Anonymous

EDWARD V. AND RICHARD III.

Edward V. Proclaimed—The Two Parties of the Queen and of Gloucester—Struggle in the Council—Gloucester's Plans—The Earl Rivers and his Friends imprisoned—Gloucester secures the King and conducts him to London—Indignities to the young King—Execution of Lord Hastings—A Base Sermon at St. Paul's Cross—Gloucester pronounces the two young Princes illegitimate—The Farce at the Guildhall—Gloucester seizes the Crown—Richard crowned in London and again at York—Buckingham revolts against him—Murder of the Two Princes—Henry of Richmond—Failure of Buckingham's Rising—Buckingham beheaded—Richard's Title confirmed by Parliament—Queen Dowager and her Daughters quit the Sanctuary—Death of Richard's Son and Heir—Proposes to marry his Niece, Elizabeth of York—Richmond lands at Milford Haven—His Progress—The Troubles of Richard—The Battle of Bosworth—The Fallen Tyrant—End of the Wars of the Roses.

By the death of Edward IV. England was destined once more to witness all the inconveniences which attend the minority of a king. Edward V. was a boy of only thirteen. His mother and her family had made themselves many enemies and few friends by their undisguised ambition and cupidity. The Greys and Woodvilles had been lifted above the heads of the greatest members of the aristocracy, enriched with the estates, and clothed with the honours of ancient houses. They had been posted round the throne as if to keep aloof all other candidates for favour and promotion. At the time of the death of Edward IV., Richard of Gloucester was in the North, attending to his duties as commander against the army in the Scottish marches. He immediately commenced his proceedings with that consummate and hypocritical art of which he was a first-rate master. He at once put his retinue into deep mourning, and marched to York attended by 600 knights and esquires. There he ordered the obsequies of the departed king to be performed with all solemnity in the cathedral. He then summoned the nobility and gentry of the country to take the oath of allegiance to his nephew, Edward V., and he led the way by first taking it himself. He wrote to the queen-mother to condole with her on her loss, and to assure her of his zealous support of the rights of his beloved nephew. He expressed his ardent desire for the close friendship of the queen, of Earl Rivers, her brother, and of all her family. He announced his intention of proceeding towards London to attend the coronation, and if Elizabeth had not already known the man, she might have congratulated herself on the enjoyment of so affectionate a brother-in-law, and so brave and faithful a guardian of her son.

But there is every reason to believe that the same messenger who carried these letters of condolence and professed friendship to the queen, carried others of a different tone to a hostile section of her council. The Lords Howard, Hastings, and Stanley, though personal friends of the late king, and Hastings, the chosen confidant and associate of his pleasures, were at heart bitter enemies of the queen's family. It was only the authority of Edward which had maintained peace between them, and now they showed an undisguised hostility to them at the council-board. The Earl Rivers, the queen's brother, and the Marquis of Dorset, her son by her former marriage, occupied the chief seats at that board, and Edward was no stranger to their real sentiments. This knowledge had led him, on perceiving his health failing, to bring these rivals together, and to state to them how much it concerned his son's peace and security that they should forget all past causes of difference, and unite for that loyal purpose. This they promised, but only with the tongue. No sooner was the king dead, than all the old animosity and jealousy showed themselves in aggravated form.

Elizabeth now proposed that the young king should be brought up to town in order to be crowned, and that he should be attended by a strong body of soldiery for the safety of his person. At this, Hastings, who, in common with three-fourths of the nobility, was jealous of the design of the queen and her party to make themselves masters of the government during the king's minority, no longer concealed his real feelings. Edward had been kept on the borders of Wales, where the power of the Mortimers and the Yorkists lay. It was believed that the object was to give a preponderance to the royal family through the Welsh and the borderers; and now to march up to London, attended by a Welsh army, appeared a direct attempt to control the capital by these means. Hastings, therefore, warmly demanded—"What need of an army? Who were the enemies they had to dread? Was it the king's own uncle, Gloucester? Was it Lord Stanley, or himself? Was this force meant by the Woodvilles to put an end to all liberty in the council and the government, and thus to break the very union the king, on his death-bed, had pledged them to?" Hastings concluded his speech by hotly declaring that if the king was brought to London by an army, he would quit the council and the kingdom.

Deterred by this open opposition, Elizabeth yielded, and reduced the proposed guard to 2,000 cavalry. But she did it with deep and too well-founded anxiety. She had had too much opportunity of studying the character of Gloucester to trust him, and the event very soon justified her conviction. Secret messages had, during this interval, been passing between Gloucester and Hastings and the Duke of Buckingham, a weak man, descended from Thomas of Woodstock, the youngest son of Edward III. No doubt he had instructed them to defeat any measures of the Woodville family, which could leave the king in their hands. The moment was accurately calculated; and, accordingly, when the Lords Rivers and Grey, on their way to London with the young king, arrived at Stony Stratford, they found Gloucester had already reached Northampton, only ten miles from them. Gloucester had increased his forces on the way to a formidable body, and he was there joined by the Duke of Buckingham with 500 horse. The Lords Rivers and Grey, on learning the presence of Gloucester at Northampton, immediately rode over to him to welcome him in the king's name, and to consult with him on the plan of their united entrance into London. Gloucester received them with all the marks of that friendship which he had written to avow. They were invited to dine and spend the night, the Dukes of Gloucester and Buckingham promising to ride with them in the morning to pay their respects to the king. Morning appeared, and Gloucester and Buckingham set out with them in the best of humours. They rode in pleasant converse till, arriving at the entrance of Stony Stratford, Gloucester suddenly accused Rivers and Grey of having estranged the affections of the king from him. They denied the charge with as much vehemence as astonishment; but they were immediately arrested and conducted to the rear. Gloucester and Buckingham rode on to the king, where the two dukes humbly on their knees professed their loyalty and attachment. This they proceeded to make manifest by arresting also the king's faithful servants, Sir Thomas Vaughan and Sir Richard Hawse. In spite of the poor young king's entreaties, he led him away with him to Northampton, his relatives and friends, Rivers, Grey, Vaughan, and Hawse, following in the rear as prisoners. These prisoners of State were sent off by Gloucester, under a strong guard, to his castle of Pontefract—that blood-stained fortress, the very entrance to which, in bondage, was equivalent to a death-warrant.

At midnight following the very day of these transactions, being the 1st of May, the appalling tidings reached the court that Gloucester, followed by a large army, had seized the king, and sent prisoners the queen's brother and son no one knew whither. Struck with consternation, and deeply rueing her weakness in giving up her own plans of caution, the queen, hastily seizing her younger son by the hand, and followed by her daughters, rushed from the palace of Westminster to the Sanctuary, which had protected her before; but not against a person so base and deadly in his ruthless ambition as this her brother-in-law of Gloucester. She knew the man, and she dreaded everything. Her eldest son, Dorset, who was Keeper of the Tower, in his turn weakly abandoned that important stronghold, and also fled to the Sanctuary. Rotherham, the Archbishop of York and Chancellor of the realm, hastening thither, found the queen seated on the rushes with which the floors at that time were strewn, an image of abandonment and woe.

