This duke left behind him two yoong infants begot of the bodie of his wife, the daughter of Richard late earle of Warwike: which children by destinie as it were, or by their owne merits, following the steps of their ancestors, succéeded them in like misfortune and semblable euill chance. For Edward his heire, whome king Edward had created earle of Warwike was thrée and twentie yeares after, in the time of Henrie the seauenth, atteinted of treason, and on the Tower hill lost his head. Margaret his sole daughter maried to sir Richard Pole knight, and by Henrie the eight restored to the name, title, & possessions of the earldome of Salisburie, was at length for treason committed against the said Henrie the eight atteinted in open parlement; and sixtie two yeares after hir father had suffered death in the Tower, she on the gréene within the same place was beheaded. In whose person died the verie surname of Plantagenet, which from Geffrie Plantagenet so long in the bloud roiall of this realme had florished and continued. [Sidenote: A great pestilence.] After the death of this duke, by reason of great heat and distemperance of aire, happened so fierce & quicke a pestilence, that fiftéene yeares warre past consumed not the third part of the people, that onelie foure moneths miserablie and pitifullie dispatched & brought to their graues. So that if the number had béene kept by multiplieng of vnities, & out of them to haue raised a complet number, it would haue mooued matter of verie great admiration. But it should séeme that they were infinit, if consideration he had of the comparison, inferred for the more effectuall setting foorth of that cruell and ceaselesse contagion. And suerlie it soundeth to reason, that the pestilence should fetch awaie so manie thousands, as in iudgement by proportion of fiftéene yeares warre one maie gather; and manie more too. For euerie man knoweth that in warres, time, place, persons, and meanes are limited: time of warre begun and ended; place circumscribed; persons imbattelled, and weapons also whereby the fight is tried: so that all these haue their limitations, beyond which they haue no extent. But the pestilence, being a generall infection of the aire, an element ordeined to mainteine life, though it haue a limitation in respect of the totall compasse of the world; yet whole climats maie be poisoned: and it were not absurd to saie, that all and euerie part of the aire maie be pestilentlie corrupted; and so consequentlie not limited: wherefore full well it maie be said of the pestilence (procuring so great a depopulation) as one saith of surfetting: [Sidenote: _Auson._] Ense cadunt multi, perimit sed crapula plures. [Sidenote: 1478] [Sidenote: An. Reg. 18.]