CHAP. his ends. A combination between these potent adverXXII.

saries being secretly formed against Clarence, it was de1477.

termined to begin by attacking his friends ; in hopes, that if he patiently endured this injury, his pusillanimity would dishonour him in the eyes of the public; if he made resistance, and expressed resentment, his passion would betray him into measures which might give them advantages against him. The king, hunting one day in the park of Thomas Burdet, of Arrow, in Warwickshire, had killed a white buck, which was a great favourite of the owner; and Burdet, vexed at the loss, broke into a passion, and wished the horns of the deer in the belly of the person who had advised the king to commit that insult upon him. This natúral expression of resentment, which would have been overlooked or forgotten had it fallen from any other person was rendered criminal and capital in that gentleman, by the friendship in which he had the misfortune to live with the duke of Clarence: He was tried for his life; the judges and jury were found servile enough to condemn him; and he was publicly beheaded at Tyburn for this pretended offence. About the same time, one John Stacey, an ecclesiastic, much connected with the duke, as well as with Burdet, was exposed to a like iniquitous and barbarous prosecution. This clergy man, being more learned in mathematics and astronomy than was usual in that age, lay under the imputation of necromancy with the ignorant vulgar; and the court laid hold of this popular rumour to effect his destruction. He was brought to trial for that imaginary crime; many of the greatest peers countenanced the prosecution by their presence; he was condemned, put to the torture, and executed.P

THE duke of Clarence was alarmed when he found these acts of tyranny exercised on all around him : He reflected on the fate of the good duke of Glocester in the last reign, who, after seeing the most infamous pretences employed for the destruction of his nearest connexions, at last fell himself a victim to the vengeance of his enemies. But Clarence, instead of securing his own life against the present danger by silence and reserve, was open and

XXII.

1478.

loud in justifying the innocence of his friends, and in CHAP. exclaiming against the iniquity of their prosecutors. The king, highly offended with his freedom, or using that pretence against him, committed him to the Tower, 9 26th Jan. summoned a parliament, and tried him for his life before the house of peers, the supreme tribunal of the nation.

The duke was accused of arraigning public justice, by maintaining the innocence of men who had been condemned in courts of judicature; and of inveighing against the iniquity of the king, who had given orders for their prosecution. Many rash expressions were imputed to him, and some too reflecting on Edward's legitimacy; but he was not accused of any overt act of treason; and even the truth of these speeches may be doubted of, since the liberty of judgment was taken from the court, by the king's appearing personally as his brother's accuser, and pleading the cause against him. But a sentence of condemnation, even when this extraordinary circumstance had not place, was a necessary consequence in those times, of any prosecution by the court or the prevailing party; and the duke of Clarence was pronounced guilty by the peers. The house of commons were no less slavish and unjust: They both petitioned for the execution of the duke, and afterwards passed a bill of attainder against him. The measures of the parliament, during that age, furnish us with examples of a strange contrast of freedom and servility: They scruple to grant, and sometimes refuse, to the king the smallest supplies, the most necessary for the support of government, even the most necessary for the maintenance of wars, for which the nation, as well as the parliament itself, expressed great fondness : But they never scruple to concur in the most flagrant act of injustice or tyranny, which falls on any individual, however distinguished by birth or merit. These maxims, so ungenerous, so opposite to all principles of good government, so contrary to the practice of present parliaments, are very

CHAP.
XXII.

1478.

a

The only favour which the king granted his brother, after his condemnation, was to leave him the choice of

his death; and he was privately drowned in a butt of 18th Feb. malmsey in the Tower: A whimsical choice, which

implies that he had an extraordinary passion for that
liquor. The duke left two children by the elder daughter
of the earl of Warwic; a són, created an earl by his grand-
father's title, and a daughter, afterwards countess of
Salisbury. Both this prince and princess were also un-
fortunate in their end, and died a violent death; a fate
which for many years attended almost all the descendants
of the royal blood in England. There prevails a report,
that a chief source of the violent prosecution of the duke of
Clarence, whose name was George, was a current pro-
phecy, that the king's son should be murdered by one, the
initial letter of whose name was G. It is not impossible
but, in those ignorant times, such a silly reason might have
some influence : But it is more probable that the whole
story is the invention of a subsequent period, and founded
on the murder of these children by the duke of Glocester.
Comines remarks, that, at that time, the English never were
without some superstitious prophecy or other, by which
they accounted for every event.

