Requiescat in Pace
© Kathy H D Kingsbury, August 26, 2021
It is the third anniversary of the Battle of Bosworth, and William Hobbes, once physician and surgeon to the House of York,
remembers the man he once so proudly served.
August 22, 1488
Holy Trinity Priory Church
Aldgate, London
William Hobbes stepped inside the cool confines of the church of Holy Trinity Priory. He had been a generous benefactor of the priory for many years, and when he died, he intended to be buried here. The way he felt these days, he suspected that could happen sooner rather than later. He was hardly a young man, having been born around 1430, or maybe even earlier as he never knew the exact date, and as an experienced physician he recognized the symptoms – the shortness of breath when even walking a short distance, the tightness in his chest, the tingling that traveled down his left arm. Though he was still a well respected physician and had a number of wealthy patients, his interest in doctoring, indeed in life in general, had died on this day three years ago.
"Ah, Dr. Hobbes, can I help you?" It was the prior coming to greet him. "Were you interested in seeing where your tomb will be placed?"
"Father Prior, it's good to see you," said William, who had enjoyed many lively discussions with the priest over the years. "Yes, I would like that very much, but first I want to pray for a friend who is no longer with us. This is the anniversary of his death."
The prior nodded and both men stood silent for several seconds. A great sadness came over William that even after three years it was still dangerous to publicly mention his name in anything that approached kindness or respect.
"Would you like me to pray with you?" asked Father Prior.
William managed a sad smile. "That would be nice. You know, he was not a monster, certainly not the hunchbacked villain he's made out to be these days."
The prior agreed. "It's sad, the lies and half-truths they spread about him. I remember seeing him during those early months of his reign and thinking how handsome and vigorous he looked, and how fortunate we were to have such a man as our king, but then sorrow struck and his son and his queen were taken from him."
"After that, he was a different man. It was as if he bore the weight of the world upon his shoulders."
"The new king insists that he murdered his nephews. You were with him much of that time. Is it possible he could have done such a thing? Did you ever hear anything?"
William shook his head. "I know as much as you, my friend, which is to say I know nothing. But I'll tell you this; the man I knew would never have committed such an act. But if he did? Then there would have been a damned good reason for it."
"But have you ever wondered?"
"No. I have other, more pressing matters to deal with. I'll leave whatever happened to His Grace and God."
As the two men knelt in prayer, images of the fateful day came rushing at William like a dam bursting, flooding his brain, as vivid as if it had been only yesterday. Richard's naked body, battered and bloodied, slung over a pack horse, treated like a discarded animal carcass. It had broken his heart to see the king he had loved and served treated so poorly in death, his body mocked and defiled, his twisted spine that he had taken such care to conceal in life exposed and stories of it exaggerated, turning him into a vile monster with a loathsome hump.
William could still remember the day when, as King Edward's royal physician, he had been asked to tend the king's youngest brother, the Duke of Gloucester, at the time a young lad of about 12 or 13 years, whose back was troubling him. There were those who would insist that such a disfigurement was a mark of a sinful nature, or of moral depravity, but William knew better. He knew that what young Gloucester was suffering from was nothing more than a spine that wasn't growing straight, possibly because of a childhood injury.
Of course, it took a long time to convince a boy on the cusp of manhood that this was not some punishment from God, and there were times when the lad fell into dark spells, worrying about whether his back would keep him from becoming a knight. Concerned that this moodiness could turn into a serious problem, William decided to test the boy's mettle. One day, he casually suggested that young Richard might want to consider a less strenuous life, perhaps a career in the church. On hearing that, the boy had blown up, displaying that temper the Plantagenets were famous for. How dare William suggest such a thing, he'd shouted before realizing what the physician was trying to prove. From that day on, the lad proved himself a fighter, refusing to accept any limitations his back tried to impose on him.
Over the years, treatments for Gloucester's back were part and parcel of William's work as the king's royal physician. Being nobility of the highest rank, the expensive treatments such as traction therapy, manipulation, and massage were made readily available for the young man. Even when William wasn't around, Gloucester faithfully followed through with the exercises the physician taught him to strengthen his back, and the doctor watched with something akin to paternal pride as the boy grew into manhood and one of the ablest warriors he had ever seen.
When King Edward died unexpectedly, William Hobbes performed one last duty for the monarch he had served for more than 20 years. He made sure the body was properly washed and dressed, then laid out on a board covered with cloth of gold where it rested for two days before it was embalmed and placed in a lead coffin.
From that time on, the former Duke of Gloucester, now King Richard III, kept William on as his personal physician. With growing demands on the new king, William's treatments were needed more than ever.
As the sergeant surgeon, William accompanied the king when he set out to confront Tudor's invading army in that summer of 1485, never thinking that King Richard would be anything but victorious and assumed that the only reason he would be needed would be for nothing more than patching up some cuts and scrapes.
How wrong he had been!
He could still hear the terror in the voices of the panicked Yorkist soldiers running through the camp and screaming in disbelief, "The king is dead! The king is dead!" All he could think of was getting to the body and protecting Richard's secret, but by the time he made it through the chaos and confusion, it was too late and the sight that greeted him had made him sick to his stomach.
He remembered following the victorious army, trance-like, back to Leicester as it paraded the fallen king's corpse, abuse and scorn heaped upon it along the way. He pleaded with those in charge to at least allow him to wash the body, to prepare it for burial. He wasn't asking for any special privilege, but to do what was done every day for the lowliest commoner. But even that was denied the dead man, and William was sent away after being told he was lucky his master was going to be allowed a Christian burial...
"Are you all right, Dr. Hobbes?"
William felt as if he'd awakened from a terrible dream and found he had been crying. "Yes, my friend. I'm fine. I was just...remembering."
The prior put a hand on the physician's shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. "I understand. Take your time, and take comfort in knowing that your friend is beyond all human suffering."
William remained kneeling and prayed a while longer, but finally, his arthritic knees screaming, he rose to his feet.
"Requiescat in pace, Your Grace. I know that you are with our Heavenly Father now, where all the lies being told about you here on earth no longer matter. It was my pleasure and my honor to have served you and your family."
The following month, on September 27, 1488, William Hobbes passed away.
He was beyond the reach of King Henry VII, beyond caring what the usurper thought of the man whose throne he stole or of the people who still loved him, and on his tomb had inscribed, "Here lies William Hobbes, once physician and surgeon of the Duke of York and his most noble sons kings Edward IV and Richard III, to whose soul, and to whose souls, may God be merciful, Amen"
The End
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