So incompetent has the generality of historians been for the
province they have undertaken, that it is almost a question,
whether, if the dead of past ages could revive, they would be able
to reconnoitre the events of their own times, as transmitted to us
by ignorance and misrepresentation. All very ancient history, except
that of the illuminated Jews, is a perfect fable. It was written by
priests, or collected from their reports; and calculated solely to
raise lofty ideas of the origin of each nation. Gods and demi-gods
were the principal actors; and truth is seldom to be expected where
the personages are supernatural. The Greek historians have no
advantage over the Peruvian, but in the beauty of their language, or
from that language being more familiar to us. Mango Capac,
the son of the sun, is as authentic a founder of a royal race, as
the progenitor of the Heraclidae. What truth indeed could be
expected, when even the identity of person is uncertain? The actions
of one were ascribed to many, and of many to one. It is not known
whether there was a single Hercules or twenty.
As nations grew polished. History became better authenticated.
Greece itself learned to speak a little truth. Rome, at the hour of
its fall, had the consolation of seeing the crimes of its usurpers
published. The vanquished inflicted eternal wounds on their
conquerors--but who knows, if Pompey had succeeded, whether Julius
Caesar would not have been decorated as a martyr to publick liberty?
At some periods the suffering criminal captivates all hearts; at
others, the triumphant tyrant. Augustus, drenched in the blood of
his fellow-citizens, and Charles Stuart, falling in his own blood,
are held up to admiration. Truth is left out of the discussion; and
odes and anniversary sermons give the law to history and credulity.
But if the crimes of Rome are authenticated, the case is not the
same with its virtues. An able critic has shown that nothing is more
problematic than the history of the three or four first ages of that
city. As the confusions of the state increased, so do the confusions
in its story. The empire had masters, whose names are only known
from medals. It is uncertain of what princes several empresses were
the wives. If the jealousy of two antiquaries intervenes, the point
becomes inexplicable. Oriuna, on the medals of Carausius, used to
pass for the moon: of late years it is become a doubt whether she
was not his consort. It is of little importance whether she was moon
or empress: but how little must we know of those times, when those
land-marks to certainty, royal names, do not serve even that
purpose! In the cabinet of the king of France are several coins of
sovereigns, whose country cannot now be guessed at.
The want of records, of letters, of printing, of critics; wars,
revolutions, factions, and other causes, occasioned these defects in
ancient history. Chronology and astronomy are forced to tinker up
and reconcile, as well as they can, those uncertainties. This
satisfies the learned--but what should we think of the reign of
George the Second, to be calculated two thousand years hence by
eclipses, lest the conquest of Canada should be ascribed to James
the First.
At the very moment that the Roman empire was resettled, nay, when a
new metropolis was erected, in an age of science and arts, while
letters still held up their heads in Greece; consequently, when the
great outlines of truth, I mean events, might be expected to be
established; at that very period a new deluge of error burst upon
the world. Cristian monks and saints laid truth waste; and a mock
sun rose at Rome, when the Roman sun sunk at Constantinople. Virtues
and vices were rated by the standard of bigotry; and the militia of
the church became the only historians. The best princes were
represented as monsters; the worst, at least the most useless, were
deified, according as they depressed or exalted turbulent and
enthusiastic prelates and friars. Nay, these men were so destitute
of temper and common sense, that they dared to suppose that common
sense would never revisit the earth: and accordingly wrote with so
little judgment, and committed such palpable forgeries, that if we
cannot discover what really happened in those ages, we can at least
he very sure what did not. How many general persecutions does the
church record, of which there is not the smallest trace? What
donations and charters were forged, for which those holy persons
would lose their ears, if they were in this age to present them in
the most common court of judicature? Yet how long were these
impostors the only persons who attempted to write history!
But let us lay aside their interested lies, and consider how far
they were qualified in other respects to transmit faithful memoirs
to posterity. In the ages I speak of, the barbarous monkish ages,
the shadow of learning that existed was confined to the clergy: they
generally wrote in Latin, or in verse, and their compositions in
both were truly barbarous. The difficulties of rhime, and the want
of correspondent terms in Latin, were no small impediments to the
severe march of truth. But there were worse obstacles to encounter.
