A great amount of public anxiety prevailed touching the two young princes in the Tower.  They were virtually prisoners, and their confinement created great dissatisfaction.  A movement in their behalf was gotten up in the South of England while Richard was away.  In Kent, Sussex, and Essex, in Hampshire, Wiltshire, and Dorset, even as far west as Devonshire, cabals were formed for their liberation, which all appear to have been parts of one great conspiracy organized in secret by the Duke of Buckingham.  By the beginning of October some disturbances had actually taken place, and the following letter was written in consequence by the Duke of Norfolk to one of his dependents in Norfolk: 

“To my right well-beloved friend, John Paston, be this delivered in haste.

“Right well-beloved friend, I commend me to you.  It is so that the Kentish men be up in the Weald and say that they will come and rob the city, which I shall let [i. e., prevent] if I may.

“Therefore I pray you, that with all diligence you make you ready and come hither, and bring with you six tall fellows in harness; and ye shall not lose your labor, that knoweth God; who have you in his keeping.

“Written at London the 10th day of October.

“Your friend,

“J.  NORFOLK.”

The rumor of the projected movement in behalf of the princes was speedily followed by the report that they were no more.  Of course they had been removed by violence.  Regarding the time and manner of the deed no news could then be obtained, but the news that the deposed King and his brother had been assassinated was spread with horror and amazement through the land.  Among all the inhumanities of the late civil war there had been nothing so unnatural as this.  To many the tale seemed too cruel to be true.  They believed that the princes must have been sent abroad to defeat the intrigues of their friends.  But time passed away and they never appeared again.  After many years, indeed, an impostor counterfeited the younger; but even he, to give credit to his pretensions, expressly admitted the murder of his elder brother.

Nevertheless, there have been writers in modern days who have shown plausible grounds for doubting that the murder really took place.  Two contemporary writers, they say, mention the fact only as a report; a third certainly states it, incorrectly, at least, in point of time; and Sir Thomas More, who is the only one remaining, relates it with certain details which it does seem difficult to accept as credible.  More’s account, however, must bear some resemblance to the truth.  It is mainly founded upon the confession of two of the murderers, and is given by the writer as the most trustworthy report he had met with.  If, therefore, the murder be not itself a fiction, and the confession, as has been surmised, a forgery, we should expect the account given by Sir Thomas More to be in the main true, clear, and consistent, though