Richard of York

“ O Richard! York is too far gone with grief,
Or else he never would compare between-
KING RICHARD. Why, uncle, what's the matter?
YORK. O my liege,
Pardon me, if you please; if not, I, pleas'd
Not to be pardoned, am content withal.
Seek you to seize and gripe into your hands
The royalties and rights of banish'd Hereford?
Is not Gaunt dead? and doth not Hereford live?
Was not Gaunt just? and is not Harry true?
Did not the one deserve to have an heir?
Is not his heir a well-deserving son? ”

“ YORK.
It would beseem the Lord Northumberland
To say “King Richard”. Alack the heavy day
When such a sacred king should hide his head!
NORTHUMBERLAND.
Your Grace mistakes; only to be brief
Left I his title out.
YORK.
The time hath been,
Would you have been so brief with him, he would
Have been so brief with you to shorten you,
For taking so the head, your whole head’s length.
BOLINGBROKE.
Mistake not, uncle, further than you should.
YORK.
Take not, good cousin, further than you should,
Lest you mistake. The heavens are o’er our heads. ”

“ York's blood was up; his cheek, his brow were flushed; the word "assassin" burst from his lips, as he wheeled round and assailed his midnight foe. Thus a natural war began; English and Scotchmen, bent on mutual destruction, spurred on by every feeling of revenge, abhorrence, and national rivalship, dealt cruel blows one on the other. Richard's troops began to arrive in greater numbers; they far out-told their adversaries. Lord Bothwell, with his marauders, was obliged to retreat, and York was left in possession of his strange conquest. ”

“ There is an account of a grand entertainment [Pg 173] which was given by the Warwick family at York, some years before, on the occasion of the enthroning of the earl's brother George as Archbishop of York, at which Richard was present. Richard, being a prince of the blood royal, was, of course, a very highly honored guest, notwithstanding that he was but a child. So they prepared for him and some few other great personages a raised platform, called a dais, at one end of the banquet-hall, with a royal canopy over it. ”

“ York had been for nearly a year the guest of King James; twelve months, in all their long-drawn train of weeks and days, had paced over the wide earth, marking it with change: each one had left its trace in the soul of Richard. There is something frightful, to a spirit partly tired of the world, to find that their life is to be acquainted with no durable prosperity; that happiness is but a modification of a train of events, which, like the fleeting birth of flowers, varies the year with different hues. But York was still too young to be aweary even of disappointment ”

“ Suffolk’s fall in 1450 left Richard of York the foremost man in England. Henry’s reign then entered on its last phase of dynastic struggle. Cade’s rebellion suggested first that popular discontent might result in a change of rulers. But York, as heir to the throne, could abide his time. The situation was altered by the mental derangement of the king, and the birth of his son in 1453. York after a struggle secured the protectorship, and for the next year ruled England. Then Henry was restored to sanity, and the queen and Edmund Beaufort, now Duke of Somerset, to power. ”

“ All pretence of moderation was put aside, and he marched on London, using the full arms of England, and with his sword borne upright before him. On reaching Westminster, York took up his residence in the royal palace, and formally asserted his claim to the throne in parliament. In the end a compromise was arranged, under which Henry was to retain the crown for life, but Richard was to succeed him. On the 8th of November he was accordingly proclaimed heir-apparent and protector. Meantime the queen was gathering her friends, and early in December, Richard went north with a small force. ”

“ Dates, which every historian has neglected, again come to our aid, and cannot be controverted.
Richard duke of York was born in 1474. Perkin Warbeck was not heard of before 1495, when duke Richard would have been Twenty-one. Margaret of York, duchess dowager of Burgundy, and sister of Edward the Fourth, is said by lord Bacon to have been the Juno who persecuted the pious Aeneas, Henry, and set up this phantom against him. ”

