On a May day, in 1471, the streets of London resound with music, and the populace are all in holiday attire to welcome Edward IV, who returns victorious from the battle of Barnet, where he has slain, in cold blood, Prince Edward, son to Henry VI, who is a prisoner in the Tower. Next day Henry dies in a suspicious manner, and Edward has leisure for a little while to found the Order of the Garter.
Edward dies, and he is not cold in his tomb before Richard III ascends, or rather usurps the throne.
Edward has left two boys, the eldest of whom is lawful heir to the Crown, by Elizabeth Wydville, his wife.
One dark night, the wind soughs in the trees and moans around the battlements of the fortress, as two men, Miles Forest and John Dighton, hired assassins, enter the sleeping chamber of the two young princes. They steal to the bed, and having covered the mouths of the lads with the bed-clothes and pillows, they throw their heavy bodies across the couch. There are some faint, stifled moans, for a few minutes, and then all is still but the mournful music of the storm without, for the murderers have done their work but too well.
Sir James Tyrrell, who has been in waiting outside to see that the bloody deed is accomplished, walks in, looks at the distorted features of the children, gives an order in a whisper, and the still warm bodies are carried out, and down a dark stone staircase, and are buried there beneath a heap of stones to moulder till the Resurrection.
Here comes William Wallace, patriot and hero, to the Traitor's Gate, in the year 1305, and after languishing in prison for months he is tied to horses' tails and dragged forth, through Cheapside, and thence to Smithfield, to die the death of a dog, his mutilated body being torn to pieces in the presence of a noisy and hostile rabble.
From this place, Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham, is also dragged forth to St. Giles, in the Fields, and having been hung up over a slow fire by a chain from the middle of his body for two hours he is slowly roasted to death. He was a follower of Wickliffe.
The Duke of Clarence, brother of Edward IV, is hurried to his death in the Tower by Richard III, who orders him to be drowned in a huge hogshead of sweet wine! A mode of death chosen, it is said, by the victim himself in preference to any other.
The good and pious Sir Thomas Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, eighty years of age, is imprisoned here, and is left to starve and rot in a dungeon of this place of infamy. His misery is such that the man of God has to write Secretary Cromwell, minister of Henry VIII: "Furthermore I beseech you to be good, Master, in my necessity, for I have neither shirt, nor yet other clothes, that are necessary for me to wear, but that be ragged and rent too shamefully. Notwithstanding, I might easily suffer that if they would keep my body warm. But God knoweth, also, how slender my diet is at many times. And now, in mine old age, my stomach may rot away but with a few kinds of meat, which if I want, I decay forthwith."
When this God-fearing man was taken out to be beheaded, his bones showed through his skin, and women wept and fell fainting at the cruel sight.