Young Richard, as was said at the close of the last chapter, was of a very tender age when his father and his brother Edmund were killed at the battle of Wakefield. He was at that time only about eight years old. It is very evident too, from what has been already related of the history of his father and mother, that during the whole period of his childhood and youth he must have passed through very stormy times. It is only a small portion of the life of excitement, conflict, and alarm which was led by his father that there is space to describe in this volume. So unsettled and wandering a life did his father and mother lead, that it is not quite certain in which of the various towns and castles that from time to time they made their residence, he was born. It is supposed, however, that he was born in the Castle of Fotheringay, in the year 1452. His father was killed in 1461, which would make Richard, as has already been said, about eight or nine years old at that time. There were a great many strange tales related in subsequent years in respect to Richard's birth. He became such a monster, morally, when he grew to be a man, that the people believed that he was born a monster in person. The story was that he came into the world very ugly in face and distorted in form, and that his hair and his teeth were already grown. These were considered as portents of the ferociousness of temper and character which he was subsequently to manifest, and of the unnatural and cruel crimes which he would live to commit. It is very doubtful, however, whether any of these stories are true. It is most probable that at his birth he looked like any other child. There were a great many periods of intense excitement and terror in the family history before the great final calamity at Wakefield when Richard's father and his brother Edmund were killed. At these times the sole reliance of the prince in respect to the care of the younger children was upon Lady Cecily, their mother. The older sons went with their father on the various martial expeditions in which he was engaged. They shared with him the hardships and dangers of his conflicts, and the triumph and exultations of his victories. The younger children, however, remained in seclusion with their mother, sometimes in one place and sometimes in another, wherever there was, for the time being, the greatest promise of security.