The work of Mr. Gairdner is of great value owing to its conscientious attempt to be judicially impartial, to the learning and research that are apparent in every page, and to the considerable number of errors it exposes, and of mistakes that are finally cleared up {301} by it. The good points in the character of King Richard III. are prominently brought forward. The excellence of his government and the generosity of his character are made so apparent, that one is surprised, in the midst of this goodly record, to come suddenly on such epithets as 'usurper,' 'tyrant,' 'inhuman King.' Mr. Gairdner's learning and critical insight have so weakened the traditional fables, a half belief in which he cannot quite shake off, that they are not likely to retain a place much longer in serious history. [1] _History of the Life and Reign of Richard III._, by James Gairdner (1878), 1st ed. _History of the Life and Reign of Richard III._, by James Gairdner (1898), 2nd ed. _Henry the Seventh_, by James Gairdner (1889). Article in the _English Historical Review_, 1891. [2] Preface to Gairdner's _Life of Richard III._ p. x. [3] _Ibid._ p. x. [4] _Ibid._ p. xii. [5] _Ibid._ p. xii. [6] Gairdner's _Richard III._ p. 38. [7] _Ibid._ p. 112. [8] _Ibid._ pp. 115, 131. [9] _Ibid._ p. 247. [10] _Ibid._ p. 73. [11] _Ibid._ p. 250. [12] _Ibid._ p. 251. [13] _Ibid._ p. 251. [14] Stow set a better example. He adopted the 'probable story' of Fabyan, and rejected the 'tradition of later times,' as Mr. Gairdner calls the unsupported calumny of Polydore Virgil. [15] Dr. Lingard says that 'Clarence and Gloucester, perhaps the Knights in their retinue, despatched young Edward with their swords' (iv. p. 189). In a foot-note he sees no good reason to doubt Stow. But Stow says nothing of the kind. He merely adopts Fabyan's tale that King Edward's servants despatched the prince. He does not even mention either Clarence or Gloucester. The accusation against the knights in the retinue of those princes is Lingard's own, unsupported by any evidence whatever. [16] _English Historical Review_, 1891 (July), p. 448. [17] The Lancastrians gave no quarter at Wakefield, slaughtering all prisoners high and low. At the second battle ol St. Albans their cruelty was deepened by bad faith. After Bosworth, Henry Tudor ordered four executions which, in his outlawed condition, were lawless murders. The atrocious conduct of his son, in suppressing the Pilgrimage of Grace, was still more horrible. Executions went on, long after all resistance had ceased, with unrelenting cruelty. The tribunal at Tewkesbury is unjustly arraigned by modern historians, while the barbarities of Lancastrians and Tudors are slurred over or ignored.