246 8LINGSBY. 



that his pension was ever paid without acquittance. 



Asa further mark of his greatness in king Ed- 

 ward's time, and the estimation in which he was 

 held, it may be mentioned that no less than 2 lords, 

 9 knights, 58 squires, and 20 gentlemen, (a cata- 

 logue of whose names Dugdale has inserted in his 

 Baronetage. I. p. 583.) enrolled themselves to serve 

 him in peace and war, during their respective lives. 



But king Edward's death, which happened soon 

 after, altered the scene : for having then a new 

 game to play, wherein the duke of Gloucester had 

 the chief hand, though he wasj the first who gave 

 that duke notice of king Edward's death, (Glouces- 

 ter being then in Yorkshire,) yet not complying 

 with him in the destruction of the young princes, his 

 nephews, as Buckingham and others had done, he 

 was soon destroyed himself by that monster; whose 

 sole aim was his own advancement to the throne. 



Soon after the advancement of the duke of Glou- 

 cester to the protectorate, the deaths of those 

 accomplished noblemen, the Earl of Rivers, Sir 

 Kichard Gray, and Sir Thomas Vaughan, then de- 

 tained prisoners in Pomfret castle, were determined 

 upon ; and he easily obtained the consent of the 

 duke of Buckingham, as well as of lord Hastings, to 

 this violent and sanguinary measure : but mark the 

 retributive hand of justice. The protector at the 

 same time meditating the murder of the princes, 

 assailed the fidelity of Buckingham, and by the use 

 of arguments capable of swaying a vicious mind 

 like his, which knew no motive of action but inter- 

 est and ambition, easily prevailed upon him to 



