Richard III E-Book

Jacob Abbott

• Herausgeber: Seltzer Books
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Seitenzahl: 285

Beschreibung

According to Wikipedia: "Richard III (2 October 1452 – 22 August 1485) was King of England for two years, from 1483 until his death in 1485 during the Battle of Bosworth Field. He was the last king of the House of York and the last of the Plantagenet dynasty. His defeat at the Battle of Bosworth Field was the decisive battle of the Wars of the Roses and is sometimes regarded as the end of the Middle Ages in England. He is the subject of an eponymous historical play by William Shakespeare. When his brother Edward IV died in April 1483, Richard was named Lord protector of the realm for Edward's son and successor, the 12-year-old King Edward V... There were two major rebellions against Richard. The first, in October 1483, was led by staunch opponents of Edward IV and most notably by Richard's former ally, Henry Stafford, 2nd Duke of Buckingham. The revolt collapsed and Buckingham was executed at Salisbury near the Bull's Head Inn. In August 1485 there was another rebellion against Richard, headed by Henry Tudor, 2nd Earl of Richmond (later King Henry VII) and his uncle Jasper. The rebels landed troops, composed mainly of mercenaries, and Richard fell in the Battle of Bosworth Field, the last English king to die in battle (and the only king to die in battle on English soil since Harold II, at the Battle of Hastings in 1066)."

Leseprobe

RICHARD III BY JACOB ABBOTT 

Published by Seltzer Books

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Biographies by Jacob Abbott available from Seltzer Books:

Alexander the Great

Charles I

Charles II

Cleopatra

Cyrus the Great

Darius the Great

Genghis Khan

Hannibal

Julius Caesar

King Alfred of England

Margaret of Anjou

Mary Queen of Scots

Nero

Peter the Great

Pyrrhus

Queen Elizabeth

Richard I

Richard II

Richard III

Romulus

William the Conqueror

Xerxes

First published in 1901

PREFACE

1. RICHARD'S MOTHER

2. RICHARD'S FATHER

3. THE CHILDHOOD OF RICHARD

4. ACCESSION OF EDWARD IV., RICHARD'S ELDER        BROTHER

5. WARWICK, THE KING-MAKER

6. THE DOWNFALL OF YORK

7. THE DOWNFALL OF LANCASTER

8. RICHARD'S MARRIAGE

9. END OF THE REIGN OF EDWARD

10. RICHARD AND EDWARD V.

11. TAKING SANCTUARY

12. RICHARD LORD PROTECTOR

13. PROCLAIMED KING

14. THE CORONATION

15. FATE OF THE PRINCES

16. DOMESTIC TROUBLES

17. THE FIELD OF BOSWORTH

 PREFACE.

 King Richard the Third, known commonly in history as Richard the Usurper, was perhaps as bad a man as the principle of hereditary sovereignty ever raised to the throne, or perhaps it should rather be said, as the principle of hereditary sovereignty ever _made_. There is no evidence that his natural disposition was marked with any peculiar depravity. He was made reckless, unscrupulous, and cruel by the influences which surrounded him, and the circumstances in which he lived, and by being habituated to believe, from his earliest childhood, that the family to which he belonged were born to live in luxury and splendor, and to reign, while the millions that formed the great mass of the community were created only to toil and to obey. The manner in which the principles of pride, ambition, and desperate love of power, which were instilled into his mind in his earliest years, brought forth in the end their legitimate fruits, is clearly seen by the following narrative.

1.  RICHARD'S MOTHER.

The great quarrel between the houses of York and Lancaster.--Terrible results of the quarrel.--Origin of it.--Intricate questions of genealogy and descent.--Lady Cecily Neville.--She becomes Duchess of York.--Her mode of life.--Extract from the ancient annals.--Lady Cecily's family.--Names of the children.--The boys' situation and mode of life.--Their letters.--Letter written by Edward and Edmund.--The boys congratulate their father on his victories.--Further particulars about the boys.--The Castle of Ludlow.--Character of Richard's mother.--Spirit of aristocracy.--Relative condition of the nobles and the people.--Character of Richard's mother.--The governess.--Sir Richard Croft, the boys' governor.

