106 HISTORY OF KING HENRY VII. 



humours of the vulgar, neglected it ; wherein never 

 theless they did not then incur any man s blame or 

 censure : no man thinking any ignominy or con 

 tumely unworthy of him that had been the execu 

 tioner of King Henry the Sixth, that innocent 

 prince, with his own hands ; the contriver of the 

 death of the duke of Clarence his brother ; the mur 

 derer of his two nephews, one of them his lawful 

 king in the present, and the other in the future, 

 failing of him ; and vehemently suspected to have 

 been the impoisoner of his wife, thereby to make 

 vacant his bed, for a marriage within the degrees 

 forbidden. And although he were a prince in mili 

 tary virtue approved, jealous of the honour of the 

 English nation, and likewise a good law-maker, for 

 the ease and solace of the common people ; yet his 

 cruelties and parricides, in the opinion of all men, 

 weighed down his virtues and merits ; and, in the 

 opinion of wise men, even those virtues themselves 

 were conceived to be rather feigned and affected 

 things to serve his ambition, than true qualities in- 

 generate in his judgement or nature. And therefore 

 it was noted by men of great understanding, who 

 seeing his after-acts, looked back upon his former 

 proceedings, that even in the time of King Edward 

 his brother, he was not without secret trains and 

 mines to turn envy and hatred upon his brother s 

 government ; as having an expectation and a kind 

 of divination, that the king, by reason of his many 

 disorders, could not be of long life, but was like to 

 leave his sons of tender years ; and then he knew 



