THE house, of which I forward you a drawing, has been recently taken down, and was the one generally supposed to have been occupied by Richard the Third and his suite, a few nights previous to the Battle of Bosworth. I send also a representation of the apartment in which the King is said to have slept; both drawings are from the able and accurate pencil of Mr. Flower, an artist resident in this place. The building, from its antiquity and associations connected with it, was an object of great local interest, and its demolition is much regretted; as remembrances of it, portions of its timber-work and ornaments, have been eagerly sought after by the inhabitants. A range of eligible tenements have been erected upon its site, by some individuals who purchased the property about two years since.

The dilapidated state of the Castle of Leicester at the period of the battle of Bosworth, did not allow Richard to be accommodated there; the house abovementioned was then the principal inn in Leicester, and was known by the sign of the White Boar; it fronted the then principal street, and was in the direct line of the march from Nottingham, through Leicester, to Bosworth.

Richard arrived in Leicester from Nottingham on the evening of Tuesday, the 16th of August, 1485; he appears to have travelled in great pomp-the crown on his head-and his army so disposed, as to show his power to the greatest advantage. Hut

ton* conjectures, that the forces were arranged in so diffuse a manner, as to have covered the road for about three miles, and to have been at least an hour in entering the town. The King slept at Leicester, and with his troops proceeded next morning to the village of Elmsthorpe, about ten miles distant; here Richard and his army remained for the night, and then marched to Stapleton, (a place in the immediate vicinity of Bosworth Field,) where they must have tarried several days, as a camp was pitched in the lordship, and a considerable earthwork cast up.

No better situation for observation could possibly have been selected, as no enemy could approach unseen.†

Richmond slept at Atherstone on the night of Saturday, the 20th of August, in a house yet remaining, then and still called the "Three Tuns;" and in the immediate vicinity of this house, the conference which proved fatal to the cause of Richard, is generally supposed to have been held between the Earl and the Stanleys. Henry's forces advanced from Atherstone to Bosworth Field, and on Monday the 22nd was fought the battle-the last of the thirteen conflicts

History of Bosworth Field. † See Hutton's "Bosworth Field,"pp. 46-50.

It is conjectured, that a piece of ground which for centuries has been

called "Consultation Close," and is situate at a short distance from the "Three

Tuns," is the site whereon the abovementioned memorable conference was held.

between the Houses of York and Lancaster-a battle, which deprived Richard of his life and ill-acquired sovereignty, and led to the union of the Red and the White Roses.

The body of Richard was brought to Leicester, and buried in the Chapel of the Grey Friars; this was situate nearly in the centre of the place, and in the immediate vicinity of the parish church of St. Martin. No traces of the chapel exist, and the only parts of the monastic establishment remain. ing, are slight and dispersed portions of the boundary walls; the chambers of a few houses, in what is still called the "Friar Lane," now rest upon some of these.

It has been said, that the remains of Richard were, on their arrival at Leicester, exposed to public view in the Town-Hall; but in the Harl. MSS. 542, fol. 34, it is stated, that they were exhibited to the populace in the Newarke of Leicester.§ However this might be, it is certain they were interred in the Grey Friars Chapel, and that King Henry the VIIth caused an alabaster monument to be erected near them; this monument was destroyed at the dissolution of religious houses. The coffin, which contained the remains of the king, was dug up, and it has been conjectured, was used for a long interval as a drinking trough for cattle, at an inn in the town.

On the fall of Richard, the Blue Boar was almost universally substituted for his cognizance-the Whiteand there can be no doubt the house

in which he slept at Leicester, under went this change in appellation, as the side street, or rather lane, in which it partially stood, is still called

Blue Boar Lane." When the house ceased to be an inn, is not precisely

known.

Some circumstances connected with the bedstead appertaining to the bed on which Richard slept, are interesting. According to Throsby (a Leicester historian) the inn was kept in the reign of Elizabeth by a person named Clarke, whose wife hastily making the bed, and disturbing the bedstead, a piece of gold dropt from the latter; this led to the discovery of a considerable quantity of coin,

Hutton, p. 218.

which had been concealed in an inclosure formed in the bedstead. Clarke suddenly grew rich, and became Mayor of the town; his wife survived him, and fell a victim, in the year 1613, to a conspiracy formed amongst her servants, who robbed and murdered the defenceless woman. The miscreants underwent the punishment due to their crimes, and suffered the extreme penalty of the law. The bedstead was afterwards repeatedly sold, but does not appear to have been removed from Leicester until about the year 1797, when it was presented, as an object of great curiosity, to Thomas Babington, Esq. of Rothley Temple in this county, by his relative, the Rev. Matthew Drake Babington, whose property it became on the death of his maternal grandfather, Mr. Alderman Drake of this place; it is scarcely necessary to add, that the bedstead still remains at Rothley Temple.

