On July 4, 1483, King Richard III. and Queen Anne removed to the royal lodgings in the Tower, where their nephews Edward and Richard were residing. Owing to his illegitimacy the eldest boy, who had been proclaimed King and soon afterwards set aside, could not retain the titles of Wales and Cornwall, nor could the younger one continue to have the royal title of York. The younger boy had also lost his claim to the Mowbray titles of Norfolk and Nottingham by the death of the little Mowbray heiress to whom he had been betrothed. Those titles justly passed to the representatives of the aunts who succeeded Anne Mowbray as the heirs of that family, the Ladies Howard and Berkeley. Their sons were created Duke of Norfolk and Earl of Nottingham respectively, on June 28. But Edward, the eldest boy, retained the earldoms separately conferred on him by his father, of Pembroke and March. It was the King's intention to bring his nephews up and provide for them as became their rank and their near relationship to himself. 'He promised that he would so provide for them, and so maintain them in honourable estate, as that all the realm ought and should be content.'[1] The allegation that they never left the Tower is derived from the insinuations of very unscrupulous enemies. It is much more likely that they resided in the royal household, and were the companions of the King's other nephew, the Earl of Warwick; at least until it became necessary to place them in safe keeping on the invasion of the realm by Henry Tudor. In the regulations for King Richard's {126} household, dated July 23, 1484, it is ordained that 'the children are to be together at one breakfast.' Who were these children, if not the King's nephews? They were evidently children of high rank,[2] and Richard's little son Edward had died in the previous April. Before the coronation, the King created eighteen Knights of the Bath, four of them sons or brothers of peers. The coronation of King Richard III. and Queen Anne took place on Sunday, July 6, 1483. Its splendour was greater than had ever been known before. The Cardinal Archbishop placed the crowns on the heads of the new sovereign and his consort. He was surrounded by bishops, and nearly the whole peerage was present. Never was accession received with such unanimous consent by all ranks of the people. The attendance of a Woodville bishop and a Grey viscount gave grounds for the hope that even faction was at an end. On scarcely any other occasion was the aristocracy of England so fully represented. The Duchess of Suffolk, as sister of the King, walked alone in state, in the procession. The intriguing wife of Stanley, mother of Henry Tudor, had the privilege of bearing the Queen's train. ====================================================================== {127} CORONATION PROCESSION OF KING RICHARD III.