 The mother of King Richard the Third was a beautiful, and, in many respects, a noble-minded woman, though she lived in very rude, turbulent, and trying times. She was born, so to speak, into one of the most widely-extended, the most bitter, and the most fatal of the family quarrels which have darkened the annals of the great in the whole history of mankind, namely, that long-protracted and bitter contest which was waged for so many years between the two great branches of the family of Edward the Third--the houses of York and Lancaster--for the possession of the kingdom of England. This dreadful quarrel lasted for more than a hundred years. It led to wars and commotions, to the sacking and burning of towns, to the ravaging of fruitful countries, and to atrocious deeds of violence of every sort, almost without number. The internal peace of hundreds of thousands of families all over the land was destroyed by it for many generations. Husbands were alienated from wives, and parents from children by it. Murders and assassinations innumerable grew out of it. And what was it all about? you will ask. It arose from the fact that the descendants of a certain king had married and intermarried among each other in such a complicated manner that for several generations nobody could tell which of two different lines of candidates was fairly entitled to the throne. The question was settled at last by a prince who inherited the claim on one side marrying a princess who was the heir on the other. Thus the conflicting interests of the two houses were combined, and the quarrel was ended.

But, while the question was pending, it kept the country in a state of perpetual commotion, with feuds, and quarrels, and combats innumerable, and all the other countless and indescribable horrors of civil war.

The two branches of the royal family which were engaged in this quarrel were called the houses of York and Lancaster, from the fact that those were the titles of the fathers and heads of the two lines respectively. The Lancaster party were the descendants of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, and the York party were the successors and heirs of his brother Edmund, Duke of York. These men were both sons of Edward the Third, the King of England who reigned immediately before Richard the Second. A full account of the family is given in our history of Richard the Second. Of course, they being brothers, their children were cousins, and they ought to have lived together in peace and harmony. And then, besides being related to each other through their fathers, the two branches of the family intermarried together, so as to make the relationships in the following generations so close and so complicated that it was almost impossible to disentangle them. In reading the history of those times, we find dukes or princes fighting each other in the field, or laying plans to assassinate each other, or striving to see which should make the other a captive, and shut him up in a dungeon for the rest of his days; and yet these enemies, so exasperated and implacable, are very near relations--cousins, perhaps, if the relationship is reckoned in one way, and uncle and nephew if it is reckoned in another. During the period of this struggle, all the great personages of the court, and all, or nearly all, the private families of the kingdom, and all the towns and the villages, were divided and distracted by the dreadful feud.

Richard's mother, whose name, before she was married, was Lady Cecily Neville, was born into one side of this quarrel, and then afterward married into the other side of it. This is a specimen of the way in which the contest became complicated in multitudes of cases. Lady Cecily was descended from the Duke of Lancaster, but she married the Duke of York, in the third generation from the time when the quarrel began.

Of course, upon her marriage, Lady Cecily Neville became the Duchess of York. Her husband was a man of great political importance in his day, and, like the other nobles of the land, was employed continually in wars and in expeditions of various kinds, in the course of which he was continually changing his residence from castle to castle all over England, and sometimes making excursions into Ireland, Scotland, and France. His wife accompanied him in many of these wanderings, and she led, of course, so far as external circumstances were concerned, a wild and adventurous life. She was, however, very quiet and domestic in her tastes, though proud and ambitious in her aspirations, and she occupied herself, wherever she was, in regulating her husband's household, teaching and training her children, and in attending with great regularity and faithfulness to her religious duty, as religious duty was understood in those days.

The following is an account, copied from an ancient record, of the manner in which she spent her days at one of the castles where she was residing.

    "She useth to arise at seven of the clock, and hath readye her     chapleyne to say with her mattins of the daye (that is, morning     prayers), and when she is fully readye, she hath a lowe mass in     her chamber. After mass she taketh something to recreate nature,     and soe goeth to the chapelle, hearinge the divine service and two     lowe masses. From thence to dynner, during the tyme of whih she     hath a lecture of holy matter (that is, reading from a religious     book), either Hilton of Contemplative and Active Life, or some     other spiritual and instructive work. After dynner she giveth     audyence to all such as hath any matter to shrive unto her, by the     space of one hower, and then sleepeth one quarter of an hower, and     after she hath slept she contynueth in prayer until the first     peale of even songe.

    "In the tyme of supper she reciteth the lecture that was had at     dynner to those that be in her presence. After supper she     disposeth herself to be famyliare with her gentlewomen to the     seasoning of honest myrthe, and one hower before her going to bed     she taketh a cup of wine, and after that goeth to her pryvie     closette, and taketh her leave of God for all nighte, makinge end     of her prayers for that daye, and by eighte of the clocke is in     bedde."

