degree, and is furnished by that able pen with strains of pathetic
oratory, which no part of her conduct affords us reason to believe
she possessed. This scene is occasioned by the demand of delivering
up her second son. Cardinal Bourchier archbishop of Canterbury is
the instrument employed by the protector to effect this purpose. The
fact is confirmed by Fabian in his rude and brief manner, and by the
Chronicle of Croyland, and therefore cannot be disputed. But though
the latter author affirms, that force was used to oblige the
cardinal to take that step, he by no means agrees with Sir Thomas
More in the repugnance of the queen to comply, nor in that idle
discussion on the privileges of sanctuaries, on which Sir Thomas has
wasted so many words. On the contrary, the chronicle declares, that
the queen "Verbis gratanter annues, dimisit puerum." The king, who
had been lodged in the palace of the bishop of London, was now
removed with his brother to the Tower.

This last circumstance has not a little contributed to raise horror
in vulgar minds, who of late years have been accustomed to see no
persons of rank lodged in the Tower but state criminals. But in that
age the case was widely different. It not only appears by a map
engraven so late as the reign of Queen Elizabeth, that the Tower was
a royal palace, in which were ranges of buildings called the king's
and queen's apartments, now demolished; but it is a known fact, that
they did often lodge there, especially previous to their
coronations. The queen of Henry the Seventh lay in there: queen
Elizabeth went thither after her triumphant entry into the city; and
many other instances might be produced, but for brevity I omit them,
to come to one of the principal transactions of this dark period: I
mean Richard's assumption of the crown. Sir Thomas More's account of
this extraordinary event is totally improbable, and positively false