terra cujus Rex est Puer But here Sir there is exception of further consequence against them That they were not borne in lawfull Marriage the King having than another Wife living Dame Elizabeth Butler Besides the great dishonour and reproach he received by disparaging his Royall bloud with a woman so far unmeet for his bed These Considerations have resolutely turned all their eyes and Election towards your Grace as only worthy of it by your singular vertues and that interest in the Crownes of England and of France with the Rights and Titles by the high Authority of Parliament entailed to the Royall bloud and issue of Richard Duke of Yorke whose lawfull begotten Sonne and heire you are which by a just course of inheritance and the Common Lawes of this Land is divolv'd and come to you And unwilling that any inferiour Bloud should have the Dominion of this Land are fully determined to make your Grace King to which with all willingnesse and alacrity the Lords and people of the Northerne parts concurre And the Maior Aldermen and Commons of this City of London have all allowed and gladly embraced this generall Choice of your Grace and are come hither to beseech you to accept their just Election of which they have chosen me their unworthy Advocate and Speaker I must therefore againe crave leave in the behalfe of all to desire your Grace will be pleased in your noble and gracious zeale to the good of this Realme to cast your eyes upon the growing distresses and decay of our Estate and to set your happy hand to the redresse thereof for which we can conceive no abler remedy then by your undertaking the Crowne and Government which we doubt not shall accrew to the laud of God the profit of this Land and your Graces happinesse This speech of the Duke is recorded by Doctor Morton Sir Thomas Moore and other Chronicles and Historians to which the Protector gave this reply MY most noble Lords and my most loving friends and deare Country-men Albeit I must confesse your request most respective and favourable and the points and necessities alledged and urged true and certaine yet for the entire love and reverend respect I owe to my Brother deceased and to his Children my Princely Couzens you must give me leave more to regard mine honour and fame in other Realmes for where the truth and certaine proceedings herein are not knowne it may be thought an ambition in me to seeke what you voluntarily proffer which would charge so deep a reproach and staine upon my honour and sincerity that I would not beare for the worlds Diademe Besides you must not thinke me ignorant for I have well observed it there is more difficulty in the Government of a Kingdome then pleasure especially to that Prince who would use his Authority and Office as he ought I must therefore desire that this and my unfained Protestations may assure you the Crowne was never my ayme nor suits my desire with yours in this yet I shall thinke my selfe much beholding unto you all in this Election of me and that hearty love I find you beare me and here protest that for your sakes it shall be all one whether I be your King or no for I will serve my Nephew faithfully and carefully with my best counsels and endeavours to defend and preserve him and this Kingdome nor shall there want readinesse in me to attempt the recovery of that hereditary right in France which belongs to the Kings of England though of late negligently and unhappily lost There the Protector became silent and thought it not safe in his discretion or policy to open all the disgusts he had of the Soveraignty for that would have been matter of Exprobation of the Barons and toucht too neare the quicke though he had well observed by sundry experiences of the leading times and moderne too the inconstant ebbing and flowing of their dispositions how variable and apt they were to take up any occasion of change pursuing their Kings if once stirr'd so implacably that many times they never left without death or deposing Examples he had in the Raignes of King Edward his Brother and Henry the sixth not long before that in the time of Richard the second and his Grandfather Edward the second more anciently the extreame troubles and distresse of King Iohn and Henry the third all by the Barons being dreadfull warnings and insolent monuments of their haughtinesse and Levitie and this was Altamente repostum with the wise Prince But the Duke of Buckingham thinking the Protector set too slight a consideration upon so great a Concernment and the affection tender'd by himselfe and the Nobilitie and over hearing something he privately spake to the Lord Maior and Recorder tending to his mislike for an Epilogue or close to his former Oration he thus freely addes SIR I must now by the Priviledge of this Imployment and in the behalfe of those and my Countrey adde so much freedome unto my dutie as to tell your Grace It is immoveably resolved by the Barons and people that the Children of King Edward shall not Reigne over them Your Grace hath heard some causes nor need I intimate how these Estates have entred and proceeded so offensively to other men and so dangerously to themselves as is now too late to recall or retire And therefore they have fixt this Election upon you whom they thinke mostable and carefull for their safetie But if neither the generall good the earnest Petitions of the Nobility and Commonalty can move you wee most humbly desire your Answer and leave to Elect some other that may be worthy of the Imperiall Charge in which wee hope wee shall not incurre your displeasure considering the desperate necessitie of our welfare and Kingdome urges it And this is our last Suit and Petition to your Grace The Protector toucht by this round and braving farewell which made him very sensible For as Sir Thomas Moore disertly confesseth the Protector was so much moved with these words that otherwise of likelyhood he would never have inclined to their Suit And saith That when he saw there was no remedy but he must either at that instant take the Crowne or both he and his heires irrecoverably let it passe to another paradventure one that might prove an Enemy to him and his especially if Richmont stept in betwixt whom and this Prince the hatred was equally extreame Therefore it behoved the Protector to Collect himselfe and fixing his Consideration upon the effect of that necessitie they last urged gave this Reply MY most Noble good Lords and most loving and faithfull friends the better sense of your loves and most eminent inconveniencies insinuated by your Noble Speaker hath made me more serious to apprehend the benefit of your proffer and Election And I must confesse in the meditation thereof I find an alteration in my selfe not without some distraction when I consider all the Realme so bent
THE HISTORY of the Life and Reigne of RICHARD The Third Composed in five Bookes By GEO BUCK Esquire Honorandus est qui injuriam non fecit sed qui alios eam facere non patitur duplici Honore dignus est Plato de legibus Lib. 5. Qui non repellit a proximo injuriam si potest tam est in vitio quam ille qui infert D. Ambros. offic Lib. 3. LONDON Printed by W. Wilson and are to be sold by VV. L. H. M. and D. P. 1647. The true Portraiture of Richard Plantagenest of England and of France King Lord of Ireland the third King Richard TO THE FAVOVRABLE ACCEPTANCE Of the Right Honourable PHILIP Earle of Pembrooke and Mountgomery c. Sir HAving collected these papers out of their dust I was bold to hope there might be somthing in them of a better fate if mine obscure pen darken not that too Please your Lordshipp to let your name make them another witnesse of your noblenesse it may redeeme and improve them to a clearer opinion and acknowlegedment of these times in which I am to meet every Critick at his owne weapon who will challenge the Book at the very Title The Malicious and Malevolent with their blotted Coments the Captious Incredulous with their jealous praecisianâ—sines whose inclinations shewes them of envious perplexed natures to looke at other mens actions and memory by the wrong end of the perspective and me thinks I fancy them to our shaddowes which at noone creepe behind like Dwarfes atevening stalke by like Gyants they will haunte the noblest merits and endeavors to their Sun-set then they monster it but to the Common-rout they are another kind of Genius or ignis fatuus leades them into darke strange wanderings there they stick for to perswade the opinionated vulgar out of their ignorant selves is of as high a beliefe to me as to transpeciate a Beast into a man I therefore shall crave favour to protest these papers beyond their Censure and humour But to those they are wished I hope their weak accesses may be the more pardonable since they are the kindlings and scintillations of a modest Ambition to truth and gratitude which gives me the encouragement to assure your Lordship that if mine Authors be sincere and faithfull my penis free and innocent having learned that a story as it ought must be a just perspicuous Narration of things memorable spoken and don The Historiographer veritable free from all Prosopolepsyes or partiall respects and surely his pen should tast with a great deal of Conscience for there is nothing leaves so an infected a sting or scandall as History it rankles to all posterity wounds our good names to all memory places by an Authentick kind of preiudice I am with his opinion in his excellent Religio Medici who holds it an offence to Charity and as bloody a thought one way as Nero's in another My Lord under these humble addresses this sues to your honoured hand Presented by the unfained wishes of your Honours avowed and humble Servant GEO BUCK The ARGUMENT and CONTENTS of the First Booke The Linage Family Birth Education and Tirociny of King Richard the third THe Royall house of Plantagenest and the beginning of that name What Sobriquets were The antiquity of Sirnames Richard is created Duke of Gloucester his marriage and his issue His martiall imployments His Iourney into Scotland and recovery of Barwick The death of King Edward the 4 th The Duke of Gloucester made Lord Protector and soone after King of England by importunate suite of his Barons and of the People as the next true and lawfull heire Henry Teudor Earle of Richmond practiseth against the King He is conveyed into France The Noble Linage of Sir William Herbert his Imployment He is made Earle of Pembrooke King Edward the 4 th first and after King Richard sollicite the Duke of Brittaine and treat with him for the delivery of the young Earle of Richmond his Prisoner The successe of that businesse The quality and title of the Beauforts or Sommersets The Linage and Family of the Earle of Richmond The solemne Coronations of King Richard and of the Queene his wife his first at Westminster the second at Yorke Nobles Knights and Officers made by him Prince Edward his Son invested in the Principallity of Wales and the Oath of Allegeance made to him King Richard demandeth the Tribute of France His Progresse to Yorke His carefull charge given to the Iudges and Magistrates He holdeth a Parliament wherein the marriage of the King his Brother with the Lady Gray is declared and adjudged unlawfull their children to be illegitimate and not capable of the Crowne The Earle of Richmond and divers others attainted of Treason Many good Laws made The K. declared and approved by Parliament to be the only true and lawfull heire of the Crowne The King and Queene dowager are reconciled He hath secret advertisemeÌ„ts of Innovations and practises against him Createth a vice-Constable of England His sundry treaties with Forraigne Princes Doctor Morton corrupteth the Duke of Buckingham who becometh discontent demanding the Earledome of Hereford with the great Constableship of England He taketh Armes is defeated and put to death by marshall Law THE FIRST BOOKE OF THE HISTORY OF RICHARD THE THIRD OF ENGLAND AND OF FRANCE KING AND LORD OF IRELAND RIchard Plantagenet Duke of Glocester and King of England and of France and Lord of Ireland the third of that name was the younger sonne of Sir Richard Plantagenet the fourth Duke of Yorke of that Royall Family and King of England designate by King Henry the sixth and by the most noble Senate and universall Synod of this Kingdome the High Court of Parliament The Mother of this Richard Duke of Glocester was the Lady Cecily Daughter of Sir Ralph de Neville Earle of Westmerland by his wife Ioane de Beaufort the naturall Daughter of Iohn Plantagenet alias de Gaunt Duke of Guiene and Lancaster King of Castile and Leon third Sonne of King Edward the third for in that order this Duke is best accounted because William of Hatfield the second Sonne of King Edward the third dyed in his infancy and this Duke of Yorke and King designate was propagated from two younger sonnes of the same King Edward the third whereby he had both Paternall and Maternall Title to the Crowne of England and France But his better and nearer Title was the Maternall Title or that which came to him by his Mother the Lady Anne de Mortimer the Daughter and heire of Phillippa Plantagenet who was the sole Daughter and heire of Lyonell Plantagenet Duke of Clarence and second Sonne of King Edward the third according to the account and order aforesaid And this Lady Phillip was the Wife of Sir Edmond de Mortimer the great and famous Earle of March and that Duke Richard King designate by his Father Richard Plantagenet Duke of York sirnamed also de Conningsbâ—rrough issued directly and in a
