“The Yeomanry of the Guard were formed into a corps in 1485 and first made their appearance at the coronation of Henry VII in white gaberdines, ornamented with the royal device, and caps surrounded by the roses of York and Lancaster. The King, who loved a joke, would sometimes dress himself in the habit of his yeomen, and scour the country in search of adventures. On one occasion he paid a visit to the Abbot of Chertsey, who, ignorant of his guest and rank, but nevertheless hospitably inclined, placed him before a round of beef, which disappeared with marvellous rapidity. The worthy dignitary exclaimed that he would give a hundred marks for such an appetite. Shortly afterwards the churchman was arrested on the King’s warrant, and imprisoned in Windsor Castle, where he was fed on bread and water. At the end of some days a baron of beef appeared, to which the abbot did justice, and lifting his eyes at the end of his meal, saw the yeoman before him, who claimed the hundred marks. ‘Who art thou, Beefeater?’ exclaimed the priest. The King revealed himself, and took the hundred marks. But the Abbot profited by the joke, for he was not long after made Bishop of Bangor.” Fuller tells the same story, but makes the King, with more probability, not Henry VII, but VIII. CHAPTER III IN THE DAYS OF THE LATER PLANTAGENETS _Coronation of Richard II—The Wat Tyler Rebellion—Murder of Archbishop Simon of Canterbury—The Rebellion Quelled—Fresh Troubles raised by the Duke of Gloucester and quieted by Archbishop Courtenay—Still Troubles Continue—Execution of some Prominent Members of Parliament, and of Sir Simon Burley, the King’s Tutor—First Legal Execution on Tower Hill—Richard’s Wilfulness and Treachery—His Dethronement, August 19, 1399—Accession of Henry IV—Death and Burial of Richard II—Conspiracies against Henry IV—Battle of Shrewsbury—Prisoners shut up in the Tower—Among them James of Scotland, “The King’s Quhair”—The Great War with France—Charles, Duke of Orleans, a formidable rival; his Imprisonment and Life in the Tower—His Return to France—The Lollards—Sir John Oldcastle—His Plots and Death—Death of Henry V—Fall of the English Power in France—Rival Nobles in England: Dukes of Bedford and Gloucester, Cardinal Beaufort, Earl of Warwick—Marriage of Henry with Margaret of Anjou—Public Discontent—Cade’s Rebellion—Claim of Richard Duke of York—Battle of Wakefield—The Wakefield Tower—Battle of Towton—Accession of Edward IV—Henry VI a Prisoner in the Tower—Warwick’s Tergiversation—Battles of Barnet and Tewkesbury—King Henry slain in the Wakefield Tower—Continued Tragedies, Duke of Clarence’s Disaffection and Plottings—His Death in the Bowyer Tower—Death of Edward IV—Edward V and