Richard the Third by Kendall Paul Murray

Author:Kendall, Paul Murray
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Richard III, King of England, 1452-1485
Publisher: London, Allen & Unwin
Published: 1955-10-05T04:00:00+00:00

summarily tried by a commission under Sir Ralph Assheton, the Vice-Constable. Volubly the Duke of Buckingham confessed, poured out the whole story of the conspiracy, in the desperate hope of securing one favour—^permission to speak with King Richard. Like the coquette who cannot beheve that her fascination will ever fail, Buckingham conceived that, in spite of all, he might yet exercise his charm upon the man he had sought to destroy. It is possible that he was counting upon some secret revelation to save him, perhaps a disclosure concerning the sons of Edward IV. His prayer, however, was denied. He was sentenced to be executed. Losing all dignity, he begged and pleaded, feverish, abject, terror-stricken. But.Richard would not see him. The wound had gone too deep. And the likeness to Clarence, turned bitter now, was borne out in their common fate. On Sunday, November 2, upon a newly erected scaffold in the market place of Sahsbury—the noble spire of the cathedral pointing the way to heaven—Henry Stafford, second Duke of Buckingham, was beheaded as a traitor.^^*

The next morning King Richard set out for the West country. He had just been informed by one of the detachments of troops which he had dispatched to guard the southern coasts that Henry Tudor, appearing off the Dorset harbour of Poole with only two ships, had quickly sensed the danger in which he stood and sailed away westward. By November 5, the King was at Bridport and by the 8th he was estabhshed at Exeter. Without attempting to strike a blow, the Marquess of Dorset, the Courtenays, and most of their chief followers, had taken ship and escaped to Brittany. Sir Thomas Saint Leger and two of his confederates, however, were captured; though large sums of money were offered to ransom Saint Leger's Hfe, Richard saw no reason to spare the second husband of his eldest sister who had chosen to become an agent of the Woodvilles, and all three men were executed. Now came word that the Tudor's two ships had hovered off Plymouth only long enough to learn of Buckingham's death and the collapse of the rebeUion and had then sailed ofFeastward.^^

Though Henry Tudor's venture had fared no better than the others, it had begun promisingly if somewhat tardily. Provided by Duke Francis with no less than fifteen ships and some 5,000 Breton soldiers, Henry had sailed from Paimpol, it seems, on October 31. On the first night of the voyage his fleet had been scattered by a tempest; most of the vessels were driven back to Normandy or Brittany and the next morning Henry found himself off the Dorset coast with only two ships.

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