with Buckingham's insatiable ambition, overweening pride, and
unsurpassed popular power.

As one becomes familiar with the cotemporary statements, the fall of
Richard seems nothing but the treachery which provoked his last outcry
on the field of death. Even Catesby probably turned against him; his own
Attorney-General invited the invaders into Wales with promise of aid;
the Duke of Northumberland, whom Richard had covered over with honor,
held his half of the army motionless while his royal benefactor was
murdered before his eyes. Stanley was a snake in the grass in the next
reign as well as this, and at last expiated his double treason too late
upon the scaffold. Yet while the nobles went over to Richmond's side,
the common people held back; only three thousand troops, perhaps
personal retainers of their lords, united themselves to the two thousand
Richmond hired abroad. It was any thing but a popular uprising against
the jealous, hateful, bloody humpback of Shakspeare; it excuses the
fatal precipitancy with which the King (instead of gathering his troops
from the scattered fortifications) not only hurried on the battle, but,
when the mine of treason began to explode beneath his feet on Bosworth
field, refused to seek safety by flight, but heading a furious charge
upon Richmond, threw his life magnificently away.

Even had he been guilty of the great crime which cost him his crown, his
fate would have merited many a tear but for the unrivaled genius at
defamation with which the master-dramatist did homage to the triumphant
house of Lancaster. Lord Orford says, that it is evident the Tudors
retained all their Lancastrian prejudices even in the reign of
Elizabeth; and that Shakspeare's drama was patronized by her who liked
to have her grandsire presented in so favorable a light as the deliverer
of his native land from a bloody tyranny.

Even in taking the darkest view of his case, we find that other English
sovereigns had sinned the same: Henry I. probably murdered the elder
brother whom he robbed; Edward III. deposed his own father; Henry IV.
cheated his nephew of the sceptre, and permitted his assassination;
Shakspeare's own Elizabeth was not over-sisterly to Mary of Scotland;
all around Richard, robbery, treason, violence, lust, murder, were like
a swelling sea. Why was he thus singled out for the anathema of four
centuries? Why was the naked corpse of one who fell fighting valiantly,
thrown rudely on a horse's ba