Richard III: His Life & Character Part 31

[10] _Ibid._ p. 73.

[11] _Ibid._ p. 250.

[12] _Ibid._ p. 251.

[13] _Ibid._ p. 251.

[14] Stow set a better example. He adopted the 'probable story' of Fabyan, and rejected the 'tradition of later times,' as Mr. Gairdner calls the unsupported calumny of Polydore Virgil.

[15] Dr. Lingard says that 'Clarence and Gloucester, perhaps the Knights in their retinue, despatched young Edward with their swords'

(iv. p. 189). In a foot-note he sees no good reason to doubt Stow.

But Stow says nothing of the kind. He merely adopts Fabyan's tale that King Edward's servants despatched the prince. He does not even mention either Clarence or Gloucester. The accusation against the knights in the retinue of those princes is Lingard's own, unsupported by any evidence whatever.

[16] _English Historical Review_, 1891 (July), p. 448.

[17] The Lancastrians gave no quarter at Wakefield, slaughtering all prisoners high and low. At the second battle ol St. Albans their cruelty was deepened by bad faith. After Bosworth, Henry Tudor ordered four executions which, in his outlawed condition, were lawless murders.

The atrocious conduct of his son, in suppressing the Pilgrimage of Grace, was still more horrible. Executions went on, long after all resistance had ceased, with unrelenting cruelty.

The tribunal at Tewkesbury is unjustly arraigned by modern historians, while the barbarities of Lancastrians and Tudors are slurred over or ignored.

[18] 'I am struck with the singular leniency of Edward IV. towards his political enemies. The rolls of Parliament are full of pet.i.tions for the reversal of attainders. I do not recollect a single instance in which the pet.i.tion was refused.'--Thorold Rogers, _Agriculture and Prices_, iv. p. 180.

[19] Dr. Lingard's chief reason for believing that Gloucester murdered Henry VI. is that 'writers who lived under the next dynasty attributed the black deed to Richard' (iv. p. 192). Of course they did. They were well paid to do so.

[20] P. 61. He considers it more probable that Gloucester was ignorant of what had been going on in London.

[21] P. 62.

[22] P. 66.

[23] Dr. Lingard's argument in favour of the calumny against the d.u.c.h.ess of York is that a man who would shed the blood of his nephews would not refuse to allow his mother to be slandered. Doubtless the Doctor would have been equally ready with the reversed argument. A man who would slander his mother would not refuse to allow his nephews to be murdered (iv. p. 232 _n_).

[24] _York Records_, p. 181 _n._