1471. Margaret of Anjou was finally defeated at the battle of Tewkesbury, and Edward then held peaceable possession of the crown. He was exceedingly handsome, and many persons were foolish enough to love him because of his beauty, when his cruel and deceitful heart ought rather to have caused him to be avoided by those who loved God. He married lady Elizabeth Grey, the widow of a Lancastrian gentleman; a union which led to many quarrels between her relations and those of the king, and was generally unpleasing to the nation. Edward became involved in a dispute with his own brother, the duke of Clarence, who, being of a rash, unguarded temper, soon let fall some expressions, which the cruel king interpreted as treasonable, and caused him to be condemned to death; as a last favour allowing him to choose his own mode of execution.

Clarence made a strange choice, if history speaks truly. It is said he decided on being drowned in a cask of malmsey wine. Aunt Anne is inclined to think this is only a figurative manner of saying he drank himself to death. But whatever may be the true statement, one thing is very clear, that Clarence was not at all prepared to die; and it is very shocking

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to think of his going to death and judgment in a state of mind so unlike that of a Christian.

I wish you to observe, my dear children, how much safer and better are the times we live in, than those of which you have just been reading. Some people are very fond of talking of "the good old times," and wish to bring them back again; but for Aunt Anne's part, she very much prefers her own days, when men cannot be thrown into prison and killed, just to please some great person. Now, when any one is accused of a crime, he must be fairly tried, and may have as many witnesses as he likes to prove his innocence, if he can; and if, after all, he is found guilty, and it is necessary he should die, good, pious clergymen visit him, to pray with, and read to him, and try to turn his poor guilty heart to repentance, that even at the eleventh hour, he may take hold on the Lord Jesus Christ, and be saved in the next world, though he must be punished in this.

In the year 1479, a dreadful pestilence ravaged the whole country. An old chronicler says, "that in four months there perished more than thrice the number of those who had died in fifteen years of civil warfare." Heavily, indeed, was the hand of the Lord lain upon our afflicted land, smarting with

the just chastisement of her many crimes. The Lancastrian party were treated with the utmost harshness during the reign of Edward. Many of the nobility were reduced to absolute beggary. The duke of Exeter actually begged his bread barefoot in London, and a lady Neville, a relative of the earl of Warwick, supported herself by needlework as long as she could, and when that failed, was obliged to beg.

So many of the nobility were killed in the wars, that Edward was obliged to create many new peers to fill their places. His own brothers, George and Richard, he made dukes of Clarence and Gloucester. The fate of Clarence I have already told you. Of the wicked Richard, duke of Gloucester, you will shortly hear more. He was, indeed, unworthy to bear the title of the "good duke Humphrey" of Gloucester, who had been so much beloved when acting as regent for the baby-king Henry.

Edward the fourth encouraged commerce, and was even in some sort a merchant himself, as he had some trading vessels; and it was a fashion in those days for people of rank to engage in commercial speculations. This king passed nearly all his time in sloth and self-indulgence. He never denied himself a single gratification, whether innocent or unlawful, and "he

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gathered the fruit of the tree which he planted," for he ruined his constitution by his excesses, and was "cut off in the midst of his days," by a fever brought on by over-indulgence at table. Although he "did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord," he well knew what was right, and, shortly before his death, gave many directions to lord Rivers, the governor of the young prince of Wales, to bring him up virtuously and religiously. He died April 9, 1483, in the fortysecond year of his age and the twenty-third of his reign. He left two sons, Edward and Richard, and five daughters, the eldest of whom married Henry, earl of Richmond, afterwards Henry the seventh.

CHAPTER XXI.

EDWARD THE FIFTH-RICHARD THE THIRD

FROM 1483 TO 1485.

WHEN Edward the fourth died, his two little boys were under the care of lord Rivers, their mother's brother. The eldest was thirteen, the youngest nine. As they were so young, the late king's brother, Richard, duke of Gloucester, was made protector, to manage the affairs of the kingdom till Edward should be old enough to do so himself. But this "bold, bad man" had no intention that either of his nephews should ever reign. Under pretence of desiring to remove the children from their mother and lord Rivers into safer keeping, he put both the children into the Tower of London, and then caused nearly all their friends, on various false accusations, to be beheaded or imprisoned. He privately ordered Brackenbury, the governor of the Tower, to murder his nephews; and finding him too conscientious to obey so iniquitous a command, removed him, and put into his place sir James Tyrrel, who caused the poor boys