The Londoners were astonished at this strange argument; they kept silence and so disappointed Gloucester, who had come to the sermon in hopes to meet an enthusiastic reception. But two days later, a stranger scene was enacted at the Guildhall: the Duke of Buckingham, Gloucester's chief confederate, summoned together the mayor and council of London, and, repeating all the arguments that Doctor Shaw had urged, bade them salute Richard as king. A few timid voices shouted approval, and then Buckingham declared that he recognized the assent and good-will of the people. Next day there met the Parliament which should have witnessed the coronation of Edward V. They were summoned to St. Paul's, where Buckingham presented to them a long document, setting forth the evil government of Edward IV., denouncing his sons as bastards, and ending with a petition to Richard of Gloucester to take upon him as his right the title and estate of king. The Lords and Commons yielded their silent assent, apparently without a word of discussion or argument, and Buckingham then led a deputation to Duke Richard, who, with much feigned reluctance, assented to the petition and declared himself king. The only excuse for this lamentable weakness shown by the Houses is that they were quite unprepared for the _coup d'état_, and were overawed by the thousands of men-at-arms in the livery of Gloucester and Buckingham, who packed every street. [Sidenote: =Execution of Rivers and Grey.=] So Richard was crowned with great pomp if with little rejoicing, and thought that he had attained the summit of his desires. But his position was from the first radically unsound. He had seized the throne so easily because his antecedents had not prepared men for such sudden and unscrupulous action, so that there had been no time to organize any opposition to him. But the pious and modest duke had suddenly blossomed forth into a bloodthirsty tyrant. On the very day of his accession he had the unfortunate Rivers and Grey beheaded at Pontefract, and six weeks later he wrought a much darker deed. [Sidenote: =Murder of the young princes.=] After starting on a festal progress through the midlands, he sent back a secret mandate to London, authorizing the murder of his little nephews, Edward and Richard. They were smothered at dead of night in their prison in the Tower, and secretly buried by the assassins. Their graves were never discovered till 1674, when masons repairing the building came upon the bones of two young boys thrust away under a staircase. The murder took place between the 7th and 14th of August, 1483, but its manner and details were never certainly known. [Sidenote: =Buckingham heads a rebellion.=]