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Henry was now preparing to make a descent upon England, when Richard did all he could to damage him by proclamations, in which Richmond was alluded to as "one Tudor," and his adherents were stigmatised as cut-throats and extortioners. Had this been the fact, it was certainly a case of pot pitching into kettle; and the usurping saucepan poured out its sauce with wondrous prodigality. Numerous were the expedients resorted to for the purpose of damaging the cause of Henry Tudor. Descriptions of his person were issued, and the people were warned against admitting to their confidence the individual of whom a caricature representation, or rather mis-representation, was sent abroad, to give an unfavourable idea of Richmond's exterior. Among other schemes to obtain popularity, Richard affected the character of a practical man, and personally attended to the administration of justice in a few cases, where, having no interest of his own to serve, he gave somewhat fair decisions.

His efforts were now directed to putting the country in a state of defence, and he sent his friends to the coast to bear the brunt of the first attack, while he smuggled himself up pretty comfortably in the middle of a large army in the centre of the kingdom. Several of his friends betrayed him, while others sent excuses on the score of ill health, and Stanley apologised in a coarse note, declaring he was confined to his bed by "a sweating sickness." Richard merely muttered, "Oh! indeed, and I suppose he sends me a wet blanket to prove the fact;" but he, nevertheless, ordered Stanley to be closely looked after. Henry landed at Milford Haven on the 7th of August, 1484, with about five thousand men, and on the 21st of the month the two armies met in a field near Bosworth. There a battle was fought, of which Shakespeare has furnished a series of pictures, which, on the stage, attempts are frequently made to realise. The contest, according to this authority, appears to have been carried on amid a mysterious flourish of drums and trumpets, to which soldiers, on both sides, kept running to and fro, without doing any serious mischief. Richmond's people, to the extent of about ten, then encountered about an equal number of Richard's adherents, and striking together, harmlessly, the tips of some long pikes, the two parties became huddled together, and retired in the same direction, apparently to talk the matter over and effect a compromise.

The field then seems to have become perfectly clear, when Richard ran across it, fearfully out of breath, fencing with a foil at nothing, and calling loudly for a horse in exchange for his kingdom, though there was not such a thing as a quadruped to be had for love or money. He then seems to have shouted lustily for Richmond, and to have asserted that he had already killed him five different times, from which it is to be inferred that the crafty Henry had no less than half a dozen suits of armour all made alike to mislead his antagonist. Richard then rushed away, with a hop, skip and jump, after some imaginary foe; and Richmond occupied the field; when Richard, happening to come back, they stood looking at each other for several seconds. We may account for Gloucester's temporary absence by referring to the historical authorities, for he had probably chosen the interval in question to make Sir John Cheney bite the dust, a most unpleasant process for Sir John, who must have ground his teeth horribly with a mouthful of gravel.

The two competitors for the throne then stood upon their guard, and a beautiful fencing-match ensued, to which there were no witnesses. A few complimentary speeches were exchanged between some of the home thrusts, and the combatants occasionally paused to take an artistical view of each other's gallant bearing. Business is, however, business in the long run, which, in this instance, ended in Richard being run through by the victorious Richmond. The soldiers of the latter, who appear to have been waiting behind a hedge to watch in whose favour fortune might turn, ran forward at the triumph of their master being complete, and formed a picture round him, while Stanley, taking the battered crown which Richard had worn in battle, placed it—in its smashed state looking like a gilt-edged opera hat—on the head of Richmond. The manner in which Stanley became possessed of the ill-used bauble is quite in accordance with the dramatic colouring that tinges and tinfoils this beautiful period of our history. It is said that an old soldier kicked against something in an adjacent field, and began actually playing at football with the regal diadem. Placing his foot inside the rim, he sent it flying into the air, when a ray of sunshine, lighting on one of the jewels, revealed to him that it was no ordinary plaything he had got hold of. Running with it as fast as he could to Stanley, the honest fellow placed it in his lordship's hands, with a cry of "See what I have found!" after the manner of the pantaloon under similar circumstances in a pantomime. Stanley was about to put it in his pocket, when another noble roared out, "Oh, I'll tell!" and a cry of "Somebody coming!" being raised, the diadem was ingeniously dropped on to the head of Richmond. The crown was fearfully scrunched by the numerous heavy blows its wearer had received, and Henry the Seventh, taking it off for a moment to push it a little into shape, exclaimed—half mournfully, half jocularly—"Well, well, to the punishment of the usurper this indenture witnesseth." The Duke of Norfolk—our old friend the jockey—shared his master's fate, or rather had a similar fate all to himself, though as he received the fatal crack, he expressed a wish that he might be allowed to split the difference.

