Richmond dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1884-1903, 1885-09-27
|EwKEsBURY MEMORIES.
! SKULL or CLARENCE.

4. nd, Easn.a NaraseAs Fad ssrs Fer
oaes--Eschasa SeS - fsas ~ VI. hss
~ rs,sser.
London letter 20 the Times SAYS
The gloomy saals II the anc,en,
Dey church AZ TeNkesbary ! stood
other day and looked at the skull
y false, fleeing. pefjared Clarence. >
hour before | bad traversed the
stle-Geld. stood on the grassy knoll
Isch still is called Queen Margaret
mr." and crossed The "Bloody
tsdow = where the Yorkists hewed
Swn full thousands Of the panic.
ricken, surrounded LsncsStrian troops.
keDce we had walked to the tottering
W timber-house in Church street,
RAere tradition locates the murder OF
er young Prince Edward the evening
BAR the battle. and then, 10 the church
[kelf. had seen the brass in the tiled
6oor which marks his burial-plsce.
Di,h its pathetic lines
~Ebeu hominum Juror;
Matris tn sofa lux -,
nj gregis ultima sfes
S And now 10 stand and look upon the
E 1nr,,sble skull Of one OF the chief actors
S she grand tragedy Of lives, dynsstic
rres. maternal ambitions, and party
>Ians which makes Tewkesbury famous,
5rss 10 realize the whole scene with
4 9srtling force. In the little glass case
hich contains the mortal contents OF
& De old vault check by jowl with the
ranium Of Clarence is q smaller
Bull, delicate and finely-formed--
4hat Of his wife Isabel, eldest
dsughicr Of the great Warwick. Look
ing ct these grim relics Of the War Of
1he Roses which, after lying in damp
DARKNESS for four hundred years aud
1pere, are now perked up under glass
5or rude niDeteenth-century eyes TO
kiare att was easy TO yield to the
kpell Of antiquity. and listen again for
1fbe crolkiDg laugh Of the hunchback
brother. or the mailed tread Of the
Iking-maker. And when the thin taper
#had burned down. and we climbed up
b. light again, it was almost a disillu-
sion TO see stout, modern Gloucester
ehire couple waiting 10 be shown the
fabbey sights.
They are going TO resusci;ate the
Of Richard III. For a long
4ime the feeling in that direction has
been strong. John Richard Green went
&furtber Than any predecessor had gone,
4 in his " History Of the English PeO-
&ple. TO set right the injustice done by
Etbe Tudor historians and writers, from
& IlOllinshed TO Shakespeare. Soon
& large work on the subject, written by
& gentleman who has gwen many years
10 the study, will be published, setting
forth what ! believe will be the histori-
cal view Of Richard agreed upon TWEEN
Ffy wears hence. Poor John McCul-
Tough used to hold stOutly TO
this view, and made the hate
ful part almost hkesble. certainly
mAsterful. statesmanlike, and kingly.
There Is so much TO be said for this
view. if one viii only think upon it
the harsh necessities OF an age Of tur-
bulence and rapine, the righteous con-
tempt which the mobiles felt for the
greedy paryenue Woodvilles, the conf
dence Richard felt IN himself as the
kecncst. wisest. ablest Of his race, and,
above all, his genuine popularity IN the
city Of London, which survives even 10
tins day in score Of - Blue Boar -
tAverns. Perhaps there is some leaven,
too, of race feeling IN this taste for
going back and furnishing up the memo
! mes Of English princes who were really
English. OF the 4.O9G ancestors Of
the present Prince Of Wales, stretching
back to the thirteenth generation.
that Of Margaret Tudor, there are per
hAps 90 who could speak English. but
only one Of practically English parent
aee-snd even in this one there was
both Welsh and French blood. In all
these terrible Wars OF the Roses il Is
often lost 10 sight that the YOrkists
were the English party. as against q
weaklIng king whose mother was Va
lois. and whose wife, Margaret Of Anjou.
was hOoted In London as the 80 Foreign
Woman" much as Marie Antoinette
WAS in Paris three centuries later. And
when the English bile is more than
ordinarily stirred by some royal salute
for a wretched Hessian Grand Duke or
pension for q Coburg hanger-On, it Is
real satisfaction TO think OF time
when the royal family was Of true Eng
lish blood. and to demonstrate that
Richard III. was not such bad fellow
after all.
There are no other three brothers in
English history, perhaps not IN any
history. whose reputed characters are
now, after the lapse Of ages. so distinct
in the public mind as are those Of the
sons Of Richard. Duke Of York. At
the time they mus; have seemed ideal
princes compared with the menkish
Henry VI. They were descended IN
two strains from Edward ILL.,. from his
third son and his tfth. In their de-
scent from him there was but a
single foreign anceStress--S sister Of
Peter the Cruel. All the others
were NOrmAn-SaxOn. daughters Of
the houses Of de Burgh, Neville,
Holland. and the like. Their right TO
the crown was clearly superior to that Of
the scions Of John Of Gaunt. Their
father. a notably strong and popular
man. had been cruelty butchered at
York by the " Foreign Woman" and
his lifeless head Knocked by her Ange-
vim iDpudence with paper crown.
The boys, too, recalled by their juve-
nile valor the brightest and bravest ira
ditions Of the hero Of Crecy. When
his fathers murder left him head Of the
Yorkists. Edward, Earl Of March, WAS
not yet twenty; his brothers were lads
in their teens--and they all had part in
the victory Of Mortimer's Cross, which
cut the " Foreign WOmAn's triumph
80 short and made young Edward
hing. Ten years later, in l47l, first
at Barnet In April, where revolted
Warwick was slain, aud in MAY 1t
Tevkesbury, where the Lancastrians
were destroyed root and branch, these
youngsters wrought prOdigies Of valOr. /
The King himself Was only thirty,
Clarence was twenty-six, and Richard /
OF GlOsier barely twenty, yet they were /