and to forbear the praise of those properties. But | aged forty-two, after a reign of twenty-two years. the merriest was this Shore's wife, in whom the King, In that month he was buried in St. George's chapel, therefore, took special pleasure. For many he had, at Windsor. The day is not given in our chronicles, but her he loved." Who can wonder at the royal nor in the ceremonial of the burial printed in the first Libertine's preference. She was the Nell Gwynne of volume of the Archæologia. Scarcely was the king his Court, but she had this advantage of Mrs. Helen, consigned to his grave, than his ambitious, unprinshe was well educated. She was as merry, and as cipled brother Richard, Duke of Gloucester, detervoid of avarice. mined to usurp the thone. The weakness and unpopularity of the Queen mother, Elizabeth, aided his criminal designs. Having seized upon the young king, Edward V. his nephew, he brought him prisoner, to London; having before sent away his faithful subjects Earl Rivers, his maternal uncle, Lord Richard Grey, his half brother, and Sir Thomas Vaughan, to Pontefract, in Yorkshire.

Such was her temper; now let us view her person. Sir Thomas More expresses himself thus: "There was nothing of her body that you would have changed, unless you would have wished her something higher." Drayton, in his poetical Epistle from Jane to her royal Lover, has notes, by which it appears that, "Her stature was mean, her hair of a dark jet, low, her face round and full, her eyes grey, delicate harmony being beween each part's proportion, and each proportion's colour; her body fat, white and smooth, her countenance cheerful, and like to her condition. The picture which I have seen of her was such as she rose out of her bed in a morning, having nothing on, but a rich mantle cast under one arm, over her shoulder, and sitting on a chair, on which her naked arm did lie." This is another trait in her history like Nell Gwynne, whom Charles had used to have painted as an undressed Venus.*

Unhappy beauty, thy evil days came, and were many. The hero Edward was lost in indulgence: his manly fine form became bloated by feasting at the banquet, and his frame weakened, by excess in sensual pleasures a dropsy terminated the scene. The change which ensued filled England with crimes of all descriptions, and sorrows of every kind.

To carry on his design, Richard gained over the Duke of Buckingham, Sir Edward Shaw, the Lord Mayor of London, his brother, Dr. John Shaw, and Penker the provincial of the Grey Friars: the people were assembled; the conspirators acted their parts; an army was without. Buckingham to cajole and intimidate, the Lord Mayor to countenance, and the two ecclesiastics to sanction the nefarious deed. Dr. Shaw dared to preach from the text, "Bastard Plants shall take no deep root," declaring that as the late king's marriage was illegal, his issue was illegitimate. Richard, not satisfied with this, declared his own mother unchaste, though then alive, and that her eldest son was not by her husband; and, therefore, as Clarence the second son died attainted, that he, Richard, was the rightful sovereign.

Gloucester at first, modestly, took the title of Protector only. He even had made a pretence to have Edward died at Westminster, April 9th, 1482, preparations made to crown Edward V., but he soon betrayed his infamous designs.

I remember seeing, when a young man, in an old family mansion, near Coventry, let for a kind of Vauxhall, some an

cient paintings, amongst them, on board, was a portrait in oil of her to the waist, without clothing, or ornament, except jewels in her hair, and a necklace also of jewels. It was quite like that at Eton in the Provost's lodging. There is another in the lodge of the Provost of King's College, Cambridge;

to both these Foundations, which were of Lancastrian birth, she is supposed to have exerted her interest in their behalf to King Edward. The Duchess of Montagu had, says Granger, a lock of Jane's hair; it appeared as if it had been powdered with gold dust. Yet beautiful and lovely as was this Venus de Medici, as I may call her, from her small stature, fine face, and just proportion, yet "Her courtly behaviour, facetious conversation, and ready wit, were more attractive than her person." The portrait in Eton College is scraped by John Faber, it is large 4to; it is scarce : a MS. date was upon a copy, 1483. The Rev. Michael Tyson, Fellow of C.C.C.C. has etched that in King's College. It is coarsely done in 4to. There is a far more pleasing print of Jane, sm. 4to. engraved by F. Bartolozzi, R.A.

It is not, however, my intention to write a history of those turbulent times, but only to give what is necessary to elucidate the life of poor Jane.

On the fatal June 13th, after Gloucester had met the council in the Tower with every degree of amity, he retired, but in an hour after, between ten and eleven o'clock he returned, with all the tokens of anger and fury; when, addressing the council, he accused the Lord Chamberlain, Hastings, of plotting against him, jointly with the Queen Dowager,—though from hatred to her Majesty, he had so lately seized, and given up her brother Anthony Earl Rivers, and her son Lord Richard Grey,-but as if all kind of incongruities were to unite, Jane Shore was joined with the Queen in the attempt, and this too, by sorcery, or witchcraft!

