would have been the most heinous aggravation of his crimes. And no
prosecution of the supposed assassins was even thought of till
eleven years afterwards, on the appearance of Perkin Warbeck. Tirrel
is not named in the act of attainder to which I have had recourse;
and such omissions cannot but induce us to surmise that Henry had
never been certain of the deaths of the princes, nor ever interested
himself to prove that both were dead, till he had great reason to
believe that one of them was alive. Let me add, that if the
confessions of Dighton and Tirrel were true, Sir Thomas More had no
occasion to recur to the information of his unknown credible
informers. If those confessions were not true, his informers were
not credible.

(24) It appears by Hall, that Sir James Tirrel had even enjoyed the
favor of Henry; for Tirrel is named as captain of Guards in a list
of valiant officers that were sent by Henry, in his fifth year, on
an expedition into Flanders. Does this look as if Tirrel was so much
as suspected of the murder. And who can believe his pretended
confession afterwards? Sir James was not executed till Henry's
seventeenth year, on suspicion of treason, which suspicion arose on
the flight of the earl of Suffolk. Vide Hall's Chronicle, fol. 18 &
55.

(25) There is a heap of general accusations alledged to have been
committed by Richard against Henry, in particular of his having shed
infant's blood. Was this sufficient specification of the murder of a
king? Is it not rather a base way of insinuating a slander, of which
no proof could be given? Was not it consonant to all Henry's policy
of involving every thing in obscure and general terms?