" Whereas," says he, " it is so that, every humayn creature by the

I. 3E



402 POLITICAL SERIES. [THIRD

sufferaunce of our Lord God is born and ordeyned to be subject and
thralled unto the storms of fortune, and so in divers and many sundry
wayes man is perplexed with worldly adversities, of the which, I, An-
toine Wydeville, Erie Ryuers, Lord Scales, &c. have largely and in
many different manner, have had my parte, and of him releived by the
infinite grace and goodness of our said Lord, through the means of the
mediation of mercy, which grace evidently to know and understood
hath compelled me to set aparte all ingratitude, and droofe (drove) me
by reson and conscience as far as my wretchedness would suffice to
give therefore singular lovynges and thankes, and exhorted me to dis-
pose my recovered lyf to his service, in following his lawes and com-
mandements, and in satisfaction and recompense of mine iniquities
and fawtes before donn, to seke and execute the workes that might be
most acceptable to hym ; and as far as my frailness would suffer me, I
rested in the wyll and purpose during the season I understood the Ju-
bylee and pardon to be at the holy appostle Seynt James in Spain,
which was the year of grace, a thousand cccclxxiii. Thenne I deter-
mined me to take that voyage, and shipped from Southampton in the
month of July in the said year, and so sayled from thence for a recre-
acyon, and passing of time I had delight, and used to read some good
historye, and among other there was that person in my company, a
worshipful gentleman called Louis de Breteylles, which greatly de-
lighted him in all virtuous and honest things, that sayd to me he had
there a book that he trusted I should like right well, and broughte it
to me, which book I had never seen before, and is called ' The Say-
inges and Dictes of Philosophers,' and as I understand it was translat-
yd out of Latin into French, by a worshipfull man called Messire
Jehan de Teonville, Provost of Parys. When I had heeded and looked
upon it as I had tyme and space, I gave thereto a very affection ; and
in special because of the holsom and swete sayinges of the paynims
which is a glorious fayre myrrour to all good Christian people to be-
hold and understand ; ever that a greate comforte to every well-dis-
posed soul ; it speaketh also universally to the example, weal, and doc-
trine of all kynges, princes, and to people of every estate. It lauds
virtue and science, it blames vice and ignorance ; and albeit as I could
not at that season, .no in all that pilgrimage time, have leisure to over-
see it well at my pleasure, whilst for the dispositions that belongeth to
a taker of jubylee and pardons, and also for the great acquaintance that
I founde there of worshipful folkes, with whom it was fittinge that I
should keepe good and honest company, yet nevertheless it rested still
in the desirous favour of my minde, intending utterly to take these
with greater acquaintance at some other convenient time, and so re-
maining in that oppynyon after such season as it listed the king's grace
to commaunde me to give my attendance upon my lord the prince,
and that I was in his service ; when I had leisure I looked upon the
said book, and at the last conclude in myself to translate it into the
English tongue." The Earl Rivers also clothed the ' Morale Pro-
verbes of Christine of Pisa ' in an English dress. " In this transla-
tion," says Walpole, " the earl discovered new talents, turning the
work into a poem of two hundred and three lines, the greatest part of
which he contrived to make conclude with the letter E, an instance at
once of his lordship's application, and of the bad taste of an age which



PERIOD.] WV0EVILLE, EAHL RIVERS. 403

had witticisms and whims to struggle with as well as ignorance." Cax-
ton, in enumerating the works of this nobleman, mentions a third
translation from the French of ' The booke named Cordyale, or Me-
morare Novissime,' and ' over that divers balades against the seven
dedely synnes.' But the most interesting of all the earl's productions
are the stanzas which he composed in the prospect of his execution,
when the harsh and unjust mandate of his oppressors was about to con-
sign him to a dishonoured and premature grave. This ballad was
printed in the first edition of this ill-fated nobleman's reliques from an
imperfect copy preserved by Rous, the defects of which were after-
wards supplied by the Fairfax manuscripts in the Sloanian collection.
We shall here insert it entire for the gratification of the reader, al-
though, as an illustration of English literature, it belongs properly to
the literary section of the period now under consideration.

" Sumwhat mysynge
And more more nynge
In remembrynge

The unstydfastnesse.
This world beynge
Of such whelynge
The contrayinge

What may I guess ?

