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"2", "2", "[Illustration]", SmallCapsText("The Royal Champion.")) ?>
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StoryTitle("caps", "Preface") ?>
InitialWords(0, "King Richard the Third,", "smallcaps", "nodropcap", "indent") ?>
known commonly in history as Richard the Usurper, was perhaps as bad a man as the principle of hereditary
sovereignty ever raised to the throne, or perhaps it should rather be said, as the principle of hereditary
sovereignty ever made. There is no evidence that his natural disposition was marked with any peculiar
depravity. He was made reckless, unscrupulous, and cruel by the influences which surrounded him, and the
circumstances in which he lived, and by being habituated to believe, from his earliest childhood, that the
family to which he belonged were born to live in luxury and splendor, and to reign, while the millions that
formed the great mass of the community were created only to toil and to obey. The manner in which the
principles of pride, ambition, and desperate love of power, which were instilled into his mind in his earliest
years, brought forth in the end their legitimate fruits, is clearly seen by the following narrative.
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