But others tell us that she was a native of London, and amongst these Stowe, also a citizen by birth; yet this indefatigable chronicler does not notice her parents' names. I see indeed that Sir Thomas also says she was born in London. She was, he adds, 66 worshipfully friended, honestly brought up, and very well married, saving somewhat too soon; her husband was an honest citizen, young and goodly, and of good substance."

The husband is called in Churchyard's Ballad, intituled "Shore's wife," only by his surname. In the poem of Jane Shore, given in Dr. Percy, Bishop of Dromore's Ancient English Poetry, or as his Lordship styles the volumes, "Reliques" of such, Master Shore is called Matthew, but poets are poor authority for history, or biography; these rude productions are not true things, but as contrary to fact as Rowe's play, of the "Tragedy" of Jane Shore. In Richard III.'s Letter to the Bishop of Lincoln, which will be given hereafter, the baptismal name of the husband is called William. Such no doubt it was.

He was by trade a goldsmith, then the first in opulence: the goldsmiths were bankers, and even to the sovereign. The last family of goldsmith-bankers to our Kings, were the Childs, afterwards ennobled, possessing an earldom. Whether Mr. Shore was Edward IV.'s banker does not appear, but he was a man well known, and esteemed in the city, and at a time too, when even royalty courted, by every mean, the good will of London. The King had raised some of the corporation to conspicuous honours, some he had knighted in the field, and to four of them, he had given the order of the Bath.

The surname of Shore is well known in many parts of the kingdom. The Shore family in the period we are now writing of were very opulent. I do not see the name in the magistracy of the city, previous to Mr. Shore's time, but it was soon after, for Richard Shore was Alderman of London, in 1505; and, no doubt, he was related, perhaps nearly so, to Jane's husband, who resided, says the poem, in Lombard-street; this is most probable: it was then, as now, the Banking street, so called from the Lombards, the Italians who first succeeded the Jews in this calling.

We are not told (except in fictitious legends), how the King knew of her beauty, or when, or where he first saw her; but an eminent goldsmith in London must, for the reasons already given, be well known, even to the Court; and his beautiful bride would not escape notice, where all was love and gaiety.

Crime admits of no excuse. Jane ought to have known, as she did know, that she had nothing "to do with Kings and Courts," and whether Mrs. Blague, the Alicia of Rowe's Play, urged her or not, duty demanded that she should have been true and chaste.

Edward IV. her sovereign, who solicited her to quit the nuptial bed was, if not wise in the Cabinet, an Hero in the Field, he had won, personally won, nine pitched battles. Women love valour. He was young, in the full strength of his manhood: the most gallant of Princes, and in person beautifully formed, and graceful; his face every thing that even female fancy could form. Not to trust to our own writers, who all, however, agree in this, hear what the eloquent, and faithful Philip de Comines, who personally knew Edward, says, King Edward was not a Man of any great Management or Foresight, but of an invincible courage, and the most beautiful Prince my eyes ever beheld.' "His thoughts were wholly employed upon the Ladies, Hunting and Dressing. In his Summer-hunting his custom was to have Tents set up for the Ladies, where he treated them after a splendid and magnificent manner, and indeed his Humour and Person were as well turned for love-intrigues as any Prince I ever saw in my life: for he was young, and the most beautiful Man of his Time." This was written of him in 1470, when he was twenty-nine years of age, his Majesty being born in 1441. The year 1470 was a most memorable one in this King's life, for he was driven from his kingdom by the Earl of Warwick, the King-maker. Saw his rival Henry VI., restored: returned, killed Warwick in battle, deposed again the weak, unfortunate Henry, and regained the throne-all this happened within a few months.

The time when Jane went from Lombard-street, to Westminster does not appear, but I presume it was immediately before, or after 1470, I think the latter. Be this as it may, "the respect of his," Edward's

one of the royal concubines.

"When the King had abused her, anon her husband, as he was an honest man, not presuming to touch a King's concubine, left her up to him altogether."

