No CrossRef data available.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 July 2016
There are two primary sources for the dramatic series of events that followed the death of Edward IV of England on 7 April 1483. One is the account, going only as far as the coronation of Richard III on 6 July, written in December by Dominic Mancini. The other concludes the anonymous memoir of the Yorkist period from 1459 to 22 August 1485, incorporated in the chronicles of Crowland Abbey. Both were written in retrospect and in Mancini's case from information chiefly provided by others, since he probably knew no English. Both accounts are hostile to Richard. Those who maintain that they malign the king tend to explain their animus as due, respectively, to foreign prejudice and to a deliberate campaign of denigration that began immediately upon the accession of Henry Tudor.
1 Mancini, Dominic, The Usurpation of Richard III, ed. Armstrong, C. A. J., 2d ed. (Oxford, 1969). Cited henceforth as Mancini, , Usurpation. Google Scholar
A short version of this paper was delivered at a conference of the Australia and New Zealand Association for Medieval and Early Modern Studies in Wellington, New Zealand, in February 1998. I am grateful for helpful comments on later drafts from Dr. A. J. Pollard, B. M. Cron, and anonymous readers on behalf of Traditio. Google Scholar
2 The Crowland Chronicle Continuations 1459–1486, ed. Pronay, Nicholas and Cox, John (London, 1986).Google Scholar
3 Printed without detailed analysis in Chrimes, S. B., English Constitutional Ideas in the Fifteenth Century (Cambridge, 1936), 167–91 (henceforth Chrimes, , Const. Ideas) from Grants from the Crown during the Reign of Edward V , ed. Nichols, J. G. (London, 1854) and BL MS Cotton. Vitellius E. X. In this, sermon 1 occupies fols. 170r-176v and sermon 2 immediately follows, on fols. 177r-182r. Sermon 3 appears earlier in the volume and runs from fol. 141r to fol. 144v, where it breaks off. The MSS were evidently carelessly written. Various small scribal errors suggest that the texts were taken down from Russell's own dictation. Quotations are here taken from Chrimes's edition, but spelling will be modernized.Google Scholar
4 Ross, Charles, Richard III (London, 1981).Google Scholar
5 Crowland Continuations, 88. (Hereafter cited as C. C.). Pronay, however, was mounting a sustained campaign of ridicule against Russell in order to counter the idea that he might have been the author of the “Second Continuation” of the chronicles (hereafter “the Crowland Anonymous”). In the bishop's first sermon his concerns, he alleged, were “the lack of proper respect shown to the nobility, the undesirable effects of parvenues, such as Lord Rivers, and, somewhat incongruously at first sight, … the effects of enclosures” (89). The latter in fact appear casually in the second, not the first, sermon.Google Scholar
6 “Vir et vsu rerum et vitae probitate singulari tum in litteris haud dubie sua tempestate primarius.” More, Thomas, Richard III, ed. Sylvester, R. S. (New Haven and London, 1963), 113. Translations from Latin are my own unless otherwise acknowledged.Google Scholar
7 Ps. 70/71:6. Chrimes mistakenly cited Ps. 21/22:9.Google Scholar
8 Mancini, , Usurpation, 70–71.Google Scholar
9 Ibid., 72–74.Google Scholar
10 Ibid., 84.Google Scholar
11 On 10 and 14 May commissions were issued to various people to take ship in order to seize Sir Edward, Dorset, and Radcliffe, Robert: British Library Harleian Manuscript 433, ed. Horrox, Rosemary and Hammond, P. W., 4 vols. (London, 1979–83) 2:1, 2.Google Scholar
12 The misapprehension that a reference to “the tempestuous rivers” involved a pun on the earl's title probably arose from the meaningless use of a capital R in the MS. Such crudity was not Russell's style — even Louis XI and the duke of Buckingham are not mentioned by name in his subsequent sermons. Moreover, “tempestuous” could not be applied to persons at that date, and in terms of the metaphor involved, the earl would have to be land not water. It might as well be supposed that by “islands” Russell meant viscount Lisle, sometimes latinized as “De Insula.” Google Scholar