The going to bed at eight o'clock was in keeping with the other arrangements of the day, for we find by a record of the rules and orders of the duchess's household that the dinner-hour was eleven, and the supper was at four.

This lady, Richard's mother, during her married life, had no less than twelve children. Their names were Anne, Henry, Edward, Edmund, Elizabeth, Margaret, William, John, George, Thomas, Richard, and Ursula. Thus Richard, the subject of this volume, was the eleventh, that is, the last but one. A great many of these, Richard's brothers and sisters, died while they were children. All the boys died thus except four, namely, Edward, Edmund, George, and Richard. Of course, it is only with those four that we have any thing to do in the present narrative.

Several of the other children, however, besides these three, lived for some time. They resided generally with their mother while they were young, but as they grew up they were often separated both from her and from their father--the duke, their father, being often called away from home, in the course of the various wars in which he was engaged, and his wife frequently accompanied him. On such occasions the boys were left at some castle or other, under the care of persons employed to take charge of their education. They used to write letters to their father from time to time, and it is curious that these letters are the earliest examples of letters from children to parents which have been preserved in history. Two of the boys were at one time under the charge of a man named Richard Croft, and the boys thought that he was too strict with them. One of the letters, which has been preserved, was written to complain of this strictness, or, as the boy expressed it, "the odieux rule and demeaning" of their tutor, and also to ask for some "fyne bonnets," which the writer wished to have sent for himself and for his little brother. There is another long letter extant which was written at nearly the same time. This letter was written, or at least signed, by two of the boys, Edward and Edmund, and was addressed to their father on the occasion of some of his victories. But, though signed by the boys' names, I suspect, from the lofty language in which it is expressed, and from the many high-flown expressions of duty which it contains, that it was really written _for_ the boys by their mother or by one of their teachers. Of this, however, the reader can judge for himself on perusing the letter. In this copy the spelling is modernized so as to make it more intelligible, but the language is transcribed exactly from the original.

    "Right high and mighty prince, our most worshipful and     greatly redoubted lord and father:

    "In as lowly a wise as any sons can or may, we recommend us     unto your good lordship, and please it to your highness to     wit, that we have received your worshipful letters yesterday     by your servant William Clinton, bearing date at York, the     29th day of May.[A]

    "By the which William, and by the relation of John Milewater,     we conceive your worshipful and victorious speed against your     enemies, to their great shame, and to us the most     comfortable things that we desire to hear. Whereof we thank     Almighty God of his gifts, beseeching him heartily to give     you that good and cotidian[B] fortune hereafter to know your     enemies, and to have the victory over them.

    "And if it please your highness to know of our welfare, at     the making of this letter we were in good health of body,     thanked be God, beseeching your good and gracious fatherhood     for our daily blessing.

    "And whereas you command us by your said letters to attend     specially to our learning in our young age, that should cause     us to grow to honor and worship in our old age, please it     your highness to wit, that we have attended to our learning     since we came hither, and shall hereafter, by the which we     trust to God your gracious lordship and good fatherhood shall     be pleased.

    "Also we beseech your good lordship that it may please you to     send us Harry Lovedeyne, groom of your kitchen, whose service     is to us right agreeable; and we will send you John Boyes to     wait upon your lordship.

    "Right high and mighty prince, our most worshipful and     greatly redoubted lord and father, we beseech Almighty God     to give you as good life and long as your own princely heart     can best desire.

    "Written at your Castle of Ludlow, the 3d of June.

               "Your humble sons,                     "E. MARCHE.                     "E. RUTLAND."

[Footnote A: There were no postal arrangements in those days, and all letters were sent by private, and generally by special messengers.]

[Footnote B: Daily.]

The subscriptions E. March and E. Rutland stand for Edward, Earl of March, and Edmund, Earl of Rutland; for, though these boys were then only eleven and twelve years of age respectively, they were both earls. One of them, afterward, when he was about seventeen years old, was cruelly killed on the field of battle, where he had been fighting with his father, as we shall see in another chapter. The other, Edward, became King of England. He came immediately before Richard the Third in the line.

The letter which the boys wrote was superscribed as follows:

"To the right high and mighty prince, our most worshipful and greatly redoubted lord and father, the Duke of York, Protector and Defender of England."

The castle of Ludlow, where the boys were residing when this letter was written, was a strong fortress built upon a rock in the western part of England, not far from Shrewsbury. The engraving is a correct representation of it, as it appeared at the period when those boys were there, and it gives a very good idea of the sort of place where kings and princes were accustomed to send their families for safety in those stormy times. Soon after the period of which we are speaking, Ludlow Castle was sacked and destroyed. The ruins of it, however, remain to the present day, and they are visited with much interest by great numbers of modern travelers.

