The duke of Gloucester is appointed by a great council of prelates, nobles, and chief citizens, protector of the king and kingdomh.

The duke of Buckingham is appointed chief justice, chamberlain, seneschal and receiver of Wales, and constable of "all the king's castles" there, May 161.

The protector issues proclamations appointing June 22 for the coronation of the young king.

Lord Hastings is seized while at the council-board in the Tower, and beheaded, June 13. The Woodville prisoners are executed at Pomfret shortly after.

The queen allows the duke of York to leave the Sanctuary and join his brother in the Tower.

Ralph Shaw, a preacher, sets forth the Protector's

failed; they remained concealed until Buckingham's rebellion, in which they took part.

The day is uncertain: the first public document now known in which he is styled Protector is dated May 14.

i These grants gave him power to appoint all the officers heretofore appointed by the crown, and to survey and array the population.

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The archbishop of York (Thomas Scott or Rotherham) and the bishop of Ely (John Morton) were also seized. The former was soon released. Morton was given shortly after into the custody of the duke of Buckingham, who was probably persuaded by him to take up arms. On Buckingham's death Morton made his escape and joined Richmond; a pardon was granted to him by Richard, Dec. 11, 1484, but he did not return until Richmond was established on the throne. He was made archbishop of Canterbury, in which post he died, Sept. 1500.

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He was the brother of the lord mayor of London (Sir Edmund Shaw). Taking for his text a passage from the Book of Wisdom (iv. 3), "The multiplying brood of the ungodly shall not thrive, nor take deep rooting from bastard slips, nor lay any fast foundation,' he dwelt on the alleged marriage of Edward IV. to Lady Butler, which if true rendered the young Edward, his brothers and sisters, illegitimate, but it is incredible that he also asserted that Edward and Clarence were base-born; the Protector surely would not thus defame his own mother, who beside favoured his claim; yet this is the statement of Sir Thomas More, who has given form and distinctness to the vague charges of earlier writers.

claim to the throne, in a sermon at Paul's Cross, Sunday, June 22.

The duke of Buckingham makes a speech to the like effect at the Guildhall, Tuesday, June 241.

"The lords spiritual and temporal, and the commons of the land," wait on the Protector at Baynard's Castle, Thursday, June 26, with a "bill of petition, wherein his sure and true title" to the throne "is evidently shewed."

He repairs to Westminster, where certain deputies, in the name of the nobles and people of the north, present a petition to the assembly, desiring that he may take the office and title of king: "the children of Edward IV. being illegitimate, those of the duke of Clarence attainted, and the blood of Richard, duke of York, remaining uncorrupt only in the person of Richard, the Protector, duke of Gloucester."

The petition is received, the Protector assumes the style of Richard the Third, and rides in state as king to St. Paul's," and was received there with great congratulation and acclamation of all the peoplem."

Sir Thomas More asserts that on the following day the lord mayor and aldermen accompanied Buckingham to Baynard's Castle, and there tendered the crown to the Protector; the cotemporary writer Fabian, who usually dwells upon every incident in which the citizens of London are concerned, does not mention this, and it is therefore probably untrue.

Those are Richard's own statements, made to the garrison of Calais, who, having taken an oath to Edward V., required some formal document to justify the transfer of their allegiance,

RICHARD, the youngest son of Richard, duke of York, was born at Fotheringhay in 1450". In his eleventh year he was sent for safety to Flanders, on the occasion of the death of his father, but was speedily recalled by his brother Edward, to whose fortunes he seems to have closely attached himself, accompanying him in his exile in the year 1470, and receiving from him in return many important grants. Very early in his reign Richard had been created duke of Gloucester, and he subsequently became constable, justiciary of Wales, and warden of the west marches; he served under his banner at Barnet and at Tewkesbury, went with him to France, and commanded an army against

"On the feast of the Eleven Thousand Virgins," (i.e. St. Ursula, October 21,) according to Rous.

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.

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

queen.

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