Richard III and the Murder in the Tower Read Online Free PDF

had been feigned by the duke so as to escape the odium of such a crime.’ However, the Mayor of London had apparently received sufficient reassurance that the purported plot against the Protector was real and Hastings was in the center of it. 56 What form those reassurances took, and what form the Mayor might expect them to be in, we are not told, but presumably there was some form of documentary evidence?
Sunday 15 June 1483
     
    On the day prior to this Sunday, Saturday 14 June, John Brackenbury had arrived in York with Richard’s letter of 5 June. It expressed Richard’s affection for the city and had taken nine days to traverse the distance between the first and second cities of the land. A day later, on Sunday 15 June, Jane Shore, who had been arrested on the Friday, was forced to do public penance outside St Paul’s Cathedral, and, following her ordeal, which has become the stuff of legend, she was committed to prison. Thomas Lynom, Richard’s Solicitor-General, later visited her and looked for permission to marry her, evidence surely of Jane’s extraordinary power of attraction. 57 Following immediately upon the delivery of Brackenbury’s earlier communication, Richard Ratcliffe arrived in York and gave Richard’s message to John Newton, mayor of the city. Unlike Brackenbury, it had taken Ratcliffe only four days between setting out and subsequently delivering his letters from Richard to the city of York and to Lord Neville. As we have seen, the urgency was communicated in what the ‘in haste’ letter had to say 58 .
Monday 16 June 1483
     
    It has been indicated that it was on this day, after the critical interval of the weekend and following the fateful Friday 13th, that the coronation of Edward V was postponed from 22 June until the 9 November. 59 Although this interpretation treats the idea of a weekend rather anachronistically, the evidence seems to suggest that the decision by Richard about the course of future events had changed significantly between the previous Friday and this, the following Monday.
    It was understandable that the following meeting of the Council on this Monday, 16 June, saw most individuals as ‘wary and nervous.’ Following upon the events of the previous meeting it would hardly be natural if they were anything else. The Cely letter (memorandum) of the period reflects the general uncertainty. Although there is no date, the internal evidence of this document suggests the relevant parts were written after the 13th but before the 26 June ( see Figure 4).
    Furthermore, although the fate of Hastings was known, it remained uncertain how the others arrested that day would be finally dealt with. The primary matter of interest was the young Duke of York, still in sanctuary in Westminster Abbey with his mother and sisters. It has been reported that the Duke of Norfolk, John Howard, had eight boats of soldiers escort Richard, the Duke of Buckingham, Thomas Bourchier (the Archbishop of Canterbury) and John Russell (Bishop of Lincoln), among others, to Westminster. They surrounded the Abbey. Mancini reports that:
    When the Queen saw herself besieged and preparation for violence, she surrendered her son, trusting in the word of the Archbishop of Canterbury that the boy should be restored after the coronation.
     
    It is also of interest to understand how news of Hastings’ execution must have played into this decision to surrender her son, a scene which has preoccupied historic artists ever since. 60 Why Elizabeth should worry now at this specific juncture about the violation of sanctuary after spending so many weeks in the Abbey is left largely unaddressed. However, it is clear that control of the young Duke of York was absolutely vital to Richard if he had now already made the decision to take the throne. The traditional accounts of this event suggest that Elizabeth Woodville, Edward IV’s Dowager Queen, was persuaded by the prelates who went to her on that day.
    Richard, Duke of York was