As the army of their enemies approached the Yorkist family stronghold of Ludlow, it became clear to Richard, Duke of York, and his wife Cecily Neville, that they and their children could not remain there in safety. With their followers melting away, and faced with the overwhelming strength of their opponents, they decided that the family must scatter. York and his second son, Edmund, Earl of Rutland, would go to Ireland. Their eldest son and heir, the future Edward IV, would attempt to reach Calais. Cecily and the two youngest sons, George and Richard, would courageously await the arrival of the enemy army. There was now no going back. At this moment of terrible crisis the house of York had crossed its own Rubicon.1
It was October 1459 and England was racked by dissension. King Henry VI was weak and dominated by his wife, Margaret of Anjou. Over the last ten years, York had taken the road of political opposition, championing grievances against the government of the day, the King and his ministers. York, a wealthy magnate of the royal blood, was a natural focus for this. If descent through the female line was recognised, his claim to the throne would be better than that of the King himself. He and his family represented a menace to the power and establishment of Henry VI, and within a year he would lay claim to the throne outright. That claim would lead to bloody denouement at Wakefield.
Let us imagine this family diaspora through the eyes of the youngest son, seven-year-old Richard. He witnessed his father and older brothers forced to flee the country in a bewildering reversal of fortune. In the face of renewed danger he remained under the protection of his mother. Amidst this frightening uncertainty Cecily must have seemed his only constant. In the terrible aftermath of his father’s death, it was she who sent him and his brother George abroad for their own safety, as the victorious army of their opponents approached the capital. Cecily was his rock and would remain so. It was from her residence at Berkhamsted that he would one day set out to confront his Tudor challenger at Bosworth.
This portrayal of Cecily will be very different from the Shakespearean account. Instead of cursing Richard, she will bless him. We will uncover her pivotal role at the heart of the family. Far from being the peripheral figure found in Shakespeare, she will appear as matriarch of the Yorkist dynasty. Her vision and ambition for her sons will set the compass for their political fortunes, culminating in Richard’s accession to the throne. So who was this woman whose remarkable personality will be central to our story?
Medieval women could be considerably more powerful and politically effective than we might anticipate. Even if their influence was covert, it might nevertheless reach all areas of family activity, from religious observance and household magnificence to political ambition. If others enacted the script, it was they who provided the setting for the play. And Cecily Neville is a supreme example of such a woman.
As a young woman, renowned for her beauty and married to the wealthiest peer in the realm, Cecily developed a taste for luxury that was never to leave her. When she accompanied her husband to France, her spending reached such a level that York had to appoint one official specially to keep an eye on where the money was going. At a time when an archer considered sixpence a day a good wage, one dress alone, dripping with pearls, cost hundreds of pounds. This late medieval big spender found one French castle privy too rough for her taste and commissioned a more elegant version, cushioned for her personal comfort.2
But amidst these fineries Cecily also acquired a taste for power, planning illustrious marriages for her children within Europe’s ruling dynasties, to enhance the family’s eminence and prestige. As Cecily established herself, she would seize the initiative in matters of high politics, advancing alliances that she considered of benefit. On one occasion she arranged an audience with the Queen, Margaret of Anjou, at a time when her husband had begun to oppose the regime of Henry VI, and sought to convince her that York was loyal and acting in good faith. Cecily was entirely aware that this was untrue. She showed courage and pragmatism in bringing such a meeting about and it appears that the Queen found her a sympathetic and persuasive advocate. She had demonstrated a talent for duplicity and used it with flair as protectress of the house of York.3
For this end she was prepared to use her children. She had made a sisterly appeal to Margaret of Anjou, capitalising on the bond of their female experience, for she had sustained many pregnancies, most recently with Richard, while Queen Margaret was pregnant for the first time. She chose to remain behind at Ludlow in October 1459, keeping her younger children with her and calculating that their presence would disarm her opponents and invoke sympathy. This strategy placed them at some risk and Cecily was able to accept this, regarding the overall advancement of the family as a higher good.4
The quest for advancement sought the greatest prize of all, the crown of England. Tellingly, York’s first action on his return from Ireland to claim the throne, following the family’s separation at Ludlow, was to send for Cecily to rejoin him as fast as possible. This suggests that he valued her not only as a beautiful wife, but also as an ally and supporter: a strategist whom he needed and relied on. York failed in his attempt to gain the throne, but Cecily lived to see two of her sons become kings of England. And the role of confidante to kings was clearly one she relished. In the early years of the reign of her eldest son Edward IV, it was noted that she could rule the King as she pleased. In the reign of Richard, his sole surviving letter to her, written as the threat of Tudor’s invasion drew closer, sought her advice as a defence in his time of need. This was not some isolated request. Rather, Cecily appears as a source of constant support to him: Richard wishing that he might often hear from her ‘to my comfort’.5 One can understand how such a matriarch might become accustomed to her position of authority and expect her counsel to be highly regarded on every occasion. But on one notable occasion it was not, and the consequences for the family were to be drastic.
