issue from her: and little as Buck's authority is regarded, a
contemporary writer confirms the probability of this story. The
Chronicle of Croyland says, that at the Christmas festival,(34) men
were scandalized at seeing the queen and the lady Elizabeth dressed
in robes similar and equally royal. I should suppose that Richard
learning the projected marriage of Elizabeth and the earl of
Richmond, amused the young princess with the hopes of making her his
queen; and that Richard feared that alliance, is plain from his
sending her to the castle of Sheriff-Hutton on the landing of
Richmond.

(34) "Per haec festa natalia choreis aut tripudiis, variisque
mutatoriis vestium Annae reginae atque dominae Elizabeth,
primogenitae defuncti regis, eisdem colore & forma distributis
nimis intentum est: dictumque a multis est, ipsum regem aut
expectata morte reginae aut per divortium, matrimonio cum dicta
Elizabeth contrahendo mentem omnibus modis applicare," p. 572. If
Richard projected this match at Christmas, he was not likely to let
these intentions be perceived so early, nor to wait till March, if
he did not know that the queen was incurably ill. The Chronicle
says, she died of a languishing distemper. Did that look like
poison? It is scarce necessary to say that a dispensation from the
pope was in that age held so clear a solution of all obstacles to
the marriage of near relations, and was so easily to be obtained or
purchased by a great prince, that Richard would not have been
thought by his contemporaries to have incurred any guilt, even if he
had proposed to wed his neice, which however is far from being clear
to have been his intention.

The behaviour of the queen dowager must also be noticed. She was