such a monster, morally, when he
grew to be a man, that the people believed that he was born a monster
in person. The story was that he came into the world very ugly in face
and distorted in form, and that his hair and his teeth were already
grown. These were considered as portents of the ferociousness of
temper and character which he was subsequently to manifest, and of the
unnatural and cruel crimes which he would live to commit. It is very
doubtful, however, whether any of these stories are true. It is most
probable that at his birth he looked like any other child.

There were a great many periods of intense excitement and terror in
the family history before the great final calamity at Wakefield when
Richard's father and his brother Edmund were killed. At these times
the sole reliance of the prince in respect to the care of the younger
children was upon Lady Cecily, their mother. The older sons went with
their father on the various martial expeditions in which he was
engaged. They shared with him the hardships and dangers of his
conflicts, and the triumph and exultations of his victories. The
younger children, however, remained in seclusion with their mother,
sometimes in one place and sometimes in another, wherever there was,
for the time being, the greatest promise of security.

Indeed, during the early childhood of Richard, the changes and
vicissitudes through which the family passed were so sudden and
violent in their character as sometimes to surpass the most romantic
tales of fiction. At one time, while Lady Cecily was residing at the
Castle of Ludlow with Richard and some of the younger children, a
party of her husband's enemies, the Lancastrians, appeared suddenly at
the gates of the town, and, before Prince Richard's party had time to
take any efficient measures for defense, the town and the castle were
both taken. The Lancastrians had expected to find Prince Richard
himself in the castle, but he was not there. They were exasperated by
their disappointment, and in their fury they proceeded to ransack all
the rooms, and to destroy every thing that came into their hands. In
some of the inner and more private apartments they found Lady Cecily
and her children. They immediately seized them all, made them
prisoners, and carried them away. By King Henry's orders, they were
placed in close custody in another castle in the southern part of
England, and all the property, both of the prince and of Lady Cecily,
was c