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

[Ppejfhfhrhhfhf]

It seems quite clear to me that Richard III betrayed his nephews, murdered them and usurped their crown.

Whenever I see discussions about it on social media or wherever, people always come on and try to claim he’s a misrepresented soul who’d never have done that. If you’re someone who believes him innocent, what do you think happened to the princes?

Would also be very interested if anyone knowledgeable knows what contemporary sources were saying at the time. What did the public think had happened to their King (Edward V)?

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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!

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

Interesting. Why?

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! :)

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

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!

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

Slight derail but anyone know who was in line to the throne after Richard as he had no living dcs? Wasn’t Edward IV dcs as they’d been declared illegitimate, wasn’t his brother George’s dcs due to his treason.

If I start googling I’ll be down a rabbit hole not a bad thing

His nephew, John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln, was the closest. He was the eldest son of Richard III's sister, Elizabeth.

Ahh thank you!

I’ve also met her, know some of the U of L archaeologists who worked on the project, and am a feminist scholar in a related field. If you read my post more carefully, you will see that I’ve said the King in the Car Park documentary was very much filmed to make her look like a loon until the body was actually discovered. But no, I don’t agree her research is particularly credible — like anyone with an agenda to prove, and like all Ricardians and royal fetishists of both sexes, she’s not unbiased enough to be credible.

I’m not saying I was straight over to Amazon after reading this post….. but… 😁

And it looks like it’s a trilogy!

There was also poor Edward of Warwick, Richard’s brother George’s son. There’s some speculation that Richard named him heir after his own son died, though the attainder for treason against his father had previously taken him out of the line of succession. He was treated appallingly by the Tudor regime.

John de la Pole was a major figure in the Lambert Simnel rebellion and died fighting the Tudors at the Battle of Stoke.

There is such irony in the fact that Richard III’s legal reforms championed the concept of “innocent until proven guilty” and yet history has deemed him guilty until proven innocent.

This sounds so much fun!