ON SOME OF THE CONSEQVENCES OF EATING HISTORICAL STRAWBERRIES DA 260 .H98 Copy 1 ON SOME OF THE CONSE- QUENCES OF EATING HIS- TORICAL STRAWBERRIES FROM A SERIES OF CLUB ESSAYS BY JAMES NEVINS HYDE CHICAGO THE BLUE SKY PRESS MCMIII , A.' Copy rig ht 1 00 J by James Nevms Hyde Dedicated To My Wife ON SOME OF QUENCKS OF TORICAL THE CONSE- EATING HIS- STRAW BERRIES THE words, Richard the Third, King of England, are employed in this day, for the designation of several different characters. The first, and by these words most com- monly indicated, is the poetic ruffian who sustains such an important part in the two plays of our im- mortal dramatist entitled, respectively, The Third part of King Henry VI, and The Life and Death of King Richard the Third. Next after may be named the creations of a number of English authors who have taken different views of the historical Richard, and have therefore painted him in colors varying from an immaculate white through several shades of grey departing from the sombre blackness of the portrait drawn by the great playwright. Lastly may be mentioned the character least fre- quently associated with the name, the man him- self, who on the 24th day of June, 1483, was en- throned as an English sovereign, and set the great seal of England to his intricate but scholarly signa- ture, Ricardus Rex. In the brief limits of this sketch, it is not pur- posed to attempt the task of portraying this real man, as distinguished from his several counterparts. However interesting and profitable such a study might prove, it would be probably unrewarded with practical results. Between the man who once bore the name and successive generations of his '3 race, fate has flung a cunning web, spun from the mists of speculation, the shadows of tradition, and the lies of Lancastrian historians, which ever assumes the familiar shape given it by the wonder- ful witchery of the great poet. The humbler task is here attempted to trace the connection between the several fadts which explain the existence in English literature of this double or counterpart, of the Third Richard. The fadts themselves are well known, but their relations are not very generallv understood. Even so late as the year of Grace, 1887, an anonymous writer pub- lished his belief that the Richard of Shakespeare is the Richard of History. His statement is a true one, even though it involves an error. The two are certainly one, but by no trick of jugglery can that one be transformed into the real Plantagenet whom our ancestors in the Fifteenth Century loved, hated, crowned, and Anally slew. Not a few of those who have taken interest in these questions have reached their conclusions after reading Horace Walpole's (Lord Oxford's) "His- toric Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Rich- ard the Third. " It is scarcely needful to add that the "doubts" set forth in order by the writer of this well known work, can be well removed by admitting that Richard was a knight, like the Chevalier Bayard, not only without fear, but also without the slightest moral reproach. The spot- less character suggested, is as absurd and improb- able in view of aclual facts, as any of the other lit- erary wraiths of the dead monarch. In fad:, it may well be doubted whether the noble author himself, 14 when he wrote his book, entertained the slightest belief in the doubts which he so plausibly set in order; or, after his labor was finished, cared a farth- ing whether the subject of his sketch was calen- dered as a saint or denounced as a devil. He wrote, as Macaulay has well shown, with his lordly face concealed by a triple mask. He strung together his data about Richard, with no deeper interest in his work and no nobler end in view than that which led him to decorate his hall on Strawberry Hill with fragments of ancient pottery and old spear-heads picked up at Acre and purchased for him by his agents in Paris. Walpole, in short, was a mere collector of literary bric-a-brac, with the singular demerit of both disguising his interest in the pursuit, and stoutly denying its actual engross- ment of his time and attention. Richard Plantagenet, eighth son of Richard and Cecily, Duke and Duchess of York, was born at Fotheringay Castle on the 2nd day of October, 1452. But for his Double, or Counterpart, must be assigned another birth-day, and a longevity which for more than tour centuries has survived the dust of the mortal man himself. This Counter- part was begotten on Friday, the 1 3th day of June, 1483, when the real Richard was thirty-one years old. For a moment recall the circumstances of this interesting event. Those who may have witnessed the representation of the scene on the contracted stage of the play-house with a mean and meagre environment, should dismiss from the mind the impressions there produced. From the Inner Ward of the enclosed structures 15 called the Tower of London, rises the solid mas- onry of the enormous White Tower; and, in what we to-day would call its third story, is the great Council Chamber. It is one of the marvels of early English architecture, dating as far back as the days of Stephen. The heavy flat roof with towers at each of its four angles, is lifted ninety feet in the air, its enormous oaken joints and bands indicating that it was designed not merely for a palace, but for a fortress with both tocsin and ward. Its walls, nearly fourteen feet in thickness, are pierced for the operations of the bowman and balestier, the ancestors of those who should later serve the car- ronade. Even at this early day it has its historic associations, for the fair and chaste Maud Fitz- walter, prisoner in one of the towers at the angles, once trod its oaken floors with wearv feet, and was followed by Prince Charles of Orleans, one of the very few royal prisoners, whom the great