Minor Queries Answered.
_Saint Richard_ (Vol. iv., p. 475.).--On what authority do the
particulars recorded of this personage in the _Lives of the Saints_
rest? I cannot help considering his very existence as rather apocryphal,
for these reasons:--1. Bede, who must have been his contemporary, and
whose _Ecclesiastical History_ was written several years after the date
assigned for Richard's death, never mentions his name. 2. When did his
alleged renunciation of the throne occur, and what historian of the
period mentions it? At the time of his death, and for thirty-five years
before, the kingdom of Wessex was under the sway of Ina, one of the
greatest and best of the West Saxon kings. 3. His name is not a Saxon
one, and I believe it is not to be found in English history till after
the Norman Conquest.