13 It may be relevant that Sir Edward was governor of Carisbrook Castle on the island, over which Rivers held lordship: BL Harleian MS 433, 3:198. On 9 May directions were given to deliver the castle to William Berkeley, to whom the island's inhabitants were to give “assistance”: ibid., 1.Google Scholar
14 Russell cited Rev. 17:1 and 15 where the whore of Babylon is seated on “many waters,” which are the people and nations. A less forced identification appears in Isa. 17:12–13: “Vae multitudini populorum multorum, ut multitudo maris sonantis et tumultus turbarum…. Et sicut turbo coram tempestate.” (“The multitude of many people … like the uproar of many waters, … like a whirlpool in the midst of the tempest.”) Google Scholar
15 “Whoso hearkeneth not upon the common voice, grounded in a reasonable precedent, but [buildeth] his affairs and doings in imagination of his own pleasance, leaving the provision of things that ought to be dread and doubted” lacks due fear of God.Google Scholar
16 Ecclus. 4:29, “In lingua enim sapientia dignoscitur”: “Wisdom is made known by speech.” 17 Mancini (Usurpation, 80–81) alleged that before Richard and the king reached London (on 4 May) a “sinister rumor” went round the capital that Richard had taken his nephew into his charge to facilitate his own designs on the throne.Google Scholar
18 Isa. 30:10.Google Scholar
19 “Let it suffice that unto us all it is undoubted, if some folks had followed the common opinion that was thought always most likely to [be]fall, much of their danger had been avoided.” Mancini (Usurpation, 72–73) said that “people” had always favored Gloucester's claims because they were convinced of his probity.Google Scholar
20 The Cely Letters 1472–1488, ed. Hanham, Alison, EETS 273 (Oxford, 1975), no. 200.Google Scholar
21 C. C., 158.Google Scholar
22 For dates see The Coronation of Richard III: The Extant Documents, ed. Sutton, Anne F. and Hammond, P. W. (Gloucester, 1983), 22.Google Scholar
23 Stonor Letters and Papers 1290–1483, ed. Kingsford, C. L., 2 vols. (London, 1919), no. 331.Google Scholar
24 Mancini, , Usurpation, 94–95.Google Scholar
25 A story that seems to owe much to the fact that Suffolk had represented Henry VI in a proxy marriage with Margaret of Anjou in 1444, for which see Cron, B. M., “The Duke of Suffolk, the Angevin Marriage and the Ceding of Maine, 1445,” Journal of Medieval History 20 (1994): 77–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
26 Mancini (Usurpation, 56) says that he often talked about his experiences in England before writing them down — a potential source of confusion.Google Scholar
21 BL Harl. MS. 433 (n. 11 above), 2:28–31.Google Scholar
28 C. C., 160: “Ostendebatur per modum supplicationis … quod filii Regis Edwardi erant bastardi, supponendo ilium praecontraxisse cum quadam Domina Alienora Boteler antequam Reginam Elizabeth duxisset uxorem.” Google Scholar
29 This point needs to be treated here because it has bearing on later discussion. Armstrong, C. A. J. (Mancini, , Usurpation, 130, n. 97) thought that Mancini's failure to mention Edward's alleged pre-contract with Eleanor Butler “may indicate that by the time he left England no official charge to invalidate Edward IV's marriage had been formulated.” In “The Deposition of Edward V,” Traditio 31 (1975): 247–86 Charles T. Wood took a similar position, arguing that the petition exhibited to parliament in 1484 was a late concoction. Only then was Eleanor Butler named as “the lady in question.” But, in addition to the rebutting evidence adduced above, if the promoters of the petition had really made a late change in the casting of their female lead, hostile critics like the Crowland Anonymous would surely have noted it with glee.Google Scholar