Lady Cecily, as we have already seen, was in many respects a noble woman, and a most faithful and devoted wife and mother; she was, however, of a very lofty and ambitious spirit, and extremely proud of her rank and station. Almost all her brothers and sisters--and the family was very large--were peers and peeresses, and when she married Prince Richard Plantagenet, her heart beat high with exultation and joy to think that she was about to become a queen. She believed that Prince Richard was fully entitled to the throne at that time, for reasons which will be fully explained in the next chapter, and that, even if his claims should not be recognized until the death of the king who was then reigning, they certainly would be so recognized then, and she would become an acknowledged queen, as she thought she was already one by right. So she felt greatly exalted in spirit, and moved and acted among all who surrounded her with an air of stately reserve of the most grand and aristocratic character.

In fact, there has, perhaps, no time and place been known in the history of the world in which the spirit of aristocracy was more lofty and overbearing in its character than in England during the period when the Plantagenet family were in prosperity and power. The nobles formed then, far more strikingly than they do now, an entirely distinct and exalted class, that looked down upon all other ranks and gradations of society as infinitely beneath them. Their only occupation was war, and they regarded all those who were engaged in any employments whatever, that were connected with art or industry, with utter disdain. These last were crowded together in villages and towns which were formed of dark and narrow streets, and rude and comfortless dwellings. The nobles lived in grand castles scattered here and there over the country, with extensive parks and pleasure-grounds around them, where they loved to marshal their followers, and inaugurate marauding expeditions against their rivals or their enemies. They were engaged in constant wars and contentions with each other, each thirsting for more power and more splendor than he at present enjoyed, and treating all beneath him with the utmost haughtiness and disdain. Richard's mother exhibited this aristocratic loftiness of spirit in a very high degree, and it was undoubtedly in a great manner through the influence which she exerted over her children that they were inspired with those sentiments of ambition and love of glory to which the crimes and miseries into which several of them fell in their subsequent career were owing.

To assist her in the early education of her children, Richard's mother appointed one of the ladies of the court their governess. This governess was a personage of very high rank, being descended from the royal line. With the ideas which Lady Cecily entertained of the exalted position of her family, and of the future destiny of her children, none but a lady of high rank would be thought worthy of being intrusted with such a charge. The name of the governess was Lady Mortimer.

The boys, as they grew older, were placed under the charge of a governor. His name was Sir Richard Croft. It is this Sir Richard that they allude to in their letter. He, too, was a person of high rank and of great military distinction. The boys, however, thought him too strict and severe with them; at least so it would seem, from the manner in which they speak of him in the letter.

The governor and the governess appear to have liked each other very well, for after a time Sir Richard offered himself to Lady Mortimer, and they were married.

       *       *       *       *       *

Besides Ludlow Castle, Prince Richard had several other strongholds, where his wife from time to time resided. Richard, who was one of the youngest of the children, was born at one of these, called Fotheringay Castle; but, before coming to the event of his birth, I must give some account of the history and fortunes of his father.

2.  RICHARD'S FATHER.

A.D. 1415-1461

Genealogy of Richard Plantagenet.--Family of Edward III.--Succession of heirs in the family of Edward III.--Genealogical table of the houses of York and Lancaster.--Union of the houses of Clarence and York.--Richard Plantagenet a prisoner.--King Henry VI.--His gentle and quiet character.--Portrait.--Discontent of the people.--Arrangements made for the succession.--Character of Margaret of Anjou.--No children.--Feeble and failing capacity of the king.--Richard Plantagenet formally declared the heir.--Unexpected birth of a prince.--Suspicions.--Various plans and speculations.--Richard's hopes.--Progress of the formation of parties.--Queen Margaret's resolution and energy.--Wars.--Richard's two brothers, Edward and Edmund.--The walls of York.--Prince Richard at York.--Boldness of the queen.--The advice of Richard's counselors.--Richard's reply.--The battle.--Richard defeated.--Death of Edmund.--Death of Richard.--The head set upon a pole at York.

 Richard's father was a prince of the house of York. In the course of his life he was declared heir to the crown, but he died before he attained possession of it, thus leaving it for his children. The nature of his claim to the crown, and, indeed, the general relation of the various branches of the family to each other, will be seen by the genealogical table on the next page but one.