" I fear dowtles
Remediles
Is now, to sese

My woeful chaunce
For unkyndness
Withoutenless '
And no redress

Me doth avaunce.*

" Wyth displeasaunce
To my grievaunce
And no surance

Of remedy.
So in this traunce
Now in substaunce
Such is my daunce

Willing to die.

" Methynkes truly
Boundyn am I
(And that gretly)

To be constant.
Seyng pleynly
That fortune doth wry
All contrary

From mine entent.

" My lyff was lent
Me on entent,
Hytt is nigh spent

Welcome fortune.
But I ne'er went *
Thus to be shent*
But so hytt ment

Such is her wonne.*

' To speak plainly. f Urges on my fate. Doth turn wide.

1 never thought 5 Tims to be cut off. His custom.



404 POLITICAL SERIES. [THIRD

ilorfc

DIED A. D. 1483.

ONE of the most distinguished victims of the protector's ambition
was the lord Hastings. The early and honoured friend of Edward IV.
he had zealously asserted the rights of the young princes while Glou-
cester was plotting their destruction. This conduct marked him out
for the victim of the man whom no considerations of blood, or justice,
or humanity, ever turned aside from the pursuits of ambition and self-
aggrandisement. As one of Edward's ministers, Hastings had exhibit-
ed a more than ordinary amount of talent, united to as great an amount
of conscientiousness, perhaps, as the circle of the English court at the
time exhibited. It is true that he accepted a pension of two thousand
crowns from Louis XI. of France, the meaning of which could not be
misunderstood ; and that at the concluding of the treaty of Pecquigny,
he received from the same monarch a gift of twelve dozen of gilt silver
bowls, and twelve dozen not gilt, each of which weighed seventeen
nobles ; but then this was nothing more than a harmless compliance
with the fashion of the times, and the English monarch was too needy
and prodigal himself to forbid his favourites any means of making up
to themselves what his own treasury could not yield them. Yet, in
these corrupt transactions, Hastings showed " some glimmering of a
sense of perverted and paradoxical humour." When Cleret, the me-
dium of communication between the subtle monarch and the English
ministers, hinted that some formal acknowledgment of the donation
might be of use to him in his accountings with the king his master,
Hastings gravely answered, " Sir, this gift cometh from the liberal
pleasure of the king your master, and not from my request ; if it be his
determinate will that I should have it, put it into my sleeve ; if not,
return it ; for neither he nor you shall have it to brag that the lord-
chamberlain of England has been his pensioner." 1 Doubtless the lord-
chamberlain felt himself to be a highly honourable and virtuous man,
in thus refusing to give a receipt for a bribe which his sleeve at the
same time gaped wide to receive; his less scrupulous companion
accepted the money, and gave receipts for their several gratuities also,
which still appear in the French archives ; but posterity will probably
admire the prudence more than the virtue of the lord-chamberlain in
his dealings with paymaster Cleret. Handsome in person, and highly
accomplished, Hastings soon made himself a prime auxiliary in Ed-
ward's profligate amusements ; and in doing so, incurred the resent-
ment of the queen, who justly suspected him of encouraging her hus-
band's unbecoming gallantries.

In the expedition to France, Hastings bore a distinguished part, and
was attended by a select body of gentlemen volunteers, who specially
attached themselves to his service, and vowed " to aid and succour him
so far forth as law, equity, and conscience, required." Supported by
the general feeling in his favour, and at first an object neither of dread

1 Holiushed, iii. 312.



PERIOD.] LOUD HASTINGS. 405

nor dislike to the ambitious protector, Hastings might have stood his
ground in the convulsions which followed Edward's death ; hut his jea-
lousy and desertion of Rivers proved fatal to himself. He had hern
engaged in a personal quarrel with Rivers, which drew upon him the
severe resentment of the king himself, and nearly endangered his life
and estate. From this period he had nursed sentiments of revenge to-
wards his accomplished rival, which the force of circumstances alone
had prevented him from gratifying. Edward had seen and marked their
animosity, and while on death-bed, had called them into his chamber,
exhorted them to mutual forgiveness, and commanded them to embrace
in his presence. They obeyed the royal mandate, and Exchanged the
external tokens of friendship, but the lapse of a few days suth'ced to
prove how hollow such reluctant professions of reconciliation were.
When Elizabeth proposed in council that Rivers and Gray should con-
duct her young son from Ludlow to the metropolis, Hastings and his
friends took alarm. They at once perceived that the command of an
army would give the queen and the Wydevilles an immense advantage
over their opponents. Where, they asked, was the necessity of an
army ? Who were the enemies against whom it was to be directed ?
Did the Wydevilles mean to break the reconciliation they had so re-
cently sworn to observe ? An angry altercation ensued : the queen
eagerly insisting on the proposed arrangement, and Hastings as deter-
minedly resisting it. At last he declared that he would quit the court and
retire to his command at Calais, if the queen persisted in her intentions.
Elizabeth fearing to provoke a formidable party at so critical a juncture,
yielded, and those measures were adopted which, in the issue, placed
the queen's party at the mercy of Gloucester.

