Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard the Third | Page 3

but their simplicity.
They told their tale, like story-tellers; that is, they related without art or
ornament; and they related whatever they heard. No councils of princes,
no motives of conduct, no remoter springs of action, did they
investigate or learn. We have even little light into the characters of the
actors. A king or an archbishop of Canterbury are the only persons with
whom we are made much acquainted. The barons are all represented as
brave patriots; but we have not the satisfaction of knowing which, of
them were really so; nor whether they were not all turbulent and
ambitious. The probability is, that both kings and nobles wished to
encroach on each other, and if any sparks of liberty were struck out in
all likelihood it was contrary to the intention of either the flint or the
steel.
Hence it has been thought necessary to give a new dress to English
history. Recourse has been had to records, and they are far from
corroborating the testimonies of our historians. Want of authentic
memorials has obliged our later writers to leave the mass pretty much
as they found it. Perhaps all the requisite attention that might have been
bestowed, has not been bestowed. It demands great industry and
patience to wade into such abstruse stores as records and charters: and
they being jejune and narrow in themselves, very acute criticism is
necessary to strike light from their assistance. If they solemnly
contradict historians in material facts, we may lose our history; but it is
impossible to adhere to our historians. Partiality man cannot intirely
divest himself of; it is so natural, that the bent of a writer to one side or
the other of a question is almost always discoverable. But there is a
wide difference between favouring and lying and yet I doubt whether
the whole stream of our historians, misled by their originals, have not
falsified one reign in our annals in the grossest manner. The moderns
are only guilty of taking-on trust what they ought to have examined
more scrupulously, as the authors whom they copied were all ranked on
one side in a flagrant season of party. But no excuse can be made for
the original authors, who, I doubt, have violated all rules of truth.

The confusions which attended the civil war between the houses of
York and Lancaster, threw an obscurity over that part of our annals,
which it is almost impossible to dispel. We have scarce any authentic
monuments of the reign of Edward the Fourth; and ought to read his
history with much distrust, from the boundless partiality of the
succeeding writers to the opposite cause. That diffidence should
increase as we proceed to the reign of his brother.
It occurred to me some years ago, that the picture of Richard the Third,
as drawn by historians, was a character formed by prejudice and
invention. I did not take Shakespeare's tragedy for a genuine
representation, but I did take the story of that reign for a tragedy of
imagination. Many of the crimes imputed to Richard seemed
improbable; and, what was stronger, contrary to his interest. A few
incidental circumstances corroborated my opinion; an original and
important instrument was pointed out to me last winter, which gave rise
to the following' sheets; and as it was easy to perceive, under all the
glare of encomiums which historians have heaped on the wisdom of
Henry the Seventh, that he was a mean and unfeeling tyrant, I
suspected that they had blackened his rival, till Henry, by the contrast,
should appear in a kind of amiable light. The more I examined their
story, the more I was confirmed in my opinion: and with regard to
Henry, one consequence I could not help drawing; that we have either
no authentic memorials of Richard's crimes, or, at most, no account of
them but from Lancastrian historians; whereas the vices and injustice of
Henry are, though palliated, avowed by the concurrent testimony of his
panegyrists. Suspicions and calumny were fastened on Richard as so
many assassinations. The murders committed by Henry were indeed
executions and executions pass for prudence with prudent historians;
for when a successful king is chief justice, historians become a
voluntary jury.
If I do not flatter myself, I have unravelled a considerable part of that
dark period. Whether satisfactory or not, my readers must decide. Nor
is it of any importance whether I have or not. The attempt was mere
matter of curiosity and speculation. If any man, as idle as myself,
should take the trouble to review and canvass my arguments I am ready

to yield so indifferent a point to better reasons. Should declamation
alone be used to contradict me, I shall not think I am less in the right.
Nov. 28th,