The fierce and interesting battle we are now speaking of was one of those short but sharp transactions, which leave their marks no less upon posterity than upon the heads and helmets of the warriors engaged in the fearful contest. The great importance of the event deserves something more than the prosaic narrative in which we have recorded it; and having sent our boy to the Pierian spring with a pitcher, for the purpose of getting it filled with the source of inspiration, we proceed to attempt a poetical account of the Battle of Bos-worth. The celebrated Mr. Thomas Babington Macaulay has, we acknowledge, kindled our poetic fire, by his "Lays of Ancient Rome;" and our imagination having been once set in a blaze it must needs continue to burn, unless, by blowing out our brains, we put a suicidal extinguisher on the flame. Philosophy, however, teaches us that "L'ame est un feu qu'il faut nourrir" (Voltaire) and alere flammam is a suggestion so familiar to our youth, that we do not scruple to throw an entire scuttle of the coals of encouragement upon the incipient flame of our poetic genius. We know that poetry is often an idle pursuit, and that he is generally lazy who addicts himself to the composition of lays, but the Battle of Bosworth Field is an event which fully deserves to have poetical justice done to it. Following the example of the illustrious model, whose style we consider it no humility, but rather an audacity, to imitate, we will suppose the recital to be made some time after the event has occurred, and we will imagine some veteran stage manager giving directions for, or superintending the rehearsal of, a grand dramatic representation of one of the grandest and—if we may be allowed the privilege of a literary smasher in coming a word—the dramaticest battles in English history.

"Ho! trumpets, sound a note or two!
Ho! prompter, clear the stage!
A chord, there, in the orchestra:
The battle we must wage.
Your gallant supers marshal out—
Yes, I must see them all;
The rather lean, the very stout,
The under-sized, the tall:
The Yorkites in the centre,
Lancastrians in the rear,
Not yet the staff must enter—
The stage, I charge ye, clear
Those warriors in the green-room
Must have an extra drill;
Where's Richard's gilt-tipp'd baton?
They charged it in the bill.
Those ensigns with the banners
Must stand the other way,
Or else how is it possible
The white rose to display?"
Thus spoke the old stage manager,
The day before the night Richard and
Richmond on the field Of Bosworth had to fight.
And thus the light-heel'd call-boy
Upon that day began
To read of properties a list—
'Twas thus the items ran
"Four dozen shields of cardboard,
With paper newly gilt,
Six dozen goodly swords, and one
With practicable hilt;
The practicable hilt, of course,
Must be adroitly plann'd,
That when 'tis struck with mod'rate force,
'Twill break in Richard's hand.
Eight banners—four with roses white,
And four with roses red—
Six halberds, and a canopy
To hang o'er Richard's head;
A sofa for the tyrant's tent,
An ironing-board at back,
Whereon the ghosts may safely stand,
Who come his dreams to rack;
A lamp suspended in the air
By an invis'ble wire,
And—for the ghosts to vanish in—
Two ounces of blue fire."