Edward the Third, who reigned more than one hundred years before Richard the Third, and his queen Philippa, left at their decease four sons, as appears by the table.[C] They had other children besides these, but it was only these four, namely, Edward, Lionel, John, and Edmund, whose descendants were involved in the quarrels for the succession. The others either died young, or else, if they arrived at maturity, the lines descending from them soon became extinct.

[Footnote C: See page 35.]

Of the four that survived, the oldest was Edward, called in history the Black Prince. A full account of his life and adventures is given in our history of Richard the Second. He died before his father, and so did not attain to the crown. He, however, left his son Richard his heir, and at Edward's death Richard became king. Richard reigned twenty years, and then, in consequence of his numerous vices and crimes, and of his general mismanagement, he was deposed, and Henry, the son of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, Edward's third son, ascended the throne in his stead.

Now, as appears by the table, John of Gaunt was the third of the four sons, Lionel, Duke of Clarence, being the second. The descendants of Lionel would properly have come before those of John in the succession, but it happened that the only descendants of Lionel were Philippa, a daughter, and Roger, a grandchild, who was at this time an infant. Neither of these were able to assert their claims, although in theory their claims were acknowledged to be prior to those of the descendants of John. The people of England, however, were so desirous to be rid of Richard, that they were willing to submit to the reign of any member of the royal family who should prove strong enough to dispossess him. So they accepted

 GENEALOGICAL TABLE OF THE FAMILY OF EDWARD III., SHOWING THE CONNECTION  OF THE HOUSES OF YORK AND LANCASTER.

Henry of Lancaster, who ascended the throne as Henry the Fourth, and he and his successors in the Lancastrian line, Henry the Fifth and Henry the Sixth, held the throne for many years.

Still, though the people of England generally acquiesced in this, the families of the other brothers, namely, of Lionel and Edmund, called generally the houses of Clarence and of York, were not satisfied. They combined together, and formed a great many plots and conspiracies against the house of Lancaster, and many insurrections and wars, and many cruel deeds of violence and murder grew out of the quarrel. At length, to strengthen their alliance more fully, Richard, the second son of Edmund of York, married Anne, a descendant of the Clarence line. The other children, who came before these, in the two lines, soon afterward died, leaving the inheritance of both to this pair. Their son was Richard, the father of Richard the Third. He is called Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York. On the death of his father and mother, he, of course, became the heir not only of the immense estates and baronial rights of both the lines from which he had descended, but also of the claims of the older line to the crown of England.

The successive generations of these three lines, down to the period of the union of the second and fourth, cutting off the third, is shown clearly in the table.

Of course, the Lancaster line were much alarmed at the combination of the claims of their rivals. King Henry the Fifth was at that period on the throne, and, by the time that Richard Plantagenet was three years old, under pretense of protecting him from danger, he caused him to be shut up in a castle, and kept a close prisoner there.

Time rolled on. King Henry the Fifth died, and Henry the Sixth succeeded him. Richard Plantagenet was still watched and guarded; but at length, by the time that Richard was thirteen years old, the power and influence of his branch of the royal family, or rather those of the two branches from which, combined, he was descended, were found to be increasing, while that of the house of Lancaster was declining. After a time he was brought out from his imprisonment, and restored to his rank and station. King Henry the Sixth was a man of a very weak and timid mind. He was quite young too, being, in fact, a mere child when he began to reign, and every thing went wrong with his government. While he was young, he could, of course, do nothing, and when he grew older he was too gentle and forbearing to control the rough and turbulent spirits around him. He had no taste for war and bloodshed, but loved retirement and seclusion, and, as he advanced in years, he fell into the habit of spending a great deal of his time in acts of piety and devotion, performed according to the ideas and customs of the times. The annexed engraving, representing him as he appeared when he was

a boy, is copied from the ancient portraits, and well expresses the mild and gentle traits which marked his disposition and character.

Such being the disposition and character of Henry, every thing during his reign went wrong, and this state of things, growing worse and worse as he advanced in life, greatly encouraged and strengthened the house of York in the effort which they were inclined to make to bring their own branch of the family to the throne.

"See," said they, "what we come to by allowing a line of usurpers to reign. These Henrys of Lancaster are all descended from a younger son, while the heirs of the older are living, and have a right to the throne. Richard Plantagenet is the true and proper heir. He is a man of energy. Let us make him king."

