her than the History of England, when we are told of strange
countries and such indefinite ramblings, as would pass only in a
nursery! It remains not only a secret but a doubt, whether the elder
brother was murdered. If Perkin was the younger, and knew certainly
that his brother was put to death, our doubt would vanish: but can
it vanish on no better authority than this foolish oration! Did
Grafton hear it pronounced? Did king James bestow his kinswoman on
Perkin, on the strength of such a fable?

(49) Henry was so reduced to make out any title to the crown, that
he catched even at a quibble. In the act of attainder passed after
his accession, he calls himself nephew of Henry the Sixth. He was so,
but it was by his father, who was not of the blood royal. Catharine
of Valois, after bearing Henry the Sixth, married Owen Tudor, and
had two sons, Edmund and Jasper, the former of which married
Margaret mother of Henry the Seventh, and so was he half nephew of
Henry the Sixth. On one side he had no blood royal, on the other
only bastard blood.

(50) Observe, that when Lord Bacon wrote, there was great
necessity to vindicate the title even of Henry the Seventh, for
James the First claimed from the eldest daughter of Henry and
Elizabeth.

With regard to the person of Richard, it appears to have been as
much misrepresented as his actions. Philip de Comines, who was very
free spoken even on his own masters, and therefore not likely to
spare a foreigner, mentions the beauty of Edward the Fourth; but
says nothing of the deformity of Richard, though he saw them
together. This is merely negative. The old countess of Desmond, who
had danced with Richard, declared he was the handsomest man in the
room except his brother Edward, and was very well made. But what
shall we say to Dr. Shaw, who in his sermon appealed to the people,
whether Richard was not the express image of his father's person,
who was neither ugly nor deformed? Not all the protector's power
could have kept the muscles of the mob in awe and prevented their
laughing at so ridiculous an apostrophe, had Richard been a little,
crooked, withered, hump-back'd monster, as later historians would
have us believe--and very idly? Cannot a foul soul inhabit a fair
body.

The truth I take to have been this. Richard, who was slender and not
tall, had one shoulder a little higher than the other: a defect, by
the magnifying glasses, of party, by distance of time, and by the
amp