Modern writers have also understood this method of treatment. Lord Macaulay was careful to prepare the minds of his readers for the alleged judicial crimes of Sir Elijah by telling them that little Impey was in the habit of stealing cakes at school.[11] The great essayist, as well as the Tudor historians, knew their public. The one invented the pilfering story and the others the deformity with the same motive. If a judge had been a juvenile thief, or if a king had been a deformed little monster, the charges against them in after life would be more readily accepted as true. It is illogical, but it is human nature. Richard was described as a venomous hunchback[12] and made to commit several atrocious crimes in order {188} to prepare men's minds to receive, without incredulity, the story of the murder of his nephews. It was evidently anticipated that this final draft on their powers of belief would be dishonoured unless the alleged murderer had been steeped in crime from his infancy. At the early age of eighteen Richard is accordingly accused of having committed a cowardly and inhuman murder in cold blood after the battle of Tewkesbury, on evidence which would be insufficient to hang a dog.[13] [Sidenote: Young Edward's death] The battle took place on May 4, 1471. The young Duke of Gloucester had displayed valour and generalship, and had won for himself a name in chivalry. On the other side, Prince Edward of Lancaster, who was exactly one year younger than Richard, led the main battle of his army, and bore himself manfully. Carried away in the rout and closely followed by his victorious enemies, he was slain on the field of battle. There was one eye-witness who wrote an account of the battle of Tewkesbury. He said that young Edward of Lancaster 'was taken fleeing to the townwards and slain in the field.'[14] A drawing accompanies this writer's report, in which we see a horse on its knees, {189} the rider receiving his deathblow, the helmet struck off, and the bright golden locks sinking on the horse's mane.[15] This was the plain truth. He fell, fighting bravely, on the battle-field. All contemporaries, without an exception, corroborate this evidence. The next writer was Warkworth, but he was not present. He wrote 'There was slain on the field Prince Edward, which cried for succour to the Duke of Clarence.'[16] Bernard André, the paid historian of Henry VII., says the same, 'Is enim ante Bernardi campum Theoxberye proelio belligerens ceciderat.' The Croyland monk says that some of the Lancastrian leaders fell in the battle, others 'by the revengeful hands of certain persons afterwards,'[17] referring to the fact that some were executed after trial before the Earl Marshal and Constable. There is no hint here of the alleged assassination of Edward. Comines tells the same story, 'et fut le Prince de Galles tué sur le champ et plusieurs autres grans seigneurs.' Such is the unanimous testimony of contemporaries.