HISTORY OF KINO HENRY VII. 127 



Fourth, supposed to be murdered ; and afterward, 

 for he changed his intention in the manage, the Lord 

 Edward Plantagenet, then prisoner in the Tower, 

 and accordingly to frame him and instruct him in 

 the part he was to play. This is that which, as was 

 touched before, seemeth scarcely credible ; not that a 

 false person should be assumed to gain a kingdom, 

 for it hath been seen in ancient and late times ; nor 

 that it should come into the mind of such an abject 

 fellow to enterprise so great a matter ; for high con 

 ceits do sometimes come streaming into the minds and 

 imaginations of base persons, especially when they are 

 drunk with news and talk of the people. But here 

 is that which hath no appearance : that this priest, 

 being utterly unacquainted with the true person, 

 according to whose pattern he should shape his 

 counterfeit, should think it possible for him to in 

 struct his player, either in gesture and fashions, or in 

 recounting past matters of his life and education ; 

 or in fit answers to questions, or the like, any ways 

 to come near the resemblance of him whom he was 

 to represent. For this lad was not to personate one 

 that had been long before taken out of his cradle, or 

 conveyed away in his infancy, known to few ; but a 

 youth, that till the age almost of ten years had been 

 brought up in a court where infinite eyes had been 

 upon him. For King Edward, touched with re 

 morse of his brother the Duke of Clarence s death, 

 would not indeed restore his son, of whom we speak, 

 to be Duke of Clarence, but yet created him Earl of 

 Warwick reviving his honour on the mother s side ; 



