Richard III Read Online Free PDF Page B

and, going up to the throne, clapped his hand on it. There was a long, embarrassed silence. Then his kinsman Thomas Bourchier, Archbishop of Canterbury (and his wife’s brother-in-law) asked York if he wished to have an audience of King Henry. The Duke replied, ‘I knowof no person in this realm which oweth not to wait on me, rather than I on him.’ Even Salisbury and Warwick were taken aback. York moved into the royal apartments, sword in hand, ordering his men to break open the doors. A week later he formally claimed the throne as senior descendant of Edward III. (For the first time he took the surname Plantagenet – there is no evidence that it was ever used by his son Richard.) Asked why he had not made his claim before, he replied proudly, ‘Though right for a time rest and be put to silence, yet it rotteth not nor shall it perish.’ The Lords insisted on a compromise. Henry VI would keep the crown so long as he lived, but Duke Richard was to be Protector, receiving the Principality of Wales and Earldom of Chester and the Duchy of Cornwall; on Henry’s death he would become King and the succession would pass to his children. The helpless Henry gave his assent, disinheriting his own son.
    Unfortunately for York the Lancastrians quickly recovered their strength, mustering troops in the North. They began to lay waste his own estates in Yorkshire, so in December he went up to deal with them. He did not realize that he would face a great army, and when he and Salisbury decided to spend Christmas at Sandal Castle near Wakefield, they found themselves cut off. Duke Richard sent a message to Edward of March to come and relieve him – strongly fortified, the castle could have held out for months. But York was too impatient. Commanded by the young Duke of Somerset – his old enemy’s son – the Earl of Northumberland and Lord Clifford, the Lancastrians challenged him to give battle. Although his force was hopelessly inferior, on 30 December 1460 Duke Richard galloped out to charge his enemies. He was taken in flank by a shattering countercharge and killed, while his army was routed. (A quarter of a century later his youngest boy would behave in a very similar way at Bosworth.) His seventeen-year-old son, Edmund of Rutland, was caught on Wakefield bridge by Lord Clifford, who shouted, ‘By God’s blood thy father slew mine and so will I do thee’, and stabbed him to death despite his begging for mercy. Salisbury was captured and speedily beheaded. His head, together with those of Rutland and York, was stuck over the main gate into York, the Duke’s being crowned in derision with a paper coronet.
    Margaret of Anjou and her army now marched south, while the Tudor family raised Wales for her. Warwick waited for her in London, Edward of March setting off to stop the Welsh, whom he soon broke at Mortimer’s Cross near Wigmore – heartened by the uncanny spectacle of three suns in the sky which became one (a parhelion). The Queen’s northern troops advanced, plundering, burning and raping, like ‘pagans or Saracens,’ says the
Croyland Chronicle
. Although they won a considerable victory at the bloody second battle of St Albans, London refused to admit the Queen, instead letting in Warwick and Edward of March, who had joined forces. When the latter proclaimed himself King Edward IV in March 1461, Londoners cheered him rapturously.
    After the fresh disaster at St Albans, the mourning Duchess of York – still presumably lodged at Fastolf Place – hastily sent George and Richard across the sea to the Low Countries with a few trusted servants, to find refuge with the Duke of Burgundy. The Burgundian lands – modern Holland and Belgium together with a large block of eastern France – were almost an independent kingdom under Duke Philip the Good, who was England’s natural if faithless ally against the French (just as the King of Scots was the latter’s traditional ally against the English). At first he took