demand of Richard and the council, her other son, the little Duke of York. He was put into the Tower to keep his brother, the king, company. On the Sunday following (22d) a certain Dr. Shaw preached at St. Paul's cross that the children of Edward IV. were ille- gitimate, nay, that Edward IV. himself and his brother Clarence were both born out of lawful wedlock. Three days later the Parliament desired Richard to as- sume the crown; on the next day (June 26, 1483) he declared himself king, and on July 6 was crowned in state by Car- dinal Bourchier. Rivers and Grey were executed at Pontefract on June 25. In point of form Richard was a duly elected king, and Edward V. had not yet been crowned; all the same, his accession was de facto a usurpation. Richard's prin- cipal supporter all through, from the date of Edward IV. 's death, had been the Duke of Buckingham, a descendant of the Duke of Gloucester, who was priv- ily slain at Calais when Richard II. was king.
Shortly after his coronation Richard set out on a tour through the kingdom, and during the course of it he was sur- prised by the intelligence that Bucking- ham was plotting with the friends of Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond (after- ward Henry VII.), the chief representa- tive of the House of Lancaster, to effect his overthrow and proclaim Henry king. But the pttempted rising soon collapsed, and Buckingham was taken and (Nov. 2, 1484) executed. It seems to have been shortly before this that Richard con- trived the murder of his nephews in the Tower. The deed was done so secretly by Sir James Tyrrell, one of Richard's devoted followers, and a couple of hire- lings, that the nation did not know of it till some time after (see Edward V.).
During the remainder of his short reign Richard directed all his energies to baffling the plans of Richmond, and to making preparations to meet the inva- sion which he saw to be imminent. But he was rapidly losing his hold on the nation, alarming and horrifying it by his crimes and tyrannous acts. Henry of Richmond at length landed at Milford Haven on Aug. 7, 1485. Richard met him at Bosworth in Leicestershire on the 22d, and there lost his kingdom and his life, fighting bravely like a king, crown on head, in the midst of his foes (see Henry VII.). The body of the slain king was subjected to great indignities, carried to Leicester, and there, after be- ing exposed for two days, was buried in the Grey Friars churchyard.
Richard's was a strangely mixed char- acter. Its ruling passion was an inor- dinate craving for power, to gratify which he stopped at no crime, however heinous. He possessed many of the typi- cal qualities of the best of the Plantag- enets — a skilful soldier, of great ability and energy, brave, bold, reckless of con- sequences, fond of display, yet not in- capable of nobler impulses.
He unquestionably had great charm of manner, and knew how to inspire confi- dence even in those who had the best reasons for distrusting him. He was liberal, too, and, where his own personal ambition was not directly concerned, just and generous. He was also swayed by a lively sense of divine justice, and more than one religious institution owed its foundation to his bitter remorse for the murder of his nephews. In person Richard was short of stature and slight of build, with one shoulder slightly higher than the other; but there is no evidence that he was a hunchback.
RICHARD OF CIRENCESTER, or RICARDUS CORINENSIS, a monkish chronicler of the 14th century, sometimes called the Monk of Westminster. He entered the Benedictine monastery of St. Peter's, Westminster, England, residing there during the remainder of his life; in 1391 he visited Rome. He was the author of a Latin history of England to the year 1348. The so-called Itinerary of Richard "On the Situation of Britain" (1758), formerly much referred to as an authority on Roman Britain, was a forgery perpetrated by Dr. C. J. Ber- tram, of Copenhagen. Richard died in his monastery about 1401.
RICHARD OF CORNWALL, Em- peror of Germany; second son of John, King of England; born Jan. 5, 1209. In 1225-1226 he and his uncle, William of Salisbury, commanded an expedition which recovered Gascony, and the next year he received Cornwall as the result of a rising of the earls to compel the king, Henry III., to make provision for him. He managed his money matters well, and his wealth, as well as his pru- dence^ saved Henry in many an impend- ing crisis. For some years he acted with the English barons, to many of whom he was closely related by his marriage with Isabel, Countess of Gloucester, daughter of the Earl of Pembroke. In 1232 he was one of the leaders in the opposition to Hubert de Burgh; and in 1238 he headed an armed rising provoked by the king's secret marriage of his sister to Simon de Montfort. But Richard was still heir to the throne, and the articles which Henry was prepared to sign, and which dismissed his foreign advisers, appeared to the earl to bind the king's hands too closely, and he drew back. In 1240-1241 Richard was away on a cru-
