Now, the wicked Richard of Gloucester had got one of the little boys into his power; but that was no use unless he could get the other one, for if he killed Edward the people would say Richard, Duke of York, must be king. And he dared not kill either of them while Lord Hastings was alive. So he thought of a plan, and this is what he did. He called a meeting of the great nobles to the Tower to talk about business of State. Lord Hastings came, of course, among the others. At first Richard seemed to be in very good spirits, and laughed and jested; but as the morning went on he grew crosser and crosser, and at last he scowled so much that all the nobles were afraid of him. Then suddenly he stretched out his bare arm, and showed them that it was shrivelled and old. It had been like that since he was a baby, but now he pretended that it had only happened suddenly, and that it was done by poor Queen Elizabeth, who was then in sanctuary with her children; and he said she was a witch and had bewitched him, and turning quickly to Lord Hastings, he said: 'What should be done to those who did this thing? Ought they not to be killed?' Lord Hastings knew quite well that the Queen had not done it; but he did not dare to say so, so he answered: 'Ay, my lord, _if_ they have done this thing they deserve death.' Then Richard roared out in a fury: 'Dost thou answer me with "ifs"? By my head! I will not dine until thy head is off!' And he made a sign to some soldiers he had placed there before, and they rushed forward and carried out poor Lord Hastings on to the little strip of green outside, and there, before anyone could interfere, chopped off his head on a log of wood that lay there. No one dare do anything, for they were all afraid of the Duke of Gloucester; and Hastings suffered simply because he had been loyal to his little King. Richard had no heart to feel sorry for his victims; he just mowed down the people who stood between him and his wishes as if they had been daisies. Now at last he could get his own way, for the two most powerful men who would have opposed him were out of the way: the King's uncle, Rivers, was imprisoned at Pontefract in Yorkshire, and Hastings was dead. So Richard's next idea was to get the little Duke of York and take him to the Tower to his brother, and then he would have everything in his own hands. Even Richard of Gloucester could not go and drag his little nephew straight out of sanctuary, for the Archbishop would not have allowed it, and all the people would have been horrified at the sacrilege and risen against him; so he sent some men to try to persuade the Queen to give the boy up.