the most odious instruments of Henry's extortions. The argument that those who spent little must have saved much, and that those who spent much must have much, was called 'Morton's fork.'[5] He died in 1500, hated and execrated by all ranks of the people. This is the man from whom history derives the narrative of Richard's accession. We must remember the circumstances in which he wrote or dictated his version. He was then Archbishop of Canterbury under Henry VII. He had to traduce Richard in the interests of his master, and at the same time he had to conceal from Henry himself certain parts of his own proceedings, especially as regards his intrigue with Buckingham. {208} [Sidenote: Morton's misrepresentations] Morton was most unscrupulous in fabricating his story, throwing out misleading insinuations, garbling and suppressing facts, making false statements, and altering dates. He was a leading actor in, and an eyewitness of what he described, he was an able and clever man, and he was intimately acquainted with the facts as they really happened. Moreover, we are informed by Sir Thomas More, who knew him, that he had an extraordinary memory.[6] Consequently every mistake that is detected in his narrative, every date that is altered, must have been inserted with a special object. It is fortunate for the cause of truth that he was more careless, and wrote in greater detail, than he certainly would have done, if there had been any chance of an answer being put forward by one equally conversant with the facts. But he knew that he was safe--power unscrupulously enforced was on his side. Morton opens his case with the assumption that the Duke of Gloucester had always intended to supplant his nephew. He asserts that the Duke concerted plans with Buckingham and Hastings against the Queen and her relations; that he then, secretly, and by divers means, caused the Queen to be persuaded to advise her son not to come with a large force to London; and that he and other lords wrote to the Queen's friends so lovingly that they, nothing mistrusting, brought the young prince up in good speed with sober company. Gloucester and Buckingham then went to Northampton and met Rivers there. For all that appears in this part of the narrative, Gloucester was in London, and came thence with Buckingham to Northampton. Gloucester was really in the marches of Scotland, and he could not possibly have carried on {209} all these intrigues at that distance, between April 9 when King Edward died and the 23rd when Rivers left Ludlow. He could not even have heard of the King's death for several days. It is true that, towards the end of his lampoon, when telling his story about an alleged quarrel between Gloucester and Buckingham, Morton does mention the Duke being at York, and Buckingham having sent a messenger to him who met him at Nottingham.[7] But this messenger could not have been the channel of all the intrigues he describes. There was no time.