To think Richard III blatantly killed the Princes in Tower?

[HenryTudor1485]

He’s undergone a bit of a reappraisal recently but I’m not having it. He was a wrong un.

He clearly had his nephews killed. He had motive, means and opportunity. The dates when they “disappeared” all add up.

He done the crime. He never did the time (unless you consider being defeated in battle and being hacked to death “time”).

Can anyone recommend a good, factual book about the Woodvilles? They sound a fascinating family!

I think this is really important in defining Richard as good or evil. The context is so easily missed - this was a time of enormous instability and war. If Richard had left Edward V to become king with the unpopular Woodville family in the ascendant and potentially challenging his protectorate, it just perpetuated the chaos. With him as an adult king, who had successfully ruled in the north already, it was far more likely that he could preserve some stability (and keep his faction in power of course). Had he inherited as an adult from a childless sibling that might have happened. It feels like the wrong call now but it's probable that there was no way that a child inheriting at that point in time could lead anywhere good.

And I guess I mean by good or evil that we don't know, if he did it, whether it was the Shakespearean lust for personal power, whether it was done to broadly keep the Yorkist interests safe, or because he looked to maintain peace in England. Did he weep bitter tears of self loathing or barely turn a hair? Was a misguided sacrifice with a political intent to stop civil war or a naked attempt to gain power for him and his own son? There's still plenty to think about and ways to spin it!

My theory's natural causes.

They were terrified, traumatised children - the older boy had existing health issues with his teeth - it was an era of high child mortality - their carers probably didn't care very much (& would have surmised that RIII didn't want them to survive to manhood).

This was highly inconvenient for RIII. It would be a propaganda godsend to his assorted enemies if he announced their deaths. It would also destabilise the delicate rapprochement he was building with EW.

Don't forget EW was a tough, pragmatic broad. She survived being left a widow with 2 dc from her first marriage, to a bloke who fought on the wrong side in the Wars of the Roses, & came out married to the King of England! She then seems to have been quite the operator when it came to advancing her unpopular family.

I can see her deciding to play the long game - nothing she could do for her boys, but honestly they were probably safer in the Tower than being paraded around the countryside at the head of a rebellious army, & she'd have hoped to get them abroad if she could. Meanwhile, she could help her dds by coming out of sanctuary & setting them up at court.

The boys die - RIII hushes it up. If he'd survived Bosworth he would have announced their deaths, & the country would have grumbled but accepted it, but he needed it kept quiet whilst he saw off Richmond.

After Bosworth...no one could find the kids. Because they'd been discreetly buried in the Tower staircase, & their attendants were not about to admit that to HVII - they would have been scapegoated for killing them on RIII's orders. Plus his new queen was their sister, & might have wanted to avenge her poor neglected little brothers.

They make up a cock & bull story that RIII moved the boys from their care & they've no idea what happened after that. HVII doesn't really believe that, but he certainly doesn't want then popping up alive, so he says nowt. This accounts for him taking later pretenders like Warbeck & Simnel reasonably seriously - he can't prove they aren't genuine!

I'm sure both RIII & HVII would have happily done away with them given the chance. But RIII couldn't afford the scandal between 1483-5, so had it on his 'to do' list for once everything had settled down, & then HVII couldn't find them because they were already dead & hidden under the stairs when he took the throne...

My theory's natural causes.

Mine isn't, but if I was looking for evidence to support it, the way they gradually stopped being seen in the grounds would be consistent with gradually worsening health.

Of course he did. As David Starkey and nearly all historians of that period say: he’d have been crazy not to.

I don’t understand the modern need to believe that he was a good man. He needed to get rid of threats to his power - morals didn’t enter into it.

Interesting @CorvusPurpureus

Simnel was pretending to be Edward, Earl of Warwick, not Edward V.

I'm with you OP. The usual perpetrator in any crime is the person who gains the most from it.

Richard grew up totally devoted and completely loyal to his older brother, Edward IV. I don't think he underwent a massive personality change once he became king.

Also, don't forget that Elizabeth Woodville, the young princes' mother (who absolutely despised Richard and was incredibly suspicious and paranoid) yet was happy to allow both her sons to leave the Sanctuary of Westminster Abbey to go into Richard III's care.

