that of marrying his niece, and that the report was "false and scandalous in a high degree." He also sent a letter to the citizens of York, dated the 11th of April, contradicting such slanderous tales, and commanding them to apprehend and punish all who should be found guilty of propagating them.
But the time was fast drawing near which must decide whether Richard or Henry of Richmond must wear the crown. Richard was informed by his agents on the Continent that Charles of France had permitted the Earl of Richmond to raise an army in that country. They amounted to 3,000 men, consisting of English refugees and Norman adventurers. Richard pretended to be delighted at the news, as confident that now he should speedily annihilate his enemy. He was, however, so impoverished by his lavish gifts and grants to secure the faith of his adherents, that he was unprovided with the means of maintaining an army; neither had he a fleet to intercept that of Henry. He dared not call a Parliament to ask for supplies, for he had expended those granted by the only one he had called. In that Parliament, to cast odium upon the memory of his brother Edward, he had called on his subjects to remember his tyranny in extorting benevolences; yet now he resorted to the very same thing; and the people, in ridicule of his pretended denunciation of benevolences, called them malevolences. By these arbitrary exactions he destroyed the last trace of adhesion to his Government. On all sides he felt coldness—on all sides he saw defection. The brave old Earl of Oxford, John de Vere, who had been a prisoner twelve years in the prison of Ham, in Picardy, was set at liberty by Sir James Blount, the governor of the castle, and they fled together to Henry. Sir John Fortescue, the Porter of Calais, followed the example, and numbers of young English gentlemen, students of the University of Paris, flocked to his standard. The same process was going on in England. Several sheriffs of counties abandoned their charge, and hastened over to France; and numerous parties put off from time to time from the coast. But no nobleman occasioned, however, so much anxiety as Lord Stanley. His connection with Richmond, having married his mother, made Richard always suspicious. He had lavished favours upon him to attach him, and had made him steward of the household to retain him under his eye. Stanley had always appeared sincere in his service, but it was a sincerity that Richard could not comprehend. This nobleman now demanded permission to visit his estates in Cheshire and Lancashire, to raise forces for the king; but Richard so little trusted him that he detained his son, Lord Strange, as a hostage for his fidelity. We have already seen that Stanley had long secretly pledged himself to Elizabeth of York in her cause, and only waited the proper occasion to go over.
Harassed by the anxieties of his approaching contest—torn by doubts of the fidelity of all about him, Richard is also described by Sir Thomas More as haunted by the terrors of his evil conscience. This has been represented to be probably the account of his enemies. Yet, what so natural? His crimes had been of the blackest. They were shocking to every principle and feeling of human nature. Whoever stood in his way, whether stranger or of his nearest kin, he had murdered without hesitation. To suppose that he felt nothing of this in the prospect of a near day when he might be sent to his account, is to imagine that God leaves such souls without a witness. We have, therefore, the fullest reliance on the words of Sir Thomas More:—"I have heard," he says, "by credible report, of such as were secret with his chamberers, that he never had quiet in his mind; never thought himself sure. When he went abroad, his eyes whirled about, his body privily fenced, his hand ever on his dagger, his countenance and manner like one always ready to strike again. He took ill rests at night, lay long waking and musing, sore wearied with care and watch; rather slumbered than slept; troubled with fearful dreams; suddenly sometimes started up, leaped out of bed, and run about the chamber; so was his restless heart continually tossed and troubled with the tedious impression and stormy remembrance of this abominable deed"—the murder of his nephews.
If Richard's domestic peace was broken by remorse and fear, his public displays of royalty were equally embittered. He was celebrating the feast of Epiphany, January 6th, crowned, and in his royal robes, when he received the first assurances that Henry would descend on the English coast in spring. But on what part of the coast? That, with all his spies, he could never learn; and as the landing might be attempted anywhere, he was obliged to bo on the alert everywhere. He employed abundance of spies; he posted men and horses on all the main roads, at the distance of twenty miles from each other, to bring him the fleetest news of any attempt on the coast, or defection in the interior.
In this state of terrible suspense the usurper lived till June, when there was every appearance, from the aspect of Henry's fleet lying at the mouth of the Seine, of a speedy invasion. He then put out a fierce proclamation, which, by the violence of the language, betrays the perturbation of his mind. In it he calls Henry, "one Henry Tudor, of bastard blood, both by the father's and mother's side," endeavours to arouse the patriotic feeling of the nation by representing that "the ancient enemy of England," France, had agreed to aid in this invasion, on condition that Richmond renounced all claims on that country for ever. He endeavours to alarm all the dignitaries of the Church, and the aristocracy, by declaring that "the said Henry Tudor had given away arch-bishoprics, bishoprics, and other dignities spiritual, and the duchies, earldoms, baronies, and other inheritances of knights, esquires, and gentlemen; and that he intended to subvert the laws, and do the most cruel murders, slaughters, robberies, and disherisons that were ever seen in any Christian realm." Wherefore, he called upon all and every of his good subjects to come forth and put themselves under the banner of him, their amiable and spotless monarch, their "diligent and courageous prince," for "the protection of themselves, their wives, children, goods, and hereditaments."
Having issued this flaming tirade against his enemies, whom he again styled "murderers, adulterers, and extortioners," he took the field, and stationed himself at Nottingham, as a central position, whence he could turn to whichever side the danger should come from.
On the 1st of August, 1485, Henry of Richmond set