GREAT SEAL OF EDWARD V.

Meanwhile, London was thrown into the utmost dismay and confusion. Many of the nobles and citizens flew to arms, and some flocked to the queen at Westminster, and others to Lord Hastings in London. Hastings continued to assure them that there was no cause of alarm; that Gloucester was a true man; and he was most likely the more ready to believe this himself from his own dislike of the queen's family.

On the 4th of May Gloucester conducted his royal captive into the capital. At Hornsey Park, the lord mayor and corporation, in scarlet, met the royal procession, followed by 400 citizens, all in violet. The Duke of Gloucester, habited, like his followers, in mourning, rode into the city before the king, with his cap in hand, bowing low to the people, and pointing out to their notice the king, who rode in a mantle of purple velvet. Edward V. was first conducted to Ely Place, to the bishop's palace; but he was soon removed to the Tower, on the motion of the Duke of Buckingham, on pretence that it was the proper place in which to await his coronation. That ceremony Elizabeth and her council had ordered to take place this very day, but the crafty Gloucester prevented that by not arriving in time. He took up his quarters in Crosby Place, Bishopsgate, where one part of the council constantly sat, while another, but lesser portion of it, assembled with Lord Hastings and others in the Tower. The day of the coronation was then fixed for the 22nd of June, leaving an interval of nearly seven weeks in which the schemes of Gloucester might be perfected. The first object of this man had been to impress the queen and her party with his friendly disposition, till he had secured their persons; this being, in a great measure, effected, the next was to persuade the public of his loyalty to his nephew. For this purpose he conducted him with such state into the capital, and so assiduously pointed him out as their king to the people. To have openly proclaimed his designs upon the crown would have united all parties against him. He averted that by his calling on all men to swear fealty to his nephew, and by first swearing it himself. Having now procured full possession of the king's person, the next step was to secure that of his younger brother, without which his plans would all be vain. He was surrendered by the queen, and also placed in the Tower.

EDWARD V.

The victims were secured. Gloucester had feigned himself a kind relation till he had got them into prison; now he yearned to put forth his claws and devour them. But for this it required that the public should be duly prepared. His followers, and especially his imbecile tool, Buckingham, busily spread through town and country reports of the most terrible plots on the part of the queen and her friends to destroy Gloucester, Buckingham, and other great lords, in order that she and her family might have the king, and through him, the whole government, in their power. They exhibited quantities of arms, which they declared the queen's party had secreted in order to destroy Gloucester and the other patriotic lords, as they pleased to represent them. This did not fail to produce its effect on the people without, and it was promptly followed up by a picture of treason in the very council.

Lord Stanley, who was sincerely attached to Edward IV.'s family, had often expressed his suspicions of what was going on at Crosby Hall; but Hastings had replied, that he had a trusty agent there who informed him of all that passed. But Hastings, who had been completely duped by Gloucester, had been unconsciously playing into his hands, till his own turn came. While he imagined that Richard was punishing the assumption of the queen and her relations, the latter was preparing the bloody acts of one of the most daring dramas of historic crime ever acted before the world. Richard, no doubt, had thought Hastings ready to go the whole way with him. At this crisis, however, he became aware that he was an honest though misguided man, who would stand staunchly by his young sovereign, and must therefore be removed. The tyrant was now beginning to feel secure of his object, and prepared to seize it at whatever cost of crime and infamy. Accordingly, on the 13th of June, says Sir Thomas More, he came into the council about nine in the morning, "in a very merry humour. After a little talking with them, he said to the Bishop of Ely, 'My lord, you have very good strawberries in your garden in Holborn: I request you let us have a mess of them.' 'Gladly, my lord,' quoth he; 'would to God I had some better things as ready to your pleasure as that!' and then, with all haste, he sent his servant for a mess of strawberries. The protector set the lords fast in communing, and thereupon praying them to spare him a little while, departed thence, and, soon after one hour, between ten and eleven, he returned into the chamber amongst them all, changed, with a wonderful sour, angry countenance, knitting his brows, frowning and fretting, gnawing on his lips, and so sat him down in his place. Soon after he asked, 'What those persons deserved who had compassed and imagined his destruction.' Lord Hastings answered that they deserved death, whoever they might be; and then Richard affirmed that they were that sorceress, his brother's wife (meaning the queen), with others with her; 'and,' said the protector, 'we shall see in what wise that sorceress, and that other witch of her councils, Shore's wife, with their affinity, have by their sorcery and witchcraft wasted my body.' So saying, he plucked up his doublet sleeve to his elbow upon his left arm, where the arm appeared to be withered and small, as it was never other." He then included Hastings in the charge. The unfortunate man was hurried out by the armed ruffians of the tyrant, and scarcely allowing him time to confess to the first priest that came to hand, they made use of a log which accidentally lay on the green at the door of the chapel, and beheaded him at once. Lord Stanley, the Archbishop of York, and the Bishop of Ely, were kept close prisoners in the Tower. Shortly afterwards the queen's brother and son, Earl Rivers and Lord Grey, were executed at Pontefract.

The united troops of Gloucester and Buckingham, to the amount of 20,000, now held the metropolis in subjection; the terror of the protector's deeds enchained it still more. On the following Sunday, June 22nd, the day which had been fixed for the coronation, instead of that ceremony taking place, a priest was found base enough—tyrants never fail of such tools—to ascend St. Paul's Cross, and preach from this text, from the Book of Wisdom, "Bastard slips shall not strike deep root."

This despicable man was one Dr. Shaw, brother of the Lord Mayor. He drew a broad picture of the licentious life of Edward IV., and asserted that his mode of destroying such ladies as he found unwilling to incur dishonour was to promise them marriage, and occasionally to go through a mock or real ceremony with them. He declared that Edward had thus, in the commencement of his reign, really contracted a marriage with the Lady Eleanor Butler, the widow of Lord Butler, of Sudeley, and daughter of the Earl of Shrewsbury; that he afterwards contracted a private and illegal marriage with Elizabeth Woodville, which, however it might be real and legal in other respects, was altogether invalid and impossible, from the fact that Edward was already married to Lady Butler. Hence he contended that Elizabeth Woodville, though acknowledged by Parliament, was, in reality, nothing more than a concubine; that she and the king had been living in open and scandalous adultery; and that, of consequence, the whole of their children were illegitimate, and the sons incapable of wearing the crown.

