rather as an exercise of paradoxical inge- with every appearance of intimate friendnuity than on account of any uncertainty ship, to the entrance of Stony Stratford, respecting the events which occurred in where Gloucester accused Rivers and Grey the bloodstained summer of 1483. of having taught the young monarch to

Scarcely had the wars of the Roses been distrust the protector. Rivers, who, as the extinguished when new factions sprung up historian tells us, was a well-spoken man, from the jealousy always felt towards court defended himself with his accustomed abilifavorites by the ancient nobility. Such fac- ties; but as he could not prove that he was tions characterize the Plantagenet reigns, no obstacle to Richard's ambition, his deand more especially those of the princes of fence was vain. "They took him and put York, who, having long been subjects, con- him in ward." On being ushered into the tinued their habits of intermarriage with presence of the king at Stony Stratford, subjects. Perhaps these dispositions gained they assured him that "the marquess his some accession from the temperament and brother and Rivers his uncle had compassed propensities of the amorous Edward, who, to rule the king and the realm, and to sublong after he had been notoriously unfaith-due and destroy its noble blood." The unful to the queen, continued to load her fortunate boy answered, with touching simkindred with honors and wealth. Among plicity, "What my lord marquess may have the court or queen's party, the principal done in London I cannot say; but I dare persons were, her accomplished brother earl answer for my uncle Rivers and my brother Rivers, her sons by the first marriage, the here, that they be innocent of any such marquess of Dorset and lord Richard Grey, matter." The Woodvilles were instantly and her brother-in-law lord Lyle. The ordered to be conveyed to Pomfret castle. noblemen who were the personal friends of " Gloucester and Buckingham sent away the late king as well as the ancient adhe- from the king whom it pleased them, and rents of the house of York, such as the set new servants about him, such as liked lords Hastings, Stanley, and Howard, were better them than him; at which dealing he jealous of the Woodvilles, and waited with wept, and was nothing content; but it bootimpatience the appearance of two princes, ed not." On the advance to London, their who might balance that family of favorites; purposes were evident to those whom they -Richard duke of Gloucester, who com- most concerned. The queen fled from her manded in the war against Scotland, and palace at Westminster at midnight, to take Henry duke of Buckingham, the descend- sanctuary in the adjoining abbey. The ant of Thomas of Woodstock, the sixth son confusion and hurry with which her furniof Edward the third, who was then at his ture was scattered over the floor by her afcastle. Edward was at the time of his ac- frighted attendants afford the best proof of cession at Ludlow castle, in the hands of the extent of their fears, "The queen his mother's family. As soon as Richard herself," we are told, "sat alone on the learnt the tidings of his brother's death, he rushes all desolated and dismayed." On marched towards the south with all speed, the 4th of May, the day originally destined in pursuance, as afterwards appeared, of a for the coronation, which from the evident secret understanding with Hastings, who influence of new purposes was now postremained at court, and with Buckingham, poned to the 22d of June, the young prince who hastened with a body of adherents, was led by his uncle with due state into professedly to join the king. Lord Rivers, his capital.

lulled into security by the assurances and Richard assumed the title of protector of professions of the illustrious dukes, made the king and kingdom; a station for which haste to meet them with his royal charge. the analogy of the constitution in an herediOn the 29th of April, Edward V., accom-tary monarchy seemed to designate him. It panied by the Woodvilles, had reached seemed probable that Hastings and Stanley, Stony Stratford, and on the same day the the friends of Edward IV., began to show duke of Gloucester arrived at Northampton, misgivings at the designs of Richard, esten miles distant. Lord Rivers immediately pecially after he had compelled the queen went to pay a compliment to the duke of to surrender the duke of York to him, under Gloucester, and to receive his orders. They, the specious color of lodging him with his together with Buckingham, who appears to elder brother in the royal palace of the have arrived the same day, remained at the Tower. On the 13th of June, a council latter town till next morning; and though was held in the Tower to regulate the apthe suspicions of lord Rivers were excited proaching coronation; at which were presby the outlets of Northampton being guard- ent the lords Hastings and Stanley, together ed during the night, he professed to be sat- with several prelates. Richard, affecting isfied with the explanation given of that an unwonted gaiety, desired the bishop of circumstance. He and his brother rode in Ely to send for a dish of strawberries for attendance on Gloucester and Buckingham, breakfast, Retiring from council for almost

