n the appearance of
Perkin Warbeck." Such are the striking arguments by which it has been
sought to cast a doubt upon the murder, and particularly More's account
of it.

To all which it may be replied, in the first place, that it is by no
means necessary to suppose More's narrative, though it appeared to him
the most credible account he had heard, absolutely correct in all its
details, especially in those which he mentions as mere reports. His
authority was evidently the alleged confession of Tyrell and Dighton,
obtained second-hand. This, though true in the main, may not have been
absolutely correct, even as it was first delivered, and may have been
somewhat less accurate as it was reported to Sir Thomas, who perhaps
added from hearsay a few errors of his own, like that about Sir James
Tyrell's knighthood.

Secondly, the argument with regard to Richard's imprudence, in pursuing
the course ascribed to him, goes but little way to discredit the facts,
unless it can be shown that caution and foresight were part of his
ordinary character. The prevailing notion of Richard III, indeed, is of a
cold, deeply politic, scheming, and calculating villain. But I confess I
am not satisfied of the justice of such a view. Not only Richard, but
all his family, appear to me to have been headstrong and reckless as
to consequences. His father lost his life by a chivalrous and quixotic
impetuosity; his brother Edward lost his kingdom once by pure
carelessness; his brother Clarence fell, no less by lack of wisdom than
by lack of honesty; and he himself, at Bosworth, threw away his life by
his eagerness to terminate the contest in a personal engagement. Had
Richard fully intended to murder his nephews at the time he determined
upon dethroning the elder, I have very little doubt that he would have
kept his northern forces in London to preserve order in the city till
after the deed was done. I for my part do not believe that such was his
intention from the first. How much more probable, indeed, that after he
had left London the contemplated rising in favor of the princes suggested
to him an action which cost him his peace of mind during the whole of his
after-life!

Thirdly, the doubts of contemporaries do not appear to have been very
general. The expression of Sir Thomas More is only "that some remained in
doubt"; and More is not a writer who would have glossed over a fact to
please the court. As to Perkin Warbeck, who pretended to be the y