But the preacher went further. Determined to destroy the claims of the young Edward V. to the crown, he boldly asserted not only his illegitimacy, but that of his father, Edward IV. This could only be done at the expense of the honour of the proud Cicely, Duchess of York, the mother of Gloucester, as well as of Edward. But the man who was wading his way to the throne through the blood of his own nephews, and of the best men in the country, was not likely to be stopped by the honour of his mother. The son of Clarence was living, and in case of the deaths of Edward's sons had a prior right to Gloucester. That right was at present in abeyance, through Clarence's attainder, but would revive on reversion of the attainder, and the possibility of this must be destroyed.

The preacher, therefore, stoutly maintained that both Edward IV. and Clarence were the children of other men, not of the late Duke of York; that it was notorious, and that their striking likeness to their reputed fathers fully confirmed it. Gloucester, he contended, was alone the son of the Duke of York; and this vile prostitutor of the pulpit exclaimed, "Behold this excellent prince, the express image of his noble father—the genuine descendant of the house of York; bearing no less in the virtues of his mind than in the features of his countenance the character of the gallant Richard!" At this moment Gloucester, by concert, was to have passed, as if accidentally, through the audience to his place, and the preacher exclaimed, "Behold the man entitled to your allegiance! He must deliver you from the dominion of all intruders!—he alone can restore the lost glory and honour of the nation!"

Here it was expected that the people would cry out "Long live King Richard!" but they stared at one another in amazement, and the more so that Gloucester did not appear at the nick of time, but after the preacher's apostrophe was concluded; so that, when Gloucester did appear, he was obliged to repeat his lesson, which threw such an air of ridicule upon the whole, that Gloucester could not conceal his chagrin, and the preacher—perceiving that the odium of the attempt, as it had failed, would fall upon him—stole away home, and, it is said, never again recovered his standing. Gloucester, of course, would be the first to fling him by as a worthless tool, and he received that reward of public contempt which it would be better for the world if it always measured out to such vile subserviency.

But Gloucester was now fully prepared to complete his necessary amount of crime for the attainment of the throne, and was not to be daunted by one failure. The preacher, having broken the ice, he renewed his attempt in another quarter—the council chamber of the city. The Lord Mayor—as great a sycophant as his brother the preacher—lent himself, as he had probably done before, to the scheme. On the next Tuesday, the 24th of June, the Duke of Buckingham appeared upon the hustings at Guildhall, and harangued the citizens. He called upon them to recollect the dissolute life of the late king; his frequent violation of the sanctity of their homes; the seduction of most respectable ladies; the extent of his extortions of their money under the name of benevolences. In fact, he repeated, in another form, the whole sermon of Shaw, and went through the whole story of the marriage of Lady Butler, by the king, previous to that with Lady Grey, of which he assured them Stillington, Bishop of Bath, was a witness. Stillington, however, was never called to give such evidence. He then asked whether they would have the illegitimate progeny of such a man to rule over them. He assured them that he would never submit to the rule of a bastard, and that both the aristocracy and the people of the northern counties had sworn the same. But there, he observed, was the Duke of Gloucester, a man calculated to rescue England from such a stigma, and from all its losses—a man valiant, wise, patriotic, and of true blood, the genuine descendant of the great Edward III. On this the servants of Buckingham and Gloucester incited some of the meanest apprentices to cry out, and there was a feeble voice raised of "God save King Richard!" That was enough. Buckingham returned the people thanks for their hearty assent, and invited them to attend him the next morning to the duke's residence of Baynard's Castle, near Blackfriars Bridge, to tender him the crown. After a show of refusal Gloucester accepted it.

Thus ended this scene, which Hume calls a ridiculous farce, but which was, in fact, a most diabolical one, to be followed by as revolting a tragedy. The next day this monster in human form went to Westminster in state. There he entered the great hall, and seated himself on the marble seat, with Lord Howard, afterwards Duke of Norfolk, on his right hand, and the Duke of Suffolk on his left. He stated to the persons present that he chose to commence his reign in that place, because the administration of justice was the first duty of a king. Every one who heard this must have felt that if there were any justice in him he could not be there. It is clear that the spirit of the nation was with the poor boy Edward, but there was no man who dared to lift up his voice for him. The axe of Gloucester had already lopped off heads enough to render the others dumb, and London was invested by his myrmidons. He was already a dictator, and could do for a while what he pleased. He proclaimed an amnesty to all offenders against him up to that hour, and he then proceeded to St. Paul's, to return thanks to God. Thus, on the 26th of June, 1483, successful villainy sat enthroned in the heart of London.

On the 6th of July, not a fortnight after his acceptance of the crown at Baynard's Castle Richard was crowned with all splendour. The terror of the blood-stained despot was all-potent, and was evidenced in the fact that few of the peers or peeresses ventured to absent themselves. With consummate tact Richard, the Yorkist usurper, appointed the heads of the Lancastrian line to bear the most prominent part in the ceremony, next to royalty itself. Buckingham bore his train, and the Countess of Richmond bore that of his queen. Both these persons were descendants of John of Gaunt, and the countess was the wife of that Lord Stanley who had been wounded at the very council board by Richard's ruffian guards, at the time of the seizure of Hastings. There can be little doubt but that it was the intention of Gloucester to have thus got rid, as by accident, of that respectable and powerful nobleman, who had great influence in the north; but having failed in that, he now made a merit of liberating him and his fellows, the Archbishop of York and the Bishop of Ely, from the Tower. On Stanley he conferred the stewardship of the household, and soon after made him Constable of England. Probably, it not only entered the mind of Richard that it would be politic to secure the favour of a nobleman so much esteemed in Cheshire and Lancashire, but that, by ingratiating himself with the Countess of Richmond, the wife of Stanley, and the mother of the young Earl of Richmond, who, during the reign of Edward IV., had been a cause of anxiety, as a probable aspirant to the throne, he might succeed in beguiling Richmond into his hands; and this is the more probable because he was, at the very time, negotiating some private matters with the Duke of Brittany, at whose court Richmond was.

Besides the promotion of Stanley, the Lord Howard was made Earl Marshal and Duke of Norfolk, his son was created Earl of Surrey, Lord Lovel was made a viscount, and many others of the nobility now received higher rank. The vast wealth which Edward IV. had left he distributed lavishly amongst those who had done his work, and those whom he sought to win over. The troops who had come from the north, and were seen with wonder and ridicule by the Londoners from their mean and dirty appearance, and called a rascal rabble, but who were ready at a word to do desperate things, he amply rewarded, and sent home again, as soon as the coronation was over.

