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

Those who say that it was clearly Richard as he had the most obvious benefit from them being dead - how do you square that with the fact there was no definite death and bodies to prove it? I think a lot of the interest in this stems from this fact; if he’d had them poisoned and then given them a proper funeral, let Londoners look at them and be said about the terrible ‘natural causes’ that had taken them, it would be much more cut and dried to believe he’d done it.

The mystery of their disappearance just leaves it open ended and doesn’t benefit him nearly as much as it benefits others who want to provide greater legitimacy to their claims

I read a badly-written but fun novel (fanfic, really, but published) called Richard Liveth Yet, where some sort of time-slip lands him in the future, not long after his bones were recovered. He adapts remarkably quickly, spends his time learning what went wrong at Bosworth, eventually gets back and wins, has a long reign, and the entire history of England changes. No Tudors, no English Reformation, for a start!

His record pre-throne was remarkable, I've often wondered what a king he would have made had he survived!

His record as Duke of Gloucester and Lord of the North and king. Plus I heartily dislike the Tudors, Henry VIII in particular.

I should mention that I first read Daughter of Time when I was thirteen, and have been a Ricardian ever since! :)

Interesting. Why?

I often think if there is life after death we'll be privy to the truth...... so that's something to look forward to 🤔🙂

Personally I think Margaret Beaufort had a hand in it but equally could have been Buckingham or Richard. Henry after he became king would have needed to kill them as well.

Very interesting thread thanks for starting it!

Whether he did it or not, I just wish Richard had won at Bosworth.

Now you mention it, they do have very similar haircuts. I reckon Henry VII was actually Richard in disguise!

I agree that Henry VII also had motive to kill the Princes as well as did Richard III. The poor lads didn’t stand a chance really.

Info:
Henry Tudor’s blood claim to the throne was through his mother, Margaret Beaufort – heiress of the house of Beaufort. Although many claim that Henry was not of royal descent, that is incorrect. The house (and children) of Beaufort were legitimised as a sub-branch of the Lancaster by Richard II and Pope Boniface IX on separate occasions, after John of Gaunt and Katherine Swynford got married. This meant that John Beaufort, Henry Tudor’s maternal grandfather, and Margaret’s father was in line for the throne after John of Gaunt’s legitimate children from his two previous marriages.

Margaret Beaufort (mother of Henry Tudor) became the heiress of the Beaufort line to the throne after her uncles and brothers passed away without any legitimate heirs.

This is important to Henry’s claim, because after all the legitimate male Lancasters died out, supporters of the branch saw the Beaufort line as the successors. Therefore, in the eyes of the supporters for the Beauforts, it made sense for Henry Tudor, the next male (skipping his mother because she’s a woman) to lay claim on the throne.

After he beat Richard III at Bosworth, he then legitimised his claim by right of conquest.

Not read the full thread but I studied this at university. Really like RIII as a ruler & king, and as a Duke before he took the crown. Very much wanted to find arguments that he didn't do it.

As part of my studies, I researched a lot into medieval ideas of kingship and what this meant for how power should be wielded etc. Frustratingly, I can't remember the details of it now but within the context of medieval power, kingship, duty & society, it made complete sense for Richard to have killed them and this far more than any argument involving other suspects and the notable timeline left me with the conclusion that he was wholly responsible for their deaths.

I started my studies open minded, in the midst of them thought 'no, not this man, he couldn't possibly' and ended without a doubt.

Fwiw the recent documentary with Rob Rinder couldn't have been lighter on historical objectiveness & rigour.

Later on, Sir James Tyrell confessed to the murder of the princes in the tower, implicating two other men at arms and all still living were executed. But this is unknown if forced confession under torture or legit because Tudor propaganda and history revision was happening too.

On his order, at least. It seems very likely although we can never know for sure. Funny how nobody ever had to take any fall for it, though.

My point is that Henry VII’s claim to the throne was via that very same line.

Henry VII won the throne by right of conquest, but that wasn’t his claim to the throne by which he raised his army in France. No one is going to raise or fund an army to take a throne by conquest when the proposed monarch has no claim to said throne. Especially in these days when you needed a Papal blessing that you are an heir to the monarchy.

An illegitimate heir can claim, their claim is simply behind the claim of all legitimate heirs.

Unless they take the throne by force.

Like William I did earlier by Norman conquest and Mary I by a parliamentary coup later on.

You have a claim to the throne, that you use to raise an army or get Parliament on side, and then you take the throne by force (killing other contenders) and then you occupy it by right of conquest.

Henry VII’s mother had a better claim to the throne than her son, but she was a woman.

Yes, but the point is that the relatives on the continent were doing that in their own interests. It didn’t matter to them whether they were funding their long-lost nephew or some random pretending to be him, either way achieved their aim of destabilising Henry VII. And if they knew or suspected that their champion was a fraud and decided to go along with it anyway, they wouldn’t have given the game away in writing, or allowed their servants to do so.

We Brits are a mongrel race. Invasions by Romans, Vikings, Saxons, French, etc etc etc mean you'd have a hell of a task to find anyone who is purely of British heritage!

The Royal family have significant German heritage despite being British

They also have significant Scottish and Danish heritage, and heritage of other nations, but no-one ever mentions that. It's always 'They're German'. Why is that?

If anyone suggested on a Mumsnet thread that, for example, Sadiq Khan or Diane Abbott or Humza Yousaf weren't really British, there would be absolute outrage and howls of 'racism'.

well, exactly, and those howls would be entirely justified. And that goes to the core of my concern - all the while the Royal family is derided as German, even light heartedly and in jest, it sends out a message to anyone whose immigration heritage is more recent that they will never really be British .

