132 HISTORY OF KING HENRY VII. 



The king was much moved with this unexpected 

 accident when it came to his ears, both because it 

 struck upon that string which ever he most feared, 

 as also because it was stirred in such a place, where 

 he could not with safety transfer his own person to 

 suppress it. For partly through natural valour, and 

 partly through an universal suspicion, not knowing 

 whom to trust, he was ever ready to wait upon all 

 his achievements in person. The king therefore 

 first called his council together at the Charter-house 

 at Shine ; which council was held with great secrecy, 

 but the open decrees thereof, which presently came 

 abroad, were three. 



The first was, that the queen dowager, for that 

 she, contrary to her pact and agreement with those 

 that had concluded with her concerning the marriage 

 of her daughter Elizabeth with King Henry, had 

 nevertheless delivered her daughters out of sanctuary 

 into King Richard s hands, should be cloistered in 

 the nunnery of Bermondsey, and forfeit all her lands 

 and goods. 



The next was, that Edward Plantagenet, then 

 close prisoner in the Tower, should be, in the most 

 public and notorious manner that could be devised, 

 shewed unto the people : in part to discharge the 

 king of the envy of that opinion and bruit, how he 

 had been put to death privily in the Tower ; but 

 chiefly to make the people see the levity and impos 

 ture of the proceedings of Ireland, and that their 

 Plantagenet was indeed but a puppet or a counter 

 feit. 



