Page:Life and death of Jane Shore.pdf/17

 Mrs. Blague, entreating her to conceal them for her. But she, like a faithless woman, when Jane came and asked for them, not only denied them, but giving any succour; when in the greatest need she came to crave alms, the thirst her out of doors, threatening to have her whipped for her impudence.

Richard, by means aforesaid, having got to the crown, and to make himself fair by other sins, though he was a monster of nature, publickly declaring his mother to be a whore, his brother and his children to be bastards, caused his queen to be imprisoned, and would have wedded his niece. He ordered our Jane Shore to be apprehended, stipped off all she had, and to do pennance, by several times walking in a white sheet, and then walk bare-footed and bare-headed in her shift, before the procession with a cross and a wax taper in her hand, through Cheapside, which she did, looking so lovely in her blushes, that many pitied her; and also stripping all her friends and relations of whatever they had, pretending they had got it by her means from the crown, in king Edward's reign; which with the disgrace their only daughter was fallen into, caused her parents death.

Richard, not content with this, put on a severe proclamation to this effect: That