would have been Twenty-one.
Margaret of York, duchess dowager of Burgundy, and sister of Edward
the Fourth, is said by lord Bacon to have been the Juno who
persecuted the pious Aeneas, Henry, and set up this phantom against
him. She it was, say the historians, and says Lord Bacon, p, 115,
"who informed Perkin of all the circumstances and particulars that
concerned the person of Richard duke of York, which he was to act,
describing unto him the personages, lineaments, and features of the
king and queen, his pretended parents, and of his brother and
sisters, and divers others that were nearest him in his childhood;
together with all passages, some secret, some common that were fit
for a child's memory, until the death of king Edward. Then she added
the particulars of the time, from the king's death; until he and his
brother were committed to the Tower, as well during the time he was
abroad, as while he was in sanctuary. As for the times while he was
in the Tower, and the manner of his brother's death, and his own
escape, she knew they were things that were few could controle: and
therefore she taught him only to tell a smooth and likely tale of
those matters, warning him not to vary from it." Indeed! Margaret
must in truth have been a Juno, a divine power, if she could give
all these instructions to purpose. This passage is, so very
important, the whole story depends so much upon it, that if I can
show the utter impossibility of its being true, Perkin will remain
the true duke of York for any thing we can prove to the contrary;
and for Henry, Sir Thomas More, lord Bacon, and their copyists, it
will be impossible to give any longer credit to their narratives.

I have said that duke Richard was born in 1474. Unfortunately his
aunt Margaret was married out of England in 1467, seven years before
he was born, and never returned thither. Was not she singularly
capable of describing to Perkin, her nephew, whom she had never
seen? How well informed was she of the times of his childhood, and
of all passages relating to his brother and sisters! Oh! but she had
English refugees about her. She must have had many, and those of
most intimate connection with the court, if she and they together
could compose a tolerable story for Perkin, that was to take in the
most minute passages of so many years.(38) Who informed Margaret,
that she might inform Perkin, of what passed in sanctuary? Ay; and
who told her what passed in the Tower? Le