"The free people of England will never be ruled by a bastard," said Buckingham; "and if you, the true heir, refuse the crown, they know where to find another who will gladly accept it." "Well," said Richard, with the air of a man making a great sacrifice, "since I perceive that the whole realm is resolved not to permit my nephew to reign, and that the right of succession belongs to me, I am content to submit to the will of the people." On hearing this speech the citizens raised a cry of "Long live King Richard, our sovereign lord;" and the brief reign of Edward the Fifth was at an end. CHAPTER XLIV. RICHARD'S CORONATION. When Richard had expressed his intention to usurp the English crown, he fixed the 6th day of July, 1483, for his coronation, and caused preparations to be made for performing the ceremony with such magnificence as was likely to render the occasion memorable. Never had arrangements been made on so splendid a scale for investing a king of England with the symbols of power. At the same time Richard took precautions against any opposition that might be offered by the friends of Elizabeth Woodville. From the north were brought five thousand fighting men, "evil appareled, and worse harnessed, in rusty armor, neither defensible for proof nor scoured for show," but with fearless hearts and strong hands. Their leader was one whose name a Woodville could hardly hear without growing pale. For it was Robin of Redesdale, who, in other days, had led the half mob, half army that seized and beheaded old Earl Rivers, and that son of Earl Rivers who, while in his teens, had wedded a dowager duchess in her eighty-second year. On the 4th of July these northern soldiers encamped in Finsbury Fields, and inspired the citizens of London with emotions of doubt and apprehension. On the day when Robin of Redesdale and his men startled London, Richard and his ill-starred queen--the Anne Neville of earlier and happier times--took their barge at Baynard's Castle, and went by water to the Tower. After releasing Lord Stanley and the Archbishop of York, that they might take part in the coronation, the king created his son Edward Prince of Wales, nominated Lord Lovel to the office of lord chamberlain, vacant by the execution of Hastings, and appointed Sir Robert Brackenbury, the younger son of an ancient family long settled at Sallaby, in the Bishopric of Durham, to the lieutenancy of the Tower. At the same time he bestowed on Sir John Howard the dukedom of Norfolk, and to Thomas, eldest son of that pretentious personage, he gave the earldom of Surrey. Gratified as the vanity of the Howards might be, Sir John must have blushed, if, indeed, capable of so much decorum, as he thought of the disconsolate woman in the sanctuary, and remembered the letter which, twenty years earlier, at the time of her marriage, he had written to her father, Sir Richard Woodville.