HISTORY OF KING RICHARD III. KING EDWARD, of that name the Fourth, after that he had lived fifty and three years 7 months and 6 days, and thereof reigned 22 years 1 month and 8 days, died at Westminster the 9th day of April the year of our redemption 1483, leaving much fair issue. That is, to-wit, Edward the prince, at 13 years of age; Richard duke of York, 2 years younger; Elizabeth, whose fortune and grace was afterward to be queen, wife unto King Henry VII, and mother unto the VIII; Cecily, not so fortunate as fair; Brigette, who representing the virtue of her whose name she bare, professed and observed a religious life in Dertforde, an house of close nuns; Ann, who was afterward honourably married unto Thomas then Lord Howard and afterward earl of Surry; and Catharine, who long time tossed in either fortune, sometimes in wealth, oft in adversity, at the last (if this be the last, for yet she liveth), is by the benignity of her nephew King Henry VIII, in very prosperous estate, and worthy her birth and virtue. This noble prince deceased at his palace of Westminster, and with great funeral honour and heaviness of his people from thence conveyed, was interred at Windsor. A king of such governance and behaviour in time of peace (for in war each part must needs be others enemy), that there was never any prince of this land, attaining the crown by battle, so heartily beloved with the substance of the people; nor he himself so specially in any part of his life, as at the time of his death. Which favour and affection yet after his decease, by the cruelty, mischief, and trouble of the tempestuous world that followed, highly toward him more increased. At such time as he died, the displeasure of those that bare him grudge for King Henry VI sake, whom he deposed, was well assuaged and in effect quenched, in that that many of them were dead in more than 20 years of his reign, a great part of a long life; and many of them in the mean season grown into his favour, of which he was never strange. He was a goodly personage and very princely to behold, of heart courageous, politic in counsel, in adversity nothing abashed, in prosperity rather joyful than proud, in peace just and merciful, in war sharp and fierce, in the field bold and hardy, and nevertheless no farther than wisdom would adventurous. Whose wars whoso well consider, he shall no less commend his wisdom where he voided, than his manhood where he vanquished. He was of visage lovely, of body mighty, strong and clean made; howbeit in his latter days with over-liberal diet, somewhat corpulent and |
