358 HISTORY OF KING HENRY VII. land, as of late, in fresh memory, it was done in the person of Henry the Sixth. Wherefore, for that your grace hath given clear signs, that you are in no noble quality inferior to your royal ancestors, I, so distressed a prince, was hereby moved to come and put myself into your royal hands, desiring your assistance to recover my kingdom of England ; promising faithfully to bear myself towards your grace no otherwise than if I were your own natural brother; and will, upon the recovery of mine inheritance, gratefully do you all the pleasure that is in my utmost power." After Perkin had told his tale, King James an swered bravely and wisely; "That whatsoever he were, he should not repent him of putting himself into his hands." And from that time forth, though there wanted not some about him, that would have persuaded him that all was but an illusion; yet notwithstanding, either taken by Perkin s amiable and alluring behaviour, or inclining to the recommendation of the great princes abroad, or willing to take an occasion of a war against King Henry, he entertained him in all things as became the person of Richard, Duke of York ; embraced his quarrel ; and, the more to put it out of doubt, that he took him to be a great prince, and not a representation only, he gave consent that this duke should take to wife the Lady Catharine Gordon, daughter to the Earl of Huntley, being a near kinswoman to the king himself, and a young virgin of excellent beauty and virtue. Not long after, the King of Scots in person, with Perkin in his company, entered with a great army, though it consisted chiefly of borderers, being raised somewhat suddenly, into North umberland. And Perkin, for a perfume before him as he went, caused to be published a procla mation* of this tenor following, in the name of Richard, Duke of York, true inheritor of the crown of England : "It hath pleased God, who putteth down the mighty from their seat, and exalteth the humble, and suffereth not the hopes of the just to perish in the end, to give us means at the length to show ourselves armed unto our lieges and people of England. But far be it from us to intend their hurt or damage, or to make war upon them, other wise than to deliver ourselves and them from tyranny and oppression. For our mortal enemy Henry Tudor, a false usurper of the crown of England, which to us by natural and lineal right appertaineth, knowing .in his own heart our un doubted right, we being the very Richard, Duke of Y ork, younger son, and now surviving heir male of the noble and victorious Edward the Fourth, late King of England, hath not only
- Tht- original of this proclamation ren.aineth with Sir
Robert Cotton, a worthy preserver and treasurer of rare untimiities : from whose manuscripts I have had much light foi the furnishing of this work. deprived us of our kingdom, but likewise, by all foul and wicked means, sought to betray us, and bereave us of our life. Yet if his tyranny only extended itself to our person, although our royal blood teacheth us to be sensible of injuries, it should be less to our grief. But this Tudor, who boasteth himself to have overthrown a tyrant, hath, ever since his first entrance into his usurped reign, put little in practice but tyranny and the feats thereof. "For King Richard, our unnatural uncle, al though desire of rule did blind him, yet in his other actions, like a true Plantagenet, was noble, and loved the honour of the realm, and the con tentment and comfort of his nobles and people. But this our mortal enemy, agreeable to the meanness of his birth, hath trodden under foot the honour of this nation : selling our best con federates for money, and making merchandise of the blood, estates, and fortunes of our peers and subjects, by feigned wars and dishonourable peace, only to enrich his coffers. Nor unlike hath been his hateful misgovernment and evil deportments at home. First, he hath, to fortify his false quarrel, caused divers nobles of this our realm, whom he held suspect and stood in dread of, to be cruelly murdered ; as our cousin Sir William Stanley, lord chamberlain ; Sir Simon Mountfort, Sir Robert Ratcliffe, William D Au- bigny, Humphrey Stafford, and many others, be sides such as have dearly bought their lives with intolerable ransoms : some of which nobles are now in the sanctuary. Also he hath long kept, and yet keepeth in prison, our right entirely well- beloved cousin, Edward, son and heir to our uncle Duke of Clarence, and others ; withholding from them their rightful inheritance, to the intent they should never be of might and power, to aid and assist us at our need, after the duty of their legiances. He also married by compulsion, cer tain of our sisters, and also the sister of our said cousin the Earl of Varwick, and divers other ladies of the royal blood, unto certain of his kinsmen and friends of simple and low degree ; and putting apart all well disposed nobles, he hath none in favour and trust about his person, but Bishop Fox, Smith, Bray, Lovel, Oliver King, David Owen, Risely, Turbervile, Tiler, Chomley, Empson, James Hobart, John Cut, Garth, Henry W T yat, and such other caitiffs and villains of birth, which by subtile inventions, and pilling of the people, have been the principal finders, occasioners, and counsellors of the mis rule and mischief now reigning in England. " We remembering these premises, with the great and execrable offences daily committed and done by our foresaid great enemy and his adhe rents, in breaking the liberties and franchises of our mother the holy church, upon pretences of wicked and heathenish policy, to the high displea sure of Almighty God, besides the manifold trea-
