ed by the
restoration, and enlarged and secured by the revolution.]

[Footnote 19: NOTE S, p. 459. We shall give an instance. Almost all
the historians, even Coraines, and the continuator of the Annals of
Croyland, assert that Edward was about this time taken prisoner by
Clarence and Warwick, and was committed to the custody of the archbishop
of York, brother to the earl; but being allowed to take the diversion of
hunting by this prelate, he made his escape, and afterwards chased the
rebels out of the kingdom. But that all the story is false, appears
from Rymer, where we find that the king, throughout all this period,
continually exercised his authority, and never was interrupted in his
government. On the 7th of March, 1470, he gives a commission of array
to Clarence, whom he then imagined a good subject; and on the 23d of the
same month, we find him issuing an order for apprehending him, Besides,
in the king's manifesto against the duke and earl, (Claus. 10. Edward
IV. m. 7, 8,) where he enumerates all their treasons, he mentions no
such fact; he does not so much as accuse them of exciting young Welles's
rebellion; he only says, that they exhorted him to continue in his
rebellion. We may judge how smaller facts will be misrepresented
by historians, who can in the most material transactions mistake so
grossly. There may even some doubt arise with regard to the proposal of
marriage made to Bona of Savoy; though almost all the historians concur
in it, and the fact be very likely in itself; for there are no traces in
Rymer of any such embassy of Warwick's to France. The chief certainty in
this and the preceding reign arises either from public records, or from
the notice taken of certain passages by the French historians. On the
contrary, for some centuries after the conquest, the French history
is not complete without the assistance of English authors. We may
conjecture, that the reason of the scarcity of historians during this
period, was the destruction of the convents, which ensued so soon
after. Copies of the more recent historians not being yet sufficiently
dispersed, those histories hare perished.]

[Footnote 20: NOTE T, p. 490. Sir Thomas More, who has been followed,
or rather transcribed, by all the historians of this short reign, says,
that Jane Shore had fallen into connections with Lord Hastings; and this
account agrees best with the course of the events; but in a proclamation
of Richard's, to be found in R