hat alone would not
justify all the following excesses, yet we must not judge of those
times by the present. Neither the crown nor the great men were
restrained by sober established forms and proceedings as they are at
present; and from the death of Edward the Third, force alone had
dictated. Henry the Fourth had stepped into the throne contrary to
all justice. A title so defective had opened a door to attempts as
violent; and the various innovations introduced in the latter years
of Henry the Sixth had annihilated all ideas of order. Richard duke
of York had been declared successor to the crown during the life of
Henry and of his son prince Edward, and, as appears by the
Parliamentary History, though not noticed by our careless historians
was even appointed prince of Wales. The duke of Clarence had
received much such another declaration in his favour during the
short restoration of Henry. What temptations were these precedents
to an affronted prince! We shall see soon what encouragement they
gave him to examine closely into his nephew's pretensions; and how
imprudent it was in the queen to provoke Gloucester, when her very
existence as queen was liable to strong objections. Nor ought the
subsequent executions of Lord Rivers, Lord Richard Grey, and of Lord
Hastings himself, to be considered in so very strong a light, as
they would appear in, if acted in modern times. During the wars of
York and Lancaster, no forms of trial had been observed. Not only
peers taken in battle had been put to death without process; but
whoever, though not in arms, was made prisoner by the victorious
party, underwent the same fate; as was the case of Tiptoft earl of
Worcester, who had fled and was taken in disguise. Trials had never
been used with any degree of strictness, as at present; and though
Richard was pursued and killed as an usurper, the Solomon that
succeeded him, was not a jot-less a tyrant. Henry the Eighth was
still less of a temper to give greater latitude to the laws. In
fact, little ceremony or judicial proceeding was observed on trials,
till the reign of Elizabeth, who, though decried of late for her
despotism, in order to give some shadow of countenance to the
tyranny of the Stuarts, was the first of our princes, under whom any
gravity or equity was allowed in cases of treason. To judge
impartially therefore, we ought to recall the temper and manners of
the times we read of. It is shocking to eat our enemies: but it is
not