Northern Wisconsin advertiser. [volume] (Wabeno, Wis.) 1898-1925, 1907-05-02

the general condemnation with which
ms life and reign have been visited to
the fact that he lett none behind him
whose duty Or whose care it was to a.
! tempt his vindication The hiieous
and grotesque figure whica did duty
Tor the bloody duke of Gloucester
the huncb-hacked dwarf. green-eyed
and born with teeth, has long since
disappeared. His severest critics adj
nit that he was courageous, sagacious.
ciear-sighted, and that where he was
pest known, as on the Scotch bur,le ;
and on those Yorkshire estates which
were once the kingmakers. he W..
popular with gentle and simple allie
Some OF the worst stores that found
currency about him have been con,
clusively proved to fables. ana
good reason has been shown for
doubling many of the others.
On one point, however. the defense
has always hitherto broken down:
there is no getting over the murder CT
the little princes in the Tower, and
an uncle who could perpetrate so
brutal a crime is capable de tout: he
may have stabbed young Edward OF
Lancaster in the field of Tewksbury.
he may have dirged the meek usur-
per in the tower, or committed auy
other atrocity. With this difficulty
Sir Clements grapples boldly, and he
VIII, we should imagine, be content to
stand or fall by the measure of sue
cess he achieves in the endeavor.
Edward and his little brother disap-
pear from authentic history on June
20, 1883 That they were murdered
in the Tower of London is now uni
versally admitted, and there seems no
reason to doubt that theirs were the
two skeletons discovered at the foot
of staircase in the White Tower in
the reign of Charles ii. Yet strange
ly enough, no pubic announcement os
their disappearance was made nor
does any inquiry as to their fate APP
pear to have been prosecuted when
Henry VII assembled the throne, though
one would have thought that he would
have fastened to place the coping
stone upon his predecessors iniqui-
ties. 1t was not till some years later,
after orkist conspiracies had been
set on foot to effect their liberation,
and after Lambert Simnel and then
Perkin Warbeck had arisen to person
ate the young duke Richard that tie
story of the assassination was first
made public.
In the year 1902 certain Sir James
Tyrell who had incurred the displeas-
ure of Henry VII, was beheaded on
Tower hill. While lying under IN
tence of death he is said to have made
confession, confirmed by his accom-
plice Dighton, that, acting under Rich
ards orders, he had murdered the
children of Edward in the way with
which chroniclers, poets and painters
have made lis familiar The confess
sion, if it was ever made, has disap-
lpeared, and Sir Clements Markham
nIallIdiuS tlldI IL utNST GAlslSus lout
such, at any rate, was the story which
Henry promulgated after Tyrrels exc
cution, and if the confession S
never made, where did the king get
his facts? Did he or Morton or scme
other romancist born out of due time
invent them? Sir Clements is ready
with his answer. There was no need
for invention, because Henry had
known the story for 16 years, it was
he himself who had ordered the crime,
which was perpetrated ON some date
between the middle of June and he
middle of July, 1885, Tyrrel had done
| the deed with the accomplices and In
| the circums tances detailed In the a :
legged confession. The king had ly
! followed the common form of fraudu-
! lent alibi ne had transferred real
events to false date.
The objections to this ingeniuos
theory seem to us insuperable. We
cannot follow the author into his osy-
Geological reas oning that of the two
kings Henry was the more likely to
have been a priori the murderer; it
rests largely on an estimate of Rich
ards character which begs all the
questions at issue. Nor can we fling
all surviving contemporary history
and tradition to the winds, even II 1t
/ is tainted by Lancastrian origin. Sir
Clements Markham denies the exist
ence of any general runor of the MUIR
der during Richards lifetime, or that
he incurred unpopularity for that or
for any other reason; but he admits
that The chronicler of Croyland abbey
records the report in the summer Of
1883, ard that in January, 1884, tie
murder Of the princes was alleged as
a fact. by the chancellor of France in
a speech to the States-General at
Tours. His attempt to trace these
two statements to Morton is a piece
of pure conjecture. and Sir Clements
case must fail unless he can produce
something in the shape of solid owl
dence to show that the boys were alive