against the Sonnes of King Edward And therefore being certaine there is no man to whom the Crowne by just Title can be so due as to our selfe the rightfull Sonne and Heire of our most deare and Princely Father Richard Duke of Yorke to which Title of blood and nature your favours have joyned this of Election wherein wee hold our selfe to be most strong and safe And having the lawfull power of both why should I endure my professed Enemy to â—surpemy right and become a Vassall to my envious Subject The necessitie of these causes as admitting no other remedy urges me to accept your offer and according to your request and our owne right we here assume the Regall Praeheminence of the two Kingdoms England and France from this day forward by us and our heires to Govern and defend the one and by Gods grace and your good aydes to recover and establish the other to the Ancient Allegeance of England desiring of God to live no longer then wee intend and endeavour the advancement and flourishing Estate of this Kingdome at which they all cry'd God save King Richard And thus he became King But yet his Detractors stick not to slander and accuse all that was said or done in these proceedings of State for meer dissimulation by which justice they may as well censure At siâ— Reverentia dictum all the Barons worthy and grave Commons which had their Votes therein which would fall a most impudent and intolerable Scandall upon all the High Court of Parliament for in short time after all that was alledged and acted in that Treatie and Colloquy was approved and ratified by the Court of Parliament so that their Cavills onely discover an extreame malice and envy For it was not possible therefore not credible he could upon such an instant as it were by any practice attaine to that power and credit with all the Barons Spirituall and Temporall and Commons to procure and perswade them from the Sonnes of King Edward so unanimously to become his Subjects and put the Crowne upon his head with such Solemnitie and publicke Ceremonies Whilst those matters had their current the Northerne Gentlemen and his Southerne Friends joyned in a Bill Supplicatory to the Lords Spirituall and Temporall earnestly expressing their desires for the Election of the Lord Protector with the former causes urged Also that the blood of the young Earle of Warwicke was attainted and his Title confiscate by Parliament This Bill was delivered to the Lords Assembled in the great hall at Westminster the Lord Protector sitting in the Chaire of Marble amongst them upon the 26 of June some six or seven dayes after he was Proclaimed the tenor of the Bill was thus written in the Chronicle of the Abbey of Croyland PRotector eodem die quo Regimen sub titulo regii nominis sibi vendicarit viz 26 o die Iunii Anno Dom. 1483. se apud Magnam Aulam Westmonasterii in Cathedram Marmoream Immisit tum mox omnibus proceribus tam Laicis quam Ecclesiasticis Caeteris assidentibus astantibus c. ostendebatur rotulus quidam in quo per modum supplicationis in nomine procerum populi Borealis exhibita sunt Primum quod silii Regis Edwardi erant Bastardi supponendo illum praecontraxisse matrimonium cum quadam Domina Elianora Boteler antequam Reginam Elizabetham duxisset in uxorem deinde quod sanguis alterius Fratris Georgii Scil Clarensiâ— ducis fuisset Attinctus Ita quod nullus certus incorruptus sanguis Linealis ex parte Richardi Ducis Eboraci poterat inveniri nisi in persona Richardi Protectoris Ducis Glocestriae jam eidem Duci suplicabant ut jus suum in Regno Angliae sibi assumeret Coronam acciperet But the Barons were all accorded before this Bill came both sides moving with an equall and contented forwardnesse And in July next following 1483. was Crown'd and receiv'd with as generall Magnificence and Acclamations as any King in England many years before For as a grave man writeth Fuit dignissimus regno c. non inter malos sed bonos principes Commemorandus That he was most worthy to Reigne and to be numbred amongst the good not bad Princes The Queene his Wife was Crowned with him and with no lesse State and Greatnesse Accompanied him from the Tower to Westminster having in their Traine besides the Nobilitie of the South parts foure thousand Gentlemen of the North. Upon the 19. of June 1483. in the 25. yeare of Lewis the French King he was named King of England the morrow Proclaimed and rode with great Solemnitie from London to Westminster where in the seat Royall he gave the Judges of the Land a strickt and religious charge for the just executing of the Lawes then departed towards the Abbey being met at the Church doore with Procession and the Scepter of King Edward delivered to him by the Abbot so Ascended to Saint Edwards Shrine where he offered the Monks in the meane time singing Te Deum From thence he return'd to the Palace where he lodged untill his Coronation Upon the fourth of July he went to the Tower by water with the Queene his Wife and the next day Created Edward his onely Son about ten yeares old Prince of Wales He Invested Sir Iohn Howard who was made Lord Howard and Knight of the Garter 17. Edward 4. in the Dukedome of Norffolke in a favourable admission of the right of the Lady Margaret his Mother Daughter of Sir Thomas Mowbray Duke of Norffolke and an heire generall of the Mowbrayes Dukes of Norffolke and Earles of Surrey descended from the Lord Tho. Plantagenet of Brotherton a younger Sonne of King Edward the first and Earle of Norffolke This King also made him Marshall and Admirall of England he was as rightfully Lord Mowbray Lord Segrave Lord Bruce as Lord Howard as I have seene him Stiled by Royall Warrant in a Commission for Treatie of Truce with Scotland His eldest Sonne Sir Thomas Howard was at the same time Created Earle of Surrey and made Knight of the Garter Henry Stafford Duke of Buckingham was made Constable of England for terme of life but he claimed the Office by inheritance Sir Thomas Moore writes That Sir Thomas Howard Executed the Office of Constable that day William Lord Berkley was Created Earle of Nottingham Francis Lovel Viscount Lovel and Chamberlain to the King the Lord Stanley restor'd to liberty and made Steward of the Household Thomas Rotheram Chancellour and Arch-Bishop of Canterbury having beene committed for delivering the Great Seale to the Queene Widow receiv'd to grace and many Knights Addubbed of the old Order and some of the new or habit of the Bath whose names I have set downe to shew what regard was had of their Family and in those times accused of so much Malignity Sir Edward De-la-Poole Sonne to the Duke of Norfolke George Gray Sonne to the Earle of Kent William Souch Sonne to the
concilio soceri persuasus Iethro Solus quod Populi nequijt componere lites Constituit populi praefectos atque tribunos Sic cum me praecelsa premant fastigia Regni Ardua magnarum teneatis muner a rerum Et primùm à vobis pravos secludite motus AEquis Iustitiae trutinis appendite causas Ob paupertatem miseros ne spernite cives Nec vota in cassum fundat pupillus in auras Denique largitio nè vos Corrumpat iniqua c. All things thus in a happy presage and good order the King with the Queene departed from London and makes Windsor the first gift in his Progresse for some few dayes From thence to his Mannor of Woodstock then to the Universitie of Oxford where the Muses Crown'd their browes with fragrant Wreathes for his entertainment Next he visited the circular Citie of Glocester and gave the Citizens for the love and loyaltie they exprest in holding the Castle and Towne so constantly against Queene Margaret and the forces of Henry the sixt for him and his Brother the King large Priviledges and Immunities And here the Duke of Buckingham takes his leave for Brecknock constantly disposed and affected in all outward appearance The King making small stay any where save at Coventry untill he came to the goodly and ancient Citie of Yorke the scope and goale of his Progresse which receiv'd him with all honour and Festivitie and was there the second time Crowned by Dr. Rotheram Arch-Bishop of that Sea in the Cathedrall Church and his Sonne invested in the Principalitie of Wales as the Prior of Croyland reporteth Eodem die quo Richardus Coronatus est Rex in Ecclesia Metropolitana Eboracensi mox filium Edwardum in Principatum Walliae eum insigntis virgae aureae c. evexit Pomposa sumptuosa festa convivia ibi fecit And indeed it was a day of great state for as Polidore saith There was then three Princes in Yorke wearing Crownes the King Queene and Prince In acclamation whereof there was Stage-Playes Turneaments and other Triumphall Sports as Sir Thomas Moore relates At this time the King Knighted Richard of Glocester his base sonne who was after Captaine of Calice and many Gentlemen of those parts But albeit this was an intermission as it were of all busie and serious agitations yet the King still where he travall'd had a just regard to the Administration and Execution of Justice and the more facinerous Malefactors And surely these respective inclinations of his had their solemn affections and desires Naturalized in him witnessed by the scope and integritie of those just Lawes which after followed The Progresse thus spent he returnes to London and having consulted some matters of State declares his first resolution for the Tribute detain'd by France which he had formerly by a friendly Message demanded but now sends stout menaces and threats for it The French would not have it cal'd a Tribute but a Pension as Philip de Comines insinuates though it had beene rays'd and payd to King Edward the fourth in lieu of the Dutchy and Countries of Aquitaine Normandy Poictou and Maine c. whereof the the French had deseis'd the Crowne of England which King Edward the fourth forced Lewis to acknowledge and to Covenant and agree That he his heires and Successors should pay unto the Crowne of England the summe of fiftie thousand Crowns with caution and securitie to be payd in the Citie of London or after Iean Tillet and Iohn Maierus seventy five thousand Crowns to be payd into the Tower with which the French King also granted in the name of Annuall Pension sixteen thousand pounds to some Noblemen and others of speciall credit with the King As to Sir Thomas Gray Marquesse of Dorset William Lord Hastings Chamberlaine to the King Doctor Thomas Rothram Bishop of Lincolne and Lord Chancellour of England Iohn Lord Howard Sir Iohn Cheyney Master of the Horse Sir Thomas Mountgomery Master Challoner and to the Master of the Rowles The chiefest of these had two thousand Crownes apiece per annum Besides which Pensions he gave rich Presents and sent rewards to such Lords as stood most for this accord Eugueraunt de Moustrolet avoucheth that the Lord Howard and the Master of the Horse were the chiefest of the mediators in it his reason is that they were the men most in favour with King Edward Iean Tillet with Philip de Comines tells us the Lord Howard in lesse then two yeares had the value of twentie foure thousand Crownes in Plate Coine and Jewels over and above his Annuall Pension the Lord Hastings at one time to the value of two thousand markes in Plate besides his Pension And if their owne Stories speake truth Richard de Nevil the great Earle of Warwick had of the Kings of France much more then any other English Nobleman which the Chronicle of Brittaine seconds And doubtlesse King Richard had still compel'd him to continue it had not eruptions of State and tumultuary practises fatally deterr'd his Sword For as Kings have vaster limits they have higher bounds then others If our vulgar paths be rugged theirs are slippery and all their mighty resolutions and ambitions have their fate and circle hither they must and no further yet as envious as fortune shew'd her selfe he brought King Lewis to termes of faire promises and mediation for time of payment as Comines obscurely implyes This yeare the King kept a very magnificent Christmas at Westminister and was reconciled to the Queene Dowager who left Sanctuary and to congratulate the Kings favour sent her five daughters to Court where they were received with all Princely kindnesse On the three and twentieth day of January in the first yeare of his Raigne he summon'd a Parliament to be holden at Westminster i◠which after the enacting of many good Lawes the marriages o◠King Edward were debated that with the Lady Gray adjudged unlawfull and her children illegitimate there being proofe of a former Contract and Marriage with the Lady Elianor Talbot daughter of the old Earle of Shrewsbury and Relict of the Lord Butler of Sudely then and long after living and all that had been inferred by the Duke of Buckingham or contained in the Bill supplicatory demonstrated was againe consulted and judgement given against that Marriage and incapacity of the Children also of the Earle of Warwicke and his sister the Lady Elizabeth Plantagenet all decreed and confirmed by Act of Parliament so that here to taxe so generall an Assent were to say there was not one honest nor just man in that High Court and what greater scandall to the whole Kingdome There was likewise notice taken of the Earle of Richmonds pretence to the Crowne by a Title derived from the House of Lancaster who was at that time in France labouring to engage the King and the Duke of Brittaine in the quarrell Oh the infinite windings and perplexed sleepes we labour through to get that we must bid goodnight
by the same Titles This was as bitter as short and doubly ill taken First because it came with a Repulse Next because it seemed to proceed from a suspition and as a tax of his Loyaltie and begets another pretence of exception in the Dukes bosome which he called a breach of promise in the King for not joyning the Prince his Sonne in Marriage with the Lady Anne Stafford his Daughter but all those Colours were but to give complexion to the face of his defection the true cause was well devined and found out by the King his Ambition and aime to be Soveraigne rays'd by an overweening of that Royall Blood he supposed to be in his descent from the said Thomas de Woodstock c. Sonne of a King and yet he was not resolutely determined to make his Claime to the Crowne this way nor to attempt the Kingdome by Armes untill those embers which as it were lay but luke-warme in his thoughts were quickned and revived by the animation of Doctor Morton Bishop of Ely then a Privie Counsellour though he stood in some umbrage and disgrace in the Court with the King for his practises against him and was at this time in the custody of the Duke of Buckingham as a Prisoner more expressely for that being a Privie Counsellour he had given secret advertisement to the Earle of Richmond of what passed in the secret Councells of the King To this advantage he applyes that which he had wittily drawne from the Dukes discontent and passionate discourses at times passed By which perceiving the glance of his Ambition and that deriv'd from the great opinion of his Royall Blood he pregnantly tickles and feeds that humour untill he had soothed him past his owne strength or retyrement for his secret drift was to apt and prepare the Duke to a Rebellion at any hand though not to set his owne Title on foot yet layes open the advantage of the present times to it proposing flat usurpation and tyranny against the King Regnant and the strong likelyhood of his Deposing This lifts the Duke something higher in his owne opinion But comming to a pause and perceiving Richmond was the man they had aimed at for this great blow who had conditioned by Oath to marry the Lady Elizabeth for the Countesse of Richmond had by the meanes of Doctor Lewis conciliated the friendship of the Queene Mother to that Alliance and to draw as many of the House of Yorke into the Action as were at her Devotion that many Potent Lords and some Forraigne Princes had promised their ayds he began to retreat and conceive he had taken the wrong path to his journyes end for his Title and Claime must be nothing if those of Yorke and Lancaster were united And that the Earle who stood betweene him and his Aimes was not onely resolute to attempt but strongly ayded for it himselfe not able upon such an instant to raise a power able to encounter much lesse give check unto his violent Ambition therefore concludes all against himselfe and that it would fall out farte better to side with the times a consideration which doubtlesse would highly stirre a spirit where so much greatnesse of opinion and ambition was And the Doctor discerning this disgust and that he was startl'd in his hope and resolusion to recover him an intire man not let him stand by an idle spectator in so meritorious an action he opens a private way of honour and satisfaction suggesting him the first and greatest man the Kingdome was to know next the King And finding his particular distasts to King Richard of quickest sense and argument to him he freshly urges and as it were refricates each particle to the greatnesse of his spirit and discontent the Duke replyes not much at that time but busie in his thoughts leaves him and presently fashions a visite to the Countesse of Richmond a Lady of a politick and contriving bosome to know the credit of his intelligence which she insinuates with arguments so full of circumstance and honour besides her Sons indearment to him their hearnesse of blood affirming the Dukes Mother a Somerset the reciprocall affinitie betweene her Father and his and then the bravery and Religion in the Cause that the Duke now forsakes himselfe and fully gives up his resolution and promise to her thus