Richard before he left London, had taken no measures to accomplish the assassination; but on the road “his mind misgave him,(21) that while his nephews lived, he should not possess the crown with security.  Upon this reflection he dispatched one Richard Greene to Sir Robert Brakenbury, lieutenant of the Tower, with a letter and credence also, that the same Sir Robert in any wise should put the two children to death.  This John Greene did his errand to Brakenbury, kneeling before our Lady in the Tower, who plainly answered ‘that he never would put them to death, to dye therefore.’  Green returned with this answer to the king who was then at Warwick, wherewith he took such displeasure and thought, that the same night he said unto a secret page of his, ’Ah! whom shall a man trust?  They that I have brought up myself, they that I thought would have most surely served me, even those faile me, and at my commandment will do nothing for me.’  ‘Sir,’ quoth the page ’there lieth one in the palet chamber without, that I dare say will doe your grace pleasure; the thing were right hard that he would refuse;’ meaning this by James Tirrel, whom,” says Sir Thomas a few pages afterwards, “as men say, he there made a knight.  The man” continues More, “had an high heart, and sore longed upwards, not rising yet so fast as he had hoped, being hindered and kept under by Sir Richard Ratcliffe and Sir William Catesby, who by secret drifts kept him out of all secret trust.”  To be short, Tirrel voluntarily accepted the commission, received warrant to authorise Brakenbury to deliver to him the keys of the Tower for one night; and having selected two other villains called Miles Forest and John Dighton, the two latter smothered the innocent princes in their beds, and then called Tirrel to be witness of the execution.

(21) Sir T. More.

It is difficult to croud more improbabilities and lies together than are comprehended in this short narrative.  Who can believe if Richard meditated the murder, that he took no care to sift Brakenbury before he left London?  Who can believe that he would trust so atrocious a commission to a letter?  And who can imagine, that on Brakenbury’s(22) non-compliance Richard would have ordered him to cede the government of the Tower to Tirrel for one night only, the purpose of which had been so plainly pointed out by the preceding message?  And had such weak step been taken, could the murder itself have remained a problem?  And yet Sir Thomas More himself is forced to confess at the outset of this very narration, “that the deaths and final fortunes of the two young princes have nevertheless so far come in question, that some remained long in doubt, whether they were in his days destroyed(23) or no.”  Very memorable words, and sufficient to balance More’s own testimony with the most sanguine believers.  He adds, “these doubts not only arose from the uncertainty men were in, whether Perkin Warbeck was the true duke of York, but for that also all things