Edward the Fourth had indubitably the hereditary right to the crown;
which he pursued with singular bravery and address, and with all the
arts of a politician and the cruelty of a conqueror. Indeed on
neither side do there seem to have been any scruples: Yorkists and
Lancastrians, Edward and Margaret of Anjou, entered into any
engagements, took any oaths, violated them, and indulged their
revenge, as often as they were depressed or victorious. After the
battle of Tewksbury, in which Margaret and her son were made
prisoners, young Edward was brought to the presence of Edward the
Fourth; "but after the king," says Fabian, the oldest historian of
those times, "had questioned with the said Sir Edwarde, and he had
answered unto hym contrary his pleasure, he then strake him with his
gauntlet upon the face; after which stroke, so by him received, he
was by the kynges servants incontinently slaine." The chronicle of
Croyland of the same date says, "the prince was slain 'ultricibus
quorundam manibus';" but names nobody.
Hall, who closes his word with the reign of Henry the Eighth, says,
that "the prince beyinge bold of stomache and of a good courag,
answered the king's question (of how he durst so presumptuously
enter into his realme with banner displayed) sayinge, to recover my
fater's kingdome and enheritage, &c. at which wordes kyng Edward
said nothing, but with his hand thrust him from him, or, as some
say, stroke him with his gauntlet, whome incontinent, they that
stode about, which were George duke of Clarence, Richard duke of
Gloucester, Thomas marques Dorset (son of queen Elizabeth Widville)
and William lord Hastinges, sodainly murthered and pitiously
manquelled." Thus much had the story gained from the time of
Fabian to that of Hall.
Hollingshed repeats these very words, consequently is a transcriber,
and no new authority.
John Stowe reverts to Fabian's account, as the only one not grounded
on hear-say, and affirms no more, than that the king cruelly smote
the young prince on the face with his gauntlet, and after his
servants slew him.
Of modern historians, Rapin and Carte, the only two who seem not to
have swallowed implicitly all the vulgar tales propagated by the
Lancastrians to blacken the house of York, warn us to read with
allowance the exaggerated relations of those times. The latter
suspects, that at the dissolution of the monasteries all evidences
were suppressed that tended to weaken the right of the prince on the
throne; but as Henry the Eighth concentred in himself both the claim
of Edward the Fourth and that ridiculous one of Henry the Seventh,
he seems to have had less occasion to be anxious lest the truth
should come out; and indeed his father had involved that truth in so
much darkness, that it was little likely to force its way. Nor was
it necessary then to load the memory of Richard the Third, who had
left no offspring. Henry the Eighth had no competitor to fear but
the descendants of Clarence, of whom he seems to have had sufficient
apprehension, as appeared by his murder of the old countess of
Salisbury, daughter of Clarence, and his endeavours to root out her
posterity. This jealousy accounts for Hall charging the duke of
Clarence, as well as the duke of Gloucester, with the murder of
prince Edward. But in accusations of so deep a dye, it is not
sufficient ground for our belief, that an historian reports them
with such a frivolous palliative as that phrase, "as some say". A
cotemporary names the king's servants as perpetrators of the murder:
Is not that more probable, than that the king's own brothers should
have dipped their hands in so foul an assassination? Richard, in
particular, is allowed on all hands to have been a brave and martial
prince: he had great share in the victory at Tewksbury: Some years
afterwards, he commanded his brother's troops in Scotland, and made
himself master of Edinburgh. At the battle of Bosworth, where he
fell, his courage was heroic: he sought Richmond, and endeavoured to
decide their quarrel by a personal combat, slaying Sir William
Brandon, his rival's standard-bearer, with his own hand, and
felling to the ground Sir John Cheney, who endeavoured to oppose
his fury. Such men may be carried by ambition to command the
execution of those who stand in their way; but are not likely to
lend their hand, in cold blood, to a base, and, to themselves,
useless assassination. How did it import Richard in what manner the
young prince was put to death? If he had so early planned the
ambitious designs ascribed to him, he might have trusted to his
brother Edward, so much more immediately concerned, that the young
prince would not be spared. If those views did not, as is probable,
take root in his heart till long afterwards, what interest had
Richard to murder an unhappy young prince? This crime therefore was
so unnecessary, and is so far from being established by any
authority, that he deserves to be entirely acquitted of it.