And, being Protector, stay'd the soldiers' pay; These charges are from Holinshed; Gloucester protests his innocence in forcible, and, I think, Shakspearian language. "Divers articles were laid against him in open council, and in especially one; that he had caused men adjudged to die, to be put to other execution than the law of the land assigned. Surely the Duke, very well learned in the law civil, detesting malefactors, and punishing offenders in severity of justice, got him hatred of such as feared condign reward for their wicked doings. And although the Duke sufficiently answered to all things against him objected, yet, because his death was determined, his wisdom and innocency nothing availed."* 66 Is it but thought so? what are they that think it? I never robb'd the soldiers of their pay, Nor ever had one penny bribe from France. * Hol., 211, from Hall, 209. I cannot discover in records, contemporaries, or even in Fabyan, the charge as specified by Hall. Have I disbursed to the garrisons, And never ask'd for restitution." York reiterates the charge of excessive punish ments: 66 'Glouc. Why, 'tis well known, that whiles I was Pro tector, Pity was all the fault that was in me; For I should melt at an offender's tears, And lowly words were ransom for their fault. Or foul felonious thief that fleeced poor passengers, And he thus characterises his accusers, in terms which must, as I think, have been borrowed from some contemporary Chronicle not now in exist ence: 66 Beaufort's red sparkling eyes blab his heart's malice, And Suffolk's cloudy brow his stormy hate; Sharp Buckingham unburdens with his tongue The envious load that lies upon his heart; And dogged York, that reaches at the moon, Whose overweening arm I have pluck'd back, By false accuse doth level at my life :And you, my sovereign lady, with the rest, Causeless have laid disgraces on my head; And, with your best endeavours, have stirr'd up My lifest liege to be mine enemy." In the play the Queen herself, so soon as Henry has departed, proposes to the peers present, that is, the Cardinal, Suffolk, Buckingham, Somerset, and York, that Duke Humphrey should be "quickly rid the world;" Beaufort, Suffolk, and York,* then conspire to bring about the Duke's death. And York enters into this felonious conspiracy in the presence of Somerset, with whom, indeed, he has, even in this very scene, an altercation; for when a messenger announces a disturbance in Ireland, York proposes, ironically, that Somerset, the fortunate Regent of France (where, in truth, he had lost every thing), should be sent thither; and a most undignified dialogue ensues, which ends in York's undertaking the service. This I believe to be correct, though it is uncertain whether York's nomination to Ireland was subsequent to Somerset's return from France.+ The murder is now accomplished under the immediate direction of Suffolk. † Buckingham had never been taken off the stage, but he takes no part; though in the Chronicle he is named as one of the Duke's enemies, while neither York is, nor Somerset. + For York's appointment I have no old authority but that of Hardyng, p. (399); see Stow, 387. Rapin and Lingard were apparently as much puzzled as I am about these appointments, for they give no authorities or particulars: see Rapin, v. 379, and Lingard, v. 125. Act iii. Sc. 2. Holinshed says, that "all indifferent persons might well understand that he died of some violent death." The paragraphs conveying Holinshed's suspicion of murder are taken from Hall; * Fabyan says only, "of whose murder divers reports were made, which I pass over."+ Hardyng says of Gloucester, that after his wife's disgrace "Into Wales he went of frowardness, In point of death, and stood in sore distress."‡ And Whethamstede, another contemporary, says: "In the parliament held at Bury St. Edmund's, the King caused him to be arrested by the Constable of England, and put into such close confinement, that through sorrowfulness he took to the bed of sickness, and died in a few days."§ * P. 208. † P. 618. But he mentions the death of Gloucester among the popular charges against Suffolk, p. 622. Polydore Vergil affirms boldly that the Duke was strangled, pp. 491-493. P. 400. § Wheth., ii. 365. The Continuator of the Croyland Register says, that "The boldness of Suffolk went to that degree of presumption, that, by fraud and intrigue, he removed from the King's presence all the King's relations and friends, and those near to him in blood, as well bishops as clergymen of other degrees, and laymen. And he even most falsely accused of treason, the illustrious prince, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, the King's uncle, approved in all things most faithful to the King from his infancy, during twenty-four years. For which affair a parliament was called at Bury, in Suffolk, at the instigation of the Earl, in the winter of 1447; whither the Duke coming, and suspecting nothing unfair, was immediately sequestered from his own people, and committed to the custody of certain persons of the King's family; who, not being admitted to answer, or condemned after a judicial examination, was in the morning produced and exhibited a dead man, though he had been safe and sound in the evening.' The writer of this last cited passage had probably in his mind some suspicion of foul play; but as this is all that I can collect from contemporary writers, and no one of them mentions even a rumour of the murder, though Whethamstede was an admirer of Duke Humphrey, and wrote when * P. 521, |