t
suffer themselves to be governed by the term queen. Durazzo quitted
Naples in pursuit of new ingratitude; dethroned king Mary, and
obliged her to walk at his coronation; an insult she and her mother
soon revenged by having him assassinated.

I do not doubt but the wickedness of Durazzo will be thought a
proper parallel to Richard's. But parallels prove nothing: and a man
must be a very poor reasoner who thinks he has an advantage over me,
because I dare produce a circumstance that resembles my subject in
the case to which it is applied, and leaves my argument just as
strong as it was before in every other point.

They who the most firmly believe the murder of the two princes, and
from what I have said it is plain that they believe it more strongly
than the age did in which it was pretended to be committed; urge the
disappearance(32) of the princes as a proof of the murder, but that
argument vanishes entirely, at least with regard to one of them, if
Perkin Warbeck was the true duke of York, as I shall show that it is
greatly probable he was.

(32) Polidore Virgil says, "In vulgas fama valuit filios Edwardi
Regis aliquo terrarum partem migrasse, atque ita superstates esse."
And the prior of Croyland, not his continuator, whom I shall quote
in the next note but one, and who was still better informed,
"Vulgatum est Regis Edwardi pueros concessisse in fata, sed quo
genere intentus ignoratur."

With regard to the elder, his disappearance is no kind of proof that
he was murdered: he might die in the Tower. The queen pleaded to the
archbishop of York that both princes were weak and unhealthy. I have
insinuated that it is not impossible but Henry the Seventh might
find him alive in the Tower.(33) I mention that as a bare
possibility--but we may be very sure that if he did find Edward
alive there, he would not have notified his existence, to acquit
Richard and hazard his own crown. The circumstances of the murder
were evidently false, and invented by Henry to discredit Perkin; and
the time of the murder is absolutely a fiction, for it appears by
the roll of parliament which bastardized Edward the Fifth, that he
was then alive, which was seven months after the time assigned by
More for his murder, if Richard spared him seven months, what could
suggest a reason for his murder afterwards? To take him off then was
strengthening the plan of the earl of Richmond, who aimed at the
crown by marrying Elizabeth, eldest daughter of