an hour, he returned with his looks and which was to render his former guilt profitgestures entirely altered, and with a sour able, he would have disappointed all reaand angry countenance, knitting his brows, sonable expectation, by stopping short under and gnawing his lips. After a short time such a load of criminality, when, by wading he broke his sullen silence, by crying out, one step farther in blood, he might seat him"Of what are they worthy who have com- self on the throne. His uncontested acts passed the death of me, the king's protector compel us to believe that he could not be by nature as well as by law?" "To be withheld, by scruples of conscience or visitpunished," said Hastings, "as heinous trai-ings of nature, from seizing a sceptre which tors. "That is," replied the protector, still seemed within his grasp. An unbiassed dissembling, "that sorceress my brother's reader, who has perused the narrative of wife, and her kindred." This reply was not his avowed deeds, will therefore learn with ungrateful to Hastings, the mortal enemy little surprise, but rather regard as the natuof the Woodvilles, who said, “Heinous, in- ral sequel of his previous policy, that Eddeed, if true." The protector, weary of ward V. and Richard duke of York soon dissimulation, cried aloud, "Yes! I will after silently disappeared from the Tower, make good your answer upon your body, and were generally believed to be murdertraitor, in spite of your ifs and ands." Then ed; that no inquest was made for their he clapped his fist on the board with a great blood, or no show of public inquiry into the rap, at which token a man who stood with- mysterious circumstances of their disappearout the door, cried out, Treason! Men in ance attempted. The mind of such a readarmor, as many as the apartment could con- er, without exacting further evidence, would tain, entered into it. Richard said to Hast- gradually prepare him for the belief, that ings, "I arrest thee, traitor!" Stanley and such a tale told of royal infants sufficiently the other obnoxious lords were committed proved their death to be a murder, and that to various dungeons. The protector bade the murder was commanded by those who Hastings "to shrive (confess) himself apace; reaped its fruit. None of the circumstances for by St. Paul I will not dine till I see thy immediately following could tend to shake head off!" "It booted him not to ask why? such a belief. On Monday, June 16th, He took a priest at a venture, and made a three days after the murder of Hastings short shrift; for the protector made haste and the Woodvilles, the consent of the to dinner, which he might not go to until queen to the removal of Richard, her secthey were done, for saving of his oath." He ond son, to the Tower, from the sanctuary was brought down to the green by the chap- at Westminster, was extorted by the archel, and being laid on a long log of timber, bishop of Canterbury, under the pretext which happened to be near, his head was that he should not be in sanctuary among struck off, without any form of trial or even thieves and murderers, at the moment of so specification of his pretended offence. Those august and sacred a ceremony as his browho, after such deeds, could have doubted ther's coronation; although it be unquesthe dire designs of the merciless protector, tionably certain that such a solemnity was, must surely have relinquished their opinion, then at least, no longer intended. On the when they learned shortly after, that, on next day, the 17th of June, the last exerthe very 13th of June which witnessed the cise of regal authority in the name of Edmurder of lord Hastings, a like scene was ward V. appears, in the form of a commisexhibited near the northern frontier of the sion to supply the royal household with prokingdom. On that day, Radcliffe, one of visions for six months.* Richard's emissaries, entering the castle of Meanwhile Richard, probably for the Pomfret at the head of a body of armed purpose of reviving the recollection of his men, put Rivers and his friends to death, brother's licentious manners, caused his before a crowd of bystanders, with as little subservient ecclesiastics to inflict penance semblance of judicial proceeding as was on Jane Shore, the wife of an opulent citiVouchsafed to Hastings. zen of London, who had been the beloved

These horrible transactions, which in mistress of the late king. "Proper she their general outlines are disputed by no was and fair," says Sir Thomas More; "yet writer, have been here related almost in the delighted not men so much in her beauty words of Sir Thomas More, one of the few as in her pleasant behavior; for a proper historians who had an opportunity of prov-wit had she, and could both read well and ing their abhorrence of falsehood, by choos- write; ready and quick of answer; neither ing to suffer a death which the vulgar ac-mute nor babbling. Many mistresses the counted ignominious, rather than to utter a king had, but her he loved; whose favor, lie. Had Richard perpetrated so many to say the truth, she never abused to any crimes for a less temptation than a crown; had he shrunk from the only deed of blood

* Rymer.

