Regarding the time and manner of the deed no news
could then be obtained, but the news that the deposed King and his
brother had been assassinated was spread with horror and amazement
through the land. Among all the inhumanities of the late civil war there
had been nothing so unnatural as this. To many the tale seemed too cruel
to be true. They believed that the princes must have been sent abroad
to defeat the intrigues of their friends. But time passed away and they
never appeared again. After many years, indeed, an impostor counterfeited
the younger; but even he, to give credit to his pretensions, expressly
admitted the murder of his elder brother.

Nevertheless, there have been writers in modern days who have shown
plausible grounds for doubting that the murder really took place. Two
contemporary writers, they say, mention the fact only as a report; a
third certainly states it, incorrectly, at least, in point of time; and
Sir Thomas More, who is the only one remaining, relates it with certain
details which it does seem difficult to accept as credible. More's
account, however, must bear some resemblance to the truth. It is mainly
founded upon the confession of two of the murderers, and is given by the
writer as the most trustworthy report he had met with. If, therefore, the
murder be not itself a fiction, and the confession, as has been surmised,
a forgery, we should expect the account given by Sir Thomas More to be in
the main true, clear, and consistent, though Horace Walpole and others
have maintained that it is not so. The substance of the story is as
follows: Richard, some time after he had set out on his progress, sent
a special messenger and confidant, by name John Green, to Sir Robert
Brackenbury, the constable of the Tower, commanding him to put the two
princes to death. Brackenbury refused to obey the order, and Green
returned to his master at Warwick. The King was bitterly disappointed.
"Whom shall a man trust," he said, "when those who I thought would most
surely serve me, at my command will do nothing for me?" The words were
spoken to a private attendant or page, who told him, in reply, that there
was one man lying on a pallet in the outer chamber who would hardly
scruple to undertake anything whatever to please him. This was Sir James
Tyrell, who is described by More as an ambitious, aspiring man, jealous
of the ascendency of Sir Richard Ratcliffe and Sir William Catesby.
Richard at once acted upon the h