She did thus because Richard III had a reputation for unimpeachable integrity.

both her sons to leave the Sanctuary of Westminster Abbey to go into Richard III's care.

Nope. Edward V wasn’t in Sanctuary at that time (though he was born in sanctuary earlier in the Wars of the Roses). He was travelling from Ludlow to London with his uncle and half brother when they were intercepted by Richard.

As for letting his younger brother out of sanctuary to (seemingly) get ready with Edward V for the coronation, I doubt EW felt she had much choice, TBH

I think he had a bash at claiming to be Richard of York too, at one point. One of them (either Warbeck or Simnel) definitely switched claims...possibly to get Margaret of Burgundy on side...? Can't remember the details!

Yet if you look at Richard’s Home policy he sought to make the country a fairer place for the poor. The Council of the North and many other policies were successful.

Executing people in those days really wasn’t unusual. ( We know nothing of his thoughts on those actions ).

Perhaps Charles will allow the dna tests.
If the boys under the Tower aren’t the Princes then I wonder if he’ll allow it of the ones at other locations ie Windsor

If nothing comes of that then will they be locating Warbecks grave at Austin Friars. The lady and team that found RIII in Leicester might have found an exact location there ( although given the amount of rebuilding and war damage it’s highly unlikely ).

Even if the children under the tower are found to be the boys. It proves they died in the Tower. It doesn’t prove how they died though.
The mystery continues

We know loads. We know they disappeared in 1483. We know that at that time, they were heavily guarded by Richard III in a fortress. We know the boys’ mother fled to sanctuary because she was afraid of Richard, and we know she only let her youngest son out after guarantees from the Archbishop and because Richard was threatening to break sanctuary.

We know rumours swirled around the country that Richard had murdered them. We know he lost loads of support when he couldn’t produce them alive. We know their mother allied with Henry VII. We know bones of two children were buried where More said they’d be, and that they match the ages the boys were in 1483.

@ItisIbeserk ‘I can't remember where I read it at the time of her last documentary/evidence reveal but the documents she talked about are not new knowledge to medieval historians.’

It appears that whilst historians may have known about the discovery of some of the documents at the time, they were not studied.

The documents featured in Phillipa Langley & Rob Rinder's documentary 'The Princes in the Tower: The New Evidence' (watch on YouTube, I cannot link, sorry) were:

The Gelderland Document
Discovered in the 1950s in the Gelderland Archives, Netherlands. Sent at the time to Dutch historian Prof. Diederick Enklaar at the University of Utrecht; who gave it scant interest. A witness statement written in the first-person recording Richard Duke of York’s story from the point at which he left sanctuary in Westminster as a 9-year-old boy in 1483.

The Lille Receipt for Weapons
‘In May 2020, Albert Jan de Rooij of the Dutch Research Group discovered in the archive of Lille a receipt belonging to King Maximilian I dated 16 December 1487. It references Margaret of Burgundy (Edward’s aunt). The receipt is signed by three leading members of Maximilian’s court and records the king’s collection of, and payment for, 400 pikes (weapons for elite troops). The weapons had been collected by Maximilian in June of that year. The receipt states that the weapons were: ‘to serve her nephew – son of King Edward, late her brother (may God save his soul), [who was] expelled from his dominion.’’

Dresden Archive
In February 2019, the Dutch Research Group rediscovered a pledge of payment by ‘Richard of England’ to Duke Albert of Saxony date 4th October 1493 in the Dresden Archive, Germany. The receipt pledge is for 30,000 florins signed by ‘Richard of England’ with his monogram and seal. It is also signed by 2 of his supported.

So much written evidence (which was authenticated by expert in the documentary) surely requires further consideration by experts, academics and other historians?

Executing people in those days really wasn’t unusual. ( We know nothing of his thoughts on those actions ).

I agree @DrPrunesqualer which is why I said I thought RIII was similarly ruthless to other monarchs of the time. (Not ascribing any emotion to the word ruthless, just actions)

Perhaps Charles will allow the dna tests.

