was to bring, were
lost to him through Edward's interference, and conferred upon his
hated rival Maximilian, he was terribly enraged. He expressed his
resentment and anger against the king in the most violent terms.

About this time a certain nobleman, one of the king's friends, died.
The king accused a priest, who was in Clarence's service, of having
killed him by sorcery. The priest was seized and put to the torture to
compel him to confess his crime and to reveal his confederates. The
priest at length confessed, and named as his accomplice one of
Clarence's household named Burdett, a gentleman who lived in very
intimate and confidential relations with Clarence himself.

The confession was taken as proof of guilt, and the priest and Burdett
were both immediately executed.

Clarence was now perfectly frantic with rage. He could restrain
himself no longer. He forced his way into the king's council-chamber,
and there uttered to the lords who were assembled the most violent and
angry denunciation of the king. He accused him of injustice and
cruelty, and upbraided him, and all who counseled and aided him, in
the severest terms.

When the king, who was not himself present on this occasion, heard
what Clarence had done, he said that such proceedings were subversive
of the laws of the realm, and destructive to all good government, and
he commanded that Clarence should be arrested and sent to the Tower.

After a short time the king summoned a Parliament, and when the
assembly was convened, he brought his brother out from his prison in
the Tower, and arraigned him at the bar of the House of Lords on
charges of the most extraordinary character, which he himself
personally preferred against him. In these charges Clarence was
accused of having formed treasonable conspiracies to depose the king,
disinherit the king's children, and raise himself to the throne, and
with this view of having slandered the king, and endeavored, by bribes
and false representations, to entice away his subjects from their
allegiance; of having joined himself with the Lancastrian faction so
far as to promise to restore them their estates which had been
confiscated, provided that they would assist him in usurping the
throne; and of having secretly organized an armed force, which was all
ready, and waiting only for the proper occasion to strike the blow.

Clarence denied all these charges in the most earnest and solemn
manner. The king insisted upon th