30 Cf. Richard III, ed. Tudor-Craig, Pamela (London, 1973), 54–55, app. 4, and Hanham, Alison, Richard III and His Early Historians, 1483–1535 (Oxford, 1975), 48–49.Google Scholar
31 Christ Church Letters, ed. Sheppard, J. B. (London, 1877), 46.Google Scholar
32 Gairdner, James, History of the Life and Reign of Richard the Third, 3d ed. (Cambridge, 1898), 153, n. 1.Google Scholar
33 “Excaeca cor populi huius … et oculos eius claude ne forte videat oculis suis…. Donec desolentur civitates absque habitatore … et terra relinquetur deserta.” Rom. 1:8 quotes Isaiah on the eyes that do not see and the ears that do not hear.Google Scholar
34 “Non eris criminator, non stabis contra sanguinem proximi tui … non oderis fratrem tuum in corde tuo, sed publice argue eum, ne habeas super illo peccatum.” Isaiah, in one of the passages applied to John the Baptist, with whose festival Russell had connected his previous sermon, said: “Viam facite…. Auferte offendicula de via populi mei”: “Make plain the way…. Remove obstacles from the path of my people” (Isa. 57:14). Rom. 11:9–10 also quotes Ps. 68:23–24 on the stumbling block (scandalum) before the blinded.Google Scholar
35 “Was so exalted that [he tru]sted not any time after that to see the state that he stood in when he made us his fair promises.” The Crowland Anonymous made the same point, punning that for some years before Edward IV's death Louis “promissiones … male servavit serviens tempori quod a metu Anglicorum ipsum liberaverat”: “Kept his promises poorly, while waiting for time to free him from them” (C. C., 146). Louis had died on 25 August 1483. The last blow, in English eyes, was that on 23 December 1482 he had made a treaty with Maximilian that ceded Artois and the County of Burgundy to France: Ross, Charles, Edward IV (London, 1974), 291–92. Maximilian's daughter was now to marry the dauphin in place of Princess Elizabeth.Google Scholar
36 The allusion may be to the physical use of counters and counting-board. The accountant placed no more than 9 counters in the unit column that represented, e.g., shillings. When the sum reached 10, a single counter was substituted in the “tens” column. The 10th unit thus literally completed and unified the set.Google Scholar
37 The editors seem to have misread the manuscript here. Chrimes prints “hor pray and vnite hoc the geous and prosperos estate….” Google Scholar
38 “Cujus tamen diffinitionem, cum de viribus matrimonii disputatur, curia illa laicalis facere non potuit, et tamen … facere praesumpsit et fecit”: C. C., 168–70.Google Scholar
39 Drawing on a treatise that he attributes to “Lincoln,” i.e. Robert Grosseteste, bishop of Lincoln 1235–53, who “built up a system of metaphysics around the Augustinian doctrine of light”: Concise Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, ed. Livingstone, Elizabeth A. (Oxford, 1977).Google Scholar
40 Property qualifications for jurors at the sheriff's tourn were imposed in the legislation passed in 1484 because men of no “good name or fame” had too often indicted the innocent or acquitted the guilty: 1 Richard III, c. 4, printed in Select Documents of English Constitutional History 1307–1485, ed. Chrimes, S. B. and Brown, A. L. (London, 1961), no. 302.Google Scholar
41 The “no long” of the MS should obviously read “too long.” Google Scholar
42 Ecclus. 28:22, “Multi ceciderunt in ore gladii, sed non sic quasi qui interierunt per linguam suam”: “Many have fallen to the sword, but not as many as have fallen by the tongue.” Google Scholar
43 Matt. 18:9. Also, specifically of the right eye, Matt. 5:29.Google Scholar
44 I have omitted most of the discussion about eyes and eyesight.Google Scholar
45 Rotuli Parliamentorum (London, 1767–77): 6:237. Cited henceforth as Rot. Parl. The text is translated below.Google Scholar
46 Sermon 3, ed. Chrimes, , Const. Ideas, 189.Google Scholar
