knitting the brows, frowning and fretting, gnawing of his lips," and declaring he will not dine till he has Lord Hastings' head.

22. Sir Thomas More tells all this as vividly as if he had seen it with his own eyes. He probably learnt it from Morton, the Bishop of Ely, who had such fine strawberries, and who really did see and hear it all. But as this Morton was imprisoned by Richard, and was afterwards one of his most active opponents, we must conclude that he would hardly be an impartial observer, and perhaps gave Richard a more dreadful character than he really deserved.

;;

23. Even after the execution, or rather the murder of Hastings, the Duke of Buckingham still supported Richard and helped him in all his devices. They tried hard to get the people of London to side with them, and to cry out for "King Richard." Richard set himself forth "as a godly prince, clean and faultless of himself, sent out of heaven into this vicious world for the amendment of men's manners." They got a clergyman to preach for him, and to say that all the royal family, his two dead brothers, and his two young nephews, all excepting himself, were illegitimate, and that there was no one to compare with Richard but the people "stood as if they had been turned to stones." Then the Duke of Buckingham himself made a fine speech to the citizens, all about the goodness of Richard, and the safety, wealth, and prosperity they would enjoy were he once king; and he spoke so eloquently "that every man much marvelled, and thought that they never heard in their lives so evil a tale so well told." Nevertheless, the citizens were "as still as midnight." 24. Richard still would not actually seize on the crown by force; he knew very well that the English were a people "whom no man earthly can govern against their wills." At Richard is last the parliament, the lords and commons, were made king. over-persuaded to come to him and offer him the crown. He pretended to be very unwilling to accept it, and they then, headed by the Duke of Buckingham, assured him that if he refused they would choose some other king. All this hanging back and persuasion were, in fact, nothing but a kind of playacting arranged by Richard and Buckingham in secret, and when it had gone far enough Richard condescended to accept that which he was longing for, telling the parliament that his title of birth was now joined to the election of the nobles and commons of the realm, "which," said he, "we, of all titles possible, take for most effectual."

25. He was now solemnly proclaimed, and was crowned, like

the best of English kings, at Westminster Abbey. He offered offerings at St. Edward's shrine, "while the monks sang Te Deum with a faint courage." His wife was crowned with him, and her train was borne by the Countess of Richmond, the mother of Henry, who was biding his time in Brittany. We do not know what she might be thinking as she walked behind the new queen, but we know that there was trouble in store for Richard already. The Duke of Buckingham, his most fast friend and ally, had begun to turn against him in secret, whether from jealousy or some personal grudges. He appeared at the coronation gorgeously apparelled, but he "rode with an evil will, and worse heart."

He rules well.

26. Richard, however, began his reign very well. He really seemed for a time to deserve those high praises which the Frenchman gives him. After his coronation he sent the nobles who had attended it back into their own countries, giving them "strait charge and commandment to see their countries well ordered, and that no wrong nor extortion should be done to his subjects." He summoned a parliament; he declared he would restore the old liberties of England, and abolish all oppression such as his brother had practised, especially those "benevolences," which were so heartily disliked. He protected and helped the merchants; he encouraged literature, and the printing and selling of books. He set free a few bondmen who were still living on the royal estates (for though it might be said broadly there were no serfs or villeins left, strictly speaking, there lingered yet a few, though hardly enough to be noticed). He did, in short, all he could to win popularity.

Death of the

27. But not all this could make people forget his crimes. And now he added one more, the most horrible of all, and the one which makes his name to be shuddered at to this hour the murder of the innocent children in the Tower. Of course, like all the rest of those murders, it could never be exactly proved, but every one believed that the two little princes were smothered in their bed, and every one believes it now.

princes.

After that no one any longer cared for his just government, or his abolishing the benevolences. Every one loathed and abhorred him as a fiend in human shape. "When the fame of this detestable fact," says More, was revealed and divulged through the whole realm, there fell generally such a dolour and inward sorrow into the hearts of all the people, that they in every town, street, and place openly wept and piteously sobbed." Whenever there was a great thunderstorm, or a tempestuous wind, "they did

openly cry and make vociferation that God would take vengeance, and punish the pour Englishmen for the crime and offence of their ungracious king."

28. And now what had been threatened in a sort of jest, when Richard and Buckingham had acted their play together, began to be thought of in earnest. People began to look out for another king. The royal houses of York and Lancaster were all but extinct; of Lancaster not one legitimate member Henry Tudor remained; but there was still that Henry Tudor of comes whom we have already heard, and who had begun forward. to be looked on as the representative of the Red

Rose. Henry VI., who was now regarded as a saint, was said to have prophesied of him that he should be king, and “England's bliss," and the enemies of Richard set all their hearts and hopes upon him. To make his title better, it was proposed that he should marry the Princess Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Edward IV.; thus both the rival houses, the Red and the White Roses, would be at last united.

