The Princes in the Tower, page 3
In preparation for the invasion, at Sandwich on Tuesday, 20 June 1475, Edward IV made his will. As heir to the throne, the prince would come of age at 14. Edward, however, inserted in his will a number of phrases which appeared to suggest some uncertainty over the succession of his eldest son. Whether the young prince was sickly or had a sickly constitution18 or his young age prompted a natural concern in a time of high infant mortality is not clear.
On Sunday, 9 November 1477, during King Edward’s imprisonment of his brother, George, Duke of Clarence, the 7-year-old prince was in London. In the presence of the Great Council, his paternal uncle, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, led the lords and nobles in pledges of fealty to the Yorkist heir. Gloucester was followed by the Duke of Buckingham and John de la Pole, Duke of Suffolk, husband of King Edward’s elder sister, Elizabeth, and thereafter, Dorset, Rivers and Lord Lisle, among others.
It is here that we have what may be the only officially recorded conversation between Prince Edward and Gloucester, taken from a contemporary account in the British Library,19 ‘on both his knees, putting his hands between the prince’s hands, [Gloucester] did him homage for such lands as he had of him and so kissed him’. The prince thanked ‘his said uncle that it liked him to do it so humbly’.20
In 1479, Edward, Prince of Wales, was created Earl of March and Earl of Pembroke.21 Two years later, in May 1481, the 10-year-old prince joined the king at Sandwich to review the English fleet. John, Lord Howard, was leading a naval campaign against Scotland.22 Sandwich was an important Cinque Port, and the prince would have greeted the fleet’s leading officers.
On Friday, 22 June 1481, Prince Edward’s marriage to Anne of Brittany was ratified. This was an important political alliance intended to ensure Brittany’s continued independence from its powerful neighbour of France. Previously, in 1476–78, King Edward had approached Isabella and Ferdinand of Spain for a marriage alliance, but negotiations came to nothing. Two of the Spanish monarchs’ daughters had been proposed: Isabella, the Infanta, and later, Katherine of Aragon.23 The apparent reluctance of the Spanish monarchs remains a mystery.
Prince Edward’s Character
In December 1483, the Italian chronicler Domenico Mancini declared that Prince Edward was ‘so much like his great father in spirit and in innate gifts as well as remarkable in his learning’.24 In about 1490, the Burgundian chronicler Jean Molinet reported that Edward was ‘undemanding and greatly melancholic’.25 It is possible, therefore, that Edward may have followed his father’s predisposition to melancholia.26 It also seems that he was devout. As a child, the young prince’s routine was structured around his daily devotions, from morning prayer in his chamber, followed by Mass, and then, in the evening, Vespers before bed at 8 p.m.
On 25 February 1483, Edward IV revised the instructions for the Prince’s Household and Council. These provide a window into the character of young Edward as the 12-year-old pre-teen began to assert himself, push boundaries and ‘chafe against his tutelage’.27 The new instructions of February 1483 (about five months prior to his disappearance) reveal a prince who was developing fast.
At all times during the day, Prince Edward was to be accompanied by at least two ‘discrete’ persons:
… he was not to order anything to be done without the advice of Alcock, Grey or Rivers, and none of his servants was to encourage him to do anything against the household instructions. If he did so, or acted in an unprincely way, the three men were to warn him personally and to tell the king and queen if he refused to amend.28
The new instructions also ensured that nothing ‘should move or stir him to vices’.
The original 1473 instructions similarly required that no one in the household should be a ‘Swearer, Brawler, Back-biter, commune hazarder [gambler], Avowter [adulterer] nor fornicator or use Abawdry [bawdy] words’ in his presence.29 At night, several servants were to attend the prince in his chamber and make him ‘joyous and merry’ for his bedtime. A nightly watch would also ensure the prince’s safeguarding, and a doctor and surgeon were to be always on hand.30
If these stipulations appear somewhat cloying to our modern sensibilities, it was the recognised regime of instruction for noble children at the time. We also know that Edward was not alone and enjoyed the company of other sons of the nobility who were receiving their education with him. Edward was not in seclusion.