For centuries, the name of Richard the Third was never associated except with acts of a dark and vile description-no redeeming feature was allowed him-while the traditions as to his person, as well as the catalogue of his crimes, partook of an exclusively horrid and unnatural character. Well might our great dramatic poet describe him—

"Seal'd in his nativity, The slave of Nature, and the son of Hell!" No doubt can exist as to his having been an unprincipled and a cruel man : but a doubt may very fairly exist, whether the sentence to which his memory has been subject, considering the semi-barbarous age in which he lived, has not been one of too unqualified a description. It should be recollected that Richard fell when it was the interest of the reigning family to treat his name with every species of contumely, and to brand him with the commission of every description of crime-that he fell too, at a period, when the art of printing, although in its infancy, had yet become sufficiently prevalent to induce great neglect among chroniclers in recording passing events. It may be fairly doubted, whether he had any concern with some of the heinous crimes laid to his charge; enough, however, attaches to him, to load his memory with no ordinary de

gree of infamy; but it must be confessed, that few have been weighed in such strict scales as he has been. Had he succeeded at Bosworth, (and but for the most insidious treachery, he would have succeeded,) his character would, in all probability, have been conveyed to us, as that of one of our greatest heroes and ablest sovereigns-his crimes would have been in a great measure lost in the splendour of his glories-and his admitted sound policy and good government with relation to matters of a civil and of a municipal description, would have been held up as bright patterns for example. He lived, as I before observed, in a semi-barbarous age-was surrounded by enemies who were no strangers to violence, and having grasped a sceptre to which he had no just right, he had to encounter, what had uniformly fallen to the lot of an usurper-the deadly hostility of

those, whose unprincipled and selfish exertions had assisted him in attaining a " bad eminence." I trust, however, I shall not be misunderstood; I should regret being considered the apologist of a heartless Prince, who allowed nothing to impede the progress of his wicked ambition; the sacred cause of truth and of justice however requires, (and for some years it has been in process of accomplishment,) that more should not be laid to his charge than is strictly due, and that the atrocities perpetrated by those, whose names have descended to posterity almost bereft of censure, and with the bright concomitants of heroes and of statesmen, should be placed by the impartial historian, in the odious light they unquestionably deserve.

Yours, &c.

J. STOCKDALB HARDY.

Mr. URBAN,

Leipsig, Mar. 12.

IN the third year of the reign of King John (A.D. 1202) William de Aldinges and Avicia his wife claimed against William de Becco, certain lands in Livingsbourn (since Bekesbourn), in the county of Kent, which were held in grand sergeanty, by the service of finding one ship for the King. The plaintiffs say, "t'ra illa est Serjantia D'ni R's scil't inveniendi dim' navem in s'viciu' D'ni R's;" (Abbrev. Placit. p. 34) but this was because they claimed one-half of the property only as co-heirs, contending that the entire service was divided.

This claim was in the following year renewed, when the defence made by William de Becco, upon which his right to the whole was allowed, is thus stated: "Et Willus dicit q'd t'ra illa est de sergeantia D'ni Regis et non debet partiri, et p'fert cartam D'ni Regis H. patris, in qua continetur q'd ipse concessit et dedit Hugoni de Becco ministerium de Esnetka sua de Hasting, quem Rog' de Burnes frater Illarie uxoris Hugonis de Becco habuit et antecessor' sui ante eum," &c. (Abbrev. Pacit. p. 39.)

In the Testa de Nevill, we mect with the following entries:

"De Serjantijs arentatis in com' Kancie p' Rob'm Passalewe temp'e H. Reg' fil' Reg' I.

"Sarjantia Ric'i de Bet [Bec] in Burn [i. e. Livingsbourn] p' qua invenire debuit d'no Regi una nave in quolibet passag' suo alienata est in p'te." (p. 216 b.) "Item de Serjantijs arentatis per eun. dem R. in eodem comitatu.

"Serjantia Ric'i de Bek in Burne pro qua debuit invenire d'no Regi unā navē in quolibet passag' suo alienata est per partic' las." (ibid.)

"De Testa de Nevill.

"Will's de Bethe [Beche] tenet Burnes in s'jantia et valet x et deb' invenire d'no R. j nave ad s'vic' suu et offerre d'no R. iij m'." (p. 219.)

"Stacekinus de Burnes qui est infra etate et in custodia R. de T'neh'm tenz Burnes in s'jant' et valet X in man' Rob'ti de T'neh'm p' d'n'm R." (ibid.)

Further, Livingsbourn or Bekesbourn is known to have been (as it still is) a member of the Cinque-port, Hastings, its contingent to the navy of that port having been ONE SHIP.

The facts thus stated, give rise to the following question ?-What was the original constitution of the Cinque Ports, and who were the so-called Barons ?