of the sanctuary. The abbey was | creased on the way to about seven thousurrounded by a vigilant guard, un- sand, courageously marched towards der the command of John Nesfield, London. Richard, at the head of thirwho cut off all supplies of food, and teen thousand men, met him in Bossearched all goers and comers. At worth-field. Lord Stanley, who secretly length the means of the Queen and the favoured Richmond, posted himself in a hospitality of the monks were all but situation equally convenient for joining exhausted; but, although famine stared either army. Richard threatened to exthe fugitives in the face, the hapless ecute his son, whom he held as a hostElizabeth would not surrender until after age, if he did not join his ranks; but the usurper had solemnly sworn, before the threat was disregarded, and on the several lords and prelates, and the mayor morning of the twenty-second of August and aldermen, that he would treat the the trumpet sounded to battle. The Queen and her daughters with kindness, action commenced with a shower of arshield them from harm, settle a life an- rows, and soon the two ranks began to nuity upon the mother, of seven hundred close. Northumberland remained inmarks, allow each of the daughters two active at his post, but Stanley, profiting hundred, and marry them to none but by the occasion, joined the line of Richgentlemen. mond, and turned the fortune of the By the terms of her surrender, Eliza- day. In the meanwhile, Richard, mountbeth was reduced to the station of an or-ed on his spirited charger, sped to the dinary gentlewoman, and, what was equal- thickest of the fight, and Richmond ly degrading, her annuity was paid, not quitted his station behind, to encourage to her, but to John Nesfield, one of his troops by his presence in front. Richard's Esquires, "to pay all the house- Richard perceiving him, resolved to end hold and other expenses of Dame Eliza- all by one blow, and with the fury of a beth Grey, lately called Queen of Eng- lion, flew through the opposing hosts land." On quitting the sanctuary, Eliza- to attack him. He slew Sir William beth, although received at court with Brandon, the Earl's standard-bearer, outward marks of honour, was subjected who had attempted to stop his career. to severe indignities and privations. John Sir John Cheney having taken BranNesfield had the entire control of her don's place, was thrown to the ground. person, as well as of her scanty revenue; Richmond in the mean time stood to and her spirits were so completely broken, oppose him, but the crowd interposing, that, at the instigation of the usurper, they were separated. Richard now, she consented that Richard himself therefore, went to inspire his troops at should, on restoring to her her lost another quarter; but at length, perceiv authority and income, as Queen Dow-ing his army everywhere yielding or ager, espouse her daughter, the Princess Elizabeth; and joining her interests with those of the murderer of her three sons and of her brother, she wrote to all her partizans, and, amongst the rest, to her son, the Marquis of Dorset, desiring them to withdraw from the Earl of Richmond; an injury she was forced by the usurper to inflict, but which the Earl never afterwards forgave.

These efforts, however, of the wily hunchback availed him not. On the seventh of August, Richmond, having resolved to win the promised bride and crown, or die in the attempt, landed at Milford Haven, and at the head of only four thousand men, whose number in

flying, he fiercely spurred his horse, and loudly shouting treason, treason, rushed into the midst of the enemy, and there met a better death than his actions had merited. In the battle there fell about four thousand of the vanquished. The loss was inconsiderable on the side of victors. The notorious Catesby, a great instrument of Richard's crimes, was taken, and soon afterwards beheaded with some others, who probably had merited that distinction by their crimes at Leicester. The body of Richard was found in the field covered with a heap of slain, and all besmeared with blood. It was stript, laid carelessly across a horse, and conducted amidst the

shouts of the insulting spectators, to Leicester, where, after being exposed for two days, it was interred in the Grey Friars' church of that place.

Richard's crown being found by one of the soldiers in the field of battle, was immediately placed by Stanley upon the head of the conqueror, who was instantly greeted with loud and prolonged shouts of "Long live King Henry!" Thus ended the bloody reign of Richard the Third, the race of the Plantagenet kings, and also the contests between the Houses of York and Lancaster, which had for thirty years been a pestilence to the kingdom, and in which about one hundred thousand men lost their lives, either on the scaffold, by the hand of the assassin, or on the field of battle.

with blind veneration, were governed by the common law, which was traditionally delivered to them from their ancestors, understood no Latin, and the few who aspired to politeness, applied themselves wholly to French.