Sadly, in about 1478, one of his companions died. Edmund Audley’s family inscribed their son’s honoured position in the Prince’s Household on his tomb monument.31
Although Mancini never met Prince Edward, he described in some detail the boy’s education and accomplishments, including an apparent love of literature and poetry.
… how profuse were the signs of his liberal education and how agreeably, indeed judiciously he brought together words and deeds beyond his years … he was especially accomplished in literature, so that he possessed the ability to discuss elegantly, to understand fully and to articulate most clearly from whatever might come to hand, whether poetry or prose, unless from the most challenging authors.32
Mancini’s informant was Dr John Argentine, the prince’s physician, who was probably with him at Ludlow. Argentine seems to have fled to France at the time of the October 1483 uprising against Richard III when Mancini was preparing his report on English affairs for the French government. Mancini tells us the physician was ‘the last of the attendants employed by the young king’ (prior to his disappearance).
In November 1485, the Crowland chronicler described Edward and Elizabeth’s children as ‘handsome and most delightful’.33
Edward’s Appearance
The recognised contemporary image of Edward V (Lambeth Palace Library) shows the young prince with his parents in 1477 as Earl Rivers presents a book to the king (see Plate 3).34 The Dictes and Sayings of the Philosophers had been translated from the French by the earl. This image reveals a young boy with blond hair, with perhaps a slightly reddish tinge, similar to the depiction of his mother, Queen Elizabeth. Edward would have been 6 or 7 at the time.
The figure in the blue robe with light brown hair is thought to be his uncle, Richard of Gloucester. Post-discovery analysis of Richard III’s genome revealed that he had a 77 per cent probability of having blond hair. This is thought to have been the type of blond hair that darkened with age. The earliest known (copy) portrait of Richard at the Society of Antiquaries shows the king with light brown hair (see Plate 1).35
An image of Edward V can be seen at Canterbury Cathedral with his family. Originally dating from about 1482, the Royal Window was considerably damaged during the Civil War by a Puritan minister wielding a pike. However, following the restoration of the monarchy, it was restored and replaced from the 1660s, when it was kept within the magnificent Rose Window but placed higher up,36 perhaps for increased protection. Both boys are portrayed with blond hair. It is not known whether this hair colour reflected the original stained-glass images. Later nineteenth-century artists (Millais and Delaroche) followed the same colouring. What is unusual, however, in terms of our investigations, is that the restored upper portions of Edward V (and his brother) in Canterbury are shown wearing the closed crown of a king (see Plates 6 and 7).
We do have one surviving contemporary image from the Royal Window at Canterbury, which resides in the Burrell Collection in Glasgow and depicts Prince Edward’s elder sister, Cecily. This reveals a young woman with reddish-blonde hair wearing an open circlet crown.
The earliest known portrait of Edward IV, also at the Society of Antiquaries, depicts the king with very light brown, almost dark blond hair. However, the Lambeth Palace image of 1477 portrays Edward IV with dark brown hair.
Several sixteenth- and seventeenth-century images of Edward V exhibit blond, reddish blond or light brown hair. However, a contemporary depiction at Little Malvern Priory in Worcester from around 1482 (see Plate 4) shows the prince in an open circlet crown with medium blond hair. As a result, it seems that Edward had blond hair as a child which slightly darkened with age.
In terms of Edward’s physicality, Mancini tells us that the prince ‘indulged in horses and dogs and other useful exertions to build bodily strength’.37 Although Richard III’s remains were described as ‘gracile’ (slender), it is not known if young Edward possessed a similar build. ‘He had such dignity in his whole person and in his countenance such charm,’ continued Mancini, ‘that, however much they might feast their eyes, he never surfeited the gaze of observers.’38 In 1482, Italian poet Pietro Carmeliano met Prince Edward (aged 11) and stated that he was the ‘most comely of princes … and all the stars rejoice in your face. Justly do you have the king’s visage, best of dukes, for the kingly sceptre awaits you after your father.’39 This is perhaps the most important physical description we have of the young prince – that, prior to puberty, he resembled his father.
