No question arose before King Richard's death. Many persons must have known that his nephews were alive and well treated. Their mother and brother knew, and they were silenced by imprisonment. Sir William Stanley and his fellow-sufferers knew, and they were beheaded. After Henry's accession, there were dozens, if not hundreds, of people who knew the truth. They had a choice between silence and ruin or {245} death. The truth might have been, and probably was, mentioned in private correspondence; but even that would be very perilous, and scarcely any correspondence of that date has been preserved. In one letter in the 'Plumpton Correspondence,' the dislike of Henry's illegal attainders is referred to, but with bated breath. Among the mass of the people there was no certain knowledge of what had happened to the boys. Of course many baseless rumours then became current. The statements accusing Richard, and the assertions that these rumours received popular credit during his reign, merely indicate what his successor wanted to be believed on the subject. [1] Earls of Oxford, Devonshire, and Pembroke, Lords Rivers, Dynham, and Beaumont. Lord Clifford was a minor, and in hiding in Yorkshire. [2] Lord Dudley in extreme old age, Earls of Shrewsbury and Essex, and Lord Hungerford minors, Lords Greystoke and Ogle in the Marches, Lord Mountjoy at Calais, Lord de la Warre abroad. The Earl of Westmoreland was dangerously ill. [3] Bayley, _Antiquities of the Tower of London_. (8vo. ed 1830, p. 343 _n_.) [4] iv. p. 580 (5th ed. 1849). [5] Rymer, xii. p. 265. 'Pro filio bastardo regis.' 'Cum summa dilecti filii nostri bastardi Johannis de Gloucestriæ ingenii vivacitas, membrorumque agilitas, et ad omnes bonos mores magnam et indubiam nobis de futuro ejus servitio bono spem, gratiâ divinâ promittant.' This warrant granted the wardship of Calais to John of Gloucester, so soon as he should have reached the age of twenty-one. [6] _Archæologia_, i. p. 367. [7] Sir Richard, K.G., the second son, was not then a lord. The title of York was a royal one, like that of Wales, and he could not hold it when proved to be illegitimate. Those of Norfolk and Nottingham came from his intended wife, Anne Mowbray, and when she died, they went to her heirs Howard and Berkeley, by creation of the King on June 8, 1483. Young Richard, as well as Edward, was a Knight of the Garter, but Edward was the only 'Lord Bastard.' [8] A letter from the King to the Mayor of York, dated April 11, 1485, is on the subject of the suppression of false reports and lies. But this refers to the false report that Richard intended to marry his niece. Davies, _York Records_. Drake incorrectly places this letter in 1484. Drake's _Ebor._ p. 119. [9] 'Vulgatum est dictos Regis Edwardi pueros, quo genere violenti interitus ignoratur, decessisse in fata.'