and for her dispatching her counter-orders; for Percival to post
back and meet Gloucester at Nottingham, and for returning thence and
bringing his master Buckingham to meet Richard at Northampton, at
the very time of the king's arrival there. All this might happen,
undoubtedly; and yet who will believe, that such mysterious and
rapid negociations came to the knowledge of Sir Thomas More
twenty-five years afterwards, when, as it will appear, he knew
nothing of very material and public facts that happened at the same
period?

(6) Fabian.

(7) It should be remarked too, that the duke of Gloucester is
positively said to be celebrating his brother's obsequies there. It
not only strikes off part of the term by allowing the necessary time
for the news of king Edward's death to reach York, and for the
preparation to be made there to solemnize a funeral for him; but
this very circumstance takes off from the probability of Richard
having as yett laid any plan for dispossessing his nephew. Would he
have loitered at York at such a crisis, if he had intended to step
into the throne?

But whether the circumstances are true, or whether artfully
imagined, it is certain that the king, with a small force, arrived
at Northampton, and thence proceeded to Stony Stratford. Earl Rivers
remained at Northampton, where he was cajoled by the two dukes till
the time of rest, when the gates of the inn were suddenly locked,
and the earl made prisoner. Early in the morning the two dukes
hastened to Stony Stratford, where, in the king's presence, they
picked a quarrel with his other half-brother, the lord Richard Grey,