With the accession of Henry V the war with France was renewed and again many French nobles became tenants of the pile. One of them, Charles of Orleans, grandson of Charles V, is described by Shakespeare. Wounded and captured at Agincourt, the impossible ransom of 300,000 crowns was demanded by his unsuccessful rival, Henry V, who had failed to win the love of Isabella, widow of Richard II of England. Indeed Henry preferred that he remain a perpetual prisoner; and a prisoner he remained for twenty-five years, spending his time with his books and his verses, many addressed to his dead wife. Finally released, he married Mary of Cleves, and their son was Louis XII, who married Mary, the sister of Henry VIII of England. With the Wars of the Roses, the records became more bloody, and the sanguinary tinge continues through the Tudor period. During the first period it was great house against great house, but during the Tudor period began the great struggle for political freedom, which at times seemed hopeless of attainment. No figure so dominates the first period as the sinister, humpbacked brother of Edward IV, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, Richard III of England. His influence is felt in the sober history as well as in the plays of Shakespeare. He is said to have stabbed with his own hand the imbecile Henry VI, who had already at a previous time spent five years a prisoner in the Tower. Tradition persists that he drowned his brother the Duke of Clarence, in a butt of the latter's favourite wine. We know of his denunciation of Lord Hastings on charge of witchcraft and of the murder of that unhappy nobleman. We know that he kept Jane Shore, the mistress of his brother, in prison here until all her charms were faded. But the mysterious disappearance of the two little princes has done most to damn his memory. As the result of the marriage with Elizabeth Woodville, Edward IV left two sons, Edward V, aged twelve, and Richard, aged eight. Gloucester was Protector but with diabolical cunning threw doubt upon the legitimacy of the boys placed under his charge. They were confided to Sir John Brackenbury, the lieutenant of the Tower, while the preparations for the coronation went on. Their mother, filled with unhappy forebodings for them and fearful of her own fate, was in sanctuary at Westminster.