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modern historians, relying upon the contemporary writers, exculpate Richard of it because there is no proof of his perpetrating the deed(Oechelhäuser, Essay. Halsted, Richard III.). Fabian the earliest authority for the murder of the prince says, that he was brought before the king, that the king estrake him with his gauntlet upon the face, after which stroke by him received, he was by the kings servants incontinently slain.“ He does not say anything of Richard of Gloster's being concerned in the bloody deed. Sir George Buck, relying on the testimony of“a faithful M. S. chronicle of those times“ says, that the Duke of Gloucester“only, of all the great persons present, stood still and drew not his sword“. Two chronicles, the one of the Yorkish side(Fleet- wood's Chr.), the other of the Lancastrian(Warkworth'’s Chr.) do not accuse Richard either. The former states, that*Edward was taken fleeing to the townwards, and slain in the field“ and the other says,“and there was slain in the field Prince Edward, which cried for succour to his brother- in-law, the Duke of Clarence.“ Even Sir Thomas More, and Lord Bacon, who certainly would not have forgotten to mention this crime had Richard perpetrated it, do not even hint at Gloster's being implicated in it. The Croyland Continuator, the most impartial, and able authority of the times, says:“At last King Edward gained a signal victory, there being slain on the part of the queen, as well in the field as afterwards(ultricibus quorundam manibus) by the revengeful hands of cer- tain persons, the Prince Edward, the only son of King Henry, the defeated Duke of Somerset, the Earl of Devon, and other lords universally well remembered“. And although he is naming no one, it is not impossible at all that he means King Edward himself, who was of so violent, and vindictive a temper that after the battle of Tewkesbury he, sword in hand, demanded that all those that had taken refuge to the Sanctuary should be delivered up to him for execution, and that, in spite of his promise given to the abbot that the lives of them all should be spared, he nevertheless caused the Duke of Somerset, just mentioned, and 14 others of the leaders to be executed in the market place of Tewkesbury. It seems that the accusation of Richard's having done the deed was caused by Fabian's report that Prince Edward was slain by the King's servants, others substituted by the King's prothers, and others finally stated that it was Richard especially. Hardly has the most dangerous enemy of King Edward, and of the Yorkists been got rid

of when Shakespeare makes Gloster leave the army, and hasten to London without even taking leave of the king to whom he asks to be excused by Clarence.

PIl hence to London on a serious matter:

Ere ye come there, be sure to hear some news.(Henry VI. 3d P. V. 5.) He does not say what matter it is that makes him hasten to London, but Clarence is in no doubt, and hints at it when the king is inquiring after Gloster. He is gone, he says,

To London, all in post, and, as I guess

To make a bloody supper in the Town.(Ibid.) The bloody supper, of course, is nothing else but the murder of poor King Henry VI., kept a prisoner in the Tower since the battle of Barnet. It seems a piece of work Richard executes with a kind of pleasure, since he goes to it without any bidding of the king, or without any apparent necessity! When he enters Henry'’s cell, the poor man, at once, knows the purpose of his visitor, yet he asks him:„Wherefore dost thou come, is't for my life?“ Whereupon Richard, avoiding a direct answer, says: Think'st thou I am an executioner?“ But when King Henry begins upbraiding him on account of his horrid deeds, and especially when he reminds him of the anomalies of his

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