man's hurt, but often employed to many a and it was certainly possible that Stillington, man's relief."* The cruel selection of such a man very capable of being the minister a person for ignominious punishment arose, of a prince's vices, may have been privy probably, in part from her plebeian condi- to intrigues, in which promises of marriage tion, and in part from her having become may have been employed as means of sethe paramour of Hastings, who, though duction. Two days afterwards the duke enamored of her in Edward's lifetime, had of Buckingham harangued the citizens in then so much respect for the taste of his the same strain with Shaw; and on the master, as to abstain from nearer approaches 25th of June that nobleman presented to to her. Having thus insulted the memory Richard, in his mother's house at Baynard's of his brother, and removed the friends of Castle, a parchment, purporting to be a his nephews, Richard began openly to at- declaration of the three estates in favor of tack the title of the late king's children to Richard, as the only legitimate prince of the throne. The narrative of his conduct the house of York. But as the three esis full of confusion, and not exempt from tates who presented the scroll to the king inconsistency. If we measure his acts by were not then assembled in form of parliaa modern standard, some of them appear ment, it was deemed necessary at the next incredible; but where the more conspicu- meeting of that assembly to declare the ous facts are certain, however atrocious, marriage of Edward with Elizabeth to be we must not withhold our belief from the void, on account of his precontract with recital of particulars, because it partakes lady Elinor; and therefore to pronounce of the disorder and precipitation which are that Richard "was and is veray and unthe natural companions of dark and bloody doubted king of the realm of England; undertakings. and that the inheritance of it, after his de

The first expedient employed by Richard cease, shall rest in the heirs of his body." to undermine the general belief in the le- The infidelity of the duchess of York was gitimacy of his nephews was singularly at deemed too gross, or the allegation of it by variance with modern manners and opinions. her son too monstrous, to be adverted to in On Sunday, the 15th of June, 1483, he the statute. On the 26th of June, Richard caused Shaw, a noted preacher, to deliver seated himself in the royal chair in the a sermon against the lawfulness of their palace of Westminster; and was received birth, at Paul's Cross, a place of more than with outward reverence by the clergy, ordinary resort, in an age when preaching when he came to the cathedral church of was chiefly confined to high festivals or pe- St. Paul to return thanks to God for his exculiarly solemn occasions. This extraor-altation to the throne. "After his accesdinary attack on the title of the reigning sion," says a simple chronicler, “the prince, prince, whose coronation had been appoint- or rather of right the king, Edward V., ed to be on that very day, is not preserved, with his brother, the duke of York, were and our accounts of its tenor do not per- under sure keeping within the Tower, in fectly agree. It appears, however, that such wyse that they never came abroad the preacher's main argument was, that after." That the circumstances alleged Edward IV. had contracted to wed, or had by Richard in support of the illegitimacy secretly wedded, lady Elinor Butler, before of these unhappy princes should be true, the marriage solemnized between that is a supposition so improbable as scarcely prince and Elizabeth Woodville; that the to require further examination. Had Edsecond marriage was void, and the issue of ward IV. been really married to lady Elinor it illegitimate, on account of the alleged Butler, the spiritual court must have deprecontract or previous wedlock. Stilling-creed, on credible evidence of such an ton, bishop of Bath, a profligate creature union, that his pretended marriage with of the protector, declared that he had offi- Elizabeth was a nullity. Had any faith ciated at the former nuptials or espousals. been placed in the testimony of the bishop To this was added, an odious and unjust of Bath, such an avoidance of the first marimputation of infidelity against the duchess- riage by a competent court, in the ordinary dowager of York, and of bastardy against her children, unless the sycophant chose "Cet évêque mit en avant au Duc de Gloucester, "que le roi Edouard, étant fort amoureux d'une expressly to except Richard. But if this "dame d'Angleterre, lui promit de l'épouser, pourvu aspersion was then thrown out, it perhaps "qu'il couchát avec elle. Elle y consentit; et cet flowed from the redundant zeal of the ca-"évêque, qui les avoit épousés; et il n'y avoit que "lui et deux autres, il étoit homme de cour, et ne le lumniator himself; for in the subsequent and more formal proceedings we find it dropped. The multiplicity of Edward's amours gave some credit to these rumors;

* Sir Thomas More, in Holin. 384.

découvrit pas et aida à faire taire la dame. Cet "évêque enfin découvrit cette matière au Duc de

"Gloucester, et lui aida à exécuter son mauvais vouloir."-Comines, lib. v. c. 20.

44

Rot. Parl. vi. 240.

