after the battle; and her son Edmund, Earl of Rutland, a boy but twelve years of age, was captured when flying with his tutor from the fatal field, and cruelly murdered in cold blood by Lord Clifford, ever after surnamed the Butcher. Her nephew, Sir John Neville, was killed at the battle of Towton, in 1461; and her nephew, Sir Henry Neville, was made prisoner and put to death at Banbury, in 1469. Two other nephews, Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, the kingmaker,' and John Neville, Marquis of Montague, were killed at the battle of Barnet, in 1471. Edward, Prince of Wales, who married her great niece, was barbarously murdered after the battle of Tewkesbury, in the same year. Her son George, Duke of Clarence, was put to deathdrowned in a malmsey butt, as it is said-in the Tower of London, in 1478, his wife Cecily having previously been poisoned. Her son-in-law, Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, was killed at the battle of Nancy, in 1477. Her eldest son, Edward the Fourth, King of England, fell a victim to his passions in the prime of manhood, in 1483. Lord Harrington, the first husband of her niece, Catherine Neville, was killed at Wakefield; and Catherine's second husband, William Lord Hastings, was beheaded, without even the form of a trial, in 1483. Her great nephew Vere, son of the Earl of Oxford, died a prisoner in the Tower, his father being in exile and his mother in poverty. Her son-in-law, Holland, Duke of Exeter, who married her daughter Anne, lived long in exile, and in such poverty as to be compelled to beg his bread; and in 1473 his corpse was found stripped naked on the sea-shore, near Dover. Her two grandsons, King Edward V. and Richard Duke of York, were murdered in the Tower in 1483. Her son-in-law, Sir Thomas St Ledger, the second husband of her daughter Anne, was executed at Exeter in 1483; and her greatnephew, Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, was beheaded at or about the same time. Her grandson, Edward, Prince of Wales, son of Richard III., through whom she might naturally expect the honour of being the ancestress of a line of English kings, died in 1484, and his mother soon followed him to the tomb. Her youngest son, Richard III., was killed at Bosworth Field, in 1485; and her grandson, John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln, was slain at the battle of Stoke in 1487.

Surviving all those troubles, and all her children, with the sole exception of Margaret, Duchess of Burgundy, she died at a good old age, after seeing three of her descendants kings of England, and her grand-daughter, Elizabeth, queen of Henry VII. By her death, she was saved the additional affliction of the loss of her grandson, Edward, Earl of Warwick, the last male of the princely house of Plantagenet, who was tyrannically put to death by a cruel and jealous

monarch in 1499.

When her husband was killed at the battle of Wakefield, the conquerors cut off his head, and putting a paper crown on it, in derision of his royal claims, placed it over the principal gate of the city of York. But when her son Edward came to the throne, he caused the mangled

THE COTSWOLD GAMES.

remains of his father to be collected, and buried with regal ceremonies in the chancel of the Collegiate Church at Fotheringay, founded and endowed by the piety and liberality of his ancestors. And Cecily, according to directions contained in her will, was buried at Fotheringay, beside the husband whose loss she had mourned for thirty-five long years. It was fated that she was to be denied the last long rest usually allotted to mortals. At the Reforma

CECILY, DUCHESS OF YORK.

tion, the Collegiate Church of Fotheringay was razed to the ground, and the bodies of Richard and Cecily, Duke and Duchess of York, were exposed to public view. A Mr Creuso, who saw them, says: Their bodies appeared very plainly, the Duchess Cecily had about her neck, hanging on a ribbon, a pardon from Rome, which, penned in a fine Roman hand, was as fair and fresh to be seen as if it had been written the day before.' The discovery having been made known to Queen Elizabeth, she ordered the remains to be carefully re-interred, with all decent solemnities.

THE COTSWOLD GAMES.

beautiful vale of Evesham is celebrated by The range of hills overlooking the fertile and Drayton, in his curious topographical poem, the country folks around to exhibit the best bred Poly-Olbion, as the yearly meeting-place of the cattle, and pass a day in jovial festivity. He the music of the bagpipe and tabor, around a pictures these rustics dancing hand-in-hand to flag-staff erected on the highest hill-the flag feasted upon the grass, presided over by the inscribed Heigh for Cotswold!'-while others winner of the prize.

-The Shepherds' King,

do wear,

Some roundelays do sing; the rest the burthen bear.' The description pleasantly, but yet painfully, reminds us of the halcyon period in the history of England procured by the pacific policy of Elizabeth and James I., and which apparently would have been indefinitely prolonged-with a great progress in wealth and all the arts of peace-but for the collision between Puritanism and the will of an injudicious sovereign, which brought about the civil war. The rural population were, during James's reign, at ease and happy; and their exuberant good spirits found vent in festive assemblages, of which this Cotswold meeting was but an example. But the spirit of religious austerity was abroad, making continual encroachments on the genial feelings of the people; and, rather oddly, it was as a countercheck to that spirit that the Cotswold meeting attained its full character as a festive assemblage.