William Caxton, him who, in 1473, set up the first printing - press ever worked in England, thus feelingly laments the decline of chivalry, one of the most remarkable peculiarities in the manners of the middle ages, and which, greatly as it had flourished in England in the fourteenth century, had by the sanguine wars of the Roses been well nigh banished from the land:

"Oh, ye Knyghtes of England, where is the custome and usage of noble chyvalry, that was used in tho days? What These dissensions had reduced the do ye now but go to the baynes and play kingdom to a state of almost savage bar- at dyse? And some, not well advysed, use barity; laws, arts, and commerce, were not honest and good rule again all ordre entirely neglected, for the practice of of knygthode. Leve this, leve it, and rede arms. The people had no idea of pacific the noble volumes of St. Graal of Lancegovernment, and except only in their lott, and many mo; ther shall ye see gallantry to the fair sex, they little manhode, curtoyse, and gentylness. I differed from the ancient painted inha-wold it pleasyd our soverayne lord, that bitants of the island. The clergy were twyse or thryse a-yere, or, at least, once, entirely distinct from the laity, both in customs, constitutions, and learning. They were governed by the civil law, understood and wrote Latin tolerably well, and as a body, but little interested themselves in the civil polity; whereas, the laity regarded the clergy

he wold do cry justis of pies to thende that every knyght shold have hors and harneys, and also the use and craft of a knyghte, and also to tornoye one agaynste one, or two agaynste two, and the best to have a prys, a diamond or jewel, such as shold please the prynce."

CHAPTER IV.

Elizabeth restored to freedom and affluence-Henry the Seventh marries her daughter, the Princess royal-She retires from court-Stands godmother to Prince ArthurReceives the French ambassador-Is about to be married to the King of Scots, when that King dies-Enters the convent of Bermondsey-Her death-Will-BurialChildren.

On the eighteenth of January, 1486, | and goods that I have, be disposed of the King was married to the Princess in the contentation of my debts and Elizabeth; but believing the claims of for the health of my soul, as far as they his wife to the crown to be superior to his will extend. own, he would not permit her be crowned with him; a slight that deeply wounded the pride of the Queen Dowager and her daughter.

From this time the widow of Edward the Fourth almost ceased to share in the gaieties or business of the court. Twice only did she appear in public on state occasions. In 1486, when she stood godmother to her grandson, Prince Arthur; and in the following year, when she took a prominent place at the reception of the French ambassador.

"Item; That if any of my blood wish to have any of my said stuff, to me pertaining, I will that they have the pre

ferment before all others.

"And of this my present testament, I make, and ordain my executors, that is to say, John Ingilby, prior of the Charter House of Shene, William Sutton and Thomas Brent, doctors; and I beseech my dearest daughter, the Queen's grace, and my son, Thomas, Marquis of Dorset, to put their good wills and help for the performance of this my testament.

"In witness thereof to this my testament, these witnesses, John, Abbot of Bermondsey, and Benedict-Cun, a doc

As the Queen Dowager had expressed

Shortly afterwards, Henry projected her marriage to James the Third, King of Scots; and as the violent death of that monarch alone prevented the match, King Henry's dislike to his mother-in-tor of physic." law, was, at least at this period, evidently founded on private, rather than politi-a desire for a speedy and a private burial, cal motives. Early in the following year, the King assigned an annuity of four hundred pounds to Elizabeth, and shortly afterwards, declining health induced her to retire to the convent of Bermondsey, where, as the widow of Edward the Fourth, the heir of its founder, she possessed the right of residence, and where she ended her troubled life in great poverty, on the eighth of June, 1492, leaving the following will, dated April the ninth, 1492.

"In the name of God, Amen. I, Elizabeth, by the grace of God, Queen of England, and late wife to the most virtuous Prince of blessed memory, Edward the Fourth.

"Item; I bequeath my body to be buried with the body of my lord at Windsor, without pompous interring or costly expense done there about.

"Item; Whereas, I have no worldly goods to do my daughter, the Queen's grace, a pleasure with, neither to reward any of my children according to my heart and mind. I beseech God to bless her grace, with all her noble issue, and with as good a heart and mind as may be, I give her grace my blessing, and all the aforesaid my children.

