u two may wish." And then he
laughed.

On the following Thursday, being the thirteenth of July, Richard departed
from Windsor, and behind him rode the most imposing and gorgeous
cavalcade that ever accompanied a King of England in a peaceful progress
through his realm. There, gleamed the silver bend of Howard on its
ground of gules; the red chevron of Stafford in its golden field; the
golden fess of De la Pole amid the leopard faces; the three gold
stagheads of Stanley on the azure bend; the gold bend of Bolton, Lord of
Scrope; the gold and red bars of Lovell; the red lion of De Lisle ramping
on its field of gold; the sable bend engrailled of Ratcliffe; the red
fess and triple torteaux of D'Evereux, Lord Ferrers of Chartley; the
sable twin lions of Catesby; the golden chevron of Hungerford; the red
engrailled cross and sable water bougets of Bourchier; and a score of
others equally prominent and powerful. And with every Baron were his
particular retainers; but varying in number up to the three hundred that
wore the Stafford Knot and ruffled themselves as scarce second even to
the veterans of the King himself.

Richard was mounted on "White Surray," the famous war horse that he rode
first in the Scottish War, and was to ride for the last time in the
furious charge across Redmore Plain on that fatal August morning when the
Plantagenet Line died, even as it had lived and ruled--hauberk on back
and sword in hand. He wore no armor, but in his rich doublet and
super-tunic of dark blue velvet with the baudikin stripes on the sleeve,
he made as handsome and gallant a figure as one was wont to see, even in
those days of chivalry. And no reign, since his protonymic
predecessor's, gave promise of a brighter future. The people had
accepted him without a murmur of dissatisfaction, well pleased that there
was to be no occasion for the riot of factions and favorites that a child
King always engenders. England had known Richard of Gloucester, even
since his boyhood, as a strong man among strong men--a puissant knight,
an unbeaten general, a wise counsellor, a brilliant administrator; in all
things able, resourceful, proficient; combining, as it were, in the last
of the Angevines, all the keen statesmanship, stern will, and fiery dash
of the great House that had ruled England for three hundred turbulent
years.

Since the evening in London when Buckingham had quitted the castle in
anger at the denial of the De Bohun inheritance