prepar'd he finds out the Lord Stanley the Marquesse of Dorset Edward Courtney Earle of Devonshire and his Brother the Bishop of Exeter Sir Iohn Bowrchier Sir Iohn Wells Robert Willowby Edward Woodvill Thomas Arundel who had severally raised forces and intended their Rendezvous neere Glocester so to march for Dorsetshire there to receive the Earle and the Duke with his Welchmen But the King was early in his preparation to prevent them before they could unite or the Earle of Richmond arrive there else they had fastened a most dangerous Blow upon him And at this full stop in these progresses me thinkes wee may observe how uncertainely in our strongest valuations we are our owne and that our greatest Confidences and humane Policies are but heavie weights hung at trembling Wyers while our expectations are apt to be flattered and out-goe themselves but are overtaken in their Successe and Fates as was this great Mans for their Forces neither met by Sea nor Land the English being scatter'd by a suddaine and huge inundation that so dangerously over-flowed all passages they could not joyne nor passe the River Severne while the suddainnesse and strangenesse of it stroke the Souldiers with such alteration that most part of them forsooke the Duke and left him to himselfe The Earle of Richmond was as unfortunately met at Sea by a great tempest upon the coasts of England The King took the advantage this accident offered and pursued the Duke not only with a galloping Army but with Edicts Proscriptions that promised a thousand pounds in mony whereunto some Writers adde so much Lands as was worth one hundred pounds per annum to any that should bring in the Duke who was betrayed and brought to the King then at Salisbury by Humphry Banister an eternall brand having lived by this mans service and now thought treacherously to subsist by his Ruine The Duke being examined freely confessed all and for it lost his head in the field according to Marshall Law used by Armies in November An. Dom. 1484. An. 2 Rich. 3. And here if wee view him in the figure of his Ambition or Fate wee shall find Doctor Morton his Caput Argoll or the malignant Planet of his fortune who as Sir Thomas Moore confesseth and affirmeth by his Politick Drifts and Pride advanced himselfe and brought the Duke to this ruine The rest fled some into Sanctuaries others into Brittaine to the Earle of Richmond and some into Flanders all their Plots being now how to be safe And thus farre King Richard in the Voyage of his Affaires had a promising Gale wee will therefore here cast
Anchor a while and claspe up this first Booke with the Relation of his better Fortunes Explicit Lib. I. THE SECOND BOOKE OF THE HISTORY OF KING RICHARD THE THIRD The Argument of the Second Booke THe Earle of Richmond practiseth with Forreigne Princes and with the English Nobles for assistance and Forces to make his first and second invasions of England He came first to Poole with ill successe secondly to Milford cum bonis avibus What Bastards are and whereof they are capable who be of the House of Lancaster how Lancaster and Beaufort or Sommerset differ Bastards of Kings must not take the Sirnames of the King or Kingdome The honourable priviledge of the name of Plantagenet Prince Edward and Queene Anne John de la Poole proclaimed Heire of the Kingdom by Richard the Third Bastards of John Duke of Lancaster made legitimate and capable of Offices Honour and of Heritage by Richard 2 and the Parliament What the Legitimation of the Pope is Armes and Names of Princes Bastards The Nobility of King Henry 7 th He affied not much in the Titles of Yorke and Lancaster The Pope giveth to him the Title de jure belli de domo Lancastriae The greatnesse of the Title of Yorke of Counsell and Connsellours The Prerogative of the King in Iudgements and Controversies The Earle of Richmond landeth at Milford Haven His entertainment there and in Wales His aptnesse for divers wives he marcheth to Bosworth King Richard and he sight Richard is overcome and slaine also the Duke of Norfolke by the Earle of Oxford ut Creditur The Earle of Richmond is straight Crowned King in the field The fatall Errour of King Richard Kings loved Combate The Titles of King Henry 7 th Kings go not now to warâ— Cruelties committed upon the body of King Richard He was attainted of Treason though against the Laws of Nature and of Royall Majesty with many of his followers and servants The Earle of Surrey how released out of prison his Geneology from Hewardus walter de Buck and his Progeny The Second Booke WE left King Richard the Third in the growth of a flourishing and promising Estate and his fate now in the rise of a peacefull and prosperous Raigne of a calme and hopefull presage But Fortune that lends her smiles as Exactors do mony to undoe the Debtor soone cald for the Principall and Interest from this Prince to whom she was meerly Novercall and he might well call her with the expert Heros in Euripides fortuna diurna i. e. fortune of a daies life for in her best mood she is most slippery in her favours and redious in her mischiefes as was aptly considered by a grave man Fortuna adversas res cupido animo inducit secundas parco she is a mother but a little while a stepdame a long time and for ever to some here then we are aggressing into the turbulent and luctuall times which were towards the end and period of his Life and Raigne the formall and finall causes happening from the invasions attempted by the Earle of Richmond I will begin the Second Booke there and may say invasions because he twice invaded the Kingdome though by errour or ignorance of our Vulgar Historians they are confounded and made one which corruptly maimes the Story and conceales and pretermits some very remarkeable agitations particularly the true cause of the Duke of Buckinghams ill successe and defeate is misunderstood or not at all known To come to it therefore more certainly we must take notice of the first preparation by the Earle of Richmond who was resolved to advance his claime that way and unbosomes himselfe to the Duke of Brittaine his possibility and advantage by friends if he could raise but sufficient strength to set him safely in England The Duke gives him all good wishes to his undertaking but opposes against all Arguments of drawing him in first his Amity and League with England which in honour and justice he was not to violate Then his wants by the long Civill and cruell Warres with his Barons that had so exhausted his Coffers as durst he dispense with the former cause yet that might render him excused being unable to furnish him at least in so short a time as his expedition required beyond which answer for the present the Earle thought not fit to presse him But having a prompt and strong affiance in his good fortune makes up to some of the Dukes most honourable and powerfull Friends to lay siege that way to him by private advantages for by his ingenious demeanour he had won the inclinations of many great ones being Master of a pleasant acute wit which was well supplied in him by the straine of all Courtly Acts to those he had the helpe of the French Tongue which he spoke excellently well and to give all the more plausible accesse and influence hee was as Philip de Comines who knew him testifies a very compleat and well featur'd Gentleman which makes the rule certaine and well animating Gratior est pulchro veniens e corpore virtus The beauties of the mind more gratious are When as the bodies features are more faire In the number of those eminent persons he had gained during his faire imprisonment more fortunately he had applyed himself unto the Lady Margaret Dutchesse of Brittaine Daughter of Gaston de Foix a great man in the Westerne parts of France whose Ancestors were well affected to the English and Madam de Bevier the Dutches so farre countenanced him in his designe that she became an earnest suitor unto the Duke her husband and prevailed both for his liberty and aide for caution and pledge herein he was only to kneele at the High Altar before the blessed Sacrament in the Cathedrall Church of Saint Vannes there to make his religious Vow justly and truely to observe what restitution he privately had promised to the Duke and Dutches which protestation made he had three Ships well rigged and furnished with Men Armes and Victuals as my Author relates Au Conte de Richmond furent aux despens du duo trois grosses Navires de Brittannia charges de gens de Armes c. qui se misent in mer. But by the favour of this Brittish Writer the Earle staid many daies at Saint Malo to receive and send intelligence and made it the beginning of October 1484 before he came to Saint Poole in Dorset where he lay some time at Anchor to send his Boates a shore as Explorers or Spies for discovery of the Coasts where the Kings Armie or his friends lay who returned without any particular satisfaction but that there was many Armed men about the Country The Earle who in all things was circumspect and cautiously rimerous resolved immediately to loose from thence but the night following a terrible tempest constrained them with all hast to weigh Anchor and make into the Maine the Storme and darkenesse of the night severing and dispersing their
in the time he kept this Katherine and had those Beauforts who were Sir-named so from the place of their birth a Town of his own in Aniow But to note transitu how obnoxious this Duke made his frailties that thinking to put a smoother face upon his sin gave it but the same blush by making this Katherine Swinford his Dutchesse against the liking of the King all his noble friends direct Tenor of the common Laws which pronounce marriages between such as have lived in Aldutery unlawfull Nay to make him the more marvaile and smiling discourse of the Court the glasse of his age was turn'd to his last yeare when he sacrifie'd these scatterd embers of his desires and passion But he obtained those children to be legitimated First by the Pope Vrbanus the sixt next by the Charter of King Richard the second and had both these indulgences afterward enlarged and confirmed by Parliament Yet neither these foure legitimate children nec qui nascebantur ab illis were permitted to the Princely familiar Title of Lancaster so long as that â—ame flourished much lesse of Plantagenet for that was the peculiar Sir-name in chiefe of the Kings of England and Princes of the blood Royall since the time of the second Henry Sonne of the Empresse Matilda the first founder of that name in the Royall Family of England Of which honour were partakers the Princely Family of Wales of Brotherton of Yorke of Lancaster of Clarence of Woodstock of Glocester c. And there are yet some Noblemen in Portugall who descended from Iohn Duke of Lancaster and are called and written de Lancastro others of the like Origine and Title may doe as much Neither would King Henry the fourth Henry the fift nor King Henry the sixt all Kings of the Lancastrian race indure to let the Lineage of Beaufort though they respected them as kinsmen and advanced them to many honours Assume the the Sir-name of Lancaster holding it an Arrogation and Usurpation of Royaltie and Royall Rights wherein they followed their Ancestors who devised other names for their base children As Fitz. Roy Oxenford Fitz-Herbert Clarendon Fitz-Henry Longuespee Cornwall and so they continued the name of Beaufort and Somersets untill the Earle of Richmond came and this was in imitation of the Kings of France as I conceâ—ve For within the reach of my observation since the time of Hugh Câ—â—â—t they never vouchsafed any of their base sons to be capable of the Crown of France or to have the Adven as they call it nor the Sir-name of France but the illegitimate daughters may take the Sir-name France or de France because they can make no claime to the Crowne by a pretended permission of the Sa lik-law which Iohn de Tillet witnesseth La troisiesme lignèe a du tout rejectè les Bastards non seulement de la Coronne mais aussi de l'aduen et Surnom de France qui Concession est permis aux Bastards de roy ' c. And as the Bastards of the Kings of England had other names so they tooke differenced Armes or elsewere permitted to beare their mothers if of any Family If tolerated to beare the armes of England then they were diversified in a Checking Debasing and Rebating manner with Bastons Bends Sinister Barres Bordutes Marks of Basenesse Obscuritie and Noveltie which any new Gentleman might beare such as the Learned call filios terrae novos homines and wee vulgarly upstarts But to object against the use of this in England the example of Hamelin is brought in and to credit it his Armes forged by some weake and negligent Heralds who call him Hamelin Plantagenet when the truth is this Hamelin base sonne of Ieoffry Plantagenet Earle of Aniow was simply called Hamelin and his sonne William tooke the Sir-name of his Mother Dame Isabel de Warren daughter and heire of William de Warren Earle of Surrey which their Posteri continued as Ioannes de Warrena the first and Ioannes de Warrena the second both Earles of Surrey and Isabella de Warren and Elianor de Warren c. mentionedin the Charters and Records but never Plantagenet which is acknowledged by our best Heralds and Antiquaries Master William Campden hath these words Isabella filla sola Gulielmi de Warrena Comitis Surreiae Hamelinum Nothum Galfredi Plantageneti c. titulo Comitis Surreiae maritum exornavit Hamelinus Gulielmum Surreiae Comitem genuit cujus posteri à Scito WarrenoruÌ„ nomine eundem titulum gesserunt And that the base sonne of King Edward the fourth was commonly called Arthur Plantagenet proves nothing neither well considered For in the times when this Arthur lived the name of Plantagenet being onely left in the house of Yorke the Lancasterian Plantagenet being more extinguished had not the former honour and reputation but was darkned and setting rather drawing a contempt and hate to them that bare it the White Rose dayly fading and withering and so malignant was their Planet then that as a Learned Gentleman hath further observed It was not safe in that time to be a Plantagenet therefore the permission of those times can be no warrant for the objections nor the ignorance of the Poeticall Heralds who have strain'd this fable of Hamelin Yet farther not onely giving him and his Posteri a false Sir-name but assign'd him by the like Fabulous Art a shield of familiar Ensignes the Armes of France border'd with an Orle of Normandy or Guyen which he nor yet any of the Antique Lineage of Aniow or their Progeny ever bare or could by just Title beare either simply or compounded or the Progenitors of our English Kings the Lillies of Gold in an azure field untill King Edward claimed the Crowne of France and assumed them in the right of Queene Isabel de Valoys his Mother who was the first that bare them quarterly with the Armes of England But the Armes of the ancient Earles of Aniow were a Scarboucle that is a Golden Bucle of a military Scarffe or Belt set with precious Stones not a Carbuncle or more precious Ruby for the terme is erroneous and absurd if considered The Princes of Aniow bare this Scarboucle in a shield party per Chiefe Argent and Gueules and the Heires of this Hamelin who tooke the Sir-name of Warren bare also the Armes of the house of Warren in their Shields and Caparisons but bare the Scarboucle of Aniow for their Crest as they were descended out of that House as I have seene upon a Seal of Ioannes de Warrena Earl of Surrey at a Charter dated 20. E. 3. An. Dom. 1346. apud Dom. Rob. Cotton which hath given me occasion to speake thus much to cure the Blemish that mistake hath thrust into History such absurdities having their infection and passing by an Age or two upon the easie and common judgments after grow up for tall and undeniable truths For some meerly reading the complexion of things as they do
