It happened that, on the day before the coronation, when Richard released the confederates of Hastings from the Tower, he found John Morton, Bishop of Ely, decidedly hostile to his pretensions. Unable to gain the support of the prelate, but unwilling, on such an occasion, to appear harsh, Richard delivered him to Buckingham, to be sent to Brecknock and gently guarded in that castle. At Brecknock, musing over his experiences as parson of Blokesworth, his expedition to Towton Field, his exile to Verdun, and his promotion to the see of Ely by a Yorkist king, Buckingham met the bishop when he went thither awakened from his dream of royalty, but panting for enterprise, however quixotic. After so many exciting scenes--suppers at Northampton, orations at the Guildhall, deputations to Baynard's Castle, progresses through London, and coronation banquets at Westminster--the duke doubtless found Brecknock intolerably dull. Feeling the want of company, he threw himself in the bishop's way, and gradually surrendered himself to the fascination of the wily churchman's conversation. The bishop, perceiving that envy was devouring the duke's heart, worked craftily upon his humor; and Buckingham, exposed to the influence of one of the most adroit politicians of the age, by degrees approached the subject which the bishop was anxious to discuss. "I fantasied," such were the duke's words, "that if I list to take upon me the crown, now was the time, when this tyrant was detested of all men, and knowing not of any one that could pretend before me. In this imagination I rested two days at Tewkesbury. But, as I rode between Worcester and Bridgenorth, I met with the Lady Margaret, Countess of Richmond, now wife to the Lord Stanley, who is the daughter and sole heir of John, Duke of Somerset, my grandfather's elder brother (who was as clean out of my mind as if I had never seen her); so that she and her son, the Earl of Richmond, have, both of them, titles before mine; and then I clearly saw how I was deceived, whereupon I determined utterly to relinquish all such fantastical notions concerning the obtaining the crown myself." The bishop listened eagerly, and doubtless felt much relieved at this announcement. He had soon more cause for gratification when Buckingham added, "I find there can be no better way to settle the crown than that the Earl of Richmond, very heir to the house of Lancaster, should take to wife Lady Elizabeth, eldest daughter to King Edward, the very heir of the house of York, so that the two Roses may be united in one." "Since by your grace's incomparable wisdom this noble conjunction is now moved," exclaimed the bishop, almost overcome with joy at the duke's hitting "the mark he had himself aimed at" in forming his projects, "it is in the next place necessary to consider what friends we shall first make privy to our intention."