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who was sent for to supplement Richard's single hurriedly made suit of mourning declared that he dared not undertake to do it, because even with these long May evenings he and his workpeople were still sitting crosslegged by candlelight to finish the fine new clothes ordered for his brother, the King. And one morning, while wandering among the roses in the Abbot's peaceful little garden, Elizabeth caught sight of the Duke of Gloucester himself crossing a courtyard towards the Star Chamber, accompanied by a posse of important people. “They must be making final arrangements for the fifth,” she reported to her family.

    “I wish that I could see the procession! I wish that I could ride my horse again!” fretted Richard.

    All morning the great doors of the Chamber remained fast shut, but, the day being warm, the windows stood open, and lay brothers working in the Abbot's garden could overhear voices raised in angry debate. And before noon it began to look as though, after all, Richard would have his wish. For after the meeting many of the clergy came to wait upon the Queen. This time it was the Archbishop of Canterbury who led them, and the Primate's face was grave. “The peers of the realm feel it to be only fitting that his Grace the Duke of York should be present at his brother's coronation,” he told her without preamble, as soon as he had given them all his blessing.

    “But surely you forbade it! Are we not under your protection here?” cried the Queen.

    “No one can touch you, my daughter. Neither you nor our two elder Princesses, who are young women and of marriageable age,” he assured her. “But in spite of milord Hastings' objection and of all our arguments it has been decided in council that the term sanctuary cannot apply to children who are too young to sin. With a great hair-splitting of legal deduction it appears to have been proved that since they are incapable of guilt they stand in no need of the Church's protection.”

    The Queen sprang to her feet white with fury. “It is a trick! A dastardly trick to get Richard into his uncle's hands. And only one brain could have conceived it,” she declared.

    “Perhaps only with the very proper purpose of having him ride in the procession, Madam,” suggested John Morton, Bishop of Ely, trying to calm her.

    “Once Gloucester has him he will not let him go,” she countered. “Is not his purpose clear? Do they bother to ask for Ann or Katherine or my baby Bridget?”

    “Gloucester is now free to take him by force,” the Archbishop reminded her.

    “He shall not—the child is sick,” lied the cornered Queen.

    “But we of the Church want no violence,” he went on, ignoring her desperate mendacity. “And should your Grace give in with good heart to the Duke's wishes he is the more likely to deal leniently with Lord Rivers and Sir Richard Grey.”

    “You mean that I must be reduced to choosing between the safety of this or that dear one?”

    “He has not said so,” admitted the Primate. “Come, Madam, I think you are sadly prejudiced against him. In this matter he has common sense on his side. For apart from the fact that the people would want to see the Duke of York at the coronation, I pray you consider how heavy a burden and how great a loneliness our late Sovereign's death and your removal here have laid upon the King, who himself is little more than a child. Milord Protector, who visits him every day, says that he languishes for his brother as a playmate.”

    Elizabeth, who so seldom put herself forward and who had accounted her mother's extreme suspicion as foolishness, found herself rushing in in loyal support. “Can no one else be found for him to play with? What of the young Earl of Warwick,” she suggested. “Would he not do as well, being our late Uncle Clarence's son?”

    The Archbishop ceased to be solemn and shook his head smilingly, for, unlike her mother, Elizabeth had no unfortunate knack of annoying people. “Apart