indulsisse credatur, in fide tamen catholicus summ, hereticorum
severissimus hostis sapientium & doctorum hominum clericorumque
promotor amantissimus, sacramentorum ecclesiae devotissimus
venerator, peccatorumque fuorum omnium paenitentissimus fuit." That
monster Philip the Second possessed just the same virtues. Still, I
say, let the monk suspect whom he would, if Henry was found dead,
the monk was not likely to know who murdered him--and if he did, he
has not told us.

Hall says, "Poore kyng Henry the Sixte, a little before deprived of
hys realme and imperial croune, was now in the Tower of London
spoyled of his life and all wordly felicite by Richard duke of
Gloucester (as the constant fame ranne) which, to the intent that
king Edward his brother should be clere out of al secret suspicyon
of sudden invasion, murthered the said king with a dagger." Whatever
Richard was, it seems he was a most excellent and kind-hearted
brother, and scrupled not on any occasion to be the Jack Ketch of the
times. We shall see him soon (if the evidence were to be believed)
perform the same friendly office for Edward on their brother
Clarence. And we must admire that he, whose dagger was so fleshed in
murder for the service of another, should be so put to it to find
the means of making away with his nephews, whose deaths were
considerably more essential to him. But can this accusation be
allowed gravely? if Richard aspired to the crown, whose whole
conduct during Edward's reign was a scene, as we are told, of
plausibility and decorum, would he officiously and unnecessarily
have taken on himself the odium of slaying a saint-like monarch,
adored by the people? Was it his interest to save Edward's character
at the expence of his own? Did Henry stand in his way, deposed,
imprisoned, and now childless? The blind and indiscriminate zeal