Now let us view her in the glare of a resplendent Court. She," yet delighted not men, so much in her beauty, as in her pleasant behaviour, for a proper wit she had, and could read well, and write," which few of the highest Ladies then could. "Merry in company, ready and quick of answer, neither mute nor full of babble, sometimes taunting without displeasure, and not without disport: in whom King Edward took special pleasure, whose favour, to say the truth, for sin it were to belie the Devil, she never abused to any man's hurt, but to many a man's comfort and relief: when the King

took displeasure, she would mitigate and appease his mind; where men were out of favour, she would bring them in his grace; for many that highly offended she obtained pardon. Of great forfeitures she gat them remittance. And finally, in many weighty suits, she stood many men in great stead; either for none, or very small rewards, and those rather gay than rich; either for that she was content with the deed itself, well done; or that she delighted to be sued unto, and to shew what she was able to do with the King; or for that wanton women and wealthy be not always covetous." This commendation has never been controvened by any one. She still is remembered, as the gentle Mrs. Jane Shore.

to any place, but (except), it were to his bed. The other two were somewhat greater personages, and nevertheless of their humility content to be nameless,

and to forbear the praise of those properties. But the merriest was this Shore's wife, in whom the King, therefore, took special pleasure. For many he had, but her he loved." Who can wonder at the royal Libertine's preference. She was the Nell Gwynne of his Court, but she had this advantage of Mrs. Helen, she was well educated. She was as merry, and as void of avarice.

Such was her temper; now let us view her person. Sir Thomas More expresses himself thus: "There was nothing of her body that you would have changed, unless you would have wished her something higher." Drayton, in his poetical Epistle from Jane to her royal Lover, has notes, by which it appears that, "Her stature was mean, her hair of a dark jet, low, her face round and full, her eyes grey, delicate harmony being beween each part's proportion, and each proportion's colour; her body fat, white and smooth, her countenance cheerful, and like to her condition. The picture which I have seen of her was such as she rose out of her bed in a morning, having nothing on, but a rich mantle cast under one arm, over her shoulder, and sitting on a chair, on which her naked arm did lie." This is another trait in her history like Nell Gwynne, whom Charles had used to have painted as an undressed Venus.*

aged forty-two, after a reign of twenty-two years. In that month he was buried in St. George's chapel, at Windsor. The day is not given in our chronicles, nor in the ceremonial of the burial printed in the first volume of the Archæologia. Scarcely was the king consigned to his grave, than his ambitious, unprincipled brother Richard, Duke of Gloucester, determined to usurp the thone. The weakness and unpopularity of the Queen mother, Elizabeth, aided his criminal designs. Having seized upon the young king, Edward V. his nephew, he brought him prisoner, to London; having before sent away his faithful subjects Earl Rivers, his maternal uncle, Lord Richard Grey, his half brother, and Sir Thomas Vaughan, to Pontefract, in Yorkshire.

To carry on his design, Richard gained over the Duke of Buckingham, Sir Edward Shaw, the Lord Mayor of London, his brother, Dr. John Shaw, and Penker the provincial of the Grey Friars: the people were assembled; the conspirators acted their parts; an army was without. Buckingham to cajole and intimidate, the Lord Mayor to countenance, and the two ecclesiastics to sanction the nefarious deed. Dr. Shaw dared to preach from the text, "Bastard Plants shall take no deep root," declaring that as the late king's marriage was illegal, his issue was illegitimate. Richard, not satisfied with this, declared his own mother unchaste, though then alive, and that her eldest son was not by her husband; and, there

Edward died at Westminster, April 9th, 1482,

I remember seeing, when a young man, in an old family mansion, near Coventry, let for a kind of Vauxhall, some an

cient paintings, amongst them, on board, was a portrait in oil of her to the waist, without clothing, or ornament, except jewels in her hair, and a necklace also of jewels. It was quite like that at Eton in the Provost's lodging. There is another in the lodge of the Provost of King's College, Cambridge;

to both these Foundations, which were of Lancastrian birth,

she is supposed to have exerted her interest in their behalf to King Edward. The Duchess of Montagu had, says Granger, a lock of Jane's hair; it appeared as if it had been powdered with gold dust. Yet beautiful and lovely as was this Venus de Medici, as I may call her, from her small stature, fine face, and just proportion, yet "Her courtly behaviour, facetious conversation, and ready wit, were more attractive than her person." The portrait in Eton College is scraped by John Faber, it is large 4to; it is scarce : a MS. date was upon a copy, 1483. The Rev. Michael Tyson, Fellow of C.C.C.C. has etched that in King's College. It is coarsely done in 4to. There is a far more pleasing print of Jane, sm. 4to. engraved by F. Bartolozzi, R.A.

It is not, however, my intention to write a history of those turbulent times, but only to give what is necessary to elucidate the life of poor Jane.