47 “Percutiat te Dominus amentia et caecitate ac furore mentis, et palpes in meridie sicut palpare solet caecus in tenebris, et non dirigas vias tuas.” “The Lord will strike you with confusion and blindness and frenzy, and you shall grope at midday like a blind man in the dark, and you shall not order your own path.” There is also Isa. 59:9–10. The Authorized Version translates: “we wait for light, but behold obscurity; for brightness, but we walk in darkness. We grope for the wall like the blind … we stumble at noonday as in the night.” This follows a bloodcurdling list (Isa. 59:3–8) of those whose hands are defiled with blood, whose lips have spoken lies, who conceive mischief and bring forth iniquity, who “hatch cockatrices’ eggs” [ova aspidum ruperunt, “break open the eggs of asps”] and make haste to shed innocent blood.Google Scholar
48 There was a peripheral reference, perhaps, to one of the pieces of legislation to come before parliament, an act “against privy and unknown feoffments” to protect purchasers who took feoffments from their apparent owners (Rot. Parl. 6:263).Google Scholar
49 Justinian, , Institutes, 1.8.2: “expedit reipublicae ne sua re quis male utatur.” Google Scholar
50 The rough sense of the idiom is “That's brought him up sharp!” Chrimes failed to identify the quotation.Google Scholar
51 Ross, Charles, Richard III, 115–16.Google Scholar
52 The Acts of Court of the Mercers’ Company, 1453–1527 , ed. Lyell, Laetitia (Cambridge, 1936), 290–91. This appears among the arrangements made by the Mercers’ Company to meet “King Henry VII, of late earl of Richmond” on 31 August 1485. It has consequently been overlooked that the mercers were avowedly taking their precedent from arrangements originally made in November 1483 when King Richard returned “from and out of the West Country.” Google Scholar
53 Chrimes, S. B., Henry VII (London, 1972), 27.Google Scholar
54 Although Russell specifically ascribes his source to Romans, Chrimes (Const. Ideas) persistently identified it as 1 Cor. 12:12.Google Scholar
55 Rot. Parl. 6: 237.Google Scholar
56 “ut et quae agenda sunt, videant, et ad implenda quae viderint, convalescant.” Google Scholar
57 “Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, qui caelestia simul et terrena moderaris, supplicationes populi tui clementer exaudi, et pacem tuam nostris concede temporibus.” Google Scholar
58 Bishop Alcock received far better coverage for his sermon to Henry VII's first parliament: Rot. Parl. 6: 267.Google Scholar
59 Chrimes, , Const. Ideas, 189–91. I have silently incorporated most of the emendations of previous editors. My own minor alterations to Chrimes's text are given in square brackets. Punctuation is also mine.Google Scholar
60 “Place not a stumbling block before a blind man.” Google Scholar
61 Rom. 11:11 “Numquid sic offenderunt ut caderent? Absit.”: “Have they so stumbled as to fall? Let it not be so.” Google Scholar
62 Rom. 11:33, “God's judgments are beyond our understanding, and his ways unsearchable.” Google Scholar
63 Dan. 2:21, “Who removes kings and kingdoms.” Google Scholar
64 I Cor. 13:12, “Here we see in a glass, obscurely.” Google Scholar
65 “Give to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that belong to God.” Google Scholar
66 Heb. 13:17, “Obey those set over you.” Google Scholar
67 Jer. 6:16, “Haec dicit Dominus, , ‘State super vias et videte, et interrogate de semitis antiquis quae sit via bona, et ambulate in ea et invenietis refrigerium animabus vestris.’ Et dixerunt, , ‘Non ambulabimus.’ ” (“Thus says the Lord, ‘Stand in the ways and look, and ask of the old paths which is the good way. Walk in it and you shall find rest for your souls.’ And they said, ‘We will not walk in it.’ ”) Google Scholar
68 “Here I read.” MS apparently Ibi Leo. Chrimes emended to Ibi Que. Google Scholar
69 “Nec in die honoris extollaris, quoniam mirabilia opera Altissimi solius, et gloriosa et absconsa et invisa opera illius. Multi tyranni sederunt in throno et insuspicabilis portavit diadema.” Google Scholar
