made me suspect that he had taken some part in behalf of the royal
children, as he is pardoned for all murders, treasons, concealments,
misprisons, riots, routs, &c. but this pardon is not only dated
Dec. 13, some months after he had crowned Richard; but, on looking
farther, I find such pardons frequently granted to the most eminent
of the clergy. In the next reign Walter, archbishop of Dublin, is
pardoned all murders, rapes, treasons, felonies, misprisons, riots,
routs, extortions, &c.

(27) Lord Bacon tells us, that "on Simon's and Jude's even, the
king (Henry the Seventh) dined with Thomas Bourchier, archbishop of
Canterburie, and cardinal: and from Lambeth went by land over the
bridge to the Tower." Has not this the appearance of some curiosity
in the king on the subject of the princes, of whose fate he was
uncertain?

Richard's conduct in a parallel case is a strong presumption that
this barbarity was falsely laid to his charge. Edward earl of
Warwick, his nephew, and son of the duke of Clarence, was in his
power too, and no indifferent rival, if king Edward's children were
bastards. Clarence had been attainted; but so had almost every
prince who had aspired to the crown after Richard the Second.
Richard duke of York, the father of Edward the Fourth and Richard
the Third, was son of Richard earl of Cambridge, beheaded for
treason; yet that duke of York held his father's attainder no bar to
his succession. Yet how did Richard the Third treat his nephew and
competitor, the young Warwick? John Rous, a zealous Lancastrian and
contemporary shall inform us: and will at the same time tell us an
important anecdote, maliciously suppressed or ignorantly omitted by
all our historians. Richard actually proclaimed him heir to the