108 HISTORY OF KING HENRY VIL 



brought him in, he was to marry. The second, the 

 ancient and long disputed title, both by plea and 

 arras, of the house of Lancaster, to which he was in 

 heritor in his own person. The third, the title of 

 the sword or conquest/for that he came in by victory 

 of battle, and that the king in possession was slain 

 in the field. The first of these was fairest, and most 

 like to give contentment to the people, who by two 

 and twenty years reign of King Edward the Fourth 

 had been fully made capable of the clearness of the 

 title of the white rose, or house of York ; and by the 

 mild and plausible reign of the same king towards 

 his latter time, were become affectionate to that line. 

 But then it lay plain before his eyes, that if he relied 

 upon that title, he could be but a king at courtesy, 

 and have rather a matrimonial than a regal power ; 

 the right remaining in his queen, upon whose de 

 cease, either with issue or without issue, he was to 

 give place and be removed. And though he should 

 obtain by parliament to be continued, yet he knew 

 there was a very great difference between a king 

 that holdeth his crown by a civil act of estates, and 

 one that holdeth it originally by the law of nature 

 and descent of blood. Neither wanted there even at 

 that time secret rumours and whisperings, which 

 afterwards gathered strength and turned to great 

 troubles, that the two young sons of King Edward 

 the Fourth, or one of them, which were said to be 

 destroyed in the Tower, were not indeed murdered, 

 but conveyed secretly away, and were yet living : 

 which, if it had been true, had prevented the title of 



