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HE annals of Leicester do not contain any story more curious and interesting than that of the fateful visit paid to the Blue Boar Inn by King Richard the Third, two days before his death, and the legacy of woe which that disastrous event is said to have bequeathed to a future generation. The tale, which is partly true, and partly shrouded in mystery, has something of the sombre fatalism of a Greek Tragedy. Indeed it has not wholly escaped the dramatist, for, on December 4th, 1837, a year after the destruction of the Blue Boar Inn, a play called "Black Anna's Bower, or the Maniac of the Dane Hills," was performed at the Leicester Theatre. The plot of this drama turned upon the murder of Mrs. Clarke, hereinafter related, and Black Anna, who is a local spirit of evil repute, played a part therein somewhat like that of the Three Witches in Macbeth. The story falls naturally into four episodes:—I. The King's Visit. II. The King's Fate. III. The Treasure in the Bedstead; and IV. The Murder.

On Saturday, August the 20th, 1485, as we may conclude from the available evidence, King Richard III left Nottingham 177