III. THE TREASURE IN THE BEDSTEAD.
The story of the Treasure in the Bedstead was first written down in the middle of the 17th century by Sir Roger Twysden, "who had it," says Throsby, "from persons of undoubted credit, who were not only inhabitants of Leicester, but saw the murderers executed."
Twysden's account of the prevailing local tradition, (which is contained in his "Commonplace Book," and not in his " Decern Scriptores," as Kelly stated in his "Royal Progresses"), runs thus:—
"When King Richard III marched into Leicestershire against Henry, Earl of Richmond, afterwards Henry VII, he lay at the Blue Boar Inn, in the town of Leicester, where was left a large wooden bedstead, gilded in some places, which, after his defeat and death in the battle of Bosworth, was left, either through haste, or as a thing of little value (the bedding being all taken from it) to the people of the house; thenceforward this old bedstead, which was boarded at the bottom (as the manner was in those days), became a piece of standing furniture and passed from tenant to tenant with the inn. In the reign of Queen Elizabeth this house was kept by one Mr. Clark, who put a bed on this bedstead, which his wife going to make hastily, and jumbling the bedstead, a piece of gold dropped out. This excited the woman's curiosity. She narrowly examined this antiquated piece of furniture, and finding it had a double bottom, took off the uppermost with a chisel, upon which she discovered the place between them filled with gold, part of it coined by Richard III, and the rest of it in earlier times. Mr. Clark, her husband, concealed this piece of good fortune, though by degrees the effects of it became known, for he became rich
from a low condition, and in the space of a few years Mayor of the town, and then the story of the bedstead came to be rumoured by the servants. At his death he left his estate to his wife, who still continued to keep the Inn, though she was known to be very rich, which put some wicked persons upon engaging the maid-servant to assist in robbing her. These folks, to the number of seven, lodged in the house, plundered it, and carried
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