ll long afterwards, what interest had
Richard to murder an unhappy young prince? This crime therefore was
so unnecessary, and is so far from being established by any
authority, that he deserves to be entirely acquitted of it.

II. The murder of Henry the Sixth.

This charge, no better supported than the preceding, is still more
improbable. "Of the death of this prince, Henry the Sixth," says
Fabian, "divers tales wer told. But the most common fame went, that
he was sticken with a dagger by the handes of the duke of Gloceter."
The author of the Continuation of the Chronicle of Croyland says
only, that the body of king Henry was found lifeless (exanime) in
the Tower. "Parcat Deus", adds he, "spatium poenitentiae Ei donet,
Quicunque sacrilegas manus in Christum Domini ausus est immittere.
Unde et agens tyranni, patiensque gloriosi martyris titulum
mereatur." The prayer for the murderer, that he may live to repent,
proves that the passage was written immediately after the murder was
committed. That the assassin deserved the appellation of tyrant,
evinces that the historian's suspicions went high; but as he calls
him Quicunque, and as we are uncertain whether he wrote before the
death of Edward the Fourth or between his death and that of Richard
the Third, we cannot ascertain which of the brothers he meant. In
strict construction he should mean Edward, because as he is speaking
of Henry's death, Richard, then only duke of Gloucester, could not
properly be called a tyrant. But as monks were not good grammatical
critics, I shall lay no stress on this objection. I do think he
alluded to Richard; having treated him severely in the subsequent
part of his history, and having a true monkish partiality to Edward,
whose cruelty and vices he slightly noticed, in favour to that
monarch's severity to heretics and ecclesiastic expiations. "Is
princeps, licet diebus suis cupiditatibus & luxui nimis intemperanter
indulsisse credatur, in fide tamen catholicus summ, hereticorum
severissimus hostis sapientium & doctorum hominum clericorumque
promotor amantissimus, sacramentorum ecclesiae devotissimus
venerator, peccatorumque fuorum omnium paenitentissimus fuit." That
monster Philip the Second possessed just the same virtues. Still, I
say, let the monk suspect whom he would, if Henry was found dead,
the monk was not likely to know who murdered him--and if he did, he
has not told us.

Hall says, "Poore kyng Henry the Sixte, a little before