his tomb. The chronicler passes over his fame at Agincourt, but the dramatist records it. Did the poet's familiarity with those noble towers in which the Beauchamp had lived suggest this honour to his memory? But here, at any rate was the stronghold of the Neville. Here, when the land was at peace in the dead sleep of weak government, which was to be succeeded by fearful action, the great Earl dwelt with more than a monarch's pomp, having his own officer-at-arms called Warwick herald, with hundreds of friends and dependants bearing about his badge of the ragged staff; for whose boundless hospitality there was daily provision made as for the wants of an army; whose manors and castles and houses were to be numbered in almost every county; and who not only had pre-eminence over every Earl in the land, but, as Great Captain of the Sea, received to his own use the King's tonnage and poundage. When William Shakspere looked upon this castle in his youth, a peaceful Earl dwelt within it, the brother of the proud Leicester-the son of the ambitious Northumberland who had suffered death in the attempt to make Lady Jane Grey queen, but whose heir had been restored in blood by Mary. Warwick Castle, in the reign of Elizabeth, was peaceful as the river which glided by it, the most beautiful of fortress palaces. No prisoners lingered in its donjon keep; the beacon blazed not upon its battlements, the warder looked not anxiously out to see if all was quiet on the road from Kenilworth; the drawbridge was let down for the curious stranger, and he might refresh himself in the buttery without suspicion. Here, then, might the young poet gather from the old servants of the house some of the traditions of a century previous, when the followers of the great Earl were ever in fortress or in camp, and for a while there seemed to be no king in England, but the name of Warwick was greater than that of king.

In the connected plays which form the Three Parts of Henry VI., the Earl of Warwick, with some violation of chronological accuracy, is constantly brought forward in a prominent situation. The poet has given Warwick an early importance which the chroniclers of the age do not assign to him. He is dramatically correct in so doing; but, at the same time, his judgment might in some degree have been governed by the strength of local associations. Once embarked in the great quarrel, Warwick is the presiding genius of the scene:

The sword is first unsheathed in that battle-field of St. Albans. After three or four years of forced quiet it is again drawn. The "she-wolf of France" plunges her fangs into the blood of York at Wakefield, after Warwick has won the great battle of Northampton. The crown is achieved by the son of York at the field of Towton, where

"Warwick rages like a chafed bull.”

The poet necessarily hurries over events which occupy a large space in the narratives of the historian. The rash marriage of Edward provokes the resentment of Warwick, and his power is now devoted to set up the fallen house of Lancaster. Shakspere is then again in his native localities. He has dramatized the scene of Edward's capture at Wolvey, on the borders of Leicestershire. Edward escapes from Middleham Castle, and, after a short banishment, lands again with a few followers in England, to place himself a second time upon the throne, by a movement which has only

* "Henry VI.," Part II., Act v., Scene III.

one parallel in history.* Shakspere describes his countrymen, in the speech which the great Earl delivers for the encouragement of Henry :

:

"In Warwickshire I have true-hearted friends,
Not mutinous in peace, yet bold in war;
Those will I muster up."†

Henry is again seized by the Yorkists. Warwick, "the great-grown traitor," is at the head of his native forces. The local knowledge of the poet is now rapidly put

forth in the scene upon the walls of Coventry

The chronicler tells the great event of the encounter of the two leaders at Coventry, which the poet has so spiritedly dramatized :-"In the mean season King Edward came to Warwick, where he found all the people departed, and from thence with all diligence advanced his power toward Coventry, and in a plain by the city he pitched his field. And the next day after that he came thither, his men were set forward and marshalled in array, and he valiantly bade the Earl battle: which, mistrusting that he should be deceived by the Duke of Clarence, as he was indeed, kept himself close within the walls. And yet he had perfect word that the Duke of Clarence came forward toward him with a great army. King Edward, being also thereof informed, raised his camp, and made toward the Duke. And lest that there might be thought some fraud to be cloaked between them, the King set his battles in an order, as though he would fight without any longer delay; the Duke did likewise."‡ Then "a fraternal amity was concluded and proclaimed," which was the ruin of Warwick and of the House of Lancaster. Ten years before these events, in the Parliament held in this same city of Coventry-a city which had received great benefits from Henry VI.—York, and Salisbury, and Warwick had been attainted. And now Warwick held the city for him who had in that same city denounced him as a traitor. With store of ordnance, and warlike equipments, had the great Captain lain in this city for a few weeks; and he was honoured as one greater than either of the rival Kings-one who could bestow a crown and who could take a crown away; and he sate in state in the old halls of Coventry, and prayers went up for his cause in its many churches, and the proud city's municipal officers were as his servants. He marched out of the city with his forces, after Palm Sunday; and on

*The landing of Bonaparte from Elba, and Edward at Ravenspurg, are remarkably similar in their rapidity and their boldness, though very different in their final consequences.

