Strelley and was so constant in his Affection that although she dyed in his best Age he made a Religious Vow and became a Knight of the Rhodes his Armes are yet to be seene in the Ruines of the Hospitall of Saint Iohns neaâ—e Smithfield and in the Church of Alhallows at the upper end of Lumbard Street which was repaired and enlarged with the Stones brought from that demolished Caenoby he lived sub rege Edvardo filio Regis Henrici as I have seene by the date of his deed in Herthilâ— Anno 1 Ed. 1. Anno 22. Ed. 1. From this Knight of the Rhodes descended Sir Iohn Bucke who for his too much forwardnesse in charging a Fleet of Spaniards without the leave of the Earle of Arundell Lord Admirall was committed to the Tower testified by the Records there Anno 13. Richard the second Lawrence Buck his Son followed Edward Plantagenet Duke of Yorke and was at the Battel of Agin Court with him when he was slaine Iohn Bucke Knight the Sonne of this Laurence married a Daughter and Heire of the House of Staveley out of which are descended the Barons Parres of Kendall and Rosse Queene Katherine the last wife of King Henry the eighth the Lord Parre Marquesse of Northampton and the Herberts Earles of Pembrooke and Montgomery These Bucks residing for the most part at West-Stanton and Herthill in Yorkeshire and matched into the Families of Strelley or Stirely of Woodhall Thorpe Tilney then of Lincolnshire and Savill by which we have much Noble kindred Sir Iohn Bucke for his service to the House of Yorke especially at Bosworth lost his head at Leicester he married the Daughter of Henry Savill by whom he had Robert Bucke and other Children who were brought into the Southerne parts by Thomas Duke of Norfolke where they have remained ever since for the Children being Orphans were left in miserable estate by the Attainder of their Father But the Duke bestowed two Daughters in marriage one with the Heire of Buck The other with the Heire of Fitz-Lewis very Ancient Families from which Matches divers honourable and Noble Persons are descended The Sonnes were one a Souldier the other a Courtier the third a Priest afterward the Duke bestowed Robert Bucke the Eldest Sonne at Melford Hall in Suffolke and married him into the Families of Higham and Cotton as also did the Blounds of Elwaston the Talbots of Grafton from whom the Barons of Monioy and the late Earles of Shrewsbury descended one of the Daughters of this Bucke Married to Fredericke Tilney of Shelley Hall in Suffolke his nearest Kinsman by the Duchesse his Mothers side But some perhaps must call this my vanity I shall but answer them that I thinke my selfe bound by all the bloud and memory I claime from them to pay them my best Relations and endeavours acknowledging with the great Consulare Philosopher Parentes charissimos habere debemus quod ab ijs vita patrimontum libertas Civit as tradita est And I should thinke there is none who hath an interest in the quality of Gentile or Noble for all is one but lookes backe which some delight to their first Commemoration and finds a strong engagement due to the Vertues and worth of their first Fathers for that expresse charge to honour Father and Mother is not to be understood only of our Parents superstits and living here with us but our forefathers that is beyond our great Grandfather for we have no proper word for them above that degree but Antecessours vulgò Ancestours whom the Romans called Majores and comprehendeth all our Progenitours departed sooner or later for the word Pater and Mater as also Parens Parentes extend very largely and reach up to the highest Ancestours The Ancient Roman Jurisconsults deliver in their Law for an Axiome that Appellatione Parentum omnes in infinitum majores utriusque sexus significantur and the word Parentes yet spreadeth further comprehending all Kinsfolkes and Cosins of our Bloud and Linage being used in that sense by AElius Lampridius by Iulius Capitolinus and other the best Writers in the times of the declined Empire as Isaac Causabonus hath well observed in his Annotations The Italians Spanish and French whose Language is for the most part Romanzi mongrell Latine and broken and corrupted Romane Language use Parenti Parentes and Parents for all their Kinsfolkes and Gentilitious Cosins We English-men being more precise follow the Ancient and Classique Latine Writers holding Parent strictly to the simple signification of Pater and Mater the present and immediate Parents But the using of the word Parentes as those Imperiall Historians use it serveth better for our purpose here And I could most willingly imitate the Pious Gentlemen of Italy Spainâ— and France in their Religious and Charitable indeavours to advance the happinesse of their Parents defunct if those desires could