Page:Life and death of Jane Shore.pdf/15

 Lady Bessey, yet he preferred our heroine much above her, and would often merrily say, I have two mistresses of quite different tempers, one of the most religious, and the other the merriest in England: and indeed she was had in great favour all the reign of this king, having crouds of petetioners [sic] waiting at her chamber door, or at the chariot side, when she was to ride abroad, whose suits to the utmost of her power the preferred,—As for Mrs. Blague, who least deserved it of her, she procured of the king a stately house and manor worth 210l. per annum. The Romish priests were spighted at her, because she sheltered many from their rage and fury, after they had burned John Hall for a heretic.

As no worldly pomp nor greatness is of long continuance, so now her glory was ended, and her days of inexpressible misery began, for the king dying at Westminster, in the fortieth year of his age, no sooner was he buried in the chapel of his own founding at Windsor, but Crook backed Richard his brother, who murdered Henry VI. and prince Henry his son, aspiring to the throne, tho' Edward had left two sons behind him viz. Edward and Richard, and several daughters, all lawfully begotten by the Queen, quarrelled with Lord Hastings, who after the death of the King