Gertrude Hollis' 'The King who was never crowned' 1905

 

SPCK first edition - n.d. [1905]

Gertrude Hollis does not figure in any of my Companion to Literature volumes and the Victorian Fiction database of Troy Bassett has 'birth and death dates unknown', listing just four books. To be fair, this is because most of her books were published in the early 20th century. Apart from the book featured above, I have five others of her works, none of them dated: Spurs and Bride (1903); A Slave of the Saracen (1907); Hugh the Messenger (1905); Philip Okeover's Pagehood (1907); Jenkyn Cliffe Bedesman (1910). I was able to get the publication dates from one of my 'Bibles' - Ernest A. Baker's A Guide to Historical Fiction (1914). Hollis is in the tradition of Emily Sarah Holt, Evelyn Everett-Green, Charlotte Yonge and other women authors of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, writing mainly for older children and, more especially, for girls. Her fiction certainly has more than a touch of didacticism and some of her other works were aimed directly at the Church and Christian teachings - Our Wonderful Bible (1914); Every Child's Book about the Church (1916); and How the Church came to England (1919). 

This is a  straightforward tale for youngsters, of twelve year-old Jasper Brackenbury, (born just after the battle of Tewkesbury) whose father is owner of an ancient manor-house deep in the Northamptonshire woods. It is agreed with the family's kinsman, Sir Robert Brackenbury, that Jasper will be sent to London and the Tower, where Sir Robert is Constable, to learn to be a knight. On Jasper's way south, he stops at the very Inn at Northampton which Richard, duke of Gloucester and the Duke of Buckingham take over for their troops. They, too, are on their way to London, as Edward IV has recently died. The author then makes Jasper the witness of Richard's deceit towards Earl Rivers and Sir Richard Grey and his subsequent control of the young Edward V. Luckily, Jasper has impressed the duke, who makes the boy a companion for Edward and, eventually, his younger brother, Richard. (Why is everyone called either Richard or Edward?) Jasper is to witness Lord Hastings' execution; Cardinal Bourchier persuading Queen Elizabeth to hand over the Duke of York; Friar's Shaw's sermon outside St Paul's; and the night the two princes were moved from the Royal Lodgings to the Bloody Tower. 

The Duke of Gloucester gets a bad press throughout the book. On page 8, he is introduced as Crouchback. A few pages on, The Crouchback maketh himself friends amongst the old nobility, and it bodeth no good to the queen's kindred when Gloucester, Buckingham, and my Lord Hastings are friends. A pen portrait of him is given at Northampton: He was not tall, looking short even on horseback. One shoulder seemed to be higher than the other, though it was evident that his clothing had been padded, to conceal the deformity as much as possible. His cheeks were lean and sunken, and his grey eyes seemed half-hidden by the over-hanging brows beneath a forehead unusually broad and high...[Jasper] noticed that his left arm was partly withered, and moved with stiffness when he raised it to his cap. And further on: ...all ties, natural or moral, went for little with his cunning and resolute nature. Capable of the most profound dissimulation, absolutely rigid in his own purposes, and utterly insensible to any instincts of gentleness or mercy. It is suggested that he had a hand in the murders of both Henry VI and the Duke of Clarence. Sir Robert Brackenbury says to his wife that Richard hateth every man who is not deformed like himself. The young Edward V refers to him as a griple [greedy, grasping] man.

The Princes meet in the Tower

The author closely follows Sir Thomas More's account (she admits this in a footnote; another footnote states that it was the bodies of the princes which were discovered in 1672 and honourably buried in Westminster Abbey) - the Bishop of Ely's strawberries; Miles Forest, Will Slaughter and Dighton being involved with the two princes in the Tower. Bishop Morton is described as a kindly-faced, earnest looking man! The last chapter is entitled 'A Mystery Solved' and it is set sixteen years later, in early September 1499. Jasper Brackenbury, now Sir Jasper and scarcely thirty years of age, is in a fishing boat on the Thames and near the Tower. He recounts to a friend the traditional story of the princes' murder and burial.

Gertrude Hollis knows her history and she writes very realistically about the late fifteenth century. The description of the area around St Paul's and the sermon of Dr. Shaw is excellent. Unless you are a fervent member of the Richard III Society, one could say that her history is pretty sound, if traditional She is prone to Miss Holt's desire to explain any strange word to her young readers. There are many footnotes, such as fardels = packages; Balistarius = keeper of crossbows; porcellies = sucking-pigs; leach = cream, with sugar and almonds. I did not know  that the four card suits - clubs, diamonds, hearts and spades were originally respectively rabbits, pinks, roses and columbines!