To think Richard III clearly murdered the princes in the tower?

If it was in Margaret Beaufort's gift, why did she agree to Henry marrying Edward IV's "illegitimate" daughter Elizabeth of York?

We may never know and it wasn't the first and won't be the last potential injustice.

Nice Blackadder reference, @Fangisnotacoward

My mother in law is a direct descendant of Margaret Beaufort, it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if her family had something to do with it.

I don't know much about it to be honest but my mum was the person you need ask, she was in the Richard III society and was a bit crazy about him.

I've always leaned towards it being the Tudors. The speed with which Henry repealed the law that made the York children illegitimate was a bit damning. If he though there was a chance his new bride's brothers would emerge from hiding and have a better claim to the throne then he never would have done that.

Plus he had announced his plan to marry Elizabeth of York before the Battle of Bosworth, and I think it was safe to assume that most of the suspicion would fall to Richard.

I don't think Henry necessarily did/organised it though, I think Jasper Tudor and Margaret Beaufort were the brains behind the operation to get him on the throne.

It would good if Charles would give scientists permission to carbon date and, if possible, DNA test the 1674 bones. This would be helpful, if not definitive.

If I had to gamble now, based on no primary evidence whatsoever, I'd probably stake that the boys were killed on behalf of Richard.

This doesn't mean that Richard directly ordered their deaths - it's plausible that someone else took the hint and did what they believed would benefit Richard.

Here is a more interesting mystery - was Edward II murdered? Or did he escape to France? I'd love to see what DNA analysis of the bones in his supposed grave would reveal!

Quite

This - whoever did it must have realised that any scheme which didn’t end with two visible corpses was going to leave the future open to an indefinite number of pretenders?

who knows. My aunt worked for social services. She was asked to move from her parking space because Richard 111 was buried there.

It is widely known and documented that Richard had had the children of Edward IV and Elizabeth removed from the line of succession due to the validity of the parents marriage. The decision was backed by the members of the court so he would have had no possible reason to then kill the boys.. If the court had not backed this decision then he may have killed them. This would be because the line of succession would have moved back up to him because George was killed for treason and that meant that his line had also been removed from the succession.

It would probably be really hard to prove his innocence though if the events had happened in this way.

to any of their relatives, most of whom are lying around conveniently labelled - or to Richard III himself, DNA helpfully already recorded.

Of course, because Edward IV was a bigamist and his children by Elizabeth Woodville were all illegitimate!

Wonderful book.
Very convincing.

Contemporary sources believed Richard killed them.

'Contemporary sources' were believing all sorts of things about the Princess of Wales recently.

Buckingham is my prime suspect. My theory is he did the deed when Richard was out of London, thinking Richard would be pleased, but Richard very definitely wasn't pleased. Hence Buckingham's rebellion - at the very least he couldn't expect any more favour from Richard, and might well have lost his head.

But there isn't any hard evidence one way or the other.

(Any Jodi Taylor fans here?😉)

Whose DNA would you match it to? I understand that that far back, mitochondrial DNA is what you need to test (because you can be fairly certain who mothers are, but over many generations the paternal line is less reliable (affairs etc)). When they tested Richard III they could only find one person in his maternal line with fully female descent and IIRC it was a man, so they were very luck he was still alive because the mitochondrial line will end with him . The princes DNA down the maternal line would need female - female - female etc descendants of their sisters?
I suppose you might try to match to Richard III because there should be a close match there?

I don't think Richard had them killed.

In the first place he had no need to - he'd already declared them illegitimate so their deaths were unnecessary.

Plus, if he did have them killed he surely would have displayed their bodies publicly and said they died of an illness. Just like his brother did with Henry VI. You really dont want people believing theyre still alive - they would be a rallying point for insurrection.

Having them disappear was the worst situation for him. Look at Henry VII - his reign was always insecure due to pretenders claiming to be Edward V or Richard of York.

I think it was Margaret Beaufort in cahoots with Buckingham to clear the way for her son (Henry VII).

No. He didn't.

When we went to the Tower of London, my DS asked a Beefeater why The Queen wouldn't allow the bones to be tested. He said it was because she didn't want them to be disturbed and they should be allowed to rest in peace. He was obsessed with the Princes in the Tower but we weren't allowed to talk about it because DS 2 was terrified by the story! Probably because he was one of 2 brothers!

The problem with watching the documentary, is that unless you have a very clear knowledge of 15th Century European history that a lot of the 'evidence' she presents sounds interesting - but to serious historians is a load of bunk and has met with major criticism.

If you are interested in a historian's appraisal of her documentary read the article I've linked below. It describes the documentary as 'manipulative and dishonest' which is was. You need, for example, a very clear understanding that Margaret of Burgundy was the elder sister of Richard III and loathed Henry Tudor as his killer and usurper. She would have never, ever seen or met her nephews - but was willing to 'recognise' anyone as them if it would cause problems to Henry VII.

Maximilian, the Holy Roman Emperor, is her son in law and as such, also has political reasons for 'believing' or funding things.

https://aspectsofhistory.com/author_interviews/the-princes-in-the-tower-david-pilling-on-the-new-evidence/

The joshephine Tey book is only 0.75p on kindle

I've always wondered if Edward V died of natural causes in the Tower as his doctor (Dr Argentine) said that he was visiting him frequently and he had resigned himself to death. It would have been such a nightmare for Richard to announce that he had died shortly after an attempted rescue when the boys were taken further into the Tower and never seen again as no one would believe he didn't arrange it himself. Less clear what happened to his brother though -maybe it was something catching......... Perhaps Richard thought that in time people would forget/stop asking awkward questions but then Bosworth came along and Henry VII couldn't find out what had actually happened in the immediate aftermath of the battle.

I've often wondered if the Tyrell confession was a way of tying up a loose end so that no one else could pretend to be the princes. Tyrell's family don't seem to have suffered too badly after his death (all his property would have reverted to the crown as a condemned traitor and the family would then need to rely on Henry's generosity as to what he'd let them keep and generosity was not a trait Henry was well known for). It's possible that Henry agreed to be uncharacteristically generous in return for a confession to tie up the loose ends.

All supposition of course but as likely as many of the other theories floating around and certainly less far fetched than the rather bizarre Holbein code suggestion.....

I went to the Richard III centre in Leicester, and came out convinced Margaret Beaufort did it in order to get her son on the Throne. This may have been as a result of biased information at the ( excellent) museum!

The bones are quite contaminated, been handled by a lot of people and were actually on a rubbish tip at one point.

The Queen wouldn't allow them to be disturbed, no idea what Charles thinks