Tower has first swallowed and then disgorged to sit upon a throne. From its deep embrasures Richard is to look this fateful day upon the death of the volup- tuary Hastings beheaded at his word, little dream- ing, doubtless, as he looks, of those who are to stand there after him, and peering down upon the ( Xueen's stairway and the outer gate, see that sad and splendid procession pass representing the strongest, wisest, and fiirest of English blood; Elizabeth, but a slender girl, the courtly Raleigh, the brave Wallace, the gentle Lady Jane Grey, the scholarly Sir Thomas More, and what words may describe the others whose names are dear to us and to all who love their race! 16 It is an early hour of this June morning, and the English nightingales have scarcely ceased their full-throated spring-song. At a long tahle in the centre of the hall, are seated most of the members of the Royal Council, a body largely holding the power possessed by the Parliaments of succeeding reigns. Not all the members, however, are here, for some are gathered apart at Westminster. We are sure though, that Lord Hastings, Lord Stanley, and the Bishop of Ely are seated at the table. Richard is at this moment, advancing to the hall through the triforium of St. John's Chapel com- municating by a stairway with the royal apart- ments. As he enters, let us strive to see him exactly as he is, and describe him in words that can be sub- stantiated by facts. The Duke of Gloucester is not yet thirty-one years old. His elder brother, ten years his senior, Edward the Fourth, King of England, came to a peaceful close of his life at Westminster, just two months ago, alter expressly arranging in his will that Richard should be the guardian of his minor children, the elder of his two boys being heir to his throne. In their minority Richard is to be Pro- tector and head of the Government. Not even the most blinded of partisans can doubt for a moment, that these two brothers, the dead King and the living Duke, loved and trusted each other fully. Well indeed, they might. Their fraternal affection had been tested in the dint of battle and cemented by the blood of their common adversaries. To- gether they had avenged the brutal ferocity, only equalled by that of our North American savages, l 7 which after striking down their princely father in battle, had cut off his head and fastened it, with a paper crown on the brow, over the battlements of York. Even a modern jury would be asked, in ren- dering a verdicl: in the case of the sons to consider the "extenuating circumstances. " Edward had repaid with no niggardly hand the brother whose indomitable valor had won his crown. For nearly eight years that brother proved the staunchest bulwark of his throne, proof against the blandishments of wily enemies to whom a third brother succumbed. Richard is Admiral of Eng- land, Ireland, and Acquitaine; and Steward of the Duchy of Lancaster beyond Trent. As he enters the Council Chamber this morning, he is probably one of the wealthiest princes in Europe. All the lands and other possessions of the Earl of Oxford are his. His castles and manors are strewed innum- erable from Fotheringay, in North Hampshire to Clare, in Suffolk. This young veteran of war, who at the age of nineteen commanded the vanguard at Barnet and a few days later won the field at Tewks- bury, is an evidence that not all governments are ungrateful. Furthermore, we are sure that as the Duke of Gloucester enters the Council Chamber this morn- ing, he is comelv in person and neither dwarfed nor deformed in figure. Few today give credence to the fabulous accounts of a physical condition which he has been made to describe in verse relat- ing to himself, as "contracted of this fair propor- tion," "not shaped for sportive tricks, " "cheated of feature, " "sent before my time into the world, 18 not half made up, and that so lamelyand unfashion- able that dogs bark at me as I pass them by. " Alt this nonsense we now know to have originated with the fairy tales of the nursery. The Countess of Desmond, who once had the honor of dancing with Richard, left it on record that her partner was "the handsomest man in the room, excepting his brother Edward and very well made. " None of the many portraits painted of King Richard in his life betrav the slightest physical defect, and as for that in which one shoulder is represented as a trifle higher than the other, this detail cannot be twisted into a deformity, since there is scarcely a portrait in the roval collection that does not ex- hibit such difference. The true artist does not draw his subject with shoulders squared by a car- penter's rule. We are all familiar with the features of the Windsor portrait, which is unquestionably the best of all. It might well serve as a picture of the studious Hamlet. The face is clean-shaven, the lips thin, the eyes grey, the features smooth, the expression one of intellectual refinement mingled with gentleness and sadness. The face is one which compares with that of other British sovereigns greatly tothed : sadvantageof the most in that long line and in particular those of the Four Georges. There is one fact, however, in favor of Richard's physical comeliness which it is surprising that none has noticed in this connection. When he and his Queen were crowned in Westminster Abbey, the royal pair came down from their seats before the high altar, and putting off their robes of state l 9 stood naked from the middle upward while they were anointed by the Archbishop, after which they were clad in cloth of gold. It is difficult to believe that a man, admitted to have been vain of his person, who could by his royal authority have arranged this ceremonial so as to spare himself a humiliating exposure ol a physical defecl, would have thus advertised his deformity to his entire