The intelligence of the arrest of Rivers, was received by the
lord-chamberlain with a burst of delusive joy. He was directed to
communicate intelligence of Gloucester's proceedings at Northampton
to the council, and accordingly sent information to the chancellor, Ro-
therham, archbishop of York. That prelate instantly waited upon the
queen, now preparing to take refuge from the impending storm in the
sanctuary of Westminster, and informed her that her son was in his
uncle's hands ; but exhorted her to take courage, for " that he was
putte in good hope and out of feare by the message sente him from the
lord-chamberlain." " Ah, woo worthe him I" exclaimed the queen,
" for hee is one of them that laboureth to destroye me and my bloode." 1
For a time Hastings laboured to support Richard, with a blindness to
his real designs amounting to fatuity. Lord Stanley told him that
" he misliked these several councils" which Richard held with a private
junto of his own, to which neither Hastings, Stanley, nor the arch-
bishops of Canterbury and York, were ever invited ; but the chamber-
lain laughed at his fears, and replied, " My lord, on my life never doute
you, for while one man is there which is never thence, never can there
be thinges ones minded that should sounde amisse towards me, but it
should be in our eares ere it were well out of their mouths." In these
words, Hastings alluded to Catesby, a lawyer who had risen to emi-
nence under his patronage, and who was one of the duke's council at
Crosby house, from whom he expected to learn all the secrets of that

1 Sir Thomaa More.



406 POLITICAL SERIES. [THIRD

divan. But Catesby was playing a double and a false game, and was
one of the first to betray his ancient patron to the duke. He told him
of the warm and unshaken attachment which Hastings bore to the
young princes, and from that moment the latter was a doomed man.
Stanley again warned him of his danger under the similitude of a dream,
afraid, perhaps, to trust even Hastings with a more open disclosure of
the sentiments which he entertained regarding Richard. He sent a
special messenger to him in the dead of the night, beseeching him to
take horse instantly and flee from the city, for that he had just had a
fearful vision, wherein a boar had attacked himself and his friend, and
wounded both' of them in the head with his tusks. Hastings could
be at no loss to interpret Stanley's vision, for Richard's cognizance was
a boar, yet with blind reliance on the duke's protestations, he laughed
to scorn the timidity and visionary terrors of his friend, and desired him
to give no credit to such vain phantasies, for he was as sure of the man
to whom the vision pointed as of his own hand. 3 In the same morning
on which Hastings had rejected the counsel thus conveyed to him, a
friend of the protector waited upon him, desiring his presence in the
council chamber. On their way thither, Hastings stopped to converse
with an ecclesiastic of his acquaintance whom he happened to meet in
the street, until his companion chided his delay, saying, " What, my
lord, I pray you come on, whereto talke you so long with that priest,
you have no need of a priest yet" Still the infatuated noble remained
unconscious of danger, and hastened onwards to the place of meeting.
Gloucester entered soon after the arrival of Hastings ; his appearance
struck the council with surprise and dismay, and they looked in silence
at each other and him. His brow was contracted into a dark frown,
and for a time he sat biting his lips in suppressed rage, until he sud-
denly broke silence by inquiring what punishment those persons merit-
ed who were now imagining and compassing his death. It was Hast-
ings who first answered the question by exclaiming, that they should be
dealt with as traitors. Gloucester then darkly hinted at his intended
victims : " That sorceress, my brother's wife 1" he exclaimed, plucking
up his left sleeve, and exposing the lean and withered arm which it co-
vered, and which was well known to have been a congenital deformity
of his person. " Ye shall all see," he continued, " how that sorceress
and that witch of her council, Shore's wife, have by their practices
wasted my body." The accusation, absurd as it was, boded no good
to Hastings, who, after Edward's death, had formed a connexion with
his favourite mistress ; yet he plucked up courage to reply : " Certainly,
my lord, if they have so heinously done, they be worthy of heinous
punishment." " What !" rejoined the protector, " dost thou answer
me with ifs and ands ? I tell thee they have done it, and that I will
make good on thy body, traitor I" At these words he struck the table
violently with his fist, whereupon, as if at a preconcerted signal, a
voice at the door exclaimed ' Treason !' and a body of armed men in-
stantly burst into the hall. Hastings and Stanley, with the prelates of
York and Ely, were instantly arrested. The three latter were convey-
ed away to separate chambers, but Gloucester swore by St Paul, that
he would not dine till Hastings' head was off, and commanded his vic-

