to death with many wounds as he was praying. His body was next day carried to St. Paul's, " and his face was open that every man might see him, and in his lying he bled." He was buried at Chertsey and the word went about that he was a saint and martyr. Henry VII afterwards requested Pope Julius II to canonize him, but gave up the idea on learning how much it would cost. He had the body removed from Chertsey, but to this day it is uncertain whether it was buried at St. George's, Windsor, or in Westminster Abbey.

The reigns of the Kings of the House of York are full of Tower tragedies. Edward IV lived a good deal in the Tower, increased its fortifications, and deepened the moat. He had two brothers, the Dukes of Clarence and Gloucester. The former had long been disaffected, had joined Margaret of Anjou and the Earl of Warwick, whose daughter he had married, in the conspiracy which caused Edward's temporary flight, and after the latter had recovered himself and was again firmly seated on the throne, Clarence was certainly plotting against him. Clarence's wife was dead and he aspired to the hand of Mary of Burgundy, to Edward's indignation, who saw that he still hoped for the crown. He first sent him to the Tower, then accused him before Parliament, and he was sentenced to death. Edward was loth to carry the sentence out, but the House of Commons urged him, and to avoid the disgrace of a public execution he gave orders that it should be done in secret, and according to tradition he was drowned in a butt of malmsey in the Bowyer Tower. And perhaps it is owing to his brother Gloucester's general bad character that he is accused of superintending the execution. The memory of this tragedy is said to have embittered the whole of Edward's subsequent life. He was now secure on his throne, but his self-indulgent life was destroying his health, and his recklessness, joined with the perfidy of Louis XI, continually produced fresh troubles. He died at the age of forty-one, on April 19, 1483. His wife had borne him ten children, of whom seven survived him, two sons and five daughters.

The short reign of Edward V was merely a struggle for power between his uncle Gloucester and his mother's relations, the Woodvilles. He was in Wales when his father died. His uncle, Lord Rivers, and half-brother, Lord Richard Grey, were bringing him up for his Corona

tion, when the Dukes of Gloucester and Buckingham intercepted them at Northampton, sent them prisoners to Pomfret, and brought the young King up to the Tower with every demonstration of loyalty, even declaring that the coronation should take place on June 22. Queen Elizabeth, anticipating what was coming, threw herself into Sanctuary with the Abbot of Westminster with her other son. A Parliament was summoned ostensibly to declare Gloucester protector, but he had already laid his train. The queen was called upon to allow her second boy to be placed with his brother in the Tower, and though she could see from the windows carpenters, vintners, cooks all making preparations for her son's coronation, she knew in her heart that it would never be. Gloucester proceeded to make out a case for the illegitimacy of the children, on the ground that their father had made a previous marriage. That he had been a gross libertine was already notorious; Gloucester produced a witness who declared that he had married the King to one of his mistresses, Elinor Talbot. It is incredible, but there may have been some miserable frolic. Gloucester called a Council in the Council Chamber of the White Tower, and there caused his claim to be put forth in a tentative fashion. Lord Hastings thereupon declared his loyalty to Edward, and Gloucester, who had been listening outside, strode into the room. Turning up his sleeve, he showed an arm which he declared had been withered by the sorceries of Hastings, and called on the terrified councillors to condemn him. Words were useless. "I will not dine until your head is off," he cried, and Hastings was carried down to Tower Green. The block was out of place, but a beam of wood was near; he was thrown on it and the deed was consummated.

Gloucester then got a creature, a brother of the Lord Mayor, to preach at Paul's Cross from the text (Wisdom iv. 3), “Bastard slips shall not take deep root," a sermon impugning the validity of Edward's marriage, but the immediate result was to fill the listeners with shame and indignation. The Duke of Buckingham made a speech of the like character at the Guildhall, and it became known that Gloucester was getting an army together. So a packed assembly went to the schemer and offered him the crown, which he with feigned reluctance accepted. This was on June 28, 1483, and on July 6 he was crowned at West

minster. Immediately afterwards he started on a progress through the country with the intention of strengthening his position by granting privileges and making promises, but the conscience of the Londoners and of the country was roused, and almost immediately a fresh shock was given by the news that the boy King and his brother had been murdered in the Tower. There can be no doubt of the main fact, but the precise date is uncertain. Richard had placed the two boys under the care of Sir Robert Brackenbury, and after he had left London sent a message ordering him to kill them. When Brackenbury refused he sent Sir James Tyrrell with a warrant to receive possession of the Tower keys. Tyrrell's groom, John Dighton, with one of the gaolers, Miles Forrest, entered the chamber of the two boys in the Bloody Tower, killed them, called on Tyrrell to recognize the bodies, then buried them at the foot of a staircase. This was some time in the latter part of August, and was not divulged until it was known that a plot was hatching to place the young Edward upon the throne.

