The new King had promised the nobles who had espoused his cause that he
would marry the Princess Elizabeth. The first thing he did, was, to
direct her to be removed from the castle of Sheriff Hutton in
Yorkshire, where Richard had placed her, and restored to the care of
her mother in London. The young Earl of Warwick, Edward Plantagenet,
son and heir of the late Duke of Clarence, had been kept a prisoner in
the same old Yorkshire Castle with her. This boy, who was now fifteen,
the new King placed in the Tower for safety. Then he came to London in
great state, and gratified the people with a fine procession; on which
kind of show he often very much relied for keeping them in good humour.
The sports and feasts which took place were followed by a terrible
fever, called the Sweating Sickness; of which great numbers of people
died. Lord Mayors and Aldermen are thought to have suffered most from
it; whether, because they were in the habit of over-eating themselves,
or because they were very jealous of preserving filth and nuisances in
the City (as they have been since), I don’t know.
The King’s coronation was postponed on account of the general
ill-health, and he afterwards deferred his marriage, as if he were not
very anxious that it should take place: and, even after that, deferred
the Queen’s coronation so long that he gave offence to the York party.
However, he set these things right in the end, by hanging some men and
seizing on the rich possessions of others; by granting more popular
pardons to the followers of the late King than could, at first, be got
from him; and, by employing about his Court, some very scrupulous
persons who had been employed in the previous reign.
As this reign was principally remarkable for two very curious
impostures which have become famous in history, we will make those two
stories its principal feature.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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