part of our history.

I have little more to say, and only on what regards the person of
Richard, and the story of Jane Shore; but having run counter to a
very valuable modern historian and friend of my own, I must both
make some apology for him, and for myself for disagreeing with him.

When Mr. Hume published his reigns of Edward the Fifth, Richard the
Third, and Henry the Seventh, the coronation roll had not come to
light. The stream of historians concurred to make him take this
portion of our story for granted. Buck had been given up as an
advancer of paradoxes, and nobody but Carte had dared to controvert
the popular belief. Mr. Hume treats Carte's doubts as whimsical: I
wonder, he did; he, who having so closely examined our history, had
discovered how very fallible many of its authorities are. Mr. Hume
himself had ventured to contest both the flattering picture drawn of
Edward the First, and those ignominious portraits of Edward the
Second, and Richard the Second. He had discovered from Foedera, that
Edward the Fourth, while said universally to be prisoner to
archbishop Nevil, was at full liberty and doing acts of royal power.
Why was it whimsical in Carte to exercise the same spirit of
criticism? Mr. Hume could not but know how much the characters of
princes are liable to be flattered or misrepresented. It is of
little importance to the world, to Mr. Hume, or to me, whether
Richard's story is fairly told or not: and in this amicable
discussion I have no fear of offending him by disagreeing with him.
His abilities and sagacity do not rest on the shortest reign in our
annals. I shall therefore attempt to give answers to the questions
on which he pins the credibility due to the history of Richard.