Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard the Third | Page 5

at which wordes kyng Edward said nothing, but
with his hand thrust him from him, or, as some say, stroke him with his
gauntlet, whome incontinent, they that stode about, which were George
duke of Clarence, Richard duke of Gloucester, Thomas marques Dorset
(son of queen Elizabeth Widville) and William lord Hastinges, sodainly
murthered and pitiously manquelled." Thus much had the story gained
from the time of Fabian to that of Hall.
Hollingshed repeats these very words, consequently is a transcriber,
and no new authority.
John Stowe reverts to Fabian's account, as the only one not grounded
on hear-say, and affirms no more, than that the king cruelly smote the
young prince on the face with his gauntlet, and after his servants slew
him.
Of modern historians, Rapin and Carte, the only two who seem not to
have swallowed implicitly all the vulgar tales propagated by the
Lancastrians to blacken the house of York, warn us to read with

allowance the exaggerated relations of those times. The latter suspects,
that at the dissolution of the monasteries all evidences were suppressed
that tended to weaken the right of the prince on the throne; but as
Henry the Eighth concentred in himself both the claim of Edward the
Fourth and that ridiculous one of Henry the Seventh, he seems to have
had less occasion to be anxious lest the truth should come out; and
indeed his father had involved that truth in so much darkness, that it
was little likely to force its way. Nor was it necessary then to load the
memory of Richard the Third, who had left no offspring. Henry the
Eighth had no competitor to fear but the descendants of Clarence, of
whom he seems to have had sufficient apprehension, as appeared by his
murder of the old countess of Salisbury, daughter of Clarence, and his
endeavours to root out her posterity. This jealousy accounts for Hall
charging the duke of Clarence, as well as the duke of Gloucester, with
the murder of prince Edward. But in accusations of so deep a dye, it is
not sufficient ground for our belief, that an historian reports them with
such a frivolous palliative as that phrase, "as some say". A cotemporary
names the king's servants as perpetrators of the murder: Is not that more
probable, than that the king's own brothers should have dipped their
hands in so foul an assassination? Richard, in particular, is allowed on
all hands to have been a brave and martial prince: he had great share in
the victory at Tewksbury: Some years afterwards, he commanded his
brother's troops in Scotland, and made himself master of Edinburgh. At
the battle of Bosworth, where he fell, his courage was heroic: he sought
Richmond, and endeavoured to decide their quarrel by a personal
combat, slaying Sir William Brandon, his rival's standard-bearer, with
his own hand, and felling to the ground Sir John Cheney, who
endeavoured to oppose his fury. Such men may be carried by ambition
to command the execution of those who stand in their way; but are not
likely to lend their hand, in cold blood, to a base, and, to themselves,
useless assassination. How did it import Richard in what manner the
young prince was put to death? If he had so early planned the ambitious
designs ascribed to him, he might have trusted to his brother Edward,
so much more immediately concerned, that the young prince would not
be spared. If those views did not, as is probable, take root in his heart
till long afterwards, what interest had Richard to murder an unhappy
young prince? This crime therefore was so unnecessary, and is so far

from being established by any authority, that he deserves to be entirely
acquitted of it.
II. The murder of Henry the Sixth.
This charge, no better supported than the preceding, is still more
improbable. "Of the death of this prince, Henry the Sixth," says Fabian,
"divers tales wer told. But the most common fame went, that he was
sticken with a dagger by the handes of the duke of Gloceter." The
author of the Continuation of the Chronicle of Croyland says only, that
the body of king Henry was found lifeless (exanime) in the Tower.
"Parcat Deus", adds he, "spatium poenitentiae Ei donet, Quicunque
sacrilegas manus in Christum Domini ausus est immittere. Unde et
agens tyranni, patiensque gloriosi martyris titulum mereatur." The
prayer for the murderer, that he may live to repent, proves that the
passage was written immediately after the murder was committed. That
the assassin deserved the appellation of tyrant, evinces that the
historian's suspicions went high; but as he calls him Quicunque, and as
we are uncertain whether he wrote before the death of Edward the
Fourth or between his death and that of Richard the