“ An alliance of half-a-dozen of these over-powerful subjects was a serious danger to the crown. For the king could no longer count on raising a national army against them; he could only call out the adherents of the lords of his own party. The factions were fairly balanced, for if the majority of the baronage were, on the whole, Lancastrian, the greatest houses stood by the cause of York.
Despite all this, there was still, when the wars began, a very strong feeling in favour of compromise and moderation. For this there can be no doubt that Richard of York was mainly responsible. ”

“ A report was accordingly blazed abroad that Richard, Duke of York, brother of King Edward V, was yet alive, not having been murdered in the Tower, as had been supposed; and a man called Perkin Warbeck or Warboys, a native of Tournay, assumed the name of Richard Plantagenet and succeeded in getting a large number of people in Ireland and Scotland to believe that in his person they in fact saw Richard, Duke of York, the rightful heir to the crown. ”

“ The coronation at York was attended and followed, as that at London had been, with banquets and public parades, and grand celebrations of all sorts, which continued for several successive days, and the hilarity and joy which these shows awakened among the crowds that assembled to witness them seemed to indicate a universal acquiescence on the part of the people of England in Richard's accession to the throne. ”

“ Her claims on the Dunster estates had drawn York into litigation under Henry IV (Archæological Journal, xxxvii. 164) . She survived her third husband, by whom she had no issue; but her remarriage with Sir Walter (or Robert) Fitzwalter, which has passed from Dugdale into so many accounts, is a confusion with her first marriage. She died in 1431, and was buried in Westminster Abbey (Complete Peerage, iii. 370, v. 322; Wylie, ii. 48) . York was succeeded in the title and his great estates by his nephew, Richard, duke of York (1412–1460) [q. v.] ”

“ In the struggle of dynasties from which England suffered so severely during the fifteenth century, the drama of ambition shifted its scenes from London and York to Calais and Dublin. The appointment of Richard, Duke of York, as Lord Lieutenant, in 1449, presented him an opportunity of creating a Yorkist party among the nobles and people of "the Pale." ”

“ The Dukes of York and Warwick marched triumphantly to York, and were submissively received by the authorities, and there they celebrated the festival of Easter with great splendour. Hastings, Stafford, and others had [Pg 117] been made Knights-Bannerets on the field; Devon and Wilts were decapitated by martial law, and their heads placed on the bar gate of York, whence those of Richard of York and the Earl of Salisbury, the fathers of York and Warwick, had been removed ”

“ The Yorkists were now in the ascendant, but acted with great moderation. There were no executions and no attainders; so Clifford succeeded to the title and kept the estates. The King was again attacked by his old malady, and again was Richard of York appointed Protector; but Queen Margaret now began to exhibit her qualities, and to intrigue in politics. She was truly an able and brave woman, but vindictive and rash. She succeeded in ousting York from the Protectorship, and took measures for crushing him effectually ”

“ The house of York was represented by Edward, whose title, as king, was Edward the Fourth, and his two brothers, George and Richard, or, as they were now generally called, Clarence and Gloucester. In case Edward should be married and have a son, his son would succeed him, and George and Richard would be excluded; if, however, he should die without issue, then George would become king; and if George should die without issue, and Richard should survive him, then Richard would succeed. ”

“ Richard led his adherents to York, where a funeral service was performed, and the troops, looking like so many mutes, completely dumbfounded the populace. Their conduct and their clothes combined—for their designs seemed to be as dark and mysterious as their habits—obtained for these soldiers the unenviable name of the black-guards of the Duke of Gloucester.
Richard's next care was to swear loyalty and fealty to his young nephew—which went far towards proving the absence of both; for those who wish a little of anything to go a great way, generally make the utmost possible display of it. ”

“ While Richard was diligent in promoting the material prosperity of his see by building, imparking, improving land, and the like, and was strenuous in resisting the attacks upon it of the archbishop of York, he by no means satisfied the requirements of the more ardent followers of his predecessor. ”

