The Archbishop of York, Morton, Bishop of Ely, and Lord Stanley had been sent to the Tower, poor Jane Shore publicly disgraced, and so all was well cleared away for Gloucester's ultimate measures. The two dukes were constantly in close conclave, and the next step was to win the citizens of London over to their designs. This was not so easy a matter, but two influences were to be tried, the first by imposing on their credulity and getting a feigned assent, and the second, if necessary, to oblige them into compliance by fear. The Lord Mayor, Sir Edward Shaw, was already won over, and his brother, the Doctor, was to begin the final proceedings. These commenced by Dr. Shaw preaching the famous--or rather infamous--sermon, on a Sunday morning, at Paul's cross; taking for his text a phrase from the fourth chapter of the _Wisdom of Solomon_, "Bastard slips shall take no deep root," a tissue of malign slander on the late king, his children, and their mother,--and gross adulation of Gloucester. During a special laudatory parenthesis it was intended Gloucester should, as by chance, shew himself among the people, but he happened to overstay the time, the Doctor having concluded it, and when he did appear immediately after, the preacher re-commenced the passage, and it was hoped he would have heard a call for him as the future king, but there was a complete silence, the audience were disgusted both with the preacher and the subject. This was an ominous and disquieting omen to Gloucester. The Duke of Buckingham now appears upon the scene as the prime factor in the events that followed. Dr. Shaw's eloquence not prevailing upon the citizens, he determined to see what effect his own reasoning would have on them. For this purpose the Lord Mayor had orders to assemble the Aldermen and all the principal citizens in the Guildhall on the Tuesday following, being the 17 June, 1483. Buckingham addressed the assemblage, and the subject of his harangue was simply an echo of the slander and adulation of what the people had heard at Paul's cross, coupled with the suggestion that Gloucester should be requested to assume the crown and government,--too weighty for a child. The Duke finished his oration, and a silence was observed by the audience, as at the conclusion of Shaw's sermon; "everyone stood speechless." Then the Duke, surprised at the want of response, asked the Lord Mayor the reason; the answer was, the people did not well understand him. The Duke then "repeated his speech, with a little variation, and with such grace and eloquence, never was so ill a subject handled with so much oratory." Still the people remained silent.