sent word of further treasonable gossip. Edward summoned Clarence to Westminster and had him confined to the Tower.
There is no record that Richard had any part in these proceedings, and it seems likely that the summer months kept him busy in Yorkshire. When he rejoined the Court in the late autumn Clarence’s life hung by a thread. The Woodvilles, who still regarded him as Warwick’s accomplice in the murder of two of their kin, were baying for his blood, and the story of the King’s bastardy was one that snapped even Edward’s patience. Richard was the only member of the royal family to speak up for his brother: Clarence was a nuisance, but since Warwick’s defeat he had never been a threat. Moreover, he was loath to see the Woodvilles manoeuvring one of his brothers into killing the other.
But Edward was determined to go through with it. On 16 January 1478, the Lords assembled in Parliament before the King to try Clarence on charges of high treason. In a hushed chamber none of them dared utter a word in accusation or defence. Only the King could prosecute the King’s brother. The verdict was ‘guilty’, and the Duke of Buckingham, as Steward of England, pronounced the sentence of death. When Edward hesitated to set a date for the execution, the Commons presented a petition that it should be carried out swiftly. A few days later the Duke of Clarence at last earned in his death the fame that had eluded him in his lifetime, when he was drowned in a butt of Malmsey wine. Contemporary accounts record that Edward offered Clarence a choice of death, and that he elected to be drowned in a butt of wine. This has led later historians to declare that Clarence was a drunkard, but others have suggested that the butt of Malmsey held a symbolic significance as a reminder of the presents of tuns of wine sent to Clarence by Edward in happier days. Margaret Pole, Clarence’s daughter, certainly wore a model of a wine cask on her wrist in remembrance of her father’s death.
Dominic Mancini, the Italian cleric who in 1483 wrote an invaluable account of his stay in England, states that Richard was ‘overcome with grief for his brother’. He also provides the clue to the origins of Richard’s bitter antagonism towards the Woodvilles:
Thenceforth [Mancini continues] Richard came very rarely to court. He kept himself within his own lands and set out to acquire the loyalty of his people through favours and justice. The good reputation of his private life and public activities powerfully attracted the esteem of strangers.... Such was his renown in warfare, that whenever a difficult and dangerous policy had to be undertaken, it would be entrusted to his discretion and his generalship. By these arts Richard acquired the favour of the people, and avoided the jealousy of the Queen, from whom he lived far separated.
*
Clarence’s death clearly left scars on Richard’s memory. Three days after the execution he procured a licence to set up two religious foundations to pray for the royal family and for his dead brothers and sisters. It is equally clear that he blamed the Woodville Queen for what had happened. But his estrangement from the Court went deeper than this. The reference to ‘the good reputation of his private life’ hints at a contrast between Richard’s asceticism and the frivolity, the gormandising and the freewheeling sexual antics of Edward’s entourage. The differences between the two surviving sons of York are so strong as to prompt the thought that there may have been some foundation for the tale of Edward’s bastardy. Richard, short, frailly built, intense and rather straight-laced, and ill at ease in company; Edward, a fat, pleasure-loving giant with easy manners and extravagant tastes. Mancini paints a striking portrait of Edward in his later years:
In food and drink he was most immoderate: it was his habit, so I have learned, to take an emetic for the delight of gorging his stomach once more. For this reason
There is no record that Richard had any part in these proceedings, and it seems likely that the summer months kept him busy in Yorkshire. When he rejoined the Court in the late autumn Clarence’s life hung by a thread. The Woodvilles, who still regarded him as Warwick’s accomplice in the murder of two of their kin, were baying for his blood, and the story of the King’s bastardy was one that snapped even Edward’s patience. Richard was the only member of the royal family to speak up for his brother: Clarence was a nuisance, but since Warwick’s defeat he had never been a threat. Moreover, he was loath to see the Woodvilles manoeuvring one of his brothers into killing the other.
But Edward was determined to go through with it. On 16 January 1478, the Lords assembled in Parliament before the King to try Clarence on charges of high treason. In a hushed chamber none of them dared utter a word in accusation or defence. Only the King could prosecute the King’s brother. The verdict was ‘guilty’, and the Duke of Buckingham, as Steward of England, pronounced the sentence of death. When Edward hesitated to set a date for the execution, the Commons presented a petition that it should be carried out swiftly. A few days later the Duke of Clarence at last earned in his death the fame that had eluded him in his lifetime, when he was drowned in a butt of Malmsey wine. Contemporary accounts record that Edward offered Clarence a choice of death, and that he elected to be drowned in a butt of wine. This has led later historians to declare that Clarence was a drunkard, but others have suggested that the butt of Malmsey held a symbolic significance as a reminder of the presents of tuns of wine sent to Clarence by Edward in happier days. Margaret Pole, Clarence’s daughter, certainly wore a model of a wine cask on her wrist in remembrance of her father’s death.
Dominic Mancini, the Italian cleric who in 1483 wrote an invaluable account of his stay in England, states that Richard was ‘overcome with grief for his brother’. He also provides the clue to the origins of Richard’s bitter antagonism towards the Woodvilles:
Thenceforth [Mancini continues] Richard came very rarely to court. He kept himself within his own lands and set out to acquire the loyalty of his people through favours and justice. The good reputation of his private life and public activities powerfully attracted the esteem of strangers.... Such was his renown in warfare, that whenever a difficult and dangerous policy had to be undertaken, it would be entrusted to his discretion and his generalship. By these arts Richard acquired the favour of the people, and avoided the jealousy of the Queen, from whom he lived far separated.
*
Clarence’s death clearly left scars on Richard’s memory. Three days after the execution he procured a licence to set up two religious foundations to pray for the royal family and for his dead brothers and sisters. It is equally clear that he blamed the Woodville Queen for what had happened. But his estrangement from the Court went deeper than this. The reference to ‘the good reputation of his private life’ hints at a contrast between Richard’s asceticism and the frivolity, the gormandising and the freewheeling sexual antics of Edward’s entourage. The differences between the two surviving sons of York are so strong as to prompt the thought that there may have been some foundation for the tale of Edward’s bastardy. Richard, short, frailly built, intense and rather straight-laced, and ill at ease in company; Edward, a fat, pleasure-loving giant with easy manners and extravagant tastes. Mancini paints a striking portrait of Edward in his later years:
In food and drink he was most immoderate: it was his habit, so I have learned, to take an emetic for the delight of gorging his stomach once more. For this reason
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