In March 1461 the army of her eldest son Edward was victorious in a bitter and bloody struggle at Towton. Wakefield had been avenged. In the battle’s aftermath Edward was able to retrieve the remains of the family’s first challenger to the throne and provide them with a decent, if temporary, resting place at Pontefract. A messenger was despatched to Cecily in London to inform her of what had been done. Edward had laid claim to the throne through his father’s bloodline and Towton ensured that this time the claim would be successful – a Yorkist dynasty established.
During the first period of Edward IV’s reign Cecily relished her pomp and magnificence. Her London house at Baynard’s Castle enjoyed as much of the activity and intrigue of court life as any royal residence. She regularly accompanied the King on his progresses. As beneficiary of her son’s patronage she secured her landed rights and trading interests, and saw that these were protected by parliamentary statute and their continuance safeguarded. Her duties as patroness of the family repository at Clare, where she supervised the appointment of officers and ensured that observance was sustained, were combined with a major rebuilding programme at Fotheringhay, which became her chief residence.6 Her expectation was now of a great match for her son the King, which would link the Yorkist dynasty with a prestigious European royal house. The thwarting of this expectation, in quite shocking fashion, would provoke Cecily’s rage with dramatic and startling consequences.
In May 1464 the King married Elizabeth Woodville, a young and attractive widow from a relatively undistinguished English family. It appears that his reasons were entirely personal. The marriage forged no link with any great foreign house of distinction and brought no benefit of wealth or status. Instead, one of its many unfortunate consequences was the arrival of a horde of impoverished Woodville relatives, eager to exploit their new royal connection and secure advantageous marriages, patronage and anything else that might be available to them. This social climbing reached its apogee in the coupling of an eighteen-year-old Woodville with a wealthy dowager duchess in her sixties.
Unsurprisingly, the news was greeted with astonishment when it became known, which was not for over three months after the ill-fated match had taken place. And this irregularity was only one of a number: it transpired that the marriage had not occurred in a church and had virtually no witnesses. This may seem tame by recent standards of royal scandal but in its time it was truly sensational. The event came as a bombshell to the King’s family.
Cecily, her two remaining sons and her powerful and influential nephew Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, were confounded by Edward’s action. While it was taking place Warwick was abroad, negotiating on behalf of the family a major alliance between the King and a French princess. A princess of Castile had also been mooted as a possible candidate. A number of sources confirm that the house of York was never able to accept this terrible waste of opportunity and come to terms with Edward’s whirlwind romance. Within a few years they would seek to put Elizabeth Woodville’s mother on trial for witchcraft, perhaps finding the King’s decision so abhorrent that only enchantment could provide an explanation for it.
To incur Cecily’s displeasure was to take a considerable risk. She was a formidable protagonist, who did not brook dissension and had little patience with those who stood in the way of her objectives. One recalcitrant official, summoned before her and her council over non-payment of dues, was warned of the grilling he was likely to receive and that he had better have some good answers ready.7 Unfortunately for Edward, it would in this case be an insuperable challenge to find any explanation for his choice of bride that might appease Cecily.
A later source recaptures an angry confrontation between mother and son, with Cecily venting her indignation at the match. The King’s duty, she argued, was to marry into a noble or royal house from the continent. This would enhance his status and add to his possessions. To bring this about, the Earl of Warwick had travelled abroad on his behalf. Negotiations for a foreign marriage were now far advanced and it was the height of folly to antagonise the Earl so unnecessarily.
Cecily then continued with the admonition that it was wholly inappropriate for a monarch to marry his own subject, where no honour or lands could be secured by it:
A rich man would marry his maid only for a little wanton dotage on her person. In which marriage, many more commend the maiden’s fortune than the master’s wisdom. And yet... there is between no merchant and his own maid so great a difference as between the King and this widow.
And marrying a widow, Cecily added, only made matters worse.8
The tone of this outburst carries real authenticity. For there is an awful immediacy to Cecily’s stinging diatribe, as if one has accidentally eavesdropped on an acrimonious family squabble. It is all the more surprising to find that the man who recaptures it, Sir Thomas More, was writing early in the reign of Henry VIII, and thus many years after the event. More’s work is unremitting in its hostility to Richard III. But this terrible row comes across as something of a digression. How could More have learned about it? He was a lawyer, curious and interested in people, and he had a particular interest in Edward IV’s mistress, Elizabeth Shore. More pens an attractive and moving account of this woman. She is now old and withered, reduced to poverty and begging. More knows her personally and is touched by her story. His writing brings her alive on the page.
Shore was witty and intelligent and King Edward took her into his confidence in many matters that preoccupied him. The argument between the King and his mother would only have been shared with someone Edward trusted and with whom he was very much at his ease. In the arms of his mistress he could escape the tensions engendered between his formidable mother and determined wife. More’s friendship with the aged Elizabeth Shore allows the author a glimpse into the private life of the house of York. Through her later reminiscences he is able to conjure up the King in his own words with an informal directness. It is almost magical to hear Edward speaking across this long stretch of time as he jests that he has three concubines, who between them are the merriest, wiliest and holiest harlots of his realm, with the third only consenting to rise from her devotions to take her place in his bed. More is thus able to give us a tantalising sense of the inner workings of this family. If the tale of Cecily’s wrath came from Shore’s lips, remembering a confidence of her royal lover, the concluding remark bears the stamp of someone who had withstood the fury of a subsequent storm. When Edward rebuffed his mother’s complaint, her disdain was all too evident. An ominous observation is made: in her own mind Cecily ‘devised to disturb this marriage’.
