outed
at once, and altogither cast up their halters into the hall roofe, so
that the king might perceive they were none of the discreetest sort.
Here is to be noticed that diverse offendors that were not taken,
hearing that the king was inclined to mercie, came well apparelled to
Westminster, and suddenlie stripped them into their shirts with halters,
and came in among the prisoners, willinglie to be partakers of the
king's pardon; by which dooing it was well known that one John Gelson,
yeoman of the Crowne, was the first that began to spoile, and exhorted
others to doe the same; and because he fled and was not taken, he came
in with a rope among the other prisoners, and so had his pardon. This
companie was after called the 'black-wagon.' Then were all the gallows
within the Citie taken downe, and many a good prayer said for the king."

Jane Shore, that beautiful but frail woman, who married a goldsmith in
Lombard Street, and was the mistress of Edward IV., was the daughter of
a merchant in Cheapside. Drayton describes her minutely from a picture
extant in Elizabeth's time, but now lost.

"Her stature," says the poet, "was meane; her haire of a dark yellow;
her face round and full; her eye gray, delicate harmony being between
each part's proportion and each proportion's colour; her body fat,
white, and smooth; her countenance cheerful, and like to her condition.
The picture I have seen of her was such as she rose out of her bed in
the morning, having nothing on but a rich mantle cast under one arme
over her shoulder, and sitting on a chair on which her naked arm did
lie. Shore, a young man of right goodly person, wealth, and behaviour,
abandoned her after the king had made her his concubine. Richard III.,
causing her to do open penance in St. Paul's Churchyard, _commanded that
no man should relieve her_, which the tyrant did not so much for his
hatred to sinne, but that, by making his brother's life odious, he might
cover his horrible treasons the more cunningly."

An old ballad quaintly describes her supposed death, following an
entirely erroneous tradition:--

"My gowns, beset with pearl and gold,
Were turn'd to simple garments old;
My chains and gems, and golden rings,
To filthy rags and loathsome things.

"Thus was I scorned of maid and wife,
For leading such a wicked life;
Both sucking babes and children small,
Did make their pastime at my fall.

"I could not get one bit