isions about Henry the Eighth,
though born to shake half the pillars of credulity.

(56) Attamen si ad ejus honorem veritatem dicam, p. 218.

In short, no reliance can be had on an author of such a frame of
mind, so removed from the scene of action, and so devoted to the
Welsh intruder on the throne. Superadded to this incapacity and
defects, he had prejudices or attachments of a private nature: he
had singular affection for the Beauchamps, earls of Warwick, zealous
Lancastrians, and had written their lives. One capital crime that he
imputes to Richard is the imprisonment of his mother-in-law, Ann
Beauchamp countess of Warwick, mother of his queen. It does seem
that this great lady was very hardly treated; but I have shown from
the Chronicle of Croyland, that it was Edward the Fourth, not
Richard, that stripped her of her possessions. She was widow too of
that turbulent Warwick the King-maker; and Henry the Seventh bore
witness that she was faithfully loyal to Henry the Sixth. Still it
seems extraordinary that the queen did not or could not obtain the
enlargement of her mother. When Henry the Seventh 'attained the
crown, she recovered her liberty 'and vast estates: yet young as his
majesty was both in years and avarice, for this munificence took
place in his third year, still he gave evidence of the falshood and
rapacity of his nature; for though by act of parliament he cancelled
the former act that had deprived her, as against all reason,
conscience, and course of nature, and contrary to the laws of God
and man,(57) and restored her possessions to her, this was but a
farce, and like his wonted hypocrisy; for the very same year he
obliged her to convey the whole estate to him, leaving her nothing
but the manor of Sutton for her maintenance. Richard had married her
daughter; but what claim had Henry to her inheritance? This
attachment of Rous to the house of Beauchamp, and the dedication of
his work to Henry, Would make his testimony most suspicious, even if
he had guarded his work within the rules of probability, and not
rendered it a contemptible legend.

(57) Vide Dugdale's Warckshire in Beauchamp.

Every part of Richard's story is involved in obscurity: we neither
known what natural children he had, nor what became of them.
Stanford says, he had a daughter called Katherine, whom William
Herbert earl of Huntingdon covenanted to marry, and to make her a
fair and sufficient estate of certain of his manors to the ye