besteed them But where I should crave pardon I become more guilty and extravogant it is time therefore to know good manners and returne home to our proper taske which will be to refell the grosse and blacke Calumnies throwne unjustly upon the Memory and Person of King RICHARD And falls within the Circle of the next Booke Explicit Liber Secundus THE THIRD BOOKE OF KING RICHARD THE THIRD The Contents of this Booke THe Defamations of King Richard examined and answered Doctor Morton and Sir Thomas Moore malevolent to the House of Yorke Their frivolous exceptions against his gestures lookes teeth shape and birth hie vertues depraved The death of King Henry the sixth and his Sonne Edward Prince of Wales The Actors therein The offence of killing an anointed King Valiant men hate treacheries and bloudy acts King Richard not deformed The Slanders of Clarence translated to King Richard The Cause of Clarences execution How the Sonnes of King Edward came by their deaths King Richard Exculpable thereof The story of Perkin VVarbeck compared with Don Sebastian King of Portugall who are Biothanati Counterfeit Prince detected young Prince marvellously preserved Many testimonies for the assertion that Perkin VVarbeck was Richard Duke of Yorke his honourable entertainment with forraigne Princes vox populi Reasons why it is not credible King Richard made away his two Nephewes the force of Confession The evill of Torture the guilt of attempting to escape out of prison what an escape is The Earle of Oxford severe against Perkin and his end The base Sonne of King Richard the third secretly made away The Sonne of the Duke of Clarence put to death The power of furies Demones Genii Apollonii Majestas Quid tibi non vis alteri ne feceris THE THIRD BOOKE OF KING RICHARD THE THIRD THere is no story that shewes the planetary affections and malice of the vulgar more truly then King Richards and what a tickle game Kings have to play with them though his successor Henry the seventh play'd his providently enough with helpe of the standers by yet even those times which had promised the happiest example of a
he was proclaimed traitor for him and when Queene Margaret besiedged the City of Gloucester with the Kings power the Citizens stood at defiance with her Army and told her it was the Duke of Gloucester his Towne who was with the King and for the King and for him they would hold it his Loyalty bearing a most constant expression in this motto Loualto melie which I have seen written by his owne hand and subscribed Richard Gloucester The other was as constantly undermining at him after confederate with the Earle of Warwicke his Father Allie who had turn'd faith from the King and went into France solliciting for force against England which they brought in fought with the King and overthrew him and so fiercely pursuing the victory that the King was forc't to fly out of the Land Clarence not so satisfied unlesse he might utterly supplant him studied that slander of basterdy to bring in himselfe an heire to the Crowne which was proved and given in expresse evidence against him at his triall and attainder by Parliament amongst sundry other articles of high Treason Videlicet That the said Duke of Clarence had falsly and untruly published King Edward a bastard and not legitimate to Raigne that himselfe therefore was true Heire of the Kingdome the Royalty and Crowne belonging unto him and to his Heires these be the very words of the Record and enough to tell us who was the Author of that slander and what important cause the King had to quit himselfe of Clarens a bitter proofe of the old Proverbe fratrum inter se irae acerbissimae sunt and all the favour Clarence could at his end obtaine was to choose it as Iohn de Serres reporteth it so that it was not the Duke of Gloucester but the Kings implacable displeasure for his malice and treasons that cut him off who could not thinke himselfe secure whilst he lived Witnesse Polidor Virgil Edvardus Rex post mortem fratris se a cunctis timeri animadvertit ipse jam timebat neminem Next for the murther of the two sonnes of King Edward the fourth Edward the fifth King in hope and Richard of Shrewsbury Duke of Yorke and Norfolke his younger Brother they alleadge it in this manner That King Richard being desirous to rid those two Princes his Nephews out of the world imployed his trusty servant Iohn Greene to Sir Robert Brackenbury Lieutenant Constable of the Tower about the executing of this murther and by reason that plot tooke no effect Sir Robert not liking it The Protectour suborned foure desperate Villaines Iohn Dighton Miles Forrest Iames Tyrrell and William Slater to undertake it who as they further alleadge smothered them in their beds which done they made a deepe hole in the ground