Richard III by Desmond Seward Page B

considerable value on ‘tradition’, which they have renamed ‘oral history’; she also concedes that she has ‘probably laid less stress than is just on the importance of the living informants … It cannot be denied that sometimes evidence may be handed down in a verbal form over a surprisingly long period and with astonishing fidelity.’ 4
    Although Horace Walpole cites the Croyland writer’s statement in defence of Richard, it could bear precisely the opposite interpretation in the light of oral history. Vergil, whose researches into Richard’s career began about 1502, and who almost certainly spoke with men who had actually fought at Tewkesbury, is the first to accuse him of Edward of Lancaster’s murder, together with Clarence and Hastings. 5 Though More does not say that Gloucester did the deed, he implies that with Hastings, Richard ‘was one of the smiters of Prince Edward’. Certainly all early-sixteenth-century chroniclers believe that he was implicated.
    The most detailed version of the alternative account of how young Edward died ‘in the field by Tewkesbury’ is given by Hall. The Prince, ‘a goodly feminine and well featured young gentleman’, was taken prisoner by Richard Croft (the King’s former tutor) and brought to his master, who had offered a hundred pounds for the boy dead or alive, though promising that if not yet dead, his life would be spared. After a long, cold look at his rival, Edward IV asked why he had daredto bring an army against him. The reply was ‘to recover my father’s Kingdom and inheritance’. The King then either pushed him away or struck him with his steel gauntlet, whereupon ‘they that stood about – which were George, Duke of Clarence; Richard, Duke of Gloucester; Thomas, Marquess Dorset; and William, Lord Hastings – suddenly murdered’ the young Prince.
    Most modern historians question the alternative account, though in different ways. Kendall considers that Warkworth was telling most if not all of the truth and that Clarence was probably responsible for killing the boy, if he did not do it himself. Yet Gairdner, however unfashionable, surely carries conviction in arguing that the oral tradition noted down by Vergil and Hall could well have been correct and that it is reasonable to suspect Richard’s complicity. Only the historians’ attitude of mind has changed since Gairdner wrote – there is no new evidence, and it would be unwise to dismiss the great Victorian’s intuition too easily.
    There is no doubt at all that Gloucester was implicated in Henry VI’s death. Dr Warkworth, of whose testimony as to Prince Edward’s end so much is made by Kendall, gives a moving report.
    And the same night that King Edward came to London, King Harry, being in ward in prison in the Tower of London was put to death the 21st day of May on a Tuesday night between eleven and twelve of the clock, being then at the Tower the Duke of Gloucester, brother to King Edward, and many other; and on the morrow he was chested and brought to Paul’s and his face was open that every man might see him. And in his lying he bled on the pavement there; and afterwards at the Black Friars was brought, and there he bled new and fresh; and from thence he was carried to Chertsey Abbey in a boat and buried there in Our Lady’s Chapel.
    As will be seen, the fact that Warkworth says that Henry is still buried at Chertsey indicates that he is writing before the reign of Richard III.
    It is important that the corpse was supposed to have bled – popular superstition thought it a sure sign of sanctity. Contemporary Englishmen undoubtedly regarded King Henry as very holy indeed. The
Great Chronicle of London
preserves a Londoner’s impression: ‘Aftermy mind he might say as Christ said to Pilate, “
Regnum meum non est de hoc mundo
”, for God had endowed him with such grace that he chose with Mary Magdalene the life contemplative and refused of Martha the active.’ To judge from his