rincipal charges only shows how impossible it is to recover a
reputation that has once been lost, and how careless history has been in
repeating calumnies that have once found circulation.

Bayley's history of the Tower proves that what has been popularly
christened the Bloody Tower could never have been the scene of the
supposed murder; that no bones were found under any staircase there; so
that this pretended confirmation of the murder in the time of Charles
II., on which many writers have relied, vanishes into the stuff which
dreams are made of.

And yet by this charge which the antiquarian Stowe declared was 'never
proved by any credible witness,' which Grafton, Hall, and Holinshead
agreed could never be certainly known; which Bacon declared that King
Henry in vain endeavored to substantiate, a brave and politic monarch
lost his crown, life, and historic fame! Nay, it is a curious fact that
Richard could not safely contradict the report of the princes' deaths
when it broke out with the outbreak of civil war, because it would have
been furnishing to the rebellion a justifying cause and a royal head,
instead of a milksop whom he despised and felt certain to overthrow.

As it was, Richard left nothing undone to fortify his failing cause; he
may be thought even to have overdone. He doubled his spies, enlisted
fresh troops, erected fortifications, equipped fleets, twice had
Richmond at his fingers' ends, twice saw Providence take his side in the
dispersion of Richmond's fleet, the overthrow of Buckingham's force;
then was utterly ruined by the general treason of his most trusted
nobles and his not unnatural scorn of a pusillanimous rival. In vain did
he strive to be just and generous, vigilant and charitable, politic and
enterprising. The poor excuse for Buckingham's desertion, the refusal of
the grant of Hereford, is refuted by a Harleian MS. recording that royal
munificence; yet Buckingham, without any question, wove the net in which
this lion fell; he seduced the very officers of the court; he invited
Richmond over, assuring him of a popular uprising, which was proved to
be a mere mockery by the miserable handful that rallied around him,
until Richard fell at Bosworth. And after Buckingham's death, Richmond
merely followed _his_ plans, used the tools he had prepared, headed the
conspiracy which this unmitigated traitor arranged, and profited more
than Richard by his death, because he had not to fear an after-struggle