[CHAPTER XIII]
RICHARD III
On the death of Edward IV., the Duke of Gloucester made haste to seize upon the Prince, his elder son, then a boy of thirteen, on his way from Ludlow Castle to Westminster.
RICHARD III. (1452-1485)
After the painting in Windsor Castle.
The City thereupon began to busy itself about the Coronation Festival. The civic procession was already organised (Sharpe, London and the Kingdom, i. 319). The City Fathers were to meet the young King who would come into the City: they were to be arrayed in gowns of scarlet, their attendants, including five sergeants at mace belonging to the Mayor and nineteen belonging to the Sheriffs, would have gowns of pied de lyon colour: the sword-bearer with four hundred and ten persons, forming a deputation from the guilds, were to have gowns of murrey. The riding out duly took place: the procession met the young King and the Duke of Gloucester at Hornsey and rode back with them to the Tower. That same day the Queen-mother with her younger son took sanctuary again at Westminster.
Gloucester took up his quarters at Crosby House or Hall, which still remains though greatly altered. The house was built by Sir Thomas Crosby, Grocer and Woolman, in the year 1466, on a piece of land belonging to St. Helen’s Nunnery, let to him by Alice Ashfield, Prioress, for ninety-nine years. Sir John Crosby cleared away the tenements which covered the spot, together with the poor people who lived in them, and built this palace, where he died in 1475. When the long lease expired there was no nunnery left to claim the ground.
Grove and Boulton.