latform, called a dais, at one end of the
banquet-hall, with a royal canopy over it. The table for the
distinguished personages was upon this dais, while those for the other
guests extended up and down the hall below. Richard was seated at the
centre of the table of honor, with a countess on one side of him and a
duchess on the other. Opposite to him, at the same table, were seated
Isabella and Anne. Anne was at this time about twelve years old.

Now it is supposed that Isabella and Anne were placed at this table to
please Richard, for their mother, who was, of course, entitled to take
precedence of them, had her seat at one of the large tables below.

From this and some other similar indications, it is supposed that
Richard took a fancy to Anne while they were quite young, as Clarence
did to Isabella. Indeed, one of the ancient writers says that Richard
wished, at this early period, to choose her for his wife, but that she
did not like him.

At any rate, now, after the re-establishment of his brother upon the
throne, and his own exaltation to such high office under him, he
determined that he would marry Anne. Clarence, on the other hand,
determined that he should not marry her. So Clarence, with the
pretense of taking her under his protection, seized her, and carried
her away to a place of concealment, where he kept her closely shut up.
Anne consented to this, for she wished to keep out of Richard's way.
Richard's person was disagreeable to her, and his character was
hateful. She seems to have considered him, as he is generally
represented by the writers of those times, as a rude, hard-hearted,
and unscrupulous man; and she had also a special reason for shrinking
from him with horror, as the mortal enemy of her father, and the
reputed murderer of the husband to whom she had been betrothed.

Clarence kept her for some time in obscure places of concealment,
changing the place from time to time to elude the vigilance of
Richard, who was continually making search for her. The poor princess
had recourse to all manner of contrivances, and assumed the most
humble disguises to keep herself concealed, and was at last reduced to
a very forlorn and destitute condition, through the desperate shifts
that she resorted to, in her endeavors to escape Richard's
persecutions. All was, however, in vain. Richard discovered her at
last in a mean house in London, where she was living in the disguise
of a servant. He immediately seized h