RICHARD III. crushing his enemies, some of the most promi- nent of whom were banished or put to death. Richard banished Henry of Bolingbroke, duke of Hereford, son of the duke of Lancaster, in 1398, for ten years ; and on the death of Lan- caster he made the term of banishment per- petual, and seized the estates of the exile. Richard had now become very unpopular, and in July, 1399, Henry, now duke of Lancaster, during the king's absence in Ireland, landed at Ravenspur, accompanied by a few eminent Englishmen. He was joined by several pow- erful nobles and great numbers of people of all degrees. Richard returned, but was seized and imprisoned, and deposed by parliament, after a renunciation of the crown had been obtained from him. Lancaster was called to the throne, and became king as Henry IV. Parliament thus set aside the legitimate heir to the throne, Roger Mortimer, earl of March (grandson of Lionel, duke of Clarence, third son of Ed- ward III.), upon whom an earlier parliament had settled the crown, in accordance with the received laws of inheritance. Richard was imprisoned in Pontefract castle, and it is supposed that he was there murdered by his keeper, Sir Piers Exton. A corpse, purport- ing to be that of the ex-king, was exhibited in London for two days, and was buried in West- minster abbey; but the tomb having been ac- cidentally opened long afterward, no marks of violence were found on the skull. One story was that he was starved to death. It has been plausibly maintained that he escaped from Pontefract and fled to the Western isl- ands, was there recognized, and carried to the Scotch court, where he died in 1419, and was buried at Stirling. Richard was a weak prince, and owed his fall to his fondness for favor- ites, to the vehemence of his despotism in the latter part of his reign, and to the wantonness of his expenditures, which England was then ill able to bear. lie was fond of literature, like most of the Plantagenets, and appreciated and enjoyed the works of Chaucer, Gower, and Froissart. In the 16th year of his reign (1393) the statute oiprcemunire was enacted. RICHARD III., last king of England of the Plantagenet line, born at Fotheringay castle, Oct. 2, 1452, killed at the battle of Bos worth field, Aug. 22, 1485. He was the eleventh child and eighth son of Richard, duke of York, and of his wife Cecily Neville, daughter of the earl of Westmoreland. The duke of York was descended in the female line from Lionel, duke of Clarence, third son of Edward III., and the English throne was held by Henry VI., great-grandson of John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, Edward Hl.'g fourth son. York became the chief of that party which sought to set aside the line of Lancaster, but was de- feated and captured at Wakefield at the close of 1460, and was immediately executed. His son Richard was a prisoner at the age of eight. On his father's death Richard was sent by his mother to Utrecht. When his eldest brother became king of England, in 1461, as Edward IV., Richard was brought home and made duke of Gloucester, and afterward lord high admiral and chief constable of England for life, and chief justice of South Wales. In 1470, during the rebellion of the earl of War- wick and tlie duke of Clarence (the king's brother George), the duke of Gloucester was appointed commissioner of array in Glouces- tershire, Devonshire, and Cornwall, and in the same year warden of the northern marches. In September he accompanied the king when he fled to Flanders because of the triumph of Warwick at the head of the Lancastrian party, and he was attainted and outlawed by parliament. When Edward returned Glou- cester was in his train, and had the princi- pal part in effecting that reconciliation be- tween the king and Clarence which restored the throne to the house of York. At the battle of Barnet, April 14, 1471, Gloucester commanded the van of the Yorkist army, be- ing in immediate opposition to Warwick, and by his conduct proved himself a skilful leader and a brave soldier, and contributed to the victory. The same post was assigned to him at the battle of Tewkesbury, 20 days later. In reward for his services, the king created him lord high chamberlain of England for life, and endowed him with a large number of manors and lordships that had belonged to the Nevilles, and several forfeited estates. He sought and found the lady Anne Neville. War- wick's youngest daughter, who had been be- trothed to Prince Edward of Lancaster and concealed by her relatives, and married her about the month of March, 1472. He was a second time appointed lord high constable of England, and shortly afterward " keeper of all the king's forests beyond the Trent for life," and justiciary of North Wales, and took up his official residence at Pontefract castle, as chief seneschal of the duchy of Lancaster. Glouces- ter exerted his influence with the king to miti- gate the horrors of the contests of those times, and especially in behalf of the Nevilles. In 1475 he accompanied Edward IV. in his inva- sion of France, and was the only Englishman of note in the army who was neither corrupted nor cajoled by Louis XL On the execution of his brother Clarence, with which he had no connection, he received his possession of Bar- nard castle in Durham and his office of cham- berlain; and he was constituted admiral of England, Ireland, and Aquitaine, and " one of the triers of petitions " in the parliament that met in 1478. War breaking out between Eng- land and Scotland, Gloucester was created lieu- tenant general of the kingdom, and in the sum- mer of 1482 he took possession of Berwick, and penetrated to Edinburgh, at the head of a large army, and compelled the Scotch to accede to the terms of peace he proposed. One of the king's last acts was to bestow upon his brother the wardenship of the west marches of Eng- land, the lordship of Carlisle with everything