se proprio cerebro omnia concilia habere recondita And to give us yet further character of Bishop Morton Sir Thomas Moore sometimes his Master tels us his best inclinations were swaid to the dangerous positions and rules of pollicie and Doctor Iohn Hird in his metricall History of England brings him in an Ambodexter and observer of fortune one while yorkeizing another while Lancastrizing thus delivering himselfe Si Fortuna meis fauisset partibus olim Et gnato Henrici sexti diadema dedisset Edwardi nunquam venissem regis in aulam Sed quia supremo stetit haec sententia Regi Henrico auferre ac Edwardo reddere sceptrum Tanta mea nunquam lusit dementia mentem Vt sequerer partes regis victi atque sepulti Adversus vivum c. Which may be thought well said by a meere Politician But from a friend it wants something of a Christian for true friendship and piety will owne us in the blackest adversity and silence of the grave as the divine Ariosto hath something neare observed in this elegant Stanza Nessum puo super du chi sia amato Quando felice in sula â—rota si ede Pere ch' haiveri ifiniti amici alato Chi mostran tuti una medessima fede Se poi si cangia in tristo il he'sto stato Volta laturba adulatrice il piede Et quel di cu or ' ama riman ' forte Et ama il suo amico doppola morte No man whilst he was happy ever knew Assuredly of whom he was belov'd For then he hath both feigned friends and true Whose faith seemes both alike till they be prov'd But he is left of all the flattering Crew When from his happy state he is remov'd But he who loves in heart remaines still one And loves his friend when he is dead and gone Doctor Mortons aimes were drawne from other rules which with good Alacrity made him Archbishop and Lord Chancellour of England and put him the next list into a Cardinallship and then he stood on tiptoes by the King according to the Roman Marshalling of states for in the Popes list of ranges and presence his holinesse is the first then the Emperour next a Cardinall then a King and in this Sir Tho. Moore notes the extremity of his pride to abuse his wisdome and piety which otherwise might have kept him and his memory unfullyed in these preferments so much our vices impostumate our fames hypocrisie leaving the scarre but of a deformed cure upon it at best But Doctor Goodwin Bishop of Hereford presents him nearer as it were in his Domesticke nature and reports when Doctor Morton was Archbishop of Canterbury he exacted and exrorted a far greater Summe of money from the Clergy of his Diocesse then was ever before and for his private Commodity which he covetously sought brought certaine Leames or bigger Ditches to his owne grounds about Wisbitch from the River Nine which was before navigable and of much publike use but hath since served for little or none And Iohn Stow saies he was the stirrerup of those great and grieveous taxes which raised the people to Armes and Rebellion These notes of his naturall dispositions stucke like wennes upon the face of his Religion and from that mind where by affections justle Religion and conscience out how hazardous may the Power and Counsell of such be to the inclinations of a wise Prince but this Prelate made his so Canonicall and fitted them to the times and his Mr temper that they deceived not his expectation but brought him home to his ends and to the favor of aprovident wise Prince that he was so the world must justly avow and in all his actions we may see-him of a safe and contracted wisedome governed by a most cautelous spirit as great a husband of those vertues he had as of his Glory not too modest if I be not much mistaken to heare of either of both which he hath left us pious tastes But the most surviving addition of memory is that great example of Majesty and her Sexe Queene Elizabeth who was said to be like this King her Grandfather as well in composition of qualities as favour and lineaments that she was his lively and perfect Image and to use an even hand in the extention of himselfe and his power it must not be denyed how far off soever he was at first after the Crown yeilded to him he was the true proprietary of all the Rights and Titles which carried it or had dependency thereon and to colleague all in a full and perfect strength the Title of Yorke was confirmed to him by marriage of Elizabeth Plantagenet Eldest Daughter of Edward 4 Prince or head of that Family to whom the Title of Lancaster instantly escheated as he was King which before was in controversie or in nubibus or Abeyance as our Lawyers say for no man being a Subject how Capitall and chiefe a Judg or of what judicatory power soever could give a definitive Sentence in any ambiguous cause or Act of the King but the King himself which is an ancient and Authentique paragraph in the Laws of England as learned Judge Bracton affirmeth De Chartis Regijs de factis regum non possunt Iusticiarij disputare nec si disputatio oriatur possunt eam interpretari sed in dubijs obscuriâ— ubi aliqua dictio contineat duos intellectus domini Regis erit expectandâ— interpretatio voluntas c. The reason is given in the Bookes of the Civill and Imperiall Lawes peremptorily quia de principali Iudicio non est disputandum So that Controversie whether the Beauforts or Sommersets were of the House of Lancaster and capable of the Crowne or no could not be determined untill there came a competent Judge a King and King of England who by that vertue and power decreed to himself the Title of Lancaster with all the Royall Apurtenances confirmed by the Pope as proper to him and then the Writers both English and French had some colour to say he was de la ligne de Lancastre caput gentis regalis Princeps familiae Lancastriensis But the Chancellour Morton by a more happy plausible insinuation termed the Marriage an union of Yorke and Lancaster and not improperly nor without a very favourable acceptance to the King at least in the beginning of his Raigne though after as may be observed he thought those attributions but small wyers to hold the weight and consequence of his Crowne nay so slender was his Affiance or rather none at all in his Titles of Yorke and Lancaster much lesse of Sommerset that he seemed tacitly to wave and quit them and stucke to that of his Sword and Conquest For the more publike vote and knowledge whereof there was at his Coronation Proclamations made with these Titles Henricus Rex Angliae jure divino jure humano jure Belli c. which the Barons could not fancy
Welsh-men and treates about a Daughter of Sir William Herberts a Gentleman of a Noble Allyance and principall power in the South part of Wales who had married the Eldest Daughter not long before to the Earle of Northumberland to whom the Earle of Pembrooke by a new created friendship betwixt them imbosomes the whole designe and presses his Comprobation in it for by this meanes it was presumed the greatest part of Wales would fall under their Command which had been no small addition to a Banished mans fortune Whilst those things were in their mould Doctor Morton gave him such assurance by Letters of the Countries readinesse to receive him that it was thought best to take the advantage of landing there and in the Month of July they loose from Harfleu and safely arived at Milford Haven in Pembrookeshire his native Country after some refreshing he Marches to a Town called Haverford West and was entring amongst his Brittish kindred who welcomed him as a Prince descended from their ancient Princes of Wales the Country generally very Noble and loving to their friends whilst he continued amongst them Sir Rice ap Thomas Sir Walter Herbert Sir Iohn Savage Sir Gilbert Talbot who drew his young Nephew the Earle of Salop into this Action with him and divers others of all qualities brought or sent their Forces his Army thus strong and united he passes the Severne and Marches to Lichfield purposing to hold on to London if the King had not interposed it who though he lay at Nottingham when the Earle landed and while he marched through Wales had constant Spies upon him But as no Policie or Law can secure their faith that thinke they may dispense with it so all Benefits are too narrow where Ambition and Ingratitude urges merit and to shew there is not much of our Fate in our own providence when this King thought the Nobility most firmly cimented to his side and was to put himself upon their constancy they make a present and general defluxion to the other But he had heightned and contracted his Resolution and judgement to the greatnesse of his Cause and was not now to be outbid by Chance or danger The next day which was Sunday about Evening passing through Leicester in open Pompe the Crowne Royall on his head with him Iohn Duke of Norfolke Marshall of England the Earle of Surrey the Earle of Westmorland the Viscount Lovell and other of the Nobility and Gentry at Redmore Heath the Armies came to an Interview and put themselves in Array the next morning early there was some conference held in the Kings Tent by those Peeres and others of principall trust who gave him particular information of all those secretly revolted and it much amazed him the Earle of Northumberland was one to whom he had ever been most constant and forward in his respects and favours therefore where he had conferred so much he suspected little But no Obligations are Religious if not held so and although in the conflict he stood but as neutrall yet the suddainesse and example of it drew many from the King even at the instant when he was ready to Arme himselfe yet this was not of so great and sensible amazement unto him as the Lord Stanleys defection who in pledge of his faith had left his Son George Stanley whilst his wife the Earles mother had made her subtill perswasions of stronger tye and subinduced him to the Lancastrian sice which he ayded with 26000 men if Phillip de Commines be not mistaken for our stories have but five thousand But it was a very great defection and made the Earles Army far stronger so that the chiefest point of Consultation now was how to preserve him by flight and the recovery of some strong hold untill the tempest had scattered or spent its violence which they conceived covld not be long if the Campe brake up and once dissolved But no Argument could fasten on him though the benefit of a swift Horse was offered at his Tent doore nor the fatality and portent of Prodigies related by his friends as presaging some inevitable Calamity and that Propheticall Prediction Iack of Norfolke be not too bold For Dickon thy Master is bought and sold. These things aggravated the weakenesse of his Army objected Counsels Perswasions Terrours Prodigies Prophesies could not make him heare so fatally resolute he stood in the jealousie and reputation of his Honour and Valour perempâ—orily protesting he would rather adventure Life Crowne and Fortunes than his honour to a cowardly and sinister construction this might taste of a desperaâ—e will if he had not afterwards given an apodixis in the battaile upon what plat-forme he had projected and raised that hope which as â—t had much of danger in it so of an inconcusse and great resolution and might have brought the odds of that day to an even bet for knowing the Earle to be thirsty and Appetent after Glory and Renowne but of an unpractised skill in Warre and as inferiour in courage to him he had projected in manner of Stratagem so soone as the Armies approached ready for the Charge to advance himselfe before his Troopes and give the Earle being Generall of his Forces the signall of a Combate And to provoke and single him with a more glorious invitation he wore the Crowne Royall upon his head the fairest marke for Valour and Ambition Polidore saies he wore it thinking that day should either be the last of his life or the first of a better which may aswell be a reason of his wearing it three daies before at Leicester when he rode from thence to Bosworth But doubtlesse by it he intended chiefly that the people might see know him to be their King and those that stood Armed against him looking upon that Imperiall evidence where their own hands and voyces had set it should by the awe and Soveraignty of it consider how lately they had avowed him their Lawfull King and by what Pledges of their Faith and Allegeances they stood solemnly bound to defend him and his Title in it against all other what ever was his mystery it rendred him a valiant and confident Master of his Right and in the constancy of hope and resolution he gives order for the Battaile The Armies confronted and whilst the Alarme and every blow began to be hot and furious forth breakes King Richard towards the Earle wafting him by a signall who seemed readily to accept it and pricking his Horse forward came on very gallantly as if but one Genius had prompted their Spirits and Ambition for a good Author testifieth that Comes Richmondiae directe super Regem Ricardum c. But his cariere soone faltred and Mars became Retrograde it being but a nimble traine to draw the King on to some disadvantages or else he liked not his furious approach for suddenly he makes a halt and with as much credit as he could no harme recovered the Vanguard of his Army whither
