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Let me add, that if the confessions of Dighton and Tirrel were true, Sir Thomas More had no occasion to recur to the information of his unknown credible informers. If those confessions were not true, his informers were not credible.
Sir James Tirrel and Dighton had certainly never gone to the court of Burgundy to make a merit with Margaret of having murdered her nephews. How came she to know accurately and authentically a tale which no mortal else knew? Did Perkin or did he not correspond in his narrative with Tirrel and Dighton? If he did how was it possible for him to know it?
Let the warmest asserter of the imposture answer that question, and I will give up all I have said in this work; yes, all. Forest was dead, and the supposed priest; Sir James Tirrel, and Dighton, were in Henry's hands. Had they trumpeted about the story of their own guilt and infamy, till Henry, after Perkin's appearance, found it necessary to publish it?
Richard had engaged five persons to murder his nephews viz., Sir James Tirrel, whom he made custodian of the Tower while his nefarious scheme was in course of execution, and who had seen the bodies of the princes after their assassination; Forrest, Dighton, and Slater, who perpetrated the crime; and the priest who buried the bodies.
To be short, Tirrel voluntarily accepted the commission, received warrant to authorise Brakenbury to deliver to him the keys of the Tower for one night; and having selected two other villains called Miles Forest and John Dighton, the two latter smothered the innocent princes in their beds, and then called Tirrel to be witness of the execution. Sir T. More.
Two several deliveries of parcels of stuff are there expressly entered, as made to "Sir James Tirrel, knyght, maister of the hors of our sayd soverayn lorde the kynge." What now becomes of Sir Thomas More's informers, and of their narrative, which he thought hard but must be true?
But a much more unlucky circumstance is, that James Tirrel, said to be knighted for this horrid service, was not only a knight before, but a great or very considerable officer of the crown; and in that situation had walked at Richard's preceding coronation.
And who can imagine, that on Brakenbury's non-compliance Richard would have ordered him to cede the government of the Tower to Tirrel for one night only, the purpose of which had been so plainly pointed out by the preceding message? And had such weak step been taken, could the murder itself have remained a problem?
That Sir Thomas More relied on nameless and uncertain authority; that it appears by dates and facts that his authorities were bad and false; that if Sir James Tirrel and Dighton had really committed the murder and confessed it, and if Perkin Warbeck had made a voluntary, clear, and probable confession of his imposture, there could have remained no doubt of the murder.
Tirrel and Dighton were still alive; but although their stories agreed, as the priest was dead, and as the bodies were supposed to have been removed by Richard's orders, and could not be found, it was impossible to prove conclusively that the young princes really had been put to death.
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