proof that the protector accused the queen of having plotted(18)
with mistress Shore. What relates to that unhappy fair one I shall
examine at the end of this work.

Except the proclamation which, Sir Thomas says, appeared to
have been prepared before hand. The death of Hastings, I allow, is
the fact of which we are most sure, without knowing the immediate
motives: we must conclude it was determined on his opposing
Richard's claim: farther we do not know, nor whether that opposition
was made in a legal or hostile manner. It is impossible to believe
that, an hour before his death, he should have exulted in the deaths
of their common enemies, and vaunted, as Sir Thomas More asserts,
his connection with Richard, if he was then actually at variance
with him; nor that Richard should, without provocation, have
massacred so excellent an accomplice. This story, therefore, must be
left in the dark, as we find it.

(18) So far from it, that as Mr. Hume remarks, there is in Rymer's
Foedera a proclamation of Richard, in which he accuses, not the lord
Hastings, but the marquis Dorset, of connexion with Jane Shore. Mr.
Hume thinks so authentic a paper not sufficient to overbalance the
credit due to Sir Thomas More. What little credit was due to him
appears from the course of this work in various and indubitable
instances. The proclamation against the lord Dorset and Jane Shore
is not dated till the 23rd. of October following. Is it credible
that Richard would have made use of this woman's name again, if he
had employed it heretofore to blacken Hastings? It is not probable
that, immediately on the death of the king, she had been taken into
keeping by lord Hastings; but near seven months had elapsed between
that death and her connection with the marquis.