Goods Chattells and Debts These be the words of the Act and if jus then jus summum in all extremity Those of note that were taken lost their heads at Leicester two dayes after being Saint Bartholmews day and had a glimpse like that Bartholmew in France in our time all such slaughters from thence call'd Bartelmies and Bartelemies simply in a perpetuall Stigma of that Butchery It is suggested the Duke of Norfolke was slaine in the Battaile by the Earle of Oxford and the Story of Croyland seemeth to say as much Comes Oxoniae valentissimus miles in eam alam ubi Dux Norfolciae constitutus erat in agro de Redmore tum Gallicorum tum Anglicorum militum Comitatu stipatus tetendit c. Amongst those that escaped the sad destiny of that day was the Earle of Surrey Sir Thomas Howard Viscount Lovel Sir Thomas Stafford and his Brother N. Stafford with many other Nobles and Gentlemen that got into Forraigne Countries and Sanctuaries obscuring themselves till the storme and smart of that dayes memory were past But some would maintain Thomas Earl of Surrey to be one of them that submitted to the new King at Bosworth immediately after the overthrow which must not be believed if wee understand the composition of those times affairs for certaine it is the Earl Richmond had peremptorily proscribed all those he had cause to feare or hate whose names are partly in the Rowles kept in the Chappell of the Convertites in Chancery-Lane and partly omitted by the Scribes Now the Earle of Surrey of all the rest was so terrible and distastefull to him there could be no excuse left for his life And therefore let no man thinke he was taken or submitted but tooke aâ— happier season some moneths after The Relation and truth is by the warrant of one that well knew him and the inter-passage of his Fortune the Earle opportunely left the Field but so wounded that faintnesse and night constrain'd him to the house of a Gentleman not farre from Nottingham and one that bare a faithfull respect to the Earle and his Family untill he was well recovered In the meane time that terrible Parliament held in the next November was concluded and the Kings desires reasonably well appeased in seeing the execution of his new Lawes past upon some of them After which some small distance of time followed a gracious pardon to all the offenders in that Cause which proffered mercy this Earle layd hold on hoping to restore himselfe by his submission his offence considered being but an Act of Loyaltie to his Master But this confidence sent him to the Tower for though the violence of the storme appear'd well calm'd yet the King retain'd some heavings of it in his thoughts And this Imprisonment continued from his first yeare of raigne unto the fourth and towards the beginning of that being in the Tower with the Queene Elizabeth to whom he was shortly after to be married he tooke occasion to call for the Earle bearing still a gust of the same tempest in his brow and challenged him upon the old quarrell his service to the late Usurper Tyrant as he usually termed King Richard the Earle humbly moved his pardon and more favourable consideration to the nature of his offence which thousands more conceived to be but a due effect of their Liege duties and Allegiance to a Prince so lawfully and with all generall sufferance Crowned whose Title he held himselfe bound to defend by the law of God and Nations and would dye in defence of him and that Crowne though he should find it upon a Stake The King left him with a sterne and ruffling reply but in cold blood better acknowledged his integritie and thought he would come of no lesse value to him having the advantage to merit him by his pardon which soone after he granted him nor did the Earle loose ought of that opinion Shortly after being made of the Privie Councell then Lieutenant or Governour of the North and Generall against the Scots whom he overthrew as fatall was he to them at Flodden field where he tooke their King in the time of Henry the eight who made him High Marshall and Treasurer of England and restor'd him to his Fathers Dukedome the Inheritance of his Grand mother Mowbray being a man of such a happy direction in his carriage and wisedome that all his Actions came home with prosperous successe and accumulated what was sometime spoken of his great Ancestour Hewardus of whom it was questioned Vtrum faelioior an fortior esset so Fortunate and Honourable hath that house beene in the Service to this State and in the infinite Alliance and Cognation it holds with the most Ancient Families the Extractions and propagations from Mowbray Warren Bruce Dalbery Marshall Segrave Plantagenet Brotherton Bigot Fitz-Alan Matraver Buckingham Oxford and Dacres The Father of which Haward was Leofrick Lord of Burne and the adjacent Countrey in Lincolneshire his Mother was the Lady Edina descended from the great Ostac a Duke amongst the Easterlings in King Edgars time In whose Family I also find a Noble Kins-man of his called Haward to note obiter This Haward was of a Noble and Magnificent note a goodly Personage answer'd with an equall Strength and Valour Et nimium Bellicosus much or too much devoted to Mars He served in the Warres of Northumberland Cornewall and Ireland and after in the lower Germany where he made up much of his Fame and married a faire Lady called Turfrida the Daughter of a Noble man in Flanders where he continued untill the death of his Father called him home About which time William Duke of Normandy made his Conquest of this Kingdome and had gratified Iohannes Talbois the French Counte now Earle of Holland with Leoffricks Countrey of Holland in the Marshand and the Counte very rudely had expuls'd the Lady his Mother out of her Possessions and Dower Hawardus set upon him with such forces as he could speedily rayse tooke and held him prisoner in despight of the Conquerour untill he redeem'd himselfe and accompted for what he had done with a large summe of money This drew those of the Nobility to the protection of his sword which the Conquerour had chased out of their Countrey who had fortified themselves in the Isle of Ely and made Hawardus their Generall where he built a Castle that a long time after had his name But the Normans tooke that advantage to infest his Countrey and put him againe to the recovery of it which he so fortunately setled that the Conquerour was contented to make him his and hold him in good favour whilst he lived He was buried in the Abbey of Croyland Concerning his Issue by the the Lady Turfrida there is mention onely of a Daughter named Tarfrida married to Hugo Enermâ—a Lord of Deeping But circumstance will perswade us he had other Issue if wee consider him in the likelyhood of his strength and abilitie and
the Family of Yorke but most of all Perkin being of a more active spirit so more sensible of his wrongs then the other and cost the King more Consultation and Treasure in the working him into his hands Therefore answerably aggravated his miseries and disgraces which now beganne to exceede for hee was not onely sharpely restrained in the Tower but the fame was the Question or Gehenne was given Him sometimes he was taken forth and carried in most ignominious manner abroade to bee set in the Pillory otherwhile in the Stockes after all these bitter and cruell punishments to pull downe his stomacke there was sent some unto Him of purpose to perswade his submission to the Kings mercy and by renowncing His Blood Birth and Title to confesse himselfe no other but Perkin Warberk the Sonne of a base Flemming which Hee scorning and denying His sufferings were made more rigorous and Hee lodged poorely and basely as meanely fedde worse cladde untill at length by Torments and Extremities Hee was forc't to say any thing and content to unsay what they would have Him to accuse Himselfe by a forc't Recantation of his Family Name and Royall Parentage this must bee compell'd too under His hand then to bee brought by the Officers unto the most publique places of London and Westminster to suffer as before related and with a loud voyce to reade the same which might passe at present with the multitude for current who knew not how it was forcd from Him nor had judgement enough to know and consider that Racks and Tortures have made very able men accuse themselves and others unjustly Seneca telleth of a man who being suspected of Theft was inforced by torture to confesse the theft and his fellow Theeves but haveing none hee accused the good and just Cato to avoyd the torture nay which is a thing of more horror it maketh men by false Oaths to blaspheme God Therefore Saint Augustine inveigheth sharply against the cruell use of it and amongst many other sins which hee findeth in it this is one Tortus si diutius nolet sustinere Tormenta quod non commisit se commisisse dicit The tortured gladly doing this the sooner to exchange those torments with death as the far lesse pain And therefore this young Man may bee excusable in what hee did against himselfe his youth being ignorant of these high points of Honour and could not yet bee confirmed in any brave and firme resolution nor happily in Religion and the worse also by the reason of his long imprisonment and heavy trouble having no Councell to strengthen him nor so much as in Charity to comfort Him but left a miserable desperate forlorne Man and feared to bee so for ever and at the best And if learned grave Men Men of grace having large Talents of Spirit and Science for feare of such punishments have denyed some chiefe points of Christian Faith yet have beene excused for the torture sake of which wee have testimony in the Ecclesiasticall Stories what may a tender and unexperienced youth doe For which just causes the best Doctors of the Civill Law and also of Theology condemne and aborre the use of Torture as having a further mischiefe in it and is Arcanum Gehennae a secret of Torture or of Hell For when the Prisoners body by exteame toment is brought into any mortall State or symptome of death or made incurable and deadly then to avoyde the imputation of Murder the prisoner by a short and private processe is condemned of some capitall crime and presently executed whilst there is yet some life in him And to that censure Perkin at last came for nothing could serve but his blood his confession being only extorted from him to perswade the People hee was an impostor and because they could not lay hold of his Life by the Course of Law or Justice being not attainted nor condemned of any capitall crime This scraple being a little considered there was found out a way to remove that and matter enough to make him guilty of a capitall offence for which purpose it was devised there should a practise of escape bee offered him and because the case of Edward Plantagenet Earle of VVarrwicke was like unto his and as well wisht being not attainted of any crime hee also must desire to escape that devise being the onely matter of guilt or capitall crime which was wanting and might bee as it were created for them the more colorably to effect their executions there not wanting instruments for that purpose to betray their innocent considence whose inprisonment had layne so heavily and cruelly upon them that they were easily perswaded to catch at any hope of liberty Some say the Earle of Warwicke at his arraignment was charged with perswading the other to make this escape but sure it is they both gladly hearkened to the motion of it And were soone after accused as guilty of practise and Conspiracy to escape out of the Tower so for the same arraigned and condemned to die though gâ—eat difference was put in their processe and execution for the Earle of Warwick was tryed by his noble Peeres and had the supplice of a Noble man in an honorable place the Tower of London Perkin alias Richard by a Common Jury who are men many times of little honesty and to suffer at the common and infamous place Tyburne by the name of Perkin Warbecke to confirme the People Hee was what they condemned him for For this Nick-name was supposed to have utterly disnobled Him and as it were divested Him of all his Noble Bloud and Titles the condition of an impostor serving best for a cloke against that purple shower which was at the fall and cruell usage of this miserable Prince It may bee thought the Earle of VVarwicke had as shamefully suffered if the Wit and Malice of the Cardinall could have reacht to have made him a counterfeit But all men knew Hee was not onely a true and certaine Prince but free from all practise yet Hee was restrained of his liberty and a prisoner the most paâ—t of Hislife from the time of his Fathers attainder untill He Suffered this was after they had survived King Richard their Unckle about fifteen years Now for their Offence the learned Judges will tell us of what Nature and Quality it is called in Law Some holding an escape to bee but an errour a naturall dislike of bondage or a forfeit of simplicity proceeding from a naturall and very tolerable desire of liberty which opinion is contingent to right And the cause of these two Princes may also bee the better received if it bee well considered that this Plot of their escape was not projected by themselves but cunningly propounded to them by proper instruments being young and unexperienced to intangle them in some capitall offence and so of Death of which kinde of offences they stood cleere before not once accused haveing never beene indicted
proceeding from the vanity and obstinacy of the Prince the other from the peoples opinion of him and his vices And then he must neither raigne nor live any longer Ennius said with Cicero quem oderunt perijsse expetunt And soe all that was practised upon the fortune fame and person of King Richard was by this rule though in the judgment and equity of the most knowing in those times their cunning translatio Criminis could take noe hold of him neither appeares it probable that the Earle of Richmond himselfe when he had got all justice and power in his hand did hold King Richard guilty of the murder and Subornation of those fellowes nor them the Assasines for doubtlesse then being so wise and religious a Prince he would have done all right to the lawes divine and humane And that I beleeve in the extreamest and publick'st way of punishment to make it more satisfactory and terrible to the people and times but they freely inioyed their liberty with security to naturall deaths without any question or apprehension Tirrell excepted who suffered for treason not long after committed by him against King Henry himselfe Neither was Iohn Greene named a party in this murder ever called in question nor doe the Historians of those times though meere temporizers charge him with this practise against his Nephewes untill after his Coronation some say they survived King Richard and giveing this respiâ—e of time there was no cause why after that he should make them away being then secure in his Throne and Title and they longe before pronounced uncapable First by the ecclesiasticall Iudges then by the Barons and Parliament and where was the cause of feare but if King Richard had beene of that bloody constitution the man whose life could be most prejudiciall unto him was the Erle of Warwicke lawfull Sonne of George Plant agenet Duke of Clarence Elder Brother to King Richard now there was a necessitie for the Lancastrian faction if they must have a King of that family to take those Princes away not to leave King Richard or his Sonne nor yet any legitimate issue of Lancaster for all those were before any of the house of Beauforts in the true order of Succession and stood in their way so did the Progeny of Brotherton of Woodstocke of both the Clarencies Glocester c. Though they feared few or none of those Titulare Lords being modest men not affecting Soveraignty but content with their owne private fate and feudall estate when all was one with the Lancastrians who were so vehement in their royall approaches that besides King Edward the Fourth and his two Sonnes King Richard and his Son the Prince of Wales there was afterward and as occasion served The Earle of Warwicke and Duke of Suffolke and others both male and female of that princly family laid in their cold vrnes and it must be so else there could be no place for the Beauforts and Somersets their turnes being last the Kings of Portugall of Castile and other being before them if not excluded by Act of Parliament In this Tragedy there was a Scene acted by Iohn de Vere Earle of Oxenford which may be worthy of our observation for example sake and makes not against the cause of Perkin This Earle of Oxenford much affected and devoted to King Henry the Seventh was a great enemie to this Richard Alias Perkin and I thinke the onely enemie he had of the great Nobility how this dislike grew I cannot say whether out of ignorance or incredulity or out of malice hateing King Edward and all that had a neare relation to that family or else to applyhimselfe to the honour of the King but he and the Cardinall are said to be the châ—ife vrgers of Perkins dispatch and hee being high constable pronounced the sentence against the young Earle of Warwicke which much distasted the Country and ne're to Heveningham Castle that was his cheifest Seate there lived in the woods an old Hermit a very devoute and holy man as the fame of those times admit him who seem'd much troubled to heare this newes for the love he bare to the ancient and Noble family of Oxenford of much anguish of Spirit saying the Earle and his house would repent and rue that guilty and bloody pursuite of the innocent Princes for the