This great display over, Richard called no Parliament, but merely assembled the nobility before their returning to their respective counties, and enjoined them to maintain the peace there, and to assist his officers in putting down all offenders and disturbers. But he did not satisfy himself with injunctions. He set out to make a wide circuit through his kingdom, in order to awe all malcontents by his presence. He proceeded by slow journeys to Oxford, Woodstock, Gloucester, and Worcester. At Warwick he was joined by the queen; and as she was the daughter of the late Earl of Warwick, she might be considered as presiding in her ancestral home; and there, therefore, a considerable court was held for the space of a week, the Spanish ambassadors and members of the English nobility coming there. Thence the royal pair advanced by Coventry, Leicester, Nottingham, and Pontefract to York. The inhabitants of that stronghold of Lancastrian feeling had been warned to receive the king "with every mark of joy;" and to conciliate the northern population, Richard sent for the royal wardrobe from London, and once more repeated the coronation in York, as if to intimate that he scarcely felt himself sovereign till he had their sanction and homage.

But after all the crimes perpetrated by Richard, the public had been terrified into silence, not into approval. No sooner was the south relieved from his presence than it at once recovered breath and language. As if the oppression of a nightmare were withdrawn, people began to utter their true feelings. Some were for marching in thousands upon the Tower, and forcibly liberating the innocent victims; others suggested that it were wise to enable the daughters of Edward to escape to the Continent, so that Richard should never be free from the fear of legitimate claimants to the crown. All the foreign potentates had shrunk from entering into alliance with so blood-stained a character, and would be ready to cherish these princesses as a means of annoying or controlling him.

But Richard had thought of all these things long before the public, and had taken such measures to prevent them as would soon make the ears of all England tingle at their discovery. On attempting to communicate with Elizabeth and her daughters in the sanctuary, they found that asylum invested by a strong body of soldiers under one John Nesfield, and that there was no approaching the royal family. The only alternative was to endeavour to liberate the young princes.

For this purpose private meetings were held in nearly all the counties of the south and west. The nobility and gentry bound themselves by oath to take arms and unite for the restoration of Edward V. In the midst of these movements the agitators were agreeably astonished to find themselves in possession of a most unexpected and powerful ally. This was no other than the Duke of Buckingham, the man who had so unscrupulously taken the lead in putting down all who were formidable obstacles to Richard's plans, and in bringing London to declare for him. The circumstances which produced this marvellous change have rather been guessed at than ever satisfactorily known.

Buckingham was descended from Thomas, Duke of Gloucester, sixth son of Edward III. His claims to the throne were far superior to those of the Earl of Richmond, who was of an exactly parallel descent from John of Gaunt, but with a flaw of illegitimacy through that prince's connection with Catherine Swynford. Buckingham not only stood higher amongst the princes of the Lancastrian blood than Richmond, but he was married to the sister of Queen Elizabeth, and was thus closely connected with the imprisoned prince. Yet he had at once supported the most unscrupulous of the Yorkists, and helped more than any other man to dethrone his near relative. If this were strange, his sudden conversion was stranger. For his signal services to Richard he had received signal rewards. The Earl of Gloucester, Buckingham's ancestor, had married one of the daughters and co-heiresses of Humphrey Bohun, Earl of Hereford. Their property, on the Yorkist family ascending the throne, had been seized by it. Buckingham had probably made it his bargain for what he was to do for Richard, that these estates should be restored to him. They were, accordingly, restored, and beyond that he was made Constable of England, Justiciary of Wales, and many other honours were heaped upon him. Why, then, this sudden revolt? The real causes were most likely those which have ever separated successful villains—distrust of each other, and the desire of the principal to be rid of his too knowing and, therefore, dangerous accessory. Buckingham was the confidant in many and terrible State secrets. He knew why Hastings was suddenly hurried to his death, and all the dark work by which the true prince had been thrust down to a dungeon, and the false one set up.

He resolved, therefore, to reinstate Edward V.; and circular letters were addressed to all those chiefs who were likely to unite in the enterprise. In Kent, Essex, Sussex, Berkshire, Hants, Wilts, and Devonshire, preparations were made for the purpose; and Buckingham was about to move forward to put himself at their head, when the confederates were thunderstruck with the news that the king and his brother had been already murdered in the Tower.

The account which has been generally followed of this horrid event, is that of Sir Thomas More. According to the learned chancellor, Richard, while making his holiday progress through the country, was plotting the death of the young princes in the Tower. From Gloucester he despatched one of his pages to Sir Robert Brackenbury, the Governor of the Tower, commanding him to get them quietly made away with. Sir Robert refused the office of assassin. Richard, however, from Warwick sent Sir James Tyrell, with orders to command the Tower for one night. This Tyrell had been vice-Constable under Edward IV., and always employed by him to execute illegal commissions, like Tristan, the tool of Louis XI. Tradition holds that the Portcullis Tower was the one in which the young princes were confined, and it is stated that they were under the constant surveillance of four keepers, and waited on by a fellow called Black Will, or Will Slaughter.

The murderer Richard is said to have roused Tyrell from his bed at midnight, and sent him off; and Brackenbury, though he would not stain his own hands with innocent blood, had to give the keys by the king's command to the man who would. "Then," says Sir Thomas More, "Sir James Tyrell desired that the princes should be murdered in bed, to the execution whereof he appropriated Miles Forest, one of their keepers, a fellow flesh-bred in murder, and to him he joined one John Dighton, his own horse-keeper, a big, broad, square knave. The young king had certainly a clear apprehension of his fate, for he was heard sighingly to say, 'I would mine uncle would let me have my life, though he taketh my crown.' After which time the prince never tied his points nor anything attended to himself, but with that young babe his brother, lingered in thought and heaviness, till the traitorous deed delivered them from their wretchedness.

"All their other attendants being removed from them, and the harmless children in bed, these men came into their chamber, and suddenly lapping them in the clothes, smothered and stifled them till thoroughly dead. Then laying out their bodies on the bed, they fetched Sir James to see them, who caused the murderers to bury them at the stairfoot, deep in the ground under a heap of stones. Then rode Sir James in great haste to King Richard, and showed him the manner of the murder, who gave him great thanks, but allowed not their bodies in so vile a corner, but would have them buried in consecrated ground. Sir Robert Brackenbury's priest then took them up, and where he buried them was never known, for he died shortly afterwards. But when the news was brought to the unfortunate mother, yet being in sanctuary, that her two sons were murdered, it struck to her heart like the sharp dart of death; she was so suddenly amazed that she swooned and fell to the ground, and there lay in great agony, yet like to a dead corpse."

This dismal news, however, probably did not reach the unhappy queen till some time after the perpetration of the murder, for the tyrant kept the deed close till it suited his purpose to disclose it.

The whole of this circumstantial account has been called in question by some modern historians, on the plea that the history of Richard was written by men after his death, who invented half the crimes and repulsive features of Richard to please the court of Henry VII. But perhaps two more highly credible historians could not be found than Sir Thomas More and the continuator of the Croyland Chronicle, the latter of whom wrote immediately after the death of Richard; and every circumstance known confirms their accounts. We shall see that the younger of these princes was supposed to reappear in the reign of Henry VII. as Perkin Warbeck. But, unfortunately for this story, the bodies of the two murdered children were discovered buried in one coffin or box. This occurred so late as 1674, when workmen were digging down the stairs which led from the king's lodgings to the chapel in the Tower, where, about ten feet deep, they came upon this chest containing the bones of two youths "proportionable to the ages of the two brothers; namely, about thirteen and eleven years."

