popular belief. Mr. Hume treats Carte's doubts as whimsical: I
wonder, he did; he, who having so closely examined our history, had
discovered how very fallible many of its authorities are. Mr. Hume
himself had ventured to contest both the flattering picture drawn of
Edward the First, and those ignominious portraits of Edward the
Second, and Richard the Second. He had discovered from Foedera, that
Edward the Fourth, while said universally to be prisoner to
archbishop Nevil, was at full liberty and doing acts of royal power.
Why was it whimsical in Carte to exercise the same spirit of
criticism? Mr. Hume could not but know how much the characters of
princes are liable to be flattered or misrepresented. It is of
little importance to the world, to Mr. Hume, or to me, whether
Richard's story is fairly told or not: and in this amicable
discussion I have no fear of offending him by disagreeing with him.
His abilities and sagacity do not rest on the shortest reign in our
annals. I shall therefore attempt to give answers to the questions
on which he pins the credibility due to the history of Richard.

The questions are these, 1. Had not the queen-mother and the other
heads of the York party been fully assured of the death of both the
young princes, would they have agreed to call over the earl of
Richmond, the head of the Lancastrian party, and marry him to the
princess Elizabeth?--I answer, that when the queen-mother could
recall that consent, and send to her son the marquis Dorset to quit
Richmond, assuring him of king Richard's favour to him and her
house, it is impossible to' say what so weak and ambitious a woman
would not do. She wanted to have some one of her children on the
throne, in order to recover her own power. She first engaged her
daughter to Richmond and then to Richard. She might not know what
was become of her sons: and yet that is no proof they were murdered.
They were out of her power, whatever was become of them;-and she was
impatient to rule. If she was fully assured of their deaths, could
Henry, after he came to the crown and had married her daughter, be
uncertain of it? I have shown that both Sir Thomas More and lord
Bacon own it remained uncertain, and that Henry's account could not
be true. As to the heads of the Yorkists;(47) how does it appear
they concurred in the projected match? Indeed who were the heads of
that party? Margaret, duchess of Burgundy, Elizabeth duchess of
Suffolk, and her children;