s to administer the laws equally to all, and to maintain justice. He
then mounted his horse and rode back to the City, where he was received
by the clergy and the crowd as if he really had a right to the throne,
and really were a just man. The clergy and the crowd must have been
rather ashamed of themselves in secret, I think, for being such
poor-spirited knaves.

The new King and his Queen were soon crowned with a great deal of show
and noise, which the people liked very much; and then the King set forth
on a royal progress through his dominions. He was crowned a second time
at York, in order that the people might have show and noise enough; and
wherever he went was received with shouts of rejoicing--from a good many
people of strong lungs, who were paid to strain their throats in crying,
'God save King Richard!' The plan was so successful that I am told it
has been imitated since, by other usurpers, in other progresses through
other dominions.

While he was on this journey, King Richard stayed a week at Warwick. And
from Warwick he sent instructions home for one of the wickedest murders
that ever was done--the murder of the two young princes, his nephews, who
were shut up in the Tower of London.

Sir Robert Brackenbury was at that time Governor of the Tower. To him,
by the hands of a messenger named JOHN GREEN, did King Richard send a
letter, ordering him by some means to put the two young princes to death.
But Sir Robert--I hope because he had children of his own, and loved
them--sent John Green back again, riding and spurring along the dusty
roads, with the answer that he could not do so horrible a piece of work.
The King, having frowningly considered a little, called to him SIR JAMES
TYRREL, his master of the horse, and to him gave authority to take
command of the Tower, whenever he would, for twenty-four hours, and to
keep all the keys of the Tower during that space of time. Tyrrel, well
knowing what was wanted, looked about him for two hardened ruffians, and
chose JOHN DIGHTON, one of his own grooms, and MILES FOREST, who was a
murderer by trade. Having secured these two assistants, he went, upon a
day in August, to the Tower, showed his authority from the King, took the
command for four-and-twenty hours, and obtained possession of the keys.
And when the black night came he went creeping, creeping, like a guilty
villain as he was, up the dark, stone winding stairs, and along the dark
stone passages, unt