Within a family some things are never forgotten. Cecily’s angry invective has not been treated with the seriousness it deserves. It is usually regarded as a mere curiosity, an imaginative literary flourish entirely of More’s creation. We need to consider that it may be an intimate record of a family event. If we take its content seriously we will find a recurring theme within it. Edward’s willingness to marry a widow had particularly rankled with Cecily and her criticism of such a prospect was biting: ‘a blemish and disparagement to the majesty of a prince’. One of the candidates Edward’s mother did deem suitable was Princess Isabella of Castile and negotiations were in progress between the two royal families. One might imagine the two women’s incredulous correspondence when news of Edward’s clandestine marriage finally emerged. Twenty years later Isabella echoed Cecily’s sentiments, confiding to the new King Richard III that she had been offended by Edward’s conduct. She had ‘turned in her heart’ from him because she found his rejection of her for a mere widow of England disparaging. The issue enjoyed a new-found topicality. It was now put about that an English king was not expected to marry a widow. Two foreign sources noted that Richard had appealed to this custom as part of his own justification for taking the throne.
We can sense here the bitterness aroused by Edward’s marriage, which never fully subsided. This had become a perilous fault-line beneath the family landscape. There were periods of quiet when all might appear well, but it could shift alarmingly at times of stress. Like any unresolved family conflict it would resurface painfully and when it did it would wreak havoc.
Edward IV’s behaviour was indeed astonishing. The King was tall, charismatic and exceptionally handsome. He was intelligent and had a ready grasp of matters of state. His reign had begun with great promise, but even before this spectacular misjudgement, contemporaries had started to notice a lack of stomach for the sustained responsibilities of kingship. Edward’s excessive indulgence in hunting and womanising (referred to by one courtier as his pleasures of the chase) pointed to an irresponsible streak most unlike other members of the family. His disregard of scruples that were instinctive to their outlook set him apart from them. For Cecily, this was a personal catastrophe that deeply hurt her pride. It did not abate with the passage of time, but broke forth in an outburst of rage that produced the most astonishing revelation.
Cecily announced that Edward IV was not her legitimate son. She claimed that he was the offspring of an adulterous liaison and declared herself willing to go before a public inquiry and testify to this. This would mean that Edward was not rightful King and that the succession should immediately pass to his younger brother, George, Duke of Clarence.
The impact of this pronouncement must have been stupendous. When an aristocratic or royal heir was born abroad, as Edward and three of his siblings had been, he could be vulnerable to aspersions of illegitimacy. But for the mother herself to make such a claim was unprecedented. It was a seismic disclosure, which reverberated through the politics of the Yorkist period. It erupted in an attempt to depose the King that saw him held in captivity and some of his favourites executed. It divided the Yorkist regime, bringing about renewed civil war and pitting the King’s younger brother Clarence against him. Although this period of dissension was eventually resolved, the issue never went away. The uncovering of this dreadful secret led to murderous feuding. It re-emerged as Richard himself seized the throne. Bosworth was its culmination.
The veracity of Cecily’s claim has never been properly tested. Historians have tended to see it as a wild aspersion, produced in anger and intended to damage the King. They have not allowed for a different possibility, that she might have been telling the truth. The information is quite astonishing, and it would be hard to equal the drama of what is being related. Cecily falls into a terrifying rage. Her wrath is such that she asserts that Edward is not the offspring of her husband, the Duke of York, but was conceived by her in an adulterous affair. She is prepared to acknowledge this before a public inquiry, where she will be cross-examined on her sinful admission. Our informant for this is an Italian visitor to London, Dominic Mancini. Mancini stayed in the capital in the year of Richard’s accession and wrote up an account of the incredible events for his patron, the Archbishop of Vienne, at the end of 1483. Mancini’s work predates Bosworth and the subsequent Tudor legend of Richard’s wicked coercion of his mother. The importance of this is obvious.9
Yet there is something incongruous about an Italian tourist who could speak little English apparently stumbling upon this royal scandal, in the media scoop of the century. Mancini is vague on details of the event, giving no date for its occurrence, and Cecily’s piety and reputation for a devout life-style make it all the more unbelievable. Moreover, any birth abroad could lead to charges of illegitimacy, which might be raked up for purely political purposes. Such an accusation was manufactured in the fourteenth century against John of Gaunt. Gaunt was born in Flanders and the insinuation of bastardy was an attempt to undermine his power and standing in the realm. To avoid the possibility of innuendo and smear, Henry V returned from France in order to have his son by Catherine of Valois born at Windsor. In these circumstances it has been difficult to treat Mancini’s sensational disclosure seriously. It is easier to align with the Tudor version, and see Richard willing to slander his mother’s reputation in the course of his unprincipled seizure of the throne.
