and her extreme beauty. Their hearts were softened by the remembrance
of the many stories they had heard of the kindness of her heart, and
the amiableness and gentleness of her demeanor, in the time of her
prosperity and power. They thought it hard, too, that the law should
be enforced so rigidly against her alone, while so many multitudes in
all ranks of society, high as well as low, were allowed to go
unpunished.

[Footnote O: The husband with whom she had lived before she became
acquainted with Edward was a wealthy goldsmith and jeweler.]

Still, Richard's object in this exhibition was accomplished. The
transaction had the effect of calling the attention of the public
universally and strongly to the fact that Edward the Fourth had been a
loose and dissolute man, and prepared people's minds for the charge
which was about to be brought against him.

This charge was that he had been secretly married to another lady
before his union with Elizabeth Woodville, and that consequently by
this latter marriage he was guilty of bigamy. Of course, if this were
true, the second marriage would be null and void, and the children
springing from it would have no rights as heirs.

Whether there was any truth in this story or not can not now ever be
certainly known. All that is certain is that Richard circulated the
report, and he found several witnesses to testify to the truth of it.
The maiden name of the lady to whom they said the king had been
married was Elinor Talbot. She had married in early life a certain
Lord Boteler, whose widow she was at the time that Edward was alleged
to have married her. The marriage was performed in a very private
manner by a certain bishop, nobody being present besides the parties
except the bishop himself, and he was strictly charged by the king to
keep the affair a profound secret. This he promised to do.
Notwithstanding his promise, however, the bishop some time
subsequently, after the king had been married to Elizabeth Woodville,
revealed the secret of the previous marriage to Gloucester, at which
the king, when he heard of it, was extremely angry. He accused the
bishop of having betrayed the trust which he had reposed in him, and,
dismissing him at once from office, shut him up in prison.

Richard having, as he said, kept these facts secret during his
brother's lifetime, out of regard for the peace of the family, now
felt it his duty to make them known, in order to prevent the wrong
which wo