expressly declared in the act of settlement passed immediately after the meeting of the first parliament of Richard III." But we know from two authorities the day for which a parliament was summoned, namely the 25th of June. A writ of summons addressed to the archbishop of Canterbury for that day is dated on the 13th of May; and, as it contains no allusion to the protectorate, Mr. Sharon Turner inferred from that circumstance that the protectorate did not then exist. This strengthened his supposition (which will be presently noticed) that it was called into existence on the 19th of that month.

It is strange that Mr. Sharon Turner did not draw another more obvious conclusion from this evidence, viz. that, if a writ was issued on the 13th of May for a parliament to be holden on that day six weeks, most certainly no other meeting of parliament would intervene, and especially at so early a date as the 19th of May.

It follows, therefore, that the phrase in senatu used by the Croyland historian must be understood to imply only a council, and not a parliament.

I have now ascertained, from the patent roll of Edward V., that the office of Protector was assumed by the Duke of Gloucester at least so early as the 14th of May: for it was on that day that new commissions of the peace were directed into several counties, and in those commissions his name was inserted as "carissimo avunculo nostri Ricardo duci Gloucestriæ protectori Angliæ."

a Rot. Parl. vi. 240.

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b The writ addressed to the archbishop of Canterbury is preserved in his register at Lambeth, and is printed in Nichols's Royal and Noble Wills, 4to. 1780, p. 347. The city of York received a writ for the same day, and, contrary to all former precedent, it was required to send four citizens instead of two: Davies's York Records, p. 146.

c Rot. Pat. Edw. V. in dorso.

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It is further worthy of remark, as illustrative of the state of parties, and as justifying in some degree the first measures taken by Richard, that in commissions for taxes, issued a fortnight before, the names of the dukes of Gloucester and Buckingham were not inserted, but the leading personages are the marquess of Dorset "frater regis uterinus," the earl Ryvers "avunculus regis uterinus," the Lord Hastings, &c.

Additional evidence is thus supplied that either party was ready to circumvent and supplant the other: and consequently it is not surprising that their first collision should have led to a more bitter struggle.

The real truth of the case, as Mr. Sharon Turner suggests, was that "both parties were playing the same game of unprincipled violence, and Richard was the most fearless, prompt, determined, and unshrinking." Such he unequivocally showed himself to be in his arrest and execution of the lord chamberlain Hastings; but Mr. Turner was the first to correct a misstatement, which, originating with Sir Thomas More, had pervaded the whole series of our historians, that the execution of Ryvers, Grey, and Vaughan, by the instructions of Gloucester and Hastings, was accomplished at Ponte

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a Rot. Pat. Edw. V. in dorso.

b Mr. Sharon Turner imagined that the duke of Gloucester deprived lord Hastings of the office of lord chamberlain, and was himself appointed to it: and remarks, "The loss of this dignity may have combined, with Buckingham's superior favour, to incline Hastings to unite himself with the party of the queen." But this is altogether a mistake, and a confusion of two offices. Gloucester was already, and had been for some years, great chamberlain of England: Hastings was chamberlain of the king's household. Had be been required by the new monarch to surrender that office, it would probably have been to make way for sir Thomas Vaughan.

c It remains in the Pictorial History of England, published in 1839, vol. ii. p. 121, though corrected by Mr. Sharon Turner in 1823, first edit. iii. 464.

fract castle on the very same day that Hastings was himself hurried to the block upon the green in the Tower of London. Mr. Turner perceived that, whilst Hastings had suffered on the 13th of June, the date of earl Ryvers's will, upon the 23d of that month, at once refuted the idea of those executions having been simultaneous.

The persons who were sacrificed to party vengeance at Pontefract were the queen's brother Anthony earl Ryvers, once the chivalric lord Scales and the patron of Caxton, the lord Richard Grey one of the queen's sons, sir Thomas Vaughan the chamberlain of the young king,

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In the Excerpta Historica, 1831, will be found very interesting memorials of the career of lord Ryvers, collected by the late sir Harris Nicolas.

In the notes to the Poems of Lewis Glyn Cothi, printed for the Cymmrodorion, or Royal Cambrian Institution, in 1837, 8vo. the editor the Rev. John Jones, M.A. of Christchurch, Oxford, (Tegid,) at pp. xxviii. 44, and in a pedigree, identifies sir Thomas Vaughan with the son and heir of sir Roger Vaughan of Tretower, co. Brecon, by Cecily, daughter of Thomas ab Phylip Vychan, heiress of Talgarth, in the same county; but Jones, in his History of Brecknockshire, vol. iii. p. 506, and Sir Samuel R. Meyrick, in his notes to Lewis Dwnn's Visitations of Wales, printed for the Welsh MSS. Society, 1846, 4to. vol. i. pp. 42, 106, state the chamberlain of the prince of Wales to have been the youngest illegitimate son of sir Roger Vaughan of Tretower, by an illegitimate daughter of a prior of the monastery of Abergavenny, called Prior coch, or the redheaded; and add that he was the father of Henry Vaughan, whose son Thomas relinquished the name, and, calling himself ap Harry, or Parry, became comptroller of the household to queen Elizabeth, and master of the court of wards and liveries. (See Lodge's Illustrations of British History, i. 302.) This latter account is probably to be preferred; and in that case we may consider the courtier to be the same Thomas Vaughan, an esquire for the king's body, who, having married Alianor, the widow of sir Thomas Browne, under-treasurer of the household to Henry VI. enjoyed in 1464 lands which had belonged to his wife's late husband in the counties of Kent, Surrey, Sussex, and London. (Rot. Parl. v. 534.) This Alianor was the daughter and coheir of sir Thomas Arundel of Bechworth, Surrey, brother to John lord Maltravers, and was, through her eldest son, the progenitrix of the Brownes of Bechworth, baronets, and through her third, sir Anthony, of the viscounts Montagu (see the Topographer and Genealogist, 1853, vol. ii. pp. 318, 335, 337). On the 4th Feb. 1470, Thomas