However it is crucial to investigate properly what Mancini has to say. For he had a friendly contact for his visit in the humanist physician John Argentine. Argentine was an unbridled source of news, for he was doctor to the elder of the princes in the Tower, the young Edward V. There could be no better purveyor of information than a well-connected court physician, a man who would receive the confidences of his clients and patrons. And we must remember that Mancini is not seeking an excuse to indulge in diverting gossip. He is making a serious attempt to understand the mayhem of Richard’s accession, and that is why he has been asked to write his account. He puts Cecily’s outburst in a powerful context – the family’s refusal to accept Edward IV’s marriage. Mancini is unequivocal. Edward’s infatuation ‘offended most bitterly the members of his own house’. It alienated him not just from Cecily but his two brothers as well. But while Clarence showed his displeasure outwardly, Richard concealed his thoughts, so no action could be brought against him. This threatening scenario is given as background to the bloodshed that was to follow Edward’s death – and Cecily’s pronouncement is at the centre of Mancini’s explanation.
Then there is Cecily’s pious reputation. The devotional regime that is being extolled is a product of the last ten years of her life, when the old lady was living in quiet seclusion. It would be wrong to project this back on her entire career, in which she played an active and full political role. An adulterous fling seems far-fetched for the dutiful and religious elderly woman she became, but less so for the beautiful, rich and powerful twenty-six-year-old she had once been. If Cecily was later prepared to resurrect a buried family secret, at enormous personal cost, it transcended the expediency of political muck-raking. The hurt involved in such a disclosure was too real. Could her admission actually be true?
It is revealing to consider the actual circumstances of Edward’s conception and birth. Edward was born on 28 April 1442 in Rouen in France. This was a major aristocratic heir, and the premature birth of a small and dangerously weak child would have been recorded with concern, as was that of Henry VII’s own first offspring, Arthur, who does seem to have been born prematurely. Arthur was too weak to travel with the royal entourage after his birth at Winchester and had to be left for six months at Farnham Castle to be nursed to recovery.10 No special circumstances around Edward’s birth were observed, so we can reasonably assume this was a healthy, full-term baby. If this is true, he was likely to have been conceived in late July or early August 1441, soon after his parents had travelled together to France. York’s campaign around Pontoise took place at this time. It has generally been thought to have been of a fortnight’s duration – keeping him away from his wife from mid-July to the beginning of August 1441. However, as we have seen earlier, the campaign was far more extensive and York did not return to Cecily in Rouen until after 20 August. This means he was absent at the crucial time.
Of course, we now know that the dates of conception and expected birth can be calculated with great accuracy. In the fifteenth century such matters were comprehended much less fully. Observers often kept careful records of the date, place and even time of birth. But these were for astrological purposes, and medieval authorities were vaguer about the expected length of a pregnancy, some regarding anything between seven and ten months as a normal period of gestation. The exact link between a woman’s menstrual cycle and her ability to conceive was not understood, and definite guidance about times of fertility was not available. There was confusion about precisely how conception occurred, with some physicians arguing that the male seed alone made a baby, and a woman acted as a receptacle, and others that a seed from both parties was involved. However, at a time when women had many children, repeated pregnancy would allow a mother to gain experience of her body and its sensations at these times. Cecily had already borne York two previous children, a daughter Anne and a son Henry, who did not survive long. She would give birth to eleven altogether, of whom seven would survive into adulthood.
If a pregnancy was believed to take any time between seven and ten months this would allow a wide range of dates for conception. But one medieval source describes signs of pregnancy to be looked for about ten days after conception. These include complexion problems and an upset stomach. These must have been reported by female patients, who knew within themselves what the beginning of a pregnancy was like. Even with the limited knowledge available, people were also aware that changes in the composition of urine could occur and advised that it be examined for colour and the presence of particles – an early version of the Clear Blue!
A gap existed between much established medical opinion and contemporary folk knowledge. When Cecily wrote a commiserative letter to Margaret of Anjou at the time of the Queen’s pregnancy she drew on her own considerable experience of childbirth. It is unlikely that such a mother would have little or no idea of when conception took place. In any case, whatever the authorities might say, folk belief placed little credence on the protestations of women whose husbands were absent, on business or at war, some nine months before the birth of a large and healthy infant, that the baby had grown quickly in the womb. As one writer sceptically puts it: ‘You weigh the new-born, note its vigour, wink, do not contest the new mother’s calculations or otherwise cast doubt on her, but everyone knows the real story!’And it was this real story that people would now quietly begin to tell.11
Once the issue of Edward’s illegitimacy was brought up and suspicions aroused, contemporaries would have counted back and quickly realised that this charge could be well founded. The high profile and success of York’s campaign would have fixed his absence in people’s minds. The sensitivity of this matter quickly became apparent. A chronicle closely associated with the Yorkist dynasty, which gave the dates of birth of all the children of Cecily and her husband as a point of family pride, contained a curious addition. In the case of Edward alone, the author, or someone with access to the work, felt compelled to add the place of his conception. This was given as the family residence of Hatfield Chase in Yorkshire, and concern over the issue was such that the exact room was specified. The choice of Hatfield was superficially plausible, as an earlier child Henry, who only lived briefly, had been born there shortly before. But closer examination shows this location is impossible, for York and Cecily had left for France by mid-June 1441. It was a rather unconvincing attempt at concealment. Another Yorkist source, which went out of its way to assert that Edward was ‘conceived in wedlock’, and thus rightfully of the royal blood, displayed a similar defensiveness.12
The matter of dates does not seem to have been an arcane question pored over only by those immediately concerned. Far from it, kitchen table arithmetic became sufficiently widespread to enter an oral tradition still current at the time of Shakespeare. The playwright seems to have drawn on it in an aside by Richard to his chief accomplice as he conspires to usurp the throne, usually seen as a slur on his mother and further proof of his villainy and lack of scruples. In fact it may contain the remnant of something very different:
...when that my mother went with child
Of that insatiate Edward, noble York
My princely father, then had wars in France
And by true computation of the time
Found that the issue was not his begot.
