Page:The religious life of King Henry VI.djvu/34

14 Margaret was defeated and Henry saw his only son Edward slain. Once again Henry was lodged in the Tower of London, having been long a prisoner in the hands of his enemies. On the 21st of the same month of May the deposed King was murdered, as all the world believed, by Richard Duke of Gloucester, brother of King Edward IV. The most circumstantial account says that Henry died "on Tuesday night 21 May, betwixt XI and XII of the clock, the Duke of Gloucester being then at the Tower and many others."

Speed, the historian, gives the following account of the murder and burial of the saintly King. "The bodey of this murthered King was upon Ascension-eve laid in an open coffin, and from the Tower, guarded with many bils and glaves, was carried through the streetes unto the Cathedrall Church of Saint Paul, where it rested uncovered one day, and began to bleed again afresh, a sorrowful spectacle to most of the beholders, and thence was it carryed to the Black Fryers Church, where it likewise lay barefaced, and bled as before, all men being amazed at the sorrowfull sighte; and lastly, it was put into a Boat, without priest, cloake, torch or taper, singing or