grandson of Henry V. did die) fighting manfully in the field.--
"Harleian Manuscripts;" Stowe, "Chronicle of Tewksbury;" Sharon
Turner, vol. iii. p. 335.] It is also noticeable, that when, not as
Shakspeare represents, but after long solicitation, and apparently by
positive coercion, Anne formed her second marriage, she seems to have
been kept carefully by Richard from his gay brother's court, and
rarely, if ever, to have appeared in London till Edward was no more.

That considerable obscurity should always rest upon the facts
connected with Edward's meditated crime,--that they should never be
published amongst the grievances of the haughty rebel is natural from
the very dignity of the parties, and the character of the offence;
that in such obscurity sober History should not venture too far on the
hypothesis suggested by the chronicler, is right and laudable. But
probably it will be conceded by all, that here Fiction finds its
lawful province, and that it may reasonably help, by no improbable nor
groundless conjecture, to render connected and clear the most broken
and the darkest fragments of our annals.

I have judged it better partially to forestall the interest of the
reader in my narrative, by stating thus openly what he may expect,
than to encounter the far less favourable impression (if he had been
hitherto a believer in the old romance of Bona of Savoy), [I say the
old romance of Bona of Savoy, so far as Edward's rejection of her hand
for that of Elizabeth Gray is stated to have made the cause of his
quarrel with Warwick. But I do not deny the possibility that such a
marriage had been contemplated and advised by Warwick, though he
neither sought to negotiate it, nor was wronged by Edward's preference
of his fair subject.] that the author was taking an unwarrantable
liberty with the real facts, when, in truth, it is upon the real