§ Jan. 23. 1483-4. Rot. Parl. vi. 271.
| Fabyan, 669.

course of law, is very unlikely to be over- of the wardrobe at the duchess of York's looked in a matter relating to the suc- house at Baynard's castle. Tyrrell himself cession to the crown; but the testimony was made steward of the duchy of Cornof a man made so infamous by his own story wall, and governor of Glamorganshire, with can be of no other importance than as a the gift of many manors in South Wales. specimen of the chancellors and prelates It is surely no mean corroboration of the of the fifteenth century. narrative of Sir Thomas More, that we find It is unanimously agreed, that, after the the price of blood thus largely paid to all accession of Richard, no man (unless the the persons whom he mentions as parties to jailers and the assassins) saw young Ed- the murder or privy to its perpetration.‡ ward. We have no intimation of the es- Tyrrell is said by More to have confessed cape of him or his brother; and it is cer- his guilt when he was executed, twenty tain that they had been murdered, or made years after, for concealing the treason of their escape, before the battle of Bosworth. the earl of Suffolk. The most specious It may be observed, that, in the statute de- objection to More's narrative is, that the claring the legitimacy of Richard, no men- dates of several of Richard's signatures, at tion is made of the two princes as being Westminster, on the 31st of July, do not then dead or alive.* Is that silence recon- leave sufficient time before his coronation cilable with the fact of their being then at York, on the 8th of August, for the inalive? In Richard's negotiations for a mar-structions, for the murder, the execution riage with his niece the princess Elizabeth, of it, and the news of its completion; all there is no evidence of any attempt made which, according to the received accounts, by Edward's widow to save her sons. Was occurred in that time. That the king, to there ever a mother who would, in such a expedite affairs, might leave behind him case, be silent and inactive, if she had not many documents subscribed by himself, perfectly known their death? The total when about to set out on a long journey, absence of all pretence to information re- is so very natural a solution of this difficulty, specting the subsequent fate of Edward, or that it is singular it should not have immethe particulars of the escape of his brother diately presented itself. It would probably Richard, seems to afford the most decisive not be difficult to ascertain the sort of evidence, that neither was alive at the writings in which the signature of the battle of Bosworth; especially as these king on the day of their dates might be reboys were not of an age to forget their quired, and in what cases it might be disroyal condition, and must have been par- pensed with. But English history is inticularly known to many of the English debted to Dr. Lingard for a more specific exiles who crowded the courts of France, and satisfactory answer. He has produced, Burgundy, and Britany. There is no suffi- in answer to this particular objection, thirtycient reason for distrusting the main cir- three instances of writs bearing date at cumstances of the murder of the princes Westminster, by Edward V. himself, eleven as they are commonly related. It is said days before the day on which we know that in the month of August, 1483, while that he actually entered that city after his engaged in a progress through the north, accession. Comines, a writer of remarkRichard commanded Brackenbury, the lieu-able veracity, and without English prejutenant of the Tower, to put them to death dices, who knew the chief lords of Engwith speed and secrecy. This officer re- land as well as those of France and Burjected the proposal, but acceded to another gundy, relates the murder of the princes equally infamous,-to place the keys and by their barbarous uncle as a fact not rethe custody of the Tower in the hands of quiring any proof.

Sir James Tyrrell, a less hypocritical as- No sooner had Richard, by thus spilling sassin, who on the night of the arrival the blood of his brother's children, comcaused the subordinate murderers, Dighton pleted his usurpation, than he found an and Forest, to smother the princes in their enemy, where he least expected it, in the dungeon at midnight. Brackenbury was duke of Buckingham, the accomplice of richly rewarded for his connivance by his blackest crimes; undoubtedly the chief grants of manors and pensions. Greene, instrument of the usurpation, and very Brackenbury's messenger, appears to have probably privy to the murder. The parbeen promoted beyond his natural expect- ticular causes of Buckingham's revolt, canation. Forest, whom Sir Thomas More not now be ascertained. He was perhaps calls "a noted ruffian," was made keeper prompted by anger that such a share in

*Rot. Parl. vi. 240. Jan. 1483-4.

"Miles Forest, a fellow flesh-bred in murder before time."-Grafton, ii. 118. "Dighton lived at Calais long after, no less disdained and hated than pointed at."-Ibid.

guilt should be followed by no share in the spoils: Richard may have waded farther

Turner, iii. 490.

