Buck. Say on, my loving lord. K.Rich. Why, Buckingham, I say I would be king. Buck. Why, so you are, my thrice-renowned liege. K. Rich. Ha! Am I king? 'Tis so-but Edward lives. Buck. True, noble prince. K. Rich. O bitter consequence ! That Edward still should live.-True, noble prince! Cousin, thou wert not wont to be so dull :- K. Rich. Tut, tut! thou art all ice, thy kindness freezes ; Say, have I thy consent that they should die? Buck. Give me some breath, some little pause, dear lord, Before I positively speak in this : I will resolve your grace immediately. [Exit. Catesby. The king is angry; see, he gnaws his lip. K. Rich. I will converse with iron-witted fools, And unrespective boys; none are for me, That look unto me with considerate eyes; High-reaching Buckingham grows circumspect." I find no authority for this scheme, or for any attempt to involve Buckingham in the murder of the princes. The Richard of the play then employs a page to find him a murderer, and is informed of Tyrrel, to whom he gives the commission. Buckingham takes occasion to solicit the grants which Richard had promised him, but is treated scornfully, and announces his intention of retiring into Wales. In the next scene the murder is described, which had been accomplished, under Tyrrel's superintendence, by Dighton and For rest. Comparing, in this as in other cases, the narrative of Sir Thomas More with that of contemporary writers, I find that the continuator of Croyland does not state that the princes were murdered, or that such was the general belief. But he says, that while the princes remained in the Tower, the people of the southern and western parts of England began to murmur; and there was a report that some of the late king's daughters had escaped from sanctuary to foreign parts, in order that, if anything should happen (this is very expressive) to the sons, the crown might still be preserved to the true heirs. It was after the people of the southern counties began to stir, and Buckingham had become their captain, that it was reported that the two boys had died in the Tower, by some sort of violent death.* *Croyl., 567, 568. The suspicions of Fabyan are expressed more plainly. He says, that “The common fame went, that King Richard had within the Tower, put unto secret death the sons of his brother, Edward IV.; for the which and other causes, hid within the breast of the Duke of Buckingham, the said duke, in secret manner, conspired against him."* The Records of Parliament furnish nothing but the recital, in the act of attainder of Richard and his adherents, of the unnatural, mischievous, and great perjuries, treasons, homicides, and murders in shedding of infant's blood, with many other wrongs, odious offences, and abominations against God and man, and especially against our said sovereign lord, committed and done by Richard, late Duke of Gloucester, calling and naming himself by usurpation, King Richard III.”† I do not lay much stress upon the absence of more direct reference, in this record, to the murder of Edward V. and his brother. The treason charged upon Richard was made, by a most impudent assumption, to consist in levying war at Bosworth against Henry VII., and it did not suit the Lancastrian policy of that king to recog * P. 670. † Rolls, vi. 276. nise the son of Edward IV. as the sovereign whose life could not be taken away without high treason.* But I cannot agree with Hume, in giving faith to the narrative of Sir Thomas More, whether written by that eminent man, or by Archbishop Morton. The murderous order sent to Brackenbury from a distance, in the uncertainty whether he would obey it; the story of the page and Tyrrel, the commission to the Tower of that person for a single night, are circumstances highly improbable, with which, neither More nor Morton was in a situation to be acquainted, if they did actually occur. Morton was very likely to invent or exaggerate facts unfavourable to Richard; and Tyrrel was of a station much too high to be picked out by a page. His brothers and he were successively masters of the horse. More's authority proves, only what Fabyan's is enough to prove, that there was a rumour and suspicion of murder. Comines says, that Louis XI. (not in general very scrupulous) refused to answer Richard's notification of his accession, because he thought him wicked and cruel. But Louis's answer is extant, and though short, is * See Hallam's Middle Ages, iii. 297. passably courteous and friendly.* And certainly there is this difference between this crime and the others which are imputed to Richard. For this, a more natural motive may be assigned; and while the disappearance of the two princes remains unaccounted for, the habits of the age, I fear, teach us to look upon their murder by their uncle, as not the least probable solution of the mystery. It is true, that Richard was already king, in fact, and that the death of his nephews did not make him king of right; but their existence might be thought eventually dangerous: the murder was not politic or necessary, but was not gratuitous. I cannot go more deeply into the controversy; but I would recommend those who are disposed to rely upon Shakspeare, to read the "Historic Doubts," I do not profess to have myself resolved them in favour of Richard.† See Turner, 3d edit. 439. + Hume's note (M. vol. iii.), is by some persons deemed a masterly answer to Walpole. But he relies too much upon Sir Thomas More; and Walpole's criticisms (p.195) upon the passage in which he lauds the magnanimity of that historian, are quite just and applicable. Some passages in the note are ridiculous; as where, the subject of question being the murder of the two princes in the Tower, he says, that it is plain that More had his information from eye witnesses! His averment that "all the partisans of the house of York were assured of the mur |