PART THREE
CHAPTER I
1
THE whipping boy was an unfortunate youngster appointed to receive any chastisement earned by the son of a royal family, on the theory that princes were above physical punishment. Sometimes the king might take it on himself to doff his crown, roll up his ermine sleeves, and lay the erring son across his august knee, but that was outside the rule. Under no circumstances should stinging whip or menial hand be laid on the hide of an heir apparent. It was supposed that the sight of someone else suffering for his wrongdoing would create a feeling of shame in the princely breast and be fully as effective, therefore, as a good, sound, personal beating.
The custom was not universal. The whipping boy was not a fixture in all royal households as was, for instance, the court jester and the dancing master. But references creep into the pages of history often enough to indicate that it was frequently the practice. It is recorded that one Barnaby Fitzpatrick was on hand to receive the hidings which ordinarily would have been the lot of Edward VI. That delicate little fellow, who resembled his burly father, Henry VIII, in so few respects, could not have been guilty often of offenses against discipline.
There seems to have been in the main a more common-sense approach to the problem in England, a feeling that the lesson would be more effective if the beating were administered to the one who had earned it.
The classic example of vicarious punishment was placed on the scroll of time by a ceremony at Rome when permission was granted Henry of Navarre to abjure the Huguenot faith and become King of France. Pope Clement VIII had a stubborn streak in him which had to be overcome first. It may have been not too difficult for Henry to consider Paris worth a Mass, but he, Clement, was not convinced that Henry was worth receiving into the church unless he underwent a cleansing ceremony. In diplomatic circles in Rome there was a fear that the Navarene, being a prince of such high spirit, might regard this as humiliating and refuse to agree. Then someone, recalling the custom of the whipping boy, suggested that the whole matter could be carried off by proxy. It has been contended since that Henry was kept in the dark until the ceremony had been performed.
Accordingly on September 16, 1595, the two ambassadors from France, D’Ossat and Du Perron, walked on foot to a church in Rome and knelt on the worn stone steps, in recognition of their unworthiness to go inside. Here they chanted together “Have Mercy, Lord” and on the closing line of each verse a switch was laid across their bent shoulders. It is said the switch was a slender one and that orders had been given that the blows were to be light. Both of the ambassadors were later made cardinals, a more than fair exchange; a red hat for a somewhat less than pink shoulder blade.
2
Richard III, who called himself Richard Plantagenet, succeeded his brother Edward IV. He ruled briefly, for little more than two years. His accession has been judged by history to be the most glaring and inexcusable of usurpations. His motive is still believed to have been personal ambition and his methods are held up as a combination of cunning and cruelty. Edward IV had left two sons, one twelve and one nine. They were incarcerated in the Tower of London and supposedly died there at the hands of assassins employed by Richard. It was due to the wave of horror which swept across the nation, so history tells us, that Henry of Richmond was able to land in England and draw to his banner strong enough forces to defeat and kill the king at the Battle of Bosworth Field on August 22, 1485.
Shakespeare, who cannot be blamed for taking history as it came to him between staid and sacrosanct covers, has used Richard as the darkest and most devious villain in his series of historical plays. Anyone who has seen an accomplished actor play the role inKing Richard III can never forget this evil creature hobbling about the stage and later dying on the battlefield with the cry which lingers in every memory: “A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!”
This is the Richard III with whom the world has grown up. This is the version generally accepted, despite efforts which have been made, sometimes guarded but sometimes loud-spoken and decisive, to say that there is little or no truth in it.
That Richard III was the most notorious whipping boy in history is a theory which is now being widely held. Fortunately for him he did not know when he fell in battle the humiliating role he would play. It was his memory and not his body which was to bear the brunt of blame for the blackest of deeds. Richard, whose naked body had been carried off the battlefield on a donkey’s back with a halter around his neck, was in his grave and there was no voice that dared speak up for him. It is perhaps not strange that all the blame has been heaped on the supposedly crooked back of the last of the Plantagenets, while Henry VII, the first of the Tudors, has emerged in the full white light of blamelessness.
And so the saga of the extraordinary Plantagenets, with their brilliant successes, their tragic reverses, their wild extravagances, does not end with the blood of Richard ebbing away on Bosworth Field. With their gift for involvement in drama of the most fantastic kind, they have left another story for history to record: a grim and terrifying story, which can without question be termed the greatest of mysteries in English history, perhaps the greatest of all time.