CHAPTER II
1
THERE are only two sources of any value for the story which charges Richard with the murder of the two princes in the Tower of London. The first in importance, The History of King Richard III, is generally ascribed to Sir Thomas More. The second isAnglica Historia by Polydore Vergil, an Italian author who was hired by Henry VII to write a history of England. The Vergil version follows that of More in most respects but departs from it in many important omissions. The histories which were published later during the Tudor period, with few exceptions, did not deviate from what More had set down, even accepting his most absurd and inaccurate statements. A controversy has been waged ever since, with a great deal of heat on both sides. Strangely enough, most of what might be termed official history, including schoolbooks and the reports (written long ago) in encyclopedias and dictionaries, still adheres to the More version, even quoting in full the most ludicrous of details. But modern thought seems to have moved away from complete acceptance of the thinly supported legend.
What might be termed a mystery within a mystery has developed over the authorship of the More book, which will be identified hereafter as the History. There were two versions, one in Latin and one in English. Some authorities declare it to have been the work of Cardinal Morton, Archbishop of Canterbury, in whose household the young More served (he was not quite eight when Richard died) throughout his youth. Twenty-two years after More’s death, in 1557, a relative named Rastell found the English version among his papers and printed it. However, the Latin version had been printed in 1543 by Grafton, incorporated with more material from what was called the Great Chronicle. The Grafton edition carried the story some distance beyond the translation which Rastell found, which might indicate that More had not completed the work he set out to do.
There is an obvious reason to support the More theory. St. Thomas More was one of the greatest and most appealing figures in English history, a man of courage, of high purpose, and of an engaging wit. As chancellor under Henry VIII he refused to support the divorce of Catherine of Aragon and the king’s marriage to Anne Boleyn. For this he was sent to the Tower by Henry, who could not brook opposition, and finally he was beheaded. Coming from such a source, it is easier to believe the almost fantastic story told of Richard’s wickedness and his murder of the princes. More’s integrity cannot be questioned, even though acceptance of him as the author leaves doubts as to the soundness of his historical judgment.
On the other hand, Morton was the right-hand man of Henry VII and one of Richard’s dangerous enemies. He is given credit for Henry’s most ingenious method of extracting money from his subjects, which is called “Morton’s Fork.” His instructions to the collectors in the field ran to this effect: “If the persons applied to for a benevolence live frugally, tell them their parsimony must have enriched them and therefore the king may expect from them a liberal donation; if their method of living on the contrary be extravagant, tell them they can afford to give largely, since the proof of their opulence is evident from their great expenditures.” Morton, conniving servant of a sly master, became so unpopular that his methods have remained an unpleasant legend in English history. Being more expert in the use of his legal fork than in the wielding of a scholarly pen, it was less likely that the story of Richard’s reign would be believed if it came from him.
This, however, is a matter of relatively small importance, for it is agreed that the information on which the History is based was supplied by Morton.
The work in question is no more than a fragment, a matter of, roughly, 25,000 words. It is in no sense a history of the reign of Richard, paying no attention to parliamentary records and having nothing to say about the thoroughness and fairness with which the king administered the laws. In fact, it deals almost exclusively with the many charges against Richard and is the only authority for most of them, although in no case does it offer proofs. The History, in fact, reads like a political broadside (as many historians have pointed out), a deliberate effort to garnish the coming of the Tudors and to cast a friendly light about the new incumbent of the throne, the far-from-glamorous Henry. Never before nor since has an important stage of history depended so completely on such a brief and unsatisfactory document.
Can it have been that Sir Thomas More’s failure to finish the work after keeping it for so many years was the result of doubts he began to entertain of the honesty and value of the material his erstwhile master had entrusted to him?
2
To understand this scarcity of sources, it is necessary to look at the conditions which prevailed at the time. England, with her thick green woods and lovely meadows enclosing a multiplicity of hamlets, was not a land of great distances, but it seemed to be so when all travel was by foot or horseback. The roads were always rough and sometimes swampy. The ravages of war had converted bridges into piles of rubble jutting up above the surface of the water like the last black fangs in a gaffer’s jaw. Watling Street and Ermine Street, the main thoroughfares, stretched interminably north and west. The king’s writ still did not run beyond the beautiful Wye as it twisted and turned and rolled down from Plinlimmon to the Estuary. England seemed far removed from the continent because the winds of the North Sea and the Channel made navigation a matter of chance and a prayer. At many momentous periods, armies and fleets were held in leash for weeks while waiting a favorable turn of weather.
It followed that news traveled slowly. The country districts were fed on rumor and surmise and hearsay, supplied by such wayfarers as chanced to come their way. Richard did his best to correct this situation by re-establishing the post which his brother Edward IV had started in 1482. This made it possible to deliver messages by fast relays for 200 miles within two days. This, of course, was an official post, and so most people, in spite of it, lived out their lives in the same ignorance of what was happening and without ever glimpsing a pen print on a letter, which disturbed them not at all because they could not read. William Caxton might be inking his plates and printing his books industriously, but rarely did the eye of even a learned prior in a monastery rest on a printed page. Newspapers would not be dreamed of for centuries to come. There was no agency at Westminster which had the responsibility of keeping a chronological record of what transpired. This had been left for centuries to the monasteries where monks had compiled chronicles of uneven value. It is unfortunate that during this particular period the page of medieval history was more blank than ever before. Perhaps the continual clamor of internal war had taken men’s thoughts away from the ordinary processes of living, but it so happened that the monkish chronicles had been discontinued. Save one, the not always accurate Croyland Chronicle.
Croyland was an abbey of the Benedictine order, lying north and east of Peterborough. Despite its isolation in what was called the Fen country, with the land low and swampy about it, the abbey was the most opulent in East Anglia. The church had a nave of nine bays and the aisles were 183 feet long, which gives an indication of considerable splendor.
It is unfortunate that the only monastic record left to consult was so far removed from the necessary sources of information. A study of this chronicle leaves the impression that it also had been suspended for a time and that it was resumed later. The new incumbent was responsible for often-quoted entries bearing on rumors of the deaths of the princes as well as some of the deliberately and brutally unfair stories about the married life of Richard.