RICHARD III.—1483 to 1485.
How Richard the Third tried to make the people his friends; how the
Duke of Buckingham rebelled and was put to death; how Richard was
killed at Bosworth fighting against the Earl of Richmond, who was
made King.
Richard, Duke of Gloucester, had got himself made king, as I told
you, before he murdered his young nephews in the Tower. The people
were told that the young princes had died suddenly.
He tried to make the people forget the wicked way in which he came
to be king by making some good laws; but he could not succeed. The
English could not love so base and cruel a man, and Richard had but
a short and troublesome reign.
The first vexation he had was caused by a cousin of his, the Duke
of Buckingham, almost as bad a man as himself, who had helped him
in most of his bad deeds, but who did not mean to let him kill the
little princes. So the Duke got an army together, and hoped by
beginning a civil war to punish Richard; but he was taken prisoner,
and Richard treated him as he had done Lord Hastings, that is, he cut
off his head directly.
But there was another cousin of Richard’s, and a much better man,
about whom I must tell you a great deal more. His name was Henry
Tudor, Earl of Richmond. Now his father, Edmund Tudor, Earl of
Richmond, was related to the old princes of Wales, who you must
remember were Britons, and his mother, the Countess of Richmond, was
a lady of the family of Lancaster, or the Red Rose. Richard the Third
hated the Earl of Richmond, because he knew that many people thought
Henry ought to be king, and he did everything he could to injure him
and his family. But Richmond himself was abroad, where Richard could
not hurt him.
But after a little while Richmond wrote to his friends in England,
that, if they would be ready to help him when he came, he would bring
with him from abroad money and men, and then England might get rid of
the wicked King Richard of the White Rose, and take him instead for
their king.
The best gentlemen in England immediately got ready to receive
Richmond; all the relations of the persons Richard had put to death
were glad to join with him to punish that bad man. The people in
Wales were delighted to think of having one belonging to their
ancient princes to be their king, and, not long after Richmond had
landed at Milford Haven, he found several thousand men ready to
follow him.
Richard, who was brave, although he was cruel, got ready an army also
to fight Richmond, and he met him at a place called Bosworth, in
Leicestershire, where they fought a great battle.
I have read that King Richard, when he was lying in his tent the
night before the battle, could not help thinking of all the cruel
things he had done. Besides those he had killed in battle, he
remembered the young prince Edward of Lancaster, whom he stabbed at
Tewkesbury, and poor Henry the Sixth, whom he had murdered in prison,
and his own brother Clarence, whom he had caused to be killed. Then
he began to think of Lord Hastings, and all his friends, six or
seven, I think, whom he had beheaded, and his little nephews, who
were smothered in the Tower, and his cousin Buckingham, and, last of
all, his wife, Queen Anne, whom he had used so ill that she died.
And so when he got up in the morning he was tired and unhappy, and
did not fight so well as he might have done.
However that might be, he was killed in the battle of Bosworth Field.
His crown was found upon the field of battle, and Lord Stanley put it
upon the Earl of Richmond’s head, upon which the whole army shouted
“Long live King Henry the Seventh!” and so from that day the British
prince, Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, and heir of Lancaster, was
king of England.