court. Lastly, the Duke had often shown himself more than a match in military action, lor the strongest and largest adversaries, and that in a day when men fought face to face with battle-axe and spear. There is still preserved in the College of Arms, which he founded, an excellent portrait of him and his son in full battle-harness, armored with casquetal, gorget, and piuldrons. The truth is, that in his day the world had only learned the pri- mitive lesson that greatness belonged only to the physically great. The hour had not then struck when men were to be worshipped as heroes who had slender bodies and heroic souls. Richard, in fadt, had the dauntless spirit and the boyish figure of Napoleon at the Bridge of Lodi, Nelson at Tra- falgar, and Sheridan at Five Forks. He enters the room now at a supreme crisis of his life, strong in the sound health of his early manhood; uncorrupted by the debaucheries of the late King, his brother; rich in honors, in wealth, and in that most precious of all the shining oppor- tunities of his strange career. The man has not lived who today casts a reproach upon his char- acter, or stains his knightly scutcheon with a 20 smirch of foulness. He is a Plantagenet, the last, though he knows it not, of the blood of that princely line. At this awful moment, events have so curiously shaped themselves, that — for the first time in his life — the glittering bauble of the English crown is within his easy reach. He has determined to grasp it at every hazard. Trained from his very boyhood to push on in the bloodiest path to vic- tory, he will prove to the world the purity of his breeding and the thoroughness of his training by accomplishing his end. He will sweep away from his path, as the flimsy threads of a cobweb, the lives of the two Princes, Edward, the young heir to the throne, only thirteen years old, and Richard, the little Duke of York four years the junior of his brother. He will send a fatal dart into the breast of every man who opposes him. Over the prostrate bodies of his victims, fewer perhaps than those which served as stepping-stones for Alexander, Cassar, Constantine, and Hannibal, he has deter- mined to mount to the throne. The strong tension of his mind at this moment is like that of thesturdy yew-tree bows of his sinewy archers, which, when released, could send their cloth-yard arrows clean through the body of a stalwart man. When the mind is in this state of activity it can busy itself with the veriest trifles of thought, just as the deaf man may hear a whisper when his audi- tory nerve is stirred in the din made by a thunder- ing train of cars. Tennyson has aptly illustrated this well known peculiarity in his poem of Maude, thus proving the admitted truth that the poets are 21 always clear-sighted in the study of human emo- tion. The singer of the verse has received a blow full in the face from the hand of the brother of the woman he loves. That brother he has just stretched at his feet with a blow in retaliation. The sudden passionate cry for blood rings in his ears as he flies. Yet at the instant his overwrought brain can take cognizance of a small shell: "See what a lovely shell ! Small and pure as a pearl, Lying close to my feet, — Frail, but a work divine, Made so fairly well, With delicate spire and whorl, How exquisitely minute, A miracle of design ! " This is the clue to Richard's odd aclion. One of those present at the Council, and one who had no reason to deceive at least in this particular, set it down later that the Duke of Gloucester at this moment accosted John Morton, the Bishop of Ely, and asked him for a " messe" of the good straw- berries that were in the Bishop's garden at Hol- born. The Duke knew well the resources of the famous garden at Ely House. He had been there in fad, quite lately at the death of Duke John of Lancaster, and had seen with his own eyes its luxu- riant beauty. Somewhat later, this fine garden was leased to Sir Christopher Hatton, and we read that a part of its stipulated rental was the annual delivery of twenty bushels of roses. There is no difficulty in believing that the strawberries asked for, were re- markably fine. 22 It is far more difficult to believe, however, that Richard asked for them because he wished to have them, or, when the Bishop sent for them, and the Duke of Gloucester entering the apartment some- what later, received them from Ely's hand and ate them, that Richard was really conscious of what he was doing. He very probably seized them mechanically bv the hulls with his ringers and con- veyed them to his mouth after dipping them in a bowl of sugar, i The effect of this episode upon the mind of the Bishop was probably altogether unsuspected by Richard. If Ely had not been treacherously dis- posed before — a fad: of which there is not any evidence — this circumstance seems to have effectively raised his gorge. He had come to the Council at that early hour of the morning to arrange for the coronation of a king, the young son of the dead sovereign. Instead of being con- sulted, however, on such high matters of state, he had only been asked to pander to the appetite of the insolent Duke, who was then only rilling a brief interregnum in the succession ! It was gall to him to think that he had set forth to place a crown, and had been despatched instead for a ridi- culous mess of strawberries ! The Prelate cast a baleful look on the Prince as he swallowed the fruit. How little Richard dreamed that then and there he faced a sealed fate ! The cockatrice's egg laid that instant in the brain of the priest, was des- tined to hatch out its monstrous progeny ! We can I The eminent tragedian, Booth, when performing his part in this famous scene, committed the blunder of" eating the strawberries with a spoon in the American fashion! 