s
a singularity, how much English history has been beholden to four great
men who have possessed the highest dignity in the law, More, Bacon,
Clarendon, and Whitlocke. (4.) But if contemporary evidence be so much
sought after, there may in this case be produced the strongest and
most undeniable in the world. The queen dowager, her son the marquis
of Dorset, a man of excellent understanding Sir Edward Woodville, her
brother, Sir Thomas St. Leger, who had married the king's sister, Sir
John Bourchier, Sir Robert Willoughby, Sir Giles Daubeney, Sir Thomas
Arundel, the Courtneys, the Cheyneys, the Talbots, the Stanleys, and,
in a word, all the partisans of the house of York, that is, the men of
chief dignity in the nation; all these great persons were so assured
of the murder of the two princes, that they applied to the earl of
Richmond, the mortal enemy of their party and family; they projected to
set him on the throne, which must have been utter ruin to them if the
princes were alive; and they stipulated to marry him to the princess
Elizabeth, as heir to the crown, who in that case was no heir at all.
Had each of those persons written the memoirs of his own times, would he
not have said that Richard murdered his nephews? Or would their pen be
a better declaration than their actions, of their real sentiments? (5.)
But we have another contemporary authority, still better than even
those great persons, so much interested to know the truth: it is that
of Richard himself. He projected to marry his niece, a very unusual
alliance in England, in order to unite her title with his own. He
knew, therefore, her title to be good: for as to the declaration of her
illegitimacy, as it went upon no proof, or even pretence of proof, it
was always regarded with the utmost contempt by the nation, and it was
considered as one of those parliamentary transactions, so frequent in
that period, which were scandalous in themselves, and had no manner
of authority. It was even so much despised, as not to be reversed by
parliament after Henry and Elizabeth were on the throne. (6.) We have
also, as contemporary evidence, the universal established opinion of
the age, both abroad and at home. This point was regarded as so
uncontroverted, that when Richard notified his accession to the court of
France, that court was struck with horror at his abominable parricide
in murdering both his nephews, as Philip de Comines tells us; and this
sentiment went to such