James Gairdner > Quotes

“He left such a reputation behind him that even his birth was said to have proclaimed him a monster. He had been two years, we are told, in his mother’s womb, and was born or rather, like Macduff, was by a surgical operation separated from his mother’s body when he came into the world feet foremost, with teeth in his jaws, and with hair down to the shoulders.”
― James Gairdner, History of the Life and Reign of Richard the Third

“Richard III is not a monster. He is the natural outgrowth of monstrous and horrible times. He is the fitting termination of the rule of the House of York the exemplification of an old, divinely attested saying that they who take the sword shall perish by it.”
― James Gairdner, History of the Life and Reign of Richard the Third