ck.

On the following day after the address at the Guildhall, a grand
assembly of all the lords, bishops, councilors, and officers of state
was convened in Westminster. It was substantially a Parliament, though
not a Parliament in form. The reason why it was not called as a
Parliament in form was because Richard, having doubts, as he said,
about the right of Edward to the throne, could not conscientiously
advise that any public act should be performed in his name, and a
Parliament could only be legally convened by summons from a king.
Accordingly, this assembly was only an informal meeting of the peers
of England and other great dignitaries of Church and State, with a
view of consulting together to determine what should be done. Of
course, it was all fully arranged and settled beforehand, among those
who were in Richard's confidence, what the result of these
deliberations was to be. The Duke of Buckingham, Richard's principal
friend and supporter, managed the business at the meeting. The
assembly consisted, of course, chiefly of the party of Richard's
friends. The principal leaders of the parties opposed to him had been
beheaded or shut up in prison; of the rest, some had fled, some had
concealed themselves, and of the few who dared to show themselves at
the meeting, there were none who had the courage, or perhaps I ought
rather to say the imprudence and folly, to oppose any thing which
Buckingham should undertake to do.

The result of the deliberations of this council was the drawing up of
a petition to be presented to Richard, declaring him the true and
rightful heir to the crown, and praying him to assume at once the
sovereign power.

A delegation was appointed to wait upon Richard and present the
petition to him. Buckingham was at the head of this delegation. The
petition was written out in due form upon a roll of parchment. It
declared that, inasmuch as it was clearly established that King Edward
the Fourth was already the husband of "Dame Alionora Boteler," by a
previous marriage, at the time of his pretended marriage with
Elizabeth Woodville, and that consequently his children by Elizabeth
Woodville, not being born in lawful wedlock, could have no rights of
inheritance whatever from their father, and especially could by no
means derive from him any title to the crown; and inasmuch as the
children of Clarence had been cut off from the succession by the bill
of attainder which had been passed against their fath