2 3 see it all now, alter these years. The arrogant and ambitious Duke doubtless thought that the power he possessed was absolute over every person in the room, yet he was there but as clay in the hands of one skillful potter. The Bishop of Ely would have been more merciful if he had sprinkled his straw - berries withadeadlv poison, and Richard had died in agony after eating them. Or if, instead, Lord Stanley, (who shrank under the table to escape the stroke aimed at his head when the men-at-arms rushed in later at the cry of "treason ! ") had thrust into Richard's heart the dagger at his side, the real victim of the scene had had a happier fate. Or, lastly, if Richard, instead of cutting off Hast- ing 's head before he would sit down to dinner, had sent the amorous fool back to his mistress, and des- patched the Bishop in his stead to the extempo- rized block in the Tower yard, the course of his- tory would have been changed. It w r as ordered instead, that Hastings should die, that Stanley should live, and that the Bishop of Ely should suffer imprisonment in charge of the Duke of Buckingham, in the palace of Breck- nock, in Wales, where we must follow him in order to understand the further course of events. John Morton, Bishop of Ely, was now forty- two years of age. He w r as a college-bred man, having studied law at Oxford and practised also in the Court of Arches. He was, however, far more of a politician than either priest or lawyer, having probably entered the church purely tor political ends. Macaulay well describes the man of this type as "the calm and subtle prelate, versed in all 24 that was then considered learning; trained in the schools to manage words, and in the confessional to manage hearts; seldom superstitious, but skill- ful in practising on the superstition of others; false, as it was natural that a man should be, whose pro- fession imposed on all who were not saints the necessity of being hypocrites; selfish, as it was natural that a man should be who could form no domestic ties and cherish no hope of legitimate posterity; more attached to his order than to his country, and guiding the politics of England with a constant side-glance toward Rome. " Morton, who might actually have sat for this portrait in words, was one of those politicians who whatever side may triumph, never suffer personal defeat. The men of his kind live in all ages, and are not wanting in our own. This morning, the illustrated sheets devoted to caricature, issue a car- toon representing a political grave-yard, in which are to be seen tomb-stones placarded with the name of sundry supposititious statesmen, who are here proclaimed to be "dead. " Next year comes a fresh cartoon. A youthful figure in the fore-ground, with the dawn of a new light upon his radiant brow, is hoisting a banner inscribed with the not unfamiliar device " Reform ! ' ! About him are a group of actively interested men, whose faces are no less familiar. They are our old friends, late of the political " grave-yard. " We greet them with our accustomed cheerfulness. We were looking for them, and lo, they are here ! They are always with us. Morton had been one of the Council of Henry 2 5 VI, but after the defeat of the Lancastrians had escaped to Flanders and we next rind him at the Court of the victorious Edward, playing his part with such effed: that he is made Bishop of Ely and lord ot the famous Holborn garden, where he dis- tinguishes himself in the culture of roses and straw- berries. He officiates at Edward's death-bed, and we find him immediately turning up smiling at the new court of the Protestor, bent, as usual, upon either managing the government himself, or ren- dering it as unpleasant as possible to make any other arrangements. Whether he had or had not contemplated treason prior to the strawberry epi- sode, it is certain that immediately afterward he justified Richard's suspicions by committing the very offence suspecled. He promptly seduced Buckingham, his lordly jailor, from his allegiance to the Protector, and the moment he had made sure of the overt rebellion of his victim, speedily escaped to his former hiding-place in Flanders, ready for the next move which would make him whole on the strawberry account. Bacon quaintly tells the story in the remark that " Morton did secretelv incite the Duke of Buckingham to revolt from King Richard, but after the Duke was en- gaged and thought the Bishop should have been his chief pilot in the tempest, the Bishop was gotten into the cock-boat and fled over beyond the seas. " Once in Flanders, Morton put himself into communication with Henry Tudor, Earl of Rich- mond, who later, by his chief assistance, became Henry VII, of England. Henry was at this 26 moment casting about for instruments wherewith to pick the lock that protected the much-coveted English crown. He wrought his end here, pre- cisely as in all other of his successes, bv strictly following two very simple rules: the first was, never to do that with his own hands which could be done better for him by a good tool ; second, never to neglecl or lose that tool after once found useful. In Morton, he found his Tool. Henry was already keeping that mysterious note-book, which on a day later became the spoil of his monkey to the delight of his Court, and in which he set down in his secret way, the names of his agents, how far thev might be trusted, and the smallest of the re- wards they could be persuaded to accept for faith- ful service. Richard, accustomed to hew his own way upon the battle-field whither he chose, des- pised the shifty and servile tool which Henry found so well fitted to his hand. It is difficult to conceive a greater contrast than that between the Earl of Richmond and the man he sought to discrown. Henry was as cowardly in spirit as Richard was brave, but as subtle and selfish