Although Hastings does not seem to have seen through Gloucester's designs, his companion and friend Lord Stanley, "a man of deep penetration," appears to have comprehended the whole situation, and spoke his mind fully thereon to his colleagues, then assembling day by day making preparations for the young king's coronation, of which council Hastings was a member with others, the young king's friends, but Hastings, it is related, still doubted Gloucester's plotting, and also that the other council, sitting under Gloucester's presidency at Crosby Place, were engaged in no design against the young king, and that he would "pawn his life" if anything detrimental to the youthful monarch were transacted there, he should be instantly informed of it by a trusty member thereof, devoted to the king's interests; moreover he was still prepossessed of Gloucester, and believed his council were only desirous of humbling the Queen's party, whom he, Hastings, so greatly disliked. This 'trusty member' was none other than Richard Catesby, "a lawyer, who had, through Lord Hastings' means, been placed in a position of considerable trust, in the counties of Northampton and Leicester, where Hastings' property lay," and this man, his friend and confidant as he supposed he was, eventually betrayed him. Stanley's fears, it seems, were greatly modified or allayed by Hastings' assertions, and they quietly proceeded with their arrangements for the coronation, while Gloucester was carefully doing all he could to prevent it, and secretly and busily laying his dark plans for a very different issue. Catesby, who had become the creature of Gloucester, unknown to Hastings, was despatched by Gloucester to sound Hastings, "with all the caution imaginable," most carefully guarding the grand secret. The part was well played, and Hastings, not distrusting Catesby, told him of Stanley's suspicions, and that for himself, rather than the late king's children should be deprived of their rights, he would see ruin and destruction overtake Gloucester and Buckingham, and that he would employ every means in his power, even to his very life, to prevent its succeeding.