The Duke may have received some hasty notice from a messenger, but the first real news of what had been going on in London came from Buckingham at Northampton. Morton's story about Gloucester's intrigues at this time is therefore a fabrication. The truth is exactly the reverse of Morton's version. Richard's conduct was straightforward and loyal. After attending solemn obsequies of his brother in York Minster, he called on the nobility and gentry of Yorkshire to swear allegiance to his young nephew. When he arrived in London, he ordered preparations to be made for his nephew's coronation, and he sent summonses to forty esquires to receive knighthood of the Bath on the occasion.[8] He also caused the dresses to be worn by his nephew at his coronation to be got ready.[9] These acts were well known to Morton, who passed them over in silence, {210} because they would tend to give a true impression, where he wanted to leave a false one. Having thus raised a prejudice against the Protector, Morton's next object was to instil a belief that Hastings worked against the Woodvilles throughout in concert with Richard. In order to create this impression he gives two false dates. He makes young Richard leave sanctuary on June 9. The true date was the 16th.[10] He asserts that Lord Rivers was beheaded on June 13, the very day of the arrest of Hastings, and he makes a great point of it, observing as a striking coincidence that Hastings suffered death on the self-same day and about the self-same hour as Rivers whose execution he had approved.[11] He knew this to be false. Rivers made his will on the 23rd, and was not beheaded until the 25th.[12] Morton had a motive for falsifying the dates, and it is obvious. He wanted it to appear that Hastings was an enemy of the Woodville {211} faction to the end, that he was a party to the removal of young Richard from sanctuary and to the execution of Rivers. But why? Clearly because Hastings was not an enemy of the Woodvilles to the end, because he had, with Morton and others, formed a coalition with them, and entered into a conspiracy with them against the Protector. It was important to conceal this, because it justified the Protector's action against Hastings; and Morton did so by resorting to a falsification of dates. He then proceeds to enter into minute details, in describing the scene when Hastings was arrested on Friday, June 13.