accusing him, the marquis Dorset, and their uncle Rivers, of
ambitious and hostile designs, to which ends the marquis had entered
the Tower, taken treasure thence, and sent a force to sea.

"These things," says Sir Thomas, "the dukes knew, were done for good
and necessary purposes, and by appointment of the council; but
somewhat they must say," &c. As Sir Thomas has not been pleased to
specify those purposes, and as in those times at least privy
counsellors were exceedingly complaisant to the ruling powers, he
must allow us to doubt whether the purposes of the queen's relations
were quite so innocent as he would make us believe; and whether the
princes of the blood and the antient nobility had not some reasons
to be jealous that the queen was usurping more power than the laws
had given her. The catastrophe of her whole family so truly deserves
commiseration, that we are apt to shut our eyes to all her weakness
and ill-judged policy; and yet at every step we find how much she
contributed to draw ruin on their heads and her own, by the
confession even of her apologists. The Duke of Gloucester was the
first prince of the blood, the constitution pointed him out as
regent; no will, no disposition of the late king was even alleged to
bar his pretensions; he had served the state with bravery, success,
and fidelity; and the queen herself, who had been insulted by
Clarence, had had no cause to complain of Gloucester. Yet all her
conduct intimated designs of governing by force in the name of her
son.(8) If these facts are impartially stated, and grounded on the
confession of those who inveigh most bitterly against Richard's
memory, let us allow that at least thus far he acted as most princes
would have done in his situation, in a lawless and barbarous age,
and rather instigated by others, than from any before-conceived
ambition and system. If the journeys of Percival are true,