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just been persuaded, when he is advertised of the queen's advance with twenty thousand men, to besiege him in his castle. This is the first of a series of imputations, the justice of which I shall have hereafter to examine, upon the morality of Richard, afterwards Duke of Gloucester. It is clear that the present imputation cannot be sustained, as Richard was at this time only eight years old. Edward, Earl of March, his eldest brother, was eighteen, and may therefore possibly have urged his father to hostilities. But there is no reason to believe that either Edward or his father contemplated hostilities, before the queen put herself in warlike array.

In the battle of Wakefield which ensued, York was defeated, as in the play, and put to death, though there is some doubt whether he was slain in the battle or beheaded afterwards.*

For the paper crown there is the authority of old writers+ as well as of Holinshed:

"Some write (for he had mentioned that York was

* Dec. 30, 1460. Lingard, 164; Hol., 269; W. Wyr. cester (485) says that he was slain in battle; and so the Chronicle in Leland, 498; but Wethamstede (489) says, that he was taken alive. The Croyland Cont., 530, may be construed either way.

+ W. Wyrc., Wheth., and Croyl. Cont. as above; but according to the first, it was the dead York that was crowned.

slain in battle, and his head presented to the queen upon a pole), that the duke was taken alive, and, in derision, caused to stand upon a mole-hill, on whose head they put a garland instead of a crown, which they had fashioned or made of sedges or bulrushes; and having so crowned him with that garland, they kneeled down before him as the Jews did unto Christ, in scorn, saying to him, 'Hail king without rule, hail king without heritage, hail duke and prince without people or possessions.' And at length, having thus scorned him with these and divers other the like despiteful words, they struck off his head, which (as you have heard) they presented to the queen."

And this latter is the story in Wethamstede. But I must say, that in amplifying the reproaches which the Lancastrians heaped upon their captive, the poet has not improved upon his original in language, while his interpolations are as contrary to chronology as to good taste.

"What! was it you that would be England's king?
Was't you that revell'd in our parliament,

And made a preachment of your high descent?
Where are your mess of sons to back you now?
The wanton Edward and the lusty George,*
And where's that violent crook-back prodigy,
Dicky, your boy, that with his grumbling voice,
Was wont to cheer his dad in mutinies?

Or, with the rest, where is your darling Rutland?Ӡ

*George was not twelve years old. † Act i., Sc. 4.

I do not find in Holinshed, or elsewhere, the foundation of the lines that follow:

"Look, York; I stained this napkin with the blood,
That valiant Clifford with his rapier's point,

Made issue from the bosom of the boy :
And if thine eyes can water with his death,
I give thee this to dry thy cheek withal."

There is much more in the same strain, and York's reply does not fall short of the provocation; but enough of this, which I hope is not Shakspeare's.

I know not in what sense Mrs. Jameson speaks of "the celebrated speech" of York. She says truly, that the story of the napkin is not historical; but she goes too far in saying, that the decapitation of York after the battle (which she assumes as the true version) was "not done by the order of Margaret." Surely, the queen was the responsible commander.

"The Lord Clifford perceiving where the Earl of Rutland was conveyed out of the field by one of his father's chaplains, and (schoolmaster to the same earl), and overtaking him, stabbed him to the heart with a dagger as he kneeled afore him. This earl was but a child at that time, of twelve years of age, when neither his tender years nor dolorous countenance, while hold

* Charact., ii. 254.

ing up both his hands for mercy (for his speech was gone for fear), could move the cruel heart of the Lord Clifford to take pity upon him; so that he was noted of great infamy for that his unmerciful murder of that young gentleman."

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In the play, the eyes are closed from fear, but much use is made of the speech in vain supplications to Clifford, who always answers, according to the fiction of the play,—

"Thy father slew my father, therefore die."

This address of Clifford to Rutland is in Hall,+ but not in Holinshed; a circumstance overlooked by Malone, to whose theory it is unfavourable, if we suppose Shakspeare to have written the old play, from what it is taken.

Rutland, who is here described as a mere child, was above seventeen years old, only one year younger than his brother Edward, and several years older than George and Richard. He had been associated with his elder brother in the acts for attainting the Yorkists, while the younger brothers were unnoticed. Not only Clifford's reference to his father's death by the hand of York, but all that is pitiful in the story, all that is

*Hol., 269. Wethamstede says particularly, that Rutland was slain by Clifford.

+ P. 251.

Rolls, v. 349.

beyond the simple fact that Rutland was slain by Clifford, appears to me to rest on the insufficient authority of Hall alone.*

The second act places Edward and Richard Plantagenet, on "a plain near Mortimer's Cross in Herefordshire." I can make nothing of this first scene. It is true enough, that Edward (not Richard) was in Gloucestershire, at the time of the battle of Wakefield, and soon afterwards† obtained a victory at Mortimer's Cross over the Earl of Pembroke. But here he is made to talk as if he had been present in the battle of Wakefield, and to have come away without knowing the fate of his father! Of this, however, he is soon apprized by a messenger. And the play describes not any victory or battle. § Johnson has remarked, that Shakspeare has judiciously discriminated between "the generous tenderness of Edward, and the savage fortitude of Richard, in their different reception of their father's death;"

"Edw. Oh! speak no more for I have heard too much. Rich. Say how he died, for I will bear it all.”

* Not only the old writers to whom I have referred, but Fabyan and P. Vergil are silent.

† Feb. 2, 1461.

Jasper Tudor, half-brother to Henry VI.

§ Mortimer's Cross, as the heading of the scene, is not in the old play. It was probably added by some half-informed || Bosw., 405.

commentator.

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