Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/562

Rh 542 K I C H A R D the religious, the political, or the social point of view, is one of very great importance, and its history has as yet been by no means fully elucidated. Chief Authorities. Knighton, De Eventibus Angliae, ed. Twysden in the Deeem Scriptores, 1652 ; Walsinghain, Historia Anglicana, ed. Riley (Rolls Series) ; Adam de Usk, Chronicon, ed. Thompson, 1876 ; Chronicon Anglise, by a monk of St Albans, ed. Thompson (Rolls Series) ; Historia Vitx et Rcgni Ricardi II. , by a monk of Evesham, ed. Hearne, 1729 ; Cronicque de la traison ct mort de Richart deux, &c., ed. Williams (Engl. Hist. Society); Histoire du Roi d'Angletcrre Richard, ed. Webb, in Archeeol. Brit., vol. xx. ; Froissart, Chronicles ; Stubbs, Constitutional History, vol. ii. ; Pauli, Geschichte von England, vol. iv. (G. W. P.) RICHARD III. (1452-1485), king of England, third son of Richard, duke of York, and Cicely Nevil, was born at Fotheringay on October 2, 1452. Having been sent out of England for safety on the death of his father in 1460, he was recalled next year by his brother Edward IV., who created him duke of Gloucester and appointed him lord high admiral. He remained faithful to his brother during the latter's reign, sharing in his flight in 1470, and aiding him on his return in the victories of Barnet and Tewkesbury. In 1474 he married Anne, daughter of the earl of Warwick and widow of Prince Edward. In 1482 he led an army into Scotland to aid the duke of Albany against James III., occupied Edin- burgh and captured Berwick. On the death of Edward IV. (April 9, 1483) Richard at once made himself master of the situation by seizing Prince Edward, his nephew. Having assumed the title of Protector, he rapidly deve- loped his plans for securing the crown. Under the pre- text of a plot against his life, he seized and beheaded Hastings, Grey, and others (June 13), forced the queen mother to give up her younger son Richard, and, on June 26, 1483, assumed the crown. The children of Edward IV. were set aside on the plea that their father was illegitimate. On July 6 Richard was crowned king. Shortly afterwards it was publicly reported that the sons of Edward IV. were dead; their actual fate is to the present day unknown. In October 1483 the rebellion of the duke of Buckingham was put down ; the duke himself was executed on November 2. A parliament which met in January 1484 acknowledged Richard as king, in return for which he assented to an Act abolishing benevolences. His only legitimate son, Edward, died on April 9, 1484, and in March 1485 the boy was followed by his mother. To strengthen his position Richard had made treaties with Scotland and Brittany (1484), and he now proposed to marry his niece Elizabeth. From this course, however, he was dissuaded. His short reign was mainly occupied in preparing to resist the invasion of Henry of Richmond. Unable to prevent Henry's landing (August 7, 1485), Richard met his rival in battle at Bosworth (August 22), and at the same moment lost his crown and his life. Tradition is divided as to Richard's personal appear- ance, and the story of his deformity is possibly derived from Lancastrian malignity and from a misunderstanding of his nickname Crouchback. His courage, energy, and ability would have made a great and honoured name had not those qualities been matched by extreme ferocity and unscrupulousness, and perverted to an evil use by the tur- bulenfce of the time and his own nearness to the throne. Chief Authorities. Fabyan, Concordance of Histories, ed. Ellis, T811 ; Historia Croylandensis, ed. Fell, Quinque Scriptores, 1687 ; Ross, Historia Regum Anglise ; Fasten Letters, ed. Gairdner, 1875 ; Letters and Papers illustrative of the reigns of Richard III. and Henry VII., ed. Gairdner (Rolls Series) ; Sir T. More, Histories of Edward V. and Richard III., 1556; H. Walpole, Historic Doubts on Richard III., 1768 ; Gairdner, Life and Reign of Richard III., 1878. ( G . W . P.) RICHARD, earl of Cornwall and king of the Romans (1209-1272), second son of John, king of England, and Isabella, was born at Winchester, January 5, 1209. In 1225 he undertook the government of Gascony. In 1240 he went on a crusade, returning in 1241, after concluding a treaty with the sultan of Egypt. In 1242 he accompanied his brother on his unsuccessful expedition to Poitou. In 1244 and 1246 we find him heading the parliamentary opposition against Henry III., and a few years afterwards he befriended Simon de Montfort against his accusers. When Henry went to France in 1253, Richard, together with the queen, acted as regent. He had already (1252) declined the pope's offer of the kingdom of Sicily, but in January 1257 he was elected emperor by a majority of the electors, and soon afterwards was crowned at Aix-la-Chapelle. In 1259 he returned to England and swore to observe the Provisions of Oxford. Next year he acted as peace- maker between Henry and the barons, and, after spend- ing another year in Germany, he returned to England in 1263. It was largely owing to his mediation that the two parties submitted to the arbitration of Louis IX., but on the renewal of the civil war he took his brother's side. Taken prisoner at the battle of Lewes, he was kept in confinement by De Montfort for a year, but released after the battle of Evesham. One of his last known acts was his mediation between the earl of Gloucester and the king. In 1269 he went to Germany again for a short time, and returned to England to die at Kirkham in 1272. He was thrice married (1) to Isabella, sister of the earl of Pembroke ; (2) to Sancia, daughter of Raymond, count of Provence ; (3) to Beatrice of Falkenstein. For authorities, see under Henry III. (G. W. P.) RICHARD, duke of Normandy. See NORMANDY, vol. xvii. p. 541 sq. RICHARD OP BURY. See ATTNGERVYLE, RICHARD. RICHARD OF CIRENCESTER (1335-1401), historical writer, was a member of the Benedictine abbey at West- minster, and his name (" Circestre ") first appears on the chamberlain's list of the monks of that foundation drawn up in the year 1355. In the year 1391 he obtained a licence from the abbot to go to Rome, his design being to visit limina Apostolorum, and in this licence the abbot gives his testimony to Richard's perfect and sincere ob- servance of religion for upwards of thirty years. In 1400 Richard was in the infirmary of the abbey, where his death took place in the following year. His only known extant work is Speculum Historiale de Gestis Regum Anglise, 44^-1066. The manuscript of this is in the university library at Cambridge, and has been edited for the Master of the Rolls by Professor John E. B. Mayor (2 vols., 1863-1869). It is in four books, and at the con- clusion of the fourth book Richard expresses his intention of continuing his narrative from the accession of William I., and incorporating a sketch of the Conqueror's career from his birth. This design he does not, however, appear to have carried into effect. The value of the Speculum as a contribution to our historical knowledge is but slight, for it is mainly a compilation from Rodger Wendover, Geoffrey of Monmouth, William of Malmesbury, Florence, Asser, Henry of Huntingdon, and other writers; while even in transcribing these the compiler is guilty of great carelessness. He gives, however, numerous charters relat- ing to Westminster Abbey, and also a very complete account of the saints whose tombs were in the abbey church, and especially of Edward the Confessor, with whose reign the fourth book is entirely occupied. The work was, notwithstanding, largely used by historians and antiquaries, until, with the rise of a more critical spirit, its value became more accurately estimated. Besides the Speculum Richard also wrote, according to the statement of William Woodford in his Answer to Wickliffe (Brown, Fasciculus Rerum expetendarum, p. 193), a treatise De Officiis ; and there was formerly in the cathedral library