that his plan involved the murder of the rightful heirs as well as mere usurpation. Richard III. crowned. On the 16th of June, Richard, using the aged archbishop Bourchier as his tool, got the little duke of York out of his mother's hands, and sent him to join his brother in the Tower. A few days later, having packed London with his own armed retainers and those of Buckingham and his other confidants, he openly put forward his pretensions to the throne. Edward IV., as he asserted, had been privately contracted to Lady Eleanor Talbot before he ever met Queen Elizabeth. His children therefore were bastards, the offspring of a bigamous union. As to the son and daughter of the duke of Clarence, their blood had been corrupted by their father's attainder, and they could not be reckoned as heirs to the crown. He himself, therefore, was the legitimate successor of Edward IV. This preposterous theory was set forth by Buckingham, first to the mayor and corporation of London, and next day to an assembly of the estates of the realm held in St Paul's. Cowed by the show of armed force, and remembering the fate of Hastings, the two assemblies received the claim with silence which gave consent. Richard, after a hypocritical show of reluctance, allowed himself to be saluted as king, and was crowned on the 6th of July 1483. Before the coronation ceremony he had issued orders for the execution of the queen's relatives, who had been in prison since the beginning of May. He paid his adherents lavishly for their support, making Lord Howard duke of Norfolk, and giving Buckingham enormous grants of estates and offices. Murder of the princes. Having accomplished his _coup d'état_ Richard started for a royal progress through the Midlands, and a few days after his departure sent back secret orders to London for the murder of his two nephews in the Tower. There is no reason to doubt that they were secretly smothered on or about the 15th of July by his agent Sir James Tyrrell, or that the bones found buried under a staircase in the fortress two hundred years after belonged to the two unhappy lads. But the business was kept dark at the time, and it was long before any one could assert with certainty that they were dead or alive. Richard never published any statement as to their end, though some easy tale of a fever, a conflagration, or an accident might have served him better than the mere silence that he employed. For while many persons believed that the princes still existed there was room for all manner of impostures and false rumours. Buckingham's rebellion.