The life of Richard III, which bears the name of Sir Thomas More as its author, but which appears to have been written by Cardinal Morton and edited by More, gives information which may be implicitly trusted as to the circumstances of this cruel murder. The new king, superstitious as wicked men so frequently are, was uneasy in his mind, and ordered the Tower priest to remove the bodies, and he did so, but dying soon after, no one could ascertain where he had laid them. More does not know, and says so frankly. Shakespeare expresses the uncertainty :

The Chaplain of the Tower hath buried them,
But where, to say the truth, I do not know.

Henry VII would have been glad to learn at the time when Perkin Warbeck was declaring that he was one of the alleged murdered boys. It was not until the reign of Charles II that two skeletons were found under the old stone steps of the royal chapel in the great keep. They were covered with earth and had been carefully bestowed. As they answered in every way to the bones which had been vainly sought after it was concluded, and certainly with probability, that they were the bones of the murdered children, and they were laid, by King Charles's command, in a royal sepulchre in Westminster Abbey.

CHAPTER IV

IN THE TIME OF THE TUDOR KINGS

Henry VII.-Battle of Bosworth-Thomas Wyatt and the Cat-Edward, Earl of Warwick-Perkin Warbeck-Sir William Stanley-Edmund de la Pole, Duke of Suffolk-Sir John Tyrrell-Sir John Wyndham-Marriage of Prince Arthur and Katharine-His Death and Death of his Mother, Elizabeth of York-Death of Henry VII-Henry VIII—Empson and Dudley-Marriage with Katharine of Aragon-High Festival-Building of the Lieutenant's House and other Improvements-Stafford, Duke of Buckingham-Marriage with Anne Boleyn— Completion of the Tower Buildings-Birth of the Princess Elizabeth-Execution of Anne-Fisher and More-Lord and Lady Howard-The "Pilgrimage of Grace" and its Victims-Courtenay, Marquis of Exeter-The Pole FamilyTreachery of Geoffrey Pole-Thomas Cromwell, his Rise and Fall-Marriage with Anne of Cleves and Divorce, 1540-Marriage with Katharine Howard, and her Execution-Anne Askew, Protestant Martyr, Friend of Katharine ParrFestivities to French Ambassadors-Dukes of Norfolk and Surrey CondemnedDeath of Henry VIII-Edward VI-His Uncles the Seymours-Their FallAscendancy of the Duke of Northumberland-Other Executions-The King's Death.

We have come to the end of secret murders, but the Tower was never more in use as a State prison than under the house of Tudor, which began its royal course after the battle of Bosworth, August 22, 1485.

In the reign of Richard III Henry Wyatt, a gentleman of Surrey and member of the House of Commons, was thrown into the Tower for favouring the claims of Henry Tudor. According to his son's statement, Richard had him tortured, vinegar and mustard being forced down his throat, and afterwards remonstrated with him. “Wyatt, why art thou such a fool?" said he, "Henry of Richmond is a beggarly pretender; forsake him and become mine. Thou servest him for moonshine in water. I can reward thee, and I swear to thee, I will." “If I had chosen thee for my master," answered the prisoner, "I would have been faithful to thee. But the Earl of Richmond, poor and un

happy though he be, is my master, and no allurement shall drive me from him, by God's grace." And here comes a pretty legend, we hardly dare regard it otherwise, which is told in the Wyatt papers. King Richard, in a rage, had him confined in a low and narrow cell, where he had not clothes sufficient to warm him and was a hungered. A cat came into this cell, he caressed her for company, laid her in his bosom and won her love. And so she came to him every day and brought him a pigeon when she could catch one. He complained to his keeper of his short fare, and received for answer, that "he durst not better it.” "But if I can provide any," said Sir Henry," will you dress it for me?" "I may well enough promise that," was the answer, and so he promised. And he was as good as his word, and dressed each time the pigeon which the faithful cat brought. When Richmond became King Henry VII he rewarded his faithful liegeman by making him a Privy Councillor and giving him rich offices enough to enable him to buy Allington Castle, one of the finest in Kent. He was equally well regarded by Henry VIII, who visited him at Allington; but more of this farther on.

The two most noteworthy occupants of the Tower, however, in this reign, strangely different in character and circumstances, were brought into close connexion with each other. Edward, Earl of Warwick, was the eldest son of the Duke of Clarence, and was three years old when his father was put to death in the Tower. His early history is obscure; at one time Richard III, after the death of his son, thought to nominate him as his heir, but changed his mind, and sent him to Sheriff Hutton Castle, Yorkshire. After Bosworth Henry VII brought him from thence and shut him up in the Tower, his only offence being that he was the representative of the fallen dynasty of York. The injustice of this was widely felt, and this, combined with the uncertainty as to the whereabouts or movements of the youth, induced a usurper named Lambert Simnel to personate him in Ireland in 1487, and he was actually crowned in Dublin Cathedral. King Henry found it advisable to bring the Earl forth for a day and march him through the streets to St. Paul's. It was the last day of his life that he spent outside the limits of the Tower. He was taken back and remained there for twelve years longer. And here we have to take up another history. Perkin Warbeck was the son of a citizen of Tournay, who came to