70 “Dominatur Excelsus in regno hominum, et cuicumque voluerit dabit illud, et humillimum hominem constituet super eum.” Google Scholar
71 Rot. Parl. 6: 267.Google Scholar
72 Chrimes, , Const. Ideas, 167.Google Scholar
73 Sermon 1, ibid., 172.Google Scholar
74 The secondary one need not detain us. A new king had to have certain taxes granted to him in person. But this came under the dues of Caesar, and although the affected merchants routinely lobbied against it, the commons made the requisite grant at the end of the 1484 session.Google Scholar
75 Substantial extracts are given in Select Docs. , ed. Chrimes, and Brown, (n. 40 above), 350–51 and Hanham, , Early Historians (n. 30 above), 45–48. See also Dunham, William Huse Jr. and Wood, Charles T., “The Right to Rule in England: Depositions and the Kingdom's Authority, 1327–1485,” American Historical Review 81 (1976): 738–61, esp. 759.Google Scholar
16 Rot. Parl. 6: 240.Google Scholar
77 Ibid., 242. Allegations included that Edward had brought disaster on the country by living with Elizabeth Woodville in adultery; that he had married her in secret and without the lords’ knowledge; that that marriage was brought about by sorcery; that long before it he had married Eleanor Butler; and (for good measure) that Richard, being born in England, was more certainly legitimate than his brothers, born abroad.Google Scholar
78 How they might have ruled is therefore an interesting but hypothetical question. See, however, Helmholz, R. H., “The Sons of Edward IV: A Canonical Assessment of the Claim that They Were Illegitimate,” Richard III: Loyalty, Lordship and Law , ed. Hammond, P. W. (London, 1986), 91–103. and Kelly, H. A., “The Case against Edward IV's Marriage and Offspring: Secrecy; Witchcraft; Secrecy; Precontract,” The Ricardian 11 (1998): 326–35.Google Scholar
79 The petitioners, or Bishop Stillington in person, offered to prove, “hereafter, if and as the case shall require … in time and place convenient” that common opinion maintained that the marriage to Elizabeth Woodville had been brought about by sorcery. There was no similar offer attached to the central premise, that Edward then “was and stood married and troth-plight” to Eleanor Butler. If one accepts the stories given later by Philippe de Commynes that Stillington himself had played Pandarus to Edward's lusts by secretly conducting that marriage and/or betrothal (The Memoirs of Philippe de Commynes, ed. Kinser, Samuel, trans. Cazeaux, Isabelle, 2 vols. [Columbia, S. C., 1969, 1973]) 1:366–67; 2:414) Stillington would have good reason not to confess his sin in public. But Commynes's anecdotes, offered in the 1490s, were probably malicious gossip.Google Scholar
80 Rot. Parl. 6: 270.Google Scholar
81 “In hoc parliamento confirmatum est regnum domino regi, tanquam sibi debitum non ex uno sed ex multis titulis, ut non tam sanguinis quam victoriae bellicae conquaestusque jure rectissime populo Anglicano praesidere credatur. Fuerunt qui consultius aestimabant verba ejusmodi silentio potius quam edicto committi.” (C. C., 194.) Chrimes discounted this evidence that a debate had occurred because he took confirmatum est to mean “formally conferred by the Act of Settlement” (Chrimes, S. B., Henry VII [London, 1972], 50 and n. 5). But what was substantiated in speeches and what became enshrined in a statute might be two different things.Google Scholar
82 To adopt the neat expression of Dunham and Wood in “The Right to Rule.” Google Scholar
83 “Propter ingentem in constantissimos cadentem metum”: C. C., 170. Our Anonymous, admittedly writing after 22 August 1485, called the petition wholly fraudulent. By the same token, it was then safe to do so.Google Scholar
84 Kelly, H. A., “The Case against Edward IV's Marriage,” 332. Unfortunately the Anonymous did not explain the nature of the menace.Google Scholar
85 Jer. 6:14, “Curabant contritionem filiae populi mei cum ignominia, dicentes ‘Pax! Pax!’ Et non erat pax.” Google Scholar