1 Sir Thomas More.



PERIOD.] HICIIAHD III. 407

tim to hasten to confession. It was in vain that the unfortunate noble-
man inquired what offence he had committed worthy of death, or even
imprisonment ; the mandate for instant execution was imperious, and
none dared to interpose a plea for mercy. The nearest priest received
the unhappy man's hurried confession, and a log of timber which lay in
the yard at the door of the chapel, served for a block, on which the
fatal blow was given. The same afternoon, a proclamation appeared,
in which it was announced, that Hastings and his friends having conspir-
ed " the same day to have slain the lord-protector, and the duke of
Buckingham, sitting in the council," had been, " by the help of God,"
resisted and overcome in the foul attempt Then followed various ani-
madversions on the late chamberlain's character and conduct as an t-vil
counsellor to Edward IV., not omitting severe comments upon his
known connexion with Jane Shore. 4



DIED A. D. 1485.

RICHARD the Third has been, until of late years, the ame damnfc
of historians. They have heaped on his memory the darkest accusa-
tions, imputed to him nearly every atrocious deed that was perpetrated
during his public life, and, to crown this fearful accumulation, they
have described his form as foully distorted, and his features as expres-
sive of the deep malignity of his soul. To these representations, the
appalling impersonation of villanous hypocrisy to which Shakspeare at-
tached the name of Richard has given a force and verisimilitude
against which it appears almost hopeless to hold up a tamer, though
truer limning. He has come down to the present day, as the assassin
of Henry the Sixth and of his unfortunate son, as the murderer of
Clarence, and as the subtle specious schemer, whose object it was,
even during the life of his crowned brother, to prepare a way to the
throne, by the deliberate extinction of every life which stood between
him and the ' royal chair.' For all and each of these charges, the evi-
dence is of an exceedingly questionable character. That Henry was
actually murdered, though probable, is not absolutely certain ; but on
the admission that his death was violent, there still does not appear any
ground of substantial testimony for charging the act itself on the duke
of Gloucester. That he assisted in the cold-blooded butchery of the
youthful Edward of Lancaster is iudeed affirmed by writers of repute ;
yet there is counter-evidence sufficient to throw doubt on the highly-
coloured statement which makes princes and nobles the eager murder-
ers of a defenceless boy. Of the death of Clarence, there are the
strongest reasons for acquitting him ; and it is far more probable that
the king was urged on to fratricide by the apprehensions of the queen
and her family. It is certainly possible that the bold measures by
which he secured first the protectorate, and afterwards the crown, were
the result of long premeditation and close intrigue ; yet is there abso-
lutely nothing in the way of proof that should lead to such a conclu-

4 Sir Thomas More



408 POLITICAL SERIES. [TiURD

sion ; and the balance of probabilities, as well as the peculiar features
of the enterprise, would rather induce the belief, that whatever his
ambition might have previously hoped, the overt-acts in which it first
displayed itself were suggested and governed by the circumstances in
which he found himself placed.

