Famous impostors / by Bram Stoker.

  • Stoker, Bram, 1847-1912.
Date:
1910
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Famous impostors / by Bram Stoker. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    though over-young for fatherhood in the case of ordinary men seemed to offer to the Plantagenet- York-Lancaster blood no absolute difficulty of taking up such responsibility. As Elizabeth was only born some two months before the Duke’s marriage there was not any time to spare—a fact which would doubtless have been used to his advantage if Henry’s natural son had lived. In all probability Richmond’s marriage was a part of the plot for aggrandisement of the How- ards which began with the unscrupulous securing by Surrey of the son of Henry VIII at the cost of his sister’s honour; and ended with the death of Surrey as a traitor—a doom which his father only escaped by the King dying whilst the Act of At- tainder was lying ready for his signature. If this reasoning be correct—though the data on which it is founded be meagre and without actual proof— as yet—the risk of Duchess Mary’s child born be- fore her marriage must have been a terrible hazard. On one side perhaps the most powerful sceptre in the world as guerdon; on the other death and ruin of the child on which such hopes were built. No wonder then that Duchess Mary “almost fainted” when in the early dawn the King’s Commissioners conveyed to her the broad object of their com- ing. No wonder that freed by larger knowledge from the worst apprehension which could be for her, she announced her willingness to conceal noth- ing that she knew. That promise could not and