as the priest whom he befriended for his own personal ends. He was not a voluptuary like Edward, nor an imbecile like the dead Henry VI, but one of that ignoble class of misers whose passion in life is the amassing of wealth solely for the sake of its accumulation. He was tall, without the dignity that attaches to height, and red-headed without the sanguine tem- perament that is usually associated with that color of the hair. He was a bastard son of John of Gaunt, legitimated only by special statute, and 27 could not exhibit on his coat of arms the sang pur of the princely Plantagenet. When Richard on Bosworth Field swore that he would die King of England with his crown upon his head, and rushed upon his faint-hearted antagonist, the "Welsh milk-sop," as Richard called his adversary, took great care to protect himself behind a special guard of spearmen. If for one moment Richard had met him hand to hand in the open field, Henry Tudor would probably have shared the fate of his stan- dard-bearer, a more valiant man than he, Sir William Blandon, and the mighty Sir John Che- ney, both of whom were unhorsed and stretched senseless at the feet of the soldier-king. The real vi&or at Bosworth Field was not Henry, but Morton. Think of it! An English army on Eng- lish soil, superior in numbers, led by a veteran general, who was, without doubt, the bravest prince in Europe, worsted by an army inferior in numbers, consisting for the most part of frog- eating Frenchmen, led by a man who had never before been on the field of battle, and even then was afraid to face the storm of English arrows ! The mortality on Richmond's side was less than one hundred ! The priest it was who won the vic- tory. We can almost see him wink at Henry when the farce was over ! He had plotted, and counter- mined, and seduced, till the army that Richard led into the field crumbled to pieces before it had fairly faced the enemy. Richard before he fell, sounded the key-note of the piece, when he shouted " Treason ! " Morton knew well who had won the day. So did Henry, and he was never per- 28 mitted to forget it. Now the two looked on the mangled body of the prince whom they had re- jected, slain in the fore-front of the tight, as were his proud father and his lion-hearted ancestor of the same name, stark naked, covered with dust and gore, a halter about his neck, trussed across the back of a horse like a butchered calf behind Rich- ard's own poursuivant-at-arms, Blanc Sanglier, and so carelessly carried that in crossing a bridge the royal head was bruised against a stone. Did the Bishop of Ely admit (think you ? ) that his strawberry account was now settled in full ? No! There was a deadlier revenge to follow, and the prelate was to bear in that, even a more con- spicuous part than in this. With Henry VII safe on the throne, the man who, by the arts of the Jesuit, had conquered at Bosworth Field, reaped his reward. He was made a member of the Privy Council; and later, Lord High Chancellor of England; was enthroned, the next year, as Archbishop of Canterbury ; and at last by the urgent solicitation of his master, given the red hat of a Cardinal by Pope Alexander VI. The remuneration for the old Holborn straw- berries had been at nearly the exorbitant rates charged for depredations committed by the late army of the Union upon some Southern potato- patch ! With Henry VII on the throne, moreover, there were none too high to do reverence to the House of Tudor; none too low to add a handful to the mud heaped plentifully on the ruined House of Plantagenet. The road to royal favor lay in this 29 direction, and the preserves of that most uncertain of pleasure-parks, were hedged about with ob- loquy of the dead. Morton now Cardinal-Chan- cellor remained secure next the throne and next also to the heart of the selfish king, by his great success in two lines: First, he served as the willing tool of the monarch in raking into the rapacious pocket of his sovereign every penny that could be extorted from any well-tilled purse in the realm; second, he helped to blacken the memory of the butchered soldier-king by the utmost refinement of his art. ' Tis a wonder the success was not flaw- less. But it was not. Even the foulest pool will at midnight reflect the light of an overhanging star. There was not wanting a proclamation, issued under Henry's nose, declaring that "Richard like a true Plantagenet, was honorable, and loved the honor and contentment of the realm and the com- fort of the common people; " and when the York- shiremen were pressed for a subsidy to go into the new king's treasury, even Bacon had to write, that the mutiny which followed was "by reason of the old humour of those countries, where the name of King Richard was so strong, that it lay like lees at the bottom of men's hearts, and if the vessel was but stirred it would come up. " It is told of a Ri^ht Reverend member of the Bench of Bishops of the Protestant Episcopal Church, that when he visited England in the early days of his Episcopate, he was there entertained at a great dinner given by the Archbishop of York to a number of dignitaries of the Ecclesiastical estab- lishment as well as to his American colleague. 