And can that stripped and mutilated corpse be the crowned monarch who at morning's rise led a gallant army to an assured victory, who had recently been described by Philip de Commines as holding the proudest position held by any King of England for a hundred years? Nothing places in a stronger light the depth of moral degradation and insensibility, fast verging towards barbarism, to which men's minds had been sunk by the multiplied butcheries of these terrible conflicts, than the indignities heaped upon the dead King, with the sanction, if not by the express orders, of his successor. The body, perfectly naked, with a rope round the neck, was flung across a horse, like the carcase of a calf, behind a pursuivant-at-arms, and was thus carried in triumph to Leicester. It was exposed two days in the Town-hall, and then buried without ceremony in the Gray Friars' Church. At the destruction of the religious houses, the remains were thrown out, and the coffin, which was of stone, was converted into a watering-trough at the White Horse Inn. The best intelligence that Mr. Hutton, who made a journey on purpose in 1758, could collect concerning it, was that it was broken up about the latter end of the reign of George I., and that some of the pieces had been placed as steps in the cellar of the inn. "To what base uses may we return!" The sign of the White Boar at Leicester, at which Richard slept, was forthwith converted into the Blue Boar; and the name of the street called after it has been corrupted into Blubber-lane. Leicester and Richard III. are associated in traditional history, which the Corporation have handed down, with a newly-built bridge, in two inscriptions:--1. "This bridge was erected by the Corporation of Leicester, in the mayoralty of S. Viccars, Esq., A.D. 1862, on the site of the ancient Bow Bridge, over which King Richard III. passed, at the head of his army, to the battle of Bosworth Field, August, 1485. Joseph Whetstone, Chairman of Highway Committee; S. Stone, Town Clerk; E. S. Stephens, Borough Surveyor." The plate on the opposite side bears the legend in verse, according to Speed's _History of Great Britain_:-- "Upon this bridge [as tradition hath Delivered] stood a stone of some height, Against which King Richard, as he passed Towards Bosworth, by chance struck his spur, And against the same stone, as he was brought Back, hanging by the horse's side, his head Was dashed and broken, as a wise woman [Forsooth] had _foretold_, who, before Richard's Going to battle, being asked as to his success, Said that where his spur struck, his head Should be broken." This is legendary evidence of Richard's belief in omens, in addition to that recorded at page 305.