The moment he had said this he struck his hand upon the table, and some soldiers came into the room. He made a sign to them to take away Lord Hastings, and they took him directly to the court before the windows. There they laid him down with his neck on a log of wood, and cut off his head, and the cruel Gloucester went to his dinner. After this, nobody was surprised to hear that Richard had put to death several more of the king’s friends; and that the next thing he did was to get the people to make him king, and to say that the young prince was not fit to be king. After this, he ordered both the princes to be murdered in the Tower; and I will tell you how it was done. [Illustration: Death of the little Princes in the Tower.] The governor of the Tower at that time was Sir Robert Brackenbury, and Richard found that he was so honest, that while he was there he would not let anybody hurt the little princes, so that he sent away Brackenbury upon some business that was to take him two or three days, and gave the keys to a wicked servant of his own to keep till Brackenbury came back. The bad man’s name was Tyrrell; and he had no sooner got the charge of the little king and his brother, than he sent for two persons more wicked even than himself, and promised them a great deal of money, if they would go into the children’s room while they were asleep and murder them. These two men’s names were Dighton and Forrest. They went into the room where the princes were both on the same bed. Their little arms were round each other’s necks, and their little cheeks close together. Then the wicked murderers took some cushions, and laid them over the poor children as they lay asleep, and smothered them. Then they took them on their shoulders, and carried them to a little back-staircase, near their room in the Tower, and buried them in a great hole under the stairs, and threw a heap of stones over them; and a long time afterwards, some workmen, who were employed to repair that part of the Tower, found their bones in that place. And this was the end of our little King Edward the Fifth, and his brother York. You will read something about their sister Elizabeth very soon. CHAPTER XXXV. RICHARD III.—1483 to 1485. How Richard the Third tried to make the people his friends; how the Duke of Buckingham rebelled and was put to death; how Richard was killed at Bosworth fighting against the Earl of Richmond, who was made King. Richard, Duke of Gloucester, had got himself made king, as I told you, before he murdered his young nephews in the Tower. The people were told that the young princes had died suddenly. He tried to make the people forget the wicked way in which he came to be king by making some good laws; but he could not succeed. The English could not love so base and cruel a man, and Richard had but a short and troublesome reign.