57] To 0. 0., Esq. 83
maple's date of her death in the reign of James; and if J give her one hundred and fifty years, according to the 'indsor account, she would then have been born in 1474, d consequently was eleven years old at the death of King !chard: but this supposition labours with as many diffi-Ities. She could not have been married in the reign of Iward the Fourth, scarcely have danced with his brother; d it is as little probable that she had much remembrance
his person—the point, I own, in which I am most fcerested—not at all crediting the accounts of his deformity, >m which Buck9 has so well defended him, both by the ence of Comines, who mentions the beauty of King Iward, and was too sincere to have passed over such markable ugliness in a foreigner, and from Doctor Shaw's10 •peal to the people before the Protector's face, whether his ighness was not a comely Prince and the exact image
his father. The power that could enslave them, could >t have kept them from laughing at such an apostrophe, id the Protector been as ill-shapen as the Lancastrian storians represent him. Lady Desmond's testimony adds eat weight to this defence n.
But the more we accommodate her age to that of Bichard e Third, the less it will suit with that of her first husband.
she was born in 1474, her having children by him erald Earl of Desmond) becomes vastly more improbable. It is very remarkable, Sir, that neither her tomb, nor >dge, should take notice of this extraordinary person's e; and I own, if I knew how to consult him without ispassing on your good-nature and civility, I should be
' Sir George Buck (d. 162S), author u Walpole subsequently repeated
a History of Bichard 111. these arguments in his Historic
:0 Dr. Balph Shaw (d. 1484), who Doubts on the Life and Reign of King
cached a sermon at St. Paul's Eichard the Third, published in 1768
oss on June 22, 1483, claiming (see Works of Lord Orford, vol. ii.
it the crown belonged of right to p. 166). »Protector Bichard.
G 2
mogh O'Connor of Sligo. mentioned above, and the measures