If the Queen Dowager and her relations had any knowledge of the first marriage, Bishop Stillington would be a source of anxiety and fear to them; while they could never be certain who else might know the secret besides the King's mother. We find that the Duke of Clarence was attainted on February 7, 1478, on a series of charges, most of them frivolous and none sufficiently grave to account for his death at the hands of his own brother. There must have been something behind. Mr. Gairdner has suggested that the execution of Clarence was due to his having discovered the secret.[13] Certainly that would satisfactorily account for it. The influence of the Woodvilles was paramount, and it would then be a necessity of their continuance in power that Clarence should cease to live. The character of Clarence made it impossible that a secret would be safe with him. His death was the only safe course for the Woodvilles. It is very significant that, at the very time of Clarence's attainder, Bishop Stillington was arrested and imprisoned[14] for 'uttering words prejudicial to the King and his State.' He was pardoned in the following June 1478. All this points clearly to the discovery of the first contract by Clarence, and to the utterance of some imprudent {96} speech by the bishop, which was expiated by imprisonment followed by renewed promises of silence. During the years following his imprisonment, Bishop Stillington appears to have devoted himself to the duties of his diocese. He always retained feelings of affection for the family at Acaster, and for the home of his childhood on the banks of the Ouse. Towards the close of his long and honourable career he founded a collegiate chapel on his brother's land at Acaster, dedicated to St. Andrew, for a provost and fellows, and for free education in grammar, music and writing. The grant was confirmed by King Richard III. in 1483. A fine collegiate church of brick, eighty-seven feet long and twenty-one broad, rose upon the banks of the Ouse, with twenty windows filled with stained glass. It was a memorial of the good bishop, and members of his family in later generations left in their wills that they wished to be buried at St. Andrew's college. The site is now marked by a few grassy mounds.[15] {97} Dr. Stillington was a good and pious bishop, an able statesman, and a most loyal and faithful adherent of the White Rose. His one fault was that he did not ensure his own destruction by proclaiming Edward's secret before that King's death. There was no urgent obligation to do so; but when the time arrived, he was bound to come forward, and he was probably urged by the Duchess of York to publish the truth. Richard had hitherto been ignorant of the early intrigues of his brother. He was only eleven and a half when the widow of Sir J. Grey was taken into favour, and the Butler contract was of a still earlier date.