ent to the block, and the
king transferred to the charge of Richard, who was proclaimed by a great
council of bishops and nobles Protector of the Realm. But if he hated the
queen's kindred Hastings was as loyal as the Woodvilles themselves to the
children of Edward the Fourth; and the next step of the two Dukes was to
remove this obstacle. Little more than a month had passed after the
overthrow of the Woodvilles when Richard suddenly entered the
Council-chamber and charged Hastings with sorcery and attempts upon his
life. As he dashed his hand upon the table the room filled with soldiery.
"I will not dine," said the Duke, turning to the minister, "till they have
brought me your head." Hastings was hurried to execution in the courtyard
of the Tower, his fellow-counsellors thrown into prison, and the last
check on Richard's ambition was removed. Buckingham lent him his aid in a
claim of the crown; and on the twenty-fifth of June the Duke consented
after some show of reluctance to listen to the prayer of a Parliament
hastily gathered together, which, setting aside Edward's children as the
fruit of an unlawful marriage and those of Clarence as disabled by his
attainder, besought him to take the office and title of king.

[Sidenote: Henry Tudor]

Violent as his acts had been, Richard's career had as yet jarred little
with popular sentiment. The Woodvilles were unpopular, Hastings was
detested as the agent of Edward's despotism, the reign of a child-king was
generally deemed impossible. The country, longing only for peace after all
its storms, called for a vigorous and active ruler; and Richard's vigour
and ability were seen in his encounter with the first danger that
threatened his throne. The new revolution had again roused the hopes of
the Lancastrian party. With the deaths of Henry the Sixth and his son all
the descendants of Henry the Fourth passed away; but the line of John of
Gaunt still survived in the heir of the Beauforts. The legality of the
royal act which barred their claim to the crown was a more than
questionable one; the Beauforts had never admitted it, and the conduct of
Henry the Sixth in his earlier years points to a belief in their right of
succession. Their male line was extinguished by the fall of the last Duke
of Somerset at Tewkesbury, but the claim of the house was still maintained
by the son of Margaret Beaufort, the daughter of Duke John and
great-grand-daughter of John of Gaunt. While still but a