Nooks and Corners of English Life, Past and PresentTimbs, John
History
Nooks and Corners of English Life, Past and Present
Timbs, John
England -- Social life and customs
The personal prowess of the pair who were contending for a kingdom, is
thus estimated by Hutton: "Richard was better versed in arms, Henry was
better served. Richard was brave, Henry was a coward. Richard was about
five feet four, rather runted, but only made crooked by his enemies;
and wanted six weeks of thirty-three. Henry was twenty-seven, slender,
and near five feet nine, with a saturnine countenance, yellow hair, and
grey eyes." According to Grafton, Richard, so soon as he descried
Richmond, "put spurs to his horse, and, like a hungry lion, ran with
spear in rest towards him." He unhorsed Sir John Cheney, a strong and
brave knight,[72] and rushing on Sir William Brandon, Henry's
standard-bearer, cleft his skull, tore the standard from his grasp, and
flung it on the ground. "He was now," says Hume, "within reach of
Richmond himself, who declined not the combat." Others say that Richmond
drew back, as a braver man might have done in his place--
"No craven he, and yet he shuns the blow,
So much confusion magnifies the foe."
Fortunately for him, Sir William Stanley came up at the very nick of
time, "with three thousand tall men," and overpowered Richard, who died,
fighting furiously, and murmuring with his last breath, _Treason!
Treason! Treason!_ So nicely timed was Stanley's aid, that Henry
afterwards justified the ungrateful return he made for it, by saying:
"He came time enough to save my life, but he stayed long enough to
endanger it." Richard received wounds enough to let out a hundred
lives; his crown had been struck off at the beginning of the onset; and
his armour was so broken, and his features were so defaced, that he was
hardly to be recognised when dragged from beneath a heap of slain.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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