What is more, all those said to be concerned in this diabolical deed were afterwards specially patronised by Richard. Greene, the messenger, was made receiver of the lordships of the Isle of Wight and Porchester Castle; Tyrell and Brackenbury received numerous grants of lucrative offices, money, and lands, as may be seen in Strype's notes to Bucke's history, in Kennet. Dighton, one of the murderers, was made bailiff for life of the manor of Aiton, in Staffordshire; and Forest dying in possession of a lucrative post in Bernard Castle, his widow and son received an annuity of five marks. Still, further, Sir Thomas More says, "Very truth it is, and well known, that at such times as Sir James Tyrell was in the Tower for treason against King Henry VII., both Dighton and him were examined, and confessed the murder in manner above written." Henry, in consequence, sought for the bodies, but at that time they could not be found, the chaplain, the depositary of the secret, being dead.

When, in addition to this, it shall be seen that Richard was anxious to marry Elizabeth of York, the sister of these young princes, and to prevent Richmond from marrying her, nothing can be more conclusive of the death of the boys as described—for, otherwise, the issue of Elizabeth could not succeed rightfully to the throne. Moreover, Richard is himself stated to have allowed the fact of the murder to come out, in order to crush the rising of Buckingham and his confederates in their behalf. Under all these circumstances, we conceive no event of history stands more strongly authenticated.

It is said to have been in the midst of the gaieties of the coronation at York that Richard received the news of Buckingham's movement, and of the confederation of the southern counties. The circumstances were so alarming that, notwithstanding the execration which he was conscious such an avowal would bring down upon him, he permitted the account of the princes' death to be published. One universal burst of horror, both from friend and foe, went through the kingdom; and from that hour, instead of saving him, the knowledge of that cruel deed repelled all hearts from him.

For the moment, the nobles, marching forward to rescue the young king, were taken aback: the tyrant had anticipated them; the king they would restore had perished. But the astute Bishop of Ely reminded them that there was Henry of Richmond, descended from John of Gaunt, who might marry Elizabeth of York, and thus, uniting the two rival houses, put an end to the divisions of the nation. This uniting all parties would annihilate the murderer. The idea was seized upon with avidity. Reginald Bray, the steward to the Countess of Richmond, was instructed to open the project to her, who immediately embraced it in favour of her son. Dr. Lewis, a Welsh physician, who attended the queen-dowager in the sanctuary, was made the bearer of the scheme to her. Elizabeth was well prepared by the wrongs heaped upon her, the murder of her brother and her three sons, and her own confinement and degradation, to forget her opposition to the house of Lancaster. She fully agreed to the project, on the condition of Richmond swearing to marry her daughter Elizabeth on his arriving in England. She even borrowed a sum of money and sent it to him, to aid his enterprise. A messenger was despatched to Henry in Brittany to inform him of the agreement, and to hasten his arrival, the 18th of October being fixed for the general rising in his favour.

But it was not to be supposed that all these arrangements could escape the suspicious vigilance of Richard. He proceeded from York to Lincolnshire as if he were only attending to the ordinary affairs of the kingdom. But on the 11th of October—a week before the day appointed for the rising of the confederates—he summoned all his adherents to meet him at Leicester. Four days afterwards he proclaimed Buckingham a traitor, and set a reward of £1,000, or of £100 a year in land, on his head. For those of the Marquis of Dorset and of the two bishops he offered 1,000 marks, or 100 marks a year in land each; and for the head of any hostile knight half that sum. He sent at the same time to London for the great seal to authenticate these and similar acts.

On the day fixed, the rising, notwithstanding, took place. The Marquis of Dorset proclaimed Henry VII. at Exeter; the Bishop Of Salisbury proclaimed him in that city; the men of Kent at Maidstone; those of Berkshire at Newbury, and the Duke of Buckingham raised his standard at Brecon. Few revolutions ever opened with more favourable auspices. But untoward events made wholly abortive this well-planned popular attempt. The Duke of Richmond set sail from St. Malo on the 12th of October for England, with a fleet of forty sail, carrying 5,000 men; but tempestuous weather prevented him from reaching the coast of Devonshire till the dispersion of his unfortunate allies. He therefore put back. In the meantime Richard had joined his army at Leicester, and issued a proclamation which reads nowadays like the ravings of a madman.

To draw off the followers of the confederates, while he offered rewards for the heads of their leaders, he granted free pardons to all who would abandon them. And the elements at this moment fought for Richard. Buckingham set out on his march to unite his forces to those of the other leaders, but there fell such heavy and continuous rains during the whole of his march from Brecon through the Forest of Dean to the Severn, that the bridges were carried away, and all the fords rendered impassable. Such rains and floods had not been known in the memory of man; and the inundation of the Severn was long after remembered as Buckingham's Flood.

The Welsh, struck with a superstitious dread from this circumstance, and pressed by famine, dispersed, and Buckingham turned back to Weobly, the seat of Lord Ferrers. The news of Buckingham's failure confounded all the other confederates, and every man made the best of his way towards a place of safety. Merton, Dorset, Courtenay the Bishop of Exeter, and others, escaped to Flanders and Brittany. Weobly was closely watched, on one side by Sir Humphrey Stafford, and on the other by the clan of the Vaughans, who were promised the plunder of Brecon if they secured the duke. Buckingham, in disguise, escaped from Weobly, and hid himself near Shrewsbury, in the hut of a fellow of the name of Bannister, an old servant of the duke's family. This wretch, to secure the reward, betrayed his master to John Mitton, the sheriff of Shropshire, who conducted him to Richard at Salisbury, who ordered his head to be instantly struck off in the market-place. Amongst others who shared the same fate, Richard had the satisfaction of thus silencing a witty rhymester, William Collingbourne, who had dared to say that,

That is, Ratcliffe, Catesby, and Lord Lovel; the hog being in allusion to Richard's crest, the boar.

Richard, thus relieved, marched into Devonshire, where he put to death, amongst others, Sir Thomas St. Leger, a knight who had married the Duchess of Exeter, his own sister. He then traversed the southern counties in triumph, and, arriving in London, he ventured to do what hitherto he had not dared, that is, call a Parliament. This assembly, prostrate at the feet of the prosperous despot, did whatever he proposed. They pronounced him "the undoubted king of England, as well by right of consanguinity and inheritance, as by lawful election, consecration, and coronation;" and they entailed the crown on his issue; the Lords, spiritual and temporal, binding themselves to uphold the succession of his son, the Prince of Wales. They attainted his enemies by wholesale, and beyond all precedent. One duke, one marquis, three earls, three bishops, with a whole host of knights and gentlemen, were thus deprived of honour, title, and estate; and their lands, forfeited to the Crown, were bestowed by Richard liberally on his northern adherents, who were thus planted in the south to act as spies on the southern nobles and gentry. The Countess of Richmond, though attainted, was permitted to hold her estates for life, or rather, they were thus conceded for that term to her husband, Lord Stanley, to bind him to the usurper.

