the noisy citizens who had been suborned for the occasion, who vociferously called upon him to assume the crown. Here again Shakespeare has thrown an undying interest over the site of Baynard Castle. Richard, with great apparent reluctance, presents himself at a gallery above, supported by a bishop on each side of him :

Glouc. Alas! why should you heap those cares on me?
I am unfit for state and majesty:
:-

I do beseech you take it not amiss;

I cannot, nor I will not yield to you.

Buck. If you refuse it,-as in love and zeal

Loath to depose the child, your brother's son ;

As well we know your tenderness of heart,
And gentle, kind, effeminate remorse,
Which we have noted in you to your kindred,
And equally, indeed, to all estates,—

Yet know, whether you accept our suit or no,
Your brother's son shall never reign our king;
But we will plant some other in your throne,
To the disgrace and downfal of your house;
And, in this resolution, here we leave you:
Come, citizens, we will entreat no more.

[Exeunt Buckingham and Citizens.

Catesby. Call them again, sweet prince; accept their suit;
If you deny them, all the land will rue it.

Glouc. Will you enforce me to a world of cares?
Well, call them again; I am not made of stone;
But penetrable to your kind entreaties,
Albeit against my conscience and my soul.

[Exit Catesby.

[Re-enter Buckingham and the rest.
Cousin of Buckingham,-and sage grave men,-
Since you will buckle fortune on my back,
To bear the burden, whether I will or no,-
I must have patience to endure the load;
And if black scandal, or foul-faced reproach,
Attend the sequel of your imposition,

Your mere enforcement shall acquittance me
From all the impure blots and stains thereof;
For God, he knows, and you may partly see,

How far I am from the desire of this.

Mayor. God bless your grace! we see it, and will say it.
Glouc. In saying so, you shall but say the truth.

Buck. Then I salute you, with this royal title,-
Long live King Richard, England's worthy king!

King Richard III, act iii. scene 7.

Henry the Seventh frequently resided in Baynard Castle after his accession to the throne; indeed, he seems to have been extremely partial to the spot, for we find him, in 1501, almost entirely rebuilding it; "not embattled, nor so strongly fortified, castle-like, but far more beautiful and commodious, for the entertainment of any prince or great estate.” Here he received the ambassadors from the King of the Romans, and here he lodged Philip of Austria, during his visit to this country.

Shortly after the marriage of Prince Henry, afterwards Henry the Eighth, with Catherine of Arragon, we find them conducted by water in great state from Baynard Castle to the royal palace at Westminster. "The Mayor and Commonalty of London," says Hall, "in barges garnished with standards, streamers, and penons of their device, gave them their attendance and there, in the palace, were such martial feats, such valiant jousts, such vigorous tourneys, such fierce fight at the barriers, as before that time was of no man had in remembrance. Of this royal triumph, Lord Edward, Duke of Buckingham, was chief challenger,

and Lord Thomas Grey, Marquis of Dorset, was chief defender; which, with their aids and companions, bare themselves so valiantly, that they obtained great laud and honour."

In the reign of Edward the Sixth, Baynard Castle became the residence of Sir William Sydney, Chamberlain to the youthful monarch. In the same reign, it passed into the hands of William Herbert, first Earl of Pembroke, who lived here in a style of extraordinary magnificence. He was residing in Baynard Castle at the time of King Edward's death, on which occasion, notwithstanding the proverbial wariness of his character, he was induced to sign the famous document acknowledging the claims of Lady Jane Grey. He soon, however, repented of the step which he had taken, and was one of the first to leave the beautiful and accomplished maiden to her melancholy fate, and to proclaim his legitimate sovereign, Queen Mary. Active in his loyalty, as he had been in his treason, he assembled the partizans of royalty under his roof in Baynard Castle, and it was from under its portal that they sallied forth to proclaim the title of Queen Mary to the throne. It was as a reward for his conduct on this occasion, that the courtiers of the Common Council agreed, at the request of the Earl of Pembroke, that "the city's laystall,* adjoining to his

* A receptacle for all kinds of filth. Spencer has it :-
Scarce could he footing find in that foul way,

For many corses, like a great lay-stall
Of murdered men, which therein strewed lay.

Lordship's house, being noisome to the same, should be removed, upon condition that he should give the city, towards the making of a new laystall in another place, two thousand feet of hard stone to make the vault and wharf thereof, or else forty marks in ready money to buy the same stone withal."

The Earl figured in all the Court pageants of the time. He was selected to wait on King Philip on his landing at Portsmouth; was present at his marriage with Queen Mary at Winchester, in 1564; and three months afterwards, on the occasion of the assembling of the first Parliament under the new King and Queen, he entered London, and proceeded to his mansion of Baynard Castle, followed by "a retinue of two thousand horsemen in velvet coats, with three laces of gold and gold chains, besides sixty gentlemen in blue coats, with his badge of the green dragon." The Earl survived to figure at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth, who appointed him her Master of the Horse, and on one occasion did him the honour to sup with him at Baynard Castle. At ten o'clock at night, after having partaken of a sumptuous entertainment, he handed his royal mistress by torchlight to the river-side, where she entered her statebarge to the sound of music, and amidst the blaze of fireworks; and thus returned to Whitehall, surrounded by a swarm of attendant boats, and cheered by the acclamations of the loyal citizens of London.

The successor of Earl William in the occupancy of Baynard Castle, was his son Henry, the second Earl, who resided here with his Countess,

"Sydney's sister, Pembroke's mother." Here also resided their accomplished and high-minded son, William the third Earl, who united wit and gallantry with integrity and the most refined taste,

- the most courtly breeding, with the kindest nature. The death of Earl William took place in Baynard Castle, on the 10th of April, 1630, and was attended by some rather remarkable circumstances. It had been foretold by his tutor, Sandford, and also by the mad prophetess, Lady Davies, whose predictions caused Archbishop Laud so much discomfort, that he either would not complete, or would die on the anniversary of, his fiftieth birthday. That these predictions were actually fulfilled, appears by the following curious passage in Lord Clarendon's "History of the Rebellion." "A short story may not be unfitly inserted; it being frequently mentioned by a person of known integrity, who, at that time, being on his way to London, met at Maidenhead some persons of quality,-of relation or dependence upon the Earl of Pembroke. At supper one of them drank a health to the Lord Steward; upon which another of them said, that he believed his lord was at that time very merry, for he had now outlived the day which his tutor Sandford had prognosticated upon his nativity that he would not outlive; but he had done it now, for that was his birth-day, which had completed his age to fifty