Page images
PDF
EPUB

38

CHAPTER V.

A SCENE IN THE SANCTUARY.

Duke of Gloucester had now cleared away

Talute of obstacle to his guilty ambition.

There was one circumstance which annoyed him, however. The queen was still in the Sanctuary at Westminster; and with her was her young son, the little Duke of York, whom Gloucester was determined to have in his own power. So he represented to his council that it was a ridiculous thing for a boy of such tender years to be claiming the privileges of sanctuary, which were only intended for the relief of such unhappy men as were persecuted and pursued on account of crime or debt. Besides, it was a grave reflection upon himself that the boy should be there, as though he were suspected of evil designs towards the child. Added to this, he said that it was necessary for the little duke to be at his brother's coronation, now so near at hand. He, therefore, wished the lords of the council to give him authority to take the boy away by force from his mother.

It is likely that most of these lords would have agreed to this, as they had to everything else the Protector had proposed. But there were one or two persons present who said that force must not be used, though they were willing to try what argument and persuasion could effect. So, on the third day after the murder of Lord Hastings, the Archbishop of

Canterbury with some other bishops, and several noblemen, went together to the Sanctuary, and demanded to see the queen.

The poor lady, who had had trouble enough already, was naturally plunged into deeper grief when she found that these visitors wished to separate her from her darling boy. At first, with many protes

[graphic][merged small][subsumed]

tations, she declared that he should not be taken away, that he was safe only so long as he was in the Sanctuary, where his wicked uncle could not get at him; that she already looked upon her other boy as almost lost; and if his brother should be given up, all her hope would be gone.

It was in vain that these visitors told the poor queen that the Duke of Gloucester was a right noble man; that she did not understand his princely nature, and did him great wrong in suspecting him of any evil intentions; for that, on the contrary, he designed to do both the boys much honour, and to serve them with his best and strongest efforts, if he were not thwarted. All these were idle words to the queen, who did not believe one of them; and who desired to be left the one consolation of having her youngest son with her in her sorrowful place of refuge. At last, finding that arguments and earnest entreaties and persuasions were of no use, the gentlemen plainly declared that the Duke of Gloucester was determined to have his nephew under his own protection, as he was in duty bound to do; and that, if the queen refused to give up the boy, force would be used, and then it would be worse both for her and for him. So the queen at last yielded; and called for her darling son. She was then (so history tells us) "struck on a sudden with a kind of presage of his future fate; she tenderly embraced him; she bedewed him with her tears; and bidding him an eternal adieu, delivered him, with many expressions of regret and reluctance, into their custody."

And no wonder; for at that moment she must have felt that, most likely, her boy was lost to her.

He was lost to her; for she never saw him afterwards. For the present, however, he was hurried away to the Tower, to keep company with his poor brother, whom it will be a mockery to call any more a king.

41

[ocr errors]

CHAPTER VI.

SUCCESSFUL PLOTTING.

'r the time of which we are now telling, Old St. Paul's Cathedral (which was burnt down to the ground nearly two hundred years afterwards) was surrounded by a church-yard, larger than the present one; and the people of London used to congregate in and around it, as in an ordinary market-place.

In the church-yard, at one end of the cathedral, outside, there was a large wooden pulpit with a canopy

[graphic]

over it; and from this pulpit were not only sermons preached, but public proclamations were made. For it must be borne in mind that the common people then were not expected to know how to read; and had they been able to do this, there was as yet no printing press for spreading abroad any kind of information; the art of printing being but just commenced in England.

A great crowd was gathered round St. Paul's Cross,

on the 22nd of June, the day that was to have been young Edward's coronation day. It was Sunday, but not the hour of service in the Cathedral; and the people were probably in expectation of hearing something from the pulpit outside.

They were not mistaken; for presently, a priest ascended the pulpit steps, having in his hand a written paper which looked very much like a manuscript sermon. The name of this person was Shaw: he was brother to the Lord Mayor of London.

It was a sermon which he held in his hand, and was about to deliver. But there was nothing in it about the way of salvation, and the love of God in the gift of His Son; nothing to comfort down-hearted mourners by pointing them to the Lamb of God, to the blessed Saviour who only can give rest to the weary soul, nothing to alarm impenitent sinners, and to warn them to flee from the wrath to come. Doctor Shaw's sermon was partly about the young princes in the Tower, showing how unfit such children were to bear rule, and how wrong it would be for Edward to be crowned king of England. He also said a great many unjust and injurious things of the queenmother and all her relations. To all this the people listened gravely, some of them no doubt wondering what would come next; but almost all of them being convinced that the preacher would not have dared utter such treasonable words if he had not been instructed to do so by the Protector himself.

Meanwhile, the crowd round St. Paul's Cross kept increasing; and besides the commoner or poorer sort of people, who generally are the first to flock together

« PreviousContinue »