At the royal lavabo, Cardinal Wolsey is said to have dipped his hands into the basin held by Edward Stafford, Duke of Buckingham. According to George Borrow, the Duke permitted the water to spill upon the prelate’s shoes, whereupon the Cardinal swore he would sit upon the skirts of Stafford’s doublet; on the morrow, Buckingham appeared at court with his skirts shorn away. This anecdote, preserved by the chronicler, opens upon a rivalry wherein courtly humiliation and political denunciation would ultimately converge. The Duke’s father had laid down his life attempting to unseat Richard III in order to place Henry Tudor upon the throne. Edward thus inherited an illustrious rank and vast possessions, yet such alliances afforded him no shelter against disgrace.
In 1520, the foremost peers of the realm were summoned to attend Henry VIII at his projected meeting with Francis I. Borrow records that Buckingham censured the ruinous magnificence of the pageant, laying the blame squarely at Wolsey’s door. The Duke subsequently retired to his estates in Kent; there, accusations of extortion leveled against his steward, Charles Knyvet, moved him to dismiss the man from his service. Borrow regards this dismissal as another turning point toward Stafford’s undoing. When Knyvet entered the Cardinal’s employ, his testimony became one of the principal engines of the prosecution.
The bill of indictment ascribed to the Duke certain words spoken at Thornbury in the presence of Ralph, Earl of Westmorland: were the King to die, Buckingham allegedly declared, he stood next in succession by blood. The Crown linked this utterance to his consultations with Hopkins, adducing it as proof of overweening ambition. The record leaves unclear in what temper the sentence was delivered, or whether it was ever uttered precisely as the witnesses reported.
The accusation then reached back nine years prior to the trial. The Duke had instructed his chaplain, John de la Court, to confer with Nicholas Hopkins, a Carthusian monk of Henton Priory. According to the indictment cited by Borrow, de la Court repaired to the cloister on the twenty-fourth day of April 1512 to inquire what the monk foresaw; Hopkins was said to have answered that the Duke “should have all,” advising him to win the love of the commons. The bill proceeded to charge the monk with darker prognostications, notably that Buckingham should be king. It alleged that a second missive was dispatched in July, and that in the ensuing spring the Duke journeyed in person to Henton, conversing with Hopkins under the seal of confession. The document further enumerated the ducal benefactions: an annuity for the brethren’s wine, a promised sum for an aqueduct, and monies placed directly into the monk’s hands. In the indictment, these gifts were construed as bribes to purchase counsel or advance the Duke’s ascendancy; this imputation of treasonable intent remains a bare allegation.
Borrow next contrasts this with the account Buckingham himself delivered in a written confession following his committal to the Tower. The Duke admitted having visited Hopkins in confession, yet maintained that the monk had merely assured him King Henry would achieve great renown in France, and that the King of Scots, should he invade England, would never return alive. Hopkins had likewise prayed for the continuance of Henry’s issue and urged the restitution of certain lands detained contrary to the testament of Henry VII. Buckingham claimed he had subsequently imparted these tidings to his chancellor, returning to the recluse after the French campaign to acknowledge the truth of his forecast. The statement concluded with a visit undertaken alongside his son, Lord Stafford, and the Earl of Westmorland. Hopkins, unacquainted with the youth, inquired who he might be, presently observing that some of Buckingham’s blood and name should prove great men. This recital did not dispel the charges, but it shifted their tenor: in place of an oracle foretelling the King’s death and Buckingham’s accession, the Duke depicted a devout monk loyal to Henry and solicitous for lawful restitution.
Other articles lent a more material gravity to the Crown’s narrative. The chancellor, Robert Gilbert, was alleged to have procured for his master cloths of gold, silver, and velvet to the value of some three hundred pounds; these, according to the indictment, Buckingham bestowed upon knights, gentlemen of the King’s chamber, and yeomen of the guard to purchase their allegiance. He was further charged with having sought license to retain men in Herefordshire, Gloucestershire, and Somerset, and with dispatching armaments into Wales. Such purchases, suits for liveries, and gifts were thus assembled by the prosecution to suggest the covert preparation of an armed force against the sovereign.
The prosecution relied heavily upon the depositions of the Duke’s servants and familiars. Charles Knyvet, late of the ducal household, imputed to him overt threats against the King and his councillors following a rebuke concerning his retainers. At East Greenwich, Buckingham had reportedly boasted that were he committed to the Tower, the chief contrivers of his arrest should not long triumph; on another occasion, he was said to have laid his hand upon his dagger whilst inveighing against Henry’s governance. Some months later, at the Rose Inn, Knyvet attributed to him a further discourse touching Hopkins’s prophecies and the King’s demise. These, it must be observed, are testimonies preserved in an act of accusation, not words overheard independently by Borrow.
In Westminster Hall, the Duke of Norfolk presided as Lord High Steward. Buckingham pleaded not guilty; upon the reading of the indictment, he denounced it as false and forged to deprive him of his life. He sought to answer the particulars and demanded that Knyvet, Gilbert, de la Court, and Hopkins be brought face to face with him. Borrow records that all four stood to their depositions and were thereupon redelivered to the officers of the Tower. Bidden to offer any further defense, the Duke remained silent; the peers withdrew to deliberate. Unanimously, they pronounced him guilty. Norfolk, with tears in his eyes as Borrow relates, pronounced the sentence of death.
Upon the barge that bore him back to the Tower, the edge of the axe was turned toward him, Borrow writes. Sir Thomas Lovel offered him the cushion and carpet prepared for his seat; the Duke refused them, declaring that he had set forth for Westminster as Duke of Buckingham, but returned as nothing more than Edward Bohun. Brought ashore at the Temple, he passed through the city amid the commiseration of the crowd and the murmurs of those who accounted him too proud.
Within the Tower, a royal message apprized him that the barbarous penalties of high treason were remitted in favor of simple decapitation. On the seventeenth day of May 1521, he was led forth to Tower Hill. Borrow attributes to him a final protestation of fidelity to Henry VIII. Thereafter, the severed head and body were delivered to the Austin Friars for burial.