Assailed by the insidious flattery of Morton, he was prematurely hurried into a rash attempt which cost him his life. When Morton recorded the conversation with his victim many years afterwards, he was Archbishop of Canterbury, Henry VII. was King, and it was advisable, in order to gratify the new sovereign, that Richard should be accused of murdering his nephews, and that Buckingham should be made to give up the scheme for his own aggrandisement, in order to risk his life for the sake of an unknown adventurer in Brittany. It will be admitted that this is a grossly improbable story. It is certainly astounding that the childish nonsense which Morton puts into Buckingham's mouth should have been gravely accepted as true by subsequent historians. We are first told that when Buckingham heard of the murder of the two innocents, to which he never agreed, he abhorred the sight of the King and could no longer abide with the Court. So he took his leave at Gloucester with a merry countenance but a despiteful heart. According to this, the murders took place in July, for Buckingham left Gloucester on August 1. The more detailed story directly contradicts Morton, and places the murders in the end of August. Both are false, but this is one out of many instances of the utter recklessness of these slanderers. Buckingham is then made to say that he stopped at Tewkesbury for two days to think. The result was that he came to the conclusion that he ought to be King, not on the ground of his descent from the fifth son of Edward III., but because his mother was a daughter of Edmund, Duke of Somerset. His mother was the fourth daughter of that Duke, who had not the remotest right to the throne, and never put forward a claim. {226} If there had been such a claim, Buckingham would not have first found it out, by thinking for two days at Tewkesbury. After this mental effort he continued his journey towards Shrewsbury, and met Margaret Lady Stanley, the mother of Henry Tudor, on the road. She told him that she was the daughter of John Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, Edmund's elder brother. This, we are asked to believe, was quite a new idea to Buckingham. We are to suppose that he knew nothing about his relations before his cogitations at Tewkesbury and his chat with Lady Stanley, and that the receipt of the information made him give up his own ambitious plans altogether. He is made to propose to his fellow-traveller that her son should be king and that he should marry the eldest daughter of Edward IV. Buckingham, after examining the evidence, had just concurred in a solemn declaration that this daughter was illegitimate. But he now evolved from his inner consciousness the discovery that the evidence was derived from suborned witnesses. The Duke then took his leave of Margaret, and proceeded with Morton to Brecknock Castle. Margaret's steward, Reginald Bray, conveyed messages between the conspirators, and an insurrection was arranged.