The character of this unfortunate Prince has been represented under different aspects by the writers of his day; but by far the majority bear willing testimony to his virtues, to his personal accomplishments, to his liberal encouragement of science and literature, in which he himself had acquired some merited distinction. At that epoch, however, the sword was too indispensable, peace and tranquillity were too little felt and enjoyed, to allow much scope for the more humanizing studies and pursuits. The dawn of science was still but an indistinct speck in the horizon; and the few who had already tasted the sweets of literature were continually roused from their intellectual feast by the clang of arms, and the shouts of fresh combatants. It was under such unpropitious circumstances that Humphrey the Good gave his heart to letters; but with armed hand sought those means for its prosecution which were never to be realized. The history of his life and death may be comprised in a few sentences, and in doing so we give a ready preference to the authority of old Grafton, with only slight alterations in the orthography:--“Divers articles,” says he, “both heynous and odious, were laid to hys, the Duke’s, charge in open counsayle, and in especial one, that he had caused men, adjudged to die, to be put to other execution than the law of the land had ordered or assigned: for surely the Duke, being very well learned in the law civil, detesting malefactors, and punishing their offences, gat great malice and hatred of such as feared to have condign reward for their ungracious actes and mischievous doings. Although the Duke, not without great laud and praise, sufficiently answered to all things to him objected; yet, because his death was determined, his wisdom little helped nor his truth smally availed; but of this unquietness of mind he delivered himself, because he thought neither of death, nor of condemnation to die, such affiance had he in his strong truth, and such confidence had he in indifferent justice. But his capital enemies and mortal foes, fearing that some tumult or commotion might arise, if a prince so well beloved of the people should be openly executed and put to death, determined to trap and undo him ere he thereof should have knowledge or warning. So, for the furtherance of their purpose, a parliament was summoned to be kept at Bury, whither resorted all the Peers of the realm, and amongst them the Duke of Gloucester, which, on the second day of the session, was by the Lord Beaumont, then High Constable of England, accompanied by the Duke of Buckingham and others, arrested, apprehended, and put in ward, and all his servants sequestered from him, and thirty-two of the chief of his retinue sent to divers prisons, to the great admiration and surprise of the common people. The night after his imprisonment the Duke was found dead in his bed, being the twenty-fourth day of February, and