The act of authority was covered with a very thin pretence.

It was alleged that, notwithstanding the secret agreement to marry her daughter to Henry, she had yet yielded to the solicitations and menaces of Richard, and had delivered that princess and her sisters into the hands of the tyrant.

This crime, which was now become obsolete, and might admit of alleviations, was therefore suspected not to be the real cause of the severity with which she was treated; and men believed that the king, unwilling to accuse so near a relation of a conspiracy against him, had cloaked his vengeance or precaution under color of an offence known to the whole world.[*] They were afterwards the more confirmed in this suspicion, when they found that the unfortunate queen, though she survived this disgrace several years, was never treated with any more lenity, but was allowed to end her life in poverty, solitude, and confinement.
* Bacon, p.

583, Polyd.Virg.p.

571.
The next measure of the king's was of a less exceptionable nature.
He ordered that Warwick should be taken from the Tower, be led in procession through the streets of London, be conducted to St.Paul's, and there exposed to the view of the whole people.