arldoms, baronies, and many other inheritances
belonging of right to the English knights, esquires, and gentlemen who
were now in the possession of them. The proclamation farther declared
that the people who made up his army were robbers and murderers, and
rebels attainted by Parliament, many of whom had made themselves
infamous as cutthroats, adulterers, and extortioners."

Richard closed his proclamation by calling upon all his subjects to
arm themselves, like true and good Englishmen, for the defense of
their wives, children, goods, and hereditaments, and he promised that
he himself, like a true and courageous prince, would put himself in
the forefront of the battle, and expose his royal person to the worst
of the dangers that were to be incurred in the defense of the country.

At the same time that he issued this proclamation, Richard sent forth
orders to all parts of the kingdom, commanding the nobles and barons
to marshal their forces, and make ready to march at a moment's
warning. He dispatched detachments of his forces to the southward to
defend the southern coast, where he expected Richmond would land,
while he himself proceeded northward, toward the centre of the
kingdom, to assemble and organize his grand army. He made Nottingham
his head-quarters, and he gradually gathered around him, in that city,
a very large force.

In the mean time, while these movements and preparations had been
going on on both sides, the spring and the early part of the summer
passed away, and at length Richard, at Nottingham, in the month of
August, received the tidings that Richmond had landed at Milford
Haven, on the southwestern coast of Wales, with a force of two or
three thousand men. Richard said that he was glad to hear it. "I am
glad," said he, "that at last he has come. I have now only to meet
him, and gain one decisive victory, and then the security of my
kingdom will be disturbed no more."

Richmond did not rely wholly on the troops which he had brought with
him for the success of his cause. He believed that there was a great
and prevailing feeling of disaffection against Richard throughout
England, and that, as soon as it should appear that he, Richmond, was
really in earnest in his determination to claim and take the crown,
and that there was a reasonable prospect of the success of his
enterprise, great numbers of men, who were now ostensibly on Richard's
side, would forsake him and join the invader. So he sent secre