These two boys, the sons of Edward the Fourth, were the principal obstacles to Richard's undisturbed possession of the throne he had usurped. The elder of them, a boy of thirteen, had already been crowned as Edward the Fifth, but he was a king in name only. Scarcely had the coronation taken place when his bad uncle, under the pretence of offering his protection, got him into his power, and shut him up, with his young brother Richard, in the Tower, while he himself plotted for the crown to which he had neither right nor title. How he succeeded in his evil schemes history has recorded. By dint of falsehood and cunning he contrived to make himself acknowledged king by an unwilling people; and then, when the height of his ambition had been attained, he could not rest till those whom he had so shamefully robbed of their inheritance were out of his path. Therefore it was he sent his messenger to Sir Robert Brackenbury. Foiled in his design of making this officer the instrument of his base scheme, he summoned to his presence Sir James Tyrrel, a man of reckless character, ready for whatever might bring him profit or preferment; and to him he confided his wishes. That same day Tyrrel started for London, armed with a warrant entrusting him with the Governorship of the Tower for one day, during which Sir Robert Brackenbury was to hand over the fortress and all it contained to his keeping. The brave knight had nothing for it but to obey this order, though he well knew its meaning, and could foretell only too readily its result. In a lofty room of that gloomy fortress, that same summer evening, the two hapless brothers were sitting, little dreaming of the fate so nearly approaching. The young king had indeed for some time past seemed to entertain a vague foreboding that he would never again breathe the free air outside his prison. He had grown melancholy, and the buoyant spirits of youth had given place to a listlessness and heaviness strangely out of keeping with his tender years. He cared neither for talk nor exercise, and neglected both food and dress. His brother, two years younger than himself, was of a more hopeful demeanour, perhaps realising less fully the hardships and dangers of their present imprisonment. As they sat this evening in their lonely chamber, he tried to rally his elder brother from his melancholy. "Look not so black, brother; we shall soon be free. Why should we give up hope?" The young king answered nothing, and apparently did not heed his brother's words. "Nay," persisted the latter, "should we not be glad our lives are spared us, and that our imprisonment is made easy by the care of good Sir Robert, our governor?" Still Edward remained absorbed in his own gloomy reflections, and the younger lad, thus foiled in his efforts at cheerfulness, became silent too, and sad, and so continued till a warder entered their chamber with food, and remained to attend them to bed.