Stowe shall be my guide, he is an honest chronicler.

"Then, said the Protector, ye shall see in what wise
that sorceress, the Queen, and that other witch of her
council, Shore's wife, with their affinity, have by their
sorcery and witchcraft wasted my body: and there-
with he plucked up his doubled sleeve to his elbow
upon his left arm,--where he showed a wirish wi-
thered arm, and small, as it was never other," or as
Shakespeare expressed it.

"Gloucester. Then be your eyes the witness of their evil,
Look how I am bewitch'd; behold, mine arm
Is, like a blasted sapling, wither'd up:
And this is Edward's wife, that monstrous witch,
Consorted with that harlot, strumpet Shore,
That by their witchcraft thus have marked me."

Act iii. Sc. iv.

"And thereupon every man's mind sore misgave them, well perceiving that this matter was but a quarrel for they well wist (knew) that the Queen was too wise to go about any such folly: and also if she would, yet would she of all folk least make Shore's wife of council, whom of all "women she most hated, as that concubine, whom the king, her husband, had most loved. And also no man there present, but well knew that his arm was ever since his birth such." Struck with surprise, Hastings answered and said; Certainly, my lord, if they have so heinously done, they be worthy heinous punishment."

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night last past next before his death. So that it was the less marvel, if ungracious living brought him to an unhappy ending." This was strong language to be published two hours only, after Hastings' death. It came the worse from a Prince stained with so many crimes, and of almost every description.

Lord Orford triumphs, as he supposes, over Sir Thomas More in thinking that Jane did not cohabit with Hastings, but with the Marquis of Dorset, of the latter I shall also notice hereafter. Now I shall confine myself to Jane's connexion with Hastings.

Sir Thomas More and his followers say that Hastings, the Lord Chamberlain, "from the death of King Edward kept Shore's wife, on whom he somewhat doated in the King's life, saving, as it is said, he did that while forbear her, out of reverence toward the king, or else of a certain kind of fidelity to his friend.* The time since the death of the late King was a little time indeed, but Jane was not his widow, and concubines are seldom very delicate. We see that Richard accuses him roundly in his proclamation of sleeping with her, and even on the preceding night. It is true the king was so lost, not only to all sense of truth and honesty, as well as mercy, but even to probability, even to possibility, that no reliance can be placed upon this, his proclamation, to establish a fact—we will leave it at present.

Ruthless as Jane knew the Protector to be, she would immediately guess, after her accusation and Hastings's destruction, that ruin awaited her. We have seen the detestable conduct of Shaw, the Lord Mayor of London. The Sheriffs, William White and John Matthew, were equally the minions of Gloucester's wickedness. These men, by the Duke's com

Richard answered to this, with the utmost vehemence, and as had been agreed, his armed men came in, seized Hastings, whom "the Protector bad speed and shrive (confess) him apace, for by St. Paul, I will not to dinner, till I see thy head off;" and without any trial, he was led forth" into the green, beside the chapel, within the tower, and his head laid upon a long log of timber, and there stricken off, and after-mand, went to Jane's house, for she lived, it appears, ward his body with the head was interred at Windsor, beside the body of King Edward."

Every one must indeed sincerely have pitied this able, and valiant nobleman; had he not delivered up the Queen's relations to Richard; who were beheaded at Pontefract on the same day as Hastings had died by violence in the Tower.

No sooner was Hastings decapitated, than in the afternoon was published a Proclamation, already drawn up, against this Peer, accusing him of evil council to the late King, and Richard's father, a preposterous charge, adding the ill example he had given, "as well in many other things, as in vicious living, and inordinate abusion [abuse] of his body, both with many other, and also, especially, with Shore's wife, which was one also of his most secret council of this heinous treason, with whom he lay nightly, and namely the

neither with her husband, nor Lord Hastings, nor any one else, but in her own house, and deprived her of the whole of her property, consisting of money, jewels, household furniture, &c. amounting to the value of three thousand marks, a sum now equal to about £20,000. This seizure, we are told, Richard did not so much make from avarice as from anger. Sir Thomas More says, it was Sir Thomas Howard who seized her.

Gloucester was not one who contented himself with half measures. The plundered victim was taken by the Sheriffs and conducted to the Tower, where she underwent an examination.

* Mr. Bell (vide "Huntingdon Peerage") tells us that Hastings attempted the honour of Jane before the King took her, although she with scorn rejected him before Shore, but I doubt it.

