so called, from the administration of justice. A dais man is still a popular term for an arbitrator in the north, and Domesday Book (with the name of which I suppose every one to be familiar) is known to be a list of manor houses. Here also is the oriel window filled with the arms and badges of the various alliances connected with the family of the lord of the manor. In another picture, in the same exhibition, by A. Chisholm, the subject is Shakspeare before Justice Shallow, to be engraven for a work, entitled the Gallery of the Society of Painters in water colours. In this picture, the artist's idea of the hall window which is introduced must have been taken from some one in the chancel of a parish church; to speak in the mildest terms of criticism. At Charlecote itself, where the scene is laid, (but which there is a possibility never actually occurred,) the greatest attention has been paid to propriety in the decoration of the hall; and a numerous series of ancient coats of arms, coeval with Shakspeare, in characteristic compartments, fill the bays of the window. When this subject, therefore, is again taken up, I would recommend the painter to give it his attention, as the subordinate parts of a picture ought to partake of the character, at least, of the period represented,—although it is not recommended to restrict his pencil to a servile copy. | the body of James the Fourth was buried at Shene. Stowe, in his "Annals" says, "I have beene shewed the same body (as was affirmed,) lapped in lead, thrown into an old waste room, amongst old timber, stone, led, and other rubble.” At the Dissolution of this Priory, (26th Henry VIII.) its annual revenues, according to Dugdale, amounted to £777 12s. 0; but Speed states them at £962 11s. 6d. In the 32d of Henry the Eighth, the site of this foundation was granted to Edward, Earl of Hertford; and although Queen Mary restored the convent, it was dissolved again in little more than a year. The seal of these Carthusians, which was small, and of an oval shape, exhibited the Adoration of the Shepherds; beneath which were the arms of France and England, quarterly. In the account of Richmond, in Lysons' Environs," it is stated, that " an ancient gateway, the last remains of the priory of Shene, was taken down" in 1769. "The whole hamlet of West Shene, consisting of eighteen houses, one of which was a calico manufactory, was at the same time totally annihilated, and the site, which was made into a lawn, added to the King's inclosures." In the Survey, now in the Augmentation office, taken by order of Parliament, during the Interregnum, the old church is described to be standing, "but very ruinous and fit to be In a third picture, of the same gallery, is King demolished;"—and also a structure of brick, called James I. and his jeweller, George Heriott, which has the Prior's Lodgings; the Monk's Hall, a stone buildin the foreground a superb vase, designed in the style ing; the Lady of St. John's Lodgings; the Anchorite's termed by our goldsmiths, "the Louis Quartorze," Cell; and an old building, and a parcel of buildings, | almost a century later, in point of historical property, called the Gallery. than could possibly have come into King James's possession. This introduction was unnecessary, as the finest specimens of workmanship are to be found, executed previously to the time here alluded to, and which are now so much in request, that any price may be obtained for them. These hints, from an antiquary, will, it is hoped, be taken as kindly as they are meant, and I have not presumed to speak of the general composition of the pictures mentioned, that part being most admirably treated, particularly in the last piece. T. M. WEST SHENE PRIORY. ADAM KRAFFT. FEW cities possess greater attractions for the artist and antiquary, than Nuremberg, which was formerly to Germany what Venice and Florence were to Italy, the seat of commerce and the abode of art. Even were it less picturesque as a town, less opulent in studies of gothic architecture, in specimens of early painting and sculpture, it would still be interesting to the traveller as a place consecrated to history by names of such men as Albert Durer, Visscher, and Kraft. With the exception of Durer, however, their names are little known in this country, although no one who has beheld the Tomb of St. Sebaldus, or the celebrated A PRIORY of Carthusians, dedicated to Jesus of Bethlehem, was founded in 1414, at West Shene, in" Sacramentshauslein," can refuse to place the other Surrey, (about a quarter of a mile from the old palace at Richmond,) by king Henry the Fifth; in whose will its endowment is stated at forty marks. Perkin Warbeck sought an asylum in this house, in the reign of Henry the Seventh, and in that of his successor, two among those who have been worthy devotees of art. As regards the last-mentioned of this illustrious trio, this, we think, will be in some degree apparent from his own portrait-figure, and we consider ourselves fortunate in being enabled to give a copy of it for the embellishment of this work. This effigy, with two others, all of the size of life, and in kneeling attitudes, support the lower part of the Sacramentshauslein, which they are attached. From this circumstance, or Tabernacle, in the church of St. Laurence, at Nu- menced for that purpose. St. Alban's Abbey Church, Waltham Cross, Crosby Hall in Bishopsgate-street, and the "LADYE CHAPEL," which forms the eastend of St. Saviour's Church, Southwark, and of which a view is annexed, in its present state, are the immediate buildings thus proposed to be restored. Descriptive and other particulars of all the above edifices will be given in our succeeding numbers. THE preservation of those beautiful edifices which siderable attention, and subscriptions have been comwere raised by our pious ancestors for the celebration of CHRISTIAN WORSHIP, must be a paramount object of regard