Part 23

Having accomplished his _coup d'etat_ Richard started for a royal progress through the Midlands, and a few days after his departure sent back secret orders to London for the murder of his two nephews in the Tower. There is no reason to doubt that they were secretly smothered on or about the 15th of July by his agent Sir James Tyrrell, or that the bones found buried under a staircase in the fortress two hundred years after belonged to the two unhappy lads. But the business was kept dark at the time, and it was long before any one could assert with certainty that they were dead or alive. Richard never published any statement as to their end, though some easy tale of a fever, a conflagration, or an accident might have served him better than the mere silence that he employed. For while many persons believed that the princes still existed there was room for all manner of impostures and false rumours.

Buckingham's rebellion.

The usurper's reign was from the first a troubled one. Less than three months after his coronation the first insurrection broke out; it was headed--strangely enough--by the duke of Buckingham, who seems to have been shocked by the murder of the princes; he must have been one of the few who had certain information of the crime. He did not take arms in his own cause, though after the house of York the house of Buckingham had the best claim to the throne, as representing Thomas of Woodstock, the youngest son of Edward III. His plan was to unite the causes of York and Lancaster by wedding the Lady Elizabeth, the eldest sister of the murdered princes, to Henry Tudor, earl of Richmond, a young exile who represented the very doubtful claim of the Beauforts to the Lancastrian heritage. Henry was the son of Margaret Beaufort, the daughter of John, first duke of Somerset, and the niece of Edmund, second duke, who fell at St Albans. All her male kinsmen had been exterminated in the Wars of the Roses.

Execution of Buckingham.

This promising scheme was to be supported by a rising of those Yorkists who rejected the usurpation of Richard III., and by the landing on the south coast of Henry of Richmond with a body of Lancastrian exiles and foreign mercenaries. But good organization was wanting, and chance fought for the king. A number of scattered risings in the south were put down by Richard's troops, while Buckingham, who had raised his banner in Wales, was prevented from bringing aid by a week of extraordinary rains which made the Severn impassable. Finding that the rest of the plan had miscarried, Buckingham's retainers melted away from him, and he was forced to fly. A few days later he was betrayed, handed over to the king, and beheaded (Nov. 2, 1483). Meanwhile Richmond's little fleet was dispersed by the same storms that scattered Buckingham's army, and he was forced to return to Brittany without having landed in England.

Here King Richard's luck ended. Though he called a parliament early in 1484, and made all manner of gracious promises of good governance, he felt that his position was insecure. The nation was profoundly disgusted with his unscrupulous policy, and the greater part of the leaders of the late insurrection had escaped abroad and were weaving new plots. Early in the spring he lost his only son and heir, Edward, prince of Wales, and the question of the succession to the crown was opened from a new point of view. After some hesitation Richard named his nephew John de la Pole, earl of Lincoln, a son of his sister, as his heir. But he also bethought him of another and a most repulsive plan for strengthening his position. His queen, Anne Neville, the daughter of the kingmaker, was on her death-bed. With indecent haste he began to devise a scheme for marrying his niece Elizabeth, whose brothers he had murdered but a year before. Knowledge of this scheme is said to have shortened the life of the unfortunate Anne, and many did not scruple to say that her husband had made away with her.

Henry of Richmond lands at Milford.

Battle of Bosworth.

When the queen was dead, and some rumours of the king's intentions got abroad, the public indignation was so great that Richard's councillors had to warn him to disavow the projected marriage, if he wished to retain a single adherent. He yielded, and made public complaint that he had been slandered--which few believed. Meanwhile the conspirators of 1483 were busy in organizing another plan of invasion. This time it was successfully carried out, and the earl of Richmond landed at Milford Haven with many exiles, both Yorkists and Lancastrians, and 1000 mercenaries lent him by the princess regent of France. The Welsh joined him in great numbers, not forgetting that by his Tudor descent he was their own kinsman, and when he reached Shrewsbury English adherents