Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 2.djvu/28

14 Edward, therefore, lost no time in putting in his most decided opposition. In this cause he was no doubt zealously seconded by Gloucester. But if ever there was a choice of a rival most unfortunate, and even insulting, it was that put forward by Edward against Clarence, in the person of Sir Anthony Wydville, the queen's brother. This match was rejected by the court of Burgundy with disdain, and only heightened the odium of the queen in England—an odium which fell heavily on her in after-years—who now was regarded as a woman who, not content with filling all the great houses of England with her kin, was ambitious enough to aim at filling the highest continental thrones with them. The result was, that Edward succeeded in defeating Clarence, without gaining his own, or rather his wife's object.

From this moment Clarence became at deadly feud with Edward and all his family. The king, the queen, and Gloucester united in a league against him, which, where such men were concerned—men never scrupling to destroy those who opposed them—boded him little good. The conduct of Clarence was calculated to exasperate this enmity, and to expose him to its attacks. He vented his wrath against all the parties who had thwarted him, king, queen, and Gloucester, in the bitterest and most public manner; and on the other side, occasions were found to stimulate him to more disloyal conduct. They began with attacking his friends and members of his household. John Stacey, a priest in his service, was charged with having practised sorcery to procure the death of Lord Beauchamp, and being put to the torture, was brought to confess that Thomas Burdett, a gentleman of Arrow, in Warwickshire, also a gentleman of the duke's household, and greatly beloved by Clarence, was an accomplice. It was well understood why this confession was wrung from the poor priest. Thomas Burdett had a fine white stag in his park, on which he set great value. Edward, in hunting, had shot this stag, and Burdett, in his anger at the deed, had been reported to have said that he wished the horns of the deer were in the stomach of the person who had advised the king to insult him by killing it. This speech, real or imaginary, had been carefully conveyed to the king, and he thus took his revenge. Thomas Burdett was accused of high treason, tried, and, by the servile judges and jury, condemned, and beheaded at Tyburn.

Clarence had exerted himself to save the lives of both these persons in vain. They both died protesting their innocence, and the next day Clarence entered the council, bringing Dr. Goddard, a clergyman, who appeared on various occasions in those times, as a popular agitator. Goddard attested the dying declarations of the sufferers; and Clarence, with an honourable, but imprudent zeal, warmly denounced the destruction of his innocent friends. Edward and the court were at Windsor, and these proceedings were duly carried thither by the enemies of Clarence. Soon it was reported that, having for many days sat sullenly silent at the council-board with folded arms, he had started up and uttered the most disloyal words, accusing the queen of sorcery, which she had learned of her mother; and even implicating the king in the accusation.

The fate of Clarence was sealed. The queen and Gloucester were vehement against him. Edward hurried to Westminster; Clarence was arrested and conducted by the king himself to the Tower. On the 16th of January a Parliament was assembled, and Edward himself appeared as the accuser of his brother at the bar of the Lords. He charged him with a design to dethrone and destroy him and his family. He retorted upon him the charge of sorcery, and of dealing with masters of the black art for this treasonable purpose; that to raise a rebellion he had supplied his servants with vast quantities of money, wine, venison, and provisions, to feast the people, and to fill their minds at such feasts with the belief that Burdett and Stacey had been wrongfully put to death; that Clarence had engaged numbers of people to swear to stand by him and his heirs as rightful claimants of the throne—asserting that Edward was, in truth, a bastard, and had no right whatever to the crown; that to gain the throne, and support himself upon it, he had had constant application to the arts for which his queen and her mother were famous, and had not hesitated to poison and destroy in secret. As for himself—Clarence—he pledged himself to restore all the lands and honours of the Lancastrians, when he gained his own royal rights.

To these monstrous charges Clarence made a vehement reply, but posterity has no means of judging of the truth or force of what he said, for the whole of his defence was omitted in the rolls of Parliament. Not a soul dared to say a word on his behalf. Edward brought forward witnesses to swear to everything he alleged; the duke was condemned to death, and the Commons being summoned to attend, confirmed the sentence. No attempt was made to put the sentence into execution, but about ten days later it was announced that Clarence had died in the Tower. The precise mode of his death has never been clearly ascertained. The generally received account is that of Fabyan, a contemporary, who says that he was drowned in a butt of Malmsey wine. All that is known is, that he was found dead with his head hanging over a butt of this wine; but whether he had been drowned in it and thus placed, or had been allowed to kill himself by drinking of it to excess, must ever remain a mystery. It was a fact that since the death of his wife, the defeat of his attempt to obtain Mary of Burgundy, and the subsequent irritations, he had given himself up to desperate drinking. He might have been supplied with his favourite drink, till it had done its work on a mind overwhelmed, in its solitude, with grief, mortification, and despair; or he might have had a gentle hoist over the side of the butt, to facilitate its operations. He was condemned to die; his brothers and their friends resolved that he should die in private—how, will never be known. Gloucester, who has always had the credit of assisting at this as at sundry other Tower murders, could not have officiated personally at it, for he was residing in the North at the time.

The conduct of the court on the occasion was characterised by the utmost heartlessness, and contempt of public decorum. The festival of the next St. George's Day, but about two months afterwards, was celebrated with extraordinary splendour, as though nothing so terrible had lately occurred: the queen taking the lead and wearing the robes of the chief lady of the order. With the characteristic rapacity of the Wydvilles, several of the estates of Clarence were taken, from his children and