Edward returned to town, and sent Henry, with his queen, to the Tower, from which the latter was ransomed by her relatives; but the former having no friends to buy him off or bail him out, remained in custody. He died a few weeks after his committal, and his death is attributed to the Duke of Gloucester, who from the peculiar conformation of his back, had shoulders broad enough to bear all the stray crimes for which no other owner may have been forthcoming. Accordingly, every piece of iniquity that can be traced to no one in particular, is usually added to Gloucester's huge catalogue of delinquencies. The Lancastrians were now regularly down, and every opportunity was taken for hitting them. Some were driven into exile, others were got rid of by more decided means, and a few, whose talents were worth saving, got purchased at a valuation, more or less fair, by the now Government. Sir John Fortescue, the Chief Justice to Henry the Sixth and the greatest lawyer of his time, was sold in this disreputable manner; for the judges of those days, unlike the pure occupants of the bench in our own, were as saleable as railway shares, and had their regular market price for anyone by whom such an investment was desired. The prosperity of the House of York was now only marred by a quarrel between the Dukes of Gloucester and Clarence. The latter had married Warwick's eldest daughter, and claimed the whole property of his father-in-law, of which Gloucester naturally wanted a slice, and he struck up to Anne, a younger daughter, in order to derive some claim to a share of the family fortune. Clarence, anxious to baffle his brother, sent the young lady out to service as a cook, in London, when Gloucester--disguised probably as a policeman--found her out, and ran away with her. [Illustration: 321] He won her by alleging his heart to be incessantly on the beat, and by promising her the advantages of a superior station. He lodged her in the then rural lane of St. Martin's, and the king ultimately arranged the difference between his brothers by assigning a handsome portion to Lady Anne, and leaving Clarence to take the rest; while the widowed Countess of Warwick, who had brought all the money into the family, was obliged to leave it there, without touching it, for she got nothing.