† “Ĥenry VI.,” Part III., Act v., Scene I.

Easter Day the quarrel between him and the perjured Clarence and the luxurious Edward was settled for ever upon Barnet Field :

"Thus yields the cedar to the axe's edge,

Whose arms gave shelter to the princely eagle;
Under whose shade the ramping lion slept;
Whose top-branch overpeer'd Jove's spreading tree,
And kept low shrubs from winter's powerful wind.”*

The Battle of Barnet was fought on the 14th of April, 1471. Sir John Paston, a stout Lancastrian, writes to his mother from London on the 18th of April :—" As for other tidings, it is understood here that the Queen Margaret is verily landed, and her son, in the west country, and I trow that as to-morrow, or else the next day, the King Edward will depart from hence to her ward to drive her out again."+ Sir John Paston, himself in danger of his head, seems to hint that the landing of Queen Margaret will again change the aspect of things. In sixteen days the Battle of Tewksbury was fought. This is the great crowning event of the terrible struggle of sixteen years; and the scenes at Tewksbury are amongst the most spirited of these dramatic pictures. We may readily believe that Shakspere had looked upon the “fair park adjoining to the town," where the Duke of Somerset "pitched his field, against the will and consent of many other captains which would that he should have drawn aside;" and that he had also thought of the unhappy end of the gallant Prince Edward, as he stood in "the church of the Monastery of Black Monks in Tewksbury," where "his body was homely interred with the other simple corses." +

There were twelve years of peace between the Battle of Tewksbury and the death of Edward IV. Then came the history which Hall entitles, "The Pitiful Life of King Edward the Fifth," and "The Tragical Doings of King Richard the Third." The last play of the series which belongs to the wars of the Roses is unquestionably written altogether with a more matured power than those which preceded it; yet the links which connect it with the other three plays of the series are so unbroken, the treatment of character is so consistent, and the poetical conception of the whole so uniform, that we speak of them all as the plays of Shakspere, and of Shakspere alone. Matured, especially in its wonderful exhibition of character, as the Richard III. is, we cannot doubt that the subject was very early familiar to the young poet's mind. The Battle of Bosworth Field was the great event of his own locality, which for a century had fixed the government of England. The course of the Reformation, and especially the dissolution of the Monasteries, had produced great social changes, which were in operation at the time in which Shakspere was born; whose effects, for good and for evil, he must have seen working around him, as he grew from year to year in knowledge and experience. But those events were too recent, and indeed of too delicate a nature, to assume the poetical aspect in his mind. They abided still in the region of prejudice and controversy. It was dangerous to speak of the great religious divisions of the kingdom with a tolerant impartiality. History could scarcely deal with these opinions in a spirit of justice. Poetry, thus, which has regard to what is permanent and universal, has passed by these matters, important as they are. But the great event which placed the Tudor family on the throne, and gave England a stable government, however occasionally distracted by civil and religious division, was an event which would seize fast upon such a mind as that of Shakspere. His ancestor, there can be little doubt, had been an adherent of the Earl of Richmond. For his faithful services to the conqueror at Bosworth he was rewarded, as we are assured, by lands in Warwickshire. That field of Bosworth * "Henry VI.," Part III., Act v., Scene II. "Paston Letters," edited by A. Ramsay, vol. ii., p. 60.

