Note 167e — Chapter VIII · THE FIELD OF THE BATTLE OF BOSWORTH. [157a]

Thomas Lord Stanley. (See Chap. II.) There is a very remarkable peculiarity connected with Lord Stanley’s (and the same observation applies in some degree also to Sir William Stanley’s) defection from Richard, and with his joining the Earl of Richmond, which has never been explained, as far as I am aware, by any author. Richard thought that he could secure Lord Stanley in his interest, by conferring benefits upon him, and made him Constable of England for life, with an annuity of £100 a year payable out of the revenue of the county of Lancaster, and created him a Knight of the Garter. The reasons usually assigned by historians for Lord Stanley’s defection are, his attachment to the memory of Edward IV., and his being faithful to the young King Edward V.; the attempt believed to have been made by Richard to cause him to be destroyed at the council (when Lord Hastings was seized and beheaded) in 1483; and his being then committed to prison for a time by Richard—all which are said to have rankled in his mind; besides the influence which his wife exercised over him in favour of the Earl of Richmond, Lord Stanley having married to his second wife the Countess of Richmond, the mother of the earl. The date of Lord Stanley’s marriage with the Countess of Richmond does not appear to be stated in the Baronages, but it certainly occurred at least ten years before the reign of Richard III., because the Countess of Richmond is mentioned as being the wife of Lord Stanley in Rot. Parl. 13th Edward IV. (1473) vol. vi. fo. 77. No plan for an insurrection could be better arranged than that of the Duke of Buckingham in the first year of Richard III. (1483), yet nothing could have worse success. But if Lord Stanley and his brother had brought forward their power, and had taken an active part in it, the probability is, that Richard would at that time have been dethroned. Neither Lord Stanley nor Sir William Stanley, however, appears to have taken the slightest step, or to have been in any shape concerned in that insurrection; yet precisely the same reasons which are assigned for Lord Stanley’s defection from Richard at the battle of Bosworth, in 1485, appear equally to apply to influence him in 1483, when the Duke of Buckingham took up arms. It is very difficult to account for Lord Stanley’s then remaining quiescent, unless we may infer that there was a feeling of jealousy in his mind, and that he suspected that as the Duke of Buckingham was a more powerful nobleman than himself and was of the blood royal of England (see Chap. III. pp. 48, 49, note 4), it was possible that he might, if successful, claim the crown in his own right; or that Lord Stanley did not consider that the feeling of the noblemen and gentry against Richard, was then sufficiently ripe or decided for an insurrection; or that he was watching events, with the purpose of adhering at last to the strongest.