We can assume that York had some idea of how long a pregnancy should take. Although we will never know how he and Cecily dealt with this matter between themselves, evidence suggests the family’s response to Edward’s birth was rather different from their reaction to their subsequent son Edmund, who was also born in France. One indicator was the christening ceremony, an occasion for the family to mark the new arrival in appropriate style. Edmund was christened on 18 May 1443 with all possible magnificence. The service took place in Rouen Cathedral, the most impressive and public venue available. Following special negotiation with the Cathedral chapter, York and Cecily secured a remarkable honour: the use of a treasured relic, the font at which the Norman Duke Rollo (the ancestor of William the Conqueror) had been baptised into Christianity, kept covered in the following centuries as a mark of respect. Commentators in both England and France recognised this as an exceptional accolade. In curious contrast, the christening of the family’s son and heir, Edward, had taken place in a small private chapel in Rouen Castle.13
It was highly unusual to accord a second son so much greater honour than the first. This might suggest that with the birth of Edmund, York and Cecily had more to celebrate together. In the light of subsequent revelation, this took on a larger significance.
If this astounding accusation were true, who might Edward’s father have been? A strong rumour circulating in the courts of Burgundy and France in the second half of Edward’s reign had it that Cecily’s liaison was with an archer named Blaybourne, presumably based in the garrison at Rouen. And on a personal note, it is perhaps worth reflecting that while York had provided Cecily with wealth, rank, power and prestige, he was short and small of face. If the eye of this notorious beauty was to wander it might come to rest on the only attribute York lacked. A tall and manly archer could just fit the bill.
However much Edward IV might have wanted the issue to go away, it was to reappear awkwardly during his reign. We learn the name of Cecily’s partner-in-passion from a wonderful tale related by Philippe de Commynes, which has more than a touch of knock-about farce to it. Commynes hides behind a screen to hear a virtuoso impersonation given to the French King, Louis XI, of his arch-rival Charles the Bold. With Louis seated on a stool to enjoy the performance, a lord who has visited Charles’s court imitates the Duke flying into a rage at the mention of the King of England. He stamps his feet and lets fly a stream of expletives. This tirade culminates with an emphatic declaration. Edward’s real name is Blaybourne, just like his father the archer. This thought seems to offer Duke Charles real solace.14
Louis enjoyed this cameo so much that he pretended to be a little deaf so that he could have it repeated. But beneath the humour a serious political point is made. Louis’ delight in this impromptu comedy is obvious. Edward IV and Charles the Bold had previously signed a treaty to join forces together and invade his realm, and in 1475 the English King had arrived with a large army. At Picquigny near Amiens the wily Louis XI had suborned the English, persuading them to renounce the alliance on payment of a large annual pension. Edward had been bought off. This diplomatic master-stroke was greeted with fury by Duke Charles, who remained deeply angered by Edward’s conduct. His reaction echoed the house of York’s own response to the Woodville marriage. A true prince of the blood would not act like this. A man of noble ancestry would behave honourably. But if Edward IV was the son of an archer – well, that would explain it. The spectre of the King’s illegitimacy is never far from the surface and a moment of crisis will bring it once more to the forefront.
Commynes was a witness to the diplomatic coup at the bridge of Picquigny, that broke the Anglo-Burgundian alliance and caused the story of Edward IV’s bastardy to circulate with renewed vigour on the continent. It was hardly an occasion of chivalric renown. The soldiers of the impressive English army hoped for a great endeavour to rival that of Henry V’s at Agincourt sixty years earlier. Instead an unsavoury deal was brokered that left their ally in the lurch. Little honour would be gained from this campaign. There was a terrible sense of anti-climax as the army drew up in full array outside Picquigny. As the men lined up, the King’s younger brother Richard chose to make a point of his own. In full view of the assembled troops he deliberately absented himself from the interview with the French King, making it known that he ‘was not pleased with this peace’. By refusing to turn up at such a public, high-profile occasion Richard was communicating his disapproval to the whole army, and making clear things would have been very different had he been in command.
