the minds of the inhabitants of the town, who would naturally transmit them to their descendants."
That the building called the Blue Boar was in existence in 1485 is also known only from tradition, but there is no reason to doubt it; and in the next century it was one of the principal inns of Leicester. Kelly thought it highly probable that the house was originally known as the "White Boar," the cognizance of Richard III, and that it did not receive the name of the Blue Boar until after Richard's death, "when," as Grafton wrote, "the proud, bragging white boar which was his badge was violently rased and plucked down from every sign and place where it might be espied." There is no evidence, however, of any such change of name; and it may be remarked that "a bleue Bore with his tuskis and his cleis and his membres of gold" was one of the badges of Richard, Duke of York, the father of Edward IV, so that the house may have been known by that sign before the reign of Richard the Third, especially in view of the defection of Leicester from the Lancastrians and its adherence to the cause of Edward IV. There is no authority whatever for Nichols' statement, that the inn was afterwards called the Blue Bell. This error was founded on a mistake of Throsby, and has been repeated by James Thompson and by later writers. The hotel which Throsby and Nichols describe by that name as the scene of some riots in the 18th century was the Bell in Humberstone Gate.
On the next morning, Sunday, August 21st, the King left Leicester, with all his Army, in great pomp, preceded by the Royal Standard, and wearing his jewelled crown. But there were voices, which attended his steps, prophecying woe. As he rode through the "South Gate," so we are told (though it was of course through the West Gate that his road lay), a blind beggar proclaimed the coming of his doom. And as he passed over the Bow Bridge, and struck the parapet with his spur, a "wise woman" foretold that where his spur had struck, there should his head be broken.
The fatal battle took place on the following day.
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