Richard, Duke of York
Richard was probably born on Tuesday, 17 August 1473, at the Dominican Priory, Shrewsbury, on the Welsh borders.40 He was the sixth child of King Edward and Queen Elizabeth, and their second son. The date of Richard’s birth is uncertain since it was not recorded in the chronicles of the time. However, seven years later, on 17 August he received the regalia for the noble Order of the Garter, which seems to confirm the assumed birth date.41
On Saturday, 28 May 1474, 9-month-old Prince Richard was created Duke of York in a magnificent ceremony in London with celebratory jousts. Almost a year later, on Tuesday, 18 April 1475, the infant prince was knighted with his elder brother,42 and a month later, made a Knight of the Garter with his brother. The little Duke of York had already received a Garter stall at St George’s Chapel in April, vacated by the death of Lord Beauchamp. He is listed as one of the Scrutiners, an honorary title for the toddler.43
Edward IV’s will, made in June 1475 when Richard was almost 2, indicates that the prince was a healthy and active child. The document, cautious in terms of young Edward’s survival, is much more positive about his younger brother.44 At the age of 16 in August 1489, he would reach maturity and take possession of his lordships and inheritances.45
Richard’s wedding to Anne Mowbray on Monday, 15 January 1478, was perhaps the most extraordinary event of the prince’s infant life. Anne had inherited the considerable estates of the dukedom of Norfolk following her father’s death on 17 January 1476. The bride was 5 and the groom 4 years old when their nuptials were celebrated at St Stephen’s Chapel in Westminster Abbey. The marriage itself would not, naturally, be consummated until the bride and groom had reached ‘nubile years’.
The wedding was timed to coincide with a Parliament, allowing the nobility to gather en masse to honour the couple. An eyewitness testimony records, ‘The press was so great … the abundance of the noble people so innumerable.’46 Anne was escorted to the chapel by Earl Rivers and the young John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln (aged about 15). Lincoln was Edward IV’s nephew by the king’s elder sister, Elizabeth, Duchess of Suffolk.
The young bridegroom and his family, including his elder brother and grandmother, Cecily, Dowager Duchess of York, waited to receive his bride under a canopy of cloth of gold. The king gave away the bride. Following Mass at the high altar, Prince Richard’s uncle, the Duke of Gloucester, threw gold and silver coins to the onlookers. Gloucester and Buckingham led the bride to the king’s great chamber for the wedding feast. Three great jousting tournaments were held, with Rivers one of the victors.47
As Anne Mowbray’s mother, the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk, had failed to produce a male heir, Anne’s young husband was created Duke of Norfolk and Earl of Warenne on Friday, 7 February 1477.48 By 1478, Richard had also become Earl Marshal of England – a title generally associated with the Norfolk dukedom. Eleanor Talbot (d. 1468) (see Chapter 7) was the elder sister of Anne’s mother.
On Wednesday, 12 June 1476, a further Mowbray title was granted to Richard when he became Earl of Nottingham, and the following year he received his own council chamber in preparation for his ducal Council. In November 1477, 4-year-old Richard attended the Great Council with his 7-year-old brother, the Prince of Wales. Edward received the fealty of the lords and nobles, led by Gloucester. The Prince of Wales was seated on a bed beneath the cloth of estate, while his brother, Richard, ‘sat on the bed’s foot beside the cloth of estate’.49
By 1478, as the holder of many great offices, estates and lordships, 5-yearold Richard, Duke of York and Norfolk, had his own Council, including a Chancellor, lawyer, treasurer and Chamberlain, Sir Thomas Grey.50 He also had his own seal and several gentlemen servants including John Roden, Thomas Galmole51 and (by 1483) Poynes, who ‘dwelled’ with him.52
On 5 May 1479, Richard of York was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland for two years, an appointment renewed in August the following year for a further twelve years.53 This would take Richard’s role in Ireland to his twentieth birthday in 1493. Previously, in December 1479, the young prince had travelled to Ireland, undertaking what seems to have been his first official visit, with the 6-year-old witnessing the appointment of the Constable of Dublin Castle. Placed in this key role in Dublin was Sir James Keating, a staunch Yorkist.54
Sadly, Richard and Anne’s marriage was not to last. In November 1481, Anne died, aged 8, at Greenwich Palace and was buried in the Chapel of St Erasmus at Westminster Abbey.55 The chapel had been founded by Queen Elizabeth Woodville, following the birth of Edward, Prince of Wales, in Westminster sanctuary.