event of which prophesy this hath bine observed Not long after the Earle was arrested for an offence so small that no man considering his merit and credit with the King could have thought it worth the question for which he was fined at thirty thousand pounds in those dayes a kingly sum after this he lived many yeares in great discontent and dyed without issue or any child lawfully begotten by him and in much shorter time then his life time that great and stately Earldome of Oxenford with the opulent and Princly patrimony was utterly dissipated and como sal in agna as the Spaniard saith in the refran yet this Earle was a very wise magnificent learned and religious man in the estimation of all that knew him and one more like to raise and acquire a new Erledome But it thus fell and was wasted the Castles and Mannors dilapidated the Chappell wherein this Iohn de Vere and all his Ancestors lay intombed with their monuments quite defaced to the ground their bones left under the open Aire in the feilds and all this within lesse then threescore yeares after the death of the said Earle Iohn about the same time these unhappie Gentlemen suffered there was a base sone of King Richard the Third made away having beene kept long before in Prison The occasion as it seemeth was the attempt of certaine Irishmen of the West and South parts who would have got him into their power and made him their cheife being strongly affected to any of the house of Yorke were they legitimate or naturall for Richard Duke of Yorkes sake sometimes their viceroy and thus much in breife of that Now to resolve a question why the King deferred so long the death execution of the Earle of Warwick Perkin and tooke so much deliberation after he had resolved it one reason and the cheifest brought by some is That in regard Perkin was an Alien and in the allegeance of a Forraigne Prince therefore he could not be condemned nor executed for felony nor treason by our lawes which is a ridiculous evasion for we have frequent examples in our stories that the naturall subjects of France of Scotland Spaine Portugall Germany and Italy have had judgement and execution by our lawes for felony and treason as Peter de Gaveston a French man Sir Andrew Harcley a Scot and lately Dr. Lopez a Portugall therefore apparantly that was not the cause the King so doubtfully and as it were timerously deferred their Arraignments Executions The Heathens perhaps would have defined it some inward awe or concealed scruple such as they called Eumenides and
words the names Shire-motts Eolmotts and Halymotts that is the meeting or assembling of the men of a Shire of a Town and of the Tenants of a Hall or Mannor had their beginning also Now as Sinoth is more used in the Parliaments themselves so Gemott is more familiar to the Historians And this Parliament of Anno 1 Rich. 3. could be of no lesse power and vertue witnesse the many and good Laws made in it albeit the second Marriage of King Edward was adjudged unlawful and the Acts of that Parliament for the most part repealed and abrogated afterward yet the evidence is clear enough that the Judges and Law-makers of that Parliament were wise and religious men and their Laws upright and just Therefore whatsoever was adjudged by them was to be received and held as authentick and inviolable how roughly soever it was afterward handled And in this case of the disabling of King Edwards sons there is least reason to suspect them the cause being so new so plain and notoriously known that no man could be ignorant therein Therefore to have given any other Judgement but according to the truth of evidence and certainty of knowledge it might justly have been censured an act of errour and ignorance or partiality and injustice For it was not the opinion of a few nor raised out of a weak judgement and perverted knowledge but a strong and general evidence by the ablest and best knowing If it be objected The case was obscure and doubtful That cannot be for the Estates had all substantial and ready means to inform themselves of the truth and every circumstance whereby they might be fully satisfied and cleared in all the niceties and doubts for all the witnesses and dealers in that cause and such persons as were acquainted with it were then living and they must and would have truely and certainly informed the Court of Parliament For the special and reverend care of this Court is The advancing of Justice and Right Therefore all Subjects by nature or grace are bound in their Allegeance to give pious and religious credit to Parliaments and to believe in their Authority and Power as the former times did in Oracles We must also confidently hold the high and transcendent quality and vertue of that Court to have all power and authority And no question to repeal a good and just Law made in Parliament is a wrong and scandal to that General Councel and to the universal wisedom providence justice and piety of the Kingdom In the Parliament 1 H. 7. there is an Act attainting the King R. 3. of high Treason for bearing Arms against the Earl of Richmond intituled The Soveraign Lord this was at his proceeding from Milford-haven into Leicester But when he came to fight the Battel he was then no King nor Soveraign but a Chief of such as made head against their Soveraign In which Paragraph there appears three grosse faults First Certain it is Richard during his Raign was a Soveraign therefore no Subject Next there was no enemy in the field who was then a Soveraign but all liege Subjects to the Crown And Richard being the King and Soveraign could not be adjudged a Traitor nor lawfully attainted of High Treason Then let it be considered whether a person of sacred Majestie that is an Anointed Soveraign may commit the Crime of Treason Also in this Parliament all the Barons Knights and Gentlemen that bore Arms in the field for the King were attainted of Treason their goods and lands confiscate and one Thomas Nan dickâ— a Necromancer and Sorcerer who with others had been condemned to die for using that hellish Art was in this Parliament pardoned the horrible things he had committed And it seemed he had not then left his black trade for he hath in that Act of Parliament still the style of Conjurer viz. Thomas Nandick of Cambridge Conjurer which had been a fitter style for his Gibbet then his Pardon although he had not by his Sorcery or Inchantment hurt or destroyed any humane yet for his renouncing and abjuration of Almighty God for it is the opinion of a learned and religious Doctor Magos Incantores saith he hominum genus indignum quod vel ob solam Dei O. M. abjurationem capitali suplicio afficiatur Other such things there be in that Parliament which detract it in the opinion of some those of the best and wisest repute Now let us come to examine that Treaty the King had about marrying the Lady Plantagenet which is censured to be a thing not onely detestable but much more cruel and abominable to be put in agitation Item That all men and the Maid her self most of all detested this unlawful Copulation Item That he made away the Queen his wife to make way for this Marriage and that he propounded not the Treaty of Marriage until the Queen his wife was dead That there was such a motion for the marriage of this Lady to the King is true and which is more and most certain it was entertained and well liked by the King and his friends a good while also by the Lady Elizabeth and by the Queen her mother who received it with so much content and liking that presently she sent into France for her son the Marquesse of Dorset that was there with the Earl of Richmond earnestly solliciting him to renounce the Faction and return home to the Kings favour and advancement which she assured him and sends the Lady Elizabeth to attend the Queen at Court or to place her more in the eye so in the heart of the King The Christmas following which was kept in Westminster-Hall for the better colour of sending her eldest daughter she sends her other four thither who were received with all honourable courtesie by the King and Queen Regent especially the Lady Elizabeth was ranked most familiarly in the Queens favour and with as little distinction as Sisters But society nor all the Pomp and Festivity of those times could cure that sad wound and languor in the Queens brest which the death of her onely son had left The addresse of those Ladies to Court albeit the feigned wooing of the King was in a politick and close way gave cause of suspition to the Earl of Richmonds intelligencing friends that the King had a purpose to marry the Lady Elizabeth which must prevent the Earl both of his hope to her and to the Crown by her Title a clause that made them mutter very broadly against it for indeed what more concern'd them therefore the King treats it more privately and coldly but the Queen-widow and the Lady stood constant in their desires and expectation onely the Objection was The King had a wife as though he could not marry another whilst she lived not remembring how usual it was not onely for Kings but private men to put away one wife and marry another for venial crimes as well as Adultery and Treason The Romanes might repudiate their
wives for conversing with men that were not of their lâ—inred and for going to see Playes and Cirque Spectacles their husbands not being with them or if the wife were unquiet or curst of her tongue c. Henry the Eighth put away Queen Katharine of Castile and Queen Anne of Cleve the one because she was too old and cold for pleasure the other because she was not fruitful or wanton enough Sometimes men have put away their wives for being Sluts for having unsavoury breaths or some infectious disease without a necessity of taking away their lives and it was lawful for either of them to marry when they would Pope Clement the Seventh so ratified the Divorce of King Henry the Eighth against Katherine of Castile as he defied all Laws Divine and Humane that should contradict and impugn his Power and Dispensation in these words Non obstante Iure Divino nec Humano nec quibuscunque Constitutionibus repugnantibus aut in contrarium Edictis Ther was a formal Bill or Libel of Separation prescribed by Moses with the manner of Divorces and Repudiations in this tenour as Andreas Osiander who translated it out of Hebrew into Latin affirmeth which for the rarity I have here transcribed Die tertia Hebdomadis 29 die mensis Octobris Anno ab orbe condito 4349. EGo Ioachim cognominatus N. filius Nathanis qui consisto hodie in urbe N. in Regno N. Te. N. uxorem meam cognominatam N. filiam N. quae fuisti uxor mea ante hac nunc demisi liberavi repudiavi te tibi ut sis tui juris domina animae tuae ad abeundum ut ducaris abs quolibet viro quem volueris ne vir quisquam prohibeat quo minus sis in manu tua ito hoc die in aeternum Et ecce permissa es unicuique viro hic esto tibi a me datus Libellus repudii Epistola dimissoria Instrumentum libertatis juxta Legem Mosis Israelis But the Answer which was made in the name of the King to the Lady Elizabeth concerning his Queen was That she could be no impediment of long continuance being a very weak woman in a Consumption and past hopes of recovery her Physitians giving their opinions she could not live past the middle of February next following nor ghessed they much amisse for the died in the next month March When the midst and last of February was past the Lady Elizabeth being more impatient and jealous of the successe then every one knew or conceived writes a Letter to the Duke of Norfolk intimating first that he was the man in whom she most affied in respect of that love her Father had ever bore him c. Then she congratulates his many courtesies in continuance of which she desires him to be a mediator for her to the King in the behalf of the Marriage propounded between them who as she wrote was her onely joy and maker in this world and that she was his in heart and thought withall insinuating that the better part of February was past and that she feared the Queen would never die All these be her own words written with her own hand and this is the sum of her Letter which remains in the Autograph or Original Draft under her own hand in the magnificent Cabinet of Thomas Earl of Arundel and Surrey by which it may be observed that this young Lady was ignorant that a man having a wife living might marry another and suffer her to live But the truth is the King had no real intent to make her his wife from the beginning onely in policy entertained this Treaty as it appeared afterward when his Queen was dead and he had all fit accesses without any impediment to marry her yet did not professing he wooed her not to that end but for some other causes and made Protestation in the great Hall at Saint Iones neer Smithfield before all the Knights of Malta and a great Assembly of Noble-men the Lord Maior Aldermen and many Citizens being present that he had no purpose nor intent to marry the Lady Elizabeth avowing Quodeares viz. Voluntas contrahendi Matrimonium cum Consanguinea Germana sua nunquam â—i venerat in mentem for so it is testified by the Prior of Croyland Yet it may not be denied he pretended love to her and a proffer of Marriage which he projected in policy to divert her affection from Richmond whose party the King apprehended privately wrought that way of which the said Author thus saith Non aliter videbat Richardus Rex regnum sibi confirmari neque spem competitoris sui aufferri posse nisi in Matrimonio cum dicta Elizabeth contrahendo vel simulando And it is most likely the King had no other aim but meerly of Prevention neither was there any cause had he been so wicked to do it by blood nor any just reason to frame so hard an argument against him being always so affectionately inclined to his wife that he was rather thought uxorious then otherwise which appeared unfeignedly at her death in the expression of sorrow and magnificent Exequies for her Non eum immorte honore quam Reginam dicunt as the Prior of Croyland testifieth Let us look therefore with clearer consideration upon the motion or pretence of this Marriage to call it detestable and cruel is ignorant and malicious though she were so neer of kin to him for Marriages between Uncles and Neeces have been very frequent and allowed in other Countreys by the Church In our time the daughter and heir of Duke Infantasgo in Spain was married to his brother Don Alde Mendoza and more lately the Earl of Miranda married his brothers daughter In the House of Austria Marriages in this kinde have been very usual and thought lawful the Pope dispensing with them for they say in Spain Que el padre santo quiere Dios loquire Therefore how could it be so highly unlawful in King Richard Or if his intents had been so forward where was the Bar when his wife was dead and he absolute unlesse the Ladies aversenesse But that suggestion is answered by her own Letter and other testimonies So the Account will be if rightly summed by what hath been produced that he had never any serious determination of Marriage onely took the advantage of his gain by looking into her hand then no cause to make away his Queen which his accusers themselves directly and peremptorily charge him not with but doubtfully say The Queen however it fortuned departed out of this life the 16 of March in the Lent season But although he had the commendations of a loving and indulgent husband I say not he lived always continently for I finde he had some bastards two of them I have mentioned yet peradventure he might have them before his Marriage and then the fault was lesse So then let them that affect not blinde and
