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”).

We don’t know what Henry was thinking
for all we know it could be either

• he was the younger prince and his sister saved him from immediate execution
• he was a dangerous pretender, keep your enemies close
• he’d married well so couldn’t be executed for fear of endangering further relations with Scotland
• Henry fancied him 😄
• his wife’s family gave Henry louds of money to save him

Nothing as to why Henry had him at court can be stated as fact because

its all just guesswork

Weak Kings.

One overlooked fact is that regal musical chairs is The very last thing an established nobility wants or needs it to have to play a perpetual guessing game of which side to back. Although in terms of nation statehood, having to navigate those waters does lead to a very hardy government in time.

For every Richard II, there's an Edward I.

With all of that established as mood music, Richard IIIs actions were nothing extraordinary for the times.

The problem isn’t the moral argument about digging up the bones in the urn. It’s what you do with those bones if they aren’t the princes.

People would want to know whose bones they were. Then comes the issue of reburial. Where would you bury these bones of children.

Testing the bones doesn’t prove anything but that the children died. Even if they are the princes, it doesn’t prove who did it. So the argument would be: what is gained by digging them up?

Last para
If they are the Princes we would have

• better insight into age at time of death
• know that the pretenders were false

In terms of re burying the bones
As a country we regularly lift old bones to make way for new roads and housing so there’s Nothing new or unusual to have to deal with in that respect

I think my earlier comment may have been misconstrued.

What benefit - and more importantly to whom - would be served by exhuming the bones ? Or indeed any bones ? Being nosey isn't really a justification; it's just a suggestion that some people really need to deal with life as it is 😀

There are probably few people who are as fascinating by quirks in history and it's (re)tellings. However I've never felt that grants me a badge and a gun to go round the globe like a cross between Scoop Malloy and Indiana Jones.

And really - being very very very snarky - it's a shame some folk can't channel their voyeuristic take on history into a more considered learning the lessons of it. Although Oscar Wildes quote about the Irish and English view of their shared history does suggest there is a balance ....

I think that Richard was more than capable of having the boys killed. He oversaw the trials and executions after Tewkesbury when I believe he was still 19. No qualms about the fact that some had been dragged from sanctuary in the Abbey - the pragmatic choice was to kill the lot.

When EIV died it became very clear that the Woodvilles weren't going to stick with him as Protector so he packed those he could get his hands on off to the north and then executed them. As one of those was EV's uncle who had been his guardian this wasn't going to endear him to the young king or his mother. SO even if he managed to eke out his Protectorate until EV came of age he'd probably be a gonner at that point. He had spent his formative years escaping the Lancastrians - he saw first hand what being on the losing side was like at Ludlow when he was only 7. History would also have told him that a boy king was not good for the country - Henry III, Richard II, the start of the reign of Edward III and Henry VI all attested to that. SO the pragmatic thing, given most of the Lancastrians had been wiped out and Henry VII was an impoverished exile, would be to take the throne himself, hopefully end the Cousins' War in the process. So he needed an excuse - enter Bishop Stillington who had been imprisoned by EIV and probably willing to say whatever you wanted him to. (TBF it is quite plausible that EIV did mess around with Eleanor Butler given his behaviour with Elizabeth Woodville.)

This just left the inconvenient matter of the Princes. Maybe not a pressing matter whilst they were securely in the Tower. IMHO EV may well have died of natural causes as he did seem to be sick. However if there was a plot to free them - its plausible - then RIII needed to act. I think he probably murdered them shortly after that. Knowing that there would be an outcry he just adopted "never explain" when asked about them thereafter.

I have heard it argued that if he was prepared to spare Margaret Beaufort after being a very clear traitor then if he was too kind hearted to kill a woman he wouldn't kill children. Personally I think he kept her alive to keep her husband (the notoriously slippery Stanley) on side - executing her for treason would mean that her assets passed to the Crown. He was also not so kind hearted to his mother in law, who would also have been the nearest thing to a mother to him when he grew up in the Warwick household and he quite happily went along with her being proclaimed as legally dead so he could claim half her dower assets (she was the Warwick heiress in her own right) while she was still alive.

