gnant at
receiving this letter, and the queen has been by many persons much
blamed for having thus broken the engagement which she had so solemnly
made. Others say that this letter to Paris was not her free act, but
that it was extorted from her by Richard, who had her now completely
in his power, and could, of course, easily find means to procure from
her any writing that he might desire.

[Footnote R: The Earl of Dorset, you will recollect, was Queen
Elizabeth's son by her first marriage; he, consequently, had no claim
to the crown.]

Whether the queen acted freely or not in this case can not certainly
be known. At all events, Henry, and those who were acting with him at
Paris, determined to regard the letter as written under constraint,
and to go on with the maturing of their plans just as if it had never
been written.

Richard's plan was, so it was said, to marry the Princess Elizabeth to
his own son; for the death of his child, though it has been already
once or twice alluded to, had not yet taken place. Richard's son was
very young, being at that time about eleven years old; but the
princess might be affianced to him, and the marriage consummated when
he grew up. Elizabeth herself seems to have fallen in with this
proposed arrangement very readily. The prospect that Henry of Richmond
would ever succeed in making himself king, and claiming her for his
bride, was very remote and uncertain, while Richard was already in
full possession of power; and she, by taking his side, and becoming
the affianced wife of his son, became at once the first lady in the
kingdom, next to Queen Anne, with an apparently certain prospect of
becoming queen herself in due time.

But all these fine plans were abruptly brought to an end by the death
of the young prince, which occurred about this time, at Middleham
Castle, as has been stated before. The death of the poor boy took
place in a very sudden and mysterious manner. Some persons supposed
that he died by a judgment from heaven, in answer to the awful curses
which Queen Elizabeth Woodville imprecated upon the head of the
murderer of her children; others thought he was destroyed by poison.

Not very long after the death of the prince, his mother fell very
seriously sick. She was broken-hearted at the death of her son, and
pining away, she fell into a slow decline. Her sufferings were greatly
aggravated by Richard's harsh and cruel treatment of her. He was
continually uttering expr