m, his intended match with his own niece Elizabeth, the penance of
Jane Shore, and his own personal deformities.

I. Of the murder of Edward prince of Wales, son of Henry the Sixth.

Edward the Fourth had indubitably the hereditary right to the crown;
which he pursued with singular bravery and address, and with all the
arts of a politician and the cruelty of a conqueror. Indeed on
neither side do there seem to have been any scruples: Yorkists and
Lancastrians, Edward and Margaret of Anjou, entered into any
engagements, took any oaths, violated them, and indulged their
revenge, as often as they were depressed or victorious. After the
battle of Tewksbury, in which Margaret and her son were made
prisoners, young Edward was brought to the presence of Edward the
Fourth; "but after the king," says Fabian, the oldest historian of
those times, "had questioned with the said Sir Edwarde, and he had
answered unto hym contrary his pleasure, he then strake him with his
gauntlet upon the face; after which stroke, so by him received, he
was by the kynges servants incontinently slaine." The chronicle of
Croyland of the same date says, "the prince was slain 'ultricibus
quorundam manibus';" but names nobody.

Hall, who closes his word with the reign of Henry the Eighth, says,
that "the prince beyinge bold of stomache and of a good courag,
answered the king's question (of how he durst so presumptuously
enter into his realme with banner displayed) sayinge, to recover my
fater's kingdome and enheritage, &c. 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