brink for a long time before he summoned up {250} courage to act. Even then he much preferred the forms of law, thinking that if he shared the deed with others, the guilt became a limited liability. Henry had the wisdom to see that, although his claim of conquest and vague assertion of right by descent[5] might serve for a time, he must establish some better title to secure any stability for his throne. He had obtained his position by the favour of a treacherous faction, and was confirmed in it by a pretended Parliament of his adherents, many of them still under attainder. Unlike the grand ceremony of King Richard's coronation, when the whole peerage was present, that of Henry was very thinly attended. He felt that some step must promptly be taken, with a view to strengthening his position, and reconciling the nation to his usurpation. There was Elizabeth, the late King's niece, whose person he had secured. If she was made queen it might propitiate the powerful Yorkist party. But she was illegitimate, and consequently young Warwick was the rightful King. There was another more fatal difficulty, a knowledge of which was shared with the girl's mother, if not with the girl herself. All evidence of the illegitimacy might be destroyed. Henry caused the Act of Parliament recording and legalising King Richard's title to be expunged. He ordered the original Act to be removed from the Rolls and burnt. Every person who possessed a copy or remembrance of it, was commanded to deliver up the same, under a penalty of fine and imprisonment at the tyrant's pleasure.[6] Henry granted a general pardon to Bishop {251} Stillington in order to avoid prosecuting him for the offence of having borne witness to the illegitimacy. For he feared discussion. He then trumped up some other charge, threw the Bishop into prison, and that unfortunate prelate never came out alive. But this was not enough. There was other work to be done from which Henry long recoiled. Yet without its perpetration he could not safely be married to Elizabeth, and there could be no security for his usurpation. Indeed, his position would be rendered even more precarious by the destruction of the evidence of illegitimacy. He had usurped a throne to retain which he saw that the committal of more than one crime was indispensable. Meanwhile Henry had summoned the so-called Parliament of his outlawed adherents. He got his own attainder reversed. He then caused an act of attainder to be passed against the late King and many loyal noblemen and knights, whose property he seized. He had the effrontery to accuse them of treason to him, by dating the commencement of his reign from the day previous to the battle of Bosworth. No more shameless act of injustice is recorded in the annals of tyranny. The bit of legal chicanery by which an attempt was made to excuse it, shows the character of the man. ====================================================================== {252}