traditory opinion more then justice and reason but equally examine his slanders they shall finde Malice and ignorance have been the Kings greatest accusers which can onely lay Suspition to his charge and Suspition in Law is no more guilt then Imagination for though Suspition many times lay a great blame upon a man men holding him to be guilty whom men suspect to be so though injuriously yet the Law holds it not a Crime because Suspition many times supposeth those to be culpable which are not for an Instrument may as easily be condemned as a Malefactor being an evil grown from the errour of men Wherefore Suspition of it self bringeth no sentence by Law Natural or Moral Civil or Divine according to that of the old Minographus Suspitio grave est hominibus malum And the Divine Chrysostome saith A good man hardly suspecteth another to be evil but an evil man scarcely supposeth any to be good far from the counsel of this Epigram Culparem quoquam quae non sunt nota malignum est Presertim si quam cognita sint bona sunt Non pateant faciles duris rumoribus aures Quae nescire juvat credere non libeat Linquantur secreta Deo qui quicquid opertum est Inspicit nullis indiget indicibus Accuse no man of faults to thee unknown And much lesse him from whom good fruits have grown Lend not thine ears to scandalous reports Believe not that which known nought thee imports Leave secret things to God who knows all hearts And hath no need of the Promoters arts But as Iulius Caesar who had many excellent Observations was wont to say Vir bonus tam suspicione quam crimine carere oportet That a good man must be as well without suspition as crime Yet none so innocent but may fall under the lash of the malicious for such like the Polypus will take any colour or make any tincture of a Crime to serve their ends Of such a vertue is the never-understanding Vulgar that like Kytes and Daws can digest nought but stench and filth their Ignorance being their Faith and that drawn from loose Pamphlets and the vomits of mercinary and mimick pens to which and their uncurable fits I leave them Explicit Liber quartus THE FIFTH BOOK OF THE HISTORY OF KING RICHARD the Third The Contents WHat a Tyrant is and how a Tyrant and King Richard differ The destruction of the Plantagenets The daughters of King Edward the Fourth how bestowed The death of the Queen their Mother The Vertues of King Richard the Third The Elogie of the three Brothers King Edward the Fourth George and Richard The Magnificent Publike and Charitable Buildings of King Richard the third His good Laws and other good works That to die in the Wars is no Dishonour but an Honour Artes Regiae Crimen regale His Comparison with other Kings accounted good King James his gracious demeanour to his Cousins A Character and Elogie of King Richard the third The title of the Norman Race and of York defended The sundry titles of King James The Wedding King of England Lapis Regno fatalis King Richards Sepulchre and Epitaph The Authors Scope Peroratio Votum THE FIFTH BOOK OF King Richard The Third WE will next endeavour to understand that Vocable or term Tyrannus that is a Tyrant or an evil King cast upon King Richard which indeed comprehendeth all scandals and impieties whatsoever Tyrannus est qui suis propriis Commodis studet publicis adversatur And Tyrannus est qui dominatu crudeliter abutitur A Tyrant is by another wise man compared to a Dragon who becometh not a Dragon until he hath devoured many Serpents of which Conceit this Epigram was wittily framed Post plures Coluber Serpentes Dracosit esos Gust at â humanâ carne fit homo Lupus The Dragon which doth many Serpents eat Becomes a Dragon of huge shape and strength And so the man which makes his flesh mans meat Transformed is unto a Wolf at length Another Philopher differeth not much from these who saith that of all tame beasts the flatterer is most pernicious and of all wilde the Tyrant who forbeareth not for any respect of good or ill but studies Oppressions Wrongs Exactions Robberies Sacriledges Blood-shed Murder Adultery Incest Rape Riot Gluttony Luxuriousnesse Prodigality and all manner of Excesses These be his arts of raigning and these be his vertues Invident Tyranni claris fortesque trucidant Another saith Tyrannus miserum vetat perire foelicem jubet So it was truely said by the famous Orator of Athens Liberalitas Tyranni nihil aliud est quam translatio pecunâ—arum a justis Dominis ad alienos idque indignos His thirst and covetousnesse for his largitious riots and lusts are so inordinate that nothing can quench it Non Tartessiaris illum satiaret arenis Tempestas pretiosa Tagi non stagna rubentis Aurea Pactoli totumque exhauserit Hermum Arde bit majore siti c. Quicquid conspicuum pulchrumque ex Equore toto Res sisci est c. These may serve for the notions of a Tyrant to any of which Impieties our King Richard was very little or not at all obnoxious For first Whereas a Tyrant imposeth many grievous Taxes and Oppressions upon his Subjects he took away such grievances and particularly by Act of Parliament a hateful Tax though disguised with the name of a Benevolence forbearing to impose any upon the people Then A Tyrant doth not onely rapine his Subjects but spoils and robs Churches and Church-men But King Richard did many good things both for the publike good advancing Gods service and maintenance of his Ministers and Church-men Tyrannum pium esse non est facile as Sophocles well observed And the Oracle pronounced Portae foelicitatis ad Tyrannidem clausae Tyrants be cruel and bloody but this King by the testimony of his enemies was very merciful and milde who confesse he was of himself gentle and assably disposed These be their own words Therefore where tyrannical acts be objected against him they must be conceived done by other men or by their practice or else before he was King and what he did then was not nor could be properly called Tyranny Amongst those they impute to him when he was King which are called Tyrannies the beheading Henry Stafford Duke of Buckingham was the chiefest yet that act the cause and just motives of it being well perused cannot be censured Tyranny rather due and necessary Justice for if the King had not put down the Duke the Duke would have put down the King Then it is objected He bare a tyrannical hand over his nephew Edward Earl of Warwick True it is he sent him to Shery-Hutton a goodly and pleasant house of his own in York-shire where he had liberty large diet all pleasure and safety and if that were imprisonment it was a prison Curtoise as Iohn Froisard saith yet this must not be lesse
then Tyranny according to the style of Sir Thomas Moore When King Henry the Seventh as soon as he had got the Crown sent this young Prince to the Tower afterwards cut off his head yet that was no Tyranny after Sir Thomas Moore But our King Iames of ever happie memory hath thought it an act of so much detestation that particularly he protested against it and shewed another temper of Justice and Power in his Royal Clemencie to certain Noble persons in one of his Kingdoms who being Regal Titulars and pretending title to the Crown there as descended from some King of that Countrey his gracious and pious inclination was so far from seeking their ruine or so much as the restraining them that he suffered their liberty with possession of what they had Then they call the punishment of Iane Shore a Tyrannie A common and notorious Adulteresse as the Duke of Buckingham who knew her very well censured her which she deserved so justly that it was rather favourable then severe or tyrannous Next the death of William Collingborn is made one of his Tyrannies who as some trivial Romancers say was hanged for making a Satyrical Rhyme when the truth is he had committed Treason and was arraigned and condemned of High Treason as may be yet seen in the Record and then it was Justice and not Tyrannie Another proof against their grosse Paralogisms take from this observation made by Demosthenes Tyrannus res est inimica Civibus legibus contraria But King Richard was ever indulgent to his people careful to have the Laws duely observed his making so many good ones being an evident argument of his love to Law and Justice It is further observed that Tyrants contemn good counsel are opinionated of their own wisedoms and obstinate to determine all matters by themselves These Plaintiffs being called by the Greeks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is self-Councellors who say they are natura plerumque occulti insidiosi Arte Astu ea Tagere dissimulare conantur quae agunt non communicantes quicquid de suis Conciliis aut rebus cum aliis nec ab aliis Concilium petentes neque admittentes sed tantum sua Concilia sequuntur Also Erasmus hath this Axiome Nullo Concilio quicquam magnae rei aggredi tyrannicum est But King Richard nor did nor would do any thing of importance without consultation with the wisest and noblest And if in any matters he had delivered his judgement yet his manner as his detractors confesse was to say in the end and conclusion My Lords this is my minde if any of you know what may else be better I shall be ready to change it for I am not wedded to my own will Thus Sir Thomas Moor. Eastly Largition and excessive expences are thought vices proper to Tyrants the rather because the Romane Tyrants for their extreme excesses were called Monstra prodigia lues Imperii pesâ—es reipublicae c. As Caligula Nero Vitellius Domitian Commodus Heliogabolus Caracalla c. King Kichard was ever held to be frugal with the preservation of his honour nor can they tax him with Palliardise Luxury Epicurism nor Gluttony vices following many Tyrants but moderate and temperate in all his actions and appetites which is confessed and therefore needeth no further proof Indeed it had been advantage and safety to him in the event if he had been a Tyrant a while for then he might have preserved his life and kingdom and given a timely check to the practice of Bishop Morton the Marquesse Dorset Earl of Devon and his brother the Bishop the Lord Talbot the Lord Stanley and his brother Sir William Stanley with the Countesse of Richmond his wife and the rest But his remisnesse and patience bred his ruine not his tyranny that had been his protection And now the black curtain of malice and detraction is drawn let us see this King in his proper Royalty and vertues casting up the general and particular notions of A good King and happie Government then peruse what was wanting in him First then There is necessarily required proper to Empire Wisedom Justice Fortitude Beauty Magnificence Temperance and Piety That he had Wisedom and Prudence need no other witnesse then his wise and provident managing both of his own private affairs and Government of the Publike Also in the Military actions in which he was tried both as a Subject and a King his adversaries can allow him to be a wise prudent politick and heroical Prince his Wisedom appearing with his Justice very clearly in the good Laws he made acknowledged and honourably predicated by our Reverend and most learned Professors of the Laws For his further knowledge and love of Justice there can be no fairer argument then his desire and custome to sit in Courts of Justice hearing and distributing Justice indifferently to all men And when he made his Progresse into York-shire being informed there of some extortioners and foul offenders who were apprehended not tried he caused the Law to take the just current giving strict charge and commandment to all Officers of Justice for just administration to all men without partiality or private respects The Fortitude and Magnanimity of this Prince though of lowe stature were so great and famous as they need no Trumpet or Praecony being bred from his youth in Martial actions and the Battels of Barnet Exham Doncaster the second of S t Albans and of Tewksbury will give him the reputation of a Souldier and Captain Being made General of the Kings Armies into Scotland he prevailed happily in his Expedition and particularly recovered that famous and strong Hold of Berwick which King Henry the Sixth had so weakly let go And in this you shall hear the Elogie of one that was loth to speak much in his favour yet occasion forced him to speak his knowledge though coldly and sparingly King Richard was no ill Captain in the War he had sundry Victories and sometimes Overthrows but never by his own default for want of hardinesse or politick order Whereunto he addeth concerning his Bounty Free was he called of dispence and liberal somewhat above his power To which I will adde one Elogie more above all for Credit and Authority recorded in an Act of Parliament and addressed to him in the name of the whole high Court of Parliament in these words We consider your great Wit Prudence Iustice and Courage and we know by experience the memorable and laudable acts done by you in several Battels for the salvation and defence of this Realm Here followeth another general and memorable testimony of him and of more regard and honour because it is averred by one that knew him from his youth the Duke of Buckingham who after Richard was made King and this Duke became ill affected acknowledged to Bishop Morton in private speeches between them That he thought King Richard from his first knowledge even
