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After forty years of Civil War,—with murders, exactions, executions, treacheries, and perjuries innumerable, with the ruin of trade, with the extinction of ancient families, with the loss of all the French conquests,—the City, no less than the country at large, welcomed the accession of a Prince who promised order and tranquillity at least. Of all the numerous descendants of Edward the Third who might once have called themselves heirs to the Crown before the Duke of Richmond, there remained but two or three. Of the Lancastrians Henry alone was left, and his title was derived from a branch legitimised. The two brothers of Henry V. had no children; the only son of Henry VI. was dead. On the Yorkist side Edward’s two sons were dead; Richard’s only son was dead; there remained the young Earl of Warwick, son of Clarence. He was the one dangerous person at the time of Henry’s accession. Edward Plantagenet, Earl of Warwick, was not the heir to the Yorkist claims—this was certainly the eldest daughter of Edward the Fourth; but he was the son of George, Duke of Clarence, and the last male descendant of the York line. He was now fifteen years of age, and had been kept in some kind of confinement at a place called Sheriff Hutton Castle, in the County of York. Considering the practice of the time, and the reputation of Richard III., one wonders at his forbearance in not murdering the boy. Henry sent him—it was his first act after his victory—to the Tower for better safety. Grafton[1] calls this unfortunate Prince “the yongling borne to perpetual captivitie.” He is said to have been a simple youth, wholly ignorant of the world. Though, as we shall see later on, Henry found it expedient to treat this young Prince after the manner of his time. A dead Prince can never become a Pretender.