at the foote of the staires of their lodging and their buried them hiding the place under an heape of stones not after the antient manner of tumulus testis others vary from this and say confidently the young Princes were imbarqued in a Ship at Tower wharfe and conveyed from thence to Sea so cast into the Blacke deeps others averre they were not drowned but set safe on shore beyond Seas And thus their stories and relations are scatter'd in various formes their accusations differing in very many and materiall points which shakes the credit of their suggestion and makes it both fabulous and uncertaine one giving the lie to the other their malice having too much Tongue for their memories and is worth the noting how opposite and as it were ex Diametro repugnant they are In vulgus fama valuitfilios Edwardi Regis aliquò terrarum parteâ—migrasse atque ita supestites esse Thus Pollidor with which Dr. Morton and Sir Thomas Moore agree in one place The man say they commonly called Perkin Warbeck was as well with the Princes as with the people English and forraigne held to be the younger Son of Edward the fourth and that the deaths of the young King Edward and of Richard his brother had come so far in question as some are yet in doubt whether they were destroyed or no in the dayes of King Richard By which it appeares they were thought to be living after his death And as the act of their death is thus uncertainly disputed so is the manner of it controverted For Sir Thomas Moore affirmeth as before reported they were smothered in their beds with Pillowes but Pollidor saith peremptorily it was never known of what kinde of death they dyed Another Author and more ancient agreeth with them Vulgatum est Regis Edwardi pueros concessisse in sata sed quâ— genere interitus ignoratur one reason of this may be that they who held Perkin Warbeck and Richard Duke of Yorke to be all one give another accompt of his death whereas if it had beene certaine these foure before named for Assasines had murdered them then the place time and manner had beene easily known upon their strict examination they living freely and securely and without question long after this murdeâ— was said to be done Therefore there can be no excuse for this neglect of Examination much lesse for the suffering such to goe unpunished and at liberty which me thinks maketh much for the cleering of King Richard As for the burying of their bodyes in the Tower if that be brought in question certes the affirmative will be much more hard to prove then the negative For true it is there was much diligent search made for their bodies in the Tower all places opened and digged that was supposed but not found Then it was given out a certaine Priest tooke up their bodies and buried them in another secret place nto to be found hereunto but with better decorum for the more credit of this assertion they might have added it was done sub sigillo confessionis which may not be revealed Sir Thomas Moore seeing the absurdities and contrarieties of these opinions as a man puzeled and distracted with the variety and uncertainty thereof concludeth their bodies were bestowed God wot where and that it could never come to light what became of them Hall Hallingshed Grafton and the rest confesse the very truth hereof was never knowne And if there be a stricter inquiry into the mystery we shall discover that they were neither buried in the Tower nor swallowed in the Sea for the testimony and Relation of sundry grave and discreâ—te persons and such as knew the young Duke of Yorke will resolve us how he was preserved and secretly conveyed into a foraigne Country also alive many years after the time of this imaginary murder to which may be added strong authorities having layd downe some conjectures that may answer the iniquiry after the other And first whereas it is said the Lord Protector before his Coronation procured this murder To refell and contradict that there bee certaine proofes that the Princes were both living in the moneth of February following the death
words the names Shire-motts Eolmotts and Halymotts that is the meeting or assembling of the men of a Shire of a Town and of the Tenants of a Hall or Mannor had their beginning also Now as Sinoth is more used in the Parliaments themselves so Gemott is more familiar to the Historians And this Parliament of Anno 1 Rich. 3. could be of no lesse power and vertue witnesse the many and good Laws made in it albeit the second Marriage of King Edward was adjudged unlawful and the Acts of that Parliament for the most part repealed and abrogated afterward yet the evidence is clear enough that the Judges and Law-makers of that Parliament were wise and religious men and their Laws upright and just Therefore whatsoever was adjudged