To avenge himself on the queen-dowager for her acceptance of the proposal to bring over Henry of Richmond and unite him to her daughter, Richard now deprived her and her daughters of all title, property, and honour. He treated them, not as the legitimate wife and children of Edward IV., but as what he had before proclaimed them. He had ordered the late murdered king to be called officially "Edward the bastard, lately called Edward V." The queen-dowager was styled "Elizabeth, late wife of Sir John Gray," and her daughters were treated and addressed as simple gentlewomen.

But the design of placing Henry of Richmond on the throne, Richard knew well, though for the moment defeated, was not abandoned. At the last festival of Christmas Henry had met the English exiles, to the number of 500, at Rhedon, in Brittany, and had there sworn to marry Elizabeth of York as soon as he should subdue the usurper; and thereupon the exiles had unanimously sworn to support him as their sovereign. Henry was, as we have observed, descended on the father's side merely from Owen Tudor, a yeoman of the royal guard, and Catherine, the widow of Henry V. On the mother's side he was descended from Edward III. through John of Gaunt, but from an illegitimate branch. The bar of illegitimacy, though legally removed, would always have operated against his claim to the crown; but, independent of this, there were still various princes and princesses of Spain and Portugal, descendants of John of Gaunt, whose titles to the English crown were much superior to his. Yet, from his very infancy, there seems to have been a singular feeling that one day he would mount the throne of this kingdom. Henry VI. is said to have laid his hand on his head as a child, and declared that one day the crown would sit there. Edward IV. had evinced a perpetual fear of him, and had not only bargained for his secure detention at the court of Brittany, but on one occasion he had bribed the Duke of Brittany to give him up on the pretence of his intending to marry him to his eldest daughter—that daughter, in fact, he was destined eventually to marry. The duke, however, at the last moment, feeling a strong misgiving, had followed Henry to St. Malo, and there stopped him from embarking. Richard, on succeeding to the throne, had tried to purchase the surrender of Henry from the Duke of Brittany. In short, Henry assured the historian, Comines, that from the age of five years he had either been a captive or a fugitive. With this long traditionary presentiment that he was to reign in England attached to him, his marriage to Elizabeth of York would at once obviate all scruples as to his complete title. He would come in on the strength of her title, as William of Orange afterwards did on that of his queen, Mary Stuart.

As the prospect of this event became more imminent—as Richard felt more deeply that the heart of the nation was not with him, but that all men were looking to this alliance as the hope of better times, he set himself to defeat it. Though he had so lately robbed, degraded, and insulted Queen Elizabeth and her family—though he had murdered her children and usurped their throne, he now suddenly turned round, and fawned on them. He began to smile most kindly on Elizabeth, and wished her to quit the sanctuary and come to court—a court dyed in the blood of her sons and brothers. He made her the most flattering promises; and, when they failed to draw her forth, he followed them by the most deadly threats. Elizabeth Woodville had never been found insensible to prospects of advantage for herself and family; but to put herself into the power of so lawless a butcher, and to unite her daughter with the son of the murderer of her children, was by no means reconcilable to her feelings. She stood out stoutly; but fear of worse consequences at length compelled her to succumb, and a private contract was concluded. Richard, in the presence of a number of the nobles and prelates, as well as of the Lord Mayor and aldermen, swore that the lives of Elizabeth and her daughters should be safe; that the mother should receive an annuity of 700 marks for life, and each of the daughters lands to the value of 200 marks on their marriage, which should be to none but gentlemen.

When this bitter draught was swallowed, she had to endure another not the less sorrowful—that was, to appear at the court of the usurper, and behold him sitting in the seat of her murdered son, and receiving that homage which was his right. But this strange patron now smiled sunnily upon her. She and her daughters were received with every mark of distinction, and especially Elizabeth, the eldest, whom he was intending to pluck from the hopes of Richmond, by wedding her to his own son. But these views were suddenly destroyed by the death of this, Richard's only legitimate, son. He died at Middleham, where Richard was often residing, but was then with his queen absent at Nottingham. His death, which took place about the 9th of April, had something so remarkable about it, that Rous, the family chronicler, calls it "an unhappy death." Both Richard and his queen were so overwhelmed by this unexpected blow, that the continuator of the Croyland Chronicle says that they almost went mad.

It was indeed a fatal stroke. The son on whom Richard had built the hopes of his family's succession, and for whom he killed his nephews, was now gone, and he was left without an heir, and without any prospect of one. It might be supposed that this event would raise the confidence of the Richmond party; and Richard, appearing to entertain the same idea, conceived the design of securing Richmond, and, no doubt, dealing with him as effectually as he had done with all others who stood in his way. For this purpose he opened secret communications with Francis, Duke of Brittany. That prince, who had been so long the generous protector of Richmond, was now in a feeble and failing state of health, and his minister, Peter Landois, administered his affairs pretty much at his own will. The interest of Landois was purchased by heavy sums, and he agreed to deliver Richmond into the hands of Richard. But the sagacious Morton, Bishop of Ely, gave him timely warning, and Richmond fled for his life. He reached France with only five attendants, and went at once to the French court at Angers, where he was cordially received by the sister of Charles VIII., then acting as regent. He accompanied the French court to Paris, where he again repeated his oath to marry Elizabeth of York, in case of deposing the tyrant, and he was immediately hailed by the students of Paris as King of England. He was promised assistance by the princess regent for his enterprise, and while these things were proceeding, Francis of Brittany, who had recovered his health, and was made acquainted with the villainy of Landois, sent a messenger to offer him aid in his design.

Thus Richard had driven his enemy into a more safe and formidable position, instead of capturing him, and he taxed his subtle genius to thwart this dangerous rival by other means. To prepare for any serious attack from France, he put an end to a miserable state of plunder and reprisal betwixt Scotland and his subjects. He concluded an armistice with James of Scotland; and having since his son's death nominated John Earl of Lincoln the son of his sister the Duchess of Suffolk heir to the crown, he now contracted Anne de la Pole, the sister of the young earl, to the eldest son of the King of Scotland.

