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of planning and so fixes Richard’s actions and thus his decision as occurring some time before this Sunday. Parenthetically, Shaa died in the following year and his death was attributed by More to shame and remorse. 73 Shame and remorse seem to have fallen out of favour as modern causes of death, and we can certainly see this as another attempt at post hoc condemnation on More’s behalf.
From Conception to Completion
     
    In the days that followed, the path that Richard had created to the throne must have followed to a reasonable degree upon his expectations. One of his primary concerns since Stony Stratford had been the fate of those of the Woodville clan that he had secured there and now his strategy here was completed. On 23 June, Anthony Woodville, Lord Rivers made his will while at the Castle of Sheriff Hutton. 74 Shortly after, he was moved from Sheriff Hutton to Pontefract (Pomfret) Castle. In his will, he named Russell and Catesby as executors. It is of more than passing interest that he named Catesby here, and it is a point to which I shall return. The campaign to push Richard’s legitimate candidature as king persisted in the capital and was met with some degree of doubt and reticence. However, since the power resided with Richard this was largely a public relations exercise rather than a potential plebiscite. On 24 June, in the north of England, Ratcliffe arrived at Pontefract with the execution orders for Rivers, who had come from Sheriff Hutton, as well as Grey, who was brought from Middleham Castle, and Vaughan, who was at Pontefract already. 75 A day later they were executed, and, like Hastings, they received no trial. 76 It is just conceivable and barely logistically possible that Ratcliffe could have returned to London after delivering Richard’s letter of 10 June to York and 11 June to Lord Neville. This would, presumably, have involved some very hard riding from the 16th onward to London in a four-day journey and then another four days to return to Pontefract. It appears much more likely that Ratcliffe had the orders of execution with him when he first left London on, presumably, 11 June. This being so, it is certainly possible that Hastings saw the execution warrants as More speculated. As such, Hastings would surely have had occasion to be even more grateful and loyal to Richard, who had now dispatched some of his principal enemies. Of course, we cannot rule out the possibility that the orders were carried to Ratcliffe by a subsequent messenger, 77 but this seems an unlikely task to have entrusted to anyone but a very close and influential associate.
    In the days which followed, it appears to have been Buckingham’s role to act as the ‘front-man’ to convince a sufficient number of people to accept Richard’s claim. At a meeting in Westminster, Mancini noted that Buckingham was to present these respective grounds, which later appeared in the Titulus Regius of 1484. Among these claims, the issue of the pre-contract stands out. Although not the only objection, it must have been the one with the greatest probability of material provenance. The accusation of the use of witchcraft, especially in relation to Jacquetta, Duchess of Bedford, might well have been an expected and even required smear. The problem concerning the secrecy of Edward IV’s marriage to Elizabeth Woodville, the lack of approval by the lords and the absence of the publication of the banns are hardly crucial reasons, since the alleged marriage with Eleanor Butler was of exactly the same form. Thus we are left with Stillington’s confirmation of the pre-contract.
    On 26 June, just one day after the Pontefract executions, the lords gathered at Baynard’s Castle in order to petition Richard to take the throne. 78 As the front-man for this enterprise, Buckingham’s activities were nearing fruition. After an evident show of humility, Richard accepted the throne and began to put his own administration in place. 79 Of particular