Here Richard was showing his flair for empathy with the ordinary soldier. Many of the rank-and-file voted with their feet and walked away from the agreement to join the Burgundian army. Richard had been a strong advocate for this cause. But at Picquigny we are seeing rather more than the advocacy of an aggressive war policy. Richard was making a bigger, symbolic statement: he would have no part in a dishonourable military settlement. His father, the Duke of York, was scrupulous in his adherence to the martial code and would never have countenanced such a breach of trust with an ally. In front of the assembled soldiers Richard now recast himself as the true heir of his father. The way he represented himself formed a developing self-image that would culminate in the all-important ritual before his army at Bosworth. To understand this battle in 1485, I believe we must recognise the legacy of failure at Picquigny ten years earlier, and the crucial issue that lay behind it – that Edward IV was not behaving as a legitimate heir of the house of York should. His actions confirmed the suspicions of his family, something that was picked up by foreign observers, that he was not a rightful successor to his father. The mantle would have to pass elsewhere. This will be the foundation of my own reappraisal of Bosworth Field: Richard did, in his own eyes, have a legitimate cause to fight for.
To understand this cause more fully, we must explore the repercussions of the charge of Edward’s bastardy amidst the troubled politics of the reign. This scandalous revelation will be the vital key to a new understanding of the battle of Bosworth.
Soon after Edward’s birth the family chose to bury this painful area of uncertainty and acted as though nothing untoward had occurred. Edward was shown all due deference as firstborn. Yet it is thought-provoking to note that on two occasions of particular danger, the family separation at Ludlow in 1459 and the ill-fated march north in December 1460, York chose to be accompanied not by his apparent heir but by his son Edmund instead. But it would take a severe crisis to resurrect this long-buried family secret. In the years following Edward IV’s controversial marriage his mother’s indignation remained unabated. In an age when the niceties of position were all-important and the rituals of their observance paramount, Cecily refused to allow the new upstart Queen to outrank her. In a startling act of royal one-upmanship, she devised a title of her own and now styled herself Queen-by-Right.15 Two queens in the same court must have presented a challenge to royal protocol, especially when Edward was compelled to build an extension to one palace because the original Queen’s apartments had been taken over by his mother. The main casualty in this war of etiquette was the planned reburial of Richard Duke of York at Fotheringhay. This event was repeatedly postponed, presumably because the precedence the Queen would enjoy there offended Cecily, and when it ultimately took place York’s widowed Duchess did not attend.
Stained glass window fragments bearing Yorkist badges: Rose and Fetterlock, White Hind, Rose ‘en Soleil’, White Lion. From the windows of Fotheringhay, now at Hemington Church, Northants.
These suppressed tensions eventually broke forth in cataclysmic fashion. The first contemporary record of the dramatic slander against the King is found in August 1469 when Cecily’s nephew, Warwick, put it about that Edward was a bastard and George, Duke of Clarence, therefore rightful king. This may indicate that Cecily’s outburst, so vividly recalled by Dominic Mancini, took place earlier that year. A strong suggestion of this is a most unwelcome change of residence, seemingly forced on Cecily in March 1469 by her son the King. The self-styled Queen-by-Right, who had just supervised the expensive refurbishment of Fotheringhay Castle for her use and had spent lavishly on an ornate glazing programme in the nearby collegiate church, found herself suddenly exiled to a near ruin at Berkhamsted.
Fotheringhay was the material and spiritual focus of the house of York. The castle, rebuilt by the first duke in the shape of a family badge, the fetterlock, embodied this dynasty’s self-image and powerful self-belief. The work on a new church, largely completed by Cecily’s husband, incorporated a suitably splendid family resting-place. Cecily’s own additions gave her a luxurious residence in a familiar setting, where she had frequently stayed with her husband and had given birth to her youngest son Richard. They made clear her place within the lineage. Her uprooting was therefore doubly painful.
On her arrival at Berkhamsted, Cecily would have found the entrance towers split in half and leaning at an ungainly angle, the large curtain wall in a state of collapse and only a small portion of the keep fit for habitation. The castle had known former times of glory as a residence of queens in the early fourteenth century, and so might at first appear to be an appropriate residence. But by the time of Cecily’s relocation it was crumbling and dilapidated. She was to be its last owner. Berkhamsted was subsequently abandoned and used as a quarry.16
Medieval society was acutely conscious of building as a sign of social status. To disparage someone, one would seek to damage their residence, thus rendering it uninhabitable, a practice known as ‘slighting’. Just as for present-day British cabinet ministers the distribution of grace and favour country houses is a clear indicator of one’s place in the pecking order and the removal of such a privilege a definite sign of a fall from favour. To have inflicted such a public humiliation on his mother, Edward IV must have been deeply offended by her conduct.
Cecily’s unhappy journey to Berkhamsted did not go unavenged. It provoked a burst of plotting in which her second surviving son George, Duke of Clarence, played a leading role. Cecily’s part in this was central. She joined the conspirators at Canterbury and then Sandwich in June 1469 as they defied the King and prepared to put into effect a prohibited marriage alliance between Clarence and Warwick’s daughter Isabel.17 A sudden outbreak of violence followed, which saw the defeat of the King’s loyal supporters and the murder of some of his Woodville allies. The plotters then seized King Edward himself and kept him in their custody.