I may be slightly biased because my own birth surname is in its form because a paternal ancestor anglicised it. The reason was xenophobia over a hundred years ago, to the point his own father was deported for being of the “wrong” nationality in WW1.

anyway, sorry for the diversion. As someone with otherwise Lancastrian roots, I’ve always viewed Richard of York with a bit of a side eye, but I do think he was fitted up.

Agree that you should read The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey which lays out the factual evidence framed within a fictional (modern person investigating) narrative.

Iirc the conclusions were:

Richard III didn't have any motive to kill them. During his reign they had been declared bastards and excluded from the secession so he didn't need them dead.

There is no evidence that they were actually dead by the time Henry VII took thd throne after Richard's death. One if the things Henry VII did quite soon after taking the throne was to put out a general proclamation about how terrible Richard III had been, and the death of the princes is not even mentioned in that proclamation. If they had been dead it would have been included.

There is definitely evidence of Henry VII getting rid of all other possible claimants to the throne within his first few months as king, his claim was very shakey. And he needed to set aside the claim that Edward IV's marriage was invalid because he was securing his claim to the throne by marrying Elizabeth of York, the elder sister of the princes in the tower. So Henry VII needed the princes dead, but Richard III didn't.

The Royal family have significant German heritage despite being British.

I am British. I also have German heritage.

Sadiq Khan, Diane Abbott and Humza Yousef are British but their heritage, like mine, is not so.

I really dislike the insistence that the Royal family are German because I think the rationale behind it is xenophobic at best.

I agree. The late Queen and her father both served this country in war against Germany. Her uncle the Duke of Kent died on active service with the RAF. Her grandfather George V also served in the Royal Navy. Prince Louis of Battenberg (Prince Philip's grandfather) had served in the Royal Navy since he was fourteen and reached the highest position possible for a serving officer, but he was forced to resign in 1914 due to anti-German feeling.

If anyone suggested on a Mumsnet thread that, for example, Sadiq Khan or Diane Abbott or Humza Yousaf weren't really British, there would be absolute outrage and howls of 'racism'.

Actually using the law and or Parliament to sort out the line of succession isn't that unusual

William I appointed his second son William Rufus as the heir to the English throne (didn't go down well with his oldest son Robert who "only" got Normandy)

Then the whole Matilda Stephen Henry II debacle.

A cartel of Lords invited the Dauphin over to usurp John and then had to backtrack very quickly to kick him out on John's death in order to have Henry III instead.

Isabella and Mortimer then depose Edward II to rule through a regency for Edward III - who then gets rid of Mortimer and shuts his mother up at Windsor before sending her to Norfolk for the rest of her life.

(Just for the fun of an additional complication)Edward III decides he has a better legal claim to the throne of France (via his mother) than the heir favoured by the French despite the fact French law is quite clear that no one inherits through a female line.)

RIchard II agrees to legitimise the Beaufort children of John of Gaunt's 3rd marriage provided they have no claim to the throne.

Henry IV deposes Richard II which ends up with the Wars of the Roses as Lancaster and York each think they have the better claim.

Edward IV deposes Henry VI

Edward supported by Richard then uses the law to debar the children of the middle brother George from claiming the throne as George is a traitor. (Otherwise when the children of Edward IV are declared illegitimate the heirs would have been Edward Earl of Warwick (whom Henry VII executed) and Margaret Plantagenet (whom Henry VIII executed for treason as an elderly women)

Richard III uses the law to declare his nephews and nieces illegimate to take the throne.

Henry VII claims to be both the Lancastrian heir via his mother despite the Beauforts not being legally allowed to inherit and by right of conquest.

Henry VII legitimises the York children again

Henry VIII wills the crown to his 3 children in birth order despite the girls being illegitimate and then skips over the children of his elder sister to go straight to the children of his younger sister Mary.

Edward VI tries to cut out his sisters. The throne should then have gone to Frances Brandon but she declines it in favour of her daughter Jane Grey. Mary I raises an army and takes the throne.

ELizabeth fights a constant rearguard action against those (Catholics) who argue she is illegitimate and want to put Mary Queen of Scots on the throne. She also keeps the other 2 Grey sisters at court, declares Catherine Grey's marriage to be invalid so her sons were illegitimate. On her death she appoints James I as King despite the fact that per her fathers will (which is what she based her claim to the throne on) the next heirs were the Stanley family (although they may have shot themselves in the foot as Ferdinando was remarkably reticent about what his religious affiliations were).

Then we have the Parliamentary deposition of Charles I, the restoration of CHarles II, the deposition of James II, the skipping over of the Catholic James III in favour of Mary and the crowning of her husband despite the fact he had no claim to the throne (except possibly via conquest) and then the search for a Protestant heir to Anne which led to George I (via his mother and grandmother)

Even when we get to Queen VIctoria - she was able to take the throne of Enland but the Electorate of Hanover went to her uncle as a woman couldn't have that one.

Thank goodness we have now got rid of the boys first messing around (although I'd love to see Princess Anne outranking her revolting middle brother......)

Thank you. I couldn't quite remember if Richard was surprised at the Bishops revelations or not.

To answer a pp above I expect the Bishop feared for his life to reveal his information when Edward was still king. Edwards marriage to Elizabeth Woodville was rather unorthodox, he married her secretly. It is quite probable that he had a prior betrothal as this was very common in those days.