by them was to be received and held as authentick and inviolable how roughly soever it was afterward handled And in this case of the disabling of King Edwards sons there is least reason to suspect them the cause being so new so plain and notoriously known that no man could be ignorant therein Therefore to have given any other Judgement but according to the truth of evidence and certainty of knowledge it might justly have been censured an act of errour and ignorance or partiality and injustice For it was not the opinion of a few nor raised out of a weak judgement and perverted knowledge but a strong and general evidence by the ablest and best knowing If it be objected The case was obscure and doubtful That cannot be for the Estates had all substantial and ready means to inform themselves of the truth and every circumstance whereby they might be fully satisfied and cleared in all the niceties and doubts for all the witnesses and dealers in that cause and such persons as were acquainted with it were then living and they must and would have truely and certainly informed the Court of Parliament For the special and reverend care of this Court is The advancing of Justice and Right Therefore all Subjects by nature or grace are bound in their Allegeance to give pious and religious credit to Parliaments and to believe in their Authority and Power as the former times did in Oracles We must also confidently hold the high and transcendent quality and vertue of that Court to have all power and authority And no question to repeal a good and just Law made in Parliament is a wrong and scandal to that General Councel and to the universal wisedom providence justice and piety of the Kingdom In the Parliament 1 H. 7. there is an Act attainting the King R. 3. of high Treason for bearing Arms against the Earl of Richmond intituled The Soveraign Lord this was at his proceeding from Milford-haven into Leicester But when he came to fight the Battel he was then no King nor Soveraign but a Chief of such as made head against their Soveraign In which Paragraph there appears three grosse faults First Certain it is Richard during his Raign was a Soveraign therefore no Subject Next there was no enemy in the field who was then a Soveraign but all liege Subjects to the Crown And Richard being the King and Soveraign could not be adjudged a Traitor nor lawfully attainted of High Treason Then let it be considered whether a person of sacred Majestie that is an Anointed Soveraign may commit the Crime of Treason Also in this Parliament all the Barons Knights and Gentlemen that bore Arms in the field for the King were attainted of Treason their goods and lands confiscate and one Thomas Nan dickâ— a Necromancer and Sorcerer who with others had been condemned to die for using that hellish Art was in this Parliament pardoned the horrible things he had committed And it seemed he had not then left his black trade for he hath in that Act of Parliament still the style of Conjurer viz. Thomas Nandick of Cambridge Conjurer which had been a fitter style for his Gibbet then his Pardon although he had not by his Sorcery or Inchantment hurt or destroyed any humane yet for his renouncing and abjuration of Almighty God for it is the opinion of a learned and religious Doctor Magos Incantores saith he hominum genus indignum quod vel ob solam Dei O. M. abjurationem capitali suplicio afficiatur Other such things there be in that Parliament which detract it in the opinion of some those of the best and wisest repute Now let us come to examine that Treaty the King had about marrying the Lady Plantagenet which is censured to be a thing not onely detestable but much more cruel and abominable to be put in agitation Item That all men and the Maid her self most of all detested this unlawful Copulation Item That he made away the Queen his wife to make way for this Marriage and that he propounded not the Treaty of Marriage until the Queen his wife was dead That there was such a motion for the marriage of this Lady to the King is true and which is more and most certain it was entertained and well liked by the King and his friends a good while also by the Lady Elizabeth and by the Queen her mother who received it with so much content and liking that presently she sent into France for her son the Marquesse of Dorset that was there with the Earl of Richmond earnestly solliciting him to renounce the Faction and return home to the Kings favour and advancement which she assured him and sends the Lady Elizabeth to attend the Queen at Court or to place her more in the eye so in the heart of the King The Christmas following which was kept in Westminster-Hall for the better colour of sending her eldest daughter she sends her other four thither who were