But Richard had designs more profound than this. He determined, as he could not marry Elizabeth of York to his son, he would snatch her from Richmond by wedding her himself. True, he had already a wife; but monarchs have frequently shown how soon such an obstacle to a fresh alliance can be removed. Richard now held a magnificent court at Westminster. There was a constant succession of balls, feastings, and gaieties. In the midst of these no one was so conspicuous as Elizabeth of York; and what very soon excited the attention and the speculations of the court, she always appeared in precisely the same dress as the queen.

The poor queen, Anne of Warwick, who began with hating Richard most cordially, and even disguised herself as a cookmaid to escape him, since the death of her son, had never recovered from her melancholy and depression. Probably, knowing the real character of her ruthless Bluebeard, she foresaw what must take place, and was too weary of life to care to retain it. Though she penetrated the designs of the king, these never influenced her in her conduct to Elizabeth, to whom she was kind as became an aunt. And now she fell ill, and Richard is said to have assured Elizabeth that the queen would "die in February," and that she should succeed her.

Anne of Warwick, the last queen of the Plantagenet line, did not die in February, but she did not survive through March. Yet that event did not in any degree contribute to Richard's marriage with Elizabeth. Whether we are to suppose with Sir Thomas More, and others, that Elizabeth herself manifested a steady repugnance to so abhorrent a union, or whether Richard deemed her in greater security there, he sent her under close guard to the castle of Sheriff-Hutton, in Yorkshire, and no sooner did he permit it to be whispered that such a marriage was probable, than the rumour was received with universal horror. No persons were more resolutely opposed to it than Ratcliffe and Catesby, Richard's great confidants in his crimes. They naturally dreaded the idea of Elizabeth, the sister of the murdered princes and the representative of a family on which they had heaped such injuries, becoming queen, and in a position to wreak her vengeance upon them. But they also saw, quite as clearly, the ruin which the king would certainly bring down upon himself by such a measure, in which they must also be inevitably involved.

The instinct of self-preservation in these men led them to remind the king that a marriage with his own niece would be regarded as incestuous, would be reprobated by the clergy, and abhorred by the people; that there was a general persuasion abroad that he had poisoned his wife, and this union would convert that persuasion into absolute conviction; that the men of the northern counties, on whom he chiefly depended, and who adhered to him, more than for any other cause, through their attachment to the late queen, as the daughter of the great Earl of Warwick, would be totally lost, and nothing but ruin could await him.

This strong and undisguised feeling, displayed thus both in public and private, drove Richard from this design. Just before Easter, he called a meeting of the city authorities in the great hall of St John's, Clerkenwell, and there declared that he had no such intention as that of marrying his niece, and that the report was "false and scandalous in a high degree." He also sent a letter to the citizens of York, dated the 11th of April, contradicting such slanderous tales, and commanding them to apprehend and punish all who should be found guilty of propagating them.

But the time was fast drawing near which must decide whether Richard or Henry of Richmond should wear the crown. Richard was informed by his agents on the Continent that Charles of France had permitted the Earl of Richmond to raise an army in that country. They amounted to 3,000 men, consisting of English refugees and Norman adventurers. Richard pretended to be delighted at the news, as confident that now he should speedily annihilate his enemy. He was, however, so impoverished by his lavish gifts and grants to secure the faith of his adherents, that he was unprovided with the means of maintaining an army; neither had he a fleet to intercept that of Henry. He dared not call a Parliament to ask for supplies, for he had expended those granted by the only one he had called. In that Parliament, to cast odium upon the memory of his brother Edward, he had called on his subjects to remember his tyranny in extorting benevolences; yet now he resorted to the very same thing; and the people, in ridicule of his pretended denunciation of benevolences, called them malevolences. By these arbitrary exactions he destroyed the last trace of adhesion to his Government. On all sides he felt coldness—on all sides he saw defection. The brave old Earl of Oxford, John De Vere, who had been a prisoner twelve years in the prison of Ham, in Picardy, was set at liberty by Sir James Blount, the governor of the castle, and they fled together to Henry. Sir John Fortescue, the Porter of Calais, followed their example, and numbers of young English gentlemen, students of the University of Paris, flocked to his standard. The same process was going on in England. Several sheriffs of counties abandoned their charge, and hastened over to France; and numerous parties put off from time to time from the coast. But no nobleman occasioned, however, so much anxiety as Lord Stanley. His connection with Richmond, having married his mother, made Richard always suspicious. He had lavished favours upon him to attach him, and had made him steward of the household to retain him under his eye. Stanley had always appeared sincere in his service, but it was a sincerity that Richard could not comprehend. This nobleman now demanded permission to visit his estates in Cheshire and Lancashire, to raise forces for the king; but Richard so little trusted him that he detained his son, Lord Strange, as a hostage for his fidelity. We have already seen that Stanley had long secretly pledged himself to Elizabeth of York in her cause, and only waited the proper occasion to go over.

On the 1st of August, 1485, Henry of Richmond set sail from Harfleur, with the united fleet of France and Brittany, and an army of 3,000 men, on that memorable expedition which was to terminate the fatal wars of the Roses, and introduce into England a new dynasty, and a new era of civilisation. On the seventh of that month he landed at Milford Haven. He himself and his uncle, Jasper Tudor, Earl of Pembroke, went on shore at a place called Dale, while his army was disembarking. The Welsh accosted the old earl with this significant welcome on his setting foot on his native shore, "Welcome! for thou hast taken good care of thy nephew!"

Having refreshed his forces, Henry marched on through Haverfordwest and Pembroke to Cardigan. Everywhere he was received with manifest delight; but his forces did not increase till he reached Cardigan, where Richard Griffith and Richard Thomas, two Welsh gentlemen, joined his standard with their friends. His old friend Sir Walter Herbert, who had been expressly sent by Richard into that quarter with Rice ap Thomas to raise the country in his behalf, though he did not join him, suffered him to pass unmolested. Rice ap Thomas, on receiving a promise of the Government of Wales, went over at once to Henry. When the army reached Newport Sir Gilbert Talbot, with a decision of character in keeping with the account of him by Brereton, came at the head of the tenantry of his nephew, the Earl of Shrewsbury, 2,000 in number, and there, too, he was followed by Sir John Savage. The invading force now amounted to more than 6,000 men.

Henry crossed the Severn at Shrewsbury. Richard now advanced to Leicester, whence he issued despatches to all his subjects to join him on the instant, accompanied by the most deadly menaces against all defaulters. The Duke of Norfolk was there with the levies of the eastern counties; the Earl of Northumberland with those from the north; Lord Lovel commanded those from London; and Brackenbury those from Hampshire. Stanley alone held aloof, and sent word, in reply to Richard's summons, that he was ill in bed with the sweating sickness. Richard received this ominous message with the utmost rage; and, as he had vowed that, on the first symptom of disaffection on his part, he would cut off the head of Lord Strange, his son, Strange made an instant attempt at flight. He was brought back, and frankly confessed that he and his uncle, Sir William Stanley, chamberlain of North Wales, had agreed to join the invaders; but protested that his father knew nothing of their intention, but was loyal, and his forces were already on the way to the royal camp. Richard compelled him to write to his father, bidding him come up at once, or that his son was a dead man.