“ Richard III., the youngest son of Richard Duke of York by Cecily his wife, was born at Fotheringay Castle, in Northamptonshire, on the 2nd of October, 1452, and was created Duke of Gloucester in 1461. He married Anne, daughter of Richard Earl of Warwick (the King-Maker) , and widow of Edward Prince of Wales (son of Henry VI.) . His reign commenced on the 18th of June; he was proclaimed King on the 22nd of June; was crowned on the 7th of July, 1483, and was slain at the battle of Bosworth, on the 22nd of August, 1485, having reigned two years and two months. ”

“ So Prince Richard came forth from the gates of York at the head of his columns, and rode on toward the queen's camp. Edmund went with him. Edmund was under the care of his tutor, Robert Aspell, who was charged to keep close to his side, and to watch over him in the most vigilant manner. The army of the queen was at some distance from York, at a place called Wakefield. Both parties, as is usual in civil wars, were extremely exasperated against each other, and the battle was desperately fought. It was very brief, however, and Richard's troops were defeated. Richard himself was taken prisoner. ”

“ York became a royal duchy in 1385 when Richard II created his uncle, Edmund Langley, Duke of York. Shortly afterwards Henry of Lancaster (Henry IV) seized the throne, deposed Richard II, and imprisoned him in Pontefract Castle, where Richard was afterwards murdered. Plots were hatched against Henry, for example in 1403 the Percies rebelled but were defeated at Shrewsbury. ”

“ The other was a feeling deeper-rooted in his mind—an intense hatred of the house of York—an exultation in its overthrow and disgrace—a gloating over every circumstance that blotted it with ignominy. If Richard had really been an impostor, Henry had not used half the pains to stigmatize him as low-born—to blast his pride with nicknames, nor have looked forward with the joy he now did, to having him in his power—to the degradation—the mortal stain of infamy he intended to taint him with for ever. ”

“ His cousin York had inspired him with marvellous confidence; his last entrance into the formidable Tower, and his speedy exit, had appeared a miracle to the poor earl, to whom these high walls and sad chambers formed a world, from which, as from the larger one, death only promised egress. He had pined and wasted in his appetite to be free, to be without those gates, beyond that fosse and giant battlements that girded him in: these portentous, insuperable obstacles were mere cobweb chains to Richard. ”

“ To take him off then was strengthening the plan of the earl of Richmond, who aimed at the crown by marrying Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Edward the Fourth. As the house of York never rose again, as the reverse of Richard's fortune deprived him of any friend, and as no contemporaries but Fabian and the author of the Chronicle have written a word on that period, and they, too slightly to inform us, it is impossible to know whether Richard ever took any steps to refute the calumny. ”

“ Richard, who succeeded Thomas à Becket, was a monastic priest, mild, and somewhat time-serving, conniving at irregularities, and never apparently provoked out of his meekness, except by the perpetual struggle for precedence with the see of York—and no wonder, when, at a synod at Westminster, Roger, Archbishop of York, fairly sat down in his lap on finding him occupying the seat of honor next to the legate. Upon this the Pope interfered, pronouncing the Archbishop of York, Primate of England, and him of Canterbury, Primate of all England ”

“ Later in 1450 Richard, duke of York, came over from Ireland, after the murder of the Duke of Suffolk, and entered into a rivalry with Edmund Beaufort, duke of Somerset, for the direction of the royal policy. York's wife, Cecily Nevill, was the youngest sister of Norfolk's mother, while Norfolk's wife, Eleanor Bourchier, was sister of Viscount Bourchier, who had married York's sister. Norfolk at once became the chief supporter of York, who was thus connected with him by a double family tie. ”

“ In the course of the summer, Richard made a royal progress, and was enthusiastically received, though it is believed that much of the enthusiasm was got up by frequent rehearsals with a set of supernumeraries, who were sent on before from town to town, to give a reception to the new sovereign. If Richard was expected to arrive anywhere at two, the populace would be called at one, to run through—in rehearsal—the cheers and gestures of satisfaction that were required to give brilliance to the usurper's entry. When he arrived at York, a wish was expressed by the inhabitants to see a coronation ”