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♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



[February 1, 1888. 



even though it was thus intended as a means of safety 

 against the treachery and villainy of others. How far the 

 character of his opponents would have justified the seizure 

 of power from them need not be considered. The wrong 

 was done against one who was at least innocent of any 

 actual offence against Richard. Yet we must recognise 

 some distinction between an act of rapacity almost essential 

 to Richard's safety, and an act of villainy deliberate!}' 

 plotted against the innocent Prince, his nephew. 



Up to this point in his history Richard had been far from 

 encountering that universal hatred which is pictured in 

 Shakespeare's play. On the contrary, he seems to have 

 been rather popular than otherwise ; and his accession to 

 the regency was hailed with delight by the English people. 

 But we enter now on a darker scene, of which this act was 

 the prelude. It rendered Richard at once unpopular. Our 

 English race has always, even in the dajs of its semi- 

 savagery (the good old times, as .some fondly call them), 

 been quickly excited to indignation at the sight of the weak 

 and innocent oppressed by the crafty and rapacious. The 

 executions — murders though they perhaps were — of Rivers, 

 Grey, and Hastings had been so much in accordance with 

 the practice of those pleasant times, that they had attracted 

 little notice and roused still less excitement. But in de- 

 priving the boy-Prince of his inheritance Richard was 

 offending the whole nation, while exposing England to a 

 repetition of those scenes of horror which had but lately 

 ceased, and from the effects of which the country was still 

 suffering severely. Accordingly, Richard found this measure 

 received with so much indignation, and his new power so 

 insecure, that the murder of the Princes seemed to him the 

 only way to protect himself from those who were eager to 

 restore to them their rights. 



The murder of the Pi-inces was Richard's destruction. 

 The wrath of the English people at his usurpation turned 

 at once into execration ; and thenceforward there was no 

 villainy of which they did not believe him capable, scarce 

 .any known to have happened during the evil days of the 

 War of the Roses of which they were not prepared to regard 

 him as the actual perpetrator. Men could scarcely believe 

 that so iinnatural a murderer possessed the form or attri- 

 butes of humanity. It is difficult, even now, for any one of 

 the English I'ace to do such justice to Richard as should be 

 meted even to so great a villain. We must not forget, how- 

 ever, that — though hanging would have been too good for 

 him — thei-e is a distinction between murder suggested by 

 iin.scrupulous ambition combined with the dread of imminent 

 danger, and that inherent ferocity and brutality, that love 

 of cruelty for cruelty's sake, which characterises the Richard 

 of Shakespeare's creation. 



It is interesting to notice how Richard's crimes and their 

 punishment were connected. The usurpation by which 

 Richard had sought to make himself secure brought greater 

 dangers with it. The crime by which he thought to pro- 

 tect himself against these led to his overthrow and death. 

 We cannot wonder that even in the semi-savage England 

 of the fifteenth century this should have happened. The 

 light of chivalry, such as it was, had been dimmed amid 

 the disorder and depression of the civil war; yet the 

 nation was not slow to raise its voice in ominous tones 

 against the king who had been guilty of a crime so cruel 

 and so cowardly. Richard himself seems to have begun 

 to recognise the finger of Providence in the misfortunes 

 which now began to frill upon him. His demeanour and 

 gestures during the lattei' part of his life indicated the 

 terrors suggested by a guilty conscience. He continued to 

 oppose with vigour and capacity the plots and intrigues 

 which now thickened around him, but it was with evident 

 anxiety as to the result. He could no longer trust his 



nearest friends. He could perceive fear and hatred ill- 

 concealed in the countenances of all around him. When 

 the stoi'm which had so long been gathering on the horizon 

 at length burst over him, Richard found the means he 

 had prepared to stay its progress turned against himself. 



Richard's conduct, however, in this last scene of his life 

 was marked by singular courage and energy. He fought 

 resolutely to the last, and he finally met defeat and death 

 on Bosworth Field with all the valour for which the 

 Plantagenets had long been famous. 



In the Richard of history, then, we have a man distinctly 

 different from the Richard of Shakespeare's play. Possess- 

 ing energy and talents, and a high position in the nation, 

 Richard III. found himself so placed that these advantages 

 involved serious dangers. There seemed to him to be no 

 middle course : he must either do or sutler wrong. That he 

 chose the former in such an ago, though it must be con- 

 demned, is not greatly to be wondered at. His character 

 has been well summed up in the statement that " he difiered 

 little from the ordinaiy nobleman of his time, except that 

 circumstances gave him the power to perform signal acts 

 of treachery and to profit by them." 



As regards Richard's capacity there can be no question. 

 Every act of his recorded by history speaks of the man of 

 energy and decision, who amidst plots and intrigues sees at 

 once the best path for safety, and follows it without scruple 

 or compunction. He would probably have failed had he 

 attempted to oppose secret plots with craft and policy. He 

 met them and dispersed them openly and vigorously. In 

 the family of Edward's queen he had to contend with those 

 who, having been raised from an humble condition, enter- 

 tained .a natural aversion to a prince whose family claims 

 were older and stronger. They spared no efforts to bring 

 about his overthrow. 



We cannot rightly judge, however, of the character of 

 the Richard of history, nor rightly appreciate the Richard 

 of Shakespeare's powerful play, without consiilering the 

 tendencies of that dark and gloomy age. In judging any 

 man's conduct it is always important to consider the times 

 in which he lived, but it is specially so in the present 

 instance. There has seldom been an age whose character 

 has been so marked as was t'nat of the age preceding the 

 Reformation. Generally in each succeeding era of a nation's 

 history the elements of good and evil, of order and disorder, 

 exist side by side — in different degrees, but still actively 

 present, and in some degree counteracting each other. But 

 at the close of the War of the Roses the elements of order 

 seemed to have almost wholly disappeared. The very 

 groundwork of society sesms shaken. The kingly power, 

 the Church, and the nobility, had all at the same time lost 

 their influence on the people, while the people were, as yet, 

 altogether unable to control their own destinies. 



England had seen the throne occupied by the usurper 

 Henry TV., the rightful king murdered, the lawful heir in 

 prison. After the brilliant but short reign of Henry V. 

 they had seen his son a mere puppet in the hands of the 

 nobility — now in the nominal possession of power, anon 

 flying for his life. It was natural that they should lose 

 that devoted attachment which the kingly dignity had once 

 inspired — an attachment which, worthless though it would 

 be now, was once an important element of the nation's 

 strength. 



It was the same with the Church. The nation had seen 

 its abuses laid bare by Wycliffe and his followers, and had 

 also felt by bitter experience the change which had taken 

 place fiom the comparative purity of former times. They 

 noted the selfish and often evil lives of many who professed 

 to be their teachers ; they suffered from the rapacity and 

 avarice of the priesthood of the time. We cannot wonder. 