with every admirer of our national antiquities; and we conceive that our pages cannot be devoted more usefully than by directing the public mind to those venerable buildings which either time or the ruthless hand of man has reduced to a state of ruin. During the present century, indeed, a great change has been progressively effected with respect to the estimation in which subjects of this kind are held, compared with by-gone times. The people generally have been taught a respect for science; and the merits of our forefathers, as exhibited in their productions, are better known and better appreciated. Still, however, it becomes a duty, wherever the power of imparting information exists, to urge on the already awakened feeling, and by pointin gout those dilapidated buildings which, from the talents displayed in their design and construction, demand to be upheld, contribute to the triumph of art, and increase our aptitude for intellectual pleasures. The Restoration of several decayed edifices within and near London, has recently become a topic of con VOL. I. DISSERTATION ON THE MANNER AND PERIOD OF THE DEATH OF BY LORD DOVER. Extracted from the ADDRESS delivered by his Lordship, at the Anniversary Meeting of the Royal Society of Literature, on Friday, May 4th, 1832. It is well known, that the old account of the manner of the death of Richard, which was received implicitly by our historians who wrote during the eighteenth C century, has been now for some time exploded. That account first appeared in print in the additions to Hygden's "Polycronicon," published by Caxton in 1482; from whence it was copied by Fabyan, Hall, and Holinshed. It has also been adopted by Shakspeare, who has perhaps done more than all the others to render it the popular version of the story. It is also to be found in a manuscript of an earlier date than Caxton's publication, which is preserved in the Royal Library at Paris, and entitled, "Relation de la Mort de Richard, Roy d'Angleterre." This manuscript was first quoted by Carte, and has since been made use of by different historians.* This relation is to the effect, that King Richard was murdered by Sir Piers, of Exton, and his assistants, with battle-axes; who pursued him about his prison, striking at him till they had dispatched him, in spite of the heroic resistance of the king, who snatched a battle-axe from one of his assailants, and with it killed no less than four of them. In the year 1634, a pillar was still shown in the room which was supposed to have been the prison of Richard, in Pomfret Castle, which was hacked with the blows of the murderers, as the king fled round it from them.+ In spite, however, of this corroborative tradition, and of the general currency of the tale, Mr. Amyot has satisfactorily shewn, in his able paper on the death of Richard II., inserted in the twentieth volume of the Archæologia, that the story of Sir Piers of Exton rests upon no satisfactory foundation; but that, on the contrary, all the contemporary historians of the death of Richard II. give a totally different account of that event. Of these, Thomas of Walsingham, Thomas Otterbourne, the Monk of Evesham, who wrote the life of Richard, and the continuator of the Chronicle of Croyland, all relate that Richard voluntarily starved himself to death, in a fit of despair, in his prison at Pomfret. To these must also be added, the testimony of Gower the poet, to the same effect, who was not only a contemporary, but had been himself patronized by Richard. There is, however, another version of this tragedy, which relates that his starvation was not voluntary; but inflicted on him by his keepers. That he was, to use the expression of Hardyng the chronicler, who, however, only mentions it as a report, "forhungered." The Percys, in one of their contests with Henry IV., in their letter of defiance, accuse him of having caused Richard to perish "from hunger, thirst, and cold, * Archæologia, vol. xx. Archæologia, vol. xxiii. p. 280, note. after fifteen days and nights of sufferings unheard among christians." Archbishop Scroop also, in a subsequent manifesto, repeats the same charge; and Sir John Fortescue has copied the Archbishop's words into a work of his, which is quoted by Stowe, and of which the original is supposed by some to be no longer extant. This accusation of the bitter enemies of Henry, and the hearsay evidence of Hardyng, himself a partisan of Richard and of the Percys, cannot however be considered of sufficient weight to overthrow the concurrent testimony of the trustworthy and contemporary historians, who agree in affirming the voluntary starvation of the king. Nor must we, as Mr. Amyot very justly observes, entirely leave out of the account, the known character for clemency of Henry, which should lead us to imagine him not capable of so atrocious a cruelty, as the one he is here accused of. Of course, upon a subject of so mysterious and secret a nature as the death of Richard, certainty is not to be arrived at; but the probabilities of the case would appear to be very strongly in favour of his voluntary starvation.* Before leaving this part of the subject, it may be as well to remark, that Mr. Amyot mentions, as the most positive disproof than can be given of the tale of Sir Piers of Exton, that when the tomb of King Richard, in Westminster Abbey, was accidentally laid open, the skull of the body contained in it was found entire, and without any marks of violence upon it.