Tyrrel, on hearing this, entered the room to see with his own eyes that the horrid commission had been faithfully executed. After satisfying himself on this point, the unworthy knight ordered the bodies of the murdered princes to be buried beneath the stair, and hastened back to inform the king that his nephews slept in Paradise. CHAPTER XLVI. A MOCK KING-MAKER. Among the many men of high estate who aided Richard to usurp the English throne, none played a more conspicuous part than his rival in foppery, Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham. No sooner, however, had the Protector been converted into a king than his confederate became malcontent and restlessly eager for change. The death of Warwick, the captivity of John de Vere, the extinction of the Mowbrays and Beauforts, had left the duke one of the most influential among English magnates then alive and at liberty; and, albeit destitute of prowess and intellect, he appears to have vainly imagined that he could exercise that kind of influence which had rendered Richard Neville so formidable. But, capable as Buckingham might have deemed himself of rivaling "The Stout Earl," who slept with his Montagu ancestors in the Abbey of Bisham, he had none of "the superb and more than regal pride" which rendered the descendant of Cospatrick averse to the gewgaws of royalty. The object of the duke's ambition, when he resolved to break with the usurper, appears to have been the crown which he had helped to place on Richard's head. With his shallow brain full of ambitious ideas, and hardly deigning to conceal his discontent, Buckingham took leave of Richard. On leaving the court of Westminster, he turned his face toward his castle of Brecknock, and by the way regaled his fancy with splendid visions of crowns and sceptres.