g to mention him, he
says, the man, commonly called Perkin Warbeck, was, as well with the
princes as the people, held to be the younger son of Edward the
Fourth; and that the deaths of the young' king Edward and of Richard
his brother had come so far in question, as some are yet in doubt,
whether they were destroyed or no in the days of king Richard. Sir
Thomas adhered to the affirmative, relying as I have shown on very
bad authorities. But what is a stronger argument ad hominem, I can
prove that Mr. Hume did not think Sir Thomas More good authority;
no, Mr. Hume was a fairer and more impartial judge: at the very time
that he quotes Sir Thomas More, he tacitly rejects his authority;
for Mr. Hume, agreeably to truth, specifies the lady Eleanor Butler
as the person to whom king Edward was contracted, and not Elizabeth
Lucy, as it stands in Sir Thomas More. An attempt to vindicate
Richard will perhaps no longer be thought whimsical, when so very
acute a reasoner as Mr. Hume could find no better foundation than
these seven queries on which to rest his condemnation.

(47) The excessive affection shown by the Northern counties where
the principal strength of the Yorkists lay, to Richard the Third
while living, and to his memory when dead, implies two things;
first, that the party did not give him up to Henry; secondly, that
they did not believe he had murdered his nephews, Tyrants of that
magnitude are not apt to be popular. Examine the list of the chiefs
in Henry's army as stated by the Chronicle of Croyland, p. 574. and
they will be found Lancastrians, or very private gentlemen, and but
one peer, the earl of Oxford, a noted Lancastrian.

(48) Grafton has preserved a ridiculous oration said to be made by
Perkin to the king of Scotland, in which this silly tale is told.
Nothing can be depended upon less than such orations, almost always
forged by the writer, and unpardonable, if they pass the bounds of
truth. Perkin, in the passage in question, uses these words: "And
farther to the entent that my life might be in a suretie he (the
murderer of my elder brother) appointed one to convey me into some
straunge countrie, where, when I was furthest off, and had most
neede of comfort, he forsooke me sodainly (I think he was so
appointed to do) and left me desolate alone without friend or
knowledge of any relief for refuge," &c. Would not one think one was
reading the tale of Valentine and Orson, or a legend of a barbarous
age, rat