_THE WHITE ROSE OF ENGLAND._
The wars of the White and the Red Roses were at an end, Lancaster had
triumphed over York, Richard III., the last of the Plantagenets, had
died on Bosworth field, and the Red Rose candidate, Henry VII., was on
the throne. It seemed fitting, indeed, that the party of the red should
bear the banners of triumph, for the frightful war of white and red had
deluged England with blood, and turned to crimson the green of many a
fair field. Two of the White Rose claimants of the throne, the sons of
Edward IV., had been imprisoned by Richard III. in the Tower of London,
and, so said common report, had been strangled in their beds. But their
fate was hidden in mystery, and there were those who believed that the
princes of the Tower still lived.
One claimant to the throne, a scion of the White Rose kings, Edward,
Earl of Warwick, was still locked up in the Tower, so closely kept from
human sight and knowledge as to leave the field open to the claims of
imposture. For suddenly a handsome youth appeared in Ireland declaring
that he was the Earl of Warwick, escaped from the Tower, and asking aid
to help him regain the throne, which he claimed as rightfully his.
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