As crowned king, his administration was just and able. He affected
magnificence after the fashion of his deceased brother, though without
his fantastical exaggerations. His person and manners for any thing
that appears to the contrary were pleasing and graceful, though his
historians have been pleased to represent a shape, perhaps not alto-
gether symmetrical, as a mere system of distortions, ' rudely stampt,
cheated of feature, deformed, unfinished, scarce half made up.' Early
in his brief reign, he undertook a royal progress through the kingdom,
for the purpose of redressing grievances, correcting abuses, and ad-
ministering justice ; but at York, where he had re-enacted the pompous
pageant of his coronation, he was startled by menacing intelligence.
The duke of Buckingham, Richard's devoted partizan and bosom-coun-
sellor through the entire business of the usurpation, had been made
too powerful not to whisper to himself a hope that, in the scramble for
dignities, it might fall to his chance to clutch a sceptre, and when that
dream was dissipated by farther reflection, he plotted with the friends
of the queen-dowager, to replace young Edward on the throne. But
the murderous foresight of Richard had already marred that scheme ;
the two princes had perished in the tower, at the command of their uncle.
Defeated in this plan, Buckingham put forward the earl of Richmond,
afterward Henry VII., as the rightful claimant of the kingdom. Rich-
ard, brave and active, lost not an hour in hesitation ; he immediately
assembled troops, and issued a proclamation which, for its cool hypo-
crisy, may challenge competition. It was something new, even in
those strange days, for a king to arraign the private morals of his ene-
mies ; yet did he in that marvellous document, in addition to the usual
charges of faction and treason, think it worth his while, and worthy of
his rank, to abuse his antagonists as ' adulterers and bawds.' 1 His
armament and his moral indignation were, however, alike uncalled
for, since the event proved that Buckingham had miscalculated his
means and opportunity. The elements traversed his intended enterprise ;
he started from Brecknock, but the Severn was in flood, and the
bridges were broken down ; his movements were watched, and his half-
hearted followers disbanded. The simultaneous risings which were to
have aided his efforts by calling off the attention of the royalists, were
easily dispersed, and this ill-combined insurrection terminated in the
public execution of Buckingham, and the flight of the other Lancas-
trian leaders to foreign shores. The king dealt sharply with his foes ;
such as came within his grasp he sent to the gibbet and the block ; and
a subservient parliament aided him in visiting the rest with confisca-
tion and attainder. Richard took farther measures for the legitimation
of his title, by procuring, under parliamentary forms, the annulment
of his brother's marriage with Elizabeth Grey, thus bastardising the
issue of that union. Of this measure, it is not easy to discern the ex-
pediency ; the young princes were dead, and this pertinacious recur-

1 Rymer.



PERIOD.] RICHAKU III. >10<j

rence to the question of legitimacy, could but revive recollections of
little advantage to the individual who had commanded their murder.
In other quarters, his policy was wiser: he completed a paeifie nego-
tiation with Scotland, and intrigued at the court of Bretagne, where
the earl of Richmond and his adherents had found an asylum, but
whence they were compelled to withdraw by the subtle and success-
ful machinations of Richard. But a domestic calamity, the death
of his only son in April, 1484, gave him a farther opportunity of ex-
ercising his characteristic craft. He persuaded his brother's* widow,
whose children he had put to death, whose character he had aspersed,
and whose rank he had taken away, to quit the sanctuary of West-
minster, where she had so long found refuge, and with her daughters
to appear at court. He even procured her consent to his marriage with
her eldest daughter, and both these heartless and ambitious women
were elated at the prospect of the unnatural alliance, though aware, it
is to be feared, that it could not be effected without foul play to Rich-
ard's still living queen. But when the death, probably by poison, of
his consort, had removed the main difficulty, the well-grounded remon-
strances of his favourite advisers defeated the plan. The indignation
of the nation at the marriage of uncle and niece, the confirmation of
the general suspicion that it had been preceded and prepared by a con-
venient murder, with other important motives powerfully urged, pre-
vailed on the king to abandon his design.

In the mean time, a threatening storm was gathering on the shores
of France. Henry, earl of Richmond, had been acknowledged by all
the exiles, and by the malcontents of England, as the heir of Lancas-
ter ; he had pledged himself to merge the conflicting claims of the
two houses, by a marriage, in the event of success, with Elizabeth, the
heiress of York, and thus blend the opposite rights ; he was assem-
bling troops under the auspices of the king of France, for the invasion
of England. In July, 1485, he made good his landing at Milford-
Haven ; and when he reached Shrewsbury his army amounted to four
thousand men, the greater part of whom were Normans. Richard
moved on Leicester with a powerful array, but disaffection pervaded
its ranks : his crimes had destroyed his chance of reigning, and when
the armies faced each other on Bosworth field, he found, that while