Alarm of the queen on hearing the news.--Visit of the archbishop.--Hasting's message.--The queen is in great distress.--Uncertainty in respect to Gloucester's designs.--Arrest of the leading men in the Woodville party.--The queen "on the rushes."--Her daughters.--Description of the sanctuary.--Apartments.--The Jerusalem chamber.--Richard's plans in respect to the coronation.--Reception of Richard's party at London.--Richard establishes his court.--Dorset.--The queen's friends dismissed.--Richard's titles.--Anxiety of the people of England.--Forlorn situation of the queen. When the news reached London that the king had been seized on the way to the capital, and was in Gloucester's custody, it produced a universal commotion. Queen Elizabeth was thrown at once into a state of great anxiety and alarm. The tidings reached her at midnight. She was in the palace at Westminster at the time. She rose immediately in the greatest terror, and began to make preparations for fleeing to sanctuary with the Duke of York, her second son. All her friends in the neighborhood were aroused and summoned to her aid. The palace soon became a scene of universal confusion. Every body was busy packing up clothing and other necessaries in trunks and boxes, and securing jewels and valuables of various kinds, and removing them to places of safety. In the midst of this scene, the queen herself sat upon the rushes which covered the floor, half dressed, and her long and beautiful locks of hair streaming over her shoulders, the picture of despair. There was a certain nobleman, named Lord Hastings, who had been a very prominent and devoted friend to Edward the Fourth during his life, and had consequently been upon very intimate and friendly terms with the queen. It was he, however, that had objected in the council to the employment of a large force to conduct the young king to London, and, by so doing, had displeased the queen. Toward morning, while the queen was in the depths of her distress and terror, making her preparations for flight, a cheering message from Hastings was brought to her, telling her not to be alarmed. The message was brought to her by a certain archbishop who had been chancellor, that is, had had the custody of the great seal, an impression from which was necessary to the validity of any royal decree. He came to deliver up the seal to the queen, and also to bring Lord Hastings's message. "Ah, woe worth him!" said the queen, when the archbishop informed her that Lord Hastings bid her not fear. "It is he that is the cause of all my sorrows; he goeth about to destroy me and my blood."