Page:Life and transactions of Mrs. Jane Shore (2).pdf/12

 12 Richard, not content with this, put out a severe pro- clamation to this effect: That on the pain of death and confiscation of goods, no one should harbour her in their houses, nor relieve her with food or raiment. So that she went wandering up and down to find her food upon the bushes, and on the dunghills, where some friends she had raised would throw bones with more meat than ordinary, and crusts of stale bread, in the places where she haunted. A baker, who had been condemned to die for a riot in King Edward's reign, and saved by her means, in gratitude for her kindness, would trundle a penny loaf after her; which she thankfully received, and blessed him with tears in her eyes ; but some mali- cious neighbour informing against him, he was taken up and hanged for disobeying King Richard's proclamation, which so terrified others, that they durst not relieve her with any thing; so that, in miserable rugs, almost naked, she went about a most shocking spectacle, wringing her hands, and bemoaning her unhappy fate. Thus she continued till the battle of Bosworth-field, where Richard was slain by Henry, Earl of Richmond, who succeeded him by the name of Henry the VII., in which reign she hoped for better days; but fortune rais- ed her another adversary, for he married Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Edward IV. and King Edward's Queen, who mortally hated her, then bearing a great sway, another proclamation was issued to the same ef- fect: and so she wandered up and down, in as poor and miserable a condition as before, till growing old, she finished her life in a ditch, which was from thence called Shore's Ditch, adjoining Bishopsgate-street. Thus you may see the rise and fall of this once state- ly, and then unhappy woman, with whose dying lamen- tation I shall conclude.