The passage in the Croyland Chronicle is to the effect that the princes remaining in custody in the Tower, the people in the south and west of England became anxious for their liberation, that meetings were held on the subject, and that proposals were made to arrange the escape of the daughters of Edward IV. so that, if anything happened to his sons, there might still be heirs of his body. It was also reported that the sons of Edward were dead, though it was unknown by what violent means they met their end.[[9]] So far the Croyland monk.

No doubt there were partizans of the defeated factions of Hastings and the Woodvilles who were ready to spread any rumours injurious to the King. The question is whether the rumours which reached the ears of the Croyland monk were ever generally credited by the people, so as to call for action from the Government. Is it true that they led to loud murmurings from meetings and assemblages of the people in the south and west of England, such as would attract general notice? The only proof offered is that an officer named Nesfield was ordered to watch the approaches of the Sanctuary at Westminster, and see that no one left it secretly. But this was a precaution which would have been taken under any circumstances. Polydore Virgil alleges that Richard himself spread a report that his nephews were dead; and this is magnified and embellished by Grafton and Hall, according to their wont. The statement is grossly improbable in itself, is wholly unsupported, and is entirely unworthy of credit.

There is, then, no evidence that these rumours existed, beyond the passage in the Croyland Chronicle. But there is strong reason for rejecting the monk's story. If the rumours had really existed, and if in consequence there were mutinous assemblages of the people preliminary to an insurrectionary movement, the vigilant and energetic young King would have made all necessary preparations to meet the danger. Nothing is more certain in his history than that he was taken absolutely by surprise when he received tidings of an outbreak in Kent on October 11, 1483. It was a concerted rising, secretly arranged by Buckingham. This Duke had taken leave of the King at Gloucester on August 2 before the alleged action of Richard at Warwick with a view to the murders, which was on August 8. According to the story, Buckingham can have known nothing of the murders when he arranged his plot. Consequently it is not possible that the rising in Kent, arranged by Buckingham, can have had anything to do with the alleged murder of the young princes.

Yet the Croyland monk had certainly been told that there was a rumour that the boys were dead. If it had not reached him as general talk, it must have come direct to him from some malignant enemy of the King. Was there such a man lurking in the fen country round Croyland? We know that Morton had taken refuge in the fen country (Isle of Ely) at this very time. If that schemer was at the chronicler's elbow, the rumour is fully accounted for. It probably originated with Morton while he was lurking in the fens, and ceased to exist when he sailed for Flanders. His own narrative, as we have received it, comes to an abrupt termination while he is conversing with the Duke of Buckingham at Brecknock. If it had been continued, we should doubtless have had a highly coloured version of the rumour mentioned in the Croyland Chronicle. Morton and his slanders went abroad together. The rumour that the young princes had been put to death appeared no more in England during Richard's life. But as soon as Morton went to France, it appeared there. In the autumn of 1483 Morton left England. In January 1484, the murder of the princes was alleged as a fact by the Chancellor of France in a speech to the States-General at Tours. 'Regardez, je vous prie, les événements qui après la mort du Roi Édouard sont arrivés dans ce pays. Contemplez ses enfants, déjà grands et braves, massacreé impunément, et la couronne transportée a l'assassin par la faveur des peuples.'[[10]] The Chancellor may have received this statement from another Lancastrian exile, but it is most likely that it came from Morton. Louis XI. had hated Richard because he opposed the peace which the French King bought from Edward IV., and because he refused the French bribes with contempt.[[11]] This hatred was inherited by the Lady of Beaujeu who became Regent on the death of Louis XI. in August 1483. Any calumny was seized upon as an opportunity for reviling the King of England; and with Morton in France there would be no dearth of such wares.

The insult to the King of England uttered by the French Chancellor may not have reached Richard's government. If it did, it must have been apologised for or explained away, for some months afterwards, in September 1484, King Richard granted a safe-conduct for an embassy from the French Regency to treat of peace.[[12]] The calumny was clearly received by the French Chancellor from Morton, or some other unscrupulous outlaw, and not from any general rumour. For it is stated as a fact; the truth being that it was never known what became of the two boys, or pretended to be known until after the alleged confession of Tyrrel in 1502.

Fabyan, writing in the time of Henry VII., talks of a rumour, and of its having been the common fame that King Richard put his nephews to secret death. This was merely what Henry VII. wanted to be the 'common fame'; and no one dared to gainsay it. In the year after his accession the usurping Tudor ordered it to be given out that the boys were murdered by their uncle, and his paid agents had to repeat the statement. André said they were killed with a sword.[[13]] Rous stated that they were put to death by some means unknown.[[14]] Polydore followed Rous. Comines, naturally enough, told the story officially promulgated in England. But Henry never dared to make the accusation publicly in his first so-called Parliament, and there can have been only one reason for this silence. The boys were then alive.

Henry's chroniclers, however, testify that nothing was known, and thus prove the falsehood of the French Chancellor's statement, while furnishing additional proof that no general rumour existed during Richard's reign that the boys were dead.

It is not to be supposed that Sir William Stanley would have entertained for a moment the belief that Perkin Warbeck was a son of Edward IV. unless he knew that the princes were alive throughout Richard's reign. No one had better means of knowing. The story put forward by Henry VII. tells us that it remained in doubt whether the boys were destroyed or not in Richard's day. Polydore Virgil mentions a rumour that they had escaped abroad. Perkin Warbeck's story was believed by a great number of people, which could not have been the case if the rumour of the death of the princes had been generally credited.

Baseless rumours

No question arose before King Richard's death. Many persons must have known that his nephews were alive and well treated. Their mother and brother knew, and they were silenced by imprisonment. Sir William Stanley and his fellow-sufferers knew, and they were beheaded. After Henry's accession, there were dozens, if not hundreds, of people who knew the truth. They had a choice between silence and ruin or death. The truth might have been, and probably was, mentioned in private correspondence; but even that would be very perilous, and scarcely any correspondence of that date has been preserved. In one letter in the 'Plumpton Correspondence,' the dislike of Henry's illegal attainders is referred to, but with bated breath. Among the mass of the people there was no certain knowledge of what had happened to the boys. Of course many baseless rumours then became current. The statements accusing Richard, and the assertions that these rumours received popular credit during his reign, merely indicate what his successor wanted to be believed on the subject.