‘I suspected as much. Let us have the facts. Can you begin on the day Edward died?’
‘Sure. Edward died on April the 9th 1483. In London. I mean, in Westminster; which wasn’t the same thing then. The Queen and the daughters were living there, and the younger boy, I think. The young Prince was doing lessons at Ludlow Castle in charge of the Queen’s brother, Lord Rivers. The Queen’s relations are very much to the fore, did you know? The place is just lousy with Woodvilles.’
‘Yes, I know. Go on. Where was Richard?’
‘On the Scottish border.’
‘What!’
‘Yes, I said: on the Scottish border. Caught away off base. But does he yell for a horse and go posting off to London? He does not.’
‘What did he do?’
‘He arranged for a requiem mass at York, to which all the nobility of the North were summoned, and in his presence took an oath of loyalty to the young Prince.’
‘Interesting,’ Grant said dryly. ‘What did Rivers do? The Queen’s brother?’
‘On the 24th of April he set out with the Prince for London. With two thousand men and a large supply of arms.’
‘What did he want the arms for?’
‘Don’t ask me. I’m only a Research Worker. Dorset, the elder of the Queen’s two sons by her first marriage, took over both the arsenal and the treasure in the Tower and began to fit up ships to command the Channel. And Council orders were issued in the name of Rivers and Dorset – avunculus Regis and frater Regis uterinus respectively – with no mention of Richard. Which was decidedly off-colour when you remember – if you ever knew – that in his will Edward had appointed Richard guardian of the boy and Protector of the Kingdom in case of any minority. Richard alone, mind you, without a colleague.’
‘Yes, that is in character, at least. He must always have had complete faith in Richard. Both as a person and as an administrator. Did Richard come south with a young army too?’
‘No. He came with six hundred gentlemen of the North, all in deep mourning. He arrived at Northampton on April the 29th. He had apparently expected to join up with the Ludlow crowd there; but that is report and you have only a historian’s word for it. But the Ludlow procession – Rivers and the young Prince – had gone on to Stoney Stratford without waiting for him. The person who actually met him at Northampton was the Duke of Buckingham with three hundred men. Do you know Buckingham?’
‘We have a nodding acquaintance. He was a friend of Edward’s.’
‘Yes. He arrived post haste from London.’
‘With the news of what was going on.’
‘It’s a fair deduction. He wouldn’t bring three hundred men just to express his condolences. Anyhow a Council was held there and then – he had all the material for a proper Council in his own train and Buckingham’s, and Rivers and his three aides were arrested and sent to the North, while Richard went on with the young Prince to London. They arrived in London on the 4th of May.’
‘Well, that is very nice and clear. And what is clearest of all is that, considering time and distances, the sainted More’s account of his writing sweet letters to the Queen to induce her to send only a small escort for the boy, is nonsense.’
‘Bunk.’
‘Indeed, Richard did just what one would expect him to do. He must of course have known the provisions of Edward’s will. What his actions suggest is just what one would expect them to suggest; his own sorrow and his care for the boy. A requiem mass and an oath of allegiance.’
‘Yes.’
‘Where does the break in this orthodox pattern come? I mean: in Richard’s behaviour.’
‘Oh, not for a long time. When he arrived in London he found that the Queen, the younger boy, the daughters, and her first-marriage son, Dorset, had all bolted into sanctuary at Westminster. But apart from that things seem to have been normal.’
‘Did he take the boy to the Tower?’
Carradine riffled through his notes. ‘I don’t remember. Perhaps I didn’t get that. I was only – Oh, yes, here it is. No, he took the boy to the Bishop’s Palace in St Paul’s Churchyard, and he himself went to stay with his mother at Baynard’s Castle. Do you know where that was? I don’t.’
‘Yes. It was the Yorks’ town house. It stood on the bank of the river just a little way west of St Paul’s.’
‘Oh. Well, he stayed there until June the 5th, when his wife arrived from the North and they went to stay in a house called Crosby Place.’
‘It is still called Crosby Place. It has been moved to Chelsea, and the window Richard put into it may not still be there – I haven’t seen it lately – but the building is there.’
‘It is?’ Carradine said, delighted. ‘I’ll go and see it right away. It’s a very domestic tale when you think of it, isn’t it. Staying with his mother until his wife gets to town, and then moving in with her. Was Crosby Place theirs, then?’
‘Richard had leased it, I think. It belonged to one of the Aldermen of London. So there is no suggestion of opposition to his Protectorship, or of change of plans, when he arrived in London.’
‘Oh, no. He was acknowledged Protector before he ever arrived in London.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘In the Patent Rolls he is called Protector on two occasions – let me see – April 21st (that’s less than a fortnight after Edward’s death) and May the 2nd (that’s two days before he arrived in London at all.)’
‘All right; I’m sold. And no fuss? No hint of trouble?’
‘Not that I can find. On the 5th of June he gave detailed orders for the boy’s coronation on the 22nd. He even had letters of summons sent out to the forty squires who would be made knights of the Bath. It seems it was the custom for the King to knight them on the occasion of his coronation.’
‘The 5th,’ Grant said musingly. ‘And he fixed the coronation for the 22nd. He wasn’t leaving himself much time for a switch-over.’
‘No. There’s even a record of the order for the boy’s coronation clothes.’
‘And then what?’
‘Well,’ Carradine said, apologetic, ‘that’s as far as I’ve got. Something happened at a Council – on the 8th of June, I think – but the contemporary account is in the Mémoires of Philippe de Comines and I haven’t been able to get hold of a copy so far. But someone has promised to let me see a copy of Mandrot’s 1901 printing of it tomorrow. It seems that the Bishop of Bath broke some news to the Council on June the 8th. Do you know the Bishop of Bath? His name was Stillington.’
‘Never heard of him.’
‘He was a Fellow of All Souls, whatever that is, and a Canon of York, whatever that may be.’
‘Both learned and respectable, it appears.’
‘Well, we’ll see.’
‘Have you turned up any contemporary historians – other than Comines?’
‘Not any, so far, who wrote before Richard’s death. Comines has a French bias but not a Tudor one, so he’s more trustworthy than an Englishman writing about Richard under the Tudors would be. But I’ve got a lovely sample for you of how history is made. I found it when I was looking up the contemporary writers. You know that one of the things they tell about Richard III is that he killed Henry VI’s only son in cold blood after the battle of Tewkesbury? Well, believe it or not, that story is made up out of whole cloth. You can trace it from the very time it was first told. It’s the perfect answer to people who say there’s no smoke without fire. Believe me this smoke was made by rubbing two pieces of dry stick together.’
‘But Richard was just a boy at the time of Tewkesbury.’
‘He was eighteen, I think. And a very bonny fighter by all contemporary accounts. They were the same age, Henry’s son and Richard. Well, all the contemporary accounts, of whatever complexion, are unanimous in saying that he was killed during the battle. Then the fun begins.’