one of Lord Warwick's daughters; and this is the general belief.
Carte plainly declares it was Isabel. But Isabel it could hardly have
been. She was then married to Edward's brother, the Duke of Clarence,
and within a month of her confinement. The earl had only one other
daughter, Anne, then in the flower of her youth; and though Isabel
appears to have possessed a more striking character of beauty, Anne
must have had no inconsiderable charms to have won the love of the
Lancastrian Prince Edward, and to have inspired a tender and human
affection in Richard Duke of Gloucester. [Not only does Majerus, the
Flemish annalist, speak of Richard's early affection to Anne, but
Richard's pertinacity in marrying her, at a time when her family was
crushed and fallen, seems to sanction the assertion. True, that
Richard received with her a considerable portion of the estates of her
parents. But both Anne herself and her parents were attainted, and
the whole property at the disposal of the Crown. Richard at that time
had conferred the most important services on Edward. He had remained
faithful to him during the rebellion of Clarence; he had been the hero
of the day both at Barnet and Tewksbury. His reputation was then
exceedingly high, and if he had demanded, as a legitimate reward, the
lands of Middleham, without the bride, Edward could not well have
refused them. He certainly had a much better claim than the only
other competitor for the confiscated estates,--namely, the perjured
and despicable Clarence. For Anne's reluctance to marry Richard, and
the disguise she assumed, see Miss Strickland's "Life of Anne of
Warwick." For the honour of Anne, rather than of Richard, to whose
memory one crime more or less matters but little, it may here be
observed that so far from there being any ground to suppose that
Gloucester was an accomplice in the assassination of the young prince
Edward of Lancaster, there is some ground to believe that that prince
was not assassinated at all, but died (as we would fain hope the