Europe was in a continual state of warfare. Little princes and great
lords were constantly skirmishing and struggling for trifling
additions of territory, or wasting each others borders. Geography
was very imperfect; no police existed; roads, such as they were,
were dangerous; and posts were not established. Events were only
known by rumour, from pilgrims, or by letters carried In couriers to
the parties interested: the public did not enjoy even those fallible
vehicles of intelligence, newspapers. In this situation did monks,
at twenty, fifty, an hundred, nay, a thousand miles distance (and
under the circumstances I have mentioned even twenty miles were
considerable) undertake to write history--and they wrote it
accordingly.
If we take a survey of our own history, and examine it with any
attention, what an unsatisfactory picture does it present to
us! How dry, how superficial, how void of information! How
little is recorded besides battles, plagues, and religious
foundations! That this should be the case, before the Conquest, is
not surprizing. Our empire was but forming itself, or re-collecting
its divided members into one mass, which, from the desertion of the
Romans, had split into petty kingdoms. The invasions of nations as
barbarous as ourselves, interfered with every plan of policy and
order that might have been formed to settle the emerging state; and
swarms of foreign monks were turned loose upon us with their new
faith and mysteries, to bewilder and confound the plain good sense
of our ancestors. It was too much to have Danes, Saxons, and Popes,
to combat at once! Our language suffered as much as our government;
and not having acquired much from our Roman masters, was miserably
disfigured by the subsequent invaders. The unconquered parts of the
island retained some purity and some precision. The Welsh and Erse
tongues wanted not harmony: but never did exist a more barbarous
jargon than the dialect, still venerated by antiquaries, and called
Saxon. It was so uncouth, so inflexible to all composition, that the
monks, retaining the idiom, were reduced to write in what they took
or meant for Latin.
The Norman tyranny succeeded, and gave this Babel of savage sounds a
wrench towards their own language. Such a mixture necessarily
required ages to bring it to some standard: and, consequently,
whatever compositions were formed during its progress, were sure of
growing obsolete. However, the authors of those days were not likely
to make these obvious reflections; and indeed seem to have aimed at
no one perfection. From the Conquest to the reign of Henry the
Eighth it is difficult to discover any one beauty in our writers,
but their simplicity. They told their tale, like story-tellers;
that is, they related without art or ornament; and they related
whatever they heard. No councils of princes, no motives of conduct,
no remoter springs of action, did they investigate or learn. We have
even little light into the characters of the actors. A king or an
archbishop of Canterbury are the only persons with whom we are made
much acquainted. The barons are all represented as brave patriots;
but we have not the satisfaction of knowing which, of them were
really so; nor whether they were not all turbulent and ambitious.
The probability is, that both kings and nobles wished to encroach on
each other, and if any sparks of liberty were struck out in all
likelihood it was contrary to the intention of either the flint or
the steel.
Hence it has been thought necessary to give a new dress to English
history. Recourse has been had to records, and they are far from
corroborating the testimonies of our historians. Want of authentic
memorials has obliged our later writers to leave the mass pretty
much as they found it. Perhaps all the requisite attention that
might have been bestowed, has not been bestowed. It demands great
industry and patience to wade into such abstruse stores as records
and charters: and they being jejune and narrow in themselves, very
acute criticism is necessary to strike light from their assistance.
If they solemnly contradict historians in material facts, we may
lose our history; but it is impossible to adhere to our historians.
Partiality man cannot intirely divest himself of; it is so natural,
that the bent of a writer to one side or the other of a question is
almost always discoverable. But there is a wide difference between
favouring and lying and yet I doubt whether the whole stream of our
historians, misled by their originals, have not falsified one reign
in our annals in the grossest manner. The moderns are only guilty of
taking on trust what they ought to have examined more scrupulously,
as the authors whom they copied were all ranked on one side in a
flagrant season of party. But no excuse can be made for the original
authors, who, I doubt, have violated all rules of truth.
The confusions which attended the civil war between the houses of
York and Lancaster, threw an obscurity over that part of our annals,
which it is almost impossible to dispel. We have scarce any
authentic monuments of the reign of Edward the Fourth; and ought to
read his history with much distrust, from the boundless partiality
of the succeeding writers to the opposite cause. That diffidence
should increase as we proceed to the reign of his brother.
