GAIRDNER'S "LIFE OF RICHARD III."* MR. GAIRDNIM'S merits as an
historical writer have been so fully recognised, through his Hoyses of York cund Lancaster and his editorship of the Paston Letters, that his new book will be welcomed by readers of English history. Like other writers of recent years who have given special attention to particular
epochs, Mr. Gairdner has produced a work that will be interest- ing either as a distinct biography of Richard III., or as a connecting link in the history of the fifteenth century. Brief as the reign of that monarch was, it was marked by events of great importance, and was a time of feverish unrest and dis- content. People are apt to think of Richard III. as an older man than he really was, yet, if it be remembered that he was only nineteen when he confronted young Edward after Tewkes- bury, thirty-one when he usurped the Crown, and thirty-three when he was killed at Bosworth Field, it is evident he had not much time to premeditate and mature the crimes with which he stands charged. His conduct between nineteen and thirty- one years of age was such as to secure the perfect good-will and confidence of his brother Edward, and also the approval of the whole country.
The twelve years of peace and prosperity that succeeded the
battles of Barnet and Tewkesbury, when the star of Edward was so much in the ascendant that the Lancastrian cause seemed crushed for ever, were destined to be followed by as bitter and desperate a struggle as any that had hitherto marked the Wars of the Roses. To Richard III. belongs the honour of originating that struggle, of reviving the still smouldering feuds of the preceding generation, and of making his exit with a daring that proved fatal to himself, whilst) it cleared the way for his rival and a permanent peace. Long since Mr. Gairdner was anxious to ascertain if that Sovereign's character could not be lightened of some of the odium that still clung to it. The perusal of Walpole's Historic Doubts five-and-twenty years ago first at-
tracted his attention, and made him wonder whether Richard III. was really a tyrant, whilst he more than doubted his guilt of the crowning crime attributed to him. But after an examination of contemporary evidence, he is inclined to accept the general fidelity of the portrait made familiar to us by Sir Thomas More and Shakespeare, and although the "malign tradition" is not easily accounted for, he considers it is not "clearly shown that the story of Richard's life is more intelligible without it." We gather from this that Mr. Gairdner has been unable to acquit that monarch of the well-known charges with which he is credited, and that he rather regrets his suspicion of the tradi- tion handed down to posterity. He has learnt that his original attempt to discard tradition was wrong in principle, and has therefore, in writing this book, sought his information among contemporary materials, looking to the works of subsequent writers to support and interpret, but not to exclude, his first impressions.
The earlier years of Richard's life were not without promise, whilst they foreshadowed none of the crimes that stained his brief and unhappy reign. To his brother Edward he remained faithful to the end, and that he possessed his confidence is tolerably clear, from his confiding to him by will the care of his child, and appointing him to such offices as those of Great Chamberlain of England, Admiral of England, Ireland, and Aquitaine, and Lieutenant-General of the North. When Edward died, he was held in high estimation everywhere, and notwithstanding the picture of our great dramatist, there is nothing to show that he was more hostile than others to the widowed queen and the grasping members of the Woodville family. In many ways he had distinguished himself, and shown powers of leadership that subsequent events did not falsify. His campaign against Scotland and the reduction of Berwick Castle gave him military reputation and the recog- nition of Parliament. He commanded the vanguard at the battle of Barnet, and much of the success at Tewkesbury was due to his generalship. The death of Prince Edward at the close of this battle is the first cloud on Richard's life, and if he is to be considered the murderer of that Prince, Mr. Gairdner, who does not think it at all impossible, regards it as the "first of a long catalogue of crimes, each of which rests by itself on slender testimony enough, though any one of them, being admitted, lends greater credit to the others." If, in the absence of direct evidence on this matter, motives be examined, there is much that
* History of the Life and Reign of Richard III. By James Gairdner. London : Longman*, Green, and Co. 1878. points to Richard as being accessory to the Prince's death. When the latter was brought a prisoner into the presence of Edward and Richard, they must have been sorely tempted to make away with him, as the one enemy of their House (Henry VI. being already a prisoner in the Tower); and who, it was probable, would have had little pity on them, had their positions been reversed. Richard had served his brother so faithfully and so materially up to this point that it could hardly have appeared to him a crime, since blood had been already spilt so freely, to take one more life, if by so doing it would make the Crown Edward's beyond dispute. And there- fore, when the Lancastrian Prince uttered the defiant words attributed to him by history, it is not unlikely that Richard and those with him welcomed them as an excuse for closing his mouth once and