We may suppose how rigorously she was examined | nate in his allegation that she had joined Hastings in by the council. Gloucester was her personal accuser a design to assassinate him. No proof of either could of sorceries against himself, by which his flesh was be brought. Her defence was so good, that even the wasted. The council must have had a difficulty in council, Richard's tools, could not condemn her. listening to this; the Protector was not more fortu

She was dismissed from the Tower, but no sooner had she reached her home than the Sheriffs again seized her, and put her into Ludgate, a city prison, where she remained until he could wreak his vengeance with certainty. Her advowtry was too notorious not to be proved. She had been the royal concubine, and she was accused of having been that also of Hastings! Dr. Thomas Kempe, Bishop of London, who sat from 1449 to 1489, was applied to, and was obliged to proceed against the fair offender. She was ordered to do penance. This was most rigorously

in her cheeks, of which before she had most miss,, as living in adultery with Jane Shore. It could not that her great shame won her much praise, among be before she was taken by Edward; it could not be those that were more amorous of her body than cu- during that King's life; it could not be afterward, rious of her soul. And many good folks also that by Richard's own account, for by his proclamation hated her living, and glad were to see sin corrected, she then was the mistress of Hastings to the night yet pitied they more her penance than rejoiced thereat, preceding his being put to death. It could not be when they considered that the Protector procured it after that catastrophe, for ever after then Richard more of a corrupt intent than any virtuous intention." kept her either in the Tower or in Ludgate, a close The penance so far from raising Gloucester, really prisoner. Now what becomes of Lord Orford's supexalted the person meant to be abased. It is proposed triumph? Beside, from the time of the seizure bable that she was truly penitent.

No date is given of this penance, but I am apt to believe it soon followed her commitment.-The bloody farce ended June 22nd, when Richard gained his object by being proclaimed king. The event must have been grievous every way to the unfortunate Jane, whom the tyrant did not set free, though neither sorcery nor witchcraft could be substantiated, nor treason nor conspiracy; and though she had submitted with humility to the censures of the church. It is evident that Richard kept her still in Ludgate.

She now had reason to lament leaving her proper protector, and husband, Mr. Shore, whom probably about this time she lost,-and, much to her credit, she wished to leave a life of irregularity for domestic happiness. I can give no account of Mr. Shore after she left him, only that he retired from London, but I think I have somewhere read that he went upon the Continent, probably to Flanders.

Before I speak of her intended re-marriage, I must give an extract from a proclamation of Richard's, dated at Leicester, in October, 1483, in which he offers a reward of one thousand marks in money, or one hundred marks a-year in land, if any one would take Thomas, late Marquis of Dorset," who "not having the fear of God nor the salvation of his own soul before his eyes, has damnably debauched and defiled many maids, widows, and wives, and lived in actual adultery with the wife of Shore." [Rymer's Fœdera, tom. xii. p. 204.] Poor Jane seems the butt of all Richard's malice. Lord Orford thinks Hastings did not, but that Dorset did, keep Jane, perhaps neither of them did. He who slandered the late Monarch his brother, and in doing it, (as well as in other respects,) even spared not his own mother, could have little delicacy about a royal concubine.

Thomas Grey, Marquis of Dorset, K. G. was son of Elizabeth, the Queen of Edward IV. by her former husband, and hence so obnoxious to Richard III. To throw a particular odium upon him, he is represented

The Ballad says he went abroad.

of Edward V. where was Dorset? Not in dalliance with Jane, but in concealment from the power of Richard, as well when Protector as King. Happily he effected his escape to the continent, saw Henry VII. upon the throne, and married his half-sister. This accusation against Dorset and Jane is one of the many gross and infamous untruths of Richard. Contemporaries give Jane as the mistress of Hastings, but whether only upon Richard's accusation or not, I do not know; if it rested upon him only, or originated in him, I should pay little regard to it. Sir Thomas evidently believed it, and I think he is good authority, but as to Dorset's keeping Jane it appears impossible. The allegation is meant to throw a peculiar odium upon them, as being an incestuous connexion; as living in concubinage with the mistress of his father-in-law, Dorset standing in that predicament, as being Edward IV.'s son-in-law, from Edward having married his father's widow.

As I have thus, I believe, cleared Jane from one foul accusation, I hasten to shew that she intended to re-marry, and with a person of no less consequence than Thomas Lynom, the solicitor of Richard, a pretty evident proof that Jane was pitied and respected for her then chaste behaviour; for there could be no inducement of money or interest in the case.

Did the king rejoice in Jane's wish to live as a matron? Oh no! He was too righteous a master to permit his servant and solicitor to marry Mrs. Jane Shore. In Lord Hardwicke's "State Papers" is a copy of a document preserved in the Harleian Library, which I here transcribe:

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"BY THE KING.

"Right Reverend Father in God, &c., signifying unto you, that it is shewed unto us, that our servant and sollicitor, Thomas Lynom, marvellously blinded and abused with the late wife of William Shore, now being in Ludgate by our commandment, hath made contract of matrimony with her, as it is said, and intendeth to our full great marvel, to proceed to effect the same. We, for many causes, would be sorry that