RICHARD III. 



871 



raged to enter the council, and, in a resolute tone, 

 to declare that he was of full age to take the 

 government into his own hands; and, no opposition 

 being ventured upon, he proceeded to turn out the 

 duke of Gloucester and all his adherents. This act 

 he rendered palatable to the nation by publishing 

 a general amnesty, and remitting 1 the grants of 

 money made by the late parliament. Several years 

 of internal tranquillity ensued, which was promoted 

 by the return of the duke of Lancaster, who formed 

 a counterbalance to the influence of the duke of 

 Gloucester ; and Richard prudently kept on the 

 best terms with him. By his fondness for low com- 

 pany, by spending his time in conviviality, nnd 

 amusement with jesters, and persons of mean station 

 and light behaviour, the king forfeited the respect 

 of his subjects, while his weak attachment to his 

 favourites placed all things at their disposal, and 

 made a mere cipher of himself. Encouraged by 

 these follies the duke of Gloucester once more be- 

 gan to exercise his sinister influence, and, the most 

 criminal designs being imputed to him, Richard 

 caused him and his two chief supporters, the earls 

 of Arundel and Warwick, to be arrested. The earl 

 of Arundel was executed, and the earl of Warwick 

 condemned to perpetual banishment. The duke of 

 Gloucester had been sent over to Calais for safe 

 custody, and was there suffocated. A quarrel be- 

 tween tlie duke of Hereford, son of John of Gaunt, 

 and the duke of Norfolk, was the incidental cause 

 of the revolution which terminated this unsettled 

 reign. The king banished both the dukes Nor- 

 folk for life, and Hereford for ten, afterwards 

 reduced to six years. It was, however, declared 

 that each of them should be duly entitled to any 

 inheritance which might fall to them during their 

 absence ; but, on the death of John of Gaunt, in 

 i;^99, the unprincipled Richard siezed his property 

 as forfeited to the crown. The king having em- 

 barked for Ireland to revenge the death of his 

 cousin, the earl of March, who had been killed in a 

 skirmish with the natives, Henry Bolingbroke as the 

 duke of Hereford was now called, made use of this 

 opportunity to land in Yorkshire, with a small body 

 of forces, and, being joined by the earls of Nor- 

 thumberland and Westmoreland, and other influential 

 leaders, proceeded southward, at the head of 60,000 

 men, nominally to recover his duchy of Lancaster. 

 When Richard upon this intelligence, landed at 

 Milford haven, he found himself so much deserted, 

 that he withdrew to North Wales, with a design to 

 escape to France. He was, however, decoyed to a 

 conference with Henry, seized by an armed force, 

 and led by his successful rival to London. As they 

 entered the capital, Henry was hailed with the 

 loudest acclamations, and the unfortunate Richard 

 treated with neglect and even contumely. His de- 

 position was now resolved upon, to be preceded by 

 a forced resignation of the crown. Thirty-five arti- 

 cles of accusation were accordingly drawn up 

 against him, of which several were exaggerated, 

 false and frivolous, but others contained real instan- 

 ces of tyranny and misgovernment; and king 

 Richard was solemnly deposed Sept. 30, 1399. 

 Henry then claimed the crown, which was awarded 

 to him. (See Henry IV.) Richard was committed, 

 for safe custody, to the castle of Pomfret. Of the 

 manner of his death no certain account has been 

 given ; but a popular notion prevailed, that his 

 keeper and guards killed him with halberds. It is 

 more probable that starvation or poison was had 

 recourse to, for his body, when exposed, exhibited 

 no marks of violence. He died in the thirty-fourth 

 year of his age, and twenty-third of his reign. 

 RICHARD III., king of England, born in 1450, 



was the youngest son of Richard duke of York. 

 On the accession of his brother, Edward IV., he 

 was created duke of Gloucester, and, during the 

 early part of Edward's reign, served him with great 

 courage and fidelity. He partook of the ferocity 

 which was ever a dark feature in the character of 

 the Plantagenets ; and is said to have personally 

 aided in the murder of Edward prince of Wales, 

 after the battle of Tewksbury, and to have been the 

 author, if not the perpetrator, of the murder ot 

 Henry VI. in the Tower. This bloody disposition 

 was, however, united in him with deep policy and 

 dissimulation, which rendered him still more dan- 

 genius. He married, in 1473, Anne, who had been 

 betrothed to the murdered prince of Wales, joint 

 heiress of the earl of Warwick, whose other 

 daughter was united to the duke of Clarence. Quar- 

 rels arose between the brothers on the division of 

 the inheritance of their wives ; and Richard, who 

 found his elder brother an obstacle to his views 

 of aggrandisement, combined in the accusations 

 against that weak and versatile prince, which 

 brought him to destruction. On the death of Ed- 

 ward, in 1483, the duke of Gloucester was appointed 

 protector of the kingdom ; and he immediately 

 caused his nephew, the young Edward V.. to be de- 

 clared king, and took an oath of fealty to him. The 

 two ascendant factions, that of the queen's relatives, 

 headed by her brother, earl Rivers, and that of the 

 more ancient nobility, who were led by the duke of 

 Buckingham and lord Hastings, courted the favour 

 of the protector, who dissembled with each, while he 

 was secretly pursuing the schemes of his own dark 

 ambition. His first object was to get rid of those who 

 were connected with the young king by blood ; and, 

 after spending a convivial evening with Rivers, Grey, 

 and sir Thomas Vaughan, he had them arrested the 

 next morning, and conveyed to Pomfret, where they 

 were soon after executed without trial. Alarmed 

 at the arrest of her relatives, the queen dowager 

 took refuge in the sanctuary at Westminster, with 

 her younger son, the duke of York, and her daughter. 

 As it was necessary, for the protector's purposes, to 

 get both his nephews into his hands, he persuaded 

 two prelates to urge the queen to deliver the duke 

 of York into his hands, upon the most solemn assur- 

 ances of safety. Lord Hastings, although opposed 

 to the queen's relatives, being the steady friend of 

 her children, was next arrested, while sitting in 

 council, and led to immediate execution. After this 

 bold and bloody commencement, he proceeded in an 

 attempt to establish the illegitimacy of Edward's 

 children, on the pretence of a previous marriage 

 with the lady Eleanor Talbot, daughter of the earl 

 of Shrewsbury, and scrupled not to countenance an 

 attack on the character of his own mother, who was 

 affirmed to have given other fathers to Edward and 

 Clarence, and to have been true to her husband only 

 in the birth of Richard. All these pleas were dwelt 

 upon in a sermon preached atSt Paul's cross. The 

 duke of Buckingham afterwards, in a speech before 

 the corporation and citizens of London; enlarged 

 upon the title and virtues of the protector, and then 

 ventured to ask them whether they chose the duke of 

 Gloucester for king. On their silence, he repeated 

 the question, and a few prepared voices exclaimed, 

 " God save king Richard !" This was then ac- 

 cepted as the public voice, and Buckingham, with 

 the lord mayor, repaired to the protector with a 

 tender of the crown. He at first a fleeted alarm and 

 suspicion, and then pretended loyalty to his nephew, 

 and unwillingness to take such a burden upon him- 

 self, but finally acceded ; and he was proclaimed 

 king on the 27th of June, 1483, the mock election 

 being secured by bodies of armed men, brought to 



