of his brother Edward, whose children he had set
aside, and whom by the comparison of this act of piety, he hoped to
depreciate(53) in the eyes of the people? The very example had been
pointed out to him by Henry the Fifth, who bestowed a pompous
funeral on Richard the Second, murdered by order of his father.

(54) This is not a mere random conjecture, but combated by another
instance of like address. He deforested a large circuit, which
Edward had annexed to the forest of Whichwoode, to the great
annoyance of the subject. This we are told by Rous himself, p. 316,

Indeed the devotion of Rous to that Lancastrian saint, Henry the
Sixth, seems chiefly to engross his attention, and yet it draws him
into a contradiction; for having said that the murder of Henry the
Sixth had made Richard detested by all nations who heard of it, he
adds, two pages afterwards, that an embassy arrived at Warwick
(while Richard kept his court there) from the king of Spain,(55) to
propose a marriage between their children. Of this embassy Rous is a
proper witness: Guy's Cliff, I think, is but four miles from
Warwick; and he is too circumstancial on what passed there not to
have been on the spot. In other respects he seems inclined to be
impartial, recording several good and generous acts of Richard.

(55) Drake says, that an ambassador from the queen of Spain was
present at Richard's coronation at York. Rous> himself owns, that,
amidst a great concourse of nobility that attended the king at York,
was the duke of Albany, brother of the king of Scotland. Richard
therefore appears not to hav been abhorred by either the courts of
Spain or Scotland.

But there is one circumstance, which, besides the weakness and
credulity of the man, renders his testimony exceedingly suspicious.
After having said, that, if he may speak truth in Richard's
favour,(56) he must own that, though small in stature and strength,
Richard was a noble knight, and defended himself to the last 'breath
with eminent valour, the monk suddenly turns, and apostrophizes
Henry the Seventh, to whom be had dedicated his work, and whom he
flatters to the best of his poor abilities; but, above all
things, for having bestowed the name of Arthur on his eldest son,
who, this injudicious and over-hasty prophet forsees, will restore
the glory of his great ancestor of the same name. Had Henry
christened his second 'son Merlin, I do not doubt but poor Rous
would have had still more divine v