Thus spoke the gallant call-boy,
The boy of many fights;
Who'd seen a battle often fought
Fifty successive nights.
The moment now approaches,
The interval is short,
Before the fearful battle
Of Bosworth must be fought;
Now Richmond's gallant soldiers
Are waiting at the wing,
Expecting soon that destiny
Its prompter's bell will ring;
Now at the entrance opposite
The troops of Richard stand,
Two dozen stalwart veterans—
A small but gallant band.
Hark I at the sound of trumpets,
They raise a hearty cheer,
Their voices have obtained their force
From recent draughts of beer.
Their leader, the false Richard,
Is lying in his tent,
But ghosts to fret and worry him
Are to his bedside sent.
Convulsively he kicks and starts,
He cannot have repose,
A guilty conscience breaks his rest,
By tugging at his toes.
A gentleman in mourning,
With visage very black,
When the tent curtain draws aside,
Is standing at the back;
And then a woman—stately,
But pale as are the dead—
Stood, in the darkness of the night,
To scold him in his bed.
There came they, and there preached they,
In most lugubrious way
Delivering curtain lectures
Until the east was grey;
Or rather, till the prompter,
Who has the proper cue,
Had quite consumed his quantity
Of fire, so bright and blue.
The conscience-stricken Richard
Now kicks with greater force,
Bears up, and plunges from his couch,
Insisting on a horse;
When, hearing from the village cock
A blithe and early scream,
He straightway recollects himself,
And finds it all a dream.
Now, on each side, the leaders
Long for the battle's heat,
But, by some luckless accident,
The armies never meet;
We hear them both alternately
Talking extremely large,
But never find them, hand to hand,
Mixed in the deadly charge.
"March on, my friends!" cries Richmond,
"True tigers let us be;
Advance your standards, draw your swords—
On, friends, and follow me!"
'Tis true, they follow him indeed,
But then, the way they go
Is just the way they're not at all
Likely to meet the foe.
So Richard, with his "soul in arms,"
Is "eager for the fray,"
But, with a hop, a skip, and jump,
Runs off—the other way.
He's to the stable gone, perchance,
Forgetting, in his flurry,
He has kept waiting all this time
His clever cob, White Surrey.
The brute is "saddled for the field,"
But never gains the spot,
For on his way Death knocks him down
In one—the common—lot.

[Illustration: 342]

Richard, a momentary pang
At the bereavement feels;
But, being thrown upon his hands,
Starts briskly to his heels.
And now the angry tyrant
Perambulates the field,
Calling on each ideal foe
To fight him or to yield.
"What, ho!" he cries, "Young Richmond!
But, 'mid the noise of drums,
Young Richmond doesn't hear him—
At least he never comes.
Now louder, and still louder,
Rise from the darken'd field
The braying of the trumpets.
The clang of sword and shields
But shame upon both armies!
For, if the truth be known,
'Tis not each other's shields they smite—
The clang is all their own;
For six of Richmond's people
Are standing in a row
(Behind the scenes), and with their swords
They give their shields a blow.
Wild shouts of "Follow, follow!"
Are raised in murmuring strain,
To represent the slayer's rage,
The anguish of the slain.
But now, in stem reality,
The battle seems to rage;
For Catesby comes to tell the world
How fiercely they engage.
He gives a grand description,
And says the feud runs high:
We won't suppose that such a man
Would stoop to tell a lie.
He says the valiant king "enacts
More wonders than a man; "
In fact, is doing what he can't,
Instead of what he can.
That all on foot the tyrant fights,
Seeks Bichmond, and will follow him
Into the very "throat of Death"—
No wonder Death should swallow him!
Now meeting on a sudden,
Each going the opposite way,
Richard and Richmond both advance,
Their valour to display.
Says Richard, "Now for one of us,
Or both, the time is come."
Says Bichmond, "Till I've settled this,
By Jove, I won't go home."
One, two, strikes Richard with his foil,
When Richmond, getting fierce,
Repeats three, four, and on they go,
With parry, quatre, and tierce.
Till suddenly the tyrant
Is brought unto a stand;
His weapon snaps itself in twain,
The hilt is in his hand.
The gen'rous Richmond turns aside,
Till someone at the wing
Another weapon to the foe
Good-naturedly doth fling.
Richard advances with a rush;
Richmond in turn retires;
Their weapons, every time they meet,
Flash with electric fires.
Posterity, that occupies
Box, gallery, and pit,
Applauds the pair alternately,
As each one makes a hit.
Now "Bravo, Richmond!" is the cry,
Till Richard plants a blow
With good effect, when to his side
Round the spectators go.
As fickle still as when at first,
The nation, undecided,
Was 'twixt the Roses White and Red
Alternately divided,
So does the modern audience
Incline, with favour strongest,
To him who in the contest seems
Likely to last the longest.
Then harsher sounds the trumpet,
And deeper rolls the drum,
Till both have had enough of it,
When Richard must succumb.
Flatly he falls upon the ground,
Declaring, when he's down,
He envies Bichmond nothing else,
Except the vast renown
Which he has certainly acquired
By being made to yield
Himself, that had been hitherto
The master of the field.
And then the soldiers, who have stood
Some distance from the fray,
Bush in to take their portion of
The glory of the day.
And men with banners in their hands,
At eighteen-pence a night,
Some with red roses on the flags,
And some with roses white,
By shaking them together,
The colours gently blend,
And the Battle of the Roses
Is for ever at an end.