hands, and when he hinted the opinion of some, that in such a case, even the sanctuary should not avail her; the colour rose to her countenance in scorn.

"Hath then," she said, "my Lord Protector (I pray God he may prove one!) so tender a zeal, that he fears only lest he should escape him? thinketh he that I would send him hence? in what place could I think him sure, if not within this sanctuary? never was there tyrant so unholy, that durst presume to break it. Wots he not that I well see whereto this process tends? 'It were comfortable,' says he, 'that the prince were with his brother, because the king wanteth a playfellow!' I pray God to send them both better playfellows than he as though princes could play only with their peers, and children with their kin, with whom, for the most part, they agree much worse than strangers. Excuse me, my good Cardinal, and you my good lords; I am his mother and his guardian, and he stirs not hence!"

The Cardinal waxed wroth, to hear the Protector spoken of so bitterly, and seemed for a while disposed to resent it as a wrong. He turned his back to leave her, and took some few steps away; but it seemed that kinder feelings came in to temper his

resentment; for he again advanced, and said to her more kindly: "I will no longer, madam, dispute the matter with you, for it beseems me not. But I will lay both my body and my soul in pledge for the prince's safety. Am I, and are these lords, think you, so dull of wit, that we cannot perceive that the Protector means but good, in all that he proposes?"

The queen stood for a while in an attitude of painful thought.—But she feared that the abbey was beset; some of the lords, whom she had proved, though she thought they were deceived, she knew were not corrupted; and it was better, she imagined, to engage them by her willing trust in their loyalty, than to yield upon compulsion. She raised her head, took the young child by the hand, and led him to the lords: "I am not," said she,

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so unwise, as to mistrust your wit; but there are some, we know, that seek our hurt. Whilst the children are asunder, they are safe. Our Lady grant that, when together, the nephews may be certain of their uncle; for brother, before now, has been the brother's bane. Here, notwithstanding, I deliver the one son unto you, of whom, before God and man, I shall require both. Faithful are ye, I wot well; power to preserve them, if you will,

very deed want it, ye will find it again within this sanctuary. Only, far as ye think I fear too much, be ye well assured that ye fear far too little. Farewell," said she, stooping, "farewell, -mine own sweet son; let me kiss you yet once more before you go, for God only knoweth when we meet again!"—and therewithal, she kissed and blessed him; and when she had done this, she turned her back, and wept. The child wept sorely also, as he left his mother's hand. And,—well may ye whisper to yourselves, my gentle readers, "Ah! it must then be so ;-they never met again!"

The Protector could ill disguise his joy, when he had thus obtained the person of his other nephew. He now began more decidedly to aspire to the crown, and to open his projects to his friends. The young princes were sent to the Tower, under excuse of a general custom previous to the coronation of a king. The Earl Rivers, and other of the queen's partisans, who had been sent to Pontefract castle, were beheaded. The like fate attended the Lord Hastings, when it was found that, though an enemy of the queen, he shewed an uncorrupted loyalty to the young king; reports were busily spread abroad against the legitimacy of the princes,-and when all things were ripe for the design, the duke openly

assumed the crown, and finished his criminal usurpation by the last act of a tragedy, at which nature, honour, and humanity will for ever shudder.

Shut up in the Tower, and deprived of all suitable attendance, the youthful Edward appears to have had a presentiment that his unnatural uncle would not long leave him even the miserable solace of a safe imprisonment; for when word was brought him that the usurper had just seized his crown, he is stated to have said, with a sigh, "Alas! I would that my uncle would still let me have my life, although he dispossess me of my kingdom !"

But it was not so to be. In the dead of night, whilst the princely infants were in calm and silent slumber, two ruffians entered their apartment. It might be, that they were dreaming of their earlier boyhood, when their little hearts were merry as the morning lark, and they had no sorrow to stain their face with tears, and none but a smiling mother to watch over their comforts. At the sight of their meek beauty and placid innocence of aspect, the fierce intruders paused-but it was only for a moment; approaching the couch, they seized the clothes and bolsters, and quickly stifling them, called out to the wicked Tyrrell, who employed them, and stood outside the room,

bodies were then lowered down the stairs of the apartment, and buried at the foot.

Thus piteously perished, in the earliest bloom of youth, these two sweet children, cut off from existence like two summer flowers, before they had time to expand to the sunshine of fair fortune. But their cruel murder was not unvisited by Heaven. The Duke of Gloucester, crowned under the title of King Richard the Third, reigned only two years and as many months; and that not peacefully, but in the midst of trouble and conspiracy. He was slain in the battle of Bosworth Field,— dying by violence, as by violence he rose to power. And it was observed by his chamberlain, that after the horrible murder which he caused to be committed, he was inwardly tormented by an accusing conscience; that he never thought himself secure; when he went abroad he was fenced with secret armour, and had his hand ever on his dagger, -his countenance and manner betraying the suspicion that tormented him within. And at night, it was remarked, that he watched long and late, -and when overpowered with fatigue, rather slumbered than slept; frequently starting up, and leaping from his bed in anguish, like one harassed with some black remembrance, or scared by the