and sir Richard Haute the also a cousin of the queen.a Vaughan esquire, treasurer of the king's chamber, was one of the commissioners sent to deliver the garter to Charles duke of Burgundy. (Rymer, xi. 651.) In 1471 he was appointed chamberlain to the prince, and in Sept. 1472, at Windsor, he carried the royal child (being then 22 months old) to welcome Louis de Bruges seigneur de la Gruthuyse. (Archæologia, xxvi. 277.) In 1478 William Herbert second earl of Pembroke appointed him his attorney-general. (Notes to Lewis Glyn Cothi, p. 44.) There is still standing in Westminster abbey, in the chapel of St. Paul, a monument to the memory of sir Thomas Vaughan, consisting of a recessed canopy, and a table-tomb within it, with space at its west end for a chantry priest. The slab was inlaid with brass plates: and the inscription, which is imperfect in Dart and the more recent histories of Westminster abbey, is thus given in Camden's Reges, Reginæ, Nobiles, et alii in Ecclesia Collegiata B. Petri Westmonasterii sepulti. 1606. 4to. p. 60 :—

treasurer of his household, who was The first three alone are mentioned

In capella Sancti Pauli.

In obitum Thomæ Vaughan militis.

Orate pro anima Thomæ Vaughan Militis quondam Camerarii et Thesaurarii Cameræ Edwardi Quarti ac Camerarii Principis primogeniti dicti Regis, requiescat in pace. [Amen.]

Aymer & a tander.

The brass effigy remains, excepting the knight's feet with one of the two shields of arms; this is charged with, Quarterly: 1 and 4, a saltire; 2 and 3, three fleurs-de-lis, over all a bend engrailed. Six scrolls at the sides, which probably contained the motto given by Camden, are all gone. The inscription, which ran round the verge, in its remaining portion has between each word alternately a rose and a sun, but the knight does not wear the livery collar of his royal master. See an engraving in G. P. Harding's Antiquities in Westminster Abbey, 1825, Pl. IX.

The arrest of sir Richard Haute, or "Hawte," is mentioned by Fabyan, and by Speed. He is not named by the Croyland chronicler or by Rous, by Holinshed or Stowe, by Hume or Sharon Turner. Sir T. More converted his name into Hawse, and is followed by Rapin, Henry, Lingard, and the Pictorial History of England. Miss Halsted has changed it both into Hurst and Croft (vol. ii. pp. 54, 55, 73, confusing him with his predecessor in office Sir Richard Croft, mentioned in p. viii. ante). Sir Richard Haute's identity is satisfactorily determined by the Visitation of Kent, where he is distinguished in the family pedigree as "securi percussus castello Pontefracti 1 Edw. 5, jussu regis Richardi 3." He was the son of William Haute of Bishopsbourn or Hautsbourn esquire, by Jane

by the majority of historians, and by our great dramatist, who has materially contributed to the notoriety of their untimely fate." Doctor Alcock bishop of Worcester the king's preceptor was among those who were dismissed from his company at Stoney Stratford; but he was perhaps not placed under restraint, for he is known to have been at liberty on the 12th of May, and then present at the sequestration, in London, of the late king's personal property.

The sufferers passed the period of their imprisonment at different places in Yorkshire. Lord Ryvers, who was kept at the castle of

(called in the Visitation Matilda), daughter of Richard Wydeville esquire, soror Richardi comitis de Ripariis, ac amita Elizabethæ reginæ, sponsæ regis Edwardi quarti. (MS. Harl. 1431, fol. 4.) The marriage settlement of his father and mother is preserved among the Harleian charters, and has been published in the Excerpta Historica, 1831, p. 249: and therein his mother's name appears as "Jah'n doughter of Richart Wydeville esquyere of the counte of Kent," and his father as "William Haute esquyer of the said counte." It is dated on the 18th July, 7 Hen. VI. 1429, and the marriage was to take place at Calais; where sir Richard Wydeville, the lady's brother, afterwards the first earl Ryvers, was then lieutenant. In 1482 Richard Haute esquire was comptroller of the household of the prince (see before, p. viii.); but before the death of Edward the Fourth he had been knighted, and apparently advanced to the post of treasurer, then vacated by sir Richard Croft, who afterwards had an annuity of 20 marks granted him by Richard III. (MS. Harl. 433, art. 665.) Sir Richard Haute is twice mentioned in the will of his cousin Anthony earl Ryvers, first in reference to some evidences in his possession, and secondly as one of his proposed executors. (Excerpta Hist. pp. 247, 248.) He married the widow of Robert Darcy esquire, by birth a Tyrrell, and had issue. (Visitation.) Richard Haute esquire of Ightham in Kent was attainted 1 Ric. III. and his attainder reversed 1 Hen. VII. (Rot. Parl. vi. 245, 273.)

a In the Mirrour for Magistrates, another name, Clapham, is introduced :— "you must imagine that he (earl Ryvers) was accompanyed with the lord Richard Graye, and with Hautt and Clappam, whose infortunes he bewayleth after this manner." Mirrour for Magistrates, 1563, fol. lxxxvii, v. The writer, it will be observed, omits the name of Vaughan, for which "Clappam" may not improbably be a misprint.

CAMD. SOC.

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