And none so poor to do him reverence.”
DEATH OF WARWICK.
(From the picture by T. A. Houston, R.S.A.)
THE LITTLE PRINCES IN THE TOWER.
“Let us sit upon the ground
And tell sad stories of the death of kings.”
Now hand in hand two pathetic figures appear. They are victims marked for the slaughter; their tender age and innocence will not save them, for they stand between a bold, unscrupulous man and the throne. You have already made acquaintance with their father, the fourth Edward, he who owed all to the king-maker, whom he left dead on Barnet Field. But Edward has gone to his account, leaving his two young sons and their mother to the tender mercies of selfish, intriguing nobles, brutalized by a long course of civil war. As Protector of the realm, their father’s brother, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, aims at the throne, and his first step is to secure the custody of the two royal lads, who are now in the guardianship of their maternal uncle, Earl Rivers, and of Lord Richard Grey. The elder—a boy of thirteen—is seized and brought to London by his Uncle Richard, while the lad’s guardians are flung into prison. The false uncle treats his young charge with every show of loyal and submissive regard, and brings him in great state to London for his coronation. The wretched mother knows instinctively the fate in store for her offspring, and takes sanctuary at Westminster with her second son, the little Duke of York, a boy of eleven years of age. With fair and specious words a prince of the Church persuades the widow to surrender the lad, and forthwith he joins his brother in the Tower.