o it was that he meant, and he said Sir James
Tyrrel. Sir James Tyrrel was a very talented and accomplished, but
very unscrupulous man, and he was quite anxious to acquire the favor
of the king. The page knew this, from conversation which Sir James had
had with him, and he had been watching an opportunity to recommend
Sir James to Richard's notice, according to an arrangement that Sir
James had made with him.

So Richard ordered that Sir James should be sent in. When he came,
Richard held a private conference with him, in which he communicated
to him, by means of dark hints and insinuations, what he required.
Tyrrel undertook to execute the deed. So Richard gave him a letter to
Sir Robert Brakenbury, in which he ordered Sir Robert to deliver up
the keys of the Tower to Sir James, "to the end," as the letter
expressed it, "that he might there accomplish the king's pleasure in
such a thing as he had given him commandment."

Sir James, having received this letter, proceeded to London, taking
with him such persons as he thought he might require to aid him in his
work. Among these was a man named John Dighton. John Dighton was Sir
James's groom. He was "a big, broad, square, strong knave," and ready
to commit any crime or deed of violence which his master might
require.

On arriving at the Tower, Sir James delivered his letter to the
governor, and the governor gave him up the keys. Sir James went to see
the keepers of the prison in which the boys were confined. There were
four of them. He selected from among these four, one, a man named
Miles Forest, whom he concluded to employ, together with his groom,
John Dighton, to kill the princes. He formed the plan, gave the men
their instructions, and arranged it with them that they were to carry
the deed into execution that night.

Accordingly, at midnight, when the princes were asleep, the two men
stole softly into the room, and there wrapped the poor boys up
suddenly in the bed-clothes, with pillows pressed down hard over their
faces, so that they could not breathe. The boys, of course, were
suddenly awakened, in terror, and struggled to get free; but the men
held them down, and kept the pillows and bed-clothes pressed so
closely over their faces that they could not breathe or utter any cry.
They held them in this way until they were entirely suffocated.

When they found that their struggles had ceased, they slowly opened
the bed-clothes and lifted up the pillows to see if