† This testimony, however, becomes of no avail, if, according to Mr. Tytler, the body buried, first at Langley, and then in Westminster Abbey, is not that of King Richard; who, as he affirms, is interred in the Church of the Preaching Friars, at Stirling, in Scotland. This latter hypothesis, however, equally disproves the Exton fable,—and this leads us naturally to take a short view of Mr. Tytler's opinion upon the subject. After the publication of Mr. Amyot's paper, in the Archæologia, in 1819, from which I have quoted so largely, the question of the death of King Richard seemed as much set at rest, as the imperfect nature of our knowledge of the transaction would admit of. But in 1829, Mr. Tytler, whose admirable and instructive History of Scotland is well known to all the lovers of historical literature in this country, again * Sir J. Mackintosh, in his excellent History of England, published in Lardner's Cyclopædia, appears, though he delivers no decided opinion, to incline to that of Richard having been starved to death by his keepers. + See Mr. King's Sequel to the Observations on Ancient Castles, Archæologia, vol. vi. (1782). Mr. King is also of opinion that the story of Sir Piers of Exton is fabulous. raised a controversy upon the subject. At the end of the third volume of his history, he has published an elaborate and ingenious essay on the death of Richard II., which has since been answered by Mr. Amyot, in a paper contained in the twenty-third volume of the Archæologia. In Mr. Tytler's "Historical Remarks on the death "of Richard II.," the result of which has been since adopted by Sir Walter Scott, in his History of Scotland, and rejected by Sir James Mackintosh, in his History of England, the relation is as follows:-That Richard contrived to effect his escape from Pomfret Castle, though the mode in which he did this is no where stated. That he travelled in disguise to the Scottish isles; and that he was there discovered, in the kitchen of Donald, Lord of the Isles, by a jester, who had been bred up at his court. That Donald, Lord of the Isles, sent him, under the charge of the Lord Montgomery, to Robert III., King of Scotland, by whom he was supported as became his rank, so long as that monarch lived. That he was, after the death of the king, delivered to the Duke of Albany, the governor of the kingdom, by whom he was honourably treated. And that he finally died in the castle of Stirling, in the year 1419; and was buried on the north side of the altar, in the church of the Preaching Friars, in the town of that name. This account is given by Bower, or Bowmakar, the continuator of Fordun's Chronicle, and a contemporary historian. It is supported, in some of its particulars, by an anonymous manuscript, without a date, in the Advocates' Library, at Edinburgh, who has been consulted by Mr. Tytler; and also by the hearsay evidence of Andrew Winton, Prior of Lochleven, the metrical chronicler, who, however, concludes his account of the fugitive by saying, that "whether he had been the king or not, there were few who knew for certain." But the strongest evidence in favour of the version of the History of Richard, which has been adopted by Mr. Tytler, is that of certain entries in the accounts of the Chamberlain of Scotland, during the period in question. These occur in the accounts for the years 1408, 1414--15, and 1417; and are all to the effect, that the Lord Governor (the Duke of Albany) "has neither demanded nor received any allowance for the sums expended by him, for the support of Richard, King of England." In the last of these memoranda, the sums he has expended, for the maintenance of the king for eleven years, are computed to have amounted to £733. 6s. 8d.* * Tytler's History of Scotland, vol. iii. as to In confirmation of these authorities, Mr. Tytler cites a French contemporary metrical history of the deposition of Richard II., published in the Archæologia, Vol. XX.; also the various rumours the existence of the king, propagated by the different conspirators against the rule of Henry IV.;* and, finally, the testimony of Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham, the great supporter of the Wickliffites, or Lollards, who declared when he was seized in 1417, and brought before the Parliament on a charge of heresy, for which, as it is well known, he was burnt alive," that he could acknowledge no judge amongst them, so long as his liege lord, King Richard, was alive in Scotland." This last corroborative circumstance, in which a man, who knew he was about to be put to a cruel death, and who therefore would naturally be inclined to catch at any thing, which might give him a chance of averting his doom, endeavoured to intimidate and puzzle his judges, by asserting that Richard was alive, cannot, upon the face of it, carry much weight with it. Still less can the rumours to the same effect, put forward by the disaffected to the Lancastrian King, whose interest it so clearly was to have such a tale believed, be received with any confidence. With regard to the French metrical history, which expresses doubts whether, instead of having died by starvation, the king "be not still alive and well, and shut up in their prison," it evidently merely records the reports of the day; while at the same time it gives us some insight into the origin of those reports. For it states, not as a rumour, but as a fact, that the conspirators against Henry, whose disturbances broke out in the winter of 1399 and 1400, and who were headed by the Earls of Kent, Salisbury, and Huntingdon, placed one of Richard's chaplains at their head, by name Maudelain, whose resemblance to the king was very striking; and whom "they armed as king, and set a very rich crown upon his helm, that it might be believed of a truth, that the king was out of prison."+ With regard to the memoranda in the Chamberlain's accounts, on which Mr. Tytler lays so much stress, Mr. Amyot remarks, and as it appears to me very justly, that "the proofs that some person, whoever he may have been, was so detained in custody, required no such confirmation; and it is equally clear, that considerable charges must have been incurred in maintaining him suitably to his supposed rank. No *Mr. Webb's Notes to French Metrical Romance, Archæologia, vol. xx. + Mr. Webb's translation of French Metrical Romance, Archæologia, vol. xx. |