Smith, Elder & Co. 2nd edition - 1837
The novel was published anonymously in 1835 by J. Cochrane & Company. The first edition is presently online, priced at £650 - way above my pocket! On the title page, it mentions that the author had written Arthur of Britany [sic], also A Historical Tale, published in 1833. The Database of Victorian Fiction 1837-1901 - At the Circulating Library - simply says Novelist and poet. This author cannot be traced. Birth and death dates unknown. However, the database gives a name: Peter Leicester, which is also written in pencil on the title pages of my three volumes.
The first volume charts the story of a fifteen year-old (or is he aged twenty?) apparent orphan, who goes by the name of Alwyde and who lives almost in seclusion on the edge of Wychwood Forest.. Mystery surrounds his background, but his bearing suggests he comes from noble stock. He saves a beautiful young lady not once, but twice: first, from drowning, after being swept downstream from a ford; and secondly, by warning her of a gang of ruffians who are out to capture her. She is able to return to the nearby St. Mildred's Abbey. Alwyde gets caught up in the maelstrom of political events of 1485, attaching himself to an odd trio - Rouge Espoir, Reginald Bray and Daypenny, a garrulous 'musician'. Rouge Espoir soon realises the lady is none other than Lady Elizabeth of York (the late King Edward IV's eldest daughter) and he tells her of his mission - from Henry Tudor to offer his hand in marriage to cement the two 'Roses' of York and Lancaster. The proud daughter of Edward IV makes it clear that the crown is hers, not Tudors - if, therefore, Richmond seeks to win her hand, let him first win the crown...Espoir also engages Alwyde, now assuming the more noble name of De Laissé, to travel to London, contact Lord Stanley and the Queen Dowager Elizabeth, who is in Sanctuary in Westminster Abbey with her three youngest daughters. Alwyde is successful on both counts and gains the queen's blessing for the Tudor-Elizabeth match. Stanley then sends Alwyde, with his son Edward, towards Wales to prepare for Tudor's invasion. They call a halt at Bohun Pleasance - the beauty of Hereford - where not only does Alwyde again meet up with his adored lady, who he now finds out is Elizabeth, but also converses with an old woman who convinces him that he was born there!
Although we apparently never meet Richard III in the first volume, his ominous presence hovers over all the participants. He is the Black Legend of the Tudor propaganda: the remorseless cruelty of the tyrant whom wrong and murder had placed upon the throne (p.60); Alwyde learnt, also, of the tyrant's butcheries - his remorseless cruelty - his horrible hypocrisy (p.243). Richard has murdered the two princes and looks to marry his niece. But both Elizabeths hate him and Stanley is clearly plotting to go over to Tudor.
Much of Volume II is, frankly, padding. There is a section devoted to the drowning of a 'witch' that hardly advances the tale and the section with a group of outcasts in a wood palls. What it does do is unmask Rouge Espoir (the clue is in the name) as Henry Tudor and it is becoming increasingly obvious that the villain at the start of Volume I - who attempts to capture the Lady Elizabeth - is none other than King Richard III. All the adjectives and epithets levelled against the stranger now make sense! fixed, stern insensibility...unrestrained tempest of passion that rioted within him...malignant scowl of disdain...flinty heart was so dead to feeling that he understood not what pity meant...the only God I acknowledge is my ambition - the one, only director of my actions, my will. Well, at least we know where we are with him.
The character of Sir Hippo de Grypps - the idiotic 'tutor' of Alwyde, has worn very thin by the end of the second volume. He is no Malvolio or Shakespearean or Scottian 'clown'. Rather he is an irritant for this reader at least. The other irritating aspect lies in the silly names given to 'bit' characters (one is minded of Dickens, Trollope and Scott): Gregory Shufflebottom the Beadle and the robbers Zacky Blood-sucker, Tom-the Devil, Nick-o-the Blazes, Gaffer Tweak'em and Jem Gripe-all simply grate with the reader, even if the author smugly thought their nomenclature amusing.
By the start of Volume III, Richmond/Tudor has arrived at Milford Haven; Richard is at Nottingham, then at Leicester. More travails are in store for Alwyde. Sent to Sherif [sic] Hutton to give a message to Elizabeth, he is once again imprisoned. He fails to see the Princess, but has counsel with Edward Stanley's estranged squeeze, Anne Harrington. He is then bustled off south to Richard III's tent on the eve of Bosworth. Here he is confronted with the dreadful knowledge that he is the king's son (I guessed that at the beginning of Volume I) - the son of a murderer, of an unnatural monster whom all men hated - whom all men ought to hate.. He is allowed to cross over to Tudor's camp (so unlikely; mind you, Richard has already bamboozled Queen Dowager Elizabeth in the same tent, which was factually impossible!) to explain to Henry why he has to fight on the King's side. Alwyde also hears from the king that the latter loved his mother, one Edith Austen, the only child of a wealthy merchant. Amazingly, she is the very wretch whom Alwyde saw drowned as a mad witch in Volume I! So, now it all makes sense! Alwyde tells no-one who he actually is, although he leaves a scroll to be passed on to Princess Elizabeth explaining this. Once the reader has half-swallowed these totally improbable 'facts', the actual battle can begin. The author follows his named source, William Hutton, in placing the conflict on the slopes of Ambion Hill, now discredited. Richard, of course, is killed, but Alwyde, although seen fighting near his father, disappears.
Henry is now king; Elizabeth goes to London (with her tragic cousin, the simple Earl of Warwick) and marries the Tudor. Edward Stanley, after a misplaced first marriage - luckily his wife dies! - marries a forgiving Anne Harrington and goes on to become Lord Mont-Eagle. Where is Alwyde? On the very last page, Elizabeth and the reader find out.
Elizabeth, during one of her journeys to the coast, halted at a retired, peaceful-looking village...she directed her steps towards the small, neat church...a small, recent tomb had quickly arrested her attention...she instantly drew near to it - gazed eagerly on its simple inscription, and a tear fell on it from her trembling cheek, as she read the name, which it alone bore, of "RICHARD PLANTAGENET". So, it was Richard of Eastwell yet again. This time, though, he had not survived into the 1550s, as Elizabeth was to die in February 1503. And here we have followed his career before Bosworth, unlike Heseltine and others who concentrate on his life after the battle.
The third volume continues the unrelenting attack on the tyrant Richard III - he whose hands were, so deeply, dyed in kindred blood...the loathed, the guilty murderer, stained by a thousand crimes... The king confesses to his son his catalogue of murders: Edward, whom I slew at Tewkesbury...Henry, that first sacrifice of my secret cruelty...Clarence, whose death, by a lying fraud, I procured...Rivers, Hastings, and the whole array of more public murders...by my command, smothered her brothers in the Tower...there is, however, one later deed not known - not even suspected - my murdered queen. All for the sake of compelling ambition. This Richard is the fiend of Shakespeare (without the black humour) and Thomas More. Henry Tudor, on the other hand, possessed the wisdom of a far more advanced age, the thought and prudence of an older experience, to assist him in the conduct of the strife; was brave and courageous to dare and possible efforts... One would not recommend Leicester's novel to members of the Richard III Society.
Inevitably, given that the two princes had been murdered, Perkin Warbeck (though unnamed) is dismissed as a false and crafty imposter.
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