Page:The fortunes of Perkin Warbeck.djvu/18

10 endured, seemed to be subdued by the necessity of its continuance, nor did it prevent him from conversing with Lord Lovel, He was anxious thoroughly to understand the immediate grounds of the earl of Richmond's invasion, and to ascertain the relative position of the remaining chiefs of the White Rose: "Where," he asked, "are Edward the Fourth's children?"

"The elder of these," Lord Lovel replied, "the Lady Elizabeth, is, by direction of her uncle, at Sheriff Hutton, in Yorkshire."

"And where are the princes? Edward, who was proclaimed king, and his younger brother?"

"They were long imprisoned in the Tower. Young Edward died there more than a year ago."

"And the Duke of York?"

"He is supposed to have died also: they were both sickly boys."

Lord Lovel said these words in a grave voice, and suspicion would have been instilled into any but the unsuspecting Edmund, of some covert meaning. After a short pause, he continued:—the question of the succession stands thus. Your father, the duke of Gloucester, threw the stigma of illegitimacy on King Edward's children, and thus took from them their right of inheriting the crown. The attainder of the duke of Clarence was considered reason sufficient why his children should be excluded from the throne, and their uncle, in consequence, became, by right of birth, king of England: his son he created prince of Wales. We submitted; for a child like Edward the Fifth could scarcely be supported against an experienced warrior, a man of talent, a sage and just king, but at the expense of much blood. The wounds inflicted by the opposing houses of York and Lancaster were yet, as the late successful rebellion proves, unhealed; and had the Yorkists contended among themselves, they would yet sooner have lost the supremacy they so hardly acquired: Richard therefore received our oaths of allegiance. When his son died, the question of who was the heir to the crown became agitated; and the king at first declared the earl of Warwick, the son of the duke of Clarence, to be his successor. It was a dangerous step—and the imprudent friends of the young earl made it more so—to name him to succeed, who, if he were permitted at any time to wear the crown, might claim precedence of him who possessed it. Poor Warwick paid the penalty of youth and presumption: he is now a prisoner at Sheriff Hutton; and John de la Poole, carl of Lincoln, son of Richard's sister, and by the removal of the children of his