On the fatal June 13th, after Gloucester had met the council in the Tower with every degree of amity, he retired, but in an hour after, between ten and eleven o'clock he returned, with all the tokens of anger and fury; when, addressing the council, he accused the Lord Chamberlain, Hastings, of plotting against him, jointly with the Queen Dowager,—though from hatred to her Majesty, he had so lately seized, and given up her brother Anthony Earl Rivers, and her son Lord Richard Grey,-but as if all kind of incongruities were to unite, Jane Shore was joined with the Queen in the attempt, and this too, by sorcery, or witchcraft!

Stowe shall be my guide, he is an honest chronicler.

"Gloucester. Then be your eyes the witness of their evil,
Look how I am bewitch'd; behold, mine arm
Is, like a blasted sapling, wither'd up:
And this is Edward's wife, that monstrous witch,
Consorted with that harlot, strumpet Shore,
That by their witchcraft thus have marked me."

Act iii. Sc. iv.

"And thereupon every man's mind sore misgave them, well perceiving that this matter was but a quarrel for they well wist (knew) that the Queen was too wise to go about any such folly and also if she would, yet would she of all folk least make Shore's wife of council, whom of all "women she most hated, as that concubine, whom the king, her husband, had most loved. And also no man there present, but well knew that his arm was ever since his birth such." Struck with surprise, Hastings answered and said; "Certainly, my lord, if they have so heinously done, they be worthy heinous punishment."

Richard answered to this, with the utmost vehemence, and as had been agreed, his armed men came in, seized Hastings, whom "the Protector bad speed and shrive (confess) him apace, for by St. Paul, I will not to dinner, till I see thy head off;" and without any trial, he was led forth" into the green, beside the chapel, within the tower, and his head laid upon a long log of timber, and there stricken off, and afterward his body with the head was interred at Windsor, beside the body of King Edward."

Every one must indeed sincerely have pitied this able, and valiant nobleman; had he not delivered up the Queen's relations to Richard; who were beheaded at Pontefract on the same day as Hastings had died by violence in the Tower.

No sooner was Hastings decapitated, than in the afternoon was published a Proclamation, already drawn up, against this Peer, accusing him of evil council to the late King, and Richard's father, a preposterous charge, adding the ill example he had given, " as well in many other things, as in vicious living, and inordinate abusion [abuse] of his body, both with many other, and also, especially, with Shore's wife, which was one also of his most secret council of this heinous treason, with whom he lay nightly, and namely the

Lord Orford triumphs, as he supposes, over Sir Thomas More in thinking that Jane did not cohabit with Hastings, but with the Marquis of Dorset, of the latter I shall also notice hereafter. Now I shall confine myself to Jane's connexion with Hastings.

Sir Thomas More and his followers say that Hastings, the Lord Chamberlain, "from the death of King Edward kept Shore's wife, on whom he somewhat doated in the King's life, saving, as it is said, he did. that while forbear her, out of reverence toward the king, or else of a certain kind of fidelity to his friend.* The time since the death of the late King was a little time indeed, but Jane was not his widow, and concubines are seldom very delicate. We see that Richard accuses him roundly in his proclamation of sleeping with her, and even on the preceding night. It is true the king was so lost, not only to all sense of truth and honesty, as well as mercy, but even to probability, even to possibility, that no reliance can be placed upon this, his proclamation, to establish a fact-we will leave it at present.

Ruthless as Jane knew the Protector to be, she would immediately guess, after her accusation and Hastings's destruction, that ruin awaited her. We have seen the detestable conduct of Shaw, the Lord Mayor of London. The Sheriffs, William White and John Matthew, were equally the minions of Gloucester's wickedness. These men, by the Duke's command, went to Jane's house, for she lived, it appears, neither with her husband, nor Lord Hastings, nor any one else, but in her own house, and deprived her of the whole of her property, consisting of money, jewels, household furniture, &c. amounting to the value of three thousand marks, a sum now equal to about £20,000. This seizure, we are told, Richard did not so much make from avarice as from anger. Sir Thomas More says, it was Sir Thomas Howard who seized her.

Gloucester was not one who contented himself with half measures. The plundered victim was taken by the Sheriffs and conducted to the Tower, where she underwent an examination.

* Mr. Bell (vide "Huntingdon Peerage") tells us that Hastings attempted the honour of Jane before the King took her, although she with scorn rejected him before Shore, but I doubt it.