3° During the repast, the Archbishop turned to his guest and enquired: "Ah! my Lord, is your See well founded?" To which the Bishop replied: "Thank you, your Grace, I can hardly say that. But then, you know, I receive my small salary pretty regularly : and we get on nicely, very nicely, thank you, as my wife and I teach in our little school for young people, and in that way we make a trifle more. " It is said that the unaffected sim- plicity of this reply, so wrought on the hearts of those present, that when he returned home, the Bishop's " See" was better founded than when he left it ! The new Cardinal-Chancellor of Henry VII in almost the fashion of the primitive frontier clergy- men of America, was fain to eke out the emolu- ments of his office by taking a few pupils. He received into his establishment, which was then looked upon as one of the aristocratic schools of the period, a number of proper youths who per- formed menial services for the Cardinal, and were supposed to receive in return such a discipline in mind and manners as would consort with the bodily nutriment derived from the cold scraps of the Cardinal's table. Among these youths, Master Thomas More officiated, who, as he handed his Lord his meat at table, attracted the special atten- tion of the shrewd prelate. It was on one of these occasions that the Cardinal uttered his well-known prophecy about the boy: "Whosoever liveth to trie it, shall see this child prove a notable and rare man. " Morton was correct in this, as in his earlier belief that he could make his strawberries the most 3i indigestible mess a man ever swallowed. At this point, we touch the second of the im- portant conspirators against Richard's memory. But what scholar can pronounce the name of Sir Thomas More in any but loving accents ! He was early in framing that exquisite pattern which the world can never forget and scarcely reproduce. He taught us once and for all, that the ripest scho- larship of any day is consistent with all that is brightest, truest, bravest, and sweetest in lofty statesmanship, pure domestic affection, and Chris- tian character. He showed its staunch support in that perilous extremity, when life and all else that a man holds dear are dissolving from his possession. The lambent wit that graced his gentle speech when he was high in honor, entrusted with Eng- land's great seal and a king's arm about his neck, did not forsake him for an instant, when he laid his pallid cheek upon the headsman's block and died with a smile lingering about his lips. But we must judge Sir Thomas More as we do Richard the Third, by the standards of the day in which they lived. Each of these men had not only a bright, but a very dark side to his character. Says Mr. Froude of More: "The Philosopher of the Utopia, the friend of Erasmus, whose life was one of blameless beauty, whose genius was cultivated to the highest attainable proportions, was to prove to the world that the spirit of persecution is no peculiar attribute of the pedant, the bigot, or the fanatic, but may co-exist with the fairest graces of the human character. " It is well known that More not only personally racked some of his vic- 3 2 tims in the Tower, but had James Bainham for two days and nights in his (More's) house chained to a post where he scourged with his own hand the victim, who perished in consequence, charging with his last breath that his death was due alone to More. To this man in his youth, the most plastic and impressionable period of his life, Morton entrusted the burden of his malicious revenge. The double distillate of his gall was received into the alembic of the younger mind, and there refined into a thing of artistic horror. It was customary in that day to celebrate the church festivals in the Cardinal's palace with those public games and plays which constituted the real predecessors of the modern drama. None received greater applause for excel- lence in the performance of these spectacles than the young Thomas. He and his companions were here taught to personate demons as well as the more saintly characters of Scripture history, and there- suit was that More is in part responsible tor one of the most wonderful demons of English literature. It appears that there is progress in education, even when one is playing tbe Devil ! The book which More wrote as the result of his intimacy with the cultivator of strawberries, is known as a "History of Richard III. " Never was a book worse named. It should be intituled "Sir Thomas More's Narrative of the Tale confided to him by Cardinal Morton, late Bishop of Ely. " In no sense can it be termed a history. No authori- ties are cited in it ; the source of its inspiration is not named ; not a syllable of proof is adduced in 33 support of the monstrous and even fabulous state- ments it contains. It is not indeed certain that More in its production had any more serious ob- ject in view than to enjoy the play of his literary genius. The work is but a fragment, broken off in the midst of a supposititious conversation between Ely and Buckingham in Wales. Two original copies are in existence, one in Latin and one in black letter English, which fadt has probably given rise to the story once credited that one book was written by More and another by Morton himself, of which there is no proof. Numerous as are its sins against the truth, these are well-nigh offset by the rare literary excellence of the story. It is a quaint and charming composition with a hob- goblin for its theme. When William Shakespeare set himself to write the play entitled, The life and death of King Rich- ard III, his task was an easy one. More's so-called history was ready at his hand, a work of fiction written with a pen having little less power than that of the great play-wright himself. The harp was there, its strings attuned, its theme composed, there was needed only the sweep of the master's fingers to awaken the living melody. Further- more, Shakespeare had no fear of contradiction by contemporaneous writers of more conscienti- ousness and less imagination. There were only two contemporary historians of note: the Chancellor of Croyland, whose narrative is but a brief epitome of the events of the time; and Rous, the Warwick antiquary, who, writing solely in the interests of Henry VII, indulged also in the fabulous tales that 34 were in his day eagerly swallowed; for example, that Richard was born into the world with hair reaching