'The same night the King said to a secret page of his, "Who shall I trust to do my bidding?" "Sir," quoth the page, "there lieth one on your pallet without who I dare well say will do your Grace's pleasure, the things were right hard that he would refuse." This was Sir James Tyrrel, who saw with envy that Ratcliffe and Catesby were rising above him in his master's favour. Going out to Sir James, who was reposing with his brother Thomas, the King said "what Sirs are you abed so soon?" then, calling Sir James into his chamber, he brake to him secretly his mind in this mischievous matter. Tyrrel assented, and was despatched on the morrow with a letter to Brakenbury, to deliver to Sir James all the keys of the Tower for one night. After which letter delivered and the keys received, Sir James appointed the night next ensuing to destroy them, devising before and preparing the means. The princes were in charge of Will Slaughter (or Slater) called "Black Will," who was set to serve them and see them sure. Sir James Tyrrel devised that they should be murdered in their beds; to the execution whereof he appointed Miles Forest, one of the four who kept them, a fellow flesh-bred in murder before time. To him he joined his horse-keeper, John Dighton, a big, broad, square, strong {261} knave. They smothered the children, and Tyrrel ordered the murderers to bury them at the stair foot, metely deep in the ground, under a great heap of stones. Then rode Sir James in great haste to King Richard, and shewed him all the manner of the murder, who gave him great thanks, and as some say, then made him knight. But the King allowed not their burial in so vile a corner, because they were King's sons. Whereupon a priest of Sir Robert Brakenbury took them and secretly interred them in such a place as, by the occasion of his death which only knew it the very truth could never yet be very well known. Very truth is it and well known that at such time as Sir James Tyrrel was in the Tower for treason, committed against King Henry VII., both he and Dighton were examined together of this point, and both they confessed the murder to be done in the same manner as you have heard. God never gave a more notable example of what wretched end ensueth such despiteous cruelty. Miles Forest at St. Martin-le-Grand piecemeal miserably rotted away. Sir James Tyrrel died on Tower Hill. Dighton, indeed, yet walketh alive, in good possibility to be hanged ere he die.' Grafton says: 'John Dighton lived at Calais long after, no less disdained and hated than pointed at, and there died in great misery.' The version in Kennet[21] makes both 'Dighton and Forest die in a most horrible manner, rotting away by degrees.' 'Thus, as I have learned of them that much knewe and little cause had to lye were these two princes murdered.' This last sentence is audacious. These informers, if they ever existed outside the writer's imagination, had very strong cause to lie.