t the warmest asserter of
the imposture answer that question, and I will give up all I have
said in this work; yes, all. Forest was dead, and the supposed
priest; Sir James Tirrel, and Dighton, were in Henry's hands. Had
they trumpeted about the story of their own guilt and infamy, till
Henry, after Perkin's appearance, found it necessary to publish it?
Sir James Tirrel and Dighton had certainly never gone to the court
of Burgundy to make a merit with Margaret of having murdered her
nephews. How came she to know accurately and authentically a tale
which no mortal else knew? Did Perkin or did he not correspond in
his narrative with Tirrel and Dighton? If he did how was it possible
for him to know it? If he did not, is it morally credible that
Henry would not have made those variations public? If Edward the
Fifth was murdered, and the duke of York saved, Perkin could know it
but by being the latter. If he did not know it, what was so obvious
as his detection? We must allow Perkin to be the true duke of York,
or give up the whole story of Tirrel and Dighton. When Henry had
Perkin, Tirrel, and Dighton, in his power, he had nothing to do but
to confront them, and the imposture was detected. It would not have
been sufficient that Margaret had enjoined him to tell a smooth and
likely tale of those matters, A man does not tell a likely tale, nor
was a likely tale enough, of matters of which he is totally
ignorant.

(38) It would have required half the court of Edward the Fourth to
frame a consistent legend Let us state this in a manner that must
strike our apprehension. The late princess royal was married out of
England, before any of the children of the late prince of Wales were
born. She lived no farther than the Hague; and yet who thinks that
she could have instructed a Dutch lad in so many passages of the
courts of her father and brother, that he would not have been
detected in an hour's time. Twenty-seven years at least had elapsed
since Margaret had been in the court of England. The marquis of
Dorset, the earl of Richmond himself, and most of the fugitives had
taken refuge in Bretagne, not with Margaret; and yet was she so
informed of every trifling story, even those of the nursery, that
she was able to pose Henry himself, and reduce him to invent a tale
that had not a shadow of probability in it. Why did he not convict
Perkin out of his own mouth? Was it ever pretended that Perkin
failed in his part? That was the sures