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young lady was always about her aunt, wore dresses of the same texture, and that her uncle was anxious to procure her amusement. There is moreover a letter of the young lady said to have existed in which she complained of her aunt'’s living longer than it was expected, and thus delaying her intended marriage. If the letter could be found, the question would be settled at once, but all searching after it has been in vain. Richard is said to have abandoned his scheme of marriage only when his most faithful friends remonstrated against it, but Richard himself has always loudly denied ever having had such an intention, he even summoned a council of state, and repelled the insinuation that such a thought ever entered his mind, and repeated the same assurance in the great Hall of Westminster before the mayor and the citizens. He also wrote a letter to the town of York to exculpate himself of that heinous accusation, requesting the magistrates to repress the slander by all means. It can hardly be believed that Richard should have thought of marrying his niece since her birth being illegitimate she had no right whatever to the crown, and the mar- riage of an uncle to his niece was considered almost a crime.(Halsted, Richard III.)

The following scenes show us how the throne of Richard begins wavering in spite of all his endeavours to steady it. Richard receives the news, that Richmond is intending to invade England with the assistance of Richard's enemies. He even begins suspecting the faith of Lord Stanley, and allows him to go to the north in order to muster his forces only after having left his son George as a hostage in Richard's hands. But the bitterest defection is that of the Earl of Buckingham, his hitherto most intimate friend. There must have been a particular reason for his defection. In Shakespeare the reason is that Richard did not keep his promises, especially that he withheld from him the dukedom of Hereford:

My lord, I claim the gift, my due by promise,

For which your honour and your faith is pawn'd;

The earldom of Hereford, and the moveables,

Which you have promised I shall possess.(Richard III. IV. 2.) But this cannot be the reason, because it is proved, that the accusation of Richard's retaining the promised Hereford estates is altogether unfounded, many documents proving, that Richard not only restored to Buckingham those estates entirely, but also that he bestowed upon him great gifts besides. Buckingham himself in a letter to bishop Morton, who was his prisoner at Brecknock, says, that it was the murder of the princes that exasperated him against Richard“so much that he so abhorred the sight, and much more the company of him, that he would no longer abide in his court, except he should be openly revenged“. But this cannot have been the reason either, because Buckingham left Richard at Gloucester whilst the murder of the nephews was decided upon a few days after, at, Warwick. It seems not improbable at all that Buckingham was proud and self-conceited enough. to think of getting the crown himself, but that, when he arrived at Brecknock, and when bishop Morton began working upon his conscience, and represented to him, that he could atone for his erimes by helping to put upon the throne the only rightful heir existing namely the eldest daughter of King Edward, he consented to do all in his power to bring this about through her union with Henry of Richmond. Now they entered into communication with the Countess of Richmond, and the dowager queen, and with Richmond himself, who all joyfully consented. When Buckingham had implicated himself deeply enough as not to go back again, the sly bishop, not thinking himself safe in England, was found one morning to have escaped, and joined Henry leaving Buckingham to his