And here it will be important to examine those historians on whose relation the story first depends.  Previous to this, I must ascertain one or two dates, for they are stubborn evidence and cannot be rejected:  they exist every where, and cannot be proscribed even from a Court Calendar.

Edward the Fourth died April 9th, 1483.  Edward, his eldest son, was then thirteen years of age.  Richard Duke of York, his second son, was about nine.

We have but two cotemporary historians, the author of the Chronicle of Croyland, and John Fabian.  The first, who wrote in his convent, and only mentioned incidentally affairs of state, is very barren and concise:  he appears indeed not to have been ill informed, and sometimes even in a situation of personally knowing the transactions of the times; for in one place we are told in a marginal note, that the doctor of the canon law, and one of the king’s councellors, who was sent to Calais, was the author of the Continuation.  Whenever therefore his assertions are positive, and not merely flying reports, he ought to be admitted as fair evidence, since we have no better.  And yet a monk who busies himself in recording the insignificant events of his own order or monastery, and who was at most occasionally made use of, was not likely to know the most important and most mysterious secrets of state; I mean, as he was not employed in those iniquitous transactions—­if he had been, we should learn or might expect still less truth from him.

John Fabian was a merchant, and had been sheriff of London, and died in 1512:  he consequently lived on the spot at that very interesting period.  Yet no sheriff was ever less qualified to write a history of England.  His narrative is dry, uncircumstantial, and unimportant:  he mentions the deaths of princes and revolutions of government, with the same phlegm and brevity as he would speak of the appointment of churchwardens.  I say not this from any partiality, or to decry the simple man as crossing my opinion; for Fabian’s testimony is far from bearing hard against Richard, even though he wrote under Henry the Seventh, who would have suffered no apology for his rival, and whose reign was employed not only in extirpating the house of York, but in forging the most atrocious calumnies to blacken their memories, and invalidate their just claim.

But the great source from whence all later historians have taken their materials for the reign of Richard the Third, is Sir Thomas More.  Grafton, the next in order, has copied him verbatim:  so does Hollingshed—­and we are told by the former in a marginal note, that Sir Thomas was under-sheriff of London when he composed his work.  It is in truth a composition, and a very beautiful one.  He was then in the vigour of his fancy, and fresh from the study of the Greek and Roman historians, whose manner he has imitated in divers imaginary orations.  They serve to lengthen an unknown history of little more than two months