they made a show of kneeling down, and offering great love and
submission; and then they ordered his attendants to disperse, and
took him, alone with them, to Northampton.
A few days afterwards they conducted him to London, and lodged him
in the Bishop’s Palace. But, he did not remain there long; for,
the Duke of Buckingham with a tender face made a speech expressing
how anxious he was for the Royal boy’s safety, and how much safer
he would be in the Tower until his coronation, than he could be
anywhere else. So, to the Tower he was taken, very carefully, and
the Duke of Gloucester was named Protector of the State.
Although Gloucester had proceeded thus far with a very smooth
countenance – and although he was a clever man, fair of speech, and
not ill-looking, in spite of one of his shoulders being something
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higher than the other – and although he had come into the City
riding bare-headed at the King’s side, and looking very fond of him
– he had made the King’s mother more uneasy yet; and when the Royal
boy was taken to the Tower, she became so alarmed that she took
sanctuary in Westminster with her five daughters.
Nor did she do this without reason, for, the Duke of Gloucester,
finding that the lords who were opposed to the Woodville family
were faithful to the young King nevertheless, quickly resolved to
strike a blow for himself. Accordingly, while those lords met in
council at the Tower, he and those who were in his interest met in
separate council at his own residence, Crosby Palace, in
Bishopsgate Street. Being at last quite prepared, he one day
appeared unexpectedly at the council in the Tower, and appeared to
be very jocular and merry. He was particularly gay with the Bishop
of Ely: praising the strawberries that grew in his garden on
Holborn Hill, and asking him to have some gathered that he might
eat them at dinner. The Bishop, quite proud of the honour, sent
one of his men to fetch some; and the Duke, still very jocular and
gay, went out; and the council all said what a very agreeable duke
he was! In a little time, however, he came back quite altered –
not at all jocular – frowning and fierce – and suddenly said, –
‘What do those persons deserve who have compassed my destruction; I
being the King’s lawful, as well as natural, protector?’
To this strange question, Lord Hastings replied, that they deserved
death, whosoever they were.
‘Then,’ said the Duke, ‘I tell you that they are that sorceress my
brother’s wife;’ meaning the Queen: ‘and that other sorceress,
Jane Shore. Who, by witchcraft, have withered my body, and caused
my arm to shrink as I now show you.’
He then pulled up his sleeve and showed them his arm, which was
shrunken, it is true, but which had been so, as they all very well
knew, from the hour of his birth.
Jane Shore, being then the lover of Lord Hastings, as she had
formerly been of the late King, that lord knew that he himself was
attacked. So, he said, in some confusion, ‘Certainly, my Lord, if
they have done this, they be worthy of punishment.’
‘If?’ said the Duke of Gloucester; ‘do you talk to me of ifs? I
tell you that they HAVE so done, and I will make it good upon thy
body, thou traitor!’
With that, he struck the table a great blow with his fist. This
was a signal to some of his people outside to cry ‘Treason!’ They
immediately did so, and there was a rush into the chamber of so
many armed men that it was filled in a moment.
‘First,’ said the Duke of Gloucester to Lord Hastings, ‘I arrest
thee, traitor! And let him,’ he added to the armed men who took
him, ‘have a priest at once, for by St. Paul I will not dine until
I have seen his head of!’
Lord Hastings was hurried to the green by the Tower chapel, and
there beheaded on a log of wood that happened to be lying on the