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THE HERALDRY OF YORK MINSTER.
By his wife, Anne, daughter of Ralph Nevill, Earl of Westmoreland,
the Duke left seven sons and five daughters. His eldest son, Humphrey,
Earl of Stafford, who had married Margaret, daughter and co-heir of
Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, was slain at St. Albans, leaving
two sons.
Henry, the eldest, now second Duke of Buckingham, with Humphrey,
his brother, were committed by Edward IV. to the care of Anne, Duchess
of Exeter ;
and on coming of age, played a conspicuous part in the history
of the period. Dugdale (Baronage) tells us that before entering the maelstrom
of political strife, he sent his trusty servant, Pershall, to Richard
Duke of Gloucester, in the north, assuring him that he was ready to
come to his assistance with a thousand friends, but stipulating for the
Earldom of Hereford, and the ample manors of his kinsman, for so doing.
Shakespeare, in his play of Richard III., graphically pourtrays how
Richard despised him, and how Buckingham became his
tool.
" My other self, my counsel's consistory, my oracle, my prophet, my
" dear cousin, I, as a child, will go thy direction,"* the King says, when
speaking to him but
; when, soliloquising, he speaks of him, and .Hastings,
and Stanley, as "so many simple gulls."* On the other hand when
Hastings announced that the Queen, with the Duke of York, have taken
sanctuary, Buckingham suggests to Cardinal Boucher: "Lord Cardinal,
"will your Grace persuade the Queen to send the Duke of York unto
his brother presently?" And on his hesitating to undertake such a task,
he overcomes his ***
scruples with taunting words :
"You are too senseless obstinate, my Lord;
"
Too ceremonious and traditional;
" Oft have I heard of Sanctuary men,
But Sanctuary children ne'er till now."
When the child has been brought, and, ere he goes with his brother
to the Tower, makes some precocious remarks to Gloucester, the Duke of
Buckingham seeks to exasperate the Lord Protector against the Queen,
by saying to him :
" Think you, my Lord, this little prattling York
Was not incensed by his subtle mother,
To taunt and scorn you thus opprobriously ? " f
He sets on Catesby to sound Lord Hastings "
How far he stands
" affected to our purpose." J
He is present at the Council at the Tower, and assures Hastings
"you and he are near in love," and yet, when Catesby has reported
that "he will not desert his master's child," stands by while Gloucester, in a
simulated burst of rage, orders Hastings
to instant execution.
Act II. Sc. I.
I
Act I. Sc. 3. t
Act III. Sc. I. Act III. Sc. 4.