to his shoulders, 'the Scorpion of the House of Mars being then in the zodiacal ascen- dant. ' Most of the other so-called historians of the age, quarried in the mine that More had suc- cessfully opened on the spot where Ely 's straw- berries had paid such a handsome premium. And so Shakespeare had it all his own way. What More set down as doubtful, Shakespeare described as fad: if it served his poetic requirements. But the great poet knew perfectly well what he was doing. He was not writing history or even pretending to do this. He was engaged in writing plays that would prove remunerative; and incidentally the weight of his genius was thrown on the financial side of the transaction. The most incredible part of this chain of events is that what Shakespeare set down as facl, succeeding historians have in some cases re- peated as fact. As the years slipped by, all this artificial fabric became hoary with age. It is somewhat remarkable that while Shake- speare was engaged in this easy metamorphosis, he did not touch with his magic the plaintive tale told by More relating to Shore's wife. Most probably the unities of his drama required its omission. When Shakespeare had written the concluding words of his play, Morton's revenge was complete. The slaughtered English King, once a breathing, hating, loving human being, actuated by a thou- sand human impulses, and with a better and worse side to his human self, had been converted into a fiend only equalled in literature by Milton's Satan. 35 In his wonderful epic Milton sang of his arch- fiend, when he surveyed the cohorts of his fallen army in the depths of hell: "Thrice he essayed, and thrice, in spite of scorn, Tears such as angels weep, burst forth. " But Shakespeare left no room for tears in Rich- ard 's composition. His Satan, less god-like and more devilish than Milton's, is one of those im- perishable creations, which "break Time's heart, and make Death gnaw his bony fingers in im- potent despair." Time fails in which to enumerate the several points where the play, The Life and Death of King Richard III is at bold variance with undisputed historical fadt. The very first scene represents a street in which Richard appears wooing Anne, Warwick's younger daughter, who figures as a mourner by the bier of the dead King Henry VI. But at this moment, Richard was only nineteen years old, and Anne a girl of 14, though some authorities make her age greater by two years. This precocious child is made to charge the lad with the murder, not only of King Henry, lying on the bier, but also of the young prince Edward, her husband, for neither of which crimes can Richard be held in any degree responsible. As for the widowhood of the little girl, of which she prates so poetically, it does not appear that she had ever seen, much less married the youth of eighteen whom she bewails, but had merely been betrothed 7 J to him in childhood, according to the fashion of that day, among the English nobles. Even ad- mitting that Richard had participated, at so early 36 a period in his career, in the murder of these men', we are wholly without a motive to attribute to him since ten years were to pass before the day would come when both Edward and George would be removed from between Richard and the crown. In that ten years, as we have seen, the Duke of Glou- cester had proved devotedly loyal to his broth en Richard, however, did woo and win Anne for his bride, but in a more romantic fashion than that de+ pitted in the play. She had been secreted by her brother-in-law, George, Duke of Clarence, with a view to retaining the immense Warwick estate in his, (George Y) custody. Richard found her in the guise of a kitchen-maid, married her, was faithful to her, and she became the mother of his only son^ the short-lived Prince of Wales. We know cert tainly that the king and queen were heart-broken over the affliction which this death brought. In* deed, if one wishes to believe that Richard were reallv as black as he has been painted, it will not answer to compare the fidelity of his conjugal rela* tions with those of many who before and since his day have held the British sceptre. > Perhaps the most pathetic scene of the play, is* however, that representing the Duke of Clarence a prisoner in the Tower, when he relates his meini- orable dream to the Keeper, Sir Robert Brackens- bury. Rarely have words been penned that equal these in the rugged vigor of pure Saxon coupled with the power of awaking a tender sympathy for the doomed man. Who would gather from peruse ing these lines that Clarence had been condemned to death after trial by his peers in Parliament, with 37 the King himself, Edward IV, not Richard, plead- ing the case against him ! His crime had been great. Like Richard he had been rewarded by Edward with a generous hand, receiving both hon- ors and riches, lands and privileges. He had again and again joined the Lancastrians against the York- ists, and as often been restored to favor. But Clar- ence 's sword had alwavs been weighted at the hilt with a bag of gold; he strove ever for the highest reward. At last he touched the verv depths of treason by exhibiting secretly an exemplification, under the great seal of Henrv VI, securing his (Clarence's) succession to the throne on failure of Henry's issue. On this showing he had accepted the sworn allegiance of some ot the nobility. If ever there were treason against the crown, here was the crime, and here the guiltv criminal him- self! More expressly states that Richard was inno- cent of any connection with Clarence's condem- nation and death; but Shakespeare needed that the Duke solely should be responsible for his brother 's destruction, and there was none to say him nay. After Shakespeare came Bacon, altogether too wise a man not to know the nature of the field where