And sith, at our last communication, you haue disclosed and opened the verie secrets and priuities of your stomach, touching the duke of Glocester now vsurper of the crowne; and also haue a little touched the aduancement of the two noble families of Yorke and Lancaster: I shall likewise not onelie declare and manifest vnto you all my open acts, attempts, and doings, but also my priuie intents, and secret cogitations. To the intent that as you haue vnbuckeled the bouget of your priuie meanings, and secret purposes to me: so shall all my cloudie workings, close deuises, and secret imaginations be (as cléere as the sunne) reuealed, opened, and made lightsome to you.
The duke complaineth of want of preferment in king Edwards daies.
And to begin, I declare, that when king Edward was deceassed, to whome I thought my selfe little or nothing beholden (although we two had maried two sisters) bicause he neither promoted, nor preferred me, as I thought I was worthie, and had deserued; neither fauoured nor regarded me, according to my degrée and birth (for suerlie I had by him little authoritie, and lesse rule, and in effect nothing at all: which caused me lesse to fauour his children, bicause I found small humanitie, or none in their parent) I then began to studie, and with ripe deliberation to ponder and consider, how and in what manner this realme should be ruled and gouerned. And first I remembred an old prouerbe worthie of memorie, that often rueth the realme where children rule, and women gouerne.
This old adage so sanke and settled in my head, that I thought it a great errour, and extreame mischiefe to the whole realme, either to suffer the yoong king to rule, or the quéene his mother to be a gouernesse ouer him, considering that hir brethren, and hir first children (although they were not extract of high and noble linage) tooke more vpon them, and more exalted themselues, by reason of the quéene, than did the kings brethren, or anie duke in his realme: which in conclusion turned to their confusion. Then I being persuaded with my selfe in this point, thought it necessarie both for the publike and profitable wealth of this realme, and also for mine owne commoditie and emolument, to take part with the duke of Glocester; whom (I assure you) I thought to be as cleane without dissimulation, as tractable without iniurie, as mercifull without crueltie; as now I know him perfectlie to be a dissembler without veritie, a tyrant without pitie, yea & worse than the tyrant Phalaris, destitute of all truth and clemencie.
And so by my meanes, at the first councell holden at London, when he was most suspected of that thing that after happened (as you my lord know well inough) he was made protector and defendor both of the king and of the realme, which authoritie once gotten, & the two children partlie by [2]policie brought vnder his gouernance, he being mooued with that gnawing and couetous serpent desire to reigne, neuer ceassed priuilie to exhort and require, yea and sometimes with minatorie tearmes to persuade me and other lords, as well spirituall as temporall, that he might take vpon him the crowne, till the prince came to the age of foure and twentie yeares, and were able to gouerne the realme, as a ripe and sufficient king.
[2] An vnhappie policie tending to slaughter & bloudshed.
Which thing when he saw me somewhat sticke at, both for the strangenesse of the example (bicause no such president had béene séene) and also bicause we remembred that men once ascended to the highest type of honour and authoritie, will not gladlie descend againe; he then brought in instruments, autentike doctors, proctors, and notaries of the law, with depositions of diuerse witnesses, testifieng king Edwards children to be bastards. Which depositions then I thought to be as true, as now I know them to be feined; and testified by persons with rewards vntrulie suborned. When the said depositions were before vs read and diligentlie heard, he stood vp bareheaded, saieng: Well my lords, euen as I and you (sage and discréet councellors) would that my nephue should haue no wrong; so I preie you doo me nothing but right. For these witnesses & saiengs of famous doctors being true, I am onelie the vndubitate heire to lord Richard Plantagenet duke of Yorke, adiudged to be the verie heire to the crowne of this relme by authoritie of parlement.
Which things so by learned men to vs for a veritie declared, caused me and other to take him for our lawfull and vndoubted prince and souereigne lord. For well we knew that the duke of Clarence sonne, by reason of the atteindor of his father, was disabled to inherit; and also the duke himselfe was named to be a bastard, as I my selfe haue heard spoken, and that vpon great presumptions more times than one: so againe, by my aid and fauour, he of a protector was made a king, and of a subiect made a gouernor. At which time he promised me on his fidelitie (laieng his hand in mine at Bainards castell) that the two yoong princes should liue, and that he would so prouide for them and so mainteine them in honorable estate, that I and all the realme ought and should be content. But his words wanted weight, which is a foule discredit to a prince, to a péere, yea to a priuat and meane common man, as testifieth this sentence:
Dedecus est rebus cum bona verba carent.