received with all honourable courtesie by the King and Queen Regent especially the Lady Elizabeth was ranked most familiarly in the Queens favour and with as little distinction as Sisters But society nor all the Pomp and Festivity of those times could cure that sad wound and languor in the Queens brest which the death of her onely son had left The addresse of those Ladies to Court albeit the feigned wooing of the King was in a politick and close way gave cause of suspition to the Earl of Richmonds intelligencing friends that the King had a purpose to marry the Lady Elizabeth which must prevent the Earl both of his hope to her and to the Crown by her Title a clause that made them mutter very broadly against it for indeed what more concern'd them therefore the King treats it more privately and coldly but the Queen-widow and the Lady stood constant in their desires and expectation onely the Objection was The King had a wife as though he could not marry another whilst she lived not remembring how usual it was not onely for Kings but private men to put away one wife and marry another for venial crimes as well as Adultery and Treason The Romanes might repudiate their
or attained of any thing Capitall Therefore now their innocence must bee made guilty And in this I say no more then all our Hâ—storians or others say who agree in one opinion that The KING could not take away the lives of Perkin Warbecke and this Earle of Warwicke untill this practise of their escape was layde to them and they made guilty thereof Therefore they were not Traytors before neither was Perkin now to bee thought a Counterfeit but a Prince of the Bloud clayming the Crowne for otherwayes Hee was Perkin of Flanders a base fellow and a most culpable and notorious Traitor then what neede they looke further for a Crime to put him to Death And if Hee were not a Traitor surely it was a Tyranny to make of an Innocent and guiltlesse Man a guilty Folon and by Traines and Acts to forge an offence out of nothing For doubtlesse an Innocent and a true man may seeke freedome and purpose an act of escape also commit in and yet be still an honest Man and a faithfull good subject for nature and reason teacheth and alloweth all men to eschew injuries and oppression Besides this Practise of those young men to escape was found as Pollidor well observeth Crimen Alienum and not Crimen proprium then how much greater was the wrong to take away their lives But however it may bee laid upon them it was nothing but a desire of liberty out of durance in which they were kept for a small or no offence The Civill law holdeth suspition of flight or escape to bee no crime Suspicio fugae quia non solet detrimentum reipublice ad ferre non censetur crimen so ulpian And by the Lawes of England if a Prisoner doe escape who is not imprisoned for Treason or felony but some lesser fault of trespasse according to the old Law of England Escapae non adjudicabitur versus eum qui Commissus est prisonae pro transgressione Escape shall not bee adjudged for Felony or other crime in one who is committed for trespasse For the offence of the escape is made in the common Law to be of the same nature and guilt with the crime whereof the Prisoner is attainted And certainely neither the Earle of Warwicke nor Richard alias Perkin were attainted of Treason or Felony c. before But to close this dispute and tragedy not long after some of the Instruments which betrayed them into this as Walter Blunt Thomas Astwood servants to the Lieutenant of the Tower finished at Tiburn because they should tell no tales And to this succinct relation there can be no better testimony then the hands of those witnesses who have sealed their confession and knowledge with their bloods Men of all conditions and estates all maintaining at the last gaspe that Perkin was the true Duke of Yorke whose Affirmations I will produce give mee but leave by the way to answer one Objection or Cavill brought against this Duke called in scorn Perkin Warbecke A new Writer affirming him to bee an Impostor whose learning may be as much mistaken in this as other things though he laid a great pretence to knowledge especially in the History of England and other Countreyes indeed his judgement and reading are much exprest alike in his Pamphlet which he cals the History of Perkin Warbecke wherein he forfeits all his skill to make him a parallel in advers fortunes and supposed base quality to the unhappy Don Sebastian late King of Portugall who he also protests an Impostore And to arrive at this huge knowledge he would have us thinke hee tooke much paines in the sifting of Authors and indeed I thinke he did sift them concerning his ignorance in the case of Don Sebastian if he be not too wise to have it informed I will urge