The recorded speech to Kingston doubtless suggested this passage in Shakespeare. “I pray you,” he says, “have me commended most humbly to his majesty, and beseech him, on my behalf, to call to his gracious remembrance all things that have passed between us from the beginning, especially respecting Queen Katherine and himself, and then shall his conscience know whether I have offended him or not. He is a prince of most royal courage, and hath a princely heart, for rather than miss or want any part of his will he will endanger the one half of his kingdom. And, I do assure you, I have often kneeled before him in his privy chamber, sometimes for three hours together, to persuade him from his appetite, and could not prevail. And, Master Kingston, this I will say, had I but served God as diligently as I have served the king, he would not have given me over in my gray hairs. Howbeit, this is my just reward for my pains and diligence, not regarding my service to God but only my duty to my prince.” [Illustration: GATEWAY AT NEWGATE STREET, LEICESTER.] Market Bosworth is twelve miles west of the county town, and here the last great battle of the Wars of the Roses was fought. The scene of the battle was Redmoor plain, nearly two miles from the town. When the conflict took place, in 1485, it was a moor grown over with thistles and scutch grass. King Richard’s army encamped at Elmsthorpe and Stapleton; they numbered some 16,000 men, and his officers made their head-quarters at Elmsthorpe church. Richmond’s were at Atherstone in Warwickshire. Here the seceders from Richard III.’s army met him, and joined their forces before the decisive battle. The whole tale is tremendously told in Shakespeare, and the well where Richard slaked his thirst during the battle is pointed out on a farm in the neighbourhood. This place is well worth a visit, and, singularly enough, the country people are tolerably versed in the details of the conflict, and are able to point out the localities with some probable accuracy. The house where Richmond stayed on his road to Bosworth has already been engraved in the account of Shrewsbury, and unhappily the “Blue Boar Inn” at Leicester, where his stone coffin was used for a drinking-trough for horses and cattle, has been pulled down; many persons are able to recollect it, and say it was picturesque, but I have not yet found a drawing of it. Bedford is built on both sides of the Ouse. The principal street is about a mile in length, and it contains but little antiquity. The Ouse was crossed by an extremely picturesque bridge taken down in the present century; a gate-house at one end was [Illustration: ELSTOW, BEDFORD.]