Our letters probably passed by each other on the road, for I wrote to you on Tuesday, and have this instant received one from you, which I answer directly, to beg pardon for my incivility, nay, ingratitude, in not thanking you for your present of a whole branch of most respectable ancestors, the Derehaughs—why, the Derehaughs alone would make gentlemen of half the modern peers, English or Irish. I doubt my journey to France was got into my head, and left no room for an additional quarter-but I have given it to Edmondson, and ordered him to take care that I am born again from the Derehaughs. This Edmondson has got a ridiculous notion into his head that another, and much ancienter of my progenitors, Sir Henry Walpole, married his wife Isabella Fitz-Osbert, when she was widow to Sir Walter Jernegan; whereas, all the Old Testament says Sir Walter married Sir Henry's widow. Pray send me your authority to confound this gainsayer, if you know any thing particular of the matter.
I had not heard of the painting you tell me of. As those boobies, the Society of Antiquaries, have gotten hold of it, I wonder their piety did not make them bury it again, as they did the clothes of Edward I.(240) I have some notion that in Vertue's MSS. or somewhere else, I don't know where, I have read of some ancient painting at the Rose Tavern. This I will tell you-but Mr. Gough is such" a bear, that I shall not satisfy him about it. That Society, when they are puzzled, have recourse to me; and that would be so often, that I shall not encourage them. They may blunder as they please, from their heavy president down to the pert Governor Pownall, who accounts for every thing immediately, before the Creation or since. Say only to Mr. Gough, that I said I had not leisure now to examine Vertue's MSS. If I find any thing there, you shall know-but I have no longer any eagerness to communicate what I discover. When there was so little taste for MSS. which Mr. Gray thought worth transcribing, and which were so valuable, would one offer more pearls?
Boydel brought me this morning another number of the Prints from the pictures at Houghton. Two or three in particular are most admirably executed—but alas! it will be twenty years before the set is completed. That is too long to look forward to at any age!—and at mine!—Nay, people will be tired in a quarter of the time. Boydel, who knows this country, and still more this town, thinks so too. Perhaps there will be newer, or at least more fashionable ways of engraving, and the old will be despised—or, which is still more likely, nobody will be able to afford the expense. Who would lay a plan for any thing in an overgrown metropolis hurrying to its fall!
I will return you Mr. Gough's letter when I get a frank. Adieu!
(240) The Society of Antiquaries, having obtained permission to do so, had, on the 2d of May 1774, opened the tomb of Edward the First in Westminster. The body was found in perfect preservation, and most superbly attired. The garments were, of course, carefully replaced in the tomb.-E.
Letter 101 To Thomas Astle, Esq.
December 19, 1775. (page 147)
Sir, I am much obliged, and return you my thanks for the paper you have sent me. You have added a question to it, which, if I understand it, you yourself, Sir, are more capable than any body of answering. You say, "Is it probable that this instrument was framed by Richard Duke of Gloucester?" If by framed you mean drawn up, I should think princes of the blood, in that barbarous age, were not very expert in drawing acts of attainder, though a branch of the law more in use then than since. But as I suppose you mean forged, you, Sir, so conversant in writings of that age, can judge better than any man. You may only mean forged by his order. Your reading, much deeper than mine, may furnish you with precedents of forged acts of attainder: I never heard of one; nor does my simple understanding suggest the use of such a forgery, on cases immediately pressing; because an act of attainder being a matter of public notoriety, it would be revolting to the common sense of all mankind to plead such an one', if it had not really existed. If it could be carried into execution by force, the force would avail without the forgery, and would be at once exaggerated and weakened by it. I cannot, therefore, conceive why Richard should make use of so absurd a trick, unless that having so little to do in so short and turbulent a reign, he amused himself with treasuring up in the tower a forged act for the satisfaction of those who, three hundred years afterwards, should be glad of discovering new flaws in his character. As there are men so bigoted to old legends, I am persuaded, Sir, that you would please them, by communicating your question to them. They would rejoice to suppose that Richard was more criminal than even the Lancastrian historians represent him; and just at this moment I don't know whether they would not believe that Mrs. Rudd assisted him. I, who am, probably, as absurd a bigot on the other side, see nothing in the paper you have sent me, but a confirmation of Richard's innocence of the death of Clarence. As the Duke of Buckingham was appointed to superintend the execution, it is incredible that he should have been drowned in a butt of malmsey, and that Richard should have been the executioner. When a seneschal of England, or as we call it, a lord high steward, is appointed for a trial, at least for execution, with all his officers, it looks very much as if, even in that age, proceedings were carried on with a little more formality than the careless writers of that time let us think. The appointment, too, of the Duke of Buckingham for that office, seems to add another improbability [and a work of supererogation] to Richard's forging the instrument. Did Richard really do nothing but what tended to increase his unpopularity by glutting mankind with lies, forgeries, absurdities, which every man living could detect? I take this opportunity, Sir, of telling you how sorry I am not to have seen you long, and how glad I shall be to renew our acquaintance, especially if you like to talk over this old story with me, though I own it is of little importance, and pretty well exhausted.(241) I am, Sir, with great regard, your obliged humble servant.
(241) To the above letter it was intended to subjoin the following queries:—
"If there was no such Parliament held, would Richard have dared to forge an act for it?
"Would Henry VII. never have reproached him with so absurd a forgery?