+ Hall.

would therefore have to him a family as well as a local interest. Burton, the
historian of Leicestershire, who was born about ten years after William Shakspere,
tells us 66
that his great-great-grandfather, John Hardwick, of Lindley, near Bosworth,
a man of very short stature, but active and courageous, tendered his service to
Henry, with some troops of horse, the night he lay at Atherston, became his guide
to the field, advised him in the attack, and how to profit by the sun and by the
wind."
""* Burton further says, writing in 1622, that the inhabitants living around
the plain called Bosworth Field, more properly the plain of Sutton, "have many
occurrences and passages yet fresh in memory, by reason that some persons there-
about, which saw the battle fought, were living within less than forty years, of which
persons myself have seen some, and have heard of their disclosures, though related
by the second hand." This "living within less than forty years " would take us
back to about the period which we are now viewing in relation to the life of Shak-
spere. But certainly there is something over-marvellous in Burton's story to enable
us to think that William Shakspere, even as a very young boy, could have conversed
with 66 some persons thereabout" who had seen a battle fought in 1485. That, as
Burton more reasonably of himself says, he might have "heard their discourses at
second-hand" is probable enough. Bosworth Field is about thirty miles from
Stratford. Burton says that the plain derives its name from Bosworth, "not that
this battle was fought at this place (it being fought in a large flat plain, and spacious
ground, three miles distant from this town, between the towns of Shenton, Sutton,
Dadlington, and Stoke); but for that this town was the most worthy town of note
near adjacent, and was therefore called Bosworth Field. That this battle was fought
in this plain appeareth by many remarkable places: By a little mount cast up, where
the common report is, that at the first beginning of the battle Henry Earl of Rich-
mond made his parænetical oration to his army; by divers pieces of armour, weapons,
and other warlike accoutrements, and by many arrow-heads here found, whereof,
about twenty years since, at the enclosure of the lordship of Stoke, great store were
digged up, of which some I have now (1622) in my custody, being of a long, large,
and big proportion, far greater than any now in use; as also by relation of the
inhabitants, who have many occurrences and passages yet fresh in memory." +
Burton goes on to tell two stories connected with the eventful battle. The one
was the vision of King Richard, of "divers fearful ghosts running about him, not
suffering him to take any rest, still crying 'Revenge.'' Hall relates the tradition
thus:-"
"The fame went that he had the same night a dreadful and a terrible dream,
for it seemed to him, being asleep, that he saw divers images like terrible devils, not
suffering him to take any quiet or rest." Burton says, previous to his description
of the dream, "The vision is reported to be in this manner." And certainly his
account of the fearful ghosts "still crying Revenge" is essentially different from that
of the chronicler. Shakspere has followed the more poetical account of the old local
historian; which, however, could not have been known to him :—

"Methought the souls of all that I have murther'd
Came to my tent and every one did threat
To-morrow's vengeance on the head of Richard.”

Did Shakspere obtain his notion from the same source as Burton-from "relation of the inhabitants who have many occurrences and passages yet fresh in memory?" King Henry is crowned upon the Field of Bosworth. According to the Chronicler, Lord Stanley "took the crown of King Richard, which was found amongst the spoil in the field, and set it on the Earl's head, as though he had been elected king by *Hutton's "Bosworth Field."

† From “Burton's Manuscripts," quoted by Mr. Nicholls.

the voice of the people, as in ancient times past in divers realms it hath been accustomed." Then, "the same night in the evening King Henry with great pomp came to the town of Leicester," where he rested two days. "In the mean season the dead corpse of King Richard was as shamefully carried to the town of Leicester, as he gorgeously the day before with pomp and pride departed out of the said town."

Years roll on.

There was another conqueror, not by arms but by peaceful intel

lect, who had once moved through the land in

" pomp and pride," but who came

to Leicester in humility and heaviness of heart. The victim of a shifting policy and of his own ambition, Wolsey, found a grave at Leicester scarcely more honourable than that of Richard :

"At last, with easy roads, he came to Leicester,

Lodg'd in the abbey; where the reverend abbot,
With all his convent, honourably receiv'd him ;
To whom he gave these words: O, father abbot,
An old man, broken with the storms of state,
Is come to lay his weary bones among ye;
Give him a little earth for charity !'

So went to bed: where eagerly his sickness
Pursued him still; and three nights after this,
About the hour of eight, (which he himself
Foretold should be his last,) full of repentance,
Continual meditations, tears, and sorrows,
He gave his honours to the world again,

His blessed part to heaven, and slept in peace.'

Wolsey is the hero of Shakspere's last historical play; and even in this history, large as it is, and belonging to the philosophical period of the poet's life, we may trace something of the influence of the principle of Local Association.