soon after one hour, between ten and eleven, he returned into the chamber amongst them all, changed, with a wonderful sour, angry countenance, knitting his brows, frowning and fretting, gnawing on his lips, and so sat him down in his place. Soon after he asked, 'What those persons deserved who had compassed and imagined his destruction?' Lord Hastings answered that they deserved death, whoever they might be; and then Richard affirmed that they were that sorceress, his brother's wife (meaning the queen), with others with her; 'and,' said the protector, 'we shall see in what wise that sorceress, and that other witch of her councils, Shore's wife, with their affinity, have by their sorcery and witchcraft wasted my body.' So saying, he plucked up his doublet sleeve to his elbow upon his left arm, where the arm appeared to be withered and small, as it was never other.
"The council perceiving that this was all done merely to find occasion of offence, all kept silence except Hastings, who said, 'Certainly, my lord; if they have so heinously done, they be worthy heinous punishment.'
"'What!' quoth the protector, 'thou servest me, I ween, with ifs and ands! I tell thee they have so done, and that I will make good on thy body, traitor!' And thereupon, as in a great anger, he clapped his fist upon the board a great rap. At this token some one cried 'Treason!' without the chamber. Thereupon a door clapped, and in there rushed men in harness, as many as the chamber might hold.
"Then the protector said to the Lord Hastings, 'I arrest thee, traitor!' 'What, me! my lord?' quoth he. 'Yes, thee, traitor!' quoth the protector. And another let fly at the Lord Stanley, which shrunk at the stroke, and fell under the table, or else his head had been cleft to the teeth, for as shortly as he shrunk, yet run the blood about his ears. Then were they quickly bestowed in divers chambers, except the Lord Chamberlain Hastings, whom the protector bade speed and shrive him apace, 'for, by St. Paul,' quoth he, 'I will not to dinner till I see thy head off.'"
Lord Hastings was hurried out by the armed ruffians of the tyrant, and scarcely allowing him time to confess to the first priest that came to hand, they made use of a log which accidentally lay on the green at the door of the chapel, and beheaded him at once. Lord Stanley, the Archbishop of York, and the Bishop of Ely, were kept close prisoners in the Tower.
On the same day, while this brutal murder was perpetrated by this villain in London, one equally arbitrary, illegal, and unjustifiable was transacted at that royal slaughter-house the Castle of Pontefract. There Sir Richard Ratcliffe, one of the most hardened creatures of the protector, brought out Lord Grey, Sir Richard Vaughan, and Sir Richard Hawse, and beheaded them without any trial whatever. Ratcliffe, two days later, presented a letter from Gloucester to the mayor and citizens of York, informing them that Elizabeth and the Wydvilles had formed a traitorous conspiracy to murder the protector and the Duke of Buckingham, and calling on all the inhabitants of the North to put themselves under the Earl of Northumberland and the Lord Neville, and march to London to prevent their base designs. Eight days later the Earl Rivers was also executed, the previous letter and proclamation being probably thought needful before proceeding to such a length with a man of Rivers's high character and position.
Gloucester had thus destroyed the most powerful and devoted of the adherents of both the queen and the young king. The last crowning villany must be consummated, and the preparings for it were forthwith entered upon. The sanguinary duke had spoken ominous words of the queen and of Jane Shore in the same council from which he sent Hastings suddenly to his death. He accused those ladies and their accomplices of having practised sorcery upon him. It was to sorcery that the enemies of the queen attributed her having induced the king to marry her, and now, strangely enough, these two ladies were united in the charge.
Jane Shore, after being seduced by Edward IV., had, it seems, continued about the court, and probably had ceased, through her many good qualities, to be an object of aversion or resentment to Elizabeth. Sir Thomas More says of her: "Many the king had, but her he loved, whose favour, to say the truth (for sin it were to belie the devil), she never abused to any man's hurt, but to many a man's comfort and relief; and now she beggeth of many at this day living, that at this day had begged if she had not been."
What were the especial circumstances which turned the vengeance of Gloucester upon Jane Shore we do not know, but probably she had betrayed a kindly interest in the queen and children of her former royal lover. Gloucester singled her out for signal punishment as a sorceress, linking the charge artfully with the queen. He seized on the plate and jewels of Dame Shore, which he appropriated to his own use, delivering over the offender herself to the dealing of the church. Arrayed only in her kirtle, and barefooted, she was compelled to walk through the streets of London, carrying a lighted taper in her hand, and preceded by an officer bearing a cross, the whole population of the capital having, as it seemed, filled the dense thoroughfares, to witness the spectacle.
But this was only the prologue to the tragedy. By this act Gloucester turned the public attention upon the dissolute life of the late king; and, that being done, the blow fell. The united troops of Gloucester and Buckingham, to the amount of 20,000, now held the metropolis in subjection; the terror of the protector's deeds enchained it still more. On the following Sunday, June 22nd, the day which had been fixed for the coronation, instead of that ceremony taking place, a priest was found base enough—tyrants never fail of such tools—to ascend St. Paul's Cross, and preach from this text, from the Book of Wisdom, "Bastard slips shall not strike deep root."
This despicable man was one Dr. Shaw, brother of the Lord Mayor. He drew a broad picture of the licentious life of Edward IV., and asserted that his mode of destroying such ladies as he found unwilling to incur dishonour, was to promise them marriage, and occasionally to go through a mock or real ceremony with them. He declared that Edward had thus, in the commencement of his reign, really contracted a marriage with the Lady Eleanor Butler, the widow of Lord Butler, of Sudeley, and daughter of the Earl of Shrewsbury; that he afterwards contracted a private and illegal marriage with Elizabeth
