(33) Buck asserts this from the parliament roll.  The annotator in Kennett’s collection says, “this author would have done much towards the credit he drives at in his history, to have specified the place of the roll and the words thereof, whence such arguments might be gathered:  for,” adds he, “all histories relate the murders to be committed before this time.”  I have shown that all histories are reduced to one history, Sir Thomas Moore’s; for the rest copy him verbatim; and I have shown that his account is false and improbable.  As the roll itself is now printed, in the parliamentary history, vol. 2.  I will point out the words that imply Edward the Fifth being alive when the act was passed.  “Also it appeareth that all the issue of the said king Edward be bastards and unable to inherit or claim any thing by inheritance, by the law and custom of England.”  Had Edward the Fifth been dead, would not the act indubitably have run thus, were and be bastards.  No, says the act, all the issue are bastards.  Who were rendered uncapable to inherit but Edward the Fifth, his brother and sisters?  Would not the act have specified the daughters of Edward the Fourth if the sons had been dead?  It was to bastardise the brothers, that the act was calculated and passed; and as the words all the issue comprehend male and females, it is clear that both were intended to be bastardized.  I must however, impartially observe that Philip de Comines says, Richard having murdered his nephews, degraded their two sisters in full parliament.  I will not dwell on his mistake of mentioning two sisters instead of five; but it must be remarked, that neither brothers or sisters being specified in the act, but under the general term of king Edward’s issue, it would naturally strike those who were uncertain what was become of the sons, that this act was levelled against the daughters.  And as Comines did not write till some years after the event, he could not help falling into that mistake.  For my own part I know not how to believe that Richard would have passed that act, if he had murdered the two princes.  It was recalling a shocking crime, and to little purpose; for as no< woman had at that time ever sat on the English throne in her own right, Richard had little reason to apprehend the claim of his nieces.

As Richard gained the crown by the illegitimacy of his nephews, his causing them to be murdered, would not only have shown that he did not trust to that plea, but would have transferred their claim to their sisters.  And I must not be told that his intended marriage with his neice is an answer to my argument; for were that imputation true, which is very problematic, it had nothing to do with the murder of her brothers.  And here the comparison and irrefragability of dates puts this matter out of all doubt.  It was not till the very close of his reign that Richard is even supposed to have thought of marrying his neice.  The deaths of his nephews are dated in July or August