RICHARD THE THIRD.

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the regency by the Queen's ill-grounded apprehensions, and the necessity of the Duke of York walking in procession at the coronation of his brother. He further insisted, that ecclesiastical privileges were originally intended only to give protection to persons persecuted for their crimes or debts, and could therefore in no way apply to one of tender years, who, having committed no offence, had no right to claim security from any sanctuary. There were present at the council-table Cardinal Bourchier, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Rotherham, Archbishop of York, who boldly protested against the sacrilege of the measure. The church of Westminster, to which the Sanctuary was attached, said the Archbishops, had been consecrated five hundred years since by St. Peter himself, who descended from heaven in the night, attended by multitudes of angels. No King of England, they added, had ever dared to violate that Sanctuary, and such an attempt would certainly draw down the just vengeance of God upon the whole kingdom. It was at length agreed that the two primates should wait on the Queen in the Sanctuary, and should first of all endeavour to bring the Queen to compliance by persuasion, before any more violent measures were resorted to. The scene between Gloucester's creature, the Duke of Buckingham, and Cardinal Bourchier, is admirably dramatized by Shakspeare:

Buck.

Lord Cardinal, will your grace
Persuade the Queen to send the Duke of York,
Unto his princely brother presently?

If she deny-Lord Hastings go with him,

And from her jealous arms pluck him perforce.
Card. My Lord of Buckingham, if my weak oratory
Can from his mother win the Duke of York,
Anon expect him here: but if she be obdurate
To mild entreaties, God in heaven forbid
We should infringe the holy privilege
Of blessed sanctuary! not for all this land
Would I be guilty of so deep a sin.

Buck. You are too senseless-obstinate, my Lord,
Too ceremonious, and traditional :

Weigh it, but with the grossness of this age,
You break not sanctuary in seizing him.
The benefit thereof is always granted

To those whose dealings have deserved the place,
And those who have the wit to claim the place:
This prince hath neither claimed it, nor deserved it;
And therefore, in mine opinion, cannot have it:
Then, taking him from thence, that is not there,
You break no privilege nor charter there.

Oft have I heard of Sanctuary men;

But Sanctuary children ne'er till now.

Card. My Lord, you shall o'errule my mind for once,
Come on, Lord Hastings, will you go with me?

Hast. I go, my Lord.

There can be little doubt, from their established character for integrity, that when Cardinal Bourchier and the Archbishop of York waited on the unfortunate Queen, in the Sanctuary, they were both fully satisfied of Gloucester's good intentions, and consequently were quite sincere when they used every argument and entreaty to induce her to give up her beloved child. She remained for a long time obstinate, but finding herself unsupported in her opposition, and being assured that force would in all probability be used should she persist in her ob

duracy, she at last complied, and produced her son to the two prelates. At the moment of parting, she is said to have been struck with a strange presentiment of his future fate. But it was now too late to retract. Overcome with feelings which only a mother can experience, she caught the child in her arms, wetted him with her tears, and at last reluctantly delivered him to the Cardinal, who immediately conducted him to the Protector. Richard, we are told, no sooner caught a sight of his young nephew, than he ran towards him with open arms, and kissing him, exclaimed,—“Now welcome, my Lord, with all my heart." The sequel of the melancholy history is too well known to require recapitulation.

The neighbourhood of the Sanctuary is intimately connected with the early, as well as with the closing history of Ben Jonson. When a scholar at Westminster School, he must in its precincts,-in a house garet's church-yard, he died, ing Abbey he lies buried.

often have wandered overlooking St. Marand in the neighbour"Long since, in King

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James's time," writes Aubrey, "I have heard my uncle Danvers say, who knew him, that Ben Jonson lived without Temple Bar, at a comb-maker's shop, about the Elephant and Castle. In his later time he lived in Westminster, in the house under which you pass as you go out of the church-yard into the old palace, where he died. He lies buried in the north aisle, in the path of square stone, (the rest is lozenge) opposite to the scutcheon of Robertus de

Ros, with this inscription only upon him, in a pavement-square, blue marble, about fourteen inches square, O RARE BEN JONSON, which was done at the charge of Jack Young, (afterwards knighted,) who, walking there when the grave was covering, gave the fellow eighteenpence to cut it." * In 1780, I find the celebrated Edmund Burke residing in the "Broad Sanctuary," Westminster.

At the end of Tothill Street, facing the towers and the great western entrance of the Abbey, stood the famous Gatehouse, built in the reign of Edward the Third, anciently a prison under the jurisdiction of the Abbots of Westminster. Formerly, when malefactors were conducted to this prison,in order to prevent their touching the Sanctuary, which would have ensured them their liberty, they were brought by a circuitous route down a small lane, running parallel with Great George Street, which, from this circumstance, obtained the name of Thieving Lane. It was in the Gatehouse, Westminster, that one of the sweetest of love-poets, Richard Lovelace, so celebrated for his misfortunes and the beauty of his person,-suffered imprisonment for his loyalty to his unfortunate master, Charles the First. Here it was, too, that he composed his beautiful song, "To Althea, from prison." When Love, with unconfined wings,

Hovers within my gates,
And my divine Althea brings

To whisper at my grates;

* Aubrey's "Letters of Eminent Men."

In the Gatehouse, Westminster, died the celebrated dwarf, Sir Jeffery Hudson, whose name is immortalized in the pages of the greatest writer of fiction in modern times. He was born in 1619, at Oakham, in Rutlandshire, "the least man, in the least county." When in his tenth year, he was presented to the Duchess of Buckingham, by his father, a tall and broad-shouldered yeoman, who had charge of the "baiting-bulls" of George Villiers, the first Duke. The Duchess had him dressed in satin, with two tall footmen to attend on him; and it was not long afterwards, when Charles the First and Henrietta Maria paid a visit to the Duke and Duchess, at Burghley-on-the-hill, that the little fellow was served up to their majesties under the crust of a cold pie. Immediately on his stepping out, he was presented by the Duchess to the Queen, in whose service he ever afterwards remained, and was twice painted in attendance on her by Vandyke. At the breaking out of the Civil Wars, he obtained a commission as Captain of horse, and subsequently