Makers of History
Richard III.
By JACOB ABBOTT
WITH ENGRAVINGS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
1901
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year one thousand eight
hundred and fifty-eight, by
HARPER & BROTHERS,
in the Clerk's office of the District Court of the Southern District
of New York.
Copyright, 1886, by Benjamin Vaughan Abbott, Austin Abbott, Lyman
Abbott, and Edward Abbott.
THE ROYAL CHAMPION.PREFACE.
King Richard the Third, known commonly in history as Richard theUsurper, was perhaps as bad a man as the principle of hereditarysovereignty ever raised to the throne, or perhaps it should rather besaid, as the principle of hereditary sovereignty ever made. There isno evidence that his natural disposition was marked with any peculiardepravity. He was made reckless, unscrupulous, and cruel by theinfluences which surrounded him, and the circumstances in which helived, and by being habituated to believe, from his earliestchildhood, that the family to which he belonged were born to live inluxury and splendor, and to reign, while the millions that formed thegreat mass of the community were created only to toil and to obey. Themanner in which the principles of pride, ambition, and desperate loveof power, which were instilled into his mind in his earliest years,brought forth in the end their legitimate fruits, is clearly seen bythe following narrative.