for all. But however it may have happened, it does not seem that any discredit fell on Richard at the time for his share in the deed, and it was not until the evidence of later and more detestable acts broke upon men's eyes that they began to criticise the doings of his younger days. Of the death of Henry VI., Mr. Gairdner writes, "how he died it seems almost needless to say ;" but he expresses no decided opinion himself as to whether he was murdered, or whether he died of pure displeasure and melancholy, as stated in the official report. He quotes the circumstantial account by Dr. Wark- worth, Master of St Peter's College, Cambridge, written within twelve years of the event, who points to Richard as the murderer, and the further evidence Mr. Gairdner adduces is in support of that suspicion ; yet he concludes by saying that an after-age may have been a little unjust to Richard, in throwing upon him the sole responsibility of acts in which others participated, and in which he certainly had the full support and concurrence of his brother Edward. The mere fact of his being in the Tower at the time goes for nothing, for that was then a royal residence, and others of his family were there too. But it is certain that though the Yorkist cause profited generally by the death of Henry VI., it was Edward, not Richard, who MB the great and immediate gainer by his removal, and history tells pretty plainly how unscrupulous he was. After promising the Duke of Somerset and others a free pardon on their capture at Tewkesbury, he sanctioned their murder two days later, and although his own hands were not stained with the blood of Prince Henry, it is more than probable that both the latter and his father were killed by his orders ; nor did he spare his brother Clarence, but of his death Mr. Gairdner speaks more decidedly, considering that the King took upon himself the entire responsibility of that act, and that Richard must be held guiltless. Even Sir Thomas More says positively that he openly opposed the extreme measures against his brother.
Concerning the death of Edward V. and his younger brother, Mr. Gairdner has not been able to offer new information of any great value. All he could do, and he has done it amply, was to examine and weigh carefully the opinions of those historians who have been most worth oonsulting. Against the objections of Horace Walpole and others to the statements of contemporary writers that the young Princes were murdered, Mr. Gairdner speaks strongly in support of the latter theory. He thinks that though Sir Thomas More's version may err in some of the details, yet on the whole it is substantially correct, and that his authority was the alleged confession, obtained second-hand, of Tyrell and Dighton. He thinks, too, that Richard had no preconceived intention of murdering his nephews, but that hearing during his absence from London that there were schemes afoot for liberating the Princes from the Tower, it occurred to him that it would be to his advantage to have them removed at once and for ever from his path ; and hence his orders to that effect, first to Sir RobereBrackenbury, who declined the job, and then to Sir James Tyrell, who accepted it. The belief at the time in the'murder of the Princes appears to have been general ; it was mentioned as a fact by the Chancellor of France, in addressing the Estates-General, within three months of their disappearance ; and its probability was further confirmed in Charles II.'s reign, by the discovery in the Tower of the skeletons of two youths, whose ages agreed with those of the unfortunate Princes. It is true, as Mr. Gairdner states, that the murder rests on the testimony of only a few original authorities, but that is owing to the dearth of contem- porary historians. The indignation with which the news was received throughout the country did not augur well for the tran- quillity of Richard's reign. It was the signal for that general disapproval and disaffection that continued until his death, two years later, and the remorse from which he is said to have suffered must have effectually destroyed any satisfaction he realised or expected to realise on attaining to kingly power.
We think Mr. Gairdner has formed a fair and reasonable esti- mate of the life and reign of Richard III. Where his convictions were so at variance with his early expectations, it required some courage to discard the fairer portrait of his own conception for the more truthful one of tradition, and some honesty to throw the weight of his convictions into the balance against the man he had been anxious to justify. It is likely enough that if Edward W. had lived another twenty years, that is, long enough for his son to have reached manhood, Richard would in turn have served father and son with equal fidelity, and have been content to actto the best of his means in the interests of the House of York. But finding himself the recognised Protector of young Edward V., the favour- ite of the people, and the trusted head of his army, he was in- duced, by the sudden promptings of his own heart and the be- guilements of Buckingham, to consider his own advancement,— and then came the beginning of the end. The same sudden vehem- ence of an ill-regulated mind that marked his order for the death of Hastings may be traced in most of his public acts, and it is this, more than innate wickedness or deliberate evil, that extin- guished the better feelings of his nature and left him the cruel tyrant represented by history.
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