He would probably have been a good king - his focus on law and order was very much what was needed. However he was a man of his times and ruthless as the rest of them.

As an aside I think Warbeck could well have been the illegitimate son of one of the York family and EIV seems a very likely candidate as he spent time in exile in Burgundy and as a notorious womaniser he probably sowed some oats whilst there. However he was a useful tool for Margaret of Burgundy and James of Scotland to stir up trouble for HVII.

I disagree. Archaeology carries that badge and gun and theirs brings with it knowledge.
Theres nothing wrong with being interested in a mystery

But the problem of finding a new home for the bones would be seen as outweighing the benefits. Where would you put them?

I am curious if the bones are the princes but I can see the nightmare it would cause. And we still wouldn’t know if it was Richard who killed them.

The pass the parcel with Richards remains illustrated the problem. And he was a crowned King (not that you'd ever know it from the Royal Families response ...)

The burial of a Kings bones would be ‘seen as’ more important so I’m not surprised York, Leicester and R3s ancestors argued over it.
If the urn bones are the Princes they'll he put back under the existing plaque at the Abbey.
If they aren’t and no dna shows a royal connection then, just like Richard 3rd presumably, they could go to the nearest graveyard.

That’s what happens when bones are found on construction sites. The archaeologists dig them up, investigate and reinter locally. Even those in lead line coffins that were found near the Fleet in London were dealt with in this way.

Im struggling with the dilemma but tbh I’m used to seeing human remains of long ago being found. It’s really not that rare

The burial of a Kings bones would be ‘seen as’ more important so I’m not surprised York, Leicester and R3s ancestors argued over it.

I was fascinated by how quickly and decisively the palace worked to remove any suggestion they be interred as a King.

I agree
Their reaction or lack of was a real surprise and tbh I thought the Queen was quite cold hearted.

I suppose - what with the presumed regicide/child murder and also since Titulus Regulus was repealed - then RIII isn’t considered a legitimate king by the royal family.

I don’t think any Prince since has been called Richard, possibly to avoid any numbering issues!

Interesting thought re the naming by the Tudors after as H8 son was called Edward vi even though Edward v was never crowned

perhaps because Henry vii had burnt all the evidence ‘supposedly’ making him illegitimate. So any evidence was lost.

Goes to show the Royal families determination still to link themselves to a true line come what may …Tbh I didn’t think they’d be that bothered 500 years down the line

Nevertheless Richard was buried as a King.

Indeed. Edward 7th was never crowned either - he abdicated before any coronation.

I think the most likely explanation is that they died in the tower, whether directly murdered, or through neglect. Richard went to considerable lengths to acquire both the heir and the spare and lock them in the tower. That isn't the sort of action that tends to lead to sunshine and puppies for the captured party. Even illegitimate they were still a threat, as shown with their full sister being re legitimised later.

I do agree that if they had been alive by the time Henry took over, he would likely have bumped them off. Just seems unlikely that he got the opportunity.

although his birth rite was never in question. There in lies the deception / dilemma / spin 🤣.

Oh what a tangled web

Royal Family work hard to ensure +ve PR only at all times & association with a publicly perceived wrong-un like RIII was to be avoided as far as was poss - hence only Sophie & obv Richard of Gloucester at the funeral

As we are on old history... can anyone please describe Cecily Neville's relationship with Edward III, or that of her child Edward IV? I'm struggling to work out how to describe it when there are multiple links; do you just take the closest and hope that does it? Patriarchal line?

Helpful family tree: https://www.reddit.com/r/UsefulCharts/comments/18tsmq2/king_edward_iii_descendants_chart/#lightbox.

Her grandfather was John of Gaunt so great grandfather was Edward III

Lucy Worsley did a BBC documentary on this a couple of years ago and I think she came to the conclusion he'd done it.

I think you mean Edward VIII 😀

I do! Oops, lost count of ‘em 😀

Thank god we're not French ...

Well to be fair it wasn't a car park for most of that 500 years.