The Duke of Buckingham was the chief instrument of raising the Earl of Richmond, afterwards Henry VII, to the throne of England, and this was occasioned, the historian Hall relates,[39] by a casual circumstance which occurred in the neighbourhood of our town. This Duke had large estates in Shropshire, in consequence of his being the representative of the ancient family of Corbet, and among these he had certain tenements in Bridgnorth. (_Dukes’ Antiquities of Shropshire, p. 31._) His possession of this property was perhaps the cause of his visiting our town, in the summer of 1483. It was just at this time that he was plotting the overthrow of the government of Richard III, but feeling uncertain as to the person whom he should endeavour to make sovereign in his stead, when riding one day between Bridgnorth and Kidderminster, he accidentally met the Countess of Richmond, better known by the name of _the Lady Margaret_. This casual interview suggested to his mind the young and enterprising Earl of Richmond, as the fittest heir to the English throne; and he immediately set himself to raise an insurrection in these, and other parts of the kingdom, in his favour. The insurrection succeeded, though Buckingham himself perished in the enterprise; and the Earl of Richmond, became Henry VII, king of England. On so accidental a circumstance depended the accession of the house of Tudor to the English throne, and the consequences, which followed it, so important to the interests of this great empire. [39] The Duke of Buckingham, in his communication with the Bishop of Ely, is represented by Hall, (an historian of the 16th century) as thus expressing himself in reference to this matter:—“But whether God so ordeyned, or by fortune it so chanced, while I was in a mase, other to conclude sodaynlye on thys litte, and to sette it open amongeste the common people, or to kepe it secrete awhile, so the chaunce was I rode between Worcester and Bridgenorth, I encountered wyth the Ladye Margaret, Contesse of Richmond, now wyfe to the Lorde Stanley, whych is the very daughter and sole heyre to Lorde John, Duke of Somersett, my grandfather’s elder brother: whych was a cleare out of my mynde as though I had never seen her; so that she and her sonne the Earle of Richmonde be both bulwarke and portcolies, and the gate to enter into the majestie royall, and gettynge the crowne. And when we had commoned a little concernynge her sonne, as I shall shewe after, and were departed, she to our Ladye of Worcester, and I towards Shrewsburie, I then changed, and in a manner began to dispute wyth myself.”—_Chronicle, 2nd yeare of Ric._ III, _fol._ xj.