To these reasons he added the offers of great private advantages to the duke of Buckingham; and he easily obtained from him a promise of supporting him in all his enterprises.
The duke of Glocester, knowing the importance of gaining Lord Hastings, sounded at a distance his sentiments, by means of Catesby, a lawyer, who lived in great intimacy with that nobleman; but found him impregnable in his allegiance and fidelity to the children of Edward, who had ever honored him with his friendship.[*] He saw, therefore, that there were no longer any measures to be kept with him; and he determined to ruin utterly the man whom he despaired of engaging to concur in his usurpation.

On the very day when Rivers, Gray, and Vaughan were executed, or rather murdered, at Poinfret by the advice of Hastings, the protector summoned a council in the Tower; whither that nobleman, suspecting no design against him, repaired without hesitation.
* Sir Thomas More.p.

493.
The duke of Glocester was capable of committing the most bloody and treacherous murders with the utmost coolness and indifference.

On taking his place at the council-table, he appeared in the easiest and most jovial humor imaginable.

He seemed to indulge himself in familiar conversation with the counsellors, before they should enter on business, and having paid some compliments to Morton, bishop of Ely, on the good and early strawberries which he raised in his garden at Holborn, he begged the favor of having a dish of them, which that prelate immediately despatched a servant to bring to him.