indeed essential to Henry to know; but
what did it proclaim to the nation? What could stagger the
allegiance of such trust and such connexions, but the firm
persuation that Perkin was the true duke of York? A spirit of
faction and disgust has even in later times hurried men into
treasonable combinations; but however Sir William Stanley might be
dissatisfied, as not thinking himself adequately rewarded, yet is it
credible that he should risk such favour, such riches, as lord Bacon
allows he possessed, on the wild bottom of a Flemish counterfeit?
The lord Fitzwalter and the other great men suffered in the same
cause; and which is remarkable, the first was executed at Calais
--another presumption that Henry would not venture to have his
evidence made public. And the strongest presumption of all is, that
not one of the sufferers is pretended to have recanted; they all
died then in the persuasion that they had engaged in a righteous
cause. When peers, knights of the garter, privy councellors, suffer
death, from conviction of a matter of which they were proper judges,
(for which of them but must know their late master's son?) it would
be rash indeed in us to affirm that they laid down their lives for
an imposture, and died with a lie in their mouths.

(39) A gentleman of fame and family, says lord Bacon.

What can be said against king James of Scotland, who bestowed a lady
of his own blood in marriage on Perkin? At war with Henry, James
would naturally support his rival, whether genuine or suppositious.
He and Charles the Eighth both gave him aid and both gave him up, as
the wind of their interest shifted about. Recent instances of such
conduct have been seen; but what prince has gone so far as to stake
his belief in a doubtful cause, by sacrificing a princess of his own
blood in confirmation of it?

But it is needless to multiply presumptions. Henry's conduct and the
narrative (40) he published, are sufficient to stagger every
impartial reader. Lord Bacon confesses the king did himself no good
by the publication of that narrative, and that mankind was
astonished to find no mention in it of the duchess Margaret's
machinations. But how could lord Bacon stop there? Why did he not
conjecture that there was no proof of that tale? What interest had
Henry to manage a widow of Burgundy? He had applied to the archduke
Philip to banish Perkin: Philip replied, he had no power over the
lands of the duchess's dowry. It is therefore