some reasons on Don Sebastians side who was King of Portugall and invading the Kingdom of Barbary Anno Dom. 1584. was overthrown in a fierce bloody Battel in the fields of Alcazer by the King of Morucco where it was thought he was slaine but escaped and fled secretly traver stiâ—e or disguised travailing in that manner through many parts of Africa and Asia some 30. yeares in which time and travaile he suffered much lived in Captivity and misery but at last got away into Europe with purpose to have got into Portugall if possible to repossesse the Kingdome In this returne he came to Venice there discovered himselfe and desires aide of the Venetian States they entertained him as a Prince distressed gave him good words but durst not lend him Assistance fearing the King of Spaine Yet the chiefe Senators and many of the wisest of the Sigmory made no doubt of him Among them Signieur Lorenzo Iustiniano of the Senators Order a man of wise and great abilities was appointed by the States a Commissioner with others to hear and examine this cause of Don Sebastian in which they tooke much paines And this Signieur Lorenzo being lieger Ambassadour in England affirmed and protested solemnly he and all the other Commissioners were clear and very confident he was Don Sebastian King of Portugall notwithstanding they durst not give him aide but councelled him for France where the King favoured right without feare of anothers displeasure But taking Florence in his way in the habit of a Fryer he was observ'd and discovered by some spyes which the Grand Duke of Tuscany had set upon him from Venice who to in sinuate with the King of Spaine Philip the second and for some other commodious considerations delivered Sebastian to the Governour of Orbattelli a Spanish Port in Tuscany from thence sent him by Sea to the Count De le Mos Vice-roy of Naples who conveyed him into Spaine there for a while his entertainment was no better then in the Gallies what other welcome hee had I know not but the fame went certainly he was secretly made away after Philip the third was King The said Vice-roy of Naples confessed in secret to a friend of his he verily believed his prisoner was the true Sebastian King of Portugall and was induced to be of that opinion by the strong Testimonies and many strange and peculiar markes which some Honourable Portugesses did know him by all found about the body of this Sebastian And the French King Henry the 4 th it should seeme was perswaded no lesse for when the newes was told him the Duke of Florence had sent this Sebastian to the King of Spaine he told the Queene what an ill deed her Unckle had done in these words Nostre Uncle a faict un act fort indigne de sa Persone Doctor Stephen de Sampugo in a letter to Ioseph Texere Councellour and Almoner to the most Christian King writes thus The King Don Sebastian is here in Vonice c. So soone as hee arrived here where he hoped to find support the Ambassadour of Castile persecuted him very cruelly perswading the Signeury that he was a Calabrois c. I sweare
vires Major in exiguo regnabat corpore virtus In te enim sunt rei militaris virtus peritia foelicitas autoritas quae omnia in optimo exercitus principe Cicero requirit In te Serenissime Princeps praeclari Regis Imperatoris praecepta it a concurrunt ut nihil ad tuam Bellicam aut domesticam virtutem cujusquam oratoris verbis apponi possit Tu igitur Serenissime Domine Princeps de ineunda inter te nostrum Principem charitate amicitia sic age ut Angli Scoti dilectionis respectu nullum penitus discrimen habeatur sed in unum amoris benevolentiae vinculum videantur esse connexi sic numerabiles commoditates ex tui nostri populi dilectione dulci connubio unione Matrimonio Affinitate consurgent In freta dum fluvii current dum montibus umbrae Lustrabunt connexa polus dum sidera pascet Dum juga montis aper fluvios dum piscis amabit Dumque Thymo pascentur apes dum rore cicadae Semper honos nomenque tuum laudesque manebunt But what is this or more to malice and detraction that haunt him to his death and after that making the Catastrophe or last Tragical act of his life at Bosworth-field an immediate stroke of the divine vengeance for such offences as they please to particular from women or superstitious Clerks whose natures startle at the noise of War and Martial trial to whose fears and weaknesse such reasons would sound tolerable But if Bishop Morton and Sir Thomas Moor although they were men of the long Robe had considered with whom they conversed and where they most lived how could they forget That to die valiantly in the field for Countrey life and friends was always held a glorious farewel to the world or what infinite numbers of vertuous and most noble Captains have fallen so by the Sword and fate of