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

This started with the statement that brothers of a monarch were above daughters in the line of succession. You cannot name a single example of the brother of a monarch ascending the throne above a daughter of a monarch, because there aren’t any examples, because that is not how primogeniture works.

Its half the Yorkist argument in the wars of the Roses as the Lancastrians were descended from john of Gaunt DUke of Lancaster the third son of Edward III whereas the Yorkists were descended both from the Duke of York (4th son) in the patrilineal line and the Duke of Clarence (2nd son) in the matrilineal line. The Lancastrian argument was that the Clarence line was irrelevant as it passed through 2 women - Philippa Plantagenet and Anne Mortimer. However the argument is a bit confused as Henry IV usurped the throne from Richard II so could probably claim to be king by conquest.

More likely Margaret Beaufort.

I agree. People go on about how his reputation was tarnished by Tudor propaganda but the pendulum has now swung so far the other way that his supporters act like he was a saint.

I think he had them killed to secure his own power in the same way as Henry IV killed Richard II and Edward IV killed Henry VI.

There are far too many mental gymnastics involved for other theories to be plausible.

I also think there are things that seem ominous in hindsight but which were perfectly normal at the time. For example, the boys being taken to the Tower. In modern times, to us, that means only one thing. But in the 15th century the Tower of London was not a prison/place of execution, it was a royal palace, and it was tradition for the monarch to reside there prior to being crowned. That’s why Edward V was taken there in the first place, on the face of it there was nothing sinister about that at the time.

I think Edward IV trusted Richard because he had absolutely no reason not to trust him. Edward was betrayed by several of his once close allies during his lifetime, most notably Warwick the Kingmaker who had helped him onto the throne, and his own brother George, Duke of Clarence, but Richard was always completely loyal to him.

Richard also made most sense as Lord Protector, as he was a known quantity and a son of the House of York, which was important against the backdrop of the Wars of the Roses.

I don’t think anyone has really mentioned the Woodville family, Edward IV’s Queen and her family, but their actions in the wake of Edward’s death almost certainly had an impact on how things played out. They wanted Edward V in their control, which would have been unpopular and potentially destabilising.

If the Bishop’s revelation about Edward IV’s bigamy was a stitch up, I don’t think it was a power grab for the sake of personal gain and power for power’s sake. I think it was in recognition of the fact that a child monarch could be destabilising at the best of times and certainly at a time when peace was fragile and transient. Richard III’s entire life played out against the backdrop of the Cousins’ War. His father and eldest brother lost their lives to it when he was a young boy, he had to fight constantly to keep his brother Edward on the throne, his mentor Warwick and his brother George lost their lives to it to. When Edward IV died there had been a fragile peace for a few years and it would hardly be surprising if Richard and the other lords & councillors took steps to preserve that. He didn’t take the crown by force, it was with the acquiescence, and by some accounts at the request of, the lords of realm. I think they thought putting him on the throne was the best chance of stability 🤷🏻‍♀️

She has been extremely unfairly made out to be obsessed. She is passionate and dedicated. I have met her and spoken to her, and her research is thorough and wide-reaching - and inspires many amateur historians. If she was Phillip Langley we would never have this total misogynist bollocks about "oh ho ho she fancies Richard III"

No bodies, no bones (the ones found are too far down to be contemporary to Plantagenet/Tudor road level) and, in fact, plenty of evidence on the continent that the princes' relatives were helping to fund an army to bring the eldest boy back to England and the throne.

I agree.

The current lot are descended from George I, son of the Electress Sophia, who was daughter of James I's daughter Elizabeth (the "Winter Queen"). Parliament were desperate to find a Protestant successor to Queen Anne.

Queen Victoria grew up bilingual (or multilingual, I'm sure she was being taught French as well) not speaking solely German. Her mother had her eye on Victoria inheriting the throne from very early on, and would hardly have had a future queen regnant raised with no English. The days of the monarch not speaking English were in George I's reign, not after.

No, because she was from the Beaufort line, John of Gaunt's and Katherine Swynford's bastards, who were specifically banned from inheriting the throne when they were legitimised (by Richard II iirc). On the other she was descended from Katherine de Valois and Owen Tudor, who may or may not have been married. Henry VII claimed the throne by right of conquest.

This is such a fascinating thread!

If anyone is interested the Daughter of Time is on the Kindle Store for 75p. I’ve just downloaded it to add to my holiday reading.

@PadstowGirl blimey, in that case I'd be very careful around your MIL-if she is anything like her relative you could meet a sticky end

Ive also always thought Margaret Beaufort was nailed on for it

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

The late Queen Elizabeth was born in London to parents who were also born in London. You have to go back to Victoria’s mother to find someone in the line of succession who was born outside of Great Britain. That would be (I think) King Charles 3x great grandmother, born in the 18th century. Just how many generations does any family have to be born in the UK before we’ll consider them British? Does the counter reset every time someone marries someone foreign?

I’m not particularly a royalist, but am thinking of what this line of thinking says to all citizens of the UK, that if even the royal family can be accused of not being British, what does that say to any of us that have foreign ancestors?

This thread took off! Haven't read it all but can anyone recommend a well researched history of Richard the III? I have only read popular histories. TIA.

Of course he did. He took the crown from his nephews, declared them illegitimate and locked them in the tower, yet some people think he had enough of a conscience not to order their murder in a time when kin killed kin? He probably didn't kill them with his own hand but on his orders.

If he had let them live/smuggled them to France they would have returned as adults (with an army) to claim the crown. Richard III wasn't going to risk that.

Richard III seems to have a weird fan club who want to paint him as a saint, but all the monarchs in those days were power mad and didn't think twice about removing any threat. It is widely believed Edward VI had Henry VI murdered only a few years earlier to take the throne, so it was hardly unheard of.

Delighted to have been reminded of Philippa Langley and that hilariously divided documentary (was it Ch 4?) about the discovery of RIII's grave -- you could see they have begun to film it as 'Here is a story about an obsessed loon we are playing for historically-inflected laughs' and then, unexpectedly, the obsessed loon turned out to be onto something so the entire second part took an entirely different and more respectful tone, though, awkwardly, PL continued to be an obsessed loon. The scene where she's looking at the reconstructed skeleton with the air of someone being shown their boyfriend's corpse never fails to crack me up.

(Also, I'm clearly the only person in the world who didn't much care for The Daughter of Time -- bored, bedbound detective makes other people bring him documents...?)

The wars of the roses (which ended with Bosworth) started due to rival potential claimants to the throne, being descendants of Edward III through an entirely male line, but a younger son of Edward III, and the descendants of an elder son but through a female line.

So primogeniture wasn’t entirely ‘settled’. Otherwise Henry IV would not have been king.

The current lot are German too, aren't they? Direct descendants of Queen Victoria, (who grew up speaking German) and her DH, Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.
Which was the royal family's surname before they changed it to Windsor due to the strong anti German sentiment during the first World War.

He was for the English throne FFS

Well let’s stop spamming the thread shall we? We have both put forth our cases, let the readers decide.

Well it is clear it has happened. I have given examples of both a brother and a brothers’ son taking precedence over a daughter. I have given further examples of legitimate female heirs being overlooked or declared illegitimate as part of a usurpation by a more distant, often illegitimate male relative. A living mother being overlooked in favour of her son, even though his claim is through her.

Laws change by being rewritten, or abolished. Henry VIII’s law was still in effect, unchanged, at the time of the successions in question. Laws still in effect do endure after the death of the monarch, otherwise we’d be in a pretty lawless country if everything that Elizabeth II gave royal assent to just expired with her death.

Not a chance! They would have been smuggled into 15th century France.