It isn’t up to Charles, it’s up to Westminster Abbey/the Church of England. Though Charles would be consulted.

The Queen refused and nothing happened.
Either because she was Head of the Church of England or because of potential disturbance of royal bones. Her wishes were respected

I never understand why people want RIII to be better than he was? He was a right cunt. The evidence that we do have, the solid evidence, proves that he was a piece of shit who usurped the throne. To kill off those two boys was not out of character for him, and was not even out of place for the times. Killing them fits into the context of what was going on, and would have been on one hand frowned upon, but the other excused as a necessary evil. Even sidelining the actual few documents we have, it interests me that EW supported HVII and not RIII (and was terrified of and sought sanctuary from the latter). That said, EoY marrying her brothers’ killer (though I don’t agree it was HVII) was also not massively out of the realms of possibility. It would have been a way to stay alive and keep her few remaining family members off of the chopping block.

People go from one extreme to the other sometimes with history. Often people assume no sentimentality existed because of infant mortality rates, violence of the time etc etc but people did love and care, had loyalties, had human and familial bonds. They also, conversely, could be absolutely ruthless and did what needed to be done in order to survive. Both things can be true. EW I’m sure loved her children, and lack of letters/evidence doesn’t mean she didn’t know exactly who had killed them at the time. It doesn’t mean she wouldn’t have had to at some point move the thoughts of revenge or whatever emotion to the side to prevent more bloodshed. So it could have been anyone that she still went on to ally with in the future. Alliance with whoever, after the Princes’ deaths doesn’t necessarily mean that she believed that person/faction innocent. Sometimes people had to take what they could get at court. Look at Margaret Pole. She didn’t turn around and say “fuck the lot of you”, she remained at court and tried to maintain a good position for herself and her children.

I disagree with you. While putting rivals and rebels to death wasn’t unusual, murdering children was regarded with disgust. Children of rebels and rivals were not normally put to death-either they were hostages or stripped of their inheritance. Things were different with adults, but it was not normal to kill children. These boys were neither rebels or traitors, neither were their parents. However, the eldest was highly influenced by and close to his mother’s family which put Richard in a quandary. He saw his career and fortune waning-and possibly his own family at risk. I think he decided to kill them-whether or not he was haunted by his conscience, we’ll never know. I think so as he was very close to his elder brother.

And for those wondering why Elizabeth Woodville remained publicly silent-look up the fate of Maud de Braose who accused the king of killing his nephew.

I believe I linked this above, but linking again,

www.theguardian.com/science/2013/feb/05/princes-in-tower-staying-under

Also pp keep saying RIII was so loyal and close to EIV yeah and he had his children declared bastards as soon as he could. He imperilled his wife and daughters and locked up his boys. Do we think that those actions showed love and loyalty to Edward? We know the Woodvilles were hated, it stands to reason that RIII wanted to see the back of the lot of them, but that wasn’t EIV’s intention or choice and Richard went against the setup that Edward had envisaged.

Just a simple note also on why the Woodvilles were so hated. There were tonnes of them, they were reasonably low born (still bloody posh) and they were put in gold standard positions of power that only a few nobleman had previously had to jockey over. They were seen as usurpers and grabby, and the noble dukes and earls of the time were sick to death of the lot of them. It was about 1000 x worse than say if after William and Kate got married, her siblings were given Duke and Duchess titles and given each something like Cornwall and Yorkshire. Then Carole Middleton started educating the kids George, Charlotte and Louis and making laws. The frothing over the Woodvilles was bonkers but also in the context of the nobility and court at the time, kind of understandable. The spaces they took up were finite resources, and put a hell of a lot of noses out of joint.

YY @EverybodyLTB - plus EW made a powerful enemy in Warwick (the Kingmaker) as he had wanted EIV to marry a foreign princess, having backed him for the throne, and the marriage put a stop to that. Hence Warwick eventually hooking up with George of Clarence and Margaret of Anjou.

Yes yes this. EW had to do a lot of shapeshifting to keep her pretty head on her shoulders. You can’t read about RIII and the Princes out of context. It was not only a place in time but also a place itself I.e. court which had its own ecosystem and rules of engagement.