The vast Mowbray estates should now pass to Anne’s heirs, cousins William, Viscount Berkeley, and John, Lord Howard. However, in January 1483, by Act of Parliament, Edward IV gave his youngest son the rights to the estates, with a reversion to his male heirs. Failing that, the estates would revert to the king himself. As historian Charles Ross commented, this provided ‘a colour of legality to a situation which violated the rules of landed inheritance’.56
Edward IV died on 3 April 1483,57 leaving Edward V as king and Richard, Duke of York and Norfolk, heir presumptive. Two months later, on Monday, 16 June, young Richard left his mother’s side to join Edward in the Tower of London, ‘for the comfort of his brother the king’ prior to his coronation.58 On this occasion, we learn of the only recorded conversation with his uncle, Gloucester. It was reported on 21 June, five days later, when the priest, Canon Simon Stallworth, wrote to Sir William Stonor.
As Stallworth was in the service of the Lord Chancellor, John Russell, Bishop of Lincoln, he was probably an eyewitness, or received a first-hand account, possibly from Russell himself. He reported that Gloucester received his young nephew at the Star Chamber door at Westminster ‘with many loving words’. The letter goes on to add that the young prince is ‘blessed be Jesus, merry’.59 Despite having his own Council, the little Duke of York had always lived with his mother and his acts were subject to her assent and advice.60 Gloucester’s work for the government brought him regularly to court and the boy would have known his youngest royal uncle as a familiar figure.
Richard’s Character
We have three contemporary and near-contemporary accounts of Richard of York’s character and demeanour. First, Stallworth’s letter of June 1483, mentioned above, in which Richard is ‘blessed be Jesus, merry’. The second, dating to 1496, in which Rui de Sousa, the Portuguese Ambassador to England from 1481 to 1489,61 described the young prince as ‘a very noble little boy and that he had seen him singing with his mother and one of his sisters and that he sang very well’. De Sousa added that Richard was ‘playing very well at sticks and with a two-handed sword’.62
The third account was provided by the Burgundian chronicler Jean Molinet in about 1490. Molinet is confused, calling Edward ‘Peter’ and Richard ‘George’. While at the Tower with his brother, ‘the second son was greatly joyous and spirited, keen and prompt to dance and play’. Molinet adds that the younger son then asked his brother to dance to cheer his spirits, saying, ‘My brother, learn to dance’. The request was rebuffed, and Edward responded, ‘It would be better if you and I learn to die, because I believe that we will not be of this world for long.’63 Although Molinet’s version is probably apocryphal, the eyewitness accounts of Stallworth and de Sousa appear authentic.
We may, therefore, deduce that Richard seems to have been a lively and happy child. He enjoyed music, singing and dancing and was also considered athletic, being good at sports, sticks and a two-handed sword. He also seems to have possessed a certain natural charm. De Sousa was so taken with him that the old ambassador could remember him with clarity some fifteen years later.
Growing up as the only boy, following the death of his younger brother George in 1479, historian Ann Wroe suggests he may well have been petted and adored by his sisters, all of whom except Catherine were older. Aristocratic boys aged 7 were normally educated in other noble households, usually some distance from their homes and families. However, from what little information we have, it seems that Richard may have had his own household in London. Whether he was separated at the age of 7 from his mother and sisters is not known. Like his elder brother, however, he would have been educated and trained with noble companions of a similar age. In January 1483, John Howard presented Richard with a bow, so it’s likely the 9-year-old prince also enjoyed shooting arrows.64
Richard’s Appearance
We have two accounts of Richard’s appearance. In 1496, de Sousa described the young prince as ‘very pretty and the most beautiful creature he had ever seen’.65 In 1493, Richard’s aunt, Margaret of Burgundy, recalled the prince in the summer of 1480 during a visit to England. She writes, having met a young man purporting to be the adult Richard:
I recognised him as easily as if I had last seen him yesterday or the day before … and that was not by one or two general signs, but by so many visible and specific signs that hardly one person in ten hundred thousand [a million] might be found who would have marks of the same kind.66