War Lampridius affirmeth that all the best men have died violent deaths and what higher Quarrel could call any Heroical spirit then King Richard's fighting for a Crown kingdom and all his happie Fortunes here God hath many times taken away Princes and changed the Government of kingdoms for the iniquities of the people why then should not King Richard's fate be held in a modest Scale until we can better know or judge it Nor can it be safe to enquire or peremptorily to determine further after Gods proceedings in such cases He that owes him no malice things looked upon thorow judgement and charity may with more justice say he died valiantly and in a just quarrel when many of his enemies fell by deaths more vile and shameful Executions But he that hath but a reasonable pittance of Humanity will censure no mans life by the manner of his death for many good and holy men have suffered by violent deaths though it be this Princes fortune to fall under the ill affections of envious pens more then many that committed more publike and proved crimes then he which wanted much of his vertues and desert Examine him with Henry the First the good Clerk and learned Prince but so covetous and ambitious that he could not be content to usurp in this Kingdom the Right and Primogeniture of his elder brother Robert Courthose but by force took the Dukedom of Normandy from him and to make his injuries more exact and monstrous cast him into the Castle of Gloucester there kept him in cruel durance and caused his eyes to be put out so wearied him to most miserable death King Iohn by the general voice is charged with the murder of Arthur Plantagenet the son of his eldest brother and so the next Prince in right of blood to King Richard the First And it is written by good Authors that Edward the Third was not onely privie and consenting to the deposing the King his father a King anointed but also to his Massacre And because Edward Plantagenet Earl of Kent Protector and his Uncle moved him to restore the Crown to his father Edward the Second he called him Traitor and cut off his head at Westminster How King Henry the Fourth caused King Richard the Second the true and anointed King to be cruelly butchered at Pomfret is too notorious and this was Scelera sceleribus tueri King Edward the Fourth is accused of the murder and death of the King Saint Henry and of Edward Prince of Wales his son Ut supra King Henry the Seventh although amongst the best Kings in his general character is not thought guiltlesse of that Crimen sacrum vel regale in cutting off Edward Plantagenet Earl of Warwick an innocent Edwardum filium Ducis Clarenciae puerum infantem in suam suorum securitatem capite plexit And to secure his Estate had more then learnt other smart rules of Policie That reach of State upon Philip of Austrich Duke of Burgundy King of Castile and Arragon is not the least memorable This Prince Philip was by crosse Fortune put into the Kings hands purposing out of Flanders to go into Spain with the Queen his wife took shipping at Sluce and passing by the coasts of England was by a tempest forced for his safety to put into the Port of Weymouth in Dorset-shire the Queen being ill and distempered much with the storm was compelled to make some stay there Sir Iohn Carew and Sir Thomas Trenchard principal men in those parts gave speedy intelligence of this to the King who was glad of the accident and purposed to make good use of it as speedily returning his command to give them all honourable entertainment but not suffer them to depart until he had seen and saluted them The Duke ignorant of this as soon as the Queen and the rest had recover'd and refresht themselves thought he was onely to give those Knights thanks and take his leave which they by way of courtesie and request interpose in behalf of the Kings vehement desire to salute him and the Queen a motion the Duke much prest to be excused from as the necessity of his journey stood but the intreaty was so imperious he must stay and alter his journey for Windsor to meet the King who received him there in a magnificent manner and at the height of a Feast propounds a suit to the Duke for Edmund de la Pool then in his Dominions a pretender to the Crown of England and not so soundly affected to him a suit of a harsh exposition as the Duke apprehended it and to the blemish of his honour and piety as he nobly urged but no argument had vertue nor no vertue argument enough to excuse it the King must have him or the Duke must stay Cast upon this extreme and foreseeing what disadvantages were upon him some honourable conditions granted that he should neither lay punishment nor death upon him he gave his promise to send him and the King strictly and religiously bound himself to the exceptions