confessional. Nevil fortunately was informed in time of the danger that menaced him, and had fled; while Trangmar, thunderstruck by the magnitude of his discovery, hastened to reveal it to the king. It were long to detail each act of the crafty sovereign, and his scarcely human tool. By his order, the friar introduced himself to the dowager queen, at Bermondsey, with a plausible tale, to which she, in spite of her caution, was induced to give ear, and intrusted a message by him, as he said that he was on his way to Spain, to seek and exhort to action the dilatory prince. He then departed. Henry had rather to restrain than urge his furious zeal. The scheme projected was, that Richard should be entrapped on board a vessel, and brought with secrecy and speed to England, where he might be immured for life in some obscure castle in Wales. Trangmar promised that either he would accomplish this, or that the boy should find a still more secret prison, whence he could never emerge to disturb the reign of Henry, or put in jeopardy the inheritance of his son.
Such was the man who, in the month of April, 1492, following Lady Brampton's steps, arrived at Lisbon, and found to his wish the prince there also, and easy access afibrded him to his most secret counsels. He brought letters from the dowager queen, and some forged ones from other partisans of York, inviting the prince, without application to any foreign sovereigns, or aid from distant provinces, at once to repair to England, and to set up his standard in the midst of his native land, where, so these letters asserted, the earl of Surrey and many other powerful lords anxiously awaited him. All this accorded too well with the wishes of the little conclave not to insure assent; nay, more, when Trangmar urged the inexpediency of the duke's being accompanied by such notorious Yorkists as Plantagenet and Lady Brampton, it was suddenly agreed that Bichard should embark on board a merchantman, to sail with the next fair wind for England, while his friends dispersed themselves variously for his benefit. De Faro, in his caravel, was to convey Lord Barry to Cork. Plantagenet resolved to visit the duchess of Burgundy, at Brussels. Lady Brampton departed for the court of France, to engage the king at once to admit young Richard's claim, and aid him to make it good. "You, sweet, will bear me company;" and Monina, her whole soul—and her eyes expressed that soul's devotion to Richard's success—remembered, starting, that the result of these consultations was to separate her from her childhood's companion, perhaps, for ever. As if she had tottered on the brink of a precipice, she shuddered; but all was well again. It was not to be divided from the prince, to remain with Lady