§ Rot. Parl. vi. 545. A. D. 1503.

into blood than was warranted by their of his swearing to observe the terms of their original contract; or, as a descendant of agreement. Richard felt that he had supEdward III., he might have hoped to hurl pressed, but not extinguished, the revolt. Richard from a throne stained with the in- He made a bold effort to break the concert nocent blood of his brother's children. It is of the exiles and malcontents, by marrying possible that the Lancastrians may have the young princess, his niece, whose hand tempted him with such hopes, and that was to be the bond of union between the they professed to believe his disavowal of Roses. It seems obvious that the importance previous knowledge of the murder of the ascribed by all parties to the marriage of princes. this princess can only have sprung from Whether Richard perpetrated the mur- their unanimous belief that by the murder der from fears of an insurrection to release of her brothers she was become the heiress the princes, or published the account of of the house of York. The queen-dowager, their death to confound the councils of the in spite of her treaty with Richmond, was disaffected, the insurrection of Buckingham shaken in her fidelity by the hope of placing broke out on the 18th of October, 1483. her daughter on the throne. Lady Anne He is generally related to have concerted Neville, Richard's queen, was in infirm measures for raising Henry earl of Rich- health. The princess showed too great an mond to the throne, as the chief of the Lan- eagerness for an unnatural marriage, and castrian party, on condition of his wedding even betrayed the most indecent impathe princess Elizabeth, the heiress of the tience of the life of Anne, who, she was house of York. This expedient for closing assured by Richard, was to die in Februthe gates of civil war is said to have been ary. He was, however, dissuaded from suggested by Morton, bishop of Ely, and these purposes of marriage, which were so approved by the queen-dowager and her unpopular that he was obliged to disavow sons of the first marriage, and by the count- them.

ess of Richmond, on behalf of her son in It affords no small presumption of the Britany, to whom she dispatched tidings of unpopularity as well as illegality of his the treaty and of the day fixed for a gen- government, that he did not venture to reeral revolt. Storms, however, interrupted cur to the practice of the two preceding the voyage of Henry. The Welsh retain- reigns, by procuring the sanction of parers of Buckingham, dispirited by broken liament for his power, until it appeared to bridges and impassable fords, in the forest be sufficiently strengthened by the failure of Deane, disbanded themselves with a pre- of Richmond's attempt to invade England. cipitation more suitable to the mutinous It was only in the beginning of 1485) that habits than to the gallant spirit of their nation.

Richard obtained statutes to establish his own title, and to attaint his enemies; for Richard, who justified his cruelty to Jane abolishing the grievance of "forced benevoShore by affectation of zeal for austere mo- lences;" and for reformations of law, which rality, at this time, used the like pretext to rendered him popular, and clothed him with erush the remaining adherents of Bucking- that show of secure dominion which delivham. On the 23d of October, 1483, he ered him from anxiety for the stability of issued a proclamation, with rewards for the his throne, and enabled him to turn his apprehension of Dorset and his followers, thoughts to the paternal duties of a just and whose escape was then either not effected impartial sovereign.

or not known. That nobleman is charged In the summer of 1485 he directed writs by this proclamation with "having defloured to be issued to all sheriffs, informing them many maids, wives, and widows;' "* with that Jasper and Henry Tudor, with John "holding the mischievous woman called earl of Oxford, Sir Edward Woodville and Shore's wife in open adultery; with having others, had conspired with the duke of Britnot only rebelled against the king, and in- any to invade England; that, failing in this tended to destroy his person, but also con- attempt, they fled to the king's ancient tributed to the damnable maintenance of enemy Charles styling himself king of vice and sin, to the displeasure of God, and France, whose aid they procured by a promthe evil example of all Christian people." ise to cede to him the territories of France Buckingham's head was struck off, without which of right pertained to the crown of form of trial, in the market-place of Salis- England. With an absurdity as remarkbury. Morton effected his escape to Flan-able as its hypocrisy, this proclamation inders; the marquess of Dorset and the bishop formed the subjects that the greater part of of Exeter to Britany. These, with 500 English exiles, did homage to Henry of Richmond as their sovereign, on condition

* Rymer, xii. 204.

† Her letter in Buck.

Rot. Parl.

§ A copy of the writ to the sheriff of Kent is to be found in Fenn, ii. 319. The instructions to the chancellor to prepare this proclamation are in Ellis's Royal Letters, i. 162. second series.