Soon after arriving in London, Gloucester was in complete control of the young King and the country. He got rid of the Queen's friends on the council, and sent Edward V to live in the palace in the Tower of London. The Tower was not yet known as a prison. Edward IV had held court there many times, and it was usual for a king to spend the days before his crowning at the Tower.
Hastings was pleased to see Gloucester in charge, and keen to do all he could for him. He showed much joy at this 'new world', which had been won without one drop of blood being shed.
But Gloucester knew he would never be safe. The young King was his mother's son, and it would only be a matter of time before he turned on his uncle. For his own safety, Gloucester had to make a bid for the throne itself. Some people thought he had plotted that all along.
Hastings was now part of Edward V's small court in the Tower, helping the boy to learn how to rule. It was perhaps at this time that the young King gave him the fine book known as 'The Hastings Hours', which is now in the British Library in London. Gloucester kept Hastings in the important positions he had held under Edward IV, but there was no reward for helping him gain power. Gloucester 'loved him well', but he liked and trusted Buckingham more. He knew that Hastings was deeply loyal to Edward V, and would block any move to depose him. In Gloucester's mind Hastings was now an enemy.
On the face of it, all seemed well. Hastings had no reason to doubt Gloucester. But Lord Stanley, who did not trust Gloucester, warned him to be careful. Then Buckingham sounded out Hastings on how he would act if Gloucester claimed the throne. Hastings used 'terrible words', saying he would accept him as Protector for Edward V, but never as king – and sealed his own doom.
Hastings was alarmed to learn that Gloucester was aiming for the crown. He may have warned Edward V of what was afoot. He sought help from other lords of the council. He spoke of seizing the King by force and removing Gloucester. He even tried to gain the support of the Queen, though she had no power to help. But before Hastings could act, Gloucester found out what was going on. He chose to believe that Hastings was plotting his death. He needed to make a case for getting rid of this upright man who stood in his way. As one writer put it, he 'rushed headlong into crime'.
On 10 June 1483, Gloucester wrote to powerful people in the city of York asking for aid against the Queen's family and friends. There can be no doubt that he was thinking of Hastings. He added that these people 'daily do intend to murder and destroy us and the old royal blood of this realm'. He then sent orders for Rivers and Grey to be put to death, 'so as to leave no danger to himself from any quarter'.
Three days later, Hastings was among those called by Gloucester to a council meeting in the Tower of London. They thought they had been brought there to discuss the crowning of Edward V. Gloucester arrived smiling, and chatted with the lords in a friendly manner. After asking the Bishop of Ely to send him some fruit from his garden, he left them to debate state matters. But he had laid his plans with care and cunning.
An hour or so later, Gloucester came back, in an angry mood. He was 'frowning, fretting and biting his lips'. He sat silent for a while, then glared at Hastings.
'What do men deserve for plotting the death of me?' he asked. Hastings said that if they had done such a wicked thing, they were worthy of just punishment.
'If?' cried Gloucester in a fury, rising to his feet. 'I tell you, they have done it, and I will make good upon your body, traitor!' He then accused four other men in the room of being traitors to him, even though crimes against a lord protector were not in fact treason. He said they had plotted with the Queen against his rule and his life. A later tale had him crying that the Queen and Elizabeth Shore had caused his arm to wither by using witchcraft, but there is no proof that he had a withered arm. He did shout that an ambush had been set to trap him.
His victims had no chance to reply. Armed guards had been hiding in the next room, and when Gloucester banged his hand on the table, they burst in, yelling, 'Treason!' There was a sharp scuffle, which ended in the arrest of Hastings and four others.
Gloucester told Hastings he had better see a priest at once and confess his sins, 'for I will not dine until I see your head off!' Hastings realised he was going to die within minutes. There was no trial, and there can be no doubt that Gloucester was acting outside the law. It was the right of a lord to be tried by his fellows, but Gloucester dared not risk a trial because Hastings knew too much about his plot to seize the throne. In fact, this was the start of Gloucester's rule by terror.
He paid no heed to Hastings' pleas for mercy. Nor did Buckingham, whom Gloucester put in charge of the doomed man. A priest was summoned, but was not allowed much time to give the last rites. Then Hastings was dragged by an usher to 'the green beside the chapel in the Tower'. There he was made to kneel by a block of wood left by some workmen, and an usher struck off his head with a sword. Edward may even have been watching, for the windows of his rooms faced Tower Green
'Thus fell Hastings, killed not by those enemies he had always feared, but by a friend whom he had never doubted.' And so Edward V lost his best friend. People were sad and shocked to hear of Hastings' death. When Rivers and Grey too were killed without trial, and the little Duke of York was forced to join his brother in the Tower, they woke up to the fact that Gloucester was bent on taking the throne.
Without the loyal Hastings to defend him, Edward V was declared a bastard and deposed. He and his brother, the two 'Princes in the Tower', were never seen again. On 26 June 1483, less than two weeks after Hastings died, Gloucester became king, as Richard III.
Hastings was buried in the fine chantry chapel built for him in St George's Chapel at Windsor, near the last resting place of his great friend, King Edward IV. His tomb can still be seen there today.
Chapter Two
Queen Anne Boleyn (1536) - 'I Have a Little Neck'
On 29 January 1536, Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII's second wife, lost a baby son, born dead after four months. This was her fourth child, but the only one still living was a girl, Elizabeth, born in 1533. In Tudor times, no one thought a woman might be a powerful ruler, as Elizabeth later was, and the King had long wanted a son to succeed him on the throne. Now, to his 'great distress', that son had been born dead.
Henry VIII had hoped for a boy from his first wife, Katherine of Aragon, but of her six children, all had died young except a daughter, Mary. By 1526, the King had fallen madly in love with her lady-in-waiting, Anne Boleyn. Anne had dark hair and eyes, and she was clever and witty. Henry wrote ardent love letters to her, and begged her to be his mistress, but she kept him at bay, holding out for marriage.
In 1527, Henry asked the Pope to end his marriage to Katherine. But the Pope did not want to offend Katherine's mighty nephew, the Emperor Charles V, so he held back. After six years of waiting in vain for the Pope to speak, Henry broke with the Church of Rome and made himself Head of the Church of England. In 1533, he married Anne and had his union with Katherine declared null and void. By then, he was forty-two and his need for a son was urgent.
But in the three years that followed his secret wedding to Anne Boleyn, Henry was not a kind husband. His 'blind passion' had not lasted, and he had turned to other women, telling Anne to 'shut her eyes as her betters had done'. Now he was chasing after her maid, Jane Seymour, and Anne had borne a dead son. Yet it does not seem that the loss of her child was the main cause of her downfall. She was hated by the people, and by many at court, who were doing their best to get rid of her.
Chief among them was Henry's minister, Thomas Cromwell, who was 'ready at all things, evil or good'. Clever and ruthless, he was 'the King's ear and mind'. Cromwell had once been Anne's friend, but they had fallen out. She did not agree with him on many things, and feared that his growing power was a threat to her. They were now rivals, and she had even said 'she would see his head cut off'.
Anne's downfall has long been seen as the result of a failed marriage. It is often thought that Henry VIII had tired of her and asked Cromwell to make a case for getting rid of her. Yet it seems that it was Cromwell, not Henry, who was the man behind her overthrow.
Cromwell was later to admit that 'he had thought up and plotted the affair'. He had good reason: Anne had
