an unusual height, that, as we learn from the
same author, the court would not make the least reply to him. (7.) The
same reasons which convinced that age of the parricide still subsist,
and ought to carry the most undoubted evidence to us; namely, the very
circumstance of the sudden disappearance of the princes from the Tower,
and their appearance nowhere else. Every one said, "They have not
escaped from their uncle, for he makes no search after them: he has not
conveyed them elsewhere; for it is his business to declare so, in
order to remove the imputation of murder from himself. He never would
needlessly subject himself to the infamy and danger of being esteemed
a parricide, without acquiring the security attending that crime. They
were in his custody. He is answerable for them. If he gives no account
of them, as he has a plain interest in their death, he must, by
every rule of common sense, be regarded as the murderer. His flagrant
usurpation, as well as his other treacherous and cruel actions, makes
no better be expected from him. He could not say, with Cain, that he was
not his nephews' keeper." This reasoning, which was irrefragable at the
very first, became every day stronger from Richard's continued silence,
and the general and total ignorance of the place of these princes'
abode. Richard's reign lasted about two years beyond this period; and
surely he could not have found a better expedient for disappointing the
earl of Richmond's projects, as well as justifying his own character,
than the producing of his nephews. (8.) If it were necessary, amidst
this blaze of evidence, to produce proofs which, in any other case,
would have been regarded as considerable, and would have carried great
validity with them, I might mention Dighton and Tyrrel's account of the
murder. This last gentleman especially was not likely to subject himself
to the reproach of so great a crime, by an imposture which, it appears,
did not acquire him the favor of Henry. (9.) The duke of York, being
a boy of nine years of age, could not have made his escape without the
assistance of some elder persons. Would it not have been their chief
concern instantly to convey intelligence of so great an event to his
mother, the queen dowager, to his aunt, the duchess of Burgundy, and to
the other friends of the family. The duchess protected Simnel; a project
which, had it been successful, must have ended in the crowning of
Warwick and the exclusion of the du