"Item;

I will that such small stuff

two days after her death, being WhitSunday, says a contemporary, “her body was conveyed, without any worldly pomp, to Windsor, and there privately, through the little park, into the castle, without ringing of any bells, or receiving of the dean and canons, but only by the prior of the Charter-House of Shene, and her chaplain, Dr. Brent; and so privily, about eleven of the clock in the night, she was buried, without any solemn dirge, or the more solemn mass done for her; but that day there was nothing done solemnly for her, saving a low hearse, such as they use for the common people, with wooden candlesticks about it, and covered with a pall of black cloth of gold, with four silver gilt candlesticks on it, each candlestick having a taper of no great worth, and six escutcheons of her arms painted on the cloth. On the Thursday, there came to the dirge, her three youngest daughters, the Marquis of Dorset, with several other ladies and nobles. But at this solemnity there was never any new torch, but old torches, nor poor men in black gowns and hoods, but a dozen old men, too poor to provide themselves with mourning clothing, and all holding not new torches, but old torch ends. On the next morning, mass

by King Edward the Fourth, besides two, who died in infancy, were, Edward the Fifth, and Prince Richard, both as

was said, but the ladies came not. After the lords and the ladies had made their offerings, and mass was ended, the Marquis of Dorset paid the funeral ex-sassinated in the Tower; Elizabeth, who penses."

In compliance with the desire expressed in the will, the body of Elizabeth Woodville, a Queen whose avarice and ambitious scheming for the aggrandizement of her former husband's children excited the jealousy of the nobles, and was the chief source of her many troubles and misfortunes, was interred in the tomb of her husband, Edward the Fourth, in St. George's Chapel. On a stone at the foot of the beautiful iron monument, which, as we previously stated, is supposed to be the work of Quintin Matsys, is the following simple inscription in old English:

"King Edward, and his Queen, Elizabeth Midville.”

The children of Elizabeth Woodville,

became the consort of Henry the Seventh; Mary, born in August, 1460, at Windsor, and who died unmarried in May, 1482; Cicily, who first saw the light in 1469, was married in 1487 to Lord Wells, and afterward to Thomas Kymbe, and who Hardynge mentions as less fortunate than fair, adding, “that her second husband was an obscure person of mean birth, and but little wealth;" Ann, who married Lord Howard in 1495; Katherine, who in the same year espoused the Earl of Devonshire; and Bridget, who entered the world in 1480, and who, says Speed, "early in life took the habit of religion, and became a nun at Dartford, where she spent her life in holy contemplation, unto the day of her death, in 1517.”

ANNE OF NEVILLE,

Queen of Richard the Third.

Anne's parentage-Birth-Conveyed to Calais in her early youth-She rejects Richard as her lover-Is present at the marriage of her sister to Clarence-Returns with Warwick, her father, to England-Warwick is forced to flee the country with his family-Disastrous voyage-Anne is married to Edward, the heir of Lancaster After Edward's death she flies from Richard, who discovers her; quarrels with Clarence respecting her patrimony; and marries her-She gives birth to a son-Her wealth settled upon Richard by act of Parliament-Her residence in the North-Coronation-Second coronation at York-Death of her sonHer health gives way-Richard's cruelty towards her-False rumours of her death -Richard wishes her dead, that he may marry Elizabeth of York-Her kind disposition-Death-Burial.

The historical events which marked her career have been traced in the two preceding lives; this memoir, therefore, needs be but brief.

NNE OF NEVILLE, sometimes styled Anne of Warwick, was the second daughter of the Towards the close of the year 1459, powerful Richard to escape the vengeance of Margaret of Neville, Earl of Anjou, whose cause then triumphed, Warwick, named by Warwick retired with his family to the people "The King-Maker," and his Calais, where Anne, it is supposed, spent wife, Anne, the daughter and heiress of the years of her early youth: indeed, Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick. the wars of the Roses prevented WarBy his marriage Richard Neville added wick, except occasionally, from bringing to his own wealthy inheritance the vast his family to England. When, or lands and princely possessions of the under what circumstances, Richard the Warwick family. His yearly income Third first paid his addresses to the Lady amounted to upwards of twenty-two Anne, we know not; but, as he was the thousand marks. But, rich as he was son of her great aunt, Sicily, Duchess of in worldly goods, he possessed no male York, and as the York and Warwick faheir, his only children being two daugh- milies were on terms of close friendship, ters, Isabella and Anne. Anne, the it is but reasonable to suppose that, in subject of the present memoir, first saw his early youth, the hunchback King, the light at Warwick Castle, in 1454. who was only two years older than Anne,