Henry became haggard and restless. Prosperous and successful as the world deemed him, we may rely upon it that his crimes were not unpunished. His cowardly nature was peculiarly susceptible to the torturing pangs of remorse. He died, full of terrors, prematurely old and worn out, at the early age of fifty-two, on April 21, 1509. He was successful as the world counts success. He accumulated riches by plunder and extortion. He established a despotic government. He cleared his path of rivals. We are told that he inaugurated a new era--era of 'benevolences' and Star Chamber prosecutions. In all these things he succeeded. He, and the writers he employed, were pre-eminently successful as slanderers. They succeeded in blackening for all time the fame of a far better man than Henry Tudor. [Sidenote: Things unexplained] Hitherto we have been engaged in the investigation of positive evidence. There is, however, another side to the question--a negative side. We must now examine Henry's omissions. According to his story he found the two boys missing when he arrived in London after the battle of Bosworth. If Henry's story was true, it must have been well known to every official in the Tower that Sir Robert Brackenbury gave up charge to Sir James Tyrrel and that the boys had never been seen since. If Henry made any enquiries he must have heard this, and the whole story would have come out. Why were not Tyrrel, Dighton, Green, and Black Will arrested, tried, and hanged? Why was not King Richard accused of murdering his nephews in the Act of Attainder? It is very improbable, though just possible, that Henry might have failed to ascertain the details of the story, assuming it to have been true, when he first arrived. Still, if the boys were missing, {279} it is certain that he would have accused Richard of their murder in the Act of Attainder. His omission to do so amounts to a strong presumption that they were not missing. According to the story, Tyrrel and Dighton confessed the murder in 1502. Why were they not tried and executed for it? This must have been done if there ever was a confession. It was clearly not made under the seal of confession, according to the story, but under the pressure of official examination. Tyrrel was actually beheaded, in great haste, on a frivolous charge, and his capture was a breach of a royal promise given under the privy seal. Surely this would have been avoided if there had been any other way, and there was another way. There was every possible reason for trying him for these horrible murders and executing him for them. Why was not this done? There can be only one answer. There was no confession. Henry's treatment of Dighton is still more extraordinary. It is alleged that he also confessed the murder. Yet he was not only unpunished, but allowed to live at large in Calais. When we find that Henry gave rewards to Tyrrel, Dighton, Green, and Black Will, the conclusion is