Page:The Queens of England.djvu/280

 2 4 o THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. this outbreak not occurred, Richard might not have caused the murder of his innocent and helpless nephews in the Tower, but this event proved to him the instability of his tenure of the crown, and urged him to remove by death those who had a better right to it. The sanctuary, from the moment that Richard became aware of the arrangement entered into between the unhappy Eliza- beth Woodville, or Lady Grey, as he commanded her to be named, and Margaret, the mother of Henry Tudor, for the marriage of their children, Elizabeth and Henry, was no longer a safe abode for the queen and her daughters. Closely guarded by Richard's orders, they were exposed to daily hardships, and might at any hour be sentenced to positive privation by the will of their remorseless foe. The wretchedness in which the unfortunate queen and her daughters were involved may more easily be imagined than described. The violent deaths of her brother and son, followed by the murder of the two princes in the Tower, inflicted such overwhelming grief on the queen that her health and peace were crushed by the blow. Her eldest daughter, Elizabeth, was then of an age to keenly sympathize in her mother's sorrow, and so fondly attached to her brothers as to experience the most heartfelt grief for their loss, and the utmost horror at the manner of it. In order to mitigate the censure he had incurred through the murder of the princes, and also probably with a view to a future union with his niece Elizabeth, Queen Anne being then in a hopeless state of health, and Richard having lost his only son, he in- sisted on the queen and her daughters leaving the sanctuary and resigning themselves to his protection. The terror he had inspired in the breast of his hapless sister-in-law may be judged by her making a condition that he should take a sol- emn oath to preserve the lives of her daughters before she would consent to leave the sanctuary. Again was this poor and helpless woman separated from her children ; for while they were brought to court, and placed under the protection of their dying aunt, Anne, the wife of Richard, their mother was consigned to the care of one of the creatures of Richard, who ministered to her wants as if she were a lunatic, instead of a broken-hearted woman ; the abode assigned her being in some mean apartments in the palace of Westminster formerly used only by menials. That she was under personal constraint may be concluded from the instructions given to the person who had charge of her.