Jasper County Democrat, Volume 10, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 March 1908 — A ROYAL RIDDLE. [ARTICLE]

A ROYAL RIDDLE.

Perhaps Historians Can Identify Thia English King Richard. A traveler who recently returned from Italy propounded the other night a conundrum, which perhaps some deeply learned historian can solve. He said: “In the city of Lucca, about fifty miles northeast of Leghorn, stands the Church of St. Fredlan, ahd in it is a tomb bearing the following inscription: “Here lies King Richard, a scepter bearer and kind. He was king of England and held the sovereignty of Poland. He gave up his sovereignty. For Christ he relinquished all. Therefore, in Richard, England has given to us a saint. He was the progenitor of St. Wulburga the Virgin, St Viril'lebajd and St. Vinebald, by whose sufferance she soveielgnty of Poland may be given us. “It is in Latin, of course, but the attempt at translation is substantially correct. Now, who was this Richard? The first Richard, king of England, died at the siege of Chains, In Normandy, from the arrow of Bertrand Gourdon and lies buried in the Fonteorault abbey, Normandy. The second English King Richard was deposed by Lancaster and murdered in the castle of Pontefract. His tomb Is in Westminster abbey. “There was only one other English King Richard, and it is known that he met his fate upon the field of Bosworth. His body was buried in the Greyfriars church, as directed by his conqueror, Richmond. "These are tne only King ot England known to history, and none of them fills the bill. None was king of Poland, nor, as far as I can remember, was any. other English monarch. Nor was any one an ancestor of the saints with remarkable names, through whose favor the people of Lucca expected to get the Polish kingdom. The legend they tell you in Lucca is that this King Richard died there while on a pilgrimage to Rome. “Now, who was he? Somebody is buried in that tomb, and the people who wrote the inscription evidently did it in good faith. Who was the gentleman who, posing as the king of England and Poland, died and was buried at Lucca? Can it be that some

impostor played a trick on the good people of the fair Italian city and got a monument and the title of saint by so doing? Or is ft my historical knowledge that Is at fault?” “Well,” replied the antiquarian, “the question is certainly a puzzler. A singular fact is that John .Evelyn, a man full of curious learning, a scholar and an Oxford man, mentions this tomb in his ‘diary,’ simply saying that ‘St Fredian’s is remarkable to us for the corpse of St. Richard, an English king who died here—that is, at Lucca. He makes no comment, evidently taking the fact as one well known to history. But I confess I am inclined to think somebody played a mediaeval joke upon the good monks of St. Fredlan. However, perhaps some one can explain.” —New York Post.