wose Genealogie I have seen derived from the antique Kings of Britain and from divers other British Princes And this Henry Teudor or the Seventh to confirm all the Titles of this Kingdom unto his claim by the strongest and greatest authority procured them decreed to him and to his issue so established in himself and his posterity for ever by Act of Parliament in this manner and words TO the Pleasure of Almighty God and for the Wealth and Prosperity and Surety of this Realm of England to the singular Comfort of all the Subjects of the same and for avoyding all Ambiguities and Questions Be it Ordained Established and Enacted by the Authority of this present Parliament That the Inheritance of the Crown of the Realm of England and also of France with all the Pre-eminencies and Dignities Royal to the same appertaining and all Liegances to the King belonging beyond the Seas with the appurtenances thereunto in any wise due or appertaining To be rest remain and abide in the most Royal person of our Soveraign Lord King Henry the Seventh and in the Heirs of his body lawfully comming perpetually with the Grace of God and so to endure and in no other Which is also another Title to our King Heir to Henry the Seventh And this Act was renewed and firmly established for our Soveraign Lord King Iames Anno regni primo Yet King Henry the Seventh obtained of the Pope another Title Iure Belli All which Titles and Rights which ever were appertaining to this Kingdom and to the Empire of Britain are coalesced and met in our Soveraign King for he hath not onely the claims of the ancient Kings of Britain of the Saxons and Anglo-Saxons Kings and of the Norman Race but also the Titles and Rights of the Royal Families of York of Lancaster and of Wales c. And noâ— as the least in reference with these he hath in possession also those singular and particular Monuments of Empire and Raign by some called Fata Regni and Instrumenta Monumenta Regno Imperio destinata One being the Ring of the accounted holy King Edward the son of King Etheldred which was consecrated and extraordinarily blessed by Saint Iohn Baptist in Palestine and sent back by the King as old Writers tell which hath been religiously kept in the Abbey of Westminster and is as Tradition goes the Ring which the Archbishop of Canterbury at the Inauguration and Consecration of the Kings puts upon their finger called in our Stories The Wedding Ring of England The other Monument of the British Empire is the Marble-stone whereupon Iacob laid his head when he had those caelestial and mystical Visions mentioned in holy Writ which stone was brought out of Palestine into Ireland and from thence carried into Scotland by King Keneth after translated to the City of Scone and used for the Chaire wherin the Kings sate at their Coronation brought out of Scotland by Edward the First into England as the best Historians of Scotland and England relate Cathedram Marmoream Regibus Scotorum fatalem in qua insidentes Scotorum Reges Coronare consueverant Rex Edwardus primus e Scona Londinum transtulit in Westmonasterio ubi hodie visitur deposuit It is set or born in a Chaire of Wood and for a perpetual honour upon a Table hanging in the Chappel at Westminster this is writ Si quid habet ueri vel Chronica cana sidesve Clauditu hac Cathedra Nobilis ille lapis Ad caput eximius Jacob quondam Patriarcha Quem posuit cernens numina mirifica Quem tulit a Scotis Edwardus primus c. George Buchanus saith The people are seriously perswaded that in this stone which he calleth Lapidem Marmoreum rudem the state of the kingdom is contained and that fatum Regni is thus understood viz. What King of Scotland soever is Lord of that Stone Soveraignly possessed thereof shall be King and raign in the Countrey where he findeth that stone thus told in a prophetical Distich Ni fallat fatum Scotus quocunque locatum Inveniet lapidem regnare tenetur ibidem Which Prophecie was accomplished in King Iames when he came first into England for his Titles were not onely funiculus triplex qui difficile rumpitur but also funiculus multiplex qui nunquam rumpitur And may those Titles for ever be establisht in his Loins according to that of the heavenly Messenger Regnum perpetuum cujus non est finis Amen Thus I have led you thorow the various Relations and Tragical Interchanges of this Princes Life to his last act and place where after Revenge and Rage had satiated their barbarous cruelties upon his dead body they gave his Royal earth a bed of earth honourably appointed by the Order of King Henry the Seventh in the chief Church of Leicester called Saint Maries belonging to the Order and Society of the Gray Friers the King in short time after causing a fair Tomb of mingled colour'd Marble adorned with his Statue to be erected thereupon to which some grateful pen had also destined an Epitaph the Copie whereof never fixtto his stone I have seen in a recorded Manuscript-Book chained to a Table in a Chamber in the Guild-hall of London which the faults and corruptions being amended is thus represented together with the Title thereunto prefixed as I found it Octob. 9. 1646. Imprimatur Na Brent TO give you him in his equal Draught and Composition He was of a mean or lowe compact but without disproportioÌ„ uneveness either in lineaments or parts as his severall Pictures present him His aspect had most of the Souldier in it so his natural inclination Complexions not uncertainely expounding our Dispositions but what wants of the Courâ—-Planet effeminate Censurers think must needs be harsh and crabbed and Envie will pick quarrels with an hair rather then want Subject The Judgement and Courage of his Sword-actions rendred him of a full Honour and Experience which Fortune gratified with many Victories never any Overthrows through his own default for lack of Valour or Policie At Court and in his general deportment of an affable respect and tractable cleernesse In his dispence of a magnificent liberal hand somewhat above his power as Sir Tho. Moor sets down And surely the many Churches with other good works he founded more then any one former King did in so short a time must commend him charitable and religious as the excellent Laws he made do his wisedom and strain of Government which all men confesse of the best So having even from those his bitterest times the esteem of a valiant wise noble charitable and religious Prince why should ours deprave him so much upon trust deny works their character and place EPITAPHIVM Regis Richardi tertii Sepulti ad Leicestriam jussu sumptibus S ti Regis Henrici Septimi HIc ego quem vario Tellus sub Marmore claudit Tertius a justa
of a thing Jnconcuss that cannot be shaken undaunted Bartlemies 63. Meant of the great and generall massacre of above 100000. Protestants in France chiefly in Paris and the Countrey adjoyning on Saint Bartholmews Eve Anno 72. whereupon S t. Bartholmews teares Bartholomaeus flet quia Gallicus occubat Atlas Como sal in aqua 105. Is meant of suddain wasting Monomachy 62. When two sight single without seconds Cadet 67. A younger brother Guerdonable worthy of reward 75. Aneu 45. An acknowledging or taking for his owne Geus saus adneu vagabonds that none will owne so Bastards are not admitted to their adneu 1 not acknowledged by their Fathers Rebus de Picardy Devises and representations of odd things by words mottoes which present one thing and by deviding the word in pronunciation signifie another Faulcon Serrure An abscene French device and presents the use of Italian lockes Authors quoted in this History AUgustine Aristotle Baleus Boetius Buchan Cambden Cicero Cambrensis Claudian Croyland Pryor Comineus Cooke Demosthines Dion AEsopus Euripides Ennius Erasmus Epictetus Fabian Fuchius Froisard Grafton Glover Guinsford Goodwin Du Hailon Hall Hollinshead Hyrd Dele-Hay Harding Hist. de Brit. Homer Julius Capital Juvenall Justus Vulterius Lib. Manusâ—r Apud D. Rob. Cotton Lampridius Lucan Maximus Moore Monstrolet Newbrigensis Nyerus Ovid Osiander Pliny Paradin Polidor virg Plutarch Seneca Sarisburensis Stow Strabo Socrates Stanford Suetonius De Serces Tacitus Terence Tillet Virgill Valla Walsingham With many Parliament Roules and Records FINIS The House and Title of Yorke The Linage of Edward 3. The Empire of K. Henry 2. Girald in Topog Hibernie Sariâ—bur in Pol. Newbrig Lib. â— Fulk Earle of Anjou Acoustre in criminall condemne Paradin From this example Henry 2. submitted his body to be scourged by the Monks of Canterbury for the death of Tho. Becket After this manner and long after K. H. 2 the heire and successour of this Earle Fulko was injoyned by the Pope to go to the Holy-Land and to fight against the Infidels Hovend Rival c. Leon. Fuchius Plin. Lib. 24. cap. 9. Strabo Lib. 16. Du Haillon In his Catalogue of Honour Deus i. Rex Lib. manus in quarto apud D. Rob. Cotton Comes i. Praesesâ— Camden in Cumberland Sir William Haward purblind Quasi part blind The Bastard Faulconbridge An Army sent into Scotland under the D. of Glocester Anno 24. Ed. 4. Chron. Croy. The doubtfull death of K. E. 4 vid. lib 4. The Duke of Gloucester made Lord Protector Phil. de Comines in Lud. 11. Sir Tho. Moore Chronic Abbat Croy. The insolency of the Queens Kindred Sir Thomas Moore in Edward 5. Rich. 3. Lord Hastings Sir Thomas Moore Ciâ— lib 3. de offic Suet. in viâ—a Iulâ—i Caesaris Eurip. in Phoeniss Axiom Polit. Senec. in trag Artes imperii The flight of Richmont with his Vncle Pembrooke The Earle of Rich. borne in Pembrooke Castle This slight of theirs was in Anno 11. E. 4. Iohn Stow. Earle of Rich. Prisoner in Brittaine The last D. of Brittaine who was Earle of Richmond possessed of the Earledome was Iohn de Montfort who flourished An. Dom. 1440 had sons but not Earles of Richmond as Rob. Glou. writeth now this Francis 1. renewed the claime which was about 30 yeares after Iohn de Montfort Duke of Brittaine Iac. Nyerus in Annal. Fland. lib. 17. King Edward treateth for the delivery of Richmond Ennius apud Cicer. ta Offic. K. â— 4 sends for Richmond Hist de Brit. D. Stillington sent for Richmond K. R. reneweth suâ—t to the D. of B. for the Earle of Richmond E. 4. Fulmen â—elli ut Seleac Rex inde 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. fulmen dictus claud Paradin B. Mort. Sir Th Moore Hollingshed Graston Stow Hall Virgill c. Parliament The Duke of Buck. to the L. Protector in the behalfe of the 3 Estates The common published stories have Eliz. Lucy but that is false The Answer of the Lord Protector to the 3 Estates The bold and round conclusion of the D. of Buck. The Protectors Reply to the Dukes last Suit Lib. Abb. Croyl Cambden Monstrolet Coâ—ineâ— Anglici scriptoret Stile of the D. of Norff. In rotuliâ— in domo convers Signifying mercy Signifying Iustice to the Temporalty Iustice to the Clergy Peace Monarchy Moore Graston Polidore Hall Croyland Hollingshed Stow c. Chron. M. S. in Quar. apud D. Ro. Coâ—ton and Rob. Fabian Rich. the Bastard of the D. oâ— Gloc. Captaine of Calice Iohn Maierus Iean Tillet dâ— Tillet saith That that tribute or Pension was 75000 crowns or Escu's chacun Escu vallant trois souls The Q. Mother King Rich. reconciled The Parliament of R. 3. The friends confederates of the E of Rich. The sons of K. E. living in Jan Febr after the death of their Father Vice Constable of England Patents de anno 1 Rich 3. part 1. meâ— 2. Other Officers of King Richard 3. Treaties for League and commerce with Flanders c. In Thesauro Scaeccarij 1 R. 3. In Rowles Aâ— 1 R. 3. An. Dom. 1484. Eâ—gile in Record The Lady Anne de la Poole a Nun. Treaty with the Duke of Brittaine Ib. in Scaccaer Treatie with the King of France Treaty of marriage of King Rich. with the Lady Eliz. Revolt of the D. of Buck. The Duke of Buckingham first riseth in Rebellion The quarrell of the Duke of Buck. against the King The Title of the Earldome of Hereford of the Constableship of England Sir Tho. Moor. This Margaret Countesse of Richmond was Daughter and Heire to Iohn Beaufort Duke of Somerset Margaret de Beaufort Mother of the D. of Buck. was Daughter of Edmond D. of Somerset and thus were the E. of Rich. and the D. of Buck. a Kin. Rob. Glov in catal c. The Conspirators with the D. of Buck. for the E. of Rich. The overthrow of the Duke of Buckingham Polidore lib. 25 King Richard sharply reprehended Banister for betraying his Master which argued a noble mind The D. execucuted by Marshall Law Eurip. in heâ—a Valer. Max. l. 7 Virgill Iohn Froisard Paradin Hist. de Brit. The Duke had by this Lady his daughter and heir Anne who brought the Dutchy of Brittaine to France Hist. de Brit. The death of Edw. Prince of Wales Sonne of Rich. 3. Chron. Croyland Ibidem Seneca Iohn Earle of Lincolne and after Duke of Suffolke proclaimed Heire Apparant Iohn Sarisburiensis Ep. 85. Sir Tha. Walsin in Rich. 2. Parl. ann 20. Rich. 2. Don Duart de Lancastro a Noble Gen. of Portugall averred himself descended from the D. of â—â—â— Valodolid The peculiar Sir-names of the Bastards of the anâ—â— in Kings of England Armes of Bastards of the Kings of England Camd. in Surr. The. Gainsford Scarboucle falsly called Carbuncle Difference betweene the house of Lancaster and Somerset The Earles of Worcester from whom The civill and imperiall Law against Bastards Sir Edw. Cook Doctor Stephen Gardiner Sir Tho. Eger Chancellors of England
de Comines in Lud. 11. cap. 112. 122. The great Earl of Warwick The Lady Bo na was afterward married to Iohn Galeazo Sforza Duke of Millain el Rueseâ—r This Marriage was in the Forrest of Whichwood L'indignete de ce Marriage du Roy Edw. avec un simple gentile femme displaisant au Conte Warwick aux principaux Seigneurs de Angleterre offensa tellement le Roy Lewis 11. qu'ils font confederacon contre le Roy Eduatt c. Jean de Tillet Part 2. The Speech of the Dutchesse of York to King Edw. 4. The Answer of King E. 4. to the Dutchesse of York his mother Elizabeth Lucy Ovid. Philip de Comines 1620 How King Edward died Lib. 4. in Hist. de Britaigne Moustrolet part 3. de ce Chron. Doctor Morton Sir Tho. Moore Grafton Hollinshead Stow. How King Edward might have prevented all after-questions The Authority of Parliament Parliament how so called and derived Lawrence Valla. The Treaty of Marriage between K. R. 3. and his Neece the Lady Elizabeth Plantagenet Chronicle Croyland Bulla Papae Clementis 5. apud D. Ro. Cotton Osiander in Annotation in 4 Evang. Harmon Evang. The credit of the Duke of Norfolk with King Richard and with the lady Elizabeth and her Letter to him The Cabinet of the Earl of Arundel now Earl of Surrey too Chronicle of Croyland Chronicle of Croyland The Queen died 11 March 1484. Prior of Croyland Sir Tho. Moor. Hollinshead Suspitio est opinio mali ex levibus signis B. Th. Aquinas Suspitio est actus per quem in dubitationem trahimur Meos tam suspicione quam crimine judico carere oportere Suet. in vitâ J. Gaes What a Tyrant is Aristot. in Ethic idem Bias apud Plut. Libell de adulat c. 37. Lucan Seneca Hâ—râ—ules Fâ—â—â—â—â— Demosthines Claudian in Râ—ss Iuvenal Satyre 4. Parliam An. 1 Rich. 3. The Duke of â—uckingham said that the name of Benevolence as it was taken in the time of K. Edw. 4 signified that every man should pay not what he of his own good will list but what the King of his good will list â—o take Duke Buck apud Tâ—oâ—am Moor. Comes Arund vi voce King Iames. Iane Shore Anonimus Iuris peritus in Apologia K. R. 3. Axiom polit cap. 219. Sententia Arabica Caligula spent 230 millions of Crowns in lesse then a yeer Nero said that there was no use of money but for â—iots and prodigal expences King Richard in this was like Iulius Caesar who knowing by certain intelligence the conspiracy and conspirators against his life also the time and place of execution yet he seemed to slight and not regard it King Richards vertues Justice Shelly commendeth the Laws of K. R. 3. to Card Wolsey Vide Ioh. Stow in H. 8. pag. 882. Chronic. M. S. in quarto apud D. Rob. Cotton Sir Tho. Moor. Doctor Morton Parlâ—anno R. 3. Morton Moor apud Stow p. 774. Eloquentia Principibus maxime est ornamento Cic. de finibus l. 4. The praise of the three princely brothers The good works of King Richard Iohn Stow Annal. Polidor lib. â—5 Richard loved not Wichwood for his brothers unhappie Marriage In Rot. in domo Conversorum Aâ— 1 R. 3. Charles the Great instituted the Colledge and Society of Armorists calling them Heralds of Ehr Halten Dutch or Franchish words and not of Heroes Pacem uxorem neptem Regis petit Richardus suit Statura parva To be slain in War is no evil or unhappie death Optimes quosque violenta morte consumptos esse affirmat Lam. Alexander King Richard was slain Aug. 22. 1493. when he had raigned 2 years and 5 months accounting his Protectorship and about the 37th year of his age King Henry 1. King Iohn King Edw. 3. King Hen. 4. King Edw. 4. Seneca de Clementia King Hen. 7. Gul. Campden in Britan. Corn. Grafton Hollinshead Grafton Polidor lib. 4. Although the Lady Anne and the Lady Katherine were well married that may not be alleadged here for they were bestowed in the time of Rich. 3. the one to the Lord Haward after Duke of Norfolk the other to the Earl of Devon Robert Glover Ioel cap. 1. Dominus Ioh. Baro. Lumley viva voce The sundry great Titles of our King to the Crown of England Alex. apud Curtâ—um lib. 8. Clyto that is A Prince of the blood Anno 1. H. 7. in Parliament in Novemb. The wedding Ring of England Edwardus Elthelredus d'Rivallis The fatall â—tone Hector Boetius lib. 4. Et Geo. Buchan Gul. Cambden In hoc lapide fatum regni Scotiae continetur Geor. Buchan Scotus primus Rex Scotie ut Anglus Gallus Hispannus c. pro Rex Angliae Galliae Hispan c. Sir Tho. Moor. Dake Bâ—cking in his speech to Mr. Morton Annos 2. 51. dies Anno Dominie 1484. Die 21. Aug.