They had just passed through an experience of the same kind.
"That cannot be," they said: "the sons of King Edward were murdered by
their uncle in the Tower."
"People think so, I admit," said the young stranger. "My brother _was_
murdered there, foully killed in that dark prison. But I escaped, and
for seven years have been wandering."
The boy had an easy and engaging manner, a fluent tongue, and told so
well-devised and probable a story of the manner of his escape, that he
had little difficulty in persuading his credulous hearers that he was
indeed Prince Richard. Soon he had a party at his back, Cork shouted
itself hoarse in his favor, there was banqueting and drinking, and in
this humble fashion the cause of the White Rose was resuscitated, the
banners of York were again flung to the winds.
We have begun our story in the middle. We must go back to its beginning.
Margaret of Burgundy, whose hatred for the Lancastrian king was intense,
had spread far and wide the rumor that Richard, Duke of York, was still
alive. The story was that the villains employed by Richard III. to
murder the princes in the Tower, had killed the elder only. Remorse had
stricken their hardened souls, and compassion induced them to spare the
younger, and privately to set him at liberty, he being bidden on peril
of life not to divulge who he really was.
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