LADY GREY.
[THIRD PART OF KING HENRY VI.]
She was a poor widow who came trembling before King Edward, and begged him to restore to her children the small estate which, after the death of her husband, had reverted to the enemy. The licentious king, who could not stir her chastity, was so enchanted by her beauty, that he placed the crown on her head. Her history, known to all the world, announces how much misery to both came from this match.
Did Shakespeare really describe the character of this king with strict regard to history ? Here I must repeat the remark that he perfectly understood how to fill historical gaps. His royal characters are all drawn with such truth, that, as an English writer remarked, we might often suppose that he had been all his life the Chancellor of the monarch whom he makes act in many dramas. My own memories of the striking similarity be-
but in truth it was a double victory and glory to the former ; one over the enemy, and another and far more glorious over the old order of things, in which all renown was for the few and none for the many. It was absolutely this battle which has since made England victorious in a thousand fields, and it was the rise of the "wool-growers and merchants," or of the middle class, which sustained and supported the national military spirit.—Translator.
