This candid statement appears to have been a _poser_ for Buckingham, who, it is added, "continued silent some time," at which the Bishop in his turn "changed colour, and was very much confused," expecting the Duke to have warmly coincided; who, "perceiving the Bishop's affright, bade him fear nothing, and they would have further talk on the morrow, but now 'let us go to supper.'" The Duke sent for Morton the next day, and not being quite easy and sure within himself, bade the Bishop rehearse the whole matter over again. This done, Buckingham "pulled off his hat, and made a sort of prayer," which being ended, "he then put on his hat, and applied himself to the Bishop." Buckingham's reply to Morton was a kind of declaration and confession combined. He began with a similar strain of profession of regard toward the Bishop, having always found him "a sure friend, a trusty counsellor, and a vigilant statesman," and as the Bishop had so unreservedly opened his mind to him, he would reciprocate the confidence. And so he began by declaring,-- "that when King Edward died, to whom I thought I was very little obliged (though he and I had married two sisters), because he neither promoted or preferred me, as I thought I deserved by my birth, and the relation I had to him; I did not much value his children's interest, having their father's ill usage still in my mind." and also that it would be of "ill consequence" to the nation, for the young King to govern, with his mother for Regent, and all her family, who were persons of "no high descent" occupying the most important positions, and have more share in the government than the King's relations and the other persons who were of the "very highest quality" in the kingdom, and so,-- "for these reasons I thought it to be for the public welfare, and my private advantage to side with the Duke of Gloucester, whom I took to be as sincere and merciful, as I now find him to be false and cruel. By my means, as you know well, he was made Protector of the King, and Kingdom." That after this Gloucester produced to him and others "instruments witnessed by doctors, proctors, and notaries," shewing that Edward's children were bastards, and himself the rightful heir to the throne, which they believed to be true, and so took him for their "rightful prince and sovereign," and it was by his assistance he was made King, at which time