of Richard, such as his baring his withered arm, and imputing it to sorcery, and to his blending the queen and Jane Shore in the same plot.  Cruel or not, Richard was no fool; and therefore it is highly improbable that he should lay the withering of his arm on recent witchcraft, if it was true, as Sir Thomas More pretends, that it never had been otherwise —­but of the blemishes and deformity of his person, I shall have occasion to speak hereafter.  For the other accusation of a league between Elizabeth and Jane Shore, Sir Thomas More ridicules it himself, and treats it as highly unlikely.  But being unlikely, was it not more natural for him to think, that it never was urged by Richard?  And though Sir Thomas again draws aside our attention by the penance of Jane, which she certainly underwent, it is no kind of 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.

The very day on which Hastings was executed, were beheaded earl Rivers, Lord Richard Grey, Vaughan, and Haute.  These executions are indubitable; were consonant to the manners and violence of the age; and perhaps justifiable by that wicked code, state necessity.  I have never pretended to deny them, because I find them fully authenticated.  I have in another(19) place done justice to the virtues and