The despotisms of Richard soon alienated the hearts of his subjects, and disposed them to receive his rival, the Earl of Richmond, with open arms. That prince, afterwards King Henry VII., landed at Milford Haven in August, 1485, with a force of about 2,000 men. The Welsh, who regarded him as their countryman, flocked to his standard and gave him every assurance of support. Having mustered his army he determined to march for Shrewsbury. On arriving at the Welsh bridge, he found the place in a posture of defence; and on summoning the town he was unexpectedly refused admittance by the head bailiff; a curious conference ensued, of which an account is given in a manuscript belonging to the school library. “The head-bailey Maister Myttoon, being a stout wyse gentilman, on demand being made of entrance, answered, sayinge that he knew no kynge but only kynge Richard, whose lyffetenants he and his fellows were; and before he should entir there, he should go over his belly, meaning thereby, that he should be slayne to the ground, and that he protested vehemently on the othe he had tacken; but on better advice Maister Myttoon permitted the kynge to pass; but to save hys othe, the sayd Myttoon lay along the ground, and his belly upwards, and soe the said erle stepped over hym and saved his othe.” The earl was first proclaimed king on his entrance into Shrewsbury; the inhabitants testifying their joy at his coming, and their vows for his success. He is said to have lodged in a house in the Wyle Cop, three doors below the Lion Inn. In 1488, when quietly established on the throne, he paid a visit to Shrewsbury, in testimony of his gratitude for its services to his cause; and in 1490, he, with his Queen and Prince Arthur, were present at a solemn festival, and attended mass in the collegiate church of St. Chad. Five years after, Henry again visited the town, and was nobly entertained in the castle by the corporation. The spring of the year 1551 was fatally distinguished by the commencement of a dreadful epidemic in this town called the “sweating sickness.”