fearful dreams caused by his crimes. His money too was all expended; he could not venture to apply to parliament, and he was therefore obliged to levy benevolences (which had been abolished in his preceding parliament) on the citizens under another name, which lost him their favour. Many now deserted to Henry; the lord Stanley, whose influence was great and who was married to Henry's mother, caused the king great uneasiness, though he had lavished favours on him, and Stanley had never given him the slightest ground for suspicion. To secure the fidelity of that nobleman he retained his son lord Strange at court by way of a hostage. .

At length, being assured that the king of France had given Henry permission to hire troops and that a fleet lay ready at the mouth of the Seine, Richard put forth a proclamation (June 23), calling the exiles “murderers, adulterers and extortioners," and asserting that Henry meditated unheard-of slaughters and confiscations, etc., and calling on all true Englishmen to aid him in the defence of their wives and properties. He then fixed his head-quarters at Nottingham (July 24), and ere long he received intelligence of the landing of Henry at Milford Haven (Aug. 7).

Henry marched through North Wales, where though none opposed few joined him, and when he reached Shrewsbury he had but four thousand men. Urged by the secret assurances of many who could not yet declare themselves, he still pressed on toward Leicester, where Richard now lay with a numerous army, having been joined by the duke of Norfolk, the earl of Northumberland, lord Lovel and Brackenbury with their levies. Lord Stanley had excused himself under the pretext of illness, but his son being detected in an attempt to escape he was obliged in order to save him to hasten to join the royal standard.

On the 21st of August Richard moved from Leicester, and encamped about two miles from the town of Bosworth. Henry having been joined by the Stanleys moved from Tamworth to Atherston, and next morning both armies

a

advanced to Redmore. Henry had now six thousand men, his rival double the number. Richard was dismayed when he saw the Stanleys opposed to him, but he roused his wonted courage; the vanguards under the duke of Norfolk and the earls of Oxford engaged for some time; Richard then seeing Northumberland inactive and the rest of his troops wavering, spurred his horse and rushed, crying « Treason, treason!” to where he espied Henry; he killed sir William Brandon the standard-bearer, unhorsed sir John Cheney, and had made a furious blow at Henry himself, which was warded off by sir William Stanley, when he was thrown from his horse and slain. Lord Stanley taking up the crown which he wore placed it on the head of Henry, and shouts of “Long live king Henry!” were instantly raised. The duke of Norfolk, lord Ferrers, Ratcliffe and Brackenbury, with about three thousand men, were slain; the victors lost but one hundred men. The body of Richard was stript, thrown across a horse, and carried to Leicester, where it was interred in the church of the Grey friars. The blood of Catesby and two others alone was shed after the victory.

Richard was but two-and-thirty years old when he thus perished, the victim of his ambition. In his person he was small, and the defect in his left arm and an elevation of one shoulder deformed him in some measure, but his face was handsome and like his father's. There is no foundation for the common tale of his being born with teeth, and only what we have stated for that of his being humpbacked. He was brave, loved magnificence, and justice also when it did not interfere with his ambition, but in the gratification of this passion we have seen that he would stop at no crime. Had he come honestly by his crown he would probably have worn it to his own honour and to the advantage of his people.

With Richard ended the Plantagenet dynasty, which had ruled England nearly three centuries and a half; and the battle of Bosworth terminated the Civil Wars of the Roses, which with intermissions had lasted for a space of thirty years.

It was a remarkable feature in these wars that the evils of them fell chiefly on the nobility; for with one exception the slaughter in the field was not considerable, and there was none of that petty warfare in different parts of the country by which in civil wars which interest the feelings and passions of the middle and lower orders so much more blood is shed than in regular battles. Successive generations of the houses of Neville, Pole and Clifford were cut off on the field or scaffold; many were reduced to the most abject state of poverty*. “I myself,” says Comines, “saw the duke of Exeter, the king of England's brotherin-law, walking barefoot after the duke of Burgundy's train and earning his bread from door to door.” “In my remembrance," says the same writer, "eighty princes of

» the blood royal of England perished in these convulsions ; seven or eight battles were fought in the course of thirty years; their own country was desolated by the English as cruelly as the former generation had wasted France.” In this however there seems to be some exaggeration; there

l certainly did not fall that number of princes of the blood, neither could the desolation have been so very great.

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CHAPTER XIV.

STATE OF THE CONSTITUTION.

Nature of the Constitution.-Abuses of prerogative.—Wardship and escheat.

-Forest-laws.--Constable's and Marshal's courts.--Purveyance. Taxation. Pardons.—Maintenance.--Army.--Navy.--Punishment of Crime.--Religion.

We have thus brought our history to the end of the Plantagenet dynasty, a race of princes not excelled in intellectual vigour by any line of sovereigns. As with them the feudal and papal period of England may be said to terminate, the next period being one of transition to the present altered condition of society, we will conclude it by a sketch of the political and religious state of the country at this time.

The constitution of England under the Plantagenets was a monarchy limited by law, which law the king could not alter at his will. “A king of England,” says sir John Fortescue writing to the son of Henry VI., “cannot at his pleasure make any alterations in the law of the land, for the nature of his government is not only regal but political." Yet the king was not merely a hereditary executive

” magistrate, he had extensive prerogatives annexed to his dignity, and the great object of the patriots of this period was to limit these rights and restrain their abuse. The redress of grievances was usually a matter of bargain between the king and parliament, they giving a subsidy, and he engaging to correct what was complained of. Still the kings would, when they had the power, go on in their old course; but the parliament, by perseverance, and by taking advantage of foreign wars, disputed successions and other circumstances, gradually set limits to prerogative; and an able writer of the present day has with reason thus ex

pressed himself*: “I know not whether there are any essential privileges of our countrymen, any fundamental securities against arbitrary power, so far as they depend upon positive institution, which may not be traced to the time when the house of Plantagenet filled the English throne.”

The great cause of this rational limitation of power and establishment of the principles of true liberty seems to have been the peculiar situation of the English aristocracy. The nobles were not, like those of the continent, the lords of extensive continuous territories, who might singly set the crown at defiance. Their manors lay scattered through various counties; the power of the sovereign could at once crush any refractory vassal; it was only by union among themselves, and by gaining the people to their side, that they could maintain their rights and limit the royal prerogative. In this manner the interests of the nobility became identified with those of the people, and hence their names are associated with every struggle for liberty throughout our history. This was further increased by the remarkable circumstance that the English was the only nobility which did not form a peculiar class, or caste. In England the actual holder of the title alone was noble ; his sons and brothers were simple commoners, and ranked with the people. Hence arose that melting into one another of the various grades of society only to be found in this country; and as the English nobles never claimed any exemption from taxes and other burdens, their privileges have never excited jealousy or hatred. For all these advantages we are mainly indebted to the high power of the crown established by the Anglo-Norman monarchs, combined with the free principles of government transmitted by our Saxon forefathers.

The abuses of the prerogative against which the efforts