[Footnote 58: This incident has called forth the poetical effusions of Wordsworth and Rogers. See their respective works; also Wordsworth's _Hart Leap Well_, the scene of which is laid near Richmond, and _White Doe of Rylstone_.] THE DEPOSING OF RICHARD II. AND HIS MURDER IN POMFRET CASTLE. Richard II., son of the Black Prince, was born in 1366, and succeeded his grandfather Edward III., on the throne of England, 1377; murdered in 1392. Historians differ with regard to the manner in which he was murdered. It was long the prevailing opinion that sir Piers Exton, and others of his guards, fell upon him in Pontefract castle, and that the king, wresting a pole-axe from one of the murderers, soon laid four of their number dead at his feet; but at length being overpowered, he was struck dead with a blow of a pole-axe. "O Pomfret, Pomfret, O thou bloody prison! Fatal and ominous to noble Peers! Within the guilty closure of thy walls, Richard the Second here was hack'd to death." SHAKSPEARE'S _Richard III_. But it is more probable that he was starved to death; and after all sustenance was denied him, he prolonged his unhappy life, it is said, for a fortnight, before he reached the end of his miseries. This account is more consistent with the story that his body was exposed in public, and that no marks of violence were found upon it. When Richard the Second in England was king, And reign'd with honour and state, Six uncles he had, his grandfather's sons, King Edward that ruled of late; All counsellors noble and sage; Yet would he not hear Their precepts dear, So wilful he was, in this his young age. A sort of brave gallants he kept in his court, That train'd him to wanton delights, Which parasites pleased him better in mind, Than all his best nobles and knights: Ambition and avarice grew So great in this land, That still from his hand A mass of rich treasure his parasites drew. His peers and his barons dishonoured were; And upstarts thus mounted on high; His commons sore tax'd, his cities oppress'd, Good subjects were nothing set by; And what to his coffers did come, He wantonly spent, To please with content His flattering upstarts, still sporting at home. When thus unto ruin this kingdom began, To fall from the highest estate, The nobles of England their prince's amiss, By parliament soon did rebate; And likewise those flatterers all, They banish'd the court, That made but a sport To see this so famous a kingdom to fall. But after these gallants degraded were thus, King Richard himself was put down, And Bullinbrook, Lancaster's noble-born duke By policy purchased his crown. Thus civil wars here begun, That could have no end, By foe nor by friend, Till seven kings' reigns, with their lives were out-run.