But the people of England, though they gradually came to desire the change, were not willing yet to plunge the country again into a state of civil war for the purpose of making it. They would not disturb Henry, they said, while he continued to live; but there was nobody to succeed him, and, when he died, Richard Plantagenet should be king.

Henry was married at this time, but he had no children. The name of his wife was Margaret of Anjou. She was a very extraordinary and celebrated woman. Though very beautiful in person, she was as energetic and masculine in character as her poor husband was effeminate and weak, and she took every thing into her own hands. This, however, made matters worse instead of better, and the whole country seemed to rejoice that she had no children, for thus, on the death of Henry, the line would become extinct, and Richard Plantagenet and his descendants would succeed, as a matter of course, in a quiet and peaceful manner. As Henry and Margaret had now been married eight or nine years without any children, it was supposed that they never would have any.

Accordingly, Richard Plantagenet was universally looked upon as Henry's successor, and the time seemed to be drawing nigh when the change of dynasty was to take place. Henry's health was very feeble. He seemed to be rapidly declining. His mind was affected, too, quite seriously, and he sometimes sank into a species of torpor from which nothing could arouse him.

Indeed, it became difficult to carry on the government in his name, for the king sank at last into such a state of imbecility that it was impossible to obtain from him the least sign or token that would serve, even for form's sake, as an assent on his part to the royal decrees. At one time Parliament appointed a commission to visit him in his chamber, for the purpose of ascertaining the state that he was in, and to see also whether they could not get some token from him which they could consider as his assent to certain measures which it was deemed important to take; but they could not get from the king any answer or sign of any kind, notwithstanding all that they could do or say. They retired for a time, and afterward came back again to make a second attempt, and then, as an ancient narrative records the story, "they moved and stirred him by all the ways and means that they could think of to have an answer of the said matter, but they could have no answer, word nor sign, and therefore, with sorrowful hearts, came away."

This being the state of things, Parliament thought it time to make some definite arrangements for the succession. Accordingly, they passed a formal and solemn enactment declaring Richard Plantagenet heir presumptive of the crown, and investing him with the rank and privileges pertaining to that position. They also appointed him, for the present, Protector and defender of the realm.

Richard, the subject of this volume, was at this time an infant two years old. The other ten children had been born at various periods before.

It was now, of course, expected that Henry would soon die, and that then Richard Plantagenet would at once ascend the throne, acknowledged by the whole realm as the sole and rightful heir. But these expectations were suddenly disturbed, and the whole kingdom was thrown into a state of great excitement and alarm by the news of a very unexpected and important event which occurred at this time, namely, the birth of a child to Margaret, the queen. This event awakened all the latent fires of civil dissension and discord anew. The Lancastrian party, of course, at once rallied around the infant prince, who, they claimed, was the rightful heir to the crown. They began at once to reconstruct and strengthen their plans, and to shape their measures with a view to retain the kingdom in the Lancaster line. On the other hand, the friends of the combined houses of Clarence and York declared that they would not acknowledge the new-comer as the rightful heir. They did not believe that he was the son of the king, for he, as they said, had been for a long time as good as dead. Some said that they did not even believe that the child was Margaret's son. There was a story that she had had a child, but that he was very weak and puny, and that he had died soon after his birth, and that Margaret had cunningly substituted another child in his place, in order to retain her position and power by having a supposed son of hers reign as king after her husband should die. Margaret was a woman of so ambitious and unscrupulous a character, that she was generally believed capable of adopting any measures, however criminal and bold, to accomplish her ends.

But, notwithstanding these rumors, Parliament acknowledged the infant as his father's son and heir. He was named Edward, and created at once Prince of Wales, which act was a solemn acknowledgment of his right to the succession. Prince Richard made no open opposition to this; for, although he and his friends maintained that he had a right to the crown, they thought that the time had not yet come for openly advancing their claim, so for the present they determined to be quiet. The child might not survive, and his father, the king, being in so helpless and precarious a condition, might cease to live at any time; and if it should so happen that both the father and the child should die, Richard would, of course, succeed at once, without any question. He accordingly thought it best to wait a little while, and see what turn things would take.

He soon found that things were taking the wrong turn. The child lived, and appeared likely to continue to live, and, what was perhaps worse for him, the king, instead of declining more and more, began to revive. In a short time he was able to attend to business again, at least so far as to express his assent to measures prepared for him by his ministers. Prince Richard was accordingly called upon to resign his protectorate. He thought it best to yield to this proposal, and he did so, and thus the government was once more in Henry's hands.