To think Richard III blatantly killed the Princes in Tower?

Margaret Beaufort (Henry VII’s mother) is a prime suspect for me. She was ruthless in her desire for her son to be king.

Richard may have been guilty. However his character has been somewhat assassinated over the years thanks to the Tudors.

My favourite history mystery is how Amy Dudley died. Wife to the Earl of Leicester, Queen Elizabeth’s favourite. Found dead at the foot of a set of shallow steps at Cumnor Place.

Henry and Elizabeth fell in love didn’t they? I’m thinking would you love the person that killed your brothers. I’m assuming not…

My guess would be that they refuse this request in part because they don’t want to set a precedent of unidentified remains in various places being exhumed and tested. There’s also no point in disturbing them in the Abbey, which very much remains consecrated ground, is there, as what would it actually tell us and why do we need to know it? You have to have really good reason to exhume remains full stop.

It was a secret 🤫

How and when do you think MB did it and why did Elizabeth Woodville plot with her to marry Henry Tudor to Elizabeth of York if she did do it?

My agree is based on we shouldn’t be disturbing anyone’s burial ground.
However
We, as a country do. So there is lots of precedent for it.

This is the thing that everybody overlooks about this period in history. They were a bloodthirsty lot - they had to be because a moment's weakness could see them dead. It seems awful nowadays but was a way of life for many people hoping for power - kill or be killed. After all, Richard was eventually killed.
Henry Vll wasn't very nice either so he might've done it.

This is the thing that everybody overlooks about this period in history. They were a bloodthirsty lot - they had to be because a moment's weakness could see them dead. It seems awful nowadays but was a way of life for many people hoping for power - kill or be killed. After all, Richard was eventually killed.
Henry Vll wasn't very nice either so he might've done it.

Strange kind of “agree”

And odd, then, to say you don’t see what the fuss is about, if you consider burial places sacred in any way.

I actually believe it was Margaret Beaufort too.

As a Catholic I agree. But this country has been running rough shot over burial grounds to make way for mega roads and roundabouts, new housing estates and office blocks.
Thus is by far less desecration of holy ground or the bones interred

Thank you for posting this, I will read tonight.

HE GOT HIS IN THE END THOUGH, @HenryTudor1485 .

• His horse fucked off and left him
• He was battered to death
• Shakespeare got hold of him and fucked him over some more post-mortem
• His bones spent a goodly period of time ignominiously mouldering beneath a Leicester car park
• His lover niece put a ring on it with his mortal enemy

<happy sigh>

Agree a little bonkers.
The Queens link though goes back through the Tudors to Margaret of Scotland . They won the English crown in battle 1485 and whether defeating Richard or the Princes in Battle what difference does it make.
That’s one of the ways they took the Crown in those days
It would make no difference to the Royal Family .

Thanks for that. I do wonder why they are fussing about this all so much

@DrPrunesqualer

If one considers, as a Christian (and probably other religions too, or none) that someone has a right for their bones to rest in peace after they are gone; to not be disturbed to satisfy modern curiosity; to not be turfed out of their centuries long resting place if their DNA doesn’t prove royal - then perhaps you can see why the Church of England is “fussing so much” and that it is nothing to do with revenue - plenty of visitors to Westminster Abbey without any given grave being there.

This is an enlightening piece that compares some of the arguments that Ricardians raise to portray Richard in a favourable light with a game of Mornington Crescent. It's quite long but worth reading.

dodgingarrows.wordpress.com/2015/06/24/the-trouble-with-richard-iii-and-the-mornington-crescent-syndrome/

Brilliant post all round but this:

Richard can wait to be swept from the board by a y7 student who is being raised to see him as a threat

...is genius! 🤣❤️

Also, there were a LOT of people between him & the crown throughout the 1470s.

EIV was hale & hearty, with an heir rapidly approaching his majority, a spare & 5 surviving & marriageable dds. Then there was Clarence, & his son Edward of Warwick.

I suspect Richard was very happy being EIV's reliable (ie. 'not that twat 'false fleeting' Clarence') in his brother's eyes. He had the North, huge wealth, was married to the surviving Warwick heiress.

Suddenly, Clarence is executed, quite possibly with Richard's complicity but to be fair he'd definitely been pushing his luck. EIV dies, & the new king is a 12yo under the control of his hostile maternal family.

Basically, Richard can wait to be swept from the board by a y7 student who is being raised to see him as a threat & to eliminate him ASAP, or he can act decisively - & he does.

If RIII had won at Bosworth - & he does appear to have been doing a fair enough job as King - we would be acknowledging that his potential rivals, including children, did tend to come to grief or go AWOL. Just like those of every other ruler in history. The PITT are only 'special' because we don't know for sure.

It's the same impulse as the interest in Jack the Ripper. Everyone loves a cold case.

He was loyal to his family and I believe acting in the interests of keeping that line going and in power. His own son was still
alive at the time and of course his nephew Pole could take over. ( Pole was considered after his sons death)

So the self interest was very much about his family line. The Princes , whilst children of his brother had already been declared illegitimate. So in his pious eyes could not be legitimate Yorkist Kings.

why I wonder isn’t the Royal family interested

They don't want people poking about with their DNA. I'm pretty sure the Royal Family would survive someone proving they're actually descended from Charles II's milkman but it would still be embarrassing.

Plus they probably don't want to have all their ancestors dug up, sometimes the slippery slope argument is valid IMHO.

Thanks for that. I do wonder why they are fussing about this all so much
If the bones aren’t the boys they can be buried somewhere else. Why is that an issue. Is this down to RIII fans visiting the Abbey and they are concerned re loss of finance.
It suggests those interested, like ourselves, are a bit sick in some way. Yes we’re curious. Yes historians are curious. Yes we agree finding the boys won’t answer the question of exactly when they died or how. But why I wonder isn’t the Royal family interested and why isn’t the Abbey concerned about whose actually buried in their grounds

Astonishing really

I mean the line of descent gets pretty tenuous around the 1700s with the Hanoverians and William of Orange et al. There's a pretty thin, torturous thread going all the way back to Alfred and beyond but I don't think the DNA, even if it could be tested would be definitive.

Yes, I'm not suggesting for one second he wasn't acting in his own interest. He was better off as a super loyalist, and then fate came along and changed that.

Surprised to read this far in without a mention of a grassy knoll. Or a second knifeman ....

Naaah it was that Margaret Beaufort!