so zealously contributed to establish.  Never was there in any country a usurpation more flagrant than that of Richard, or more repugnant to every principle of justice and public interest.  To endure such a bloody usurper seemed to draw disgrace upon the nation, and to be attended with immediate danger to every individual who was distinguished by birth, merit, or services.  Such was become the general voice of the people; all parties were united in the same sentiments; and the Lancastrians, so long oppressed, and of late so much discredited, felt their blasted hopes again revive, and anxiously expected the consequences of these extraordinary events.

The Duke of Buckingham, whose family had been devoted to that interest, and who, by his mother, a daughter of Edmund, Duke of Somerset, was allied to the house of Lancaster, was easily induced to espouse the cause of this party, and to endeavor the restoring of it to its ancient superiority.  Morton, Bishop of Ely, a zealous Lancastrian, whom the King had imprisoned, and had afterward committed to the custody of Buckingham, encouraged these sentiments; and by his exhortations the Duke cast his eye toward the young Earl of Richmond as the only person who could free the nation from the tyranny of the present usurper.

Henry, Earl of Richmond, was at this time detained in a kind of honorable custody by the Duke of Brittany, and his descent, which seemed to give him some pretensions to the crown, had been a great object of jealousy both in the late and in the present reign.  Symptoms of continued jealousy in the reigning family of England seemed to give some authority to Henry’s pretensions, and made him the object of general favor and compassion, on account of dangers and persecutions to which he was exposed.  The universal detestation of Richard’s conduct turned still more the attention of the nation toward Henry; and as all the descendants of the house of York were either women or minors, he seemed to be the only person from whom the nation could expect the expulsion of the odious and bloody tyrant.  But notwithstanding these circumstances, which were so favorable to him, Buckingham and the Bishop of Ely well knew that there would still lie many obstacles in his way to the throne.  It was therefore suggested by Morton, and readily assented to by the Duke, that the only means of overturning the present usurpation was to unite the opposite factions by contracting a marriage between the Earl of Richmond and the princess Elizabeth, eldest daughter of King Edward, and thereby blending together the opposite pretensions of their families.