Elizabeth of

29. But Richard thought to be beforehand with them there. His first plan was to marry the princess to his own only son, but he died just about this time. Richard had shown The Princess before now that he would stop at nothing; and though York. he had a wife already, he determined to put her out of the way, and marry his own niece Elizabeth sooner than let Henry Tudor win her. He expected to gain the Pope's consent to this marriage, though it was contrary to all the laws of the Church and the country; but the Popes, who, as we have seen, professed to have the power of dispensing men from keeping their oaths and promises, considered themselves also entitled to dispense them from obeying the most sacred laws in other matters, and in this of marriage more particularly. He would perhaps have succeeded in gaining the Pope's permission, since he gained what we should have thought far more difficult, the consent of the princess and her mother Elizabeth.

But though poor Queen Anne died just at the convenient season, yet the whole country was so disgusted and so averse to this unnatural marriage that it had to be given up, and in due time Henry Tudor got the princess for himself.

30. Meanwhile nearly all the most important people in the tountry were joining Henry's party; amongst them Morton, the Bishop of Ely, who had been imprisoned by Richard, but had made his escape. The Duke of Buckingham also revolted openly. He perceived that Richard was "disdained of the lords temporal,

execrate and accursed of all the lords spiritual, detested of all gentlemen, and despised of all the commonalty." Well might he say, as Shakespeare makes him do, "There is no creature loves me."

1485. Battle of Bosworth

31. Henry's first attempt at invasion failed, and after it the Duke of Buckingham was captured and beheaded; but the prince soon came again, landing in Wales, where he had many friends, being partly a Welshman himself. On his march forward more and more adherents joined him. He and Richard met at Bosworth Field, near Leicester. Richard, with all his faults, was very courageous, and he fought bravely now, but all in vain. perhaps quite true, as Henry says in the play

"Richard except, those whom we fight against
Had rather have us win than him they follow."

Field.

It was

This was the last battle of the Wars of the Roses, and it was quite characteristic of those wars that its fate was decided by treachery, or, if we can hardly call it treachery, by one of the principal leaders of Richard's army going over to Henry's side. This was Lord Derby or Stanley, who was stepfather to Henry; for though his mother was always called Countess of Richmond, she had, after the death of Henry's father, married the Earl of Derby. Richard was therefore very suspicious of him; so much so that he kept his son George as a hostage, and when he saw that Derby had deserted him he instantly exclaimed, "Off with George Stanley's head." But the rest, not knowing yet how the battle might turn, thought it more prudent to wait a little before obeying, and so the young man's life was saved. Richard was defeated and killed; his crown was found hanging on a hawthorn bush on the battle-field, and was placed by Lord Derby on the head of the victorious Henry.

In the stained glass windows of Henry VII.'s Chapel in Westminster Abbey, besides the union of the Red and White Roses, which appears over and over again, we may see also the picture of the hawthorn tree of Bosworth Field, with the golden crown above it.

LECTURE XXXIX.-THE RENAISSANCE.

Peace after war. of the nobles. of learning.

1485. Henry VII,

1.

Henry VII. His character. He suppresses the power
England prospers. Discovery of America. The revival

"FROM town to town, from tower to tower,

The Red Rose is a gladsome flower.

Her thirty years of winter past,

The Red Rose is revived at last.

She lifts her head for endless spring,

For everlasting blossoming;

Both Roses flourish, Red and White,

In love and sisterly delight;

The two that were at strife are blended,
And all old troubles now are ended."

So sang, or so might sing, the minstrels after this victory which brought again peace to England. But, though the time was such a joyful one, there is not much very interesting to be said about Henry VII. himself. He was not like any of the kings we have had to do with lately; not a hero like Henry V., nor a saint like Henry VI., nor a murdering fiend like Richard III. He was what we may call commonplace. "As his face was neither strange nor dark, so neither was it winning nor pleasing," says his biographer; and much the same might be said of his character.

He was very prudent and sensible. He married Elizabeth of York, though he does not seem to have been very fond of her. He was formally accepted as king by the parliament, and he took care not to get embroiled with it at any future time.

2. All the Tudor sovereigns were noted for having what we call "a will of their own," and had a great inclination to be despotic. Henry VII. had this too, but he contrived to gratify it without openly breaking the laws. He by no means liked to be shackled and controlled by parliament, and very seldom allowed it to meet. Of course the great difficulty about this was the money; but as Henry loved money just as well as he loved his own will, he contrived, without exactly breaking the law, to get a great deal.