He

There lived at that time at Burton-on-theHeath, in Warwickshire, one Robert Dover, an attorney, who entertained rather strong views of the menacing character of Puritanism. deemed it a public enemy, and was eager to put it down. Seizing upon the idea of the Cotswold meeting, he resolved to enlarge and systematize it into a regular gathering of all ranks of people in the province-with leaping and wrestling, as before, for the men, and dancing for the maids, but with the addition of coursing and horseracing for the upper classes. With a formal permission from King James, he made all the proper arrangements, and established the Cotswold games in a style which secured general applause, never failing each year to appear upon the ground himself-well mounted, and accoutred as what would now be called a master of the ceremonies. Things went on thus for the best part of forty years, till (to quote the language of Anthony Wood), the rascally rebellion was begun by the Presbyterians, which gave a stop to their proceedings, and spoiled all that was generous and ingenious elsewhere.' Dover himself, in milder strains, thus tells his own story

'I've heard our fine refined clergy teach, Of the commandments, that it is a breach To play at any game for gain or coin; 'Tis theft, they say-men's goods you do purloin; For beasts or birds in combat for to fight, Oh, 'tis not lawful, but a cruel sight. One silly beast another to pursue 'Gainst nature is, and fearful to the view; And man with man their activeness to try Forbidden is-much harm doth come thereby ; Had we their faith to credit what they say, We must believe all sports are ta'en away; Whereby I instead of active things, What harm the same unto our nation brings; The pipe and pot are made the only prize Which all our spriteful youth do exercise. The effect of restrictions upon wholesome outof-doors amusements in driving people into sotting public-houses is remarked in our own day,

see,

THE COTSWOLD GAMES.

and it is curious to find Mr Dover pointing out the same result 250 years ago. His poem occurs at the close of a rare volume published in 1636, entirely composed of commendatory verses on Dubrensia. Some of the best poets of the day the exploits at Cotswold, and entitled Annalia contributed to the collection, and among them were Ben Jonson, Michael Drayton, Thomas Randolph, Thomas Heywood, Owen Feltham, and Shackerly Marmyon. Rare Ben' contributed the most characteristic effusion of the series, which, curiously enough, he appears to have overlooked, when collecting such waifs and strays for the volume he published with the quaint title of Underwoods; neither does it appear in his Collection of Epigrams. He calls it an epigram to my jovial good friend, Mr Robert Dover, on his great instauration of hunting and dancing at Cotswold.'

'I cannot bring my Muse to drop vies*
"Twixt Cotswold and the Olympic exercise;
But I can tell thee, Dover, how thy games
Renew the glories of our blessed James :
How they do keep alive his memory
With the glad country and posterity;
How they advance true love, and neighbourhood,
And do both church and commonwealth the good-
In spite of hypocrites, who are the worst
Of subjects; let such envy till they burst.'
Drayton is very complimentary to Dover :-
'We'll have thy statue in some rock cut out,
With brave inscriptions garnished about;
And under written-"Lo! this is the man
Dover, that first these noble sports began.'
Lads of the hills and lasses of the vale,
In many a song and many a merry tale,
Shall mention thee; and, having leave to play,
Unto thy name shall make a holiday.
The Cotswold shepherds, as their flocks they keep,
To put off lazy drowsiness and sleep,

Shall sit to tell, and hear thy story told,
That night shall come ere they their flocks can
fold.'

The remaining thirty-one poems, with the exception of that by Randolph, have little claim to notice, being not unfrequently turgid and tedious, if not absurdly hyperbolical. They are chiefly useful for clearly pointing out the nature of these renowned games, which are also exhibited in a quaint wood-cut frontispiece. In this, Dover (in accordance with the antique heroic in art) appears on horseback, in full costume, three times the size of life; and bearing in his hand a wand, as ruler of the sports. In the central summit of the picture is seen a castle, from which volleys were fired in the course of the sports, and which was named Dover Castle, in honour of Master Robert; one of his poetic friends assuring him—

thy castle shall exceed as far The other Dover, as sweet peace doth war!' This redoubtable castle was a temporary erec

This word may be taken in the sense of comparison. To vie is interpreted by Halliwell as 'to wager or put down a certain sum upon a hand of cards;' and the word is still in use as a verb, with the sense of to compete. As the line halts, however, there is probably a word of one syllable wanting between 'drop' and 'vies.'

was duly honoured by all as king of their sports for a series of years. They ceased during the Cromwellian era, but were revived at the Restoration; and the memory of their founder is still preserved in the name Dover's Hill, applied to an eminence of the Cotswold range, about a mile from the village of Campden.

Shakspeare, whose slightest allusion to any

subject gives it an undying interest, has immortalized these sports. Justice Shallow, in his enumeration of the four bravest roisterers of his early days, names Will Squell, a Cotswold man;' and the mishap of Master Page's fallow greyhound, who was out-run on Cotsale,' occupies some share of the dialogue in the opening scene of the Merry Wives of Windsor.

SPENSER.

roses were always white until they tried to rival her fair complexion, and, blushing for shame because they were vanquished, have ever since remained red; of Shakspeare's Juliet, musing as she leant over the balcony in the moonlight, and thinking that the rose by any other name would smell as sweet.' They carry us back to Chaucer's Emilie, whom we again see pacing the garden in the early morning, her hair blown backward, while, as she gathers roses carefully, she thrusts among the thorns her little hand.' We again see Milton's Eve in Eden, standing half-veiled in a cloud of fragrance-' so thick the