"Poor King Henry the Sixth, a little before deprived (as we have heard), of his realm and imperial crown, was now in the Tower, despoiled of his life by Richard, Duke of Gloucester, (as the constant fame ran,) who (to the intent that his brother Edward might reign in more surety) murdered the King and Henry with a dagger."*

Going back to Fabyan, we find, that upon Ascension eve† the corpse of Henry VI. was exposed to public view in London:

66

Of the death of this prince, divers tales were told, but the most common fame went, that he was sticked with a dagger by the hands of the Duke of Gloucester."‡

The Croyland continuation is very mysterious:

"I forbear to say that at this time, the body of Henry the Sixth was found lifeless in the Tower of London. May God forgive, and afford time for repentance to him, whoever he may be, who dared to lay sacrilegious hands upon the anointed of the Lord! Hence the doer may obtain the name of a tyrant, the sufferer of a glorious martyr." §

The Yorkist manuscript, after mentioning the death of the prince, and the total discomfiture of the Lancastrians:-

Hol., 324, from Hall, who copies from Polydore Vergil, p. 531.

+ P. 662.

+ May 22, 1471.

§ P. 556.

The calamity of all which came to the knowledge of the said Henry, late called king, being then in the Tower of London; not having, afore this, knowledge of the said matters, he took it to so great despite, ire, and indignation, that of pure displeasure and melancholy, he died the 23d day of the month of May."

The Leland Chronicler goes nearer to the point :

"A none after came King Edward to London, with three thousand men. And the same night, being the 21st day of May, and Tuesday, at night, betwixt eleven and twelve of the clock, was King Henry, being prisoner in the Tower, put to death; the Duke of Gloucester and divers others being there that night."+

This passage contains the only approach to evi

• P. 38, 47.

† Leland, ii. 507. I have necessarily gone over the same ground with others, and my quotations are nearly the same as those of Mr. Bruce, the editor of the Camden MS. I subjoin his note. "The contradiction between the date of the exposition of the corpse, as related by the Leland Chronicler, who is a very good authority, and by Fabyan, who is generally pretty accurate respecting matters which took place in London, and the date of the death as given by the author, now published, if considered with reference to the position of the various persons interested in Henry's death on those days, and the circumstances of his hurried interment, will be found, to the destruction of the credit of our author's version, of what was, in all probability, an infamous murder.”p. 47.

dence of a fact, but the evidence is very weak, and the fact affords no proof of the murder. I quite agree with Walpole as to the improbability of Richard's becoming the murderer of the captive and childless king. On the other hand, it is sufficiently clear, that, from the very first, it was suspected that Henry was murdered, and that the perpetrator was in station so high as to be called a tyrant, and that a rumour was prevalent at an early period, but perhaps not until after Richard's death, that Gloucester was the murderer.

The closing scene, in which the king, queen, and royal brothers, with the infant prince, appear in domestic harmony (simulated, of course, on the part of Richard), is necessarily the poet's. On this occasion, Edward recapitulates the foemen who have been destroyed in the war:

66 Three dukes of Somerset,* threefold renown'd For hardy and undoubted champions ;

*

Two Cliffords,† as the father and the son;

And two Northumberlands; two braver men

Ne'er spurr'd their coursers at the trumpet's sound:

Edmund, slain at St. Alban's; Henry, beheaded at Hexham; Edmund, beheaded at Tewksbury.

†Thomas, killed at St. Alban's; John, killed at Towton. Henry (son of Hotspur), slain at St. Alban's; another Henry, at Towton.

With them the two brave bears, Warwick and Mon

tagu,

That in their chains fetter'd the kingly lion,

And made the forest tremble when they roar'd."

Dr. Johnson, who ascribes all the three plays to Shakspeare, says of them

"These plays, considered without regard to characters and incidents, merely as narrations in verse, are more happily conceived, and more accurately finished, than those of King John, Richard II., or the tragic scenes of King Henry IV. and V. . . Of these three plays, I think the second the best. The truth is, that they have not sufficient variety of action, for the incidents are too often of the same kind; yet many of the characters are well discriminated. King Henry and his Queen, King Edward, the Duke of Gloucester, and the Earl of Warwick, are very strongly and distinctly painted."

I do not agree with Johnson in ascribing to these pieces any one point of superiority over the former historical plays. On the contrary, the second, though, as he says, the best of the three, is inferior, in my opinion, in good scenes and speeches, to the second part of Henry IV., which is the least admirable of those other plays. Comparisons, however, of works, are as difficult as they are odious as to persons.

The character of Henry VI. is correctly and consistently drawn. Malcolm Laing wrongs this

that it was says

prince, when he "because he was a fool, that he was reputed a saint."* His mind suffered with his body, and he was certainly deficient in the energy that was required in the holder of a disputed throne, and was more calculated for a private life or for a cloister, than for a palace. Such is he described by contemporaries, and such has Shakspeare well painted him. Even the exception which I have noticed,‡ to his usual submissiveness, in his peremptory refusal to hear excuses for Suffolk, may be traced to the religious respect which he paid to an oath. The character of Edward is as clearly marked as history allows. In the period of the play, he could only be known as a brave soldier with the habits and notions of a libertine. War

* Henry's Great Brit., xii. 399.

See particularly Blackman, in Otterbourne, 287. Holinshed says, "He was of a seemly stature, of body slender, to which proportion all other members were answerable; his face beautiful, wherein continually was resident the bounty of mind with the which he was inwardly endued. Of his own natural inclination, he abhorred all the vices as well of the body as of the soul. His patience was such, that of all the injuries to him done (which were innumerable), he never asked vengeance, thinking that for such adversity as chanced to him his sins should be forgotten and forgiven. What losses so ever happened to him he never esteemed, nor made any account thereof; but, if anything were done that might sound as an offence towards God, he sore lamented, and, with great repentance, sorrowed for it."-iii. 324.

Vol. i. p. 286.