Almost all the historians, even Coraines, and the continuator of the Annals of Croyland, assert that Edward was about this time taken prisoner by Clarence and Warwick, and was committed to the custody of the archbishop of York, brother to the earl; but being allowed to take the diversion of hunting by this prelate, he made his escape, and afterwards chased the rebels out of the kingdom.

But that all the story is false, appears from Rymer, where we find that the king, throughout all this period, continually exercised his authority, and never was interrupted in his government.

On the 7th of March, 1470, he gives a commission of array to Clarence, whom he then imagined a good subject; and on the 23d of the same month, we find him issuing an order for apprehending him, Besides, in the king's manifesto against the duke and earl, (Claus.10.

Edward IV.m.7, 8,) where he enumerates all their treasons, he mentions no such fact; he does not so much as accuse them of exciting young Welles's rebellion; he only says, that they exhorted him to continue in his rebellion.

We may judge how smaller facts will be misrepresented by historians, who can in the most material transactions mistake so grossly.