136 HISTORY OF KING HENRY VII. 



Duke of Suffolk, and of Elizabeth, King Edward 

 the Fourth s eldest sister. This earl was a man of 

 great wit and courage, and had his thoughts highly 

 raised by hopes and expectations for a time : for 

 Richard the Third had a resolution, out of his hatred 

 to both his brethren, King Edward, and the Duke of 

 Clarence, and their lines, having had his hand in 

 both their bloods, to disable their issues upon false 

 and incompetent pretexts ; the one of attainder, the 

 other of illegitimation : and to design this gentle 

 man, in case himself should die without children, for 

 inheritor of the crown. Neither was this unknown 

 to the king, who had secretly an eye upon him. But 

 the king, having tasted of the envy of the people for 

 his imprisonment of Edward Plantagenet, was doubt 

 ful to heap up any more distastes of that kind, by 

 the imprisonment of de la Pole also ; the rather 

 thinking it policy to conserve him as a co-rival unto 

 the other. The Earl of Lincoln was induced to par 

 ticipate with the action of Ireland, not lightly upon 

 the strength of the proceedings there, which was but 

 a bubble, but upon letters from the lady Margaret 

 of Burgundy, in whose succours and declaration for 

 the enterprise there seemed to be a more solid foun 

 dation, both for reputation and forces. Neither did 

 the earl refrain the business, for that he knew the 

 pretended Plantagenet to be but an idol. But con 

 trariwise, he was more glad it should be the false 

 Plantagenet than the true ; because the false being 

 sure to fall away of himself, and the true to be made 

 sure of by the king, it might open and pave a fair 



