those who took sanctuary to good purpose the most famous was Elizabeth, widow of Edward IV., who, in 1471, registered herself a sanctuary woman in Westminster, and there sat, in Sir Thomas More's phrase, "Alow in the rushes." But you have read the tragic story in Shakespeare. And in a later age "beastly Skelton" (as Pope will have him), from that same Westminster safely lampooned the mighty Wolsey, though for that he needs must live and die there. To catalogue the evils of the sanctuary system were to show lack of historical sympathy, nay, even of humour. The former days were not as these; it had its place with the shrine and the pilgrimage, the knight errant, and the trial by ordeal in the strange economy of a vanished world. As the times grew modern its practical inconvenience was felt for the first time. Yet the occasion of the first assault on the privilege of sanctuary was one where the benefits were conspicuous, and the assailant had the worst of motives. It was the case just noted of Edward IV.'s widow; she had the young Duke of York as yet safe with her. Her enemies were at a loss for the moment, and Buckingham, then the sworn ally of Richard of Gloucester, took occasion in the Privy Council to attack her place of refuge. "There were two chief plague-spots in London," he snarled: "one at the elbows of the city (Westminster), the other in the very bowels thereof (St Martin's le Grand). These places were the refuge of theeves, murtherers, and malitious, heynous traytors! nay," he added, "men's wives ran hither with their husbands' plate, and say they dare not abide their husbands for beating," with more to the same effect. Had not Elizabeth yielded, Westminster might have witnessed a violation as affecting as that of Canterbury.