the preferable right? What was the ensign of Richard?-of Henry? Relate the history of John Cade. What circumstance favoured the ambition of the duke of York? Did Henry VI. recover from his distemper? Who obliged him to take up arms against the duke of York? Who gained the victory? How did the duke of York treat the king? Who again induced Henry to take up arms? Where was the duke of York killed? Who now put himself at the head of the Yorkists, and what was his character? Where was the next battle fought, and who gained the victory? By whom were the losses of the Yorkists soon after repaired? Who harangued the citizens of London in his favour? Where did the hostile armies meet to decide the fate of the empire? What circumstance proved advantageous to Edward? How many of the Lancastrians fell? In what year was the battle of Towton fought? Where was Henry VI. confined after this defeat? Was his queen taken prisoner? After the title of Edward was recognised in parliament how did he act? Why did the earl of Warwick advise him to marry? With whom was the match concluded? What rendered it abortive? What was the consequence of Edward's offending the earl of Warwick? Who then mounted the throne? In what country did the exiled Edward live? Where did he land on returning to Britain? Was he at first favourably received? What city opened her gates to him? How was the wretched Henry treated? Where did the armies under Edward and Warwick meet? Who obtained the victory? What was the fate of Warwick? Where did the queen then take refuge? Who espoused her cause? What was his character? Why did the duke of Somerset kill lord Wenlock? Who fell into the hands of Edward after the engagement? What answer did the prince give to the question of Edward? What was the fate of this intrepid youth? What is related respecting Henry VI. himself? Is this assertion supported by history? Why was Margaret allowed to live? In how many battles did she sustain the cause of her husband? Where did she die?

Proclaimed king in the year 1461, and died in 1482

bets were hung with his adversaries, and their estates confiscated to his use.

While he was rendering himself terrible on the one hand, he was immersed in abandoned pleasures on the other. Nature, it seems, was not unfavourable to him in that respect; as he was universally allowed to be the most beautiful man of his time. His courtiers also seemed willing to encourage those debaucheries in which they had a share; and the clergy, as they themselves practised every kind of lewdness with impunity, were ever ready to lend absolution to all his failings The truth is, enormous vices had been of late so common, that adultery was held as a very slight offence. Among the number of his mistresses was the wife of one Shore, a merchant in the city, a woman of exquisite beauty and good sense, but who had not virtue enough to resist the temptations of a beautiful inan and a monarch.

Among his other cruelties, that to his brother the duke of Clarence is the most reinarkable. The king hunting one day in the park of Thomas Burdet, a creature of the duke's, killed white buck, which was a great favourite of the owner.

Burdet, vexed at the loss, broke into a passion, and wished the horns of the deer in the belly of the person who had advised the king to that insult. For this trifling exclamation Burdet was tried for his life, and publicly executed at Tyburn. The duke of Clarence, upon the death of his friend, vented his grief in renewed reproaches against his brother, and exclaimed against the iniquity of the sentence. The king, highly offended with this liberty, or using that as a pretext against him, had him arraigned before the house of peers, and appeared in person as his accuser. In those times of confusion, every crime alleged by the prevailing party was fatal; the duke was found guilty; and being granted a choice of the manner in which he would die, he, according to Fabian, was privately drowned in a butt of malmsey in the Tower; a whimsical choice, and implying that he had an extraordinary passion for that liquor. But a contemporary historian, who gives the fullest account of this matter, does not say, and probably did not know, in what manner the duke was deprived of life.

However, if this monarch's reign was tyrannical, it was shorter than that of his predecessor. While he was employed in making preparations for a war with France, he was seized with a distemper, of which he expired in the forty-second year of age, and (counting from the death of the late king) in the twenty-third of his reign.

his

EXERCISES.

In

What did

In what years did the reign of Edward IV. commence and terminate? What cruelty and injustice did he discover on his mounting the throne? what was he immersed? Who encouraged his immoralities? the clergy practise? Why was adultery held a very slight offence? What drcumstance afforded the king a pretext for accusing his brother the duke of Clarence? Is it certainly known in what manner Clarence was deprived of life? In what year of his age and reign did Edward IV. die?

1483.

EDWARD V. eldest son of Edward IV, was proclaimed king

on the very day on which his father died. He was then only in his thirteenth year, and his paternal uncle, the duke of Gloucester, having been made protector of the realm, upon a pretence of guarding the persons of the late king's children from danger, soon after conveyed them both to the Tower.

Having thus secured them, his next step was to spread a report of their illegitimacy; and, by pretended obstacles, to put off the day appointed for young Edward's coronation. His next aim was to despatch lord Hastings whom he knew to be warmly in the young king's interest.

Having summoned lord Hastings to a council in the Tower, he entered the room knitting his brows, biting his lips, and showing, by a frequent change of countenance, the signs of some inward perturbation. A silence ensued for some time; and the lords of the council looked upon each other, not without reason, expecting some horrid catastrophe. Laying bare his arm, all shrivelled and decayed, he accused Jane Shore and her accomplices of having produced this deformity by their sor. ceries; upon which Hastings cried, "If they have committed such a crime, they deserve punishment." "If!" cried the protector, with a loud voice; "dost thou answer me with ifs?

I tell thee that they have conspired my death; and that thou, traitor, art an accomplice in the crime." He then struck the table twice with his hand, and the room was instantly filled with armed men. "I arrest thee," continued he, turning to Hastings, "for high treason ;" and at the same time gave him in charge to the soldiers. Hastings was obliged to make a short confession to the next priest who was at hand; the protector crying out, by St. Paul, that he would not dine till he had seen his head taken off. He was accordingly hurried out to the Little Green before the Tower chapel, and there beheaded on a log of wood which accidentally lay in the way.

Jane Shore, the late king's mistress, was the next who felt his indignation. This unfortunate woman was an enemy too humble to excite his jealousy; yet, as he had accused her of witchcraft, of which all the world saw she was innocent, he thought proper to make her an example, for those faults of which she was really guilty. Jane Shore had been formerly deluded from her husband, who was a goldsmith in Lombard street, and continued to live with Edward, the most guiltless mistress in his abandoned court. It was very probable, tha the people were not displeased at seeing one again reduced to former meanness, who had for a while been raised above them, and enjoyed the smiles of a court. The charge against her was too notorious to be denied; she pleaded guilty, and was accordingly condemned to walk barefoot through the city, and to do penance in St. Paul's church in a white sheet, with a wax taper in her hand, before thousands of spectators. She lived about forty years after this sentence, and was reduced to the most extreme indigence.

and

The protector now began to throw off the mask, and to deny his pretended regard for the sons of the late king, thinking it high time to aspire at the throne more openly. He had previously gained over the duke of Buckingham, a man of talents power, by bribes and promises of future favour. This nobleman, therefore, used all his arts to cajole the populace and citizens at St. Paul's cross; and construing their silence into consent, his followers cried, "Long live king Richard!" Soon after the mayor and aldermen, waiting upon Richard with an offer of the crown, he accepted it with seeming reluctance.

EXERCISES.

Who succeeded Edward IV.? In what year was he proclaimed king, and what was the length of his reign? Who was appointed Protector during his minority? How did he treat the king's children? Why did tho