Mr. Gairdner approaches the subject more calmly. 'Positive testimony like this,' he says, 'is not to be lightly set aside as incredible. Yet Buck, if not altogether dishonest (and I see no reason to think him so), was certainly by no means an impartial historian. At the same time Buck's abstract of the letter is very minute, and such as would seem to follow pretty closely the turns of expression in a genuine original, and he expressly declares the manuscript to be an autograph or original draft. If it be not a forgery palmed off upon Buck himself, I am inclined to think it was written, not by Elizabeth, but by her mother who bore the same Christian name. Every word might just as well have come from her, except the mention of the father, which may be a mistake; and there is nothing inconceivable in her anxiety that Richard should marry her daughter.' He adds 'that Elizabeth could have been eager to obtain the hand of her brother's murderer is really too monstrous to be believed.' Why then is it not 'too monstrous to be believed' that the mother should have been eager to obtain the hand of her son's murderer for her daughter? It is clear that the grounds for accepting the letter are too strong for Mr. Gairdner to be able to reject them. Yet that Elizabeth should wish to marry her brother's murderer appears incredible to him. The conclusion is inevitable. Richard was not her brother's murderer, if the letter was authentic (see Gairdner's _Life of Richard III._ pp. 256-257, and note p. 257). {233} CHAPTER IV THE MAIN CHARGE AGAINST RICHARD III 15. Murder of the Princes in the Tower. Acquittal. In attempting an impartial consideration of the question of the fate of King Edward's sons, it must always be remembered that the main argument against their uncle is made to rest upon the truth of his previous alleged crimes. This argument is destroyed if Richard was not a venomous hunchback born with teeth, if he was not a cold scheming and calculating villain who had already committed two atrocious murders, drowned his brother in a butt of malmsey, poisoned his wife, and waded through the blood of innocent men to an usurped throne. A careful study of the evidence establishes the fact that these accusations are false, and that they were put forward by the writers under a new dynasty in order to blacken the character of the last Plantagenet King, and to make the accusation that he murdered his nephews more plausible. For it was a matter of the most vital importance to Henry VII., not only that the boys should have been murdered, but that it should be believed that the crime was perpetrated before his accession.