerless. It would not be surprising if she was still hoping against hope that Henry Tudor would somehow be able to fulfill his vow and marry her, although the prospect of that probably seemed remote.

Richard III was taking no chances, though. He needed to neutralize the threat posed by the proposed marriage between Elizabeth and Henry Tudor, who was now styling himself King of England, and would, on March 27, obtain a papal dispensation sanctioning the union of ”Henry Richmond, layman of the York diocese, and Elizabeth Plantagenet, woman of the London diocese.”48 Richard wanted Elizabeth in his power. He could not continue to allow the Queen Dowager and her daughters to go on hiding in sanctuary, as if they were in danger from him; it did not do his already tarnished reputation any good. The rumors had proved highly damaging. Early in 1484 the Chancellor of France had publicly accused him of ”murdering with impunity” his nephews, and Commines records that Louis XI believed Richard to be ”extremely cruel and evil” for having had ”the two sons of his brother put to death.” In December 1483, Mancini (who had been recalled to France in July) had written unquestioningly that Richard had ”destroyed his brother's children.” But if the King could secure the persons of Elizabeth and her sisters, he could show the world he had no evil intent toward them and marry them off to men of his own choosing, thus preventing Henry Tudor from claiming the throne through marriage to any of them.

He knew he faced a struggle to persuade Queen Elizabeth to let her daughters leave sanctuary. He sent ”grave men promising mountains to her” and ”frequent entreaties as well as threats,”49 possibly of removing the girls by force. The ring of steel still surrounding the abbey was a constant, intimidating reminder that Richard had the means to carry out such threats. But there was perhaps talk that he was thinking of marrying Elizabeth to his son, Edward of Middleham, who was her cousin and could not have been much above ten years old.50 Vergil says his emissaries to Elizabeth Wydeville prejudiced their arguments at the outset by referring to ”the slaughter of her sons,” after which she would not be comforted; if this is true, it amounted to an admission that Richard had the boys killed. Certainly he had been responsible for the judicial murder of another of her sons, Sir Richard Grey, and had given abundant proof of his hatred of the Wydevilles. The former Queen had good cause to be afraid of him.

She made her fears so plain that on March 1 the King felt obliged to make an ”oath and promise” in the presence of the lords of the council and the Lord Mayor and aldermen that, if she would agree to her daughters leaving sanctuary, he would offer them all his protection. This he confirmed in writing, declaring: I, Richard, by the grace of G.o.d, King of England [etc.], in the presence of you my lords spiritual and temporal, and you, Mayor and aldermen of my City of London, promise and swear on the word of a king, and upon these holy evangelies [Gospels] of G.o.d, by me personally touched, that if the daughters of Dame Elizabeth Grey, late calling herself Queen of England, that is, Elizabeth, Cecily, Anne, Katherine, and Bridget, will come unto me out of the sanctuary of Westminster, and be guided, ruled, and demeaned after me, then I shall see that they shall be in surety of their lives, and also not suffer any manner hurt in their body by any manner [of] person or persons to them, or any of them in their bodies and persons by way of ravishment or de-fouling contrary to their wills, not them or any of them imprison within the Tower of London or other prison; but that I shall put them in honest places of good name and fame, and them honestly and courteously shall see to be founden and entreated, and to have all things requisite and necessary for their exhibitions [display] and findings [domestic arrangements] as my kinswomen; and that I shall marry such of them as now be marriable to gentlemen born, and every of them give in marriage lands and tenements by the yearly value of 200 marks [about 34,000] for term of their lives, and in like wise to the other daughters when they come to lawful age of marriage if they live. And such gentlemen as shall hap to marry with them I shall straitly charge from time to time lovingly to love and entreat them, as wives and my kinswomen, as they will avoid and eschew my displeasure ... And moreover, I promise to them that if any surmise or evil report be made to me of them by any person or persons, that I shall not give thereunto faith ne credence, nor therefore put them to any manner punishment, before that they or any of them so accused may be at their lawful defence and answer. In witness whereof to this writing of my oath and promise aforesaid in your said presences made, I have set my sign manual the first day of March, the first year of my reign.51 While he may have offended his sister-in-law by calling her ”Dame Elizabeth Grey,” Richard had at least very publicly guaranteed the future safety and welfare of her daughters. His promises-and his oath made on the Gospels-reflect widespread concerns that he had done away with her sons, for whose safety, as opposed to that of her daughters, there are no rea.s.surances in the doc.u.ment.52 This strongly suggests that they were dead, while the specific mention of the Tower, and Richard's willingness to give such a public guarantee, amounts to a tacit admittance that she had good cause for concern.

Clearly Elizabeth Wydeville had feared-especially in the wake of the sanctuary plot-that a pretext might be sought to find her daughters guilty of treason and worthy of punishment. But for Elizabeth of York, the King's promises can only have emphasized the shame of her b.a.s.t.a.r.dy. He was contemplating marrying her to some gentleman, when, if her brothers really were dead, she was the rightful Queen of England, and might yet be queen consort, if Henry Tudor realized his ambitions. And the dowry Richard was offering was paltry compared with the 10,000 marks [1.5 million] willed her by Edward IV, and a cruel reminder of her reduced status.

In the circ.u.mstances, though, this was a pragmatic way of securing the girls' futures, and Elizabeth Wydeville, ”being strongly solicited to do so,” agreed to release them. On March 1, 1484, the same day her brother-in-law made his public declaration, she ”sent her daughters from the sanctuary at Westminster to King Richard.”53 The Tudor chronicler Edward Hall castigated Elizabeth Wydeville for surrendering her daughters to her enemy: ”Putting in oblivion the murder of her innocent children, the infamy and dishonor spoken by the King her husband, the living in adultery laid to her charge, the b.a.s.t.a.r.dizing of her daughters, forgetting also the faithful prayers and open oath made to the Countess of Richmond, mother of the Earl Henry, blinded by avaricious affection and seduced by flattering words, [she] delivered into King Richard's hands her five daughters as lambs once again committed to the custody of the ravenous wolf.”