at the nobility were disposed to call the validity of the
queen's marriage in question, and that Richard was solemnly invited
by the three estates to accept the regal dignity; and that is
farther confirmed by the Chronicle of Croyland, which says, that
Richard having brought together a great force from the north, from
Wales, and other parts, did on the twenty-sixth of June claim the
crown, "seque eodem die apud magnam aulam Westmonasterii in
cathedram marmoream ibi intrusit;" but the supplication
afore-mentioned had first been presented to him. This will no doubt
be called violence and a force laid on the three estates; and yet
that appears by no means to have been the case; for Sir Thomas More,
partial as he was against Richard, says, "that to be sure of all
enemies, he sent for five thousand men out of the north against his
coronation, which came up evil apparelled and worse harnessed, in
rusty harnesse, neither defensable nor scoured to the sale, which
mustured in Finsbury field, to the great disdain of all lookers on."
These rusty companions, despised by the citizens, were not likely to
intimidate a warlike nobility; and had force been used to extort
their assent, Sir Thomas would have been the first to have told us
so. But he suppressed an election that appears to have been
voluntary, and invented a scene, in which, by his own account,
Richard met with nothing but backwardness and silence, that amounted
to a refusal. The probability therefore remains, that the nobility
met Richard's claim at least half-way, from their hatred and
jealousy of the queen's family, and many of them from the conviction
of Edward's pre-contract. Many might concur from provocation at the
attempts that had been made to disturb the due course of law, and
some from apprehension of a minority. This last will appear highly
probable from three striking circumstances that I shall mention
hereafter. The great regularity with which the coronation was
prepared and conducted, and the extraordinary concourse of the
nobility at it, have not all the air of an unwelcome revolution,
accomplished merely by violence. On the contrary, it bore great
resemblance to a much later event, which, being the last of the
kind, we term The Revolution. The three estates of nobility, clergy,
and people, which called Richard to the crown, and whose act was
confirmed by the subsequent parliament, trod the same steps as the
convention did which elected the prince of Orange;