BOOK examine if the pope's bull, sent into Guernsey, was hurtful to his interests.68. V. REIGN OF Richard had so turned the eye of public criticism upon his actions, that he could do nothing that would be deemed unobjectionable, or that would not be objected to. Other sovereigns, by indolence, retiring conduct, or by management, put all the public responsibility of their conduct on their ministers; but Richard, unfortunately for himself, was so personally active, and so fond of shewing that he was so, that he was supposed to do every thing; and therefore blamed for whatever occurred. He would have been more effectively and more safely the king, if he had striven less to be so; but he loved to feel his power, and to exert it himself, and to be seen to do so. He had too gross a sense of royalty. He did not confine himself to the interior and more exquisite enjoyment of it, which usually attends native and habitual greatness. He wanted the vulgar and animal gratification from it, which a man, raised suddenly from the dust to the throne, may be supposed to crave; but which the brother of a king, accustomed all his life to courtly splendor, ought neither to have valued nor demanded. Without stretching flattery so far, as to assert that he had a most blessed disposition, some new facts may be adduced, to shew that he was not an unnatural anomaly. His letter to his mother, after he became king, is expressed in an attentive and affectionate style." But the register of his official acts, 'I recommend me to you as heartily as is to me possible, beseeching you, in my most humble and affectuouse wise, of your daily blessing, to my singular comfort and defence in my need. And, madam, I heartily beseech you, that I may often hear from you, to my comfort. And such I. RICH, III. shews many personal civilities to the ladies of his CHAP. political enemies, from which, as they have never been noticed, he has not had his deserved praise. REIGN OF Altho lord Oxford was his implacable enemy to his last breath, yet he granted his lady a pension of 100l. a year, during the earl's exile and hostility." To lady Hastings, the widow of the peer he had destroyed, he intrusted, with a generous magnanimity, the keeping of all her castles, and presented her with the wardship and marriage of her son and heir;" altho this latter must have been a most valuable pecuniary favor, that many were suing for; and tho it gave her the power of educating her son with the revengeful spirit of hostility against him: from this youth he took off the attainder. Nothing could be a greater act of atoning kindness to her, and of liberal confidence, unless it was another official instrument, which he signed at Reading, on the 13th of July, a month after he had made her a widow, by which he covenanted to her to protect her and her children in all their possessions, wardships, and other just rights; to suffer none to do them wrong, and to assist them upon all occasions, as their good and gracious sovereign lord." Sir Thomas More says, that he loved Hastings. These documents prove an unusual regard, and great good feeling, that he should news as be here, my servant, Thomas Brian, this bearer, shall show you, to whom please it you to give credence unto. 'And, Madam, I beseech you to be good and gracious lady to my lord, my chamberlain, to be your officer in Wiltshire, in such as Colingbourne had. I trust he shall therein do you good service: and that, if it please you, by this bearer, I may understand your pleasure in this behalf. And pray God send you the accomplishment of your noble desires. Written at Pomfret, the 3d day of June, with the hand of "Your most humble Son, I 70 Harl. MS. p. 53. 71 Ib. 27. Ricardus Rex.' 72 Ib. 108. V. RICH. II. " 74 73 BOOK have taken such a zealous care of his family afterwards. To the widowed duchess of Buckingham REIGN OF he gave an annuity of 200 marcs. He sent her permission to come, with her servants and children, to London. He gave a safeguard to Florence, the wife of Alexander Cheyney; and expressed in it, that "for her good and virtuous disposition, he had taken her into his protection, and granted to her the custody of her husband's lands and property, tho, being confederated with certain rebels and traitors, he had intended and compassed the utter destruction of the king's person." 