On the 21st of August Richard rode forward from Leicester, and encamped about two miles from Bosworth. He was mounted in the march on a magnificent white courser, and clad in the same rich suit of burnished steel which he wore at his victorious field of Tewkesbury. On his helmet blazed a regal crown, which he had displayed there since he took up his headquarters at Nottingham. His countenance is represented as stern and frowning; his manner haughty, and as if putting on an air of bravado, rather than of calm confidence; for, though his troops amounted to 30,000, and his cavalry was the finest in Europe, he well knew that there was secret and wide-spread disaffection under all that martial show. Were his followers true to him, the little army of Richmond would be shivered in the first shock, and trodden under foot. But, perhaps, not a man except the Duke of Norfolk was really stanch in his devotion; and that night Norfolk's followers found pinned upon his tent this ominous couplet:—

That night Henry, who had reached Tamworth, marched to Atherstone. His army did not amount to half that of Richard: yet all were earnest in the cause, and the number of men of rank and character in it gave it a very imposing air in the eyes of the soldiers. On the contrary, Richard's soldiers, if we are to believe "Twelve Strange Prophecies"—still in the British Museum—had been discouraged, not only by the warning to John, or—as he was familiarly called—Jocky of Norfolk, but by the following singular incident. As the king rode out of Leicester by the south gate, at the head of his cavalry, a blind old man, well known as a superannuated wheelwright, sat begging at the foot of the bridge. In reply to the remarks of the soldiers as to the weather, the old man cried out just as the king was at hand—"If the moon change again to-day, which has changed once in the course of nature, King Richard will lose life and crown." This was supposed to allude to Lord Percy, whose crest was a crescent, and of whose faith Richard was sorely in doubt. When Richard passed, his foot struck against a low post placed to defend the corner of the bridge, and the beggar said, "His head will strike there as he returns at night."

The night before the battle, Henry of Richmond had a secret meeting near Atherstone with Lord Stanley, who assured him of his adherence, but showed him how impossible it was that he could join him till Richard was engaged in arraying the battle, or his son's life would immediately be sacrificed. Stanley had 5,000 men, and engaged to appear for Richard till the moment for battle, when his defection would do Henry the most signal service.

On the evening of the 21st of August, the two armies lay encamped near the little town of Bosworth, opposite to each other. Richard is represented by the chroniclers as passing that night in the most agonising state of restlessness and uncertainty. The deeply-rooted disaffection of his troops destroyed his confidence, though his 30,000 were only opposed by Richmond's 6,000. He went through the camp examining secretly the state of his outposts, and finding at one of them a sentinel asleep, he stabbed him to the heart, saying, "I find him asleep, and I leave him so." His own slumbers are said to have been broken, and the chroniclers express his state by saying he "was most terribly pulled and haled by devils."

But other agents than those thus troubling the tyrant's mind were active throughout the camp. Many of his soldiers stole away to Richmond, and probably some of these left the warning to Jocky of Norfolk. These desertions produced dismay in Richard's ranks, and confidence in those of his rival.

When morning broke, Richmond's little army was discovered already drawn up. The van, consisting of archers, was led by the Earl of Oxford; the right wing by Sir Gilbert Talbot; the left by Sir John Savage. In the main body Henry posted himself, accompanied by the Earl of Pembroke. Richard confronted the foe with his numerous lines, taking his place also in the main body, opposite to Richmond, but giving the command of the van to the Duke of Norfolk. Lord Stanley took his station on one wing, and Sir William on the other, so that, thus disposed, they could flank either their own side or the opposed one. The battle was begun by the archers of both armies, and soon became furious. No sooner was this the case, than the Stanleys, seizing the critical moment, wheeling round, joined the enemy, and fell on Richard's flanks. This masterly manoeuvre struck dismay through the lines of Richard; the men who stood their ground appeared to fight without heart, and to be ready to fly. Richard, who saw this, and beheld the Duke of Northumberland, sitting at the head of his division, and never striking a single stroke, became transported with fury. His only hope appeared to be to make a desperate assault on Henry's van, and, if possible, to reach and kill him on the spot. With this object he made three furious charges of cavalry; and, at the third, but not before he had seen his chief companion, the Duke of Norfolk, slain, he broke into the midst of Henry's main body, and, catching sight of him, dashed forward, crying frantically, "Treason! treason! treason!" He killed Sir William Brandon, Henry's standard-bearer, with his own hand; struck Sir John Cheyney from his horse; and, springing forward on Henry, aimed a desperate blow at him; but Sir William Stanley, breaking in at that moment, surrounded Richard with his brave followers, who bore him to the ground by their numbers, and slew him, as he continued to fight with a bravery as heroic as his political career had been—in the words of Hume—"dishonourable for his multiplied and detestable enormities." The blood of Richard tinged a small brook which ran where he fell, and the people are said to this day never to drink of its water.

The body of the fallen tyrant was speedily stripped of his valuable armour and ornaments, and the soldier who laid hands upon the crown hid it in a hawthorn bush. But strict quest being made after it, it was soon discovered and carried to Lord Stanley, who placed it upon the head of Henry, and the victor was immediately saluted by the general acclamations of the army with "Long live King Henry!" and they sang Te Deum, in grand chorus, on the bloody heath of Bosworth. From the poetical circumstance of the hawthorn bush, the Tudors assumed as their device a crown in a bush of fruited hawthorn. Lord Strange, the son of Lord Stanley, being deserted by his guards, as soon as the defeat was known, made his way to the field, and joined his father and the king at the close of the battle.

King Henry VII. advanced from the decisive field of Bosworth, at the head of his victorious troops, to Leicester, which he entered with the same royal state that Richard had quitted it. The statements of the numbers who fell on this field vary from 1,000 to 4,000, but of the leaders, the Duke of Norfolk, and Lord Ferrars of Chartley, Sir Richard Ratcliffe, Sir Robert Percy, and Sir Robert Brackenbury, fell with the king. On the side of Henry fell no leaders of note.

Henry used his victory mildly; he shed no blood of the vanquished, except that of the notorious Catesby, and two persons of the name of Brecher, who were probably men of like character and crimes. Thus, in one day, the world was relieved of the presence of Richard and of his two base commissioners of murder, Catesby and Ratcliffe.

Richard's naked body, covered with mud and gore, was, according to the local traditions of Leicester, flung carelessly across a horse, and thus carried into that town; his head, say these historic memories, striking against the very post which the blind beggar had said it should, and the rude populace following it with shouts of mockery. The corpse was begged by the nuns of the Grey Friars, to whom Richard had been a benefactor, and was decently interred in their church.