the poet had been gathering flowers, and the priest had been dealing in strawberries. In moments of candor, Bacon always wrote the truth. He declared that "Richard was a prince in mili- tary virtue approved, jealous of the honor of the English nation, and likewise a good law-maker for the ease and solace of the common people. " Bacon knew better than any other man what praise that was in his mouth. He also saw through and 38 through the strawberry cardinal. He wrote that he was a "stern and haughty man who had mortal enemies at court; was always ready to provide for his own satety, and had an inveterate malice against the house of York. " But for all this Bacon did not hesitate to reproduce the Morton-More counterpart of Richard. It is easy to understand whv. Bacon wrote his History of Henry VL1, after his own fall from power. The King on the throne was of the House of Tudor. The man who had prostituted his moral character to the lowest depths of baseness in the persecution of the fallen Essex to please his queen, did not dare to draw a picture of the fallen Richard that would offend his king. He was an hungered for the few crumbs that still fell into his mouth from the royal table. "I will not be stripped of my feathers, " he cried. There were still twelve hundred pounds annually paid him from the King's purse. And so he pocketed this, and only let glimpses of the real truth appear in his chronicle of the men whom we have des- cribed. Morton, More, Shakespeare, Bacon, what his- torical character could resist the combined assaults of these four, priest, scholar, politician, and poet ! Suppose for a moment that the issue of the late civil war in this country had been the complete and overwhelming supremacy ot the South. Sup- pose that no newspapers had ever been printed, and that books were few and those in a tongue not known to the inhabitants of Virginia and Lou- isiana. Suppose that the only knowledge had of President Abraham Lincoln was derived from the 39 writings of four extreme Southern partisans, of the ability of Henry Ward Beecher, for example, re- presenting the Church in politics; William M. Evarts, politics and law ; Theodore Dwight Wol- sey, scholarship pure and simple; and Henry W. Longfellow, poetry. Can any reasonable person doubt that in such event the martyred president would have gone down to posterity forever in the form of the grinning baboon which in the early part of i 86 1 he was represented to be in the Sou- thern press! And so ends the play! Virtue is all virtuous. Vice is wholly vicious. Virtue is not deformed by a single vice ; Vice has no single virtue to redeem its essential ugliness. Virtue is victorious, and plants her triumphant foot upon the neck of pros- trate Vice. Ring down the curtain and let us take a moment for breath, ladiesand gentlemen, before the bell tinkles again, and the curtain rises on the farce that is to follow ! But something better than a farce was to follow,- better by far. ' Tis no great matter today whether Richard was morally responsible for this or that particular crime, as he rushed over the bodies of the slain to his own bloody death. But he and his great literary counterpart are like a bold cliff at the rim of the sea with a distorted reflection of itselt in the waters below rising between the treacherous waste beyond and the shining peace of the slopes afield. With Richard passed away not only the line of the Plantagenets, but also feudalism and its associated villenage in England. For years they had been the faithful 40 nurses of the English yeoman. They had found him little better than a naked savage; they left him clothed, well fed, well housed, and taught to pro- vide house, food, and clothing for himself. But his soul was yet wrapped in infinite darkness and his mind clouded with the mists of ignorance. For the most part he and his fellows had looked on with little concern, while the nobles of their day stabbed each other with pikes and cut off each other's heads. But better than a farce was to follow, better by far. These nurses were to be succeeded by school- masters of a sterner discipline, who should prepare him to work out his splendid destiny ! Yes, better than a farce : better by far ! When Richard fell, the wood was grown and cut and fashioned into black letter types that Wil- liam Caxton had learned to set, and he was already at work doing his first printing in the Almonry at Westminster. His precious art was destined to kindle, here and there all over English soil, thou- sands of twinkling rush-lights, that should be the promise of better to follow. When Richard fell, the wood was growing in the forests of Spain, that was to make, in the next generation, oaken ribs of Spanish galleons, that the Duke of Medina Sidonia was to command in the great Armada, and the fierce gale that scattered their twisted ribs along the coast of England and of Ireland, was to fan Caxton's twinkling rush-lights into a splendid flame. By its pure radiance, the men of our race and of our blood were to climb the perilous heights of religious and political liberty. When Richard 4i fell, the great clock of our whirling planet struck the hour for matins ; and, as we look back on its broad face, we can hear again its welcome note with the ears of our English fathers, and look out with their kindling eyes, as the gloom of the Mid- dle Ages begins to lift before that shining dawn, whose first faint glimmer lighted up even Bos- worth Field. 42 Here endeth the paper, ON SOME OF THE CONSEQUENCES OF EATING HIS- TORICAL STRAWBERRIES, one of a series of CLUB ESSAYS written by James Nevins Hyde and privately printed by the Blue Sky Press in December, MCMIII. Of this edition there are One Hundred and Thirty copies on Italian hand made paper, this being number ,- x- LIBRARY OF CONGRESS .0 020 679 323 5