75 He ordered the officers and tenants of the estates, which had been settled on lady Rivers, as her jointure, to pay to her all their rents and duties; 76 and he took off the sequestration he had put on the lands of an outlaw, that his wife might have the benefit of them." He seems, by their number, to have taken pleasure in doing acts of good nature and courtesy to the female sex. He settled annuities on many widows, and other ladies.78 He paid one, the arrears of a pension given to her by Edward IV.79 tho future kings rarely heed their predecessors debts or bounties. He granted to lady Dynham four tons of wine yearly.80 He confirmed an annual allowance, which he had made as duke of Gloucester; 81 and settled a small one on the widow of an herald; 82 and a larger one on the sister of lord Lovel.83 All these were acts of kindness, which, if he had been of that malicious, envious and brutal nature, . 73 Harl. MS. p. 77. 74 Ib. 135. 77 Ib. 77. 75 Ib. 126. 78 For many of these, see Harl. MS. pp. 37, 41, 46, 58, 71, 76, 179, &c. &c. 79 Ib. 205. $2 Ib. 91. 80 Ib. 89. 83 Ib. 81 Ib. 200. which has been ascribed to him, he would not have CHAP. performed. A gift to the monks of an abbey burnt: 84 85 88 I. RICH. III.. down; and to a merchant, towards his losses in: Reign of trade; a protection for requiring alms to a man, whose dwelling-house and property, with his thirteen tenements, had been all consumed by fire, to his utter undoing; and his recommendation of him, as having kept a good household, by which many poor. creatures had been refreshed; 86 his payment of Buckingham's debts; 87 and of the bishop of Exeter's, who pursued him with hostility to his last hour;89 and his commission to the hermit of the chapel of Reculver, that had been ordained for the burial of those who should perish by storms, to receive alms to rebuild its roof; 89 the grant of an annuity, for good service done to his father: 90-all these attentions display a temper of the same good feelings which we desire to see in every well-directed mind. There is nothing of the common, cruel, crook-backed Richard about them. It is clear that he had a heart and sympathies much like our own, tho at one interval he forgot their claims. It is a petty circumstance, but it tends to the same point, of shewing that he possessed a common nature of urbanity with the rest of his species, that he did not neglect the custom then: in use, of presenting his friends with new year's gifts." He may have been wrathful, as More intimates, which we may understand to mean, that he was irritable, peremptory and impatient of delay,: hesitation or opposition to his plans or of his wishes; 92 88 Ib 208. 85 Ib. 101. 89 Ib. 215. 86 Ib. 148. 84 Harl. MS. p. 153. 87 Ib. 64, 97. "There is a warrant to pay alderman Shaw 200 marcs, for certene newe yeres giftes, bought of him, against the fest of Cristymesse.' Ib. p. 148. 92 More, p. 154. V. REIGN OF BOOK and this temper, arising from energy and excitability, may have constituted that feritas naturæ, that fierceness of nature, which has been charged upon him. RICH. III. But if the imperfections and exacerbations of human sensibility are crimes, who is there that is unsinning? He buries It is a remarkable instance of the jaundiced eye, king Henry with which even the laudable actions of this king Windsor. have been wilfully contemplated, that altho one con the Sixth at 94 temporary historian, who was no flatterer of him, has mentioned to his praise, that in August 1484, he caused the body of Henry VI. which had been obscurely buried at Chertsey, to be brought to Windsor, with great solemnity," and to be interred with his royal predecessors there; an act of respectful kindness to the memory of this inoffensive king, and very creditable to his own feelings; yet the clergy, who, in his lifetime, had extolled his noble and blessed disposition," in February 1484, when all his worst actions had been committed; ten years only afterwards, in 1494, under the reign of his successor, when it had become loyal to abuse him, mentions this removal from Chertsey to Windsor, with an invective against him, and as an instance of his malignity of nature, that had extinguished all piety and humanity in him." They declare, that he transferred the corpse to Windsor, because he envied Henry's name, and desired to stop the concourse of people that flocked to his former tomb; 96. and yet but ten lines before, they had described Chertsey as a place "certainly hidden, and remote 94 See before, p. 24. 93 Rous, p. 218. 95 In their address to the pope, to remove Henry VI. to Westminster, they say of Richard, on his re-interment, in quem feritas naturæ, animæque malignitas, omnem pietatem atque humanitatem penitus extinxerat," Wilk. Concil. 3. p. 635. 96 Ib. |