Their manifesto showed a persistent hatred of the Woodville marriage and the resulting prominence of that family. It also expressed deep disappointment in the governance of the King, whose failures were ominously likened to those of monarchs previously deposed. It may have been intended as a prelude to another deposition, on grounds of illegitimacy, where the King would be replaced by his brother Clarence. We can see signs of such a scheme being mooted not long afterwards, in the spring of 1470. But the plotters were unable to keep control of the political situation. By September 1469 the King had regained his liberty and an uneasy stand-off ensued throughout the winter. It is as though the house of York toyed with the prospect of a formal declaration of Edward IV’s illegitimacy and all the political and personal upheaval this would entail, but then shied away from it. When it came to the crunch, such an action may simply have seemed too overwhelming, or else they realised they did not yet have a strategy in place to deal with its consequences.
Following this failure, it appears Cecily changed tack and attempted to reconcile her two sons, Clarence and Edward, inviting them both to her London house. Her seeming efforts as a peacemaker did not work. But after a topsyturvy sequence of events, which saw first Warwick and Clarence, then Edward IV, driven into exile, and a surprising restoration of the Lancastrian Henry VI, a second attempt at reconciliation proved more productive. Clarence rejoined his brother Edward, in part at least through his mother’s prompting, and he and his army defeated Warwick and his new Lancastrian allies. This desperate period of upheaval then settled. Edward IV was back on the throne, Warwick killed in battle and Clarence again aligned with his brother’s cause.
But Clarence, a highly talented and personable figure in his own right, far from the ‘false, fleeting’ character drawn by Shakespeare, was not truly reunited with his brother. At the heart of their continuing discord lay the unresolved issue of the King’s legitimacy. In 1478 Edward had Clarence arrested, tried and executed on charges of treason. A central theme of the arraignment against Clarence was his earlier imputation that the King was illegitimate. This bore witness to Edward’s continuing insecurity and anger over the accusation. But the tragic story of 1469 did not end with Clarence’s death. Cecily had let the genie out of the bottle and the forces she had unleashed were to re-configure around her youngest son, Richard. And here the unfulfilled ambition of 1469 was to reach a terrible climax in Richard’s seizure of the throne in 1483.
The attempt to capture and depose Edward IV had failed. On the restoration of his rule in 1471, Cecily chose to absent herself permanently from court. A long period of seclusion, spent largely in her ruined Berkhamsted home, was only broken in October 1476 when an accord of sorts was engineered between her and the Queen’s family through the intercession of one of her daughters, Elizabeth, Duchess of Suffolk. By now the King’s health was seriously worsening and it may have seemed both prudent and possible to await his death.18 Cecily and her remaining son Richard could then take the initiative and restore the crown to a legitimate offspring of the Duke of York. Only one thing would stand in their way – the male issue of the Woodville marriage, the princes in the Tower.
The role of successor was not one that Richard was prepared for at first. As he grew into manhood his experience seemed to cast him rather differently. Warwick had been his guardian and mentor, but during the feud with the King, Richard had remained loyal to his eldest brother. Afterwards, his relationship with Clarence had been troubled, as they fought over the inheritance of Warwick’s estates. But Richard had also remained close to his mother, Cecily, and her guidance continued to be a strong influence on him.
The workings of their relationship are brought out in one telling incident. Early in 1474 a dispute arose between a tenant of Cecily’s and followers of Richard. She summoned her son to meet with her at the religious house of Syon to discuss it, for Richard was notorious for his strong-arm tactics in pursuit of his landed interests and even the King exercised little control over his behaviour. But Cecily’s authority was such that he was quickly ready to comply with her wishes. The language of her letter to him is direct, powerful and intimate. She expects and anticipates their agreement to be honoured and looks forward to their regular meetings.
The choice of Syon was also significant, for Cecily and her husband had been patrons of this establishment. It was therefore a place through which a thread of family piety was woven, linking Cecily and York with Richard, who shared their devotional outlook far more deeply than his brother, the King. The welcoming of Richard at Syon, the sharing of a formal meal and retirement to private chambers to ‘commune together’ for conversation and reflection, had real symbolic importance, identifying mother and son in the religious framework of duty, destiny and public service. The devotional values of this community, increasingly attractive to Cecily, would appear in Richard’s own indictment of the excesses of his brother’s reign when he took the throne in 1483.19
In 1469 members of the house of York had first put it about that Edward IV was a bastard and George, Duke of Clarence, the rightful king. This insinuation was angrily remembered in the charge against Clarence that led to his execution. From this family viewpoint, it followed that Richard should stand as legitimate successor to the throne. Reports of a serious deterioration in Edward’s health were current from the spring of 1477, and were already circulating abroad. It may now have been deemed politic to wait for the King to die, but the crisis was only postponed.