It occurred to me some years ago, that the picture of Richard the
Third, as drawn by historians, was a character formed by prejudice
and invention. I did not take Shakespeare's tragedy for a genuine
representation, but I did take the story of that reign for a tragedy
of imagination. Many of the crimes imputed to Richard seemed
improbable; and, what was stronger, contrary to his interest. A few
incidental circumstances corroborated my opinion; an original and
important instrument was pointed out to me last winter, which gave
rise to the following sheets; and as it was easy to perceive, under
all the glare of encomiums which historians have heaped on the
wisdom of Henry the Seventh, that he was a mean and unfeeling
tyrant, I suspected that they had blackened his rival, till Henry,
by the contrast, should appear in a kind of amiable light. The more
I examined their story, the more I was confirmed in my opinion: and
with regard to Henry, one consequence I could not help drawing; that
we have either no authentic memorials of Richard's crimes, or, at
most, no account of them but from Lancastrian historians; whereas
the vices and injustice of Henry are, though palliated, avowed by
the concurrent testimony of his panegyrists. Suspicions and calumny
were fastened on Richard as so many assassinations. The murders
committed by Henry were indeed executions and executions pass for
prudence with prudent historians; for when a successful king is
chief justice, historians become a voluntary jury.
If I do not flatter myself, I have unravelled a considerable part of
that dark period. Whether satisfactory or not, my readers must
decide. Nor is it of any importance whether I have or not. The
attempt was mere matter of curiosity and speculation. If any man, as
idle as myself, should take the trouble to review and canvass my
arguments I am ready to yield so indifferent a point to better
reasons. Should declamation alone be used to contradict me, I shall
not think I am less in the right.
Nov. 28th, 1767.
HISTORIC DOUBTS ON THE LIFE AND REIGN
OF KING RICHARD III.
There is a kind of literary superstition, which men are apt to
contract from habit, and which makes them look on any attempt
towards shaking their belief in any established characters, no
matter whether good or bad, as a sort of prophanation. They are
determined to adhere to their first impressions, and are equally
offended at any innovation, whether the person, whose character is
to be raised or depressed, were patriot or tyrant, saint or sinner.
No indulgence is granted to those who would ascertain the truth. The
more the testimonies on either side have been multiplied, the
stronger is the conviction; though it generally happens that the
original evidence is wonderous slender, and that the number of
writers have but copied one another; or, what is worse, have only
added to the original, without any new authority. Attachment so
groundless is not to be regarded; and in mere matters of curiosity,
it were ridiculous to pay any deference to it. If time brings new
materials to light, if facts and dates confute historians, what does
it signify that we have been for two or three hundred years under an
error? Does antiquity consecrate darkness? Does a lie become
venerable from its age?
Historic justice is due to all characters. Who would not vindicate
Henry the Eighth or Charles the Second, if found to be falsely
traduced? Why then not Richard the Third? Of what importance is it
to any man living whether or not he was as bad as he is represented?
No one noble family is sprung from him.
However, not to disturb too much the erudition of those who have
read the dismal story of his cruelties, and settled their ideas of
his tyranny and usurpation, I declare I am not going to write a
vindication of him. All I mean to show, is, that though he may have
been as execrable as we are told he was, we have little or no reason
to believe so. If the propensity of habit should still incline a
single man to suppose that all he has read of Richard is true, I beg
no more, than that that person would be so impartial as to own that
he has little or no foundation for supposing so.
I will state the list of the crimes charged on Richard; I will
specify the authorities on which he was accused; I will give a
faithful account of the historians by whom he was accused; and will
then examine the circumstances of each crime and each evidence; and
lastly, show that some of the crimes were contrary to Richard's
interest, and almost all inconsistent with probability or with
dates, and some of them involved in material contradictions.
Supposed crimes of Richard the Third.
1st. His murder of Edward prince of Wales, son of Henry the Sixth.
2d. His murder of Henry the Sixth.
3d. The murder of his brother George duke of Clarence.
4th. The execution of Rivers, Gray, and Vaughan.
5th, The execution of Lord Hastings.
6th. The murder of Edward the Fifth and his brother.
7th. The murder of his own queen.
To which may be added, as they are thrown into the list to blacken
him, his intended match with his own niece Elizabeth, the penance of
Jane Shore, and his own personal deformities.