Scotland, with which he captured both Berwick and Edinburgh.

When Edward IV. died the duke of Gloucester was in the north, but as he, like his late brother Clarence, had a long-standing quarrel with the Woodvilles, he marched southward, took his nephew out of their hands, and escorted him to London, sending the earl of Rivers, Sir Thomas Gray, Vaughan and Haute, his chief attendants, to Sheriff Hutton and other castles in Yorkshire. He was accompanied by a large body of troops who had served under him in the north, and was at once declared Protector of the kingdom, the queenmother having in the mean time retired to the Sanctuary at Westminster, with her younger son and her five daughters.

So far Richard seems to have been supported by numerous parties whose only bond of union was dislike of the Woodvilles; these were now helpless, and the confederates quarrelled; but the true history of the months of May and June, 1483, has never yet been ascertained. We only know that Hastings, one of the chief opponents of the Woodvilles, was executed, apparently on the spur of the moment, in the Tower: that, shortly after, the earl of Rivers and his friends were put to death at Pomfret, and that between these two events the young duke of York was withdrawn from the Sanctuary (whether by force or fraud is an open question), and joined his brother in the Tower; neither

They were not executed on the same day, as is commonly stated. Hastings was put to death June 13, and Rivers made his will June 23; he is believed to have been beheaded June 25 or 26.

was publicly seen after, and nothing is known, though much has been plausibly conjectured, as to what became of them P.

Whilst these events were in progress Richard had brought forward a claim to the crown, (founded on a pre-contract of marriage of Edward IV. which rendered his union with "dame Elizabeth Gray" invalid, and the attainder of his brother Clarence,) which appeared satisfactory to the parliament; he was in consequence received as king, June 26, and was crowned with much pomp and a larger concourse than ordinary of the nobility, July 6.

Richard made a progress through the country, and repeated the ceremony of his coronation at York, Sept. 8. This was hardly concluded when the duke of Buckingham, many of the old Lancastrians, and some of the Woodvilles combined against him, but were speedily crushed. The earl of Richmond, in concert with them, attempted an invasion, but his fleet was dispersed by bad weather; Richard visited the disturbed districts, and on his return took vigorous measures to guard the coast.

In the parliament which met early in 1484, several statutes were passed, mainly directed against abuses in

The popular theory is, that the two children were murdered by Richard; another, that they were only imprisoned by him, and that their mother contrived the escape of one or both from the Tower, in the interval between Richard's death and the entry of Henry VII. into London; if true, this would account for Henry's harsh treatment of her and her son, the marquis of Dorset.

Thirty-five peers attended it; his mother was present, and Margaret of Richmond (the mother of Henry VII.) bore the train of his

queen.

H

the administration of justice, and some laws were enacted for the protection of traders and the extension of commerce. The same assembly declared the marriage of Edward IV. and his queen a nullity, and revoked all grants made to her, thus rendering her totally dependent on Richard, who induced her to leave the Sanctuary, by the promise of a suitable maintenance for herself and daughters; it also took an oath to support the right of Richard's son to the throne. This arrangement was foiled by the young prince's death soon after, and then Richard's nephew, John, earl of Lincoln, was recognised as his heir. The king, however, felt his throne perpetually endangered by the hostility of the Lancastrian exiles, and endeavoured, but without success, to get their chiefs into his power. He made a truce with Scotland, and knowing that a plan was on foot for a marriage between Henry, earl of Richmond, and Elizabeth of York, he laboured to thwart it by offering to marry her himself, a proposal to which both she and her mother seem to have agreed1. But before anything could be done, Richmond landed in Wales, and penetrated without opposition to the centre of England, with the secret concurrence of many who professed to adhere to Richard. One decisive battle took place at Bosworth, in Leicestershire, and there the king lost both his crown and his life, on the 22nd of August, 1485. His body,

8

A strong presumption arises from this that their nearest relatives did not believe Richard to be the murderer of his nephews. The duke of Norfolk, Lord Ferrers, Sir Robert Brakenbury, were killed; and his chancellor of the exchequer, Catesby, taken and beheaded. He is mentioned in a Lancastrian distich as one of Richard's principal councillors :

"The Cat, the Rat, and Lovel, that dog,
Rule all England under the Hog."

which was found covered with wounds on the field, was carelessly thrown across a horse, and carried into Leicester, where it was interred in the Grey Friars monastery t.

Richard married, after much opposition from his brother Clarence, Anne, the second daughter of the earl of Warwick, and widow of Prince Edward. She died, after a lingering illness, March 16, 1485, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.

Their only child, Edward, born at Middleham, in Yorkshire, in 1473, was by Edward IV. created earl of Salisbury, and in the first year of Richard's reign, prince of Wales and earl of Chester, and lord-lieutenant of Ireland. He died April 9, 1484.

Richard had a natural daughter, Katherine, who married William Herbert, earl of Huntingdon, but is believed to have died shortly after. Two natural sons are also ascribed to him, and a tale has been told of one of them living in Kent to the time of Edward VI. (1550), and following for safety the craft of a bricklayer, but its truth is very doubtful.

The royal arms remained the same as in the time of Edward IV., but Richard adopted different supporters: sometimes a lion and a boar, sometimes two white boars. Beside the badges of his house, the sun in splendour,

The Rat is Sir Robert Ratcliff (evidently a devoted partisan; see Note B.) Lovel was particularly obnoxious, both on account of his rank, and as the son of a Lancastrian.

A mean tomb was erected over his remains by Henry VII. at a cost, as appears from his Privy Purse Accounts, of £10. Is. At the suppression of the monastery, this was destroyed, and Richard's stone coffin is said to have long after served as a horse-trough at an inn in the town.

and the white rose, which he bore sometimes separately, at others one within the other, he had a singular cognisance of a falcon with a virgin's face holding a white

The character by which Richard III. is popularly known was drawn in the first instance by two or three obscure writers who lived in the time of his victorious opponent"; but their glaringly prejudiced statements▾ have been adopted, and so embellished and recommended by the talents of Sir Thomas More, Lord Bacon, and Shakspeare, that they have taken a place in history, and have caused him to be generally regarded rather as a monster than a man. The Public Statutes and Records of his reign, however, exhibit him in a very different light, and their unimpeachable testimony ought to decide the question. It may, too, be remarked, that the crimes laid to his charge are not supported by anything like conclusive evidence; while it is certain that his succession to the throne was agree

These are, the anonymous continuer of the Chronicle of Croyland; Thomas Rous, a priest of Warwick; and Robert Fabian, an alderman and city annalist.

We give as a specimen a few lines from Rous, which contain the chief charges: "Gloucester obtained, or rather invented, the title of Protector. . . . . He received his master, Edward, with kisses and fawning caresses, and in three months murdered him and his brother, poisoned his own wife, and, what was most detestable both to God and the English nation, slew the sanctified Henry VI."