A NEGLIGENT MONARCH.

Globe, Volume XXIV, Issue 2424, 12 January 1882, Page 3

A NEGLIGENT MONARCH.

We find that yesterday, Mr. Scrimshaw, an undertaker, sued Messrs. Hamilton and Willis for the sum of £8 10s, for the loss of a pall used in the play of Richard 111., and, owing to the negligence of somebody, presumably the monarch himself, these entrepreneurs for public amusement had to pay the above sum, together with certain fees and costs. Now a great deal has been written and said against the third Richard of anything but a complimentary character. He has been described as dreadfully humpbacked, when possibly one of his shoulders was only a little higher than the other. Historians have declared, on rather insufficient evidence, that he stabbed every relation he came across during a long series of years, when he does not appear to have been much worse in that respect than his brothers Edward and Clarence, for whom people in general have a somewhat sneaking affection. He was brought up no doubt in the troublous times of the Wars of the Roses, when human life was thought of no value, and when the order to give no quarter after a battle was considered nothing out of the way, and he improved upon his education very considerably. But his greatest detractors have never looked upon him as anything hut what the Americans would call a “ smart” man—a man with a keen ©ye to business, and one who would he little likely to lose a pall worth £8 10s. For it must he remembered that although the pall covered the remains of the late King Henry VI., yet the new monarch was so little moved by the presence of the august corpse that he proceeded on the spot to make love to Lady Anne in a manner which, although it showed a want of delicacy of feeling, at all events clearly demonstrated that he had his wits well about him. We cannot therefore help sympathising with Messrs. Hamilton and Willis in their misfortune, and we might draw their attention to a certain passage commencing “ Put not yonr trnst in Princes.” They might, indeed, have recollected that at a critical juncture the ill-starred monarch lost his horse and offered a ridiculously high price for a now one. Perhaps, if this fact had forced itself on them they might have kept an eye on Mr. Scrimshaw’s pall. Anyhow they have received a lesson, and that is, not to put too much faith in immoral historical characters. However ’cute such a character may he, he has, when wading knee-deep in blood, hut little time to attend to details. George Washington or Antoninas Pius might have kept on the oven tenor of their ways, and kept an eye on the £8 10s pall. It was risky to trust it to Richard 111.