Richard’s own relations with Clarence seem to have improved in the year before his death. In 1477 both men were prepared to lead an army to France in response to an appeal from their sister Margaret, Dowager-duchess of Burgundy. Margaret’s husband, the Duke of Burgundy, had been killed in battle at Nancy. Duke Charles’ death, and the dispersal of his soldiers, left his northern territories defenceless and Louis XI now mobilised an army to invade. Margaret sent a desperate appeal for help to the English court. Both Clarence and Richard wanted to support her at this time of peril. The bold plan offered Richard the chance to win a martial reputation in the great enterprise he had always longed for. Commynes tells us that an aggressive foreign policy commanded real popular support. It would have reversed the humiliation of Picquigny and provided a focus for the war party at court. Most importantly, Margaret’s call for assistance was a matter of honour within her family. Her own dower lands were at the mercy of the French King. Edward IV refused to send an army to her rescue. Woodville influence was in part blamed for his passivity. His decision caused real dismay. Historians have insufficiently considered the level of support for military intervention, and Richard’s readiness to lead an army in person in support of that cause. Edward’s refusal to sanction such a step further underlined a perceived difference between him and other members of the family. It led to a bitter reproach from Margaret, as her dower lands were ravaged by French soldiers. Its most immediate consequence was a drastic deterioration in relations between Edward and Clarence.20
In sharp contrast to the Shakespearean tradition, no contemporary accuses Richard of any involvement in his brother’s death. On the contrary, Dominic Mancini, one of our earliest sources, speaks of his overwhelming grief and strong desire to avenge Clarence. Mancini emphasises that everyone believed the Queen’s family was behind the Duke of Clarence’s execution in February 1478. His account evokes an atmosphere of menace, with Richard choosing to come to court more rarely, through fear of atracting a similar fate. This sinister observation is echoed in a comment Richard later made to the Irish Earl of Desmond. Recalling this dangerous time, he refers to his ‘inward’ emotions, indicating that he had needed to keep his true feelings hidden.21
The conviction was commonly held that the Woodville faction was motivated to act against Clarence through fear that he would threaten the succession of Elizabeth Woodville’s eldest son by the King. In stepping into the position Clarence had held, Richard inevitably posed the same threat as his brother had done. Accepting this scenario, Clarence’s death must have been a powerful formative experience for him.
Richard’s new and fuller identity was forged in the heat of family pride and honour. It cast him as a dynastic figure, whose sense of personal and family piety expressed itself in the establishment of foundations at Middleham and Barnard Castle within six months of Clarence’s death. This sentiment is caught well in the statutes drawn up for his college at Middleham. The preamble, almost certainly composed by Richard himself, speaks of the trials and tribulations faced by man in the secular world, and the mutability of human affairs. These were common themes of late medieval piety, but the phrases used come across as genuine and personal. Richard asks for God’s protection against ‘the many great jeopardies, perils and hurts’ of earthly fortune. There is a sense of oppression here, but also of a higher, guiding purpose. Richard’s family are to be beneficiaries of regular prayers, and the reverence for his father is especially marked. A requiem Mass was normally requested on the yearly anniversary of the deceased. Richard asks that one be held for the Duke of York every seven days. It will take place on a Wednesday. This was the day of his father’s death at Wakefield, on 30 December 1460, which will now be remembered through a weekly cycle of Masses. It would be hard to find a more frequent form of commemoration than this.22
George, Duke of Clarence, and his wife Isabel Neville, drawn from the English version of the ‘Rous Roll’ (John Rous’ family history of the Earls of Warwick).
As King, Richard made an overture to an Irish nobleman, the Earl of Desmond, whose father’s death in Edward IV’s reign was attributed to the malign influence of the Woodvilles. He expressed not only sympathy but also a sense of common cause, revealing his belief that the family was behind the death of his brother Clarence as well. The remark seems sincere. Richard expresses his high regard for Desmond’s father, who had bravely come to the Duke of York’s assistance in Ireland and should never have suffered such a fate. This intimate glimpse of his feelings substantiates the account of his grief and desire for revenge.
The role of successor to his father was tempered through Richard’s daring military campaigns against the Scots, which culminated in the brief capture of Edinburgh in 1482. In the first parliament of Richard III’s reign these martial achievements were extolled, the ‘princely courage and memorable and laudable acts... for the salvation and defence of this realm’. The image offered is that of a worthy warrior and vigilant guardian of the nation’s frontier. These qualities will justify Richard’s right to rule. One is reminded of the praise of Stilicho’s soldierly virtues before he takes up the Roman consulship. The manuscript translation of Stilicho’s life was given to the Duke of York on his own return from defending the realm, in France, some thirty-five years earlier. Richard is being praised not only for his bravery, but also for acting in the same fashion as his father would have. The comparison is deliberate, for Richard is being presented as York’s true and undoubted son and heir.23 The chief attributes of the father are to be renewed in the actions of the son, and according to Dominic Mancini Richard now saw himself resembling his father in all aspects.
Here we see a player in a bigger drama. The painful turmoil of 1469 was to be mirrored in 1483, as Richard succeeded where Clarence had failed. And as King Richard struggled to overcome the threats from those who opposed this new Yorkist settlement, it was Cecily to whom he appealed for daily blessing in his enterprise. Her role was crucial. Ultimately, Richard would draw upon her support and endorsement directly staying for nearly a week at her castle at Berkhamsted in May 1485 before moving north to gather his army for battle with his Tudor opponent.24
As Richard readied himself in the twilight of his brother’s reign, the stage was set for the terrible unfolding of this family story. To triumph where his brother Clarence had not would require greater cunning and ruthlessness. It would call for the setting aside of squeamishness and a willingness to act with steely determination for what was perceived as a greater cause. When the moment came, Richard would show himself more than capable of these.