All the glories of Edward's reign terminated with the
civil wars; where his laurels too were extremely sullied
with blood, violence, and cruelty. His spirit seems after-
wards to have been sunk in indolence and pleasure, or his
measures were frustrated by imprudence and the want of
foresight. There was no object on which he was more
intent than to have all his daughters settled by splendid
marriages, though most of these princesses were yet in
their infancy, and though the completion of his views, it
was obvious, must depend on numberless accidents, which
were impossible to be foreseen or prevented. His eldest
daughter, Elizabeth, was contracted to the dauphin ; his
second, Cicely, to the eldest son of James III. king of
Scotland; his third, Anne, to Philip only son of Maxi-
milian and the dutchess of burgundy; his fourth, Catha-
rine, to John son and heir to Ferdinand king of Arragon,

W

XXII.

1478.

1482,

and Isabella queen of Castile." None of these projected CHAP. marriages took place; and the king himself saw, in his lifetime, the rupture of the first, that with the dauphin, for which he had always discovered a peculiar fondness. Lewis, who paid no regard to treaties or engagements, found his advantage in contracting the dauphin to the princess Margaret daughter of Maximilian; and the king, notwithstanding his indolence, prepared to revenge the indignity. The French monarch, eminent for prudence as well as perfidy, endeavoured to guard against the blow; and by a proper distribution of presents in the court of Scotland, he incited James to make war upon England. This prince, who lived on bad terms with his own nobility, and whose force was very unequal to the enterprise, levied an army; but when he was ready to enter England, the barons, conspiring against his favourites, put them to death without trial; and the army presently disbanded. The duke of Glocester, attended by the duke of Albany, James's brother, who had been banished his country, entered Scotland at the head of an army, took Berwic, and obliged the Scots to accept of a peace, by which they resigned that fortress to Edward. This success emboldened the king to think more seriously of a French war; but while he was making preparations for that enterprise, he was seized with a distemper, of which he expired in the forty-second year of his age, and 9th April

. the twenty-third of his reign : A prince more splendid Death and and showy, than either prudent or virtuous; brave, of Ed,

ward IV, though cruel; addicted to pleasure, though capable of activity in great emergencies; and less fitted to prevent ills by wise precautions, than to remedy them after they took place, by his vigour and enterprise. Besides five daughters, this king left two sons; Edward prince of Wales, his successor, then in his thirteenth year, and Richard duke of York in his ninth.

CHAP. XXIII.

EDWARD V. AND RICHARD III.

Edward V.-State of the court- The earl of Rivers

arrested-Duke of Glocester protector-Execution of lord Hastings The protector aims at the crown

--Assumes the crown- -Murder of Edward V. and of the duke of York-Richard III.-Duke of Buckingham discontented-The earl of Richmond-Buckingham executed—Invasion by the earl of Richmond-Battle of Bosworth Death and character of Richard III.

EDWARD V.

CHAP.

1483.

DURING the later years of Edward IV. the XXIII. nation having, in a great measure, forgotten the bloody

feuds between the two roses, and peaceably acquiescing State of in the established government, was agitated only by some the court.

court intrigues, which being restrained by the authority of the king, seemed nowise to endanger the public tranquillity. These intrigues arose from the perpetual rivalship between two parties; one consisting of the queen and her relations, particularly the earl of Rivers her brother, and the marquis of Dorset her son; the other. composed of the ancient nobility, who envied the sudden growth and unlimited credit of that aspiring family." At the head of this latter party was the duke of Buckingham, a man of very noble birth, of ample possessions, of great alliances, of shining parts; who, though he had married the queen's sister, was too haughty to act in subserviency to her inclinations, and aimed rather at maintaining an independent influence and authority. Lord