Most of what we know of Francis suggests he was a calm man, not given to fighting and plotting, but capable, good at organisation and generally uncontroversial. This is the impression of the man before the death of his friend Richard III, after which he became a passionate rebel, whose desire for revenge seems to have been stronger than any other impulse.
This suggests something of depths previously hidden in Francis, but it is likely that this behaviour was a change in him due to strong grief and rage, not that he was, hidden from chroniclers and rumours, an active man of wild passions.
We cannot know, of course, what he was like emotionally, but the change in what we know of him after Richard`s death is notable, more so since as Rosemary Horrox and Joanne M.Williams, among others, have pointed out, Francis was apparently not interested in having anything but personal political power when Richard was king, and despite having wide-spread possessions, does not seem to have even tried to establish himself as an involved landowner with a large power base.
In fact, there is some evidence that indicates that perhaps he did not only show no interest in it, but that his health prevented him or at least made it more difficult for him.
Naturally, since none of his paperwork, such as account books, survives to this day, this is an assumption based on some circumstantial evidence, unsupported by any hard facts such as frequent recorded payments made to a physician. Despite this, however, there are some hints that could indicate that Francis may not have enjoyed good health throughout his life.
A minor hint towards this could be found in the arrangements he made for his wife Anne in case of her widowhood, in which he made no provisions for possible children she could still have. While, as mentioned in an earlier article, this could be explained by him knowing that at the moment of writing, she could not be pregnant, usually such provisions were still made, since they were not meant to be changed every time something like that happened. That Francis did not take the possibility of becoming a father into account is notable, especially since it is more than likely that he and Anne would have tried and hoped for an heir. The only sensible reason why they would not have is if they were somehow not able to, for example because of some sort of health problem.
In itself, this is not very telling, of course. Maybe they did have hope and it simply did not reflect in the arrangements he made for whatever reason, perhaps because he meant to change them soon. In the light of some other evidence, it could be significant, though.
For example, it is also notable that going by all we know, Francis chose not to travel a lot. As alluded to above, he prefered to stay at court, and even during his early years before he became lord chamberlain, he did not built power bases, as he could have. While he did try to establish himself in Oxfordshire and there is no indication he had any problems there, there is no indication he tried, or succeeded, in building up special loyalty to him there. His attempts to do so apparently limited themselves to his northern lands, where he indeed succeeded in building loyalty to him. In fact, Rosemary Horrox has pointed out that it is remarkable and somewhat unusual that Francis apparently made no attempt to establish himself as local power in the Midlands even after he had been granted even more lands there than he had already had after the Buckingham rebellion. Horrox notes that his lack of personal involvement there was unusual, and there is no indication that he ever even left court to see at least some of his new possessions.
This is remarkable because, as pointed out in an earlier article, there is every indication Francis wanted lands just as much as any other noble at the time. That he did not try to be a well-known lord in all of those he had or even fulfilled expectations of being seen there occassionally is, under these circumstances, rather strange, and argues he must have had a good reason not to do so. Again, we cannot know what it was,, but it gives rise to speculation.
Tying into that is the fact that though Francis was hugely honoured by Richard and given tasks and importance at court, including of course the post of lord chamberlain, all of those did not require him to leave court, nor even appoint a deputy. As lord chamberlain, chief butler, privy counsellor, he was not expected to travel or see that anything was done away from court. Taken together with the last point, it seems that Francis did not want to, nor was expected to by Richard who knew him well, travel more than he had to with court.
Another point of note is that Francis, as discussed somewhere else, was surprisingly absent from any and all plotting, even when he, like in the early summer of 1483, was right in the middle of it, and that not even the most hostile sources suspected him of being involved in it. This may very well have been due to him simply not being a plotter by nature, but again, it shows him as acting somewhat unusual for a man of his standing and in his position at the time.
Similarly, going by all we know, his lack of involvement in politics before Richard became king and lack of entanglement in any large political schemes or plots even during his time as lord chamberlain are notable, and so is the very fact that Francis was often not present during political events when it would have been expected before Edward IV`s death.
For example, despite having fought under Richard of Gloucester in the Scots campaign in 1481 and having apparently distinguished himself enough to be knighted, he took no part in the first bit of the continued campaign Richard led in 1482. This is particularly strange because Francis, a month later, refered in a letter to not being able to come south because if he did so, it would be thought he was trying to run away from the war. Apparently, he did not fear that his lack of participation in the first part of the anewed campaign would be used against him, nor did anyone ever do so.
Another example is the fact he was not at Parliament in 1478. J.M.Williams speculates that he was not summoned, but comments that this is strange since while it is possible he "came of age too late for the wheels of bureaucracy to start turning", he had "receive[d] license to enter his estates two weeks before the summons were issued on 20th November 1477". His absence from Parliament in 1478 is therefore somewhat strange, especially since there is no evidence that he was in any way in Edward`s disfavour and the license to enter his lands had arrived remarkably prompt after his twenty-first birthday. The reason why he had not been summoned must therefore have been one that had nothing to do with any political quarrels and is unlikely to have been due to the slowness of the bureaucracy. What it was, again, is sheerest guesswork, but it is another instance of him not being somewhere he could have been expected to be, for reasons almost certainly not political.
All of this is, of course, just a collection of facts which could have several explanations. Taken together, however, they create a picture of Francis not at all being a particularly active man, and in several instances avoiding physically taxing activities . Since we do know of several instances where he did fight alongside Richard, like in summer 1481 and the latter part of the Scots campaign in 1482, as well as of his activities after Richard`s death, and equally know that his failure to become a local power on his widespread possessions was not because he did not care about owning lands, it seems clear he did not avoid them out of disinterest or cowardice.
Therefore, it may well be that he often chose to avoid strenuous physical activities, and was given honours that would not require him to do such, because his health did not permit him to do so.
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