(49) Henry was so reduced to make out any title to the crown, that he catched even at a quibble.  In the act of attainder passed after his accession, he calls himself nephew of Henry the Sixth.  He was so, but it was by his father, who was not of the blood royal.  Catharine of Valois, after bearing Henry the Sixth, married Owen Tudor, and had two sons, Edmund and Jasper, the former of which married Margaret mother of Henry the Seventh, and so was he half nephew of Henry the Sixth.  On one side he had no blood royal, on the other only bastard blood.

(50) Observe, that when Lord Bacon wrote, there was great necessity to vindicate the title even of Henry the Seventh, for James the First claimed from the eldest daughter of Henry and Elizabeth.

With regard to the person of Richard, it appears to have been as much misrepresented as his actions.  Philip de Comines, who was very free spoken even on his own masters, and therefore not likely to spare a foreigner, mentions the beauty of Edward the Fourth; but says nothing of the deformity of Richard, though he saw them together.  This is merely negative.  The old countess of Desmond, who had danced with Richard, declared he was the handsomest man in the room except his brother Edward, and was very well made.  But what shall we say to Dr. Shaw, who in his sermon appealed to the people, whether Richard was not the express image of his father’s person, who was neither ugly nor deformed?  Not all the protector’s power could have kept the muscles of the mob in awe and prevented their laughing at so ridiculous an apostrophe, had Richard been a little, crooked, withered, hump-back’d monster, as later historians would have us believe—­and very idly?  Cannot a foul soul inhabit a fair body.

The truth I take to have been this.  Richard, who was slender and not tall, had one shoulder a little higher than the other:  a defect, by the magnifying glasses, of party, by distance of time, and by the amplification of tradition, easily swelled to shocking deformity; for falsehood itself generally pays so much respect to truth as to make it the basis of its superstructures.

I have two reasons for believing Richard was not well made about the shoulders.  Among the drawings which I purchased at Vertue’s sale was one of Richard and his queen, of which nothing is expressed but the out-lines.  There is no intimation from whence the drawing was taken; but by a collateral direction for the colour of the robe, if not copied from a picture, it certainly was from some painted ’window; where existing I do not pretend to say:—­in this whole work I have not gone beyond my vouchers.  Richard’s face is very comely, and corresponds singularly with the portrait of him in the preface to the Royal and Noble Authors.  He has a sort of tippet of ermine doubled about his neck, which seems calculated to disguise some want of symmetry thereabouts.  I have given two prints(51) of this drawing, which is on large folio paper, that it may lead to a discovery of the original, if not destroyed.